New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1852-07-15
A COLLEGE FOR THE PEOPLE.

We have already bakers dozen Of
Colleges and Universities in our State,
with more ready to be started as soon as
the Legislature shall cvince disposition
to supply the aliment. What, then, is the
need of a Peoples College!
We answer: 1. There are many thou
sands of young persons in orr State who
need, want and aspire to an Education,
but have nothing to give for it but their
labor, and none Of our present Colleges
(unless, possibly, one mere beginning at
Cortland Center,) even attempts to give
Learning for Labor, or enable youth to
earn his Education at the time when and
in the place where he obtains it. Each
ssys in effect, Get money somewhere or
somehow to pay your board, &c. and we
will teach you; but none even tries to
help the struggling youth TO an opportunity
Of earning his tuition and livelihood.
,. No one of our Colleges is based on
the idea of making instruction directly and
thoroughly Practical-Of fitting the pupil,
by consistent familiarity with the applica-
tions Of Chemistry, Botany, Mineralogy,
&C., to Agriculture and the Arts, for i'm
mediate and varied efficiency in the rou-
tine of industrial pursuits. We want TO
see a College which, while imbuing its
pupils with ideas and a knowledge of
principles, shall at the same time qualify
them TO take lead in their practical ap-
plication. 1t is high time that our build
ers, farmers, and artisans generally, were
literally educated men, which now they
are not, nor, under the prevailing system
of education, are they likely to be. No
cheapening or popularizing of college facil-
tiles will answer the purpose which does
not so provide that the pupil shall earn his
living and learn his handicraft at the same
time that he acquires his education.
3. Oar Colleges are unjust and one-sided
in that they habitually deny to Young
Women the advantages they proffer to
Young Men. There is no reason in en-
ploying Professors to lecture to two or
three hundred Boys only when there are
as many Girls who would gladly share and
pay for the knowledge thus impaired if
they were permitted to DO so. This State
has given many dollars for the instruction
Of Males to every one for the higher edu-
cation of Females. There is no reason in
this, and it must not continue. There will
be purer Morals, better Manners, more Re-
hnement, greater Propriety of behavior
and more ust Ambition in a College to
which Women are welcomed as equals in
rights and entitled to equal opportunities,
than in one devoted exclusively to Men.
These are but part of the considera-
tons which now urge the establishment of
a PEOPLES COLLEGE, based on the Union
Of Labor with Study, of abstract Science
with the most thorough preparation for
Practical Life. We want a COLLEGE that
will graduate better instructed Farmers
Mill Wrights, Machinists, Architects. Ar
tisans' &C., than the world has yet known,
because more thoroughly grounded in the
principles which underlie efficiency and
perfection in all these vacations. We
want College which any lad who has
earned few dollars may enter and, while
studying five or six hours per day, devote
lh.ee u four " labor, earning something