374 



SCIEN'CjE!. 



[Vol. IX., No. 219 



with wood, iron, steel, brass, zinc, lead, with 

 plane, saw, lathe, hammer, forge, cannot fail to 

 arouse and stimulate a boy's mental faculties. 

 The high-school boy's knowledge of the laws, 

 powers, and capabilities of modern machinery is 

 nothing. To him this is a terra incognita. Men- 

 tal power is needed to understand a steam-engine, 

 as it is needed to analyze a sentence. If the boy 

 has read three books of Caesar instead of four, 

 but in place of the fourth book, ' De bello Gallico,' 

 is able to describe the working of every part of a 

 Corliss engine, he has not lost mental power by 

 substituting the study of the modern giant for 

 the study of Caesar's bridge. Three years in a 

 training-school undoubtedly fit a boy to grapple 

 with the problems of life better than three years 

 in the high school. In Baltimore, Philadelphia, 

 and Toledo it will be shown that three year^ in 

 a high school with manual training give a boy a 

 better start in life than three years in a high 

 school without manual training. 



It is the belief of many that elementary educa- 

 tion should include nothing except a purely intel- 

 lectual training (with, perhaps, some attention to 

 morals and practical hygiene) ; and that the 

 school, certainly the public school below the uni- 

 versity, has no concern with the trade, business, 

 or profession which the child may follow in 

 after life ; and that the public school would be 

 guilty of leaving its true sphere should it give the 

 child any bias whatsoever to any calling. The 

 position is also taken, that, whatever may be his 

 future vocation, this training of the intellect is 

 the best possible prejDaration which the child can 

 have. 



No word of ours shall ever be quoted derogatory 

 to the highest intellectual culture for all men and 

 for all women. This age has justly been called the 

 age of iron, of steel, of steam, of electricity. But 

 it is the age of steel, steam, and electricity because 

 it is pre-eminently the age of brains. Any educa- 

 tion that neglects intellectual culture, or makes 

 it secondary to any physical training, is an edu- 

 cation to be condemned and avoided. A republic 

 should have no proletariat. The education advo- 

 cated by this paper recognizes the culture of the 

 mental and moral faculties as essential to, nay, as 

 the foundation of, the highest development of the 

 individual, whether artisan or artist, ploughboy or 

 president. It would not abandon, but would, if 

 possible, elevate the high American ideal which 

 would lead every child into the pleasant and 

 fruitful fields of literature and science. But it 

 recognizes the fact that in his present state of ex- 

 istence the boy has a body as well as a mind ; 

 and it protests against the mediaeval doctrine 

 that the highest culture of the intellect is obtained 



by the mortification or neglect of the physical 

 nature. On the contrary, it asserts that the con- 

 nection of mind and body, however that mysteri- 

 ous union is effected, is such that the proper train- 

 ing of each is essential to the highest development 

 of the other. 



The first great object of education is prepara- 

 tion for the battle of life. To the great mass of 

 mankind this must always be the primary, if not 

 the sole, object of education. The great majority 

 of children leave school at a very early age, aver- 

 aging probably thirteen years. Many of these 

 children leave school to assist at once in the sup- 

 port of the family ; many others to obtain some 

 education, not found in the public school, which 

 shall fit them to earn an honest living. 



Every year there is need of a large addition to 

 the number of skilled mechanics. Where is the 

 boy to learn the elements of artisanship, unless in 

 school ? Some one has said with, it is to be hoped, 

 large exaggeration, that in America a trade can 

 be learned nowhere except in jail. Why not teach 

 in school the elements of carpentry as well as the 

 elements of book-keeping ? Why bias the boy in 

 the direction of an accountant's life, and not in 

 the direction of house-building or cabinet-making? 

 Is the one art more essential than the other ? 



A boy can be taught in school the use of a 

 plane as well as the use of a pen, the use of the 

 lathe as well as the use of the lexicon. He can be 

 taught the use of tools scientifically better than 

 the 'rule of tliumb.' He can be taught by a 

 skilled mechanic who is also a skilled teacher, in 

 less time than by a skilled mechanic who is not a 

 teacher. Teaching is an art, and the highest 

 success in it demands more than the simple 

 knowledge of the matter to be taught. 



There are in the public schools of the United 

 States more than ten millions of children. We 

 develop their brain power, we let their hand 

 power lie inactive. It is no exaggeration to say 

 that of these ten millions, soon to become men and 

 women, two and a half millions must support 

 themselves by the labor of their hands. What 

 are the public schools doing to train these hands ? 



Say what we will, the old Greek was right : 

 " Teach the boy what the man will need." For a 

 nation of horsemen and warriors the ancient 

 Persian education was admirable : to ride, to 

 shoot, and to speak the truth. 



It is a remarkable fact — no, it is not a remark- 

 able but a very suggestive fact — that the Ameri- 

 can Indian is taught, in the schools of the Ameri- 

 can missionary society, exactly what he needs to 

 make him a self-supporting, self-reliant, upright 

 man. The foundation of his scholastic training 

 includes four R's, the fourth being religion. These 



