trust for those teachers who, in the language of Scripture, will take them by violence; that is, by such a holy ardor and invincible determination as will conquer time and fate, and fulfill the conditions, on which, alone, such honors can be won. And if the strong-voiced angel, who flies through heaven, crying, "Woe, woe, woe," to the inhabiters of the earth, is ever to be silenced, he will be silenced by the stronger acclamations of those whom teachers have. been among the blessed and honored instruments of preparing for the ransom of the world.

THE AGRICULTURAL LAND GRANT.

The object of this grant is not simply to found colleges devoted exclusively to the special or practical" education of the industrial classes. The law of Congress also makes provision for their "liberal" education, including a knowledge of "other scientific and classical studies." The entire object is to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes. Whatever ambiguity may attach to the word "practical," here used, the meaning of the word "liberal" is definite and clear. The word "liberal," when used in connection with education, always has a definite, technical signification. A liberal education is an education in literature and the sciences generally, and is usually applied to a collegiate education. The fact that "other scientific and classical studies" are not to be excluded, shows that this is the meaning of the term as used in the law of Congress. The Industrial College must furnish the industrial classes with facilities for acquiring a "liberal" as a well as a 66 practical" education. Nothing less wide and thorough will meet the specific terms of the grant.

This evident construction of the law shows that the industrial college cannot be organized as a professional school, exclusively on the plan of our medical, law, divinity, and commercial schools, nor even upon the plan of the Military Academy at West Point, in which all the studies are selected with reference to their bearing upon the practical duties of the military service-the classics and polite literature being entirely excluded from the course. It must include those general studies which may be requisite in the "liberal" education of the farmer, and the mechanic, as well as those studies which have a more direct bearing upon the practical duties of their several pursuits. It is also equally clear that the industrial college cannot be made a subordinate department of a literary college. The "leading" object of the college-not a department of some other college-must be professional instead of general education. In other words, general education, in this institution, is to be made subordinate to professional or special education.

Another object of this grant is, evidently, to extend the domain of the applied sciences, by furnishing agriculture and the mechanic arts with adequate facilities for scientific experiment and investigation. The Industrial College should

discover new principles in science and art, and test, in a reliable manner, new applications and processes. Its experimental farms and gardens should determine, with comparative accuracy, the conditions of soil and climate requisite for the successful growth of the seeds and cuttings imported by the National Agricultural Department-experiments now often fruitless, because they are not intelligently and skillfully conducted. It should, in brief, advance agriculture and the arts of industry, including mining, by the use of those special agencies with which it will be so amply endowed. All our material interests and resources should feel its influence.

In order that this grant may promote efficiently the “practical” education of the industrial classes, it should aid in the special training of the teachers of our common schools, so they may be prepared to teach therein the primary facts of natural history, drawing, etc., and to train their pupils to habits of observation and inquiry-instruction now sadly neglected for the want of such special preparation on the part of teachers. The normal or training school is a legitimate and important department of the industrial college.

[After discussing the course of studies and instruction in such institutions, the Commissioner asks:]

But what is the plain and manifest meaning of the act of Congress? Evidently, as already shown, that the scheme of instruction shall be sufficiently wide and extensive to fill the full measure of a “liberal" as well as a professional education, the former being made subordinate to the latter. The manner in which this subordination shall be effected is left to the legislatures of the several states to determine, under the guidance of sound educational principles and the unequivocal teachings of experience. What are these principles and teachings?

All experience teaches that in the successful acquisition of those facts which have the greatest value in practical life, disciplined powers and developed strength are a pre-requisite. Every practical teacher will concur in the statement, that the shortest road to a practical knowledge of applied science is through a mastery of the principles and laws of pure science. Many of the simplest questions of agriculture, for example, require for their intelligent solution a knowledge of branches of learning which apparently have no relation to practical agriculture. Besides, the student of agriculture, theoretical or practical, must bring to the task a mind trained to scientific investigation. It is true that such study will itself afford a degree of mental discipline, but there must also be developed strength as a necessary preparation for such study. The same fact holds true in all professional or special instruction. Hence it is that the discipline acquired in the thorough mastery of a study which has little apparent value in practical life, may be of the very greatest utility as a means of reaching those facts that are practically useful. Development thus becomes the gateway to practical knowledge. No principle in education is better settled than this.

Here we find the reason for the failure of every attempt to educate youth for a given pursuit, by ignoring the discipline of the mind. Such instruction inevitably defeats itself. Practical facts, to be practically available for safe guidance in any pursuit, must be thought out and made one's own, and then that such facts may be applied with certainty, there must be a clear insight into their causes, effects and relations. The superficial empiricist, with a limited stock of disconnected facts, is constantly liable, in every new use or application of his knowledge, to fall into error. He lacks the strength, self-balance, comprehension, grasp and inspiration which discipline and culture always impart to native powers. Hence, in every department of human endeavor, from the preparation of our daily bread up to the guidance of a nation's affairs, what man most needs is a generous and full development of all his powers. The stuffing of immature and undisciplined minds with a superficial knowledge of such branches of learning as are popularly supposed to pertain to agriculture and the mechanic arts, would be the shammiest kind of an education-utterly unworthy of the dignity of the industrial classes, and comparatively worthless as a means of their elevation and advancement.

But there is another view of this subject, higher and truer than that of mere business utility. The great function of education is, in the language of Herbert Spencer, to teach men how to live-not how to live in the mere material sense only, but in the widest sense. Man does not live by bread alone. The farmer and the mechanic must also be a member of society, a citizen, a man. Upon him as well as upon other men, rest the responsibilities of life. The mightiest social and civil questions of earth's history demand solution at his hands. He may be called to the highest councils of the State or of the Nation, and well would it be for the country if he were oftener thus called. To this duty he should bring the same breadth of culture and comprehension as his compeers from the so-called learned professions. He should stand an honor to industry as well as her strong and able defender. The first step in all right education is to develop manhood-to educate man as man, and not as an instrument—and any scheme which ignores this great fact, which places a man's occupation above himself, will fail in the future as in the past.

These principles make evident the practical wisdom of that provision of the Congressional grant which aims to secure the "liberal" education of the industrial classes as the necessary basis of their "practical" or professional education. In view of the fact that the general education of the farmer and the artisan is, to a good degree, already provided for, the leading object of the benefaction is special education; but great care is taken to make such special instruction fruitful and valuable, by providing for and demanding needful preparatory training. It is asked why special instruction was not made the sole function of the industrial college, and the necessary mental discipline made a condition of admission? To every practical educator the answer is evident. A portion of the special course must run parallel with the general course, or

rather must be made a part of the general course. Existing colleges, on account of limited endowments, do not furnish adequate facilities for scientific study and investigation. Give to these colleges ample facilities for thorough instruction in the natural sciences, and there will be no necessity of providing for general education in the industrial college. The course of instruction can then be made exclusively professional.-Report of Hon. E. E. White, School Commissioner of Ohio.

AGRICULTURAL COLLEGES.

What is an Agricultural College? Let us begin by stating some of the things that it is not. And first, it is not the back shop, nor even the front parlor, of any other college. It is an institution sui generis. The highest success can only be secured for it by setting it upon its own feet, and taking it out of all manner of leading-strings. It must be endowed with the full attributes of an independent manhood. For this there are multitudes of reasons. One of them is, that every institution of learning, like every other organism, has its chief and guiding purpose, its one great aim and end, to which all other aims must be subservient. If the Agricultural College is annexed to some existing institution, what is to be the main object of the compound institution? Is it to be literary, or agricultural? If literary, then, of course, the agricultural department suffers, from being subordinated. If agricultural, then the same department suffers from being incumbered with the literary department. What earthly good can come to an Agricultural College, with its model farm, and manual labor therein, from having on its hands a thing so little in unison with its active out-door purposes as an academic appendage, where boys are taught Greek accents and the quantity of Latin syllables? In either case, whether the agricultural department is subordinated or exalted, and one or the other it must be, the result is alike injurious.

And what does experience say to us on this point? What has been, in this country, the general effect of the attempt to graft a special school of this kind upon the stem of a literary institution? Let us illustrate the point by reference to the normal schools of the country, which are more closely allied to our colleges than an agricultural school can be. Of all the attempts, and there have been several, in the United States to annex state normal schools to colleges or universities, very few have been successful, and in these few the union has been merely nominal, and has not been in operation sufficiently long to test its permanency. That plan was adopted in Kentucky, Rhode Island, and elsewhere, and in almost every instance abandoned. In the former state the normal school was strangled by the unnatural ligature; in the latter, it was saved from the same fate only by a prompt repudiation of the plan.

On the other hand, we are not aware that a single independent state normal school, even though established as an experiment, has ever been discontinued,

within the entire limits of the United States; and some of them have been in operation twenty-five years. And we believe that what is true of normal schools will be, a fortiori, all the more true of Agricultural Colleges, from their remoter resemblance to ordinary literary institutions.

But this is only illustration. How can we best get at the convictions of the best agriculturists on this point? By observing what they have actually done themselves in respect to the matter. What has been the general practice in our times? Have most of the agricultural schools established within the last eighty years, in Europe and America, been independent, or have they been annexed to some existing institution? The investigation develops the most remarkable unanimity of sentiment, and uniformity of practice. We have before us at this moment a list of twenty-six of the most eminent and successful of these institutions on both sides of the water. From this list we are satisfied that no institution of the first grade is omitted. And of the whole twenty-six, only one, that of Pisa, in Italy, is made in any degree dependent upon a college or university. The others are independent agricultural schools, free to pursue their investigations and to employ their students in the manner best calculated to accomplish their purpose, untrammeled by artificial ties and entangling alliances. And as if to settle the question still more fully, it is declared that the Pisa school has failed to acquire anything more than a local reputation.

Thus, from considerations of common sense, from the analogy of other institutions, and from the actual opinions of eminent friends of agriculturl education, we derive the same unvarying conclusion: that an Agricultural College should stand upon its own foundations, and should be thrown into no position of dependence or partnership.-Illinois Teacher.

WHAT OUR SCHOOLS SHOULD DO.

It appears to me that the training of young people in our schools is too exclusively bookish. Too much stress is still laid on rules, rote-learning, on abstractions, to the almost total neglect of the glorious book of nature, with its inexhaustible treasures. What a boon could be conferred on those happy boys and girls, from whom the beautiful face of nature is not shut out by crowded and noisy streets, if we could rouse their curiosity for the varied wonders of the mineral and organic kingdoms in the midst of which they live.

Let a youth have once gained a taste for watching the habits of birds and insects, for studying minerals; or a girl to have learned to look on flowers with a discriminating eye, not with vacant and dull admiration, can you conceive such a one to feel anything but repugnance, not merely for coarse and degrading pursuits, but even for the silly amusements to which, from utter vacancy of mind, they are otherwise driven ?

Surely, whatever of classical or mathematical lore our common country school can manage to impart, this much, at least, it ought to secure to all those who faithfully avail themselves of its opportunities: