Class Book. / /^ i/^/ GopiyriglitN „ IHI? COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. Industrial (and) Vocational Education Universal (Sn3 Self Sustaining (Pagan versus Christian Civilizations) By^ S. H; COMINGS SECOND EDITION Revision ^iiS Supplement by Mrs. S. H. (Lydia J. Newcomb) Comings 7(R!ST0PjfEI( PUBUSHING HOUSE BOSTON Copyright, igis By The Christopher Pubi,ishing House AUG 12 1915 / t iCI,A410088 Dedicated TO ALL WHO WOULD SEE THE SUPREME AMBITION OF OUR CIVILIZATION TURNED FROM THE EFFORT TO DEVELOP THINGS, TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE HIGH- EST POSSIBLE AVERAGE TYPE OF MANHOOD AND WOMANHOOD; AND TO ALL WHO WOULD SEE LABOR SPIRITUALIZED, AND MAN's CREATIVE ATTRIBUTE CHANGED FROM THE IDEAL OF DEGRADATION TO THAT OF COMMUNION WITH EACH OTHER, AND WITH THE INFINITE. Introduction to Second Edition I HAVE been asked to write an introduction to this reprint of Mr. Comings' little book on In- dustrial Education. I do so very willingly. In the first place, I had the pleasure of knowing Mr. Comings personally, and the discrimination to esteem him very highly. Through a certain community in our educational ideas Mr. Comings was moved to write to me and later to invite me to visit him at Fair- hope. This must have been at least eight years ago, that is to say, in 1907. In November of that year I found it possible to accept the invitation. I spent a happy week with Mr. and Mrs. Comings at The Gables. The visit was timely — a little later, and my host would not have been there to welcome me, and the opportunity of knowing him would have been lost. As it was, his health was already failing. But his mind was alert, and his interest in the possibility of self-supporting industrial schools and colleges was eager and intelligent. And the visit was timely for a second reason. During the week of my visit, Mrs. Johnson began the Organic School. She had only three pupils, if I remember rightly, but her equip- ment was superb — it consisted of all outdoors ! And in the second place, my willingness to write springs from the fact that with Mr. Comings' major thesis, that self-supporting institutions are vastly more desirable than endowed institutions, I so heart- 8 INTRODUCTION ily agree. Given the choice, I should hardly have used his title, Pagan versus Christian Civilizations, for it seems to me unduly to indict the one, and quite as unduly to overpraise the other. I recall, as every student must, the cheer and courage so freely given by many a sturdy old pagan writer. But the contrast which he implies, as between industrial exploitation on the one hand, and a moral bread-labor on the other, seems to me very well taken. It marks a gen- uine and just distinction. It is the charge which socialism brings against every capitalistic order. In turning to Mr. Comings' little book, the reader must value it for what it is, and must not allow him- self to dwell upon what it is not. It is not, for exam- ple, systematic. It could not easily claim to be well arranged. It is all too full of repetitions. The lit- erary style is not always good. But when all these defects have been freely admitted, it still remains true that the book has a vital message and that it is well worth reading. In advocating Industrial Education, Mr. Comings kept always in mind the sane injunction that those who work should think and those who think should work. It is in this union of action and thought that moral health resides. He advocated such an educa- tion not alone on the utilitarian ground that every man should be prepared to earn his own living, but on the larger and more immediate ground that hand INTRODUCTION 9 work is itself an integral part of any true education, and that only by making education self-supporting can it be made universal and can the burden of its support be lifted from the bent shoulders of those whose labors now make educational endowments profitable. Mr. Comings was not averse to endow- ments of a wholesome sort, but to be wholesome he felt that the endowment should be spent in creating a practical industrial plant through whose operation the students could earn their own living, rather than that the endowment should be hoarded in the shape of dividend-paying investments. And he urged this more immediate use of educational funds because, as I have said, he had the insight to see that young peo* pie are not truly educated unless they are taught to combine purposeful activity with constructive thought; and because he had the humanity to realize that it is a very unideal arrangement to educate one set of people while another exploited set unwillingly pays the bills. I am not sure that Mr. Comings would have called himself a socialist, or even, though he lived in Fairhope, a single-taxer, but I am very sure that his educational teaching is very sound socialism. This scheme of a self-supporting education has never been realized. It may be that in the secondary schools it would not be possible to realize it. The labor ot children under conditions at all ideal is not highly productive. But I am led to believe from my own lo INTRODUCTION large experience with well-to-do children that the cur- rent plan of doing everything for them is out-and-out unkindness. There is a wholesome compromise be- tween this extreme and the other extreme represented by child labor. It lies, I think, in having children do everything they possibly can for themselves, and then every day something of real service for the gen- eral good of the household. The economic gain would not be large, but the moral gain would be tre- mendous. Even the economic gain, however, would not be negligible. It would be the negative gain of keeping down expenses, of reducing the number of servants, of lessening destruction. All that is needed is to mix a little very elementary psychology with the plan of work. Children hate to do things alone, hate to be told to do things that they do not quite know how to do. But in the company of a merry, sympa- thetic grown-up, who both shares and explains the work, a child not wholly spoiled becomes an eager and efficient worker. My own boys vary in age from ten to eighteen years. Many of them are wealthy, all have moderate means. I am preparing them for college. But if I were asked to name their greatest need, I would say unhesitatingly, an increased sense of service. Too much has been done for them, too little has been re- quired. If I return to the planet earth in another incarnation I pray the gods to send me into a family INTRODUCTION ii of such modest means that I shall be required to do my full share ; or of such unusual wisdom that I shall be allowed to ! The work of children can hardly be utilized eco- nomically in the ordinary secondary school. It can helpfully be used in the negative way already indi- cated, to keep down expense, — used in tidying up the rooms, attending the fires, making minor repairs, binding old books, maintaining and beautifying the school grounds. If the teacher will lead, the children will follow. The better field for children's work is at home, or in those simple residence schools which are really schools, and not merely money-making ho- tels. It is even possible to have children work gain- fully and to do it wholesomely, if the work is suited to their strength and is carried out in the love and shelter of a family group. Many of the operations of farm and garden are within a child's strength. The objection to child labor is not to child labor as such, — labor is wholesome for all of us,— but to the fact that the conditions are extremely bad and the hours cruelly long. But one must not imagine that the cotton mills are the only sinners against child- hood. Here in the South practically every plantation is guilty of the same wrong. Boys much too young are doing heavy plowing and other farm work far too severe for their strength ; girls still mere children themselves are turned into household drudges. In 12 INTRODUCTION dealing with the problem of child labor, we need heart and imagination, or the desired golden mean quite escapes us. The secondary schools, by emphasizing the value of self-help might easily constitute a desirable step- ping-stone between the entire irresponsibility of early childhood and the proper economic burden of youth. The secondary school might be made a fitting vesti- bule to the self-supporting industrial college. In ad- vocating such institutions Mr. Comings has been an unconscious follower of Tolstoy. In our conversa- tions I do not remember that we ever touched upon Tolstoy; and in the little book before me I do not find any use of Tolstoy's favorite phrase, bread-labor. But the spirit is the same. It is that all shall labor in order that all shall have the sanity which comes with wholesome labor, and none shall bear the dead- ening burden of overlabor. Mr. Comings' scheme of a self-supporting colleges is entirely feasible. It has already been realized in part. That it has not been more fully and more generally realized is largely the fault of the teachers themselves. As Emerson long ago said, men are as lazy as they dare to be. And teachers are quite as lazy as the rest. Mr. Shaw's biting epigram — Those who can, do ; those who can't, teach — might well be amended to read : — Those who will, do ; those who won't, teach. It is an unfortunate attitude INTRODUCTION 13 for it poisons our social life at its very source, — in the schools. The propaganda for the social mind can never be very effective when preached to adults whose sedentary habits are already formed. It must be preached by deed as well as by word to the young and plastic, whose habits are now in the making. The moral effect, that is to say, the social effect of a self-supporting college would be extraordinary. We may well advocate it, with Mr. Comings, on the triple grounds that only by making our colleges self-sup- porting can we make college education universal ; that only by spending endowments on productive indus- trial plants can we support our colleges without ex- ploiting the labor power of unwilling non-collegians, and finally that only by mixing prodtictHve labor with constructive thought can we truly educate this or any other generation of young people. These are telling arguments. But overshadowing them and including them, as the whole includes the parts, is the major argument of all that it is only in our schools and colleges that we can hope to inculcate the right attitude towards labor and thought, can show their unescapable interdependence and can so lend a hand in the inauguration of the Social State. The events of the past year have depressed no class of persons so profoundly and bitterly as our teachers and preachers. That the most highly educated na- tion in Europe should plunge the world into a 14 INTRODUCTION hideous, unnecessary war marked by unprecedented brutality and suffering, calls in question all the praise which we have been accustomed to lavish upon edu- cation. The very science which we have extolled has become the agent of a fiendish inhumanity. Personally I was gravely tempted to give over teaching. It did not seem worth while to educate boys if when you got through they were capable of such profound infi- delity to the human spirit. But now I begin to feel the inevitable reaction. These tragic events do not discredit education. They only reaffirm with titanic emphasis what I have so long known and tried to pro- claim, that education is only education, is only the unfolding and perfecting of the human spirit, when it rests upon the essential foundations of Religion and Economics. These are the two things that count, — a man's attitude towards life, his religion, and the method by which he gains his daily bread, his eco- nomics. Industrial education is not a thing to take or leave. We have no choice. Nor can it be success- fully handled without ample recognition of all its social and spiritual implications. Mere knowledge, a scientific mastery of matter and force, has been shown by this terrible war to be a thing of possible evil, the possible enemy of civilization. It becomes beneficent only when enlisted in the service of the human spirit. Without this devoir, this divine guid- ance, it may as easily lead to perdition as to Heaven. INTRODUCTION 15 The quality of a human life depends upon the spirit- ual ideals which it embodies. It is the same with edu- cation. C. HANFORD HENDERSON. Introduction to First Edition I approve in the strongest terms your proposal to add to the American system of education a depart- ment of Industrial Schools and I would extend this department to the entire system. The hand and brain should be educated in close companionship and no class of the students should be denied the inspiring luxury and benefit of appro- priate tool using. I have no doubt that a well conducted department of Industrial Education would prove more than self- supporting, but if otherwise, the needful expense should be cheerfully provided as demanded by every just consideration. The marvelous success of the early public school system of the Eastern and Middle states was largely due to the fact that the learners' time waslairly well divided between the school, the shop, and the farm. The concurrent education of the hand does not hinder but greatly helps the culture of the brain. I believe we are on the eve of great improvements in the whole system of education and that one of the foremost of these improvements will be free indus- trial education. Sincerely yours, CHAS. C. BONNEY. i8 INTRODUCTION We extract the above, a most fitting introduction, from the last kindly letter received a few months before the death of the great souled man, whom we dare presume to call one of the most pleasant and most profitable friends of a lifetime; a man who had at- tained to the highest aristocracy of character while retaining the most democratic sympathy and deepest interest in all that tended to uplift humanity. A former educator himself, he was keenly alive to plans for progress along all lines that shall prepare the people for a higher social order. His last great work was originating, presiding over and being the moving spirit of the famed World's Congress of Religions in 1893 ^t the great Exposition in Chicago, a work that set a new pace for the growth of the ideals of human unity, and his elaborate history of that wonderful school of prog- ress is a gospel of highest interest to the race. S. H. C. Foreword "The man is tho't a knave or fool, Or bigot, plotting crime. Who for advancement of his race Is wiser than his time." The old idea of human progress was that only by slow and almost imperceptible steps can civilization evolve to its highest forms, or the inherent evils of human nature be overcome and a highly civilized society be developed from the rudeness of barbaric ages. Today science has so revolutionized most of our early concepts that we find many of the things we have known for a long time are not so. The science of society and of human progress are now well enough known, though only very imper- fectly as yet, to warrant us in the statement that the evolutionary progress in social growth can be, and has been, most tremendously accelerated by well- known means. It has been so visibly hastened through the influence of the common school system, aided by the mechanical and industrial training of frontier necessities, that greater progress was made in two generations after its adoption than for ten centuries before. The times demanded the common school. Today the times demand another equally important step to accelerate the evolution of social progress, to pre- 20 FOREWORD vent decadence and to keep up with mechanical progress. The people need a deeper, broader, more complete education, made universal. To decree today that every child shall go through college, an industrial college, and as much further as he may choose, is not as radical or difficult a step as was the decree of the common school by our fathers, and it will accelerate social advance and the development of character fully as much as that did and relatively will not cost as much effort. From the data we now have, there can be no ques- tion but the dominant race could be so elevated, so freed from tendency to crime and degeneracy, so exalted morally, so increased in industrial efficiency, so raised in average intelligence, that within a very few generations all would be fully equal to the very best of the present citizens that could be selected while the geniuses and superiors would tower to un- heard-of heights of moral and intellectual worth, a progress that is now only thought of as the result of centuries of slow, continuous growth. The unfortunate colored race could under proper conditions, which have now been well tested and which have led a portion to such striking and marked advance in the forty years of freedom, be raised to a very fair degree of civilization, with their superiors attaining to high positions in social growth in a comparatively short period. S. H. COMINGS. Contents Page. INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION FOR ALL 23 NATIONAL GROWTH OR DECAY DEPENDENT ON PROGRESS IN EDUCATIONAL MATTERS ... 31 THE WIDE CONTRASTS IN IDEALS 34 PAGANISM STILL DOMINANT IN OUR CIVILIZATION 37 FROEBEL'S IDEALS AND PHILOSOPHY ... 39 FROEBEL'S PLANS FOR SMALL SCHOOLS ... 45 MATERIALS FOR MECHANICAL STUDY ALL ABOUT . 50 METHODS FOR THE FEEBLE-MINDED .... 50 THE UNB'ORTUNATE RACES 55 A TEACHER'S RESPONSIBILITY 57 TEACHERS BREAK DOWN PREMATURELY ... 59 EXAMPLES AND PRECEDENTS 60 GARDEN SCHOOLS 60 SELF-GOVERNMENT 63 GEORGE JUNIOR REPUBLIC 63 PRIMARY INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 65 SUBURBAN CITY AND CONCENTRATED COUNTRY SCHOOLS 66 AGRICULTURAL TRAINING 66 THE ELEVATION OP THE RACES 72 DRIFTING INTO TWO CLASSES 77 CIVILIZATION IN HAYTI AND SAN DOMINGO . . 78 THE PITIFUL FILIPINO FARCE 81 THE CONTRAST IN JAMAICA 82 ANGLO-SAXON RACE PRIDE 83 THE GREAT OBEBLIN'S EXAMPLE 85 THE PEOPLE MUST MAKE THE CHANGE ... 86 TEACHING BY EXAMPLE 86 PREVENTION OF CRIME 87 THE SLOW AND UNPRECOCIOUS 89 ELEVATING LABOR VERSUS DEGRADING DRUDGERY 91 EQUIPMENT VERSUS ENDOWMENT 94 THE UNIVERSITY— AN INTELLECTUAL AND INDUS- TRIAL CENTER 100 THE PROPHETIC SPIRIT YET LIVES . . . .101 CAN COLLEGES BE MADE SELF-SUPPORTING? . . 103 "MAN MORE PRECIOUS THAN PINE GOLD" . . .112 THE FIRST SELF-SUPPORTING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL 113 DOMESTIC SCIENCE AND SERVICE 117 SELF-SUPPORT THE BEST EDUCATIONAL METHOD . 121 HAND TRAINING AIDS MENTAL DEVELOPMENT . . 124 THE LAW OF HUMAN PROGRESS . AN IRRIGATION CITY FOR SURPLUS LABOR THE WORLD-WIDE FOLLY .... WHAT WASTED LABOR POWER COULD DO THE ARMY OF DISCHARGED LABOR . THE REMEDY FOR CHILD SLAVERY NERVOUS AMERICANS .... THE EDUCATOR'S RESPONSIBILITY MORE FOR SCHOOLS AND LESS FOR WAR PLAUSIBLE BUT PERNICIOUS SENTIMENTS ARISTOCRATIC, TYRANNICAL, LITERARY MEN . THE DEMOCRATIC FORMULA THE ENGLISH "THINKER'S" ENSLAVING FORMULA AMERICA'S FORMULA, "WATERED STOCKS" CANNIBALISTIC CONCEPTS CONTINUED ESSENTIALS OF AN EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM . SUMMARY 130 131 133 134 135 137 139 141 142 145 146 147 148 150 151 152 154 SUPPLEMENT. A RETROSPECT AND A FORECAST 157 ORGANIC EDUCATION 158 SOCIETIES OF ORGANIC EDUCATION .... 159 WHAT IS ORGANIC EDUCATION? 161 VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 164 PROGRESS IN TEN YEARS 167 RUSKIN COLLEGE 167 THE PRIMARY PURPOSE 168 AGRICULTURAL TRAINING 176 PREVENTION OF IMMORALITY IN OUR HIGH SCHOOLS 177 THE ARMY OF THE UNEMPLOYED 178 A RACE OF AMERICANS 179 A CHILD CRY 181 DAILY PROGRAM OF THE SCHOOL OF ORGANIC EDUCATION, FAIRHOPE, ALABAMA. KINDERGARTEN 183 FIRST LIFE CLASS 183 SECOND LIFE CLASS 186 THIRD LIFE CLASS 187 THE HIGH SCHOOL 188 DOMESTIC SCIENCE 189 MANUAL TRAINING 190 THE TEACHERS' TRAINING CLASS 190 Industrial and Vocational Education (Pagan vs. Christian Civilizations) INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION FOR ALL. "The glory of thinking is in zvork, and the dignity of work is in thinking." — Ferguson. No proposition will meet with more general ap- proval than that our whole educational system needs a radical reform or total revolution. Herbert Spencer wrote his noted essay on "Educa- tion" mainly for the purpose of giving the English system a scathing condemnation. Our system has been copied from the English with but trifling, if any, im- provement. Spencer declares that in accord with biological sci- ence each individual should be educated and developed along the same lines that the race has been developed, and we know in the evolution of the race that the hands have always been trained before the head. The prophet Froebel, who saw more perfectly than any other the whole philosophy of mental develop- ment, would begin with the hands in the Kindergarten, and continue this hand training through the entire course of study, teaching the hands the use of tools, and the head mechanic arts in advance of literary training. We have only touched the first step in his 24 INDUSTRIAL AND scientific plan in adopting the kindergarten, totally neglecting the last and best of his full ideal. The pagan ideal was to despise labor : the Christian civilization professes to exalt creative labor; but so tainted are our social standards that we only partially accept this ideal and our schools, from the highest to the lowest, tend, as Spencer said of the English sys- tem, away from labor, and to produce the mental con- cept of a labor caste, as immoral as it is unscientific. It is a radical charge for present-day educators to admit that their own education was wrong in method and defective in extent, and that their present work is really a failure and unworthy this scientific age, no matter how successful they may be in getting pupils to recite lessons from text books. Yet there can be no question of the justice of this charge, and from many of our most progressive educators and thinkers come sweeping denunciations of the present system, but with no accord as to the remedy. It can be found only in a system of Industrial Schools, giving to every child in the nation a complete training. Memory cramming and hand-neglecting has had its day; the teachers who have neither skill nor tact in handicraft, nor knowledge of mechanics, will be pushed aside by those who have developed a power and a pride in what they can do with their hands, as well as in purely mental achievements. An eminent educator has recently declared that the ' VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 25 training of the hands appears to have an almost mira- culous power to bring out mental activity, develop character, and elevate the morals. Another admits that our universal education in the common schools has proven a partial failure, has not been the success expected (what wonder, when such paganish methods have been followed). Yet its inception was a won- derful upward step, it set a new pace for the world's progress and needs only to be developed still further to be all and more than the most sanguine now expect. Another educator, equally prominent, declares that our whole school system "is top-heavy and imprac- tical, not based upon proper foundations, and will soon topple over from its own weight." A woman promi- nent in the literary world declares that our common school system should be called "the modern method for the slaughter of the innocents;" that it is a harm- ful, nerve-straining method, and does not prepare for active life as it should. When this severe arraignment of our educational system was first published in a popular magazine, there was a very wide expression of indignant denial of its justice or truth, by a large class of the teachers, who declared there was little, or no ground for the accusation that many, very many, children were seri- ously harmed by the "forcing process," and the long confinement at memorizing study. In one school with which we were familiar, this 26 INDUSTRIAL AND denial was particularly vigorous ; yet in that very school were some of the saddest cases of entire nerve breakdown, some even among the colored children in the effort to "pass" to the high school. Yet so very conservative are most of the teachers, so sure are they that the present system is all it need be, so averse to any change or innovation, that no words of appreciation were given, no effort to im- prove was made in response to the warning from this eminent writer, who told only the unvarnished truth of a method that must be changed, while this effort to bring in a better condition should enlist the co-opera- tion of all educators. The editors of the magazine, in which the article was published, reported they had so many letters from parents and friends of the injured children from all sections of the countr}'- that it fully vindicated the indignant writer who only voiced the cry of suffering childhood. We are sure our suggestions for change in educa- tional methods will not meet the approval of all teachers, but so widely and enthusiastically have the propositions of this little volume been endorsed by many eminent educators and able friends of education that we can with a fair degree of equanimity bear the gibes of the conservatives. "Pupils have to unlearn in life ivhat they learn in VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 27 school. They should he trained toward the activities of life, not away from them." — Wendell Phillips. There need be no argument over the necessity, the practical value and the moral uplift, of general hand training in our schools ; the present trend is all in that direction. The rapid introduction of weaving, basket work, paper construction, raffia work, etc., in all the most progressive schools, is a marked advance over the average system for primary instruction, and is along the lines laid down by Froebel, whose in- spired mind best understood the whole philosophy of the mental and moral development of children. But in our colleges, seminaries and universities, where purest science should have its best expression, we find instead the most persistent adhesion to the old and oft proven unscientific methods of memory cramming, with total neglect of hand training, and also the taint of a mental labor caste. All this too is in complete antagonism to the suggestions of Spencer that a more scientific and practical education not only better fits for complete living, but for higher attain- ments and enjoyment of all that is ethical and esthetic in life. To prepare for the higher civilization that is surely coming, one of the first and most important steps is to prepare a superior average order of people by the adoption of a universal system of free industrial edu~ 28 INDUSTRIAL AND cation which shall be obligatory upon all and which will develop handicraft training as of first importance, not because it is of greater material benefit, but bC' cause it leads to higher moral and spiritual attain- ment and is along the natural line of man's growth in mental power. A noted manual training expert de- clares, "It produces a new and superior order of people," which is the highest conceivable aim. Labor, being "a portion of God's ozun creative at- tribute beneficently bestowed upon man," must be cul- tivated as one of His highest gifts, and only by so doing can man be raised to his best estate. The remark is often made that our social progress does not keep pace with our mechanical progress. The schools should set the pace and prepare the way for all upward growth. And there is no reason why social re- form should not lead and surpass all mechanical achievements. When all the people are exalted to a higher average of mental power, as they so easily can be, the geniuses of such an age will tower to un- dreamed-of heights. Froebel thought his philosophy so far in advance of his time that it would require a couple of centuries for the world to come to see the value of it; but, owing to the world-wide adoption of the common school and through this the more universal intelligence of the people, we have in a few decades come to see and VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 29 accept his teachings; and now we need only to in- troduce the best methods for bringing to pass what he saw was so important, viz. : to train hands, head and heart at the same time. In the low estimate of human life and the willing- ness to sacrifice it for selfish aims do we see the most radical persistence of paganism ; and the willingness of modern society to keep a large portion of our work- ers in ignorance and degradation, like our coal min- ers, factory slaves and slum dwellers, is a sure sign of the survival of pagan cruelty. The Christ came to "set prisoners free," to "break the chains of those who are bound." What prisoners need His freeing hand and chain-breaking love as do the prisoners of ignorance, ignorant of their own native powers? Until every child is set free to use with skill his creative power of hand and head, it has not had the benefit of any properly called Christian civilization. The most important work for any nation is the education of its own citizens. If this truth could once permeate our civilization; if we could believe that people are worth more than things; if we could get away from the accursed paganism of treating men and women, boys and girls, as mere tools with which to make money, or as servants for the few ; if we could 30 INDUSTRIAL AND see the hideous wrong and sin of war, and see that, instead of lavishing milhons on warships, gathng guns and riot arms it would be infinitely better to spend it on education; if we could see that to develop a higher average of citizenship is the highest ambition for a nation, then might we in truth conquer and lead the world to the highest ideal of democracy. "Americanism shall permeate the ivorld." — Stead. "To be a true American, is to be a citiaen of the World!" — Ferguson. THE GOSPEL OF LABOR. "This is the Gospel of Labor- Ring it ye bells of the kirk! The Lord of love Came doivn from above, To live with those who ivork. This is the rose He planted. Here in the thorn-cursed soil. Heaven shall be blest With perfect rest, But the best of earth is toil." VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 31 NATIONAL GROWTH OR DECAY DEPENDENT ON PROGRESS IN EDUCATIONAL MATTERS. "My Father worketh hitherto, and I zvork." — The Christ. Pagan civilizations have been neither scientific nor democratic, but have instead been either transient or non-progressive. A true Christian civiHzation would be thoroughly scientific and democratic, progressive and pennanent. The Anglo-Saxon civilization, professing to be Christian, is really so tainted with paganism that it cannot be permanent unless this taint is removed. Along no other line is the contrast more sharply de- fined between the unscientific nature of the old pagan civilizations and the practical nature of a real Christ- ian civilization than in the differing concepts in re- gard to the dignity and honor of skilled creative labor and the merit of personal service. To the old-time pagan the honor and nobility of skill in labor that should serve his kind was an abso- lutely unthinkable proposition: he could not conceive it. Whether he belonged to the Greek or Roman cult or to the less cultured nations, his idea of honor and employment was war, to kill and destroy; all needful labor and personal service must be performed by a slave, a human beast of burden. 