The Kind of Higher  Education Needed in the  West.  Delivered this summer  at Nebraska University 



The topic I present this evening  certainly lacks the attraction of novelty.  Consequently nothing sensational or  startling can possibly be worked   out of it. It is however one of those  themes whose homeliness is more than  compensated by the fact that they embrace  some great public interest - some interest  involving the growth of states and the  welfare of men.  	At no other time in its histo-  ry does a country or a state need more the  help of steadfast moral courage and  trained intellectual power than dur-  ing the period of its settlement and



growth. And other things being equal  this demand in any new country for   men of high moral and intellectual  qualities is urgent in proportion to  the extent of the undeveloped wealth  that slumbers in or beneath its soil.  Now take down the map and gather   under the eye the boundaries of the  great North West and where will you  find an equal area combining such  unlimited natural resources? Its min-  eral riches whose extent is still unknown ,  the vast pineries that  cover its northern  borders, its great rivers that hurry their  waters to the gulf, and its prairies  with a uniform and wonderful



fertility, all these together may safely  challenge the round earth for a parallel.   They furnish, naturally, a perpetual stim-  ulant to emigration. Attracted by the  promise of reward for labor which such  a land extends, new settlers from all quar-  ters of the civilized world have thronged  the highways and thoroughfares for the   last four decades. The result is a vast  and sudden growth of urgent human  wants - an inexorable demand for all  the means and adjuncts of civilization.   The multiplied necessities which, in an   older country, flow with a constant and  placid stream become, in the new, a   turbid torrent. Human energies are



on the strain. All sorts of desires rise  to fever heat. The very lack of social  industrial and intellectual facilities   makes the demand for them  importu-  nate and irresistible. The new home that  shall dot the valley or crown the bluff  must have material and furniture - the  new farm, animals and implements -   the new district, a school house and its  monarch - the new township, county,  city and state must at once be organ-  ized and officered. All the machinery  of justice, involving court-house, jail,  sheriff, advocate judge and jury, must  be adjusted and set in motion, in short  out of the anarchy of new populations



there must spring quicker than the  armed warriors sprang in olden time  from the sowing of the Dragon's teeth, a   firm and stable government capable  of protecting human property and human  life. But along with the demand for the  means of industry, government and edu-  cation, are other necessities which are  equally urgent. Men do not emigrate  from older to newer lands and leave  behind their esthetic and spiritual   natures. Change of residence does not  beget a change of character. It is the  savage that has left this beautiful land.  It is the Christian that has taken possess-  ion of it and the chapel and the church 



in every village and cluster of dwellings  will express in material form, his love  of truth - his instinct of worship - and  his faith in the religion of Jesus Christ.  		In the midst of these  strong incitements, strained energies,  and intense desires, all growth will  be correspondingly rapid. Marvelous  growth inward and outward - growth  inevitable, if not upward then down-  ward - growth toward symmetry  and beauty or toward deformity.  But whether toward the one or the other  depends on the minds that guide it  and the hands that give it shape. And   the results of this rapid and incessant



progress almost realize the magical cre-  ations of Aladdin's lamp. A single  instance will suffice. Thirty-five  years ago Kanesville, now the seat of a   thriving city, was a mere row of insig-  nificant houses. Only now and then a   solitary river craft cleaved the waters  of the Missouri. At that date I stood   on the lonely shore where Omaha  has since arisen and found a single  tenantless hut which the Mormons had  lately abandoned. No plough had  yet furrowed the boundless prairies  to the west. Scarcely a civilized hab-  itation dotted the shore of the   Platte river and Lincoln now the capi-



tal of a young and vigorous state and the  seat of a growing university, had not en-  tered the imagination of man or disturbed  even a dreamer's fancy.  	But resuming the  thread of our subject let us repeat that all  structures both material and social will  depend for their excellence on the trained  capacity of the builders. And this is true  not only of all the larger schemes and  wider enterprises but also of the lesser  transactions and minuter details that  go to make up, in countless number, the   sum total of civilized life. So that in   this grand expanse of new and noble  territory whether a cottage or a state-



