STATE INDUSTRIAL COLLEGE. 35 



have provided gymnasiums to furnish the needful exercise. But 

 why may not this be supplied in the form of productive labor as 

 well as in unproductive ? Will not productive labor, if properly 

 regulated, serve an equally useful purpose ? We believe it can ; 

 and if so, there is the incidental advantage of contributing toward 

 support. So far from hindering intellectual labor, it assists; 

 certainly in a great majority of cases more study can be accom- 

 plished during the four years of college life in connection with a 

 fair amount of physical labor than can be without it. Another 

 thing, this method avoids the probable disinclination to hand labor 

 which is the natural result of its discontinuance for four years. 

 How many graduates of the older colleges ever returned to active 

 occupation in the industrial pursuits which they left on entering ? 

 A small proportion only, as all admit. Now, as these new colleges 

 were expressly designed for the " liberal and practical education of 

 the industrial classes," (such is the exact language of the congres- 

 sional act endowing them) it is highly important that the students 

 should not be exposed to an incidental course of weaning from 

 industrial pursuits which would defeat the express object of these 

 institutions so far as they differ from other colleges. 

 • A third and very strong reason is that, by practicing the various 

 operations the science of which they study in books or by lectures, 

 they come to understand them better. To neglect this is some- 

 what as if a tailor or a shoemaker should content himself with 

 explaining to an apprentice the principles upon which he cut out 

 and made up his work and the ways in which he applied the 

 measurements taken, without setting him to do it, also. This is, 

 in fact, the grand object, for labor with study, properly directed, 

 helps progress in the studies, makes them more useful, more prac- 

 tical than they can be without it. 



Again, as has already been said, labor furnishes a safety valve 

 for the escape of the exuberant spirits of youth. Those young men 

 need work, they need study, they need play, and one just as much 

 the other ; and if you let them have all these in due proportions 

 there will be small need of corrective, disciplinary measures. And 

 with all the direct benefits there is the incidental one of assisting 

 in a pecuniary point of view. This is really of very great impor- 

 tance, for with very many it will be the pivot on which the 

 question whether they can or cannot obtain such an education, - 

 will turn. I would not detract in the least degree from its value ; 

 nevertheless I would have it looked upon as an incidental benefit 



