Mind and Hand: Manual Training the Chief Factor in Education

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Title: Mind and Hand: Manual Training the Chief Factor in Education
Author: Cunningham, Charles Henry
Language: English
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Transcriber’s Notes

Texts printed in italics in the source document have been transcribed
_between underscores_, bold face text =between equal signs=. Small
capitals have been changed to ALL CAPITALS.

More Transcriber’s Notes (also on the use of footnotes and endnotes)
may be found at the end of this text.

[Illustration: Yours faithfully

Charles Henry Ham]

MIND AND HAND

_MANUAL TRAINING
THE CHIEF FACTOR IN EDUCATION_

BY CHARLES H. HAM

BEING THE THIRD EDITION OF
“MANUAL TRAINING, THE SOLUTION
OF SOCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS”

ILLUSTRATED

[Illustration]

NEW YORK ⁛ CINCINNATI ⁛ CHICAGO
AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY

PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.

The work of which this is the third edition has been before the public
of this country, England, and all English-speaking countries since
1886--thirteen years. As it proposes a revolution in educational
methods, it was not to be presumed that it would escape criticism. But,
while the reviews of it have been numerous, they have, on the whole,
been very generous. My most radical postulates have, however, been
received by educators of the old régime with expressions of emphatic
dissent. In presenting the third edition of the work I have, therefore,
thought it wise to support the text with many high authorities in the
form of foot-notes. As was to be expected, my analysis of Greek history
and character provoked the severest criticism. It is regarded, indeed,
as conclusive evidence of gross ignorance of the entire subject. To meet
the charge of ignorance, I have made a large number of citations from
Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Plutarch, and others--authors
consulted, originally, in the preparation of this part of the work. I
may venture to observe, with due deference to those schoolmen who regard
the ancient Greeks as an ideal people, that I have searched
contemporaneous history in vain for evidence of the verity of this
claim; and I am hence constrained to adhere firmly to the extreme views
expressed in the text. And if these views are correct, it follows that
the passion for Greek models in education is not only a mental
dissipation, but a moral crime.

The other new notes are commended to the careful consideration of the
reader, as the fruit of my added years of research and reflection.

The Appendix contains a compilation, in tabular form, of all the facts
obtainable from original sources, through the aid of a skilled
statistician, showing the physical progress of Manual Training in this
country, and the chief countries of Europe, during the last fifteen
years.

In this edition the disguise of the first edition is dropped. In that
edition a certain school was referred to as “the Chicago school,”
whereas it was, in fact, purely an ideal school, which had no existence
except in the mind of the author. But it embodied educational theories
and ideas of Comenius and other great men which the author desired to
see adopted. That desire not having been realized, I content myself here
by quoting the observation of Oscar Browning as to the proneness of the
school-master to neglect opportunities: “The more we reflect on the
method of Comenius, the more shall we see that it is replete with
suggestiveness, and we shall feel surprised that so much wisdom can have
lain in the path of school-masters for two hundred and fifty years, and
that they never stooped to avail themselves of its treasures.”

It is proper to state that the terms “Kindergarten,” “Manual Training,”
and “The New Education,” are used throughout the work as equivalents.

The change of title to “Mind and Hand: Manual Training the Chief Factor
in Education”--is made in response to the common and just criticism of
the original title as too narrow for the broad treatment of the subject
which characterized the text.

The notes prepared especially for this edition will be found at the ends
of the chapters to which they respectively belong.

Wherever in this work apparent discrimination in favor of the male sex
is indulged through the employment of the pronoun “he,” “his,” or “him,”
rather than the corresponding feminine parts of speech, it is merely
apparent, not real; for I urge the co-education of the sexes as I urge
the co-education of Mind and Hand, because the woman is the complement
of the man as the hand is the complement of the mind. For I believe,
with John Stuart Mill, that “The true virtue of human beings is fitness
to live together as equals; and to enable them to live together as
equals, they must be associated in education”; and with Mary
Wollstonecraft, that “Virtue will never prevail in society till the
morals of both sexes are founded on reason, and till the affections
common to both are allowed their due strength by the discharge of mutual
duties.”

THE AUTHOR.

NEW YORK CITY, _March, 1900_.

PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION.

In 1879 I read a paper before the Chicago Philosophical Society on the
subject of “The Inventive Genius; or, an Epitome of Human Progress.” The
suggestion of the subject came from Mr. Charles J. Barnes, to whom I
desire in this public way to express my obligation for an introduction
to a profoundly interesting study, and one which has given a new
direction to all my thoughts.

At the conclusion of my labors in the preparation of the paper, I
realized the force of Bacon’s remark, that “the real and legitimate goal
of the sciences is the endowment of human life with new inventions and
riches.”

In tracing the course of invention and discovery, I found that I was
moving in the line of the progress of civilization. I found that the
great gulf between the savage and the civilized man is spanned by the
seven hand-tools--the axe, the saw, the plane, the hammer, the square,
the chisel, and the file--and that the modern machine-shop is an
aggregation of these tools driven by steam. I hence came to regard tools
as the great civilizing agency of the world. With Carlyle I said, “Man
without tools is nothing; with tools he is all.” From this point it was
only a step to the proposition that, It is through the arts alone that
all branches of learning find expression, and touch human life. Then I
said, The true definition of education is the development of all the
powers of man to the culminating point of action; and this power in the
concrete, the power to do some useful thing for man--this must be the
last analysis of educational truth.

These ideas are not new. They pervade Lord Bacon’s writings, are
admirably formulated in Rousseau’s “Emile,” and were restated by Mr.
Herbert Spencer twenty-five years ago. More than this, Comenius,
Pestalozzi, and Froebel attempted to carry them into practical operation
in the school-room, but with only a small measure of success. It remains
for the age of steel to show how powerless mere words are in the
presence of things, and so to emphasize the demand for a radical reform
in educational methods.

In 1880 my attention was drawn to the Manual Training Department of the
Washington University of St. Louis, Mo. In that school I found the
realization of Bacon’s aphorism, “Education is the cultivation of a just
and legitimate familiarity betwixt the mind and things.” I made an
exhaustive study of the methods of the St. Louis school, and reached the
conclusion that the philosopher’s stone in education had been
discovered. The columns of the _Chicago Tribune_ were opened to me, and
I wrote constantly on the subject for the ensuing three years. Meantime
the Chicago Manual-Training School (the first independent institution of
the kind in the world) was founded and opened, and the agitation spread
over the whole country, and indeed over the whole civilized world.

This work was commenced two years ago. I found the labor much more
arduous than I anticipated, and its completion has hence been delayed
far beyond the time originally contemplated for placing it in the hands
of a publisher. It may be summarized briefly as consisting of four
divisions: 1. A detailed description of the various laboratory class
processes, from the first lesson to the last, in the course of three
years. 2. An exhaustive argument _a posteriori_ and _a fortiori_ in
support of the proposition that tool practice is highly promotive of
intellectual growth, and in a still greater degree of the upbuilding of
character. 3. A sketch of the historical period, showing that the decay
of civilization and the destruction of social organisms have resulted
directly from defects in methods of education. 4. A brief sketch of the
history of manual training as an educational force.

To Dr. John D. Runkle, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the
founder of manual training as an educational institution in this
country, I cannot express too strongly my deep obligation for valuable
suggestions and constant encouragement. To him also am I indebted for
nearly all my illustrations, as also particularly for the excellent
portrait of M. Victor Della Vos, the founder of the new system of
education in Russia. I am also under obligations to Col. Augustus
Jacobson, a leading advocate of the new education, for constant counsel
and support, as also to Dr. Henry H. Belfield, Director of the Chicago
Manual Training School, and Mr. John S. Clark, of Boston.

Of the authors consulted, I cannot forbear mention of Lord Bacon,
Rousseau, and Herbert Spencer, whose great works constitute the
foundation of the new system of education according to nature. Nor can I
omit to acknowledge, with all the emphasis of which words are
susceptible, my obligations to Mr. Samuel Smiles. His works, from the
lives of the engineers to the shortest of his biographies, constitute an
inexhaustible treasure-house of facts from which I have drawn without
stint. Mr. Smiles has traced the springs of English greatness to their
true source, the workshop. I have attempted to continue his office by
showing that the workshop is a great educational force, and hence that
its educational element ought to be incorporated in the system of public
instruction.

The propositions of the following pages involve an educational
revolution destined to enlighten, and so ultimately to redeem manual
labor from the scorn of the ages of slavery, and, in the end, to render
the skilled laborer worthy of high social distinction, thus presenting
at once a solution not only of the industrial question but of the social
question.

CHARLES H. HAM.

INTRODUCTION TO THE THIRD EDITION

BY COL. FRANCIS W. PARKER, Principal of the Chicago Normal School.

The last twenty-five years have brought much of intrinsic value into
American education. Rapid increase in population and ever-changing
conditions have made imperative demands for schools adequate to
self-government.

The Kindergarten led the way to other substantial reforms in education,
and called attention to the actual needs of childhood. It proved
conclusively that hand-work is one of the dominant interests of the
child, and demonstrated the absolute dependence of brain-growth upon
Manual Training.

Manual Training is thus a direct outcome and sequence of the
Kindergarten. It supplies a need for which there is no substitute. The
belief that that which is begun in the Kindergarten should be continued
and expanded in all upper grades, forces itself more and more upon
thoughtful minds. Modern psychology brings its potent evidence as to the
tremendous value of the work of the hand in the building of the brain.
The trend of educational thought will always be in the direction of hand
training as a fundamental element in education.

Twenty-five years ago Manual Training was little known in this country
as a factor in education. Charles H. Ham, imbued with a fervid
patriotism, saw clearly that one of the intrinsic needs of education--an
absolute necessity in the evolution of a democracy--is the training of
the whole being, hand, brain, and soul, through educative work. He was,
indeed, a pioneer, beginning his work when there was very little
attention given to this important subject, and at a time, too, when it
was opposed by nearly all leading educators.

Mr. Ham, together with Colonel Jacobson, brought a strong influence to
bear upon the Commercial Club of Chicago, to found a Manual-Training
school. This school is now a department of the Chicago University and
has been in successful operation for thirteen years. There are in
Chicago to-day the Armour Institute, the Lewis Institute, and the Jewish
Manual-Training School, all prominent and well established. There is
also a high school for Manual Training in connection with the public
schools, and, best of all, there are indications which show that
hand-work is making its way throughout the grades.

Mr. Ham, without doubt, had a strong influence upon the late George M.
Pullman, which led him to provide, through his will, for a
Manual-Training school for the children of the city which he built.

Manual-Training schools are now maintained in almost every city in the
Union. Much remains to be done before Manual Training takes its true
place in education. The majority of these schools now in existence are
for boys who have graduated from the grammar school, which leaves the
years between six and fourteen with little or no hand-work. Thus the
most important period for brain-growth through hand activity is
neglected.

The future of Manual Training is to introduce hand-work as the principal
factor in the first four years’ work, to be continued in the four years
of the grammar grades, and correlated with all other subjects. Indeed,
the ideal is to introduce Manual Training in all courses of study, from
the Kindergarten to the University, inclusive.

The patrons of Cook County Normal School owe to Mr. Ham the
establishment of Manual Training in connection with the primary grades
of the school, nearly fifteen years ago; for without the practical aid
he gave it, it could not have been accomplished at that time. The
children--indeed, all the people of this country--owe him an immense
debt of gratitude for his heroic championship of hand-work.

Manual Training gives a true dignity to labor; it calls attention to the
place of hand-work in human progress, and as civilization goes on it
will have a higher and still higher place in the hearts of the people.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

THE IDEAL SCHOOL.

Its Situation. -- Its Tall Chimney. -- The Whir of Machinery and Sound
of the Sledge-hammer. -- The School that is to dignify Labor. -- The
Realization of the Dream of Bacon, Rousseau, Comenius, Pestalozzi, and
Froebel. -- The School that fitly represents the Age of Steel. Page 1

CHAPTER II.

THE MAJESTY OF TOOLS.

Tools the highest Text-books. -- How to Use them the Test of
Scholarship. -- They are the Gauge of Civilization. -- Carlyle’s
Apostrophe to them. -- The Typical Hand-tools. -- The Automata of the
Machine-shop. -- Through Tools Science and Art are United. -- The
Power of Tools. -- Their Educational Value. -- Without Tools Man is
Nothing; with Tools he is All. -- It is through the Arts alone that
Education touches Human Life. 7

CHAPTER III.

THE ENGINE ROOM.

The Corliss Engine. -- A Thing of Grace and Power. -- The Growth of
Two Thousand Years. -- From Hero to Watt. -- Its Duty as a
School-master. -- The Interdependence of the Ages. -- The School in
Epitome. 14

CHAPTER IV.

THE DRAWING-ROOM.

Twenty-four Boys bending over the Drawing-board. -- Analysis and
Synthesis in Drawing. -- Geometric Drawing. -- Pictorial Drawing. --
The Principles of Design. -- The Æsthetic in Art. -- The Fundamentals.
-- Object and Constructive Drawing. -- Drawing for the Exercises in
the Laboratories. -- The Educational Value of Drawing. -- The Language
of Drawing. -- Every Student an expert Draughtsman at the end of the
Course. 16

CHAPTER V.

THE CARPENTER’S LABORATORY.

The Natural History of the Pine-tree. -- How it is Converted into
Lumber, what it is Worth, and how it is Consumed. -- Where the
Students get Information. -- Working Drawings of the Lesson. -- Asking
Questions. -- The Instructor Executes the Lesson. -- Instruction in
the Use and Care of Tools. -- Twenty-four Boys Making Things. -- As
Busy as Bees. -- The Music of the Laboratory. -- The Self-reliance of
the Students. 21

CHAPTER VI.

THE WOOD-TURNING LABORATORY.

A Radical Change. -- From the Square to the Circle; from Angles to
Spherical, Cylindrical, and Eccentric Forms. -- The Rhythm of
Mechanics. -- The Potter’s Wheel of the Ancients and the Turning-
lathe. -- The Speculation of Holtzapffels on its Origin. -- The Greeks
as Turners. -- The Turners of the Middle Ages. -- George III. at the
Lathe. -- Maudsley’s Slide-rest, and the Revolution it wrought. -- The
Natural History of Black-walnut. -- The Practical Value of
Imagination. -- Disraeli’s Tribute to it; Sir Robert Peel’s Want of
it. -- The Laboratory animated by Steam. -- The Boys at the Lathes. --
Their Manly Bearing. -- The Lesson. 30

CHAPTER VII.

THE FOUNDING LABORATORY.

The Iron Age. -- Iron the King of Metals. -- Locke’s Apothegm. -- The
Moulder’s Art is Fundamental. -- History of Founding. -- Remains of
Bronze Castings in Egypt, Greece, and Assyria. -- Layard’s
Discoveries. -- The Greek Sculptors. -- The Colossal Statue of Apollo
at Rhodes. -- The Great Bells of History. -- Moulding and Casting a
Pulley. -- Description of the Process, Step by Step. -- The Furnace
Fire. -- Pouring the Hot Metal into the Moulds. -- A Pen Picture of
the Laboratory. -- Thus were the Hundred Gates of Babylon cast. --
Neglect of the Practical Arts by Herodotus. -- How Slavery has
degraded Labor. -- How Manual Training is to dignify it. 45

CHAPTER VIII.

THE FORGING LABORATORY.

Twenty-four manly-looking Boys with Sledge-hammer in Hand -- their
Muscle and Brawn. -- The Pride of Conscious Strength. -- The Story of
the Origin of an Empire. -- The Greater Empire of Mechanics. -- The
Smelter and the Smith the Bulwark of the British Government. -- Coal
-- its Modern Aspects; its Early History; Superstition regarding its
Use. -- Dud. Dudley utilizes “Pit-coal” for Smelting -- the Story of
his Struggles; his Imprisonment and Death. -- The English People
import their Pots and Kettles. -- “The Blast is on and the Forge Fire
sings.” -- The Lesson, first on the Black-board, then in Red-hot Iron
on the Anvil. -- Striking out the Anvil Chorus -- the Sparks fly
whizzing through the Air. -- The Mythological History of Iron. -- The
Smith in Feudal Times. -- His Versatility. -- History of Damascus
Steel. -- We should reverence the early Inventors. -- The Useful Arts
finer than the Fine Arts. -- The Ancient Smelter and Smith, and the
Students in the Manual-training School. 58

CHAPTER IX.

THE MACHINE-TOOL LABORATORY.

The Foundery and Smithy are Ancient, the Machine-tool Shop is Modern.
-- The Giant, Steam, reduced to Servitude. -- The Iron Lines of
Progress. -- They converge in the Shop; its triumphs from the
Watchspring to the Locomotive. -- The Applications of Iron in Art is
the Subject of Subjects. -- The Story of Invention is the History of
Civilization. -- The Machine-maker and the Tool-maker are the best
Friends of Man. -- Watt’s Great Conception waited for Automatic Tools;
their Accuracy. -- The Hand-made and the Machine-made Watch. -- The
Elgin (Illinois) Watch Factory. -- The Interdependence of the Arts. --
The making of a Suit of Clothes. -- The Anteroom of the Machine-tool
Laboratory. -- Chipping and Filing. -- The File-cutter. -- The Poverty
of Words as compared with Things. -- The Graduating Project. -- The
Vision of the Instructor. 78

CHAPTER X.

MANUAL AND MENTAL TRAINING COMBINED.

The new Education is all-sided -- its Effect. -- A Harmonious
Development of the Whole Being. -- Examination for Admission to the
Chicago School. -- List of Questions in Arithmetic, Geography, and
Language. -- The Curriculum. -- The Alternation of Manual and Mental
Exercises. -- The Demand for Scientific Education -- its Effect. --
Ambition to be useful. 105

CHAPTER XI.

THE INTELLECTUAL EFFECT OF MANUAL TRAINING.

Intelligence is the Basis of Character. -- The more Practical the
Intelligence the Higher the Development of Character. -- The use of
Tools quickens the Intellect. -- Making Things rouses the Attention,
sharpens the Observation, and steadies the Judgment. -- History of
Inventions in England, 1740-1840. -- Poor, Ignorant Apprentices become
learned Men. -- Cort, Huntsman, Mushet, Neilson, Stephenson, and Watt.
-- The Union of Books and Tools. -- Results at Rotterdam, Holland; at
Moscow, Russia; at Komotau, Bohemia; and at St. Louis, Mo. -- The
Consideration of Overwhelming Import. 113

CHAPTER XII.

THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN A NECESSITY.

The Difference between Ancient and Modern Systems of Education. --
Plato Blinded by Half-truths. -- No place in the present order of
things for Dogmatisms. -- Education begins at Birth. -- The Influence
of Women extends from the Cradle to the Grave. -- The Crime of Crimes.
-- Neglect to educate Woman. -- The Superiority of Women over Men as
Teachers. -- Froebel discovered it. -- Nature designed Woman to Teach;
hence the Importance of Fitting her for her Highest Destiny. 123

CHAPTER XIII.

THE MORAL EFFECT OF MANUAL TRAINING.

Mental Impulses are often Vicious; but the Exertion of Physical Power
in the Arts is always Beneficent -- hence Manual Training tends to
correct vicious mental Impulses. -- Every mental Impression produces a
moral Effect. -- All Training is Moral as well as Mental. --
Selfishness is total Depravity; but Selfishness has been Deified under
the name of Prudence. -- Napoleon an Example of Selfishness. -- The
End of Selfishness is Disaster; but Prevailing Systems of Education
promote Selfishness. -- The Modern City an Illustration of
Selfishness. -- The Ancient City. -- Existing Systems of Education
Negatively Wrong. -- Manual Training supplies the lacking Element. --
The Objective must take the Place of the Subjective in Education. --
Words without Acts are as dead as Faith without Works. 130

CHAPTER XIV.

THE MIND AND THE HAND.

The Mind and the Hand are Allies; the Mind speculates, the Hand tests
its Speculations in Things. -- The Hand explodes the Errors of the
Mind -- it searches after Truth and finds it in Things. -- Mental
Errors are subtile; they elude us, but the False in Things stands
self-exposed. -- The Hand is the Mind’s Moral Rudder. -- The Organ of
Touch the most Wonderful of the Senses; all the Others are Passive;
it alone is Active. -- Sir Charles Bell’s Discovery of a “Muscular
Sense.” -- Dr. Henry Maudsley on the Muscular Sense. -- The Hand
influences the Brain. -- Connected Thought impossible without
Language, and Language dependent upon Objects; and all Artificial
Objects are the Work of the Hand. -- Progress is therefore the Imprint
of the Hand upon Matter in Art. -- The Hand is nearer the Brain than
are the Eye and the Ear. -- The Marvellous Works of the Hand. 144

CHAPTER XV.

THE POWER OF THE TRAINED HAND.

The Legend of Adam and the Stick with which he subdued the Animals. --
The Stick is the Symbol of Power, and only the Hand can wield it. --
The Hand imprisons Steam and Electricity, and keeps them at hard
Labor. -- The Destitution of England Two Hundred and Fifty Years ago:
a Pen Picture. -- The Transformation wrought by the Hand: a Pen
Picture. -- It is due, not to Men who make Laws, but to Men who make
Things. -- The Scientist and the Inventor are the World’s Benefactors.
-- A Parallel between the Right Honorable William E. Gladstone and Sir
Henry Bessemer. -- Mr. Gladstone a Man of Ideas, Mr. Bessemer a Man of
Deeds. -- The Value of the latter’s Inventions. -- Mr. Gladstone
represents the Old Education, Mr. Bessemer the New. 157

CHAPTER XVI.

THE INVENTORS, CIVIL ENGINEERS, AND MECHANICS OF ENGLAND, AND ENGLISH
PROGRESS.

A Trade is better than a Profession. -- The Railway, Telegraph, and
Steamship are more Potent than the Lawyer, Doctor, and Priest. --
Book-makers writing the Lives of the Inventors of last Century. -- The
Workshop to be the Scene of the Greatest Triumphs of Man. -- The Civil
Engineers of England the Heroes of English Progress. -- The Life of
James Brindley, the Canal-maker; his Struggles and Poverty. -- The
Roll of Honor. -- Mr. Gladstone’s Significant Admission that English
Triumphs in Science and Art were won without Government Aid. --
Disregarding the Common-sense of the Savage, Legislators have chosen
to learn of Plato, who declared that “The Useful Arts are Degrading.”
-- How Improvements in the Arts have been met by Ignorant Opposition.
-- The Power wielded by the Mechanic. 170

CHAPTER XVII.

POWER OF STEAM AND CONTEMPT OF ARTISANS.

A few Million People now wield twice as much Industrial Power as all
the People on the Globe exerted a Hundred Years ago. -- A Revolution
wrought, not by the Schools and Colleges, but by the Mechanic. -- The
Union between Science and Art prevented by the Speculative Philosophy
of the Middle Ages. -- Statesmen, Lawyers, Littérateurs, Poets, and
Artists more highly esteemed than Civil Engineers, Mechanics, and
Artisans. -- The Refugee Artisan a Power in England, the Refugee
Politician worthless. -- Prejudice against the Artisan Class shown by
Mr. Galton in his Work on “Hereditary Genius.” -- The Influence of
Slavery: it has lasted Thousands of Years, and still Survives. 184

CHAPTER XVIII.

AUTOMATIC CONTRASTED WITH SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION.

The Past tyrannizes over the Present by Interposing the Stolid
Resistance of Habit. -- Habits of Thought like Habits of the Body
become Automatic. -- There is much Freedom of Speech but very little
Freedom of Thought: Habit, Tradition, and Reverence for Antiquity
forbid it. -- The Schools educate Automatically. -- A glaring Defect
of the Schools shown by Mr. John S. Clark, of Boston. -- The Automatic
Character of the Popular System of Education shown by the Quincy
(Mass.) Experiment. -- Several Intelligent Opinions to the same
Effect. -- The Public Schools as an Industrial Agency a Failure. -- A
Conclusive Evidence of the Automatic and Superficial Character of
prevailing Methods of Education in the Schools of a large City. -- The
Views of Colonel Francis W. Parker. -- Scientific Education is found
in the Kindergarten and the Manual-training School. -- “The
Cultivation of Familiarity betwixt the Mind and Things.” 191

CHAPTER XIX.

AUTOMATIC CONTRASTED WITH SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION -- _Continued._

The Failure of Education in America shown by Statistics of Railway and
Mercantile Disasters. -- Shrinkage of Railway Values and Failures of
Merchants. -- Only Three per Cent. of those entering Mercantile Life
achieve Success. -- Business Enterprises conducted by Guess: Cause,
Unscientific Education. -- Savage Training is better because
Objective. -- Mr. Foley, late of the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, on the Scientific Character of Manual Education -- Prof.
Goss, of Purdue University, to the same Effect -- also Dr. Belfield,
of the Chicago Manual-training School. -- Students love the Laboratory
Exercises. -- Demoralizing Effect of Unscientific Training. -- The
Failure of Justice and Legislation as contrasted with the Success of
Civil Engineering and Architecture. 210

CHAPTER XX.

AUTOMATIC CONTRASTED WITH SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION -- _Continued._

The Training of the Merchant, the Lawyer, the Judge, and the
Legislator contrasted with that of the Artisan. -- The Training of the
Merchant makes him Selfish, and Selfishness breeds Dishonesty. --
Professional Men become Speculative Philosophers, and test their
Speculations by Consciousness. -- The Artisan forgets Self in the
Study of Things. -- The Search after Truth. -- The Story of Palissy.
-- The Hero is the Normal Man; those who Marvel at his Acts are
abnormally Developed. -- Savonarola and John Brown. -- The New England
System of Education contrasted with that of the South. -- American
Statesmanship -- its Failure in an Educational Point of View. -- Why
the State Provides for Education; to protect Property. -- The British
Government and the Land Question. -- The Thoroughness of the Training
given by Schools of Mechanic Art and Institutes of Technology as shown
in Things. -- Story of the Emperor of Germany and the Needle-maker. --
The Iron Bridge lasts a Century, the Act of the Legislator wears out
in a Year. -- The Cause of the Failures of Justice and Legislation. --
The best Act is the Act that Repeals a Law; but the Act of the
Inventor is never Repealed. -- Things the Source and Issue of Ideas;
hence the Necessity of Training in the Arts. 229

CHAPTER XXI.

EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM -- HISTORIC.

_EGYPT AND GREECE._

Fundamental Propositions. -- Selfishness the Source of Social Evil;
Subjective Education the Source of Selfishness and the Cause of
Contempt of Labor; and Social Disintegration the Result of Contempt of
Labor and the Useful Arts. -- The First Class-distinction -- the
Strongest Man ruled; his First Rival, the Ingenious Man. --
Superstition. -- The Castes of India and Egypt -- how came they about?
-- Egyptian Education based on Selfishness. -- Rise of Egypt -- her
Career; her Fall; Analysis thereof. -- She Typifies all the Early
Nations: Force and Rapacity above, Chains and Slavery below. -- Their
Education consisted of Selfish Maxims for the Government of the Many
by the Few, and Government meant the Appropriation of the Products of
Labor. -- Analysis of Greek Character -- its Savage Characteristics.
-- Greek Treachery and Cruelty. -- Greek Venality. -- Her Orators
accepted Bribes. -- Responsibility of Greek Education and Philosophy
for the Ruin of Greek Civilization. -- Rectitude wholly left out of
her Scheme of Education. -- Plato’s Contempt of Matter: it led to
Contempt of Man and all his Works. -- Greek Education consisted of
Rhetoric and Logic; all Useful Things were hence held in Contempt. 247

CHAPTER XXII.

EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM -- HISTORIC.

_ROME._

Vigor of the Early Romans -- their Virtues and Vices; their Rigorous
Laws; their Defective Education; their Contempt of Labor. -- Slavery:
its Horrors and Brutalizing Influence. -- Education Confined to the
Arts of Politics and War; it transformed Courage into Cruelty, and
Fortitude into Stoicism. -- Robbery and Bribery. -- The Vices of
Greece and Carthage imported into Rome. -- Slaves construct all the
great Public Works; they Revolt, and the Legions Slaughter them. --
The Gothic Invasion. -- Rome Falls. -- False Philosophy and
Superficial Education promoted Selfishness. -- Deification of
Abstractions, and Scorn of Men and Things. -- Universal Moral
Degradation. -- Neglect of Honest Men and Promotion of Demagogues. --
The Decline of Morals and Growth of Literature. -- Darwin’s Law of
Reversion, through Selfishness to Savagery. -- Contest between the
Rich and the Poor. -- Logic, Rhetoric, and Ruin. 263

CHAPTER XXIII.

EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM -- HISTORIC.

_THE MIDDLE AGES._

The Trinity upon which Civilization Rests: Justice, the Arts, and
Labor; and these Depend upon Scientific Education. -- Reason of the
Failure of Theodoric and Charlemagne to Reconstruct the Pagan
Civilization. -- Contempt of Man. -- Serfdom. -- The Vices of the
Time: False Philosophy, an Odious Social Caste, and Ignorance. -- The
Splendid Career of the Moors in Spain, in Contrast. -- Effect upon
Spain of the Expulsion of the Moors. -- The Repressive Force of
Authority and the Atrocious Philosophy of Contempt of Man. -- The
Rule of Italy -- a Menace and a Sneer. -- The work of Regeneration. --
The Crusades. -- The Destruction of Feudalism. -- The Invention of
Printing. -- The Discovery of America. -- Investigation. --
Discoveries in Science and Art. 278

CHAPTER XXIV.

EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM -- HISTORIC.

_EUROPE._

The Standing Army a Legacy of Evil from the Middle Ages. -- It is the
Controlling Feature of the European Situation. -- Its Collateral
Evils: Wars and Debts. -- The Debts of Europe Represent a Series of
Colossal Crimes against the People; with the Armies and Navies they
Absorb the Bulk of the Annual Revenue. -- The People Fleeing from
them. -- They Threaten Bankruptcy; they Prevent Education. -- Germany,
the best-educated Nation in Europe, losing most by Emigration. -- Her
People will not Endure the Standing Army. -- The Folly of the European
International Policy of Hate. -- It is Possible for Europe to Restore
to Productive Employments 3,000,000 of men, to place at the Disposal
of her Educators $700,000,000, instead of $70,000,000 per annum, and
to pay her National Debts in Fifty-four Years, simply by the
Disbandment of her Armies and Navies. -- The Armament of Europe Stands
in the Way of Universal Education and of Universal Industrial
Prosperity. -- Standing Armies the Last Analysis of Selfishness; they
are Coeval with the Revival during the Middle Ages of the Greco-Roman
Subjective Methods of Education. -- They must go out when the New
Education comes in. 289

CHAPTER XXV.

EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM -- HISTORIC.

_AMERICA._

An Old Civilization in a New Country. -- Old Methods in a New System
of Schools. -- Sordid Views of Education. -- The highest Aim
Money-getting. -- Herbert Spencer on the English Schools. -- Same
Defects in the American Schools. -- Maxims of Selfishness. -- The
Cultivation of Avarice. -- Political Incongruities. -- Negroes
escaping from Slavery called Fugitives from Justice. -- The Results of
Subjective Educational Processes. -- Climatic Influences alone saved
America from becoming a Slave Empire. -- Illiteracy. -- Abnormal
Growth of Cities. -- Failure of Justice. -- Defects of Education shown
in Reckless and Corrupt Legislation. -- Waste of an Empire of Public
Land. -- Henry D. Lloyd’s History of Congressional Land Grants. -- The
Growth and Power of Corporations. -- The Origin of large Fortunes,
Speculations. -- Old Social Forces producing old Social Evils. --
Still America is the Hope of the World. -- The Right of Suffrage in
the United States justifies the Sentiment of Patriotism. -- Let
Suffrage be made Intelligent and Virtuous, and all Social Evils will
yield to it; and all the Wealth of the Country is subject to the Draft
of the Ballot for Education. -- The Hope of Social Reform depends upon
a complete Educational Revolution. 307

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE MANUAL ELEMENT IN EDUCATION IN 1884.

The Kindergarten and the Manual-training School one in Principle. --
Russia solved the Problem of Tool Instruction by Laboratory Processes.
-- The Initiatory Step by M. Victor Della-Vos, Director of the
Imperial Technical School of Moscow in 1868. -- Statement of Director
Della-Vos as to the Origin, Progress, and Results of the New System of
Training. -- Its Introduction into all the Technical Schools of
Russia. -- Dr. John D. Runkle, President of the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, recommends the Russian System in 1876, and it
is adopted. -- Statement of Dr. Runkle as to how he was led to the
adoption of the Russian System. -- Dr. Woodward, of Washington
University, St. Louis, Mo., establishes the second School in this
Country. -- His Historical Note in the Prospectus of 1882-83. -- First
Class graduated 1883. -- Manual Training in the Agricultural Colleges.
-- In Boston, in New Haven, in Baltimore, in San Francisco, and other
places. -- Manual Training at the Meeting of the National Educational
Association, 1884. -- Kindergarten and Manual-training Exhibits. --
Prof. Felix Adler’s School in New York City -- the most Comprehensive
School in the World. -- The Chicago Manual-training School the first
Independent Institution of the Kind -- its Inception; its
Incorporation; its Opening. Its Director, Dr. Belfield. -- His
Inaugural Address. -- Manual Training in the Public Schools of
Philadelphia. -- Manual Training in twenty-four States. --
Revolutionizing a Texas College. -- Local Option Law in Massachusetts.
-- Department of Domestic Economy in the Iowa Agricultural College. --
Manual Training in Tennessee, in the University of Michigan, in the
National Educational Association, in Ohio. -- The Toledo School for
both Sexes. -- The Importance of the Education of Woman. -- The Slöjd
Schools of Europe. 328

CHAPTER XXVII.

PROGRESS OF THE NEW EDUCATION -- 1883-1899.

Educational Revolution in 1883-4. -- Urgent Demand for Reform. --
Existing Schools denounced as Superficial, their Methods as Automatic,
their System as a Mixture of Cram and Smatter. -- The Controversy
between the School-master of the Old Régime and the Reformer. -- The
Leaders of the Movement, Col. Parker, Dr. MacAlister, and others --
followers of Rousseau, Bacon, and Spencer. -- “The End of Man is an
Action, not a Thought.” -- The Conservative Teachers fall into Line.
-- The New Education becomes an Aggressive Force pushing on to
Victory. -- The Physical Progress of Manual Training -- its Quality
not equal to its Extent. -- The New System of Training confided to
Teachers of the Old Régime. -- Ideal Teachers hard to find. --
Teachers willing to Learn should be Encouraged. -- The effects of
Manual Training long antedate its Introduction to the Schools. --
Bacon’s Definition of Education. -- Stephenson and the Value of
Hand-work. -- Manual Training is the union of Thought and Action. --
It is the antithesis of the Greek methods, which exalted Abstractions
and debased Things. -- The Rule of Comenius and the Injunction of
Rousseau -- few Teachers comprehend them. -- The Employment of the
Hands in the Arts is more highly Educative than the acquisition of the
rules of Reading and Arithmetic. -- What the Locomotive has
accomplished for Man. -- Education must be equal, and Social and
Political Equality will follow. -- The foundation of the New Education
is the Baconian Philosophy as stated by Macaulay. -- Use and Service
are the Twin-ministers of Human Progress. -- Definitions of Genius. --
Attention. -- Sir Henry Maine. -- Manual Training relates to all the
Arts of Life. -- Mind and Hand. -- Newton and the Apple. -- The Sense
of Touch resides in the Hand. -- Robert Seidel on Familiarity with
Objects. -- Material Progress the basis of Spiritual Growth. -- Plato
and the Divine Dialogues. -- Poverty, Society, and the Useful Arts. --
Selfishness must give way to Altruism. -- The Struggle of Life. -- The
Progress of the Arts and the final Regeneration of the Race. -- The
Arts that make Life sweet and beautiful. -- The final Fundamental
Educational Ideal is Universality. -- Comenius’s definition of Schools
-- the Workshops of Humanity. -- That one Man should die ignorant, who
had capacity for Knowledge, is a Tragedy. -- Mental and Manual
Exercises to be rendered homogeneous in the School of the Future. --
The hero of the Ideal School. 370

APPENDIX 387

INDEX 427

ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAGE

PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR _Frontispiece_

THE LABORATORY OF CARPENTRY 23

COURSE IN THE LABORATORY OF CARPENTRY 27

THE WOOD-TURNING LABORATORY 31

COURSE IN THE WOOD-TURNING AND PATTERN LABORATORY 41

THE FOUNDING LABORATORY 49

COURSE IN THE FOUNDING LABORATORY 53

THE FORGING LABORATORY 59

COURSE IN THE FORGING LABORATORY 67

THE MACHINE-TOOL LABORATORY 79

THE CHIPPING, FILING, AND FITTING LABORATORY 89

COURSE IN THE MACHINE-TOOL LABORATORY 95

THE STUDENTS WITH THEIR BOOKS 107

M. VICTOR DELLA-VOS, THE FOUNDER OF MANUAL TRAINING IN RUSSIA 329

DR. JOHN D. RUNKLE, THE FOUNDER OF MANUAL TRAINING IN THE UNITED
STATES 335

POWER.

“_His tongue was framed to music,
And his hand was armed with skill;
His face was the mould of beauty,
And his heart the throne of will._”

--EMERSON.

MIND AND HAND:

MANUAL TRAINING THE CHIEF FACTOR IN EDUCATION.

CHAPTER I.

THE IDEAL SCHOOL.

The Ideal School is an institution which develops and trains to
usefulness the moral, physical, and intellectual powers of man. It is
what Comenius called Humanity’s workshop, and in America it is becoming
the natural center of the Public School system. The building,
well-designed for its occupancy, is large, airy, open to the light on
every side, amply provided with all appliances requisite for instruction
in the arts and sciences, and finished interiorly and exteriorly in the
highest style of useful and beautiful architectural effects. The
distinguishing characteristic of the Ideal School building is its
chimney, which rises far above the roof, from whose tall stack a column
of smoke issues, and the hum and whir of machinery is heard, and the
heavy thud of the sledge-hammer resounding on the anvil, smites the ear.

It is, then, a factory rather than a school?

No. It is a school; the school of the future; the school that is to
dignify labor; the school that is to generate power; the school where
every sound contributes to the harmony of development, where the brain
informs the muscle, where thought directs every blow, where the mind,
the eye, and the hand constitute an invincible triple alliance. This is
the school that Locke dreamed of, that Bacon wished for, that Rousseau
described, and that Comenius, Pestalozzi, and Froebel struggled in vain
to establish.

It is, then, science and the arts in apotheosis. For if it be, as
claimed, the Ideal school, it is destined to lift the veil from the face
of Nature, to reveal her most precious secrets, and to divert to man’s
use all her treasures.

Yes; it is to other schools what the diamond is to other precious
stones--the last analysis of educational thought. It is the
philosopher’s stone in education; the incarnated dream of the alchemist,
which dissolved earth, air, and water into their original elements, and
recombined them to compass man’s immortality. Through it that which has
hitherto been impossible is to become a potential reality.

In this building which resembles a factory or machine-shop an
educational revolution is to be wrought. Education is to be rescued from
the domination of mediæval ideas, relieved of the enervating influence
of Grecian æstheticism, and confided to the scientific direction of the
followers of Bacon, whose philosophy is common sense and its law,
progress. The philosophy of Plato left in its wake a long line of
abstract propositions, decayed civilizations, and ruined cities, while
the philosophy of Bacon, in the language of Macaulay, “has lengthened
life; mitigated pain; extinguished diseases; increased the fertility of
the soil; given new securities to the mariner; spanned great rivers and
estuaries with bridges of form unknown to our fathers; guided the
thunderbolt innocuously from heaven to earth; lighted up the night with
the splendor of the day; extended the range of the human vision;
multiplied the power of the human muscles; accelerated motion;
annihilated distance; facilitated intercourse, correspondence, all
friendly offices, all dispatch of business; enabled man to descend to
the depths of the sea, to soar into the air, to penetrate securely into
the noxious recesses of the earth, to traverse the land in cars which
whirl along without horses, and the ocean in ships which run ten knots
an hour against the wind.”

It is this beneficent work of Bacon that the Ideal school is to
continue--the work of demonstrating to the world that the most useful
thing is the most beautiful thing--discarding Plato, the apostle of idle
speculation, and exalting Bacon, the minister of use.

In laying the foundations of education in labor it is dignified and
education is ennobled. In such a union there is honor and strength, and
long life to our institutions. For the permanence of the civil compact
in this country, as in other countries, depends less upon a wide
diffusion of unassimilated and undigested intelligence than upon such a
thorough, practical education of the masses in the arts and sciences as
shall enable them to secure, and qualify them to store up, a fair share
of the aggregate produce of labor.

If this school shall appear like a hive of industry, let the reader not
be deceived. Its main purpose, intellectual development, is never lost
sight of fora moment. It is founded on labor, which, being the most
sacred of human functions, is the most useful of educational methods.
It is a system of object-teaching--teaching through things instead of
through signs of things. It is the embodiment of Bacon’s
aphorism--“Education is the cultivation of a just and legitimate
familiarity betwixt the mind and things.” The students draw pictures of
things, and then fashion them into things at the forge, the bench, and
the turning-lathe; not mainly that they may enter machine-shops, and
with greater facility make similar things, but that they may become
stronger intellectually and morally; that they may attain a wider range
of mental vision, a more varied power of expression, and so be better
able to solve the problems of life when they shall enter upon the stage
of practical activity.

It is a theory of this school that in the processes of education the
idea should never be isolated from the object it represents;[E1] (1)
because the idea, being the reflex perception or shadow of the object,
is less clearly defined than the object itself, and (2) because joining
the object and the idea intensifies the impression. Separated from its
object the idea is unreal, a phantasm. The object is the flesh, blood,
bones, and nerves of the idea. Without its body the idea is as impotent
as the jet of steam that rises from the surface of boiling water and
loses itself in the air. But unite it to its object and it becomes the
vital spark, the animating force, the Promethean fire. Thus steam
converts the Corliss engine--a huge mass of lifeless iron--into a thing
of grace, of beauty, and of resistless power. Suppose the teacher, for
example, desires to convey to the mind of a child having no knowledge of
form an impression of the shape of the earth; he says, “It is globular.”
The child’s face expresses nothing because there is in its mind no
conception of the object represented by the word globular. The teacher
says, “It is a sphere,” with no better success. He adds, “A sphere is a
body bounded by a surface, every point of which is equally distant from
a point within called the centre.” The child’s face is still
expressionless. The teacher takes a handful of moist clay and moulds it
into the form of a sphere, and exhibiting it, says, “The earth is like
this.” The child claps its hands, utters a cry of delight, and exclaims,
“It is round like a ball!”

This is an illustration of the triumph of object-teaching, the method
alike of the kindergarten and the manual training school. As the child
is father of the man, so the kindergarten is father of the manual
training school. The kindergarten comes first in the order of
development, and leads logically to the manual training school. The same
principle underlies both. In both it is sought to generate power by
dealing with things in connection with ideas. Both have common methods
of instruction, and they should be adapted to the whole period of school
life, and applied to all schools.

The Ideal school, most precisely representative of the present age--the
age of science--is dedicated to a homogeneous system of mental and
manual training, to the generation of power, to the development of true
manhood. And above all, this school is destined to unite in indissoluble
bonds science and art, and so to confer upon labor the highest and
justest dignity--that of doing and responsibility. The reason of the
degradation of labor was admirably stated by America’s most
distinguished educational reformer, the late Mr. Horace Mann, who said,
“The labor of the world has been performed by ignorant men, by classes
doomed to ignorance from sire to son; by the bondmen and bondwomen of
the Jews, by the helots of Sparta, by the captives who passed under the
Roman yoke, and by the villeins and serfs and slaves of more modern
times.”

When it shall have been demonstrated that the highest degree of
education results from combining manual with intellectual training, the
laborer will feel the pride of a genuine triumph; for the consciousness
that every thought-impelled blow educates him, and so raises him in the
scale of manhood, will nerve his arm, and fire his brain with hope and
courage.

[E1] “And the attempt to convey scientific conceptions without the
appeal to observation, which can alone give such conceptions firmness
and reality, appears to me to be in direct antagonism to the
fundamental principles of scientific education.”--“Physiography,”
[Preface], p. vii. By T. H. Huxley, F.R.S. New York: D. Appleton &
Co., 1878.

This theory is the antithesis of that of Plato, namely; “that the
simplest and purest way of examining things, is to pursue every
particular by thought alone, without offering to support our
meditation by seeing or backing our reasonings by any other corporal
sense.”--Plato’s “Divine Dialogues,” p. 180. London: S. Cornish & Co.,
1839.

CHAPTER II.

THE MAJESTY OF TOOLS.

Tools the Highest Text-books. -- How to Use them the Test of
Scholarship. -- They are the Gauge of Civilization. -- Carlyle’s
Apostrophe to them. -- The Typical Hand-tools. -- The Automata of the
Machine-shop. -- Through Tools Science and Art are United. -- The
Power of Tools. -- Their Educational Value. -- Without Tools Man is
Nothing; with Tools he is All. -- It is through the Arts alone that
Education touches Human Life.

Sacred to the majesty of tools might be appropriately inscribed over the
entrance to this Ideal school; for its highest text-books are tools, and
how to use them most intelligently is the test of scholarship. To
realize the potency of tools it is only necessary to contrast the two
states of man--the one without tools, the other with tools. See him in
the first state, naked, shivering with cold, now hiding away from the
beasts in caves, and now, famished and despairing, gaunt and
hollow-eyed, creeping stealthily like a panther upon his prey. Then see
him in the poetic, graphic apostrophe of Carlyle:--“Man is a tool-using
animal. He can use tools, can devise tools; with these the granite
mountains melt into light dust before him; he kneads iron as if it were
soft paste; seas are his smooth highway, winds and fire his unwearying
steeds. Nowhere do you find him without tools; without tools he is
nothing, with tools he is all!”

What a picture of the influence of tools upon civilization! It is
through the use of tools that man has reached the place of absolute
supremacy among animals. As he increases his stock of tools he recedes
from the state of savagery. The great gulf between the aboriginal savage
and the civilized man is spanned by the seven hand-tools--the axe, the
saw, the plane, the hammer, the square, the chisel, and the file. These
are the universal tools of the arts, and the modern machine-shop is an
aggregation of them rendered automatic and driven by steam.

The ancients constructed automata which were exceedingly ingenious. In
the statues that could walk and talk, the Chinese puppets and the
marionettes of the Greeks there was a hint of the modern automatic
tools, which, driven by steam, fashion with equal accuracy the delicate
parts of the watch and the huge segments of the marine engine. The
ancients knew more of science than of art. They were familiar with the
power of steam, but knew not how to apply it to the wants of man. They
knew that steam would turn a spit, but they had not a sufficient
knowledge of art to convert the power they had discovered into a monster
of force, and train it to bear the burdens of commerce. They never
thought to apply the jet of steam used to turn a spit to great automatic
machines, and to fit into them saws and files, and needles and drills,
and gimlets and planes, and compel them to do the work of thousands of
men. But this is precisely what the modern mechanic has accomplished. In
making a slave of steam, science and art have combined to free mankind.

We marvel at the dulness of the ancients as shown in their failure to
utilize in the useful arts the discoveries of science. That they should
have studied the stars over their heads to the neglect of the earth
under their feet is incomprehensible to the modern mind. But will not
future generations marvel at us? Is it not an astounding fact that, with
a knowledge of the tremendous influence of tools upon the destiny of the
human race so graphically depicted by Carlyle, the nations have been so
slow in incorporating tool-practice into educational methods? The
distinguishing features of modern civilization sprang as definitively
from cunningly devised and skilfully handled tools as any effect from
its cause. And yet the world’s statesmen have failed to discover the
value of tool-practice as an educational agency. The face of the globe
has been transformed by the union of art and science, but the world’s
statesmen have not discerned the importance of uniting them in the
curriculum of the schools. If the ancients could see us as we see them,
they would doubtless laugh at us as we laugh at them.

We might take a lesson from the savage. He is taught to fight, to hunt,
and to fish, and in these arts the brain, the hand, and the eye are
trained simultaneously. He is first given object-lessons, as the pupil
of the kindergarten is taught. Then the tomahawk, the spear, and the bow
and arrow are placed in his hands, and he fights for his life, or fishes
or hunts for his dinner. The young Indian is taught all that it is
necessary for him to know, and he is educated, practically, in the
savage’s three workshops--the battle-field, the forest and plain, the
sea and lake. Thus the young savage enters upon the duties of his life
with an exact practical knowledge of them. He has not been taught a
theory of fighting, he has used the weapons of warfare; he has not
studied the arts of fishing and hunting, he has handled the spear and
the bow and arrow, and their use is as familiar to him as the
multiplication table is to the boy in the public school.

We have more and better tools than the savage possesses. With the aid of
science and art we harness steam to our chariot and compel it to draw us
whither we will. We steal fire from the clouds and make it serve us as a
messenger. We imprison the air, and with it stop the flying railway
train; with the aid of science and art we reduce the most subtile forces
of nature to servitude. But we neither teach our youth how to master
their elements nor how to use them.

Tools represent the steps of human progress--in architecture, from the
mud hut to the modern mansion; in agriculture, from the pointed stick
used to tear the turf to a thousand and one ingenious instruments of
husbandry; in ship-building, from the rudderless, sailless boat to the
ocean steamer; in fabrics, from the matted fleece of the shepherd to the
varied products of countless looms; in pottery, from the first rude
Egyptian cup to the exquisite vase of the Sevres factory. And so of
every art that contributes to the comfort and pleasure of man; the
development of each has been accomplished by tools in the hands of the
laborer.

Since, then, man owes so much to labor, he has doubtless educated the
laborer and showered honors upon him (?). On the contrary, the labor of
the world has been performed by the most ignorant classes, by bondmen,
by helots and captives, by serfs and slaves. The laborer has been held
in such contempt, and been so debased by ignorance, that he has often
violently protested against improvements in the tools of the trades, and
with vandal hands destroyed the mill, the factory, and the forge erected
to ameliorate his condition. At the top of the social scale the sage has
studied the stars and invented systems of abstract philosophy; at the
bottom ignorance has deified itself and starved. This divorce of
science from art has resulted in such incongruities as the Pyramids of
Egypt and periodical famines; as the hanging gardens of Babylon and the
horrors of Jewish captivity; as the Greek Parthenon and dwellings
without chimneys; as the statues of Phidias and Praxiteles, and royal
banquets without knives, forks, or spoons; as the Roman Forum and the
Roman populace crying for bread and circuses; as Socrates, Plato, Seneca
and Aurelius, and Caligula, Claudius, Nero and Domitian.

On the other hand the union of science with art tunnels the mountain,
bridges the river, dams the torrent, and converts the wilderness into a
fruitful field.

Science discovers and art appropriates and utilizes; and as science is
helpless without the aid of art, so art is dead without the help of
tools. Tools then constitute the great civilizing agency of the world;
for civilization is the art of rendering life agreeable. The savage may
own a continent, but if he possesses only the savage’s tools--the spear
and the bow and arrow--he will be ill-fed, ill-housed, ill-clothed, and
poorly protected both against cold and heat. He might be familiar with
all the known sciences, but if he were ignorant of the arts his state,
instead of being improved, would be rendered more deplorable; for with
the thoughts, emotions, sensibilities, and aspirations of a sage he
would still be powerless to steal from heaven a single spark of fire
with which to warm his miserable hut.

In the light of this analysis Carlyle’s rhapsody on tools becomes a
prosaic fact, and his conclusion--that man without tools is nothing,
with tools all--points the way to the discovery of the philosopher’s
stone in education. For if man without tools is nothing, to be unable to
use tools is to be destitute of power; and if with tools he is all, to
be able to use tools is to be all-powerful. And this power in the
concrete, the power to do some useful thing for man--this is the last
analysis of educational truth.

There is no better definition of education than that of Pestalozzi--“the
generation of power.” But what kind of power? Not merely power to think
abstractly, to speculate, to moralize, to philosophize, but power to act
intelligently. And the power to act intelligently involves the exertion,
in greater or less degree, of all the powers, both mental and physical.
Education, then, is the development of all the powers of man to the
culminating point of action. What kind of action? Action in art. What is
art? “The power of doing something not taught by nature or instinct;
power or skill in the use of knowledge; the practical application of the
rules or principles of science.” Again we have the last analysis of
education--“skill in the use of knowledge; the application of the rules
or principles of science.” And this is tool practice.

It is unnecessary, in an educational view, to divide the arts by the
employment of the terms “useful” and “fine;” for the fine arts can only
exist legitimately where the useful arts have paved the way. In a
harmonious development the artist will enter on the heels of the
artisan. Art is cosmopolitan. It is not less worthily represented by the
carpenter with his square, saw, and plane, and the smith with his
sledge, than by the sculptor with his mallet and chisel, and the painter
with his easel and brush; both classes contribute to the comfort and
pleasure of man; for comfort is enhanced by pleasure, and pleasure is
intensified by comfort. It follows that the ultimate object of education
is the attainment of skill in the arts. To this end the speculations
and investigations of philosophy and the experiments of chemistry lead.
At the door of the study of the philosopher and of the laboratory of the
chemist stands the artisan, listening for the newest hint that
philosophy can impart, waiting for the result of the latest chemical
analysis. In his hands these suggestions take form; through his skilful
manipulation the faint indications of science become real things, suited
to the exigencies of human life.

It is the most astounding fact of history that education has been
confined to abstractions. The schools have taught history, mathematics,
language and literature, and the sciences, to the utter exclusion of the
arts, notwithstanding the obvious fact that it is through the arts alone
that other branches of learning touch human life. As Bacon has so aptly
expressed it, “The real and legitimate goal of the sciences is the
endowment of human life with new inventions and riches.” In a word,
public education stops at the exact point where it should begin to apply
the theories it has imparted. At this point the school of mental and
manual training combined--the Ideal School--begins; not only books but
tools are put into the hands of the pupil, with this injunction of
Comenius; “Let those things that have to be done be learned by doing
them.”

CHAPTER III.

THE ENGINE-ROOM.

Let us enter the Ideal School building and take a bird’s-eye view of the
visible processes of the new education.

The first object that attracts attention is the engine. It is a
“Corliss,” fifty-two horse-power, and makes that peculiar kind of noise
which conveys to the mind of the observer an impression of restrained
power. When the student, upon entering the school, is shown this
beautiful machine he is told that it, like all other inventions, is a
growth--the growth of at least two thousand years; that the power of
steam was known to the ancients--the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans; that
Hero, a philosopher of Alexandria, invented a crude steam-engine before
the beginning of the Christian era, and that the engine before us, which
throbs and trembles under the pressure of its battery of steel boilers
in doing duty as a school-master, is the latest development of Hero’s
conception. The educational idea underlying this fact is the
interdependence of the ages; each generation is a link between the past
and the future. “To show,” as Philarète Chasles says, “that man can only
act efficiently by association with others, it has been ordained that
each inventor shall only interpret the first word of the problem he sets
himself to solve, and that every great idea shall be the _résumé_ of
the past at the same time that it is the germ of the future.”

The first word of the solution of the steam-power problem came from Hero
down the ages, through Decans, Papin, Savory, Newcomen, Breighton, and
Smeaton, to Watt. To Watt is awarded the honor of the invention of the
modern steam-engine; but the first conception of his engine was derived
from an atmospheric machine through the accident of it having been
placed in his hands for repairs. Smeaton was the inventor of that
atmospheric engine, and his mind was one of the links in the chain of
intelligences extending back to Egypt, through whose united agency the
steam-engine became a real thing of power in the cunning hands of James
Watt, of whom the late Dr. Draper said, “He conferred on his native
country more solid benefits than all the treaties she ever made and all
the battles she ever won.” This law governing great achievements is full
of encouragement to the student of mechanics, for while the thought of
compassing any great discovery or invention may well appall even the
boldest, the most humble may hope through studious industry to
contribute something to the sum of human knowledge.

The engine-room of our school is neater than that of the ordinary
machine-shop, but the furnace roars like any other, its open mouth shows
a bank of glowing coals, and the “stoker,” with grimy hands, wipes the
sweat from his sooty brow. The whole school is here seen in epitome: the
“stoker” typifies the student toiling at the forge, and in the polished
engine, exhibiting both grace and power in its automatic action, we see
the student’s graduating project, a machine, the joint creation of
brain, eye, and hand.

CHAPTER IV.

THE DRAWING-ROOM.

Passing from the engine-room we enter the room assigned to drawing,--the
first step in art education--where twenty-four boys are bending over
the drawing-board, pencil in hand. Every school-day for three years
these boys will spend an hour in this room. Each division of
drawing--free-hand and mechanical--is thoroughly taught. Every graduate
of the institution will be an expert draughtsman. The room is very
still, only the scratching sound of twenty-four pencils is heard. The
instructor moves about among the students, with here and there a hint, a
suggestion, a correction, or a word of commendation--“good.”

Drawing is the representation on paper of the facts, and the appearance
to the eye of forms. The exercise proceeds by both analysis and
synthesis. A cube is divided into all the geometric figures of which it
is susceptible, and these figures are imitated with the pencil on paper.
Then the figures are reunited, and the cube is similarly imitated. As
the child in the kindergarten is taught several fundamental geometric
facts through the use of variously subdivided cubes, so the student of
drawing is taught by a similar process how to represent these
fundamental facts on paper. For example (1), the student is taught to
draw the following (sketches 1, 2, and 3) geometric forms of the square,
oblong, and circle; (2) he is taught (sketches 4, 5, 6, and 7) to
represent the facts of the oblong block and cylinder; (3) these facts
are expressed as follows (sketches 8 and 9) in working drawings.
Sketches 8 and 9 are such drawings as would be placed in the hands of a
mechanic as plans for the manufacture of the solids they represent; and
the most elaborate working drawings for building and mechanical purposes
are merely the complete development of this division of the art.

[Illustration]

Another division of drawing consists in the representation of solids or
objects as they appear to the eye or pictorially. The oblong block and
cylinder, for example, appear to the eye very differently from their
facts represented in the working drawings (sketches 8 and 9), as
thus--(sketches 10 and 11).

[Illustration]

The development of this division of drawing leads to general pictorial
representation.

Finally the mastery of the art of drawing involves a study of the
principles of design as applied to industrial articles with the purpose
of enhancing their value, as designs for wall-paper, carpets,
embroideries, tapestry, textiles generally, and decorative work in wood.
This is the æsthetic element in the art which appeals to and develops
the student’s taste. It is an important feature of drawing, not less on
this account than from the fact that the designer’s profession is a very
lucrative one, but it is less important than object and constructive
drawing, because less fundamental. Besides, object and constructive work
in drawing come first in the order of development, and it is an
inexorable rule of the new education to follow implicitly the hints of
nature.

The basis of the art of drawing is geometry, and its _a_, _b_, _c_
consists in a knowledge of certain geometrical lines, curves, and
angles. This knowledge is gained from examples on the black-board which
are reproduced on paper. But to relieve the student of this school from
the tedium of reproducing, hundreds of times in succession, the same
lines, angles, and curves, object-drawing is introduced very early in
the course; and to render the exercise more attractive, as well as to
impress it more firmly upon the mind, the objects drawn during the day
are made features of the construction lesson in the carpenter’s
laboratory, the wood or iron turning laboratory, or the laboratory of
founding on the following day. At first the objects selected for this
exercise are of a very simple character, as a piece of plain moulding--a
piece of elaborate moulding; parts of a drawing-board--an entire
drawing-board; parts of a table or desk--an entire table or desk; parts
of a draughtsman’s stool--an entire stool; parts of a chair--an entire
chair.

As the student advances in the general course he advances in object and
constructive drawing, from simple to complex forms. He draws, for
example, various parts of the steam-heating apparatus, and from these
draughts makes working drawings of patterns for moulding. These he works
out in the Carpenter’s Laboratory, and thence takes them to the
moulding-room, where they are used in the lesson given in moulding for
casting. This method of instruction leads to a critical analysis of the
entire interior of the school building. Each article is resolved into
the original elements of its construction, and each element or part is
first represented on paper, then expanded into working drawings, and
then wrought out in wood and iron. Finally the student reaches the
engine, every part of which is made the subject of exhaustive study; the
facts of every part are represented on paper, working drawings of every
part are made, and every part is reproduced in steel and iron in
miniature, and, as a triumph of drawing, a representation on paper of
the completed engine is produced.

The value of drawing as an educational agency is simply incalculable. It
is the first step in manual training. It brings the eye and the mind
into relations of the closest intimacy, and makes the hand the organ of
both. It trains and develops the sense of form and proportion, renders
the eye accurate in observation, and the hand cunning in execution.

The students are intent upon their work. The eye is busy acting as
interpreter between the mind and the hand. Having conveyed the
impression of an object to the mind, under its direction it now
photographs the object on paper, and the hand obeying the will traces it
out in lines. Thus the power is gained of multiplying forms of things
with the pencil as words are multiplied by types.

Drawing is a language--the language in which art records the discoveries
of science. It is not German, it is not French, it is not English--it is
universal--common to all draughtsmen. The face of the student exhibits
vivid flashes of intelligence as the picture reveals itself under his
hand. Each line is a word, an angle completes the sentence; with a curve
and a little delicate shading we have a paragraph. The picture begins to
glow with thought. The student’s face flushes, his heart beats quick and
his hand trembles. But he restrains himself, and adds more lines, more
angles and curves, more shading, and the picture is complete. It stands
out in bold relief, and looks like a real thing. If the student knows
the story of the brazen statue of Albertus Magnus he half expects his
picture of a locomotive to move. He listens for the sound of the hissing
steam, and a smile lights up his face as the illusion vanishes.
Presently he will take his drawing to the shop, and at the bench, the
lathe, the anvil, and the forge, reproduce it in iron and steel, and
actually vitalize it with steam.

CHAPTER V.

THE CARPENTER’S LABORATORY.

Passing from the Drawing-Room down a flight of stairs we enter the
Carpenter’s Laboratory. Here we find twenty-four boys seated before a
black-board. At their left stands the instructor with a piece of white
pine in his hand. The piece of pine is the subject of his lecture. He
frequently breaks the thread of his remarks to ask questions, and he is
as frequently interrupted by questions from members of the class. The
scene closely resembles an animated discussion, of which a desire to
learn by asking questions is the chief characteristic. The discussion is
about pine-trees and pine lumber. A pale-faced, city-bred boy rises to
describe the pine-tree. He describes a fir-tree, such as may be seen in
well-kept urban grounds and parks, and describes it in well-chosen,
almost poetic phrase. The instructor shakes his head, but with a genial
smile, and recognizes a boy whose face is tanned brown, and who rises at
the nod and stands rather awkwardly as he speaks. He has seen the pine
in its native wilds, and he describes quite graphically its long, bare
trunk and slender limbs. But he says nothing of its narrow, linear
leaves, of a dark green color, nor of its woody cones, nor of the
Æolian-harp-like sound of the wind in its branches. Why, the instructor
wants to know, and he propounds a series of questions, the answers to
which afford a brief sketch of the boy’s history. His father is a dealer
in pine logs, and once this boy went with him into the pineries of
Northern Michigan in mid-winter, when the landscape was white with snow,
and there saw the huge trees sway back and forth under the woodman’s
axe, saw them topple over, and heard the loud crash of their fall, saw
them trimmed and sawed into mill-logs. He took no note of the woody
cones, nor of the narrow leaves of the pine, nor did the sound of the
wind in its branches make any impression upon his mind. He saw the pine
as his father saw it, with the eyes of a lumberman. He learned just one
thing, and learned it so well that he is able to tell the story of the
pine-tree from the moment of its fall from the stump in the great forest
to its arrival at the mill, and thence, cut into boards, planks, and
timber, to the raft or schooner bound for Chicago.

Then the different varieties of the pine-tree are enumerated, and the
uses to which their woods are severally adapted mentioned. The countries
which chiefly produce the pine-tree are named, and the climatic
conditions most favorable to its growth briefly referred to. This
discussion leads to the subject of commerce in pine lumber--quantity
consumed, demand and supply, etc; and this in turn brings a boy to his
feet with the statement that at the present rate of consumption the
supply of pine in North America will be exhausted in fifty years. In
answer to a question the boy says he read the statement in a newspaper.
This leads to further inquiry as to the sources of information sought by
the members of the class, whereupon it appears that fifteen boys have
consulted the title “pine” in some encyclopedia with a view to the
present lesson, and that eighteen boys have read the market report under
the title “lumber” in a daily journal, in order to learn the value of
white-pine boards. The value being stated by half a dozen boys, each
member of the class computes the cost of the piece of pine in the hands
of the teacher.

[Illustration: THE LABORATORY OF CARPENTRY.]

Ten minutes having been consumed in the inquiry into the nature and
value of the wood in which the lesson of the day is to be wrought, the
instructor makes working drawings of the lesson on the black-board. It
may consist of a plain joint, a mitre joint, a dove-tail joint, a tenon
and mortise, or a frame involving all these, and more manipulations. In
the few minutes devoted to this exercise any question that occurs to the
mind of the student may be asked, and no impatience is manifested or
felt if the questions are numerous and reiterated. But as a
matter-of-fact very few questions are asked during the black-board
exercise, because each student, having gone over every step of it in his
drawing-class the day previous, is perfectly familiar with the subject.

The instructor now quits the black-board for the bench, where, in the
presence of the whole class, he executes the difficult parts of the
lesson, still propounding and answering questions. If a new tool is
brought into requisition, instruction is given in its care and use. Now
the boys repair to their benches, throw off their coats, and seize their
tools. In a moment the silence and repose of the recitation-room are
exchanged for the noise and activity of the laboratory. A quarter of an
hour ago we left twenty-four boys, with bowed heads, making drawings of
things; for a quarter of an hour we have listened to a peculiar kind of
recitation involving much practical knowledge on the subject of the
pine-tree and its product, lumber; now we stand in the presence of
twenty-four boys, in twenty-four different attitudes of labor, making
things. They are literally as busy as bees, using the square, the saw,
the plane, and the chisel; they are, as the journeyman carpenter would
say, “getting out stuff for a job.” The coarse, buzzing sound of the
cross-cut saw resounds loudly through the room; above this bass note the
sharp tenor tone of the rip-saw is heard, and the rasping sound of half
a dozen planes throwing off a series of curling pine ribbons comes in as
a rude refrain. The faces of the boys are ruddy with the glow of
exercise; the pale-faced boy who mistook a fir-tree for a pine will have
his revenge on the angular boy from the Michigan pinery, for he is doing
a finer piece of work than the other.

[Illustration: COURSE IN THE LABORATORY OF CARPENTRY.]

In the midst of the harmonious confusion caused by the use of saws,
planes, mallets, and chisels, the instructor raps on his desk, and
silence is restored; three or four boys stand in a group about the
instructor’s desk, the others pause and wipe the perspiration from their
brows. It is a picture full of interest--twenty-four boys, with flushed,
eager faces, lifting their eyes simultaneously to the face of the
instructor, waiting for the hint which is to come, and which is sure in
these now active minds to result in a prompt solution of the main
problem of the day’s lesson. A similar question from several boys shows
the instructor that the lesson has not been made clear; hence the
general explanation which follows the call to order. So the work goes
on, with now and then an interruption. There is a student trying to fit
a tenon into its mortise; he is nervous and impatient; the instructor
observes him, foresees a catastrophe, and moves towards his bench. But
it is too late! The tenon being forced the mortise splits, and the
discomforted student makes a wry face. The instructor approaches with a
word of good cheer, but with the warning aphorism that “haste makes
waste.” The student’s face flushes, and he chronicles his failure as
Huntsman, the inventor of cast-steel, did his, by burying the wreck
under a pile of shavings, and commencing, as the lawyers say, _de novo_.
Thus the lesson proceeds “by the usual laboratory methods employed in
teaching the sciences;” the class learns the thing to be done by
doing it. The students are at their best, because the lesson to be
learned compels a close union between the three great powers of
man--observation, reflection, and action. No student seeks aid from
another, because such a course would be impossible without the knowledge
of the whole class. A feeling of self-reliance is thus developed, the
disposition to shirk repressed, and a sense of sturdy independence
encouraged and promoted.

CHAPTER VI.

THE WOOD-TURNING LABORATORY.

A Radical Change. -- From the Square to the Circle; from Angles to
Spherical, Cylindrical, and Eccentric Forms. -- The Rhythm of
Mechanics. -- The Potter’s Wheel of the Ancients and the
Turning-lathe. -- The Speculation of Holtzapffels on its Origin. --
The Greeks as Turners. -- The Turners of the Middle Ages. -- George
III. at the Lathe. -- Maudslay’s Slide-rest, and the Revolution it
wrought. -- The Natural History of Black-walnut. -- The Practical
Value of Imagination. -- Disraeli’s Tribute to it; Sir Robert Peel’s
Want of it. -- The Laboratory animated by Steam. -- The Boys at the
Lathes. -- Their Manly Bearing. -- The Lesson.

When the twenty-four boys of the Carpenter’s Laboratory have become
expert in the use of the tools employed in carpentry they will be
introduced to the Wood-turning Laboratory. The change is radical--from
the square to the circle, from the prose to the poetry of mechanical
manipulation. Carpentry is distinguished for its corners and angles,
turnery for its spherical, cylindrical, and eccentric forms. In these
forms Nature abounds and delights, and it is in these forms that the
rhythm of mechanics exists. It is by the Turners that the arts are
supplied with a thousand and one things of use and beauty. The machines,
great and small, from the locomotive to the stocking-knitter--without
which the work of the modern world could not be done--these wonderful
contrivances, seemingly more cunning than the hand of man, owe their
very existence to the turning-lathe.

[Illustration: THE WOOD-TURNING LABORATORY.]

The skilled instructor in this department of the school loves to dwell
upon the history of turning. Its origin is enveloped in the obscurity of
early Egyptian traditions. It is the subject of one of the oldest myths,
which runs thus: “Num, the directing spirit of the universe, and oldest
of created beings, first exercised the potter’s art, moulding the human
race on his wheel. Having made the heavens and the earth, and the air,
and the sun and moon, he modelled man out of the dark Nilotic clay, and
into his nostrils breathed the breath of life.”

The Potter’s Wheel of the ancients contained the germ of the
turning-lathe found in every modern machine-shop, whether for the
manipulation of wood or iron. Holtzapffels has an ingenious speculation
as to the origin of the invention of the lathe. In his elaborate work on
“Turning and Mechanical Manipulation” he says,

“It would appear probable that the origin of the lathe may be found in
the revolution given to tools for piercing objects for ornament or use.
At first it may be supposed that a spine or thorn from a tree, a
splinter of bone or a tooth, was alone used and pressed into the work as
we should use a brad-awl. The process would naturally be slow and
unsuitable to hard materials, and this probably suggested to the
primitive mechanic the idea of attaching a splinter of bone or flint to
the end of a short piece of stick, rubbing which between the palms of
his hands would give a rotary motion to the tool.”

Of the steps of progress in invention, from the rude turning-tools of
the ancients down to the beginning of the present century, when
Maudslay’s improvement made the lathe the king of the machine-shop,
little is known. By the Greeks the invention of turning was ascribed to
Dædalus. Phidias, who produced the two great masterpieces of Greek art,
Athene and Jupiter Olympius, was familiar with the then existing system
of wood-turning. In cutting figures on signets and gems in such stones
as agate, carnelian, chalcedony, and amethyst, the Greek artificers used
the wheel and the style. In the abundant ornamentation of Roman
dwellings--their elaborately carved chairs, tables, bedsteads, sofas,
and stools--there is ample evidence of a knowledge of the art of turning
in wood. Improvements were made in turning-tools, and fine ornamental
work was done by the artisans of the Middle Ages, to which the
cathedrals and palaces of the time bear witness. Later, during the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, turning became a fashionable
amusement among the French nobility and gentry. Louis XVI. was an expert
locksmith, and spent much of his royal time in that pursuit. The fashion
extended to England. George III. is said to have been an expert
wood-turner, to have been “learned in wheels and treadles, chucks and
chisels;” and as a matter of course a pursuit indulged by kings was
followed by many nobles. There is, however, no evidence that those
distinguished amateurs made any improvements in the tools they used;
inventions and discoveries in this as in all departments of art came
from the other end of the social scale. When the Spaniards sacked
Antwerp in 1585 the Flemish silk-weavers fled to England and set up
their looms there; and a century later, upon the revocation of the Edict
of Nantes, the silk industry of England received a new accession of
refugee artisans consisting of persecuted Protestants. Doubtless with
the Flemish weavers there crossed the British Channel representatives of
all the useful arts, including that of turning; for in another hundred
years England took the front rank among nations in nearly all industrial
pursuits.

Among the great inventions and discoveries which distinguished the last
quarter of the eighteenth century, Maudslay’s slide-rest attachment to
the lathe was one of the greatest, if not the greatest. Without it
Watt’s invention would have been of little more real service to mankind
than the French automata of the first quarter of the same century--the
mechanical peacock of Degennes, Vaucauson’s duck, or Maillardet’s
conjurer. Mr. Samuel Smiles, in his admirable book on “Iron-workers and
Tool-makers,” declares that this passion for automata, which gave rise
to many highly ingenious devices, “had the effect of introducing among
the higher order of artists habits of nice and accurate workmanship in
executing delicate pieces of machinery.” And he adds, “The same
combination of mechanical powers which made the steel spider crawl, the
duck quack, or waved the tiny rod of the magician, contributed in future
years to purposes of higher import--the wheels and pinions, which in
these automata almost eluded the human senses by their minuteness,
reappearing in modern times in the stupendous mechanism of our
self-acting lathes, spinning-mules, and steam-engines.”

That there was a logical connection between the two eras of mechanical
contrivance--that of the ingenious automata and that of the useful
modern machines--is extremely probable. That the refugee artisans from
Antwerp and from France had a stimulating effect upon English invention
and discovery there can be little doubt; and that the French automata,
which were much written about, and exhibited as a triumph of mechanical
genius, became known to and exercised an influence upon the minds of
intelligent mechanics is equally probable. We are therefore surprised to
find Mr. Smiles arriving at a conclusion in such direct conflict with
his general views of the gradual growth of inventions, namely, “that
Maudslay’s invention was entirely independent of all that had gone
before, and that he contrived it for the special purpose of overcoming
the difficulties which he himself experienced in turning out duplicate
parts in large numbers.”

But however this may be, Mr. Maudslay’s invention revolutionized the
workshop. Before its introduction the tool of the artisan was guided
solely by muscular strength and the dexterity of the hand; the smallest
variation in the pressure applied rendered the work imperfect. The
slide-rest acting automatically changed all that. With it thousands of
duplicates of the most ponderous, as well as the most minute pieces of
machinery, are executed with the utmost precision. Without it the
steam-engine, whether locomotive or stationary, would have been hardly
more than a dream of genius; for the monster that is to be fed with
steam can be properly constructed only by automatic steam-driven tools;
or, as another has expressed it, “Steam-engines were never properly made
until they made themselves.”

Ten minutes are thus agreeably and profitably occupied by the instructor
in a review of the history of a single invention, and its relations to
the whole field of mechanical work.

Another branch of the lesson consists of an inquiry into the natural
history, qualities, value, and common uses of the wood which is to be
the material of the day’s manipulation--black-walnut. Holding a piece of
the purplish brown wood high in his hand the instructor discharges, as
it were, a volley of questions at the class, “What is it called?” “Where
is it found?” “How large does the tree grow?” “For what is the wood
chiefly used?” Up go a dozen hands. The owner of one of the hands is
recognized, and he rises to tell all about it, but is only allowed to
say “black-walnut.” The next speaker is permitted to say that “the
black-walnut is found all over North America;” the next that it is more
abundant west of the Alleghanies, and most abundant in the valley of the
Mississippi; the next that in a forest it has a limbless trunk from
thirty to fifty feet high, but in the “open” branches near the ground;
the next that it is extensively used in house-finishing, in furniture,
for all kinds of cabinet-work, and especially for gunstocks.

Further inquiry elicits the information that the black-walnut is a
quick-growing, large tree; that its wood is hard, fine-grained, durable,
and susceptible of a high polish, and that through use and exposure it
turns dark, and with great age becomes almost black. One student
describes the leaves, another the fruit or nuts, and states that they
are used in dyeing; a third states that the black-walnut is a great
favorite for planting in the treeless tracts of the West, on account of
its rapid growth and the value of its timber. When the subject appears
to be nearly exhausted, a boy at the farther end of one of the forms
rises timidly and tells the story of the late Mr. W. C. Bryant’s great
black-walnut-tree at Roslyn, Long Island. He concludes, excitedly, “It
is one hundred and seventy years old and twenty-five feet in
circumference.”[1] The timid boy dwells upon his story of the “big”
tree with evident fondness, and his eyes dilate with satisfaction as he
resumes his seat. The circumstance of the great age no less than the
enormous size of the tree has captivated his imagination. The
discriminating instructor will not fail to note such incidents of the
lesson. It is through them that the special aptitudes of students are
disclosed. The instructor will always bear prominently in mind that the
purpose of the school is not to make mechanics but men. Nor will he
forget, as Buckle remarked, that Shakespeare preceded Newton. Buckle
pays a glowing tribute to the usefulness of the imagination. He says,
“Shakespeare and the poets sowed the seed which Newton and the
philosophers reaped.... They drew attention to nature, and thus became
the real founders of all natural science. They did even more than this.
They first impregnated the mind of England with bold and lofty
conceptions. They taught the men of their generation to crave after the
unseen.”

[1] “At Ellerslie, the birthplace of Wallace, exists an oak which is
celebrated as having been a remarkable object in his time, and which
can scarcely, therefore, be less than seven hundred years old. Near
Staines there is a yew-tree older than Magna Charta (1215), and the
yews at Fountains Abbey, in Yorkshire, are probably more than twelve
hundred years old. Eight olive-trees still exist in the Garden of
Olives at Jerusalem which are known to be at least eight hundred years
old.”--“Vegetable Physiology.” By William B. Carpenter, M.D., F.R.S.,
F.G.S. London: Bell and Daldy. 1865. p. 78.

Disraeli, in his matchless biography of Lord George Bentinck, in summing
up the character of a great English statesman is equally emphatic in
praise of the imagination as a practical quality. He says,

“Thus gifted and thus accomplished, Sir Robert Peel had a great
deficiency--he was without imagination. Wanting imagination, he wanted
prescience. No one was more sagacious when dealing with the
circumstances before him; no one penetrated the present with more
acuteness and accuracy. His judgment was faultless, provided he had not
to deal with the future. Thus it happened through his long career, that
while he always was looked upon as the most prudent and safest of
leaders, he ever, after a protracted display of admirable tactics,
concluded his campaigns by surrendering at discretion. He was so adroit
that he could prolong resistance even beyond its term, but so little
foreseeing that often in the very triumph of his manœuvres he found
himself in an untenable position.”

The timid boy has imagination; if he has application and the logical
faculty he may become an inventor, or he may become an artist--an
engraver or a designer of works of art--or he may become a man of
letters. To the man of vivid imagination and industry all avenues are
open; Disraeli’s wonderful career offers a striking illustration of the
truth of this proposition. The true purpose of education is the
harmonious development of the whole being, and the purpose of this
turning laboratory is to educate these twenty-four boys, not to make
turners of them.

The laboratory is a labyrinth of belts, large and small, of wheels, big
and little, of pulleys and lathes. A student, at a word from the
instructor, moves a lever a few inches, and the breath of life is
breathed into the complicated mass of machinery. The throbbing heart of
the engine far away sends the currents of its power along shafting and
pulleys. The dull, monotonous whir of steam-driven machinery salutes the
ear, and the twenty-four students take their places at the lathes. They
are from fourteen to seventeen years of age, and range in height from
undersize to “full-grown.” They look like little men. Their faces are
grave, showing a sense of responsibility. They are to handle edge-tools
on wood rapidly revolved by the power of steam. There is peril in an
uncautious step, and death lurks in the shafting. Of these dangers they
have been repeatedly warned; and there is in their bearing that
manifestation of wary coolness which we call “nerve,” and which in an
emergency develops into a lofty heroism capable of sublime
self-sacrifice.

This is the very essence of education, its informing spirit. The student
no longer thinks merely of becoming an expert turner; he thinks of
becoming a man! All the powers of his mind are roused to vigorous
action; imagination illumes the path, and reason, following with firm
but cautious step, drives straight to the mark. Rapid development
results from the combination of practice with theory--rapid because
orderly, or natural. The knowledge acquired is at once assimilated, and
becomes a mental resource, subject to draft like a bank account. But
unlike a bank account it increases in the ratio of the frequency with
which drafts are made upon it, and the result is the student leaves
school at seventeen years of age with the reasoning experience of an
ordinarily educated man of forty.

The lesson has been announced by the instructor, its chief points stated
and analyzed, its place in the scale (so to speak) of the art of turnery
defined, its educational value to the mind, the hand, and the eye shown,
and the points of difficulty involved so emphasized as to lead to
painstaking care in the execution of crucial parts. The new tool
required by the lesson is handled in presence of the waiting class by
the instructor; the time of its invention stated; the name of its
inventor given; the method of its manufacture described; and how to
sharpen, take care of, and use it explained with such minuteness of
detail as to insure the making of a permanent impression upon the minds
of students.

[Illustration: COURSE IN THE WOOD-TURNING AND PATTERN LABORATORY.]

The wood-turner’s case contains more than a hundred tools, perhaps a
hundred and fifty, but not more than a score of them are fundamental;
the others are subsidiary, and require very little if any explanation.

The lesson may be one in simple turning, as a table-leg, the round of a
chair, or parts of a section of a miniature garden-fence; or it may be a
set of pulleys, or patterns for various forms of pipe. The pieces of
wood to be wrought or manipulated lie at the feet of the student, and
the working drawing (drawn by the student himself) lies on the bench
before him. The piece of wood to be turned first is adjusted, the
student touches a lever over his head which sets the lathe in motion,
takes the required tool in hand, and the work begins. Guided by the
automatic slide-rest, the sharp point of the tool chips away the
revolving wood until it assumes the form of the drawing lying under the
eye of the operator. Thus the lesson proceeds to the end of the
prescribed period--two hours. The master watches every step of its
progress. If a student is puzzled he receives prompt assistance, so that
no time may be lost. Indeed the relations between instructor and
students are such, or ought to be such, that the question is asked
before the puzzled mind falls into a rut of profitless speculation
through revolving in a circle. But if the true sequential method of
study is followed the student rarely fails, from the vantage ground of a
step securely taken, to comprehend the nature of the next step in the
regular order of succession. This is the Russian system, and it is the
method of the wood-turnery as well as of every department of the Manual
Training School. Hence a certain tool having been mastered, the next
tool in the regular order of succession is more easily understood,
because (1) each tool contains a hint of the nature of its successor,
and (2) each addition to the student’s stock of knowledge confers an
increased capability of comprehension.

When the lesson is concluded the whir of the machinery ceases, and a
great silence falls upon the class as the students assemble about the
instructor, each presenting his piece of work. This is the moment of
friendly criticism. The instructor handles each specimen, comments upon
the character of the workmanship, points out its defects, and calls for
criticisms from the class. These are freely given. There is an animated
discussion, involving explanations on the part of the instructor of the
various causes of defects, and suggestions as to suitable methods of
amendment. Then the pieces of work are marked according to the various
degrees of excellence they exhibit, and the class is dismissed.

CHAPTER VII.

THE FOUNDING LABORATORY.

The Iron Age. -- Iron the King of Metals. -- Locke’s Apothegm. -- The
Moulder’s Art is Fundamental. -- History of Founding. -- Remains of
Bronze Castings in Egypt, Greece, and Assyria. -- Layard’s
Discoveries. -- The Greek Sculptors. -- The Colossal Statue of Apollo
at Rhodes. -- The Great Bells of History. -- Moulding and Casting a
Pulley. -- Description of the Process, Step by Step. -- The Furnace
Fire. -- Pouring the Hot Metal into the Moulds. -- A Pen Picture of
the Laboratory. -- Thus were the Hundred Gates of Babylon cast. --
Neglect of the Useful Arts by Herodotus. -- How Slavery has degraded
Labor. -- How Manual Training is to dignify it.

As we enter the Founding Laboratory we recall Locke’s apothegm: “He who
first made known the use of that contemptible mineral [iron] may be
truly styled the father of arts and the author of plenty.” We reflect,
too, that the mineral that has given its name to an age of the
world--our age--is worthy of careful study.

The Founding Laboratory, like all the laboratories of the school, is
designed for twenty-four students. There are twenty-four
moulding-benches, combined with troughs for sand, and a cupola furnace
where from five hundred to one thousand pounds of iron may be melted.

The students we lately parted from in the Wood-turning Laboratory are
here. Their training has been confined to manipulations in wood; they
are now to be made acquainted with iron--iron in considerable masses.
They should know something, in outline, of the history of the king of
metals in the Founding Laboratory. The instructor speaks familiarly to
them, somewhat as follows:

The art of the founder is fundamental in its nature. The arts of
founding and forging are, indeed, the essential preliminary steps which
lead to the finer manipulations entering into all metal constructions.
Whether forging preceded founding or founding forging is immaterial;
both arts are as old as recorded history--much older indeed. Moulding,
which is the first step in the founder’s art, should be among the oldest
of human discoveries, since man had only to take in his hand a lump of
moist clay to receive ocular evidence of his power to give it any
desired form.

Moulding for casting is closely allied to the potter’s art. The potter
selects a clay suitable for the vessel he desires to mould, and the
founder prepares a composition of sand and loam of the proper
consistency to serve as a matrix for the vessel he desires to cast.

The art of founding was doubtless first applied to bronze. The ruins of
Egypt and Greece abound in the remains of bronze castings, an analysis
of which reveals about the same relative proportions of tin and copper
in use now for the best qualities of statuary bronze. The bronze
castings of the Assyrians show a high degree of art. Many specimens of
this fine work of the Assyrian founder have been rescued from the ruins
of long-buried Nineveh--buried so long that Xenophon and his ten
thousand Greeks marched over its site more than two thousand years ago
without making any sign of a knowledge of its existence, and Alexander
fought a great battle in its neighborhood in apparent ignorance of the
fact that he trod on classic ground. But there, delving beneath the
rubbish and decayed vegetation of four thousand years or more, Layard
found great treasures of art in the palaces of Sennacherib and other
Assyrian monarchs--vases, jars, bronzes, glass-bottles, carved ivory
and mother-of-pearl ornaments, engraved gems, bells, dishes, and
ear-rings of exquisite workmanship, besides arms and a variety of tools
of the practical arts.

In Greece, in the time of Praxiteles, bronze was moulded into forms of
rare beauty and grandeur. The colossal statue of Apollo at Rhodes
affords an example of the magnitude of the Greek castings. It was cast
in several parts, and was over one hundred feet high. About fifty years
after its erection it was destroyed by an earthquake. Its fragments lay
on the ground where it fell, nearly a thousand years; but when the
Saracens gathered them together and sold them, there was a sufficient
quantity to load a caravan consisting of nine hundred camels. One of the
finest existing specimens of ancient bronze casting is that of a statue
of Mercury discovered at Herculaneum, and now to be seen in the museum
at Naples.

During the era of church bells the founder exercised his art in casting
bells of huge dimensions. Early in the fifteenth century a bell weighing
about fifty tons was cast at Pekin, China. This bell still exists, is
fourteen and a half feet in height and thirteen feet in diameter. But
the greatest bell-founding feat was, however, that of 1733, in casting
the bell of Moscow. This bell is nineteen feet three inches in height
and sixty feet nine inches in circumference, and weighs 443,772 pounds.
The value of the metal entering into its construction is estimated at
$300,000. It long lay in a pit in the midst of the Kremlin, but Czar
Nicholas caused it to be raised, mounted upon a granite pedestal, and
converted into a chapel. The methods of casting employed by the founder
of this king of bells are not known. The bell has outlived the Works
where it was cast. The melting and handling of two hundred and twenty
tons of bronze metal certainly required appointments, mechanical and
otherwise, of the most stupendous character; and the existence of such
Works presupposes an intimate acquaintance with the most minute details
of the founder’s art, since the natural order of development is from the
less to the greater. That is to say, the founder who could manipulate
scores of tons of metal in a single great casting could doubtless
manipulate a few pounds of metal; or, the founder who could cast a bell
weighing two hundred and twenty tons, could cast pots and kettles and
hundreds of other little useful things. What we hope to do in this
school Founding Laboratory is to gain a correct conception of great
things by making ourselves thoroughly familiar with many forms of little
things in moulding and casting.

The lesson of the day is the moulding and casting of a plain pulley. In
the Pattern Laboratory each student has already executed a pattern of
the pulley to be cast, and the pattern lies before him on his
moulding-bench. Now the instructor, at the most conspicuous bench in the
room, proceeds to execute the first part of the lesson, which consists
of moulding. Taking from the trough a handful of sand, he explains that
it is only by the use of sand possessing certain properties, as a degree
of moisture, but not enough to vaporize when the metal is poured in, and
a small admixture of clay, but not enough to make of the compound a
loam, that the mould can be saved from ruin through vaporization, and,
at the same time, given the essential quality of adhesiveness and
plasticity. In the course of this explanation he remarks that the sand
used in some parts of the mould is mixed with pulverized bituminous
coal, coke, or plumbago, in order to give a smoother surface. Now he
takes the “flask”--a wooden apparatus containing the sand in which the
mould is made--and explains its construction and use. From this
point--the sifting of facing sand on the turn-over board, to the final
one of replacing the cope and securing it with keys or clamps--every
step of the process is carefully gone through with and explained.

