172 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ILLINOIS 



I have noticed one fact : of three prayers I have heard since I 

 came here, all were appropriate to the occasion. Fifteen or twenty 

 years ago, these ministers would have had to pray theological or sec- 

 tarian dogmas. The day of dogmatic and scholastic rule has passed 

 away. We disagree not so much in regard to theories as to prac- 

 tice. When we set out in this matter of industrial education, all the 

 college and political men were against me on the abstract question. 

 Now, nearly all agree in the theory. 



We must have patience, but not only patience. We have no agri- 

 cultural science, and consequently no teachers of it ; all must be 

 created. All the teachers are from the scholastic order, and only 

 know scholastic methods. Suppose we had no Science of Engineer- 

 ing, or Military Tactics, and had only the professors of our theolog- 

 ical schools (as at Andover) to teach it. The intentions of these 

 men would no doubt be first rate ; but one would know only the 

 Epistle to the Romans, and he would reckon the best thing he could 

 teach the young men was their dependence upon God. The pro- 

 fessor of Hebrew would find that bomb shells and Hebrew letters 

 both described curve lines, and conclude that the student of military 

 science must learn Hebrew. 



We have got to live through this age of mental discipline. I was 

 thirty years under the harrow myself. We must cross over the 

 bridge of practical administration as we can and suffer. We buried 

 500,000 of our young men and spent $2,500,000,000, to get the 

 practical administration of the Constitution of the United States, 

 which all professed to revere. And we cannot expect immediate 

 success from the Industrial University. There were certain ele- 

 ments about the location of it that offended my moral sense ; but 

 if we could get it administered according to our principles, we would 

 be all right. But we cannot. The difficulty is found not only in 

 our State, but throughout the United States. These professors are 

 honest, but they can't do what they believe in, at first. If men then 

 make great irretrievable blunders, turn them out ; if small blunders, 

 forgive them. Mental discipline, the same discipline for all, and 

 believing that a curriculum is possible, are the three errors of these 



