that best exercise of the respectively related faculties which each secures.
Classicists ought to favor industrial training that they may be relieved
from trying to make Greek scholars of boys whom God made for machin-
ists and toolsmen, and technologists ought to favor literary courses that
they may escape the hopeless effort of making machinists out of boys
whom God made for Greek scholars , — though for neither alone.
5. One of the things well settled is that we are to have a great multi-
tude of schools for instruction in the arts, of various grades and peculiar-
ities. Those who object to anything more, to reaching the children of the
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MANUAL EDUCATION FROM THE OTHER SIDE, 489
people more widelx, concede that this, at least, is coming. The necessi-
ties of diverse manufacturing industries, the trend of production and
trade, the pressure of domestic commerce, the competition of foreign
skilled labor, trained in such schools abroad, all make this inevitable.
We cannot now hold our own among civilized and productive nations
without it. I happened to be in London in 1881, when the Royal Com-
missioners on Technical Instruction were ordered by Parliament and
appointed by the Queen. These gentlemen were commissioned " to in-
quire into the Instruction of the Industrial Classes of certain Foreign
Countries on technical and other subjects for the purpose of comparison
with that of the corresponding classes in this country (Great Britain) ;
and into the influence of such instruction on manufacturing and other
industries at home and abroad." To augment the amount, perfection,
and profit of British industries was the object, and every argument used
in Parliament, in the public journals, and in conversation, was applicable
to this country. On being kindly placed by Mr. Russell Lowell, our Min-
ister, in communication with the Vice-President of the Council for Na-
tional Education, I was assured by Mr. Mundella that American educators
who wished at any time to accompany the Royal Commissioners would
be welcome, and all the results would be promptly communicated to Gen.
Eaton of the Bureau at Washington. A year before the St. Louis School
had been opened ; three years later the Chicago and Toledo Schools went
into operation, and Tulane University at New Orleans came into existence ;
and last year the Public Manual Training School of Philadelphia. Every
one can see that departments in colleges and universities linking the edu-
cation of the hand with established courses of higher instruction are
multiplying, and that no departments are to multiply faster, though inde -
pendent institutions for the same end may outstrip them. Municipalities
lying near to great stores of raw material and of coal will ere-long be
obliged to multiply these ; the enterprise of business men and manufac-
turers in such marts of produce as Kansas City, Omaha, and Minneapolis,
will emulate the example of those of Chicago ; the division of labor going
on so fast, and the distribution of specific trades, each with its own
technique, will originate other schools, like and unlike, in smaller centres.
We shall have towns like Chemnitz in Saxony, with a half a million of
dollars of property in Higher Technical, Foremen's, Builders', Machine,
Drawing, Weaving, Hosiery, Agricultural, Tailors', and " Fortbildung "
Schools — the work of 100,000 persons within the city connected with that
of twice the number without, and all other types of education on a par
with that which prepares for the university. In all these schools for
direct instruction in the arts the principle must be differentiation, to a
degree which is not possible in general education, lower or higher, though
this must be less and less independent of it. Even our high .schools can-
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490 TBE NATIONAL EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION.
not now be run in one mould. The useful art institutes of various regions,
and even of the same region, must needs differ. Generous men, too, are
quite as likely to follow the example of Purdue and Case and Rose as
those of the great names whose munificence has made the older colleges
powerful, and each to have a technological scheme of his own which his
wealth shall carry out.
6. We already see that the multiplication of these special schools and
departments affects largely general education. I look for no sudden revo-
lution. The effect will be to amplify and liberalize the well-established
and well-proven, rather than to overturn it. The head will still be above
the hand. It is noticed that there is really slight distinction between a
machine and a hand tool ; the greater is an enlargement of the less. Often
a machine bristles with clusters of tools. But there is a wide difference
between the ignorant feeder of the machine and the skilled manipulator of
the tool. It is too late in the day — let me say at the risk of repetition —
for any one part of the educating process to monopolize the place of the
whole. Other and newer parts are yet to acquire status and exert their
influence. Each and all must help the whole. But it is not feasible now
to devise and set up an institute to promote the making of better com-
modities and not turn out from it improved thinkers and better men.
For the skilled workers in wood and iron are men, and in adding skill,
and the finer thought which makes so large a part of it, you have added
just so much to the man. Of more than one business association it will
yet be written : " Their purpose in founding the school was industrial,
not educational reform '* ; " they builded better than they knew.'' The
conservatives, who care only to bring out what they deem the "higher"
human faculties, must shut off the better use of what they call the
'< lower," if they would escape reforms from beneath. It is affirmed of the
athletic exercises at Yale that " the sight of men attending to their physi-
cal development and being according to laws and rules, acts upon the
college world to encourage regularity of life, and obedience to authority."
