Repository: UIHistories Project: Dedication - Ag Building [PAGE 12]

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standing* quickened, Their conception of the bueineat of farm* ini? ha* been broadened and expanded and it now meant tome* thing more than juet diy$ittft dropping and covering the teed and gathering the harvest* The discovery hat beta made that farming it a business to be studied and learned and that it needs the trained mind at much at doet any profession that placet alphabetical endings to the names of graduates (rout literary or professional schools* It hat been aptly taid that if John is tent to college to take

a course in law, medicine or theoUuyy* and Tom must farm, that

it it only fair and just to Tom that he be given a course in agriculture and that he receive the same training and have the same advantages for mental discipline and technical information along the line of hit life work as hit brother* Then will they not only be placed on an equality from a business standpoint but they will be social canals* for it it not mere work that separates men socially it is their mentality* Fanning in the past hat been larjjvly a matter of brawn but

today the demand it for more brains. The situation was most

aptly stated by Kx«Seeretary of Agriculture* J* Sterling Morton when he said that u the farmer shall succeed more by hit head than his hands/' It it with pleasure that we can here proclaim the fact* and it it a matter of congratulation for the friends of agriculture evervwhere* that Illinois hat at last awakened to a

realisation of the situation has met the demands of the hour, and has made this occasion and these exercises possible* and not

only possible hut an occasion for gratitude and pride to every farmer and every one interested in the great fundamental Indus* try in the grandest agricultural State of the r niom The awakening has come and Illinois has gvne on tveord at favoring and seeking the highest and moat advanced type of agriculture* Lett than three years agx> Illinois stood far down on the list of states, at regards her college of agriculture—almost at the

foot of the class its instructors discouraged and disheartened

its frienda and promotert ditappointed and chagrined its hone* ficiaries given over to ridicule and akepticitm~itt management doubtful at to the utility of its ohjects and uncertain and out of date at to its value and importance at an educational factor a college in name only sick unto death a tit subject tor reaur*