76 



and the doctor and the lawyer offer their services to the siclv and those in 

 troul>le. Here Emerson brought his first volume of essays alonj,' with JMorse 

 and his electric telegraph. Here Walt Whitman offered his rhymeless poems 

 and Edison his dynamo. Here some representative of the impressionist school 

 of art will in-esent a i)ictnre in competition with Burbank's latest creation in 

 fruit. There is no virtue in any subject per se. There is much hyjiocrisy in 

 the slogan. "Art for art's sake, work for work's sake, science for science's 

 sake." There is no innate worth in wearing rags and going hungry. Rather 

 a thousand times :Mrs. Wiggs. with her half a score of urchins in the cabbage 

 li'.tch, than Thoreau, with his penny a day, living at Walden Pond. To-day 

 the Titans of science are such men as Luther Burbank, in his California nur- 

 sery : Perry G. Holden. in an Iowa cornfield, and Thomas A. Edison, in an 

 electrical laboratory. These men represent a type of scientists who are pro- 

 fessedly applying science, but at the same time pushing the boundaries of pure 

 science back at a dizzy rate. While the (iermaiis have increased the average 

 ])erc("ntage of saccharine matter in the sugar beet from 12 to 18, they have mul- 

 tiplied the knowledge of jilant growth. While corn breeders have been running 

 the cominirative amounts of oil and i)rotein up and down, they have been com- 

 pleting our fragmentary knowledge of the influence of heredity and environ- 

 ment upon plant life. While the problems of soil fertility are being worked 

 out with nitrogen-fixing Itacteria and the pulse family of plants, great progress 

 is being made in conquering the mysteries of bacteriology'. While electrical 

 engineers are devising new means of utilizing electricity as a form of power to 

 provide the comforts of life, wonderful theories are being constructcHl as to the 

 very constitution of matter. Just as all honest and well-directed labor is 

 respectalile. timely, and essential, so all science rightly applied to the advance- 

 ment of human civilization is profitable, honorable, and effective. 

 In conclusion the following sums up the points of the discussion: 



(1) The land-grant colleges are essentially schools of applied science. This 

 is necessarily true of any institution where the leading object is " to teach such 

 branches as' are related" to agriculture and the mechanic ai'ts in order to pro- 

 mote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes." Applied 

 science is emphasized by the law which directs that the largest I'ederal appro- 

 priation shall be used only for " instruction in agriculture, the mechanic arts, 

 the English language, and the various branches of niiithematical. phvsical, 

 natural! and economic science, with sitecial reference to their application to the 

 industries of life and to the facilities for such instruction." The history and 

 evolution of these colleges has l)een in accord with this spirit. Whether sepa- 

 rate institutions or colleges in universities, wherever the Federal funds are 

 beiiig expended and the work authorized and reciuired by the two Morrill Acts 

 is being done, there is a center of applied science, an industrial school. 



(2) A large amount of high-grade pure science is essential as a ja-eparation 

 for the applied science. Engineering must be based upon thorough work in 

 geometrv, trigonometrv, and calculus. Agriculture must rest upon a firm 

 foundation of biology. ]>hysics. and chemistry. This pure science work is 

 provided not because it furnishes a training superior to surveying, mechanics, 

 h n-ticulture, and animal husbandry. Imt because pure science is a preparation 

 for applied science. A four-year preparatory course containing a large portion 

 of mathematics and science should be a prerequisite to all college courses m 

 agriculture and the mechanic arts. Low standards encourage the engineering 

 work to degenerate to the level of manual training and agriculture to become 

 mere nature studv. Pure science should dominate the first year of all the col- 

 lege courses. The second or sophomore year is early enough to begin specializa- 

 tion. , i, . 



(?>) The science work of the last half of the college courses, whether in agri- 

 culture or in engineering, should be thoroughly industrial. The i)roblenis of 

 applied science are complex, composite, and comprehensive. They cover a 

 wider range than anv one pure science. A chemist or a biologist is not so 

 well fitted to superintend jilant breeding, animal lireeding. soil experiments, 

 etc., as one trained in horticulture, animal husbandry, etc. The teacher of 

 pure matlKMiiatics does not presume to direct the work in civil, electrical, or 

 other engineering. The two cases are parallel. It is because of tli<> supple- 

 menting of pure mathematics by extensive training in hydraulics, machinery, 

 electrical maniiailatioiis. etc., that engineering has reached the dignity of a 

 profession and ranks with law and medicine. Scientific agriculture is fast 

 aiiproacbing the same proportions through the work of the instructors and 

 station workers in the land-grant colleges. 



