Shaw’s Garden, adjoining, have been given to the city by Mr. Henry Shaw,
an Englishman who made his fortune in the city, and they remain under
his control as to care and adornment during his life. Those who have
never seen foreign parks and pleasure-gardens can obtain a very good
idea of their formal elegance and impressiveness by visiting Tower Grove
Park and the Botanical Gardens. They will see the perfection of lawns,
avenues ornamented by statuary, flower-beds, and tasteful walks. The
entrances, with stone towers and lodges, suggest similar effects in
France and in England. About the music-stand are white marble busts of
six chief musical composers. The drives are adorned with three statues
in bronze, thirty feet high, designed and cast in Munich by Frederick
Millier. They are figures of Shakespeare, Humboldt, and Columbus, and so
nobly conceived and executed that the patriotic American must wish they
had been done in this country. Of Shaw’s Botanical Garden I need to say
little, for its fame as a comprehensive and classified collection
of trees, plants, and flowers is world-wide. It has no equal in this
country. As a place for botanical study no one appreciated it
more highly than the late Professor Asa Gray. Sometimes a peculiar
classification is followed; one locality’ is devoted to economic
plants—camphor, quinine, cotton, tea, coffee, etc.; another to “Plants
of the Bible.” The space of fifty-four acres, enclosed by high stone
walls, contains, besides the open garden and allées and glass houses,
the summer residence and the tomb of Mr. Shaw. This old gentleman, still
vigorous in his eighty-eighth year, is planning new adornments in the
way of statuary and busts of statesmen, poets, and scientists. His plans
are all liberal and cosmopolitan. For over thirty years his botanical
knowledge, his taste, and abundant wealth and leisure have been devoted
to the creation of this wonderful garden and park, which all bear the
stamp of his strong individuality, and of a certain pleasing foreign
formality. What a source of unfailing delight it must have been to him!
As we sat talking with him I thought how other millionaires, if they
knew how, might envy a matured life, after the struggle for a competency
is over, devoted to this most rational enjoyment, in an occupation as
elevating to the taste as to the character, and having in mind always
the public good. Over the entrance gate is the inscription, “Missouri
Botanical Gardens.” When the city has full control of the garden the
word “Missouri” should be replaced by “Shaw.”
The money expended for public parks gives some idea of the liberal and
far-sighted provision for the health and pleasure of a great city. The
parks originally cost the city 81,309,944, and three millions more have
been spent upon their improvement and maintenance. This indicates an
enlightened spirit, which we shall see characterizes the city in other
things, and is evidence of a high degree of culture.
Of the commerce and manufactures of the town I can give no adequate
statement without going into details, which my space forbids. The
importance of the Mississippi River is much emphasized, not only as an
actual highway of traffic, but as a regulator of railway rates. The town
has by the official reports been discriminated against, and even the
Inter-State Act has not afforded all the relief expected. In 1887
the city shipped to foreign markets by way of the Mississippi and the
jetties 3,973,000 bushels of wheat and 7,365,000 bushels of corn—a
larger exportation than ever before except in the years 1880 and 1881.
An outlet like this is of course a check on railway charges. The trade
of the place employs a banking capital of fifteen millions. The deposits
in 1887 were thirty-seven millions; the clearings over 8894,527,731—the
largest ever reached, and over ten per cent, in excess of the clearings
of 1886. To whatever departments I turn in the report of the Merchants’
Exchange for 1887 I find a vigorous growth—as in building—and in
most articles of commerce a great increase. It appears by the tonnage
statements that, taking receipts and shipments together, 12,060,995 tons
of freight were handled in and out during 1886, against 14,359,059 tons
in 1887—a gain of nineteen and a half per cent. The buildings in 1886
cost $7,030,819; in 1887, $8,162,914. There were $44,740 more stamps
sold at the post-office in 1887 than in 1886. The custom-house
collections were less than in 1886, but reached the figures of
$1,414,747. The assessed value of real and personal property in 1887 was
$217,142,320, on which the rate of taxation in the old city limits was
$2.50.
