Address on technical education ... delivered before the Georgia State Agricultural Society, at its meeting in Savannah, Ga., February 12th, 1884

ADDRBSS
f *
ON

TECHNICAL EDUCATIOf,

.



'

BY

HON. N. E. HARRIS,

Of MACON, GA,

-7.-
' :-^ v ^: ^y5J -
.V
' .''-,%%
.(. V'- -<.-
.-:i :u
-X

'

* ' ',''

:.-. .^,* '' .

DELIVERED BEFORE THE

i .

GEORGIA STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY
- ._
J-V

_ ri -.
r- . :

*.'..
;-.

t \V 3U

MACON,GAi: & COM PRINTERS, STATIONERS AND

V. %
".. .'*--

->.
/.

ADDRESS
ON
TECHNICAL EDUCATION,
BY
Hon. N. E. HARRIS,
OF MACOtf, QA.
DELIVERED BEFORE THE
GEORGIA STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY,
AT ITS MEETING IN SAVANNAH, GA.,
FEBRUARY 12rH, 1884.
V
.MACOJT.GA.: JT. W. BUBKB ft GO., PRINTERS, STATIONERS AND BINDERS.
1884.

TO THE PtTBLIC.
At the request of a number of gentlemen in the State, interested in the subject of Technical Education, a few copies of the following Address have been published for distribution. This is done, not because of any merits to be found in it, but in order, if possible, to create or keep alive, in the minds of those who, from motives of friendship or curiosity,. will read it, an interest in the subject matter. I have not even been able to revise the report from which this is published. It is just as spoken.
Since the delivery of the Address I have been favored with many warm expres sions of sympathy and encouragement. These have been appreciated all the more inasmuch as they show that the cause is one that commands already an increasing number of friends.
Dr. P. H. MELL, the honored and learned Chancellor of the State University, sent words of encouragement and proffers of assistance. His heart has long been set on the success of the measure. This is especially gratifying, since if the School is ever established, it must needs be under the auspices of the University. So our Constitution requires.
One of the very strongest pleas in favor of the School might be based on the result of the connection of Prof. WHITE, of that institution, with the State Agri cultural Society. Those of that body, who, at the recent meeting in Savannah, heard the able and exhaustive discussion by him of the series of experiments con ducted on the experimental farm under his charge at Athens, will readily admit the great obligation which the farming interests of the State are under to him for his careful investigations. The information conveyed at the meeting on the subject of fertilizers alone, was worth, to every farmer who heard it, much more than the cost of the experimental farm to the State.
What Prof. WHITE'S department is to the farmers, the proposed School would be to the manufacturers.
I trust I will be pardoned for venturing to annex the following letter from Col. H. S. HAIHES, General Manager of the Savannah, Florida and Western Railway, of Savannah. His position as one of the leading railroad men of the South ought to give weight to his opinions:
"JACKSONVILLE, FLA., February 16th, 1884.
"Hon. N. E. HARRIS, Hacon, Ga.:
" Dear Sir--I have, this morning, read with interest your Address to the Agri cultural Society on Technical Education in Georgia. * * * Tears of experience in the management of railroad business, have impressed upon me the futility of much which passes for education when it comes to be applied to that which, after all, should be its chief purpose that is, to prepare young men for earning their living.
" The people of the Northern States have found this out, and are remodeling their educational theories accordingly. Their new institutions of learning are organized with a view to instruction in practical matters, and their older competi tors are, by degrees, conforming themselves to the new order of
\
LIBRARIES

TO THE PUBLIC.

"I have been so deeply impressed with this growing necessity for technical edu

cation, that I have sought it for my children, but could not find it in the State of

Georgia, nor, I may say, in the South. As a consequence, I have been compelled

to send my sons to a Northern State to obtain what their birth-place did not accord

them. My oldest son will graduate as a mechanical engineer this year; my second

son is receiving practical instruction in chemistry, and the third and youngest is

also in a technical institution.

"I make this personal reference in order to show my appreciation of your efforts

in the cause of technical education, and because I suppose that such communica

tions may strengthen your hands by showing you that there are others who are

willing to aid you to the extent of their ability.

Very truly yours,

H. S. HATNES."

I am conscious of no stronger feeling than the desire to see the cause triumph. My interest is only that of a citizen of Georgia. It seems to me that our unfortu nate, but much loved State, will be forced to adopt the course indicated if the pov erty and suffering entailed by the war are ever to be banished from our midst.
The longer I live the deeper becomes my conviction that the education most needed for the people, is that which fits the individual to use to best advantage his natural powers in the effort to earn a livelihood and discharge his duty to those dependent upon him, in the station or rank to which he belongs. If this is not the aim and intention of State education, then for the masses it is a delusion and a snare. It can only tend to discontent, confusion and anarchy.
The industrial feature has been annexed, in some measure, to the common schools of Massachusetts within the last year.
Gen. Walker, President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in a letter under date of March 7th, says: " Our Legislature has but just now passed a most important measure, permitting towns and cities to institute training in the element ary use of tools in the public schools. This is all we asked. We shall now direct our efforts to induce some few towns and cities to take the matter up, hoping that the results will be so quickly and clearly to the public advantage as to secure the general adoption of the system."
It has long been a part of the English system. It should be a part of every com mon school system on earth, where the support is derived from the State.
When our own State conies to see the necessity for the system, and provides for its introduction, I shall have more faith in the complete success of our public schools.
N. E. HARRIS.

