GENERAL REPORT. 
79 
At present, a majority of the teachers are but poorly quali¬ 
fied for this special work, because the fountain of such knowl¬ 
edge as is requisite to qualify them has, as yet, scarcely been 
opened in our State. But, with the proper development of the 
Agricultural Department of the University, an increasing 
amount of scientific instruction in the several colleges, acade¬ 
mies, aud high schools, and above all, in the State Normal 
Schools, together with such an awakening and stimulation of 
teachers and people in this behalf as may be accomplished 
through the agency of the Teachers’ Institutes, now quite reg¬ 
ularly held in nearlj^ all portions of the State, there should be 
a steady progress in this direction. 
In concluding our Report, we cannot forbear to urge, with 
great earnestness, the importance of this whole subject of ed¬ 
ucational agencies. For, if it be true that the perpetuity of 
our democratic institutions and the material prosperity of the 
commonwealth are alike dependent on the lifting up of the 
industrial pursuits to a plane of equality with the more hon¬ 
ored professions, and also true that this can only be secured by 
sucli a diffusion of scientific knowledge among the working 
classes of the people as shall make them equal masters of the 
facts and principles that underlie success in those pursuits, then 
does it logically follow that the State and every intelligent 
citizen, of whatever profession, are bound by the highest con¬ 
siderations of both interest and duty to do everything in their 
power, whether by means of the organized agencies herein 
considered, or by any other, to insure its early accomplish¬ 
ment 
With a most favorable geographical position, with resources 
at once vast and varied, and with a growing population of un¬ 
tiring enterprise and unconquerable energy, what but a lack of 
true wisdom and statesmanship, on the part of those to whom 
has been given the shaping of her general policy and the 
moulding of her now plastic institutions, shall hinder Wiscon¬ 
sin from the attainment, even in this generation, of an unsur¬ 
passed prosperity and glory ? 
J. W. nOYT, Secretary. 
