PROF. C. U. SHEPHARD'S ADDRESS. 269 



Before dismissing these admirable institutions, here brought 

 forward for illustrating what we need in this country, in order 

 to place agriculture on the highest ground of success, I canno* 

 help observing, that the time has also arrived for establishing a 

 mining school itself. Who that beholds the extravagant zeal of 

 our citizens for mining in the north-west, where hundreds of 

 thousands of dollars have, within a short period, been expended, 

 and where it is reported that 15,000,000 of dollars have been 

 hypothecated in copper adventures, can, for a moment, doubt, 

 that our progress is too rapid, if not in the wrong direction. I 

 shall yield to no man in a high estimate of what American en- 

 terprise can achieve, where the field is a legitimate one, and the 

 means employed in accordance with sober experience, enlight- 

 ened by science; but it certainly requires no prophet's ken to 

 foresee, that an overwhelming majority of the undertakings re- 

 ferred to must end in nothing but rebuff and disaster. This 

 government possesses, in its wide public domain, the strongest 

 possible interest to copy, even at this late day, the intelligence 

 of Germany, in establishing an institution for promoting the 

 knowledge of mining. But, advantageous as it would undoubt- 

 edly prove to the public interest, and beneficent as it could not 

 fail of being to those directly engaged in underground labors, it 

 is too much to hope that it will receive any efficient 'patronage 

 from a people not yet sufficiently weaned from the practice of 

 war. Millions can yet be had, for multiplying the engines of 

 destruction, but little for promoting the arts of peace. What- 

 ever else we may expect, government institutions for mining 

 and agriculture need not be looked for in this country, so long 

 as the star of military glory is in the ascendant. From those 

 states, in which civilization and refinement have rendered war 

 measurably repugnant to the popular feeling, we may hope for 

 a liberal bounty in favor of such undertakings, but from the still 

 barbaric genius of the nation, nothing. 



But I return to the agricultural school, upon whose office I 

 have endeavored to throw some light, by describing what has 

 bep.n done by foreign institutions, in behalf of the sister art of 

 mining. Its general province and scope must, after what has 

 been said, suggest themselves to my hearers. Without attempt- 



