'i'ECHNICAL EDUCATION
AN ADDRESS
DELIVERED BEFORE
IC, e  Stattle  ecarcrs' ~Ss-oiatio,,
AT
SHIPPENSBURG, PENN'A.,
AUGtST 12, 1874.
GEORGE WOODS, ILL. D
PUBLISHED BY REQUEFST.
PITTSBURGH:
BAKEWELL &r MARTHENS, 71 GRANT SIREFT,
1874.
II
I
BV X  
ADDRESS  the representatives of the nineteen
thousand educators of our large, rich and influential State, to whom is entrusted the moulding of
our twelve hundred thousand youth. Not our fertile
soil or our many manufactures, in themselves considered, are of so much importance as the brain and
brawn of the youth who are to cultivate this soil,
and increase and perfect these manufactures, thus
giving us the high rank we should attain among our
sister States. However humble our work as teachers
may be regarded by those who measure men by their
annual income, or their display of dress and equipage, measured as every work should be, by the good
done, it is second to none. I do iiot address legislators, sensitive as an aspen leaf to the popular breeze;
or manufacturers, looking eagerly at the profits of
the present year; but those who sow for others and
the future; who toil, not to mine coal, or make pigmetal, but to build up true, intelligent men and
women.
I address you on a practical subject, and I desire
to do it as earnestly and with such statistics and facts
as will impress you, and, through you, others in different parts of our State, with the great importance
of the subject, and secure such action as shall ad
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vance the good of our youth and the interests of our
State. And I propose to do it in a plain, unadorned
manner, stating some of the many facts before me
which favor education in the theory and practice of
the arts and trades of all kinds, "that special education in our calling which should fit and enable each
of us to discharge in the best manner the special
narrow round of dut y by which each citizen fills his
own personal place in social life."
As teachers, our lives are not those of idleness or
ea:e, but of severe, exhausting labor on material as
varied -n its nature as the different combinations of
matter with the multiform elements of mind and
heart, can make it.
To make an ingenious piece of machinery, requires
labor and skill; to mould and fashion a soul, de.mands the exercise of the highest powers with -which
man is endowed.  To  create is the -province of the
Omnipotent;  second only to this is it to develop
that which allies man to the Creator.  Education is
"one of the greatest and noblest designs that can be
thought on, and for which this nation perisheth."
And yet the puddler, cutting tailor, glass.,blower or
sheet-worker, receives greater compensation than the
soul-moulder, wh.o fashions for eternity.  More is
paid for the covering than for the objectcovered; for
the setting, than for the jewel.
Our duty as educators is not simply to inistruct in
one or a few studies, but to decide on the compara 
5
tive value of different studies to different students,
with different capacities, tastes, and purposes.  The
object to be moulded, and the use to be made of it,
should be understood.  What may be most useful to
one at one time, may not be so at another time, or to
another at the same time. The fit thing to be studied,
in the fit quantity, at the fit time, is to be decided
what will be best suited to furnish, stimulate, and
strengthen the mind for the future work. The question is not whether a certain study is useful or not,
but whether it is the most useful for a certain student
at a certain time, in his circumstances, and with his
intended business or profession, and this, too, without
reference to the taste, profit, or convenience of the
teacher. To undervalue and disparage what we do
not possess, is a fault no less common with the teacher
than with others.
The study of the classics has been denounced as
useless, and even injurious, a great waste of time.
That they have been studied by those who should
have devoted their time to other more practical studies, and by persons who had no taste or faculty
which would enable them to be benefited by them,
there can be no doubt.  The  same may  be said of
the higher mathematics, and many other studies.
More time may have been wasted on the elementary
English branches from commencing them at an improper time, studying portions comparatively valueless, and from defective teaching. The classics give 
6
us a knowledge of the sources of our modern culture, and, in no small measure, of our religion, polity,
law, art and history. They are admirably suited to
give us a knowledge of words, to improve the judgment, develop the mind, and to give finish and cornpleteness to the man. All who would be accomplished scholars, or thorough professional men, and
all who have the time and means, should study
them.
