In the light of this analysis Carlyle’s rhapsody on tools becomes a prosaic fact, and his conclusion—that man without tools is nothing, with tools all—points the way to the discovery of the philosopher’s stone in education. For if man without tools is nothing, to be unable to use tools is to be destitute of power; and if with tools he is all, to be able to use tools is to be all-powerful. And this power in the concrete, the power to do some useful thing for man—this is the last analysis of educational truth.
There is no better definition of education than that of Pestalozzi—“the generation of power.” But what kind of power? Not merely power to think abstractly, to speculate, to moralize, to philosophize, but power to act intelligently. And the power to act intelligently involves the exertion, in greater or less degree, of all the powers, both mental and physical. Education, then, is the development of all the powers of man to the culminating point of action. What kind of action? Action in art. What is art? “The power of doing something not taught by nature or instinct; power or skill in the use of knowledge; the practical application of the rules or principles of science.” Again we have the last analysis of education—“skill in the use of knowledge; the application of the rules or principles of science.” And this is tool practice.
It is unnecessary, in an educational view, to divide the arts by the employment of the terms “useful” and “fine;” for the fine arts can only exist legitimately where the useful arts have paved the way. In a harmonious development the artist will enter on the heels of the artisan. Art is cosmopolitan. It is not less worthily represented by the carpenter with his square, saw, and plane, and the smith with his sledge, than by the sculptor with his mallet and chisel, and the painter with his easel and brush; both classes contribute to the comfort and pleasure of man; for comfort is enhanced by pleasure, and pleasure is intensified by comfort. It follows that the ultimate object of education is the attainment of skill in the arts. To this end the speculations and investigations of philosophy and the experiments of chemistry lead. At the door of the study of the philosopher and of the laboratory of the chemist stands the artisan, listening for the newest hint that philosophy can impart, waiting for the result of the latest chemical analysis. In his hands these suggestions take form; through his skilful manipulation the faint indications of science become real things, suited to the exigencies of human life.
It is the most astounding fact of history that education has been confined to abstractions. The schools have taught history, mathematics, language and literature, and the sciences, to the utter exclusion of the arts, notwithstanding the obvious fact that it is through the arts alone that other branches of learning touch human life. As Bacon has so aptly expressed it, “The real and legitimate goal of the sciences is the endowment of human life with new inventions and riches.” In a word, public education stops at the exact point where it should begin to apply the theories it has imparted. At this point the school of mental and manual training combined—the Ideal School—begins; not only books but tools are put into the hands of the pupil, with this injunction of Comenius; “Let those things that have to be done be learned by doing them.”
CHAPTER III.
THE ENGINE-ROOM.
The Corliss Engine. — A Thing of Grace and Power. — The Growth of Two Thousand Years. — From Hero to Watt. — Its Duty as a School-master. — The Interdependence of the Ages. — The School in Epitome.
Let us enter the Ideal School building and take a bird’s-eye view of the visible processes of the new education.
The first object that attracts attention is the engine. It is a “Corliss,” fifty-two horse-power, and makes that peculiar kind of noise which conveys to the mind of the observer an impression of restrained power. When the student, upon entering the school, is shown this beautiful machine he is told that it, like all other inventions, is a growth—the growth of at least two thousand years; that the power of steam was known to the ancients—the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans; that Hero, a philosopher of Alexandria, invented a crude steam-engine before the beginning of the Christian era, and that the engine before us, which throbs and trembles under the pressure of its battery of steel boilers in doing duty as a school-master, is the latest development of Hero’s conception. The educational idea underlying this fact is the interdependence of the ages; each generation is a link between the past and the future. “To show,” as Philarète Chasles says, “that man can only act efficiently by association with others, it has been ordained that each inventor shall only interpret the first word of the problem he sets himself to solve, and that every great idea shall be the résumé of the past at the same time that it is the germ of the future.”
The first word of the solution of the steam-power problem came from Hero down the ages, through Decans, Papin, Savory, Newcomen, Breighton, and Smeaton, to Watt. To Watt is awarded the honor of the invention of the modern steam-engine; but the first conception of his engine was derived from an atmospheric machine through the accident of it having been placed in his hands for repairs. Smeaton was the inventor of that atmospheric engine, and his mind was one of the links in the chain of intelligences extending back to Egypt, through whose united agency the steam-engine became a real thing of power in the cunning hands of James Watt, of whom the late Dr. Draper said, “He conferred on his native country more solid benefits than all the treaties she ever made and all the battles she ever won.” This law governing great achievements is full of encouragement to the student of mechanics, for while the thought of compassing any great discovery or invention may well appall even the boldest, the most humble may hope through studious industry to contribute something to the sum of human knowledge.
The engine-room of our school is neater than that of the ordinary machine-shop, but the furnace roars like any other, its open mouth shows a bank of glowing coals, and the “stoker,” with grimy hands, wipes the sweat from his sooty brow. The whole school is here seen in epitome: the “stoker” typifies the student toiling at the forge, and in the polished engine, exhibiting both grace and power in its automatic action, we see the student’s graduating project, a machine, the joint creation of brain, eye, and hand.