PLAN FOR INDUSTRIAL UNIVERSITIES. 



University, should be holden through a succession of days. On this occasion the doors 

 of the institution, with all its treasures of art and resources of knowledge, should be 

 thrown open to all classes, and as many other objects of agricultural or mechanical skill, 

 gathered from the whole state, as possible, and presented by the people for inspection and 

 premium on the best of each kind; judgment being rendered, in all cases, by a committee 

 wholly disconnected with the institution. On this occasion, all the professors, and as 

 many of the pupils as are sufficiently advanced, should be constantly engaged in lecturing 

 and explaining the divers objects and interests of their departments. In short, this oc- 

 casion should be made the great annual Gala-Day of the Institution, and of all the in- 

 dustrial classes, and all other classes in the state, for the exhibition of their products and 

 their skill, and for the vigorous and powerful diffusion of practical knowledge in their 

 ranks, and a more intense enthusiasm in its extension and pursuit. 



As matters now are, the world has never adopted any efficient means for the application 

 and diffusion of even the practical knowledge which does exist. True, we have fairly got 

 the primer, the spelling book, and the newspaper abroad in the world, and we think that 

 we have done wonders; and so, comparatively, we have. But if this is a wonder, there 

 are still not only wonders, but, to most minds, inconceivable miracles, from new and un- 

 known worlds of light, soon to break forth upon the industrial mind of the world. 



Here, then, is a general, though very incomplete, outline of what such an institution 

 should endeavor to become. Let the reader contemplate it as it will appear when genera- 

 tions have perfected it, in all its magnificence and glory; in its means of good to man, to 

 all men of all classes : in its power to evolve and diffuse practical knowledge and skill, 

 true taste, love of industry, and sound morality — not only through its apparatus, e.\peri- 

 nients, instructions, and annual lectures and reports, but through its thousands of gradu- 

 ates, in every pursuit in life, teaching and lecturing in all our towns and villages, and 

 then let him seriously ask himself, is not such an object worthy of at least an effort, and 

 worthy of a state which God himself, in the very act of creation, designed to be the first 

 agricultural and commercial stAte on the face of the globe? 



Who should set the world so glorious an example of educating their sons worthily of 

 their heritage, their duty, and their destiny, if not the people of such a state? In our 

 countr}'^ we have no aristocracy, with the inalienable wealth of ages, and constant leisure 

 and means to perform all manner of useful experiments for their own amusement > but we 

 must create our nobility for this purpose, as we elect our rulers, from our own ranks, to 

 aid and serve, not to domineer over and control us. And this done, we will not only beat 

 England, and beat the world in yachts and locks and reapers, but in all else that contri- 

 butes to the well being and true glory of man. 



I maintain that, if ever}^ farmer's and mechanic's son in this state could now visit such 

 an institution but for a single day in the year, it would do him more good in arousing and 

 directing the dormant energies of mind, than all the cost incurred, and far more good than 

 many a six months of professed study of things he never need and never wants to know. 



As things now are, our best farmers and mechanics, by their own native force of mind, 

 by the slow process of individual experience, come to know, at forty, what they might 

 have been taught in six months at twenty, while a still greater number of the less fortu- 

 nate or less gifted, stumble on through life, almost as ignorant of every true principle of 

 their art as when they begun. A man of real skill is amazed at the slovenly ignorance 

 and waste he everywhere discovers, on all parts of their premises; and still more to hear 

 them boast of their ignorance of all " book farming," and maintain that " their ch 

 can do as well as they have done;" and itcertainly would be a great pity if they could 



