320 '[Assembly 



We call for a proportion of these funds for tlie education of 

 agricultural, commercial and mechanic students, and those aim- 

 ing at civil engineering and the industrial pursuits of common life. 

 In order that you may understand the force of this claim, re- 

 member that about 80 per cent, of our population belongs to ag- 

 riculture. Fifteen per cent, to commerce and the mechanic arts. 

 Five per cent, in proportion to population, is composed of the 

 professions of law, medicine, and divinity ; the latter being less 

 than one per cent. The students of law and medicine, pay their 

 tuition. With this small proportion, all the colleges in the 

 land have required, in their rules of admission, that no student 

 can enter unless he passes an examination of the four Evangelists, 

 in Greek, and certain Latin and other classics. They are close 

 corporations, and marked by exclusions. Thus all the children 

 of mechanics and agriculturists are shut out from the advantages 

 of these institutions. It is not my purpose to say that it is wrong 

 to cherish the dead languages ; to cherish and foster colleges ; but 

 it is, to say that when so much is given to the^i'c per cent, of 

 professional pursuits ; or more truly to the one per cent, of the 

 Clergy and the Beneficiaries, something is due to the ninety-Jive 

 or ninety-nine per cent, of this community who pay the taxes in 

 relation to the means of education. There is now too wide and 

 too long a space between the common school, and even these 

 colleges, to remain unoccupied. Provision is required for inter- 

 mediate education, for those in the industrial pursuits of active 

 life. It may be accomplished, either by the establishment of 

 separate Institutions, or by requiring the several Colleges now 

 established, to create a second Department, to teach the living 

 languages and the sciences for practical life, and to admit students 

 with the right of selection of the studies which they will pursue, 

 and to award them credentials according to their proficiency. 



The University of New-York, after much discussion, was incor- 

 porated in 1831, with the declared object to create these two 

 great departments in Education. In 1837, the address delivered 

 on the dedication of the building, again declared the object of 

 the University to have these two departments oi Education ; and 

 it gave many of its details, by the authority of the Council. It 

 was so established and organized, and several machinists and 



