The Expansion of Public Education 
 
 in New Jersey 
 
 Inaugural Address 
 
 by 
 President John M. Thomas 
 
 RUTGERS UNIVERSITY BULLETIN 
 OCTOBER, 1925 
 
 SERIES 1, No. 4. 
 
 Entered as Second Class Matter at the Post Office at New Brunswick, 
 . Acceptance for mailing at special rate of postage ke for in 
 Section 1103, Act of October 3, 1917, eutfignieed April 15, 1921. 
 
 
 
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 THE EXPANSION OF PUBLIC EDUCATION 
 IN NEW JERSEY 
 
 WHEN the history of the infancy of the American nation shall 
 be written, the period from the establishment of independence to the 
 close of the world war, no achievement will stand out as more sig- 
 nificant, more indicative of the genius of the American people or 
 more creditable to them than the marvelous expansion of public 
 education. 
 
 We carelessly take for granted that educational opportunities 
 have always been open to American youth very much as they are 
 today. Indeed, popular orators frequently glorify “the little red 
 school house” and other educational enterprises of the days of the 
 fathers to the disparagement of our present practices. 
 
 As a matter of fact, general popular education is quite a modern, 
 even recent, institution, and in its origination and extension this 
 nation has been a creative leader. For the first fifty years of our 
 republic education in the majority of the states was entirely a private 
 affair, promoted and supported exclusively by churches and by 
 philanthropic individuals, as had been the practice in the lands from 
 which the colonists came. In New Jersey before 1820 there was no 
 authority in law for any municipality to levy taxes for educational 
 purposes of any kind. In that year it first became legal in this state 
 to support schools from public funds and then only “for the edu- 
 cation of such poor children as are paupers.” Not until eighteen 
 years later, in 1838, was it possible for a citizen of New Jersey to 
 secure the education of his children at public expense except by 
 putting his name to an affidavit which branded them as paupers. 
 There is not a school in New Jersey which as a public institution, 
 supported by all for the benefit of all, is one hundred years old. 
 
 The first free public school in New Jersey, established by public 
 action, maintained by taxation and open to all without discrimina- 
 tion, was erected in the city of Newark in 1838. 
 
 THE FIGHT FOR FREE SCHOOLS 
 
 It must not be thought that our present magnificent system of 
 public education grew up spontaneously and easily, without effort 
 or fight. A vigorous campaign of public propaganda, extending over 
 many years and prosecuted vigorously by able and self-sacrificing 
 citizens, was necessary before the state could be brought to see its 
 duty to open school house doors to all its youth. It is pleasing to 
 
4 InNauGURAL: The Expansion of 
 
 note that in that patriotic endeavor of some ninety years back the 
 men of Rutgers bore an honorable part. In 1834 a committee of 
 the newly formed Alumni Association proposed an organization of 
 the graduates of all colleges to “raise the standard of public in- 
 struction throughout the Union.” These youth, their leader only 
 three years out of college, even essayed a memorial to the legislature 
 of New Jersey for the improvement of common school education. 
 They were obliged to report a year later (1835) that “no schools 
 purely public have been established. The public documents of the 
 state afford no certain intelligence in regard to the number and con- 
 dition of schools, the system of education pursued in them, or their 
 pecuniary resources.” The names of these three alumni, Abraham 
 Polhemus, ’31, John Forsyth, ’29, and Rush VanDyke, ’30, who 
 put “Rutgers in the van” in the fight for free schools in New Jersey, 
 deserve to be enshrined on a tablet on this campus, preferably in a 
 building of the college of education consecrated to the service of the 
 public schools of New Jersey. Such a tablet might well perpetuate 
 the eloquence of the “Address to the people of New Jersey” adopted 
 at a popular convention in 1838: 
 
 We utterly repudiate as unworthy, not of freemen only, but of men, the nar- 
 row notion that there is to be an education for the poor as such. Has God 
 provided for the poor a coarser earth, a thinner air, a paler sky? Does not the 
 glorious sun pour down his golden flood as cheerily on the poor man’s hovel 
 as upon the rich man’s palace? Have not the cotter’s children as keen a sense 
 of all the freshness, verdure, fragrance, melody and beauty of luxuriant 
 nature as the pale sons of kings? Or is it on the mind that God has stamped 
 the imprint of a baser birth, so that the poor man’s child knows with an inborn 
 certainty that his lot is to crawl, not climb? It is not so. God has not done it. 
 Man can not do it. 
 
 By men whose souls thus burned within them the battle for pub- 
 lic schools was won, and thirteen years hence New Jersey may well 
 celebrate the centennial. But what sort of schools were they, and 
 what was the scope of the education thus made available to the chil- 
 dren of every home? Undoubtedly, as the schools established demcn- 
 strate, it was in elementary branches only, the so-called “common 
 school education.” Advanced and higher studies, such as are now 
 taught in high schools, were not to be common for many years. 
 Beyond doubt if the young Rutgers alumni and other fighters for 
 public schools had proposed in 1838 that the people were to be 
 taxed to support schools where boys and girls might study Latin 
 and algebra, home economics and mechanical drawing, they would 
 have lost their cause. In all probability even tse ambitions and 
 visions of the leaders did not extend thus far. 
 

 
 Public Education in New Jersey x) 
 
 DEVELOPMENT OF PUBLIC. HIGH SCHOOLS 
 
 Free public secondary and high school education is a matter of 
 comparatively very recent date. The oldest public high school in 
 the United States celebrated its one hundredth anniversary less than 
 five years ago. 
 
 In 1860 there were only four high schools in New Jersey. Six- 
 teen years later there were eleven high schools, attended by 1,607 
 pupils. Note the steady and very large expansion of public sec- 
 ondary education since that time. 
 
 Year No. of high schools Students 
 1895 22 1155 
 1900 57 14,397 
 1910 109 24,739 
 1920 137 55,243 
 1924 157 86,459 
 
 Ten years after the civil war high school privileges were open to 
 only about thirty per cent. of the young people of New Jersey. 
 Today, thank God, there is not a boy in the state, no matter how 
 remote his home nor how humble his circumstances, but may receive 
 a high-school education, a better and more advanced education than 
 many colleges afforded fifty years ago, absolutely without cost for 
 instruction. If his own community does not provide the school, 
 the state will pay his tuition in the high school of some neighboring 
 city or town. 
 
 A similar provision is on the statute books of every state in the 
 union. Gradually yet rapidly, without the dramatic contest which 
 was necessary for the establishment of the free elementary schools, 
 public education has advanced in grade to include the four years of 
 the secondary school. There are now more than 19,000 high schools 
 in the United States and we are erecting new ones at the rate of 
 one a day. Most of them are large structures, of pemanent con- 
 struction, costing more than the value of the entire plant of this col- 
 lege just a few years ago. They provide instruction, not merely in 
 the standard subjects, but also in many cases preparation for useful 
 trades and industries—agriculture, carpentry, machine construction 
 and repairs, textiles and other occupations which the industries of | 
 the community may suggest. / 
 
 CAUSES OF EXPANSION OF PUBLIC EDUCATION 
 
 Before noting the still further expansion of the public schools 
 to include higher education, the state college and the state university, 
 
 let us stop to inquire the reason why the American people, at such 
 13 
 
6 INAUGURAL: The Expansion of 
 
 enormous pains and cost, have built and maintained all these schools 
 and why they have constantly improved them and advanced their 
 grade. 
 
 Is it because the fathers and mothers of this generation love their 
 children more than the parents of other years? I do not believe 
 that that is true. 
 
 Are we more devoted to education in principle than were the 
 fathers? ‘The truth does not lie in that statement either. No citizen 
 of today, whether publicist or professional school man, is asserting 
 the necessity of general education more strongly than did the fathers 
 of our republic. To quote but one, James Madison said: 
 
 A popular government without popular information or the means of acquir- 
 ing it is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy, or perhaps both. 
 
 Statements not less strong might be cited from the writings of 
 Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, John Adams and many others. 
 
 But one may say, the fathers advocated elementary education in 
 the simpler branches, which is sound public policy, but subsequent 
 development has gone too far and is largely a matter of “fads and 
 frills.’ Answer must be made that the expansion of American edu- — 
 cation is too great a movement, too widely extended, and has con- 
 tinued steadily gaining in force too many years to be thus explained. 
 Great results come from great causes. American communities large 
 and small, of every sort and every heritage, in every section of every 
 state, would not for nearly a century have increasingly taxed them- 
 selves for higher and better schools unless there had been a very 
 sound and substantial reason affecting practically their every day 
 life why they should do so. 
 
 EXPANSION DUE TO ECONOMIC NECESSITY 
 
 That reason is to be found in the vastly increased and steadily 
 increasing complexity of our industrial life, due to the application of 
 science and the use of complicated machinery in the supply of what 
 have come to be the common necessities of life. The education 
 which was sufficient for the simpler processes of the older days 
 cannot produce the men who are required for the more complex 
 processes and the great organizations which are now necessary to our 
 existence. It is economic necessity which has extended public edu- 
 cation to every hamlet in the nation and has raised the grade steadily 
 up through the high school to include now the state college and the 
 state university. In the old days of hand tools and individual 
 manual labor a simple education sufficed, and many of no education 
 
Public Education in New Jersey 7 
 
 at all could find a place in the economic order. But everywhere 
 hand labor has given place to machinery and individual operation 
 has been merged into organization, and therefore education sufficient 
 to equip men for the new processes is essential. 
 
 Transportation in stage-coach days required wheelwrights who 
 could build stage-coaches and men who could drive horses. Trans- 
 portation today demands civil engineers, mechanical engineers, elec- 
 trical engineers, economists, statisticians and experts in scores of 
 other fields demanding a high order of intelligence and training, to 
 say nothing of the men of large executive capacity who are able 
 to command efficient management of an immense organization. 
 
