Page:The Wisconsin idea (IA cu31924032449252).pdf/172

 grants know very little about the history of our country; in fact, hardly know what American citizenship is. They come in contact with the worst types of citizenship we have among us; they see the deference to wealth acquired by corruption, and the general carelessness of our ideals concerning government. They naturally form their ideals under these conditions. Is it any wonder that when nothing is done to cure political corruption, it should be as rife in these places as tuberculosis?

"When an immigrant comes to this shore, he has to wait five years before he is naturalized. In those five years what education in citizenship does he obtain? He sees the poor in the slums around him, he realizes the desperate fight for existence, he often finds that his only help in that strife is the political boss or the corrupt politician. He cannot help getting a perverted idea of citizenship. How can we fight this political tuberculosis and have any success? Does it seem possible that any industrial prosperity which comes from industrial education will be of any real use to us in the future, if conditions similar to these exist? If we strive to build up prosperity through industrial education without building up the health of the average man or average woman, and without building up true citizenship, we will not have really democratic education. Any industrial education without these other factors will be a dismal failure. We may pass all the resolutions we want to, but the only way to cure political corruption in our cities is to cure it in the way we are stamping out tuberculosis—by education."

The way in which the university will coöperate with industrial education may be of interest to students of industrial education who are now striving to meet the great problem of how to start a system of this sort. The following excerpt from the report which has now been enacted into law shows how it may be done:—