A catalogue was issued in 1861, which has been followed annually by others. A report was issued in 1862, and regular reports have been issued since that time, so the record of succeeding events is plain.

Under the new law the Board of Agriculture consists of six appointed members, two being appointed every other year, by the Governor of the State. The term of office is six years. The Governor of the State and the President of the college are ex-officio members of the board. The course of study is to be of not less than four years, and is liberal in its range, languages being neither mentioned nor excluded. Soon after the opening of the spring term of 1861, a four years' course of study, and an additional preparatory course of one year was adopted.

Although the civil war had broken out, and students were leaving the college to enlist, the attendance was sixteen greater than in 1860.

Since its reorganization in 1861, the college has gone steadily on, making progress and friends.

In 1862 the congressional grant of 240,000 acres was made, and serves now (1883). to yield the college an annual income of $22,000. The present president of the college was elected to his position in November, 1862. The catalogue of 1861 shows a faculty of four professors, an instructor, and a superintendent of the farm. The catalogue for 1883 shows a president, nine professors, a secretary, who is a member of the faculty, a librarian, and six subordinate officers of instruction. The college buildings in 1861 were a college hall, a boarding hall, a brick barn, and five dwellings. By the middle of next year there will be eleven dwelling houses, two dormitories, a college hall, chemical laboratory, botanical laboratory, greenhouse, library hall, astronomical observatory, apiary, a boiler house, and eight farm and garden barns. A library of 1,200 books has grown to 8,000. The stock has increased from a valuation of $1,400 to a valuation of $18,000, and the number of students from 66 to 185. The property at the college is valued at $340,000. Through frequent reäppointments, sixteen appointed members have filled out the terms of twenty-six. The utmost harmony has always prevailed in the board, and one of the members named in the law, the Hon. H. G. Wells, of Kalamazoo, remained on the board continuously, usually as its president, from 1861 to the spring of 1883.

The graduates of the college number (1882) 272, and are scattered into twenty-four States and territories, although three-fourths of them remain in Michigan. One-half the graduates are farmers, or engaged in business directly related to farming, and a much larger proportion are in occupations related to industrial arts.

The chair of practical agriculture was established in 1865. The last chair established is that of veterinary; the last before that was of horticulture as distinct from botany, and the addition to the duties of the botanist of instruction in forestry.

In one sense, the college has gone beyond its enclosures, for its six annual winter farmers' institutes bring the college men and farmers together in the common discussion of topics, and the future opens a prospect of honorable usefulness. It is, and may it ever remain, the Farmers' College.

HISTORY OF HILLSDALE COLLEGE

BY HON. JOHN C. PATTERSON

1

Read June 13, 1883

Hillsdale College was founded by the Free-Will Baptist denomination. It was first located at Spring Arbor, in Jackson county, Michigan, under the corporate name of Michigan Central College, and was afterwards removed, or, more accurately speaking, abandoned at Spring Arbor, and re-established at Hillsdale. Michigan Central College and Hillsdale College, although having different corporate names, different locations and different charters, were owned, controlled and conducted by the same denomination, managers, and faculty, had the same patrons, and were, in fact, one institution. The history of Michigan Central College is the early history of Hillsdale College.

DENOMINATIONAL

In the year 1778, Benjamin Randall was pastor of a Baptist church at New Durham, in the State of New Hampshire. Randall had been converted under the inspired preaching of George Whitfield, and was fired by the same religious zeal. It was observed however that he did not preach the stern Calvinistic doctrines then entertained by his denomination. When asked why he did not preach the doctrines of predestination, etc., he replied, "Because I do not believe them." He was accused of heresy, tried before and ecclesiastical tribunal, found unsound in doctrine, and disfellowshiped in 1779. Although adjudged guilty of heresy, Randall continued to preach the gospel as he understood it, and on the 30th day of June, 1780, he organized the first Free-Will Baptist church, consisting of seven members, and laid the foundation for the denomination at New Durham, New Hampshire. The Bible was taken as the standard of its faith and practice. Freedom of the will -which suggested the name of Free-Will Baptist for the denomination—was proclaimed as an essential part of its creed. During the next half century, churches were established in New England, Canada, and the middle states. The ministry were zealous men, devoted in piety, sacrificing in spirit and incessant in labor. Many of the ministers of the denomination, during the first half century of its existence, were men of native ability, and were powerful speakers but uneducated. "Prejudice against an educated ministry, and education for the ministry predominated during the first sixty years of the denominational existence, and for a long time previous to 1840 the denomination had been losing from its ranks many ministers of piety and promise, on account of its position on the question of education." This

prejudice was not confined, during those years, to the Free-Will Baptist denomination alone. It was a general sentiment among the masses, and was encouraged in this denomination by a misapprehension of the teachings of Randall and his cotemporaries.

