THE STATE COLLEGE. 55 



practical application of the sciences they taught, and the}' were to 

 train all their students as defenders of their country against domes- 

 tic rebellion or foreign invasion. In a word, they were to educate 

 their students as men and as American citizens. 



" The rank of the education given is liberal, the term applied to 

 the education given by the highest institutions then known. It was 

 to be so broad as to fit men for the ' several pursuits and profes- 

 sions of life.' The object of these colleges was to obliterate the 

 supposed superiority of the so-called ' learned professions/ by se- 

 curing a ' liberal,' that is, the highest education, for those who 

 chose industrial pursuits, thus lifting agriculture and the mechanic 

 arts from the plane of mere routine labor to the dignity of learned 

 professions, founded upon scientific knowledge and allied to, or 

 connected with, those branches of learning essential for a broad 

 and generous culture of the whole man. 



" Many who have attempted the management of these colleges, 

 as well as man}- who have criticised them, have apparentlj^ over- 

 looked the broad and generous plan upon which they were founded. 

 It is doubtful if they will ever accomplish the great work for which 

 they were intended, until their original purpose is so fully and con- 

 stanth- recognized and carried out by judicious, painstaking work, 

 that the curi'ents of education shall be once fairly turned toward 

 these new channels. When once fairly turned, that they will con- 

 tinue to flow can no more be doubted than we can doubt the suc- 

 cess of any natural process when not artificially obstructed. An 

 education that gives boj's what the}' need to daily use when the}^ 

 become men, commends itself as rational and practical. All true 

 education should aim at this. And this certainly is the idea that is 

 embodied in the bill founding the industrial colleges of the several 

 States." 



Such was the breadth of the foundation of the collesre and 

 such the broad superstructure which the experienced and the 

 enthusiastic Cliadbourne would build. 



Shall we fail to carry forward the work which he began, 

 and which he so clearly outlined? We all say no. 



The act in accordance with which the colleo^e was estab- 

 lished does not require that it should be administered in the 

 interest of one class of working-men. It has not been so 

 administered. It shall not be. Younsr men have been 

 fitted for a great variety of employments at this college as 

 at other colleges. Some of the graduates are clergymen^ 

 some are lawyers, several are physicians, while the majority 



