No one places a higher value upon the free school than I do; and no one
takes greater pride in the prosperity of our colleges and universities.
But at the same time, much that is called education simply unfits men
successfully to fight the battle of life. Thousands are to-day studying
things that will be of exceedingly little importance to them or to
others. Much valuable time is wasted in studying languages that long ago
were dead, and histories in which there is no truth.
There was an idea in the olden time--and it is not yet dead--that
whoever was educated ought not to work; that he should use his head
and not his hands. Graduates were ashamed to be found engaged in manual
labor, in ploughing fields, in sowing or in gathering grain. To this
manly kind of independence they preferred the garret and the precarious
existence of an unappreciated poet, borrowing their money from their
friends, and their ideas from the dead. The educated regarded the useful
as degrading--they were willing to stain their souls to keep their hands
white.
The object of all education should be to increase the use fulness of
man--usefulness to himself and others. Every human being should be
taught that his first duty is to take care of himself, and that to be
self-respecting he must be self-supporting. To live on the labor of
others, either by force which enslaves, or by cunning which robs, or by
borrowing or begging, is wholly dishonorable. Every man should be taught
some useful art. His hands should be educated as well as his head. He
should be taught to deal with things as they are--with life as it
is. This would give a feeling of independence, which is the firmest
foundation of honor, of character. Every man knowing that he is useful,
admires himself.
In all the schools children should be taught to work in wood and
iron, to understand the construction and use of machinery, to become
acquainted with the great forces that man is using to do his work. The
present system of education teaches names, not things. It is as though
we should spend years in learning the names of cards, without playing a
game.
In this way boys would learn their aptitudes--would ascertain what they
were fitted for--what they could do. It would not be a guess, or an
experiment, but a demonstration. Education should increase a boy's
chances for getting a living. The real good of it is to get food and
roof and raiment, opportunity to develop the mind and the body and live
a full and ample life.
The more real education, the less crime--and the more homes, the fewer
prisons.