house is to be built, a new farm or a   railway to be opened, a village lyceum   or a university to be organized, a   country store or a state treasury to be  managed, a stream that cuts the public   road or the "father of waters" to be bridg-  ed, a district school or a state to be gov-  erned, it is trained capacity and that  alone that brings out of each and every  one, the largest and most perfect results,  with the least wear and tear of useless  waste. All outside of this is a rayless   and hopeless drudgery groping blindly   in the darkness and groveling in the   rubbish of its own creating.  	And now in this great



and growing West where the call for  skilled labor and practical knowledge  comes upon us in mighty surges, what  kind of trained capacity will meet the   demand? Is it that of the man who is   educated on the theory of self discipline  merely until he has attained such sym-  metry of intellectual growth such nice  and exact balance of the mental pow-  ers that he cannot possibly gravitate  towards any practical pursuit?  Is it a kind of intellectual Jack at  all trades who is good at none? Is it  the man who is elevated by the study  of a transcendental philosophy far  above the affairs of this muddy Earth



until he is capable of contemplating  only the abstract and the infinite, the im-  mutable essences of things? Shall it   be he whose culture is so fine and fin-  ished that disdaining all coarser themes  of a common interest he soars to such   logical niceties that he can tell you in   graceful diction how many spirits  can dance on the point of a needle?  Shall it be the man all whose in-  tellectual currents run to words, begin   and end in words, fine and sonorous  perhaps but still words - men who when  for example fire seizes upon a city  can neither pass the bucket or direct  the stream but can do nothing but orate.



Can this bill be filled by any men  or set of men whose habits, wealth, sta-  tion, opinions or training have di-  vorced them from a sympathy with  the multitude, deprived them of  the power to work in any line of  useful effort and the capacity to  help in any material or moral emer-  gency? Will such as these answer   the crying want of trained ability   in the West? No! Every substan-  tial interest of a growing state re-  plies "None of these." Far off from  the great West be the mere phraseolo-  gist, the idle dreamer, the visionary  given over to vague theories and



barren speculations. Away with that  kind of helper who forever hesitates and  shows us "how not to do it."  	The man we want is of   far different cut and calibre. The cry  is for men whose thought culminates  in action, whose wisdom is proven by  its immediate fruits. Men who bring  to every undertaking both the level  head and the skillful hand. The  resources of this prolific land that  await development by industry are  largely wasted by crude management  and misdirected effort. Every year  millions are sacrificed to the bung-  ling operations that spring from lack



of skill and experience. The values  that are hopelessly buried by sheer  incapacity would educate engineers,   miners, mineralogists, architects and  skilled artisans by the hundreds.  How many thousands of dollars  think you have been squandered  in so simple an act as digging   for water where none but a tyro would  expect to find it? What sums are   wasted in the mere sinking of shafts  where somebody has guessed that coal  would be found. Stop the leaks on  half a dozen western farms that are  contiguous and give me the bare  savings that result and with no other



source of income, I can live like a   nabob. Give me the difference be-  tween the proceeds of perfect skill  and economy in the management  of all the famous of the West and the  actual proceeds now gathered, and I  will endow half a dozen universities  or industrial schools. Give me the  treasures which financial blunders  sweep off in a decade and I will  buy out William B. Astor.  Of course  this immeasurable  wastage is the ag-  gregate of items both small and   great.   	Not two weeks since at a   fine stock convention an exper- 



ienced breeder declared that in   the beginning he lost $10000. be-  cause of his ignorance of the value  of different short-horn strains.  Another asserted that in his lack  of experience he had been terribly  swindled by the purchase of ani-  mals with false pedigrees. Errors  of construction in the main  building of the Iowa Agricultural  College involved a loss of at   least $50000. and a radical defect  in its heating apparatus at least  $25000. 13 years ago the rising  walls of a new capitol which the  state of Iowa had projected were