They preached the necessity of a consecrated heart as a sine qua non qualification for a christian minister, with so much emphasis that they seemed to undervalue or ignore educational qualification. They did not oppose an educated clergy, but they denied that learning alone was a sufficient qualification or a substitute for a divine call to preach, or for the grace of God in the heart. They taught that a cultivated intellect was desirable in a minister, and that a consecrated heart was indispensable. During the time that the denomination was under the personal influence of these men very little attention was given to the cause of education. No educational institution was established by the denomination until 1832. The agitation of the educational question in the denomination was commenced in New England about that time. On the 15th day of January, 1840, a denominational educational society was organized at Acton, Maine, "to provide means for the intellectual and moral improvement of young ministers." This sketch outlines the educational status of the denomination in the east, at the time its first churches were planted in the territory of Michigan.

PIONEER WORKERS AND WORK

The pioneer Free-Will Baptists of Michigan were not behind their New England brethren in this educational movement. Though few in number. limited in means, and scattered over the territory, they were devoted to their church, and possessed that religious ardor, and progressive spirit which cheerfully make sacrifices to secure a denominational triumph. The first Free-Will Baptist church in the territory of Michigan was organized near Ypsilanti, Washtenaw County, March 14th, 1831. It had no pastor. There were no ordained ministers of the denomination in the territory. Upon the petition of the church, Henry S. Limbocker, who held a license to preach, and under whose ministrations the church had been organized, a young man of promise, was ordained as a minister by the Free-Will Baptist authorities of western New York. A preacher was thus secured, and the denomination commenced its work in the wilds of Michigan. Elder Henry S. Limbocker was a native of Cayuga county, New York, and had removed from Parma, Monroe county, New York, to Ypsilanti in 1830. Other churches were planted in Oakland and other counties in the vicinity during the next few years. Elder Samuel Whitcomb and Elijah Cook, Jr., were among the early Free-Will Baptists who settled in the territory. They came together from Western New York, and located on Cook's Prairie, in the township of Eckford (then in the township of Homer), in Calhoun county, in 1834. They were men in middle age, with families of grown up children. Before they were fairly settled in their log cabins, the organization of a Free-Will Baptist church was determined upon, and on the 12th day of March, 1836, the Free-Will Baptist church of Cook's Prairie was organized by them at the school-house, then standing near the site of their present tasteful church edifice. Elder Samuel Whitcomb was the first pastor of this new church. A native of New Hampshire, he had removed to Michigan from Alabama, Genesee county, N. Y. He was a tall, spare man, with a large mouth, prominent nose, and heavy eyebrows, and of a commanding presence. Nature had endowed him with a good voice and a fluent com

mand of language. He also possessed that emotional nature, and magnetic power which hold and move the hearer. He was especially gifted in prayer and exhortation, and his power as a preacher was due to these gifts, rather than to his logic or his homiletics. He was a man for the times, and became one of the leading ministers of the denomination. Elijah Cook, Jr., soon began to preach, and was ordained as a minister. He was a native of the State of New York, and removed from Clarendon, Orleans county, to Michigan. He was a tall, square-shouldered man of marked presence. Positive, energetic, and possessed of an indomitable will, he had that zeal and force which overcome all obstacles. His command of language was poor, it was sometimes painful to listen to him, but he was a great singer. His soul was a pent up volcano of religious feeling which could find vent only in sacred song. He lived and labored before church choirs were deemed an essential part of religious worship, and when congregational singing was both popular and profitable. His voice leading the congregation in Sabbath service, or in the prayer or covenant meeting never failed to fire the hearts of the listener with the spirit of the song, and arouse the deepest religious emotions. In Whit comb and Cook, the Free-Will Baptists in Michigan had a Moody and Sankey forty-nine years ago. These pioneer evangelists preached and held revival meetings in various localities, and planted churches in Calhoun, Jackson, and adjacent counties. Elder Henry S. Limbocker continued to reside at Ypsilanti, and to preach in the adjacent counties until 1836. He then moved to Leoni, Jackson county. In personal appearance, talent, and style of speaking, he resembled Elder Whitcomb. He was more logical and argumentative in his sermons, and was an evangelist by nature. He preached to various churches in Jackson and adjoining counties, and was considered as one of the leading ministers of the denomination in the State. Elders Whitcomb, Cook, and Limbocker labored on their farms during the week until Saturday, and then drove to their distant appointments, preached two or three times Sunday, returned home on Monday, and prepared their sermons at the plough during the week. As farmers, they supported themselves, and as missionaries, they laid the foundation in the wilderness for a great and useful denomination. Largely through the labors of these three men, the Michigan yearly meeting of the denomination was organized at Leoni, in 1839, with four hundred and sixty members.