3^ INDUSTRIAL AND This through long ages has been the only concept and it has led to the neglect and degradation of the toilers, the real wealth producers and creators, and to the inevitable decay of national life and civilization. In the Greek Republic, though they had high ideals of liberty for the favored classes and the state cared for their education and training, they looked with contempt on labor, and the inevitable blight of luxuri- ous profligacy came to hands untaught in useful serv- ice. The saving science of the union of skill in handi- craft and in mental culture was neglected; and sure decay came to the Republic, in spite of its intellectual development, as it had come to all previous civiliza- tions, and will come to all, to the end of time, who neglect this science. There can be no exceptions to this unvarying rule. It is an inherent principle of human life. The Christ, the teacher of a divine social order, came as a toiler, a creator of homes among an indus- trious people. In Him were concentrated and exem- plified all the democratic ideals of all the poets, pro- phets and sages from Moses' time down. He taught the essentials of a scientific social order; He chose His teachers and preachers of the new social ideal from the laboring classes. He gave the keynote to his ideal in one VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 33 terse sentence, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." At the tragic climax of His pathetic career, by a sacrament of ineffable tenderness He taught His fol- lowers for all time that in loving, useful, personal service to their kind there is no such thing as a menial ministry; but that the noblest and greatest, the high- est and most honored, the really most aristocratic and exalted, are they who can serve most and best. A most difficult lesson for humanity to accept then and now, but a fact of most momentous importance in the science of social or national permanence. In His immortal parable of the "Good Samaritan" He showed beyond the possibility of cavil that the hand of him who serves in time of need is the hand of a brother indeed, worthy of all honor and love; that to neglect those who need our ministry or who do our work is a violation of the ethical laws of life, and that much-neglected lesson that we are our broth- er's keeper was renewed. According to the "Christ Ideal," we have in the modern industrial world a "Jericho Road" of economic wrong that forces boys and girls to bread-winning before they have had proper or adequate training to develop their mental, moral, or physical powers ; and along this road are thousands lying robbed, wounded and helpless, waiting the ministry of the coming "Good Samaritan" who will perforce give them the needed mental and handicraft 34 INDUSTRIAL AND training to make them citizens worthy of the coming age. The transforming power of this lofty ideal of the honor of service among the immediate followers of the Christ's new social order was strikingly exempli- fied in the remarkable change in St. Paul from the haughty, idle and supercilious Pharisee to the indus- trious tent-maker and preacher of the new social ideal of universal brotherhood, working with his hands for needful support, that he might be independent of all men while preaching so radical a social change. It was a most impressive lesson for all people and for all times. It was the highest and most scientific up- lift of human ideals. It was the beginning of the end of the old false pagan ideal in regard to the servility or dishonor of labor and personal service. THE WIDE CONTRASTS IN IDEALS. Yet today, with all our supposed advance in science and our regard for Christian ideals, we may well be startled by the persistence and dominance of pagan social ideals in so many forms ; and our labor con- cepts are among the worst. With the persistence of chattel slavery until a very recent date, among all so-called "Christian nations" has persisted the base and pernicious idea of the lowly nature of personal service and creative labor, and the equally pernicious and purely pagan idea that there is honor or "style" VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 35 in useless idleness, instead of actual disgrace and danger and ever increasing unhappiness, which is the scientific and unchanging fact, as true in the mansion as in the cabin. It is well-nigh impossible to appreciate at once the infinite gulf that separates the false pagan ideal in regard to labor from the lofty and scientific Christian ideal, as so impressively interpreted by that great seer of education, the immortal Froebel, whose name shall stand in future ages beside those of Isaiah and St. Paul among the illumined souls inspired to point the upward path of humanity. "Labor," he tersely de- clared "is a portion of God's creative attribute bene- ficently bestowed upon man." If this profound and revolutionary philosophy is essentially correct, as we deem it to be, then how fundamentally important it is that this divine attribute be cultivated and developed to its utmost extent, how sacreligious not to do so, how wicked to neglect the Godlike gift, and how vastly different this ideal on which to build a civilization from the pagan concept of the disgrace of labor; and how little wonder that pagan civilizations went down or failed to become progressive and democratic when demoralized by such an unscientific ideal. All history of all nations, ages and individuals proves that in the moral virtues of patriotism and altruism the immortals whose examples and teachings have helped the race upward and for- 36 INDUSTRIAL AND ward have been those whose hands have been trained in creative labor and useful service ; while everywhere and at all times, from Solomon's time down, the vices and follies and profligacies that have destroyed in- dividuals and nations have come almost wholly from the idle and those whose hands have not been trained to labor. Will any candid mind dare deny that we have estab- lished the pagan ideal of a labor caste in our social standards, or that in our institutions of higher educa- tion the tendency is away from labor and towards the pagan concept of a disgrace in labor, and that, as a natural consequence, most of our teachers, preachers and missionaries go forth still farther to spread this baneful idea, this disintegrating heresy, this immoral, because unscientific, standard? No doubt this false concept has also been strengthened by the theological dogma that all labor is a curse, instead of an exalt- ing. Godlike attribute ; it has been most tremendously exaggerated of late by the false, shoddy ideals of a spurious aristocracy of money without culture; and one of the most serious problems of our civilization is how to remove this root of the upas tree of pagan folly and re-establish the true concept as the basis of our civilization. It is not a light task, but one that will tax to the uttermost the formative forces of a new educational system. We believe it can only be done by beginning a new VOCATIONAL EDUCATION . 37 system in a new type of colleges and universities, working on a new basis, and with essentially new ideas. The older ones are too conservative, too set in conventional methods. It is too hard for educa- tors to admit that their own education was incom- plete in quantity or imperfect in method, or that their present methods can be radically improved upon. It is a common belief that of all conservatives the aver- age educator is most conservative ; so, like all re- forms, what we dare plead for must come from a demand of practical people, aided as it will be by many of the progressive teachers and prominent educators who have seen the wrong of the present system, even as the great philosopher Spencer saw it so long ago. "All great reforms must come up from the common people." — Ancient Egyptian Proverb. PAGANISM STILL DOMINANT IN OUR CIVILIZATION. "More has been given to us than to any people here- tofore, and therefore more is required of us. Civili- sation as it progresses requires a higher conscience, a wider, loftier, truer public spirit. Failing these, civili- zation must pass into destruction." — Henry George. To many it will seem a startling and unwelcome thought that our civilization is still largely tainted with pagan concepts and standards ; but remember it was the profound philosopher, Herbert Spencer, who made 38 INDUSTRIAL AND this indictment against the English system of educa- tion, and ours has been an essential copy of theirs, and if pagan ideals have been found in such high places as colleges and universities, how sure may we be to find them permeating all our civilization, as we do when we carefully analyze the lack of scientific basis for so many long-established social customs. For example, we have continued chattel slavery in most so-called Christian nations until a most recent date, a purely pagan custom. Our child wage slavery is but a slight modification of the same. War, too, and all its accompaniments, is purely pagan and barbaric in the extreme, utterly out of place in an age of sci- entific democracy. Ernest Crosby shows quite con- clusively that the silly, childish vanity of the savage manifested by his love of war paint and feathers finds its persistent duplicate in the present-day arrogance of the soldier when ornamented with brass buttons, shoulder straps and the unspeakably silly pomp of military regalia; and he shows that the Peace Society or the great Czar need only do away with this relic of pagan folly to stop at once all wars, that our hate- ful army and navy would vanish like morning dew, if simply deprived of their showy dress, the remains of the weakest, silliest expression of a childish savage. We find this strange, persistent love of gewgaws, war paint and feathers so adhering to all forms of military service that not even a Sunday school "Boy's VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 39 Brigade" nor the military drill for exercise in our schools can be had without the brass buttons, shoulder straps and striking dress. Let us carry the Crosby philosophy one step further and decree that those who study the art of human butchery shall wear the uniform of the butchers in our slaughter houses and abattoirs, the blue denim overalls and blouse, and we may be sure our paganish army and navy would not hold together a month. In the use of jewelry and glaring dress and oft- changing fashion we see again the strange persistence of paganism. In medicine and religion we dare not enumerate the evidences of pagan hoodoo and dog- matic superstition. We fear it taints these streams also and needs the light and help of a more scientific system of education whose chief corner-stone shall be creative skilled labor. froebel's ideals and philosophy. "Man must be doing something, for in him throbs the creative impulse." — Henry George. "No high degree of morals can be established or maintained without manual labor." — Froebel. It seems unaccountable that such deference has been paid to the great educator, Froebel, and yet so little known of the breadth of his philosophy of a complete educational system, of which the kindergar^ 40 INDUSTRIAL AND ten, beneficent as it is, is only the A, B, C. In his ideal the carrying forward of a system of handicraft training through all the subsequent processes of edu- cation was fully as essential as was the kindergarten for the first step. He looked upon man as essentially a creator, and the development of his creative facul- ties as a necessary part of his education. He declared that it was of but little use to develop the receptive powers of the brain, without at the same time, and as a necessary reflex action, developing the active and formative powers of the mind. He made skilled labor a part of morality and reli- gion, the culture of the creative attribute a portion of spiritual growth. He would look with horror at attempts at race elevation by storing the memory with facts and literary concepts, while neglecting to develop the creative powers of brain and skill of hand. He would follow the pathway of all race progress with each individual of every race: first cultivating the hand to do; then the brain to remem- ber how and why. To express one's self and to develop one's self by creative skill of the hands was with him a foundation principle; and we shall never develop the able, all- round faculties of our citizenship until we absorb and imitate his profound philosophy. The able educator, Hughes, justly declares that English and American educators have gone as far VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 41 as possible from his theory, and are slowly and pain- fully coming to see the wisdom and necessity of more closely following his plans. The results have been pitiful enough with the white race, but most disastrous with the unfortunate races; and harm instead of good has been done to thousands of vic- tims of ill-directed philanthropy by a false method of education. In his able analysis of Froebel's Laws of Educa- tion he devotes a long and most interesting chapter to the value of play as an educational force, full of most practical suggestion. And we deem it but a portion of the philosophy of handicraft training in developing the all-round character and ability for complete living. It is a portion of Froebel's teach- ing that as yet has not had one tenth the attention it deserves. And we are sure that differing types of play are but the preparation for differing social ideals. There are plays that represent the co-operative and emulative ideal as well as those that belong to competitive and destructive ideals of social life. In the emulative play, success is gained by skill, activity and alertness, which does not tend at all to harm those who do not win; while in the competitive play, as in business, it is the idea to down the opponent, with cruel force if need be, to risk life and limb to wrest from him the prize at any cost; which sug- 42 INDUSTRIAL AND gests the wide difference in morals between compe- tition and emulation. In industrial training, up to a certain point, are found many of the benefits Froebel saw in properly directed play. It is only a question of how much of each is best. In manual training schools it has been found that pupils will often voluntarily leave play for practice in the workroom. The recent establishment of an organized system- atic public playground in the city of Syracuse is but one of the steps in the development of this great ideal of progress. Children should be guided and directed in this as in school or work. If we would only come to see that the production and development of superior citizens is the grandest aim of civilization, how these different problems would be worked out, even as were the improvement of the engine, press and auto, each having the in- tensest study of the ablest mechanical minds. We need a touch of Isaiah's prophetic conception of the time when "A man shall be more precious than iine gold." Froebel's great advance over the methods of Pestalozzi was in the discovery that the receptivity of the brain of a child must be followed or accom- panied by a corresponding activity of the hand. When a new idea is presented, it must do something with its hands or create something to correspond VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 43 with the concept of the mind, to get its full or ap- proximate value. It was a fundamental discovery and has a most tremendous practical bearing on race elevation as well as on individual training. Pestalozzi would teach ''object lessons" by having the teacher bring the "object" in her hand, or, per- chance, allow the pupils to take it or touch it; while Froebel would have them "do somethincf' or "make something" with or from the object. He would not teach even geography by the use of the eye alone, but would take objects like an orange, a banana, a piece of ivory, tea or coffee, and go with the class on imaginary voyages to the coun- tries where these things are obtained, pointing out the various routes on the map with all possible in- structive detail to arouse an interest in the minds of the class through the pleasure and excitement of the trip. He would not teach botany until the child had planted and grown flowers and learned some lessons of their life and development; then he would connect the abstract science with the already aroused interest in plant life. He distinctly taught that those who train one part only of man's nature to the neglect of the others are producing abnormal beings out of harmony with God's laws. What a reflection on present-day school methods! 44 INDUSTRIAL AND Froebel seems to have been the first to discover that not to develop handicraft is actually to weaken and decrease mental power, a most suggestive thought for those who speak of "wasting time from study to work with the hands" or who feel that time in school used in hand training is wasted. He saw, too, the high moral value of teaching the young the ideals of the true interdependence of "each to all, and all to each," rather than the intensity of selfish in- dividualism. Whatever strengthened the bond of human unity he saw was divine and religious in its influence on character, and the wickedness of all caste divisions of society he clearly appreciated. He seemed to grasp the practical value of the Christ philosophy of the brotherhood of men, their perfect unity with each other and with their Creator, and in carrying this concept into effect in all one's hfe is the hope of the elevation of the race; and in no other way can this ideal be so perfectly developed as in schools where all work together for a common end. He was a seer of collectivism; he saw clearly and perfectly how the highest possible development of the individual is perfectly compatible with the closest mutualism of co-operation. He was one of the early prophets of the coming co-operative age, and showed the way by which it can be brought about, the possible preparation for a millennial epoch, VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 45 through the more complete education of the produc- ing classes and by ennobling labor for all. He clearly saw the immorality of the selfish spirit of competition as distinguished from the nobler one of emulation. These sentiments were more recently affirmed by the late Colonel Parker, of the Chicago Normal School, who publicly declared that *'the greatest work to be accomplished by the common school sys- tem is the cultivation of a spirit of mutualism, altru- ism and democracy among the people; failing this," he emphatically declared, "the schools fail of their highest mission." In no other way can they so per- fectly perform this work as when the teachers and pupils work together a portion of the time for the common good, while teaching and learning the in- valuable lessons of mechanics and of productive labor that shall provide for their mutual needs. '^Civilization is Co-operation!" — Henry George. froebel's plans for small schools. The essentials of Froebel's plans for the smaller schools, where the teacher has no experience and neither apparatus nor text books on handicraft train- ing, may be safely introduced in the primary grade, whether the pupils have had kindergarten training or not, by cutting famiHar objects from paper; then folding papers into envelope forms, triangles, 46 INDUSTRIAL AND squares, etc., etc.; then, with heavier paper, making boxes, cornucopias and all possible things by folding and creasing, all the time cultivating exactness in corners and edges, and general neatness of work and closeness in following copy. A few hours of this each week will delight the children, and the work will take the place at home of noisy, purposeless plays and will vastly help in gaining the perfect control of hands and the culture of the eye so useful in all life's activities. From this the steps will be gradual along the varied forms of basket making, weaving in colors, braiding with three, four or six strands of strings, braiding corn husk mats, sewing from the simplest basting stitch to the most difficult blind darning and elaborate embroidery. By the time the sixth grade is reached, the simpler forms of Sloyd may be taken up, the drawing of simple forms on wood, then whittling to the drawing, in all cases the work finished with sandpaper to have the completed product look smooth and neat. The jackknife can be made an implement of art culture, equal to the pencil or brush, if only directed into making things of symmetry instead of the usual inane whittling merely to make shav- ings. The use of scissors in cutting silhouettes, birds, profiles, dolls, etc., is of equal value. As the work goes forward and skill and interest' deepens VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 47 it will sharpen the ability to memorize lessons from books and greatly help in maintaining discipline and interest. The children from the kindergarten up should be taught to plant seeds and care for plants, flow- ers, shrubs and vines, and the taste thus started for the future study of botany, a sure beginning for future home decoration with flowers and beautiful living things. From the seventh grade the more difficult steps in Sloyd should be introduced : first, drawing more useful things on wood, paper cutters, cake spoons, potato mashers, measuring rules, hammers or axe handles, then whittling or planing or shaving them to the forms drawn, all the time striving to im- prove the technique of form and finish. Clay mod- eling, water color painting, with more or less of free-hand drawing or sketching from nature, ac' cording to the taste or ability of the pupils, may be introduced. In the same simple but efifective manner may "nature studies" be made most useful and intensely interesting, and become a preparation for later studies in biology or zoology. If there are no text books in the school, or the teacher has had no train- ing, begin with the study of domestic animals, their habits, their varying instincts and intelligence ; then study the wild birds and animals, learning as much 48 INDUSTRIAL AND as possible of their peculiar modes of living, their cunning and means of defense; then the honey bees and insects, getting the pupils to learn from inquiry or study of their structure, their ways of life and means of defense, what species are related, their transformation from the egg and worm to the per- fect insect on wings, and of any that do not pass through the chrysalis state, etc., etc. It will sur- prise the teacher who has never tried it to see how much of most interesting lore can be gathered and combined by the efforts of a small school, of what intense interest it will be, and how it will add to the value and depth of the text-book study thus to broaden the field of investigation, and how much it will help to create the love of observation which is one of the highest aims of all school work. Let no teacher fear to begin this work because of lack of training or of text books. In no way may a teacher come into more complete sympathy with pupils than to experiment and learn with them to do the things that are out of the conventional rut of school work. To ask them for help and suggestions will be to them a favor unspeakable, and there is no better way to draw out their best thought or inge- nuity and thus double the value of the lessons learned. Often, too, it will be well to ask for an- swers to or explanations of problems that will re- VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 49 quire time and study to solve, and thus encourage that reflection which is the highest form of study. In all this work outside of text-books let there be no suspicion that the time is at all wasted or misused; instead it is likely to be the most valuable and profitable of any in the whole school work; it will rest, refresh and renew the interest in regular study; will draw out observation, comparison and analysis ; will strengthen logic, or the power to rea- son from cause to effect ; will develop the control of the hand and eye, the taste for observing things and the best method of effort and execution. One of the best results will be the improved moral tone and discipline of the school room, for which nothing is worse than the dull, uninterested effort to memorize simply because one must; and to be fairly decorous from fear only does not de- velop nobility of character as when one's conduct is exemplary from the pride in doing well, and an interest in the work of the school, all of which these methods will inspire. The pupil who reluc- tantly and perforce memorizes dry facts and ab- stract statements of principles is touched on a low moral plane, if not absolutely injured morally; while if the active, intense interest and joy of learn- ing things for their own sake is aroused and sus- tained, the moral tone of the pupil is exalted and his higher character developed. 