The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-07-30
A GREAT OPPORTUNITY.

State of Indiana has a good showing of real
property and a considerable sum of money
invested. The material foundation for q
great institution of learning is magnificent.
A good start has been made. The large and
beautiful farm has been put into condition
for amply illustrating to the student in agri-
culture all the practical applications of true
farm science. Buildings have been provided
for the purposes of living, study, instruction
and work, all of which are elegant and
well adapted to their purposes. But the value
of all this endowment is trifling-buta drop
in the bucket, when compared with the
vitalizing and elevating power which the
work done there is destined to exert upon
the invisible thing called the State, the char
acter of citizenship, the forces of society.
Some f~altering and false moves in the be-
ginning were inevitable. 1t is a great under
taking to go out upon a vacant spot of
ground and there build up an institution of
learning. 1t is perhaps a still greater
requisite to bring together material to work
upon, to fill it with students. 1t is not easy
to furnish a full-hedged university to order
on short time. Growth is the rule, and
and generally slow growth. Money, and all
that money can supply in the way of facili-
ties, even to the employment of the most
eminent talentin the faculty, will not always
fill the classes until the current of patronage
has had time to turn in the right direction.
| What Indiana should now do to sustain
Purdue University is to send its young
people there for education, to demon
strate it's value by its practical opera
tons. The moment is suspicious. A great
opportunity is offered, both to the university
and to the people, to lead off in a new de-
parture.
A very pronounced demand is made from
all quarters for a more practical type of
school work. The country and the age call
for utllitarianism Abstract science and fine
arts have their respected votaries, but this
generation is engaged in developing the re-
sources of a new continent. Everything is
held subordinate to the single idea of bust
1GSSs III tIdb tQCd A1dSb III OAi
methods of education. Weare an industrial
nation; we want our youth educated for their
| position in such a nation. 1t is an age
of engineering and machinery, and a knowl-
edge OF these things must be substituted for,
or at least made supplemental to, that of
classics and old philosophers. A distinct
sentiment is rapidly obtaining ground that
the school instruction of boys and girls shall
be in full sympathy with the pursuits which
they are to follow, or which they ought to
follow.
School influence should be such as to check
the prevailing tendency toward professions,
clerkships and light labor positions that are
so overcrowded, and to turn the drift
toward skilled labor, which is yet
scarce in this country. We be-
lieve that under the coming administration
these ideas of p%ratical utility will be strong
ly emphasized, to such an extent, indeed,
as to give the Purdue University a character
peculiar to itself. The department of me-
chanical engineering, particularly, will be
made exceptionally efficient, and the pupil
will go forth at the end of his course with a
hand trained for the construction of what
the mind is capable of contriving.
The best service that this State
institution can return to the people for its
support will be to lead the educational
thought of the State in a new direction. Its
influence should be felt in all the schools,
but especially the public schools. The teach
ers OF common schools having mastered the
professional requirements, should then pre-
pare themselves to impart also the knowledge
of things, of processes, and of skiIlful labor
above all to Undue the young minds with
respect and love for the farm, the artisans
shop, and industry in general. We recon-
mend parents who would give their children
an impulse towards the best type of citizen
ship-intelligence combined with industry
to send them to Purdue this fall. They will
thus, by filling the halls and shops with
students, do more to promote its early pros
perity than can be done by any other method.
JUDGE HoADLY has not emerged with an
undimmed cscutcheon, so to speak, from
the controversy over the cost of his nominal
ton. One thing seems to be settled, and
that is, that money was paid freely for votes,
and that Hoadly and Mclean, of the Cincin-
natl Enquirer, seem to have been bidding
against each other for a portion of the Ham
ilton county delegation. Colonel Woodlands
contribution to the literature OF the discus
sion shows that distinguished gentleman in