History of the Michigan agricultural college and biographical sketches of trustees and professors

Preface

The preparation of this history and these brief biographies was begun late in 1910, and has proceeded with many delays. The writer makes no apology for the unequal length of the biographical sketches, partly due to the difference in replies furnished in answer to his inquiries, and partly due to what seemed to the writer appropriate to say in each case. Defects will be apparent to every careful reader and errors will be found, notwithstanding the care of several persons in reading the proof.

The author has preferred to make exact quotations when appropriate instead of giving the substance of the thoughts in his own words.

Thanks are due Macmillan and Company for the privilege of copying a cut of Senator Morrill; to Dr. Demmon for permission to copy cuts of Governor Blair and regent Millard.

Thanks, many thanks are given to Ray Stannard Baker, '89, for valuable aid in preparation of parts of the manuscript; also to Professor R. H. Petitt and Dr. G. D. Shafer for furnishing photographs; to Professor W. W. Johnston for reading manuscript, to Dean R. P. Lyman and Secretary A. M. Brown for readirg proof.

The writer has had unusual opportunities to enable him to prepare the volume.

Of the trustees and teachers of the college he has known all except twelve; two members of the board of education, H. L. Miller and J. R. Kellogg; two governors, Blair and Crapo; four members of the board of Agriculture, David Carpenter, Justus Gage, S. A. Yerkes, Charles Rich; President Williams, Professors Goadby and Weeks, and acting secretary C. A. Kenaston. He has worked in the faculty with all the professors of agriculture and nearly all the professors of horticulture.

Dr. Kedzie, Professor Cook and the writer were together members of the faculty for twenty-two years, three-sevenths of the existence of the college, — the writer was in continuous service for forty years. He has been a part of many troublous times, great revolutions and amazing improvements.

This history of the college was placed in the hands of the Board of Agriculture for pubhcation, February, 1913, more than two and a half years ago — two years prior to this the copy had been read and accepted by a committee. It has not been revised and brought down to date, as the long delay was not anticipated.

W. J. BEAL.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

Reference to most books and papers furnishing items for the history have been made here and there in the text; some with long titles often quoted are here given each with a number which takes the place of the title in full.

(1). Report of the Board of Managers of the Boston Asylum and Farm School for Indigent Boys, Thompson's Island, 93 year. Charles H. Bradely, Supt., P. O. Box 1486, Boston, Mass.

(3). Transactions of the Michigan State Agricultural Society Vol. 6, J. C. Holmes, Secretary for 1854. In this volume appears an address by J. C. Holmes delivered before the Executive Committee of the Michigan State Agricultural Society at Lansing, June 12, 1885. Most of this address pertains to establishing a State Agricultural School, pp. 338, 339, 342, 343, 344, 345, 346, 347, 348, 349, 350, 351, 355, 356, 357, 358, 359, 361, 362, 375, 379, 390, 392, 393, 394, 397, 398, 400, 401, 402, 403, 404.

(4). History of the University of Michigan by the late Burke A. Hinsdale. Biographical Sketches of Regents and Members of the University Senate, edited by Prof. Isaac N. Demmon, published by the University 1906, pp. 15, 16, 17, 26, 27.

(5). Bureau of Education, Circular of Information, No. 4, 1891. Contributions to American Educational History, Edited by Herbert B. Adams.

No. 11, History of Higher Education in Michigan by Andrew C. Mc- Laughlin, Assistant Professor of History in the University of Michigan. Washington Government Printing Office, 1891. Article "The State Agricultural College" by President Oscar Clute, Lansing, Mich., pp. 105, 106, 107, 108.

(6). The Report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction on Dedication and Opening of the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, 1857.

(7). History of Collegiate Education in Agriculture by Dean Eugene Davenport in proceedings of the Society for the Promotion of Agricultural Science, 28th meeting held at Lansing, Michigan, 1907, pp. 44, 52.

(8). Transactions of the State Agricultural Society, Vol. 5, J. C. Holmes, Secretary for the year 1853. Address of President H. P. Tappan before the Society at Detroit, pp. 199, 200.