50 INDUSTRIAL AND MATERIALS FOR MECHANICAL STUDY ALL ABOUT. In every school room are materials for study of mechanics and the achievements of skilled labor; the very seats and desks are most prolific texts for interesting talks on the mechanics of their con- struction, the pitch of backs and seats, the hinge and action of the seat, the beautifully joined strips of wood and the methods of union of wood and metal, and above all, the history of the evolution of the school seat, from the old-time slab, set on rude legs put in auger holes, with no table in front to rest the books upon, to the present scientific per- fect school seat, worthy of extreme admiration as a work of real art. So can the teacher develop a wealth of material for study in all things about the school and homes of the pupils, the farm wagon and the buggy, the wheelbarrow and the bicycle, the sewing machine and the reaper or seed planter, all will afford les- sons of most fascinating interest to both pupils and teachers who are looking for progress in the art of teaching. METHODS FOR THE FEEBLE-MINDED. "Education is leading human souls to what is best, and getting zvhat is best out of them. Wholesome human employment is the first and best VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 51 method in all education, mental as well as physical." — John Ruskin. , We find that the unfortunate child of feeble mind, or no apparent mind at all, who cannot pos- sibly mentally grasp the abstract idea of the dififer- ence between one and two, can be led along by first taking one apple in his hand, tasting its goodness to arouse an interest, then, taking two apples in his hands, tasting of each to see that both are good ; and slowly but surely there comes to the dull mind the difference between only one apple in one hand or an apple in each hand; gradually the weak mentality comes to know two and, finally, three apples in his hands, when he could not possibly do so by seeing them with his eyes. After the awakened mind has learned by the touch of the hands of the one apple and of two, three or more apples, he is given a knife to handle; he is pricked with its sharp point and slightly cut with its keen edge ; he learns to respect and fear these qualities. Then he learns to cut his apple and he has gained a power to do. A pencil mark is made on a thin piece of wood and he is helped to follow the pencil mark with his knife. He is delighted with the, to him, great feat. So slowly but surely, he is led along in the development of creative power till, perchance, he can make a rude but fairly correct foot rule and mark with a pencil the 52 INDUSTRIAL AND inches on it in imitation of one taken as a sample to work from. This is an achievement to him quite equal to Watt's first successful movement of a pis- ton in the cylinder by the power of steam. He en- joys doing and making and a new interest is aroused. Slowly and gradually the growing power is fost- ered till he is shown a box with his apples in it but no cover to enclose them. The box is just as long as his rude rule, cut out with such labor and joy. He is shown a saw, and his fingers feel the sharp teeth. He is taught to saw ofif a piece of the board and after a few trials his foot rule is laid upon the board and he is helped to saw off a piece just long enough to cover his box and hide the apples. It is lifted and replaced, till he sees the dif- ference between them covered and uncovered. Some nails are shown and felt and a hammer is put in his hands and he is allowed to pound. After a little he is helped to drive the nails and his box is closed. He cannot now touch or take his prized apples, a new and startling conception. He is en- couraged to draw the nails, but made to do it him- self and then allowed to take the uncovered apples in his hands and again cover and nail the lid down. Then the cover is fastened on with screws, all done by his own hands. Then a longer box is brought and the cover already cut is shown to be too short; ' VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 53 the box measured and found to be twice the length of the rule, and the rule used, all the time in his own hands, to mark off a cover two rule lengths. It is sawed ofif and found to cover the box and en- close his apples. Then a knife and sandpaper are used to smooth the rough board so it will feel dif- ferent to the touch of the hand. So, on and on, the hand leading to the concept of the mind in Nature's own way, till the seemingly vacant mind is edu- cated to greater and greater activity, and the power of doing things leads on to usefulness of greater or less degree, till often not only the use of simple tools is acquired, but finally the lawn mower and the bicycle are mastered, the hoe and spade in the garden, or the broom and duster in the house; and usefulness and enjoyment take the place of painful vacuity. Along essentially the same line have we seen the stupid, listless colored boy, who had with difficulty been taught to lead the mule to water, to tie him se- curely in the stall, and as a tremendous achievement to harness and hitch him to the cotton cultivator, but who could no more take off the nut and washer from the plow bolt than he could run an engine or a printing press. Later the same boy, as seemingly dull in mechanics as the vacant-minded child who could not learn "two" was in mathematics, became eager to own a second-hand wheel ; under the magic 54 INDUSTRIAL AND power of its touch in his own hands, he gradually came to have a glimmering sense of its intricate mechanism and the mystery of the monkey wrench and the nut and washer on the bolt became plain and simple to the draitm-oiU faculty. The same boy, engaged to assist the village blacksmith, and, feeling a sense of already having had a mechanical experience of no mean value with his wheel, was soon able to take to pieces the broken plow or cultivator and put it together cor- rectly when mended; would place the bit in a brace and bore a hole through the broken plow beam and select and insert the correct sized bolt and draw it to place with the wrench ; would do quite intricate jobs of taking apart or putting together wagons and buggies, and in time became quite an accomplished helper in this difficult art of handicraft. In all such cases, with this added mental power, gained mainly through discipline of the hand, there comes an ele- vation of morals ; the lazy, thriftless, "frivolous," fellow becomes possessed of pride and self-respect and is industrious largely in proportion to the ex- tent of his training in handicraft skill, thus in a very practical and forceful manner confirming Froebel's theory that through creative labor there is moral and spiritual uplift; and only with this type of education is there any hope of race eleva- tion. How few of the conventional teachers real- VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 55 ize that essentially the same principles should maintain for the bright and precocious pupil, as for the mentally vacant, differing in degree only, but following the same steps of progress from hand to brain. While the bright and precocious child may learn from the study of the abstract, it will much sooner and better grasp and retain by following Nature's plan of the hand first, and then the brain, in ac- quiring knowledge and the power to use it. THE UNFORTUNATE RACES. For the unfortunate races to strive for lit- erary culture, while neglecting to develop the crea- tive power of their hands, is much more disastrous than an attempt to build the school house by rear- ing the bell tower and roof before any structure is begun below. The wreck of the tower may pos- , sibly be saved and properly elevated after the lower structure is erected ; but those who think they have attained the pinnacle by a college diploma, with no discipline of hand, are above and beyond any hope of being taught any new lessons. They have been taught by that strongest of all teachers, imitation, to do as their teachers do, who, according to Froe- bel, Herbert Spencer and thousands of others, have been educated to pagan ideals, not to the true 56 INDUSTRIAL AND science of correct development, which always trains the hands first. "No lazv of human nature is more dominant than our tendency to imitate those we consider above us." In the race problem this is one of the fundamen- tals that mvist be reckoned with. We do most heartily wish that all the colored theological semi- naries of the present system could be wiped out or changed to such as the grand old apostle, St. Paul, would approve. His methods were first to set up his tent maker's shop, and then teach a higher social and religious ideal, viz., that in self-reliant, self- re- specting, self-supporting labor of skilled hands is the first elementary and fundamental lesson in a Christian life or civilization. If this type could be- come the established order, we should not so often hear the merited severe criticism by thoughtful Southern people of the colored preachers of the South ; and there is no question but that our North- ern brethren of the cloth would gain a Pauline power along the same line. "To work was from the beginning, and is today the joy, the pride and the honor of life." — Bishop Doane. "If any will not work, neither shall he eat." — Saint Paul. VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 57 A teacher's responsibility. In view of Spencer's indictment of present meth- ods of education, we have never been able to un- derstand how the progressive, earnest, conscien- tious teachers have been willing to go on without pro- test, continuing a system so tainted with pagan ideals, and how so many are even averse to any effort to- wards change or improvement. But we do know that in general the educators are the very Conserv- atives of Conservatism, and some are so rooted in egotism as to be unwilling to admit that any pos- sible advance can be made on their own methods, and even so blinded as to boast of their adherence to the false ideal of looking with contempt on labor. We cannot understand how true, earnest, present- day teachers can be willing to continue to lead their unwilling young students through all the fiound- erings, mental gymnastics and mind-dwarfing processes of the present courses in our high schools, seminaries and colleges, in view of these lessons from Spencer and his lucid proof that the scientific nature methods would so much better fit for actual life, so much better prepare for home and citizen- ship, and last, but not least, fit for the highest cul- ture and enjoyment in the realms of art and music and for the moral and religious development of our strangely complex being; or when they consider 58 INDUSTRIAL AND the teachings of Froebel, the modern Socrates, who saw so clearly how Nature's way of education is al- ways from the concrete to the abstract, from the hand to the brain, from action to reason. Yet in spite of it all, in spite of the long and loud mutterings of discontent with the present system, our teachers stand in the way and continue to teach as they were taught, instead of being, as they ought to be, the radical leaders along the path of mental evolution and progress. Yet no one has ever dared to oppose Spencer's logic, that to cram memory with what will be quickly forgotten is not development, and that it is practically starvation to deny the mind the quality of food it has a longing for and that will give it strength along the lines that will be continually added to by life's activities, which is the true ideal for educational efiforts. His philosophy stands all unchallenged and unanswered, though a most severe and sweeping denunciation of present meth- ods. We are sure this wrong method of mental de- velopment has had a most unsalutary eiTect on our national character and made us as a people so weak in logic that we endure with strange apathy and stupid submission the many illogical enslavements and taxations of a corrupt and foolish political and economic system ; and we believe we have never at- VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 59 tained to our proper place as an entirely free and progressive people, as we should do under a truer educational system. TEACHERS BREAK DOWN PREMATURELY. "The prosperity of the state depends on ALL the people being properly educated." — Gov. Heyward. It is a matter of most common remark that the teachers' vocation is one of severe nerve strain, and that many break down under it at an early age and thus lose their best years of usefulness. This alone is enough to condemn the system, for of all citizens of the state, the teachers should be the most valued, and whatever cuts their life or activity short is a severe loss to the social organism. The later years of a teacher's life should be the most useful and would be if conserved by a proper change from men- tal to physical labor, in an industrial system of school life. "The knowledge obtained from hooks is hut the tool to develop the true wisdom for life." But we are glad to welcome the signs of an awak- ened consciousness in all the wide-awake and pro- gressive spirits among our educators and, better still, among those who are outside the profession but earnestly watching its workings and efifects, all alive to the benefit of going at once to Nature's own method 6o INDUSTRIAL AND of "feeling after knowledge" then learning of the abstract later. The rapidly advancing demand for teachers who can teach the hands to do, as well as the head to think, proves that the new order is at hand. "Industrial training of the rural population is one of the most important problems before the American people." — Ex-Mayor Abram S. Hezvitt. EXAMPLES AND PRECEDENTS. Some very successful experiments have been made where industrial features are given due prominence with most gratifying results. GARDEN SCHOOLS. One of the most practical was established by the Cash Register Company of Dayton, Ohio, at the suggestion of its able president. Nearly one hundred boys were gathered ofif the streets and each one given a garden plot of about six rods, where he was taught gardening and flori- culture by an expert. The boys were given all the products of their work, and prizes for attention and superior skill. Their work continued only four hours per day, two in the morning and two in the after- noon, so as not to become monotonous. It has been found to be not only a most charming study, that VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 6i the boys look forward to with eagerness and enthu- siasm, but it has had a most wonderful moral influ- ence. The rowdy, hoodlum boys, the so-called "toughs" of the street, who were the terror of the neighborhood, have become gentlemanly and polite, and find their work more attractive than their old sports. One striking proof of this change is found in the fact that lots in that neighborhood have more than trebled in value. The success was beyond the promoter's highest anticipations, the boys becoming so changed under the charm of being workers with God in Nature's magic wonderland of growing things. These boys from the garden schools have without doubt changed the whole tenor of their lives. Their homes will have flowers, trees and vines; their leisure will probably be spent in a garden rather than in a saloon. They have tasted one of the highest joys of life at Nature's own fountain. Can there be a possible doubt that these factory boys will be more likely to be law-abiding, home- loving citizens for these hours of teaching and work in the first and highest place of man's labor? This caring for living, growing things, this communion with Nature's most wonderful and charming ways, is one of the greatest safeguards for all young people, girls as well as boys, and no industrial school will be complete without its farm and garden. 62 INDUSTRIAL AND In other garden schools or children's farms one half the product of the plat was sold to pay for seed and teachers' salaries, and in this way were nearly self-supporting. No doubt, in the saving of crime alone these schools paid a thosand per cent, on their cost, and should be established in every city in the nation. It may be a question for serious consideration how much our Sunday school workers may learn from the moralizing influence of these garden schools. It is certainly an inspiring fact that village boys and girls who have won the name of "toughs" can be brought to comparatively good order and the value of lots largely increased by the elevating influence of garden work. We believe these children could be touched by a Sabbath lesson freed from all theo- logical dogma, but full of the spirit of reverent love for the great All Father, the source of all life and law, and some of the simple, tender and direct teach- ings of the Carpenter of Galilee on our mutual rela- tions and the oneness of man and his Creator. We are equally sure that primary lessons in botany and the varied sciences connected with soil, seed, cli- mate, fertilizers, etc., could be imparted in the gar- den school that would be of deepest interest and begin that taste for study and for knowing things that would make the later study in school a matter of delight and interest, instead of the dull burden of VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 63 abstract study of the conventional school text books. SELF-GOVERNMENT. More than half a century ago J. G. Holland wrote out the theory of self-government for pupils in school in his charming story of "Arthur Bonnicastle." The idea was too great and good to be adopted at once, but, Hke all advanced ideas, had to wait a generation before its worth was fully appreciated and the needs of a more democratic ideal called it into use ; but now the world is ripe for it, and we find many schools adopting this method of discipline, as well as some philanthropic works like the Forward Movement of Chicago, which has for several years taken a large crowd of young children for a summer outing and used this method of maintaining discipline with most satisfactory results. GEORGE JUNIOR REPUBLIC. The George Junior Republic was started in this way, and has grown into a permanent institution. This is exactly what its name indicates, a republic of minors who are self-governing, and whose motto is "Nothing without Labor." It is made up largely of homeless or worse than homeless boys and girls from the cities. They have the usual amount of 64 INDUSTRIAL AND school work and must work out of school hours for all their needs. They are paid in the coin of the Republic for their work, and, as there is no provi- sion for those who are lazy, those who do not work soon suffer for the necessaries of life and so learn to have a wholesome respect for labor as well as for law. The results so far have been surprisingly satisfac- tory. How much better this than taking single boys or girls to lonely country homes, where everything is so utterly out of sympathy with tlieir former en- vironment. In our truant schools it has been found necessary to introduce hand work and so interesting does this become that we often find good boys playing truant that they may be sent there where they "learn to make things with their hands." In schools for feeble-minded children it is often found that mental activity can only be aroused through the physical. So in our prisons frequently the first signs of an awakening of the mental and moral faculties come through some training of the physical. In a small denominational school a plant for in- dustrial training was put in a few years ago, but no teacher could be found who could or would teach the ideals of labor by example, and the plan was ap- proaching failure, when a principal took charge from one of the agricultural colleges. He came prepared VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 65 with overalls and blouse, and, with the genuine en- thusiasm of a trained horticulturist and botanist, at once called for volunteers to work in the garden zvith him as a daily task. Very soon the labor caste which had been established was all swept away and the pupils vied with each other for the privilege of working in the garden and shops with their favorite teacher, who had the winning spirit which comes from high mental culture and a love for Nature's ways, and whose hands had the cunning and skill with tools that made his work like the magic touch of the artist's pencil, a charm that is always attractive and always wins. In this school, as in all manual training schools, it was found that the work settled all problems of dis- cipline. "Education should Ht for complete living, not to create a literary aristocracy T — Herbert Spencer. PRIMARY INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS. In one of our Southern cities a Primary Industrial School for the neglected children of the factories was started as a philanthropy, and has proven such a success that it has been made a part of the public school system. These children would not attend the schools devoted wholly to memory cramming, but when the industrial training was introduced were eager to take part. 66 INDUSTRIAL AND SUBURBAN CITY AND CONCENTRATED COUNTRY SCHOOLS. It has been suggested that one desirable change in city schools would be to take the schools away from the congested districts into the suburbs, where every school building could be surrounded by green grass, with fresh air and ample playgrounds among flowers, trees and gardens. This would stop the growth of slums and slum elements, as children once used to such environments would never again desire or be willing to go to slum conditions. We deem this thoroughly practical, and not so radical a change as the rapidly extending system of concentrating the country schools carrying the chil- dren to and from school at public expense, with the advantages immensely more. In both cases there would be plenty of room to introduce complete manual training. The street cars can carry pupils at a cent each at a profit and children so educated would surely become a "new and superior order of people," and such a system of "Summer Garden Schools" as we have described could be one of the most valuable and important features of our regular common school course. AGRICULTURAL TRAINING. "Our agricultural interests, either in view of their domestic value, or as exports, are the most important VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 67 interests of the nation, yet they are least perfectly de- veloped of any." — Prest. Geo. T. Powell. "No nation will long survive the decay of its Agri- culture." — Thos. Jefferson. "The strength and glory of a nation depends on its tillers of the soil." — Thos. Jefferson. Not only is agriculture one of the most important industries, but its study and practice is one of the most inspiring and elevating to man's moral nature, and the great, historic characters, from Moses' time till today, have come from the discipline and spirit- ual uplift of some type of agricultural pursuit. One of the most interesting studies and move- ments along the line of progress in advancing indus- trial culture and agricultural science has been started in the states of Minnesota and Wisconsin. In the former state, primary and some advanced study of scientific agriculture is being advocated for all the common schools, the effort having been initiated by the able head of the agricultural department of the State Uni- versity, Professor Hayes, who has also presented a most practical plan for concentrating from ten to fif- teen adjacent school districts into one high school of agriculture and allied sciences. As up-to-date farm- ing requires a general knowledge and ability in sev- eral of the handicraft trades, such schools will nat- urally need to teach a variety of mechanic arts to 68 INDUSTRIAL AND agricultural pupils, and they will soon see the need of making provision for the boys and girls from the villages and towns, who will also need a wide variety of industrial education, with the fundamental train- ing in some phases of agricultural science. The nat- ural evolution of the best methods must bring more or less of the self-supporting principle into use, if, as we are fully persuaded, it is the best and most sci- entific method for gaining an industrial training. The suggestion is one of great promise for the fu- ture, and is in efifect being adopted in several states, and will no doubt become as universal as any branch of the public system of instruction in the new de- mocracy that is to be. This is but the first step toward the equipment of the youth of the coming age for higher and yet higher attainments in "complete living." President Patterson of the Cash Register Com- pany says that at present about 98 per cent of the pupils leave the schools with no training at all in any branch of agriculture, when the percentage should be reversed, or, better still, when no pupil should be allowed to leave without thorough knowledge in some branch of agricultural lore, the working to- gether with God in nature to produce the needs of life. In Wisconsin the Superintendent of Schools, Pro- fessor Harvey, was sent to Europe to study particu- VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 69 larly what could be learned of their methods of agri- cultural education. He came home with startling reports of the much larger number of agricultural colleges, in proportion to the inhabitants, than in this country; and the state, at his suggestion, has started a movement to have an agricultural school for every county, the plan being to have the state bear one-half the expense and the county the other half. Professor Harvey's bulletin containing his report of agricultural and industrial education in Europe and outlining his plans for progress here is very inspiring reading for any one who hopes for progress in the fundamental art of establishing a high grade of citi- zenship. Alabama, New York and some other states are already moving in the same direction, and a bill has been presented in Congress for government aid in furthering the work so hopeful for the future. Not only is agriculture the most important indus- try in a material sense for the nation, but the efifects of its study and practice on the moral and spiritual nature are the most elevating and inspiring, and it has always developed the greatest and strongest characters in the world's history, and therefore should be considered the most important science in an educational curriculum. Whenever the educa- tional system of the nation is reformed to the de- gree of having for its main purpose, its sole aim, the 70 INDUSTRIAL AND development of the highest average of citizenship in mental and spiritual attainments, then will the teach- ing of some phase of agricultural lore be considered as fundamental as the multiplication table. And for this we plead with every organized argicultural in- terest or labor union; it is the one thing that each and every child should be taught as a portion of the A, B, C of his training for the duties of citizenship. The least with which any one should be at all satis- fied for any child of city or slum would be a course in a Summer Garden School or an Agricultural High School. In this age of research, if agriculture is to retain its proper place as the most exalted and exalting vo- cation, it must be made scientific and the charm of all technical knowledge brought to bear to make it the choice of the liberally educated. It must be so changed that not a suspicion of labor caste taint can attach to the educated farmer. Edward Bellamy once truly said that in no other line of large staple production is there such a lack of system and science, nor such a waste of effort. If there were no other reason for the change to a Free Universal System of Industrial Education, this alone would be sufficient. In the new and better social order which is surely coming, the new "Triumph of Democracy," of which the demand for universal free industrial training is VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 71 but one of the many indications, there will be new and dominating social and educational standards, as far above the present as the present are above those of the past feudal times, when the men and women of the estate were considered as only a portion of the appurtenances of the barons' establishment, handy things to have for use or for defense but with scant rights to be respected and no mental culture to be thought of as belonging to their caste. And only when all the children have a fairly full course in some line of agricultural study; some taste of skilled gardening or floriculure ; a botanic knowl- edge of food plants; a course in the wonders of bac- teria, both useful and destructive, and in the chem- istry of soils, foods, fertilizers, grains and vegetable growths, with a general knowledge of the varied fruits, how to improve, propagate and adapt them to various localities, how to preserve and select, to ship and to sell, only when all these widely varied branches of these most interesting and charming fields of in- tellectual growth are fully taught in schools open and free as air to every boy and girl of this Republic, only then may we claim that necessary progress along this line has come to an approximate end, or even lay claim to a fairly well developed system. As we learn that it took nearly fifty years of per- sistent agitation in the days of our fathers fully to establish the idea that the common school was a 72 INDUSTRIAL AND necessity, so may we be willing to work as long as needful for this next great step upward and forward along the same general pathway. THE ELEVATION OF THE RACES. For the elevation of the races nothing has proven so valuable as agricultural training, and, radical as the proposition may seem, it is our conviction, after much study and many visits to different schools, con- tinuing for weeks in several cases, that it would be better for both races if every school for both Indian and Negro were closed where no industrial training is combined with literary studies, and that in the South only those schools conducted in this way are of any value in solving the race problem. All others lead away from the ideal of the dignity of labor, and in quite too many cases create a useless, idle and often vicious class, who have learned to imitate the vices of the dominant race, but do not emulate their virtues, for when the uplift of skilled labor is lack- ing education only creates wants that the hands have not acquired the skill to provide. At Hampton, Tuskegee and many other like places we get the true spirit that uplifts and prepares for the active duties of life and the higher enjoy- ments of an advanced civilization. The very fact that the colored race has social, VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 73 economic and political aspirations and ambitions, whatever of ridiculous and vexing embarrassments they may bring temporarily, should after all be cause for hope and congratulation for the future. For any country to have a large element with no hopes, no aims, no desire for progress and betterment and no ambition for a share in governmental functions, would mean a mass of inertia most dangerous and detrimental. Professor Dubois and Colonel Graves, and all who would defend the purely literary type of schools for race elevation, will do well to ponder carefully our main proposition that one of the essential con- trasts between a true Christian or scientific civiliza- tion and the pagan type is largely in the widely varying concepts in regard to labor and its sacred ofifice in race development. If the great Froebel's concept is correct, that man is a creative being, that this is his highest attribute and that all civilization is but the creative labor of man, then when this fundamental proposition is properly apprehended, the best method for all school systems will settle itself, and men will needs be eager to bring this attribute to highest perfection. Professor Dubois, while ably accentuating the importance of a high degree of training for teachers, entirely begs the question as to which type of school is best for race development, in his claim that all the 74 INDUSTRIAL AND industrial schools have some teachers from the lit- erary institutions. He cannot but be aware of the patent fact that the superior industrial schools have been vastly fewer than the others, and also of the other equally plain proposition that, according- to the universal and dominant law of humanity, to try to imitate those who are supposed to be above them in social standing has naturally led the bright and ambitious young colored people to the schools most- ly patronized by the white people, and both have drifted into the idea that an education means mainly memorizing from text books, and that a college edu- cation means escape from the drudgery of labor, as it has come to be understood. There can be no ques- tion but that in spite of the lack of the best methods, these bright and ambitious young people, when transplanted to the more wholesome atmosphere of Hampton, Tuskegee et al., will soon catch the spirit of the place and become valuable teachers; but this is no proof whatever that they would not have been better teachers if trained more correctly from the first; and if labor had been made scientific, and skill in it taught as an accomplishment instead of a drudgery, all the teachers and preachers of the race would have exerted a much higher and more bene- ficial influence on their struggling- people. The able and accomplished chancellor of a great university, who declared he had learned three trades VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 75 since he became a college professor, and found in the shop work his best mental recuperation, and thereby- gained power for his daily work in the class room, is a strong proof of all we plead for as the most pow- erful aid in race progress and the only hope of the colored races coming to any self-reliant, self-respect- ing position in civilization. No doubt Professor Dubois will repel our sug- gestion that the type of theological seminary founded on the example set by St. Paul is the kind essen- tially needed for race uplift; it was rejected by the arrogant Roman aristocracy of the time, to whom it was so repugnant that they took ofif his head to stop the heresy, and degraded the ministry into an alms- taking, non-working class, from which it has never fully emerged. If the able pleader for the good of "black men's souls" will carefully study the matter out, he will come to the same conclusion as the great, if not the greatest, friend of his race, "that a lot of the facts we learn in school are not so," and must be "un- learned in life," and that much that he has learned in the so-called "best white schools" is not the best for the white race, and utterly fatal to the elevation of his own race, who no doubt must travel the same pathway