It is never my intention in these papers to mention individual
enterprises for their own sake, but I do not hesitate to do so when it
is necessary in order to illustrate some peculiar development. It is a
curious matter of observation that so many Western cities have one or
more specialties in which they excel—houses of trade or manufacture
larger and more important than can be found elsewhere. St. Louis finds
itself in this category in regard to several establishments. One of
these is a wooden-ware company, the largest of the sort in the country,
a house which gathers its peculiar goods from all over the United
States, and distributes them almost as widely—a business of gigantic
proportions and bewildering detail. Its annual sales amount to as much
as the sales of all the houses in its line in New York, Chicago, and
Cincinnati together. Another is a hardware company, wholesale and
retail, also the largest of its kind in the country, with sales annually
amounting to six millions of dollars, a very large amount when we
consider that it is made up of an infinite number of small and cheap
articles in iron, from a fish-hook up—indeed, over fifty thousand
separate articles. I spent half a day in this establishment, walking
through its departments, noting the unequalled system of compact
display, classification, and methods of sale and shipment. Merely as
a method of system in business I have never seen anything more
interesting. Another establishment, important on account of its
central position in the continent and its relation to the Louisiana
sugar-fields, is the St. Louis Sugar Refinery.
The refinery proper is the largest building in the Western country
used for manufacturing purposes, and, together with its adjuncts of
cooper-shops and warehouses, covers five entire blocks and employs 500
men. It has a capacity of working up 400 tons of raw sugar a day, but
runs only to the extent of about 200 tons a day, making the value of its
present product $7,500,000 a year.
During the winter and spring it uses Louisiana sugars; the remainder
of the year, sugars of Cuba and the Sandwich Islands. Like all other
refineries of which I have inquired, this reckons the advent of the
Louisiana crop as an important regulator of prices. This establishment,
in common with other industries of the city, has had to complain of
business somewhat hampered by discrimination in railway rates. St. Louis
also has what I suppose, from the figures accessible, to be the largest
lager-beer brewing establishment in the world; its solid, gigantic, and
architecturally imposing buildings lift themselves up like a fortress
over the thirty acres of ground they cover. Its manufacture and sales
in 1887 were 456,511 barrels of beer—an increase of nearly 100,000 since
1885-86. It exports largely to Mexico, South America, the West Indies,
and Australia. The establishment is a marvel of system and ingenious
devices. It employs 1200 laborers, to whom it pays $500,000 a year.
Some of the details are of interest. In the bottling department we saw
workmen filling, corking, labelling, and packing at the rate of 100,000
bottles a day. In a year 25,000,000 bottles are used, packed in 400,000
barrels and boxes. The consumption of barley is 1,100,000 bushels
yearly, and of hops over 700,000 pounds, and the amount of water used
for all purposes is 250,000,000 gallons—nearly enough to float our navy.
The charges for freight received and shipped by rail amount to nearly a
million dollars a year. There are several other large breweries in the
city. The total product manufactured in 1887 was 1,383,301 barrels,
equal to 43,575,872 gallons—more than three times the amount of 1877.
The barley used in the city and vicinity was 2,932,192 bushels, of which
340,335 bushels came from Canada. The direct export of beer during 1887
to foreign countries was equal to 1,924,108 quart bottles. The greater
part of the barley used comes from Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin.
It is useless to enumerate the many railways which touch and affect St.
Louis. The most considerable is the agglomeration known as the Missouri
Pacific, or South-western System, which operated 6994 miles of road on
January 1, 1888. This great aggregate is likely to be much diminished
by the surrender of lines, but the railway facilities of the city are
constantly extending.
