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amounted to upwards of a million dollars, and on single farms it was not uncommon to suffer a loss of a thousand dollars in the course of a few months. In 1888 Doctor Billings published a voluminous bulletin of 400 pages on Swine Plague. A large part of the bulletin, however, was taken up with an altercation with D. E. Salmon of the United States Department of Agriculture over the disease. Doctor Billings gave up his work with the University on June 30, 1889, but was reemployed in 1891.The first appropriation under the Hatch Act did not become available until March, 1888, but the Board of Regents had appropriated $3,500 for experimental work for the year beginning July 1, 1887. There was a little grumbling here and there that the Hatch Act did not afford more than $15,000 a year, but certainly that was better than depending on the Legislature. The working staff of the station, as given in the first annual report presented to the Governor January 26, 1888, included Henry H. Wing, agriculturist; Hudson H. Nicholson, chemist; Frank S. Billings, investigator of animal diseases; DeWitt B. Brace, meteorologist; Lewis E. Hicks, geologist; Conway McMillan, entomologist; and Charles E. Bessey, botanist.
The third annual report of the experiment station for the year ending January 24, 1890, affords a good idea of what the Station was accomplishing at the close of this period. Dr. Lewis E. Hicks in 1889 had succeeded Dr. Charles E. Bessey as director of the station. J. Stuart Dales served as treasurer, along with his other financial duties in the University. The working staff of the station was made up of Jared G. Smith, assistant agriculturist; Hudson H. Nicholson, chemist; Rachel Lloyd, assistant chemist; DeWitt B. Brace, physicist; Harold N. Allen, assistant physicist; Lewis E. Hicks, geologist; Lawrence Bruner, entomologist; Charles E. Bessey, botanist; and S. W. Perin, superintendent of the farm. The Experiment Station had drawn largely on the University faculty for members of its staff, in most cases small amounts being
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added to their usual salaries. In June, 1888, the following salaries to be paid from the Hatch fund were allowed for the year ending June 30, 1889: Director $350, treasurer $400, chemist $200, meteorologist $100, geologist $100, investigator of animals diseases $3,500 (Mr. Billings resigned on June 30, 1889), entomologist $1,500. The rest of the $15,000 was to be devoted to experimental work, publication, and miscellaneous.Sugar beets were rapidly coming to the front and we find the department of chemistry making efforts in this direction. Within the next few years two sugar factories were to be established in Nebraska and the subject was to be one of the most important to Nebraska farmers for several years. In March, 1889, Professor Nicholson distributed a large amount of beet seed received from the United States Department of Agriculture among the farmers of the state. A committee of the State Board of Agriculture, appointed to visit the station, reported in 1889:
"The sugar beet industry, claiming and receiving as it now does so large a share of public attention at large, in the United States, is given careful and thorough investigation at this Station, showing unexpected and most gratifying results. The saccharine yield of Nebraska-grown beets is found equal with the best sugar-producing countries in the world. The yield in tons per acre, of beets, is also most gratifying. Sections of the State and soils heretofore thought not adapted, are found to be admirably so."
The chemistry department was also undertaking "an investigation of the soils and water of the state." The department of physics was paying special attention to climatological data. Doctor Hicks planned for his department soil surveys of the state and a study of irrigation. In economic entomology "the insects of economic relation to agriculture and horticulture were studied with a view to remedies for injurious species, and the increase and spread of beneficial ones." The botanical section of the station announced its work as consisting of a study of the
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grasses and forage plants of the state, a study of the parasitic fungi of the plants of the farm and garden, a study and description of the woods of the state, a study of seed germination, and studies in plant physiology and pathology.A list of the early bulletins affords some idea of the subjects with which the experiment station was concerning itself:
Bulletin No. 1 - Irrigation in Nebraska. Lewis E. Hicks, 1888.
Bulletin No. 2 - Twenty-two Common Insects of Nebraska. Conway McMillan. 1888.
