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V
AGRICULTURE COMES INTO ITS OWN
T
MAY be said that it took eighteen years to lay the foundation of
agricultural instruction and research in Nebraska, and another
eighteen years to build on this foundation. The eighteen years
beginning about 1890 marked a period of great development for the
Industrial College as well as the University itself. A School of
Agriculture was early established and in a comparatively few years
began to number its students in the hundreds. What the
agricultural department of the Industrial College had heretofore
lacked in numbers, this secondary school supplied. For the first
time, the college farm began to be regarded as an educational
center of its own. Then came its rapid development with the
erection of several of the magnificent buildings of today. By 1909
agriculture had reached such importance in the Industrial College
that a separate Agricultural College was once more established,
with the farm campus for its headquarters.
The University itself prospered greatly in
these years, and this prosperity was reflected in the increasing
development of the Agricultural College. The total enrollment in
the University passed the 2,000 mark in the academic year
1899-1900 and the 3,000 mark in the year 1906-1907, these figures
including students in all the schools and colleges. In 1899 it was
stated that the University had students from as far west as
California and as far east as Japan. More money for the support of
the University and its Industrial College became available. The
tax for the support of the University, which had been cut to a
quarter of a mill and raised to three-eighths of a mill, during
the early days of the University, was again restored to the full
mill in 1899. Agricultural instruction and experimentation were
benefited by the "Second Morrill Act" of 1890, the Nelson
Amendment of 1907, and the Adams Act of 1906, all
bringing more money to the agricultural side of the institution.
Agricultural extension began to develop with scores of farmers'
institutes and short courses being held in every section of the
state. Here we also find the beginning of home economics
instruction for women, culminating in the latter part of this
period in the erection of the home economics building on the farm
campus. All in all, this was a period of development such as would
hardly have been conceived to be possible in the eighties.
James H. Canfield had been called from the
Kansas State University to the chancellorship of the University of
Nebraska in 1891. It was undoubtedly due to his leadership that
the University received such a vigorous start during the early
part of this period. With experience as a railway superintendent
and legal as well as academic training, he was quite at ease in
coping with the problems of the University. In four years the
enrollment of the University nearly tripled. Even during panic
times, he gave the optimistic advice, "If you cannot earn, you at
least can learn." In short, he was the University's ambassador to
the people of Nebraska.
When Chancellor Canfield resigned in 1895 to
become president of Ohio State University, and later librarian of
Columbia University, he was succeeded by George E. MacLean, who
had been serving as professor of English language and literature
in the University of Minnesota. For four years Doctor MacLean was
to guide the destinies of the institution. Chancellor MacLean
displayed an especial interest in the work of the School of
Agriculture, which was started during his administration.
Chancellor MacLean resigned in August, 1899, and Chancellor E.
]Benjamin Andrews assumed the duties of the office in August,
1900, Dean Bessey acting as chancellor during the intervening
year. During the eight years that he was associated with the
institution, Chancellor Andrews saw the enrollment grow from 2,256
to 3,611. In 1900 there
SAMUEL AVERY, CHANCELLOR
He was associated with the early work in agricultural chemistry
and has served as chancellor for over sixteen years
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were fifty-six persons with professorial rank connected
with the University; eight years later there were 390. During his
administration there was a great development of the college farm.
Samuel Avery, who for a number of years had been associated with
the department of chemistry, as well as the experiment station,
was acting chancellor of the University in 1908-09, and became
chancellor on May 20, 1909. During his administration the College
of Agriculture and the college farm have attained their present
proportions, but that will be left for our succeeding chapter.
THE SCHOOL OF AGRICULTURE
Most people, even today, do not understand
that there are both a School of Agriculture and a College of
Agriculture. The School of Agriculture is a high school, which
emphasizes agricultural and home economics instruction in
connection with a secondary school course. The College of
Agriculture is a separate college within the University. It
presupposes that those entering upon its course of study shall
have had a high school education.
The School of Agriculture was undoubtedly the
most important development from 1890 to 1908. Our readers no doubt
recall the difficulty in securing any large number of students for
the college courses in agriculture. Possibly one reason for this
difficulty lay in the fact that those to whom a college course in
agriculture would make a practical appeal generally did not have a
high school education to begin with.
The report of the Board of Regents, for the
two years ending in 1896, tells something of the reasons for the
establishment of the school:
"The history of the University from the
beginning shows similar attempts to satisfy the demands of the
people of the state for practical Schools of Agriculture and the
Mechanic Arts. Various so-called 'short courses in agriculture'
were given. The regents believe that at last they have found why
the earlier attempts did not
succeed, and that they have a plan that will succeed. The
old schemes failed because either they had too high a standard, or
practically no educational standard whatever. The College of
Agriculture required extensive preparation and four years of
continuous study. Its graduates were few, and were weaned from the
farm. The high schools of the state prepared for every college but
the technical college: hence rarely did anyone enter the latter.
