truth as well as a sower of seed, a scientifle agriculturist as well as a sturdy, practical farmer; it will not be long till he appreciates the utter absurdity of the popular outery against the study of abstract principles and pure science. Here, as elsewhere, it will be found that there is nothing like a little wholesome experience to take the conceit out of a man-provided always that he has sense enough to know when that operation has actually been performed upon him-for incorrigible fools are not confined to the ranks of school-masters and theorists, as some affirm; there may be farmers, perchance, worthy to divide with them the honors!

Let the farmer who points to his own life-long and successful husbandry without the benefit of books and theories and so-called useless abstractions, as a justification of his contempt for the thorough and systematic training of youth for agricultural pursuits-let such an one be called upon to conduct any original investigation, to analyze a soil; detect the presence of the insidious foes to vegetable life which lurk in earth, air, water and food; in a word, to advance the boundaries of agricultural science in any direction, and he will invoke the aid of his boasted skill in mere handicraft, as vainly as the false prophets of old, in their utter helplessness, cried aloud to Baal to help them. The divine fire will only descend at the sum

mons of the true Elijahs of science. It is no disgrace to be ignorant of abstruse knowledge, or of the subtle laws which pervade the universe of matter, from the atom to the continent-such knowledge can never, perhaps, be the inheritance of all. But to deride the study of abstract laws and principles, while boasting of the success which those very investigations have alone made possible, is the opposite of reasonable or honorable; and if to derision be added active and wanton hostility, what was before only stupidity and folly, becomes a crime against the interests of humanity.

I have spoken of the debt which successful husbandry, viewed only as a practical manual art, owes to scientific thinkers and pure philosophy. Go to your model farmer of this class, and inspect his estates, his methods of tillage, his selections and preparations of soils, the manures and fertilizers he uses, the rotation of crops that he practices, the breeds of animals he prefers, and how he rears and nurtures them-look at his machines and tools and implements of all sorts; his barns and other out-houses, his fences, gates, wagons and carts; his orchards, gardens, hotbeds and green-houses--and see what you will find. The latest and best improvements will characterize his outfit and equipments in every department. He will not have an old and defective machine or implement upon his place at any price, if a new and better one can be had. Every new and successful method and invention is.e-gerly sought for and applied, And yet, too often, after this unconscious homage to science, he will join in the chorus of disparagement of those very studies to the products of which he owes all of his pre-eminence; and of the men, it may be, who seek to place these priceless treasures in the hands of the people. Oh, men of Illinois, these things ought not so to be.

Thought rules the world, doubt it or deny it who may, and it will continue to do so to the end of time. Each and all of those marvelous machines, whose fingers of wood and iron spare those of flesh and bone, are the offspring of science-born of the patient vigils of the student, begotton of those same despised abstractions which lead down to the solemn laboratories of nature, and upward to the high cabinet of heaven where the Supreme Architect of the Universe presides. Those amazing displays of productive energy, which have quadrupled the value of the estate, are but the grand victories of Agricultural Chemistry. Those lordly herds that

sweep down to greet you, seeming the very incarnation of health and power and beauty, and as unlike their lean, ungainly progenitors as Darwin's hideous antetypes of man are to the imperial Caucasian, are the magnificent result of the applied principles of Animal Physiology. Those new and gorgeous varieties of flowers and shrubs, native and exotic, and those reduplicated specimens of choice fruits and vegetables, which have quintupled the market value of that orchard, garden and conservatory, are as certainly the radiant children of Botany, through Hybridization, as the day is the child of sunrise. Those peculiar soils of which our model farmer is the fortunate possessor, and of which he is so justly proud, are the gift of ages and epochs of strange and grand mutations, the thrilling story of which can only be told by Geology. He knows how to protect his favorite grape, or pear, or plum, from the invisible parasite that had for years doomed it to blight and death; or his wheat from the ravages of the terrible midge; or other fruits and grains from the deadly invasions of countless armies of atomic Goths and Huns--but gives no thanks to Entomology, to which, re-enforced by the microscope, he owes his deliverance and his wealth.

It might also be shown that he is equally a pensioner upon the munificent bounty of many other disregarded or despised, but life-giving, treasure-discovering, and wealth-bestowing sciences-such as Mineralogy, Meteorology, Natural History, etc. But the field is too wide, and enough for our purpose has already been said in this direction.

If we turn now for a moment to the other great department of instruction for which provision is required to be made in this University, viz: Those branches of learning related to the "Mechanic Arts," we shall find the views already presented to be not only sustained, but if possible, still more strikingly illustrated and confirmed. If the student of agricultural science can not advance without a systematic and thorough training in the principles of pure philosophy and abstract science, it is vain for him who would be master of the mechanic arts to hope to do so.

