Page images
PDF
EPUB

It is hoped by the friends of military education that provision will soon be made by Congress for the detail of competent officers of the army to act as professors of military science in the colleges introducing it, and that in this way the university may be provided with instructors in this department.

5. The course in chemistry and natural science will embrace the study of analytical and practical chemistry, the analysis of soils, ores, minerals and organic bodies, and the applications of chemistry in agriculture and the arts of dyeing and bleaching, and the manufacture of sugar, salt, glass, etc. It will embrace, also, the more extended and practical study of mineralogy, geology, and natural history in general, with the arts of collecting and preserving specimens, and of arranging cabinets and conducting geological surveys.

6. The instruction in the department of trade and commerce will have for its aim to give students a knowledge of the principles of business, and of the customs and laws of trade-the collection, transportation, exchange and distribution of the valuable products of nature and art. Such knowledge will be eminently valuable to the educated farmer, and is of vital necessity to those who are to be employed in the great commercial branches of industry. The crowded rooms of the commercial schools, meagre and unscientific as the instruction of these schools often is, prove conclusively the felt need of such a department of instruction, and the university would be incomplete in its industrial courses if it should leave this important form of human industry unprovided for.

. The studies in this department, in addition to such literary studies as are necessary for the requisite discipline and culture, and such knowledge of natural sciences as may be needful to an understanding of the origin, nature, quality and cost of the commodities, crude and manufactured, known to commerce, should embrace also political economy, the laws of production, exchange and consumption as they affect markets; the theories of banking, insurance, and foreign and domestic exchange; the laws governing importation and exportation, the several classes of imposts, duties, etc., and the theories connected there with; commercial geography, with the staple commodities of the different regions and nations, their commercial condition, usages and markets; book-keeping in its several forms, commercial customs, papers and correspondence; and finally, commercial law and the history of commerce, with its growth and variations. Such knowledge, while it would make intelligent business men, farmers, merchants and manufacturers, and managers of the great business enterprises of the nation, would help to prevent those ruinous speculations and disastrous failures which spring as often from a pitiable ignorance of the great fundamental laws of trade, as from a willful violation of them.

DEPARTMENT OF GENERAL SCIENCE AND LITERATURE.

The several courses in this department make up the general educational or college course. Their main aim is to furnish such a liberal education as may best fit students either for the mastery of the special courses in the arts, or for the general duties of life. The final composition and adjustment of this central course will demand the most careful consideration. The conflicting views which prevail as to relative values of different branches of learning, and the consequent disposition to scout some as useless, and to magnify others as of overshadowing importance, make it requisite for us to recur briefly to some fundamental principles which ought to

control our selection,

The knowledges considered as instruments of culture or education, may be broadly grouped into four grand divisions, as follows:

1. Natural sciences, or sciences of observation and experiment.

2. Mathematics, or the science of imagination and calculation.

3. Linguistic and philological sciences, or the sciences of formal expression. 4. Philosophical and speculative sciences, or the sciences of consciousness and reflection.

Each form of knowledge affects culture by two separate methods. First, by the kind and extent of the exercise its study affords the mind, and, secondly, by the exciting and stimulating effect of its proper ideas. Some studies are chiefly valuable for the former, and others for the latter use.

The natural sciences, or sciences of nature, embracing natural history, chemistry, natural philosophy, geology, physical geography and uranography, especially exercise and cultivate the powers of observation, classification and inductive reasoning. The mathematical studies, embracing both pure and applied mathematics, exercise and develop the capacity to form and combine abstract conceptions, and cultivate the deductive reason. They also promote habits of mental concentration and continuity of thought.

Linguistic studies educate the discriminative judgment, and develop the power both of the expression and reception of thought. They train, also, the faculty of discursive reasoning, and help to give to the mental action a precision and clearness not otherwise to be gained.

The philosophical and speculative sciences, embracing mental and moral philosophy, and historical and social science, address themselves to minds already well matured, and powerfully exercise the reflective faculties. They especially develop the habit of looking for the fundamental and essential, in facts and things; of investigating the real nature and causes of social and vital phenomena, and of that reasoning from the contingent and the probable, which goes among us by the name of "common sense."