There are figures enough to show that St. Louis is a prosperous city,
constantly developing new enterprises with fresh energy; to walk its
handsome streets and drive about its great avenues and parks is
to obtain an impression of a cheerful town on the way to be most
attractive; but its chief distinction lies in its social and
intellectual life, and in the spirit that has made it a pioneer in so
many educational movements. It seems to me a very good place to study
the influence of speculative thought in economic and practical affairs.
The question I am oftenest asked is, whether the little knot of
speculative philosophers accidentally gathered there a few years
ago, and who gave a sort of fame to the city, have had any permanent
influence. For years they discussed abstractions; they sustained for
some time a very remarkable periodical of speculative philosophy, and
in a limited sphere they maintained an elevated tone of thought and life
quite in contrast with our general materialism. The circle is broken,
the members are scattered. Probably the town never understood them,
perhaps they did not altogether understand each other, and maybe the
tremendous conflict of Kant and Hegel settled nothing. But if there is
anything that can be demonstrated in this world it is the influence of
abstract thought upon practical affairs in the long-run. And although
one may not be able to point to any definite thing created or
established by this metaphysical movement, I think I can see that it was
a leaven that had a marked effect in the social, and especially in the
educational, life of the town, and liberalized minds, and opened the way
for the trial of theories in education. One of the disciples declares
that the State Constitution of Missouri and the charter of St. Louis are
distinctly Hegelian. However this may be, both these organic laws are
uncommonly wise in their provisions. A study of the evolution of the
city government is one of the most interesting that the student can
make. Many of the provisions of the charter are admirable, such as those
securing honest elections, furnishing financial checks, and guarding
against public debt. The mayor is elected for four years, and the
important offices filled by his appointment are not vacant until the
beginning of the third year of his appointment, so that hope of reward
for political work is too dim to affect the merits of an election. The
composition and election of the school board is also worthy of notice.
Of the twenty-one members, seven are elected on a general ticket,
and the remaining fourteen by districts, made by consolidating the
twenty-eight city wards, members to serve four years, divided into two
classes. This arrangement secures immunity from the ward politician.
St. Louis is famous for its public schools, and especially for the
enlightened methods, and the willingness to experiment in improving
them. The school expenditures for the year ending June 30, 1887, were
$1,095,773; the school property in lots, buildings, and furniture in
1885 was estimated at $3,445,254. The total number of pupils enrolled
was 56,936. These required about 1200 teachers, of whom over a thousand
were women. The actual average of pupils to each teacher was about
42. There were 106 school buildings, with a seating capacity for about
50,000 scholars. Of the district schools 13 were colored, in which were
employed 78 colored teachers. The salaries of teachers are progressive,
according to length of service. As for instance, the principal of the
High-school has $2400 the first year, $2500 the second, $2600 the third,
$2750 the fourth; a head assistant in a district school, $650 the first
year, $700 the second, $750 the third, $800 the fourth, $850 the fifth.
The few schools that I saw fully sustained their public reputation as
to methods, discipline, and attainments. The Normal School, of
something over 100 pupils, nearly all the girls being graduates of
the High-school, was admirable in drill, in literary training, in
calisthenic exercises. The High-school is also admirable, a school with
a thoroughly elevated tone and an able principal. Of the 600 pupils at
least two-thirds were girls. From appearances I should judge that it is
attended by children of the most intelligent families, for certainly
the girls of the junior and senior classes, in manner, looks, dress,
and attainments, compared favorably with those of one of the best girls’
schools I have seen anywhere, the Mary Institute, which is a department
of the Washington University. This fact is most important, for the
excellence of our public schools (for the product of good men and women)
depends largely upon their popularity with the well-to-do classes. One
of the most interesting schools I saw was the Jefferson, presided over
by a woman, having fine fire-proof buildings and 1100 pupils, nearly all
whom are of foreign parentage—German, Russian, and Italian, with many
Hebrews also—a finely ordered, wide-awake school of eight grades. The
kindergarten here was the best I saw; good teachers, bright and happy
little children, with natural manners, throwing themselves gracefully
into their games with enjoyment and without self-consciousness, and
exhibiting exceedingly pretty fancy and kindergarten work. In St.
