SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION 129 



much of the faith and practice of the fathers has remained with 

 you. May you never lose it ! 



I suspect that your wise conservatism has been due partly to 

 the fact that you have had among your number great leaders and 

 teachers who have been both expounders of truth and centers of 

 inspiration. Two of these I came to know^a quarter of a century 

 ago, one of whom, ripe in years and full of honor, has entered 

 into his rest. The other with unabated zeal for truth and 

 undiminished loyalty to your interests is still your beloved associ- 

 ate. Evidence of the influence of these men and of the policy 

 that they helped to sustain is seen in the remarkable number of 

 the sons of this College who, in all parts of the United States, 

 are occupying positions of honor in the field of agricultural 

 science as teachers and investigators. 



I congratulate you on the record of fifty years. As a fitting 

 commemoration of the spirit and influence of your honored 

 institution and as pointing to the true philosophy of all education, 

 I would that in passing we might pause to erect a wayside altar 

 and, in characters so bold that he who runs may read, leave on 

 it this inscription : What man is determines what man achieves. 



The suggestive title of a recent book written by a distin- 

 guished graduate of this College is The Outlook to Nature. 

 This volume, that fifty years ago would not have been well under- 

 stood, is symptomatic. It worthily expresses a trend of thought 

 in education and in practical affairs that is one of the most note- 

 worthy features of the present time. Man is just now very busy 

 discovering himself and his relations to the physical world. He 

 is studying and mastering his environment as never before. 

 The rise of institutions of investigation, the crowded state of 

 university and college courses in the sciences and their applica- 

 tions, university-extension courses along popular scientific lines, 

 the wide attention given to nature-study, the many assemblages 

 of farmers for the consideration of subjects semi-scientific in 

 their character, and indeed the knowledge applied to our whole 



