Mind and Hand: Manual Training the Chief Factor in Education

by Charles H. Ham

An Old Civilization in a New Country. — Old Methods in a New System of Schools. — Sordid Views of Education. — The highest Aim Money-getting. — Herbert Spencer on the English Schools. — Same Defects in the American Schools. — Maxims of Selfishness. — The Cultivation of Avarice. — Political Incongruities. — Negroes escaping from Slavery called Fugitives from Justice. — The Results of Subjective Educational Processes. — Climatic Influences alone saved America from becoming a Slave Empire. — Illiteracy. — Abnormal Growth of Cities. — Failure of Justice. — Defects of Education shown in Reckless and Corrupt Legislation. — Waste of an Empire of Public Land. — Henry D. Lloyd’s History of Congressional Land Grants. — The Growth and Power of Corporations. — The Origin of large Fortunes, Speculations. — Old Social Forces producing old Social Evils. — Still America is the Hope of the World. — The Right of Suffrage in the United States justifies the Sentiment of Patriotism. — Let Suffrage be made Intelligent and Virtuous, and all Social Evils will yield to it; and all the Wealth of the Country is subject to the Draft of the Ballot for Education. — The Hope of Social Reform depends upon a complete Educational Revolution.

The discovery of America startled Europe. It was a great blow to prevailing dogmatisms. It upset many learned (?) theories. It swept away patristic geography. It completed the figure of the earth, rendering it susceptible of intelligent study. The advantages of such investigation accrued to man, to a degree, before the social and civil life of America began. In the century and a quarter which elapsed between the landing of Columbus and that of the Pilgrims, on these shores, considerable social and political progress was made in Europe, and especially in England. From the turbulent scenes of the reigns of James I. and Charles I., which eventuated in the Cromwellian rebellion and victory of the Commons, the Pilgrims escaped. They not only bore with them, to the new continent, the impress of the long struggle for liberty waged by the English people, but they were, in a certain sense, the product of the progress of all the ages. But they constituted only a small part of the column of immigrants. Detachments of the Cavaliers came also, and Germans, Frenchmen, and Irishmen came with them.

The discovery of America was a sort of new creation,[91] but its almost virgin soil was destined to become the home of an old civilization. From all the nationalities of the Old World the New World was to be peopled. The ambitious, the restless, the adventurous, the enterprising, and the hardy of every tongue, were gradually to assemble in the new field of action. The manner in which they treated the natives of the new country, both north and south, showed their origin and their training. Their determination to conquer and hold the new territory was but thinly disguised. Their descent upon the Atlantic coast was not the exact counterpart of that of Cæsar upon the coast of Britain, but it was the same in spirit; and the active trade in slaves which soon sprang up, and which was thereafter vigorously prosecuted for two hundred years, showed the taint of savagery—the impress of Roman cruelty, rapacity, and injustice.

[91] “The discovery of America is the greatest event which has ever taken place in this world of ours, one half of which had hitherto been unknown to the other. All that until now appeared extraordinary seems to disappear before this sort of new creation.”—Voltaire.

It is evident that in its most important feature—the formation of character—education had made little if any progress at the time of the organization of civil society in America. The democratic idea was not new. It found expression in every form during the struggles of Greece and Rome, and the revival of learning had led to the discussion of governmental questions in the light of history. Besides, the reformation of Luther had opened the way to the last analysis of dissent in the person of Roger Williams, who asserted the right of absolute freedom of thought and speech. Of the religious right of private judgment the political right of an equal voice in public affairs is the corollary. Hence, that the Puritans should establish the town organizations so justly lauded by M. Tocqueville was quite logical.[92] Nor was the public-school system less logical; all citizens being members of the government, all children must be prepared for the duties of citizenship. But unfortunately the old system of education was put into the new schools, as the old civilizations had been transferred to the new country. The system of education under which the kings and ruling classes of England and of the continent of Europe were trained to selfishness, cruelty, and injustice, was heedlessly adopted in the schools of New England, which became the models of schools throughout the country.

[92] “Town meetings are to liberty what primary schools are to science; they bring it within the people’s reach, they teach men how to use and how to enjoy it.... The township institutions of New England form a complete and regular whole; they are old; they have the support of the laws, and the still stronger support of the manners of the community, over which they exercise a prodigious influence.”—“Democracy in America,” Vol. I., p. 76. By Alexis De Tocqueville. Boston: John Allyn, 1876.

The popular idea in regard to the schools was (1) that they fitted their pupils for the duties of citizenship, or, more properly, for the art of governing, and (2) that they taught the art of getting on in the world; and getting on in the world was interpreted to mean getting and keeping money. That this sordid view of education was generally held in the rural districts of New England is shown by the fact that any culture beyond a limited and imperfect knowledge of reading, writing, and arithmetic was regarded as superfluous. Not even the rudiments of either the sciences or the arts were imparted, and yet it is only through a knowledge of the sciences and the arts that progress in civilization is made. The early settlers of New England devised a new system of schools, but they imported into them an old system of education, the Greco-Roman subjective system, introduced into England with the revival of learning. Of this system Mr. Herbert Spencer says, “Had there been no teaching but such as is given in our public schools, England would now be what it was in feudal times.” And he adds:

“The vital knowledge, that by which we have grown as a nation to what we are, and which now underlies our whole existence, is a knowledge that has got itself taught in nooks and corners, while the ordained agencies for teaching have been mumbling little else but dead formulas.”[93]

[93] “That which our school courses leave almost entirely out, we thus find to be that which most nearly concerns the business of life. All our industries would cease were it not for that information which men begin to acquire as they best may after their education is said to be finished.”—“Education,” p. 54. By Herbert Spencer. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1883.

But these are merely negative effects of subjective methods of education. The positive evil effect of them is selfishness, the sum of all villanies. Under the new system of schools—schools for all—the old philosophy of life flourished. Under the name of prudence, selfishness was deified. The maxim of Herbert—“Help thyself and God will help thee”—was reproduced by Franklin in a hundred forms. The child was taught, not that “The half is more than the whole,” but that “In the race of life the devil takes the hindmost.”