PLAN FOR INDUSTRIAL UNIVERSITIES. 



No inconsiderable share, however, of the mental discipline that is attributed to this pe 

 culiar course of dut}^ arises from daily intercourse, for years, with minds of the first or- 

 der in their teachers and comrades, and would be produced under any other course, if the 

 parties had remained harmoniously together. On the other hand, a classical teacher, who 

 has no original, spontaneous power of thought, and knows nothing but Latin and Greek, 

 however perfectly, is enough to stultify a whole generation of boys and make them all 

 pedantic fools like himself. The idea of infusing mind, or creating, or even materially in- 

 creasing it by the daily inculcation of unintelligible words — all this awful wringing to get 

 blood out of a turnep — will, at any rate, never succeed except in the hands of the emi- 

 nently wise and prudent, who have had long experience in the process; the plain, blunt 

 sense of the unsophisticated will never realise cost in the operation. There are, moreover, 

 probably, few men who do not already talk more, in proportion to what they really know, 

 than they ought to. This chronic diarrhoea of exhortation, which the social atmosphere 

 of the age tends to engender, tends far less to public health than many suppose. The his- 

 tory of the Quakers shows that more sound sense, a purer morality, and a more elevated 

 practical piety can exist, and does exist, entirely without it, than is commonly found with 

 it. 



At all events, we find as society becomes less conservative and pedantic, and more truly 

 and practically enlightened, a growing tendency of all other classes, except the literary 

 and clerical, to omit this supposed linguistic discipline, and apply themselves directly to 

 the more immediate duties of their calling; and aside from some little inconvenience at 

 first, in being outside of caste, that they do not succeed quite as well in advancing their 

 own interests in life, and the true interests of society, there is no sufficient proof. 



Indeed, I think the exclusive and extravagant claims set up for ancient lore, as a means 

 of disciplining the reasoning powers, simply ridiculous when examined in the light of those 

 ancient worthies who produced that literature, or the modern ones who have been most 

 devoted to its pursuit, in this countrj' and in Europe. If it produces infallible practical 

 reasoners, we have a great many thousand infallible antagonistic truths, and ten thousand 

 conflicting paths of right, interest, duty, and salvation. If any man will just be at the 

 trouble to open his eyes and his ears, he can perceive at a glance, how much this evasive 

 discipline really does, and has done, for the reasoning faculty of man, and how much for 

 the power of sophistical cant, and stereotyped nonsense; so that if obvious facts, instead 

 of verbose declamation, are to have any weight in the case, I am willing to join issue with 

 the opposers of the proposed scheme, even on the bare ground of its superior adaptation 

 to develop the mental powers of its pupils. 



The most natural and effectual mental discipline possible for any man, arises from set- 

 ting him to earnest and constant thought about the things he daily does, sees, and hand- 

 les, and all their connected relations and interests. The final object to be attained, with 

 the industrial class, is to make them thinking laborers, while of the professional class we 

 should desire to make laborious thinkers : the production of goods to feed and adorn the 

 body being the final end of one class of pursuits, and the production of thought to do the 

 same for the mind, the end of the other. But neither mind nor body can feed on the of- 

 fals of preceding generations. And this constantly recurring necessity of reproduction, 

 leaves an equally honorable, though somewhat different career of labor and duty open to 

 both; and, it is readily admitted, should and must vary their modes of education and 

 preparation accordingly. 



may do for the man of books to plunge at once amid the catacombs of buried nations 

 anguages, to soar away to Greece or Rome, or Nova-Zembla, Kamskatka, an 