[Illustration: THE FOUNDING LABORATORY.]

Meantime, before the moulding lesson has proceeded far, a fire is
kindled in the furnace and it is “charged;” that is to say, filled with
alternate layers of coal and pig-iron, with occasional fluxes of
limestone. During the process of charging the furnace the instructor
explains the principle of its construction, and shows how it operates.
At every subsequent rest in moulding the students surround the furnace
to witness the progress of the fire, the position of the layers of coal,
and the state of combustion. They pass the furnace in procession, and
each peeps in through the isinglass windows upon the glowing fire, asks
a question, or a dozen questions, perhaps, and gives place to the next
student in line. In the intervals of these visits to the furnace the
work of making twenty-four moulds goes on under the eye of the
instructor, the students explaining each step in advance. He is
omnipresent, answering a question here, preventing a fatal mistake
there, cheering, inspiring, and guiding the whole class, but never
insisting upon a slavish adherence to strict identity in processes. And
it is to be noted that there is in moulding more latitude for
independence than in almost any other mechanical manipulation. Certain
essentials there are, of course, but these being secured, the student
may exercise his ingenuity in the execution of many minor details. That
there is considerable individuality in the class may be seen by
observation of the different methods employed by the several young
moulders to compass various details of the same general process.

The moulds are nearly completed. The instructor assists a student who is
found to be a little behind in his work, and interposes a warning
against haste at the critical moment. Within a period of ten minutes the
twenty-four patterns are “tapped,” loosened, and lifted from their beds,
imperfections are carefully repaired with the trowel, or some other
tool, channels to the pouring holes are cut in the surfaces, the pieces
remaining in the copes are removed, the particles of loose sand are
blown from the surfaces of the moulds, and the twenty-four copes are
replaced, and secured in their correct positions with keys or clamps.

A final visit is now made to the furnace. The fusion is found to be
complete; the “pigs” are converted into a molten pool. It only remains
to pour the hot metal into the moulds. The instructor seizes an iron
ladle lined with clay, holds it under the spout of the furnace reservoir
until it is nearly filled with the glowing fluid, lifts and carries it
carefully across the room, and pours the contents into a mould. Then the
students, in squads, after having been cautioned as to the deadly nature
of the molten mass they are to handle, follow the example of their
instructor. At this moment the laboratory appeals powerfully to the
imagination. The picture it presents is weird in the extreme. From the
open furnace door a stream of crimson light floods the room. The
students wear paper caps and are bare-armed; their faces glow in the
reflected glare of the furnace-fire; they march up to the furnace one by
one, each receiving a ladleful of steaming hot metal, and countermarch
to their benches, where they pour the contents of their ladles into the
moulds.

[Illustration: COURSE IN THE FOUNDING LABORATORY.]

Still holding his empty ladle in his hand, the instructor watches the
progress of the lesson with keen interest until the last stream of metal
has found its way into the throat of the last mould. He recalls the
story of Vulcan, the God of Fire, and of all the arts and industries
dependent upon it, and wonders why he was not depicted pouring tons of
molten metal, in the foundery, rather than sledge in hand at the forge.
Then he regards the class with a benignant expression of pride, begs for
silence, and says, “Thus were the hundred brazen gates of ancient
Babylon cast long before the beginning of the Christian era.” Herodotus
did not think to tell us much of the state of the useful arts in the
early time of which he wrote, but the brazen gates attracted his
attention, and he described them: “At the end of each street a little
gate is found in the wall along the river-side, in number equal to the
streets, and they are all made of brass, and lead down to the edge of
the river.” Could Herodotus have foreseen what a deep interest his
readers of this remote time would take in the history of the useful
arts, he would have written less about the walls, palaces, and temples
of Babylon, and more about the artificers. He would have begged
admission to the forges and founderies of the city; he would have
visited the Assyrian founder at his work, questioned him about his
processes, and set down his answers with painstaking care. Then he would
have sought an introduction to the smithy, and from the grimy forger
learned what he could tell of his art and of kindred arts. So the father
of history might have made an enduring record of the real things which
throughout all time have contributed to the advancement of the human
race, rather than of events growing out of the ambitions and passions of
men--the rise and fall of kingdoms and empires, the varying fortune of
battle, the treacheries, crimes, and brutalities of rulers, and the
cringing submission of millions of subjects. But, alas, the founders and
smiths, and all the other cunning artificers of the vast empire of
Syria, were slaves! and through their ancestry for unnumbered
generations the stigma of slavery had attached to labor. Ay, on the bare
backs of the founders of Babylon’s brazen gates the popular scorn of
labor had doubtless left its livid brand.

With these pariahs of Assyrian society, these outcasts of the social
circle, the great Greek historian could not even speak. Descended from a
long line of noble Halicarnassian families, Herodotus felt all the
prejudices of the hereditary aristocracy of his country. Hence he
dilates upon the wonders of Babylon, but is silent as to its architects
and artisans. He describes with great minuteness of detail the tower of
Jupiter Belus, but gives no hint of the name of its designer and
builder. He declares that Babylon was adorned in a manner surpassing any
city of the time, but in regard to the artificers through whose
ingenuity and skill such pleasing effects were produced he gives no
sign.

The silence of Herodotus on the subject of the useful arts in Babylon
does not indicate a want of appreciation of their value, but merely
shows contempt of the Assyrian artisan, and this not because he was an
artisan, but because he was a slave. The story of Solon and Crœsus,
which antedates Herodotus, whether true or a myth, shows that iron and
artisanship were appreciated by both Greeks and barbarians. When Crœsus
had exhibited to the Greek sage his vast hoard of treasures, Solon
said, “If another comes that hath better iron than you he will be master
of all this gold.” Here is a recognition of the immense value of the
arts of smelting and forging, coupled with a contemptuous silence
regarding as well the smelter and the smith as the rank and file of the
armies who should wield the swords and spears drawn by science from the
recesses of the earth, and by art wrought and tempered at the forge.
Through all the early ages the brand and scorn of slavery adhered to
labor, while the arts, the products of labor, were often deified. Thus
the Scythian, who from a grinning skull drank the warm blood of his
captive, regarded with superstitious awe as a god the iron sword with
which he cut off his captive’s head.

It was only with the revival of learning, after the intellectual and
moral gloom of the Dark Ages, that labor began slowly to lift its bowed
head and assert itself. But it does not yet stand erect. It still stoops
as if in the presence of a master. Every now and then it winces and
cringes as if the sound of the descending lash smote its ear. It remains
for you, students in this school of the arts--all the arts that make
mankind good and great--it remains for you to brush away from the
tear-stained face of labor all the shadows accumulated there through all
the dead ages of oppression and slavery. It remains for you to make
labor bold by making it intelligent. It remains for you to dignify and
ennoble labor by bestowing upon it the ripest scientific and artistic
culture, and devoting to its service the best energies of body and
mind.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE FORGING LABORATORY.

This is the Forging Laboratory. It is only a few steps from the
laboratory for founding, where we lately saw twenty-four students taking
off their leather aprons after a two hours’ lesson in moulding and
casting. Here we find, also, twenty-four students, but not the
twenty-four we saw in the laboratory for founding. This class is more
advanced. The boys are a trifle taller; they show more muscle, more
strength, and bear themselves with a still more confident air.

In the Forging Laboratory there are twenty-four forges with all
essential accessories, as anvils, tubs, and sets of ordinary
hand-tools.

[Illustration: THE FORGING LABORATORY.]

The students, with coats off and sleeves rolled above their elbows, in
pairs, as smith and helper, stand, sledge and tongs in hand, at twelve
of the forges. They are manly-looking boys. Their feet are firmly
planted, their bodies erect, their heads thrown a little back. Their
arms show brawn; the muscles stand out in relief from the solid flesh.
Their faces express the pride of conscious strength, and their eyes show
animation.

As we regard the class with a sympathetic thrill of satisfaction, the
story of the origin of the Turkish Empire is recalled: “A race of
slaves, living in the mountain regions of Asia, are employed by a
powerful Khan to forge weapons for his use in war. A bold chief
persuades them to use the weapons forged for a master to secure their
own deliverance. For centuries after they had thus conquered their
freedom, the Turkish people celebrated their liberation by an annual
ceremony in which a piece of iron was heated in the fire, and a smith’s
hammer successively handled by the prince and his nobles.”

The greatest empire in the world to-day is the empire of the art of
mechanism, and its most potent instrument is iron. Once the perpetuity
of governments depended upon the mere possession of the dingy ore. When
Elizabeth came to the throne, in the middle of the sixteenth century,
England was almost defenceless, owing to the short supply of iron.
Spain, much better equipped, hence relied confidently upon her ability
to subdue the English. But the Virgin Queen, comprehending the nature of
the crisis, imported iron from Sweden and encouraged the Sussex forges,
and the Spanish Armada was defeated. Thus the smelter and the smith
became the bulwark of the British government.

But at an earlier period the fraternity of smiths gave direction to the
course of empire. The secret of the easy conquest of Britain by the
Normans was their superior armor. They were clad in steel, and their
horses were shod with iron. The chief farrier of William became an earl;
and he was proud of his origin, for his coat of arms bore six
horseshoes.

Iron and civilization are terms of equivalent import. Iron is king, and
the smelter and smith are his chief ministers. It is not known when, by
whom, or how the art of smelting iron was discovered. As well ask by
whom and how fire was discovered? These are secrets of the early morning
of human life--of that time when man made no record of his struggles.

In lieu of history the instructor resorts to tradition, repeating the
following legend: “While men were patiently rubbing sticks to point them
into arrows, a spark leapt forth and ignited the wood-dust which had
been scraped from the sticks, and so fire was found.”

Now the “helper” looks to his “blast” with keen interest; for the
management of the forge-fire is one of the niceties of the smith’s art.
He stirs the fire a little impatiently. The instructor heeds the act,
but not the movement of impatience. On the contrary he seizes the
occasion to introduce the subject of coal. Question follows question in
rapid succession, and the answers are prompt and satisfactory, touching
all modern aspects of the subject, namely, the magnitude of the annual
“output,” the localities of heaviest production, the cost of mining; the
uses, respectively, to which different qualities are applied, demand and
supply, and market value or price. Here the instructor remarks that the
mining, transportation, and sale of coal are conducted in this country
by a number of large corporations, with an aggregate capitalization and
bonded indebtedness of six or seven hundred million dollars, and that
through combinations between these corporations the price is often
arbitrarily advanced. “But,” he concludes, “the discussion of that
branch of the subject belongs more properly to the class in political
economy.”

The history of coal in its relation to iron smelting and manufacture
forms a curious chapter in the vicissitudes of the useful arts. One
hundred and fifty years ago not only all the smith’s fires but the
smelter’s fires were kept up with charcoal. The forests of England were
literally swept away, like chaff before the wind, to feed the yawning
mouths of the iron mills. To make a ton of iron required the consumption
of hundreds of cords of wood. To save the timber restrictive legislation
was adopted, and the mills were gradually closed for want of fuel,
until, in 1788, there was not one left in Sussex, and only a small
number in the kingdom. Meantime the English iron supply came from
Sweden, Spain, and Germany. England seemed to be following in the
footsteps of the Roman Empire. The Romans accomplished in iron smelting
and forging just what might be expected of a warlike people. They
required iron for arms and armor, and in smelting skimmed the surface.
This is proved by the cinder heaps, rich in ore, which they left in
Britain. Archæologists trace the decline of Rome in her monuments, which
show a steady deterioration in the soldier’s equipment. Alison
attributes this decline to the exhaustion of her gold and silver mines.
A far more plausible conjecture is found in the waste of timber in fuel
for smelting purposes, and the resulting failure of the iron supply.

The fall of the Roman Empire may be accounted for by her neglect of the
useful arts. The nation that converts all her iron into swords and
spears shall surely perish. Had the city of Seven Hills possessed seven
men of mechanical genius like Watt, Stephenson, Maudslay, Clement,
Whitney, Neilson, and Nasmyth, her fall might have been averted, or if
not averted, it need not have involved the practical extinction of
civilization, thus imposing upon mankind the shame of the Dark Ages.

At the beginning of the seventeenth century there was much ignorant
prejudice against the use of mineral coal. It was believed to be
injurious to health. All sorts of diseases were attributed to its
supposed malignant influence, and at one time to burn it in dwellings
was made a penal offence. But this prejudice did not extend to its use
in smelting iron, and whatever there was of inventive genius was devoted
to a solution of the problem of its adaptation to such purposes. Mr.
Samuel Smiles has collected the names of the most prominent of these
Dutch and German mechanics, namely, Sturtevant, Rovenzon, Jordens,
Francke, and Sir Philibert Vernatt, and given each a niche in the temple
of fame. Some of them had a true conception of the required processes,
but they all failed to render the application practically available.

It remained for Dud. Dudley to succeed in making a thoroughly practical
application of mineral coal to iron-smelting purposes, and then
curiously enough to fail of success in introducing it into general use.
Dudley was born in 1599, in an iron-manufacturing district. His father
owned iron-works near the town of Dudley, which was a collection of
forges and workshops where “nails, horseshoes, keys, locks, and common
agricultural tools” were made. Brought up in the neighborhood of
“twenty thousand smiths and workers in iron,” young Dudley “attained
considerable knowledge of the various processes of manufacture.” At
twenty years of age he was taken from college and placed in charge of a
furnace and two forges in Worcestershire, where there was a scarcity of
wood but an abundance of mineral coal. He began immediately to
experiment, with a view to the substitution of the latter for the
former, and in a year succeeded in demonstrating “the practicability of
smelting iron with fuel made from pit-coal, which so many before him had
tried in vain.” But the charcoal iron-masters combined to resist the new
method because it cheapened the product. They instigated mobs to destroy
Dudley’s furnaces one after another, as soon as they were completed,
harassed him with lawsuits, and finally beggared and drove him to
prison. Then they tried to wring his secret from him. To this attempt
Cromwell, who was interested in furnaces in the Forest of Dean, is said
to have been a party. But all these efforts failed, and Dudley died in
1684 carrying his secret with him to the grave, and there the secret
slumbered nearly one hundred years.

The story of Dud. Dudley, as told by Mr. Smiles in his “Iron-workers and
Tool-makers,” is one of surpassing interest. It is worthy the careful
perusal not only of every school-boy but of the philosophic student in
search of the lessons of history, for it affords fresh evidence of the
truth of the proposition that the progress of civilization depends upon
progress in invention and discovery.

Under the influence of ignorance, prejudice, and superstition the iron
industry of England continued to decline until the beginning of the
eighteenth century, when the British people imported their pots and
kettles. Fifty years later, at the Coalbrookdale iron-works in
Shropshire, when the furnaces had consumed all the wood in the
neighborhood and a fuel famine was imminent, smelting with mineral coal
was successfully resumed, and in 1766 two workmen of the “works”--the
brothers Cranege--invented the reverberatory furnace, which added
immensely to the application of coal to smelting purposes.

But while we are discussing the history of coal we are consuming coal to
little purpose, for the blast is on and the furnace fires glow like
miniature volcanic craters. Let us to work. Before the black-board,
chalk in hand, the instructor stands and gives out the lesson. He
presents it in the form of drawings, complete and in detail. It may
involve only the single process of “drawing,” or it may involve several
processes, as “drawing,” “bending,” and “welding.” The first sketch, for
example, represents a flat bar of iron, the counterpart of the bars
resting against the several forges. The second sketch shows the bar
wrought into the form of a cylinder. The third sketch shows it “drawn”
or lengthened, and hence reduced in size. The fourth sketch presents two
rods the united lengths of which equal the length of the original rod.
The fifth sketch represents the two rods “bent” into the form of
chain-links, and a sub-sketch shows the proper shape of the ends of the
links for “welding.” The sixth sketch shows the two links joined and
welded.

The black-board illustrations may be omitted if the school is provided
with a complete set of samples. The school of mechanic arts of the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology has a hundred samples representing
the successive steps in blacksmithing manipulation, including welding,
and the welding samples consist of two parts, the first representing the
details of the piece prepared for welding, and the second the welded
piece. These samples are part of a collection of three hundred and
twenty pieces of exquisite workmanship, covering every department of a
complete manual training course, presented to the Institute in 1877 by
the Emperor of Russia.

[Illustration: COURSE IN THE FORGING LABORATORY.]

The black-board illustrations or the samples having been exhibited and
explained as clearly as is possible in words, the instructor takes his
place at one of the forges, and, surrounded by the class, goes through
with the successive steps of any manipulation contained in the lesson
which has not been actually wrought out in some previous lesson.

If the manipulation is a simple one the silence is only broken by the
sound of the blast and the stroke of the hammer--the students understand
every turn of the iron and every blow struck by the instructor--but if
the manipulation is complicated, involving a fresh principle, the
instructor is saluted by a volley of questions, and he often pauses to
answer them. It is the time for questions; the more questions now, the
fewer questions when all the blasts shall be on, and all the sledges
flying through the air and making music on the anvils. A question now
may lead to the enlightenment of twenty-four students; a question later
is sure to cost the time of twenty-four students, and the answer to it
may enlighten only one student.

At last the instructor drops the sledge, straightens up to his full
height, and wipes the sweat from his brow. If the students respect the
instructor they will respect labor, and they will respect the instructor
if he is worthy of respect.

Now the school-room is a smithy and yet it is not. It is neither very
hot nor very smoky, for there is an exhaust fan in operation which
vitalizes the circulation. But the atmosphere resounds with the
clangorous strokes of a dozen sledges, mingled with the sullen roar of
as many forge-fires; and there are traces of soot on the walls, and pale
smoke-wreaths creep along the ceilings, and hide in corners, and circle
about columns in fantastic shapes. It is a smithy, but a smithy adapted,
by its extraordinary neatness, to the manufacture of watch-springs,
palate-arbors, and Damascus blades.

The faces of the students are aglow with the flush of health-giving
exercise; their brows are “wet with honest sweat,” their heart-beats are
full and strong, and the crimson life-currents surge hotly through every
vein to their very finger-tips. They strike out the anvil chorus in all
the keys and in every measure of the scale, and the burning sparks fly
whizzing through the air.

At a sign from the instructor there is a pause. The students stand at
ease and the work is inspected. This is the time for more questions if
any student is in doubt; and the rest of five minutes affords
opportunity for a brief lecture on the subject of the early history of
the fraternity of smiths.

Mythology gives the highest place in its pantheon to Vulcan, the God of
Fire. For notwithstanding he is represented as bearded, covered with
dust and soot, blowing the fires of his forges and surrounded by his
chief ministers, the cyclops, he is given Venus to wife and made the
father of Cupid. Among the Scythians the iron sword was a god. When
Jerusalem was taken by the Babylonians they made captives of all the
smiths and other craftsmen of the city--a more grievous act than the
thousand million dollar tribute levied upon France by Germany at the
close of the war of 1870. For to be deprived of the use of iron is to be
relegated to a state of barbarism.

The vulgar accounted for the keenness of the first sword-blades on the
score of magic, and the praises of the smiths who forged were sung with
the chiefs of chivalry who wielded them. So highly was this mysterious
power regarded by Tancred, the crusader, that in return for the present
of King Arthur’s sword, Excalibar, by Richard I., he paid for it with
“four great ships and fifteen galleys.”

The smith was a mighty man in England in the early time. “In the royal
court of Wales he sat in the great hall with the king and queen, and was
entitled to a draught of every kind of liquor served.” His person was
sacred; his calling placed him above the law. He was necessary to the
feudal state; he forged swords “on the temper of which life, honor, and
victory in battle depended.” The smith, after the Norman invasion,
gained in importance in England. He was the chief man of the village,
its oracle, and the most cunning workman of the time. His name descended
to more families than that of any other profession--for the origin of
the name Smith is the hot, dusty, smoky smithy, and however it may be
disguised in the spelling, it is entitled to the proud distinction which
its representatives sometimes seek to conceal.

Mr. Smiles draws the following graphic picture of the versatility of the
smith of the Middle Ages:

“The smith’s tools were of many sorts, but the chief were his hammer,
pincers, chisel, tongs, and anvil. It is astonishing what a variety of
articles he turned out of his smithy by the help of these rude
implements. In the tooling, chasing, and consummate knowledge of the
capabilities of iron he greatly surpassed the modern workman. The
numerous exquisite specimens of his handicraft which exist in our old
gate-ways, church doors, altar railings, and ornamented dogs and
andirons, still serve as types for continual reproduction. He was,
indeed, the most ‘cunning workman’ of his time. But besides all this he
was an engineer. If a road had to be made, or a stream embanked, or a
trench dug, he was invariably called upon to provide the tools, and
often to direct the work. He was also the military engineer of his day,
and as late as the reign of Edward III. we find the king repeatedly
sending for smiths from the Forest of Dean to act as engineers for the
royal army at the siege of Berwick.”

But the most signal triumph of the art, both of the smelter and the
smith, is found in the famous swords of Damascus, whose edge and temper
were so keen and perfect that they would sever a gauze veil floating in
the air, or crash through bones and helmets without sustaining injury.
These Damascus blades, long renowned in the East, but first encountered
by Europeans during the crusades, in the hands of the followers of
Mahomet, were made of Indian steel or “wootz.” This steel, produced in
the form of little cakes weighing about two pounds each, in the
neighborhood of the city of Golconda, in Hindostan, was transported on
the backs of camels two thousand miles to the city of Damascus, and
there converted into swords, sabres, and scimitars.

This smith’s work has never been excelled, if equalled. Millions of
dollars have been expended in efforts to produce the equal of Indian
steel. Among the investigators of the subject the most noted was a
Russian general, Anossoff, who died in 1851. His experiments were of a
very elaborate and exhaustive character. They occupied a lifetime, and
resulted in the establishment of works in the Ural Mountains, on the
Siberian border, for the production of Damascus steel by a process of
his own invention. After General Anossoff’s death the quality of the
steel produced at his works deteriorated.

We should treat with reverence these obscure hints of the triumphs of
the ancients in certain departments of art as suggestive of like great
achievements in other directions, for without a knowledge of types they
could neither teach the many what the few knew, nor preserve what they
had acquired for the instruction of future ages. All art is the product
of a sequential series of ideas, each idea containing the germ of the
next; hence the preservation of each idea is essential to progress. The
art of printing alone enables man to preserve such a record. It follows
presumptively that the art of printing constitutes the predominant
feature of difference between the civilization of the moderns and that
of the ancients. And it is important to observe that the art of printing
is far more necessary to progress in the useful arts than in the
so-called fine arts. The ancient temples with their sculptured
splendors--the Parthenon, the Jupiter Olympius, and scores of
others--remained long to testify to the genius of Phidias, Praxiteles,
and their gifted colleagues of the chisel. These souvenirs of Greek
genius still serve as models for the architect and the sculptor. It
needs no chronicle to prove that they mark the culmination of the fine
arts. If the moderns have failed to excel, or even equal them, it is not
because their conception, design, or construction involved occult
processes. It is rather because there is a limit to the development of
the so-called fine arts, and that limit in architecture and sculpture
was reached in Greece more than two thousand years ago.

But with the Damascus blade, which typifies the useful arts, it is
entirely different. It, too, is in itself a triumph of genius not less
pronounced than the Athena of Phidias. But above and beyond this the
arts of smelting and forging are so subtile as almost to elude the grasp
of analysis. Not only the method of the fabrication of the Damascus
blade but the processes involved in the production of the steel entering
into its composition--all these are shrouded in impenetrable mystery. It
follows that the useful arts are finer than the so-called fine arts.
Their processes are more intricate, and hence more difficult of
comprehension. To a solution of the questions presented in the course of
their study an extended acquaintance with the sciences is essential. The
highest departments of the fine arts, so-called, require only a study of
the features, figure, and character of man, and of certain visible forms
of nature, while the useful arts make incessant demands upon the
resources of natural philosophy. The chemist toils in his laboratory,
and the botanist and the geologist explore forest, field, and mine in
search of new truths, with the single purpose of enlarging the sphere of
the useful arts, and so of ministering more effectively to the ever
increasing needs of man. Hence there can be no limit to the development
of the useful arts except the limit to be found in the exhaustion of the
forces of nature.

We should, then, venerate the artisan rather than the artist. Let us
invoke the shade of the dusky Indian smelter. See him in the dark
recesses of the forest, bending in rapt attention over his furnace, or
holding aloft a little lump of his matchless steel. Alas, he is dumb!
His secret perished with him. But the Indian smelter and the Damascus
smith are kin to all the inventors and discoverers of all the ages.
Across continents and seas, over trackless wastes of history--epochs
during which ignorance and superstition prevailed and the intellect of
man slumbered--the ancient smelter and the ancient smith extend their
shadowy hands to the students in this school of the nineteenth
century--extend them in token of the fellowship of a common struggle and
a common hope of triumph--the struggle after truth[E2], and the hope of
the triumph of industry.

The instructor raps on the black-board, and the school-room is at once
transformed into a smithy. Again the forge-fires roar, and again the
anvils resound under the stroke of the hammer. For half an hour the
lesson goes on, and then comes the wind-up, and the several tests of
excellence are applied to the completed task of each student. Form,
dimensions, finish--these are the tests. The instructor marks the
several pieces of work, makes a record of the result, reads the record,
and is on the point of dismissing the class when an idea occurs to his
mind and he enjoins silence. Taking in his hand a heavy sledge, and
resting it on the anvil before him, he says, “This is a baby-hammer, and
all the forging we do here is baby-forging. I hope soon to have an
opportunity to take you to the great works of Mr. Crane, in this city,
and there show you a steam-hammer which weighs a ton striking fifty to
one hundred blows a minute--blows, too, that shame the fabled power of
Vulcan, the God of Fire. At Pittsburg, Pa., there is an anvil of 150
tons weight which serves for forging with a 15-ton hammer. But the
monster steam-hammer is to be found in Krupp’s cast-steel works at
Essen, Germany. The hammer-head is 12 feet long, 5¹⁄₂ feet wide, 4 feet
thick, weighs 50 tons, and has a stroke of 9 feet. The depth of the
foundation is 100 feet, consisting of three parts, masonry, timber, and
iron, bolted together. Four cranes, each capable of bearing 200 tons,
serve the hammer with material.”

The steam-hammer was invented in 1837 by James Nasmyth, of England, in
response to a demand for a hammer that would forge a steamship
paddle-shaft of unprecedented size. The nature of the emergency being
presented to his mind, Mr. Nasmyth conceived the idea of the
steam-hammer instantaneously, as it were, and at once proceeded to
sketch the child of his brain on paper. He was too poor to defray the
cost of patenting his invention; nor was he able to procure the
necessary funds for that purpose until he had seen in France a hammer
made from his own original sketch in operation.

The steam-hammer came rapidly into use, superseding all others of the
ponderous sort, increasing the quantity of products and reducing the
cost of manufacture by fifty per cent. It was through the steam-hammer
only that the fabrication of the immense wrought-iron ordnance and the
huge plates for covering ships-of-war of modern times became possible.
In the hands of the giant, steam, Mr. Nasmyth’s hammer, even if it weigh
fifty tons, is susceptible of more accurate strokes than the tack-hammer
in the hands of the upholsterer, or the sledge in the hands of the most
skilled blacksmith. It crushes tons of iron into a shapeless mass at one
blow, and at the next drives a tack, or cracks an egg-shell in an
egg-cup without injuring the cup.

Mr. Nasmyth, in 1845, applied the steam-hammer principle to the
pile-driver. With this wonderful machine the “driving-block,” weighing
several tons, descends eighty times a minute on the head of the pile,
sending it home with almost incredible rapidity. The saving of time as
compared with the old method is in the ratio of 1 to 1800; that is, a
pile can be driven in four minutes that before required twelve hours.

The course in the Forging Laboratory extends from the making and care of
forge-fires to case-hardening iron and hardening and tempering steel;
and competent and experienced instructors declare that the student in
the educational smithy gains as much skill in a day as the smith’s
apprentice gains in a year in the ordinary shop.

[E2] “The inquiry of truth, which is the love-making or wooing of it;
the knowledge of truth, which is the presence of it; and the belief of
truth, which is the enjoying of it--is the sovereign good of human
nature.”--Essays of Francis Bacon--“Truth,” p. 2. London: Henry G.
Bohn, 1852.

CHAPTER IX.

THE MACHINE-TOOL LABORATORY.

The Foundery and Smithy are Ancient, the Machine-tool Shop is Modern.
-- The Giant, Steam, reduced to Servitude. -- The Iron Lines of
Progress. -- They converge in the Shop; its triumphs from the
Watchspring to the Locomotive. -- The Applications of Iron in Art is
the Subject of Subjects. -- The Story of Invention is the History of
Civilization. -- The Machine-maker and the Tool-maker are the best
Friends of Man. -- Watt’s Great Conception waited for Automatic Tools;
their Accuracy. -- The Hand-made and the Machine-made Watch. -- The
Elgin (Illinois) Watch Factory. -- The Interdependence of the Arts. --
The Making of a Suit of Clothes. -- The Anteroom of the Machine-tool
Laboratory. -- Chipping and Filing. -- The File-cutter. -- The Poverty
of Words as compared with Things. -- The Graduating Project. -- The
Vision of the Instructor.

[Illustration: THE MACHINE-TOOL LABORATORY.]

The transition from the laboratories for founding and forging to the
Machine-tool Laboratory symbolizes a mighty revolution in the practical
arts--a revolution so stupendous as to defy description, and so
far-reaching as to appall the spirit of prophecy. The foundery and the
smithy date back to the dawn of history; the machine-tool shop is a
creation of yesterday. About the early manipulations of iron mythology
wove a web of fancy: Vulcan forged Jove’s thunderbolts, the iron sword
of the savage was a god, and even far down the course of time, late in
the Middle Ages, Tancred, the crusader, paid an almost fabulous sum for
King Arthur’s famous sword Excalibar--but the modern machine-tool shop
is a huge iron automaton, without sentiment, and possessing no poetry
except the rhythmic harmony of motion. In this shop steam is reduced to
servitude, and compelled with giant hands to bore, mortise, plane,
polish, fashion, and fit great masses of iron, and, anon, with delicate
fingers to spin gossamer threads of burnished steel. With the hot steam
coursing through its steel-ribbed veins the brain of this automaton
thinks the thoughts foreordained by its inventor; its hands do his
bidding, its arms fetch and carry for him, its feet come and go at his
beck and nod. This automaton feeds on iron, steel, copper, and brass,
and produces the watch-spring and the locomotive, the revolver and the
Krupp gun, the surgeon’s lancet and the shaft of a steamship, the steel
pen and the steam-hammer, the vault-lock and the pile-driver, the
sewing-machine and the Corliss engine. The lever which wakens this
automaton to life, which endows its brain with genius and its fingers
with cunning, is the rod of empire. All the lines of modern development
converge in the machine-tool shop, and they are all lines of iron,
whether consisting of a fine wire strung on poles in mid-air or of huge
bars resting on the solid earth. Iron is the king of metals but the
slave of man. Its magnetic quality guides the mariner on the sea, and
its tough fibre and density sustain the weight of the locomotive on the
land. It constitutes the foundation of every useful art, from the plough
of the husbandman to the Jacquard loom of the weaver. But it is only in
the machine-tool shop that the great steam-driven machines of commerce
and manufacture can be produced. The ancients possessed iron, which they
cast in the foundery and forged in the smithy; they knew the power of
steam, and the magicians of the time amused the populace with
exhibitions of it, but they had no machine-tool shops in which steam
could be harnessed for the journey across continents and seas. The
thousand and one modern applications of iron to the needs of man have
originated in the machine-tool shop. It is through these applications of
iron, not through iron itself, that human pursuits have been so widely
diversified, and human powers so richly developed and enlarged.

The contrasts presented by the development of the useful arts during the
last hundred years are startling: The toilsome journey of a day reduced
to an hour with the maximum of comfort; the few yards of fabric
painfully woven by hand expanded into webs of cotton, linen, woollen,
and silk cloths, rolling from thousands of steam-driven looms; the
stocking once requiring hours to make, now dropping second by second
from the iron fingers of the knitting-machine; the nails, screws, pins,
and needles, forged one by one in the old village smithy, now flying
from the hands of automatic machines by the thousand million; the
numberless stitches of the sewing-machine as compared with the few of
the olden time, which made the fingers and the hearts of women ache; the
vast crop of cereals planted, cultivated, and gathered into barns with
iron hands in contrast with the toilsome processes of even fifty years
ago. These are only a few of the many illustrations that might be given
of progress in the useful arts, and they all emanate from the
machine-tool shop.

At the threshold of the most important inquiry that ever occupied the
mind of man stand the twenty-four students we have followed, with more
or less regularity, through the various laboratories which constitute
the preliminary steps in the manual training course. It is the most
important inquiry that ever engaged the attention of man, because it
touches modern civilization at more points than any other. It consists
of an investigation into the subject of the diversity of the
applications of iron in art, a study both of the minute and the
ponderous in iron tools and machines, and it is by these tools and
machines that the bulk of the great enterprises of the men of modern
times are carried forward. These students are familiar with the details
of the laboratories for founding and forging, but the manipulations of
those branches of iron manufacture are coarse and heavy as compared with
those of the Machine-tool Laboratory. In a word, the difference between
the iron manipulations of the Machine-tool Laboratory and those of the
founding and forging laboratories is the exact measure of the difference
between the modern and the ancient systems of civilization.

The ancient civilizations culminated in that of Rome. The Romans
possessed iron, but confined their manipulations of it to the foundery
and the smithy. Under the Roman empire the enterprises of
man--commercial, manufacturing, and industrial generally--reached the
limit marked by the applications of iron to the useful arts. It is not
important in this connection to inquire why inventions and discoveries
ceased. It is enough that they ceased. There was a pause; man, risen to
a giddy height, looked backward instead of forward and upward; the
struggle to advance came to an end, ambition died out of life, and a
saturnalia of bloody crime and savage brutality ensued. Exhaustion
followed, then stagnation, moral and intellectual, and then the decay of
all the arts. The world stood still, and in that state of quiescence
remained until printing was invented and America discovered. Still it
waited two hundred and fifty years before receiving the first hint of
steam-driven machines and the machines and the machine tool-shop, and
during all that time progress was painfully slow. Something was required
to give to human ambition a grand impulse, and to open to human energy
and industry a broad field. That something did not come until the middle
of the eighteenth century, and it should never be forgotten
that it came then through the humble men of the workshop. To their
inventive genius mankind owes more than to all the philosophers,
_litterateurs_, professors, and statesmen of all time. These men of the
workshop--Huntsman, Cort, Roebuck, Watt, Fulton, Mushet, Hargreaves,
Neilson, Whitney, Bramah, Maudslay, Clement, Murray, Roberts, the
Stephensons, father and son, and Nasmyth--invented machines which seem
to rival human intelligence, and in fact far excel human precision in
the execution of their work. In endowing iron with the cunning of genius
and the terrific power of the fabled cyclops, the modern mechanic has
revolutionized the field of human effort, transferring it from the
foundery and the smithy to the machine-tool shop. It is here, and here
alone, that steam-driven machines can be made. They may be conceived in
the mind of a Watt or a Stephenson, but they can be made only by the
automatic tools of a Maudslay, a Clement, a Bramah, or a Nasmyth. Man
was helpless without steam-driven machines, and he could not have
steam-driven machines until machine-made tools had been devised with
which to make them. The experience of Watt strikingly illustrates this
point. When he had completed his invention of the steam-engine, he found
it nearly impossible to realize his idea in a working machine, owing to
the incompetency of the workmen of that time. In reply to the inquiry of
Dr. Roebuck, “What is the principal hinderance in erecting engines?” he
responds, “It is always the smith-work.” His first cylinder, made of
hammered iron soldered together by a whitesmith, was a complete failure.
But even such workmen were so scarce that upon the death of this
“white-iron man” Watt was reduced almost to a state of despair. “His
next cylinder was cast and bored at Carron, but it was so untrue that it
proved next to useless. The piston could not be kept steam-tight,
notwithstanding the various expedients which were adopted of stuffing it
with paper, cork, putty, pasteboard, and old hats.” Smeaton, the best
workman of the time, “expressed the opinion, when he saw the engine at
work, that notwithstanding the excellence of the invention it could
never be brought into general use because of the difficulty of getting
its various parts manufactured with sufficient precision.” Watt
constantly complained of “villanous bad workmanship.” “Machine-made
tools were unknown, hence there were no good tools. Attempting to run an
engine of the old regime, the foreman of the shop gave it up in despair,
exclaiming, “I think we had better leave the cogs to settle their
differences with one another; they will grind themselves right in time.”
Contrast with this clumsy machine of the hand-tool era the Corliss
engine of the present day, whose every movement possesses the noiseless
grace of a woman and the conscious power of a giant; and this giant
springs full-armed from the machine-tool shop as Minerva sprang from the
brain of Jupiter. Mr. Smiles says, “When the powerful oscillating
engines of the _Warrior_ were put on board that ship, the parts,
consisting of some five thousand separate pieces, were brought from the
different workshops of the Messrs. Penn & Sons, where they had been made
by workmen who knew not the places they were to occupy, and fitted
together with such precision that so soon as the steam was raised and
let into the cylinders the immense machine began as if to breathe and
move like a living creature, stretching its huge arms like a new-born
giant; and then, after practising its strength a little, and proving its
soundness in body and limb, it started off with the power of above a
thousand horses, to try its strength in breasting the billows of the
North Sea.”

The great and small tools, the automata of the machine-shop, are no less
triumphs of mechanical genius than the “powerful oscillating engines of
the _Warrior_.” The prime difficulty of the hand-worker was to make two
things exactly alike, then followed the impossibility of making _many_
things--the narrow limit of human capacity to produce. At that point the
inventor appeared with a machine which would make a thousand things in
the time the hand-worker required to make one, and each one of them the
exact counterpart of every other.

A hundred years ago John Arnold, the inventor of the chronometer,
accomplished a marvel of patience and ingenuity in the form of a watch
the size of twopence and the weight of sixpence. The workmanship was so
delicate that he was compelled not only to fashion every part with his
own hand, but to design and make the tools employed in its construction.
The watch was presented to George III., of England, who showed his
appreciation of Arnold’s mechanical skill in a present of five hundred
guineas. The Emperor of Russia offered Arnold $5000 for a duplicate of
the wonderful little time-piece, which offer was, however, declined. It
was so difficult for the expert watch-maker of a century ago to make two
things exactly alike, that Arnold could not afford to undertake to make
another miniature watch even for the exorbitant price of $5000. But for
ten dollars the Elgin (Illinois) National Watch Company will supply the
Emperor of Russia with a machine-made watch more nearly perfect than
Arnold’s masterpiece, and on the same day turn out one thousand others
exactly like it. Imagine yourself now in the watch factory of the Elgin
Company; observe that artisan holding in his hand a coil of fine steel
wire weighing a pound. He approaches a machine, places one end of the
wire in its iron fingers, presses a lever, and in a few minutes the coil
is converted into two hundred thousand minute screws, each and every one
as perfect as the best that Arnold made for his George III. gem.

It is with the greatest effort of painstaking care that the expert
sewing-woman draws two stitches closely resembling each other, yet while
she is making the toilsome exertion of her utmost skill the
sewing-machine sets hundreds of stitches so exactly alike that a
microscopic examination would fail to detect the least dissimilarity.

The sewing-machine affords an admirable illustration of the
interdependence of the practical arts. The sewing-woman was able to keep
pace with the slow and toilsome processes of the distaff and loom, but
upon the application of steam-power to spinning and weaving the demand
for sewing was augmented a thousand-fold. If the sewing-machine has not
emancipated woman from the drudgery so pathetically depicted by Tom
Hood, it has multiplied the production of garments almost beyond the
power of figures to express. Note this instance illustrative of the
triumph of automatic machinery in its application to manufactures. “The
Emperor of Austria was lately presented with a suit of clothes
possessing this remarkable history: The wool from which the garments
were made was clipped from the sheep only eleven hours before the suit
was completed. At 6.08 in the morning the sheep were sheared; at 6.11
the wool was washed; at 6.37 dyed; at 6.50 picked; at 7.34 the final
carding process was finished; at eight o’clock it was spun; at 8.15
spooled; at 8.37 the warp was in the loom; at 8.43 the shuttles were
ready; at 11.10 seven and three-fourth ells of cloth were completed; at
12.03 the cloth was fulled; at 12.14 washed; at 12.17 sprinkled; at
12.31 dried; at 12.45 sheared; at 1.07 napped; at 1.10 brushed; and at
1.15 prepared and ready for the shears and needle. At five o’clock the
suit, consisting of a hunting-jacket, waistcoat, and trousers, was
finished.”

There is a sort of anteroom to the Machine-tool Laboratory with which
the students are thoroughly familiar. It is called the Chipping, Filing,
and Fitting Laboratory, has twenty-four vises, a great assortment of
cold-chisels and files, and is devoted to vise work. The course in the
Chipping Filing and Fitting Laboratory consists of a score or more
lessons involving various file and chisel manipulations, as, “filing to
line,” “dovetailing,” “parallel fitting tongues and grooves,” “ring-work
and free-hand filing,” “chipping bevels,” “ward-filing and key-fitting,”
“screw-filing,” “scraping,” etc., each lesson being so devised as to
insure the introduction of variously shaped tools, and their application
to the forms of work for which they are designed.

This anteroom to the Machine-tool Laboratory is like most anterooms
plain in its appointments, and it is also like the conventional
anteroom, a place where the student does not desire to remain long. The
witchery of the great laboratory beyond has already cast its spell over
the boy at the vise. But there is excellent hand and eye training work
in the Chipping, Filing, and Fitting Laboratory.

[Illustration: THE CHIPPING, FILING, AND FITTING LABORATORY.]

The file is a humble tool, but it is older than history, dating back to
the Greek Mythological period. “From the smallest mouse-tail file used
in the delicate operations of the watch and philosophical instrument
maker, to the square file for the smith’s heaviest work, there is a
multifarious diversity in shape, size, and gauge of cutting.” Some of
the files made by the Swiss for the watch-maker “are of so fine a cut
that the unaided eye cannot discern the ridges.”

In no department of the useful arts did the hand-worker attain to
greater dexterity than in file-cutting. With a sharp-edged chisel the
file-cutter made from one hundred and fifty to two hundred “burs” a
minute, and they were so fine as to be traced by the sense of touch
alone, but as straight as though ruled by a machine. The hand-working
file-cutter held his ground until 1859, when a Frenchman, M. Bernot,
invented a file-cutting machine which superseded the old method of
manufacture, except in cases requiring delicacy of manipulation,
reducing the cost of files to one-eighth of their former price.

The lessons in the Machine-tool Laboratory will not be described in
detail as in the other laboratories. The processes are so delicate and
so intricate, and the resulting products in machines so closely approach
the marvellous, as to beggar description. The poverty of words as
compared with things asserts itself with unexampled force in the
presence of a great variety of tools, each of which seems to be endowed
with the power of reflection, and each of which, instead of whispering a
word in your ear, drops into your hand a thing of use to man.

The laboratory is silent, the tools are dumb, but how eloquently they
proclaim the era of comfort and luxury! They have no tongue, but through
their lips you shall speak across continents and under seas. They have
no legs, but through their aid you shall, in a race round the world,
outstrip Mercury. The machines they make shall bear all your burdens;
with their brawny arms they lift a thousand tons, and with their fingers
of fairy-like delicacy pick up a pin; with the augur of Hercules they
bore a channel through the mountain of granite, and with a Liliputian
gimlet tunnel one of the hairs of your head.

These ingenious tools are worthy of careful inspection both on account
of the marvels they perform and the delicacy of their construction and
adjustments. One of them, a screw-engine lathe, for example, is taken to
pieces, and each piece described in order that the students may be made
familiar with the construction of the tool, and so rendered capable of
taking good care of it. During this inspection the instructor outlines
the history of the tool. The main feature is the slide-rest, invented by
Maudslay while in the employ of Bramah, the lock-maker. It is not too
much to say that two things exactly alike, or near enough alike,
practically, to serve the same purpose very well, were never produced on
the old-fashioned turning lathe. This the instructor endeavors to make
clear to the class. He also explains precisely how Maudslay’s
improvement remedied the defects of the old-fashioned lathe. Still there
remained something to be done to make it perfect, and putting the pieces
together the instructor shows where Maudslay’s work ended and that of
Clement began. Clement made two improvements in the slide-rest, one
involving the principle of self-correction, for which he received the
gold Isis medal of the Society of Arts in 1827, and the other
consisting of the “self-adjusting double-driving centre check,” for
which he was awarded the silver medal of the same society in 1828. Thus
improved or perfected, the slide-lathe became the acknowledged king of
machine-tools, the self-adjusting two-armed driver taking the strain
from the centre and dividing it between the two arms, and so correcting
all tendency to eccentricity in the work.

The Machine-tool Laboratory contains a great variety of tools, of which
the chief are lathes, drills, and planers; but there are many auxiliary
tools, and in the advanced stages of the course a single lesson often
affords opportunity for the introduction of several of them. And, as in
the other school laboratories, each tool, upon its first presentation to
the class, forms the subject of a brief lecture--a practical lecture
too, for the instructor uses the tool while he sketches its history and
perhaps that of its inventor, shows what place it holds in the order of
machine-tool development, and how admirably it is adapted to its
particular work, and makes suggestions as to its care. Sometimes a
lesson involves the use of a drawing made by the students a year before,
and the piece of iron in which it is wrought is the product of a
previous lesson in forging; and it may also have been manipulated with
the file or the cold-chisel, or both, in the Chipping, Filing, and
Fitting Laboratory.

From the first lesson in the room devoted to drawing, to the last lesson
in the Machine-tool Laboratory, the course of training is orderly,
consecutive. Each step contains a hint of the nature of the next step,
and each succeeding step consists of a further application of the
principles and processes of the last preceding step. In a word, the
students follow their drawings through all the laboratories till the
designs “are brought out in a finished state either in cast or wrought
iron.”

The lathe is the fundamental machine-tool, but a completely equipped
machine-tool laboratory includes a great variety of supplementary or
auxiliary tools, a thorough knowledge of which is essential to a good
mechanical education. It does not follow, because these tools are in a
large degree automatic, that skill may be dispensed with in their use.
Many of them are very complicated in design and construction, and they
can no more be made to do efficient service under an unskilled hand than
a locomotive can be made to accomplish a series of successful “runs” by
an unskilled “driver.” Hence every tool in the laboratory is made the
subject of an exhaustive study. The principle of mechanics involved in
its construction is expounded, a practical illustration of its method of
operation is given, its peculiar liability to injury is explained, and
rules for its care are carefully formulated, and frequently repeated.

There is a prevalent theory that the wide application of so-called
automatic tools to mechanical work largely decreases the legitimate
demand for skilled mechanics, but it is fallacious. In the first place a
thousand things are now made where one thing was made fifty years ago.
In the second place the extensive use of steam and electricity greatly
enlarges the sphere wherein accurate work becomes absolutely essential
to human safety, and hence extends the field of operations of the
inventive faculty. In the third place the cost of machine-tool made
products having been greatly reduced, competition is proportionately
intensified, thus narrowing the margin of profit, and so rendering any
injury to machinery through want of skill in the operator relatively
more disastrous. As a matter of fact a fine machine-tool is more liable
than a watch to get out of order through careless handling, and it no
more than a watch, can be properly repaired by a bungler. It follows
that skill in the use of machine-tools is as essential to a successful
mechanical career now, as skill in the use of hand-tools was formerly.

[Illustration: COURSE IN THE MACHINE-TOOL LABORATORY.]

But another conclusion follows more irresistibly, namely--that the
mechanical engineer who devotes his attention to the construction and
management of massive machinery, such as pumps, hydraulic and lever
presses, looms, and steam-engines, whether locomotive, marine, or other,
must, in order to be master of his profession, be thoroughly familiar
with every step of their construction; and such familiarity can only be
acquired by a course of practical study in the machine-tool shop. It is
the province of the mechanical engineer to utilize certain forces of
nature in the service of man, and it is only through the machine-tool
shop that such utilization can be effected. It hence follows that a
practical acquaintance with the manipulations of the machine-tool shop
is an essential prerequisite to a successful career in the field of
higher mechanics. The man who aspires to construct any great mechanical
engineering work, like the Brooklyn Bridge, for example, must know the
exact mechanical power of every piece of machinery he employs, as also
the exact mechanical value of every piece of iron that enters into the
structure; and these things he cannot know unless he is familiar with
the entire series of iron manipulations, from those of the foundery to
those of the machine-tool shop.

The aspect of the Machine-tool Laboratory when in repose, so to speak,
is dull and uninteresting, not to say repellant. There are twenty-four
engine-lathes, as many adjustable vises, a milling machine, and a
variety of auxiliary tools. The lathes are supported by dingy-looking
cast-iron frames, and under each lathe there is a chest of drawers
containing a set of tools. Overhead there is a wilderness of pulleys and
shafting, which seems to the untrained eye to have very little relation
to the machines below. The working parts of the lathes show burnished
steel surfaces, which reflect coldly the glare of yellow sunlight
flooding the room. If it were moonlight instead of sunlight one might
summon the ghosts of those daring men who hundreds and thousands of
years ago dreamed audaciously of the future of applied mechanics. Roger
Bacon must have had a vision of the machine-tool shop when he said, “I
will now mention some of the wonderful works of art and nature in which
there is nothing of magic, and which magic could not perform.
Instruments may be made by which the largest ships, with only one man
guiding them, will be carried with greater velocity than if they were
full of sailors; chariots may be constructed that will move with
incredible rapidity without the help of animals; a small instrument may
be made to raise or depress the greatest weights; an instrument may be
fabricated by which one man may draw a thousand men to him by force and
against their will; as also machines which will enable men to walk at
the bottom of seas or rivers without danger.”

When steam is “turned on” the aspect of the Machine-tool Laboratory is
completely changed. Steam is, indeed, the arch-revolutionist; it
breathes the breath of life into inanimate things--makes them think,
speak, and act. The low hum of unused machinery first salutes the ear;
then the students take their places. They are three years older than
when we encountered them in the engine-room. They are from seventeen to
twenty years of age. They are no longer boys; they are young
men--robust, hearty-looking young men. Their bearing is very
resolute--remarkably resolute; their attitude is erect. They are
full-chested, muscular-armed, frank-faced young men. In the three years’
course now drawing to a close they have learned how to do many things,
and hence they show a good degree of confidence. But the dominant
expression on all the interesting young faces is, after all, one of
modesty; so true is it that every acquisition of knowledge, and
especially useful knowledge, not only stimulates desire to learn more,
but enlightens perception as to the magnitude of the field of further
inquiry. As the addition of a useful thing to the world’s stock of
things creates a demand for a score more of useful things, so the
addition of a fact to the student’s stock of facts not only creates a
desire for more facts, but strengthens the mind for further
investigation.

It may be that there are vain statesmen, philosophers, priests, and
kings, but we should as little expect to find a vain mechanic as a vain
scientist.

These twenty-four students may go out into the world to-morrow to make
their way. Some of them will enter upon the stage of active life, others
will continue their studies in higher schools of literature, science,
and art; but whether they go or stay, if they have made the most of
their opportunities in the Manual Training School they will have learned
the lesson of modesty, and learned to respect labor, not only as a means
of earning one’s daily bread, but as the most powerful and the most
healthful mental and moral stimulant.

Steam is on, and the students standing at the lathes are impatient to
begin. It is not a lesson in the ordinary sense. Each student works
independently of special direction, for each is engaged in making a
machine--the graduating project. The instructor is at hand, not to
dictate but to advise, if requested. From his fund of experience as the
elder scholar he will answer questions propounded by his younger
fellow-students. In front of the students, parts of the working drawings
may be seen. It is plain that there is to be variety in the exhibit of
“projects.” There are several steam-engines, differing in model; there
is a steam-pump, a punching machine, a lathe, an electric machine, and a
steam-hammer.

At a sign work commences--a dozen varieties of work, emitting a dozen
tones of buzzing and whizzing. The instructor’s face lights up with a
pleased expression as he notes the progress of the work. There is no
sign of hesitation in the class; no questions are asked; the students
seem to be driving straight to the mark. The instructor’s heart swells
with pride; he can trust “his boys!” He has been regarding them with an
expression of affection, but now his eyes wander--they have a far-away
look. He no longer sees the students, he is looking beyond them. He
drops into a reclining attitude, sighs, falls into a reverie, and
dreams. In his dream he sees naked savages, emerging from caves, armed
with clubs, pursuing animals. These are succeeded by men bearing rude
stone implements--axes and hammers--and these in turn by men armed with
bows and arrows, but half-clothed with skins of beasts, and crouching
and shivering beneath the shelter of the branches of a tree pulled
downward and secured by clods of earth. This picture disappears, and is
replaced by a pastoral scene--a vast plain covered with flocks and
herds. In the foreground stands the shepherd, and in the distance his
tent, consisting of skins of beasts stretched on poles, and in the tent
door a woman sits pounding a fleece into felt. The shepherd, his flocks
and herds, his tent, and the woman in the tent door, vanish like the
mists of morning, and where the shepherd was, the husbandman is seen
harvesting the golden grain; and in the shadow of the cottage which has
replaced the tent a woman is grinding corn. The scene again changes--the
plain has become the site of a great city. The city is protected by
thick, high walls, surmounted with frowning battlements. Sentinels pace
back and forth along the parapet. Huge helmets protect their heads, and
their bodies are clothed in armor. Quivers full of bronze-tipped arrows
depend from their shoulders; in their hands they carry long bows, and
the clank, clank of their broad, two-edged, bronze swords breaks the
dull, monotonous routine of their march. A brazen gate swings back
noiselessly on brazen hinges, and, bowing to the sentinel, the dreamer
as noiselessly glides into the city. Suddenly he feels the hot breath of
the foundery furnace-fire, and is blinded by a glare of red light.
Shading his eyes he sees dusky forms hurrying to and fro with ladles
full of molten metal. Turning away he hears the heavy stroke of the
sledge, and looking, beholds a dusty, smoky smithy. The stalwart smith
drops the sledge at his side, rests one foot on the anvil-block, and
wipes the sweat from his brow; the helper thrusts the cooling metal into
the coals, bends to the bellows, and the forge-fire sings. At the sound
of a bell the dreamer starts, the old Assyrian city falls into ruins,
the ruins crumble into dust, and on this dust another city rises,
flourishes, falls, and piles the dust of its ruins. Over a waste of
years--twenty centuries--the dreamer’s thought flashes, and he stands in
the presence of the Alexandrian mechanic-philosopher. He sees Hero in
the public street, gazing abstractedly at his condensed-air fountain,
and follows him into his shop or laboratory, and observes him curiously
as he toys with the model of a queer little steam-engine. “This is the
Iron Age, but in its infancy,” he exclaims under his breath, as his eyes
wander from a fine Damascus blade hanging against the wall to some poor
hand-tools lying on the working-bench. “I will speak to this old man,”
he continues, “and ask him to step into my Machine-tool Laboratory, and
see my boys make steam-engines; it will be a revelation to him. Come,
old friend--there--look!” And the dreamer looks. Does he see double? The
laboratory is unchanged; steam is still on; the whir of machinery and
the buzzing sound of steam-driven tools salute the ear, and the students
are all busy at their benches finishing parts of “projects” and
adjusting them in their places, But there are twenty-four other
men--shades of men--in the laboratory. Most of them are old; some are in
working clothes, others in full dress, wearing ribbons and orders of
merit. Over each student one of these shades bends with an air of
absorbing attention. The dreamer recognizes Papin, Fulton, Watt, and
Stephenson shadowing the students engaged in the construction of
engines. They beckon Hero, and he joins the group, threading his way
timidly between the lines of lathes, and looking askance at the rapidly
revolving wheels and flying belts. Over the shoulders of other students
are seen the faces of Maudslay, Bramah, Clement, Roberts, Whitney,
Nasmyth, Huntsman, Cort, Murray, Dudley, Yarranton, Roebuck, and
Whitworth, besides several unfamiliar faces. Suddenly they all gather
about a nearly completed project--a stationary engine. They witness the
forcing home of the last screw; they see the miniature machine made fast
to the bench. Steam is let into the cylinders. The student’s flushed
face is in sharp contrast with the colorless faces of the group of old
men by whom he is surrounded. The piston-rod moves languidly--the
machine trembles as if awaking from slumber, the shaft oscillates
slowly, then faster, then regularly, like a strong pulse-beat. The
project is a success--the first one completed! The student’s face turns
pale--as pale as the white faces of the old men at his side. They open
their lips as if to cheer him, but no sound escapes them. He breathes
quick--almost gasps; his heart beats loudly; he tries to shout but
cannot utter a word. At last he claps his hands! The instructor starts
from his chair, rubs his eyes, and stares round the laboratory. All the
students are there, gathered in a group about the finished “project,”
but the ghostly shades of the old inventors have vanished like the
unsubstantial fabric of a vision.

The “projects” are not all finished on the same day. Some of them are
far more complicated than others, and some students are more skilled
than others. All are very busy. It is not improper to ask questions
relating to work on the graduating projects; the instructor is at hand
to answer such questions. But it is a point of honor not to ask a
question if the difficulty can possibly be otherwise overcome. Hence
very few questions are asked.

The last week of the term is a very trying one to all concerned. The
students are reticent and unusually silent; all are anxious, some are
timid--the nervous tension is extreme. The instructor becomes taciturn
under a painful sense of compulsory isolation from his class, towards
all the members of which he has, for three years, sustained fraternal
rather than dictatorial relations. But as the projects are, one by one,
completed, the atmosphere clears. When the student realizes that his
project is certain to be a success, his face brightens and he is pleased
to discuss its “points” with the instructor. The instructor is delighted
to resume his former relations with the class, the feeling of constraint
is dispelled, and the graduation-day exercises are contemplated with
confidence.

CHAPTER X.

MANUAL AND MENTAL TRAINING COMBINED.

We have now passed in review all the school laboratories, from the
engine-room, or laboratory where power is generated, to the Machine-tool
Laboratory where power is utilized, or harnessed, and compelled to do
the work of man. We have observed the student, in his first effort over
the drawing-board, struggling laboriously to make a straight line, and
in the Laboratory of Carpentry, trying with varying success to make a
tenon fit the mortise, and we have stood by his side in the Machine-tool
Laboratory in the moment of his triumph exhibiting his graduating
“project”--a miniature engine throbbing under the pressure of steam, and
doing its work with admirable precision. But we have seen only the
manual side of the curriculum. The mental side is still to be shown. The
claim made in behalf of the new education is that it is better balanced
than the old, that it is all-sided, that it produces a harmonious
development of the whole being, that it makes of the student a man fully
furnished for the battle of life, mentally, morally, and physically.
Accordingly the curriculum of the Manual Training School combines with
the laboratory exercises a variety of mental exercises of quite a
comprehensive character; and first, certain mental requirements are
necessary to admission, as witness the following from the first
catalogue of the Chicago Manual Training School:

“Candidates for admission to the Junior year must be at least fourteen
years of age, and must present sufficient evidence of good moral
character. They must pass a satisfactory examination in reading,
spelling, writing, geography, English composition, and the fundamental
operations of arithmetic as applied to integers, common and decimal
fractions, and denominate numbers. Ability to use the English language
correctly is especially desired.”

The following questions were used at the first examination for admission
to the Chicago school.

ARITHMETIC.

Transcribe work sufficient to show processes. No credit given for
results alone.

1. Change to decimals and find the sum of ⁴⁄₅, ⁵⁄₈, ¹¹⁄₁₆, ⁹⁄₂₀,
⁴¹⁄₅₀.

2. Divide the product of 28⁵⁄₇ and 13⁴⁄₉ by the difference of 8⁵⁄₁₂
and 4⁴⁄₅.

3. Divide .00875 by 12¹⁄₂.

4. Reduce .395 of a mile to integers.

5. If a locomotive move ⁵⁄₈ of a mile in ¹¹⁄₁₂ of an hour, what is its
speed per hour?

6. A man invested ¹⁄₅ of his money in land, .125 of it in stocks,
$12,000 in a vessel, and had $55,500 remaining. How much did he invest
in land?

7. Bought a square mile of land at $75 an acre. I reserved 160 acres
of it for streets and alleys, and divided the remainder into lots each
66 feet front by 200 feet deep, all of which I sold for $15 per front
foot. The expense of surveying, etc., was $2000. What did I gain?

8. How many balls, each ¹⁄₄ of an inch in diameter, are equal in
weight to a ball of the same material 1 foot in diameter?

9. Find cost of material for making box, inside measurement 4 by 2 by
3 feet, of inch lumber, worth $30 per M., ¹⁄₂₅ of the lumber purchased
being wasted. Include in the cost 7 dozen screws at $1.80 per gross.

[Illustration: THE STUDENTS WITH THEIR BOOKS.]

10. What is the height of a rectangular cistern capable of containing
600 gallons, the bottom of which is 7 by 11 feet, inside measurement?

GEOGRAPHY.

1. Name the five most populous cities of the United States in order of
population. On what water is St. Petersburg? Dublin? Rome? Calcutta?
Cairo?

2. Locate the principal coal fields and iron regions of the United
States. What minerals occur in Illinois?

3. Draw map of Illinois, showing by what States and by what waters
bounded. Locate the capital and the largest city of Illinois.

4. Name the outlet of Lake Erie; of Lake Champlain; of Great Salt
Lake; of the Black Sea; of Lake Victoria Nyanza.

5. Compare the latitude and climate of Spain and Illinois.

6. How does the island of Great Britain compare in area with the
United States, or with any one of the United States which you may
mention?

7. How do the Alps compare in height with the Rocky Mountains? Name
the highest peak in Europe; in North America; in South America; in the
world.

8. How does climate vary with altitude above the sea level? Illustrate
by an example.

9. What is the cause of day and night? Of changes of seasons? What is
latitude? Longitude?

10. When it is 11 A.M. by “Central Time” in Chicago, what is the hour
by “Eastern Time” in New York City? What is the hour in London? Is
“Central Time” in Chicago the true time? Why?

Or, in place of the last question: What are the termini of the
Illinois and Michigan Canal? What waters are connected by the Suez
Canal? Of what water route does the Suez Canal take the place?

LANGUAGE.

1. Correct in every particular, and give reason for each correction:

_a._ The man which was sick has went to his work.

_b._ Every person should attend to their own affairs.

_c._ Such expressions sound harshly.

_d_. Between you and I, this is a real easy examination.

_e_. The cause of the tides were not wholly unknown to the ancients.

2. “Pleasantly rose next morning the sun on the village of Grand Pré.”

How is the idea of the rising of the sun modified?

“Flashed all their sabres bare,
Flashed as they turned in air,
Sab’ring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wondered.”

Change to good prose.

4. State the meaning of each prefix and suffix in the following words:
Emigrate; Immigrate; Illegally; Admissible; Thoughtlessness; Affixing.

_a_. Why is the final e of “service” retained in “serviceable?”

_b_. Write the present participle of “befit;” of “benefit.” What
difference in spelling? Why?

_c_. Define Ancient; Venerable; Obsolete.

6. Write an essay on Chicago, mentioning the rapid growth of the city;
its land and water communications; its commerce and manufactures; its
public buildings; its institutions of learning and charity, and any
other items which may occur to you.

Having passed the ordeal of the foregoing battery of questions the
student of the Ideal School finds his mental exercises alternated with
manual exercises throughout the entire course in something like the
following order, namely:

=Junior Year.=--(1.) _Mathematics_--Arithmetic; Algebra. (2.)
_Science._--Physiology; Physical Geography. (3.) _Language._--English
Language and Literature; or Latin Reader. (4.) _Drawing._--Freehand
Model and Object; Projection; Machine; Perspective. (5.)
_Shopwork._--Carpentry, Joinery, Wood-Turning, Pattern-Making, Proper
Care and Use of Tools.

=Middle Year.=--(1.) _Mathematics._--Geometry. (2.)
_Science._--Physics. (3.) _Language._--General History and Literature;
or Cæsar. (4.) _Drawing._--Orthographic Projection and Shadows; Line
and Brush Shading; Isometric Projection and Shadows; Details of
Machinery; Machine from Measurement. (5.) _Shopwork._--Molding,
Casting; Forging, Welding, Tempering; Soldering, Brazing.

=Senior Year.=--(1.) _Mathematics._--Plane Trigonometry; Mechanics;
Book-keeping. (2.) _Science._--Chemistry; or Descriptive Geometry and
Higher Algebra. (3.) _Language, etc._--English Literature, Civil
Government, Political Economy; or Cicero, or French. (4.)
_Drawing._--Machine from Measurement; Building from Measurement;
Architectural Perspective. (5.) _Machine Shopwork._--Such as Chipping,
Filing, Fitting, Turning, Drilling, Planing, etc. Study of Machinery,
including the Management and Care of Steam Engines and Boilers.

Latin and French may be taken instead of English Language, Literature,
and History. Instruction will be given each year in the properties of
the materials--wood, iron, brass, etc.--used in that year.

Throughout the course, one hour per day, or more, will be given to
drawing, and not less than two hours per day to laboratory work. The
remainder of the school day will be devoted to study and recitation.
Before graduating, each pupil will be required to construct a machine
from drawings and patterns made by himself. A diploma will be given on
graduation.

The new education is a blending of manual and mental training. It
recognizes the fact that science discovers and art utilizes, and that
these two forces move the modern world.

At present the Manual Training School is a missionary enterprise. Its
purpose is to create in the public mind an imperative demand for the
incorporation of its scientific methods into the public-school course of
instruction.

A vast majority of our people are employed in the useful arts, and
distinction in every department of labor now depends upon scientific
education. Without technical education or manual training the laborer of
the future cannot hope to rise above the grade of a piece of automatic
machinery. He falls into the routine of the shop like a cog or lever
moved by steam. To avert this dire misfortune our common schools must be
made institutions for manual as well as intellectual training. They must
inculcate the dignity of labor not by precept merely, but by example.
It is not enough that schools of technology, polytechnic institutes, and
manual training schools are being established here and there by private
subscription. The supply of these classes of education is only a drop in
the bucket to the public demand. Technical and manual training must be
made part of the general public educational system. In our city
high-schools we now fit boys for college. In those schools we must
hereafter fit them for the colleges of art. When this shall have become
the fashion in education there will be thousands of high-school
graduates with a grand passion for mechanical pursuits--boys with more
curiosity on the subject of the expansive force of steam than on the
subject of “Greek roots;” with more ambition to invent something useful
to man than to learn how to draw a bill in chancery; with a stronger
desire to discover a new secret in electricity than to carry off a prize
for the best Latin oration.

CHAPTER XI.

THE INTELLECTUAL EFFECT OF MANUAL TRAINING.

The quality of all civilizations depends upon intelligence and
character, or morality, in the order stated; for morality springs from
intelligence, not intelligence from morality. This is an axiomatic
deduction of historic analysis.[2] Nor would it be difficult to prove
that practical intelligence is more conducive to a high development of
morals than mere theoretical intelligence. For is it not true that the
nations most skilled in the useful arts are most highly cultured in
morals? And if it be true, it constitutes a potential argument in
support of joining to intellectual instruction in the schools a course
of training in the elements of the useful arts. And of the fact which
forms the basis of this argument there is a logical explanation.

[2] “But if we contrast this stationary aspect of moral truths with
the progressive aspect of intellectual truths, the difference is,
indeed, startling.... These are to every educated man recognized and
notorious facts, and the inference to be drawn from them is
immediately obvious. Since civilization is the product of moral and
intellectual agencies, and since that product is constantly changing,
it evidently cannot be regulated by the stationary agent; because when
surrounding circumstances are unchanged, a stationary agent can only
produce a stationary effect. The only other agent is the intellectual
one, and that this is the real mover may be proved in two distinct
ways: first, because being, as we have already seen, either moral or
intellectual, and being, as we have also seen, not moral, it must be
intellectual; and secondly, because the intellectual principle has an
activity and a capacity for adaptation which, as I undertake to show,
is quite sufficient to account for the extraordinary progress that,
during several centuries, Europe has continued to make.”--Buckle’s
“History of Civilization,” Vol. I., p. 130. D. Appleton & Co., 1864.

Nothing stimulates and quickens the intellect more than the use of
mechanical tools. The boy who begins to construct things is compelled at
once to begin to think, deliberate, reason, and conclude. As he proceeds
he is brought in contact with powerful natural forces. If he would
control, direct, and apply these forces he must first master the laws by
which they are governed; he must investigate the causes of the phenomena
of matter, and it will be strange if from this he is not also led to a
study of the phenomena of mind. At the very threshold of practical
mechanics a thirst for wisdom is engendered, and the student is
irresistibly impelled to investigate the mysteries of philosophy. Thus
the training of the eye and the hand reacts upon the brain, stimulating
it to excursions into the realm of scientific discovery in search of
facts to be applied in practical forms at the bench and the anvil.

The history of invention and discovery in England affords a striking
confirmation of the truth of the proposition that mechanical
investigation, with tools in hand, stimulates the intellectual faculties
to the highest point of activity and excellence. The germs of nearly
all the great inventions in mechanics, the benefit of which the world is
now enjoying in such ample measure, are directly traceable to the
workshops of Great Britain during the period 1740-1840.

England had then no popular system of education, and the apprentices in
her shops were poor, obscure, and, at the start, illiterate. But to
those poor apprentices the honor of the great inventions and discoveries
of that age is almost wholly due. And it is a notable fact that in the
struggle to invent tools and machines, to master the art of mechanism,
to steal from Nature her secret forces, and harness and use them for the
benefit of man, the toiling workers not infrequently became highly
educated, intellectual giants, familiar not alone with special studies,
but masters of many branches of learning.

In 1770 the Russian Government, aware of the inferiority of English
iron, and deeming Russian iron essential to England, directed the price
of iron for export to be raised three hundred per cent. This arbitrary
act stimulated invention. Henry Cort, the son of a brick-maker, entered
upon a series of experiments, with a view to the improvement of English
iron. They occupied several years, and were of a very expensive
character--so expensive as eventually to bankrupt the man who made them.
They were, however, so successful as to constitute a splendid epoch in
the history of metallurgy. In 1786 Lord Sheffield declared that Cort’s
improvements in iron, and the steam-engine of Watt, were of more value
to Great Britain than the thirteen colonies of America; and in 1862 it
was estimated that those improvements had added three thousand million
dollars to the wealth of England alone, to say nothing of the rest of
the world of iron manufacture throughout which they had been applied.
But the only estate secured by this great man as a reward of his genius
and a life of toil, as his biographer pathetically remarks, was “the
little domain of six feet by two in which he lies buried in Hampstead
churchyard.”

In 1715 Sheffield contained two thousand inhabitants, of whom one-third
were beggars. Its manufactures consisted of jews-harps, tobacco-boxes,
and knives. Sheffield is now the chief seat of the steel manufacture of
the world. The initial step in this great transformation scene was taken
by Benjamin Huntsman. He was born in 1704, and bred to a mechanical
calling. The early years of his life were spent in the occupation of
clock making and repairing. He was shrewd, observant, and practical, and
he gradually extended the scope of his profession to repairing, and
finally to making hand-tools. In this branch of his trade he detected
defects in the German steel in common use. He removed from Doncaster to
Sheffield, and there in the privacy of his cottage studied metallurgy,
and for years labored in secret over the furnace and the crucible. His
numerous failures were subsequently found chronicled in masses of metal,
in various stages of imperfection, buried in the earth. But when he
emerged from his long seclusion he offered to his fellow-mechanics a
piece of cast-steel so hard that they declined to work it. He sent the
product of his works to France, and the French knives and razors made
from it and imported into England drove the Sheffield cutlery from the
market. Then the Sheffield cutlers sought to have the export of steel
prohibited. Failing in that they stole Huntsman’s secret. This was
possible, since the process had not been patented. The story of the
theft is told in a little work entitled “The Useful Metals and their
Alloys.” It is in substance that one Walker, an iron-founder, “disguised
himself as a tramp, and feigning great distress and abject poverty,
appeared shivering at the door of Huntsman’s foundery late one night
when the workmen were about to begin their labors at steel-casting, and
asked for permission to warm himself by the furnace-fire.” He was
permitted to enter, and when he left he carried away the secret of the
inventor of cast-steel.

Huntsman was a member of the Society of Friends, and it was doubtless on
that account that he declined a membership of the Royal Society tendered
to him in honor of his great discovery or invention of cast-steel.

David Mushet’s discovery of the extraordinary value of black-band
iron-stone in 1801 made Scotland a first-class iron-producing country;
and Neilson’s invention of the hot-blast in 1828 revolutionized the
processes of iron manufacture by vastly cheapening them. Both these men
sprang from the labor class, and both were self-educated. Through almost
superhuman efforts they rose from poverty and obscurity to fame.
Mushet’s “Papers on Iron and Steel,” in the language of Smiles, “are
among the most valuable original contributions to the literature of iron
manufacture that have yet been given to the world;” and Neilson was made
a member of the Royal Society in recognition of his distinguished
ability and the great services he rendered in the cause of the useful
arts.

George Stephenson rose from the coal-mine to the summit of renown as a
theoretical and practical mechanic. While employed in various collieries
as “fireman” and “plugman,” he acquired a thorough knowledge of the
engines then in use, taking them apart, repairing, and putting them
together again. At eighteen years of age he could not read. In the
course of two years attendance at night-schools he learned to read,
write, and cipher.[3] Continuing to work in collieries, he employed his
leisure hours in studying mechanics and engineering, and in mending
clocks and shoes. When thirty-one years of age he was appointed
“enginewright” at Killingworth Colliery, at a salary of £100 a year.
From this point of time dates his career as an inventor. His first
locomotive was completed in 1814, and the “Rocket” made its trial trip
in 1829. During the intervening fifteen years Stephenson was largely
engaged in the engineering department of railway enterprises as well as
in the prosecution of experiments for the perfecting of locomotive
engines. The most eminent engineers of the time doubted the
practicability of the locomotive, and continued to recommend stationary
engines, while Stephenson was leading up to the “Rocket.” The success of
the “Rocket” made its inventor the most famous mechanic in the world.
For the next fifteen years he was the leading spirit in all the great
railway enterprises of England, besides being called repeatedly to
Belgium and Spain as consulting engineer. He was offered a fellowship of
the Royal Society, also one in the Civil Engineers’ Society, also
knighthood by Sir Robert Peel. All these empty honors he declined. “I
have to state,” he said, in reply to a request for his “ornamental
initials,” “that I have no flourishes to my name, either before or
after, and I think it will be as well if you merely say George
Stephenson.” He may justly be styled the founder of the existing railway
system of the world, which undoubtedly exerts more influence upon
civilization than any other one cause or set of allied causes; and to
have risen from the humblest station in a colliery to the dignity of
founding such a system is sufficient evidence of a gigantic intellectual
growth.

[3] “In conclusion, we are of opinion that special instruction which
can be applied to the material would be at once more fruitful in good
results and more attractive if the pupil could go from the class-room
to the workshop (laboratory) to practically demonstrate the theories
to which he has just been listening. In support of this opinion we
might add the observations made in our own evening-schools, where the
most noteworthy and rapid progress is made in those cases where the
pupil has occasion to put into actual practice on the material itself
the instruction which he has received in the drawing-class.”--“Report
of Committee of Council of Arts and Manufactures of the Province of
Quebec, created to Inquire into the Question of Practical Schools.”

James Watt was an extremely fragile child, and hence unable to join in
the rude sports of robust children. Thus confined within-doors he early
amused himself by drawing “with a pencil upon paper, or with chalk upon
the floor.” He was also supplied with a few tools from his father’s
carpenter’s shop, “which he soon learned to handle with considerable
expertness.” Mr. Smiles, in his biography of Watt, says, “The mechanical
dexterity he acquired was the foundation upon which he built the
speculations to which he owes his glory, nor without this manual
training is there the least likelihood that he would have become the
improver and almost the creator of the steam-engine.”[4] In the
parrot-power of learning or memorizing Watt was a dull boy, and he left
the grammar-school of his native town at an early age, never to return
to the “halls of learning.” But while engaged in humble mechanical
employments he perfected his education, studying after work-hours. He
nearly starved his body, but constantly added to his intellectual
stores. He mastered the principles of engineering, civil and military,
studied natural history, criticism, art, and acquired several modern
languages. In a word, without the aid of the schools, but under the
stimulating influence of mechanical investigation and work, Watt became
an accomplished and scientific man. When nearly eighty years of age he
and Sir Walter Scott met. Referring to the occasion, and speaking of
Watt, Sir Walter is reported to have said, “The alert, kind, benevolent
old man had his attention alive to every one’s question, his information
at every one’s command. His talents and fancy overflowed on every
subject. One gentleman was a deep philologist--he talked with him on the
origin of the alphabet as if he had been coeval with Cadmus; another a
celebrated critic--you would have said the old man had studied political
economy and belles-lettres all his life; of science it is unnecessary to
speak--it was his distinguished walk.”

[4] “I believe that well-advised practice in any of the constructive
arts involving not more than one-third of the student’s time will
yield as much mental improvement as will result if the whole time be
devoted to study from text-books.”--Prof. Wm. F. M. Goss, six years
Director of the Department of Practical Mechanics of Purdue
University.

“And reflect that he will learn more by one hour of manual labor than
he will retain from a whole day’s verbal instructions.”--“The Emilius
and Sophia” of J. J. Rousseau, Vol. II., p. 64. London: 1767.

“The things themselves are the best explanations. I can never enough
repeat it, that we make words of too much consequence; with our
prating modes of education we make nothing but praters.”--Ibid., p.
46.

These examples of remarkable intellectual development in connection
with tool-practice are not phenomenal. From the annals of invention and
discovery numerous instances might be cited in support of the
proposition of this chapter, that tool-practice stimulates intellectual
growth.

In the Artisan’s School at Rotterdam, Holland, an experience of seven
years has demonstrated that “boys who are occupied one-half the day with
books in the school, and the remaining half with tools in the
laboratories, make about as rapid intellectual progress as those of
equal ability who spend the whole day in study and recitation.” The
testimony of Dr. Woodward, director of the St. Louis (Mo.) Manual
Training School, is to the same effect. And in one of his reports he
says, “Success in drawing or shop-work has often had the effect of
arousing the ambition in mathematics and history, and _vice versa_....
The habit of working from drawings and to nice measurements has given
the students a confidence in themselves altogether new. This is shown in
the readiness with which they undertake the execution of small
commissions in behalf of the school.... In fact, the increased
usefulness of our students is making itself felt, and in several
instances the result has been the offer of business positions too
tempting to be rejected.”

Of the results achieved by the Imperial Technical School, Moscow,
Russia, M. Victor Della-Vos, director, speaks with the utmost
confidence. He says, “And now (1878) we present our system of
instruction, not as a project, but as an accomplished fact, confirmed by
the long experience of ten years of success in its results.” The methods
of instruction of the school at Moscow were introduced into all the
technical schools of Russia in 1870.

A similar degree of success has attended the Royal Mechanic Art School
at Komotau, Bohemia. The management says, “The school has shown the most
brilliant proofs of usefulness, and the ends gained have been
acknowledged at home and abroad. One proof is that in spite of the hard
times all the pupils from Komotau have found occupation in different
manufacturing establishments; and another that England, a country
unsurpassed in the manufactures of iron and steel, has already sent some
students to the school.”

If the pupil in the Manual Training School makes as rapid progress
intellectually as the pupil in the public or private school of
corresponding grade, it follows that whatever skill in the use of tools
is acquired, and whatever knowledge of practical mechanics is
gained--these stand for the net gain of the pupil of the new system of
education. But much more follows by implication. For if the few pupils
of the world’s few manual training schools are making equal intellectual
progress with the many pupils of the many schools of the old _régime_,
and making such progress in a little more than half the study-hours, the
consideration of overwhelming import is the loss sustained by the
millions of pupils being trained under the old system.

CHAPTER XII.

THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN A NECESSITY.

The Difference between Ancient and Modern Systems of Education. --
Plato Blinded by Half-truths. -- No place in the present order of
things for Dogmatisms. -- Education commences at Birth. -- The
Influence of Woman extends from the Cradle to the Grave. -- The Crime
of Crimes. -- Neglect to educate Woman. -- The Superiority of Women
over Men as Teachers. -- Froebel discovered it. -- Nature designed
Woman to Teach; hence the Importance of Fitting her for her Highest
Destiny.

This, from the lips of Plato, was the theory of the ancients: “The earth
is the common mother of the human race, but it has pleased the gods to
mix gold in the composition of some, silver in that of others, iron and
copper in that of others.”[5] On this divinely established principle of
caste all the ancient educational systems were founded. They were
limited to the development of the few in whose composition gold was
supposed to be mixed.

[5] “The Republic of Plato,” p. 114. London: Macmillan & Co., 1881.

The idea of a universal education is modern, and all other differences
between the ancients and moderns combined are as nothing to this one
fundamental difference between the two civilizations. Plato’s ideal
republic was based upon the assumption that the “guardians” might be
made just and wise by educating them; but that the other classes might
also be made just and wise by education, and the State be so rendered
absolutely secure, did not occur to the great philosopher.

Plato was blinded by half-truths, as Rousseau was two thousand years
later, when he said, “The poor stand in no need of education; that of
their station is confined, and they cannot obtain any other.”[6] That
men are created unequal intellectually is only a half-truth in an
educational view; the whole truth is that every child is susceptible of
the developing influence of education, and hence the obligation of the
State to educate relates to all children. Plato’s simile of the gold,
the silver, and the iron shows how autocratically even the greatest mind
is controlled by its environment, and limited by the facts which
constitute the basis of its generalizations. Were Plato teaching here,
now, he would transpose the order of statement in his simile, since
iron, not gold, is the king of metals. Each generation increases the
world’s stock of facts; hence there is no place in the modern order of
things for the dogmatist--the dogmatisms of yesterday become apt themes
for the satires of to-day, subjecting their authors to ridicule. This
fact should impress upon professional teachers, and upon all persons
engaged in seeking to promote the cause of education, the importance of
a reverently studious habit of mind touching the progress of events. The
tyranny of tradition is an ever-present, potent influence, and only the
growing mind can resist it.

[6] “Emilius and Sophia,” Vol. I, p. 40. London: 1767.

But there are certain principles upon which not only ancient and modern
educators agree, but about which there is no dispute between existing
rival schools, as, for example, this proposition of Plato--

“The beginning is the most important part, especially in dealing with
anything young and tender, for that is the time when any impression
which one may desire to communicate is most readily stamped and
taken.”[7]

[7] “The Republic of Plato,” p. 65. London: Macmillan & Co., 1881.

And this proposition of Rousseau--

“The education of a man commences at his birth; before he can speak,
before he can understand, he is already instructed.... Trace the
progress of the most ignorant of mortals from his birth to the present
hour and you will be astonished at the knowledge he has acquired.”[8]

[8] “Emilius and Sophia,” Vol. I., p. 54. London: 1767.

And this further proposition, also of Rousseau--

“The common profession of all men is humanity; and whoever is well
educated to discharge the duties of a man cannot be badly prepared to
fill up any of those offices that have a relation to him.”[9]

[9] Ibid., Vol. I., p 13.

The truth of these propositions being admitted, some conception may be
formed of the tremendous influence exerted by woman upon the destinies
of the human race. It extends literally from the cradle to the grave.
All other influences combined are less potent, less comprehensive than
this single, persistent force that creates the very atmosphere in which
the infant mind develops, holding the ground alone and undisturbed until
the child’s plastic character has been formed, receiving ineradicable
impressions. What a crime, then, was the neglect of the people of past
ages to educate woman! It is in vain that the education of man is
attempted if that of woman is neglected. It was Rousseau who in despair
exclaimed:

“How can a child be properly educated by one who has not been properly
educated himself?”

Since, therefore, the education of the man begins while he lies helpless
in his mother’s arms, and since the first steps in this direction are
the most important, and since some sort of education proceeds with
almost inconceivable rapidity through all the early years of life, it
follows that the kindergarten fills a place in the educational field
entirely unoccupied until the time of Froebel. He first applied the
ideas of Rousseau to school life. But when the kindergarten receives the
child, three or four of the most precious educational years have already
passed away, and at the still tender age of seven the child is
surrendered to a very different system of training. The kindergarten is
therefore only a brief episode in the educational period of the child’s
life. But if it be the true education, it is susceptible of universal
application. Throughout all nature the order of development is constant
and harmonious, and the child-nature cannot in reason constitute an
exception to this rule. Froebel said, “The end and aim of all our work
should be the harmonious growth of the whole being.” If his principle is
the true one, his method is susceptible of such modification and
expansion as to render it applicable to the whole educational period.
All mothers should therefore be trained in the principles and methods of
the new education--the kindergarten system should prevail in all
schools, and the kindergarten curriculum should be extended and adapted
to all ages and grades of pupils.

Several great minds, separated by considerable intervals of time, have
united in condemning the old systems of education--Bacon, Comenius,
Rousseau, Pestalozzi, and Froebel. Bacon, himself a university man,
said, “They learn nothing at the universities but to believe;” and he
proposed that a college be appropriated to the discovery of new truth,
“to mix like a living spring with the stagnant waters.” Three of these
great men--Comenius, Pestalozzi, and Froebel--were professional
teachers. Theoretically they were in accord with and followers of Bacon,
and in practice they were substantially agreed. Comenius said, “Let
things that have to be done be learned by doing them.” Pestalozzi said,
“Education is the generation of power,” and Froebel said, “The end and
aim of all our work should be the harmonious growth of the whole being.”

These are very high authorities, and they are buttressed by seemingly
impregnable educational propositions. The record of Froebel’s life is
worthy of great weight in support of his theory. His devotion to the
cause of education was absolute. He never knew a selfish aim. He
struggled for the race, not for self. He was the victim of many
misfortunes, but none disturbed the serenity of this great soul devoted
to the greatest of great causes--the cause of education. And education
to his apprehension was the thorough training of every faculty of the
mind and every power of the body for the duties of actual practical
life. His love embraced the world in its entirety and in all its parts.
Dying, he said, “I love flowers, men, children, God! I love everything!”
It was his profoundly philosophic conception of the innate lovableness
of every natural object that made him shudder at the cruel distortion
wrought in the natures of little children by false methods of education.
Hence his intense devotion to the subject of infant training, and hence
the excellence of the system which bears his name.

Froebel’s most subtile discovery was the fact of the superiority of
women over men, as teachers. Only an honest, brave soul could have made
this discovery, for tradition stood like a lion in the way, and
prejudice discouraged investigation. But Froebel sought truth for
truth’s sake, fearlessly defying tradition and ignoring prejudice; and
years of experiment convinced him that the greatest measure of success
in infant training was surely attainable through women. That this
discovery, so simple, yet so big with grand possibilities, was not made
earlier is due to the fact that there is so little really independent
thought, so little investigation free from the trammels of prejudice.
Now that a great mind has pointed the way it is obvious that Nature,
having designed that the years of early childhood should be spent with
the mother, must have also designed that women should be the chief
educators of children. And it follows, of course, that the education of
women is more important than that of men, since it is from them that
children receive their first impressions, and since first impressions
are indelibly stamped upon the infant mind, giving it form, color, and
substance.

In confiding to women this great trust, Froebel imposed upon them an
incalculable weight of responsibility. It comprehends the destiny of the
human race, involving the problem of its progress or retrogression.

A common first conception of the kindergarten is--a convenient asylum
for the children of mothers who desire to be relieved of their care. A
more thoughtful study reveals its poetry and sentiment, the innocent joy
of the assembly of pupils, the harmony of song, and the grace of motion
in the games and dances. A final, large view discloses the true
educational principle. The kindergarten is more clearly comprehended
after studying the manual training school--moving from the effect to
the cause; for as the child is father of the man, so the kindergarten is
father of the manual training school. The kindergarten comes first in
the order of development, and leads logically to the manual training
school. The same principle underlies both. In both it is sought to
generate power by dealing with actualities. The corner-stone of both is
object-teaching--teaching through things instead of through signs of
things. This principle, common to both, is the concrete as opposed to
the abstract. The theory of both is that, in teaching, ideas should
never be isolated from the objects they represent.[E3] The kindergarten
and the manual training school, being one in principle, should have
common methods of instruction, varied sufficiently to adapt them to the
whole range of school life.

[E3] “This method of object teaching is perhaps the greatest service
which the naturalistic school has rendered to the cause of education.
Hinted at by Rabelais and Locke, still more largely developed by
Rousseau, it has received, in the last century, a more accurate and
scientific form, and is probably destined to become the source of a
new curriculum in which literature will only hold a secondary
place.”--“Educational Theories,” p. 109. By Oscar Browning, M.A. New
York: Harper & Brothers, 1885.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE MORAL EFFECT OF MANUAL TRAINING.

Education, or training, has two immediate and continuous effects--the
development of innate mental qualities or aptitudes and the formation of
character. In an orderly logical system of training the development
would be harmonious, and the resulting formation of character
symmetrical. These are, however, ideal conditions requiring a perfect
system of training, and students free from the perversions and
deformities growing out of the law of heredity. But under any system of
training there is progress--development and character formation. The
aphorism, “An idle brain is the devil’s workshop,” expresses only a
half-truth. What it means is this: if the mind is not well employed it
will be ill employed; or if it is not occupied with good thoughts it
will be occupied with evil thoughts. The mind of man is never at rest,
in equilibrium, even in a state of barbarism. Indeed this is obvious,
since all civilizations are growths from states of savagery. But the
barbaric line once passed, development is greatly accelerated, assuming
with the evolution of the ages the form of a geometrical progression.
The distinguishing characteristic of modern civilization is action. In
so far as this action, which may be called the impulsive force of the
spirit of the age, is natural and orderly, it constitutes an aid to the
processes of education; if otherwise, it is obstructive, hindering them.

