ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT WILLITS. 29 



made, and the necessary shops arc now being erected and the equipments being 

 puruhasctl. 



The time is no'.v propitious for the new department. It was hardly practicable 

 to establish it sooner. There was no great public demand for it. The grant 

 was in fact in advance of general public sentiment, but the leading spirits who 

 advocated the land grant saw that in the near future, industrial education, in all 

 its phases, would be a leading factor in our educational system and that, as the 

 mechanical industries grew, instruction in the mechanic arts would become the 

 subject of a live demand. It is so to-day. It has the platform for legitimate 

 deliberative discussion, and all over the country the best equipped minds and 

 the brightest intellects are engaged in this, to us, new leading topic. Contin- 

 ental Eiiroj)e, older in these industries, long since saw the necessity for special 

 attention to the matter, and during the last fifty years has expended large sums 

 in schools of technology, and tlie promotion of sciences lying at the base of all 

 the industries. Tiie result has been marvelous. England, that once ruled the 

 industrial as imperially as she did the ccmmercial world, at last became anxious 

 over the competition of nations that for half a century or more have been her 

 lavish purchasers, and began to inquire how this ability to compete in her 

 manufactures had been brought about, and was, after a full investigation into 

 the primal causes, compelled to admit that it was to be attributed, more than 

 anything else, to the schools of technology and mechanic arts, Avhich those 

 countries had had the foresight to establish. England following the lead of her 

 doctrinaires had adhered to the policy that the public should not be called 

 upon to foster professional schools, but that all such, whether learned oi* indus- 

 trial, should be the creations of private enterprise, supported by th, 'i patrons. 

 Tiie idea was that if there was sufficient demand for them, there would natur- 

 ally be ample means and patronage for their establishment. But experience 

 has shown that such is not the case. The plant for such institutions is costly, 

 and the profit uncertain, hence private capital was slow in its investment in 

 such enterprises. Education of any kind is always costly, and if made general, 

 all ex2)erience shows that in a large measure, it must be sustained by the State. 

 Bui^ this was of a class far more costly than the so-called iberal education. It 

 takes time to establish and develop it. Continental Eurojie was nearly fifty 

 years in experimenting and in so doing spent vast sums of money before the 

 results heretofore mentioned were reached. 



But there is an additional reason why such institutions are necessary here. 

 In America the industrial arts -ire in their infancy, and we are brougiit face to 

 face with the full-grown industrial organizations of Europe, with which we 

 must compete. Mechanical science has now reached such a stage of develop- 

 ment that the mere artisan, that is, the man who devotes his whole time and 

 energies to the manual labor of his employment, will rarely have a comprehen- 

 sive knowledge of the industry he seeks to promote. Then again, the division 

 of labor is so great that a majority of the laborers knowonly one thing, or per- 

 form only one operation in the many that go to make up the product, and 

 know nothing of the general principles. The laborer becomes a machine if con- 

 fined to the machine, and while the industry gains in the one direction by the 

 skill of the human machine, it loses in the other the intelligent inventive genius 

 of the man of observation, thought and experience. Further, the day of the 

 old-fashioned apprenticeship is ended, or practically so, when the young man 

 Avas bound to servo from 14 to 21 and the master was bound to teach all the 

 principles and the arts of the industry, so that with the experience of seven or 



