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.”