SOME LINES OF PROGRESS
=Progress.=--The period covering the last sixty or seventy-five years
has seen greater progress in all material lines than any other equal
period of the world's history. Indeed, it is doubtful if a similar
period of invention and progress will ever recur. It has been one of
industrial revolution in all lines of activity.
=In Reaping Machines.=--Let us for a few moments trace this development
and progress in some specific fields. Within the memory of many men now
living the hand sickle was in common use in the cutting of grain. In the
fifties and sixties the cradle was the usual implement for harvesting
wheat, oats, and similar grains. One man did the cradling and another
the gathering and the binding into sheaves. Then came rapid development
of the reaping machine.
=The "Dropper."=--The most important step was probably the invention of
the sickle-bar, a slender steel bar having V-shaped sections attached,
to cut the grass and grain; this was pushed and pulled between what are
called guards, by means of a rod called the "Pitman rod," attached to a
small revolving wheel run by the gearing of the machine. This was a
wonderful invention and its principle has been extensively applied. The
first reaping machine using the sickle and guard device was known as the
"dropper." A reel, worked by machinery, revolved at a short distance
above the sickle, beating the wheat backward upon a small platform of
slats. This platform could be raised and lowered by the foot, by means
of a treadle. When there was sufficient grain on this slat-platform it
was lowered and the wheat was left lying in short rows on the ground,
behind the machine. The bundles had to be bound by hand and removed
before the machine could make the next round. This machine, though
simple, was the forerunner of other important inventions.
=The Hand Rake.=--The next type of machine was the one in which the
platform of slats was replaced by a stationary platform having a smooth
board floor. A man sat at the side of the machine, near the rear, and
raked the bundles off sidewise with a hand rake. A boy drove the team
and the man raked off the grain in sufficient quantities to make
bundles. These were thrown by the rake a sufficient distance from the
standing grain to allow the machine to proceed round and round the
field, even if these bundles of grain, so raked off, were not yet bound
into sheaves.
=The Self Rake.=--The next advance consisted in what is known as the
"self rake." This machine had a series of slats or wings which did both
the work of the reel in the earlier machine and also that of the man
who raked the wheat off the later machine. This saved the labor of one
man.
=The Harvester.=--The next improvement in the evolution of the reaping
machine--if indeed an improvement it could be called--was what is known
as the "harvester." In this there was a canvas elevator upon which the
grain was thrown by the reel, and which brought the grain up to the
platform on which two men stood for the purpose of binding it. Each man
took his share, binding alternate bundles and throwing them, when bound,
down on the ground. Such work was certainly one of the repellent factors
in driving men and boys from the country to the city.
=The Wire Binder.=--Another step in advance was the invention of the
wire binder. Everything was now done by machinery: the cutting, the
elevating, the binding, and even the carrying of the sheaves into piles
or windrows. There was an attachment upon the machine by which the
bundles were carried along and deposited in bunches to make the
"shocking" easier.
=The Twine Binder.=--But the wire was found to be an obstruction both in
threshing and in the use of straw for fodder; and, as necessity is the
mother of invention, the so-called twine "knotter" soon came into
existence and with it the full-fledged twine binder with all its varied
improvements as we have it to-day.
=Threshing Machine.=--The development of the perfected threshing machine
was very similar. Fifty years ago, the flail was an implement of common
use upon the barn floor. Then came the invention called the "cylinder";
this was systematically studded with "teeth" and these, in the rapid
revolutions of the cylinder, passed between corresponding teeth
systematically set in what is known as "concaves." This tooth
arrangement in revolving cylinder and in concave was as epochal in the
line of progress in threshing machines as the sickle, with its
"sections" passing or being drawn through guards, was in reaping
machines.
=The First Machine.=--The earliest of these threshing machines
containing a cylinder was run by a treadmill on which a horse was used.
It was literally a "one-horse" affair. Of course the first type of
cylinder was small and simple, and the work as a rule was poorly done.
