.Uituit 
 
 4 
 
 ADDRESSES 
 
 THE LIBHftu 
 Of THE 
 
 UtilVERSITY OF II. 
 
 DELIVERED 
 
 THE OPEHIHG 
 
 OF THE 
 
 AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE, 
 
 JA ARCH 17 , 1869 
 
 DAVENPORT, IOWA : 
 
 GAZETTE PREMIUM BOOK & JOB PRINTING ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 18 ( 19 . 
 
ADDRESS OF WELCOME. 
 
 BY LIEUT. GOV. SCOTT. 
 
 Mr. President , Ladies and Gentlemen : — This is the day that we , 
 of Story County have long and anxiously waited to see. The 
 proposition to locate an Agricultural College somewhere in Iowa, 
 elicited, as well it might, a lively interest in many localities in the 
 State, and Story County was finally selected, being centrally loca- 
 ted, and offering superior advantages, and you are convened to-day 
 to witness the consummation of this long hoped for event. 
 
 I have been unexpectedly called upon to make a few remarks on 
 this interesting occasion. In the name of the Board of Trustees, 
 of the students, of the multitude here assembled, in the name of 
 the State of Iowa, young giant as she is, and in the name of this, 
 one of the grandest schemes ever devised by men for the education 
 of the young men and young women of a State, I bid you welcome. 
 The interest which the State has taken in organizing this great 
 event, should be ever remembered by the farmers of Iowa, with 
 the most lively pleasure. This should be considered a great day 
 in the educational interest of Iowa — great because it promises great 
 results ; great because it aims to educate the farmers’ sons and 
 daughters in all the arts calculated to render life useful. 
 
 Many of the members of this Board have long been engaged in 
 this enterprise — have labored faithfully, hopefully— and to these 
 this must be a happy day. 
 
 This is an untried experiment here. Some may be disposed to say 
 that in Agricultural education, you should not be hasty in pro- 
 nouncing anything a failure that has not yet been fully tried. It 
 is true that we hear, from several other States, accounts of unsuc- 
 cessful experiments in this direction, but I have full faith to be- 
 lieve that even in those States, success will yet crown their efforts. 
 
4 
 
 Some have even questioned the right of a State to originate an 
 enterprise of this kind, hut when you candidly consider the merits 
 of the case, we think no man can say that the State of Iowa has 
 not the right to establish an institution of the kind which you are 
 here to inaugurate to-day. The people of Iowa have always man- 
 fully borne their share in all public enterprises and necessities, 
 whether in cutting down hills and filling up valleys for railways, 
 or in drawing the sword when the life of the Nation was imper- 
 illed. 
 
 Have we done all we should to develop the agriculture of Iowa ? 
 If not all we should, I would ask if we have less farming land in 
 cultivation than any other State in the Union in proportion to our 
 population ? When we consider what we have done, we can con- 
 template the future with pride. 
 
 Shall we hold on, and allow other nations to outstrip us ? If 
 thirty years ago, the prophecy had been made that we would be 
 here to-day engaged as we are, or that the useful arts and sciences, 
 — agricultural and the mechanical arts — would to-day stand among 
 mankind as they do, the person making this prophecy would have 
 been pronounced insane. Shall we venture to prophecy what this 
 institution will be three years hence ? 
 
 The education of man and woman up to the perfection of man- 
 hood and womanhood is not the work of a day. This is the work 
 of years. Be patient, wait till time shall enable the Professors of 
 this Institution to develop it to its full capacity. 
 
 To the pupils I would say, if you accept the opportunity offered 
 to you here, you yourselves in this acceptance agree’rigidly and 
 faithfully to observe the rules laid down for the maintainance of 
 order in this College. 
 
 I would say to the young men who are here to study agriculture, 
 whatever crops you sow, leave out the sowing of wild oats. 
 
 Humbly for myself, proudly for Iowa and for the Professors of 
 this Institution, in the name of the educational interests of Iowa, 
 I again bid you a hearty welcome. 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 OF EX-LIBUT. GOV. B. F. GUI, MES1D1T 01 THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES. 
 
 Fellow Citizens : — More than eleven years have come and gone, 
 since the first steps were taken towards the establishment of a 
 State Agricultural College, for the especial benefit of the sons 
 and daughters of the working people of Iowa. While the great 
 mass of our citizens have been engaged in their own private af- 
 fairs, and absorbed with their own schemes of amassing wealth, 
 securing political advancement, or in the pursuit of pleasure, a 
 few only have been engaged in the great work of projecting, or- 
 ganizing, and building up an institution, which we confidently 
 believe is destined to exert an important influence on the people 
 of our young State in the future. So slowly and quietly has this 
 work been going on, that as intelligent as our citizens are, and 
 well informed on most ordinary subjects, nine-tenths of them to 
 day are, in a measure, ignorant of the history, aims and purposes 
 of this Institution. 
 
 I do not propose to weary your patience with a recital of all 
 the important facts connected with its early history, or the vari- 
 ous means used to accomplish the work, nor refer to the names of 
 the earnest friends of the project, who have, from time to time 
 given their influence and best energies in its behalf. 
 
 But upon this occasion of the formal inauguration of the Iowa 
 Agricultural College, when the time has come for the Trustees 
 to place it in the keeping of the Faculty chosen to take charge of 
 the great work to which it is dedicated, it may not perhaps be 
 considered improper to refer briefly to its origin, and the chief aim 
 of those by whom it was originated. 
 
0 
 
 It was not because the founders of this Institution wished simp- 
 ly to add another to the number of Colleges in the State, but be- 
 cause they had become convinced that none of these already in 
 existence were organized upon a plan that placed them within 
 reach of the industrial classes. It was to supply this want that in- 
 duced the advocates of the Agricultural College to devise the new 
 plan, frame a bill, and press through the Legislature the organic 
 act which has given to our State this College, dedicated forever to 
 the education of the working people. 
 
 The founders of this Institution were three or four young men, 
 who had worked their way through long years of weary toil into 
 the Legislature of their adopted State. From the days of early 
 boyhood they had often keenly felt the need of some institution of 
 a high order, within reach of the hundreds of young men whom 
 poverty alone keeps out of our ordinary Colleges. However am- 
 bitious such young men may be, to stand side by side with the 
 sons of their wealthy neighbors on the plane of education, there 
 were few if any Colleges at that time, in which they could hope 
 to enter, with a reasonable probability of being able to graduate. 
 Colleges were for professional men, and the sons of the wealthy, 
 and the children of a “small fisted farmer,” or “greasy machanic,” 
 or common laborer, were not expected to aspire to the knowledge 
 which was there in store for the favored classes. 
 
 It is true, that occasionally a young man of the industrial 
 classes had, by toiling early and late, by enduring the jeers and 
 taunts of his more fortunate companions, succeeded in work- 
 ing his way into, and through a literary college. But in doing 
 this, he too often ruined his health, and utterly destroyed his taste 
 or inclination for any of the industrial pursuits of life, naturally 
 drifting into some one of the over-crowded learned professions. 
 It is not strange that he should ; for the entire college course trains 
 the student for the learned professions, and indirectly, but most 
 effectually, teaches him to abhor labor and despise the laborer. 
 
 To correct this evil, and found an Institution within reach of the 
 young man of moderate means, in which a thorough education, 
 combined with a practical knowledge of the sciences taught, illus- 
 trated in the field and workshop, where labor should be honorable, 
 
r 
 
 and a part of the oourse of instruction, was the ruling motive which 
 actuated the projectors of the Iowa Agricultural College, 
 
 With these ideas steadily in view, Its founders provided In the 
 organic act that all students should he required to labor, as a part 
 of the course of instruction, thus making labor honorable, and idle- 
 ness dishonorable. Not that labor should be compulsory where it 
 was distasteful, but providing one College of a high grade, where 
 one of the qualifications for admission should be a cheerful acquies- 
 ence in the soundness of the labor theory and practice. The pro- 
 ject met with determined opposition in both branches of the Leg- 
 islature, and was agreed to, only after the most persistent efforts 
 of its friends had been exerted to the utmost. We succeeded In 
 getting the organic act, with an appropriation of $10,000, a sum 
 barely sufficient to purchase a farm upon which to build up the 
 College. So bitter was the opposition to the project, and so little 
 were its aim and objects understood, that for six years no further 
 aid could be obtained from the State to assist in the erection of a 
 building. 
 
 During these dark days, when the future of our projected Insti- 
 tution seemed shrouded in gloom, when the most sanguine of its 
 friends could see little hope of success, when we had realized the 
 full magnitude of the undertaking, utterly destitute of resources 
 necessary to carry out our plans, with nothing but a great prairie 
 farm, wild, but beautiful in its wildness, remote from railroad, riv- 
 er, cities or towns, it seemed far better adapted for the quiet retreat 
 of some pioneer farmer and backwoods hunter, than for a site upon 
 which to erect a College for the children of the farmers and me- 
 chanics of a great State. I remember well my first visit to this 
 spot, years ago, long before the North Western Railroad was pro- 
 jected. Striking out north from Des Moines, on to the great sea of 
 prairie that then stretched, in almost; unbroken wildness, to the 
 Minnesota line, the great monotonous plain of waving grass only 
 broken here and there by scattered groves, and meandering through 
 it the sluggish river of fragrant name, that, skirted with timber, 
 seemed like a long line of straggling sentinels, guarding the great 
 plain from the approaching civilization that had just begun to en- 
 croach upon its boundless domain. A few log cabins of the early 
 
8 
 
 pioneers contained the entire population that then inhabited the 
 country between the Capital and the College Farm. Arriving up- 
 on the ground designated by that classic {name, it seemed to me 
 that it must have been selected as a place of exile, where students 
 would some day be banished, remote from civilization and its at- 
 tendant temptations, to study nature in its native wildness. Stand- 
 ing on the eminence where the College now looms up, we could 
 only see one of the most beautiful landscapes in the west, but al- 
 most as wild as when Noah’s Ark floated over a world of water. 
 When and how a great State College was to be built up here, was 
 a problem too difficult for any of us then to solve. But we had 
 got the idea, the land, and an endorsement of the Legislature, and 
 we must work it out. 
 
 By a fortunate combination of circumstances, the great east and 
 west railroad that first crossed our State, was located through our; 
 farm, bringing us in communication with the world, opening 
 up these great wild prairies to settlement, and affording a means of 
 transportation for the vast amount of material needed to improve 
 and stock our farm, and erect the necessary buildings. 
 
 Soon the surrounding country began to be dotted over with farms, 
 houses, groves and orchards. The little village of Ames sprang in- 
 to existence, and the location, which was so fiercely denounced, 
 and unsparingly criticised for years, has finally proved to be ad- 
 mirably adapted to the purpose in view. 
 
