PLAN FOR INDUSTRIAL UNIVERSITIES. 



ducts of this state are annually lost from ignorance on the above topics. And it can 

 scarcely be doubted, that in a few years the entire cost of the whole Institution would be 

 annually saved to the state, in the above interests alone, aside from all its other benefits, 

 intellectual, moral, social and pecuniary. 



The Apparatus required for such a work is obvious. There should be grounds devot- 

 ed to a botanical and common garden; to orchards and fruit-yards; to appropriate lawns 

 and promenades, in which the beautiful art of landscape gardening could be appropriately 

 applied and illustrated; to all varieties of pasture, meadow, and tillage needful for the 

 successful prosecution of the needful annual experiments. And on these grounds should 

 be collected and exhibited a sample of every variety of domestic animal, and of every tree, 

 plant, and vegetable that can minister to the health, wealth, or taste and comfort of the 

 people of the state; their nature, habits, merits, production, improvement, culture, dis- 

 eases, and accidents, thoroughly scrutinized, tested, and made known to the students, and 

 to the people of the state. 



There should also be erected, a sufficient number of buildings and out-buildings for all 

 the purposes above indicated, and a Repository, in which all the ordinary tools and im- 

 plements of the institution should be kept; and models of all other useful implements and 

 machines from time to time collected, and tested, as they are proffered to public use. At 

 first it would be for the interest of inventors and venders, to make such deposits. But, 

 should similar institutions be adopted in other states, the general government ought to 

 create in each state a general patent office, attached to the Universities, similar to the ex- 

 isting deposits at Washington, thus rendering this department of mechanical art and skill 

 more accessible to the great mass of the people of the Union. 



I should have said, also, that a suitable industrial library should be at once procured, 

 did not all the world know such a thing to be impossible, and that one of the first and 

 most.important duties of the professors of such institutions, will be to begin to create, at 

 this late hour, a proper practical literature, and series of text books for the industrial 

 classes. 



As regards the Professors, they should, of course, not only be men of the most emi- 

 nent practical ability in their several departments, but their connection with the institu- 

 tion should be rendered so fixed and stable, as to enable them to carry through such de- 

 signs as thej'^ may form, or all the peculiar benefits of the system would be lost. 



Instruction, by lectures and otherwise, should be given mostly in the colder months of 

 the year, leaving the professors to prosecute their investigations, and the students their 

 necessary labor, either at home or on the premises, during the warmer months. 



The institution should be open to all classes of students above a fixed age, and for any 

 length of time, whether three months or seven years, and each taught in those peculiar 

 branches of art which he wishes to pursue, and to any extent, more or less. And all 

 should pay their tuition and board bills, in whole or in part, either in money or necessa- 

 ry work on the premises — regard being had to the ability of each. 



Among those who labor, medals and testimonials of merit should be given to those who 

 perform their tasks A|ith most promptitude, energy, care, and skill; and all who prove 

 indolent or ungovernable, excluded at first from all part in labor, and speedil}', if not 

 thoroughly reformed, from the institution itself, and here again let the law of nature in- 

 stead of the law of rakes and dandies be regarded, and the true impression ever made on 

 the mind of all around, that work alone is honorable, and indolence certain disgrace 

 ruin, 

 some convenient season of the year, the commencement, or Annual Fair 



