THE SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION OF MECHANICS AND ARTISANS. 



AN ADDEESS DELIVERED AT TPIE ANNUAL COMMENCEMENT OF THE 

 WORCESTER (MASSACHUSETTS) FREE INSTITUTE OF INDUSTRIAL SCI 

 ENCE, JULY 31, 1872.* 



By Professor Andrew F. Peabody, of Harvard College. 



Many years ago there was a strong feeling throughout New England 

 in behalf of manual-labor schools (so-called.) I think I am right in 

 saying that the experiment, wherever tried, failed. The reasons are 

 obvious. The labor was not skilled labor, and therefore gave no mental 

 revenue, and very low wages. It was merely a clumsy endeavor to 

 enable poor young men to pay by the least remunerative kinds of work 

 for their board and tuition at a half time school. The hand-labor not 

 only taught them nothing, but stupified those of them for whom that 

 work remained to be wrought. Most of them, however, started with 

 not a very large or active brain-capital; for so slow and limping a gait 

 had few attractions for youth of genius or ability. 



This institution is at the broadest remove from those, in theory and 

 in practice. Its name so implies. It is an institute of industrial science. 

 Its labor is brain-work ; its machine-shop is a recitation-room ; its me 

 chanical processes correspond to the collegian's drawings on the black 

 board ; its finished products, to his corrected and approved diagrams. 

 Its object is to train liberally educated mechanics and artisans — men 

 who shall start in life with progressive ideas and the power of rapid 

 self-advancement ; who shall diifuse intelligence while they create 

 values ; who shall adorn as men the society which they enrich as opera- 

 tives ; who shall have, independently of their callings, a selfhood im- 

 measurably more precious and more honorable. 



In addressing the students, graduates, and friends of this institution, 

 I have chosen for my subject the worth of an extended education to 

 mechanics and artisans. 



Suffer me to begin with the lowest consideration, that of money's 

 worth — the lowest as it is commonly called, yet by no means to be 

 despised ; for though we have the best authority for saying that ''the 

 love of money is the root of all evil," this lov^e and the sordid qualities 

 which it implies and engenders are, I think, oftener produced by pinch- 



* Furnished by the author for publication by the Smithsouian lustitutiou, at its 

 special request. 



