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 spring lands 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."

1851

In 1851, Gov. Barry called attention, in his message, to the constitutional provision, and considerable discussion was provoked on the subject. The superintendent of public instruction, F. W. Shearman, and the Hon. Jonathan Shearer, chairman of the house committee on agriculture, recommended the forming of a department for instruction in agriculture in the normal school. House Doc. No. 5, 1851, and letters on file.

The university at once proceeded to organize an agricultural school as a department, and Dr. Henry P. Tappan, chancellor of the university, wrote to Secretary Holmes (letter on file), that anticipating that the twenty-two sections of salt spring lands, named in the constitution, will be given to the university for an agricultural school, "We have accordingly organized an agricultural school as part of the scientific course recently adopted by the faculty and regents." The agricultural course extended through four terms, three terms constituting a year.

Dr. Tappan afterwards gave an address at the State fair (Sept., 1853), in which he speaks of his plan still further. See Michigan Agricultural Report, 1853, pages 188, 198 to 200.

In 1854 the chair of agriculture in the university was filed by the Rev. Charles Fox, an Englishman, educated at Rugby, rector of the episcopal church at Grosse Isle. Agriculture was the favorite study of Mr. Fox, and he had some time previously to his appointment given to the university library $100 to enlarge the store of agricultural literature. Mr. Fox died after occupying the university chair less than two years. Our library contains a work of Mr. Fox's on agriculture.

1853

A bill for an agricultural college passed the Senate of 1853 by a vote of 17 to 14, but was lost in the House by a vote of 36 to 24. The society then sent its executive committee to visit the university and the normal school to see what was doing in the way of instruction in scientific agriculture in those institutions. They visited Ann Arbor January 25, 1854. Professor Fox was delivering at the time a course of lectures on practical and scientific agriculture. The committee listened to a lecture by Professor Fox on "Rotation of Crops," and were highly pleased. The committee also listened, at the normal school, to a lecture by Prof. L. R. Fiske, on "Organic and Inorganic Materials of the soil, and its Improvement, by Manuring, Draining, and Pulverization." The State Agricultural Society, however, had become fixed in their preference for a separate institution, and in December, 1852, appointed a committee to urge on the legislature the establishment of separate school, not in immediate proximity to an existing educational institution, on a farm of not less than 640 acres. Michigan Agriculture, 1854, pp. 340, 341.

The society appointed another committee, Mr. S. M. Bartlett, of Monroe, to draft a bill, to present to the legislature of 1855. The bill was put into shape by the Hon. Isaac P. Christiancy, a townsman of Mr. Bartlett's, and subsequently Chief Justice and U. S. senator, and was substantially the same as afterwards became a law.

1855

In his message to the legislature, January 4, 1855, Governor Kinsley S. Bingham recommended the establishment of an agricultural school, in the following language:

"The constitution also declares that the legislature shall, as soon as practicable, provide for the establishment of an agricultural school. I respectfully submit for your consideration, whether that practicable period has not already arrived. Michigan is eminently an agricultural State, and the great source of our dependence and wealth must ever be in the soil. It has been demonstrated that its productions can be greatly increased by scientific cultivation. Our citizens may indulge a just pride for their efforts in establishing schools for intellectual and scientific improvement, but this most important branch of education has been almost entirely neglected. It seems, therefore, highly proper that provision should be made for instruction in everything that pertains to the art of husbandry, and practical and scientific agriculture. Our efforts in this direction should never cease until our young men engaged in the useful and honorable occupation of farming, shall have received the same high education as those designed for other professions."

A bill for the establishment of the college was introduced into the house and into the senate. When the house bill came to its third reading, various amendments as to location were made and rejected, and the bill was rejected 31 to 39 (Feb. 7). The senate bill, however, fixing upon the vicinity of Lansing as the location of the college, passed (Feb. 9) the senate by a vote of 24 to 5, and the next day passed the house by the large vote of 52 to 13. This bill is known as Act 130, approved Feb. 12, 1855.

Governor Bingham was a warm friend of the measure, and of the college. He took a prominent part in the exercises at the opening of the college (June 16, 1857), and a few months before his death, Oct., 1861, he sent to the college library as a token of his good will, a set of the works of John Adams, in ten volumes.

