212 PREJUDICE AGAINST INDUSTRIBL SCHOOLS. 



a power to hold steadily in mind circles great and small cutting 

 the sky, while we reason on the relation of their parts and move- 

 ments. The phj-sical sciences make a constant demand on this 

 kind of imagination. Some of the subjects of physics — like 

 polarity — cannot be comprehended without this discipline. The 

 same is true of the classiBcatory sciences when carried beyond the 

 rudiments. Properly pursued, a term's study of science ought to 

 be worth as much educationally, as a term of Greek. 



Bread-and-huUer Schools. Industrial schools have been looked 

 down upon, as of a grade altogether inferior to those of a literary, 

 classical, or philosophical kind. They have been considered as ia 

 some sort bread-and-butter schools, whose highest aim was to 

 clothe and feed this miserable body, while literature and science 

 were wont to strike their sublime heads against the stars. 



Let us look a little into this matter of dignity. I freely admit 

 that the educated man finds, or ought to find, in his studies, a 

 happiness superior to that of mere bodily comfort and enjoyment. 

 These are not to be despised, but above them are the needs of our 

 intellectual, moral, and {esthetic natures. I spent part of my 

 youth in most intimate association with young men, several of 

 whom now hold high positions in schools of theology, science and 

 literature, and I know they enjoyed a good dinner as became them. 

 But their delight was in the dramas of Sophocles, and other mas- 

 terpieces of literature and philosophy. They would have thought 

 themselves insulted by the insinuation that they sought truth but 

 for truth's sake, or felt otherwise than that beauty is its own 

 excuse for being. I believe this is the true spirit of the scholar, 

 even in this working world. The dignity of philosophy, of litera- 

 ture, of history, I do not deny. What I claim is that these have 

 no monopoly of this true spirit. Pure mathematics and astronomy, 

 indeed, have been long admitted into the select company. Plato 

 was a geometer, and made his science religious by saying God 

 himself geometrizes. 



. But the same spirit that makes philosophy food for the soul may 

 and does make all other studies a like food. It is not the bread 

 that nourishes, but the blessing. It is not the text-book, but the 

 man that determines the result of intellectual digestion. Philoso- 

 phy, even theology, may be pursued in a sordid spirit, while 

 pomology, geology and zoology, may receive the purest devotion 

 to truth. 