(10). Third Annual Report of the Secretary of the State Board of Agriculture for the year 1864. (All reports for this year are erronously stamped on the back of cover 1865) pp. 113, 114.

(11). Transactions of the State Agricultural Society for 1857. Vol. 8, J. C. Holmes, Secretary, pp. 25, 285.

(12). Diary of President T. C. Abbot beginning June 1840 and convi BIBLIOGRAPHY.

tinuing to Dec. 1885. These full and interesting personal notes have been copied and placed in the vault of the Library.

(13). Bulletin Vol. 4 No. 1 of the University of Illinois by President Edmund J. James, November 1910, proves that Jonathan B. Turner was the real father of the Morrill Act of July 2, 1862.

W. J. BEAL.

Amherst, Massachusetts.

October, 1915.

Contents

HISTORY OF THE MICHIGAN AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE.

Chapter Page

I. Laying the Foundation 1

Chapter I. Laying The Foundation

As Judge Thomas M. Cooley once remarked in an address, Michigan was fortunate in the persons to whom the destinies of the territory were committed in early days. It is a remarkable tribute to the quality of the pioneers who migrated to the back woods of Michigan that even before the territory had a total population of 200,000, while the original forest was still largely unbroken and wild animals still plentiful, that they should think of establishing a State University — which was opened in 1841 with two teachers and six students. It was still more remarkable that fourteen years later, they should attempt a new and untried form of education, and should establish in the forest near Lansing, twentj^-seven miles from the railroad at Owosso, and thirty-seven from that at Jackson, an Agricultural College, the first of its kind in the world.

At the time when Michigan was framing her constitution and organizing her state institutions, as Judge Cooley further points out in a statement elaborated by Dr. B. A. Hinsdale in his History of the University of Michigan, there was a wide-spread educational revival in the United States. While it was purely American in its origin, it was stimulated and to a degree shaped by foreign influences.

Judge Cooley relates the interesting story of the Avay in which the impulse from the centers of culture in Europe reached the heart of the backwoods of Michigan.

"American students in small numbers," he says, "begun to resort to the German Universities for the teaching they could not get at home in the decade 1810 — 1820, and about the same time our scholars and teachers, also in small numbers, began to visit German schools and to report to their countrymen what they found. But, curiously enough, the strongest stream of German influence reached us through French channels. Madame De Stael's 'Germany,' pubhshed in an Enghsh version in London in 1813, was a revelation to some minds in this country. These ideas were a system of public instruction embracing the three divisions of schools, — primary schools, secondary schools and universities; a system created, supported, and supervised by the state, thus securing responsibility and unity. It is no exaggeration to say that a single copy of M. Victor Cousin's Report, which found its way into the oak openings of Michigan, produced results, direct and indirect, that far surpass in importance the results produced by any other educational volume in the whole history of the country.

"Two men suffice to form the connecting link between M. Victor Cousin and the educational institution of the new commonwealth. John Davis Pierce, a native of New Hampshire, who had graduated at Brown University and studied theology at Princeton, came to Michigan as a missionary in the service of the Presbyterian Home Missionary Society in 1831, making his home at Marshall. Isaac Edwin Crary, born in Connecticut, and graduated at Trinity College in that state, who filled various stations in public life, came to Michigan the next year, also making his home at Marshall. Pierce and Crary were both educated men, were both interested in the growing cause of education, and were both devoted to the state of their adoption. It is said that, neighbors as they were, they often discussed together the future institutions of the rising commonwealth. The stray copy of Cousin's Report came to Mr. Pierce's hand, who not only read it with the deepest interest, but promptly passed it on to his friend Crary, who was also deeply impressed by it. Fortunately, General Crary was a member of the convention that framed the State Constitution of 1835, and, still more fortunately, the Chairman of the Committee of Education. It accordingly devolved upon him to draft the educational article which was placed in the State Constitution.

