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AN ESSAY


IN EXPLANATION OF THE
GramErEyPark Schnml and Tuul-hOuse
S' EST   TEET, NE 
104 EAST 20th STREET, NEW YORK,


(REAR OF ALL-SOULS' CHURCH,)
B>Y C OUR   TL AN) T P AL MIIER.
ISSUED) FROM
TI'  P-INTING I)FPAIPITMENT()F THE TNSTITUTE.
1885.




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THE NEW EDUCATION:
AMANUTAL (INDUSTRIAL) TRAININ(G AN ] N)ISIi.SPNSA ILJ }
DEPARTAMENT ().O IT..
AN ESSAY
iN {EPLANATIO1T OF T-E
BramercyUPark Schnnl and THHl-hnusE
SAST   ITIA STREETD ATN
104 EAST 20th STREET, NEW YORK,


(REAR  ()i Al.I.-SOULS' CHURCH,)
By- COURl'TANDT PALMER.
ISSUED FROM
THE PRINTING DEPARTMENT OF THE TINSTITUTE.
1385.




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7-i/7     '7-/7- 3
PREFATORY NOTICE.
This essay,was read on recurring Thursday evenings before successive
audiences, in response to the following request from the eminent citizens,
clergymen and educators, whose names are subjoined:
COURTLANDT PALMER, ESQ.
Dear Sir:
Knowing that you regard the Gramercy Park School and Tool-house as a great
improvement in educational methods, we respectfully request of you to deliver an
address explanatory of its objects and advantages.
F. A. P. BARNARD,             ABRAM S. IIEWITT,
C. F. CHANDLER,               E. L. YOUMANS,
PARKE GODWIN,                 I. HIEBER NEWTON,
G. GOTTHEIL,                  WILLIAM LLOYD,
ANDREW CARNEGIE,              F. 1. THURBER.
G. VON TAUBE.
On one of these occasions the reading was listened to by President
Andrew D. White, of Cornell University. A few days later he kindly
wrote the following letter, which he permits to be published:
PRESIDENT'S ROOMS,
CORNELL UNIVERSITY.
ITHICA, N. Y.,.March 28th, 1885.
My dear sir:
Allow me to say that I was greatly impressed by your recent lecture upon the
instruction in the mechanic arts as connected with ordinary school training, as well
as by the subjects naturally related thereto which you then touched upon.  I have
long believed that schools such as you have been endeavoring to establish are
among the greatest necessities of this country. There is too much training of men to
get a living by their wits, and not enough to enable them to get a living by their hands.
I earnestly hope for your success in New York, and believe that your lecture ought to
be brought before audiences of thinking people in various parts of the country. I
should be very glad, if it be consistent with your other duties, if you could come here
and deliver it before our students. Your doing so would be a philanthropic work,
and could hardly fail to produce admirable results, since our young men go out into
all parts of the country, and are, doubtless, to take influential places in the communities to which they shall go-many of them in State, and some of them, perhaps, in
National councils.
I remain, dear sir,
Very truly yours,
ANDREW D. WHITE.
COURTLANDT PALMER, ESQ.,
117 E. 21st St., New York.




i
I




THE NEW EDUCATION:
MANUAL (INDUSTRIAL) TRAINING
AN    INDISPENSABLE             DEPARTMENT             OF   IT.
The hope of the future lies in Education. It is hard to teach old dogs
new tricks, but just as true now as when it was written is the ancient text:
"Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not
depart from it."
My object in this paper is to lay before you, in its general outline,
the scheme of the Gramercy Park School, and the Tool-house as an essential portion of its curriculum.
What I shall have to say is largely adapted, in part from Herbert
Spencer's celebrated work on Education, but mostly from notes of conversations held with Mr. G. von Taube, the principal of the school
under consideration. There is, therefore, but little of my own original
thought in this paper, my object being not to indite a new and brilliant
essay, but merely to present the most recent learning upon this most important subject as best I may. Thus I have not hesitated to interweave
from both of the authorities I have referred to not only their thoughts,
but often their actual words.
The following anecdote seems to me to represent not inaptly the
old educational methods. It is told of John Randolph and Tristram Burgess,
who were formerly both representatives at our National Capitol from their
respective States of Virginia and Rhode Island. The two, it is said, were
walking together one day along Pennsylvania Avenue, when they chanced
to meet a drove of donkeys. "Behold your constituents!" said the supercilious Southerner, pointing to the animals. "Yes," retaliated the Yankee,
"I see they are headed South, to teach the young Virginians." And better,
perhaps, such teaching than much which we have undergone. Well do
I remember, and sadly do I recall, my school experiences of younger
days. A false and arbitrary culture of the mind, in entire disregard of
any well-considered system either of pedagogics or of ethics, was then the




6


sole solicitude. School-hours were wearisomely protracted, and the stuffing
of dry knowledge, pretty much as ammunition and wadding are rammed
into a gun, was deemed the one thing needful.
In place of a harmonious and growthful development of body and
brain, there was substituted an artificial and mechanical drilling, enforced
by the rod of the petty pedagogue, whose object was by a sort of battering
ram process, to knock the old Adam out and knock knowledge in.
A regime of rote-learning was thus instituted-a regime involving
parrot-like recitations of almost unintelligible rules and formulas-a
mere empty twittering, as it were, which conveyed to the learner's
mind not facts, but the empty symbols of facts; that is to say, in the
language of Hamlet, nothing but "words, words, words."
And what was aimed at? Not the development, but the decoration of
the mind; not the forming of stable characters, but the production of striking impressions, just as voyagers uniformly find that colored beads and
trinkets are much more prized by wild tribes, than are the really useful
calicos or broad-cloths. It is safe to say that, under the old regime, the
most necessary training was that to which the least time was given. We
know, for example, that for such a common craft as shoemaking, a long
course of close apprenticeship is deemed desirable; but boys might enter
life, with its varied pursuits, its enormous activities, and its urgent needs,
fortified with little more than a course of Latin and Greek-which was
applied afterwards to no practical purposes-and girls might find their
preparation for motherhood and the home in a smattering of music, poetry
and the foreign languages.
There cannot fail, however, to be a close relationship between any system of education and the social state with which it coexists, and these olden
methods, which I am criticising, with all their superficiality and petty
tyranny, have come down to us from the arbitrary conditions of the past,
both in government and in society.
Under such conditions, as they prevailed less than a century ago, along
with political discipline, stern in its commands, ruling by force of terror,
visiting trifling crimes with death, and implacable in its vengeance on the
disloyal, there necessarily grew up an academic discipline similarly harsh;
a discipline of multiplied injunctions and blows for every breach of them;
a discipline of unlimited autocracy, upheld by the ferule and the black
hole.                                      A 
But "old things are passing away; behold, od things are becoming
new." The decline of authority, whether papal, philosophic, kingly or pedagogic, is essentially one phenomenon, and in all these domains the republic
has succeeded to monarchy as the destiny of man. To fit human beings for
republicanism, self-reliant citizens must be evolved. Thus, despotic sway
from without having been largely removed in the realm of the State, arbitrary dogmatism must correspondingly disappear from the school, so that




7


children may grow up not to depend upon external law, but to be a law
unto themselves. The government from without must be supplanted by
the rule from within; command must give way to character; culture must
come to overweigh mere accomplishments, so-called.
Thus comes the question of questions, to wit: how to determine (to
use a phrase of Bacon's) the relative value of knowledges. In other words,
is there any criterion amid the conflicting claims of the various studies by
which we may be guided? " Yes," quickly the answer comes, " there is, viz.:
Human Welfare, Human Happiness.   How to live, in the widest sense;
how to treat body and mind; how to manage our affairs; how to bring up a
family; how to behave as a citizen; how to use all our faculties for ourselves and others; how to live completely; these are the real functions of
a true education."
To such an end a classification of the leading activities becomes essential. Such activities thus arrange themselves in the order of their relative
importance:
1. Those which minister directly to self-preservation.
2. Those which, by securing the necessities of life, minister indirectly
to self-preservation.
3. Those which have for their end the rearing and discipline of offspring.
4. Those which are involved in the maintenance of proper social and
political relations.
5. Those miscellaneous activities which make up the leisure part of
life, gratifying the tastes and feelings.
Such, at least, is Herbert Spencer's able and valuable classification, but
for my purpose, in order from my point of view to treat the subject clearly,
perhaps no arrangement of the topic can be better than its natural division
into physical, intellectual and moral education. Let us rapidly review
these three domains.
FIRST.-PHYSICAL EDUCATION.
This I shall be compelled to pass over (from want of time) with scarcely
more than a single remark. The primal necessity of life is to be a good
animal. A sound body must be taken as the desirable basis of a sound
mind, and also of a clear conscience.
This is thoroughly appreciated in the Gramercy Park School, where
open-air exercises in the square, and indoor exercises in the gymnasium, are
amply provided, its whole system of physical development being based
upon a thorough acquaintance with physiology and hygiene.




8


SECOND. —INTELLECTUAL           EDUCATION.
Recent psychological (or mental physiological) science has brought to
us, perhaps, the greatest of all modern discoveries —the existence, that is, of
a strict correlation between the brain and nervous system on the one hand,
and thought, with its workings, on the other.
With this clue in hand, educational methods may now follow an established line of mental facts. based on actual physiological laws. These I
shall touch upon more fully as I proceed, but fur the present state them
categorically as follows:
a.-The development of the senses in the young is the basis of their
future mentality.
b.-Such development, to be successful, necessitates individual work
by the pupil, instead of rote-teaching and book-learning.
c.-Commemoration is based not on direct verbal drilling of the memory, but upon the association of impressions, conducting thence to the association of ideas.
d.-Ideas presuppose facts, and are the results drawn from comparisons
of perceptions, depending, therefore, for their clearness, upon the quality of
the perceptions which are obtained.
If we are willing to grant that the phenomena of intelligence conforms
to such laws; if we are ready to admit that the evolution of intelligence in
a child also conforms to such laws, it follows inevitably that education can
be rightly guided only by a knowledge of these laws. And it furthermore
follows that such education, depending thus on things instead of words, is
of necessity from the particular to the general, from the concrete to the
abstract, and from the simple to the complex.
But utterly regardless of every one of these palpable truths, highly
complicated and abstract subjects, such as algebra and grammar, are frequently put at an early age into the hands of the unfortunate child. And,
generally speaking, whilst the right class of facts is continually withheld,
the wrong class is forcibly administered in the wrong way, and in the wrong
order. Not recognizing that the function of books is supplementary, primers
are thrust into the hands of the little ones years too soon, to their great
injury. Not till a child's restless observation has been diligently cultivated
should books be largely given to him, since the words in a book can be
rightly interpreted into ideas only in proportion to the antecedent experience of things. And in this process the pupil shjuld be taught by his
teacher as little as possible, and should teach himself as much as possible.
He, consequently, should be encouraged to work his own way, the self-made
child thus leading on to the self-made man. Having done this, and having,
by the doing of it, assimilated and organized his knowledge as he goes