torn down to the tune of $50000. in  order to remove the crumbling stone  which an incompetent architect  had placed therin. A similar  blunder made on a larger scale  in Chicago is said to have cost the  United States over a million.  	These few instances are  only an insignificant fraction of  the innumerable legion of blunders  that are born of incapacity. The  vast aggregate of treasures sunk in  this way beyond hope of recovery de-  fies enumeration. We can only  touch a sample or two and leave  the stupendous whole as beyond our



grasp. If Iowa had educated  thoroughly a single architect, a   master builder able to comprehend  and command the situation she   would have saved in the two in-  stances referred to more than a   hundred thousand dollars. How  much would she save from the skill  and ability of this single man in  the professional labor of his life time.  How much would she save if she had  a full quota of such builders in this  single industry. How much would   she save with a complete supply  of such master workers in every  line of industrial art. How much 



would she save if men of similar  skill breadth and fidelity had  the lead in all her commercial  and financial affairs?  	This is only a futile  attempt to imagine the vast sum  total of mere cash losses. It takes  no account of the esthetic and  moral harm that spring from the  destruction of material values - from  a multitude of material failures -  from the absence of all the perfect  ideals of material excellence and  beauty. What is more it takes no  account of the fruits of genuine  progress which the West would reach 



in every line of human enterprise  when under the guidance of a   master mind as compared with  the fruits now actually gathered.  And here the computation  transcends the power of figures.  The losses from waste alone are  not so formidable as those which  flow from the hindrances to a   full development. Then is a press-  ing call for men who will not only  stop the leaks but will stimulate   and shape the growths in every   department of useful art. Minds  so prepared by special training  that they can reduce all the 



sciences that underlie the great  industries to immediate and  successful practice. That kind of   scientist is in demand who will  pause from discussing the orig-  in of worlds and the origin of  metals and tell us precisely where  our mineral treasures may be found.  Scientists whose surveys are so  accurate complete and exhaust-  ive as to reveal the full extent of  our mining resources, locating our  quarries, and settling the quality  of stone they yield, outlining the  coal fields and bringing the sub-  terranean fuel into use, and in 



short giving a clear and full account  of all the values that are hidden   in the outcropping strata.   	But there is an equal  pressure for scientific experts  to give effective help in all the va-  rious branches of industrial art  which agriculture embraces.  Experts that shall elucidate  with precision every process by  which the lifeless mold is chang-  ed to the marketable product  with the least investment of mus-  cle and money.  Experts who shall  teach how to preserve our forests  and to extend their areas by judic- 



ious planting until as the genera-  tions pass, the supply of timber shall  equal the consumption. Experts  who shall reveal the mysteries of  economical feeding so that our  vast crops may produce the larg-  est attainable product and the  finest quality of butter pork and  beef. Who can find beyond cavil   the cause and the cure of the strange  maladies that, at times, sweep off  our cattle and swine by the thous-  and. Who shall expound those   laws of breeding and treatment  under which the lank scrub takes  on at last the calibre and contour 



of the symmetrical Durham and  so save us finally from the anom-  aly of raising and feeding the  finest corn and masticating  the toughest beef in the world.   Intense and irresistible likewise is the  necessity for effective help in fighting  the host of enemies against which  the western farmer is compelled to  make a perpetual struggle and by  which if he be not aided by the  appliances of science he will be per-  petually worsted. Excessive drouths,  untimely frosts, violent storms of  wind and rain, diseases of animals  and plants - these are the foes that 



the farmer must face and that even  with all the foresight that science and  experience can bring, often reduce to zero  the margin between the cost of product-  ion and the price in the market. But  most terrible of all and without remedy  as yet by science and skill, is the  scourge which hides the sun and black-  ens the sky and wherever it alights  turns the beauty and bloom of the  fields to the barrenness of the desert.  	Such is the condition  such the needs and such the train-  ing of the men required to meet them.  Have we an adequate supply of such men? Thousands  of our citizens are indeed educated 



