Macdonald Institute at Guelph—Agricultural College—Their value to
students—Back to work through Texas.
In March 1908 the doctor advised me to send my wife north for a change,
as she had lived too many years in a southern climate, so I sent her
back to Guelph, Canada, where she was born. In October of the same year
I got leave from the company, and went to bring the family back, my
first holiday in four years. On my way up I stopped some hours in St.
Louis, where I saw Taft, the president-elect, who was then on a
stumping-tour, and was speaking in St. Louis. The country was election
crazy, and all that men could talk about was the elections, and, as is
always the case in America, election stories were on everybody’s lips.
Two that I heard I will give here. A republican orator was holding forth
in New York, and after his speech he said he would be glad to answer any
arguments brought by the other side. After two or three men had made
remarks and been answered, an old Irish-American got up and said, "Eight
years ago they told us to vote for Bryan and that we would be
prosperous. Oi did vote for Bryan, and Oi’ve niver been so prosperous in
all my loife, so now, begory, Oi’m going to vote for Bryan again." For
the benefit of those who do not understand American politics I may say
that Bryan was the Democratic candidate who ran against Taft, and had
run each time for the eight years previously and been beaten each time.
The other story relates to a Democratic big gun who was to speak in a
small Texas town where the people were mostly prohibitionists. He
arrived on the speakers’ stand pretty intoxicated; not incapable of
making his speech, but his unsteady walk and flushed face told the tale
to the people, and the audience hissed and howled. He held up his hand
for silence, and when it was restored he said, “Ladies and gentlemen,
when a statesman of my prominence consents to appear in such a small
one-horse town as this is, he must be either drunk or crazy. I prefer to
be considered an inebriate.”
When I arrived in Guelph, which I had not seen for nearly fourteen
years, I found it wonderfully changed for the better, and as for the old
college I should hardly have known it. Since I was there they had built,
with money bestowed by Sir William C. Macdonald (the tobacco millionaire
of Canada), a woman’s institute called the Macdonald Institute. Here
young women are taught domestic science, which includes—elementary
chemistry, and chemistry of foods, cooking, sanitation, household
administration, laundry work, sewing, child-study, biology,
bacteriology, home nursing, and emergency nursing. Then there are also
many short courses, one teaching advanced sewing, which takes in
dressmaking, millinery, embroidery, textiles, colour and design. After
they have grasped all this they should be ready to marry and make good
housewives.
This Macdonald Institute and the various short courses are simply
crowded, girls coming from all over the country to take them. Some to
learn to be housekeepers, some to prepare for marriage, and even girls
of wealthy families to learn to take proper care of their homes.
Attached to the Institute is the Macdonald Hall, also given by the same
gentleman, where 110 students board and lodge at a charge of from $3 to
$3.50 per week. Those that cannot be accommodated in the hall are found
lodgings round town in well-known, respectable boarding-houses. For
farmers’ daughters, and more especially for young women whose families
have come from abroad to settle in the country, this Institute is
invaluable, as is the Agricultural College for young men.
I heard in Guelph of a case of an English widow, her two daughters, and
one son who had come to take up land and settle in the country. The
mother and the two daughters went to the Institute while the son took a
course in the College. When they had all graduated they moved west,
bought a farm, and are doing well. In the college, too, there have been
many changes. The course now is four years for the degree of B.S.A.
(Bachelor of the Science of Agriculture), instead of three as formerly,
and the range of studies has been much extended. It now includes animal
husbandry, agriculture, arithmetic, book-keeping, botany, chemistry,
dairying, farm mechanics, field husbandry, geology, zoology,
bacteriology, horticulture, poultry, veterinary, entomology, forestry,
French, or German. And under the head of physics: agricultural
engineering, electricity, surveying, and drainage, calorimetry, cold
storage, and meteorology.
This seems to cover the ground pretty well for a farmer, but farming is
now becoming a science as much as other professions. The cost to a
non-resident student (_i.e._ one whose parents do not reside and pay
taxes in Ontario) is for tuition $40 per year, laboratory fees $1.50 per
year for the first two years, and $5 per year for the last two years,
and between $4 and $5 per year for chemicals and other materials. The
board is $3 per week, but the net cost for board and tuition during the
first two years need not pass $125 per year for a non-resident student
who works regularly and faithfully in the outside departments.
