Repository: UIHistories Project: Dedication - Engineering Hall (1894) (and Inauguration of President Draper) [PAGE 78]

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QU i of ro < Tl th t tjie of our and tl e. chi 1 must 1 i the chi • i O' le it< oi I b< is enoi: h to make sul cat < of j -nni 1 and of ever hi t< lucation provided d e of civilization. As Col xidg< to Washi Vlstoi " Never judge of a work of art b its '.feet o h a p s we ou .lit not to judge even of a ilization cts; cer; inly we should not like to have our polit al itutions judged by the recent revelations of the defect of some of our city overnments. It is at least a satisfaction I ) ; el that our system of education is not to be judged altogi r by the quality of our elementary schools. The schools .ways tak their impulses and their inspirations from those above them. H a r v a r d College was founded seven ears b fore the common schools of Massachusetts were provided for; Columbia was chartered three years before the c o m m o n school law of New York was enacted: and the Uniersity of Michigan, the H a r v a r d of the W e s t , was the predecessor,, and to a large extent the organizer and inspirer, of the school system of the state. If we are to lift the schools, it must be by elevating the standards and the spirit of the colleges and universities. W i t h o u t doubt the greatest educational force of to-day is the press. It is a schoolmaster that, for better or for worse, sits at every breakfast tabic: that takes his place by our side on every railway train; that accompanies home the laborer at the end of his day work, and sits with his family about the family hearth. T h e current history of the world is drawn into tl \ pre s by an irr< istible force of gravitation; and this history is given out to millions of people, practically inaccessable to all Other forms of instruction. It brings the information

Th import. educati