But to no one man is the college so much indebted as to Mr. John Clough Holmes, the first secretary of the State Agricultural Society. Into the project of establishment of a school of agriculture and horticulture he entered with singular zeal and devotion. He collected information from all quarters, and there were no features of the organic law which he had not discussed with those who were best qualified to give advice, and none of them that do not show his shaping hand. He was frequently at Lansing, conferring with State officers and legislators on the subject, and spent nearly the whole legislative winter of 1855 in Lansing, in diffusing a knowledge of the plan and awakening an interest in it, and this was done at his own private expense. Mr. Holmes gave the college his personal assistance as professor of horticulture during the years 1857, 1859, and 1861. Mr. Holmes is still, 1883, a not infrequent and always welcome visitor at the college, and one of its warmest friends.

LOCATION

A late directory of Lansing says: "When, in 1847, it became necessary for the legislature permanently to locate the capitol of the State, so many places were found competing for the honor that it was absolutely impossible to secure an agreement for any. After a long and bitter contest, the present site of Lansing was fixed upon as a sort of truce measure, the idea no doubt being that when the excitement had quieted down somewhat, it would be easy to secure the transfer to some more eligible point. But that time has never come." But the citizens of Lansing never felt secure of the capitol until the construction of the edifice was entered upon in 1871.

Under a like spirit of compromise the Agricultural College was located near Lansing. The house bill for the establishment of the college was lost in 1855, as has been mentioned, after the proposal of many locations had been made while on its final passage. The law, as enacted, committed the selection of the site to the executive committee of the State Agricultural Society, with these conditions: To be within ten miles of Lansing; not to cost over fifteen dollars an acre, and to consist of not less than five hundred, nor more than a thousand acres in one body. Such a location was not at all to the taste of the friends of the college. They thought such an enterprise should have been started on an improved farm, in an easily accessible part of the State. But here was a wilderness for a farm, near a place to be reached only by staging over bad roads for more than twenty miles.

It was not until 1869 that the location of the college was to be considered settled. The president and some other officers of the university strongly advocated making the college a department of the university, and locating it at Ann Arbor. The Detroit press, and most of the newspapers of the southern part of the State freely expressed the same views.

In this contest the farmers of the State, however much they might begrudge appropriations in war times, or prophesy that graduates would not go to farming, always objected to uniting the Agricultural College to any other institution.

In 1865 (February 24) the executive committee of the State agricultural society petitioned the legislature to remove the college to some more eligible locality. It was met by a counter memorial of Hon. H. G. Wells, of Kalamazoo, remonstrating against the removal. (1865, House Doc. No. 11.)

In 1859, a bill, turning the college over to the university, was offered as a substitute for an appropriation bill.

In 1867, the subject of removal was advocated in the Detroit and in other papers freely. The discussion of the location of the college did not cease until 1869. In that year a carefully prepared bill for the transfer of the college to Ann Arbor, as a department of the university, was introduced into the senate, and came up for action when the house bill appropriating $70,000 came up for concurrence from the house. On some side issue the bill for the transfer was defeated, and the appropriation bill passed in the senate by the decisive vote of 22 to 8.

An editorial in the State Republican, March 18, a Lansing paper, edited by Stephen D. Bingham, under the heading of "End of a Ten Years' Fight,” spoke of the vote as ending forever a fight to destroy an institution, which a democratic majority have provided for in the constitution, and a republican majority have put into active operation.

Mr. Bingham adds: "To the warm friendship of Governors Bingham, Wisner, Blair, Crapo, and Baldwin much is due in the past and present; to Hon. Hezekiah G. Wells, of Kalamazoo, who has stood by it in all these years of battle, and with his pen, and by his influence, exerted in its behalf at all times, and most effectively in the present decisive struggle, all honor; to Hon. J. Webster Childs, of Washtenaw, and the members of the State agricultural board, thanks for their effective vindication of its merits, and unflinching friendship in its behalf; to Hon. Benjamin L. Baxter, of Lenawee, a member of the house, and to Hon. George Willard, of Battle Creek, editor of the Battle Creek Journal, both regents of the university, who have, by all honorable means, advocated the claims of this institution to the support of the State, grateful recognition is due; to the citizens of Washtenaw, Oakland, Livingston, Calhoun, Eaton, Bay, Jackson, and other counties who have sent in petitions on short notice in favor of the college and its present location, the just meed of praise for carrying out honest conviction for justice and right."

