Repository: UIHistories Project: Book - History of the University (Powell) [PAGE 335]

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History University of Ittint

There is no doubt, then, that the interpretation of Mr. Dunlap and Mr. Bateman was the interpretation of the founders; and if a little more liberality than they might have allowed, in the direction of the classics was, on the whole, not unfortunate for the institution, it cannot be denied that it also was fortunate that there was one on hand to prod the new institution out when it began a comfortable straying into the ruts of the old education. That the new education was intended to be no royal road to learning is attested by the following paragraph still from Mr. Bateman's significant address. " There is one proposition of fundamental importance in this whole matter of industrial education: If the pursuits of agriculture and the mechanic arts are ever to take, in the estimation of men, the commanding position to which they are justly entitled, those who are educated for them must be AS THOROUGHLY AND COMPLETELY EDUCATED, as those who are trained for other pursuits and professions. I consider this truth, and the recognition of it, as absolutely vital to success. If a fanner or an artisan is AS WELL EDUCATED as a lawyer, a physician, or a senator—if he has, I mean, as much knowledge, as profound a mastery of scientific and philosophical principles as much self-knowledge and self-independence, as much varied attainment, as much BRAIN POWER, THOUGHT POWER, and HEART POWER, he will be the PEER of the latter, in influence and honor and usefulness and force, anywhere and everywhere and always—but if not, he will be inferior to the other in power and influence, and no device, or pretense, or declamation, or protest, or sophistry can make it otherwise. The difference will exist precisely as long as the causes that produced it; it is simply the difference between weakness and strength. I have nothing whatever to do here with the means and instrumentalities of education, but only with the FACT, the PRODUCT, the FINISHED WORK of culture*! And I affirm again, that the cause, and the only cause, of the immensely superior power heretofore wielded in the affairs of men, by the professional classes over the industrial classes, is that the one have thus far been better educated than the other. And now, if these Universities of the people expect successfully to compete, in their appropriate