 While we were patiently waiting for more auspicious times, 
 these surroundings had quietly crept about the chosen spot, trans- 
 forming it into a busy, thriving, active, central location, accessible 
 for all the State. 
 
 During these long years of waiting, the friends of the proposed 
 College were not idle. They had barely succeeded in getting an 
 endorsement of their scheme from the Legislature, with an appro- 
 priation so insignificant that almost the entire means necessary 
 to establish, build up and maintain a College upon their favorite 
 plan, must yet be devised. It was evident, ,from the determined 
 opposition which the small appropriation had met with, that oth- 
 er aid than the fickle and uncertain action of a Legislature must 
 be invoked to insure final success. The public can never know 
 
9 
 
 the anxious thought, the earnest and persistent labor, devoted by 
 its early friends, before daylight seemed to dawn upon the formid- 
 able undertaking. After consultation with friends of the plan in 
 other States, it was determined to ask the General Government 
 for a grant of the public lands, similar to that made for the sup- 
 port of our State University and Common Schools, the proceeds 
 of which should be held as a permanent endowment fund for the 
 support of Agricultural Colleges. After years of earnest work, 
 Congress was induced to pass an act granting lands for the benefit 
 of Agricultural Colleges, to the amount of 40,000 acres for each 
 member of that body, giving to our State the magnificent grant of 
 240,000 acres, all of which was selected within our own limits, re- 
 duced however by the selection of railroad lands, to 204,000 acres. 
 
 With the acquirement of this magnificent endowment, the friends 
 of the College were confident of ultimate success ; and from this 
 time forward worked with renewed hope. The terrible civil war 
 which here intervened, absorbed the entire attention and best en- 
 ergies of the government and people for four long years, fraught 
 with events of such magnitude, sufferings so fearful, and expendi- 
 tures so enormous, that they will never fade from the memory of 
 that generation. All works of minor importance must give way 
 to the great overshadowing one, of preserving our government 
 from destruction. With the first dawn of peace, the Legislature 
 made a liberal appropriation for the erection of the long delayed 
 College Building. None but those engagedin the work can form 
 an adequate idea of the obtacle3 encountered, difficulties over- 
 come, delays and annoyances innumerable, that have attended the 
 erection and completion of this building. It has been the work of 
 years ; and scores of mechanics, artisans, and laborers, have been 
 employed upon it, under various contractors, superintendents, and 
 architects ; so that whatever of success or failure, credit or blame, 
 attaches to its builders, is rather widely distributed. 
 
 It has been the aim of the trustees to provide it with furniture 
 corresponding in style with the architectural beauty of the struc- 
 ture, and to supply it with heat, ventilation, light, and water, in 
 abundance, in every part and upon the best plans attainable. 
 
 The Cabinets, Laboratory, and Library, are yet in their infancy, 
 but steps have been taken to begin the slow work of providing 
 
10 
 
 them on a scale commensurate with the importance of the Institu- 
 tion they are to supply. But buildings with convenient and costly 
 equipments, are only a part of the necesssary instruments required 
 in the creation of a great Institution of learning. These may all 
 be provided with a lavish hand, and of the most approved finish, 
 with skill, taste and judgment ; but without live, earnest, intelli- 
 gent and faithful instructors, utter failure will be the final result. 
 It is difficult to select and procure a corps of professors, eminent in 
 the various attainments for an ordinary literary college, notwith- 
 standing thousands of graduates are being ground out of them every 
 year. But how much more difficult it is to select a faculty emi- 
 nently qualified to organize a College upon a new plan, radi- 
 cally different from the common method, in most of its purposes 
 and aims, none but those engaged in the work can realize. Very 
 few of the educators in our country had ever given the subject 
 and plan of Agricultural Colleges a serious thought ; and it was 
 no easy matter to find men of undoubted qualifications for this new 
 field of labor. A few prominent features of the new enterprise had 
 been settled by law, and determination of the trustees. First, every 
 student must be willing to perform from two to three hours of 
 manual labor each day, under competent instructors, for the pur- 
 pose of learning by actual participation, the best methods of per- 
 forming the details of those operations closely connected with 
 Agriculture, Horticulture, and Machanics. They must not only 
 understand the theory, but the pacticc must be familiar to them ; 
 that while thorough knowledge of the sciences and arts were be- 
 ing acquired, habits of industry, and a love of intelligent labor 
 would be attained. There must be no favored classes ; all must join 
 in these exercises, whether rich or poor, high or low, male or 
 female. 
 
 The course of instruction must be eminently practical, in order 
 that every day spent in College should be made profitable to the 
 student, and that years should not be squandered in acquiring a 
 knowledge of the ancient arid dead languages of past ages, to the 
 exclusion of the more valuable knowlegc of those branches which 
 relate to the present, with its boundless fields unexplored. Other 
 Colleges all over the world, are devoting their best years to teach- 
 
11 
 
 ing Latin, Greek and Hebrew, and no student can enter them, select 
 lbs own course, and pursue his search for the more useful knowl- 
 edge relating to his chosen busines in life. No matter how little 
 time and means he may have to spare, he must spend years in the 
 old routine, in the old rut, musty with age, because it is in the 
 regular course. One great aim of our modern Industrial Colleges, 
 is to build up and maintain a class of institutions, to supply a 
 want long felt, for the benefit of that large and increasing army of 
 students, who prefer to acquire a more thorough knowledge of the 
 natural sciences, and useful arts, rather than get a smattering of 
 everything, and a thorough knowledge of nothing. 
 
 Again — the ordinary Colleges are beyond the reach of the young 
 man of limited means, and of the young lady of any station, am- 
 bition or accomplishments. Their doors are closed to the poor, 
 virtually, from the great expense required, and are absolutely 
 closed to girls and young women, through the prevalence of that 
 remnant of barbarous ages, which holds that man is the lord of 
 creation, and woman his inferior, and only entitled to such privi- 
 leges as he sees fit to bestow upon her. 
 
 It is one of the chief aims of this College to break down these 
 barriers which belong to the darker ages of the past, and open 
 these doors to any of God’s people, whether high or low in social 
 circles, rich or poor, white or black, man or woman. It is not in 
 accordance with the spirit of the age, or the liberality of our State 
 or National Government, to exalt the strong, the wealthy or the 
 favored few, and trample upon the rights of the weak, the lowly, 
 and the poor. 
 
 Our State is one in which manual labor must ever be encour- 
 aged, respected and recognized as honorable and commendable. 
 Our vast and varied undeveloped resources invite the laborer to 
 every field and branch of industry. Millions of acres of the most 
 beautiful and fertile land that the sun ever shone upon, lie within 
 our borders, as wild and uncultivated as the unexplored regions of 
 Central Africa. Our mines of richest minerals are almost undis- 
 turbed by the pick and shovel, waiting for skill, knowledge, and 
 labor, to develop incalculable wealth. Millions of dollars arc 
 yearly sent off to foreign nations and distant States, to purchase 
 
12 
 
 a thousand varieties of manufactured goods, that can bo produced 
 as well at home. Our State is one vast storehouse of undeveloped 
 wealth, waiting for the labor that alone can make it available. 
 No where in the wide world is there a broader or more inviting 
 field for every branch of industry, and no where is the laborer 
 more liberally rewarded. Our material prosperity as a State and 
 people, is entirely dependent upon the degree of industry that 
 shall characterize our citizens. We can only hope to see labor 
 cheerfully and generally acquiesced in, as an honorable and desira- 
 ble occupation, when it is respected, encouraged and honored by 
 the intelligent, the refined, and the educated. Every State institution 
 should stamp it with respectability, honor its votaries, and encour- 
 age its general diffusion among all classes of our people. In this 
 the “ People’s College,” dedicated to the encouragement and 
 promotion of industry, we must aim to make labor attractive, not 
 only to the boys who are here seeking knowledge in their depart- 
 ment, but to the girls, who can never become accomplished and 
 thoroughly educated women, without a knowledge of the art of 
 housekeeping, and the best methods of conducting every- house- 
 hold occupation with system, intelligence, and womanly grace. 
 The most alarming feature of our present system of educating our 
 girls, is the almost total disregard of those branches known as the 
 useful and practical, that will prepare them for the proper dis- 
 charge of the best; and noblest duties of rational and intelligent 
 women. Our fashionable boarding schools for girls are too often 
 but the nurseries of all the follies, and frivolous, trifling super- 
 ficial acquirements, that totally unfit them for the important duties, 
 higher enjoyments, and nobler works of rational life. They are 
 instructed in the various minutse of etiquette and popular accom- 
 plishments, that vitiate the taste, dwarf the mind, and direct the 
 thoughts in pursuit of vanities, that can never satisfy a true and 
 noble woman. We then close the doors of our Colleges in their 
 faces, and exclude them from a fair competition with boys and 
 young men of their own age, in the higher branches, that are cal- 
 culated to discipline the mind, enlarge the understanding, elevate 
 the aims, tastes and desires, and qualify them for the most exalted 
 places in society. We exclude them from the learned professions 
 
13 
 
 which lead most directly to preferment, position, influence and 
 power. We deny them the ballot, the acknowledged instrument for 
 the preservation of our liberties and the maintainance of our rights, 
 against injustice, oppression and tyranny. After having thus shut 
 them out from the acquirement of knowledge, excluded them from 
 fair competition in the race for worldly honors and power, and de- 
 prived them of all participation in the enactment and administra- 
 tion of laws, under a professed Ilepublican Government, the wise 
 men cooly turn round and assert that they are intellectually our 
 inferiors, incapable of high attainments in science, art and general 
 education. If they are, it has yet to be demonstrated by giving 
 them equal advantages with us, in all of the means we use, and 
 the aids we call to our assistance. I am proud to say that it is one 
 of the aims of this College to break down these barriers, musty with 
 age, — as unjust as they are ancient, and open our doors wide 
 to the anxious seekers for knowledge, extending to all, regardless 
 of sex, color, or condition, equal privileges and equal rights, in 
 every department. Had our boys for successive generations, been 
 taught that the great aim of life was to excel in senseless small talk, 
 and ball room grace, to wear a faultless coat and a fancy neck-tie, 
 to cultivate small feet, soft hands, and a captivating moustache, 
 to discard every useful occupation as ungenteel and degrading ; 
 been excluded from Colleges, from the learned professions, and 
 from any participation in the affairs of government ; taught that 
 manual labor was vulgar, and that the chief end of man was to get 
 married at eighteen, how much superior would we have been in- 
 tellectually, to our wives and sisters, think you ! I apprehend 
 that under such training, for even a dozen generations, Danial 
 Websters would have been full as rare among men, as Anna Dick- 
 insons are to-day among women. 
 