The very men who ridicule and contemn the study
of the classics as a waste of time, will teach other
branches to such persons, and to such an extent or
in such a manner as will prove an injury and loss to
them. The youth who is to leave school at fourteen,
is required to spend all or an unreasonable portion
of his school life on unimportant parts of geography,
grammar and arithmetic, to the total neglect of drawing. elementary chemistry, physics and other branches of knowledge, an acquaintance with which is essential to his success in life. The acknowledged
waste of time on the classics by those who have no
time or capacity for them, or who pursue them to
the neglect of more important studies, is, however,
sustained by comparatively few; the loss from entire
neglect, or injudicious teaching of many of the primary branches, is sustained by the many.  Less than
four per cent. of our youth extend their studies beyond the common elementary branches. An error,
therefore, in our educational methods, for these 
7
branches affect twenty-four times as many persons
as in the case of the classics. So, while gazing at
distant objects, we have stumbled into holes immediately before us. Such is human consistency!
The relative worth of different kinds of knowledge to the student has not been sufficiently regarded. The studies he has pursued may be valuable,
and to the extent to which he has pursued them,
whilst they may be less so than other studies that
might have been substituted in whole or in part. An
immense amount of information bearing on the industrial activities, which should be understood by
all, has been passed over, while the less useful has
been studied. There has been a tendency to regard
the useful as ignoble.
The answer, then, to the question, What should
our youth study? has not been intelligently given.
The philosopher said they should study that which
they will most need when they become men. William Penn, in writing to his wife in relation to the
education of his children, said, "Give them learning,
but let it be useful learning." The people are generally convinced, now, that the classics have occupied
an unreasonably large part of the time of many, and
that studies having a closer connection with the intended pursuits of our youth will be more useful.
The opposing current has fully set in. Care should
be taken that we do not go to the opposite extreme,
seeking only the immediately practical. Universities 
8
do not exist merely for the purpose of training men
for their special crafts or trades. To ridicule any
ulterior end is irrational.  "The man is more than
the trade." Practical, skilful men in the trades and
arts we need. To have them we must educate them.
They will not grow of themselves. God will not
work a wonder to help us when he has given us
wherewith to help ourselves. Especially are such
men demnanded in-our State, where there are so many
persons engaged in agricultural, mechanical, engineering and milling pursuits. To advocate such an
education is to advocate the highest interests of our
Commonwealth and its toilers.
The opinions of men as to the comparative value
of studies, have varied greatly at different periods.
Archimedes regarded it as degrading to science to be
useful, to contribute to the wants and happiness of
man. According to' Seneca, to impute to man any
share in the invention or improvement of a plow, a
ship, or a mill, was an insult. It is in accordance
with this spirit that practical studies, those which
relate to the daily employments of life, are now stigmatized as "bread and butter sciences." In the Middle Ages alchemy, astrology and dialectics' were the
cardinal studies.  In the latter part of this period,
Gerard Groot, a mighty preacher in the mother
tongue, said, "Spend no time on geometry, arithmetic, rhetoric, dialectics, grammar, po(etry, horoscopes, or astrology. Such pursuits a,re renounced by 
9
Seneca, much more by Christians of a spiritual
mind. They avail not for the spiritual life." About
the same time Hegius said, "If any one wishes to
understand grammar, rhetoric, mathematics, history
or the Holy Scriptures, let him study Greek.  We
owe everything to the Greeks."  At a later period,
Latin was recommended for all. Being the repository
of the learning of the world, it is not strange that a
knowledge of it should have been required of all
students. In 1854, President Francis Wayland, one
of the best educators and noblest men our country
has ever had, having eight years before expressed his
dissatisfaction with the then existing course of study,
in an address at Union College, said:  "It would
seem that our whole system of instruction needs an
honest, thorough and candid revision.  It has been
for centuries the child of precedent. If those before
us made it what it is, by applying to it the resources
of earnest and fearless thought, I can see no reason
why we, by precisely the same course, might not improve it.  God intended us for progress, and we
counteract his designs when we deify antiquity and
bow down and worship an opinion, not because it is
either wise or true, but simply because it is ancient."
Soon after this, Prof. Chase, of Brown University,
gave eight lectures to three hundred and fifty-three
jewelers and other workers in metal, on "The Chemistry of the Precious Metals."  These lectures gave
great satisfaction and profit, and remarks were made
2 
oy the workmen showing how much they felt they
had lost by not having received such instruction
before.
In 1858, that invaluable article, "What knowledge
is of the most worth?" gave a fresh impulse to the
new departure.  To answer this question of Herbert
Spencer wisely, and to give to all the students in our
schools, colleges and universities, the knowledge of
most worth to them, should be the object of all educators. So multiplied have the sciences become, and
so increased the range of studies, that we cannot'
compel the student to follow a routine suited to past
centuries. The two different opinions as to the
object of education still prevail; Froude says it is to
prepare the student to obtain his food and clothing;
Matthew Arnold says: "To know is sublime; to do,
base." To recognize the change that has taken place,
and adapt ourselves to it, is the part of wisdom.
