240 Education as a Factor in Civilization. 



time, governed by the law of development which produces 

 the planet from the star-dust and controls the motion of 

 the rolling spheres. 



Horace Mann declares that, " as an innovation upon all 

 pre-existing policy and usage, the establishment of free 

 schools was the boldest ever promulgated since the Chris- 

 tian era," convincing words if we realize all that such 

 establishment implied* the most practical recognition of 

 the brotherhood of man that could have followed the utter- 

 ance of the doctrine by the Great Teacher of the world. 

 Less than two centuries ago no system of free schools was 

 maintained anywhere on earth. To-day there is no civil- 

 ized country on the face of the globe which does not possess 

 some of its advantages. "VVe can almost forgive John Cal- 

 vin for his theology in realizing our indebtedness to him 

 for the common-school system. By Martin Luther it was 

 introduced into Germany ; by John Knox into Scotland ; 

 and, crossing the ocean in the tempest-tossed Mayflower, 

 set firm foot upon Plymouth Rock. The school, once 

 killed by the church, was years after re-created by tlie 

 same poAver grown through evolution wiser in its policy, 

 broader in its views and aims. 



One of the most important variations now proposed 

 in connection with the public-school system is the incor- 

 poration in the course of study of manual, industrial, or 

 technical training. This new departure, known by all 

 these names, meets with opposition only from the few fright- 

 ened spirits who persist in looking upon it as an attempt to 

 substitute the labors of the workshop for the legitimate 

 intellectual training of the school. Properly it has refer- 

 ence only to education in its most comprehensive sense; 

 the addition of practice to theory, experiment to observa- 

 tion, the correct eye and skilful hand to the developed 

 brain, that the youth graduated from our schools shall 

 be fitted not only for clerkships and professions, as is now 

 the case, but for the skilled labor which the world so sorely 

 needs. This idea, though considered so new a thing 

 under the sun, was most eloquently advocated by Locke and 

 Lutlier, and in our own country, two hundred years ago, by 

 a Quaker honored be liis memory Thomas Budd of Bur- 

 lington, New Jersey. But the wisdom of the idea is not 

 yet practically recognized to any great extent, though 

 wherever the experiment has been tried it has proved suc- 

 cessful. 



