ADDRESS FOR THE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY OF 



MICHIGAN 



IRA HOWARD BUTTERFIELD 



Secretary 



It gives me great pleasure to represent the Michigan State 

 Agricultural Society in extending congratulations to the Michigan 

 State Agricultural College on this occasion. 



I have heard men express the wish that they might have been 

 born years later in order that they might live in times of greater 

 progress than has yet been witnessed, but I am satisfied to have 

 lived during a time when the state and its institutions were 

 building, and am glad that I have known some of the men who 

 laid the foundations and those who began the superstructure 

 and have thus far builded. 



It has been said that the men who founded the institutions 

 of this country builded better than they knew. I would say 

 that they did not build, but that they did lay foundations on 

 which they expected their successors should build most elegant 

 structures. 



Consult, if you please, the plans made by John D. Pierce for 

 the public-school system of the state, and say if it has been 

 necessary to widen the foundations one whit, that they might 

 support one of the best pubhc-school systems in the country. 

 Is not the same true of the University and of our system of 

 charitable and reform institutions ? 



Read the utterances of the men who were prominent in 

 founding this College, the first agricultural college established 

 in the United States, and tell me. Gentlemen of the Board and 

 of the Faculty, if they did not lay out work enough not only 



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