Charles McCarthy

“ In those five years what education in citizenship does he obtain? He sees the poor in the slums around him, he realizes the desperate fight for existence, he often finds that his only help in that strife is the political boss or the corrupt politician. He cannot help getting a perverted idea of citizenship. How can we fight this political tuberculosis and have any success? Does it seem possible that any industrial prosperity which comes from industrial education will be of any real use to us in the future, if conditions similar to these exist? ”

“ To be in its truest sense efficient, it must be a truly democratic education, an education which will fit all the needs of all the people. This does not mean, then, that it must be merely utilitarian, but the effect of it must be such that we can answer definitely the question; will it improve the moral situation? Will the boy who is industrially educated under this system be a better man or a better husband? Will he be a better citizen? ”

“ By sending out these open-minded experts, by furnishing well-fitted legislators, public leaders and teachers, by graduating successive armies of enlightened citizens accustomed to deal dispassionately with the problems of modern life, able to think for themselves, governed not by ignorance, by prejudice or by impulse, but by knowledge and reason and high-mindedness, the state universities will safeguard democracy. Without such leaders and followers democratic reactions may create revolutions, but they will not be able to produce industrial and social progress. ”

“ We are fighting political corruption and physical disease at the same time. We may have reform periods or spasms; we may create temporary organizations for the purpose of reforming government; we may deliver lectures, or our magazines may lead in pointing out the defects in government, but we will never get a true sense of obligation to the state until we teach that obligation. If we teach this in college or the high school we will not hit the mark. How can we, when four-fifths of the boys and girls do not go to high school or college? ”

“ When the word 'capitalistic classes' and 'the proletariat' can be used and understood in America, it is surely time to develop such men, with the ideal of service to the state, who may help to break the force of these collisions, to find common grounds between the contestants and to possess the respect and confidence of all parties which are genuinely loyal to the best American ideals. The signs of such development are already plain in the expert commissions of some states; in the increasing proportion of university men in legislatures ”

“ America's problem is not violently to introduce democratic ideals, but to preserve and intrench them by courageous adaption to new conditions. Educated leadership sets bulwarks against both the passionate impulses of the mob, the sinister designs of those who would subordinate public welfare to private greed. ”

“ At first pioneer democracy had scant respect for the expert. He believed that 'a fool can put on his coat better than a wise man can do it for him.' There is much truth in the belief; and the educated leader, even he who has been trained under present university conditions, in direct contact with the world about him, will still have to contend with this inherited suspicion of the expert. But if he be well trained and worthy of his training, if he be endowed with creative imagination and personality, he will make good his leadership. ”

“ It is fortunate for us at this time that we have this organization in our state. In a state like ours, containing many small villages with one or two manufacturing establishments, the question upon which our whole scheme must fall or must live, is what can we do with industrial education in each little place? The large manufacturer does not have to be discussed. He can teach; he can gather in his apprentices and train them, but most of the factories or mercantile establishments in Wisconsin are not large enough to manage an undertaking of this kind for themselves. ”

“ During many years of legislative work the writer has found the members of the legislature glad indeed to confer with the expert professor and ask his advice, be it on a question of tuberculosis, the chemistry of gas or the regulation of monopoly. Such professors are often reviled and censured as endangering the life of the university—accused of throwing it into politics—but never in all that time has the author heard a single comment involving the names of professors who were engaged as well-paid experts by private corporations. ”

“ Certainly the teacher of political science or political economy who is worthy of consultation upon governmental matters can give the students a better idea of those great subjects than some mossback whose theoretical learning was acquired by carefully keeping away from the only laboratory which could be of any service to him. We would not have the diseases of cattle taught by a man who has never dissected a steer or observed the course of disease at first hand. ”

“ The boy who is to become a bricklayer, while he is in apprenticeship will be taught not only the mere trade but also some essentials which will prepare him for life and a place in the civic body, giving him the opportunity to broaden his outlook that later he may be able to pass from the ranks of manual skill to the ranks of administrative ability. He will be taught not only bricklaying but architecture, buying and correlated subjects. And so in every industry the same general requirements, subject to approval by the state board of industrial education, must be met. ”

“ The very discoveries of science in such fields as public health and manufacturing processes have made it necessary to depend upon the expert, and if the ranks of experts are to be recruited broadly from the democratic masses as well as from those of larger means, the State Universities must furnish at least as liberal opportunities for research and training as the universities based on private endowments furnish. It needs no argument to show that it is not to the advantage of democracy to give over the training of the expert exclusively to privately endowed institutions. ”

“ Sanitary conditions of factories, sanitary conditions of homes, progress towards health and the fighting of disease, the economies practiced by the cutting down of injuries and of sickness caused by carelessness in factories, the cheapening of industrial insurance—all come from this source. These are powerful influences which are basic and cannot be omitted. It is but a truism to say that intelligence is aided when disease is curbed and good, cleanly conditions exist in the home. ”