The law of mental development is not the exact correlative of the law of
physical development. The direct aim of physical training is muscular
power; of mental training the aim is mental power and rectitude.
Physical power is not intrinsically vicious; it becomes vicious only
when exerted under a vicious intellectual impulse. But this is not
necessarily true of mental power; for mental power may be gained quite
apart from the element of rectitude, in which event it is vicious, and
may be exerted in scorn of the accepted standards of right, truth, and
justice. As a matter of fact it is often so exerted, and the fact that
it is so exerted accounts for the crimes of individuals, the faults of
society, and the errors of governments. The constitution of mental power
is, then, complex, while that of physical power is simple. If mental
power consists of sense perception, or understanding, and moral
perception, or rectitude, in due proportion, the issue is a noble
character; but if rectitude is wanting, the issue is an evil character.
If, on the other hand, there is no interference with the orderly
development of physical power, the issue of its exertion is always
skill--skill applied in innumerable forms to the uses of man. Only
through a mental impulse rendered vicious by the absence of the element
of rectitude can physical power be diverted from its naturally
beneficent mission.

It follows that most of the evils of civilization flow from an
ill-balanced mental constitution--a mental constitution wanting the
essential element of rectitude. Since, then, mental development, under
certain widely prevailing conditions, is so prolific of evil, and
physical development or skill so universally prolific of good, it is
obvious that the beneficent influence of the latter should, if
practicable, be brought to bear upon the former in educational systems.
In a word, may not the two systems of training be so connected in the
schools as to cause the manual to react upon the mental, with the effect
of greatly stimulating the ethical side of the mind?

It is not essential to our purpose to inquire whether a perfect system
of education, and hence an ideal state of society, is possible. It will
be sufficient if we are able to show wherein prevailing systems of
education can be improved.

In a former chapter we sought to show that the use of mechanical tools
stimulates the intellect; in the present chapter it is our purpose to
endeavor to show that manual training tends to the promotion of
rectitude, to the up building of character.

For purposes of culture the mind consists of divisions, as the body
consists of members. It is susceptible of development in the line of the
application of mental training, as any member of the body is susceptible
of development through physical training or use. For example, the memory
may be invigorated by the constant application of certain kinds of
mental training, as the arm is strengthened by the constant use of the
sledge-hammer. But if the mental training which stimulates the memory
is applied to the neglect of other lines of training, the memory will be
strengthened at the expense of some other faculty of the mind, as the
excessive use of the sledge-hammer strengthens the arm at the cost of
other members of the body. In the one case the mind, and in the other
the body will be deformed. In the case of the sledge-hammer training the
muscles of the arm will stand out like whip-cords, while those of the
legs will shrivel and become attenuated. In the case of the training of
the memory that faculty will show an abnormal development, while some
other faculty, as the power of ratiocination, probably, will become
weak.

It is not necessary in this connection to inquire into the origin of
moral sentiments, or to consider the rival theories on the subject.
However men may differ as between the two schools of moral
philosophers--the sentimentalists and the utilitarians--they will agree
that the moral side of the mind, so to speak, consists of divisions like
the mental side; that these divisions are the source, respectively, of
good and evil tendencies, and that these tendencies are susceptible of
cultivation; that the evil may be restrained and the good developed, and
_vice versa_. Nor will it be disputed that there is such a blending of
the moral with the mental nature in the mind of man as to render any
consideration of the subject irrational and incomplete which does not
comprehend both, and treat them, practically, as one and the same. Man
is so constituted, and his relations to society are such, that every
mental impression he receives produces a moral effect, the character of
which is, of course, largely dependent upon the accepted standards of
right, truth, and justice. Hence all scholastic training is both mental
and moral. It is moral as well as mental, whether the instructor will
it so or not; and that it is moral is well, since it is obviously true,
as Galton pertinently remarks, that “Great men have usually high moral
natures, and are affectionate and reverential, inasmuch as mere brain
without heart is insufficient to achieve eminence.”

Selfishness is the arch enemy of virtue; from it all forms of immorality
spring, and its last analysis is total depravity. But literature, which
is the fruitage of education, is full of maxims in honor of selfishness.
Said the Dauphin to the French king, “Self-love, my liege, is not so
vile a sin as self-neglecting.” Said Herbert, “Help thyself and God will
help thee.” “A penny saved is as good as a penny earned,” said Franklin;
and the grasping “Yankee” stretches the maxim a point in saying to his
son, “Make money honestly if you can, but make money.”

The following, also, are current maxims: “Every man is the architect of
his own fortune;” “Every tub must stand upon its own bottom;” “In the
race of life the devil takes the hindmost;” “Look to the main chance;”
and, “Keep what you have got, and catch what you can.” To the same
purpose is the famous old aphorism of which Napoleon the First was so
fond, “God always favors the heaviest battalions.” Emerson declared that
Napoleon represented “the spirit of modern commerce, of money, and
material power,” and he certainly was the very incarnation of
selfishness.[10] He had a hand of iron, and he laid it heavily on all
who opposed him. If it became necessary to imprison his enemies he
imprisoned them; if it became necessary to kill them he cut off their
heads. When charged with the commission of great crimes, he retorted,
“Men of my stamp do not commit crimes!” “I have always marched with the
opinion of great masses and events,” he exclaimed, with the insolence of
a butcher exhibiting his bloody hands. Old-fashioned codes of morals
were for those who opposed his plans, not for him. But the end of
selfishness is disaster. It is as dangerous to assume to rise above
moral laws as to sink below them; in the one case they crush, and in the
other they undermine. “The half” is, after all, “more than the whole,”
for “the half” may be retained, but “the whole” is sure to slip from the
fingers of grasping avarice. Napoleon, who defied all mankind, expiated
his crimes on a rock in mid-ocean. There, whining, protesting, and
prating of injustice, he died miserably, a colossal example of the folly
of selfishness.

[10] “‘God has granted,’ says the Koran, ‘to every people a prophet in
its own tongue.’ Paris, and London, and New York, the spirit of
commerce, of money, and material power, were also to have their
prophet; and Bonaparte was qualified and sent. Every one of the
million readers of anecdotes, or memoirs, or lives of Napoleon
delights in the page, because he studies in it his own
history.”--“Representative Men,” p. 221. Boston: Phillips, Sampson &
Co., 1858.

It would be impossible more severely to arraign existing educational
methods; for men are what education makes them.

Selfishness seeks to wring from society a support without giving to it
an equivalent return. What industry creates and saves to society,
selfishness seeks to misappropriate to its own use; hence selfishness is
in conflict with the true spirit of civilization, which is the compact
of all to protect each in his rights. Selfishness caused the destruction
of all the governments of ancient times, and it has been the cause of
all the revolutions of modern times. There can be no stability in
government until altruism takes the place of selfishness in the world’s
code of ethics. The sole condition of the stability of the State is a
disposition on the part of its people to conform to justice and correct
moral principles in all social relations.

Any system of education that does not tend to produce a state of morals
conformable to this high standard is not merely defective; it is
radically wrong, and therefore positively vicious. The true purpose of
education is the harmonious development of all the powers of the
man--mental, moral, and physical. But harmony in a selfish character is
impossible, for selfishness is blind of one eye, so to speak; it
considers only one side of a cause--the side that relates to its
interest, regardless of all other interests. Let not prudence be
confounded with selfishness. Prudence and selfishness are as wide apart
as the poles. Extreme prudence is perfectly consistent with entire
rectitude, while extreme selfishness is the synonym of depravity; hence
the first step in education is to eliminate selfishness from the mind,
and the next step is to put rectitude in its place.

Prevailing systems of education no doubt promote the spirit of
selfishness:[11] witness the character of the struggle for
self-aggrandizement. It is more intense and more widely extended than at
any period of the world’s history. That it is more intense is shown by
the more and more rapid concentration of populations in cities, where
the struggle assumes its most intense form, and exhibits itself in its
most threatening aspect.

[11] “In small, undeveloped societies, where for ages complete peace
has continued, there exists nothing like what we call Government; no
coercive agency, but mere honorary headship, if any headship at all.
In these exceptional communities, unaggressive, and from special
causes unaggressed upon, there is so little deviation from the virtues
of truthfulness, honesty, justice, and generosity, that nothing beyond
an occasional expression of public opinion by informally assembled
elders is needful.”--“Political Institutions,” ¶¶ 437, 573; “The Sins
of Legislators,” in “The Man _versus_ the State,” p. 44. By Herbert
Spencer. New York: D. Appleton & Co.

Cities have always been plague-spots on the body politic, and they are
not less so now than in ancient times. It is in cities that all dangers
to the State originate; and the sole, fundamental reason why cities are
a standing menace to the integrity of the social compact is the fact
that they are dominated by selfishness. It is in cities that the
unnatural, unwholesome desire to live without labor, to live by
speculative enterprises, becomes a consuming passion, inoculating with a
deeper and darker degree of selfishness an ever-widening circle of
people; and selfishness at last inevitably leads to anarchy. It leads to
anarchy and chaos because both classes of society become depraved--the
rich and powerful through indolence and sensual indulgence, and the poor
and wretched through ignorance and privation and their attendant mean
vices.

The modern city is the despair of the political economist. It grows
relatively faster in population than the rural district, and it would be
the extreme of optimism to declare that it grows better.[E4] It does not
matter that the city is the centre of learning, the nursery of all the
active intelligences which are achieving fresh triumphs daily in every
department of science, literature, and art. It is also the centre of
vice, and the nursery of every variety of crime.

The difficulty--nay, the despair--of the situation is not relieved or
mitigated by the undisputed fact that the ancient city was much worse
morally and politically than the modern city, and hence that as between
Rome and Chicago there is an immense moral and political advantage in
favor of the latter. If Chicago is retrograding morally and politically,
what is to prevent it from sinking to the moral and political status of
Rome under the infamous emperors of the period of its decadence? If the
modern American city is rapidly degenerating, both as a moral force and
a political institution, what is to arrest its downward progress? What
influence is to intervene to reverse the order and nature of its
development?

Rome, in the very agonies of political dissolution, possessed all the
then known arts, a splendid literature, and a school of philosophy whose
ethical code was more lofty, if less human, than that of the new system
which was struggling to replace the old. That the inconceivably
atrocious gladiatorial games should have developed into such huge
proportions in conjunction with the sublime moral teachings of Seneca,
Plutarch, Marcus Aurelius, and a score of others, is the despair of
students of Roman history. While they taught, emperors and people alike
feasted their eyes on bloody orgies of men and beasts, on scenes of the
most horrible barbarity. Caligula took special delight in watching the
countenances of the dying, “for he had learned to take an artistic
pleasure in observing the variations of their agony.” Criminals dressed
in the skins of wild beasts were thrown to bulls which were maddened
with red-hot irons. “Four hundred bears were killed in a single day
under Caligula; three hundred on another day under Claudius. Under Nero,
four hundred tigers fought with bulls and elephants; four hundred bears
and three hundred lions were slaughtered by his soldiers. In a single
day, at the dedication of the Colosseum by Titus, five thousand animals
perished. Under Trajan the games continued for one hundred and
twenty-three successive days. Lions, tigers, rhinoceroses, hippopotami,
giraffes, bulls, stags, even crocodiles and serpents, were employed to
give novelty to the spectacle.”

And yet the civilization that produced these games gave to the world,
forever, the moral precepts of the stoics and philosophers. Cicero had
maintained the doctrine of the universal brotherhood of man. “Nature
ordains,” he says, “that a man should wish the good of every man,
whoever he may be, for this very reason: that he is a man.” Menander
maintained that “man should deem nothing human foreign to his interest.”
Lucan looked forward to the time when “the human race will cast aside
its weapons, and all nations learn to love.” In a letter on the death of
his slaves Pliny exhibited feelings of strong human affection, and
Plutarch, in a letter of consolation to his wife on the death of his
daughter, left a touching record of the tenderness of his heart in the
recital of a simple trait of the child: “She desired her nurse to press
even her dolls to the breast. She was so loving that she wished
everything that gave her pleasure to share in the best that she had.”
Says Seneca, “The whole universe which you see around you, comprising
all things both divine and human, is one. We are members of one great
body.” And Epictetus, “You are a citizen and a part of the world. The
duty of a citizen is in nothing to consider his own interest distinct
from that of others.”

The contrast between these noble moral sentiments and the actual life of
the Roman people is truly startling.[E5] It is plain that the profession
of lofty moral sentiments by a class, the possession of high literary
attainments, and an extensive acquaintance with the arts, do not always
afford protection against national degradation and decay. Nor is it by
any means certain that the Christian religion is destined to effect more
in this regard than the pagan code of morals. Rome embraced religion,
but its conversion was powerless to avert political and commercial
destruction.

The modern city has for guides the example of all the ancient
civilizations and political and moral systems, and in addition it has,
in its most vital form, the Christian system of morals and faith. But
notwithstanding all these helps it is politically corrupt and morally
depraved. Its streets are the scenes of vice scarcely less revolting
than those of ancient Rome. It harbors an army of criminals which grows
with its growth, and is without any systematized effort either to reform
or abolish it. Indeed this army of criminals is constantly reinforced in
an increasing ratio to the whole population from the ranks of the rising
generation, which is to a degree enforced to ignorance by the inadequacy
of educational facilities.[12] Its power to accumulate wealth is
increasing, but this power is confined to relatively fewer hands, and
this is one of the most alarming features of the situation. For the
increase of ignorance, vice, and crime is sure to keep pace with the
abnormal growth of estates, stimulated to the highest degree by
dishonest business practices and gigantic schemes of speculation.

[12] In support of the truth of these propositions it is sufficient
merely to allude to the late disclosures by the _Pall Mall Gazette_ of
the prevalence of revolting crimes in London, England. It is also
pertinent to remark the attitude of hostility maintained by the higher
classes (so called) of the English people towards the editor of the
journal in which the disclosures were made, as significant of an
alarming degeneration of the moral sense of the British public.

It does not follow because prevailing methods of education promote the
spirit of selfishness, and hence contain the seeds of social and moral
decay, that they are wholly vicious; but it does follow, if they are not
positively wrong, that they are negatively wrong. Let us assume that
they are only negatively wrong, that they lack an essential element in
all mental and moral training--the manual element; and let us try to
discover what would be the effect of the incorporation of this element
into the curriculum of the schools.

A system of education consisting exclusively of mental exercises
promotes selfishness because such training is subjective. Its effects
flow inward; they relate to self. All mental acquirements become a part
of self, and so remain forever, unless they are transmuted into things
through the agency of the hand.

It is through the hand alone that the mind finally impresses itself upon
matter. In other words, thought and speech must be incarnate in things
or they are dead. The orator appeals to the people to strike for their
rights; the people rend the air with shouts and subside into silence.
The orator cries, “To Arms!” Again the people shout, and again subside
into silence. The orator’s thoughts are of carnage, his words of flames,
but they are as dead as if never uttered because no hand is raised to
embody them in deeds.

Manual training, on the other hand, promotes altruism because it is
objective. Its effects flow outward; they relate not to self but to the
human race. The skilled hand confers benefits upon man, and each benefit
so conferred exerts the natural reflex moral influence of a good act
upon the mind of the benefactor.[E6]

Morality is not a mere sentiment, a barren ideality. It is true there is
a negative morality which consists in refraining from the commission of
wrongful acts. But the morality of the great ethical teachers is
positive; it consists in doing. Christ said, “Inasmuch as ye have done
_it_ unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done _it_ unto
me.” Words without acts are as dead as faith without works. Paul said,
“Though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not
charity, I am nothing.”

Morality is a vital principle whose exemplification consists in doing
justice; and justice is that virtue “which consists in giving to every
one what is his due; practical conformity to the laws and to principles
of rectitude in the dealings of men with each other; honesty, integrity
in commerce or mutual intercourse.” It follows that morality can no more
be acquired by memorizing a series of maxims than the art of using tools
can be acquired by studying the laws of mechanics and of mechanism.

[E4] “No city was ever so deeply disgraced by its municipal government
as the city of New York. Fourteen years ago the exposure of the Tweed
Ring revealed a corruption in that government which had mastered
Legislatures and courts, and was plotting to control the national
administration; and as we write, all of the living ex-members of the
late Board of Aldermen, except two, are held for trial for bribery and
corruption, or are in hiding.

“Such a shame is unprecedented. It is in itself a sharp satire upon
popular elections, as well as upon the character and public spirit of
New York; and the worst of it is that, bad as it is, no citizen
probably feels himself to be humiliated, or is conscious of any
personal responsibility. To the most stupid man, however, such facts
forecast a constant deterioration of the situation.”--“Harper’s
Weekly,” April 24, 1886.

[E5] The morality of the present age, like that of the Romans, is a
mere theory, entirely destitute of vital force. Selfishness is still,
as it always has been, the controlling element in human conduct, and
selfishness and morality are utterly incompatible. Moral precepts are
inculcated in a perfunctory way, as Greek is taught because it is the
fashion, but with no more idea that they will be adopted as the rule
of life, than that the language of Homer will again be used as the
instrument of speech. The contempt in which morality is commonly held
is well shown by the remark of a popular lecturer, who said of Peter
the Great, that, “viewed morally he was a monster, and by the gauge of
decency, a brute, but a giant from the lofty heights of statesmanship
and civilization.” How vain is the hope of reform while leaders of men
deem it possible for statesmanship to be rendered lofty by a moral
monster, or that the cause of civilization may be advanced by a brute!

[E6] “The artisan stands between every man, woman, and child and the
crude materials embodied in the three kingdoms of Nature, and by the
magic of his skill they are transformed into means serviceable for
use. The wood in the forest, the marble in the quarry, the clay in the
bank, the metal in the mine pass through his hands, take on the form
of his thought, become arranged by his intelligence, and the product
is the modern dwelling. Is there any fancy in fairy tale more
wonderful than this? By the skill of the tanner and the shoemaker the
raw skin is transformed into the useful shoe. Do you ever think of
your indebtedness to these humble toilers for your protection and
comfort? Do they ever think of the service they are rendering you?--a
service which cannot be compensated by dollars and cents. The jewels
which sparkle in royal crowns and add lustre to queenly beauty, the
silks and precious stuffs which clothe and give new charms to the
loveliness of women, owe their beauty, their lustre, their value to
the artisan. He stands between the worm, the mine, and the wearer; and
by the transforming power of his skill and patient labor they become
robes of beauty and gems of light. But of far greater importance is
the service he is rendering to our common humanity. He takes the
material which our Heavenly Father has provided in such abundance,
puts his thought, his intelligence, and he has every conceivable
motive for putting his love and good-will toward men, into them and
passing them on as tokens of his love and fidelity to human good.
Everything he touches becomes a message not only of his knowledge and
his skill but a fit embodiment of his regard for his
fellow-men.”--“Mechanical Employments as Means of Human Culture.” Rev.
Chauncey Giles. Eleventh Series Tracts, p. 15. Philadelphia: New
Church Tract and Publication Society.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE MIND AND THE HAND.

The Mind and the Hand are Allies; the Mind speculates, the Hand tests
its Speculations in Things. -- The Hand explodes the Errors of the
Mind -- it searches after Truth and finds it in Things. -- Mental
Errors are subtile; they elude us, but the False in Things stands
self-exposed. -- The Hand is the Mind’s Moral Rudder. -- The Organ of
Touch the most Wonderful of the Senses; all the Others are Passive; it
alone is Active. -- Sir Charles Bell’s Discovery of a “Muscular
Sense.” -- Dr. Henry Maudsley on the Muscular Sense. -- The Hand
influences the Brain. -- Connected Thought impossible without
Language, and Language dependent upon Objects; and all Artificial
Objects are the Work of the Hand. -- Progress is therefore the Imprint
of the Hand upon Matter in Art. -- The Hand is nearer the Brain than
are the Eye and the Ear. -- The Marvellous Works of the Hand.

A purely mental acquirement is a theorem--something to be proved. As to
whether the theorem is susceptible of proof is always a question until
the doubt is solved by the act of doing. Hence Comenius’s definition of
education--“Let those things that have to be done be learned by doing
them”--is profoundly philosophical, since nothing can be fully learned
without the final act of doing, owing to the fact of the incompleteness
of all theoretical knowledge.

The mind and the hand are natural allies. The mind speculates; the hand
tests the speculations of the mind by the law of practical application.
The hand explodes the errors of the mind, for it inquires, so to speak,
by the act of doing, whether or not a given theorem is demonstrable in
the form of a problem. The hand is, therefore, not only constantly
searching after the truth, but is constantly finding it.[13] It is
possible for the mind to indulge in false logic, to make the worse
appear the better reason, without instant exposure. But for the hand to
work falsely is to produce a misshapen thing--tool or machine--which in
its construction gives the lie to its maker. Thus the hand that is false
to truth, in the very act publishes the verdict of its own guilt,
exposes itself to contempt and derision, convicts itself of
unskilfulness or of dishonesty.

[13] “In other cases, even by the strictest attention, it is not
possible to give complete or strict truth in words. We could not, by
any number of words, describe the color of a ribbon so as to enable a
mercer to match it without seeing it. But an ‘accurate’ colorist can
convey the required intelligence at once, with a tint on paper.”--“The
Laws of Feesole,” Vol. I., p. 7. By John Ruskin, LL.D. New York: John
Wiley & Sons, 1879.

There is no escaping the logical conclusion of an investigation into the
relations existing between the mind and the hand. The hand is scarcely
less the guide than the agent of the mind. It steadies the mind. It is
the mind’s moral rudder, its balance-wheel. It is the mind’s monitor. It
is constantly appealing to the mind, by its acts, to “hew to the line,
let the chips fly where they may.”

Dr. George Wilson says, “In many respects the organ of touch, as
embodied in the hand, is the most wonderful of the senses. The organs of
the other senses are passive; the organ of touch alone is active.... The
hand selects what it shall touch, and touches what it pleases. It puts
away from it the things which it hates, and beckons towards it the
things which it desires.... Moreover, the hand cares not only for its
own wants, but when the other organs of the senses are rendered useless
takes their duties upon it.... The blind man reads with his hand, the
dumb man speaks with it; it plucks the flower for the nostril, and
supplies the tongue with objects of taste. Not less amply does it give
expression to the wit, the genius, the will, the power of man. Put a
sword into it and it will fight, a plough and it will till, a harp and
it will play, a pencil and it will paint, a pen and it will speak. What,
moreover, is a ship, a railway, a light-house, or a palace--what indeed
is a whole city, a whole continent of cities, all the cities of the
globe, nay the very globe itself, so far as man has changed it, but the
work of that giant hand with which the human race, acting as one mighty
man, has executed his will.”[14]

[14] “The Five Gateways of Knowledge,” p. 121. By George Wilson, M.D.,
F.R.S.E. London: Macmillan & Co., 1881.

There is a philosophical explanation of the versatility of the hand so
graphically portrayed in the foregoing passage, and it is found in Sir
Charles Bell’s great discovery of a “muscular sense.” The principle of
this discovery is that “there are distinct nerves of sensation and of
motion or volition--one set bearing messages from the body to the brain,
and the other from the brain to the body.”

In his work on the hand, after reviewing the line of argument which led
to his discovery, Sir Charles says, “By such arguments I have been in
the habit of showing that we possess a muscular sense, and that without
it we could have no guidance of the frame. We could not command our
muscles in standing, far less in walking, leaping, or running, had we
not a perception of the condition of the muscles previous to the
exercise of the will. And as for the hand, it is not more the freedom of
its action which constitutes its perfection, than the knowledge which we
have of these motions, and our consequent ability to direct it with the
utmost precision.”[15]

[15] “The Hand: its Mechanism and Vital Endowments as Evincing
Design,” p. 151. By Sir Charles Bell, K.G.H., F.R.S., L. and E. Harper
& Brothers, 1864.

On the influence of the muscular sense, Dr. Henry Maudsley has these
pertinent observations:

“Those who would degrade the body, in order, as they imagine, to exalt
the mind, should consider more deeply than they do the importance of our
muscular expressions of feeling. The manifold shades and kinds of
expression which the lips present--their gibes, gambols, and flashes of
merriment; the quick language of a quivering nostril; the varied waves
and ripples of beautiful emotion which play on the human countenance,
with the spasms of passion that disfigure it--all which we take such
pains to embody in art--are simply effects of muscular action.... Fix
the countenance in the pattern of a particular emotion--in a look of
anger, of wonder, or of scorn--and the emotion whose appearance is thus
imitated will not fail to be aroused. And if we try, while the features
are fixed in the expression of one passion, to call up in the mind a
quite different one, we shall find it impossible to do so.... We
perceive, then, that the muscles are not alone the machinery by which
the mind acts upon the world, but that their actions are essential
elements in our mental operations. The superiority of the human over the
animal mind seems to be essentially connected with the greater variety
of muscular action of which man is capable; were he deprived of the
infinitely varied movements of hands, tongue, larynx, lips, and face, in
which he is so far ahead of the animals, it is probable that he would be
no better than an idiot, notwithstanding he might have a normal
development of brain.”[16]

[16] “Body and Mind,” p. 32. By Henry Maudsley, M.D. New York: D.
Appleton & Co., 1883.

It is through the muscular sense that the hand influences the brain.
According to Sir Charles the hand acts first. It telegraphs, for
example, that it is ready to grasp the chisel or the sledge-hammer, or
seize the pen, whereupon the brain telegraphs back precise directions as
to the work to be done. These messages to and fro are lightning-like
flashes of intelligence, which blend or fuse all the powers of the man,
both mental and physical, and inform and inspire the mass with vital
force.[17]

[17] The goldsmith’s art was one of the finest among the ancients, and
so continued far into the Middle Ages. The cutting of cameos, for
example, required the highest skill and produced the most exquisite
results. Mr. Ruskin calls attention to the fact that “all the great
early Italian masters of painting and sculpture, without exception,
began by being goldsmiths’ apprentices;” and that “they felt
themselves so indebted to, and formed by, the master craftsman who had
mainly _disciplined their fingers_, whether in work on gold or marble,
that they practically considered him their father, and took _his_ name
rather than their own.”--“Fors Clavigera,” Part III., p. 291. By John
Ruskin. LL.D. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1881.

Through constant use the muscular sense is sharpened to a marvellous
degree of fineness, and the hand, permeated by it, forms habits which
react powerfully upon the mind. If, now, during the period of childhood
and youth, the hand is exercised in the useful and beautiful arts, its
muscular sense will be developed normally, or in the direction of
rectitude, and the reflex effect of this growth upon the mind will be
beneficent.

It is thus that the trained hand comes at last to foresee, as it were,
that a false proposition is surely destined to be exploded. The habit of
rectitude gives it prescience. It invariably discovers, sooner or later,
that a false proposition, when embodied in wood or iron, becomes a
conspicuous abortion, involving in disgrace both the designer and the
maker. A false proposition in the abstract may be rendered very
alluring; a false proposition in the concrete is always hideous. One of
the chief effects of manual training is, then, the discovery and
development of truth; and truth, in its broadest signification, is
merely another name for justice; and justice is the synonym of morality.

It has been shown that thought and speech are dead unless embodied in
things. It may also be asserted with confidence that man would lose the
power of speech almost wholly if his words should cease to be realized
in things. Mr. Darwin declares that “a complex train of thought can no
more be carried on without the aid of words, whether spoken or silent,
than a long calculation without the use of figures or algebra.”[18] And
Dr. Maudsley says, “But neither these instances nor the case of Laura
Bridgman can be used to prove that it is possible to think without any
means of physical expression. On the contrary the evidence is all the
other way. The deaf and dumb man invents his own signs, which he draws
from the nature of objects, seizing the most striking outline, or the
principal movement of an action, and using them afterwards as tokens to
represent the objects. The deaf and dumb gesticulate also as they think;
and Laura Bridgman’s fingers worked, making the initial movements for
letters of the finger alphabet, not only during her waking thoughts, but
in her dreams. If we substitute for ‘names’ the motor intuitions, or
take care to comprise in language all the modes of expressing thoughts,
whether verbal, vocal writing, or gesture language, then it is
unquestionable that thought is impossible without language.”[19]

[18] “The Descent of Man,” p. 88. By Charles Darwin, M.A. New York: D.
Appleton & Co., 1881.

[19] “Physiology of the Mind,” p. 480. By Henry Maudsley, M.D. New
York: D. Appleton & Co., 1883.

As connected thoughts are impossible without words, or signs of words,
so words are dependent upon objects for their existence. Says Dr.
Maudsley, “Words cannot attain to definiteness save as living outgrowths
of realities.”[20] And Heyse says, “Thought is not even present to the
thinker till he has set it forth out of himself.”

[20] “I therefore declare my conviction,” says Max Müller, “whether
right or wrong, as explicitly as possible, that thought in one sense
of the word, _i. e._, in reasoning, is impossible without
language.”--“Physiology of the Mind,” p. 480. By Henry Maudsley, M.D.
New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1883.

It follows that language has its origin not less in external objects
than in the mind. Objects make impressions upon the mind through the
senses, and words serve as the means of preserving a record of such
impressions and of communicating them to other minds. If, now, the mind
should cease to receive impressions, language would no longer be
required, since there would be nothing to express; and the occasion for
the use of language ceasing to exist, the power of speech would
ultimately be lost. The power of speech, then, depends upon a
continuous succession of impressions made upon the mind by its contact,
through the senses, with matter in its various forms, whether in nature
or in art.

It may also be claimed that the power of speech depends almost entirely
upon the endless succession of fresh objects presented to the mind by
the hand. These form the subject as well as the occasion of speech. If
the hand should cease to make new things, new words would cease to be
required. The principal changes in language arise out of new discoveries
in science and new inventions in art, each fresh discovery of science
giving rise to many new things in art. Art and science react upon each
other.[21] The growth of a State, its advance in the scale of
civilization, depends upon progress in the practical arts. Hence the
fact that, when a State ceases to advance, its language ceases to grow,
becomes stationary, stagnates. In such a State there would be no
occasion for new words. If a constantly diminishing number of objects
were presented to the mind, speech would become less and less necessary.
If no new objects were presented, no fresh impressions upon the mind
would be made, and speech would degenerate into a mere iteration. If the
hands should cease to labor in the arts, should cease to make things,
should cease to plant and gather, the scope of speech would be still
further restricted, would be confined to an expression of the wants of
savages subsisting on the native fruits of field and forest.

[21] “And the great advances in science have uniformly corresponded
with the invention of some instrument by which the power of the senses
has been increased, or the range of action extended.”--“Physiology of
the Mind,” p. 8. By Henry Maudsley, M.D. New York: D. Appleton & Co.,
1883.

It comes to this, that progress can find expression only in the
concrete. Guttenberg had an idea that he could employ movable types in
the production of books. Suppose he had been content with the mere
promulgation of his theory in words, and that those who came after him
had been similarly content? There would have been no printing-presses
down to the present time. Suppose that Watt and Stephenson and Fulton
had been content with the declaration, in words, of the discoveries they
made in regard to the application of the power of steam to useful
purposes, and that those who came after them had been similarly content?
There would have been neither railways, nor steamships, nor steam-driven
machinery of any kind down to the present time.

As words are essential to the processes of thought, so objects are
essential to words or living speech. And as all objects made by man owe
their existence to the hand, it follows that the hand exerts an
incalculable influence upon the mind, and so constitutes the most potent
agency in the work of civilization. It was not without good reason that
Anaxagoras characterized man as the wisest of animals because of his
having hands. And what is it to be wise? To be wise is “to have the
power of discerning and judging correctly, or of discriminating between
what is true and what is false; between what is fit and proper and what
is improper.” The hand is used as the synonym of wisdom because it is
only in the concrete that the false is sure of detection, and it is
through the hand alone that ideas are realized in things.[22] Again we
have the hand as the discoverer of truth.

[22] “Let him [the youth] once learn to take a straight shaving off a
plank, or draw a fine curve without faltering, or lay a brick level in
its mortar, and he has learned a multitude of other matters which no
lips of man could ever teach him.”--“Time and Tide,” p. 145. By John
Ruskin, LL.D. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1883.

The assertion of the majesty of the hand by the Ionic philosopher of the
fifth century B.C. contained the germ of the manual training idea of
this latter part of the nineteenth century. Anaxagoras was
unconsciously, no doubt, struggling toward the light, toward the
inductive method of investigation, toward the sole avenue through which
it is possible to study the mind, namely, through the body. The
ignorance of the ancients on the subject of physiology was so dense as
to leave them no resource save speculative philosophy. The progress made
in the study of anatomy, and organic and inorganic chemistry at
Alexandria, was, however, considerable. The foundations of a systematic
physiology were being securely laid by Hippocrates, Herophilus, and
their compeers of the medical profession, and the way was thus being
opened to an intelligent study of the mind. It is highly probable that
this growing disposition to investigate things, together with the
increasing importance to civilization of the useful arts, would soon
have reacted destructively upon the speculative philosophy of the time
had not a series of national disasters, involving the fall of Greece and
Rome, overwhelmed both arts and philosophy in one common ruin.

From the fall of Rome to the time of Bacon speculative philosophy
dominated the world. Progress dates from the beginning of the
seventeenth century, but it was very slow until within a hundred years.
Philosophy has now, however, found a scientific basis. Instead of
speculating about the “theory of vitality,” it concerns itself with “the
natural phenomena of living bodies, so far as they are appreciable by
the human senses and intelligence.”

But the schools have not moved forward with events. Their methods are
unscientific; they are still dominated by the mediæval ideas of
speculative philosophy. One of the ablest educators in this country has
well observed that “there has been very little change in the ideas which
have controlled our methods of education, and these ideas were formed
something like four hundred years ago. Like nearly all the great
agencies of modern civilization, the established system of education
dates from the Renaissance, and the direction given to the schools at
that time has been followed with but slight modification ever
since.”[23]

[23] Mr. James MacAlister, Superintendent of Schools of the City of
Philadelphia, before the American Institute of Instruction at
Saratoga, July 13, 1882.

The justice of this arraignment of the schools for extreme conservatism
is shown by the remark of a prominent educator who opposes the
incorporation of manual training in the curriculum of the public
schools. He says, “Some even go so far as to regard the fingers as a new
avenue to the brain, and think that great pedagogic advantages will be
given by the new method, so that boys may make equal attainments in
arithmetic, reading, and grammar in less time.... They [teachers] will
still find the eye and ear nearer to the brain than the hand.” No
assumption could be more false than this, that the eye and the ear are
more important organs than the hand because they are located,
physically, nearer the brain. The attribute of mobility with which the
hand is endowed confers upon it not only the potency of the closest
possible proximity, but each of the countless positions it may assume,
together with its flexibility and adaptability, multiplies its powers in
the order of a geometrical ratio.

This disposition to undervalue the hand is an inheritance from the
speculative philosophy of the Middle Ages, which was based on contempt
of the body and all its members. The effect of this false doctrine has
been vicious in the extreme. Contempt for the body has generated a
feeling of contempt for manual labor, and repugnance to manual labor has
multiplied dishonest practices in the course of the struggle to acquire
wealth by any other means than manual labor, and so corrupted society.

That man should feel contempt for the most efficient member of his own
body is, indeed, incomprehensible, since contempt for the hand leads
logically to contempt for its works, and its works comprise all the
visible results of civilization. To enumerate the works of the hand
would be to describe the world as it at present exists in
contradistinction to the world in a state of nature. Everywhere we
behold with admiration and wonder the marvellous triumphs of the hand,
from the iron bridge that spans the torrent of Niagara to the steel
micrometer that measures the millionth part of an inch. It matters not
whether the hand is nearer or farther from the brain than the eye and
the ear, it is able to afford powerful aid to them.

Man would explore the planetary system; he lifts his longing eyes to the
starry vault, but in vain; it is a sealed book! The hand fashions the
telescope, adjusts it, places it at a convenient angle, and the milky
way is resolved into millions of stars, “scattered like glittering dust
on the black ground of the general heavens,” the lunar mountains are
measured, and the spots on the sun revealed. Man would study the anatomy
and habits of the myriads of insects in which the teeming earth abounds.
Impossible! The mechanism of the eye is not adapted to such a delicate
operation. But the hand presents the microscope, and a world of hitherto
unknown minute existences is revealed with a distinctness which permits
the most exhaustive investigation. Thus, through the aid of the hand,
the eye now contemplates with philosophic interest the ever-changing
aspect of the spots on the sun at a distance of ninety million miles,
and now imprisons the red ant, measuring only ⁶⁄₁₀₀ of an inch in
length, and studies its physiology, counting its pulsations, classifying
its nerves and muscles, and weighing its brain. Man would speak with his
friend or business correspondent miles away. Neither the voice nor the
ear is adapted to the task. But the hand fashions and presents the
telephone, and the conversation proceeds even in a whisper. It will be
said that the mind devises the telescope, the microscope, and the
telephone. True, but their construction would be impossible without the
hand. And is it at all probable that the mind would have devised these
admirable instruments if man had been made without hands?[24]

[24] “The hand is the most marvellous instrument in the world; it is
the necessary complement of the mind in dealing with matter in all its
varied forms. It is the hand that ‘rounded Peter’s dome;’ it is the
hand that carved those statues in marble and bronze, that painted
those pictures in palace and church, which we travel into distant
lands to admire; it is the hand that builds the ships which sail the
sea, laden with the commerce of the world; it is the hand that
constructs the machinery which moves the busy industries of this age
of steam; it is the hand that enables the mind to realize in a
thousand ways its highest imaginings, its profoundest reasonings, and
its most practical inventions.”--Mr. James MacAlister, Superintendent
of Schools of the City of Philadelphia, before the American Institute
of Instruction at Saratoga, July 13, 1882.

CHAPTER XV.

THE POWER OF THE TRAINED HAND.

The Legend of Adam and the Stick with which he subdued the Animals. --
The Stick is the Symbol of Power, and only the Hand can wield it. --
The Hand imprisons Steam and Electricity, and keeps them at hard
Labor. -- The Destitution of England Two Hundred Years ago: a Pen
Picture. -- The Transformation wrought by the Hand: a Pen Picture. --
It is due, not to Men who make Laws, but to Men who make Things. --
The Scientist and the Inventor are the World’s Benefactors. -- A
Parallel between the Right Honorable William E. Gladstone and Sir
Henry Bessemer. -- Mr. Gladstone a Man of Ideas, Mr. Bessemer a Man of
Deeds. -- The Value of the latter’s Inventions. -- Mr. Gladstone
represents the Old Education, Mr. Bessemer the New.

It has been remarked that man is the wisest of animals because he has
hands. It is equally true that he is the most powerful of animals
because he has hands. It is with the hand that man has subdued all the
animals. There is a legend to the effect that on the day when Adam
revolted against his Maker, the animals, in their turn, revolted against
him, and ceased to obey him. “Adam called on the Lord for help, and the
Lord commanded him to take a branch from the nearest tree and make of it
a weapon, and strike with it the first animal that should refuse to obey
him. Adam took the branch, the leaves fell from it of their own accord,
and he found himself furnished with a stick proportioned to his height.
When the animals saw this weapon in the hands of the man they were
seized with an instinctive fear mingled with wonder, and they did not
dare to attack him. A lion alone, bolder than the rest, leaped upon him
to devour him, but Adam, who stood upon his guard, swift as lightning
whirled his stick and felled him to the earth with a single blow! At
this sight the terror of the other animals was so great that they
approached him trembling, and in token of their submission licked the
stick that he held in his hand.”[25]

[25] “The Story of the Stick,” p. 2. Translated and Adapted from the
French of Antony Réal [Fernand Michel]. New York: J. W. Bouton, 1875.

Throughout all the early ages the stick was both the symbol and the
instrument of power; and it is only the hand that can grasp and wield
the stick. The early kings reigned by virtue of the strong arm and the
supple hand. They claimed to be descended from Hercules, and their
emblem of power was a knotty stick. Nor does empire depend less upon the
hand now than it did in the morning of time.

The hand no longer grasps the knotty stick; it no longer menaces
mankind. But it wields the mechanical powers. It imprisons steam and
electricity, and keeps them at hard labor. It makes ploughs, planters,
harvesters, sewing-machines, locomotives, and steamships. It digs
canals, opens mines, builds bridges, makes roads, erects mills and
factories, constructs harbors and docks, reclaims waste lands, and
covers the globe with tracks of steel over which the commerce of the
world is borne.

Two hundred years ago England was destitute of most of these things. It
had then no good dirt roads even, no good bridges, no canals, no public
works worth mentioning, and scarcely any manufactories of importance.
The post-bags were carried on horseback once a week. The highways were
besieged by robbers. One-fifth of the community were paupers. Mechanics
worked for from sixpence to a shilling a day. The chief food of the poor
was rye, barley, or oats. The people were ignorant and brutal--masters
beat their servants, and husbands beat their wives. Teachers used the
lash as the principal means of imparting knowledge. The mob rejoiced in
fights of all kinds, and shouted with glee when an eye was torn out or a
finger chopped off in these savage encounters. Executions were favorite
public amusements. The prisons were full, and proved to be fruitful
nurseries of crime.

From little better than a wilderness, and almost a state of savagery,
England has been transformed into a fruitful field, and its people
raised in the scale of civilization. Its public works are the admiration
of the world; its coffers are full of gold; its strong boxes are piled
high with evidences of the indebtedness of other nations; its ships
plough the billows of every sea, and bear the commerce of every land;
and its manufactories, of vast extent, are monuments of inventive
genius, industry, perseverance, and skill, more imposing far than the
pyramids of Egypt or the temples of Greece and Rome.

To whom do the people of England and of the world owe this national
progress, this progress in the useful arts on a scale so colossal as, by
comparison, to dwarf the achievements of all the earlier epochs of
history? Not to statesmen or legislators. They neither dig canals, open
mines, build railways, lay ocean cables, nor erect factories. The pen in
their hands may be mightier than the sword; but it is no match for the
plough and the reaper, the electric battery and imprisoned steam.
Legislators make laws but mechanics make things. On this subject, after
an exhaustive investigation, Buckle says, “Seeing, therefore, that the
efforts of government in favor of civilization are, when most
successful, altogether negative, and seeing, too, that when these
efforts are more than negative they become injurious, it clearly follows
that all speculations must be erroneous which ascribe the progress of
Europe to the wisdom of its rulers. This is an inference which rests not
only on the arguments already adduced, but on facts which might be
multiplied from every page of history.... We have seen that their laws
in favor of industry have injured industry, that their laws in favor of
religion have increased hypocrisy, and that their laws to secure truth
have encouraged perjury.... But it is a mere matter of history that our
legislators, even to the last moment, were so terrified by the idea of
innovation that they refused every reform until the voice of the people
rose high enough to awe them into submission, and forced them to grant
what, without much pressure, they would by no means have conceded.”[26]

[26] “History of Civilization in England,” Vol. I., pp. 204, 205, 361.
By Henry Thomas Buckle. New York: D. Appleton & Co.

It is, then, clearly not to the men who make laws that we are indebted
for progress in civilization, but to the men who make things. The
scientist who discovers a new principle in physics is a public
benefactor. The inventor who devises a new machine helps forward the
cause of progress. Whitney’s cotton-gin trebled the value of the
cotton-fields of the South. The mechanic who constructs a machine that
will make ten or a hundred things in the time before required to make
one thing is in the front rank of the civilizers of the human race.[27]

[27] “Your wealth, your amusement, your pride, would all be alike
impossible, but for those whom you scorn or forget.... The sailor
wrestling with the sea’s rage; the quiet student poring over his book
or his vial; the common worker, without praise, and nearly without
bread, fulfilling his task as your horses drag your carts, hopeless,
and spurned of all: these are the men by whom England lives.”--“Sesame
and Lilies,” p. 68. By John Ruskin, LL.D. New York: John Wiley & Sons,
1884.

Inventors, not statesmen, rule the world through their machines, which
augment the powers of man and sharpen his senses. Steam has made all
civilized countries prosperous and great by vastly increasing man’s
powers--by making him hundred-handed.[28]

[28] “The causes which most disturbed or accelerated the normal
progress of society in antiquity were the appearance of great men; in
modern times they have been the appearance of great
inventions.”--“History of European Morals,” Vol. I., p. 126. By
William Edward Hartpole Lecky, M.A. New York: D. Appleton & Co.

In 1809 there was born to a distinguished baronet of Liverpool, England,
a son. The boy was educated at Eton and Christ Church College, Oxford,
graduating in 1831. In 1832 the young man entered parliament. In 1834 he
took office under Sir Robert Peel. The name of the young man who
commenced life under such auspicious circumstances was William Ewart
Gladstone. For nearly half a century Mr. Gladstone was a prominent
figure in English politics and administration. During that long period
of time he was in the eye of the world, so to speak. He moulded the laws
of an empire, repealed old statutes and made new statutes, largely
influenced both the domestic and the foreign policy of a great nation,
and exerted a considerable degree of control over the international
affairs of the continent of Europe.

In 1813, four years after the birth of Mr. Gladstone, at Charlton, in
Hertfordshire, England, Henry Bessemer was born. His father, Anthony
Bessemer, had fled to England in 1792, a refugee from France. Henry
Bessemer’s early training consisted of the rudiments of an ordinary
education received in the parish school of the neighboring town of
Hitchin. His father was a skilled mechanic and inventor, and Henry
inherited the inventive faculty. He studied and practised the art of
wood-turnery, producing, before arriving at the age of manhood, the most
difficult patterns known to the art.

At the age of eighteen, in the year 1831--the year in which Mr.
Gladstone completed his education--young Bessemer appeared in London, an
obscure, unknown stranger. He, however, secured employment as a modeller
and designer. His attention was soon directed to the imperfections of
government stamps, in which there had been no improvement since the time
of Queen Anne. He was informed by Sir Charles Persley, of the
Stamp-office, that the frauds in stamps probably aggregated one hundred
thousand pounds per annum. In the evenings of a few months he invented
and made an improved stamp which obviated the objections to the one then
in use. The invention was at once adopted by the Stamp-office, and in
lieu of a stipulated sum in payment therefor, young Bessemer was asked
“whether he would be satisfied with the position of superintendent of
stamps, with five hundred or six hundred pounds per annum?” The
suggested appointment he agreed to accept. Meantime, before the
contemplated change occurred in the Stamp-office, the young inventor
devised a further improvement in the new stamp, which not only made it
much more perfect, but rendered it unnecessary for the government to
employ a superintendent of stamps. In perfect good faith young Bessemer
exhibited to the chief of the Stamp-office his new stamp, which was so
palpably an improvement on the other that it was at once preferred and
promptly adopted. What is more, the government not only declined to
appoint the inventor to a place, but declined to give him a penny for
his invention. This was in 1834, the year in which Mr. Gladstone began
his long career as a representative of the British Crown. As young Mr.
Gladstone entered the Treasury, its “junior lord,” young Mr. Bessemer
retired from it an unsuccessful suitor for the just reward of genius and
toil. He says, “Thus sad and dispirited, and with a burning sense of
injustice overpowering all other feelings, I went my way from the
Stamp-office, too proud to ask as a favor that which was indubitably my
right.”[29]

[29] “The Creators of the Age of Steel,” p. 20. By W. T. Jeans. New
York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1884.

From this point, both of time and event, there is a very wide divergence
in the lives of these great men. The one is a man of ideas, the other a
man of deeds. Mr. Gladstone thinks, talks, makes treaties and laws. He
is constantly in the public eye, and his name ever on the public tongue.
He is regarded as a great financier; he is certainly a great orator. He
sways the multitude with his eloquence. He takes distinguished part in
the wordy contests which occur every now and then in Parliament. These
debates are much talked of. At the conclusion of one of them there is a
vote of want of confidence, and Mr. Gladstone goes out of office and Mr.
Disraeli comes in. At the conclusion of another of them there is a vote
of want of confidence, and Mr. Disraeli goes out of office and Mr.
Gladstone comes in. But whether Mr. Gladstone goes out and Mr. Disraeli
comes in, or Mr. Disraeli goes out and Mr. Gladstone comes in, makes
very little difference with the trade and commerce of the kingdom. The
railway traffic continues in the one event or the other; the steamers
continue to cross and recross the ocean; the “post” comes and goes; the
electric current continues to act as messenger-boy; the telephone brings
us face to face with our business correspondent or friend. There is,
indeed, no reason why a vote of want of confidence in Mr. Gladstone or
Mr. Disraeli should imply a want of confidence in steam or electricity,
because neither Mr. Gladstone nor Mr. Disraeli ever had anything to do
with the application of these great forces to the uses of man. They were
entirely absorbed, the one in promoting the advancement of Liberalism,
and the other in promoting the advancement of Toryism. And it is a
curious fact, as showing the mutability of political opinion, that Mr.
Disraeli entered public life as a Liberal, and subsequently became a
great Tory leader; and Mr. Gladstone entered public life as a Tory, and
subsequently became a great Liberal leader.

For twenty-two years after he retired empty-handed from the government
Stamp-office Mr. Bessemer continued his career as an inventor and
manufacturer, without, however, attracting any great share of public
attention. But in 1856 he announced that he had made a discovery of vast
importance in the process of steel making.[30] For a hundred years
previously the Huntsman process had held the field. It yielded
excellent steel but was very expensive. Mr. Bessemer announced that he
could produce splendid cast-steel at about the cost of making iron! The
announcement was received with much incredulity; but the “Bessemer
converter” was exhibited, the new process shown, and the result seemed
to confirm the verity of the claim of the inventor. Practical
difficulties, however, postponed its complete success till 1860, when
the new process supplanted all others.

[30] “The first patent of Sir H. Bessemer in which air is mentioned as
the oxidizing agent is dated October 17, 1855, and other three months
were spent in experimenting before the idea of introducing the air
from the bottom of a large converter struck him. The patent embodying
the latter idea is dated February 11, 1856.”--“The Creators of the Age
of Steel,” note to p. 38. By W. T. Jeans. New York: Charles Scribner’s
Sons, 1884.

Mr. Bessemer now stood at the head of the inventors of the world, and
Mr. Gladstone, as Chancellor of the Exchequer under Lord Palmerston, had
come to be regarded as one of the most skilful governmental financiers
in Europe, which meant that he was an adept in devising schemes of
taxation calculated to yield the most revenue with the least popular
discontent. When it is considered that it is necessary for the English
Minister of Finance to draw from the British people more than a million
dollars every morning of the year, including Sundays, before either the
English lord or the English peasant can indulge in a free breakfast, the
extreme delicacy of the duties devolving upon him will be understood and
appreciated. If he proposes the repeal of the soap tax in order to
extinguish the slave-trade, he must impose an additional penny in the
pound on malt liquors in order to put an end to the vice of drunkenness.
He is constantly between Scylla and Charybdis--in keeping off the one
he is in danger of being swallowed up in the other. And if he can, at
the end of the fiscal year, find a million dollars to apply to the
liquidation of the public debt, he is extremely fortunate. From 1836,
about the time Mr. Gladstone began his public career, down to 1877, the
several chancellors of the English Exchequer, including Mr. Gladstone,
contrived to save, in the aggregate, about twelve million pounds
sterling for this purpose.

Let us recur a moment to the subject of the invention of Mr. Bessemer.
It went into operation in 1860. The temptation to reproduce Mr.
Bessemer’s own description of his process, which revolutionized the
manufacture of steel, is irresistible. It is as follows:

“The converting vessel is mounted on an axis at or near its centre of
gravity. It is constructed of boilerplates, and is lined either with
fire-brick, road-drift, or gannister, which resists the heat better than
any other material yet tried, and has also the advantage of cheapness.
The vessel, having been heated, is brought into the requisite position
to receive its charge of melted metal, without either of the tuyeres (or
air-holes) being below the surface. No action can therefore take place
until the vessel is turned up (so that the blast can enter through the
tuyeres). The process is thus in an instant brought into full activity,
and small though powerful jets of air spring upward through the fluid
mass. The air, expanding in volume, divides itself into globules, or
bursts violently upward, carrying with it some hundredweight of fluid
metal, which again falls into the boiling mass below. Every part of the
apparatus trembles under the violent agitation thus produced; a roaring
flame rushes from the mouth of the vessel, and as the process advances
it changes its violet color to orange, and finally to a voluminous pure
white flame. The sparks, which at first were large, like those of
ordinary foundery iron, change into small hissing points, and these
gradually give way to soft floating specks of bluish light as the state
of malleable iron is approached. There is no eruption of cinder as in
the early experiments, although it is formed during the process; the
improved shape of the converter causes it to be retained, and it not
only acts beneficially on the metal, but it helps to confine the heat,
which during the process has rapidly risen from the comparatively low
temperature of melted pig-iron to one vastly greater than the highest
known welding heats, by which malleable iron only becomes sufficiently
soft to be shaped by the blows of the hammer; but here it becomes
perfectly fluid, and even rises so much above the melting point as to
admit of its being poured from the converter into a founder’s ladle, and
from thence to be transferred to several successive moulds.”[31]

[31] “The Creators of the Age of Steel,” p. 71. By W. T. Jeans. New
York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1884.

What is the value of this process? What is the extent of the service
rendered by Mr. Bessemer to man? It is estimated that in the twenty-one
years first elapsing after the successful working of the Bessemer
process, the production of steel by it, notwithstanding its necessarily
slow progress, amounted to twenty-five million tons. At $200 a ton, the
alleged saving in cost as compared with the old process, this represents
an aggregate saving of $5,000,000,000. In 1882 the world’s production
was four million tons, which at the rate named yielded a saving of the
enormous aggregate of $800,000,000 in a single year.[E7] These sums seem
almost fabulous, especially so since they result from simply blowing air
through crude melted iron for a quarter of an hour! But the radical
character of the change wrought in the metal by the air-blowing process
is shown by the fact that a steel rail is worth as much as twenty iron
rails.[32]

[32] “At the Birmingham meeting of the British Association in 1865,
Sir Henry Bessemer explained that at Chalk Farm steel rails were laid
down on one side of the line and iron rails on the other, so that
every engine and carriage there had to pass over both steel and iron
rails at the same time. When the first face was worn off an iron rail
it was turned the other way upward, and when the second face was worn
out it was replaced by a new iron rail. When Sir Henry exhibited one
of these steel rails at Birmingham only one face of it was nearly worn
out, while on the opposite side of the line eleven iron rails had in
the same time been worn out on both faces. It thus appeared that one
steel rail was capable of doing the work of twenty-three iron
ones.”--“The Creators of the Age of Steel,” p. 93. By W. T. Jeans. New
York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1884.

All the governments of Europe honored Mr. Bessemer for his great
invention, some by medals and orders of merit, and others by
appropriating without compensation his process of steel-making. Of these
latter Prussia stood in the front rank. England alone stood aloof. “A
prophet is not without honor save in his own country and among his own
kin.” From 1860 to 1872 England continued to load Mr. Gladstone and Mr.
Disraeli with honors, but not until the latter year did the government
recognize Mr. Bessemer, when the Prince of Wales presented him with the
Albert gold medal, and in 1879 he was knighted by the Queen.

A comparison between the lives and services to man of two of the most
distinguished statesmen of England, with the life and services, to man,
of Sir Henry Bessemer, cannot fail to be of great value to every young
man who possesses the power of just discrimination. But can just
discrimination be expected of any young man entering upon the stage of
active life when such discrimination is not possessed by the public at
large? For example: The question being propounded, What is the value of
the combined services to man of Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Disraeli, as
compared with those of Sir Henry Bessemer? ninety-nine out of a hundred
men of sound judgment would doubtless say, “The value of the services of
the two statesmen is quite unimportant, while the value of the services
of Mr. Bessemer is enormous, incalculable.” But how many of these
ninety-nine men of sound judgment could resist the fascination of the
applause accorded to the statesmen? How many of them would have the
moral courage to educate their sons for the career of Mr. Bessemer
instead of for the career of Mr. Disraeli or of Mr. Gladstone?* Not many
in the present state of public sentiment. It will be a great day for
man, the day that ushers in the dawn of more sober views of life, the
day that inaugurates the era of the mastership of things in the place of
the mastership of words.

Mr. Gladstone stands for politics and statesmanship at their best, and
his career is the product of the old system of education at its best.
Mr. Bessemer stands for science and art united, and his career is the
product of the new education.

[E7] But the pecuniary value of Mr. Bessemer’s discovery is not the
consideration of chief import. Its social influence extends to the
remotest bounds of civilization, and includes the whole human race,
because it abridges the period of labor necessary to the production of
a given quantity of useful things, thereby enhancing the sum of life’s
comforts and pleasures.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE INVENTORS, CIVIL ENGINEERS, AND MECHANICS OF ENGLAND, AND ENGLISH
PROGRESS.

The young man with a mechanical trade is better equipped for the battle
of life than the young man with a learned profession. The prizes may not
be so dazzling, but they are more numerous, and they are within reach.
The skilled mechanic, with industry and prudence, is sure of a cottage,
and the cottage may grow into a mansion, while the man of letters
struggles so often in vain to mount the steps of a palace. The railroad,
the telegraph, and the steamship exert a more potent influence upon the
destinies of mankind than the lawyer, the doctor, and the priest. The
giants, steam and electricity, which bear the great burdens of commerce,
have to be harnessed to enable them to do their work; and to make this
harness, the furnace, the forge, and the shop are brought into
requisition. The railroad alone taxes to the utmost nearly every
department of the useful arts. To the construction of the
passenger-coach, for instance, more than a hundred trades contribute the
varied cunning and skill of their workmanship.

This is the age of steel, and he who knows how to mould the king of
metals into puissant forms has his hand nearest the rod of empire. Who
would not rather be able to construct a Corliss engine than learn the
trick of drawing a bill in chancery?

There was a time, not long ago, when inventors and discoverers were
little recognized and poorly compensated for their splendid
achievements. But that time is past. The book-makers of to-day are
groping about the old shops where the inventors of last century worked,
and the cottages where they lived, in order to tell the simple story of
their lives, and write their names in the temple of fame. Huntsman, who
emerged from long seclusion over the furnace and crucible, and presented
to his fellow-workmen a piece of steel which rivalled that of old
Damascus, and drove from the British markets all other steels--how
resplendent his name is now! How every incident in the life of Watt is
sought for--his struggles, his disappointments, and his final success!
And so of Mushet, Neilson, Bramah, Maudslay, Clement, Murray, Nasmyth,
Stephenson, and Fulton. When Watt had devised his engine he found no
workmen expert enough to make it. Then Maudslay, Clement, and Murray
invented automatic iron hands and fingers, and endowed them with almost
human intelligence, and far more than human precision, and Watt’s
difficulty was removed.

The “greasy mechanics” did more to hasten the world’s progress in a
century--1740 to 1840--than had been accomplished up to that time by
all the statesmen of all the dead ages. But those heroes of the workshop
had none of the opportunities afforded by the manual training school of
the present age. They toiled many hours each day for a shilling or two,
and lived in stuffy hovels, and puzzled over the _a_ _b_ _c_ of
mechanics by the light of a tallow-candle. Some of them gained fortunes,
while others were robbed of the fruits of genius, and slept in unknown
graves; but all their names are treasured and honored now. The world
moves, and in this age it moves always toward a higher appreciation of
the value of the useful arts. This country is destined to become a vast
workshop, and in this workshop the best energies, the strongest vital
forces of the American people are eventually to be exerted. How
necessary, then, to educate the hands as well as the brain of the youth
of the country.[E8]

Mr. Smiles, in his “Lives of the Engineers,” has shown us the true
springs of English greatness. In telling the story of the struggles and
triumphs of the canal-makers, the bridge-builders, the coal-miners, the
millwrights, the road-makers, the harbor and dock makers, the
ship-builders, the iron and steel makers, and the railway-builders--in
telling this story of persistence, of nerve, and “pluck,” he has
sketched the career of the real heroes of English progress. A brief
sketch of the life of James Brindley will serve to show how these noble
men wrought, how they suffered, and how they conquered.

James Brindley was born in 1716. His parents were poor. His father was a
ne’er-do-well. His mother taught him to be honest and industrious. James
worked as a common laborer till he was seventeen years of age. In 1733
he became a millwright’s apprentice--bound for seven years. He was a
dull boy, learning slowly, but before the end of his “bound” term he
became the best workman in the neighborhood. He helped the now
celebrated Wedgwoods out of a difficulty by inventing and constructing
flint-mills for their works. He invented and constructed pumps for
clearing the Clifton coal-mines of water--an entirely new device that
opened coal chambers which had long been completely drowned out. His
compensation for this class of work--the work of genius--was two
shillings a day!

In 1755 he built a silk-mill, in which he made several important
improvements in machinery, etc. But this man, who possessed inventive
genius of a high order and large executive ability, could neither write
legibly nor spell correctly, and his charge for almost inestimable
services was still, in 1757, only two to four shillings a day. His
struggles to improve the steam-engine form a curious chapter in the
story of his life. It was to him that the Duke of Bridgewater owed his
success in canal-making.

The duke was born in 1736. He was a weak and sickly child, his mental
capacity being apparently defective to a degree sufficient to debar him
from his inheritance of the family title and estates. An affair of the
heart which resulted unfavorably rendered him morose, and changed his
whole course of life. He abruptly quitted the race-track, where he had
condescended even to play the rôle of “jockey,” and turned his attention
to the improvement of his estates. They contained coal deposits, which
he undertook to develop through cheapening transportation, and Brindley
became his engineer. His first canal, consisting largely of aqueducts,
was called “Brindley’s castle in the air,” and his “river hung in the
air.” It was this “river hung in the air”--the first English
canal--that made the Manchester of to-day possible. Another canal
enterprise of the duke cost more than a million dollars--that connecting
Liverpool with Manchester. This latter canal yielded £80,000 per annum
income, and it was constructed by Brindley at a salary of 3_s._ 6_d._ a
day!

Brindley was obstinate, and often quarrelled with his employer about the
methods of construction of great works; and what is more, the duke
always yielded. He humbly submitted to every demand made by his engineer
except a demand for compensation. Brindley’s “wage” rate during the many
years occupied in the duke’s great canal enterprises was 3_s._ 6_d._ per
day. This, at all events, is the price named by Smiles in his life of
Brindley. In a note to the work it is, however, stated that his
stipulated pay was a guinea a day. It is agreed on all hands, however,
that whatever the rate agreed upon was, Brindley was not paid, and that
his heirs were begging unsuccessfully for his just dues long after his
death. In a word, Brindley’s honor as an engineer being at stake, and it
being dearer to him than any money consideration, he worked for nothing
rather than allow the enterprise to fail. And the duke was parsimonious
enough to take the engineer’s services for nothing, and his heirs were
mean enough to refuse payment for such services when demanded by his
widow.

In a literary point of view Brindley was ignorant, but in no other
respect. This was said of him by one of his contemporaries:

“Mr. Brindley is one of those great geniuses whom Nature sometimes rears
by her own force, and brings to maturity without the necessity of
cultivation. His whole plan is admirable, and so well calculated that he
is never at a loss; for if any difficulty arises he removes it with a
facility which appears so much like inspiration that you would think
Minerva was at his fingers’ ends.”[33]

[33] “Lives of the Engineers.” By Samuel Smiles. London: John Murray,
1862. Vol. I., “Life of James Brindley.”

The life of Brindley is typical of a score of biographies presented in
the “Lives of the Engineers,” among which the following are especially
worthy of mention: William Edwards, John Metcalf, John Perry, Sir Hugh
Myddelton, Cornelius Vermuyden, Andrew Yarranton,[34] Andrew Meikle,
John Rennie, John Smeaton, Thomas Telford, William Murdock, Dr. D.
Papin, Thomas Savery, Dud Dudley, Matthew Boulton, and William
Symington. These, and their natural coadjutors, the discoverers of new
forces in nature and the inventors of new things in art, the
iron-workers and tool-makers--these are _the_ great names in English
history. They are the names without which there would have been no
English history worth writing. Mr. Gladstone once said of them, naming
Brindley, Metcalf, Smeaton, Rennie, and Telford, “These men who have now
become famous among us had no mechanics’ institutes, no libraries, no
classes, no examinations to cheer them on their way. In the greatest
poverty, difficulties, and discouragements their energies were found
sufficient for their work, and they have written their names in a
distinguished page of the history of their country.”

[34] “He was the founder of English political economy, the first man
in England who saw and said that peace is better than war, that trade
is better than plunder, that honest industry is better than martial
greatness, and that the best occupation of a government is to secure
prosperity at home, and let other nations alone.”--“Elements of
Political Science.” By Patrick Edward Dove. Edinburgh: 1854.

The admission of Mr. Gladstone that the great achievements of these
heroes of invention and discovery were won without any aid whatever,
either from the government or the people of England, is a pregnant fact.
It is the key-note of this work, the reason why it is written and
published.

The neglect of the useful arts by all the governments of the world, from
the dawn of civilization down to the present time, is an impeachment of
the common-sense of mankind as shown in the conduct of public affairs.
The civilized man might have learned wisdom from the savage, who is
taught to fight, to hunt, and to fish, the brain, the hand, and the eye
being trained simultaneously. But he chose to learn of Plato, who in the
“Republic” says to Glaucon, “All the useful arts, I believe, we thought
degrading.” And further in the same work: “We shall tell our people, in
mythical language, you are doubtless all brethren as many as inhabit the
city, but the God who created you, mixed gold in the composition of such
of you as are qualified to rule, which gives them the highest value,
while in the auxiliaries he made silver an ingredient, assigning iron
and copper to the cultivators of the soil and the other workmen.
Therefore, inasmuch as you are all related to one another, although your
children will generally resemble their parents, yet sometimes a golden
parent will produce a silver child, and a silver parent a golden child,
and so on, each producing any. The rulers, therefore, have received this
in charge first and above all from the gods, to observe nothing more
closely, in their character of vigilant guardians, than the children
that are born, to see which of these metals enters into the composition
of their souls; and if a child be born in their class with an alloy of
copper or iron, they are to have no manner of pity upon it, but giving
it the value that belongs to its nature, they are to thrust it away into
the class of artisans or agriculturists. And if, again, among these a
child be born with an admixture of gold or silver, when they have
assayed it they are to raise it either to the class of guardians or to
that of auxiliaries, because there is an oracle which declares that the
city shall then perish when it is guarded by iron or copper.”[35]

[35] “The Republic of Plato,” p. 114. London: Macmillan & Co., 1881.

So ingrained in the public mind has this contempt for the artisan and
laborer become in the course of ages, that notwithstanding the fact of
the admitted kingship of iron among metals, and notwithstanding the fact
that without iron the world would almost sink into a state of barbarism,
still the opposition to the introduction of tool practice into the
public schools is violent, and most violent among those classes who
would be most benefited by it. Pending consideration of a bill by the
Massachusetts Assembly in 1883, providing for the admission of manual
training to the public-school curriculum, an opponent of the measure
said: “The introduction of the use of tools is only another attempt to
deprive the poorer classes of a good education. It is simply an attempt
to overload the course of studies in the schools so that children shall
not learn anything; so that the poor may be made poorer, while the
children of the rich having a good time in the public schools may have
their thought and health preserved for higher or special education.”

This is a repetition of the old answer of the Inquisition to Galileo
upon the announcement and defence of his great discovery. He was
summoned to Rome, and “accused of having taught that the earth moves,
that the sun is stationary, and of having attempted to reconcile these
doctrines with the Scriptures.” Bruno had been driven to and fro over
the face of the civilized world, and finally burned in the year 1600 for
teaching the system of Copernicus. Having the fear of Bruno’s fate
before his eyes, Galileo recanted, and promised neither to publish nor
defend his theories. But his love of science overcame his fear of
oppression, and in 1632 he published his “System of the World.” Again he
was summoned before the Inquisition, which was destined forever after to
torment and persecute him. He was driven to his knees before the
cardinals, consigned to prison, and tortured to blindness. After his
death in a prison of the Inquisition at the age of seventy-seven years,
his right to make a will was disputed, his body was denied burial in
consecrated ground, and his friends were prohibited the privilege of
raising a monument to his memory in the Church of Santa Croce in
Florence.

Eighteen hundred years ago a Roman emperor refused to sanction the use
of improved machinery in the prosecution of a great public work, on the
ground that it would deprive the poor of employment.

In 1663 a Dutchman erected a saw-mill in England, but the hostility of
the workmen compelled its abandonment. More than a hundred years elapsed
before the second saw-mill was put in operation in England, and that was
destroyed by hand-sawyers.

The Flemish weavers who introduced improved weaving machinery into
England in the seventeenth century were met by protests. One of these
protests, addressed to Parliament, represented that the Flemish weavers
had “made so bould as to devise engines for working of tape, lace,
ribbin, and such like, wherein one man doth more among them than seven
Englishe men can doe, so as their cheap sale of commodities beggereth
all our Englishe artificers of that trade and enricheth them.”

A little more than a hundred years ago, in England, when the Sankey
Canal, six miles long, was authorized, it was upon the express condition
that the boats plying upon it should be drawn by men only.

Illustrations of the _vis inertiæ_ of ignorance might be multiplied
indefinitely. Ignorance reverences the past. Ignorance never doubts.
Ignorance is content; perfectly satisfied with its own knowledge, if the
paradox may be allowed, it never seeks to increase it. But it is
suspicious. In every effort to enlighten it discovers a conspiracy to
undermine. Incapable of the intellectual effort of inquiry, it
stagnates, and regards as a deadly enemy those who seek to disturb the
serenity of its muddy pool.

When labor was only another name for a state of slavery, to teach men to
labor skilfully was merely to raise them to a little higher grade of
servitude. Hence it is only at a very recent period that it has occurred
to mankind to teach skilled labor in the schools. All educational
systems, our own among the rest, seem to have been intended to make
lawyers, doctors, priests, statesmen, _littérateurs_, poets. But this is
the age of steel, the age of machines and machinery. Tremendous forces
in nature have been discovered and utilized, and these discoveries and
their utilization have so multiplied vast enterprises that the
importance of the mere ornamental branches of learning is dwarfed in
their presence. “This is the practical age, and an educational system
which is not practical is nothing. We shall still have our Tennysons,
and our Longfellows, and our doctors of abstract philosophy; but there
is little time to sentimentalize with the poets or speculate with the
philosophers. There is work to do.[E9] The mine is to be explored and
its treasures brought to the surface; more and more powerful machines
are to be constructed to bear the burdens of commerce; new elements of
force are to be discovered and applied to the constantly increasing
wants of mankind.[36]

[36] “To know the ‘use’ either of land or tools you must know what
useful things can be grown from the one and made with the other. And
therefore to know what is useful, and what useless, and be skilful to
provide the one, and wise to scorn the other, is the first need for
all industrious men. Wherefore, I propose that schools should be
established wherein the use of land and tools shall be taught
conclusively--in other words, the sciences of agriculture (with
associated river and sea culture), and the noble arts and exercises of
humanity.--“Fors Clavigera,” p. 302. Part. III. By John Ruskin, LL.D.
New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1881.

On the subject of the demand for a more comprehensive educational
system, Col. Augustus Jacobson says, with great force, “Youth is the
expensive period of man’s existence. Youth produces nothing and eats all
the time. If the youth is not trained there can hardly be a profit to
mankind on his existence. As mankind is liable for, and bound to pay,
his expenses, he should be so trained that he may repay them. He can
only become a profitable investment by training. If he is left
unskilled, the money spent on him is wasted. There is no profit on a
whole generation of Spaniards or Turks. Mankind should be wise enough to
reap the profit there always is in finishing raw material, by making
human raw material into a highly finished product.”

There are millions of intelligent little children in the public schools
of the United States, receiving, doubtless, excellent intellectual or
mental training. But they are not being trained for the actual duties of
life as the savage child is taught to fight, to fish, and to hunt. They
are not taught to labor with their hands, either skilfully or
unskilfully. They are not given instruction in any department of the
useful arts, notwithstanding the fact that in the case of a vast
majority of them the alternative of earning their bread by the labor of
their unskilled hands, or resorting to their wits for a support, will be
presented immediately on their entrance upon the stage of active life.
The apprentice system gave skilled mechanics to England, and her
splendid manufacturing establishments are the result. The trained
English apprentice became an inventor, and his inventions and art
discoveries studded the island with workshops filled with automatic
product-multiplying machinery.

The savage of Australia in Captain Cook’s time could kill a pigeon with
a spear at thirty yards, but he couldn’t count the fingers on his right
hand. The Southern Esquimau turns a somersault in the water in his boat
with ease. But his more Northern brother has no canoe, and is ignorant
of the existence of a boat; he has no use for a boat, because the sea in
the latitude of his home is frozen the entire year. The savage is taught
what he needs to know in his condition, and is taught nothing else;
hence his skill in the few avocations he pursues.

The civilized boy in school is taught many theories, but is not required
to put any of them in practice; hence he enters upon the serious duties
of life unprepared to discharge any of them.[37] It may be said that he
is in real danger of the penitentiary until he learns a profession or a
trade. “Of four hundred and eighty-seven convicts consigned to the State
Prison for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in 1879, five-sixths had
attended public schools, and the same number were without trades.” It is
noticeable also that during the same period “not five were received who
were what are called mechanics.” In the penitentiary of the State of
Illinois four out of five of the convicts have no handicraft. The fact
that the skilled workman is far more likely than the common laborer to
keep out of the penitentiary is a powerful argument in favor of joining
manual training to the mental exercises of our common schools.

[37] Discussion of the subject of technical education at a meeting of
the Society of Arts, London, England, 1885.

Dr. Gladstone, F.R.S.: “It should be their aim in [elementary schools]
to give such a notion of the value of materials and the use of tools
as could afterwards be turned to use in any required direction. There
were two great difficulties in the way of doing this. The first and
greatest was the inveterate notion that education consisted of
book-learning.... Another difficulty was the ignorance of teachers in
this respect. If an endeavor were made to introduce some knowledge of
science into schools, they generally found that the teachers had some
kind of theoretical knowledge, but it had been obtained mainly from
books; and what was chiefly wanted was that things should be taught as
well as words and before words.”

Prof. Guthrie, F.R.S.: “This method of bringing the hand and the mind
to work together really lay at the basis of all true technical
instruction; where the mind alone was employed the knowledge acquired
passed away, but when the mind and the hand had been educated together
the knowledge was never forgotten.”

The general adoption of a comprehensive system of mechanical education
in the public schools would quickly dispel the unworthy prejudice
against labor which taints the minds of the youth of the country. The
splendid career which this age opens to the educated mechanic should be
made clear to the vision of every boy in the land, and he will see, in
the tools he is taught to handle, the key not only to fair success, but
to wealth and fame. Professor Thurston, President of the American
Society of Mechanical Engineers, thus sums up the mighty power wielded
by the mechanic:

“The class of men from whose ranks the membership of this society is
principally drawn direct the labors of nearly three millions of
prosperous people in three hundred thousand mills, with $2,500,000,000
capital; they direct the payment of more than $1,000,000,000 in annual
wages; the consumption of $3,000,000,000 worth of raw material, and the
output of $5,000,000,000 worth of manufactured products. Fifty thousand
steam-engines, and more than as many water-wheels, at their command turn
the machinery of these hundreds of thousands of workshops that
everywhere dot our land, giving the strength of three million horses
night or day.”[38]

[38] Inaugural address, as President of the American Society of
Engineers, New York, November 4, 1880.

[E8] “Deeds are greater than words. Deeds have such a life, mute but
undeniable, and grow as living trees and fruit-trees do; they people
the vacuity of Time, and make it green and worthy.”--“Past and
Present,” p. 139. By Thomas Carlyle. London: Chapman & Hall.

[E9] “Natural science is the point of interest now, and I think it is
dimming and extinguishing a good deal that was called poetry. These
sublime and all-reconciling revelations of nature will exact of poetry
a correspondent height and scope, or put an end to it.”--Letter of R.
W. Emerson to Anna C. L. Botta, “Memoirs of --. By her friends,” 8vo,
pp. 459. J. Selwin, Tait & Sons.

CHAPTER XVII.

POWER OF STEAM AND CONTEMPT OF ARTISANS.

What the civil engineers and mechanics of England have done for that
country the same classes here have done for America. It is by these
classes that all civilized countries have been made prosperous and
great. And the agent through which the power of man has been augmented a
thousand-fold is steam. “In the manufactures of Great Britain alone, the
power which steam exerts is estimated to be equal to the manual labor of
four hundred millions of men, or more than double the number of males
supposed to inhabit the globe.”[39] This is the most significant fact of
all time, namely, that a few millions of people in a small island now
wield twice as much industrial power as all the people on the globe
exerted one hundred years ago. And it is a fact of the utmost
significance that the public educational institutions of England
contributed scarcely anything to this industrial revolution, whose
influence now comprehends all civilized countries. The men by whom it
was wrought came not from the classic shades of the universities, but
from the foundery, the forge, and the machine-shop. There has been very
little change in educational methods since the time when Bacon said,
“They learn nothing at the universities but to believe.” He proposed
that a college be established and devoted to the discovery of new truth.
No such college has, however, been established, but many new truths have
been discovered. Suppose all the universities of England, of the United
States, and of all other highly civilized countries had, from the time
of Bacon, been conformed to his ideas, and devoted to the discovery of
new truths? Such a course would have united science and art, and insured
vastly greater progress, no doubt, than that which has actually taken
place. The union of science with art has thus far been rendered
impossible by reason of the wide prevalence of purely speculative views.
The speculative philosophy of the Middle Ages still projects its baleful
influence over our institutions of learning. Abstract ideas are still
regarded as of more vital importance than things. Statesmen, lawyers,
littérateurs, poets, and artists are more highly esteemed than civil
engineers, machinists, and artisans. Mr. Smiles, in his excellent work
on the Huguenots, has shown that England owes to the French and the
Flemish immigrants “almost all her industrial arts and very much of the
most valuable life-blood of her modern race.”[40] Commenting upon this
fact in his work on “Hereditary Genius,” Mr. Francis Galton says,

“There has been another emigration from France of not unequal magnitude,
but followed by very different results, namely, that of the revolution
of 1789. It is most instructive to contrast the effects of the two. The
Protestant emigrants were able men, and have profoundly influenced for
good both our breed and our history; on the other hand, the political
refugees had but poor average stamina, and have left scarcely any traces
behind them.”[41]

[39] “Brief Biographies: James Watt,” p. 1. By Samuel Smiles. Chicago:
Belford, Clark & Co., 1883.

[40] “In short, wherever the refugees settled they acted as so many
missionaries of skilled work, exhibiting the best practical examples
of diligence, industry, and thrift, and teaching the English people in
the most effective manner the beginnings of those various industrial
arts in which they have since acquired so much distinction and
wealth.”--“The Huguenots,” p. 107. By Samuel Smiles. New York: Harper
& Brothers, 1867.

[41] “Hereditary Genius,” p. 360. By Francis Galton, F.R.S., etc. New
York: D. Appleton & Co., 1880.

This is the testimony of a distinguished student of biology; and it is
to the effect that the refugee artisan is of immense value to the
country where he finds an asylum, while the refugee politician is of no
value at all. We should naturally say, our author having made this
important discovery will enlarge upon it. First of all, he will deduce
the conclusion that if the refugee politician is of no value to the
country where he finds an asylum, the home politician is an equally
unimportant factor in the social problem. Then he will make an
exhaustive study of the industrial class as the chief basis of his
propositions and speculations on the subject of the science of life. Not
at all. Mr. Galton, in his work on “Hereditary Genius,” offers another
striking illustration of the repressive force of habit and the influence
of popular prejudice. In his classifications of men according to their
professions, with a view to the inquiry whether “genius, talent, or
whatever we term great mental capacity, follows the law of organic
transmission--runs in families, and is an affair of blood and breed”--in
such classifications Mr. Galton forgets for the time being that there is
an industrial class. He runs through the entire social scale, from “the
judges of England between 1660 and 1865,” not omitting Lord Jeffreys,
down through statesmen, commanders, literary men, poets, musicians, men
of science, painters, divines, the boys in Cambridge, oarsmen, and
wrestlers of the North Country, but has no word to say of the civil
engineers, or of the inventors--those immortal men whose monuments in
stone and iron exist in every corner of England.

Buckles’s caustic remark, “the most valuable additions made to
legislation have been enactments destructive of preceding legislation,
and the best laws which have been passed have been those in which some
former laws have been repealed,” does not apply to the works of the
civil engineers, inventors, and mechanics of England or of any other
country. Their works live after them and never fail to reflect honor
upon them. The “acts” of the inventor may be amended but they are never
repealed. Each inventive step, however short and apparently unimportant,
constitutes a substantial link in the chain of progress; and it is a
substantial link, because it invariably contains a hint of the next
sequential step.

Mr. Galton is an original thinker of great power, and an untiring
investigator. In contrasting the politician with the artisan he
discriminates admirably. He finds that the politician is of no value,
practically, to the community, while the artisan is of almost
inestimable value; and this conclusion he states curtly, without
appearing to care a rush for the public sentiment which reverences
politics and so-called statesmanship. But when he “makes up his jewels,”
so to speak, on the subject of “hereditary genius,” Mr. Galton, as
already remarked, forgets that it is worth while to consider the class
of men who in the last hundred years have literally almost created a new
world. Why is this? The late Mr. Horace Mann answered the question long
ago, and he answered it so well that his answer is here reproduced _in
extenso_: “Mankind had made great advances in astronomy, in geometry,
and other mathematical sciences, in the writing of history, in oratory
and in poetry, in painting and in sculpture, and in those kinds of
architecture which may be called regal or religious, centuries before
the great mechanical discoveries and inventions which now bless the
world were brought to light; and the question has often forced itself
upon reflecting minds why there was this _preposterousness_, this
inversion of what would appear to be the natural order of progress? Why
was it, for instance, that men should have learned the courses of the
stars and the revolution of the planets before they found out how to
make a good wagon-wheel? Why was it that they built the Parthenon and
the Coliseum before they knew how to construct a comfortable, healthful
dwelling-house? Why did they build the Roman aqueducts before they
framed a saw-mill? Or why did they achieve the noblest models in
eloquence, in poetry, and in the drama before they invented movable
types? I think we have arrived at a point where we can unriddle this
enigma. The labor of the world has been performed by ignorant men, by
classes doomed to ignorance from sire to son; by the bondmen and the
bondwomen of the Jews, by the helots of Sparta, by the captives who
passed under the Roman yoke, and by the villeins and serfs and slaves of
more modern times.”

When the great educational reformer of Massachusetts thus graphically
pointed out slavery as the cause of the contempt in which the useful
arts had been held from the dawn of history, four millions of men were
kept in bondage, and compelled to toil under the lash by one of the most
enlightened nations of the earth. Later thirteen millions of people
pledged “their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor” to the
perpetuation of slavery, and half a million soldiers marched repeatedly
to battle to do or die in behalf of the right (?) of one man to buy and
sell the bodies of his fellow-men.

There is, then, a logical reason for Mr. Galton’s neglect of the artisan
class. Slavery in its most odious form not only existed in the heart of
a so-called “free” nation twenty-five years ago, but dared Liberty to a
deadly contest. Nor were the upholders of slavery without moral support
among the governments and peoples of the world. The government of
England, of which Mr. Galton is a subject, under cover of a pretended
neutrality aided the American slaveholders’ Confederacy in sweeping
Freedom’s ships from the sea; and the great families of England, the
families cited by Mr. Galton in support of his proposition that genius
“is an affair of blood and breed”--those great families were well
pleased when Freedom’s ships went down and Freedom’s armies retreated
before the assaults of the slave confederacy.

This somewhat extended reference to Mr. Galton is not intended to impugn
his good faith as an author. Its design is simply to show that the
influence of slavery is not yet extinct; that it still moulds ideas,
controls habits of thought, inspires literary men, and permeates
literature. In a word, the cause of the contempt in which the useful
arts were held in Babylon in the time of Herodotus was in full force in
this country down to the date of the issuance of Mr. Lincoln’s
proclamation of emancipation; and it is scarcely necessary to observe
that the British Constitution grew out of the feudal system, which was
only another name for slavery. It is a proverb in England to this day
that it is safer to shoot a man than a hare; and the sentiment of the
proverb is a complete justification of human bondage, since it implies
that property rights are more sacred than the rights of man. Thus
slavery has kept its brand of shame upon the useful arts for thousands
of years, and the mind of man has been so deeply impressed thereby that
it does not react now that slavery is extinct. Like the slave released
from bondage, who still feels the chain, still winces and shrinks from
the imaginary scourge, the mind of man continues to revolve
automatically in the old channels.[E10]

[E10] “It is related of the Scythians that they became involved in a
contest with the descendants of certain of their slaves, who
successfully resisted them in several battles, whereupon one of them
said: ‘Men of Scythia, what are we doing? By fighting with our slaves,
both we ourselves by being slain become fewer in number, and by
killing them we shall hereafter have fewer to rule over. Now,
therefore, it seems to me that we should lay aside our spears and
bows, and that everyone, taking a horsewhip, should go directly to
them; for so long as they saw us with arms, they considered themselves
equal to us, and born of equal birth; but when they shall see us with
our whips instead of arms, they will soon learn that they are our
slaves, and being conscious of that will no longer resist.’ The
Scythians, having heard this, adopted the advice; and the slaves,
struck with astonishment at what was done, forgot to fight and
fled.”--Herodotus, “Melpomene,” IV. §§ 3, 4. New York: Harper &
Brothers, 1882.

CHAPTER XVIII.

AUTOMATIC CONTRASTED WITH SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION.

The Past tyrannizes over the Present by Interposing the Stolid
Resistance of Habit. -- Habits of Thought like Habits of the Body
become Automatic. -- There is much Freedom of Speech but very little
Freedom of Thought: Habit, Tradition, and Reverence for Antiquity
forbid it. -- The Schools educate Automatically. -- A glaring Defect
of the Schools shown by Mr. John S. Clark, of Boston. -- The Automatic
Character of the Popular System of Education shown by the Quincy
(Mass.) Experiment. -- Several Intelligent Opinions to the same
Effect. -- The Public Schools as an Industrial Agency a Failure. -- A
Conclusive Evidence of the Automatic and Superficial Character of
prevailing Methods of Education in the Schools of a large City. -- The
Views of Colonel Francis W. Parker. -- Scientific Education is found
in the Kindergarten and the Manual Training School. -- “The
Cultivation of Familiarity betwixt the Mind and Things.” -- Colonel
Augustus Jacobson on the Effect of the New Education.

All reforms must encounter the stolid resistance of habit. It is not
less tyrannical because it is a negative force. It braces itself and
holds back with all its might. It is in this manner that the past
dominates the present.[E11] This automatic habit of mind is precisely
like certain automatic habits of the body which operate quite
independently of any act of volition. For example: “When we move about
in a room with the objects in which we are quite familiar, we direct our
steps so as to avoid them, without being conscious what they are or what
we are doing; we _see_ them, as we easily discover if we try to move
about in the same way with our _eyes_ shut, but we do not _perceive_
them, the mind being fully occupied with some train of thought.”[42] In
the same way the mind under certain conditions becomes an automaton,
constantly revolving old thoughts after the causes that gave rise to
them have ceased to operate. Piano-forte playing affords an excellent
illustration of this automatic action of the mind. “A pupil learning to
play the piano-forte is obliged to call to mind each note, but the
skilful player goes through no such process of conscious remembrance;
his ideas, like his movements, are automatic, and both so rapid as to
surpass the rapidity of succession of conscious ideas and
movements.”[43]

[42] “Body and Mind,” p. 22. By Henry Maudsley, M.D. New York: D.
Appleton & Co., 1883.

[43] Ibid., p. 26.

Freedom of speech and freedom of thought are catch-penny phrases. There
is much of the former, but very little of the latter. Speech is
generally the result of automatic thought rather than of ratiocination.
Independent thought is of all mental processes the most difficult and
the most rare; habit, tradition, and reverence for antiquity unite to
forbid it, and these combined influences are strengthened by the law of
heredity. The tendency to automatic action of the mind is still further
promoted by the environment of modern life. The crowding of populations
into cities, and the division and subdivision of labor in the factory
and the shop, and even in the so-called learned professions, have a
tendency to increase the dependence of the individual upon the mass of
society. And this interdependence of the units of society renders them
more and more imitative, and hence more and more automatic both mentally
and physically.

Another powerful influence contributes to the same end. The schools
educate automatically. They train the absorbing powers of the brain, but
fail to cultivate the faculties of assimilation and re-creation, and
neglect almost wholly to develop the power of expression. Mr. John S.
Clark, of Boston, has made this point of the failure of the schools to
train the brain-power of expression to its utmost, so plain that it is
here reproduced in full, as follows:

[Illustration:

Five senses.

Tongue.

Hand.

Fig. 1.]

“Studying the functions of the brain, we find that for educational
purposes it may be likened to an organism with a threefold form of
working, an organism with a power of absorption, a power of assimilation
and re-creation, and a power of expressing or giving out. The force or
character of a brain is measured entirely by its expressing power, by
what comes out of it. Examining a little closer, we find that the brain
absorbs through all the five senses, while for expressing purposes it
makes use of but two of these senses, or rather of but two organs of
these senses--the tongue and the hand. _Fig._ 1 is a simple diagram
representing a brain with the five senses placed on one side, as means
of absorbing power, while on the other side the tongue and the hand are
placed as organs of expressing power. The other function of the brain,
that of assimilation and re-creation, cannot of course be graphically
represented. It may, however, be said to be the result of the action of
the other two functions. Now, the equipping of a brain, or the healthy
education of a brain, consists in giving it expressing power through
the tongue and the hand, coextensive with the power of absorption and
the power of re-creation.

[Illustration:

Reading. }
Mathematics. }
Geography. } Five Senses.
Grammar. } Tongue.
History. } Speech.
Languages. }
Physiology. } Hand.
Literature. } Writing.
Natural History. }
Theoretical Sciences.}

Fig. 2.]

“Applying our popular schemes of education to the brain, and especially
those based on the 3-R idea of education, we find what is indicated in
_Fig._ 2, that provision has been made for greatly distending the
absorbing side of the brain, while for the expressing side, the
practical side, provision has been limited to the use of the tongue in
speech and to the hand in writing. If now we follow the result of this
brain equipment into practical life, we find that speech and writing, as
means for expressing thought, have their applications mainly in the
commercial and financial employments and the professions, and only
incidentally in the industrial and mechanical employments. With such an
inadequate and one-sided brain equipment it is not possible in any
broad, practical way to bring thought or brain-power to the service of
industry. The fact so generally admitted, that we are getting so few
intelligent artisans or mechanics from our scheme of public education,
that we turn out pupils of both sexes with a decided repugnance to
industrial labor, is an attestation to the truth of this statement. The
simple fact is that our education is not broad enough on the expressing
side of the brain, that too much attention has been given to the
absorbing side of this organ, that no adequate provisions have been
made whereby it can discharge its power in work connected with the
industries.

[Illustration:

Reading. }
Mathematics. }
Geography. } Five Senses.
Grammar. }
History. } Tongue.
Languages. } Speech.
Physiology. }
Literature. } {Writing.
Natural History. } Hand. {Drawing.
Theoretical Sciences.} {Manual Arts.
Practical Sciences. }

Fig. 3.]

“In _Fig._ 3 a remedy for this defect is indicated in the addition of
the study of graphic and æsthetic art, through drawing, and of training
in the manual arts, to the previous brain equipment. Observe where these
features come in the scheme--on the expressing side of the brain and in
the service of the hand, thus giving the brain ample power to discharge
thought in its most complete form for use or for beauty. With these
features added to the brain equipment its power of expressing thought in
all practical directions will be coextensive with its absorbing and
re-creating powers; and just as soon as the public can clearly see that
in the outcome of our public education there is no respecting of persons
or of classes, that pupils are trained for honest labor with their hands
as well as to living by their wits, are taught to produce something, to
_create values_ by the action of their brain through the work of their
hands, a much deeper interest in public education will not only be
manifested, but generous provisions for its support will also be
given.”[44]

[44] Address delivered before the Philadelphia Board of Trade and the
Franklin Institute, June 6, 1881.

The charge that the schools educate automatically rather than
rationally is of such vital importance that it should be sustained by
the best attainable proof. Strong proof is at hand in the history of the
so-called Quincy (Mass.) experiment.

In 1878 doubt of the efficiency of the schools of Norfolk County, long
indulged, culminated in action by the Association of School Committees
and Superintendents. It was insisted by certain members of the committee
that the existing methods were “about as good as human intelligence
could devise,” and by others that the people were getting “no adequate
returns for the money expended under the system in general use.” It was
resolved to institute a searching investigation, and the standard for
the measurement of the acquirements of pupils adopted was, “a reasonable
degree of ability to read, to write legibly, correctly, and
grammatically, and to deal readily with simple mathematics after about
eight years of schooling.”

The association selected Mr. George A. Walton, an experienced educator,
to make the examination of the schools of the county, and the number of
pupils examined exceeded three thousand. In their preface to Mr.
Walton’s report the gentlemen of the association say:

“Publicity, discussion, and discontent are wholesome things to apply to
school management in Massachusetts. That this is a fair sample of the
results now accomplished cannot be questioned. But though they may not
be flattering to our pride, we yet believe that they are as good as can
be obtained in any other county in Massachusetts, or, indeed, of any
other State where similar tests are applied in a similar manner. If any
school authorities elsewhere doubt the truth of this statement, let the
experiment be tried in the schools of their county.

“The questions naturally arise, What is the cause of this lamentable
ignorance? and what is the remedy? The answer to the former suggests the
reply to the latter. Too much has been attempted in the schools. There
has been a slavish adherence to text-books, and no room given for
freedom and originality of thought. Rules have been memorized, and the
children taught to recite from the text-book, while they have not had
the slightest conception of the true meaning of the subject....

“The rules and exceptions in grammar are faithfully committed to memory,
and most intricate sentences can be successfully analyzed, the phrases
separated, and the modifiers named in true grammatical style, while the
pupils who have undergone such severe training in this respect are
unable to present their own thoughts concisely or clearly, or even
_correctly_, upon paper. The _memory_ is cultivated, and the _reason_
allowed to slumber.

“In arithmetic the pupils show a readiness to solve a problem when they
are able to fit it to some rule that they have learned; but when they
are given a simple question out of the regular course, they are like a
ship at sea without rudder or compass.”

This is the severest and most sweeping criticism ever passed upon our
American common-school system, and it emanates from its friends and the
friends of universal education.

Mr. Walton says of reading, as taught in the Norfolk County schools, “As
for any systematic analysis by which the pupil learns to make a careful
and independent study of his piece, it is but little practised in the
schools even of the grammar grade;” and he declares that reading,
without comprehending the ideas of which the words are mere signs, “is
not merely useless, but dangerous, just in proportion to the facility
with which the words are called.”

Of the results of his examinations in penmanship Mr. Walton says, “Most
of the faults in the writing indicate imperfect teaching.” Of his
examinations in spelling he says that “the commonest words are
misspelled when used in sentences or composition, while words of
difficult orthography are spelled with accuracy when dictated for
spelling.” For example, he says, “The words ‘whose,’ ‘which,’ and
‘father,’ when spelled orally, were generally correct, but when written
in sentences they were frequently, in many schools, in a majority of
cases, erroneous.” No test could more clearly demonstrate the purely
mechanical character of the methods of instruction than this of a
comparison between the pupils’ oral and written spelling. The average of
excellence in spelling the three simple words “which, whose, scholar,”
of the primary grade for the whole county of Norfolk, as found by Mr.
Walton, was the exceedingly low one of 55.9, the basis being 100.

The ingenuity in bad spelling of this grade of pupils, who had been at
least four years in school, is well illustrated by the example of the
word “carriage,” written as follows: “Carage, carrage, craidge, caradg,
carege, carriag, carrige;” and of the word “sleigh,” written “saly,
slay, slaig, slaigh, slagh, slaw, sleig, sleugh, sleight, sligh, sley,
slew, slave, sleygh;” and of the word “Tuesday,” written “Tusgay,
tuestay, toesday;” and of the word “Wednesday,” written “wanesday,
wedenyday, Wedernsday, wednest, Wenday, Wendsday, wensday, wenesday,
wensdaw, wenze, Wenzie, Wendsstay, wenstday, Wesday, Whensday, winday,
Windday, Winsday,” etc.

The word “scholar” presented one hundred and sixty different erroneous
spellings; that of “depot” fifty, among which were the following:
“Deappow, deppowe, deaphow, deapohoe, teapot, doopo,” and “bepo.” An
exercise in spelling by both grades of pupils, the “primary,” composed
of pupils from eight and a half to ten and a half years old, and the
“grammar,” composed of pupils from twelve and a half to fifteen and a
half years old, showed errors of which the following are examples:
_Any_, spelled ane and enny; _along_, aloud and alon; _amongst_, amunt;
_animals_, anables; _arithmetic_, rithmes; _asked_, asted; _beautiful_,
beuful; _been_, ben, bene, and bin; _by-and-by_, bimeby; _coat_, coot,
coth, cote, goat, and coate; _Boston_, bostone; _boy_, poy, and bou;
_city_, sitty; _eggs_, ages; _custard-pie_, custed puy; _coming_, comin,
commun, gomming, and comming.

An exercise in composition developed the following specimen errors: “The
was two boys; They was two boys; How is all the boys? Things that was
good; They is not many here I know; He come to school; I see him
yesterday; He asked cyrus what he done that day; I had saw him; he had
wore a coat,” etc.

The examinations in mathematics yielded similar results to those
developed in reading, writing, spelling, and composition. Mr. Walton
says, “If instead of this [the routine method of the school] the pupil
should be compelled to deal with real things, and to find his answer by
studying the conditions of his problem, the fiction which arithmetic now
is to most pupils would become to them a reality.”[45]

[45] “The New Departure in the Common Schools of Quincy,” by Charles
F. Adams, Jr., and the “Report of Examination of Schools in Norfolk
County, Mass.,” by George A. Walton. Boston: Estes & Lauriat, 1881.

The prime difficulty is here stated. The schools deal in “fictions.” In
the language of the Norfolk County committee, “The _memory_ is
cultivated and the _reason_ allowed to slumber.” Now, if to every fact
memorized the pupil were required to apply the test of reason to analyze
it and find out its relation to other facts, and fix it with all its
relations in his mind, he would possess certain solid information of an
ascertained practical value. It is very simple. It is making the pupil
think for himself by showing him how to think for himself instead of
thinking for him. Of course this is object-teaching. In the
reading-lesson the pupil is required to know the meaning of the words of
which it is composed in order to read with correct expression. When
required to spell a word orally he is also required to write it. In the
study of arithmetic he is shown certain objects, blocks of cubical and
other forms, and required to apply the rules of the book to the
ascertainment of their contents. In grammar the analysis of the sentence
is followed by the writing of it, and the construction of other
sentences involving similar principles in the art of composition, and so
on.

This is the kindergarten system now rapidly coming into high favor as an
essential preliminary step in education. It is also the system of the
manual training school. Under this system the pupil is not merely told
that the saw is a thin, flat piece of steel with teeth used for cutting
boards and timbers; a saw is placed in his hand and he is taught to use
it: and so of all the hand and machine tools of the trades. He stands at
the forge, bends over the moulding-form, shoves the plane in the
carpenter-shop, presides at the turning-lathe, that ingenious invention
of Maudslay--an automaton truer than the human eye, more cunning and
more accurate than the human hand; executes plans for patterns and then
makes the patterns, and finally, from the faint lines he has traced on
paper, constructs a machine, breathes the breath of life (steam) into
its veins, and with it moves mountains!

In further support of the charge that the schools educate automatically,
and hence superficially, the following intelligent opinions are cited:

Charles Francis Adams, Jr., remarks that the common schools of
Massachusetts cost $4,000,000 a year; and adds, “The imitative or
memorizing faculties only are cultivated, and little or no attention is
paid to the thinking or reflective powers. Indeed it may almost be said
that a child of any originality or with individual characteristics is
looked upon as wholly out of place in a public school.... To skate is as
difficult as to write; probably more difficult. Yet in spite of hard
teaching in the one case and no teaching in the other, the boy can skate
beautifully, and he cannot write his native tongue at all.”[46]

[46] “Scientific Common-school Education.”--_Harper’s Magazine_,
November, 1880 (see note [E12] at end of chapter).

Mr. Edward Atkinson says, “We are training no American craftsmen, and
unless we devise better methods than the old and now obsolete apprentice
system, much of the perfection of our almost automatic mechanism will
have been achieved at the cost not only of the manual but also of the
mental development of our men. Our almost automatic mills and
machine-shops will become mental stupefactories.”[47]

[47] “Elementary Instruction in the Mechanic Arts.”--_Scribner’s
Monthly_, April 1881, p. 902.

Prof. Barbour, of Yale College, says, “Our schools are suffering from
congestion of the brain: too much thought and too little putting it in
practice.”

An English observer of our public schools says, “They teach apparently
for information, almost regardless of development. This system develops
no special individuality or power, forms few habits of observation,
benefits little except the memory, and herein lies its great weakness.”

The late Mr. Wendell Phillips said, “Our system stops too short, and as
a justice to boys and girls as well as to society it should see to it
that those whose life is to be one of manual labor should be better
trained for it.”

Mr. Wickersham, late Superintendent of Public Instruction for the State
of Pennsylvania, says, “It is high time that something should be done to
enable our youth to learn trades and to form industrious habits and a
taste for work.”

Dr. Runkle, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, says, “Public
education should touch practical life in a larger number of points; it
should better fit all for that sphere in life in which they are destined
to find their highest happiness and well-being.”

Opinions of this character might be multiplied almost indefinitely. They
reflect the general sentiment that, as an industrial agency, the public
school is a failure; but its value as an enlightening and civilizing
agency is not therefore underestimated. It was not established as an
industrial agency; it was established as a bulwark of liberty, and nobly
did it fulfil its mission. The colonial fathers had a horror of
ignorance, and as a barrier against it they raised the public school.
But they were without industrial interests in the higher departments of
skilled labor, and without commerce in a large way. Lord Sheffield said
that the American colonies were founded with the sole view of securing
to England a monopoly of their trade, and Lord Chatham declared that
they had no right to manufacture even a nail or a horseshoe. Even after
the Revolution, in 1784, the commerce of the country was so
insignificant that eight bales of cotton shipped from South Carolina
were seized by the customs authorities of England on the ground that so
large a quantity could not have been produced in the United States!

These humble conditions no longer exist, and to object to the expansion
of the public-school system to meet the requirements of new exigencies
is to ignore the logic and march of events. The nations are running an
industrial race, and the nation that applies to labor the most thought,
the most intelligence, will rise highest in the scale of civilization,
will gain most in wealth, will most surely survive the shocks of time,
will live longest in history. In the race for industrial supremacy we
are not at the front. It is a fact to be pondered that we are exchanging
the products of unskilled for skilled labor with the nations of Europe.
In the course of a year, for example, England exports of raw material
and food only about $150,000,000 in value, while her exports of
manufactures aggregate about $850,000,000 in value. On the other hand,
our exports consist almost entirely of raw material and food, their
annual value being about $800,000,000, while of manufactures we export
only a beggarly $75,000,000 worth, and our imports of manufactures are
of the annual value of about $250,000,000. In crude, uneducated,
unskilled labor capacity, we have grown much more rapidly than in the
departments of educated, skilled labor; and in the exact ratio of this
growth of unskilled over skilled labor, we are behind the age. We are
industrially ill-balanced. We are selling brawn and buying
thought--cunning, invention, genius; exhausting our physical manhood and
impoverishing a virgin soil. We are suffering from a paucity of skilled
labor, and we hesitate to apply the needed and obviously adequate
remedy--the training of the youth of the country in the elements of the
useful arts, in the public schools.

A final and conclusive evidence of the verity of the charge that
prevailing methods of education are automatic, and hence superficial in
their character, is found in an examination test recently made in one of
the public schools in a large American city, in the department of
mathematics. The superintendent begins to distrust his own system of
abstract instruction, and resolves to test the acquirements of certain
classes of pupils ranging from ten to twelve years of age. He submits a
series of questions in number, which are promptly solved either orally
or in chalk on the black-board, showing a complete mastery of the
subject from the abstract side, or point of view. To test the practical
value of the knowledge thus exhibited the superintendent repeats his
series of questions, applying them to things. For example: He passes six
cards to a pupil, and requests that one-half of them be returned. This
question having been promptly and correctly answered by the return of
three of them, and the six cards being again placed in the hands of the
pupil, the second question is propounded, namely, “Please give me
one-third of one-half of the cards in your hand.” The pupil is puzzled;
he fumbles the cards nervously, blushes, and returns a wrong number or
becomes entirely helpless and “gives it up.” This question, or some
other question of similar general import, is submitted to each member
of the class with a like unfavorable result in eight or nine cases in a
total of ten cases. The superintendent is astonished; he is more than
astonished, he is deeply chagrined; for he knows that the kindergarten
child of six or seven years of age, with the blocks, would answer his
series of questions correctly eight or nine times in a total of ten.

It is impossible to conceive of a more striking illustration of the
prime defects of automatic education than is afforded by the foregoing
described experiment. It sustains and justifies the severe criticism of
the schools by Mr. Charles Francis Adams, Jr., in his magazine article
of 1880, in the course of which he says,

“From one point of view children are regarded as automatons; from
another, as india-rubber bags; from a third, as so much raw material.
They must move in step and exactly alike. They must receive the same
mental nutriment in equal quantities and at fixed times. Its
assimilation is wholly immaterial, but the motions must be gone through
with. Finally, as raw material, they are emptied in at the primaries,
and marched out at the grammar grades--and it is well!”[48]

[48] “Scientific Common-school Education.”--_Harper’s New Monthly
Magazine_, November, 1880, p. 937.

The testimony of Col. Francis W. Parker, of the Cook County (Illinois)
Normal School, is to the same effect. He says,

“The most important work of to-day is to collect, reconcile, and apply
all the principles and methods of education that have been discovered in
the past, into one science and art of teaching. This would certainly
radically change all our school work in this country. When this is done
the ground will be made ready for new advances in the incomplete science
of education. Because a complete science has not yet been discovered is
a very poor reason for not applying what we already know. What specific
changes would the application of known mental laws, in teaching about
which all psychologists are in agreement, bring about? For it is only by
a sharp comparison of what is now done according to tradition and custom
in our schools, with that which can be done by the application of the
simplest principles of teaching, that the value of the true art of
instruction may be in some degree appreciated.

“To illustrate this it may be mentioned that little children have been
taught to read, in the past, and a great majority of them are now
taught, by a method that is utterly opposed to a mental law, about which
there can be no dispute among those who know anything of the science of
teaching. I refer to the A B C method. Nearly three hundred years ago
Comenius discovered a rule of teaching which may be said to embrace all
rules in its category--‘Things that have to be done should be learned by
doing them.’ This rule is so simple and plain that every one, except the
teachers, has adopted and used it since man has lived upon the earth. If
I am not very much mistaken, the school-master for the last fifty years
has been incessantly inventing ways of doing things in the school-room
by doing something else. We try to teach the English language by rules,
definitions, analyses, diagrams, and parsing. Before the poor innocent
child can write a single sentence correctly, we teach the painful
pronunciation of words without the grasping of thought as reading. We
vainly endeavor to give children a knowledge of number by teaching
figures, the signs of number. We cram our victim’s mind full of empty,
meaningless words, instead of inspiring and developing it by the sweet
and strong realities of thought. This futile struggle to do things by
doing something else is to-day costing the people of this country
millions and millions of hard-earned dollars; and it is much to be
feared that it will one day cost their children the blessings of free
government. This is a serious charge.

“The three hundred thousand teachers of this country are as faithful,
honest, and earnest as any other class of active workers. If, then,
these great truths in education be at the doors of our educators, why do
they not acquire and use them? The answer is not far to seek. Not one
teacher in five hundred ever makes a practical, thorough study of the
_history_ of education, to say nothing of the science.

“The tremendous projecting power of tradition stands stubbornly in the
way of progress in education. It can only be met and overcome by the
most thorough searching and indefatigable study of the child’s nature,
and of the means by which the possibilities for good in God’s greatest
creation may be realized.”[49]

[49] Letter to the author under date of April, 1883, and by him
reproduced in a communication published in the _Chicago Tribune_,
April 23, 1883.

The change from automatic to scientific education ought not to be very
difficult. It has been made in the kindergarten. It consists in
substituting things in place of signs of things. The boys should be
taught to read in school as he will be required to read; to write as he
will be required to write; and to cipher as he will be required to
cipher, when he becomes a man.

In teaching chemistry, for example, there should be a laboratory with
the necessary illustrative apparatus. In teaching geography, in addition
to the books and the globe, the form of the continent should be moulded
in sand, with coast lines, mountain ranges, rivers, canals, harbors,
cities, etc. In teaching number the pupil should have the things and
parts of things, represented by signs, in his hands. In teaching
mechanics the pupil should handle the saw, the plane, the file, the
hammer, and the chisel, and stand at the bench, the forge, and the
turning-lathe. It is in this way only that the pupil can be taught the
power of expressing, as Mr. Clark puts it, “what has been absorbed on
the receptive side.”

Mr. MacAlister illustrates the force of Mr. Clark’s diagrams in a
sentence: “We must not close our eyes to the fact that by far the larger
number of men in every civilized community are workers to whom a skilled
hand is quite as important as a well filled head.”[50] The prevailing
methods of teaching fill the head but do not provide for assimilation,
re-creation, and expression. Now to assimilate, to reduce to practical
value and put to use facts memorized, and to create, the power of
expression is an essential prerequisite; creating is expressing ideas in
concrete form. But under the old _régime_ of education only two modes of
expression are provided--speech and writing. A third mode--drawing--has
been very generally adopted. Drawing, however, is only the first step,
an incomplete step, so to speak, of expression. It is a sign, an
outline, of a thing. What we want is the thing itself. That thing can
only be produced at the forge, the bench, or the lathe; and this is
manual training in the arts.

[50] Mr. James MacAlister, Superintendent of Schools of the City of
Philadelphia, Pa., at the meeting of the American Institute of
Instruction, Saratoga, N. Y., July 13, 1882.

What manual training will do for the pupil is expressed in the following
terse paragraph by Col. Augustus Jacobson:

“The boy leaving school should carry with him mechanical, business, and
scientific training, fitting him for whatever it may become necessary
for him to do in the world. I would secure for society the advantage of
all the brain capacity that is born and all the training it can take. It
is possible and practicable to let every child of fair capacity start in
life from his school a skilled worker, with the principal tools of all
the mechanical employments, an athlete with the maximum of health
possible to him, and thoroughly at home in science and literature. The
child so trained would, when grown, be to the ordinary man of to-day
what Jay-Eye-See is to an ordinary plough-horse.”

[E11] “Fortunately the past never completely dies for man. Many may
forget it, but he always preserves it within him. For, take him at any
epoch, and he is the product, the epitome, of all the earlier epochs.
Let him look into his own soul, and he can find and distinguish these
different epochs by what each of them has left within him.”--“The
Ancient City,” p. 13. By Fustel De Coulanges. Boston: Lee & Shepard,
1882.

[E12] “In fact, memory comes from interest. What children are deeply
interested in they will never forget. A boy who can never say his
lesson by heart will remember every detail of the cricket or football
matches in which his heart really lives.”--“Educational Theories,” p.
116. By Oscar Browning, M.A. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1885.

CHAPTER XIX.

AUTOMATIC CONTRASTED WITH SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION--_Continued_.

The Failure of Education in America shown by Statistics of Railway and
Mercantile Disasters. -- Shrinkage of Railway Values and Failures of
Merchants. -- Only Three Per Cent. of those entering Mercantile Life
achieve Success. -- Business Enterprises conducted by Guess: Cause,
Unscientific Education. -- Savage Training is better because
Objective. -- Mr. Foley, late of the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, on the Scientific Character of Manual Education -- Prof.
Goss, of Purdue University, to the same Effect -- also Dr. Belfield,
of the Chicago Manual Training School. -- Students love the Laboratory
Exercises. -- Demoralizing Effect of Unscientific Training. -- The
Failure of Justice and Legislation as contrasted with the Success of
Civil Engineering and Architecture.

A striking illustration of the defective character of both public and
private systems of education, in the United States, is afforded by the
statistics of commercial, railway, and other business failures. In 1877
a careful compilation of figures in regard to the shrinkage of railway
values showed the following result:

“In round numbers, _eighteen hundred millions of dollars_, or
thirty-eight per cent. of the capital reported as invested in two
hundred of our railway companies alone, is wholly unproductive to the
investors, and the greater part is wholly lost to them. This is
sufficiently appalling, but when we consider how many companies that
have managed to keep up the interest on their bonds have wholly, or
almost, ceased to pay any interest on their capital stock, which stock,
in turn, has shrunk to seventy-five, fifty, twenty-five, ten, in some
cases _five_ per cent. of its par value, it will seem to be a reasonable
conclusion that the actual shrinkage and loss to _somebody_ on the face
value of railway investments in the United States has been fully fifty
per cent.!”[51]

[51] _The Chicago Railway Age._

In view of this startling exhibit it is evident that in the projection,
construction, and management of the railways of the United States there
has been gross incompetency.

In 1881 Messrs. R. G. Dun & Co., the well-known commercial agents,
showed that of the wholesale merchants doing business in the city of
Chicago in 1870 fifty per cent. had failed, suspended, or compromised
with their creditors.

Forty years ago Gen. Dearborn, a prominent citizen of Chicago, declared
that not more than three per cent. of the individuals who embark in
trade end life with success. The success meant, doubtless, is unbroken
solvency during the business experience of the merchant, and the final
accumulation of a competence. The mercantile ranks in the United States
afford many instances of individual merchants and firms who have settled
or compromised with their creditors several times, and finally
succeeded--succeeded at the expense of their creditors. But this is not
the success meant by Gen. Dearborn. This statistical information,
furnished by Messrs. R. G. Dun & Co., tends to confirm, approximately,
the verity of the common remark that in trade not one in a hundred
succeeds.

Let us suppose that three merchants in a hundred so conduct their
business as never to ask their creditors for a favor, never to “settle”
for 50 or 25 cents, but always pay “dollar for dollar,” and come out in
the end rich. This is strictly legitimate success. It would be very
interesting to learn what becomes of the other ninety-seven merchants.
Most of them go down after a few years, never again to emerge above the
surface of commercial affairs. They live on salaries, enter the ranks of
the speculative class, or become genteel paupers. But doubtless seven at
least of the ninety-seven “compromise” and “settle” themselves over the
breakers, and finally achieve success. So that of the ten successful
merchants out of a hundred those who succeed at the expense of their
creditors are as seven to three of those who win success by the highest
degree of mercantile merit.

With ninety utter failures, seven successes which involve the misfortune
or wreck of others, and only three untarnished successes in a hundred,
the general ambition to enter mercantile life is simply unaccountable.
Of course the small number of successful merchants have to calculate
upon the failures which will inevitably occur. They must discount the
losses they are sure to incur through those failures--provide for them
by increasing the otherwise sufficient profit of each transaction. In
this way the public pays the cost of each failure. In other words, the
consumer is taxed to pay the expense of ninety complete failures, and
seven partial failures, in every hundred mercantile experiments. This
expense aggregates scores of millions of dollars in this country alone,
every year. The sum of losses by the failure of merchants in good
seasons is very large, and in seasons of commercial depression it is
vast.

It is evident that ninety-seven in every hundred merchants mistake their
avocation. Only three in a hundred are exactly fitted for the business
they undertake. They are morally the “fittest” who survive by virtue of
ability and integrity; the seven who survive by levying contributions on
their creditors may also be regarded as the “fittest” according to the
Darwinian theory. Of the ninety who go down without even a struggle to
“settle” or “compromise,” they answer to the received definition of
dirt--“matter out of place.”

The investigation made by Messrs. R. G. Dun & Co., which resulted in the
statistical information here reproduced and commented upon, was brought
about by the assertion in 1881 of a life-insurance agent that fifty per
cent. of the wholesale merchants doing business in the city of Chicago
in 1870 had meantime failed, suspended, or compromised with their
creditors. Out of this investigation the question logically springs, “Is
not failing in business made too easy?”[52] If “compromises,”
“settlements,” and “failures” carry with them no disgrace, it is but
natural that thousands should take the risk of them in the contest for
the great prizes which are the reward of success. The distinction in the
public mind between the three merchants in a hundred who succeed
legitimately and the seven who succeed by questionable “compromises” or
“settlements” is very slight; and too many of the ninety who fail
utterly retire with large sums of money which belong honestly to their
creditors. Doubtless the life-insurance agent, in depicting the perils
of mercantile ventures, urged the propriety of the merchant fortifying
himself against disaster by insuring his life for the benefit of his
family. This is a legitimate argument when addressed to the merchant in
solvent condition; but the life-insurance agent’s intimate acquaintance
with the shaky finances of nine-tenths of the commercial community
teaches him that a large share of the money he receives in premiums,
comes not from the merchant, but from the merchant’s creditors, who will
soon be called upon, in the natural course of events, to consent to a
composition of his claim, while the shaky merchant will retire with a
paid-up policy of insurance in favor of his family.

[52] “Mercantile honor is held so high in some countries that the
calamity of bankruptcy drives men mad. In France there are numerous
instances of almost superhuman struggles on the part of ruined
merchants to regain, by patient effort and pinching economy, their
lost station in the business community. César Birotteau, Balzac’s hero
of such a struggle, dies from excess of emotion in the hour of his
triumph. ‘Behold the death of the just!’ the Abbé Loraux exclaims, as
he regards, with lofty pride, the expiring merchant.”--“Ten-minute
Sketches,” p. 220. By Charles H. Ham. Chicago and New York: Belford,
Clark & Co., 1884.

It is quite plain that in nine cases out of ten the merchant who carries
a large policy of insurance on his life actually pays for it out of his
creditors’ instead of his own money. To be sure, it may be said that the
nine merchants hope and expect to succeed, as well as the one. But is
not it the duty of the merchant who owes large sums of money to think
more of providing means for the payment of his immediate debts than of
laying up a support for himself and family in the event of failure? Some
disgrace ought to attach to failure in business; that is to say,
disgrace enough to make the merchant cautious and economical, with a
view, not to his own protection in the event of failure, but to the
protection of his creditors, and of his own reputation as a business
man.

These failures, on so vast a scale, of railway enterprises, and the
almost total wreck of mercantile ventures, show that the business of
this country is done, as a Yankee might say, “by guess,” or as the
mechanic of the old _régime_ would say, “by the rule of thumb.” The
conclusion is hence irresistible that the youth of the United States are
not so educated as to fit them for the conduct, to a successful issue,
of great business enterprises. And this is an impeachment of what is
regarded, on the whole, as the best system of popular education in
operation in the world. A system of education which turns out
ninety-three or ninety-seven men who fail, to three or seven men who
succeed in business, must be very unscientific. If the savage system of
education were not better adapted to the savage state, the savage would
perish from the earth in the process of civilization. The savage bends
his ear to the ground and robs the forest of its secrets, not three
times in a hundred, but ninety and nine times. Ninety-nine times in a
hundred he traces the footsteps of his enemy in the tangled mazes of the
pathless wood.

In “Aborigines of Australia”[53] Mr. G. S. Lang states that “one day
while travelling in Australia he pointed to a footstep and asked whose
it was. The guide glanced at it without stopping his horse, and at once
answered, ‘Whitefellow call him Tiger.’ This turned out to be correct;
which was the more remarkable as the two men belonged to different
tribes, and had not met for two years.” Among the Arabs it is asserted
that some men know every individual in the tribe by his footstep.
Besides this, every Arab knows the printed footsteps of his own camels,
and of those belonging to his immediate neighbors. He knows by the depth
or slightness of the impression whether a camel was pasturing, and
therefore not carrying any load, or mounted by one person only, or
heavily loaded. The Australian will kill a pigeon with a spear at a
distance of thirty paces. The Esquimau in his kayak will actually turn
somersaults in the water. After giving many illustrations of the skill
of various races of savages, Sir John Lubbock says,

“What an amount of practice must be required to obtain such skill as
this! How true, also, must the weapons be! Indeed it is very evident
that each distinct type of flint implement must have been designed for
some distinct purpose.” He adds, “The neatness with which the
Hottentots, Esquimaux, North American Indians, etc., are able to sew is
very remarkable, although awls and sinews would in our hands be but poor
substitutes for needles and thread. As already mentioned (in page 332),
some cautious archæologists hesitated to refer the reindeer caves of the
Dordogne to the Stone Age, on account of the bone needles and the works
of art which are found in them. The eyes of the needles especially, they
thought, could only be made with metallic implements. Prof. Lartet
ingeniously removed these doubts by making a similar needle for himself
with the help of flint; but he might have referred to the fact stated by
Cook in his first voyage, that the New Zealanders succeeded in drilling
a hole through a piece of glass which he had given them, using for this
purpose, as he supposed, a piece of jasper.”[54]

[53] “Aborigines of Australia,” p. 24.

[54] “Prehistoric Times,” pp. 544, 548. By Sir John Lubbock, Bart.,
M.P. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1875.

The education which enables the savage to make these extremely nice
adjustments of means to ends is scientific. The observation, for
example, of the Arab who draws such accurate conclusions from the
“printed footstep of the camel,” if applied to the problems of civilized
life, would result in success, not failure.

The excellence of this savage training consists in its practical
character, in its perfect adaptation to the end in view. For example,
the Esquimau boy is not instructed in the theory of turning somersaults
in the water, in his kayak. He sees his father perform the feat; he is
given a kayak and required to perform it also. The result is early and
complete success. So of the Arab. In traversing the desert it is
important for him to read every sign, to translate every mark left in
the sand. Upon the accuracy of his observation his life may often
depend. The print of the camel’s footstep may tell him whether he is,
soon or late, to meet friend or foe. Hence from early childhood his
faculty of observation is trained until it soon becomes as delicate and
nice as the sense of touch of a blind, deaf mute. Sir John Lubbock
thinks that a great amount of practice must be required to achieve so
much skill; but the results are due, probably, more to the nature, than
to the extent, of the practice. It is the excellence of the training
that produces results which excite wonder and admiration. The savage is
indolent; he works only that he may eat, and he works well, simply
because he has been taught objectively, instead of subjectively.

The difference in results between the best and the poorest methods of
instruction is very great, as witness the testimony of Mr. Thomas Foley,
late instructor in forging, vise-work, and machine-tool work in the
school of mechanic arts of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He
says,

“It is a great waste of time to spend two or three years in acquiring
knowledge of a given business, profession, or trade, that can be
acquired in the short space of twelve or thirteen days, under a proper
course of instruction. Twelve days of systematic school-shop instruction
produces as great a degree of dexterity as two or more years’
apprenticeship under the adverse conditions which prevail in the
trade-shop.”[55] The manual training methods are the same as those which
enable the savage to perform such feats of skill. They are the natural
and hence most efficient methods of imparting instruction.

[55] Report on “The Manual Element in Education,” p. 30. By John D.
Runkle, Ph.D., LL.D., Walker Professor of Mathematics, Institute of
Technology, Boston, Mass.

The manual training school is a kindergarten for boys fourteen years of
age. Miss S. E. Blow, in formulating the theory of the kindergarten,
describes the methods of the savage’s school, and those of the manual
training school, as follows:

“It is a truth now universally recognized by educators that ideas are
formed in the mind of a child by abstraction and generalization from the
facts revealed to him through the senses; that only what he himself has
perceived of the visible and tangible properties of things can serve as
the basis of thought; and that upon the vividness and completeness of
the impressions made upon him by external objects, will depend the
clearness of his inferences and the correctness of his judgments. It is
equally true, and as generally recognized, that in young children the
perceptive faculties are relatively stronger than at any later period,
and that while the understanding and reason still sleep, the sensitive
mind is receiving those sharp impressions of external things which, held
fast by memory, transformed by the imagination, and finally classified
and organized through reflection, result in the determination of thought
and the formation of character.

“These two parallel truths indicate clearly that the first duty of the
educator is to aid the perceptive faculties in their work by supplying
the external objects best calculated to serve as the basis of normal
conceptions, by exhibiting these objects from many different
stand-points--that variety of interest may sharpen and intensify the
impressions they make upon the mind, and by presenting them in such a
sequence that the transition from one object to another may be made as
easy as possible.”[56]

[56] “The Kindergarten. An address, delivered April 3, 1875, before
the Normal Teachers’ Association, at St. Louis, Mo.”

This admirable exposition of the theory of scientific education solves
the mystery which has always enveloped savage skill. It also affords a
philosophic explanation of the fact discovered by Mr. Foley, namely,
that the student of the manual training school acquires as much
knowledge in one hundred and twenty hours as the apprentice of the
machine-shop does in two years. In a word, it shows exactly why
scientific education is so incomparably superior to automatic education.
Mr. Foley asserts, in substance, that the scientific methods of the
manual training school are twenty times as valuable to the student as
the unscientific methods of the trade-shop are to the apprentice.

In a familiar letter to the author, Prof. Goss[57] shows why the methods
of the manual training school are so very valuable. He says:

“In such a school, or course, a student is taught to perform a series
of operations, involving practice with a variety of tools, on pieces of
suitable material. It is not to be supposed that his ability to make a
certain piece is directly valuable, for the experience of a lifetime may
never require him to make it again. It is not expected that while making
the piece he will learn a number of formulated facts relating to his
work, and its application to other work, for that is not the best way to
learn. Nor can we expect him to acquire a high degree of hand skill
(accuracy and rapidity of movement combined), for this his limited time
will not permit. But he does this: he works out a practical mechanical
problem with every piece he makes. He sees how the tool should be
handled, and how the material operated on behaves. He comes to
understand why the tool cuts well in some directions and not so well in
others; and all the time he queries to himself where it was that he saw
a joint like the one he is making. He is an investigator--as much so as
a student in chemistry. His mind must always guide his hand; his
reasoning opens new fields of thought with every stroke of the chisel.

[57] Prof. William F. M. Goss, a graduate of the school of mechanic
arts of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and at present
instructor in the mechanic arts department of the Purdue University.

“A boy ten years old, who was a member of a class under my direction in
Indianapolis in 1883, is reported to have said, ‘Why, mother, I never
looked at the doors and windows so much in all my life as I have since I
began at the wood-working school.’

“I tell my students how to go to work, when they are likely to make
mistakes, and how mistakes may be avoided. In operating along the line
directed they thoroughly understand what they are doing, and why they do
it. They see on all sides of their work.

“If I have several different tools for doing work of the same
character, I frequently give a student first one and then another, until
he has tried them all. Then I ask him which he likes best, and why.
Suppose we are to make a drawing-board. The class having already been
made familiar with the principles governing the shrinkage and warping of
woods, is asked in what way the cleats, to prevent warping, may best be
fastened to the ends. The question is left open for a day or two, and
sketches are submitted and views exchanged on the subject.

“I frequently ask my students to pass to me, in writing, as many facts
(not in the form of a composition) as they can think of regarding
certain stated features of their work--not facts to be obtained from
books, but from things they have seen and with which they are familiar.
The replies are often remarkable for accuracy and force of statement....

“The manual training school that does not by its work inspire thought
and encourage investigation is poor indeed; the school that assumes its
work to be _mind training by hand practice_ is the ideal school, and the
school that will succeed....

“My answer to your second and third questions is already evident. I
consider an hour in the shop as valuable for its intellectual training
as an hour of book-study, and two hours in the shop as valuable as two
hours of study. I do not think that a student can take two hours of
shop-work in addition to a full course of outside study; but I am
convinced that two hours in the shop can be made to take the place of
one hour of study without extra burden to the student. Therefore, this
being done, the student will get as much again intellectual benefit from
the shop as he would get if the shop-work equivalent in time were given
to book-study.”

This description of the mental operations which accompany the laboratory
exercises of the manual training school shows the intimacy of the
relations existing between the brain and the hand. It shows how they act
and react upon each other, and affords an explanation of the remark of
Dr. Belfield,[58] that the laboratory exercises are in fact a great
strain upon the mental constitution of the student. This observation of
Dr. Belfield, one of the most distinguished teachers of the old _régime_
in the United States, entirely justifies the claim made in behalf of the
scientific character of manual training as an educational agency, for it
shows that such training is in no sense automatic. If manual training is
a great strain upon the mental faculties, it must be because the use of
tools stimulates such faculties to great activity. And if this is true,
the mental discipline derived from manual training must be
proportionally great. This is a pivotal point; for if the observation of
Dr. Belfield is well founded in fact and reason, it proves to a
demonstration the high educational value of manual training--proves its
superiority over all the methods of the old _régime_.

[58] Henry H. Belfield, A.M., Ph.D., Director of the Chicago Manual
Training School.

Prof. Goss says, “The manual training school student is an
investigator--as much so as a student in chemistry. His mind must always
guide his hand, his reasoning opens new fields of thought with every
stroke of the chisel. He sees on all sides of his work.”[59] And Dr.
Belfield says that these varied operations of the mind cause a severe
mental strain. It would be difficult to find a better exemplification of
scientific education than a course of training which exercises
simultaneously the powers of both body and mind, a course which with
every fresh burden put upon the mind puts new vitality into the body.
This is, indeed, the very opposite of automatic education, and we may
well call it scientific education.

[59] “No extent of acquaintance with the meanings of words can give
the power of forming correct inferences respecting causes and effects.
The constant habit of drawing conclusions from data, and then of
verifying those conclusions by observation and experiment, can alone
give the power of judging correctly.”--“Education,” p. 88. By Herbert
Spencer. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1883.

Another leaf from the experience of Dr. Belfield is worthy of
reproduction here. On the 20th of February, 1884, he took the sense of
the students in his school on the question whether or not they should
indulge in a vacation on Washington’s birthday anniversary. Somewhat to
his surprise the vote was almost unanimous in the affirmative. He
acceded to the wishes of the students, but no sooner was the
announcement made, than he was besieged with applications from nearly
all of them for permission to convert the holiday into a work-day in the
laboratories! Dr. Belfield has been compelled to post a peremptory order
against the occupancy of the school laboratories by the students on
Saturdays, which are regular vacation days.

Natural training is scientific training. The fondness of the student for
the manual training school is evidence of its scientific character. He
is fond of it because it is natural. Miss Blow says of the child: “Only
what he himself has perceived of the visible and tangible properties of
things can serve as the basis of thought, and upon the vividness and
completeness of the impressions made upon him by external objects will
depend the clearness of his inferences and the correctness of his
judgments.” This is the education both of the kindergarten and the
manual training school, and it brightens, stimulates, and develops,
while automatic education stupefies.

Mr. Foley, formerly of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
declares, as the result of his experience, as already stated, that the
scientific methods of the manual training school are twenty times as
valuable to the student as the unscientific methods of the trade-shop
are to the apprentice. But we have shown in a former chapter that the
training of the trade-shops of England, during the past one hundred and
fifty years, has been better than that of the English schools and
universities; in a word, that England is more indebted for her greatness
to her apprentice system than to her school system. It follows that the
school system of England must have been almost indescribably poor.

That the system of popular education in the United States, which is much
more comprehensive, and presumably better, than that of England, is very
poor indeed in results, is shown by the statistics of railway and
mercantile disasters; and it is scarcely necessary to remark that these
disasters show prevailing methods of education to be as defective
morally as they are mentally. The reason of this is that, being
automatic, they lead neither to the discovery of truth nor to the
detection of error. It is easy to juggle with words, to argue in a
circle, to make the worse appear the better reason, and to reach false
conclusions which wear a plausible aspect. But it is not so with things.
If the cylinder is not tight the steam-engine is a lifeless mass of iron
of no value whatever. A flaw in the wheel of the locomotive wrecks the
train. Through a defective flue in the chimney the house is set on fire.
A lie in the concrete is always hideous; like murder, it will out.
Hence it is that the mind is liable to fall into grave errors until it
is fortified by the wise counsel of the practical hand.

It is obvious that the reason of the demand for the manual element in
education is not so much that industrial interests require to be
promoted, as that mental operations may be rendered more true, and hence
more scientific. What we need more than we need a better class of
mechanics is a better class of men--men of a higher grade both morally
and intellectually. The study of things so steadies and balances the
mind that the attention being once turned in that direction great
results soon follow, as witness, the history of discovery and invention
in England.

The world moves very fast industrially, but very slow morally and
intellectually. Mechanics stand the test of scrutiny far better than
merchants. Civil engineers and architects are more competent than
railway presidents, lawyers, judges, and legislators. The reason of this
fact is that mechanics, civil engineers, and architects are educated
practically in the world’s shops and the world’s technical schools. They
are trained in things, while merchants, railway presidents, lawyers,
judges, and legislators have only the automatic word-training of the
schools. It is notorious that criminals are not punished in this
country. Suppose there were such a failure of bridges as there is of
justice. That is to say, suppose nine-tenths of the bridges constructed,
whether for railway or other purposes, should fall within a few months
of their completion. What would be thought of the technical schools
whence the civil engineers graduate?

Ninety-seven merchants in a hundred fail. Suppose ninety-seven buildings
in a hundred, constructed under the direction of architects, should
tumble down over the heads of their occupants six months after their
erection. The education of the architects would no doubt be regarded as
defective.

Buckle says of English legislation, “The best laws which have been
passed have been those by which some former laws were repealed.”[60] It
will be admitted that the same is true of American legislation.[61] In
other words, the average legislator is wiser in the statutes he repeals
than in the bills he enacts. What if the incompetency of the legislator
were paralleled by that of the machinist? Suppose ninety-seven in every
one hundred locomotives should break down on the “trial-trip,” and be
returned to the builder’s shop for remanufacture. Such a result would be
an impeachment of the education of the locomotive builder.

[60] “History of Civilization in England,” Vol. I, p. 200. By Henry
Thomas Buckle. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1864.

“In a paper read to the Statistical Society in May, 1873, Mr. Janson,
Vice-president of the Law Society, stated that from the statute of
Merton (20 Henry III.) to the end of 1872 there had been passed 18,110
public acts, of which he estimated that four-fifths had been wholly or
partially repealed. He also stated that the number of public acts
repealed wholly or in part, or amended, during the three years
1870-71-72 had been 3532, of which 2759 had been totally repealed. To
see whether this rate of repeal has continued I have referred to the
annually issued volumes of the ‘Public General Statutes’ for the last
three sessions. Saying nothing of the numerous amended acts, the
result is that in the last three sessions there have been totally
repealed, separately or in groups, 650 acts _belonging to the present
reign_, besides many of preceding reigns....

“Seeing, then, that bad legislation means injury to men’s lives, judge
what must be the total amount of mental distress, physical pain, and
raised mortality which these thousands of repealed Acts of Parliament
represent.”--“The Man _versus_ the State,” pp. 50, 51. By Herbert
Spencer. New York: D. Appleton & Co.

[61] “So thoroughly have the conscience and intelligence of the North
apprehended these facts [neglect to educate and enlighten the
freedmen], that while the Nation has done nothing they have given in
private charity, intended to remedy this evil, nearly a million
dollars a year for nearly twenty years. This is the instinct of a
people _versus_ the stupidity of their legislators.... Of the true
character of the South he [the author] was, like all his class,
profoundly ignorant, almost as ignorant as the men who made the
Nation’s laws.”--“An Appeal to Cæsar,” pp. 52, 56. By A. W. Tourgée.

Ninety-seven in every hundred boys who graduate from the public schools
and embark in mercantile pursuits fail. Suppose ninety-seven in every
hundred watches made in the American watch factories should prove to be
worthless. The watch companies would, no doubt, soon be in the hands of
the sheriff. But, as a matter of fact, the Elgin National Watch Company,
for example, makes twelve hundred watches a day, and each and every one
of them is an almost perfect time-keeper.

There is, then, no such failure of the arts as there is of justice; no
such failure of mechanics as of merchants; no such failure of
locomotives and watches as of legislation. It follows that the education
of artisans is better, more scientific, than that of merchants, judges,
lawyers, and legislators. And this is a very significant fact when it is
considered that the State does much for education in _belles-lettres_
and scarcely anything for education in the arts and sciences.[62]

[62] The reason why statutes fail more frequently than steam-engines
and bridges is not wholly because the legislator has to deal with
human nature and the mechanic with inanimate matter. Steam and
electricity are subtle forces, but man has quickly mastered them and
successfully applied them to a variety of uses.

It is not to the interest of any one that the machinist should make a
defective locomotive, for example; but it is often to the interest of
some one that the legislator should enact vicious laws. Vicious
statutes are enacted with a design to injure the public in order that
certain individuals may be benefited thereby.

If the mind should act as honestly in legislation as the hand does in
construction, statutes would not have to be repealed yearly.

We have fallen into the habit of regarding education as a polite
accomplishment having very little to do with the real business of
life; but this is not the fact. Education begins in the cradle and
continues through life; and it makes the man what he is. If he goes to
the penitentiary it is his education that sends him there. If he is
sent to the General Assembly of the State or to the Congress of the
Nation, and there helps to enact vicious laws, it is his education
that is responsible for such laws. If the man as a citizen sells his
franchise at the polls, or his vote in the legislative hall, for
money, it is the education he has received that is responsible for his
baseness.

It will be said that the explanation of the greater apparent accuracy
of the work of the hand is to be found in the fact that it operates
upon matter while the mind deals with metaphysical subtilties. The
contention will not be that mind is less plastic than matter, but that
it is more difficult of comprehension. But how do we know this to be
the fact? Where has the experiment been tried of honest contact mind
with mind? It was not tried by the ancients. It is not on trial in any
part of the world to-day. There is, hence, no place in which to seek
evidence as to how mind would act upon mind if treated honestly, as
matter is treated by the hand. But if the quality of selfishness is
eliminated, there will be no difficulty in bringing all minds to an
agreement, as the parts of a watch are brought into harmonious and
useful action. And it is through the hand that this beneficent union
is destined to be effected; for the hand is the source of wisdom,
which is simply the power of discriminating between the true and the
false.

CHAPTER XX.

AUTOMATIC CONTRASTED WITH SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION--_Continued_.

The Training of the Merchant, the Lawyer, the Judge, and the
Legislator contrasted with that of the Artisan. -- The Training of the
Merchant makes him Selfish, and Selfishness breeds Dishonesty. --
Professional Men become Speculative Philosophers, and test their
Speculations by Consciousness. -- The Artisan forgets Self in the
Study of Things. -- The Search after Truth. -- The Story of Palissy.
-- The Hero is the Normal Man; those who Marvel at his Acts are
abnormally Developed. -- Savonarola and John Brown. -- The New England
System of Education contrasted with that of the South. -- American
Statesmanship -- its Failure in an Educational Point of View. -- Why
the State Provides for Education; to protect Property. -- The British
Government and the Land Question. -- The Thoroughness of the Training
given by Schools of Mechanic Art and Institutes of Technology as shown
in Things. -- Story of the Emperor of Germany and the Needle-maker. --
The Iron Bridge lasts a Century, the Act of the Legislator wears out
in a Year. -- The Cause of the Failures of Justice and Legislation. --
The best Law is the Act that Repeals a Law; but the Act of the
Inventor is never Repealed. -- Things the Source and Issue of Ideas;
hence the Necessity of Training in the Arts.

There is a cause for the failure of the merchant, the lawyer, the judge,
and the legislator, as well as for the success of the artisan. And the
cause must be sought in the courses of training, respectively, of the
two classes. Let us assume that the artisan and the merchant, the
lawyer, the judge, and the legislator, graduate at the same time from
the public high school, or from Harvard or Yale. The merchant at once
begins to trade, to buy and sell. He concerns himself with things only
as they have a value, either naturally arising from the law of demand
and supply, or arbitrarily imposed by circumstances. His consideration
of the relations of things is confined to the single question of the
percentage of profit which may accrue to him from traffic in them. These
are subjective processes of thought, and the merchant becomes absorbed
in them to the exclusion of all other topics. It goes without saying
that he becomes intensely selfish. The struggle is one of mercantile
life or death--ninety-three to ninety-seven in a hundred die; three to
seven survive.

Among merchants there is, hence, very little thought of the subject of
justice, and no effort to discover truth. There must, at the end of the
year, be a favorable balance on the right side of the ledger, or the
balance on the wrong side unerringly points the way to ruin. This is the
post-school training of the merchant. That neither it nor his previous
education renders him skilful we know, since he fails ninety-three to
ninety-seven times in a hundred trials. That subjective training does
not and never can promote rectitude has been shown in a former chapter
of this work. That merchants who compromise with their creditors, and
subsequently accumulate fortunes, very rarely repay the debt formerly
forgiven is a notorious fact. A Chicago merchant who himself repaid such
a composition debt early in his career, states, at the end of
twenty-five years’ experience, that of compromises involving several
hundred thousand dollars, made by him in favor of debtors, not one
dollar has ever been repaid.

Upon leaving school or college the lawyer, the judge, and the legislator
at once apply themselves to books; their subsequent training is
exclusively subjective. Their ideas receive color from, and are verified
only by reference to, consciousness. Subjective truths have no
relations to things, and hence are susceptible of verification only
through consciousness. They are, therefore, mere speculations after all,
often ingenious but always problematical. The result of such training is
selfishness--selfishness of a very intense character; and, as has been
already shown, selfishness is merely another name for injustice.

On the other hand the artisan devotes himself to things. His training is
exclusively objective. His ideas flow outward; he studies the nature and
relations of things. In this investigation he forgets self because his
life becomes a grand struggle in search of truth; and the discovery of
truth in things, if not easy, is ultimately sure of attainment, since
harmony is its sign, and its opposite, the false, is certain of exposure
through its native deformity; for however alluring a lie may be made to
appear in the abstract, in the concrete it is a monster unmasked.

From the false the artisan intuitively shrinks. He can only succeed by
finding the truth, and embodying it in some useful or beautiful thing
which will contribute to the comfort or pleasure of man. Hence his
watchword is utility, or, beauty in utility. Of the engrossing character
of this struggle the story of Bernard Palissy affords a splendid
illustration. Palissy was an artist, a student, and a naturalist, but
poor, and compelled to follow the profession of surveying to support his
family. At the age of thirty he saw an enamelled cup, of Italian
manufacture, which fired his ambition. Ignorant of the nature of clays,
he nevertheless resolved to discover enamel, and entered upon a
laborious course of investigation and experiment with that end in view.
After many years of Herculean effort and indescribable privation, which
beggared and estranged his family, and rendered him an object of
ridicule among his neighbors, he achieved a grand success. At a critical
period of his experiments, in the face of the indignant protests of his
almost starving family, having exhausted his credit to the last penny,
he consigned to the flames of his furnace the chairs, tables, and floors
of his humble cottage, and continued to watch his chemicals with
all-absorbing attention, while his wife in despair rushed through the
streets making loud proclamation of the scandal.

But Palissy was more than a potter; he was a Christian, a philosopher,
and an austere reformer. Notwithstanding he had been petted and
patronized as an ingenious artisan by the royal family of France, he was
finally cast into prison under charge of heresy. It was there that the
remarkable interview with King Henry III. occurred, which immortalized
Palissy as a hero. “My good man,” said the king, “you have been
forty-five years in the service of the queen, my mother, or in mine, and
we have suffered you to live in your own religion, amid all the
executions and the massacres. Now, however, I am so pressed by the Guise
party and my people that I have been compelled in spite of myself to
imprison these two poor women and you.” “Sire,” answered the old man,
“the count came yesterday on your part, promising life to these two
sisters upon condition of the sacrifice of their virtue. They replied
that they would now be martyrs to their own honor as well as for the
honor of God. You have said several times that you feel pity for me; but
it is I who pity you, who have said, ‘I am compelled!’ That is not
speaking like a king. These girls and I, who have part in the kingdom of
heaven--we will teach you to talk royally. The Guisarts, all your
people, and yourself, cannot compel a potter to bow down to images of
clay!”[63] And Palissy the potter and heretic, at the age of seventy,
died in the Bastile, proudly defying a king.

[63] “Palissy the Potter,” Vol. II., pp. 187, 188. By Henry Morley.
Boston: Ticknor, Reed & Fields, 1853.

The more absorbing the struggle for the discovery of truth the less room
there is in the mind for selfishness; and as selfishness recedes,
justice assumes its appropriate place as the controlling element in
human conduct. The hero is an honest man, that’s all,--

“Though love repine, and reason chafe,
There comes a voice without reply;
’Tis man’s perdition to be safe,
When for the truth he ought to die.”

If all men were heroes--honest--there would be no occasion for heroism.
If all education can be made scientific, all men can be made honest. The
struggle to find truth is more natural than the struggle to succeed
regardless of, or against, truth. The reason why what we call heroism
appears so grand is this: the standards of public judgment have become
so perverted by long custom in the abuse of truth, that normal conduct
appears strange.

When Palissy burned his chairs and tables in the cause of art, his
family and his neighbors derided him, and denounced him as a madman, and
in prison the king urged him, as a friend, to save himself from death by
recanting his assertion of the right of freedom of religious opinion.
Palissy was a hero neither to his family, his friends, nor his king;[64]
but he was right, and his discovery and his firmness rendered him
immortal. We now know, three hundred years farther down the course of
time, that Palissy’s struggle over the furnace in the cause of art was
mentally and morally normal, while the opposition he encountered was
abnormal; and that his defiance of the king was mentally and morally
normal, while his persecution was abnormal and cruel.

[64] “I had nothing but reproaches in the house; in place of
consolation, they gave me maledictions. My neighbors, who had heard of
this affair [the failure of an experiment], said that I was nothing
but a fool, and that I might have had more than eight francs for the
things that I had broken; and all this talk was brought to mingle with
my grief.”--“Palissy the Potter,” Vol. I., p. 190. By Henry Morley.
Boston: Ticknor, Reed & Fields, 1853.

Palissy’s mind was trained naturally in the direction of rectitude,
while the minds of the millions of men who permitted him to die
unfriended, a prisoner in the Bastile, were developed unnaturally. Their
education was unscientific, and their characters were hence deformed.
The one symmetrical character was that of Palissy, the lover of truth,
who was ready to starve, if need be, for his art, and ready to die for
his faith. The thin ranks of the so-called heroes of the ages of history
constitute the measure of the poverty of the systems of education that
have prevailed among mankind. These so-called heroes are merely normally
developed men--men who search for the truth, and having found it, honor
it always and everywhere. They are peculiar to no clime, to no country,
to no age. They are cosmopolitan, and the fact that they are honored,
after death, by succeeding ages is proof positive of the world’s
progress, or rather of the progress of moral ideas.

The civilization of Italy in the middle of the fifteenth century
presents the most violent possible contrast to that of America in the
last half of the nineteenth century. But the one produced Savonarola,
the hater of abuses in the Roman Catholic Church, and the other John
Brown, the stern, uncompromising hater of human bondage. Four hundred
years is a long period in the history of civilization; but the priest of
the fifteenth century, and the farmer of the nineteenth, are as near of
kin in spirit, as if they had been born of the same mother, and reared
in the same moral atmosphere.

The true hero is always inexorable--as Savonarola in the presence of the
majesty of a dying, remorse-stricken, half-repentant prince, and John
Brown in the presence of his exultant but half-terrified captors. When
Lorenzo di Medici lay terror-stricken, on his death-bed, Savonarola
demanded of the dying prince, as the price of absolution, a restoration
of the liberties of the people of Florence; and this being refused, the
priest departed without one word of peace.

When John Brown, wounded and bleeding, lay a captive at Harper’s Ferry,
listening to the taunts of angry Virginians, he said, calmly and firmly,
“You had better--all you people of the South--prepare yourselves for a
settlement of this question. It must come up for settlement sooner than
you are prepared for it, and the sooner you commence that preparation
the better for you. You may dispose of me very easily--I am nearly
disposed of now--but this question is still to be settled--this negro
question, I mean. The end of that is not yet.”[65]

[65] “The Public Life of Captain John Brown.” p. 283. By John Redpath.
Boston: Thayer & Eldridge, 1860.

There is nothing grander in history, whether real or mythological, than
the picture of the humble priest of the fifteenth century, with no power
except the justice of his cause, shaking thrones and making proud
prelates, and even the Pope himself, tremble with fear! And the exact
parallel of this picture is found, four hundred years down the stream of
time, in the person of the farmer, John Brown, defying the Constitution,
law, and public sentiment of his country in the interest simply of the
cause of justice.

It has been shown through citations from the Walton report, as well as
by the opinions of many competent witnesses, that the New England system
of education, whether correct in theory or not, is, in actual operation,
very defective. But at the time of its establishment it was the best
system in existence. To it this country owes the quality of its
civilization. The neglect of education by the Government of the United
States is the most astonishing fact of its history. It is
incomprehensible how, with a comparatively excellent educational system
in operation, and in full view in the New England, Middle, and Western
States, the National Government could calmly and inactively contemplate
the almost entire neglect of popular education in the States of the
South, and ignore, from year to year, the steadily accumulating horrors
of ignorance and vice which were destined to lead to such deplorable
political and social results.

The difference between the civilization of New England and that of South
Carolina, for example, is exactly measured by the difference between
their respective educational systems. New England undertook, at a very
early day, to educate every class of its citizens; South Carolina made a
monopoly of education, confining it to a single class.

It must be admitted that the American statesmanship of the whole period
of our history has been scarcely less short-sighted than that of England
under the Georges, which resulted in saddling upon her people a debt
that they can never pay. If England had provided a comprehensive and
scientific system of popular education at the beginning of the
eighteenth century, who doubts that the wars through which her debt was
incurred would have been averted? If the Government of the United States
had compelled the adoption of a scientific educational system by the
States of the South, who doubts that slavery would have peaceably passed
away, and the occasion for war passed away with it?

The conspicuous failure of American statesmanship consists in a failure
to appreciate the value of scientific education, it shows that good
citizenship is impossible without good education--for good education and
good citizenship are convertible terms. And it is easy to show, by the
past, that to hesitate on the subject of education is to be lost.[66]

[66] “If you examine into the history of rogues, you will find that
they are as truly manufactured articles as anything else, and it is
just because our present system of political economy gives so large a
stimulus to that manufacture that you may know it to be a false one.
We had better seek for a system which will develop honest men than for
one which will deal cunningly with vagabonds. Let us reform our
schools, and we shall find little reform needed in our
prisons.”--“Unto This Last,” p. 50. By John Ruskin. New York: John
Wiley & Sons, 1883.

Why do we provide for popular education? Is it out of pure generosity
that the rich citizen consents to be taxed to pay for the education of
his poor neighbor’s children? Does the man who has no children willingly
surrender a portion of his estate for the education of the children of
others, as an act of benevolence? Not at all. There is no security for
property in a community devoid of education and consequent intelligence.
Intelligence alone confers upon property a sacred character. In one of
two ways only can property be rendered secure in the owner’s hands. It
may be protected by a hired soldiery, through the force of arms,[E13] or
through the force of public sentiment enlightened by education. The
reason why the poor but educated citizen would not lay violent hands on
the rich citizen’s property is the fact that he indulges the intelligent
hope of himself acquiring property. Besides, the morals of a community
are in the ratio of its intelligence. The indulgence of hope promotes
self-esteem, and self-respect, and these qualities react ethically.

It should be borne in mind that while one of the main purposes of all
governments is to preserve property rights, nearly all the governments
of history have been shattered in pieces in the effort to fulfil this
function of their existence. It may be said that there is never anything
sacred about property unless it is honestly acquired. All the force of
our own government was exerted in a vain effort to protect property in
slaves. England has been compelled to disturb the property rights of the
Irish landlords, and this is only the prelude to an attack upon the
property rights of her own landlords. It was the ignorance of the
English people hundreds of years ago that permitted the establishment of
a land system which is now about to crumble in pieces, and in its fail
wreck certain property rights.

There is nothing sacred about property unless it is honestly acquired
and honestly held; and property can only be honestly acquired and
honestly held, in communities intelligent enough to guard its
acquisition, and continued possession, by just and adequate laws. It
follows that education is the sole bulwark of the State, and so of
property.

The question of the first consequence is, therefore, always, What is
the best system of education? It is obvious, also, that the subject of
cost should not enter into the discussion; that the best education is
the cheapest, is an indisputable proposition. We have seen that the New
England system of education, which has spread over the whole country, is
very much better than the system which prevailed in those States of the
Union where slavery continued to exist down to 1864. But we have seen,
also, that that system is very defective; that it is automatic, and
hence not natural, not practical, not scientific. It does not produce
great merchants, great lawyers, great judges, or great legislators. That
it does not, is abundantly shown by the fact that in mercantile life
there are ninety-three to ninety-seven failures in every one hundred
experiments; by the fact that there is notoriously a general failure of
justice; and by the fact that here, as in Great Britain, the chief
business of statesmen is the undoing of vicious legislation.

There is a system of training which produces a much higher average of
culture than that of the public schools and the universities. We allude
to the training received by the students of special mechanical and
technical institutions, and by the apprentices in trade-shops. The proof
of this is found in the world’s railways, ships, harbors, docks, canals,
bridges, telegraph and telephone lines, and in a thousand and one other
manifestations of skill in art. In the adaptation of means to an end,
and in nicety of construction, the mechanic and the civil engineer show,
in innumerable ways, with what thoroughness both their minds and their
hands have been trained. If mercantile operations were governed by such
excellent rules in projection, and by such precision in execution,
ninety-seven merchants in a hundred would not go to the wall.

A story has lately gone the round of the public prints to the effect
that, during a visit to a needle factory by the Emperor of Germany, a
workman begged a hair of his head, bored an eye in it, threaded it, and
handed it back to the monarch, who had expressed surprise that eyes
could be bored in the smaller sizes of needles. It does not matter
whether or not this story is literally true; it illustrates the delicacy
of modern mechanical operations. Hundreds of similar illustrations might
be given, showing how marvellously skilful the hand has become.

It is not claimed that the hand is a nicer instrument than the mind. As
a matter of fact, in drilling the hole in the hair the mind and the hand
work together--the mind directs the hand, we will say. The mind devises
or invents a watch--every wheel, pinion, screw, and spring--and directs
the hand how to make it, and how to set it up, and it ticks off the
time. Why does the mind succeed so admirably when it employs the hand to
execute its will, but so ill when it devises and attempts, itself, to
execute? How is it that the mind invents a watch which, being made by
the hand, records the hour to a second, ninety-nine times in a hundred,
but fails ninety-three to ninety-seven times in a hundred to devise and
carry into execution a mercantile venture? How is it that the mind
invents a steam-engine consisting of a hundred pieces, so that, each
piece being made by a different hand, the machine shall, when set up,
ninety-nine times in a hundred, at once perform the work of five hundred
horses without strain or friction, but when it grapples with law and
fact in the chair of lawyer or judge produces a most pitiable wreck of
justice? How is it that the mind devises and the hand executes with such
nice adaptation of means to the end in view, a bridge, that resembles a
spider’s web, and yet bears thousands of tons and endures for ages, but
when it undertakes to legislate evolves statutes that wear out in a
year? The first iron bridge constructed spanned the Severn, in England.
It was opened to traffic a hundred years ago, but it is still a stanch
structure likely to stand for centuries. Where are the English statutes
of that time? Repealed to give place to a long line of others which in
turn have been repealed. When the famous iron bridge across the Severn
was constructed, English legislators were passing bills to compel the
American colonies to trade only with the mother country, and to tax them
without their consent. Lord Sheffield said, with charming frankness,
that the colonies were founded with the sole view of securing to England
a monopoly of their trade; and Lord Chatham declared that they would not
be permitted to make even a nail or a horseshoe.

In 1516 Sir Thomas More denounced the criminal law of England, declaring
that “the loss of money should not cause the loss of man’s life.”[67]
But this humane and enlightened sentiment had so little weight that
during the reign of Henry VIII. seventy-two thousand thieves were
hanged--at the rate of two thousand a year. In 1785 twenty men were
executed in London at one time for thefts of five shillings. The Lord
Chief-justice and the Lord Chancellor agreed that it would be dangerous
to repeal the law punishing pilfering by youths. In 1816 the Commons
passed a bill abolishing capital punishment for shoplifting--stealing
the value of five shillings--but the Lords defeated it, Lord
Ellenborough, Chief-justice, observing, peevishly, “They want to alter
these laws which a century has proved to be necessary, and which are now
to be overturned by speculation and modern philosophy.”[68]

[67] “The History of England,” Vol. II., p. 83. By Harriet Martineau.
Philadelphia: Porter & Coates.

[68] “The History of England,” Vol. II., p. 85. By Harriet Martineau.
Philadelphia: Porter & Coates.

The cause of these failures--of mercantile ventures, of justice, and of
legislation--is this: Subjective mental processes are automatic, and
hence they neither generate power nor promote rectitude; they enfeeble
rather than energize the brain. Men whose characters are formed by such
educational processes never originate anything. They become selfish,
they venerate the past, their eyes are turned backward; hence, if they
sometimes make a feeble effort to move forward they stumble. The lawyer,
the judge, and the legislator are examples of this class. Their
guide-books are musty folios in a dead language; they look for
“precedents” in an age whose civilization perished with its language,
and whose maxims and rules of life were long ago exploded. Such men can
be compelled to move forward only by the lash of public opinion. Buckle,
speaking of the reforms extorted from the legislators of England, says,

“But it is a mere matter of history that our legislators, even to the
last moment, were so terrified by the idea of innovation that they
refused every reform until the voice of the people rose high enough to
awe them into submission, and forced them to grant what without such
pressure they would by no means have conceded.”[69]

[69] “History of Civilization,” Vol. I., p. 361. By Henry Thomas
Buckle. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1864.

On the other hand, the inventor, the discoverer, and the artisan are
always in the advance, and always moving forward. They never look back
except to catch the vital principle of the invention or discovery of
yesterday for utilization in the improved machine of to-day. Their acts
are never repealed because they never become odious. They never become
odious because they contain the germs of imperishable truth. They are
never false; they are suitable to their time and the stage of
development; they constitute links in the chain of progress. While the
legislator is horrified at the thought of innovation, the inventor, the
discoverer, and the artisan are electrified by the discovery of a new
principle in physics, and delighted at its application in a new
invention, and its practical operation in a new and useful machine.

The difference in effects upon the mental and moral nature, between
purely mental training and mental and manual training combined, is
susceptible of logical explanation. It is only in things that the truth
stands clearly revealed, and only in things that the false is sure of
exposure.[70] Hence exclusively mental training stops far short of the
objective point of true education. For if it be true that the last
analysis of education is art, progress can find expression only in
things--in the work of men’s hands. And it is true; for ideas are mere
vain speculations until they are embodied in things. Nor is this
materialism unless all civilization is material; for the prime
difference between barbarism and civilization consists in the presence,
in a state of civilization, of more things of use and beauty than are
found in a state of barbarism. To exalt things is not materialistic;
they are both the source and issue of ideas, and the measure of
civilization. Ideas and things are hence indissolubly connected; and it
follows that any system of education which separates them is radically
defective.[71] Exclusively mental training does not produce a
symmetrical character, because at best it merely teaches the student how
to think, and the complement of thinking is acting. Before thoughts can
have any influence whatever upon the world of mind and matter external
to the mind originating them they must be expressed. They may be
expressed feebly, through the voice, in words; more durably, and
therefore more forcibly, with the pen, on paper; more forcibly still in
drawing--pictures of things; and, with the superlative degree of force,
in real things.

[70] “To know the truth it is necessary to do the truth.”...

“We rightly seek the meaning of the abstract in the concrete, because
we cannot _act_ in relation to the abstract, which is only a
representative sign; we must give it a concrete form in order to make
it a clear and distinct idea; until we have done so we do not know
that we really believe--only believe that we believe it. A truth is
best certified to be a truth when we live it and have ceased to talk
about it.”--“Body and Will,” p. 49. By Henry Maudsley, M.D. New York:
D. Appleton & Co., 1884.

[71] “Prof. Huxley seems to hold that zoology cannot be learned with
any degree of sufficiency unless the student practises dissection. In
support of this position there are strong reasons. In the first place,
the impression made on the mind by the actual objects, as seen,
handled, and operated upon, is far beyond the efficacy of words or
description. And not only is it greater, but it is more faithful to
the fact. While diagrams have a special value in bringing out links of
connection that are disguised in the actual objects, they can never
show the things exactly as they appear to our senses; and this full
and precise conception of actuality is the most desirable form of
knowledge; it is truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Moreover, it enables the student to exercise a free and independent
judgment upon the dicta of the teacher.”--“Education as a Science,” p.
303. By Alexander Bain, LL.D. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1884.

The object of education is the generation of power. But to generate and
store up power, whether mental or physical, or both, is a waste of
effort, unless the power is to be exerted. Why generate steam if there
is no engine to be operated? Steam may be likened to an idea which finds
expression through the engine--a thing. Why store the mind with
facts--historical, philosophical, or mathematical--which are useless
until applied to things, if they are not to be applied to things? And if
they are to be applied to things, why not teach the art of so applying
them? As a matter of fact, the system of education which does not do
this is one-sided, incomplete, unscientific. Rousseau says, “Education
itself is certainly nothing but habit.” If this be true, it will be
conceded that the habit of expressing ideas in things should be formed
in the schools, because the chief way in which man is benefited is
through the expression of ideas in things. The system of education which
tends to form this habit is that of the kindergarten and that of the
manual training school. These systems are one in principle. They are not
new; they at least date back to Bacon, who declared that he would
“employ his utmost endeavors towards restoring or cultivating a just and
legitimate familiarity betwixt the mind and things.” The kindergarten
and the manual training school exactly realize Bacon’s idea. The idea of
the manual training school was in the mind of Comenius when he said,
“Let things that have to be done be learned by doing them.” It was in
the mind of Pestalozzi when he said, “Education is the generation of
power.” It was in the mind of Froebel, not less than the kindergarten,
when he said, “The end and aim of all our work should be the harmonious
growth of the whole being.”

These are excellent definitions of education, and they are sequential.
If things that have to be done are learned by doing them, there will be
in the course of the process a wholesome exercise of both body and mind,
and this exercise will result in the generation of power--power to think
well, and to do well; and the process being continued, the result cannot
fail to be the harmonious growth of the whole being. This is scientific,
as opposed to automatic, education.[72]

[72] “Intellectual progress is of necessity from the concrete to the
abstract. But regardless of this, highly abstract subjects such as
grammar, which should come quite late, are begun quite early.
Political geography, dead and uninteresting to a child, and which
should be an appendage of sociological studies, is commenced betimes,
while physical geography, comprehensible and comparatively attractive
to a child, is in great part passed over. Nearly every subject dealt
with is arranged in abnormal order--definitions and rules and
principles being put first, instead of being disclosed, as they are in
the order of nature, through the study of cases. And then, pervading
the whole, is the vicious system of rote learning--a system of
sacrificing the spirit to the letter....

“A leading fact in human progress is that every science is evolved out
of its corresponding art. It results from the necessity we are under,
both individually and as a race, of reaching the abstract by way of
the concrete, that there must be practice and an accruing experience
with its empirical generalizations before there can be
science.”--“Education,” pp. 61, 124. By Herbert Spencer. New York: D.
Appleton & Co., 1883.

[E13] But the protection to property afforded by arms is only
temporary. An increase of the standing army involves an increase of
ignorance and poverty, and the last analysis of ignorance and poverty
is anarchy. The anarchists of Chicago [1886] were of foreign birth.
They came to the United States from the standing-army-ridden countries
of Europe. They were the product, the victims, of the European
governmental system. Hence, the proposal to adopt arms as a remedy for
anarchy is a proposal to abandon the American idea of government for
that of Europe. To preserve the society of to-day from violent
dissolution, it is necessary to shoot the anarchist. But to assure the
permanence of society it is necessary to educate the child of the
anarchist.

CHAPTER XXI.

EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM--HISTORIC.

_EGYPT AND GREECE._

It is a fundamental proposition of this work that selfishness is the
essence of depravity, and hence the source of all social evil; and in
previous chapters it has been shown, argumentatively, that exclusively
subjective processes of education tend, in a high degree, to promote
selfishness. Another fundamental proposition of this work is that the
useful arts are the true measure of civilization, and that, as they are
the product of labor, contempt of the laborer leads inevitably to social
disintegration and the destruction of the State. If these propositions
are true, the solution of all social problems is to be sought through a
radical change in educational methods. If they are true, it is of the
first importance that they be proved, not only by argument, but by the
citation of such facts of history as bear upon the subject. Civilization
is the product of education.[E14] If the education is good the product
will be good, if evil the product will be evil. The purpose of this and
the four following chapters is, therefore, to trace the progress of
civilization, to sketch in bold outline the social history of man.

The aphorism, all men are created equal, is a fine phrase, but its truth
is reserved for realization by the civilization of the future. A
tendency to the formation of class-distinctions in human society,
whether savage or civilized, is disclosed by all history.

The first class-distinction sprang from the physical superiority of one
savage over his fellows. He whose powerful frame and commanding eye
enabled him best to cope with the beasts of field and forest became
chief of the tribe. He held the first place by virtue of his brawny arm,
and the less athletic, and more timid, became his subjects. But he was
not long without rivals. His first rival was the dwarf, or hunchback,
who, struggling to overcome the misfortune of his deformity, in the
seclusion of his mud hut, invented the stone hatchet and stone-pointed
arrow-head. His next rival was the puny, pale-faced youth who converted
pantomimic signs and rude gestures into a language of sounds, and so
armed communities with the power of combination for mutual protection.
Those who soonest mastered the first alphabet took high rank in the
social circle, while those who could still only make themselves
understood by grimaces and gestures fell to the grade of ciphers in the
body politic, and came to be looked upon as dunces in society.
Thereafter the women, who had previously been won as wives by personal
prowess, were more equally parcelled out. The savage who had invented
the bow and the arrow was exempted from the toils of the chase, and from
the general contention at the courting season; a wife was assigned to
him, and his tent was supplied with game in the hope that he would
invent some other useful thing. Thus mind began to assert its empire
over matter, the division of labor commenced, and a class-distinction
was formed. Doubtless the youth who invented language cultivated
superstition among the ignorant, and so, increasing his already
considerable influence, secured the first social rank. Hence the castes
of India and Egypt, consisting, in their order, of the priesthood, the
army, the mercantile class, and, at the bottom of the scale, the servile
laborer.

Of the long period of social progress from a state of savagery to the
proud civilization of historic Egypt the record is faint and
fragmentary. Ages passed, during which men struggled, and died, and left
no sign--neither hieroglyphic character, monument, nor buried city.
Through what mental alchemy was the savage chief transformed, in the
course of hundreds of generations, into the learned, accomplished, and
astute Egyptian priest, from whose courtly lips Herodotus received the
chronicles of the Egyptian kings and the romantic story of the residence
in Egypt of Helen of Troy?[73] How were the members of the savage tribe
converted, one into an obedient soldier, another into an adroit,
self-seeking merchant, and another into a cringing slave? These are
secrets of antiquity, destined, doubtless, to remain forever unrevealed.
We do know, however, that the civilization of Egypt, like all other
civilizations, was the product of training or education; and the nature
of the education may be inferred from the character and fate of the
civilization.

[73] “Herodotus, ‘Euterpe,’” II., §§ 112-116. New York: Harper &
Brothers, 1882.

Of the Egyptian system of education selfishness was the basis. Given
chains and slavery for the lowest class and there were force and
rapacity in the highest class.[74] Before the free-born savage was
reduced to slavery and made to toil under the lash, whole hecatombs of
lives were sacrificed. Before the mind of the savage was degraded to the
baseness of slavery, his body, hacked and hewn, bent submissively to the
scourge. For the Egyptian boy there was, doubtless, a “Poor Richard’s
Almanack,” which taught him that he must “look to the main chance;” that
“in the race of life the devil takes the hindmost;” and that
“self-preservation is the first law of nature.” Thus trained he entered
the ranks of the priesthood, one of his brothers took a commission in
the army, and the others embarked in mercantile life. For the servile
class there was no education beyond their several occupations. Each man
was compelled to follow the trade of his father, to marry within his own
class, to die as he was born.

[74] “The Martyrdom of Man,” p. 18. By Winwood Reade. New York:
Charles P. Somerby, 1876.

Ruled by the priests, and the army, Egypt grew rich. Her commerce,
conducted by means of caravans, embraced the whole civilized world and
included all its products. She became a great military and naval power,
her armies overrunning Asia, and her fleets sweeping the Indian Ocean.
Her victorious campaigns opened new markets to her commerce, and through
these channels wealth poured into the empire. In the track of the wheels
of the Egyptian war-chariots the Egyptian merchant quickly followed. At
the point of the arrows of her archers she offered her linen goods to
conquered peoples, as England, at the point of the bayonet, subsequently
offered her cotton goods to prostrate India.

In Egypt all the learning of the time was concentrated. It was the
university of Greece. Every intellectual Greek made a voyage to Egypt;
it was regarded as a part of education, as a pilgrimage to the
cradle-land of their mythology.[E15] The possession of great wealth led
to habits of luxury. The house of the Egyptian gentleman was a palace
adorned with the triumphs of art, and devoted to pleasure. Its walls,
its floors, and its furniture reflected the skill, not to say genius, of
slaves--for all the manual labor of Egypt was performed by slaves. At
the end of the fashionable dinner, given in the palace by its rich
master, a mummy, richly painted and gilded, was presented to each guest
in turn by a servant, who said, “Look on this; drink and enjoy thyself,
for such as it is now so thou shalt be when thou art dead.”[75]

[75] “Herodotus, ‘Euterpe,’” II., p. 78. New York: Harper & Brothers,
1882.

One day when the priests were sacrificing in the temples, and the chief
officers of the army were dining with a contractor for army supplies, a
band of mountaineers rushed out of the recesses of Persia and swept like
a wind across the plains. They were dressed in leather; they had never
tasted fruit nor wine; they had never seen a market; they knew not how
to buy or sell. They were taught three things--to ride on horseback, to
hurl the javelin, and to speak the truth.[76] All Asia was covered with
blood and flames. The allied kingdoms fell at once, and India and Egypt
were soon afterwards added to the Persian empire.

[76] “Herodotus, ‘Clio,’” I., §§ 71, 136, 153. New York: Harper &
Brothers, 1882.

Egypt typifies all the early nations. In its rise, progress, and fall,
the course of the others may be traced. First there is a band of hardy
men whose prowess renders them irresistible. They are inured to toil;
they practise all the manly virtues; they are trained to labor with
their hands; they are taught to speak the truth. They lay the
foundations of the State in industry[E16] and prudence; their children
develop its resources; their children’s children, through many
generations, gradually accumulate wealth. The arts flourish, and
luxuries are multiplied. There are many great estates, and those who
inherit them cease to labor, and, ceasing to labor, they become a charge
upon the public; for the value of an estate created one hundred years
ago, or one year ago, can be maintained in no other way than by the
labor of to-day.[77] The idlers increase in number, and the struggle for
existence, of the workers, becomes more intense. Idleness breeds vice,
and the public morals are debauched.[E17] We see this class at the feast
of Belshazzar and at the dinner of the Egyptian _bon vivant_. On the
wall of every such banqueting room there is an ominous handwriting,
provided, only, that there is a Daniel to interpret it. It means that
the nation that degrades labor, tolerates idleness, and deifies vice, is
ripe for annihilation. If, now, there is on the frontier of the effete
nation a virile people, it is only a question of time and opportunity,
when they will make slaves of the revellers, and spoil of their
inherited estates. The worn-out, exhausted nation disappears in blood
and flames. The rich idler, the poor sycophant, the rulers and the
ruled, the slave and his master, the priest, the soldier, the merchant,
and the laborer, all go to destruction together.

[77] “It is not equitable that what one man hath done for the public
should discharge another of what it has a right to expect from him;
for one, standing indebted in himself to society, cannot substitute
anything in the room of his personal service. The father cannot
transmit to his son the right of being useless to his
fellow-creatures.... The man who earns not his subsistence, but eats
the bread of idleness, is no better than a thief.... To labor, then,
is the indispensable duty of social or political man. Rich or poor,
strong or weak, every idle citizen is a knave.”--“Emilius and Sophia,”
Vol. II., pp. 92, 93. By J. J. Rousseau. London: 1767.

In the ancient nations there was always force and rapacity above, and
chains and slavery below. Education was confined to a small class, and
consisted of selfish maxims for the government of the many, and
government was only another name for the appropriation of the products
of their labor. Selfishness bred injustice, and the practice of
injustice undermined the State. Whether the State survived or fell was a
matter of indifference to the slave. A slave he remained in any
event--if not of the Egyptian then of the Persian. But the importance of
labor is shown by those bloody revolutions. The battles of antiquity
were contests for the possession of the labor class. Which
nationality--the Egyptian or the Persian--should drive the toilers to
their daily tasks; which should reap the fruit of the sweat of their
brows; which should buy and sell them; which scourge them to their
dungeons? These were the questions which agitated the minds of ancient
rulers. They were the questions which agitated the mind of Xerxes when
he invaded Greece, with millions of followers, to encounter defeat at
the hands of a few thousand men of a superior type.

The Greek civilization sprung from mythology and ended in anarchy. In
the East the Greeks were called the people of youth. Their religion was
of the savage type. Their gods were immortalized men; they loved and
hated, transgressed and suffered; they resorted to stratagems to compass
their ends; they were a kind of exalted but unscrupulous aristocracy.

Greek patriotism was narrow; each city was politically independent, and
the citizen of one city was an alien and a stranger in the territory of
every other. The Greeks were superstitious. If the omens were
unfavorable the general refused to give battle; the plague was a visible
sign of the wrath of the gods; the priests sacrificed perpetually; the
oracle of Apollo outlived Grecian independence hundreds of years.[E18]

Grecian national festivals were childish, consisting of wrestling,
boxing, running, jumping, and chariot-racing. But the victor in those
games conferred everlasting glory upon his family and his country, and
was rewarded with distinguished honors.

Like savages, the Greeks were treacherous. The destiny of Greece was
controlled by renegades. There was disloyalty in every camp, a Greek
deserter in every opposing army, and a traitor, or a band of traitors,
in every besieged Greek city.[E19] They were cruel; of their captives
they butchered the men and enslaved the women, and they stripped and
robbed the bodies of the slain, on the battle-field. Like savages they
assassinated ambassadors, and like savages surrendered prisoners to
their personal enemies to be massacred.[E20] Their sense of honor was
dull. Xenophon, after winning imperishable renown, in conducting the
famous retreat of the “Ten Thousand,” led a detachment of them on a
pillaging expedition, and so amassed a fortune. “My patriotism,” says
Alcibiades, “I keep not at a time when I am being wronged.” “For there
was neither promise that could be depended on, nor oath that struck them
with fear,” exclaims Thucydides.[78]

[78] “The History of the Peloponnesian War,” Vol. I., p. 210. London:
George Bell & Sons.

Venality was the predominating trait in Greek character, and venality
unrestrained is savagery. In the Greek Pantheon the highest niche was
reserved for the God of Gain. The early Greeks were pirates; they
plundered one another; they sometimes actually sold themselves into
slavery, so great was their lust of gold. The richest cities ruled the
poor cities. Pericles boasted that he could not be bribed, but he robbed
all Greece to embellish Athens, and was accused of peculation, tried,
convicted, and fined. The Athenians declared that the Spartans were
taught to steal, and the Spartans retorted that the best Athenians were
invariably thieves. When Persia could no longer fight she defended her
territory against Greek invasion with gold coins.

The Greek orators never refused a bribe, and oratory ruled Greece.[E21]
Greek oratory was very persuasive. A discriminating writer declares
that, with their fine phrases and rhetorical expressions, the Greek
orators swindled history, obtaining a vast amount of admiration under
false pretences.[79]

[79] “The Martyrdom of Man,” p. 88. By Winwood Reade. New York:
Charles P. Somerby, 1876.

For these defects in Greek character, and for the resulting decay of
Greek civilization, Greek philosophy and Greek education must be held
responsible. Metaphysics and rhetoric ruined Greece. It was in the
schools of rhetoric that the young Greeks received their training for
the duties of public life. There they were taught the art of oratory;
there they learned how to make the worse appear the better reason. There
they were taught, not to expound the truth, but to indulge in the arts
of sophistry. It was in those schools that the young Greek was trained
to be eloquent, to win applause in the courts of law, not to convince
the judgments of judge, or juror; for judicial decisions were
notoriously subjects of the most shameful traffic.

The element of rectitude was wholly left out of the Greek system of
education, and hence wholly wanting in Greek character. The Greeks had a
profound distrust of one another. They were dishonest; they were
treacherous; they were cruel; they were false; and all these vices are
peculiar to a state of savagery.[E22] In ethics they never emerged from
the savage state, and hence in politics their failure was complete; for
the prime condition of the most simple form of civil society is mutual
confidence. But the mutual distrust of the Greeks, based on want of
integrity, was so absolute that political unity was impossible, and the
failure to combine the several cities under one government led,
eventually, to the destruction of Greek civilization.

To this result Greek philosophy also contributed. Plato’s contempt for
matter was so profound that he regarded the soul’s residence in the body
as an evil. He taught that the philosopher should emancipate himself
from the illusions of sense, devoting his life to reflection, and
surrendering his mind “to communion with its kindred eternal
essences.”[E23] Contempt of matter led logically to contempt of the
physical man, and hence to contempt of things, the work of man’s hands.
Such a philosophy was necessarily “in the air.” It afforded no aid to
the sciences; for science is the product of generalizations from matter.
It scorned art; for the arts are applications of the sciences in useful
things. With the Greek school-master rhetoric was the chief part of
education; with the Greek philosopher dialectics was the science _par
eminence_.

Thus the Greek system of education was confined to rhetoric and
logic--the art of speaking with propriety, elegance, and force, and the
power of deducing legitimate conclusions from assumed premises.[E24] In
the Greek schools of rhetoric there was no struggle to find the truth;
in the schools of philosophy there was no respect for the evidence of
the senses. The Greek orator harangued the jury eloquently while his
client bargained with the court for the price of justice! The Greek
philosopher confounded his audience with the force of his unanswerable
logic, and appealed to his inner consciousness in support of the
soundness of his premises!

The explanation of Greek duplicity is found in Greek metaphysics. To
scorn things is to disregard facts, and disregard of facts is contempt
of the truth. Greek education was confined to a consideration of the
subject of the nature and relations of abstract ideas, while the subject
of the nature and relations of things was wholly neglected. Such a
system of education led logically to selfishness, and out of selfishness
grew inordinate ambition and greed; and these passions led, through
treachery and dishonesty, to factional contests, which, eventuating in
bloodshed, could only end in anarchy. Distracted by the jealousies and
rivalries of States constantly in hostile conflict, and enfeebled by the
never-ending strife between the rich and the poor, Greece fell a prey to
the rapacity, and lust of power, of her unscrupulous Roman neighbor.