TECHNICAL EDUCATION.
__Y _ __._VLT
JIfr. PrwZn* and Gentlemen of the Georgia State Agricultural Society:
One afternoon in May, 1882, the manager of the Telegraph and Messenger, pass ing my gate, in the city of Macon, invited me to a walk around the square.
On our way the subject of the State University was mentioned, and after some dis cussion as to its management and prospects, my companion said: "A school of technology is the great want of the State at this time. The Legislature ought to appropriate a million dollars to found and endow such an institution.' 1
The word then was new to me, but after an explanation, I stated that I would rather be the author of a law making such appropriation, and founding such an institution thanjio be Governor of the State.
To the suggestion in this conversation was due, so far as I was concerned, the effort subsequently made by myself, in connection with other members, in the Leg islature, to establish and endow a school of the character named.
The events attending that effort, and the failure which followed, are all too recent to need more than a reference in passing.
When the resolution appointing a committee to investigate the subject was first presented to the Committee on Education of the House, quite a notable event occurred. Several members of that Committee rushed to their feet simultaneously, and asserted that their own thoughts were voiced in the measure--that there was nothing of which the State stood in greater need than such a school, and heartily pledged their voice and influence to aid the purpose of the resolution. The Com mittee gave its unanimous indorsement to the measure.
I can never forget that investigating trip. Nine young men of the South, all ignorant of the first elements of the subject under consideration, turned their faces to the North for light. Georgia went back to Massachusetts to study first princi ples ! What scorn for such a course we would have felt in the old ante-bellum days! The ingenuity and sharpness of the Massachusetts Yankee were once the subject of unlimited jest among us. We held ourselves aloof from them, boasting a nobility of wealth and ease, like the Pharisee, rejoicing we were not in their posi tion. We set up the blood of the Cavaliers against the lineage of the Plymouth fathers, and thanked God for the accident which gave us-the grandest civilization the world ever saw.
Now, with the source of our wealth all gone, with the gospel of labor only lately preached, and but little learned among us, we crept back to the scene of the nation's workshops to learn the history and study the progress of that national characteris tic which we once despised.
Whatever may be said of the success of our mission, one thing is certain, |t filled those nine members of the Georgia Legislature with ardor and enthusiasm, and they returned to the State impressed with the belief that the future progress of the country depended on the introduction and support of technical education ; that in this was the remedy for all our present evils.
The people of the country have discovered that we made one grand mistake ; we did not take enough members of the Legislature with us. We ought to have carried with us sixty-one other members. There happened to be just that number in the Legislature opposed to the school.
We have this consolation in our defeat: the work which we did, the discussions which we provoked, and the facts that we gathered, have made a salutary impression on other communities than ours, and it is safe to hope that the interest thus aroused will cause some other Legislature, more liberal and more patriotic, perhaps, than the last, to take the measure up where we laid it down, and carry it forward to the consummation so much desired by all who understand it.
[Here Mr. Harris gave a short history of the proceedings concerning the bill. He stated that it was lost by reason of the number of absentees; that it received a majority of the House, but not a constitutional majority, and was reconsidered nert day, and was not again reached. He said it was only postponed.]

6

TECHNICAL EDUCATION.

The subject of technical education is occupying a prominent ar.d important posi tion in the public thoughts to-day. A distinguished citizen of New York, in a recent interview at the Cooper Institute, said: (t The people which is not interested in the subject of technical education now is behind the age."
Though undoubtedly the leading feature of discussion in all educational circles, yet the system^ as now understood, is of comparatively recent origin. True, tech nical schools, in which certain scientific professions were taught, have long been in optfation, but the schools based on what is known as the Bass;an system sepa rating the art from the trade, and putting theory and practice in parallel, and, there fore, always separate fines date no former back in this country than, possibly, the year 1866.
On this system the great leading institutions of the kind are now working. Our first ideas of industrial schools were taken from a vastly different class of schools to those now referred to. The former were based, generally, on the idea of the apprentice system, I think. For instance, no problems were formulated; no gradation of the series of practical experiments was relied on; no certain system was followed, in fact, save what was suggested and necessitated by the demands of the trade. The student learned at hap-hazard; his wishes were not consulted, and no regard was had for aptitude, and no room allowed for choice. It was like put ting corn into a hopper to be ground the stones crush and grind the corn, and a grist of meal is the result, either coarse or fine, as the miller willed. The identity of the student would be lost in the crowd. But the technological school of to-day, discarding the demands of the trade, awards to one professor the school-room proper, and to another the practice of the profession in lute work-shop and the laboratory, with the idea of adapting to the purpose of instruction all manual and mental labor the two departments keeping pace with each other, and thus compelling the student to advance, the inter-depend ence of the departments rendering stagnation or retrogradation impossible. There never was a finer system conceived than this, and it is something of a rebuke to our national pride that we are indebted for its discovery to the powerridden children of Russia. The great impulse given to technical education in recent years outside of our own borders, arose from a feet that was some time since forced upon the notice of the inhabitantsof GreatBritain. Nationsare muchlike individuals. If one of ourplant ers should so improve the quality of his cotton as that he could always command a higher price and readier sale for it than his neighbors, they would naturally set to work to find out his methods in order to apply the same treatment to their own crops. So with national afiairs. It was ascertained by the English people that the sales of one of the leading articles manufactured on the island had suddenly and strangely fallen off. Inquiry naturally followed, and, to the great surprise of the English, it was discovered that the people of one or two German States had become so wonderfully skfllfhl in the manufacture of the article in question that they were absolutely flooding the markets of the world with goods of better quality and atfcheaper rates than the merchant princes* of Manchester and Leeds could afford. A royal commission was raised to inquire into the reasons, and it was dis covered that the German workmen trained themselves in high technical schools, had been reinforced by the thought and study of the learned colleges, and the prac tical experiments of the students and professors therein till a degree of skill and ingenuity hitherto unknown in similar manufactures had been reached. The learned and industrious workmen had solved the problem of cost and quality together. Investigation in other countries only confirmed the first discovery, and the English people were plainly told that unless they should establish technological colleges and institutions of high grade thejr must make up their minds to lose their position as the foremost manufacturing nation on the globe. It is safe to conclude that the English Government will avert the threatened danger by providing the remedy at once. There are not wanting those m our own country who have felt and recognized the importance of this subject. In 1862 the General Government appropriated what is known as the land scrip fund to the States for the purpose of providing in each State a college for instruction in agriculture and the mechanic arts. In December, 1882, the Commissioner of Education, in response to a Senate resolution, made an

