The New Education: 
 
 A Lecture 
 by Lucien H. Smith, 
 
 Special Agent U. S. Department of Labor, 
 Washington, D. C. 
 
 Delivered before the 
 
 People's Ethical Society 
 of Rochester, N. Y., 
 
 ■ March 26, 1893. 
 
\ 
 
The New Education: 
 
 A Lecture 
 by Lucien H. Smith, 
 
 Special Agent U. S. Department of Labor, 
 Washington, D. C. 
 
 Delivered before the 
 
 People's Ethical Society 
 of Rochester, N. Y., 
 
 March 26, 1893. 
 
 ROCHESTER, N. Y.: 
 Press of WILSON & YOUNG, 59 State Street. 
 
 
\ 
 
 41731 
 
 .'^ 
 
 i>\ 
 
 
The New Education. 
 
 (^ 
 
 MORE profound discussion of the subject of education has 
 been going on, than is indicated by the hit and miss articles 
 whicli occasionahy apjDcar in the newspapers. To say nothing of 
 the war that has been waged in educational journals, the great 
 magazines like the Popular Science Monthly, The Forum, The 
 Arena, etc., have discussed the subject in its different aspects. For 
 the past six months Dr. J. M, Rice has had a series of articles in The 
 Formn which it is worth the while of all interested in the New 
 Education to read. 
 
 Let us consider what the New Education really means. 
 Froebel says it is the harmonious development of the whole 
 being. Festalozzi says it is the generation of power. Comen- 
 ius says: "Let those things that have to be done be learned by doing 
 them." And Herbert Spencer tells us to teach by things rather 
 than the signs of things. 
 
 The following laws laid down by Spencer in his Education — 
 Intellectual, Moral, and Physical, seem to form a kind of code 
 upon which a symmetrical system of education may be based: 
 
 Acquirement of every kind has two values — value as knowledge and 
 value as discipline. Besides its use for guidance in conduct, the acquisition 
 of each order of facts has also its use as mental exercise ; and its effects as a 
 preparative for complete living has to be considered under both these heads. 
 
 These, then, are the general ideas with which we must set out in dis- 
 cussing a curriculum : life as divided into several kinds of activity of succes- 
 sively decreasing importance, the worth of each order of facts aiS regulating 
 these several kinds of activity, intrinsically, quasi-intrinsically, and conven- 
 tionally; and their regulative influences estimated both as knowledge and 
 discipline. * * * ^g conclude, then, that for discipline as well as for 
 guidance, science is of chiefest value. In all its effects, learning the meaning 
 of things is better than learning the meaning of words. Whether for intel- 
 lectual, moral, or religious training, the study of surrounding phenomena is 
 immensely superior to the study of grammars and lexicons. Thus to the 
 question with which we set out. What knowledge is of most worth ? the 
 uniform reply is — science. This is the verdict on all the counts. * * * 
 That in education we should proceed from the simple to the complex is a 
 truth which has always been to some extent acted upon ; not professedly, 
 indeed, nor by any means consistently. The mind grows. Like all things 
 that grow, it progresses from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous ; and 
 a normal training system being an objective counterpart of this subjective 
 process, must exhibit the like progression. * * * 
 
To say that our lessons ought to start from tho concrete and end in 
 the abstract may be cousidei-ed as in part a repetition of tlie foregoing. 
 ]S evertheless it is a maxim that needs to be stated; if with no other view, 
 than with the view of sliowing in certain cases what are truly the simple 
 and the complex. For unfortunately there has been much misunderstand- 
 ing on this point. * * * Teachers have constantly erred by setting out 
 with "first principles," a proceeding essentially, though not apparently, at 
 variance with the primary rule, which implies that the mind should be in- 
 troduced to principles through the medium of examples, and so should be 
 led from the particular to the seneral—lvoYn the concrete to the abstract. 
 * * * It follows that our teaching should begin with but few subjects 
 at once, and successively adding to these, should finally carry on all subjects 
 abreast — that not only in its details should education proceed from the sim- 
 ple to the complex, but in its ensemble. Children should be led to make their 
 own investigations, and to draw their own inferences. They should be told 
 as little as possible and induced to discover as much as possible. Humanity 
 has progressed solely by self-instruction. 
 
 In the application of these principles various tenns have been 
 more or less in vogue, such as "the scientific system," " the natural 
 method," " object teaching," " industrial education," and "manual 
 training;" and great has been the discussion concerning their scope 
 and signification. The general conception among school men, I 
 believe, has grown to mean that teaching the sciences as begun in 
 the kindergarten and carried through the successive grades, and 
 applied as arts, in coloring, drawing, wood and metal working, 
 physical culture, sewing, cooking, music, etc., is included in the 
 term "manual training;" and that the term "industrial training" 
 has assumed the technical signification of trade-teaching. Many 
 advocates of manual training in all grades of school work, as here 
 defined, stop short wherever specialization into trades is suggested. 
 They do not believe that trade-teaching is properly a common 
 school function. The New Education, which of itself suggests a 
 departure from old methods, is a term rather loosely applied, but it 
 is often used, and probably in a technical sense it is generally in- 
 tended to comprehend all forms of manual, or industi'ial training, 
 public and private. However, no one who has kept abreast of the 
 times in school affairs, especially the teacher, can be ignorant of 
 the application of the term " manual training." 
 
 Mr. Charles H. Ham, in the preface to his great book. Man- 
 ual Training, says: 
 
 In tracing the course of invention and discovery I found that I was 
 moving in the line of the progress of civilization, I found that the great gulf 
 between the savage and the civihzed man is s])anned by the seven hand-tools 
 — the axe, the saw, the plane, the hammer, the square, the chisel, and the 
 file — and that the modern machine shop is an aggregation of these tools 
 driven by steam. I hence came to regard tools as the great civilizing 
 agency of the world. With Carlyle I said, "Man Avithout tools is nothing; 
 with tools he is all." From this point it was only a step to the proposition 
 that. It is through the arts alone that all branches of learning find expres- 
 sion, and touch human life. Then I said, The true definition of education is 
 the development of all the powers of man to the culminating point of action. 
 
In the first chapter he says : Intellectual development is never lost sight 
 of for a moment. It is a. system of object-teaching — teaching through things 
 instead of through signs of things. * * * The kindergarten comes fii'st 
 in the order of development and leads logically to the manual training- 
 school. The same principle underlies both. In both it is sought to genera 
 ate power by dealing with things in connection with ideas. Both have 
 common methods of instruction, and they should be adapted to the whole 
 period of scliool life and applied to all schools. * " * It is the most 
 astounding fact of history that education has been confined to abstractions. 
 These schools have taught history, mathematics, language and literature 
 and the sciences, to the utter exclusion of the arts*, notwithstanding the ob- 
 vious fact that it is through the arts alone that other branches of learning 
 touch human life. * * * In a word, public education stops at the ex- 
 act point where it should begin to aj^ply the theories it ha-s imparted. * * 
 The tyranny of tradition is an ever-present, potent influence, and only the 
 growing mind can resist it. 
 
 It is plain that Mr. Ham is not a philosopher of the " always 
 vs^as, and always will be" order. 
 
 In the eighth chapter Mr. Ham has a crumb of comfort for 
 the Smith family which has a decided bearing upon the develop- 
 ment of education. He says: 
 
 When Jerusalem was taken by the Babylonians they made captives of 
 all the smiths and other craftsmen of the city — a more grievous act than the 
 thousand million dollar tribute levied upon France by Germany at the close 
 .of the war of 1870. * * * 
 
 The smith was a mighty man in England in the early time. In the 
 royal court of Wales he sat in the great hall with the king and queen, and 
 was entitled to a draught of every kind of liquor served. His person was 
 sacred; his calling placed him above the law. He was necessary to the 
 feudal state; he forged swords " on the temper of which life, honor, and vic- 
 tory in battle depended." The smith after the Norman invasion gained in 
 importance in England. He was the chief man of the village, its oracle, and 
 the most cunning workmaiU of the time. His name descended to more fami- 
 lies than that of any other profession — for the origin of the name Smith is 
 the hot, dusty, smoky smithy, and however it may be disguised in the spell- 
 ing it is entitled to the proud distinction which its representatives some- 
 times seek to conceal. 
 
 Thus is the familiar calumny refuted that the Lord after 
 naming everybody of importance called all the rest Smith. 
 
 Let us now consider some of the criticisms of present meth- 
 ods by high educational authorities. I will first c[uote from a 
 paper entitled Can School Programmes be Shortened and En- 
 riched? read before the Department of Superintendence of the Na- 
 tional Educational Association, at Washington, D. C, February 
 i6, iS88, by Charles William Eliot, LL. D., President of Har- 
 vard University, and printed in the report of the United States 
 Bureau of Education for iSSy-'SS. 
 
 The average age of admission to Harvard College has been rising for 
 sixty years past and has now reached the extravagant limit of eighteen 
 years and ten months. Harvard College is not at all peculiar in this respect; 
 indeed many of the country colleges find their young men older still at en- 
 trance. The average college graduate is -undoubtedly nearly twenty-three 
 years old at graduation, and when he has obtained his A. B. he must now- 
 adays allow at least three years for his professional education. * * * 
 
Ambitious medical students are giving four years to their medical training. 
 Twenty years ago the leading colleges were satisfied to take men just grad- 
 uated in arts as tutors in Latin, Greek, and Mathematics. Now they ex- 
 pect a candidate for tutorship or instructorship to have devoted two or 
 three years to study after taking his bachelor's degree. * * * The av- 
 erage college graduate who fits himself well for any of the learned profes- 
 sions, including teaching, can hardly begin to support himself before he is 
 twenty-seven years of age. 
 
 In considei'ing the improvement of the program, Mr. Eliot 
 says: 
 
 In the first place better programmes need better teachers. * * * 
 There is not enough meat in the diet. They do not bring the child forward 
 fast enough to maintain his interest and induce him to put forth his 
 strength. Frequent complaint is made of over-pressure in the public 
 schools, but Frederich Paulsen is probably right that it is not work which 
 causes over-fatigue so much as lack of interest and lack of conscious pro- 
 gress. * » * Much time can be saved iu primary and secondary 
 schools by diminishing the number of reviews and by never aiming at that 
 kind of accuracy of attainment which reviews followed by examinations are 
 in ten ded to enforce. * * * In almost all the numerous collections of 
 school statistics which are now published in this country it appears that 
 the various grades contain children much too old for them. This phenome- 
 non seems to be due partly to the ambition of teachers and partly to the 
 caution of parents. 
 
 Not a word does Mr. Eliot say concerning a change of prin- 
 ciple in shortening and enriching the program of this twenty-seven, 
 year education — and he spells program, p-r-o-g-r-a-m-m-e. But 
 the point of value in this connection, and one that is clear beyond 
 doubt, is that it is a twenty-seven-year preparatory education. 
 With what glee must the American parent who knows that his 
 children cannot be maintained at school more than four or five 
 years contemplate this program ? And it must be considered that 
 while there is no national system of education, all common school 
 programs are pretty much the same — stereotyped programs — so 
 many educational roads, all leading to Rome, the literary college 
 above. 
 
 Would it be " faddism " to suggest that there might be some 
 change in the kind of instruction in shortening this program — to 
 ask how much of it is intrinsic, quasi-intrinsic, or conventional } 
 
 We are sometimes told of genius which has worked its way 
 up the educational ladder by sweeping halls, building fires, etc. ; 
 but from this outlook it does not seem probable that there rs any 
 danger that the janitor business will be overdone. 
 
 Let me introduce some testimony from Dr. Wm. T. Harris, 
 
 the present United States Commissioner of Education, as given in 
 
 his report for i888-'S9: 
 
 Looking at the grade of education we see (page 3) that less than six 
 pupils in the hundred are returned as pursuing secondary and higher educa- 
 tion, the remaining ninety-four being engaged upon the elementary course 
 in reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, grammar, and United States 
 
1 
 
 history. The ratio of pupils in secondary schools (i. e., high schools, acad- 
 emies, and schools preparatory for college) to those in colleges and univer- 
 sities is five to one. One in five hundred of the population is enrolled in 
 schools for higher instruction. * * * 
 
 The comparison of the courses of study shows that the French and 
 Germans devote much less time than Americans to the study of orthog- 
 raphy. The peculiarities of English spelling render necessary much memo- 
 rizing. Were this exercise of memory devoted to the subject-matter of sci- 
 ence and literature there would be acquired a store of useful erudition which 
 future reflection might assimilate and turn ifito wisdom, iiut the spelling 
 book does not furnish food for reflection, or mental nourishment. Mechani- 
 cal memorizing is the much-lamented characteristic of our common schools. 
 It is evident that such must remain their characteristic so long as English- 
 speaking children memorize like the Chinese, the arbitrary spelling of more 
 than ten thousand words before uhey can write the language with readiness. 
 * * * Trained to mechanical habits of conformity and taught to be- 
 lieve in externally prescribed rules as of supreme authority, the Chinese 
 youth is sure to be conservative. 
 
 The singular feature of this kind of education is that the more the 
 youth receives of it the more fixed he becomes in his conservatism. West- 
 ern European education generally tends towards emaiucipatiou from au- 
 thority. Only in so far as it dwells with certain conventional elements 
 which require mechanical memory does it have the opposite tendency of 
 strengthening the habit of obedience to external authority. * * * 
 
 Advocates of spelling reform (and these have become numerous and 
 respectable since the Philological Society of Great Britain and of the English- 
 speaking nations has declared a reformed spelling desirable) have perhaps 
 not considered duly the influence of this protracted study of the irregular- 
 ities of the English orthography in making the educated classes of those na- 
 tions more conservative than other Europeans. 
 
 The superstitious respect of the Anglo-Saxon peoples for established 
 usages leads them to accept without a murmur the patched-up system of 
 spelhng, which conceals more than it reveals the real etymologies of words. 
 But in turn this spelling reacts on the race in such a way as to train all the 
 people who succeed in climbing out of sheer illiteracy , into conservative hab- 
 its of thought. * * * We must count in without omission all the edu- 
 cative values before we weigh the products of our own schools against 
 those of other nations. But the seeming backwardness of our pupils should 
 give us concern and impel us to this investigation without delay. 
 
