INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. The subject of industrial education has been partially dis cussed under the head of Agricultural Colleges. The idea of industrial education, that is, such education as would best fit the student for grap pling with the sciences which underlie mechani cal operations and agriculture, has long been mooted in the United States. (See Agricultural Education). At length, through the efforts of Hon. Justin Morrill, of Vermont, the popular agitation took form in the Act of Congress endowing colleges in every State with public lands for teaching such branches as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts, including military tactics. In Europe,the subject of indus trial education has spent itself chiefly in the direction of agricultural colleges. In our own country where agriculture is the paramount indus try far above any other, after the matter was fully considered, it was found hnpossible to pass a bill through Congress for agricultural colleges without tacking to it the other industries, and a loop hole was left, eagerly seized by the scholas tics to so mould these institutions of learning that they would per se follow in the old scholastic grooves of learning. The people, however, were closely watching the progress of these schools, , and the major part have been kept soinewhtt I near the lines they were intended to follow. In this respect,the Agricultural College of )lichigan has held to the popular idea, as understood and advocated by the most advanced practical think ers. Each year there is progress being made in bringing these schools nearer and nearer to institu tions where agriculture and the mechanic arts, -or rather the sciences, relating to them, shall become the paramount studies. Industrial schools have long been known in Europe and America. One of the sophistical reasons,given by those who sought to change the name of the Industrial University of Illinois into that of the State Uni versitv,was that the term industrial was generally regaraed as being something savoring of crime -or pauperism. It is hardly to be supposed that a State would erect a great university upon which more than $1,000,000 has been spent, to give education to this class. To show that the term industrial is not so understood in Europe, the following from the American Encyclowedia will show that the term Industrial Schools is used to designate three classes of educational institutions. These are as follows: First. Scientific schools, such as the &ale des arts et metiers at Paris and Berlin, and the polytechnic schools of the same cities; the schools of metallurgy, rnanufacturing, mining, and the chemical arts, so numerous on the continent of Europe ; schools of civil engi neering, architecture, and agriculture. Their _number is constantly increasing, but they haVe nowhere else attained so high a development or so thorough a course of instruction as in Prussia, Saxony, Bavaria, and the duchy of Nassau. It is owing to the chemical and mechan ical skill, and the tact and taste in the arts of design, developed by these schools, that the con tinental nations of Europe have been able to maintain their supremacy in manufactures. The industrial school (Gewerbschule) at Chemnitz, in .Saxony, one of the best of its class, in 1857 had sixteen professors and teachers, and 237 pupils. Some of these schools have a very large corps of professors, and courses of study usually occupy ing six or seven years. Second. Technical schools, in which, in connection generally with elementary instruction in the common branches -of study, the pupils are taught some practical art, trade, or employment; such are the lace workers' schools in Belgium and Ireland, the free schools of the arts of design, the agricultu ral farm schools, the schools for teaching house hold duties to girls, and the schools for the indus trial instruction established in New York. In France, Belgium, many of the German states, and Ireland, such schools are numerous. A great impulse has been given to industrial instruction by the establishment of industrial associations in various countries, particularly in Germany, where they have become very numer cus since 1848. There is a third class of schools established for the training of pauper and vagrant children in the habits of industry, and their instruction in rudimentary studies in connection with employment in some simple art -or trade, by which they may subsequently obtain a partial support. These schools, to which the
name industrial school is also applied, are wholly 'charitable; the children are usually wholly or partially clothed by tLe school, and one meal a clay, or sometimes two, furnished them. The first idea of such a school seems to have origi nated with a poor mason in Rome, Giovanni Borgi (1736-1802), who collected the vagrant boys of that city in his own house, taught them to work, had them instructed in the rudiments of learning, and when they were old enough apprenticed them to artisans. On the continent of Europe industrial as well as secular instruc tion is given in the Sunday schools, while in the United States religious instruction only is given on that day, and hence the American ragged children's Sunday schools are not, even sophisti cally, to be identified with industrial univerities. According to returns made to the General Gov ernment, in relation to the progress of Industrial Education, in thirty-six States there are now thirty-nine colleges which have received the con gressional land-grant of July 2, 1862. There are also branch institutions in Georgia and Missouri. The following is a list of the industrial institu tions of the United States which had accepted the endowment in lands from the United States in 1875. The first column shows the location of the institution, and the second the name of the institution which has received the grant : The professdrs and assistants in these colleges during the year numbered 473, and the students, 4,211. In 1876, eleven States had not sold all the scrip or land granted them by Congress; Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, Oregon, and Wisconsin. They have sold during the year 51,405 acres, at an average price of $4.41 per acre, aud 1,463,505 remain unsold. The largest averacre price obtained per acre by any State was $8738, by Michigan, and the smallest, $2.20 by Iowa. In some of the colleges the num ber of students pursuing agricultural or mechan ical studies is much smaller in proportion to the number in attendance than iu others. This may be owing to several causes. In some cases the colleges have been recently established, and have not yet been brought into practical working order; in others the students were poorly pre pared when they entered, in consequence of the low standard of education in the surrounding country, and in others, inducements were greater to enter upon other courses of study which seerned to promise more immediate profit; but these embarrassments are gradually becorning less, and when agriculture and the mechanic arts require higher qualifications for their practice and become more remunerative, they will, no doubt, entirely disappear. Some of the colleges have already attained a high standard of excel lence, considering the time they have been in operation and the fact that they have largely to educate their own educators. A large number of students graduate at these colleges every year, and enter upon practical farming and the mechanic arts, or to become professors in indus trial institutions of our own or other countries. The annual interest of all the institutions, except two or three, is given at $526,283, which, at six per cent. per annum, represents an investment of $8,771,383. The Commissioner of the Gen eral Land Office, in his annual report for 1869, states the aggregate claim upon the public domain accruing under the agricultural college-scrip legis lation at 9,510,000 acres, which, at the mini mum price, $1. 25 per acre, amounts to $11, 987, 500. But the prudence with which some institutions have husbanded their resources has raised the average much above this minimum. There yet remain-1,463,305 acres to be disposed of, which, at the highest average price obtained, will add about $6,500,000 to the fund. It will doubt less average much higher than this, and will probably raise the aggregate to $19,000,000 or $20,000,000.