INDUSTRIAL EDTJCATIOX. 137 



are to prepare men to be law and theological stiirlents than to be 

 farmers or mechanics. It is these bi'anches of manual labor that 

 most of the boys are to go into, but their schooling does not teach 

 them how to use their hands and muscles, but rather their brains. 



Our public school system would be practically perfect, provided 

 all the pupils were going to be clergymen, lawyers, doctors, or 

 teachers. Indeed, the village schools under ray own observation 

 seem to aim mainly at turning out school teachers. Every girl, at 

 least, who graduates, tries immediately to get a school, for her 

 training has exactly fitted her to earn her living in just that and 

 no other way. No wonder teachers wages are low, when the num- 

 ber of teachers is thus continually increased. 



In view of this lowness of wages, as well as the pressing demand 

 for skilled workers in many other fields, it seems to me that some- 

 thing might be done in our public schools to fit pupils to earn 

 their living in other ways. If our schools are merely goisig to ed- 

 ucate teachers, and these to educate still other teachers, the whole 

 system mig!::t be compared to a grist mill, of which the wheel is so 

 large and the stones so hea^y that the force of the stream is spent 

 in turning them around, without grinding any grist. 



Even if the aims of the public school are legitimate enough, there 

 seems to me much room for improvement in the choice of means. 

 Let me quote from Dr. Bartol, who says; " He that can sketch an 

 objct with a pencil understands it better than he who recites all 

 its titles in the epoch of every tribe under the sun. 



Possibly we have yet to learn what education is beyond a series 

 of tasks in sentences and raathemitical figures. Was Horatio 

 Greenough educated, when glued to the bench for a Latin recita- 

 tion, or loath to demonstrate the sum of degrees in a triangle, and 

 not vt'hen he picked up a piece of plaster in the streets to carve the 

 head of a Roman Emperor? 



Michelet says a man always clears his mind by doing some- 

 thing with his hands. The poor girl goes to school with the rich, 

 and learns to scorn her mother who cannot read, to envy her 

 mates' costlier dress, and to steer for means of like adornment 

 into temptation in the course of study. The education is a curse 

 that puts notions'into her head but no skill into her hand. Taught 

 to create value, she would disown the tempter." (Rising Faith, p. 

 177.) 



