I LLINOI S
I

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN
- ~

PRODUCTION NOTE
University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign Library
Brittle Books Project, 2010.

DISCUSSIONS
ON

TRAINING

MANUAL
AND

ON THE

BLAIR BILL
BY

A. P. MARBLE
WORCESTER, MASS.

NATIONAL EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION,
DEPARTMENT

OF

SUPERINTENDENTS,

WASIHINGTON, D. C.,
FEBRUARY

I4th-I6th, i888.

BOSTON:
GEORGE B. MELENEY,
9 FRANKLIN ST.

"f/ow
Engrafted

Wht

and to
Extent can
Our Systemn of Public

in

Manual

Schools ?"-

CIIA.s.

H.

Training be

H x~r, Chicago, Ill.

DISCUSSIONS BY

~JAMES

A. MCALLISTER, Supt. City Schools, Philadelphia, Pa.

A. P. MARBLE, Supt. City School, Worcester, Mass.
NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER, Pres. Indus. Ed. Ass'n, New York City.
WT. B. POWELL, Supt. Schools, Washington, D. C.
Hi.II. BALFILD, Director Manual Training School, Chicago, Ill.
"Absent.

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In Public Domain.
Published prior to 1923.

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It was made in compliance with copyright law.
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2010

PREFATORY.
This question is to be here discussed by three men eminent in
the advocacy of manual training; and by two superintendents
who believe in introducing this kind of training into the public
schools.
I believe neither in engrafting it nor in uprooting the tree.
My claim is rather that new shrubs and trees ought to be planted
in all the vacant spots in the garden. It is difficult to oppose
the popular wish. Cassandra found it so about the wooden horse
at ancient Troy.
Hence I have prepared myself to speak at
greater length than I could desire.
But since this side of the
question is represented by myself alone, and five able men are
opposite, you will perhaps bear with me. It should be stated
also that I am not the official representative of anybody.
But, though nearly all the talk is on the other side, I feel sure
that the great but silent majority are with me, and that in time
And I amn not an anti-school-progress
they will be heard.
man because I will not consent to ev(ery notion. Prest. Gilmnan,
in a recent address before the Industrial Education Association
of New York, and Dr. Win. T. Harris in the last Forum agree
with me that manual training should not be engrafted. And
since I came into this hall, I have received a copy of an address
by Hon. E. E. White, late School Commissioner for Ohio, and
now superintendent of the schools in Cincinnati; and he substantially agrees with my position. There are other men I
know who agree with me; but like St. Peter before a warm fire
in the High Priest's hall, where a maid-servant voiced the sentiment prevailing in the company; they are not willing to speak
the truth; and like Galileo, similarly placed, they are not yet
ripe for the martyr's crown.

HOW, AND TO WHAT EXTENT CAN

MIANUAL TRAINING
BE ENGRAFTED IN

OUR SYSTEM

OF

PUBLIC SCHOOLS ?

The double form of this question implies that this kind of
training is to be engrafted, and that it remains only to consider
how, and how far. But the original question is by no means settled; my remarks will therefore be directed chiefly to the question to what extent.
In the discussions on the general question, there is a widespread indefiniteness as to just what is meant. The terms manual training, industrial education, and technical education, are
often used as if they were identical ; and even physical culture
Of the advocomes in sometimes as if it were the samething.
cates of this general thing, this some thing which is here called
manual training, there are four classes
GYMNASTICS.

The first would introduce into the public schools tools, of
one sort or another, in order that by using them a part of
each day, the pupils might develop physical strength; for, they
say, we have a threefold nature - the physical, the intellectual,
and the moral; and education consists in the right training of
the whole nature of the child; and this ought to be done simultaneously in the school.
BREAD-WINNING.

The second, would introduce this kind of training in order to
prepare the pupils for the business of life. A large proportion of'
the children in our schools, they say, must earn their living by
some sort of physical labor, or handicraft; and so these children
ought to learn in school the elements of some trade, or trades,
so that on leaving school they may be at once self-supporting.

MIND-TRAINING.

The third class advocate this kind of training, not for physical
culture, and not for learning the trades merely, but because
the dealing with material things benefits the mind and contributes an important, if not an indispensable, element to all
intellectual growth.
GENERAL WELFARE.

The fourth class advocate the training on the broad ground not
only of all the three classes already enumerated, but for the
still broader reason that this kind of training is the cure for nearly
all the evils that infest society. All these advocates agree that
the training, whether under one name or another, whether for
one of these purposes or another, ought to be engrafted. There
appears, then, to be a quite extensive demand for it; - and this
it means one thing to one, and something else to another. It is
to be observed, also, that this demand comes chiefly from theorists, educational reformers, and magazine writers, who look from
an eminence; and with a zeal and earnestness which is commendable, they prescribe the remedy for the evils which they
think they see. They are not as a rule men who have children
in the schools, or who themselves feel the evils which they seek
to cure
But besides the agreement in wanting this indefinite it - the
manual training -- there is a remarkable unanimity among these
advocates in a very general and wholesale denunciation of the
school system, its aims and its results. For the past ten years the
periodical press, and the lecture platform, have been crowded
with essays to show the glaring defects of the public schools. It
would fill volumes if I were to attempt to give a mere outline of
these denunciations. Here are a few samples: Prof. Leipziger
[N. Y. School Journal, Vol. XXV. No. 3], "The existing
system of education is not suited to the demands of our age and
our country."

