18
THE BATTALION.
campus and his heart set on making
this first among the military schools
of the land. As we think of them all,
fondly and reverently, our hands
twitch involuntarily to render them
the “right hand salute” of respect and
Our eyes moisten as we remember, that
one of their number has long ago
passed over to the silent shores be
yond.
That this faculty did not succed in
creating an agricultural school or a
mechanical school either, may readily
be admitted without any discredit to
its members. They had entered a
strange sea without map, or compass,
or pilot. They had no guide but an
act of Congress, which has been in
terpreted in forty different ways in as
many states of the Union. But few
colleges had yet been established un
der this enactment and these were all
too young to serve as models. Europe
furnished colleges, technical schools
arid experimental stations in abund
ance, but no attempt had been made
to combine in one institution literary
training and practical training in hus
bandry and the useful arts. You may
give lessons in philosophy or logic by
word of mouth alone, but you can not
teach agriculture or mechanics with
out experimental demonstrations and
you can not experiment without a lab
oratory, without machine shops, tools
and appliances of a hundred kinds.
The college then owned a few chemi
cals, a few glass tubes and crucibles,
but not a plow, nor a plane, nor a
surveyor’s compass and when we
wanted to build' a bootjack or a
woodbox we had to borrow saw and
hatchet from the college carpenter.
If the teachers were ill prepared to
conduct an agricultural and mechani
cal institution, many of the matricu
lates were apparently unprepared to
enter on school work of any kind.
But few had climbed that “grammar-
tree,” whose climber knows, “where
noun, or verb or participle grows.”
They had come, some from unpreten
tious village schools, some from so-
called academies, colleges or universi
ties of the cities, all differing widely
in their curricula, for then our pub
lic school system was yet in its swad
dling clothes. Some were men in
years, others were striplings, but dif
ferences in mental attainments and
habits were far more striking thamthe
disparity of years. There were a fetv,
whose names I shall not call to spare
their blushes, who were shining mod
els as moral young men and as stu
dents; others came near being the ex
act reverse. Many were better accus
tomed to chasing the catamount or the
wild mustang in tangled wood or
chapparal than to study, and others
who had enjoyed all the educational
advantages that money and indulgent
parents could procure, were still more
impatient of restraint and had come
apparently “to have a good time” and
wear uniform. Hazing, which has
caused so much trouble in olher
schools, was in full blast, before a lec
ture had ever been delivered, or a
book opened for study. I am glad to
know that this practice, in which,
though in some instances it may
prove a harmless boyish sport, or
even call forth all the young fresh
man’s innate manliness, yet danger
ever lurks, and which has served to
humiliate proud spirits and murder
noble aspiration, has at last, thanks
to the earnest endeavors of your
faculty and the better judgment of
your students, entirely disappeared.
That these six professors under such