26; The Wisconsin Idea; The History of American education

As a phrase the Wisconsin idea is meant to express the quintessence of an American State University. The idea that it is the institution's chief function. To serve all the people of the state through research and through teaching. No other concept has been more intimately associated with the University of Wisconsin and has spread its name more widely across the United States and the world. To many the words communicate a shining educational ideal. Of the role a public university is to play within and for the community which supports it. At the same time. The blending of university and state interests inherent in the idea. Evokes uneasiness as it conjures up the loss of academic and institutional freedom and assertion of state power over the university. In Wisconsin. Such

dangerous were perceived early. In 1890 for. The university regions addressed themselves to the threat to academic freedom inherent in the Wisconsin idea. As regions of the university which over 100 instructors supported by nearly two millions of people who hold a vast diversity of view regarding the great questions which at present agitate the human mind. We could not for a moment think of recommending the dismissal or even the criticism of a teacher even if some of his opinions should in some quarters be regarded as visionary. Such a course would be equivalent to saying that no professor should teach anything. Which is not accepted by everybody is true. This would cut our curriculum down to very small proportions. Just for the regions.

Having the US affirm the independence of the teacher. The regents then defended the freedom of the research scholar in this ringing decoration which to this day. Is fast went to the stones of basketball. In all lines I think Adamic investigation. It is of the utmost importance. That the investigator should be absolutely free to follow the indications of truth where ever they may lead. Whatever may be the limitations which trammel inquiry elsewhere. We believe the Great State University of Wisconsin should ever encourage that continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which alone the truth can be found. List statement was and is but to Kittery appropriate for a public university committed to serve the state and its people collectively

in groups and as individuals. As an ideal. The Wisconsin idea expresses the dedication to independence in the direction of the universities was searchin teaching. And to service of the people. Who nurture it and sustain the institution. In its everyday reality the Wisconsin idea places current strains on the university's independence from not just latest intervention. As a state institution the University lives in the ever present tension. Of serving the state and its people without at the same time forfeiting that very freedom and independence which makes this service possible. The question may be raised. Why Wisconsin should lay a special claim to service. When other universities in other states and countries have adopted the same

ideal. The universities of medieval Europe sought to serve the papacy and Empire. By providing them with ecclesiastic gold and civil servants trained in law and theology. And was doctors and priests to minister to the ills of body and soul. Similarly the college justs in early America strong have to furnish magistrate said Minister S. In order to safeguard the continuance of Western style civilisation on the North American continent. For the same reason the University of Wisconsin was chartered thousand eight hundred forty eight. To offer instruction in science literature and the arts in law medicine and elementary instruction. In all of these instances. The universities were pledged to ensure through their activities. The survival of the political communities which had sponsored the creation. When then in the first

decades of the 20th century. The term Wisconsin idea gained currency in the state and abroad. It testified not so much to the appearance of a new university ideal or practice. As to the deliberate conscious or to kill ation and revival of an ancient tradition. This articulation came partly in response to the growth of the new graduate schools devoted to academic research and the training of scholars. And to a philosophy of scholarship then gaining ground among scientists. That knowledge was to be pursued for its own end. It contrasting philosophy asserting that knowledge was to be sought. For the sake of improving the lot of mankind took hold in Wisconsin and appropriated the state's name for its institutional embodiment.

This came about primarily for two reasons. One. The state's political climate of progressivism flourishing in the years of Robert La Follette governorship from 19 0 1 to 5:41. Evoked and encouraged the enthusiastic response of individual scholars to the government's goals for state service. To during his years as president from 1903 to 1918. Charles Van Hise correctly saw in the opportunities for service. The surest way of distinguishing the institution in the eyes of the legislature from the private colleges. With which it was competing for students. In doing this Van Hise transformed the school into a state university of world renown. Acting on the belief that knowledge must be carried to the people. He saw to it that the

