Judge Hilgard personally undertook the preparation of his sons for entrance to the universities. Eugene was in readiness in 1849 and in that year returned to Germany to attend the University of Heidelberg-graduating with honors and a doctor's degree in 1853. This degree was re-issued to him in 1903 as a "golden degree" in recognition of half a century's good work for science. He studied also at Zürich, and at Freiberg in Saxony. After graduating in 1853 he visited Spain and met Miss J. Alexandrina Bello, daughter of Colonel Bello of the Spanish army, whom he married several years later. Returning to America, be began geological exploration work in Mississippi in 1855 and was appointed state mineralogist of that State in 1858. In 1860 he revisited Spain, married Miss Bello and resumed his work in Mississippi in November of that year. During the intervention of the Civil War he pursued the chemical work required by the Southern Confederacy. In 1866 he was chosen professor of chemistry in the University of Mississippi-then professor of geology, zoology and botany. In 1872 he left Mississippi to take a position on the faculty of the University of Michigan, but remained there only two years, when he was called by the Regents of the University, to California in 1874. While developing agricultural instruction in the University, he proceeded with research work immediately after his arrival in California and published his first results in 1877. His work in the investigation of soils in connection with their native vegetation, of the influence of climate on the formation of soils and especially of the nature of "alkali soils" and their reclamation, a problem quite new not only in this country but in other arid regions, achieved for him a reputation as wide as the world of science. It brought him recognition on numerous occasions. Mississippi, Columbia and Michigan universities, as well as the University of California, have bestowed the Doctor of Laws degree upon him. The Academy of Sciences of Munich presented him with the Liebig medal for distinguished achievements in the agricultural sciences and

the international exposition at Paris, in 1900, gave him a gold medal as a collaborator in the same research.

Soon after coming to California he directed the agricultural division of the northern transcontinental survey. From 1879 to 1883, in connection with his university work, he assumed charge of the cotton investigation of the census of 1880 which he projected and carried out on a broader plan than ever before been undertaken. During the whole period of his academic career Professor Hilgard was constantly active in authorship. In addition to formal reports and memoirs, he wrote much for agricultural and scientific periodicals. His greatest book is Soils of the Arid and Humid Regions. The simpler form of this work is Agriculture for Schools of the Pacific Slope, undertaken in collaboration with Professor Osterhout, formerly of the University of California.

In 1892 he revisited Europe and was received with distinguished honor by his colleagues in science in the German universities and experiment stations, and by invitations to deliver public addresses on the subjects in which he had made his chief achievements.

Since 1910 Professor Hilgard's advanced age rendered him unequal to the pursuit of extensive tasks. He maintained, however, his membership in several scientific societies and was vitally interested to the last in investigations connected with his science.

Professor Hilgard met with two great bereavements during the active period of his life-the loss of an only son in 1889, and, in 1893, the loss of his wife, He is survived by two daughters, Marie Louise and Alice Hilgard, who have been to him sources of great joy and delightful companions during his declining years-giving him such care as all good fathers deserve but few perhaps receive. Professor Hilgard's home and social life were exceptionally pleasant and inspiring, and personally he endeared himself to the whole community, which gave him true love and abundant honor.

HOW HILGARD CAME TO CALIFORNIA

Instruction in agriculture in the University began briskly in 1870 with a thorough course on fruit growing in the Garden of Eden, passing spiritedly to grain growing in Egypt and the conditions surrounding the corner in sorghum which Joseph contrived for Ramses II, pausing to look carefully into the dairy practices of the Scythians, and was rapidly approaching the relatively modern cabbage growing of Cincinnatus when, as tradition declares, both instructor and pupils fell asleep while pursuing dryfarming by the encyclopedestrian method of teaching. A situation was created thereby, and a change in point of view of agricultural instruction in this institution was decided upon.

The historical, social, and political aspects of farming, though dear to the farmers of half a century ago because they seemed to minister directly to the advancing social dignity and political power of their occupation, were discerned by far-seeing men not to approach the fundamental needs of farming, in increasing and improving production and the greater prosperity presumably attainable through better understanding of farming materials and methods of their economic relations. It was revealed to many at that time, if not widely recognized by farmers themselves, that science could do more for farming than tradition; that the mainspring of rational farming was natural science; that the way to improve farming was to put more force into the mainspring.

This truth dawned broadly half a century ago, following the streamers of light which had for decades portended its arising. It was a world condition, but I speak only of California's share of it. The enlistment of science as an aid to agriculture was effected by an initiative within the University and not from those then most prominent in the farming industry of the State-in fact, there was some resentment that an earlier instructor who had impressed

them as "practical" should be displaced in the interest of science.

From its own point of view, the University had no difficulty in deciding that Hilgard was the proper choice for Professor of Agriculture in this institution and that he was fully trained and equipped. Was he not a master in the classics and endowed with all the graces and disciplinary forces of the real learning of the world? Had he not received summa cum laude from the highest fountain of natural science in Germany? Was he not panoplied by the great Liebig? And had he not demonstrated his personal power in research and exposition by exalting the state of Mississippi into the first rank of states which knew their geology to the very bottom of it and had he not advanced Mississippi even beyond others of its rank by tracing its soils to the rocks whence they came, by ice, wind and water, to the piercing by the plow? Surely all these things were true and their force fully realized by the University faculty. The professors of science of the University demanded Hilgard and the Regents elected him, counting it, from their point of view, a good business stroke, because he could not only teach agriculture but all the sciences underlying it which were not otherwise provided for in the existing faculty. Thus the older sciences held out their hands to agriculture, then the youngest of their group, and Hilgard came to the University in the winter of 1875.

HOW HILGARD BEGAN HIS WORK

Of the many and various problems which faced Hilgard at the beginning of his work in the University of California, I select three which, at this moment, seem to give the best clue to the masterfulness of the man and fullest understanding of the breadth and depth of his success:

First: the conciliation and conquest of his farming constituency, by demonstration of practical and indispensable value in the work he could do.

Second: the enforcement of recognition of agricultural studies as entitled to the dignity of higher learning and as possessed of pedagogic value.

Third: the securing of funds to pursue research, which alone could yield truth about natural conditions affecting California farming, and to increase his working forcewithout which he could neither get the truth nor teach it, in its several branches and applications.

To present to you even outlines of Hilgard's complete or progressive solution of these three problems would require a volume, so deep did he delve into the underlying facts and causes and so far and high did he pursue effects and influences. As I look back over the forty years of my observation of his work, I see him, arraigned before four bars of public opinion: the farming population, the faculty of the University, the Regents of the University, and the legislature of the state, and I see him pleading soundly, patiently and successfully at all these tribunals: securing, finally, not only the consent but the enthusiastic support of all of them in the pursuit of his undertakings. Let me briefly support that declaration.

Hilgard's conciliation and conquest of his constituency was the first and the easiest of his victories. I have mentioned the resentment caused among the leaders of a farming organization by the retirement of his predecessor. It was not a personal resentment because all knew that Hilgard had neither knowledge nor participation in it, and yet any follower of a favorite must incur some opposition. This favorite whom they called "practical" was displaced by a man called "scientific"-and the word itself was hated, then, as irrationally as it has sometimes been worshiped since that time. But all such opposition to Hilgard was short-lived. There was opposition, through rivalry and self-interest, which gave him good fighting to do later, but his conquest of the early farmers' opposition was by conciliation. I clearly recall an instance of his method. I was present at a farmers' meeting in San Francisco in