Bulletin No. 3 - Southern Cattle Plague and Yellow Fever, from the Etiological and Prophylactic Standpoints. Frank S. Billings. 1888.
Bulletin No. 4 - Swine Plague, Its Causes, Nature and Prevention. Frank S. Billings. 1888.
Bulletin No. 5 - Some Injurious Insects of the Year 1888. Lawrence Bruner. 1889.
Bulletin No. 6 - Report of Progress. H. H. Wing. Field Experiments and Observations for the Year 1888. Jared G. Smith. Meteorological Record for the Year 1888. DeWitt B. Brace. 1889.
Bulletins Nos. 7, 8, 9, 10 - Original Investigations of Cattle Diseases in Nebraska, 1886-89. Frank S. Billings. 1889.
Bulletin No. 11 - The Smut of Wheat and Oats. Joseph C. Arthur. The Smut of Indian Corn. Charles E. Bessey. A Preliminary Enumeration of the Rusts and Smuts of Nebraska. Herbert J. Webber. Notes on the Fungi of Economic Interest Observed in Lancaster County, Nebraska, during the Summer of 1889. Roscoe Pound. Observations on the Cottonwood. Albert F. Woods.
Contributors to Bulletin No. 11 were to achieve more than ordinary prominence in later life. Roscoe Pound was to become dean of the Harvard Law School, and Albert F. Woods was to become president of the University of Maryland. At this time Mr. Pound was assistant in the botanical laboratory and Mr. Woods was a senior student in botany. Arthur, Bessey, and Webber all became well-known names in the field of botany.
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MAKING OVER THE INDUSTRIAL COLLEGE
During the five years from 1885 to 1890 Doctor Bessey made over the Industrial College. All this time, it must be remembered, there was a constant struggle for both students and money in the Industrial College. In 1885, an attempt was made to separate the Industrial College from the University and move it to another place. In 1889 the attempt was repeated, but it again failed.
The report of the State Board of Agriculture for 1885 tells something of conditions at the college farm at this time, as well as being indicative of some of the criticism of that day:
"Your committee appointed at the regular meeting of the State Board in January, 1884, to visit the Agricultural College Farm and report its condition, and make such recommendations as would, in our opinion, be to the best interest of the institution, beg leave to report as follows:
"Your committee visited the farm in January, 1884, and found a large per cent of the cattle, grades, and many of the thoroughbreds, inferior in their respective classes, and with a very few exceptions were not of such a quality as should reasonably be expected, and with but few exceptions the same remarks would apply to the horses and swine.
"The buildings, fences, and machinery, in bad repair, the latter consisting in most part of old secondhand implements, wholly inadequate for the purposes of farming, nearly all of which were wholly without shelter - all had the general appearance of poverty - more theory than practice. No doubt this condition was due to a lack of funds.
"In March, 1884, at the request of Prof. Thompson and the Board of Regents, your committee met that Board at Lincoln and learned that a majority of the regents had never seen the College Farm, and knew but little concerning it except the information furnished them by the professors in the University."
From this report it appears that altho the Board of Regents had taken some steps looking to the improvement of the farm and raising the standard of the livestock, they were in debt $5,000 on $6,000 worth of livestock and in debt $1,000 on miscellaneous expenses. The report of the committee goes on to say:
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"After mature consideration we are of the decided opinion that the Nebraska Agricultural College comes far short of the intention of the framers of the act of Congress creating it."The course of study in the Agricultural Department is not calculated to attract any great number of students, and is of little or no benefit except the small financial benefit afforded to a few of the students and professors. The present course of six or seven years does not meet the demands of our state.
"In our opinion a much shorter course is needed, and that practical agriculture, mechanics and useful trades should constitute a large portion of the course. And it is our opinion that this end cannot be accomplished while the College Farm and its funds are under the control of the Board of Regents, to be applied by them in accordance with the narrow and unjust construction placed by them upon the act of congress donating lands and funds for agricultural, mechanical, and industrial purposes.
