New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1874-08-30
popular peace, popular prosperity, and pop

huuIV00 VI AlV0s uW8n ~ NdsURUOsA OsA
the Special Culture most Demanded In
the National Agricultural ard NIechnn-
zeal Colleges.
Mr.. President, Young Gentlemen OF the
College, Ladies and Gentlemen-"What We
know, to know that we know it. and what
we do not know, to know that we do not
know it-that is knowledge"
This sentence answers well the question
/ have chosen for my subject: What is the
intellectual culture most demanded in
American schools!
1t was the utterance of one Of the ten
great men of the world, said by him two
thousand four hundred years ago, in what
was then, as it is now, and as IG was two
thousand one hundred years before his
time, the empire of China.
This question has attracted the careful
and earnest attention OF thoughtful men tor
long time. 1t has provoked learned and
conflicting discussion in this country, as a
similar one has in Germany and England
for over fifty years; and for the last thirty
years it has led to practical experiments in
this country, of which your college is one
! Of the latest results. Even if | were learned,
| and had given this matter close and exclu-
| sive attention, l certainly could not add
| anything new or original on this topic to
| what has been written and sad by those
much wiser than l am.
| walton and experience, and, perhaps, be a
| sort Of interpreter to those who have not
read or observed, perhaps, so much even as
| myself of the conclusions of wiser and ADLER
| men.
My professional duties have not left me
| the time TO perform even this task as care
| fully as l would like to have done. l can
| simply present to you few of the refeC
| tons and facts drawn from my own eXpe-
| rience as d student, a graduate, a teacher
! and general reader, win little pretension
| to arrangement, and none at all TO the
| graces of style or rhetoric.
| AS one Of the class of graduates turned
| out from American colleges thirty years
! ago, like half curried colts from the stable,
| would, perhaps, be better qualified to
! speak on The subject OF what Is not the
| culture most needed tor American youth.
| Let US look at the course OF the American
| boy. who, with q laudable ambition, has
| tried to acquire what is called an education,
| with view to fit himself for some more
| lucrative or more useful walk OF life than
| mere newer OF wood or carrier Of water.
! At the outset he stumbles up against one Of
| those half prejudice, half prOverb, half truth
| with great deal OF sense, and half can't
| with a great deal OF nonsense in it, which
| make up the staple belief of some classes of
| men, and furnish the text for much hypo-
| critical newspaper talk and political cant Of
| the day in our country. He is met with a
| very prevalent opinion that the true work
| eTs OF society, the only classes who con-
| tribute to the real support and comfort of
| the world are those who labor on the farm
! or in the shop; that these are the true pro
| ducers-all the rest consumers. This opin-
| Ion also carries another half concealed idea
| sometimes expressed-that those who do not
| Labor with their hands are for the most part
Grones III the hive, useless members OF the
community.
There IS no more nonsensicaI fallacy
| at1oat than the prevalent notion that the
| only producers are the farmer, the mechanic
and tbs artisan. They are the most numer-
Gus, and have the most votes it is true, and
| this may account perhaps for the frequent
| assertion OF this notion.
| The farmer. the mechanic, the day laborer,
| all pursue honorable vocations; honorable
| because they are honest, and honest because
| they are useful work, which is the thing
| we are meant for and must do in this
world, il we would not grow useless first.
| then devilish. and finally go cut alto.
gether-oUt of the inhabitable universe.
| But they are not more honorable than
| other workers. They are not the only pro-
| ducers they are not the largest producers.
| can name on my fingers few discoveries
| who have made more corn and cotton grow;
| who have made food more cheap, more
| plentiful, more wholesome; who have made
| clothes more abundant and better: who
| have made dwellings more healthtui and
| comfortable; who have shown more men
how to eat better, to sleep better, to work
TO better advantage; who have saved more
chil0rens' lives from disease, and caused
them to grow up into men and women: who
have saved more lives from disease and
disaster; who have restored health and
strength to more persons; who have made q
dollar bay more things of use and pleas
ure: who have opened more farms and
built more cities; who. in short, have
caused to be produced, by the direct work
OF their brains, more articles of necessity
and comfort and pleasure for the hui
man family than all the mere farmers and
mechanics who labored with their hands
only, who have ever lived. have produced
altogether.
| name these as illustrations: Watt. who
perfected the steam engine; Fulton. who
applied steam TO boats; George Stephenson,
who invented the locomotive and founded
the modern railroad; Morse. who invented
the telegraph; Gutenberg and Faust, who
invented printing; Whitney, who invented
the cotton gin; Elias Howe. who perfected
the sewing machine; Obed Hussey and Nc
Cormick, who invented the mower and
reaper; Charles Goodyear, who invented
vulcanized rubber; NJ. Dumas and NJ Pole,
who have discovered the recent test of dis
intectants and anti-septic remedies: Hoff-
man and Perkins, who discovered the an
line colors; Bunsen and Kirschoff, the in
ventors OF the spectroscope; Leuwenhock,
NJ Engel and NJ. Pasteur, who investigated
and demonstrated the nature and condi-
tons OF the microscopic germs found in the
atmosphere and in liquids, which oc-
casion lamentations and putrefactions;
Runtord Davy, Tyndall. Davy ana
Jouie. who discovered the mechanical
equivalent Of heat and the correla-
ton of heat, light and electricity
as modes OF motion; Malus, Young, Fresnel
and Arago. who discovered the polarization
of light; NJ. Planchon, who discovered the
nature OF the vinepest, and studied the
habits of the insect that caused it: Roscoe
and Scheller, who gave the first impetus to
those startling revelations of nature by the
method of spectrum analogies; Lockyer,
Young and Faye, who have by patient, CON
slant and painstaking observation of sun
spots given us each an insight into the con-
stltution OF the sun, and hence into the laws
of heat and light, and hence into the mys.
terles of those elusive, invisible, and yet
powerful and terrible forces, amid whose
ceaseIess and gigantic play we live and
move; Galvani, who for six years spent his
time In watching the effect of atmospheric
electricity on the muscles of the hind legs
OF the frog, and at last hit upon The first
hint of the principle of the galvanic battery,
was led by them to the idea OF the
voltaic pile; Priestley, who discovered
oxygen, and the centennial Of whose
death was but recently celebrated
in Northumberland, Pennsylvania; Maury,
who first laid the foundation Of
those meteorological observations which
have since mapped the paths OF the storms,
4 ~to 1.rrI,t a..