We cannot sympathize with the distinguished Greek
scholar, who, on his death-bed, lamented that he had
not spent the last twenty years of his life on the
dative case.
The old and rich institutions of England are slow
to adapt themselves to the changes in learning. In
Cambridge, it is said, a man may yet get the highest
honors in mathematics and natural philosophy, and
have never seen a crystal, a lens, an air-pump, or a
thermometer; and at Oxford he may get his first
honor in natural science without knowing the bino
...:,,...
10 
11.
mial theorem or the solution of a triangle.  Yet in
technical education-we are far behind England and
the continent, where are numerous richly endowed
institutions fitted to give instruction in practical
education. They have consequently acquired great
superiority over us in many of the arts and manufactures. We have been too well satisfied with ourselves and our school system, and have not educated
our youth in the arts so as to develop without "trial
and error," and without the most lavish waste, our
abundant natural resources. Our wealth has reached
the sum of $30,000,000,000. But we forget that we
are in most cases exhausting our virgin soil without
seeking to restore~it; that we are consuming our vast
stores of mineral wealth and recklessly destroying
our forests. In one year, 1870, this transfer of wealth
from the surface and from beneath the surface, after
deducting the'cost of labor and material, was $1,183,410,861, or one twenty-fifth of all our computed
wealth. We took our riches from the earth, and,
aided by foreign capital to the amount of $1,400,000,000-our supposed entire foreign indebtednesswe erected our edifices, built our ships and railroads,
and fancied ourselves more wealthy by this entire
amount.  We forgot that the change of a dollar from
the purse to the hand, where it could be seen and
counted, is not an increase of one dollar in our
wealth. It was a dollar, and is a dollar still.' We
forgot that it is labor which creates wealth or en 
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hances values, and, so far as labor was employed in
developing our resources, to that amount, and to that
amount only, it has added to our wealth. Of this
vast natural wealth we must not be too prodigal. We
have, it is true, one of the richest countries on the
earth; a fertile soil, extensive forests, and an abundance of oil, coal, iron, salt, gold, silver, lead, copper,
nickel, slate and marble. Much of our soil has
already been exhausted through bad agriculture.
We are less careful in this respect than the Chinese,
who see that every element taken from the soil is
returned to it, so that there shall be no waste. Our
woodlands have been so recklessly stripped, noble
forests often girdled and left to stand for years to
decay, monuments of our wastefulness, that the cry,
Forbear! is coming up from all parts of our land.
Our iron and coal, too, have been used without
regard to economy.  What we want is to use all our
abundant material so economically as to have no
waste, and to apply to it so much of skilled labor as
will add the most possible to its value, The labor,
too, should be applied in this and not in foreign
countries. To send our cotton to England and bring
it back, paying for it many times what we received,
or to send over our wheat to be converted into labor,
is doing what England did from Alfred to Edward
the Confessor-selling our skins for a sixpence, and
buying the tails for a shilling. We have no faith in
the opinion, early expressed in our country, that we 
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should confine ourselves to agriculture  and avoid
manufactures. This would make us the slaves of
foreign countries, simply tributary to their wealth.
An agricultural people can never become wealthy or
powerful. What we do want is intelligent, skilled
labor to enhance the value of the natural wealth of
the country, and send it to the market increased in
value one hundred or a thousand fold. How greatly
labor increases the value of the material, can be
easily illustrated. Aniline colors, surpassing in beauty
the Tyrian purple, are made from coal tar, until
lately a worthless refuse; and the aniline blue sells
for $28 a pound. A pound of cotton, costing 12 cents,
made into muslin of good design, sells for 80 cents,
and into chintz, $4; a pound of the finest cotton,
costing 40 cents, made into cotton lace, will bring
$1,000. Iron ore, costing 75 cents, made into bar
iron, will sell for $5; horse shoes, $10.50; table
knives, $180; the finest needles, $6,800; shirt buttons, $29,480; watch springs, $200,000; hair springs,
$400,000; pallet arbors, $2,577,595. Here labor
has, with the aid of machinery, produced the difference between 75 cents and $2, 577,595. Any
article obtained without labor has no exchangeable
value. Rude labor, that which requires no practice
or education, brings the lowest price; dexterous
labor, which enables a person through practice to
perform works or parts of works quickly and nicely,
brings a higher price; and skilled labor, combining 
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a knowledge of the principles underlying the operation, as well as dexterity in their execution, brings
the highest price.  Skilled labor creates values, rude
labor often destroys them. The last stroke of the
skilled sculptor gives value to the statue; one blow
of the rude laborer might destroy the work of years.
