which, in mechanical philosophy at least, he can do all things. Nor will 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 never 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 mathematics 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 knowledge 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 crystal, 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 about 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 ardent, 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 “esprit du corps,” which is the precursor of success in every department of human activities.

These are some of the modes by which we hope and believe that the great ends of this University will not fail of achievement. We all know the peculiar and subtle power of a fore-known and determined purpose, a well-defined and publicly announced generic aim, to create an intellectual and moral atmosphere that itself leads, assists and educates in the desired direction. There are influences under which men unconsciously gravitate towards this or that pursuit, impelled thereto by a law of mental assimilation, whereby all things are made tributary to the dominant spirit of the place. At West Point war is the genius of the place, the objective point towards which every thing tends. Books, lectures, sciences, though in themselves the same there as elsewhere, all stand in some way connected, by this law of associa tion, with military engineering, the movements of armies, or the conflicts of the battle-field. Because this is what West Point is for. No one can stay there long enough to catch the spirit of the place, without feeling that this is so.

In seminaries for clergymen, theology is the controlling theme, the centripetal force that reaches and modifies the whole life of the place, the currents of thought, the hopes and aspirations of the students.

Now a West Point Cadet is not obliged to assume, for life, the profession of arms, nor a student of theology to enter the sacred office; but all can see that each will be infinitely more likely to do so by reason of the peculiar purposes, affinities and surroundings of their respective places of culture; and that it is morally certain that neither will choose the profession of the other.

It is the powerful aid of this familiar principle, in connection with special courses of study, that is brought to bear and utilized by the establishment of separate Universities, the distinct and avowed object of which is to train young men for rural and mechanical pursuits. The exact sciences, and many other branches of learning taught here, are, of course, precisely the same, and taught in precisely the same manner, as at Yale, Dartmouth, or West Point-for all mathematics and pure philosophy belong to the realms of universal truth, which know no latitude or longitude, and which no institution, or class of institutions, or of men or professions, can exclusively appropriate, any more than light and air, fire and water, can be monopolized. But, under the influence of the spirit and tendencies here dominant, the culture and power derived from these studies will be constantly deflected from other pursuits, towards the grand aim of the University. The problems to which the principles of mathematics and other sciences will be most applied by our students, will be taken from the fields of investigation here most prominent-from the domain of agriculture and the mechanic arts-because these will here be the most familiar themes of thought and conversation-just as questions relating to the science of war are uppermost at the Military Academy, or those pertaining to christian philosophy and faith, at Princeton or Andover. The same laws of association and affinity will operate here as elsewhere. And this is a matter of the highest importance, for the one great practical question in these Institutions will be, how to hold the young men to the farm and the workshops, after they are educated.

There is one proposition of fundamental importance in this whole matter of industrial education: If the pursuits of agriculture and the mechanic arts are ever to take, in the estimation of men, the commanding position to which they are justly entitled, those who are educated for them must be as thoroughly and completely edu eated, as those who are trained for other pursuits and professions. I consider this truth, and the recognition of it, as absolutely vital to success. If a farmer or an

artisan is as well educated as a lawyer, a physician, or a senator-if he has, I mean, as much knowledge, as profound a mastery of scientific and philosophical principles, as much self-knowledge and self-dependence, as much varied attainment, as much brain power, thought power, and heart power, he will be the peer of the latter, in influence and honor and usefulness and force, anywhere and every where and always—but if not, he will be inferior to the other in power and influence, and no device, or pretense, or declamation, or protest, or sophistry can make it otherwise. The difference will exist precisely as long as the causes that produced it; it is simply the difference between weakness and strength. I have nothing whatever to do here with the means and instrumentalities of education, but only with the fact, the product, the finished work of culture. And I affirm again, that the cause, and the only cause, of the immensely superior power heretofore wielded in the affairs of men, by the professional classes over the industrial classes is, that the one have thus far been better educated than the other. And now, if these Universities of the people expect successfully to compete, in their appropriate spheres, with those which are already hoary with age and venerable with honors; which are completely equipped and manned, and impregnably intrenched among the very foundation stones of our whole educational and social system, and interwoven with all of our ideas of intellectual culture and progress as a nation—if this is expected, (and to expect less would be to invite contempt and defeat, at the outset), the one palpable, essential and indispensable condition is, that the education for which they provide must be equal in all essential points, in extent, in comprehensiveness, in thoroughness, and in inspiration and power, with that afforded by the old colleges and universities of the country. Our courses of study must be as broad; our apparatus, libraries, cabinets, and other auxiliaries and appliances, must be as ample and as good; our professors, lecturers, and teachers, must be as able and earnest, as learned, adapted, aud devoted, as theirs.

With these conditions fulfilled, and super-added to the matchless value and beauty of the pursuits whose ranks we seek to fill, and with the benisons of waiting millions upon our efforts, and praying for our success, we shall not fail. But if we sim at anything less than this, failure is already inscribed upon these walls. In the language of another, such Industrial Universities as we have had, and as some people still talk about, mere elementary schools, where boys are sent to learn to work instead of to learn to think, "stand before the public mind, as contrasted with the compactly organized, and ubiquitous power and presence of older Institutions, much like an unarmed mob of a few hundred men, in presence of armed legions of veterans-or like a wheelbarrow along-side of a locomotive-or a scow along-side of a well-armed navy-a thing not to be resisted, or even competed with, but simply to be laughed at."

There are some errors and fallacies and lies about this matter of education, which have befooled and cursed mankind long enough; it is high time for them to die and be buried. One of them is the absurd and “contemptible idea that the highest degree of education cannot be employed in one calling as well as another"-that a few men., or classes of men, have a divine right to monopolize and devour all but the crumbs that fall from the groaning tables of science. To sweep such abominable falsehoods from the precincts of truth, and from the minds of the people, "rhetoric may well become a whirlwind, and logic fire."

If one proposing to himself the life of a farmer or a mechanic, or any other industrial pursuit, wants to study languages, ancient or modern, or metaphysics, or belles