15 



GOVERNOR ANDREW, OF MASSACHUSETTS, ON THE EDUCATION OF THE INDUS- 

 TRIAL CLASSES. 



Of the official notices made by the executives of the different States of the 

 donation by Congress for the establishment of industrial colleges, we admire 

 and approve most that of Grovernor Andrew, of Massachusetts. It exhibits 

 such genuine sympathy for the industrial classes, such a just perception of the 

 extent of the instruction they should receive, and such correct ideas of the mode 

 by which that instruction may best be given, that we cannot but notice his 

 recommendations, and the sentiments expressed by him as Governor in his 

 messages, and in his recent address to the New England Agricultural Society. 



In his message of January 9, 1S63, the governor thus sketches the character 

 of the college that should be established : 



"An institution requiring 'military tactics,' and ' such branches of learning 

 as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts,' to be taught 'without ex- 

 cluding other scientific and classical studies,' must of necessity, to be worthy 

 of Massachusetts, involve large expenditures, and demand an assemblage of 

 men of the highest talents as teachers. For although agriculture was the first 

 art invented, it must be the last to be brought to perfection, since it requires 

 contributions from every branch of natural science, and aid from every other 

 art. We shall not use the grant of Congress wisely if we make of it simply a 

 means of giving farmers' sons such an education as they could obtain by living 

 on a well-managed farm and attending an ordinary high-school. It must be 

 made the means of a positive increase of human knoAvledge in the departments 

 bearing on agriculture and manufactures, and the medium of teaching not only 

 farmers, but those who shall become teachers and improvers of the art of 

 farming." 



Referring to European schools of a like character as those contemplated in 

 the act of Congress, he says : 



"The Central School of Arts and IManufactures, in France, counts forty pro- 

 fessors and teachers. The Conservatory of Arts and Trades has a number not 

 inferior, and has also three subordinate or auxiliary colleges in the provinces. 

 The Polytechnic School of Vienna has fifty-eight instructors." 



The colleges indicated by the act of Congress are spoken of very often as to 

 be agricultural only. This is not the case ; but that body had clearly in view 

 the education of all the industrial classes — the mechanic, the manufacturer, the 

 merchant, and a class almost new to this country because of its vast internal 

 commerce, not yet named, but whom we shall designate as the transporter — 

 those engaged in the carrying trade both on land and the ocean. 



The educational wants of these have been sought to be provided for by the 

 establishment of commercial colleges, schools of design, institutes of tech- 

 nology, &c., &c. The establishment of so many different institutions has been 

 attended with the usual fate of American colleges : few have had the patronage 

 to sustain them, and still fewer have had the means to properly instruct in the 

 limited branches they professed to teach for want of that museum, apparatus, 

 and library essential to a profitable instruction in the sciences. 



These difficulties led to a report to the Massachusetts legislature in 1S51, 



