Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1871 [PAGE 313]

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305 that we need information upon, and I feel as though it would be just the thing in years to come, if we,can come together and compare our work, and see what progress we have made; and so go on together with the experience of each, and all inuring to the benefit of all, so that we shall be able to judge from a larger induction. Mr. FolweU—I sympathize very much with those t gentlemen who favor the union with the National Educational Convention ; as I favor it for the same reason, as a matter of economy to myself, I shall probably attend the meetings of that association, and should want, also, to come here; and would not like to take my choice. There is some* hostility between the persons who compose that association, and those of us who are likely to meet here; but I think that is not necessary any more than there is a necessary hostility between the scientific and classical system which we have discussed. We have brought the matter down until it is merely a question of methods and means. We are substantially agreed; and I do not believe that we should lose in uniting with the National Educational Convention, or that we should find ourselves out of place there, or out of sympathy with the men we should meet there. We can go on with these very troublesome questions, and I cheerfully agree with the last gentleman that they are some of them troublesome questions. There are, perhaps, some in that convention who are jealous and doubtful of this new experiment that we are making, I would like to discuss these matters right in the presence of the backers of the old education. I would add one further word about the organization to be formed here. I must confess that I did not so carefully read the call as I ought to have done ; otherwise my own action in the case, as a member of that committee, might have been somewhat different. I will say, also, that I favor a broader organization ; one which will include experimentation and a great many other things; still, at the same time, I would not throw anything in the way of gentlemen who may wish to form an organization simply for that one purpose. At the same time, my advice to them and to all would be, that we should make the organization much broader than that. The President—I suggested joining the National Association, not because I felt myself attracted that way, but I was aware that several of our institutions are affiliating more nearly with institutions represented there than the rest of us. Some of us are seedlings, and some of us were grafted on to old institutions. The Wisconsin school was grafted on to the university; the same is true of Minnesota, and perhaps in one or two other States; and the Sheffield Scientific School is inti-