Nestled at the foot of Mt. Makiling is a complex of building and laboratories which is fast becoming known the world over as the center of agricultural education in Southeast Asia. In recent years, it has attracted the interest and personal visits of heads of states, royalty , prime ministers and other foreign dignities. Hundreds of students from Southeast Asia have studied and are currently studying in what is now known as the University of the Philippines College of Agriculture at Los Baños, Laguna.

This college is closely linked with the memory of Dr. Edwin Copeland. Indeed, it was Dr. Copland who, with uncommon foresight, courage and imagination founded the college on June 14, 1909, and became its first dean. The college initially started with a faculty of four American teachers, and a student body of twelve. By the end of the first year, however, the enrollment had reached fifty-six. Dr. Copeland served the college as dean and concurrently professor of plant physiology for eight year (1909-1917).

The bold and imaginative vision Copeland displayed coupled with dogged determination in the face of obstacles during the establishment and early years of the first agricultural school in the Philippines is typical of the man.

He has built the college in the face of great obstacles and difficulties, and yet has accomplished wonders there in a very few years, Prof. Charles Fuller Baker has states in 1917. And he had faith in the possibilities of the Filipino young men as others have and there have been fine examples of justification of that faith.

He has also held the standards of the college high when there were all sorts of influences at work to pull them down, "Fuller continues. "In other hands, the college might now be a mere farm school, while as it is the institution is moving in the direction of being a real college, a technical school for higher training in agriculture. It would be a tradegy for the islands to lose any of the headway that has been gained through Dr. Copeland’s long and strenuous efforts."

Dr. Copeland’s steadfastness in the face of difficulties may have been fostered by this strict adherence to thoroughness and discipline. Prior to the establishment of the college, he had mapped out plans which would offset the problems that might jeopardize the project. He paid painstaking and particular attention to every detail of the plan and sought to carry them out with dispatch.

Indeed, to the faculty members under him, he was always kind and obliging: at the same time , however, he never lost sight of the fact that work and official business had to be done in a business-like manner. To his students he was at all times gentlemanly and paternal; at times seemingly difficult and inconsiderate and unsympathetic. And yet it was obvious that her as merely adhering to his system of discipline which he generously used as means to build the character of his students. He often stressed the value of hard work; by actual practice he sought to convert the drudgery of work into a highly desirable and enjoyable virtue.

Discipline and hard work had always been the guiding light in the life of Dr. Edwin Copeland, who was born to Herbert Edson and Alice Bingham Copeland on September 30, 1873, in Monroe, Wisconsin, U.S.A. His interest in botany started in high school during which he accumulated an extensive herbarium of plants in Central Wisconsin could have been influenced by his father, who was a brilliant zoologist.

This interest in science was further developed when after three years of undergraduate work in the University of Wisconsin, young Copeland attended the Leland Stanford Junior University in 1894, which awarded him an A.B. degree in 1895. Dr. Copeland then took up special work in plant and agriculture in Leipzig and Halle in Germany. In 1896, he received his Ph. D. from the University of Halle.

Dr. Copeland joined the faculty of the University of Indiana as assistant professor of botany in 1897-1898. The following year he transferred to the State Normal School at Chico, California as professor of botany . It was in Chico where he met Ethel Faulkner, whom he married on December 19, 1900. The marriage was blessed with five children.

The school year 1899-1901 found Dr. Copeland in the University of West Virginia, and between 1996- to 1901, Dr. Copeland shuttled from the University of Wisconsin to the University of Chicago to engage in scientific studies. He taught cryptogamic botany at the Gold Spring Harbor Station during the summer of 1901, and was instructor at Stanford University I 1901-1903. In 1903, Dr. Copeland came to the Philippines, and joined the Bureau of Science in Manila as systematic botanist. He subsequently became an instructor of botany at the Philippine Normal School in 1903-1907, later serving as superintendent in the School of Agriculture from 1908 to 1910. At the establishment of the U.P. College of Agriculture in Los Baños, in 1909, he became its first dean, serving in this capacity until 1917.

