"222 STATE BOAED OF AGKICULTUKE. 



iifacture, while in a short time they saw and introduced all kinds of necessary 

 reforms and improvements." 



By means of the international exhibition of 1851 in London, and 18G7 in 

 Paris, Great Britain perceived that she was being outstripped in the quality of 

 the fabrics and wares on which her wealth so largely depended. She appointed 

 a, commission, she interrogated her consuls, a council of arts sent eighty skilled 

 workmen, representing many industries, to France. But one answer came back 

 from every quarter, — that the rapid progress of manufactures on the continent 

 is to be "ascribed, especially, to the scientific training of the proprietors and 

 managers of France, Switzerland, Germany and Belgium, and to the elementary 

 instruction which is universal among the working population of Germany and 

 Switzerland." England is already reaping the results of the education of her 

 artisans, which this investigation prompted. 



It might at first view seem hopeless to attempt the improvement of great 

 masses of workmen by means of schools, inasmuch as comparatively few can 

 attend. But experience proves it feasible, as I have just shown. Knowledge is 

 like light, and diffuses itself on every side. 



The profound thinkers that are essential to the highest progress of any science 

 are rare, but they appear oftenest in those callings that have a large body of 

 educated men, and this body of educated men require the existence of indus- 

 trial schools, where the teaching of the sciences shall not be put on a footing 

 inferior to the practical training. It has not been my purpose to mark out the 

 organization of industrial schools but simply to discuss the estimation in which 

 they are held. As in the first part of the address, I showed the feeling that has 

 existed against them partly with and partly without reason, on the part of class- 

 ically educated men, so now I liave attempted to deal with the feeling that 

 merely practical men have against them from the prominence they give to pure 

 science. Those Avho ask these schools, agricultural, professional, or technolog- 

 ical, to teach only practice, and applications of science ask them to fly in the 

 face of the experience of all industrial schools and to deny the large faith they 

 have in science. 



DISCUSSION AT COLDWATER. 



Cyrus G. Luce. — The programme announces a discussion on the Agricultural 

 College, and that I am to follow President Abbot. This discussion was 

 intended more particularly to call out information in relation to the college 

 than to criticize or condemn it ; and each speaker will be restricted to ten min- 

 iates as a sufficient time in which to express his views. I wish to say right here, 

 that in many of the things uttered by President Abbot I most heartily concur. 

 No man believes more firmly than I that a good education, combined with 

 experience, is demanded to successfully prosecute the duties of the farm. The 

 farmer must have a knowledge of a greater variety of things than men engaged 

 in other callings ; and I rejoice to know that so large a percentage of the stu- 

 dents of the Agricultural College are giving dignity to the labors of the farm. 

 I rejoice in the fact that the ideas of conducting the State Agricultural College 

 have been for years gradually approximating the views held by a large propor- 

 tion of the farmers of the State. 



I was more particularly acquainted with the manner of conducting the college 

 ten or twelve years ago than I am now, and still, from what I can learn, I think 

 it might be made of greater benefit to the farmers. I think there is too much 

 time spent over things which arc taught in our union schools, — which our young 



