Just more goofing around browsing the Brevier Legislative Reports. This one from March 21, 1885:
Mr. PATTEN: There is another geraniun who speaks for economy and votes against it. Here is the gentleman from Hancock speaking for the people. The Government of the United States, had it known what disposition would have been made of its allowance in this direction, would never have made it. This is simply class legislation – this proposition to educate at Purdue . Very few farmers’ sons have been educated there. Three from my county have gone there. None of them were farmers’ sons and none of them are farmers. President Smart says the mechanical shop is not half large enough, and he wants a new one. Farther, the farm should have more stock; a new carpet is wanted; the library is not adequate, and thousands of dollars are wanted for it. Here I hold the tenth annual register of the institution. I want to call attention to the buildings Here is shown where $4,000 was paid for stock, and yet these gentlemen want further appropriations to buy some blooded stock. I will read further items of expense. [Reads] The enormous amount of $148,500 has been paid to Purdue University besides what it receives from its endowment fund, which pays 5 per cant. The State has already given Purdue $7 000 for stock, and they want more to experiment with. Is this what is to be done with the farmer’s hard-earned moneys? I suppose that it is an open secret that these Professors there have been down with a microscope examining which end of the crawfish is the front end. [Laughter.] They also have prepared treaties on the clinch bug. President Smart knows no more of farming than my nine year old boy, and not as much. He is a school teacher. All this argument here is made by those who undertake to ingratiate themselves in the good graces of the farmers. No one ever heard of a farmer being benefited by Purdue University. The farm boy knows much more from experience than any one about the colleges.
Some things never change, do they?
Was Mr. Patten an ancestor of Richard Mourdoch?
Anti-intellectualism runs deep in American culture.
Yet our leaders boast we have the smartest and best workforce in the world.
Mitch Daniels just jumped in his time machine and canceled the order for new carpet.
Anybody know what a “geraniun” is?
Geranium is a lovely summer flower – often red – planted in flowerboxes.
I believe Purdue has contributed about 1.7 billion in revenue back to the Indiana economy just last year with the Research park alone. I’d say we’ve had a long-term anti-intellectual bug in this state (country) and we need to stop it.
I agree–it is ridiculous what some of these legislators said about both Purdue and IU in the 19th century. The Brevier Legislative Reports cover the time period when Purdue was established, so if you are interested in the history of Purdue, the Brevier will give you some insight as to the arguments in the General Assembly both for and against.
That’s very nice, but perhaps you didn’t notice the exact spelling, as it ends in “n”? ;)
I think those old documents were scanned and sometimes the optical character recognition is imperfect. So, it’s possible that whatever word he was using wasn’t transcribed correctly.
I was the individual in charge of the digitization of the Brevier Legislative Reports. We tried to correct all scanning errors, but with over 7,000 pages of text, we did not always catch everything. In this particular case however, the word is transcribed correctly. If you have a question of scanning v. actual text, the page images can be viewed on the Brevier website. Also, I would be glad to respond to any questions or necessary corrections. It is a great satisfaction to me to see our work being utilized.
Wow. Thanks for commenting! I really love going back and browsing those reports when I get a chance.
So, you think the guy was calling himself a flower?
Or perhaps (more likely), that it was meant to be an entirely different word? Good thinking.