These failures, on so vast a scale, of railway enterprises, and the almost total wreck of mercantile ventures, show that the business of this country is done, as a Yankee might say, “by guess,” or as the mechanic of the old régime would say, “by the rule of thumb.” The conclusion is hence irresistible that the youth of the United States are not so educated as to fit them for the conduct, to a successful issue, of great business enterprises. And this is an impeachment of what is regarded, on the whole, as the best system of popular education in operation in the world. A system of education which turns out ninety-three or ninety-seven men who fail, to three or seven men who succeed in business, must be very unscientific. If the savage system of education were not better adapted to the savage state, the savage would perish from the earth in the process of civilization. The savage bends his ear to the ground and robs the forest of its secrets, not three times in a hundred, but ninety and nine times. Ninety-nine times in a hundred he traces the footsteps of his enemy in the tangled mazes of the pathless wood.
In “Aborigines of Australia”[53] Mr. G. S. Lang states that “one day while travelling in Australia he pointed to a footstep and asked whose it was. The guide glanced at it without stopping his horse, and at once answered, ‘Whitefellow call him Tiger.’ This turned out to be correct; which was the more remarkable as the two men belonged to different tribes, and had not met for two years.” Among the Arabs it is asserted that some men know every individual in the tribe by his footstep. Besides this, every Arab knows the printed footsteps of his own camels, and of those belonging to his immediate neighbors. He knows by the depth or slightness of the impression whether a camel was pasturing, and therefore not carrying any load, or mounted by one person only, or heavily loaded. The Australian will kill a pigeon with a spear at a distance of thirty paces. The Esquimau in his kayak will actually turn somersaults in the water. After giving many illustrations of the skill of various races of savages, Sir John Lubbock says,
“What an amount of practice must be required to obtain such skill as this! How true, also, must the weapons be! Indeed it is very evident that each distinct type of flint implement must have been designed for some distinct purpose.” He adds, “The neatness with which the Hottentots, Esquimaux, North American Indians, etc., are able to sew is very remarkable, although awls and sinews would in our hands be but poor substitutes for needles and thread. As already mentioned (in page 332), some cautious archæologists hesitated to refer the reindeer caves of the Dordogne to the Stone Age, on account of the bone needles and the works of art which are found in them. The eyes of the needles especially, they thought, could only be made with metallic implements. Prof. Lartet ingeniously removed these doubts by making a similar needle for himself with the help of flint; but he might have referred to the fact stated by Cook in his first voyage, that the New Zealanders succeeded in drilling a hole through a piece of glass which he had given them, using for this purpose, as he supposed, a piece of jasper.”[54]
[53] “Aborigines of Australia,” p. 24.
[54] “Prehistoric Times,” pp. 544, 548. By Sir John Lubbock, Bart., M.P. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1875.
The education which enables the savage to make these extremely nice adjustments of means to ends is scientific. The observation, for example, of the Arab who draws such accurate conclusions from the “printed footstep of the camel,” if applied to the problems of civilized life, would result in success, not failure.
The excellence of this savage training consists in its practical character, in its perfect adaptation to the end in view. For example, the Esquimau boy is not instructed in the theory of turning somersaults in the water, in his kayak. He sees his father perform the feat; he is given a kayak and required to perform it also. The result is early and complete success. So of the Arab. In traversing the desert it is important for him to read every sign, to translate every mark left in the sand. Upon the accuracy of his observation his life may often depend. The print of the camel’s footstep may tell him whether he is, soon or late, to meet friend or foe. Hence from early childhood his faculty of observation is trained until it soon becomes as delicate and nice as the sense of touch of a blind, deaf mute. Sir John Lubbock thinks that a great amount of practice must be required to achieve so much skill; but the results are due, probably, more to the nature, than to the extent, of the practice. It is the excellence of the training that produces results which excite wonder and admiration. The savage is indolent; he works only that he may eat, and he works well, simply because he has been taught objectively, instead of subjectively.
The difference in results between the best and the poorest methods of instruction is very great, as witness the testimony of Mr. Thomas Foley, late instructor in forging, vise-work, and machine-tool work in the school of mechanic arts of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He says,
“It is a great waste of time to spend two or three years in acquiring knowledge of a given business, profession, or trade, that can be acquired in the short space of twelve or thirteen days, under a proper course of instruction. Twelve days of systematic school-shop instruction produces as great a degree of dexterity as two or more years’ apprenticeship under the adverse conditions which prevail in the trade-shop.”[55] The manual training methods are the same as those which enable the savage to perform such feats of skill. They are the natural and hence most efficient methods of imparting instruction.
[55] Report on “The Manual Element in Education,” p. 30. By John D. Runkle, Ph.D., LL.D., Walker Professor of Mathematics, Institute of Technology, Boston, Mass.