State Convention'—Higher Education, Etc. 373 
Whiie common education was fully appreciated in this country, 
higher education was not yet so highly regarded as it ought to he, 
even among legislators and intelligent citizens. By pertinent and 
convincing illustrations he showed how much science had done 
for industrial pursuits and those engaged in them, the improvement 
in farmers 1 implements since he swung the flail, held *the wooden 
mould board plow, and used the back-breaking sickle, the improve¬ 
ments in navigation, the telegraph, etc., and traced these improve¬ 
ments back to the influence of scientific study by highly educated 
men, and showed how science with its discoveries evolved in the 
chambers of students, and the investigations of trained thinkers and 
explorers was the handmaid of industry. 
He then proceeded to show the importance of schools of the 
highest class, and how they were the fountains from which flowed 
the streams of knowledge, which benefited the whole people, how 
they stimulated the establishment of primary schools, and promoted 
the education of the masses. He then spoke of the great universi¬ 
ties of Europe, their noble endowments, their great stores of mater¬ 
ial, their large faculties of learned men, particularly qualified for the 
specialities in which they were called to instruct. He spoke of the 
great resources of our nation and of our people as a mosaic from the 
best peoples on the globe; a nation unequalled in glory and power, 
and urged the importance of more culture, more knowledge of 
great scientific principles, of political economjq etc. He referred to 
the universities of this country, Harvard, Yale, Cornell, and Mich¬ 
igan, and the fame which the latter had secured throughout the 
world in consequence of the liberal policy pursued toward it by the 
State. 
He made an earnest appeal for a home institution, the Uni¬ 
versity of Wisconsin, whose location was surpassed by no school 
in the world, for natural advantages, and closed with an appeal for 
a Centennial monument by Wisconsin in the shape of a worthy 
endowment of our State University, that it might have the means 
and resources to take rank with the best institutions of the coun¬ 
try; have not only one able agricultural professor, but many quali¬ 
fied for specialities and able to do their work perfectly and satisfac¬ 
torily, that the faculty might be a galaxy of stars, a glory to the 
State. 
He advocated the passage of the bill for a tax of one-tenth of - a 