along, the learner finds himself ever coming into the possession of fresh
agencies, which stand ready at hand to help him on towards the solution
of all new cases as they arise.
With this end in view, that is to say, the learning of things instead of
words, the most important new practice undoubtedly is, as already hinted,
the systematic culture of the powers of observation. Some one has well
said in this connection: " The education of the senses neglected, all after
education partakes of a drowsiness, a haziness, an insufficiency, which it is
impossible to cure." In other words, ignoring nature and the natural, a
vague, artificial ideal has been aimed at, bringing as its inevitable result
a general dissatisfaction.
Hence, as the only alternative, the necessity of object-lessons, or a
return to the concrete, which carries a child's mind through the same process
that the mind of humanity at large has gone through; for instance, as in
the truths of number, form and position, all of which, originally, were drawn
by the ra-e from actual objects.
This general reference to object-teaching now enables me to pass from
Herbert Spencer, whom thus far I have been extensively quoting, to the
authority of Mr. von Taube himself. He claims that the first bright light
which came to illumine the dark labyrinth of educational theory, shot from
the warm heart and brilliant mind of the Swiss teacher, Pestalozzi.
This reformer laid down the postulate that ideas are the result of sensationp; that sensations arise from perceptions; that perceptions are dependent on the powers and possibilities of our sensory organs; that these
organs can be cultivated, and that, consequently, perceptions and sensations
can be quickened and improved. This theory has since been further developed and scientifically elaborated by Bain, Maudsley, Carpenter, Youmans,
and others. It may be said, moreover, that to the researches of such savans
is due the credit of having affirmed the invaluable truth that there is a certain sequence, in which the faculties spontaneously develop, and that, as
a consequence, a properly adapted kind of knowledge is necessary for each
step of the succession.
But the German Frcebel, the founder of the Kindergarten, was the one
to whom is due not only the honor of having systematized, as a mere theory,
the somewhat shadowy ideas of Pestalozzi (by bringing them into harmony
with the facts of mental physiology), but to him also is to be accorded the
lofty praise of having practically applied such theory to the real requirements of early instruction. If Pestalozzi recognized the human mind as
subject only to a gradual development-a matter which had been, in truth,
in a crude way, always understood-Frcebel was he who earliest informed
the world when and how such development takes place.  Thus we have, at
last, been enabled to classify school existence physiologically, as presenting
different states or ages of mental growth, and therefore of mental capacity.




10


At birth, the average weight of a healthy brain is from twelve to thirteen ounces, which, from the earliest childhood, up to six or seven years of
age, increases to an average of forty ounces. During this period, and as
related to this phenomenon, we now know the human mind to be possessed
of an incomparable freshness for perceptions of the concrete.
The next stage of a child's development would bring him to thirteen
or fourteen. In this interim, the brain-growth, though slower, adds to itself
about five ounces more, and related to this, again, the pupil manifests the
characteristics of curiosity and of natural propensity to investigate his surroundings. From fourteen to seventeen or nineteen we find a well-pronounced capacity for the recognition of similarities and differences between
the items and parts observed. From that age to twenty-one or twentythree, some three ounces only of extra brain-tissue are accumulated. A
certain callousness of receptivity as to mere facts is then easily distinguishable; but in lieu thereof, the comparison of ideas, the solution of difficult
problems, strong opinions and severe judgments, become pronounced characteristics, gradually toned down and modified by the more mature experiences of after life, when hardly any further change in the weight of the
brain becomes perceptible.
The first two of these stages represent the absorptive capacity of the
human mind from without, and the two later ones the inner systematization
and working out of the materials thus previously gathered. How to select
these materials for the first two stages-that has been the problem; the
human mind-even the plastic mind of youth-having only, at most, a
limited capacity for details.  Such mental limitations being the case, children, it is claimed, should have offered to them not empty words and arid
formulas; not fairy tales, fantastic poems, and graphic descriptions-immersing them in an ocean of false fancy and emotionalism-but they should
be provided with the foundation stones (bright jewels they are) of those
sciences, the understanding of which conditions our existence, and which,
if only properly presented, the young will drink in with as much avidity and
pleasure as they will the Arabian Nights, especially as the difficulties encountered by older people in mastering minutice do not exist in anything
like the same degree for children. The reason of this is self-evident, when
it is asserted that there is no science which does not start with things
familiar even to the child. All problems, moreover, be it understood, are
vastly simplified, even for the children themselves, by the facility with which
every branch of knowledge can now be analyzed and reduced to a few fundamental- propositions; which propositions, in turn, are based on a few
fundamental facts.  These facts, with their related propositions, once
thoroughly mastered, the child straightway comes into the possession of
the framework of his future knowledge.
Guided by this idea, there are given in the school-system under consideration, gradually developing lessons in plants, animals, and place-the




11


foundations of a future knowledge of botany, geology, and geography;
oral lessons in language, including qualities and names of objects, etc., etc.;
lessons in reading, attention being drawn to thoughts rather than to words,
and including, in time, proper poetic selections and historical and biographical sketches; lessons in writing, the pupil later on attempting to describe,
in his own words, the objects learned from the oral lessons in the shape
of compositions on clothing, cotton, linen, silk, etc., etc., the A B C of future
technology; lessons in form, size, and number, leading on to arithmetic
and solid measure; lessons in aesthetics, beginning with objective outlines
of familiar things, triangles, quadrangles, etc., etc., etc., coming, later on,
to curves and figures drawn from memory, and finally, to rudiments of the
human figure and perspective, forming, thuswise, the elements of that
technique in art, without whicA art degenerates into a vague emotionalism.
So, in very brief outline, pass the first two stages, comprising six years,
which together constitute the objective course.
Next come the second two stages, which make up the subjective
course, and which relate to ideas rather than to things-ideas, it is claimed,
resulting from comparisons of perceptions in their similarities, differences,
and oppositions, as, e. g., hot as against cold, black as against white, night
as against day. These subjective stages are, therefore, more purely intellectual.
The full development of the pupil's capabilities in these latter periods
depends, however, upon the successful gathering of material during the
previous objective courses; still, as remarked, it is the idea, and not the
thing pro uucing the idea, which, for the first time, becomes the important
factor. A new instrument of criticism in this second or subjective division
is now introduced, viz.: logical argument. Every idea is taken as a
symbol of a previously learned fact. A definition is obtained, representing the
summing up of previous concrete experiments; in other words, "correct
thinking" is approached; ("correct thinking," as regulated by things;)
" correct thinking," which has frequently been suggested as the best definition of Education; but if so, it must be understood as meaning the
outcome of a previous training, the smooth run, as it were, of our mental
mechanism, presupposing all parts of the same to be previously not only
well oiled, but also well fitted together. Having collected the raw material,
i. e., the objective, it is not only our duty, but our necessity, to fit it and
oil it before we can attempt to study the activity of the mechanism itself, i.e.,
the subjective.
In this connection, furthermore, it seems to me not amiss to allude to
the cultivation of the memory afforded by the process under consideration.
The cultivation of the memory it is, which, par excellence, is claimed as the
peculiar glory of the old method, but I do not hesitate to assert that if
it did develop this faculty, it did so only in a mechanical, artificial,
and factitious way. As against this erroneous result, true memory would