The short courses were on the other hand of such low educational
standard that youths were not tempted to resort to them. They were
excellent as somewhat extended Farmers' Institutes and fulfilled
their mission for adult farmers. A missing link in the state
system of education is the technological high school, or high
school of applied science. The apparatus and instruction necessary
in such a school make it too expensive at the present time for the
high schools of the state to add the technological courses in
agriculture and the mechanic arts. The regents propose to supply
this missing link until the state attains to its full development,
when it would be possible that these technical schools would be
supplanted by the development of the high schools of the state
with reference to this work, just as the high schools of the state
have at length made the Preparatory Department or the state high
school at the University unnecessary. The regents have raised the
standard of the short courses in agriculture to that of genuine
secondary schools."
As our readers recall, there had been
heretofore abbreviated agricultural courses which required for
completion one or two years of school. In the early nineties there
was also a course for farmers given for a short time each winter.
The rapid development of the beet sugar industry in Nebraska
resulted in the establishment of a Sugar School, in the nineties.
This will be discussed later. One also runs across mention of a
dairy school in the early nineties, but its exact status is not
apparent, the regents' report quoted above stating "in the School
of Agriculture will be borne the Dairy School as a line of
specialization of great value to the state of Nebraska." Later on
a special dairy course appears, to have been given in the winter
months.
The establishment of the new type of
agricultural school, which was a unit by itself rather than
entirely a side line, marked a milestone in the progress of the
Uni-
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versity. How rapidly it was to grow is to be deduced from
the fact that in 1908, E. A. Burnett, associate dean of the
industrial College in charge of agriculture, was to remark that
"about 20 per cent of all the students in the University are now
registered in the School of Agriculture." The success of this
school was to make possible the rapid development of the
agricultural campus, with the erection of many of the splendid
buildings of today.
"In March, 1894, the regents announced that
they proposed to open in September, 1895, a School of Agriculture
and Mechanic Arts," reads their report for the two years ending
with 1896. The first School of Agriculture did not open, however,
until December, 1895. Fifteen students appeared for the course of
instruction. It is interesting to note, perhaps, that it was
fifteen students that entered upon the agricultural course of
study in the University twenty-one years before. The School of
Agriculture the first year held its sessions on the University
campus downtown, because, as our readers know, the college farm as
yet had small facilities for regular classroom work.
The members of the faculty were drawn from
the Industrial College and the Experiment Station. Those who were
said to have actually given instruction the first year included
Prof.. T. L. Lyon, Professor Bessey, Professor Bruner, Doctor
Peters, Professor Swezey (meteorology) and Professor Card. On
April 16, 1896, the regents appointed Professor Lyon director of
the school and made plans for its further development. On the same
day the regents organized the School of Mechanic Arts. We are not
concerned to such a great extent with the latter, except possibly
to note that the following fall it opened with an enrollment of
sixteen. Altho it existed for a number of years, the School of
Mechanic Arts never attained the popularity of the School of
Agriculture. It aimed to do for the mechanically inclined young
man what the School of Agriculture did for the farmer boy. In the
School of Agriculture emphasis for the most part was placed on
practical agricultural subjects.
In 1896 a small dairy building was
erected on the farm campus, the first building for purely
instructional purposes. Today, veneered with brick, this
represents about one-half of the building occupied by the
departments of rural economics and poultry husbandry. A dairy
laboratory was on the lower floor of the building and a lecture
room on the second floor. The little old stone house now housed a
chemical laboratory and a lecture room. Two rooms of the house
were occupied by Professor Lyon's office furniture and library.
The school was now ready to begin operations on the farm campus.
There were two new instructors the second year, A. E. Davisson,
who was later to become principal of the school, and A. L.
Haecker, who was later to become professor of dairy husbandry. Mr.
Davisson gave instruction in English, history, and mathematics,
while Mr. Haecker was assistant in dairying. Thirty-three students
attended the school the second year.
The following summer an addition to the dairy
building was erected and the entire structure veneered with brick.
The faculty began to feel that agricultural education and the old
college farm were coming into their own. Professor Davisson in his
historical sketch of the School of Agriculture, published in
Agriculture in January, 1909, tells something of the optimism
prevailing at the beginning of the third year:
"The writer very well recalls with what
feelings of exultation the faculty prepared to open school in
December. It was felt by Professor Lyon, Director of the School,
that great things in agricultural education were about to happen.
Some of the members of the faculty thought there would be more
than one hundred students; others were more conservative, while
the opinion was freely expressed by some of the professors on the
campus - who were then opposed to agricultural education but who
are now wholly in sympathy with the idea - that no greater number
of students could ever be expected. As in the previous year, the
school opened in December and fifty-one students registered."
