any age but the visible expression of its wants and necessities, the 

 incarnation of its thoughts and aspirations? What were the Parthe 

 non and the Pantheon, the Republic of Plato or the Institutes of 

 Justinian, but the visible, tangible embodiment of the ideas of their 

 several eras ? And what is this College but the embodiment of an 

 idea, the expression of a conscious necessity, an ascertained want of 

 our day and generation ? 



That the development and prosperity of the agricultural and 

 mechanical interests is a necessity to the well-being and progress 

 of society, and that these objects can be more successfully accom- 

 plished by the education of those engaged in these pursuits in 

 whatever appertains to them, is an idea which has long been enter- 

 tained by wise men and statesmen, but it never received much 

 popular endorsement nor found substantial or general expression 

 until modern times. To-day, however, it is strong in popular favor 

 and finds expression in one form and another, but notably in the 

 numerous Technical Schools and Colleges organized not only in our 

 own bul in nearly all the progressive countries of Europe. 



These schools are based substantially upon the theory that every 

 useful occupation of man is a specialty that is, that it involves in 

 its exercise principles and practices peculiar to itself, and which do 

 not, in a like degree, at least, belong to any other, and that a know- 

 ledge of these can be best obtained in a school especially devoted to 

 instruction therein. 



Upon this theory was organized the Virginia Agricultural and 

 Mechanical College, and whatever mutations may await it in the 

 coming years, I trust that from this fundamental idea it will never 

 depart. Its mission is essentially and pre-eminently that of practical 

 education. 



But it may be asked, What is meant by practical education? 

 Primarily, it is a term of broad significance. In one sense all 

 education is practical. At least, it is not difficult to establish that 

 any education which is not practical either in its nature or tenden- 1 

 cies, or both, is not only useless, but absolutely harmful. Heal 

 education has for its object the discipline of the mental and moral 

 faculties, the enlargement of the powers and capacities of the mind, 

 and the storing it with useful knowledge; and any plan or system 

 of education which accomplishes these results is essentially practical. 

 As real knowledge has been defined by a distinguished modern 

 author to be " an acquaintance with the relations which things and 

 ideas bear to each other and to themselves in other words, * * an 

 acquaintance with physical and mental laws" it follows, if his 



