FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 311 



tion are liarclly in themselves sufficient to induce liim to devote a number of 

 years to acquiring a higher education. He must be satisfied that the years thus 

 spent will so enlarge his facilities for making money as to enable him to take a 

 position among the men who are considered financially a success. And yet it is 

 precisely with regard to this that our educational system is most defective. 



Besides her distinguished universities, in which are taught science, letters, 

 philosophy and religion, Europe is dotted all over with schools and colleges whose 

 aim is to impart that training vrhicli will enable their graduates to reach the 

 best and highest results in every department of industry. Teaching farmers 

 hov,^ to improve all the varieties of domestic animals, and how to make the soil 

 yield the best i^roducts in the largest quanties. Teaching the miner how to 

 procure, and the metallurgist how to use the products of tiie mine. Teaching 

 the manufacturer how with the least expenditure of time and money to convert 

 raw material into articles of utility and ornament. Teaching the mariner how 

 to navigate the ocean and protect the rich commerce under his care ; teacliing 

 the engineer how to overcome apparently insurmountable obstacles and make 

 a highway for commerce through mountains and over rivers. 



The principle on wliich all such institutions of technical learning are founded, 

 and which governs the nature and methods of their instruction, is that intelli- 

 gence is the most essential element of progress. That it is just as necessary 

 for the farmer to understand the sciences related to his department of work 

 and so of the workers in all the other branches of industry, as it is for the physi- 

 cian, or lawyer, or preacher, to be intelligent in their departments. 



In this country we can hardly be said to have more than made a beginning in 

 regard to technical education. There are a few technological schools and col- 

 leges in the eastern and in some of the middle States, Several States have em- 

 barked on the experiment of agricultural colleges, encouraged by the grant of 

 land for that purpose by the Federal Government. Our own State, we believe, 

 has the oldest and most prosperous Institution of this kind in the Union, The 

 la?t Legislature authorized the Board of Kegents of the State University to 

 establish a scliool of mines in connection witli the polytechnic department of 

 that institution, with at least three professorships : one in mining engineering, 

 one in metallurgy, and one in architecture and design. Schools of tliis nature 

 are yet in their infancy with us, A manufacturer of New England recently 

 declared tliat the designs for their establishment cost them forty-five thousand 

 dollars a year, every dollar of which went to England, France, and Germany. 

 Says a recent writer on Art Education in the International Review: "It is a 

 fact full of significance to the United States, which ha> all the natural resources 

 to lead the civilized world in manufactures, that tlie nation (the United States) 

 which made the poorest exhibition of industrial products at the Universal Exhi- 

 bitions of 1851 and 18G7, made also the poorest exposition of industrial schools 

 at home ; and that the countries which gave to the world the richest silks, the 

 costliest carpets, the most valuable vroolen fabrics, the best cotton prints, the 

 most artistic productions of the pottery, the glass factory, the bronze foundry, 

 and the marble works, also have built the most and the best industrial schools." 

 I am full of hope that our country will derive large benefit from the exhibition 

 in regard to tliis matter. We shall doubtless find that although Ave have been 

 making considerable progress we are still excelled by other countries in the pro- 

 duction of many articles, particularly those whose value depends largely upon 

 their artistic perfection. But we are not the people to sit down on the word 

 impossible, and get discouraged because we are beaten. We shall do as England 