12


now be cultivated in the manner nature itself suggests-through the association of ideas. The ability to repeat the Illiad of Homer, for example,
indicates little more than a dead capacity of merely verbal power; but connections of ideas should correspond not simply to words, but to facts in
their causal relations; such connections of ideas should remain the compound acquisition obtained, not alone through the hearing, but through the
aid of all the senses; they should exercise not only the strength of recollection, but of understanding also, and should strengthen the memory
through the understanding.
The whole method, in its ensemble, is readily seen to be based upon
simple common sense, whcn we say that it is the relation between cause and
consequence, whether among things or thoughts, enabling us in the end,
through general propositions, to draw deductions, and so to arrive at and
to meet special cases.
Such being the philosophical explanation or theory of the two latter, or
subjective stages, let us now see what they actually embrace. In science,
forces tend to take the place of facts; the mechanical principles involved in
physiology are dwelt upon; biology, leading to mental and moral science,
are in time approached; logic, inductive and deductive, comes towards the
end, and political economy is embraced; in language, higher readings; and
in writing, more complex compositions follow upon industrial, scientific,
historical, social, sociological, and artistic topics; in mathematics, higher
arithmetic is brought in, leading on to book-keeping, algebra, trigonometry,
surveying and astronomy; in aesthetics, comes the gradual introduction of
colors, also the theory of shades in drawing, and skeleton sketching from
nature; and finally philosophy is brought in as manifested in its principal
systems, Greek, French, German and English, involving a training in the
evolution of human thought, together with a review of the most famous
literatures of all nations.
Such, in a rapid sketch, constitute the materials of the second half of the
school-course, comprising the two subjective stages, and occupying in all
six years; the total course, both objective and subjective, thus consuming
twelve; and, I may add, that throughout the whole curriculum, the modern,
and, if desired, the ancient languages, are taught according to nature's
methods.
It behooves us now to examine what incentives are best calculated to
stimulate application and interest in the scholars, especially in the little
ones. Here, again, care is needed, in our judgment. Persuasion and logical
argument have been found by experience to be of but little avail. To work for
love or fear of mamma and papa-as most of us parents must, in honesty, confess-partakes largely of the peculiarity of dissolving views. Punishments,
on the other hand, can only be considered in the light of calamities. They
are the first and strongest impressions stamped upon the budding reason of
the child, inevitably leading him to detest an occupation associated with so




13


much suffering. It is impossible to inflict misery except at the price of
contention, the consequence of which must be unhappy either way; unhappy
as a premium on misconduct if the child is successful; thoroughly unhappy
if the advantage accrues to tho elder, since such advantage can only come
through forfeiture of character, individuality, and self-respect on the part
of the little dolinquent. Perceiving that the older party is the stronger,
whatever possibilities for evasion exist in the culprit are sure to be called
into active exercise, with their woful train of falsehood, trickery, and hypocrisy.
Then why not, since punishment fails as a motive, fall back upon
rewards 2 The reply is, that these are hardly less reprehensible, as the certain result is to engender sordid and self-seeking propensities. In other
words, it is a species of intellectual bribery and corruption. It is not a
doing of work for work's sake, but merely for the sake of the pay.
Amid the failure, then, of all these ordinary resorts and practices, upon
what incentives can we fall back? Again the answer comes, (through the
aid of mental physiology), "upon the general analysis of human emotion."
Thus intellectually-armed and accoutred to meet the problem, we plainly
find that our emotional nature includes two familiar states or conditions of
our organism-those of pain and pleasure; the first (pain) ever tending to
a diminution of our vital force and its activities, the second (pleasure) ever
tending to their stimulation and enhancement. Common sense would,
therefore, teach us at the outset that the best results can only be attained
when brought into alliance with pleasure as the motive-pleasure, not arbitrarily and unhealthfully conferred, but pleasure flowing naturally from the
occupation, and meaning by pleasure an innocent and wholesome enjoyment
of life in its more solid and substantial pursuits.
Taking advantage, therefore, of the keen proclivities and eager curi- 
osity which are inherent in the very being of every healthy child, the wise
teacher keeps introducing his pupils into ever new surroundings, seeking at
the same time to refer them continually to the facts, forms, and items they
have previously acquired. Thus, a judgment as to the difference of the
freshly perceived facts from those before known, is at once provoked
through adequate questionings, while arising doubts are settled by illustrations and researches made by the pupil himself. Thus, at the close of
each recitation the scholar has acquired a few new data. He did not obtain
these from the teacher directly. He has found them out for himself; and
the consciousness and charm of such a creative activity rarely fails to be a
sufficient inducement to the child to whet his intellectual appetite and keep
it ever keen. This method would serve to illustrate the course successfully
adopted in the objective primary department.
In the secondary, more complicated objects would be presented to the
pupil, whose trained perceptions would then have gained a sufficient delicacy to familiarize him with very minute discriminations. It is he again