. . " Children go to school to be trained how to

learn, how to help themselves, how to study, and not to acquire
in the brief period of their school life a list of dates, or rules, or
marks." In its connection, the plain implication here is that
the latter is what they get in the schools - a list of dates, or
rules, or marks - and that the former will be furnished in just
the right quantity by manual training.
" The three R's," he continues, " if no industrial training has
gone along with them, are apt to produce a fourth R, rascaldom."

This alliterative R has been found dangerous! Mr. Charles
Francis Adams
Training the Solution of Social and
Industrial Problems. By Charles
Ham. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1886]. " 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 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."
[From the same work]. " The methods of the schools are
unscientific; they are still dominated by the medieval 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.'
The justice of this arraignment of the schools for extreme conIf age merely be an objection, it may
servatism is shown, &c."
be noted that Comenius,and Froebel,and Pestalozzi,and Rousseau

[Mianual

-

names which are conjured with -

fl.

are not modern.

Col. Fr'ancis W. Parker [From the same book, page 206].
" If I am not very much mistaken, the schoolmaster for the last
fifty years has been incessantly inventing ways of doing things in
the school-room by doing something else. .

.

. This futile strug-

gle 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 a free government."
It is not my purpose here to defend the public schools of this
country. I will quote a single passage, however, from the book
just cited: [Page 236]. " To it (the New England system of
education) this country owes the quality of its civilization ...
The difference between the civilization of New England, and that
of South Carolina, for instance, is exactly measured by the difference between their respective educational systems."
This wholesale disparagement of the public schools, both by
essayists and lecturers, and by public school men, too frequently,
has produced a wide-spread feeling that some radical change
ought to be made in the system; and upon this vague feeling of
distrust, and upon the claims set up for manual training with a
purpose still more vague, rests the popular favor in which that
kind of training appears to be held.
NOTE. - These quotations were mostly omitted in reading, with the remark
that they are from eminent men, and that the gentleman who preceded me had
just illustrated this position by his criticism of the schools.
* James McAllister.

I.

To be more explicit. It is charged that pupils in the public
schools acquire a contempt for honest toil. There is no foundation for this charge. Pupils leave school too soon, in order to
engage in this very work. Thousands under my own observation stay away from school half the time between the ages of
twelve and fourteen; and thousands more leave as soon as the
age of compulsory education is past, in order that they may
engage in any kind of work which they can find to do. Mr.
Jones, superintendent of schools of Erie, Pa., has said that the
chief obstacle to thorough school training, is this desire to engage
in remunerative labor. Any superintendent of a fairly good
system of schools will testify to the same. So far is it from the
truth, that children acquire in school a contempt for work, that
the reverse is the case, to so fearful an extent that even compulsory laws can scarcely keep children from the shop long enough
for them to get the rudiments of what the schools are prepared
to give. And yet this charge is boldly made; one pupil in ten
thousand,

is found

-

a dunce by nature

and inevitably -

to

sustain the charge ; and by constant reiteration, and unchallenged,
it gains credence.
II.
It is charged, secondly, that the high schools, especially, create
an ambition in their pupils to engage in literary or professional
pursuits, and to despise the mechanical industries. That would
indeed be a poor apology for a high school where, in the pursuit
of the higher branches of learning, a considerable number of
pupils did not become enamored of the delights of learning, and
become classical or scientific students; but that pupils become
thus enamored in any undue proportion, or that there is any
tendency in these schools to look upon any manual industry as
degrading, is even farther from the truth than the first charge;
and this statement is fortified by statistics. In the Worcester
High School there are some 750 pupils. Of these from 100 to
150 yearly leave school before graduating. In 1884, when the
school was smaller than now, 99 dropped out; and the causes
appear in the following tables:
CAUSES OF LEAVING SCHOOL.
Boys.

Work,
For other schools,
Moved from city,
Death,
Dislike of study,

GIRLS.

TOTAL.

47
8
2
1
0

7
6
8
Illness, 8
12

54
14
10
9
12

58

41

99

8
PRESENT OCCUPATION,

AT CLOSE OF YEAR.
BOYS.

In school,
In dentistry, 2; Art 1,
Mechanical work,
Clerical work,
Farm work,
Liquor saloon,
Deceased,

GIRLS.

8
3
21
23
2
1
1

Total,

Home,
Married,
Teaching,
Work,

59

5
20
5
1
9

40

CLASS, 1885.

GRADUATING

BOYS.

In college,
Polytechnic Institute,
Normal School,
Other schools,
Post graduate study,
Teaching,
Art work,
At home,
Dentistry,

GIRLS.

TOTAL.

11
7

1

12
7
4
3
12
2
13
14
1

4
2
11
2
6
14

1
1
7
1

40

28
OF THOSE

AT WORK.
BOYS.

Farm labor,
Drug store,
Factory,
Book-keeping,
Plumbing,
Mill,
Total,

68

GIRLS.

2
1
1
1
1
1

4
In store,
Photography, 1
1
Writing,

7

6

Of the girls at home the majority are doing housework.
In 1886, of 270 boys in that school, 93 were earning from 15
cents to six dollars a week, most of them buying their own
clothing.

EMPLOYMENT.
BOYS.

NO.

Paper routes and office work,
Lighting street lamps,
Work in shops,
Janitors,
Writing,
Store and market,
Printing,

34
17
7
6
5
5
4

WEEKLY
WAGES.