[E14] “All the happiness of families depends upon the education of
children, and houses rise or sink according as their children are
virtuous or vicious.”--Plato’s “Divine Dialogues,” p. 262. London: S.
Cornish & Co., 1839.

[E15] “The Egyptians were, in the opinion of the Greeks, the wisest of
mankind.”--Herodotus, “Euterpe,” II., § 160. New York: Harper &
Brothers, 1882.

“For my part, I think that Melampus, being a wise man, both acquired
the art of divination, and having learned many other things in Egypt,
introduced them among the Greeks, and particularly the worship of
Bacchus.”--Ibid, “Euterpe,” II., § 49.

“And indeed the names of almost all the Gods came from Egypt into
Greece.”--Ibid, “Euterpe,” II., § 50.

“The manner in which oracles are delivered at Thebes in Egypt and at
Dodona, is very similar; and the art of divination from victims came
likewise from Egypt.”--Ibid, “Euterpe,” II., § 57.

“The Egyptians were also the first who introduced public festivals,
processions, and solemn supplications: And the Greeks learned these
from them.”--Ibid, “Euterpe,” II., § 57.

To the same effect, see also:

Ibid, “Euterpe,” II., § 64.
„ „ „ § 109.
„ „ „ § 123.
„ „ „ § 160.
„ „ „ §§ 164-166.
„ „ „ § 171.

And Ibid, “Melpomene,” IV., § 180.

[E16] “Amasis it was who established the law among the Egyptians that
every Egyptian should annually declare to the governor of his district
by what means he maintained himself; and if he failed to do this, or
did not show that he lived by honest means, he should be punished with
death. Solon, the Athenian, having brought this law from Egypt,
established it at Athens; and that people still continue to observe
it, as being an unobjectionable regulation.”--Herodotus, “Euterpe,”
II., § 177. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1882.

[E17] “Lysimachus, son of Aristides the Just, and Melesias, son of
Thucydides, to the Athenian generals, Nicias and Laches:

“Both he and I have entertained our children with thousands of brave
actions done by our fathers both in peace and war, while they headed
the Athenians and their allies; but to our great misfortune we can
tell them no such thing of ourselves. This covers us with shame; we
blush for it before our children, and are forced to cast the blame
upon our fathers; who, after we grew up, suffered us to live in
effeminacy and luxury; while they were employing all their care for
the interest of the public.”--Plato’s “Divine Dialogues,” p. 256.
London: S. Cornish & Co., 1839.

[E18] “After the encounter between the cavalry had taken place,
Agesilaus, on offering sacrifice the next day with a view to
advancing, found the victims inauspicious and in consequence of this
indication turned off and proceeded toward the coast.”--Xenophon,
“Hellenics,” p. 369. London: George Bell & Sons, 1881.

See, also, Thucydides, Vol. II., p. 348. London: George Bell & Sons,
1880.

And Ibid, Vol. II., p. 484.

And, “Plutarch’s Lives [Timoleon],” p. 177. New York: Harper &
Brothers, 1850.

[E19] Alcibiades to the Lacedæmonians: “And now, I beg that I may not
be the worse thought of by any among you, because I am now strenuously
attacking my country with its bitterest enemies, though I formerly had
a reputation for patriotism.”--Thucydides, Vol. II., p. 439. London:
George Bell & Sons, 1880.

Of Pausanias and Themistocles, who were both traitors, Thucydides
says: “Such was the end of Pausanias the Lacedæmonian and Themistocles
the Athenian, _who had been the most distinguished of all the Greeks
in their day_.”--“History of the Peloponnesian War,” Vol. I., pp.
75-83.

See also Ibid, Vol. I., p. 288.
„ „ „ pp. 292-293.
„ „ „ p. 304.
„ „ „ pp. 306-307.
„ „ „ p. 241.
„ „ Vol. II., p. 510.

See also Herodotus, “Melpomene,” IV., § 142. New York: Harper &
Brothers, 1882.

[E20] “When the Corcyræans had got possession of them [prisoners
surrendered by their allies the Athenians] they shut them up in a
large building, and, afterward taking them out by twenties, led them
through two rows of heavy-armed soldiers posted on each side; the
prisoners being bound together were beaten and stabbed by the men
ranged in the lines, _whenever any of them happened to see a personal
enemy_; while men carrying whips went by their side, and hastened on
the way those that were proceeding too slowly.”--Thucydides, Vol. I.,
pp. 256-257. London: George Bell & Sons, 1880.

Ibid, Vol. I., p. 62.
„ II., p. 376.
„ II., p. 468.
„ II., p. 495.
„ II., pp. 510-511.
„ II., p. 523.

See also Herodotus, “Terpsichore,” V., § 6.

Ibid, “Terpsichore,” V., § 21.
Ibid, “Urania,” VII., §§ 104, 105, 106.

See also Xenophon, “Hellenics,” p. 328. London: George Bell & Sons,
1882.

See also “Plutarch’s Lives [Lycurgus],” p. 42. New York: Harper &
Brothers, 1850.

[E21] “For the Grecians in old time, ... turned to piracy, ... and
falling upon towns that were unfortified, ... they rifled them, and
made most of their livelihood by this means.”... “For through desire
of gain the lower orders submitted to be slaves to their betters; and
the more powerful, having a superabundance of money, brought the
smaller cities into subjection.”--Thucydides, Vol. I., pp. 3, 4, 5.
London: George Bell & Sons, 1880.

“Yet that the boys might not suffer too much from hunger, Lycurgus,
_though he did not allow them to take what they wanted without
trouble_, gave them leave to steal certain things to relieve the
cravings of nature; _and he made it honorable to steal as many cheeses
as possible_.”--Xenophon’s “Minor Works,” p. 208. London: George Bell
& Sons, 1882.

“Demosthenes could not resist the temptation; it made all the
impression upon him that was expected; he received the money, like a
garrison into his house, and went over to the interest of Harpalus.
Next day he came into the Assembly with a quantity of wool and
bandages about his neck; and when the people called upon him to get up
and speak, he made signs that he had lost his voice, upon which some
that were by said, ‘it was no common hoarseness that he got in the
night; it was a hoarseness occasioned by swallowing gold and
silver.’”--“Plutarch’s Lives [Demosthenes],” pp. 594-595. New York:
Harper & Brothers, 1850.

See also, “Plutarch’s Lives [Agesilaus],” p. 431. New York: Harper &
Brothers, 1850.

Ibid [Demosthenes], p. 591.
„ [Aristides], p. 232.

“And Plato, among all that were accounted great and illustrious men in
Athens, judged none but Aristides worthy of real esteem.”--“Plutarch’s
Lives [Aristides],” p. 243. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1850.

But it was Aristides who said of a public measure: “It is not just,
but it is expedient.”

“As to the proceedings in courts of law they [the Athenians] have less
regard to what is just than to what is profitable to
themselves.”--Xenophon’s “Minor Works,” pp. 235-236. London: George
Bell & Sons, 1882.

Ibid, pp. 243, 244.

When Mardonius the Persian consulted with the Thebans how to subdue
Greece, they said: “Send money to the most powerful men in the cities,
and by sending it you will split Greece into parties, and then, with
the assistance of those of your party, you may easily subdue those who
are not in your interest.”--Herodotus, “Calliope,” IX., § 2. New York:
Harper & Brothers, 1882.

Ibid, “Urania,” VIII., §§ 128-134.
„ “Calliope,” IX., § 44.

See also “Plutarch’s Lives [Pericles],” p. 123. New York: Harper &
Brothers, 1850.

Ibid, “Pericles,” p. 118.
„ “Pericles,” p. 115, _note_.

“Accordingly, as the Athenians state, these men while staying at
Delphi, prevailed on the Pythian by money, when any Spartans should
come thither to consult the oracle, either on their own account or
that of the public, to propose to them to liberate Athens from
servitude.”--Herodotus, “Terpsichore,” V., § 63. New York: Harper &
Brothers, 1882.

Ibid, “Erato,” VI., §§ 72, 100.

[E22] Euripides makes Andromache say: “O, ye inhabitants of Sparta,
most hated of mortals among all men, crafty in counsel, king of liars,
concoctors of evil plots, crooked and thinking nothing soundly, but
all things tortuously, unjustly are ye prospered in Greece. And what
evil is there not in you? Are there not abundant murders? Are ye not
given to base gain? Are ye not detected speaking ever one thing with
the tongue but thinking another? A murrain seize you!”--“The Tragedies
of Euripides [Andromache],” Vol, II., p. 138. New York: Harper &
Brothers, 1857.

[E23] “Is it not by reasoning that the soul embraces truths? And does
it not reason better than before when it is not encumbered by seeing
or hearing, by pain or pleasure? When shut up within itself it bids
adieu to the body, and entertains as little correspondence with it as
possible; and pursues the knowledge of things without touching
them.... Is it not especially upon this occasion that the soul of a
philosopher despises and avoids the body and wants to be by itself?...
Now, the purgation of the soul, as we were saying just now, is only
its separation from the body, its accustoming itself to retire and
lock itself up, renouncing all commerce with it as much as possible,
and living by itself, whether in this or the other world, without
being chained to the body.”--Plato’s “Divine Dialogues,” pp. 180, 181,
182. London: S. Cornish & Co., 1839.

[E24] “During most of the flourishing age of Hellenistic culture the
rhetor was the acknowledged practical teacher; and his course, _which
occupied several years_, with the interruption of the summer holidays,
comprised first a careful reading of classical authors, both poetical
and prose, with explanations and illustrations. This made the student
acquainted with the language and literature of Greece. But it was only
introductory to the technical study of expression, of eloquence based
on these models, and of accurate writing as a collateral branch of
this study. When a man had so perfected himself, he was considered fit
for public employment.”--“Old Greek Education,” p. 137. By J. P.
Mahaffy, M. A. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1882.

CHAPTER XXII.

EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM--HISTORIC.

_ROME._

Vigor of the Early Romans -- their Virtues and Vices; their Rigorous
Laws; their Defective Education; their Contempt of Labor. -- Slavery:
its Horrors and Brutalizing Influence. -- Education Confined to the
Arts of Politics and War; it transformed Courage into Cruelty, and
Fortitude into Stoicism. -- Robbery and Bribery. -- The Vices of
Greece and Carthage imported into Rome. -- Slaves construct all the
great Public Works; they Revolt, and the Legions Slaughter them. --
The Gothic Invasion. -- Rome Falls. -- False Philosophy and
Superficial Education promoted Selfishness. -- Deification of
Abstractions, and Scorn of Men and Things. -- Universal Moral
Degradation. -- Neglect of Honest Men and Promotion of Demagogues. --
The Decline of Morals and Growth of Literature. -- Darwin’s Law of
Reversion, through Selfishness, to Savagery. -- Contest between the
Rich and the Poor. -- Logic, Rhetoric, and Ruin.

In the city of the Seven Hills there was no statue to Pity, as at
Athens. In the long line of Roman conquerors there was no one possessing
the title to fame, of which, on his death-bed, Pericles boasted, namely,
that “no Athenian had ever worn mourning on his account.”

The dominion of Rome was logical. In the legend of Romulus and Remus,
suckled by the she-wolf, there is a hint of the rugged vigor which
characterized the Roman people, and distinguished them from the earlier
nationalities. In all the civilizations anterior to that of Rome there
was an element of pliability or softness which belongs to the youth of
man. But from the day on which Romulus, with the brazen ploughshare,
drew a furrow around the Palatine, both the sinews and the souls of his
followers hardened into maturity. The rising walls of the city, so the
legend runs, were moistened with the life-drops of Remus, whose derisive
remark and act cost him his life, his slayer exclaiming, haughtily, “So
perish all who dare to climb these ramparts.” The rape of the Sabines,
the conflicts which ensued with that outraged people, their
incorporation with the conquerors, their subsequent joint conquests, and
the shrewdness displayed in the conservation of the fruits of
victory--these events show that man had attained his majority. Under the
shadow of the walls of the Eternal City all the great races were
associated and mingled--Latins, Trojans, Greeks, Sabines, and Etruscans.
The Roman civilization was the product of all that had gone before, as
it was destined to be the father of all that should follow it. The Roman
had no peer either in courage or fortitude. Aspiring to universal
dominion, he toughened himself to achieve it. Dooming his enemy to death
or slavery, he was not less self-exacting, his own life, through the cup
of poison, the sword, or the opened vein, becoming the forfeit equally
of misfortune and shame. The tragic fate of Lucretia, the resulting
revolution, the banishment of the Tarquins, and the abolition of the
kingly government show the swiftness of Roman retribution and the
terrible force of Roman resolution. Roman persistence in the path of
conquest for many centuries is typified by Cato in his invocation of
destruction upon Carthage. The masculine character of the Roman vices
finds illustration in the struggle of Appius, the Decemvir, to possess
the person of Virginia by wresting the law from its true purpose, the
conservation of justice, and converting it into a shield for lust; and
the vigor of Roman virtue is exemplified in the act of Virginius
plunging the knife into the heart of his beloved daughter to save her
honor. The rigorous laws of Rome testify to the stamina of her people.
The father to whom a deformed son was born must cause the child to be
put to death, and any citizen might kill the man who betrayed the design
of becoming king.

A scientific system of education would have conserved and developed the
noble and eliminated the ignoble traits of Roman character. But neither
Roman education, philosophy, nor ethics inculcated either respect for
labor or reverence for human rights; and hence the laborer was reduced
to slavery, and the slave made the victim of every known atrocity.
Slavery became the corner-stone of the Roman State, and slavery and
labor were synonymous terms. The Roman supply of laborers was maintained
by depopulating conquered countries. In the train of the legions,
returning to Rome in triumph, there were not only statues, paintings,
and other works of art, but thousands of men, women, and children
destined to slavery. And the laws in regard to slaves were terrible, as
laws touching slavery must always be--for a state of slavery is a state
of war. It was a law of Rome that if a slave murdered his master the
whole family of slaves should be put to death; and Tacitus relates an
instance of the execution of four hundred slaves for the murder of a
citizen, their master. In the course of the servile rebellion in Sicily
a million slaves were killed; and it should be borne in mind that they
were valuable laborers--many of them skilled artisans. Vast numbers of
them were exposed to wild beasts in the arena, for the popular
amusement. The rebellion of the gladiators was put down only by a resort
to awful atrocities, among which was the crucifixion of prisoners. The
revolt of the allies was quelled at the cost of half a million lives.
But slaves were plenty, for Rome had her bloody hand at the throat of
all mankind, and her hoarse cry was, “Your life or your liberty!”

Every Roman freeman was a soldier, and the cultivation of the land,
manufactures, and all the pursuits of industry, were carried on by
slaves. Slave labor was cheaper than the labor of animals; cattle were
taken from the plough and slaughtered for beef that slaves--men--might
take their places. Labor fell to the lowest degree of contempt, and the
laborer was a thing to be spurned--for the free citizen to labor with
his hands was more disgraceful than to die of starvation. Hence there
was a class of citizen paupers to whom largesses of corn were doled out
by the demagogues of the Senate and the army. Ultimately these
citizen-paupers became so vile and filthy that they engendered leprosy
and other loathsome diseases, as they dragged their palsied limbs
through the streets of the city, crying, “Bread and circuses! bread and
circuses!”

Roman education was confined almost exclusively to the training of the
sons of rich citizens in the arts of politics and war; and in a State
where labor was despised, and whose corner-stone was slavery, and whose
shibboleth was conquest, the baseness of these arts may be imagined but
hardly described. It promoted selfishness, and in the course of
centuries selfishness transformed Roman courage into cruelty, and Roman
fortitude into brutal stoicism. The Roman sense of justice was swallowed
up in Roman lust of power. Rome became the great robber nation of the
world. She was on the land what Greece had once been on the sea--a
pirate. She made the streets of the cities she conquered run with
blood. Thousands of captives she doomed to death; other thousands graced
the triumphs of her generals, and the spoil saved from the fury of the
flames, and the more ungovernable fury of the licentious soldiery, was
carried home to the Eternal City, there to fall into the hands of the
most cunning among the demagogues, for use in the bribery of courts,
senators, and the populace.

Tacitus deplored the decline of public virtue. He declared, mournfully,
that “Nothing was sacred, nothing safe from the hand of rapacity.” His
environment blinded him to the true cause of the depravity he so
eloquently deplored--selfishness. Had he been familiar with the
inductive method he would have found in a defective system of education
the cause of Roman venality and corruption. He might thus have realized
the weakness of a community of men who wanted the necessary force and
virtue to depose a Tiberius and elevate to his place a Germanicus; or to
dethrone a Domitian and crown in his stead an Agricola.

Education in Rome deified selfishness, and hence realized its last
analysis--total depravity. Of course nothing was sacred in a community
where men were ruthlessly trampled underfoot! Of course nothing was
“safe from the hand of rapacity” where the laborer was degraded to a
place in the social scale below the leprous pauper whose filthy person
provoked disgust, and whose poisonous breath, as he cried for bread,
spread abroad disease and death!

It was inevitable that the nation that grew rich through plunder should
grow poor in public and private virtue. And such was the fact. The
eagles that protected robbers abroad, spread their sheltering wings over
defaulters, bribers, and thieves at home. There had been a time in Rome
when bribery was punishable with death, but now candidates for office
sat at tables in the streets near the polling-places and openly paid the
citizens for their votes. The change in the habits of the people was as
pronounced as the change in the laws. The early triumphs of the Romans
were industrial--flocks and herds; their trophies, obtained in single
combat, consisted of spears and helmets. When Cincinnatus was sent for
to assume the dictatorship he was found in his field following the
plough. Valerius, four times consul, and by Livy characterized as the
first man of his time, died so poor that he had to be buried at the
public charge. But with the fall of Greece and Carthage, and the
reduction of Asia, there was a great social change at Rome. The Roman
legions not only carried home the wealth of the countries they conquered
but the vices of the peoples they subdued. An ancient writer summarizes
the situation in the following graphic sentence: “The only fashionable
principles were to acquire wealth by every means of avarice and
injustice, and to dissipate it by every method of luxury and profusion.”

The end is not far off. The story of Persia, of Egypt, and of Greece is
the story equally of Rome. Avarice and injustice, luxury and profusion
do their sure work. The Roman civilization is more than a thousand years
old. Asiatic wealth, the luxury and false philosophy of Greece, and a
vicious system of education, promoting selfishness, have united to sap
its foundations. Society is divided into three classes--an aristocracy
based solely upon wealth, cruel and profligate, a mob of free citizens,
otherwise paupers, who live by beggary and the sale of their votes, and
laborers who are slaves.

On the occasion of the presentation of spectacles, among a variety of
presents slaves (laborers) are thrown into the arena to be scrambled for
by the free citizens! But men are cheap. In Asia they sell for sixpence
apiece, and Rome has only to send an army there to get them for nothing.
To this class, to these slaves, however, the Roman people are indebted
for all the arts which make life agreeable. They construct all the great
public works. They build the splendid roads over which the Roman legions
follow their generals in triumph home to Rome. They make the aqueducts,
dig the canals, and construct the buildings, public and private, whose
remains still attest their magnificence--the Forum, the amphitheatres,
and the golden house of the Cæsars. They build the villas overlooking
the Bay of Naples, in which the nobles live in riot and wantonness; they
cook the dinners given in those villas; they make the clothes the nobles
wear, and the jewels that adorn their persons. They cultivate the
fields, follow the plough, train and trim the vine, and gather in the
harvest. They raise the corn that is distributed by the nobles among the
soldiery, and given as a bribe to the diseased and debauched free
citizens for their votes. They feel deeply the injustice of their lot,
and, like men, strike for liberty. But the Roman legions are set on them
like blood-hounds, and hundreds of thousands of them are slaughtered and
made food for birds of prey, and other thousands are thrown into the
arena to be torn by wild beasts, and still others are bestowed as gifts
upon the populace at the games.

The contest between the rich and the poor is at an end; the rich are
millionaires, the poor are beggars. It is the story of Dives and Lazarus
over again. The rich are clothed in purple and fine linen, and fare
sumptuously every day; the poor are full of sores, and live upon the
crumbs that fall from the tables of the rich. Rome topples to her fall.
The Gothic invader is at her gates, and there is no army to defend them.
The barbarian demands a ransom. To obtain it the statues are despoiled
of their ornaments and precious stones, and the gods of gold and silver
are melted in the fire. The ransom is given, and Alaric retires. But he
returns, and this time to pillage. The city is sacked; rich and poor,
bond and free, are whelmed in one common ruin. At last the diabolic wish
of the infamous Caligula is realized. The Roman people have but one
neck, and the Goth puts his foot upon it. Rome falls, the victim of her
own crimes, strangled by her own gluttony. Thus ends the first period of
the world’s manhood--ends in exhaustion, and a syncope which is destined
to last a thousand years.

Long before the fall of the republic Rome had become the seat of all the
world’s learning. In robbing conquered countries she not only took their
gold and silver, a share of their people for slaves, and their works of
art, but their libraries, their philosophy, and their literature. But
neither the Greek nor the Roman philosophy contributed in the least to a
solution of the pressing social problems of the time. The wise men of
Rome were powerless to help either themselves or their fellow-men,
because their philosophy was false. It was purely speculative; it had no
body of facts to rest upon.

The Roman educators and philosophers were almost as ignorant of
physiology as Plato was hundreds of years before, hence they were unable
to study the mind in the sole way in which it is intelligently
approachable, namely, through its bodily manifestations. In studying the
mind as an independent entity there could be no general rules of
investigation. The metaphysical philosopher did not study the mind of
man; he explored his own mind merely--consulted his own inner
consciousness. Hence there were, in Rome, as many systems of philosophy,
more or less clearly defined and distinct, as there were philosophers.
But they were merely metaphysical speculations, dreams, dependent upon
purely subjective processes; and those processes were in turn dependent
upon the ever-changing states of mind of each philosopher.

It is obvious that these systems of philosophy could exert no influence
upon the community at large, for the community formed no part of the
subject matter of their speculations. But they did exert an influence,
and a very pernicious one, upon the philosophers themselves, and indeed
upon all the cultured men of Rome; for they were thereby made thoroughly
selfish, and so rendered incapable of forming a just judgment of public
affairs. In considering the mind apart from the body, the body naturally
fell into utter contempt. This was the great crime of speculative
philosophy; for in engendering a feeling of contempt for the human body
it furnished an excuse for slavery. And this contempt logically included
manual labor, for the only manual laborer was a slave; and it also
extended to the useful arts, for all those arts were the work of slaves.
Hence the laborer, being a slave, was placed lower in the social scale
than the pauper who sold his vote for a glass of wine. And thus it came
about that a factitious right--the right of suffrage--was more highly
esteemed by the public than the cardinal virtue of industry, upon which
alone the perpetuity of the social compact depends.

And, again, the wretched state of public morals may be inferred from the
fact that the right of suffrage, through which the idle, leprous pauper
was elevated above the industrious laborer and above the useful arts,
was notoriously the subject of open traffic in the streets of Rome on
every election day. Thus Roman philosophy landed the Roman people in the
last ditch, for it led to the deification of abstract ideas and to scorn
of things. That this utter perversion of the truth and wreck of justice
was the cause of the decline of the Roman Empire there is no doubt.

It is equally plain that the noted men of Rome were utterly ignorant of
the cause of the disorders which afflicted the body politic. There is no
evidence, either in their lives or their works, that they brought to the
consideration of the great social problems of the time any practical
philosophy whatever. Suetonius, with a graphic pen, portrays the
cruelties of the Cæsars, but hints at no cause therefor inherent in the
social system. Cicero forecasts the doom of the republic, but has no
remedy to propose except that of the elevation of Pompey rather than
Cæsar. Livy and Tacitus deplore the decay of public and private virtue,
but are silent on the subject of the infamy of slavery and on the shame
of degrading labor. The moral sentiments of Seneca and Aurelius are of
the most elevated character, but the fact that they ignore slavery, the
slave, the laborer, and the useful arts, shows either that they never
thought upon those fundamental social questions, or that their thoughts
ran in the popular channel; in a word, that their philosophy was so
shallow as to render them callous to the great crimes upon which the
Roman State rested.

That the subjective philosophy and the defective educational system of
the Romans rendered them selfish, and hence corrupt, there is abundant
evidence. Cicero professed the most lofty patriotism, but he was
without moral courage. It was he who congratulated the public men of
Rome, after the usurpation of Cæsar, upon the privilege of remaining
“totally silent!” He regarded Pompey as “the greatest man the world had
ever produced,” but deserted him in his extremity, which was equally the
extremity of his country. He denounced Cæsar as the cause of the
culminating misfortunes of Rome, but went down upon his knees to him,
and rose to his feet only to exhaust all the resources of his matchless
eloquence in fulsome adulation of the destroyer of the Republic.

Seneca’s moral precepts are sublime, but his political maxims are
atrocious. Witness this pretence of an all-embracing love for
man--“Whenever thou seest a fellow-creature in distress know that thou
seest a human being.” Contrast with this exalted sentiment of the great
stoic his political maxim--“Terror is the safeguard of a kingdom”--and
reflect that he lived under the reigns of Claudius and Nero. The
millions of slaves in the Roman dominions were “human beings,” but
Seneca had no practical regard for them as “fellow-creatures in
distress.” His beautiful humanitarian sentiment was a barren
ideality--it bore no fruit; but his brutal political maxim caused him to
thrive. Under the favor of Claudius he amassed a vast fortune. His
palace in the city was sumptuously furnished, his country-seats were
splendidly appointed, and he possessed abundance of ready money. “There
can be no happiness without virtue,” exclaims this prosperous Roman
citizen. But while he pens this lofty sentiment he is accused of
avarice, usury, and extortion, charged with complicity in the Piso
conspiracy, and banished for the crime of adultery.

The debasing influence of the Greek philosophy, upon the Roman people,
is shown by contrasting the characters of the distinguished men who were
honored by the public at widely separated periods of time. Thus, during
the period 400-350 B.C., Camillus, noted above all his contemporaries
for the purity of his public life, was uninterruptedly honored with the
highest offices in the State, and loved and respected by all classes of
the community. But three hundred years later Cæsar, who involved the
country in civil war to compass his ambition, and in which struggle
liberty perished--he was preferred, in all the political struggles
preliminary to his assumption of supreme power, to Cato, whose
patriotism was unquestioned, and whose rigid virtue was proverbial
throughout the Roman Empire. So also of a still later period, Agricola
and Germanicus were renowned for the possession of the highest qualities
of true manhood, joined to the practice in public life of the most
austere and self-sacrificing virtue. Both served the State with courage,
ability, and zeal; but the one, after a brilliant career in the West,
was forced into retirement, and the other, after splendid services in
the East, was exiled and poisoned.

Previous to the introduction of the Greek philosophy, and the Greek
education and social habits, the Roman people were worthy of their
noblest representative--Camillus. At that early period of their history
they rewarded virtue and punished vice. But during the Empire, after the
invasion of Greek manners, they were unworthy of their best
representatives--Cato, Germanicus, and Agricola. To those great and good
men they preferred Cæsar, Caligula, and Nero: they rewarded vice and
punished virtue. There is in this circumstance unquestionable evidence
of a great declension in character. But the remarkable fact in regard to
this period of Roman history is that the declension in character was
accompanied by a species of great mental growth or power.

During this period a literature was created which has ever since been
famous, and which still exerts a considerable influence upon man.
Cæsar’s Commentaries, the Orations of Cicero, the Annals of Tacitus,
Livy’s History, the Odes and Satires of Horace, the Meditations of
Aurelius, and the Morals of Seneca are in all the world’s libraries,
and, in the universities, are placed in the hands of the most favored
youth of all the civilized countries of the world, as models of style
and exponents of a civilization whence all modern civilizations sprung.
But this literature possessed no saving quality, because in so far as it
was elevated in morals it did not represent the Roman people, not even
the authors themselves generally, as has been shown. As a matter of
fact, during the period of the creation of the great literature of Rome,
Darwin’s law of “reversion” was in active operation. There was a “black
sheep” in every noble Roman family. Bad men appeared, not now and then,
at long intervals, as in all civilizations, but every day and
everywhere; and these men were political and social leaders. They
moulded the policy of the State and set the fashion in society. Under
their direction the Roman people retrograded towards a state of
savagery, and savagery is but another name for selfishness. Selfishness
in its worst estate is the essence of human depravity, and to that
condition the Roman people fell, at the time when their moralists were
inditing those sublime sentiments which still challenge the admiration
of all great and good men.

That the Roman people were as dead to the influence of high moral
sentiments as the Britons were when first encountered by Cæsar, shows
that they had degenerated to a similar condition of savagery, or to a
condition of absolute selfishness, which is its moral equivalent. Given
a savage state, two savages and one dinner; the savages will fight to
the death for the dinner. Given a state of civilization absolutely
selfish, two contestants and one prize; each contestant will exhaust all
the resources of artifice, duplicity, and falsehood to secure the prize.
To this deplorable condition the Roman people were reduced by subjective
educational processes. Selfishness causes the individual to seek his own
interest in total disregard of the interest of others. Hence it tends
directly to the disintegration of society, since the essence of the
civil compact is the pledge of each member of the community that he will
do no injury to his fellows. Selfishness violates this pledge; for to
gain its end it ruthlessly crushes whatever appears in its path.

In Rome selfishness did its complete work. It transformed the government
from a pure democracy into an oligarchy composed of wealthy citizens,
who called themselves nobles. By this class wealth was made the sole
standard of social and political distinction, and in its presence, and
through its influence, the old strife between the patricians and the
plebeians gave way to a state of hostility between the rich and the
poor--always the last analysis of social disorder. The contest was
distinguished by assassinations, embezzlements of the public money, the
quarrels of rival demagogues, and civil wars, and it culminated in Cæsar
and the empire.

The nobles, or aristocrats, who wrought the work of transformation, were
refined and elegant in their manners, and accomplished in the tricks of
finance, the technicalities of the law, and the arts of oratory. They
were the product of the Roman schools of rhetoric and logic, whose
subjective methods obscured the truth, promoted vanity, and deified
selfishness. All the guards of honor and rectitude having been swept
away by Cæsar, a savage contest for supremacy ensued among the
aristocrats. The prize for which they contended consisted of the spoil
of the Roman legions and the product of the labor of the Roman slaves.
This was the Roman patrimony--the price of blood and of the sweat of
enforced toil. For this prize the Roman aristocrats struggled like
savages fighting for the one dinner.

It is the old struggle, the struggle witnessed by each, in turn, of the
nations of antiquity--the struggle in which selfishness vanquishes
itself. But this is a struggle of giants, is on a grander scale, and is
more conspicuous, for the historian, pen in hand, records its bloody
scenes. It is the last act in a great drama, a drama that has lasted a
thousand years. It is the conclusion of the long struggle of a few
large-brained, unscrupulous individuals, to grasp the fruits of the toil
of all men. The conspirators are about to fail, as such conspiracies
have always failed and must always fail, and like Samson in his blind
fury they will pull down upon their own devoted heads the pillars of the
temple. The struggle culminates in a hand-to-hand conflict for the
mastery between the baffled chiefs of the conspiracy to enslave
mankind--the supreme effort of selfishness--and it involves the authors
and their victims in one common disaster. Once more it is proved that a
false system of education, a system which exalts abstract ideas and
degrades things, promotes selfishness; that selfishness is the
equivalent of savagery, and that savagery, however refined, wrecks
society.

CHAPTER XXIII.

EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM--HISTORIC.

_THE MIDDLE AGES._

The Trinity upon which Civilization Rests: Justice, the Arts, and
Labor; and these Depend upon Scientific Education. -- Reason of the
Failure of Theodoric and Charlemagne to Reconstruct the Pagan
Civilization. -- Contempt of Man. -- Serfdom. -- The Vices of the
Time: False Philosophy, an Odious Social Caste, and Ignorance. -- The
Splendid Career of the Moors in Spain, in Contrast. -- Effect upon
Spain of the Expulsion of the Moors. -- The Repressive Force of
Authority and the Atrocious Philosophy of Contempt of Man. -- The Rule
of Italy -- a Menace and a Sneer. -- The work of Regeneration. -- The
Crusades. -- The Destruction of Feudalism. -- The Invention of
Printing. -- The Discovery of America. -- Investigation. --
Discoveries in Science and Art.

Civilization languishes in an atmosphere of injustice, and if the
injustice is gross, as slavery, for example, and long continued, the
State perishes in the social convulsion which ensues. Thus perished the
nations of antiquity. Civilization depends upon the useful arts; in them
it had its origin, and with them it advances. The savage, in his most
primitive state, is ignorant of all the arts; the most highly civilized
man is familiar with, and under obligations to, all of them. The useful
arts depend upon labor. If the laborer is degraded, the useful arts
decline, as he sinks, in the social scale; if he is honored, they
advance, as he rises. The trinity upon which civilization rests is,
therefore, justice, the useful arts, and labor; and this trinity of
saving forces depends in turn upon the scientific education of man.
Rome held all these things in contempt, and Rome perished. Anarchy
ensued, and, from a state of governmental chaos, the feudal system was
evolved. A brief analysis of the history of the mediæval period will
show that education was unscientific, and consequently that justice was
scorned, the useful arts neglected, and labor despised.

Theodoric strove to stem the tide of demoralization which succeeded the
overthrow of the pagans in Italy. He was a semi-barbarian, but a man of
genius, and ten years of his youth, spent at Constantinople, taught him
the value of civilization. Under his reign there was a restoration of
the common industries, work on internal improvements was resumed, and
there was a revival of polite literature and the fine arts. But there
was no general prosperity because there was no general system of
education. Polite literature must rest upon a basis of general culture,
or it is valueless to the country in which it flourishes. So of the fine
arts; they can exist legitimately only as the natural outgrowth and
embellishment of the useful arts.[80] In the due order of development
the useful precede the fine arts. Theodoric began the reconstruction of
the exhausted Roman civilization from the top, and his work was a
complete failure, of course, because it had no foundation. It was like
the Greek and Roman philosophy, it had no basis of things to rest upon.
Hence the order evoked from chaos by the great Ostrogoth to chaos soon
returned.

[80] “But it is one thing to admit that æsthetic culture is in a high
degree conducive to human happiness, and another thing to admit that
it is a fundamental requisite to human happiness. However important it
may be, it must yield precedence to those kinds of culture which bear
more directly upon the duties of life. As before hinted, literature
and the fine arts are made possible by those activities which make
individual and social life possible; and manifestly that which is made
possible must be postponed to that which makes it
possible.”--“Education,” p. 72. By Herbert Spencer. New York: D.
Appleton & Co., 1883.

Charlemagne also attempted to reconstruct a worn-out civilization
through the revival of polite literature and the fine arts. He assembled
at his court distinguished _littérateurs_ from all parts of the world,
with the view of reviving classical learning. He established a normal
school called “The Palatine,” whence classically trained teachers were
sent into the provinces. He constructed gorgeous palaces, some of which
were ornamented with columns and sculptural fragments, the spoil of the
earlier architectural triumphs of Italy. But he did not found schools
for the education of the common people. The common people were serfs.
The theory of Plato still prevailed, namely, that the majority is always
dull, and always wrong; that wisdom and virtue reside in the minority.
In pursuance of this theory, which happens, curiously enough, to inure
to the exclusive benefit of its inventors and supporters, education was
confined to a small class. The training of the masses was wholly
neglected, and they were poor, ignorant, and brutal. The state of
mediæval society is graphically summarized by a modern historian:

“In the castle sits the baron, with his children on his lap, and his
wife leaning on his shoulder; the troubadour sings, and the page and the
demoiselle exchange a glance of love. The castle is the home of music
and chivalry and family affection; the convent is the home of religion
and of art. But the people cower in their wooden huts, half starved,
half frozen, and wolves sniff at them through the chinks in the walls.
The convent prays and the castle sings; the cottage hungers and groans
and dies.”[81]

[81] “The Martyrdom of Man.” By Winwood Reade. New York: Charles P.
Somerby, 1876.

Enterprise was the slave of superstition and ignorance. Some monks in
Germany desired to erect a corn-mill, but a neighboring lord objected,
declaring that the wind belonged to him. The useful arts were unknown
and unstudied except by the monks, and their practice of them was
confined chiefly to fashioning utensils for the use of the altar.
Mankind lay in a state of intellectual and moral paralysis. Feudalism
emasculated human energy. One art only flourished--the art of war. The
pursuit of any of the useful arts, beyond that of agriculture, by the
serfs, was impracticable, since sufficient time could not be spared from
feudal strife for the proper tillage of the soil. The vassal was always
subject to summary call to arms. If in the spring the noble wished to
fight, the fields remained unplanted; if he wished to fight in the fall,
the harvest remained ungathered. The serf, therefore, led a precarious
life. If he escaped death in battle, he was still quite likely to die of
starvation. In the fertile plains of Lombardy, in the first half of the
thirteenth century, there were five famines!

Nothing happens without due cause. The misfortunes suffered by the
people of Europe during the Middle Ages did not fall upon them from the
clouds. The moral darkness which veiled the face of justice, and the
intellectual stupor which prevented scientific and art researches, are
not inexplicable mysteries. The vices, the cruelties, the poverty, and
the pitiable superstitions of that time were the product of a false
philosophy, an odious social caste, and a state of general ignorance.

It happens that for hundreds of years of this period of wretchedness and
crime there was in the heart of Europe an industrious, cultured,
prosperous, and happy people. Their religion forbade the taking of
usurious interest under terrible moral penalties; it also forbade “all
distinctions of caste,” and enjoined full social equality. They were the
friends of education. “To every mosque was attached a public school, in
which the children of the poor were taught to read and write.” They
established libraries in their chief cities, and were the patrons of the
sciences and of the useful arts in all their forms. In a word, to the
general prevalence of superstition and ignorance in Europe the Moors in
Spain constituted a glowing exception.

Wherever the Saracen went he carried science and art. He honored labor,
and genius and learning followed in his footsteps. Taught by learned
Jews, he studied the works of the ancient philosophers, and preserved
and extended their knowledge of astronomy, chemistry, algebra, and
geography. Cordova was the abode of wealth, learning, refinement, and
the arts. Its mosques and palaces were models of architectural splendor,
and its industries employed 200,000 families. Seville contained 16,000
silk-looms, and employed 130,000 weavers. The banks of the Guadalquivir
were thickly studded with those gems of free labor, manufacturing
villages. The dyeing of silk and wool fabrics was carried to great
perfection, and the Moorish metal-workers were the most expert of the
time. The Saracen invented cotton paper, introduced into Spain cotton
and leather manufactures, and promoted the cultivation of sugar-cane,
rice, and the mulberry. Nor did he neglect agriculture in any of its
branches; he created a new era in husbandry. His kingdom in Spain was
the richest and most prosperous in the Western world; indeed, its
prosperity was in striking contrast with the poverty and misery of the
peoples by whom it was surrounded. Under the third caliph its revenue
reached £6,000,000 sterling, a sum, as Gibbon remarks, which in the
tenth century probably surpassed the united revenues of all the
Christian monarchs. But these industrious, cultured people were the
descendants of invaders, and the Spaniards, under the influence of a
blind and unreasoning impulse of religious and patriotic zeal, drove
them from the soil they had literally made to “blossom like the rose,”
and themselves relapsed into a state of indolence, ignorance, and
poverty.

From the effects of the persecution of a race of artificers, and the
proscription of the useful arts, Spain has never recovered. She has
since always been, and is to-day, a striking exemplification of the
verity of the proposition that stagnation in the useful arts is the
death of civilization. In the last half of the seventeenth century the
people of Madrid were threatened with starvation. To avert the impending
calamity the adjacent country was scoured by the military, and the
inhabitants compelled to yield supplies. There was danger that the Royal
family would go hungry to bed. The tax-gatherer sold houses and
furniture, and the inhabitants were forced to fly; the fields were left
uncultivated, and multitudes died from want and exposure. During the
seventeenth century Madrid lost half its population; the looms of
Seville were silenced; the woollen manufactures of Toledo were
transferred by the exiled Moriscoes to Tunis; Castile, Segovia, and
Burgos lost their manufactures, and their inhabitants were reduced to
poverty and despair.[82]

[82] “The Intellectual Development of Europe,” Vol. II., Chap. II. By
John William Draper, M.D., LL.D. New York: Harper & Brothers; “History
of Civilization in England,” Vol. II., Chap. I. By Henry Thomas
Buckle. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1864.

Two leading causes contributed to reduce the people of Europe during the
Middle Ages to a state of moral obliquity, intellectual torpor, and
physical incapacity--the repressive force of authority and the atrocious
philosophy of contempt of man formulated by Machiavelli. The one forbade
scientific investigation, the other strangled the spirit of invention in
the grip of enforced ignorance. Authority chilled courage, and contempt
withered hope. Italy governed the world, and her rule consisted of a
menace and a sneer. Under this _régime_ of cruelty and cynicism man
shrunk into a state of moral cowardice and intellectual lethargy.

The political maxims which bear the name of Machiavelli were not
invented by him. When he formulated them, in 1513, they had been in
force in Italy a thousand years. These maxims explain the fact of the
existence of a period of the world’s history known as “the Dark Ages.”
The chief of them divides the human race into three classes, the members
of the first of which understand things by their own natural powers; the
second when they are explained to them; the third not at all. The third
class embraces a vast majority of men; the second only a small number;
the first a very small number. The first class is to rule both the other
classes, the second by craft and duplicity, the third by authority, and,
that failing, by force. Other maxims assume the despicable character of
all men, and justify falsehood, duplicity, cruelty, and murder, in the
ruling class. A single proposition shows the infamy of the whole system,
namely, “There are three ways of deciding any contest--by fraud, by
force, or by law, and a wise man will make the most suitable
choice.”[83] These are maxims not of civilization but of barbarism. They
involve a state of slavery, and where slavery exists the useful arts
decline, and ultimately perish. And so it was in the Middle Ages.

[83] “The Prince,” Chap. XVIII. By Niccolo Machiavelli.

Several great events led to the emancipation of the people of Europe
from the joint reign of authority and contempt. The learning of the Jews
and Saracens--their knowledge of the arts and sciences--gradually
spread, and occupied the minds of cloistered students, giving to them an
intellectual impulse. The Crusades, pitiful and prolific of horrors as
they were, shed a great light upon Europe. They brought the men of the
West face to face with a practical progressive civilization--a
civilization that “filled the earth with prodigies of human skill.” The
Crusaders were told that they would be led against hordes of barbarians.
What astonishment must have seized them when they stood under the walls
of Constantinople and beheld its splendors! Nor was their surprise less,
doubtless, in the character of the foe they encountered. They had
expected to meet with treachery and cruelty; they found chivalry,
courtesy, and high culture.[84]

[84] “The Intellectual Development of Europe,” Vol. II., pp. 135, 136.
By John William Draper, M.D., LL.D. New York: Harper & Brothers.

These surprises and contrasts profoundly impressed the Crusaders, and
they returned to Europe relieved of many illusions, and notably of the
fallacy that the wealth of Eastern princes was destined to supply the
waste of their own squandered estates. They returned, too, to find a new
civilization in process of development. Two hundred years of comparative
freedom from the repressive force of feudalism changed the face of the
country and the character of its people. During the absence of the
nobles, in the Holy Land, a middle class sprung into existence,
possessing the qualities which always distinguish that class--thrift and
prudence. The mortgaged estates of the Crusaders had fallen partly into
their hands, and partly into the hands of the Crown. Towns had sprung
up, and a commercial class and a manufacturing class had been formed.
The artisan became a factor in the social problem. He offered his wares
to the lords and ladies of the castles, and they bought themselves poor.
As Emerson says, “The banker with his seven per cent. drove the earl out
of his castle.” In the eleventh century nobility was above price, in the
thirteenth it was for sale, and soon afterwards it was offered as a
gift.

The invention of printing, the art preservative of all arts, removed the
seal from the lips of learning. The desire to conceal is no match for
the desire to print. Thenceforth, through the medium of types, the voice
of genius was destined to reach to the ends of the earth; and, more
important still, every discovery in science, and every invention in art,
became the sure heritage of future ages.

The discovery of America was the crowning act of man’s emancipation. In
sweeping away the last vestige of the theory on which patristic
geography was based, Columbus freed mankind. In the cry of “land ho!”
with which he greeted the new continent, he sounded the death-knell of
intellectual slavery. His was the last act in a series of acts which
struck off the shackles of thought, and let in upon the long night of
the Middle Ages the clear light of day. Leonardo da Vinci took up the
interrupted work of Archimedes, and the science of mechanics made rapid
progress. At last it was correctly observed that “experiment is the only
interpreter of nature,” and the development of natural philosophy began.
Bruno was still to be burned, and Galileo imprisoned. But the
persecutors of those great men were no longer moved by mere blind zeal.
They believed and trembled, and in seeking to drown the truth in the
blood of the votaries of science, they rendered it more conspicuous. By
the light of the flames which consumed the body of the too daring
philosopher a thousand scientists studied the stars, the earth, and the
air.

The invention of printing paralyzed authority, and the discovery of
America gave wings to hope. A few manuscripts could be locked in vaults
or burned, but millions of books must inevitably, ultimately, find their
way to the people. Books were, therefore, the sure promise of universal
culture--the precursor of the common school. The discovery of another
continent startled the people of Europe from the deep sleep of a
thousand years, and sent a fresh current of blood surging through their
veins. It seemed like a sort of new creation, and appealed powerfully to
the imagination. And it is always the imagination that “blazes” the path
to glorious achievements. It is through the imagination that men are
moved to “crave after the unseen,” and through the imagination that the
human mind becomes big with “bold and lofty conceptions.” A new world
having been discovered by one man, it was natural that all men should
be put upon inquiry. Hence the era of investigation, the resulting
discoveries of science, and their innumerable applications, through the
useful arts, to the fast multiplying needs of man.

CHAPTER XXIV.

EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM--HISTORIC.

_EUROPE._

The mediæval period conferred upon man two great blessings--a new
continent and the art of printing. It also left a legacy of evil. With
the partition of Europe into great States the modern age began, and it
began with this inheritance of evil from the Middle Ages--the standing
army.

The feudal lords wrecked their estates and sacrificed their lives during
the Crusades, and a middle class arose and united with the kings in the
government of the State. But this alliance was of short duration; it
soon gave way to an alliance which proved to be enduring--an alliance
between the aristocracy and the kings.

By the ruin of feudalism thousands of serfs were set free. Trained to
arms, it was easy to make soldiers of them. They were accordingly
converted into mercenary troops--mustered into the service of the new
alliance as guards of the modern State. Thus the standing armies of the
“great powers” originated. This legacy of evil has so increased in
magnitude that it is, to-day, the dominant feature of European public
economy, and the portentous fact of the social problem.

The standing armies of Europe number two million five hundred thousand
men, and their naval auxiliaries consist of three thousand vessels,
thirty thousand guns, and two hundred thousand men. This is the mammoth
evil bequeathed to Europe by the Middle Ages, and out of it many
collateral evils have sprung, as wars, debts, and exorbitant tax
levies.[E25]

Thirty years ago the national debts of the governments of Europe had
risen to $9,000,000,000. Since that time they have almost trebled! The
cause of this vast increase is easy to find. It consists chiefly of four
great wars, namely, the Crimean war of 1854-56, the Franco-Sardinian war
against Austria in 1859, the German-Italian war of 1866, and the
Franco-Prussian war of 1870-72. These wars were waged to maintain what
is termed the balance of power; they involved no principle affecting the
rights of man. Whatever their issue, no gain could hence accrue to the
people of Europe. And this is the nature of most of the wars in which
the standing armies of Europe have been employed since their
organization. But the European budget shows that they are the
overshadowing feature of the European governmental systems.

The annual revenue of the States of Europe is about $1,725,000,000. Of
this sum $700,000,000 is devoted to the support of the standing armies
and navies, and as much more is required to meet the interest charge on
the debts created in the prosecution of wars waged to maintain the
balance of power! Thus, of the aggregate of European revenue, the sum of
$1,400,000,000 is devoted to the purely supposititious theory that the
subjects of the great powers are inflamed with an intense desire to cut
one another’s throats, while the small sum of $325,000,000 is left for
the support of the civil service, comprising all the strictly legitimate
objects of government, and including education!

The national debts of Europe represent a series of colossal crimes
against the people. They were incurred in the prosecution of unnecessary
wars, and for the support of unnecessary standing armies. With relation
to these debts the people are divided into two classes--one class owns
them and the other class pays interest on them. This relationship
comprehends future generations in perpetuity. Every child born in Europe
inherits either an estate in these debts or an obligation to contribute
towards the payment of the interest upon them. Thus the fruits of a
great crime have been transmuted into a vested right in one class of
people, and into a vested wrong in another class.[85]

[85] “For instance, I have seven thousand pounds in what we call the
Funds or Founded things; but I am not comfortable about the founding
of them. All that I can see of them is a square bit of paper, with
some ugly printing on it, and all that I know of them is that this bit
of paper gives me the right to tax you every year, and make you pay me
two hundred pounds out of your wages; which is very pleasant for me;
but how long will you be pleased to do so? Suppose it should occur to
you, any summer’s day, that you had better not? Where would my seven
thousand pounds be? In fact, where are they now? We call ourselves a
rich people; but you see this seven thousand pounds of mine has no
real existence--it only means that you, the workers, are poorer by two
hundred pounds a year than you would be if I hadn’t got it. And this
is surely a very odd kind of money for a country to boast of.”--“Fors
Clavigera,” Part I., p. 67. By John Ruskin, LL.D. New York: John Wiley
& Sons, 1880.

If the European standing armies and navies had not been raised and kept
up, and if the revenue devoted to their support had been expended for
schools, there would not now be an uneducated person in Europe. If these
standing armies and navies were now disbanded, and the revenue at
present expended for their support diverted to the support of schools,
and so applied continuously for half a century, there would not be, at
the end of that period, an illiterate person in Europe.

Under existing conditions the debts of the European nations cannot be
paid. But vast as the sum of them is, their payment is not only
possible, but practicable in a very short time. Disband the standing
armies and navies, and continue the present rate of taxation, and there
would be an annual surplus revenue of $700,000,000. Apply this sum,
together with the surplus of the interest appropriation, accruing
through the resulting yearly decrease of the interest charge, to the
liquidation of these debts, and they would be extinguished in about
twenty years.[E26] But if the period during which provision is made for
the extinguishment of these debts be extended to fifty-four years, and,
meantime, the present rate of taxation be maintained, there would be
released and rendered available for educational purposes, annually, the
sum of $600,000,000.

What is the purpose, it may be inquired, of these calculations? Their
purpose is to show what the armies and navies of Europe cost, and what
they stand in the way of. They cost so much that not a dollar of the
national debts of Europe can be paid while they continue to exist. They
cost so much that the people who are taxed to support them are fleeing
from them as from a scourge. They cost so much that the decline of the
nations which support them has already begun, and this decline can be
arrested only by their disbandment.

That the nations of Europe are declining is shown by the statistics of
emigration. The foundation of national prosperity is manual labor. There
must be a solid basis of industrial growth for the superstructure of
elegance, refinement, luxury, and culture. Manual labor is as essential
to triumphs in literature, music, and the fine arts as the foundations
of the Brooklyn Bridge, buried in the earth, are to the beautiful arch
which spans the great river. And in the strife for supremacy between the
nations of the world the maintenance of these triumphs depends, also,
upon manual labor.[86] The real flower of a population is, therefore,
its labor class. All other classes depend upon it, and all national
triumphs spring from it. Hence a drain upon the labor class of a nation
is a drain upon its most vital resource. The nation that suffers such a
drain continuously is in its decadence. It loses some of its vigor, some
of its productive power, and the loss is not supplied. True, the poor
emigrant takes with him no part of the splendors of the country he
leaves, but his brawny arm and skilled hand have contributed to the
support of national pomp and social elegance, and as he steps aboard the
steamer he withdraws that support forever.

[86] “Now, therefore, see briefly what it all comes to. First, you
spend eighty millions of money in fireworks [war], doing no end of
damage in letting them off.

“Then you borrow money to pay the firework-maker’s bill, from any
gain-loving persons who have got it.

“And then, dressing your bailiff’s men in new red coats and cocked
hats, you send them drumming and trumpeting into the fields, to take
the peasants by the throat, and make them pay the interest on what you
have borrowed, and the expense of the cocked hats besides.

“That is ‘financiering,’ my friends, as the mob of the money-makers
understand it. And they understand it well. For that is what it always
comes to, finally--taking the peasant by the throat. He _must_
pay--for he only _can_. Food can only be got out of the ground, and
all these devices of soldiership, and law, and arithmetic, are but
ways of getting at last down to him, the furrow-driver, and snatching
the roots from him as he digs.”--“Fors Clavigera,” Part II., p. 27. By
John Ruskin, LL.D. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1882.

Napoleon the Infamous plundered the conquered capitals of Europe to
beautify and enrich the art treasuries of Paris. The art treasures of
Europe are destined to cross the ocean, in the track of the column of
emigration, if the flower of her labor class continues to flee from her
standing armies and navies, as the statues of Rome followed the army of
the modern Cæsar. For where the flower of the world’s labor class
gathers, there wealth most abounds. Labor, not gold and silver, is the
source of wealth, hence it is to the laborer that art triumphs are due,
and this is the order of their development. The laborer provides for
immediate, pressing wants; he is prudent, and accumulates a surplus; he
hungers for education; he develops a love of the beautiful; he seeks to
dignify his life and adorn his home; he patronizes art; he draws to
himself the art treasures of the world.

The standing armies and navies of Europe have cost the European laborer
the sacrifice of all these pleasing and noble aspirations.[E27] Beyond
the point of providing for “immediate pressing wants” he has not been
able to pass. His surplus goes to the tax-gatherer, to feed and clothe
the army and the navy. His desire for education, his love of the
beautiful, his hope of a dignified life, and of a home adorned by
art--these all are dreams, illusions, which vanish into thin air in the
presence of the substantial fact of the annual European budget--for the
support of the standing armies and navies $700,000,000!

In the way of the payment of the national debts of Europe her standing
armies and navies rear themselves like an impassable wall. Against any
general educational system they have hitherto constituted an
insurmountable barrier; and in the future, as in the past, their
maintenance dooms the masses to illiteracy. They stand in the way
especially of the incorporation, in the curriculum of the public
schools, of the manual element in education, because it is the most
expensive, as it is the most important part of instruction.

Germany affords an admirable example of the power of education, even
though defective in character, and of the disgust with which standing
armies inspire an intelligent people. The Germans are the best-educated
people in Europe. The educational system of Germany was established by
Prussia as a politico-economic measure after the humiliation of the
German States by Bonaparte. Said Frederick William, “Though territory,
power, and prestige be lost, they can be regained by acquiring
intellectual and moral power.” The outcome of the Franco-Prussian war of
1870 verified the truth of this prediction. Her freedom from debt
enabled Prussia to inaugurate and carry forward a comprehensive
educational system, which in turn enabled her not only to vanquish her
ancient enemy, but to make France pay the cost of her own humiliation.
Thus at a single stroke Prussia avenged the defeats suffered at the
hands of the first Napoleon, and permanently weakened France by
compelling her vastly to increase her national debt.

The alacrity with which the French people subscribed for the new bonds
was much remarked upon, at the time, as evincing both financial
soundness and patriotism. But the really grave feature of the
situation--the vast augmentation of the public burdens of France--was
scarcely mentioned, and was, perhaps, philosophically considered only by
that astute statesman, Prince Bismarck. The war with Germany cost France
$2,000,000,000, and compelled an enormous increase of taxation. The debt
statement for 1877 was $4,635,000,000--the expenditures $533,000,000;
and of this latter sum $373,000,000 were absorbed by the army, the navy,
and the national debt!

The significant feature of the European situation is the freedom from
debt of Germany. It is by virtue of this fact that she holds the first
place in Europe. Her rate of taxation is as low as that of little
Switzerland. All the other Great Powers are hampered by great debts.
Spain is bankrupt; she does not pay the interest on her debt. Austria
increases her debt every year; she is practically bankrupt. It is only a
question of time, if standing armies and navies continue to be
maintained and wars to occur, when all the debtor nations will be
reduced to bankruptcy.[87] The nation sinks as the column of debt
rises. France cannot double her debt again and make her people pay
interest on it. England draws from her citizens a larger _per capita_
revenue than any other nation of Europe, except France, and she has
nearly touched the limit of their capacity to pay taxes. A sudden and
considerable increase of her debt would strain the Government, and might
shatter it.

[87] “The progress of the enormous debts which at present oppress, and
will in the long run probably ruin, all the great Nations of Europe,
has been pretty uniform.”--“Wealth of Nations,” Vol. III., p. 392. By
Adam Smith, LL.D., F.R.S. Edinburgh, 1819.

Thus, the more searching the analysis of the European situation, the
more clear does the exceptional strength of Germany appear. But out of
her abundant strength a weakness has been evolved. The system of
education that rendered the Germans so powerful against France as
soldiers, has made them thoughtful citizens. It has revolutionized the
public sentiment of Germany on the subject of government. In the place
of passion it has substituted reason. The Prussian “subject” for whom
the king thought, has become a German citizen who thinks for himself,
and one of his earliest reflections is that, in modern civilization, a
standing army is a solecism. The ignorant Prussian hated the French
because hatred of them was enjoined upon him as the correlative of the
duty of blind devotion to his king. But the educated German knows that
the sole motive of the continuance of the standing army is the
maintenance of the balance of power, which is merely a tacit agreement
between the European rulers, by divine right, to perpetuate their own
lease of power. Hence the “intellectual and moral power” conferred upon
the German people, by education, reacts upon Germany in the form of a
drain of the flower of her population by emigration.

The citizenship of Germany is more valuable, in an economic sense, than
that of any other country of Europe--more valuable because Germany is
the most powerful nation of the European family of States; more valuable
because of them all she alone is free from debt; more valuable by reason
of her more moderate scale of taxation. But she still furnishes the
heaviest contingent to the column of emigration steadily moving towards
the United States. In a word, the most valuable citizenship in
Europe--that of Germany--is least regarded and most freely surrendered.
Why? Because the Germans are the best-educated people in Europe. Poor as
the German primary school system is, it is universal, and it has
destroyed what it was founded chiefly to promote and perpetuate, namely,
reverence for, and loyalty to, government by Divine right. German
intelligence revolts from taxation for the support of a standing army.
It revolts from the theory and policy of hate upon which standing armies
are based. It comprehends perfectly that the standing army is a menace
to the freedom of the citizen, at home, rather than a defence against
pretended danger from abroad. It scorns, as absurd, the threadbare
assumption that Englishmen, Frenchmen, Italians, Russians, and Germans
desire to fly at one another’s throats, and that they can be restrained
only by a cordon of bayonets.[E28] It realizes that the perpetuation of
the era of hate, through the standing army, retards the mental and
physical progress of the human race, which would be greatly promoted by
the free intermingling of the various nationalities of Europe.[88] That
it is from the standing army that the emigrant flees is shown by the
records of the military department of the German government.

[88] The multiplicity of languages is due to the policy of
international hate, inaugurated by the nations of Europe to promote
the selfish purposes of rulers. Barbarism is diversity; civilization
is unity. The human race is one, provided it is civilized, and it
should have but one language. Language is a tool, and time consumed in
acquiring skill in the use of more than one tool designed for the same
end, is wasted. The standing armies of Europe obstruct the way to
unity of language. The time will come when all civilized peoples will
speak one tongue, probably the English. Then language will cease to be
a mere vain accomplishment, and become what it ought always to have
been, the simple means of familiarizing the mind with things, and of
the communication of knowledge.

In the year 1883 twenty-nine thousand men were arrested for attempting
to emigrate from Germany to avoid the required military service, and
more than a hundred thousand others, from whom service was due, refused,
both to report for duty, and to furnish the required excuses for the
failure to enroll themselves.

The law of Germany requires every male citizen, capable of bearing arms,
to serve three years in the standing army--to devote three of the best
years of his life to the preservation of the balance of power in Europe!
In addition, he must serve four years in the reserve, and five years in
the landwehr. And this service is regarded as a debt due the government.
Every male child born in Germany contracts this debt, in contemplation
of law, in the act of drawing his first breath, and nothing but death
releases him from the obligation. Having been taught in the emperor’s
schools to love the emperor, when he reaches the military age, a musket
is placed in his hands, and he is taught to shoot the emperor’s
enemies. If he refuses to enter the army he is fined; if he refuses to
pay the fine he is imprisoned.

The German emperor attributes the decline in the military organization
to the negligence of his military staff, but its true cause is the
German educational system. The steady augmentation of the rolls of
military delinquents is the measure of the growth of German
intelligence. The ease with which Germany conquered France flattered the
vanity of the educated German, but it did not prevent him from
emigrating to America. To the cultured mind the army that wins the
contest in which no principle is involved is as odious as the army that
loses. To the cultured mind all standing armies are odious, because they
are an embodied assumption of the barbarism of man, and a denial of the
efficacy of reason. The great stream of German emigration attests the
superiority of German culture. The educated German declines to learn the
art of shooting the emperor’s enemies, but he knows that Germany is, in
fact, governed by its standing army--by muskets--and he quits the
country.

Thus the chief power of Germany becomes her chief weakness. A system of
education which has made her the first nation in Europe produces
wide-spread discontent among her people, because she is governed by
obsolete ideas. Nor can the loss in virile force suffered by Germany,
through emigration, be made good by a counter movement of immigrants
from the less favored countries of Europe. The economic condition of
Germany--her freedom from debt and her comparatively low rate of
taxation--invite such a movement. But the European policy of
international hate, created and perpetuated by standing armies, forbids
Germany to recoup her losses of men to America, through corresponding
gains of men from the overtaxed populations of neighboring countries.
The grinning skeletons of a hundred battles in which the rival
nationalities of Europe have been pitted against one another, rise to
challenge the social intermingling of peoples separated for centuries by
the arts of diplomacy, traditions of blood and flames, and the serried
ranks of standing armies.

The disposition of Germans to emigrate irritates the emperor and his
prime-minister. The loss of numbers might be borne, for notwithstanding
the steady outward flow of emigrants there is a slight increase of
population in Germany. But it is the quality of the exodus that annoys
the emperor and his chancellor. The German emigrants are strong men and
women--strong mentally and physically. All the weaklings, all the
paupers, all the imbeciles, the aged, and the infirm remain, only the
young and vigorous go. Those who go have been taught at the expense of
the State to love the emperor and hate his enemies, but they do neither.
The German system of education, from the point of view of rulers by
divine right, is, hence, a conspicuous failure. It makes better men but
poorer subjects. The more thoroughly the man is educated the more
valuable he is to himself and to the community, but the less valuable to
his king. His growth in intelligence is the measure of his decline in
reverence for rulers by divine right, and the standing armies by which
they are alone supported. This is the cause of German emigration, and
its effect is to weaken the German Empire. Germany is not so strong as
she was when her armies swept over France; she declines in power each
year, through the loss of men--the sole support of a State.[E29] They
flee from her standing army to the United States, a republic with only
a handful of soldiers.

The system of education established to increase the power of Prussia in
Europe has accomplished its purpose. But it has done much
more--something never thought of by its founders. It has produced a
wide-spread feeling of intelligent discontent; and discontent is an
inarticulate cry for reform. The cultured German scorns the standing
army, refuses to serve in it, protests against its longer existence, and
demands more and better education for his children. His protest is
unheeded, and he quits the country. But the demand for higher education
is not, cannot be, disregarded. Intelligence is contagious; it infects
with a thirst for knowledge all with whom it comes in contact. Education
is the arch-revolutionist whose onward march is irresistible. Soon a
riper culture will make the German Protestants more courageous and more
imperative in their demands, and they will remain in the country to
enforce them. Education made Germany the first military power in Europe;
but education could not have been put to a more ignoble service. The
desire of intelligent Germans is that Germany shall become the first
industrial power in Europe, and this desire can be realized by the
disbandment of her standing army.

This review of the situation in Europe shows that it is practicable for
her to restore, at once, to productive employments three millions of
men--the flower of her population--now not only idle, but a public
charge. It shows, also, that it is practicable for Europe to place, at
once, at the disposal of her educators $700,000,000 per annum instead of
$70,000,000 per annum, as at present. The corollary of these two
propositions is a third, namely, that it is practicable for Europe to
extinguish her national debts in fifty-four years. It follows that the
regular armies of Europe alone stand in the way of universal education,
and of universal industrial prosperity.

Standing armies everywhere within the lines of advanced civilization
must soon disappear before the march of education.[89] Social questions
cannot much longer be settled by emigration. The world’s virgin soil is
being rapidly appropriated. When the surface of the whole earth shall
have become occupied, barbarisms of every nature will be intolerable.
Man must then be highly civilized, and the only highly civilizing
influence is education. The age of force is passing away; the age of
science and art--the age of industrial development--has begun, and
standing armies are as abnormal in Europe now as slavery was in the
United States twenty-five years ago.[90]

[89] “This nation to-day is in profound peace with the world; but in
my judgment it has before it a great duty, which will not only make
that profound peace permanent, but shall set such an example as will
absolutely abolish war on this continent, and by a great example and a
lofty moral precedent shall ultimately abolish it in other continents.
I am justified in saying that every one of the seventeen independent
Powers of North and South America is not only willing but ready--is
not only ready but eager--to enter into a solemn compact in a congress
that may be called in the name of peace, to agree that if, unhappily,
differences shall arise--as differences will arise between men and
nations--they shall be settled upon the peaceful and Christian basis
of arbitration.

“And, as I have often said before, I am glad to repeat, in this great
centre of civilization and power, that in my judgment no national
spectacle, no international spectacle, no continental spectacle, could
be more grand than that the republics of the Western world should meet
together and solemnly agree that neither the soil of North nor that of
South America shall be hereafter stained by brothers’ blood.”--Extract
from the Speech of Hon. James G. Blaine at the Delmonico Dinner,
October 29, 1884.

[90] “It is only slowly, and after having been long in contact with
society, that man becomes more indulgent towards others and more
severe towards himself.”--“Suicide: an Essay on Comparative Moral
Statistics,” p. 226. By Henry Morselli, M.D. New York: D. Appleton &
Co., 1882.

Standing armies are the instruments of tyranny; they are the last
analysis of selfishness, the incarnation of depravity; for they do not
reason--they strike. It is worthy of note that the standing armies of
Europe are coeval with the revival of learning, and the revival of
learning was a revival of the Greco-Roman subjective educational
methods. The logical effect of those methods was the promotion of
selfishness, and the standing armies conserved the selfish designs of
the rulers of the newly-formed States. It is hence not a mere
coincidence that standing armies and the revival of learning through
subjective processes of thought are of common origin. The Machiavellian
philosophy of cruelty, duplicity, and contempt of man sprung logically
from egoism, and as logically led to the formation of standing
armies--bodies of armed men, trained, under compulsion, to kill, burn,
and destroy.

The synonyms of the standing army are selfishness and its vile issue,
feudalism, serfdom, slavery, ignorance, and contempt of man. These
conditions are passing away, and the standing army, the worst, as it is
the most costly relic of savagery, must pass away with them. It cannot
withstand the advance of the new education, whose mission is peace,
whose quest is the truth, whose premise is a fact, whose conclusion is a
thing of use and beauty, and whose goal is justice.

[E25] War is not merely a relic of barbarism; it is barbarism
triumphant. It is evidence of the presence, active and malignant, of
all the bad passions of man. Nor are idle armies less infamous than
armies in deadly conflict. Carlyle well says that the one monster in
the world is the idle man; and the standing army is a vast horde of
idle men quartered on the community. The standing armies of Europe, on
parade, in barracks, and in forts, are as unmixed an evil as the
legions of Rome were in Gaul, in Greece, or before Carthage. It is a
shame to civilization that arbitration did not long ago take the place
of the coarse brutality of war. The _duello_ between Nations is not
less absurd, and it is a thousand-fold more wicked, than the _duello_
between individuals. It is savagery pure and simple, the child of
selfishness, and not less inconsistent with a high state of
civilization than slavery.

[E26] Of the British funding system when it was in its infancy, as
early as 1748, Lord Bolingbroke said: “It is a method by which one
part of the nation is pawned to the other, with hardly any hope left
of ever being redeemed.”

See, also, in the _North American Review_ for September, 1886, an
exhaustive article on the impolicy of national debt perpetuation, by
N. P. Hill, in which it is alleged that “great interests are at work
to prevent the payment of the national debt of the United States.”

[E27] In his recent great work--“The Wonderful Century”--Mr. Alfred
Russel Wallace, on the authority of “The Statesman’s Year Book” for
1897, states that the standing armies and navies of Europe number
three millions of men; cost 180,000,000 pounds sterling per annum, and
withdraw from useful employments ten millions of men engaged in
repairing the waste of war.--“The Wonderful Century,” pp. 335-336. New
York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1898.

[E28] “I know now that my fellowship with others cannot be shut off by
a frontier, or by a government decree which decides that I belong to
some particular political organization. I know now that all men are
everywhere brothers and equals. When I think now of all the evil I
have done, that I have endured, and that I have seen about me, arising
from national enmities, I see clearly that it is all due to that gross
imposture called patriotism--love for one’s native land.” ... “I
understand now that true welfare is possible for me only on condition
that I recognize my fellowship with the whole world.”--“My Religion,”
p. 256. By Count Leo Tolstoi. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co.

[E29] There is another cause of the decline of Germany: War degrades;
it is a reversion toward barbarism. Not only is the soldier brutalized
by martial exercises and scenes of carnage, but the moral and mental
fibre of the people of a nation which indulges in war is rendered
coarser. The remark of M. Renan on the subject is profoundly
philosophical:

“The man who has passed years in the carriage of arms after the German
fashion is dead to all delicate work whether of the hand or
brain.”--“Recollections of my Youth,” p. 159. By Ernest Renan. New
York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1883.

CHAPTER XXV.

EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM--HISTORIC.

_AMERICA._

The discovery of America startled Europe. It was a great blow to
prevailing dogmatisms. It upset many learned (?) theories. It swept away
patristic geography. It completed the figure of the earth, rendering it
susceptible of intelligent study. The advantages of such investigation
accrued to man, to a degree, before the social and civil life of America
began. In the century and a quarter which elapsed between the landing of
Columbus and that of the Pilgrims, on these shores, considerable social
and political progress was made in Europe, and especially in England.
From the turbulent scenes of the reigns of James I. and Charles I.,
which eventuated in the Cromwellian rebellion and victory of the
Commons, the Pilgrims escaped. They not only bore with them, to the new
continent, the impress of the long struggle for liberty waged by the
English people, but they were, in a certain sense, the product of the
progress of all the ages. But they constituted only a small part of the
column of immigrants. Detachments of the Cavaliers came also, and
Germans, Frenchmen, and Irishmen came with them.

The discovery of America was a sort of new creation,[91] but its almost
virgin soil was destined to become the home of an old civilization. From
all the nationalities of the Old World the New World was to be peopled.
The ambitious, the restless, the adventurous, the enterprising, and the
hardy of every tongue, were gradually to assemble in the new field of
action. The manner in which they treated the natives of the new country,
both north and south, showed their origin and their training. Their
determination to conquer and hold the new territory was but thinly
disguised. Their descent upon the Atlantic coast was not the exact
counterpart of that of Cæsar upon the coast of Britain, but it was the
same in spirit; and the active trade in slaves which soon sprang up, and
which was thereafter vigorously prosecuted for two hundred years, showed
the taint of savagery--the impress of Roman cruelty, rapacity, and
injustice.

[91] “The discovery of America is the greatest event which has ever
taken place in this world of ours, one half of which had hitherto been
unknown to the other. All that until now appeared extraordinary seems
to disappear before this sort of new creation.”--Voltaire.

It is evident that in its most important feature--the formation of
character--education had made little if any progress at the time of the
organization of civil society in America. The democratic idea was not
new. It found expression in every form during the struggles of Greece
and Rome, and the revival of learning had led to the discussion of
governmental questions in the light of history. Besides, the reformation
of Luther had opened the way to the last analysis of dissent in the
person of Roger Williams, who asserted the right of absolute freedom of
thought and speech. Of the religious right of private judgment the
political right of an equal voice in public affairs is the corollary.
Hence, that the Puritans should establish the town organizations so
justly lauded by M. Tocqueville was quite logical.[92] Nor was the
public-school system less logical; all citizens being members of the
government, all children must be prepared for the duties of citizenship.
But unfortunately the old system of education was put into the new
schools, as the old civilizations had been transferred to the new
country. The system of education under which the kings and ruling
classes of England and of the continent of Europe were trained to
selfishness, cruelty, and injustice, was heedlessly adopted in the
schools of New England, which became the models of schools throughout
the country.

[92] “Town meetings are to liberty what primary schools are to
science; they bring it within the people’s reach, they teach men how
to use and how to enjoy it.... The township institutions of New
England form a complete and regular whole; they are old; they have the
support of the laws, and the still stronger support of the manners of
the community, over which they exercise a prodigious
influence.”--“Democracy in America,” Vol. I., p. 76. By Alexis De
Tocqueville. Boston: John Allyn, 1876.

The popular idea in regard to the schools was (1) that they fitted their
pupils for the duties of citizenship, or, more properly, for the art of
governing, and (2) that they taught the art of getting on in the world;
and getting on in the world was interpreted to mean getting and keeping
money. That this sordid view of education was generally held in the
rural districts of New England is shown by the fact that any culture
beyond a limited and imperfect knowledge of reading, writing, and
arithmetic was regarded as superfluous. Not even the rudiments of either
the sciences or the arts were imparted, and yet it is only through a
knowledge of the sciences and the arts that progress in civilization is
made. The early settlers of New England devised a new system of schools,
but they imported into them an old system of education, the Greco-Roman
subjective system, introduced into England with the revival of learning.
Of this system Mr. Herbert Spencer says, “Had there been no teaching but
such as is given in our public schools, England would now be what it was
in feudal times.” And he adds:

“The vital knowledge, that by which we have grown as a nation to what we
are, and which now underlies our whole existence, is a knowledge that
has got itself taught in nooks and corners, while the ordained agencies
for teaching have been mumbling little else but dead formulas.”[93]

[93] “That which our school courses leave almost entirely out, we thus
find to be that which most nearly concerns the business of life. All
our industries would cease were it not for that information which men
begin to acquire as they best may after their education is said to be
finished.”--“Education,” p. 54. By Herbert Spencer. New York: D.
Appleton & Co., 1883.

But these are merely negative effects of subjective methods of
education. The positive evil effect of them is selfishness, the sum of
all villanies. Under the new system of schools--schools for all--the old
philosophy of life flourished. Under the name of prudence, selfishness
was deified. The maxim of Herbert--“Help thyself and God will help
thee”--was reproduced by Franklin in a hundred forms. The child was
taught, not that “The half is more than the whole,” but that “In the
race of life the devil takes the hindmost.”

Thus greed and avarice were cultivated to the sacrifice of honesty.
Calling selfishness prudence led to confounding right and wrong--freedom
and slavery. Hence we have the Declaration of Independence containing
the lofty sentiment, “All men are created equal,” and the Constitution
throwing the shield of its protection over human bondage. A false system
of education led to political incongruities of the grossest character,
as, in the preamble to the Constitution, the declaration of its high
purpose--to establish justice and secure the blessings of liberty--and
in the body of the instrument a guaranty of the slave-trade for
twenty-five years, and a compact that it should be the duty of the
national army to shoot rebellious slaves, and the duty of free citizens,
of the free States, to hunt down escaping slaves and surrender them to
their owners in the slave States.

The failure of the prevailing system of education to promote rectitude
and right thinking was so complete that negroes escaping from slavery
were called “fugitives from justice!” Its failure was so complete that
the very streets of Boston in which patriots had struggled to the death
in the cause of liberty now echoed the groans of the slave, and
resounded with the clank of his chains. Its failure was so complete that
in Faneuil Hall, the cradle of liberty, slavery was justified. Its
failure was so complete that a senator, for daring to characterize
slavery as barbaric, was stricken down and beaten with a club, until he
lay helpless in a pool of blood on the floor of the legislative hall of
the great, free republic.

These are characteristics of the early civilizations, the civilizations
of Greece and Rome. They are the product of selfishness, and they show
that subjective educational processes--processes which proceed from the
abstract to the concrete, thus violating the natural law of
investigation--produce the same effects in the nineteenth century as
they did in the first century.

Ethically, slavery was tried only by the test of self-interest. In the
North, as in Europe, it was not profitable, and it faded away; in the
South, in the cotton and rice fields, it was thought to be profitable,
and it spread and flourished. That the opposition to slavery, at the
North, did not grow out of education in the schools, is evident, because
the sons of the Southern ruling class were educated in the high schools
and colleges of the North; but they became, notwithstanding such
training, almost to a man, slavery propagandists. The heinousness of
slavery was perceptible only to those who had no personal interest in
its perpetuation. It is plain that the effect of the education of the
schools upon the youth of the country was to make them callous to the
common impressions of right and wrong; in a word, to render them
thoroughly selfish.

It is difficult to resist the conclusion that, if slavery had been as
profitable at the North as it was at the South, it would have been
perpetuated, and would have poisoned the infant civilization of America
as that of Rome was vitiated and destroyed. Assuming the truth of this
hypothesis, climate conditions, not education, saved this continent
from the scourge of slavery. To the fact that a large part of the
territory of the United States is situated in the temperate zone we owe
the elimination of slavery from the social problem.

Existing social conditions in the United States do not differ materially
from those of the chief countries of Europe. We have only a small
standing army; but the sole great question which divided the people
during the first hundred years of our political existence--slavery--had
to be settled as such questions have been settled from the beginning of
history, as savages settle all questions--by violence, by an appeal to
the logic of brute force.

Our government differs from the governments of Europe both in principle
and form, but the governmental influence is only one of many influences
which unite to mould social habits. The democratic principle, adopted as
the foundation of our political institutions, has not served to
counteract the tendency to the formation of social class distinctions.
The people lack the wisdom, or the virtue, or both, to insist upon the
first prerequisite to even an approximation to social equality, namely,
universal education. Of our population of fifty millions, five millions
of persons, ten years old and over, are unable to read, and six millions
are unable to write. In the last census decade we made the paltry gain
of three per cent, in intelligence, but in 1880 we had six hundred
thousand more illiterates than in 1870. Nearly two millions of the legal
voters in the United States are illiterates. Every sixth man who offers
his ballot at the polls is unable to write his name. Under such
circumstances class distinctions of the most pronounced type are
inevitable.

The tendency to the concentration of populations in cities in the
United States is not less decided than it is in the countries of Europe.
In 1820 the population of our cities constituted less than one-twentieth
of the whole population of the country, but in 1880 it constituted more
than one-fifth of the whole.

Cities have always been the chief source of societary disturbances. In
the worst days of the Roman Empire tranquillity and prosperity reigned
in many of the distant provinces. While at the city of Rome “every kind
of vice paraded itself with revolting cynicism,” in the provinces “there
was a middle class in which good-nature, conjugal fidelity, probity, and
the domestic virtues were generally practised.”

Of one of the youngest large cities in the United States the late
superintendent of a Training School for Waifs says, “Never in the
history of this city has infant wretchedness stalked forth in such
multiplied and such humiliating forms. It is hard to suppress the
conviction that even Pagan Rome, in the corrupt age of Augustus, did not
witness a more rapid and frightful declension in morals than that which
can to-day be found in the city of Chicago.”

The most graphic description ever given of a waif came from the lips of
John Morrissey.[94] He said of himself,

“I was, at the age of seven years, thrown a waif upon the streets of
Dublin. I slept in alleys and under sidewalks. I disputed with other
waifs the possession of a crust. We fought like young savages for the
garbage that fell from the basket of the scullion. The strongest won
and satisfied the cravings of hunger; the weakest starved. I had no idea
that anything was to be gained by other means than brute force. Hence my
code of moral and political ethics--the strongest man is the best man. I
became a pugilist.”

[94] A noted pugilist, proprietor of gambling-houses in New York City
and at Saratoga Springs, and a politician who represented a New York
City district in Congress.

The substantial citizen who passes the street waif with contempt should
reflect that ten or a dozen years later he will meet him, a full-grown
man, at the polls, still clothed in rags, perhaps, but his peer in all
the rights of citizenship. It was the unfortunates of the dark alleys
and noxious streets of New York--the waifs, the savages of the John
Morrissey type--that made Tweedism[95] possible, that made robbery in
the name of law possible, that made taxation the equivalent of
confiscation in that city.

[95] For an account of the career of William Marcy Tweed, see “The
American Cyclopædia,” Vol. XVI, p. 85. New York: D. Appleton & Co.,
1881.

Mr. Charles Dickens, in “Bleak House,” in the course of a pen-picture of
a wretched quarter of London, under the name of “Tom-all-alones,” shows
how ignorance, poverty, and vice react upon society. He says, “There is
not an atom of Tom’s slime, not a cubic inch of any pestilential gas in
which he lives, not one obscenity or degradation about him, not an
ignorance, not a wickedness, not a brutality of his committing but shall
work its retribution through every order of society, up to the proudest
of the proud, and to the highest of the high.”

The presence of the poison is already shown in the failure of justice.
These waifs, grown to man’s estate, but destitute of education and moral
principle, wielding the power of the ballot, desecrate the jury-room
with their vile presence, and tug at the skirts of sheriffs,
prosecuting officers, and judges, and notorious criminals escape
punishment! So grievous has the abuse become that Judge Lynch has opened
his summary, awful court in almost every State of the Union.

To say that this class menaces the government with destruction is to
state it mildly. In every case of the failure of justice the government
is in part subverted; for when crime goes unpunished, the law, violated
in that particular instance, becomes a dead letter; and when lynching
shall have become the rule, and the execution of the law the exception,
government by law will have ceased to exist--it will have given way to
government by force. Then the army will be invoked to shoot down the men
for whose education the law failed to provide, in every city of the
land, as it was invoked in Pittsburg in 1877.

What are we doing to avert this danger which threatens our institutions?
With the exception of here and there a weak effort on the part of a few
humanitarians, as in the training school referred to, we are leaving
hundreds of thousands of waifs to develop into savages, and, what is
worse, savages with the power to tax civilized people! We have a system
of public schools into which such children as choose may enter to a
certain limit, remain as long as they please, and depart when they
please. But there are thousands of children in every large city who
could not enter if they would, and who are not compelled to receive the
civilizing benefits of education, and who hence join the army of waifs
and study the art of savagery; and, as has been remarked, they go to
swell the ranks of a populace as depraved as that which in Rome cried
for “bread and circuses!” and sacked the city while it was in flames.

The defective, not to say vicious character of our system of education,
is shown by the reckless course of our legislators on the subject of the
disposition of the public domain. William the Conqueror, conceiving that
any social revolution is incomplete until it disturbs the proprietorship
of land, confiscated the entire landed estates of England, and conferred
what remained of the proprietary, after reservations in the Crown, upon
his retainers, the Normans. Eight hundred years have elapsed since the
issue of William’s land-tenure edict, but it still remains the
controlling feature of the British Constitution. It has compelled the
deportation of millions of Englishmen; it has reduced the masses of
Scotland to a grinding poverty, and converted their country into
hunting-grounds for the amusement of the landlord class; it has
depopulated Ireland, and exasperated almost to madness the remnant of
her people.

But we have failed to profit by the example of England. Our legislators
have been blind to the lessons of history, or they have been corrupt.
They have been ignorant of political and social laws, or they have been
wanting in rectitude. In the period of thirty years, ended in 1880,
Congress gave to railway corporations over 240,000 square miles, or
154,067,553 acres, of the best public lands in the States and
Territories of the Union--an area double that of the whole kingdom of
Great Britain and Ireland, including the adjacent isles.

On the 17th of March, 1883, the _Chicago Daily Tribune_ published a
history of these land grants, compiled by Mr. Henry D. Lloyd, under the
following summary:

“_The story of the dissipation of our great national inheritance--thrown
away by Congress, wasted by the Land Office, stolen by thieves. A land
monopoly worse than that of England, begotten in America. English
monopoly is in families; American monopoly is in corporations; and
corporations are the only aristocrats that have no souls, and never
die._”

The following passages from the opening paragraphs of Mr. Lloyd’s
history are reproduced here by permission of the author:

“The public are profoundly ignorant of the facts about the public land.
They know, in a dim way, that it is passing out of their hands, and that
huge monopolies are being created out of the lands which they meant
should be the inheritance of the settler. The land set apart for homes
for families has been made into empires for corporations. In the story
recited below, every element of human fault and fraud will be seen to
have been at work in the spoliation of the land of the people. Congress
has been extravagant and has failed to act when part of the results of
its extravagance might have been saved. The Land Office has been
inadequately equipped by Congress, and has on its own account been
careless, dishonest, and traitorous to the interests of the people. It
has been wax in the hands of the great railroad corporations, but
double-edged steel in the side of the poor settler. It has overruled
decisions of the Supreme Court and nullified acts of Congress to betray
its trust and enrich the railroads, but has refused even to exercise its
discretion when the home of a settler, held by a righteous title, was to
be confiscated at the demand of corporate greed. The niggardliness of
Congress makes clerks, on salaries of twelve hundred to eighteen hundred
dollars a year, untrained in the law, knowing nothing of the rules of
evidence, judges of the law and facts in cases involving millions of
dollars and thousands of homes. There is no worse chapter in the
history of government than the facts we have to give showing the
deliberate and heartless evictions of the European immigrant and the
American settler in order to give their farms to covetous corporations.
The land-grant roads have had millions of acres granted them by the Land
Office in excess of the grants by Congress. The whole story is summed up
in the recent remark of one who had thoroughly investigated the
subject--that the history of the management of the land-grant roads by
the Land Office is a history of the management of the Land Office by the
railroads.

“No chapter in this story will be found of more sombre interest than the
statements made as to the Supreme Court by the Senate Committee on
Public Lands, in a report submitted by Senator Van Wyck recommending a
bill to compel the railroads to pay taxes on their lands. Its decisions
as to the titles of the railroads and the settlers to the lands, like
those of a weathercock, have pointed the way the corporation blew its
breath.”

The summary of Mr. Lloyd’s paper by the editor of the _Tribune_, as a
preface to its publication, and the foregoing characterization of the
acts of Congress, of the Land Office, and of the Supreme Court, by Mr.
Lloyd, are fully justified by the alleged facts marshalled in the body
of the sketch; and these allegations, after a year and a half of public
scrutiny, stand unchallenged.

It would be difficult to conceive of a more reckless series of
legislative acts than those through which the public domain in the
United States has been squandered; and they are rendered either ignorant
or vicious by the fact that in the vast empire surrendered almost
totally without consideration, each legislator, in common with the
people by and for whom he was deputed to act, had a personal interest.
Through this series of acts of Congress the public domain was rudely
wrested from its rightful owners, the people; the abnormal growth of
corporate power unduly promoted, and a tendency to the concentration, in
a few hands, of the landed estates of the country fostered.

The social and economic effects of this land legislation must be very
great and far-reaching. Of the effects of the concentration of landed
estates in a few hands we need not speak; they are sufficiently plain in
England, Scotland, and Ireland.[96] But great corporations are a
creation of yesterday; they are the product of steam. The railway, the
factory, the mine of iron or coal, the furnace, the foundery, and the
forge--these vast interests, chartered and endowed with certain
muniments of sovereignty, are, as property, almost as indestructible as
landed estates protected by the law of primogeniture. Men are trained
from generation to generation to the care and conduct of them, and hence
they are far less liable to waste and dispersion than private estates,
which, in transmission, may be subjected to disastrous changes of
management. Being also enterprises of a semi-public character, the
public is bound, as well as their owners, to see to their preservation.

[96] “The more essential and important consideration is this--that
whenever the few rapidly accumulate excessive wealth, the many must,
necessarily, become comparatively poorer.... In every case in which we
have traced out the efficient causes of the present depression we have
found it to originate in customs, laws, or modes of action which are
ethically unsound, if not positively immoral. Wars and excessive war
armaments, loans to despots or for war purposes, the accumulation of
vast wealth by individuals, excessive speculation, adulteration of
manufactured goods, and, lastly, _our bad land system_, with its
insecurity of tenure, excessive rents, confiscation of tenants’
property, its common enclosures, evictions, and depopulation of the
rural districts--all come under this category.”--“Bad Times,” pp. 65,
117. By Alfred Russel Wallace, LL.D. London: Macmillan & Co., 1885.

It is to a small number of the greatest of these great companies that
Congress has given an empire of land in the West--an area double that
owned by the lords of England, Scotland, and Ireland. In the railway
proprietor of the United States the two great elements of power are
united--steam and land. It needs no argument to show that only the
nation can control the proprietor of both the land and the railway--the
sole means of reaching a market for the products of the land. The
appellative--kingship--to the railway proprietor is not a misnomer. He
is a real potentate, both by virtue of the multitudes of men over whom
he rules autocratically, and of the magnitude of the revenue he wields.
Presidents come and go, but he remains. Legislators investigate him and
report upon him, but they are met by a flat denial of the authority of
either State or nation to interfere with his “vested rights.” He claims
the right of himself and associates to control, absolutely, the internal
commerce of the country; and this claim involves the pretence that they
may confiscate merchandise seeking a market by charging, for carriage,
the full value of the thing transported.

