1G6 STATE rOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



And there isuo better evidence that our notions of what a true education should 

 he are crcatly improved, tlian tliat learned scientists, who formerly maintained 

 that tlieory as to science which tliis college discarded, liave since alKindoncd it as 

 untenable. If science can be made practical, so much the better for its own 

 sake, because financial prosperity and thrift are indispensable to satisfactory 

 scientific and educational progress, Tiie change of feeling in this regard is 

 furtlier sliown in tlie establishment of numerous teclmical scliools of various 

 sorts since this Institution was founded ; and also in this that all the great 

 Universities in the land now maintain higlily creditable schools of science of a 

 more or less practical character, while almost all the old classical colleges have 

 introduced scientific courses, — often feeble enough, but still showing the educa- 

 tional tendencies and demands of the times. 



The great importance of technical education I think has not been overesti- 

 mated, or indeed as 3'et fully appreciated. It is dillicult to conceive that any 

 amount of increase of classical learning would advance the material prosperity 

 of the nation ; whereas an increase of a knowledge of sciences in their prac- 

 tical aspects, through which the forces and products of nature are better 

 understood and more thoroughly utilized, would obviously tend to i)romotesuch 

 prosperity. A knowledge of the odes of Horace, or the ei)ics of llomer, how- 

 ever excellent in itself, will not invent the telegraph or build railroads, or 

 construct improved machinery, or lead the way to a more profitable husbandry. 



Another feature of this institution was one which tended to promote the 

 physical culture of its students. Its manual labor system, defective in some 

 respects, served as I think a good purpose in various ways. As a whole the 

 students seemed more robust than those of other institutions, and on the com- 

 pletion of the course of study went forth with more vigorous constitutions than 

 is usually the rule. I do not, however, believe that any system of manual 

 labor can be so devised as to become the exclusive means of the higliest physi- 

 cal culture. 



With a somewhat extended opportunity for observation, I am convinced that 

 the course of instruction of this institution, has no superior in regard to its 

 general adaptation to the wants of earnest, practical, working men. I know of 

 no profession or occupation for which a man would not be the bet^ter fitted for 

 having pursued it. It teaches the student observation and self-reliance; it 

 acquaints him with a wide range of sciences, a knowledge of which is valuable 

 in itself, but also valuable in its bearing ujion agriculture, the great source of 

 our national wealth and prosperity, regarding which no citizen, who is at the 

 same time the sovereign, should be ignorant ; and especially the course gives 

 him a broad and unexcelled foundation on which to l)uild by subsequent j)cr- 

 sonal oll'ort. 



But I need not in detail consider the peculiar features of this Institution in 

 her earliest or later years. That she was perfect then, or is perfect now, no 

 one will claim. Human inventions, and achievements, and institutions, if they 

 are to jjossess any marked degree of worth, do not at once spring up into per- 

 fection. Defects will be developed, which must be remedied ; improvements 

 will be demanded, which must be introduced. Those of us who have been 

 away from the College for a luimber of years, find now on our rt'turn jileasing 

 evidences of a prosperous and healthy growth, showing unmistakably that she 

 is rapidly attaining that high position which her friends have been accustomed 

 to keep in view. That this and similar institutions are to take the place of the 

 older ones modeled on a different plan, no one will claim ; but that being called 