"This article, when perfected, embraced five sections. The first section ordained that the Governor, by and with the advice and consent of the Legislature on joint vote, should appoint a Superintendent of Public Instruction, who should hold his office for two years, his duties to be prescribed by law. Section second made it the duty of the Legislature to encourage, by all suitable means, the promotion of intellectiial, scientific and agricultural improvement.

"Governor Mason, in his first message, commended the school system that was to be devised for the state to the wisdom of the Legislature; but this body, at the time, took no other action than to define the duties of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, directing him, among other things, to prepare and digest a system for the organization and establishment of common schools, and a University and its branches. The Governor promptly nominated Mr. Pierce for this office, and the Legislature as promptly confirmed the nomination. He held the office six years, during which time he rendered the state the most distinguished and valuable services as an educational executive. He was the first proper State Superintendent of Public Instruction in the United States."

The vision of these early educational leaders was broad, comprehensive and democratic. They even saw plainly from a very early day the necessity for agricultural education: and in the act approved March 18, 1837, which gave birth to the University of Michigan, it is significant that instruction in "practical farming and agriculture" was specifically provided for.

Under the provisions of this act, f'the Board of Regents together with the Superintendent of Public Instruction were to establish such branches of the University in different parts of the state as from time to time should be authorized by the legislature. In addition to preparation in the English language, mathematics, education of teachers and other topics to prepare students to enter the LTniversity, there should be in each of these branches a department of Agriculture with competent instructors in the theory of the subject, including vegetable physiology and agricultural chemistry and experimental and practical farming and agriculture."

Some of these branches were organized but were short lived and none of them attempted to teach agriculture. It was thus the original idea of the educational statesmen of Michigan that agriculture should be taught in the LTniversity on a par with other subjects, but it was not until a number of years later, the university having failed to establish agricultural courses, that the agitation for a separate college of agriculture was begun. It was difficult in practice to get away from the old classical models in education.

During all these early years a great many experiments were undertaken elsewhere, both in this country and in Europe, that looked toward the teaching of practical agriculture. Many of these were undoubtedly known to the educational leaders in pioneer Michigan. According to Professor Edward Hitchcock of Amherst College, who was a member of a commission which made a report to the legislature of Massachusetts in the year 1851 of an investigation into agricultural teaching in Europe, the earliest effort in that direction was made in France in 1775 by M. L'Abbe Rosier. He called it "A Plan for a National School of Agriculture in the Park of Chambord." At the time of Professor Hitchcock's visit there were in operation in various foreign countries over 350 schools where agriculture was taught. An in-

COLLEGE HALL BUILT IN 1856.

teresting glimpse of what a European agricultural school of sixty years ago was like in 1850 is given in the report to the Massachusetts legislature of a visit made by Professor Hitchcock to a school connected with the University of Edinburgh:

"Several rooms in the university buildings are devoted to this department. There we find exhibited numerous models of agricultural implements, and of ])uildings, chiefly barns and out-houses, for the farm; also seeds and dried plants, marls and soils, chemical substances, a few skeletons and anatomical drawings, and, more particularly, as many as a hundred fine drawings, mostly as large as life, of the best breeds of domestic animals. These drawings are chiefly given by Professor Low, in his two works on the domesticated animals. The younger students generally fill up the period of the session by attending other classes in the university, or of private teachers, chiefly chemistry and natural history, and several of them likewise attend the course of lectures delivered in this city by Professor Dick, on veterinary surgery.

"Professor David Low of Edinburgh adds: 'I have found by experience, that it is not necessary to have a farm in connection with the chair. All the essential points of practice being previously explained, the students are prepared to enter upon the study of the subject in the fields. To this end, they usually board in the house of some respectable farmer for such a period as suits their convenience, not less, I recommend, than twelve months, so that they may see the operations of an entire season. There are numerous respectalDle farmers, both in the south of Scotland and in the north of England, who are in the habit of receiving pupils and instructing them in the different branches of their profession.' " (3)

Long before this, however, indeed less than thirty years after L'Abbe Rosier made his early suggestion for agricultural education in France, a farm school had already been established in this country, in the year 1804 on Thompson's Island not far from Boston, Massachusetts. It is the oldest school in this country of which I have any knowledge, and is still in operation. The present superintendent is Charles H. Bradley, P. 0. Box 1486, Boston, Massachusetts.