Care of horses,

4

Care of lawns,
Milk route,
Painting,
Canvassing,
Collecting,
Hot house work,
As page,
Blowing organ,

2
3
1
1
1
1
1
1

$77.77
36.83
17.50
17.25
10.75
7.75
4.60
5.45
1.25
7.50
5.00
2.50
5.00
3.00
1.00
.15

93

$203.30

Pay for 40 weeks of school,
At the annual rate of

$8,132.
$10,576.

GIRLS.

Book-keeping,
Music lessons,

2
1

$5.00
.50
$5.50

$286.00.
Annual rate of
$10,862.
Total, Boys and Girls,
And this for about one-third of the pupils.
To this must be added a large but unknown amount of home
work of great value, though not paid for in dollars and cents.
Now, if anybody can find in these cold facts any ground for
the charge that the high school begets a disposition to shirk, or
to despise labor, or that it creates an undue ambition for literary
or professional pursuits, it would be interesting to see him derive
this comfort! And yet there is a somewhat wide-spread belief
engendered by the magazine writers, the newspapers, and the
educational reformers, that the high school has such a vicious
tendency. There is no reason to suppose that Worcester is at
all singular in these statistics. In fact, in the reports of several

10
cities within the past two years - from all where statistics have
been prepared - there is a similar showing; and there is no
reasonable doubt that the same is true of most cities and large
towns. In all the smaller towns there can be no question about it.*
III.
And thirdly, it is charged that the schools do not develop the
faculty of observation and of accurate thought; that the whole
system from top to bottom is wrong; that manual training alone
can prepare the mind to investigate nature and thus, in handling
all the forces of nature, to elevate the race to the true image of
God. On this subject I quote from The Academy, (Feb. 1888),
-' The fact that all the world is ready to make note of it, if an
educated man fails to get on, speaks volumes for the rarity of
the occurrence. In the ordinary walks of life, failure is too
common to call for much comment." And from a Washington
corespondent of the New York Eveninq Post, of the 3d inst. :
" My facts are, first, that Charles Darwin received a strict, rigid,
or if you please, narrow, classical education extending through
school and college ; second, that his working mind evinced the
keenest observation, the deepest reasoning, the most patient
research, the most careful deduction." And the correspondent
well asks the other side to name "a naturalist, philosopher, or
scientist who, having been trained in early life by means of a
scientific or optional system of education, developed in after life
a better working mind than Mr. Darwin's "; and he concludes,
that " a strict, rigid, or even narrow, classical education, furnishes the best possible training for the working mind of the
future naturalist." It may be added that Mr. Darwin never
found any difficulty in using his hands; and all the great progress
up to the present time, political, social, intellectual, scientific,
industrial, even the great discovery of the universal efficacy of
manual training, all has been brought about by men educated
under a system " wholly wrong" forsooth, because it did not
include manual training!
IV.
There is another assumption on which the apparent popular
wish for manual training rests, that is notably erroneous. It is
assumed that pupils on coming to school have not the use of
their hands; that they cannot handle things ; that they are
unfamiliar with materials ; that they do not know the nature of
* By comparison of the above statistics with those of the St. Louis Manual Training
School, as they appear in the current number of "' Education," (April 1888), it

appears that the per cent of pupils who subsequently engage in manual pursuits, is
larger in the Worcester High School,than in the St. Louis Manual Training School.

11
wood, and iron, and stone, and cloth; and that they are not
acquainted with work.
Of course children under fourteen
years of age can have no great degree of skill, in any of these
directions, and their knowledge of the material universe must
in the nature of things be comparatively slight at that tender
age. There must of necessity be many things which they do not
know. But there is ground for the belief that children have
more knowledge of material things, and more skill in the use of
their muscles than of anything else. Their whole life up to the
school age consists of the perceptions of the senses and of physical activity. What they generally lack, and what they, as a rule,
get nowhere else, is the mental training. All the knowledge
they have has come from the things which they have seen, and
felt, and handled. In school they get acquainted with books;
there is opened to them the vast storehouse of knowledge which
is laid up in books; and they ought to learn how to extract that
knowledge.
The gamin who comes to school for the first time is not lacking
in the muscular sense, nor in muscular activity. His hands are
trained better than any other part of him. He can run, and
jump, and swim, and skate, and slide; he can use his fingers
deftly in a variety of ways; he can pick your pocket and extract
your watch. If any one were to seek in a school to find out
what the boys and girls can do with their hands, he would easily
collect statistics which would surprise him by their extent and
variety, and which would be even more conclusive against the
theory that children have not the use of their hands, than the
high school statistics are, against the notion that the pupils are
opposed to manual work.
The supposition that children do not have the use of their
hands, is about as far from the truth, as it would be to suppose
that the child can not walk when he comes to school. If you
watch a child who has been let alone judiciously till the age of
five years, who has had the opportunity for the impulses of nature
to assert themselves, you will find his movements graceful, and
his motions spontaneous and responsive to his thought. Even
his emotions find expression in the muscles of his face and the
tone of his voice.
Suppose, now, that it were affirmed that, after all, children do
not walk as they should. They may be lacking in certain conventionalities; and there is always a certain proportion of extremely
awkward children, born so, and always to remain so, unless by
special instruction, they are cured of it; and there are enough
of these to create a sentiment in favor of a school for them,

