418 *T 



RANSACTTONS OP THE 



CLAIMS AND CONDITION OF INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 



BY E. S. CARR, M. D., PROFESSOR OP CHEMISTRY AND AGRIGULTURE IN THE 



UNIVERSITY OP CALIFORNIA. 



When I think of the great mechanical and manufacturing interests to 

 which England owes so much of her wealth and prosperity; of the con- 

 dition of her working classes, the thousands who barrow in her mines 

 and are ground in her factories until all semblance of the higher humanity 

 is lost, and contrast it with the comfort, intelligence, political and social 

 power those very classes so quickly reach in this free land; when I think 

 of the great facilities afforded in Europe for technical and agricultural 

 education, and how careless our Government has been, until recently, in 

 this respect, I realize that "Freedom — that is, the absence of all restric- 

 tions which can prevent men from using to their advantage the powers 

 which God has given them — is the mightiest of all the conditions of 

 progress in civilization and culture." Freedom of thought and conscience, 

 planted on such a field, sees that every step of her progress is dependent 

 upon the popular intelligence, and that with every step comes some new 

 question of responsibility; some new social or political problem which 

 requires a trained intellect and wdl for its solution. If Europe, foreseeing 

 the approaching doom of principalities and powers by the light thrown 

 from these shores, has been preparing for popular government by popular 

 education, how careful and zealous should this nation, holding in trust 

 the faith of all nations in free institutions, be to secure their perpetuity 

 and full development? Never in the histoiy of the world were its toilers 

 and thinkers brought into such close fellowship; the exchanges of pro- 

 ducts between them has never been so rapid and the good results so 

 generally acknowledged. Our system of popular education is the first 

 great constructive measure of national progress, and this has yet to be 

 moulded to its purposes through a system of higher institutions organized 

 into harmony with the great requirements of our country and period. 



THE FIRST GREAT REQUIREMENT. 



That the first great requirement of our country is the fullest, freest. 

 and most liberal education of the masses, no one will deny who thinks 

 what the duties of American citizenship are fast coming to be, and of her 

 peculiar position, holding Asia by one hand ami Europe by the other. 

 What great questions of race, sex, of political and religious liberty, of 

 property, of capital and labor, are to be acted upon, if not settled, by 

 the children now in our public schools! Can wo feel that the kind of 

 training our children are receiving is sufiicient, or that best calculated 

 to prepare them for their great responsibilities? How much arithmetic, 

 geometry, and grammar will enable your son to vote intelligently on a 



