372 



SCIJEJIirCE. 



[Vol. IX., No. 219 



instnaraent at command, and trusting to the 

 younger generation to work out for themselves a 

 more truly rational system. He would encourage 

 the friends of the league to continue to extend 

 their work, if not for others, for their own sake. 

 His experience was, that to give a course of 

 lectures was to go through a course of self- 

 education. To lecture was to undertake a very 

 solemn and trying task. It was to lay one's self 

 bare to view, and to ask one's fellow-citizens to 

 judge whether one's education had been of any 

 good worth speaking of. He trusted that with 

 them it would be found that the attempt to 

 teach others proved their own best education. 



MANUAL TRAINING AND PUBLIC EDU- 

 CATION.' 



" The public school," said John Quincy Adams, 

 " is one of the four pillars of the state." It is 

 firmly intrenched in the heart of every loyal citi- 

 zen. It is always on the side of good order and 

 of good morals. The man who has ventured to 

 suggest any important change in the public-school 

 system has been suspected of weakness in his 

 head, or dishonesty in his heart. But here is a 

 radical change from the public school of Horace 

 Mann, of Daniel Vfebster, and of the host of other 

 worthies who have either aided in its establish- 

 ment, or have been grateful partakers of its bene- 

 fits. It is only reasonable to ask. Why this change 

 in the system to which a large part of the pros- 

 perity of the country is undoubtedly owing? 

 Why add to the geometry and philosophy which 

 have descended to those quiet halls from the aca- 

 demic groves of Athens ? Why add to the poems 

 of Virgil and the orations of Demosthenes, the 

 tool of the mechanic and the whir of modern 

 machinery ? 



As an instrument of culture, — for it was 

 Emerson who said "a man should have a farm, 

 or a mechanical craft for his culture," — the man- 

 ual-training department of the public school was 

 unnecessary a hundred years ago. As a means of 

 teaching the mechanical arts, it would even then 

 have been an improvement on the apprentice sys- 

 tem, although tlie apprentice then occupied a very 

 different position in the shop of the master. But 

 the New England boy of the olden time, like 

 many a country boy of the present day, had a 

 manual training outside of his school. The Yan- 

 kee knack at turning one's hand to almost any 

 thing has become proverbial. The mechanical in- 

 genuity of the New-Englander is to be attributed 

 only in part to his literary training. In the early 

 New England life, and in the New England vil- 

 lages in which the pristine habits are preserved, 

 1 From the Industrial world and iron-worker. 



John Fiske remarks, " The universality of literary 

 culture is as remarkable as the freedom with 

 which all persons engage in manual labor." — 

 " The stony and somewhat sterile lands of New 

 England," says the Englishman Mather in his late 

 report to the British parliament, " require intense 

 activity, industry and skill on the part of the 

 farmer, to make a living. As hired labor is very 

 dear, he depends on his own household for help. 

 Every kind of work has to be done at home. 

 Blacksmith's, wheelwright's, machinist's, carpen- 

 ter's, and hydraulic work becomes as familiar to 

 the farmer, in a rough and ready way, as f)lough- 

 ing, tilling, sowing, and reaping. All handi- 

 crafts, in a greater or less degree, are acquired. 

 The farmer's boy is thus provided with an indus- 

 trial training of the best kind in and around his 

 home. His wits are sharpened, his perceptions 

 developed. There is a large field for the immedi- 

 ate application of knowledge acquired at schoc)l, 

 on the one hand ; on the other, the school exer- 

 cises and lessons are more readily understood by a 

 boy or girl having in daily life to deal directly 

 with natural forces and laws. These district 

 schools, holding only twenty weeks in the year, 

 associated as they are with agricultural and me- 

 chanical occupations, produce better results, as a 

 whole, among the artisan classes, than the city 

 schools, the attendance at which is for the entire 

 school-year of forty weeks. My attention has 

 been drawn to this fact by many employers and 

 educationists, and it has been confirmed by my 

 own observations. It suggests the importance of 

 introducing into the elementary public schools of 

 cities some industrial training. ' Our brightest 

 boys come from the country,' is a phrase which 

 has become very familiar to me in America." 



Such are the observations and conclusions of 

 Mr. Mather. That they are true cannot be de- 

 nied ; and since they are true, the reason and the 

 wisdom of this new departure become apparent. 



The influence of physical vigor and manual 

 skill in developing sterling character is nothing 

 new. In the virile days of Rome, when " to be a 

 Roman was greater than to be a king," there was 

 a remarkable resemblance to the early New Eng- 

 land life. 



"The oldest lays of Rome," says Mommsen, 

 " celebrated not only the mighty war-god Mamers, 

 but also the skilled armorer Mamurius.'" "The 

 Roman boy, like every farmer's son, learned to 

 manage horses and wagon, and to handle the 

 hunting spear." " In the earliest Rome the arts 

 of forging and wielding the ploughshare and the 

 sword went hand in hand, and there was nothing 

 of that arrogant contempt for handicraft which 

 was afterward met with there." 