TECHNICAL EDUCATION.
elaborate report, showing the results of the appropriations, with the present state of technical education in the Union. In the same year the Cdngress appropriated over $481,000 to the Indian tribes of the West for the purpose of industrial educa tion.
Many of the States, following up the policy of the General Government, have supplemented the land scrip fund by direct donations from the treasury, in order to carry out more effectively the purpose for which the fund was intended.
Private individuals, catching the spirit of the times, and impressed with the importance of this branch of education are endowing colleges and universities with the means necessary to impart such instruction, in many of our sister States.
The colored people, too, have, by no means, been overlooked by those who are friendly to their interests. A portion of the income arising from the Slater fund has been applied, in accordance with the directions of the donor, to the support of schools of technology throughout the South, having for their object the educating and training of the colored children in the branches taught in such institutions. A department for this purpose has been added to the Atlanta University, and the sum of $2,000 appropriated annually for its support. So also the Lewis High School for colored children, at Macon, has opened a department of the same kind.
Notwithstanding the fact that our Legislature refused to establish such an institu tion for the white children in the State, it is some gratification to know that the General Government is determined to give the Indians the benefits of such educa tion ; it is some consolation to know that the Northern friends of Southern negroes are determined to give this population among us the benefits of such education; it is some consolation to know that our sister States of the South are awakened to the importance of this matter, and are apparently determined to give their white chil dren the benefits of such education, and it is some consolation to know that the mil lionaires of the North are opening and endowing departments in Vanderbilt, and Yale, and Washington Universities for the purpose of allowing the children of the rich and the proud to obtain the benefits of such education!
I^Here Mr. Harris related an incident to illustrate the difficulties met with by our white children of the State in their efforts to learn a trade. It-referred to the son of a leading citizen of Macon who spent two years in efforts to get into a machine shop in order to acquire the trade of a machinist. He was a young man of promise and good habits, but found all the machine shops full. The head of a machine shop in Macon told Mr. Harris that he had turned away fifty young men of that city, within a short time, who wanted to learn the trade. To Indians and negroes this opportunity is given free of cost!]
The comments of the press, while the matter was yet pending before the Legis lature, if read in the light of the subsequent fate of the bill, would create a smile, no doubt, to-day. The New York papers said the movement was an evidence of the fact that Georgia still intended to deserve and keep the proud name of the Empire State of the South. The Tennessee papers, commending Senator Brown's position on the subject, said it marked the commencement of a new era in Georgia in the line of progress. The Alabama papers promised as help, and heartily com mended the undertaking. The South Carolina papers hailed the movement as evi dence of an awakening to a sense of the new order of things. Mississippi papers urged their own citizens to bestir themselves in a like direction. Even the Boston papers declared that the movement was momentous, and bespoke an effort to solve the great problem forced on us by the war. Not a paper in Georgia opposed it--most of them favored the movement. Not a leader of note, not a man of brains opened his mouth in any other way than to commend the policy of the proposed measure.
I. Technical education is especially adapted to the present wants and necessities of the race. It is essentially a resolution to first principles. It aims at raising hand work to a level with brain work and advancing both together.
This result is demanded by the character of our civilization. The spirit of our age is emphatically practical and utilitarian. Even in educated circles the old canons of taste and criticism, of merit and orthodoxy, are changing. The news paper has become the great authority in our literature.
The day of fine theories, sickly sentiment, muddy metaphysics, is passing away. Science has assumed the central position among the great agencies of human progress. Discarding the former idea of show and display for the delectation, ot

8

TECHNICAL EDUCATION.

her wondering disciples only, she is employing the vast resources of her kingdom in the multiplication of new sources of wealth, in the lightening of the burdens of labor, in the encouragement ofindustry, and in the elevation and advancement of the race.
The state of the public mind, the bent of public achievement, render technical education a necessity.
The school-room ought to gather up the threads that run through the great lines' of thought in the country, and putting the student early in possession of them, enable him or her most effectively and unerringly to find and to fill the allotted place in the machinery ot a self-advancing progress. Such a school-room would be the reflection of the great world outside an image of its thought answering its questions and solving its problems. Here should be found the roots of that knowl edge which will insure to its possessor not only support and comfort, but even wealth and glory.
Men fought out the battle of the classics when the elements of wealth were inherited from former generations; when ease and leisure fostered poetry and high art, and the ideal of all happiness was to be able to enjoy life without the necessity of laboring continually to acquire means to support it.
Now, Science has risen up, full statured, and exacting obedience from a people called to labor for all excellence with hand and brain, proposes to concentrate in her dominions the hope, the heart and the will of the world.
The sewing together of the fig leaf in the garden, it is said, was the germ of all subsequent invention. Since then, man's handiwork, adding value to the raw material, has fitted and prepared the products of nature for the uses of the race. It is wonderful how few things are used or employed by us which do not owe some thing to the skill or the labor of men.
In a state of nature, men are estimated according to their ability to use their hands, their eyes, their ears or other senses. The Esquimaux is rich among his fellows, and can marry any girl in the land if he but own a single iron spear head and have the courage the strength and the skill to use it.
On this side lies a region wide enough for infinite development. Great men are only so because they are teachers. They have something to do, or show or to say to their fellows. Power to control is based on a superior power to show and declare to others what is necessary to be done, and how to do it. A man is only great when judged by results.
The poet, writer, orator, statesman these at last are all educated handicraftsmen in the highest sense of the word. Reasoning from analogy, the loftiest develop ment of human power, ought to be in the domain of mechanical construction. God's mightiest glory is revealed to us in creation in the originating, putting together, and managing of a material as well as a moral universe.
Law in nature is only the application of God's mind to material things. In the study of these laws, then, is revealed the mind of God. In ancient days the attesta tion of a divine commission was made to rest on the ability to control material things apparently to conflict with law. The striking nature of a miracle was due to the met that to finite eyes the working of it reversed the great law of physical phi losophy, and effect no longer followed cause. I repeat that in this wide range of handiwork, with an educated brain putting its achievements into form and shape, lies all discovery, all invention, all development, all progress, all material success.
Here may be found the origin of all the power and glory of our modern age. Not to Latin, or Greek, or mathematics is traceable the wonderful advance of modern times. Civilization took its first forward strides and gathered its amazing victories from the laboratory of the chemist and the workshop of the engineer. On these thresholds it began to work its world wonders. Aristotle's philosophy could never move a people one step forward on the way of material progress and devel opment. The dry pandects of the gloomy stagirite never made bread for the hun gry, stored the coffers of the rich with gold, or broke the crust from the gems of the orient. There is no material wealth in metaphysical abstractions.
To the inventor, the architect, the builder to all those standing on this high platform ofhuman endowment the nations are indebted for this modern era of advanced thought and development. To be able to discover, harness, and train to useful purposes the great forces of nature, requires the highest faculty of the human