 I will now quote from the report of the committee appointed 
 (Jan. 6, i88S) by the American Philosophical Society to assist the 
 Commission on Amended Orthography, created by virtue of a 
 resolution of the Legislature of Pennsylvania, read before the 
 American Philosophical Society, April 5, 1SS9: 
 
 It is evident that the great bulk of Fmgiish spelling can be called so 
 only by courtesy. * * * Indeed, as Lord Lytton well says, "a more 
 lying, roundabout, puzzle-headed delusion than that by which we Cunfuse 
 the clear instincts of truth in our accursed system of spelling was never con- 
 cocted by the father of falsehood. How can a system of education flourish 
 that begins by so monstrous a falsehood which the sense of hearing suffices 
 to contradict?" * * * 
 
 (The following from Max Muller.) The objection often made to spell- 
 ing reform is that it would utterly destroy the historical, or etymological 
 character of the English Language. Suppose it did; what then? Language 
 is not made for scholars and etymologists. But is it really the case? * 
 I say No, most emphatically. * * * a language that tolerates vial for 
 phial need not shiver at filosofer. * * * If anybody will tell me at what 
 date etymological spelling is to begin, whether at 1500 A. D., or at 1000 A. 
 D., or at 500 A. D., I am willing to discuss the question. Till then I beg to 
 say that etymological spellmg would play greater havoc in English than 
 
t'ouetic spelling, even if we were to draw a line not more than 500 years ago. 
 
 X * * 
 
 (From Prof. A. H. Sayce.) The science of etymology deals with 
 sounds not with letters and no true etymology is possible when we do not 
 know the exact way in which words are pronounced. 
 
 What shall be done ? Obviously, the first thing should be to 
 adopt phonetic spelling— that is, a system in which each character 
 would represent one souiid, and only one — an alphabet of about 
 forty — possibly forty-three letters. This would greatly relieve 
 the drudgery of the schoolroom and much annoyance in after life. 
 It would economize space in books and time in school and render 
 the dictionary necessary for purposes of definition only. But as 
 this cannot be accomplished by teachers — though they can help — I 
 will drop the subject with one further suggestion that perhaps 
 there is no necessity of spelling at all. I am inclined to think that 
 as the word is really taught as a character, if the time now given 
 to instruction in reading, spelling and writing should be given to 
 shorthand from the beginning, that is, if shorthand should be- 
 come our only written language, children would become profi- 
 cient in its use sooner than they learn the written language of 
 to-day. Experiments have been made which prove to my mind 
 that they would. Imagine the economy of time in study and of 
 space in print if we could use our written language with the 
 same facility that we do the spoken. 
 
 Though the subject of spelling is deferred as a war meas- 
 ure, it is done that the enemy may be attacked at the weakest 
 point first. The war for the New Education is on. With the 
 adoption of "natural methods" the fight for phonetic spelling 
 would not be far behind. 
 
 First, then, I would establish kindergartens for all children 
 below six years of age who could be cared for with due regard 
 to health, development and convenience. The only line of de- 
 markation between the kindergarten and primary school, and 
 that not an unvarying line, would be that in the former no 
 reading, writing or other "primary school" studies should be 
 taught as they are in most of the so-called kindergartens in 
 this country. Some might pass from the kindergarten at five 
 years of age, others might be retained until seven. That is, 
 the "school" would be what its name implies, a child garden. 
 
 Then comes the primary school which would retain the 
 principal features of the kindergarten but would include be- 
 sides, elementary reading, wilting, drawing, etc. I would burn 
 
all spelling books, reading books, writing books, drawing books, 
 and all other books incident to a stereotyped program. I should 
 have a teacher that understood the business and leave the mat- 
 ter of progress to her. As a sample lesson, I might proceed 
 in this way: "The apple tree in the yard has bright green 
 leaves." "This rose came off a bush in our front yard." " The 
 grass and flowers in the park look very nice this morning." An 
 apple and a tulip might be drawn on the blackboard and colored 
 with crayons —the work of but a moment to the competent 
 teacher, and these simple forms are always beautiful if properly 
 drawn — and the pupils taught to draw them. The sentences 
 would be written on the board and copied by the children. Then, 
 " The apple tree, the rose bush, and the grass all live and grow. 
 We call this vegetable life." Again, "The cow eats grass, and 
 gives milk." "Our big dog has bushy hair." " I rode on my 
 sled to school." Proceed as to blackboard work, as before. 
 " The cow, the dog and the boy live and grow. This is ani- 
 mal life." 
 
 Once more, " The water in the river is high." " Our street 
 is paved with stones." " A pile of sand is near the door." These 
 could not well be illustrated, of course, by drawing or colors. 
 There should be no rule as to this; but there would be reading, 
 writing, spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and language, and, 
 underlying all, as Spencer would have it, a basis of science; for, 
 " Water, and stones, and sand do not live and grow as plants and 
 animals do." Here the pupils are given the distinguishing fea- 
 tures of organic and inorganic matter, and of the subdivision into 
 vegetable and animal matter, as well as the elements of the sci- 
 ence of color, and form, which should be illustrated further by 
 shaping " apples " and other simple forms from clay. 
 
 The pupils have dealt with objects, not principles; but the 
 generalization has begun without their knowing it. They have 
 been taught the concrete, not the abstract; but they have taken 
 the first steps towards the abstract, without any consciousness of 
 it and without effort. They have been taught the things of most 
 value for they have begun with the elements of science. As to 
 how many examples of each kind of matter, or the time given to 
 writing, drawing, molding, singing, playing, pictures, or anything 
 else, the teacher should be the judge, subject of course to proper 
 supervision. Then, to take a step further, " Snails, crabs, flies and 
 oysters do not have bones." "Horses, birds, snakes, fishes and 
 frogs do have bones." Here is the sub-diyision into invertebrates 
 
lO 
 
 and vertebrates. " The bodies of the angleworm and slug are 
 soft." " What queer, soft shells are found on crabs and lobsters." 
 ^ " Bees and ants are called insects." " Oysters and snails both have 
 hard shells." Here we have the four divisions of bloodless ani- 
 mals: soft bodied, soft shelled, insects, and shell bearing. " Cows, 
 whales and bats feed their young on milk." Here are mammals, 
 whose principal habitations are respectively, land, water, and air. 
 And to take another step we learn that there are four other great 
 classes of mammals, viz.: two handed, four handed, four footed, 
 and winged. 
 
 In vegetable matter it is learned that one class are flowering, 
 and spring from seeds, such as the peach and cedar, that the peach, 
 oak and apple shed their leaves— and in that are unlike the cedar, 
 orange and pine which are evergreen. That of the other grand 
 division, mosses and ferns do not spring from seeds and tiierefore 
 have no flowers. And so, inorganic matter can be treated in the 
 same orderly manner. But I have proceeded as though according 
 to some distinctly outlined program, not because I would have the 
 teacher proceed exactly so, but that I could better illustrate in this 
 way. Lessons of local interest should be given, of course, whether 
 they have any " scientific" value or not. As, " I am going to the 
 fair next Saturday." " What pretty paintings we saw yesterday." 
 Very early lessons should be given which will develop into natu- 
 ral philosophy; as, "There were two rainbows yesterday, one 
 above the other." The relation of one to the other should be 
 pointed out if in a school sufliciently advanced, and illustrated by 
 the actual use of colors Having attended the fair a lesson might 
 be, " What makes the balloon go so high ?" A paper balloon is 
 easily constructed to illustrate this. Occasionally these lessons 
 should be printed. And often children would write original sen- 
 tences. 
 
