June 19, 1903.] 



SCIENCE. 



969 



This end can only be secured by sys- 

 tematic and thorough education, not only 

 in the departments of culture, but also of 

 economic production, including, it should 

 be understood, apprenticeship in the pro- 

 fessions and the trades. In no department 

 is this more essential than in engineering, 

 where the sciences of mathematics, of phys- 

 ics and chemistry and of construction find 

 their most important uses, and where a 

 perfected economic system must find its 

 directing minds. 



This is also quite as true where the in- 

 terests of the agricultural classes are in- 

 volved. This intimate relation of engineer- 

 ing and agriculture comes of two principal 

 requirements. First: The energies and 

 the skill and the talents of the people 

 should be so applied in agriculture that 

 the energy of that industry shall be in 

 minimum proportion given to that form 

 of production which directs its powers to- 

 ward the provision of articles for necessary 

 but, nevertheless, in an economic sense, 

 wasteful expenditure. The products of 

 agriculture are intended to be destroyed, 

 and the less this production of ephemeral 

 forms of product compels a diversion 

 into the work of providing the needed 

 food-products, the larger the proportion 

 of the producing power of the nation to 

 be directed toward the production of per- 

 manent forms of wealth. Secondly: The 

 more efficient this thus increased propor- 

 tion of the producing power of a people 

 can be made, the larger the accumulation 

 and the more rapid the growth of wealth 

 in the community, in its most permanent 

 forms. 



Already agriculture is a branch of me- 

 chanical engineering. 



The responsibility of the state arises out 

 of its duty to promote the welfare of the 

 people of the state. This duty as respects 

 the common school, the free public school. 



has long been admitted; it is now coming 

 to be seen that higher education to-day is 

 quite as necessary to the highest interests 

 of the state, and even to its industrial 

 progress, as was secondary education when 

 the latter was inaugurated as a funda- 

 mental purpose of statecraft, a primary 

 object of legislation. Of these two divi- 

 sions of this great task of the state, Ger- 

 many exhibits the finest example of the 

 higher, the United States, of all nations, 

 the most admirable example of the lower. 

 But the higher, and especially the tech- 

 nical, education of all competent to profit 

 by it effectively, is now recognized as an 

 essential which only the state can supply 

 fully, continuously and without distinction 

 of class of citizen. 



The state, therefore, inaugurated this 

 work with the enactment by the, national 

 legislature of the Land Grant Bill of Sen- 

 ator Morrill, although at the time the na- 

 tion was engaged in a struggle for life and 

 the civil war was in its most uncertain 

 stage. The several states, following this 

 initiative of the general government, have 

 since assumed their duty, usually in a lib- 

 eral and enterprising and patriotic spirit, 

 sometimes with apparent reluctance and 

 occasionally evading it largely. In this 

 matter the western states have been usually 

 more statesmanlike than the eastern and 

 fine buildings and noble institutions of 

 learning have marked their progress. In 

 the older states there are larger numbers 

 of colleges already established, often long 

 established and firmly founded by private 

 grants and individual generosity, and there 

 has been less apparent necessity of action 

 by the state, although the essential differ- 

 ence between higher education for the av- 

 erage citizen and that desired by the man 

 of leisure or a member of a so-called 

 'learned' profession is coming to be seen 



