THE CLASSICS AND AGRICULTURE.

Unfortunately, many of these colleges have slid into the old-time ruts of classical education, although a few have made progress in the right direction, and public opinion is forcing still others reluctantly toward technical education. Those in the West which have made the most uniform progress are those belonging to the States of Michigan and Iowa. In Illinois and Kansas the people are steadily working to infuse a spirit of practical effort into the fossils, or worse, who have mismanaged these institutions. It is one of the legitimate provinces of the Farmers' Movement to see that these colleges are made what they were intended to be-schools where the application of practical science might aid the student to be a better farmer or artisan than he otherwise would be, and not mere easy-chairs for college dons, retired clergymen, decayed politicians, or theoretical farmers.

At the East, the agricultural schools that have shown the greatest progress are those of Amherst, Massachusetts, and Cornell University, New York. In the South few of these schools have been established for a sufficient length of time to enable a fair judgment to be made of their usefulness; but, so far, most of them appear to be actuated by an earnest desire to make their system of training as thoroughly practical in their nature as possible.

While it was never supposed by practical men that these colleges would be able, all at once, to accomplish the end. sought, still less, however, was it expected that Industrial Colleges were to adopt the curriculum, essentially, of the average literary college, with simply enough varnish of agriculture and mechanics to enable them to annex the endowment of the nation and of the States where situated. Yet

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to-day such is the fact with the majority of them. This is altogether wrong, and a gross perversion of the endowment granted by Congress for a very different purpose, as will be apparent to the reader who carefully examines the act in question, given in full in Chapter XLVI.

CHAPTER XLV.

POPULAR AGITATION ON INDUSTRIAL EDUCA

TION.

A WANT LONG FELT.

The necessity has long been recognized among our more advanced thinkers of some system of education that should be to the industrial classes what the schools of law, medicine, and theology are to those professional classes. In the West this need was especially felt, and such men as Professor J. B. Turner, Bronson Murray, John Gage, Smiley Shepherd, John Davis, and other educators, were engaged in preparing the public mind therefor for over thirty years. The feeling on this subject led to the calling of a convention in 1851, at Greenville, Ill., at which this important question was fully discussed. Two of the resolutions there adopted were as follows:

Resolved, That, as the representatives of the industrial classes, including all cultivators of the soil, artizans, mechanics, and merchants, we desire the same privileges and advantages for ourselves, our fellows, and our posterity, in each of our several pursuits and callings, as our professional brethren enjoy in theirs; and we admit that it is our own fault that we do not also enjoy them.

Resolved, That, in our opinion, the institutions originally and primarily designed to meet the wants of the professional classes, as such, can not, in the nature of things, meet ours,

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any more than the institutions we desire to establish for ourselves could meet theirs.

The next resolution provided that immediate steps be taken for the establishment of a university, expressly to meet the wants of each and all the industrial classes in the State. It was also recommended to found high schools, lyceums, institutes, etc., in each county, on similar principles, so soon as it might be found practical to do so.

At this Convention Prof. Turner, in an exhaustive address, unfolded an elaborate plan for the establishment of a State University, which was subsequently made the ground-work upon which the act of endowment by the United States, and the law regulating the Industrial University of Illinois, were founded.

INDUSTRIAL LEAGUE AND FURTHER AGITATION.

A second Convention was held at Springfield, Ill., June 8, 1852. On this occasion there was a prolonged controversy, forced upon the Convention by the representatives of a few of the old classical and theological colleges, who had been admitted by courtesy to participate in the debate. As is usual with many of this class, they consumed the greater part of the time without making much, if any, impression for good on the minds of their auditors.

These advocates of the colleges just named desired to be themselves made the custodians of, and instruments through which, the funds of the State should be applied to the education of the industrial classes. This the representatives of these classes then and since, in all their Conventions, have unanimously and steadfastly opposed. It was still fought for after the law of Congress endowed a more practical system of colleges; and when the masses thought they had

finally beaten the scholiasts, and had secured the fund to the uses of those for whom it was intended, they soon found that their foe had only been beaten off to come up again in another form.

A third Convention was held at Chicago, November 24th, 1852, at which it was resolved to establish an Industrial League of the State of Illinois, which was subsequently

chartered by the Legislature. The League was empowered to raise a fund to defray various expenses: as, first, to disseminate information, both written and printed; second, to keep up concert of action among the friends of the industrial classes; and, third, to employ lecturers to address citizens in all parts of the State.

At this Convention much important business was transacted; many helpful methods and useful aims were presented and many interesting ideas elaborated. Prof. J. B.