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12 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



is to get ready to live; that real education is active, not passive; 

 and that its fruitage is service, not personal gratification. We are 

 living in an age which recognizes that all forms of useful activity 

 can be made yet more useful by the knowledge and the graces of 

 education ; and that the man himself is bigger than his occupation 

 — bigger than that narrow avenue of public service through which 

 he obtains his livelihood, and discharges the ordinary debts to Na- 

 ture. We have all learned this lesson, and by this time we ought to 

 have learned it well. It is true, that education for industrial people, 

 and after that education in and for industry, arose from the masses 

 and was forced upon the schools. I do not forget all this, but I beg 

 to call your attention to the fact that that early demand was a 

 selfish one, — a righteous selfishness, it is true, but yet selfish. The 

 masses wanted education for their own purposes, and it caused no 

 little jolt to the educational juggernaut when they proceeded to 

 get it. But when they had time to recover their breath, educators — 

 real educators — began to take stock of the situation, and they have 

 commenced in these days a new policy of education in the world; 

 a policy which if followed out, will develop all our resources, both 

 industrial and intellectual; a policy which will take care of your 

 personal needs, and mine, and yet which is as broad as humanity 

 and all its activities. This new policy is working successfully in 

 our great state universities where men of all classes, aims, and 

 prospects are educated together from the standpoint not of private 

 interest but of the public good. The same policy has commenced 

 its work in our secondary schools and I am anxious above all other 

 considerations that these schools should solve this whole problem 

 for their communities; besides, I know educators well enough to 

 believe that they will earnestly undertake to do it if they are en- 

 trusted with the duty, which is also a privilege. 



These modern schools must have a fair chance. They are new 

 institutions; they have hardly been in the field a half century, and 

 how they have grown! There are literally hundreds of them that 

 are giving a better education than colleges gave a generation ago, 

 and they have only commenced to serve the people. If they have 

 not yet solved all the problems and taught all the subjects the 

 people need, it is no sign that they cannot or that they will not, 

 and they should be given the chance. Every new addition to 

 an educational institution not only serves a new public need, but 

 it enriches all that was before. All the modern secondary school 

 needs in order to serve us perfectly is men and money, and time 

 to learn how. 