And here it may be properly remarked that I am not now considering these scientific studies as instruments of mental discipline, at all-with that subject, upon which so much, wise and otherwise, has been said and written of late, I have now no concern. My present purpose is to show the absolute necessity of the mastery of principles in order to the highest success in the practical industries of life—that the material elements and resources with which we have to deal, can not be utilized without them; that a great many practical problems can not be solved at all without them, while a still larger number can not be advantageously or economically solved without them.

The student of Mechanics finds himself environed at once by those absolute and immutable laws of matter, of motion and rest, of momentum and force, by which the whole stupendous fabric of the material universe is sustained, directed and controlled. Go where he will he can not escape their presence, their inexorable conditions, or their resistless power. From the shape of the tiniest cog in the wheels of a watch, to the configuration of the earth and planets-from the whirl of a child's top, to the sweep of Neptune through his illimitable orbit-from the force that moves the index of the torsion balance, to that which upheaves oceans and continents-in all things and everywhere he finds himself in the grasp of God's everlasting and uncompromising code of dynamics and statics. And he finds, too, that the rock-built buttresses upon which all these laws rest down eternally, are derived from the science of Mathematics—without which he can do nothing; with

which, in mechanical philosophy at least, he can do all things. Nor will a smattering of the rudiments, a little algebra and less geometry, avail, as many affect to believe-(for among the studies which it has become popular to decry as useless abstractions, nearly all of the pure mathematies, and many of the applied, are included) nothing short of the whole iron series, from arithmetic to the calculus, will or can unfetter the feet of progress in mechanical philosophy.

I know that many a young mechanic will repudiate all this as idle fancy, and for reasons similar to those given by the model farmer to whom allusion has been made ―he has succeeded, he thinks, without this knowledge and culture. Yes, but I am not speaking of what he means by success. It is not merely or chiefly to teach the student to construct wheels, that this school is founded, but to enable him to know the spirit that is within the wheels-to put him in possession of the elements of universal success.

"The difficulty in positive rules prepared for uneducated men is, that they can Dever bend to circumstances; and the workmen go on in a fixed track, in cases where they might have changed it without a variation of principle, but with the greatest economy of time and money.

"The calculation of the strength and stress of timber, though very simple in itself, is notwithstanding, an analytical problem, which one unacquainted with algebra could not solve. In the construction of groined arches, the principles of descriptive geometry are equally applicable and necessary. The catenary and elliptical curves, which are their best form, can not be understood without the higher geometry. The arch can not be built without the greatest extravagance in the use of materials, unless the precise form of every stone is known before it is cut from the rock. If the quantity of timber, stone, and other material wasted in building, from the want of a very little knowledge of mathematics, could be calculated, I have no doubt its price would educate all the young mechanics of the land. Science is economical—it repays the people a hundred-fold for what is expended in its cultivation.

The surveyor must have at least some knowledge of trigonometry. All the section lines in these Northwestern States are based upon meridian-lines, and these were fixed by the nicest mathematical and astronomical calculations. In hydraulics we find the principles of mathematics equally necessary. All the calcu lations of the velocity, power and quantity of moving fluids depend upon these principles. How can a millwright be master of his business without understanding them? The very shapes of the cogs in his wheels are determined by them. In the construction of canals, railroads, bridges, and in all the operations of civil engi neering, mathematics are the essential element."

Let any young mechanic who has fallen under the delusion that he can make his way to the highest success without a thorough acquaintance with mathematics, try the experiment. He begins with the common mechanical powers. He takes a Lever, and understands that a weight will move it; but the principle upon which different weights, at different distances move, he knows not, for this depends upon ratios and proportions. He passes to the Inclined Plane, but quits it in disgust when be finds its action depends upon the relations of angles and triangles. The Screw is still worse; and when he comes to the Wheel and Axle, he gives them up-they are all mathematical. He would investigate the laws of falling bodies and moving fluids, but instantly roots, lines, squares, angles and curves float before him in the mazy dance of a disturbed intellect. The very first proposition is a mystery, and he soon discovers that mechanical philosophy is little better than mathematics itself.

But he still has his senses, and surely will not be indebted to diagrams and equations for their enjoyment. He gazes with admiration upon the phenomena of light; the rainbow upon the bosom of the clouds; the clouds themselves reflected from the surface of the waters. Whence this beautiful imagery? He soon finds that every hue in the rainbow is made by a different angle of refraction; that each ray from the mirror has its angle of incidence equal to its angle of reflection; and as he pursues the subject in the construction of lenses aud telescopes, the whole family of triangles, ratios, proportions and conclusions arise to alarm his excited vision.

He turns to the Heavens, with its shining host, moving in solemn procession through the "Halls of the Sky," and would know the structure of this beautiful system, and the laws which regulate those distant lights. But Astronomy forever banishes him from her presence-she will have none near her to whom mathemat ics is not a familiar friend. What can he know of parallaxes, anomalies, and precessions, who has never studied the conic sections or the higher orders of analysis? She sends him to some wooden orrery, from which he may gather as much knowl edge of the heavenly bodies as a child does of armies, from the gilded troopers of the toy shop.