as all other races and let the hand lead the brain, as Nature decrees. We will dare suggest that very likely it may yet •j^ INDUSTRIAL AND prove best for his race, if they are to grow into a high social state, to follow the essential rule for the boy in learning to swim, to go by themselves and work out the problem unaided by the dominant race, who will no doubt always hold them to a lower place socially and politically, and will always exploit them economically. Of one thing we may be certain: to arouse ambition along any line and not teach the hands how to satisfy the aroused ambition, is of all things most cruel. The preachers or teachers of the weaker race, whose example or teaching is tainted with the ideals of a labor caste, are surely doing them an injury; while those who teach a self-reliant, self-supporting, industrial independence are but fol- lowing the lessons of the great social reformer, St. Paul, whose efforts were along very similar lines. Professor Dubois speaks of "Industrial Educa- tion" as "adapted to needs of artisans," and of the "long-established and approved methods for the edu- cation of the white race," apparently oblivious of the fact that in the minds of a vast and constantly in- creasing number of people a handicraft education is best for all learned professions, and the "long-estab- lished methods of education" have been heartily con- demned by many most scientific minds, and are like almost all systems and customs "long established," far behind the progress of a scientific age, and only held in place by the law of inertia. VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 7^ DRIFTING INTO TWO CLASSES. The colored people of the South seem to be drift- ing into two sharply defined classes. One class, rep- resented by the graduates of such schools as Hamp- ton and Tuskegee, proud of the skill of their hands and what they can do that is useful, are at work try- ing to win respect and consideration by their merits and progress; while the other class, led by the grad- uates of purely literary schools, is aggressively, and sometimes insolently, demanding social and political recognition. And from this class, quite as much to be pitied as blamed for a false ideal gained by imitat- ing a false standard, comes the class that is the clog and hindrance to their normal progress. If they ever get a colored republic or separate state, it is the former class alone who will make its success possible, while one of the heaviest burdens will be the latter class, those who know more of Greelc than of the laws of mechanics, more of Latin than of the science of agriculture, and who, through unfortunate imitation of the dominant race, have im- bibed the ideal suggested by Herbert Spencer, that the object of an education is to produce a "literary aristo- cracy" rather than to fit for "complete living." If, in- stead of all this, the colored preachers and teachers will but study and imitate the example of the great preacher and social reformer, St. Paul, who knew 78 INDUSTRIAL AND and taught the essential nobility of skilled labor as the foundation of a Christian civilization, the worst phases of the race problem will soon be solved. In almost all the Southern towns the worse menace to law and progress is to be found in the large class of fairly educated young colored men, who can write a good hand and have a fair education from text books, but having no trade, can only work at the commonest and least paid industries. As they have also the idea that they must gain their living by their wits, they drift into crime as naturally as ducks into water. From this class comes much if not all of the active prejudice against Northern- supported colored schools, while the universal testi- mony is that those who have trades are the thrifty, law-abiding class, whose progress is a hope for the race. The many colored preachers who have thus im- bibed the unscientific and un-Christian aversion to skilled labor from the type of schools they have at- tended, are powerless to come into any helpful touch with the unfortunate loafing class, and thus their influence is neutralized where most needed. "These hands ministered to my necessities, and to those zvith me." — Saint Paul. CIVILIZATION IN HAVTI AND SAN DOMINGO. "Labor is God's education for man." — Emerson. VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 79 Along few lines of general interest has there been more misinformation or more unjust conclusions than in regard to the so-called failure of the attempts to elevate the freedmen of Hayti and San Domingo, a striking example of a thing the world has known so surely and so long, that is not so. Again and again with fullest assurance has it been asserted in the press and from the platform that all efforts to raise the freed colored and mixed races of Hayti and San Domingo have proven futile, and they have been believed to be incapable of elevation to any great degree of civilization, or mental improve- ment, and we are told that they must be given over to riot and revolution, unless held down by the strong hand of the "superior races." But recently a student statesman of Hayti, who knows whereof he afifirms, declares that the apparent failure has come from the unnatural and unscientific methods of education pursued alike by both public and missionary schools, which have attempted to be- gin in the air and build a mental culture with no foundation on the earth of pride or skill in the essen- tials of industry and labor. The natives have seen the disinclination of their superiors and teachers to labor and following that universal trait of humanity to imitate those socially above us have felt that text book lore was not compatible with pride in handi- craft accomplishment. They have been taught the 8o INDUSTRIAL AND spelling book instead of gardening, higher mathe- matics and Latin instead of the fundamental art of tillage, and as naturally as water flows down grade, these people, following the false standards, have tried to live by their wits instead of by honest toil and have drifted into riot and revolution, for the simple reason that they have no industrial system in which they have any pride or interest. Here then we have the true reason for all this de- cadent race history, this discouraging phase of the race problem — the heads of these people have been filled with the dry text book lore, with facts and data that have so little to do with active life, and particu- larly for newly made freedmen, while the hands are all untaught, no pride in useful achievement culti- vated, the very foundations of a progressive social order neglected, and a false pride established in fol- lowing the example of the teachers and preachers of the dominant race to eschew all possible labor of the hands, all the creative attribute of man, the highest given; is it any wonder they have drifted into riot and revolution? They have no industrial system in which the ambitious can find a field for their best efforts and so have fulfilled the old adage more truthful than elegant: "Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do." And the world, all untaught in a correct social sci- ence, has stood aghast, and declared that the colored VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 8i race could not attain to the civilization of the white race, a statement as impious as it is unscientific. Knowing what we now do of the success of such schools as Hampton and Tuskegee, can there be a shadow of doubt that if there had been such in Hayti and San Domingo, and hand-craft had preceded head-craft as Nature provides, and pride and ambi- tion in industry been made the corner-stone of their teaching, they would have had a hopeful progressive history? THE PITIFUL FILIPINO FARCE. "If the blind lead the blind, they shall both fall into the pit." — Bible. Now we get word that the same pitiful farce is be- ing repeated in the Philippines, under the auspices of our government schools. The teachers having been miseducated themselves, are scattering the poi- son of a false system in the dark places and thus fulfilling the Scripture adage in regard to the lead- ing of the bHnd. A letter recently received from a friend who has been a government teacher in the Philippines and who has had a long and successful experience in this country as a college president, an intense student of sociology and a humanitarian of wide sympathies, tells of all this. He declares that he pleaded earn- 82 INDUSTRIAL AND estly that the first steps in educating the native should be along industrial lines, but the imported American teachers had no hand-craft skill them- selves and no approximate appreciation of its value as the first step in an advanced social order, so they taught as they had been taught, imparting involun- tarily the idea that to be educated and cultured is to avoid work and that labor is only for slaves and in- feriors, and he declares it has done untold harm and thousands of the natives have been spoiled for ever becoming practical, efficient citizens in the new civ- ilization. They are puflfed up with conceit and van- ity because they have a little smattering of English, and can put their names on paper, but have no am- bition or pride in skill in gardening or any phase of industrial life. A few agricultural schools and experiment sta- tions are a great benefit to the older farmers and the few who get their teachings, but nothing can take the place of imparting to the youthful masses the fundamentals of an advancing civihzation that must come from skill in tillage and the arts that nat- urally flow from it and from using the creative tal- ents that alone bring to man at-one-ment with his Creator. THE CONTRAST IN JAMAICA. "Righteousness exalteth a nation." — Bible. VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 83 Under the more humane rule of the British in Jamaica,, the freedmen have been taught something of progressive agriculture and have made a slow but steady improvement. The relations of the races have been pleasant, no infamous crimes on record, no lynchings or mobs called for. With better schools and more complete training in a variety of mechanic arts they would have attained a higher social devel- opment, for there can be no question but the evolu- tionary movements can be accelerated in this way. We now learn that some promising young men from all these Islands of the Sea are in attendance at Tuskegee and Hampton, where a broader train- ing is given, so we may hope that in the future there will be a more rapid progress and that the days of riot and revolution, tumult and turbulance will be no more. ANGLO-SAXON RACE PRIDE. "Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall." — Bible. We need not be too arrogant in our race pride when we look back over the bloody pathway by which we have come up from the time when the great preacher of a better civilization, St. Paul, took his life in his hands, to preach to the heathen on British soil, who were then sacrificing human beings to their superstitions. 84 INDUSTRIAL AND Neither the record of the cruel past nor the reve- lations of the present are conducive to our pride in our so-called "Christ-like" social order. It is not at all flattering to our race to read Editor Stead's ex- posure of the unspeakable atrocities of the so-called "nobility," nor General Booth's "Darkest England" and the "Submerged Tenth" in a land that boasts of being the richest nation on the earth. One Eng- lish writer of world-wide prominence declared that England is still in the main pagan, with a few spots covered with a thin veneer of Christianity and these spots making the surrounding paganism more hideous in contrast. And when we study our own country, with all our boast of freedom and progress, we find the atrocity of "child slavery" in our factories, with an army of men without any way of earning an honest living. We have not yet evolved the science of social ad- justment to such a degree that we may be very proud of our racial superiority, or we would not al- low this, nor permit thousands of children to come up in the slums where it is impossible that they become anything but human monsters, costing millions to keep them in a state of subjection for the safety of the favored ones. It was a pagan emperor who said that a nation could not expect to survive long that derived its main revenues from the vices of its people, yet we VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 85 are still deriving our principal revenue from the most destructive vice of our people and our children are taught in schools tinctured with pagan folly, and denominated "murderous" by able critics. Surely we too may well begin to study fundamen- tals, and we should be very patient with the appar- ently slow progress of neglected races until we de- velop enough of the "Science of Society" to know how to maintain our own standards and rightly help those who have not yet had even our imperfect ad- vantages. THE GREAT OBERLIn's EXAMPLE. "What man has done, man may do again/' — Ancient Proverb. All our farcical failure to elevate the Indians, and now the Filipinos and other neglected people, is in striking contrast to the success of the great Ober- lin, who perhaps caused one of the greatest social reforms on the largest scale of any in recorded his- tory. He began his work by establishing an agri- cultural school and taught the wild, rude, robber na- tives of the Pyrenees an improved agriculture as the first step in a moral betterment; and so on from this fundamental beginning till he changed the whole people of the province, from the poorest, most wicked and degraded, to the most refined, intelli- gent and thrifty of any in the nation. 86 INDUSTRIAL AND His history and great success is one of the most convincing and inspiring proofs of our whole con- tention possible. THE PEOPLE MUST MAKE THE CHANGE. '^All great reforms must come up from- the com- mon people." — Ancient Egyptian Proverb. From a venerable and venerated friend whose thought is always candid and able comes the sugges- tion that the reforms we ask must perforce come from the demand of the people themselves, that what is demanded by the need of the times and the aroused spirit of the world is so far away from the conventional established ideal it cannot be wrought out by the present professional educators; they have not the power to stem the tide of established cus- tom, but it must be brought about by the united de- mand of the people and the progressive teachers who have already seen the wrong of the present and the hope of the better system, whose eyes are open to the coming light, and who see the fundamental need of the time. "The teachers of the old system fool themselves, and mislead their pupils into the belief that a literary course alone can make scholars." — JV. H. Page. TEACHING BY EXAMPLE. The greatest criticism we would make of our VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 87 agricultural colleges and schools, where wide indus- trial training has been introduced, is that teachers who are in the literary department do not teach in- dustries, and vice versa, and thus exemplify to their pupils the proper relation between mental culture and pride in skilled labor. At one of the great industrial centers the Greek professor is the blacksmith, and has the same pride in his work at the forge that he has in his transla- tions. In one school with which we are familiar the professor of agriculture not only superintends the raising of the products, but also teaches the pupils the chemistry of the same, and then insists that they shall know how to cook them. But we know of very few such instances. That such a revolutionary change in our whole educational system must be a matter of growth will be admitted; but that it need be a matter of slow growth we emphatically deny. The need and de- mand for it is too great and immediate, and the steps already taken assure its success. PREVENTION OF CRIME. "Universal Industrial training will be self-sustain- ing to the state in the prevention of crime." — John Ruskin. The civihzation of the North stands aghast at the 88 INDUSTRIAL AND vast waste of child life in our cities and the enor- mous cost of crime that comes from neglected chil- dren whom we know could be educated into good and profitable citizens; and this alone is sufficient motive for the change that will save this vast outlay for crime and its results by guiding the hands of the young toward useful, skilled, creative labor that will aid in both mental and moral uplift. The case here is urgent. It brooks no delay. One eminent writer sets the cost of preventable crime and accessories in one city at forty million dollars per year, and fully six hundred millions for the whole country. What would not this vast sum do in reasonable, sci- entific educational prevention, in making of the street waifs skilled, intelligent, thrifty citizens? A hundred George Junior Republics filled with the neglected children of the slums would be as economi- cal as patriotic in educating the waifs toward useful citizenship. It is claimed that an average of over eighty per cent, of the graduates of the Minnesota Reform School become good citizens. And these, it will be remembered, are of the bad boys sent to be re- claimed, and industry is the main thing depended on for reforming them, vvhile it is claimed that from sixty to seventy per cent of the average village and city boys who have no industrial training go to the bad. The civilization of the Southland has an equally VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 89 or even more ominous question in the race problem, with a vast ilHterate contingent of poor whites, all of whom stand as a portentous menace to the fu- ture, but who may all be turned into useful, thrifty and law-abiding citizens if we will begin their up- lift in the way God and Nature intended; if we will but reverse our present rude and undeveloped sys- tem and give that the first place which Nature gives to every child born into this world, the desire and ability to learn its first lessons through its hands. THE SLOW AND UNPRECOCIOUS. Under the present system it is usual at an early age to condemn to bread winning and factory slav- ery those pupils who seem in any way slow or de- ficient in power or inclination to acquire the conven- tional type of education. This is a great wrong both to society and the individual; for, if it be ad- mitted that the development of a higher form of av- erage democracy is the pathway of true progress, then should the slow and less ably endowed, the weak and simple, have extra pains taken to develop what intellectual and productive ability they have to the highest possible point, not only to enhance their value to the state and to society, but also that their children may have the heredity of better parentage. We dare claim that, among any given one thousand of the so-called "poor scholars" who are prematurely 90 INDUSTRIAL AND doomed to an early slavery at bread winning, with the minimum of mental training and with no hand training at all, in any thousand of such will be found many capable of becoming men and women of mark, of genius, if they could be led along for a few years and have the advantages of hand culture and a chance to study mechanic arts or industrial training in some of its branches which are adapted to their peculiar mental drift. It is a well attested fact that many men and wom- en of exceptional ability are late and slow in giving any evidence of strong mental power, and may never do so until some mechanical or technical study, some form of handicraft training, brings to the surface unexpected talents of a high order. In this manner will colleges and universities based on the plan of alternate study and work, and that shall hold pupils until years of maturity, be of ines- timable value, both in creating a higher average of intelligence among all, and also (and of greatest im- portance) in finding and bringing out many men and women of rare merit and usefulness, who, under the present system, are almost totally lost to the world and doomed, like the flowers of the desert, to bloom unseen and unknown. We are fully persuaded that if there were no other reason for the demand for a self-supporting system of schools for higher educa- tion than this alone, it would be ample for a most VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 91 comprehensive effort to establish such schools in every county in the whole land, to promote the higher average of the citizenship by cultivating the slow and unprecocious and by developing the latent geniuses from those who only come to their full powers at a later age. "Had Caesar, Napoleon, Columbus, Shakespeare Sir Isaac Newton, Adam Smith, or Herbert Spencer been assigned by fate the lack of an education, or the dreary toil of an Irish bog laborer, what would their native talents have availedf" — Henry George. ELEVATING LABOR VERSUS DEGRADING DRUDGERY. "What thy hands find to do, do it with thy might." — The Bible. Convinced as we are that true labor is a God-like attribute, exalting and ennobling when normally ex- ercised, we are also aware that it can be so imposed upon men as to become drudgery, enslaving and de- moralizing in the extreme. Booker Washington tersely expressed this when he said, "To work, to work, TO WORK (for one's own) is the height of Chris- tian civilization ; but to be worked, to be worked, to BE WORKED (for another's profit) is the barbarism of slavery." William Morris would put into all labor the ideals of the artist, have all possible skill, knowi- 92 INDUSTRIAL AND edge and intelligence in regard to the correlated sci- ences and thus feel the joy of working to contribute to the needs of the world. The effort done in this spirit, even the digging of a sewer, may become a joyful service and a means of spiritual growth to the worker. To know how to exc^I and to take pride in superior accomplishments makes the whole differ- ence between drudgery and art. We see this differ- ence between scientific agriculture and ignorant farming, and this wide contrast may be seen in every vocation and in every form of labor, and for this quality of mental uplift of the workers there is no way but to develop the mental powers, cultivate the artist spirit, and at the same time make skillful the hands that do the world's work. The result will be such an average of high moral purpose, joy and effi- ciency as the world has never yet seen. "To mix brains with our hand work" is but a homely expres- sion for this wide contrast between the labor that blesses and the drudgery that degrades, and the man or woman who knows all the scientific relations of the material manipulated by his or her hands has a delight in work to be had in no other way. If to this be added the joy of serving a person or a cause, then the highest blessings on earth may come from labor which otherwise might be drudgery of basest degree. With modern forces for production, it is unques- tionable that four to six hours of labor each day VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 93 would supply the world with a plenitude of luxuries such as princes now might envy; and this amount of labor would be only what is needful for healthful ex- ercise, and, when done with proper aim and method, would give a moral ,and spiritual uplift unequaled by any other means. All men do not now have the opportunity to work. With shorter hours and the worker receiving his due proportion of the product all could be employed. All this should be included in a new system of education that shall propose the training of head, hands and heart as a trinity of equal importance in the building of character and in soul growth. With this as the motive for reorganizing our whole educational force, we may confidently look forward to such an evolution of the "religion of democracy," to the development of such a high average of citi- zenship as the world has never seen, with the growth of all the grandest ideals of an international unity of spirit and interest among men as shall make the hideousness of war a thing unthinkable and unheard of again. With such an average citizenship as we shall have when a full industrial college and university course is given freely to every child, we may be sure such a social order will be developed as will make the adoption of a short working day imperative, and the people, cultured in art and science, will develop a 94 INDUSTRIAL AND perfection of human society such as has only been dreamed of by the poets of past ages. The millen- nium epoch may be surely looked for with unquestion> ing faith. This will be the age spoken of by Ferguson when "the university will come to all free as air and glorious as sunshine," and the religion of democracy have its most holy accomplishment; and all this may begin its coming tomorrow, if we will. "It is unspeakably pernicious to think or speak of the development of humanity as stationary or com- pleted.'' — Froehel. That ziith student labor alone, an industrial educa- tion plant has been built ivorth over half a million dol- lars and at the same time the students have acquired a much better education than if the plant had been previously prepared and they had come zvith money to pay their zcay through a conventional course, is the second greatest achievement in importance in the edu- cational history of America. EQUIPMENT VERSUS ENDOWMENT. "Education is the most essential interest of the State." — Wendell Phillips. The time has come when seminaries, colleges and universities should no longer depend upon endow- ments for support, but rather upon industrial equip- VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 95 ment. During the past year the enormous sum of fifty to seventy millions of dollars has been put into endowment funds for facilities for higher education for the comparatively few. Vast as is the purchas- ing power of this great sum," it will scarcely produce a ripple in the educational history or progress of the nation, and will have no appreciable effect on the democratic progress of education for the masses, where help and progress are most needed. While, if even one-quarter of this had been put into the equipment of self-supporting industrial schools for all, it would have marked a new and distinct epoch in educational advance and set a new pace for the world's progress as noteworthy and as grand as did the great step of the heroic fathers of the Republic when they established the common school for the benefit of every boy and girl in the nation, a move- ment that required fifty years of vigorous agitation to establish. -This greatest achievement of our democratic fathers helped forward the evolution of the race more than it had moved in centuries. The establishment of a system of Free Industrial Self-supporting Schools and Colleges for all will be a step of equal if not greater importance in accelerating race prog- ress and advancing democratic civilization. There are many grave objections to the whole plan of endowments; the system has had its day. It is 96 INDUSTRIAL AND time for something more democratic and not so tainted with pagan abuses. The whole system of en- dowed educational institutions is a relic of the age and concept that a few only should be provided with educational facilities and that the vast majority must toil in ignorance to produce the wealth needed for the favored few. It is an utterly pagan concept and system, out of date and place in a democratic and progressive age. An equipment of two hundred thousand dollars in farm, shop, factory and working material for a self- supporting school will care for more pupils than a conventional college having a full million-dollar en- dowment. The system of education under an in- dustrially equipped school will be a correct one, not a concession to false ideals, but dominated by the true democratic spirit of self-help and perfectly adapted to cultivating the creative attributes of the pupil. Then, too, a school depending upon endowments must always be more or less handicapped by the moral taints attaching to the moneys received, as were the schools founded by Captain Kidd from the proceeds of his peculiar economic system, even as later methods have tainted and compromised the schools dependent upon them for support. Again, the endowment system locks up enormous amounts of money in bonds, mortgages, etc., away from ac- VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 97 tive creative channels in commerce and industry, and places the influence of the school on the un- democratic and unscientific side of continuing high interest rates, always an undesirable condition and adverse to democratic progress. One noted school, which was founded on most radical ideals, has been so tainted with this spirit as to have won a most unenviable reputation as a stickler for high rates of interest and a merciless forecloser of farm mortgages, a most unworthy repu- tation for the moral influence of a great educational institution, which should be a radical leader along the line of true democracy; for along that line is the only true ideal of social progress. In well equipped industrial schools the strength and virility of teachers will be best conserved. Teachers who devote themselves to mental training only have a very severe tax upon nerve force and personal magnetism and vast numbers have broken down under this strain of nerve effort before their best years of matured service came, while in an in- dustrial school they would often have the restful change from brain to hand work, which is a natural recuperation, and in this manner retain for a much longer period the powers of nerve and magnetic forces so necessary for best success in leading and molding young lives. Last, but really most impor- tant of all, by working a portion of the time each 98 INDUSTRIAL AND day with pupils, the teachers are setting the example and social standard of the union of culture with skill in creative labor or useful service which is one of the essentials in a scientific civilization and without which no social state can be made progressive or permanent. Were there no other reasons, the latter alone would justify the change; and we feel sure the com- ing reform and the highest ideals of progress are coming from and through the change from Endow- ments to Equipments. The one who demonstrates that a well equipped industrial