12
whenever any one sufficiently interested and earnest, originates
the plan.
Suppose again that, by the process of instantaneous
photography, every posture of the body in walking, and every
motion, in due and orderly succession, were to be represented ;
and then, that with the pictures to illustrate, and the teacher to
exemplify, the pupils were taught to walk upon an elementary,
synthetic, and scientific plan. It is tolerably clear to my mind
that children could never be taught to walk in this way ; and the
principal reason is that they already know how to walk. Such a
refinement of teaching so ordinary an art as walking, would be
highly useful in a school of imbeciles ; and to introduce it into
the ordinary school would imply a degree of imbecility which
does not exist. In kind, though not at all in degree, the assumption that children in schools have not the use of their hands,
leads, it seems to me, to an absurdity similar to the above; and
it implies an imbecility with which the children of this generation are not chargeable. The readiness with which the thousands
of children who yearly leave our schools, engage in every kind of
handiwork, belies this assumption.
It is my belief, then, that the demand for engrafting manual
training on our public schools, rests upon a false estimate of
what pupils know and of what the schools are doing for those
pupils; it seems to me that this demand is based upon a fourfold
claim, of gymnastics, handicraft, educational necessity, and general welfare - this claim having a fatal lack of unity; it is also
my opinion that this demand does not proceed from those who
are most concerned, the parents of the children. The generalwelfare-claim, that manual training is the cure for most of the
ills of society, is ably and admirably set forth in the book
already cited: Manual Training, the Solution of Social and Industrial Problems, Charles H. Ham, (our distinguished friend
who has preceded me). This kind of training is recommended
as a cure for strikes; for failure in business; for political dishonesty; as a mental stimulus; as the conservator of language
and the chief means for its enlargement; as the remedy for
selfishness with all its attendant train of evils; and much more.
To quote: " 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."

...

'"Manual

training on the other hand pro-

motes altruism because it is objective. Its effects flow outward;
they relate not to self but to the human race. The skilled hand

13
confers benefits upon man, and each benefit so conferred exerts
the natural reflex moral influence of a good act upon the mind
Prof. Felix Adler (Quoted from Princeof the benefactor."
ton Review, March, 1882). 6"
And now I would point out how
the occupations of the work-shop and the atelier combined tend
to establish in the mind of the pupil an unselfish and impersonal
standard of valuation, which will prepare him admirably for the
truer moral estimates of life. .... His work is devoid of any

pecuniary value. It is a mere typical form. Its worth consists
in being true or in being beautiful. And a habit is thus formed
of judging things in general, according to their intrinsic rather
than their superficial qualities. Gradually, and almost insensibly, the analogy of the work performed on outward objects will
be applied to inward experience .....

Thus . .. he is, at the

same time, shaping his own character; and a tendency of mind is
created from which will eventually result the loftiest and purest
morality."
This claim is highly ideal, not to say visionary. In practice it
would be demoralizing to keep pupils at work producing things
"6
devoid of any pecuniary value." " The loftiest and purest
morality" that is to come from manual training, specifically, is
far-fetched. And the connection between selfishness and our
system of education, and the intimate relation existing between
manual training and altruism and the golden rule, has not in my
opinion been shown, On the contrary, there are no instances
within my observation, or recorded in books, where that kind of
training has converted the tendency in human nature. The best
products of the best Polytechnic schools do not apparently differ
in this respect from the product of the college and the university.
The most eloquent special pleading has failed to show that manual training will reform society. And even if this highly ideal
view were fully established, it is in the region of the higher
education, far above the level of the public schools.
In what remains to say, I want to waive the general-welfareargument, as being too etherial, and beyond the range of public
schools. We will omit also the gymnastic argument, and the
bread-winning, or handicraft argument, since the introduction of
manual training is no longer advocated by its principal supporters on this ground. The mental culture argument is now at the
front.
Here the claim is that manual training is essential to mental
culture; that as the kindergarten furnishes the best training for
very young children, so the shops and tools, in the grammar
schools, are indispensable in training the mind to exact thinking;

14
that as the laboratory and actual experiments are so useful in the
study of chemistry, so the carpenter's bench is a prime requisite
in the study of arithmetic, the English language, geography and
history; that words are deceptive, and things must be handled
or made, or else all ideas are necessarily vague and unreal, and
words express no thought.
If we mean
This claim seems to me to be mere assertion.
that the best mental growth requires a sound and active
body, that appears to be self-evident. If we mean that a
child must ordinarily have hands to use his books and his
pencil, and eyes to see the printed words, and ears to hear
his teacher's voice, that is a mere truism. If we mean that
a boy or girl can not be taught arithmetic or geography well
without using tools and making something with his hands every
day, that has not been proved; on the contrary, hundreds of
thousands of children have been well taught without any such
thing. The very pupils in the Manual Training schools that
have been so interesting and successful in Chicago and St. Louis
have been so taught; and upon this very teaching their proficiency largely depends. The quality of the teaching determines
the usefulness of any school whether with manual training or
without; and there is no surer guarantee that the teaching will
be good in the one case than in the other.
The Manual Training School at St. Louis with its shops and
forges, so eloquently described by that exceedingly able advocate
Prof. Woodward, appeals to the imagination. The school at
Chicago with its fine machinery, its superb building, its hum of
busy wheels, and its intelligent pupils, commands our admiratioi.
These are special schools. Pupils are admitted at the age of 14,
after passing an examination in the grammar school studies,
which would admit them to the high school. All this then, so
delightful in its place, has no more to do with the question of
engrafting, than the success of a Polytechnical Institute has to
do with a university, or than the excellent work of a Technical
school has to do with a college. These are separate and distinct
institutions, each useful and necessary in its sphere.
There may be, and there probably is a field of usefulness of
the same kind corresponding with the grammar-school grade.
If such schools were established they would have a certain
patronage. It would not be so large, I am sure, as is generally
assumed.
Schools of this kind have been established. The one at
Toledo, as I understand it, is of this kind. The one in Philadelphia and that in this city (Washington), and that in Boston and