14


who, from his own insight, answers the questions in reference to new subjects, by drawing on his stock of knowledge previously appropriated, the
teacher's role being only to awaken the attention to relations and sequences
as they co-ordinate themselves in increasingly minute details.
As an illustration of this method of self-help, or self-instruction, Mr.
von Taube relates the following: The girls in the chemistry class -and I
would say right here, that with the exception of certain exercises and occupations in the tool-house and gymnasium, this whole method applies as well
to the girls as to the boys-the girls, then, in the chemistry class knew that
to obtain the atomic weight of an element it was necessary to reduce it
to gas and compare equal volumes of the same with hydrogen. Now,
the object was to find out the weight of carbon, a non-evaporable
body. The girls asked themselves if there was any gas. containing carbon.
It was ascertained that numerous such gases existed-for instance, carbonic
acid, which experiment proved to consist of two atoms of oxygen and one of
carbon. The total weight of the carbonic acid was ascertained to be fortyfour times that of an equal volume of hydrogen. The only question put by
the teacher was, " What is the weight of a single molecule of oxygen?" The
class straightway replied, "Sixteen times that of hydrogen." Then one of
the little ones, seeing immediately that if one molecule of carbonic acidbeing forty-four times as heavy as one molecule of hydrogen-consisted of
two parts of oxygen and one of carbon, and that the two molecules of oxygen, sixteen each, must therefore give thirty-two, jumped at the answer,
(taking the thirty-two from the forty-four,) and said that the atomic weight
of carbon compared to hydrogen was twelve.
This is sufficient to illustrate how a system of self-help, based upon experiment and observation, merely from the pleasure it affords, constitutes
the main incentive, which, ever growing and strengthing, through the objective or primary courses, on into the subjective or more elderly courses,
leads the pupil ever eagerly forward towards fresh intellectual attainments.
Over and over again my own children, while relating at dinner some new
fact which they had gained that day, have said, "Oh, it was such jolly fun!"
If, on the other hand, some occasional pupil becomes so refractory that
the discipline of pain is needed, I am informed that the moral punishment
of sending the transgressor home has been found entirely effectual. Moreover, as a substitute for the scoldings and blows which most boys and girls
are subjected to, each pupil is required to keep a school diary, in which is
recorded, by their own hand, their good and evil doings both in study and
conduct, thus constituting the children themselves as judges unto themselves, and saving a world of rough friction between them and their teachers. Its results have proved in practice to be most beneficial.




15


"But," I fancy I hear it said, "you have as yet told us nothing about
the tool-house." I have purposely reserved this topic for a special description. All of us now know that the kindergarten is an established and recognized department of infant education. I need not, therefore, dwell at
length upon it. It is, indeed, in the great kindergarten of nature that
every baby must begin its learning in the use of its eyes, ears, nose, and
fingers; but later we see how, through the exercises of the kindergarten
proper, the little children find it at once a heaven of delight and the widest
scope of instruction, as obtained in their games, their mats, their stick
houses, their modelings, their geometrical figures, etc., etc., etc. Why,
then, I ask, should this most desirable development of a keen perception
stop with the infant? Is not the boy and girl, from seven to fifteen, just as
eager and just as much in need of such development? Our research, indeed,
into mental physiology certainly indicates that such facilities should be
provided.
Frcebel, although the great pioneer, advanced no further in his curriculum than to recommend objective teaching, and as far as his work went,
it was, beyond all cavil, a grand one. But the evil was, and is, that the
pupil, after having left the kindergarten, ran the risk of losing every advantage he had there gained from the need he then found himself in of
continuing his schooling under the antiquated method; and just here it is
that manual training, as an essential factor, finds its place. Let us then
state, point by point, the advantages of the tool-house as a means of educational enlightenment.
First-Let us look at it from the bread-and-butter standpoint simply,
or as a preparation for money-making. Man's life may be defined as having
two well-traced ultimate ends, viz.: personal needs and satisfactions, and
social needs and satisfactions. As regards personal needs, we may bluntly
place the dollar ahead, since it contains within itself the only possibility of
material progress, it alone bringing the leisure which leads from savagery
to civilization.
It will be remembered that the second requisite of education, which I
cited from Herbert Spencer, was to afford the training for what he calls
indirect self-preservation; that is, the gaining of a knowledge necessary for
a livelihood. In this connection, Spencer affirms the truism, that it is with
the production and distribution of commodities that men are for the most
part occupied, and he then says, that to this end knowledge is power-that
is, the physical, chemical, and vital properties of the articles dealt in should
be understood; that is, again, physical science should be understood; teaching of the lever, the wheel and the axle; of the steam engine, the safety
lamp, the microscope; of the telegraph and telephone; of heat, light and
electricity; of bleaching and dyeing; of the reduction of ores; of gas refining; of distilling; of manures; of soils, and so on, through an endless catalogue. For what we eall learning a business, really implies learning the




16


scienceinvolved in it; and since most men are in many businesses, most
business men should, as a business precaution, know many sciences. But
Spencer, although he dived as deep into the subject as the English erudition of twenty years ago allowed, did not penetrate deep enough. Two
steps more were needed to perfect his own scheme, and these were the kindergarten and its direct successor, the tool-house, or manual trainingschool.
Amid the chances and changes of life, it is impossible for any one to
exaggerate how important it may be for a young man to know a trade, and
the general tool-house training under consideration should fit him capably
not only for one, but for many trades, such as work in wood and metals,
plain and ornamental; printing and editing work; work in solders, enamels,
lubricants, dyes, and other applications of chemistry; work in connection
with mechanical appliances and steam engines; telegraphic and photographic work, etc., etc., all of which can be reduced, on a final analysis, to
a few fundamental processes, and can be confined to the use and instrumentality of a limited number of tools.
But I fancy I hear many parents at once entering their demurrer by
saying, "I don't want my son or daughter to demean themselves by learning common trades." And this brings me to the next argument in favor of
the tool-house, which is:
Second-The growing importance of the trades, or manual training.
The old caste spirit of India, Persia, Egypt, and even Rome and Greece,
regulated the trades as bodies apart, and made of the workmen slaves. A
cobbler a cobbler had to remain. Even intermarriages between the trades
were for a long time interdicted. They had no rights which the aristocracy
were bound to respect-the former were the exploiters, the latter the exploited. The inflow of the Northern Teutons helpedto democratize the Latin
races, but for ages the monk was the only connecting link between the workingmen and the upper classes. Later, for the crusades, money and muscles
were needed. The trades supplied them, and towards the close of the middle age, the craft guilds arose. These began to accumulate wealth enough
to engage in business operations for themselves. But it required the
brewer, Cromwell of England, and the Reign of Terror in France, to prove
to the world that the poletariat were possessed of the same senses and
feelings as those of the hitherto more privileged classes, and consequently
entitled to the same rights of existence and enjoyment. As an illustration
of this, the constitution of Poland of 1793 contained the then radical and
revolutionary 'affirmation that every peasant is as much a man as the nobleman above him, to say nothing of our own Declaration of Independence,
which affirms the immortal averment that all men are created equal, and
endowed with the same inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit
of happiness. Although a growing humanitarianism has had much to do
with this movement of industrial emancipation, it must also be recognized