Louis the kindergarten is a part of the public-school system, and the
experiment is one of general interest. The question cannot be called
settled. In the first place the experiment is hampered in St. Louis by
a decision of the Supreme Court that the public money cannot be used for
children out of the school age, that is, under six and over twenty. This
prevents teaching English to adult foreigners in the evening schools,
and, rigidly applied, it shuts out pupils from the kindergarten under
six. One advantage from the kindergarten was expected to be an extension
of the school period; and there is no doubt that the kindergarten
instruction ought to begin before the age of six, especially for the
mass of children who miss home training and home care. As a matter
of fact, many of the children I saw in the kindergartens were only
constructively six years old. It cannot be said, also, that the Froebel
system is fully understood or accepted. In my observation, the success
of the kindergarten depends entirely upon the teacher; where she is
competent, fully believes in and understands the Froebel system, and is
enthusiastic, the pupils are interested and alert; otherwise they are
listless, and fail to get the benefit of it. The Froebel system is the
developing the concrete idea in education, and in the opinion of his
disciples this is as important for children of the intelligent
and well-to-do as for those of the poor and ignorant. They resist,
therefore, the attempt which is constantly made, to introduce the
primary work into the kindergarten. But for the six years’ limit the
kindergarten in St. Louis would have a better chance in its connection
with the public schools. As the majority of children leave school for
work at the age of twelve or fourteen, there is little time enough
given for book education; many educators think time is wasted in the
kindergarten, and they advocate the introduction of what they call
kindergarten features in the primary classes. This is called by the
disciples of Froebel an entire abandonment of his system. I should like
to see the kindergarten in connection with the public school tried long
enough to demonstrate all that is claimed for it in its influence on
mental development, character, and manners, but it seems unlikely to
be done in St. Louis, unless the public-school year begins at least as
early as five, or, better still, is specially unlimited for kindergarten
pupils.
Except in the primary work in drawing and modelling, there is no manual
training feature in the St. Louis public schools. The teaching of German
is recently dropped from all the district schools (though retained in
the High), in accordance with the well-founded idea of Americanizing our
foreign population as rapidly as possible.
One of the most important institutions in the Mississippi Valley, and
one that exercises a decided influence upon the intellectual and social
life of St. Louis, and is a fair measure of its culture and the value
of the higher education, is the Washington University, which was
incorporated in 1853, and was presided over until his death, in 1887,
by the late Chancellor William Green-leaf Eliot, of revered memory.
It covers the whole range of university studies, except theology,
and allows no instruction either sectarian in religion or partisan in
politics, nor the application of any sectarian or party test in the
election of professors, teachers, or officers. Its real estate and
buildings in use for educational purposes cost $625,000; its libraries,
scientific apparatus, casts, and machinery cost over $100,000, and it
has investments for revenue amounting to over $650,000. The University
comprehends an undergraduate department, including the college (a
thorough classical, literary, and philosophical course, with about sixty
students), open to women, and the polytechnic, an admirably equipped
school of science; the St. Louis Law School, of excellent reputation;
the Manual Training School, the most celebrated school of this sort, and
one that has furnished more manual training teachers than any other;
the Henry Shaw School of Botany; the St. Louis School of Fine Arts; the
Smith Academy, for boys; and the Mary Institute, one of the roomiest and
most cheerful school buildings I know, where 400 girls, whose collective
appearance need not fear comparison with any in the country, enjoy the
best educational advantages. Mary Institute is justly the pride of the
city.
The School of Botany, which is endowed and has its own laboratory,
workshop, and working library, was, of course, the outgrowth of the Shaw
Botanical Garden; it has usually from twenty to thirty special students.
