The Fargo forum and daily republican., 1907-05-31
Continued from Page one.

The president was escorted to the
agricultural college this afternoon bv
several companies Of the state militia
civic and industrial societies and hum
dreds Of private citizens. His address
follows in full:
The fiftieth anniversary OF the
founding Of this college is an event
or national significance, for Michigan
was the first state in the Union .to
found this, the first agricultural coll
lege in America. The nation is to be
congratulated on the fact that the
congress at washington has repeat-
edly enacted laws designed to aid the
several states in establishing ana
maintaining agricultural and mechani-
cal colleges. greet all such colleges.
through their representatives who
have gathered here today, and hid
them Godspeed in their work. II no
less heartily invoke success for the
mechanical and agricultural schools.
and wish to say that / have heard
particularly good reports of the Min
rlesota agricultural high school for the
way in which it sends its graduates
back to the farms to work as practical
farmers.
As a people there is nothing in
which we take a juster pride than our
educational system Tt is our boast
that every boy or girl has the chance
to get a school training; and we feel
1t Is prime national duty to furnish
this training free, because only thereby
can we secure the proper typefof citi-
zenship in the average American. Our
public schools and our colleges have
done their work well, and there is no
class of our citizens deserving of
heartier praise than the men and
women who teach in them.
Nevertheless, for at least genera
tion we have been waking to the
knowledge that there must be addi-
tional education beyond that provided
in the public school as it is managed
today. Our school system has hfther-
to been well-nigh wholly lacking on
the side of industrial training. of the
training which fits a man for the shop
and the farm This Is most serious
lack. for no one can look at the peo-
pies of mankind as they stand at pres
ent without realizing that industrial
training is one OF the most potent
factors in national development. we
system under which each individual
citizen shall be trained so as to be
effective individually as an economic
unit, and fit to be organized with his
fellows so that he and they can work
in efficient fashion together. This
question is vital to our future prog
ress, and public attention should be
focused upon it, Surely 1T is emil
I. os,
of our democratic life that we should
furnish the highest average Industrial
training for the ordinary skilled work.
man. But it is a curious thing that
in industrial training we have tended
to devote our energies to producing
high grade men at the top rather than
In the ranks Our engineering schools
for instance, compare favorably with
the best in Europe whereas we have
done almost nothing to equip the pri-
vate soldiers of the industrial army
the mechanic, the metal worker, the
carpenter. Indeed, too often our
schools train away from the shop and
the forge; and this fact, together with
the abandonment Of the old apprentice
system. has resulted in such an abb
sence of facilities for providing trained
journeymen that in many of our trades
almost all the recruits among the
workmen are foreigners. Surely this
means that there must be some sys-
tematic method provided for training
young men In the trades. and that this
must be co-ordinated with the public
school system. No industrial school
can turn out finished jonrneyman;
but 1t can furnish the material out of
which a finished journeyman can be
made, just as an engineering school
furnishes the training which enables
its graduates speedily to become en-
gineeFss
I'VE hear great deal OF the need
of protecting our workingmen from !
competition Of pauper labor. | havel
very little fear Of the competition of
pauper labor The nations with pau
per labor are not the formidable In
dustrial competitors Of this country
What the American workingman has
to fear Is the competition Of the highly
skilled workingman of the countries of
greatest industrial efficiency. BY the
tariff and by our immigration laws we
can always protect ourselves against
the competition of pauper labor here
at home, but when we contend for the
markets of the world we can get no
protection, and we shall then find that
our most formidable competitors are
the nations in which there is the most
highly developed business ability, the
most highly developed industrial skill; I
and these are the qualities which we
must ourselves develop.
1--WE have been fond as a nation of
speaking of the dignity Of labor, mean
ing thereby manual labor. Personally I
/ don't think that we begin to under-
stand what high place manual labor
should take; and it never can take
this high place unless it offers scope
for the best type of man. We have
tended to regard education as q mat
ter OF the head only, and the result is
that a great many of our people,
themselves the sons Of men who
worked with their hands, seem to
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