"We would therefore recommend a separation of the Agricultural College from the University, and recommend the passage of the bill now before the legislature-House Roll No. 216 - for that purpose."
As before stated, these attempts to divorce the college from the University failed, but they serve to show the feeling of the time. Doctor Bessey was setting about to reorganize things. His report for the year ending 1886 says:
"When I first became acquainted with the College Farm, and began to have a certain responsibility as to its condition and management, I was much pained and chagrined. It was a standing reproach to the Industrial College. A report was made by a committee of the State Agricultural Society in January, 1885, condemning its appearance and condition in the strongest terms. This has all been changed. The farm has been largely freed of weeds, its hedges have been neatly trimmed, buildings and fences have been repaired, the larger building has been repainted, walks have been laid and the cattle yards rebuilt."
There was much to be done in reorganizing the courses in the Industrial College. When Doctor Bessey took up his work with the University there were two main courses in the Industrial College, an agricultural course and a civil engineering course. The degrees of Bachelor of Agriculture and Bachelor of Civil Engineering were awarded at
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the completion of the respective courses. In 1886 Doctor Bessey pointed out that there were fifteen students enrolled in the various classes of the Industrial College, of which eleven were taking engineering and four agriculture. "Looking back over the records of the last few years, the attendance in college classes (Industrial College) in the year 1882-3 is given at fourteen, from which time it declined to the year 1884-5, when it reached its lowest point, and since which it has been steadily improving," Dean Bessey stated. "This improvement has been most rapid in the Engineering course, but the indications now are for a healthy growth in the Agricultural course. In the latter course three of the students come from colleges in other states, viz., one from Chicago University, another from the Agricultural Department of the University of Illinois, and the third from the Iowa Agricultural College." Doctor Bessey declared that "I know of no case in which there is provided as much agriculture, horticulture, and veterinary instruction as we now offer in the agricultural course of this college."In an article published in Agriculture in October, 1910, Dean Bessey told with characteristic frankness the effect of his reorganization upon the agricultural students, as well as some interesting sidelights regarding the farm:
"Accordingly I became Professor of Botany and Horticulture in the fall term of 1884, and this was my title for nearly eight years. What these eight years accomplished can not be told briefly. In the first place, at that time all teaching was done on the campus in the city, no beginning having yet been made for school work on the Farm. Then too the Farm was a very long way out into the country at that time, as the whole distance from the Antelope valley to the Farm was filled with cornfields, wheatfields, orchards and even wild and unbroken prairie land. In muddy weather one had great difficulty in traversing the soft dirt roads, and it was a bad hour's drive from the city to the old stone farm house, and the rather shabby barn and sheds. Yet at this time there were a few students at the Farm, attracted by the fact that they were able to obtain rooms here in the old 'Dormitory' at a merely nominal rental. For it seemed to be the old idea that boys would have to be enticed into agricultural
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study, and so room rent was very low, and the cost of board was merely nominal also. And what a 'job lot' of ten or a dozen students were there. Not one was able to pass the somewhat stiffened requirements that were soon inaugurated and every one of them disappeared. They were the fellows who could not get along in any other course than the agricultural and horticultural, and even in this work they failed when the work was made a little harder. As a result the University for a time had not a student in agriculture and horticulture, but when they began to appear again they were boys of different stuff. Instead of being the weaklings and the sluffers they were now a lot of strong energetic workers, who 'got there' in their work every time and all the time. That was one thing accomplished."But thruout this period there was a constant effort to emphasize the scientific character of the work in agriculture. In 1884 Doctor Bessey had already outlined his views on the general subject of industrial education:
"In order that the work of the Industrial College may be definitely laid out, the purpose of the school must, in the first place, be clearly and exactly defined. Ever since the passage of the law of Congress which gave existence to the Industrial Colleges of the states, there have been different interpretations of its purpose. On the one hand it has been held that the colleges founded under this law should instruct mainly in practices, and that on this account they should become manual labor schools in which every operation in the shop or on the farm and garden should be practiced by the pupil until he becomes a skilled workman. This was the earlier view, and many of the state colleges were started upon this plan.