 If our College only succeeds in aiding in these great reforms, 
 ennobling labor and elevating the laborer in public estimation, 
 placing him where he belongs, in the front rank of society, with 
 an education inferior to none in all that is useful and available, 
 and leads off in trampling into the dust the old prejudice against 
 educating our girls and boys alike, and together, it will amply re- 
 pay the coming generations in this dissemination of correct ideas, 
 far more than it has, or can cost. 
 
14 
 
 In the selection of President and Professors thus far made, we 
 have aimed to procure those only who accord with these ideas, 
 upon the successful demonstration of which I believe the future 
 usefulness of this institution depends, in a great measure. 
 
 I am confident that we have been remarkably fortunate in our 
 choice of the men selected to undertake this great work, and* 
 carry it on to a triumphant termination. But if any should fail 
 to meet the expectation of the friends of the cause in the future, 
 a3 time and work shall demonstrate, they will drop out of the 
 ranks, and their places be filled with new recruits. Men may 
 fail, but the great reform cannot; it is founded upon justice, 
 equality, and the purest principles of republican simplicity, and 
 is the great requirement of our State and country. We have 
 already passed through the stages of doubt, ridicule, reproach, 
 slander, ignorant fault finding, and malicious misrepresentation, 
 unscathed. We shall never turn back to conciliate the enemies, 
 whose harmless shafts have been hurled in vain for more than 
 eleven years. At every step of advance we see new light ahead ; 
 the dark days of despondency and gloom have vanished before 
 unyielding faith, and tireless work. 
 
 We do not expect unmeasured prosperity and cloudless skies in 
 the future ; mistakes will occur, and errors of judgment attend all 
 human undertakings ; but so long as we are not too wise to learn, 
 they only delay, never defeat a good work, if the workers are 
 true to themselves and the cause. Eternal vigilance is the price 
 of Liberty, no more surely than is unyielding persistence the price 
 of Success in all great reforms. 
 
 Colleges and Universities, in the true sense of the term, do not 
 rise up in a day, or a generation ; they are of slow growth, like 
 the giant oak. Weak in the beginning, they strengthen with age, 
 and rocked with the winds, and rent with convulsions, they grow on , 
 breasting the storm and towering aloft, as centuries roll by, annually 
 shedding from their massive branches countless germs of other 
 little oaks, from which in time grow up mighty forests. 
 
 So with these institutions of learning : small in the beginning, 
 but strengthening with years, until like Cambridge, Harvard, and 
 Yale, they number among their students the greatest minds and 
 

 15 
 
 most eminent statesmen, orators, authors, poets and divines of the 
 age. Who of us can foresee the future of this Institution, -which 
 we this day dedicate to the education of the working people of Iowa ? 
 
 It needs no prophet to foretell that its influence upon the youth 
 of these classes, must in no very distant future be felt far and 
 wide. We may not live to see the day, but the time will surely 
 come in which graduates of the Iowa Agricultural College will be 
 found among the most eminent men and women that our State or 
 the country will produce. Educated to respect the laborer in any 
 honorable persuit, to practice industry in their school days, incul- 
 cating correct principles, pure morals, free from prejudice, bigotry, 
 and false pride, they cannot fail to attain the highest positions of 
 honor and trust among their fellow men, and by their lives honor 
 the institution to whose fostering care they are so largely indebted. 
 
 The names and deeds of Presidents, Senators, Governors, and thou 
 sands of the highest officials of the present day, will soon fade from 
 the memory of the ever changing world, but the remembrance of 
 this institution — which we this day inaugurate — will be kept green 
 in the memory of the ever increasing band of noble men and wo- 
 men, who will for all time look back to it as their early instructor in 
 the most valuable of human knowledge. If its founders receive no 
 other reward, their great work will not be forgotten, and their names 
 may be kept in remembrance, by some among the thousands of the 
 noblest boys and girls, who shall ever adorn our State. 
 
 
PRESENTATION 
 
 OF THE CHARTER AND SEAL TO THE PRESIDENT, BY GOV MERRILL, 
 
 WITH THE FOLLOWING REMARKS : 
 
 Mr. President : — I have been charged by the Committee with 
 the duty of delivering into your hands the Charter and Seal of the 
 State Agricultural College. Your acceptance of these emblems 
 clothes you with the honor, as well as the responsibilities, attending 
 the management of this most important Institution. 
 
 Permit me to congratulate you, sir, upon the flattering prospects 
 which attend your inauguration. The men who are associated 
 with you in the work of instruction, are able and earnest men, en- 
 thusiastic in the mission^ whereunto they have been called. The 
 hopes and good wishes of the people of the State are centered upon 
 you, eager for your success. Your connection with the College 
 dates from its opening chapters, and therefore its policy is yours to 
 originate, shape and establish, with no mistakes of others to corect, 
 with no errors of the past to redeem by the success of the future. 
 
 The munificence of the General Government has enabled us to 
 establish this College. To a State like ours, whose wealth of soil, 
 healthful climate and accessible markets, render it the very para- 
 dise of the farmer, this bounty has come with a peculiar and hap- 
 py significance. 
 
 To the gifts of Providence let us add the highest improvements 
 of men, not contenting ourselves until we have reared a generation 
 of farmers whose skilled labor shall unite with the fertility of the 
 soil, and beget the largest harvest which nature and science can 
 produce. We have the men to educate — the descendants of the 
 pioneers, whose brave hearts, catching a glimps of the future pros- 
 perity which we are even now beginning to realize, were nerved 
 
17 
 
 to withstand tlie privations and sufferings of the frontier. We 
 have a land flowing with milk and honey, new and not exhausted 
 by long years of productions. 
 
 Here, then, let utility of scientific labor be demonstrated. 
 From this institution let there go forth, in annual procession, a 
 line of educated, intelligent husbandmen, trained in the secrets of 
 nature which underlie their profession, and filled with an earnest, 
 devoted enthusiasm for their work. 
 
 To you, sir, and your associates, I am happy to give expression 
 to the personal and official confidence I cherish in your fitness for 
 your work. No better wish can be expressed than that your suc- 
 cess may be commensurate with its importance. May the fruits 
 of your labors be as abundant and valuable as the fruits of the soil 
 whose mysteries you are called to reveal. 
 
 PRESENTATION 
 
 OF THE KEYS TO THE PRESIDENT, BY HON. JOHN RUSSELL, 
 
 WITH THE FOLLOWING ADDRESS : 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen : The part assigned to me in the pro- 
 gramme of to-day, is to make a formal presentation of the keys of 
 this noble building to the gentleman who has been selected to fill 
 the difficult and responsible position of President of the Iowa 
 Agricultural Coll ege. 
 
 In performing this duty it may not be inappropriate to refer, 
 very briefly, to the history of this building, and to the difficulties, 
 that, from time to time, have fallen in the pathway of those whose 
 business it has been to attend to the interest of the institution in 
 its conception and developement. 
 
 The Legislature of the State in its session of 1858, first passed a 
 law providing for the establishment of an Agricultural College, 
 and made an appropriation of ten thousand dollars for the pur- 
 chase of a farm on which to locate it. The business was confided 
 to a Board of Trustees, consisting of a member from each judicial 
 district, and elected by the Legislature. After due deliberation 
 this farm was purchased, and the institution finally located here. 
 
 3 
 
18 
 
 Donations were received from the citizens of the surrounding 
 neighborhood, and Story County, then young and comparatively 
 unpopulated, very liberally donated ten thousand dollars in bonds 
 for the benefit of the institution, which are now being honorably 
 paid from time to time, as fast as the means are received into the 
 County Treasury. Improvements on the farm have been all 
 made ; and the fine stock now here, has been all purchased by 
 the aid received in this manner, without a single dollar of appro- 
 priation from the State Treasury for those purposes. Up to the 
 session of the Legislature in 1864 no appropriation had been made 
 for the erection of a College building. At that time a law was 
 passed, providing for the commencement of one, the cost of which 
 should not exceed fifty thousand dollars, and twenty thousand was 
 appropriated for the commencement and prosecution of the work. 
 The Board of of Trustees procured and adopted plans, and work was 
 commenced. As experience afterwards demonstrated, the architect 
 employed proved to be totally incompetent. He was finally dis- 
 missed, and Mr. C. A. Dunham of Burlington, employed to modify 
 the plans, and to superintend the erection of the building. Great 
 changes were made in the original design, the result of which is 
 seen in the noble structure in which we are now congregated. 
 Perhaps it was fortunate for the institution that an incompetent 
 architect was at first employed. The Trustees were bound by the 
 terms of the law making the appropriation to procure plans, the 
 total estimated cost of which, when the building should be com- 
 pleted, would not exceed fifty thousand dollars. The architect made 
 out and swore to his estimates, which were under the amount 
 named in the law. The Trustees were guided by them, and in 
 good faith complied with the law. As was afterwards demonstrated, 
 his ignorance and incompetence was the cause of the adoption of 
 much more extensive plans than fifty thousand dollars ever could 
 have paid for. The State was thus saved from being placed in 
 the ridiculous position of being committed to the erection of a 
 building totally inadequate to meet the wants of even to-day, the 
 first formal opening of the College. The total cost of this building 
 Is less than one hundred and twenty- five thousand dollars. I think 
 the experience of to-day proves that it is not even now of sufficient 
 capacity to meet the demands which will be made upon it. 
 
19 
 
 Time, I find, will not permit me to go into further details in 
 connection with the history of the building. Suffice it to say, that 
 the difficulties which have been met on every hand from its 
 commencement until now, have been numerous and perplexing ; 
 but by persevering effort they have been ultimately overcome. 
 
 I think I can say on behalf of all who have had official connec- 
 tion with the enterprise, that they have, each of them, done every- 
 thing for the interests of the Institution and the State, according to 
 their best judgment and ability. Many mistakes have been made ; 
 many things that have been done might have been done differently 
 were they to be done again by the same parties. After all, the 
 people of Iowa have received the best service that the different 
 Boards of Trustees were capable of rendering to them. On 
 their behalf, I would say, “ forgive them their sins,” and give 
 them credit for doing the best they could. 
 
 In the presentation of these keys to the President of the College, 
 it may not be inappropriate to refer briefly to the keys of knowl- 
 edge that have, from age to age, been presented to the human race 
 by those great minds whose discoveries and revelations have so 
 largely contributed to the development and civilization of the 
 present age. 
 
 Without going further back than the beginning of our Christian 
 era, W'e find a young carpenter of Judea presenting to the Doctors 
 of Divinity — to the crowds of curious listeners — to a selected 
 twelve confidential disciples— to the Lawyers, the Scribes and 
 Pharisees of His day, the key to a new Religion, embracing tli e 
 most elevated ideas of God and man ; the purest and most compre- 
 hensive system of morality — revealing to the human soul the grand 
 doctrine of everlasting life and the immortality of man. Over 
 eighteen hundred years have passed, and we are just now realizing 
 in their practical application to human life in all its varied relations 
 those great truths, the key to which the Saviour furnished, when, 
 from the mountain top, he proclaimed the elevated principles of 
 his moral and religious revolution. As age succeeds age, and gen- 
 erations follow each other on the great world’s stage, his key will 
 continue to be used to open higher doors, leading into a nobler and 
 more elevated conception of the practical application ot his prin- 
 ciples to the every day affairs of human life. 
 
