REPORT OF AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE. 447 



the mechtinic arts, and a citizen soldiery well trained in the 

 art of war. To secure all these in their greatest perfection, 

 was the aim of the bill for establishing ^'Industrial Colleges" 

 in the various loyal States. Whatever mistakes may have 

 been made in the organization and management of these in- 

 stitutions, no fault can be charged home to the original bill. 

 It was eminently a wise measure, and suggested an outline 

 of organization and management that has not as yet been 

 improved upon. Its significant words are as follows : " The 

 endowment, support and maintenance of at least one college 

 where the leading object shall be, without excluding scientific 

 and classical studies, and including military tactics, to teach 

 such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and 

 the mechanic arts, in such manner as the legislatures of the 

 States may respectively prescribe, in order to promote the 

 liberal n.\\A j) radical education of the industrial classes in the 

 several pursuits and professions of life." No branch of 

 learning peculiar to the old colleges was to be necessarily 

 excluded ; but the new colleges were to push on to the prac- 

 tical application of the sciences they taught, and they were 

 to train all their students as defenders of their country 

 against domestic rebellion or foreign invasion. In a word, 

 they w-ere to educate their students as men and as American 

 citizens. The rank of the education given is " liberal,'^ the 

 term applied to the education given by the highest institu- 

 tions then known. It was to be so broad as to fit men for 

 the " several pursuits and professions of life." The object 

 of these colleges was to obliterate the supposed superiority 

 of the so-called " learned professions," by securing a " lib- 

 eral," that is, the highest education, for those who chose in- 

 dustrial pursuits, thus lifting agriculture and the mechanic 

 arts from the plane of mere routine labor to the dignity of 

 learned professions, founded upon scientific knowledge and 

 allied to, or connected with, those branches of learning es- 

 sential for a broad and generous culture of the whole man. 

 Many who have attempted the management of these col- 

 leges, as well as many who have criticised them, have appar- 

 ently overlooked the broad and generous plan upon which 

 they were founded. It is doubtful if they will ever accom- 

 plish the great work for which they were intended, until 