earnest, energetic, many are even  cultivated, but comparatively few  are fitted by special educational  training to meet the peculiar emer-  gencies which, as we have said, are  caused by a rapid development. Ex-  pensive dwellings are constantly mul-  tiplied and homes without number  must be beautiful with attractive   surroundings, yet there is scarcely a  landscape gardener within our reach.  Untold sums are annually expended  in high priced pure blooded stock all  subject to disease and accident, yet  where is the adequate number of veterinary surgeons in  case of need? The cry of distress from  



the utter devastation of destructive in-  sects comes from Kansas Nebraska  Colorado and Iowa and fills the   land, yet there are not half a dozen  entomologists in the entire North  West.  	But now it behoves us to en-  quire whether the special intellect-  ual training I have sketched involves  an unfortunate sacrifice of any  of the elements of a true manhood  and whether on the other hand it  does not, if wisely and liberally con-  ducted, round out into symmetry  the moral and intellectual man.  I am seriously mistaken in the ob- 



servation of thirty years, if our systems  of education do not need and are  not indeed undergoing a process  of readjustment in order to bring  them abreast with the times in which  we live. I am seriously mistaken   if our instruction, in matter and   method, does not, in many an in-  stance, throw the youth out of joint  with the world into which he car-  ries his diploma. Alas, that the  student should ever awaken from  the dreams of college seclusion to  the cold and stern realities for which  he has little sympathy and often  little fitness. Alas, that we should 



ever educate for a world of fancy  those who must live only in a world  of hard and solid fact. Alas, that in   the very period of preparation for com-  ing activities we should ever make  queens without a crown, monarchs with-  out a kingdom, or heroes without a ca-  reer. There is indeed great reason to fear  that innumerable failures in the strug-  gle of life, have resulted, not from the   want of natural talents, but from a fa-  tal disparity between the training of  the schools and the work of the world  From the study of absolute truth  wherein the logical processes are per-  fect and all the deductions without 



a flaw the youth comes into the field  of activities where truth being manifold  and mingled with error, must be  gathered by the exercise of a perpet-  ual discernment. From the heights  to which he has been raised by dwell-  ing with absorbing interest on the  masterpieces of eloquence, poetry  and metaphysical learning, he   drops suddenly down to the inflexible   details of hard and practical busi-  ness. From contemplating with un-  limited admiration those heroic  characters of olden time which were  born of the imagination and bound to   immortality, he plunges into the vortex 



of actual strife where rough experience  soon overthrows his idols.   	Now I do not question  the absolute value of the old educa-  tion or presume to speak slighting-  ly of the benefits it has bestowed on the   world. All classified knowledge   whether of literature, science, or art  adds to the sum total of human in-  telligence and intelligence whether  leaning towards the remote past  or the restless present, is all so much  better than ignorance.  Nor would  I detract one whit from the claims  which many set up for this or that  branch of learning as a means of dis- 



cipline. I would only affirm that  discipline itself is valuable only in  proportion as it prepares for duty;  for duty in doing well our special  work - duty to our children, to our  neighbor, to society and to God.  	Passing by then for the  present all discussions of the com-  parative values of the different stud-  ies in their reflexive effect, I will  simply urge the necessity of such an   adjustment of these that in every  step of his higher education the youth  may study what the man will prac-  tice. But let us set forth this reform  in education in a stronger light, 



and give to it, if we are able, a little  more sharpness of outline. In the first  place as to its purpose; the old edu-  cation seeks to elevate the professions;  the new education strives to help  alike both the professions and the  industries; the old education with-  draws learning from venerable  walls, where she is surrounded by the  ceremonies and sanctities of olden  time. In the new education she  emerges from mystic halls, puts on   the white drapery of science, comes  forth into the open air and the   broad sunlight, reveals to her lov-  ing pupils the secrets of nature, 



