SCIENTIFIC AND INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. 181 



these, and I trust that Mr. E. W. Stewart may be called to superintend 

 them. 



Some time since, in view of this matter, I visited certain cattle- 

 feeding establishments with a gentleman whose sound sense on such 

 matters you all recognize, Hon. George Geddes. Said he : " This ex- 

 periment, fairly tried, will be worth to the State of New liork more 

 than your whole endowment, no matter which way it turns out — no 

 matter whether ' soiling ' is found profitable or unprofitable ; to try 

 this matter fully, and fairly, and scientifically, will be worth more than 

 your endowment." 



The act of 1862 also provides with special care for instruction in 



" BRANCHES RELATING TO THE MECHANIC ARTS." 



If you doubt the wisdom of this, look again at tlie last census. There 

 you find the manufactures of the United States valued at $4,000,000,000, 

 and over 2,000,000 persons engaged in them. Can education be made 

 useful to this vast interest ? Other nations think so, and are laying 

 out vast sums in this direction. Some of our sister States are doing 

 admirably in this respect. Illinois and Massachusetts have made ex- 

 cellent provision for mechanical science, and the recent message of 

 Governor Bagby, of Michigan, shows that good work is to be done in 

 that State. In an address delivered before this Society a few years 

 since I described some of those foreign institutions. I trust, then, 

 that you will pardon me for describing that which we have since cre- 

 ated in this State. 



Thanks to one of our trustees, a noble provision has been added 

 for this purpose to that originally made by the nation. 



The Hon. Hiram Sibley, of Rochester, has erected a building, 

 equipped it with lecture-rooms, draughting-rooms, a workshop supplied 

 with the best machinery, and has given an endowment to support a 

 Professor of Mechanical Engineering and a superintendent of the 

 machine-shop. Besides this, Mr. Cornell has erected a shop for wood- 

 working, and has provided water-power for both establishments. 



What is the system ? Young men come wishing to make them- 

 selves first-class mechanical engineers or master-mechanics, or to per- 

 fect themselves in any branch of mechanical industry. Under careful 

 instructors, they are carried through the various sciences bearing on 

 their profession. They are taught mathematics in all their relations 

 to mechanics. In one room they go on with the mathematical and 

 mechanical drawing of machinery, in another w^ith free-hand drawing ; 

 in the laboratory they are taken through various processes bearing 

 upon their profession. A certain number of hours every day they must 

 give to the workshop, and there, in well-worn apron and rolled-up 

 sleeves, they go on under careful supervision from the use of the sim- 

 plest machinery and the plainest work to the most complicated. The 

 purpose is to send out every year a body of young men with not mere- 

 ly a very high grade of theoretical instruction, but with most thorough 