"The intent of the congressional law, as indicated by its wording, and as now understood by the majority of the educators of the country, was doubtless to provide for colleges in which should be fostered the great sciences which underlie agriculture and mechanics, as literature and the classics are fostered in the ordinary colleges. According to this view, it should be the purpose of this college, first, to teach thoroughly those branches of learning which are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts, and in this manner to lay a firm foundation for the subsequent study of the application of these branches to the practical work of the farmer and gardener."
The catalogs of the later eighties tell something of the agricultural course then prevailing:
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"As scientific agriculture rests upon and is an outgrowth from the natural sciences, the student in this course devotes much of his time in the earlier part of his college life to their mastery, and afterwards employs himself in a study of their applications. Thus chemistry, physics, zoology, botany and geology will occupy prominent places in the curriculum, each one contributing to that mass of knowledge and practice which constitutes modern scientific agriculture. With these the student takes up such language studies as will enable him to use his own language properly, and to consult with ease the works of the best foreign authorities. In addition, provision is made for the study of history and literature, in order that he may enrich and liberalize his mind by an acquaintance with the treasures of the past. To the foregoing are added in the Junior and Senior years the special studies of the course, viz.: Agricultural Chemistry, Horticulture, Entomology, Agriculture, and Veterinary Science, thus combining and, directing into a special channel the knowledge given by the previous lines of work."But the important feature of this reorganization of the Industrial College was the action of the Board of Regents on April 10, 1889, of transferring to the Industrial College scientific courses heretofore offered in the academic college. This action as stated in the report follows:
"Whereas, the Act of Congress, approved July 2, 1862, makes it the leading object of the Industrial College 'to teach those branches of learning which are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts,' and,
"Whereas, the natural and physical sciences are all in some degree related to agriculture and the mechanic arts, so that the Industrial College is obliged by the terms of its organic law to maintain a course of scientific instruction as its 'leading object,' and,
"Whereas, the logical relations of a scientific course to the technical courses of the Industrial College (these technical courses being branches or special developments of the scientific course), also demand that the Industrial College should maintain a scientific course, and,
"Whereas, it is not expedient or economical to duplicate in any college of the University a course maintained in another college of the same University, therefore,
"Resolved, that the scientific course of study shall hereafter be a part of the Industrial College, and that the students pursuing such course shall be catalogued as students of the Industrial College."
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The Industrial College now granted three degrees, Bachelor of Science, Bachelor of Agriculture, and Bachelor of Civil Engineering. A two-year course in agriculture was being offered, but the courses leading to degrees required four years. The two-year agricultural course was hardly more than of high school grade, requiring for admission a knowledge of English grammar, arithmetic, geography, and history of the United States.The advantage in moving the scientific course over into the Industrial College was naturally the increase in number of students and the greater solidarity in the work. The catalog of 1886-87 showed fourteen students in the Industrial College. Nine were taking engineering, two agriculture, and three were classed as special, altho two of the latter were probably agricultural students since they made their residence at the college farm. The catalog for 1887-88 showed fourteen students in the college, eleven taking engineering, one agriculture, and two being classed as specials. But the catalog for 1888-89 showed the result of adding the scientific students to the roster of the Industrial College. There were now fifty-seven students in the college. Thirty-five were listed as taking the scientific course, eight the engineering course, two the agricultural course, and twelve were classified as specials.