TECHNICAL EDUCATION.

9

mind, and illustrates more clearly and unmistakably than anything else man's

power over matter, his claim to kinship with the great intelligences of a higher

and an unseen life.

When the study of the classics had reached its acme, Science was almost

unknown, her votaries under the ban, and the feeble glimmerings thrown on the

sable background of the world's ignorance gave little indication of the glorious

sunlight that slept beyond the clouds.

The names of martyrs index the pathway over which she has come. For a time--

a long, weary time--the batteries of the churches were leveled at her head, thick

darkness curtained her presence chamber, and her disciples wore the prison garb

or fed on the offal of a debased and ignorant world.

But the see/Is of truth were still sown. The Prussian philosopher hid in his

closet, for thirty years, the wonderful story of the Copernican system, only to see

the light for the first time as that light faded forever from its author's eyes. Gallileo

abjured his faith for the sake of the Church in the presence of the torture, the dun

geon and the stake, but " whispered it again to the angels and to his own heart.' 1

The darkest night, the lowest depth was reached when the Ptolemaic system riv

eted on the necks of the world, with its countless cycles and epicycles, drew from

the irreverent lips of Alphonso of Spain, the declaration that had he been present

at the creation, he could have given God Almighty some suggestions that would

have been of vast benefit to him in fashioning the universe.

Science drooped and trailed her tattered colors behind the car of superstition. It

seems strange to us now that men could live, and flourish, and be happy under

such circumstances. But the human race adapts itself to its surroundings.

So Science survived the iron collar of superstition. Newton brought back the

sun, and Stephenson, Franklin, Morse and Edison have cleared the atmosphere

of clouds and storms.

When the locomotive first lifted its voice amid its waving plumes of vapory smoke

and shouted its notes of triumph over conquered spaee, the world held its breath in

very awe at the grandeur of the achievement. The roar and rush of burning wheels,

the shrill scream of the steam pipes, the glancing clouds of smoke and dust, chal

lenged the wonder of the multitude, and spread the noise of its triumphs far and

wide. But a grander triumph than all this, was that, when in the silent, guarded

chamber, the apostle of science started, with cabalistic click, the harnessed light

ning on its pathway of tiny steel around the world. Men had talked before of

annihilated space and wondered at the achievement, but sturdy Time still bore his

battered front in science's way and reared his gleaming battlements of stone and

iron frame. Beyond us all his wide, unconquered dominion stretched, challenging

hope and bidding expectation fold its tired wings. But see the sequel: When the

long, thin wire uncoiled and stretched away from sea to sea and shore to shore, and

Nature yielded up her chemic forces to the human will, the subtle fluid under-

mined the iron walls and stone escarpments of the monarch's realm, and letting

in the children of the light, they seized the stubborn ruler and brought him to the

feet of man.

,

Time is fettered now. Yon click that carries messages of love, or hate, or joy,

has but its instant echo in the ears of those who wait the tidings on the world's

extremes.

But it was reserved for the latter half of the century to furnish the crown. Sci

ence reached the azure mountain top, when, from the iron wire that holds it, she

took the cold, dead voice and brought it back to life. Creation's herald this in the

coming triumphs of the mighty mind of man. The past had blossomed, fruited,

ripened, when the telephone was made. Lo, the Trinity of the century--Steam,

Electricity and Magnetism!

Who shall say, then, that the education which fits a people to mingle in and

aid the march of such wonderful progress is not desirable ?

But the subject is one in which the Southern people ought to feel a deep interest,

as well on account of its relation to the subjects of general education, as on account

of its own direct tendency and influence. Education is the great want of our people.

The notion that learning qualified the individual to cope more successfully with his

less fortunate neighbors, has been universally received even from the days of the

Puritans. Nevertheless we were once disposed to laugh at the idea, or if we

10

TECHNICAL EDUCATION.