20 
 
 It is not very long ago since Columbus furnished the key of this 
 grand land of ours to the nations of the old world. That key was 
 forged in his great mind. He was able to see what none before 
 him had been able to perceive. Through much opposition from 
 the superstitious of his age, and through many difficulties, he 
 finally succeeded in opening the doors of this mighty Continent to 
 the crowded and time worn nationalities of all quarters of the 
 globe. Look at the stupendous results flowing from this concep- 
 tion in the brain of Columbus ! Many nations have been born 
 almost in a day. The greatest, most powerful and intelligent 
 nationality on earth has been brought into existence and grown 
 up here. But our loved Iowa, one of the grandest and the noblest 
 of the commonwealths composing it, is only a small part of the 
 vast and almost boundless territory. 
 
 About two hundred and sixty years ago, Gallileo invented the 
 first telescope. He furnished the key to our modern system of 
 astronomy. He opened to the human soul the doors of grandeur, 
 sublimity and immensity. The vast system of revolving worlds 
 composing our solar system — their immense magnitude — their 
 distance from each other — the rapidity of their motions — the per- 
 fect order and harmony exhibited in the working of the grand 
 machinery — open to our minds a tangible demonstration of the 
 infinite attributes of the Almighty, so overwhelmingly sublime 
 and magnificent as to be far beyond the grasp of our finite con- 
 ceptions. 
 
 Without the key provided by Gallileo, knowledge of modern 
 astronomy could not have had an existence. 
 
 But a short time ago Benjamin Franklin furnished the world 
 with the key to the Electric Telegraph, which Morse in our own 
 day has so well and so ably employed. Time and space are by its 
 use practically annihilated, so far as the transmission of human 
 thought is concerned. An idea conceived in the brain of any one 
 may be to-day transmitted in a moment to almost any portion of 
 the civilized world. Mountains and rivers, and even the great 
 ocean, form no barriers to the Electric Telegraph. To-day the 
 thoughts of human minds are traveling on the wings of the light- 
 ning in the deepest and almost fathomless recesses of the Atlantic 
 
21 
 
 Ocean. Where no human eye can penetrate, and where no 
 human voice can ever be heard, the silent, yet speaking thoughts 
 of man’s soul finds a sure and uninterupted highway. 
 
 Thomas Jefferson, in the immortal declaration of American 
 Independence, first furnished to civilization the key to a true 
 system of human government. The great idea of the equality of 
 human rights had never before formed the basis of any system 
 erected among men. It is true, Republics had risen and fallen, 
 but none were ever based on the great central idea of the declara- 
 tion of American Independence. To-day we are only yet using 
 the key which Jefferson furnished, and are opening up more fully 
 the doors of human brotherhood. We have all reason to thank 
 Almighty God that our own glorious— because good — State stands 
 foremost of all the world in her authoritative practical recognition 
 of the enobling truth. 
 
 These are only a very few specimens of the innumerable keys of 
 knowledge that have been from age to age presented to the human 
 race. In the coming future, as in the past, we may expect new 
 ones will be furnished, that will be used, to open wide the doors 
 leading into God’s great and infinite library of useful knowledge. 
 We may expect that the ever aspiring mind will continue to 
 advance in acquiring a knowledge of all that pertains to its hap- 
 piness in this and in all worlds. 
 
 Mr. President : In the presentation of these keys to you, Sir, as 
 the first President of this young institution, I would say, on behalf 
 of the Board of Trustees and the State of Iowa, that we gladly 
 confide them to your keeping. We believe we have found in you 
 the man who will be able to make the Iowa Agricultural College 
 all that could be desired or expected of it. Hoping and trusting 
 that this institution in your hands — with the assistance of the able 
 and accomplished ladies and gentlemen who may be your asso- 
 ciates — will prove of incalculable benefit to the great industrial 
 community of our State ; hoping that the devolopement of the 
 practical industries will be kept in view as the leading idea 
 in all the instruction imparted here ; hoping that your success in 
 every respect will be satisfactory to all the people of this great 
 State — I now formally confide to your keeping the keys of this 
 magnificent building. 
 
INAUGURAL ADDRESS 
 
 OF HON. A. S. WELCH, PRESIDENT OF THE IOWA STATE AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE. 
 
 Gentlemen of the Board : — I accept this charter, and the accom- 
 paning keys and seal. I receive them as symbolizing the authority 
 you bestow and the confidence you repose in me. I thank you, 
 both on my own behalf and that of my associates, for the expres- 
 sions of regard toward us with which they are tendered. I appre- 
 ciate the greatness of the trust and the distinction it confers. 
 Beyond question I express the sentiment of my co-laborers, when 
 I say in managing the affairs of this important enterprise, we shall 
 look to you for encouragement and support, and to God for wis- 
 dom. You will find me always candid in the utterance of my own 
 views, but faithful and earnest in carrying out yours, when legally 
 expressed ; and as I now willingly take on myself the responsi- 
 bilities of the office of executive in this new enterprise, so will I, 
 as willingly resign them to another whenever it shall appear that 
 such action will best promote its interest and progress. 
 
 The opening of a new Institution of learning in a new State is 
 an event of no little significance. It proclaims that the period of 
 exclusive devotion to the animal wants is past, and that the period 
 in which the wants of the intellect successfully assert their claim 
 to public attention, has begun. The beginnings of these periods 
 in the olden time were separated from each other, by the interven- 
 tion of centuries. Slowly, laboriously, and with many partial 
 relapses, the savage tribes emerged from barbarism, and fused into 
 nations — and nations, when the industry and commerce of many 
 generations had produced comparative wealth and leisure, recog- 
 nizing tardily their own intellectual necessities, planted, at last, 
 the rude germs that have since, as the centuries revolved, grown 
 into the great Universities of Europe. 
 
23 
 
 But modern science and art have wonderfully quickened, nay, 
 even reversed, the succession of those typical events which 
 marked, in long intervals, the progress of nations. No longer does 
 learning await the culmination of material prosperity. The rail- 
 road no longer follows, but leads civilization. The shriek of the 
 whistle startles the wild bison of the plains. Telegraph wires span 
 the wilderness. The cottage of the first settler and the school house 
 stand where the plough has hardly yet broken the virgin soil. A 
 magnificent structure devoted to industrial science, rising towards 
 heaven with its noble towers, is finished, furnished, and peopled 
 with students, ere the seventh harvest is gathered. The college 
 and the new orchard are planted side by side, and will ripen their 
 fruits together. Here the eras of toil and of culture, once separated 
 by a century, are blended into one. Learning and labor, leaping 
 the gulf that lay between, have joined hands, each lending aid and 
 dignity to the other. 
 
 Such, my friends, are the startling events which give significance 
 to the hour in which we dedicate these halls to the progress of 
 industrial science. But scarcely of less interest than the novel 
 events that distinguished the opening of this new institution, is the 
 fact that the plan of organization which we have adopted, commits 
 it to the promotion of two great and salutary educational reforms. 
 
 One of these is the withdrawal of the ancient classics from the 
 place of honor which they have largely held in our college curri- 
 cula, and the liberal substitution of those branches of natural 
 science which underlie the industries of this beautiful State. 
 
 The other is the free admission of young women, on equal 
 terms with young men, to all the privileges and honors which the 
 institution can bestow. 
 
 It is fitting that a college, dedicated under circumstances which 
 find scarcely a parallel in history, should, regardless of precedent 
 however honored by time, establish its laws and arrange its courses 
 of study on the principles of wisdom and justice. Of wisdom, in 
 determining that the learning gathered in these halls shall con- 
 tribute to the success and dignity of labor. Of justice, in extend- 
 ing to a large class of students opportunities of which they have 
 been hitherto, in great measure unjustly deprived. 
 
24 
 
 The occasion will warrant the giving of the hour to such in 
 elucidation of these two reforms as will present concisely their 
 nature, scope, value and purpose. 
 
 The question as to the comparative worth of the different 
 branches of knowledge, is one of vital moment to the progress of 
 education. The values of every branch of knowledge spring 
 from two different sources : 
 
 1st. Its effectiveness as a means of intellectual discipline. 
 
 2nd. The degree of its adaptation to further the interests and 
 employments of life. 
 
 It seems singular that the learned world has hitherto held that 
 discipline is an invariable resultant from the acquisition of knowl- 
 edge, and that each branch of knowledge confers, of necessity, an 
 increase of intellectual power peculiar to itself in quality and kind. 
 As well might one say that the anvil gives brawn to the arm of 
 the blacksmith, whereas it is the exertion of continually repeated 
 blows alone that lends hardness and power to the muscle. In like 
 manner it is not the knowledge acquired, but the protracted strain 
 of the intellect in the act of acquiring it that brings intellectual 
 strength and acuteness. Disciplined power is the consequence that 
 flows, not from the matter studied, but from the manner of study- 
 ing it. Given any science whose classifications are wide and phil- 
 osophical, and whose deductions are logical and rigid, and it 
 becomes a sure occasion of genuine descipline only when the stu- 
 dent masters its difficulties by an intense, long continued, absorb- 
 ing, all-conquering effort. No matter what objects any science or 
 literature presents to the senses — no matter how countless the facts 
 is furnished for memory to gather, or how complicated the prob- 
 lems to be analyzed and solved, it never did and never will impart 
 one iota of valuable strength to the idler who dandles and drones 
 over its pages. On the other hand, whether the subject of study 
 be mathematical or linguistic, metaphysical or scientific, if its 
 abstruse processes be met with a determined grapple that never 
 relaxes until it overthrows the obstacle, then an accession of intel- 
 lectual power will be the inevitable result. 
 
 If the view we have taken be correct, the gaining of disciplined 
 ability depends more on the teacher who inculcates the method and 
 mode of acquiring, than upon the science that supplies the facts to 
 
25 
 
 be acquired, and far more on tlie pupil than on either. Trained 
 faculties, which under the impulsions of the will, concentrate with 
 resistless energy, constitute one of the elements of greatness. They 
 are the offspring of the severest toil, protracted for years, and they 
 are in the possession of those men only who are most terribly in 
 earnest. It matters little whether such men are in the Cabinet or 
 in the field, whether they build cities or railroads, whether they 
 engage in large mercantile or large agricultural operations — it is 
 in every case the steady systematic toil which, while it accom- 
 plishes the outward object, gives disciplined power to the toiler. 
 