15
New Haven, though maintained at the public expense and connected with the public schools, in school-houses, are in reality
special schools. There is one in Worcester, at the Polytechnic
Institute, in the summer vacation. The Mechanics' Association
of that city has moved towards the establishment of such a school,
with my advice, and I might almost say, at my suggestion. The
Natural History Society of my city, of which I am one of the
directors, has such a school in its summer camp at its park. To
extend this special training and engraft it upon the school system
as a part of the course of study, like arithmetic and geography,
is quite another thing. It is a doubtful experiment; and the
ground for it, as a necessary part of mental culture, is not well
established. However well the Philadelphia experiment may
succeed on a small scale, its expansion to embrace all the schools
of the city would cost an enormous sum; and what works well
while it is new, and in a limited field, is quite another thing when
made a general study throughout the schools and in all grades.
And in this mental-culture-argument there is a grave fallacy.
The incessant dealing with things, confining the attention to
material objects, finding all truth, not in the ideal world of
thought, but in the material world of machinery and tools -- this
is the very opposite of mental growth. That growth consists
largely in the power to abstract the mind from the things of
sense, and to handle the thought when not clothed in matter.
It is the very purpose of education in schools to give the pupils
that power over their minds, which they already have over their
oodies.
In manual training as it is to day quite generally advocated, in
the emphasis that is placed on what can be seen and felt and
handled, in the decrying of all education which does not deal
directly with the material universe, there is a tendency to a gross
materialism which will in the end be destructive of the best
mental culture.
And further, there is in the presentation of this subject, a
magnifying of material prosperity, and an apotheosizing of an
outward success, the influence of which upon education must be
bad. Bessimer invented a new process for making steel; and
the yearly product is worth $500,000,000, I have seen it stated.
Gladstone was only a scholar and statesman, who has invented
no process in mauufacture; he has merely ruled the British
empire, and done nothing which will at all compare in value to
the human race, with the invention of a new process for making
steel. No one would wish to detract from the praise that is due
to the inventor. But if the statesman has by wise legislation

16
made it possible for millions of free people to enjoy the products
of steel; if he has lifted the yoke from millions who were oppressed, and made them free; if he has made the way easier by
which the future Bessimer may complete his invention and enjoy
its fruits; if he has let in the light of religious freedom where
before there was spiritual bondage, is there not something in this
which is worth more than $500,000,000 a year, though it has no
money value ? And yet ,according to the manual-training valuation, there is nothing in a Gladstone to compare with a Bessimer.
It was said above that the manual training and the tools can
never become general in the schools, like arithmetic and
geography, on account of the cost. From the N. Y School
Journal of Jan. 14, 1887, I extract the following: " As a plea
for greater school facilities, attention has been drawn to the fact
that there are over 45,000 children between five and fourteen
years of age, in Brooklyn, not attending any school, public or
private; and that weekly 8,000 more are in attendance than the
seating capacity of the schools. This is possible by allowing a
large number only half a day's regular attendance, and putting
the little children two in a seat. Why does'nt Brooklyn wake
up ?" Wake up to what ? Why, if we would follow the N. Y.
School Journal, to the organization of manual training in the
schools, the purchase of tools and timber, and a largely-increased
expense for the schools they have, not to opening more! I see
by the N. Y. Evening Post of Feb. 11, 1886, that in Springfield,
Mass., it costs $50 a head to educate in the manual training
annex. At this rate it would cost Brooklyn for her 45,000
children, $2,250,000. In Jersey City, by the last school report
which I have seen, there were 51,000 children of school age,
of whom 23,000 were in the public schools. There are school
accommodations for less than 16,000 pupils; and of the 28,000
unaccounted for, 700 have applied for admission to school
without success; and there are 7,000 more pupils in school than
the rooms will accommodate. Jersey City ought, then, at once
to adopt manual training with its greater cost, ought she ?
New York and Philadelphia and Washington, where manual
training has been introduced, can, of course, make a better
showing; but I do not dare to look at the statistics; for in the
N. Y. School Journal of Dec. 3, 1887, it appears that insufficient
school accommodations, is the rule among the cities of New
York; and probably the same is generally true.
The attempt to make this kind of training general in the
public schools would, if successful, tend to break up the whole
system; by overloading the schools we may easily create a revolt

17
from the burden of taxation. In St. Louis that revolt has come;
for, of several causes to which the recent diminution of the
appropriation has been attributed, this seems the most probable.
Usually every experiment with manual training in the public
schools is pronounced a success by its promoters. " The pupils
like it." They like anything which is new, if it seems like play.
When it becomes work, they may not like it so well. " They do
not fall behind in their other studies." They may be brighter
than the average of pupils for they are selected; and in some
cases they must first pass a strict examination.
But already it
has failed.
A Massachusetts city appears in the list of manual-trainingcities. A wealthy and benevolent lady furnished the money to
attach this kind of training. I quote from the superintendent of
schools in that city under date of Feb. 2, 1888: " The experiment of manual training in this city was tried by my predecessor
seven or eight years ago. I find it began nine years ago. A lady
of Boston residing here summers, offered $600 a year for the
purpose. It was continued about two years, and when the lady
declined to furnish the funds, it was dropped. But little interest
was developed among the people here; so says the ex-superintendent in his last report, at the time I came into the position six
years ago last fall. I was considerably interested in the matter,
and would have been glad to continue the experiment a while
longer, but the life had all gone out of it. It does not seem to
have made any lasting impression upon the boys and girls who
were pupils. They neither became artizans, nor showed any
unusual ability mentally, so far as I can learn.
"It is somewhat curious that, in a city where they were clamoring for a 'practical education,' and considered 'secondary
education' a humbug by a 'large majority,' something more
lasting did not result. The novelty wore off and it was dropped.
The experiment may have been too limited to form any opinion
upon its merits.
"IIhave since heard much discussion pro and con, but I am
by no means convinced.that the public schools should undertake
the work. I believe in special industrial schools, and that every
city should maintain one or more."
The experinent has been tried at North Easton; and this is
what the principal of the high school says of it: "

We have carpentering, cooking and sewing .