 It must be borne in mind that the whole school day is not giv- 
 en to this class of work. The manual exercises of the kindergar- 
 ten are still kept up. The hour given to this is only to supersede 
 the present plan of teaching reading, writing, spelling, and' lan- 
 guage. My object being to show that as all lessons are taught 
 6y means of these subjects, it is absurd to give them separate 
 lessons. 
 
 Besides the saving of time, there are two other important con- 
 siderations. The interest which children take in their work is of 
 first importance. No one can properly estimate it who has not 
 seen a school of this kind. Another i§ the rapidity with which the 
 
It 
 
 child enlarges its vocabulary both as to its use in writing and in 
 conversation. Children should learn to write plainly, rapidly and 
 beautifully before they are ten years old. 
 
 The abolition of the cut and dried program also enables the 
 teacher to put the stamp of her personalitv upon her work. And, 
 there is an adaptability to location through this system- or aboli- 
 tion of " svstem "—which can come in no other way. 
 
 I think, too, we begin to get a glimpse of what Spencer means 
 by the two values of education — one as education, for the know- 
 ledge acquired, and the other as discipline. There is the system, 
 furnished by Nature herself, the development of which has the 
 highest value as discipline. Those who advocate the studv of 
 Greek and Latin for purposes of discipline seem to forget that 
 mind, like muscle, is disciplined by use. And as much discipline 
 is acquired by use as applied to a science as to a dead language; 
 and more, for science is a knowledge of living, useful, interesting 
 things. 
 
 We now come to a point on which the whole philosophy of 
 the New Education turns. But instead of a turning point it might 
 more properly be called a dividing point. It is assumed that color- 
 ing, building, paper folding and cutting, weaving, molding, sew- 
 ing, singing, drawing, physical drills, etc., that is, a higher develop- 
 ment of the kindergarten work has been carried on. The illustra- 
 tion as to the "natural sciences" as the literary people call them, as 
 if there could be any other than natural science, was merely to 
 show how much better the literary side of education can be taught 
 than by means of books. How much time can be saved and hap- 
 piness and knowledge gained. This does not mean that the child- 
 ren should not have learned to read books. On the contrary it is 
 expected that they will be more proficient in reading than children 
 of the same age taught the old way; but that books should not be 
 taught to young children in the school-room. What they pick up 
 themselves in books or in any other way, can do no harm for it 
 does not become stereotyped into programs. It is one of the 
 strongest points of the new education that each youngster is con- 
 stantly crossing the skirmish line and bringing in his captive-object 
 which is to be assimilated, paroled, or discharged, according to the 
 economy of his particular school. 
 
 But to the "dividing point." We will assume that on the 
 average children have gone into the kindergarten at the age of 
 four, and having had two years there, and two years of primary 
 instruction, are now about eight years of age. So far we have 
 
ii 
 
 followed without question, the rule of Spencer, and the notion of 
 it that pervades the schools, that all branches of instruction should 
 be carried on abreast. But now it has been discovered that a cer- 
 tain number of the children are color blind or nearly so; that some 
 are almost v^^holly deficient in musical talent; that artistic taste in 
 a few is wanting; that some have learned to read and spell more 
 readily than others; that there is a decided diversity as to mathe- 
 matical genius; that some have developed more rapidly, physical- 
 ly and mentally, etc. Is it not clear that as we cannot create, but 
 must cultivate and develop nature as we find it, some kind of differ- 
 entiation should now begin in the course of study? While the 
 whole range of nature has been contemplated so far, specialization 
 has begun to manifest itself; and while there has been a broaden- 
 ing of each branch studied, there must begin a narrowing so far as 
 the course for each child is concerned and work assigned to it with 
 some regard to natural adaptability. We begin to see that by 
 nature some are more "specialized" than others. Remember, I 
 say that this differentiation has begun. Only begun. 
 
 We are now confronted with the problem of grading — and 
 the principle is the same whether in a single country school or in a 
 city. We must establish our new boundary lines so as to preserve 
 for a time the greatest possible elasticity — first, vertically, with the 
 view of the more or less rapid advancement of the pupil; and 
 second, horizontally, with due consideration of a wider or narrower 
 course of study according to physical and mental capability and 
 strength. Thus we must provide, not only a natural gradation for 
 pupils who have begun in the kindergarten and so have had the 
 advantage of the full course, but for the assimilation into the sys- 
 tem at any age, of such as have not had the advantage of such in- 
 struction, or in fact of any instruction, without the shock to the 
 sensibilities which is given when older children are assigned to 
 primary grades because of lack of technical instruction. Now, 
 some of the children, perhaps nearly all, are given a knife. This, 
 for many, will lead to the shop and technical college. Books will 
 be introduced and used as a means, not an end of instruction. 
 Here begins the differentiation which will lead to the literary high 
 school or college. A little of the notation of music is taken up, 
 and the conservatory of music is above. 
 
 It is apparent at this point that all subjects cannot be well 
 taught to all the pupils of a single schoolroom. It would be 
 unscientific, and therefore unwise, as it is unjust to both pupil and 
 teacher to expect it. In short it is impossible. 
 
It is not practicable, and it is not necessary to my present 
 purpose to follow each vertical gradation to its ultimate, the uni- 
 versity. Enough has been said to shovs^ that some pupils at the 
 age of ten or twelve are ready for the shop, others are beginning 
 to be proficient in sewing and allied arts, some are pursuing a 
 course purely literary, etc., though all may be still together in the 
 horizontal grading in many things. While all roads are still lead- 
 ing to Rome, they are all direct roads to a ^nodern Rome. A 
 university extended. A imiversity that shall include the whole 
 people, until the nation shall be, as Dr. Harris says of France "a 
 nation at school." A university in the true sense where the only 
 limit to each course is the receding line between the known and 
 the unknown, and therefore, where the specialist will be welcomed. 
 Not that all shall become specialists — very few may; but it is only 
 as specialists that certain uidividuals can be educated, and it is 
 essential to the highest development of the science and art that it 
 should be so. An educational structure of which specialization, 
 if "narrow," shall be the spire. This system provides for it. The 
 old does not. 
 
 But now that we have graded the schools we are met with a 
 new difficulty. This specialization makes it necessary in a de- 
 veloped system that special rooms, or schools be provided for ad- 
 vanced pupils. The model or molding room, the natural history 
 room, the wood working room, the blacksmith shop, the music 
 room, the kitchen, the chemical room, the sewing room, the his- 
 tory and geography room, the color room, etc., besides the miscel- 
 laneous rooms. Perhaps two or more of these subjects will be in 
 the same room according to convenience. There will be no more 
 rooms, no more pupils in a given building than at present, but 
 the pupils will go from room to room according to the vertical 
 and horizontal grade to which they belong. And this accords 
 with common sense. The music teacher should have a piano, but 
 not one in every room, and it would not be practicable to carry it into 
 everv room. The pupil must go to the teacher, not the teacher 
 to the pupil. 
 
