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

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1 sz., QA , l I 1 Cap Night at Sleepy Hollow never achieved full tradition status. It was a nigbtshirt parade to burn freshmen beanies. tftrzkt Ruler Ifunting This Spartan routine started at 5:30 every morning. Strict rules and no female compan- ionship contributed to a boring social life. For relief, students went hunting in the woods that hugged three sides of the campus. Meanwhile, the threat of civil war turned into reality. Members of the first graduating class were excused two months early in 1861 12 to join the Union Army and a sharp drop in enrollment continued throughout the war. Although this decrease brought some criti- cism, many people were inspired by Michigan State's agricultural education example. Sen. Justin Morrill of Vermont wrote the Morrill Act which was passed by Congress and signed by President Lincoln in 1862. The act gave each state federal lands which could be sold to support a land-granti' col- lege. These colleges would specialize in branches of learning related to agricultural and the mechanical arts. Under the leadership of President T. C. Abbot, Michigan Agricultural College re- covered from the war and began to prosper.

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olitl Bare Meant at Steady Growth Pioneering an Important Part of MSU Philosophy By JERRY JENNINGS It's diflicult to imagine that today's bustling East Lansing looked like this about 1923. Classes in vegetable gardening were olfered to the early coeds on the site where Olin Hospital now stands. During these early years, the women raised much of their own food. in if Left-Saintis Rest was the first living unit on campus and housed the orig- inal 63 male students. OOD enough for the proudest and cheap enough for the poorest, said Joseph R. Williams, first president of the Agricultural College of Michigan in 1858. It was an accurate description of the little cow college sprouting on the swampy banks of the Red Cedar River. At that time, not even the optimistic Mr. Williams could foresee that the school he guided would one day be- come Michigan State University, eighth larg- est in the nation. A look into the past shows how such a world-renowned institution grew in 101 years from the humblest of beginnings. The universityis history began with the for- mation of the State Agricultural Society. Michigan was a new state, and its main in- dustry was farming. The society was a pres- sure group to promote the aims of the pioneers who were carving farms out of the wilderness. On February 12, 1855, Gov. Kingsley S. Bingham signed a bill creating the college, the first institution in the world to be devoted to the scientific teaching of agriculture. A 5 77-acre tract of marshy land was bought three miles east of Lansing. Trees were soon cleared away and three buildings erected- College Hall, a boxy, three-story brick build- ing for classes, Saint's Rest, a dormitory, and a brick horse barn. On a warm May morning in 1856, faculty, students and distinguished visitors gathered in College Hall chapel to dedicate the college. The ceremonies over, the six teachers and 63 students went to work. To pay his tuition, every student spent three hours a day working in the fields or clearing stumps from the prim- itive campus, This was in addition to his studies in English, mathematics and chemistry. 11

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