I once succeeded in introducing into college open air military drill (peace
man, as I am) and, speedily, deportment in recitation and chapel improved,
docility increased, the meaning of law and authority was better under-
stood. I am pretty certain no warlike spirit was engendered. I am
absolutely sure these good results were worth all the cost of the manual
of arms (without arms for the most part), Mr. Blake well says that,
'* Nature looks after the mechanic's thoroughness and takes him in hand
to produce a splendid instance of that half-mental, half-moral excellence
called precision." "A hand- workman is driven to precision by the very
nature of his occupation." I often wish I could drill a class in psychology
or logic, or ethics for a while in that way. The kindergarten has made
object lessons in metaphysics and linguistics in history and political
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MANUAL EDUCATION FROM THE OTHER SIDE. 491
science, possible and intelligible. Before its day what is mistakingly
called illustration (and is exemplification) was less common in the higher
studies than now. The real primary revolution we are seeing is in labor
rather than in education. That has been divorced from this more than
this from that. Labor has begun to go to school, and therefore the school
cannot be just what it was. It asks of education now : What shall my
future be ? This new affiliation dignifies labor in the special schools as in
venerable universities thought and genius have been dignified of old. The
outer universe is brought to honor when the study of it takes place beside
that of the universe within, and benefits reciprocally that which honors it.
Gretting so much nearer as teachers and pupils to a neglected domain of
reality we get nearer to all reality — would I could say that the outer
domain, more than the inner one has done, suggests the resplendent
Reality of Realities behind them both, that the lower cosmos to which
our eyes are opening teaches us of Him what the microcosm fails to teach.
The very basis of some studies is unquestionably better laid in the light
of man's relations to the material world — e. g., that of political economy
and social science, — not tethered to documents as history is, but so largely
connected with our physical activities as to be in danger of neglecting
what is intellectual and moral. This general influence in coming from
the side opposite to the bookish side of education, is touching and shap-
ing both matter and method.
7. It seems to be thoroughly well settled that it is manual education
only as education wliich is under discussion, and not as preparation for
money making vocations. The latter is a part of the general subject of
manual training, but not of this particular branch of it. Each opponent
of it lays his blows on applied technics or trade and handicraft training
at the charge of the state, and each champion — save those on " the other
side " — elaborates the distinction between this and instruction in the
general elements. Would it not save time and breath and paper and ink
to agree, all round, that this distinction is now established, and may be
silently assumed ? The great trades may have as much right to their
specific lines of training being done at public expense, out of our taxation,
as the great professions ; but this does not prove such a right for either.
Between educators and managers of productive industry the question of
this or that trade discipline as related to previous elementary discipline
remains to be discussed, but not between educators themselves. The
principles common to all pursuits that add form and use to raw matter,
the qualities of materials employed in common in so many of the arts,
and the fundamental forms of tools employed in all can surely be discrim-
inated from the advanced processes followed up, after these are mastered,
in an apprenticeship school. And the disclaimer from the educators of
hand and brain jointly must be accepted by their opponents : " Our object
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92 THE NATIONAL EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION.
is to make men, not mechanics," they say. *' Industrial results will
follow, but they will take care of themselves." The most one-sided
classicist or metaphysician ought to be thankful if they do I and his own
life be so made better " worth living." Why should there be misrepre-
sentation or misunderstanding here, where mutual justice is so obvious
and so easy? Even Mr. Huxley says : " The preparatory education of the
handicraftsman ought to have nothing of what is ordinarily understood
by technical about it." Turning schools into shops, or emptying shops
into schools is one thing; attaching laboratories to schools is quite
another. Let us be fair. Tha question is not : What gives the readiest
and best command of all human powers, related and unrelated to matter,
for all, with their special aptitudes, to every extent, but to a certain ex-
tent. For one's aptitudes after a while subordinate all the common meas-
ures of faculty, common to him and all others, I mean to themselves. The
man becomes the mechanic, the author, the teacher, the statesman, or
what not. But before all this, what can book education or hand educa-
tion do severally and jointly for him ? is the question.
8. In all this, woman, it is settled, is to share equitably, is she not,
with man ? Whether in co-education, joint education, or separate, other
things must decide. She has a pair of hands, with the senses and intel-
lectual gifts necessai-y to use and skill. That is enough for the equity.
For some pursuits she has vastly more industrial and artistic dexterity
than man. For object lesson and kindergarten work she has largely more
talent and tact. But the necessity of using hands and eyes in carrying
on civilization and securing a livelihood, — more difficult to her in a com-
plex and crowded society as well as more difficult to man, — carries with
it the necessity of her learning to use them, and of being taught the best
way. It is of no use to mourn that the angel of the house most hereafter
live in, so many instances, a dustily and noisily industrial age ; all we
can do is to look after the equities in it, to which she is entitled. Fortu-
nately, the higher education of woman came in before the higher educa-
tion of the hand, and it is settled that the latter cannot now neglect the
former. But it still remains that in girls' schools for manual training—
(where there cannot be co-education, or even joint education, in certain
methods), the distinct aptitudes and needs of woman be equitably re-
spected, and her training shaped to these. And we must have the greater
grace her teaching always gives.