It is by labor that our machine-shops and ironfurnaces have been productive of more wealth to our
State than would be the richest gold mines of the
world. And if one-half of the 616,000 persons in
our State engaged in agriculture, manufactures, and
mechanical and mining industries, should become
skilled laborers, there would be an annual addition
to our wealth of $184,800,000.  If there should be
the same change in one-half of the 9,000,000 engaged in the same pursuits in our whole country, it
would, at a very low estimate, add $2,700,000,000
annually to the wealth of the nation. We must not
overlook the fact that the sum required for necessary
food and clothing, is the same for all classes of
laborers.  In England it has been computed that
$125 represents the cost of a highly skilled over a
skilless workman; and that this cost of a skilled
workman is less than one year's purchase of his
increased value to the nation.
A single fact will illustrate the value of skilled
labor in producing the best machinery. A Pittsburgh cotton manufacturing company wanted a new
Corliss steam engine to take the place of one they
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15
then had.  The offer of one for $8,500 was refused.
A second offer, for the fuel saved in five years by
the use of the new engine, disclosed the fact that the
saving would be $200 per month, or $12,000 in five
years. The engine was taken at the first offer. The
saving from machinery running evenly, avoiding the
breaking of threads, was probably equal to the saving of fuel.
Time will not permit us to do more than to allude
to the vast losses arising. from ignorant and incompetent workmen, engineers, architects, overseers, or
owners of property. The abandoning on the ocean
of the French steamship L'Amerique through the
ignorance of the engineer; the building by our own
government, at a cost of $11,000,000, of twenty
light-draft monitors, not large enough to carry the
turrets for which they were intended; the placing of
an engine at the cost'of nearly $800,000, on one of
our government ships, which was abandoned after a
single voyage to San Domingo, in which the lives of
many illustrious men were endangered; the Pemberton mills disaster, in which of the seven hundred.and
fifty employees eighty-eight were killed, and many
disabled for life; the recent Mill River disaster,
costing one hundred and fifty lives and $2,000,000;
the falling of a floor in a Syracuse church, killing
instantly fourteen, and injuring one hundred more;
these losses are familiar to all. Large sums and
many lives are lost by incompetent railroad engi 
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neers and architects. Soils are exhausted, and small
crops are gathered, through ignorance of the chemical and mechanical principles involved in agriculture.
We are now taking annually nearly $600,000,000 in
value from the elements of our soil, and it has been
said that we have taken more in value than the entire wealth  of the country.   Agriculture is fast
becoming chemistry, and husbandry, machinery.
When men understand the theory as well as practice of their business, there will be less time and
money wasted in futile attempts at inventions
directly at variance with well-established laws. Inventions, of which we have many, as the thirteen
thousand patents granted last year show, are generally
the result of scientific knowledge. We have already
placed England under obligations to our inventions
to the amount of $1,000,000,000. But the seven
thousand rejected applications for patents last year
prove that there has been much misapplied time and
ingenuity in this direction. We are almost daily
reminded of the folly of the man who, by years of
labor, sought to propel a boat by taking water into
the bow and ejecting it from the stern. The $20,000
lost in the vain attempt to collect the alcohol from
bread in baking, and the efforts to construct electromagnetic engines in the hope of superseding steam,
are examples of the same kind.  I have often been
compelled to advise young men to abandon useless
projects to which they had devoted years of patient 
17
toil and all their means.   A knowledge of scientific
principles would have saved themn this ]oss. Science
often comes to the rescue of ignorance, though some times at a late hour. The pretended discovery of
diamonds in California was exposed by Clarence
King, but not until innocent men had been defrauded
of hundreds of thousands of dollars. The Nevada
fraud was revealed to the public by a young scientist,
saving $1,000,000. A graduate of a scientific school,
for a fee of $250, showed the iron mines of New
York, in which hundreds of thousand of dollars
were invested, to be valueless in consequence of containing titanium, thus saving $400,000.