acknowledged its truth we felt that the advantages should be confined to those only who could afford to pay for them. State education was deemed by us an infringe ment on personal rights. Possibly, in a country where wealth was as nearly equally distributed as in ours before the war, the practice of the theory did very little harm. Now, however, our misfortunes have taught us to entertain a different view. The war prostrated our energies, broke into our habits, cut off our ancient methods of support, abolished our system of Jabor, lessened the value of our lands, changed the elements of our prosperity, and destroyed the principal source of our wealth as a people. Compelled by the force of circumstances to fall back on ourselves in the woeful hour of deteat and disaster, we have been learning the lessons of labor, and trying to work up slowly from the depth of our poverty to something like the posi tion to which our history entitles us to aspire. We are enabled to see now and appreciate how the native intellect of the New Englander has been sharpened and strengthened through the long attendance of the children upon the hne public schools established in that section of the Union.
The history of the world affords no parallel to the humiliation and degradation to which our Southern men and women were subjected immediately following the close of the war. No people have ever stood such a trial, met defeat with more fortitude or emerged more triumphantly from such a struggle.
France recuperated rapidly from the disasters of Sedan and the butcheries of Paris, but she had to encourage her a government of her own people, who made and administered her own laws. Her rulers wrought with her citizens in harmony, sharing themselves in the general burdens and aiding to meet the fearful demands of her situation. England, after the civil wars of Cromwell, recuperated rapidly from her torn and prostrate condition, but it was done under the fostering care and protec tion of a government loved by the English at home and feared by the enemy abroad. Germany, discordant, yet preserving the traditional love for the fatherland, rose rapidly from-the prostration wrought by the iron hand of Napoleon, and in less than a century tore the boasted insignia of supremacy from the descendants of her con querors, but the government that fostered and the ruler that led the German were of his own choice.
What has been our condition? The North had subjugated us, crushed our sov ereignty, and turned loose under the piotection of the strong arm of the conquerors, a race of beings lately our slaves, unlearned and incapable made them our equals. Nay, what was worse than all, by carefully fanning the flame of dissension and feeding the fires of discontent, sought to control the servile race as an instrument of torture to keep in power the party and principles that had ruined usl What a monstrosity! Look at the Southerner? Bowed down under a load of enforced poverty, the hopes of his nation's glory dead, branded as a traitor and a rebel by his conquerors, insulted for the reason only that he loved his home and his State, and sought to defend them; reviled and jeered at, and denounced; threatened with imprisonment on any pretext by the satraps of the conquerors; a servile race in authority over him, as a punishment for his rebellion; his children growing up in ignorance, kept back by the war; his lands, the only refuge from starvation, washed to clay and gaping in gullies; and the government that should have protected and aided him managed by aliens only interested in crashing his manhood and wasting his substance, while the bayonets of a hostile army pinned the cloth of defeat on his breast, and drove him out a stranger from the halls of his fathers, from the homes of his people what wonder that he grew restive and longed for some avenue of escape for some means to strike the foul yoke from his neck ? It seems to me that the North ought not to be surprised that our white blood, which sprang from the same source as theirs, should have sought to assert itself here. What would the liberty-loving children of Massachusetts have done under such circumstances ?
But the problem is working itself out, and the solution ought not to include, and certainly cannot require the overthrow and destruction of our race, the ruin of our peace, and the blasting forever of the prospects of our prosperity. The story of our struggles, of our deep humiliation in those dark days following the war, will never be known.
Through all, our people have been true to themselves. The spirit of our women has kept us up. I thank God for the work that they have done and are doing in our land. We get glimpses now and then of their heroic struggles with poverty,

TECHNICAL. EDUCATION.

11

and adversity in the homes of our people. There is no standard on earth by which we can measure the grandeur of their heroic devotedness to duty.
H. The great advantage derived from the establishment of technical schools is to be found in the tendency of these schools to promote diversity of interests, and encourage manufactures in the country.
This fact ought to commend the subject to every true Georgian. The great want of every manufacturing community is educated, or competent labor. Here has always been the chief obstacle to the building up of any great enterprise of this character in the South. New England furnished employment not only to her own people, but to all the best class of skilled operatives floating in with the tide of immigration from the old world. There was no demand South for such labor, and there was no demand because no such labor was to be had. Wherever skilled labor goes capital will follow. Especially is this true in a country like ours, where the subjects for development are so numerous and so near at hand. Heretofore we have been essentially an agricultural people. Our soil and climate are adapted to the production of the world's greatest staple, and we have made its culture the leading interest of our people. Hence arose early the conflict between ourselves and the North on the subject of the tariff. It is not to be wondered at that our people mostly favored free trade. Protection by government becomes oppressive unless it results in building up home industries. Unless a people de sires to and can manufacture, its doors ought to be open to the world, so that its citizens may have access to the market at the lowest rate possible. But the country that depends on the markets of other nations for its necessaries and luxuries, can never be as independent as that one which furnishes its own supplies and keeps at home the money required to buy them. Theie should be, therefore, when practicable, such a diversity of pursuits in the country that the supply and demand may always be in proper proportion. The farmer s produce will supply the manufacturer with the means of sustenance, and the product of the labor of the manufacturer will supply the farmer in turn with the means of carrying on his farming interests and adorning his home. This reci procity will keep the money at home and in circulation, instead of sending it beyond the borders to fill the coffers of other nations. The most common illustration is drawn from the improvement of real estate. Suppose, for instance, a gentleman living in Savannah Fhould determine to erect a fine dwelling. He can hire hands and procure material for that purpose either in Europe or Savannah. Suppose he hires his hands in Europe, and purchases his material there. As the hands live in Europe, it is presumable they will return when the buildii g is finished. If the building cost $30,000 when it is finished, the
country appears richer by $30,000, but to offset this, the man has sent out of the country just $30,000 for wages and material, so that not a dollar is gained in value, and $30,000 of the circulating medium has gone from the country.
Suppose, on the contrary, the man hires his hands in Savannah, and buys his material at the same place. How then does the account stacd? $30,000 has gone into the building, which swells the aggregate apparent wealth of the city; $30,000 has gone into circulation for material and labor. The money is still in the country, and may be applied to building other houses, to erect barns and mills, purchase machinery, open mines, aid the farmers, the merchants, the laborers and generally to assist in the development and improvement of the whole coantry.
Market values depend largely on the condition of the finances of the community. No production is more dependent on this than the farmer's. The smallest con striction may lose him all the profit of a hard year's work, for when the time com.es to sell, his produce must generally go.
Men are prone to buy where they can get their goods cheapest. If England sells broadcloth cheaper than Massachusetts, they say let us buy of England, and save the money. The policy is a fchort-sighted one. While it may be true that on one trade we may save five or ten dollars by getting the article cheaper, yet to do so we have sent the price of the article out of the country, and we may loose twice what we made on that sale when we come to sell our own produce next time, out of which we realize our income. The money that we paid for the goods, with all its intrinsic value and purchasing qualities, has gone, and we have aided to retard our country's progress, and brought nearer to our doors the days of depression, hard

12

TECHNICAL, EDUCATION.

