42 MICHIGAN STATE AGRICULTUR.\L COLLEGE 



as the College. The object as stated in the first constitution 

 was " to promote the improvement of agriculture and its kindred 

 arts throughout the State of Michigan." It made it the duty of 

 its Board of Managers "to annually regulate and award prem- 

 iums on such articles, productions, and improvements as they 

 may deem best calculated to promote the agricultural, house- 

 hold, and manufacturing interest of the state, having special 

 reference to the most economical or profitable mode of compe- 

 tition in raising the crop or stock or in the fabrication of the 

 article offered," It was directed " to pubHsh a report embracing 

 such statements of experiments, cultivation, and improvements, 

 proceedings, correspondence, statistics, and other matters, 

 the pubUcation of which will exhibit the condition of the agri- 

 cultural interests of Michigan, and a diffused knowledge of 

 which will in the judgment of the Board add to the productive- 

 ness of agricultural and household labor, and therefore promote 

 the general prosperity of the state." 



Was not this a grand work for a society of mutual organiza- 

 tion to take up, with no possible hope for pecuniary reward, 

 and thus to continue for now fifty-eight years? Shall we not 

 call these men patriots ? 



While the State Agricultural Society may be called an elder 

 brother (or sister) to this College, it is to a great extent its 

 parent. 



Hon. E. H. Lothrop, in a public address at the first fair, 

 September 26, 1849, sounded the first note for an agricultural 

 school. 



Here is his plea for agriculture in the common schools, a 

 pleading we have been more than fifty years in answering: 



As four-fifths of the children of our state are intended for, and probably 

 will pursue agriculture as a profession, and as a means of livelihood, then 

 I say, make our common schools what they should be, and let the branches 

 there taught have a direct reference and bearing upon the future business 

 of our children. Make our common schools the nursery of farmers. 