17


that the advancing commercial and political importance of the trades, as
trades, has also exerted a vast and mighty influence; and, perhaps, the time
is not far distant when mankind will accord to them the meed they so richly
deserve, as being among the truest promoters and benefactors of civilization.
Thus it has at last come about that in the Russian public schools the
learning of a trade is made obligatory; and throughout Europe polytechnic
institutes, with courses of manual training, have become required parts of
education. But notwithstanding such innovations, the predominance of
the old caste spirit in Europe is still so strong, that of few Europeans in
good standing can it be said (as it readily might of many Americans) that
he started in life with a tool in his hand; and it requires no spirit of prophecy to foretell that the dandy who despises tools will have to make way
before the man who can master them, just as the poetical Indian is fast disappearing before the champions of the ax, the engine, and the rail. It seems,
therefore, as if it were chiefly in America that manual training can be much
hoped for as an effectual educational adjunct, without the risk of stumbling
against " good form " and the daintiness of a dilldtante culture. It is only
America which, having subordinated war to industry, can emblazon upon
its flag the inspiring motto, "Le travail ennoblit "-" Work ennobles."
But trusting that this short historical sketch has been sufficient to
show to us the growing importance of the great common people, with their
great common trades, it may be rejoined that the college student at seventeen or eighteen years of age can follow these callings, through the facilities which are being admirably supplied by many of our institutions (for
instance, Cornell University and the College of the City of New York).
But, again, our mental physiology must be recalled. Propose such a student, for instance, as apprentice to a carpenter, blacksmith, printer, or mechanician of any kind. They would bluntly laugh, and say: "You can't
expect me to do anything with him, now that he is nearly a man. He can
never learn my trade. His fingers are already clumsy. His eye is no longer
capable of seizing the distinction of one thirty-second of an inch in length,
thickness or inclination. It would simply be loss of time to both of us
You had best reserve him for the counting-house, where he belongs." And
the mechanician would be right. As our mental physiology has shown, the
time for training the young man's perceptions had already passed by. We
thus can see how, between the kindergarten and the actual trade, the toolhouse stands as an essential intermediary, since it represents a track or
channel which can only be traveled or passed over at a fixed stage of our
existence. If we attempt to retrace our steps (in manual training, as well as.in other branches,) at eighteen or twenty years of age, we only do so to find
that it is too late, and to read on the tablet of a lost opportunity the words,
the ever sad words-" It might have been." The manual training in the
colleges may be of enormous value as far as experimental knowledge is con



18


cerned, but never can it supply the need of a course obtained in younger
days, at the appropriate age, when the senses are all aglow and eager for
the work.
Third-The tool-house, as a means for the application of knowledge.
With all said, it is not as an end, but as a means towards an end, that manual training is most valuable. Hitherto, we have been speaking of such
manual training as a mere instrumentality to teach a trade, the trade itself,
as a calling, being the sole object and end in view; but the tool-house must
now be considered in the light of a channel or agency (and, in fact, the only
one) through which to apply, and thus to realize, what would otherwise be
merely theoretical knowledge. In this aspect it becomes magnified into an
unspeakably enhanced importance.
It has already been made evident that knowledge implies not only perception and memory, but also the individual and personal grasp of facts
through practical application. Thus, the study of the natural sciences, unless supplemented by a conjoint training of the hand and mind, remains
doubtful in its results and tedious in its acquisition. In truth, knowledge
unapplied can hardly be called knowledge at all. Our frail human nature
labors under the fundamental necessity of working out, and thus of practicalizing, its conceptions and ideas. The intimation of this is observable
in the case of every child, who, at the earliest age, endeavors to find out for
himself all the purposes possible to which any kind of material can be applied. Our mental analysis explains the rationale of this tendency, and the
truth is that no school method yet adopted fully provides for the thorough
digestion of the facts and items which have been intellectually provided.
Such facts and items, unless applied, remain only so many unused arms in
the arsenal of the mind, too rusty for use when the need of them arises;
-whereas a proper course of manual training not only keeps the facts fresh
in the memory, but also serves as an early initiation into that invaluable
mental capacity, which we call constructive genius or faculty. As an illustration, lot us resort to the abstract ideas of space, time, and number, which
are divisions of primary importance.
The whole of mathematics and mechanics are nothing but the development of our perceptions in these regards. For these sciences are, on final
analysis, seen to be based on our early experience with concrete matter;
and even in the simplest of their formulas they represent to us generalizations founded on facts. (Let us remember, in this connection, that humanity
progresses because able to assimilate and profit by the knowledge of the
past. Therefore an everlasting justice seems to decree that unless we sow:ve shall not reap, and that in order to reap, our individual mentality, like
that of the race, must pass through the whole process of sense-acquisitioncoming thus, and thus alone. to permanent perceptions, not by means of
abstractions and rote-learning, but through the impressions produced by
objects.) Thus a carpenter, or mechanic of almost any kind, will know his




19


tables of denominate numbers better than will the student who may have
solved hundreds of examples, and the practical draughtsman will be quicker
to detect the error of the sixteenth of an inch than will the theoretical
learner of all the geometries. Turning to mechanics for another illustration, many adults will even yet remember how puzzling it was to solve the
problems of the three levers; and yet a few simple constructions drawnor, better yet, wrought out in wood-by the pupil himself, will stamp the
theory in a manner never to be forgotten.
Furthermore, mathematics represents abstracts; abstracts are merely
mental symbols of the concrete; they are used only for the purposes
of the concrete; the concrete always remains as of primary importance,
and therefore, unless we wish to waste our children's powers on empty
puzzles, we must recognize the principal value of mathematics as
consisting in its application.  And as time  goes on, this method
supplies more and more of the minutie both of mathematics and
mechanics to the interested learner, and its chief, though subsequent
advantage, ere long becomes manifest, viz.: in the development of an abstract and dispassionate judgment, thus imparting a wider and more
philosophical capacity, till it at last eventuates that even the intrigues of
courts, the strength or feeblenesss of human nature, the good and evil passions, and individual interests, become to the constructive statesman, as it
were, so many mechanical energies, every one of them representable by its
numerical exponent, and of value to him only as he may be enabled to separate or combine them. So it finally results that by graduated steps we
are led on further and further, till, through the composition and resolution
of mechanical forces, we are enabled to face, and as far as may be, to solve,
the deep enigmas of humanity, whether approached from the standpoint of
the preacher, the poet, the politico-economist, or the philanthropist. In all
these cases intellectual constructiveness is the true basis of their operations. And in this aspect let the commonplace objection be no longer flung
against this method, viz.: that its materiality is deadening to the imagination. I affirm that it does not slay imagination; it merely regulates it.
Imagination may be called the faculty of reconstructing new combinations
from old perceptions. If, hitherto, the words and phrases of dead languages
have been found to foster the fancy, how much more may this not be the
case hereafter from handling facts in every field, through all the realms of
nature and of life? Imagination, then, no longer playing like a feu follet,
but linked to everlasting law, will henceforth lead us on, not to deceive, but
to instruct, inspire and elevate. And so, finally, the school, which can by
its method impart to the highest average possible, and in the easiest way
possible, the greatest constructive imaginative power, must become the
school of the future. And this, it is claimed, the tool-house should accomplish.