school can be self- supporting will do a grand work for humanity and write his name large as a benefactor of his kind; and philanthropists who will equip such schools, or help to do so, will win renown as helpers of their race, and erect a more lasting monument than any marble or bronze placed for mere show. We are sure there are many of the smaller col- leges, now struggling with inadequate endowments or income, whose usefulness would be enhanced a hundredfold if they could and would change all or a portion of their endowments into an industrial equipment for self-support. They would then be in line with the rapidly advancing demands of the peo- ple who wish for the best type of a liberal or com- plete education, and in harmony with the ideals sug- gested in Herbert Spencer's able address, and VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 99 more fully defined in the philosophy of the seer, Froebel. We also know that many philanthropists and prominent business men, when their attention is called to these ideas, are much more ready to help such schools, for any race or any section, than the schools for mental training alone. We deem it patent to all why our government should aid in establishing such practical schools at this time, and why our motto, "More for Schools AND Less for War," should become a national watch- word for all who hope for the time suggested by the eloquent Englishman, "when Americanism shall con- quer the whole world." For we can sooner conquer the world with the school than with the battleship. Ideas will penetrate deeper than rifle shot. Tremendously as the world has been taught to fear our "armor-clads" and the range of our artil- lery, they may yet stand in greater awe of the moral , and mental achievements of a nation of college- trained people. A perfected democracy will much sooner subdue the world than the best armaments. Exalted ideas will win and hold the allegiance of the coming peoples of all lands longer and better than the most perfect examples of brute force. When we decree that every child of this Republic shall have a full college course, a college course far more complete and thorough than any heretofore loo INDUSTRIAL AND given, it will thrill the world with a new expectancy of lofty achievement as yet unknown in the history of the race. It will, indeed, be an example of "Tri- umphant Democracy" that will set a new pace for the highest ideals of an ambitious generation. "Where there is a nnll, there is a way." — Proverb. "Life without zvork is guilt, and work zuithout art is brutality." — Ruskin. THE UNIVERSITY. AN INTELLECTUAL AND INDUSTRIAL CENTER. When in all modern processes, from making a gar- den to a locomotive, there is a continual demand for the highest and most scientific study and skill, what could be more appropriate than that the uni- versity should be a great center of industrial activity where the students can work their way through the course of mental and hand culture, each a corrollary of the other, and then if they wish to remain in the atmosphere of learning, or to carry forward some post-graduate course of investigation, can still work on in their chosen vocation and enjoy the social privileges of tlie place, with the possibilities of self- supporting labor and mental ripening all provided for and open for their maintenance? Is not this whole ideal intensely practical and possible of attain- ment? VOCATIONAL EDUCATION loi THE PROPHETIC SPIRIT YET LIVES. When the world is ready for any great advance in any Hne the prophecy of the coming change will be felt in many and far separated places at about the same time. When the world was ready to cast ofif the curse of human slavery the impulse was felt from Russia to San Domingo, from England and France to the United States at about the same mo- ment of historic time. When the world was ready for a great advance in labor-saving machinery, men of all sorts were found whittling models of sewing machines and reapers in many places and in many countries with no previous knowledge of each other's efforts, or why the inspiration came to them at the time. So has it been in this matter of a revolutonary change in the methods of our educational system. When in 1868 we penned our first conception of an industrial college, with its own plant, to be partially or quite self-supporting, and that should convey a better quality of mental discipline than the conven- tional college, some of whose graduates had deeply impressed us with the fact of their unpreparedness for life, we thought that we could flatter ourselves on being the first, or one of the very first, who had conceived the progressive plan. We have since learned of many others who had come to essentially 104 INDUSTRIAL AND the same thought and had seen the need and value of training the hands and brain at the same time, and that each was a necessary portion of the needful training for life; and all this with no knowledge of each other, nor any knowledge of the writings of the great men who had been moved by the same spirit. Today there are hundreds who deeply feel that the change is now imminent and must come as soon as the needful men and methods can be evolved. The great-souled man, Col. Edward Daniels, who has already taken the first practical steps to intro- duce in Congress and in Legislatures bills for put- ting the movement into legal form, was at work preaching the gospel and stirring the thoughts of many in his wide acquaintance to see the great need of the movement. Now it awaits the power of com- bined numbers to enact the laws that shall make it as well an established custom as the common school has become, which in its inception took a full gen- eration of most energetic agitation before it was adopted by the several states of the then small and struggling beginnings of this now mighty nation — a nation which can waste more each year in tawdry ornamentation than the whole thing will cost, and where the cost of preventable crime is more than the total assessed value of the property of the fathers at the time they took this great step. VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 103 CAN COLLEGES BE MADE SELF-SUPPORTING? "The grandest achievements of the race are those that have been proved impossible." — J as. L. Hughes. To most of our readers the above question will im- mediately present itself, and in answering it the mental process will, no doubt, in most cases, follow about the same lines as those of an eminent and vet- eran educator when first presented with the proposi- tion of free universal industrial training as the next step in educational progress and an essential in social evolution. He at once assented to the value and importance of the union of hand and head culture for all as vastly desirable and to the idea that the time is ripe for the movement, and that it would pay in various ways. In prevention of crime, he admitted it would be most efficient, that it would produce a citizenship of re- markably increased power as wealth producers, and after careful thought he declared, "Whether it can be wholly self-sustaining or not is unimportant, quite incidental. We need such a system of universal training for all the people, at any cost to the state, to keep up with the needs and demands of social growth; but it seems chimerical to expect it can be made fully self-sustaining and not hinder its fullest usefulness as a general system for scientific and liter- ary study." I04 INDUSTRIAL AND After a few weeks of study upon the plans and pos- sibilities of a system of self-support, he declared his full conviction that not only could industrial schools for pupils of fifteen or over be made fully self-sus- taining, but that they could be made to pay a fair dividend on the needed capital for equipment and at the same time impart a quality of education far above that of the average college or university that adhered to the old process of mind discipline to the total neglect of hand training, now so popular among those who have indulgent friends to pay their bills and help them to attain that kind of education whose chief accomplishment is often, as Spencer declared, to create a type of "literary aristocracy," of but little use in preparation for the higher ideals of complete living. Another educator, of international reputation, de- clared it is perfectly practical and in every way de- sirable and added that in his own school many pupils now gain complete support by working three hours per day five days in the week and eight hours on Saturday, and this with no detriment, but rather a decided advantage to their progress and efficiency in the academic courses; and all this with no organ- ized system, and the pupils obliged to pay retail prices for everything needed, or from four to six times as much as the actual labor cost if produced in a plant established as a working portion of the VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 105 school. This is a most important factor, not usually understood by those who only think casually on the subject. According to the published reports of the United States Census Bureau, and confirmed by tlie Commis- sioner of Labor, the labor cost of the average prod- ucts is only about sixteen per cent, of the price at which they are sold at retail. As many oT the prod- ucts of the school plant would not be produced quite as cheaply as in commercial factories, although much better in quality, it may be safe to estimate a labor cost of one fourth the prices usually paid by teachers and pupils. We see at once that if students can earn the min- imum wage of only ten to twenty cents per hour, and work only twenty to twenty-four hours per week, they can earn a sum that will mean self-support, even though they pay retail prices for everything, and be more than self-supporting when the necessaries of life can be obtained at the actual labor cost. In this way the cost of living for teachers will also be greatly reduced. We deem it only necessary to refer to the well- known facts in regard to many of our agricultural colleges, our many trade and industrial schools of various kinds, and to the well-known schools of Hampton and Tuskegee, in all of which no effort has been made or suggested to accomplish en- lo6 INDUSTRIAL AND tire self-support, but where one fourth to two thirds of the running expenses have been equaled by the productive value of the work of the schools, to prove beyond the possibility of question that when the efifort is really and earnestly made to establish schools of entire self-support, it can be done by carrying a little further along a system already an established success and of most uniform beneficial results to the quality of mental equipment acquired in all these schools. In all our modern colleges are a few brave boys and girls working their way through with no system- atized method to reduce the labor to a minimum of time and efifort, but, often under the greatest diffi- culties and disadvantages, these brave students work on and pay their own way, getting a minimum for their labor and paying a maximum of profit on all they have to buy; and these self-supporting students average among the very highest, both in school and in after life. Had they a well organized system for supplying their own needs, the labor hours could be greatly decreased and the mental benefits of the labor vastly increased. A volume could be fidled with the heroic successes of those who have secured a full college and univer- sity education by all kinds of labor and under all sorts of adverse conditions; and the higher general average of usefulness and ability of this class of grad- VOCATIONAL EDUCATION loj^ nates over those who have their bills paid for them will be generally admitted; and scarcely any one will deny that, if a system of manual and mechanical education had been an essential and systematized portion of their course, the average of mental power would have been still higher. The almost universal consensus of opinion among all progressive educators and thinkers, the general trend of progress in education, is wholly towards the combining of hand and brain culture. The only por- tion of the problem we need to elucidate is how with the least possible financial difficulty to get the new system established where it will take its proper and needful place as the universal system, and thus do away forever with the present pagan methods, mainly adapted, as Spencer declares, "to establish an aristocracy of letters," wholly out of place in this democratic country, where all the best thought of the age is to advance democratic ideals and forever to do away with all the false and shoddy ideals of an efifete aristocracy. To carry out this full program is an effort of just enough difficulty to charm and arouse the enthusi- asm of progressive teachers and furnish a motive for heroic endeavor, we are sure; and that the completed result will make a great historic evolutionary epoch there can be no question. Nor can there be any question that the time is fully ripe for the step as an io8 INDUSTRIAL AND important factor in the surging storm of social re- form that is now sweeping the world and demand- ing attention from all patriotic minds. There has been enough accomplished in the past to prove that colleges and universities and other schools can be very successfully carried on, on an entirely self-supporting basis, as soon as competent, thorough-going effort is made to develop the system by those who have an enthusiasm for the grand pur- pose of making a full college and university course open and free to every boy and girl of the land, and the added enthusiasm to make it a course superior to anything ever enjoyed heretofore. As an eminent writer says, all material advance must be preceded by higher intellectual and spiritual concepts and ideals. So does the social and eco- nomic advance, now so needful in the interests of peace and prosperity, wait upon this advance in edu- cational matters. A school equipped with special facilities for best possible courses of both handicraft training and lit- erary and scientific accomplishments would have for main summer work and teaching the farm, with stock, dairy, gardens and all food-producing equip- ments possible, where the food of the school would be produced at lowest labor cost, and a surplus for sale at regular established retail prices. It would have a printing plant for instruction in the art of VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 109 printing and for the production of its own books and papers, and a surplus to sell. It would have its own tannery to exemplify the trade and to turn the hides of the beef used into profitable product; and the raw hide, worth only three to five dollars, would be worth fifty to one hun- dred when made into shoes, harness, etc. The self- supporting school should make enough to supply its own needs, and a surplus to sell at market rates. A small weaving and knitting outfit would enable it to furnish most of its own clothing at one tenth the usual cost in labor, and a surplus to sell at usual prices, making a profit to pay balance of teachers' salaries and incidental expenses. The same with furniture, implements and fix- tures; and a great advantage to pupils in gaining their mechanical and industrial training will be the naturally greater interest in creating the things for their own personal use, rather than in making for the impersonal market. It will develop habits of care, nicety and thoroughness of detail which is of itself a moral lesson of vast importance. It will readily be seen that during the first years of such a school there will be difficulties and ob- stacles that will entirely vanish after the system is under way and the order established. At the be- ginning the pupils will not have acquired the esprit de corps of the work and will lack the facility no INDUSTRIAL AND of adapting their efforts to best advantage; but as soon as a few years of successful progress have passed and the system is learned by those in at- tendance, then it will be found that pupils who were of little industrial value the first year will be- come of much greater value the second, and each year of increasing value in the productive labors of the school. So the extra value of the labor of jun- iors and seniors will fully compensate for the les- ser value of freshmen and sophomores. It is surprising how much valuable material has been produced even by children of ten years of age, working only four hours per day, in the "Summer Garden Schools," "Children's Farms" and "Pingree Potato Patches." The same is true of the Primary Industrial and Truant Schools, where braiding rugs and straw and making things of use which convey lessons in handicraft and have the charm of novelty have been introduced. The work of pupils of the first years in school can be and has been made to bring some revenue; and when pupils have been in such schools a year or two, where the aim is to be as nearly self-sustaining as possible, they will each year become more productive workers ; and finally, when they enter an industrial college, will in the later years produce enough to make the full course nearly or quite free of outside cost. The fact that VOCATIONAL EDUCATION in it will be a matter of growth is but the following out of evolutionary laws and proves its naturalness. If so be it should be best to give all stu- dents more thorough training in a chosen and congenial trade or industry, or to adapt the training to learned and special professions, and this should be found to require more years for most complete and perfect development, this is no detriment, as it would be infinitely better for the majority of the young to be directly and daily under the care of teachers during all these formative years. The superior practical value of industrial training with the immensely better moral and mental equipment, coupled with the fact that it is all obtained with no burden to parents or state, would make it a thousandfold more desirable than the shorter period for a memory-cramming, unpractical course, such as is now doled out to the unfortunate victims of a system of so-called education, with scarce a ves- tige of the "drawing out" of mental faculties in the whole course. Pupils who enter a self-supporting school at from fourteen to sixteen years of age cannot begin life in any possible manner so hopefully, so advantag- eously, as in a course that from its very nature draws out and develops thinking powers and applies the thinking to practical efforts of the hand. The whole effort of working a few hours per day to 112 INDUSTRIAL AND create the needful food and clothing, aside from its healthful, sanitary value, is most perfectly adapted to develop the ability to reason from cause to efifect, and thus strengthen the logical powers now so al- most totally lacking in so many students who have had only the memory-cramming process of mental growth. These are the people whose only philoso- phical analysis of a sequence is the oft-used argu- ment, "it is because it is." "man more precious than fine gold." If the time ever comes, when highly educated and ennobled manhood is considered "more precious" and desirable than making money or things, then will men and women who labor in shop, factory, store or office, not be allowed to toil more than six hours and will then return to the elevating charms of home-building, and to the gentle art of gardening, and in daily touch with Nature, their hearts will become attuned to the Infinite Nature who gave the first "lessons in life" in a garden, in the only atmosphere in which man can come to his best estate. And no one has attained to his best until he has learned the joy of caring for living things. From the garden, the trees, the vines, the flowers, the fruits and the foods of our own growing come some of the formative influences that develop our VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 113 best and for all this the school of "self-support" will best prepare. THE FIRST SELF-SUPPORTING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL. "And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden and there he put the man whom he had formed . ... to dress it and to keep it." — Bible. If our civilization is to be freed from every destruc- tive taint, we must come to see that no aim or object of social desire is so great as the highest possible at- tainment and development of the average citizen- ship; and the present haste and waste of rushing the young into bread-winning life all undeveloped and immature, to become, like the machines they tend in factory and shop, mere automatons, is most harm- ful and ultimately destructive of national permanence. Booker Washington in a recent utterance questions whether the industrial school can be fully self-sup- porting and perform its highest function as an educa- tor, though admitting the high value of all the economic production possible. If Booker Washing- ton had had no other problem to solve, no work to do but to develop his school to the highest possible usefulness with self-support as the only means of existence, it is very certain, with his ability and per- severance, that his continual presence at the school would have been vastly useful and neither he nor we 114 INDUSTRIAL AND dare say to what degree he would have gained success. But his arduous work of raising the needed means to enable the pupils to live and study and work, while creating a plant worth over half a million dollars, has in several ways been a national object lesson of un- speakable value. And vv^e do not believe there are many advocates of purely literary education who will dare deny that his pupils have had a far better prepa- ration for advanced positions in life, while doing all this work, than they would have had, had they gone with means to pay their way through and had no hand training at all. This lesson to the world, this proof of the increasing ability of the race that has come through his public labors, all together make a demonstration whose value has not been exceeded in importance by any phase of educational progress of this generation. It is a lesson of vastly greater impor- tance than all the seventy millions that have been given for the highest advantages to the few who can afford to climb to the top of the university ladder at this time, when all the world is trembling with anxiety to see if democracy is to be dethroned and cast from the pinnacle of hope where our fathers first planted its banner. The achievements of the school are a standing re- buke to the system so severely condemned by Spencer VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 115 and so at variance with the teachings and philosophy of the inspired Froebel. But outside his school, Hampton, the George Junior Republic, and a very few others, there has been scarcely any study given to an approach to entire self- support. But, while the data are fragmentary, they are full of encouragement. A recent and most impor- tant and hopeful effort has been started by that widely known and progressive manufacturer, N. O. Nelson, of St. Louis, Missouri, at his great works at Le Claire, Illinois. After some years of careful study of the problem in all its phases, he has determined to begin the development of an absolutely self-supporting school in connection with his farm and large facto- ries. His wide, careful study of sociology, his energy and ability as a business builder, coupled with his enthusiasm for this great attempt, and his high ideals of the practical needs of such a progressive move in educational methods, will all assure a careful but steady growth of the institution till it may be the leader in the new and most important advance in education of the century. We dare believe it is a much more important step in educational history than the gifts of tens of millions, of the past few years, for the higher education of the few. At Glen Ellyn, a beautiful suburb of Chicago, Presi- dent Geo. McA. Miller has fortunately obtained a ii6 INDUSTRIAL AND large and picturesque site, with some costly buildings most admirably adapted to their use, and the co-opera- tion of several other schools, and some valuable in- dustries with which they are already successfully developing the first steps towards a university whose ultim^ate aim is to be self-sustaining from its own productive industries and to stand for all that is most progressive in educational methods. It is becoming almost an every-day affair to hear of some new attempt at founding a school of domestic science, a primary industrial school, or a departure along this general line of hand and brain culture, as the better method of preparation for the higher ideals of the new century. It is all only a portion of the great sociological move of the age and time towards the higher growth of democracy as a portion of the religious progress that tends towards Froebel's con- cept that whatever helps human unity is of itself religious and leads to highest human exaltation. It will be time enough later on to decide which best fulfills the functions of an educator, the school sup- ported wholly or partly by outside help, or the one that is wholly and entirely self-sustaining, with strong arguments and indications that a school plan can be worked out that shall be wholly independent of any outside revenue, and at the same time be the most per- fect and scientific system of education ever estab- lished, following Nature's own plan. And surely the VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 117 wider possibilities of giving all a more complete train- ing will more than offset any trifling advantages, if there are any, of the school system that is supported by outside help. Until this system is found, a large portion of the young will be denied a chance for a full training and the state will suffer from imperfectly trained and developed citizens ; and from these un- trained, undeveloped citizens will always come a large percentage of criminals whose cost to the state will be a drag on the progress of the age. DOMESTIC SCIENCE AND SERVICE. One of the most perplexing labor problems in our modern civilization is that of domestic service and the social position of women who do any work with their hands. So long has the race held the ideals of serfdom and slavery, so superficial have been our concepts of an exalted democracy, so easily have we declined from the lofty aims of the noble founders of the re- public to the compromising ideal of a past pagan- ism, yet so widespread has been the sentiment of in- dependence and self-assertion as a portion of the "American spirit" that there is and always seems likely to be an "irrepressible conflict" between the maid of native blood and the mistress who desires a menial servitor. Very much of real suffering has ii8 INDUSTRIAL AND come to thousands of homemakers from want of efficient help in the home and in the care of children, while the latter have been, in thousands of cases, injured morally by contact with servers of low in- telligence and vicious tendencies. This whole problem, difficult and perplexing as it is, will be greatly helped toward a healthy solu- tion by the universally higher education for which we plead, by making the domestic science an art, as it really is, and giving to cultured skill the social regard to which it is entitled. Prejudice, fear and ignorance on both sides, stand in the way of an early solution and the only remedy seems to be an educational system that shall renew and exalt the true concept of the unity of all crea- tive labor and the appreciation of all culture in the home, a solution that cannot come hastily but waits upon the growth of the ideal that all skilled work is an art worthy the ambition of any degree of native talent. Some most suggestive hints of what may be ac- complished are given by the eminent Christian romancer in his thoughtful work entitled "Born to Serve," in which the contrast is sharply drawn between the elevating atmosphere of a home made comfortable and delightful by the management of a cultured, educated, efficient helper, instead of the vicious, ignorant servitor willing to accept the lower VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 119 caste now established in such service; and he also strikingly shows the beneficial effects on the chil- dren of the home of association and care from a helper of real worth and cultured character, rather than one of superstitious ignorance and vulgar mind; so often now the only available type. A prominent educator truthfully declares that no one can permanently accept a lower caste without loss of self-respect and a lowering of the morals. Then how utterly unchristian, undemocratic and unpatriotic the brutal selfishness of the coterie of northern ladies who would curtail the school advan- tages of the young girls of their town, because for- sooth with an education, they would be unwilling to accept the lower caste of a (slave) servant. How widely in contrast to the wealthy southern lady of established social position, who in an able magazine article shows that all domestic progress must primarily come from the ambition of the work- ers for better social recognition for merit, is the rank inconsistency of people who cultivate a pride for helping to do away with chattel slavery while wishing to perpetuate a tyrannical domestic slavery and to inflict a perpetual degradation of ignorance and loss of moral uplift on their servers. Surely the essential spirit of slavery dies hard and Christian Democracy is but a name to conjure with. The rejection of a lower caste or menial position 120 INDUSTRIAL AND is a promise of better things for the future, one of the many signs of the social awakening of the times, and a promise of hope to all who see that the path- way of progress is always and ever towards the higher and still higher evolution of the ideals of democracy, and the true motto of progress is and always must be "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity." The concept of all that this means comes slowly, but the new education that is surely coming will accelerate it, and the different methods of co-oper- ative housekeeping, skilled specialists and the more scientific division of labor, will all tend to the solu- tion of this most trying of modern problems. The inspiring example of a lady of most aristo- cratic endowments and high