.

and why

these more than half a dozen more ? ....
The pupils lost their
interest in the regular studies, and were constantly begging extra
half days for shop-work. This would be considered a point in

18
favor of shop-work, I suppose, by the unthinking; but if the
mere matter of preference is the chief consideration, why not
introduce Punch and Judy into Sunday schools ? ... My first
Latin class nearly went to pieces when we came to the Subjunctive Mood. Of course as the girls began to drag in their work,
the boys naturally followed suit, as they didn't have to work
very hard to keep up with them. The class in French went to
pieces much in the same way. As for doing good work it was
impossible. The classes in physics suffered most." After more
in the same style he continues: " Policy would dictate silence ;
but I have counted the cost. ' It is not all of life to live nor all
of death to die.' " In another letter he says: " I am sure there
can be but one result. Learning to ' think through the fingers'
means simply not to be able to think without something in the
fingers. The tendency to materialize every thing will certainly
be felt sooner or later. My nearest neighbor, an intelligent
mechanic, says, there is something he cannot teach his children,
things he is anxious to have them know; and this he wishes so
far as may be to have attended to at school, for it will be then or
never with them ; he wishes to have them obtain as thorough an
intellectual development as possible, and he will try to find what
they are best fitted for afterwards." ...
"' seems strange to me that no effort has been made to try
It
the industrial experiment on Saturdays and during vacation. I
have talked with many of my pupils, and I know that the best of
them, those who give character to the school, think as I do, that
it interferes with their studies, as it is now conducted." ....
Sincerely yours,
M. C. LAMPREY.

Here is a man whom the manual training people will class
with me as opposed to progress. Here is one school gone to
pieces with the experiment. If you say that the school was poor
or else the experiment would have succeeded, then do not talk of
engrafting but of uprooting. But on inquiry I find that this was
a good school; and the teacher is evidently a thoughtful and conscientious man. If the experiment was not properly conducted,
then it is likely to be so in a majority of cases ; for Miss Morse,
who has it in charge, claims I understand that the experiment is
a success there. And the teacher, for daring to speak his mind,
evidently anticipates martyrdom and does not fear it. The brave
die never.

19
There is another objection to this engrafting. No one kind of
work with tools is of general utility. The hammer, the saw, and
the plane, are of no particular use to the weaver ; and the hammer of the blacksmith is not the hammer of the silversmith,
except in the same general sense in which the ordinary command
of the hand, which everybody has, is useful to everybody. Special
aptitudes should be taught in special schools.
In Zurich, the birthplace of Pestalozzi, they have a system of
schools which embraces special schools adapted to the industries
of the place. They have no manual training engrafted upon the
school system.
Manual training, then, should not be engrafted on our public
school system at all, except in the most general forms like drawing, and a little paper-cutting and modeling in clay, in the
elementary grades. Special schools should be established whereever they are needed, and can be afforded, adapted to the industries of the place; but not till after the general school training
is provided for every child.
There is a tendency among us educators to expand our domain,
and to include the whole range of human possibilities; just as
the church tends to expand itself from its original domain of
worship, to include Sunday schools, sociables, picnics, benevolent
enterprises of all sorts, meetings, and societies, till the faithful
communicant has little time for anything else, and the whole
social life is absorbed. In like manner we broaden our range to
include about everything that belongs to the life of the child.
We work to make the school supreme; we will not allow the
child time nor opportunity for any thing else; we concern ourselves about his physical welfare, his intellectual progress, and
his spiritual well-being; and now we step forward to fit him for
the duties of life ; for, however much we may seek to defend and
to promote manual training for its intellectual value, no one who
looks can fail to see that the real purpose is to prepare children,
at the absurdly youthful age of fourteen, for earning a living;
and if this were understood not to be the purpose, nine-tenths of
all the advocates of that training would desert.
We ought to be more modest in our pretentions; and recognizing the prime responsibility of parents, and the wide range of
training of all sorts which children get outside of school, we
ought to concern ourselves chiefly with our specific duty of training the mind ; not by confining the attention to wood and iron,
and material things, but by using objects and sense-perceptions
as stepping-stones, and training the thought to take wings and
soar. Manual training should not be engrafted at all; it ought
to be provided in special schools as they are needed and can be
afforded. It is not engrafting that we need, but more shrubbery
in the vacant spots in the field of life.

20
THURSDAY,

Feb. 16th, 7.30 P. M.

NATIONAL AID TO EDUCATION.
This subject was ably discussed by J. A. B. Lovett, Superintendent of City Schools, Huntsville, Ala.; by Col. Alexander
Hogg, Superintendent of City Schools, Ft. Worth, Texas; and
by Mr. Evans, Superintendent of City Schools, Augusta, Ga.;
and they all favored the provisions of the Blair Bill or its
equivalent.