NEW BUILDINGS AND FINANCE
The University had now outgrown its original building. For years there had been a constant agitation for new buildings to house the growing University. The first new building on the main campus of the University was the chemistry building for which the Legislature of 1885 appropriated $25,000 and which was erected in 1885 and 1886. This building now houses the College of Pharmacy. Then came Grant Memorial Hall, for which $20,000 was appropriated by the Legislature of 1887, and which was erected in 1887-88. It served, and still serves today, as a gymnasium, auditorium, and military drill hall. Then
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finally, in 1888-89, came Nebraska Hall, the Industrial College's own building, for which the same Legislature had appropriated $50,000. This building housed the museum and the departments of botany, zoology, agriculture, horticulture and physics. These three buildings are still in use, alto the agricultural departments have long since been moved to the college farm. Up to the time under discussion in this chapter, there had been no buildings of consequence erected on the college farm, only small improvements being made from time to time.The University was supported by a three-eighths mill tax, by the income from the University and Agricultural College lands, and by the fees paid by students. The latter, however, were insignificant. Now and then the Legislature would appropriate something from the general fund of the state, but appropriations of that kind were not to be had very often. For the two-year period ending November 30, 1888, the University received $110,179 from state taxes, $2,670 from interest on bonds, $6,392 from interest on University lands sold, $12,260 from rental of University lands, $14,231 from interest on Industrial lands sold, and $23,419 from rental of Industrial College lands leased. This made a total of about $169,000. Besides a paltry sum from tuition fees, the University that biennium had received an appropriation of $15,000 from the general fund of the state toward the erection of Grant Memorial Hall.
It was a matter of much discussion at this time as to the rights of the University to its own funds. The regents maintained that the statutes of the state placed in their hands the temporary University funds as they came into the treasury. But the Legislature and the Supreme Court thought otherwise. The regents' report of 1886 tells something of this:
"Since the adoption of the present Constitution, the Legislature has assumed that these funds were a part of the funds in the state treasury that cannot be drawn out except as specifically appropriated
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by itself. Since 1875, therefore, it has been customary for the Legislature at each session, after a necessarily superficial examination of the facts and circumstances, to appropriate so much of the balance on hand and the probable income of these funds for the support of the University, as it deemed expedient, and permit the surplus to accumulate in the treasury."The Legislature had appropriated the $25,000 for the Chemistry building from the University fund. For the Grant Memorial Hall it appropriated $5,000 from the temporary University fund and $15,000 from the general fund of the state. The $50,000 for the Industrial College building had been appropriated from the temporary University fund. There was constant difficulty in securing appropriations for the College Farm, however. In 1886, the regents bemoaned the fact that the Legislature had made no appropriation for the improvement or current expenses of the college farm, and what improvements were made had to be paid for from the sum appropriated for salaries and current expenses of the University.
How the funds accruing from the Industrial or Agricultural College lands were handled is explained by Mr. Dales in the regents' report for 1888. That year the regents had requested a statement of the items chargeable against those funds. Expenses belonging exclusively to the Industrial College were charged to it, and less than half of the general expense belonging to both colleges. Professors who devoted practically their entire time to the Industrial College had their salaries charged against its funds; in the case of some who served part time in that college, one-half or one-fourth of their salaries were charged to that college. Under this plan, the cost of the Industrial College exceeded by $5,308 the amount of money available for it under its Land Grant. However, it must be remembered that under this method of figuring the Industrial College was not sharing directly in the income from the three-eighths mill tax.
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FARMERS' INSTITUTES
Farmers' institutes during this period again attained a measure of popularity. There is a record of the formation of the Nemaha County Farmers' Institute Association on February 7, 1882. Dean E. A. Burnett in a sketch of the development of farmers' institutes, published in 1906 in the University's first report on Nebraska farmers' institutes, says of this organization:
"A few enterprising farmers discussed the benefits to be derived, and Mr. W. F. Wright met Professor S. R. Thompson at Lincoln to talk over the movement, which resulted in the appointment of this meeting, attended by S. R. Thompson, Professor of Agriculture, and H. C. Culbertson, Professor of Horticulture. The Hon. R. W. Furnas, Secretary of the State Board of Agriculture, was present at this meeting, together with a large number of men and women who have since been prominent in Nemaha and Johnson County Institutes. This meeting was held twenty miles from the nearest railroad station. The organization formed in 1882 is still active."
