.^ 
 
 DISCUSSIONS IN EDUCATION 
 
 .h^- 
 
 BY 
 
 FRANCIS A. WALKER, PH.D., LLD. 
 
 Late President Massachusetts Institute of Technology 
 
 Author of " Political Economy," " The Wages Question," 
 
 " Money," etc. 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 JAMES PHINNEY MUNROE 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
 
 1899 
 

 23525 
 
 Copyright, 1698, 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY HOLT & CO. 
 TWO COPIES REC :iVED- 
 
 i( JAN 19 18= 
 
 'T />f r. 
 
 THE MERSHON COMPANY PRESS, 
 RAHWAY, N. J. 
 
 \'b^% 
 
EDITOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 The collection into a volume of the following ad- 
 dresses and papers relating to education is in accordance 
 witk the expressed intention of the late President 
 Walker, That the work should be done by an editor 
 instead of by the author is but another of the countless 
 losses suffered through his untimely death. 
 
 Although, while at Yale University, he had rendered 
 admirable service to the schools both of the State of 
 Connecticut and of the city of JSTew Haven, the fact 
 that no paper dealing with the subject appeared earlier 
 than 1884, when General Walker was in middle life, 
 indicates that questions of education had not engaged his 
 attention, to the point of a formal discussion of them, 
 until after he assumed the Presidency of the Massa- 
 chusetts Institute of Technology, in 1881. Indeed, so 
 much deeper had been his study of other social ques- 
 tions, that, while exhibiting the deepest interest in mat- 
 ters relating to education, he disclaimed any special or 
 technical knowledge concerning them. That, however, 
 he was an educator in the highest and best sense of this 
 much-abused term is amply shown by his brilliant and 
 altogether satisfactory administration, during the last 
 fifteen years of his life, of the Institute of Technology, 
 and by his admirable treatment of the special topics in 
 education with which this volume deals. 
 
 Bred in one of what he himself calls the " old-fash- 
 
IV EDITOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 ioned " college courses, a teacher, in youth, of Latin 
 and Greek, he found himself, nevertheless, in full sym- 
 pathy with that newer scheme of higher education in 
 which the pure and applied sciences take an equal 
 position, as agents of culture, with that accorded for so 
 many centuries to the Classics alone. An ardent, effec- 
 tive, and yet restrained champion of this more modem 
 university training, he was, no less, an advocate of 
 needed reforms in elementary and secondary teaching, 
 doing notable work, to use Dr. Harris's apt phrase, in 
 the " pathology of education." 
 
 The papers, arranged in such sequence as was pos- 
 sible, fall into four main groups: Technological Educa- 
 tion; Manual Education; the Teaching of Arithmetic; 
 and various College Problems. The Valedictory which^ 
 fortunately preserved, closes the volume carries its own 
 reason for insertion. 
 
 With such omissions as are indicated and with such 
 minor alterations as, it is believed, the author would 
 himself have made, the papers appear as originally 
 printed or delivered. Parts of other addresses which, 
 because of repetition, could not be presented in full have 
 been inserted as footnotes. It is hoped that, by this 
 means, nothing of permanent value relating to educa- 
 tion uttered and preserved by President Walker has 
 failed of inclusion. 
 
 The thanks of the editor are due to the several pub- 
 lishers and officers of associations for their courteous per- 
 mission to reprint many of the papers. 
 Boston, September, 1898. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 ^ -„ PAGE 
 
 Technological Education : 
 
 Immediate Problems in Technological Education, . . 3 
 The Eise and Importance of Applied Science in American 
 
 Education, 19 
 
 The Technical School and the University, ... 39 
 The Relation of Professional and Technical to General 
 
 Education 55 
 
 Technological and Technical Education 81 
 
 The Problem of "English "in Schools of Technology, . Ill 
 
 Manual Education : 
 
 Industrial Education 135 
 
 A Plea for Industrial Education in the Public Schools, 153 
 Manual Education in Urban Communities, . .175 
 The Relation of Manual Training to Certain Mental 
 
 Defects, 197 
 
 The Teaching op Arithmetic : 
 
 Arithmetic in the Primary and Grammar Schools, . . 209 
 
 Arithmetic in the Boston Schools, 235 
 
 College Problems : 
 
 College Athletics, 259 
 
 The Study of Statistics in Colleges and Technical Schools, 289 
 
 Normal Training in Women's Colleges 305 
 
 The Secondary Schools and Higher Education, . . 823 
 
 A Valedictory, . . 333 
 
 Index 337 
 
TECHNOLOGICAL EDUCATION 
 
 IMMEDIATE PROBLEMS IN 
 
 TECHNOLOGICAL EDUCATION 
 1893 
 
Opening Address as Chairman op the Department 
 OF Technological Instruction at the International 
 Congress of Education, July 20, 1893. From thb 
 Addresses and Proceedings of the International 
 Congress of Education, Chicago, 1893. 
 
 The questions in relation to technological edu- 
 cation suggested as of pressing importance in 
 this address are, in the main, dealt with at 
 greater length in subsequent papers. 
 
DISCUSSIONS IN EDUCATION 
 
 IMMEDIATE PKOBLEMS IN TECHNOLOGICAL 
 EDUCATION. 
 
 This, so far as I am aware, is the first general confer- 
 ence ever called to discuss the whole subject of techno- 
 logical education. Delegates from the " Colleges of 
 Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts " established in the 
 United States under the act of 1862 have for some 
 years met in annual convention to consider matters of 
 common interest; but in these conventions agriculture 
 has been so far the predominant topic as to throw other 
 departments of instruction into the shade. 
 
 It was well that this present conference should be 
 called. It was high time that the friends of technologi- 
 cal education should assemble, to compare their experi- 
 ences, to inquire what is lacking or what has been ill 
 done in the remarkable development that has taken place 
 during the last twenty-five years, and to take counsel 
 together regarding the means for completing, for per- 
 fecting, for strengthening tliis system of public instruc- 
 tion. The representatives of the classical culture long 
 ago recognized the importance of mutual conference, 
 and many and earnest have been the deliberations and 
 debates in which delegates from colleges and universi- 
 
4 TECHNOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 ties liave sought to find out the way by which they might 
 do greater good to the community and to the world, in 
 their devoted and self-sacrificing exertions on behalf of 
 education. Technological instruction, from its new- 
 ness, from the sporadic character of the enterprises with 
 which it has been connected, from the inherent gravity 
 and complexity of its problems, has even greater need 
 of consultation and conference among its teachers and 
 its friends. 
 
 It is said that nearly or quite one hundred institutions, 
 in America alone, are now offering instruction in the 
 applications of the sciences to the useful arts. In Great 
 Britain, if my information is correct, the number of 
 science schools and technical colleges is not much 
 smaller. With but a few exceptions, this vast body of 
 educational agencies represents the developments of 
 only a quarter of a century. Some of these schools have 
 been founded under the protection and patronage of 
 great universities ; others have been the outcome of inde- 
 pendent effort. Some have sought to cover the whole 
 ground of technological instruction; others have con- 
 fined themselves to comparatively limited fields. Some 
 have from the first achieved a decided success; others 
 are still struggling with poverty of means, with embar- 
 rassments due perhaps to a false start, or with the inher- 
 ent difficulties of their respective problems. Surely, in 
 such a situation, it is eminently wise that the represent- 
 atives of technological education should assemble in gen- 
 eral convention, to deliberate upon the means of 
 
PROBLEMS IN TECHNOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 5 
 
 advancing their common object; to inquire what re- 
 strictions, if any, should be placed around the field of 
 their activity; to learn, each from others, what measures 
 may be taken to promote the efficiency with which these 
 schools shall prepare their pupils for the severe trials of 
 professional practice; and, last of all and most of all, to 
 search deeply into the question how technical instruc- 
 tion and training may be made truly educational, in the 
 largest and best sense of that word, so that the schools 
 shall render the greatest possible service, not merely to 
 industry and the arts, but also to character and citizen- 
 ship, to mind and manhood. 
 
 So strongly has the importance of this subject, in view 
 of the recent very remarkable extension of the class of 
 schools referred to, pressed upon those who have framed 
 the plans for this general conference of education, that 
 it has been decided to allot three morning sessions to the 
 subject of technological education. Of these, the first, 
 the present session, has been assigned to the discussion of 
 the question: how far the technological instruction of 
 to-day answers its primary requirement, the preparation 
 of young men to enter upon the practice of the scientific 
 professions; what failures or deficiencies have been dis- 
 covered as the result of an experience wide if not long; 
 what are the causes of any failures or deficiencies which 
 may be found to exist; and what measures should be 
 taken to complete and perfect these schools upon their 
 purely professional side. The two remaining sessions 
 are to be devoted to the consideration of the actual and 
 
6 TECHNOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 the possible work of technical schools as instruments of 
 general education. For the purposes of the proposed 
 discussion regarding technical education, the present 
 occasion is most felicitous, not merely in the presence 
 of so large a number of distinguished educators, at- 
 tracted hither by the wonders and the glories of the 
 Columbian Exposition; not merely in the inspiration 
 afforded by this great object-lesson of industrial art, the 
 greatest which has ever been devised by the ingenuity 
 of mauj ordered and arranged by his taste and skill, and 
 executed by his enterprise and energy; but also, and per- 
 haps even most of all, by the presence here, in the courts 
 of the department of liberal arts, of the large and com- 
 prehensive exhibits made by the technical schools of our 
 own and foreign lands. All that may be said here must 
 be taken in connection with the work of students, the 
 schemes of courses, the apparatus of instruction, shown 
 in the galleries of the main building of the Exposition. 
 Whether in their professional or their educational 
 aspects, these exhibits should be deeply and carefully 
 studied by every educator who would form an intelli- 
 gent and candid opinion as to what the schools of this 
 class are really doing. 
 
 In the preparation of the programme for these ses- 
 sions, it has not been sought to secure a series of elabo- 
 rate and exhaustive papers which should occupy the time 
 available for the consideration of the topics proposed. 
 It has been the wish of the management that the papers 
 read should be comparatively brief theses, presenting 
 
PROBLEMS IN TECHNOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 1 
 
 the several topics in a suggestive rather than in a com- 
 prehensive manner, with a view to invite oral discussion 
 and to promote the face-to-face comparison of indi- 
 vidual views and experiences. 
 
 In such a conference as this, the most that is to be ex- 
 pected of the presiding officer is to arrange and provide 
 from day to day for the presence and the participation 
 of the largest number of those whose positions and serv- 
 ices in the cause of education, technical or general, 
 qualify them to add to the interest and to the value of 
 the discussion. Yet, in this first conference on the sub- 
 ject of technological education, I cannot forbear to avail 
 myself of my privilege as chairman to mention certain 
 questions which press for consideration in connection 
 with this department of instruction. 
 
 First: How far those who control and conduct schools 
 of technology are bound to qualify and modify their 
 courses of instruction with reference to the fact that 
 their students are, as a rule, not the graduates of col- 
 leges, and that the training received in these schools, 
 therefore, must be the only training, within the college 
 grade both as to age and as to mental development, 
 which these students are to enjoy before entering upon 
 the serious duties of life. This fact was clearly not in 
 contemplation by those who first founded our schools of 
 technology, if, indeed, it is not in flat contradiction of 
 what they then anticipated. It seems plain from Mr. 
 Abbott Lawrence's deed of gift to Harvard College, for 
 the endowment of the scientific school which bears his 
 
8 TECHNOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 name, that it was his expectation that the students would 
 be largely college graduates; yet, in the latest catalogue 
 of that school which I have seen, among one hundred 
 and eighty-one students only two are graduates of col- 
 leges, only one a graduate of a classical college. At the 
 Massachusetts Institute of Technology the number of 
 college graduates ranges between forty and fifty. 
 These students, therefore, form only between four and 
 five per cent, of the total membership of the school. A 
 slightly larger proportion, I believe, is maintained at 
 the Sheffield School at New Haven. In view of this 
 development of schools of technology, we are bound to 
 inquire whether their curriculum should not be more or 
 less qualified and modified to meet the fact that their 
 pupils are to receive no further and no other college 
 training. 
 
 The second question I would venture to suggest is: 
 how far the judgment of practitioners of technical pro- 
 fessions should conclude or should influence that of the 
 teachers and administrators of technical schools. Prob- 
 ably the first thought in any man's mind would be to 
 the effect that the best advice in regard to technical edu- 
 cation would come from those engaged in the practice of 
 the corresponding scientific professions. Yet it appears 
 to me that this is a subject which should be carefully 
 discussed, and that the first thought on the pre- 
 sentation of the question is not as a matter of course 
 correct. 
 
 Let us make the issue a little more specific. Engi- 
 
PROBLEMS IN TECHNOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 9 
 
 neering education, for example — is it primarily and 
 principally an engineering or an educational problem? 
 Is the engineer who is not and has never been a teacher 
 necessarily a better judge than a teacher who has never 
 been an engineer? Of course it is not intended here to 
 intimate that the opinions of practicing engineers regard- 
 ing engineering education may not be of great value; 
 that, in any case, they are not evidence which should be 
 carefully considered by those who are to judge of any 
 question which concerns engineering education. But 
 who is to be the judge — the engineer or the educator? 
 Whatever the professional standing of any engineer, are 
 his views conclusive upon the faculty of an engineering 
 school ? 
 
 My own opinion is that engineering education is pri- 
 marily and principally an educational and not an engi- 
 neering problem; and that the judgment of a strong and 
 experienced teacher who has studied this problem is 
 more likely to be right than that of any engineer with- 
 out experience as a teacher, however eminent he may be 
 in his profession. 
 
 A third question of importance in the development 
 of technical education is whether or not a substantial 
 connection with a university constitutes an advantage. 
 Much might be said on both sides of this question. Ad- 
 mirable examples are offered us of technical schools 
 under the protection and patronage of great universi- 
 ties, and of detached technical schools which have 
 steadily and successfully pursued their way, alike with- 
 
10 TECHNOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 out hindrance and without help from a corporation or 
 a faculty having other interests as well as their own in 
 charge. Without undertaking to discuss this question 
 in full, I will venture to make two remarks which it 
 seems to me should be considered at the very outset of 
 such a discussion. 
 
 ISTo advantage which a technical school can derive 
 from association with a university, through the ability, 
 experience, and comprehensive views of the corporation 
 of such a body, will compensate for any lack of moral 
 and intellectual sympathy with the purposes of technical 
 education, any lack of respect for the studies and exer- 
 cises of the technical school. Unless the members of 
 the corporation of a university thoroughly believe in 
 technical education, unless they are devoted to its ob- 
 jects, unless they entertain a hearty and unaffected re- 
 spect for the kind of man who is to teach and the kind 
 of man who is to receive the teaching, a technical school 
 will derive only damage from such an association. 
 Again, no advantage which the students of a technical 
 school might conceivably derive from the large and 
 varied endowment and equipment of a great university, 
 and from companionship with bodies of students in other 
 pursuits than their own, will compensate for the loss of 
 scholarly impulse and the injury to self-respect which 
 will inevitably be sustained, unless the general spirit of 
 the university be high, manly, and devoid of snobbish- 
 ness. If the technical students, through association 
 with a university, are to come habitually in contact with 
 
PROBLEMS IN TECHNOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 11 
 
 young men who have not seriously taken up the work of 
 their lives, who regard college merely as a place in which 
 to have a good time or to indulge in sport or dissipation, 
 who have no settled purpose and no manly aims, and 
 especially if the technical students are to come habitu- 
 ally in contact with young men who regard labor as 
 degrading, who look upon the rough clothes and the 
 stained fingers of the laboratory and the workshop as 
 badges of inferiority in character or in social standing, 
 then a technical school will derive harm, and only harm, 
 from such an association. 
 
 A fourth question which needs to be very carefully 
 considered by all friends of technological education is 
 how far immediate professional success is to be weighed 
 against ultimate professional success. It is, of course, 
 an immense advantage to the pupils of technical schools, 
 and to their parents and friends, that the young gradu- 
 ate should be able at once to earn his livelihood, even if 
 it be an humble one. In this day, when social necessi- 
 ties are so grinding, and when it is so hard to start a son 
 in life, that advantage is not to be despised or neglected. 
 Yet there is always a wide field of choice open to those 
 who control technical schools as to the degree in which 
 they will offer to their pupils studies and exercises the 
 value of which will be most fully realized in the first 
 few years after gi-aduation, or studies and exercises 
 whose value will be increasingly felt through the whole 
 course of their professional career, and which will 
 qualify them, in larger and ever larger measure, for 
 
12 TECHNOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 positions of responsibility and trust with advancing 
 years. It would be strange, indeed, if in the infancy 
 of technological education many mistakes had not been 
 made in this matter, predominantly on the side of 
 assigning too much value to studies and exercises of 
 immediate utility. I cannot but believe that with 
 larger experience, and with more of conference among 
 those who administer technological education, there will 
 be a decided movement in the direction of subordinating 
 the acquisition of the knacks of a trade and mere tech- 
 nical devices to the study of principles; and that, even 
 in the applications of principles, valuable and invaluable 
 as these are, reference will be had rather to their effect 
 in giving a greater mastery of the principles themselves, 
 than to their immediate utility in professional practice. 
 !N"ay, more, I confidently believe that, even in the study 
 of scientific principles, a continually increasing regard 
 will be paid to their influence in expanding the mind, 
 enlarging the views, elevating the aims, and strength- 
 ening the character of the pupil. 
 
 A fifth question presenting itself to those administer- 
 ing technological education is in regard to the expedi- 
 ency of introducing some so-called liberal studies into 
 all technical courses. I have already adverted to the 
 fact that the great majority of students of technology 
 are not graduates of colleges. But aside from this, and 
 even although all such students were college graduates, 
 it would still fairly be a question whether some degree 
 of philosophical study, especially in history and political 
 
PROBLEMS IN TECHNOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 13 
 
 economy, should not mingle day by day with the scien- 
 tific studies and exercises which form the primary sub- 
 jects of instruction and training in a technical school. 
 For myself, I am much disposed to believe that that 
 technical school will best discharge its duty to its pupils 
 and to the state which gives to its students, in addition 
 to those studies and exercises which will make them 
 exact and strong, some measure, also, of those studies 
 and exercises which will tend to make them, at the same 
 time, broad and fine. 
 
 The last question which I would suggest has regard to 
 the desirability and feasibility of securing uniform r^ 
 quirements for admission to schools of technology. The 
 classical colleges within I^ew England, and perhaps over 
 a 'v\ader region, have long been working toward the end 
 of common rules and conditions as to entrance; and 
 their efforts have met with a high degree of success, not 
 only in a loyal support, by all the colleges, of the 
 scheme of examinations adopted, but also in the mani- 
 fest and marked improvement of the preparatory schools 
 most largely contributing to their membership. It is 
 fairly a question whether the time has not come for 
 associated action in the same direction by the schools of 
 technology, 
 
 I will protract these remarks only by referring to a 
 single subject, and that is the spirit in which it behooves 
 the representatives of technological education to meet 
 and to answer the accusation of certain critics that the 
 technical applications of science are incompatible with 
 
14 TECHNOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 that disinterestedness which it is said, and truly said, is 
 essential to the highest results in education. Those 
 who indulge in flings regarding the lack of disinterested- 
 ness in technological education are generally the persons 
 who have withstood at every step the introduction of 
 chemistry, physics, and natural history as substitutes for 
 the older studies of the college curriculum. Beaten at 
 all points in their futile opposition to the spirit of the 
 times, and overwhelmed by the abundant testimony 
 offered as to the effects of science-study in making young 
 men as modest, loyal, fine, and pure as the best products 
 of the classical culture, and withal more exact, resolute, 
 and strong, these gentlemen are making their last stand 
 against the movement of the age by denouncing the 
 technical applications of science as interested and mer- 
 cenary, and therefore as unsuited to be the means of 
 promoting true scholarship. They are compelled to ad- 
 mit that the pursuit of technology is useful to the com- 
 munity in a degree which makes it not less than abso- 
 lutely necessary for hundreds and thousands of young 
 men to be trained in science and in the applications of 
 science to the useful arts; but they are unwilling that 
 these young men should be considered as scholars in the 
 same sense and of the same degree of merit as graduates 
 of schools whose studies and exercises are not subject to 
 the imputation of being of any direct or immediate use. 
 It would please those gentlemen more if, while the col- 
 lege graduate receives his scholarship medal of pure 
 gold, the graduate of the school of technology should 
 
PROBLEMS IN TECHNOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 15 
 
 liave his testimonial stamped upon a circlet of some baser 
 metal. 
 
 Now, it seems to me, we are bound to resent and to 
 repel this imputation, without tenns and without cere- 
 mony. We assert that the disinterestedness of study 
 does not depend upon the immediate usefulness or use- 
 lessness of the subject-matter, but upon the spirit with 
 which the student takes up and pursues his work. If 
 there be zeal in investigation, if there be delight in dis- 
 covery, if there be fidelity to the truth as it is discerned, 
 nothing more can be asked by the educator of highest 
 aims. A young man who is earnestly laboring to pre- 
 pare himself for an honorable and beneficent career in 
 life may be disinterested in every sense in which that 
 term can be used with approbation. Our critics have 
 been driven to a pretty pass, indeed, when the only 
 ground upon which they can make a stand is the prac- 
 tical usefulness of technical studies. These gentlemen 
 appear to have the same unnecessary fear of fruit which 
 Macaulay, in one of his famous essays,^ attributes, prob- 
 ably with some exaggeration, as his custom was, to the 
 old philosophers. Their concern is needless. So long 
 as the students of technology bear themselves with the 
 same earnestness and scholarly devotion which has char- 
 acterized them as a body since this system of instruction 
 was inaugurated, the cause of education will suffer no 
 harm. There is a wonderful virtue in science to make 
 and to keep its disciples truthful and faithful; and at no 
 * On Lord Bacon. — Ed. 
 
16 TECHNOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 distant time it will be fully recognized by all teachers 
 that the technical applications of science directly add to 
 the value of science-study by giving a more direct object 
 to effort, and by heightening the pleasure which the 
 pupil feels at each step of his scholarly progress. 
 
THE RISE AND IMPORTANCE OF 
 APPLIED SCIENCE IN AMERICAN 
 EDUCATION 
 
 1891 
 
Address at the Convocation of the T'nivhrsity 
 OP THE State of New Yokk, Albany, July 9, 1891. 
 
 Published in the Technology Quarterly, Decem- 
 ber, 1891, under the title " The Place of Scien- 
 tific and Technical Schools in American Edu- 
 cation." 
 
THE EISE AND IMPORTANCE OF APPLIED 
 SCIENCE IN AMERICAN EDUCATION. 
 
 Among the vast changes in the spirit and life of our 
 country, in the arts, the industries, the ideas, the aspira- 
 tions, of the American people, which were brought 
 about by, or which coincided with, the great struggle 
 from 1861 to 1865, none is more remarkable than the 
 rapid development of schools of applied science and 
 technology. It is no part of my duty to name even the 
 most important of these, or to attempt to divide among 
 them the honor of what they have, as a whole, achieved. 
 I shall confine myself to accounting, as far as I may, for 
 the rapidity with which these schools have spread over 
 the land, and to estimating their place in our educational 
 system. 
 
 The nearest and easiest thing to say regarding the 
 growth of scientific and technical schools, since the for- 
 tunate conclusion of the Civil War, is that the industrial 
 development of the country had reached the point where 
 it had become necessary that the enterprises into which 
 our labor and capital were to be put should be organized 
 and directed with much more of skill and scientific 
 knowledge than had been applied to our earlier efforts 
 at manufactures and transportation; and so in the full- 
 ness of time, scientific and technical schools came. In 
 
20 TECHNOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 this view there is much truth. The vaster enterprises of 
 these later days, the ever increasing possibilities of 
 modern commerce and industry, the intensifying se- 
 verity of competition due to quickened communication, 
 fast mails, cheap freights, and ocean cables, had indeed 
 created an urgent want for greater technical skill and 
 for more highly trained intelligence. The old wasteful 
 Avays of dealing with materials, the rule-of-thunib 
 methods of construction, the haphazard administration, 
 characteristic of our earlier industrial effoi'ts, could not 
 have been continued without greatly retarding the 
 national development and without irreparable loss in the 
 result. But, at the time spoken of, this want had not 
 become one of which our people were generally con- 
 scious; much less had it created a demand for such in- 
 stitutions sufficient of itself to bring them into existence. 
 The establishment of scientific and technical schools in 
 the United States was to constitute a striking instance of 
 the principle that, in some things, supply must create 
 demand. 
 
 [After development of this principle upon lines simi- 
 lar to those followed in the address on Technological and 
 Technical Education (see p. 96) the address proceeds.] 
 
 But no one who thoroughly believes in the mission of 
 schools of this class can be content merely to assert that 
 the full time had come in the economic evolution of the 
 nation when such schools were imperatively needed for 
 the promotion of our industries, and that the institutions 
 thus called into being have done this, their primary 
 
RISE AND IMPORTANCE OF APPLIED SCIENCE. 21 
 
 work, with triumphant success. We go far beyond this, 
 and assert for these schools that they have come to form 
 a most important part of the proper educational system 
 of the country, and that they are to-day doing a work in 
 the intellectual development of our people which is not 
 surpassed, if indeed it be equaled, by that of the clas- 
 sical colleges. No statement less broad and strong than 
 this would begin to do justice to the view we take of 
 what these schools are now doing, and are in an increas- 
 ing measure to do, for the manhood and citizenship of 
 the country. "We believe that in the schools of applied 
 science and technology as they are carried on to-day in 
 the United States, involving the thorough and most 
 scholarly study of principles directed immediately upon 
 useful arts, and rising, in their higher grades, into origi- 
 nal investigation and research, is to be found almost the 
 perfection of education for young men. Too long have 
 we submitted to be considered as furnishing something 
 which is, indeed, more immediately and practically 
 useful than a so-called liberal education, but which is, 
 after all, less noble and fine. Too long have our schools 
 of applied science and technology been popularly re- 
 garded as affording an inferior substitute for classical 
 colleges to those who could not afford to go to college, 
 then take a course in a medical or law school, and then 
 wait for professional practice. Too long have the grad- 
 uates of such schools been spoken of as though they had 
 acquired the arts of livelihood at some sacrifice of men- 
 tal development, intellectual culture, and grace of life. 
 
22 TECHNOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 For me, if I did not believe that the graduates of the 
 institution over which I have the honor to preside were 
 as well educated men, in all which the term " educated 
 man " implies, as the average graduate of the ordinary 
 college, I would not consent to hold my position for an- 
 other day. It is true that something of form and style 
 may be sacrificed in the earnest, direct, and laborious 
 endeavors of the student of science; but that all the 
 essentials of intellect and character are one whit less 
 fully or less happily achieved through such a course of 
 study, let no man connected with such an institution for 
 a moment concede ! 
 
 That mind and manhood alike are served in a pre- 
 eminent degree by the systematic study of chemistry, 
 physics, and natural history, has passed beyond dispute. 
 The haste with which the colleges themselves are throw- 
 ing over many of their traditional subjects to make 
 room for these comparatively new studies, shows how 
 general has become the appreciation of the virtue of 
 these, when combined with laboratory methods, as means 
 of intellectual and moral training. 
 
 I have spoken of the characteristic studies of these 
 schools as the best of all available means of both moral 
 and intellectual training. I believe this claim to be 
 none too broad. 
 
 First, the sincerity of purpose and the intellectual 
 honesty which are bred in the laboratory of chemistry 
 and physics stand in strong contrast with the dangerous 
 tendencies to plausibility, sophistry, casuistry, and self- 
 
RISE AND IMPORTANCE OF APPLIED SCIENCE. 23 
 
 delusion whicli so insidiously beset tlie pursuit of meta- 
 physics, dialectics, and rhetoric, according to the tradi- 
 tions of the schools. Much of the training given in col- 
 lege in my boyhood was, it is not too much to say, 
 directed straight upon the arts which go to make the 
 worse appear the better reason. It was always an 
 added feather in the cap of the young disputant that he 
 had won a debate in a cause in which he did not believe. 
 Surely, in these more enlightened days, it is not needful 
 to say that this is perilous practice, if, indeed, it is not 
 always and necessarily pernicious. Even where the 
 element of purposed and boasted self-stultification was 
 absent, there was a dangerous and mischievous exalta- 
 tion of the form above the substance of the student's 
 work, which made it better to be brilliant than to be 
 sound. 
 
 Contrast with this the moral and intellectual influence 
 of the studies and exercises we are considering. The 
 student of chemistry or physics would scarcely know 
 how to defend a thesis which he did not himself believe. 
 In that dangerous art he has had no practice. The 
 only success he has hoped for has been to be right. The 
 only failure he has had to fear was to be wrong. To be 
 brilliant in error only heightened the failure, making it 
 the more conspicuous and ludicrous. How wholesome 
 to the mind and heart of the pupil is such a regimen ! 
 
 Again, in addition to the graces of sincerity and intel- 
 lectual honesty, which are the proper traits of physical 
 and natural science, there is great virtue, as training for 
 
24 TECHNOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 practical work in life, of whatever kind, in whatever 
 sphere, in that objective study of concrete things which 
 so largely makes up the curriculum of the schools we 
 are considering. 
 
 Still another advantage which we claim for the char- 
 acteristic studies of the new schools is that, in a very 
 large degree, they dispense with the system of examina- 
 tions which has become the curse of modern education. 
 The recent remarkable outburst in England, from edu- 
 cators of every name and class, against that system, jus- 
 tifies the strong terms I have used. It is admitted on 
 all sides to be a problem of the greatest difficulty so to 
 adjust their scheme that examinations shall not largely 
 neutralize the good effects of sincere and straightforward 
 study. 
 
 So far has cramming been carried in English univer- 
 sities, and even in our own colleges, that examinations 
 have largely ceased to test the scholar's attainments, 
 much less his real proficiency in his studies. Students 
 who have a marked facility in this sort of thing acquire, 
 in time, the faculty of passing creditable examinations 
 upon matters of which they know almost absolutely 
 nothing. By steadily cramming for a few days and 
 nights, under artful coaches, who know the professors' 
 weaknesses and fads, a young man exceptionally expert 
 can " get up " a subject,^ of which he would be troubled, 
 
 ' I would not disparage the importance, as a professional accom- 
 plishment, of the ability to " get up" a subject in a very short time 
 under high pressure. A lawyer has often occasion to do this very 
 thing. But this is a professional accomplishment, and should be 
 
RISE AND IMPORTANCE OF APPLIED SCIENCE. 25 
 
 the morning after examination, to give an intelligible 
 account. There develops a special organ — the exami- 
 nation organ — which is as specific as the water-sacks at- 
 tached to the stomach of a camel and intended only to 
 carry a certain amount of refreshment over a very dry 
 place for a very short time. Indeed, the comparison 
 fails to do justice to its subject. The examination organ 
 is at once as specific and as external as the pouch of a 
 kangaroo. 
 
 From this serious difficulty schools of applied science 
 and technology are, by the very nature of the case, 
 largely freed. Indeed, the inapplicability of the scheme 
 of examinations to the studies we are considering has 
 even been made an argument against their introduction 
 into universities. Professor Parsons Cooke, in address- 
 ing recently a body of students at Harvard, said: 
 ^' When advocating in our mother university of Cam- 
 bridge, in Old England, the claims of scientific culture, 
 I was pushed with an argument which had very great 
 weight with the eminent English scholars present, and 
 which, you will be surprised to learn, was regarded as 
 fatal to the success of the natural science triposes then 
 under debate. The argument was, that the experi- 
 mental sciences could not be made the subjects of com- 
 petitive examinations." 
 
 acquired as such. The period of professional study is not too late 
 for the acquirement of this faculty. It can even be acquired later 
 still, in the course of professional work. Such practice, however, in 
 my judgment, forms no part of general education and training, and 
 is only vicious and mischievous in the culture stage. 
 
26 TECUNOLOQICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 It is not true that chemistry and physics cannot be 
 made the subject of examinations after their hind; but 
 it is true that, under competent teachers of these sciences, 
 examinations have far less of the character of a cram, 
 and far more of the character of a test of ability to do 
 work. Moreover, in such a scheme of instruction, as a 
 whole, examinations perform a much less important 
 part, while the daily and weekly exercises in the labora- 
 tory become continually of more and more account as a 
 means of ascertaining the scholar's real progress. In 
 this the schools of applied science and technology com- 
 ply with the demands of modem thought in pedagogics. 
 In no department of life more than in education is there 
 authority in the Scripture precept, " Let the dead bury 
 their dead." The best examination which a student 
 can pass is to show his ability to do the next thing. If 
 he can pass this examination successfully, the teacher 
 need give little thought to what has gone before. And 
 I venture, by the way, to suggest, with reference to the 
 urgent inquiry now proceeding as to where the Ameri- 
 can youth loses two years of time in his preparation for 
 college, whether a large part, if not the whole of that 
 serious loss, is not sustained from the everlasting reviews 
 and examinations through which the American teacher, 
 alike in the primary, the grammar, and the high school, 
 insists upon dragging the pupil three times a year or 
 oftener; thus not only requiring him to continually go 
 over again ground already traversed, but, what is of 
 more consequence, creating a sentiment throughout the 
 
RISE AND IMPORTANCE OF APPLIED SCIENCE. 27 
 
 schoolroom which inspires the scholars to be forever 
 looking back instead of forward. 
 
 The last of the advantages attendant upon scientific 
 instruction which I shall enumerate, — though the list 
 might be still further extended, — is found in a better 
 relation between teacher and pupil. I would not will- 
 ingly be guilty of exaggeration in this matter. With a 
 really great and gifted teacher, the attitude of the 
 scholar will always be that of respect and admiration, 
 whether with or without affection and personal intimacy. 
 But it cannot be denied that, in the traditional college, 
 with the traditional subjects of instruction, the relation 
 in question is likely to be less than a happy one. On 
 the one side there is apt to be an undue assumption of 
 knowledge, a tendency to dogmatism, and a too peremp- 
 tory way of dealing with the pupil's doubts and difficul- 
 ties. On the other side there is apt to be something of 
 the tone of resistance, if not of resentment; a disposi- 
 tion to escape the teacher's scrutiny, if not to get around 
 him with the petty tricks of the recitation-room. 
 
 It would be foolish to assume that there is any virtue 
 in the natural and physical sciences which will overcome 
 the faults or deficiencies of mind and heart that are 
 found in some teachers. There are men who will be 
 priggish, pompous, and pretentious in doing anything. 
 But there is a wonderful virtue in the studies we are 
 considering for bringing teacher and scholar together in 
 their work in a most simple, natural, and affectionate 
 relation. He is the most successful teacher of science 
 
28 TECHNOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 who puts himself in the attitude of discovering truth 
 with his pupil, and of hunting with him for the object 
 of their common search. Moreover, the very closeness 
 of the contact in the laboratory of chemistry, physics, or 
 mechanics, is such as to cause a continuous, insensible 
 discharge of the electricity generated by the necessarily 
 strict requirements of study and discipline, and thus to 
 maintain the friendly relations of teacher and pupil, 
 unbroken by those storms which sometimes gather and 
 burst in colleges where the teacher sits buttoned up, on 
 a platform, behind his desk, and lectures to his pupils 
 from the chair of authority. 
 
 But it may be said: Considering all that may be 
 claimed for the purely educational advantages of the 
 scientific studies which run through the curriculum of 
 the technological schools, why may not all these advan- 
 tages be equally obtained by the student of the tradi- 
 tional college, and even to better effect, since there he 
 may secure the pure gold of truth freed from the alloy 
 of baser metal? — by which term the critic would desig- 
 nate the useful, practical applications of science. It is 
 here that it behooves us to take issue, most directly and 
 aggressively, with those who assert for the old-fashioned 
 colleges an educational virtue superior to that of the 
 schools we represent. It is of the very essence of our 
 case that the directness and immediateness of applica- 
 tion to which the studies of our pupils are subject, under 
 their very eyes and at their very hands, constitute a tre^ 
 mendous educational force, securing a closeness and con- 
 
RISE AND IMPORTANCE OF APPLIED SCIENCE. 29 
 
 tinuity of attention on the part of the pupil, an earnest- 
 ness of effort, a zeal and enthusiasm of work, which it is 
 utterly beyond the power of the teacher of classics or 
 philosophy to arouse, except in the case of gifted 
 students. If proof of this upon a large scale be 
 needed, it is enough to refer to the well-known fact 
 that law schools and medical schools invariably com- 
 mand the energ-ies of their pupils in a far higher 
 degree than do the colleges; and that hosts of 
 young men who have idled and dawdled away the 
 four years nominally devoted to classics and philosophy 
 throw themselves with splendid enthusiasm into their 
 professional studies when once they, for the first time, 
 see upon what ends their efforts are directed, and 
 how their energy and application are to promote their 
 happiness and usefulness in life. 
 
 Even in the case of those young men who need no 
 such incentive to secure their faithful attention and ear- 
 nest endeavor, we yet hold that schools of applied 
 science and technology possess a distinct advantage, in 
 that their students learn the truths of science in a some- 
 what different way, and, in the result, know them some- 
 what better than do those who study these truths, no 
 matter how diligently, without immediate, direct, and 
 constant reference to their applications. Without 
 dwelling further at this point upon the limitations and 
 defects inherent in all academic systems of recitation 
 and examination, I believe it to be true that the man 
 who, in studying mathematics, for example, has only to 
 
30 TECHNOLOOICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 look forward to a recitation to-morrow and an examina- 
 tion two weeks or two months hence, applies himself 
 to the subject necessarily in a spirit different from 
 and with a result inferior to the spirit and achievement 
 of the man who, continually as he acquires his mathe- 
 matics, puts it to use day by day in the laboratory of 
 physics, mechanics, hydraulics, or steam engineering. 
 
 For these reasons we must decline to accept the char- 
 acterization of the technical applications of science as the 
 alloy which debases the pure gold of truth. We look 
 upon them, rather, as the tough, elastic bow which sends 
 the keen shaft to its mark. And, be it remembered, 
 zeal and enthusiasm of work are not to be valued merely 
 because, or merely as, they secure directness of attention, 
 continuity of application, and sustained endeavor. In 
 themselves, of themselves, they are in a high sense an 
 educational force, telling immediately and telling power- 
 fully upon intellect and character, contributing impor- 
 tantly to build up mental and moral substance firmly 
 and healthily. 
 
 There is one school in the United States devoted 
 mainly to the application of scientific principles to a pro- 
 fessional art, which is so well known to all our people, 
 and whose work in the development of mind and man- 
 hood has been so severely tested in the sight of the coun- 
 try and of the whole world, that I cannot forbear to 
 allude to it here. I mean the Military Academy at 
 West Point. There is no reason to believe that, for the 
 thirty years preceding the Civil War, the young men 
 
BISE AND IMPORTANCE OF APPLIED SCIENCE. 31 
 
 wLo went to that school were in any degree superior to 
 those who entered Yale or Harvard. Indeed, there was 
 at that time, at least throughout the North, a certain 
 disinclination on the part of the more generous and am- 
 bitious of our youth to adopt the career of arms. Yet 
 when the war broke out, what a wealth of intellect and 
 character was displayed by the graduates of that one 
 small school during the terrific trial to which they were 
 instantly and without preparation subjected! Think 
 how many men from that single academy, which had 
 fewer living graduates than either Amherst or Williams, 
 led army corps and armies with distinction, on the one 
 side or the other, in what was perhaps the greatest war 
 of modem history! I said " of intellect and character," 
 for it is character, even more than intellect, which en- 
 ables the commander to bear the tremendous cares, re- 
 sponsibilities, and burdens of his office. "What power 
 developed, out of those few small classes of raw lads, a 
 Grant, a Lee, a Sherman, a Meade, a Jackson, a Thomas, 
 the two Johnstons, a Hancock, a Reno, a Reynolds, and 
 a Sheridan, not to mention scores of others who " waxed 
 valiant in fight " and commanded divisions and corps 
 with a skill and address which have excited the admira- 
 tion of the professional soldiers of Europe ? ^ Doubtless 
 
 ' Those four years of tremendous conflict had wrought the nation 
 up to the appreciation of a greatness which does not manifest itself 
 in fine phrases and moving utterance. If the war had done nothing 
 else for our people, it would have done much simply in teaching 
 them that deeds are greater than words. Tlie American people, 
 through those long days of anguish and suspense, learned how 
 much higher and nobler is the power that can do and dare and 
 
32 TECHNOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 in some part it was tlie romance and the highly stimulat- 
 ing influences of the military career. Doubtless in p^ 
 also it was the special inspiration of the tremendous 
 occasion, fraught as that was with the destinies of a con- 
 tinent. But I believe it, in still greater part, to have 
 been the perfectly natural effect of the application of 
 perhaps not extraordinary powers to the thorough, pa- 
 tient, unremitting study of scientific principles, directed 
 straight upon a worthy profession, under the tuition 
 and guidance of renowned masters of that art, and under 
 the constant influence of professional ideas, professional 
 sentiments, and great professional examples. 
 
 Much more might be said in comparison of the in- 
 fluence of scientific teaching as carried on in the schools 
 of applied science and technology, with the influence of 
 the traditional or of the more modern, revised curricu- 
 lum of the classical colleges; but perhaps enough has 
 been said to justify the assertion that the former class of 
 institutions is just as truly educational as the latter. 
 Here I am content to rest my case. This conceded, let 
 the youth of the land seek the one or the other kind of 
 school, according to their individual tastes, predilections, 
 and plans for life. I am far from being so bigoted as to 
 suggest that there is not room enough in the educational 
 system of the future for all the institutions of the elder 
 
 endure, than the arts of dainty expression, or vehement declama- 
 tion, or cunning dialectic in which they had formerly so much 
 delighted, too often to the point of subordinating statesmanship to 
 oratory. — From address delivered at the opening of the Engineering 
 Building, Pennsylvania State College, February 22, 1893. 
 
RISE AND IMPORTANCE OF APPLIED SCIENCE. 33 
 
 type which have achieved for themselves a name in let- 
 ters and philosophy; which have, with pains inexpressi- 
 ble, wrought out their own problems and created their 
 own constituencies; and each of which has a host of 
 eager, devoted alumni, ever turning gratefully to the 
 halls in which they were nurtured. But I confidently 
 look to see a largely disproportionate number of the new 
 institutions which shall from time to time come into 
 being, built essentially upon the plan which has achieved 
 such prodigious successes during the quarter-century 
 now closing. Doubtless the present general scheme of 
 the schools of technology will itself undergo consider- 
 able modification, alike from the results of added ex- 
 perience, from larger means, and from the infusion of 
 a wiser and more generous spirit. Doubtless more of 
 economic, historical, and philosophical studies will be 
 introduced to supplement, by their liberalizing tenden- 
 cies, the work of the sciences in making their pupils 
 exact and strong. Possibly some ultimate form for in- 
 stitutions of the higher learning may yet be developed, 
 which shall embody much of both the modern school of 
 technology and of the old-fashioned college, with, per- 
 haps, something taken from neither, but originating in 
 the larger, fuller, riper life of a happier and richer 
 future.^ 
 
 ' In addition to all the professional uses which he may make of 
 scientific principles or technical arts, the student thoroughly trained 
 in exact science has acquired (first and foremost) intellectual honesty, 
 — that is, complete satisfaction in resting upon the truth, ■whatever 
 that may prove to be; then, the power of discrimination in all things 
 
34 TECHNOLOaiCAL EDUCATION. 
 
 concrete and objective; next, the ability to concentrate attention, and 
 to pursue investigation unfalteringly and relentlessly to exact results; 
 finally, the mastery, in a high degree, of his own powers and 
 faculties. 
 
 The things which scientific study and technical practice do not 
 directly tend to give, but which philosophical studies do in a meas- 
 ure contribute, are, first, what 1 may call " horizon" — the outlook over 
 affairs; secondly, toleration of and patience with what is poor in 
 kind and incomplete in form, like much of what one has to do with 
 in real life; thirdly, knowledge of men, and address and tact in deal- 
 ing with them; fourthly, appreciation of economic conditions, espe- 
 cially in the matter of knowing where to stop in the perfecting of 
 products, as at the point where it will "pay" best, — that is, where 
 the return will most liberally compensate expenditure, in contrast 
 with the scientific instinct to make everything perfect, no matter 
 what it costs. 
 
 Now, if it were wholly a question between those two classes of ad- 
 vantages, so strongly contrasted with each other, — that is, if a man 
 could not have both, in some degree, but must " cleave to the one 
 and despise the other," I should unhesitatingly say, give to me and 
 mine the advantages which especially attach to education and train- 
 ing in the exact sciences, even if we must forego those naturally to 
 be looked for from philosophical studies. Not only are the former, 
 on the whole, more valuable to individuals and to society, but they 
 are doubly important in view of the consideration that one who has 
 acquired the scientific spirit and the scientific method, who has be- 
 come exact and strong, may be broadened and softened by contact 
 with men and experience of life. But one is very unlikely to ac- 
 quire the spirit and methods of science later in life if he has not 
 done so in school; is very unlikely indeed to take up and master 
 mathematics, mechanics, and physics, when engaged in active 
 duties. 
 
 But it is not a question of taking the advantages which belong to 
 one kind of education, and giving up those which belong to the 
 other. There is no incompatibility between the two sets of qualities 
 especially developed by the two sorts of training. A man may be 
 liberal and broad in spirit, and yet exact and strong in his thinking. 
 He may have the keenest possible sense of what is incomplete in 
 form, yet be tolerant in dealing with the unavQidable imperfections 
 of his material, or of his human agents or assistants. He may hold 
 in view the perfect instrument, the perfect end, not less strongly 
 because his economic sense instructs him that it is necessary to stop 
 short at a certain point, in order to secure a return for labor and 
 capital to be invested. 
 
BISE AND IMPORTANCE OF APPLIED SCIENCE. 35 
 
 Not only is there no Incompatibility between these different sets 
 of qualities — each actually contributes to the other. Since, thus, a 
 man may aspire to have both in fair measure, each in greater perfec- 
 tion and higher degree because of the other, it becomes simply a 
 question of time and money to the student of science how far he 
 shall pursue philosophical studies in addition to his principal work. 
 — From a Communication to "The Tech.," April 9, 1891. 
 
THE TECHNICAL SCHOOL AND THE 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 1893 
 
An Answer to an Article Entitled " Relations 
 OF Academic and Technical Instruction," bt Pro- 
 fessor Nathaniel Southgate Shaler, Published in 
 the Atlantic Monthly, Adgvst, 1893. From the Atlantic 
 Monthly, September, 1893. 
 
 The maia points of Professor Shaler's argu- 
 ment are suflficiently indicated in President 
 Walker's reply. 
 
THE TECHNICAL SCHOOL AND THE 
 UNIVEESITY. 
 
 In the August number of the Atlantic Monthly Pro- 
 fessor Shaler has discussed the relations of academic and 
 technical instruction in a way which brings the reader 
 to some startling conclusions. So great are the advan- 
 tages which a technical school is shown to derive from 
 association with a university, so heavy the liabilities to 
 narrowness and smallness of aim and purpose in the case 
 of an independent school, that those of us who are con- 
 nected with technical schools not attached to universi- 
 ties find ourselves put upon our defense; and this, too, 
 under very serious charges. If any large part of Pro- 
 fessor Shaler's position can be maintained, we are of- 
 fenders against the cause of sound education. It is our 
 duty at once to seek the sheltering arms of the nearest 
 university; or, if there be none near enough to take 
 charge of us, then we ought to disband and to send our 
 students to those who can do better by them. Professor 
 Shaler does, indeed, admit that in a favorable environ- 
 ment a separate school may achieve a partial success; 
 but he holds that this success is likely to be temporary, 
 and at the best is attained through the sacrifice of im- 
 portant educational interests. In view of such a decla- 
 ration by tlie dean of a technical school ^ enjoying the 
 ' The Lawrence Scientific School. — Ed. 
 
 39 
 
40 TECHNOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 protection and patronage of a great university, it is im- 
 perative that those who have to do with detached schools 
 shall speak in their own behalf. The controversy is not 
 of our seeking; and we must be pardoned if we speak 
 with frankness on all the points at issue. 
 
 In the first place, it may not unfairly be said that, if 
 the advantages of a connection with a university are so 
 great, it is inexplicable that the effect of this should not 
 more clearly appear in the history of that school which 
 Professor Shaler mentions as the first of its class to be 
 established, and to which, through the whole extent of 
 his article, he refers in illustration of his principle. 
 Harvard, as he says, has exercised an admirable hospi- 
 tality toward many true and useful forms of learning. 
 Its scientific department was founded under peculiarly 
 fortunate conditions: a handsome endowment, a noble 
 name, a cultivated community, association with the 
 oldest college in the country, proximity to the richest 
 manufacturing district. All these things seemed to 
 assure success ; yet the Lawrence School graduated twice 
 as many pupils in the first half as it has in the last half 
 of its history. Meanwhile, scores of technical schools 
 have come into existence, often under circumstances 
 most adverse and with means painfully limited; have 
 grown in numbers and increased in reputation through- 
 out the general community; and have even come, in 
 spite of prejudice, to command a high degree of respect 
 and esteem from representatives of the old education. 
 Does not this contrast fairly awaken incredulity as to 
 
TECHNICAL SCHOOL AND UNIVERSITY. 41 
 
 Professor Shaler's argument, if indeed it does not create 
 a strong presumption that he has overlooked some ele- 
 ment, or elements, vital to the case ? 
 
 The strongest instance in apparent corroboration of 
 Professor Shaler's views is that afforded by the Sheffield 
 School of ISTew Haven, Here is a scientific school, giv- 
 ing a large amount of technical instruction, which was 
 founded in connection with a university and has 
 achieved eminent success. Yet to anyone who knows 
 the history of the Sheffield School, its experiences are 
 directly in contravention of Professor Shaler's views, 
 and indeed furnish the most important instance which 
 could be cited against his position. Every Yale man 
 knows that the Sheffield School grew up under the total 
 neglect of the corporation of the college, for that body 
 had nothing to do with the curriculum, and did abso- 
 lutely nothing as to the selection of the teachers. Dur- 
 ing the eight and a half years of my connection with the 
 Sheffield School ^ I but once saw the president of Yale 
 in a meeting of its faculty, and that was by special ap- 
 pointment, with reference to the question whether the 
 students should be required to attend morning prayers. 
 So little had the school, in its early days, been considered 
 by the corporation that when the Battell Chapel was 
 erected, about 1873, no provision was made for giving 
 the Sheffield undergraduates seats in it. Do^vn to the 
 accession of President Dwight the actual governing 
 
 ■ General Walker was Professor of Political Economy at the Shef- 
 field Scientific School from 1873 to 1881.— Ed. 
 
42 TECHNOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 body was the faculty, under the admirable chairmanship 
 of Professor George J. Brush. The faculty made out 
 the budget, cut down their own salaries whenever that 
 was necessary, apportioned the funds for laboratory and 
 general expenses, and selected the men who were to be 
 appointed to positions which had become vacant or 
 which it was deemed desirable to create. Not a single 
 instance occurred where the choice of a professor was 
 not solely and exclusively the work of the existing 
 faculty. The appointment, in the legal sense, had of 
 course to come from the corporation ; but in no case did 
 that body or the president take any initiative in the 
 matter. 
 
 It was under conditions like these that the Sheffield 
 Scientific School passed through the years during which 
 its character was being molded and its scholarly tradi- 
 tions formed, I understand that Dr. Dwight, since his 
 inauguration, has entered deeply into the questions re- 
 lating to the Sheffield School and takes an active part in 
 its councils. No more generous and comprehensive 
 mind could be brought to the problems of any institu- 
 tion; and I am far from thinking that, with the tradi- 
 tions of the school already formed, the new regime will 
 not be consistent with continued growth and prosperity; 
 but I am fully convinced that Sheffield owes no small 
 part of its brilliant success to the Cinderella-like abase- 
 ment and neglect in which its work was begun and con- 
 tinued until the institution had passed from the gristle 
 of youth into the solid bone of manhood. 
 
TECHNICAL SCHOOL AND UNIVERSITY. 43 
 
 So much for the Lawrence and Sheffield Schools as 
 bearing on the issue which Professor Shaler has raised. 
 Other technical schools have been founded in connection 
 with universities, and some of them have done good 
 work. But I know no reason for attributing to the 
 School of Mines, in Columbia College, a higher charac- 
 ter than that borne by the Stevens Institute, a detached 
 school upon the opposite bank of the Hudson; while 
 against the success attained by Sibley College, of Cor- 
 nell University, may fairly be set the rolls of the alumni 
 of the Rensselaer Polytechnic of Troy, the Rose Poly- 
 technic of Terre Haute, and the Massachusetts Institute 
 of Technology. 
 
 But let us leave the comparison of technical schools 
 under the two systems, in order to examine the reasons, 
 in the nature of the case, which are adduced as showing 
 that connection with a university is not merely a favor- 
 able and fortunate condition, but a condition essential 
 to the proper development and perfecting of every tech- 
 nical school. Professor Shaler's first plea has relation 
 to the administration. He argues that a competent 
 governing body is of the first importance in the career 
 of any institution of learning; that it is very difficult to 
 obtain a competent body; and that, therefore, when an 
 able and successful administration has been secured for 
 a university, it must needs be of great service to a tech- 
 nical school to come under that rule, and thus to be 
 saved from the many possible and even probable disad- 
 vantages attendant upon an organization of its own 
 
44 TECHNOLOOICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 board of trust. What Professor Shaler says regarding 
 the vital importance of a strong but liberal and compre- 
 hensive government is true. Yet, when we are con- 
 sidering the question of the government of a technical 
 school, it must be said that there is one element of even 
 more importance than the business ability or intellectual 
 power of its administrators. This is that they shall be 
 deeply interested in the work ; that they shall thoroughly 
 believe in technical education; that they shall unaffect- 
 edly and profoundly respect the kind of man who is to 
 teach in such a school, and the kind of pupil who is to 
 receive the teaching. Possibly this is one of the ele- 
 ments which Professor Shaler has overlooked. Pos- 
 sibly in this respect there has been some failure among 
 corporations or boards of trust composed of men bred in 
 the old education, and having their standards and ideals 
 of character and of conduct shaped by the influence of 
 classical culture. Possibly this explains the compara- 
 tive failure of some technical schools connected with 
 universities. Professor Shaler admits that " still, to 
 this day, the tendency has been to regard this depart- 
 ment of instruction as something much below the uni- 
 versity grade." Until that tendency shall have been 
 completely arrested, and even reversed, may it not be 
 better that this department of instruction shall be under 
 the control and direction of its own devoted friends? 
 For myself, I believe that scientific and technical educa- 
 tion always encounters a grave risk when put out to 
 nurse with representatives of classical culture. 
 