 Do all studies furnish equally, then, the incentives to that sus- 
 tained and concentrated application that ultimates in disciplined 
 intellectual energy ? Certainly not. All studies are not equally 
 full in the matter they embody — not equally complete and com- 
 prehensive in the classifications they exhibit — not equally per- 
 fect in their methods or reasoning. The kind of matter, whether 
 words, or qualities, or things, is of far less importance as furnishing 
 occasions for systematic effort, than the variety and completeness 
 of generalizations and deductions. For example, local geog- 
 raphy, whose matter has great variety, fails to induce the severe 
 study whose effect is discipline, because of its defective classification ; 
 while arithmetic, whose matter has no variety, but whose methods 
 are systematic, is an excellent stimulant to consecutive thought. 
 In mathematics, in language and in science, are found many branch- 
 es which answer the conditions on which a habit of intense study 
 may bo formed, but in the whole catalogue of studies none meet 
 these conditions so completely as the Natural Sciences. Tho vast 
 variety of beautiful objects they offer to the eye, at once attracts 
 and rivets tho attention. The immense vocabulary which their 
 nomenclature has made, can never be compassed without a power- 
 ful exertion that renders the memory ready and retentive. Their 
 wide and exhaustive classification, and their innumerable exam- 
 ples of the inductive and deductive processes of reasoning, keep 
 the reflective faculties in a state of constant tension. On the mere 
 question of providing for a superior discipline, havo we not acted 
 wisely in compelling the old-time studies of Latin and Greek to 
 give place to Modern Science ? 
 
 4 
 
26 
 
 But there are various kinds of discipline which differ widely 
 from each other in value and purpose. There Is a kind of dis- 
 cipline that stands aloof from the busy industries, that isolates its 
 possessor from the sympathies and activities of those around him ; 
 a kind of culture that expends itself wholly on the dead Past, and 
 disdains to soil its delicate fingers by contact with the realities of 
 the living Present. Give us rather, in unstinted measure, that 
 genuine culture that prepares the student to harmonize with and 
 help the toiling multitude. Let every earnest youth strive for the 
 attainment of that sort of intellectual power which, while it pre- 
 pares him for the duties of the citizen, will enable him to do 
 thoroughly and well his special work in the world. No real dis- 
 cipline is absolutely without value ; but that alone is of the highest 
 worth which, in this brief and busy life, fits the worker for the 
 work that lies before him. The visual practice which the sailor, 
 of necessity, gets upon the seas, trains his eye to perceive with 
 quickness and accuracy objects which are far beyond the reach of 
 ordinary vision ; and this peculiar perceptive power is far more de- 
 sirable to him than any ability to discriminate minute objects which 
 are near at hand. The discipline that enables the literary antiqua- 
 rian to decypher the hieroglyphics of Egypt, is of special moment 
 to him ; but for me, who am no antiquarian, it is far better to 
 attain the power to speak and write English with ease and correct- 
 ness. There is no training so needfull as the habit of mind gained 
 from studying the laws involved in the very enterprise to which 
 one’s life is to be given. If you would become efficient, all-power- 
 ful, in the art or profession you are to follow, master the principles 
 on which it rests. You will find them numerous and broad enough 
 for all the hours which this short life will give you outside of 
 actual toil. The requisite preparation for the practice of an art is 
 to be found only in the study of the science which underlies it. 
 In the dissecting room, by actual practice of the hand and the 
 eye, must the surgeon attain the skill and the coolness which liis 
 vocation demands. In the studying of law, common, civil, and 
 statutory, in the mastering theoretically of the rules of evidence 
 and the practice of courts, must the lawyer find something of the 
 legal acuteness necessarily antecedent to successful practice. 
 
27 
 
 Whence comes the marvelous power of the naturalist to observe 
 and to classify, except from persistent labor in the museum, the 
 laboratory, or the field? True, it is essential that the tyro should 
 come to these studies with a previous discipline ; but it is neces- 
 sary that such discipline should be precisely adapted to the pur- 
 pose in question. A knowledge of the Greek accents and of 
 heathen mythology does not induce quite the tone of mind which 
 is preparatory to the study of horticulture, or mining, engineering, 
 or to the handling of the surveyor’s compass. Nor, indeed, on the 
 other hand, would an extended course in astronomy eventuate in 
 the intellectual status most suitable to the study of law. The 
 simple truth is, that there is no science or language which will 
 serve as a mental gymnastic for all pursuits and professions, or a 
 panacea for all intellectual ills. How much of precious time and 
 precious opportunity has been worse than wasted, because this fact 
 has never been recognized ! A genuine discipline preparatory to 
 any special professional study, can be derived only from the 
 mastery of those branches most nearly related to it ; those 
 branches whose truths it involves and employs. Thus Mathe- 
 matics is the natural gymnastic preparatory to the physical 
 sciences, specially those which classify the laws of force. Latin 
 and Greek give the habit of thought proper to the pursuit of 
 philology. 
 
 It it be objected that this principle, rigidly followed, would 
 destroy the symmetry of a broad and graceful culture, the reply is 
 at hand. Let the student add to the sciences special to his purpose 
 in life, those sciences which embrace his duties to society and to 
 his country. Political enconomy, social science, commercial and 
 constitutional law, and moral philosophy, are a harmonious and 
 beautiful group ; and if we combine with these our own language 
 and literature, we have variety enough with which earnestness of 
 study can preserve the desirable breadth and balance of culture. 
 
 To sum it all up in a single sentence, we want a discipline 
 which will avail in the work w r e have in hand — the intellectual 
 and moral strength that will enable us to do that work thoroughly 
 and well. 
 
 Such are the reasons by which we have been guided in arrang- 
 
28 
 
 ing the courses of study for the various departments of the Iowa 
 Agricultural College. Earnest work for earnest students ; work 
 which in every case will serve, by the peculiar culture it brings, 
 as a special introduction to the greater work that lies in the world 
 outside. 
 
 But if the various branches which compose our curricula can 
 claim so high a merit simply as intellectual gymnastics, how much 
 higher the rant they hold when measured by the standard of their 
 comparative usefullness ; in other words, by the degree in which, 
 compared with many other branches of knowledge, they con- 
 tribute to the welfare and prosperity of the human race. The 
 criterion by which such a judgment is reached, can be appreciated 
 by the humblest capacity. Clearly, those knowledges arc worth 
 the most which contribute to supply wants that are universal and at 
 the same time most immediate aud urgent. Hot the knowledge that 
 carries our thoughts and sympathies away from real life, to dwell 
 among imaginary deities who conversed languages which are now 
 extinct ; not the knowledge that renders the student an indifferent 
 spectator on the stage where toil and suffer the busy millions, but 
 the knowledge that brings him into closer communion and fellow- 
 ship with his kin'd, the knowledge that renders him strong to help 
 every enterprise, to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, restore the 
 sick, and crown each revolving year with plenty, is of highest 
 value. All sciences are of value, but those sciences are of most 
 value which answer the demands of universal philanthropy. 
 
 We offer you, then, young gentlemen and ladies, as subjects of 
 study, those sciences that classify the forces whoso action brings 
 prosperity to man ; the sciences that have covered the land with a 
 net-work of railroads, that have stretched the telegraph wires from 
 continent to continent, that have connected a thousand cities, and 
 blended them into one. We offer you the sciences that system- 
 atize whatever of beauty or use the eye gathers in its visual range, 
 that develope the subtle processes by which the dead mould is 
 changed into the marketable product, and that reveal in innumer- 
 able instances God’s unfailing love to his creatures. We offer you 
 for intellectual nutrition the sciences that are most effectual for 
 general culture, most valuable for the special discipline which will 
 
* 29 
 
 fit you for your future work, and most conducive to the welfare 
 and progress of the world. 
 
 The intense earnestness of soul that springs from a hungering 
 and thirsting for knowledge, must do the rest. 
 
 EDUCATION OF WOMEN. 
 
 The great obstacle to all reform is prejudice. It is, indeed, the 
 agency through which the Arch Fiend strives with most effect to 
 stay the progress of the human race. It fetters the intellect, and 
 subjects the rays of truth to a thousand aberrations. It sharpens 
 the passions, checks every nobler impulse, crushes all generous and 
 liberal sympathies, and, Gorgon-like, turns the heart of man to 
 stone. It is the prolific parent of obstinacy, bigotry, cruelty, and 
 hate. It eulogizes contentment as the highest of virtues, and 
 shudders at innovation as the greatest of sins. It levels its invec- 
 tive, not at the individual according to his merits or demerits, but 
 against class, and race, and sex. Timid, incredulous, taking 
 counsel of fear, it strains at every gnat, and makes a mountain of 
 every mole-hill that lies in the way of attainable good. 
 
 It is this narrow spirit that has in all ages arrayed its serried 
 hosts against every advance of humanity towards a better state. 
 But though it has retarded and baffled for a time the progress of 
 justice and truth, it has never wholly paralyzed it. In the very 
 constitution of man’s nature, in its great underlying laws, it is 
 written that no grand idea or noble impulse can ever be lost, even 
 though all the powers of death and darkness unite to destroy it. 
 
 “ Truth crushed to earth will rise again— 
 
 The otornal years of God are her’s ” 
 
 From the beginning of the world to the end, there have been 
 and will be, men whose chief mission in life is to doubt and decry 
 every movement from the bad to the better. They scoffed at 
 Noah, yet the Ark rode upon the waters, and the race was saved. 
 They gave the poison to Socrates, but his philosophy lives, and 
 will live to the end of time. They imprisoned Gallileo, but could 
 
30 
 
 not stifle one accent of the truths he discovered. They derided the 
 Baconian philosophy as unworthy and vulgar, yet the Bacohian 
 philosophy has given to modern science, art, and industry, all 
 their wonderful triumphs. They proclaimed the African an inferior 
 race— doomed him, therefore, as the proper victim of a terrible 
 wrong, and fastened his fetters with links of steel ; but in God’s 
 good time his fetters broke like brittle glass, and he walked 
 forth, conscious, in all the new ecstacy of freedom, that though 
 his body and soul were scarred with the cruelty of oppression— 
 for all that, a man is a man. 
 
