334 INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF EDUCATION. 
be considered as scholars in the same sense and of the same degree of 
merit as graduates of schools whose studies and exercises are not subject 
s0 the imputation of being of any direct or immediate use. It would 
please those gentlemen more if, while the college graduate receives his 
scholarship medal of pure gold, the graduate of the school of technology 
should have his testimonial stamped upon a circlet of some baser metal. 
Now, it seems to me, we are bound to resent and repel this imputation, 
without terms and without ceremony. We assert that the disinterested- 
ness of study does not depend upon the immediate usefulness or useless- 
ness of the subject matter, but upon the spirit with which the student 
takes up and pursues his work. If there be zeal in investigation, if there 
be delight in discovery, if there be fidelity to the truth as it is discerned, 
nothing more can be asked by the educator of highest aims. A young 
man who is earnestly laboring to prepare himself for an honorable and 
seneficent career in life may be disinterested in every sense in which that 
erm can be used with approbation. Our critics Lave been driven to a 
pretty pass, indeed, when the only ground upon which they can make a 
stand is the practical usefulness of technical studies. These gentlemen 
appear to have the same unnecessary fear of fruit which Macaulay, in 
one of his famous essays, attributes, probably with some exaggeration, 
as his custom was, to the old philosophers. Their concern is needless. 
So long as the students of technology bear themselves with the same 
earnestness and scholarly devotion which has characterized them as a body 
since this system of instruction was inaugurated, the cause of education 
will suffer no harm. There is a wonderful virtue in science to make and 
keep its disciples truthful and faithful ; and at no distant time it will be 
fully recognized by all teachers that the technical applications of science 
directly add to the value of science study by giving a more direct object to 
effort, and by heightening the pleasure which the pupil feels at each step 
of his scholarly progress. 
TECHNOLOGICAL SCHOOLS: THEIR PURPOSE AND ITS 
ACCOMPLISHMENT. 
BY ROBERT H. THURSTON, DIRECTOR SIBLEY COLLEGE, CORNELL 
UNIVERSITY, ITHACA, N. Y 
THE purpose of any institution of learning, whether of high or of 
low degree, is, if I understand it aright, to contribute an exactly defined 
amount to the education of the boy or girl, man or woman, who may 
enter its doors. It should have a prescribed plane and area of work ; 16 
should have a settled method ; it should be expected to apply this method, 
within its own field, to the presentation, by the best of known processes,