The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-04-07
INDUSTRIAL ART AT BERKELEY.

The University of California has made
successful beginning in a department of
decorative and industrial art, which has
been placed under the direction of Pro-
lessor Henry /. Ardlev, man of wide
reputation for his attainments and his
ability as a teacher. The university is to
be congratulated on the step it took toward
developing its usefulness along lines that
had practically been overlooked. In this
department alone it can add much to the
renown attained in the fields of science and
letters.
All the great universities of the world
are constantly leaning more and more to
the practical side of education. Some years
ago a classical education was the only
object in view, and Greek and Latin were
the main studies, but modern educators
said to themselves if this great and new
country is ever to be conquered and civil
izeG it must be through the arts and
sciences rather than through the dead
languages. and botany, zoology, miner
alogy, physics, etc.. were added TO the cur
riculum. Then came the more technical
studies, such as civil and mechanical engi-
neering, mining, electricity, the industrial
arts, ornamental design, agriculture and
the other branches, pursuit of which adorns
human endeavor.
The development has been in the right
direction and given higher education an
impetus never before experienced, while it
has made education more popular among
the masses and tended to develop both the
resources of the State and the talent of its
people.
The trend of modern thought is de-
cidedly favorable to the practical side of
education. In the opening vistas of the
future it is not difficult to see, along with
a broader culture, necessities, growing
out of exigencies of civilization, for special
knowledge in crafts and professions, which
at present does not appear to be of much
importance.
AS culture and knowledge develop and
spread among the people demand will
grow for practical art in its application to
those higher industries that are the natural
outgrowth of civilization. And so in time
industrial artwill become leading feature
in all the universities The work so well
established at Berkeley has come none too
soon, though not yet accorded all the APP
probation it deserves. 1t is for the masses
and is free to every boy or girl ambitious of
acquiring very pleasant and useful means
of earning livelihood
The students who can take advantage of
such boon as this need have no fears for
ultimate success. They may find assur-
ance of their usefulness and also encour-
agement from men of eminence and prac-
teal experience, one of whom said in an
address on universities in connection with
practical teaching: "The task of its pro-
fessors is to fill every profession, every
walk of life, with men and women who
will be able to grapple with the problems
they have to face, to invent and to pro-
duce, as well as to learn and investigate
We want useful citizens as well as educated
ones" Of the higher motive for study of
technical art work Professor Felix Adler of
New York says: Technical training and
artistic modelling are essential elements of
general culture. Leaving the direct ma
terial applications entirely out of account;
supposing there were no factories in the
world; suppose that all the millions edu-
Gated in the public schools were to be
gentlemen and ladies of leisure. / should
in that case plead none the less strenu-
ously for the introduction of technical art
work as an indispensable feature of educa-
ton. should plead for it then as now,
because of its broadening, humanizing
effect; because it quickens into activity
certain faculties of human nature which
too commonly lie dormant; because it is a