As first dean of the college’s, Dr. Copeland did not confine he activities to the administration of the school alone. He maintained his continuing interest in Philippine agriculture and its myriad problems. He conducted many studies of the daily growth movement of Lagerstremia. With characteristic thoroughness, he painstakingly recorded his 24-hour period observation of the curvatures of this particular plant caused by its growth. He observed, for instance, that there was no absolute regularly of the rate of growth with the hour curvature relationship. He reported, however, that the growth curvature was more rapid at night than at day time. This, according to Copeland, may be attributed to the interplay between disurnal changes, temperature, influence of gravity and internal directive factors (hyponasty, opinasty and restipetality).

As early as 1917, Dr. Copeland had displayed deep concern for the sugar industry in the Philippines. He observed that, compared to other sugar-producing countries of the world, there was a larger percentage of damage inflicted upon sugar crops by pests and diseases in the Philippine sugar lands. He attributed this to the poor cultural treatment of the sugar cane. He then proposed the adoption in the Philippines of the cultural treatment techniques in other sugar-producing countries in order to reduce the high percentage of damage.

He also noted that the presence of wild sugar canes in the country was conducive to the prevalence of pests and diseases. He warned that unless this was checked immediately there existed the possibility of an epidemic that would doom the county’s sugar industry.

But it is as specialist in ferns that Dr. Copeland is probably best known in the scientific and scholarly world. A recognized leading world authority of the subject, he wrote various articles on the location, distribution and description of ferns not only in the Philippines but also in the Malay archipelago and New Guinea.

Dr. Copeland did research work on some of the new and interesting Philippine ferns. He observed that the Philippine fern Thaveria obtained from Mindanao and Luzon and New Guinea’s T. nectarifera (Baker) belong to the same species. Their differences were not constant, Copeland wrote a three-volume work on the ferns of the Philippines, in which he described and classified the ferns found in the country into families, genera and species.

In the course of his extensive studies on Malay ferns, on the other hand. Dr. Copeland argued that the genera Diplora and Triphlebra actually belonged to the genus Phyllitis. Therefore, Diplora and Triphlebra were regarded distinct and different from Phyllitis, Genus Phyllitis has only three well-defined species in the Malay-Polynesian region.

Dr. Copeland was also instrumental in identifying and determining species of ferns brought to him y the Owen Bryant expedition in Java. For the past half-century, the understanding of systematic pterilogy has been so great that with his numerous papers dealing with details of the subject Dr. Copeland decided to write the book entitled Genera Filicum. According to him, the phylogeny of the fern genera could be demonstrated more clearly and convincingly than that pf any similar groups of plants.

But it was not only sugar and ferns which occupied the scholarly interests of Copeland; no less important are his studies and research work on coconuts and rice. Dr. Copeland did research work on coconuts (coco nucifera) at the government farm in San Ramon, Zamboanga. A thorough study of the physiology of coconut palm was undertaken by him, for the purpose of improving the existing methods of the plants cultivation. His systematic discussion of the subject in the research report touched on the root and its structure, growth and the absorption of water, leaf and its structure, the activity of the stomata and transpirations. Copeland concluded his report with his findings of the characteristics habits of the coconut plant and suggested means by which it might be advantageously cultivated.

Copeland also wrote a book entitled Rice. In this work he pointed out that the rice plant is a living thing and should be treated as such. He said that there should be a thorough understanding of the knowledge of the response of the rice plant to the treatment that it receives so that rice growers could tell the whys and how each plant response is made. Dr. Copeland also needed that rice growing is a business, the determining factor of which are quality and quantity of rice. He warned that the adaptability of rice improvements vary from one place to another and therefore practices from whatever sources should be given business consideration by the rice-growers.

A mason, Copeland was a member of scholarly and professional groups which might be mentioned the A.A.A.S. (American Society for the Advancement of Science) of which he was a fellow, the Phi Gamma Delta honor society, the American Society of Naturalists and the Botany Society of America.