If we turn now to note the other educational force found in these several classes of knowledge-the stimulating power of their proper ideas-we shall find an equal diversity in the kind and degree of their influence; the philosophical studies being, to the majority of mature minds, the most stimulating, and the mathematical the least.

Natural science gives us a knowledge of physical facts and phenomena, and of the great forces and laws of nature underlying these. This knowledge has in all ages stimulated the most eager curiosity, and awakened the spirit of inquiry into physical causes. It has also excited the most wild and extravagant speculations.

The mathematics afford us only the knowledge of the abstract relations of quantity and number, and of certain formulas of analysis. It is by its problems that this science excites the mental activities. Its ideas lie mostly inert in the mind, except when wanted as instruments of calculation.

Language, like mathematics, is mainly concerned with relations; but it is with the relations of ideas and thoughts in all departments of knowledge. The study of language is the study of the connections, as well as of the expression, of thought, Grammar, as J. Stuart Mill has justly observed, is "incipient logic." But language is the instrument and the store-house, as well as the vehicle of thought. It is full of history, philosophy, science and poetry. It powerfully stimulates the thinking

processes by the facilities it affords for the manufacture as well as the commerce of thought.

But no knowledge so profoundly stirs and stimulates the human mind as the great questions with which philosophy and history have to do. These questions come down to us from those great central heights of truth, unattainable, it may be, in their heaven-piercing summits, but still irresistibly attracting all great thinkers, and calling for the mightiest efforts of the human intelligence in the struggle to master their mysterious and still unsolved problems.

It seems too obvious to need further argument that a true educational course must include these four classes of studies, and that if we would send forth a body of thoroughly educated agriculturists, to stand as the peers of the educated men found in other professions, we must give our students the benefits of a course with its full proportionate measure of each of these elements. "It is an ancient and universal observation," said that great thinker and teacher, Sir William Hamilton, "It is an ancient and universal observation, that different studies cultivate the mind to a different development; and as the end of a liberal education is the general and harmonious evolution of its faculties and capacities in their relative subordination, the folly has accordingly been long and generally denounced, which would attempt to accomplish this result, by the partial application of certain partial studies." Testimony could be multiplied on this point from the world's greatest thinkers.

It is not necessary that all the branches in each of these great classes of studies be included in the course. Provided that each class is represented in something like its due proportion, we are at liberty to select of two kindred studies, of nearly equal disciplinary power, that one which most conduces to the special uses we have in view. In making up a course for the Industrial University, we may wisely and safely depart from the common college curriculum; and, without losing any of its real advantages, may gain much special assistance for our industrial courses.

STUDIES OF THE UNIVERSITY COURSE.

In Physical Sciences, the course should embrace botany, zoology, mineralogy, chemistry, geology and physics, not in the stinted measure and nearly useless manner in which they are usually taught, but with such extent and thoroughness as shall give students a practical comprehension and knowledge of each. The scientific farmer or mechanic should be a good naturalist.

In Mathematics, beside algebra and geometry, the student of agriculture needs trigonometry and land surveying; while the mechanic and civil engineer require also analytical geometry, mechanics and the calculus. These studies, therefore, should find place in this general course.

In Language, the course should embrace a thorough study of our own language, its rhetoric and literature.

Of Modern Languages, it should include the French and German, taught with such thoroughness that the student may read them with ease, and converse in them with some facility. The scientific agriculturist ought to be able to avail himself of the fresh discoveries of the French and German men of science. He is shut out from the best scientific thinkers of the age, and from many of the best sources of knowledge, if he can not read the languages of France and Germany. And the prevalent use of these languages in our own country, among large masses of our population, gives to their study an additional value.

The Latin language, both because it enters so largely into our own and other modern languages, and because it is to such an extent the language of science, will demand a place in the course. As an instrument of linguistic culture, it greatly surpasses modern languages, and its literature is of perennial value. When well taught, no study more richly rewards the student. The Greek should be afforded, at least as an optional study, to all who desire to pursue it. It will never lose its value in the eyes of the highest grade of scholars.

Mental and Moral Philosophy, Logic, History, Political Economy, Civil Polity, and Constitutional Law, will all properly enter into the course as philosophical and speculative studies, and because of their high practical values.

