could extirpate the last individual of this liliputian insect-host from her soil, La belle France would be cheaply rid of the enemy. Had the world, twenty years ago, possessed the knowledge we at present have of this insect and of its dangerous power, a few francs might have originally stayed its invasion of that great vine-growing and wine-making country. Needs there any more forcible illustration of the importance of economic entomology!
| SCIENTIFIC AND INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES.[1] |
By ANDREW D. WHITE, LL. D.,
PRESIDENT OF CORNELL UNIVERSITY.
A LITTLE more than two hundred years ago, in England of the Roundheads and Cavaliers, a voice was raised to propose that young men receive instruction bearing on the various national industries. He who proposed this was a man of great genius—one of the true priests and prophets of his time. He foresaw and foretold many great modern inventions, and among them the steam-engine. His brain helped to think out its principles, his hands helped to shape its groundwork. With pen and tongue he sought to promote the "new education;" but he had fallen on evil times. With Strafford and Laud on one side, and Hampden and Cromwell on the other, there was but poor hearing for the industrial ideas of the Marquis of Worcester. Persecuted, maligned, and a bankrupt, he died, and, to all appearance, his idea died with him. For two centuries afterward Oxford and Cambridge solemnly ground out the old scholastic product in the old scholastic way.
About fifty years ago, a body of the best scholars and thinkers in England made another attempt. Their endeavor was, to found an institution giving an education fitted to the needs of their land and time. They established the University of London. Never had a plan more brilliant advocates. Brougham, Sydney Smith, and Macaulay, spoke and wrote for it; but their success was small. The institution was unsectarian, therefore the Church declared against it as "godless;" it gave instruction in modern learning as well as in ancient learning, therefore the great body of solemn scholars declared it unsound; some of its ideas and methods were new, therefore a multitude of leaders of society declared it unsafe. The institution was kept down, and from that day to this has never taken the high place to which its plan and work entitled it.
- ↑ An Address delivered before the New York State Agricultural Society, revised by the author for the Popular Science Monthly.
