oves slowly. However, in spite of
ridicule and unmerited handicaps, and even the contempt of too many of
the farming class, these institutions have grown steadily in influence
and power.

The North Dakota Agricultural College directs its energies toward a
system of education that at once affords all the means of culture and
character building that collegiate courses of study can offer, yet
without departing materially from giving special emphasis to those
subjects which are directly related to the homes and the chief industry
of the state.

The purpose is not only to increase production as a means of profit and
to render helpful social service, but to make farm life and rural
conditions so agreeable and satisfying that the choice of agricultural
pursuits, on the part of educated young people, will prove as popular
and inviting as that of any other industry or profession. This is not an
impossibility. From an educational view-point no vocation exceeds
agriculture in the material available for calling out the best there is
in man, spiritually or intellectually. From a social view-point, the
country represents the purest and most neighborly sympathies. And from
an industrial view-point it is the state's support and should be the
state's pride. North Dakota will expand in wealth and influence,
therefore, in proportion as she throws wide open the door of
agricultural opportunity for the young people of the state. This she can
best accomplish by means of public education expressed in terms of rural
life.

After twenty years of service as President of your Agricultural College,
I find that my chief gratification comes from having associated daily
with a loyal and dependable faculty and with so many clean, ambitious
and sympathetic young men and women.

In you and the thousands of Agricultural College students scattered over
this and adjoining states, many of them having already won enviable
distinction by their public services, and all giving evidence of most
exemplary citizenship, I not only take sincere pride but also find my
chief reward. Others may scheme for wealth or fame, but for one at my
time in life, I would not exchange the friendship of the Agricultural
College student body, past and present, for earthly riches or personal
honor.

I have implicit faith in the future of our Agricultural College as I
have in this great agricultural state. Her broad acres are being rapidly
occupied by a progressive and enterpri