It must be remembered that what was economy
fifty years ago, is gross wastefulness now, and what
is economy now, will be regarded as reckless prodigality fifty years hence.  From the waste of former
years fortunes are now made. Less than forty years
ago, D)r. Buckland said: "We have during many
years witnessed the disgraceful and almost incredible
fact that more than 36,000,000 bushels, per annunm,
more than one-third part of the best coals produced
by the mines near Newcastle, have been condemned
to wanton waste, on a fiery heap perpetually blazing
near the mouth of almost every pit in that coal district." All the small coal was disposed of in this
manner.  Dr. Buckland said the inevitable consequence of this frightful waste would be to exhaust
this coal field one-third sooner than it would be
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exhausted if wisely economized, and to endanger the
interests of the inhabitants who depend for existence
on machinery kept in action by coal. England today realizes the justice of this warning in her perilled
mP.nuftactures. Carrying coals to Newcastle formerly
expressed an absurdity; now, a fact.  IIn this country
it is now wisely proposed to consume all the coal dust.
J. Scott Russell, the builder of thie Great Eastern,
from his own experience, says: "The community at
large are deprived of enormous treasures in mechlanical inventions and enormous progress in scientific
arts, by the fact of the general want of education in
those who practice them.  It may not be known, but
it is yet true, that the mechanical power employed
in all our manufactures is infinitely more costly than
it need be. It is equally true that some skilled men
know thoroughly how to produce immense economy
in the production and use of mechanical power, but
that we dare not put the means into the hands of
uneducated masters under whose control they would
be applied. I am not speaking of a loss of 5, 10,
20 or 30 per cent.; I say that we know that we are
only utilizing one-tenth  to one-twentieth of the
power we employ and waste, and that an economy of
100, 200, 300 and 400 per cent. is quite within our
power, so soon as a better-informed, higher-skilled,
more perfectly trained class of men and masters shall
arise, who are fitted to be trusted with the use of
instruments and tools, at present utterly beyond their
comprehension, control, or application to use."
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And again he says: "I find everywhere throughout the work of the railroads of the continent marks
of that method, order, symmetry and absence of waste
which arise from plans well thought out, the judicious
application of principles, conscientious parsimony and
a high feeling of professional responsibility."
Such practical and theoretical education as I am
advocating, will save many of the losses arising from
ignorance, or a want of habits of thought.  Property
and life will be preserved, the nation will be enriched,
and the fierceness of the struggle between labor and
capital will be diminished. What benefits the State
benefits her  citizens.   Better educated and more
skilled workmen command higher compensation, and
higher compensation  will enable men to procure
more comforts and luxuries, and to take higher
positions among their fellows. A person educated in
the common branches alone will usually earn twice
the sum that an uneducated one will, and then his
prospects are good for advancement to the position of
overseer or manager, with, it may be, a salary of
thousands, while the ignorant man has no such
chance. A few years since, a director of one of the
extensive cotton manufacturing corporations at Lowell, Mass., stated that only forty-five out of twelve
hundred operatives in their mills were unable to
write their names, and that the wages of these were
twenty-seven per cent. less than tho wages of those
who could write.  In the same mills were one hun
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dred and fifty girls who had been teachers. Their
wages were seventeen and three-fourths per cent.
above the general average, and forty per cent. above
those who made their mark.
But it cannot fail to have been observed that a
mere theoretical knowledge will not secure success in
a profession or manufacture. To know that an experiment or operation can be performed, and to perform it, are quite different. We have seen many and
grand failures, and large sums lost from an error here.
The theory of navigation would not ensure a safe
captain on the ocean. Many currents and their rates,
many winds and their effects, and many peculiarities of his own ship, must be known.
Power to think, combined with a thorough practical knowledge of mechanics and the principles of
science, will enable one to manage machinery skilfully, economizing labor, and increasing its effectiveness. Machinery everywhere is performing the most
delicate and the most powerful operations, from the
spinning of the slenderest thread to the making of
the massive iron plate. It must be directed by intelligence and thought, and the greater the improvement in machinery, the greater the intelligence and
skill required to manage it. To-day, with the aid of
machinery, one girl spins as much as did three
thousand of the sun-stained Hiindoos centuries ago.
It has been estimated that, at the present time, the
laborers of Europe and the United States, with the aid
(
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2.1- 
21
of machinery, are doing four times the work that the
whole population of the globe could do by direct labor.
Machinery in the varied manufactures enables all,
of whatever taste or strength, to find remunerative
employment, which is essential to the prosperity of a
nation. Agriculture calls for only a small part of
the laborers, and those of well-developed muscles.