The chaff and the straw came out together and men had to attend to each
by hand. The wheat was poorly cleaned and had to be run through a
fanning-mill several times.
=Improvements.=--Then came some improvements and enlargements in the
cylinder, and also the application of horse power by means of what was
known as "tumbling rods" and a gearing attached to the cylinder. All
this at first was on rather a small scale, only two, three, or four
horses being used. But improvements and enlargements came step by step,
until the ten and twelve horse power machine was achieved, resulting in
the large separator that would thresh out several hundred bushels of
wheat in a day. The separator had also attached to it what was called
the "straw carrier," which conveyed both the straw and the chaff to
quite a distance from the machine. But even then most of the work around
the machine was done by hand. The straw pile required the attention of
three or four men; or if the straw were "bucked," as they said, it
required a man with a horse or team hitched to a long pole. In this
latter case the straw was spread in various parts of the field and
finally burned.
=The Steam Engine.=--Then came the portable steam engine for threshing
purposes. At first, however, this had to be drawn from place to place by
teams. The power was applied to the separator by a long belt. Following
this, came the devices for cutting the bands, the self-feeder, and
finally the straw blower, as it is called, consisting of a long tube
through which the straw is blown by the powerful separator fanning-mill.
This blower can be moved in different directions, and consequently it
saves the labor of as many men as were formerly required to handle the
straw and chaff. About the same time, also, the device for weighing and
measuring the grain was perfected. The "traction" engine has now
replaced the one which had to be drawn by teams, and this not only
propels itself but also draws the separator and other loads after it
from place to place. In all this progress the machinery has constantly
become more and more perfect and the cylinder and capacity of the
machine greater and greater. Not many years ago, six hundred bushels in
a day was considered a big record in the threshing of wheat. Now the
large machines separate, or thresh out, between three and four thousand
bushels in one day. Such has been the development in reaping machines
from the sickle to the self-binder, and in threshing machines from the
flail to the modern marvel just described.
=Improvement in Ocean Travel.=--A similar story may be told in regard to
ocean traffic and ocean travel. Our ancestors came from foreign lands on
sailing ships that required from three weeks to several months to cross
the Atlantic. I am acquainted with a German immigrant who, many years
ago, left a seaport town of Germany on January 1st and landed at Castle
Garden in New York City on the 4th of July. The inconvenience of travel
under such circumstances was equal to the slowness of the journey. In
those days leaving home in the old country meant never again seeing
one's relatives and friends. If such conditions are compared with those
of to-day we can readily realize the vast progress that has been made.
To-day the great ocean liners cross the Atlantic in a little more than
five days. These magnificent "ocean greyhounds" are fitted out with all
modern conveniences and improvements, so that one is as comfortable in
them and as safe as he is in one of the best hotels of the large cities.
=From Hand-spinning to Factory.=--Weaving in former times was done
entirely by hand. Fifty years ago private weavers were found in almost
every community. Wool was raised, carded, spun, and woven, and the
garments were all made, practically, within the household. All that is
now past. In the great manufacturing establishments one man at a lever
does the work of 250 or 500 people. This great industrial advancement
has taken place within the memory of people now living. And similar
progress has been made in almost every other line of human endeavor.
=The Cost.=--Very few people realize what it has cost the human race to
pass from one condition to the other in these various lines. Hundreds
and thousands of men have worked and died in the struggle and in the
process of bringing about improvements. Every calamity due to inadequate
machines or to poor methods has had its influence toward causing further
advancements in inventions for the benefit of mankind.
=Progress in Higher Education.=--Let us now turn our attention to the
progress that has been made in the field of academic education. It is
true that many of the great universities were established centuries ago.