 Perhaps this will give a clearer idea of what I mean by a 
 narrower or wider course for an individual pupil. That is, two 
 pupils each say fourteen years of age, in the same horizontal grade 
 would not necessarily be in the same vertical grades. One might 
 be in the wood and metal rooms, the other in the rooms for liter- 
 ature and modeling, and both in the" history and geography room, 
 etc. One might be naturally qualified to go into more rooms than 
 
H 
 
 the other, or be physically stronger, or have taken the whole 
 course from the kindergarten, while the other had been in school 
 but a few months. All these things would be considered in assisfn- 
 mg pupils to their vertical grades. 
 
 But what about books? Must the pupils carry their books all 
 over the building? Well, this is a manual training school. Thev 
 would use acres of paper and cords of other material but would 
 spoil very few new books in school. 
 
 May it not be seen that by throwing out the worse than use- 
 less reading and spelling books and by the change from the rote, 
 to the natural method, tnus reducing the necessity for many others, 
 and by the system of grading, thus relieving all courses of the 
 dead weight of inapplicable studies, that the college, instead of 
 teaching one in five hundred of the population, is brought to your 
 very doors — that instead of twenty-seven, the average age of the 
 graduate of a professional school would be twenty-one? And 
 have we not enriched, as well as shortened the program? And 
 many "fads" have been included that could not be thought of un- 
 der the present system. 
 
 The graduates from the Philadelphia Manual Training School 
 whose course covers only three years while the course of the other 
 city high schools is four 3'ears, are admitted to the University of 
 Pennsylvania without examination. I am told that these graduates, 
 have such an advantage in the university over young men not so 
 educated because of having acquired so much knowledge in the 
 manual training school which is regarded bv the colleges as "high- 
 er education," that a great saving of time is afforded them. It 
 must be considered further, that these students have had no kinder- 
 garten experience or any other instruction along the lines of man- 
 ual training except this three-years course. 
 
 It will be seen that the New Education means, essentially 
 new teachers. Rousseau exclaimed, "How^ can a child be proper- 
 ly educated by one who has not been educated himself?" Of 
 course, the old teachers are opposed to "fads"; just as the. work- 
 man is opposed to the machine that deprives him of employment. 
 But those teachers who are natural teachers have this advantage; 
 they can prepare for the coming storm. They have had sufficient 
 warning. Unfortunately for themselves and their innocent pupils 
 many have mistaken their calling, and with a proper system of 
 normal training would never have been permitted to teach. 
 
 The day for special teachers has begun. Not a few special 
 
15 
 
 teachers, but all special teachers, to take the places of the specially 
 
 poor teachers of the present. 
 
 In i88S, the New York State Teachers' Association opposed 
 
 manual training- and endorsed kindergartens. And now comes 
 
 State'Superintendent Crooker in the thirty-ninth annual report, 
 
 denouncing "fads" in one breath, and recommending them in the 
 
 next. He says: 
 
 "Who can carefully and thoroughly examine thedriftof theeducational 
 forces of the present time and not arrive at the conclusion that teaching of 
 the most essential branches — the common English — is sadly neglected be- 
 cause of the multitude of ornamental and less useful subjects that are crowd- 
 ed into nearly every course? What is needed is a curtailing rather than a 
 multiplying of subjects. We need less trigonometry and more business 
 arithmetic; less botany and French and more and better penmanship; less 
 popular fads and more common sense." 
 
 And again: 
 
 "If the State deems it w^ise that greater expenditure for school purposes 
 should be made, instead of appropriating increased suras for academic edu- 
 cation, examinatio.ns in law and medicine, university extension and all such 
 schemes which are of doubtful propriety for the State to meddle with, it 
 were a thousand fold better to appropriate money for the establishment of 
 kindergarten schools in the large cities. Better appropriate .|50,000 for 
 such schools in the cities than .|1,000 for university extension, so-called." 
 
 This reminds me of the story of the old lady who lived in 
 North Carolina just on theboundry of South Carolina. A change 
 of boundary was desired by the authorities which would throw the 
 old lady's house into South Carolina. But no amount of consul- 
 tation between the "Governor of North Carolina and the Gover- 
 nor of South Carolina" could develop a scheme which would gain 
 her consent, for the reason as she said at last, that the climate of 
 South Carolina was "so unhealthy." 
 
 There seems to be as much unrest among the anti-fads as 
 among the faddists. Mr. Ethelbert Stewart of Chicago, in an arti- 
 cle in the Kindergarten Magazine for Februarv under title of Our 
 Nursery Rhymes, says: 
 
 "The good kindergartner wishes to teach only good. She wishes to 
 teach all good, by both precept and example. I wish just a word with 
 teachers and mothers upon the character of nursery rhymes. If the charac- 
 ters of Dickens, Hugo or Shakespeare are read to us who are grown, and if 
 these literary creations influence the acts and thoughts of our everyday life, 
 how infinitely more real to a child are Jack Horner, Jack and Jill, and the 
 little and big people who live in nursery rhymes. What is the moral atmo- 
 sphere of many of these rhymes ? 
 
 'Tom, Tom the piper's son, 
 
 Stole a pig and away he run.' 
 
 'Taffy was a Welchman ; Taffy was a thief ; 
 Taffy came to my house and stole a leg of beef.' 
 
 'Nanty, panty, Jack-a-Dandy 
 Stole a piece of sugar candy 
 From the grocer's shoppy-shop 
 And away did hoppy-hop.' 
 
t6 
 
 Mr. Stewart informs me that the superintendent of schools in 
 a city in Michigan wrote him a letter of thanks for his unconscious 
 aid, by means of this article, in opposing the introduction of Moth- 
 er Goose's melodies into the school course. 
 
 But ^vorse, in its stifling effects, is the three-letter lore that 
 found its way into the idotic primers, or first readers some years 
 ago, and which are still in use to some extent; though there has 
 been great improvement since the word method of teaching read- 
 ing has been adopted. "See the rat run." "The dog bit the cat." 
 "See the old cow." This was taught, s-double-e see, t-h-e the, 
 r-a-t rat, r-u-n run. These were taught purely as memoriter exer- 
 cises without relation to any other subject and when the child got 
 to the point of reading ''See-the-rat-run," he was supposed to have 
 made considerable advancement. This was the natural order of 
 things with the old alphabet, a-b ab, b-a ba plan, though a-b does 
 not spell ab at all; it spells abe. 
 
 These primers were thought to be simplicity itself as first steps 
 in reading. I am told that a Boston wag invented another primer 
 which had a rapid sale for a time and perhaps did some good. It 
 was called the Benjamin Franklin Primer. One of the illustrations 
 showed an inebriated individual leaning against a lamp post, a half 
 moon shining down upon him, and a lady and child observing him. 
 The reading lesson ran thus: "See the man and the moon. Is 
 the moon full? No, but the man is full." Another cut illustrated 
 two cats on a roof in the attitude of combat with the usual sur- 
 roundings of hair brushes, boot jacks and broken crockery, and a 
 number of interested spectators from overlooking windows. The 
 lesson ran as follows: "See the cat and the kit. Is the cat the 
 dam of the kit? Dam the cat and the kit." 
 