Perhaps no more points than these, if so many, can be propounded as
fairly, or in good measure, settled. If they have been impartially stated,
and received, we need not shrink from going on a little farther, with
others not settled, and certain considerations that bear upon them.
(a) Will any of you, gentlemen of this Division, object to my saying
that in respect to influence upon health the l^lance is not yet struck?
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MANUAL EDUCATION FROM THE OTHER SIDE. 493
There are the well certified facts of improved physique in the laboratories
for founding, forging, machine making, turning, tool-making, carpentry, etc.
And there are the liabilities to peculiar nervous strain connected with so
much muscular action and observation of material objects. But all our
over-activities disclose tendencies towards insane conditions of mind. Ko
one knows enough yet to assert that these connected with the arts do
more than others. The common antidote for them all is to distribute
the activities and the pressure among more persons and to lighten by
diversifying those of each individual. Better manual training and better
intellectual culture with it for the young workman will prove his safety.
Transitions from nerve to nerve, muscle to muscle, faculty to faculty, aref,
rather than idleness, as a rule, wholesome. Any way, we must educate for
every new art that arises. We cannot help ourselves in this hurricane of
civilization. If an art is unhealthy, more must engage in it, and for fewer
hours per day, or improve the processes so as to relieve exposure. It is
precisely in the school that remedies needed here must be applied. Let
the schools, then, see to it. I am reluctant to introduce a mere opinion
or expectation in place of a fact or a reason, but I am confident that in
any grade of schools in which tool practice is introduced, its healthfulness
as a gymnastic will outweigh all liabilities to the contrary.
(b) You will readily consent to my adding that the question, how early
in a child's school life this should be introduced is not yet determined.
Some insist that this shall be done before manual education shall be
admitted at all. But it is commonly easier to see clearly thft a place
must be made for some in^provement than to see what that place shall be.
So is it here. It is almost a quarter of a century since the veteran Gkorge
B. Emerson sent the inquiry to the fourth meeting of this Association,
held at Chicago : — " Ought not the knowledge of the mechanical powers
and their important applications and principles to be made known as
early as possible to every child ? " The question has never yet been
answered in the negative, and now it cannot be. That early time is the
very time for mastering all the elements that are to be of lifelong neces-
sity, together. Prove that any are not of such necessity, and their acqui-
sition may be postponed till a later period. But not otherwise. There is
a flexibility of mental endowment which is far more precious than that of
muscle and finger which goes along with it and is the outward correlate,
perhaps sign of it. Better than to complain of parrot acquisitions and
memorizing without thought, is to forestall them. Do not claim too
much and too sweepingly for the use of mechanical tools as stimulating
mind, i. e., all mind — one boy is not another, nor each child as every other —
but show, as you easily can, that an elementary acquaintance with the
typical and common forms of the handling of matter by implements,
belongs among the primary branches, next after kindergarten practice,
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494 THE NATIONAL EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION.
and not among those of the year before graduation from college. Alike
to ornamental and to useful art this applies, and what is more to that fine
blending of them made so illustrious in the past by the famous workers
in iron. It must do so, from the first, if we are to discover and fitly
develop and utilize for society the choicest aptitudes of each generation
and discover the choicest in each child to himself. You might leave a
great inventive and constructive genius like that of George H. Corliss,
uninterested in engines till he comes to man's estate, as he was : some-
time he will find out what God has made him for, — perhaps too late for
so splendid a career as that of the great master of his art at Providence,
but our age imperatively needs a countless multitude of those who are
not geniuses, who must have spur and cheer at the entrances to the arts
before their young force is set in some other direction where nothing
awaits them but waste of time and faculty and failure in life. That the
whole spirit, soul, and body God gives a child should be wrought to
profit of all sorts from earliest days was the primitive " Teaching of the
Apostles " of Education. Primary development of the mind by the
hand and the hand by the mind is but this teaching " writ large."