THE BLAIR BRIBE.
Nobody doubts that education universally diffused is the safeguard of American liberty. But there is a difference of opinion
as to how the result may best be secured. If some demagogue
or educational talker proposes an impracticable scheme and calls
it educational, those who oppose the unwise measure are not
necessarily opposed to education; and it is not argument, to say
that they are opposed to progress. The real question is whether
the measure is right, and whether its influence will probably help
or retard education. And " resolutions" passed in a hurry
and without discussion, or adopted by questionable methods, have
no force in binding any body of men.
The Blair bill is a bribe. It proposes to spend a vast sum of
money nominally for education. Its chief support, what will
secure its passage if it is to become a law, is not its educational
value at all, but the mere desire for a large grant of money with
those who expect to receive the money ; and the desire to get rid
of the surplus on the part of others. Whole districts at the
south have carried the elections on the simple issue of getting so
much money. The state will receive so much money - the
larger sum as the shame of ignorance is larger - the county so
much, and this particular district so much; and this sum, not to
increase the school facilities, but to diminish the taxes. For this
reason the Blair bill is popular in certain localities. As a party
measure, the bill is designed to make voters and to divide the
solid south. Its aim is also to put the other party in a dilemma.
If they defeat the bill, and thus deny the great bonus of millions,
they offend the large mass of the southern people who want the
money, even if it comes from the abdomen of a Trojan hoise ; or,

21
if they pass the bill, then they desert their principles and give up
the shibboleth of economy. Any one who thinks the Blair bill is
an educational question and not a political question is misinformed. The figures of the census are paraded to exhibit the
mass of ignorance that menaces our institutions. The fact is
usually suppressed, that a large proportion of the illiterate are
beyond the school age. The flattering unction is laid in the
souls of the sentimental advocates of this bill, that the millions
of dollars are certain at once to wipe out the ignorance. In the
hands of politicians there are many channels, besides the salaries
of teachers into which these millions will flow. And it is morally
certain that the effect will be, not to increase the efforts that the
people of the south are making to establish good schools- efforts
that are grandly successful - but simply to diminish the school
taxes. This effect has already been seen; this effect is certainly
foreshadowed by the very arguments which give the bill its popularity - so much money to diminish the school tax.
It is said that there is a vast amount of ignorance in the south
where most of this proposed $77,000,000 will go, and that this
ignorance is a menace to the republic. In Brooklyn, N. Y., it is
also said, there are 45,000 children of school age not in any
school. In Jersey City there are accommodations for only 16,000
of the 51,000 children of school age, though 23,000 children are
crowded into the schools. In the city of New York there are
multitudes of ignorant children and adults; for though the statistics are not at hand the conditions are similar to those of the
neighboring cities. Here is a mass of ignorance, not scattered
over a large territory where its power of evil is dissipated, but
aggregated to foster and breed rapine and riot. In every large
city, however costly and good its schools may be, there is this
mass of ignorant men. It burst out in New York in the riots of
1863 ; in l'ittsburg more recently where property by the millions
was destroyed ; and in Chicago. Again in this country the prevailing belief is that the purity of the family is essential to our
civilization ; that a man should have one wife and but one ; and
a woman but one husband. An intelligent Turk once said to me
that, in his country the man with many wives is by law
compelled to support them all; and he had observed that it is
not always so in this country. In Utah polygamy is openly
practiced in defiance of the laws which Congress has the sole
power to make. This territory is now seeking admission to the
union.
Here, then, are three menaces to the nation : ignorance at the
south; ignorance in large cities; polygamy in Utah and else-

22
where. We have a powerful government at Washington with
money and men. Why does it not put an end to all this iniquity
at once ? In Utah the evil may be obliterated if the attempt is
persevered in, though even there the execution of the laws is not
without its difficulties, since to some extent the principle of selfgovernment must be recognized. But if the territory were once
admitted into the union, and if the majority of the people there
were to adhere to their peculiar institution, no matter what
guarantees her constitution might contain, there is no way in
which the federal government could interfere with polygamy in
the state. Senator Dawes has shown this fact most conclusively
in a recent article in The Formu. And if the United States can
not deal with polygamy in a state, as it could not deal with
slavery in the states, in ante-bellum times, then it can not deal
with ignorance in a state. In both these cases, if my logic is not
at fault, the sovereign power over the matter belongs to the state.
It follows, then, that the United States government can not do
every thing which may be good in itself; it follows that the evil
of ignorance can not be directly dealt with by the United States,
either in the large cities or in a whole group of states; and it
follows that the author of that conclusive argument about Utah,
ought to vote against the Blair bill.
Suppose, now, that the Blair bill becomes a law. Who will
be conducting the education which this bill aims at ? Is
it the state or the United States ? It can not be both; they may
work together for a while, but there can be no two powers, both
supreme at the same time and about the same thing.
The excuse for this endowment is, that several millions of
ignorant slaves have been made free and entrusted with the
ballot; and that certain of the states are too poor to educate
them properly. The measure is advocated by some in order to
educate the negroes. One g@ntleman from the south has said
that he would like to see the bill passed in such a form that all
the money would be thus expended. There is nothing to show
that the educators of the south are disposed to defraud the
negroes in respect of education. But suppose that some one
were
think that the negroes were being defrauded; and that
the United States were to interfere with what a state proposes to
do. Here the trouble would begin ; and there can be no doubt
that, in such a case, the state would have its own way. The
United States could not control a state in respect to its education. Of course the money could be withheld. But the principle
is well established, that to the state and not to the United States
the subject of education belongs. It is not a delegated power,
but a reserved right ; and the United States can do nothing in

