producing prosperity than what Carlyle calls captains of labor. And it is quite possible, as it is eminently desirable, for many of our educated men to become captains of labor; but they must be trained for this and to some extent the proper training can be gained only by specializing. While one man in a thousand among college graduates may be fitted by the culture and discipline process of education to formulate general principles affecting the industry and prosperity of the country, ten times that number can be trained to put those principles into successful operation so as to enlarge the industry and open new fields of labor to multitudes of people who have neither had training nor have now the power to do more than work under trained direction. The resources of our country are almost unlimited, and the possibility of controlling the most desirable industries as well as the commerce of the world in the near future is so great as to amount almost to a certainty, if we will only train our students for the work that is to be done; but it will never be if we train our students only to be lawyers and doctors and ministers and stump speakers. That did well enough perhaps fifty years ago, when other countries were doing the same, and trade competition had not reached the gigantic proportions which to-day make it a world problem and not a mere local problem as it was. But it will not do in the coming years. We must train not merely leaders of thought, but leaders of action, men who can discover and explain principles and no less men who can put principles into concrete effectiveness. We do not want our work to be all Carlyle nor all Macaulay. We do not want to underestimate the spiritual side of man's nature, but we must not for

get the tremendous importance of the never-ending round of labor which the hundreds of millions of the human race for weal or for woe are, by the eternal laws of existence, compelled to tread. If the higher education can do anything to mitigate the sufferings and increase the joys of these millions, it should not neglect so grand an opportunity, so high a mission. And I know of no way in which it can discharge its duty in this respect more effectively than by saying to its scholars, for whom it has done its best, just what Jesus Christ said to his disciples before leaving them, "Go ye into all the world and preach the good news; teaching them what I have taught you."

I have spoken to-day of a class, educated men. Not that I care more for them than for others, but because the occasion seemed to make this the proper topic. I certainly feel the deepest interest in the welfare of all classes, and in none a deeper interest than in the very poor and illiterate and discouraged from whose ranks in these days so many courageous young men and women are coming to swell the ranks of the educated. And yet the educated men are not a class. They come from every grade of society and from every nationality. In Minnesota, at least, they come from the families of the poor far more than from the families of the rich. I have spoken in the interest of all classes; for whatever tends to elevate labor, to give it a nobler character, to put more intellect into it, and to give it greater success, tends to benefit everybody who works. Let us remember that we are one people with common interests, with a common destiny, I believe, a glorious destiny. Let us not be so selfish as to forget our neighbor, nor so dull as not to know who is our neighbor. Rather let us try to love our neigh

bor as ourselves; and so plan our own work as not only to secure success for ourselves, but also to avoid interfering with the welfare of our neighbor. Let us place the best things highest, and so let us place country above party, the nation above the state, the people above ourselves. Let us discuss all questions of public policy, of economic expediency, of industrial utility, without prejudice or bitterness. Let us do our duty faithfully as citizens, and each one of us seek that place and that work for which he is best fitted and in which he can do the most good. Then shall the great republic, founded by Washington and saved by Lincoln, be sure of a glorious immortality.

THE EDUCATION WHICH OUR COUNTRY

NEEDS *

I believe that different peoples require different education and that the same people may require different education at different stages of their development. There are peculiar conditions both of population and of development in this country, which justify departures in education from the lines of work which may be the most desirable in some other countries. I need mention only three.

First: Our population is not homogeneous. It is not changed merely from time to time by the death of the fathers and the succession of the children, but, on the contrary, it is constantly receiving accessions in large numbers from other countries and races, and other civilizations.

Second: Our people are all equal in political rights and political power. It is as necessary for the day laborer to know what is best for the country as it is for the man of any other position. In many countries political power is vested in a few, and only these few have anything to say as to national policy. Practically it makes no difference whatever to them whether the millions know anything about political science, history, sociology or not. They are simply to

*Delivered at the Twenty-seventh Annual Commencement of the University of Minnesota, June 1st, 1899.