"The first agricultural, industrial and technical school that did actual work in North America was probably the Gardiner Lyceum, established at Gardiner, Maine, in 1821, and incorporated by the legislature of the state of Maine in 1822, — the second year after it became a state. Indeed, among the very first of the legislative acts of the new state was that incorporating this school. In 1825, the legislature appropriated $1,000 a year for three years, and in 1828 extended it for three years more. This is probably the first state grant made in the United States for agricultural and technical education. The Lyceum continued with varying success until the year 1832, when it was closed for lack of support and patronage. The institution was later opened as an academy, and subsequently the building was transferred to Gardiner as a high school, and it was subsequently burned.

"An agricultural department was organized at Trinity (then Washington) College, Hartford, Connecticut, at the time of its foundation in the middle eighteen-twenties. Horatio Hickok, A. M. (Yale, 1798), is named in the catalogue as Professor of Agriculture and Political Economy."

"Farmers' College, at College Hill, Ohio, six miles from Cincinnati, seems to have been the first American institution bearing the name of college, and continuing through any series of years, to give real attention to agricultural matters. It was not a college of agriculture as the term is understood at the present day; but it made a sustained effort, under the condition of its time. The institution started as a private literary academy in 1833, Mr. F. G. Cary, its founder, taking four pupils into his own family." (2)

"Amherst college gave instruction in agricultural chemistry as early as 1853-4, and in 1852 offered agriculture as a part of a separate 'scientific department' which it then organized. In this department, the Rev. J. A. Nash taught the agriculture, and he prepared a text-book." (2)

In 1847, ten j^ears before the Michigan Agricultural College opened for students a boarding school located in Lenawee county, between Adrian and Tecumseh was opened by the society of Friends or Quakers. It was called a manual labor school with a farm of over four hundred acres organized with full expectation that the students were to labor and thus pay a portion or all of their expenses. The girls did much of the house work, the boys cut wood and did some work in garden and field. No one especially qualified was employed to teach the students in this work. The plan gradually fell into discredit and most of the farm was sold. The school was later for many years called The Raisin Valley Seminary. The writer was a student in this school during its organization and for several years later.

"The 'Ohio Agricultural College' was opened in Oberlin, northern Ohio, in 1854. It continued one year at Oberlin and two years at Cleveland. The largest attendance was about forty students. It did not grow, and therefore was discontinued." (2)

I omit the mention of a number of other schools established early in various places which included agriculture in their courses of study.

Although the act incorporating the University of Michigan in 1837 made provision for the teaching of agriculture, it was not until the farmers themselves, their societies and their journals, took up the agitation seriously that anything was accomplished.

As early as February 1844, Jonathon Shearer ably advocated more thorough education of farmers in the Michigan Farmer.

But the great forces which now began to move were the Michigan State Agricultural Society and several able men who felt a deep interest in advancing the cause of agricultural education in the state. The two men who probably did most for the cause at that time were Joseph R. Williams, who afterwards became the first president of the college, and J. C. Holmes, secretary of the State Agricultural Society, who afterwards became professor of horticulture.

Beginning in 1849, the agitation was continuous and increasingly effective until the college was opened in 1857.

In an address delivered at Marshall, before the Calhoun County Agricultural Society, September 20, 1849, Hon. William M. Fenton, Lieutenant Governor, argued at length in favor of education in the science and practice of agriculture. (5)

In the first annual address before the Michigan State Agricultural Society held in Detroit, September 26, 1849, Hon. E. H. Lothrop spoke with point and force of the great need of more thorough training in botany, chemistry, physiology, zoology, and mechanics, because of their direct bearing on agriculture, and he appealed strongly to farmers to give their sons and daughters a better education.