TECHNICAL SCHOOL AND UNIVERSITY. 45 
 
 Moreover, conceding, as has been done, the difficulty 
 of securing an adequate governing body for any institu- 
 tion of learning, it may yet be said that this difficulty is 
 not insuperable. The Institute of Technology has had 
 among its trustees, to mention none of the living, men 
 like Jacob Bigelow, Erastus B. Bigelow, John D. Phil- 
 brick, James B. Francis, George B. Emerson, J. Inger- 
 soll Bowditch, Charles L. Flint — men fit to take part in 
 the deliberations of senates or of universities, able in 
 business, large of view, and faithful to every trust. If 
 other technical schools, less fortunately situated, have 
 sujBFered somewhat from the lack of liberal and compre- 
 hensive administration, it must be remembered that the 
 same is true of all the smaller colleges of the land. If 
 detached technical schools are to be given up on this 
 account, so must these. Yet who does not believe that, 
 in spite of limited opportunities and means, our smaller 
 colleges have done a truly glorious work for mind and 
 manhood ? 
 
 The second advantage, or group of advantages, which 
 Professor Shaler attributes to a technical school under 
 the patronage of a university may be said to relate to 
 the students as distinguished from the governing body. 
 The subject is necessarily somewhat vague. I am not 
 sure that I rightly apprehend Professor Shaler's mean- 
 ing at all points; but, so far as I can gather his views, 
 he thinks the pupils derive a benefit in each of the fol- 
 lowing ways: 
 
 First, the student in such a school finds himself, in 
 
46 TECHNOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 classes pursuing certain subjects essential to his course, 
 in company with students not intending to adopt tech- 
 nical professions. These subjects may be, for example, 
 chemistry, geology, physics, or mathematics — subjects 
 which form the groundwork of technical courses, and 
 which may also be pursued by college students as a part 
 of their general training. Professor Shaler regards this 
 association as a source of much advantage, applying to 
 it the term '' educative companionship." I confess that, 
 unless it is to be presumed that the non-technical stu- 
 dents are the better men or the better scholars, this idea 
 appears to me very far-fetched. The notion that be- 
 cause a young man is going to enter, two or three years 
 hence, a law school, a medical school, or a divinity 
 school, he therefore contributes some special flavor or 
 savor to his class in chemistry, or physics, or geology, or 
 mathematics to-day, is carrying the doctrine of final 
 cause to an extreme. 
 
 There is only one assumption upon which this plea, 
 conceding the equal merit of the students engaged, can 
 have any validity. That assumption is often made by 
 advocates of the old culture; but I am reluctant to be- 
 lieve that Professor Shaler could possibly adopt it, al- 
 though he seems to do so when he speaks of " a truly 
 academic atmosphere " as " one in which knowledge and 
 a capacity for inquiry are valued for their own sake, and 
 not measured by their uses in economic employment." 
 The fling at technical studies as less " disinterested " 
 than studies which are pursued without a direct object 
 
TECHNICAL SCHOOL AND UNIVERSITY. 47 
 
 is one which has often been made in recent educational 
 controversy; but those who use it have not seemed to 
 me to show thereby their own superior liberality of 
 mind/ A young man who is faithfully seeking to 
 
 ' The practical uselessness for any immediate purpose of a given 
 subject of study may be no reason why it should not be pursued; but, 
 on the other hand, the high immediate usefulness of a subject of 
 study furnishes no ground from which the educator of loftiest aims 
 and purest ideals should regard it with contempt or distrust. In 
 either case, the question of real import is in what spirit the study is 
 pursued. The most distinguished French writer of to-day on mat- 
 ters of education, writing, too, in advocacy not of physical but of 
 social science, has frankly paid his tribute to the disinterestedness of 
 spirit and loftiness of motive which promote and direct scientific re- 
 search, even in its most practical applications. "Let us," he says, 
 " pass in review the great founders of modern science and the cre- 
 ators of industry, the Keplers and the Fultons, and we shall be 
 struck by the idealistic and even Utopian tendency peculiar to 
 them. They are, in their own way, dreamers, artists, poets, con- 
 trolled by experience." 
 
 And if, leaving abstract reasoning, we turn to contemplate the 
 manner in which the several professions are practiced in the commu- 
 nity, I seem to find corroboration of the view that the study of 
 science and its applications to the arts of life do not tend to produce 
 sordid character or to confine the man merely to material aims. 
 Every profession has its black sheep and its doubtful practitioners, 
 but, while frankly admitting that there are mercenary physicists and 
 chemists for revenue only, I boldly challenge comparison between 
 the scientific men of America, as a body, and its literary men or even 
 its artists, in the respects of devotion to truth, of simple confidence 
 in the right, of delight in good work for good work's sake, of indis- 
 position to coin name and fame into money, of unwillingness to use 
 one thing that is well done as a means of passing off upon the public 
 three or four things that are ill done. I know the scientific men of 
 America well, and I entertain a profound conviction that in sincerity, 
 simplicity, fidelity, and generosity of character, in nobility of aims 
 and earnestness of effort, in everything which should be involved in 
 the conception of disinterestedness, they are surpassed, if indeed they 
 are approached, by no other body of uien.—From Remarks at the 
 Dedication of the New Science and Engineering Buildings of McGill 
 University, Montreal, February 24, 1893, 
 
48 TECHNOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 qualify himself for an honorable and useful career in 
 life may be disinterested in every sense in which that 
 word can be used with approbation. Disinterestedness, 
 in its true meaning, depends, not upon the studies pur- 
 sued, not upon their immediate usefulness or uselessness, 
 but upon the spirit in which the student enters upon and 
 pursues his work. If there be intellectual honesty, 
 if there be zeal in investigation, if there be delight in 
 discovery, if there be fidelity to the truth as it is dis- 
 cerned, nothing more can be asked by the educator of 
 highest aims. With such a student the useful applica- 
 tions of science distinctly add to the educational value 
 of scientific study, inasmuch as they give a more di- 
 rect object to his efforts and exertions, and heighten 
 the pleasure he feels at each step of his scholarly 
 progress. 
 
 The next advantage under this head which Professor 
 Shaler finds in technical schools under the patronage of 
 universities is in the opportunity afforded to the pupils 
 to mingle some philosophical studies with those which 
 are essential to their professional courses. In this con- 
 nection it must be confessed that the faculties of many, 
 perhaps of most, technical schools have made a mistake 
 in not providing more so-called liberal studies. I agree 
 fully with Professor Shaler in the opinion that such a 
 union would conduce to ultimate professional success, 
 as well as to the gTcater happiness of the man and the 
 greater usefulness of the citizen. But the mistake re- 
 ferred to may be fairly attributed to the youth, and also, 
 
TECHNICAL SCHOOL AND UNIVERSITY. 49 
 
 in some measure, to the poverty of the technical schools. 
 That it is not in the nature of the case is shown by the 
 curriculum of the Institute of Technology, where liter- 
 ai*y and philosophical studies extending over three years 
 are required of all candidates for a degree. Of the 
 Sheffield Scientific School, in this respect, it is enough 
 to say that its students have for twenty-five years en- 
 joyed the teaching of William D. Whitney and Thomas 
 R. Lounsbury. 
 
 Another advantage which Professor Shaler discerns 
 as attaching to professional schools under the patronage 
 of universities is not easy of description or definition. 
 It may, perhaps, be expressed by the single word " at- 
 mosphere." That there is something in it no one will 
 deny; but the utmost benefit which the students of a 
 technical school can derive from this source may easily 
 be offset, many times over, by disadvantages arising 
 from other sources. The history of Amherst, Dart- 
 mouth, and Williams, and of many other American col- 
 leges abundantly shows that the best atmosphere for a 
 student is that which he himself brings to college with 
 him in his own energy, fidelity, and scholarly zeal; that 
 the next best atmosphere is that created by learned, 
 laborious, and high-minded teachers; the next best, that 
 created by a body of devoted fellow students, all intent 
 upon the work of preparation for life. Loafing in aca- 
 demic groves or browsing around among the varied 
 foliage and herbage of a great university, pleasant as it 
 may be, and well enough in its way, will have little effect 
 
50 TECHNOLOQICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 upon the making of the man, in comparison with influ- 
 ences more serious, more pervasive, more penetrating. 
 
 That the students of technology throughout our coun- 
 try do, as a body, apply themselves to their tasks with 
 wonderful energy and enthusiasm is a fact so familiar 
 that it hardly needs to be adverted to here. The acces- 
 sion of such students to a great university would doubt- 
 less do much good to the university; but that the tech- 
 nical school would be better for the association may be 
 questioned, in view of the multitude of distractions 
 which beset ordinary student life and the frivolity of 
 many of the interests which are there deemed of prime 
 importance. On their part, young men do not greatly 
 care to go to schools where they are not respected equally 
 with the best; where all the praise and all the prizes go 
 to others; where tlie stained fingers and rough clothes 
 of the laboratory mark them as belonging to a class less 
 distinguished than students of classics or philosophy. 
 Professor Shaler remarks upon " ancient prejudices con- 
 cerning the humble position of all mechanical employ- 
 ments." Is it quite certain that those prejudices are 
 even yet so far worn out of the public mind that the 
 students and teachers of technology may not feel more 
 at ease by themselves, in schools devoted to their own 
 purposes, than in schools where snobbishness makes 
 odious comparisons, and where fashions are set in re- 
 spect to student life, conduct, and dress which they have 
 neither the means nor the inclination to imitate? 
 
 With much of what Professor Shaler says regarding 
 
TECHNICAL SCHOOL AND UNIVERSITY. 51 
 
 the desirability of preparing young men for the tech- 
 nical professions more by inculcating principles and in- 
 spiring a zeal for investigation and a love of learning, 
 and less by imparting mere information and teaching 
 useful knacks and devices, I heartily concur. Too 
 much cannot be said upon this theme. But the ques- 
 tion does not necessarily concern the issue raised by Pro- 
 fessor Shaler. More than on6 detached school has 
 shown the liberality of sentiment, the comprehensiveness 
 of view, and the high moral courage necessary to place 
 and maintain technical education upon a lofty plane. 
 
THE RELATION OF PROFESSIONAL 
 AND TECHNICAL TO GENERAL 
 EDUCATION 
 
 1894 
 
An argument against the thesis that a liberal 
 education should embrace three separate zones : 
 disciplinary, liberalizing, professional or tech- 
 nical. From the Educational Review, December, 
 1894. 
 
THE EELATION OF PEOFESSIONAL AND TECH- 
 NICAL TO GENEEAL EDUCATION. 
 
 Last winter I listened to an address from a gentleman 
 of the highest distinction, connected with the educa- 
 tional interests of New England, on the subject of " A 
 Liberal Education," of which the leading thought was 
 that, in an ideal course of education, a young man would 
 pass successively through three stages: first, disciplinary; 
 second, liberalizing; third, professional or technical. 
 According to the view presented, these three stages are 
 passed, with us here in America, successively in the pre- 
 paratory school, that is, the high school or so-called 
 academy; in the college; and, finally, as the name im- 
 plies, in the professional school, whether of law, of medi- 
 cine, of divinity, or of technology. 
 
 In the middle term or stage of this course — that is, in 
 the college — it was the view of the speaker that the 
 liberalizing studies should be pursued with a good deal 
 of range as to choice of subjects, and of leisure as to the 
 time devoted to study, to reflection, to enjoyment of 
 work, and even to enjoyment of sport and play. Free- 
 dom, a considerable degree of freedom, involving, as 
 was said, both liberty of choice as to the subjects of 
 study, and leisure as to the application of the student's 
 powers, the occupation of his mind, the use of his time, 
 
 55 
 
56 TECHNOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 was, if not an essential of the liberalizing effect, at least 
 a most favorable and felicitous condition. 
 
 Looking at this scheme from beginning to end, as re- 
 lated to the existing organization of American schools 
 and liigher institutions of learning, several questions 
 suggest themselves in a way to cast some doubt upon 
 the apparent harmony of the educational process de- 
 picted. 
 
 The first is, whether our high schools and academies 
 can be given the credit of bringing their students up to 
 the grade of thoroughly disciplined young men ; whether 
 the graduates of Exeter and Andover, Easthampton, the 
 Boston Latin School, and the ordinary American city 
 high school, can safely be assumed to have passed 
 through a suflSciently long and severe disciplinary 
 process to make it desirable that, immediately upon 
 entering college, they should be subjected to the relax- 
 ing process; be treated in every way as well-trained 
 men ; be afforded large choice as to subjects of study and 
 as to the mode of pursuing the subjects chosen, with 
 abundance of leisure for intellectual enjoyment, and 
 even for sport and play. I confess that this seems to me 
 rather a roseate view of our academies and high schools. 
 Even if it be conceded that the graduates of such schools 
 have already had quite enough of mere gTammatical and 
 mathematical drill, and that the full time has come for 
 them to be exercised in studies appealing to taste and 
 sentiment, in studies of an especially liberalizing tend- 
 ency, it seems to me fairly a question whether their 
 
PROFESSIONAL AND GENERAL EDUCATION. 57 
 
 tasks, in this stage of education, should not still be made 
 to have a distinctly disciplinary character. Can a young 
 man be said to have passed through the disciplinary 
 period until he has been subjected both to mathematical 
 and grammatical gymnastics, and to hard, positive 
 training in the elements of logic, philosophy, and clas- 
 sical scholarship on the one hand, or of physical or nat- 
 ural science on the other? From my own observation 
 of several classes leaving a preparatory school, and of 
 several times that number of freshman classes entering 
 a college or technical school, as well as from reflection 
 upon the nature of the case, I should not be disposed to 
 answer the foregoing question in the affirmative. On the 
 contrary, I believe that the first two years of the ordinary 
 American college course should be regarded as belong- 
 ing distinctly to the disciplinary stage, in which the sub- 
 jects of study should be prescribed by teachers to pupils; 
 in which lessons should be regularly assigned and reci- 
 tations punctiliously exacted, the idea of mental exercise 
 and training forming still the predominant motive on 
 the part of the instructor. In saying that, in this stage 
 of education, subjects of study should be prescribed by 
 teachers to pupils, it is not meant that the same subjects 
 should necessarily be prescribed to all pupils. Con- 
 sideration might be had, in a large degree, of individual 
 aptitudes and inclinations. 
 
 A more fundamental objection to the view of college 
 life to which I have called attention is found in the 
 length of the term assigned by it to the stage of educa- 
 
58 TECHNOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 tion in which a considerable degree of leisure is to be 
 allowed the student as a liberalizing influence. If all 
 our young men came up to college at eighteen years of 
 age with thoroughly well-disciplined minds, I should 
 still be disposed to doubt whether four years could be 
 spent to advantage by any of them without a strong 
 daily sense of present obligation, and without a con- 
 siderable pressure from duties rigorously exacted. 
 None of us would grudge to a young man, at some time 
 or other, before his entrance into real life, or before be- 
 ginning a severe course of professional preparation, as 
 much as a year of leisure, especially if it could be com- 
 bined with opportunities for travel, or with studies in 
 art, music, and fine letters. But it may be doubted 
 whether any young man was ever the better for four 
 years of drifting and comparative aimlessness and idle- 
 ness, even though no distinctly bad habits were formed 
 in that period. If, in single instances, so long a period 
 of leisurely study not directed upon an object, and with 
 no severe and constant pressure from without, should 
 prove to be just what a peculiarly felicitous organiza- 
 tion might require, a teacher might well fear that, with 
 a great majority of the members of any college class, the 
 habits of mind thus formed would be seriously injurious 
 in subsequent professional study and professional prac- 
 tice. There could not fail to be danger that, after so 
 long a relaxing process, many young men, not of heroic 
 mold, would fail to pull themselves together again, and 
 would enter upon the real duties of life with somewhat 
 
PROFESSIONAL AND GENERAL EDUCATION. 59 
 
 less of energy, of incisiveness, of self-control, of self- 
 command, than is needed by those who are to do real 
 work with all their mind and with all their might. 
 
 But I am obliged further to raise the question whether 
 freedom, in the sense of comparative liberty of choice 
 and comparative leisure in study, involving the absence 
 of severe and punctilious requirements on the part of the 
 teacher, is any necessary condition, at all, of a truly 
 liberalizing process. I would not seek to disparage in 
 the slightest degree the value of liberal or liberalizing 
 exercises, whether with reference to personal happiness 
 and social influence in after-life, or with reference to 
 subsequent professional labors. Merely for business 
 success in the most distinctly technical profession, philo- 
 sophical studies are of great importance. In none of 
 the higher walks of life does it ever cease to be more the 
 question how much of a man one is, than how much he 
 knows of his special business. And this is even more 
 distinctly true in the engineering profession, for 
 example, than in the law. A great lawyer generally is 
 a great man, but he need not be: there is a melancholy 
 abundance of instances to the contrary. But a great 
 engineer must be a great man. All great engineers, 
 according to the testimony of those who knew them, 
 have been great men. The greatest engineers of the 
 world's history have been very great men. The re- 
 sponsibilities they have had to bear, the choices tliey 
 have been called to make between widely different ways 
 of reaching the object sought, the portentous conse- 
 
60 TECHNOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 quences of any mistakes they might commit, the unique 
 character of every important engineering work, which 
 reduces the value of precedent to a minimum, and, I 
 might add, the fact that in a large proportion of impor- 
 tant engineering enterprises it is the faith and courage 
 and enthusiasm of the engineer which carry his con- 
 stituency with him and cause it to be decided that the 
 work shall be undertaken and the means found — all 
 these conditions make demands which can be met only 
 by men of calm mind, of large views, of highly con- 
 servative yet boldly daring temperament, of thorough 
 self-mastery, of great power over others. These are in 
 part the gifts of nature ; but they are also, in great part, 
 the fruits of culture. 
 
 My contention is, therefore, not against the introduc- 
 tion of liberal studies, upon the most liberal scale, 
 whether for cultivation or as a means to subsequent 
 professional success, but only against the assumption 
 that liberal studies, to secure the best effect, must be pur- 
 sued with a special degree of liberty of choice and with 
 leisureliness of effort. On the contrary, I am disposed 
 to hold that liberal studies should he severely pursued; 
 and that for the highest results, the more liberalizing 
 the tendency of any intellectual exercise, the more is it 
 to be desired that it should be followed out with energy, 
 vdth closeness of application, with punctiliousness of per- 
 formance, with careful scrutiny of the results obtained. 
 Certainly, the men of our race who have most conspicu- 
 ously illustrated the virtue of mental cultivation do not 
 
PROFESSIONAL AND GENERAL EDUCATION. 61 
 
 make upon us the impression that they won their grace 
 and power easily and lightly. 
 
 But is this theory of separate zones through which the 
 student should successively pass in the course of his edu- 
 cation tenable in any part? I do not question that the 
 terms, disciplinary, liberalizing, and professional, may 
 be applied to three stages of intellectual progress; but I 
 should admit these terms only as characterizing the pre- 
 ponderant nature of the exercises pursued during these 
 successive stages. It is the greatest single fault of our 
 academies and high schools to-day that their curriculum 
 contains so little of philosophical and liberalizing 
 studies. Those schools will not do the work which the 
 student requires between fourteen and eighteen, or be- 
 tween fifteen and nineteen, years of age, until liberaliz- 
 ing, as distinguished from disciplinary, studies are 
 taught in them in large amount and by masters who can 
 command the attention, awaken the interest, and direct 
 the utmost scholarly efforts of their pupils upon themes 
 which appeal to taste and sentiment, which arouse en- 
 thusiasm, which train the student to weigh evidence, to 
 balance probabilities, and to form conclusions for him- 
 self. When one remembers the subjects to which, sixty 
 years ago, college boys of only fifteen and sixteen years 
 of age applied themselves, and to which, thirty years 
 ago, college boys of only sixteen and seventeen years 
 gave no inconsiderable part of their time, either in the 
 recitation room or in the literary or debating society, it 
 seems absurd to-day to see great fellows of nineteen 
 
62 TECHNOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 come up to college who have hardly ever been addressed 
 upon philosophical themes, almost their whole educa- 
 tional experience having been limited to grammatical 
 and mathematical drill or to the acquisition of positive 
 information, most of which should have been allowed to 
 rest undisturbed, until required for actual use, in the 
 gazetteer, the cyclopedia, and the classical manual. It 
 is from this point of view that the procrastination of the 
 age for entering college appears most to be deprecated. 
 It is not primarily the loss of time which one regrets, but 
 the fact that the liberalizing studies are introduced so 
 late. No boy ought to pass the age of sixteen without 
 being addressed on philosophical themes, without being 
 taught to reason, without being made to interest himself 
 in subjects of the highest moral and social importance. 
 So much everyone must admit. For myself, I go 
 farther, and would say that almost the only limit to the 
 advantageous introduction of liberalizing studies into 
 the academy and high school is to be found in the diffi- 
 culty of securing teachers competent to awaken the 
 pupils' minds and to present the higher themes of 
 thought and reflection in a simple and attractive man- 
 ner. That is my first criticism of the theory of educa- 
 tional zones. 
 
 On the other hand, I see no harm, but rather a dis- 
 tinct advantage, in having the studies of college inti- 
 mate and introduce those of the professional school. Of 
 course, this can be done only when the choice of a pro- 
 fession has already been made ; but, where, as in a large 
 
PROFESSIONAL AND GENERAL EDUCATION. 63 
 
 proportion of instances is the case, the college student 
 knows what his occupation in life is to be, no small part 
 of his time in college may, without any loss of liberaliz- 
 ing influence, be directed straight upon that end. If 
 the student is to go from college to a law school, why 
 should not his college studies be largely determined by 
 that fact? ISTot that he should anticipate in the slight- 
 est measure the technical study of the law; but I would 
 have a broad foundation laid for it in the extensive culti- 
 vation of history, of economics, of ethics, of logic and 
 philosophy, and perhaps of Roman law. If, on the 
 other hand, the pupil looks forward to becoming a phy- 
 sician, he might advantageously devote a part of his 
 college course to biology, botany, physiology, and 
 chemistry. These studies are admitted by nearly all 
 candid educators to be as truly of a liberalizing and up- 
 lifting tendency, at least for those who have a natural 
 inclination toward them, as are the traditional exercises 
 of the classical college, at least for such as have not a 
 natural inclination toward them. Certainly, among the 
 men of our own race, no finer examples of cultivated 
 manhood can be found than in the ranks of those who 
 have been eminent in natural history. Again, the pupil 
 who looks forward to a school of engineering, upon the 
 completion of his college studies, might very well de- 
 vote a large part of his total time to mathematics and 
 physics, studies which, when properly pursued, are truly 
 liberalizing, refining, and elevating. 
 
 It might be supposed that the recommendation that, so 
 
64 TECHNOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 far as the plans of the pupil will admit, college studies 
 should intimate and introduce the subsequent work of 
 the professional school was offered with a view either to 
 shortening the term of professional study or to making 
 possible a larger amount of professional attainments in 
 the result. And, indeed, there appears no sufficient 
 objection to securing in this way the double object of 
 mental expansion and cultivation, and a fortunate intro- 
 duction to and preparation for professional study. Yet, 
 in making this suggestion, I have chiefly in view an- 
 other and a higher object. Through such a use of the 
 college term, the student would enter the professional 
 school with broader views and with a nobler ambition. 
 It seems not altogether for good that a young man 
 should, in effect, say, " I have finished my term of liberal 
 education ; I will now turn, in a different spirit and with 
 a different purpose, to take up my direct preparation for 
 professional life." By such a system as has been sug- 
 gested, a young man who in college had become thor- 
 oughly interested in history, economics, ethics, logic, 
 and philosophy, would not feel that he was breaking off 
 his course, or was taking an essentially different direc- 
 tion when he entered the law school. On the contrary, 
 would he not begin his new work, not only with a cer- 
 tain valuable preparation which would be found useful 
 through the whole extent of his legal studies, but with a 
 larger comprehension of the social relations of his pro- 
 posed profession, with the capability for a keener appre- 
 ciation of his law school studies and exercises, and with 
 
PROFESSIONAL AND GENERAL EDUCATION. 65 
 
 a higher professional ambition? Would not the same 
 be true of a student going to a medical school from a 
 college in which he had largely devoted himself to 
 biology, botany, physiology, and chemistry; in which 
 he had acquired not only a certain amount of knowledge 
 that would become of professional use, a certain skill 
 with the microscope and the instruments of dissection, a 
 certain instinctive aptitude for experimental work, but 
 also a great enthusiasm for natural history, a profound 
 respect for its masters and investigators, a keen delight 
 in experiment and discovery? 
 
 Finally, coming now to the professional school, it ap- 
 pears to me that it should jiot be the view of those who 
 lay out its courses and arrange its exercises, that either 
 the disciplinary or the liberalizing work of education 
 has been completed. So far from this, I would have 
 those who control and administer the law school, the 
 medical school, and the school of engineering, consider 
 it their primary duty to train the powers of the pupil, to 
 widen his outlook over life, to secure for him the con- 
 servative influences of culture, to expand and enrich his 
 mind, both for his own greater happiness and for liis 
 higher usefulness to society. Speaking as the head of 
 a professional school, I say in all sincerity that those pro- 
 fessional schools will best accomplish their strictly tech- 
 nical purposes which send their graduates out into the 
 world with broad, well-balanced minds; with the faculty 
 of judgment strengthened by the mastery of principles 
 more than by the acquisition of information; with tern- 
 
66 TECHNOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 peraments chastened to the true union of conservatism 
 and enterprise by study of the best examples from prac- 
 tice; and even with fine tastes and high aspirations. 
 
 Reference has been made to the conservative influ- 
 ences of culture. It is the one fatal weakness of the 
 self-made man that, at any point in a successful career, 
 there is a liability to collapse, or to the commission of 
 first-class errors almost beyond the power of the well- 
 educated man to commit. The ghastliest mistakes of 
 life are those of self-made men theretofore successful, 
 whether in war, in politics, in professional practice, or 
 in business. It might almost be said that the gi*eater 
 the degree of previous success, or the more uniform that 
 success, the greater becomes the danger that, at some 
 critical point, the self-made man will overestimate his 
 own powers; or foolishly despise some really formidable 
 antagonist or competitor who does not answer to his 
 notions, derived from a limited experience, of what may 
 make an antagonist or competitor formidable ; or under- 
 rate some evil liability because it is of a novel type; or 
 take one thing for another on account of some superfi- 
 cial resemblance ; or in some other way commit the capi- 
 tal blunder of his life. And it is true, also, that the 
 fatal errors of self-made men largely occur after the 
 period of life when they might perhaps have been re- 
 paired. The educated man makes his mistakes at or 
 near the start. The self-made man is more likely to 
 make his when it is too late either to learn from them or 
 to surmount their consequences. 
 
PROFESSIONAL AND GENERAL EDUCATION. 67 
 
 Permit me to illustrate mj views regarding the pro- 
 fessional school as a place where mental discipline and 
 mental culture are still the first considerations, by a 
 somewhat free reference to the action recently taken by 
 the authorities of a distinguished American university 
 in respect to its law school. For many years, it is well 
 known, Columbia College maintained a law school 
 which, of its type, was not surpassed or perhaps equaled 
 in our country. A very remarkable amount of both 
 teaching and executive ability had been employed in 
 securing for it a pronounced success in carrying out its 
 fundamental plan of instruction. Of late, however, 
 under the administration of President Low, this school 
 has, in effect, been cut off from the university; and a 
 school of a very different type, more closely resembling 
 the law school of Harvard University, has been organ- 
 ized in its place. This action of Columbia College is 
 one at which all friends of education should rejoice. It 
 may be that there is in ^ew York, and perhaps in other 
 large cities, a need of law schools like that so long main- 
 tained, with such remarkable success, under the dean- 
 ship of Professor D wight: law schools in which young 
 men who have not the time or means to fit themselves 
 fully, in a large and liberal way, for that dignified and 
 honorable profession, should be enabled to acquire, 
 rapidly and effectively, the elements of the law, and to 
 pick up knowledge enough to enable them to pass the 
 bar examinations: perhaps later, in the course of prac- 
 tice, to make themselves learned and accomplished law- 
 
68 TECHNOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 yers, perhaps not. But such an establishment ought 
 not to be connected with a university, ^o university 
 has the right to maintain any school in which the pri- 
 mary object is not to make the pupils scholars in some 
 high sense of that term; in which learning is not to be 
 loved and honored for its own sake, as well as for its 
 practical uses; the atmosphere of which shall not be 
 highly academic; in which much shall not be taught 
 which the student may not have reason to employ in 
 the early stages, or perhaps in any stage, of his profes- 
 sional career; in which more importance shall not be 
 attached to the mastery of principles than to the gaining 
 of information or to the acquisition of precepts, formulae, 
 and the useful knacks and devices of a trade. It is not 
 merely that men who are trained in schools maintaining 
 a high academic character are certain, in the long run, 
 to achieve a greater professional success: an even 
 stronger reason, still, is found in the consideration that 
 men thus educated are certain to contribute in larger 
 measure to that dignity and esprit de corps which con- 
 stitute the savor of any profession, preserving it, if any- 
 thing can, from corruption and degeneration, from un- 
 worthy arts and disreputable practices. 
 
 The question has of late been actively discussed 
 whether, for the best effect, technical schools should be 
 connected with universities. The reason of the case 
 seems to differ not a little with reference to different 
 classes of professional schools. The history of our 
 country does not teach that this connection is highly im- 
 
PROFESSIONAL AND GENERAL EDUCATION. 69 
 
 portant in schools of divinity. The schools of this class 
 which have exerted the greatest influence upon the life 
 and thought of the nation have been separate schools, 
 or have been connected with universities by a very slight 
 tie. Possibly one might say that the reason for the 
 compai'ative success of separate schools of divinity has 
 largely passed away with changed professional condi- 
 tions and with even greater changes in the public 
 thought. Seventy years ago, forty years ago, the min- 
 isterial profession had much more of an unworldly char- 
 acter than it has to-day; and there was a certain and a 
 large advantage, according to the ideals of the times, inl 
 keeping the students of divinity apart by themselves, in 
 an atmosphere of their own, where they should be as 
 little as possible subject to influences which might have 
 been deemed discordant with the proper sentiments of 
 the theological seminary, or might have interfered with 
 the profound and lasting impression which the masters 
 of theology desired to make upon their pupils. To-day 
 the clergyman is largely a man of affairs; the impor- 
 tance of denominational tenets is greatly reduced, even 
 in the minds of theologians; and it seems not unreason- 
 able to say that these changed conditions fairly remove 
 some part, at least, of the special advantage formerly 
 enjoyed by the separate schools of divinity. 
 
 In respect to schools of medicine, the evidence derived 
 from past experience is conflicting. Certainly, some of 
 the strongest schools of this class in the United States 
 have held, at most, but a nominal relation to universities. 
 
10 TECHNOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 On the other hand, as it appears to me, a layman, there 
 has always been a certain leadership by schools inti- 
 mately connected with universities and under strong aca- 
 demic influences, notably in the case of the Medical 
 School of Harvard. There seems little reason to doubt 
 that the developments of the future will be mainly, if 
 not wholly, in the direction of medical schools vitally 
 related to our leading universities, and owing a large 
 share of their scientific spirit and professional enthu- 
 siasm to such a relationship. 
 
 It is in respect to law schools that the considerations 
 favoring the union of professional schools with univer- 
 sities attain their greatest force. The clerical profes- 
 sion is, by the very definition, a consecrated profession; 
 and those who pursue it must come and remain under 
 influences which promote disinterestedness and self- 
 devotion. The medical profession is, in the nature of 
 the case, at least a semi-consecrated profession, the in- 
 tense interest of the physician in the welfare of his 
 patients and in the relief of pain and suffering neces- 
 sarily constituting a powerful force, ^vhich, in spite of 
 the disturbing influence of specialization, tends to make 
 the practitioner in a high degree disinterested and to 
 draw him on from stage to stage of true professional 
 advancement. The legal profession, on the contrary, 
 alike through the tendency to constantly increasing 
 specialization, through the great rewards to be reaped 
 by professional success, and through the large oppor- 
 tunities afforded for sharp practice and unworthy arti- 
 
PROFESSIONAL AND GENERAL EDUCATION. 11 
 
 fices, is always in danger of degenerating into a selfish, 
 money-making, and unprincipled pursuit. Painful 
 illustrations of this tendency are constantly appearing. 
 Under such conditions, everything that makes the law 
 student more scholarly, that gives him a higher respect 
 for his profession, that furnishes him with motives and 
 incentives to high-mindedness and unselfishness in prac- 
 tice, must be for the good of the profession and the com- 
 munity. And it is here that the influence of the 
 university may be exerted to profit. 
 
 In the case of the engineering school and the school 
 of technology, the considerations which should affect us 
 differ not a little from those which stand related to the 
 classes of schools already mentioned, owing to the exist- 
 ence of ancient prejudices, not yet outworn, in the minds 
 of the general community and especially of those who 
 control our higher institutions of learning. The school 
 of law, the school of medicine, the school of divinity are 
 all academic by tradition. Schools for these classes 
 have for centuries been connected with universities; 
 their characteristic studies have won a place in public 
 estimation; proficiency in those studies has long been 
 recognized by the conferring of the highest academic 
 degrees; students of these schools stand in a position of 
 honor before the undergraduates of the proudest univer- 
 sity. With the school of engineering or of technology 
 the case is different. The professions for which they 
 prepare their pupils are new ; and the exercises by which 
 the student is trained in them are still subject, in some 
 
12 TECHNOLOGICAL EDUCATION 
 
 degree, to antiquated and snobbisli prejudice. I have 
 no desire at this time to go over the ground of my con- 
 troversy, a year ago, with Professor Shaler of the Law- 
 rence Scientific School; ^ but will content myself with 
 remarking that no advantages which could possibly re- 
 sult to a school of engineering or technology from asso- 
 ciation with a university — and those advantages need 
 not be characterized as slight — will compensate for the 
 disadvantages of such a union, if there is to be any 
 failure on the part 'of the administrators and governors 
 of the university profoundly to believe in the kind of 
 education given in such a school, thoroughly to respect 
 the sort of man who is to study in such a school and the 
 sort of man who is to give the instruction, and in all 
 ways to magnify and exalt the dignity and importance of 
 the professions for which such a school prepares its 
 pupils. And again, if there is to be among the body of 
 students at a university any lack of consideration for 
 the technical student, any disposition to look upon him 
 as preparing himself for a work of less dignity and im- 
 portance than that of the so-called learned professions, 
 any of that snobbishness of feeling which sometimes 
 leads young men to look upon the soiled fingers and 
 rough clothes of the laboratory or machine shop as 
 badges of social inferiority, then it is certain that stu- 
 dents and teachers of technology will be more at ease by 
 themselves, in schools devoted to their own purposes. 
 
 ' See The Technical School and the University, p. 37 ante. 
 
PROFESSIONAL AND GENERAL EDUCATION. VS 
 
 I have thus far spoken of the relations of technical 
 and professional to general education in a series of 
 schools represented bj the academy or high school, the 
 college, and the professional school. I come now to a 
 more difficult question, about which, as more difficult, 
 I shall have not more, but less, to say: namely, what 
 shall be the relations of technical and professional to 
 general education in cases where the college drops out 
 altogether; where young men find themselves without 
 the time or pecuniary means to interpose any course of 
 study between the high school and the professional 
 school? It is well known that this is the condition of 
 by far the greater part of those who at any time in this 
 country are fitting themselves for professional life. 
 And this statement is equally true whether we take all 
 classes of professional schools together or take each class 
 by itself. As I can claim to know little of schools of 
 law, medicine, and divinity, I shall confine my remarks 
 to schools of engineering and technology. 
 
 When Mr. Abbott Lawrence made his munificent 
 gift for the endowment of the Lawrence Scientific 
 School, it is plain that the students of that school were 
 expected to be, in the main, college graduates who had 
 received their training and cultivation at Harvard or 
 some other of the old-fashioned colleges of those days. 
 This expectation has been altogether disappointed. In 
 the last list of the students of the La^vrence School which 
 I have examined appear the names of only eight col- 
 lege graduates. The Sheffield School at Yale has sue- 
 
74 TECHNOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 ceeded in retaining a certain number of graduates from 
 its own three-years' course, and in attracting a few 
 graduates of Yale College and of other institutions; but 
 its last catalogue shows the proportion of graduate stu- 
 dents to be but about seven per cent. Of recent years, 
 the proportion of graduate students at the Institute of 
 Technology has been four or five per cent., rising, the 
 present year, to seven. It is clear, therefore, that we 
 are to look upon the schools of applied science or tech- 
 nology as having, by the necessity of the case, to serve 
 their students both as colleges of culture and as profes- 
 sional schools; the only alternative being that, if these 
 schools refuse the office of promoting the mental devel- 
 opment, training, and culture of their students, those 
 young men must go altogether without the advantages 
 which the college man seeks in college. Our question, 
 then, is: can the school of applied science or technology, 
 in any part, — and if so, in how large a part, — make up 
 to the student the loss of a college course ? 
 
 In the first place, one may venture to inquire 
 whether the loss is, in point of fact, as great as might 
 at first appear. Conceding fully that college life is a 
 very charming thing at the time, and that the recollec- 
 tions of it and the associations formed through it add 
 much to the pleasure of subsequent existence; conceding 
 that every parent would gladly secure for his son this 
 privilege if his means allowed, are we bound to state the 
 loss of time, for all effective purposes of mental disci- 
 pline and cultivation, in the case of those who miss a col- 
 
PROFESSIONAL AND GENERAL EDUCATION. 15 
 
 lege course, at full four years? I should be disposed, 
 from my observation of the average college student, to 
 put the loss at very much less than this. But, whatever 
 the estimate of loss, can the school of applied science and 
 technology afford the diligent student an opportunity to 
 make up a part of what he has missed in not going to 
 college? Are the necessary requirements of profes- 
 sional preparation such and so great, that the student of 
 one of these schools must feel that this part of his edu- 
 cation has been entirely sacrificed ; and that he must con- 
 tent himself with a practical preparation for professional 
 success, accepting a certain and a considerable defi- 
 ciency upon the side of mental discipline and cultiva- 
 tion, as a part of his lot in life? 
 
 To the foregoing question I have no hesitation, as the 
 result of my own observation and reflection, in giving a 
 negative answer. For all the scientific professions 
 which I know anything about, the best technical prepa- 
 ration is that which will also prove to be predominantly 
 of a truly educational character, expanding and enlarg- 
 ing the mind, disciplining the powers, and fitting its sub- 
 ject for manhood and citizenship. 
 
 The question, how far immediate professional success 
 is to be weighed against ultimate professional success, 
 has already been decided, by our large American experi- 
 ence, in favor of a decided preference to be given to the 
 latter. It is, of course, an immense advantage to the 
 students of technical schools, and to their parents and 
 friends, that the young graduate is at once able to earn 
 
16 TECHNOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 liis livelihood/ In this clay, when social necessities are 
 so grinding, and when it is so hard to start a son in life, 
 that advantage is not to be neglected. Yet there is 
 always a wide field of choice open to those who control 
 
 ' As to the salaries received by our graduates [of the Massachusetts 
 Institute of Technology], individually or as a body, I have almost no 
 information. It is a subject which has never concerned me in the 
 least; and I have not even taken the trouble to collate and preserve 
 •whatever information has come to me casually. I presume it is with 
 the engineering profession and the architectural profession as it is 
 with the profession of lawyer or doctor, namely, that there is a cer- 
 tain number who attain the prizes; and another very much hirger 
 number who realize an immediate and comfortable support; and an- 
 other, I should hope a very much smaller number, who simply get 
 on. We all know that there are hosts of lawyers and doctors who 
 earn nothing but the barest living, even if they pay their office rent. 
 I see no reason why the same should not be true of engineers or 
 architects or chemists. If a man will simply go on surveying, year 
 after year, continuing indefinitely to do what any young man a year 
 out of a technical school can do fairly well, there is no reason why 
 he should receive a very high salary for the service, since the num- 
 ber of persons who would be glad to do this at a moderate compensa- 
 tion would be very large. There is no mystery or magic about a 
 scientific profession. Such an education as we give here enables a 
 man, after a few years' experience, to take the very highest positions 
 in the direction of business and in the conduct of industry; but a 
 man has to do something in this world besides qualify himself for 
 advanced positions. lie has to seek them and to find them. He 
 must have the tact, the savoir faire, the energy, the patience, the 
 good sense to make his way; exactly as would be the case with the 
 well-educated young lawyer or young doctor. No school makes a 
 man. All it can do is to take the man as he comes to it and fit him 
 by training, by practice, and by information imparted, for whatever 
 duties he may encounter in his professional life. The man has still 
 to make his own career. The fact that he has professional standing 
 at the start gives him an advantage over the college-bred man in 
 getting a living for the first two or three years. After that the rate 
 at which he shall go forward will depend entirely upon his capacity, 
 energy, fidelity, and tact. — From a letter to an intending student, 
 1896. 
 
PROFESSIONAL AND GENERAL EDUCATION. 77 
 
 technical schools, as to the degree in which they will 
 offer to their pupils studies and exercises the value of 
 which will be most fully realized in the first few years 
 after graduation, or studies and exercises whose value 
 will be increasingly felt through the whole course of 
 their professional careers, and which will qualify them, 
 in larger and ever larger measure, for positions of re- 
 sponsibility and trust, with advancing years. Such 
 studies and exercises are almost wholly of a nature to 
 afford mental discipline and culture in a very high de- 
 gree. It would be strange, indeed, if in the infancy of 
 technological education, mistakes had not been made in 
 this matter, the teacher, in his eagerness to fit the stu- 
 dent for professional life, assigning too much value to 
 those things which are of immediate utility. But I feel 
 confident, from a careful study of institutions of this 
 class in the United States, that this error has already 
 been very largely apprehended, in all its seriousness; 
 that among those who administer technological educa- 
 tion, there is a decided movement in the direction of sub- 
 ordinating the acquisition of the knacks of a trade and 
 mere technical devices to the study of principles; and 
 that, even in the applications of principles, valuable, and 
 invaluable, as these are in technological education, refer- 
 ence is now had rather to their effect in giving a greater 
 mastery of the principles themselves, than to their imme- 
 diate utility in professional practice. Nay, more, I 
 confidently believe that even in the study of scientific 
 principles themselves, a continuously increasing regard 
 
V8 TECHNOLOOICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 will be paid to their influence in expanding the mind, 
 enlarging the view, elevating the aims, and strengthen- 
 ing the character of the pupil. 
 
 But we should not trust alone to the study of scientific 
 principles in a technological school for making good to 
 the pupil the loss of a college education. There should 
 be introduced into all technical courses no inconsiderable 
 degree of purely philosophical study. The experience, 
 during twenty-nine years, of the school with which T. 
 have the honor to be connected, shows this to be entirely 
 feasible. No one has ever received the degree of the 
 Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has not, in 
 addition to all scientific and technical studies and exer- 
 cises, taken substantial courses, extending through at 
 least three years, not only in modern languages, but also 
 in history, literature, and economics. Of course, under 
 the conditions existing, a large amount of time cannot 
 be assigned to such studies; but if they are pursued with 
 the zeal and earnestness which characterize the students 
 of these schools, much can yet be done in a limited 
 period. As before remarked, liberalizing studies need 
 not be followed out either in a loose or a leisurely man- 
 ner. With a proper arrangement of subjects and with 
 good teachers, it is entirely possible for those who ad- 
 minister the institutions of applied science and tech- 
 nology to give their pupils, in addition to the studies and 
 exercises which will make themresolute, exact, and strong, 
 at least a moderate measure of the studies and exer- 
 cises which will make them also broad and high and fine. 
 
TECHNOLOGICAL AND TECHNICAL 
 EDUCATION 
 
 1896 
 
An Address Delivered at the Dedication op the 
 Clarkson Memorial School of Technology, Potsdam, 
 New York, November 30, 18%. 
 
 President Walker's last public address upon 
 education. 
 
TECHNOLOGICAL AND TECHNICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 In reading recently the very valuable work entitled 
 Notes on North America, by Professor J. F. W. John- 
 ston, of Scotland, published in 1851, I came across this 
 passage:^ "Dr. Wayland has rendered it exceedingly 
 probable — I may say, has almost demonstrated — that 
 the cause of the falling off in the number of students in 
 the New England universities is not the expense in- 
 curred, but the inadequacy, in kind, of the instruction 
 given in these institutions to meet the more pressing 
 wants of a people advancing rapidly in all the arts of 
 life." The interest which this reference aroused led 
 me to search for the ^vritings of Dr. Wayland to which 
 Professor Johnston here alluded. In a report to the 
 Corporation of Brown University, on " Changes in the 
 System of Collegiate Education," printed in 1850, I 
 find that distinguished educator and great master of 
 moral philosophy discussing the courses of study most 
 beneficial to the community in a spirit so admirable, 
 with a freedom from prejudice so remarkable, with a 
 breadth of comprehension so rarely attained, that I am 
 sure it will deeply interest you to hear his words, even at 
 some length. 
 
 That which prompted President Wayland to this in- 
 vestigation was the very striking fact that — as you will 
 ' Vol. I., p. 475 (American edition). — Ed. 
 81 
 
82 TECHNOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 now be surprised to hear — the number of college stu- 
 dents had for a long time not only failed to keep pace 
 with the growth of wealth and population, but had even 
 declined. Taking the twelve colleges and universities 
 which then formed the New England system, Dr. Way- 
 land found that, while the average attendance for the 
 five-year period 1840-44 had been 2063, the number 
 had sunk for the period 1845-49 to 2000, while for the 
 year 1850 it was only 1884. Yet during this time there 
 had been a great increase of endowments and of annual 
 grants for reducing tuition, and even for making it free 
 to many classes of students. Upon this remarkable 
 showing President Wayland dwells with much emphasis. 
 " It would seem," he says, " from such facts as these, 
 that our present system of collegiate education is not 
 accomplishing the purposes intended, . . Our colleges 
 are not filled, because we do not furnish the education 
 desired by the people. . . We have produced an article 
 for which the demand is diminishing. We sell it at less 
 than cost, and the deficiency is made up by charity. We 
 give it away; and still the demand diminishes." 
 
 Tracing this effect back to its cause, Dr. Wayland 
 found in the curriculum of the American colleges which 
 then existed a grave lack of adaptation to the needs of 
 the community. " We have," he says, " in this coun- 
 try one hundred and twenty colleges, forty-two theo- 
 logical seminaries, and forty-seven law schools, and we 
 have not a single institution designed to furnish the 
 agriculturist, the manufacturer, the mechanic, or the 
 
TECHNOLOGICAL AND TECHNICAL EDUCATION. 83 
 
 merchant with the education that will prepare him for 
 the profession to which his life is to be devoted." 
 
 This failure of the educational institutions of the 
 country to meet the real needs of the people was then, 
 as Dr. Wayland conceived it, becoming ever more and 
 more painfully felt. " With the present century," he 
 says, " a new era dawned upon the world. A host of 
 new sciences arose, all holding important relations to the 
 progress of civilization. Here was a whole people in an 
 entirely novel position. Almost the whole nation was 
 able to read. Mind had been quickened to intense 
 energy by the events of the Revolution. The spirit of 
 self-reliance had gained strength by the result of that 
 contest. A country rich in every form of capability had 
 just come into their possession. Its wealth was inex- 
 haustible, and its adaptation to the production of most 
 of the great staples of commerce unsurpassed. All that 
 was needed in order to develop its resources was well- 
 directed labor. But labor can only be skillfully directed 
 by science ; and the sciences now coming into notice were 
 precisely those which the condition of such a country 
 rendered indispensable to success. 
 
 " That such a people could be satisfied with the teach- 
 ing of Greek, Latin, and the elements of mathematics, 
 was plainly impossible. Lands were to be surveyed, 
 roads to be constructed, ships to be built and navigated, 
 soils of every kind, and under every variety of climate, 
 were to be cultivated, manufactures were to be estab- 
 lished which must soon come into competition with 
 
84 TECHNOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 those of more advanced nations; and, in a word, all the 
 means which science has provided to aid the progress of 
 civilization must be employed if this youthful republic 
 would place itself abreast of the empires of Europe." 
 
 " The moral conditions being equal," Dr. Wayland 
 remarks in another place, " the progress of a nation in 
 wealth, happiness, and refinement is measured by the 
 universality of its knowledge of the laws of nature and 
 its skill in adapting these laws to the purposes of man. 
 Civilization is advancing; and it can only advance in 
 the line of the useful arts. It is, therefore, of the 
 greatest national importance to spread broadcast over the 
 community that knowledge by which- alone the useful 
 arts can be multiplied and perfected. Every producer 
 who labors in his art scientifically is the best of all ex- 
 perimenters; and he is, of all men, the most likely, by 
 discovery, to add to our knowledge of the laws of nature. 
 He is, also, specially the individual most likely to invent 
 the means by which those laws shall be subjected to the 
 service of man. Of the truth of these remarks every- 
 one must be convinced who will observe the success to 
 which any artisan arrives, who, fortunately, by his own 
 efforts (for at present he could do it in no other way), 
 has attained to a knowledge of the principles which 
 govern the process in which he is employed. 
 
 " Suppose that since the Revolution as much capital 
 and talent had been employed in diffusing among all 
 classes of society the knowledge of which every class 
 stands in need, as has been employed in inculcating the 
 
TECHNOLOGICAL AND TECHNICAL EDUCATION. 85 
 
 knowledge needed in preparation for the professions, is 
 it possible to estimate the benefits which would have 
 been conferred upon our country? The untold millions 
 that have been wasted by ignorance would have been 
 now actively employed in production. A knowledge 
 universally diffused of the laws of vegetation might 
 have doubled our annual agricultural products. Prob- 
 ably no country on earth can boast of as intelligent a 
 class of mechanics and manufacturers as our own. Had 
 a knowledge of principles been generally diffused among 
 them we should have already outstripped Europe in all 
 those arts which increase the comforts or multiply the 
 refinements of human life. Perhaps in the earlier his- 
 tory of our country such knowledge would not have been 
 adequately appreciated. That period, however, has now 
 passed away. An impulse has been given to common- 
 school education which cannot but render every man 
 "definitely sensible of his wants, and consequently eager 
 to supply them. The time, then, would seem to have 
 arrived when our institutions of learning are called upon 
 to place themselves in harmony with the advanced and 
 rapidly-advancing condition of society." 
 
 Four years later — namely, in 1854 — Dr. Wayland 
 delivered an address at Union College, on the fiftieth 
 anniversary of the presidency of Eliphalet Nott, in 
 which he took up again the question of the studies 
 which should be pursued in colleges, and advanced dis- 
 tinctly from his position of 1850. On the former occa- 
 sion the main weight of his argument had been, first, 
 
86 TECHNOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 that the colleges needed the new subjects of study as a 
 means of saving themselves from decline in influence 
 and in numbers; secondly, that the country needed to 
 have the colleges take up these subjects, in order that 
 its industries might be prosecuted and its resources de- 
 veloped with skill and scientific knowledge. In the 
 Union College address President Wayland asserted, with 
 great emphasis, his conviction, not only that the new 
 subjects of study were, if not of peculiar educational 
 virtue, at the least equally well entitled to be recognized 
 and respected as appropriate means for the development 
 of mind and the molding of character ; but, also, that the 
 union of the two classes of subjects in our colleges was 
 essential to secure the best effect of either, the two sup- 
 plementing and reinforcing each other. Strongly re- 
 pudiating the traditional idea that there are two kinds of 
 knowledge : " one necessary for the attainment of our 
 means of happiness, but incapable of nourishing and 
 strengthening the soul; and the other tending to self- 
 culture, but leading to no single practicable advantage," 
 President Wayland advanced boldly to the position that 
 the cultivation of the natural and physical sciences, both 
 by themselves and with direct reference to their social 
 and industrial uses, was to be regarded as essential to the 
 completion of the college curriculum, so that the tastes, 
 the aptitudes, and the intellectual abilities of each pupil 
 might find the most congenial field for study and re- 
 search. Time will not permit me to quote from Dr. 
 Wayland's address on this point. It is the less impor- 
 
TEGHNOLOGIGAL AND TECHNICAL EDUCATION. 87 
 
 tant because all whicli Dr. Wayland, in defiance of tlie 
 traditional opinions of the day, then claimed for scien- 
 tific and technical studies and exercises, has since been 
 fully conceded, and has, indeed, furnished the reason for 
 sweeping changes in the curriculum, and even in the 
 entrance requirements, of the classical colleges. When 
 we see the oldest university of America conferring its 
 degree upon those who have never had an hour of either 
 Latin or Greek within its walls, and even dropping 
 Greek from its list of positive entrance requirements, 
 we get a measure of the enormous advance in educa- 
 tional philosophy which has taken place since President 
 Wayland dared to challenge the opinion, then univer- 
 sally held by the teachers and governors of American 
 colleges and universities, that the classics were absolutely 
 essential to liberal culture and that no one could be 
 called a well-educated man without them. 
 