20


Fourth.-The Tool-house in its Moral Influence.
I here also cover the third leading theme of my paper, which is moral
education in general. Astonishing as the training which I have been describing is in its intellectual results, these really grow dim before its moral
effects. Morality may be simply defined as the science and art of right
living. Let us first touch upon it as a science, though, in connection with
the tool-house, it is upon it as an art that I wish particularly to dwell.
Glancing at it as a science, in the first place, a certain morality may
be said to exist in the mere investigation of facts as facts, whether they be
phenomena of the organic or of the inorganic world, and everywhere
throughout this whole school-system the child is brought face to face with
the great truthfulness of nature-the great truthfulness of fact. Emerson
has magnificently said: "Day creeps after day, each full of facts-dull,
strange, despised things, that we cannot, at first, enough despise-which
we call heavy, prosaic and desert.... and presently the aroused intellect
finds gold and gems in one of these scorned facts; then finds that the day
of facts is a rock of diamonds-that a fact is an Epiphany of God." The
Bible well says: "As a man thinketh, so is he." If he thinks truth, he is
apt to become truthful. Thus it is that the stars sing to the child the
truth of their orbits; the rocks relate the truth of their strata; the flowers
assert the truth of their structure. So, truth in the organic and inorganic
world faces the learner at every step.
But, be it allowed, morality proper, as a science, pertains not to dead
matter, but to life itself in its human relationships and motives. To this,
therefore, for a moment, we turn.
Morality as a science, I have just said, is the science of right living.
Its object is to provide a mental guide for the activities and duties of life.
In alluding, in a previous part of my essay, to the incentives which should
actuate the children, viz.: pleasure and pain,.moral causes and efftts have
necessarily been hinted at, but they need to be enlarged upon. In the
nursery, then, and in the school, as, indeed, in the world at large, that alone
seems to be the truly salutary discipline which visits upon all conduct,
good and bad, the pleasurable or painful consequences which, in the nature
of things, such conduct tends to'produce. Moral cause and consequence is,
therefore, the chief thing to be inculcated-good actions leading to good
consequences, bad actions to bad consequences. The school-system, in
other words, must be one of pure justice. In accordance with the old
adage, that "the burnt child dreads the fire," the learner must discover,
through teaching and experience, that " whatsoever he soweth that shall he
also reap," and, furthermore, that "the way of the transgressor is hard."
But such rude experience is often not only a hard but a hardening master.
While pain and pleasure, felt as consequences, may lie at the root of morality as a science, it must be remembered that this same morality is not
only a science, but an art as well. True, the art must wait upon the science,




21


but it must also supplement it in the shape of practice. So let us now pass
on to morality as an art. Morality under this view becomes nothing more
than habits taken in the right direction. "Habit," the old adage well says,
"becomes a second nature." If the intellectual discernment of consequences, as following causes, represents the science, the art may be defined
as the habit of avoiding the bad and cultivating the good consequence; and
the young can best reach the science through the art, and the practice of the
art. Here, as in other fields, there is no expediency in teaching the abstract
instead of the concrete. To begin with the definitions or rules in moral
instruction (as has always been the old-fashioned way) before having cultivated the practice, would be to make the same mistake as to start in grammar with the laws of syntax before having inculcated the signification of
the parts of speech.
'Just as the twig is bent the tree's inclined," and the lesson of the
practical art of ethics is, that if some evil proclivities need to be eradicated, the best way is to stifle them by means of good predispositions substituted, through consistent examples set and steady habits formed. And
just here it is that the ethical power of the tool-house manifests itself. For
if what I have given is a true exposition of morality, then it is at once evident what immense power manual training, as a part of education, may
exert in the formation of character. The mere habit of organized recreation afforded by the tool-house is of itself an enormous aid. It is an unspeakable gain, even if a negative one, to keep boys out of mischief. You
often must have noticed how youngsters love just to watch work, such as
blacksmithing, housebuilding, or the like. How much more, then, do they
not become enchanted and enthused over some machine or model which
they seek to fashion for themselves, even though it be empirically and
rudely formed.
Under a proper curriculum of manual training, these inherent youthful
impulses are taken hold of and so systematized that the otherwise idle and
refractory youngster is kept continuously and absorbingly occupied.
One of the inevitable effects resulting from the old, rigorous discipline
of the antiquated school,, as, indeed, of the home, was to make both school
and home hateful; the necessary reaction from which was to drive the
pupil to seek his pleasure in mere pleasure-seeking. Not to find his joy in
his work, but to find his joy in vapid fun, became his chief end of life.
Hence, for want of school and homemade recreative, recreation was necessarily found in sky-larking and mischief-making, in a penny's worth of
vicious hilarity gained to-day at the expense of a dollar's worth of character
sacrificed to-morrow. How many a wayward and rebellious boy, ungovernable by the old tutorial and parental methods, might not have been saved,
if taken at a sufficiently early age, by this new, judicious, and beneficent
system-a system which provides materials for the hand and head to act
upon, as naturally as the digestive organs assimilate appropriate food 