teaches how lightning is utilized,   how ores are mined and reduced,  how rivers are bridged and moun-  tains tunneled, how plants grow,  how marshes are drained and  worn out soils fertilized, teaches  how fruits and cereals and do-  mestic animals may be improved,  how every article of food and fab-  ric can be produced with the  smallest possible outlay; in short,  takes the laborer by the hand - the   laborer once crippled by ignorance -  and lifts him up with the loving   injunction, "I say unto thee, arise."  Such is the purpose of the new ed- 



ucation - philanthropic, practical,  helpful to all.   	But the other question al-  ready alluded to and perpetually  recurring is equally vital in de-  termining its value. "What is  its effect on character. While it   gives to students a special prepa-  ration for their allotted work, does   it make men - men intellectually  broad shouldered and deep chested -  men quick in expedients, ready in  emergencies, trained to affairs, de-  serving of public trusts - men of   weight and influence and fore-  sight?" If the new education, 



though it makes millions of experts  fail in a matter so important as  this, the failure is surely a fatal  one. But it does not fail. Its great  underlying law is that youth shall  study what maturity shall apply,  and this maxim covers not merely  the handicrafts, but the whole  area of human activities - intel-  lectual, moral, and material. If  the youth has decided to become  an architect, for instance, does  he need to be told that he will not  thereby escape being a citizen as   well? And just as a knowledge   of the various architectural or- 



ders and styles, a mastery of the  principles of descriptive geometry   and practice in architectural  drafting is essential to the success-  ful architect, so the mastery of   mental and moral philosophy,  of social science, of political  economy and constitutional  law, are essential to becoming  actively and passively a model  citizen. And these are the studies  which, when fully grasped and  applied in practice, give a man  weight and influence and fore-  sight - studies which round him  out into the proportions and sym- 



metry of a genuine manhood. How  can one better learn to be ready in  emergencies than by studying the   principles from which emergen-  cies take their rise; and how can   one be trained to affairs better than  by a mastery of the laws that under-  lie affairs? The old education, tho'  conferring finished scholarship in  special directions, seems never to  have accepted these logical con-  clusions. It prescribes studies for   the discipline they bring, and af-  firms that their use is an inciden-  tal and a comparatively unim-  portant result. The new education 



prescribes studies for their actual  uses, and declares that discipline  is an incidental but sure result.  The old asserts that culture is  gained from the particular  matter studied. The new replies that  culture comes largely, not from the  matter studied, but from the man-  ner of studying it, and that ear-  nestness of effort only will beget in-  tellectual growth. The old educa-  tion, to illustrate things mental  by things material, would prepare  the tyro for swimming by giving  him a muscular drill out of water so  perfect and well balanced that 



if, by accident, he fell into water, it  might be expected he would swim  anyhow. The new education puts  the tyro into water, gives him all   needed instruction and help, declar-  ing that the best preparation for  the art of swimming is found in the  act of swimming, and that the act,  if frequently and strenuously re-  peated, imparts muscular vigor  also. Man, like Murray's English   verb, is destined in this world to   to be, to do and to suffer. The  old system educates him to be,  and infers that the power to do  and to suffer will follow. The 



new education educates him to do  and to suffer, and infers that the  being will follow, and he who stud-  ies God's plan of discipline knows  that it is the doing and suffering  in this world that perfect character  and complete the man.  	But if a wide de-  mand for fuller harmony between  the things to be studied in higher  education and the things to be  done in actual life has resulted  in the founding of new institutions,  with new courses of study, what  effect has such demand had   on existing institutions wherin 



the old courses prevailed? The ef-  fect is manifest and marked  everywhere, varying in degree, uni-  form in kind. In nearly every col-  lege and university throughout  the land, more or less thorough  changes have been wrought, both  in the material and in the meth-  od instruction.  	Curricula which have   maintained an unvarying foothold  for centuries, have been undergo-  ing the process of rearrangement  to meet the outside requirements.  In some, the humanities are  either lessened in quantity or 