times, and financial ruin. It is only necessary that a sufficient number follow oar example to bring this to pass at once. Here lies the cause of all our present troubles. Our agricultural products have been worth almost twice, as much as before the war. I believe the gross income of Southern planters from their farms is nearly double what it was under the old regime, but the profit on production has gone to enrich other communities.
An examination of the export values of the country shows that the farmers of Georgia and of the South are absolutely paying the war debt. Your cotton crops since the war have supported the government, fed the hungry of the North, clothed its naked, driven the engines of commerce, floated your flag on the seas, paid the rich dividends of the bond-holders, and made possible the Vanderbilts, Astors and Gonlds money kings of the world.
The nation is supported by your cotton the balance of its trade preserved only the men who make it grow poorer from year to year. Where is your profit? A steady stream goes North and West for food, for clothes, for necessaries yea, for the very sugar which would grow in your fields, and the corn that is almost indi genous to your valleys. These are all consumed in the using, and add nothing to the permanent wealth of the land.
The time has come for a change. Your wasted lands, your discouraged hus bandry, your burdens of debt, your discontented population, your waning commer cial importance, warn you that the old system is a failure, and a new system is necessary to save from the hammer of the sheriff the little that remains of your former opulence.
What is your remedy? Your cotton crop is very valuable. It was worth nearly $280,000,000 last year. Suppose it were possible to keep the entire crop of one year, with all its possibilities of expansion, at'home tor distribution. You would scatter $280,000,000 through the country. Suppose you could spin that cotton crop into yarn. You have almost doubled its value and left the money that did it in the pockets of your people. You have now nearly $560,000,000 worth of property. Suppose you weave it into cloth and knit it into hose. You have again nearly doubled its value, and the money is still in the country. You have now almost enough property in your possession to pay the national debt. If the money which made it and the money for which it sells could remain in your country, you could discount the loss of your slaves and the destruction of your property by the war, and yet have a margin to commence business on a loftier scale than any nation on earth. These are your possibilities. In proportion as you approximate them in that proportion will you win back your wealth and regain your lost prestige as a people. You may never be able in one year to secure one cotton crop in this way, but do you not think that with proper appliances the South might compass the twentieth part of this amount in one year, and that with average success this might continue for twenty years? It would make yon the richest nation on earth.
We talk about raising our own produce, and the political economist preaches this doctrine through the public press and from the platform. Still, the teaching is unheeded, and our planters go on from year to year, raising cotton, and relying upon their ability to purchase necessary supplies in a foreign market. Why is it? Simply because they are in debt. Cotton is money the world over it is like so much gold dug up from the fields, and the planter, pressed by his factor and com mission merchant on the one hand, and his dire necessities on the other, plants every possible acre in cotton, hoping from year to year to be able to lift the mort gage from his farm or his stock, and yet like the bewildered traveler of the desert in pursuit of the deceitful mirage, finds himself each year only further away from the goal of his hopes. The system never can be amended till there is introduced into the country a greater diversity of interests, till there is a greater supply of currency, till land appreciates, farming improves, and the people who own real estate feel that they own property in a progressive and growing country, destined soon to lead in the elements of material wealth and prosperity.
To ensure this result the country's resources must be developed.
The census of 1880 makes some curious revelations. The entire capital invested in farming in the United States, including lands, fences, buildings and farming implements, amounts to $10,600,000,000. The value of the entire farm products for 1879 was $2,213,000,000.

TECHNICAL EDUCATION.

13

On the other hand, the amount of capital invested in manufacture is $2,790,-

000,000. The value of the product for the same year was $5,369,000,000. Of

this, $1,025,000,000 represents profits over wages and the coat of material. These

figures would seem to show that manufacturing pays a larger percentage on the

capital invested, and, therefore, adds more to the material property of the country

than agriculture. The figures further show that the added value of manufacture to

raw material is nearly equal to the value of the entire product of all the farming

interests of the country. It seems, therefore, that man's handiwork on raw

material stores up values and adds to the wealth of the country, as well as the labor

of him who makes two blades of grass grow where only one grew before.

The census tables bear out the proposition that a people is most prosperous when

its agricultural and manufacturing interests are in corresponding planes or ratios of

development.

The three greatest farming States of the Union are Illinois, Ohio and New

York. In these States the farming capital is valued at a little over $1,000,000,-

000 in each State.

In New York $514,000,000 is invested in manufactures. This is larger than any

other State in the Union.

In Illinois the manufacturing capital is $141,000,000, and in Ohio $189,000,000.

The farm products in New York, in 1879, were valued at $178,000,000, in Ohio

at $157,000,000, and Illinois at $204,000,000. The latter was the largest product

of any State in the Union. The value of the manufacturers of New York for that

year was $1,080,000,000, the largest in the Union. Of Ohio, $348,000,000, and of

Illinois, $415,000,000. The number of farms in New York is 241,000, in Ohio

247,000, and in Illinois 256,000. The average value of improved farming lands in

New York is about $60 per acre ; in Illinois about $40, and in Ohio about $62 per

acre. These, taken as a whole, are probably the most prosperous States in the

Union.

.

.

Compare their condition with that of your own State. The farming capital in

Georgia is $112,000,000. The capital invested in manufactures is $20,000,000. The

farm products were worth, in 1879, $67,000,000. The manufacturing products were

worth $36,000,000. The number 'of farms in Georgia is 138,626. The average

value of improved land is about $14. In these four States the areas of farm lands are

nearly the same--Illinois standing highest. The population--leaving out New York

City and Brooklyn--is about double that of Georgia in each State.

These figures are sufficient to enable us to deduce a theory and make a compari

son. The first thing we notice is the almost entire absence of manufactures in our

State, compared with the enormous capital invested in the other States named;

secondly, the low average value of our farming lands, compared with those of the

States mentioned; thirdly, the small productive capacity of our State in proportion

to population; and, fourthly, the singular ratio which onr farming products bear to

the capital invested.

Looking at these facts, the last stated would lead us to conclude that our farming

paid a larger dividend than that of other States, were it not for the fact that we

know, from long and bitter experience, that the cost of cotton culture is far in

excess of that of other farm products, and that there is very little margin for profit.