Already our manufactures are many and varied,
amounting annually to $4,000,000,000, double our
agricultural products. In our State, the value of
our manufactures for 1870 was $711,894,344, and our
agricultural products were only $183,946,027. In.
many articles we already equal or surpass other nalions.  Of seventy-six classes of articles manufactured in Birmingham, England, the chairman of the
Association of Commerce states that twenty-four are
replaced in the common markets of the world by the
United States. Our  cut nails, sewing machines,
pumps and edge tools are unsurpassed by those of
any other nation. We have orders for table glass
from Europe; our cotton fabrics are sent over the
world; Bigelow's looms for weaving carpets are unrivalled. We have $10,000,000 invested in the ceramic art in a single city, and have in our country
every needed variety of clay for the most complete
success in this large branch of industry. We are
now filling a large order for locomotives for Russia.
Our silk manufactures in 1872 reached the sum of
$25,000,000, affording remunerative employment to 
22
eleven thousand seven hundred and thirteen men
and women, while our importations of this article of
luxury have fallen to $24,000,000, a reduction of
$10,000,000 in three years. To affect contempt for
an American silk now, is to betray ignorance of its
value. We are taking annually from England 150,000 tons of tin at the exorbitant price of $115,200,000, foolishly allowing her a monopoly in this
article, while possessing mines in our own country, and
yet, to her astonishment, we send back tin-ware. By
increasing our manufactures, we should stop so large
importations of woolen goods as $52,408,921 in
1872, and larger importations of other textiles,
books, wares and numerous luxuries for which we
pay annually many millions. These industries
should be multiplied, and technical education will
tend to this result, by giving us the skilled workmen
needed for this work.  The almost entire disappearance of the apprenticeship system, and the oppressive
rules of trades-unions, make this education an imperative necessity.   Our manufacturers would gladly
listen to the entreaties of fathers and mothers to take
their sons as apprentices, but they cannot.
The State must remedy this evil, or suffer our
youth to become common laborers under foreign
overseers.  England until 1868 neglected this education, and so fell behind the Continent, losing her
position in the manufacture of many articles. The
shawl trade of Leeds was absorbed by continental 
23
manufacturers by reason of their technical knowledge; the silk trade was injured by a superior skill
in dye and finish on the Continent; the designers,
dyers and engravers ill foreign countries,. by possessing a thorough theoretical and practical knowledge
of their several trades, produced greater purity and
beauty of design, cleaner and brighter colors in the
cloths and other fabrics they manufactured, finer
patterns and greater lightness; Coventry ribbons
were taken from her; foreign workmen were employed as painters and designers, and great deficiencies existed in those branches of knowledge which
bear most intimately on the great departments of industry.  Alarmed at these discoveries-that she was
losing her supremacy in manufactures, that French
companies were building locomotives for an English
railway, and that iron girders for a building in
Glasgow were being constructed in Belgium, she at
once established technical schools of a high order in
the large cities, with others of a lower grade in the
smaller towns. For a single department of the art
school in South Kensington, ~1,000,000 were expended, and ~80,000 annually were given for its support by the state. In Queen's Institute, Belfast, Ireland, from three hundred to four hundred female students are trained in all branches of skilled labor, for
which taste and physical fitness make them suitable.
In Europe these schools are many, and are supported wholly or in part by the state, on a scale, too, 
24
worthy the object. In 1869 there were three hundred and fifty technical schools in Paris. Eleven
thousand men receive a technical education annually
in Prussia. From ten thousand to twelve thousand
workmen attend the lectures of the University in
Berlin. Crenzot is a wonder of activity, skill and
success, from her systematic technical education.
From the same cause, Switzerland, cut off from the
sea and from mines, with her mountain climate, at
every disadvantage, competes with the world in many
of her manufactures.  In our own country, Cooper
Institute, Stevens Institute, the Worcester Free Institute, and the Institute of Technology in Boston,
and many colleges and universities, are doing valuable service in this department.
That there should be some change in our course of
education, conforming to the increased extent of the
sciences and their numerous applications, must be
evident. What shall the change be? What reforms
shall be introduced in our present studies, and what
new studies shall be adopted?  Time will permit me
to make only a few suggestions in reply to these important questions.
The primary school should give a knowledge of
objects, their forms and colors and uses. In doing
this, drawing will be found highly useful, and it will
prove an agreeable change from studies less interesting. It is, too, the foundation of technical education,
and is important to all of every trade and profession. 