Dr. Copeland also served as the director of the Los Baños Economic Garden and as technical adviser in agriculture of the Philippine government in 1932 up to his retirement in 1935. With his retirement, Copeland returned to the United States, but he never lost interest in the school which he helped build. After World War II, he actively campaigned for aid to help the college back at its feet. And through letters to his former students he kept abreast with the developments of the college inasmuch as "the college can hardly he as dear to anybody else as to me."

When the college celebrated its golden jubilee in 1959, Copeland sent a message. After fifty years I must use the mails to send you my greetings, He wrote with a tinge of sadness. I had hoped to be with you in person, but congratulations are no less sincere because of the ocean between us …. I take the greatest pride and satisfaction in the part I was given to play in the establishment of the College," he added and voiced the hope that the College will "always prosper and continue to be a vital force in the development of the Philippines.

Nevertheless, Copeland was able to return to the Philippines to receive an honorary doctorate degree from the University of the Philippines in recognition of his pioneering work in Philippine agricultural education and research. On June 26, 1959, at special convocation during the golden jubilee celebrations of the college, then U.P. President Bienvenido Gonzales read the citation.

Dr. Copeland, the citation pointed out, was scientist, author, scholar, linguist, founder of the College of Agriculture of the University of the Philippines, mentor and inspirer of the Filipino youth toward higher planes in scientific endeavor.

Copeland was also cited for having given encouragement and direction to hundreds of young Filipinos who for the first time took technical, agriculture and allied scientific disciplines as a career, and for having opened to qualified Filipinos scientific and technical positions of trust and responsibility in defiance of the policy then prevailing. The citation added that Copeland was the founder of the Philippine Agriculturist, and was co-founder of the Philippine Journal of Science, aside from being the world’s leading authority on ferns and being the author of many scientific articles and technical books of a high order of excellence.

The citation, thus, underscored Copeland’s signal contribution to the cause of science in the Philippines, and expressed the deepest gratitude of the country and its scientists, adding that the University of the Philippines has always remembered you as one of its builders and in doing honor to you … pays homage to one who is dearly reversed and loved.

At the death of Edwin Bingham Copeland on march 24, 1964 in Chico California at the ripe old age of 90, the then Dean Dioscoro L. Umali of the U.P. College of Agriculture wrote his son Herbert:

Every time we think of the College, its buildings, its present growth, its recognized role in agricultural education in the Philippines and other regions of Southeast Asia, we think of your father. Without him the college would not have reached the stature that it has at present. I am sure that everyone in the college realizes the foresight, vision, and dedication of this institution… He can never leave us, for all around us and we ourselves are living testimonies to his greatness.

Indeed, Dr. Copeland’s pioneering spirit, keen foresight, rugged determination and unshakeable faith in the capacity of the Filipino youth is a constant source of inspiration and emulation. Fifty years ago, he may not have dreamt of a college that today beckons to students not only from all parts of the Philippines but also from Malaysia, South Vietnam, Thailand, Pakistan, India, Burma and indeed the whole of Southeast Asia. Today this is a reality: more than half a century since its establishment, the U.P. College of Agriculture has grown into a reputable and well-known center of agricultural research and education. Equally important, hand in hand with the development of the college modern techniques of farming have gained significant foothold in Philippine agriculture.

But the cornerstone and the foundations had been laid long before by an American whose gallant efforts and contributions this nation gratefully acknowledges and whose name still lingers in the hearts and minds of a grateful people: Dr. Edwin Bingham Copeland.

1. University of the Philippines College of Agriculture Student Directory, First Semester, 1966-67.
2. Dioscoro L. Umali. Proposed Development Program for the College of Agriculture, University of the Philippines (A Consolidated Proposal). (Revised August 1962), p.21.
3. The Philippine Agriculturist and Forester, vol. VI, No. I (Sept. 1917), p.