 And now, I hesitate not to affirm, that those who would check 
 with authority, or stifle with ridicule, the movement now making 
 to enlarge the field of woman’s education, and consequently of her 
 activities, seem to be actuated by a similar spirit. Just here, I beg 
 that I may be clearly understood. With those who concede to 
 woman rights equal with man’s in respect to higher education, but 
 differ with me in respect to the means of attaining it, I have no con- 
 troversy. Every enterprise which has for its object the elevation 
 of woman by widening the range of her intellectual attainments, 
 shall have my hearty sympathy. But I have neither sympathy 
 nor patience with the opinion so often expressed, that the educa- 
 tional wants of woman are already met ; that (taste and propriety 
 forbid to her the acquirement of profound learning or professional 
 skill ; that the idea of her invasion of the precincts of the college 
 and the professional school, hitherto sacred to man alone, and her 
 consequent admission to professional practice in actual life, are in 
 a high degree offensive to genuine delicacy. But is such delicacy 
 genuine ? Is it not rather contracted, capricious, and false ? Can 
 that delicacy be genuine which closes for woman the avenues to 
 honorable distinction, withholds food from the craving soul, and 
 condemns her in a thousand instances to a life of trifles? Can 
 that be true taste which, regardless of the wide range of her intel- 
 lectual and moral capacities, inflexibly assigns her place as the 
 puppet of the parlor or the drudge of the kitchen ? 
 
 It is true that the enjoyments and comforts of home, whether 
 lofty or lowly, are, when hallowed by affection, the most precious 
 of earthly possessions. It is true that woman is the natural 
 
♦ 
 
 31 
 
 guardian of these treasures, the priestess in this sacred temple, 
 the preserver and promoter of domestic joys and virtues ; but is 
 this all of human life to her ? Dignified and indispensable as are 
 the domestic duties, who does not know that there are mulitudes 
 of women to whom they do not furnish employment, and multi- 
 tudes more whose intellectual needs they do not fully supply ? In 
 the wide variety of our mental and moral wants, is written, without 
 distinction of sex, “man cannot live by bread alone.’’ 
 
 But grant, for the moment, that home occupations and the 
 stinted measure of other employments which public opinion now 
 yields to woman, are ample enough — where are the facilities for 
 an education which would adequately prepare her for even these? 
 Only four institutions in this broad land teach to girls the theory 
 and practice of housekeeping, and the various handicrafts con- 
 nected therewith, and not one furnishes any systematic instruction 
 in the higher and holier duties appertaining to the mother and 
 the wife. 
 
 But let us submit this question to the test of a genuine philo- 
 sophy. Let us settle it, not by the ever-varying standard of a 
 capricious taste, not by notions of propriety, "which are spurious 
 and fickle, but by the decisions of an inflexible logic. 
 
 First, then, it is universally recognized as an axiom in education, 
 that every human being has a natural right to the free exercise 
 and complete development of every power which God has implant- 
 ed in his or her mind. Not on the wide earth can there be found 
 one man or woman who does not inherit this inestimable right — 
 not one who does not hold it by a tenure as unquestionable as that 
 by which he possesses the faculties of his own soul. 
 
 In this great truth lies the very essence of a rational freedom. 
 Take from an intelligent creature, of whatever sex or race, the pow- 
 er of free thought, free investigation, and free speech in all the di- 
 rections in which intelligence may legitimately act, and in iso far 
 you reduce that creature to a condition of intellectual bondage, for 
 which neither social enjoyments nor material pleasures can ever 
 compensate. Not the least of all the wrongs inflicted by the 
 harem of the East and the plantation of the South, was that each 
 condemned its victims to the degradation of perpetual ignorance. 
 
32 
 
 If, then, the mental powers with which humanity is endowed, in- 
 clude, in the laws which govern their activity, the right to unlim- 
 ited culture and growth, it follows that we must accord to woman 
 facilities for education equal and identical with those of man, un- 
 less it can he shown that her faculties of mind differ from his eith- 
 er in their nature or number. That the mental capacities of wo- 
 man are the same in number with tlioso of man, it is idle to deny. 
 But if there be found one who embraces so absurd a theory, let 
 him name tlio particular element in her mental organization which 
 is wanting. Can she not see, and hear, and smell, and taste ? Does 
 she not apprehend and analyze, abstract and imagine, classify, 
 generalize, judge and reason? Does she not experience all the 
 countless shades and undulations of feeling ? And are her desires 
 and energies of will less numerous or less powerful than yours, my 
 ancient friend ? Clearly no argument against giving her the wi- 
 dest range of choice as to the means of her own culture, can rest for 
 a moment on so singular a basis. And the only other ground on 
 which it can find the semblance of a foothold, is the assumption 
 that the faculties and feelings of woman’s mind stand in such rela- 
 tion to each other in their natural growth as to constitute, by the 
 predominance of some over others, what are called the character- 
 istics of the sex. It is asserted, for example, that woman is the 
 creature of impulse ; that in the affairs of life her decisions spring 
 from sympathy rather than from judgment ; that her objects of 
 thought are individual things rather than classes, and that she is 
 incapable of the wide generalization which perceives a law in 
 every event, a principle in every fact. 
 
 But these characteristics belong to those women only whose ed- 
 ucation is defective and narrow, and who have been confined all 
 their lives long, to a limited range of observation and experience. 
 And they belong, to a large extent, also, to men who, with a similar 
 lack of culture, have lived under similar conditions. The simple 
 truth is that a predominance of the emotions over judgment and 
 reason, is, in cither sex, the offspring of ignorance or injudicious 
 training, and the more need have we of such a system of education 
 as shall, in all cases, restore the lost balance. 
 
 It is pertinent to the subject to dwell briefly on the real mental 
 
33 
 
 distinctions manifested by women as peculiar to the sex. The en- 
 quiry is subtle and difficult, but not wholly beyond solution. That 
 there are certain qualities of mind, which, outside of the influence of 
 education, belong to woman as woman, I cannot for a moment 
 deny. The great problem is to distinguish what is innate from 
 what is the result of her peculiar position and life-long surround- 
 ings. It appears to me that the original difference in the mental 
 characteristics peculiar to woman, lies not so much in any contrast 
 of her intellectual powers with those of man, as the greater natural 
 strength of certain instinctive emotions. For example, what in 
 man is simple love of offspring, is intensified in woman to that in- 
 expressible yearning called the maternal instinct. How beautiful 
 this provision which nature has made for the preservation of the 
 race. How few would survive the innumerable dangers, the 
 pains, diseases, and restless wants of infancy, were it not for the un- 
 tiring watchfulness of a mother’s love. No human being could 
 reach maturity but for the sacrifices which a mother’s devotion in- 
 stinctively makes. “When a mother doth forget her child, men 
 lift their hands and cry ‘A prodigy ! ’ ” She is the preserver of the 
 race. 
 
 Another radical distinction of the sex, is a quicker susceptibility 
 in childhood to moral impressions. Girls appreciate earlier and 
 more readily than boys the boundaries of right and wrong ; as 
 though God had declared in the superior delicacy of conscience he 
 gives to woman, that she should bo the guardian of the public 
 virtue. 
 
 The only original difference of intellectual power consequent 
 upon sex, that I have been able to perceive in years of observation, 
 is the earlier activity and quickness of girls in the growth of their 
 perceptive faculties. This earlier development of the sex, how- 
 ever, furnishes no foundation for reasonable doubt as to her com- 
 parative intellectual strength. 
 
 Gathering up the shreds of our argument thus far, we have found, 
 I trust, that woman is endowed with all the mental elements — with 
 faculties, feelings, desires, volitions, equal in number and identical 
 in kind, with those of man — but that nature has superadded to these 
 the sexual distinctions of superior delicacy of conscience, an 
 5 
 
34 
 
 earlier maturity of intellect, and greater intensity of parental 
 affection. 
 
 Can there he found in all this any valid basis for an opinion that 
 the education assigned to her by public opinion, is adequate to her 
 full intellectual and moral developement ? Does not the keener 
 moral perception, the stronger instinct, the earlier activity of in- 
 tellect, constitute a reason even for a more complete and careful 
 culture ? Certainly the higher the endowment the greater the 
 necessity for its discipline, and the more terrible the consequences 
 that flow from its perversion and abuse. 
 
 If to woman has been entrusted, by virtue of her organization, 
 the care of infancy, the training of childhood, and in a certain 
 sense the guardianship of the public morals, what wonders for the 
 advancement of society might she not accomplish if she were fitted 
 for these duties by a wide and generous cultivation ? 
 
 These three qualities, which find naturally a higher manifesta- 
 tion in woman, are the only mental characteristics which divide 
 the sexes. All other differences in character, power, habit, man- 
 ner, and language, which are observable in real life, result, I verily 
 believe, from the wider opportunities for observation and intel- 
 lectual attainments, the graver responsibilities, the weightier and 
 more numerous public enterprises that are accorded to man. Men 
 monopolize almost all the learning of the world. Men perform 
 those labors of original research which result in the discoveries of 
 science. Men are the authors of the masterpieces which become 
 standards in thought and style. Men produce, mainly, those won- 
 derful creations of fancy which find expression in poetry, painting, 
 sculpture, and music. Men have perfected the inventions by 
 which steam and electricity have so changed the conditions and 
 multiplied the events of modern life. Men engross the skill and 
 success in trades and handicrafts. Men occupy mainly the pulpit 
 and the rostrum. Men wear the judicial robes, fill the editorial 
 chairs, and men deposit the ballot. But does all this show on the 
 part of woman any inferiority of intellectual endowment? Can 
 natural capacity avail if opportunity be wanting ? Is not learn- 
 ing the fruit of steady and protracted application ? Is not artistic 
 skill the reward of persistent and long continued practice ? Are 
 

 
 
 35 
 
 not invention and discovery preceded by life-long investigations ? 
 
 Does the editor, the orator, or the judge, spring into life in full 
 panoply ? And has society ever given to woman the advantages 
 which encourage application, and practice, and investigation, of 
 which learning, and artistic skill, and original discovery, are the 
 
 results ? 
 
 On the contrary the doors of colleges, and unviersities, and pro- 
 fessional schools, have been closed and double barred at her ap- 
 proach. The savans raise their hands with horror at the idea of 
 giving to her any general admission to the higher walks of 
 philosophy and science. Public Opinion, that terrible tyrant, has 
 declared that her highest intellectual longings must be satisfied 
 with the fripperies and superficial mummeries of the boarding 
 school. Society proclaims that intellectual greatness is incompati- 
 ble with feminine beauty and grace, and that the attainment of 
 the one is the sure sacrifice of the other ; — as though grace and 
 beauty were not naturally heightened by the accession of genuine 
 power. True, she has gained an insecure foothold in certain 
 departments of literature, and has attained, in numerous instances, 
 to eminence — especially in fiction and poetry — but she comes to 
 these even without adequate preparation, trammeled by the popu- 
 lar demand that she shall handle her topics with a gingerly and 
 delicate touch, and not by any means presume to write like a man. 
 