22


Busy fingers and busy heads leave little room for vice, and work, directed
in wholesome channels and motived by curiosity and gratified inquiry.
builds up character unconsciously and almost automatically. The pupil
finds himself, in this way, continuously overcoming difficulties by his own
personal effort, and therefore finds himself gaining that most invaluable of
moral stimulations, the feeling of self-reliance.
It is an old saying, that "where there is a will there is a way." But
how true, also, is the opposite, that there is often a will where there is no
way open to it. To present a way, through the provision of adequate facilities, and so to bring the will and the way both into continual partnership,
such is one of the great offices of the tool-house, leading to the habit of selfreliance just spoken of. But further, the pupil is, all this while, acquiring a
continual insight into the most important facts which relate to the productive activity of the earth. So, widening his scope of existence by the popiular nature of his employment, he is necessarily led into a close moral sympathy with the wants, needs, and difficulties of the workmen of the world.
Moreover, when the tool-house shall be fully organized, it is the intention
of the management, in connection with a proper supervision, to introduce a
democratic method of administration (self-government) among the pupils,
as far as the same is feasible. They are each to be the owner of one or
more shares of stock, with the right to draw its accruing dividends, thus
imparting a financial interest in the concern; the boys are to elect their
own foreman in each department; they are to manufacture their own products, and sell them in open market; they are to keep their own books, and
under due bounds, and by means of meetings and debate in open caucus,
to regulate their own order and discipline. This school, therefore, instead
of being something apart from the great run of common life, becomes incorporated with it, and no violent break is felt when the student-career
merges naturally and almost unconsciously into political, business or professional existence.
The pupil's experience and love for the smaller republic of the school
now becomes extended subjectively to the larger republic of country. He
realizes that outside of him is the great social organism. In his own needs
he sees the basis of his rights-in the needs 9f others the basis of his duties.
The feeling of losses and gains to himself ~i applied in imagination unto
others. Their losses and gains become a part of his own being. In their
happiness he comes to seek his own. The knowledge of rights and the
feelings of duty widen, till finally the moral keynote is reached in the
adaptation of his life to a wide, harmonious scale, where love, thought and
act combine and culminate in a lofty esthetic and human enthusiasm.
Perhaps I may profitably pause right here, for a moment, as I approach
the end of my essay, to say, by way of parenthesis, that this school-system,
taken in its totality, presents to my mind a complete reconciliation between
the antagonistic positions of Drs. Eliot and McCosh, (Presidents respect



23


ively of Harvard and Princeton Colleges) in their debate before the Nineteenth Century Club, on the "Elective versus the Enforced System of
Study and Behavior." The former asserted that in a University a student.
from eighteen years of age should select his own studies and govern himself, while the latter claimed that this would end in the choice of easy and
one-sided courses, and also in looseness of deportment. Each of these
academic giants seemed to me to represent a great idea in education. DrMcCosh properly insisted upon the need of a general culture in literature,
language, science and philosophy, while Dr. Eliot's apparently irreconcilable attitude was equally sound, to wit.: that after eighteen it was profoundly inexpedient to subject the scholar to any undue surveillance.
What I affirm is, (and my affirmation is founded on a hint given in Dr. Eliot's
paper) that at the age spoken of any youth of average intelligence,
educated under the method I am advocating, with its democratic
form of administration, will have received not only a groundwork of liberal
culture amply sufficient to enable him-under the advice of teachers and
parents-to choose his own special line of collegiate application, but I
maintain, also, that the preparation which the school ensures in the way of
self-government should be a guarantee of his ability to oversee and regulate his own conduct. And furthermore, be it emphatically understood, an
immense and invaluable practical result would be that several of the most
important years of life would thuswise be saved, since the student,
having finished his general training at eighteen, could make himself ready
for his business or profession by twenty-one, the average age at which mere
graduation from our colleges now ordinarily takes place.
Returning from this detour, I would add right here, as my concluding
point, that the Gramercy Park School does not profess to be, in the strict
and technical sense of the term, a religious academy. As it would be impossible to please all sects, sectarianism is rigidly excluded, and the
school is very wisely organized as a purely secular one: Denominational
instruction is left, and properly left, to the parents and the home.
But if a secular, in no sense can the school be called an irreligious one.
As Mlr. von Taube eloquently says: "a fully developed and educated mind
cannot possibly be irreligious, in the higher acceptation of the word."
A prominent city clergyman kindly provides me with the following
quotation from one of his sermons: "A divine order, could it be known and
its laws obeyed, would end the disorders of earth. This divine order lies
not behind man, but before him. The realization of this order is the aim
of the education of man. The realization of this order is to begin from
within and work outward. It is to be first a work of personal reform and
then a work of social reform. The realization of this order is actually taking
place in the world. The Kingdom of God is at hand, brought ever nigh
to man, through the work of His spirit in society, capable in a time, brief




24


to the vision of the seer, of coming down upon the earth. When this order
is established, it will be the reign of God manifested in Jesus."
A philosopher, decried by many as unduly heterodox, has thus also defined
religion: "Religion is the tie bywhich man's feelings and thoughts within,
and his actions without, are co-ordinated into health and harmony with
each other, with society and the world, with the past and the future."
I give these definitions of religion, both according to the clergyman
and the positivist. Under either view, the divine or the human-both are in
reality one —this school, though it calls itself only secular, is, in reality, in
the deep meaning of the word, a religious institution. It seeks to effect
the harmonious union of the hand with the head, and the head with the
heart. Based on liberty, it would place that liberty under law, and consecrate the whole being to the highest humanity.
Miss Haines, the celebrated predecessor of Mr. von Taube, was tlle
practical founder of the Kindergarten in America. From the model she
established it worked its way into its present large acceptance.
The Tool-house is its legitimate successor. and ought as such to be
supported by the intelligence of this metropolis, in order that it, likewise,
may become a gbod seed planted to bring forth fruit a hundred fold, in the
physical, intellectual, industrial and moral education of the youth of our
land.




BOUND
APR 30 1935
it  I t'. OF,- CH.
UvRARY




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