Only three women registered in the School of
Agriculture during the first three years. This was owing to
the
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fact that there was "no provision for giving instruction
in the various branches of domestic economy." However, this
situation was to be shortly relieved by the establishment of a
School of Domestic Science and several years later the School of
Domestic Science, as far as the secondary school courses were
concerned, was to be absorbed by the School of Agriculture, thus
offering attractive courses of study to both men and women. But,
because the work in home economics was related to both school and
college, a brief sketch of its development is reserved for a later
section. The average age of the students attending the School of
Agriculture was twenty-one, indicating that most of the students
had decided to secure further education several years after having
been graduated from the district schools.
At the close of school in March, 1898,
Chancellor MacLean entertained the students at his home. He
proposed that an association of agricultural students be formed
for the purpose of continuing the work begun in the school.
Chancellor MacLean and Dean Bessey were invited by the students to
come to the farm and organize such an association. E. Von Forell
of the Board of Regents had taken a special interest in the school
and hearing of the organization of the students became convinced
of the desirability of extending the course of study. The regents
that April established a three years' course of study in the
School of Agriculture, and also provided that students completing
the course should be admitted to the technical agricultural group
of the University.
The organization of this Agricultural
Students' Association in connection with the School of Agriculture
was an interesting development. It aimed to tie up the boys with
the school in more or less permanent fashion after they had left
the institution and gone back to their homes. The object of the
association, as stated in the constitution, was "the continuance
of the habits of study and investigation formed while at the
School and College of Agriculture; and
general co-operation with the Experiment Station and the
publication of results." All persons who at any time had been
connected with the School or College of Agriculture or the
experiment station were eligible to regular membership, while
anyone recommended by one of the regular members might become an
associate member. Early officers of the association were
President, C. Y. Thompson, West Point; vice president, Albert J.
Wilson, Webster, secretary, J. H. Windhusen, Hooper; treasurer,
Gerrard Montgomery, Firth; student member of the executive.
council, John B. Miller, Lincoln.
Reports of the work of this association are
to be found among the experiment station bulletins. The idea
behind this association was that its members could perform useful
experiments on their own farms, as well as continue their study.
Members of the faculty outlined, various experiments and books,
making up a course of study, which could be undertaken in the
student's spare time.
Under the reorganization of the work of the
School of Agriculture on a three-year basis, opening at the same
time as the University in the fall, it was thought that the purely
agricultural courses could be given only during the winter term at
the middle of the year. Under this arrangement, those who came to
the school for only the one term attended the same agricultural
classes with those who were taking the full course, and
consequently they were at a disadvantage. There was also criticism
of the University on the ground that it was running a preparatory
school and calling it a School of Agriculture. In 1901 the course
of study was reorganized. There were still three years to the
regular course, but school began in November and was out in April.
There were two terms each year and agricultural subjects were
given both terms. Such subjects as English, mathematics, botany,
civics, and physics received attention along with the purely
utilitarian subjects such as soils, crop production, breeding and
feeding live stock, veterinary practice, orcharding, gardening,
etc. There was doubt in
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the minds of some as to whether there was enough English,
history, and mathematics in the course, but it was stated that
there was no way to remedy this, except by adding another year for
graduation. The catalog issued in 1902 stated that students
anticipating entering the technical agricultural group of the
Industrial College would have to take an extra year of preparatory
work, besides the three-year course. Later they seem to have been
admitted upon completion of the school's three-year course.
Several years afterward the three-year course of the school was to
be extended and made a four-year course.
The short course for those who could attend
the School of Agriculture for only a short time during the middle
of the winter was not abandoned. The winter course was entirely,
of a practical nature, usually operating for not more than two
months. A special dairy course is to be found described in some of
the early catalogs of the school, and later short courses dealing
with other special subjects were to be offered.
The School of Agriculture continued to grow.
With its growth there was a corresponding growth of the college
campus. The demand for larger quarters for both the Experiment
Station and the School of Agriculture led to the erection of
Experiment Station hall in 1899-1900. Agricultural Hall, a
building which has been the headquarters of the School of
Agriculture ever since, was erected in 1904-05.
Attendance was increasing rapidly. It passed
the 100 mark in 1899-1900 when there were sixty-five students
enrolled in the winter course and forty-nine enrolled in the three
years' course. In 1902-03 there were 206 enrolled, in 1904-05
there were 332, in 1906-07 there were 429, while in the year
1908-09, not counting some summer session students, who were
included in the enrollment for a few years about this time, the
600 mark was nearly reached. The first graduate of the school was
David F. Stouffer of Schuyler, in fact, the only graduate in 1901.
In 1903 there were ten graduates. In 1908 there were fifty
graduates.