 Truly remarkable as were these words of the illus- 
 trious president of Brown University, in that stage of 
 our industrial development. Dr. Wayland was yet rather 
 a prophet than a pioneer. During the decade which fol- 
 lowed, there occurred a considerable extension of studies 
 in science, especially in natural science, in his own uni- 
 versity and in many of the colleges of the traditional 
 type; but the creation of the modern school of science 
 and technology was yet to come. A few purely tech- 
 nical schools had, indeed, been already brought into 
 existence. The Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute at 
 Troy had been founded as early as 1824, though its 
 
88 TECHNOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 actual work was for some years delayed. About 1846- 
 47, the Scientific Department of Yale and the Lawrence 
 Scientific School of Harvard came into existence; and 
 the University of Michigan took on an engineering de- 
 partment. These were, however, as we must now view 
 them, rather technical than educational in their plan and 
 purpose. They aimed to give to their small bodies of 
 students the special training needed to equip them for 
 practical work as engineers or chemists. They did not 
 assume responsibility for the general education of their 
 pupils. They were not colleges, in the sense in which 
 the modern scientific and technical school is a college. 
 Even with this limitation, these schools did a work, 
 though necessarily on a very small scale, in the develop- 
 ment of American arts and industries, which deserves 
 most cordial recognition. One cannot read the roll of 
 the early graduates of the Rensselaer Institute, for 
 example, without admiration. But it was reserved for 
 the period of the great Civil "War, and the years imme- 
 diately succeeding, to witness the rapid development of 
 the modern college of the sciences and the useful arts. 
 How far this marvelous growth of institutions adapted to 
 the requirements of modem life was due to the war 
 itself, working a tremendous incitement of the national 
 ideals, ambitions, and aspirations ; how far it was due to 
 the stage of industrial development which had been 
 reached in the peaceful progress of the nation, it would 
 not be profitable to speculate. Certain it is that our 
 people, in their eager exploitation of the natural re- 
 
TECHNOLOGICAL AND TECHNICAL EDUCATION. 89 
 
 sources of the continent, had attained a condition where 
 it became absolutely necessary that the enterprises into 
 which their labor and capital were to be put should be 
 organized and directed with much more of skill and of 
 scientific knowledge than had been applied to their early 
 efforts at manufacture and transportation. The larger 
 scale on which the operations of trade and production 
 were to be carried on, the ever-increasing possibilities of 
 business, the rapidly intensifying severity of competi- 
 tion, the quickening of communication, had created an 
 urgent want for greater technical skill and more highly 
 trained intelligence. The old wasteful ways of dealing 
 with materials, the rule-of-thumb methods of construc- 
 tion, the haphazard administration, which characterized 
 our earlier industrial efforts, could not have been con- 
 tinued without greatly retarding the national develop- 
 ment, if not without in-eparable loss in the result. In a 
 sense, and in a high sense, the scientific and technical 
 school came because the time for it had come. Never- 
 theless, it is to be confessed, or rather, it is to be grate- 
 fully admitted, that the promptness and the fullness by 
 which these new needs of the age were met were largely 
 due to remarkable prescience and grasp of fundamental 
 principles on the part of a few men, statesmen, scholars, 
 or the enlightened possessors of great fortunes, rather 
 than to popular appreciation of them. Ever since 1857, 
 Professor William Barton Eogers, formerly of the Uni- 
 versity of Virginia and then of Boston, had been urging 
 upon the citizens and the legislators of Massachusetts 
 
90 TECHNOLOQICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 his plans for the foundation of a comprehensive school 
 of science and technology/ On April 10, 1861, four 
 days before the firing on Sumter, the Legislature of 
 Massachusetts gave effect to these plans by the incor- 
 poration of such an institution, of which Dr. Rogers be- 
 came the first president. In the subsequent develop- 
 ment of this, the first separate and complete college of 
 the modern type, the plans of its great founder were 
 carried out with scarcely an appreciable modification. 
 Even to-day, thirty years later, with twelve hundred stu- 
 dents, one hundred and fifty teachers, and a group of 
 large buildings crowded with powerful and delicate en- 
 ginery, machinery, and apparatus, there is scarcely a 
 feature which did not clearly appear in the memorial 
 that Dr. Rogers addressed to the Massachusetts Legis- 
 lature in 1857. At New Haven, that prince of public 
 benefactors, Joseph E. Sheffield, in a noble and enlight- 
 ened public spirit, provided the means by which the 
 small and feeble scientific department of Yale became 
 the important, and, — though nominally attached to the 
 University, — the substantially distinct and independent 
 college of science which will bear the name of its 
 founder down to remotest ages. Congress, too, under 
 the leadership of Senator Morrill, of Vermont, by an Act 
 of the year 1862, made liberal grants of public lands 
 for the endowment, in each state and territory, of at 
 least one college, which, though, in the public estima- 
 tion at least, primarily intended for the encouragement 
 ' See Life and Letters of William Barton Rogers ; 2 v., Boston, 1897. 
 
TECHNOLOOIGAL AND TECHNICAL EDUCATION. 91 
 
 of agriculture, was yet to be charged with the develop- 
 ment of the mechanic arts. Subsequent Acts of Con- 
 gress have provided for still further grants to the col- 
 leges established under the Act of 1862 and for the 
 endowment of agricultural experiment stations. 
 
 It is not needful to tell here the story of the rapid de- 
 velopment of the modem college in America. To-day 
 more than one hundred institutions, separate colleges or 
 departments of universities, are offering the instruc- 
 tion in applied science which, less than forty years 
 ago, was given, upon a small scale, in the few schools 
 or departments of universities that I have named. 
 The students of these schools, even their yearly 
 graduates, are numbered by the thousand. What 
 the new colleges have done for the arts and indus- 
 tries of the United States time will fail to tell. 
 Not a branch of industry, not a transportation line 
 in all the land, but has profited by the work of in- 
 struction and investigation carried on in them. There 
 are to-day large manufactories whose entire profit is de- 
 rived from a single one of the waste products which for- 
 merly found their way down the canals into the river, or 
 were thrown unregarded into useless heaps behind the 
 works. It is not extravagant to say that much of the 
 industrial history of our time would never have been 
 written but for the schools of applied science, because 
 the things we are now proud to record would then not 
 have taken place. 
 
 It is not, however, of the industrial and strictly tech- 
 
92 TECHNOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 nical, but of the proper educational work of these insti- 
 tutions that I desire to speak at this time. The modem 
 schools of science and technology differ from the few 
 which antedated the war in that, speaking generally, 
 they assume responsibility for the intellectual develop- 
 ment of their pupils, using the technical applications of 
 science, not merely, or even mainly, with reference to 
 their subsequent industrial uses, but with reference to 
 their effect in the training of mind and in the molding 
 of character. It is unquestionably true that some of 
 these institutions, in their zeal for results immediately 
 useful, at first made their courses too narrow and neg- 
 lected those liberal studies and exercises which are 
 essential to any complete and harmonious scheme of edu- 
 cation. In instances, this error has already been cor- 
 rected; and the tendency is now in the direction of put- 
 ting these institutions in line with the best results of 
 pedagogical thinking and experience. I do not hesitate 
 to say that the product of these schools, in mind and 
 manhood, in intellect and character, is not a whit in- 
 ferior, in essential worth, to that of the traditional col- 
 leges. Altogether, in addition to what may be claimed 
 for these institutions in the way of promoting the 
 industrial development of the nation, we may safely 
 assert that they have come to form a most important 
 part of the proper educational system of the country; 
 that they are doing a work in the intellectual and moral 
 development of our people, and are making a contribu- 
 tion to the manhood and citizenship of the country which 
 
TECHNOLOGICAL AND TECHNICAL EDUCATION. 93 
 
 is not surpassed, if indeed it be equaled, by tliat of the 
 classical colleges. [Here follows substantially what 
 appears in the address on The Rise and Importance of 
 Applied Science in American Education, p. 21 et seq., 
 ante.~\ 
 
 During the past few years the older colleges have, in- 
 deed, been enriching and diversifying their curriculums 
 by the introduction and extension of science study, at 
 the expense of exercises which they once declared abso- 
 lutely essential to a liberal education; but we still hold 
 that in the technical applications of the sciences the 
 new colleges have an agency and instrumentality of 
 special educational efficiency. The earnestness of study, 
 the directness and continuity of attention, the zeal and 
 enthusiasm of work, which arise from the immediate 
 contemplation and pursuit of useful arts, do not merely 
 secure a more perfect mastery of the principles of 
 science; they of themselves constitute an educational 
 force which every teacher in such a school recognizes 
 with delight, but which, in colleges of the old type, gen- 
 erally characterizes only the gifted scholar. To the 
 sincerity of purpose and the intellectual honesty which 
 are bred in the laboratory of chemistry, physics, and 
 mechanics, in marked contrast to the dangerous tenden- 
 cies to plausibility, sophistry, and self-delusion which 
 insidiously beset the pursuit of philosophy, dialectics, 
 and rhetoric, is added, in the school of technology, a 
 strong and almost overpowering impulse toward study 
 and research, which has already, in spite of traditional 
 
94 TECHNOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 prejudices, caused these institutions to be recognized as 
 of the highest educational character by many of the best 
 thinkers and teachers of our land. 
 
 Such was the origin of the modem school of science 
 and technology in the United States. In his most radi- 
 cal mood, President Wayland contemplated no such 
 development. Indeed, it was of the essence of his argu- 
 ment that the work he proposed should be done by exist- 
 ing colleges of the traditional type. One of his pleas for 
 the prompt acceptance of this mission was that, other- 
 Avise, institutions would come into being to do the work 
 which the colleges declined, thus, according to his prog- 
 nostication, increasing the competition for students, al- 
 ready too severe, and still further subdividing the body 
 of possible scholars. In the report from which I have 
 quoted. President AVayland particularly referi'ed to in- 
 cipient movements, both in Massachusetts and in New 
 York, for the establishment of agricultural colleges. It 
 was this which he desired to see the existing colleges 
 head off by enlarging, eni'iching, and diversifying their 
 curriculum, so as to provide for the many and varied 
 needs of modern life. 
 
 We may hold that the separate and distinct schools of 
 science and technology were brought into existence by 
 the tardiness and reluctance of the teachers and gov- 
 ernors of tlie old-fashioned colleges, in modifying their 
 courses of study to suit tlie conditions of the age ; or that 
 it was in the nature of the case that this should come 
 about, and that, no matter how promptly and how liber- 
 
TECHNOLOOICAL AND TECHNICAL EDUCATION. 95 
 
 ally the colleges might have introduced, between 1850 
 and 1860, the sciences into their curriculum, or how ear- 
 nestly and intelligently they might have sought to adapt 
 their instruction to the wants of the time, the new col- 
 leges would still have come into being. In either case 
 we have to note the strildng and significant fact that the 
 anticipated effect which President Wayland so much 
 deprecated, of still further increasing a competition 
 already too severe, and still further dividing up a pa- 
 tronage already too small, has not followed. On the 
 contrary, while the new schools and institutions have 
 exhibited a wonderful gi'owth, and have done an edu- 
 cational work which, alike as to quantity and quality, 
 has been most remarkable, the older colleges have not 
 suffered in the least from their competition. Adapting 
 themselves to the changed conditions, relaxing much of 
 the severity with which certain particular studies were 
 once insisted upon as of the very essentials of a liberal 
 education, freely introducing courses in pure science, 
 they have not only much more than held their ovn\ in 
 numbers, during the past thirty years, but have largely 
 increased both the range of their work and the degree of 
 their educational efficiency. 
 
 Such a result, though paradoxical, contains no deep 
 mystery. Profound and sagacious as President Way- 
 land was, his anxiety lest a new type of school should 
 arise to diminish the attendance upon the existing col- 
 leges shows that there was at least one law of social and 
 industrial economy which he had not apprehended. 
 
96 TECHNOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 What needs to "be said is, not that the new colleges failed 
 to cut into the patronage of the older institutions, as 
 something which it was reasonably to be expected they 
 would do; but that the appearance of the new type of 
 schools, appealing to new interests, using new methods, 
 applying themselves to objects not before considered, so 
 stimulated and strengthened the total educational im- 
 jDulse throughout the country as not only to secure for 
 themselves an ample support and patronage, but also to 
 give fresh life and activity to the older colleges, which 
 had sunk into routine, tradition, and imitation. I will 
 not say that the men who founded the new colleges saved 
 the old — that might be claiming too much ; but I believe 
 that no student of American education will question 
 that the new colleges had an immense influence in 
 quickening the life of the old and in promoting the 
 searching reforms from within which render them to- 
 day so much more active and efficient than in any pre- 
 vious stage of their existence. 
 
 In social and industrial economy there is no greater 
 fallacy than that of a predetermined dividend. As an 
 economist, I have all my life been fighting it in the de- 
 partment of labor and wages. Here, in the educational 
 history of the past fifty years, we get another striking 
 view of the fallacy of this notion. It is ordinarily said 
 that demand creates supply ; and this is true throughout 
 the lower ranges of life. In the matter of food and fuel 
 and clothing, and, indeed, in regard to all things where 
 human wants have become fixed and settled, we have no 
 
TECHNOLOOICAL AND TECHNICAL EDUCATION. 97 
 
 occasion to worry ourselves about the supply. Demand 
 will take care of that. Civilization may be trusted to 
 hold on to whatever advances it has once fully and fairly 
 made, whether in material or in other directions. The 
 conscious wants of humanity will suffice to secure the due 
 supply without any organized public or private effort 
 other than that originating in personal interest. But in 
 all things high and fine, and generally, also, in every ad- 
 vance which material civilization is to make, there must 
 be a better intelligence than that of the market, which 
 shall apprehend not what men want, but what they 
 ought to want. There must be disinterested efforts on 
 the part of the natural leaders of society which shall 
 secure, at whatever sacrifice, such a demonstration of the 
 merits and advantages of the yet unknown thing, such a 
 supply of the new good, as shall create the demand for it. 
 It will not be until that want has been fairly and fully 
 wrought into the public consciousness, that the supply 
 may thereafter be left to take care of itself. The 
 American schools of science and technology illustrate in 
 an eminent degree the law of human progress which has 
 just been stated. They themselves came into existence, 
 not in obedience to a conscious popular demand for 
 them, but by reason of the foresight, the unselfish devo- 
 tion, and the strenuous self-sacrificing endeavors of a 
 few men who were in advance of their times; and, hav- 
 ing thus come into existence, they have, through their 
 whole course, freely illustrated the principle that, in 
 certain classes of things, supply must create demand. It 
 
98 TECHNOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 was by the graduation from colleges of science and 
 technology of men thoroughly prepared to do the work 
 in chemistry, physics, mechanics, and engineering, 
 which the country needed to have done, that the coun- 
 try came to be conscious of that need. We have to-day 
 thousands of chemists, electricians, mechanicians, and 
 engineers engaged in developing the marvelous natural 
 resources of our country and in carrying on its giant in- 
 dustries. Not because there was, thirty, twenty, or ten 
 years ago, any such conscious demand for those services 
 as would have justified so many young men in preparing 
 themselves for that work, but because the schools of 
 science and technology began to send out, first, scores; 
 then, hundreds; and afterwards, thousands of well edu- 
 cated and thoroughly trained young men, who, finding 
 their way — it might even be said forcing their way — 
 into employment here, there, and anywhere, at what- 
 ever scale of initial compensation, in whatever capacity, 
 — sometimes, in the beginning, doing the work of day 
 laborers, — demonstrated to reluctant and prejudiced 
 minds their capability of usefulness. In this case as in 
 so many others, demand has been created by first fur- 
 nishing the supply, by showing what young men prop- 
 erly educated and highly trained can do in organizing 
 and directing the forces of American industry. 
 
 So great a change, as has thus been traced, among the 
 higher institutions of learning in the United States could 
 not take place without producing very marked effects 
 upon the scheme of secondary education, and even upon 
 
TECnNOLOGICAL AND TECHNICAL EDUCATION. 99 
 
 the courses of the grammar school. The usefulness of 
 the college of science and technology, both from the 
 practical and from the educational point of view, has 
 passed beyond dispute. Not only its own work, but the 
 large concessions in the direction of scientific study 
 which are so rapidly being made by the classical col- 
 leges, render it impossible for any responsible person to 
 denounce, or even to deprecate, the movement which has 
 been in such rapid progress during the past thirty years, 
 though criticism of general methods and of special exer- 
 cises will long be appropriate and welcome. But the 
 work of modernizing the secondary school, so that it 
 shall more closely meet present needs, has yet to be ac- 
 complished. Much has already been done; but nearly 
 all that has been done remains tentative, both in theory 
 and in practice. The subject remains to be thought out 
 and wrought out; more, perhaps, to be wrought out, by 
 trial and experiment, than to be thought out. 
 
 One thing, at least, I think we may say. The so- 
 called mechanic arts high school, whether supported 
 by the city or maintained by private endowment, has 
 already assumed, in some degree, its definite shape. 
 Doubtless there will be changes in its curriculum. The 
 proportions in which shopwork, drawing, and geometry 
 shall be joined, in the scheme of instruction, with gram- 
 mar, history, the modern languages, and geography, 
 have as yet been only rudely determined; while within 
 each of the newer courses of study a great deal has to 
 be learned regarding the most efiFective methods to be 
 
100 TECHNOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 employed. But enougli has already been shown fully 
 to convince my own mind that this addition to the 
 American system of education is to be a permanent and 
 important one. Moreover, I feel confident that we 
 shall Avitness here another exemplification of the prin- 
 ciple which was noted in regard to the effect upon the 
 attendance of the older colleges produced by the estab- 
 lishment of the newer. I believe it will appear that the 
 mechanic arts high schools do not, in the large result, 
 take at all from the existing classical and English high 
 schools. On the contrary, I hope to see the new schools 
 not only create a constituency of their own, but even 
 communicate an impulse throughout the whole high 
 school system not unlike that communicated to the whole 
 college system by the colleges of science and technology. 
 If this result shall be attained it will be most fortunate. 
 The present condition of things, where in some com- 
 munities not more than ten, and in other communities 
 not more than five, per cent, of the pupils of the gram- 
 mar schools go forward into the secondary schools, is not 
 one to be viewed with complacency. It certainly seems 
 as if the high schools had fallen out of an intimate adap- 
 tation to the wants of modern life, into the stage of 
 routine, tradition, and imitation, as did the colleges of 
 the United States before the period to which President 
 Wayland's report related. I cannot but cherish the 
 hope that not only will the mechanic arts high schools 
 gather within their walls tens of thousands of youth 
 whose parents would otherwise have taken them out of 
 
TECHNOLOOICAL AND TECHNICAL EDUCATION. 101 
 
 school, at fourteen years of age, to begin their work in 
 life without any adequate training or equipment, but 
 that the very establishment of these schools will have an 
 effect largely to increase the attendance upon the tradi- 
 tional high school. That the study of chemistry and 
 physics will more and more extend through the sev- 
 eral years of the high school, whether the Latin school, 
 or the English high school, or the mechanic arts high 
 school, I regard as certain. In addition to the remark- 
 able virtue which these studies possess from a purely 
 educational point of view, in addition to all the advan- 
 tages which attend their pursuit with reference to higher 
 work, whether in science or in technology, there is one 
 important consideration which favors their adoption as 
 no inconsiderable part of the curriculum of all secondary 
 schools. This consideration lies in the fact that, peda- 
 gogically speaking, elementary chemistry and elemen- 
 tary physics are, perhaps, the two subjects which are most 
 easily taught; which, with moderate attention and 
 fidelity, are best taught, even though the teacher be not 
 gifted. 
 
 In a certain sense and to a considerable degree they 
 teach themselves. I am not unmindful of the great 
 differences which exist in the progress of the youthful 
 pupil in chemistry or physics, according as his teacher is 
 one who possesses natural and acquired gifts of instruc- 
 tion, or is one whose chief qualification is that he, him- 
 self, knows his subject well. But I still hold to the 
 opinion that of all the subjects of instruction known to 
 
102 TECHNOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 the high school curriculum, these are the two which are 
 least dependent upon rare powers of instruction in the 
 teacher. Compare them, in this respect, with Latin, or 
 Greek, or history, or even, I may say, with geography. 
 It may not be flattering to the teaching profession to 
 give prominence to such a consideration; but we are 
 bound to recognize the fact that, with a very large ma- 
 jority of the members of that profession, as they are at 
 present educated, equipped, and called into service, the 
 main qualification which we see in them is that they 
 fairly well understand the subjects they are to teach and 
 are earnestly desirous of doing justice to their pupils. 
 In such a situation it is no small advantage that in so 
 large a degree chemistry and physics do their own teach- 
 ing, drawing pupils on, naturally and almost irresistibly, 
 from experiment to experiment, from one stage of at- 
 tainment to another. 
 
 The problem of introducing science studies and prac- 
 tical exercises into the grammar schools is far more diffi- 
 cult. It is a matter in respect to which we have made 
 very little progress during the past ten or fifteen years, 
 although much thought and attention have been given 
 to the subject by some of the most accomplished educa- 
 tors of our country. I shall not attempt to deal with 
 the question of methods at this time. The subject is too 
 large and complicated. JSTor do I feel myself qualified 
 to offer suggestions of value toward the solution of the 
 problem. I shall confine myself to presenting the con- 
 siderations which draw my own mind to the conclusion 
 
TECHNOLOGICAL AND TECHNICAL EDUCATION. 103 
 
 that an extensive introduction of the objective study of 
 concrete things and of hand and tool work of one kind 
 or another, into all the grades of the grammar school, 
 is of great importance, both for the fullest and happiest 
 development of the powers of the pupils and for the 
 best social and industrial results in their after-life. 
 
 [President "Walker then proceeds to develop these 
 considerations upon lines similar to those followed in 
 the address upon Industrial Education. See pp. 141 
 to 145 infra.'] 
 
 I have hurriedly reviewed the several grades of 
 schools as they are generally organized under our Ameri- 
 can system of education — the college, the high school, 
 and the grammar school. But the present occasion calls 
 sharply to our attention the coming into existence, dur- 
 ing the past few years, of a new type of school, which is 
 out of the ordinary line of ascent; which does not con- 
 fine itself to a definite place in the educational order, but 
 seeks objects of its own, and is at liberty to use all the 
 agencies, instrumentalities, and methods which are ap- 
 propriate thereto. The schools referred to are as yet 
 few in number and are still in the experimental stage; 
 but every believer in the new education must regard 
 their establishment with great satisfaction, looking to 
 them, not only for much positive good in the education 
 and life preparation of their own pupils, but also for 
 much that will be valuable in the way of suggestion, 
 both as to subjects of study and as to the most effective 
 methods of presenting such subjects. 
 
104 TECHNOLOQICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 As examples of these new institutions may be cited 
 the Pratt Institute of Brooklyn, the Drexel Institute of 
 Philadelphia, and that whose foundation we celebrate 
 to-day. Each of these is the result of munificent bene- 
 factions on the part of wealthy individuals seeking the 
 public good. Each comes into the field with a " free 
 hand," bound by no traditions; perfectly at liberty to 
 seek the best, from whatever source ; to prove all things 
 and to hold fast to that which is found good; ready, 
 eager, and anxious to occupy every part of the ground 
 which has been overlooked or neglected in the existing 
 system of instruction, and to meet every educational 
 want which has been left unsatisfied. These schools 
 call themselves neither preparatory schools, nor high 
 schools, nor colleges. They recognize no responsibility 
 to the established order. They purpose to make them- 
 selves; not to be fitted into a place in a system. It fol- 
 lows from this that much of their work is at present ex- 
 perimental; that their schemes are large and somewhat 
 vague; and that their ultimate form is not easy to con- 
 jecture. Herein is one of the chief reasons for the hope 
 of their future usefulness. Every friend of education 
 must watch their course with interest, and study their 
 programmes and their catalogues to see from time to 
 time what they shall undertake and what they shall 
 drop; in which direction they shall grow and in which 
 other directions they shall, if not decline, at least not 
 progress or not progress rapidly. 
 
 The advantages which I am sanguine enough to an- 
 
TECHNOLOGICAL AND TECHNICAL EDUCATION. 105 
 
 ticipate from the establishment of schools of the new 
 type are three : 
 
 First, as the result of their freedom from obligation to 
 the general system of education, they not only will be 
 at liberty, but they will be strongly impelled to search 
 out those real needs of the American people in the mat- 
 ter of education which are at present unsupplied. We 
 must not presume that such needs, even of the most im- 
 perative character, may not exist. The long paragraphs 
 from the report of Dr. Wayland, in 1850, strikingly 
 show how far a system of public instruction, long estab- 
 lished, highly appreciated, even venerated and regarded 
 as above criticism, may be grossly inadequate to the de- 
 mands of a given time. In the present stage of social 
 and industrial change, change almost bewildering in the 
 rapidity of its movement and in the extent of the fields 
 over which it is taking place, it is most reasonable to be- 
 lieve that great gaps exist between the public needs and 
 the accomplished or even attempted supply of those 
 needs by the existing institutions of learning, even in- 
 cluding the schools of science and technology, as devel- 
 oped during the past thirty years. If such be the case, 
 and it would be most unreasonable to deny that it is 
 highly probable, the " free hand " of which I have 
 spoken, in connection with the schools of the type we are 
 considering, must be an important condition of success- 
 ful effort to supplement the American system of in- 
 struction. To " cut and fit and try on " is their special 
 mission; and no one who takes this view of the subject 
 
106 TECHNOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 can fail to regard it as most undesirable that the gov- 
 ernors and teachei's of these schools should allow them 
 to be early crystallized into definite forms. It is essen- 
 tial to this function, as I conceive it, that they should 
 remain largely in a state of flux ; open to all impressions ; 
 mobile under all influences; not too soon assuming that 
 they have found their ultimate resting place and have 
 taken on their distinctive character. 
 
 Secondly, it seems to me reasonable that we should 
 look to the schools of the new type for continuous ex- 
 perimentation in regard to specific courses of instruc- 
 tion and technical means and methods of teaching, the 
 benefit of which shall be chiefly acquired by other insti- 
 tutions. The same " free hand " which enables these 
 schools to take up any line of work which seems at 
 present to be inadequately performed, to enter any field 
 which appears not to be covered by existing agencies, 
 will enable them to exercise the largest liberty and 
 activity in developing the details of each and every sub- 
 ject to which they may apply themselves. It scarcely 
 needs to be said that such freedom brings with it peculiar 
 dangers. A school which belongs to a system and is 
 fitted into a place; which, at the one end, takes its pupils 
 from lower schools, and at the other delivers its gradu- 
 ates to higher institutions, subject to their examination 
 and criticism, cannot go far or rapidly astray. But a 
 school which has entire liberty to choose its own field of 
 work and to adapt its own methods, to cut and fit and 
 try on, must depend upon its own boards of instruction 
 
TECHNOLOGICAL AND TECHNICAL EDUCATION. 107 
 
 and management properly to temper enterprise, courage, 
 and intellectual curiosity with wholesome conservatism 
 and sound practical sense. 
 
 Thirdly, the last special advantage which I will indi- 
 cate, — though doubtless there are others, — as reasonably 
 to be expected from the establishment of schools of the 
 new type, is the training of teachers to conduct the prac- 
 tical studies and exercises so rapidly making their way 
 into the secondary schools of our land, and which may 
 be expected soon to be introduced into our superior 
 grammar schools. I am not ignorant of the fact that a 
 few of the traditional normal schools of our country 
 have shown great liberality and much intelligence in 
 undertaking to prepare their pupils to give instruction 
 in these branches. I recognize the excellent work of 
 the New York J^Tormal School in undertaking to prepare 
 teachers of the domestic and the mechanic arts for the 
 public schools. But all that can be done in this direc- 
 tion will not be too much. Indeed, the extension of the 
 new subjects of instruction has, from the first, been 
 greatly hampered by the lack of competent instructors. 
 Moreover, I cannot but think that from schools of this 
 type will go forth many teachers better prepared to con- 
 tribute to the development of the theory and practice of 
 the new profession than the graduates of the traditional 
 normal school with a little of the mechanic arts added, 
 or even than the graduates of a normal school specific- 
 ally and solely directed to the training of teachers for 
 that work. 
 
108 TECHNOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 With these words I close this already too long pro- 
 tracted address. I congratulate the citizens of Potsdam 
 that their home has been made the seat of an institu- 
 tion of this character, established by the munificence of 
 three noble women who recognize the obligation which 
 wealth imposes, and whose eyes have been anointed to 
 see that the best thing about money is its power of doing 
 good to others. I congratulate the governors and 
 teachers of this Institute upon the opportunities which 
 have been opened to them to make a special and impor- 
 tant contribution, not only to the welfare of hundreds 
 and thousands of future pupils of their own, but to the 
 philosophy of education throughout our land. Just as 
 the early schools of technology gave to the classical col- 
 leges the laboratory of general physics and the labora- 
 tory of general chemistry, now regarded as essential and 
 even indispensable in every school of liberal learning, so 
 here at Potsdam may be developed and -wrought out 
 agents and instrumentalities of instruction, courses of 
 study, methods of teaching, which in another generation 
 shall be applied to the training of millions of American 
 youth. 
 
THE PROBLEM OF "ENGLISH" IN 
 SCHOOLS OF TECHNOLOGY 
 
J. An Extract prom thb Report op the President 
 OP THE Massachusetts Institute op Technology fob 
 THE Year 1890. 
 
 II. A Communication to the Department of English 
 OF THE Massachusetts Institute op Technology. 
 
THE PEOBLEM OF " ENGLISH " IN SCHOOLS OF 
 TECHNOLOGY. 
 
 I. 
 
 The problem of giving instruction in English, to the 
 "best effect, to students of scientific and technical schools, 
 is a very interesting one. The teacher who shall solve 
 it will make a contribution to the philosophy of educa- 
 tion which will be of great value, inasmuch as the num- 
 ber of these schools is large, and is rapidly increasing. 
 The instruction given in English in the classical colleges 
 is, by general admission, very unsatisfactory; but, at 
 least, it stands related to the fact that the pupils have a 
 comparatively large vocabulary, derived from long- 
 continued work in language; that they have made a 
 special study of etymology; that they have become fa- 
 miliar with the figures of rhetoric through the Latin and 
 the Greek, and that they have for years been exercised 
 upon subtile distinctions, alike in language-study and in 
 philosophy. Directly to introduce the methods of Eng- 
 lish instruction, as practiced in our colleges, into a scien- 
 tific school, would be to invite failure. Here the pupils 
 have had little language-study; they are generally un- 
 familiar with the etymology of the words they use; they 
 have little ingenuity in expression, and, indeed, but 
 slight disposition to make much of expression. For 
 
112 TECHNOLOQICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 pupils of this class, the methods that would be proper 
 and useful in a college must be modified in no incon- 
 siderable degree if the highest success is to be obtained. 
 
 I have spoken of the deficiencies of the student of 
 science, as compared with the student of the classics, of 
 metaphysics, and of rhetoric, so far as the familiar col- 
 lege work in English is concerned. But it must not be 
 thought that the account is all on one side. The scien- 
 tific student has, to compensate for these deficiencies, 
 certain mental qualities which may be made use of to 
 good effect in training him to use his own language in 
 statement, in narrative, in argument, or in the writing 
 of personal letters and professional reports. The prob- 
 lem in pedagogics which I spoke of has reference to the 
 best means of making use of those qualities in the teach- 
 ing of English. 
 
 The student of natural and physical science has cer- 
 tain deficiencies in language which have been fairly ac- 
 knowledged ; but he has an immense advantage in a far 
 greater clearness and vividness in the formation of men- 
 tal images, and a much stronger grasp upon his concep- 
 tions. Trained, day by day and year by year, in the 
 objective study of concrete things, he sees nothing 
 vaguely; the images he forms are definite and distinct; 
 what he knows, he knows perfectly. If fine writing 
 be the end in view, these mental characteristics may or 
 may not be advantageous; but for the purposes of 
 simple, straightforward, manly expression, whether in 
 description, in exposition, in narrative, in argument, or 
 
THE PROBLEM OF " ENGLISH." 113 
 
 in business correspondence, they are a source of great 
 power. Such a student will still need much study and 
 practice in the use of language to save him from com- 
 mitting numberless solecisms and to give him the com- 
 pletest use of his own powers of expression; but he is, 
 taken altogether, a student of English not a whit less 
 promising than his fellow in the classical college. IS^ay, 
 the advantage indicated extends from the thinking to 
 the speaking or the writing, since every word which is 
 seen to contain a physical image, as so many words do, 
 and indeed as nearly all words in their beginning did, 
 means more to a student of science than to a student of 
 language, literature, and philosophy. 
 
 II. 
 
 The problem of dealing with college students who 
 are awkward, weak, or inaccurate — one, or it may be all 
 of these — in " English," that is, in conversation, in com- 
 position, in penmanship, and in spelling, is a difficult one 
 in classical colleges. It is still more so in a school like 
 this [the Massachusetts Institute of Technology], where 
 the amount of time and effort which, at the best, can be 
 devoted to instruction in these branches is very closely 
 restricted. 
 
 To begin with, it may be said that the sort of teach- 
 ing which alone can help this class of students, which 
 alone can save them from grave injury to their social 
 and professional character and standing, does not really 
 belong to the college. It is in the earlier schools — if in 
 
114 TECHNOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 school at all — that the pupil should acquire ease, direct- 
 ness, simplicity, and accuracy of expression — whether 
 in statement or in illustration, whether in narrative or 
 in argument. If a child passes from the grammar 
 school into the high school slow, blundering, and awk- 
 ward in expression, heedless in his writing, inaccurate 
 in spelling, he can, indeed, be helped in a measure to 
 overcome his defects and infirmities, by a great deal of 
 attention and eifort on the part of his teachers; but it 
 will require — let us say — three times as much of that 
 effort and attention to effect any degree of improvement 
 in these particulars as would have been needed to bring 
 about the same result in the grammar school. And, 
 again, if the pupil goes on from the high school into the 
 college still suffering from defects and infirmities re- 
 garding expression, it will require — again let us say — 
 three times as much effort and attention on the part of 
 his teacher there to give him anything like adequate 
 power in arranging his ideas with reference to their ex- 
 pression, in controlling his thoughts while passing down 
 the flume to the wheel, and in uttering them easily, 
 clearly, connectedly, accurately, as would have been re- 
 quired to effect this training in the high school. In 
 other words, when a college is called upon to teach and 
 to train a pupil so that he shall not prejudice himself 
 through all the rest of his life, socially and profession- 
 ally, by blundering, awkward, obscure, and inaccurate 
 expression, it is in fact required to do something which 
 does not belong to the college at all, and the dijQ&culties 
 
THE PROBLEM OF " ENGLISH." 115 
 
 of which have been aggravated many-fold by neglect in 
 earlier years. For a college to impart the ability to 
 write simple, plain, straightforward, agreeable English 
 is as much more difficult than would have been the same 
 task in respect to the same pupil in the grammar school, 
 as is the correction of a grievous fault in the limbs of a 
 mature man, compared with the correction of the same 
 fault in the limbs of a growing child. 
 
 But the fact that this kind of work does not properly 
 belong to the college at all constitutes no reason why, 
 in the face of neglect by the lower schools, the college 
 should not take it up, for the sake of otherwise good and 
 successful scholars who have the promise of professional 
 and social usefulness. The faculty of a school like our 
 own cannot content themselves with saying that this 
 pupil or that ought to have acquired his " English " be- 
 fore coming hither; and that they will not do anything 
 to meet the lamentable fact that, in all matters concern- 
 ing the arrangement and expression of his thoughts for 
 writing or for speaking, he is as woeful a case of de- 
 formity, obliquity, and perversion as ever was brought 
 into the operating room of a hospital. Little as that 
 task is properly chargeable upon the teachers of an in- 
 stitution of such a grade, it is still true that many deserv- 
 ing young men who, as students of science and in 
 technical work, are strong, clear-headed, and sensible, 
 and who may confidently be relied upon to do excellent 
 work in a scientific profession, will suffer deep and 
 irreparable injury by reason of deficiencies and mistakes 
 
116 TECHNOLOQIGAL EDUCATION. 
 
 in expression and representation, unless they are helped 
 in this matter, l^ot only will they fail to do justice to 
 their scientific conceptions, to the results of their prac- 
 tical investigations, to the validity of their economic 
 proposals, but they will be at a continual disadvantage in 
 the view of their employers and in the public mind, in 
 comparison with men who, as thinkers or workers, may 
 be miles below them. It is true, and we have to accept 
 the fact, that a monstrously disproportionate value is at- 
 tached to certain matters of expression, as for example, 
 spelling, A man may be learned, fertile in ideas, rich 
 in imagery, even eloquent in speech, and yet a mistake 
 in spelling will make him an object of ridicule by men 
 who have not a hundredth part his accomplishments and 
 acquirements. A man may not know three facts in hu- 
 man history, much less have an idea regarding any one 
 of them, and yet not be so much at a disadvantage in 
 consequence, as would a learned and able scholar and 
 thinker who sometimes misspelled a word. !Now, it is 
 not the business of the colleges to convert public opinion 
 to a true relative appreciation of spelling in comparison 
 with other gifts and accomplishments, but to accept the 
 opinion and present view of society on that point, and, 
 by such opportunities as they may have at command, to 
 endeavor to save otherwise promising pupils from a 
 grave disadvantage, both professional and social. 
 
 What, then, may the technical and scientific school, 
 where only a small portion of time can possibly be given 
 to English studies, do for those students who have come 
 
THE PROBLEM OF ' ' ENGLISH. " 117 
 
 up from the high schools prepared in the main to carry 
 on their college work satisfactorily, perhaps with marked 
 success, and yet grossly deficient and defective in the 
 matter of which we have been speaking? We vnll 
 assume that some portion of time is given in the college 
 to the instruction of the whole body of students in Eng- 
 lish. Shall the view which has been presented above of 
 the very great importance of this matter to the less for- 
 tunate members of the class — English-wise — and the 
 acknowledgment by the faculty of a certain degree of 
 responsibility in the case, lead to an effort to increase the 
 time devoted to English by all the students of the suc- 
 cessive classes? or shall those who are notably deficient 
 in the respects indicated be constituted a separate body, 
 for additional, and as far as possible, individual treat- 
 ment? As to the first suggestion, it may at once be said 
 that a three-fold increase of the time now devoted at the 
 Institute of Technology to class-work in English would 
 not meet the case; and, of course, any such increase is 
 out of the question. Indeed, I am much disposed to 
 think that no amount of additional class-work would 
 have the result, in any large degree, of curing the defects 
 and supplying the deficiencies of which we have been 
 speaking. For students suffering from this infirmity, 
 class-room work hardly hits the mark at all, though it 
 may be of great value to those who have a certain nat- 
 ural competency in English and have been well trained 
 and under good influences, in this respect, at home and 
 in the preparatory schools. Even if it were possible 
 
118 TECHNOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 largely to increase the amount of time given to English 
 work, it would be better to adopt the alternative sugges- 
 tion and to look upon all students who are notably defi- 
 cient in this particular as constituting a class for distinct 
 and, as far as possible, individual treatment. Without 
 going into the philosophy of the subject, I beg to be 
 permitted to outline a scheme which, it seems to me, 
 might be adopted to good advantage by the English de- 
 partment, with the sanction of the faculty. 
 
 (1) In the first place, there should be made up dur- 
 ing the first term in the English department, as the 
 result of entrance examinations, of department work in 
 composition, and of the inspection of matter written in 
 the course of the students' ordinary work in other de- 
 partments, a " black list," though not a list so called, on 
 which should be found the names of all students who 
 show marked deficiency in the respects indicated. The 
 value of such a list would greatly depend upon its being 
 made up, not only with care, but conservatively. If 
 students were liable to be put upon the list merely by 
 reason of a slip or two, occurring in simple carelessness 
 or haste, the purposes of the system would be practically 
 defeated. Only those names should go upon the list 
 which represent students suffering from inveterate weak- 
 nesses or disorders in thinking and writing. 
 
 (2) Each student thus put upon the list, — which I 
 shall continue for the purposes of the present discussion 
 to call the " black list," though of course such a title 
 would be impossible in the actual working of the scheme, 
 
TEE PROBLEM OF •'ENGLISH." 119 
 
 — should be informed by the head of the English de- 
 partment, in the most friendly and kindly way, that 
 attention has been called to certain marked defects, defi- 
 ciencies, and weaknesses on his English side. This com- 
 munication should go on to explain how much of social 
 and even of professional annoyance and embarrassment 
 may be suffered from this source. The student should 
 then be advised to give his thought seriously to the mat- 
 ter, trying for himself to rectify the tendency to make 
 mistakes or to write or speak awkwardly or blunder- 
 ingly. He would naturally be advised always to look 
 over his own letters and papers after writing them — a 
 matter in respect to which most young men are very 
 much at fault. Certain books would perhaps be com- 
 mended to him. The advantage of such a communica- 
 tion would be found largely in the fact that the evil 
 tendencies referred to are due, in many cases, to thought- 
 lessness or carelessness. Just as hosts of boys and girls 
 who, in the course of becoming round-shouldered and 
 slouching in bearing and carriage, have, simply by 
 being nagged about it by parents and brothers and sis- 
 ters, been brought into almost painful uprightness 
 and rectangularity, so many students need only to have 
 the matter brought sharply to their attention and held 
 strongly before it, to induce efforts on their part which 
 would suffice to secure good results. With the forma- 
 tion of the " black list," and with such notices of warn- 
 ing and advice to the individual students concerned, I 
 would have nothing more done during the first year, be- 
 
120 TECHNOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 yond what miglit come through a cordial invitation to 
 students to consult tlieir teachers freely. 
 
 (3) At the end of the first year, I would have the 
 English department carefully revise the " black list," 
 and send out to each person who had received the pre- 
 vious notice, one or the other of two forms of communi- 
 cation. In one the student might be encouraged, not 
 too much, by the information that his work had shown 
 improvement; but he should be advised very earnestly 
 to make further progress in this direction, especially by 
 reading books which have a peculiar ease and felicity of 
 expression, and in some considerable measure, by read- 
 ing such books aloud, or by hearing them read aloud by 
 others. I am convinced that the education of the ear is 
 too much neglected in the modem school. The other 
 form of communication referred to might be sent to 
 those students who had not made an appreciable degree 
 of progTess in correcting their faults or in supplying 
 their deficiencies. This letter should be kind in tone; 
 but it should very strongly set forth the disadvantages 
 which the young men will inevitably suffer, both socially 
 and professionally, unless they rid themselves of their 
 limitations, their weaknesses, and their positive defects 
 in the matter of writing and speaking. The communi- 
 cation might go on to say that this warning, given at the 
 beginning of the summer vacation, was intended to sug- 
 gest to them the importance of making strenuous efforts 
 to that end during the three or four months following. 
 Attendance on a summer school, if practicable, should 
 
THE PROBLEM OF ''ENGLISH." 121 
 
 be recommended. Rules and prescriptions suitable to 
 the general case of such students might be given. In 
 the preparation of these, the teachers of English at the 
 Institute of Technology would have an opportunity to 
 achieve great distinction, since the field is largely virgin 
 soil. This communication might close with the state- 
 ment that, unless the course of the second year should 
 show a marked improvement in the respect under con- 
 sideration, the student would at the end be formally 
 *' conditioned " in English and would thereupon be re- 
 quired to take a considerable body of studies and exer- 
 cises, under direction and supervision, and as a purely 
 extra thing, without which he could not further attend 
 as a regular student in the Institute. Such a condition, 
 for example, might require attendance upon a summer 
 course especially conducted for students of this class, in 
 which attention would be principally given to weak- 
 nesses, and to defects and mistakes of expression. The 
 condition imposed should not be a slight one, and should 
 be remorselessly exacted. The mere fact of placing so 
 much importance upon this matter, at the middle of the 
 college course, would have a salutary effect in arousing 
 the pupils' attention and interest in the matter; while 
 some weeks of hard work under severe criticism could 
 not fail to have a certain positive result for good, neces- 
 sarily much greater in the case of some students than of 
 others. 
 
 (4) Having done so much as has been indicated, it 
 seems to me that the faculty of the Institute, as a body, 
 
122 TECHNOLOOIGAL EDUCATION. 
 
 might thereafter regard themselves as discharged of re- 
 sponsibility in this matter, though the English depart- 
 ment will, of course, continually strive to improve the 
 character of the students' work through class exercises 
 and individual conferences, and through criticism of 
 papers prepared in the course of professional study. I 
 would refuse the degree of the Institute, on account of 
 deficiencies or defects in English, to no man who was in 
 all other respects well qualified for a creditable profes- 
 sional career, I would recognize the fact that there are 
 some persons who are deaf, dumb, and blind on this side 
 of their minds and yet are capable of excellent work as 
 scholars, as thinkers, and as men engaged in professional 
 practice. All the lecturing in the world will do very 
 little for this insoluble residue, and they must go into the 
 world bearing this burden for life, just as they would 
 bear a physical infirmity which was not to be cured. 
 
 Of course, all the foregoing should be only in the 
 nature of a supplement to the unceasing efforts of the 
 faculty of the Institute, and especially of the teachers 
 of English, to raise the standard of the high schools, and, 
 through them, of the grammar schools, in the respect 
 under consideration. While, in the spirit of humanity, 
 dealing as well as possible with the bad surgical cases 
 sent up to college, we should see to it, so far as lies in 
 us, that the earlier schools give orthopedic treatment in 
 all cases of deformity or weakness, at the stage when 
 these can be dealt with most easily and effectively. 
 
MANUAL EDUCATION 
 
 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 
 
 1884 
 
Address before the American Social Science As- 
 sociation, September 9, 1884. From the Journal of 
 Social Science, No. 19. 
 
INDUSTEIAL EDUCATION. 
 
 In the active discussion now in progress concerning 
 Industrial Education, that term is used in such widely 
 different senses as to require that a paper treating of this 
 theme should begin with a definition. With a view to 
 this, I offer the following classification of the schools 
 which undertake what is by one person or another under- 
 stood to be industrial education. 
 
 First, we have the schools of applied science and tech- 
 nology, whose purpose is to train the engineer, the archi- 
 tect, the geologist, the chemist, the metallurgist, for the 
 work of their several professions. These schools do not 
 aim to educate the men who are to do the manual work 
 of modem industry. In the main, they do not even aim 
 to educate the men who are to oversee and educate the 
 work of others — the men, that is, who are to act as super- 
 intendents of labor. It is the function of schools of 
 this class to train those who shall investigate the material 
 resources of the country, and shall project operations 
 for the development of such resources, to be carried on 
 by bodies of labor and of capital under the direction, in 
 the main, of persons who have received their education 
 and training in schools of a different order, or through 
 practical experience in the field, the shop, and the mine. 
 
 The distinction here rudely outlined between the per- 
 
126 MANUAL EDUCATION. 
 
 son who investigates the material resources of the eoun- 
 Xry, in any direction, and organizes industrial enterprises 
 for the exploitation of those resources, and the per- 
 son who superintends and directs the labor employed 
 in such enterprises, is not, indeed, strictly maintained; 
 but it exists in a general way, although a tendency to 
 employ, in increasing degree, civil, mechanical, and min- 
 ing engineers, chemists, and metallurgists in adminis- 
 trative and executive capacities, has been observed dur- 
 ing the past few years. 
 
 The expediency of establishing schools of the class 
 herein indicated is no longer a matter of debate. The 
 general government and many, if not all, of the State 
 governments have recognized the importance of thus 
 providing for the scientific development of our indus- 
 tries; and the large and increasing measure of reputation 
 and financial success enjoyed by the Troy School of 
 Civil Engineering, the Hoboken School of Mechanical 
 Engineering, the Sheffield School of Civil and Mechan- 
 ical Engineering, the Columbia School of Mining Engi- 
 neering, the Boston Institute of Technology, with its 
 departments of civil, mechanical, and mining engineer- 
 ing, the Worcester Eree Institute of Industrial Science, 
 the Chandler Scientific School and the Thayer Engineer- 
 ing School, both of Dartmouth College, with a score of 
 other institutions all deserving to be named were this 
 the immediate subject of our paper, show that the value 
 of such institutions has passed beyond challenge or cavil. 
 
 A second and widely different class of institutions is 
 
INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. 127 
 
 found in the so-called trade schools. The purpose of 
 schools of this class is to train the actual workers in in- 
 dustry, and to train them, moreover, for what it is pre- 
 sumed will be their individual occupations in life. In 
 the main, these schools do not aim to train the overseers 
 and superintendents of labor, but the individual opera- 
 tives. And, in general, the work of these schools 
 assumes that the particular vocation for life of the chil- 
 dren who enter them is already reasonably well deter- 
 mined. 
 
 The efforts at industrial education in the States of 
 Europe have commonly taken this form. The trade 
 schools of Switzerland, of Holland, and of France, are 
 schools in which young people are taught well-defined 
 trades, generally such as are pursued in the immediate 
 region where the schools are established. Thus, certain 
 trade schools in Switzerland have reference to the gTeat 
 watch-making industry of that country, and have it for 
 their object to train pupils who, it is assumed, will, by 
 almost an industrial necessity, become watchmakers. 
 
 The third class of schools, and that to which the 
 present paper will be confined, comprises those into 
 which manual and mechanical instruction and training 
 are introduced in greater or less degree; not, on the one 
 hand, to make engineers ; not, on the other hand, for the 
 purpose of training the pupil to become an operative in 
 any particular branch of industry which it is presumed 
 he will enter; but as a part of the general education of 
 the scholar, with reference to the fuller and more sym- 
 
128 MANUAL EDUCATION. 
 
 metrical development of all his faculties and powers, and 
 to the promotion of his success in whatever sphere of 
 labor it shall subsequently be determined he is to enter. 
 
 It is schools of this class the establishment of which is 
 at this time being especially urged, under the general 
 title of Industrial Education. 
 
 In some respects, the term " industrial education " is 
 itself an unfortunate one. The term " mechanical edu- 
 cation " would better express the objects of those who 
 are now advocating an important modification of our 
 system of instruction. But the term first referred to 
 has been so widely adopted in the discussion of this sub- 
 ject that it is likely to be used long after the mechanical 
 education of our children and youth has passed the 
 period of debate and has become incorporated in our 
 public school system. 
 
 The distinction between the trade school and the 
 school of the kind last indicated, will be seen, if prop- 
 erly contemplated, to be very marked. Xot only does 
 the trade school assume that there is a high degree of 
 probability that the pupil will enter a definite field of 
 labor, for which it undertakes to prepare him; but the 
 establishment of such schools undoubtedly contributes, 
 in an important degree, to enhance the probability of 
 that result. 
 
 The confusion of trade education with a general me- 
 chanical education has undoubtedly engendered not a 
 little of the prejudice which the scheme of industrial 
 education has encountered in certain quarters within the 
 
INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. 129 
 
 United States. It has been alleged that the establish- 
 ment of the proposed system would be opposed to the 
 sentiments of our people and to the genius of our insti- 
 tutions, inasmuch as it would assume that the children 
 who were to receive training were bom to a certain con- 
 dition of life, and were destined to perform a certain 
 industrial role. The scheme of industrial education 
 has, therefore, been objected to as curtailing the glori- 
 ous birthright of every American boy to become banker, 
 merchant, judge, or president, as his own abilities and 
 virtues may qualify him. It will appear, I think, in the 
 further course of this paper, that the objection is 
 founded upon a misapprehension ; and that the adoption 
 of the system of education under view would not only 
 not confine the choice of the pupil as to his subsequent 
 mode of life, but would tend to give him an even greater 
 freedom of movement and action. 
 
 That the establishment of trade schools, in the strict 
 sense of that term, has proved advantageous in many of 
 the crowded communities of Europe, I entertain no 
 doubt. When, by reason of the dense occupation of the 
 soil and the diversification and localization of industries, 
 the choice of young persons is, in fact, very closely 
 limited, it is probably the part of wisdom to recognize 
 that fact, to accept the situation, and to prepare the 
 young as well as possible for the work which, by almost 
 a moral necessity, they will be called to perform. That 
 even in some communities of the United States the 
 point has already been reached where the establishment 
 
130 MANUAL EDUCATION. 
 
 of trade schools by private benevolence, or even by 
 municipal authority, might be practically advantageous, 
 I am not disposed to deny. 
 
 In any large city whose population is chiefly, and per- 
 haps almost wholly, occupied in some single and highly 
 special branch of industry, the instruction of the young 
 in the arts specially concerned in the prosecution of that 
 industry may be deemed, not unreasonably, the dictate 
 of practical wisdom. 
 
 Yet the position of those who have opposed industrial 
 education on the ground that the United States have not 
 yet reached the condition which requires or justifies the 
 education at the public expense and under State au- 
 thority, of young children, with reference to specific 
 trades, is in the main sound and just. The proper an- 
 swer to this objection is, that the system of industrial 
 education proposed would rather enlarge than confine 
 the subsequent choice of occupations by the children of 
 our public schools. 
 
 The purpose sought by the advocates of so-called in- 
 dustrial education is the training of the eye and the 
 hand of the pupil, and his acquisition of those elemen- 
 tary principles of physics and mechanics which underlie 
 all dealings with the forces of nature and with material 
 objects. 
 
 I have spoken of the " establishment " of schools of 
 industrial or mechanical education. Yet, in truth, it is 
 not so much the creation and endowment of separate 
 schools of this character which is in view, as the gradual 
 
INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. 131 
 
 conversion of all the existing schools of the land to this 
 use, through the grafting of certain studies and exer- 
 cises upon the traditional curriculum. Such conver- 
 sion would involve only a slight disturbance of the 
 structure of the existing schools; but it would require 
 the surrender of a not inconsiderable portion of time to 
 the new studies and exercises. 
 
 In order not to protract this paper unduly, or to pro- 
 voke needless controversy, I shall on the present occasion 
 confine my remarks to the relations of the proposed 
 changes in public instruction to the boys of our public 
 schools, leaving open the question whether the girls 
 shall join in the new departure, or not. 
 
 As to the precise nature and extent of the studies and 
 exercises which should, to this end, be incorporated in 
 the public school cun'iculum, and as to the order of these 
 exercises, much difference of opinion will doubtless be 
 developed among those who advocate an extensive modi- 
 fication of the present scheme of education. The true 
 final system, will, of course, have to be worked out 
 through long discussion and experimentation. The 
 following is presented as a fairly conservative pro- 
 gramme : 
 
 Beginning with the pupil at the stage when kinder- 
 garten methods and appliances are exhausted of their 
 efficiency, the scholar should be instructed in the ele- 
 mentary principles of physics and mechanics through 
 the use of simple models and apparatus, and should be- 
 come familiarized through frequent statement and illus- 
 
132 MANUAL EDUCATION. 
 
 tration witli tlie fundamental conceptions of geometry. 
 There is a deep-seated popular error as to the age at 
 which such things as the above can advantageously be 
 acquired. It is too often assumed that because the 
 young child is not competent to study geometry system- 
 atically he need be taught nothing geometrical; that 
 because it would be foolish to present to him physics and 
 mechanics as sciences it is useless to present to him any 
 physical or mechanical principles. 
 
 An error of like origin, which has wrought incalcula- 
 ble mischief, denies to the scholar the use of the symbols 
 and methods of algebra in connection with his early 
 essays in numbers because, forsooth, he is not as yet 
 capable of mastering quadratics! If our children were 
 taught to " do their sums " algebraically at eight, nine, 
 or ten, the later parts of the algebra would have far less 
 terror for them at fifteen, sixteen, or seventeen. And 
 yet, from the notion that the teacher must not take up 
 any subject which the pupil is not prepared to go 
 through with to the end and to master scientifically, we 
 drive our boys and girls to the most painful and ab- 
 surdly roundabout methods of solving problems. The 
 moment the child begins to " do sums " upon his slate 
 he needs his x and y, and for lack of them he is con- 
 tinually driven back to " AVhat d'ye call 'em," or 
 " thingumbob," his unknown quantity, the object of 
 inquiry for which he is refused a symbol — the length 
 of the pole, John's share of the cake, the number of gal- 
 lons in the cistern, or what not. The whole infant 
 
INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. 133 
 
 generation, wrestling with arithmetic, seek for a sign 
 and groan and travail together in pain for the want of 
 it; but no sign is given them save the sign of the prophet 
 Jonah, the withered gourd, fruitless endeavor, wasted 
 strength. 
 