position as an educa- tor, who went with the "working girls" to help them strive for better conditions and a higher life and encouraged her less endowed sisters by her pres- ence and sympathy, and the daughters of the wealthly in our metropolitan cities setting a new pace by their help and advice to the workers seek- ing to gain a better social place, both by united action and through a more careful study of the life problems in their special environment, is all along the line of a true solution of the problem, that can only best be solved by the universal complete edu- cation for which we plead. VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 121 SELF-SUPPORT THE BEST EDUCATIONAL METHOD. It is a most pertinent and important query whether the best educational accomplishment is compatible with the effort to make a school nearly or quite self-supporting from its own productive labor; whether it is best to turn all possible lessons in work towards producing a revenue for the living and general expenses of the school. The solution of the problem will largely depend on what is the ideal of the system. If its aim is to pass a given amount of text book examination, then we would say emphatically it is not the best system, but if it is to "draw out" the pupil's deepest interest in prep- aration for all phases of life, to learn while in school what his or her manner of life shall be, what are the personal adaptations, and to begin in school the work of life and to learn those things that will make the pupil a lifelong student, always alert to gain more of such information as shall not only in- crease efficiency but also broaden the intelligence, to arouse the love of knowing things and an interest in all work done and a pride in doing the best pos- sible, then we say by all means the work for self- use will quicken the interest and arouse ambition the best of any possible method. If, again, the object of school life is strongly to- wards the ideal of Colonel Parker, to develop the 122 INDUSTRIAL AND mutualistic, altruistic and democratic qualities; or toward Froebel's ideals, to increase and enlarge the creative attribute and deepen the sense of mutual interdependence; or to increase the personal inter- est in all things made and planned in the school, when each article is liable to be sold and its price involved in the conscientious, thorough manner in which it is finished; when all these are the incen- tives for careful study and work, then surely the most natural and most scientific way is to engage the pupil's best effort and draw out his interest, and that means to develop his moral qualities, which is the highest aim possible. By no other means can there be such perfect sympathy established between pupil and teacher as when working together for mutual needs, and this gives the teacher the formative influence when helping to decide what the pupil's best adaptations are for a life work. Surely for the vast majority it will be better to work out the problem while gaining the means of living and paying for all with the labor of the hands from day to day. In the new social atmosphere that would be es- tablished by a universal complete educational sys- tem, there would naturally be two ideas established that would be dominant and aggressive; one, to develop man's beneficent creative attribute to the highest and best; the other, to replace the present VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 123 abnormal and destructive selfishness with a con- structive mutualism and altruism, the only traits that really build in civilisation, and to modify or do away with the present insane rush and grab and greed so expressively and properly denominated by Carlyle as the "hellish scramble." Dare any deny that all the formative influences of a new and most radical educa- tional system will be required to restore a true democracy to its former high place in the thought of Americans. In the industrial system of today we find so much that is purely pagan in that it continually sacrifices men to things and Isaiah's concept is reversed. "Fine gold is esteemed more precious than man," and men have been ruthlessly destroyed to produce cheapest things, while society has been dumb over the pagan cruelty of putting the young into factory slavery, to do continually one monotonous thing with all its dwarfing, soul and mind benumbing effect. Even in professional life this abnormal subdivision of labor and specialization of study and practice of what may be hoped to pay best in a material sense has induced men of high mental culture to narrow their intellect tual power by confining their thought to one line, instead of to the wider, broader, better development of many things and many topics of study, all of which will be modified by the educational system of self- 124 INDUSTRIAL AND support, which will necessarily lead to some knowledge of many trades and to the science of allied things. The whole scientific and Christian ideal would be to, at all times and in all ways, keep the main study and work, from the shop to the laboratory, the making of completely developed men and women, and this should be the chief concern of all art, study, business or religion. To draw out and magnify human talents of highest altruistic use is and should be the aim of all teaching. HAND TRAINING AIDS MENTAL DEVELOPMENT. A veteran educator in urging this ideal of hand training in connection with mental culture, and making it free and universal, declared that he did it not for material reasons mainly, but because it rep- resented moral and spiritual advance. Another prominent educator with ripe experience in manual training declares his observation to es- tablish the fact that pupils can work four hours per day at industrial pursuits and make better progress along purely literary lines during the school period than with no industrial training; and he gives his unqualified endorsement to the proposition that a course of training in mechanics and industry with the academic will afford a vastly superior mental equipment for any practical or professional life. VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 125 We know of two very able university educators whose rule is to work four hours per day in garden or shop, with most beneficial results, and of a whole- sale merchant whose shop and tools are his con- stant source of rest and recreation. We are sure that if a system of Free Universal Industrial Colleges were to be organized, whose whole cost of maintenance was to be drawn from the taxation of the country, it would still be the cheapest and best method for preventing crime, and that it would so increase the wealth-producing power of the citizens as to be immensely profitable to the state. It would not be so radical a step as was the es- tablishment of the common school in the early history of this nation, when it seemed by the pre- established custom a great wrong to tax one man to educate another man's child. To decree that every child should be kept in school till the age of legal responsibility and never allowed to become a citizen until he is well trained in handicraft and has a college diploma for a completed course of gen- eral study, would, we are sure, like the establish- ment of the common school, mark an epoch in the history of our country. The age demands and will sustain the movement. In the early history of one of our most popular colleges, teachers and pupils worked together full 126 INDUSTRIAL AND half time at the heavy work of clearing, building and raising their own crops, and while doing all this the able president declared they made as good progress along literary lines as has ever been done since with no work at all; and the early students had a higher average of all-round ability than later ones. Similar records have been partially made by many pioneer colleges. In almost all our colleges there is a larger class wishing for the meager chance of self-support than the opportunities offer. If the present colleges would or could use a portion of their endowment funds, now locked up to draw interest, to build an equipment for productive labor, it would be a de- cidedly better use of money and open a wider door of usefulness to many a struggling college. To be most perfectly adapted to the ideal of a scientific system every college and university should be fully equipped for productive labor and a certain amount of labor and hand training be made a necessary por- tion of every course for every pupil, thus prevent- ing any possibility of a labor caste tainting its moral atmosphere; and only when this has become universal in our colleges, seminaries and universities can we be said to be free from the moral taint so heartily condemned by the philosophical Spencer and accepted by so wide a circle of progressive minds, and the era of a perfected educational system, VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 127 dreamed of as only possible in a far distant future by the prophet Froebel, be begun. Then only may we hope to have teachers, preach- ers, missionaries and professionals who shall not scatter pagan social standards to demoralize our home society and injure our influence among the be- nighted islands of the sea or in the dark continents of the earth. One of our most able educators speaks of the al- most mysterious mental power gained by the totally uneducated (according to common parlance) who have learned several mechanical trades, or perhaps have worked in younger years at several trades long enough to have acquired their essential principles with some degree of hand skill, and through this have become men of well known "all round ability." This cultivation of "all-round ability" was the spe- cial characteristic of early New England people, who, in the home manufacture of everything used on the place, had a very wide education in mechanical principles and gained much skill in a varied handi- craft ; and it developed a mental equipment of exceed- ingly high average power, not only in practical mat- ters, but also in the higher flights of metaphysical, spiritual and scientific deductions, Wendell Phillips declared the highest the world has ever seen. Its efifect on national character can be seen among people from Northern Europe, those who have for 128 INDUSTRIAL AND some centuries been tenants on land belonging to others, having no special inducement to repair homes and keep things in order, have lost the "all- round ability," but which is soon redeveloped in pioneering in this country; while the people from the countries where they own their own homes and have made and repaired their furniture, implements and clothing have a far superior adaptation to all-round utilities and a higher average mental and moral equip- ment. The mind-dwarfing efYect, too, is easily seen among those who have for some generations been confined to factory life, where they have been taught to tend some one machine and to do one monoton- ous thing, which reduces the "all-round" talent to a minimum; and from this class there but rarely springs a genius. In the training of woman heretofore it has been almost universal to neglect totally all teaching of mechanical principles or any handicraft skill, while it is certain that she peculiarly needs the ability to reason from cause to effect which the study and prac- tice of mechanics is so well adapted to impart. Froebel would have girls have the same plays as boys till twelve or fourteen years of age, and have them trained along handicraft lines all through their whole educational course; and there can be no ques- tion of its high mental and moral benefit. VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 129 In a few progressive schools manual training, cab- inet work and even light forging have been given the young ladies and it has been done with enthusiasm ancl great benefit. Gardening and horticulture should be a requirement for every young lady and no diploma given without proficiency along some line of industrial education. This would be a most im- portant step in the development'of a higher average citizenship. The philosophy of universal hand culture as an important portion of all education and its bearing on the permanence of national life is too well known and acknowledged to need any argument among practical people. It will not be questioned except by those who have been perverted by a false system, and most of these will admit the value of it. The extreme but profound philosophy of Froebel has won its way to the minds of almost all thor- oughly progressive teachers and thinkers; and we cannot more radically put the value and essential necessity of hand culture as a fundamental portion of an education from the kindergarten through the uni- versity. His philosophy only seems extreme when brought into contrast with a system confessedly tainted and corrupted, utterly unworthy an age whose ideals are to make a sovereign of every citizen and to prevent any slavish class from being developed in society. 130 INDUSTRIAL AND THE LAW OF HUMAN PROGRESS. ''When all the elements of national life work to- gether in harmony for progress, then material pros- perity and moral advance are rapid and sure, but zvhen divisions and discord hetzveen zvarring classes of citi- zens come in to absorb mental effort, then national decadence and death sets in and zi'hen carried one step too far, then reform and recovery is impossible." — Henry George. These startlin,^ words of the humane and able stu- dent of all social law were penned nearly half a cen- tury since, when strife and divisions between classes were not half as portentous as today. This philosophy of the able economist is but putting the essential teachings of the Carpenter of Nazareth into economic phrase. He declared that "The meek (the altruistic) shall inherit the earth," and that "the strong shall bear the burdens of the zveak," which is only another way of saying that all shall work to- gether for common progress or common good and by that means they shall "inherit the earth." And all this is but the unchanging law of democratic econo- mics, as potent and invariable as the law of gravita- tion. Those who for selfish ends foment class divi- sions and strife, are more surely and rapidly under- mining the foundations of the Republic than the mad- dest anarchists. VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 131 When old Rome was climbing to a world suprem- acy, her peasantry owned their own land and lived in their own homes and their patriotism made them in- vincible, but when class divisions and unjust laws had taken their homes and lands and the drift was to the cities and to slavery, all patriotic ambition was de- stroyed and the nation was ready for the ruthless destroyer. So today the appeal "hack to the land" is but the plea to save our Republic already nearing the dan- ger line through the rush to the cities and the con- sequent clash of classes and division of interests. Then let us speed the plans to get the people back to the land and make it charming by all that art and science can teach of the most progressive agricul- ture that is always the most attractive of profes- sions and full of the highest pleasures of earth. And why should not the "Science of Society" and all the essential laws of human development and the meth- ods for accelerating the evolution to higher and yet higher degrees of democracy be taught in all our schools, and all that can be learned of proper, equi- table and wasteless distribution of created wealth be as carefully inculcated as are the ideals of perfect production or selfish accumulation. AN IRRIGATION CITY FOR SURPLUS LABOR. "The common people are the class most to he consid- 132 INDUSTRIAL AND ered in the structure of civilization." — Walter H. Page. How may the dangerous divisions and strife be- tween warring classes be so hopefully treated as by an effort to build an "Irrigation City" with its ''In- dustrial Schools and Colleges," its gardens and farms, shops and factories, where all surplus labor can become more than self-supporting, and let cap- ital and labor shake hands over a project that will bring peace and unity and co-operation between the now clashing, warring interests so dangerous to our public welfare even as the grand old hero Oberlin brought peace, prosperity and a high social order to the ignorant robber bands of the Pyrenees. From '93 to '97 our Commissioner of Labor de- clared there were from one to three million workers all the time out of their usual employment. The suffering and death resulting would be equal to quite a severe war. Had this vast labor power been marshaled for a campaign of construction, as suggested by the practical Secretary of the Irrigation League, and it could have been done much more easily than were the armies of destruction from '61 to '65, it would have built several cities like Chicago, on the irrigated land, with farms and appliances to have made the inhabitants vastly more than self-supporting and would have added several billions to the taxable VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 133 permanent wealth of the nation. It would have cre- ated a demand for all manufactured goods that would have kept capital employed and many of the idle shops and factories busy and would have created a home market for products, a thousand times more to be desired than any foreign market that must be sought after often at cost of war. Shall we allow this monumental folly and wicked waste to continue, or shall the Free Industrial School and the Constructive Army be set at work to show the world a new example, the most striking and helpful of all the centuries? "Democracy means constant social growth." — W. H. Page. THE WORLD-WIDE FOLLY. "Peace hath her victories." — Milton. From a profound student of social problems, who with a small party has made the circle of the globe, we get the following : "Everyzvhere we went we were impressed with this thought, IF ONLY all the nations of the earth would give the same earnest study and energy to teaching their people how to live, how to develop their natural resources, and their own best talents, that they now give to zuar and the prepara- tion for zvar, hozv soon the zvorld zvotdd he encircled by a real millennial epoch of peace and abundant 134 INDUSTRIAL AND prosperity." Soon might come that dream of poets and prophets, the federation of the whole world in a brotherhood of unity, where the ambition should be for highest attainments in usefulness, not in the grim powers of destruction. IVJiy not begin it noivf WHAT WASTED LABOR POWER COULD DO. "Great zifaste is both zvicked mid unscientific." — Parsons. Of all the illogical wastes of our "Insane Civiliza- tion" perhaps the worst and most colossal and least realized is that of the waste of labor power when idle. A few years ago the great city of Chicago was burned to the ground and something like two hun- dred million dollars worth of buildings destroyed and in three or four years it was all replaced and twice as much more created by the surplus labor power of the country, while all other productive in- dustry went on unchecked, indeed rather stimu- lated and increased Idy the active demand for prod- ucts from the well paid labor, whose increased pur- chasing power was felt in every hamlet in the land. More recently an army of approximately a hun- dred thousand men built all the wonderful "Fair City" at St. Louis, which was soon torn down and gave no increase to the taxable wealth of the nation. VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 135 THE ARMY OF DISCHARGED LABOR. "A hungry, desperate man is of all animals the most dangerous/' Recently we read in the daily press that an army of nearly or quite seventy-five thousand men has been discharged by the railroads and other large in- dustries, and as many more last autumn, thus cutting them off from any chance to earn an honest living and v^asting a great share of their creative labor power beside making them a danger to society from the very desperateness of their situation. The national treasury has already a fund of over twenty-seven millions in hand with which to build great irrigation works, thus opening a most profit- able and permanent way of using the labor power now being wasted in idleness, and if it is used to build an irrigation city of homes and farms it will re- main a permanent addition to the taxable wealth of the nation. If this army of idle labor, now irritated and antagonistic, is left to suffer, it may very prob- ably destroy vastly more in red riot and revolution than it can replace in many more years of construc- tive labor. A few years ago our government without a tithe of this sum on hand or "in sight" called together the largest army the world had ever seen and taught them the art of destroying men and property and in 136 INDUSTRIAL AND a few years they destroyed one or two billions of the accumulated wealth of the country. If then our government would at once begin to use this sum now in the Treasury to employ this labor to create some permanent wealth, how much more sane and reason- able than to risk its waste and the danger it will be to the peace of the country. Truly to build such an irrigation city we would require many men to teach the people skilled gar- dening and intensive farming; so did the army need thousands of drill masters to teach the art of de- stroying property and men. We may well ask what is all our skill and science, our schools, colleges, churches and universities for if not to produce a civ- ilization or social order that shall open the doors of natural opportunity and teach people how to use the bounties of nature and their own powers to create their own living, and thus at the same time create a "balance wheel" for the labor market and use in a profitable manner the surplus labor not now needed in present production for the market? We call on our educators and captains of industry for an an- swer. Valuable as has been the lesson taught by the great Fair, of the world's progress in mechanic art, we are profoundly impressed with the conviction that the world advancement that could be made by organizing, educating and employing the army of VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 157 discharged labor to build their own city of homes and to create their own self-supporting industries, would be a thousand fold more important, and would help forward the evolution of a higher democratic ideal more than all the great Fairs yet held. In so far as man himself is above and superior to the ma- chines he makes, even so far is the development of social progress that shall eliminate the waste of men, above that of the development of progress in purely mechanical achievements. One of the most important items in mechanical progress has been to prevent waste in power and material. So the highest achievements in a demo- cratic civilization shall be to save all the pitiful waste of men that has been the bane of all undemo- cratic civilizations, and we now have reached the time when this great ideal should have its due study and make its first exhibition to the waiting world. "While another man has no land, my title to mine is vitiated." — Emerson. THE REMEDY FOR CHILD SLAVERY. "No nation can afford to neglect its children." — Horace Mann. The words "Child Slavery" bring an intuitive hor- ror to every sensitive mind, and we are sure justly so, but as all healthy growth is step by step and not 138 INDUSTRIAL AND from bad to best at once, so we think the working of children in our factories may yet be made a means of grace to the poor children of the mountains, by giving them training in gardens and schools which they could not have but for the chance to earn some of its cost. If the children were to be divided into shifts to work a few hours and then study or work in the gardens and shops and thus do what they can with- out abuse of their growing powers, it would mitigate the crying evil and gradually open the way to the time when no child shall be allowed to labor for wages till of mature age. In accord with the growing spirit of the age, the adults should also be divided into shifts and not al- lowed to work in the air of any factory or shop over eight hours at a time. They should then be trained in gardening, mechanics and those arts that will make them self-reliant, self-respecting, self-supporting people, who alone are fitted to be the ruling citizens of a Republic. The fact is already well established that intelligent labor is always of more value than untrained, even in tending the almost automatic ma- chinery of modern production. Only in some such way as this can a state escape execration for allowing its children to be destroyed by thousands to make profits for soulless corpora- tions. If the poor children of the mountains can VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 139 earn a chance for gaining a wider outlook, and a training for an independent and intelligent life by giving a portion of their time to the slavish labor and wages of the factory system, it may be one sten In advance; but to give their whole time as now to tfie soul and body destroying factory slavery is a paganism, not excelled in atrocity by any story of all the past slaveries in the world's cruel history. If all the states of our country would but heed the words of that able son of the South who says "the children of a state are its most valuable of un- developed resources and let no greed of gain chain them to a destructive slavery." nervous americans. "americanitis." "A people %vho have become physically degenerate, will also be morally and mentally decadent." No student of social progress or decline can learn of the appalling increase in nervous diseases and the constantly increasing number of nervous wrecks among the American people, with all the attendant suffering and loss of mental power, without the most pessimistic forebodings for the future. And it is practically certain that a great share of it comes from our unnatural, unscientific school system, with its high pressure and long continued nerve strain 140 INDUSTRIAL AND and almost total neglect of physical exercise and muscle development; while with a proper school system the effect would be to correct any tendency towards nerve weakness from other causes and to produce robust bodies with ample strength of nerve and mental power for the most strenuous of life's activities. Instead of weakening strong children, a proper educational system should strengthen weak chil- dren. The weak and nervous child should come from its school period with its nerve strength built up instead of enervated and in so many cases entirely destroyed. The day for the suggestion that any class of pupils cannot stand the strain of a course of study in school, college, or university has gone by, and the day is dawning when the weak and nervous girl or boy will be sent to college or university for the express pur- pose of building up a robust body, and a vigorous en- during nerve ponder, while attaining to the very broadest and most complete educational course pos- sible to gain from an institution of learning. "Any study that is not recreative to a groiving child is always injurious." — Dr. Dewey. "I would rather have illiterates for citizens than nerve-zvrecks." — Nelson. VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 141 THE educator's RESPONSIBILITY. "The mute appeal of neglected children is to you the voice of God." — W. A. Page. It is a most severe reflection on our associated educators, but we find many teachers who admit that no adequate attempt has yet been made to strengthen the weaker children, or guard against injury to ner- vous ones. In the name of our country's future, in the name of hundreds of children killed and the thou- sands injured and in the name of the hosts of adult sufferers, we call upon and beg of our National Edu- cational Association that this appalling condition be given their most profound and serious consideration. The thought of the world is too much aroused, the im- portance of the case is too great to be pushed aside with neglect any longer. "To talk about education in a democratic country as less than the free education for every child is a mockery." — W. H. Page. "For unto zvhom much is given, of him shall be much required." — Bible. If it is approximately or remotely correct to charge that our school system is a menace to the health and nerves of the nation's children_, a cause of death to many and an irreparable injury to more and a danger to all, then it is a national disgrace and danger, for the children of today are the people of 142 INDUSTRIAL AND the nation's defense of tomorrow. And a charge of injury where there should be great bodily as well as mental benefit, is of so startling importance as imper- atively to demand immediate attention from all who have the educational interests of the nation in their hands. They, of all others, should take immediate measures to repel the serious charge of a murderous system or take the most heroic steps to change the methods so as to avoid all possibility of doing so se- rious a wrong to their sacred trust. This nation's life has cost too much and the hopes of the world are too intensely centered in our wel- fare to' allow any possible avoidable injury to come to the rising generation of those who must assume the tremendous responsibility of carrying forward the ideals of a "Triumphant Democracy." "The proper question at examination should not he, what have yon learned from text hooks, hut zvhat have you become?" For what activities are you pre- pared? MORE FOR SCHOOLS AND LESS FOR WAR. "The growth of the ivar spirit is a sure sign of moral decadence.