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1930: William Rutherford, First Dean of Agriculture
“The University of Saskatchewan...suffered a national loss”1
with the unexpected death of the Dean of Agriculture, William Rutherford, on 1
June 1930. Rutherford had been Deputy
Minister of Agriculture and had endorsed the idea that a College of Agriculture
should become an integral part of the University–an idea unique in Canada at
the time. In 1909 Rutherford left the
civil service to become a member of faculty at the newly established
University.
The College included a complete working farm. Crops, poultry and livestock–sheep, hogs, beef and dairy cattle,
and horses–were incorporated; crop development, farm management, and enhancing
the breeding stock available to Saskatchewan farmers were all fundamental to
the research, teaching, and extension work of the College. In addition to the degree and certificate
courses at the University, short courses, ploughing matches, seed grain fairs,
etc. were held throughout the province; in 1914, The Better Farming Train “sent
professors, livestock, and examples of machinery around the province to provide
short periods of training in improved methods of farming. In its first year some forty thousand people
visited the train.”2
Rutherford unquestionably created a College of Agriculture that served
well the people of the province, and “had more to do with the shaping of
agricultural policies than any other man in Saskatchewan.” He served on numerous Royal Commissions: on
conservation, on technical and industrial education, on lands for soldier
settlement, on drought areas, on wheat marketing. Rutherford was considered “a great teacher, thorough and
explicit,” with “a rare gift for friendship.”
“His special knowledge was always at the service of Canadian farmers. His main task was to make the college of
agriculture at Saskatchewan a potent influence in the dissemination of accurate
knowledge and the improvement of farm methods.
To that work he applied his great talents as a teacher and director with
conspicuous success.”3
“Above all,” Walter Murray wrote, Rutherford’s “deep interest in
everything pertaining to the well-being of his fellow citizens enabled him to
render a service, not only to Agriculture and to Education, but to national
affairs that has rarely been surpassed in this Province.”4
Related Collections | |
College of Agriculture fonds, RG 2026.
Images | |
1930a: William Rutherford, 1920. Photograph Collection, A-2784.
1930b: Clydesdales in front of University Barn. Photograph Collection A-69.
1930c: The Better Farming Train. Photograph Collection, A-1423.
Sources | |
1. Faculty Biographies Collection, W.J. Rutherford file.
2. Hayden, 67.
3. Faculty Biographies Collection, W.J. Rutherford file.
4. Annual Report, 1929-1930, p. 9.
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