THE MAN WHO WORKS WITH HIS HANDS 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 



The fiftieth anniversary of the founding of this College is an 

 event of national significance, for Michigan was the first state 

 in the Union to found this, the first agricultural college in Amer- 

 ica. The nation is to be congratulated on the fact that the Con- 

 gress at Washington has repeatedly enacted laws designed to aid 

 the several states in establishing and maintaining agricultural 

 and mechanical colleges. I greet all such colleges, through 

 their representatives who have gathered here today, and bid 

 them Godspeed in their work. I no less heartily invoke success 

 for the mechanical and agricultural schools; and I wish to say 

 that I have heard particularly good reports of the Minnesota 

 Agricultural High School for the way in which it sends its grad- 

 uates back to the farms to work as practical farmers. 



OUR EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM AND WHAT IT LACKS 



As a people there is nothing in which we take a juster pride 

 than our educational system. It is our boast that every boy or 

 girl has the chance to get a school training; and we feel it is a 

 prime national duty to furnish this training free, because only 

 thereby can we secure the proper type of citizenship in the aver- 

 age American. Our public schools and our colleges have done 

 their work well, and there is no class of our citizens deserving of 

 heartier praise than the men and women who teach in them. 



Nevertheless, for at least a generation we have been waking 

 to the knowledge that there must be additional education be- 

 yond that provided in the public school as it is managed today. 

 Our school system has hitherto been well-nigh wholly lacking 

 on the side of industrial training, of the training which fits a man 



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