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SEC. 2. At the opening of the spring term of 185 Clubs A. B, and C shall be open, and at each successive spring term the next three clubs in order, i. e. D, E, A, etc.

SEC. 3. By a majority vote of the association Section two, of this Article. may be so changed as to suit the convenience of the several stewards,

ARTICLE XV.-SEC. 1. During the spring and summer vacations there shall be at least one club running.

SEC. 2. The stewards shall decide which of the several clubs are to run, during this time, and shall announce it to the association two weeks before the close of the term. ARTICLE XVI. Amendments to this constitution shall be presented to the association in writing; they shall lie on the table two weeks and shall be adopted by a majority vote of the association.

BY-LAWS OF THE CLUB BOARDING ASSOCIATION.

PREAMBLE. For the more perfect organization and thorough management of the several clubs the following by-laws are adopted:

ARTICLE I. The clubs recognize their stewards as their authorized agents and hold themselves responsible for all debts contracted for the clubs.

ARTICLE 11.-SEC. 1. The cooks shall receive forty (40) cents per week for regular boarders and twenty per cent of all moneys received for extra meals; besides this they will be allowed board for two persons. Extra meals for the cooks shall be charged at regular prices.

SEC. 2. Regular boarders shall be defined as those holding boarding club certificates and any person boarding in the club for seven or more consecutive days.

ARTICLE III-SEC. 1. All persons not members of the association shall be charged twenty-five (25) cents for a single meal or fifty (50) cents per day of three meals, unless other arrangements are made with the steward.

SEC. 2. Any members who are regularly absent two or more days per week, and notify the steward at the opening of the term, shall have those days deducted.

SEC. 31. Irregular absence of more than four consecutive days shall be deducted when the steward is previously notified of the departure of the member.

SEC. 4. The steward shall be allowed to use his judgment in making arrangements for regular extras.

ARTICLE IV. Amendments can be made in the same manner as to the constitution. The Board appointed as a committee of the faculty on the club boarding system, the president of the college, Dr. Kedzie, and Professor R. C. Carpenter. The stewards elect for the spring term of 1885 are, Club A, J. W. Matthews; B, T. T. Jack way; C, E. R. Lake; D, T. E. Hammond, and E, A. L. Nichols. The auditing committee for the spring term, 1885, elected by the students' organization, is composed of Messrs. Collingwood, Kinnan and Thiers.

THE LABOR SYSTEM.

The law organizing the college in 1855, and the law reorganizing the college in 1861, both require daily manual labor of the students. Only special kinds of service, like milking, distributing the mail, is required on Saturdays and Sundays. Nearly all the labor comes at the same time, from one to four each afternoon.

The Sophomores do their year's work on the farm, the year of a course of lectures by the Professor of Practical Agriculture.

The Juniors work their entire year in the Horticultural Department. It was intended by this arrangement to give students in these classes an opportunity to see a year's work, consecutively carried on in each department, to invite them to understand the year's plan, and to have them have a share in carrying them out.

The working force of students is divided equally between the Farm Department and the Horticultural Department, after the students who are needed for special services have been assigned by the president. The assignments for regular and special duties are made for a term at a time, and it is

considered very undesirable that the Junior and Sophomore classes be broken into for special duties.

Students are paid a maximum of eight cents an hour for their work, except that students who work at ditching in water may be paid 12 cents. So may those who have charge of a gang of students at their work. Payment is made at least once a term by money orders on the secretary of the college, which are cashed by that officer. For an unexcused absence from work, an equal amount of labor is required to be given without pay. The board requires very exact reports of work, and have made rules for daily marks of the quality of the work done, and of the wages to be paid.

SOCIETIES AND PUBLICATIONS.

The students have organized several literary societies, which hold their meetings on Saturday evenings. The exercises consist principally of discussions, essays, and lectures. Public meetings are held only by permission of the faculty.

The members of the faculty have united with the students in the organization of a Natural History Society, which possesses a library and a museum. Its regular meetings are held on the second Friday of each month, at 7 P. M. The students maintain a musical association known as the College Cornet Band.

The College Christian Union, which was formed in 1871, gave place in 1881, to a Young Men's Christian Association. It maintains a prayer-meeting in the Association room on Sunday evenings at 7 o'clock; a Sabbathschool and a library; and also furnishes a lecture at least once a term.

