38 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



liying. In addition to morality and intelligence the good citizen must 

 be an independent being. He must be a producer. He must be able to^ 

 give to his country as much as he takes from it. If he does not produce 

 material things with his hands, he must, by skill or brain, produce an 

 equivalent which he can exchange for these material things. He must 

 be able to earn an honest living for himself and his family. Therefore, 

 if it is the object of public education to make good citizens, it must give 

 to these citizens not only morality and intelligence, but such other 

 training as will make them caj)able of self-support. This does not mean 

 that every boy in our public schools should be taught a trade, but it does 

 mean that his education should keep him in touch with his environ- 

 ments, so that when his school days are over he will be able to take 

 hold of the practical affairs of life in a practical way; that he will be 

 fitted rather than unfitted for his daily tasks; that he will not be led to 

 the belief that there is a sort of genteel way of making a living which 

 does not require hard w^ork. As far as possible his education should 

 bring him into close sympathy with the calling in life that he will be 

 compelled to follow after leaving school. 



Very important changes have taken place in the theory of higher 

 education in recent j-ears. Public land was set apart for educational 

 purposes by the ordinance of 1787 on the theory that "Religion, morality 

 and intelligence are necessary to good government and the hai)piness of 

 mankind." This act was in keeping with the spirit of the times. The 

 mental and the material progress of the country were not supposed to 

 bear any close relation with each other. Higher education was for the 

 few who expected to follow one of the learned professions. It had 

 nothing to offer to the man who worked with his hands for a living; it 

 stalked the streets in broadcloth, but never looked into a sewer; it did 

 much for men's souls, but very little for their bodies. 



But, as our country developed, and as new discoveries in science were 

 taking place in rapid succession, changes in higher education followed. 

 Educational processes preceded rather than followed the theories upon 

 which they were based. Necessity would force a neW' study into the 

 curriculum on account of its practical value; it would soon take peda- 

 gogical form, and then its value as a purely educational factor would be 

 explained and defended. In this manner the curriculum of our univer- 

 sities was broadened from year to year. "At the same time both ele- 

 mentary and higher education were blindly groping toward that higher 

 conception of fitting man for living, moving, and having his being, in 

 this his environment, by training his mind and body through the instru- 

 mentality of the very things composing this environment. Slowly the 

 notion was forming that the mind grows by what it feeds upon: by the 

 multitude of sensations which come flocking to it through the senses. "^ 

 That as far as mental development is concerned it is of much more 

 concern how the student studies than what he studies. And so it has 

 come to be accepted that the mind may grow on chemistry as well as 

 philosophy; that it may expand under the influence of science as well 

 as poetry. 



There have been marvelous material, economic and scientific changes 

 in this country since the passage of the ordinance of 1787, At that 

 time the steam engine was new and of but little use. The first steam- 

 boat had not yet been built. Railroads and the wonderful develop- 