limited to special departments,  in order that a fuller variety of   modern sciences may be admitted  to the programme.   	In others a few venera-  ble branches have been lopped off,  and vigorous modern scions have  been grafted onto the old stock,  whose roots, still undisturbed, draw  healthy nutrition from the buried  soils of Greece and Rome. These  are facts which no one whose  outlook is far reaching enough  to gather in the whole field of   higher education, can possibly  deny. It is true, that some have 



declared, in view of this movement,  that our higher institutions are  groping helplessly in the darkness  of experiment - that doubt and  confusion in our educational  policy and perpetual vacilla-  tion in matter and method will  be the sure results, and that these  evils have sprung from the sub-  mission of the cultured few to  the unreasoning clamor of the  uncultured many. But close  and careful inspection of   facts reveals that all this is mere  idle ranting. The transformation  now going on has nothing of the 



hap-hazard character. It is not a   blind and blundering innovation,  but a thoughtful and deliberate  remodeling of a system which the  times had outgrown, so that it  may suit all the phases of mod-  ern thought, all the great ad-  vancing interests of humanity,  and all the intellectual wants  of the age. In short, liberal edu-  cation has at last caught some-  thing of the fire of the times, and  is consequently in a state of tran-  sition from the good to the better,  and from the better to the still   better, which lies perpetually beyond.  



To verify this statement glance at  the leading institutions of learning  East and West.  	Not much more than   20 years have passed since Cor-  nell, with an insight into the in-  tellectual wants of society equaled  only by the depth of his philan-  thropy, said, "I would found an   institution where any person  can find instruction in any  study," and in less than three  years thereafter the world wit-  nessed his benign idea pass from  simple expression into solid fact.  	Yale, the intellectual 



birthplace of many of our national  orators, poets, journalists, jurists  and divines - the most conserva-  tive of the earlier institutions of   learning in the land - while declin-  ing to rearrange her old courses  of study, which were weighted with  the literature and its lore of an-  tiquity, has nevertheless provided   in the Sheffield Scientific School  facilities for the broadest and  deepest scholarship in the industri-  al sciences.  	Harvard, in sympathy  with the whole circle of modern high  intellectual wants has reorganized 



on so liberal a basis, has attained  such completeness in her equipment  and such variety in her teaching forc-  es, that any student of the mascu-  line gender may profitably pursue  there any branch of knowledge  which his peculiar purposes in life  render desirable.  	The University of Michi-  gan, handsomely endowed   from the start, and happily lo-  cated in the West, where cultured  mind is measureably freed from  the fetters of prejudice, has for many  years enlarged her borders and  strengthened her stakes by a felici- 



tous blending of the old and the new  together. Her uniform and constant-  ly increasing prosperity adds another  to the innumerable proofs, that truth  and wisdom stand as a mean be-  tween two extremes; that in matters  of learning and culture, they will  not be found in a hide bound con-  servatism on the one hand, nor in  a headlong radicalism on the  other. These great institutions,  founded in different states of the  North, may serve as examples of the  varying, yet positive, progress  which higher education is making  in its transition from the ancient 



to the modern scheme.  	But there is one idea,   born of modern thought and mod-  ern liberality and belonging, con-  sequently, to the new education  which has met in the higher insti-  tutions, with a very checkered  and diverse entertainment. I   refer to the doctrine that every hu-  man being has a natural, and  unquestionable, right to an intel-  lectual training for coming du-  ties without distinction of sex,  and that, consequently, the doors  of our colleges and universities  should be swung wide for the ad- 



mission of both sexes on equal terms.  In some, this idea has been receiv-  ed with a hearty and spontaneous  welcome. To some, it has gained  access by the slow approaches of a   regular seige. By others, it has been  summarily repulsed. And others,   again, have contemplated it   with a sort of blank bewilder-  ment, very amusing to behold.  Our academies, preparatory  and high schools had indeed  worked out the problem, even be-  fore it had been reduced to for-  mal statement. Oberlin, long ago,  erected her walls on the corner 