 To teach the so-called arithmetic of the common 
 school without the use of the algebraic signs and nota- 
 tion, is in the last degree barbarous; yet it is done, almost 
 without exception, in the case of ten millions of school 
 children, all from the notion that they are not yet pre- 
 pared to enter upon the study of algebra! Study of 
 algebra! Algebra is a tool, and nothing but a tool, and, 
 so far as equations of the first degree are concerned, it 
 is a tool which the child needs the moment he is set to 
 inquire in how many days Jones and Brown can do a 
 piece of work together, if Jones could do it in ten days 
 alone or Brown in fifteen. For an equally bad reason, 
 many things have been withheld from school children, 
 though these were things of which every child should 
 be informed at the earliest possible moment, because 
 they belong to geometry, for the systematic study of 
 which the scholar has been held not to be prepared. 
 
 It is true that of late years, teachers, drawing doubt- 
 less their inspiration from the kindergarten, have pre- 
 sumed to give the geometry of the square and cube be- 
 fore requiring the arithmetic of square root and cube 
 root; but this concession to common sense stands almost 
 solitary and alone on the pages of the modem text-book. 
 Take, for example, the conception of a plane, the most 
 
134 MANUAL EDUCATION. 
 
 difficult and the moat important of all conceptions for 
 the purposes of the geometer, the astronomer, the mech- 
 anician. This conception should, for subsequent success 
 whether in geometry, in astronomy, or in mechanics, be 
 formed in the mind of the child at the earliest possible 
 moment, just as the notion of right should be formed in 
 his mind years and years before he is called to the sys- 
 tematic study of ethics.^ No subsequent effort can 
 
 ' As to the question whether morality can be tauglit in our public 
 schools without sectarianism, I would say that I do not see how any 
 system of morality which undertakes to go back to an ultimate rule 
 of right can be taught without sectarianism. 
 
 If, however, the teacher is content to begin somewhat short of that 
 point, it seems to me perfectly practicable to give instruction in ethics 
 without involving any sectarian issues, although it is doubtful 
 whether this can be done without arousing sectarian spirit, inas- 
 much as there are certain sects or denominations which resent the 
 omission of their own particular tenets, as itself irreligious and im- 
 moral. Of course, with such people you can do nothing. They are 
 opposed alike to public school teaching with ethics and without 
 ethics; and any attempt to conciliate them or buy off their opposition 
 will be futile, and will only weaken the dignity and authority of the 
 school system. 
 
 As to just how much may be taught without raising sectarian 
 issues, opinions might differ widely, and I do not claim to have made 
 a special study of this department of instruction. I should say, how- 
 ever, that : 
 
 1. Legal ethics may be taught without offense being properly 
 taken by anyone, and this would cover a large part of the desirable 
 field of teaching. Clearly, all the acts which are prescribed, or are 
 forbidden, by the law of the land may properly be embraced in the 
 instruction of the public schools. 
 
 2. It appears to me that utilitarian ethics may be taught in the public 
 schools without raising sectarian issues, and without arousing the sec- 
 tarian susceptibilities of any person who is not at heart opposed to the 
 schools themselves. I mean by utilitarian ethics a system or scheme of 
 morality which, without attempting to raise the question of the ulti- 
 mate rule of right, shall accept the greatest good to the greatest num- 
 ber as an approximate rule for determining what is best to be done and 
 
INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. 135 
 
 make up for the neglect of such fundamental concep- 
 tions in the very beginnings of education. The free- 
 dom and force with which these conceptions will be 
 referred to and made use of in after-life, must in a very 
 large degree depend upon the age at which they are first 
 acquired. 
 
 They should be early implanted in the mind that they 
 may grow with its growth and strengthen with its 
 strengtli. What sort of students of literature would 
 you have if you put off the teaching of the alphabet of 
 letters till fourteen or fifteen or sixteen, as you in fact 
 put off the teaching of the alphabet of science? You 
 give the child English letters at five or six, and let him 
 grow up, through long practice in easy lessons, with 
 fairy stories and picture books, and tales of travel and 
 adventure, to the capability of reading and compre- 
 hending the masterpieces of literature; yet it is only on 
 the day when the young man begins the scientific study 
 of optics, for example, that you give him a definition of 
 light and show him simple experiments in reflection and 
 refraction. The student should at this age be unable to 
 remember when he did not know these things; and no 
 amount of hard work in after-life can ever wholly make 
 up for the lack of early familiarity with the subjects of 
 
 what is best to be left undone. Such a scheme could manifestly be ex- 
 tended to embrace nearly all the practical topics involved in any system 
 of ethics ■without raising any sectarian issues. It would, moreover, 
 constitute an excellent beginning for a course in civics. — From, a 
 Symposium, " Can morality be taught in t?ie public schools inithout 
 sectarianism f " in the " Christian Register," January 31, 18S9. 
 
136 MANUAL EDUCATION. 
 
 his study, the value of which every instructor acknowl- 
 edges in other branches of education, whether relating 
 to literature, to morals, or to practical affairs. 
 
 Time will not serve for an extended illustration of 
 this subject. A child of ten or twelve years is capable 
 of understanding the principle of the lever just as per- 
 fectly as did Archimedes of old Syracuse. Once implant 
 that conception in his mind and it becomes germinal 
 and, without watering or tending, will bear fruit peren- 
 nially through all his life. 
 
 A child of the same age can comprehend the principle 
 of the arch, when illustrated by a few blocks from a car- 
 penter's shop, as fully as does the architect who hangs 
 a stone dome one hundred feet in air; and when he has 
 once comprehended the construction and office of the 
 arch, his eye will never threafter fall unintelligently 
 upon an example of it. A child of the same age is capa- 
 ble of comprehending the law of perspective. Why in 
 the name of common sense should one go on for years, 
 walking through our streets or over our fields, his eye 
 falling at every glance upon some object which is sub- 
 ject to this law, and yet never be instructed regarding it? 
 
 Do you ask how much of the elements of physics and 
 mechanics should be given to the child of tender years? 
 I answer: just as much as he will take, be the same more 
 or less. And it is always safe to offer him a little more 
 than he will take. It can't do him any harm. Cram- 
 ming him with hard and lumpy facts, from so-called 
 geographies or histories, may produce mental indiges- 
 
INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. 137 
 
 tion or colic ;^ but an idea, an apprehended principle, 
 never yet hurt a human being, and never will, to the 
 latest syllable of recorded time. For myself, I would 
 not stop short of teaching a child the doctrine of the 
 
 ' I think that the introduction of the system of what I call mechan- 
 ical education in the schools of Massachusetts and Connecticut, as I 
 have known them while a member of the State Board of Education, 
 would have the effect to crowd out and extrude from our common 
 schools one half the geography and one-half the arithmetic and one- 
 half the grammar that is now taught. It would have a beneficial 
 result even if nothing were substituted that was itself directly 
 beneficial. 
 
 Take the simple study of geography. The amount of gazetteer in- 
 formation that is crowded into our grammar-school course is posi- 
 tively absurd. I remember once asking my little girl, twelve years 
 old, some question which I did not suppose she would answer, but 
 rather to tease her, and she replied: " I can't tell you that, papa, but 
 I can tell you the names of all the principal towns in Siberia." I 
 was at the time a professor of history, and I didn't know the name 
 of a town in Siberia, and I don't want to. It is not of the slightest 
 consequence for any literary or specific purpose that I should. 
 Take another case: — I do not want to revile the common schools, but 
 I think it is fair to state it; — one of my boys, twelve years old, 
 came home one day and said that the supervisor was to come on in 
 a few days and to examine the boys in geography; and, to meet that 
 examination, that boy of twelve got forty-four fair-sized pages, 
 which he wrote out himself in order to get it more thoroughly, of 
 information of a purely gazetteer, encyclopedic character. Thirty- 
 three cities of Asia were on that list, and that boy not only got it up, 
 which might have been reasonable work, but committed it to 
 memory. 
 
 Now, such information is of no earthly value whatever to any 
 scholar for any purpose, because no man can afford to put into his 
 memory all that is in a gazetteer. He has neither the nerve nor 
 brain power to put it there. It is highly artificial work, and he has 
 other needs for those powers without straining them so much in one 
 direction. There is no psychologist in the world who would for a 
 moment approve of such studies for boys of twelve, and if they 
 could be extruded from the common schools it would be an advantage 
 to the pupils. — From Testimony before the Committee of the Senate of 
 the United States upon tlie Relations between Labor and Capital, 1885. 
 
138 MANUAL EDUCATION. 
 
 persistence of force through all its transmutations. 
 Doubtless he would at first fail to apprehend it fully; 
 yet he would gather something from its familiar, pic- 
 turesque enunciation; and, as the proposition became 
 familiar to his ear, and as illustrations of the equivalency 
 of motion, heat, light, and sound were multiplied and 
 repeated to him, I should hope that he would grow into 
 an apprehension and appreciation of this grand, all- 
 embracing law. 
 
 If it be asked of what advantage would it be to the 
 youthful mind that it should be taught these and the 
 like things, I answer: first, that if to observe phe- 
 nomena quickly and clearly, if to reflect closely and 
 justly, if to acquire an habitual and, in time, instinctive 
 disposition to trace effects to their causes, if these things 
 be among the prime objects of education, comparison 
 may be challenged between the matter of study that has 
 been described and the work that now takes up two- 
 thirds of the time of the scholar of the age we have 
 been considering. Secondly, that if the direct useful- 
 ness of the information acquired be adopted as the test 
 of different systems of education, the elements of 
 geometry, physics, and mechanics have preference, in 
 an enormous degree, over the traditional studies of the 
 primary and grammar schools. But, thirdly, that the 
 main argument for the early acquisition of these ele- 
 ments is to be found in their usefulness as a preparation 
 for the study of geometry, physics, and applied me- 
 chanics in later years. 
 
INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. 139 
 
 While altering in a degree the traditional curriculum 
 of the public schools by the introduction of the elements 
 of geometry, physics, and mechanics, I would recom- 
 mend the extension of the drawing-practice of the 
 schools even beyond the point to which it is now carried 
 in our most enlightened cities. And it is a consideration 
 of prime importance in this connection that great as is 
 the interest awakened by drawing-practice, under the 
 better teachers, even as students are now prepared for 
 it in our public schools, those exercises would acquire a 
 vast increase of attractiveness from the studies already 
 described in the elements of geometry, physics, and me- 
 chanics. The pupil would in a higher degree appre- 
 ciate much that he was called to do in his drawing 
 exercises, and would find a heightened pleasure in the 
 practice of this art as it became a means of expressing 
 principles with which he had been made familiar. And 
 as the drawing exercise received a great enhancement of 
 attractiveness through the pupil's comprehension of the 
 principles underlying the figures and designs to be con- 
 structed, so, at the other end, would it receive a fresh 
 addition of interest by being correlated with the shop- 
 work in wood, in iron, and in clay, which, according to 
 the friends of industrial education, should form a part 
 of the exercises of the public schools. 
 
 We here reach the last stage of our subject. Indus- 
 trial education involves, first, the teaching of the ele- 
 ments of geometry, physics, and mechanics; secondly, 
 drawing ; and, thirdly, shop work of one kind or another. 
 
140 MANUAL EDUCATION. 
 
 During the past few years practice in the mechanic arts, 
 especially in wood-working, but also in forge, foundry, 
 and lathe work, has been introduced as an integral part 
 of a system of education, in several sections of the coun- 
 try. ISTo one is known to have been in any way con- 
 nected with this new kind of teaching who is not an en- 
 thusiastic believer in its beneficent effects at once upon 
 the scholar and upon the general system of public in- 
 struction ; while, of late, converts have been rapidly made 
 from among those who formerly doubted or denied the 
 expediency of this innovation in education. The year 
 now closing has seen the schoolroom space, the apparatus 
 and machinery, and the teaching force devoted to this 
 work more than doubled, perhaps we might say trebled. 
 The next year will undoubtedly witness an even greater 
 increase. The thing is coming, and coming fast, faster 
 probably than the means can well be provided; and 
 doubtless mistakes, not a few, will be made in the haste 
 to introduce this kind of teaching. 
 
 In general it may be said that the course of propaga- 
 tion is likely to be from the high school downward to 
 the grammar and then to the elementary schools, and 
 from the city outward through the small towns to the 
 rural districts. The chief difficulty to be encountered 
 will not be the difficulty of finding means, or the oppo- 
 sition of school committees or boards of aldermen, but 
 the lack of competent teachers. In this view the State 
 of Massachusetts has wisely initiated practice in the 
 mechanic arts in two of its normal schools. 
 
INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. 141 
 
 At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which 
 eight years ago/ under the enlightened administration 
 of Dr. Runkle, established a school of the mechanic arts, 
 the applications for instructors in this department are 
 already far in excess of those which can be met. Dr. 
 Runkle has, within a few weeks, issued a pamphlet ^ 
 which embraces in condensed form many well-considered 
 suggestions regarding the organization of this kind of 
 schools, with detailed statements as to the equipment of 
 shops for instruction in the mechanic arts. The reports 
 of the St. Louis Manual Training School, under the 
 supervision of its capable and enthusiastic director. Pro- 
 fessor Woodward, contain information of great value 
 regarding the new form of education. 
 
 The advantages to be anticipated from the introduc- 
 tion of training in the mechanic arts into the grammar 
 and high schools of the land are many and important. 
 
 First, it will increase the freedom of industrial move- 
 ment, allowing our youth as they leave school to find for 
 themselves places in the industrial order with more of 
 ease and assurance than at present. This, as has been 
 said, is in contradiction of a vague popular opinion that 
 the proposed system is in the direction of class educa- 
 tion ; but the principle is undeniable ; only the degree of 
 its importance can possibly be disputed. 
 
 A lad of fifteen leaving the grammar school, or a lad 
 
 • That is, in 1876.— Ed. 
 
 "Report ou Industrial Education, by John D. Runkle, LL. D.. 
 Walker Professor of Mathematics, Massachusetts Institute of Tech- 
 nology. Boston : W. F. Brown & Co. 
 
142 MANUAL EDUCATION. 
 
 of eighteen leaving the high school, is not required to 
 become a mechanic because he has had long practice in 
 the use of tools, because he has acquired a familiarity 
 with the materials of construction, because he has be- 
 come neat, dexterous, and expert in manipulation, be- 
 cause he can make a working-drawing of a piece of 
 machinery or furniture ; because he has had his sense of 
 form, of magnitude, and of proportion trained to the 
 nicest discrimination, and because he can work with his 
 eye and his hand as well as with his brain, and with all 
 of these in the closest cooperation. But if he is to be- 
 come a mechanic, he will have a much wider choice 
 between individual trades, by reason of these things; 
 and again, when he has chosen his trade, he can acquire 
 the special knowledge and the special skill requisite 
 thereto in one-half the time which a mere apprentice 
 would take, and he will acquire them, moreover, to much 
 better effect; while, still again, he Avill be a workman 
 who, after a few years of practice, will be fit, by reason 
 of ability to make working-drawings, of knowledge of 
 mathematics and mechanical principles, and of superior 
 mental training, to be promoted to the post of foreman 
 or superintendent of construction; or he may set up for 
 himself as contractor or master, wnth a prospect of suc- 
 cess far exceeding that of one of equal natural abilities 
 who has enjoyed only the special training of a single 
 trade. 
 
 Secondly, so far as the graduates of the reformed 
 grammar and high schools are not to become mechanics, 
 
INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. 143 
 
 they will certainly be no worse off, by reason of this 
 training; but in many ways they will be the better quali- 
 fied, even in commercial pursuits or in clerical capaci- 
 ties in connection mth manufacturing or railroad enter- 
 prises, to make themselves useful to their employers 
 from their manual dexterity, the capability of using 
 tools, and the special knowledge acquired in school. But 
 far more than this will be the advantage derived from 
 the training of the perceptive powers, the formation of 
 the habit of observation, and the development of the 
 executive faculty, the power, that is, of doing things as 
 distinguished from thinking or talking or writing about 
 them. To these the traditional curriculum of the 
 schools fails to minister in the smallest degree; and the 
 longer mnemonics, analytics, and dialectics are exclu- 
 sively pursued, the farther is the student carried from the 
 temper and qualities of mind which achieve success, ex- 
 cept in a few closely restricted and already overcrowded 
 professions. It is the sense of this which leads so many 
 parents to withdraw their children at an early age, re- 
 ducing the number who go forward from the grammar 
 to the high school to a petty fraction of the whole 
 number. 
 
 With the school exercises modified and diversified as 
 has been proposed, I sincerely believe that the average 
 period of attendance would be at once appreciably in- 
 creased, and that parents would withdraw their children 
 only at the demand of pecuniary necessities which could 
 not be denied, and not, as so largely now, because they 
 
144 MANUAL EDUCATION. 
 
 feel that the school is doing nothing practically useful 
 for their children, and, indeed, that the longer they stay, 
 after fifteen, the less will they be fitted for the work of 
 life. 
 
 Thirdly, the introduction of shop work into the pub- 
 lic system of education cannot fail to have a most bene- 
 ficial influence in promoting a respect for labor and in 
 overcoming the false and pernicious passion of our young 
 people for crowding themselves into overdone and 
 underpaid departments, where they may escape manual 
 exertion at almost any sacrifice. This tendency of the 
 times has been loudly complained of, but how have those 
 a right to complain who support the old order of things 
 under which all the praise and all the prizes of the 
 school are bestowed upon glibness of speech, retentive- 
 ness of memory, ease or force of declamation, and skill 
 in dialectics? If the authority of the State and the in- 
 fluence of the teacher combine to set up such a standard, 
 what wonder that the pupil accepts the same view of 
 what is admirable and desirable, holds other qualities in 
 little esteem, and deems himself too fine for a common 
 trade and a humble calling? Let the State honor labor 
 in the school; let some of the praise and some of the 
 prizes go to neatness of manipulation, skill in the use of 
 tools, taste in design, patience and ingenuity in execu- 
 tion; let the pupil see his master, now and then, with 
 his coat off and a paper cap on his head, teaching the 
 use of the plane and the lathe; give the boy to know the 
 delight of seeing things grow and take shape under his 
 
INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. 145 
 
 hands, and it requires no prophet to assure us that our 
 young people will come to look on life very differently 
 and much more wisely. 
 
 Fourthly, the consideration which weighs more than 
 any other, in my mind, is that the introduction of shop 
 work into the public schools, closely affiliated with exer- 
 cises in drawing and design, will give a place, where 
 now there is no place at all or only a most uncomfortable 
 one, to those boys who are strong in perception, apt in 
 manipulation, and correct in the interpretation of phe- 
 nomena, but who are not good at memorizing or rehears- 
 ing the opinions and statements of others, or who, by 
 diffidence, slowness of speech, or awkwardness of mental 
 conformation, are unfitted for mental gymnastics. It 
 is mighty little that the ordinary grammar or high school 
 does at present for scholars of these classes. N^ot only 
 do they, at the best, get little personal pleasure from their 
 work and receive little of the commendation of the 
 teacher, but, in the great majority of cases, they are 
 written down blockheads at the start, and have their 
 whole school life turned to shame and bitterness. And 
 yet it not unfrequently happens that the boy who is so 
 regarded because he cannot master an artificial style of 
 grammatical analysis, isn't worth a cent for giving a list 
 of the kings of England, doesn't know and doesn't care 
 what are the principal productions of Borneo, has a bet- 
 ter pair of eyes, a better pair of hands, and, even by the 
 standards of the merchant, the manufacturer, and the 
 railroad president, a better head, than his teacher. 
 
146 MANUAL EDUCATION. 
 
 I desire not to exaggerate; I wish to speak with the 
 utmost seriousness and in strict truthfulness. Of how 
 much advantage is it to a scholar in the average gram- 
 mar school of Boston or New York or Chicago, in doing 
 his work or in earning the praise of his teacher, that he 
 has a quick perception of form and color; that he sees 
 everything presented to his view at once broadly and 
 particularly, his eye taking in all the features of an ob- 
 ject in their due order and proportion, his mind justly 
 interpreting the significance of each and every feature 
 by turns and in the whole; that he has a subtle touch, 
 great patience under vexation, an ingenious and invent- 
 ive mind? There are as many boys in our schools of 
 whom the above can be said, as there are of boys who 
 are quick to memorize and rehearse the opinions and 
 statements of others, or who are strong and lively in the 
 gymnastics of arithmetic and of grammar. There are 
 not only as many of the former boys as of the latter, but 
 they are quite as deserving of sympathy and respect, be- 
 sides being rather better qualified to become of use in 
 the industrial and social order. And yet for that class 
 of boys the school offers almost nothing upon which 
 they can employ these priceless powers. They may, by 
 laboring painfully over the prescribed but uncongenial 
 eixercises, escape the stigma of being blockheads; but 
 they can never do very well; they will always be at a 
 disadvantage in comparison with boys of the other class; 
 they will know nothing of the joys of commendation; 
 and it is most fortunate if they do not become dis- 
 
INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. 147 
 
 couraged, indifferent, and in time careless or even reck- 
 less of their standing. Such boys are practically 
 plowed under, in our schools, as not worth harvest- 
 ing. The teacher may be ever so pitiful and patient; 
 that matters something so far as the child's happiness is 
 concerned, but, so long as he is kept wholly at exercises 
 for which he is not by nature qualified, it makes little 
 difference as to his chances of success as a scholar. 
 
 The introduction of practice in the mechanic arts 
 would strike a responsive chord in the hearts of all boys 
 of the class 1 have so inadequately described; it would 
 at once give them something to do in which they could 
 excel; it would quicken their interest in the school; it 
 would save their self-respect; to many it would open a 
 door into practical life. 
 
 For a partial illustration of these effects, let me refer 
 to the introduction of drawing into the public schools, 
 already so widely accomplished. If the acquirement of 
 this art were absolutely of no value, if the training of 
 the eye and hand involved were put out of account, I 
 fully believe that, in spite of the very shabby way in 
 which this subject has generally been taught heretofore, 
 drawing in the schools has repaid its cost tenfold, 
 simply in the opportunity it has given to a host of 
 scholars to do something well, to their own satisfaction, 
 to the commendation of their teachers, and to the ad- 
 miration of their mates. 
 
 Here is a little fellow who has no aptitude for the 
 traditional studies of the schoolroom. He has either 
 
148 MANUAL EDUCATION. 
 
 given way after a sliort struggle to a feeling that he is 
 a dunce anyhow, and that it is of no use to try; or, after 
 a longer and harder struggle, he has succumbed to a still 
 more bitter and lasting discouragement. He has be- 
 come accustomed to be blamed at school and at home for 
 his low standing; he has ceased to look for words of 
 approbation; he has learned to expect a look of sadness 
 or of anger on his father's face as his monthly card is 
 presented. 
 
 But now a new exercise is introduced into the school, 
 and, after the inevitable blottings and smearings of the 
 first trials, it comes one day to the comprehension of the 
 teacher that this boy has executed his work better than 
 any other scholar; has done best of all something which 
 by authority has been pronounced worth doing. For 
 the first time that lad, who has all the time been strug- 
 gling with a hopeless incapacity for identifying " apposi- 
 tive modifiers " and " cognate adjectives," hears the 
 sweet and pleasant voice of praise, sees the admiring 
 glances of his comrades fall on him, yes, on him! and 
 feels the pulse of ambition throb at his temples. 
 
 With what anticipations of pleasure will this lad here- 
 after await the signal to take up drawing, with what 
 pains will he execute his work, with what pride hand in 
 his faultless sheets! IIow changed to him hence- 
 forth is the schoolroom ; how different, even, sounds the 
 school bell in the morning! If the introduction of 
 drawing has done so much for many a boy, how much 
 more fully and completely will the needs of this class of 
 
INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. 149 
 
 youths be met by the introduction of shop work in its 
 various branches of carpentry, forge, foundry, and lathe 
 work, in intimate and vital relations with drawing and 
 with the elements of geometry, physics, and mechanics! 
 I might dwell on other considerations; upon the im- 
 pulse to be communicated to invention and discovery, 
 upon the disclosure, here and there, of rare mechanical 
 genius, which, under the old system of education, might 
 have been hopelessly lost in a dreary wilderness of 
 words ; upon the value of the arts acquired in saving dis- 
 repair within the home, enabling the thousand needed 
 strokes of the hammer to be well and promptly given, 
 securing the insertion of the nail in time that saves nine; 
 upon the virtue which a general mechanical education 
 of the people would have in preserving and exalting the 
 priceless sense of social decency which keeps the fence 
 along the village street in order, the gate hung, the 
 glass set, the shutter in place; but perhaps I have 
 already said enough to introduce the discussion of the 
 question of Industrial Education, 
 
A PLEA FOR INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 
 IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS 
 
 1887 
 
Address before the Conperence of Associated 
 Charities of the City of Boston, February 10, 1887. 
 
A PLEA FOE INDUSTKIAL EDUCATION IN THE 
 PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 
 
 Those of us wko attended the conference of January 
 20th heard some of the strong arguments presented by 
 the learned Secretary^ of the State Board of Education in 
 opposition to the general views and purposes entertained 
 by those who favor the incorporation of more or less of 
 so-called Industrial Education with the public-school 
 system of the Commonwealth. While objections from 
 such a source could hardly be welcome to those who are 
 deeply interested in the projected reforms, there should 
 yet be no resentment at their being offered. If our pur- 
 poses and plans are in general sound and wholesome, 
 they will bear challenge and criticism, and will be the 
 better for it. Discussion — direct, sincere, and earnest 
 discussion — is in the interest of the very cause itself; 
 and the sharper the challenge, and the more cogent the 
 presentation of any and all objections, the better for us, 
 if indeed we are right on the main issue. 
 
 Especially is it the duty of the Secretary of the State 
 Board of Education to stand up for the integi-ity and 
 purity of the schools of Massachusetts, if he deems them 
 threatened from any quarter; and in his main conten- 
 tion. Dr. Dickinson is unquestionably right. The pri- 
 
 ' Hon. J. W. Dickinson, LL. D. Resigning in 1894, he was suc- 
 ceeded by the present Secretary, Hon. Frank A. Hill. — Ed. 
 
 153 
 
154 MANUAL EDUCATION. 
 
 mar J purpose of our public-school system was education; 
 and it cannot in any considerable degree be made to 
 serve any other purpose than education, without a per- 
 version of agency and almost an abuse of trust. The 
 good old principle that education, so far as the public 
 schools are concerned, should be general, not special; 
 should be liberal, not technical ; should be directed to the 
 complete and harmonious development of the faculties 
 of the child, and not to the mere acquisition of arts and 
 knacks which can easily be turned to practical uses — 
 this principle I believe to be as true, and as important to 
 the integrity of our school system, as at any time in our 
 history. 
 
 And I must beg you to excuse me for going farther 
 and for saying frankly in this presence, remembering 
 that I am addressing a Conference of Charities, that the 
 public schools should be expected to do little directly in 
 the way of relieving the community from the burden of 
 pauperism. The best that the schools can do for the 
 interests which you have so much at heart is to perform 
 their proper educational work with thoroughness, with 
 efficiency, with enthusiasm. While I am far from say- 
 ing that no burdens should be put upon the public 
 schools, for the general good, yet I believe that the prin- 
 ciple which has been laid down should be strongly ad- 
 hered to, in good faith and good feeling; and that those 
 who propose any exception thereto should be required 
 to prove their case, against a strong presumption in favor 
 of the purely educational character of all school work. 
 
A PLEA FOR INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. 155 
 
 While thus amply conceding that which Dr. Dickin- 
 son claims regarding the proper purpose and scope of our 
 schools, issue may fairly be taken with him as to the 
 educational character of the proposed new studies and 
 exercises. In order to clear the ground for such a dis- 
 cussion it may appear not pedantic and not unreasonable 
 to go back thirty or forty years in our history. Per- 
 haps, also, it may not appear impertinent to offer here a 
 piece of personal experience. I entered the schools of 
 Massachusetts at four years of age, and left them at fif- 
 teen to go to college. In all the interval I do not re- 
 member ever to have been set to any study or exercise 
 which I could not have done just as well if bom without 
 hands, except solely for the convenience of holding a 
 book and turning over its leaves, or of writing on paper, 
 slate, or blackboard; which I could not have done just 
 as well if aflSicted with total blindness, except solely for 
 the greater difficulty of learning lessons by having them 
 read to me ; indeed, but for this, a blind boy would have 
 had an advantage over me, as being less subject to have 
 his attention distracted by surrounding objects. I do 
 not recall any exercise which I could not have performed 
 equally well without the use of hearing, except only for 
 purposes of communication with the teacher; and, in- 
 deed, a deaf child would, but for that, have had an ad- 
 vantage over me, as being less subject to interruption or 
 distraction from without. 
 
 ]!^ow, who mil say that there can be a complete edu- 
 cation of the child where the senses are thus neglected? 
 
156 MANUAL EDUCATION. 
 
 Let us not, even for a good object, exaggerate tlie part 
 performed by the perceptive powers; but we may right- 
 fully insist that there should be, in every day and in 
 almost every hour of school life, exercises which call the 
 senses into active operation and hold them in strict atten- 
 tion, while from above, the mind, their master, guide, 
 and helper, observes, records, and interprets all that the 
 senses have to tell/ 
 
 But this was not all that was lacking in the old educa- 
 tion. While the memory was fostered into an abnormal 
 and monstrous growth, nothing was offered which even 
 tended to train the judgment. Indeed, the enormous 
 body of facts which the pupils were expected to receive 
 and cherish, solely upon the authority of others, consti- 
 tuted a direct discouragement to the faculty of judgment 
 and to the spirit of self-reliance. 
 
 ' The great educational value of manual training lies in the method 
 of instruction used. It is the laboratory, or workshop, method, — the 
 same method that has proved so effectual of late years in reforming 
 the teaching of chemistry, physics, and the natural sciences in our 
 high schools and colleges. 
 
 This workshop or laboratory method of instruction brings the 
 learner face to face with the facts of nature. His mind in- 
 creases in knowledge by direct personal experience with forms of 
 matter, and manifestations of force. No mere words intervene. 
 Abstract definitions, statements, and rules are put aside. They are 
 not recognized as knowledge, but only as the frames or cases into 
 which knowledge can be put when once it is got. I firmly believe 
 that the introduction of the manual-training element into our school 
 work will promote still further this salutary reform; that it will (end 
 to abolish the mere nominal teaching, of which there is yet too much, 
 and replace it with real teaching, — a teaching that seeks to develop 
 mental power, rather than to load the memory witli words, to make 
 the pupil a possessor of the solid merchandise of knowledge rather 
 than of its empty packing-cases. — Edwin P. Seaver, Superintendent 
 of Schools, Boston. 
 
A PLEA FOR INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. 157 
 
 Moreover, there was absolutely nothing in the school 
 studies and exercises of those days which tended to direct 
 and develop the executive faculty; the power, that is, of 
 doing things, as distinguished from thinking about them, 
 talking about them, writing about them. ISTo one 
 familiar with the laws of mind will be disposed to deny 
 that there is at least a tendency, in the protracted study 
 of any subject, apart from putting that study to a prac- 
 tical use, toward producing a partial paralysis of the 
 will, shown in a disposition to procrastinate, to multiply 
 distinctions, and to stand shivering on the brink of 
 action. Finally, and worst of all, the school studies and 
 exercises of that age gave no play to that constructive 
 passion which is inherent in every healthy child's mind 
 — a passion which is so strong that it is readily per- 
 verted, through lack of opportunity and exercise, into 
 the passion for destruction, just as every good thing is 
 susceptible of perversion into an agency of evil or mis^ 
 chief. When, in 1843, my father for the first time 
 visited Europe, he brought home with him a box of toys, 
 which bore this inscription: 
 
 " Boys in Holland love to make 
 "What boys in England love to break,"- 
 
 It is only fair to say that the boy who breaks is the same 
 boy, ill taught and ill trained, as the boy who makes; 
 and that the boy who breaks most is the boy who, if his 
 energies were properly directed, would make most. 
 Such was the l!^ew England school of forty and thirty 
 
158 MANUAL EDUCATION. 
 
 years ago;^ but tlie results, in education, were not so bad 
 as might be conjectured from this rude description. A 
 great majority of our people lived in isolated farm- 
 houses, or in small villages, where access to the land was 
 easy. Out of school every boy had his stint of work and 
 his opportunities for play in the barn, over the fields, 
 through the woods, where his senses were continually 
 quickened, the faculty of judgment called into exercise, 
 the executive power strengthened, the constructive pas- 
 
 ' In the early days of the Republic, when our system of public 
 education was still in its infancy, mental and manual education were 
 much more intimately connected than at the present day. The in- 
 dustries of the country were still in a crude state, agriculture and a 
 few only of the more necessary mechanic trades having any exist- 
 ence. These trades demanded but little artistic taste, and not the 
 highest manual skill; but the educational needs of the time were 
 quite well met in the apprenticeship system, which existed then in 
 its best form. The master became responsible, in an important sense, 
 for the mental and moral well-being of the apprentice, besides teach- 
 ing him the manual of his trade, with such knowledge of the theory 
 and such experience as he was able to impart. By his attendance for 
 three or four months of each year during his apprenticeship upon 
 the district school the mental culture of the apprentice was not en- 
 tirely discontinued; and thus, by alternating between the school and 
 the shop, his mental and manual education were never entirely di- 
 vorced, but each in an important sense aided the other. During this 
 formative period of the student's life one set of habits was not 
 formed to the exclusion of others which in the end might prove 
 more important. 
 
 As time passed, a more marked separation between mental and 
 manual education began to take place. The school gradually im- 
 proved. Better methods of teacliing and a larger number of subjects 
 were introduced, and a higher standard set, all demanding more 
 time from the pupil. But quite as marked a change was going on 
 in the industries. Increased demand led to competition, to the in- 
 vention of special tools to cheapen production, to a greater subdi- 
 vision of labor, and to the concentration of the individual upon a 
 very narrow range of work. Thus the apprenticeship system for 
 
A PLEA FOB INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. 159 
 
 sion given scope and swing. By these means, accessible 
 to all, muck was done to supply the deficiencies and to 
 offset the evil tendencies of the strictly school educa- 
 tion. It would be idle to say that the senses, the faculty 
 of judgment, the executive power, the constructive pas- 
 sion, can be as fully and as harmoniously developed 
 and trained in unregulated play, or in ill-regulated and 
 unsupervised work, as they might be in well-considered 
 studies and exercises directed by capable teachers; but, 
 
 learning a trade in its old and best form has passed away, never to 
 return. As it exists to-day, it is an advantage to neither party. The 
 apprentice can only learn a narrow specialty, so narrow, as a rule, 
 that its only value to him is the meager pittance which he can earn 
 from day to day, but at the sacrifice of any further educational ad- 
 vantages; while the master finds it for his interest to pay for the skill 
 he needs, rather than put into his carefully adjusted chain of opera- 
 tions a weak and nearly useless link. In this way the school and the 
 shop have become so widely separated that they are no longer mutual 
 helps, as in past times, in developing the highest capacity or the 
 highest manhood. The student who enters the shop at fifteen for a 
 three or four years' apprenticeship seldom returns to the school; 
 and, on the other hand, the student who completes his high-school 
 course at eighteen seldom willingly enters the shop as an apprentice, 
 with the intention of becoming a skilled mechanic and earning a 
 livelihood by manual labor. His twelve or fourteen years of mental 
 school-work, whether highly successful or not, have through habit, 
 if in no other way, unfitted him for all manual work, even if he has 
 not in many ways been taught to despise such labor. Thus it hap- 
 pens that to-day educators, law-makers, philanthropists, and all 
 interested in the highest good of the largest number of the people, or 
 in the best development of our growing and varied industries, are 
 looking for the remedy through education, not of the head alone, but 
 of the head and hand combined in the same system, in order that the 
 education may lead each pupil to some definite end, or directly to 
 the threshold of some special pursuit; that the student's skill of head 
 and hand combined shall have some small commercial value when 
 he has completed his prescribed course of study. — Professor J. D. 
 Runkle : Report of the Massachusetts State Board of Education, ISlQ-ll . 
 
160 MANUAL EDUCATION. 
 
 clearly, what the boys of forty and thirty years ago 
 enjoyed in this way was vastly better than nothing. 
 
 This last, namely, nothing, is about what the greater 
 part of the boys of to-day enjoy in these respects. The 
 majority of our people now reside in cities or large 
 towns. The boy, when out of school, can no longer re- 
 sort to the carpenter's bench in the barn; for there is no 
 barn, not even a wood-shed — only a coal-cellar. He 
 may at times be found in a vacant, unfilled lot, having a 
 very poor time playing a very poor game of ball; now 
 and then he may make a laborious expedition to some 
 park or skating-pond for amusement; but during the 
 most of the time he has no resort outside the house 
 except the sidewalk. 
 
 Even in the country the state of things has greatly 
 changed within the last forty and twenty years. For- 
 merly the population was almost entirely of native New 
 England stock possessing wonderful dexterity, great 
 inventive power, and a mechanical insight which 
 amounted to genius. At the same time, the mechanic 
 arts, and even the factory industries, were carried on in 
 such a way that almost every person employed might be 
 regarded as a skilled workman. How great the change! 
 To-day these regions are peopled by tens of thousands of 
 Irish and French-Canadians, who have inherited little 
 mechanical insight, and almost no inventive power, and 
 have themselves had small training in the arts of in- 
 dustry. The specialization of manufactures has been 
 carried so far that, in some departments, an operative 
 
A PLEA FOR INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. 161 
 
 often need not be a meclianic in any sense of that term, 
 using only a single tool and performing only a single 
 simple operation from one year's end to another. Even 
 the mechanic arts have been differentiated, until indi- 
 vidual skill has largely gone out of them. The car- 
 penter of the old days made sash, doors, and blinds; he 
 planed, matched, and grooved his boards; he built his 
 stairways; he did a hundred things requiring dexterity 
 and fine workmanship. To-day sash, doors, and blinds 
 are made in large factories, wholesale; boards come 
 planed and matched by steam; stairways are built at 
 central points, on specifications furnished, and are 
 shipped ready to be put up. The old-fashioned carpen- 
 ter has almost disappeared. 
 
 Such, to a great extent, are the fathers of the boys 
 who now attend the country schools of JSTew England. 
 Few of them are capable of giving their children that 
 instruction in mechanic arts which every father in the 
 olden time gave his boys as a matter of course. Such, 
 and so extensive, have been the changes in the social 
 conditions of our people. Meanwhile, it is fair to say, 
 the schools have not stood still; but have in no small 
 degree expanded their courses and changed their 
 methods, to meet the new wants of the community. In 
 the country districts, indeed, the studies and exercises 
 remain substantially as they were; but in the cities and 
 larger towns there has been much improvement. For 
 the younger children, the blessed kindergarten has 
 come; and, although the imported article will bear con- 
 
162 MANUAL EDUCATION. 
 
 siderable modifications, as assuming an impossible child- 
 ishness, — a childishness of which no American child, at 
 any rate, was ever guilty, — the kindergarten has come 
 to stay.^ Although thus far, unfortunately, remaining 
 mainly outside the public-school system, its methods 
 have not a little modified the ways of teaching in the 
 lower grades of the public schools; while in the upper 
 rooms, the objective study of natural science, with 
 plants, minerals, and examples of animal life in the 
 hands of the teacher and of the pupils, is introducing 
 some of those elements which were most painfully lack- 
 ing in the olden time. Moreover, the general adoption 
 of drawing ^ as a school exercise is doing much to quicken 
 
 ' The kindergarten not only gives the young children a good start 
 intellectually, but it also has a very marked and beneficial effect on 
 them morally. The subsequent instruction and discipline in the pri- 
 mary schools would be much easier, and the progress in knowledge 
 much more satisfactory, if all pupils first took the kindergarten 
 instruction. 
 
 It is not necessary to go into a theoretical argument to prove the 
 benefits of kindergarten training. We have the practical demonstra- 
 tion in Mrs. Shaw's kindergartens in this city. It is chiefly from my 
 study of these in actual operation that I have come to believe 
 that we need many more of them — indeed, that the kindergarten 
 ought to be recognized and established as a part of the system of 
 public instruction in this city. There are other large cities where 
 this has been done, to the great benefit of the youngest children. I 
 am not without hope that this great improvement may ere long be 
 brought to pass in this city. — Edwin P. Seaver, Superintendent of 
 Schools, Boston. 
 
 "^ Drawing, in one form or another, has won its way into nearly all 
 schools in the older countries, and is making rapid progress in our 
 own. While it is the universal language of handicraft, bringing the 
 industrial ends of the earth together, just as the higher and finer arts 
 express the feelings and sentiments of our common humanity, it has 
 at the same time justified itself in all countries as a most valuable 
 
A PLEA FOR INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. 163 
 
 the geometric sense of the pupils, to cultivate their per- 
 ception of form, and to stimulate the interest of large 
 classes of children who find little to enjoy in the tradi- 
 tional studies of grammar, arithmetic, and geography. 
 
 It is at this point that we part company with Dr. 
 Dickinson. He would trust to the continued use of 
 drawing and to the increased use of science-teaching to 
 train the senses, to cultivate the habit of observation, to 
 strengthen the judgment, and to make the hand and eye 
 more ready and faithful servants of the mind. The use 
 of tools he deprecates as injurious to the proper pur- 
 poses and as disparaging to the dignity of the public 
 schools; while he admits sewing and cooking only as 
 burdens which the schools may be asked to carry for the 
 general good. Most of us, on the contrary, believe that 
 the use of tools in appropriate form and degree, and the 
 teaching of cooking and sewing are as truly educational 
 as any, even the most approved, of the familiar features 
 of the public school ; that they supply desirable elements 
 
 auxiliary to purely scholastic studies, for developing the intellect, 
 and for widening and deepening the capacity and power of the indi- 
 vidual. Nor would it be possible to estimate the value to the indus- 
 tries of the world, of this general cultivation of the intellect and taste 
 through drawing; and yet drawing is essentially a manual art. What- 
 ever of mental discipline or cultivation of taste it offers can only 
 come through the training of the hand as the medium. Little value 
 would be derived by teaching drawing as a science without corre- 
 sponding practice. It has its body of principles; but they can be 
 better brought to the student's attention, and more clearly set forth, 
 in connection with a well-arranged and progressive course in 
 manipulation. 
 
 The same good educational results will surely follow from the 
 systematic teaching of other manual arts. — Professor J. D. Runkle. 
 
164 MANUAL EDUCATION. 
 
 wLicli can be obtained at all, or which can be obtained 
 as well, from no other source; and that they are not only 
 compatible with the integrity and dignity of the school 
 system, but that they promise greatly to increase the 
 general interest in the schools, if not to become the very 
 salvation of the school system itself; while the incidental 
 advantages resulting therefrom, in raising the industrial 
 quality of our people, in creating respect for labor, in 
 quickening the sense of social decency, in securing a 
 greater economy of the means and the resources of the 
 very poor, and in promoting good citizenship generally, 
 are, as we esteem them, beyond all price. 
 
 First: While it is freely and gladly admitted that the 
 objective study of natural science, by modern methods, 
 affords an admirable training of the powers of percep- 
 tion, of the habit of observation, of the faculty of judg- 
 ment, it cannot be claimed that it does anything towards 
 directing and strengthening the executive faculty, which 
 is so important a factor of success in life; or that it gives 
 any scope or play whatever to that creative or con- 
 structive passion which is the highest and most useful 
 instinct in the child's mind, but which is readily per- 
 verted into a force for evil. 
 
 Second : While the effect of science-teaching in gram- 
 mar schools, is, theoretically, what has been above 
 admitted, I believe it to be true that it is much more 
 difficult to obtain good, fresh, original, spontaneous 
 work in this direction than can be had in school exercises 
 of the character we are proposing; and that, even when 
 
A PLEA FOE INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. 165 
 
 the best of teaching-talent can be secured, a smaller pro- 
 portion of pupils will have their interest fuUj aroused 
 and their mental activities fully enlisted by the study of 
 natural science than by exercises in the mechanic arts, 
 where the perceptive powers and the faculty of judg- 
 ment are equally called into use, but where, also, the 
 creative or constructive passion is brought into play, to 
 furnish both object and impulse to the youthful student. 
 
 Third: While the objective study of natural science 
 tends strongly and tends directly towards moral earnest- 
 ness, simplicity of character, and intellectual truthful- 
 ness as contrasted with the cultivation of mnemonics, 
 dialectics, and rhetoric, it cannot, I think, be claimed 
 that it has any immediate and direct influence in remov- 
 ing that snobbishness of feeling and that dislike and 
 contempt for manual labor which are so unhappily 
 prevalent among our half -educated classes; which are so 
 injurious industrially, so dangerous socially and politi- 
 cally, and which bear an enormous annual crop of 
 ruined lives in the case of tens of thousands of the gradu- 
 ates of our public schools who have been made too fine 
 for manual labor, without having become qualified to 
 take any higher or more useful places in the industrial 
 order, and who thus come to swell, each year, the throng 
 of useless and unhappy applicants for the comparatively 
 few positions in shops, stores, and counting-houses, 
 where a generally poor living may be obtained without 
 soiling the fingers. 
 
 On the other hand, no one, I think, can look upon a 
 
166 MANUAL EDUCATION. 
 
 class of bright young boys working at the carpenter's 
 bench or around the blacksmith's forge, their paper caps 
 upon their heads, leather aprons and jean overalls pro- 
 tecting their better clothes, their faces flushed with the 
 excitement and delight of construction and creation, 
 without having his heart glow within him at the spec- 
 tacle, and without the serious conviction that this is as it 
 should be ; that it is good for these boys and good for the 
 State that they should learn to do such things, in the 
 name of education and under the authority of the Com- 
 monwealth.^ 
 
 ' First, It stimulates a love for intellectual honesty. It deals -with 
 the substance, as well as with the shadow; it gives opportunity for 
 primitive judgments; it shows in the concrete, in the most unmistak- 
 able form, the vast difference between right and wrong; it substitutes 
 personal experience, and the use of simple, forcible language, for 
 the experience of others, expressed in high-sounding phrase. It as- 
 sociates the deed with the thought, the real with the ideal, and lays 
 the foundation for honesty in thought and in act. 
 
 Second, The good moral effect of occupation is most marked. No 
 boys were ever so busy as ours, in school and out. Every strong, 
 healthy appetite finds its appropriate food. The variety of the daily 
 programme, far from confusing, produces a balance of healthy inter- 
 ests; and not only the boy's time, but his thoughts, are devoted to 
 the work of the school. The correlation of drawing and shop-work 
 with science and mathematical studies is exceedingly helpful on both 
 sides, and parents testify to the absorption of our pupils in their 
 work. Mothers and sisters are never tired of telling of the great con- 
 venience of having in the house one who has common sense enough 
 to use the universal tools and to keep things in order. The hands 
 are rarely idle enough to allow the devil to get in his mischievous 
 work. 
 
 Third, A third moral benefit is self-respect, and a respect for 
 honest, intelligent labor. A boy who sees nothing in manual labor 
 but mere brute force despises both the labor and the laborer. To 
 him all hand-work is drudgery, and all men who use their hands are 
 to him equally uncultivated and unattractive. With the acquisition 
 
A FLEA FOE INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. 167 
 
 Fourth: When we come to the advantages to be de- 
 rived by the community at large from the improvement 
 in the industrial quality of its citizens, through the 
 mechanical education of the whole body of our youth 
 and their acquisition and mastery of the elements which 
 underlie all mechanic arts, we reach ground made so 
 familiar by recent discussion that it requires mention 
 only in passing. To the industries of New England in 
 especial this is a matter of transcendent importance. 
 With a harsh climate and a sterile soil, producing few 
 of the materials of its own manufactures, importing its 
 cotton, wool, silk, and flax, without ores of the useful or 
 the precious metals, without even coal for power, !New 
 England must rely for its continued supremacy in 
 manufactures upon the skill, energy, and foresight of 
 its employing class, and upon dexterity, neatness of 
 manipulation, care of materials, and mechanical apti- 
 tude, on the part of its laborers. We cannot afford to 
 tolerate a generation growing up, as Governor Ames has 
 said in his inaugural message, in ignorance of the use of 
 tools. 
 
 Eifth: Among the incidental advantages to be ex- 
 pected from the introduction of the proposed studies and 
 exercises into our public schools, is one which has 
 always seemed to me of great importance, but which is 
 
 of skill in himself, comes a pride in its possession, and the ability 
 and willingness to recognize it in his fellows. When once he appre- 
 ciates skill in handicraft or in any manual art, he regards the pos- 
 sessor of it with sympathy and respect. — Professor C. M. Woodward, 
 Director of the Manual Training School of St. Louis. 
 
168 MANUAL EDUCATION. 
 
 seldom alluded to in. discussion of this subject: namely, 
 the maintenance of that sense of social decency which 
 was once of so strong a savor in the life of ITew Eng- 
 land. No one can pass through any of our villages to- 
 day without being painfully struck by the contrast there 
 afforded with the villages of a generation ago, when, 
 almost without exception, every house was in order and 
 in repair, the fence entire, the gate hung, the shutters 
 in place, the sash fully glazed. Around the house the 
 ground was graded and grassed, and almost everywhere 
 some little garden-patch testified to the universal desire 
 to have things neat, agreeable, and decent. The man 
 then who kept his house and grounds squalid was little 
 less than a public enemy. I need not spend words in 
 showing how great is the contrast in many of our New 
 England villages to-day. The men who, on every hand, 
 allow their premises to remain shabby and squalid, a re- 
 proach and blemish to the street, receive higher wages 
 than our fathers ever dreamed of. The reason why they 
 are content to live amid such miserable surroundings is 
 because they have come from lands where nothing bet- 
 ter was known, and, secondly, because they have not the 
 dexterity and knowledge of the use of tools which would 
 enable them to do those simple jobs of construction and 
 rej)air which were to our fathers a matter of course. If 
 we are to reform this state of things, which is alike dis- 
 graceful and dangerous, and are to bring about a gradual 
 return to that better and happier condition when a strong 
 sense of social decency, inspiring and controlling all the 
 
A PLEA FOE INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. 169 
 
 members of the community, constituted the best possible 
 guaranty of peace and order, of industry and frugality, 
 we must teach the children of these men the use of tools; 
 and we can do it in no other way than through the pub- 
 lic schools. 
 
 Sixth: On the subject of sewing and cooking there 
 are many who can speak with much more intelligence 
 and authority than myself; but 1 yield to no one in 
 appreciation of the importance of these exercises as an 
 integral part of the authoritative curriculum of our 
 schools. So vast appear to me the advantages, social 
 and physiological, to be derived from this source, that, 
 were these exercises in no sense and in no degree educa- 
 tional, I would still lay this duty upon the schools, as a 
 burden to be carried for the general good, and I would 
 employ the authority of the Commonwealth to train 
 every girl within our borders in these all-essential domes- 
 tic arts. If, as Horace Mann said, it is a crime for a 
 boy here to grow up in ignorance of reading and writing, 
 what sort of an offense is it, pray, for a girl here to grow 
 up in ignorance of cooking and sewing? Think from 
 what kind of homes tens of thousands of our children in 
 the public schools every morning come — rooms dis- 
 ordered and ill-kept, amid foul surroundings, presided 
 over by a mother who cannot decently patch or darn a 
 garment that is beginning to give way, and who knows 
 only enough of cooking to take the perhaps abundant ma- 
 terials supplied her and render them, by dirty and waste- 
 ful processes, into disagreeable and indigestible messes, 
 
170 MANUAL EDUCATION. 
 
 productive of dyspepsia and scrofula and provocative of 
 a craving for strong drink. As a mere matter of public 
 safety, can we afford to breed such a population in this 
 Republic ? 
 
 But, in fact, cooking and sewing in the public schools 
 can be made, and, so far as they have been carried, have 
 been made as truly and as strictly educational as the 
 three R's of the primitive schoolhouse. Can anyone 
 look into the rooms of the Winthrop School, when sew- 
 ing is going on under its wise and benign master,^ with- 
 out seeing that the powers and faculties of the children 
 are most actively and harmoniously developing; that 
 character is rapidly and happily forming, as hand, eye, 
 and brain work together, all inspired by the acute de- 
 light which the child always feels when creating some- 
 thing useful or beautiful; that, in a word, education in 
 the largest and best sense is here taking place ? Can any- 
 one look into the Tennyson-street cooking school, with- 
 out seeing, in the care and economy with which fuel and 
 materials are used ; in the order and neatness which per- 
 vade the room — not less the cupboards and lockers than 
 its open parts; in the reasoning which precedes every 
 operation, and the subsequent explanation of effects by 
 well-approved causes, an example of the very best kind 
 of education? 
 
 Seventh: I have now reached the regular orthodox 
 
 number in exposition, and have reserved to the last what 
 
 ^ Robert Swan, Esq., to whom Boston owes a debt it can never pay, 
 for the part he has taken in introducing sewing into the public 
 schools. 
 
A PLEA FOR INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. IVI 
 
 is, to my mind, the most important consideration. 
 However strictly we may hold to the doctrine that the 
 sole sufficient justification of school exercises is found in 
 their educational character, we cannot deny that the 
 maintenance of the schools themselves, and their ample 
 endowment and support, are considerations which may 
 properly, and which properly should, be admitted to 
 qualify, so far as occasion exists, the organization of 
 schools and the curriculum of their studies. 
 
 I heartily believe that the introduction of the me- 
 chanic arts, and of sewing and cooking, into the public 
 schools will do much, very much, not only to increase 
 the interest of the pupils in their work,^ as has been 
 already indicated, but to win for the schools a far larger 
 degree of interest on the part of parents and a far 
 heartier support of the system on the part of the general 
 community. 
 
 Indications are not wanting that powerful elements 
 of hostility are beginning to array themselves against 
 free public schools,^ with compulsoiy attendance, main- 
 
 1 It was thought also, that taking a part of a class away from its 
 regular school work would result in more or less detriment to its 
 progress in the prescribed studies. Here and there a complaint was 
 made by the teacher of some second-class boy, that he was not doing 
 his work well in his own room; but the pupil, in every case, was so 
 anxious to remain in the " carpenter's class," that a word or two of 
 warning was sufficient to bring his performance up to standard 
 again. . . I consider that the results go far to prove that manual train- 
 ing is so great a relief to the iteration of school work that it is a 
 positive benefit, rather than a detriment, to the course in the other 
 studies. — James A. Page, Master of the. Dwiglit School, Boston. 
 