But surely there are sciences which have better taste and less austerity of manners. He flies to Chemistry, and her gorgeous robes float loosely about him. For awhile he goes gloriously on, illuminated by the red lights and blue lights of crucibles and retorts. But soon he comes to compound bodies-to the composition of the elements around him, and finds them all in fixed relations-that gases and fluids will combine with each other and with solids only in a certain ratio, and that all possible compounds are formed by nature in immutable proportions. Then starts up the whole doctrine of chemical equivalents, and mathematics again stares him in the face.

Aghast, he flies to Mineralogy; stones he may pick up, jewels he may draw from the bosom of the earth, and be no longer alarmed at the stern visage of this terrible science; but even here he is not safe. He picks up a quartz, it contains a erystal, and that crystal takes the dreaded form of Geometry. Crystallization lures him on, but as he goes, cubes and hexagons, pyramids and dodecagons arise before him in splendid array. He would know more aoout them, but must wait at the portal of the temple, till introduced by that honored of time and science, our friendly Euclid. And now, where shall this student of nature, without the aid of mathematics, go for his knowledge or his enjoyments? To Natural History? The very birds cleave the air in the form of the cycloid, and mathematics prove it the best. Their feathers are formed upon calculated mechanical principles; the muscles of their frames are moved by them-the little bee has constructed his cell in the very geometrical figure and with the precise angles which mathematicians, after ages of investigation, have demonstrated to be that which contains the greatest economy of space and strength.

In the realms of chaos there may perhaps be found some spot visited by no figure of geometry, and no harmony of proportion; but nature, this beautiful creation of God, has no resting place for him who would shun mathematics. All its construction is mathematical. It has no elements mixed without regulated law; no broken chord to make a false note in the music of the spheres. [E. D. MANSFIELD, in "American Education," pp. 124-127.]

The Illinois Industrial University is established in no spirit of rivalry, much less of hostility or antagonism, to the other Colleges and Universities of the country; nor in any spirit of disparagement or even criticism of their objects, management, courses of study or practical results. Nor was it in any manner or sense the intention of Congress, in the munificent endowment of these Universities, or of the State Legislatures in accepting the grant with its conditions, to undervalue or discriminate against the old order of liberal culture.

The American College system has an illustrious history, and sits crowned to-day with imperishable lustre and beauty. Beginning at a period coeval with that of the Republic itself, it has done a work of blessedness and power the magnitude of which can never be recorded. It gave us the common school, and, with the common school it has, beyond a doubt, also given us the Industrial University itself. It needs no ealogium: there stand Harvard, and Yale, and Dartmouth, and Brown, and Amherst, and Bowdoin, and Princeton, and Union, and their compeers in the North and West, and there I trust they will stand forever. Peerless mothers of the nation's intellectual Gracchi, whose names and deeds and genius are interwoven with all that is noblest and best in our history and achievements, well may they exclaim, "See, these are our jewels!"

What, then, is the grand distinguishing feature, purpose, hope, of this University?

In my view it is to form a closer alliance between Labor and Learning; between Science and the Manual Arts; between Man and Nature; between the Human Soul and God as seen in and revealed through His works. It is to endeavor to so wed the intellect and heart of the students we educate, to the matchless attractions of rural and industrial life, that they will, with their whole soul, prefer and choose that life, and consecrate to it the resources of skill and culture and power that may here be gained. These I hold to be the aims and hopes of this University. And we hope to attain them, not by a less extensive and thorough course of instruction than is given in other Universities, but by a somewhat different course, and more especially by emphasizing, from the beginning to the end of it, those studies and sciences which look away from literary and professional life, and towards the pursuits of the agriculturist and the artisan-by holding the student to a closer communion with Nature in her forms of living grace and beauty; her protean changes; her sweet, profound and pure inspirations; and thus forming in his soul a purified relish for rural employments and pleasures, and a sincere longing for a life-long fellowship with them-by making as it were the very atmosphere of the University redolent of meadows and flowers, vocal with bird-notes and instinct with the love and spirit of the beautiful outer world-by demonstrating that the pursuits to which this Institution invites the young and atdent, are inferior in no element of dignity and honor to the so-called learned professions; requiring a scholarship no less varied and profound; equally fitting men for the most exalted positions in the State and Nation, while pointing to a life of purest enjoyments and sweetest tranquility-by proving, too, that in addition to these high advantages, the rewards of rural and mechanical industry, when vitalized by intelligence and re-enforced by the treasures of science, are equal to those of any other legitimate human vocation; and hence that none need turn from them in the hope of a speedier acquisition of wealth- and finally, by the sincere convictions and loving enthusiasm of the Regent and Instructors, inspiring and quickening all minds and hearts, and arousing that "exprit du corps," which is the precursor of success in every department of human activities.