In 1907-08 the School of Agriculture
had become a coeducational institution and women were invited to
take a course in home economics, corresponding to the boys' work
in agriculture. It was at this time that the home economics
building was erected. For several years a School of Domestic
Science had been maintained and both secondary and college
instruction had been given in home economics. Summer school
instruction for the benefit of teachers had also helped to swell
the total attendance of the School of Agriculture.
A sketch of the School of Agriculture would
not be complete without some mention of Prof. A. E. Davisson, who
was connected with the school for about fifteen years, until his
death in 1911. He was made headmaster of the school in 1897, its
director in 1899, and in 1901 he became known as principal of the
school. One of his early duties was to visit county institutes in
an endeavor to interest teachers and superintendents in the work
of the school. Forty-four counties were visited in 1899, and the
same number in 1900. "The School of Agriculture, a wonderful power
for good through all Nebraska, is, in a way, his monument."
DEVELOPMENT OF HOME ECONOMICS
In a catalog or an announcement published by
the University in 1894, a "Course 13" is listed under chemistry -
domestic chemistry, consisting of two lectures with four hours of
laboratory practice each week. If one turns to the University
catalog published in June, 1896, one will find under the general
head of chemistry, "Course 13." It consisted of "technical
chemistry as applied to household economy. Qualitative and
quantitative study of food material in general, with analyses of
typical foods, and methods of detecting food adulterations."
"Course 14," the second semester, consisted of "the chemistry of
cleaning, methods of softening water, analyses of soaps, washing
powders, and polishing powder, etc. Disinfectants and
antiseptics." The course was in charge of Miss Rosa
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Bouton, herself a graduate of the University of Nebraska.
There were four prerequisite courses to this line of work,
including both qualitative and quantitative analysis.
In the original proposal for establishing "A
School of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts," published in the
regents' report of 1894, there was a provision that the courses
should be open to women as well as men. The women were to take up
domestic science while the men agricultural students were studying
veterinary science, and while the men took up shop work, the women
were to be studying industrial art. But as our readers recall, the
School of Agriculture and the School of Mechanic Arts were
separate, and only three women enrolled in the School of
Agriculture the first three years, and there was "no provision for
giving instruction in the various branches of domestic
economy."
In September, 1898, a School of Domestic
Science was organized. Ten students registered for this course.
College students also began to enroll for the work in domestic
science, and the school apparently was forced to cater to the
needs of both secondary and college students. "As soon as the work
was begun college students began to apply for permission to
register for domestic science," Miss Bouton, the director of the
school stated, in the regents' report for the two years ending
with 1900. "The request was granted and college credit given for
this work."
Further information is contained in Miss
Bouton's report:
"This year there is an enrollment of
forty-one unrepeated names in the domestic science classes. The
kitchen laboratory, when filled to its utmost limit, will
accommodate only sixteen students. The great need of more room is
therefore very evident to all who visit our crowded quarters.
"The work is based on scientific principles,
and is decidedly practical. Actual cooking is done. Careful
attention is. given to the economy of time, strength and
materials. The rational division of income is considered and the
many problems which have to do with the furnishing and care of the
home are studied.
"In addition to the number of
registered students referred to above, an extension class, which
meets Saturday afternoons, has recently been organized."
A two-year course in domestic science was
first outlined in the catalog published in 1898, under the name of
the School of Domestic Science. The school year in this course ran
practically parallel with the regular University year, and was not
abbreviated in fall and spring as was the School of Agriculture
course, until it was actually absorbed in the School of
Agriculture. The studies taken up in the School of Domestic
Science included mathematics, English, physics, chemistry,
political economy, free hand drawing, biology, domestic science,
and physical training and hygiene. "The aim is to make the entire
work in this course educational; to train the mind, and develop
character in the kitchen as well as in the laboratory," the
catalog stated regarding the work in domestic science. It was
estimated that the cost of a year's schooling would be about
$117.50, table board being obtainable at $2 a week, and rooms at
$3.50 a month. About 1900 Miss Annette Philbrick from the Columbia
College School of Domestic Science was added to the faculty. Miss
Rosa Bouton, adjunct professor of chemistry, remained as director
of the School of Domestic Science.
The catalog containing the announcements for
the academic year 1899-1900 listed domestic science as a regular
college course, as well as the School of Domestic Science. There
was a course in food economics, which consisted of "study of food
principles, comparison of nutritive and money values of food
materials, marketing, values of fuels, general cookery of cereals,
vegetables, meats, soups, breads, desserts, etc." This was
continued the second semester, with three hours credit each
semester. There was another course in household economics, which
included "location of house, plans for the construction of a
house, application of chemical principles in cleaning and
disinfection, study of light, heat, ventilation, water supply,
plumbing, sewage,
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