102 HENRY HILL GOODELL 



by comparing the letter with the address above referred to. 

 Dr. Allen writes : — 



"Among President Goodell's services to the Massachu- 

 setts Agricultural College it seems to me none have been 

 more far-reaching than the high educational ideals which 

 he contended for. He never forgot that the institution was 

 a college, and not a farm school; that its prime object was 

 the education of men for real life — not merely the giving 

 of superficial training, which would make its graduates 

 simply skilled technicians. He contended that the college 

 must teach facts and principles as well as things, and that 

 the true agricultural education rescues man from the rule-of - 

 thumb only as it gives him an intellectual grasp of his sub- 

 ject and the ability to use knowledge with discrimination. 



"To him more than to any other single man, it seems to 

 me, is due the high conception of the educational aims of 

 the College which have prevailed almost from the first, and 

 which have differentiated it quite sharply from most of the 

 agricultural colleges. To understand the courage which 

 this required it is necessary to realize the wave of enthusi- 

 asm which has swept over the country for the more super- 

 ficial kinds of instruction at these colleges. This superfi- 

 cial instruction, which dealt with things mainly rather than 

 with principles, and gave a minimum of attention to the 

 general educational features, was spectacular and attract- 

 ive to the uneducated man, and from its popularity rather 

 than its pedagogic value it came to be adopted very widely. 

 The Massachusetts College stood almost alone in its per- 

 sistency in holding to some of the old ideas of education, 

 and the wisdom of its course is every year becoming more 

 evident. 



