the benevolence of another. Every one who gave would feel an interest in the object of his bounty, if for no better reason than Sterne gives, when he says that we water a weak flower because we have planted it. I have already trespassed so long upon your patience, that a single further suggestion will end my appeal to your indulgence. It has long been my own conviction, that one of the most direful needs of education, in this State, is the establishment of a technical school for scientific, mechanical instruction. There is absolutely nothing of the sort upon the soil of Maryland-a blot upon the intellectual and, indeed, the business record of a community, whose productive and mechanical capacity is so large and varied as our own. The class for whom such instruction is needed are the very class who cannot afford to seek it at a distance, and, except out of Maryland, no Maryland man can find it. Every one, who is at all familiar with the subject, knows that in all the large enterprises where mechanical agencies are needed, the demand is now for mechanics—not only skilled, but thoroughly and scientifically educated. The so-called "practical man"— whose knowledge is simply empirical, and whose facts lie isolated in a vacuum-is being pushed fast to the wall. He is a victim of the survival of the fittest. Our mechanics are at a sad disadvantage, from the absence of opportunity to qualify themselves for this new order of things. An honorable and lucrative profession, which may well be classed among those best deserving the appellation of "learned," is thus practically closed to a large number of the most vigorous intellects of our state. I have heard with great satisfaction, that it is proposed to convert the ancient foundation of St. John's College, at Annapolis, into a technological school. But, as that depends upon the legislative will, and as the ways of legislatures are in the depths of the sea-and often in many other depths-I look upon this project with more of hope than of confidence. A liberal private endowment of such a department, in connection with the Maryland Institute, would fill up the measure of its already exceeding usefulness, while it liberated the mechanical education of our people from the caprices of the General Assembly. As the Masons said, when the corner-stone was laid-"So mote it be!" |