That the first fact stated is the necessary cause of the existence of the other two,

no one acquainted with the subject ought seriously to dispute.*

Since this was spoken. I have seen an extract from an able report made by Mr. Dodge, Sta

tistician of the Department of Agriculture, relating to the wages of farm laborers, who collates

all these facts, and deduces the conclusion that while farm wages are always higher in manu

facturing sections, yet the corresponding increase in the value of farm, products and the value

of farm lands renders the presence of tne manufacturing industries of incalculable advantage

to the farmer.

Mr. Dodge says: "Miners, mechanics, and especially artisans and operatives engaged in pro

ductive occupations, are vastly more beneficial to agriculture, for two reasons--first, they aug

ment the numbers to be fed, and increase agricultural values; second, they make something

themselves which farmers need, And reduce the prices of commodities hitherto brought from

a distance at unnecessary cost."

After comparing the manufacturing product of each State with the value of lands therein,

he says: "The result of the comparison shows in every State* without exception, a higher

average value of farm land in that portion of each State which makes the largest value of th*

products of manufacturing industry."

'

14

TECHNICAL EDUCATION.

Take another illustration:
Michigan has nearly the sanle population with that of Georgia. The acreage of improved lands in both States is the same, (though Georgia has double the number of acres in farms,) and the number of farms is nearly the same. The value of all farming capital in Michigan is $499.009,000, against $112,000,000 in Georgia.
The crop product in 1879 in Michigan was $91,000,000 against $67,000,000 in Georgia.
Here is a case where the population is the same, the number of acres in improved lands the same, the number of farms nearly the same, and yet the value of the product in Michigan, notwithstanding the rigor of the climate, and the difficulty of living, is $24,000,000 greater than in Georgia, while the cost of production is more than double in &<% latter State. What is the reason ?
Michigan has $93,009,000 invested in manufactures, and her annual product is $151,000,000. Her people have a market near at hand, and her manufactures com mand capital and encourage labor, and insure substantial profit in every pursuit. The cost of living remains at home. The result is, that her lands are worth $60 dollars per acre taking the average of the State. The fact that the Michigan lands are richer and more productive will not explain the discrepancy. Our lands are level, susceptible of the highest improvement, and are adapted to the growth of almost every farm product on earth, and work can be done on them all the year round.
Take the whole census through, take the statistics from any source you please, and the truth is demonstrated that no States are making money, and realizing a product in excess of the cost of living, except those States where the agricultural and manufacturing interests are carried on in certain just and legitimate proportions to each other. Together, these pursuits are all-powerful on the destinies of a country; separated, and there is no class on earth left so dependent as the farmers.
This idea of diversity of interest was urged by Hamilton and the. fathers in the earlier days of the Republic .as a means of securing its safety. It has never been necessary heretofore for the South to study the problem or attempt its solution, for we possessed, in our slaves, a source of wealth that paid its divi dends far in excess of bank stock or capital in manufactures, and that, too, with out the vexation and trouble attending the former investments. With the negro free, this source of investment is denied us, and we have forced upon us the same problem to which the North found an answer ready nearly a hundred years ago.
The voice of the English Commission, the experience of all the nations who have tried it, the practical results of the system under our own eyes, in our own country, demonstrate the fact that in technical education is to be found the means for furnishing the readiest and most certain solution of the great problem. Wher ever it has been introduced the result has been to raise the standard and increase the number of manufactures, to develop the talent and ingenuity of the people, to attract capital and furnish employment for the idle and destitute, and open up all the avenues possible for making money and accumulating wealth. The illus trations are numerous.
The establishment of the Technical Schools in Germany gave to the manufacturers
of that country their prominence and importance. In Russia the system has deveoped a most wonderful facility in the arts, and given
that country a commanding position in this great field of instruction. Descending to individual instances, the city of Worcester, in Massachusetts, was
a comparatively small town in 1866. The Worcester Free Institute was established, and in a few years the town began to improve, capital was attracted, the ingenuity, the talent of the young generation was educated and developed, manufacturing and other industrial pursuits encouraged, and the town grew to a great city of nearly 75,000 people in a few years.
A similar instance is recorded in Ireland. In an out-of-the-way community on the island, a few years ago, some philanthropic gentleman determined to open and endow a technological college. At that time poverty and squalor and destitution

WTVhUiUlCe cUoUnUtUrWaDstUiUn&g vVaM ri.M ou/usa sBeCcVtiUioUnUBs o*f tUhKe7 sOeCvVeCrIaUl. lows: * In Georgia, in the manufacturing counties,

SOM taUtCeOs,, hWeS aAUllIuMdMeSBs tMof oUuUrl oUwWnU land is worth 19.72 per acre;

S0iM ntaUttCehaesnofbnl--

manufeeturing counties, $4.10 per acre." This, notwithstanding the most fertile landslaxe in

TECHNICAL EDUCATION.