4. Loc. Cit.

5. Loc. Cit.

6. Ibid., p.

7. His family on both sides has been in America since the days of

9. Loc. Cit

10. Weisblatt, Franz. Who’s Who in the Philippines, vol. II

11. The Philippine Agriculturist and Forester, vol. VI, No. 1 (Sept.) 1917), p.3

12. Copeland was succeeded by Charles Fuller Baker, Bienvenido

13. Edwin B. Copeland, "Daily Growth Movements of Lagerstroemia."

The Philippine Journal of Science, vol. VIII, No. 5 (Nov. 1913), pp. 287-298.

14. Ibid.
15. Edwin B. Copeland, "Diseases and Pests of Sugar Cane in the Philippines," The Philippine Agricultural and Forester, vol. No. 10 (1917), pp. 343-346.
16. Ibid.
17. In 1906 he published a key to the families of flowering plants and ferns in the Philippines. This was published in Bulletin No. 24 of the Bureau of Education with an outline of a year’s course in Botany. See The Philippine Agriculture and Forester. Vol. VI, No. 1 (September 1917), p. 3. For his published works on ferns see "Scientific Contributions".
18. Edwin B. Copeland, "The Genus Thayeria," te Philippine Journal of Science, vol. VII o. 1 (April 1912), pp. 41-45.
19. Edwin B. Copeland, Fern Flora of the Philippines. Manila Bureau of Printing, 1958).
20. Edwin B, Copeland, Genera Filicum, the Genera of Ferns, Waltham, Mass., Chronica Botanica, 1947.
21. Copeland published a book entitle Coconut in 1914, which will probably remain the standard work on the subject for some time to come. For his other works on coconuts, see "Scientific Contributions."
22. Edwin B. Copeland, "On the Water Relations of the Coconut Palm (Cocos nucifera), "The Philippine Journal of Science, vol. 1 (1906), pp. 6-57.
23. Edwin B. Copeland, Rice. London, Macmillan and co. Ltd., 1924.
24. Weissblatt, op. cit., p. 41.
25. The Aggie Green and Gold. Official student publication of the U>P> College of Agriculture. (April 1949), p. 2
26. Ibid., p. 4
27. Monthly Bulletin U.P. College of Agriculture. Vol. XXVI, No. 1, (July 1959) p. 3
28. The Aggie Green and Gold (April 1949), p. 2
29. Ibid.
30. Ibid.
31. Personal correspondence of Dean Dioscoro L. Umali with Herbert Copeland, son of Dr. Copeland.

4. "Experiments on the coconut," The Philippine Agriculturist

7. 1911 "Abaca" The Philippine Agriculturist and Forester, vol. I, no. 4: 64-73

8. 1912 "Ramie" (Phea) china grass: the new textile fiber" by H.A. Carter

9. 1911 "The coffee industry in the island of Luzon,"by Edwin B. Copeland

and M. L. Roxas. The Philippine Agriculturist and forester, vol. I, no.

8: 145-152

11. 1911 Maniok Varieties," The Philippine Agriculturist and Forester, vol. 1, no. 1:22

12. Root Crops: the Philippine Agriculturist andForester vol. 1, no. 2: 23

13. 1916 The growth phenomena of Disocorea," The Philippine Journal of

Science, vol. XI, no. 5: 227-242.

15. 1909 The ferns of Malay-Asiatic region, Part I. The Philippine Journal

16. New or interesting Philippine ferns, IV," The Philippine Journal

of Science, vol. IV, no. 2:111-116.

17. 1910 Addition to Bornean fern flora, The Philippine Journal of Science

vol. V, No. 4:283-296

18. The ferns of Mount Apo, Leaflet of Philippine Botany, vol. III: 79-851.

19. Bornean ferns collected by C. J. Brooks, "The Philippine Journal of

Science, vol. VI, No. 3: 133-144

21. New ferns from Sibuyan,"Leaflets of Philippine Journal of Science

Botany, vol. IV:1149-1152

I. Printed Sources: