Purdue University 
 
 LAFAYETTE , INF 
 
 BY 
 
 PRESIDENT E. E. WHITE. 
 
 1878 . 
 
 &Vy 
 
INAUGURAL ADDRESS 
 
 BY 
 
 EMERSON E. WHITE, LL.D., 
 
 PRESIDENT OE PURDUE UNIVERSITY, 
 
 DELIVERED JULY 16, 1876. 
 
 PRINTED BY ORDER OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES. 
 
 INDIANAPOLIS : 
 
 SENTINEL COMPANY, PRINTERS. 
 
 1876. 
 
INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 
 
 It is less than six weeks since I informally entered upon 
 the duties of the office, now formally and publicly assumed. 
 The time has been much too brief for the work undertaken, 
 and duties which should have commanded a month, have 
 been crowded into a week. 
 
 This will be regretted by all who have any knowledge of 
 the number and nature of the questions involved in the man- 
 agement of such an institution as this ; but no one can feel 
 so deep a regret as he who bears its responsibility. The 
 duty of the present hour is to call attention to a few of these 
 questions, and to indicate the result of their consideration. 
 
 The act of Congress, donating lands to endow colleges 
 “ for the benefit of agriculture and the mechanic arts,” has 
 proved an educational Babel. No other statute relating to 
 education, has disclosed such a diversity of views, or occa- 
 sioned such a confusion of ideas. The plans submitted have 
 been sufficiently numerous to bear scattering upon the face 
 of the whole earth! 
 
 In the midst of this confusion and conflict of opinion, it is 
 too much to expect that any interpretation of the act will 
 command universal approval. Every person who has given 
 thought to the subject, has an opinion of his own, and, as a 
 rule, the less the thought given, the more positive will be the 
 view entertained. Education is one of those subjects of 
 which few men deem themselves ignorant. A search through 
 a school district will not disclose a person who can not tell 
 
4 
 
 PURDUE UNIVERSITY. 
 
 the teacher just how to teach and govern a school. The man 
 who has no personal knowledge whatever of higher educa- 
 tion, general or special, is the very one who, at the first 
 brush with the question, will venture to decide just how 
 these land-grant institutions should be managed. 
 
 These facts cause me to shrink from the expression of any 
 opinion respecting the object of the grant which endowed, in 
 part, this University, and I certainly should forbear, if a 
 proper interpretation of the act was not the first step in the 
 solution of the problem before us. 
 
 It must suffice to say that the act of Congress, referred 
 to, clearly expresses three things. The first is that the 
 grant was intended to endow a “ college for the benefit of 
 agriculture and the mechanic arts.” The second is that “ the 
 leading object” of the college, thus endowed, is “to teach such 
 branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the 
 mechanic arts.” The third is that this is to de done* 4 with- 
 out excluding other scientific and classical studies,” and “ in 
 order to promote the liberal and practical education of the 
 industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions of 
 life.” 
 
 It is thus seen that the two-fold purpose of the grant was 
 to endow colleges — not elementary schools — (1) for the benefit 
 of agriculture and the mechanic arts, and (2) for the promo- 
 tion of the liberal and practical education of the industrial 
 classes. The one imperative condition is that the teaching of 
 the branches relating to agriculture and the mechanic arts, 
 shall be the leading object, and, as a consequence, that the 
 teaching of other branches shall be made a subordinate object. 
 
 It is unnecessary to make a more exhaustive analysis of 
 the provisions of the act, since it expressly leaves the manner 
 in which these two great ends shall be secured, to the several 
 States. Each college is left free to determine for itself how 
 the two classes of studies specified shall be taught, and how 
 the required subordination of one to the other shall be 
 effected. This is the practical question which now con- 
 fronts us. How shall this University be organized to meet 
 its obligation to the great industrial interests of agriculture 
 
INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 
 
 5 
 
 and the mechanic arts? What course of study and instruc- 
 tion will secure the two ends proposed and, at the same time, 
 meet the imperative condition prescribed ? 
 
 It will assist us in answering these questions if we first 
 settle two other inquiries, which are preliminary and funda- 
 mental. What “ branches of learning” are related to agri- 
 culture and the mechanic arts ? Can these branches be made 
 the leading element in the required course of liberal educa- 
 tion for the industrial classes? 
 
 The branches of learning most directly and closely related 
 to agriculture and the mechanic arts, are the natural and 
 physical sciences, and next to these is the science of mathe- 
 matics. Inasmuch as the mathematics underlie all the other 
 sciences, as well as every agricultural and mechanical pro- 
 cess, the closer relation may be claimed for this science, but 
 no practical error will be made in assigning the natural and 
 physical sciences, with their many applications, the nearest 
 place. 
 
 Can these sciences be made a leading element in the 
 “liberal” education demanded for the industrial classes by 
 the act? This will depend on the sense in which the term 
 “ liberal ” is used. A liberal education is one that includes a 
 knowledge of literature and the sciences generally, and 
 hence there may be two kinds of liberal education. In the 
 one, literature has the leading place and the sciences are 
 subordinate ; in the other, the sciences have the leading 
 place, and literature is subordinate. The former is usually 
 called a classical education and the latter a scientific educa- 
 tion, the name being determined by the leading element in 
 the course. 
 
 It is true that the word liberal, when applied to education, 
 is often used in the narrow sense of classical, but this is not 
 the necessary meaning of the term in the act. It is there 
 used in a more general sense to designate an education that 
 extends beyond the branches relating to the industrial arts, 
 and includes “other scientific and classical studies.” A 
 course of higher instruction including the sciences as a lead- 
 ing element, and the languages, literature, and history as a 
 
6 
 
 PURDUE UNIVERSITY. 
 
 subordinate element, would certainly afford a liberal educa- 
 tion for the industrial classes. Such a course is now provided 
 in the popular “ Scientific Course ” in Michigan Univer- 
 sity, in the “ Course in Science ” in Cornell, and in similar 
 courses in other American colleges. The college that pro- 
 vides such a course of instruction, with the required subor- 
 dination of the branches, clearly meets the condition imposed 
 by the grant. The education thus furnished is at once- 
 an adequate preparation for the study of applied science 
 and a good general preparation for the several pursuits and 
 professions of life. 
 
 I have led my audience to this conclusion with some care, 
 for just here arises one of the most serious difficulties that 
 beset the land-grant institutions. It is supposed by some 
 that the terms of the grant require these colleges to teach 
 every branch of learning, and, as a consequence, several of 
 them are making a wide and, may I add, very thin spread of 
 their teaching. They are attempting to do the work of the 
 classical colleges, of schools of science, of polytechnic schools, 
 and, at the same time, to beat about over a large experimen- 
 tal farm. The instruction is cut up into an appalling 
 number of parallel courses, general and special, and the few 
 half-paid professors are used over and over, if not used up. 
 
 It is true that there is nothing in the provisions of the 
 grant to prevent an institution, with a limited endowment, 
 from attempting to play university, but there is also nothing 
 that demands such folly. The common-sense view of the 
 grant is that it requires no college, endowed by it, to attempt 
 to do what it can not do well. If such a college can do any- 
 thing to meet its obligation to the industrial classes, it can 
 provide facilities for acquiring a thorough scientific educa- 
 tion — at once liberal and practical. 
 
 When this is done, the next wise step is to provide instruc- 
 tion in the Applied Sciences, or Technolgy. The relation of 
 such instruction to all industrial interests is close and fruit- 
 ful, and the land-grant institution that falls short of this, fails 
 to do what is most needed for the improvement, not only of 
 agriculture and the mechanical arts, but of all industrial 
 
INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 
 
 7 
 
 interests and pursuits. It is now conceded that the weak 
 point in the educational system of the West is the absence of 
 schools of Science and Technolgy. The public schools, 
 academies, and colleges, are supplying facilities for general 
 education, and they are also doing something in the teaching 
 of general science. What is needed, to supplement these, is a 
 few well-endowed and well-equipped institutions, whichjshall 
 not only teach general science thoroughly, with so much of 
 language and history as may be needed for efficiency and 
 completeness, but which shall carry this instruction in science 
 forward in thorough courses of applied science, the number 
 of such courses being determined by the appliances and 
 resources of the institution. It is better to teach a few 
 applied sciences well than to teach many in a superficial 
 manner. 
 
 It is believed that the interests of education would be 
 subserved if the work in all our higher institutions were 
 narrowed to what they can do creditably. It takes ne 
 small sum of money to endow a college of literature and 
 general science ; it takes much more to endow a college of 
 general and applied science , and it requires an immense sum 
 to equip and run a great university. Too many good acade- 
 mies have been spoiled by an attempt to be colleges, and not 
 a few useful colleges have been spoiled by an ambition to 
 expand into universities. 
 
 The opinion is sometimes asserted that a State that has not a 
 broad university is doing little or nothing for higher education. 
 The country, undoubtedly, needs a few first-class universities, 
 but it needs quite as much, if not more, good secondary 
 schools and colleges, each doing its legitimate , though narrow , 
 work, and doing it well. The few universities needed are not 
 to be formed by rolling together our present high schools, 
 academies, literary and scientific colleges, and technical and 
 professional schools, but by creating institutions which shall 
 crown and supplement these by worthy courses of more 
 advanced instruction. The university in this country, which 
 is most pretentious in its claims and most depreciatory in 
 its estimate of American colleges, does not give a classical 
 education equal to that of modest Williams, or superior to 
 
8 
 
 PURDUE UNIVERSITY. 
 
 that of a score of colleges in the West. Its actual instruction 
 in science and technology does not, to say the least, excel 
 that given by Sheffield, or Stevens, or the Massachusetts 
 Institute of Technology, and it provides few professional 
 courses. 
 
 It is easy to overstate the advantages of a mere collection 
 of schools and colleges under the name of a university. A 
 student doubtless derives some benefit from seeing the appli- 
 ances of different courses of instruction, and by coming in 
 direct contact with a large body of students, representing 
 diverse culture and knowledge ; hut these, and other advan- 
 tages not named, may be greatly, if not wholly, offset by 
 unfavorable influences. A student can not study everything 
 in the brief period of four or six years, and, as a rule, he will 
 receive the greatest benefit by taking a well-arranged course 
 and mastering it. The vital thing is thorough and inspiring 
 instruction in the course pursued, and no aggregation of 
 schools, or courses, or professors, or students can take its 
 place or compensate for its absence. What the interests of 
 higher education most imperatively demand, is not so much a 
 consolidaton of our schools and colleges as their proper 
 classification and adjustment — the confining of each to the 
 work which it can do creditably and thoroughly with the 
 resources at its command. 
 
 Whatever may be true of other institutions, the policy 
 thus indicated is believed to be the true one for Purdue 
 University. Instead of exhausting its limited resources in 
 doing what is now done by the State University, and the 
 classical colleges, it should make the best possible use of its 
 means in meeting the demand for scientific and technical 
 instruction. It must, of course, meet , its obligation to pro- 
 vide a liberal education for the industrial classes, but, as 
 already shown, this imposed obligation does not require it to 
 spread over the entire ground of general education. It must 
 be content to begin with the cultivation of a narrow field, 
 and to do its work so well that it may confidently look to 
 the future to widen its domain and fill the import of its 
 university title. 
 
INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 
 
 9 
 
 These views and principles have guided in the reorgani- 
 sation now proposed, and they have been embodied as com- 
 pletely as controlling and underlying conditions would admit. 
 The fact has been recognized that while the State of Indiana 
 bas an ample number of colleges, it has few preparatory 
 schools where country youth can make necessary preparation 
 for admission to either classical or scientific colleges. Most 
 of the few academies now sustained, either take it for granted 
 that the common schools in the country teach reading 
 and spelling and the other common branches thoroughly, 
 or knowing better, they yield to the foolish desire of pupils, 
 and permit them to leave needed elementary training 
 and enter upon higher studies. The result is that, after a 
 few months of skimming, they are either satisfied with their 
 attainments, or, having lost all interest in their studies, they 
 abandon the effort to obtain a thorough education. The 
 public schools in cities and towns can and ought to do this 
 preparatory work for their own youth, but their admirably 
 graded courses of instruction are poorly adapted to pupils 
 coming from the ungraded country schools. Besides few 
 farmers will be at the expense or will take the risk of send- 
 ing their children into cities and large towns to prepare for 
 college or special schools. 
 
 Whatever may be the explanation, the fact remains that 
 the academies and public schools are sending comparatively 
 few well prepared students to college. Nearly all the 
 colleges of the West find it necessary to sustain preparatory 
 schools, and statistics show that more than half of their 
 students come from the schools thus organized. 
 
 These and other considerations have seemed to demand 
 the organization of a preparatory school in connection with 
 this institution. The only alternative suggested is to let the 
 standard of admission down to the low preparation afforded 
 by the country schools, and to this there are serious objec- 
 tions which I will not take time to state. Suffice it to say 
 that so young pupils need the discipline of a school to aid 
 them in acquiring proper habits of study and to prepare 
 them for the liberty of college life. 
 
10 
 
 PURDUE UNIVERSITY. 
 
 PLAN OF RE-ORGANIZATION. 
 
 Purdue University, as re-organized, will embrace three 
 departments, designated as follows: 1. The University 
 Academy. 2. The College of General Science. 3. Special 
 Schools of Science and Technology. 
 
 The Academy will have the two-fold object of preparing 
 students for admission to the College of General Science, 
 and of providing elementary instruction in the sciences for 
 those who can not take a more extended course. Botany, 
 zoblogy, and physics will be taught orally and with special 
 reference to agriculture and the simpler mechanic arts. The 
 Academy will be provided with commodious rooms and other 
 appliances necessary for thorough teaching. 
 
 The College of General Science will aim to give a thor- 
 ough scientific education, first as a general preparation for 
 all industrial pursuits and the duties of citizenship, and sec- 
 ondly as an adequate preparation for the special courses in 
 applied science. 
 
 The course of instruction is similar to the t; Scientific 
 Course” in several other American colleges, but it devotes 
 more time to the natural and physical sciences, and they 
 will be taught with more reference to the industrial arts. 
 These are the leading branches in the course, requiring more 
 than one-third of the student’s time for the entire period of 
 four years. Physics and chemistry have each one year, and 
 natural history and geology two years. The course in math- 
 ematics includes the branches taught in the best colleges, 
 but more than the usual time is given to the branches below 
 the calculus, which is made an optional study. The course 
 in language is less prominent, but the instruction in English 
 will be made as practical and comprehensive as possible. 
 Every educated person should have a knowledge of at least 
 one language besides his own, and candidates for a degree 
 will be expected to study either Latin or German. The 
 instruction in history will be distributed over the first 
 three years, and it is hoped that it may not only impart 
 some knowledge of the subject, but, what is better, that it 
 may create a taste for historical reading. 
 
IN AUGUR AX ADDRESS. 
 
 11 
 
 The course for the Senior year is largely elective. The 
 student who has satisfactorily completed the first three years 
 of the course, is prepared to select intelligently a more 
 advanced course, and to pursue it successfully. Candidates 
 for the degree of bachelor of science may pursue daily, 
 during the senior year, three branches selected Irom the 
 general course ; or they may devote one-half of the time to a 
 special course in applied science, and the other half to 
 branches selected from the general course. This will enable 
 a thorough student to complete any one of the special courses 
 in one year after graduating from the College of General 
 Science. 
 
 The general course, thus briefly sketched, is for regular 
 students who desire to take a degree. Students who may 
 wish to pursue special branches, selected from the general 
 course, will be permitted to do so, provided that they are 
 prepared for their perusal in the regular classes. 
 
 The University has the necessary appliances and is other- 
 wise prepared to give special courses in Agriculture, Horti- 
 culture, Civil Engineering, Physics and Mechanics, Chem- 
 istry and Metallurgy, and Natural History. In arranging 
 and announcing the instruction in these Special Schools, care 
 has been taken to keep within the resources and facilities of 
 the University. The instruction offered can be provided. 
 
 It is difficult to see how the industrial arts can be more 
 effectively promoted than by the agency of these Special 
 Schools. All of the professions, including the law, medicine, 
 theology and teaching, also the army and the navy and the 
 trade, have each their special schools, whose value and 
 importance were long since settled. They are regarded as 
 necessary and indispensable means of preparation. Do not 
 agriculture and the mechanic arts need similar agencies for 
 their improvement? 
 
 It is true that the proposed course in general science will 
 greatly contribute to this end, but something more than this 
 is needed. General science points in the right direction, but 
 applied science is the highway to intelligent skill in all the 
 industrial arts. These arts are, indeed, but applications of 
 science. 
 
i2 
 
 PURDUE UNIVERSITY. 
 
 It is hoped that the growth of the University in the future 
 may be largely in this direction. Is it too much to expect 
 that the noble gift of Judge Purdue will yet prove a fruitful 
 precedent and that a group of well-endowed special schools, 
 bearing honored names, may eventually make this institu- 
 tion a renowned College of Science and Technology? 
 
 SPECIAL INSTRUCTION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 I have stated that the University is prepared to give 
 special instruction in agriculture. This is true so far as 
 appliances are concerned, but the details of the course are 
 not yet fully arranged. For two years past, two courses in 
 agriculture have been offered, but, for some reason, not a 
 student has completed either course. One or two have taken 
 the modified course in botany and chemistry, and several 
 have assisted, as workmen, in laying out the grounds and in 
 planting trees, vines, and shrubbery, with some incidental 
 instruction. The farm is in sight and the students at all 
 interested in agriculture have doubtless visited it, and thus 
 gained some new ideas of practical farming. All this, it 
 must be confessed, comes far short of what my predecessor 
 and his associates desired and proposed to accomplish, and 
 ibe result indicates that there is either little demand for 
 special instruction in agriculture or that the right instruc- 
 tion has not been offered. 
 
 This whole subject is now under earnest consideration, and 
 it is hoped that plans may soon be devised which will prove 
 more acceptable and successful. To this end it seems desir- 
 able to avail ourselves of the experience of the older agricul- 
 tural schools — to learn what they have actually done in this 
 direction and what are the practical results — to get beneath 
 pretentious courses and plans to the actual work accom- 
 plished. It is not a difficult thing to keep up a show of 
 agricultural instruction by means of an experimental farm 
 .and paper courses of study, but Purdue University proposes 
 to play no such part. It will aim to meet its obligation to 
 agriculture by practical and effective measures, if such meas- 
 ures can be discovered. 
 
INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 
 
 13 
 
 It can teach the science of agriculture and the branches 
 related thereto, as stipulated in the grant, and there is no 
 question respecting the practical value of such instruction. 
 It is a question whether it can well go so far beyond this as 
 to teach the details of farming by actual practice. This can only 
 be settled by trial or by an appeal to the experience of other 
 institutions. The practice of the professional schools raises 
 at least a doubt respecting the necessity of such a course. 
 The law schools, for example, teach the principles and prac- 
 tice of law by lectures and books, and the student is sent to 
 the law office and to the courts to learn the practical details 
 of the profession. The polytechnic schools provide systematic 
 practice in teaching certain arts, but, as a rule, the arts thus 
 taught are very unlike farming. The students who enter 
 our agricultural schools, have already had several years’ 
 experience on the farm, and are somewhat familiar with its 
 practical details. Whatever may be true of the value of this 
 experience, few intelligent farmers would think of sending a 
 boy from a well-managed farm to an agricultural school to 
 learn the details of practical farming, This would seem 
 much like sending a young lawyer, with several years of 
 actual practice, to a law school to learn the details of his. 
 profession. 
 
 One thing is evident. If students are to be taught farm- 
 ing by actual practice, this practice must be on a farm which 
 is managed on business as well as scientific principles. It is 
 one thing to run a farm with a state treasury to draw upon 
 to pay the bills, and it is quite another so to manage a farm 
 that it may pay for all improvements, and, in addition, sup- 
 port and educate a family. It is questionable whether any- 
 style of farming that does not pay expenses, can properly be 
 called practical. It may serve a good purpose as a means 
 of investigation or illustration, but it is certainly a poor way 
 to make a living. 
 
 These facts seem to indicate that a farm can not be used 
 both for experiment and for teaching practical farming. 
 Experiment, like experience, is a dear school, and experi- 
 mental farming is not an exception. For what purpose 
 
14 
 
 PURDUE UNIVERSITY. 
 
 shall the fine farm connected with this University be used? 
 Shall it be made a model farm — an illustration of good farm- 
 ing — or shall it be used as an experimental farm ? If used 
 for the latter purpose, the experiments must be conducted by 
 a thorough scientific man — a man who is practically familiar 
 with agriculture and all related sciences, and who knows 
 the conditions of an experiment, and the limitations of its 
 results. A superficial empiric in such a position would do 
 the cause of agriculture more harm than good. It would 
 pay the State of Indiana well to employ a first-class scien- 
 tific man to conduct series of observations and experiments 
 in the interest of agriculture. There is not a shadow of 
 doubt in my mind respecting the great value of such investi- 
 gations ; and they are much needed. But it is a question 
 whether a large farm is required for a laboratory. A field of 
 ten acres would yield about the same results — stock-raising 
 not included — as a farm of two hundred acres, and the cost 
 would be very much less. The necessary variety of soil and 
 climate for reliable results can only be secured by conduct- 
 ing experiments at different points in the State. 
 
 I am inclined to the opinion that the best use that can 
 be made of the farm here is to devote say ten acres to 
 experimental agriculture, and as many to horticulture, and 
 to make the rest a model farm — an illustration of farming 
 that is both scientific and profitable. It may be well to 
 afford students daily work on the farm for the purpose of 
 continuing the habit of labor, and also to enable them to earn 
 money to assist in defraying their expenses. 
 
 But this subject is too wide for this occasion, and my only 
 object in discussing it is to show that it involves questions 
 which can not be wisely settled in a day or a month. The 
 whole ground needs to be examined and all difficulties duly 
 considered. 
 
 Permit me to add, in conclusion, that the present organiza- 
 tion of the University is based on the sound educational 
 principle that special preparation for given pursuits should 
 rest up on a general preparation for all pursuits. All pur- 
 suits have a common course of instruction, and the mastery 
 
INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 
 
 15 
 
 of this common course is the shortest road to a knowledge of 
 those branches which have a special application. Many of the 
 simplest questions of agriculture, for example, require for 
 their solution a comprehensive knowledge of general science, 
 and, besides, the student of agriculture must bring to the 
 task a mind trained to habits of scientific thought and inves- 
 tigation. The superficial empiric, with a little stock of 
 scientific facts in his head, but with no clear insight into 
 their causes and relations, is liable to blunder at every new 
 application of his knowledge. Even practical facts, to be of 
 practical utility, must be applied by an intelligent mind. 
 
 Mr. Opie, the great English painter, was once asked by a 
 student with what he mixed his paints to produce such effect 
 in color. “With brains, sir,” was the reply — an answer 
 containing the true philosophy of both art and business. 
 The prime fact even in getting a living is brains — a mind 
 keen -sighted and far-sighted, and steady in aim and purpose. 
 Thought is the alchemy that has changed plodding toil to 
 many -handed industry, and is making the brain of the 
 laborer stronger than his muscles. Thought has gone out 
 into the harvest field, and the rusty cradle hangs upon the 
 tree, while the reaper, with its stalwart arms, gathers the 
 ripened grain. 
 
 It is sometimes urged that every boy’s education should be 
 . narrowed to those branches that directly relate to his future 
 pursuit or calling. Such an education defeats itself, and, 
 besides, it is only feasible where the occupations of life are 
 inherited and predetermined. In this country, a child is not 
 necessarily born into the occupation of his father. Here 
 the different pursuits stand with open doors, and, as a rule, 
 neither the child nor his parents know which he will enter 
 nor how long he will remain. How few Americans find 
 themselves at forty in the pursuit which gilded their boyish 
 day-dreams at fifteen ! 
 
 These facts answer an objection to a prescribed course of 
 study. The majority of students come to the beginning of 
 their college course not only ignorant of their aptitude or 
 power, but by no calculation of chances can they foretell 
 
16 
 
 PURDUE UNIVERSITY. 
 
 what knowledge they will need in the affairs of life. It is 
 only after a varied trial of their powers in the mastery of 
 representative studies in all the great departments of knowl- 
 edge, that they find out the studies and pursuits for which 
 they have special taste or fitness. It is one of purposes of 
 general education to disclose to a student his bent and 
 mission. 
 
 Moreover, were it possible to groove the education of 
 every youth to his future calling, such a course would not be 
 desirable. “ Man does not live by bread alone.” The far- 
 mer and the mechanic must also be the guide of the family, 
 a member of society, a citizen of the State, the guardian of 
 liberty, and out of these relations flow duties which are the 
 highest concern of education. In educating an American 
 citizen we are not training an English operative or a Chinese 
 coolie. He may be a hewer of wood, but if his life answers 
 life’s great end, he will also be a hewer of error and wrong. 
 Every child born into American citizenship is confronted by 
 the grandest political and social problems of earth’s history, 
 demanding a breadth of information, a ripeness of judgment, 
 and a catholicity of spirit. 
 
 In all our schemes of education, let us not forget that man 
 is more important than his work. The engineer must be 
 swifter than his engine, the plowman wider and deeper than 
 his furrow, and the merchant longer than his yard-stick. In 
 education, culture must ever stand before knowledge, and 
 character before artizanship. The highest result of education 
 is manhood.