would it have been to combine that Agricultural College with their noble University." Nevertheless, the Legislature voted down the proposal in 1863, but it returned to the floor in 1865, 1867, and again in 1869. Abbot worked hard to perpetuate Williams' vision of a "whole man" educational approach. He took the College back to its original mixed liberal/practical curriculum taught by learned scholars. By the 1880s these included botany professor William J. Beal, an early experimental botanist, pre-geneticist, who invented a hardier strain of hybrid corn through cross-fertilization. Beal corresponded with Charles Darwin and championed the laboratory, or "inductive", teaching method. He conducted his classes in the first botanical laboratory building on an American campus. Another distinguished faculty member was the alumnus-turned-professor, Liberty Hyde Bailey. Often called the "Father of American Horticulture", Bailey was the first person to raise the study of horticulture to a science equal to botany. Other noteworthy 19th Century faculty included Walter B. Barrows, a nationally-respected ornithologist whose treatise Michigan Bird Life is widely considered the most comprehensive study of the subject, while Rolla C. Carpenter (B.S. 1873) was a building construction specialist as well as a pioneering HVAC engineer. Although the school's then-isolated location limited student housing and enrollment during the 19th century, the College became reputable largely due to alumni who went on to distinguished careers, many of whom led or taught in other land grant colleges. While the institution emphasized scientific agriculture, its graduates went into a wide variety of professions. Notable 19th-century graduates include the aforementioned Bailey; Charles E. St. John, a prominent early 20th century astrophysicist who was an associate of Albert Einstein; Ray Stannard Baker, a famed turn of the 20th century "muckraker" journalist and Pulitzer Prize winning biographer of Woodrow Wilson; and William Chandler Bagley, a pioneering education reformer. In the 1870s, foreign students began traveling to the United States to attend the Michigan State Agricultural College such that, by the 1880s, they were a significant presence on campus. In 1887, two percent (six out of 312) of the College's student population were Japanese. Among the 1880s students were Michitaro Tsuda, (B.S.1884), who went on to become a member of the Japanese emperor's Privy Council, and Minakata Kumagusu, (1888), a prominent Japanese environmental scientist. While the College had many successful alumni, many of Michigan farmers still feared that a college education would dissuade their children from agriculture. President Abbot