These were at first endowed church institutions or theological
seminaries; but the great state universities of this country are
creations of the progressive period under consideration. General
taxation for higher education is comparatively a modern practice. The
University of Michigan was one of the first state universities
established. Since then nearly every commonwealth, whether it has come
into the Union since that time or whether it is one of the older states,
has established a university. There has been a great development of
higher education by the states. No institutions of the country have
grown more rapidly within the last thirty or forty years than the state
universities. They have established departments of every kind. Besides
the college of liberal arts there are in most of them colleges or
schools of law, medicine, engineering in its several lines, education,
pharmacy, dentistry, commerce, industrial arts, and fine arts. The state
university is abroad in the land; it has, as a rule, an extension
department by which it impresses itself upon the people of the state,
outside its walls. The principle of higher education by taxation of all
the people is no longer questioned; it is no longer an experiment. The
state university is relied upon to furnish the country with the leaders
of the future--and leaders will always be in demand, for they are always
sorely needed.
=Progress in Normal Schools.=--While the state universities have been
enjoying this marvelous development, nearly every state has been
establishing normal schools for the professional preparation of
teachers. The normal school as an institution is also modern. As an
institution established and supported by state taxation it is, as a
rule, more recent than the universities. Forty years ago many good
people regarded the normal school idea as visionary and its realization
as a doubtful experiment. Indeed in one western state, as late as the
eighties, its legislature debated the abolition of its normal schools on
the ground that they were not fulfilling or accomplishing any useful
mission. To-day, however, no such charge of inefficiency can be made.
The normal schools, like the universities, have proved their right to
exist. They have been weighed in the balance and have not been found
wanting. It is now generally recognized that those who would teach
should make some preparation for that high calling; and so the normal
schools in every state have demonstrated their "right of domicile" in
the educational system. It is now generally recognized that teaching,
both as a science and as an art, is highly complicated, and that, if it
is to be a profession, there must be special preparation for it.
Consequently the normal schools of the country have had a wonderful and
rapid development from the experimental stage to that in which they have
well-nigh realized their ideals. School boards everywhere look to the
normal schools for their supply of elementary teachers.
=Progress in Agricultural Colleges.=--Similar statements may be made
concerning the agricultural colleges of the country. They are modern
creations in the United States; and with the aid of both the state and
the national government they have come to be vast institutions, devoting
themselves to the teaching and the spreading of scientific farming among
the people. Here there is a vast work to be done. On account of the
trend of population toward the cities, and on account of the vast tracts
of country land lying idle, scientific agriculture should be brought in
to aid in production and thus to keep down the cost of living. The
agricultural colleges of the country have a large part to play in the
solution of the problems of rural life.
=Progress in the High Schools.=--A similar development characterizes the
high schools of the country. Education has extended downward from above.
Universities everywhere have come into existence before the
establishment of secondary schools. Not only are the universities, the
normal schools, and the agricultural colleges of recent origin, but the
high schools also are modern institutions, at least in their present
systematized form. The high schools of the cities constitute to-day one
of the most efficient forms of school organization. At the present time
the better high schools of the cities are veritable colleges--in fact
their curricula are as extensive as were those of the colleges of sixty
years ago. Vast numbers attend them; their faculties are composed of
college graduates or better; they have, as a rule, various departments,
such as manual training, domestic science, agriculture, commercial
subjects, normal courses, etc. In addition to the traditional curricula,
the high schools, like the universities, normal schools, and
agricultural colleges, have kept pace, in large measure, with the
material progress described in the first part of this chapter.
=How Is the Rural School?=--We have described the progress that has
been made in various fields of the industrial world and also in several
kinds of educational institutions. At this point the question may, with
propriety, be asked whether the rural schools have generally kept pace
in their progress with the other and higher institutions which we have
mentioned. We believe that they have not. The rural schools have too
often been the last to attract public interest and to receive the
attention which their importance deserves.
[Illustration: A neglected school in unattractive surroundings]
[Illustration: A lonely road to school. No conveyances provided]
[Illustration: A better type of building with some attempt at
improvements]
[Caption for the above illustrations: THE ONE-ROOM SCHOOL]