boundaries of the campus became infect the boundaries of the state. Wisconsin's claim to the service ideal while not unique is nonetheless well grounded on developments of particular significance in and for Wisconsin. The Wisconsin idea is not an ad man's invention. It is a central ingredient of the history of the state and of the university. Though relate it to traditional notions of academic service to society. The Wisconsin idea or what might've been defined as such at the midpoint of the 900 century. Was no Ledley except that on the campus in Madison. Chancellor rip and his faculty defined that task as training Wisconsin's future intellectual and professional leaders in their classrooms. They had as yet no thoughts of outreach and extension. Their efforts

to. Where not all was every were readily appreciated. Complaints arose outside the university. That a college education was not accessible to the sons and daughters of Wisconsin's Formosan workers. And that the university did little to provide scientific training in the skills of farming and manufacturing. As the Southport Telegraph pointed out in 1850. The university did not serve the people off Wisconsin as widely as the editors expected from a state university. And I quote from the Southport Telegraph. We have no objection to a university with all its cost and its duty calls for appropriations from the state. If it can be made accessible to the masses of the youth of the state. The poor as well as the rich. We insist. That there should be a Department of Agriculture and mechanics.

As well as medicine and law. We know of no reason why the profession of Agriculture and the arts of peace which are exact and certain should not be as well provided for. And as much respected as the uncertain signs of medicine. And a profession that is doubt food utility. As that of the law. It was the people who paid the universities bills and they had a right to ask that the university compensate them or their children for the efforts they had expended in its behalf. Quote again. If the friends of this literary hierarchy wish to find favor for it in the eyes of those who would be compelled to support it. Let them make it an institution that shall be useful to the masses. And establish those departments which shall be open for the farmer and mechanic to enter.

As taxpayers. And intended beneficiaries. The people of Wisconsin earlier raised their voices to demand a university that would respond to their needs as they perceive them. The Wisconsin idea thus began as a call for help. It required a university willing and able to respond to that call. Yet for nearly three more decades the university appeared to look into the spot. The institution in Madison cast itself in the image of a New England college with the classics at the center of its curriculum. From the legislature came repeated warnings that the university did little of practical value for farmers mechanics or merchants. The farmers mechanics minus the merchants and teachers office constant represented in this legislature warned the committee have a right to asked that this

bequest of the government shell aid them in securing to themselves and that was terror. Such educational advantages as shell fit them for their pursuits in life. The fact of the strong feeling of opposition to the university among the people of the state will not be questioned. Another committee at that university had only itself to blame for this situation. It different in no essential from an ordinary college. And why the State University in name only. It did not perform the function of a state university which was to establish equality between the industrial and professional alternate classes of society. Not even the bounty of the federal government's land grant act of 1860 to change this picture. The regions did establish an Agricultural Department in 1866 but could not find a suitable

professor for two more years. Within the next 10 years this professor managed to produce all but one graduate. By 1884 the dissatisfactions with the university's record in agricultural education broke to the surface. A farmer's convention demanded the establishment of an agricultural college independent from the university. What was even more threatening to the equanimity of the Regents the advocates of a separate agricultural college received the support of William A. Henry. The University's Professor of Agriculture. It was then the regents rather than the faculty. Who rose to the occasion. Managed to sink the independent agricultural college project. And to involve the university in Wisconsin's agricultural

development. A region Committee. Consisting of Alicia Keys William F. violinists and HD hit. The lad to himself a farmer and a member of the Grange. Persuaded their colleagues to make the university the head of the state's agricultural system. And quote the chief source of scientific and agricultural information and instruction unquote. They literally forced Professor Henry to accept their plan. Curtius program up with search and experimentation. And devote his time to developing vocational short courses of agricultural instruction. When Assemblyman C. Easterbrook succeeded in having the legislature Grant $5000 to the regents for his series of farmers institutes. The plan to found a separate Agricultural College was did. The farmers institutes turned out as an