The railway and the factory, the two great products of steam, are new
factors in the social problem, and to properly control them will require
new wisdom; and the new wisdom is not to be drawn from old educational
fountains.

State legislation has been as vicious as that of the nation. The people
of nearly every State in the Union have been made the victims of great
frauds and gross ignorance at the hands of their representatives. In
nearly every State syndicates have been formed with the design of
securing valuable franchises without consideration; and to effectuate
such designs bribery has been freely and successfully resorted to in a
vast number of cases. But rarely has the guilty agent of the guilty
syndicate, or the perjured, purchased legislator been brought to
justice, notwithstanding the fact that exposure has often followed the
iniquity.

Evidence of the essentially European character of the American
civilization is afforded by the prevalence of speculation.[E30] In Wall
Street, New York, on the Board of Trade, Chicago, and on the exchanges
of all large cities speculation rages. The real transactions of those
business marts are very small, indeed, as compared with the transactions
of a speculative character. On the New York Cotton Exchange the
speculative trades in “futures” are thirty times more than the cotton
sales. On the Chicago Board of Trade the speculative trades in “futures”
are fifteen times more than the sales of grain and provisions, and so of
the exchanges of all other large cities. To support these speculative
operations fresh money is required to be constantly poured into the
pool, and it is drawn from every class in the community. Very little of
the “fresh money” is ever returned. Most of it remains in the hands of
the pool managers, of those whose profession it is to manipulate the
markets. Thus the fever of speculation extends from centre to
circumference of the country, stimulating bad passions, creating
distaste for labor, relieving the countryman of his surplus, and
increasing the already overgrown fortune of the city operator. A writer
on current topics, discussing this subject, says, “Put your finger on
one of our great fortunes, and nine times out of ten you will feel
underneath it the cold heart of some one who has mined on the San
Francisco Stock Exchange, or packed pork on the Chicago Board of Trade,
or built railroads in Wall Street.”[97]

[97] “America does not now suffer from this cause [standing armies],
but nowhere in the world have colossal fortunes, rabid speculation,
and great monopolies reached so portentous a magnitude, or exerted so
pernicious an influence.”--“Bad Times,” p. 80. By Alfred Russel
Wallace, LL.D. London: Macmillan & Co,. 1885.

A sufficient number of the salient features of American civilization
have been brought under review to show that the new continent has not
borne new social fruits. Under extremely favorable physical
conditions--a country of vast resources, a wide range of climates, and a
soil of great fertility--we planted old social forces, and old social
evils are in process of rapid development. We are transplanted
Europeans, controlled by European mental and moral habitudes. And the
virile force, evoked by the splendid physical opportunities of a vast
new country, so intensifies the struggle for wealth and power, that
European social abuses are not only reproduced, but sometimes
exaggerated in this land of boasted equal political rights.

But notwithstanding the fact that social tendencies in America seem to
be similar to those of Europe, it is upon America alone that the eyes of
mankind rest with an expression of ardent hopefulness. Nor is this hope
destitute of a basis of rationality. It is in the United States, for the
first time in all the ages, that a good reason can be given for
indulging the sentiment of patriotism. Love of country here is a due
appreciation of the value of the right of suffrage. The private soldier
who goes forth to fight the battles of the United States is a man and
citizen, and upon his return from the field he may, with the ballot,
devote to the education of his children a share of the estate of the
army contractor who amassed a fortune while he defended the country. All
the property in the United States, whether honestly or dishonestly
acquired, is subject to the order of the ballot of the citizen. It may
be taken for war purposes, and it may be taken for educational purposes.
In the universality of the right of suffrage lies the power of
correcting all social evils. It is through the right of suffrage that
the wrongs inflicted upon a too patient people by corrupt and ignorant
legislation may be ultimately righted. By the suffrages of the people
the tax bill is voted; and it is through the tax bill that the vast
estates of corporations and individuals, whether obtained by dishonest
practices or not, may be made to contribute to the thorough education of
all the children of the country. And it is through the sentiment of
patriotism thus inspired that the right of universal suffrage in the
United States is destined to preservation forever.

The late proposition to limit suffrage in the city of New York is
explainable only on the theory put forth in this chapter, that our
civilization is the product of European ideas--that we are Europeans in
disguise. On any other hypothesis it would be amazing. It is even now
sufficiently startling that the proposition to restrict suffrage should
precede the proposition to make education universal by making it
compulsory, and to purge it of its glaring defects. Every attempt to
restrict the right of suffrage in the United States will, however, fail.
The right of self-government can be taken from the American people only
by force. The American citizen will not vote away his right to vote, as
the careless Greek sold his freedom, and as the Chinaman sells his life.

That American social abuses do not spring from free suffrage is evident,
because similar abuses exist in countries where the masses have little
or no share in the government. Social evils are the product of defective
education. So long as European educational methods prevail in this
country, so long European social abuses will characterize our
civilization. Our education is scant in quantity and poor in quality;
hence the standard of the suffrage is lowered by the presence of
ignorance and depravity. But when the suffrage shall be better informed,
it will be more honest; and when it shall have become more honest and
more intelligent, it will have gained the power to grapple with social
abuses.

Such examination of history as we have been able to make fails to
disclose any radical change in educational methods for three thousand
years. The charge of Mr. Herbert Spencer against the schools of England,
to wit, “That which our school courses leave almost entirely out we thus
find to be that which most nearly concerns the business of life”--this
charge applies with almost as much force to the schools of the United
States as to the Greek and Roman schools of rhetoric and logic. Bacon’s
aphorism--“Education is the cultivation of a just and legitimate
familiarity betwixt the mind and things”--is two hundred and fifty years
old, but it has as yet exerted scarcely an appreciable influence upon
the methods of our public schools. We still reverse the natural order of
investigation proceeding from the abstract to the concrete, thus
lumbering the mind of the student with trash which must be removed as a
preliminary to the first step in the real work of education. We still
impart a knowledge of words instead of a knowledge of things; we still
ignore art, notwithstanding the fact that it is through art alone that
education touches human life. We still inculcate contempt of labor, and
teach the student how to “make his way in the world” by his wits, rather
than by giving an equivalent for what he shall receive; and, worst of
all, we continue, through subjective processes of thought, to charge the
mind with selfishness, the essence of depravity.

Meantime, social problems press for a solution, a solution here and now.
Our social problems cannot be settled as those of Europe have been, for
two hundred years, by emigration. We have no Columbus, and if we had
such an explorer, there is no new hemisphere for him to discover. The
lesson of all history is, that selfish people cannot dwell together in
unity. The struggle to secure more than a fair share of the products of
the labor of all is sure to end in a quarrel; the quarrel ends in a
revolution, and the revolution, under the glare of flames, drowns in
blood the records of civilization. But in America the man must live with
his fellows. As Mr. Henry D. Lloyd well says, in “Lords of Industry,”
“Our young men can no longer go West; they must go up or down. Not new
land, but new virtue must be the outlet for the future. Our halt at the
shores of the Pacific is a much more serious affair than that which
brought our ancestors to a pause before the barriers of the Atlantic,
and compelled them to practise living together for a few hundred years.
We cannot hereafter, as in the past, recover freedom by going to the
prairies; we must find it in the society of the good.” [98]

[98] _North American Review_, June, 1884, p. 552.

If we are to find freedom only in the society of the good, we must
create such a society--a society free from selfishness; for to the
stability of society public spirit is essential, and with a pure public
spirit selfishness is at war. Hence, in a system of education like the
prevailing one, which promotes selfishness, the germs of social
disintegration are present, and, from the beginning, the end may with
absolute certainty be predicted. It follows that any hope of social
reform is wholly irrational that does not spring from the postulate of a
complete educational revolution.

[E30] The speculative habit has so debauched public sentiment in
England and America that distinguished authors hesitate not to give
free expression to a feeling of contempt for the ancients because of
their failure to engage in colossal swindling operations, as witness
the following:

“The charges of fraud [in the Attic courts], which are many, are of
the vulgarest and simplest kind, depending upon violence, on false
swearing, and upon evading judgment by legal devices. There is not a
single case of any large or complicated swindling, such as is
exhibited by the genius of modern English and American speculators.
There is not even such ingenuity as was shown by Verres in his
government of Sicily to be found among the clever Athenians.”--“Social
Life in Greece,” p. 408. By the Rev. J. P. Mahaffy, F.T.C.D. London:
Macmillan & Co., 1883.

[E31] “On all hands of us, there is the announcement, audible enough,
that the Old Empire of Routine has ended; that to say a thing has long
been, is no reason for its continuing to be. The things which have
been are fallen into decay, are fallen into incompetence; large masses
of mankind, in every society of our Europe, are no longer capable of
living at all by the things which have been. When millions of men can
no longer by their utmost exertion gain food for themselves, and ‘the
third man for thirty-six weeks each year is short of third-rate
potatoes,’ the things which have been must decidedly prepare to alter
themselves!”--“Lectures on Heroes,” p. 157. By Thomas Carlyle. Chapman
& Hall’s People’s Edition.

“Change the sources of a river, and you will change it throughout its
whole course; change the education of a people, and you will alter
their character and their manners:”--“Studies of Nature,” Vol. II., p.
575. By Bernardin St. Pierre. London: Henry G. Bohn, 1846.

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE MANUAL ELEMENT IN EDUCATION IN 1884.

The Kindergarten and the Manual Training School one in Principle. --
Russia solved the Problem of Tool Instruction by Laboratory Processes.
-- The Initiatory Step by M. Victor Della-Vos, Director of the
Imperial Technical School of Moscow in 1868. -- Statement of Director
Della-Vos as to the Origin, Progress, and Results of the New System of
Training. -- Its Introduction into all the Technical Schools of
Russia. -- Dr. John D. Runkle, President of the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, recommends the Russian System in 1876, and it
is adopted. -- Statement of Dr. Runkle as to how he was led to the
adoption of the Russian System. -- Dr. Woodward, of Washington
University, St. Louis, Mo., establishes the second School in this
Country. -- His Historical Note in the Prospectus of 1882-83. -- First
Class graduated 1883. -- Manual Training in the Agricultural Colleges
-- In Boston, in New Haven, in Baltimore, in San Francisco, and other
places. -- Manual Training at the Meeting of the National Educational
Association, 1884. -- Kindergarten and Manual Training Exhibits. --
Prof. Felix Adler’s School in New York City -- the most Comprehensive
School in the World. -- The Chicago Manual Training School the first
Independent Institution of the Kind -- its Inception; its
Incorporation; its Opening. Its Director, Dr. Belfield. -- His
Inaugural Address. -- Manual Training in the Public Schools of
Philadelphia. -- Manual Training in twenty-four States. --
Revolutionizing a Texas College. -- Local Option Law in Massachusetts.
-- Department of Domestic Economy in the Iowa Agricultural College. --
Manual Training in Tennessee, in the University of Michigan, in the
National Educational Association, in Ohio. -- The Toledo School for
both Sexes. -- The Importance of the Education of Woman. -- The Slöjd
Schools of Europe.

The principle of the manual training school exists in the kindergarten,
and for that principle we are indebted directly to Froebel, and
indirectly to Pestalozzi, Comenius, Rousseau, and Bacon. But it was
reserved for Russia to solve the problem of tool instruction by the
laboratory process, and make it the foundation of a great reform in
education. The initiatory step was taken in 1868 by M. Victor Della-Vos,
Director of the Imperial Technical School of Moscow. The following
statement is extracted from the account given by Director Della-Vos of
the exhibit of the Moscow school at Philadelphia (Centennial of 1876),
and at the Paris Exposition in 1878, as best showing the inception of
the new education:

[Illustration: M. VICTOR DELLA-VOS, THE FOUNDER OF MANUAL TRAINING IN
RUSSIA.]

“In 1868 the school council considered it indispensable, in order to
secure the systematical teaching of elementary practical work, as well
as for the more convenient supervision of the pupils while practically
employed, to separate entirely the school workshops from the mechanical
works in which the orders from private individuals are executed,
admitting pupils to the latter only when they have perfectly acquired
the principles of practical labor.

“By the separation alone of the school workshops from the mechanical
works, the principal aim was, however, far from being attained. It was
found necessary to work out such a method of teaching the elementary
principles of mechanical art as, firstly, should demand the least
possible length of time for their acquirement; secondly, should increase
the facility of the supervision of the graded employment of the pupils;
thirdly, should impart to the study of practical work the character of a
sound systematical acquirement of knowledge; and fourthly and lastly,
should facilitate the demonstration of the progress of every pupil at
every stated time. Everybody is well aware that the successful study of
any art whatsoever, free-hand or linear drawing, music, singing,
painting, etc., is only attainable when the first attempts at any of
them are strictly subject to the laws of gradation and successiveness,
when every student adheres to a definite method or school, surmounting
little by little, and by certain degrees, the difficulties encountered.

“All those arts which we have just named possess a method of study which
has been well worked out and defined, because, since they have long
constituted a part of the education of the well-instructed classes of
people, they could not but become subject to scientific analysis, could
not but become the objects of investigation, with a view of defining
those conditions which might render the study of them as easy and well
regulated as possible.

“If we except the attempts made in France in the year 1867 by the
celebrated and learned mechanical engineer, A. Cler, to form a
collection of models for the practical study of the principal methods of
forging and welding iron and steel, as well as the chief parts of
joiners’ work, and this with a purely demonstrative aim, no one, as far
as we are aware, has hitherto been actively engaged in the working out
of this question in its application to the study of hand labor in
workshops. To the Imperial Technical School belongs the initiative in
the introduction of a systematical method of teaching the arts of
turning, carpentering, fitting, and forging.

“To the knowledge and experience in these specialties, of the gentlemen
intrusted with the management of the school workshops, and to their warm
sympathy in the matter of practical education, we are indebted for the
drawing up of the programme of systematical instruction in the
mechanical arts, its introduction in the year 1868 into the workshops,
and also for the preparation of the necessary auxiliaries to study. In
the year 1870, at the exhibition of manufactures at St. Petersburg, the
school exhibited its methods of teaching mechanical arts, and from that
time they have been common to all the technical schools of Russia.

“And now (1878) we present our system of instruction, not as a project,
but as an accomplished fact, confirmed by the long experience of ten
years of success in its results.”

For the introduction of the manual element in education to the United
States we are indebted to the intellectual acumen of Dr. John D. Runkle,
Ph.D., LL.D., Walker Professor of Mathematics, Institute of Technology,
Boston, Mass. In 1876 Doctor Runkle was President of the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology. In his official report for that year he gave an
exhaustive exposition of the Russian system, in the course of which he
said,

“We went to Philadelphia, therefore, earnestly seeking for light in this
as well as in all other directions, and this special report is now made
to ask your attention to a fundamental, and, as I think, complete
solution of this most important problem of practical mechanism for
engineers. The question is simply this, Can a system of shop-work
instruction be devised of sufficient range and quality which will not
consume more time than ought to be spared from the indispensable
studies?

“This question has been answered triumphantly in the affirmative, and
the answer comes from Russia. It gives me the greatest pleasure to call
your attention to the exhibit made by the Imperial Technical Schools of
St. Petersburg and Moscow, consisting entirely of collections of tools
and samples of shop-work by students, illustrating the system which has
made these magnificent results possible.”

In conclusion Doctor Runkle made the following earnest recommendation:

“In the light of the experience which Russia brings us, not only in the
form of a proposed system, but proved by several years of experience in
more than a single school, it seems to me that the duty of the Institute
is plain. We should, without delay, complete our course in Mechanical
Engineering by adding a series of instruction shops, which I earnestly
recommend.”

In accordance with this recommendation the “new school of Mechanic Arts”
was created, and made part of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

In his report for 1877 Doctor Runkle said,

“The plan announced in my last report, of building a series of shops
[laboratories] in which to teach the students in the department of
Mechanical Engineering and others the use of tools, and the fundamental
steps in the art of construction, in accordance with the Russian system,
as exhibited at Philadelphia in 1876, has been carried steadily forward,
and I have now the pleasure of announcing its near completion.”

Reference is also made in the same report to the action of the trustees
of the Institute in acknowledging the reception of certain models
illustrating the system of Mechanic Art education, presented by the
government of Russia, as follows:

“At a meeting of the Corporation of the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, held November 20, 1877, a communication from his Excellency,
Hon. George H. Boker, American Minister at St. Petersburg, was read,
announcing the gift to this Institute of eight cases of models,
illustrating the system of Mechanic Art education, as devised and so
successfully applied at the Imperial Technical School of Moscow. The
undersigned have been charged with the agreeable duty of transmitting to
his Imperial Highness the following resolutions:

[Illustration: DR. JOHN D. RUNKLE, THE FOUNDER OF MANUAL TRAINING IN THE
UNITED STATES.]

“_Resolved_, That the Corporation of the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology takes this opportunity to cordially congratulate his Imperial
Highness, Prince Pierre d’Oldenbourg, that, at the Imperial Technical
School of Moscow, education in the Mechanic Arts has been for the first
time based upon philosophical and purely educational grounds, fully
justifying for it the title of the ‘Russian system.’

“_Resolved_, That this Corporation hereby tenders its grateful thanks to
his Imperial Highness for his most valuable gift, with the assurance
that these models will be of the greatest aid in promoting Mechanic Art
education not only in the School of this Institute, but in all similar
schools throughout the United States.”

Appreciating the value of the services rendered to the cause of the new
education by Dr. Runkle, in introducing to the schools of the United
States tool practice by laboratory methods, and desiring to inform the
public of the course of thought which led to results so important, the
author addressed him on the subject. His reply, under date of May 22,
1884, is in substance as follows:

“From the first the course in Mechanical Engineering has been an
important one in the Institute of Technology. A few students came with a
knowledge of shop-work, and had a clear field open to them on
graduation, but the larger number found it difficult to enter upon their
professional work without first taking one or two years of
apprenticeship. This always seemed to me a fault in the education, and
yet I did not see the way to remedy it without building up manufacturing
works in connection with the school--a step which I knew to be an
inversion of a true educational method.

“At Philadelphia, in 1876, almost the first thing I saw was a small case
containing three series of models--one of chipping and filing, one of
forging, and one of machine-tool work. I saw at once that they were not
parts of machines, but simply graded models for teaching the
manipulations in those arts. In an instant the problem I had been
seeking to solve was clear to my mind; a plain distinction between a
Mechanic Art and its application in some special trade became apparent.

“My first work was to build up at the Institute a series of Mechanic Art
shops, or laboratories, to teach these arts, just as we teach chemistry
and physics by the same means. At the same time I believed that this
discipline could be made a part of general education, just as we make
the sciences available for the same end through laboratory instruction.

“All teaching has in an important sense a double purpose: first, the
cultivation of the powers of the individual, and second, the pursuit of
similar subjects, by substantially the same means, as a professional
end. Now we use our shops [laboratories] both for educational and
professional ends.... In brief, we teach the mechanic arts by laboratory
methods, and the student applies the special skill and knowledge
acquired, or not, as circumstances or his inclinations dictate.”

The second manual training school in this country was founded as a
department of Washington University, St. Louis, Mo., by Dr. C. M.
Woodward. In a paper read before the St. Louis Social Science
Association, May 16, 1878, Dr. Woodward discussed the subject of
education both philosophically and practically. In the course of his
address he gave a full account of the Russian system of manual training
as expounded by Dr. Runkle, endorsed it, and recommended it to the
people of St. Louis as the true method of education in the following
pregnant sentence: “The manual education which begins in the
kindergarten, before the children are able to read a word, should never
cease.”[99]

[99] The pressing problem of the time in methods of practical
education is to devise suitable manual exercises for the school period
embraced in the interim between the end of the kindergarten series of
lessons and the beginning of the series of laboratory exercises
described in this work--the grammar-school period--for children of
both sexes from six to fourteen years of age.

In the same paper Dr. Woodward thus modestly describes the beginning of
the school which is now one of the most highly-esteemed educational
institutions of St. Louis:

“With the aid of our stanch friend, Mr. Gottlieb Conzelman, we fitted up
during last summer a wood-working shop, with work-benches and vises for
eighteen students; a second shop for vise-work upon metals and for
machine-work; and a third with a single outfit of blacksmith’s tools.
During the last few months systematic instruction has been given to
different classes in all these shops. Special attention has been paid to
the use of wood-working hand-tools, to wood-turning, and to filing.”

These tentative steps promoted a healthy public sentiment, and attracted
the attention of several wealthy men, who in 1879 contributed the funds
for the permanent foundation of the school. The prospectus for the year
1882-83 contains the following “historical note,” which shows great
progress:

“The ordinance establishing the Manual Training School was adopted by
the Board of Directors of the University, June 6, 1879.

“The lot was purchased and the building begun in August of the same
year. In the November following a prospectus of the school was
published. In June, 1880, the building being partially equipped, was
opened for public inspection, and a class of boys was examined for
admission. On September 6, 1880, the school began with a single class of
about fifty pupils. The whole number enrolled during the year was
sixty-seven. A public exhibition of drawing and shop-work was given June
16, 1881.

“The _second year_ of the school opened September 12, 1881, and closed
June 14, 1882. There were two classes, sixty-one pupils belonging to the
first year, and forty-six to the second year, making one hundred and
seven in all. Of the second-year class, forty-two had attended the
school the previous year.

“The _third year_ of the school will open on September 11th, when three
classes will be present.

“The large addition now in progress (June, 1882) is to be completed and
furnished by the day set for the examination of candidates for
admission, September 8th. The number of pupils in the new first-year
class is to be limited to one hundred. _Nearly one-half of that number
have already been received._”

The capacity of the school since the completion of the “addition”
alluded to in the “historical note” is two hundred and forty students.
The first class was graduated in June, 1883; the second class in June,
1884. The establishment of this excellent school is due first to the
energy and educational foresight of Dr. Woodward, and second, to the
munificent money donations of three citizens of St. Louis--Mr. Edwin
Harrison, Mr. Samuel Cupples, and Mr. Gottlieb Conzelman. Other citizens
emulated their noble example, and the result was a sufficient fund for
the support of the school, whose purpose is to demonstrate the
practicability of uniting manual and mental instruction in the public
schools of St. Louis and of the country. With a single further quotation
from the prospectus of the second great manual training school in the
United States, on the subject of labor, we close this too brief notice:

“One great object of the school is to foster a higher appreciation of
the value and dignity of intelligent labor, and the worth and
respectability of laboring men. A boy who sees nothing in manual labor
but mere brute force despises both labor and the laborer. With the
acquisition of skill in himself comes the ability and willingness to
recognize skill in his fellows. When once he appreciates skill in
handicraft, he regards the workman with sympathy and respect.”

Considerable progress in manual training has been made in the State
agricultural colleges of the country. In twelve of these colleges
drawing and tool practice have been introduced. Generally the tool
practice covers pattern-making, blacksmithing, moulding and founding,
forging and bench-work, and machine-tool work in iron. The most
pronounced success has been achieved at Purdue University, Lafayette,
Ind., under the directorship of Prof. Wm. F. M. Goss, who graduated from
the school of Mechanic Arts of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
in 1879.

Manual training in connection with the public-school system of education
has been inaugurated in Boston and Milford, Mass.; New Haven, and the
State Normal School, New Britain, Conn.; Omaha, Neb.;[100] Eau Claire,
Wis.;[101] Moline, Peru, and the Cook County Normal School, Normal Park,
Ill.; Montclair, N. J.; Cleveland and Barnesville, Ohio; San Francisco,
Cal.; and Baltimore, Md.

[100] In charge of Albert M. Bumann, B.S., graduate of the St. Louis
Manual Training School, class of 1885.

[101] In charge of William F. Barnes, B.S., graduate of the St. Louis
Manual Training School, class of 1885.

On the occasion of the annual meeting of 1884 of the National
Educational Association of the United States, at Madison, Wis., manual
training received a very large share of the attention of educators. Very
creditable exhibits of various manipulations in wood, iron, and steel
were made by the following institutions, namely, the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, Purdue University, the St. Louis Manual
Training School, the Illinois Industrial University, the University of
Wisconsin, and the Spring Garden Institute of Philadelphia. There were
also about thirty kindergarten exhibits, and a large number of exhibits
of specimens of drawing from public schools in various parts of the
country.

Prof. Felix Adler’s educational enterprise in the city of New York--The
Workingman’s School and Free Kindergarten--is unique in this that, while
it is entirely a work of charity, it is the most comprehensive
educational institution in existence, as appears from the following
description of its course of instruction:

“The Workingman’s School and Free Kindergarten form one institution. The
children are admitted at the age of three to the kindergarten. They are
graduated from it at six, and enter the workingman’s school. They remain
in the school till they are thirteen or fourteen years of age.
Thereafter those who show decided ability receive higher technical
instruction. For the others who leave the school proper and are sent to
work, a series of evening classes will be opened, in which their
industrial and general education will be continued in various
directions. This graduate course of the workingman’s school is intended
to extend up to the eighteenth or twenty-first year.

“From the third year up to manhood and womanhood--such,” says Prof.
Adler, “is the scope embraced by the purposes of our institution!”

The following extracts from a late report of the principal of the
school, Mr. G. Bamberger, on its “purposes,” show that they are
identical with those of the so-called manual training school, and also
that its methods are similar:

“We, therefore, have undertaken to institute a reform in education in
the following two ways: We begin industrial instruction at the very
earliest age possible. Already in our kindergarten we lay the foundation
for the system of work instruction that is to follow. In the school
proper, then, we seek to bridge over the interval lying between the
preparatory kindergarten training and the specialized instruction of the
technical school, utilizing the school age itself for the development of
industrial ability. This, however, is only one characteristic feature of
our institution. The other, and the capital one, is, that we seek to
combine industrial instruction organically with the ordinary branches of
instruction, thus using it not only for the material purpose of
creating skill, but also ideally as a factor of mind-education. To our
knowledge, such an application of work instruction has nowhere as yet
been attempted, either abroad or in this country....

“In the teaching of history to these young children we hold it essential
that the teacher should be entirely independent of any text-book, and
able to freely handle the vast material at his disposal, and to draw
from it, as from an endless storehouse, with fixed and definite purpose.
We attach even greater importance to the moral than to the intellectual
significance of history. The benefits which the understanding, the
memory, and the imagination derive from the study of history are not
small. But history, considered as a realm of actions, can be made
especially fruitful of sound influence upon the active, moral side of
human nature. The moral judgment is strengthened by a knowledge of the
evolution of mankind in good and evil. The moral feelings are purified
by abhorrence of the vices of the past, and by admiration of examples of
greatness and virtue. Text-books are not to be discarded, but their
choice is a matter of great difficulty. Thus, all books in which
historical instruction is given in the shape of printed questions and
answers are highly objectionable. They are convenient bridges which lead
to nothing.”

The following extract from a late report of Prof. Adler shows the
purpose of the establishment of what he calls the “model school” to be
identical with that of the projectors of the St. Louis and Chicago
manual training schools, namely, the ultimate adoption by the public
schools of the country of a far more rational system of instruction than
that which at present prevails. He says,

“It seemed to us, therefore, far more necessary, far more calculated to
really advance the public good, that one model school should be erected
in which the entire system of rational and liberal education for the
children of the poorer class might be exhibited from beginning to end.
We ventured to hope that such an example, having once been set, would
not be without effect upon the common-school system at large, and that
the extension of our work would proceed by the natural course of the
‘survival of what is fittest.’ It was decided, therefore, that the
twenty-five graduates from the kindergarten should be invited to remain
with us, that a complete school should be instituted, and that a teacher
should be at once appointed to take in hand the instruction of the
lowest class. The munificence of Mr. Joseph Seligman, to whose name we
cannot refer without gratitude and respect, at this stage enabled us to
go on with our undertaking, when the dearth of funds would otherwise
have compelled us to wait, or perhaps desist altogether. His timely gift
of ten thousand dollars was the means of starting the school, and on
this as well as on other accounts his memory deserves to be cherished by
those who cherish the educational interests of the people.”

The Chicago Manual Training School is the only independent educational
institution of the kind in the world. All the schools of this character
to which reference has been made in this chapter are departments of
colleges or institutes of technology. The Chicago school is unique in
another respect: it owes its origin entirely to laymen. Professional
educators labored long and earnestly to found the schools we have
described, but the Chicago school was inspired by men unknown in the
field of educational enterprise, advocated by a secular daily journal,
and established by an association of merchants, manufacturers, and
bankers. For many years the _Chicago Tribune_ had very freely and
severely criticised the educational methods of the public schools. Early
in the year 1881 its editorial columns were opened to the author of this
work, who began and continued, therein, the advocacy of the
establishment of a manual training school in Chicago, as a tentative
step towards the incorporation in the curriculum of the public schools,
of more practical methods of instruction.

The editorial advocacy of the _Tribune_ was continued for twelve months,
articles appearing about once a week, without apparent effect beyond
provoking a controversy with certain professional educators, who
attacked the positions assumed by the _Tribune_. But a public sentiment
had been created on the subject, and the Commercial Club was destined
soon to embody that sentiment in action. At its regular monthly meeting,
March 25, 1882, the subject of reform in methods of education was
discussed by members of the club, and by men invited to be present for
that purpose; the establishment of a school was resolved upon, and
$100,000 pledged for its support.

The Chicago Manual Training School Association was incorporated April
11, 1883; the corner-stone of its building was laid September 24, 1883;
and the sessions of the school commenced on the 4th of February, 1884,
with a class of seventy-two students, “selected by examination from one
hundred and thirty applicants, under the directorship of Henry H.
Belfield, A.M., Ph.D.”

The Board of Trustees consists of E. W. Blatchford, president; R. T.
Crane, vice-president; Marshall Field, treasurer; William A. Fuller,
secretary; John Crerar, John W. Doane, N. K. Fairbank, Edson Keith, and
George M. Pullman.

The object of the school is stated in the articles of incorporation as
follows:

“Instruction and practice in the use of tools, with such instruction as
may be deemed necessary in mathematics, drawing, and the English
branches of a high-school course. The tool instruction as at present
contemplated shall include carpentry, wood-turning, pattern-making, iron
chipping and filing, forge-work, brazing and soldering, the use of
machine-shop tools, and such other instruction of a similar character as
may be deemed advisable to add to the foregoing from time to time, it
being the intention to divide the working hours of the students, as
nearly as possible, equally between manual and mental exercises.”

From the first annual catalogue, under the title “Building and
Equipment,” we extract the following:

“The school building is beautifully located on Michigan Avenue, and
contains ample accommodations, in rooms for study and work, for several
hundred pupils.

“The equipment in the mechanical department consists mainly, at present,
of twenty-four cabinet-makers’ benches; bench and lathe tools of the
best quality for seventy-two boys; twenty-four speed lathes, twelve-inch
swing, thirty inches between centres; a fifty-two horse-power Corliss
engine, twelve-inch cylinder, thirty-six inch stroke; two tubular
boilers, forty inches in diameter, fourteen feet long. The Corliss
engine, boilers, and lathes were made especially for the school.

“A very valuable scientific library of nearly five hundred volumes, the
property of the American Electrical Society, has been placed in the
school. To this library, which is particularly rich in works pertaining
to electricity and chemistry, but which contains also cyclopedias,
dictionaries, and other works of reference, the pupils have access.

“The Blatchford Literary Society, an organization of pupils for
improvement in composition, debate, etc., has lately had a handsome
donation of money for the purchase of books to be placed in their alcove
in the school library. Several periodicals are regularly placed on the
library tables through the generosity of the publishers.

“By the kindness of Dr. Wm. F. Poole, librarian, pupils are able to
obtain books from the Chicago Public Library on unusually favorable
conditions.”

Thus the Chicago Manual Training School, a practical school, a school of
instruction in things, a school after Bacon’s “own heart,” sprang from
the brains of a number of plain, practical business men, full-armed, as
Minerva from the brain of Jupiter.

The Trustees were fortunate in securing Dr. Belfield for the
directorship of the school. Before the introduction of the new education
to this country, eleven years ago, while Russia was struggling with the
problem of tool practice by the laboratory method, Dr. Belfield urged
the need of manual training in the public schools of Chicago, in which
he was a teacher. He was met with derision; but the president of the
Board of Education of Chicago and the superintendent of schools are now
advocates of the new system of training.

In conclusion we present the following extracts from the inaugural
address of Dr. Belfield, delivered before the Chicago Manual Training
School Association, June 19, 1884, as embodying the results of his
experience and observation as to the value of the new system of
training:

“The distinctive feature of the manual training school is the education
of the mind, and of the hand as the agent of the mind. The time of the
pupil in school is about equally divided between the study of books and
the study of things; between the academic work on the one hand, and the
drawing and shop-work on the other. Observe, I do not say between
_school-work_ and _shop-work_, for the shop is as much a school as is
any other part of the establishment. Nor do I mean that the shop gives
an education of the hand alone, and the class-room an education of the
brain; but I mean that the shop educates _hand and brain_. That the
_hand_ is educated I need not stop to prove; but the shop educates the
mind also.

“Had you been in the wood-working room of this school a few hours ago,
what would you have seen? Twenty-four boys at work at lathes driven by a
powerful engine. Are any idle? No. Are any inattentive to their work?
No; you notice the closest and most earnest attention, frequently
approaching abstraction. Here, then, is the cultivation of a most
important faculty of the mind, attention, the power of concentration;
and it is worthy of remark that this attention is not an _enforced_
attention, but is cheerful, voluntary, and unremitting.

“The young workman is engaged on a problem in wood, just as, a few hours
earlier, he was engaged on a problem in algebra. He has before him a
drawing made to a scale. The problem is this: He must gain a clear
conception of the object represented by the drawing; he must _imagine_
it; he must select or cut a block of wood of the proper dimensions and
of the right quality. It must not be too large, for he must guard
against waste of material and waste of time. It must be large enough,
for there must be no incompleteness about the finished product of his
labor. Observe him as the work grows under his hand; observe the
selecting of the proper tools for the different parts of the process;
observe the careful measuring, the watchful eye upon the position of the
chisel, the speed of the lathe, the gradual approach of the once
rectangular block to the model which exists in his brain--and you must
admit that this work demands and develops, not manual dexterity alone,
but attention, observation, imagination, judgment, reasoning....

“My own opinion is that an hour in the shop of a well-conducted manual
training school develops as much mental strength as an hour devoted to
Virgil or Legendre....

“But of this I am confident, that three years of a manual training
school will give at least as much purely intellectual growth as three
years of the ordinary high school, because, as has been said, every
school hour, whether spent in the class-room, the drawing-room, or in
the shop, is an hour devoted to intellectual training. And I am also
convinced that the manual training school boy’s comprehension of some
essential branches of knowledge will be as far superior to that of the
other boy’s, as the realization of the grandeur and beauty of the Alps
to the man who has seen their glories is superior to the conception of
him who has merely read of them....

“And here is the mistake of those who would degrade a manual training
school into a manufacturing establishment. The fact should never be lost
sight of for an instant that the product of the school should be, not
the polished article of furniture, not the perfect piece of machinery,
but the polished, perfect _boy_. The acquisition of industrial skill
should be the means of promoting the general education of the pupil; the
education of the hand should be the means of more completely and more
efficaciously educating the brain....

“Take two boys, one with little or no education, the other a high-school
graduate; let them enter the machine-shop of a large manufactory,
beginning, as boys ignorant of the technique of the trade must begin, at
the lowest round of the ladder. It cannot be doubted that in three or
four years the high-school graduate, if he had been willing to do the
drudgery incident to the place, would have reached a higher position
than the other boy, and would be in a fair way to succeed to some
responsible post in the establishment. But the graduate of the manual
training school, by reason of his superior knowledge of machinery and
materials, his skill in the use of tools, added to his general mental
training, would begin at the point reached by the high-school boy after
his years of apprenticeship. From the day of his entrance into the
factory he would be conspicuous. While the other boys would stand in the
presence of the huge Titan of the shop lost in the wonder of ignorance,
the manual training boy would gaze with delight on the marvel of
mechanism, wrapped in the admiration begotten of a thorough
understanding of its construction, and strong in the consciousness of
his mastery of it.”

Manual training was introduced in the Pennsylvania State College,
experimentally, about three years ago. In 1883 the course was “greatly
extended,” and in September, 1884, it went into full operation. The
course is substantially the same as that of the Chicago school; and that
it was the outgrowth of the Russian system, and inspired by Dr. Runkle,
is shown by the following extract from a circular lately issued by Prof.
Louis E. Reber:

“Some may think that the variety of operations in the mechanic arts is
so great as to make it impossible to give the student any real knowledge
in the time at his disposal. It should be borne in mind, however, that
this multiplicity of processes may be reduced to a small number of
manual operations, and the numerous tools employed are only
modifications of, or convenient substitutes for, a few tools which are
in general use.”

A course in tool practice by the laboratory method has been made part of
the curriculum of the College of the City of New York.[102] I am
permitted to make an extract from a letter written in August last by
Alfred G. Compton, Professor of Applied Mathematics of the College of
the City of New York, to Dr. Runkle. I print this extract to show the
exacting nature of the demands made upon instructors by the new
education. It is as follows:

[102] “The first report of the Industrial Educational Association of
New York gives a list of thirty-one schools in that city in which
industrial education is furnished.”--Address of Prof. S. R. Thompson,
Industrial Department of the National Educational Association,
Saratoga Springs, N. Y., July, 1885.

“We are anxious to find, by the opening of our term in September, a
competent instructor in wood-working for our course in mechanic arts,
now in its second year. He should be a good and ready draughtsman,
skilful in perspective and projections, and ready in black-board
sketching, besides being acquainted with the use of tools, and apt at
class-teaching. He will have at first $1000 a year.”

The lack of competent instructors is the most serious difficulty which
the new education is destined to encounter. The desire to adopt tool
practice is so widespread among the people that educators, whether
willing or otherwise, are compelled to attempt to gratify the demand.
At the same time the force of competent instructors is very small, and
the danger is that the new system of education will be brought into
disrepute through the failure of its proper administration.

In 1882 Mr. Paul Tulane, of Princeton, N. J., made a large donation,
consisting of his realty in the city of New Orleans, in aid of education
in the State of Louisiana. In 1884 the University bearing its donor’s
name--Tulane--came into existence. In the deed of donation Mr. Tulane
declared that by the term education he meant to “foster such a course of
intellectual development as shall be useful and of solid worth, and not
be merely ornamental or superficial.” Hence manual training has been
made a prominent feature of the institution.[103]

[103] John M. Ordway, A.M., late Professor of Metallurgy and
Industrial Chemistry of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has
been called to New Orleans to organize and direct the manual training
department of the institution; and he is assisted by Charles A. Heath,
B.S., and Everett E. Hapgood, graduates of the School of Mechanic Arts
of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

There is in operation at Crozet, Va., a manual training school called,
after its founder, Mr. Samuel Miller, “The Miller Manual Labor School;”
but of the methods of training pursued at this school the author is not
accurately informed.

Girard College, dedicated nearly forty years ago, has adopted manual
training. In response to a letter by the author, asking for information,
Mr. W. Heyward Drayton, of Philadelphia, gives the following historical
sketch of the introduction and progress of tool practice by the
laboratory method in that noble institution:

“From time to time some of the directors recognized the importance of
mechanical instruction, but after one or two attempts further efforts in
this direction were abandoned, as those proved utter failures. It was
not until Dr. Runkle, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, at
the instance of the late Mr. William Welsh, then president of the Board
of Directors of City Trusts, delivered a short address on the subject in
the lecture-room of the Franklin Institute in this city, that any
practical mode of introducing this branch of study into the college was
presented.

“... Following as nearly as possible the scheme suggested by Dr. Runkle,
and aided by many suggestions from him, in April, 1882, we began to
instruct the larger boys to use tools in several kinds of metals. We
were so fortunate as to secure the services of a very competent and
enthusiastic instructor, who confined his instruction merely to teaching
the use of tools, but without any pretence of teaching any trade. The
result of two years’ experience has been so satisfactory that our boys
leave the college to go to workshops, where they secure sufficient wages
to support them at once; and they have, in many cases, been found so
expert that in a few months their wages have been increased. We have
been so encouraged by this as a substitute for apprenticing lads, which
is fast becoming impossible, that we have just erected commodious
workshops [laboratories], in which, on the same system, but to many more
boys, we propose to teach the use of tools in wood-work also, as we have
heretofore taught in metals. To this time we have been compelled, from
want of facilities, to confine our instruction to about one hundred and
seventy-five boys. We expect next month (October, 1884) to increase the
number to three hundred--only being limited by the youth of the pupils,
many of whom are too young to permit of their handling tools.”

Manual training has been made part of the curriculum of the Agricultural
and Mechanical College of Auburn, Ala., and the department is under the
direction of a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology.[104]

[104] George H. Bryant, B.S., graduate of the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology, class of 1883.

* * * * *

Manual training has been adopted as a branch of education in the Denver
(Col.) University, and the director of the department is a graduate of
the manual training department of the Washington University of St.
Louis, Mo.[105]

[105] C. H. Wright, B.S., graduate of the St. Louis Manual Training
School, class of 1885.

The present year (1885) witnesses a very important addition to the list
of manual training schools--that of Philadelphia.

It is not too much to say that Mr. James MacAlister has revolutionized
the public schools of Philadelphia in the short period of two years
during which he has held the office of superintendent; and the last wave
of the revolution reveals a fully-equipped manual training school as
part of the public-school system of the conservative, grand old Quaker
city. And this practical element in education is to be free to all
public-school boys fourteen years of age, who can show themselves
qualified to enter, as witness the following “rules” of the Philadelphia
public schools:

“Promotions to the Manual Training School shall be made at the close of
the June term, from the Twelfth Grade, or any higher grade, of the
Boys’ Grammar, Consolidated and Combined Schools; but no boy shall be
promoted who is under fourteen years of age.

“It shall be the duty of the Principals of the several Boys’ Grammar,
Consolidated and Combined Schools, to certify to the superintendent of
schools the names of all boys of the proper age who have finished the
course of study in the Twelfth Grade, or any higher grade, and are
desirous of promotion to the Manual Training School.”

In calling the attention of the public to the establishment of a manual
training school as part of the educational system of Philadelphia, a
committee of the City Board of Education say, under date of June 10,
1885,

“The undersigned desire to call attention to the new manual training
school to be opened in this city next September. It is intended for boys
who have finished the Twelfth Grade, or any higher grade, of the
Grammar-school course. The instruction will embrace a thorough course,
so far as it goes, in English, mathematics, free-hand and mechanical
drawing, and the fundamental sciences; but in addition to these branches
a carefully graded course of manual training will form a leading feature
of the school. This manual training is intended to give the boys such a
knowledge of the tools and materials employed in the chief industrial
pursuits of our time as shall place them in more direct and sympathetic
relations with the great activities of the business world. The school
will make our public education not only more complete and symmetrical in
character than it has been heretofore, but it will be at the same time
better adapted to enable the pupils to win their way in life. No matter
what future a parent may have marked out for his boy--whether he be
intended for an industrial, a mercantile, or a professional occupation,
it is believed that such an education will be of immense advantage to
him. Upon the industries of the world, to a much larger extent than ever
before in its history, depend the progress, the prosperity, the
happiness of society. To prepare boys for this condition of things will
be the aim of this school. The entire course of instruction and training
will be _practical_ in the largest and best sense of that term. The
culture it gives will include the hand as well as the head, and its
graduates will be trained to work as well as to think. The course will
extend over a period of three years, but it is so arranged that boys
whose intended pursuits in life will not warrant spending so much time
may participate in its advantages for a shorter period before entering
upon other studies or a permanent occupation.

“The Manual Training School has been organized in response to a growing
sentiment respecting the character of public education which has been
strongly manifested in Philadelphia, and the Board of Public Education
believe that the movement, when fully understood, will meet with the
cordial approval of our people. Your careful consideration of the nature
and objects which the school seeks to accomplish is respectfully
solicited.”

This act of the school authorities of the city of Philadelphia is the
strongest popular endorsement the theory of manual training as an
element of education has received. It commits a great city to a fair
trial of the new education under the most favorable auspices--under the
conduct of Mr. James MacAlister, one of the most accomplished, as well
as most sternly practical educators in the United States.

But this is only part of a general system of manual training introduced
throughout the whole course of instruction given in the public schools
of Philadelphia. There are kindergartens (sub-primaries) for children
from three to six years of age, and an industrial art department for all
the students (of both sexes) of the grammar schools. In this latter
department the course of training comprises “drawing and design,”
“modelling,” “wood-carving,” “carpentry and joinery,” and “metal work.”
These courses, including manual training proper, “at the top,” form a
comprehensive system of head and hand training known as the new
education. Mr. MacAlister says, “The conviction is gradually obtaining
among the members of the Board of Education [of Philadelphia], and in
the public mind, that every child should receive manual training; that a
complete education implies the training of the hand in connection with
the training of the mind; and that this feature must ultimately be
incorporated into the public education. What is this but the realization
of the principles which every great thinker and reformer in education
has insisted upon, from Comenius, Locke, and Rousseau, to Pestalozzi,
Froebel, and Spencer!”[106]

[106] In a letter to the author, Mr. MacAlister re-enforces the
observations quoted in the text. He says,

“I wish you to understand that all my own convictions and action in
connection with this movement are based upon what in my judgment
should constitute an education fitted to prepare a human being for the
social conditions of to-day, _and not merely upon the industrial
demands of our time_.... I believe there is a great future for the
manual training movement in Philadelphia. I feel encouraged to go
forward with the work. The great principles which underlie the system
are with me intense convictions; _they mean nothing less than a
revolution in education_. The great ideas of the reformers of school
training must be realized in the public schools, or they will fail in
accomplishing the ends for which they were instituted and have been
maintained.”

The rapid progress of the revolution in education is shown by the fact
that manual training in some form has been adopted in certain of the
schools of at least twenty-four of the States of the American Union.

In some of the higher educational institutions the new education is
warmly welcomed, while in others public sentiment alone compels its
adoption. The State Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas has
been revolutionized in this way. A member of the Faculty[107] writes as
follows:

[107] H. H. Dinwiddie, Professor of Chemistry, Chairman of the
Faculty.

“This institution was opened on the 4th of October, 1876. In spite of
its name, the conditions of its endowment, and its avowed object, it was
founded on the plan of the old classical and mathematical college, and
had no industrial features whatever till the beginning of the year 1880.
At that time the public sentiment of the State had condemned so
decidedly and repeatedly the misappropriation of the funds, and
perversion of the energies of the college under its administration as a
literary school, that the directors found it necessary to reorganize it
by accepting the resignation of the members of the faculty without
exception, and calling in a new corps of instructors. In 1880-81 a large
dormitory building was converted into a shop [laboratory]. This was
fitted with tools for elementary instruction in wood-working for the
accommodation of about fifty students. A small metal-working plant was
also erected, the whole being furnished with power from a
twelve-horse-power engine. Since that time a brick shop [laboratory] has
been provided for the accommodation of the metal-working machinery,
which now includes the principal machines used in ordinary
iron-working, all driven by a twenty-horsepower engine.”

Massachusetts, the cradle of the American common-school system, is the
first State to legalize by statute the new education, placing manual
training on an equal footing with mental training, by the following act:

“Section I. of Chapter XLIV. of the Public Statutes, relating to the
branches of instruction to be taught in public schools, is amended by
striking out in the eighth line the words ‘and hygiene,’ and inserting
instead the words ‘hygiene and the elementary use of hand-tools;’ and in
any city or town where such tools shall be introduced they shall be
purchased by the school committee at the expense of such city or town,
and loaned to such pupils as may be allowed to use them free of charge,
subject to such rules and regulations, as to care and custody, as the
school committee may prescribe.”[108]

[108] “School Laws of Massachusetts. Supplement to the Edition of
1883, containing the Additional Legislation to the Close of the
Legislative Session of 1885; issued by the State Board of Education.”

The Legislature of Connecticut adopted a similar statute last year
(1884).

The Iowa Agricultural College is the first educational institution in
the country to recognize the importance of instruction in the arts of
home life. In this college domestic economy has been elevated to the
dignity of a department called the “School of Domestic Economy,” with
the following “special faculty:”

The President, Mrs. Emma P. Ewing, Dean. _Domestic Economy_.
J. L. Budd _Horticulture and Gardening_.
A. A. Bennett _Chemistry_.
B. D. Halsted _Botany_.
D. S. Fairchild _Hygiene and Physiology_.
Laura M. Saunderson _Elocution_.

The course of study is as follows:

FIRST YEAR.

_First Term._ _Second Term._

Domestic Economy. Domestic Economy.
Botany. Physiology and Hygiene.
Physical Training. Dress-fitting and Millinery.
Household Accounts. Essays.

SECOND YEAR.

_First Term._ _Second Term._

Domestic Economy. Domestic Economy.
Chemistry. Home Architecture.
Duties of the Nurse. Home Sanitation.
Designing and Free-hand Drawing. Home Æsthetics and Decorative Art.
Landscape and Floral Gardening. Essays and Graduating Thesis.

Mrs. Ewing, dean of the school, thus states, clearly and powerfully, the
reasons for its establishment and its purposes:

“This school is based upon the assumption that no industry is more
important to human happiness than that which makes the home; and that a
pleasant home is an essential element of broad culture, and one of the
surest safeguards of morality and virtue. It was organized to meet the
wants of pupils who desire a knowledge of the principles that underlie
domestic economy, and the course of study is especially arranged to
furnish women instruction in applied house-keeping and the arts and
sciences relating thereto--to incite them to a faithful performance of
the every-day duties of life, and to inspire them with a belief in the
nobleness and dignity of a true womanhood.

“No calling requires for its perfect mastery a greater amount of
practice and theory combined than that of domestic economy, and
students, in addition to recitations and lectures on the various topics
of the course, receive practical training in all branches of house-work,
in the purchase and care of family supplies, and in general household
management. They are not, however, required to perform a greater amount
of labor than is necessary for the desired instruction.

“The course of study is for graduates of colleges and universities. It
extends through two years, and leads to the degree of Master of Domestic
Economy.”[109]

[109] Annual Catalogue of the Iowa Agricultural College.

The Le Moyne Normal Institute of Memphis, Tenn., is a private school,
“sustained chiefly by benevolently disposed people at the North, for
colored youth.” In a letter to the author the principal of this school
thus describes the manual features of its curriculum:

“Besides our Normal work proper, we give girls of the school two years’
training in needle-work of different kinds, one year’s instruction in
choice and preparation of foods, with practice in an experimental
kitchen, and six months’ training in nursing or care of the sick. One
hour a day is given to each of the foregoing subjects for the time
indicated.

“I am about to erect workshops for training for our boys in the use of
wood-working tools, and in iron-working and moulding--the course to
comprise two years’ time, two hours per day at the benches. We shall
also have type-setting and printing as specialties for individual
students. This work will be in operation in January, 1886.”[110]

[110] A. J. Steele.

The professor in charge of the Mechanical Engineering Department of the
University of Michigan writes to the author as follows:

“There can be no doubt in the mind of a sane man that this practical
instruction [laboratory work] is exactly what is needed by our
engineering students. We are assured of that fact by the expression of
gratification on the part of our engineering _alumni_ to find here the
very instruction which they were obliged to spend two or three years to
secure after graduating. We give our students work of an elementary
character for a few weeks, or until they become accustomed to tools,
when we put them to work on some part of a machine. If they spoil it,
well and good--it goes into the scrap-heap; if they succeed, they have
the pleasure of seeing a perfect machine grow up under their eyes and
hand. Students having matured minds, as most of ours have, work better
with a definite plan in view. We always require them to work from
drawings. Our course in forging is very popular; and it is especially
useful, as it gives our young men that knowledge of the different kinds
of iron and steel which will be of the greatest benefit to them as
engineers.”[111]

[111] Mortimer E. Cooley, Assistant Engineer, U. S. Navy.

The National Educational Association of the United States, at its last
meeting, at Saratoga Springs, N. Y. (1885), took a great step forward in
the adoption of a resolution[112] endorsing the kindergarten. The
association was, however, singularly illogical in its subsequent
action, in voting to lay upon the table a resolution[113] recommending
the introduction of manual training to the public schools. The
kindergarten and manual training are one in principle, and should be one
in practice. All educators will soon see this, and the National
Educational Association will no doubt soon place itself as heartily on
record in support of manual training as it has already done in support
of the kindergarten.

[112] “_Resolved_, that we trust the time is near at hand when the
true principles of the kindergarten will guide all elementary
training, and when public sentiment and legislative enactment will
incorporate the kindergarten into our public-school system.”

[113] “_Resolved_, That we recognize the educational value of training
the hand to skill in the use of tools, and recommend that provision be
made, as far as practicable, for such training in public schools.”

Ohio ranks as the third State in the Union industrially, and she is
making great strides in the direction of a more practical system of
education. This is shown by the prominent place given to instruction in
the mechanic arts in the State University at Columbus, by the prosperity
of the Case School of Applied Science, and the introduction of manual
training to the public-school system at Cleveland, and by the
establishment of the Scott Manual Training School at Toledo. The city of
Toledo owes the inception of the movement in support of the new
education to the munificence of the late Jesup W. Scott, who during his
life conveyed to trustees for purposes of industrial education, in
connection with the public-school system, certain valuable real estate.
After the death of Mr. Scott, his three sons,[114] still residents of
Toledo, supplemented their father’s donation with a sufficient sum of
money to secure the erection and complete equipment of a manual training
school for three hundred and fifty pupils.

[114] William F., Frank J., and Maurice Scott.

The school is modelled after the schools of St. Louis and Chicago; but
it gives only the manual side of the curriculum, because it is
conducted in connection with the public High School, receiving its
pupils therefrom. It opened in the autumn of 1884 with sixty pupils, ten
of whom were girls. Its register now numbers two hundred, fifty of whom
are girls. Its course for boys is substantially the same as that of the
Chicago school. The course for girls includes free-hand and mechanical
drawing, designing, modelling, wood-carving, cutting, fitting, and
making garments, and domestic science, including food preparation and
household decoration. A distinguished lawyer and citizen of Toledo,[115]
who has been prominent in the work of establishing the school, says,

[115] Hon. A. E. Macomber.

“The brightest and most faithful pupils of the High School have eagerly
availed themselves of the opportunity for manual instruction, and the
zeal with which this new work is pursued has added a new charm to school
life.”

The school is in charge of Mr. Ralph Miller, B.S., who is assisted by
Mr. Geo. S. Mills, B.S.[116] It is especially interesting, both as the
newest educational enterprise and because it places the sexes on a
footing of absolute equality. Reform in education must begin with woman,
for it is from her that man inherits his notable traits, and from her
that he receives the earliest and most enduring impressions. In the arms
of the mother the infant mind rapidly unfolds. It is in the cradle, in
the nursery, and at the fireside that the child becomes father of the
man. The regeneration of the race through education must, then, begin
with the child, and be directed by the mother; and this being the fact,
the education of woman becomes far more imperative than that of man.

[116] Graduates of the St. Louis Manual Training School, class of
1884.

That the ancients made so little progress in morals is due to the fact
of their neglect of the education of woman. Neither in Egypt nor Persia
was provision made for her mental or moral training. There were schools
for boys in Greece, but none for girls; and not till late in the Empire
was there any special culture for girls in Rome.

In the Middle Ages learning was confined to the religious orders. The
narrow bounds of the convent contained all there was of science and art.
In the castle and at the tournament woman ministered to man’s pride and
vanity; and in the peasant’s hut, which was the abode equally of poverty
and ignorance, she endured both mental and moral starvation. Sir Walter
Raleigh, Lord Bacon, Swift, Addison, Lord Chesterfield, Dr. Johnson, and
Southey treated woman with mingled contempt and pity, and yet they were
familiar with the story of Lucretia, of Virginia, and of the Maid of
Orleans! But Shakespeare, with a sublimer genius, portrayed a Cordelia,
a Desdemona, an Imogen, and a Queen Catharine, and with rare prevision
of a future better than the age he knew, wrote these glowing lines:

“Falsehood and cowardice
Are things that women highly hold in hate.”

This is the rational age, though not less truly chivalrous than that of
Arthur and his knights; for, as Ruskin well says, “The buckling on of
the knight’s armor by his lady’s hand is the type of an eternal
truth--that the soul’s armor is never well set to the heart unless a
woman’s hand has braced it.”[117]

[117] “Sesame and Lilies,” p. 97. By John Ruskin, LL.D. New York: John
Wiley & Sons, 1884.

The distinguishing features of this time are its homes and its schools,
and the purity of the one and the efficiency of the other depends upon
woman. It was reserved for Froebel to rescue woman from the scorn of
preceding ages by declaring her superior fitness for the office of
teacher--the most exalted of civil functions.

The growth of the kindergarten has not been commensurate with its
importance. Indifference and prejudice have united to discourage
progress. Ancient contempt of childhood--that contempt which in Persia
excluded the boy from the presence of his father until the fifth year of
his age[118]--projects its sombre shadow down the ages. But manual
training, which is the kindergarten in another form, is leading captive
the imagination of the American people, and where the imagination leads,
woman is in the van. Woman is to man what the poet is to the scientist,
what Shakespeare was to Newton, the celestial guide. She tempts to deeds
of heroism and self-sacrifice. She is less selfish than man, because a
more vivid imagination inspires her with a deeper feeling of compassion
for the misfortunes and follies of the race. Her intuitions are truer
than those of man, her ideals higher, her sense of justice finer, and of
duty stronger; and she has a better appreciation of the moral value of
industry, remembering the temptations of her sex to evil through habits
of idleness, enforced by the decrees of custom. And she is our teacher,
whether we will or no--our teacher from the cradle to the grave--and it
is through her ministry that we are destined to realize our highest
mental and moral ideals.[E32]

[118] “Herodotus,” Clio I., p. 136.

This sketch of the history of manual training in the United States is
doubtless incomplete. It is, however, sufficient to show that the
subject is already one of absorbing interest in all parts of the
country.

Manual training in the public schools of Europe can scarcely be called
educational, since the pupils usually make articles for household use.
The purpose is purely industrial, and hence the mental culture received
in the course of the manual exercise is the mere incident of a
mechanical pursuit. But the making of things in the schools of Europe is
gradually extending.

In Denmark an annual appropriation ($2000) is made by the Legislature
for the encouragement of _slöjd_ (hand-cunning) in the schools. All
pupils in Danish and Swedish schools make things.

In Germany, Dr. Erasmus Schwab published in Vienna, in 1873, a book,
“The Work School in the Common School.” Rittmeister Claussen Von Kaas,
of Denmark, travelled through Germany and delivered lectures on manual
training, and now there is a considerable agitation of the subject.

In Finland all the country schools are _slöjd_ schools.

In 1881 the Legislature of Norway appropriated $1250 for the support of
_slöjd_ in the schools.

In France a law (1882) makes manual training obligatory, and a school
for training teachers has been established--“L’école Normale Superieure
de travail Manuel”--in which there are about fifty students. Prof. G.
Solicis was the chief supporter of manual training in France.

In Sweden, in 1876, there were eighty _slöjd_ schools. In 1877 the
number had increased to one hundred; in 1878, to one hundred and thirty;
in 1879, to two hundred; in 1880, to three hundred; in 1881, to four
hundred; and in 1882, to five hundred.

In Nääs, in Sweden, there is a seminary for the training of _slöjd_
teachers.[119] Of this seminary Otto Salomon is director. In the _slöjd_
schools small articles are made for use in the house, kitchen, on the
farm, etc. The course of instruction embraces one hundred models. The
materials for the first series of twenty-five models cost about 40
cents; for the second series of twenty-five the cost is 75 cents; and
for the third series of fifty the cost is $3.25. The annual expense of
the manual training in a Swedish country school is about ten to eleven
dollars.

[119] “Four young women have graduated from the Slöjd Teacher’s
Seminary at Nääs, Sweden, and two of them are now engaged in teaching
manual arts.”--Letter from John M. Ordway, A.M., Chair of Applied
Chemistry and Biology, and Director of Manual Training, Tulane
University of Louisiana.

The technical and mechanic art or trade schools of Europe, generally,
whether public or private, do not come within the scope of this work,
since their purpose is industrial, not educational.

[E32] “In fine, I have been beloved by the four women whose love was
of the most comfort to me: My mother, my sister, my wife and my
daughter. I have had the better part, and it will not be taken from
me, for I often fancy that the judgments which will be passed upon us
in the Valley of Jehoshaphat, will be neither more nor less than those
of women, countersigned by the Almighty.”--“Recollections of My
Youth,” p. 306. By Ernest Renan. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1883.

CHAPTER XXVII.

PROGRESS OF THE NEW EDUCATION--1883-1898.

Educational Revolution in 1883-4. -- Urgent Demand for Reform --
Existing Schools Denounced as Superficial, their Methods as Automatic,
their System as a Mixture of Cram and Smatter -- The Controversy
between the School-master of the Old Régime and the Reformer -- The
Leaders of the Movement, Col. Parker, Dr. MacAlister, and Others --
Followers of Rousseau, Bacon, and Spencer -- “The End of Man is an
Action, not a Thought” -- The Conservative Teachers Fall into Line --
The New Education Becomes an Aggressive Force, Pushing on to Victory
-- The Physical Progress of Manual Training -- Its Quality Not Equal
to its Extent -- The New System of Training Confided to Teachers of
the Old Régime -- Ideal Teachers Hard to Find -- Teachers Willing to
Learn Should Be Encouraged -- The Effects of Manual Training Long
Antedate its Introduction to the Schools -- Bacon’s Definition of
Education -- Stephenson and the Value of Hand-work -- Manual Training
is the Union of Thought and Action -- It is the Antithesis of the
Greek Methods, which Exalted Abstractions and Debased Things -- The
Rule of Comenius and the Injunction of Rousseau -- Few Teachers
Comprehend Them -- The Employment of the Hands in the Arts is More
Highly Educative than the Acquisition of the Rules of Reading and
Arithmetic -- What the Locomotive has Accomplished for Man --
Education Must be Equal, and Social and Political Equality will Follow
-- The Foundation of the New Education is the Baconian Philosophy as
Stated by Macaulay -- Use and Service are the Twin-ministers of Human
Progress -- Definitions of Genius -- Attention -- Sir Henry Maine --
Manual Training Relates to all the Arts of Life -- Mind and Hand --
Newton and the Apple -- The Sense of Touch Resides in the Hand --
Robert Seidel on Familiarity with Objects -- Material Progress the
Basis of Spiritual Growth -- Plato and the Divine Dialogues --
Poverty, Society, and the Useful Arts -- Selfishness Must Give Way to
Altruism -- The Struggle of Life -- The Progress of the Arts and the
Final Regeneration of the Race -- The Arts that Make Life Sweet and
Beautiful -- The Final Fundamental Educational Ideal is Universality
-- Comenius’s Definition of Schools -- The Workshops of Humanity --
That One Man Should Die Ignorant who had Capacity for Knowledge is a
Tragedy -- Mental and Manual Exercises to be Rendered Homogeneous in
the School of the Future -- The Hero of the Ideal School.

Fifteen years ago a great wave of educational awakening swept over this
country. It penetrated every nook and corner of the land, pervading both
cities, large and small, and the rural districts. It took the shape of a
demand, often almost inarticulate, for reform. The schools were
denounced as superficial; their methods as automatic; their teachers as
unintelligent and untrained, their system of instruction as a mixture of
cram and smatter.

The school-master is a conservative, and with his champions he came
promptly to the defence of the old schools and their old methods. The
controversy became heated, and soon the rival forces joined battle. Col.
Francis W. Parker, of the Chicago Normal School, and Dr. James
MacAlister, now President of the Drexel Institute of Philadelphia, and
others were prominent leaders of the new reform movement, whose banner
was “Manual Training,” or “The New Education.”

Under this brilliant and enthusiastic leadership the movement became a
crusade in the interest of the educational ideas of Montaigne, Rousseau,
Bacon, Locke, Comenius, Pestalozzi, Froebel, Spencer, Mann, and their
long array of sympathizers and supporters, who, with Bacon, declare that
“the end of man is an action, not a thought.”

But the work of the reformers was too serious to be long controlled,
either by emotion or passion. The more intelligent and better educated
and trained teachers gradually came to the support of the new system and
methods, and the mass of the teaching fraternity caught something of the
enthusiasm by which the reformers were inspired to struggle for a great
cause. Thereafter Manual Training became an aggressive force openly
demanding recognition, and pushing for victory and ultimate control.

In the Appendix hereto the physical progress of Manual Training is shown
in tabulated form; and the extent of such progress is all, if not more,
than its most ardent friends and advocates could rationally desire. But
it is not to be doubted that the quality of the progress the new
education has made in the period of fifteen years under consideration is
far inferior to its extent. The statistics here presented relate mainly
to the village, town, and city schools of this country, and especially
to its public schools, with some general observations and facts in
relation to the progress of the new education in England and the chief
countries in Europe. In a few instances the tabulations include
institutions designed for industrial rather than strictly educational
purposes. But it is deemed wise to retain them, on the ground that
whether so designed or not all industrial training is educative.

It is worthy of intelligent inquiry whether as a matter of fact, not
only in this country, but in all countries, the progress of Manual
Training has not been very unsatisfactory in quality. In most cases the
new education was necessarily confided to teachers of the old régime,
who, as a preliminary, were compelled to unlearn what was false and
erroneous in the old system, to overcome the prejudices of years,
sometimes of a lifetime, and to become faithful and laborious students
of a new and scientific scheme of education. The main difficulty in
matters educational has always been to secure ideal teachers. Education
is the first of human considerations, and its professors should be the
most learned of human beings. If the teachers who have been called to
the Priesthood, of the New Education, have proved incompetent in many
instances, instead of being hastily condemned they should be helped
forward towards the goal of competency by all friends of that progress
in education which is the sole hope of human perfection.

The most striking effects of Manual Training long antedate its
introduction to the schools. For thousands of years, in every shop where
the humble mechanic wrought; at every fireside where the domestic arts
obtained a foothold; in every field where a step forward was made
through the invention of some less crude implement of husbandry than the
one that preceded it, the mind and the hand expressed their joint
struggle towards the achievement of that skill in useful things which
constitutes the very kernel of civilization. Bacon’s definition of
education--“the cultivation of a just and legitimate familiarity betwixt
the mind and things”--is a recognition of the philosophic fact that the
hand is the source of wisdom; and the life of George Stephenson, the
inventor of the locomotive, affords a most impressive illustration of
the educative value of hand-work. At the coal-pit’s mouth Stephenson,
meantime learning his “A B C’s,” invented the “Rocket,” while the
bookish engineers were declaring it to be a mechanical impossibility.
Stephenson’s achievement was the realization in things of Bacon’s
luminous precept--“The end of man is an action, not a thought.”--This
is the philosophy, the rationale, of Manual Training; it is the union of
thought and action, and it therefore demands the elimination from
educational methods of the abstract philosophy of the Greeks. In his
declaration, “All the useful arts are degrading,” Plato defined the
character of the revival of learning which was to occur hundreds of
years afterwards; it was a revival of Greek methods, which exalted
abstractions, and debased things. Mr. Herbert Spencer refers to its
baleful effects upon the schools of England in the severest terms of
condemnation. That Mr. Spencer’s arraignment of the schools is just, is
shown by its antithesis expressed in the dictum of Dr. Dwight, of Yale
College, who says: “Education is for the purpose of developing and
cultivating the thinking power. It is to the end of making a knowing,
thinking mind.”

Bacon discovered, and did not hesitate to declare, that “the
understanding is more prone to error than the senses”; and this fact
constitutes the basis of his philosophy of “things,” which is another
name for the law of induction. “For if we would look into and dissect
the nature of this real world,” he says, “we must consult only things
themselves.” If we would find the corner-stone of education, we must
consult labor. Nothing great is accomplished without a due mingling of
drudgery and humility; for of all the virtues humility is the most
excellent. The Greeks failed to comprehend the true educational idea
because of their pride. They associated use with slavery, because in
Greece all labor was performed by slaves; and, scorning labor, they
scorned use, and, by consequence, service, the greatest of the
moralities.

Upon the foundation laid by Bacon, Rabelais, and Montaigne, Comenius,
Rousseau, Pestalozzi, and Froebel raised a great superstructure of
educational ideas. Words were subordinated, and things ennobled.

Comenius’s rule, to “leave nothing until it has been impressed by means
of the ear, the eye, the tongue, the hand,” and the injunction of
Rousseau that “the student will learn more by one hour of manual labor
than he will retain from a whole day’s verbal instructions; that the
things themselves are the best explanations”--these are the maxims of
the new education.

But to what extent has the old school-master adopted the new education,
to what extent occupied the old school-room with new ideas? How many
school-masters of even the present _régime_ comprehend with John Ruskin
that “the youth who has once learned to take a straight shaving off a
plank, or to draw a fine curve without faltering, or to lay a brick
level in its mortar, has learned a multitude of other matters which no
lips of man could ever teach him?” In other words, to what extent does
the conviction pervade the ranks of the fraternity of teachers, whether
of public-schools, private schools, colleges, or universities, that the
employment of the hands in the useful arts is more highly educative than
the acquisition of the rules of reading, writing, and arithmetic? Or,
considering the subject of the history and career of George Stephenson,
for instance, what, in the opinion of the modern school-master,
contributed most to his development as a man and citizen of the
world--the mental exercise of learning to read, write, and cipher, which
task he accomplished while engaged in inventing the locomotive, or the
combined mental and manual exercise of taking apart, repairing, and
putting together the stationary engine used at the colliery where he
was employed? If, in the course of our investigation, it should be found
that doing things as Stephenson did is more conducive to intellectual
development than memorizing words and reciting poetry, as the Greeks
did, some light may be thrown on the general subject of existing
educational methods. Their chief defect is their lack of moral power.
Morality does not reside in the letters of the alphabet, but there is in
the locomotive, for example, a great moral principle--the principle of
the brotherhood of man. For, in devising the locomotive, Stephenson made
man’s neighborhood coterminous with earth’s utmost bounds; thus, in a
single act, achieving his own apotheosis, and assuring, ultimately, the
moral and intellectual kinship of the race. For the hand stands for use,
for service, and for unyielding integrity; and it may be confidently
asserted on the conviction of observation, experience, and a studious
consideration of historic facts, that its drill and discipline as
enforced in the world’s workshops, and in the best of existing
Manual-training schools, results in a far greater degree of mind
development than is produced by any exclusively academic course, and
hence that Manual Training is the most important of all methods of
education.

The most sacred of human rights is the right of the poor child, born in
a highly civilized, wealthy community, to the same kind and degree of
education as that received by the child of the most opulent citizen.

It was long ago remarked that “the inequalities of intellect, like the
inequalities of the surface of our globe, bear so small a proportion to
the mass that in calculating its great revolutions they may safely be
neglected;” and the late Henry George declared that the differences in
men, intellectually, are no greater than their physical differences.

The perpetuity of free institutions depends upon social not less than
upon political equality. But social equality is impossible without
educational equality: the very thought of intimate relations with the
ignorant is repulsive to the learned. Education, impartial and
universal, is, therefore, the sole guarantee of an ideal civilization,
and so of an imperishable state.

Old social evils constantly recur because the old crime of inequality in
education is forever and ever repeated. It follows that we shall make
all things equal through equal education. But what sort of education? We
shall not train the child, as the ancients did, “to dispute in learned
phrase as to whether we can be certain that we are certain of nothing!”
Nor shall we stuff his memory with the grammar and rhetoric of an
ancient tongue, in view of the profound observation of Dr. Draper, that
a living thought can no more be embodied in a dead language than
activity can be imparted to a corpse. But we shall rather instruct him
in the principles of the Baconian philosophy, of which Macaulay so aptly
says: “Its characteristic distinction, its essential spirit, is its
majestic humility--the persuasion that nothing can be too insignificant
for the attention of the wisest which is not too insignificant to give
pleasure or pain to the meanest.”

The end sought in education by the ancients was ornament, and its strict
analogy is found in barbaric life. Spencer has pointed out that the
savage smeared his body with yellow ochre before he covered it with
clothes, and that he adorned his head with feathers before he built a
hut. So, under the laws of evolution, before a Bacon could arise, whole
generations of philosophers were born, lived, speculated, and died,
without leaving to mankind the smallest heritage of that common sense by
which we nevertheless live.

A philosophy which scorned the useful in all its aspects was essentially
barbaric; for art differentiates civilized from savage life: its law was
stagnation, as the law of scientific investigation is progress. Use is
the greatest thing in the material world, as service is the greatest
thing in the moral world; and they are united in the philosophy of
Bacon, which, beginning in observation and ending in art, multiplies
useful things that are beautiful, and beautiful things that are useful.

The old education was an outgrowth of the old philosophy; the new
education springs as logically from the new, or Baconian, philosophy.
The old education was ornamental; the new is scientific, or useful. The
old education was designed to make masters; the new is designed to make
men.

President Eliot, of Harvard University, admits that his method of
education is to compel the student to work. On the other hand, the
method of the new education is to attract him. Genius has many
definitions, one of which is “a capacity for taking infinite pains.” But
its humblest equivalent is “attention”; and we propose to secure the
student’s attention through his hands: for the most significant fact in
all the realm of certitude is the fact that man impresses himself upon
nature through the hand alone!

Let us then, in the new school, unite mind and hand in a crusade after
the truths that are hidden in things. For Manual Training,
educationally, is the blending of thought and action. The thought that
does not lead to an act is both mentally and materially barren. For as
it confers no benefit upon the human race, neither does it profit the
mind that conceives it. Nay, more. An unprolific thought exhausts the
mind to no purpose, as an unfruitful tree cumbers the ground. It follows
that the integrity of the mind can be maintained only by the submission
of its immature judgments to the verification of things. Hence the
correlation of thoughts and things is as necessary to mental and moral
growth as the application of the principles of abstract mechanics to the
arts of peace is essential to human progress.

Sir Henry Maine supports this doctrine in a graphic paragraph:
“Unchecked by external truth the mind of man has a fatal facility for
ensnaring and entrapping and entangling itself. But happily, happily for
the human race, some fragment of physical speculation has been built
into every false system.”

Things are the source of ideas. Action generates thought. He who has
tools in his hand thinks best as well as acts best. The man whose finger
is on Nature’s pulse feels her heart-throbs, and so discovers and
utilizes her secrets. The men and women who do the world’s work are
better educated than the schoolmen who vainly tell them how to do it;
and they are better educated because they are in closer relationship
with things, through the supreme sense of touch, which refines and
spiritualizes the hand--that wonderful member which differentiates man
from the other animals, and makes him their master.

Manual Training educationally, then, relates to all the arts whose sum
is the art of living. For whether it be the chair on which we sit; or
the bed on which we lie; or the garments we wear; or the house that
shelters us; or the railway train on which we cross continents; or the
ship that takes us over seas; or the unspeakable marvels of the world’s
museums and galleries upon which we gaze with rapture; or the orchestra
of an hundred instruments, whose music enchants us; or the treasures of
dead cities--long buried--now unearthed; or the temples in which we
worship; or the monuments which commemorate our heroes and martyrs; or
the tombs in which we moulder away to dust--they are all the work of the
hand!

Manual Training is the acquisition by the hand of the arts through which
man expresses himself in things. It is a series of educational
generalizations in things. The purpose of it is to put the mind and hand
_en rapport_ with each other; to make the hand acquainted with the
elementary manipulations of the typical arts, by actual exercises, as
the mind is familiarized with the fundamental principles of the sciences
by studying their laws.

Superior observation is only another name for genius. To the dull eye
the falling apple taught no lesson, but to Newton’s quick apprehension
it revealed the law of gravitation!

It is not alone, however, in the sense of sight that observation
resides; nor is it keenest there. We have recently learned the value of
object teaching; but we have yet to learn, popularly and practically,
what has long been known to science--that the sense of touch is the
master sense, whence all the other senses spring. It is because of this
fact, and of the further fact that the sense of touch is most highly
developed in the hand, that man is the wisest of animals.

It follows that more than in the sense of seeing, hearing, tasting, or
smelling--nay, more than in all these senses combined--the faculty of
observation resides in the hand.

Dr. Wilson declares that touch “reigns throughout the body, and is the
token of life in every part”; and Dr. Maudsley says: “It is the
fundamental sense, the mother-tongue of language.”

How apt is this definition of the sense of touch--“the token of life in
every part”--and how comprehensive this--“the mother-tongue of
language!” And of this master sense the hand is the chief organ and
minister. How versatile it is; what adaptability it possesses; what
helpfulness! In the moment of danger how reassuring its supporting
grasp; how consoling its gentle touch when grief overwhelms! In defeat
how it trembles with emotion, and how tense with exaltation it becomes
in the hour of victory! With what infinite loathing it shrinks from a
hated contact, and with what sympathetic vibrations of ardor responds to
the clinging pressure of love!

If we would become familiar with objects we must subject them to the
test of touch, we must handle them. As Robert Seidel, a great teacher,
well says: “We must stretch them, beat them, cool them, expose them to
the sun, the water, the air--we must work them.”

It is through these processes of loving manipulation that the mechanic
and the artisan transform things crude and ugly into forms of use and
beauty. And it is in this way, and this way only, that man has trod the
path of progress. It is a rugged road, whose steeps are to be climbed
alone by those whose hearts are warm with holy zeal, whose souls are
aglow with enthusiasm, and whose hands are endowed with the rich
experiences of thoughtful toil. And we shall fit all mankind for this
noble task by training them to usefulness--that is, by teaching them,
not merely how to think, but how to act, how to work.

It is a broad and conclusive generalization of Herbert Spencer that
since literature and the fine arts are made possible by the useful arts,
manifestly that which is made possible must be postponed to that which
makes it possible. Nor does this rational and sober view of art detract
in the least from its dignity or sentiment. On the contrary, it provides
a foundation for works of the imagination--a basis for that spirituality
which is the fruit of the happy conjunction of a multitude of material
conditions evolved from the humblest as well as the noblest of the
useful arts--a basis without which the beautiful arts could never exist.

It thus becomes plain that social and economic conditions are the
product of education in things. Art education differentiates the
civilized from the savage man. The pathway of progress which now blazes
with the glory of electricity stretches back to the gloom of the caves
where our early ancestors dwelt; and the steps of this advance consist
of improvements in the useful and beautiful arts. From gesture to
speech; from pictures to types; from the canoe to the steamship, and
from the canal to the locomotive, the race has moved forward, always and
only, through art triumphs.

So all the generations of men have lived and toiled for us. We are the
heirs of the hoarded learning, of the accumulated mental and moral
fibre, and of the treasured arts of the ages. And we are hence the
elders, as Bacon says, of the philosophers, the sages, and the inventors
and discoverers of all time. Their achievements are heights whence we
may discern and occupy new and wider fields of human endeavor.

The precise relation of the useful arts to social and economic
conditions is, therefore, that of creator. As your art education is, so
shall your society be. There are persons who unconsciously dissociate
art and civilization--who think that things are not essential to
spiritual development, who fail to realize the fact that the main reason
of the barbaric character of the savage is the absence from his
environment of the arts of peace and plenty. If, for example, Plato had
not been provided with food and clothing and shelter, he would doubtless
not have composed the divine dialogues; and if there had been neither
mechanics, nor architects, nor sculptors to adorn with palaces and
temples the Greek cities, his ideal republic would not have had a place
in classic literature; and finally, if there had been no (slave)
hand-workers in Greece (for art products are all, directly or
indirectly, the work of the hand), instead of being the most venerated
of philosophers, Plato might have been, perhaps, the most wretched of
savages, prolonging a miserable existence by means the most inglorious.
But so unconscious was he of the true relation of the useful arts to
life that he denounced them all as “degrading”!

Poverty is the chief scourge of society; and it is a familiar economic
fact that where the useful arts are most flourishing poverty is least
pressing, so that to abolish poverty it would seem to be only necessary
to multiply and extend the arts. And if poverty is to be abolished; if
there is ever to be an ideal civilization, the controlling motive of
humanity must be changed from selfishness to altruism; and this change
can come only through love of work. So long as work shall be regarded
as a “curse,” the paramount purpose of the individual will be to avoid
it, and to compel others to submit to it. Hence the antagonisms that
arise at every point of human contact. The sum of these antagonisms is
what we call the struggle of life, which is merely the struggle of each
to survive at the expense of his fellows, and is therefore barbaric.

Now as we have seen that it is through the arts that man has been
civilized--that, in a word, the arts differentiate the civilized from
the savage man--it is evident that the further regeneration of the race
is to be wrought by analogous means--that is to say, by a wider
expansion of the arts of peace. And the way to achieve this result is to
transform our schools, which were modelled after the classic methods of
Greece and Rome, into laboratories for the development of useful men and
women, through the mastery of the useful arts; the arts that make life
sweet and beautiful; the arts that adorn our homes, that render the
earth fertile and make it blossom as the rose; the arts that annihilate
distance and so promote man’s brotherhood by enlarging his
neighborhood--these are the arts that inspire us with just and generous
impulses, the arts in which the noblest moral sentiments are made
manifest in things.

These, then, are the arts which ought to be made the subject of thorough
and exhaustive education--the arts that led Comenius to define schools
as the workshops of humanity. The final essential educational condition
is universality; for it is obvious that inequality of educational
opportunity is the grossest injustice of which organized society is
capable. It is against this injustice that Carlyle exclaims: “That there
should one man die ignorant, who had capacity for knowledge, this I
call a tragedy, were it to happen more than twenty times in the minute.”

This is indeed the tragedy of tragedies--the tragedy on the heels of
which slavery stalks; in whose train caste rides in scornful state; in
whose hideous shadow war waits to shed blood and spread pestilence and
famine. All these are the satellites of ignorance, and hardly less of
partial education than of total unenlightenment; and hence the only hope
that civilization shall finally triumph over barbarism rests in
universal, impartial, and scientific education.

The contrasts between the old and the new school methods pointed out in
this chapter show along what lines educational progress is to be sought.
The ideal school is to consist, not of one academic department, and a
department of Manual Training, but of mental and manual exercises so
related as to produce homogeneity.

The tabulations of facts which will be found in the Appendix show that a
vast number of schools have been dedicated to the new education. If they
are to be developed into ideal schools thousands of ideal teachers must
devote themselves to the arduous task. Each school transformed from the
dull routine of mediocrity to the vigor and elasticity which wait on
development will cost the life of a hero. The school that has no hero to
struggle for its salvation will surely languish and die. Every great
school of the future must therefore have its hero, for it is only the
hero who toils without thought of reward. As Carlyle so well says: “The
wages of every noble work do yet lie in heaven or else nowhere.” And he
has left this message of advice and encouragement to the hero of the
school of the future which is to revolutionize the world: “Thou wilt
never sell thy life in a satisfactory manner. Give it like a royal
heart; let the price be nothing: thou hast then, in a certain sense, got
all for it!”

APPENDIX

STATISTICS.--MANUAL TRAINING, 1883-1898, IN THE UNITED STATES

MANUAL TRAINING IN PUBLIC HIGH-SCHOOLS

-----------------------+-------------+-----+--------+--------+--------
| | | Manual |Teachers| Pupils
| | |Training| of | Taking
| | | Estab- | Manual | Manual
NAME OF SCHOOL |CITY OR TOWN |STATE| lished |Training|Training
-----------------------+-------------+-----+--------+--------+--------
High-school |Peru |Ill. | 1883 | 2 | 41
Polytechnic High-school|Baltimore |Md. | 1883 | 16 | 674
High-school |Eau Claire |Wis. | 1884 | 1 | 50
Central Manual-training| | | | |
School |Philadelphia |Penn.| 1885 | 13 | 406
Industrial Training | | | | |
High-school |Indianapolis |Ind. | 1885 | 10 | 676
Rochester Free Academy |Rochester |N. Y.| 1885 | .. | 908
High-school |Toledo |Ohio | 1885 | 11 | 394
Central Manual-training| | | | |
School | Cleveland |Ohio | 1885 | 4 | 200
Central High-school |Washington |D. C.| 1886 | .. | 235
Manual-training High- | | | | |
school |New Haven |Conn.| 1886 | 13 | ..
Manual-training School |Springfield |Mass.| 1886 | 3 | 34
High-school |Minneapolis |Minn.| 1886 | 4 | 375
Newburg Free Academy |Newburg |N. Y.| 1886 | 2 | 133
Manual-training School |Galesburg |Ill. | 1887 | 1 | 74
High-school |St. Paul |Minn.| 1887 | 5 | 350
Manual-training High- | | | | |
school |Stillwater |Minn.| 1887 | 1 | 12
High-school |Jamestown |N. Y.| 1887 | 1 | 48
Central High-school |Easton |Del. | 1888 | .. | ..
High-school |Easton |Md. | 1888 | .. | ..
Ridge Manual-training | | | | |
School |Cambridge |Mass.| 1888 | 9 | 178
High-school |Concord |N. H.| 1888 | 4 | 52
Orange High-school |Orange |N. J.| 1888 | 3 | 180
High-school |Albany |N. Y.| 1888 | 3 | 750
Dist. 20 Central High- | | | | |
school |Pueblo |Col. | 1889 | 1 | 160
Manual-training High- | | | | |
school |Davenport |Iowa | 1889 | 1 | 82
West Des Moines High- | | | | |
school |Des Moines |Iowa | 1889 | 1 | 50
Manual-training High- | | | | |
school |Fall River |Mass.| 1889 | 1 | 62
High-school |Duluth |Minn.| 1889 | 2 | 80
High school |Omaha |Neb. | 1889 | .. | 100
High-school |Union |N. J.| 1889 | 3 | 200
High-school |Westchester |Penn.| 1889 | 4 | 240
English High and | | | | |
Manual-training School |Chicago |Ill. | 1890 | 17 | 430
Manual-training High- | | | | |
school |Louisville |Ky. | 1890 | 13 | 212
Approved High-school |Vineland |N. J.| 1890 | 1 | 150
High-school |Passaic |N. J.| 1890 | 2 | 53
High-school |South Orange |N. J.| 1890 | 1 | 150
West Manual-training | | | | |
School |Cleveland |Ohio | 1890 | 3 | 100
East and West High- | | | | |
schools |Milwaukee |Wis. | 1890 | 4 | 144
Norwich Free Academy |Norwich |Conn.| 1891 | 1 | 33
High-school |Waterbury |Conn.| 1891 | 1 | ..
High-school |Springfield |Ill. | 1891 | 1 | 20
Moline High-school |Moline |Ill. | 1891 | 1 | 47
Manual training High- | | | | |
school |Waltham |Mass.| 1891 | 2 | 18
High-school |Bay City |Mich.| 1891 | [120] | [120]
Ridgewood High-school |Ridgewood |N. J.| 1891 | 3 | 35
Manual training High- | | | | |
school |Camden |N. J | 1891 | 3 | 150
Manual training High- | | | | |
school |Seattle |Wash.| 1891 | 2 | 70
High-school |Menominee |Wis. | 1891 | 5 | 103
High-school |Bristol |Conn.| 1892 | 1 | 30
Willard Hall High- | | | | |
school |Wilmington |Del. | 1892 | 3 | 210
Fremont Manual-training| | | | |
School |Fremont |Ohio | 1892 | 1 | 50
North East Manual- | | | | |
training School |Philadelphia |Penn.| 1892 | 9 | 369
High-school |Norristown |Penn.| 1892 | 2 | 290
Manual-training High- | | | | |
school |Providence |R. I.| 1892 | 18 | 280
High-school |Spokane |Wash.| 1892 | 3 | 85
Polytechnical High- | | | | |
school |San Francisco|Cal. | 1893 | 4 | 250
Manual-training High- | | | | |
school |Mason City |Iowa | 1893 | 1 | 125
High-school |Manchester |N. H.| 1893 | 1 | 12
High-school |Atlantic City|N. J.| 1893 | 1 | 235
East Orange High-school|East Orange |N. J.| 1893 | 3 | 125
Manual-training High- | | | | |
school |Denver |Col. | 1894 | .. | 400
High-school |Frankfort |Ky. | 1894 | 2 | 100
Mechanics Arts High- | | | | |
school |Boston |Mass.| 1894 | 11 | 324
Manual-training High- | | | | |
school |Brooklyn |N. Y.| 1894 | .. | 800
Washington High-school |Washington |Penn.| 1894 | .. | 27
Townsend Industrial | | | | |
School |Newport |R. I.| 1894 | 2 | 26
Ryan High-school |Appleton |Wis. | 1894 | 1 | 26
Manual-training School |Lowell |Mass.| 1895 | 2 | 50
English High-school |Somerville |Mass.| 1895 | 2 | 75
English and Classical | | | | |
High-school |Worcester |Mass.| 1895 | 4 | 283
High-school |Medford |Mass.| 1895 | 2 | 20
English High-school |Lynn |Mass.| 1895 | 3 | 72
High-school |Lawrence |Mass.| 1895 | 1 | 33
Royen High-school |Youngstown |Ohio | 1895 | 1 | 200
High-school |Fitchburg |Mass.| 1895 | .. | ..
High-school |Burlington |Wis. | 1896 | .. | ..
High-school |Los Angeles |Cal. | 1896 | 6 | 315
High-school |Rockford |Ill. | 1896 | 1 | 27
High-school |Florence |Wis. | 1896 | 2 | 36
Brookline High-school |Brookline |Mass.| 1896 | 1 | 50
High-school |Janesville |Wis. | 1896 | .. | ..
High-school |Malden |Mass.| 1896 | 2 | 60
Hackley Manual-training| | | | |
School |Muskegon |Mich.| 1896 | 4 | 350
Ishpeming Manual- | | | | |
training School |Ishpeming |Mich.| 1896 | 1 | 75
Menominee Manual- | | | | |
training School |Menominee |Mich.| 1896 | 1 | 25
High-school |Summit |N. J.| 1896 | 1 | 40
Barlow School of | | | | |
Industrial Art |Binghamton |N. Y.| 1896 | 3 | 173
High-school |Syracuse |N. Y.| 1896 | .. | 50
High-school |Akron |Ohio | 1896 | 2 | 180
Cross Creek School |Washington |Penn.| 1896 | .. | 14
High-school |Waupaca |Wis. | 1897 | 1 | 16
High-school |Winnetka |Ill. | 1897 | 1 | 16
High-school |Fond du Lac |Wis. | 1897 | 1 | 50
Manual-training High- | | | | |
school |Kansas City |Mo. | 1897 | 27 | 800
High-school |Oshkosh |Wis. | 1897 | 3 | 250
Central and Martin Park| | | | |
High-schools |Buffalo |N. Y.| 1897 | 1 | 50
High-school |Mayville |Wis. | 1897 | 1 | 30
High-school |Red Bank |N. J.| 1897 | 1 | 375
High-school |Hartford |Conn.| 1898 | 4 | 140
Manual-training High | | | | |
school |Newark |N. J.| 1898 | .. | ..
Howard School |Wilmington |Del. | [121] | 1 | 45
High-school |Iowa City |Iowa | [121] | .. | ..
High-school |Brockton |Mass.| [121] | .. | ..
High-school |South Omaha |Neb. | [121] | .. | ..
High-school |Stamford |Conn.| [121] | .. | ..
-----------------------+-------------+-----+--------+--------+--------
|101 Cities |23 | | 320 |15,942
| |States| | |
-----------------------+-------------+-----+--------+--------+--------

[120] Abandoned temporarily for want of funds.

