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languages have the primacy, there is little chance for the sciences, 

 for modern languages, or even for our native tongue, or, indeed, for 

 much, with scholarly thoroughness, in anything else. A mere smat- 

 tering of the sciences, or of theancientlanguages, is no more to be cov- 

 eted than even the old absolute unity of all college education. The 

 organic law of the Land-Grant Colleges, therefore, made it a leading 

 feature that instruction should be provided, without ostracising any- 

 thing, in branches related to Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts, up- 

 on which, as we all know, the greater number of mankind must rely 

 for their subsistence and happiness, as well as for their growth and 

 reputation among men. 



The sciences related to agriculture, tending, among other things, 

 to increase the food products of the world, and the mechanic arts, 

 upon which nations must lean for their independence and defence, 

 should neither be ignored nor assigned to an inferior position. The 

 mastery in these robust branches of learning requires training and 

 brain-power, and does not exclude, though it may diminish attention 

 to those branches of study too often regarded as the only branches 

 where honors can be won, or as the only luxuries of a liberal educa- 

 tion. Our late Mr. Motley once said, "Give me the luxuries of life 

 and I will do without the necessaries ; " but the wit of the epigram 

 does not conceal its mischievous philosophy, nor excuse its accept- 

 ance by educational institutions. The world cannot do without the 

 necessaries of education any more than without the necessaries of 

 life. We can do without champagne and Limburger cheese and we 

 might have done without Dr. Parr and Matthew Arnold, but Ameri- 

 cans would have been very unhappy without Dr. Franklin, although, 

 like Shakespeare, he only "knew a little Latin and less Greek." Dr. 

 Parr was a prolific writer, distinguished for the Ciceronian purity of 

 his Latin, and thought his knowledge of Greek second only to that 

 of Porson, but a later generation has denounced "The thread of 

 Parr's verbosity as finer than the staple of his argument," while the 

 same generation promises immortality to the fame of Dr. Franklin. 

 Surely the researches by which scientific knowledge has made its tri- 

 umphant advances during the present age. or by which many con- 

 spicuous inventions have been brought forever into the fruitful and 

 beneficent service of mankind, entitle their authors to as high a 

 measure of respect as has been or can be awarded to any of their 

 contemporaries in other spheres of life, and seems to bring them 

 more nearlv related to the Divine Creator of the Universe. 



