408 
STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
1855, when the legislature of the state of Michigan, in obedi¬ 
ence to a provision of the revised constitution, expressed in 
these words, to wit, “ The legislature shall encourage the pro¬ 
motion of intellectual, scientific and agricultural improvement, 
and shall, as soon as practicable, provide for the establishment 
of an agricultural school,” passsd an act for the purchase of 
land and The endowment and management of the State A-gri- 
cultural College of Michigan. Immediate steps were taken for 
the actual establishment of the institution hj the purchase of 
six hundred and seventj^-six acres of land near Lansing, the 
new capital of the state, and by the erection of a college 
edifice. 
The institution was dedicated in 1857, and opened with a 
corps of seven professors and sixty-one pupils. The legis¬ 
lature this same year supplemented its former provision for 
endowment and support by a further appropriation of the pro¬ 
ceeds of the sale of twenty-two sections of saline lands, (value 
$55,000,) and a sum of $20,000 per annum for the two ensu¬ 
ing years for necessary improvements and the support of the 
school. Afterwards additional sums were appropriated, and 
the institution has since been in a steadily improving con¬ 
dition, with an average number of pupils somewhat less than 
one hundred. 
The necessity for actual labor on the farm is a cardinal 
doctrine of this institution, and regulations for the enforce¬ 
ment of this part of the educational programme have the cor¬ 
dial support of the managers. Instruction is free to all resi¬ 
dents of the state, and a moderate compensation for labor is 
given to those who perform it. 
The declared objects are : firstly, to impart a knowledge of 
science, and its applications to the arts of life; secondly, to 
afford to its students the privilege of daily manual labor, that 
neither health nor inclination to labor be lost, and that the 
principles taught in the school may be more firmly fixed in 
mind; thirdly, to prosecute experiments for the promotion of 
agriculture; fourthly, to offer the means of a general education 
to the farming class. 