stone of universal education -   of education without distinction  of gender, race, color or condi-  tion; and to say the very least,  she has pursued the even tenor of  her ways without social or moral  disaster.  	Cornell University soon  perceived that her scheme for of-  fering facilities for universal  education involved the admis-  sion of women as a logical se-  quence. But before she could   venture on a step so novel in  that latitude, to enterprises so  large, she sent forth wise men 



to enquire diligently in whatever  localities the idea had found  birth and growth, whether it  were a demon of darkness or   an angel of light, and these wise  men, returning from a tour of  extended inspection, set forth  in the musical cadences of a   beautiful report (what the prac-  tical world already knew), namely,  that coeducation of the sexes was  getting on famously well, and  what was more remarkable still,   the balance of scholarship was on   the woman's side. And so coed-  ucation became a settled feat- 



ure in the Cornell programme  thereafter.   	But Harvard could  not so easily overcome her  bachelor proclivities. Consult-  ing her venerable precedents  rather than the vital interests of So-  ciety, she declared until quite lately that liberal  culture of the first water, can be  found only in sexual isolation -  that the sexes, though evidently  designed by nature to live together,  should prepare for living together  by being educated rigidly apart.  And she strengthened this position  by declaring through her president 



that woman must not cross her  threshold as a student, because  the mind of the average woman  differs from the mind of the aver-  age man more than the minds  of men differ from each other.  From what wide comparison of  particular instances this con-  clusion is reached, and precisely  wherein this difference consists,  it is impossible to say. Probably  the remark of the great American  journalist will meet such a state-  ment as well as any. When asked  once whether, in his opinion, man,  on the whole, was superior to wom- 



an, he replied, "That depends very  much on who the man is."  	Twenty five years ago, Mich-  igan University, having her plac-  id waters disturbed by the breezes  of public opinion on this very  subject, pondered upon it long  and anxiously. Finally, as a   means of exorcising the dreadful  spectre, instead of inspecting  the State Normal School, wherin  were assembled four hundred  students of both sexes, only  ten miles away, she sent letters of  inquiry to the more distant  unisexual colleges, whose prac- 



tice had already declared that,  in matters of high intellectual  import, "it was good for man to   be alone." And the answers, full  of terrible  predictions and gloomy  forebodings, were read with  blanched lips and the spectre  put to rest for a decade longer.  Then, when public sentiment   brought its battering  ram to bear  once more upon her barred and  bolted doors, she yielded, and  admitted with a flourish of   newspaper trumpets half a dozen  daring females, whereupon the  philanthropists, rejoiced over 



one big sinner that repented  more than over the ninety and  nine all through the West that   went not astray.  	But gathering up the  fringes of this lecture, let us  close with a cursory survey of  the groups into which a great  institution of learning, which  aspires to supply all the wants  of the times and the state, may   adjust and balance its courses  of study. Instead of looking   inward to decide this great  question by the special fasci-  nations of learning, we should 



look outward, and so ad-  just it as to help all the processes  by which humanity struggles up-  ward, and all the wants of the toil-  ing multitudes. Among these,   claiming to be foremost, stands  the noble group of sciences, which  classify and make clear, those  common reciprocal duties whereby  society is sustained and happi-  ness secured - duties, for example,  between the husband and the  wife, the parent and the child,  the citizen and the community,  the governed and the governor,  the individual and the state, be- 



tween man and his Creator.  	Next follows another  group, scarcely less interesting,   which define and defend the   rights of property, and develop  the laws of production whereby  this Earth, otherwise a wilder-  ness, smiles with plenty and glows  with beauty, and the laws of ex-  change, by which the plenty and  the beauty, are attainable all  the world over.  	Last, but not least, come  the branches which deal with  the obligations of every individu-  to himself - the maintenance 