 ' The importance and necessity for the extension of our system of 
 public-school education, so as to include some form of industrial 
 
172 MANUAL education: 
 
 tained under the authority and at the expense of the 
 State; while, perhaps more dangerous still, appear signs 
 of disaffection and indifference among vast numbers 
 who have no reason to be actively hostile. I believe 
 that nothing will go so directly to the root of this evil 
 as the reforms which this meeting has been called to con- 
 sider; and that, not less for the schools themselves than 
 for the scholars, will there be found great virtue in the 
 admission of the elements of industrial education into 
 every schoolhouse of the State, however humble and 
 however remote. 
 
 training, has been constantly increasing during my twelve years' 
 service on the Boston School Board. 
 
 To ray mind, equity, morality, good citizenship, and the industrial 
 welfare of tlie community, are all involved in this question. When 
 we think of the difficulties placed in the way of learning trades, by 
 the virtual abolition of the apprenticeship system, and by the fact 
 that our educational methods train the boy away from the mechanic 
 arts in a country with unequaled opportunities for their exercise, we 
 must admit that, up to the present time, we have considered but one 
 side of the general subject. Now, however, the growing pressure of 
 public opinion demands a change, and I confidently look forward to 
 the completion of our system by the introduction of technical 
 schools. In these, the grammar-school boy, led by his inclination or 
 his necessities, can be educated as thoroughly in the preparation for 
 mechanical work and skilled labor, as his brother in the high and 
 Latin schools is for business and the professions. — Dr. J. G. Blake, 
 Boston. 
 
MANUAL EDUCATION IN URBAN 
 COMMUNITIES 
 
 1887 
 
Address before the National Educational As- 
 sociation, AT Chicago, Jult 15, 1887. From the 
 Addresses and Proceedings of the National Educational 
 Association, 1887. 
 
MANUAL EDUCATION IN URBAN COMMUNITIES. 
 
 As we pass from rural districts and small villages to 
 large towns and cities, the need of what is called manual 
 education, or what I should prefer to call mechanical 
 education, increases palpably and rapidly; while the 
 difficulty and relative cost of instituting and maintaining 
 the required services of instruction diminish in an almost 
 equal ratio. 
 
 In the country, the boy finds a hundred opportunities, 
 alike at work and at play, for acquiring much of that 
 which can be given to the city boy only by way of formal 
 instruction. Whether in his daily stint of labor, upon 
 the farm, about the house, the bam, the sheds, or in his 
 sports or rambles, upon the village green, over the field, 
 through the woods — the country boy has incessant occa- 
 sion to use his hands and his eyes; to observe, to plan, 
 to do. 
 
 It would not become us, as teachers, to admit that 
 what is thus done is as well done as it would be if the 
 foundation were properly laid in systematic instruction; 
 that the boy can, for himself, or under the guidance of 
 older persons themselves untrained to teach, themselves 
 largely unintelligent as to means and processes, often 
 working by " rule of thumb " and pursuing purely tra- 
 ditional methods — that the boy can, under such condi- 
 
 175 
 
176 MANUAL EDUCATION. 
 
 tions, either accumulate knowledge or acquire skill and 
 training as well and rapidly as he would under good 
 tuition. We all know that one may play at games or 
 work at tasks for years, without learning to do either as 
 well as might be accomplished in a single year under a 
 true master, a master both of the special arts involved 
 and of the greater art of teaching. No one can have 
 widely observed mankind without being painfully im- 
 pressed by the obtuseness and perverseness which cause 
 advantages near at hand to be lost, the plainest reasons 
 for the phenomena of daily life to be overlooked, the 
 most natural and direct ways of doing things to be neg- 
 lected for stupid and clumsy and wasteful methods, all 
 from the lack of elementary instruction in first prin- 
 ciples, and of the formation of habits of observation and 
 reflection, under systematic tuition. 
 
 Yet in spite of the deficiencies which remain, what 
 the country boy enjoys in the way of training hand and 
 eye to be true servants of the mind; what he enjoys in 
 the way of opportunities and incentives for making the 
 mind itself the real master of life, through a well- 
 rounded and harmonious development of all the powers, 
 through the creation of the spirit of self-reliance, 
 through the exercise given to the constructive and 
 executive faculty, is almost infinitely greater than that 
 which falls to the lot of the unhappy city boy of to-day. 
 Out of school, what has the latter to do with himself, his 
 time, or the energy given him, as we are wont to say, for 
 some good purpose, though it would puzzle the most de- 
 
MANUAL ED UCA TION IN URBAN COMMUNITIES. HI 
 
 voiit and the most ingenious to tell for what purpose 
 energy should have been given to a boy condemned to 
 live in a modem city ? 
 
 Work he cannot, for, except in the rarest instances, 
 there is nothing useful for him to do. No matter how 
 poor or even how poverty-stricken his family, it would 
 be almost impossible for him to contribute to the com- 
 mon means. In the olden time, such a boy could have 
 helped his father or mother to spin or to weave. To- 
 day, one buying flax or cotton or wool to work upon, in 
 the intervals of schooling, could not get back the cost of 
 his material in the price of his product, sold in competi- 
 tion with the output of the giant factory and its power 
 looms. In the olden time, such a boy could have carved 
 in wood or worked on metal, or have helped his father 
 make furniture, boots, gloves, or hats in the family 
 home. To-day, nearly every art of domestic manu- 
 facture has utterly disappeared, leaving not a trace be- 
 hind. It is almost impossible now for even the women 
 of the family to find any work by which they can add the 
 most trifling amount to the common means. 
 
 So highly organized is modem industry, so exacting 
 are its requirements, that no one wants the fragments 
 of a boy's time, for any productive purpose. A lad who 
 cannot give his whole day is not, in one case in a hun- 
 dred, worth having around. 
 
 Let us pause a moment to consider what this means. 
 A generation ago, not in the country only, but in every 
 city and town, there was an abundance of useful work 
 
1V8 MANUAL EDUCATION. 
 
 to occupy the time and energy of almost every school- 
 boy out of school. These tasks constituted a most use- 
 ful part of his training. They wrought into the very 
 fabric of his being the idea and sentiment of a common 
 family interest ; they gave scope and play to the creative 
 and constructive faculty; they trained eye and hand to 
 accuracy and precision; they taught the child to respect 
 toil and to value the fruits of toil; they sweetened the 
 bread of poverty; they made the sleep of childhood 
 sounder. To-day, under the new conditions of produc- 
 tion, it would, in almost every city home, cost more to 
 keep a boy usefully employed than to feed him in 
 idleness. 
 
 Do you say: " AVell then, let him play, if he cannot 
 work " ? I answer that, in our modem cities, even out- 
 door play, of any satisfactory sort, is scarcely practicable. 
 Search the city of Boston on a pleasant Saturday after- 
 noon ; and out of thousands of boys, who should be doing 
 something with energy and enthusiasm, their muscles 
 all strung, their blood tingling in their veins, you will 
 not find one in fifty doing anything which would be even 
 a poor caricature of country sport. On the famous 
 Common, you will see two or three balls being pitched 
 or knocked about, while a large crowd of idlers look on. 
 In a few vacant and unfilled lots, you will find a very 
 poor game of base-ball or foot-ball going on. Some 
 scores of lads have, perhaps, had the moral courage and 
 mental initiative to go upon tramps into the country. 
 All tlie rest are either walking the streets, or loafing in 
 
MANUAL EDUCATION IN URBAN COMMUNITIES. 179 
 
 the parks, or hanging about the house. Of this last — 
 by far the greatest — class, some are lounging, moody, 
 bored, and discontented; some are revenging their un- 
 happy lot by pestering their mothers and the smaller 
 children; some are further muddling their brains by 
 reading or study, of which they have already had too 
 much. 
 
 Such and no greater are the opportunities and incen- 
 tives afforded the city boy of to-day for acquiring knowl- 
 edge of things, for training the perceptive powers, for 
 forming habits of observation, for discriminating be- 
 tween phenomena and interpreting their just signifi- 
 cance, for exercising the constructive and creative 
 faculty, which is the most godlike thing in man. This 
 brief survey will, I trust, be held to justify my assertion 
 that, as we pass from rural districts and small villages to 
 large towns and cities, the need of what is called manual 
 education, in connection with the school system, palp- 
 ably and rapidly increases. 
 
 On the other hand, the burden of instituting and 
 maintaining instruction in the mechanic arts diminishes 
 as we pass from rural to urban communities quite as 
 rapidly as the need of such instruction increases. This 
 is due, not alone to the comparative poverty of agricul- 
 tural populations, although the inability of many dis- 
 tricts of this class properly to support schools, even of 
 the traditional type, constitutes one of the gravest edu- 
 cational problems of the time. This result is in a much 
 higher degree due to the concentration of population in 
 
180 MANUAL EDUCATION. 
 
 commercial and manufacturing communities, allowing 
 the same amount of apparatus and supplies, and tlie same 
 amount of skilled service to do a vastly greater work of 
 instruction than would be possible in rural districts. It 
 is not necessary to contrast the small schoolhouses, 
 widely scattered, which serve the purposes of an agri- 
 cultural population, with the twelve-room buildings, 
 thickly set, in which the children of our cities and large 
 towns receive elementary instruction, in order to show 
 the greatness of the advantage which would be enjoyed 
 by communities of the class under consideration in the 
 matter of manual or mechanical education. The dif- 
 ference, in this respect, between city and country must 
 be obvious on the merest mention. Where children, by 
 thousands, are concentrated in narrow districts, the 
 question of providing the means of instruction in the 
 mechanic arts is little more than the question whether 
 such instruction is itself desirable.* The technical 
 teacher who, in the country, could reach only a few 
 small classes, for a single lesson iif a week, would, in the 
 
 ' I think there is no city of ten thousand inhabitants in this State 
 [Massachusetts] which could not within a year set on foot a high 
 school of the mechanical arts, which should be either immediately 
 connected with its high school or located at some short distance from 
 it. according to the expense or other considerations involved. . . 
 In those schools I think the high-school children from fourteen to 
 eighteen should be ti-ained in carpentry and joinery, and in work at the 
 forge and at the lathe; trained in the mechanic arts; taught to make 
 things; taught to impose their ideas upon matter, and to compel it to 
 take the form which they have chosen for it. — From Testimony bf fore 
 the Committee of the Senate of the United States upon the Relations be- 
 tween Labor and Capital, 1885. 
 
MANUAL ED UGA TION IN URBA N COMMUNITIES. 1 8 1 
 
 city, find his power of instruction limited only by his 
 own strength and vital force. The apparatus and tools 
 which in the country could serve but a few score of 
 pupils would, in the city, serve as many hundreds. 
 Even the supplies, purchased at wholesale and requiring 
 little transportation, would cost the city school board 
 much less than the rural school committee. 
 
 So great is the total effect of these differences of con- 
 dition, that it may be safely said that a city of ten thou- 
 sand inhabitants could provide instruction in a variety 
 of mechanic arts, under the best teachers, with the 
 choicest apparatus, tools, and machinery, and could 
 carry its pupils from stage to stage through an extended 
 mechanical education, at less expense than would be re- 
 quired to give the same number of pupils, in rural dis- 
 tricts, a rude course in a single art, under the cheapest 
 arrangements that could be made as to teachers, tools, 
 and supplies. 
 
 The concurrence of the two conditions indicated, 
 namely: the greater need of manual or mechanical edu- 
 cation in cities and large towns, and the diminished cost 
 of instituting and maintaining such a system of instruc- 
 tion in communities of this class, and, I might add, the 
 greater financial resources there available to do what- 
 ever may be fairly determined to be for the good of the 
 rising generation — this concurrence of favorable condi- 
 tions seems to me to establish the expediency of begin- 
 ning in our cities and large towns whatever it may be 
 decided to undertake in this matter. Here it is the ma- 
 
182 MANUAL EDUCATION: 
 
 cliinery should be earliest set up and put to working. 
 Here it is we may most fully and conclusively determine 
 tlie capabilities of the system, ascertain the unfortunate 
 liabilities, if any, to which it is subject, and create that 
 body of experience which is essential to its full and per- 
 fect development. Here, too, it is we should train the 
 teachers who will be needed for the extension of this 
 kind of instruction, outwards, stage by stage, from more 
 to less compact communities. 
 
 Whether, within urban communities, the develop- 
 m.ent of the system of manual education should be by a 
 gradual extension downwards from the high school, or 
 upwards from the grammar school, is a question deserv- 
 ing the careful consideration of all interested in this 
 subject, a question on which light may perhaps be 
 thrown by experience. The most popular procedure at 
 the present time, in promotion of manual education, 
 appears to be the institution of high schools of the me- 
 chanic arts, as in St. Louis, Chicago, and other Western 
 cities, the question of such instruction in the grammar 
 schools being left to the future. 
 
 In Boston, in addition to a small private high school 
 of mechanic arts,^ we have introduced instruction in car- 
 pentry, to a limited extent, into the grammar schools. 
 
 When Lady Hamilton asked the sailor who had 
 brought her a message from Lord iSTelson, whether he 
 would have a glass of ale, or a little rum, or should she 
 
 ' In 1894 was established the existing Mechanic Arts High School 
 as a part of the public school system. — Ed. 
 
\ 
 
 MANUAL EDUCATION IN URBAN COMMUNITIES. 183 
 
 brew him a punch, Jack, with a proper pull at his fore- 
 lock, replied, " Well, your ladyship, I'll take the ale 
 now; and be sipping my grog while your ladyship mixes 
 the punch." I am disposed to think that we should 
 deal with this question of the introduction of manual 
 education in our schools, in somewhat of Jack's rather 
 grasping spirit; that we should take all we can get, and 
 this as soon as possible. Not that I am anxious to 
 hasten the complete result, namely, the universal intro- 
 duction of manual instruction into our public schools 
 for at least all scholars above the age of twelve ; not that 
 I am sanguine of immediate success in whatever may be 
 * to this end undertaken; not that I ove-rlook the prob- 
 ability that some part of what may be attempted will 
 result in failure ; but it seems to me that, where so great 
 a task is before us, the sooner we get to work, some- 
 where, somehow, — almost anywhere, anyhow, — the 
 better. In such a case there is more waste in doing 
 nothing than in many mistakes made in doing some- 
 thing. This is not a situation to which applies Davy 
 Crockett's maxim: first be sure you are right and then 
 go ahead. The very thing we have to do is to make 
 experiments, to create experience. 
 
 We know we are right in our general principles. 
 The best expert opinion coincides with the increasing 
 conviction of the community, that the traditional cur- 
 riculum of the schools needs to be essentially modified, 
 through the introduction of studies and exercises which 
 shall train eye and hand; which shall cultivate the per- 
 
184 MANUAL EDUCATION. 
 
 ceptive faculties, so long and grievously neglected; 
 which shall create a respect for manual skill and dex- 
 terity and for taste in design; which shall afford scope 
 and play for the creative and constructive instinct. 
 Just what these studies and exercises shall be, in char- 
 acter and order of succession, is to be determined by ex- 
 periment rather than by forecast. The question is one 
 which requires to be worked out rather than to be 
 thought out. The most that is likely to be done in the 
 immediate present will not be more than to accumulate 
 experience, determining the direction which our efforts 
 in this interest shall ultimately take. 
 
 One thing seems reasonably well established, namely, 
 that carpentry and wood-turning are the arts with which 
 we may most advantageously begin with grammar-school 
 pupils. Work in these lines is sure to interest both 
 children an.d parents. It is easier to get competent 
 teachers than in any other of the arts. The expense of 
 machinery, tools and supplies comes fairly within the 
 means of any urban community. The practical value 
 of the acquirement of these arts is palpable to the least 
 instructed mind. The last consideration is, however, 
 one on which the advocates of manual training must not 
 greatly dwell, since the strength of their position lies in 
 the claim that such studies are, truly, purely, and highly, 
 educational,^ being actually required, in addition to the 
 
 ' Industry, as such, 1ms, in my judgment, no place in the public 
 schools, though industriousness is always in order there. The prime 
 object of our school system is education, and it cannot be to any con- 
 siderable extent diverted from that end without injury to the schools 
 
MANUAL EDUCATION IN URBAN COMMUNITIES. 185 
 
 familiar studies of the public school, to secure the com- 
 plete and harmonious development of the powers and 
 faculties of the mind. 
 
 That the introduction of these or any other mechanic 
 arts into the grammar schools would give new direction 
 and a fresh impulse to the study and practice of draw- 
 ing, is certain. I agree with Dr. Runkle, that drawing 
 in the public schools, not directed upon work in the me- 
 chanic arts, is not one-half of what it would be as an edu- 
 cational force had it a definite object. I look with 
 confidence to see this most interesting and promising 
 study receive a new inspiration wherever the use of tools 
 is introduced into the schools. 
 
 One thing more I will say regarding the inauguration 
 
 themselves and to the community at large. Indeed, it would scarcely 
 be possible to do a greater wrong to the major part of our public- 
 school children than by taking any appreciable share of the little 
 time they have for the development and training of their intellectual 
 powers, for the purpose of applying it to the mere means of bread- 
 winning or money-making. 
 
 But while I thus hold strongly to the strictly educational charac- 
 ter of school work, I believe that the courses of study in the schools 
 of New England have been, and, though in a diminishing degree, 
 still are, incomplete and inadequate to the demands of a full and 
 symmetrical education. I believe that these deficiencies have induced 
 a one-sided development of mind and character; have led to the set- 
 ting up of false standards of what is admirable and desirable in life; 
 have caused to be magnified glibness of speech, force of declamation, 
 readiness in recitation, and retentiveness of memory, at the expense 
 of far more useful faculties, qualities, or habits, namely, soundness of 
 judgment, clearness of perception, the habit of observation, the cre- 
 ative instinct, the executive faculty. 
 
 Briefly speaking, my project of reform, in schools for boys, would 
 be as follows: carry the best-approved methods of the kindergarten 
 upward through the primary grades, as far as the means and re- 
 sources of each school, for itself, will allow; introduce more and 
 
186 MANUAL EDUCATION. 
 
 of this system, which is, that the friends of the new edu- 
 cation should refuse to accept less than two exercises of 
 an hour and a half or two hours each, per week, in the 
 mechanic arts. Wherever committee-men and teachers 
 are not prepared to grant so much as this, cannot see 
 their way to clear at least this amount of space for the 
 mechanic arts, it would be well, in my judgment, though 
 I speak with some hesitation, to await a more fortunate 
 time and a better disposition on the part of those who 
 control the schools. 
 
 Whatever other arts may, in the development of this 
 system, come to be associated with carpentry and wood- 
 
 more the study of form, color, texture, structure, and organization, 
 by means of natural objects in the hands of pupils and teachers, 
 stimulating and encouraging the pupils, more and more as their fac- 
 ulties are developed, to make observations for themselves at their 
 play or at their work, and to bring the results back to the schoolroom, 
 for comparison, for criticism, for discussion; at the age of twelve, or 
 thereabouts, introduce semi-weekly exercises with tools, preferably 
 wood-working tools, and in clay-modeling, for the cultivation of the 
 sense of form, for the training of the eye and hand, and for gaining 
 the power to give material shape to conceptions of the mind ; at four- 
 teen years of age, or thereabouts, introduce exercises in metal-work- 
 ing, and require every boy who passes through one of the high 
 schools of the State to become a good mechanic, not at all for the 
 sake of his practicing a mechanical avocation, but to make him a 
 better equipped, more capable, and more useful man. 
 
 All this could not be done at once. The system would have to be 
 introduced gradually and tentatively. Probably the more natural 
 order would be that the system should extend from the higher 
 schools downward, and from the city schools outward. Much 
 would be learned in the course of the gradual development of such 
 a system; and the best-conceived programme would doubtless require 
 considerable modifications, as the result of experience. — F'rom a 
 Symposium: " What Industry, if any, can pi-ofitably be introduced 
 into Country Schools?" in " Science," April 15, 1887. 
 
MANUAL EDUCATION IN URBAN COMMUNITIES. 187 
 
 turning in the grammar schools, it appears to me that, 
 at the very beginning, we may demand a complete 
 course of both wood- and metal-working for that smaller 
 number of advanced pupils who go forward into the 
 high school. If it is for the interest of the State that 
 these young persons shall, at the public expense, be 
 further educated and cultivated on one side of their 
 minds, it is not equally, but doubly, desirable that the 
 education and cultivation of their other powers and 
 faculties should be kept up in the high school. It is 
 little less than a shame that we should graduate from 
 these schools pupils who are highly accomplished in lan- 
 guage, composition, and declamation, but are less keen 
 in perception, less careful in observation, weaker in 
 practical judgment, with less of visual accuracy, less of 
 manual dexterity, less of the executive faculty — the 
 power, that is, of doing things instead of merely think- 
 ing about them, talking about them, and writing about 
 them — than the children of the ordinary ungraded dis- 
 trict school. 
 
 Whatever views one may hold of the mutual relations 
 of the child and the State in the grammar school, it can 
 be gainsaid by no one that, if the community is to be 
 called upon to carry the more favored children forward, 
 through long and expensive courses of advanced educa- 
 tion and training, those men who, on behalf of the com- 
 munity, direct the schools of this class have the absolute 
 right to impose terms and conditions, to exact and to 
 withhold whatever the public interest may require. 
 
188 MANUAL EDUCATION. 
 
 Cherishing the views I do as to what constitutes a com- 
 plete education, I would allow no pupil to graduate from 
 a high school who was not as proficient and exact in me- 
 chanical as in grammatical exercises; I would not make 
 myself responsible for adding to the number of youth 
 who have been trained in description, without having 
 been taught to observe the things they should describe; 
 who have spent years in the art of rhetorical elaboration 
 and ornamentation, without acquiring any adequate 
 body and substance upon which to exercise those arts; 
 who are clever in dialectics and declamation, but pur- 
 blind in perception and feeble in execution; great at 
 second-hand knowledge, but confused and diffident when 
 thrown upon their own resources; skillful with the pen, 
 but using any other tool awkwardly and ignorantly. 
 
 The mischief we can possibly do, through a one-sided 
 education, to those who stop short with the grammar 
 school is, fortunately, limited. These children, escap- 
 ing from tuition before they have got their growth and 
 going at once to work, have an opportunity to cure in 
 part the faults and to supply in part the deficiencies of 
 their education. That work, of course, does them far 
 less good, and they do it far less well, than if the founda- 
 tion had been laid in early youth, under proper guidance 
 and instruction. Yet, at least, they are saved from 
 growing up and growing out all on one side, like the un- 
 happy youth who are destined to go on, for three or 
 seven years more, rehearsing the opinions of others; 
 memorizing facts ascertained by others; practicing a 
 
MANUAL EDUCATION IN URBAN COMMUNITIES. 189 
 
 simulated passion in declamation, an artificial taste in 
 composition; making much of grammatical niceties, 
 painfully polisliing periods without much regard to the 
 thoughts these should inclose; going over and over a 
 weary round of second-hand information and second- 
 hand ideas, and acquiring a few purely conventional 
 accomplishments. 
 
 We hear much of the contempt of so-called self-made 
 men toward scholars; of their distrust, in practical mat- 
 ters, of school-made and book-read men. Doubtless 
 some part of this feeling is of vulgar origin, due to 
 jealousy, envy, or ignorance; but a far better part I be- 
 lieve to be perfectly just, arising from a correct appre- 
 hension of the natural effects of long-continued study 
 and exercise within the traditional lines of high school 
 and college instruction, producing a disposition to hesi- 
 tate, to procrastinate, to multiply distinctions, to refine 
 in preparation, to stand shivering on the verge of action. 
 Doubtless, many school- and college-bred men, when 
 thrown into action, are found to have enough of robust 
 manhood to overcome the ill effects of their early train- 
 ing, especially if in school or college they were not very- 
 good scholars. But would it not be better from the first 
 to associate with the dialectical, grammatical, and rhe- 
 torical exercises of our schools and with the perhaps 
 necessary acquisition of much mere gazetteer, cyclo- 
 pedia, and dictionary information, studies and exercises 
 which shall not only prevent the formation of distinctly 
 bad habits of mind and will, but shall positively develop 
 
190 MANUAL EDUCATION. 
 
 those powers and faculties wliicli tlie very first access to 
 the duties of professional and business life shows to be 
 the most useful of our endowments? 
 
 I believe that the introduction of the new studies and 
 exercises which we are advocating will not prove a mere 
 addition to the work of the school or college. I believe 
 it win also profoundly modify the instruction given 
 within traditional lines. Boys and young men who 
 have learned to observe for themselves, to acquire knowl- 
 edge at first hand, to give effect to their purposes and 
 form to their ideas; who have been accustomed to im- 
 pose their will upon matter and to make it take shape to 
 suit their intellectual conceptions; who know how to 
 project, to plan, to execute; will have little patience with 
 much that makes up the traditional curriculum. They 
 will demand to be brought face to face with facts. 
 They will insist upon going to the bottom of any matter 
 they have to deal with. That genuine intellectual 
 honesty, which is the first fruit of the objective study of 
 concrete things, will make them scorn to defend, in dia- 
 lectical and rhetorical practice, theses which they do 
 not thoroughly believe. They will grudge every hour 
 spent in memorizing matters for which they can at any 
 time resort to the gazetteer or cyclopedia. It will be 
 hard to impose on such students with sounding names, 
 deceive them with sophistries, or bear them down by 
 authority. They will care much for principles; little 
 for the manner in which these may be dressed up for 
 effect, or tricked out for public admiration. 
 
MANUAL ED UCA TION IN URBAN COMMUNITIES. 1 9 1 
 
 The access of bodies of students of this character can- 
 not but profoundly modify the subjects and the methods 
 of instruction of any school they enter; and every 
 change wrought by the infusion of such a spirit will be 
 sure to prove of benefit to scholar and to school alike. 
 
 I have, thus far, spoken only of the educational needs 
 of our boys. How far the traditional courses of study 
 shall be modified in the case of girls is a nicer question, 
 respecting which it will not be unreasonable to await 
 light from whatever experiments may be tried with chil- 
 dren of the other sex. It would seem to be the dictate 
 of wisdom to solve the easier part of the problem first. 
 
 That young women may become heartily interested 
 in studies and exercises in the mechanic arts and may 
 make themselves proficient at least in carpentry, is 
 established by our experience at the normal schools of 
 Bridgewater and Salem, Massachusetts. That such in- 
 struction, for those who are to become teachers, yields 
 a professional accomplishment of prime importance, 
 enabling the schoolmistress, especially in the rural dis- 
 tricts, to make and repair much of the apparatus for 
 teaching natural and physical science, is evident. This 
 work cannot be too strongly pressed in all normal and 
 training schools. 
 
 As regards grammar schools, I confess that my ambi- 
 tion would be satisfied, for the present, by the introduc- 
 tion of sewing and cooking, imtil the full capabilities of 
 these two kinds of school exercises should be fully devel- 
 oped and fairly tested. The triumphant success which 
 
192 MANUAL EDUCATION. 
 
 has attended the extension of sewing through the lower 
 grades of the grammar schools of Boston, and the ad- 
 mirable results which have been attained, so far as the 
 cutting, fitting, and making of plain garments have 
 been introduced into the upper grades of three districts,^ 
 have put this school exercise beyond the stage of experi- 
 ment. Ko intelligent and candid person, who thor- 
 oughly knows the work done in this department, any 
 longer questions either the practical utility of the 
 results achieved or the appropriateness of sewing in 
 the school curriculum, as a strictly educational 
 agency. 
 
 Of equal promise of good to our citizenship and, as I 
 believe, not less suited to the prime purposes of instruc- 
 tion, is the newer school exercise of cooking. So tran- 
 scendent are the social, sanitary, and economic advantages 
 of instruction in this art, in enabling the very poor to 
 husband their resources, in preserving the health of the 
 community, in removing baleful and destructive appe- 
 tites, in promoting the comfort and decency of the 
 family home, that any educator would be abundantly 
 justified, were that necessary, in making this an excep- 
 tion to the rule that all school exercises should be dis- 
 tinctly educational. Especially in view of the great 
 and painful change in our citizenship which is making 
 such rapid progress before our eyes, does it become a 
 patriotic duty to seize upon the only opportunity which 
 the State enjoys of reaching the members of the rising 
 ' Sewing is now a part of the course. — Ed. 
 
MANUAL EDUCATION IN URBAN COMMUNITIES. 193 
 
 generation, and to employ some portion of the time of 
 the children in the pubKc schools for instruction in do- 
 mestic economy and in the art of preparing food. The 
 practical value of such an accomplishment, in the degree 
 in which it may be acquired in a single brief course, is 
 incontestably greater, to girls coming from poor and 
 squalid homes, as so many tens of thousands do, than all 
 else they could possibly learn in school, beyond reading, 
 writing, and plain ciphering. The importance to the 
 State of such girls acquiring this art, is, from a sanitary 
 point of view, from an economic point of view, and from 
 a political point of view, greater even than the impor- 
 tance of the elementary knowledge just referred to. 
 We are threatened to-day, in the United States, with a 
 lowering of the standard of living and with an impair- 
 ment of the sense of social decency which would together 
 constitute a greater industrial and political evil than we 
 have known. All the letters that ever were taught in 
 our public schools will not do so much to oppose and 
 counteract these unfortunate liabilities as the two arts 
 of sewing and cooking, properly taught under the au- 
 thority of the State. 
 
 But we are not driven to defend the introduction of 
 cooking into the public schools as an invasion of the 
 proper field of education, justified by dire necessity. 
 l^o one can spend an hour in the cooking schools of Bos- 
 ton, as they have been maintained, first through the 
 philanthropic enterprise of Mrs. Hemenway, and after- 
 wards at the expense of the city, without being impressed 
 
194 MANUAL EDUCATION. 
 
 by the very high educational value of the instruction 
 given. 
 
 As a gi'eat object lesson in chemistry; as a means of 
 promoting care, patience, and forethought; as a study of 
 cause and effect; as a medium of conveying useful infor- 
 mation, irrespective altogether of the practical value of 
 the art acquired ; the short course, which alone the means 
 at command allowed to be given to each class of girls, 
 has constituted, I do not doubt, the best body of purely 
 educational training which any girl of all those classes 
 ever experienced within the same number of hours. 
 
 I will mention but a single point. The very large 
 range in the Tennyson-street cooking school was, during 
 the last school year, ready to cook any of the dishes that 
 might be prepared by the pupils, from half-past nine in 
 the morning until half-past four in the afternoon, for 
 five days in the week, for thirty-eight weeks. Fires 
 were made, the dampers and drafts were controlled by 
 the pupils under the direction of the teacher. The 
 amount of coal consumed in this time was considerably 
 less than two tons. Now, if any unhappy householder 
 here present will compare this expenditure of fuel with 
 what takes place in his own kitchen, he cannot fail to 
 be impressed by a sense of the prudence, patience, care, 
 forethought, intelligence, and skill involved in keeping 
 up such a service at so small a cost. If this be not edu- 
 cational, pray what is education? And what is true of 
 this is equally true of all the other exercises in the cook- 
 ing school, under proper tuition. 
 
THE RELATION OF MANUAL TRAINING 
 
 TO CERTAIN MENTAL DEFECTS 
 
 1895 
 
Rkad at the Sixtt-pifth Annual Meeting op the 
 American Institute of Instruction, July 9, 1895. 
 From Journal of Proceedings of the American Institute of 
 Instruction, 1895. 
 
THE EELATION OF MANUAL TEAINING TO 
 CERTAIN MENTAL DEFECTS. 
 
 The full title of my paper is: Manual training as au 
 agent in the diagnosis and treatment of certain mental 
 defects; but that statement exaggerates its importance, 
 since what I shall have to say on the subject is merely in 
 the nature of suggestion and inquiry. I have, in fact, 
 no results to announce; no formed conclusions, even, to 
 express. My mind has been drawn within the last few 
 years to certain phenomena which appear to intimate the 
 probability, first, that mental defects, seriously interfer- 
 ing with progress in study and with success in the affairs 
 of life, may exist without being suspected by parents, 
 teachers, or play- and school-mates; secondly, that such 
 defects do in fact exist far more frequently than is popu- 
 larly supposed. Brought to these conclusions, it has 
 seemed to me that manual training, — or the practice of 
 the mechanic arts as a means of instruction, — while use- 
 ful in the case of students of normal minds and of the 
 best abilities, may have an additional and most impor- 
 tant use as an agent, first for discovering and then for 
 treating, these defects. Let me ask your attention, 
 somewhat at length, to incidents which have suggested 
 the probability that parent and teacher and play- or 
 school-mate have often to do with wholly unsuspected 
 defects of mental constitution and organization. 
 
198 MANUAL EDUCATION. 
 
 A few years ago I was called upon to act as the chair- 
 man of a committee to examine candidates for West 
 Point, in one of the congressional districts of Massa- 
 chusetts. The thirteen candidates were subjected to the 
 usual examination for physical soundness; and all satis- 
 factorily passed the test. When we came, however, to 
 the test for color-blindness, a young man whom I had re- 
 marked as one of the most spirited, intelligent, and fine- 
 looking of the group, advanced to the table and threw 
 the skeins of colored worsteds into groups so absurd as 
 to seem actually impossible. One moment sufficed to 
 show that he was wholly out of the competition and en- 
 tirely ineligible for military service. Here was a young 
 man, evidently of more than usual intelligence and 
 ability, who had gone to the age of seventeen or eighteen 
 without any suspicion on his own part that he had not 
 the normal sense respecting color. His parents and the 
 other members of his family from childhood had been 
 accustomed to observe him in his dealings inside the 
 house with colored objects; his playmates had doubtless 
 on countless occasions made reference to the color of 
 objects; and yet he had gone through all this, day after 
 day and year after year, without having his suspicion 
 excited that what they saw he did not see, and he had 
 taken the trouble to prepare himself for an examination 
 the results of which might affect his whole life, without 
 the faintest apprehension of his disability. I remember 
 to have heard of a naval officer who went through the 
 war and was afterwards discharged from the service for a 
 
MANUAL TRAINING AND MENTAL DEFECTS. 199 
 
 long-unsuspected color-blindness wliicli was almost total; 
 yet for years he had been dealing with color signals and 
 colored flags and ensigns. It is well known that the 
 color tests introduced by boards of railroad commis- 
 sioners in several States have resulted in throwing out 
 not a few locomotive engineers of large experience who 
 had never discovered or suspected their deficiencies. 
 
 Take another instance : a gentleman came to my ofl&ce 
 to introduce his son as an applicant for admission to the 
 Institute of Technology. The young man had received 
 an appointment to the Naval Academy at Annapolis; 
 had passed the text-book examination; had passed the 
 ordinary physical examination; had gone through the 
 test for color-blindness; and then it was found that an 
 object which he could see distinctly with one eye at the 
 distance of twenty-seven feet had to be brought within 
 eight feet to be seen at all with the other eye. During 
 all his childhood and boyhood he had never for a mo- 
 ment suspected the existence of this defect. Let me 
 recite still another case. A lady of my acquaintance 
 had very charitably taken into her household, as a serv- 
 ant, a young woman who was subject to severe nervous 
 disorder. She could get employment under no ordi- 
 nary circumstances; and the lady I refer to had under- 
 taken to carry a part of her burden by employing her. 
 After the lapse of some weeks, this lady, who had often 
 observed the servant very closely and curiously when 
 engaged at her work, especially while sewing, broke out 
 with an exclamation, " Jane, do you really see any- 
 
200 MANUAL EDUCATION. 
 
 thing? " The girl looked up in great surprise. " Why, 
 yes, I see ,perf ectly well." Her mistress rejoined, " I 
 do not believe that you see anything as we see it." An 
 examination by an oculist followed; and it was ascer- 
 tained that the girl's entire disorder proceeded from 
 eyes that were simply a mass of defects and distortions. 
 With treatment of her eyes, the nervous affection in time 
 ceased. I related this to one of the most distinguished 
 medical men in New York, for many years a professor 
 in the College of Physicians and Surgeons, who re- 
 joined: "There are many such cases. My son, a cap- 
 tain in the United States army, for years suffered the 
 greatest agony from pains in his head and the back of 
 his neck, before he discovered that the whole trouble was 
 due to defects of vision." 
 
 I might go on for a long time enumerating similar 
 instances which have come under my observation; but 
 what has been said will suffice to justify the inquiry, 
 whether, if such defects, in such degrees, can exist in 
 respect to matters so objective and so completely open 
 to observation and to examination, it is not probable that 
 defects of mental constitution and organization, of the 
 gravest nature, are found in every schoolroom and in 
 every large family; and that much of what the parent or 
 the teacher takes to be the result of indifference, willful- 
 ness, or neglect, is due to mental distortions, perversions, 
 obliquities, lesions, and breaches of continuity, which 
 have as distinct and decided an effect in preventing the 
 proper and normal action of the child's mind upon what 
 
MANUAL TBAININQ AND MENTAL DEFECTS. 201 
 
 is sought to be presented to it, as would the most object- 
 ive deficiencies and injuries to tlie organs of sense. If 
 parents and teachers and playmates and schoolmates can 
 fail, through years, to see, or even to suspect, the exist- 
 ence of color-blindness, for example, is it not possible, 
 and even highly probable, that defects more deeply 
 seated and of a more obscure character are the cause of 
 no small part of the failures of the schoolroom? 
 
 In connection with the preparation of this paper, a 
 Boston physician has told me of a case recently com- 
 ing under his knowledge where a young man had gradu- 
 ally become almost totally deaf through the slow process 
 of the disease called adenoids, without his father, a prac- 
 ticing physician, suspecting the existence of the trouble 
 until a late stage of the deafness had been reached. 
 ITow, in the case of such a child, whatever is said loudly 
 and distinctly is heard. The moment the teacher's voice 
 drops below a certain point, or her back is turned, or her 
 speech becomes hurried and confused, the child loses all 
 or a part of what is uttered. Some thing he makes out ; 
 perhaps by suggestion from what he has caught, perhaps 
 by observation of the teacher's lips or gestures; some 
 other thing he drops entirely; a third thing, still, he gets 
 wrong. The result is partial failure in his work. He 
 does not understand the true cause. His teacher does 
 not suspect it. In the same way, there must be in- 
 stances of mental defects where a more than usual effort 
 on the part of the teacher, a more than usual degree of 
 attention on the part of the pupil, enable the current of 
 
202 MANUAL EDUCATION. 
 
 thought to jump the broken wire and pass to its object; 
 but any slackening of effort on the part of the teacher, 
 or of attention on the part of the pupil, allows the cur- 
 rent to become dispersed and to remain without effect. 
 
 It is not for a moment supposed that the thought 
 above presented is not familiar to all students of the 
 mind and to all teachers of youth. The only contribu- 
 tion which I can hope to make, is in urging the con- 
 sideration that mental defects corresponding to the 
 defects in the organs of sense of which illustrations have 
 been given, are vastly more frequent than we have been 
 accustomed to believe and demand greater attention 
 from us in dealing with individual pupils ; and, secondly, 
 that we have in manual training an agent for a diagnosis 
 of some, at least, of these defects and, though doubtless 
 in a lower degree, for a treatment of them. We go into 
 an orthopedic hospital and our very souls are torn with 
 the spectacle of distortion and perversion and deformity 
 which we there witness on every hand; but we comfort 
 ourselves by saying, " Thank God ! it is only one child 
 in a hundred who is thus afflicted." For my part I be- 
 lieve that the cases of mental distortion, perversion, 
 and deformity are far, far more frequent; and I cannot 
 help believing that it is to such unsuspected disabilities 
 and infirmities of the pupil that we owe a very large part 
 of the failures of the schoolroom which pass for instances 
 of heedlessness, willfulness, and even positively bad 
 purpose. 
 
 If, then, it is reasonable to believe that defects of men- 
 
MANUAL TRAINING AND MENTAL DEFECTS. 203 
 
 tal constitution and organization, corresponding to 
 defects in the organs of sense, do exist in regard to any- 
 large part of our school children, it seems to me clear 
 that we have in manual training, so called, — that is, the 
 systematic practice of the mechanic arts in connection 
 with drawing, as a means of school instruction, — a very 
 important agent, at least for their discovery. 
 
 If to the traditional studies we add manual training, 
 we have not only another test of application and 
 capacity — a thing in itself of great importance, inas- 
 much as, by bringing in a new kind of test, we may 
 largely correct the errors of the test afforded by text- 
 book studies merely — but we have a test peculiarly 
 suited to bring out the cause of any degree of failure in 
 the performance of work. In the first place, the results 
 of good or bad work with tools and upon materials can 
 be measured and gauged and " sized up " with an accu- 
 racy which is not attainable in estimating the character 
 of the work done in most of the traditional studies of the 
 schoolroom. The teacher can see exactly in what de- 
 gree the child has failed, and the child can see it for 
 himself, which is far from being always the case with 
 recitations and examinations. Not only so, but the 
 teacher, as I believe, finds out much more nearly the 
 cause of failure in such work. If there is any tendency 
 to misunderstand instructions and directions ; if there are 
 any defects in the child's organs of sense or any broken 
 wires in his mind, a penetrating teacher ought to be able, 
 by repeated experiment, to ascertain the fact. The ob- 
 
204 MANUAL EDUCATION. 
 
 jective character of the work, the closeness with which 
 the results can be measured and gauged and criticised, 
 and especially the aid derived by the teacher from the 
 fact that the pupil is almost invariably desirous, and de- 
 sirous in a high degree, of doing his shop-work perfectly, 
 all these combine, it appears to me, to make certain that 
 a child will not pass through any very long course of 
 study, in a school where such exercises are systematically 
 conducted, without the discovery of any physical or 
 mental defect which may exist. I do not mean to say 
 that in all cases, or even in the majority of cases, the 
 seat of the trouble will be precisely hit upon; but at 
 least enough will be learned to give the pupil fair warn- 
 ing that he does suffer from some disability which he 
 must make special effort to overcome; at least enough 
 will be learned to put pupil and teacher in a bet- 
 ter relation of mutual understanding and mutual 
 respect. 
 
 Should the manual training exercises disclose defects 
 of mental constitution and organization, I believe that 
 these same exercises may be used by the teacher most 
 directly and beneficially in the treatment of such defects. 
 Even though the teacher should not be so gifted as to be 
 able to make the pupil's work discover the cause of total 
 or partial failure, or of special weaknesses or infirmities, 
 I still believe that the mere practice of the mechanic arts 
 is the best possible regimen and gymnastic to which a 
 mind in any degree falling off from the normal, or suffer- 
 ing from any perversions or deformities, can be sub- 
 
MANUAL TBAINING AND MENTAL DEFECTS. 205 
 
 jected. What orthopedic surgery is to the body, such, 
 I believe, manual training in childhood is to the mind. 
 I care comparatively little for its influence upon eye or 
 hand. Its chief work in my view is educational; and 
 in that educational work I place foremost its power of 
 rectifying the mind itself, of straightening the crooked 
 limb, — so to speak, — of strengthening the weak joint, 
 of healing the lesion which, if not cured, will proceed 
 to deep and irreparable injury. ISTot one of us but has 
 seen seemingly hopeless cases of deformity and weak- 
 ness in childhood completely cured by the splints, the 
 massage, the fomentations, and the heroic surgery of the 
 orthopedist. As I write, I recall the images of school- 
 mates and playmates doomed apparently to hopeless 
 suffering and weakness, who are, to-day, by reason of 
 such treatment, straight, vigorous, and comely beyond 
 the standard of their race. A benefit similar in kind 
 can be wrought, I believe, in the case of many children 
 who enter our schools suffering from inherited and ac- 
 quired defects of mental constitution and organization, 
 by the judicious and intelligent use of the mechanic 
 arts as educational instruments. I am not speaking for 
 the more gifted and fortunate of our pupils, though 
 entertaining the strong conviction that manual training 
 properly applied in schools, freed from the crudities and 
 errors incidental to the introduction of any new system, 
 will prove of great educational benefit to the brightest 
 and best of our scholars. I am speaking for a great 
 body of children who, but for this new instrument of 
 
206 MANUAL EDUCATION. 
 
 education in the hands of intelligent and skillful teach- 
 ers, may go into life with serious mental defects uncor- 
 rected, and even unsuspected; defects which will grow 
 more serious and more hopeless with the progress of 
 time and with experience of life. 
 
THE TEACHING OF ARITHMETIC 
 
 ARITHMETIC IN THE PRIMARY AND 
 GRAMMAR SCHOOLS 
 
 1887 
 
Addrt:ss before the School Committee op the 
 City of Boston, April 12, 1887. Published as School 
 Document No. 9, 1887. 
 
 Largely because of President Walker's vigorous 
 efforts, more rational methods of teaching arith- 
 metic have been followed in Boston during and 
 since his service upon the School Committee. 
 
ARITHMETIC IN THE PEIMARY AND GRAMMAR 
 SCHOOLS. 
 
 When I moved, last winter, the resolution which has 
 become the subject of the report of the Committee on 
 Examinations this evening, it was without any purpose 
 of taking part in the inquiry proposed. But the course 
 of public discussion since that time, and my own appoint- 
 ment to the Committee on Examinations, have seemed 
 to require something to be said by me regarding those 
 features of the study of arithmetic in our common 
 schools to which exception has been taken, and which 
 the Committee, through their chairman, have unani- 
 mously recommended should be reformed in part or re- 
 formed altogether.^ And, first, it may be said that, if 
 there be any reason whatsoever for believing that the 
 course in arithmetic can be simplified and shortened, the 
 matter is not one of slight importance. The cry of over- 
 work frequently comes from pupils, parents, and phy- 
 sicians who are undoubtedly sincere, even if mistaken in 
 this view; while if we reject the plea of overwork and 
 conclude that the amount of study required of our chil- 
 dren is, as an aggregate, not too large, we still have to 
 encounter the almost unanimous complaint of teachers 
 that studies are set down in the official courses which 
 
 ' These recommendations appear, in substance, at the beginning of 
 the following address. See p. 235 infra. — Ed. 
 
 209 
 
210 THE TEACHING OF ARITHMETIC. 
 
 they have not time to teach as they ought to be taught, 
 many going so far as to say that it would be better that 
 some of these subjects should not be broached at all if 
 they are not to be dealt with more thoroughly and 
 systematically than is possible at present with the 
 time allowed. If, then, the course in arithmetic can 
 be abridged, without injury on that side of our public 
 schools, we know very well what to do with the time so 
 released. It may be applied, in the discretion of the 
 School Board, either to relieve the pupils from the gen- 
 eral strain of their work, or to allow the further cultiva- 
 tion of natural science, or to afford additional practice 
 in the art of observation, or to make way for the new 
 mechanical and industrial exercises demanded by so 
 many of our citizens. 
 
 Let me not be understood as disparaging the impor- 
 tance of the proper study of arithmetic in our public 
 schools. 
 
 'Eo one has a higher appreciation of the vital, practical 
 importance of having our children taught to perform 
 ordinary arithmetical operations with absolute accuracy 
 and with a good degree of facility. Indeed, it is one of 
 the gravest accusations brought against our public 
 schools, as at present administered, that the old-fashioned 
 readiness and correctness of " ciphering " have been, to 
 a large degree, sacrificed by the methods which it is now 
 proposed to reform. A false arithmetic has grown up 
 and has largely crowded out of place that true arithmetic 
 which is nothing but the art of numbers. But to this 
 
ARITHMETIC IN TEE COMMON SCHOOLS. 2 1 1 
 
 point there will be a more fitting occasion to advert 
 further on. The question as to the amount of arith- 
 metical study at present desirable cannot be properly 
 understood mthout reference to the courses of study in 
 our schools a generation ago. At that time, with the 
 whole week, excepting only Saturday afternoon, at the 
 disposal of the teacher, the studies in the district school 
 were few and simple. Reading, writing, and arithmetic, 
 a little grammar, and a little political geography, made 
 up substantially the course of study. In this condition 
 there was not only no reason to scrutinize carefully the 
 amount of time used for arithmetic, but that study was 
 naturally and properly looked to for a considerable part 
 of the mental training of the child. Increasingly, 
 within the last thirty, twenty, and ten years, new studies 
 in great variety have been introduced into our school 
 courses, some of which are better suited for the purposes 
 of intellectual training than is arithmetic itself. 
 
 Thus we have, in addition to the simple political 
 geography of an earlier day, the extended study of 
 physical geography, rising into what were once the mys- 
 teries of meteorology. 
 
 In illustration of this point, allow me to quote from 
 the official course of study, as revised and simplified in 
 1885: 
 
 Class IV. (Three hours a week). — Second stage of the study of 
 geography. 1. Study of the earth as a globe; simple illustrations 
 and statements with reference to form; size; meridians and parallels, 
 with their use; motions, and their effects; zones, with their charac- 
 teristics; winds and ocean currents ; climate as affecting the life of 
 man (occupations, manners, customs, etc.). 
 
212 THE TEACHING OF ARITHMETIC. 
 
 2. Physical features and conditions of North America, South 
 America, and Europe studied and compared; position on the globe; 
 position relative to other grand divisions; size; form; surface; drain- 
 age; climate; life (vegetable, animal, human); regions adapted to 
 mining, agriculture, etc.; natural advantages of cities; comparison of 
 physical features and conditions of one grand division with those of 
 other grand divisions. Map-drawing as the study of each grand 
 division proceeds. Other grand divisions to be studied if there be 
 time. 
 
 Such are the subjects now prescribed for our children 
 of eleven and twelve years of age. After the comple- 
 tion of this body of study, the child has still three years 
 of geographical study before graduating from the gram- 
 mar school. Again, we have a large body of elemen- 
 tary science, extended through the nine years of the pri- 
 mary and grammar schools, regarding which I will only 
 quote the curriculum of two years: 
 
 Class II. (One hour and thirty minutes a week). — Physiology and 
 hygiene. 
 
 1. Growth and renewal of parts of the body, how secured. 
 
 (a) The digestive apparatus and digestion. Food, the quality and 
 quantity of, etc. 
 
 (b) Circulation, the organs of. The blood as a circulating medium. 
 
 (c) Respiration, the organs of . Ventilation. The vocal apparatus. 
 
 2. (a) The digestive organs of man and other animals, compared. 
 (b) Their modes of breathing, compared, (c) The amount of animal 
 heat, compared. 
 
 Class I. (Two hours a week). — Physics. Common facts learned 
 from observation and experiment, in regard to as many of the follow- 
 ing topics as the assigned time will allow: 1, matter, its properties, 
 its three states; 2, motion and force, laws of motion; 3, gravitation: 
 equilibrium, pendulum; 4, lever, wheel and axle, pulley, inclined 
 plane, wedge, screw; 5, liquid pressure; specific gravity; 6. atmos- 
 pheric pressure; barometer, pumps, siphon; 7, electricity, frictional 
 and current; conductors, magnetism, compass, magnetic telegraph; 
 8, sound; pitch of sounds, echoes, acoustic tubes; 9, heat; diffusion, 
 effects, thermometers; 10, light; reflection, refraction, lenses, solar 
 spectrum, color. 
 
ARITHMETIC IN THE COMMON SCHOOLS. 213 
 
 But these are not all tlie new subjects to which pupils 
 are now required to give their time and attention. In 
 addition to the old-fashioned " parsing," with an occa- 
 sional composition, we now have studies in English 
 literature and the history of the English language jus- 
 tifying, it would appear, such questions on examination 
 as " changes in the English language from the time of 
 the [N^onnan conquest to the death of Chaucer," — a 
 question unknown to the high school and preparatory- 
 academy of a generation ago, and even to the earlier 
 years of the college curriculum. Moreover, we have 
 music and drawing pursued systematically and at great 
 length through the entire coui'se of the primary 
 and the grammar school. It is not necessary to take 
 the time of the committee for further enumeration of 
 subjects of study which have been forced into the 
 school week, which, far from being longer than it was 
 a generation ago, is shorter by one-half of Satur- 
 day. It is evident that, if so much must come in, 
 something must go out to make room for it; and, 
 secondly, that we have, in these new studies, means for 
 much of that training of the child's powers which our 
 fathers looked to arithmetic to accomplish. " That 
 mathematics," says Sir "William Hamilton, " can pos- 
 sibly, in their study, educate to any active exercise of 
 the power of observation, either as reflected upon our- 
 selves, or as directed on the affairs of life and the phe- 
 nomena of nature, will not, we presume, be maintained." . 
 " That they do not cultivate the power of generaliza- 
 
214 THE TEACHING OF AEITHMETIG. 
 
 tion," he continues, " is equally apparent." " But the 
 study of mathematical demonstration is mainly recom- 
 mended as a practice of reasoning in general; and it is 
 precisely as such a practice that its inutility is perhaps 
 the greatest." " Are mathematics then," he concludes, 
 " of no value as an instrument of mental culture? To 
 this we answer, that their study, if pursued in modera- 
 tion, and efficiently counteracted, may be beneficial in 
 the correction of a certain vice, and in the formation of 
 its corresponding virtue. The vice is the habit of men- 
 tal distraction ; the virtue, the habit of continuous atten- 
 tion. This is the single benefit to which the study of 
 mathematics can justly pretend in the cultivation of the 
 mind." 
 
 Such was the opinion of England's greatest phi- 
 losopher, in this century at least. Reverting, now, to 
 the course of study in the primary and grammar schools 
 of Boston, I do not hesitate to say that some of the new 
 subjects of study, if properly pursued, will not only 
 educate to an active exercise of the power of observa- 
 tion, will not only cultivate the power of generalization, 
 will not only afford excellent practice of reasoning in 
 general, but will also serve to create the habit of con- 
 tinuous attention, as well as or even better than mathe- 
 matics. Certainly the attention given by a class of 
 interested children in the study of natural history, under 
 a good teacher, is far closer and much more truly educa- 
 tional than the attention given by pupils who are driven 
 reluctantly through an arid waste of mathematics. 
 
ARITHMETIC IN THE COMMON SCHOOLS. 215 
 
 I reach the conclusion, then, that not only the de- 
 mands upon the time of our pupils, but the character of 
 the subjects of study, new to this age, justifies and re- 
 quires that arithmetic be restricted to that amount which 
 is needed to give facility and accuracy, in ordinary 
 numerical operations, with a view to the use to which 
 this power is to be put, either in practical life, or in sub- 
 sequent and higher studies. The amount of time now 
 expended upon the study of arithmetic by the revised 
 course is as follows: In the primary school, class 3, three 
 hours thirty minutes per week; class 2, four hours; class 
 1, four hours thirty minutes. Grammar school, class 6, 
 four hours thirty minutes per week; class 5, four hours 
 thirty minutes; class 4, five hours; class 3, five hours; 
 class 2, four hours thirty minutes; class 1, four hours. 
 During the second half of the last year, two hours and a 
 half additional per week are devoted to the study of 
 book-keeping; but to this I shall not advert. 
 