“ No comments were made when a man connected with the university law school, for instance, was registered as the "counsel before the legislature for all public service corporations," and yet at the same time other men whose advice was sought by legislators were attacked fiercely because of unpaid toil. Many attorneys and scientists of both types have been before the legislature but there has been no criticism of the former class; indeed they deserved none, as they were all men of high standing and rendered good service before the legislature, for which they were well paid by private parties. ”

“ Our great success in the battle against tuberculosis comes largely from a determined effort to educate our people in a knowledge of that disease, its prevention and cure. We can never eradicate political corruption unless we use the same determination and begin at the time when a young man can be taught something about citizenship. Our lawyers tell us that very little can be done by legislation; that we cannot make people good by law. ”

“ Nothing in our educational history is more striking than the steady pressure of democracy upon its universities to adapt them to the requirements of all the people. From the State Universities of the Middle West, shaped under pioneer ideals, have come the fuller recognition of scientific studies, and especially those of applied science devoted to the conquest of nature; the breaking down of the traditional required curriculum; the union of vocational and college work in the same institution; the development of agricultural and engineering colleges and business courses ”

“ The university extension division will not interfere in any way with the existing system, but will add a new member which will dovetail into the gaps in the whole. It will not only fit into the gaps of the whole system, but it will be the medium by which the results of the highest economic research and the results of the best economic and industrial methods can be added from time to time. It will be a long time in this state before every city of the third or fourth class can have any very efficient higher industrial education. ”

“ If a man was seized with tuberculosis, people said: 'Well, what can we do? He will die. We can do nothing.' Scientists had for a long time known that if patients could be segregated and fresh air and cleanliness could be provided, we would stand a good chance of winning the battle against tuberculosis. That terrible disease had its main seats in the horribly overcrowded sections in our cities, inhabited mainly by immigrants or the sons and daughters of immigrants. ”

“ If the boy comes from the farm, and learns at the university how to make that farm more useful and from the scientific methods which he acquires develops more orderly habits of life, if he receives some inspiration which leads to progress or some ideals which lead to good citizenship, is it not worth while? ”

“ The industrial conditions which shape society are too complex, problems of labor, finance, social reform too difficult to be dealt with intelligently and wisely without the leadership of highly educated men familiar with the legislation and literature on social questions in other states and nations.
"By training in science, in law, politics, economics and history the university may supply from the ranks of democracy administrators, legislators, judges and experts for commissions who shall disinterestedly and intelligently mediate between contending interests. ”

“ It was the German philosopher Humboldt who said: 'Whatever you put into the State you must first put into the schools.' If the industrial education advocated by your committee will lead merely to a better economic man, it will not reach its highest aim. ”

“ The college of agriculture in Wisconsin has been maintained as a part of the university, and although the state in its early days wasted its public lands reserved for educational institutions in a reckless manner, the state has been generous and cheerfully borne the burden of paying for a university. During the session of 1911 the normal schools also were placed upon a mill tax basis, so that they too have a continuing appropriation. Throughout the state county schools of agriculture have grown up rapidly. ”

“ We have eliminated other diseases as the result of this great movement, and as a by-product of our methods. By teaching cleanliness, fresh air, sanitation, we have helped to drive away typhoid fever and pneumonia, and to raise the physical and mental standards of our people. Our political disease goes hand in hand with our physical disease. ”

“ When little centers are established, permanent buildings erected and permanent teachers secured, then the university extension work can be used as a sort of circuit riding organization for the still higher grades of work until the needs of the higher grades are supplied by permanent organization. In this way the university extension work can form the means of building up the whole system from one which deals even with the needs of a single individual in a little community to a complete system for the whole state. ”

“ As its cost increases, those who pay the taxes will demand that results be shown and the struggle between old ideals, higher learning and the practical demands of the busy world will cause such a reaction upon reaction that it cannot help producing the real mixture of the ideal and the practical which is so much needed to-day. The by-products of the establishment of a department like the Wisconsin university extension division are perhaps of greater value than the department itself. ”

“ If the legislature may not secure expert service save that paid for by private interests, it will never reach the scientific basis of these great questions now before us which must be solved by the aid of the expert's technical knowledge. The university should not be blamed for having men upon whom the legislature may call for advice. ”

“ Industrial education has been placed under the supervision of an industrial education board to be composed of three employers of labor and three skilled employees, the state superintendent of public instruction, the dean of the extension division of the university and the dean of the college of engineering at the university. ”

“ The people of Wisconsin have demanded this efficiency and the University of Wisconsin has been noted not only for the philosophy of service to the state which has been maintained but for the practical courses which deal with every factor in the life of the state. ”

“ Besides supplying the real needs of agricultural instruction in their counties, these schools serve a class of people the county and high schools fail to reach; they carry on their own lines of field work among farmers; they organize cow-testing and grain-growing associations; they furnish assistance in planning and creating farm buildings; they hold farmers' meetings; they are the logical centres from which the agricultural field work service, carried on by the State College of Agriculture, radiates. ”

“ If we instruct the prospective industrial mechanical worker not only in the mechanical-technical part of his trade but likewise introduce him into the mysteries of social and economic conditions, not only of industrial life but with equal interest into the social and economic life of the community and nation of which he is a citizen ”