Another organization of the same kind was formed at Tecumseh, Johnson County, in October, 1882. Both of these organizations were active for many years, the latter becoming the Johnson County Farmers' Institute later. It is interesting to record that in 1905 it held a four-day institute, with a corn show and a good roads day. The tendency more and more was for the farmers themselves to take a definite part in promoting the institute movement and to form organizations to sponsor it each year. There is this record of a meeting of the Lancaster (County) Agricultural Society, held December 27, 1884:
"Prof. C. E. Bessey was present and addressed the society in relation to holding a county Farmers' Institute. Professor Bessey said that heretofore these institutes had been held under the auspices of the Agricultural College, but he thought that it would be better for the county agricultural society to hold them, or assume control of them. The professors would attend and give lectures and do whatever they could to make such institutes a success. At the close of Professor Bessey's talk Mr. Brinton moved that a committee of three be appointed to consult with Professor Bessey to fix the time of holding the first institute."
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Prof. H. H. Wing, reading a paper before the Nebraska Dairymen's Association in 1887, declared that "at least four such institutes were held in 1887, entirely by the efforts of farmers in their several localities." In 1889 a three-day institute was held at Broken Bow.In Dean Burnett's article, Doctor Bessey is credited with stating:
"Somewhat later, perhaps in 1888, when I was acting Chancellor of the University, I took the matter up with Governor Furnas, and we planned a series of Farmers' Institutes to be held in different portions of the State. He volunteered to attend as many as he could; Mr. Bassett did the same. Mr. Stephens of Crete, Mr. Youngers of Geneva, Mr. Dinsmore and others volunteered, and we held a good many Institutes beginning with the winter of 1888-89. The plan was that the locality should pay the expense of those who attended. As far as possible, we all secured transportation and simply asked the people of the locality to see that we did not have to pay hotel bills. Where the people failed to cover our expenses we bore them ourselves. This work went on with increasing success for a number of years, up to the time when Professor F. W. Taylor was appointed to look after the matter."
There appear to be rather three periods of development in the history of the farmers' institute movement in Nebraska. The first institutes seem to have been held at the suggestion of the University or Agricultural College. Later, farmers' clubs and societies began to have a part in holding an institute in their communities each year, in many cases societies being organized primarily for the purpose of conducting the institute. Then, about 1896, came a period when the college assumed definite leadership in the movement, with a superintendent of farmers' institutes. The State Legislature began making appropriations for carrying on the work and the foundation was laid for the tremendous growth of the institute movement in the early 1900's.
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REFERENCES
Annual Reports and Bulletins of the Industrial College and (later) the Agricultural Experiment Station of Nebraska. 1880-90.
Annual Reports of the Nebraska State Board of Agriculture. 1884, 1885.
BESSEY, CHARLES E. "Some Early Horticultural History." In Agriculture, October, 1910. School of Agriculture, Lincoln.
CALDWELL, HOWARD W. Education in Nebraska. Circular of Information No. 3, 1902, of the United States Bureau of Education.
Catalogs of the University of Nebraska. 1875-1890.
Laws of the State of Nebraska. 1877.
Nebraska Farmers' Institutes, First Report. University Bulletins, Series XI, No. 22. University of Nebraska. 1906.
Reports of the Board of Regents, University of Nebraska. 1876-90.
Reports of the Chancellor to the Board of Regents, University of Nebraska. 1885-1890.
TRUE, A. C. and CLARK, V. A. Agricultural Experiment Stations in the United States. United States Department of Agriculture, 1900.
The University of Nebraska, 1869-1919. Semi-Centennial Anniversary Book. The University, 1919.
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