 It appears, therefore, that nearly four hours and a 
 half a week, or almost exactly one-fifth of the entire 
 school-time, are devoted to the study of arithmetic, on 
 the average, during the nine years of school life, accord- 
 ing to the prescribed courses. But it also appears, from 
 the results of an investigation made last winter at the in- 
 stance of this Committee, that this allowance of time is, 
 in many cases, exceeded, in some cases exceeded con- 
 siderably, during school hours ; while it also appears that 
 in thirty-six school districts home lessons in arithmetic 
 are, to a greater or less extent, assigned. It is in the be- 
 
216 THE TEACHING OF ARITHMETIC. 
 
 lief that our pupils could acquire all needed facility and 
 accuracy in numerical operations in less than the time 
 now devoted to arithmetic, that the Committee have in- 
 cluded in their report two propositions — one, that home 
 lessons in arithmetic shall be given out in exceptional 
 cases only; another, to establish the average time to be 
 devoted to the study of arithmetic at three hours and a 
 half per week. It is my personal belief that this reduc- 
 tion may ultimately proceed even further to advantage, 
 and that the average child could acquire as much accu- 
 racy and facility in this regard as would be desired, if 
 properly instructed in simple numerical operations for 
 three hours a week through a term of five years. 
 
 At the present time the results in accuracy, if not in 
 facility, of arithmetical work leave very much to be de- 
 sired. Scarcely has the child been taught to count as 
 high as ten, when he is put at technical applications of 
 arithmetic to money-coins, to divisions of time, space, 
 etc.; and these technical applications are increased in 
 number and in difficulty through the successive years of 
 the grammar school, until for a large amount of so-called 
 arithmetic the pupil gets comparatively little practice in 
 the art of numbers. I am far from saying that the 
 pupils of our public schools should not acquire a certain 
 amount of useful information. The most familiar tables 
 of lengths, weights, measures, and coins may properly 
 be given to them, and they may advantageously be prac- 
 ticed in simple operations thereunder. But this whole 
 matter of the technical applications of arithmetic should 
 
ARITHMETIC IN THE COMMON SCHOOLS. 2 1 7 
 
 be treated in a highly conservative spirit. Of late years 
 there has been some reform in this particular, and a few 
 of the monstrosities of the old curriculum, — notably our 
 ancient enemy, duodecimals, — have been thrown over- 
 board. But there still remain many things, as taught in 
 our schools, which occupy time that could better be de- 
 voted to the study of other subjects, or, at least, to a 
 greater degree of practice in simple operations. The 
 report of the Committee on Examinations contains 
 propositions for a very extensive retrenchment on this 
 side. Compound interest, compound proportion, com- 
 pound partnership, cube root and its applications, equa- 
 tion of payments, exchange, " similar surfaces," and the 
 mensuration of the trapezoid and trapezium, of the 
 prism, pyramid, cone, and sphere, are proposed to be 
 dropped from the course in the grammar school. If 
 these subjects are to be studied, it should be in the high 
 school. Another change in this direction is in the 
 proposition to remove from the grammar school the 
 study of the metric system. 
 
 The Committee believe that, in the present state of 
 our laws and commercial usages, the metric system is a 
 proper subject for extended study in high schools only. 
 The introduction of this subject so widely into the public 
 schools of the United States has been due, not to an ap- 
 preciation of the practical advantages of this instruction 
 to the existing body of pupils, but to a propaganda for 
 the promotion of legislation on the part of Congress and 
 the legislatures of the several States, looking to the gen- 
 
218 THE TEACHING OF ARITHMETIC. 
 
 eral adoption of the metric system. The Committee 
 object to having the children of Boston used any longer 
 as an agency for promoting that object, however in itself 
 desirable. Not one child in a hundred, or in three hun- 
 dred, who has left the schools of Massachusetts during 
 the last ten years, to go to work, has ever once had occa- 
 sion to use the metric system for any practical purpose. 
 The few who may be called to make use of this system 
 could readily acquire such portions of it as they might 
 need, from their employers or their fellow-employees. 
 In pursuit of the same object, it is further provided in 
 the report of the Committee that all exercises in frac- 
 tions, commission, discount, and proportion shall be con- 
 fined to small sums and to simple subjects and processes, 
 the main purpose throughout being to secure accuracy 
 and a reasonable degree of facility in plain, ordinary 
 ciphering. "Who of us has not seen in the hands of chil- 
 dren of eleven, twelve, and thirteen years of age, 
 examples in " compound and complex fractions " which 
 were more difficult than any operation which any bank 
 cashier in the city of Boston has occasion to perform, in 
 the course of his business, from January to December? 
 The most jagged fractions, such as would hardly ever be 
 found in actual business operations, e. ^., H or l^j are 
 piled one on top of another, to produce an unreal 
 and impossible difficulty; and the child, having been 
 furnished with such an arithmetical monstrosity, is 
 set to multiplying or dividing it by another " compound 
 and complex fraction " as unreal and ridiculous as itself. 
 
ARITHMETIC IN THE COMMON SCHOOLS. 219 
 
 All this sort of thing in the teaching of young children 
 is either useless or mischievous. It is bad psychology, 
 bad physiology, and bad pedagogics. Every pupil, by 
 the time he leaves the gTammar school, should be taught 
 to use small sums infallibly, in multiplication and divi- 
 sion, and to add columns of figures as long as an ordi- 
 nary housekeeper's book or bank-deposit book, almost 
 beyond the possibility of ever committing an error. 
 This nearly every child of ordinary brightness can be 
 brought to do, and that in a small part of the time now 
 devoted to the so-called study of arithmetic. It is not 
 necessary that the pupil should be brought to do this 
 thing with rapidity. Only a reasonable facility should 
 be aimed at. If a boy is to go into some line of work 
 where figures are used only incidentally and occasion- 
 ally, he will have facility enough for the purpose. It is 
 only necessary that he should be infallibly accurate; and 
 this any good teacher ought to be able to secure in five 
 years, seven years, or nine years of drill. If, on the 
 other hand, a boy is to go into a position where his main 
 work is to be concerned with figures, he will readily 
 enough acquire the necessary facility, if only accuracy 
 has been secured during the years of especial mental 
 growth and training. If, however, his training has 
 been loose and unsystematic, no amount of practice will 
 give him accuracy; the faster he works, the more mis- 
 takes he will make. Nor is it easy, if, indeed, it be at 
 all practicable, to remedy the defects of early education 
 in the case of one who has passed the age of fifteen or 
 
220 TEE TEACHING OF ARITHMETIC. 
 
 sixteen without that training and drill in the use of 
 figures which would mate mistakes in simple operations 
 almost impossible. 
 
 Unfortunately, in this matter of inaccuracy in the use 
 of figures, resulting from the manner in which arith- 
 metic is now taught in our schools, the evidence is over- 
 whelming in character and amount. Our technical 
 schools receive pupils from the high schools who, while 
 they understand difiicult theorems, and are masters of 
 complicated algebraic formulae, make mistakes in the 
 simplest arithmetical operations. If the high schools 
 are blamed for this, the masters justify themselves by 
 alleging that pupils come to them — as a high-school 
 teacher said to me within two weeks — without being 
 able to add or multiply, to subtract and divide, or even 
 to count, with accuracy. 
 
 The grammar-school masters, if appealed to, are 
 obliged to admit the deficiencies of their graduates; but 
 they ask, what better can be expected when only a small 
 fraction, often a contemptibly small fraction, of the 
 time nominally devoted to the study of arithmetic can 
 be given to numerical operations, consistently with 
 bringing their pupils up to the bar, duly loaded and 
 primed for examination in countless technical applica- 
 tions of arithmetical rules, and consistently with giving 
 them that flexibility for the purposes of arithmetical 
 gymnastics which the practical and illustrative prob- 
 lems of the text-books require ? 
 
 But it is not alone the teachers of the high schools 
 
ARITHMETIC IN THE COMMON SCHOOLS. 221 
 
 who have occasion to complain of the way in which the 
 study of arithmetic is conducted under the prevaihng 
 system. The employers of those boys and girls who 
 leave the grammar school to go to work, have occasion 
 to complain, and do complain bitterly, of the deficiencies 
 of our instruction on this side. After very extensive in- 
 quiries, conducted through the past year, I do not find 
 it possible to entertain a doubt that the old-fashioned 
 facility and accuracy in ciphering have been largely sac- 
 rificed to the numerous technical applications and difii- 
 cult logical puzzles which have been introduced into the 
 instruction in arithmetic, and that our children leave the 
 schools very ill-prepared, in this respect, for the practical 
 work of life. ISTow, it is difficult to imagine a greater 
 wrong, short of a permanent injury to health, that can 
 be done to a child, than to send him into the world to 
 earn his living without the ability to conduct numerical 
 operations accurately and with reasonable facility. 
 Employers have, literally, no use for boys who make 
 mistakes in numbers. Such a failing offsets the best 
 training otherwise of mind and hand. 
 
 In a store or shop or factory, or on a railroad, a lad 
 who cannot set down figures and add them right every 
 time is little better than a cripple. The master of one 
 of our high schools told me recently of having been in- 
 formed by the president of a Boston bank that, at an 
 examination held during the year with reference to an 
 appointment in his institution, out of several graduates 
 of various high schools of this vicinity not one was found 
 
222 THE TEACHING OF ARITHMETIC. 
 
 able to add the columns of figures given to him, with- 
 out errors. It is little wonder that this should be the 
 result, when, of the time devoted to arithmetic, four- 
 fifths or nine-tenths is occupied by technical applica- 
 tions of numerical principles, or is worse than wasted by 
 logical puzzles unsuited to the child's age and mental 
 strength. 
 
 And this last remark brings me to the hardest accusa- 
 tion which is to be brought against the current teaching 
 of arithmetic. Well aware that at this point we have to 
 encounter an inveterate superstition of the ]^ew Eng- 
 land mind, I have armed myself as much as possible with 
 authority derived from men of the ripest wisdom and 
 the largest learning in mental science. The charge I 
 make against the existing course of study is that it is 
 largely made up of exercises which are not exercises in 
 arithmetic at all, or principally, but are exercises in 
 logic and, secondly, that, as exercises in logic, these are 
 either useless or mischievous. The class of exercises 
 that is here in mind will be easily apprehended. It is 
 of those where an example, or so-called practical prob- 
 lem, is given in figures and words, which are to be 
 reduced to the form of figures and algebraic signs, and 
 thereupon the performance of the indicated numerical 
 operations will yield the required result. It would, 
 perhaps, be going too far to say that such examples 
 should in no case be given ; but it may be unhesitatingly 
 asserted that wherever the " statement " wliich is pre- 
 liminary to the performance of the purely arithmetical 
 
ARITHMETIC IN THE COMMON SCHOOLS. 223 
 
 operations involves a great deal of trouble, time, and 
 thought, while the mere ciphering which follows is done 
 in a minute, such exercises, as a matter of course, are not 
 exercises in arithmetic, but in logic. 
 
 Secondly, if such exercises, of any considerable de- 
 gree of difficulty, are to be set at all for the pupils in 
 our public schools, they should be prescribed as exer- 
 cises in logic, or the art of reasoning; they should be 
 taken from books prepared by eminent teachers of the 
 science of mind who are qualified to decide as to the de- 
 gree of difficulty in logical exercises which is suitable 
 to the child of this or that age; and the exercises so pre- 
 scribed should be conducted by persons themselves 
 trained and qualified to teach the art of reasoning. To 
 smuggle exercises of this character into instruction given 
 in the name of arithmetic, is an abuse. By it has been 
 created a bastard arithmetic which fails to perform the 
 true function of that study in our public schools — 
 namely, to produce accuracy and a reasonable degree of 
 facility in numerical operations — while wasting the time 
 of the pupils,^ perplexing their minds, worrying their 
 
 ' In scarcely any branch of study is it possible to absolutely waste 
 so much time as in arithmetic. In history or geograph}^ for exam- 
 ple, the more time the pupil spends over his books the more, speak- 
 ing generally, will he learn. What he learns may be of little value; 
 but he will certainly, in a greater number of hours, acquire a 
 greater number of names, facts, and dates. In arithmetic, however, 
 almost any amount of time and nervous force may be made a dead 
 loss, if the logical puzzles presented to the pupils, under the name of 
 practical problems, are above the pupil's comprehension. After the 
 child has read over the problem again and again, without under- 
 standing it, without seeing the jjriuciple and processes involved, and 
 
224 THE TEACHING OF ARITHMETIC. 
 
 tempers, rasping their nerves, and, in case of total or 
 partial failure, unnecessarily and unrighteously shock- 
 ing and impairing their self-respect and scholarly- 
 ambition . 
 
 Does anyone consider this an extravagant denuncia- 
 tion of exercises of the character indicated? I ask, is 
 there any father who has had children in the public 
 schools of Boston, where arithmetic is used as a home 
 lesson, who has not seen those children puzzling and 
 worrying ten, fifteen, or twenty minutes over a " prac- 
 tical problem," the purely numerical work of which 
 would not occupy as many seconds; and, after an even- 
 ing spent in this way, going to bed hot, tired, and per- 
 haps tearful, and altogether unfitted for that sound and 
 healthful sleep which should close every child's day? I 
 have myself had four children in the grammar schools 
 of this city or of New Haven, where home lessons in 
 arithmetic were allowed. Each one of these in turn I 
 have seen tormented in this way; and have myself, not 
 infrequently, when stooping to aid them, that they 
 might go to bed in something like Christian season, been 
 not a little perplexed and troubled to make the state- 
 ments required. Doubtless this has been the experience 
 of most parents; and doubtless, too, this practice would 
 
 has made one or two hopeless efforts towards its solution, it docs liim 
 no good whatever to keep on worrying over it. The exercise ceases 
 to have any educational value, and becomes merely a means of 
 nervous exhaustion. — Erom Pvesident Walker's Reply to Stipervuor 
 Peterson in the Boston School Committee. Published in " Primary 
 Education," September, 1887. 
 
ARITHMETIC IN THE COMMON SCHOOLS. 225 
 
 long since have been reformed, but for tlie inveterate 
 superstition of the New England mind tliat it is well the 
 child should be worried and perplexed in education, and 
 that out of this agitation of the nerves and this strain 
 upon the mental powers proceed health and vigor/ 
 Such a view is everywhere yielding to a better study of 
 the laws of mind. Generally, if not universally speak- 
 ing, whatever in education is hard is wrong. The true 
 mental gymnastic for growing children is through exer- 
 cises easy and pleasant which lead insensibly up to ever 
 
 ' A generation ago it was the accepted theory of educators gener- 
 ally, that instruction, to be most effective, should cross the grain of 
 the youthful mind; that if disinclination were shown towards any 
 particular study, the teacher should catch at this as his welcome clew; 
 and that the scholar should thereafter be practiced and drilled, for 
 his mind's good, against his indifference, his dislike, and even his re- 
 pugnance, until he sliould learn to do well and freely that for which 
 he had originally the strongest inaptitude. In a word, indisposi- 
 tion towards any kind of mental exercise was to be dealt with like a 
 sinful inclination; war was to be made upon it until it should be 
 conquered. 
 
 Not only a better observation of life, but the study of physiologi- 
 cal psychology, has led the educators of to-day to a widely different 
 view of the ofBce of instruction. It is now generally admitted that 
 it is the first duty of the teacher to ascertain the true bent of the 
 youthful mind, and that, so far as practicable, instruction should be 
 made to conform thereto; that the successful teacher is not the one 
 who compels the scholar to do, at the last, reasonably well that 
 which h(! was at the first least disposed to do, but the one who brings 
 the scholar to do, in the fullest degree and in the most perfect man- 
 ner, that for which he has the greatest aptitude, leading him, with 
 ever increasing freedom and pleasure of work, in the ways which 
 nature has pointed out; that in any other system of training there is 
 enormous and irreparable loss of nervous force and moral enthusi- 
 asm, with a result certain to be lower and less desirable than under 
 the system which seeks to develop to tlieir highest efiiciency the na- 
 tive powers of the mind. — Fi-om Annnal lieport as President of the 
 Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1883. 
 
226 
 
 TEE TEACHING OF ARITHMETIC. 
 
 higher planes of attainment, as the faculties are ex- 
 panded and strengthened according to their own law of 
 growth, aided and fostered by gentle and agreeable 
 practice. 
 
 It is in my power to present to the committee the re- 
 sults of an experiment on a sufficiently large scale to 
 establish the truth of these representations regarding the 
 difficulty of many of the sums and problems set for the 
 pupils of our public schools. Fourteen examples, taken 
 from the arithmetic in use in our schools, were given 
 out to a large number of pupils of the three upper classes 
 in four of our grammar schools. These examples were 
 not the most difficult which could have been taken for 
 the purpose. On the contrary, a number of the examples 
 first selected were thrown out upon the representation of 
 the masters that they would be found so difficult as to 
 produce a general failure. The following represents 
 the percentage of successful answers in each case: 
 
 Example, 
 1 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 5 
 6 
 
 7 
 
 Per Cent. 
 
 Example. 
 
 69 
 
 8 
 
 16 
 
 9 
 
 . 47 
 
 10 
 
 67 
 
 11 
 
 46 
 
 12 
 
 56 
 
 13 
 
 86 
 
 14 
 
 Per Cent. 
 53 
 65 
 38 
 49 
 51 
 70 
 39 
 
 But it is not merely to the degree of difficulty attach- 
 ing to exercises of this character that exception should be 
 taken. I desire to challenge peremptorily the whole 
 policy of giving out exercises of any appreciable degree 
 of logical difficulty to children of this age. Thoroughly 
 
ARITHMETIC IN THE COMMON SCHOOLS. 227 
 
 convinced that such a practice involves, to repeat the 
 phrase already used, bad psychology, bad physiology, 
 and bad pedagogics, I was yet desirous of bringing to 
 my support the authority of masters in mental science, 
 and, with this view, addressed communications to Pro- 
 fessor William James, professor of psychology in Har- 
 vard University; Professor George H. Howison, pro- 
 fessor of philosophy in the University of California ; Dr. 
 G. Stanley Hall, professor of pedagogics in the Johns 
 Hopkins University,^ and Dr. N^oah Porter, late presi- 
 dent of Yale College, and still professor of mental and 
 moral science in that institution. The purport of these 
 communications was to inquire, first, whether the faculty 
 of logical analysis is not one which, in the case of the 
 vast majority of children, normally develops at a later 
 period than that within our present consideration; 
 secondly, whether if this be so, there is any pedagogical 
 advantage in attempting to " pry up " this faculty and 
 bring it prematurely into consciousness and exercise, in- 
 stead of devoting the time and strength of young pupils 
 to the formation of a habit of observation, to the culti- 
 vation of the powers of perception, to practice in the 
 interpretation of personally observed phenomena, to the 
 acquisition of elementary information, and to the devel- 
 opment, in a reasonable degree, of strength and clearness 
 in the memory. The class of exercises to which excep- 
 tion has been taken were illustrated either by sufficient 
 description or by actual examples. To these communi- 
 ' Now President of Clark University. — Ed. 
 
228 THE TEACHING OF ARITHMETIC. 
 
 cations the most courteous replies have been received. 
 The essential parts are here submitted, without apology 
 for their length, on account of the great interest of the 
 subject treated, and the high and commanding reputa- 
 tion of the authors. 
 
 Professor James writes: " The elaborate combinations 
 of arithmetical data of which you write are certainly 
 given to children before their brains are very hot for 
 them ; while I imagine, on the contrary, the mere opera- 
 tions of arithmetic are a comparatively congenial exer- 
 cise. It is, as you say, in the association of concretes 
 that the child's mind takes most delight. Working out 
 results by rule of thumb, learning to name things when 
 they see them, drawing maps, learning languages, seem 
 to me the most appropriate activities for children under 
 thirteen to be engaged in. Anecdotal history (without 
 political ideas) might be added. I feel pretty confident 
 that no man will be the worse analyst or reasoner or 
 mathematician at twenty for lying fallow in these re- 
 spects during his entire childhood." 
 
 Professor Stanley Hall writes: " If I correctly under- 
 stand your position, I most emphatically agree with it. 
 The purer the mathematics for boys of from ten to 
 fourteen years of age, the better, it seems to me. Many 
 of our arithmetics presuppose algebra and geometry; 
 i. e., in the latter part give examples that can be done 
 easily by those methods, but which require students to 
 go through long and tedious processes which algebra and 
 geometry were meant to short-circuit. Problems in 
 
ARITHMETIC IN THE COMMON SCHOOLS. 229 
 
 brokerage, surveying of land, architecture, custom-house 
 practices, etc., are taught, just as in the old Hindoo 
 mathematics a taste for poetry, and in mediaeval arith- 
 metics moral and religious maxims, and even systems, as 
 well as historical information, v^ere inculcated in the 
 form of ' sums.' Has modern business really any more 
 place at that stage? . . . American teachers seem to 
 me to have spun the simple and immediate relations and 
 properties of numbers over with pedantic difficulties. 
 The four rules, fractions, factoring, decimals, propor- 
 tion, per cent., and roots, is not this all that is essential? 
 The best European text-books I know do only this, and 
 are in the smaller compass, for they look only at facility 
 in pure number-relations, which is hindered by the 
 irrelevant material publishers and bad teachers use as 
 padding." 
 
 Professor Howison writes: " I understand your ques- 
 tion to bear simply on the point whether I consider the 
 class of arithmetical exercises, to which you refer, and 
 in which the work turns almost entirely on the logical 
 relations of the numbers given in each example, to be a 
 wholesome regimen for pupils in the common schools, 
 of ages from eleven to thirteen years. To this I reply, 
 first, that on general principles such exercises in reason- 
 ing upon the combinative relations of numbers, or num- 
 bered objects, ought to play a very subordinate part in 
 the elementary period of instruction of arithmetic. But 
 nevertheless, secondly, as the very life of arithmetical 
 power turns on ability to make the logical synthesis in- 
 
230 THE TEACHING OF ARITHMETIC. 
 
 volved in the latter kind of work (you see, I do not 
 reckon them mere analyses, as is usually done), I think 
 some exercises of this sort should go along with the other 
 simple and more natural kind, and that they should go 
 from the earliest practicable date, almost from the be- 
 ginning. But the combinative reasoning should be 
 adjusted in the most careful and considerate manner, 
 with a reference, that is, to the degree of difficulty with 
 which the mind of a child is able at each date to cope, 
 without confusion, and without sense of shame. So, 
 thirdly, I should say that the question you raise con- 
 cerns, mainly, a matter of more or less — a matter of de- 
 gree. It is not that the class of exercises to which you 
 refer are in kind and of necessity wrong, but that the 
 complexity and difficulty of those actually given are so 
 often out of all proportion to the healthy capacities of 
 children at the age involved. . . My own experience 
 and opinion of many details in the arithmetics made for 
 boys and girls of the age to which you refer are quite 
 like yours. And my experience and my theories, 
 founded on my professional studies and practice, have 
 alike made it, with me, a matter of settled conviction 
 that not only in mathematical, but in all elementary 
 teaching, though in elementary mathematical teaching 
 pre-eminently, the first thing is to get the pupil perfectly 
 familiar with, and as nearly as possible infallibly accu- 
 rate, in fundamental facts and operations. . . I be- 
 lieve our current practice in this reference has for some 
 years — say the last thirty — been going seriously wrong. 
 
ARITHMETIC IN THE COMMON SCHOOLS. 231 
 
 The reaction from the exaggerated rote-work of the pre- 
 ceding period has driven us into the error of the opposite 
 extreme. 
 
 " The attenuated thread into which grammar-school 
 instruction is now ' long drawn out ' should appear a 
 patent absurdity to every thinking mind. Particularly 
 is this absurdity manifest in the fact that we spend eight 
 or nine years in nominally teaching arithmetic, when we 
 ought to be able, surely, to accomplish all that is essential 
 in three, or, at the very utmost, in four." 
 
 President Porter writes: " I am entirely with you in 
 the opinion that the questions which you send me are 
 unfit for pupils of fourteen or fifteen years, unless they 
 have been subjected to a special training; and that to 
 subject persons of that age to such a training would ordi- 
 narily do them more harm than good. . . Nothing is 
 so admirable, in its time and place, as the pure mathe- 
 matics in every form. When these are properly taught, 
 i. e., when they have trained the mind to sharp analysis 
 and patient synthesis, by the use of numbers and geo- 
 metric forms, they prepare the way for the higher forms 
 of logical analysis and synthesis, and, last of all, for in- 
 vention — the invention which is presupposed in the 
 problems to which you reasonably object." 
 
 It is for the reasons which have been given, re- 
 enforced by the authority of the eminent teachers who 
 have been cited, that the Committee have included in 
 their recommendations a rule which would require that 
 all practical and illustrative problems should be of a 
 
232 THE TEACHING OF ARITHMETIC. 
 
 nature to interest and to aid the pupils in their strictly 
 aritlimetical work, not to throw obstacles in their way or 
 to increase the difficulty of that work ; it being expressly 
 provided that all problems where an attentive and dili- 
 gent pupil of ordinary capacity would find any consider^ 
 able degree of difficulty in making the " statement " 
 preliminary to the performance of the numerical opera- 
 tions required, shall be deemed objectionable. 
 
ARITHMETIC IN THE BOSTON SCHOOLS 
 
 1887 
 
Address befoke the Grammar-School Section of 
 THE Massachusetts Teachers' Association, Novem- 
 ber 25, 1887. From The Academy, January, 1888. 
 
AEITHMETIC IN THE BOSTON SCHOOLS. 
 
 Near the close of the last school year, the School 
 Board of Boston passed the following orders concerning 
 the study of arithmetic: 
 
 1. Home lessons in arithmetic should be given out 
 only in exceptional cases. 
 
 2. The mensuration of the trapezoid and of the tra- 
 pezium, of the prism, pyramid, cone, and sphere; com- 
 pound interest, cube root and its applications; equation 
 of payments, exchange, similar surfaces, metric sys- 
 tem, compound proportion, and compound partnership, 
 should not be included in the required course. 
 
 3. All exercises in fractions, commission, discount, 
 and proportion should be confined to small numbers, and 
 to simple subjects and processes, the main purpose 
 throughout being to secure thoroughness, accuracy, 
 and a reasonable degree of facility in plain, ordinary 
 ciphering. 
 
 4. In " practical problems," and in examples illus- 
 trative of arithmetical principles, all exercises are to be 
 avoided in which a fairly intelligent and attentive child 
 of the age concerned would find any considerable diffi- 
 culty in making the statement which is preliminary to 
 the performance of the proper arithmetical operations. 
 
 When arithmetical work is put into the form of prac- 
 tical or illustrative problems, it must be for the purpose 
 
 235 
 
236 THE TEACHING OF ARITHMETIC. 
 
 of interesting and aiding the child in the performance 
 of the arithmetical operations, and with a view to their 
 common utility. 
 
 5. In oral arithmetic no racing should be permitted; 
 but the dictation should be of moderate rapidity. 
 
 6. The average time devoted to arithmetic through- 
 out the primary- and grammar-school course should be 
 three and a half hours a week ; and in the third primary 
 grade, not more than two hours, and in the first and 
 second primary grades, not more than three and a half 
 hours each per week. 
 
 It is the purpose of the present paper to state the con- 
 siderations, as I conceive them, which moved and guided 
 the School Board in taking the action recited. 
 
 The inhibition of home lessons in arithmetic stands 
 upon somewhat different ground from the other orders 
 of the committee. It might fairly be asked why arith- 
 metic should not be put upon the same level with geog- 
 raphy or grammar or history or physiology, as a possible 
 and proper matter for home lessons, if, indeed, home 
 lessons are to be assigned at all. In answer to this ques- 
 tion, I may say that the committee which recommended 
 the rule recited were actuated by three considerations. 
 
 First — The committee, having become satisfied that 
 there is a tendency unduly to magnify the importance 
 of arithmetic on the part of many grammar-school 
 teachers, and to allow that subject to encroach alike upon 
 the time which should be devoted to other subjects of 
 study and upon the time which should be given to recre- 
 
ARITHMETIC IN THE BOSTON SCHOOLS. 237 
 
 ation, exercise, and rest, deemed home lessons by far the 
 most likely avenues for such encroachment, and there- 
 fore prohibited their use in connection with this branch 
 of study, save only in cases clearly exceptional, as, for 
 instance, when a pupil has for some time been ab- 
 sent from school and has, consequently, back work to 
 make up. 
 
 At this point it may be not inappropriate to remark 
 that careful inquiry of the superintendent and the super- 
 visors of schools failed to elicit the faintest evidence that 
 better results in arithmetic were, as a rule, attained in 
 schools where home lessons in this branch were habitu- 
 ally given out to the pupils of one or another or of all 
 the three upper classes, than in schools where no such 
 lessons were assigned. The reasons for such an ap- 
 parent waste of the time and force expended upon home 
 lessons in arithmetic will, I think, abundantly appear in 
 the further course of this discussion. 
 
 Secondly — Arithmetic, as the subject matter of home 
 lessons, affords peculiar opportunities for doing injustice 
 as between pupil and pupil. In some degree such in- 
 justice will be done whenever the work of the pupil is 
 transferred from the schoolroom, where all have equal 
 advantages as to light and air, quiet, and the individual 
 attention of the teacher, to their homes, where the widest 
 possible range exists as to the conditions under which the 
 work shall be prosecuted. One pupil takes his " sums " 
 to a quiet study-room, well lighted and warmed; another 
 pupil takes his task back to a home where it is to be per- 
 
238 THE TEACHING OF ARITHMETIC. 
 
 formed amid noise and squalor, by an inadequate and 
 doubtful light, perhaps with half-a-dozen children in the 
 same room, possibly with drinking and smoking going 
 on. Such a range of conditions would apply equally to 
 all subjects taken for home lessons, but it would produce 
 a far greater effect in the case of arithmetical tasks, re- 
 quiring a peculiar degree of abstraction and attention, 
 than in that of almost any other subject. 
 
 Of even more importance, in this connection, is the 
 consideration that the parents of some pupils are capable 
 of helping them to the solution of their problems and are 
 very likely to do so if the work is seen to be too difficult, 
 while other parents are entirely incapable of giving any 
 assistance to their children no matter how heavily they 
 may be taxed by the tasks assigned. It goes without 
 saying that such an inequality of conditions would pro- 
 duce far less injustice, as between pupil and pupil, if 
 history, geography, grammar, or physiology were the 
 subject matter of the home lessons. 
 
 Thirdly — The last and most conclusive of the con- 
 siderations against home lessons in arithmetic is that the 
 absence of the master prevents any authoritative inter- 
 position to put a stop to the business when, even accord- 
 ing to the standards of the most ardent advocates of 
 pedagogic torture, it has already proceeded far enough. 
 In the old flogging days of the army and navy, it was 
 always required that the surgeon should stand by, to feel 
 the pulse of the poor -wretch under the lash, to watch the 
 signs of approaching nervous collapse, and, in his dis- 
 
ARITHMETIC IN TEE BOSTON SCHOOLS. 239 
 
 cretion, to forbid the punishment to proceed further. 
 But in the case of our young children to whom home 
 lessons in arithmetic are assigned, no such humane pro- 
 vision exists. Were the work being done in the open 
 schooh'oom, the severest master, when he saw that the 
 child did not understand the problem, could not do the 
 work, and was only becoming more excited and fatigued 
 by repeated attempts, would interpose either to give 
 assistance or to put a stop to the exercise. In the case 
 of home lessons, however, an ambitious and sensitive 
 child finds no such relief. The work may go on long 
 after the child should have been in bed, until a state is 
 reached where further persistence is not only in the 
 highest degree injurious but has no longer any possible 
 relation to success. The boy or girl, hot, tired, over- 
 wrought, quivering with distress, could no more do " the 
 sum " in such a condition, than he or she could " put 
 up " a hundred-pound dumb-bell. Yet the remon- 
 strances of parents produce only fresh tears, and when 
 at last authority is exerted and the child is driven to 
 bed, utterly unfitted for that sound and refreshing sleep 
 which should close every child's day, the task is still un- 
 performed. Over and over and over again have I had 
 to send my own children, in spite of their tears and re- 
 monstrances, to bed, long after the assigned tasks had 
 ceased to have any educational value and had become the 
 means of nervous exhaustion and agitation, highly 
 prejudicial to body and to mind ; and I have no reason to 
 doubt that such has been the experience of a large pro- 
 
240 THE TEACHING OF ARITHMETIC. 
 
 portion of the parents whose children are habitually 
 assigned home lessons in arithmetic. 
 
 Such were the considerations which induced the com- 
 mittee to pass the first order which has been read in your 
 hearing. 
 
 Regarding the remaining five orders, considered as a 
 body, it may be said that the committee in framing them 
 were actuated by the belief, formed partly through their 
 individual experience and observation of public school 
 instruction, and partly as a result of an investigation 
 conducted by the committee in pursuance of an order of 
 the School Board under date of April 27, 1886, that 
 both loss of time and misdirection of effort, with even 
 some positively injurious consequences, were involved 
 in the teaching of arithmetic as carried on in some of 
 the Boston schools. And here let me say, to prevent 
 misapprehension, that the committee at no time in- 
 tended to reflect on the schools of our own city as com- 
 pared with those of neighboring cities and towns. Per- 
 sonally, I believe that the teaching of arithmetic has 
 been more humane and rational, of late years, in the 
 schools of Boston than in those of most New England 
 towns and cities. 
 
 What, then, are the faults complained of? 
 
 First — That the amount of time devoted to this study 
 is in excess of what can fairly be allotted to it, in the 
 face of the demands of other and equally important 
 branches of study. 
 
 Secondly — That the study of arithmetic is very 
 
ARITHMETIC IN TUE BOSTON SCHOOLS. 241 
 
 largely pursued by methods, supposed to conduce to 
 general mental training, which, in a great degree, sacri- 
 fice that facility and accuracy in numerical computa- 
 tions so essential in the after-life of the pupil, whether 
 as a student in the higher schools or as a bread-winner. 
 
 Thirdly — That, as arithmetic is taught in many — per- 
 haps in most — schools, the possible advantages of this 
 branch of study, even as a means of general mental 
 training and of the development of the reasoning 
 powers, are, whether by fault of the text-book or of the 
 individual teacher or of the standards adopted for exami- 
 nation, largely sacrificed through making the exercises 
 of undue difficulty and complexity, the exercises pre- 
 scribed often reaching a degree of difficulty and com- 
 plexity which not only destroys their disciplinary value 
 but becomes a means of positive injury. 
 
 The three propositions just recited, I will, with your 
 indulgence, take up in consecutive order. 
 
 First — The estimation in which arithmetic is held, 
 alike by the general public, by school boards and com- 
 mittees whose duty it is to lay out and arrange the course 
 of study, and by the teachers who, enjoying more or less 
 freedom of action, ai*e to carry the prescribed schemes 
 of instruction into effect, is very largely a traditional 
 one. The recognition of changed circumstances and 
 conditions, the persistent intrusion of new demands and 
 requirements arising out of those changes in condition 
 and circumstance, have, indeed, caused both the official 
 and the popular estimation of arithmetic to be more or 
 
242 THE TEACHING OF ABITEMETIG. 
 
 less fully revised and modified. Yet, so strong is the 
 force of tradition, especially in the school system, where 
 the pupils of one generation become the teachers of the 
 next, that we cannot too carefully inquire whether the 
 reasons which at one time underlay this or that part of 
 our scheme of instruction have not disappeared. 
 
 The objects sought in teaching arithmetic to the chil- 
 dren of our public schools are two. First, foremost, 
 and absolutely indispensable, is the acquisition of 
 the ability to perform simple numerical operations 
 with reasonable rapidity and with almost infallible 
 accuracy. Greatly as children differ on the side of 
 their minds concerned in these operations, there should 
 be yet no difficulty in securing the above result 
 in the case of all but a very few persons who may 
 perhaps, for school purposes, be regarded as hopelessly 
 indisposed toward numbers. Probably every one of 
 these last cases would in time yield to judicious indi- 
 vidual treatment; but, as children have to be dealt with 
 in large classes, we must accept a small proportion of 
 failures, in this respect, as inevitable. 
 
 What is the standard which should be set up for 
 attainment in arithmetic, having reference only to the 
 practical value of that attainment in after-life? I an- 
 swer, 1st, the ability to count infallibly objects occur- 
 ring irregularly, up to two or three hundred, say, for 
 example, packages of tickets or checks, dots upon a 
 piece of paper, persons in a small audience room, etc.; 
 2d, the ability to add, without the possibility of a mis- 
 
AEITEMETIG IN THE BOSTON SCHOOLS. 243 
 
 take, columns of figures such as would occur in an ordi- 
 nary savings-bank deposit-book or housekeeper's pass- 
 book; 3d, the ability to add two numbers, each below 
 one hundred, or to subtract the less from the greater, 
 rapidly and without recourse to pen or pencil; 4th, the 
 ability to multiply, on the slate or blackboard, one num- 
 ber of moderate length by a small multiplier, or to 
 divide it by a small divisor; 5th, the ability to compute 
 simple interest, on moderate sums, at even rates per 
 cent., for round periods; 6th, the ability to work simple 
 examples in " Reduction," involving the use of the 
 American tables of weights, measures, and moneys. 
 
 If every boy and girl, on leaving the grammar school, 
 at fourteen or fifteen, had reached this stage of attain- 
 ment, the public schools would have fairly done their 
 duty by them, so far as the practical uses of arithmetic 
 are concerned. This is all I would ask for my own son 
 or daughter. This is as much as nineteen boys out of 
 twenty, ninety-nine girls out of a hundred, who do not 
 go beyond the grammar schools have occasion to put 
 frequently to use in the work of their lives. If the 
 twentieth boy is to be a clerk or accountant or to take up 
 business for himself, he will, very readily, from this 
 basis, acquire the needed facility in casting up the 
 columns of a ledger, or in working heavier sums in mul- 
 tiplication or division. 
 
 This is the first object to be sought through the study 
 of arithmetic; and its importance has neither increased 
 nor diminished since the days of our fathers. 
 
244 THE TEACHING OF ARITHMETIC. 
 
 The second object wbicLi is properly sought by means 
 of the studies and exercises in question is general mental 
 training. 
 
 The importance of this function of arithmetic has 
 greatly declined during the present generation by rea- 
 son of the introduction of new studies and exercises, 
 some of which are equally well adapted, if, indeed, not 
 better adapted, to perform the required work. Thirty 
 and forty years ago, the studies in our public schools 
 were few and simple. Reading, writing, and arithmetic, 
 a little grammar, some crude declamation, with political 
 geography, made up, substantially, the course of study. 
 Of the physical geography of to-day, extending even to 
 what were once the mysteries of meteorology, taking 
 into account the influence of currents of air and water 
 upon climate, and of climate upon the productions of 
 the soil and upon the occupations of man, there was then 
 not a trace. History and civil government were un- 
 known studies in the grammar schools of those days. 
 Physiology was just about to enter the schools, in spite 
 of the protest of an eminent citizen of Massachusetts 
 upon the ground that it was one of a group of sciences 
 none of which should be brought into the schools unless 
 all were to be. Music and drawing were to wait still 
 longer for recognition by school authorities. The 
 elementary mechanics and physics, so successfully 
 taught in many schools, were then not dreamed of as 
 possible subjects of study. A district schoolmaster of 
 the past generation would as soon have thought of teach- 
 
ARITHMETIC IN THE BOSTON SCHOOLS. 245 
 
 ing the language of Archimedes as of explaining the 
 principle of the lever and fulcrum. 
 
 The introduction of many new subjects of study has 
 greatly reduced the importance of arithmetic as a means 
 of general training. In the generation just passed, it 
 was necessarily looked to for very much of the develop- 
 ment and discipline of the pupil. To-day a haK score of 
 separate sciences or important subjects of study offer 
 themselves to do the same work, in one or more of which 
 are unmistakably found all the educational virtues which 
 belong to arithmetic, together with others which arith- 
 metic does not possess. The strongest claim made in be- 
 half of mathematical study has been its cultivation of 
 the power of continuous attention; yet the degree of 
 attention which can be commanded, on the part of chil- 
 dren dragged reluctantly through compound fractions 
 or cube root, is far inferior to that given by a group of 
 eager boys and girls following an enlightened teacher in 
 some branch of natural history. Generally speaking, 
 it may be said of the new subjects, tliat, while they train 
 the powers of reasoning not less efficiently than does 
 arithmetic, they also bring into play the powers of per- 
 ception and observation which in all branches of mathe- 
 matics are left absolutely unused. 
 
 I would not wish to be understood to assert that arith- 
 metic has ceased to have any educational value at all, 
 beyond its practical utility, in the public school of to-day. 
 I entertain no doubt that, in the primary school and. 
 even the lower classes of the cramm'ar school, number- 
 
246 THE TEACHING OF ARITHMETIC. 
 
 lessons, in application to concrete objects, may be help- 
 ful in awakening interest, arousing thought, and bring- 
 ing the mind into healthful exercise; but I do seriously 
 question whether for every hour spent by a boy of thir- 
 teen or fourteen years of age in the study of arithmetic, 
 beyond what is necessary to secure the degree of accu- 
 racy and facility indicated at an earlier stage of the 
 discussion, an hour spent in some other kind of study 
 might not be substituted to his very great advantage. 
 However this may be, it seems to me clear that arith- 
 metic, by virtue of having been earlier on the ground 
 and of enjoying the prestige and authority derived from 
 the past, continues to-day to occupy space which is 
 urgently needed for the proper extension of some of the 
 new subjects that, in spite of the recognition of their 
 practical utility and educational value, have scarcely 
 been able to secure a foothold in fact, although forming 
 a feature of the grammar-school curriculum on paper. 
 
 The second of the main propositions laid down was 
 that the study of arithmetic is very largely pursued by 
 methods supposed to conduce to general mental training 
 which, in a great degree, sacrifice that facility and accu- 
 racy in numerical computations, so essential in the after- 
 life of the pupil, whether as a student in the higher 
 schools or as a bread-winner. 
 
 That the results of the study of arithmetic in the 
 grammar schools are unsatisfactory, so far as the ability 
 of the pupils to perform numerical work correctly and 
 with reasonable dispatch is concerned, whether in subse- 
 
ARITHMETIC IN THE BOSTON SCHOOLS. 247 
 
 quent studies or in actual business operations, seems to me 
 establisheii by abundant testimony, both of merchants, 
 manufacturers, and bankers, receiving graduates from 
 our grammar schools, and of teachers in higher institu- 
 tions of learning. The average pupil falls short of the 
 very moderate degree of attainment which I indicated as 
 fairly to be expected from all but a very few highly ex- 
 ceptional scholars, and that too with very much less than 
 the amount of time actually devoted to arithmetic. The 
 head masters of both of the great high schools of Boston 
 have assured me that they find grave deficiencies on the 
 part of large numbers of pupils coming from the gram- 
 mar schools, in this matter of accuracy in simple nu- 
 merical operations ; and I have received similar informa- 
 tion from the head masters of high schools in other cities. 
 In the institution with which I am personally connected, 
 instructors in algebra, for example, find that many 
 pupils who are familiar with difiicult theorems and are 
 masters of complicated formulae, often vitiate their work 
 by simple numerical mistakes, such as would have been 
 impossible had they been properly trained in the earlier 
 stages of their mathematical education. Professor 
 SafFord, the eminent mathematician and astronomer of 
 "Williams College, in a recent treatise states that he finds 
 in his own pupils a great want of skill in ordinary calcu- 
 lations and that inaccuracy in simple arithmetical work 
 is very common. In a letter which I have to-day re- 
 ceived, Professor John E. Clark, the head of the mathe- 
 matical department of the Sheffield Scientific School of 
 
248 THE TEACHING OF ARITHMETIC. 
 
 Yale College, states very strongly the deficiencies of 
 students entering that school, in the matter of simple 
 numerical accuracy and facility. 
 
 Embarrassing as are such deficiencies in the case of 
 students pursuing long courses of study, the results in 
 the case of those students who leave the grammar school 
 to begin to earn their own living are in a high degree 
 disastrous. To repeat here language which I have used 
 elsewhere: employers have literally no use for boys who 
 make mistakes in numbers. Such a failing offsets the 
 best training, otherwise, of mind and hand. In a store 
 or shop or factory, or on a railroad, a lad who cannot set 
 down figures, and add them right, every time, must 
 take and keep an inferior position. It is difficult to 
 imagine a greater wrong, short of a permanent injury to 
 health, that can be done to a child than to send him out 
 into the world to earn his living without the ability to 
 conduct numerical operations accurately. 
 
 The defect which has been thus severely commented 
 on is not due to a lack of time devoted to exercises under 
 the name of arithmetic, but to the fact that so little 
 proper numerical work is involved in these exercises. 
 Scarcely has the pupil learned the four simple rules be- 
 fore he is given numerous technical applications requir- 
 ing the use of extended tables of weights, measures and 
 moneys, and so-called practical or illustrative problems 
 which necessitate deep and long puzzling over the rela- 
 tions and terms involved. Even in the early stages of 
 this process, seldom is so much as one-half of the time 
 
ARITHMETIC IN THE BOSTON SCHOOLS. 249 
 
 given to proper numerical work. Often that proportion 
 sinks to a third, or a quarter, or even to a smaller share. 
 Sometimes the amount of such work becomes inconsider- 
 able. Who of us has not seen a bright lad spend ten or 
 fifteen minutes over a practical problem, when the mere 
 addition, multiplication, subtraction, and division in- 
 volved would not have occupied as many seconds? 
 
 It was partly to increase the amount of actual nu- 
 merical work to be done in an hour devoted to so-called 
 arithmetic; in part, also, to reduce the load which our 
 children are required to carry all the time on their 
 minds, ready to be at any instant unpacked and put to 
 use, that the School Board of Boston have thrown over- 
 board the large and miscellaneous " lot " of subjects 
 mentioned in their second order. It was with reference 
 in part to the consideration just indicated, and, in part, 
 to that consideration which remains now to be 
 stated, that they passed the orders numbered three and 
 four. 
 
 The third and last of the main considerations which 
 actuated the School Board, dealing with this subject, has 
 been stated as follows : That, as arithmetic is now taught 
 in many, perhaps in most, schools, the possible advan- 
 tages of this branch of study as a means of general 
 mental training, are, whether by fault of the text-book 
 or of the individual teacher or of the standards adopted 
 for examination, largely sacrificed, through making the 
 exercises of undue difficulty and complexity, the exer- 
 cises prescribed often reaching a degree of difficulty and 
 
250 TEE TEACHING OF ARITHMETIC. 
 
 complexity which not only completely destroys their dis- 
 ciplinary value, but becomes a means of positive injury. 
 
 It was in the belief just stated that the Board pre- 
 scribed that all exercises in fractions, discount, commis- 
 sion, and proportion should be confined to small numbers 
 and to simple subjects and processes; and, again, that in 
 so-called practical and illustrative problems, all exer- 
 cises in which a fairly intelligent and attentive child of 
 the age concerned would find any considerable difficulty 
 in making the " statement " which is preliminary to the 
 performance of the proper arithmetical operation, shall 
 be deemed objectionable. 
 
 This action of the school committee was at the time 
 opposed, and is still by some criticised, on two different 
 grounds. One, that the exercises given to the children 
 in the Boston schools, whether as examples under the 
 rules mentioned or as practical and illustrative problems, 
 have, in fact, uniformly been simple and easy ; the other, 
 that, in sound educational theory, the exercises given to 
 young pupils ought to be difficult, complicated, perplex- 
 ing, and distressing, in order that the child's mind and 
 spirit may undergo a due preparation for the difficult 
 duties and hard problems of life, one enthusiastic writer 
 of this school going so far as to declare that it is essential 
 to good education that the sums set for the pupil should 
 be not only often difficult but sometimes actually impos- 
 sible of solution by him, in his then stage of mental de- 
 velopment. 
 
 To the assertion, so constantly made, as to the simple 
 
ARITHMETIC IN THE BOSTON SCHOOLS. 251 
 
 and easy character of the exercises prescribed for our 
 children, it may be replied that, if the facts are as stated, 
 the rules imposed can do no harm ; but that the personal 
 testimony of members of the Board abundantly 
 establishes the fact that absurdly complicated exercises 
 in fractions, cube root, etc., and practical problems 
 amounting to the severest logical puzzles, were given 
 out, in some of the schools of Boston, down to the very 
 date of the order recited. 
 
 As to the educational theory which was brought to 
 bear, both in debate and in outside criticism, against the 
 proposed rules, I may say it is pleasure to encounter 
 error with so little of disguise. If its advocates are in 
 the right, the action which the school cormnittee have 
 taken is, of course, all wrong; but I, for one, do not hesi- 
 tate to assert that this theory, in its milder form, is in- 
 consistent with the best and ripest results of modem 
 physiology and psychology; while I denounce that 
 theory in its extreme shape as a relic of barbarism, 
 closely akin to some of the most savage superstitions of 
 primitive mankind. The notion that exercises, either 
 mental or physical, prescribed for young children, 
 should be often up to the full limit of their powers and 
 should at times exceed those powers is distinctly false. 
 The true gymnastic for the growing child is through 
 exercises easy and pleasant, which lead insensibly up to 
 ever higher planes of attainment, as the faculties are 
 expanded and strengthened, according to their own law 
 of growth, through gentle and agreeable exercise. 
 
252 THE TEACHING OF ARITHMETIC. 
 
 Wherever fatigue, confusion, and the sense of strain be- 
 gin, there the virtue of the exercise ceases, whether for 
 promoting the growth of the powers or for the training 
 and disciplining of the powers as they exist. Loss and 
 waste — it may be much, it may be little — begin at this 
 point, and go forward, from this point, at a constantly 
 accelerating ratio. 
 
 In college, thirty years ago, those of us who were 
 given to athleticism were accustomed to use heavy 
 dumb-bells, the heavier, we thought, the better. 
 Twenty-four and thirty-two pounders, the famous 
 " fifty-sixes," and even eighty-pound bells were much in 
 favor with young fellows who desired to become strong. 
 To-day, a prize fighter prepai'ing to contest the cham- 
 pionship of the world uses, habitually, very light dumb- 
 bells, just heavy enough to give a purpose to his blow 
 and to be distinctly felt at the end of the stroke. He 
 makes, with the light bell, ten strokes to one he would 
 make with the heavy bell, and gets twice as much good 
 from the exercise. If this be the part of wisdom for 
 the grown giant, overflowing with the exuberance of his 
 strength, much more is such a course desirable in the 
 case of young, tender children, yet in the gristle, the 
 frame and brain still plastic and yielding, with the possi- 
 bilities of manhood and womanhood but dimly inti- 
 mated. Whether for the promotion of future growth, 
 or for the training of the powers as they are, or for the 
 acquisition of the inestimable art of rapid and accurate 
 computation, school exercises in arithmetic should, in 
 
ARITHMETIC IN THE BOSTON SCHOOLS. 253 
 
 the opinion of the Boston Board, be easy and simple, 
 with the resulting advantage of becoming more fre- 
 quent than is possible, within any reasonable limits of 
 time, in the case of the highly complicated and difficult 
 sums and problems with which the traditional gymnastic 
 deals. 
 
 The greatest enemy, however, to true arithmetical 
 work is found in so-called practical or illustrative prob- 
 lems, which are freely given to our pupils, of a degree 
 of difficulty and complexity altogether unsuited to their 
 age and mental development. It is bad enough to give 
 boys and girls of twelve and fourteen years of age nu- 
 merical operations far exceeding in difficulty those which 
 any bank cashier has to perform from one yearns end to 
 another; to require them to extract the cube root of 
 three-sevenths; to pile one irregular and jagged fraction 
 on top of another and then ask them to divide or mul- 
 tiply this by an arithmetical monstrosity as hideous and 
 impossible as itself. But, at least, a pupil so engaged 
 is actually dealing all the time with numbers. It is 
 through so-called practical and illustrative problems 
 that bad teaching in arithmetic does its worst. The loss 
 of time may be no greater; but the resulting confusion 
 and sense of strain are apt to be more bewildering and 
 distracting to children of the ages concerned. Every- 
 teacher and every parent whose children have been given 
 lessons in home arithmetic, know too well the kind of 
 problems to which allusion is made. I am, myself, no 
 bad mathematician, and all the reasoning powers with 
 
264 THE TEACHINO OF ARITHMETIC. 
 
 which nature endowed me have long been as fully de- 
 veloped as they are ever likely to be; but I have, not 
 infrequently, been puzzled, and at times foaled, by the 
 subtle logical difficulty running through one of these 
 problems, given to my own children. The head-master 
 of one of our Boston high schools confessed to me that 
 he had sometimes been unable to unravel one of these 
 tangled skeins, in trying to help his own daughter 
 through her evening's work. During this summer, Dr. 
 Fairbairn, the distinguished head of one of the colleges 
 of Oxford, England, told me that not only had he him- 
 self encountered a similar difficulty, in the case of his 
 own children, but that, on one occasion, having as his 
 guest one of the first mathematicians of England, the 
 two together had been completely puzzled by one of 
 these arithmetical conundrums. 
 
 The vice of such problems is of a double nature. 
 First, there is the fact of undue complexity and diffi- 
 culty. Secondly, there is the fact that the special 
 faculty concerned does not normally develop in the 
 child's mind until a later period of life than that gener- 
 ally concerned in these operations. In this connection 
 I refer to the letters from President Porter and Profes- 
 sors Howison, James, and Stanley Hall,^ which were 
 made a part of my address to the Boston school board 
 on the 12th of April last. For one, I believe it to be 
 altogether undesirable to attempt to pry this faculty up 
 from the mass of mind, in which, by nature's wise pro- 
 1 See p. 227, ante.—Ej>. 
 
ARITHMETIC IN THE BOSTON SCHOOLS. 255 
 
 vision, it still lies embedded and dormant, and to bring 
 it prematurely into consciousness and exercise. 
 
 AVhether one agrees with the reasons which have been 
 presented, or not, such is the law of the schools of Bos- 
 ton to-day, under adequate authority; and those teachers 
 who still believe that children should be harassed and 
 distressed in education, for their souls' and minds' good; 
 that the exercises of the growing boy or girl should be 
 carried to the point of strain; and that sometimes the 
 pupil should even be set examples he cannot perform, 
 will perforce have to resort to some instrument of torture 
 other than arithmetic. 
 
COLLEGE PROBLEMS 
 
 COLLEGE ATHLETICS 
 1893 
 
Address before the Phi Beta Kappa SociETy, 
 Alpha op Massachusetts, at Cambridob, June 29, 1893. 
 From the Technology Quarterly. July, 1893 : and the 
 Harvard Gi'aduates' Magazine, Setptember, 1893. 
 
COLLEGE ATHLETICS. 
 
 I TEUST it will not be deemed beneath the dignity of 
 this occasion that I should ask your attention to a few 
 thoughts regarding college athletics. No theme is to- 
 day of greater consequence to the colleges and universi- 
 ties of our land, whether as influencing school discipline 
 or as affecting the standard of scholarship. Alike those 
 who applaud and those who deprecate the growth of 
 athletics must admit the importance of the subject. 
 
