The assertion of the majesty of the hand by the Ionic philosopher of the fifth century B.C. contained the germ of the manual training idea of this latter part of the nineteenth century. Anaxagoras was unconsciously, no doubt, struggling toward the light, toward the inductive method of investigation, toward the sole avenue through which it is possible to study the mind, namely, through the body. The ignorance of the ancients on the subject of physiology was so dense as to leave them no resource save speculative philosophy. The progress made in the study of anatomy, and organic and inorganic chemistry at Alexandria, was, however, considerable. The foundations of a systematic physiology were being securely laid by Hippocrates, Herophilus, and their compeers of the medical profession, and the way was thus being opened to an intelligent study of the mind. It is highly probable that this growing disposition to investigate things, together with the increasing importance to civilization of the useful arts, would soon have reacted destructively upon the speculative philosophy of the time had not a series of national disasters, involving the fall of Greece and Rome, overwhelmed both arts and philosophy in one common ruin.
From the fall of Rome to the time of Bacon speculative philosophy dominated the world. Progress dates from the beginning of the seventeenth century, but it was very slow until within a hundred years. Philosophy has now, however, found a scientific basis. Instead of speculating about the “theory of vitality,” it concerns itself with “the natural phenomena of living bodies, so far as they are appreciable by the human senses and intelligence.”
But the schools have not moved forward with events. Their methods are unscientific; they are still dominated by the mediæval ideas of speculative philosophy. One of the ablest educators in this country has well observed that “there has been very little change in the ideas which have controlled our methods of education, and these ideas were formed something like four hundred years ago. Like nearly all the great agencies of modern civilization, the established system of education dates from the Renaissance, and the direction given to the schools at that time has been followed with but slight modification ever since.”[23]
[23] Mr. James MacAlister, Superintendent of Schools of the City of Philadelphia, before the American Institute of Instruction at Saratoga, July 13, 1882.
The justice of this arraignment of the schools for extreme conservatism is shown by the remark of a prominent educator who opposes the incorporation of manual training in the curriculum of the public schools. He says, “Some even go so far as to regard the fingers as a new avenue to the brain, and think that great pedagogic advantages will be given by the new method, so that boys may make equal attainments in arithmetic, reading, and grammar in less time.... They [teachers] will still find the eye and ear nearer to the brain than the hand.” No assumption could be more false than this, that the eye and the ear are more important organs than the hand because they are located, physically, nearer the brain. The attribute of mobility with which the hand is endowed confers upon it not only the potency of the closest possible proximity, but each of the countless positions it may assume, together with its flexibility and adaptability, multiplies its powers in the order of a geometrical ratio.
This disposition to undervalue the hand is an inheritance from the speculative philosophy of the Middle Ages, which was based on contempt of the body and all its members. The effect of this false doctrine has been vicious in the extreme. Contempt for the body has generated a feeling of contempt for manual labor, and repugnance to manual labor has multiplied dishonest practices in the course of the struggle to acquire wealth by any other means than manual labor, and so corrupted society.
That man should feel contempt for the most efficient member of his own body is, indeed, incomprehensible, since contempt for the hand leads logically to contempt for its works, and its works comprise all the visible results of civilization. To enumerate the works of the hand would be to describe the world as it at present exists in contradistinction to the world in a state of nature. Everywhere we behold with admiration and wonder the marvellous triumphs of the hand, from the iron bridge that spans the torrent of Niagara to the steel micrometer that measures the millionth part of an inch. It matters not whether the hand is nearer or farther from the brain than the eye and the ear, it is able to afford powerful aid to them.
Man would explore the planetary system; he lifts his longing eyes to the starry vault, but in vain; it is a sealed book! The hand fashions the telescope, adjusts it, places it at a convenient angle, and the milky way is resolved into millions of stars, “scattered like glittering dust on the black ground of the general heavens,” the lunar mountains are measured, and the spots on the sun revealed. Man would study the anatomy and habits of the myriads of insects in which the teeming earth abounds. Impossible! The mechanism of the eye is not adapted to such a delicate operation. But the hand presents the microscope, and a world of hitherto unknown minute existences is revealed with a distinctness which permits the most exhaustive investigation. Thus, through the aid of the hand, the eye now contemplates with philosophic interest the ever-changing aspect of the spots on the sun at a distance of ninety million miles, and now imprisons the red ant, measuring only 6⁄100 of an inch in length, and studies its physiology, counting its pulsations, classifying its nerves and muscles, and weighing its brain. Man would speak with his friend or business correspondent miles away. Neither the voice nor the ear is adapted to the task. But the hand fashions and presents the telephone, and the conversation proceeds even in a whisper. It will be said that the mind devises the telescope, the microscope, and the telephone. True, but their construction would be impossible without the hand. And is it at all probable that the mind would have devised these admirable instruments if man had been made without hands?[24]
[24] “The hand is the most marvellous instrument in the world; it is the necessary complement of the mind in dealing with matter in all its varied forms. It is the hand that ‘rounded Peter’s dome;’ it is the hand that carved those statues in marble and bronze, that painted those pictures in palace and church, which we travel into distant lands to admire; it is the hand that builds the ships which sail the sea, laden with the commerce of the world; it is the hand that constructs the machinery which moves the busy industries of this age of steam; it is the hand that enables the mind to realize in a thousand ways its highest imaginings, its profoundest reasonings, and its most practical inventions.”—Mr. James MacAlister, Superintendent of Schools of the City of Philadelphia, before the American Institute of Instruction at Saratoga, July 13, 1882.