The School of Fine Arts, which was reorganized under the University
in 1879, has enrolled over 200 students, and gives a wide and careful
training in all the departments of drawing, painting, and modelling,
with instructions in anatomy, perspective, and composition, and has life
classes for both sexes, in drawing from draped and nude figures. Its
lecture, working rooms, and galleries of paintings and casts are in
its Crow Art Museum—a beautiful building, well planned and justly
distinguished for architectural excellence. It ranks among the best Art
buildings in the country.
The Manual Training School has been in operation since 1880. It may be
called the most fully developed pioneer institution of the sort. I spent
some time in its workshops and schools, thinking of the very interesting
question at the bottom of the experiment, namely, the mental development
involved in the training of the hand and the eye, and the reflex help to
manual skill in the purely intellectual training of study. It is, it may
be said again, not the purpose of the modern manual training to teach
a trade, but to teach the use of tools as an aid in the symmetrical
development of the human being. The students here certainly do beautiful
work in wood-turning and simple carving, in ironwork and forging. They
enjoy the work; they are alert and interested in it. I am certain that
they are the more interested in it in seeing how they can work out and
apply what they have learned in books, and I doubt not they take hold of
literary study more freshly for this manual training in exactness. The
school exacts close and thoughtful study with tools as well as in books,
and I can believe that it gives dignity in the opinion of the working
student to hand labor. The school is large, its graduates have been
generally successful in practical pursuits and in teaching, and it lias
demonstrated in itself the correctness of the theory of its authors,
that intellectual drill and manual training are mutually advantageous
together. Whether manual training shall be a part of all district school
education is a question involving many considerations that do not enter
into the practicability of this school, but I have no doubt that manual
training schools of this sort would be immensely useful in every city.
There are many boys in every community who cannot in any other wayr be
awakened to any real study. This training school deserves a chapter
by itself, and as I have no space for details, I take the liberty of
referring those interested to a volume on its aims and methods by Dr. C.
M. Woodward, its director.
Notwithstanding the excellence of the public-school system of St. Louis,
there is no other city in the country, except New Orleans, where so
large a proportion of the youths are being educated outside the public
schools. A very considerable portion of the population is Catholic.
There are forty-four parochial schools, attended by nineteen thousand
pupils, and over a dozen different Sisterhoods are engaged in teaching
in them. Generally each parochial school has two departments—one for
boys and one for girls. They are sustained entirely by the parishes. In
these schools, as in the two Catholic universities, the prominence of
ethical and religious training is to be noted. Seven-eighths of the
schools are in charge of thoroughly trained religious teachers. Many of
the boys’ schools are taught by Christian Brothers. The girls are almost
invariably taught by members of religious Sisterhoods. In most of the
German schools the girls and smaller boys are taught by Sisters, the
larger boys by lay teachers. Some reports of school attendance are given
in the Catholic Directory: SS. Peter and Paul’s (German), 1300 pupils;
St. Joseph’s (German), 957; St. Bridget’s, 950; St. Malaehy’s, 756; St.
John’s, 700; St. Patrick’s, 700. There is a school for colored children
of 150 pupils taught by colored Sisters.
In addition to these parochial schools there are a dozen academies
and convents of higher education for young ladies, all under charge of
Catholic Sisterhoods, commonly with a mixed attendance of boarders
and day scholars, and some of them with a reputation for learning that
attracts pupils from other States, notably the Academy of the Sacred
Heart, St. Joseph’s Academy, and the Academy of the Visitation, in
charge of cloistered nuns of that order. Besides these, in connection
with various reformatory and charitable institutions, such as the House
of the Good Shepherd and St. Mary’s Orphan Asylum, there are industrial
schools in charge of the Sisterhoods, where girls receive, in addition
to their education, training in some industry to maintain themselves
respectably when they leave their temporary homes. Statistics are
wanting, but it will be readily inferred from these statements that
there are in the city a great number of single women devoted for life,
and by special religious and intellectual training, to the office of
teaching.