 The past ten years have witnessed a remarkable devel- 
 opment in the direction indicated, which we may well 
 pause to consider. The rising passion for athletics has 
 carried all before it. Thus far, at least, there is no sign 
 of reaction or even of the exhaustion of the forward 
 impulse. Honors in football, in baseball, and in rowing 
 have come to be esteemed of equal value with honors in 
 the classics, in philosophy, or in mathematics; and if the 
 movement shall continue at the same rate it will soon be 
 fairly a question whether the letters A. B. in the college 
 degree stand for bachelor of arts more than for bachelor 
 of athletics. 
 
 Among instructors and the governing bodies of our 
 colleges there is a wide difference of sentiment on the 
 subject. Some applaud, some doubt, some disapprove; 
 others are simply dazed and know not what to think, or 
 suspend all judgment waiting to see how much farther 
 
 259 
 
260 COLLEGE PROBLEMS. 
 
 the rising tide will encroach upon the shore. In the 
 larger community there is, perhaps, an even more pro- 
 nounced divergence of opinion. Few college presidents 
 or professors but see some good in the new movement 
 and sympathize largely with the enthusiasm of their 
 pupils. But there is a host of editors, preachers, and 
 men of affairs in the outside world, and a host of parents 
 and guardians more directly concerned, who are sure 
 that it is all of evil; that the colleges are simply going 
 wild over athletic sports, preparing the way for the 
 downfall of the traditional system of education. To 
 many of these it is a monstrous thing that large bodies 
 of young men should give themselves up to contests of 
 skill and strength, and that larger bodies still should find 
 in these contests the chief interest of their college life. 
 
 Fairly to approach the subject we need to consider 
 the state of things which existed prior to the War of 
 Secession; in other words, to go back just one human 
 generation, as a human generation is usually computed. 
 In those days gymnastics held but a small, a very small, 
 place in American colleges; while throughout the wider 
 community there was almost no athleticism. The two 
 most important exceptions to the latter statement were 
 found in the occasional outlawed and always disreputa- 
 ble prize fight, generally with some international com- 
 plication, genuine or manufactured, for the sake of 
 stimulating public interest, and in a small amount of 
 rather poor, unscientific boat-racing. Almost no honor 
 was then given to a young man because he was strong, 
 
COLLEGE ATULETICS. 261 
 
 Bwift, courageous, or enduring. The college hero of 
 those days was apt to be a young man of towering fore- 
 head, from which the hair was carefully brushed back- 
 wards and upwards to give the full effect to his remark- 
 able phrenological developments. His cheeks were 
 pale, his digestion pretty certain to be bad. He was 
 self-conscious, introspective, and indulged in moods as 
 became a child of genius. He had yearnings and aspi- 
 rations, and not infrequently mistook physical lassitude 
 for intellectuality, and the gnawings of dyspepsia for 
 spiritual cravings. He would have gravely distrusted 
 his mission and his calling had he found himself at any 
 time playing ball. He went through moral crises and 
 mental fermentations which seemed to him tremendous. 
 From the gloomy recesses of his ill-kept and unventi- 
 lated room he periodically came forth to astound his 
 fellow students with poor imitations of Coleridge, De 
 Quincey, and Carlyle, or of Goethe in translation. 
 
 iNot all college heroes of those days were of this 
 familiar type. Sometimes they were thunderous orators, 
 more Websterian than "Webster, who could by a single 
 effort lift themselves to the full height of perorations 
 which in the senate or the forum are the culmination of 
 great arguments and of many a passionate appeal. 
 Sometimes, though more rarely, the college hero was a 
 delightfully wicked fellow, who did, or at least affected 
 to do, naughty things, wrote satirical verses, was sup- 
 posed to know life, and in various ways exerted a bale- 
 ful fascination over his fellow students. But, however 
 
262 COLLEGE PROBLEMS. 
 
 the type of the college hero might vary, speech-making, 
 debating, or fine writing were the be-all and the end-all 
 of college training, as in the world outside the college 
 speech-making, debating, or fine writing were the sole 
 recognized signs and proofs of greatness. Physical 
 force, dexterity, and endurance, capacity for action, 
 nerve, and will-power went for little or nothing, so far 
 as public admiration was concerned. Statesmanship 
 itself was perverted by eagerness to seek occasions for 
 oratorical display. Men of business, men of affairs, men 
 of prudence, moderation, and real ability were crowded 
 out of our legislative halls by shrill-voiced declaimera 
 who could catch the ear of a nation given over to the 
 lust of words. " Sir," once said Daniel Webster, bend- 
 ing those tremendous brows upon a young man after- 
 wards renowned among the great attorney generals of 
 the United States, " sir, the curse of this country has 
 been its eloquent men." 
 
 What was the reason for this state of things regarding 
 the college ideals of a generation ago, so strongly con- 
 trasted with what we see to-day? In part, bad physi- 
 ology, or the absence of anything that could be called 
 physiology, was responsible for it; but in greater part 
 it was due, I believe, to the transcendentalism and senti- 
 mentalism of the last quarter of the eighteenth and the 
 first quarter of the nineteenth century, which had 
 created false and pernicious opinions concerning per- 
 sonal character and conduct. There was more than in- 
 difference, there was contempt for physical prowess. A 
 
COLLEGE ATHLETICS. 263 
 
 man who was known to be specially gifted in this way 
 was thereby disparaged in public estimation. If he 
 were known to make much of it, he was likely to be 
 despised. It was taken for granted that he could not 
 be good for anything else. Brains and brawn were sup- 
 posed to be developed in inverse ratio. Affected notions 
 about intellectuality and spirituality had almost com- 
 plete control of the popular thought. The only things 
 to be admired were mind and soul. " Mere bigness " 
 was a favorite phrase of contempt. Strength was be- 
 lieved to be closely akin to brutality. Danger, positive 
 danger, to spirituality, if not also to morality, lay in 
 physical force and exuberant vitality. The same no- 
 tions perverted the ideals of womanly grace and beauty. 
 Robust \^gor, a hearty appetite, and a ruddy complexion 
 would have been deemed incompatible with the func- 
 tion of the heroine of a popular novel or a sentimental 
 poem, or even with the part of a belle in society. Lan- 
 guor and pallor were attractive, delicacy of frame and 
 limb was admired. 
 
 The notions referred to were doubtless closely con- 
 nected with the political ideas of those days. It was an 
 era of transcendentalism in politics. Political mechan- 
 ism was disparaged. The philosophy of the age 
 declared that a virtuous people would of themselves 
 make a good government. On the other hand, it was 
 impossible so to organize the public force as to give a 
 people a government that should be better than themr 
 selves. The maxim, " A stream cannot rise higher than 
 
264 COLLEGE PROBLEMS. 
 
 its source," was a conclusive answer to all pleas for tlie 
 scientific treatment of political problems. There was 
 an affectation of indifference towards size and numbers 
 in national life. Quality, not quantity, was in the eyes 
 of the men of those days the sole test of the worthiness 
 and the greatness of a people. Mass went for nothing. 
 " Mere bigness " was here, as in the case of the indi- 
 vidual, a term of infinite contempt. I never shall forget 
 the rebuke, not unkindly meant or harshly spoken, which 
 I received from a distinguished leader of public thought 
 for boasting in a boyish vein about the extent of my 
 country and the greatness of its resources. 
 
 The indifference toward, or the dislike of, athletics a 
 generation or two ago was also largely due to the reli- 
 gious ideas and feelings of the time. The body was but 
 a shell, a prison in which the soul was confined, and 
 against whose bars its aspirations continually beat and 
 bruised themselves. In another image, the body was a 
 wayside bam in which the weary pilgrim laid himself 
 down to rest till break of day. The flesh was an incum- 
 brance to the spirit, a clog, a burden, a snare. Men had 
 been told to " keep the body under," and perchance this 
 was thought to be an easier task if that body were small 
 and weak. 
 
 I do not mean to be understood as asserting that in 
 those days the mens sana in corpore sano was never 
 spoken of, or that there was no formal teaching of the 
 duty of preserving bodily health. Such precepts, how- 
 ever, could have little effect against general tendencies 
 
COLLEGE ATHLETICS. 265 
 
 of thought and feeling ; and even among the most intelli- 
 gent teachers of those days there was manifest a strong 
 dislike, a sharp shrinking from all dwelling upon th,e 
 physical basis of life, as savoring of materialism. As to 
 acknowledging the relationship of man to the other 
 orders of animals, that would have filled the pious mind 
 with horror. The philosophy of the time had, indeed, 
 to admit that the soul was in a degree conditioned as to 
 its manifestations, and especially as to its influence upon 
 others, by purely physical causes. But the soul itself 
 was a thing transcendent, supernal, and self-sufficing, 
 which when released from the clogs of flesh became at 
 once as perfect, pure, free, and strong as if its tenement, 
 while in residence here, had been more worthy of it. 
 
 All the notions referred to, so prevalent and so potent 
 in at least this section of the United States forty or 
 seventy years ago, have gone, and gone together. 
 Other ideas better suited to inspire a progressive civiliza- 
 tion have taken their place. In part this has been due 
 to the decay of superstitions derived from primitive 
 savagery, in part to the effects of positive teaching, in 
 greater part still to further experience of life. Biology 
 has done its share; political education has done its share; 
 the war of secession wrought its appointed work in the 
 same direction. The men of to-day are generally agreed 
 that they are likely to live long enough to make it wise 
 to think a hundred times how they shall live, to once 
 thinking how they shall die. The caravansary idea of 
 existence has been abandoned. Man is not a pilgrim, 
 
266 COLLEGE PROBLEMS. 
 
 but a citizen. He is going to tarry nights enough to 
 make it worth while to patch up the tenement and even 
 to look into the drainage. This world is a place to work 
 in; activity and development, not suffering or self- 
 repression, its law. 
 
 The present generation has witnessed a wonderful 
 diminution of spiritual self-consciousness. Better 
 physiology, coinciding with some changes in popular 
 ideals, has driven away the notions about the flesh as an 
 incumbrance, a clog, a burden, a snare. It is seen that 
 morbid or even merely feeble conditions of body tend to 
 generate delusions, selfishness, and susceptibility to the 
 worst impulses. This is seen to be the case not the less 
 because of the saintliness and the heroic constancy of a 
 million sufferers from pain and infirmity. Hearty 
 physical force may, indeed, consist with vicious desires, 
 but it does not favor them. On the contrary, it does in 
 a way and in a degree tend to diminish and to uproot 
 them. Vicious desires are at their worst in feebleness 
 and in morbid conditions of body. The sounder a man 
 is, the stronger he is, the less — other things equal — is he 
 subject to what is bad and degrading; the more pleasure 
 does he take in what is natural, healthful, and elevating. 
 To a man perfectly sane physically life itself becomes 
 a joy. The relish for it does not need to be stimulated 
 by the spices of vicious indulgence any more than a 
 healthy appetite needs to be stimulated by the spices of 
 the cuisine. 
 
 The sociological investigations into the causes and 
 
COLLEGE ATHLETICS. 267 
 
 manifestations of crime, so actively in progress during 
 the past few years, have added much to our knowledge 
 of human nature in its self-respecting and law-abiding 
 phases. The popular idea of the criminal once was 
 that of a powerful brute, whose offenses against society 
 resulted from an excess of physical vigor not counter- 
 balanced by moral and intellectual forces. It is now 
 known that, as a matter of fact, the prisoners in our jails 
 are, as a class, undersized and undervitalized creatures, 
 often with a deficiency of co-ordination between their 
 faculties, sometimes with a minimum of control over 
 their own actions and little adaptability to social and in- 
 dustrial functions. In the remarkable, the truly 
 admirable reformatory enterprise of Superintendent 
 Brockway at Elmira, gymnastics, regulated exercise, 
 and manual training perform a most important part. 
 
 In the revolution of thought regarding bodily devel- 
 opment and physical prowess Mr. Beecher exerted a 
 great influence. He it was who led off in favor of Mus- 
 cular Christianity. During the controversy on that 
 subject which attracted so much attention just before 
 the outbreak of our great war there was, we must admit, 
 not a little exaggeration on the part of the advocates of 
 physical culture. Many wrote and spoke as if all evil 
 were to be worked off in the gymnasium and on the race 
 track; as if every vice of human nature would exude 
 through the pores of the skin were perspiration only 
 sufficiently active and long enough maintained. But 
 in spite of much that was crude and foolish, these men 
 
268 COLLEGE PROBLEMS. 
 
 had hold of a great truth, and thej did not let go until 
 thej had drawn it out into the light. The War of 
 Secession, also, which has been adverted to, came in to 
 produce a vast change in popular sentiments and ideals, 
 as it showed how much nobler are strength of will, firm- 
 ness of purpose, resolution to endure, and capacity for 
 action than are the qualities of the speech-maker and the 
 fine writer, which the nation had once agreed chiefly to 
 admire. 
 
 With this change of opinion regarding physical force 
 and physical training in the individual has come a 
 notable change in the political philosophy of the age. 
 Larger experience of affairs has shown the folly of dis- 
 regarding political mechanism. It is seen that it is hard 
 enough to keep the balance of forces upon the right side, 
 if every safeguard be adopted, every device used, and 
 every means employed to give a preference to those who 
 stand for order, decency, and honesty in the community. 
 We are all now for making the devil fight with the sun 
 in his eyes, instead of at his back, and with the advan- 
 tage of the ground against him, instead of in his favor. 
 We no longer with confidence hold that a virtuous people 
 will necessarily have a good government. On the con- 
 trary, we recognize that a people virtuous above the 
 average may be made, through a bad organization of the 
 public forces, to act almost as if they were the most 
 cowardly and dishonest of their kind, as did our fore- 
 fathers under the confederation of 1781-87. It is true 
 that the stream may not of itself rise higher than its 
 
COLLEGE ATHLETICS. 2G9 
 
 source, but by machinery we can send a stream a good 
 deal higher than its source, and can make it do there 
 more of vitally essential work than could all the waters 
 of old ocean lying at their level. Instead of discarding 
 political mechanism, therefore, the men of to-day believe 
 in political machinery, like that of the Australian ballot 
 system. They have learned that by means of it they 
 can help tlie cause of righteousness, and at times turn 
 the scale against the forces of evil. They not only be- 
 lieve in political machinery, they even believe in politi- 
 cal machines, actual structures of wood and glass like 
 the patent ballot-box, as important agencies to defeat 
 the baser elements of society. 
 
 Again, " mere bigness " has ceased to be a term of 
 contempt as applied to nations. Power in a people has 
 become a thing admired. It is felt that it is indeed a 
 glorious thing to have a giant's strength ; nor is it longer 
 believed that the disposition to use strength tyrannously 
 grows with the opportunity. The idea once prevalent 
 that its possession leads to brutality and insolence has 
 not been borne out by the history of our own people. 
 As the United States have gro^vn more powerful they 
 have grown more peaceful. In the early days of the 
 republic our petulance, irritability, and pugnacity made 
 us a nuisance and a pest among the nations. Swagger 
 and unbounded brag characterized our earlier diplomatic 
 history; while the war with Mexico, the cheap talk about 
 " manifest destiny," and the filibustering excursions of 
 the middle of the century seemed to point us out as a 
 
270 COLLEGE PROBLEMS. 
 
 bad neiglibor to the strong and a bully towards tbe 
 weak. 
 
 Doubtless tbe slave power was in some degree ac- 
 countable for tbis; but in greater measure it was due to 
 lack of confidence in ourselves. We were always afraid 
 that we were not going to be respected and treated with 
 due consideration. We felt that we were looked down 
 upon because we were young and small. No sooner 
 was the mighty demonstration made of our courage and 
 military strength in that great Civil War which will 
 always remain one of the marvels of human history, than 
 all this fell away from the nation like some loathsome 
 rheum of childhood. To-day Canada and Mexico re- 
 pose under the shadow of our iiresistible power without 
 an apprehension of harm or wrong, and it is even diffi- 
 cult to secure from an over-lavish Congress appropria- 
 tions sufficient to enable us to make a decent show of 
 naval power in the great harbors of the world. It is true 
 we have recently suffered an apparent brief access of 
 jingoism, owing to certain unfortunate political compli- 
 cations; but the readiness with which the affair with 
 Chile was adjusted and the general applause with which 
 our flag was hauled down from the government house 
 at Hawaii showed how superficial and how partial was 
 the infection. 
 
 After this long and tedious statement of changes in 
 the ideas and sentiments of our people in the several 
 directions indicated, is it too much to say that, as a com- 
 munity, we have got down upon a sound, practical, sen- 
 
COLLEGE ATHLETICS. 271 
 
 sible, worldly basis of life, much more promising for 
 morality, for a steadily progressive civilization, for 
 enduring enthusiasms — aye, for worthy aspirations and 
 a true spirituality — than the unreal, morbid transcen- 
 dentalism and sentimentalism of three, two, or even only 
 one generation ago? 
 
 Among the many things, good or bad as people may 
 esteem them, resulting from the changes in feelings, 
 views, and ideals which have been indicated, are two 
 which especially concern colleges and college men: The 
 first is the general disappearance, most fortunate as I 
 esteem it, of the literary societies formerly so flourish- 
 ing, and the decay of oratory, declamation, and debate, 
 which to many once made up the main interest of college 
 life. The second is the rapid growth of athletics, in 
 which immense honor is given to young men because 
 they are strong, swift, enduring, and brave; in which 
 the blood of the whole community is stirred by physical 
 contests among the picked youth of the land as once it 
 was stirred only by tales of battle. This last it is which 
 has given me my subject to-day. 
 
 That the general introduction of gymnastics into col- 
 leges is desirable, few will deny. Young men of the 
 college age whose occupations are largely sedentary 
 should be encouraged to undertake systematic and ex- 
 tended exercise in order to correct the faults of the study 
 and recitation-room, to expand their frames, and to pro- 
 mote an active circulation. Amherst is entitled to the 
 high honor of being the first of the American colleges 
 
272 COLLEGE PROBLEMS. 
 
 to make ample and suitable provision for students' needs 
 in this respect. In 1861, under the presidency of Dr. 
 Stearns, a gymnasium, large and well equipped accord- 
 ing to the standard of those days, was placed upon the 
 campus; daily exercise was made compulsory upon stu- 
 dents not excused for cause, and a certificated physician 
 was made director of physical culture and lecturer on 
 physiology and hygiene. Few colleges have followed 
 Amherst in making exercise other than in the form of 
 military drill compulsory;* but fewer still now fail to 
 afford their pupils opportunity for voluntary gym- 
 nastics to the top of their bent. The improvement thus 
 wrought in the physique of our college students does not 
 need to be shown statistically; it is manifest to the eye 
 of the most casual observer who remembers the former 
 state of things. So far, there is no ground of debate; 
 
 ' There is no such source of t/idiscipline as pretended military drill 
 and training when the requirements are not promptly, severely, and 
 unflinchingly enforced. There is no better training for mind and 
 body than military drill well and intelligently carried on. All mod- 
 ern drill associates with itself "setting-up" exercises and regulated 
 gymnastics. The modern soldier must be an athlete. 
 
 I think there is nothing which the young men of this country need 
 more than to be taught to obey, to " mind," as the boys say; and to 
 do it without any nonsense, or "back talk," or delay. For lack of 
 this we are raising up a large class of boys who, in mind and charac- 
 ter, are perfect " punk," without fiber and without grain. 
 
 I do not say that militar}' training and drill in high schools, even 
 under the best officers, would remedy all this, — in most cases the 
 evil is done before the boy reaches that point, — but I have no doubt 
 that the effects would be beneficial. I am not in favor, however, of 
 small or feeble boys carrying muskets. — Ans^cer to the question : 
 "Do you believe that military drills are consistent with pedagogy?" 
 asked in a circular letter from the editors of "Mind and Body" 1896. 
 
COLLEGE ATHLETICS. 273 
 
 difference of opinion exists only witli respect to the com- 
 petitive sports and games which have grown out of the 
 newly awakened interest in physical prowess. 
 
 And here let me propose a distinction between gym- 
 nastics and athletics, which will be carried through the 
 remainder of this discussion. That distinction is not 
 one based upon etymology, but has reference to current 
 usage: 
 
 Gymnastics are for individual training and develop- 
 ment, with health strongly in view. Athletics take the 
 form of competition and contest; emulation is their mov- 
 ing spirit, glory their aim. 
 
 As thus distinguished in their primary objects, ath- 
 letics differ from gymnastics in two respects: First, by 
 specialization, as when a man chooses his line of work in 
 athletics — whether that be pole-vaulting, or hurdle- 
 racing, or rowing, or pitching in baseball, or playing a 
 certain position in football — and thereafter devotes his 
 energies to working himself up to the highest point of 
 efficiency in that line; secondly, by excess in the amount 
 of exercise over what would be required or would be per- 
 formed without the introduction of the spirit of emula- 
 tion. So great is this excess that it may not unfairly be 
 said that athletics begin where gymnastics leave off. 
 
 The effects of specialization in athletics are too much 
 a matter of detail to be entered upon here. Suffice it, 
 in a word, to say that they are not unlike those of special- 
 ization in industry — good and evil being mingled, with, 
 in general, the preponderance largely on the side of the 
 
274 COLLEGE PROBLEMS. 
 
 good. Specialization affords to bodily exercise a more 
 direct object and creates a far more intense and sustained 
 interest. Moreover, for the best specialized work it is 
 well known that at least a fair all-around development 
 is almost always a necessary condition. 
 
 The excess of exercise in athletics over gymnastics, 
 as we have defined these terms, is it of good or of evil? 
 Is it a gain, or mere waste, or a positive injury? Gym- 
 nastics are a means to the end of health and vigor. 
 Athletics become an end in themselves. With excep- 
 tions too inconsiderable to be enumerated, the athlete 
 competing for championship honors takes more exercise, 
 often far more exercise, than is required for health and 
 strength with a view to the peaceful and industrial pur- 
 suits of life. Vital force is consumed, not created, by 
 the final contests in which he engages, and not infre- 
 quently by the training to which he subjects himself in 
 preparation for them. The consumption of vital force 
 in athletics, if we contemplate young men who are fully 
 grown or nearly so, may be considered as of two degrees: 
 First, where vital force is consumed in competitive 
 sports and games as it might be consumed in study or in 
 the production of wealth, without impairing the consti- 
 tution or diminishing the physical endowment upon the 
 strength of which the subsequent work of life is to be 
 done ; secondly, where exercise is carried so far and such 
 violent exertions are made that not merely is the current 
 supply of vigor used up in this way, but the constitution 
 is undermined and injuries are sustained or exhaustion 
 
COLLEGE ATHLETICS. 215 
 
 induced wliich result in leaving the man less healthy or 
 less powerful through the remaining years of his life. 
 
 Of the severer forms of athletic competition and con- 
 test, which injuriously affect the constitution and per- 
 manently impair the vital force, but one thing can be 
 said: they are evil and only e\dL No earthly object, 
 except the saving of others' lives or the defense of one's 
 country, could justify such destructive exercises and 
 exertions. I am disposed, however, to believe that there 
 has been much exaggeration in the public mind regard- 
 ing this matter, and that instances of permanent injury 
 from, athletics are fewer than popular rumor or maternal 
 anxiety makes them to be. The life history of the lead- 
 ing football players of the past fifteen years, notwith- 
 standing the frequency with which contusions, sprains, 
 and even broken bones occur in the tremendous strug- 
 gles of that mighty game, makes up a record of vitality 
 and activity in the period succeeding graduation which 
 proves that, despite the occasional outcries of the press, 
 this form of athletic contest works little enduring injury 
 among thoroughly trained competitors. The more 
 serious accidents of football generally occur in the be- 
 ginning of the season and among players who have not 
 passed carefully through the hardening stages of prac- 
 tice. Boat-racing is probably fraught with much more 
 real peril to its participants; yet a distinguished English 
 statistician, studying the life history of three hundred 
 and twenty " Oxford oars," has reached the conclusion 
 that, even after making due allowance for the fact that 
 
276 COLLEGE PROBLEMS. 
 
 these were all at the stai*t picked men, this great body of 
 athletes showed a vitality distinctly above the average. 
 Yet, when all has been said, it is still beyond question 
 true that in the present intense interest in physical 
 contests there is a real danger to be guarded against, 
 especially among the younger and less experienced 
 competitoi's. 
 
 Of those physical contests which result merely in the 
 consumption at the time of current physical force which 
 would otherwise, or might otherwise, be devoted to 
 study, we cannot dispose so confidently and summarily. 
 To those who hold to the good old notion — the excellent, 
 virtuous notion — that all young men go to college to 
 maJje themselves scholars, it is, indeed, a great trial to 
 have to contemplate a state of things in which no incon- 
 siderable proportion of students treat scholarship as an 
 object distinctly subordinate to gladiatorial prowess, and 
 who are graduated really, if they are graduated at all, in 
 athletics as a major, with classics, or mathematics, or 
 philosophy, or something else as a minor, — or perhaps 
 we should say, a minimum. Certainly this presents a 
 view of college life which would have filled with horror 
 the founders and early governors of our New England 
 colleges. And it needs to be said at the outset, in deal- 
 ing with this subject, that there are hosts of young men 
 coming to college whose circumstances and means and 
 views and plans of life are such that they cannot afford 
 to treat their educational privileges in this way; who if 
 they " go into athletics," in the accepted sense of that 
 
COLLEGE ATHLETLC8. 277 
 
 phrase, will sacrifice the one opportunity offered them; 
 whose presence with their classes means a degree of sac- 
 rifice and self-denial on the part of parents and friends 
 which would make it little less than profanation to waste 
 an hour of tlie time purchased at such a price. And yet, 
 with due consideration for the rights and interests of 
 students like these, college athletics confessedly as an 
 end in themselves are not wholly evil. Several things 
 have to be considered before we are fairly in a position 
 to pass judgment upon them. 
 
 The least important thing that can be said in their 
 favor is that they afford enjoyment to vast numbers 
 throughout the land ; yet, for one, I would not treat even 
 this consideration as unworthy of respect. The college 
 athletics of to-day do wonderfully light up the life of 
 our people. The great recurring contests and the inter- 
 mediate practice games and friendly competitions of the 
 several teams give acute delight to a large and increas- 
 ing constituency. This nation has long shown the pain- 
 ful need of more in the way of popular amusement, of 
 more that shall call men in great throngs out into the 
 open air, of more that shall arouse an interest in some- 
 thing besides money-getting or professional preferment. 
 In these respects college athletics have made an impor- 
 tant contribution within the past few years. The mar- 
 velous rapidity with which football has spread and is 
 still spreading throughout the Western and Southern 
 States shows how eagerly it is welcomed as a relief to 
 the monotony of life. 
 
278 COLLEGE PROBLEMS. 
 
 A stronger plea for college athletics is made when it 
 is urged that they result in stimulating an interest in 
 gymnastics not only among those students who do not 
 engage in competitive contests, but also throughout the 
 general community. The effect of this may easily be 
 exaggerated. There is many a weak-kneed collegian 
 who crawls out to witness the great baseball or football 
 game of the year, looks on with intense delight, cheers the 
 victors, if of his own side, as loudly as his limited lung 
 capacity will permit, and then, when all is over, crawls 
 back again to his room without so much as a conscious 
 impulse to improve his own bodily condition. Yet it is 
 certain that the cause indicated has an influence, and an 
 influence not inconsiderable, for good. Admiration for 
 manly prowess and the contemplation of fine physical 
 development cannot fail to secure a much wider cultiva- 
 tion of gymnastics than would take place without it. 
 
 But, again, it must be said that the favorite athletics 
 of to-day are, in great measure, such as call for more 
 than mere strength and swiftness. They demand, also, 
 steadiness of nerve, quickness of apprehension, coolness, 
 resourcefulness, self-knowledge, self-reliance. Further 
 still, they often demand of the contestants the ability to 
 work with others, power of combination, readiness to 
 subordinate individual impulses, selfish desires, an.d even 
 personal credit to a common end. These are all quali- 
 ties useful in any profession; in some professions they 
 are of the highest value; and it cannot be gainsaid that 
 it is the normal effect of certain kinds of athletic sports 
 
COLLEGE ATHLETICS. 279 
 
 to develop these qualities among the contestants, as well 
 as to afford impressive examples to the minds of the 
 spectators. So genuine does this advantage appear to 
 me that were I superintendent of the academy at West 
 Point I would encourage the game of football among 
 the cadets as a military exercise of no mean importance. 
 It is the opinion of most educated Englishmen that the 
 cultivation of this sport in the public schools of that 
 country has had not a little to do with the courage, ad- 
 dress, and energy with which the graduates of Rugby, 
 Eton, and Harrow have made their way through dangers 
 and over difficulties in all quarters of the globe. 
 
 The last consideration which I would adduce to show 
 that what is sacrificed in athletics is not all lost is that in 
 the competitive contests of our colleges something akin 
 to patriotism and public spirit is developed, with results, 
 on the whole, of good. It is true that young men often 
 carry their manifestations of zeal and devotion to their 
 colleges too far. Yet, both as counteracting the selfish, 
 individualistic tendencies of the age and as an antidote 
 to the nil admirari affectations of our older colleges, it 
 is a good thing that the body of students should now and 
 then be stirred to the very depths of their souls; that 
 they should have something outside themselves to care 
 for; that they should learn to love passionately, even if 
 a little animosity towards rivals must mingle with their 
 patriotic fervor; that they should at times palpitate with 
 hope and fear and anxiety in the view of objects which 
 can bring to them personally neither gain nor loss. 
 
280 COLLEGE PROBLEMS. 
 
 Of tlie special evils of college athletics as now culti- 
 vated I do not purpose to speak at length. Some of 
 those at present most clearly perceived are chiefly due 
 to newness and rawness, and will of themselves dis- 
 appear, in whole or in part, with time and further ex- 
 perience. Faults of method have yet to be eliminated; 
 the traditions of the several games have yet to be 
 created. For example, that regard for fair play, that 
 respect for the rights of an opponent, that deference to 
 the decisions of the umpire, so conspicuous in England, 
 have there been the work of generations. They cannot 
 be built up in a day with us. Yet our people are won- 
 derfully quick to learn, especially to learn everytliing 
 that conduces to harmony and adjustment of claims ; the 
 American is eminently and pre-eminently a political ani- 
 mal; and nowhere in the w^orld are great crowds so 
 orderly, peaceable, and good-natured as here. 
 
 One of the first things which should receive the atten- 
 tion of all lovers of fair play is the complete abolition, 
 onoe and for all, of the unsportsmanlike system of organ- 
 ized cheering by great bodies of collegians grouped 
 together for the purpose, with chosen youths of peculiar 
 gesticulatory graces and extraordinary lung power to 
 start the movement and " deacon off " the shouting. 
 Such a line of conduct, thoughtlessly resorted to in the 
 heat of partisanship, is unworthy of educated men. It 
 is imfair to the visiting team, who by all the laws of 
 courtesy are entitled to special consideration. How 
 much more pleasing to the spectator, how much more 
 
COLLEGE ATHLETICS. 281 
 
 creditable to the home college, if the stranger for the 
 while within its gates were to be treated with something 
 like the grace of antique chivalry! 
 
 Again, we may confidently expect that the machinery 
 for carrying on sports and contests will undergo a steady 
 improvement. We see a remarkable instance of the 
 virtue of this in the appointment of the second umpire 
 at football, which at once did away with certain ten- 
 dencies that had threatened to make the game imposr 
 sible. Audiences, too, must be trained to appreciate 
 the finer points, to applaud good work by whomsoever 
 done, and to be as virtuous as a Greek chorus, to the end 
 that the game may be played by the players and not by 
 the spectators. The co-operation of alumni is also to be 
 invoked to give wisdom, weight, and temper to the action 
 of the undergraduate bodies. ISTot least, — nay, perhaps 
 hardest of all, — Faculties are to be educated, to avoid 
 intermeddling and petty dictation on the one hand, and 
 to sustain the claims of scholarship and enforce the right 
 discipline of college on the other. 
 
 The last clause suggests one of the most important 
 considerations related to the subject. Granting that 
 something, and that not a little, of scholarship must be 
 sacrificed if athletics are to be continued on anything 
 approaching their present scale, may we yet believe that 
 it is practicable to insist upon the requirement of at 
 least respectable standing in the case of all who partici- 
 pate in intercollegiate contests? I believe that this can 
 be done without interfering with the general movement, 
 
282 COLLEGE PROBLEMS. 
 
 provided college Faculties are true to themselves, fair, 
 frank, and firm in dealing with the student bodies, and 
 thoroughly honest in their treatment of the subject. I 
 would not be understood to intimate that a certain 
 amount of good sense would be out of place. 
 
 Perhaps it will not be taken amiss if I allude here to 
 the results of my own observation in a sister university 
 regarding which it has been my lot to know more than. 
 I do concerning Harvard. At Yale, and especially in 
 the scientific department, the Faculty appear to me to 
 have been highly successful in preventing a total sacri- 
 fice of scholarly standing to intercollegiate sports. But 
 a small proportion of the champion athletes in that uni- 
 versity, a smaller proportion still in the scientific school, 
 have been men at or near the foot of their classes — the 
 sort of men who have to be hounded, threatened, and 
 repeatedly conditioned in order to keep them up to the 
 mark, l^ot a few of them, from Kennedy to Hartwell, 
 have been high up on the roll of academic honor. I 
 attribute this excellent result to the thoroughly good 
 understanding between students and the Faculty, to the 
 absence of petty prescriptions and of all intermeddling 
 as to details, and to the frankness with which the few 
 positive requirements relating to the subject ai'e stated 
 and enforced. 
 
 I fear there is little in what has been here said to give 
 comfort to those who distrust and dislike college ath- 
 letics — little which intimates the opinion that the 
 athleticism of to-day is only a reaction after the former 
 
COLLEGE ATHLETICS. 283 
 
 total neglect of gymnastics, or a mere passing passion 
 among our youth. But if we concede that these exer- 
 cises and contests are to hold their place in American 
 life, is there no stopping-place, no point at which college 
 authorities or the young men themselves, on their own 
 motion, in their own discretion, for their own good, can 
 say, " Thus far and no farther " ? 
 
 I answer, yes; there is such a natural stopping-place. 
 It is at the doors of the professional school. Among 
 young men in the course of education, athletics should 
 belong to the college stage; gymnastics to all stages. 
 Whether this shall be done by regulation, or be left to 
 the operation of forces working upon the minds of the 
 individuals concerned, I believe the result indicated 
 will, in either case, be reached. Already the under- 
 graduate principle is widely though irregularly recog- 
 nized; and the movement of opinion is still clearly in 
 progress in this direction. Here at Harvard you have 
 seen many a renowned champion put off athletics as he 
 entered the law school or the medical school. The rule 
 should be made of universal application; and it will re- 
 quire but a little more discussion, a little higher educa- 
 tion of student-opinion, to bring this about. In and 
 after the professional school, whether that be a school of 
 law, of medicine, of divinity, or of technology, there 
 should be no representative teams. The principle of 
 competition and championship should be dropped. In- 
 dividuals should continue, at their pleasure, to play 
 tennis or cricket or football with their classes, with pri- 
 
284 COLLEGE PROBLEMS. 
 
 vate clubs, or in town and county matches; or if teams 
 be formed in such schools they should not be regarded 
 as carrying the honor of their institutions around with 
 them. Such teams should not expect victory. They 
 should play for exercise and for the fun of the thing, 
 and should accept their inevitable beating with serenity 
 and good nature, recognizing the fact that since they 
 have taken up the serious work of professional prepara- 
 tion for life they no longer have the time or the strength 
 at command to make and to keep them champions. 
 
 There is one remaining question regarding the ath- 
 leticism of to-day, which I feel myself so little qualified 
 to discuss that I did not even allude to it while enumerat- 
 ing the things that might be said in favor of competitive 
 sports, or at least in deprecation of the hostile criticisms 
 directed upon them, but which in closing I would pro- 
 pose to your sounder judgment and keener thought. 
 
 It is whether the college athletics, which so many ap- 
 prove and so many condemn, have not after all a deeper 
 significance — whether this remarkable outburst of 
 enthusiasm for physical development and for the per- 
 fecting of the human body is not related, perhaps vitally 
 and intimately, to the growth of a feeling for art in this 
 new land of ours. jSTo classical scholar will for a mo- 
 ment admit it to have been an accidental coincidence 
 that the nation of the Old World which pursued ath- 
 letics with the most passionate eagerness, which show- 
 ered honors upon the victor in running or in wrestling 
 not inferior to those which it gave to the author of an 
 
COLLEGE ATHLETICS. 285 
 
 accepted tragedy — that nation whose tribes came by 
 long and perilous journeys over stormy seas to witness 
 the great athletic competitions by the banks of the 
 Alpheus or on the Crisssean plain — was the same nation 
 which carried the arts, and especially the plastic arts, to 
 the highest point of perfection ever attained. 
 
 If, indeed, there is believed to have been a vital con- 
 nection between these seemingly diverse manifestations 
 of Grecian life, who shall say that the remarkable en- 
 thusiasm for physical training and the intense interest in 
 athletic contests which have been so suddenly developed 
 in our country may not be clearly seen a generation 
 hence to have accompanied, and that through no acci- 
 dental association, the elevation of art to a far higher 
 and nobler place than it had before occupied in the 
 thoughts and affections of our people? The life-class is 
 the true school of the artist. The greatest of all who 
 bear that name have been men who revered the human 
 form, made it their chief study, and found in it their 
 highest delight. If in truth this sublime passion is tak- 
 ing possession of the nation, who shall estimate at a 
 price the worth of that inspiration? The vision of the 
 Apollo may yet rise to the view of thousands out and up 
 from the arena at Springfield, as erst it rose before the 
 thronging multitudes of Olympia. 
 
THE STUDY OF STATISTICS IN COL- 
 LEGES AND TECHNICAL SCHOOLS 
 1890 
 
Fkom the Technology Quarterly, February, 1890. 
 
THE STUDY OF STATISTICS IN COLLEGES AND 
 TECHNICAL SCHOOLS. 
 
 During the past twenty or even ten years there has 
 been an astonishingly rapid development of historical 
 and economic studies in our higher institutions of learn- 
 ing. At the recent meeting of the American Historical 
 Association, in Washington, President Adams of Cor- 
 nell presented an account of the work at present done in 
 history in our leading colleges. To one who was gradu- 
 ated thirty years ago, this account reads strangely 
 enough. In place of, at the most, a single brief series 
 of lectures on the so-called philosophy of history, we 
 now find course after course of advanced historical study, 
 with the free use of the library and with the most im- 
 proved methods of the German Seminar, offered to stu- 
 dents as a leading feature of their undergraduate work. 
 Several of our American colleges have developed these 
 courses in such variety, to such an extent, and with such 
 a wealth of material, that they might not unfairly be 
 called schools of history ; and every year sees this carried 
 further and further, with continually better and better 
 results. 
 
 In the kindred department of economics, the progress 
 made in recent times has been second only to that which 
 we have noted regarding history. Indeed, the progress 
 in the case of economics has been less only in respect to 
 
 289 
 
290 COLLEGE PROBLEMS. 
 
 the number of colleges which have undertaken extended 
 courses. In the institutions where both the new depart- 
 ments of study and research have been given scope, the 
 extent to which political economy has shared in the 
 growth of the past few years can scarcely be said to be 
 inferior to that obtained by history. Neither in the 
 ability and reputation of the instructing staff, nor in the 
 number and variety of courses offered, nor in the attend- 
 ance and enthusiasm of the classes formed, does political 
 economy yield to history, at Hai-vard, or Yale, or Co- 
 lumbia, or Cornell. Together these two closely related 
 departments make up a very large and constantly in- 
 creasing part of the modern university. 
 
 Unfortunately, while this rapid development of his- 
 torical and economic work has been going on, a branch 
 of study which has the highest virtue at once to train the 
 hand of the historical or the economic scholar and to 
 furnish him with professional tools of the first impor- 
 tance has been almost wholly neglected. I refer to 
 statistics, whose very methods are hardly kno^vn to the 
 great majority of our economists and historians; and 
 which is still to have its first chair founded in an Ameri- 
 can college. There are, indeed, a few schools where a 
 little elementary instruction has, of recent years, been 
 given in the use of figures as a means of testing socio- 
 logical conclusions; but in no one of them has a full, 
 proper course of statistics been established. It cannot 
 be long, however, before the growing interest in eco- 
 nomics and history will compel the recognition of 
 
THE STUDY OF STATISTICS. 291 
 
 statistics as a distinct and an important part of tlie cur- 
 riculum of every progressive institution. The main 
 difficulty will be to find the men who have had the train- 
 ing, at once severe and liberal, which will qualify them 
 to inspire and direct these studies. 
 
 The three uses of statistical study, aside from its value 
 as a means of discipline, are, in their order from lowest 
 to highest, as follows : 
 
 First, to enable the student to detect the fallacies in 
 conclusions drawn by others from quantitative state- 
 ments concerning human affairs, actions, interests, in 
 which adventitious elements lie concealed, or from 
 which something essential, or at least relevant, has, by 
 inadvertence or dishonest design, been excluded. 
 
 Secondly, to enable the writer or the speaker upon 
 politics, economics, history, or sociology safely and 
 effectively to illustrate and emphasize his conclusions 
 drawn from a study, itself perhaps mainly or wholly non- 
 statistical, of the subject to which he devotes himself. 
 
 Thirdly, statistics may, under proper direction and 
 with due safeguards, be used for the discovery of social 
 laws. 
 
 The first of these objects could perhaps only be fully 
 attained through those long and weary stages of train- 
 ing which would be required to qualify one for the 
 highest exercise of the statistical faculty, as last stated; 
 but a very large part, at least, of the result desired, can 
 be reached by a little very elementary instruction. To 
 take an illustration from another department of study, 
 
292 COLLEGE PROBLEMS. ' 
 
 we may suppose that an adequate course in logic, suffi- 
 cient to make a man, otherwise well trained, a sound and 
 accomplished reasoner, might be compassed in a certain 
 number of exercises per week, continued through two 
 academic years. Yet, if time be not afforded for such a 
 course, a great deal might be done to enable the student 
 to detect false conclusions on the part of others, and to 
 save him from the grosser errors of reasoning in his own 
 writing or speaking, by means of a dozen hours devoted 
 to fallacies. In much the same way, if a full course in 
 statistics cannot be given, a few exercises upon the 
 abuses of statistics may serve at least to keep one from 
 a certain class of blunders from which men of the 
 greatest acuteness and learning might not otherwise be 
 exempt. 
 
 Let us take an illustration of the sort of errors against 
 which the merest elementary study of statistics might 
 prove a sufficient protection. A meritorious writer 
 adduces as a proof of the great fall of prices which took 
 place in New England between 1630 and 1640, that a 
 cow which, at the former date, was worth £25 to £30, 
 would have brought, at the latter date, but £5 to £6. 
 Now the bare facts here are not in dispute; nor is it to be 
 questioned that a fall, a great fall, in prices did take 
 place in New England during the period referred to. 
 Yet the statement quoted contains a gigantic blunder, — 
 a blunder which a student of statistics would probably 
 be incapable of making. In 1630, the value of a cow 
 in New England represented the immense cost and risk 
 
THE STUDY OF STATISTICS. 293 
 
 of bringing an animal, by a slow-sailing vessel, thousands 
 of miles, through comparatively strange seas, into a for- 
 eign climate. Ten years later, the value of a cow repre- 
 sented only the cost and risk of rearing her upon the soil. 
 The cow of 1630 might still be living, surrounded by 
 ten, twenty, or fifty of her descendants, bom in ISTew 
 England. 
 
 Errors of this type are countless. They occur in the 
 writings, they are heard in the speeches, of men learned 
 and otherwise acute, but who have never been trained to 
 detect the fallacies that lurk so cunningly under all 
 groups of figures. Volumes might be filled with in- 
 stances of statistical blunders of a class which a very ele- 
 mentary course would forever render impossible to any 
 careful writer or speaker. Such a course would em- 
 brace a host of illustrations, affording examples of the 
 kinds of error which especially beset the use of figures 
 for sociological purposes, and would direct the attention 
 of the student to the best means of exercising care and 
 pains in escaping them. 
 
 It is easy to say that, if statistics be in truth such 
 " kittle cattle," if danger lurks thus under every group 
 of figures relating to social and economic matters, it 
 would be better to eschew statistics entirely. But man- 
 kind will not consent to give up an agent of such power 
 because of the abuses to which it is subject. If all men 
 at once honest and candid were to forbear to employ 
 statistics in such discussions, lest peradventure they 
 should lead some astray, we may be sure that all the dis- 
 
294 COLLEGE PROBLEMS. 
 
 honest and uncandid would resort to their tables and 
 diagrams with redoubled zeal. There are few instincts 
 more strong than that which urges men to give a quan- 
 titative expression to the results of human experience. 
 Men will do it, or have it done for them by others. No 
 warning as to the possible errors of such evidence can 
 prevent this appeal, or diminish the eagerness with 
 which it will be made. What we must needs do, if we 
 will promote the truth, is to instruct and exercise the 
 citizen, as far as we may, in the scrutinizing, sifting, and 
 testing of alleged statistical proofs. 
 
 What has just now been said brings me to the second 
 of the objects enumerated as to be sought through the 
 study of statistics: namely, to qualify and prepare the 
 future writer or speaker upon political and economic and 
 social questions safely and effectively to illustrate his 
 conclusions, derived perhaps through processes mainly 
 or wholly non-statistical. I have said that the instinct 
 which leads men to seek quantitative statements for the 
 results of human experience is one of the strongest in 
 our nature; and that people will have this done, whether 
 it is to be done rightly or Avrongly. He then, who, in 
 addition to the merits of sound and just thinking on 
 social subjects, possesses the power of aptly using statis- 
 tics, acquires thereby a great advantage, whether in 
 exposition or in controversy, over almost anyone, how- 
 ever gifted or brilliant in argument or in the graces of 
 speech, who has not this peculiar faculty. All who have 
 widely observed audiences gathered for the purposes of 
 
THE STUDY OF STATISTICS. 295 
 
 political discussion must have seen the almost ludicrous 
 liking which they have for statistical statements. The 
 crudest thinking is oftentimes carried through by an 
 array of worthless statistics, which would not bear a mo- 
 ment of cool, critical investigation. Quantitative state- 
 ments that are scarcely even relevant to the subject are, 
 for popular purposes, better than none. What power, 
 then, can a real master of statistics wield over his hearers! 
 Attend a meeting where Mr. David Wells is speaking, 
 and see how he holds the crowded audience in close at- 
 tention for two hours, with no help from rhetoric, elocu- 
 tion, or gesticulation, merely by the strong, vivid, effect- 
 ive way in which he marshals figures. There are few 
 orators who can so completely command the thoughts of 
 their hearers, for the same length of time, by all the 
 graces of speech, or even by stately and beautiful 
 thoughts, as this publicist, whose style of speaking is not 
 merely unfinished, but positively bad. Mr. Cobden 
 owed very much of his extraordinary power to the same 
 cause. Mr. Gladstone is an even more remarkable 
 example of the virtue of this art. Unthinking people 
 say that he must be a wonderful orator, because, in spite 
 of the serried masses of figures which belong to a budget 
 speech, he has more than once held the House of Com- 
 mons strictly silent and attentive for the space of three 
 or four hours. The fact is that that remarkable success 
 was not obtained in spite of statistics, but by reason of 
 them. There is no spectacle on which men, whether 
 more or less educated, look with more breathless interest 
 
296 COLLEGE PROBLEMS. 
 
 than the marshaling of a vast array of figures which 
 move and take their allotted place, in natural succession 
 and in due order, at the bidding of a real master of that 
 art. 
 
 Since so much popular interest attaches to the use of 
 statistics in addressing any large audience, whether from 
 the platform or from the author's or editor's desk, it is 
 clearly worth while for every person who is under train- 
 ing to become a writer or a public speaker to undertake 
 all the instruction and practice which may be necessary 
 to enable him to put together at least clearly and cor- 
 rectly the facts and figures which relate to any chosen 
 subject. We cannot all be Cobdens, Gladstones, or 
 Wellses; but every educated man can learn to construct 
 tables and diagrams which will bear the test of a fair 
 scrutiny and liberal criticism. To do aught in the way. 
 of statistics at which fools will not peck is, of course, be- 
 yond any man's power. 
 
 Those who have never tried their hand at statistical 
 work will fail to appreciate the difficulties to be encoun- 
 tered at the start and the frequently recurring need of 
 going back and beginning all over again. To go to a 
 series of extended tables with multitudinous subdi- 
 visions, in which a given total is distributed among many 
 classes, and to take therefrom just what you want, no 
 more, no less, and no other, — to make sure that your 
 parts when put together will form a whole, and that no 
 direction conveyed by the heading of a single column 
 has been neglected, — is a task for which men must be 
 
THE STUDY OF STATISTICS. 297 
 
 trained, and in which, they must be practiced, going from 
 simple and easy examples to complex and difficult ones, 
 by patient steps. The great majority of editors and 
 writers for the press, the great majority of legislators 
 and public speakers, either fail in such work, or, more 
 likely, judiciously avoid the attempt, even though sta- 
 tistical matter altogether relevant to the subject, and 
 which might be made most interesting to their readers 
 or hearers, lies on every side of them. In my long ex- 
 perience in office at Washington, nothing struck me 
 more forcibly than the helplessness of Congressmen — 
 even, with few exceptions, the acutest and best trained — 
 to prepare the figures for their own speeches. No mat- 
 ter how clear their conception of the positions they 
 wished to present, few of them could readily and con- 
 fidently resort to the government ptublications at hand 
 for the statistical materials with which to illustrate and 
 enforce their views; and the gratitude with which they 
 would accept and acknowledge some trifling assistance 
 from a well-trained clerk was almost ludicrous. I do 
 not intend any disparagement by this statement. Sta- 
 tistics have a language of their own, and he who would 
 use them must first learn that language; and this is as 
 yet taught scarcely anywhere. 
 
 A striking example of the liability to mistakes which 
 constantly besets the compilation of statistical tables was 
 afforded in a book published, some years ago, under the 
 title, " The Statistics of the United States." The plan 
 of the work was a good one; such a book was needed; but 
 
298 COLLEGE PROBLEMS. 
 
 the author evidently had not had the training requisite 
 safely to carry out his scheme without falling into the 
 gravest errors. For instance, the work undertook to 
 present the expenditures of the United States for each 
 year since the formation of the government. The 
 figures used were taken directly from the finance reports 
 of the Treasury Department, and were hence of the 
 highest oflBcial authority. Unfortunately, however, 
 the compiler went for this purpose to the column of 
 " Gross Expenditures," and transferred the figures he 
 found there into his table. The result was that for some 
 years he was out of the way by several hundreds of 
 millions of dollars, since during these years the Treasury 
 issued large loans to pay off other loans contracted dur- 
 ing the war at high rates of interest. Thus, for 1868 
 this writer gave the expenditures of the government as 
 $1,093,079,655, — a very expensive government indeed 
 for a time of profound peace ! The facts were as follows : 
 The " net ordinary expenditures " of the government 
 that year were $202,947,734; there was paid from the 
 Treasury, in bond premiums, $10,813,349; and, as 
 interest on the national debt, $143,781,592; making the 
 total expenditures of the government on these accounts, 
 $357,542,675. In addition, the Treasury redeemed 
 bonds to the amount of $735,536,980; and this, mainly, 
 out of the proceeds of fresh loans, at lower rates of 
 interest. All this vast sum, more than twice the actual 
 expenditures of the government, even after including 
 bond premiums and the current interest on the public 
 
THE STUDY OF STATISTICS. 299 
 
 debt, was embraced in the financial statement of the last 
 year of Mr. Johnson's administration. This mistake 
 was committed in connection with each successive ad- 
 ministration, from Washington's down. 
 
 It is needless to say that blunders of such a magni- 
 tude completely destroyed the prestige of the book, and 
 that, although it was intended to be issued from time to 
 time, with the facts and figures brought down to date, it 
 was never heard of again. 
 
 Another example of statistics rendered actually delu- 
 sive by the neglect of elementary considerations is found 
 in a recent work on State and Municipal Taxation, a 
 book which, in many of its views and suggestions, makes 
 a valuable contribution to economic literature, but is, 
 statistically, very faulty. Thus, in a " comparative 
 table " showing the " principal receipts, total receipts, 
 and total expenditures " of certain leading cities, New 
 York is put down for $73,309,884 of total receipts, in 
 1886, and for $71,750,743 of total expenditures. N'ow 
 the fact is, that nearly twenty millions alike of the re- 
 ceipts and of the expenditures represent nothing but 
 temporary loans, contracted and paid during the year. 
 City taxes come in mainly during a brief period. In 
 order to prevent the necessity of keeping a vast sum of 
 money in the treasury for months together, the govern- 
 ment properly borrows in the " dry season," and liqui- 
 dates its obligations when the taxes set in like a flood. 
 Yet, in the work referred to, this fact was allowed to 
 swell the expenditures of the city more than one-third. 
 
300 COLLEGE PROBLEMS. 
 
 Had the city treasurer found it expedient to borrow ten 
 millions more for one, two, or three months, this would 
 have carried the " expenditures " of i^ew York up to 
 eighty-one millions! 
 
 Instruction directly intended to qualify a student to 
 use statistics, and to compile tables with ease, confidence, 
 and accuracy, is now given at Harvard University, Co- 
 lumbia College, the Institute of Technology, and prob- 
 ably elsewhere. The pupil is taught to look up the data 
 relating to a given subject, as these may be found scat- 
 tered through long series of official reports; to bring the 
 various statements together; to examine them as to their 
 proper comparability ; to test their accuracy by all means 
 which may be available; and to put them together into 
 tables. The student is further taught to work out the 
 percentages involved and to set one class of facts into 
 relation with others; as, for example, to compute the 
 ratio of valuation, or of expenditure, or of mortality, to 
 each million or each thousand of the population con- 
 cerned; and, finally, to make diagrams or charts, which 
 shall exhibit graphically the several elements, taken in 
 their due proportions, as ascertained by the investiga- 
 tion. In none of the higher institutions, however, is 
 this branch of study carried as far as it ought to be ; nor 
 are all the methods of instruction in this department yet 
 worked out to their gi*eatest efficiency. Still, the good 
 work has been well begun; and the constantly growing 
 appreciation of the ability to compile and to use statistics 
 for the purposes of political, economic, and social dis- 
 
THE STUDY OF STATISTICS. 301 
 
 cussion cannot fail to cause a rapid development of this 
 feature of the college course. The American Statis- 
 tical Association, under the able secretaryship of Pro- 
 fessor Davis R. Dewey, is doing much to promote this 
 study; and it is the desire of its officers that its Journal 
 may become to a considerable extent at once the organ 
 of communication, of suggestion, and of friendly criti- 
 cism among the working statisticians of the country, and 
 the repository of the best essays in this line from our 
 leading colleges and universities; affording, in the latter 
 way, a great impulse to the study of statistics in connec- 
 tion with the academic pursuit of history and economics. 
 The scope of this paper does not include a discussion 
 of the subjects and the order of studies designed to give 
 the investigator the power to discover statistically the 
 laws which govern the action of social and economic 
 forces. Such a course would necessarily be long and 
 severe. For the best results it should embrace the 
 tighest mathematics of our American colleges, and 
 should be largely directed to the development of the bio- 
 logical sense. The number of those who, otherwise than 
 as a means of mental training, would have occasion to 
 undertake such a course, would necessarily be small. 
 There is reason to wish that all citizens, from the highest 
 to the lowest, might undergo so much of training in sta- 
 tistics as would enable them to detect the errors lurking 
 in quantitative statements regarding social and economic 
 matters which may be addressed to them as voters or as 
 critics of public policies. Comparatively few of these. 
 