One of the new rules practically does away with what I before said was
one of the handicaps of an English student. He must now produce
certificates of having spent _at least one year on a farm_, and must
have a practical knowledge of ordinary farm operations, such as
harnessing and driving horses, ploughing, harrowing, drilling, &c. And
his knowledge will be tested by an examination at entrance. The terms
are from 15th September to 22nd December, and from 4th January to 15th
April, thus allowing farmers’ sons to go home for seeding, haying, and
harvesting, and non-resident students to get work on a farm during these
operations; or, if they prefer, they can remain at the college and work
on its farm, for which they are paid. Since I was there the college has
made great improvements in its accommodation. Mr. Massey built and
presented to the college the Massey Hall and Library, in which are held
the literary meetings, concerts, &c., and which has a seating capacity
for 450 people, while the library has room for 80,000 volumes. They have
also a fine gymnasium with a swimming-bath in the basement, besides
another open-air swimming-bath. A new machinery hall, 146 feet by 64
feet, has been built, in which manual training and farm mechanics are
taught. There are also other new buildings too numerous to mention. Last
year 367 students attended Macdonald’s Institute, and 794 students
attended the College, either taking the entire course or the various
short courses. To show how the college is patronised by people from all
over the world I took this list of the hailing-places of the foreign
students: nine from the Argentine Republic, Belgium one, England
twenty-nine, Egypt one, Scotland eight, France one, Germany one, Ireland
three, India two, Japan three, Jamaica two, Mexico one, South Africa
one, Spain two, United States twenty-four. My old friend Creelman is now
president of the college through which he worked his way, and in his
hands the reputation of the college is spreading far and wide.
After spending a month in Guelph, we started back by easy stages, and
stopped one day in St. Louis, one day in San Antonio, and two days at
Cline, my old stamping-ground. Texas has boomed in the past ten years,
and land that was selling there for $2.50 per acre at the time I left in
1902 is now, 1912, worth from $60 to $100 per acre, and cotton is being
raised on what was considered rather poor grazing-land. And as Texas is
getting wealthy, it is also getting very moral. No more gun-plays, no
more gambling, and not even any more whisky in the greater part of the
state. There is even a state-law prohibiting a man from taking a drink
out of his own bottle on the trains, or playing a game of cards for fun
in any public place, which includes trains. They tell about Judge J——,
of San Antonio, going to the smoking-room on the Pullman to get a drink
of water. When he picked up the glass he smelled whisky. He glared round
the room, and demanded who had been drinking whisky on the train
contrary to law. After he had repeated his question a couple of times a
young fellow said in a shaky voice, “I did, judge.” “Well,” thundered
the judge, “how dare you hide the bottle?” They also tell a story about
this judge’s memory for faces. A prisoner was before him who denied ever
having been arrested before, yet the judge was positive he knew him for
an old offender. Finally the judge said, "Oh, I know you, and you can’t
fool me; now, own up, have I not seen you often before me?" “Yes,”
finally replied the prisoner, "I’m the bar-tender in the saloon across
the way."
Of course, these strict prohibition laws in some of the counties have
started every known scheme for secret whisky selling. They tell about a
secret-service man who was trying to catch a nigger whom he suspected of
acting as distributor for the whisky men. He met him on the street one
day and asked him, in a whisper, if he knew where he could get some
whisky to drink. "I specs I can get you some if you gimme $2," said the
nigger. The detective handed the $2 to the coon, who said, “You hold
this box of shoes till I come back,” and hurried off round the corner.
The detective waited patiently for a couple of hours and no nigger. So
he decided he had been buncoed, and went up to the police station with
the box of shoes. When the box was opened, inside it, carefully wrapped
in tissue paper, was a quart of whisky! I was telling a Texan about the
thieving qualities of the Mexican here, and he argued that they could
not be any worse than the negro in the south. Said he, a nigger preacher
was warning his congregation against the evils of drinking, of theft,
against robbing chicken-coops, and stealing melons. When he got to this
part of his discourse up jumped one of the members and started for the
door. "Whar am yer goin' brudder?" said the preacher. "I’se goin' fer
mah coat kase yo jes minds me whar I lef it." They also tell about a
lady who left $2 at the cottage of a sick, coloured lady to buy a
chicken to make into broth. As she stepped out of the door she heard the
sick woman say to her boy, “Here, you Mose, bring me dat money, and go
get the chicken in the natural way.”