434 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



The school is called upon to provide the education necessary for 

 the artisan, and this it can do better than the practice of an industrial 

 art alone, because it can arrange such a gradation of tasks as will insure 

 the most rapid and permanent acquisition of skill and mental power. 

 The school can give manual training without interrupting the general 

 education of the youth. As dexterity in some lines is easiest acquired 

 in youth, it can insure this without the waste of mind and body in- 

 volved in child labor. The school, furthermore, can constantly relate 

 the precepts of the arts to the principles of the sciences on which they 

 rest and can add to this an artistic education which will awaken ability 

 beyond that which any training in the workshop or factory can evoke. 



Professional and Technical Education is of a more advanced order, 

 and therefore not only requires more expensive equipment so that it 

 is limited to a relatively small number of institutions, but is divided 

 into professional courses corresponding closely to the professions and 

 to the customary groupings of productive industries. This branch of 

 education requires little explanation, let alone defense, in this country. 

 It is the earliest form of education for industry to be developed here 

 and it has passed beyond the experimental stage. 



Of professional schools there were but two in this country at the 

 time of the declaration of independence, and these were both medical 

 schools. In 1899 the Commissioner of Education reported 917 profes- 

 sional schools, including schools of theology, medicine, law, pharmacy, 

 dentistry, veterinary science and training schools for nurses, having a 

 total attendance of 65,152. 



As an illustration of a technical school we may cite the Eensselaer 

 Polytechnic Institute of Troy, N. Y., one of the first of its kind in this 

 country. It was founded in 1824 and, because of its early start and 

 high rank, has exerted a great influence upon American railway en- 

 gineering. The Philadelphia Textile School, the New York School 

 for Carriage Draftsmen, the Michigan Agriculture College and the 

 School of Mines of the same state are institutions of this class, as are 

 the many polytechnic, mechanical and agricultural ■ schools of the coun- 

 try, and schools of forestry, architecture, etc. 



Through the liberality of the federal government many excellent 

 agricultural colleges now exist in the United States, but a wonderful 

 future lies before our agriculture when it shall be thoroughly permeated 

 by the modern scientific and system-loving spirit, and its various 

 branches shall follow the dictates of science, under the guidance of 

 trained men. This the recent history of the dairy industries amply 

 proves. The mineral industries of this country have been conquered 

 by scientific experts within the past fifteen years, and the recent im- 

 provements in smelting and refining are due to men from the univer- 

 sities and schools of mines. The manufacturing industries of this 

 country in a like manner need and can greatly profit by a steady supply 



