PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION.
In 1879 I read a paper before the Chicago Philosophical Society on the subject of “The Inventive Genius; or, an Epitome of Human Progress.” The suggestion of the subject came from Mr. Charles J. Barnes, to whom I desire in this public way to express my obligation for an introduction to a profoundly interesting study, and one which has given a new direction to all my thoughts.
At the conclusion of my labors in the preparation of the paper, I realized the force of Bacon’s remark, that “the real and legitimate goal of the sciences is the endowment of human life with new inventions and riches.”
In tracing the course of invention and discovery, I found that I was moving in the line of the progress of civilization. I found that the great gulf between the savage and the civilized man is spanned by the seven hand-tools—the axe, the saw, the plane, the hammer, the square, the chisel, and the file—and that the modern machine-shop is an aggregation of these tools driven by steam. I hence came to regard tools as the great civilizing agency of the world. With Carlyle I said, “Man without tools is nothing; with tools he is all.” From this point it was only a step to the proposition that, It is through the arts alone that all branches of learning find expression, and touch human life. Then I said, The true definition of education is the development of all the powers of man to the culminating point of action; and this power in the concrete, the power to do some useful thing for man—this must be the last analysis of educational truth.
These ideas are not new. They pervade Lord Bacon’s writings, are admirably formulated in Rousseau’s “Emile,” and were restated by Mr. Herbert Spencer twenty-five years ago. More than this, Comenius, Pestalozzi, and Froebel attempted to carry them into practical operation in the school-room, but with only a small measure of success. It remains for the age of steel to show how powerless mere words are in the presence of things, and so to emphasize the demand for a radical reform in educational methods.
In 1880 my attention was drawn to the Manual Training Department of the Washington University of St. Louis, Mo. In that school I found the realization of Bacon’s aphorism, “Education is the cultivation of a just and legitimate familiarity betwixt the mind and things.” I made an exhaustive study of the methods of the St. Louis school, and reached the conclusion that the philosopher’s stone in education had been discovered. The columns of the Chicago Tribune were opened to me, and I wrote constantly on the subject for the ensuing three years. Meantime the Chicago Manual-Training School (the first independent institution of the kind in the world) was founded and opened, and the agitation spread over the whole country, and indeed over the whole civilized world.
This work was commenced two years ago. I found the labor much more arduous than I anticipated, and its completion has hence been delayed far beyond the time originally contemplated for placing it in the hands of a publisher. It may be summarized briefly as consisting of four divisions: 1. A detailed description of the various laboratory class processes, from the first lesson to the last, in the course of three years. 2. An exhaustive argument a posteriori and a fortiori in support of the proposition that tool practice is highly promotive of intellectual growth, and in a still greater degree of the upbuilding of character. 3. A sketch of the historical period, showing that the decay of civilization and the destruction of social organisms have resulted directly from defects in methods of education. 4. A brief sketch of the history of manual training as an educational force.
To Dr. John D. Runkle, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the founder of manual training as an educational institution in this country, I cannot express too strongly my deep obligation for valuable suggestions and constant encouragement. To him also am I indebted for nearly all my illustrations, as also particularly for the excellent portrait of M. Victor Della Vos, the founder of the new system of education in Russia. I am also under obligations to Col. Augustus Jacobson, a leading advocate of the new education, for constant counsel and support, as also to Dr. Henry H. Belfield, Director of the Chicago Manual Training School, and Mr. John S. Clark, of Boston.
Of the authors consulted, I cannot forbear mention of Lord Bacon, Rousseau, and Herbert Spencer, whose great works constitute the foundation of the new system of education according to nature. Nor can I omit to acknowledge, with all the emphasis of which words are susceptible, my obligations to Mr. Samuel Smiles. His works, from the lives of the engineers to the shortest of his biographies, constitute an inexhaustible treasure-house of facts from which I have drawn without stint. Mr. Smiles has traced the springs of English greatness to their true source, the workshop. I have attempted to continue his office by showing that the workshop is a great educational force, and hence that its educational element ought to be incorporated in the system of public instruction.
The propositions of the following pages involve an educational revolution destined to enlighten, and so ultimately to redeem manual labor from the scorn of the ages of slavery, and, in the end, to render the skilled laborer worthy of high social distinction, thus presenting at once a solution not only of the industrial question but of the social question.
Charles H. Ham.
INTRODUCTION TO THE THIRD EDITION
By Col. Francis W. Parker,
Principal of the Chicago Normal School.
The last twenty-five years have brought much of intrinsic value into American education. Rapid increase in population and ever-changing conditions have made imperative demands for schools adequate to self-government.
The Kindergarten led the way to other substantial reforms in education, and called attention to the actual needs of childhood. It proved conclusively that hand-work is one of the dominant interests of the child, and demonstrated the absolute dependence of brain-growth upon Manual Training.
Manual Training is thus a direct outcome and sequence of the Kindergarten. It supplies a need for which there is no substitute. The belief that that which is begun in the Kindergarten should be continued and expanded in all upper grades, forces itself more and more upon thoughtful minds. Modern psychology brings its potent evidence as to the tremendous value of the work of the hand in the building of the brain. The trend of educational thought will always be in the direction of hand training as a fundamental element in education.
Twenty-five years ago Manual Training was little known in this country as a factor in education. Charles H. Ham, imbued with a fervid patriotism, saw clearly that one of the intrinsic needs of education—an absolute necessity in the evolution of a democracy—is the training of the whole being, hand, brain, and soul, through educative work. He was, indeed, a pioneer, beginning his work when there was very little attention given to this important subject, and at a time, too, when it was opposed by nearly all leading educators.
Mr. Ham, together with Colonel Jacobson, brought a strong influence to bear upon the Commercial Club of Chicago, to found a Manual-Training school. This school is now a department of the Chicago University and has been in successful operation for thirteen years. There are in Chicago to-day the Armour Institute, the Lewis Institute, and the Jewish Manual-Training School, all prominent and well established. There is also a high school for Manual Training in connection with the public schools, and, best of all, there are indications which show that hand-work is making its way throughout the grades.
Mr. Ham, without doubt, had a strong influence upon the late George M. Pullman, which led him to provide, through his will, for a Manual-Training school for the children of the city which he built.
Manual-Training schools are now maintained in almost every city in the Union. Much remains to be done before Manual Training takes its true place in education. The majority of these schools now in existence are for boys who have graduated from the grammar school, which leaves the years between six and fourteen with little or no hand-work. Thus the most important period for brain-growth through hand activity is neglected.
The future of Manual Training is to introduce hand-work as the principal factor in the first four years’ work, to be continued in the four years of the grammar grades, and correlated with all other subjects. Indeed, the ideal is to introduce Manual Training in all courses of study, from the Kindergarten to the University, inclusive.
The patrons of Cook County Normal School owe to Mr. Ham the establishment of Manual Training in connection with the primary grades of the school, nearly fifteen years ago; for without the practical aid he gave it, it could not have been accomplished at that time. The children—indeed, all the people of this country—owe him an immense debt of gratitude for his heroic championship of hand-work.
Manual Training gives a true dignity to labor; it calls attention to the place of hand-work in human progress, and as civilization goes on it will have a higher and still higher place in the hearts of the people.