 It is to be regretted that the author did not write a whole ser- 
 ies of Benjamin Franklin text books. 
 
 The old country school was far superior to the present graded 
 system in which all little minds are thrown into the mill like so 
 many pieces of stone in the manufacturer of marbles, and rolled 
 about from eight to ten years, all in the same way, without regard 
 to physical or mental qualities, and are supposed to come out all 
 the same, little, round, educated marbles — ''symmetrically educat- 
 ed." And this is called "all-round education." I should say it is 
 "all round" education — and never touching it. 
 
 But like ignorance of any kind, if the ignorance of right meth- 
 ods meant only the absence of knowledge no great harm would be 
 done. As it is, action depends upon it; and the refinement of the 
 
^7 
 
 cruelties of the schoolroom would itself be a theme for a book. 
 Good old-fashioned corporal punishment was a mercy compared 
 with these markings for deportment, and markings for scholarship, 
 and markings in examinations, and the no-recess systems of to-day. 
 It is wonderful to contemplate how the principle of competi- 
 tion applied in the schoolroom tends to defeat the ends of educa- 
 tion, both as to morals and product. The child is assigned a lesson 
 to "study'.' in a book and as a test of the quality of work is ex-' 
 amined to ascertain how well the lesson has been memorized. As 
 a measure of this acquirement a percentage is given for c-ach les- 
 son. Consider the false ideal that is given as an incentive to study. 
 Consider the impossibility of accurately measuring such acquire- 
 ment — the demoralizing effect if a percentage of 30 is given the 
 pupil when entitled to 50; or, what is just as demoralizing, if given 
 100 when entitled to only 80. And it goes without saying that in 
 no case can the percentage be absolutely correct. Consider the 
 chance for trickery and the moral effect of this principle applied 
 through years of trying to "beat" somebody. Consider, too, the 
 impossibility of distinguishing by a percentage between honest ef- 
 fort and natural ability to memorize. Consider the mental affect 
 which is inevitable, that when the lesson is recited and the percen- 
 tage won, the szi-bject drops from the mind as a lesson got rid of, 
 not as power gained. 
 
 But this is not all. The teacher suffers from the effects as 
 much as the pupil. The temptation to mark too high, in compe- 
 tion with other teachers, to goad on the laggards, to over-stimulate 
 the brighter ones, etc., is an ever-present danger. And then, if 
 she be a conscientious teacher, see the worry in the consciousness 
 of her constant failure to correctly measure results; the amount of 
 work entailed in marking all the lessons for each pupil every day — 
 of casting from the stereotyped program the stereotyped results for 
 each day. What enthusiasm can there be in such a system? And 
 all this in face of the fact that this brood of evils hatched from com- 
 petition is a positive hindrance to the attainment of the best results, 
 tested even by the stereotyped examination. I know this from the 
 experience of years in the public schools, and however much I may 
 have failed in other respects, I not only gained the respect and 
 friendship of my pupils and their parents, but eventually, the com- 
 mendation of the school authorities for method, discipline and re- 
 sults by abolishing competition in every form. 
 
 But worse. This system closes every avenue through which 
 the child may act its natural self. The tenderest plant, the bright- 
 
est flower, is trod upon or withers. As the lady principal of a 
 g-rammar school once told me, "The girls grow to close their 
 natures like clams. They are often irritable and morose; and I am 
 growing to deliberately sacrifice their standing in examiiiations and 
 my own reputation for 'results,' to what I know to be their welfare 
 in after life." How much of sorrow and disease has its origin in 
 schools we can never know. We hear occasionally of impaired 
 eyesight, brain fever, spinal affections, etc., but they are. soon for- 
 gotten and the mill grinds on.. But of the weakening influence tipon 
 body and mind which will manifest themselves long' after school 
 days have passed there can be no test. Let us hope that President 
 Eliot is not mistaken when he says that the phenomenon of chil- 
 dren in grades for which they are too old is due in part to the "cau- 
 tion of parents." Says Spencer: 
 
 "When a mother is mournicg over her first born — when perhaps a can- 
 did medical man has conflrmtd her suspicion that her child would have re- 
 covered had not its system been enfeebled by over-study — when she is pros- 
 trate under the pangs of combined grief and remorse, it is but a small con- 
 solation that she can read Dante in the original. 
 
 There should be emulation, plenty of it; but of the kind that 
 causes one boy to try to outrun the other in play, a healthy emula- 
 tion. The kind which applies in the criticism of the father, that 
 his boy could not learn to write well with an hour's instruction 
 every day, but was the best skater in school without any instruction. 
 
 But a queer thing about this back-foremost education is that 
 much of it is done in supposed obedience to the very laws laid down 
 by the great educational philosophers. I have known teachers to 
 carry around a little sack of " object lessons." I have heard the 
 present graded system upheld on the ground that Spencer says 
 that all subjects should be "carried on abreast." I cannot imag- 
 ine that Spencer expected that all people who had studied the same 
 number of years should be advanced in all branches to the same 
 point; so that by knowing how good a fiddler a man is you could 
 thereby know his advancement in " all other branches." It would 
 contradict about everything else he has said; and if he did I should 
 not agree with him. I quote him so far as I think he is right. 
 Even he has emphasized his own advice as to teaching science by 
 a curious mistake. 
 
 "Numerous attempts," says he, "have been ma,de to construct electro- 
 magnetic engines, in the hope of superseding steam; but had those who sup- 
 plied the money understood the general law of the correlation and equiva- 
 lence of forces they might have had better balances at their bankers." 
 
 He wrote this many years ago. Probably it would be inter- 
 esting reading to him now as a pastime, riding in a trolley car. 
 
^9 
 
 And, in supposed obedience to Spencer that children sliould be 
 told as little as possible and led to discover things for themselves, I 
 have known teachers to direct their pupils to memorize the rules of 
 arithmetic, and give them no assistance in solving problems, un- 
 mindful of the great principle he lays down that we must proceed 
 from the concrete to the abstract. 
 
 In supposed obedience to the precept that what is worth do- 
 ing at all is worth doing well, I have known pupils to spend hours 
 in drawing a single map of a continent, as a lesson in geograohy. 
 The philosophy of map drawing in this connection requires that 
 the work shall be rapidly done. Not more than ten or fifteen 
 minutes should be given to the map of a continent, state, or divis- 
 ion of states, according to the lesson; and I have seen much better 
 maps than the average in school exhibits, drawn in five minutes. 
 The construction of maps mathematically is not a subject in geog- 
 raphy. 
 
 Geometric free-hand drawing is introduced into lower grades, 
 according to a system of books, and developed through the grades 
 without the least attention to one of the first principles of free- 
 hand work that the pencil should be at nearly a right angle with 
 the line drawn, so as to secure a sweeping, easy movement with- 
 out which accuracy, rapidity, and beauty cannot be obtained, and 
 with which under the instruction of a "faddist," these qualities come 
 immediately. 
 
 But what of the ethical side of this New Education ? What 
 of morals ? In the January Forum, Prof. G. H. Palmer has an 
 article under the head of " Can Moral Conduct be Taught in 
 Schools?" He says: . 
 