302 COLLEGE PROBLEMS. 
 
 however, would ever have occasion to prepare such state- 
 ments for themselves, and would thus have use for the 
 special faculty which is required for the compilation of 
 statistical tables and diagrams. Far smaller still will be 
 the numbers of those whose natural endowments and 
 whose chosen pursuits would justify the long and labori- 
 ous training, the patient practice, and the acquisition of 
 the large and various learning, which alone can qualify 
 the student of history, of sociology, or of political 
 economy confidently and surely to educe from thou- 
 sands of pages closely packed with figures some hitherto 
 unsuspected law of human life or conduct. 
 
NORMAL TRAINING IN WOMEN'S 
 
 COLLEGES 
 
 1892 
 
Fbom thk Educational Review, Notember, 1892. 
 
NOEMAL TEAINING IN WOMEN'S COLLEGES. 
 
 It is now a little more than twenty-five years since a 
 college for women was founded in the United States/ 
 From the first the new enterprise attained a high degree 
 of success, whether as measured by popular appreciation 
 or as tested by the strictest scrutiny of its results ; and in 
 the face of the fast-increasing demands of the older col- 
 leges, and in spite of skepticism and incredulity, the edu- 
 cational system of the United States has been rapidly 
 and strongly developed along the line thus taken. 
 Without considering the coeducational institutions at 
 the West and South, we already have a number of col- 
 leges for women alone, well endowed and equipped, 
 largely attended and of excellent repute for scholarship. 
 The American people may thus be said to have had a 
 quarter-century's experience, upon a pretty wide scale, 
 of these educational advantages. The length of that 
 period has afforded opportunity for ascertaining what- 
 ever defects and limitations may have existed in this type 
 of institution as first founded ; and its close offers an ap- 
 propriate occasion for inquiring whether important 
 alterations require to be made, in the interest of the 
 pupils especially concerned, or in the interest of the gen- 
 eral community. 
 
 ' Vassar College, founded in 1861 ; opened in 1865. — Ed, 
 
 305 
 
306 COLLEGE PROBLEMS. 
 
 Since the first colleges for women were founded, great 
 changes, economic and social, peculiarly affecting the 
 condition of women, have taken place in the life of our 
 people. Do these changes require any considerable 
 alteration in the general scheme of education for the 
 young women of America — any alteration, that is, 
 farther than would be involved in the natural develop- 
 ment of that scheme according to its original idea, and in 
 the general, gradual movement of college discipline and 
 training for students of either sex indifferently? 
 Changes have, indeed, been seen to be required, and 
 some of them have been more or less rapidly effected in 
 colleges for women and in colleges for men ; but has any 
 reason for change appeared which peculiarly affects the 
 former class? 
 
 And, first, what was the scheme of education adopted 
 in the several institutions of this kind which came into 
 existence during the period in question? Speaking gen- 
 erally, it was nearly identical with that which had long 
 been tried and approved in the education of young men. 
 So far is this true that it has become a familiar claim, 
 on the part of the more ambitious of the new colleges, 
 that their curriculum is in all respects coextensive and 
 equally difficult with that of men's colleges. 
 
 I shall not pause to inquire whether this object was in 
 itself desirable; whether young women should be called 
 upon to do in four years all that young men may be re- 
 quired to do in the same time ; whether exceptional con- 
 sideration be not due to the greater delicacy, sensitive- 
 
NORMAL TRAINING IN WOMEN'S COLLEGES. 307 
 
 ness, and liability to nervous derangement on the part 
 of the female sex. I shall not even stop to ask whether 
 this claim was ever, anwhere, made good except in the 
 case of highly selected bodies of young women; or 
 whether, through conscious or unconscious relaxations 
 of the nominal requirements, the work exacted, in even 
 the most advanced of the women's colleges, has not, in 
 fact, mercifully fallen somewhat below a full equivalent 
 of that done in the other class of institutions. I desire 
 here only to note the fact of such a claim having been 
 freely and widely made, as corroborating the statement 
 that, in general, the scheme of education for women 
 adopted twenty-five or twenty years ago, was substan- 
 tially the same as had been approved for the training of 
 young men. 
 
 One exception, indeed, requires to be taken to the 
 assertion that the curriculum of the new institutions was 
 meant to be, alike in substance and in form, identical 
 with the traditional curriculum of the American college. 
 This exception relates to the studies and exercises having 
 reference to the preparation of the student for public 
 speaking. But even this modification was in a direc- 
 tion already clearly indicated among the men's colleges 
 themselves by the gradual decay and disuse of declama- 
 tion and debate. This has steadily gone forward since 
 that time, until now, in the most advanced of the older 
 institutions, preparation for public speaking, and even 
 for public writing, is given but little attention. So we 
 may fairly say that, in the most important respect of 
 
308 COLLEGE PROBLEMS. 
 
 their original difference, the colleges for men have come 
 to the colleges for women. 
 
 The changes which I have referred to as occur- 
 ring peculiarly to affect the condition of women, 
 within the period since these colleges were founded, 
 are: 
 
 First, the greater call for women to interest them- 
 selves in public affairs; and 
 
 Secondly, the procrastination of marriage and the re- 
 striction of the marrying class, throwing upon women, 
 in a degree before unknown, the necessity of independ- 
 ent self-support. 
 
 In speaking of the greater call for women to take part 
 in public affairs, I have no reference to the current agi- 
 tation for female suffrage. Altogether irrespective of 
 this is the peremptory demand upon the educated mem- 
 bers of that sex, in these later days, to concern them- 
 selves with matters once wholly managed by men. In 
 addition to the rapidly growing freedom with which 
 women are admitted to school boards and committees, 
 and to a participation in the management of public insti- 
 tutions of charity and beneficence, one has only to look 
 about him, in his own town or city, and see what the 
 educated women of the community are doing; one has, 
 indeed, only to peer (by permission, of course) into the 
 engagement book of his wife, sister, or daughter, to get 
 a somewhat startling view of the enlarged activity of the 
 woman of to-day, making a demand upon her, if those 
 duties are to be well performed, for more training and 
 
NORMAL TRAINING IN WOMEN'S COLLEGES. 309 
 
 an ampler equipment upon that side than was required, 
 or was possible, a quarter of a century ago. 
 
 But this want has not been left thus long to be sup- 
 plied. Men's colleges and women's colleges together 
 have been applying themselves, during the whole of the 
 period in question, to do that which will largely meet 
 this need of the times. Not, indeed, that the colleges, 
 professedly, or perhaps even consciously, have made any 
 considerable changes in their curriclum in the interest of 
 a better preparation of either women or men for public 
 affairs. The changes in this direction have been made 
 because the tendency in education, upon purely educa- 
 tional grounds, has, of recent years, set strongly and 
 steadily towards those studies and exercises which 
 peculiarly qualify the student for social and political 
 duties. 
 
 The assertion that the changes in the curriculum of 
 the American college which have so fortunately met the 
 freshly developed want in education on woman's side, 
 have not been due to such a purpose, or even to an un- 
 conscious recognition of the new need, may perhaps be 
 questioned; but I believe it to be true. Even in men's 
 colleges the rapid extension during the past twenty 
 years, — one might almost say the first introduction within 
 that period,— of history, economics, and statistics, has not 
 come from the desire on the part of teachers and admin- 
 istrators to fit their pupils better for public duties. It 
 has taken place because history, economics, and statistics 
 had, in the course of educational development, become 
 
310 COLLEGE PROBLEMS. 
 
 studies which would crowd themselves into the colleges, 
 whether or no; which could no longer be kept out; 
 which made an imperative demand for room in every 
 institution devoted to the liberal arts. Before that 
 time those studies, as known in the United States, had 
 not their developed methods — had not their qualified 
 teachers. Those methods were not developed, those 
 teachers were not trained, to fit either American women 
 or American men for the social and political life of their 
 country. In fact, those methods were not developed, 
 those teachers were not trained, here in America at all. 
 It was abroad, in Germany, where those studies were 
 pursued as a necessary part of a great and comprehensive 
 scheme of intellectual cultivation, that this was done. 
 
 History, economics, and statistics become college 
 studies in America, not because the want of them was 
 consciously felt more than at any previous time in our 
 history, not at all because the need of them had then first 
 specially appeared in the education of women, but be- 
 cause those studies had, under altogether other and for- 
 eign impulses, assumed an educational character which 
 made it impossible to keep them out of any institution 
 assuming to offer a liberal training, and because a host 
 of young Americans, taught in the universities of Ger- 
 many, were returning to their native land as the mis- 
 sionaries of the new cult. 
 
 But whether we adopt or reject this view of the cause 
 of the rapid rise and growth of the historical and politi- 
 cal sciences in our institutions of learning generally, it 
 
NORMAL TRAINING IN WOMEN'S COLLEGES. 311 
 
 certainly cannot be claimed that the result was in any 
 degree due to the newly developed want of women's col- 
 leges. Nevertheless, that want, thus suddenly occur- 
 ring, has been most fortunately supplied. Although 
 history, economics, and statistics first came into America 
 through the colleges for men, they rapidly made their 
 way into the women's colleges, so that now, in the most 
 advanced of these, the new studies are cultivated almost 
 as assiduously as in the institutions for the other sex; 
 and the catalogues of women's colleges show an increas- 
 ing disposition towards the further recognition of the 
 historical and political sciences as instruments of liberal 
 culture. 
 
 I think we may conclude, then, that the change upon, 
 what we may call the political side, in the condition of 
 American women, does not call for any important altera- 
 tion of the curriculum, other than has been involved, to 
 use my own phrase, " in the natural development of the 
 scheme according to its original idea, or in the general 
 gradual development of college discipline and training 
 for the students of either sex indifferently." The re- 
 quired modification has, in fact, already taken place, not 
 at all with reference to the special needs of American 
 women, but under the general educational impulse of 
 the age. 
 
 It is a more serious and difficult question, whether the 
 other change which has been indicated as affecting the 
 condition of women, through the procrastination of mar- 
 riage and the restriction of the marrying class, especially 
 
312 COLLEGE PROBLEMS. 
 
 among the educated and cultivated portion of the com- 
 munity, throwing upon women, in a degree never before 
 known, the necessity of independent self-support, does 
 not call for extensive modifications of the curriculum 
 as established when these colleges were instituted. The 
 reasonable expectations, the usual prospects for life with 
 which young women went to college when that oppor- 
 tunity was first offered them, were widely different from 
 what they now are, ]^ot only is the time of marriage 
 long procrastinated, not only is the proportion of celi- 
 bates increasing throughout the total population, but 
 among the educated and cultivated classes these ten- 
 dencies are felt with a force which is rapidly changing 
 our social ideas in many particulars, and is fast bringing 
 in new economic conditions. 
 
 Here again, however, a modification of the college 
 curriculum, under the general educational influence of 
 the age, and not at all for the purpose of meeting the 
 newly developed need in woman's training, has actually, 
 to a considerable extent, taken place. Chemistry and 
 physics have become important studies at the leading 
 colleges for men during the past ten or fifteen years, 
 not because it was expected that the students would use 
 these sciences professionally, but because these sciences 
 had assumed an importance, educationally, which would 
 not allow them to be longer kept out, or, if admitted, to 
 be confined to the petty proportions of thirty years ago. 
 For the same reason, and no other, chemistry and 
 physics have extended themselves rapidly to women's 
 
NORMAL TRAINING IN WOMEN'S COLLEGES. 313 
 
 colleges, and are every year asserting themselves more 
 and more in the curriculum. Here again we have a 
 development of women's colleges which was eminently 
 opportune, although it took place without reference to 
 the changes in the condition of women which made such 
 a modification of the traditional courses peculiarly con- 
 ducive to the training of women for independent mainte- 
 nance. 
 
 The question I have now to ask is: Whether any 
 change not in the nature of a development of the origi- 
 nal scheme of women's colleges and not shared by the 
 colleges for men, requires to be brought about, in view 
 of the increasing need which women have, in these days, 
 for self-support. The subject is one regarding which 
 something might doubtless be said upon both sides; yet 
 for myself I strongly hold to the opinion that, with a 
 single important exception to be hereafter noted, those 
 who are charged with the administration of the higher 
 institutions of learning for women should continue to 
 interest themselves solely in the question: What studies 
 and exercises will conduce most to sound mental dis- 
 cipline, to general culture, and to the acquisition of a 
 considerable body of correct information upon sub- 
 jects of political, social, and domestic importance? not 
 troubling themselves at all to give their pupils industrial 
 arts, or to prepare them in any way specially and tech- 
 nically to enter " the market for labor." I heartily be- 
 lieve that, with the single possible exception to be noted, 
 the studies and exercises prescribed for young women, 
 
314 COLLEGE PROBLEMS. 
 
 in their college courses, should be purely educational; 
 and that, at least, the time has not yet come when the 
 conductors of these institutions are called upon to ask 
 what studies and exercises will best fit young women for 
 any special line of remunerative work. 
 
 My reasons for believing that the colleges for women 
 should, at least in the present and the immediate future, 
 confine themselves to the proper college function of 
 mental discipline and mental development, are as 
 follows : 
 
 First: Because the presumption is still happily in 
 favor of the ultimate devotion of woman's powers and 
 faculties to domestic life and duties, in which general 
 training will count for much, and special training for 
 but little. 
 
 Secondly : Because the occupations of a business char- 
 acter which are as yet freely opened to that sex are gen- 
 erally those in which woman's tact, dexterity, and quick- 
 ness of apprehension tvill enable her most readily to dis- 
 pense with previous special or technical preparation, and 
 in which, consequently, general training will tell to the 
 utmost. 
 
 Thirdly: For the comparatively few women who 
 have a strong " call " to technical professions of a 
 severely scientific character, opportunities are already 
 provided at several institutions of high grade which ad- 
 mit the members of both sexes, without discrimination, 
 
 Fourtlily: For certain of the higher professions, if I 
 may venture to call them so, in which women take a part 
 
NORMAL TRAINING IN WOMEN'S COLLEGES. 315 
 
 equal, if not superior, to that taken by men, opportuni- 
 ties for training are now afforded in special schools, 
 which exist in great number and in great variety, often 
 fully equipped and well administered. To students, for 
 example, of music, drawing, painting, and, under my 
 breath be it spoken, of the drama, this country presents 
 advantages as great as could reasonably be expected in a 
 civilization as new as ours. If more is to be looked for, 
 it must be through the progressive improvement of these 
 special native schools or through foreign residence and 
 study. 
 
 I now come to the one important exception, already 
 several times intimated, which, in my opinion, requires 
 to be made to the principle that the colleges for women 
 should still remain, as they have been in the past, non- 
 professional, wholly educational. That exception re- 
 lates to the training of teachers. Already the leading 
 colleges and universities for men are turning their atten- 
 tion to this urgent need of the times and are establishing 
 chairs of pedagogy for the instruction of their under- 
 graduates in the theory and history of teaching. I be- 
 lieve that the colleges for women should go still further 
 in this direction, so that each one of them shall become, 
 in a high sense, a normal school. 
 
 The profession of the teacher is not only of vital im- 
 portance to the community, it is that one of all the larger 
 professions which is mainly relinquished, by general 
 consent, to women. To fill the vacancies in the ranks 
 of the teaching profession, occasioned by all causes, and 
 
316 COLLEGE PROBLEMS. 
 
 to supply the additional assistants required by the 
 growth of the country, at least twenty thousand young 
 women should each year present themselves as qualified 
 to undertake these onerous and responsible duties. To 
 meet this tremendous demand, the so-called normal 
 schools are striving with the best of their powers; but 
 they cannot do all that is required, while much that 
 they do is less than well done. Held down, as they are, 
 by the presence of large numbers of pupils who are not 
 even graduates of high schools and obliged to devote no 
 small part of the time and strength of their staff to ele- 
 mentary instruction, not in the teaching art, but in the 
 subject-matter of what is to be taught, these schools can- 
 not do themselves or their better pupils justice; and 
 many of those whom they graduate are accepted by 
 school boards only because the supply is so painfully 
 inadequate. The number of teachers actively de- 
 manded for giving instruction in the higher branches of 
 learning in the secondary schools of the country, and for 
 bringing inspiration into the more fortunately circum- 
 stanced grammar schools, would take up every year more 
 than all the graduates of all our women's colleges. 
 
 I offer, then, this plea for normal instruction and 
 training in all colleges for women. The need of the 
 countiy is so urgent that some sacrifice of the strictly 
 educational character of these institutions might prop- 
 erly be submitted to, were that necessary, in order to 
 secure a higher professional result in a department of 
 public service so peculiarly woman's own and so vitally 
 
NORMAL TRAINING IN WOMEN'S COLLEGES. 317 
 
 important to the welfare of the people. But, in fact, 
 I do not believe that the introduction of the studies and 
 exercises proper to this object would impair — on the con- 
 trary, I believe it would greatly improve and highly 
 exalt, the true educational work of these institutions. 
 
 I would not have the colleges for women teach the 
 mere arts of the pedagogue, or undertake to anticipate 
 the necessary work of experience. But I would have 
 the history and the philosophy of education made prime 
 subjects of study. I would have the psychology of 
 teaching taught. I would have the mind, in its powers 
 of perception, observation, reflection, and expression 
 studied as objectively and as scientifically as specimens 
 in natural history are studied in the classroom and the 
 laboratory. The order of development of the human 
 faculties, the child's way of observing, the child's way 
 of thinking when untaught and untrained, the ways in 
 which the child may be interested and drawn out of him- 
 seK — these should be the matter of eager, interested in- 
 vestigation. Surely, they are as well worthy to be the 
 subjects of study as are the processes of vegetable or 
 animal growth, as the order in which the leaves are set 
 upon the stem, or as the mechanism of the human body. 
 
 The art of the teacher, the art of simple exposition 
 and familiar illustration, the art of putting questions 
 and stimulating thought — this art should be both 
 studied and practiced, practiced and studied, year by 
 year. I would have the pupils frequently called to 
 assume, for a brief space, the responsibilities of instruc- 
 
318 COLLEGE PROBLEMS. 
 
 tion. I would have classes formed to investigate prob- 
 lems in education, starting questions, stating proposi- 
 tions, adducing facts, discussing principles, consulting 
 authorities, answering objections, under the guidance of 
 teachers who shall have their own minds directed upon 
 the end of training their scholars not merely to com- 
 unicate thought, but to create it. 
 
 Does it seem that the dedication to such uses of a 
 portion of the time at the command of the faculty would, 
 in the result, interfere with the educational character 
 of the curriculum? Would not the remainder of the 
 four years' course be worth, even for mere acquisition 
 alone, as much as the whole formerly was? I surely 
 think so. I believe that what has been suggested is the 
 very thing most needed to give its best effect to the 
 studies in classics, philosophy, mathematics, natural 
 science, history, and politics, which make up the tradi- 
 tional courses of our colleges. 
 
 That such a training would fit the graduates of 
 women's colleges to take up the work of the teacher 
 with great advantage, no one will question. They 
 might at first be found to be, in mere smartness, glib- 
 ness, self-confidence, and ease of bearing, behind the 
 graduates of the typical normal school; but their 
 broader scholarship and higher culture would qualify 
 them, in a far greater degree, to reap the fruits of 
 experience, and they could not fail, after a brief period 
 of apprenticeship, to take their place among the most 
 useful members of the profession. 
 
NORMAL TRAINING IN WOMEN'S COLLEGES. 319 
 
 But what of those who are destined not to enter the 
 ranks of that profession, but are to find their life's work 
 at home, in the domestic circle? N^eed the question be 
 asked? Could any nobler preparation for the duties 
 of wife and mother be devised than that which I have 
 thus outlined? Surely, this part of the college training 
 would never run to waste. The Latin and Greek might 
 be unused and soon forgotten ; but the hearts and minds 
 of the next generation would be inexpressibly benefited 
 by the gi-acious fruits of studies and exercises such as 
 these. 
 
THE SECONDARY SCHOOLS AND 
 HIGHER EDUCATION 
 
 1894 
 
A Discussion op the Question : How Mat Closer 
 Articulation between the Secondary Schools and 
 Higher Institutions be Secured ? at the Ninth An- 
 nual Meeting of the New England Association of 
 Colleges and Preparatory Schools, October 12, 1894. 
 From the School Review, December, 1894. 
 
THE SECONDARY SCHOOLS AND HIGHER 
 EDUCATION. 
 
 Any part I may take in the deliberations of this meet- 
 ing ought to be a grateful one — grateful to me, because, 
 as a representative of scientific and technical schools, I 
 have only to give assent to the fundamental propositions 
 of Dr. Huling; ^ gTateful to you, because my simple con- 
 tribution will not long detain you. 
 
 So far as I am aware, there can be no occasion for 
 the scientific and technical schools of this country to 
 object to any of Dr. Huling's proposals. Inasmuch as 
 those schools to-day require no more than is provided 
 for in at least one of the courses offered by the Com- 
 mittee of Ten," they can possibly have no adverse inter- 
 est. The report does not call upon us to make any con- 
 cessions whatsoever. Any scientific school in the land 
 would be quite content to have its students bring with 
 them as much as is embraced in the course to which I 
 refer. Therefore, so far as I am to speak for the scien- 
 tific and technical schools, there can be no reason for 
 doubt or hesitation in giving support to the propositions 
 of the Committee. Indeed, so far as my constituency 
 
 ' The question under discussion had been presented by Dr. Ray 
 Greene Huling, of Cambridge, Massachusetts. — Ed. 
 
 5 In its valuable report (1893) to the National Educational Associa- 
 tion. — Ed. 
 
324 COLLEGE PROBLEMS. 
 
 is concerned, the changes proposed by the Committee 
 would be all clear gain. 
 
 This completes all I have to offer as a representative 
 of scientific and technical schools; but, if I might ven- 
 ture to refer for a moment to the position of the classical 
 colleges, I must confess that I have a great deal of sym- 
 pathy with that view of the English high school which 
 is presented in the extract quoted by Dr. Huling. I 
 believe in the free development of the high school in 
 this country, without constraint from the outside, and 
 without any concession to either the colleges or the 
 technical schools. I believe that the high schools should 
 not be asked to do anything more than what would be 
 for their own best development as schools a great 
 majority of whose pupils are to go directly out into 
 practical life without further advantages of education. 
 I believe that the English high schools were created for 
 the benefit of pupils of this class; and that they should 
 go steadily forward upon that line, simply asking how 
 they can best serve the needs of this portion of the com- 
 munity, making no surrender and no concessions to the 
 wishes or the interests of the colleges, on the one hand, 
 or of the scientific and technical schools on the other. 
 The colleges have, and for a long time have had, com- 
 plete control of the endowed academies and the public 
 Latin schools. If the colleges want any more than this 
 for their own purposes, let them provide it. If, again, 
 the scientific schools need any more or any different 
 preparation from that which the high schools would 
 
SECOND AR T SCHOOLS AND HIGHER ED UCA TION. 325 
 
 give, from their own point of view and for their own 
 proper purposes, then let the scientific and technical 
 schools provide it for themselves. The English high 
 school has its own definite, important work to do in the 
 American system of education, which is to give the best 
 possible courses of instruction to young people, between 
 fourteen or fifteen and eighteen or nineteen years of 
 age, who are not able to carry their studies on into the 
 college or into the scientific or technical school. This 
 is the proper work of the English high schools ; and those 
 who are charged with the conduct of such schools should 
 allow nothing to divert them from that object. If the 
 instruction given by the English high school, according 
 to its own point of view, wich reference to its own pur- 
 poses, does not precisely fit its graduates for the classical 
 college, then I say the college must come to the high, 
 school, and not the high school to the college. The 
 desired adjustment must come through concession from 
 the colleges, and not by surrender on the part of high 
 schools. 
 
 The foregoing remarks might seem from their tone to 
 be antagonistic to the report of the Committee of Ten 
 and to the propositions of Dr. Huling; but, in fact, they 
 are not so intended. The colleges are now doing just 
 this very thing. They are coming to the English high 
 school, and they are coming fast, climbing over the 
 fences and breaking through the hedges to get as quickly 
 as possible upon the ground of an education which omits 
 the once universal requirement of Latin and Greek for 
 
326 COLLEGE PROBLEMS. 
 
 all college students and through practically the whole 
 college course. The surrender has been on the part of 
 the colleges and not on the part of the high schools; and 
 in the readjustments which will properly follow that 
 surrender the needs and the capabilities of high schools 
 should be kept carefully in mind, rather than the needs 
 and the convenience of the colleges. 
 
 Having long and strongly held this view of the mis- 
 sion of the English high school in our educational 
 economy, I would not have those who control these 
 schools give up one jot or tittle of what is for the good 
 of the high schools themselves, according to their orig- 
 inal idea, or divert in any degree the instruction given in 
 such schools from the direction which will best serve 
 those who are to end their school life at that point. But 
 it does not seem to me that the report of the Committee 
 of Ten and the suggestions and propositions of Dr. Hu- 
 ling ask anything of the high schools other than is for 
 their own good, according to their original purposes. On 
 the contrary, it appears to me that the programmes of the 
 Committee of Ten are such that they might have been 
 drawn up solely for the good of the English high schools 
 themselves, and not at all with reference to the needs 
 of colleges and scientific schools. I would not say that, 
 in the point of the amount of work required, those pro- 
 grammes may not transcend the present capabilities of 
 the less favored schools; but, subject to this caution, I 
 think that the most ardent supporter of the traditional 
 English high school may cheerfully and cordially accept 
 
SECONDARY SCHOOLS AND HIGHER EDUCATION. 327 
 
 those programmes as of the nature of an enlargement 
 and improvement of the high school, in its own interest 
 alone. 
 
 Referring for a moment to the question of admission 
 to colleges and scientific schools by certificate, which 
 was brought up by Dr. Huling, I would say that, in my 
 judgment, the general movement in this direction is a 
 fortunate one, and is likely to be carried still further to 
 the advantage both of the college or scientific school and 
 of the preparatory school, whether endowed academy, 
 Latin school, or English high school. But it does not 
 seem to me that there should be any effort to force this 
 matter. The result will be better accomplished in the 
 end if it is brought about gradually, and, indeed, by 
 piecemeal, here a little and there a little, each individual 
 college or scientific school proceeding by negotiation 
 with its own special " feeders " and shaping its course 
 according to its own particular needs. Indeed, it is 
 doubtful whether the system of admission by certificate 
 will ever be made universal. It is safe to say that some 
 colleges can admit students by certificate from some pre- 
 paratory schools. It is perhaps safe to say that some 
 colleges could safely admit by certificate from all pre- 
 paratory schools. It is possible that all colleges might 
 admit by certificate from some preparatory schools. But 
 to say that all preparatory colleges could admit students 
 by certificate from all preparatory schools, is going a 
 great deal further than the results of experience justify. 
 
 Regarding the complaints, cited by Dr. Huling, which 
 
328 COLLEGE PROBLEMS. 
 
 impeach the results of examinations for admission to 
 college, I would like to say a word. 
 
 It seems to me that an altogether false idea obtains 
 respecting the proper significance and effect of these ex- 
 aminations. It appears to be a common notion that the 
 successful passing of entrance examinations not only 
 vests in an applicant the right to enter the school or col- 
 lege, but also the right not to have any other applicant, 
 who has not passed the examinations, admitted. Hence, 
 we have anonymous examinations, the candidates being 
 known only by numbers assigned to them individually, 
 with a hard-and-fast rule that those who pass the exam- 
 inations with a certain degree of success shall be per- 
 mitted to enter, and that all who fall short of that point 
 shall be rejected. 
 
 It seems to me that this view of the significance and 
 effect of examinations is altogether wrong. The prime 
 object of holding entrance examinations is to save young 
 men from beginning courses in which they would prob- 
 ably fail through lack of preparation. The examina- 
 tion is primarily and principally, not for the sake of the 
 school or college, but for the sake of the applicant; that 
 he may not suffer disappointment ; that he may not lose 
 his time and money in a futile attempt to carry on 
 courses which are beyond his ability. A school or col- 
 lege, on its part, would suffer no particular harm by 
 having a certain number of ill-prepared students enter 
 its first class. It is the students themselves who would 
 suffer; and it is for their sake that entrance examinations 
 
SECONDARY SCHOOLS AND HIGHER EDUCATION. 329 
 
 are held. From this point of view, the examinations 
 become merely a sieve which rapidly and confidently 
 separates the body of applicants into two general classes : 
 those who are manifestly well prepared, and those who 
 probably are not prepared. But no reason exists why 
 there should not be further inquiry and careful con- 
 sideration regarding any person who has failed in the 
 formal examination, especially one who has passed the 
 usual age of admission, as to whether he may not, in 
 spite of that, be fairly qualified to begin the studies of 
 the school or college. Regarding the great majority of 
 those who fail at formal examinations for admission, 
 there is, of course, little to be said; the one thing they 
 need is to go back to preparatory schools and to do their 
 work, or certain portions of it, over again. Among 
 those rejected on first trial, however, often are found 
 men whose partial failure is due to causes easily ex- 
 plained. Justice, not less than kindness, requires that 
 such persons should not be compelled to lose a year of 
 life, perhaps practically be debarred from a further 
 educational career. Certainly, to say that an applicant 
 who has been admitted has a right to object to the 
 admission of others, is to give the examinations a sig- 
 nificance and an effect which are unreasonable. In 
 the school with which I am connected, I think 
 there has been no year for a long time in which 
 the faculty have not, after carefully considering the 
 cases of rejected men, where there appeared to be 
 reason to believe that the examinations had not proved 
 
330 COLLEGE PROBLEMS. 
 
 a fair or a conclusive test, admitted one or more such 
 persons. They have never felt themselves precluded 
 from dealing with any case upon its own merits. If it 
 were found that an applicant, by reason of tempera- 
 ment, was always at a disadvantage in examinations; 
 that his preparatory school record showed that he did 
 better in current daily work than upon review or 
 parade ; and especially, if he bore a character for fidelity, 
 industry, and persistency, he might be admitted in the 
 face of examination marks below the standard. In 
 other words, if I may use a technical expression, we have 
 always at the Institute of Technology felt entirely at 
 liberty, so far as examinations are concerned, to " work 
 over the tailings," and to extract and save any valuable 
 metal we might find there. 
 
A VALEDICTORY 
 
Addressed to the Class of 1887, Massachusetts 
 Institutk OB- Technology, upon their Graduation, 
 May 31, 1887. 
 
A VALEDICTORY. 
 
 It is now mj pleasant duty, on behalf of the Corpora- 
 tion and Faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- 
 nology, to present to you the diplomas of your honorable 
 graduation, and to greet you Bachelors of Science. 
 
 What we have said in these testimonials we truly and 
 fully mean. All that is here woitten is to be taken with- 
 out discount, qualification, forced construction, or aca- 
 demic fiction. These diplomas testify to four years of 
 hard, patient, self-denying, persistent study and practice, 
 week by week, month after month, in science and in 
 the application of scientific principles to the arts of life. 
 All this is precisely true in the case of each and every 
 one of you. 
 
 And on behalf of your teachers, I gladly bear witness 
 to the cheerfulness, courage, and zeal with which you 
 have met the exacting requirements of our curriculum; 
 the fidelity and high sense of honor and duty with which 
 you have borne yourselves through these trying years 
 of laborious study. Those qualities have won the re- 
 spect and affection of your instructors here ; they cannot 
 fail to secure recognition and to command confidence in 
 the new lives on which you are entering to-day. 
 
 Fortunate are they who, in opening a new chapter of 
 life, are not required to do what is implied in that omi- 
 
 333 
 
334 COLLEGE PROBLEMS. 
 
 nous phrase, " turning over a new leaf." You are not 
 now called upon to close a career of dissipation, or idle- 
 ness, or frivolity, or triviality, with good resolutions of 
 amendment and reformation for the future. Your 
 friends and teachers are not counting the chances that 
 the closer contemplation of life's responsibilities, or per- 
 haps the actual pressure of its burdens, will sober your 
 minds, give you a serious sense of duty, and inspire you 
 for the first time with a strong and controlling purpose. 
 All this has already been done in your case: else you 
 would not now be here. 
 
 I would not speak to you as if your characters were 
 altogether formed, your education completed, or the last 
 of the perils that beset life happily passed. Much, very 
 much, remains; but it is not by turning around in your 
 course, it is by following on as you have so well begun, 
 that you are to pursue your voyage and reach the haven 
 of your hopes and rightful ambitions. 
 
 It is always a long and weary way which involves the 
 retracing of steps that have gone in the wrong direction, 
 or the making up of time that has been wasted; and I 
 cannot sufficiently congratulate you that you have taken 
 the morning of life, while the heart is buoyant within, 
 the limbs stout and active, while the air around is fresh 
 and fragrant, and the sun is yet low in the heavens, to 
 make so strong and stalwart a beginning of your journey. 
 I cannot believe that, as you pause on this eminence, 
 here on your graduation day, and look back and down 
 upon the camps of those who have not yet girded them- 
 
A VALEDICTORY. 335 
 
 selves for the march, but are still resting in the com- 
 fortable belief that it will do as well to begin life in 
 earnest at twenty-one or twenty-five, you are at all dis- 
 posed to regret your own early start and the manful 
 exertions to which you have given the dewy hours of 
 morning. 
 
 My friends, the point toward which all your studies 
 and exercises have been directed these long years is at 
 length reached ; the hour has come for you to say good- 
 by to each other and to your teachers, and with brave 
 and hopeful hearts to step over the threshold of the 
 school out into the wide world of action. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Academy, The, reprint from, 234 
 
 Adams, C. K., quoted, 289 
 
 Admission, by certiticate, 327; 
 to colleges, 325; to schools of 
 technology, 13; examinations, 
 modifications in, 87; examina- 
 tions, purpose of, 328 
 
 Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, 
 Colleges of, 3; congressional 
 action concerning, 90 
 
 Algebra, fallacies regarding its 
 teaching, 132 
 
 American Institute of Instruc- 
 tion, address before, 196 
 
 American Social Science Associa- 
 tion, address before, 124 
 
 American Statistical Association, 
 301 
 
 Amherst College, pioneer in 
 gymnastics, 271 
 
 Apprentice-system, 158n 
 
 Arithmetic, Boston School Com- 
 mittee's rules regarding, 209, 
 235; confused with logic, 222, 
 241, 248-254; its difficulty 
 shown, 226; home lessons in, 
 236-240; inadequacy of school 
 training in, 220, 246; impor- 
 tance of simplifying, 209, 217, 
 242; occupies too much time, 
 137n, 215, 240; opinions of 
 psychologists regarding, 213, 
 227; related to algebra, 132; 
 true and false, compared, 210, 
 220; its value in mental cul- 
 ture, 213, 244; waste of time in 
 study of, 223n, 239 
 
 Art and athletics, 284 
 
 Arts, useful, need of training in, 
 84 
 
 Associated Charities of Boston, 
 address before, 152, 154 
 
 Athletics, art and, 284; advan- 
 tages and disadvantages, 274- 
 283; distinguished from gym- 
 
 nastics, 273; effect upon com- 
 munity, 277; organized cheer- 
 ing in, 280; qualities fostered 
 by, 278; recent growth of, 
 271; and religion, 264; spe- 
 cialization in, 273; stimulates 
 patriotism, 279; and trans- 
 cendentalism, 262; at West 
 Point, 279; at Yale, 282 
 
 Atlantic Monthly, reprint from, 
 38 
 
 "Atmosphere," in colleges, 49; 
 of universities, 68 
 
 Beecher, H. W.,and "Muscular 
 Christianity," 267 
 
 Bigelow, E. B., 45; Jacob, 45 
 
 Blake, J. G., quoted, 171n 
 
 Boston School (/Ommittee, ad- 
 dress before, 208, 223n; rules 
 regarding arithmetic, 209, 235 
 
 Bowditch, J. I., 45 
 
 Brockway, Supt., of Elmira Re- 
 formatory, 267 
 
 Brush, G. J., 42 
 
 Carpentry and wood-turning, 184 
 Certificate, admission by, 327 
 Chandler Scientific School, 126 
 Charity and public-schools, 154 
 Cheering, in athletics, 280 
 Chemistry, as a subject for ex- 
 amination, 26; in colleges, 312; 
 in secondary education, 101 
 Chile, the affair with, 270 
 Christian Register, The, reprint 
 
 from, 134 
 Citv bov, disadvantages of, 160, 
 
 175-179 
 Civil War, the, athleticism before, 
 260; changes due to, 19, 31n, 
 268-270; its effect on educa- 
 tion, 88; extraordinary char-, 
 acter of, 270; West Point 
 graduates in, 30 
 
 337 
 
338 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Clark, J. E., quoted, 247 
 
 Clarkson Memorial School of 
 Teclmology, address at, 81; 
 how established, 108 
 
 Class distiuctions and industrial 
 education, 129, 141 
 
 Classical colleges, " atmosphere " 
 in, 49; danger of sophistry in, 
 23; difficulties of smaller, 45; 
 disciplinary studies in, 57; 
 diminution of attendance upon 
 (1850). 81; electivcs in, 57; 
 English teaching in, 111; and 
 English high schools, 324; ex- 
 aminations in, 24; late entrance 
 into, 26; modified entrance 
 requirements, 87; relations to 
 community, 82; and technolog- 
 ical colleges, 21-32, 33n, 93, 111 
 
 Cobden, R., his power in speak- 
 ing, 295 
 
 College, athletics question in, 259, 
 276; development of modern, 
 91; disciplinary studies in, 56; 
 faculties and athletics, 281; 
 graduates in schools of tech- 
 nology, 8; " heroes." 261; his- 
 tory and economics in, 289, 
 310; life, its charm, 74; rela- 
 tions to professional schools, 
 62-66; science-study in, 312 
 
 Colleges, of Agriculture and 
 Mechanic Arts, 3, 90; for wo- 
 men, 305 
 
 Color-blindness, 198 
 
 Columbia University, its course 
 in statistics, 300; its law school, 
 67; its school of mines. 43, 126 
 
 Columbian Exposition, 6 
 
 "Committee of Ten." its pro- 
 gramme, 326; and schools of 
 technology, 323 
 
 Confederation of 1781-87, 268 
 
 Cooke. J. P., quoted, 25 
 
 Cooking in public schools, 163, 
 169, 191 
 
 Cornell University. 43 
 
 Country life, advantages of, 158, 
 175-179 
 
 " Cramming," 24 
 
 Crime and physical condition, 267 
 
 Cyclopedia information, 189 
 
 Dartmouth College, its schools 
 of science, 126 
 
 Deafness, often unsuspected, 201 
 Dewey, D. R., 301 
 Dickinson. J. W., 153, 163 
 Discipline in college studies, 56 
 Disinterestedness in education, 
 
 13,46 
 "Dividend, predetermined," its 
 
 fallacy, 96 
 Divinity schools and universities, 
 
 69 
 Domestic manufactures, decay 
 
 of, 177 
 Drawing, in elementary schools, 
 
 139, 147; discussed by Dr. 
 
 Runkle, 162n, 185 
 Drexel Institute, 104 
 Dwight, President, 41; Profes- 
 sor, 67 
 
 Ear. its education neglected, 120 
 
 Economic studies in colleges, 
 289, 310 
 
 Education, through arithmetic, 
 209-254; " atmosphere " in, 49, 
 68; disinterestedness in, 13, 46; 
 engineering, 9; eflect of Civil 
 Warupou,88; in English, 111- 
 122; a "free hand " in, 105- 
 107; importance of, to New 
 England, 167; industrial. 125- 
 131, 141, 153. 184; tlie kinder- 
 garten principle in, 161; leisure 
 in, 55-58; liberal, 55-77; in 
 morals. 134n ; public, its scope, 
 154; through applied science, 
 101 
 
 Educational Beview, The, re- 
 prints from, 54, 304 
 
 Elective system, the, 56 
 
 Emerson, G. B., 45 
 
 Engineer, character of the, 59 
 
 Engineering education, the prob- 
 lem of, 9 
 
 English, the problem of teaching, 
 111-122; proticiency in, as re- 
 lated to graduation. 122; its 
 study in elementary schools, 
 213; suggestions regarding 
 students', 118-122 
 
 English high school, the, its 
 curriculum. 824 
 
 Entrance, by certificate, S27; to 
 colleges, 325; to schools of 
 technology, 13, 380; require- 
 ments, modifications in, 87 
 
INDEX. 
 
 339 
 
 Ethics, the teaching of, 134n 
 Examinations, dangerous tenden- 
 cies of, 24; in English univer- 
 sities, 24; real scope of en- 
 trance, 328 
 Executive faculty, not trained 
 heretofore, 157 
 
 Faculties, college, their duty in 
 matter of English, 121; their 
 relation to athletics, 281 
 
 Fairbairn, Dr., quoted, 254 
 
 Fallacies and statistics, 291 
 
 Farm and village life, advan- 
 tages of, 158, 175-179 
 
 Flint, C. L., 45 
 
 Francis, J. B., 45 
 
 " Free hand," a, in education, 
 105-107 
 
 Gazetteer information, useless- 
 ness of, 63, 137, 189 
 
 Geography, a course of study 
 quoted, 211; its elaboration in 
 modern teaching, 211, 244; ex- 
 cess of, in elementary schools, 
 137n 
 
 Geometry, fallacies regarding its 
 teaching, 132-135 
 
 Germany, debt of our colleges to, 
 310 
 
 Girls, manual training for, 191 
 
 Gladstone, VV. E., his power in 
 speaking, 295 
 
 Graduates, college, in schools of 
 technolou:y, 8; proflcieucy of, 
 in English. 122 
 
 Grammar, excess in scliools, 137n 
 
 Grammar .schools, cooking in, 
 16;>, 1G9. 191; manual train- 
 ing in, 139, 163; metric sys- 
 tem in, 217; overwork in, 209; 
 and scienee-.stu(ly, 102; sewing 
 in, 163. 169, 192 
 
 Greece, art and athletics in, 284 
 
 Gymnastic, the true, of teaching, 
 222, 250 
 
 Gymnastics, distinguished from 
 athletics. 273; desirability of, 
 271, 274: and reliirious be- 
 liefs, 264; stimulated by ath- 
 letics, 278 
 
 Hall, G. S., opinions on arith- 
 metic, 227-229 
 
 Hamilton, Sir "W., on mathemat- 
 ics, 213; Lady, anecdote of, 
 182 
 
 Ilarvard Graduates' Magazine, 
 reprint from, 258 
 
 Harvard University, 7; course 
 in statistics, 300; its medical 
 school, 70; modified entrance 
 requirements in, 87; relations to 
 Lawrence Scientific School, 40 
 
 Hawaii, affair in, 270 
 
 Hemenway, Mrs., and cooking 
 schools, 193 
 
 High schools, and colleges, 323; 
 English, 324; liberal studies 
 in, 61; military drill in, 272n; 
 modified by new conditions, 
 99; proficiency of graduates 
 from, 56, 188; should give 
 ampler development, 187; 
 science-study in, 101 
 
 Hill, F. A., 153n 
 
 Historical studies, development 
 of, 289, 309 
 
 Home lessons, their disadvan- 
 tages, 236-240 
 
 Howison, G. H., opinions on 
 arithmethic, 227, 229 
 
 Huling. R. G., 323-327 
 
 Industrial development, and ap- 
 prentice-system, 158n; and 
 schools of technology, 19, 88 
 
 Industrial education, defined, 
 125; advantages of, to youth, 
 142; and class distinctions, 129, 
 141; develops slow pupils, 145; 
 and labor, 144, 166; in public 
 schools, 153; time to be given 
 to, 185; a scheme of, 131, 184n 
 
 International Congress of Educa- 
 tion, address at, 3 
 
 James, Wm., opinions on arith- 
 metic, 227 
 
 Johnston, J. F. W., Notes on 
 North America, 81 
 
 Journal of Social Science, reprint 
 from, 124 
 
 Kindergarten, the, 161, 162n 
 
 Labor and Capital. Senate Com- 
 mittee on, testimony before, 
 137. 180 
 
340 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Labor, respect for, fostered by 
 industrial education, 144, 166 
 
 Language-power, of students, 
 compared, 112; should be 
 given in schools, 114 
 
 Law schools and universities, 67, 
 70 
 
 Lawrence, Abbott, gifts to Har- 
 vard, 7, 73 
 
 Lawrence Scientific School, 39, 
 72, 88; college graduates in, 8, 
 73 
 
 Leisure in education, 55-58 
 
 Liberal education, alleged three 
 stages in, 55 
 
 Liberal studies, pursuit of, 55, 
 60; in secondary schools, 61; 
 in technical schools, 12, 33, 48, 
 65, 75-77, 92 
 
 Literary societies, their decay, 
 271 
 
 Literature and science com- 
 pared, 135 
 
 Logic and arithmetic confused, 
 222. 241, 248-254 
 
 Lounsbury, T. R., 49 
 
 Low, Seth, 67 
 
 Macaulay, T. B., quoted, 15 
 
 McGill University, remarks at, 
 46n 
 
 Manhood cannot be made by col- 
 leges, 76n 
 
 Mann, Horace, quoted, 169 
 
 Manual training, cost in city and 
 country compared, 179-182; 
 development of, 182; in ele- 
 mentary schools, 139, 163; for 
 girls, 191; relation to mental 
 growth, 197-206; and science- 
 study, 164; a test for defects, 
 203 
 
 Mass. Institute of Technology, 
 42, 126; college graduates in, 
 8, 74; course in statistics, 300; 
 development of. 90; entrance 
 examinations at, 330; estab- 
 lishes a mechanic arts course, 
 141; founded by W. B. Rogers, 
 89; its graduates, 76n; liberal 
 studies in, 49, 78; trustees of, 
 45 ; a valedictory to its class of 
 1887, 331 
 
 Mass. Teachers' Association, ad- 
 dress before, 234 
 
 Mathematics, Hamilton on, 213; 
 
 mental culture and, 213. 244; 
 
 teaching of, 132-135, 209-224 
 Mechanic arts, colleges of, 3, 90; 
 
 higli schools, 99 
 Mechanics, principles of, should 
 
 be taught early, 130, 130 
 Medical schools and universities, 
 
 69 
 Mental culture and mathematics, 
 
 213. 244 
 Metric system as a school study, 
 
 217 
 Michigan, University of, 88 
 Military drill, 272n 
 jVIorality, the teaching of, 134n 
 Morrill, Senator, 90 
 National Educational Associa- 
 tion, addresses before, 3, 174; 
 
 its "Committee of Ten," 323- 
 
 326 
 New England, changes in village 
 
 life in, 160, 168; and education, 
 
 167; values in early, 292 
 New England Association of 
 
 Colleges and Preparatory 
 
 Schools, address before, 322 
 New England colleges, associated 
 
 action regarding entrance. 13; 
 
 loss in numbers about 1850, 
 
 81 
 Normal schools, inadequacy of, 
 
 107, 316; manual training in, 
 
 140 
 
 Oratory, high repute of, 31n, 261; 
 its decay, 271 
 
 Orthopedic surgery and lan- 
 guage teaching compared, 
 115, 122 
 
 Overwork in schools, 209 
 
 Page, J. A., quoted, 171n 
 
 Patriotism and athletics, 279 
 
 Penn. Stale College, address at, 
 31n 
 
 Phi Beta Kappa oration, 258 
 
 Philbrick, J. D., 45 
 
 Physical culture, desirability of, 
 271, 274; effect upon crimi- 
 nals, 267; and religious beliefs, 
 264; and transcendentalism, 
 262; stimulated by athletics, 
 278 
 
 Physics, in colleges, 312; ele- 
 
INDEX. 
 
 341 
 
 ments should be taught early, 
 130, 135; in secondary schools, 
 101; as a subject for examina- 
 tion, 26 
 
 Political ideas, affected by tran- 
 scendentalism, 263; modern, 
 268 
 
 Political mechanism, value of, 
 200 
 
 Population of New England, its 
 transformation, 160, 168 
 
 Porter, Noah, opinions on arith- 
 metic, 227, 231 
 
 Pratt Institute, 104 
 
 Professional men and technical 
 schools, 8 
 
 Professional schools, athletics in, 
 283; relations to colleges, 62, 
 66 
 
 Professional success, kind to be 
 striven for, 11, 75 
 
 Public schools, cooking in, 163, 
 169, 191; drawing in, 139, 
 147; English in, 213; hostility 
 toward, 171; Indnstiial educa- 
 tion in, 131, 153, 184n 
 
 Pupils, relation of teachers to, 
 27 
 
 Religious beliefs, and physical 
 culture, 264; in schools. 134n 
 
 Rensselaer Polytechnic institute, 
 43, 87, 126 
 
 Requirements for admission, 13, 
 87, 325-328 
 
 Rogers, W. B., founds Mass. 
 Institute of Technology, 89; 
 Life and Letters of, 90 
 
 Rose Polytechnic Institute, 43 
 
 Runkle, J. D., Industrial Educa- 
 tion, 141; ouoted, 158n, 162n, 
 185 
 
 Safford, Professor, quoted, 247 
 St. Louis Manual Training 
 
 School, 141 
 School Revieio, reprint from, 322 
 Science, reprint from, 184 
 Science-schools compared, 4 
 Science-teaching, course of study 
 in, 212; in grammar .schools, 
 102; growth of, in modern 
 schools, 212; compared with 
 man\ial training, 164 
 Scientific men, high aims of, 47 
 
 Seaver, E. P., quoted, 156n, 162n 
 Secondary education, as affected 
 
 by modern life, 99; defective 
 
 teaching of English in, 113; 
 
 and higher education, 323; 
 
 liberal studies in, 61; military 
 
 drill in, 272; small uuuiber 
 
 pursuing, 100 
 Sectarianism, 134n 
 Self-made men, weakness of, 06 
 Sense training, neglect of, 155 
 Sewing in schools. 163, 169, 192 
 Saaler; N. S.. 39, 72 
 Sheffield. J. E., 90 
 Sheffield Scientific School, 41, 88, 
 
 126; athletics in, 282; -college 
 
 graduates in, 8, 73; liberal 
 
 studies in. 49; President 
 
 Walker professor in, 41 u; 
 
 relations of, to Yale, 41 
 Sibley College, 43 
 Snobbishness, 11, 50, 72, 105 
 Sophistry, danger of, in colleges, 
 
 23 
 Specialization in manufactures, 
 
 160, 177 
 Spelling, undue stress upon, 116 
 Statistics, congressmen and, 297; 
 
 courses of. in colleges. 300; 
 
 difficulties of, 296; examyjles 
 
 of errors in. 292, 297; public 
 
 liking for, 294; uses of, 291 
 Stearns, President, 272 
 Stevens Institute of Technology, 
 
 43. 126 
 Students, relations of, 10, 45, 72, 
 
 165 
 Supply and demand, in relation 
 
 to schools of technology, 20, 
 
 95-98 
 Swan. Robert, 170 
 Systematic training, advantages 
 
 of, 175 
 
 Teachers, demand for, 315 ; and 
 pupils, 27; training of, 107, 
 315-319 
 
 Tech, The, reprint from, 33n 
 
 Technological education, charac 
 ter of," 23; disinterestedness 
 in, 14, 46; nature of, 5-21; 
 need of conference regarding, 
 4 
 
 Technology, schools of, admis- 
 sion to, 13, 330; college gradu- 
 
342 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 ates in, 8; and "Committee 
 of Ten," 323; character of 
 studies in, 11, 28, 92; compared 
 with classical colleges, 21-32, 
 33n, 93, 111; defined, 125; 
 development of, 4, 19, 91 ; differ 
 from original plans, 7; effect 
 upon community, 98; English 
 teaching in. 111; expediency 
 of estahlishing, 126; and 
 industrial growth, 19, 88; 
 liberal studies in, 12, 33, 48, 
 65, 75-77, 92; nature of, 7-21; 
 relation of professional men to, 
 8; supply and demand in rela- 
 tion to, 20, 95; and trade 
 schools, 128; and universities, 
 9-39, 43, 68, 71 
 
 Technology Quarterly, The, 
 reprints from, 18, 258, 288 
 
 Thayer School of Engineering, 
 126 
 
 Trade schools, advantages of, 
 129; contrasted with schools 
 of technology. 128; defined, 127 
 
 Transcendentalism as affecting 
 standards of life, 262, 271; and 
 athletics, 262 ; and political 
 ideas, 263 
 
 Union College, Pres. Wayland 
 
 at. 86 
 United States, the, their better 
 
 international attitude, 269; 
 
 unique conditions in, 83 
 
 Universities, "atmosphere" of, 
 68; divinity schools and, 69; 
 duty to make scholars, 68; 
 governing boards in, 10, 43, 72; 
 and law schools, 67, 78 ; and 
 schools of technology, 9-39, 
 43, 68, 71; snobbishness in, 
 11, 50, 72 
 
 University of the State of New 
 York, address to, 19 
 
 Vassar College, 305 
 
 Wayland, President, quoted, 
 81-84; opinions discussed, 87, 
 94 
 
 Webster, Daniel, quoted, 262 
 
 Wells, D. A., his power in speak- 
 ing, 295 
 
 West Point, football at, 279; its 
 graduates in Civil War, 30 
 
 Whitney, W. D., 49 
 
 Women, colleges for, 305; and 
 marriage, 308, 311, 319; and 
 normal training, 315-319; in 
 public affairs, 308 
 
 Woodward, C. M., 141; quoted, 
 166n 
 
 Worcester Polytechnic Institute, 
 126 
 
 Yale University, 74; relations of 
 scientific school to, 90; suc- 
 cess of, with athletics, 282 
 
 THE END. 
 
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