A course, composed of these studies, reaching through four years, will fully equal, in its disciplinary power, the ordinary college course, and be of much more value to the student of the industrial arts.

It seems almost idle to say, we admit, many of these studies are not necessary to the mere practical farmer. Latin will not help a man to hold the plow, nor will mental philosophy teach how to fatten hogs. But, we reiterate, the Industrial Uni versity is not needed and was not founded for the common education of men, farmers or others. "The liberal and practical education" proposed by Congress will require all the amplitude of study here described.

It is not insisted that all students shall take this general course, though it is strongly recommended. Students may take up special courses without stopping to complete this, just as they may take a medical or law course at any other University, without first graduating from the college course.

The special courses in agriculture and the arts will comprehend many of the studies belonging to the general course, and they may be so arranged that a diligent student, of good abilities, while pursuing the regular University course, may also take up and carry forward one of the special technical courses. The studies of the University course being the minimum of study required to entitle the student to regular standing, it will be found that many students can perform, successfully, more than this minimum.

By further arranging the special courses so as to connect them with the last three years of the University course, and by bringing them, as far a practicable, into the fall and winter session, we may comply with the provision of the law, and also allow students of Agriculture or Horticulture, alone, to complete their special studies in a three years' course.

OPTIONAL AND SELECT COURSES.

The opinion gathers currency that students of mature age and experience should be permitted to enter our universities and colleges, and select for themselves such studies as they may need, and as they are qualified to pursue successfully with the regular classes in those studies. It may sometimes also occur that persons will desire to enter the university simply to attend some course of lectures, or to attain an insight into some agricultural or other industrial process, as the budding, grafting or pruning of trees, the management of a grapery, etc. Such students should be furnished with all the facilities consistent with the good order of the institution.

QUALIFICATIONS FOR ADMISSION.

The question of the qualifications required for admission to the University is one demanding careful consideration. These requirements should not be so high as to virtually exclude those who might successfully pursue the course of studies, nor so low as to permit those who are unprepared to profit by a residence at the Institution, and whose time would be uselessly wasted in the attempt to grasp studies beyond their comprehension.

The law prescribes that "no student shall be admitted to instruction in any of the departments of the University, who shall not have attained to the age of fifteen years, and who shall not previously undergo a satisfactory examination in each of the branches ordinarily taught in the common schools of the State." The committee understand this language, not as fixing definitely the qualifications for admission, but only as determining their lowest limit. The Trustees may require both a maturer age and a higher grade of scholarship, whenever, in their estimation, the interests of the State and of the University require it. It would certainly be better if students never entered college under eighteen years of age; but the average age of those applying for admission will doubtless be above this, without any special rule requiring it. Experience shows that students who enter college at a less age than that here indicated, are often injured by being thrown so early into the indiscriminate associations and powerful stimulation of college life. The University is the place for men rather than for mere boys.

It seems requisite that two different sets of qualifications shall be prescribed: the one for students who wish to pursue simply the studies of some select or partial course, and the other for candidates for the regular University courses.

1. QUALIFICATIONS FOR ADMISSION TO SELECT COURSES.

Students may properly be admitted to take some select course, on passing a thorough examination in the common school branches of reading, writing, arithmetic, geography and grammar, and on evidence of sufficient maturity and intelligence to pursue successfully the studies selected by them.

2. ADMISSION TO REGULAR UNIVERSITY COURSES.

While the Committee would wish to open the University as widely as possible to the youth of the State, they can not forget that its real utility will depend on establishing and maintaining a high standard of scholarship. As it can not legally do common school work, so neither ought it to undertake to do the work already provided for in the public high schools. It would prove a most sorry blunder if in our too eager desire to popularize the Institution, and under pretence of bringing its advantages within the easy reach of all, we should create a gigantic and expensive high school, and, having thus consumed our means, should fail to make any University at all. It is absolutely essential, if the University is to do the higher and scientific work required of it, that it shall leave the preparatory work mainly, if not entirely, to the public high schools and academies of the State; else it may fritter away its funds and its teaching forces, on the mere elementary work already sufficiently provided for, and leave undone all the great work which we ask at its hands for scientific agriculture and industrial arts.

« PreviousContinue »