 Now, any class, male or female, is apt to accept quietly its 
 position in the framework of society, whether rightly or wrongly 
 assigned to it, and very few, either of men or women, have the 
 hardihood to pass the limit where the general sentiment com- 
 mands, with inflexible sternness, “ thus far shalt thou go and no 
 farther.” Give to any class of men, for example, an inferior political 
 status — deprive them for generations of all participation in the 
 affairs of government — take away all stimulation to wide and 
 comprehensive thinking, and let the nation demand of them the 
 labor of the muscle alone, and they will answer the necessities of 
 their condition by becoming ignorant, stolid and muscular. That 
 is, they respond, with few exceptions, to the general expectation 
 and desire, believing of themselves what the world believes of 
 them. “Possunt quia posse videntur.” 
 
 
/ 
 
 
 
 36 
 
 Now, the world has assigned to woman her place, which she 
 has submissively accepted. It has accorded to her a high social 
 rank, and she has responded by becoming man’s social superior, 
 deciding for him all questions of social propriety. It has demanded 
 of her a high aesthetic culture, and she meets the demand by a 
 keener discernment of whatever is tasteful, and beautiful, and ap- 
 propriate. Offensive epithets and rough language rarely pass her 
 lips, and in her presence the unseemly jest and the rude oath are 
 
 nushea. 
 
 But the world, while it yields to woman great social considera- 
 tion, and a sincere deference in matters of taste and propriety, 
 withholds from her all incitements to great intellectual effort ; 
 gives her no voice in settling questions of public utility, no share 
 in those graver responsibilities that strain every energy to its 
 utmost. It requires that she should be man’s help-meet only in 
 the lower phases of life. It demands her constant presence in the 
 sick room, but shudders if she attempts to write the prescription 
 or handle the scalpel. It demands her attendance at the chapel, 
 but excludes her from the pulpit, and piously winces when her 
 prayers become audible. 
 
 To all this woman has yielded assent — has, in general, accepted 
 the sphere which society assigns her — a sphere which in many in- 
 stances cramps her usefulness, by forbidding her the labors for 
 which she is best fitted, and by confining her to employments for 
 which she has no adaptation, depriving society, in many individual 
 cases, of great ability, by turning it into uncongenial channels, 
 and compelling it to expend itself upon comparative trifles. 
 
 Such are the obstacles which prejudice has, from time imme- 
 morial, set up to the possession by woman of that complete liberty 
 of choice in culture and pursuit which is claimed and exercised 
 by man. The paths which popular applause open to us, attract 
 multitudes of, willing feet, but the adamantine walls of popular 
 prejudice — how few have the courage to scale ! 
 
 Yet this wall has been scaled by women enough to prove that 
 judgment, which places her sex on a plane of intelligence lower 
 than man, to be fallacious, however sanctioned by time. 
 
 Women have been found in all ages, who, evenjwithout special 
 
 
 
 
37 
 
 preparation, and against the prejudices of their times, have won 
 their way to eminence in all those branches of literature, art and 
 science that lead to the advancement of civilization. Madame 
 De Stael was hardly inferior to Voltaire and Rosseau as a vigorous 
 writer and thinker. Madame Roland, an ardent republican and a 
 woman of wonderful power, was the leader of a celebrated politi- 
 cal club during the terrible times of the French Revolution. Joan 
 of Arc, a peasant girl, led the army of the French to victory, and 
 saved the kingdom from destruction. Aspasia, of the classic 
 period, was the most eloquent of orators. Anna Dickinson now 
 enjoys a similar distinction. Miss Mitchell is reckoned among the 
 most profound of astronomers. Few have made greater attain- 
 ments than Mrs. Somerville in physical sciences. Among painters, 
 Rosa Bonheur is distinguished — among sculptors, Harriet Hosmer 
 — among poets, Mrs. Hemans, Mrs. Sigourney and Mrs. Browning. 
 Charlotte Bronte and Harriet Beecher Stowe stand high as writers 
 of fiction, and the latter has done more probably than any other 
 writer towards effecting the extinction of American slavery. As 
 monarchs, Elizabeth of England, and Isabella of Arragon, are 
 prominent on the pages of history. As a missionary, Mrs. Judson 
 is reverenced throughout Christendom. As a preacher, Antoinette 
 Brown holds an honored place. Mary Lyon was at the head of 
 her profession as a teacher, while for her services to our soldiers 
 as a surgeon, Mary Walker has received the thanks of Congress. 
 
 But why should I attempt to enumerate the numerous instan- 
 ces in which women, without help of the institutions of learning 
 open only to men, and by dint of their own energy alone, have 
 risen above the level of mediocrity to help the onward progress 
 of the world. Mrs. Hale, in a dictionary of distinguished women — 
 has gathered 2,500 names honored by history in science, art, litera- 
 ture, philosophy, politics, government, philanthropy, and religion. 
 And if woman has done so much in a public capacity, outside the 
 sphere allotted to her by common consent, and unaided by schools 
 of preparation which men enjoy, how much more of public good 
 might she not accomplish if these agencies were in her favor? 
 This long roll of distinguished names proclaims what she can do, 
 and all we ask is that she should have unlimited access to every 
 
88 
 
 existing facility for education, so that what she can do she may be 
 enabled to do well. Overthrow every obstacle, level every barrier, 
 whether of prejudice or of custom, to the dust ; welcome her to 
 every institution of learning, to all employments and professions, 
 high or low, which she may choose to enter. Make her man’s 
 equal in all privileges and pursuits, and let her choice and capaci- 
 ty decide the rest. Be assured that learning, culture, high intelli- 
 gence and taste, left to their own impulses, undisturbed by the 
 fears and crotchets of men, will not go far astray, Nor will a wider 
 education prove, as some apprehend, a hindrance, but rather a help, 
 to the prosperity and happiness of the homes over which most 
 women will be called to preside. For knowledge lends a salutary 
 influence to every condition of life, and especially will a more 
 discriminating judgment and wider views enable the mother to 
 act well her part in managing the household, and in the delicate 
 task of moulding the characters of her children into permanent 
 forms of goodness and truth. 
 
 Nor need we on the other hand give heed to the suggestion 
 that an enlarged intelligence will divert the attention of women 
 from the interests and employments of domestic life. Beyond 
 question these are the employments to which her sympathies nat- 
 urally and usually point. Among her increased facilities for 
 scientific instruction, should stand prominent the study of domestic 
 economy. Such special preparation, added to general culture, will 
 dignify these duties, render their performance easier and more sys- 
 tematic, and leave time for healthful recreation and rest. Those 
 who leave these pursuits, which, guided by cultivated capacity, 
 beatify and beautify the home, will be exceptional cases, compelled 
 by exceptional causes, or prompted by exceptional abilities. To 
 the wider, grander work, that such may do for the world, let us 
 extend the means for thorough preparation. 
 
 Nor have we ground to fear that an extended programme of 
 studies, unlimited opportunities for self discipline, and the result- 
 ing reception of woman into the vocations, professions, and public 
 enterprises hitherto monopolized by men, will at all detract from 
 the delicacy of feeling and modesty of manner which are among 
 her chief attractions. For she is, as we have said before, by reason 
 
 
 
L 
 
 39 
 
 of her quicker perceptions of right and propriety, the guardian of 
 public morality and virtue. Men living in associations isolated 
 from women, soon grow rough and coarse, become careless of the 
 proprieties of life, and rapidly degenerate in manners, and dress, 
 and language. Restore her salutary presence, and the roughness 
 and coarseness disappear, the manners are softened, the dress im- 
 proved, and language restricted to the forms of courtesy. The 
 schools whose -pupils are under the most wholesome restraint, are 
 those in which both sexes study and recite together. The excesses 
 and disorders of the ancient college can find no cure so radical 
 and certain as the admission of young women to its dusty halls. 
 
 Let American women join generally the gatherings in the 
 caucus and at the polls, and such gatherings would be as quiet and 
 free from confusion as the meetings she frequents in the church 
 and the lecture room. 
 
 As woman, by virtue of her superior morality, is largely absent 
 from all conspiracies for the commission of crime, as she far excels 
 man in personal purity, as four-fifths of murderers and felons, and 
 nine-tenths of all drunkards are of the masculine gender, let her, 
 in God’s name, be present to dignify every associated effort for the 
 promotion of public virtue, for the extension and security of 
 freedom, for the progress of learning, and for the happiness and 
 welfare of the world. 
 
 I have only to add, that in twenty-five years of personal obser- 
 vation in the charge of promiscuous schools, I have found the 
 female student fully equal to the male in capacity for thorough- 
 ness in any of the branches of study, whether common or higher. 
 In mathematics, in language, in philosophy and science, she 
 holds her way, “gradibus equis.” Unusual talents display them- 
 selves no oftener among boys than girls, and dullness, while it 
 furnishes its examples from both, is in fact peculiar to neither. 
 
 W e offer, then, to the young women who, from time to time, 
 shall resort to this College, a scope for scientific progress and re- 
 search as unlimited and free as that which we offer to the other sex : 
 
 1st. Because all the faculties of the human mind have, 
 without respect to gender, a natural, unquestionable right to dis- 
 cipline and develop ement. 
 
40 
 
 2d. Because the duties of motherhood, to which God has ap- 
 pointed her, require, for their complete performance, a wide and 
 cultivated intelligence. 
 
 3d. Because general intellectual and moral culture will sanctify, 
 elevate and purify the influences of the home, and render it a 
 genuine school for the training of the future citizen. 
 
 4th. Because we would enable her to make provision for her 
 own self-support, by a special preparation, to engage in many 
 suitable employments on a footing equal with man, both as to the 
 skill and the remuneration of the worker. 
 
 5th. Because we would supply, as far as possible, one great 
 necessity to woman, namely, a means for the culture, and a field 
 for the action of peculiar talents, thus giving relief to the aimless- 
 ness of many lives, and adding many noble workers to the world. 
 
 6th. Because we would call all learning and culture to the aid 
 of woman in accomplishing her natural mission, the advancement 
 of general morality and virtue. 
 
 Gentlemen of the Faculty : 
 
 I cannot close without congratulating myself and the Trustees 
 on the high character of the men who are connected with me in 
 this philanthropic enterprise. For accomplishing the noble pur- 
 poses which these benevolent reforms embody, have you and I 
 received our commissions. The work is great — the reforms con- 
 templated are measurably new, and their wisdom is to be submit- 
 ted to the test of experiment. Upon our energy — our harmony 
 of counsel and action — our untiring patience and persistent effort, 
 will depend its success. Each of us has his special ability — his 
 special experience, which prepares him for his special work. 
 While we give our best endeavors to the specialties assigned us, 
 let us watch with Argus eyes the interests of the whole institu- 
 tion. 
 
 God give us faithfulness and devotion God give us mutual 
 confidence — mutual esteem, and mutual helpfulness. Thus shall 
 we be able to gather and concentrate all the elements of strength 
 we possess — and thus, with the Great Father’s blessing, will the 
 rolling years bring their full harvest of fruits. 
 
41 
 
 REPLY OF DR. TOWNSHEND. 
 
