Minnesota weekly times. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1854-1859, 1857-02-07
SATURDAY, JAN. 81, 1857.


Industrial School at Fort Smelling!
Shall We have one? We ask every Minneso
tian who looks forward to the period when w
worthy his serious consideration? Why should
not Minnesota have an Industrial College as vel
as any European city or town? Nature never
presented more eligible or lovely site; there new
er was people better able to appreciate such ar
institution, and there never was a better time to
agitate the subject than now. We ask again
shall We have one?
The idea of Industrial Education is one of
modern times. The ancient Greeks and Romans
did much for mankind through the agency of their
superior system of physical culture; but it re-
mained for the present age to behold, in the ad-
vance of Industry and Art, the creation of New
System of Education, demanded by the manifold
interests of civilization. Cowley, the poet, in
1899, called the attention of scholars and states
men to the feeble and ILL directed efforts of
established scientific and educational institutions
and the necessity for giving fresh impulse to in
dustry by new direction to science. At different
intervals since his time, individuals of enlarged
views and ardent patriotism have urged the de-
to Industry but the Importance of practical
Science and its claims to Legislative recognition
and support, have not been duly appreciated. 1t
now attracts general attention. Our own Gov
ernment has done much towards this object by
gathering rich stores of Science and Art in the
Smithsonian Institute and the Patent Office, while
all our Colleges remained almost unchanged amid
advancing civilization failing or refusing to en-
brace those various courses of study and disci-
pline which administer to the wants of social and
domestic life and promote national wealth and
prosperity.
The various societies and schools of Design
and Civil Engineering, of Science and Art, that
have arisen at different periods in the present GEN.
tury, have all been important steps in the march
of Industry. But they have proved too insulated
and divergent in their objects. proceeding from
no center, pointing to no goal. Various conflict
ing interests have kept the Scientific Academies
from the sphere of mutual attraction and pre-
vented the creation of Central Institutions round
which all Others might cluster and derive new
vigor and greater utility.
One of the best Institutions established by the
patronage of the French Gov vernment, is the Con-
servatory Of Arts and Trades, about the year 1900
In 1906 M. de Champagny, the minister of the In
terror, founded an Industrial School. Since then
the progress of Industrial instruction has been
rapid and regular in France and Europe. In
1901 not less than 800 students were number
ed in the 'sCentral School Of Arts and Manufac-
tures." This school furnished officers to the sap
pers and engineers and for the Bureau of the Fort
ifcations at st. Cyr, we'll as Superintendents
of manufactures. In 1929 these facilities were
greatly increased with view to more extensive
system of Industrial Education. In this School
the physical and Mathematical sciences were not
only studied in their more important and general
doctrines, but in reference 20 their practical ap-
plication. The statistics of this and similar
schools are highly interesting and show the true
working of such institutions. Up to 1851, in
France there were not less than two Central In
stitutions on large scale, and three Provincial
Colleges Of Art and Trade, established for the
education of the industrial classes-the oldest at
Chalons- s-sur-A Aer, another at Anglers, and a third
at AK. Beside these there are seventy others, all
maintained by Government a. an annual grant of
$2,0O0,0O0. The countries adjoining France have
experienced the advantages of these institutions,
and have derived from France their most accom-
plished scientific manufacturers. The Belgiaa
Government, cognizant of the advantages of such
system of practical education, resolved in 1851,
to establish an Industrial College at Antwerp, and
another at Brussels, and likewise to give a more
practical character to their system of primary ed
ucaton. In the small States of Germany where
classical and mythical studies predominated in
the past almost to the entire exclusion of practi
E cal knowledge, a system of scientific education
has been introduced, which has been attended with
the happiest effects and contributed to the rapid
developement of their manufacturing interests.
President Hitchcock, of Amherst College, in
his report to the Massachusetts, Legislature, states
that there are now 352 industrial Institutions in
Europe, many of which he visited and found that
they exerted powerful and salutary influence by
the diffusion of intelligence among the people and
the improvement of the Arts. France alone has
seventy-fve, and Russia sixty-eight. Shall we
remain stationary while all around us is life and
progress The dead literature of the past can
not be the parent of living Science and active In
dustry, nor can the study of the classics alone
satisfy the demands of the age. Let the people
no longer sit in darkness. Let Industry and Art
and Science blend, and the social and moral con-
dition of the Union will be elevated and its
welfare and happiness promoted.