102 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



smith's shop, to make and to mend everything that belongs to a ship, 

 to be consi< erate, gentlemanly, orderly, to command themselves and 

 others, to obey, to love their country's flag, and to die for it without a 

 murmur, to go down with the ship, if need be — all this while they 

 learn everything thai is required in literature and science, for an 

 education of the firsl class. 



And must one be a soldier, or a sailor, to be thus furnished for his 

 country's service, for his own service in the industrial state? Shall 

 a man he trained in all manliness to walk the quarter-deck, worthy 

 of all obedience because he understands what he requires, and has 

 himself performed, not once, but a thousand times, all that he exacts 

 from subordinates ; and may he not have an equal training for the 

 post of foreman in a mechanic's shop, for the management of his own 

 broad acres, and the laborers he requires to cultivate them? Do you 

 suppose they would put a man in charge of the Naval Academy, or 

 tolerate a single professor in West Point, who thought practical edu- 

 cation in war and navigation would prove "a failure" — was, at best, 

 a doubtful experiment ? Xo : that isn't the way they manage. Those 

 old admirals and army officers are seamen and soldiers through and 

 through, from boots to buttons; they believe in their business. The 

 men who lead in industrial education must believe in it also. 



The kind of education wanted to-day is not that which has passed 

 current, and which has proved a dead failure in making a genera- 

 tion of nobler youth, stronger in body, clearer in mind, and firmer 

 in conscience, than the half-schooled frontier gave us a hundred 

 years ago. Don't take this on my authority, but look through the 

 Governors' messages and State Superintendents' reports. Why, only 

 last year the Education Committee of the Massachusetts Legislature 

 said: "The public school system of Massachusetts fails to meet the 

 demands of modern civilization." Why, and how? Civilization 

 now demands skilled, intelligent labor; and as Scott Russell says: 

 " Occupations which require no skill, but only brute force, will neci s- 

 sarily be vacated by human hands." The substitution of steam 

 culture for hand labor has throw thousands of English workmen out 

 of employment. 



"Society, in the march of improvement, is as certain to do without 

 the unskilled, the unintelligent, and the uneducated, as it is to do 

 without wild plants and animals. Nor will the laws be unjust which 

 forbid those who cannot create their food to subsist on the labor of 

 others." 



Governor Ilartranft, of Pennsylvania, calls attention to the scarcity 

 of skilled labor in that State, and says, that although ten million 

 dollars are annually expended for education, none of the children 

 who complete their terms in the public schools have any special fit- 

 ness for trade, and few become artisans, lie recommends schools 

 where boys can be instructed in trades, and urges compulsory educa- 

 tion. I might amplify this testimony almost indefinitely, but I turn 

 to other aspects of the question. 



T am not one of those who think a thing must be good because it 

 i- baldheaded with antiquity. Education is essentially conservative. 

 You cannot make a move in the way of improvemenl without dis- 

 turbing somebody, and we shall have to disturb a good many people 

 sitting in comfortable chairs before we get our educational stream to 

 turning mills and grinding corn. 



While I do not think that bodily labor is especially desirable for 