March 31, 1869, the Detroit Post, which had advocated removal, in an editorial written by Mr. Conover, one of its editors, and more recently rector of St. Luke's church, Kalamazoo, after speaking of its advocacy of a removal to Ann Arbor, says: "But the action of the State government has been so sweeping and provident that the Agricultural college may be looked upon as a permanent institution, unless it contains some inherent defect that no money nor State aid can supply. We by no means undertake to say this, and we hope the citizens of the State will so avail themselves of its privileges as to put its success beyond peradventure. Since the State has determined to pay for them, they ought not to be neglected. It would be folly not to seek as large a return as possible from the investment, and we have no hesitation in urging a cordial support of the college, and to invite a renewed interest in it, and in its capabilities for educating and developing a strong, earnest, intelligent farming community."

The Free Press and most of the other papers of the State became at once the supporters of the college, and the institution has no reason to find fault with the attitude of the press of the State towards it, but has on the other hand reason to be grateful for frequent favors.

It was quite time the question of location was settled. Biennially the college would open in February, and for weeks after it was a question whether the college would live or die. Students would become impatient of the disheartening suspense, and sometimes pack their trunks and go away. The discussion of location has taken this historical sketch years on beyond where a chronological order would have taken us. But it finishes one of the mooted questions of the college for its first ten years.

It is proper to say, also, that courtesies and good will have constantly been extended to the college by the University of Michigan. The present eminent president, in particular, Dr. James B. Angell, has more than once addressed its officers and students, and has always manifested a sincere gratification in its prosperity.

THE SITE

The executive committee of the State Agricultural Society selected for the college its present site, three and a half miles directly east of the State

capitol. Michigan avenue runs from the capitol straight to the college entrance. The grounds, including a park of a hundred acres, consist of six hundred and seventy-six and a half acres of land lying on both sides of a small stream called Red Cedar River, were approved for the selection of the site.

June 12, 1855-The executive committee of the State Agricultural Society met in Detroit June 12, 1855. Those present were A. Y. Moore, president; J. C. Holmes, secretary; Messrs. S. M. Bartlett, Payne K. Leach, James Bayley, Justus Gage, and John Starkweather. Hon. J. C. Holmes, the secretary, delivered an address, regarding their duties, etc., including in full a paper of Prof. Winchell of the university, advocating the union of the school with the university; including, also, large parts of President Hitchcock's report to the Massachusetts legislature on European schools of agriculture. Mich. Agr. 1854, pages 337 to 404.

June 16-On June 16, 1855, this committee reported the present site of the school (Mich. Agr. 1854, p. 404), and their selection was approved by the State board of education.

Mr. Holmes was appointed to submit a plan for buildings. January 2, 1856, he presented a plan for a west wing of a college building. It is the present college hall. A main hall and an east wing were to complete the group, forming a court. Prof. Fiske was consulted regarding the arrangements of the chemical laboratory. The chapel was then where it is now, except that the desk was on the north side, and was simply the lecture table of the class room in chemistry; the chemical laboratory occupied the north half of the first floor. The library occupied the northeast and the museum the northwest corner rooms of the upper floor. Mr. Holmes reported the plans also for the dining hall and dormitory-a building since consumed by fire.

The report was adopted. Mr. S. M. Bartlett, of Monroe, was appointed superintendent of the buildings.

January 21, 1857, the board of education made a communication to the legislature in which they announced that the west wing and the boarding hall were nearly completed, and that they had expended about $10,500 for the farm and $34,774.19 for buildings and improvements. A brick barn had been erected. The building is now used as a carpenter's shop.

ORGANIC LAW OF 1855.

This law continued in force until March 15, 1861. Besides providing for the selection of a site, the act proceeded to place the college to be established under the direction and control of the State board of education, an elective board of three members, having charge of the State normal school, and having the superintendent of public instruction for its secretary ex officio. The course of instruction was to include "an English and scientific course, natural philosophy, chemistry, botany, animal and vegetable physiology, geology, mineralogy, meteorology, entomology, veterinary art, mensuration, leveling, and political economy, with book-keeping, and the mechanic arts which are directly connected with agriculture, and such other studies as the board of education may from time to time see fit to prescribe, having reference to the objects specified in the previous section."

There were to be two terms of study a year, the first term from the first Wednesday of April to the last Wednesday in October; the second term from the first Wednesday in December to the last Wednesday in February. Stu