634 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the plan of the school and of its practical working ; and, as the system 

 has been in operation nearly eight years with the most gratifying re- 

 sults, it may not, perhaps, be found a difficult task to estimate what 

 effect, if any, such teachings, if generally introduced, are likely to pro- 

 duce in the condition of outcast children. 



The system may be said to be original, since it is not founded upon 

 any other known to exist. It is best adapted to a country where re- 

 pjublican ideas prevail, and where, as in the United States, the political 

 equality of the whole people is the fundamental principle of govern- 

 ment. The underlying principle of the system, and one which it is 

 sought to impress upon the minds of the' little workingmen is, that all 

 labor is honorable, and that greater dignity should attach to hand- 

 labor. The managers maintain, and few will be found to dissent from 

 the opinion, that the most effective means of raising the dignity of 

 hand-labor is by improving the condition of the workman ; educating 

 him in his calling, making him self-reliant, original, progressive ; and 

 to this end they bend all their energies. 



It may not at once appear how hand-labor is dignified by making 

 expert artisans of children plucked from the streets. But it should 

 be remembered that in this country there is no class distinction : men 

 may rise as far as their abilities will take them ; the lowest in origin 

 may aspire to the loftiest position, with none to ask them whence they 

 came. 



Unlike the industrial school, no age is fixed upon for entrance into 

 the Workingman's School. That period of a child's life at which it 

 breaks things in order to see what makes them go has been selected 

 as the best time to begin to instruct its mind and direct its hands. In 

 the industrial school certain trades are taught ; youth is forced to look 

 upon the stern realities of life, the coming struggle for bread, and to 

 fix upon particular vocations ere yet the natural preferences are suffi- 

 ciently developed to enable it to do so. When the course is com- 

 pleted, there is no time to change ; the daily bread must be won, and 

 thus it not unfrequently happens that he who would, perhaps, have 

 been successful as a decorator, proves but an indifferent carpenter ; and 

 one who could easily have earned a competence as a mason is forced 

 to eke out a scanty livelihood as a molder, a locksmith, or perhaps a 

 brass-finisher. In the Workingman's School, though all the principal 

 trades are represented, no effort is made to incline the little working- 

 men to the one or to the other. 



Again, in the public school from which many of these little fellows 

 are deserters, no allowance is made for the grades of intellect or rather 

 for the various conditions of intellectual development. It is a ponder- 

 ous educational machine, in which a certain amount of raw material 

 being put in at one end will, in a given time, be passed out at the 

 other in a more or less finished condition. The bright subjects, al- 

 ways in the minority, are, no doubt, much benefited ; the others, upon 