The demand for an educated ministry, and the educational movement was being agitated in denominational circles in the east. Elder Samuel Whitcomb, Elder Elijah Cook, and Elder Henry S. Limbocker, as early as 1835, took a stand in favor of an educated ministry. With their limited common school education, they were conscious that their own usefulness was crippled for the want of better intellectual training and educational acquirements. They had the sagacity to foresee that the church of the future would demand an educated ministry; that education was becoming more general, the communicants more enlightened, and that the denomination would be compelled to raise the standard of education to enable it to keep up with the times, and to build up and maintain its interest in intellectual centers. They recognized education as the handmaid of religion, and preached this truth to their congregations. They discussed the educational question at their homes, and in private circles, and advocated the plan of a denominational school for the purpose of educa ting their ministers and their children; a school where the intellect could be trained under a strong religious, yet catholic influence. They advocated an

educational enterprise to accomplish a denominational end. These pioneer fathers, as they toiled and sacrificed, doubtless remembered that the denominational or religious element entered very largely into the work of establishing Dartmouth, Yale, Harvard, Brown's, Princeton, and numerous other great institutions of learning, and had it not been for the demand for learned ministers and learned laymen, as well as a love for a higher education those colleges would not have been planted in colonial days, to bless the church, nation, and race.

During the years in which Hon. Isaac E. Crary and Hon. John D. Pierce at Marshall in the province of statesmanship were agitating and perfecting the plan of our State public school system, laying its foundation broad and deep, to be crowned by our great university, Samuel Whitcomb and Elijah Cook, Jr., the cotemporaries, near neighbors and personal friends of Crary and Pierce, on Cook's Prairie, ten miles away, were agitating and perfecting a plan and laying its foundations broad and deep for a denominational school in the domain of church polity. Elder Samuel Whitcomb was the first to bring the subject of a denominational school before the churches and conferences, and was the pioneer advocate of the cause. Elder Cook pushed the matter with all his power and rendered it great service. Had his sentiments . on the subject of education been expressed in verse and set to music, his song would have been quite as powerful in the cause as the appeals of his more eloquent co-worker. Elder Limbocker publicly and privately urged the necessity of an educated ministry, and advocated a denominational school to provide the means for securing that end. His earnest eloquence and forcible arguments contributed greatly toward preparing the way for definite action. The churches were few, the members poor, and not many could be reached by the denominational press. We must remember that public sentiment in Michigan forty-five years ago was not moulded by our present public schools and our numerous denominational institutions now in successful operation. The necessity and benefits of such a college were not fully appreciated by the masses, and required discussion before action. Up to the year 1844, the public discussion of the educational movement in the denomination in Michigan was for the most part conducted by Elders Whitcomb, Cook, and Limbocker, and to some extent by Elder Ellwood. The agitation had been mostly confined to the churches coming under their personal ministration, in Calhoun, Jackson, and adjacent counties.

In the educational movement, the clergy did not do all of the work. The laymen did their full share. Among the laymen first taking an active part in this advance step in the denomination, Hon. Daniel Dunakin, a native of western New York, who located in Eckford, Calhoun county, in 1835, was the most prominent. He was a man of broad views, and was public-spirited and liberal with his means. Having accumulated a competency at an early day he was one of the wealthiest men in the denomination in the State. Intelligent and active, he was a leader in every progressive movement. He was at least twenty years ahead of his times, and an ardent friend of the cause of education. One of the first trustees of Michigan Central College, at Spring Arbor, he continued on the board of trustees until his death in 1875. I know of no person in the denomination who has contributed more generously of his time, labor, and means to Hillsdale College than Daniel Dunakin. As long as he lived he watched the institution with parental solicitude, and staked his fortune for its existence. Its scanty treasury was replenished by a constant