 Mr. President : — For my colleagues and myself I desire to 
 say that we feel deeply the responsibilities of the position to 
 which we have been called. I believe we are in more danger of 
 being crushed under a sense of their weight, than of failing to 
 recognize their importance. To you, sir, I feel warranted in say- 
 ing that the Faculty who have been chosen to share with you in 
 this enterprise, from what they have seen and what they have 
 learned of your experience and success as an educator, have the 
 fullest confidence in your ability to direct the studies of all the 
 youth that may assemble here, and to control all the affairs of this 
 institution, so as to insure its success. In all your work here we 
 pledge you our sympathy ; we purpose in all things to aid you 
 with warm hearts and willing hands. 
 
 To the Trustees and other friends of the institution, permit me 
 to say that we are fully in accord with the advanced position of 
 this school in regard to the course of study. We believe that the 
 physical and mathematical sciences, when acquired, are of more 
 practical value to all the industrial classes than the classics, and 
 in their acquisition are equally, or even more valuable as a 
 means of discipline and development. We are also in fullest 
 sympathy with the provision made here for the education of 
 woman. If man and woman were made to share equally the joys 
 and sorrows, the cares and trials of life ; if they must share equally 
 in the physical, mental and moral developement of succeeding 
 generations ; if woman is to be the consoler and comforter of man 
 in his sorest trials and afflictions, and if it is her duty to be his 
 prompter and inspirer in all that is pure and elevating, it is hard 
 to see why she does not need and deserve an equal education. 
 
 Permit me to say, also, that we are most heartily in sympathy 
 with the broad and unsectarian character of this institution. 
 While we regard a Christian gentleman as the highest style of man, 
 and will labor assiduously to aid our pupils in attaining that 
 standard, we cannot but express our gratification that the feet of 
 our pupils are not to be tortured or dwarfed by the Chinese shoe 
 of sectarian limitations. 
 
 6 
 
POEM, 
 
 j3 Y j^ROP. ji. yj. j^ARKER, OF JoWA pOLLEGE, 
 
 THE IDEAL FARMER AND HIS WIFE. 
 
 Tlie American Farmer — son of the Sun ! 
 Bronzed with a glow from its glory won ; 
 
 As free as the air it is heaven to inhale, 
 
 And strong as the steeds of the prairie gale ; 
 
 Lord of his castle and broad domain, 
 
 The herd his vassals, the flock his train, 
 
 And rich in the coin his granaries hoard, 
 
 He sits at the head of his bountiful board, 
 
 And laughs at the crowded world afar, 
 
 Buzzing with ceaseless commercial war. 
 
 Behold him at morn ! — his polished plow 
 Traces dark lines with its silver prow, 
 
 Writing the verse in alluvial mould 
 The summer shall print in letters of gold, 
 
 And set to the trill of the oriole’s tune. 
 
 Behold him' at rest in the languid noon, 
 
 Stretched on the grass and cooled by the breeze, 
 His kingly pavilion the glistening trees. 
 
 Behold him at eve ; — the evening his own, 
 Home-joys are his that to few are known ; 
 
 The russet is brought from his last year’s store ; 
 His fruity-faced children play on the floor, 
 
 And his wife, her cheek like orchard bloom, 
 
 Is the crown, the queen, of the cheerful room. 
 
 That mine of riches — that farmer’s wife ! 
 
 How busy and happy and proud her life ! 
 
 From her pans she “pans out” her rolls of gold, 
 
4:3 
 
 And her eggs are all nest-eggs of wealth untold ; 
 It tries not her patience to try out her lard, 
 
 And her lot, like her bread, is never hard ; 
 
 She knits her stockings, but never her brows, — 
 Gives the fowls a dressing, butmot her spouse. 
 Oh, busy and happy and proud the life 
 The farmer lives, and the farmer’s wife. 
 
 Is the picture too fair, too rosy its glow ? 
 Tell us, thou husbandman, John or Joe ! 
 
 What are thy musings the livelong day, 
 
 Or home returned in the twilight gray ? 
 
 What honest pride, what bliss of health, — 
 
 Of peace, content, what conscious wealth? 
 What converse with Nature? what hidden lore 
 Wiser than books, is it thine to explore ? 
 
 What science untaught, in schools unheard, 
 
 Of soil and plant, or of beast and bird ? 
 
 John — who is one of the rarer kind, 
 
 Sunny in heart and searching of mind, 
 
 Replies in few words ; “Ah, well do I know 
 Life’s flowers and briers commingled grow, 
 
 And man may pluck, if he so desires, 
 
 The flowers alone, or only the briers. 
 
 One thorn there is — I feel it in truth — 
 
 The lack of a studious habit in youth.” 
 
 Thus worthy John. Is he right — is it so ? 
 Come, give us thy mind, thou frequent Joe. 
 
 “Wal, now, I guess,” Joe answering says, 
 “A ruther hard time on’t the farmers hez; 
 There’s nuthin to think on but work and eat, 
 And arter his chores a man is dead beat ; 
 
 An’ there’s oilers bad luck a feller frets, 
 
 High price an’ low price, notes an’ debts, 
 
 An’ breachy critters, an’ losin’ a hoss, 
 
 An’ somehow the gain ’s no more ’an the loss. 
 
44 
 
 I was down with the rheumatiz May and J une, 
 
 An’ the seed wa’nt sown the right o’ the moon. 
 
 The sheep’s got foot-rot an’ market, is down, 
 
 An’ wheat I kept, hopin’ prices come ’roun’ ; 
 
 An’ wife, she is kind o’ droopin’ jest now, 
 
 An’ the chil’en took sick, I can’t tell how ; 
 
 I’m sartain we gin ’em plenty of pills, 
 
 But a bilious fever brings doctor’s bills. 
 
 Wal, honest folks — they must oilers work ; 
 
 It’s only your village sharpers can shirk.” 
 
 Thus J oe discourses : alas, how the real 
 Kicks over. the pail of the creamy ideal. 
 
 If Joe were honest, there still would be 
 Some milk remaining for poetry’s tea. 
 
 But he keeps, ’ tis said, the strippings apart 
 When he vends his milk by the pint or quart ; 
 There’s a tallow-faced hue in his butter and lard, 
 
 And his four-foot wood is cut — by the yard. 
 
 Is it then but a dream — this son of the soil, 
 
 Noble and wise in his primitive toil? 
 
 Hail, these fair halls ! ye teachers, hail ! 
 
 Hence shall go forth no sitters pale, 
 
 Brooding fine words, and those of an age 
 That has reached the hydrosulphuric stage, — 
 
 A diction not freshened by daily resort 
 Direct to the sea-side of Nature and Art. 
 
 None shall go hence, who, when they are “through,” 
 At a loss what the Lord has formed them to do, 
 
 Save longer to paddle in learning’s pool, 
 
 Must enter perforce a professional school. 
 
 But hither shall come and hence shall go 
 Youth who their earnest work shall know — 
 
 The farmer’s son and the artisan’s boy, 
 
 Whose father’s calling is honor and joy. 
 
 In mind and muscle strong and skilled, 
 
 By them our ideal shall grandly be filled — 
 

 
 45 
 
 The workman’s name be a name of pride, 
 
 By knowledge and character glorified. 
 
 True, from this vine in its verdant June, 
 
 Some “common branches” we may not prune. 
 
 Our mother-tongue will be cherished here, 
 
 And grandmother (gram-mar) held very dear, 
 
 So far as to teach that a man is a clown 
 
 Who hitches one horse to a plural noun ; 
 
 Is a Teuton profane with too many a “got ” ; 
 
 Avows he’s a toper in saying “I sot,” 
 
 Is “a settin” what ? traps ? when he sits, 
 
 And that verbal murder, “I done it,” commits. 
 
 For the rest we may hope that here the young 
 
 Will begin, not “commence,” the Saxon tongue ; 
 
 And that Mother Nature will find a place 
 
 As broad and fair as her beaming face, — 
 
 Will be seated near the sovereign throne 
 
 Which He — the Great Teacher— may claim alone. 
 
 The ticking pendulum of rhyme 
 
 Measures too soon my share of time. 
 
 The prosy people — let them flow 
 
 Like hour-glass sand — as dry and slow ; 
 
 My “winding up” shall not be found 
 
 A clock that runs the more ’tis wound. 
 
 Would there were time the life to trace 
 
 Of one complete, who leaves this place 
 
 To sow his knowledge with his seed, 
 
 And reap far more than mortal meed. 
 
 What if his corn be not increased ? 
 
 He is a mind — a man — at least, — 
 
 Not a machine like that he rides, 
 
 Not like the plodding horse he guides ; 
 
 He reads in plant and soil and sun 
 
 Wonders undreamed by Solomon. 
 
 
 
46 
 
 Or might we track his after course, 
 Who ponders here the laws of Force. 
 
 He sees in every breath of steam 
 Shot from yon mill, a cloudy stream, 
 
 A mammoth power dissolved in air. 
 
 He builds a township laundry there, 
 
 And frees the world — its hapless wife — 
 From bondage to the plague of life. 
 
 But who the happy change may guess 
 When women takes her proud B. S.* ? 
 Smile not ! She is in nature’s plan 
 Chemist and doctor to every man. 
 
 Shall she, through scientific lack — 
 
 Shall she — the duck — be but a quack ? 
 Doubt not ! O’er all her daily toil 
 Science shall pour its wine and oil — 
 
 The skill that smooths her weary way, 
 The light of thought’s perpetual play ; 
 This and religion are the wine 
 Shall make her lowly life divine. 
 
 Far East, a convent, fair and new, 
 Looks off on Lake Cayuga’s blue ; — 
 
 Ho cross surmounts its ample walls, 
 
 No pictured saint adorns its halls ; — 
 
 A marble goddess guards the place — 
 Minerva — wisdom, strength and grace. 
 Wouldst know the name it wears ? It tells 
 Of one, the generous founder — Wells. 
 
 On that same lake there gazes down, 
 
 High o’er a hill-embosomed town, 
 
 A monastery — the latest home 
 Of all learning, with naught of Rome 
 Save the angelic mellow chimes 
 That link the new with elder times. 
 
 And stone by stone the buildings rise, 
 
 *B. S. Bachelor of Science. 
 
47 
 
 Bearing aloft to greet the skies 
 A name the world shall treasure well — 
 Large-souled, munificent Cornell. 
 
 Well clone, O East, but not the best ! 
 Here in the fresh and fearless West, 
 
 We smile to think of monks and nuns. 
 We dare to trust our noble sons ; 
 
 We dare to trust creation’s Lord ; — 
 
 His chorals give no ill accord ; 
 
 The manly and the maiden mind 
 Together grow more bright, refined. 
 
 That place is holy ground and sweet, 
 Where earth and heaven together meet. 
 

1 
 
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