Mr. Lothrop appeared to have entertained views regarding education far in advance of his day.

He also advocated the introduction of agriculture into the common schools.

"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." (3)

On October 11, 1849, Joseph R. WilHams gave a most vigorous address before the Kalamazoo County Agricultural Society, at its fourth annual fair, in which he called on all farmers to educate themselves and their children. (5)

At the close of that year (1849) we begin to hear of resolutions and memorials to the legislature. One of the earliest resolutions was prepared by Bela Hubbard and passed at a meeting of the executive committee of the

State Agricultural Society held in Jackson, December 19, 1849. (See report for 1850.) It follows:

"Resolved: That our Legislature be requested to take such legislation as shall appear necessary or expedient for the establishment of a State central agricultural office, with which shall be connected a museum of agricultural products and implements, and an agricultural library, and as soon as practicable an agricultural college and a model farm."

On January 1, 1850, Mr. Hubbard carried out the suggestion of his resolution in a strong memorial to the legislature in which he outlines, crudely, a plan for the future college. He here emphasizes the point that it should be a labor school, and that it should be connected with the University. His interesting memorial to the senate and house, follows:

"The day has forever gone by when an enlightened liberal education was deemed useless for the farmer. Agriculture has risen into a science, as well as a laborious art; a science, too, the most comprehensive of all others, and which demands not alone strong hands and bodily labor, but active, vigorous, cultivated intellect. * * * * No matter what be a man's business, the more varied his education, the better, as he thus enlarges the sphere of his mind, and multiplies the sources upon which he can draw through life, both for profit and enjoyment. But above all, an education which shall include the natural sciences, is especially important to the farmer, as in addition to their other applications, they are the foundation of agriculture. * * * *

"In this examination, the first and most important consideration is, that the Institution would be a labor school, in which the actual work performed by the pupils would be passed to their credit, in the account for their instruction. Thus the expenses would be diminished if not altogether paid. The very act of labor would be a practical application of the precepts taught, and the poor would enjo}^ equal advantages with the rich. The Institution should be attached to, or form a branch of, the State University, as is contemplated by the charter of that institution. The studies taught at this college, should be of an eminently practical kind.

"In foreign lands, not only is the poor man almost shut out from acquiring the bare rudiments of education, but, in a majority of cases, he cultivates the land of another, and the profits of his life of toil go to augment the wealth of some titled landlord, whose interest is to keep him ignorant. Here, on the contrary, labor is sure of its reward, and a few years of industry makes the poor but prudent laborer the proprietor of the soil he cultivates. He rises to the dignity of a free-holder. Of that reward, of that honorable rank, no potentate of this earth can deprive him. How high his privilege! How honorable his position!" (5)

Six months later, on June 3, 1850, a convention for the revision of the !^tate constitution met in Lansing. It was fortunate that some of the members of this convention were friends of agricultural education and were not unfaithful to the cause in their convention work. On June 10th Samuel Clark, of Kalamazoo, moved the following:

"Resolved, That the committee on education be instructed to inquire into the expediency of providing for the establishment of an agricultural school and model farm connected therewith." (5)

As a result of this work in the convention an excellent provision was sesured in the state constitution of 1850 — Article 13, Section 11, reads:

"The Legislature shall encourage the promotion of intellectual, scientific and agricultural improvement, and shall as soon as practicable, provide for the establishment of an Agricultural School.

"The Legislature may appropriate the twenty-two sections of Salt Springlands now unappropriated, or the money arising from the sale of the same, where such lands have been already sold, and any land which may hereafter be granted or appropriated for such purpose for the support and maintenance of such school, and may make the same a branch of the University, for instruction in agriculture and the natural sciences connected therewith, and place the same under the supervision of the regents of the University." (3)

In the same year (1850) the state legislature began to stir. It started, indeed, a most important movement by passing a joint resolution calling on congress for a gift to the state of 300,000 acres of land for the support of agricultural schools in Michigan. Thus was begun that agitation in congress that led twelve years later to the passage of the Morrill bill, giving the states 30,000 acres of land for each senator and representative in congress for the support of schools of agriculture and the mechanic arts, under which bill Michigan received 240,000 acres of land. (5)

Two years later, (1852) another memorial from the State Agricultural Society was presented to the legislature, ''praying for the establishment of a State Agricultural College."