 "Between morals and ethics there is a sharp distinction; frequently 
 a.re the two words confused. Usage however shows the meaning. If I call 
 a man. a man of bad morals, I evidently mean to assert that his conduct is 
 corrupt; he does things which the majority of mankind believe he ought not 
 to do. It is his practice I denounce, not his intellectual formation. * * * 
 It is entirely different when I call a man's ethics bad. I then declare that I 
 do not agree with his comprehension of moral principles. His practice may 
 be entirely correct. It is his understanding that is at faalt. * * * Eth- 
 ics is related to morals as geometry is to carpentry : the one is a science, the 
 other its practical embodiment. In the former, consciousness is a prime fac- 
 tor; in the latter it often is absent altogether. * * * The college, not the 
 school is the place for the study." 
 
 This statement of the case by Prof. Palmer I take as the true 
 one. Once more applying the rule of procedure from the concrete 
 to the abstract, we are led to conclude that to children should be 
 taught right conduct, not abstract principles of morals. How ab- 
 surd it is in the present graded schools where by means of the 
 competitive principle children are taught to be devilish by all the 
 
20 
 
 force of example and impulse, that an hour should be set aside to 
 instruct them in the theory of right conduct. When a boy can do 
 anything well it makes him feel better; and it makes him better if 
 he does a good thing well. 
 
 This whole subject of ethics seems a little obscure at tiir.es, 
 — almost like analyzing the noise of a wagon; and it seems that 
 the better the wagon the less the noise. 
 
 As to cumpulsory education let me say only this: I could not 
 advocate compulsory laws with education as it is. If education 
 were what it ought to be I do not believe there would be any ne- 
 cessitv for compulsion. I do not like the sound of the word com- 
 pulsion as a principle of government, but rather that the right to 
 govern comes by the consent of the governed. Not so much that 
 government should protect the weak, but that it should enable the 
 weak to protect themselves. It is entirely beyond the power of 
 law to compel attendance at school without at the same time pro- 
 viding for subsistence. 
 
 Children should be taught patriotism, it is said. Well, again 
 the subject grows a little misty. If government is what it ought 
 to be the people will be patriotic. But just in the degree that it 
 does not subserve the ends of the people they should not be patri- 
 otic. The fathers of the Revolution were patriotic; but they were 
 opposed to British rule because it was unjust. I do not believe a 
 nation that would provide 'a system of education such as I have 
 outlined could be disrupted. It seems idle to talk of teaching pa- 
 triotism in a system that educates only one in five hundred of the 
 population. 
 
 What is being done }' I find in the report of the United 
 States Bureau of Education for 1887— '88, ^^^^^ ^^ 1870 there were 
 43 kindergartens with 73 instructors and 1252 pupils, and that in 
 18S7 the numbers had risen to 521 institutions, 1202 instructors, 
 and 31,227 pupils. Probably these figures now are more than 
 doubled. There were 26 " manual training" institutions proper. 
 There are about 50 cities in the United States where manuai train- 
 ing is given in some form. There are perhaps 80 institutions for 
 deaf mutes where manual training is the principal feature of in- 
 struction. There are about 50 polytechnic, or scientific schools in 
 which the New Education is a distinct feature of instruction; some 
 of them like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the 
 Stevens Institute being purely manual training colleges. There 
 are also various trade schools, industrial art schools, etc., springing 
 up throughout the countrv. Besides all these, and what seems to 
 
21 
 
 me a matter of great significance, large manufactories are estab- 
 lishing schools of their own in which to educate their employes. 
 
 The statistical statements have been given loosely, the pur- 
 pose being simply to indicate the growth of education on new 
 lines. It is not to be supposed that these are accepted as ideal 
 schools. Very few of them are. We must catch the hare before 
 we cook it, at all events. With increased knowledge and better 
 teachership will come improvement. 
 
 There are three schools, or systems of schools that I wish to 
 speak of as ideals, so far as the application of principles is con- 
 cerned. The public schools of Montclair, New Jersey, Dr. Felix 
 Adler's school in New York City, and the State Industrial School 
 of New York, in Rochester. 
 
 In Montclair, the public schools under the supervision of Mr. 
 Randall Spaulding have had manual training for sixteen years 
 from the lowest grade to the high school. A very large percent- 
 age of pupils are sent from its high school to higher institutions of 
 ^learning. There is probably not another city in the United States 
 where the people are as loyal to their school system as in Mont- 
 clair. 
 
 The Workingman's School of New York City was estab- 
 lished by the Ethical Society of that city as the ideal of Dr. Felix 
 Adler. It is simply an ideal school. This school like the little 
 "Shaw's Gardens" in Boston, has a double value. It is training 
 its own pupils according to the best methods, but it is doing a 
 greater work by furnishing a working model of the New Educa- 
 tion which is being copied extensively. It has all grades from the 
 kindergarten to the high school. It is "a kindergarten blossomed 
 out." Thus is the Ethical Society doing missionary work for the 
 heathen at home. 
 
 Last tuesday morning with a somewhat languid interest I 
 called at the State Industrial School in this city. At about ten 
 o'clock I began a tour of the institution with the superintendent, 
 Col. Vincent M. Masten, which continued until nearly six o'clock. 
 And my cup of joy was like the Irishman's cup of sorrow — over- 
 flowing, and not full yet, for there was one department that we 
 had not visited. I had discovered a new principle in operation. I 
 beheld the perfection of military organization without an imple- 
 ment of war. Obedience, without servility. Freedom of action, 
 though it was plain that Masten meant master. Deportment, 
 through example. A system of study on the lines of the New 
 Education. The hungrv were fed, the naked clothed, the sick 
 
22 
 
 nourished. It seemed as if the prisons were turning into scliools 
 and the schools into prisons; and I wondered why it should be 
 that children must become criminals in order to obtain the advan- 
 tage of such a S)Stem of instruction. 
 
 The value of the institution cannot be measured by results, 
 but the principles established make it a great object lesson in the 
 NcAv Education. 
 
 From an editorial in a city paper, I inferred that there could 
 be but little interest in educational " fads " in Rochester. The fol- 
 lowing is quoted : 
 
 ''We publish elsewhere an article from a ('hicago paper on the 'Folly 
 of Fads' in onr public schools, which all the members of theBoai'd of Educa-' 
 tion should read and which every man tempted to introduce schemes for 
 fancy needlework, for the proper use of the flying trapeze, or for the artistic 
 handling of the gimlet into the course of study should consider with care." 
 
 But I found there were two sides to the question in Rochester. 
 The following editorial remarks in another paper look quite fad- 
 dish : 
 
 The annual report of the commissioner of labor, Hon. Carroll D. 
 Wright, has just been sent to the president and will soon be transmitted to* 
 congress. The report is chiefly devoted to industrial education, investiga- 
 tions having been made in this country and Europe by direction of congress. 
 Mr. Wright finds that there has been good progress in this country, 
 although we are still farbehindEurop«^an countries in the number of schools 
 and thoroughness in training, especially in the technical arts. Some of the 
 technical training schools in this country founded by private munificence are 
 found to be superior to any in Europe. * * * The people of this 
 counti-y are slowly coming to realize the necessity of affording to youth 
 such training in the arts as will fit them for the work of earning a livelihood. 
 * * * It is ^'ell that the enterprising citizens of Rochester have under- 
 taken the task of providing a technical school m this city, and it is hoped 
 that a sufficient endowment may be secured to insure an institution of the 
 highest order. 
 