4
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By training the eye to keenness, and the hand to
accuracy and rapidity, it will prove a valuable aid
to penmanship, orthography and reading, in all of
which close observation is necessary. In its higher
forms, geometric, model, mechanical and architect ural, it should be continued through the higher
schools and colleges. It is not mere picture-drawing
of which I speak, but something higher and more
useful.  As a result of this study, we shall have
better artists, engineers, mechanics, architects, and
designers.  Many articles, such as glass, pottery, cab inet furniture, prints, and other manufactures, n may
be rendered worthless, or have their values increased
manyfold, according to their designs.  Good designs
increase the value of prints from twenty to thirty per
cent.  So important is this art of desiging considered now, that a firm in New York pays a designer
in shoes $5,000 a year. By the beauty of his designs
a manufacturer of silverware in Taunton, Mass.,
drove every other manufacturer out of the market.
A single manufacturing company in Massachusetts
stated that their designs cost them $40,000 annually,
every dollar of which went to England, France and
Germany.  This sum should be saved to our own
country.
Workmen do not sufficiently understand the importance          of drawing. It is said that if this art.were'
understood by every journeyman in a machine shop,
the productive efficiency would be increased'thirty                        4
0 1 
26
three per cent. By enabling workmen to work from
a design instead of expensive models, this art would
save a vast amount of time and money. A manager
of an important branch of industry at Worcester,
Massachusetts, says that, when a lad, he was one of
a class of thirteen, who spent all their leisure time in
studying drawing. At the present time, every one
then in the class has attained an important position
either as manufacturer or manager, and each has
owed his power to seize the opportunity of advancement, to his knowledge of drawing.
Massachusetts, ever alive to her educational and
manufacturing interests, finding that she was far behind Europe in the education of h5er laborers, and
that, as a consequence, her industries were suffering,
adopted drawing as one of the studies to be taught
in all the public schools of the State, making it obligatory on every city containing over ten thousand
inhabitants to furnish free instruction in this art to
all over fifteen years of age. An art director was
procured from Europe at a salary of $5,000, and generous provisions were, in all respects, made.  The
result is most gratifying.  In 1870, her product in
printed cottons was over $17,000,000, and her other
manufactures in which design is of the first importance, were probably more. Massachusetts never
made a better investment for her sons and daughters,
and her manufacturing interests.
It is believed that this study can be introduced 
27
into our schools without interfering at all with the
present lines of study. Familiar lectures, with illustrations, on geometry, elementary physics, elementary chemistry and natural history, should be given
to all who are to leave school early. The amount of
scientific information thus received, though it may
be small, will lead the pupils to notice facts and to
study principles in science throughout life. As the
pupils advance, as far as practicable, models or drawings of machinery, or the machinery itself; and all
processes of manufacture, should be examined, and
reports made with drawings explaining them, showing their excellencies or defects, and suggesting remedies. Special schools, or departments in existing
schools, should be established where these branches
may be thoroughly taught. As soon as it can be
done, shops should be erected, where certain trades
or parts of trades can be learned, where the hand and
eye can be trained, and the student prepared for
work or the management of works. Those who take
a higher course in our schools and universities,
should receive thorough instruction in all the sciences which relate to engineering, agriculture, the arts,
trades and manufactures. It is my opinion, confirmed by many educators of experience and good
judgment, that much of the time-years, it may be
-now devoted to a few primary studies, reviewed so
often that the process becomes mechanical and positively injurious, may be saved by commencing each 
28
study at the proper age, and omitting unnecessary
portions of the text-books.  Occasionally, for a term,
the study of arithmetic, geography or grammar, may
be wholly omitted for some new and more interesting study relating to science or the arts.  The experiments and illustrations will awaken mind, kindle
enthusiasm, and many will be induced to prolong
their attendance at school, who otherwise would not.
By this course far more will be accomplished in a
given time than now.  It has been found that students who have spent but two hours per day in study,
and the remaining hours in labor in which they felt
an interest, have often made as much proficiency in
their studies as those who have devoted their whole
time to study.
Those whose course of study is to be limited to
fourteen or sixteen years of age-and these compose
by far the largest part of our students-should have
a short, practical course, in accordance with such
limited time. All, of whatever capacity or purpose,
should not be compelled to pursue the same routine
in the same time.  This is the very objection brought
so justly against the old collegiate system. Yet while
that system in many  colleges has been so much
changed as to embrace numerous distinct courses
suited to the different students, and in addition, in
one case at  least, to offer more than forty optional
studies there has not been a corresponding change
in most of our grammar and ward schools.