unqualified and immediate success. The short courses came to lyse when the back cok butterfat test for milk demonstrated the value of scientific agriculture. What is remarkable about this whole affair however is that this first involvement of the university in the life of the state away from the campus. And this anticipation of the viscount's an idea. Came as a result neither of faculty initiative nor student demands. It was rather forced upon the faculty by the regents to forestall unwanted competition. The faculty had not possessed a conception of what role the state university might play outside of Madison. Professor Henry had limited his work to experimentation and research. And he was pushed and prompted only with difficulty to interest himself in teaching farmers

and farm youth. In the 80s what was to become the Wisconsin idea was but a new fangled notion endorsed only the lock didn't leave by the faculty. During the closing decades of the 19th century. The university tried with varying success to assimilate the lessons taught by the establishment of the College of Agriculture. It had become apparent that a state university could not expect the continuing support of the people. If it carried on its business as a college intent only upon teaching its students on campus. It had to address itself directly to the economic and social problems of the people in their communities. This is what the foremost institutes and the short courses speak and to do. The institute's top form was how to store winter fodder in silos.

And a short course in dairying aided both the producers of cheese and butter. As well as a larger dairy foremost in transforming marketing methods and making a success of commercial farming. By 1889 the region's noted a change in the attitude of people towards the university. And I quote. The cold indifference not to say hostility has given place to an earnest solicitude and deep interest in the welfare of the university in every quarter of the state. The people have come to look upon it as their university and Joyce to see it taking rank with athirst educational institutions of the country and of quote. But this response was not nearly as universal as the regions try to make it appear. And it refers to the universities of the search and outreach rather than to its instruction.

The College of Agriculture a benefit at large rather than small producers and distributors. And neither the college nor the university had as yet succeeded in drawing many students to Madison. For the education of their sons and daughters. Many Wisconsinites look turret's the normal schools near their home communities. The university's popularity in the state derives from its with search not from its teaching. Outreach activities MIT with varying success in the early 90s. The university sponsored mechanics institutes and extensional lectures in the liberal arts. But by 1897 governor Scofield compared these efforts unthinkable a plea to the work of the College of Agriculture. The importance and value of the work being done in this Department of Agriculture is more directly noticeable

Perhaps then the work of any of the other departments. The mechanics institutes have been a flash in the pan. And they were discontinued by 1892. Scientific instruction and principles of mechanics was not what was desired by those who enrolled. And that quite particular demands were too divergent and various to accommodate in any given course. Extension lectures since so-called cultural feeded said also enjoyed a quick popularity in the early 1890s when they had been offered in response to local demands and with the intent to undercut competition from out of state universities and correspondence schools. Extension activities however soon proved too much of a drain on the time and energy of Madison professors. Audiences disenchanted with the often academic approach and an

enthusiastic bearing of the lecturer complained and stayed away. A high school principal who was reported as having told an instructor. If it is university policy to fast in lecture courses upon a community as you did. I want no more dealings with the university extension. Before 900 the university's outreach had been most successful and it offer technical advice and counsel to a specialized clientele. As for example the dairy farmers. Address do non-specialist groups as in the mechanics institutes or an academic Lexis on cultural subjects to general audiences. The university's outreach falter. Before the Wisconsin idea could take hold. This lesson had to be learned and assimilated.

The emergence of the fully developed Wisconsin idea after the turn of the century. Placed the service ideal at the center of the universities and Davis. This service was to extend far beyond the education of the state's young people in Madison. Said President Van Nuys in 1906. Anyone who has affected the bundle real situation knows that the university does not now nor has it for many years if ever existed. Slowly for the student at the present time. A very large fraction of the work of the university is done not for the students who are here in Madison but for that to want to do you know people in the state. The universities work to which Van Hise referred consisted of a search of the professors. Of the advice and technical information supplied by the universities of the searchers to the legislature state administrative

departments and interested group was tentative stuff the state's agricultural