(then

lo

23
this matter as against a state. The $77,000,000 then becomes
a gift to the several states in unequal proportions. Others advocate this measure on the ground that the federal government
owes money to the several states of the south, which has been
unjustly taken from them by taxation, or by freeing the slaves.
If by taxation, then, the tariff ought to be upset; and that is too
much of a question for this place If in consequence of the late
civil war the nation is indebted to certain of the states, that is
also a question too large for this discussion; and we'd better
drop it.
Still others say that those states are too poor to educate their
children. If this be so, let us see how the bill will affect a state,
say Alabama. At present - the statistics are from memory
that state, poor you say, raises $600,000 for schools. Under the
operation of this bill she must raise $750,000 the second year;
$900,000 the next year, and so on up to $1,500,0u0 or $2,000,000
in one year. Now if the state is so poor how is she to do this?
Will education, in the first half dozen years, so increase her
resources ? Education is a great promoter of prosperity, but it
may be doubted whether it will do so much so soon. Besides, if
the state can thus increase her appropriation, why does she not
go right on and do it now ? Is the disposition wanting ? Then
the disposition, like the capacity which a rich man wanted to buy
for his daughter at school, is not a thing to be bought.
But how many of the states are so poor?
The papers are
filled with accounts of the enterprise and the growing prosperity
of the south. There are the mines of Georgia, and her streams
where factories are going up. The climate is favorable. No
people in the world are smarter. Is Texas poor ? One-half of
her 275,000 square miles of public lands will provide for the
schools for a decade. If she or any state is in temporary embarrassment, the United States might create a sinking fund for the
national debt, and invest in Texas bonds, for example, to pay a
moderate interest, and to become due as the United States debt
matures. Some Senator from New York might be found to advocate this scheme, if the Blair bill fails.
But it is not mainly for these reasons that this bill is to be
opposed. Nothing connected with education for twenty years is
so surprising and gratifying as the growing schools of the south.
This growth is both rapid and healthy; and the very effort that
has been put forth to establish these schools, is the best part of
them. It is the very life and spirit, which gold can not buy. No
schools worth any thing can be set up till the people really want
them; and when the people really want schools, schools they

24
will have. There is no testimony on this question that at all
equals in force and value that of Gen. Armstrong, who for
twenty years has devoted his life to the education of the negro
race; and the changed attitude on this question of many educators who have no motive for change except their own conviction,
is a significant fact.
In the state of Maine as late as 1846, this is how the case
stood, and in some part of that and every other state it is so
to-day. There was a little school house 20x30 feet in size. The
neighbors themselves built it. A small sum of money raised in
the town by taxes was apportioned to that district, about $30, to
educate 30 or 40 pupils. To make this go as far as possible the
neighbors would board the teacher in turn ; and each in his turn
would draw the wood for the fire in winter. A boy 14 years of
age went into the woods behind his father's house, cut down and
trimmed trees, drew them with oxen to the school house yard,
cut them into firewood ; and then he built the fires for a week or
two, till it was the turn of some other boy. Daniel Webster did
about that. The people around there wanted a school; the boys
and girls wanted to go; and they went. If it is said that the
southern boy has not that degree of pluck and determination
when he sets out to do any thing, then I resent that slander;
and I point to the boys in gray whom the boys in blue found no
mean antagonists. If it be said that the negro is not so anxious
for an education as the white boy, then all the reports have been
falsified. If there are spots in the south where the ignorance is
so dense that not a spark exists which may be blown into a flame,
then it may also be said that there are such spots all over the
country, and they must be wiped out by wearing off the edges.
The method outlined a little way back, is the way in which the
school system has come up in the east and in the west. That
spirit alone will bring it up in the south. But some one says,
What will you do if the people do not want a school ? This. It
has long been known in some parts of the country that an intelligent community has the advantage, in all that makes life worth
living. Alabama knows to-day that she can not otherwise compete with Georgia, or Georgia with Pennsylvania. One town
after another will find out wherein this superiority consists ; and
a healthy emulation will in the end do the work. It will not be
in one year, nor in ten years, Blair bill or no Blair bill; but it
will come, and all the sooner without the nursing.
This bill proposes a vicious method of distribution. Instead
of paying a premium on success, and work done, it offers a
reward for what has not been done - dollars for ignorance; and

25
the more ignorance the more dollars. It pays a premium on
mendicity, mendicancy, mendacity and illiteracy; it offers a
reward for the greatest exposure of shame. It stimulates the
spirit of beggary - a spirit which we are too much encouraging
every where; it discourages that spirit of self-help on which the
very republic rests.
The only thing that will remove the stain of polygamy is the
presence in the community of a majority who do not believe in
nor practice polygamy. The cure of ignorance in any state, or
county, or hamlet, is the presence of men who do not believe in
ignorance. These men need not necessarily be bookish. They
may grow up in the place and see its deficiency in comparison
with other places; or they may be missionaries as it were from
the outside. The school-master is a missionary. His reward is
not in this world. If he has a lair salary, it is the prey of sharpres. if he takes a stand on a public or a moral question, he is
scoffed at because of his humble calling. But it is his work that
tells ; and he, not politicians in high places, will be the regenerator of the south; and money lavishly poured out, for political
purposes, by politicians, through political channels, will not
attract the men who will do this work; and it would not reach
their pockets if it would so attract.

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