 In the time of Washington communication was by post-riders 
 with saddle-bags or stages carrying mail, and in the time of Wash- 
 ington college men did not go into the communication business. To- 
 day the telephone companies alone would be glad of many more 
 college men soundly trained in communication engineering than are 
 graduating from our technical institutions. 
 
 AGRICULTURAL PRACTICES AND EDUCATION 
 
 Up to about fifty years ago there had been little change in agri- 
 cultural practices from the days when the greatest of all teachers 
 watched the sower going forth to sow. But within the days of men 
 now living the little bag of grain slung over the sower’s shoulder 
 has given way to the mechanical seeder, the single plow heavily 
 dragged by horses has been displaced by a gang of plows following 
 a tractor, and the sickle, the cradle and the flail gather dust in old 
 farmhouse attics. It used to take four hours of manual labor to 
 grow a bushel of wheat; now it takes ten minutes. Our agricultural 
 extension men go out from Rutgers to talk to farmers about chem- 
 istry, biology, bacteriology and the laws of genetics, and they are 
 understood of them also, better than many college graduates would 
 have understood scarcely twenty years ago. 
 
 Improvements in agricultural practice have made our modern indus- 
 trial civilization possible. There used to be five men on the farm for 
 one man in the town; there are now two men in the town, engaged in 
 industry and commerce, for each man engaged in agriculture. Yet 
 American farmers still produce over 90 per cent. of our food sup- 
 ply, 40 per cent. of the raw material of manufacture, and 50 per cent. 
 of the gross tonnage of American railways. If the man on the 
 farm had not learned to use machinery and to apply science to his 
 industry, in some crops producing four times the yield per acre 
 
> 
 
 8 INAUGURAL: The Expansion of 
 
 received under the old methods and with less manual labor, our in- 
 dustries would cease and our great city population would starve. 
 
 PUBLIC HIGHER EDUCATION NECESSARY 
 
 Examples of increased complexity might be multiplied to the 
 end of the catalogue of present-day occupations which have to do 
 with supply of human wants. Everywhere science is entering into 
 common things, and large organizations are taking the place of 
 small units. In every example which might be cited the reasons 
 would be clear why the expansion of public education could not 
 stop with the high school, but was continued inevitably to include 
 the college and university. In every industry and in every branch of 
 commerce and trade knowledge is required which is proper and 
 possible to be pursued only in institutions of higher learning. 
 
 Adolescent or secondary education does not reach high enough 
 to supply the knowledge or to build the men required for many 
 operations in the highly involved processes of today. Youth of 
 high-school age may be taught the use of tools of knowledge, lan- 
 guages, elementary science and mathematics, and they may and do 
 acquire such knowledge and skill as will make them useful citizens, 
 and in some instances they acquire the method and the ambition 
 which lead them to go far. But agriculture can not resort to high 
 schools to learn how to combat the insect pests and plant diseases 
 which bring a new plague every season, nor can a manufacturer 
 expect a high-school teacher of chemistry to turn from his teaching 
 to discover a possible economy in the operation of his plant. Progress 
 depends upon constant experiment and upon patient and energetic 
 research, which are possible only in a university. The men most 
 needed by industry are men whose manhood powers have been 
 trained, who have caught the inspiration and the method of leadership 
 and command and of doing new things in new ways. Such men are 
 made most surely in an institution of higher learning where dwell 
 masters of discovery who kindle in youth the enthusiasm and the 
 joy of the intellectual pioneer. 
 
 The extension of public education into the higher ranges is, 
 therefore, no accident, nor is the marvelous development of state col- 
 leges and universities a temporary phenomenon. It is based on the 
 same economic necessity which forced elementary public education a 
 century ago and which has built a public high school in every city 
 and village from sea to sea. Every commonwealth in the Union 
 has now its land grant college or state university, in many in- 
 
Public Education in New Jersey 9 
 
 stances combined in one institution. More than one-third the col- 
 lege students of the United States are now enrolled in the land 
 grant colleges. These state institutions in the past twenty-five years 
 alone have graduated well over one-fourth of the graduates of 
 American colleges since the chartering of Harvard in 1643. 
 
 RUTGERS THE STATE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY 
 
 Rutgers University is the New Jersey unit of the system of pub- 
 lic colleges and universities in the United States. When Abraham 
 Lincoln had signed the Morrill Act of Congress in 1862, and the 
 state of New Jersey had accepted its provisions in 1863, the trustees 
 of Rutgers College entered into perpetual contract with the state, 
 and through the state with the federal government, to become the 
 corporate agent of the state in the field of higher education. That 
 contract obligated Rutgers to maintain a division in which “the lead- 
 ing object shall be, without excluding other scientific and classical 
 studies, and including military tactics, to teach such branches of 
 learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts.” The 
 institution further obligated itself to maintain vocational courses, 
 and that in the broadest terms—“in order to promote the liberal and 
 practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits 
 and professions of life.” 
 
 This contract was not forced upon Rutgers, but was sought for 
 eagerly and welcomed gladly. As Dr. Demarest in his monumental 
 history of Rutgers says, in reciting the passage of the Morrill Act, 
 “the men of Rutgers were alive to the situation.” It has been the 
 boast of Rutgers that the statesmanship of President Campbell 
 and the skill and farsighted vision of that great prophetic Rutgers 
 leader, Professor George H. Cook, secured this great benefit to the 
 institution. 
 
 ADVANTAGES TO STATE OF RUTGERS CONNECTION 
 
 It may be presumed that reasons of economy and prudence in- 
 fluenced the people in creating Rutgers the instrument of the state 
 in public higher education. They were good reasons. To have 
 built and maintained a new institution would have cost the state 
 many millions of dollars. Granted that a college of the land-grant 
 type was needed in New Jersey, of which there can be no doubt, 
 Rutgers has saved the state an enormous sum and is still effecting 
 an annual saving of no mean proportions. 
 
10 INAUGURAL: The Expansion of 
 
 But reasons other than economy may well have obtained, or at 
 least can now be seen to have been valid. By delegating responsi- 
 bility to the trustees of Rutgers, New Jersey has been spared po- 
 litical control of higher education. It is not possible in this state 
 for a single state official to dictate the abolition of a course of study 
 or to force curtailment which shuts the doors of opportunity to 
 hundreds of deserving students. 
 
 By the New Jersey plan of contract with Rutgers the state re- 
 ceives the services of trustees of a high order of ability, of long 
 experience in university government and of conscientious apprecia- 
 tion of the responsibilities of a trust whether public or private. 
 The trustees of Rutgers may be expected to discharge the duties of 
 Rutgers to the state all the more carefully for the reason that their 
 office is not political, and so long as those duties are faithfully and 
 patriotically performed there need be no change. 
 
 Further by contract with Rutgers the state secured for its pub- 
 lic higher education the invaluable tradition of a great and noble 
 colonial college. It safeguarded New Jersey youth who might have 
 benefit from the state’s provision for higher education from the nar- 
 rowness and the crudeness of a purely utilitarian institution. It 
 guaranteed that they would prepare for the several pursuits and 
 professions of life on a campus where the love of learning had been 
 fostered for more than a century, where literature and art had been 
 cultivated, where Jacob Cooper taught Homer, and the stately Doo- 
 little taught rhetoric, and David Murray, who led Japan from feudal- 
 ism to modern civilization in a generation, taught mathematics, and 
 Austin Scott made the past a living present before the awakening 
 souls of youth. 
 
 Yet more, the choice of Rutgers secured for the New Jersey 
 youth and for all others who might choose the state institution the 
 unspeakable privilege of development into manhood in a college 
 founded in the fear of God by men who sought first and above all 
 to inculcate religious faith and high moral character. Under its 
 present constitution and laws Rutgers University in all its parts 
 is completely non-sectarian and has no connection with any eccle- 
 siastical body. But the halo of prayer still hovers over old Queen’s 
 and will linger there to the end of time, and New Jersey youth of 
 every faith will be the worthier men and the more loyal to their own 
 faith, whatever it may be, because the foundation of Rutgers was 
 in the fear of God. 
 
ee 
 
 
 
 Public Education in New Jersey 11 
 
 MAINTENANCE OF THE HISTORIC COLLEGE 
 
 I may be asked if I would preserve the old college. I answer, it 
 must be preserved, not only for its own sake, but also for the sake of 
 the service which Rutgers must render to the state. Because we 
 must discharge to the full our obligations as a servant of the state, 
 we must maintain all that is worthy in the cultural tradition of old 
 Rutgers. We ought not merely to preserve the historic college; we 
 ought immeasurably to strengthen it. The heart of the institution 
 should be a strong college of liberal arts, with pursuit of literature, 
 of the classics, of philosophy and all kindred subjects not less in- 
 tense than they have been in the old days, but more so. 
 
 None will have greater benefit from emphasis upon the liberal arts 
 and pure sciences than the students in technical courses in agricul- 
 ture, engineering, ceramics and similar schools. The ability to con- 
 vey personal power and to impress truth upon other minds, which 
 measure the value of the technical man, are gained not so much 
 from technical studies as from the humanities. If Rutgers does her 
 full duty by the humane studies, both old and new, the state will 
 have far stronger technical colleges within the university than she 
 would possess if she conducted technical institutions independently. 
 
 On the other hand, pure science may be best taught in close con- 
 nection with its practical application. Departments of chemistry, 
 botany, physics and the like should be all the stronger at Rutgers be- 
 cause there is no sharp line of demarcation between courses for the 
 technical and the non-technical student. Instructors cannot fail to 
 be more alert if their work is to be tested in the professional ser- 
 vices of many of their pupils, and the interest of students must be 
 
 keener when the application of the subject is constantly before their 
 minds. 
 
