544 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



agricultural college it is perhaps better to consider first in what manner 

 the agricultural college is related to other forms of higher education. 



Higher education in modern times is following two lines. The first 

 of these may be called classical education; the second, for lack of a better 

 name, we shall call technical education. The classical school presumes 

 to impart knowledge and to furnish so-called mental training. The tech- 

 nical school offers, as its ultimate purpose, the training of the human 

 hand how to do things. And it may be remarked that a school for 

 training the hand how to do things is something new in the world. 

 Up to a point in history no farther back than the last century there was 

 only one kind of school, the classical school. 



The school for training the hand had not been evolved. 



We are all aware that the state of Iowa, as such, supports dis- 

 tinguished schools representing each kind of learning, viz: The uni- 

 versity at Iowa City for teaching the classics and one at Ames teaching 

 technology and the handicrafts. Both of these institutions, each of 

 which we believe to be among the best in its respective ways, are sup- 

 ported by the taxpayers of Iowa. It is assumed by the chair that the 

 taxpayer wishes to know in as concrete a form as possible what these 

 schools respectively stand for. 



The function of the S. U. I. is widely known and gradually approved 

 and there is no occasion to elaborate upon it. 



But in respect to the function and scope of the Ames school we fear 

 that the popular impression is not so favorable. 



Be that as it may, there is room enough and occasion enough for a 

 fuller statement touching the dignity of the work of the Ames school 

 and the magnificent impression which it and other schools like it are 

 putting upon our civilization. 



The busy Iowa farmer has not thought out to a conclusion the rela- 

 tion which exists between the technical school and the white houses 

 and red barns and other signs of material prosperity which gladden 

 the Iowa landscape. 



To define "the function of the agricultural school in the modern 

 state" offhand is not an easy thing to do. To study the branches therein 

 taught would be one way, but it goes without saying that it would be 

 a hopeless task in the fifteen minutes at our disposal to enumerate the 

 branches taught in the agricultural school and thence to deduce a con- 

 clusion as to its functions. 



Instead of that it is deemed best, first, to outline a certain great 

 economic movement which overtook our race the latter part of the 

 eighteenth century; second, to note some of the blessings which followed 

 in the trail of this great movement and, third, to point out that the 

 agricultural college and in fact every technical school, is an accessoTy 

 to that movement. 



We shall first concern ourselves with the time limits of this move- 

 ment and on this point shall venture the assertion that it was some 

 time in the year A. D. 1769 that our civilization took on its new type and 

 that therefore the movement is 128 years old. In many important mat- 

 ters and in fact, we believe, in the most important matter of all the 

 civilization which preceded 1769, is of one type or sort and the civiliza- 