of his own safety, his self control,  his physical, intellectual and  moral health, and with these  I may classify, without violence,  those attainments which lend a   more personal weight and influ-  ence over others, whether in society  or in the councils of the state, or   the nation. For instance, a knowl-  edge of human nature through   a practical psychology, and a   complete mastery of his own ver-  nacular through the study of its  idiom, its structure, its litera-  ture, its history, and its verbal  origin. The English tongue, with 



its rugged strength, its wealth  of synonyms,  and its underly-  ing strata of Latin and Saxon,  will stand prominent among  the coming studies, when higher  education shall emerge from  the transition period. All  these branches of knowledge  classify and illuminate the  duties and doings of man as  man. I need not enlarge, before  an audience like this, either  on their transcendant importance  or on the wide and beautiful   culture their attainment bestows.  I need only add that, to my 



thinking, every great school of  science, literature, and art   ought to furnish to its pu-  pils at least an opportunity  to gain a well balanced schol-  arship in them all.  	But outside the studies  which maintain a common interest,  because underlying our common  obligations, stand the special stud-  ies, largely literary, which antecede  the professions and literary callings,  and special studies, largely scientific,  which find their application in the   great industries.   	All these gathering in 



and representing the   whole wide circle of human interests,  appeal under the new education  to the University for adequate  and equal help. While the branch-  es that harmonize our common  lives hold a solid phalanx, those   that are preparatory to the special  pursuits break the general instruct-  ion up into many and separate  departments. The studies anticed-  ent to the learned professions  and literary callings were long  ago fully provided for. I would  not pluck one leaf from the  laurels they have gained, nor cut  



a single branch from their establish-  ed courses. I would simply ask  for the grand industrial sciences,  and the useful arts, which have  so quickened the civilization of  our era, coordinate opportunities  and coordinate rank. While the  learning which finds its home in  our universities lends effective  utterance to the sublime truths  of the pulpit, and logical acu-  men to the labors of the bar, let  it also help every industrial enter-  prise whose object is to restore the  earth to the beauty and the glory  of its primeval paradise. Let it  



feed and clothe the millions  with more healthful food and  warmer fabrics. Let it repeat every-  where the miracle of the loaves and  fishes. Let it furnish the mechan-  ic with better tools, better methods  and better machinery. Let it  stimulate industry and cleave  the wave of every sea with its traf-  fic. Let it beautify the surround-  ing landscape, crown the hills  with nobler dwellings, cover the  fields with more nutritious grass-  es and finer herbs, replace the  wilderness with the waving har-  vest, bring every farm to the top- 



most limit of its producing capac-  ity and preside over every pro-  cess by which humanity advances  from penury  to comfort and  competence.  	For when it shall have  done all this and much more  with detailed completeness, then  will the University from which  it emanates have accomplished  the ends of a universal philan-  thropy.   	The world is progressing.  Human happiness, comfort,  health, wealth, education, and  learning are reaching a wider 



diffusion and a higher level.  No cancer has ever eaten into the  heart of society but has found  its certain cure. Great errors  one after another have been surely  vanquished. Every huge evil that  looms darkly against the skies   of human hope disappears as   the fleeting years pass on. Tyrra-  ny,  oppression in government  and monopolies of whatever sort  have bitten the dust. The past is  strewn with prostrate giants slain  by a few small pebbles flung from  the sling of truth. From all the  ages that have fled comes a voice 



saying "Let suffering humanity  never despair." On every side a   bow of promise spans the dark-  ened sky. The chasm that for  centuries interposed between la-  bor and learning is closed and  labor and learning hand in  hand have said to the mountain  "Be thou removed and be thou   cast into the sea" and the moun-  tain has obeyed them. All things  good and beautiful and true   have caught a new impulse from  this new union. Under this new  impulse human interests are  advancing with a velocity ever 



increasing. Liberal education  will not be left behind. Looking  backward over its annals I see  a narrow philosophy vanish-  ing like a spectre into the dim  past, while forward through  the long vista which the new phi-  losophy has opened before me I  discern for it the glow of a    better and a fairer future.