In the same year Francis W. Shearman in his report as State Superintendent of Public Instruction gave in a measure his idea of an agricultural college, crude as it was. He also favored a labor school and said that it should be attached to the University. A part of his report is given here, because it indicates a stage in the development of the plan on which the college was organized.

"The first and most important consideration is that the institution would be a labor school; in which the actual work performed by the pupils would be passed to their credit, in the account for their instruction. Thus the expense would be greatly diminished if not altogether paid. The very act of labor would be a practicable application of the precepts taught, and the poor would enjoy equal privileges with the rich. The institution should be attached to or form a branch of the State University, as is contemplated by the charter of that institution, and having the benefit of lectures from the professors, and such other sources as may be expedient, resident professors with expensive salaries, would not be necessary.* There should also be attached a Botanic Garden, to be under the charge of the professor of Botany of the University, in which should be cultivated specimens of the trees, shrubs and plants indigenous to our State, as well as all plants and weeds, a knowledge of the properties and habits of which is useful to the farmer. The studies taught at this college should be of an eminently practical kind * * * * One prominent advantage possessed by the pupil in such an institution should not be overlooked, in the judicious combination of labor and study; resulting in confirmed health, as well as bodily vigor ****** On the plan suggested, no large endowment is necessary."

By this time it began to look as though the efforts of the State Agricultural Society and of the men who were so earnestly working for the better education of farmers would succeed, and the question arose as to the auspices under which such a college or school should be organized. Three different views immediately appeared; one group wished to have agricultural instruction connected solely with the University, another sought to bring it under the control of the State Normal School at Ypsilanti, while a third group wished

* Long experience has demonstrated the fact that it is more difficult to secure men who are efficient in the instruction of students in the field and garden than it is to secure professors to teach in the class room, hence they are not cheap men. — -The Author.

to have a separate agricultural college. So eager now were both the University and the Normal School to control the new work that both of them started rudimentary work in agricultural instruction. The discussion began then as to whether agricultural education should be an integral part of the University system continues to this day, and the writer will later present the views of a number of expert observers upon this important subject.

The State Agricultural Society, with J. C. Holmes, its secretary, was the chief and most powerful advocate of a separate institution for teaching agriculture. Both the Normal School and the University opposed its plans, and soon began active agitation.

On September 21, 1852, Francis W. Shearman, Superintendent of Pubhc Instruction, wrote a letter to the society, explaining the efforts that the State Normal School was making to give instruction in agriculture. He called attention to the clause in the organic law requiring this school to teach these subjects, and says: "A concentration of the means afforded by the State for the advancement of agriculture must be considered an object of importance, at all events, for years to come. The State Normal School has been permanently endowed with twenty-five sections of Salt Spring Lands, which will yield sufficient revenue in time, to carry out the purposes designed in its estabhshment." (2)

In December, 1852, Henry P. Tappan, Chancellor of the University, also wrote to the society, outlining the attitude of the University. Dr. Tappan called attention to the provision in the constitution looking toward the appropriation of twenty-two sections of the salt spring lands for the maintenance of the agricultural school, and to the contemplated connection of this work with the University, and proceeded :

"In anticipation of this legislative grant, we have accordingly organized an Agricultural School, as a part of the scientific course recently adopted by the Faculty and Regents.

"The following subjects are embraced in the agricultural course:

"(1) Daily lectures on Chemistry (elementary and experimental), Chemistry applied to the arts, meteorology and climate.

" (2) Geology and Mineralogy, and the application of the same to mining, drainage, construction of public works, etc., illustrated by specimens from Michigan, the neighboring states and foreign lands; also models and drawings.