STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 105 



With us it would be the destruction of the State; for here the 

 diversity of the materials which form the State requires the unifying 

 influence of a broad and comprehensive system of public education. 



The work of the State in education may be divided into three sec- 

 tions. The first is elementary and general (and should be universal 

 and free), making every child familiar with reading, writing, drawing 

 or picture writing, with elementary arithmetic and natural history, 

 and with the geography and history of his own State and country. 

 In the second stage separation and specialization should begin, which 

 will necessarily grow and perfect itself with the growth of culture, 

 and the more perfect organization of the forces of civilization. We 

 now specialize only in regard to classes of unfortunates, the deaf, 

 dumb, blind, etc. ; by and by we can specialize as to uses, and make 

 our country schools more preparatory to agriculture, horticulture, 

 and the like; while our city schools, by vacation classes, half time 

 schools and other agencies, at first, and afterwards by special schools, 

 render the same service to the mechanic and manufacturing arts. 

 The certainties of science are swiftly taking the place of the hap- 

 hazard pursuit of those arts, and a great part of secondary instruction 

 should be in the simpler applications of scientific principles. 



In the third, or University stage of education, the one-sidedness of 

 a particular or strictly technological training is rounded off by a sur- 

 vey of the relations and value of each speciality to others, without 

 losing sight of a specific individual purpose. The University is as 

 necessary a part of public instruction as the elementary or technical 

 school, and should be the crown and complement of these. Below 

 this point the States say every child shall be furnished with the 

 means for the rational development of his physical, moral, and intel- 

 lectual powers ; to this instruction should be added which will enable 

 the child to apply those powers in obtaining a livelihood ; while at 

 the gates of the University the State confers a privilege, and says to 

 the youth : You may go up higher, and contend for the prizes of 

 thought and activity. The University says : Here you shall find the 

 natural sciences carried up into the science of nature; that the phe- 

 nomena of society, of industry, of trade, of finance, of politics, are 

 subject to fixed laws. The University is an organic encyclopedic 

 representation of all the sciences, with their connections and rela- 

 tions. And this is equally true of the arts — architecture, music, 

 painting, the drama, are like the sciences, bound together in a 

 Universitas Arcium. 



While this is the true conception of a University, and should not 

 be lost sight of in laying the foundations of an institution for all 

 time, it is not immediately practical or adapted to the wants of young 

 and growing States. The reason of this is, that the lower stages of 

 public education are yet imperfect and unorganized. To expect to 

 have a great University without a good proportion of high schools, 

 and before we have a single technical school, seems to me prepos- 

 terous. We may have students crowding into our University to get 

 what other colleges give — liberal literary or scientific education — 

 without getting a step nearer the ideal University, while numbers of 

 the students of the older colleges are found among us seeking for 

 second-rate clerkships, in threadbare clothes; but when we get the 

 feeders to our University in running order, we shall find its utmost 



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