Michigan State University - Red Cedar Log Yearbook (East Lansing, MI)

Page 18 text:

In 1862, students scythed grass, professors netted laboratory specimens before re-roofed College hall. xperimentem in thought .ret az dal ring g00l THE IDEA of teaching agriculture in schools was not a new one in the mid-19th century. Most people in the young nation earned their living by the soil, and to teach agriculture was to teach the country's main industry. The pressure groups who fought for agri- cultural schools and colleges did not seek a place where young people could learn how 12 to farmg they wanted them- to study the why', of farming practices, to experiment with new thoughts, to extend their interests beyond the limits of their own clearings. They wanted them to Hnd a way of life as well as a means of living. Their idea was 19th century roman- ticismg they injected the daring of American pioneer action into education.

Page 17 text:

Tx' 'flT.'Z V w 1 ff 14,1 , Maw-mvvf 'D 3 1' ' . , , ., , l f nb ' 'ff' ' Q5-fl L' .1 Q? 2 ' it mfg if K If Workers rushed to complete the boarding hall, Saint's Rest, for the college opening in the spring of 1857. Stumps were left for the students. They turned off the road near the present site of the Home Economics building, and crossed a broken tract, with hardly an acre cleared. They faced a desolate prospect. Three buildings, College Hall, Saintis Rest and a red brick barn, known as The College, the boarding house and the barn, had been set up in a clearing. They were not finished. Around them were building rubbish, mudholes and blueberry bushes. Trees had been felled and underbrush cut away. The slashing had been piled and burned, but charred trunks and stumps lay about in black disarray. But the Gunnisons, like others, saw prom- ise in this beginning. They met all the require- ments Cat least 14 years of age, with good primary educationj , and were enrolled in the first class by the president, Joseph R. Williams. v I 2 Lewis Ransom Fisk, A.B., A.M., LL.D., D.D., was teaching chemistry when the faculty chose him to represent them as acting president after Williams' resignation.

Page 19 text:

XXX ,kj ix . f'j':? N -il. .xi The first class f1861J, copied from a tintype of a painting made from individual photographs. The class, hurrying off to war, never posed together. Left to right, Henry D. Benham, Leonard V. Beebe, Albert N. Prentiss, Gilbert A. Dickey, Albert F. Allen, A. Bayley, Charles E. Hollister. K xi ,AN v A KR' Seek Ol new wel of lzfe The Legislature of 1855 authorized the Michigan State Agricultural Society to select, subject to approval of the State Board of Education, a site Within 10 miles of Lansing for a State Agricultural School to teach the 'cscience and practice of Agriculture. Gov. Kinsley S. Bingham signed the bill ll'1tO l3,W OI1 FCl3I'l18.I'y l2, anticipated winter. Footbridge, left, spans gully. The Chem Fortf, two years old in 1873. A pile of firewood 13