 Last Wednesday evening 1 called at the Mechanics' Institute 
 and there in consultation with one of its principal patrons, Mr. 
 Henry Lomb, and the professors of "fads," J found it was a very 
 hot-bed of faddism. One of the most interesting as well as most 
 significant things I saw was a report which showed that of the 721 
 pupils who had attended the schools night and day dm-ing the last 
 year, the largest number in any one occupation was in that of 
 teaching — 72 teachers, or ten per cent, of the total number — 
 most of them public school teachers I was informed. From the 
 interest taken in the subject as indicated by the letter of Mr. Will- 
 iam S. Kimball and editorial mention in the papers of yesterday, 
 I concluded that the fads had come to Rochester to stay. I was 
 pleased to learn also, that there are several kindergartens in the 
 public schools, and other kindergartens and an industrial school 
 supported by private means. 
 
23 
 
 Can a subject so far reaching as this fail to have something 
 more than an indirect bearing upon economic conditions? Mr. 
 Ham closes the preface to his Manual Training thus: 
 
 "The propositions of the following pages involve an educational evo- 
 lution destined to enlighten and so ultimately redeem manual labor from 
 the scorn of the ages of slavery, and to render skilled labor worthy of high 
 social distinction, thus presenting at once a solution not only of the indus- 
 trial question but; of the social question." 
 
 Dr. Harris says: 
 
 "Each nation reacts in its own way and manner against the necessity 
 which is forcing governments to establish systems of popular education as 
 a means of national defense. Each stamps upon its system its own ethical 
 character and, consciously or unconsciously, perpetuates its own institu- 
 tions by its schools." 
 
 In great manufactories both in tliis country and in Europe 
 technical schools are being established — not apprenticeships but 
 regular schools. The technical colleges and manual training schools 
 are not sutiScient to supply the demand. The Chicago Manual 
 Training School has more applications for its graduates at the end 
 of a year than it' can supply. The Girard College which has to 
 obtain situations for the boys leaving the institution, and found them 
 a drug on the market until its manual training school was estab- 
 lished, now places many of them before the limit of age is reached. 
 In the Philadelphia Manual Training School the principal is con- 
 stantly aimoyed b}'' boys dropping out into situations before their 
 three years course is completed. I have asked ofificials of electric 
 companies and other manufacturing establishments, "Do you give 
 preference in employment to graduates of technical schools.?" 
 And the answer was, "We employ no other. It is onl}/ a question 
 •whether we do so or establish a school ourselves." 
 
 As each new State copies from prevailing forms of govern- 
 ment in forming its constitution, so in the movement of civil service 
 reform have we copied the competitive feature of other govern- 
 ments; though it would seem that the plain solution of that question 
 lies in employment and retention in service on the ground of merit. 
 The competitive feature is not an essential. In the fuller develop- 
 ment of these examinations by the general government, the state 
 governments, and in large cities, must there not arise a pernicious 
 relation between them and the schools.? Will not school courses 
 tend to shape themselves in conformity to these examinations just 
 as they do now to the requirements of literary colleges.? A system 
 of education as I have tried to show, should be based upon educa- 
 tional principles. 
 
 "But" say the doctors of the old school, "this new education is 
 
24 
 
 socialistic." I don't know. A few yeai's a2;-o tliis was quite a com- 
 mon objection ; but the establishment of sucii temples of science 
 anil art as the Pratt in Brookhn and the Drexel in Philadelphia 
 have made this kind of educa ion "respectable." And in Montclair 
 whose common school system is a manual training- system, there is 
 no evidence of "common propeity" and "common woinen" and all 
 the "commons" that generally go with that objection. The public 
 school system is the boldest example of nationalization, yet the 
 nationalists who came and went like the spelling matches and skat- 
 ing rinks did not discover that "to industrialize nationalization was 
 to nationalize industry." I3ut the question of socialism is an unsettled 
 question, and the doctors must prove first, that socialisin is a bad 
 thing; and next, that this kind of education is really socialism. 
 And in this they may prove too much, for should they prove that it 
 is socialism they would make socialists of a great many goodf; citi- 
 zens who are satisfied that the new education is right. Are the 
 Pratts, the Drexels, the Armours, and the Slaters socialists? Or 
 are they like Frankenstein creating a monster which will destroy 
 themselves? 
 
 On every side we see the establishment by private munificence 
 of kindergartens, of technical colleges, of industrial art schools, of 
 trade schools. In great manufactories we see the establishment of 
 technical schools for future employes. On every side we see the 
 educational function passing out of the common schools. 
 
 Parents, citizens, statesmen, do you not see that "the seeming 
 backwardness of our pupils should give us concern and impel us to 
 this investigation without delay?" 
 
Extract fro7n an article in the Christian Union^ in Current 
 Literature^ for August^ i8g2: 
 
 THE NEW EDUCATION: 
 
 The most careless observer cannot fail to note the chang^es in 
 educational methods which have been introduced in recent times 
 and m diverse phases of education — the kindergarten, industrial ed- 
 ucation, manual training, out-of-door classes in botany and geology, 
 laboratory work and seminary methods in the higher courses. The 
 most careless observer may not, however, realize that these new 
 methods are all parts of a symmetrical whole, different phases of 
 that new education which is quite as characteristic of our time as 
 the new science or the new theology. The traditional education 
 aimed to give information. It treated the mind as a receptacle, 
 and knowledge as the material with which the before-empty re- 
 ceptacle was to be filled. And as information is for the most part 
 contained in books, the old education was bookish. It began with 
 the alphabet; it proceeded by means of text-books; its aim was to 
 give the student what those lext books contained; it examined him 
 only, or chiefly, to ascertain whether he had possessed himself of 
 t'heir contents. Under this system the pupil studied botany without 
 ooking at a flower, geology without examining a rock, astronomy 
 without inspecting the stars, navigation without going on board 
 ship, surveying without going out-of-doors, chemistry without see- 
 ing a retort. The object of the new education is to confer some- 
 thing of this greatness — to give the pupil power to flood his world 
 with a great affection, stir it to great thoughts, and shape it to a 
 great career. The old education told its pupils about the great 
 feelings, the great thoughts, the great deeds of the past, and trusted 
 that the information would enkindle life in them. The new edu- 
 cation aims directly to create that life, directly to endow with power. 
 It does not begin with the alphabet. Its first object is, not to teach 
 its pupils to read, but to observe and to do. Therefore the kinder- 
 garten. It does not proceed by means of the text-book. It uses 
 the text-book as little as possible; sets its pupils to study things, not 
 the literary conception of things. Therefore the laboratory and the 
 out-of-door classes in natural science. It seeks to train the will no 
 less than the intellect; to endow its pupils with power to do as well 
 as to think. Therefore the manual and industrial classes and the 
 gymnastic and military drills. 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 022 138 722 3 
 

 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 1. 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 kj-m 
 
 6 
 
 TfWWF 
 
 7 
 
 WFWh 
 
 8 
 
 10