(c) And shall we not agree that for us the question of manual training
has become one of adjustment ? First, to secure equity between those
elements of instruction which have always favored classical courses
exclusively and led our pupils into them, if they took any course at all,
and the new elements that point to active pursuits. Here the best way
of adjustment in detail must be found by experts. I doubt as to any one
best way, however, being thoroughly persuaded from much experience in
other curricula that the adjustment of the elements everywhere must be
flexible to local wants and resources, and to developments of industry and
scientific progress. Second, adjustment between the common aptitudes
and wants of all pupils and the special ones of some. It being conceded
that we must have the advanced applications of science taught, that in a
land more than one-fifth of whose school children are to live by labor,
the schools must not spoil them for it, nor spoil others for other pursuits,
and that we cannot have the advanced teaching drill without the primary
instruction, the great problem is : What modicum of this last shall be
given in elementary schools ? It is not a month since Sir Lyon Playfair
said in the House of Commons, of the elementary schools of England,
"The pressure for technical instruction is becoming irresistible." How
many months will it be ere in some one of our states, in accordance
with our non-national systems, a superintendent of Public Instruction
shall say the same ? I assume, then, that manual training is to go
into our public primary schools, the unsettled question being where?
when ? how ? Institutes iu vacation instead would answer no better the
wide, unfeasy want that is felt, than summer teachers' institutes would
meet the want of normal work all the school year round.
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MANUAL EDUCATION FROM THE OTHER SIDE. 495
And why not into all our public schools ? The economical reasons for
it are increasing ; but the disciplinary ones are what they always have
been, for no man can successfully deny that valuable developments of
mind and character are peculiar to skilled labor. But even the econom-
ical value of the results depends largely — many will say mostly — upon
what it achieves for mind as discipline. Mr. Huxley told the Working
Men's Club of London that, " success in any kind of practical life is not
dependent solely, or indeed chiefly, upon knowledge." Wherever our
skilled laborers and managers of large establishments of skilled laborers
are to be fitted for the astoundingly busy future that is before them, this
is not to be disregarded. Out of what schools, then, must come most of
these, if not out of our public schools ? Does public policy, or equity, to
say nothing of the discontent already bred in dangerous days and ways
among workmen who cannot afford their children the tuition of private
schools of science and art, allow the common want of hand practice to be
ignored ? Hear the question of the Deputy Superintendent of San Fran-
cisco : " Is it proper that a public school, an institution belonging to the
entire people, should prepare over sixty per cent, of its students to play
gentleman ? '' Overlook the sharp edge of the query, if you please, but not
its purport. The tasks men have in new and forming states make them
appreciate labor and despise a life of idle ease. What shall conform to
the general wants of the community if a common school does not ? What
equity toward the masses until the beginnings of skilled labor are brought
into it ? All over the land the workshop and the factory must spread,
especially all over these great Interior States, lying so near both to the
coal measures and the iron mines, — i. e., to the metal which gives man
chief command of the earth, and to the fuel which gives him chief com-
mand of the metal. Political economy cannot omit any education which
relates to the order and prosperity of the state ; I share in the deepest
wonder any of you feel that it has done so as long as it has. The common
school can harm no literary man by practicing him in the use of the common
tools ; he will need it all his life, as he will need the physical vigor gained
in his school days. Indeed, a talent for mechanical work is more common
than a talent for literary work ; and there are more children that cannot
master a respectable amount of orthography than there are who cannot
acquire a respectable amount of tool practice ; more that can learn me-
chanical drawing decently well, than there are who can learn penmanship
decently well ! I have for years marvelled that all primary instruction
does not put the drawing first in point of time. Of this part of the land at
least, in the heart of whose glorious breadth of natural resources and un-
imagined wealth of material we meet, the engineers and the wood-aud-iron
workers and builders shall never have that said of them which the great-
eat of Prime Ministers said of those who are famous in England, " These
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496 TEE NATIONAL EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION,
men bad no mechanioe' institutes, no libraries, no classes, no examinations
to cheer them on their way."
In arguing thus, for elementary manual education in all elementary
schools, I am simply arguing for what is best for all children, not for
what is profitable or necessary for a few who have exceptional gifts for
industrial pursuits. Mr. Huxley says that " the most important object of
all educational schemes is to catch these exceptional people, and turn
them to account for the good of society." Most earnestly I demur. Mr.
Huxley confounds the object of some educational schemes with those of
all ; he confounds the special aim of special schools with the common
aim of common schools. For the development of extraordinary genius to
the "top of its bent," the common school was never invented, but for that of
something far commoner, common sense. The mechanical geniuses, like
the literary ones, are rare and exceptional, whether Mr. Gatton's estimate,
1 in 4000 attains distinction, 1 in 1,000,000 exhibits genius, is exact or
not. We are not to forget that mechanics' sons do not all inherit a tal-
ent for mechanics, nor authors' sons for authorship, nor sons of profes-
sional men for professional life. Some of the latter are born machinists,
inventors, builders ; some of the former are born doctors, jurists, or
preachers. The public education at the start can give only a start in gen-
eral training; but it should be truly and fairly general, and without the
manual fundamentals it is not. As to practice then, in with high school
laboratories and primary ones respectively, I judge that in the latter it
should be required, in the former optional, giving due play to the bent of
individual natures. And with existing tendencies, among professional
men for example, to send their children to private schools, and their