The graduates have formed an association, which meets at the college at the time of commencement once in three years. At the last meeting, held on the 16th of August, 1882, the following officers were chosen :

President-Sylvester M. Millard, Class '64.

Vice Presidents- Benj T. Halstead, Class '73; Frank A. Gulley, Class '80.

Secretary and Treasurer-R. C. Carpenter, Class '73.

Orator-E. M. Shelton, Class '71; alternate, W. K. Prudden, Class '78.

Poet-O. E. Angstman, Class '75; alternate, W. R. Hubbert, Class '81.

Historian-C. L. Ingersoll, Class '74; alternate, Eugene Davenport, Class '78.

The Annual Catalogue is published during the Spring term.

The Secretary of the State Board of Agriculture issues a report each year containing the statement of accounts, department reports, proceedings at institutes, proceedings and reports of the State Agricultural Society, and the register of the meteorological observatious at the college.

The College Speculum is published quarterly by the students.

COLLEGE DEPARTMENTS.

The college approaches some degree of completeness in its equipment as an Agricultural College.

Limitations.

The law of Congress under which we derive a large part of our income, is broad enough for the establishment of a university, and requires the teaching of military science and tactics. I have been often called to account for the neglect to give military science what was supposed to be its proper attention in the college. But the college was established as an Agricultural College before this grant was made, and it seemed to me to be right, and best to

delay the bringing in of a department sure in some degree to disturb plans made for a purely agricultural school, until the agricultural departments were well founded, and until the congressional grant should furnish the necessary expenses. Military affairs are in a way to take their proper position now. In the same way the law of Congress making grant of lands gives the same emphasis to the mechanic arts that it does to agriculture, and the claims of those branches of instruction have been repeatedly and forcibly presented to me. Possibly the time may come, and perhaps shortly, when it will be wise to heed these calls, and to make the college like those in several other States, agricultural and mechanical in character. But partly by reason of the fact that artisans of all kinds know the value of a special education for their work, while education for farming is contrary to all farming traditions, and partly because the isolated condition under which farming is carried on is less favorable to that union of effort which results from study, I have thought it due to the farmers of the State, and to the State Agricultural Society to which the creation of the college is largely due, that no co-ordinate branch should be established at the college until the agricultural branches were well established, and well manned, so as to be able to prosper under competition.

Needs.

The college needs a Veterinary Hall, such as will be asked for at this time by the board.

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It needs much better accommodations and models for instruction in Free Hand and Instrumental Drawing.

It needs a General Lecture Room.

It would be better if it furnished students an opportunity to acquire a knowledge of German, aud perhaps French. The German is a language which investigators in scientific, and indeed in practical agriculture, ought to know. Without a knowledge of German an experimenter cannot know the latest experiments and conclusions, nor where to work with most profit for the advancement of the science of agriculture.

Other Departments.

The catalogue of 1883-4 gives a well classified and detailed account of the departments of instruction.

THE LIBRARY.

The library began with a gift of agricultural reports and a few other books which formed the library of the State Agricultural Society. For some years the students used my own private library quite freely, and books were charged out of it to them, as they now are from the library of the institution. The library is now possessed of about 8,000 volumes of carefully selected works, and takes a large number of scientific and other periodicals. Removed once from the present Young Men's Christian Association room to the present agricultural class room, it found a home at last in a hall of its own, the new and beautiful Library and Museum Hall. Mrs. Mary J. C. Merrell, a graduate of the College, of the class of 1881, is the Librarian, and gives the library all her time. Having passed through the course of study, she is able to render students much aid in their investigations.

The library is open to students from eight in the morning to eight at night except during the three work hours of the afternoon. Mrs. Merrell has com

menced the hard but very necessary task of cataloguing the miscellaneous matter of the library.

FARM INSTITUTES.

Six institutes were held during the last winter according to the plan. detailed in the report for 1875, page 72. In the report for 1881-2, I gave account of all the institutes from 1876 to 1882, inclusive. I was excused from service in the winter of 1883-4. In the winter of 1882-3 I gave for an address a history of the College in its earlier years, from the beginning to the year 1861, or while under the care of the State Board of Education, before the the charge of the College was transferred to a State Board of Agriculture. This extempore statement I subsequently wrote out, and this early history appears on page 358 of the report for 1881-2.

POLITICAL ECONOMY AND HISTORY.

These branches form an important professorship in the College, and have been under the able management of Mr. George H. Harrower. For the last four years, under his guidance, there has been unusual interest manifested in history and political economy.