[121] Date of establishment not reported.

MANUAL TRAINING IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS--GRAMMAR GRADES

-------------------+------+-----------+--------+--------+--------
| | Manual | | |
| | Training |Separate|Teachers| Pupils
| |Established| Manual-| of | Taking
| | in Grammar|training| Manual | Manual
CITY OR TOWN |STATE | Grades | Schools|Training|Training
-------------------+------+-----------+--------+--------+--------
Montclair |N. J. | 1882 | All | 4 | 530
Peru |Ill. | 1883 | 2 | 2 | ..
New Haven |Conn. | 1884 | .. | .. | ..
Jamestown |N. Y. | 1884 | 2 | 2 | 800
Eau Claire |Wis. | 1884 | 1 | .. | 100
Waltham |Mass. | 1885 | 1 | 2 | 425
Rochester |N. Y. | 1885 | .. | .. | 336
Toledo |Ohio | 1885 | 11 | 11 | 2,257
Washington |D. C. | 1886 | 40 | 43 | 9,452
Springfield |Mass. | 1886 | 1 | 3 | 267
Boston |Mass. | 1886 | All | 81 | 37,240
Newburg |N. Y. | 1886 | 1 | 2 | 95
Tidioute |Penn. | 1886 | .. | .. | ..
Beardstown |Ill. | 1887 | 1 | 2 | ..
Easton |Del. | 1888 | .. | .. | ..
Brookline |Mass. | 1888 | 1 | 2 | 525
Winchester |Mass. | 1888 | 1 | 2 | 408
Concord |N. H. | 1888 | 2 | 4 | 402
Hoboken |N. J. | 1888 | 6 | 6 | 1,229
Orange |N. J. | 1888 | 5 | 3 | 842
New York |N. Y. | 1888 | 37 | 32 | 10,187
Meadville |Penn. | 1888 | .. | 2 | 263
Wilmington |Del. | 1889 | 1 | .. | 45
Davenport |Iowa | 1889 | 1 | 1 | 101
Vineland |N. J. | 1889 | All | 1 | 500
Union |N. J. | 1889 | All | All | 643
St. Louis |Mo. | 1890 | 1 | 8 | 116
| | | [122] | [122] | [122]
Duluth |Minn. | 1890 | 12 | 25 | 1,000
Passaic |N. J. | 1890 | .. | 2 | 152
Garfield |N. J. | 1890 | 1 | 2 | 550
Paterson |N. J. | 1890 | 1 | 1 | 300
Ridgewood |N. J. | 1890 | .. | 4 | 200
Knoxville |Tenn. | 1890 | .. | .. | ..
South Orange |N. J. | 1890 | 1 | 1 | 300
Waterbury |Conn. | 1891 | .. | .. | ..
Springfield |Ill. | 1891 | 1 | 1 | 50
Moline |Ill. | 1891 | 1 | 1 | 279
Salem |Mass. | 1891 | 1 | 1 | 160
Northampton |Mass. | 1891 | 1 | 1 | 900
Bay City |Mich. | 1891 | [123] | [123] | [123]
San Francisco |Cal. | 1892 | 3 | 2 | 560
St. Paul |Minn. | 1892 | .. | 4 | 2,366
Camden |N. J. | 1892 | .. | 4 | 4,600
Norristown |Penn. | 1892 | 2 | 3 | 1,430
Providence |R. I. | 1892 | 13 | .. | ..
Menominee |Wis. | 1892 | 2 | 4 | 200
Bristol |Conn. | 1893 | 2 | .. | 276
Haverhill |Mass. | 1893 | 1 | 1 | 190
Manistee |Mich. | 1893 | .. | .. | ..
Minneapolis |Minn. | 1893 | 5 | 5 | 1,214
St. Cloud |Minn. | 1893 | 1 | 1 | 150
Manchester |N. H. | 1893 | All | 1 | 196
Bayonne |N. J. | 1893 | All | All | All
East Orange |N. J. | 1893 | All | 2 | 755
Cleveland |Ohio | 1893 | 2 | 1 | 3,500
Newport |R. I. | 1893 | .. | 4 | 633
Staunton |Va. | 1893 | .. | 1 | 200
Santa Barbara |Cal. | 1894 | 1 | 2 | 232
San Diego |Cal. | 1894 | 5 | 1 | 270
Portland |Maine | 1894 | 1 | 3 | 900
Medford |Mass. | 1894 | 1 | 2 | 400
New Bedford |Mass | 1894 | 1 | 1 | 400
Ithaca |N. Y. | 1894 | 2 | 2 | 420
Mason City |Iowa | 1894 | 1 | 1 | 50
Denver |Colo. | 1895 | All | .. | 2,500
Chicago |Ill. | 1895 | 28 | 32 | 8,200
Cape May |N. J. | 1895 | All | 3 | 411
Fitchburg |Mass. | 1895 | .. | .. | ..
Buffalo |N. Y. | 1895 | .. | 1 | 200
Pittsburg |Penn. | 1895 | 3 | 2 | 400
Barbadoes Township |N. J. | 1895 | 3 | 3 | 713
Woonsocket |R. I. | 1895 | .. | 1 | 150
Oakland |Cal. | 1896 | 1 | 1 | 425
Carlstadt |N. J. | 1896 | All | 5 | 240
Los Angeles |Cal. | 1896 | 7 | .. | 2,080
Summit |N. J. | 1896 | 3 | 3 | 200
Hartford |Conn. | 1896 | All | 5 | 800
Des Moines |Iowa | 1896 | 2 | 2 | 80
Florence |Wis. | 1896 | 1 | .. | ..
Menominee |Mich. | 1896 | 1 | 1 | 80
Brooklyn |N. Y. | 1896 | .. | .. | ..
Glens Falls |N. Y. | 1896 | 1 | 1 | 60
Utica |N. Y. | 1896 | .. | 4 | 2,300
Akron |Ohio | 1896 | .. | 2 | 210
Washington |Penn. | 1896 | 5 | 3 | 112
Pueblo Dist. No. 1 |Colo. | 1897 | .. | 2 | 180
Winnetka |Ill. | 1897 | 1 | 1 | 48
Oshkosh |Wis. | 1897 | 25 | 28 | 1,400
Indianapolis |Ind. | 1897 | 1 | 2 | 1,000
North Adams |Mass. | 1897 | 1 | 1 | 247
Lynn |Mass. | 1897 | 1 | 1 | 351
Newton |Mass. | 1897 | 1 | 1 | 135
Worcester |Mass. | 1897 | .. | 2 | 397
Cambridge |Mass. | 1897 | 1 | 2 | 136
Muskegon |Mich. | 1897 | 2 | 4 | 700
Kansas City |Mo. | 1897 | .. | .. | ..
Newark |N. J. | 1897 | .. | 3 | 2,265
Milwaukee |Wis. | 1897 | 1 | 1 | 15
Pueblo Dist. No. 20|Colo. | 1898 | .. | 2 | 300
New Britain |Conn. | 1898 | .. | .. | 190
Peabody |Mass. | 1898 | .. | .. | ..
Moberly |Mo. | 1898 | .. | .. | ..
Stockton |Cal. | [124] | .. | .. | ..
Santa Cruz |Cal. | [124] | .. | .. | ..
Manchester |Conn. | [124] | .. | .. | ..
Stamford |Conn. | [124] | .. | .. | ..
Iowa City |Iowa | [124] | .. | .. | ..
Augusta |Me. | [124] | .. | .. | ..
Baltimore |Md. | [124] | All | .. | All
Hyde Park |Mass. | [124] | 3 | 3 | 204
Holyoke |Mass. | [124] | 1 | .. | ..
Easton |Mass. | [124] | .. | .. | ..
Fall River |Mass. | [124] | .. | .. | ..
Dedham |Mass. | [124] | .. | .. | ..
Malden |Mass. | [124] | .. | .. | ..
Milton |Mass. | [124] | .. | .. | ..
Waterbury |Mass. | [124] | .. | .. | ..
Wellesley |Mass. | [124] | .. | .. | ..
Canton |Mass. | [124] | .. | .. | ..
Richmond |Va. | [124] | .. | .. | ..
-------------------+------+-----------+--------+--------+--------
119 Cities |24 | | 287 | 444 |118,835
|States| | | |
-------------------+------+-----------+--------+--------+--------

[122] Colored School.

[123] Abandoned temporarily for want of funds.

[124] Date of establishment not reported.

MANUAL TRAINING IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS--PRIMARY GRADES

------------------+-----+-----------+--------+--------+--------
| | Manual |Separate| |
| | Training | Manual |Teachers| Pupils
| |Established|Training| of | Taking
| | in Primary| Primary| Manual | Manual
CITY OR TOWN[125] |STATE| Grades | Grades |Training|Training
------------------+-----+-----------+--------+--------+--------
Montclair |N. J.| 1882 | All | All | 1,047
Jamestown |N. Y.| 1882 | All | All | 2,400
Baltimore |Md. | 1884 | .. | .. | ..
Washington |D. C.| 1886 | 55 | .. | 12,900
Newburg |N. Y.| 1886 | .. | .. | ..
Tidioute |Penn.| 1886 | .. | .. | ..
Oakland |Cal. | 1888 | .. | 2 | 2,159
Springfield |Mass.| 1888 | All | .. | 29,256
Concord |N. H.| 1888 | .. | .. | ..
Orange |N. J.| 1888 | 4 | 3 | 2,132
New York |N. Y.| 1888 | .. | .. | 12,000
Union |N. J.| 1889 | All | All | 560
Vineland |N. J.| 1889 | All | 1 | 700
Westchester |Penn.| 1889 | .. | 1 | ..
Garfield |N. J.| 1890 | .. | 1 | 200
South Orange |N. J.| 1890 | 1 | 1 | 200
Waterbury |Conn.| 1891 | .. | 1 | ..
Moline |Ill. | 1891 | .. | .. | ..
Northampton |Mass.| 1891 | .. | 1 | 900
Ridgewood |N. J.| 1891 | .. | 3 | 200
San Francisco |Cal. | 1892 | 1 | 1 | 176
St. Paul |Minn.| 1892 | 40 | .. | 4,500
Camden |N. J.| 1892 | .. | .. | 3,080
Providence |R. I.| 1892 | 50 | .. | ..
Bristol |Conn.| 1893 | 2 | 2 | 144
Minneapolis |Minn.| 1893 | 44 | .. | 4,446
Stillwater |Minn.| 1893 | .. | .. | ..
Cleveland |Ohio | 1893 | .. | .. | 3,500
Staunton |Va. | 1893 | .. | 1 | 200
Menominee |Wis. | 1893 | .. | 2 | 200
St. Cloud |Minn.| 1894 | .. | 2 | 488
Philipsburg |N. J.| 1894 | All | All | 700
Elyria |Ohio | 1894 | All | All | 700
Newport |R. I.| 1894 | .. | 2 | 101
Denver |Colo.| 1895 | .. | .. | ..
Oshkosh |Wis. | 1896 | 20 | 25 | 800
Waltham |Mass.| 1896 | .. | .. | 100
Carlstadt |N. J.| 1896 | All | 5 | ..
Utica |N. Y.| 1896 | .. | .. | ..
Akron |Ohio | 1896 | All | All | 1,800
San Diego |Cal. | 1897 | 5 | 3 | 250
Newark |N. J.| 1897 | .. | .. | ..
Indianapolis |Ind. | 1897 | .. | 2 | 500
Moberly |Mo. | 1897 | .. | .. | ..
Passaic |N. J.| 1897 | .. | 1 | 375
Pueblo Dist. No. 1|Colo.| 1898 | .. | 1 | 180
Santa Cruz |Cal. | .. | .. | .. | ..
Elgin |Ill. | .. | .. | 1 | ..
Augusta |Me. | .. | .. | .. | ..
Detroit |Mich.| .. | .. | .. | ..
Toledo |Ohio | .. | .. | .. | ..
Pittsburg |Penn.| .. | .. | .. | ..
Shenandoah |Penn.| .. | .. | .. | ..
La Crosse |Wis. | .. | .. | .. | ..
------------------+-----+-----------+--------+--------+----------
54 Cities |20 | | 222 | 62 | 88,398
|States| | | |
------------------+-----+-----------+--------+--------+----------

[125] Of the 54 cities tabulated, only 9 report the number of separate
primary schools in which Manual Training is taught. These 9 cities
report 202 schools, or an average of 22.4 schools per city. Nine
cities report all. Thirty-four cities do not report. If the average
obtained from the cities reporting can be applied to all, then 1120
primary schools have Manual Training. Thirty-one cities do not report
the number of teachers. Twenty cities report 34. Applying the above
method shows 85 teachers of Manual Training in primary schools. It
must be remembered that there are special or supervising teachers; the
regular teachers doing most of this work under supervision. Thirty-two
cities report 87,598 pupils taking Primary Manual Training; or 2737 on
the average to each city reporting. Applying this average to the 51
cities reporting, the total is 139,587.

KINDERGARTENS IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS

----------------+-----+-----------+--------+--------+-------
| | Kinder- |Separate| Kinder-|Kinder-
| | garten | Kinder-| garten |garten
CITY OR TOWN |STATE|Established| gartens|Teachers|Pupils
----------------+-----+-----------+--------+--------+-------
St. Louis |Mo. | 1873 | 60 | 400 | 7,694
Milwaukee |Wis. | 1880 | 42 | 83 | 3,816
Cedar Rapids |Iowa | 1881 | 12 | 16 | 766
Newport |R. I.| 1882 | 4 | 8 | 250
Lowell |Mass.| 1883 | 12 | 25 | 400
Pawtucket |R. I.| 1883 | 4 | 9 | 295
La Porte |Ind. | 1884 | 3 | 5 | 163
Muskegon |Mich.| 1884 | 8 | 10 | 581
Philadelphia |Penn.| 1884 | 135 | 180 | 6,500
Traverse City |Mich.| 1885 | 4 | 4 | 180
San José |Cal. | 1885 | 7 | 17 | 337
Augusta |Ga. | 1887 | 4 | 8 | 183
Des Moines |Iowa | 1887 | 14 | 28 | 807
Marshalltown |Iowa | 1887 | 7 | 10 | 260
Louisville |Ky. | 1887 | 10 | 59 | 750
Albany |N. Y.| 1887 | 19 | 30 | 750
Boston |Mass.| 1888 | 67 | 126 | 3,925
Brookline |Mass.| 1888 | 11 | 18 | 373
Rochester |N. Y.| 1888 | 13 | 68 | 1,972
Sheboygan |Wis. | 1888 | 9 | 27 | 980
Bristol |Conn.| 1889 | 3 | 7 | 253
Richmond |Ind. | 1889 | 2 | 2 | 75
Cambridge |Mass.| 1889 | 11 | 22 | 583
Grand Rapids |Mich.| 1889 | 8 | 7 | 352
Montclair |N. J.| 1889 | 5 | 12 | 273
Louisburg |N. Y.| 1889 | 5 | 10 | 165
North Tonawanda |N. Y.| 1889 | 4 | 4 | 200
Norwich |Conn.| 1890 | 3 | 7 | 120
Lexington |Ky. | 1890 | 5 | 10 | 360
Grand Haven |Mich.| 1890 | 1 | 3 | 105
Garfield |N. J.| 1890 | 2 | 2 | 80
East Orange |N. J.| 1890 | 6 | 6 | 180
South Orange |N. J.| 1890 | 1 | 2 | 55
Providence |R. I.| 1890 | 15 | 31 | 700
Los Angeles |Cal. | 1891 | 29 | 78 | 1,800
Covington |Ky. | 1891 | 5 | 10 | 600
Frankfort |Ky. | 1891 | 1 | 2 | 50
Somerville |Mass.| 1891 | 5 | 11 | 200
Iron Mountain |Mich.| 1891 | 11 | 11 | 586
Ironwood |Mich.| 1891 | 3 | 9 | 290
Negaunee |Mich.| 1891 | 2 | 2 | 78
Concord |N. H.| 1891 | 5 | 7 | 288
Passaic |N. J.| 1891 | 6 | 8 | 284
Greenwich |Conn.| 1892 | 1 | 1 | 52
Terre Haute |Ind. | 1892 | 16 | 11 | 435
Worcester |Mass.| 1892 | 10 | 19 | 518
Lowell |Mass.| 1892 | 12 | 26 | 900
Duluth |Minn.| 1892 | 16 | 27 | 1,000
Omaha |Neb. | 1892 | 26 | 40 | 1,600
Plainfield |N. J.| 1892 | 5 | 5 | 230
Utica |N. Y.| 1892 | 11 | 26 | 750
Cohoes |N. Y.| 1892 | 2 | 4 | 127
Niagara Falls |N. Y.| 1892 | 4 | 6 | 156
San Diego |Cal. | 1893 | 6 | 6 | 250
Denver |Colo.| 1893 | 25 | 50 | 2,534
Chicago |Ill. | 1893 | 51 | 121 | 2,500
Newton |Mass.| 1893 | 13 | 29 | 569
Lincoln |Neb. | 1893 | 8 | 22 | 700
Menominee |Mich.| 1893 | 5 | 5 | 350
Kansas City |Mo. | 1893 | 5 | 5 | 200
Ridgewood |N. J.| 1893 | 1 | 2 | 75
Union |N. J.| 1893 | 2 | 3 | 120
Saratoga Springs|N. Y.| 1893 | 9 | 24 | 500
Flushing |N. Y.| 1893 | 3 | 4 | 60
New Rochelle |N. Y.| 1893 | 5 | 7 | 476
El Paso |Tex. | 1893 | 1 | 3 | 100
Burlington |Vt. | 1893 | 4 | 8 | 137
Racine |Wis. | 1893 | 6 | 11 | 573
Fond du Lac |Wis. | 1894 | 5 | 11 | 250
Hammond |Ind. | 1894 | 1 | 2 | 80
Oskaloosa |Iowa | 1894 | 5 | 5 | 210
Sioux City |Iowa | 1894 | 3 | 6 | 125
Springfield |Mass.| 1894 | 8 | 17 | 346
Peabody |Mass.| 1894 | 3 | 6 | 126
Medford |Mass.| 1894 | 4 | 8 | 220
Superior |Wis. | 1894 | 5 | 11 | 225
Lawrence |Mass.| 1894 | 1 | 2 | 36
Escanaba |Mich.| 1894 | 4 | 4 | 225
Winona |Minn.| 1894 | 8 | 13 | 400
Natchez |Miss.| 1894 | 1 | 1 | 50
Portsmouth |N. H.| 1894 | 4 | 6 | 180
Binghamton |N. Y.| 1894 | 13 | 14 | 600
Geneva |N. Y.| 1894 | 4 | 5 | 150
Sing Sing |N. Y.| 1894 | 3 | 3 | 91
Wilkesbarre |Penn.| 1894 | 2 | 2 | 80
Marinette |Wis. | 1894 | 5 | 5 | 300
La Crosse |Wis. | 1894 | 3 | 3 | 150
Madison |Wis. | 1894 | 2 | 6 | 134
Oakland |Cal. | 1895 | 1 | 1 | 60
Jeffersonville |Ind. | 1895 | 7 | 7 | 200
Burlington |Iowa | 1895 | 5 | 10 | 200
North Adams |Mass.| 1895 | 3 | 6 | 120
Vicksburg |Miss.| 1895 | 4 | 5 | 180
Fremont |Ohio | 1895 | 3 | 5 | 160
Oshkosh |Wis. | 1895 | 9 | 25 | 800
Winnetka |Ill. | 1896 | 1 | 5 | 57
Indianapolis |Ind. | 1896 | 1 | 1 | 53
Dubuque |Iowa | 1896 | 4 | 8 | 232
Malden |Mass.| 1896 | 2 | 5 | 85
Northampton |Mass.| 1896 | 2 | 4 | 90
Ishpeming |Mich.| 1896 | 2 | 6 | 300
Detroit |Mich.| 1896 | 6 | 12 | 91
Nashua |N. H.| 1896 | 2 | 4 | 120
Syracuse |N. Y.| 1896 | 2 | 4 | 97
Mt. Vernon |N. Y.| 1896 | 2 | 2 | 30
Cleveland |Ohio | 1896 | 12 | 24 | 500
Stevens Point |Wis. | 1896 | 4 | 5 | 180
New Bedford |Mass.| 1897 | 3 | 6 | 140
Walden |Mass.| 1897 | 1 | 2 | 40
Newark |N. J.| 1897 | 26 | 50 | 2,100
Hoboken |N. J.| 1897 | 7 | 15 | 368
Bayonne |N. J.| 1897 | [126] | [126] | [126]
Brooklyn |N. Y.| 1897 | 14 | 28 | ..
Woonsocket |R. I.| 1897 | 1 | 2 | 30
Pueblo |Colo.| 1898 | 1 | 2 | 65
Akron |Ohio | 1898 | 1 | 3 | 30
Seattle |Wash.| 1898 | 1 | 2 | 51
Appleton |Wis. | 1898 | 4 | 8 | 200
Anniston |Ala. | .. | 2 | .. | 122
Hot Springs |Ark. | .. | 1 | 1 | 16
Sacramento |Cal. | .. | 4 | 8 | 172
Santa Cruz |Cal. | .. | 1 | 2 | 53
Manchester |Conn.| .. | 1 | 8 | 210
New Britain |Conn.| .. | 6 | 13 | 410
New Haven |Conn.| .. | 8 | 19 | 676
Hartford |Conn.| .. | 12 | 138 | 1,326
Norwalk |Conn.| .. | 3 | 6 | 95
Rockville |Conn.| .. | 1 | 1 | ..
Willimantic |Conn.| .. | 2 | 6 | 229
Rome |Ga. | .. | 1 | 1 | 16
Evanston |Ill. | .. | 2 | 6 | 100
Augusta |Me. | .. | 1 | 1 | ..
Portland |Me. | .. | 6 | 10 | 125
Fall River |Mass.| .. | 2 | 4 | 202
Sault Ste. Marie|Mich.| .. | 3 | 5 | 300
St. Paul |Minn.| .. | 28 | 57 | ..
Trenton |N. J.| .. | 1 | 1 | 65
Paterson |N. J.| .. | 15 | 17 | 500
[127]Buffalo |N. Y.| .. | 10 | 15 | 925
Gloversville |N. Y.| .. | 4 | 4 | 411
New York |N. Y.| .. | 15 | 16 | 571
Schenectady |N. Y.| .. | 1 | 2 | 40
Newark |Ohio | .. | 2 | 3 | 33
Pittsburg |Penn.| .. | 16 | 48 | 800
Oil City |Penn.| .. | 2 | 2 | 104
Allegheny |Penn.| .. | 3 | 12 | 120
----------------+-----+-----------+--------+--------+-------
146 Cities |26 | .. | 1,202 | 2,695 |73,543
|States| | | |
----------------+-----+-----------+--------+--------+-------

[126] All first-grade schools have kindergartens.

[127] Kindergartens are conducted by a private association financially
assisted from public-school funds.

MANUAL TRAINING IN SCHOOLS FOR THE COLORED RACE

[128] The date given is that of establishment of school. Date of
establishment of Manual Training was not ascertained in these
instances.

PRIVATE MANUAL-TRAINING SCHOOLS

--------------------+---------------+--------+--------+--------+------
| | | |Teachers|
| |Grade of|Date of | of |
NAME OF | |Academic| Estab- | Manual |
INSTITUTION |LOCATION |Work |lishment|Training|Pupils
--------------------+---------------+--------+--------+--------+------
Massachusetts Inst. |Boston, Mass. |High | 1876 | .. | ..
of Technology[129] | | | | |
| | | | |
Penn. School of |Philadelphia, |High | 1876 | .. | ..
Industrial Arts |Penn. | | | |
| | | | |
Working-men’s School|New York, N. Y.|Grammar | 1878 | 19 | 353
| | | | |
Miller Manual-labor |Crozet, Va. |High | 1878 | .. | 198
School | | | | |
| | | | |
Washington |St. Louis, Mo. |High | 1879 | 14 | 300
University M. T. | | | | |
School | | | | |
| | | | |
Girard College |Philadelphia |Gram. | 1882 | 11 | 650
|Penn. |and High| | |
| | | | |
Chicago Manual- |Chicago, Ill. |High | 1893 | 13 | 263
training School | | | | |
| | | | |
Hebrew Technical |New York, N. Y.|Grammar | 1883 | 11 | 254
Institute | | | | |
| | | | |
M. T. School of |New Orleans, |High | 1884 | 6 | 114
Tulane University |La. | | | |
| | | | |
H. Mann School and |New York, N. Y.|Primary | 1884 | 12 | 257
Teachers’ Coll. | |to Coll.| | |
| | | | |
Haish Manual- |Denver, Col. |.. | 1886 | 2 | 11
training School | | | | |
| | | | |
Pratt Institute |Brooklyn, N. Y.|High | 1887 | .. | 125
| | | | |
H. S. Newcom |New Orleans, |High and| 1887 | .. | ..
Memorial College |La. |Coll. | | |
| | | | |
Sloyd Manual- |Boston, Mass. |Normal | 1889 | 3 | 104
training School | | | | |
| | | | |
Tyler School |Providence, |Gram. | 1890 | 6 | 330
|R. I. |and High| | |
| | | | |
Jewish Training |Chicago, Ill. |Prim. | 1890 | 27 | 700
School | |and | | |
| |Gram. | | |
| | | | |
National University |Chicago, Ill. |.. | 1890 | 5 | 500
| | | | |
Miss Sayer’s School |Newport, R. I. |Gram. | 1891 | 2 | 20
| |and High| | |
| | | | |
Swedenborgian School|Waltham, Mass. |Grammar | 1891 | 1 | 60
| | | | |
Thorp Polytechnic |Pasadena, Cal. |Gram. to| 1892 | 8 | 300
Institute | |Coll. | | |
| | | | |
Friends’ Select |Philadelphia, |High | 1892 | .. | 123
School |Penn. | | | |
| | | | |
Providence Training |Providence, |Normal | 1893 | 1 | 49
School for Sloyd |R. I. | | | |
| | | | |
Plainfield Academy |Plainfield, |Prim. to| 1893 | 2 | 25
|N. J. |High | | |
| | | | |
California School of|San Francisco, |High | 1895 | 7 | 310
Mechanical Arts |Cal. | | | |
| | | | |
St. Andrew’s |Rochester, |High | 1895 | 1 | 60
|N. Y. | | | |
| | | | |
Lewis Institute |Chicago, Ill. |High and| 1896 | 10 | 200
| | Coll. | | |
| | | | |
Free Industrial |San Diego, Cal.|Gram. | 1896 | 2 | 80
School | |and High| | |
| | | | |
Commons Manual- |Chicago, Ill. |Grammar | 1896 | 1 | 40
training School | | | | |
| | | | |
Hull House Manual- |Chicago, Ill. |Gram. | 1897 | 2 | 70
training School | |and High| | |
| | | | |
Elmwood School |Buffalo, N. Y. |.. | .. | .. | ..
| | | | |
Franklin School |Buffalo, N. Y. |.. | .. | .. | ..
| | | | |
Lasell Seminary |Auburndale, |.. | .. | .. | ..
|Mass. | | | |
| | | | |
Talladega College |Talladega, Ala.|.. | .. | .. | ..
| | | | |
Kenilworth Academy |Kenilworth, |.. | .. | .. | ..
|Ill. | | | |
| | | | |
Y. M. C. A. Manual- |Hartford, Conn.|.. | .. | .. | ..
training Dep’t. | | | | |
| | | | |
Clark University |Atlanta, Ga. |.. | .. | .. | ..
| | | | |
Private Manual- |Winnetka, Ill. |.. | .. | .. | ..
training Class | | | | |
--------------------+---------------+--------+--------+--------+------

[129] The Massachusetts Institute of Technology was established in
1865; but in 1876 it adopted Manual Training as a system into all its
grades, and thus became the first distinctive Manual-training School
without prejudice to its high standing as an Institute of Technology.

MANUAL TRAINING IN PUBLIC NORMAL SCHOOLS

-----------------------+-------------------+--------+--------+--------
| | Manual |Teachers| Pupils
| |Training| of | Taking
| | Estab- | Manual | Manual
NAME OF SCHOOL |LOCATION | lished |Training|Training
-----------------------+-------------------+--------+--------+--------
Santee Normal Training |Santee Agency, Neb.| 1870 | 12 | 72
School | | | |
| | | |
Cook County Normal |Chicago, Ill. | 1883 | .. | 450
School[130] | | | |
| | | |
State Normal School |Whitewater, Wis. | 1883 | 2 | 100
| | | |
State Normal Training |New Britain, Conn. | 1884 | 5 | 253
School | | | |
| | | |
Industrial Institute |Columbus, Miss. | 1885 | 1 | 123
and College | | | |
| | | |
West Chester State |West Chester, Penn.| 1889 | 2 | 220
Normal School | | | |
| | | |
State Normal School |San José, Cal. | 1890 | 3 | 700
| | | |
Georgia Normal and |Milledgeville, Ga. | 1891 | 15 | 284
Industrial College | | | |
| | | |
State Normal and Model |Trenton, N. J. | 1891 | 1 | 225
School | | | |
| | | |
State Female Normal |Farmville, Va. | 1891 | 2 | 75
School | | | |
| | | |
Normal College of New |New York, N. Y. | 1892 | 12 | 257
York | | | |
| | | |
Normal and Industrial |Greensboro, N. C. | 1892 | 5 | 300
School | | | |
| | | |
Keystone State Normal |Kutztown, Penn. | 1892 | 2 | 106
School | | | |
| | | |
State Normal School |Framingham, Mass. | 1893 | 1 | 25
| | | |
Westfield Normal School|Westfield, Mass. | 1893 | 5 | 70
| | | |
State Normal School |Los Angeles, Cal. | 1894 | 2 | 475
| | | |
Alabama Normal College |Livingston, Ala. | .. | 1 | ..
for Girls | | | |
-----------------------+-------------------+--------+--------+--------

[130] The Cook County (Illinois) Normal School was originally
established as a private school. It is now the public training school
for teachers in the public schools.

PRIVATE TRADE SCHOOLS AND INSTITUTES OF TECHNOLOGY

------------------------------+--------------+--------+--------+------
| |Date of | |
| | Estab- | |
NAME OF INSTITUTION |LOCATION |lishment|Teachers|Pupils
------------------------------+--------------+--------+--------+------
Rensselaer Polytechnic |Troy, N. Y. | 1824 | 18 | ..
Institute | | | |
| | | |
Ohio Mechanics’ Institute |Cincinnati, | 1828 | .. | 720
|Ohio. | | |
| | | |
Massachusetts Institute of |Boston, Mass. | 1865 | 6 | 222
Technology | | | |
| | | |
Cornell University |Ithaca, N. Y. | 1865 | 36 | 599
| | | |
Worcester Polytechnic |Worcester, | 1868 | .. | ..
Institute |Mass. | | |
| | | |
Stevens Institute of |Hoboken, | 1871 | 22 | 256
Technology |N. J. | | |
| | | |
Lowell School of Practical |Boston, Mass. | 1872 | .. | 65
Designing | | | |
| | | |
Rhode Island School of Design |Providence, | 1878 | .. | 341
|R. I. | | |
| | | |
Chicago College of Horology |Chicago, Ill. | 1880 | .. | ..
| | | |
Case School of Applied |Cleveland, | 1881 | 11 | ..
Sciences |Ohio. | | |
| | | |
School of Ind. Art and Tech. |New York, | 1881 | .. | ..
Design for Women |N. Y. | | |
| | | |
New York Trade School |New York, | 1881 | 26 | 556
N. Y. | | |
| | | |
Rose Polytechnic Institute |Terre Haute, | 1883 | 6 | ..
|Ind. | | |
| | | |
[131]Textile Schools |Philadelphia, | 1883 | .. | 65
|Penn. | | |
| | | |
Milwaukee Cooking School |Milwaukee, | 1884 | 2 | ..
|Wis. | | |
| | | |
Newark Technical School |Newark, N. J. | 1885 | 6 | 250
| | | |
Technical School of |Cincinnati, | 1886 | .. | ..
Cincinnati |Ohio. | | |
| | | |
Technical Drawing School |Providence, | 1887 | .. | ..
|R. I. | | |
| | | |
Cogswell Polytechnic School |San Francisco,| 1888 | 7 | 150
|Cal. | | |
| | | |
Institute for Artisans |New York, | 1888 | .. | ..
|N. Y. | | |
| | | |
Watchmakers’ Trade School |La Porte, Ind.| 1888 | .. | ..
| | | |
Institute for Colored Youth |Philadelphia, | 1889 | 9 | 259
|Penn. | | |
| | | |
Master-Builders’ Mechanical |Philadelphia, | 1890 | 6 | 67
School of Phil’a. |Penn. | | |
| | | |
Lawrence Scientific School of |Cambridge, | 1891 | 3 | 64
Harvard Univ’ty |Mass. | | |
| | | |
Baron de Hirsch Trade School |New York, | 1891 | .. | ..
|N. Y. | | |
| | | |
[132]University of Cincinnati |Cincinnati, | 1891 | .. | ..
|Ohio. | | |
| | | |
Leland Stanford University |Palo Alto, | 1891 | .. | ..
|Cal. | | |
| | | |
Williamson Free School of |Williamson | 1891 | 10 | 160
Mechanical Trades |Schools, Pa. | | |
| | | |
Springfield Industrial |Springfield, | 1891 | 5 | 105
Institute |Mass. | | |
| | | |
Drexel Institute |Philadelphia, | 1892 | 38 | ..
|Penn. | | |
| | | |
Armour Institute |Chicago, Ill. | 1893 | 15 | 300
| | | |
Mechanics’ Institute |Rochester, | 1893 | 15 | 972
|N. Y. | | |
| | | |
Private School of Carpentry |Racine, Wis. | 1896 | 1 | 30
| | | |
Lafayette College |Easton, Penn. | .. | .. | ..
| | | |
Vanderbilt University |Nashville, | .. | .. | ..
|Tenn. | | |
| | | |
Boston Normal School of |Boston, Mass. | .. | .. | ..
Cookery | | | |
------------------------------+--------------+--------+--------+------

NOTE.--Private trade schools for teaching watch-making, some fifteen
in number, are united, because no data was secured. Private cooking
schools, dress-making schools, barber schools, etc., have within the
last five years sprung up in various parts of the country. Some of
these are of considerable importance, but most are small, and no
effort has been made to secure reports from them.

[131] These schools are supported by both legislative appropriations
and private endowments. They are not public schools in the usual sense
of the term.

[132] The University of Cincinnati is supported by both public funds
and private endowments. It is unique in this, that, although a
university in its grade of work, it is essentially a part of the
public-school system. The city collects a one-tenth mill tax annually
for its benefit; and the university, including its technical and
Manual-training course, is free to residents of the city. The
necessary expenses, such as laboratory fees, are kept to the lowest
possible limit; and every family in the municipality is entitled to
educate its children in this thoroughly equipped university,
practically without cost.

TECHNOLOGY IN PUBLIC EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS OF COLLEGIATE
GRADE--EXCLUSIVE OF PURELY AGRICULTURAL COLLEGES

-------------------------+------------------+---------+--------+------
| |Technical| |
| |Training | |
| | Estab- | |
INSTITUTION |LOCATION | lished |Teachers|Pupils
-------------------------+------------------+---------+--------+------
United States Naval |Annapolis, Md. | 1845 | .. | ..
Academy | | | |
| | | |
State Agricultural |Agricultural | 1857 | 14 | 332
College |College, Mich. | | |
| | | |
Maine State College |Orono, Me. | 1864 | 13 | 191
| | | |
University of Vermont |Burlington, Vt. | 1865 | 11 | 119
| | | |
Illinois University |Urbana, Ill. | 1868 | .. | ..
| | | |
University of Minnesota |Minnesota, Minn. | 1869 | 9 | 159
| | | |
University of Tennessee |Knoxville, Tenn. | 1869 | 6 | 150
| | | |
University of Iowa |Ames, Iowa. | 1869 | 9 | 284
| | | |
Kansas State Agricultural|Manhattan, Kan. | 1873 | 20 | 530
College | | | |
| | | |
Ohio State University |Columbus, Ohio. | 1873 | 9 | 373
| | | |
University of California |Berkeley, Cal. | 1874 | 3 | 84
| | | |
[133]Purdue University |Lafayette, Ind. | 1874 | 10 | 280
| | | |
Agricultural and |College Station, | 1876 | 16 | 313
Mechanical College |Tex. | | |
| | | |
State Agricultural |Fort Collins, Col.| 1879 | 2 | 137
College | | | |
| | | |
Agricultural and |Agricultural | 1880 | 3 | ..
Mechanical College |College, Miss. | | |
| | | |
Agricultural and |Blacksburg, Va. | 1880 | 18 | 190
Mechanical College | | | |
| | | |
Mechanical College of |Baton Rouge, La. | 1880 | 1 | 56
State University | | | |
| | | |
Storrs Agricultural |Storrs, Conn. | 1881 | 4 | 145
College | | | |
| | | |
Agricultural and |Auburn, Ala. | 1885 | 4 | 200
Mechanical College | | | |
| | | |
Arkansas Industrial |Fayetteville, Ark.| 1885 | 7 | 150
University | | | |
| | | |
Michigan Mining School |Houghton, Mich. | 1886 | 11 | 82
| | | |
Agricultural College of |Brookings, S. D. | 1887 | 11 | 160
South Dakota | | | |
| | | |
Florida Agricultural |Lake City, Fla. | 1888 | 2 | 62
College | | | |
| | | |
Oregon State Agricultural|Corvallis, Ore. | 1888 | 9 | 237
College | | | |
| | | |
Agricultural College of |Logan, Utah. | 1889 | 7 | 119
Utah | | | |
| | | |
New Mexico College of |Messilla Park, | 1890 | .. | ..
Mechanical Arts |N. M. | | |
| | | |
University of Michigan |Ann Arbor, Mich. | 1890 | 5 | ..
| | | |
Delaware College |Newark, Del. | 1891 | 3 | 23
| | | |
Agricultural and |Lexington, Ky. | 1891 | 3 | 31
Mechanical Coll. of | | | |
Kentucky | | | |
| | | |
State University |Columbia, Mo. | 1891 | 2 | 145
| | | |
College of Mining |Rolla, Mo. | 1891 | 7 | 225
| | | |
University of Nebraska |Lincoln, Neb. | 1891 | 3 | 210
| | | |
Nevada State University |Reno, Nev. | 1891 | 1 | 106
| | | |
University of Wyoming |Laramie, Wy. | 1891 | 4 | 60
| | | |
North Dakota Agricultural|Fargo, N. D. | 1892 | 2 | 24
College | | | |
| | | |
West Virginia University |Morgantown, W. Va.| 1892 | 5 | 79
| | | |
Clemson Agricultural |Clemson College, | 1893 | 9 | 635
College |S. C. | | |
-------------------------+------------------+---------+--------+------

[133] Purdue University is partially supported by endowment, but as it
secures regular appropriations, it is here classified as a State
University.

INDUSTRIAL TRAINING IN CHARITY SCHOOLS[134]

---------------------------+---------------+--------+-----------+-----
| | Indus- |Teachers| Pupils
| | trial | of | Taking
| |Training| Indus- | Indus-
| | Estab- | trial | trial
NAME OF SCHOOL |LOCATION | lished |Training|Training
---------------------------+---------------+--------+--------+--------
| | | |
Baltimore Manual-labor |Arbutus, Md. | 1841 | 2 | 60
School | | | |
| | | |
Wilson Industrial School |New York, N. Y.| 1853 | 3 | 100
for Girls | | | |
| | | |
Industrial Home School |Washington, | 1867 | 6 | 60
|D. C. | | |
| | | |
McDonough School |McDonough, Md. | 1873 | 5 | 140
| | | |
South End Industrial School|Roxbury, Mass. | 1884 | 21 | 313
| | | |
Five Points House of |New York, N. Y.| 1885 | 9 | 331
Industry | | | |
| | | |
Indiana Soldiers’ Orphans’ |Kingstown, Ind.| 1885 | 7 | 80
Home | | | |
| | | |
Skyland Institute |Blowing Rock, | 1886 | .. | ..
|N. C. | | |
| | | |
Samuel Ready School for |Baltimore, Md. | 1887 | 3 | 60
Female Orphans | | | |
| | | |
Chicago Waifs’ Mission and |Chicago, Ill. | 1888 | 3 | 30
Training School | | | |
| | | |
Industrial School |Brooklyn, N. Y.| 1888 | 8 | 80
Association | | | |
| | | |
Kalamazoo Industrial School|Kalamazoo, | 1889 | 18 | 224
|Mich. | | |
| | | |
Industrial School of |Rochester, | 1890 | 5 | 120
Rochester |N. Y. | | |
| | | |
Industrial School for Boys |Glenwood, Ill. | 1890 | .. | 400
| | | |
Jewish Orphan Asylum |Cleveland, Ohio| 1891 | 8 | 157
| | | |
St. George’s Boys’ |New York, N. Y.| 1892 | 6 | 259
Industrial Trade School | | | |
| | | |
Boys’ Club in Carpentry |Lynn, Mass. | 1895 | 1 | 25
| | | |
Polish Orphans’ Home |Chicago, Ill. | .. | .. | ..
| | | |
Unity Church Manual- |Chicago, Ill. | .. | .. | ..
training School | | | |
| | | |
Iowa Orphans’ Home |Davenport, | .. | .. | ..
|Iowa. | | |
---------------------------+---------------+--------+--------+--------

[134] Industrial Training, rather than Manual Training, characterizes
the Charity Schools, the central idea being to prepare the child for
some occupation by which it can become self-supporting. As will be
seen by the table, this idea found very early expression in the
Manual-labor School at Arbutus, Maryland. The co-education of mind and
hand, because of its equal, or greater, educational value, was not
thought of in these charity institutions until recently, and cannot be
said to obtain in any of them even now.

PROGRESS OF MANUAL TRAINING BY YEARS, IN CITIES

The following table shows growth by years, as represented by cities
establishing Manual Training or Kindergartens in Public Schools. The
number refers to cities adopting this feature of education in the years
named.

-------------+--------------+--------------+--------------
HIGH SCHOOLS |GRAMMAR GRADES|PRIMARY GRADES|KINDERGARTENS
------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------
|Number| |Number| |Number| |Number
Year | of | Year | of | Year | of | Year | of
|Cities| |Cities| |Cities| |Cities
------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------
.. | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | 1873 | 1
.. | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | 1880 | 1
.. | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | 1881 | 1
.. | .. | 1882 | 1 | 1882 | 2 | 1882 | 1
1883 | 2 | 1883 | 1 | 1883 | 0 | 1883 | 2
1884 | 1 | 1884 | 3 | 1884 | 1 | 1884 | 3
1885 | 5 | 1885 | 3 | 1885 | 0 | 1885 | 2
1886 | 5 | 1886 | 5 | 1886 | 3 | 1886 | 0
1887 | 4 | 1887 | 1 | 1887 | 0 | 1887 | 5
1888 | 6 | 1888 | 8 | 1888 | 5 | 1888 | 4
1889 | 8 | 1889 | 4 | 1889 | 3 | 1889 | 7
1890 | 7 | 1890 | 8 | 1890 | 2 | 1890 | 7
1891 | 10 | 1891 | 6 | 1891 | 4 | 1891 | 9
1892 | 7 | 1892 | 6 | 1892 | 4 | 1892 | 10
1893 | 5 | 1893 | 11 | 1893 | 6 | 1893 | 15
1894 | 7 | 1894 | 7 | 1894 | 4 | 1894 | 20
1895 | 8 | 1895 | 8 | 1895 | 1 | 1895 | 7
1896 | 15 | 1896 | 13 | 1896 | 5 | 1896 | 12
1897 | 8 | 1897 | 13 | 1897 | 5 | 1897 | 7
1898 | 2 | 1898 | 4 | 1898 | 1 | 1898 | 4
[135] | 5 | [135] | 18 | [135] | 8 | [135] | 28
------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------

[135] Not reported.

NOTE ON STATE LAWS IN RELATION TO MANUAL TRAINING.

Connecticut, in 1888, authorized and empowered school boards to
introduce Manual Training in public schools.

Congress appropriated $8000 to Manual Training equipment in the District
of Columbia in 1896.

In 1885 the State of Georgia passed a law authorizing and recommending
school boards to introduce Manual Training in the public schools of the
state. The law was simply a moral indorsement, and had little practical
effect.

Indiana has a law authorizing the introduction of Manual Training into
the public schools of all cities of 100,000 inhabitants or over.

Massachusetts passed an authorizing act in 1884, and on April 14, 1894,
a law was adopted, section one of which is as follows:

“After the first day of September in the year eighteen hundred and
ninety five, every city of twenty thousand or more inhabitants shall
maintain as part of its high-school system the teaching of Manual
Training. The course to be pursued in said instruction shall be
subject to the approval of the state board of education.”

In 1887 New Jersey passed a law to encourage the introduction of Manual
Training in public schools. The chief provision of the act was, that
whenever any school district should raise by taxation, subscription, or
both, a sum of money not less than $1000, for the establishment of
Manual Training in such school district, the state should appropriate a
sum equal to that raised by the district, to aid in the establishment of
such school; provided that no one district should receive over $5000 in
any one year from state funds. In 1888 this law was amended so as to
include districts that should raise not to exceed $500, the state
agreeing to duplicate the sum raised. The effect of this law was very
marked in 1890, resulting in the establishment of a large number of
schools.

In 1888 New York passed a law authorizing local school boards to
establish Manual Training within their respective jurisdictions. The
same law makes the teaching of Manual Training compulsory in normal
schools, subject, however, to recommendations of the state
superintendent of public instruction, which provision has practically
nullified it.

Ohio has a law authorizing a tax levy of ⁵⁄₁₀ of a mill for cities of a
certain size, and ¹⁄₅ of a mill for certain other cities, in excess of
other taxes; the sums so raised to be used for the purpose of
introducing Manual Training into the public schools.

In 1895 Wyoming authorized school boards to establish Manual Training in
the public schools.

In 1895 Wisconsin authorized the establishment of Manual Training in its
public schools providing state aid for the same, but limiting the number
to receive state aid to ten high-schools to be selected by the state
superintendent of schools.

The best of existing state-aid laws is that of Maryland, enacted April
7, 1898. It is very liberal and will doubtless greatly stimulate the
progress of the new education in that state. The Wisconsin law gives
$250 to each of its schools per year, and the New Jersey law duplicates
whatever the school board raises for that purpose. But the Maryland law
gives $1500 to each school the first year, and $50 per pupil per year
thereafter, up to the limit of $1500 per school per year--enough,
probably, to pay the entire expense of the system. Following is the text
of the statute:

“_Whereas_, The establishment of well-conducted and liberally
supported schools, or departments, in one of the large graded schools
or high-schools in each county of the state, for the development and
training of the manual ability of pupils, must tend to supply a
growing want in each county of the state; and

_Whereas_, It is especially the duty of the state to afford the best
educational facilities to its youth in those technical studies which
are directly associated with the material prosperity of its people;
and

_Whereas_, It is for the best interests of this state that the colored
population of each county shall have an opportunity for the
establishment of separate industrial schools; therefore,

SEC. 1. _Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Maryland_, That it
shall be the duty of the board of county school commissioners, when a
suitable building, or room or rooms connected with one of the large
graded schools or high-schools shall be provided by the county, or
money sufficient for the erection of such building, or room or rooms,
to accept the same (if, in the judgment of the board, there is any
necessity therefor), and thereafter to provide for the maintenance of
a Manual Training school, or Manual Training department, for said
county, and the salaries of teachers and Manual Training instructors,
out of the general school fund and the state aid hereinafter provided.

SEC. 2. _And be it enacted_, That whenever a Manual Training school,
or Manual Training department, is opened in any county, the president
and secretary of the board of county school commissioners of said
county shall report to the secretary of the state board of education,
and the state board of education shall, without delay, proceed to
appoint the principal of the state normal school, or one of the
teachers in said school, well qualified for such service, to visit the
school and give a certificate of approval of its condition and the
plan upon which it is conducted; and thereafter the president and
secretary of the board of county school commissioners shall report to
the comptroller the condition of the school, the number of
instructors, and the number of pupils enrolled, on or before the
twentieth day of January in each year.

SEC. 3. _And be it enacted_, That the comptroller of the treasury,
after receiving the certificate of approval concerning the county
Manual Training school, or Manual Training department, according to
the provisions of the second section of this act, is hereby authorized
and directed to issue his warrant upon the treasurer of the state for
the sum of fifteen hundred dollars, payable to the order of the
treasurer of the board of county school commissioners of the county
filing the certificate of approval aforesaid, out of any moneys in the
state treasury not otherwise appropriated, on the first day of October
in each year, for the support of said Manual Training school, or
Manual Training department.

SEC. 4. _And be it enacted_, That the county Manual Training school,
or the Manual Training department and the school to which it is
attached, shall be under the management and control of the board of
county school commissioners.

SEC. 5. _And be it enacted_, That it shall be the duty of the board of
county school commissioners of each county in this state, whenever a
suitable building, or room or rooms connected with one of the colored
schools of said county, shall be provided by the county to accept the
same, if in the judgment of the said board there is any necessity
therefor, and thereafter to provide for the maintenance of such member
[number] of separate colored industrial schools as in their judgment
may be needed, and the salaries of such teachers as may be required
for that purpose shall be paid out of the general fund and the state
aid hereinafter provided.

SEC. 6. _And be it enacted_, That whenever any such separate colored
industrial school or schools are opened in any county, the president
and secretary of the board of county school commissioners of said
county shall report the fact to the secretary of the state board of
education, and the state board of education shall without delay
proceed to appoint a proper person well qualified for such service, to
visit the said school or schools and give a certificate of approval of
its condition and the plan upon which it is conducted, and thereafter
the president and secretary of the said board shall report to the
comptroller of this state the condition of said school or schools, the
number of instructors and the number of pupils enrolled during the
school year last ended, on or before the 20th day of August in each
year.

SEC. 7. _And be it enacted_, That the comptroller of the treasury upon
receiving the certificate of approval concerning the county colored
industrial school or schools, as aforesaid, according to the
provisions of the sixth section of this act, is hereby authorized and
directed to issue his warrant upon the treasurer of the state for the
sum of fifteen hundred dollars, payable to the order [of the]
treasurer of the board of county school commissioners of the county,
upon the filing of the certificates of approval aforesaid, out of any
moneys in the state treasury not otherwise appropriated, on the first
day of October in each year, for the support of said colored
industrial school or schools, and thereafter the said industrial
school or schools shall be under the management and control of the
said board of county school commissioners.

SEC. 8. _And be it enacted_, That no entire appropriation for the
benefit of any Manual Training school, provided for under this act,
shall be paid as authorized, after the first annual appropriation,
unless said school have had an average daily attendance of thirty
scholars for the preceding year; and in case said attendance shall
fall short of said number, then there shall only be paid towards the
maintenance of said school at the rate of fifty ($50.00) dollars for
each scholar of its daily average annual attendance, to be determined
by the report hereinbefore required to be made to the comptroller.

SEC. 9. _And be it enacted_, That no appropriation for the benefit of
the colored industrial schools of any county, provided for under this
act, shall be paid after the first annual appropriation, unless the
average daily attendance at such school or schools shall have been,
for the preceding year, at least thirty scholars; and in case said
attendance shall fall short of said number, then there shall be paid
to the treasurer of the county school commissioners maintaining said
school or schools, only at the rate of fifty ($50.00) dollars a
scholar, for the daily average annual attendance at the same, to be
determined by the report hereinbefore required to be made to the
comptroller.

Approved April 7, 1898.”

The report of the state superintendent of public instruction for
Michigan, for the year 1897, shows that Kindergartens exist in the
public schools of the following cities and towns: Cities of over 4000
population as shown by state census of 1894--Albion, Big Rapids,
Cadillac, Calumet, Detroit, Escanaba, Grand Haven, Grand Rapids,
Holland, Ionia, Ironwood, Ishpeming, Jackson, Menonimee, Mt. Clemens,
Muskegon, Negamee, Niles, St. Joseph, Traverse City, West Bay City,
Wyandotte--twenty-two cities of over 4000 population. The twenty-four
cities and towns with less than 4000 population as shown by state census
of 1894, and having Kindergartens in their public schools, are: Algonac,
Alma, Au Sable, Caro, Crystal Falls, Dowagiac, Fremont, Greenville,
Hartford, Houghton, Ithaca, Lake Linden, Lake View, Mancelona,
Manistique, Montague, Morenci, Nashville, Pentwater, Reed City, Sand
Beach, Stanton, Union City, Vassar. Such of these cities and towns as
furnished reports will be found in the accompanying tables; from the
others no data was received.

Two thoroughly equipped Manual Training schools are projected: one, to
be in Pullman, Illinois, is to result from a bequest in the will of the
late Mr. George M. Pullman, who left a large sum for its construction,
and an annuity of $25,000 for its maintenance; the other school is to be
built by the Calumet and Hecla Mining Company, at Calumet, Michigan.
Both these schools will be free, and will probably become a part of the
public-school system of their respective towns.

The legislature of Massachusetts in 1898 passed an act establishing a
trade-school for weavers, to be located at Lowell, Massachusetts,
provided the city would raise half the money necessary for its
construction, the state to pay the other half. This is the first
well-defined movement in this country to establish public trade-schools
to teach the trades prevailing in the locality of the school. Europe has
many such schools.

MANUAL TRAINING IN RUSSIA.

There is, as yet, no established national school system in Russia. The
school systems of Finland and other Russian dependencies are provincial
and local. An imperial decree of March 7, 1888, however, contained an
elaborate plan for elementary national education, in which Manual
Training, Technical, and Trade education were given not only prominence
but precedence. The doctrine of state aid to educational institutions
is, however, fully and liberally recognized. Manual Training was founded
in Russia in 1868, as mentioned in the first edition of this work, by M.
Victor Della Vos, and revived and extended in 1884 by the then Minister
of Finance, who sent two teachers to Naäs, Sweden, to take a six weeks’
course of instruction, and a workshop for boys’ hand labor was the same
year established in connection with the Teachers’ Institute in St.
Petersburg. In 1885 this was made a permanent feature of Teachers’
Institute work, and an annual grant of 3000 rubles ($1659) was voted;
and in 1887 a course in metal work was added to this school. In 1888
three normal courses for instructing teachers in Manual Training were
instituted and subsidized by the imperial government. One of these at
Novaia Ladoga trains both city and country school-teachers; at Riga,
city teachers only, while at Kiev only country teachers are trained. The
instruction of teachers in Manual Training was also made part of the
teachers’ institutes at Glookhov, Vilna, and Orenboorg in 1889. Besides
these there were in 1890 eleven vacation institutes, training two
hundred and fifty teachers for the work of imparting manual instruction.
These teachers’ institutes, vacation and permanent (or normal schools),
have increased rapidly and received rich subsidies from the imperial
treasury. In 1891 the Russian Minister of War introduced Manual Training
into all the cadet schools. The most recent available data indicate the
introduction of Manual Training into one hundred and sixteen
establishments, as follows: four teachers’ institutes, fourteen
teachers’ seminaries, four intermediate schools, forty-four higher
public schools, and thirty-four elementary common schools. A more recent
report--which, however, is not at hand--is said to show remarkable
developments in Manual Training in common and rural schools. A brief
survey of technical and trade schools in Russia follows.

The technical schools at Moscow and St. Petersburg are imperial schools
of university grade, richly endowed, and reputed to be the best equipped
schools in Europe. The oldest and best technical school in Moscow below
university rank, and making no attempt to teach trades, is the Komisarof
Technical School, founded in 1865 by two railroad contractors. It now
receives government aid, and has about four hundred pupils. The Society
for the Promotion of Technical Education in 1873 founded a school called
the “Mechanical Handicraft School of Moscow.” The government contributes
$1000 per year to this school. There are five technical schools having a
grade of academic work comparable with our high schools--the Komisarof
Technical School of Moscow, mentioned above, founded in 1865; the Lodz,
in 1869; Irkootsk, 1873; Kungursk, 1877; and the Omsk, in 1882. The five
schools had 1052 students at date of latest available report.
Trade-schools of grammar grade, twenty-three in number, had 2474 pupils.
Of these schools three were established in 1868; one in 1871; two in
1872; one in 1873; one in 1874; one in 1875; two in 1877; one in 1878;
two in 1879; one in 1880; two in 1883; two in 1885; three in 1886; one
in 1887. Trade-schools of primary grade, sixty-three in number, with
2562 pupils. One was established in 1865; one in 1866; two in 1867; one
in 1870; one in 1871; three in 1872; two in 1873; five in 1874; six in
1875; one in 1876; six in 1877; four in 1878; three in 1879; two in
1880; two in 1881; four in 1882; five in 1883; five in 1884; one in
1885; one in 1886; four in 1887; two in 1888; one in 1889.

MANUAL TRAINING IN FINLAND.

Finland was the birthplace of the man who first devised and practised
that method of education known as Sloyd--a form of Manual Training.

Otto Cygneans, of Helsingfors Teachers’ Seminary, after a thorough study
of Froebel and Pestalozzi (to whom he gives ample credit), originated in
1858 a system for carrying the education of the hand beyond the
kindergarten into all grades of schools. To Finland also belongs the
credit of being the first country to officially recognize the value of
such education. Since 1866 (sometimes stated 1868) Manual Training
(Sloyd) has been compulsory in all the elemental and normal schools of
Finland. In 1896 there were four normal schools with 569 students, and
75,712 pupils taking Manual Training in the elementary schools of the
cities. Statistics of rural schools are not obtainable. In addition to
these, there were in 1896 forty-two separate and distinctively
Manual-training high-schools, with 1030 pupils, besides eight industrial
schools, with 56 teachers and 380 pupils. All are public schools. There
are technical and trade schools of all grades, from the Polytechnic
School at Helsingfors to the elementary trade and weaving schools. There
are seven schools where navigation is taught, twelve weaving, dyeing,
and sewing schools, supported wholly or in part by the government,
fourteen elementary technical schools, five high-grade technical
schools, and ten trade-schools other than weaving and navigation.
Government aid is granted to all of these schools.

MANUAL TRAINING IN ENGLAND.

The activity of Germany along the line of trade and technical schools,
immediately following the Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia, alarmed
the people of England, producing in 1882 what has been termed a
“Technical education scare.” The friends of Manual Training, acting upon
this popular and commercial anxiety, secured the passage of the
“Technical Instruction Act of 1889.” By the terms of this act the
schools organized under it were not to be trade-schools; and the
construction put upon the expression “Manual Instruction” makes the term
practically synonymous with our term Manual Training. The following
table shows the growth of these schools. The growth of cooking schools
is also statistically represented in the table.

----+-----------------------++---------------------------------
| MANUAL INSTRUCTION || SCHOOLS OF COOKERY AND
DATE| NUMBER OF SCHOOLS || DOMESTIC SCIENCE
----+-----------+-----------++-----------+-----------+---------
| | Number of || | |
| Number of | Schools || Number of | Number of |
| Schools |Established|| Schools | Schools |
|Existing in| During ||Existing in|Established|Number of
YEAR| Year Named| Year Named|| Year Named|During Year| Pupils
----+-----------+-----------++-----------+-----------+---------
1876| .. | .. || 29 | 29 | ..
1877| .. | .. || 125 | 96 | ..
1878| .. | .. || 178 | 53 | ..
1879| .. | .. || 223 | 45 | ..
1880| .. | .. || 276 | 53 | ..
1881| .. | .. || 299 | 23 | ..
1882| .. | .. || 347 | 48 | ..
1883| .. | .. || 420 | 73 | 1,251
1884| .. | .. || 541 | 121 | 7,597
1885| .. | .. || 715 | 174 | 17,754
1886| .. | .. || 812 | 97 | 24,526
1887| .. | .. || 921 | 109 | 30,431
1888| .. | .. || 1,086 | 165 | 42,159
1889| .. | .. || 1,355 | 269 | 57,539
1890| 30 | 30 || 1,554 | 199 | 66,820
1891| 145 | 115 || 1,796 | 242 | 68,291
1892| 285 | 140 || 2,113 | 317 | 90,794
1893| 430 | 145 || 2,419 | 306 | 108,192
1894| 677 | 247 || 2,634 | 215 | 122,325
1895| 949 | 272 || 2,775 | 141 | 134,930
| [136] | || | |
----+-----------+-----------++-----------+-----------+---------

[136] The number of pupils taking Manual Training cannot be given; as
an indication, however, it may be said that the London School Board
reports that in 1895, 30,508 boys were instructed in wood work in
London schools alone.

Governmental aid to drawing and Manual Training, when incorporated in
the curriculum of day grammar-grade schools, evening “continuation
schools,” and teachers’ training colleges, is bestowed through the
executive department, styled “The Science and Art Department.” Special
attention is paid to training teachers in the teachers’ colleges, so
that they will be able to give instruction in Manual Training. This is
specially true to grammar-grade teachers. In 1894 56 teachers’ colleges
were giving Manual Training to 4,434 teacher-pupils, the government
granting $13,290 in aid of such training. In 1895, the science and art
department, upon examinations aided 910 elementary Manual-training
schools, giving instruction to 67,470 pupils; the amount of aid granted
was $81,537.

In 1890 a law was passed empowering county councils to use the surplus
from duties on liquor to aid Manual-training and technical schools.
Many districts use the “liquor money” to establish purely
Manual-training schools, attaching them to municipal technical schools.
Generally, however, the “liquor money” goes to technical and art
schools. The report for 1895 shows $5,699,046 applied by local
authorities to technical instruction under the “liquor money” law.
Scotland secured in 1887 a law empowering local authorities to levy a
tax of a penny in the pound for the support of technical schools. In
1889 a similar law was passed for England. The Welsh law of 1889
organizing intermediate schools, recognizes and defines Manual Training.
These acts led up to the “liquor money” law referred to.

The City and Guilds of London Institute, organized in 1876, is the
principal private promoter of technical education in England. This
organization has founded three schools of its own, besides aiding
liberally similar schools in all parts of the kingdom. With the
exception of the well-known South-Kensington school, the Manchester
school, and the Birmingham schools, the technical schools of England, as
well as its Manual-training schools and kindergartens, are of recent
origin. Huddersfield Technical School, founded as a mechanics’ institute
in 1841, is another exceptionally old and especially good school of its
class.

MANUAL TRAINING IN SWITZERLAND.

As each canton regulates its own school system, the federal constitution
requiring only that education must be obligatory and free, the same
diversity of conditions exists in the cantons of Switzerland that is
found in the states of our own Union:--

Thus in the canton of Geneva, kindergartens and Manual-training schools
are a part of the public-school system, entirely supported by public
funds, and Manual Training is compulsory for all male pupils, in all
grades of the public schools. The gradual advance from kindergarten work
to primary, grammar, and high-school, makes a complete course in Manual
Training in the schools of Geneva--perhaps the most complete to be found
in any single public-school system. In other cantons, however,
kindergartens exist generally as private institutions, aided by public
funds and contributions from societies and individuals. The growth of
kindergartens in Switzerland by years cannot be shown from any data at
hand; the following table, however, shows the status at the date of most
recent available data:

PUPILS AND TEACHERS IN KINDERGARTENS OF SWITZERLAND

-----------------------+-------------+---------+---------
| Number of | |
| Separate |Number of|Number of
CANTON |Kindergartens| Pupils | Teachers
-----------------------+-------------+---------+---------
Zurich | 61 | 3,532 | 79
Berne | 62 | 2,550 | 63
Lucerne | 3 | 260 | 6
Uri | 1 | .. | ..
Schwytz | 4 | 91 | 4
Unterwalden | 2 | 85 | 2
Zug | 5 | 188 | 6
Freyburg | 10 | 912 | 10
Soleure | 8 | .. | ..
Basel Town | 32 | 2,117 | 46
Basel Land | 8 | 452 | 8
Appenzell Outer Rhodes | 16 | 843 | 19
Appenzell Inner Rhodes | 1 | 60 | 2
Grisons | 2 | 80 | 4
Aargau | 13 | .. | 13
Ticino | 23 | 1,351 | 43
Vaud | 160 | 4,000 | 160
Valais | 3 | 249 | 3
Neuchâtel | 36 | 997 | 36
Geneva | 65 | 3,872 | 85
-----------------------+-------------+---------+---------
Total | 515 | 21,639 | 589
-----------------------+-------------+---------+---------

Manual Training for boys was introduced into the Switzerland schools in
1884 by M. Rudin, who in that year instructed a class of forty teachers;
in 1891 over one hundred teachers were taking a Manual-training course
under his instruction. The following table shows the growth of Manual
Training to 1889, or five years after its introduction. More recent data
are unfortunately not available.

MANUAL-TRAINING CLASSES IN SWITZERLAND

------------+---------+---------+---------
|Number of|Number of|Number of
CANTON | Classes | Pupils | Teachers
------------+---------+---------+---------
Zurich | 19 | 305 | 13
Basel | 32 | 558 | 19
Saint Gall | 6 | 122 | 8
Schaffhausen| 2 | 120 | 2
Grisons | 2 | 48 | 2
Thurgau | 2 | 46 | 1
Soleure | .. | 40 | 1
Aargau | 1 | .. | 1
Berne | 5 | 175 | 5
------------+---------+---------+---------

Classes in Manual Training are reported from the cantons of Vaud,
Neuchâtel, Appenzell, Freyburg, and Glarus; but statistics are not
given. Manual Training for girls has been an integral part of the public
schools of Switzerland for many years, and in practically all of the
cantons this instruction is obligatory. The instruction consists in
knitting, sewing, mending, cutting, and fitting, with lectures on
house-keeping, and was introduced into the schools rather for its
industrial use than in recognition of its educational value. Switzerland
early recognized the importance of technical instruction and the
development of artisan skill. The Municipal School of Art at Geneva was
founded in 1751, and is intended as a school for working-men. It is the
oldest in Switzerland. The working-man’s school at Berne was founded in
1829, and, though a private institution, it is subsidized by the federal
government. The Polytechnic School at Zurich was founded by the federal
government in 1854. The Industrial School in that city, founded in 1873
by a society, is subsidized by the city, canton, and federal government.
“The Tecknikum” of Winterthur, probably the most complete of its class
of schools, was founded as a cantonal institution in 1873. The most
extensive are the technical institutions for the education of
working-men. The government began the establishment of these at the
beginning of this century. By 1865, ninety-one had been established; in
1889, eleven hundred and eighty-four of these schools, having 26,716
pupils, were reported. Trade-schools have sprung up everywhere, adapting
themselves to local industries and common needs. The School of
Watchmaking, at Fleurier, was founded as a private institution in 1850,
but has been municipal property since 1875. Municipal Schools of
Watchmaking exist at Chaux-de-Fonds, 1865; St. Imier, 1866; Locle, 1868;
Neuchâtel, 1871; Bienne, 1872; Porentruy, 1883, is a municipal and state
school, as is also that at Soleure, 1884. The Trade School for Women is
a private institution of Basel, founded in 1879; that of Berne, in 1888.
These schools are founded by Societies for the Advancement of Public
Utility, and teach women the millinery and dress-making trades, and give
instruction in household work, and all the means by which women can
become self-supporting. The societies have also founded numerous
House-keeping Schools, and Schools for Domestic Servants.

No attempt is here made to give a complete list of Switzerland’s
trade-schools, or the efforts being made to advance the skill of her
artisans. It is but proper, however, to mention the latest efforts to
overcome the difficulties growing out of the decline in apprenticeship.
In 1884 the Mannheim Trade Unions asked for a committee of investigation
into the condition of the small trades. The committee reported,
recommending the adoption of a suggestion received from the Karlsruhe
Trades Union. It was in effect, that master-workmen who are willing to
train apprentices systematically, according to regulations prescribed by
school authorities, shall be aided by the state treasury. In 1888 Baden
appropriated 5000 marks per annum for this purpose, and in 1892
twenty-two trades, or one hundred and twenty-two workshops, having one
hundred and eighty apprentices, were subsidized. In 1895 the
appropriation was increased. In 1898 the federal government of
Switzerland adopted the plan and purposes to greatly extend it. The
result of this is, practically, that every skilled master-workman who
desires may become to a certain extent a public-school teacher, and
every factory or workshop is, or may become, a school-house.

MANUAL TRAINING IN GERMANY.

The officials of the regular school systems of Germany, while for some
years past active in advancing trade-schools, have never recognized
Manual Training as worthy a place in the public schools, except as
regards female handiwork, which is everywhere a part of the course in
grammar and high schools for girls. Individuals, and “societies for the
promotion of practical education,” must therefore take the initiative in
Manual Training, and this results either in private schools, or in
persuading municipal or state authorities to annex a Manual-training
department to some public school.

Of the 328 Manual-training schools for boys existing in 1892, 126 were
independent schools, and 202 were annexes attached to other educational
institutions of various kinds. Special societies maintain 50 schools and
72 annexes, of the above total, while municipal authorities maintain 70
schools and state authorities 66 annexes. The growth by years since 1878
is shown in the following table:

-------------+-----------+-------------
ESTABLISHED |Independent| Annexes to
| Schools |Other Schools
-------------+-----------+-------------
Prior to 1878| .. | 26
1878 | 1 | ..
1879 | 3 | ..
1880 | 4 | 4
1881 | 9 | 6
1882 | 4 | 3
1883 | 2 | 6
1884 | 3 | 10
1885 | 2 | 11
1886 | 1 | 9
1887 | 8 | 11
1888 | 13 | 11
1889 | 19 | 23
1890 | 21 | 30
1891 | 27 | 36
1892 | 9 | 16
-------------+-----------+-------------
Total | 126 | 202
-------------+-----------+-------------

In 1892 there were 285 teachers and 7374 pupils in the independent
schools; 363 teachers and 6841 pupils in the annexes, or 648 teachers
and 14,235 pupils in both. While something had been done in Germany in
the way of trade-schools prior to that date, the general interest and
official zeal was created by the Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia
in 1876, when Professor Reuleaux cabled to Bismarck, “Our goods are
cheap but wretched.” The various states began to inaugurate the
educational system that had made the manufactures of France so superior
to those of her competitor, and from 1879 to 1890 over 50 trade-schools
were established in Prussia.

Some of the German states, notably Saxony and Würtemberg, had early
established trade-schools. In 1837 three royal labor-schools were
established by the state of Saxony; one in 1838, and two in 1840.
Special schools for instruction in weaving, embroidery, and lace-making
were established; one in 1835, one in 1857, one in 1861, one in 1866,
and one in 1881. Of the 32 trade-schools in Saxony seven have been
established since 1886. In the 20 “_Kleinstaaten_” or so-called small
states of Germany there were, in 1895, 218 trade-schools having 2047
pupils. Practically all of these have been established since 1879. The
city of Berlin in 1895 reported 21 trade-schools with 8992 pupils, 332
teachers, and expenditures (exclusive of state aid) for these schools of
$129,102; besides $80,339 spent for trade education in so-called
“continuation” schools. In February, 1897, the number of students
attending these schools in Berlin was 14,750, or 1 per cent. of the
population.

It will be interesting, in view of the antagonistic attitude of the
school authorities to the introduction of Manual-training methods in
public schools from kindergartens up, to note how long Germany will
follow the trade-school experiment of France, without learning, as did
France, to fit her boys for the trade-schools by putting their little
hands to school in the kindergarten, the primary school, and so on
through grammar and high school; so that by the time the trade-school
comes in to differentiate and accentuate special skill, the boy will
have learned equally the use and control of muscle and of mind.

The highest results of trade-schools upon a nation’s manufactures, and
therefore upon its exports and its wealth, cannot be realized until the
Manual-training school has furnished the educated hand as raw material
for the trade-school to work upon. The nation that begins with the
trade-school first will have a long and expensive lesson to learn.
France learned it. Will Germany require as long and expensive a tuition?
Germany has, however, the advantage, in that many of her private
citizens, and “societies for practical education,” are, as usual, far
more intelligent than her school authorities.

MANUAL TRAINING IN FRANCE.

The thorough reorganization of the public schools of France by the law
of June 16, 1881, renders any reference to the prior system unnecessary
here.

By this law primary education was rendered absolutely free; and by the
law of March 28, 1882, compulsory education for all children between the
ages of 6 and 13 years was established. The law of October 30, 1886,
systematized the public schools, classifying and grading them, and
fixing a curriculum. Kindergartens admitting pupils from the ages of 2
to 6 years were made general by this law, and in 1886-87 there were 3597
kindergartens with 543,839 pupils. In 1895 this number had grown to 4734
kindergartens, 714,734 pupils, and 9199 teachers, all women.

The government programme contemplates that Manual Training proper shall
begin where its elements in the kindergarten leave off, and be continued
throughout the four grades of primary instruction. But the full purpose
of the law seems slow of realization, for in 1890, four years after the
passage of the law, only 400 shop-schools of primary grade had been
established, 101 of these in Paris. Manual Training has been compulsory
in all public high-schools of France since 1886. These may be either
independent schools or classes annexed to an elementary school. In the
latter case they are called _cours complémentaires_. In 1886 there were
16,217 boys and 5150 girls in public high-schools; in 1895 there were
21,996 boys and 8660 girls, a rise of 35 per cent. for boys and of 68
per cent. for girls in the ten years.

In the _cours complémentaires_ there were 11,518 boys and 5223 girls in
1895, an increase of 37 per cent. for boys and 26 per cent. for girls
over the figures for 1886. This result was not, however, accomplished at
once. There had been the usual struggle for Manual-training schools
before the law of 1886 made them universal and compulsory. The school
authorities of Paris introduced sewing into the public schools in 1867,
and in 1873 M. Salicis began the introduction of Manual Training into
what we would term grammar-schools. Shops were annexed to the boys’
school in the Rue Tournefort in 1873. From that time until the general
law of 1886 the growth was gradual. There are in France a large number
of Manual Apprenticeship schools. They are a kind of primary
trade-school. Prior to 1880 various cities, as Paris, Havre, Rheims,
etc., had founded apprenticeship schools. Private schools of the same
character had been established by individuals and industrial
associations. The law of 1880 organized these efforts, assimilated all
these institutions, and brought them under the control of the public.
The tendency to bring all industrial institutions, whether classical,
manual, trade, or technical, under control of the state has been very
marked since 1880 in France, and still more so since the law of 1886. Of
the six industrial and house-keeping schools for girls in Paris four
were founded by the city; the others were private institutions absorbed
by the city--one in 1884, the other in 1886. They are of high-school
grade, and, in addition to general domestic economy, teach special
trades to women, such as millinery and artificial flower work. The
nation maintains high-class trade and technical schools in all
industries important to her commerce. And there can be no doubt that the
excellence of her manufactures has its origin in the large number,
variety, and excellence of her free schools. The National School of
Watch-makers was founded in 1848 by the government of Savoy, and
reorganized by the French government in 1890. The National Schools of
Arts and Trades, four in number, are the oldest and most important of
the public institutes of technology and trades. The first of these was
founded as a private institution in 1780, and became national property
during the First Republic. The second of these schools was established
in 1804, the third in 1843, and the fourth completed in 1892. These
schools instruct fully in the mechanical arts, the purpose being to
educate at public expense thoroughly equipped superintendents and
masters of workshops for industrial establishments. Such, too, is the
purpose of the Central School of Arts and Manufactures at Paris, which,
founded as a private institution in 1829, became the property of the
state in 1857.

Schools of Mining, such as the one at Houghton, Michigan, are located,
one at Paris (National High-school of Mines); one at St. Étienne (School
of Mines); and schools for master miners at Alais and at Douai. The
National Conservatory of Arts and Trades, founded by the National
Convention in 1794, began in 1819, under special ordinance of the
government, gratuitous courses of instruction upon the application of
the sciences and industrial arts. It is to industrial education what the
College of France is to classicism and “pure science”--whatever that may
mean. No attempt is here made to give a complete list of the trade and
technical schools of France, whether public or private. They are
exceedingly numerous, and cover every phase of industry. The purpose
here, however, is to call attention to the fact that France began with
trade-schools, and, after a hundred years of experimenting with trade
and technical institutions, she reached the wisdom embodied in the laws
of 1886 and 1890, which provide for the training of the hand of the
child in the kindergarten and continuously throughput the school age,
thus furnishing aptest possible pupils for her higher trade and
technical institutes, and the greatest possible development of skill for
her industries. The character of her manufactures shows the importance
of the scholar in industry.

MANUAL TRAINING IN ITALY.

Discussions in 1882 and 1885 led to an official adoption of Manual
Training in normal schools in 1892, when twenty selected teachers were
given one month’s gratuitous training. In 1893 Sloyd was made obligatory
in the practice department of all normal schools. In 1893, 34 men and 34
women teachers were taking the Manual-training course at Repatrausone.
The school authorities in Italy acting upon the English idea of teaching
Manual Training to the teachers first, and so interest them that they
will introduce Sloyd into the elementary schools of their districts.

Beyond the statement that Manual Training was experimentally taught to
400 pupils in Genoa in 1892, no data is at present obtainable as to the
success of this plan. There are 194 industrial schools, seeking to teach
special industries. In 1887 there were 419 technical schools, of more or
less importance, and 74 institutes of secondary technology. With the
exception of the Aldini-Valeriani institute in Bologna, founded in 1834,
and the _Scuola Professionale_ at Foggia, established by the state in
1872, the trade and technical schools of Italy seem to be of recent
origin.

MANUAL TRAINING IN BELGIUM.

The law of July 1, 1879, reorganizing the public-school system of
Belgium, made kindergartens a universal and integral part of the public
schools. Children are admitted at 3 years of age, remaining till seven.
“At Brussels, Liege, and Verviers, experimental transition classes
exist, which prolong kindergarten methods in the primary grades, the
Manual-training exercises of Froebel reappearing in the primary schools,
and there developing into some simple form of actual hand labor, with
paper, pasteboard, or clay. The results have been very satisfactory.” In
1891 the city of Liege reported 4717 children attending public
kindergartens. A normal school for training kindergarten teachers is
maintained at Liege. In 1890 Belgium maintained 1042 kindergartens
having 104,760 pupils. The movement to generalize Manual Training in the
public schools began in 1882, took definite shape three years later, and
by 1887 the state made Manual Training obligatory in all state normal
schools, sixteen in number. Fifty cities also reported Manual Training
established in their public schools in 1888. The more recent reports,
while not given much to statistics, show satisfactory growth in the
system. Schools of apprenticeship and of trade have received more
encouragement in Belgium than Manual Training has in the schools of
grammar and high-school grades.

Apprenticeship schools to teach lace-making to the indigent peasantry
were established by the state as early as 1776. With the introduction of
machinery, and the expansion of industries, the character of these
schools was changed. Abuses grew up. Academic tuition was abandoned for
work, and the schools practically turned over to financial interests of
the exploiters of the labor of children. A reorganization occurred in
1890 when the state subsidized some forty of these apprenticeship
schools, and abolished many others.

Trade-schools of every variety, from the schools for fishermen at Ostend
and Blankenberg to the famous trade-schools of Brussels, abound in
Belgium. While these schools are for the most part private schools, they
are usually subsidized by the city or local government. The industrial
school at Ghent is a technical school of importance founded in 1828.
That at Tournay was opened in 1841. These are the oldest schools of
their type in Belgium. A new impetus was given to these schools in 1885,
and from that date many have sprung up in all parts of the country, the
local industries determining the character of the trade-schools. The
trade-school at Ghent, established in 1890, is the best expression of
modern methods, as distinguished from the early ideas represented by
Tournay. This school was overcrowded with pupils in 1892. The state
grants a subsidy of 6000 francs ($1158), and the province also aids the
school. In 1889, 54 industrial schools were reported in Belgium. In 1872
a house-keeping school for girls was established by M. Smits, of
Couillet, the first of its kind in Belgium. In 1890 there were 160, and
in 1892, 250 such schools, and classes in house-keeping attached to
other schools. Practically all of these were either public schools or
free classes in private institutions.

MANUAL TRAINING IN AUSTRIA.

In Austria no attempt is made to combine in the same institutions the
discipline of shop-work and the academics of the public schools. The
first shop-school was established in Vienna by a private association,
August 10, 1883. The second followed, February 16, 1887. In 1884 a
normal school for the training of Manual-training teachers was
established. At Budapest a Manual-training school was organized by
private initiative in 1886.

The municipal statutes almost immediately required one such school to be
maintained by each school district, and in 1889 there were in the twelve
districts sixteen such schools. One unimportant trade-school dates back
to 1871; but with the exception of the work done in Vienna and Budapest,
and a few so-called “continuation schools” and trade-schools, nothing of
importance was done by Austria until 1896. The activity of the empire
since the latter date has been directed towards the establishment of
apprenticeship schools.

MANUAL TRAINING IN SWEDEN, NORWAY, AND DENMARK.

From Finland the new educational ideals developed by Otto Cygnaeus
spread to Sweden, and thence to the world at large. Dr. Salomon of Naäs
introduced Manual Training (Sloyd) into his school in 1872, and in 1878
there were 103 Sloyd schools in Sweden. In 1879 there were 163; in 1880,
234; in 1881, 300; in 1882, 377; in 1883, 463; in 1884, 584; in 1885,
727; in 1886, 872; in 1887, 991; in 1888, 1167; in 1890, 1278; in 1891,
1492; in 1892, 1624; in 1893, 1787; in 1894, 1887; in 1895, 2483; or an
increase of 2380 in 17 years. In 1877 parliament voted $4000 per annum
to advance Sloyd instruction; in 1891 this was increased to $30,000 per
annum, in addition to amounts given by provincial authorities,
agricultural and private societies, and parish authorities. The Naäs
seminary for the instruction of teachers of Sloyd (Dr. Salomon’s school)
reports that 2627 teachers of Sloyd had been taught between 1875 and
1896. In the Sloyd teachers training-school at Stockholm 573 women
instructors were taught in the years from 1885 to 1897, inclusive. There
are 32 evening and holiday schools, which in 1895 received a subsidy of
$12,060.

There is no definite data on Manual Training in Norway earlier than
1889, though Sloyd had doubtless been introduced from adjacent countries
prior to that time. By law, however, Sloyd was made compulsory in all
city elementary and intermediate grade schools in 1892, and optional in
village schools. In 1891, $5060 was given as a subsidy for teaching
Sloyd in 178 schools. The number of students in rural elementary schools
in which Sloyd is optional is given at 236,161; number of students in
city schools where Sloyd is compulsory, 58,871.

In 1883 the first Danish Sloyd school was established. The Copenhagen
Seminary for instructing teachers of Sloyd was established in 1885. In
1888, 46 schools reported Sloyd courses with 2000 pupils under
instruction; this number in 1889 had grown to 59, and in 1896 to 114. Of
this latter number 30 are regular Sloyd schools; the others educational
institutions having Sloyd as a part of the course. In 1890, $4368 was
appropriated to further the introduction of Sloyd into the schools of
Denmark. In this connection must be mentioned the “Home Industry”
schools of Denmark. Not less than 500 of these schools exist, generally
attached to other schools, and supported by 400 societies for promotion
of home industries and by state aid. It was the powerful advocacy of
these schools by their champion, Clauson-Kaas, that delayed the
introduction of Sloyd into Danish schools until 1883, when the influence
of Professor Mikkelsen began to gain the ascendency. Not only was
Clauson-Kaas a powerful man in his advocacy of these home industry
schools, but equally vociferous and partisan in his opposition to Manual
Training or Sloyd as a means of education and intellectual development.
In the terrific strife of partisan school-teachers as to what
constituted education, the schools of Denmark not only deteriorated but
were wellnigh closed. That the home industry schools had their use is
witnessed by the fact that practically every Danish housewife is not
only an expert needlewoman and house-keeper, but expert in all those
arts that go by the name of female handicraft. Grade schools and
technical education have not developed greatly in Scandinavian
countries. Sweden has two important schools for weaving, the Eskilstuna
school for metal-workers, and four technical schools. Norway has two
schools for teaching the wood-carver’s trade, two of carpentry, a school
for mechanics, three technical schools, and four industrial schools for
women. Apart from the numerous schools of home industries, difficult if
not impossible to classify, Denmark has a trade-school for shoemakers,
and one of considerable importance for watch-makers.

MANUAL TRAINING IN THE NETHERLANDS.

The normal course in the Netherlands includes Manual Training for boys,
it being the intention to teach teachers first, and to establish Manual
Training in the schools later. There are a large number of trade and
apprenticeship schools, the government taking far more interest in these
than in Manual Training. In 1895 there were twenty “_Ambachtscholen_”
(for training tinners, carpenters, and dyers), with 2295 students. There
are forty-eight industrial schools.

MANUAL TRAINING IN ARGENTINE REPUBLIC.

January 13, 1896, a commission was appointed to report a plan for the
introduction of kindergartens and Manual Training into the public-school
system. In 1897 the report was made, and its recommendations were
enacted into a law going into effect January 1, 1898. The introduction
of Manual Training is to begin with the national colleges, sixteen in
number, with 2629 pupils; the normal schools, thirty-five in number,
with 1770 pupils. Ultimately under the law Manual Training will be
adopted in the 3749 elementary schools, having 264,294 pupils, though no
statistics are at hand showing to what extent this has been already
accomplished. The papers presented before the commission which sat
through February, 1896, were upon the importance of kindergartens as a
basis for Manual Training; Manual Training as a means of education;
Manual Training from the hygienic standpoint, etc. Some speakers favored
industrial rather than Manual-training schools, but the commission
reported that the system of Sloyd used at Naäs, Sweden, with certain
modifications to suit local conditions, was the proper one to adopt. The
kindergarten system recommended is purely Froebelian. From one of the
papers read before the commission it is learned that Manual Training is
a recognized part of the course of instruction in the national colleges
of Uruguay, and to some extent in its elementary schools. Definite data
for Uruguay schools are not, however, at hand.

INDEX.

Abstract ideas regarded as of more vital importance than things, 185.

Adam, legend of, and the stick, 157.

Adams, Charles Francis, Jr., arraigns the schools of Massachusetts for
automatism, 201; declares that, in the public schools, children are
regarded as automatons, etc., 205.

Adler, Prof. Felix, declaration of [in note], that manual training
promotes rectitude, 142; unique educational enterprise of, in New York
City, 342; extracts from report of, as to purposes of the “model
school,”, 344, 345.

Age of force, the, is passing away, 303.

Age of science and art, the, has begun, 303.

Agricola, noted for the practice of the most austere virtue, 274;
after great services, was retired, 274.

Agricultural colleges, manual training in twelve, of the State, 341.

Agriculture nearly perishes in the Middle Ages--prevalence of famines,
281.

Alabama, Agricultural and Mechanical College of, adopts manual
training, 355.

Alcibiades kept not his patriotism when he was being wronged, 255.

Alison, his theory of the cause of the decline of Rome, 63.

Altruism, stability of government depends upon, 135.

America, discovery of, the crowning act of man’s emancipation from the
gloom of the Dark Ages, 286; gives wings to hope, 287; startles the
people of Europe from the deep sleep of a thousand years, 287; a great
blow to prevailing dogmatisms, 307; completes the figure of the earth,
rendering it susceptible of intelligent study, 307.

America, early immigration to, consisted of Puritans and Cavaliers,
Germans, Frenchmen, and Irishmen, 306; destined to become the home of
an old civilization, 306; the manner in which the colonists of,
treated the natives showed the Roman taint of savagery, 306; European
social abuses exaggerated in, 323; the eyes of mankind rest upon,
alone with hope, 323.

Americans, are transplanted Europeans controlled by European mental
and moral habitudes, 323; will not vote away their right to vote, 324,
325.