^' The Japanese war proved beyond question that the art of destruction has made even greater progress than the art of invulnerability in making battleships, invincible as they have seemed. We now know that VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 143 the great steel armoured ships, costing so many mil- lions, can be destroyed like an egg shell by the fear- ful engines of destruction modern science has enabled us to perfect. There is every reason to believe this will continue to be more and more so, and that in the near future it will be impossible to make a ship, if it is not already so, that will not be at the mercy of an alert and active foe and liable to be shattered and sunk in a moment at any time. In view, then, of all this, and in view of the worse and more destructive, demoralizing effect of culti- vating the war spirit among our people — always a degrading influence — how unspeakably foolish and wicked to squander millions of wealth on battleships when so many of our poor people are held in the un- speakable thraldom of illiteracy, the worst slavery the mind can conceive. Does any sane mind for one moment believe there could be a particle of danger, if this Republic should at once announce to the world that we zvill have no more war, that from now on we will disarm and scat- ter our silly army and navy and hereafter depend on the world's court of arbitration to settle all our con- troversies, if so be we ever have any to settle? In- stead of all this worse than wasted effort let us an- nounce to the world that we will at once begin to enlarge our schools and colleges, so that every child and adult too who wishes it shall not only be taught 144 INDUSTRIAL AND to read and write, but shall also have a complete training of hands and head and heart in all that will make him the highest type of citizen the world has ever seen in both intelligence and efficiency as a wealth producer and cultured in all high ideals of esthetic living. If we should announce to the world that instead of a portion of our people being taught the arts of destruction, they shall all be taught more fully than ever before heard of in the annals of the world's his- tory, in the sciences of agriculture and mechanic arts, also that all our children during the formative period of their youth shall be kept under the mold- ing influence of teachers, with the end and aim al- ways in view of making each and every one of them useful citizens of the highest type possible to develop from their given talents, does any sane mind doubt that such a step would at once set a new pace for the world's progress and be the actual means of bringing in that era, so dimly foreseen by the ancient seers, when wars shall be no more? A little more than a century ago we set the world an example of forming a government with a dem- ocratic constitution and that first radical step has been followed more or less closely by nearly one hundred countries who now have a constitutional government. May we not then hope that every patriot heart VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 145 will join our cry and ask that we shall have a still more inclusive demand than our motto and let it be : "More for schools and naught for war." PLAUSIBLE BUT PERNICIOUS SENTIMENTS. In one of the ablest of recent books written by a col- ored man pleading for the education and betterment of his unfortunate race we find the following sentiments expressed. He says, "Teach the thinkers to think and the zvorkers to zvork;" followed by the statement that "It is silly to make a scholar a blacksmith, but sillier still to make a blacksmith a scholar." Innocent as these plausible sentences look to the casual reader, we deem them full of the subtlest poison to his own struggling race and subversive of all demo- cratic progress to any race or people. This ideal of "teaching the thinkers to think" and not to work and the "workers to work" and not to think for their own protection, if carried to its conclusion would again naturally and inevitably lead to just such a state of society as prepared the way for the ruin of the repub- lics of old Greece and Rome, where a small coterie of well-educated men "taught to think" but not to work nor to respect the workers, thought out ways to re- duce the "workers who had been taught to work" to the most abject and pitiful poverty and slavery that has ever disgraced humanity, and these "thinkers" be- 146 INDUSTRIAL AND came the most arrogant tyrants and profligates in all the world's sad history and this baneful sentiment has always and always will to the end of time tend to bring men to this condition if carried to its culmina- tion. ARISTOCRATIC, TYRANNICAL, LITERARY MEN, "The faults and -decs of our philosophy and litera- ture are attributable to the enervated habits of our literary classes." — Emerson. There is no aristocracy more arrogant or more tyrannical than men of letters when their education has been of the kind so caustically described by Her- bert Spencer as "not adapted to fit for complete living and usefulness but to form a class of literary aristo- cracy" dififerent and separate from the class of work- ers. No formula could be more effective than this of the man who pleads so eloquently for the good of "Black folk souls" to degrade the "thinkers" to a state of uselessness, crime and folly and the "work- ers" to abject and hopeless slavery. How widely in contrast is the suggestive epigram of the broadguage author of "The Religion of Demo- cracy" who so tersely says "The glory of thinking is in work and the dignity of work is in thinking." Who would dare suggest the "silliness" of develop- ing a generation of such "learned blacksmiths" as VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 147 Elihu Burritt, who literally "stood before Kings" be- cause of his great ability, which came from the very mixture of brawn and brain that is the only true ideal of the high culture for which we so earnestly plead. If our blacksmiths, carpenters, farmers and all workers could thus be "taught to think and to work," to know of the science of society and the philosophy of political economy, for their own pro- tection, how much less of real slavery we would have to curse both classes, those who rule to ruin and those who are ruined by the ruling. THE DEMOCRATIC FORMULA. A thousand times would we reiterate the formula "Let the Thinkers he taught to think, and to WORK, and to respect all zvho work zvith skill, and let all the Workers be taught to THINK for their ozun protec- tion." Let every blacksmith, farmer and worker have a high m.ental development, let him know of all sci- ences allied to his work, and above all, let him know of social science and the laws and philosophy of democratic political economy and understand all the intricate schemes of the "thinkers who have been taught to think," and not to work, for robbing and enslaving with invisible chains those whose work pro- duces all the wealth for the "thinkers." Nor must we go back to old Greece or Rome for illustrations of the baneful effects of this pernicious 148 INDUSTRIAL AND formula of the miseducated, misguided, mistaken man, who has been led to suppose that the present civiliza- tion is the ideal for the Anglo-Saxon race, or that the conventional system of education is in any degree a scientific one or adapted to democratic progress or even for the highest development of a true order of scholarship. THE ENGLISH "tHINKERS" ENSLAVING FORMULA. We need but to go to our mother country, Eng- land, or to observe the present conditions and ten- dencies in all the Anglo-Saxon civilization to see the pernicious workings of this false formula. In England the "thinkers, who have been taught to think," for their own good only, have thought out a formula of finance that has diverted an almost un- thinkable amount of unearned wealth into the coffers of a few great bankers who have thereby been made the financial autocrats of the whole world and has put into their hands the interest-bearing bonds of nearly every nation on earth as well as those of nearly every railroad in the world, and within a given time, according to reliable statistics, has taken from the United States over five billions' zvorth of gold and silver and other labor products for which we have re- ceived no tangible returns. It has all been a gratui- tous tribute to their system. Their formula was, "Base all money on gold and VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 149 for every dollar of gold obtained, issue ten dollars or more of interest-hearing credits and the world shall pay us untold tribute." And in the vast extension of this plan more unearned weaUh has been accumulated than was ever before put into the hands of any one human agency. The pathetic side of it all is that it has come from the unpaid toil of millions of those "workers who have been taught to work but not to think for their own protection." This system is still at work and the world's workers are unaware of its subtle power to rob and enslave. This fomula "ten dollars of organised credit, bear- ing interest, for every dollar of gold" and its vast enlargement until in many cases there have been many times ten times the credit bearing interest for every one dollar of gold in hand, is the height of the art of robbery and enislavement ye^ attained by English "thinkers who have been taught to think and not to work" for what they want. The profligate character of these arrogant English "thinkers" who have enslaved the world is told by the shameful revelations of Editor Stead. It could hardly be worse and the abject conditions to which they have reduced the "workers" is told by the long, cruel history of Ireland and General Booth's "In Darkest Africa" and its "Submerged Tenth." Worse, if possible, than the pitiful slavery of old Rome. 150 INDUSTRIAL AND America's formula, "watered stocks." But in America our "thinkers" have attained to a yet higher degree in the consummate art of robbery and enslavement of the "workers." "Watering stocks," begun in a small way less than a generation ago by the doughty dry land commodore, whose patriotism and democracy were tersely epitomized in the oft-quoted phrase "Damn the public" has become like a Car of Juggernaut and we now have a veritable king of diluted securities whose issuance of beautifully litho- graphed certificates of fictitious imitation investments has been as the letting out of many waters and thou- sands have been overwhelmed by the flood. Recently his associates boasted that at one sitting they had suc- cessfully issued thirty-six millions of this fictitious capital on which labor must pay dividends. And this ethereal type of "vested interests" has all the legal power to draw "dividends" from labor's products that the most solid forms of "accumulated capital" have, and so rapid is the increase of this form of enslavement that it will be but a short time till the total thraldom of our "workers" will be consum- mated. Teaching "thinkers to think," and not to work, and teaching "workers to work," and not to think, for their own protection, has been the wrong method in all the past and it is what we most heartily condemn VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 151 in the present system of education. It at once con- stitutes two classes of society with divergent, clashing interests, that, as Henry George says, will only and can only result in social disintegration and national decadence and death. CANNIBALISTIC CONCEPTS CONTINUED. All of these systems of enslavement of the "work- ers" whose toil produces the wealth of the world, is but a continuation and variation of the old cannibal- istic concept that the strong and smart man shall eat or prey upon the weak and simple man, and these re- fined methods are in this realm what the "Auto," the "Wireless Telegraphy," and the "Dirigible Flying Machine" are in the realm of mechanics, the highest achievements now conceivable to our imaginations. Surely our misleading pleader for his enslaved race will need the long life of the Patriarchs and the as- siduity of an Apostle, to undo the harm his pernicious formula may have done to the young of his race who will no doubt look to him as an "Oracle" trained in the best institutions (so called) of learning of the dominant race. But thank God there is a rising tide of "thinkers" who have seen the folly of going back to pagan social standards and have a high concept of man as a creator, as well as a thinker. The days of the old system are numbered and it is 152 INDUSTRIAL AND now only a question of how soon the system of uni- versal hand culture can be established, and with it to be re-established the true Christian ideal of the God- like attribute of creative labor as an expression of man's highest mental and spiritual development. ESSENTIALS OF AN EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM. What then are the essentials of an educational sys- tem for an advancing Christian and democratic civili- zation and suited to the aims of a twentieth century progress and the hope of a permanent national life? We answer: Well equipped plants, with abundant land for gardens, hothouses, dairies, etc., and the neces- sary appliances for carrying on the work ; shops of all kinds furnished with necessary materials, that the labor of students may be used to advantage ; and teachers who will work with pupils ; all this added to the usual outfit for an academic education, and the equipment is complete. This for a general outline. In detail, a school of this sort should be estab- lished in every county, and such forms of manufac- turing and agriculture undertaken as are adapted to the locality. Eventually every college and university a center for industrial activity, as well as mental training. Let but the firm determination come to parents and school authorities alike that this killing, high pressure nerve strain shall cease, and at once; this memory VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 153 cramming from text books be modified by more gen- eral and practical instruction, and the school day be cut squarely in two; and it be decreed that hereafter only half of the day's time shall be given to text book study; and in a hundred different districts will the way open to the better method of handicraft training, and the study and application of mechanical princi- ples. We have this idea of handiwork in the kindergar- ten; later we find it in the manual training that is being introduced into our schools so rapidly and successfully. Let us carry this idea still further, and when the boys and girls are old enough to begin wage earning and feel the necessity of leaving school that they may add somewhat to the revenue of the family, or at least supply their own needs, let us have a universal system of free, self-supporting industrial schools, thoroughly equipped by the state, where with- out further cost to state or parents, they may cultivate the threefold nature, hand, head and heart, to its highest capacity. 154 INDUSTRIAL AND SUMMARY. If then an essential difference between pagan and Christian civiHzations is in their widely varying con- cepts in regard to the nobility of labor; If the Anglo-Saxon civilization is still tainted with the pagan idea of the disgrace of labor; If hand training is of such immense value as the complement of mental culture and together they tend to form a high moral character ; If our present school system is based upon pagan ideals and tends to produce a "labor caste ;" If our schools do not fit for "complete living," and our graduates must "unlearn in practical life much that they learn in schools ;" If the influence of teachers will be greatly increased when they work with their pupils in garden and shop ; If it will be an advantage in the forming of char- acter for pupils to remain longer under the guidance of teachers ; If the children of the slums and the poor and ignorant everywhere can be elevated in their three- fold nature ; If the children of the profligate rich can be changed into useful members of society; If a larger proportion of feeble-minded and unpre- cocious children can be developed to a greater degree of usefulness through the training of the physical; VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 155 If Industrial Training be the most efficient means for the prevention of crime; If creative labor will prevent immorality ; If it be true that pupils have greater pleasure and incentive in working to supply their own needs than in working without special aim ; If skilled hands and cultured brains give the highest happiness ; If our present school system does not teach the "worker to think" and the "thinker to work;" And if the strength of the whole must be judged by the strength of the weakest part, and this will tend to establish national permanence: Then is it indeed time that we as a nation establish a complete system of free^ self-supporting indus- trial SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES in every part of our country. "The coming ideal of Democracy shall he to have the University go to every man and woman of the nation; and we dare add that it should go to them as free as air and as glorious as sunshine. In fact, the hands, while plucking from the Tree of Knozvledge should learn in the act how to cultivate the Tree to its fullest fruition." — Ferguson. Supplement A RETROSPECT AND A FORECAST. By LYDIA J. NEW CO MB COMINGS. "Each change we make in the program must he for the increase of our total human wealth. The abiding wealth of the world is human. It consists of beauti- ful men and beautiful women and beautiful children. The practical concern of life is with human beauty and human power. One must begin with the human end, with the perfecting of the human organism. — Dr. C. Hanford Henderson. "Success in life means that a man should repre- sent the best civilization of his time, that he should stand for intellectual strength, moral strength, that he should be strong in his affections, amenable to proper authority, mindful of his nature and artifi- cial limitations. Such a man would represent the finest flower of human life, his presence would be an inspiration and an example to all ivho come in con- tact luith him. The fact of his existence would mean that every part of him stands in absolute harmony with his zvhole organization." "All in all, the present methods teach too much and allow too little opportunity for development." — Dr. N. Oppenheim. "Any study that is not recreative to a growing child is always injurious." — Dr. John Dewey. "True education is organic; that is, it preserves and perfects the body, makes the mind more intelti- 158 INDUSTRIAL AND gent, keeps the spirit sweet and sincere." — Marietta L. Johnson. ORGANIC EDUCATION. So far as we know the term Organic Education was first used by Dr. C. Hanford Henderson in his "Education and the Larger Life," and this book was the inspiration and ideal in the early days of the School of Organic Education at Fairhope, Ala- bama, the first and up to the present time the only school bearing this name ; although without doubt Dr. Henderson's Open Air School for Boys, at Samar- cand, N. C, deserves the name. The Fairhope School was started in a very small way in the fall of 1907, grew to such proportions in the first year that it was necessary to move to larger quarters three times during that year and before the end of the second year a gift from Mr. Joseph Fels having assured its continuance, it was deemed wise to incorporate and secure a permanent home for the school. This was done by six women, all greatly inter- ested in school affairs. As it was through Mr. Com- ings' enthusiasm and deep conviction that we must have a change in school methods, coupled with a small gift of money, that has made the school possible, it was incorporated as the Comings Memorial School of Education, but as the title was rather cumbersome the first two words were dropped, al- VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 159 though still retained legally and now it is known locally as the Organic School. For eight years it has shown the better way. Fairhope has proven a fertile spot for the planting of such an effort and Mrs. M. L. Johnson, who or- ganized the school and has always been at the head of it, has had a free hand to try out any and all of her ideas for a better school method, untrammelled by dictation of school boards or dictation of any sort and helped and encouraged in every way pos- sible by parents and trustees. Of course there are conservatives in the town, sticklers for the old sys- tem that is so inadequate for present needs, but what needed reform was ever introduced without opposition ? One summer Mrs. Johnson conducted a Teachers' Class and Demonstration School in connection with the University of Pennsylvania. Another summei she had a school in Arden, Delaware, besides lectur- ing each year in many of the larger cities. SOCIETIES OF ORGANIC EDUCATION. Early in 1913 a Society of Organic Education was formed in Philadelphia. It is a strong company of prominent men and women and has done a great deal of propaganda work and hopes to arouse suffi- cient enthusiasm to make a practical demonstration. A society was also formed in Fairhope in 1913 and now numbers over 200 members, more than half living outside of Fairhope. i6o INDUSTRIAL AND The Oranges in New Jersey have been greatly interested and last fall Organic Education was in- troduced in one of the public schools with a teacher at the head who was under Mrs. Johnson's training during the past year. For two years Mrs. Johnson has conducted a Summer School at Greenwich, Connecticut, and this and the Teachers' Course at Fairhope have been the only opportunities afforded for study of Mrs. John- son's methods. In 191 3, at Greenwich, The Fairhope League North, was formed, its object, to further Mrs. John- son's work. This it has done by almost wholly sup- porting the school at Fairhope, securing lecture en- gagements for Mrs. Johnson, and carrying on gen- eral propaganda work. Both the Summer School and the League seem to have become permanent ad- juncts of the Fairhope School. In December, 1913, at the request of the Fairhope League, Dr. John Dewey came to Fairhope to investigate the school and its methods and in his official report gave it his unqualified approval. More recently N. R. Baker, State Inspector of Rural Schools in Alabama, vis- ited the school and made a most favorable report to the State Superintendent. Others have become greatly interested in the idea, notably Helen Christine Bennett, who spent one winter in Fairhope, and through magazine and VOCATIONAL EDUCATION i6i newspaper articles and leaflets the principles of Or- ganic Education are being widely disseminated. Early in 191 5 a Fairhope League, South, was formed in Fairhope for the same purpose as the League, North, and to prevent the school from be- ing moved to some northern point. A vacation school will be opened in Oak Park, 111., in June, 191 5, under the management of two teachers and a pupil teacher from the Organic School of Fair- hope. Mrs. M. L. Johnson will give a course of lec- tures during the week preceding and the week follow- ing the opening of this school. So the work has grown until Mrs. Johnson and the Organic School have won a national reputation and it seems quite probable that a number of similar schools will be opened in dififerent parts of the country very soon. WHAT IS ORGANIC EDUCATION? Not a system with a vast array of paraphernalia, but rather a point of view, an attempt to fit the school to the child rather than the child to the school ; an environment where the child will de- velop normally ; where he will grow mentally as he grows physically without conscious eflfort ; where the brain can become a strong physical organ before it is taxed with too early attempts at reasoning and the physical is not dwarfed by too long confinement i62 INDUSTRIAL AND at any one thing but instead is brought to its high- est possibilities ; where the child learns to read and to write when he is eager for it, even though it is not until he is eight or nine years of age ; where his eyesight is preserved, his hearing cultivated and his powers of observation developed ; where self- control is the ideal and liberty is allowed, not liberty that degenerates into license but the freedom that always yields to just laws; where the best interest of the child is considered and even his likes and dislikes taken into account ; where he is put in the classes best adapted to his needs whether they be all in one grade or not ; where, most of all, he does the work he enjoys doing, for there must be pleas- ure in work if there is to be profit; where there are no requirements for entering, no requirements for leaving, each one having credit for what he has ac- tually accomplished ; where there are no examina- tions for passing, no daily marks, hence no tempta- tion to deceive ; where the question is "What do you need?" not "What do you know?"; where, through justice, pupils learn to appreciate justice, through love they learn to love. "No profit goes zvhere is no pleasure ta'en, In brief, sir, study what you most affect." — Shakespeare. This is what Organic Education means today and as yet it has not been thoroughly demonstrated VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 163 through the entire high school course and no at- tempt has been made toward self-support as, so far, it has only dealt with younger children, but it will be a magnificent preparation for the work, will make a substantial foundation on which to build a self-supporting college or university. It requires all the usual accessories of any well-equipped school; kindergarten, manual training, domestic science, gymnasium, playgrounds, gardens, basket ball, baseball, tennis; everywhere boys and girls working together, whether it be cooking a meal, building a house or on the play ground. We have this freedom of choice in our univer- sities and when to the gymnasium and games of the university we have added the real creative in- dustries then may we hope for a saner civilization, for men and women prepared for their life work — not drifting helplessly from one thing to another, the cultivated mind demanding constantly what the hands have never been taught to supply. Some time the ideal of this book will be realized and when a man (or woman) has a message for his fellow man he will not be dependent upon the caprice of others for his support, not forced to modify his message to those who dole out to him a pittance from their (?) wealth but will stand forth fearless, conscious of power, will be as God intended — "as young gods." 1 64 INDUSTRIAL AND VOCATIONAL EDUCATION, Our plea is not for vocational education although it may be a step toward something better but rather for industrial, or as it is sometimes called, prevo- cational education, not the training that prepares for a special trade but the training of the hand that aids in the development of mental power, the all- round development of brawn and brain that fits for the later activities of life whatever the field chosen may be. Vocational training has been going on for a long time and we hear of schools in connection with stores, railroads, shops, everywhere that an hour or two can be spared from work, all for greater effi- viency in the special line of work. As now con- ducted, whether this is regarded favorably or not depends upon the point of view. To the capitalist, the employer, it means better workers. To many of the labor unions, greater opportunity for exploita- tion. To the worker — is he anything more as a re- sult of this training than a better machine? "Survey" seems to be the word of the moment and we find commonwealths and communities turn- ing to self-study, studying both the needs of the worker and the opportunities for work and study. With this more comprehensive knowledge it would seem that much might be accomplished. VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 165 At a recent conference Vocational Training for Women and Girls was given great attention. "Two dominant notes characterized the program, one the importance of the home and the need of specific training for its management; the other, the dignity of labor and the need of training for efficiency in the industrial world." The demand for skilled labor becomes more and more insistent but with it is felt the lack of men suited for foremen because of lack of training in the entire trade. It is also difficult to get teachers for vocational schools who know how to teach as well as how to work. The plea for teachers who com- bine hand and brain work is still pertinent and we need it more than any other one thing to make our schools as helpful as they should be. In some schools where there is no industrial de- partment much is done toward vocational guidance by studying the work of eminent men and women and their service to humanity; then the present needs of the world, the country, the State, finally, of one's home environment and then the student's ability to in a measure contribute to that need. If with this academic training the hands could be taught to be skillful in general ways, it would be- come a splendid preparation for one's life work whether in some profession or at some form of skilled labor. i66 INDUSTRIAL AND Recently President Wilson appointed a Commis- sion on Vocational Education and as a result of their report a bill has been introduced into both branches of Congress giving help to the states in providing vocational education and in training per- sons to teach it with a view to stimulation rather than support. It must be spent to "fit for useful employment" and is intended to meet the needs of persons over fourteen years of age who have al- ready entered upon or are preparing to enter upon some phase of industrial pursuit. The commission declares "that of more than 25,000,000 workers less than I per cent, have had adequate preparation for their jobs." The bill creates a permanent Federal Board for Vocational Education with the Commisisoner of Education as its executive officer. Let us hope that this will forever put an end to the absurd notion prevailing in some of our cities that vocational schools should be taken from the control of school boards and be put under separate boards. We need the co-operation of the employer and the employee, with their knowledge of the needs of the work, and the school authorities, with their knowledge of methods of imparting instruction. The great difficulty seems to be that the skilled worker does not know how to impart his knowledge, and the teacher does not know how to do the work. VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 167 Hence our plea for industrial training through the entire academic course, that boys and girls may have skilled hands as well as skilled brains when they choose their life work whether it be a profession, a trade, or that of a home maker. Let us hope the Federal Board will have the broader vision and work for better men and women rather than better machines. PROGRESS IN TEN YEARS. We take pleasure in noting the progress made dur- ing the ten years since this book was first given to the public. In some of the schools mentioned the work has been discontinued, but no effort is ever lost and apparent failure often is really success. In other cases the work still prospers. RUSKIN COLLEGE. Formerly located at Glen Ellyn, 111., is now located at Ruskin, Fla. In 1907 its founders acquired a 12,000 acre tract of land and have made the college the social center. By a plan of co-operation it re- ceives a liberal share of the receipts from the sale of land for its equipment and through its Industrial Guild the pupils are not only self-supporting, but can lay by a sufficient sum to make a fair start in life. While it is not wholly the work of the pupils, this seems to be the nearest approach to the ideal of this i68 INDUSTRIAL AND book that has been tried anywhere. It is self-sup- porting and self-equipping. It has no endowment and does not seek any. We quote from their Bul- letin: THE PRIMARY PURPOSE. "Industrial self-support while in college is only a secondary purpose in the maintenance of our industrial policy. The primary purpose is educational and cul- tural, and to lead to full support out of college. No one can attain to the best education or cidture zvithout the industrial discipline ivhich comes from manual labor and the doing of the ordinary tasks necessary to supply one's luants zvithotct depending upon others for either gratuitous or compensated service. "No young man zvill receive a diploma from the col- lege zvho has not learned to do the primitive tasks necessary to make a living zvith one's hands; such as farm zvork, care of live stock, and use of tools; and no young zvoman zvill receive a diploma until she has learned to do similar zvork in her line, covering all the practical duties of home-maker and home-keeper." The work at Dayton, Ohio, is so full of interest and encouragement that we quote at length from a report recently received: "That part of Dayton where the National Cash Register Co. is located, was once known as Slider- town and it lived up to everything that its name VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 169 implied. Rents were low and no new houses were being erected, because there was no demand for property. "Yards were full of rubbish, tin cans and refuse. Conditions were so bad that employees were ashamed to say that they worked at the factory. The low dives with which the neighborhood abounded harbored gamblers, drunkards and thieves. "In addition, Slidertown was infested with shoe- less, homeless, lying, cursing, stealing, cigarette smoking boys who delighted in breaking the factory windows and in doing all the damage that they could. "A picket fence ten feet high was erected around the factory to keep the youngsters out, but even that availed nothing. The boys broke the fence first and the windows afterwards. "Owing to the unsightliness and badness of the surroundings the company was unable to procure the class of help needed to manufacture a perfect prod- uct. Skilled labor could not be induced to come to Slidertown. 