I regret to say that the Board have found it necessary to give up this professorship. The duties of the professor were largely outside his own special duties, as an assistant to the professor of English Language and Literature. While there is no doubt as to the excellency of Mr. Harrower's management of his department, and of his work as assistant in the other department, I regret to say that the funds of the College did not seem to the Board to warrant the retaining of the professorship. I sincerely hope the time will soon come when this important field will be given a larger place in the course of study, and as able a head as he who now leaves this field of service to the College.

RESIGNATION OF THE PRESIDENCY.

I have thought it would be of advantage to the College, as well as very agreeable to myself, at this time to have my professorship separated from the presidency, and to resign the latter. And this has been done. On the first of January, 1885, I shall have closed my long presidency of twenty-two years. It was, of course, highly agreeable to me be informed, as I was, by the Hon. F. Wells, President of the Board, and Hon. H. G. Rynolds, Chairman of the Committee on Employés, that the board was satisfied with my administration, and desired no change, and that they would not even consider a request to be allowed to resign the presidency if it were based upon any suspicion of mine that the board were tired of me or of my work. My particular record of this endorsement of my long administration is sufficient proof of the pleasure it gave me. But I think I see that the College is likely to do better with a change of administration at this time. With the generosity which has always characterized the treatment of me by the board, they have now arranged work for me in the College, with the asked-for release from executive duties. In the autumn of 1862 I was unanimously elected president by the board, on which was Governor Austin Blair, Philo Parsons, President of the State Agricultural Society, and the Hon. H. G. Wells of Kalamazoo, who acted as president of the board almost continuously until 1883. I have had nothing but personal friendship, and wise sustaining counsels from every

board and every member of every board from the beginning up to the present time. From a salary of $1,500, the compensation for services has been raised without request or hint of mine, according as the board thought the services to be worth, and the institution able to pay.

The board has been a much more permanent body of men than would be supposed from the tenure of their offices, owing to the frequency of re-appointments, and under their wise direction, and that of the able Faculty with which the board have surrounded me, all the members of which have received their appointments within my presidency, I have been enabled to see all the departments either spring up or prosper until there is no branch of agriculture or horticulture in which a successful beginning is not made. Botany, chemistry, zoology, civil and rural engineering, and agriculture have comfortable and beautiful rooms appropriated to instruction in each, and an enlarging collection of books and objects for study. The veterinary department is well started, with an able professor, and is in a way to possess a hall, class-room, and other conveniences. The United States law granting lands for the creation of a fund, requires military instruction, and a military officer has been detailed to the institution by the President of the United States, and has reported for duty. The State Fish Commission has selected the College for one of its stations.

The College passed, owing to a faith in the general plan of it on the part of the people of the State, through the dark days of the rebellion. In 1860 it had no income except legislative appropriations, and had less than fifty students in all. The Congressional grant of 1862 gave the College the strong defense of hope, but it was not until 1870 that the institution realized an income from the sale of lands. By scrupulous impartiality of treatment of political parties the College has passed from being called the expensive pet of one party, to being, I believe, one of the institutions of the State, whose interests all the people gladly combine to further, and in whose prosperity they all delight. I early laid it down as a rule that no opposition to the College should be held to be a ground of ill feeling against any person, and now I have the pleasure of seeing former opponents of the College amongst its warm friends, and the principal agricultural organizations of the State among its best supporters. The State Agricultural Society, State Horticultural Society, and State Grange all endeavor to make known and recommend the College. Personally I have cause to be very grateful for the patient encouragement which these organizations, and the several farmers, stock men, and horticulturists have extended to me, as an individual, as well as to the College over which I presided.

The law reorganizing the College, 1861, authorized the College to confer degrees. The College has conferred no honorary degrees except that of Master of Science, and only upon its own graduates. Its first class of graduates completed their course of study and took their degrees in 1861, the first year of the administration of the College by the present board. Now as I loɔk abroad, I see where over three hundred graduates form the best of our strength, in the communities where they dwell, and a series of winter institutes and visits, and College committees of agricultural associations, forming bonds of friendship between the College and society in general; and at home I look upon grounds, which are models of beauty, upon good buildings for nearly every department, upon stock and other equipments of an Agricultural College, second to those of no institution of a like character in the land.

The Faculty during the last year has been very united in all plans for the

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