15

were the leading features of the place. The college was built and 'opened. The young men were educated, grew up, and turned their attention to scientific and industrial pursuits, and in a few years the community, which contained at first only a few hovels and sheds, became rich and prosperous--the centre of a great manu facturing interest--one of the few thriving places in Ireland. : The influence of the policy of England, which has broken down Ireland's manufacturing interests, was counteracted in this instance by the development of the talent, energy and brains of the people who suffered thereby. Learning was power in this case.
Other instances could be cited, but I desist. Technical education ennobles the calling of the workman. The graduate of the literary schools has always had a tendency to look down on the man who is the architect of his own education, whose only diploma is the skill and energy that accredit him to the great company of the world's artisans and manufacturers. Put the curriculum of a college behind him, and award him a diploma for merit in the usual way, and he can face the literary scoffer unabashed, or put to the blush the conceited coxcomb who owed his ability, perhaps, to compass a collegiate course to the accident of a father's wealth.
Besides this, the extensive introduction and support of technical schools will tend to encourage a better feeling between the races. Skilled workmen are respected, whether their skuu be white or black. Naturally, however, the weaker race will drop into the subordinate position--subordinate, though absolutely neces sary to the running of the whole machinery. When wealth is diffused and success renders our position easier, the balances will be adjusted between the races, and each take its place, in harmony with the great end in view.
We are not left without some grounds for congratulation, and I am glad I can close this address by a reference to them. Though our relative achievements rank so low in comparison with the great North and West, yet it is true that our State in 1880 stood first among the cotton States in the number and value of her manufac tures. The germ has been planted, and only needs fructifying and training to reach a full development. Our agricultural product though so small in comparison with the North and West, was larger and more valuable than that of any other State south of Mason and Dixon's line, except Missouri. Our financial standing is unrivaled; our bonds selling higher than those of any other State in the Union, except perhaps those of one or two Northern States.
Our iron interests, our coal fields, our mines, our ipreat water powers, our spin ning, weaving and knitting industries, only need skilled labor to develop them. The Creator never gave a country such limitless resources, such boundless fertility, such mineral deposits, such countless sources of wealth and prosperity without in tending its development. When, of all the earth, He selected a location for his chosen people, He put them on the same parallel of latitude as ours, under the same sky. The same stars that deck our Southern sky passed over the heads of prophets and patriarchs during their night watches on the hills of Judea, and the country that flowed with milk and honey, was not more desirable than oars.
Already the challange has gone out to New England. Did you note the depres sion and failure of the cotton mills in that region recently ? It is the prophecy of a far greater disaster. Each cotton mill established in Georgia will ring the deathknell of some New England establishment. In the whir of the Southern spindle is the promise of a new era, an era of- labor, of wealth, of independence, wrought out in the ways of peace by our own exertions, by the wisdom of our own people, by the hands of our own citizens-y-of educated power, realized and gloried in at home, respected, appreciated, admired and feared abroad.
To turn the thoughts of our people in the direction of technical education should be the* earnest endeavor of all who love the State and desire her advance.
Yon, gentlemen, representatives of the great agricultural interests of the State, are vitally concerned. Put your shoulders to the wheel. Go to your candidates for the Legislature and demand of them a declaration of their views on this subject before you choose them. Let them know that the people will not tolerate further delays in this matter. See to your interests. Let the stern voice of the people be heard. Let the mother heart of the State speak out and make its demands
felt. Let the young men be educated. Establish a great central tenchnical college for

=s

LIBRARIES

j

16

TECHNICAL EDUCATION.

them free to all, and thus give them a calling that they can follow in any commu nity, and with a certainty of success in any contingency. Not lawyers, doctors,
preachers, but learned engineers, mechanical engineers, machinists, superinten
dents of factories, builders of railroads, assayers of metals, geologists, miners, practical builders, scientific discoverers, men of resource, of practical knowledge,
of muscular ingenuity, men fitted to lead the grand march of human thought to conquer dominion over nature and space, and to multiply the means of wealth and
enjoyment commensurate with the demands of an enlightened, elevated and polished
race.
I call on all the good people of the State to awake to the importance of the sub
ject. In no other way can we meet and answer the demands of the situation. Of what avail is our past history,, our proud name and position, if we lie quiet and let
the world pass by us in this great enterprise. Our cotton may bloom and fruit, and be gathered to the store house, but other communities will reap the wealth which its
growth assures. Our coal and iron will sleep in our mountains white others grow rich on a similar product* and hide the sun with the smoke of tne furnaces that we might own.
Our mighty streams, gurgling, rushing with mad currents down their fretted chan
nels, will continue to expend on the rocks and the ocean the power, which, if
trained and nsed, might turn the spindles and drive the hammers of a thousand manufactories.
Our fields may sprout their verdure to feed the cattle of a thousand hills, but
others will gather their increase and grow fat on their flesh. Our minerals, hidden in the rough pockets and drawers of our mighty mountains, will lie where the forges of creation left them till the hammers and augers of some more enterprising people shall gather them to enrich another generation.
It is time to awake. Our name our grand place in the family of States our
pledges to posterity, all demand that we should give to the rising generation the . means to retrieve the fortunes of the past and adjust the balances of the future.
In the visions that sometimes throng my waking moments, I have loved to
imagine the future glory of our Southern land. While the spirit of prophetic
inspiration was upon me I have seen our fields reviving under new systems of
labor and improvements; I have seen our valleys smiling with peace and plenty, and our hillsides covered with verdure and golden grain, and over all, and in all,
I have heard the busy throbbings of a great system of manufactures, toward which
the eyes of all nations shall be turned with longing hope and expectation. ^ When the staple that grows in our fields,, and the minerals that sleep in our
mountains shall be gathered to fill the currents of commerce, and receive, under the skilled and educated hands of our people, new beauties and new values adapted
to the wants of civilization; when the smoke of our furnaces shall herald the rising sun, and the sound of the hammers of our artisans beat the tattoo of his setting, 'then I have thought will the throne of commercial empire, deserting the precincts of Bunker Hill, Lowell and Pittsburg, find its destined resting place on tne banks of the Ocmulgee, the Chattahoochee and the Savannah.
Then, indeed, the triumphs of peace will efface the memory and atone for the suffering and disasters of war =-then shall revive new smiles on the scarred faces
of bur hopes and iu the passing years, this, our Southland, our Palestine, hedged in "by the mountains, and washed by the seas, shall be called the land of liberty,
the refuge of the oppressed, the hope of the nations, the. seat of commercial domin
ion at the mention of whose name the slaves of tyranny and the satraps of power shall bow with involuntary homage in all the earth a land of homes begirt with the offerings of beauty anji love, and brightened, with the smiles of unending peace, where the altars of worship shall smoke wjth daily incense, and. the ladder of faith
from each fireside stretch upward with its rounds of Friendship, and Charity, and
Love, as in the Patriarch's vision, resting its top on the rim of the skies, over which the worn and weary pilgrims, tired with life's,battles and triumphs, shall finally pass from'the shadows of earth to the glories of Heaven! , .