 RUTGERS THE STATE UNIVERSITY 
 
 Rutgers may well glory in her character and mission as the land- 
 grant college of New Jersey and in her recent designation as the 
 state university of New Jersey. With all my heart I welcome the 
 responsibilities and the privileges conveyed by those terms. I wel- 
 come them, not because they are likely to bring buildings and money, 
 but because they convey opportunities of great public service and a 
 definite and magnificent educational field. I would keep back noth- 
 ing that Rutgers has from the service of the commonwealth by 
 whose support and encouragement she has grown from a college of 
 a few score students to the commanding institution she is today. It 
 
12 INAUGURAL: The Expansion of 
 
 is impossible to maintain a practical distinction between that which 
 traces its origin to the old college and that which derives its sup- 
 port from the state. Students pass from one section to another with- 
 out a thought of difference, and in the public mind there is and can 
 be but one institution, Rutgers University, composed of separate col- 
 leges according to their function, but one and all partaking of the 
 noble heritage of the Rutgers founded in 1766, and one and all 
 consecrated alike to the service of the commonwealth which from 
 the earliest days it was in her heart to serve. 
 
 For Rutgers was founded for a practical purpose, with a voca- 
 tional aim primarily in mind, “to prepare youth for the ministry and 
 other good offices.” It is significant that there is mention of “useful 
 arts and sciences” in her charter, which was most unusual in the 
 college foundations of that day. It was a true instinct on the part 
 of both Rutgers and the people of the state which led to the location 
 of public higher education in New Jersey in this institution. 
 
 RESPONSIBILITY RESTING UPON RUTGERS 
 
 Let us then welcome our present responsibilities in relation to . 
 the state gladly, and let us discharge them generously and in the fear 
 of God. Let us seek definition of our responsibility, not in the 
 bare letter of statutes, but in the needs of the state and in the 
 precedents of higher education in commonwealths where it has been 
 most useful. What any state institution has done for any state, in 
 research, in extension, in any field of education, that Rutgers will 
 gladly do for her state, if the need arise and if resources permit. We 
 should not wait to be urged or driven; we should ourselves be 
 alert to see and make clear the need and to suggest practical ways 
 to meet it. 
 
 THE SERVICES OF RUTGERS TO THE STATE 
 
 The notable services already rendered by Rutgers as the state 
 institution justify abundantly the support she has received and give 
 promise of still greater services in the future. It may seem a far 
 cry from a modest Rutgers laboratory of fifty years ago and a quiet 
 professor going about pounding rocks to the teeming cities of the 
 New Jersey coast where the millions of Americans find health and 
 recreation, but had it not been for the quiet Rutgers professor those 
 cities would never have been built and the sands of the Jersey sea- 
 shore would have remained barren and waste. It was George H. 
 Cook, Rutgers professor, state geologist, one of the fathers of the 
 
Public Education in New Jersey i 
 
 agricultural experiment stations of the nation, who taught the coast 
 cities the sources of their pure water supply and made the shore 
 development possible. Every pottery and clay-working plant in the 
 state owes its prosperity to the same modest scientist. The services 
 of George H. Cook have alone been worth more to the state of New 
 Jersey than all the appropriations Rutgers has ever received from 
 both state and federal governments. 
 
 The work of our agricultural experiment station has been of 
 
 great value in the transition of New Jersey agriculture from gen- 
 eral farming to the specialized agriculture in fruit, truck crops, 
 poultry and market milk, which now adds more than one hundred 
 millions a year to the income of the state. In plant pathology, 
 entomology and particularly in soil science our experiment station 
 has taken high rank. It has the confidence and good will of the 
 thirty thousand farmers of the state and not less that of industries 
 related to agriculture. In the proportion of its graduate students 
 the Rutgers College of Agriculture ranks among the first of the 
 nation. 
 
 Organized only ten years ago, the agricultural extension service 
 administered by this college has already made an important place 
 for itself in the agriculture of the state. County agents are located 
 in eighteen of the agricultural counties. With them cooperate 
 twelve extension specialists, bringing the best that agricultural science 
 has to offer to practical demonstration on the farm. Clubs for boys 
 and girls, of which 232 were active last year, enrolling 2,800 mem- 
 bers, have transformed farm life in many communities. Among the 
 women fourteen home demonstration agents are active, doing a 
 work than which none under Rutgers auspices is more beneficent or 
 more deeply appreciated. The further extension of this service to 
 women of the industrial centers is an inviting field. 
 
 THE COLLEGE FOR WOMEN 
 
 Down to 1918 extension activities were the only Rutgers ser- 
 vices to the women of the state. New Jersey was the last state of 
 the union to open the way to higher education to women, but she 
 has shown the zeal of a convert in the past seven years. The story 
 of the founding and the heroic struggles and the remarkable progress 
 ‘of our New Jersey College for Women, under the able leadership 
 of Dean Mabel S. Douglass, is one of the romances of American 
 higher education. The record of that first winter in the extem- 
 porized college hall with girls moving their beds during every 
 
14 INAUGURAL: The Expansion of 
 
 storm to dry spots on the floor and studying with coats on and 
 galoshes to keep out the cold deserves place with the biographies of 
 Mary Lyon and Emma Willard and other pioneers of the higher 
 education of women. After only seven years the College for Women 
 has 690 students, property of nearly one and a half millions, an 
 annual budget of approximately a million dollars, and is firmly fixed 
 in the confidence and good will of the people of the state. 
 
 THE COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING 
 
 In no field has the economic necessity of higher education been 
 more manifest or exerted a greater stimulus than in the field of 
 engineering. Two years ago the National Industrial Conference 
 Board, after careful study, declared that industry makes an annual 
 demand for engineers equivalent to many times the number of 
 competent engineering graduates. 
 
 Every year in which engineering education remains stationary 
 the situation becomes more serious. Science is hurrying forward 
 new developments which require engineering skill in their com- 
 mercial operation. Foreign competition and the restriction of immi- 
 gration make greater demands for large organization and for com- 
 plex mechanical processes, which in turn require more executives, 
 more expert supervisors, more engineers. The continuance of our 
 national welfare and prosperity depends, more than any other factor, 
 upon an adequate supply of capable men, trained thoroughly in ap- 
 plied science and engineering. 
 
 In New Jersey the situation is peculiarly acute. We are already 
 a great industrial state, the sixth in the Union in the value of manu- 
 factures, and we are increasing in population and in industrial out- 
 put more rapidly than either of our giant neighbors, New York 
 and Pennsylvania. In the past fifteen years the value of manu- 
 factured products in this state has increased nearly five-fold and 
 now approximates four billions a year, or forty times as much as the 
 one hundred millions produced by New Jersey agriculture. Soon 
 the entire northern portion of New Jersey, and eventually the greater 
 part of the entire state, will be one solid industrial community, inter- 
 spersed with residential cities as attractive as any in America. 
 
 Since 1869 the Rutgers College of Engineering has sent out a 
 steady stream of well-trained men, the majority of whom have found 
 employment in New Jersey and are still in active service. But even 
 with the output of other colleges of engineering in the state, the 
 supply of men is sadly disproportionate to the needs. New Jersey 
 
Public Education in New Jersey 15 
 
 industry is today chiefly dependent upon technical schools outside the 
 state, and from lack of opportunity and facilities over 66 per cent. 
 of the New Jersey students of engineering are going outside the 
 state for their education. New Jersey is taking care of a smaller 
 proportion of her technical students than any other state. 
 
 The situation calls for prompt and substantial development of 
 the Rutgers College of Engineering, for enlargement and strengthen- 
 ing of personnel and for the building of laboratories, shops and 
 draughting rooms and office and recitation buildings on a scale for 
 which the space available on the old campus is entirely insufficient 
 Our present engineering building is scarcely adequate for one-third 
 the program we are conducting today and could readily be adapted to 
 other uses. An engineering experiment station should be estab- 
 lished at the earliest possible opportunity. Such an experimental 
 institute to conduct researches and tests for industrial organizations 
 and for state departments would be of immense value, particularly 
 to the smaller and developing industries which are not able to sup- 
 port research departments. 
 
 INDUSTRIAL EXTENSION 
 
 The further training and education of operatives in service has 
 come to be a serious care of every progressive industry. Ambitious 
 workers in this state, in the legitimate ambition to increase their 
 efficiency and to advance their positions, are now paying thousands 
 of dollars a year to schools conducted for profit. The state owes 
 it to its citizens who are creating the wealth by which it lives to 
 support a department of industrial extension which will take the 
 benefits of the state university to every industrial community of 
 New: Jersey. No organization is in such favored position to pro- 
 mote the education of industrial workers in whatever may make 
 them better operatives and better citizens as the technical institu- 
 tion under state auspices. If Rutgers is to do her duty, the whole 
 state must be her campus. 
 
 TRAINING OF TEACHERS 
 
 For several years Rutgers has included in her organization a 
 school of education designed to assist in the equipment and further 
 education of teachers and supervisors for the public schools of the 
 state. Only the smallest fraction of the college graduates holding 
 school positions in New Jersey have their degrees from New Jersey 
 institutions. Something has been done at Rutgers in the past ten 
 
16 INAUGURAL: The Expansion of 
 
 years to supply New Jersey high schools with New Jersey teachers 
 and to inculcate New Jersey loyalty in those already in service. The 
 summer session and the college for women have made a contribution 
 toward this patriotic endeavor. Far more, however, must be at- 
 tempted. The school of education deserves strong support, not for 
 the sake of Rutgers, but for the benefit of the schools of the state. 
 It bespeaks the cooperation and assistance of the state Board of 
 Education and of the teachers of the state through their organizations 
 and personal support. It should have a larger staff, and should be 
 encouraged to establish a bureau of research for the public schools 
 of the state, to enlarge its extension activities and to send to the 
 high schools an expert vocational adviser for counsel with the 
 thousands of our boys and girls at that most pathetic period of life, 
 when they do not know what the world has for them to do. 
 
 A GRADUATE SCHOOL 
 
 I must pass by other fields of service, which are not less inter- 
 esting and important: ceramics, in which Rutgers University through 
 state cooperation has won an enviable position; chemical engineering, 
 most inviting of all new fields; business administration, into which 
 students are everywhere pressing eagerly. 
 
 But one departure I cannot omit to urge. A college teacher 
 who is not advancing in his field is not fit to be a college teacher. 
 Chemistry five years old is out of date. There is no room ina 
 vigorous institution for a teacher who drones lectures on subjects 
 in which he has completed his knowledge or who merely hears reci- 
 tations from text-books which were behind the times before they 
 were published. Alleged research and study to keep up with one’s 
 profession are apt to be desultory and of little use unless they 
 function as part of the scheduled and recognized work of the in- 
 stitution, with regularly approved projects and reports. The or- 
 ganization of graduate work is the most efficient and economical 
 means which can be taken to increase the efficiency of undergraduate 
 teaching. Without such organization the lapse of years will bring 
 us to a faculty of inferior, lethargic, visionless men, who are not 
 wanted in aggressive institutions. The able scientists today choose 
 positions in universities where the spirit of research is active. A 
 university without a graduate school is a misnomer and a university 
 which does not do its share toward the furtherance of the scholar- 
 ship on which all universities live is a parasite on its sister institu- 
 
 tions. 
 

 
 Public Education in New Jersey 17 
 
 No suggestion has come to me more frequently frem members of 
 the faculty since I assumed duty at Rutgers than the organization 
 of a graduate school. We already offer seventy courses of graduate 
 rank in thirteen departments. A work of that size is worthy of or- 
 ganization with a responsible executive. The cost above the present 
 lack of organization would be inconsiderable. We should either 
 abandon the advanced work and save the money we now spend for 
 it or organize it more effectively and get more out of it. If Rutgers 
 University is to go forward, there is no doubt which alternative 
 we must choose. 
 
 THE OPPORTUNITY BEFORE RUTGERS 
 
 I believe Rutgers University will go forward, and that she is 
 faced today by magnificent opportunity. The field in public higher 
 education is wide open to her in New Jersey, and there are none 
 who wish to hold her back or who will be jealous of her progress. 
 
 The educational tradition of the state is sound and progressive. 
 Better public schools than those conducted in many New Jersey 
 cities and towns do not exist in America. 
 
 But in higher education comparisons are not so gratifying. It 
 is not pleasant to be told that New Jersey is less well supplied with 
 colleges in proportion to population than any other state; that New 
 Jersey sends a larger proportion of her youth outside the state for 
 college education than any other of the American commonwealths ; 
 that whereas more than 75 per cent. of American college students 
 attend a college or university in their own state, only 18 per cent. 
 of New Jersey college students are enrolled in New Jersey colleges. 
 With all due allowance for the location of great cities with many 
 educational advantages just across our borders, these facts raise 
 the question whether New Jersey has been doing her full duty in 
 the field of higher education. 
 
 It may be that Rutgers is partly to blame. Certainly she has not 
 been aggressive in seeking state support, possibly for fear of loss 
 of the cultural tradition or of undue political influence. I believe 
 that such fears are groundless and that Rutgers should now seek 
 to lead in a vigorous advance in public higher education in New 
 Jersey. 
 
 If anywhere there is to be a state university in New Jersey, it 
 must be here at Rutgers. If the way to the power that knowledge 
 gives is to be open freely to the youth of this state, as it is open in 
 well-nigh every other state, that way must be opened at Rutgers. 
 
18 INAUGURAL: The Expansion of 
 
 We have preempted the field of public higher education in New 
 Jersey; as men of conscience we must go forward to cultivate it 
 with all our strength and skill. 
 
 THE SUMMONS TO A FORWARD MOVEMENT 
 
 We are summoned forward by the many thousands, the in- 
 creasing thousands of boys and girls graduating from the public 
 high schools of the state who can pursue a college course only in 
 an institution in which public funds reduce the cost to the student. 
 
 The mighty industrial development of the state sounds a yet 
 more urgent call. Under present economic conditions there is a 
 more compelling motive for the support of higher education than 
 sympathy for the student. I doubt if it can be logically maintained 
 that every youth who desires it should receive a college education 
 wholly, or even partly, at the expense of the state. Higher educa- 
 tion is an exceptional privilege, and in a democracy there should be 
 no exceptional privilege for the sake of the individual. Not out of 
 sympathy for the student, but out of cold business calculation of 
 the necessity of large numbers of highly trained men and women for 
 the several pursuits and professions of this age of science, the com- 
 monwealths of this nation are rapidly expanding their great demo- 
 cratic institutions of higher and professional learning. We cannot 
 go back to stage-coaches and the town pump and three-story build- 
 ings; we must have engineers. The scientist has come to the aid 
 of agriculture to stay, and none know it better than the farmers 
 themselves. With all the outpouring of private benevolence toward 
 higher education, unparalleled in the history of the world, American 
 industry and American civilization depend for their maintenance 
 and progress upon scientific research and production of. technical 
 experts on a scale and in fields which only institutions supported 
 by all the resources of the state can supply. 
 
 All citizens have benefit from scientific advance. It is reason- 
 able, therefore, for all citizens to contribute to the advancement of 
 science and it elevates the entire citizenry of a state when they do so. 
 
 THE STATE UNIVERSITY AND CIVIC SPIRIT 
 
 The state of New Jersey has its own peculiar reason for the 
 development of a state university as the capstone of its system of 
 public education. Because many of its cities are suburban to New 
 York and Philadelphia, patriotic interest in New Jersey affairs is 
 difficult to maintain. No state has a prouder history than New 
 
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 A Pe —~ 
 
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 Public Education in New Jersey 19 
 
 Jersey, and yet state pride is not so intense in New Jersey as it is 
 in Vermont, for example. No state has greater need of intelligent 
 and active public spirit, but my experience as a resident of this state 
 leads me to believe that not infrequently the commonwealth suffers 
 harm because interest in state affairs is not more keen. 
 
 A state university worthy of the intelligence and industrial promi- 
 nence of New Jersey would be an instrument of high value and 
 effectiveness in awakening state pride and achievement. We shall 
 never have effective patriotic interest in our own state business 
 so long as 82 per cent. of our most ambitious youth feel obliged 
 to leave their native state for the privileges of higher education. 
 
 Strategically located at the center of the state, close to the state 
 capital, with convenient transportation facilities, Rutgers University 
 has all necessary advantages for a state university development 
 which will awaken New Jersey patriotism and interest in civic mat- 
 ters to a degree never before known. 
 
 DIFFICULTIES AND ENCOURAGEMENTS 
 
 I am aware that some will say that we are attempting an im- 
 possible task; that the two types of institution, public and private, 
 now mingled at Rutgers are absolutely diverse; that the ideal of the 
 old college is service through the culture of a few leaders for posi- 
 tions of special prominence, while the purpose of a state institution 
 is service by carrying to the entire population of a commonwealth 
 the truths of science and of learning for assistance in their daily toil. 
 The old proverb about riding two horses at the same time may be 
 cited. 
 
 That difficulties exist need not be denied. That a college socially 
 selective in its clientele, scornful of vocational curricula, insistent 
 above all things on the maintenance of tradition, cannot serve the 
 purpose of a state institution may be freely admitted. That a uni- 
 versity responsive to the needs of a great industrial commonwealth 
 may lose some of the amenities of a strictly private institution must 
 be frankly faced. | 
 
 But it is not a revolution which faces Rutgers, but a natural de- 
 velopment in accordance with tendencies increasingly manifest for 
 fifty years. Rutgers has not been in too great haste to cast off the 
 old and to take on the new. She has been a conservative institution, 
 in accordance with the spirit of her founders. But she has proved 
 by long and thorough trial that without loss to the old foundation 
 she can serve well in the technical and vocational fields. If the 
 
20 INAUGURAL | 
 
 modest service of the past has not injured her, but has brought her } 
 increased honor and strength, as all will admit has been the case, a 4 
 still greater service in the future with more alert responsiveness to j 
 state needs will only add yet more to the Rutgers which the fathers ii 
 loved. : 
 
 
 
 
 
 THE MOTIVE AND THE METHOD 
 
 If we go deep enough and leave trivialities out of consideration, et 
 there is but one motive and one spirit which animated the Dutch aia 
 fathers who provided yonder in old Queen’s for the instruction of Beat 
 youth in Latin and in Divinity, and which now animates us as we \iiim 
 essay a worthy home for the applied sciences for the benefit of jiamiay 
 New Jersey industry. That motive is service by means of higher jqimaam 
 learning in whatever fields and by whatever means in the changing jam 
 years the providence of the good God may lead the way. Ht ; 
 
 We follow His providence, not the standards and ‘types of the gam 
 definitions of educational text-books. One policy is the next sen- jaime 
 sible step ahead, now as in the times of Milledoler and Freling- MM 
 huysen and Campbell. If as the only land-grant college and state ‘AE 
 university in the metropolitan area our practices must vary some-## ae 
 what from those most current about us, we shall strive nevertheless a hi 
 to do our duty and be content to be unique. There is nothing in our jiu 
 state connection to forbid the time-honored Rutgers tradition of #iiaim 
 emphasis on quality, not on size. New Jersey does not want a cheap Hiiijame 
 university, nor one inferior in scholastic standards. Such an insti- aM 
 tution would be no more worthy of the state than of Rutgers. But, agai 
 if I mistake not, New Jersey is alive to her need of a university fume 
 sound in learning, stressing character above even scholarship, and aaa 
 consecrated to the high task of completing the structure of public iim 
 education by an institution whose spacious doors are open to all #aismae 
 who aspire to the highest privilege of manhood—the beneficent #iima 
 exercise of the power of a trained mind. BARRE 
 
 To meet that need I believe I can pledge this day the whole- isis 
 hearted consecration of trustees, faculty, alumni, and all friends #iainai 
 of Rutgers, and I trust also of all forward-looking citizens of the jiiaiiam 
 state. 
 

 
 
 
 Makers 
 Syracuse, N.Y. 
 PAT. JAN. 21, 1908 
 
 Gaylord Bres 
 
 
 
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