Our best authorities agree that our public school 
29
system, so well adapted to a former state of society,
fails to meet the wants of our people in the present
state of civilization. And while there is a demand
to extend our course of education upwards so as to
embrace all the sciences, let us seek to extend it
downwards to the practical, the Kindergarten, in all
our primary and grammar schools. What is demanded of the college, let the public school practice. A
loss of two or three years to a student in our public
schools, who has but  a few years of study, is far
more to him than the same number of years to the
collegiate student, whose course may extend to his
twenty-second or twenty-fifth year.   Let not the
student, fitted by capacity and taste to excel in some
one branch of knowledge or art, be compelled  to
spend all his school years on studies, valuable, it is
true, yet having no special bearing on his future
pursuit, on which all his interests centre. A failure
to arouse the mind of the student, and to communicate to him that knowledge which he may most need
in life, may be fatal to his whole future.
If a reform' is needed, our educators should endeavor to effect it at once, so that there may be as
little loss as possible. Let us not be "the last by
whom the new is tried." A great work lies before
us.  Public opinion is to be formed, legislators are
to be instructed, and large expenditures to be made
by the State or individuals. In a cause which will
yield such large returns the State can afford to expend
liberally.
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Some special schools have already been established
on a comparatively limited scale, and many of our
colleges, where the change commenced in this country, have their scientific departments. The effects
of these practical and theoretical technical schools,
wherever established, have been most marked-stimulating the intellect to activity, and diminishing the
poverty, vice and crime of the community. And
when we consider that eighty-two per cent. of the
criminals of our country never learned any trade,
never were masters of any skilled labor, and only
six per cent. are skilled artisans and mechanics, the
ethical value of this education becomes exceedingly
important.  The professions are crowded, and manufacturing and mechanical and agricultural pursuits
are less honored than they should be. Our fathers
and mothers should feel that a practical technical
education is what most of their sons and daughters
need. Our youth should be taught that there is true
dignity in skilled manual labor, and that it will
bring liberal pecuniary returns.
To woman, rapidly rising to her true position, to
whom the avenues of trade, the professions, and all
kinds of employment are opening, this subject appeals with peculiar force. She should have a deep
interest in any measure which will render her less
dependent on husband, brother or father, and which
will enable her to obtain a generous support when
other resources fail. She should seek to be in a con
*. I: 
31
dition to feel independent, and to be able with ease
to earn a livelihood. A knowledge of some art will
tend to give her a higher position and to secure for
her higher respect.  From her knowledge of colors
and their relations, and her skill in drawing, woman
is fitted to succeed in whatever requires taste. The
success of the lady pupils at South Kensington is
greater than that of the male students, and that in
tlhe face of greater difficulties. The many branches
of art-workmanship requiring delicate fingers and
native readiness of taste, can be better performed by
woman than by man. In 1859, twenty thousand
women were employed in watch-making in Switzerland. Our silk manufacturers employ seven thousand eight hundred and two women, in light, clean,
remunerative work. A lady in Pittsburgh receives
$250 per month  for designs in embroidery, made
wholly by herself. Woman can excel in draughting,
architectural drawing, photography, engraving, modeling, designing and painting. Education in the
arts, by opening to her new departments of labor,
will enable her better to compete with man, secure
for her better compensation for her services, and will
increase her usefulness and influence.
For the proper education of all our youth, with
the least loss-the education that will best fit them
for the duties of life, I plead. I do not, while speaking in behalf of practical learning, forget the moral
and the religious training, without which man will be
e I 
32
a failure here and hereafter. The heart is more than
the hand or eye-the future more than the present.
Ability, power, may be used for evil instead of goo.d;
to curse instead of to bless. To others I must entrust this subject. I plead for useful learning in the
school-room or the shop, or both, as a means of interesting our youth, giving them  a taste for manual
pursuits, so restraining them from idleness and
crime; of enabling them to provide better for their
own comfort and happiness, so increasing their selfrespect and adding to the wealth and moral power of
the State.
The effects of technical education in Europe lead
us to believe that this system, commenced in the primary school, and continued through the different
grades, would bring many of the five million youth
in our country of school age, who attend no school,
under instruction, anid make them industrious, moral,
happy and skilled laborers, instead of paupers and
criminals.
When plans for education in all its departments,
for all, shall be wisely devised and faithfully executed, we shall have better and more productive
workmen, better citizens, thinking men and women,
multiplied power of machinery economically used,
the yield of our soil doubled, a more virtuous people; and our republic more prosperous  and more
safe.