Anaxagoras, his characterization of man as the wisest of animals
because he has hands, 152.

Ancients, reverence due them for their art triumphs, 73; temples of,
remained long as instructors of succeeding generations, 73;
educational theory of, contrasted with that of moderns, 123; ignorance
of, on the subject of physiology, 153; speculative philosophy the only
resource of, 153; slow growth of, in morals due to the fact of their
neglect of the education of woman, 366; contempt of, for children,
367.

Anossoff, a Russian general, experiments of, in the effort to produce
Damascus steel, 72.

Antwerp, Flemish silk-weavers of, flee to England upon the sacking of,
34.

Apollo, bronze statue of, at Rhodes, 47.

Apprentice system, the, gives skilled mechanics to England, 181.

Apprentices better educated than school and college graduates, 239.

Architecture, limit of, attained in Greece and Rome, 73.

Aristocracy, alliance of, with the kings, 290.

Arithmetic, automatism in teaching it in the schools of the United
States, as shown by the Walton report, 197; Colonel Parker’s
declaration in regard to the defective methods of instruction in, 206,
207.

Arnold, John, inventor of the chronometer, 86; his ingenious watch, of
the size of twopence and weight of sixpence, 86.

Art, its cosmopolitan character, 12; the product of a sequential
series of steps, 73; the preservation of a record of each step
essential to progress, 73; printing makes every invention in, the
heritage of all the ages, 286; triumphs due to the laborer, 294;
ignored in educational systems, 326.

Artisan, the, embodies the discoveries of science in things, 13; more
deserving of veneration than the artist, 74; regarded with disdain by
statesmen, lawyers, _littérateurs_, poets, and artists, 185; education
of, more scientific than that of merchants, lawyers, judges, etc.,
227; training of, is objective, 231; intuitively shrinks from the
false, and struggles to find the truth, 231; always in the advance,
242.

Artists more highly esteemed than engineers, machinists, and artisans,
185.

Arts, the fine, not so fine as the useful, 74; can exist legitimately
only as the natural outgrowth of the useful arts, 279; the so-called
fine arts must wait for the expansion and perfection of the useful
arts, 383; civilization and the, are one, 384.

Arts, the useful, finer than the so-called fine arts--their processes
more intricate, 74; no limit to their development except the
exhaustion of the forces of nature, 74; neglect of, by all the
governments of the world is amazing, 176; Plato’s contempt of, 176; no
instruction is given in the public schools, 181; slavery’s brand of
shame still upon, 190; no such failure of the, as there is of justice,
227; the true measure of civilization, 247; depend upon labor, 278;
precede the fine arts, 279; unknown in the Middle Ages, 281;
stagnation in, is the death of civilization, 283.

Athenians and Spartans as thieves, 255.

Atkinson, Edward, declares that the perfection of our almost automatic
mechanism is achieved at the cost not only of the manual but of the
mental development of our men, 201.

Attention--the equivalent of genius, 380.

Aurelius, Marcus, sublime moral teachings of, 138.

Austria, Emperor of, has a suit of clothes made from the fleece in
eleven hours, 87; increases her debt each year, 296.

Authority, in the Middle Ages, chilled courage, 284.

Automata, of the ancients--hint of modern automatic tools in, 8; of
the moderns, triumphs of mechanical genius, 86.

Automatism, of mind and body, 191; of mind promoted by the environment
of modern life, 192; promotion of, by the schools, 193; in the schools
of Norfolk County, Mass., as shown by the Walton report, 196; as shown
in the Walton report in grammar, in arithmetic, in reading, in
penmanship, in spelling, and in composition, 197, 198, 199; a final
and conclusive test of the prevalence of, in the schools, 204.

Babylon, the hundred brazen gates of, 55; influence of ideas of, in
full force in the United States down to the time of the emancipation
proclamation of President Lincoln, 190.

Bacon, Lord, the school he wished for, 2; his aphorism, 4; his
apothegm on the sciences, 13; condemns the old system of education,
126; his opinion of the universities, 127; his proposal that a college
be established for the discovery of new truth, 185; his proposal to
bring the mind into accord with things, 245; foresees the kindergarten
and the manual training school, 245; celebrated aphorism of, has had
but little influence upon the methods of our public schools, 325; the
basis of his philosophy of things, 374.

Bacon, Roger, his daring prediction of mechanical wonders, 98.

Ballot, power of, in the United States, 324.

Baltimore, Md., manual training in, 342.

Bamberger, Mr. G., Principal of the Workingman’s School, New York
City--extracts from report of, on purposes of the school, 343, 344.

Barnesville, O., manual training in, 342.

Belfield, Dr. Henry H., Director of the Chicago Manual Training
School, 346; his early appreciation of the mental value of manual
training, 348; extracts from the inaugural address of, 348-351.

Bell, Sir Charles, his great discovery of the muscular sense, 146; his
definition of the office of the sixth sense, 146.

Bells, that of Pekin, China, 47; that of Moscow, 47; they show an
intimate knowledge of the founder’s art, 48.

Bernot, M., inventor of file-cutting machine, 91.

Bessemer, Sir Henry, his birth and early training, 162; his appearance
in London, a poor young man--his first invention, 162; as young
Gladstone enters the Treasury, he retires an unsuccessful suitor for
the just reward of genius and toil, 163; his burning sense of outrage,
163; announcement of his discovery of a new process in steel-making,
164; his declaration that he could make steel at the cost of iron
received with incredulity, 165; his process of steel-making a complete
success in 1860, 165; compared with Mr. Gladstone, 165, 166;
description of the process that revolutionized the steel manufacture,
166, 167; value of process of, 167; the government of England slow in
honoring, 168; comparison between the life and services of, to man and
those of Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Disraeli, 168, 169; stands for the new
education, 169.

Black-walnut, its natural history studied in the wood-turning
laboratory, 36; its structure, growth, and uses, 37; the poet Bryant’s
great tree, 37.

Blatchford, E. W., President of the Chicago Manual Training School
Association, 346.

Blatchford Literary Society, an organization of students of the
Chicago Manual Training School, 348.

Blow, Miss S. E., in formulating the theory of the kindergarten,
describes the method equally of the savage and the manual training
school, 218, 219.

Board of Trade of Chicago, the speculative trades in futures on, are
fifteen times more than the sales of grain and provisions, 322.

Body, contempt of the, by the ancients, led to contempt of manual
labor, 155.

Book-makers, the, writing the lives of the old inventors in the temple
of fame, 171.

Books, the sure promise of universal culture, 287; the precursor of
the common school, 287.

Boston, the streets of, in which patriots had struggled for liberty,
now echoed the groans of the slave, 311; manual training in, 341.

Boy, the civilized, is not trained in school for the actual duties of
life, 181; is taught many theories, but not required to put any of
them in practice, 181; is in danger of the penitentiary until he
learns a trade or profession, 181, 182.

Boys, ninety-seven in a hundred, who graduate from the public schools
and embark in mercantile pursuits, fail, 227.

Brain, the, its absorbing and expressing powers--diagram illustrating,
193; the healthy education of, consists in giving to the expressing
side power equal to that of the absorbing side, 193, 194; the
functions of the absorbing side extended, while those of the
expressing side are restricted--diagram illustrating, 194; functions
of the expressing side of, increased by adding drawing and the manual
arts, 195.

Bramah, Joseph, inventor of automatic tools, 84.

Breighton helps to solve the steam-power problem, 15.

Bridge, the first iron, across the Severn, one hundred years old, but
likely to last for centuries, 241.

Bridgman, Laura, used the finger alphabet in her dreams, 150.

Brindley, James, sketch of the life of, 172; a common laborer--a
millwright’s apprentice--a man of honor--an illiterate, but a genius
and an originator of great canal enterprises, 172-175; the engineer of
the Duke of Bridgewater, 173; his “castle in the air” and “river hung
in the air,” 173; his obstinacy, poverty, and poor pay for splendid
services of which he was robbed by the duke, 174; his life and career
typical of a score of biographies presented in Mr. Smiles’s “Lives of
the Engineers,” 175.

Bronze, castings of, in the ruins of Egypt and Greece, 46.

Brooklyn Bridge illustrates the necessity of practical training for
the civil engineer, 97.

Brown, John, Captain, in the presence of his exultant but
half-terrified captors, 235; defying the constitution, the laws, and
public sentiment in the interest of the cause of justice, 236.

Bruno, his fate, condemned by the Inquisition and burned as a heretic,
178; persecution of, a link in the chain of progress, 287.

Buckle, Henry Thomas, his testimony to the practical uses of
imagination, 38; his scathing arraignment of English statesmen and
legislators, 160; his declaration that the best English laws are those
by which former laws are repealed, 187; his declaration in regard to
the obstinacy and stupidity of English legislators, 242.

Budget, the European, shows that the standing armies are the
overshadowing feature of the situation, 290; the portion of, that goes
to the maintenance of the standing armies, 291.

Burgos, manufactures of, destroyed by the expulsion of the Moors from
Spain, 283.

Cæsar preferred to Cato, whose patriotism was above question, 274;
commentaries of, in all the world’s universities, 275.

Caligula, his pleasure in witnessing the countenances of dying
gladiators, 138.

Camillus honored in the early days of Rome, 274.

Carlyle, his apostrophe to tools, 7.

Carpenter’s laboratory, class of students at the black-board in,
discussing the history and nature of certain woods, 21; working
drawings of the lesson put on the black-board by the instructor in,
25; parts of the lesson executed by the instructor in, 25; new tools
introduced, and their care and use explained, 25; the students at
their benches in, making things, as busy as bees, 26; a call to order
and a solution of the main problem of the day’s lesson, 26; a tenon
too large for its mortise, 29.

Caste, a tendency to, disclosed in all history, 248; illustration of,
the earliest--the chief of the brawny arm, 248; illustrations of, in
savage and half-civilized communities, 248, 249; in Egypt--in India,
249; in the United States, 313.

Castile, manufactures of, destroyed by the expulsion of the Moors from
Spain, 283.

Castle of the Middle Ages, the home of music and chivalry, 280.

Cato a type of Roman persistence in the path of conquest, 264;
patriotism and virtue of, 274.

Centennial Exposition, exhibit of models of tool-practice in the
Imperial Technical School, Moscow, Russia, at the, 331.

Charcoal, the forests of England swept away to provide it for the
smith’s and smelter’s fires, in the early time, 63.

Charlemagne, attempt of, to reconstruct a worn-out civilization, 280;
neglect of the education of the people the cause of the failure of,
280.

Chatham, Lord, declaration of, that the American colonies had no right
to make a nail or a horseshoe, 203.

Chicago, comparison of, with ancient Rome, 138.

Chicago Manual Training School, description of building, 1; its main
purpose intellectual development, 3; theory of, 4; engine-room of, 14;
engine of, doing duty as a school-master, 14; an epitome of, in the
engine-room, 15; its purpose not to make mechanics, but men, 38;
conditions of admission to, 106; detail of questions used in
examination of candidates for the first class in, 106-110; curriculum
of, 110, 111; optional studies of, 111; blending of manual and mental
instruction in, 111; missionary character of, 111; the only
independent educational institution of the kind in the world, 345;
owes its origin entirely to laymen, 345; established by an association
of merchants, manufacturers, and bankers, 345, 346; incorporated April
11, 1883, 346; corner-stone of, laid September 24, 1883, 346; opened
February 4, 1884, 340; officers and trustees of association of, 346;
object of, mental and manual culture, 347; equipment of, 347; library
of, 347; Dr. Henry H. Belfield director of, 348.

_Chicago Tribune_, criticism of the methods of the public schools by
the, 346; columns of, opened to the author, 346; effect of advocacy of
manual training by the, 346.

Child, the, becomes father of the man, in the cradle, the nursery, and
at the fireside, 365; contempt of, by the ancients, 367.

Chipping, filing, and fitting laboratory, 88; course in the, 88; the
ante-room to the machine-tool laboratory, 88.

Christian religion, the, its failure to save Rome, 140.

Cicero, his doctrine of the universal brotherhood of man, 139;
forecasts the doom of the Roman Republic, but has no remedy for the
public ills to propose, 272; without moral courage, 273.

Cincinnatus found at the plough, 268.

Cities, rapid concentration of population in, 137; plague-spots on the
body politic, 137; dominated by selfishness, 137; statistics of
increase of population in, 313, 314; the chief sources of society
disturbances, 314.

City, the modern, the despair of the political economist, 137; the
centre of vice, 137; pen-picture of its vices and crimes, 140; picture
of vice in, 314.

City of New York, College of, manual training in, 352; first report of
the industrial educational association of, gives a list of thirty-one
schools in, where industrial education is furnished (_note_), 352.

Civil engineer, the modern, must be familiar with all the processes of
the machine-tool shop, 97; his works may be amended, but never
repealed, 187; more competent than the railway president, the lawyer,
the judge, or the legislator, 225; trained in things, 225.

Civilization, progress of, depends upon progress in invention and
discovery, 65; a growth from the state of savagery, 131; evils of,
flow from mental development wanting the element of rectitude, 132;
contrast presented by that of Italy in the fifteenth century, and that
of America in the nineteenth, 234; difference between, and barbarism,
244; the useful arts the true measure of, 247; the product of
education, 248; of Greece sprang from mythology and ended in anarchy,
254; languishes in an atmosphere of injustice, 278; the trinity upon
which it rests is justice, the useful arts, and labor, 278; American,
has not borne new social fruits, 323.

Clark, John S., his elaborate exposition of the defects of existing
educational methods, 193, 194, 195.

Claudius, under the favor of, Seneca amassed a vast fortune, 273.

Clement, Joseph, great English inventor of the eighteenth century, 84;
his two improvements in the slide-rest, and the medals he received for
them, 92.

Cleveland, O., manual training in, 342.

Coal, subject of production, cost, demand, and supply discussed in
forging laboratory, 62; history of application of, to useful arts, 63;
prejudice against use of mineral, in the beginning of the seventeenth
century, 64; smelting with mineral, successfully introduced in England
in 1766, 66.

Coalbrookdale Iron-works, mineral coal first used at, for smelting
purposes, 65, 66.

Columbus, in proving that the world is round, frees mankind, 286;
sounds the death-knell of intellectual slavery, 286, 287.

Comenius, the school he struggled in vain to establish, 2; his theory
of learning by doing, 13; condemns the old system of education, 126;
his definition of education, 127; foresees the kindergarten and the
manual training school, 245.

Commerce, early, of America, so insignificant that in 1784 eight bales
of cotton shipped from South Carolina were seized by the custom
authorities of England on the ground that so large a quantity could
not have been produced in the United States, 203.

Commercial Club, the, founds the Chicago Manual Training School, 2;
guarantees $100,000 for its support, 3; meeting of, March 25, 1882,
346.

Common-school system of the United States, glaring defects of, shown
by the Walton report, 197, 198, 199.

Composition, automatism in teaching, in the schools of the United
States, as shown by the Walton report, 199.

Compton, Prof. Alfred G., on the exacting nature of the demands made
upon instructors by the new education, 352.

Concrete, progress can find expression only in the, 151, 152; a lie
always hideous in the, 224.

Connecticut, manual training in State Normal School, 342; legislature
of, adopts manual training as part of the course of public
instruction, 360.

Contempt, in the Middle Ages, withered hope, 284.

Convent, of the Middle Ages, the home of religion and of art, 280.

Cook County Normal School, Ill., manual training in, 342.

Cooley, Lieut. Mortimer E., letter of, to the author on effects of
manual training in the University of Michigan, 363.

Cordova the abode of wealth, learning, refinement, and the arts, 282.

Corporate power unduly promoted by reckless legislation on the subject
of land in the United States, 320.

Corporations, a creation of yesterday, the product of steam, 320;
almost as indestructible as landed estates, 320; men trained from
generation to generation to the care of, 320.

Cort, Henry, an English inventor of the eighteenth century, 84;
experiments of, with a view to the improvement of English iron, 115.

Cotton-gin, the, trebled the value of the cotton-fields of the South,
160.

Cotton Exchange of New York, speculative trades in futures on, thirty
times more than the actual cotton sales, 322.

Crane, R. T., Vice-President of the Chicago Manual Training School
Association, 346.

Cranege, the Brothers, inventors of the reverberatory furnace, 66.

Crerar, John, Trustee of the Chicago Manual Training School
Association, 346.

Crusaders, their astonishment at the splendors of Constantinople, 285;
they expected to meet with treachery and cruelty--they found chivalry
and high culture, 285; they returned to Europe relieved of many
illusions, 285, 286.

Crusades, the, pitiful and prolific of horrors as they were, shed a
great light upon Europe, 285; brought the men of the West face to face
with a progressive civilization, 285.

Dædalus, invention of turning ascribed to, by the Greeks, 33.

Damascus blades, the most signal triumph of the art of the smelter and
the smith, 72; the material of which they were made, and their
temper, 72; first encountered by Europeans during the Crusades, 72;
triumphs of genius not less pronounced than the Athena of Phidias, 74.

Dark Ages, the shame of, caused by the neglect of the useful arts, 64;
maxims of Machiavelli explain the fact of the existence of, 284; gloom
of, dispelled by the discovery of America, 286.

Darwin, Charles, declares that a complex train of thought cannot be
carried on without the aid of words, 149; law of reversion of, in
operation during the decay of the Roman civilization, 275.

Da Vinci, Leonardo, took up the work of Archimedes, and the science of
mechanics made progress, 287.

De Caus helps to solve the steam-power problem, 15.

Della Vos, M. Victor, Director of the Imperial Technical School,
Moscow, 121; testimony of, as to value of manual training, 121; author
of the laboratory process of tool instruction, 331.

Democratic idea, the, not new when adopted in America, 309.

Democratic principle in the United States Government does not prevent
class distinctions, 313.

Denmark appropriates money for teaching hand-cunning in the schools,
368.

Denver (Col.) University, manual training in, 355.

Dickens, Charles, his pen-picture of “Tom All-alone’s”--philosophy of,
315.

Dinwiddie, Prof. H. H., his account of the manner in which the
Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas was revolutionized in the
interest of manual training, 359.

Disasters, mercantile and other, show that business is done by the
“rule of thumb,” 214.

Disraeli (Lord Beaconsfield), his tribute to the value of the
imagination as a useful quality, 38; his alternations of political
power with Mr. Gladstone--from Liberalism to Toryism an easy
transition, 164; England heaps honors upon him while it neglects Mr.
Bessemer, 168; comparison between the life services of, to man and
those of Sir Henry Bessemer, 169.

Doane, John W., Trustee of the Chicago Manual Training School
Association, 346.

Dogmatist, the, no place for, in the modern order of things, 124.

Domestic economy made a department of the Iowa Agricultural College,
360; part of the curriculum of the Le Moyne Normal Institute, 362.

Draper, Dr. John W., profound observation by, 377; drudgery and
humility, the value of, 374.

Drawing, thoroughness of training in, 16; definition of, 16; sketches
of certain geometric forms, 17; working drawings, pictorial drawings,
and designs applied to industrial art, 18; its æsthetic element, 18;
geometry its basis, examples of, 18; from objects in the school
laboratories, 19; value of, as an educational agency, 19; language of,
common to all draughtsmen--pen-picture of class in, 20; first step of
expression, 208.

Drayton, W. Heyward, historical sketch of origin of manual training in
Girard College by, 353-355.

Dudley, Dud, inventor of machinery for the application of mineral coal
to smelting purposes, 64; sketch of career of, 64, 65; combinations
against, by the charcoal iron-masters, 64, 65; furnaces of, destroyed
by mobs, and their owner reduced to beggary and driven to prison, 64,
65.

Dun, R. G., & Co., statistics of, in relation to commercial failures,
211.

Ear not a more important organ than the hand because situated nearer
the brain, 154.

Eau Claire, Wis., manual training in, 342.

Edict of Nantes, revocation of, drove artisans to England, 34.

Education, the philosopher’s stone in, 2; laying the foundation of, in
labor, 3; the power to do some useful thing the last analysis of, 12;
definition of, 12; confined to abstractions in the past, 13; the
new--claims made in its behalf, 105; universal, a modern idea, 123;
difference in systems of, constitutes difference between ancient and
modern civilizations, 123, 124; every child entitled to receive, 124;
certain fundamentals of, upon which all are agreed, 125; Rousseau’s
definition of, 125; begins at birth and continues to the end of life,
126; Froebel’s definition of, 126; old system of, condemned by Bacon,
Comenius, Rousseau, Pestalozzi, and Froebel, 126; of woman more
important than that of man, 128; develops innate mental qualities and
forms character, 130; all, is both mental and moral, 133; any system
of, that does not produce altruism is vicious, 136; first step in, to
eliminate selfishness and put rectitude in its place, 136; a system
of, consisting exclusively of mental exercises, promotes selfishness,
141; methods of, controlled by the Classicism of the Renaissance, 154;
of the hands as well as the brain necessary, 172; the old, designed to
make lawyers, doctors, priests, statesmen, _littérateurs_, and poets,
179; that is not practical, in the Age of Steel, is nothing, 179; not
broad enough on the expressing side of the brain, 194; illustrations
of defects of, shown by the Walton report, 196, 197, 198, 199; in
existing systems of, the memory is cultivated while the reason is
allowed to slumber, 200; defective methods of, result in vast
mercantile and railway disasters, 215; defective morally, since the
truth is to be found only in things, 224; the New England system of,
very defective, but to it the country owes the quality of its
civilization, 235; in South Carolina the monopoly of a class, 235; a
scientific system of, would have averted the War of Rebellion in the
United States, and kept down the debt of England, 237; why popular, is
provided for by the State, 237; the sole bulwark of the State, 238;
the best is the cheapest, 239; of New England does not produce great
lawyers, great judges, or great legislators, 239; exclusively mental,
stops far short of the objective point of true, 243; the last
analysis of, is art, 243; any system of, which separates ideas and
things, is radically defective, 244; the object of, is the generation
of power, 244; the system of, which does not teach the application of
facts to things, is unscientific, 245; among the ancients, was
confined to a small class, and consisted of selfish maxims for the
government of the many, 253; of the Greeks responsible for the
destruction of Greek civilization, 256; defects of the Roman, 265;
Roman, deified selfishness and so realized its last analysis--total
depravity, 267; a false system of, wrecks the Roman civilization, 277;
scientific, essential to the salvation of the trinity upon which
civilization rests, 278; how to make it universal in Europe, 292, 293;
possible only in Europe through the disbandment of the standing
armies, 295; in Germany, has taught the people to hate standing
armies, 298, 299; is causing the emigration of Germany’s best
citizens, 302; is the arch-revolutionist whose march is irresistible,
302; the new, will come in as the standing armies go out, 304; had
made little progress at the time of the organization of civil society
in America, 309; the system of, under which the kings and ruling
classes of Europe had been trained to selfishness, cruelty, and
injustice, put into the New England common schools, 309; sordid view
of, generally held in the rural districts of New England, 310; Herbert
Spencer’s view of the prevailing methods of, 310; positive ill effects
of the prevailing methods of, 310, 311; a false system of, in the
United States, led to political incongruities of the grossest
character, 311; complete failure of, to promote rectitude, 311;
defects of system of, in the United States, shown by the ignorance and
crimes of legislators, 317; may be made universal through the ballot,
324; all property may be taken for, by the ballot, 324; American, is
scant in quantity and poor in quality, 325; no radical change in
methods of, for 3000 years, 325; a complete revolution in, essential
to social reform, 327; must begin with the child and be directed by
the mother, 366; the new, becomes one aggressive force, 372; the new,
confided to the teachers of the old régime, 372; the first of human
considerations, 373; its professors should be the most learned of
human beings, 373; the new, maxims of, 375; what form and character
shall our education take?, 377; the old, was designed to make masters,
the new to make men, 378; universality and equality of, the first and
last essential, 384.

Edward III. of England uses the smiths at the siege of Berwick, 72.

Egypt, how the castes of, arose, 249; progress of the civilization of,
249; civilization of, the product of education, 250; selfishness the
basis of the system of education of, 250; wealth, commerce, and
military and naval power of, 250; learning of, 251; luxury of, 251;
conquered by Persia, 251, 252; no provision in, for the training of
woman, 366.

Electricity must be “harnessed” at the forge and in the shop to enable
it to do its work, 170.

Elizabeth, Queen, use of iron by, to defeat the Spanish Armada, 61.

Emerson, his declaration that Napoleon was typical of the modern man,
134; his observation that during the Crusades “the banker with his
seven per cent. drove the earl out of his castle,” 286.

Emigrant, the, withdraws his support from the fatherland, 290.

Emigration, social questions cannot much longer be settled by, 299.

Empire, art of mechanism greatest of modern times, 61.

England, history of the early iron manufacture of, 63; decline of the
iron industry of, during the seventeenth century, 65; the people of,
import their pots and kettles, 65; workshops of, originate great
inventions during the period 1740-1840, 115; apprentices of, become
learned men, 115; material condition of, 250 years ago, 158, 159;
civilization and transformation of--how accomplished, 159; studded
with workshops, filled with automatic machines through the apprentice
system, 181; debt of, to the French and Flemish immigrants, 185;
constitution of, grew out of the feudal system, 190; safer to shoot a
man than a hare in, 190; school system of, indescribably poor, 224; a
scientific system of education in, would have averted wars and kept
down the national debt of, 237; criminal laws of, 241; draws from her
people a larger _per capita_ revenue than any nation of Europe, 297;
has nearly reached the limit of the power of her people to pay taxes,
297; land system of--its terrible effect upon the English, Scotch, and
Irish, 317.

English history, the great names in--the names without which there
would have been no English history, 175.

Enterprise, in the Middle Ages, the slave of superstition and
ignorance, 277.

Epictetus, lofty patriotism of, 139.

Equality, social and educational, essential to an ideal civilization,
375.

Europe, face of, and civilization of, changed during the Crusades,
286; growth of the middle class of, 286; the artisan became a factor
in the social problem of, 286; art treasures of, destined to follow in
the track of her fleeing population, 294; may restore to productive
employments three millions of men, 302; may place at the disposal of
her educators seven hundred million dollars per annum, instead of
seventy million dollars, as at present, 302; may extinguish her
national debts in fifty-four years, 303; progress in, previous to the
discovery of America, 307, 308.

Ewing, Mrs. Emma P., Dean of the Domestic Economy Department of the
Iowa Agricultural College, 361; on the importance of the study of
domestic economy, 361, 362.

Expression, power of, quite as important as that of absorption, 208;
susceptible of being made clear only in things, 208.

Eye, not a more important organ than the hand, because it is situated
nearer the brain, 154.

Fairbank, N. K., Trustee of the Chicago Manual Training School
Association, 346.

Faneuil Hall, slavery justified in, 311.

Feudalism emasculated human energy, 281; the ruin of, set thousands of
serfs free, 290.

Field, Marshall, Treasurer of the Chicago Manual Training School
Association, 346.

File, the, older than history, dating back to the Greek mythological
period, 91; of the Swiss watch-makers, 91; dexterity of the
hand-working cutter of, 91; invention of file-cutting machine in 1859,
91.

Finland, all the schools of, give instruction in hand-cunning, 368.

Fire, legend in regard to its discovery, 62.

Foley, Thomas, on the excellence of the laboratory methods of
instruction, 217, 218.

Force, new elements of, to be discovered and applied to the needs of
man, 180.

Forging, laboratory of, 58; pen-picture of a class of students in, 61;
story of the origin of the Turkish Empire related by the instructor
in, 61; the management of the forge fires in, 62; lessons in, on the
black-board and at the forges, in detail, 66; the instructor in, at
the forge, 69; questions by the students in, 69; the school-room
converted into a smithy which resounds with the clang of sledges, 69,
70; healthful effects of the exercise--the anvil chorus, 70; the tests
of merit in, applied, 75; the instructor in, gives a lecture on the
steam-hammer, 75; extent of the course in, 77.

Founding, laboratory of, 45; history of the art of, 46; first applied
to bronze, 46; lesson of the day, casting a pulley, 48; the process in
detail, 51; pen-picture of the students pouring the steaming metal
into moulds, 52.

France, permanently weakened by the increase of her national debt,
296; debt, statement of--what the war with Germany cost her, 296;
cannot double her debt again and make her people pay interest on it,
297; a law of, makes manual training obligatory, 368; supports a
school for training teachers of manual training, 368; Prof. G. Solicis
the chief supporter of manual training in, 368.

Franklin, the famous selfish maxims of, 311.

Froebel, the school be struggled in vain to establish, 2; first
applies Rousseau’s ideas to school life, 126; his definition of
education, 126; condemns the old system of education, 126; a character
of, 127; his discovery of the superior fitness of woman for the office
of teacher, 127, 128; foresees the manual training school, 245; it was
reserved for him to rescue woman from the scorn of the ages, 367.

Fuller, William A., Secretary of the Chicago Manual Training School
Association, 346.

Fulton, Robert, an American inventor, 84.

Galileo, persecution of, for his great discovery, 177, 178;
persecutors of, believed and trembled, 287.

Galton, Francis, declaration of, that brain without heart is
insufficient to achieve eminence, 134; his testimony to the great
value of artisan immigration, and the worthless character of political
refugees, 186; his neglect of the artisan class in his speculations on
the subject of the science of life, 186, 187; reason of his neglect of
the artisan class stated by Horace Mann--the influence of slavery,
188.

George III. an expert wood-turner, 34; gives John Arnold five hundred
guineas for a miniature watch, 86.

Germanicus noted for the highest public virtue, 274; after great
services, is exiled and poisoned, 274.

Germany, Emperor of, experience of, in a needle factory, illustrative
of the delicacy of mechanical operations, 240.

Germany, foundation of her educational system, 295, 296; superior
training of her people enabled her to humiliate France, 296; freedom
from debt of, the significant feature of the European situation, 296;
low rate of taxation in, 296; weakness of, through emigration, 297;
the educated subject of, has become a thoughtful citizen, who rebels
against the standing army, and flees from it, 297, 298; high value of
citizenship of, 298; citizenship freely abandoned, because the
educated German revolts at the standing army, 298; the military
records of, show the cause of German emigration to be disgust of the
policy of international hate, 299; increase in the number of military
delinquents in, is the measure of the growth of German intelligence,
300; the chief power of, becomes her chief weakness, 300; cannot
recoup her losses to America through gains from neighboring countries,
on account of the policy of international hate, 300, 301; losing the
flower of her population--the strong--the weaklings, the paupers, the
aged, and the infirm remain, 301; is growing weaker each year, 301;
agitation on the subject of manual training in, 368.

Gibbon on the wealth of the Saracens in Spain, 283.

Girard College, manual training in, 353; Dr. Runkle’s influence in
promoting the adoption of manual training in, 354.

Gladiatorial games, atrocities of, in Rome, contrasted with the
sublime precepts of Seneca, Plutarch, and Marcus Aurelius, 138; extent
of slaughter of animals at their celebration, 138.

Gladstone, William Ewart, political power and popularity of, 161;
enters upon his long official career as young Henry Bessemer retires
from the Stamp-office without his just reward, 163; a great orator,
and a great financier, a talker, a maker of laws and treaties,
constantly in the public eye, 163; in office and out of office, 163,
164; from Toryism to Liberalism--an easy transition, 164; compared
with Sir Henry Bessemer, 165, 166; England heaps honors upon him while
she neglects Mr. Bessemer, 168; comparison of the life and services
of, to man, with those of Mr. Bessemer, 169; stands for the old system
of education, 169; admission of, that the great mechanics of England
had no aid from the government, 175.

Gold, once the king of metals, surrenders its sceptre to iron, 124.

Goss, William F. M., his exposition of the methods of the manual
training school in detail, 219, 220, 221, 222; pronounced success of
the Manual Training Department of Purdue University, under
directorship of, 341.

Grammar, automatism in teaching, in the common schools of the United
States, as shown in the Walton report, 197; criticism of Colonel
Parker on methods of instruction in, 206.

Great Powers of Europe all hampered by great debts, 296.

Greece, Egypt the University of, 251; every intellectual Greek made a
voyage to Egypt, 251; the destiny of, was controlled by
renegades--there was disloyalty in every camp, a traitor in every
army, and a band of traitors in every besieged city, 254; the orators
of, never refused bribes, and oratory ruled in, 255; philosophy and
education of, responsible for decay of the civilization of, 256;
ruined by metaphysics and rhetoric, 256; no schools in, for girls,
366.

Greeks, the people of youth, 254; religion and patriotism of, 254;
were treacherous, cruel, and their sense of honor dull, 254; they
enslaved women and robbed the bodies of the slain on the battle-field,
254; declaration of Thucydides that there was neither promise that
could be depended upon, nor oath that struck them with fear, 255; in
the Pantheon the highest niche was reserved for the God of Gain, 255;
the early, were pirates, and some sold themselves into slavery, so
great was their lust of gold, 255; armies of the, bribed by Persia,
255; young, taught the arts of sophistry in the schools of rhetoric,
256; never emerged from the savage state, 256.

Guttenberg and the printing-press, 152.

Habit, all reforms must encounter the stolid resistance of, 191.

Hand, it is through the, alone, that the mind impresses itself upon
matter, 141; the skilled, confers benefits upon man, 141; and the mind
are natural allies, 144; tests the speculations of the mind by the law
of practical application, 144; explodes the errors of the mind, 144;
finds the truth, 145; if it works falsely, publishes its own guilt in
the false thing it makes, 145; Dr. Wilson’s graphic picture of the
versatility of the, 145; not less the guide than the agent of the
mind, 145; influences the mind through the muscular sense, 148; how
its habit of labor leads to the discovery of the truth and the
exposure of the false, 149; the preserver of the power of speech
through the endless succession of objects it presents to the mind,
151; the, ceasing to labor in the arts, to plant and to gather, speech
would degenerate into a mere iteration of the wants of savages
subsisting on fruits, 151; the most potent agency in the work of
civilization, 152; mobility of, multiplies its powers in a geometrical
ratio, 154; contempt of, an inheritance from the speculative
philosophy of the Middle Ages, 155; the works of, comprise all the
visible results of civilization, 155; marvels wrought by the, 155,
156; James MacAlister on the power and versatility of the [_note_],
156; wields the mechanical powers--its works, 158; the wise counsel of
the practical, steadies the mind, 225; not a nicer instrument than the
mind, 240; the, stands for use, for service, and for integrity, 376;
its drill and discipline more highly educative than any exclusively
academic course, 376; through it alone man impresses himself upon
Nature, 378; is refined and spiritualized by the sense of touch, 379;
the multitudinous works of the, 379, 380.

Hand-work, difficulties of, illustrated, 86; educative value of, 375.

Hargreaves, James, inventor of the “spinning-jenny,” 84.

Herbert, the famous selfish maxim of, 311.

Hero, of Alexandria, the inventor of the steam-engine, 14.

Hero, the, is an honest man, 233; the, in education, 385.

Herodotus, his description of the hundred brazen gates of Babylon, 55;
his contempt for the artisan, 56.

Heroes, the thin ranks of, constitute the measure of the poverty of
the systems of education that have prevailed among mankind, 234; are
normally developed men who honor the truth everywhere, 234; the fact
that they are honored after death evidence of progress, 234.

Heroism rendered grand by contrast with the debased standards of
public judgment, 233.

Herophilus opens the way to an intelligent study of the mind, 153.

Hippocrates opens the way to an intelligent study of the mind, 153.

Holtzapffels, speculation of, as to the origin of the invention of the
lathe, 33.

Honesty, only another name for heroism, 233; scientific education will
make it universal, 233.

Hood, Tom, his song of the shirt, 87.

Huntsman, Benjamin, an English inventor of the eighteenth century, 84;
sketch of the career of, 116; his invention of cast-steel, and its
effect upon the Sheffield cutlery market, 116; how his secret was
stolen, 117; declines a membership of the Royal Society, 117; how
resplendent his name is now, 171.

Ideas are mere vain speculations till embodied in things, 243; and
things are indissolubly connected, 244.

Ignorance, illustration of, in the opposition of a Roman Emperor to
the use of improved machinery, 178; reverences the past, never doubts,
is suspicious, an enemy of all progress, 179; in the schools of
Norfolk County, Mass., 197.

Illinois Penitentiary, statistics of show that four out of five of the
inmates of have no handicraft, 182.

Imagination, Buckle’s tribute to the, 38; Disraeli on Sir Robert
Peel’s want of, 38; Disraeli’s career an illustration of the value of,
39; the discovery of America appealed powerfully to the, 287; blazes
the path to glorious achievements, 287.

Imperial Technical School, Moscow, manual training adopted as part of
curriculum of the, in 1868, 331; sketch of the history of manual
training in, by Director Della Vos, 331-333.

India, how the castes of, arose, 249.

Injustice, civilization languishes in an atmosphere of, 278.

Inquisition, the, its persecution of Galileo, 177, 178.

Instructors, lack of competent, in the new education, 352, 353.

Intelligence, the basis of morality, 113.

Inventions, a growth, 14; each step of constitutes a link in the chain
of progress, 187; contain the germs of imperishable truth, 243.

Inventive genius, to the, mankind owes more than to the philosophers,
_littérateurs_, professors, and statesmen of all time, 84.

Inventor, the, produces a machine that will make a thousand things in
the time required by the hand-worker to make one, 86; helps on the
cause of progress, 160; rules the world, 161; his works are never
repealed, 187; is always in the advance, 242.

Iowa, Agricultural College of, makes domestic economy a part of its
curriculum, 360; faculty and course of study in the department of
domestic economy of, 360, 361.

Iron, Locke’s famous apothegm on the value of, 45; the most potent
instrument of power, 61; use of by Queen Elizabeth to defeat the
Spanish Armada, 61; the equivalent of civilization, 62; is king, and
the smelter and smith are his chief ministers, 62; to make a ton of,
required hundreds of cords of wood before the introduction of “pit”
coal for smelting purposes, 63; the foundation of every useful art,
81.

Italy, government of, during the Middle Ages, consisted of a menace
and a sneer, 284.

Jacobson, Col. Augustus, on the demand for a more comprehensive system
of education, 180; on the proper equipment of the boy upon leaving
school, 209.

Jerusalem, when conquered, its smiths and other craftsmen were carried
away as captives by the Babylonians, 70.

Jews, learning of, exerted an ameliorating influence upon the darkness
of the Middle Ages, 285.

Judges, training of, is exclusively subjective, 230; rendered selfish
by subjective processes of thought, 231; venerate the past, 242.

Justice assumes the place of selfishness in the mind of the hero, 233;
cause of the failure of, 242.

Keith, Edson, Trustee of Chicago Manual Training School Association,
340.

Kindergarten, the, father of the manual training school, 5; fills a
place unoccupied until the time of Froebel, 126; educational
principles of, susceptible of universal application, 126; analysis of,
128; leads logically to the manual training school, 129; method of, is
scientific, 207; method of, is the expression of ideas in things, 245;
realizes the dream of Bacon, Comenius, and Pestalozzi, 245; exhibits
of work of, at the meeting of the National Educational Association in
1884, 342; endorsed by the National Educational Association, 363; the
growth of, prevented by prejudice and indifference, 367.

Kings, alliance of, with the aristocracy, 286.

Labor class, the real flower of a population, 293; all other classes
depend upon the, 294; a drain upon the, is a drain upon the most vital
resource of the State, 294; where the flower of gathers, wealth most
abounds, 294.

Labor, manual, scorn of, among the ancients, 56; its slow recovery of
independence, its destined dignity through scientific and art culture,
57; repugnance to, has multiplied dishonest practices, 155; respect
for, would be increased by the adoption in the public schools of a
comprehensive system of mechanical training, 182; cause of the scorn
of--the slavery of the laborer, 188; of to-day alone maintains the
value of property, 252; of men cheaper than that of cattle, in Rome,
266; the useful arts depend upon, 278; the foundation of national
prosperity, 293; essential to triumphs in literature, music, and the
fine arts, 293; not gold and silver, is the source of wealth, 294;
draws to itself the art treasures of the world, 294, 295; contempt of,
inculcated by educational systems, 326.

Laborer, the, degraded through slavery, 10; contempt of, ingrained in
the public mind, 177; contempt of, leads inevitably to social
disintegration, 247; the battles of antiquity were contests for the
possession of, 253; reduced to slavery in Rome, 265; spurned in Rome,
266; the useful arts decline if he is degraded, 278, and advance if he
is honored, 278; the standing armies of Europe have cost him all his
noble ambitions, 295; surplus of, goes to the tax-gatherer, 295;
forced to sacrifice his desire for education, his love of the
beautiful, of dignity, and of a home adorned by art, 295.

Laborers thrown into the arena in Rome to be scrambled for, 269.

Landed estates, effect of concentration of, in a few hands, 320; vast,
conferred upon a few corporations in the United States--double the
area of that owned by the lords of England, Scotland, and Ireland,
321.

Language, thought impossible without, 150; changes in, arise out of
new discoveries in science and new inventions in art, 151; stagnates
when the State ceases to advance, 151; invention of, 248; when nations
shall dwell together in unity there will be but one, 299 [_note_].

Lawyers more highly esteemed than civil engineers, machinists, and
artisans, 185; training of, is exclusively subjective, 230; rendered
selfish by subjective processes of thought, 231; look for precedents
in an age whose civilization perished with its language, 242.

Layard, discoveries of, in the ruins of Nineveh, 46.

Learning, the revival of exalted abstractions and debased things, 374.

Legislation, restrictive, in England, to prevent the conversion of
timber into charcoal for smelting purposes, 63; the best, in England,
is that by which former statutes were repealed, 226; of the United
States no better than that of England, 226; cause of failure of, 242;
reckless, in the United States, on the subject of the public domain,
319; of the States of the Union vicious and corrupt, 322.

Legislators, not the authors of English progress, 159; Buckle’s
scathing arraignment of, 160; wiser in the statutes they repeal than
in those they enact, 226, 227; training of, is exclusively subjective,
230; rendered selfish by subjective processes of thought, 231; become
selfish, and venerate the past, 242; refuse to grant reforms until
awed into submission, 242.

Le Moyne Normal Institute, manual training and domestic economy in,
356.

Life Insurance, ethical aspect of, 214.

Literature, full of maxims in honor of selfishness, 134; polite, must
rest upon a basis of general culture, or it is valueless, 279.

_Littérateurs_ more highly esteemed than civil engineers, machinists,
and artisans, 185.

Livy characterizes Valerius as the first man of his time, 264;
deplores the decay of virtue, 272.

Lloyd, Henry D., his history of the land system of the United
States--syllabus of, 317; opening paragraphs of the history of the
United States by, 318, 319; declaration of, that we must hereafter
find freedom in the society of the good, 326.

Locke, the school he dreamed of, 2; famous apothegm of, on iron, 45.

Locomotive, the--stands for the brotherhood of man, 376.

Locomotives, no such failure of, as there is of legislation, 227.

Lombardy, five famines in, 281.

Louis XVI. an expert locksmith, 34.

Lubbock, Sir John, on the skill of the savage, 216.

Lucan, his gospel of universal love, 139.

Lucretia, political effects of the tragic fate of, 264.

Luther, the reformation of, opened the way to the last analysis of
dissent in America, 309.

MacAlister, James, declaration of, that there has been but little
change in the ideas that have controlled our methods of education in
four hundred years, 154; his graphic description of the power and
versatility of the hand [_note_], 156; observation of, that a skilled
hand, to the majority of men, is quite as important as a well-filled
head, 208; has revolutionized the public schools of Philadelphia in
two years, 355; one of the most accomplished as well as sternly
practical educators in the United States, 357; opinion of, that every
child should receive manual training, 358; opinion of, that the great
principles which underlie the system mean nothing less than a
revolution in education [_note_], 358, 364.

Macaulay’s, Lord, analysis of the Baconian philosophy, 377.

Machiavelli, philosophy formulated by, 284; political maxims of, not
invented by him, 284; maxims of, atrocious character of, 284, 285;
maxims of, promote barbarism, 285.

Machines, automatic, nails, screws, pins, and needles flying from the
fingers of, by the thousand million, 82; more powerful to be
constructed in the future, 180.

Machine-tool laboratory, the students of, enter upon a most important
inquiry, 82; the study of minute and ponderous tools in, 83; delicacy
of the processes of, 91; the poverty of words as compared with things
asserted in, 91; silence of, how eloquent, 91, 92; a screw-engine
lathe taken to pieces in, 92; improvements in the lathe explained in,
92; fundamental and auxiliary tools of, explained, 93; course of
training in, orderly, 93; students work from their own drawings in,
94; why skill is required to handle steam-driven tools of the, 94;
aspect of the, when in repose, 97; aspect of the, when steam is on,
98; pen-picture of students of, 99; students of, at work on graduating
projects in, 100; dream of instructor in, 100-103; completing
graduating projects in, 103, 104.

Machine-tool shop, the modern, an aggregation of hand-tools made
automatic, and driven by steam, 8; revolution in the useful arts
caused by the, 78; what this creation of modern times, a huge
automaton with steam coursing through its veins, does, 78-81; its
arms, its hands, its brain, its food, and its products, 81; lines of
modern development converge in the, 81; human pursuits widely
diversified by, 82.

Macomber, A. E., on the Toledo Manual Training School, 365.

Madrid, people of, threatened with starvation, 283; lost half its
population in the seventeenth century, 283.

Maine, Sir Henry--his tribute to things, 379.

Man, the two states of--with and without tools--contrasted, 7; the
gulf between the civilized and savage, spanned by the
seven-hand-tools, 8; the wisest of animals because he has hands, 152;
the most powerful of animals because he has hands, 157; powers of,
increased by steam, 161; the most highly civilized, familiar with all
the arts, 278; in the Middle Ages, shrunk into a state of moral
cowardice and intellectual lethargy, 284.

Mann, Horace, cause of the degradation of labor stated by, 5; reason
for the scorn of labor given by, _in extenso_, 188.

Manual training, promotes rectitude, 132; promotes altruism because it
is objective, 141; its effects relate to the human race, 141; Prof.
Felix Adler in support of its tendency to promote rectitude, 142; idea
of, grasped by the Ionic philosopher, 153; exactly what it is, 200; is
natural and hence efficient, 218; required to render mental operations
more true, 225; possible in Europe only through the disbandment of the
standing armies, 295; in all the technical schools of Russia, 333;
theory of, by Dr. John D. Runkle, 338; in the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology, 333, 334; in the St. Louis school, 338, 339; in twelve
of the State agricultural colleges, 341; in Purdue University, 341; in
Boston and Milford, Mass., New Haven, and the State Normal School,
Conn., Omaha, Neb., Eau Claire, Wis., Moline, Peru, and the Cook
County Normal School, Normal Park, Ill., Montclair, N. J., Cleveland
and Barnesville, O., San Francisco, Cal., and Baltimore, Md., 342;
exhibits of work of, at the meeting of the National Educational
Association in 1884, 342; in Prof. Felix Adler’s Workingman’s School,
342; in Chicago, 345; Dr. Belfield on the mental effect of, 350; in
the Pennsylvania State College, 351; Prof. Louis E. Reber in support
of, 351, 352; in the College of the City of New York, 352; in
thirty-one schools in the city of New York [_note_], 352; in the
Tulane University, 353; in the Miller School at Crozet, Va., 353; in
Girard College, 353; in the Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical
College, 355; in the Denver (Col.) University, 355; in the public
schools of Philadelphia, 356; in twenty-four of the States of the
Union, 359; in the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas, 359;
part of the course of public instruction by Massachusetts and
Connecticut, 360; in the Le Moyne Normal Institute, 362; in the
University of Michigan, 363; laid on the table by the National
Educational Association, 363, 364; in the State University, Cleveland,
and Toledo, O., 364; is leading captive the imagination of the
American people, 367; the purpose of, in the schools of Europe, 368;
progress of--its extent greater than its quality, 372; acquisition by
the hand of the arts through which man expresses himself in things,
380; a series of educational generalizations in things, 380.

Manual training school the child of the kindergarten, 5; destined to
unite science and art, 5; its highest text-books tools, 7; must be
made part of the public system of education, 112; gain of the pupil
of, 122; pupil of, constructs a machine, breathes into it the breath
of life, and with it moves mountains, 201; methods of, twenty times
more valuable than the unscientific methods of the trade-shop, 219;
pupil of, is an investigator, his reasoning opens new fields of
thought with every stroke of the chisel, 220; pupil of, gets as much
again intellectual benefit from the laboratory as he would if the
laboratory equivalent in time were given to book study, 221;
laboratory exercises of, a great strain upon the mental constitution,
and hence highly educational, 222; pupils of, love it--an incident,
223; method of the, is the expression of ideas in things, 245;
realizes the idea of Bacon, Comenius, Pestalozzi, and Froebel, 245.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, its models of mechanical
manipulation presented by the Emperor of Russia, 66; first institution
of learning in the United States to adopt manual training, 333; manual
training adopted by, in 1876, 334; resolution of thanks for a series
of models, presented by the Emperor of Russia, adopted by, 334, 335.

Massachusetts, legislature of, adopts manual training as part of the
public school course of, 360.

Maudslay, Henry, his improvement of the lathe made it the king of the
machine-tool shop, 33; without his slide-rest Watt’s engine could not
have been made, 35; through his slide-rest alone the mechanic is able
to make two things exactly alike, 92; slide-rest of, an automaton
truer than the human eye, more cunning than the human hand, 200, 201.

Maudsley, Dr. Henry, on the contribution of the muscular sense to
mental operations, 147; on the impossibility of thinking without
physical expression, 149.

Mechanic, the, who makes a machine that multiplies products is in the
front rank of the civilizers of the race, 160; prospects of the
skilled, in life, 170; did more to hasten the world’s progress from
1740 to 1840 than all the statesmen of previous ages, 171; splendid
career which this age opens to the educated, 182; tremendous power
wielded by, 183; has wrought an industrial revolution, 185; works of,
reflect honor upon, 187; stands the test of scrutiny better than the
merchant, 225; trained in things, 225.

Mechanics, skilled, the use of automatic tools increases rather than
diminishes the demand for, 94; of the early time had none of the
advantages of the manual training school, 172; their sufferings and
misfortunes, 172; no such failure of, as there is of merchants, 227;
thoroughness of training of, 239.

Mediæval period, the speculative philosophy of, still projects its
baleful influence over our institutions of learning, 185; graphic
picture of society in, by Winwood Reade, 280, 281; the art of war only
flourished in, 281; precarious condition of the serfs in--fate of--to
be killed in battle or die of starvation, 281; causes of the moral and
intellectual darkness of the, 281, 282; causes of the moral and
intellectual torpor of the people of, 284; conferred upon man two
great blessings, and left a legacy of evil, 289; degradation of woman
in the, 366.

Memory cultivated at the expense of the reason, 200.

Men sold for sixpence apiece in Asia, 269.

Menander, lofty moral precepts of, 139.

Mental acquirement, a, is a theorem--something to be proved, 144.

Mental development, law of, 131; which is most conducive to, doing
things, or memorizing words, 376.

Mental training, exclusively, does not produce a symmetrical
character, 244.

Merchants, percentage of failure of, in Chicago from 1870 to 1881,
211; three per cent. of, only, succeed, 211; ninety-seven per cent.
of, go to the wall, 212; cost of failures of, borne by the public,
212; ninety-seven per cent. of, mistake their avocation, 212; failure
of, made too easy, 213; honor of, in France [_note_], 213;
ninety-seven in one hundred fail, 225; cause of failures of, 229;
selfishness of--do not seek for justice, or to find truth, 230; who
compromise with their creditors, and subsequently accumulate fortunes,
rarely repay the forgiven debt, 230; cause of failure of, 242.

Mercury, bronze statue of, at the Museum of Naples, 47.

Michigan, University of, manual training in, as described by
Instructor Lieut. M. E. Cooley, 363.

Microscope, the work of the hand, 156.

Milford, Mass., manual training in, 342.

Miller Manual Training School, the, of Crozet, Va., 353.

Mind, the, mental laws of, 132, 133; moral laws of, 133; and the hand
are natural allies, 144; indulges in false logic without instant
detection, 145; the hand its moral rudder, its balance-wheel, 145;
influenced by the hand through the muscular sense, 148; steadied by
the wise counsel of the practical hand, 225; steadied and balanced by
the study of things, 225; devises a watch, and the hand makes it, 240;
fails when it attempts to execute its devices, 240; succeeds when the
hand executes its plans, but fails in merchandizing, law, and justice,
240; should not be stored with facts unless they are to be applied to
things, 245; how it began to assert its empire over matter, 249.

Moline, Ill., manual training in, 342.

Montclair, N. J., manual training in, 342.

Moors, the, in Spain in the Middle Ages constituted a glowing
exception to the general prevalence of superstition and ignorance,
282; skilled in all the arts, 282.

Morality, springs from intelligence, 113; is not a mere sentiment, a
barren ideality, 142; of Christ and Paul, 142; is a vital principle
whose exemplification consists in doing justice, 142; cannot be
acquired by memorizing a series of maxims, 143; of a community is in
the ratio of its intelligence, 238.

Morrissey, John, his brief autobiography, 314, 315.

Mother, the, in the arms of, the infant mind rapidly unfolds, 365.

Moulding, the oldest of human discoveries, 46.

Murray, Matt, inventor of flax machinery, 84.

Muscular sense, the, its discovery by Sir Charles Bell, 146; its power
over the movements of the frame--walking, etc., 146; Dr. Henry
Maudsley on the, 147; actions of essential elements in mental
operations, 147; sharpened to marvellous fineness by constant use,
148; if trained in the direction of truth, it will react in the
direction of rectitude, on the mind, 148, 149.

Mushet, David, an English inventor and author, 84; his discovery of
the value of black band iron-stone, 117; his papers on iron and steel,
117; sprung from the labor class, 117.

Mythology, the highest place in its Pantheon given to Vulcan, the God
of Fire, 70.

Napoleon, the incarnation of selfishness, 134, 135; the infamous,
plundered the conquered capitals of Europe, 294.

Nasmyth, James, invented the steam-hammer in 1837, and applied the
principle of it to the pile-driver in 1845, 76.

Nation, the, that degrades labor is ripe for destruction, 253; that
loses its population by emigration is in its decadence, 294.

National debts of Europe, amount of, thirty years ago, 286; doubled
since 1850, 290; cause of the rapid increase of, 290; represent a
series of colossal crimes against the people, 291; with relation to
them, the people are divided into two classes--one class owns them,
the other class pays interest on them, 291; in one class they are a
vested right, in the other a vested wrong, 291; how they can be paid,
and education promoted at the same time, 292; can be paid only by
disbanding the standing armies, 295; will reduce their governments to
bankruptcy unless standing armies are disbanded, 296.

National Educational Association, manual training exhibits at, 1884,
meeting of, 342; meeting of 1885 adopts a resolution endorsing the
kindergarten, 363; illogical action of, in laying upon the table a
resolution endorsing manual training, 363, 364.

Nations, the rise, progress, and decay of, 252, 253; sink as the
column of debt rises, 297.

Neilson, James B., inventor of the hot-blast, 84; revolutionizes the
processes of iron manufacture, 117; sprang from the labor class, and
is made a member of the Royal Society, 117.

New England, system of education of, moulded the character of the
civilization of the United States, 235; difference between the
civilization of, and that of South Carolina, measured by the
difference in their respective educational systems, 235; educational
system of, is unscientific, 239.

New Haven, Conn., manual training in, 342.

Newcomen helps to solve the steam-power problem, 15.

Nineveh, bronze castings recovered from the ruins of, 46.

Nobility above price in the eleventh century, for sale in the
thirteenth, and soon afterwards offered as a gift, 286.

Norway appropriates money for teaching hand-cunning in the schools,
368.

Object teaching, example of, 4; the corner-stone of the kindergarten
and the manual training school, 129; an analysis of, with examples,
200.

Observation, the power of, resides chiefly in the hand, 380.

Ohio, high rank of, industrially, 364; making great strides towards a
more practical system of education, 364; State University of, manual
training in, 364; prosperity of the Case School of Applied Science in,
364; manual training schools of Cleveland and Toledo, in, 364.

Omaha, Neb., manual training in, 342.

Palissy, Bernard, sketch of his career, 231, 232, 233; burns the
furniture of his house in the cause of art, 232; is cast into prison
for heresy--his defiance of King Henry III., 232; dies in the Bastile,
233; was right, and his devotion to art rendered him immortal, 233,
234; struggle of, over the furnace in the cause of art, was mentally
and morally normal, while the opposition he encountered was abnormal,
234; mind of, was developed normally, while the minds of the millions
of men who permitted him to die unfriended were developed abnormally,
234; willing to starve for his art, and ready to die for his faith,
234.

Papin helps to solve the steam-power problem, 15.

Paris Exposition, exhibit of models of tool practice in the Imperial
Technical School, Moscow, Russia, at the, 331.

Parker, Col. Francis W., declares that the application of science to
methods of instruction would produce a radical change in all school
work, 205; his forcible exposition of the defects of prevailing
methods of instruction, 205, 206, 207; asserts that teachers are
faithful, honest, and earnest, but ignorant of the history and science
of education, 207, 364.

Patriotism can be indulged with good reason only in the United States,
323.

Penmanship, automatism in teaching, in the schools of the United
States, as shown by the Walton report, 198.

Pennsylvania State College, manual training in the, 351.

Pennsylvania State Prison, statistics--five-sixths of the inmates of,
had attended public schools, and the same number were without trades,
182.

Pericles boasted that he could not be bribed, but robbed all Greece to
embellish Athens, and was convicted of peculation and fined, 255.

Persia, no provision in, for either the mental or moral training of
woman, 366; the boy in, excluded from the presence of his father till
the fifth year, 367.

Peru, Ill., manual training in, 342.

Pestalozzi, the school he struggled in vain to establish, 2; his
definition of education, 12; his condemnation of the old system of
education, 126; foresaw the kindergarten and the manual training
school, 245.

Phidias familiar with the turning lathe, 33.

Philadelphia, manual training made part of the public school system
of, 353; rules of the public schools of, 355, 356; report of a
committee of the Board of Education of, in regard to manual training,
356, 357; hand-training introduced into the public schools of, 358.

Philosophers, the, little time to speculate with, 180.

Philosophy established on a scientific basis--the study of natural
phenomena, 153; of the Greeks scorned both science and art, 257.

Physical development, law of, 131.

Pile-driver, the steam-hammer principle applied to the, 76; power of
the, 76.

Pilgrims, the product of the progress of all the ages, 308.

Pine, in the forest and in lumber, 21; description of the tree by the
son of a lumberman, 21; uses of, commerce in, supply of, 22; sources
of information of students in regard to--newspapers and encyclopedias,
25.

Plato, his theory of the divine origin of caste, 123; blinded by
half-truths, 124; how he was controlled by his environment, 124; his
theory of the importance of early training, 125; his contempt for the
useful arts, 176, 177, 369; regarded the soul’s residence in the body
as an evil, 256; opinion of, that the majority is always dull and
always wrong, 280; the creation of his Divine Dialogues depended upon
the useful arts, 383.

Pliny, affection of, for his slaves, 139.

Plutarch, sublime moral teachings of, 138; on the death of his
daughter, 139.

Poets, the, little time to sentimentalize with, 180; more highly
esteemed than civil engineers, machinists, and artisans, 185.

Poole, Dr. William F., courtesy of, to the students of the Chicago
Manual Training School, 348.

Poverty, its final abolition depends upon the multiplication of the
useful arts, 383.

Power, generation of, the object of education, 244; to generate and
store up either mental or physical, not to be exerted, is a waste of
energy, 245.

Printing, the art of, essential to progress in the useful arts, 73;
not so necessary to progress in the so-called fine arts, 73; removes
the seal from the lips of learning, 286; makes every discovery in
science and every invention in art the heritage of all the ages, 286;
the invention of, paralyzed authority, 287.

Progress, if Guttenberg had rested content with an idea, there would
have been no printing-press, 152; if Watt, Stephenson, and Fulton had
stopped at words, there would have been neither railways nor
steamships, 152; dates from the beginning of the seventeenth century,
153; slow until within one hundred years, 153; due not to the men who
make laws, but to the men who make things, 160; of the world towards a
higher appreciation of the value of the useful arts, 172; of moral
ideas shown by the honors lavished upon the memory of heroes, 234; can
find expression only in things, 243; the path of, a rugged road, 381;
its steps consist of improvements in the useful and beautiful arts,
382; the lines on which educational, is to be sought, 385.

Property, no security for, in a community devoid of education, 237;
intelligence alone confers a sacred character upon, 237; may be
protected by a hired soldiery, or by public sentiment enlightened by
education, 238; the main purpose of governments is to protect, but
nearly all the governments of history have been destroyed in the
effort to fulfil this function of their existence, 238; in slaves,
failure of the United States to protect, 238; rights of, in English
land, about to be disturbed, 238; not sacred unless honestly acquired
and honestly held, 238; all in the United States may be devoted to
education by the ballot, 324.

Prudence, extreme, consistent with rectitude, 136; selfishness deified
under the name of, 311.

Public lands of the United States squandered by Congress, 317; history
of waste of, by Henry D. Lloyd, in the _Chicago Tribune_, 317, 318,
319.

Public schools of New England, 309; the old system of education put
into the, 303; popular idea of the, 310; neither science nor art
taught in the, 310; revived the Greco-Roman subjective system, 310.

Public schools of the United States, attendance in, not
compulsory--some children enter them, and some do not, 316; leave out
that which most nearly concerns the business of life, 325.

Pugilist, how John Morrissey became a, 314, 315.

Pullman, George M., Trustee of the Chicago Manual Training School
Association, 346.

Purdue University, pronounced success achieved in manual training in,
under the directorship of Professor Goss, 341.

Railroad, the, influence of, upon the destinies of mankind, 170; taxes
to the utmost nearly every department of the useful arts, 171;
incompetency of management of, as shown by shrinkage in values of
stocks of, 210; in the proprietor of, the two great elements of modern
power, land and steam, are united, 321; proprietor of the, is a king,
321; monstrous claims of the proprietor of, 315.

Reading, automatism of teaching, in the schools of the United States,
as shown by the Walton report, 197; Colonel Parker declares that
prevailing methods of instruction in, are “utterly opposed to a
mental law about which there can be no dispute,” 206.

Reason, in existing systems of education, allowed to slumber, 200.

Reber, Prof. Louis E., in support of manual training, 352.

Reform--demand for, 371.

Revolution--educational, 1883-4, 371.

Richard I. presents King Arthur’s sword Excalibar to Tancred, 71.

Right, of the poor child to equal education sacred, 376.

Roberts, Richard, a great English inventor of the eighteenth century,
84.

“Rocket,” the, George Stephenson’s first locomotive, 118.

Roebuck, Dr. John, a patron of Watt, 84.

Roman aristocrats, were refined and accomplished, 276, 277; savage
contest for supremacy among the, 277.

Roman civilization the product of all that had gone before, 260.

Roman literature, possessed no saving quality, 275; did not represent
the Roman people, 275.

Roman State, the, slavery the corner-stone of, 265.

Romans, the, had no peer either in courage or fortitude, 264; vices
of, shown in the character of Appius, the Decemvir, 264; virtues of,
shown in the character of Virginius, 265; sense of justice of,
swallowed up in lust of power, 266; early triumphs of industrial, 268;
indebted to slaves for all the arts, 269; philosophy of, so shallow as
to render them callous to the great crimes upon which the State
rested, 272; debasing influence of the Greek philosophy upon, 274;
under the Empire rewarded vice and punished virtue, 274; preferred
Cæsar, Caligula, and Nero to Cato, Germanicus, and Agricola, 274;
retrograded towards a state of savagery under the Empire, 275; became
absolutely selfish, and hence totally depraved, 276.

Rome, the decline of, caused by the failure of the fuel supply, and by
her neglect of the useful arts, 63, 64; had she possessed great
mechanics her fall might have been averted, 64; her civilization
culminated at the limit of the application of iron to the useful arts,
83; a pen-picture of the decline of, 83; her splendors and her
degradation, 138; fall of, stopped the study of physiology, 153; the
dominion of, logical--vigorous but pitiless, 263; all the great races
mingled in, 264; laws of, show the stamina of her people, 265; supply
of laborers for, maintained by depopulating conquered countries, 265;
in the train of the legions returning to, were men, women, and
children destined to slavery, 265; laws of, in regard to slaves,
terrible, 265; for the free citizen of, to labor with his hands was
more disgraceful than to die of starvation, 266; free citizen paupers
of, crying “bread and circuses,” 266; education in, confined to
politics and war, 266; became the great robber nation of the world,
266; was on the land what Greece had been on the sea--a pirate, 266;
the spoil of conquered countries used to bribe courts, senators, and
the populace, 267; nothing safe in, from the hand of rapacity, 267;
grew rich through plunder, and poor in public and private virtue,
267; bribery in, 268; great social change in, after the fall of Greece
and Carthage and the reduction of Asia, 268; summary of the causes of
the fall of, 268; scenes immediately preceding the fall of, 269, 270;
the seat of all the world’s learning, 270; the wise men of, powerless
to help their fellow-men, because their philosophy was false, 270;
metaphysical philosophy of, 270, 271; the philosophy of, furnished an
excuse for slavery, 271; suffrage in, the subject of open traffic,
271, 272; noted men of, ignorant of the cause of the disorders which
afflicted the body politic, 272; in the city of, vice reigned supreme,
while in the provinces there was a middle class by whom all the
domestic virtues were practised, 314; no culture in, for girls till
late in the Empire, 366.

Romulus and Remus, legend of, 259.

Rousseau, the school he described, 2; his opinion that the poor need
no education, 124; his theory of the vital importance of early
training, 125; his definition of education, 125; his appreciation of
the importance of the education of woman, 125, 126; his condemnation
of the old system of education, 126; declaration of, that education is
nothing but habit, 245.

Runkle, Dr. John D., his declaration that public education should
touch practical life in a larger number of points, 202; the founder of
manual training in the United States, 333; excerpts from the report
of, in 1876, recommending the adoption of manual training by the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 333, 334; letter of, to the
author, containing an exposition of the theory of manual training,
with an account of its origin in the mind of, 337, 338; assists in
introducing manual training into Girard College, 354.

Ruskin, on finding the truth in things [_note_], 145; on disciplining
the fingers in the laboratory of the goldsmiths [_note_], 148; on
learning by labor what the lips of man could never teach [_note_],
152; tribute of, to labor [_note_], 161; on rogues, a manufactured
article [_note_], 237; on how national debts bear upon labor [_note_],
291; on how standing armies are supported [_note_], 293.

Russia, arbitrary act of, in 1770, in relation to the export of iron,
115; solves the problem of tool instruction by the laboratory process,
331; manual training introduced into all the technical schools of,
333.

Russia, Emperor of, presents one hundred models of mechanical
manipulations to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 69; offers
John Arnold five thousand dollars for a duplicate of his George III.
watch, 86.

San Francisco, Cal., manual training in, 342.

Sankey Canal, the, authorized upon condition that boats plying upon it
should be drawn by men only, 179.

Saracens, the friends of education, of science, and art, 282;
inventors of cotton-paper, promoters of all the industries, including
agriculture, 282, 283; driven from the soil they had made to blossom
like the rose, 283; ameliorating influence of, upon the ignorance and
superstition of the Middle Ages, 285.

Savage, the, how he is trained, 9; helplessness of, 11; how he is
taught to hunt and fish, 176; is taught what he needs to know in his
condition, and nothing else, 181; if his education were as
unscientific as that of the civilized boy, the race would perish, 215;
ninety-nine times in a hundred he traces the footsteps of his enemy in
the forest, 215, 216; education of, is scientific, 216; in the
practical character of the training of, consists its excellence, 217;
mystery which envelops skill of, solved, 219; ignorant, in his
primitive state, of all the arts, 278.

Savonarola, the hater of abuses in the Roman Catholic Church, 234; at
the death-bed of Lorenzo de Medici, 235; shaking thrones and making
proud prelates tremble, 235.

Savory helps to solve the steam-power problem, 15.

Saw-mills, opposition to their introduction in England, 178.

School, of the future, 2; proposed by Ruskin [_note_], 180.

Schools, the, have not moved forward with events, 154; are still
dominated by mediæval ideas of speculative philosophy, 154; as an
industrial agency are a failure, 202; were established as a bulwark of
liberty, 202; denounced, 371; must be transformed from the ornamental
type of Greece into laboratories for the development of useful men and
women, 384; a vast number of, have been dedicated to the new
education--are they to be developed into ideal schools?, 385.

Schoolmaster, the, and the Reformer, 371; the old, and the new
education, 375.

Schools of England, arraignment of, by Herbert Spencer, 325.

Schwab, Dr. Erasmus, and “The Work School in the Common School,” 368.

Science, effect of divorce of, from art, 11; through printing every
discovery in, becomes the heritage of future ages, 286.

Scientific education, simplicity of, 207, 208; difference between, and
unscientific, 217; description of, by Miss S. E. Blow, 218, 219; is
natural education, 223; brightens, stimulates, and develops, while
automatic stupefies, 223, 224.

Scientist, the, a public benefactor, 160; studies the stars, the
earth, and the air in the light of the flames of persecution, 287.

Scott, Frank J., contributor to the fund for the founding of the
Toledo, Ohio, Manual Training School, 364.

Scott, Jesup W., the founder of the Toledo Manual Training School,
358.

Scott, Maurice, contributor to the fund for the founding of the Toledo
Manual Training School, 364.

Scott, William F., contributor to the fund for the founding of the
Toledo Manual Training School, 364.

Sculpture, limit of, reached in Greece, 73.

Scythians, among the, the iron sword was a god, 70.

Segovia, manufactures of, destroyed by the expulsion of the Moors from
Spain, 283.

Seligman, Mr. Joseph, munificence of, established Professor Adler’s
Workingman’s School in New York City on a firm basis, 345.

Selfishness, the arch-enemy of virtue, 134; maxims in honor of, 134;
Napoleon a colossal example of the folly of, 135; in conflict with the
true spirit of civilization, 135; causes revolutions and destroys
governments, 135; is blind of one eye--sees only one side of a cause,
136; let not prudence be confounded with, 136; extreme, the synonym of
depravity, 136; promoted by prevailing systems of education, 136;
promoted by a mercantile career, 230; of the lawyer, the judge, and
the legislator, 230, 231; as it recedes from the mind, justice assumes
its appropriate place as the controlling element in human conduct,
233; the source of all social evil, 247; transformed Roman courage
into cruelty, and Roman fortitude into brutal stoicism, 266;
transformed the government of Rome from a pure democracy into an
oligarchy of wealth, 276; vanquishes itself in Rome, 277; the
equivalent of savagery, 277; deified under the name of prudence, 311;
calling it prudence led to confounding right and wrong, 311; effects
of, in the nineteenth century the same as in the first, 312; the mind
charged with, through subjective educational processes, 326; ends in a
struggle which ends in a revolution, 326.

Seneca, sublime moral precepts of, contrasted with the horrors of the
gladiatorial games, 138; his doctrine of humanity, 139; ignores
slavery, the slave, the laborer, and the useful arts, 268; morals of,
glittering generalities, politics of, practical, 269; put money in his
purse, 269; charged with complicity in the Piso conspiracy, and
banished for the crime of adultery, 269.

Serfs of the Middle Ages the mercenary troops of the modern State,
290.

Service--the greatest thing in the moral world, 378.

Seville, silk industry of, 292; looms of, silenced in the seventeenth
century, 283.

Sewing-machine, the, its accuracy, 87; it illustrates the
interdependence of the practical arts, 87; it multiplies garments
beyond the power of figures to express, 87.

Sheffield, Lord, his estimate of the value of Henry Cort’s
improvements in iron and the steam-engine of Watt, 115; his
declaration of the purpose of the establishment of the American
colonies, 202.

Sheffield, town of, its insignificance in 1715, 116; its manufacturing
importance now, 116.

Skill being prolific of good should be brought to bear upon
educational systems, 132.

Slavery existed in the United States when Horace Mann declared it to
be the cause of the degradation of labor and the laborer, 189; aided
by England in its struggle for survival, 189; influence of, not yet
extinct, 189; has kept its brand of shame upon the useful arts for
thousands of years, 190; how the Egyptian was reduced to, 250; and
labor were synonymous terms in Rome, 265; a state of, is a state of
war, 265; confounded with freedom in the United States, 311; negroes
escaping from, called fugitives from justice, 311; justified in
Faneuil Hall, the cradle of liberty, 311; tried only by the test of
self-interest, 312; in the North it faded away, in the South it
flourished, 312; climate conditions, not education, saved this
continent from the scourge of, 312, 313; question of continuance of,
in the United States, settled by violence, as savages settle
controversies, 313.

Slaves, in Rome, laws in relation to, 265; a million killed in the
course of the servile rebellion in Sicily, 265; exposed to wild beasts
in the arena for the popular amusement, 265; all industrial pursuits
in Rome carried on by, 266; labor of, in Rome, cheaper than that of
cattle, 266; construct all the great public works in Rome, 269; strike
for liberty in Rome, and are slaughtered, 271; clank of the chains of,
in the streets of Boston, 311.

Smeaton helps to solve the steam-power problem, 15; the best workman
of his time, 85.

Smiles, Samuel, declares that the automata of the Middle Ages led to
the useful automatic tools of the eighteenth century, 35; his peculiar
views about Maudslay’s great invention, 36; his history of the Dutch
and German mechanics who contributed to the solution of the problem of
the application of mineral coal to smelting purposes, 64; his graphic
picture of the versatility of the smith, 71; his pen-picture of the
steamship _Warrior_ “breasting the billows of the North Sea,” 85;
shows the true springs of English greatness in his “Lives of the
Engineers,” 172; shows the origin of useful arts in England in his
great work on the Huguenots, 185.

Smith, the, gives direction to the course of Empire, 62; a man of
great consequence in England in the early time, 71; name of, descends
to more families than that of any other profession, 71; versatility
of, 71, 72; conducts the engineering at the siege of Berwick, 72;
ancient, kin to all the ages through his works, 74.

Social evils, are the product of defective education, 325.

Social problems, solution of, to be sought through a radical change in
educational methods, 248; the railway and factory are new factors in,
321; of America cannot be settled as those of Europe are, by
emigration, 326.

Solicis, Prof. G., the chief supporter of manual training in France,
368.

South Carolina, educational system of, confined to a class, as opposed
to universal education in New England, 235.

Spain, ruined by the expulsion of the Moors, 283; destitution in the
chief cities of, 283; danger that the royal family of, would go hungry
to bed, 283; is bankrupt, 296.

Speculation, rages on the exchanges of all large American cities, 322;
affects every class in the community, 322; stimulates bad passions,
and creates a distaste for labor, 322.

Speculative philosophy, only resource of the ancients, 153; dominated
the world from the fall of Rome to the time of Bacon, 153.

Speech, must be incarnate in things or it is dead, 141; man would lose
the power of, if his words should cease to be realized in things, 149;
dependent upon objects for its existence, 150; has its origin not less
in external objects than in the mind, 150; would be lost if the senses
should cease to be impressed by things, 150; freedom of, and of
thought, catch-penny phrases, 192.

Spelling, automatism in teaching, in the schools of the United States,
as shown by the Walton report, 198, 199.

Spencer, Herbert, on the defects of the schools of England, 325; the
contrast between his views and the dictum of Dr. Dwight of Yale
University, 374; pointed out, the analogy between early methods of
education and barbarism, 377.

Standing armies, a legacy of evil from the Middle Ages, 289; recruited
from the ranks of the serfs, 290; the dominant feature of European
public economy, 290; number of, 290; collateral evils of, 290;
responsible for illiteracy and pauperism, 292; what they cost and what
they stand in the way of, 293; how they are supported [_note_], 293;
an assumption of the barbarism of man, 300; stand in the way of
education and prosperity, 303; must everywhere soon disappear before
the march of education, 303; are as abnormal in Europe as slavery was
in the United States, 303, 304; are the instruments of tyranny, the
last analysis of selfishness, 304; the result of the Greco-Roman
methods of education, 304.

State, a, growth of, depends upon progress in the practical arts, 151;
ceasing to advance, its language ceases to grow, becomes stationary,
stagnates, 151.

Statesmen, not the authors of English progress, 159; Buckle’s scathing
arraignment of, 160; more highly esteemed than civil engineers,
machinists, and artisans, 185.

Statutes, that wear out in a year, 241.

Steam, power of, known to the ancients, 14; makes all civilized
countries prosperous and great, 161; must be harnessed at the forge
and in the shop to enable it to do its work, 170; power exerted by, in
the manufactories of Great Britain equal to the manual labor of four
hundred millions of men, 184; may be likened to an idea which finds
expression through the engine--a thing, 245; the railway and the
factory two great products of, 321.

Steam-hammer, the, in works of Mr. Crane, Chicago, 75; in Pittsburg,
Pa., and at Krupp’s cast-steel works, Essen, Germany, 75; invention
of, in 1837, its accuracy, power, and delicacy, 76; application of the
principle of, to the pile-driver in 1845, 76.

Steamship, the, influence of, upon the destinies of mankind, 170.

Steel, Age of, great enterprises of the, dwarf the merely ornamental
branches of learning, 179.

Steele, Prof. A. J., Principal of the Le Moyne Normal
Institute--letter of, to the Author, 362.

Stephenson, George, inventor of the locomotive, 84; sketch of his
remarkable career, 118, 119; declines knighthood and a membership in
the Royal Society, 119; the founder of the railway system of the
world, 119.

Stephenson, Robert, an English railway engineer, 84.

Stick, Adam and the, 157; the symbol and instrument of power, 158.

Stoics and philosophers of Rome, lofty moral sentiments of, in
contrast with the Roman vices, 139.

Suetonius, portrays the cruelties of the Cæsars, but hints at no cause
therefor inherent in the social system, 272.

Suffrage, love of country in the United States is a due appreciation
of the right of, 323; in the universality of the right of, lies the
power of correcting all social evils, 324; destined to preservation
forever in the United States, 324; attempt to limit, in New York
accounted for by the prevalence of European ideas, 324; the right of,
can be taken from the American people only by force, 324; standard of,
lowered by ignorance and depravity, 325; when better informed it will
be more honest, 325; with increased intelligence it will gain the
power to grapple with social abuses, 325.

Superstition, how it arose through ignorance and selfishness, 249.

Sweden, five hundred _slöjd_ schools in, in 1882, 368; supports a
school for the training of teachers of _slöjd_ schools at Nääs, 369.

Syria, the founders, smiths, and all the artisans of, were slaves, 56.

Tacitus, his account of the execution of four hundred slaves for the
murder of one man, 265; his lament at the decline of public virtue,
267; is silent on the subject of the infamy of slavery, and on the
shame of degrading labor, 272.

Tancred the Crusader pays for King Arthur’s sword Excalibar “four
great ships and fifteen galleys,” 71.

Tarquins, the banishment of the, 264.

Telegraph, the, influence of, upon the destinies of mankind, 170.

Telephone, the work of the hand, 156.

Telescope, the work of the hand, 155.

Texas, Agricultural and Mechanical College of, 359.

Theodoric, attempt of, to reconstruct the Roman civilization, 279; the
order evoked from chaos by, to chaos soon returned, 280.

Theorem, a, always a question solved, 144.

Things both the subject and occasion of speech, 151; regarded as of
less vital importance than abstract ideas, 185; the false, easily
detected in--examples, 224; the study of, steadies and balances the
mind, 225; the truth revealed only in, 243; ideas are mere vain
speculations till embodied in, 243; the habit of expressing ideas in,
should be formed in the schools, 245; the truths that are hidden in,
378; the integrity of the mind can be maintained only by the
submission of its immature judgments to the verification of, 379; the
source of ideas, 379; essential to spiritual development, 384.

Thinking, acting is the complement of, 244.

Thought, must be incarnate in things, or it is dead, 141; is not even
present to the thinker until he has set it forth, out of himself, 150;
independent, of all mental processes the most difficult--habit,
tradition, and reverence for antiquity unite to forbid it, 192.

Thoughts must be expressed to have influence, 244; may be expressed
most forcibly in things, 244.

Thucydides arraigns the Greeks as falsifiers and perjurers, 255.

Thurston, Robert H., on the tremendous power wielded by the mechanic,
183.

Toledo, O., Manual Training School, inception of, due to the
generosity of the late Jesup W. Scott and his three sons, 364;
connected with the public high-school, 364, 365; students of, consist
of both sexes, 365; the course for girls in, 365.

Toledo, Spain, woollen manufactures of, transferred by the exiled
Moors to Tunis, 283.

“Tom All-alone’s” in “Bleak House”--social philosophy of, 315.

Tool practice, quickens the intellect, 114; engenders a thirst for
wisdom, 114; history of, in England confirms this view, 114; the
foundation of James Watt’s culture, 119; George Stephenson’s career an
illustration of the intellectual effect of, 119; testimony of the
Director of the Artisans’ School at Rotterdam, Holland, as to
intellectual effect of, 121; testimony of Dr. Woodward, Director of
the St. Louis Manual Training School, as to intellectual effect of,
121; testimony of M. Victor Della Vos, Director of the Imperial
Technical School of Moscow, as to intellectual effect of, 121; effect
of, as shown by the experience of the Mechanic Art School at Komotan,
Bohemia, 122.

Tools, influence of, upon modern civilization, 9; represent the steps
of human progress, 10; the great civilizing agency of the world, 11.

Touch, the master sense, whence all the other senses spring, 380;
reigns throughout the body, and is the token of life in every part,
381; is the fundamental sense, the mother-tongue of, language, 381;
its versatility, 381.

Townships of New England, their establishment logical, 309.

Tradition, tyranny of, 124.

Truth, the struggle after, 233; the love of, natural, 233; heroes
honor it, 234; conspicuous through efforts to suppress it, 287.

Tulane, Paul, founder of the Tulane University of New Orleans, La.,
353.

Tulane University, manual training a prominent feature in the, 353.

Turkish Empire, story of its origin through the art of forging, 61.

Tweedism, what made it possible in the city of New York, 315.

Types, through the medium of, the voice of genius is destined to reach
to the ends of the earth, 286.

United States, the, not at the front in the race of nations for
industrial supremacy, 203; comparison of imports and exports of, with
those of England, 203; industrially ill-balanced, 204; suffering from
a paucity of skilled labor, 204; educational system of, very poor, as
shown by the statistics of railway and commercial disasters, 224;
educational system of, as poor morally as mentally, 224; neglect of
education by, the most astonishing fact in the history of, 235; a
scientific educational system forced upon the South by, would have
averted the war of rebellion, 237; could not protect property in
slaves, 238; social conditions in, similar to those prevailing in
Europe, 313; illiteracy in, 313; increase of illiteracy in, 313; every
sixth man who votes in, is unable to write his name, 313; land system
of, rivals that of England in injustice, 317; history of the land
system of, by Henry D. Lloyd, in the _Chicago Tribune_, 317-319; the
sentiment of patriotism justifiable only in, 323; the soldier of, is a
citizen of, 323, 324.

Universities, the men who have transformed the face of the earth came
not from the, 185; Bacon’s caustic remark in relation to the, 185; on
Bacon’s plan would have united science and art, 185.

Use--the greatest thing in the material world, 378.

Valerius, died so poor that he was buried at the public charge, 268.

Venus, made the wife of Vulcan, the God of Fire, 70.

Von Kaas, Rittmeister Claussen, lectures on the subject of manual
training in Germany, 368.

Vulcan, the God of Fire, given Venus to wife, the father of Cupid, 70.

Waif, the, description of, by John Morrissey, 314; destined to become
an equal citizen, 315; made Tweedism in New York City possible, 315;
pollutes the fountains of justice, 315, 316; menaces the government
with destruction, 316; permitted by the hundred thousand to develop
into a savage, 316; power of, to tax civilized people, 316.

Walton, George A., report of, in regard to investigation of the
schools of Norfolk County, Mass., 196-199.

Wars, modern, of European nations involve no principle, 290.

Washington University, manual training department of, established in
1878, 338, 339; excerpts from the prospectus of, 1882-83, showing the
progress of manual training, 339, 340; founding of manual training
department of, due to the energy and foresight of Dr. Woodward first,
and second, to the donations of private citizens, 340, 341.

Watch Company, Elgin National, makes a thousand watches a day--all
perfect, 87; makes two hundred thousand watch-screws in a few minutes,
87.

Watt, James, the last link in the chain of steam-engine inventors, 15;
Dr. Draper’s eulogy of, 15; chief difficulty of, in perfecting the
steam-engine, 84, 85; Smeaton’s opinion that the engine of, could not
be made to work with hand-made tools, 85; sketch of the life and
career of, 119, 120; a dull boy in school, 120; tribute of Sir Walter
Scott to the greatness of, 120; every incident in the life of, now
eagerly sought for, 171.

Weaving Machinery, improved, opposition to introduction of, in
England, 178.

Whitney, Eli B., inventor of the cotton-gin, 84.

William the Conqueror, his appreciation of the importance of land
proprietorship, 317.

Williams, Roger, the champion of absolute freedom of thought and
speech, 309.

Wilson, Dr. George, his panegyric on the hand, 145.

Wisdom, the power of discriminating between what is true and what is
false, 152; the hand used as the synonym of, because it is only in the
concrete that the false is sure of detection, 152.

Woman, tremendous influence of, upon the destinies of the human race,
125; neglect of past ages to educate, a crime, 125; education of, more
important than that of man, 128; condition of, in a state of savagery,
249; reform in education must begin with, 365; the education of, more
imperative than that of man, 365; neglect of the education of, among
the ancients, 366; degradation of, in the Middle Ages, 366; contempt
of, by Bacon, Swift, Addison, and Johnson, 366; Shakespeare’s tribute
to, 366; Ruskin’s worship of, 366; the purity of the home and the
efficiency of the school depends upon, 367; in the van where the
imagination leads, 367; less selfish than man, 367; intuitions of,
truer, ideals higher, sense of justice finer, and of duty stronger
than those of man, 367; the teacher of man from the cradle to the
grave, 367.

Woodward, Dr. C. M., Director of the St. Louis Manual Training School,
121; statement of, as to intellectual effect of manual training, 121;
his account of the origin of the St. Louis school, 339.

Wood-turning laboratory, radical change of, from carpentry--from
angles to spherical, cylindrical, and eccentric forms, 30; the value
in the arts of the lathe, 30; its mythical origin, 33; its application
and uses among the ancients, 34; fashionable in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries in England and France, 34; purpose of, is not
to make turners, but to educate boys, 39; the machinery of, in motion,
39; pen-picture of the students in, 39; the lesson in detail in, 40;
the students at their lathes in, 43; the instructor passes upon the
work of the class in, 44.

Wootz, or Indian steel, produced near Golconda, and used in the
fabrication of Damascus blades, 72; millions of dollars expended in
efforts to produce the equal of, 72.

Words, weakness of, 141; cannot attain to definiteness save as living
outgrowths of realities, 150; easy to juggle with, and make the worse
appear the better reason, 224; educational systems still train in,
rather than in things, 325, 326.

Workingman’s School and Free Kindergarten of New York City, the most
comprehensive educational institution in the world, 342; scope of,
343; purpose of, identical with that of the manual training school,
343; methods of instruction in the, 343, 344.

Yarranton, Andrew, according to Patrick Edward Dove, was the founder
of English political economy, 175.

Zenophon, after conducting the retreat of the Ten Thousand, led a
detachment of Greeks on a pillaging expedition, 255.

THE END

Transcriber’s Notes

Inconsistencies in spelling, hyphenation, etc. (including in proper
names) have been retained, except as mentioned below.

Depending on the hard- and software and their settings used to read
this text, not all elements may display as intended.

As explained in the Preface, the book contains both endnotes per
chapter and footnotes. This distinction has been kept in this text,
with the endnotes being numbered E1, E2, E3, ... and the footnotes
having numbers 1, 2, 3, ....

Page 85, “Machine-made tools were unknown ...: either the closing
quote mark is missing, or the opening quote mark was included
erroneously.

Page 169: there is a footnote marker * on this page, but no footnote.

Page 179, paragraph starting When labor was only another name ... and
related foot- and endotes: several quote marks appear to be lacking.

Page 180, Footnote 36: there probably should have been a closing quote
mark after ... exercises of humanity.

Page 327, Endnote [E31]: there is no marker in the text for this note.

Page 400, Minnesota, Minn.: as printed in the source document;
probably an error for Minneapolis, Minn.

Page 464, Zenophon: the text consistently uses Xenophon.

Changes:

Illustrations and footnotes have been moved out of text paragraphs.

Some obvious minor typographical and punctuation errors have been
corrected silently.

Table of Contents: Several page numbers have been corrected to the
book’s actual page numbers.

Page 6, Endnote 1: closing quote mark inserted after ... principles of
scientific education.

Page 13: closing quote mark inserted after ... be learned by doing
them.

Page 58: ... accessaries, as anvils, ... changed to ... accessories,
as anvils, ....

Page 77, Endnote 2: opening quote mark inserted before The inquiry of
truth ....

Page 171: Maudslay, Clement Murray, Nasmyth changed to Maudslay,
Clement, Murray, Nasmyth.

Page 194: Opening quote mark inserted before Applying our popular
schemes ....

Page 257: Endnote marker numbering [E1] corrected to [E11] to conform
to endnotes for this chapter.

Page 392, footnote [125]: Of the 51 cities tabulated ... changed to Of
the 54 cities tabulated ....

Page 432: Chicago Manual Training School, equipment of: 341 changed to
347.

*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Mind and Hand: Manual Training the Chief Factor in Education" ***

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