'Tt was necessary to change this state of affairs, and it was thought that the most practical thing to do would be to clean up the factory premises. Police protection was promised, the picket fence was re- moved, the buildings were painted, grass seed was sown and finally flowers and shrubs were planted. I70 INDUSTRIAL AND "But no sooner had this new work been com- menced when the bad boys again became trouble- some. The police protection which had been relied upon was inadequate. As rapidly as shrubbery was planted, the boys pulled it up. They trampled the lawns and continued to break windows. "The question then arose as to what was to be done with the boys. The president of the company was convinced that if given an opportunity, a boy will do what is right, and that a boy is bad just in propor- tion as his mind is unoccupied. This theory was put into practice, and instead of prosecuting the boys, a meeting place was set aside for them, and they were invited to visit the company. They were very sus- picious at first and ignored the invitation. Then they were told that there would be things to eat at the meeting. Needless to say, this meeting was well attended. "Now that the confidence of the neighborhood children had been obtained, schools and classes were started. The first attempt was a kindergarten for the little tots. Then followed classes in sewing and cooking for the girls. For the boys there were classes in clay modelling, wood carving, drawing and carpentry. Finally egg shell gardens were com- menced. These are nothing more than egg shells filled with earth, with seeds planted in them. "The children were immediately interested. They VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 171 wanted bigger things to do, so a plot of ground was cleared off, plowed and harrowed, the boys were given seeds and tools and under a competent gar- dener were taught how to raise vegetables. This was in 1897. "They became very enthusiastic when they found that they were going to do something really worth while. The peculiar part of the proposition was that the ringleaders of the gangs that caused so much trouble were given charge of the work, and it was found that they led for the good as well as they had for the bad before. "The garden idea is one of the most practical things the company has ever done. The seeds and tools cost little and the boys do the work. It is far more helpful and economical to maintain the gar- dens than to be constantly replacing broken window glass in the factory. "The gardens have not only taught the boys in- dustry, but they have had a lasting moral influence upon them. "In 191 1 the boy gardeners were incorporated into a stock company. They have a state charter to raise and sell vegetables. They sell their produce, bank their money, make out bills and receipts, and at the end of the year they declare dividends. This gives them an excellent business training and teaches them many things that would take them years to absorb 172 INDUSTRIAL AND after once they go into business. They handle the affairs of their corporation with very little outside assistance. "They duly elect officers, a Board of Directors, issue stock certificates and hold regular meetings to discuss crops and business. "Another practical side of the gardens is the fact that the boys supply their home tables with vege- tables during the summer months. That is quite an item, especially at this time, when the cost of living is so high. "In the season of 1913 there were 80 boys working in the garden and the value of the crop was over $1,991. "At the end of the season the boys and their par- ents are given a dinner. At that time $100 in prizes are awarded for the best gardens, up-keep of tools, deportment, attendance and the neatest, most com- plete record books. This is quite an incentive for the boys to put forth their best efforts. "After a successful two years' course, the boys are awarded diplomas. These are excellent recom- mendations should they apply for work at the fac- tory later on. Many of the men now working for us received their early training in the gardens. It would be interesting to hear what they have to say about the experience they gained in the gardens. Most of these boys have been successful, thus VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 173 proving the president's belief in the possibilities of making useful citizens out of so-called bad boys. "Girls' gardens were started in 1912, not for the same reason that boys' gardens were originally started, however. The company merely wanted the neighborhood girls to get into the open air and to have the exercise of working in a garden. "Men's gardens were started at the same time, through the kindness of St. Mary's Institute. The college donated the ground and the N. C. R. Com- pany had it prepared for gardening. This is a great help to the working man in keeping down living ex- penses. "A school in the factory neighborhood has been making gardening a part of its regular course for the last 17 years. This was the first school in Amer- ica to do this work, although the idea has spread quite rapidly since that time. "The five steps in a "back to the farm" movement are: "ist. Egg Shell Gardens. "2nd. Boys' Gardens. "3rd. Back Yard Vegetable Gardens. "4th. Half Acre Farms. "5th. Truck Gardens. "After the boys graduate from the N. C. R. gar- dens another course in box furniture making is pro- vided. Here they are taught to handle tools. Out 174 INDUSTRIAL AND of old packing cases that are of no further use, they are taught to make small pieces of furniture and bird boxes. This costs very little in proportion to the good that is accomplished. "If a boy should not care to follow farming as a means of livelihood, while he was raising his crop of vegetables he is also raising a crop of perseverance, industry, bodily strength and a good mental training. Things that will be of value to him in any line of business that he might enter. "Now that the boys of the neighborhood were working for the company instead of against it, it was comparatively easy to reach out through them to their parents and interest them in a general clean- up movement. "Prizes were given for the best results in front and back yard efifects, window boxes, porch effects, fences, streets and alleys. This work has not stopped by any means. There are now seven Improvement Associations in South Park, as Slidertown is now known. These organizations are governed by the neighborhood people, but the company lends every encouragement, by providing seeds, bulbs, plants and shrubs at cost and by giving substantial prizes an- nually." The following is from a recent letter from N. O. Nelson in regard to the School at Le Claire, 111. : "We started the Educational School to give a trade and VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 175 education at the same time. Half time on each. The work in the long run to pay the upkeep of the school and board. The sole purpose was to give as much education as any young man wanted, at the same time making him a competent workman. It worked very well, was popular. We had as high as fifty at a time. They worked in our various shops and also on the farm. We continued it two years and until we all agreed that nearly all who came were seeking a higher edu- cation with a view to intellectual employment. Scarcely any intended to follow manual work. As the purpose intended could not be attained, we closed the school after two years. I am convinced that at this stage of civilization manual vocations and advanced school education will not go together." What is this "stage of civilization?" Simply that we retain our pagan ideals ; that one who labors with the hands is still considered inferior to one who has in some way obtained "intellectual employment"; hence the school as a "stepping stone." Many a girl who would make a fine helper in a home is degraded into an inferior teacher, many a fine mechanic or farmer into a third-rate preacher or lawyer by our false standards. No account of work accomplished, however incom- plete, can leave out the Continuation Schools of Cin- 176 INDUSTRIAL AND cinnati, and Mr. Wm. Wirt's work in Gary, Ind., and New York City. The combination of industrial and academic training, the use of already existing manu- facturing plants, the utilization of room whereby double the number of children can be accommodated than were under the old plan, the recognition of a child's right to pursue other lines of work than those provided by the school, show wonderful progress. Our Open-Air Schools, Public Playgrounds, To- mato Clubs, Corn Clubs and a host of other out-door activities are no longer questioned and no longer reserved for the abnormal. We have learned that conditions that are good for the aenemic, the tuber- cular, the child who is in any way below the normal, are equally good for the normal child to keep him at his best. The Open-Air School at Bryn Mawr is a notable example of this. AGRICULTURAL TRAINING. The district and county agricultural schools seem to be well established now, not only in Wisconsin and Minnesota, but in many other states, but in no case so far as we can learn are they even partially self- supporting. Where we had small beginnings and very few of them ten years ago. we now have large successes and the acknowledged need of industrial education, if not the practice of it, has become prac- VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 177 tically universal. Let us hope that some plan may be evolved whereby it may be free to every one. PREVENTION OF IMMORALITY IN OUR HIGH SCHOOLS. One phase of the value of skilled hands and skilled brains has been almost entirely overlooked, its help in the prevention of immorality in our high schools, something that is becoming quite appalling. Every- where we find teachers inquiring as to the cause and the remedy. The cause is easily found. Natural instincts in the young. The solution of the difftculty is not so simple, but we venture the opinion that it will not be found in the teaching of sex hygiene or in home training until both parent and teacher better understand the nature of young people. It is the prostitution of God's supreme gift to man, man's highest attribute, the creative instinct debased through ignorance. The creative impulse which under proper condi- tions would result in sacred, happy parenthood, but which when unrestrained becomes immorality, would in our young people, under proper direction, be- come a wonderful force in their lives leading on io greater and greater achievements. We have realized this somewhat, and we often hear teachers speak of pupils working off superflu- ous energy on the playgrounds, but it needs more than basketball, baseball and tennis, fine as they are. 178 INDUSTRIAL AND It requires something that is more than recreative. It must be something- that is distinctly creative to satisfy and stem this rising tide, and nothing at such times can take the place of some well-directed indus- try where they can create new designs and new forms and feel the uplift of accomplishment instead of wasting this gift. Our schools must deal with life as we find it in order to make life, both social and individual, better. Teach a child to respect his own body and we pre- vent disease and immorality. Teach him to respect the rights of others and he cannot become a crim- inal. Interest him in his surroundings, show him the causes of existing social evils and he will grow up with a desire to remedy these things. Ignorance is not a preventive. Knowledge is the only safeguard. THE ARMY OF THE UNEMPLOYED This still increases. We find this in a recent article. It gives the situation so exactly that we deem com- ment unnecessary. "During the summer months these armies of unemployed are not so much in evi- dence, but those who think the armies are perma- nently disbanded are grievously in error. The men who form our unemployed armies all through this country are becoming socially self-conscious, and they cannot be permanently disbanded until a way Is found to eliminate the causes of unemployment. VOCATIONAL EDUCATION i79 San Diego met the I. W. W. free speech army with rails and tar and feathers. Sacramento met the un- employed army with fire engines and pick handles. Thus they "solved" their problems. When this army comes again, as come it will, shall we have a more sane solution of the problem?" Many see the solution of all these problems in some form of economic or political reform, but we fear none of these reforms, much as they are needed, will be carried to a final success until we have really educated a few generations of men and wom.en who are capable of seeing clearly all sides of a question and deciding it on its merits free from prejudice and uninfluenced by greed. "Let me lay emphasis on the opportunity now pre- sented in the United States for observing and, if we are wise, aiding in what I think is the grandest oppor- tunity ever presented of developing the -finest race the world has ever known out of the vast mingling of races brought here by immigration. "So may ive hope for a stronger and better race if right principles are followed, a magnificent race far superior to any preceding it." — Luther Burbank. A RACE OF AMERICANS. They tell us that in the West, notably in California, there is a new race coming in. They are losing the characteristics of their ancestors from foreign coun- i8o INDUSTRIAL AND tries, are taller, better developed, more intellectual, a race of Americans. Will we have the wisdom to train these superior beings who show this great im- provement in spite of wrong conditions, into men and women of such mighty stature, physically, men- tally, morally, spiritually, that the whole world will recognize and follow? It is our privilege. Nothing but the best for every boy and girl in the whole land should satisfy us, and to accomplish this the hand must be cultivated with the head, and it must be possible for every child to have every opportunity for development that he is capable of using. And what of our motto "More for Schools and Less for War?" In the war now raging all the horrors of the dark- est ages have been reproduced. Cities destroyed, women outraged, children maimed. Most unbeliev- able things are reported. So far one ray of hope comes from all the darkness and carnage. The death knell of the liquor traffic has been sounded. Women are asserting themselves and demanding that war shall cease forever, and who have a better right, for who suffer more than they at such times? Let us hope that all this is but "The death throes of our wornout order, the birth pangs of the new," and that the time is coming when our motto may m- deed be "More for schools and naught for war." Fairhope, April, 191 5. I A Child Cry By Netta M. Breakenridge. AM a child, O do not tie me up To schools, and desks, and books misunderstood, When I am yearning to run out a-Held, To search the quiet of the dim, sweet wood. And O — sweet MotJier — do not set me sums, And those stiff, staring copies of some word, Let me count meadows full of clover blooms, And learn the sweet, free singing of a bird. For I have found a Teacher to my mind, She whispers siveet instruction zvhen at rest I stretch broimi arms — bare feet in cool, deep grass That feels the heart throb 'neath her great ivarm breast. Then when the trees, the flowers, the sky, the birds, Have taught their true, strong lessons, I'll come in With eager, hungry questioning, and say, "The books, sweet Mother — quick, I must begin T i82 INDUSTRIAL AND Daily Program of the School of Organic Education, Fairhope, Alabama APPROVED BY MARIETTA L. JOHNSON AND HER ASSOCIATE TEACHERS. "The proper work of education is not to prune and thwart and bend and force. It is rather to keep hands off as tvell as harm off." Organic Education depends so largely upon the needs of the individual child and the ability of the teacher to understand and satisfy those needs that a formal program for the lower grades becomes im- possible, but it is hoped that this account of daily work may prove helpful to those who are seeking greater freedom, more elastic methods. KINDERGARTEN. Much the same work will be found as in all kin- dergartens except that the children indicate their preferences and the teacher follows. For instance, at nine o'clock, the opening hour, most of the children are at the tables absorbed in their work, some have been working ten or fifteen minutes perhaps. Sometimes it is card board con- struction, sometimes color work ; often the two com- bined. Shall they be disturbed and gathered into a VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 183 circle ? Not at all. That can come later, when they want a change, but every morning the circle, with its songs, sense games and stories, is introduced and the children have a happy time. In fact, they- are happy and busy all the time. As a rule when a child is deeply interested in either work or play, he is not interrupted. Each one has his own place for his own things in the closet and when through using them is taught to put them away neatly. To prevent friction they are taught to respect the rights of each other, and this results in good manners, politeness. Out of doors they have a sand pile and swings and are allowed to use a few pieces of the out-door gymnasium with the aid of the teacher. At such times as Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, St. Val- entine's Day and St. Patrick's Day their work is in harmony with the special occasion and there is never a dull moment. FIRST LIFE CLASS. This is really an advanced kindergarten. Here we find the most radical departure from conventional methods. The children are from six to eight years of age. No books are used by the pupils except as the older ones are taught to read and then only as they express a desire for it. The work is almost wholly self-initiated. They have wood construction and i84 INDUSTRIAL AND gardening added to the kindergarten work. Lum- ber, saws, nails and rules are provided and they make chairs, book cases, racks, houses, all of their own designing and according to their own meas- urements. Some are very crude ; others well fin- ished, but each is commended as havuig done his best and encouraged to further effort. Most of this work is done out of doors, as it was found that it disturbed the pupils in the other rooms in the build- ing. The clay and color work is remarkably good. Some May baskets decorated with tissue paper showed very good taste in the selection of colors. In their gardens each one decides upon the size desired, measures it off, with assistance if needed, and takes entire care of it. Liquid and dry meas- ures are provided that they may gain some idea of values in this way. They have toys, balls, bean bags and have been especially interested in making kites. They use chairs and tables for automobiles and street cars. The tables turned upside down and filled with chairs and these occupied by children give them pleasure for a great many hours. The tables and chairs were made in the manual training depart- ment and are guiltless of paint or varnish or it might not be wise to do this, but why surround children with things too good to use? At one time they were greatly interested in mak- VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 185 Ing reins ornamented with bells. A number of them were provided for the Christmas sale and were dis- posed of readily. They were made of coarse, soft twine and were done in a loose chain stitch, using the fingers instead of a crochet needle. Each one was allowed twelve yards of twine, first measuring one yard on the edge of the table with a foot rule, then using this yard measure twelve times. They also string beads of different colors, beginning with two, five or ten of each color, thus gaining number conception. The art teacher has put crayon drawings of famil- iar objects on the board and some of the copies are surprisingly good. Every day the pupils are gathered into a circle for some kind of group work but not at any stated time. Their greatest delight is in stories, read or told to them. Often they illustrate these in the sand box, and with clay or crayon, sometimes dramatize them. We name a few of the books that are found specially interesting, both when read to them and as they handle the books themselves. Some of the children can repeat almost the entire story and love to do this with the open book and pictures be- fore them : The Children's Book, by Horace Scudder. Nonsense Book, by Edward Lear. Peter Rabbit Series, by Beatrix Potter. ; i86 INDUSTRIAL AND Tom Thumb and Johnny Crow's Garden, Illus- trated by Leslie Brooks. Caldecott Picture Books. In My Nursery, by Laura E. Richards. Child Lore and Dramatic Reader, published by Charles Scribner's Sons. Work is planned when it seems necessary, the teacher is always ready to help when needed, but it seldom happens that the children are not eager for something of their own devising. SECOND LIFE CLASS. The first half hour in the morning is devoted to singing, folk dancing and out-door gymnastics, not as a rest when the children are tired from mental occupations, but as a means of development at a time when they are at their best. In the afternoon they have a quiet half hour before beginning their more active work. A fundamental conception of number is gained largely through use in other occu- pations and much time is devoted to the mechanical operations, addition, subtraction, multiplication, di- vision, decimals and compound numbers. Their reading consists mainly of historical and geographi- cal stories and legends, with very simple stories for the youngest pupils. The children of one class were greatly interested in the French and Indian War and went to the gullies where they built forts and repro- VOCATIONAL EDUCATION i8;r duced many of the scenes. Members of another class built a railroad of which they had read and then a miniature Panama Canal. Another time it may be something quite different that holds their attention and interest. The gullies are a never-ending source of delight for nature study, dramatic representation or "just a good time." There is work in both oral and written expres- sion. They have larger gardens than the First Life Class and are given simple instruction in ~ botany,, soils and germination. They go to the manual training building for their wood working. They are from nine to eleven years of age. THIRD LIFE CLASS. Here we find the pupils from twelve to thirteen years of age, corresponding to the usual grammar grades, and preparing for the high school. They share the half hour of singing and folk dancing with the Second Life, use books, have gardens and are allowed the full use of the gymnasium. They have more difficult manual training work and the older ones have cooking. Botany, nature study and the sciences receive great attention. The use of clay is encouraged for relief maps and in moulding objects. They read' aloud from both story books and books of history, geography, and science, and illustrate and dramatize ^88 INDUSTRIAL AND much of their work, and so are led along by easy and natural methods until at fourteen years of age they are well prepared for high school ; and besides the us- ual book knowledge have had experiences which tend to give well developed bodies, deftness of hand and a general knowledge and culture. THE HIGH SCHOOL. The Course of Study does not differ radically from that in any good high school and when one has finished the course he is ready for college or university. The pupils, wherever possible, work in self-or- ganized groups and decide for themselves what work will be most beneficial. Those in the English class, for instance, are writing books. Each pupil selects a title and writes the first chapter, then passes it on for a chapter by each of the others. When it re- turns to the first one he or she will write the final chapter, cover it according to individual taste, and own the book. By the time this is finished some other work will have been planned. In botany they bring to class, for analyzing, flowers of their own choosing, and each one selects those preferred for an herbarium. The same freedom of choice is allowed in the drawing class and rarely are two pupils drawing from the same object. Those in the biology class are raising pigs. In the chemistry VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 189 class one boy is experimenting with nickel plating, another with manufacturing hydrogen. So the in- dividuality of the pupil is cultivated and the work becomes more vital as well as less formal. The out- door gymnasium is fairly well equipped. They have basket ball, baseball and tennis. The gardens are quite extensive. The greatest liberty is allowed the pupils. They pass about and in and out of the room, speak quietly to each other, even prepare their lessons out of doors if they wish. A strict regard for the rights of others is maintained and pupils who have been in the school some time can be trusted absolutely, others who come and go, mistake liberty for license and occasionally abuse the privileges given them. Written tests are frequently given, but no exami- nations for passing from one grade to another. Pupils are put in classes best adapted to their needs regardless of grades. No desks are used in the school, tables and chairs being substituted. DOMESTIC SCIENCE. There are five cooking classes and they give a noon lunch each day to from fifteen to twenty-five people. They plan the menu, buy the supplies, al- ways taking into account what is already on hand and are limited to ten cents per person. Three of the classes work under the supervision of a teacher. I90 INDUSTRIAL AND two of them cook and serve the meal alone. Us- ually there are two vegetables, one of them often served as a salad, and bread and butter with either dessert or soup. No guest is limited as to quan- tity. This department is self-supporting. Sewing is also taught to those who care for it. MANUAL TRAINING. In this we find a great variety of work, from the simplest objects made by the Second Life Class to well-finished writing desks, book cases, tables, and porch swings. The tables and many of the chairs used in the school are made here. As everywhere, the pupils are allowed great freedom of choice. This occupies the largest and best equipped of the buildings, of which there are four; one for the Kindergarten and Domestic Science (this was built almost entirely by the pupils), one for the Life Classes and one for the High School and Chemical Laboratory. THE teachers' TRAINING CLASS. This gives a thorough course in History of Edu- cation, Psychology, Child Study and Methods, with practice teaching in the Kindergarten and Life Classes. For the closing exercises this year the entire school will take part in an out-door presentation of VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 191 the Pied Piper of Hamlin. This was suggested by a member of the Training Class and will be worked out by the entire class. This is just a brief outline of what is done from day to day in the spring of 1915. Another year the application may be quite different but the underlying principles remain unchanged. Self-control and self- initiative are the watchwords throughout the school.