[113] “Resolved, That we recognize the educational value of training the hand to skill in the use of tools, and recommend that provision be made, as far as practicable, for such training in public schools.”
Ohio ranks as the third State in the Union industrially, and she is making great strides in the direction of a more practical system of education. This is shown by the prominent place given to instruction in the mechanic arts in the State University at Columbus, by the prosperity of the Case School of Applied Science, and the introduction of manual training to the public-school system at Cleveland, and by the establishment of the Scott Manual Training School at Toledo. The city of Toledo owes the inception of the movement in support of the new education to the munificence of the late Jesup W. Scott, who during his life conveyed to trustees for purposes of industrial education, in connection with the public-school system, certain valuable real estate. After the death of Mr. Scott, his three sons,[114] still residents of Toledo, supplemented their father’s donation with a sufficient sum of money to secure the erection and complete equipment of a manual training school for three hundred and fifty pupils.
[114] William F., Frank J., and Maurice Scott.
The school is modelled after the schools of St. Louis and Chicago; but it gives only the manual side of the curriculum, because it is conducted in connection with the public High School, receiving its pupils therefrom. It opened in the autumn of 1884 with sixty pupils, ten of whom were girls. Its register now numbers two hundred, fifty of whom are girls. Its course for boys is substantially the same as that of the Chicago school. The course for girls includes free-hand and mechanical drawing, designing, modelling, wood-carving, cutting, fitting, and making garments, and domestic science, including food preparation and household decoration. A distinguished lawyer and citizen of Toledo,[115] who has been prominent in the work of establishing the school, says,
“The brightest and most faithful pupils of the High School have eagerly availed themselves of the opportunity for manual instruction, and the zeal with which this new work is pursued has added a new charm to school life.”
[115] Hon. A. E. Macomber.
The school is in charge of Mr. Ralph Miller, B.S., who is assisted by Mr. Geo. S. Mills, B.S.[116] It is especially interesting, both as the newest educational enterprise and because it places the sexes on a footing of absolute equality. Reform in education must begin with woman, for it is from her that man inherits his notable traits, and from her that he receives the earliest and most enduring impressions. In the arms of the mother the infant mind rapidly unfolds. It is in the cradle, in the nursery, and at the fireside that the child becomes father of the man. The regeneration of the race through education must, then, begin with the child, and be directed by the mother; and this being the fact, the education of woman becomes far more imperative than that of man.
[116] Graduates of the St. Louis Manual Training School, class of 1884.
That the ancients made so little progress in morals is due to the fact of their neglect of the education of woman. Neither in Egypt nor Persia was provision made for her mental or moral training. There were schools for boys in Greece, but none for girls; and not till late in the Empire was there any special culture for girls in Rome.
In the Middle Ages learning was confined to the religious orders. The narrow bounds of the convent contained all there was of science and art. In the castle and at the tournament woman ministered to man’s pride and vanity; and in the peasant’s hut, which was the abode equally of poverty and ignorance, she endured both mental and moral starvation. Sir Walter Raleigh, Lord Bacon, Swift, Addison, Lord Chesterfield, Dr. Johnson, and Southey treated woman with mingled contempt and pity, and yet they were familiar with the story of Lucretia, of Virginia, and of the Maid of Orleans! But Shakespeare, with a sublimer genius, portrayed a Cordelia, a Desdemona, an Imogen, and a Queen Catharine, and with rare prevision of a future better than the age he knew, wrote these glowing lines: