with courses in vocal music, and in the art of teaching music; this has
over four hundred students. In the department of kindergartens in the
Institute Mr. Pratt took a deep interest. A model kindergarten is
conducted with training-classes, and classes for mothers, who may thus
be able to introduce it into their homes. The high-school department, a
four years' course, combining the academic and the manual training, has
proved very valuable. It was originally intended to make the Institute
purely manual, but later it was felt to be wise to give an opportunity
for a completer education by combining head-work and hand-work. The
school day is from nine o'clock till three. Of the seven periods into
which this time is divided, three are devoted to recitations, one to
study,--the lessons are prepared at home,--one to drawing, and two to
the workshop, in wood, forging, tinsmithing, machine-tool work, etc.
When the high school was opened, Mr. Pratt said, "We believe in the
value of co-education, and are pleased to note the addition of more than
twenty young women to this entering class."
The high school has some excellent methods. "For making the machinery of
National and State elections clear," says Mr. F. B. Pratt, the secretary
of the Institute and son of the founder, "the school has conducted a
campaign and election in close imitation of the actual process.... Every
morning the important news of the preceding day has been announced and
explained by selected pupils." The Institute annually awards ten
scholarships to ten graduates of the Brooklyn grammar schools, five boys
and five girls, who pass the best entrance examinations for the high
school of Pratt Institute. The pupils after leaving the high school are
fitted to enter any scientific institution of college grade.
Mr. Pratt was "so much impressed with the far-reaching influence of good
books as distributed through a free library," that he established a
library in the Institute for the use of the pupils, and for the public
as well. It now has fifty thousand volumes, with a circulation of over
two hundred thousand volumes. In connection with it, there are library
training-classes, graduates of which have found good positions in
various libraries.
A museum was begun by Mr. Pratt in 1887, as an aid to the students in
their work. The finest specimens of glass, earthenware, bronzes,
iron-work, and minerals were obtained from the Old World, specimens of
iron and steel from our own country to illustrate their manufacture in
the various articles of use; much attention will be given to artistic
work in iron after the manner of Quentin Matsys; lace, ancient and
modern; all common cloth, with kind of weave and price; various wools
and woollen goods from many countries.
In the basement of the main building Mr. Pratt opened a lunch-room, a
most sensible department, especially for those who live at some distance
from the Institute. Dinners at a reasonable price are served from twelve
to two o'clock, and suppers three nights a week from six to seven P.M.
Over forty thousand meals are served yearly. Soups, cold meats, salads,
sandwiches, tea, coffee, milk, and fruit are usually offered.
Another thought of Mr. Pratt, who seemed not to overlook anything, was
the establishing of an association known as "The Thrift." Mr. Pratt
said, "Pupils are taught some useful work by which they can earn money.
It seems a natural thing that the next step should be to endeavor to
teach them how to save this money; or, in other words, how to make a
wise use of it. It is not enough that one be trained so that he can join
the bands of the world's workers and become a producer; he needs quite
as much to learn habits of economy and thrift in order to make his life
a success."
"The Thrift" was divided into the investment branch and the loan branch.
The investment shares were $150, payable at the rate of one dollar a
month for ten years. The investor would then have $160. Any person
could loan money to purchase a home, and make small monthly payments
instead of rent. As many persons were unable to save a dollar a month,
stamps were sold as in Europe; and a person could buy them at any time,
and these could be redeemed for cash. In less than four years, the
Thrift had 650 depositors, with a total investment of over $90,000.
Twenty-four loans had been made, aggregating over $100,000. The total
deposits up to 1895 were $260,000.
Most interesting to me of all the departments of Pratt Institute are the
machine-shops and the Trade School Building, where boys can learn a
trade. "The aim of these trade classes," says Mr. F. B. Pratt, in the
_Independent_ for April 30, 1891, "is to afford a thorough grounding in
the principles of a mechanical trade, and sufficient practice in its
different operations to produce a fair amount of hand skill." The old
apprenticeship system has been abandoned, and our boys must learn to
earn a living in some other way. The trades taught at Pratt Institute
are carpentry, forging, machine-work, plastering, plumbing,
blacksmithing, bricklaying, house and fresco painting, etc. There is an
evening class of sheet-metal workers, who study patterns for cornices,
elbows, and other designs in sheet-metal. Much attention is given to
electrical construction and to electricity in general. The day and
evening classes are always full. Some of the master-mechanics'
associations are cordial in their co-operation and examination of
students through their committees. After leaving the Institute, work
seems to be readily obtained at good wages.
Mr. Pratt wished the instruction here to be of the best. He said, "The
demand is for a better and better quality of work, and our American
artisans must learn that to claim first place in any trade they must be
intelligent.... They must learn to have pride in their work, and to love
it, and believe in our motto, 'Be true to your work, and your work will
be true to you.'"
The sons of the founder are alive to the necessities of the young in
this direction. If it is true that out of the 52,894 white male
prisoners in the prisons and reformatory institutions of the United
States in 1890 nearly three-fourths were native born, and 31,426 had
learned no trade whatever, it is evident that one of the most pressing
needs of our time is the teaching of trades to boys and young men.
Mr. Charles M. Pratt, the president of the Institute, says in his
Founder's Day Address in 1893 concerning technical instruction: "Our
possible service here seems almost limitless. The President of the Board
of Education of Boston in a recent address congratulated his
fellow-citizens upon the fact that Boston has her system of public
schools and kindergartens, and now, and but lately, her public school of
manual training; but what is needed, he said, 'is a school of _technical
training in the trades_, such as Pratt Institute and other similar
institutions furnish. I sincerely trust that the next five years of life
and growth here will develop much in this direction.... We are willing
to enlarge our present special facilities, or provide new ones for new
trade-class requirements, as long as the demand for such opportunities
truly exists.'"
One rejoices in such institutions as the New York Trade Schools on First
Avenue, between Sixty-seventh and Sixty-eighth Streets, with their day
and evening classes in plumbing, gasfitting, bricklaying, plastering,
stone-cutting, fresco-painting, wood-carving, carpentry, and the like. A
printing department has also been added. This work owes its inception
and success to the brain and devotion of the late lamented Richard
Tylden Auchmuty, who died in New York, July 18, 1893. Mrs. Auchmuty, the
wife of the founder, has given the land and buildings to the school,
valued at $220,000, and a building-fund of $100,000. Mr. J. Pierpont
Morgan has endowed the school with a gift of $500,000.
Mr. Pratt did not cease working when his great Institute was fairly
started. He built in Greenpoint, Long Island, a large apartment building
called the "Astral," five stories high, of brick and stone, with 116
suites of rooms, each suite capable of accommodating from three to six
persons. The building cost $300,000, and is rented to workingmen and
their families, the income to be used in helping to maintain the
Institute. A public library was opened in the Astral, with the thought
at first of using it only for the people in the building; but it was
soon opened to all the inhabitants of Greenpoint, and has been most
heartily appreciated and used. Cut in stone over the fireplace in the
reading-room of the Astral are the words, "Waste neither time nor
money."
When Mr. Pratt made his first address to the students of Pratt Institute
on Founder's Day, Oct. 2, 1888, his birthday, taking the Bible from the
desk, he said, before reading it and offering prayer, "Whatever I have
done, whatever I hope to do, I have done trusting in the Power from
above."
Before he built the Institute many persons asked him to use his wealth
in other ways; some urged a Theological School, others a Medical School,
but his interest in the workingman and the home led him to found the
Institute. He rejoiced in the work and its outlook for the future. He
said, "I am so grateful, so grateful that the Almighty has inclined my
heart to do this thing."
On the second and third Founder's Days, Mr. Pratt spoke with hope and
the deepest interest in the work of the Institute. He had been asked
often what he had spent for the work, and had prepared a statement at
considerable cost of time, but with characteristic modesty he could
never bring himself to make it public. "I have asked myself over and
over again what good could result from any statement we could make of
the amount of money we have spent. The quality and amount of service
rendered by the Institute is the only fair estimate of its real value."
In closing his address Mr. Pratt said, "To my sons and co-trustees, who
will have this work to carry on when I am gone, I wish to say, 'The
world will overestimate your ability, and will underestimate the value
of your work; will be exacting of every promise made or implied; will be
critical of your failings; will often misjudge your motives, and hold
you to strict account for all your doings. Many pupils will make
demands, and be forgetful of your service to them. Ingratitude will
often be your reward. When the day is dark, and full of discouragement
and difficulty, you will need to look on the other side of the picture,
which you will find full of hope and gladness.'"
When the next Founder's Day came, Mr. Pratt was gone, and the Institute
was in the hands of others. At the close of a day of work and thought in
his New York office, Mr. Pratt fell at his post, May 4, 1891, and was
carried to his home in Clinton Avenue, Brooklyn. After the funeral, May
7, memorial services were held in the Emmanuel Baptist Church on Sunday
afternoon, May 17, with addresses by distinguished men who loved and
honored him.
A beautiful memorial chapel was erected by his family on his estate at
Dosoris, Glen Cove, Long Island; and there the body of Mr. Pratt was
buried, July 31, 1894. The chapel is of granite, in the Romanesque
style, with exquisite stained glass windows. The main room is wainscoted
with polished red granite, the arching ceiling lined with glass mosaic
in blue, gold, and green. At the farther end, in a semi-circular apse
reached by two steps through an imposing arch, stands the sarcophagus of
Siena marble, with the name, Charles Pratt, and dates of birth and
death. The campanile contains the chime of bells so admired by everybody
who visited the Columbian Exposition at Chicago, and heard it ring out
from the central clock tower in the Building of Manufactures and Liberal
Arts. Few, comparatively, will ever see this monument erected by a
devoted family to a husband and father; but thousands upon thousands
will see the monument which Mr. Pratt built for himself in his noble
Institute. Every year thousands come to learn its methods and to copy
some of its features, even from Africa and South America. The Earl of
Meath, who has done so much for the improvement of his race, said to Dr.
Cuyler, "Of all the good things I have seen in America, there is none
that I would so like to carry back to London as this splendid
establishment."
One may read in Baedeker's "Guide Book of the United States"
instructions how to find "the extensive buildings of Pratt Institute,
one of the best-equipped technical institutions in the world. None
interested in technical education should fail to visit this
institution."
During his life, Mr. Pratt gave to the Institute about $3,700,000, and
thus had the pleasure of seeing it bear fruit. Of this, $2,000,000 is
the endowment fund. Small charges are made to the pupils, but not nearly
enough to pay the running expenses. Mr. Pratt's sons are nobly carrying
forward the work left to their care by their father, who died in the
midst of his labors. Playgrounds have been laid out, a gymnasium
provided, new buildings erected, and other measures adopted which they
feel that their father would approve were he alive.
Courses of free lectures are given at Pratt Institute to the public as
well as the students; a summer school is provided at Glen Cove, Long
Island, for such as wish to learn about agriculture, with instruction
given in botany, chemistry, physiology, raising and harvesting crops,
and the care of animals; nurses are trained in the care and development
of children; a bright monthly magazine is published by the Institute; a
Neighborship Association has been formed of alumni, teachers, and
pupils, which meets for the discussion of such topics as "The relation
of the rich to the poor," "The ethics of giving," "Citizenship," etc.,
and to carry out the work and spirit of the Institute wherever
opportunity offers.
Already the influence of Pratt Institute has been very great. Public
schools all over the country are adopting some form of manual training
whereby the pupils shall be better fitted to earn their living. Mr.
Chas. M. Pratt, in one of his Founder's Day addresses, quotes the words
of a successful teacher and merchant: "There is nothing under God's
heaven so important to the individual as to acquire the power to earn
his own living; to be able to stand alone if necessary; to be dependent
upon no one; to be indispensable to some one."
About four thousand students receive instruction each year at the
Institute. Many go out as teachers to other schools all over the
country. As the founder said in his last address, "The world goes on,
and Pratt Institute, if it fulfils the hopes and expectations of its
founder, must go on, and as the years pass, the field of its influence
should grow wider and wider."
On the day that he died, Mr. Herbert S. Adams, the sculptor, had
finished a bust of Mr. Pratt in clay. It was put into bronze by the
teachers and pupils, and now stands in the Institute, with these words
of the founder cut in the bronze: "_The giving which counts is the
giving of one's self_."
THOMAS GUY
AND HIS HOSPITAL.
One day the rich Matthew Vassar stood before the great London hospital
founded by Thomas Guy, and read these words on the pedestal of the
bronze statue:--
THOMAS GUY,
SOLE FOUNDER OF THIS HOSPITAL IN HIS LIFETIME
A.D. MDCCXXI.
The last three words made a deep impression. Matthew Vassar had no
children. He wished to leave his fortune where it would be of permanent
value; and lest something might happen to thwart his plan, he had to do
it _in his lifetime_.
Sir Isaac Newton said, "They who give nothing till they die, never give
at all." Several years before his death, Matthew Vassar built Vassar
College near Poughkeepsie, N.Y.; for he said, "There is not in our
country, there is not in the world so far as known, a single fully
endowed institution for the education of women. It is my hope to be the
instrument, in the hands of Providence, of founding and perpetuating an
institution _which shall accomplish for young women what our colleges
are accomplishing for young men_."
To this end he gave a million dollars, and was happy in the results.
His birthday is celebrated each year as "Founder's Day." On one of these
occasions he said, "This is almost more happiness than I can bear. This
one day more than repays me for all I have done."
And what of Thomas Guy, whose example led to Matthew Vassar's noble gift
while the latter was alive? He was an economical, self-made bookbinder
and bookseller, who became the "greatest philanthropist of his day."
Thomas Guy was born in Horselydown, Southwark, in the outskirts of
London, in 1644 or 1645. His father, Thomas Guy, was a lighterman and
coalmonger, one who transferred coal from the colliers to the wharves,
and also sold it to customers. He was a member of the Carpenters'
Company of the city of London, and probably owned some barges.
His wife, Anne Vaughton, belonged to a family of better social position
than her husband, as several of her relatives had been mayors in
Tamworth, or held other offices of influence.
When the boy Thomas was eight years old, his father died, leaving Mrs.
Guy to bring up three small children, Thomas, John, and Anne. The eldest
probably went to the free grammar school of Tamworth, and when fifteen
or sixteen years of age was apprenticed for eight years to John Clarke
the younger, bookseller and bookbinder in Cheapside, London.
John Clarke was ruined in the great fire of Sept. 2, 1666, which, says
H. R. Fox Bourne in his "London Merchants," "destroyed eighty-nine
churches, and more than thirteen thousand houses in four hundred
streets. Of the whole district within the city walls, four hundred and
thirty-six acres were in ruins, and only seventy-five acres were left
covered. Property worth £10,000,000 was wasted, and thousands of
starving Londoners had to run for their lives, and crouch for days and
weeks on the bare fields of Islington and Hampstead, Southwark and
Lambeth."
What Thomas Guy was in his later life he probably was as a
boy,--hard-working, economical, of good habits, and determined to
succeed. When the eight years of apprenticeship were over he was
admitted a freeman of the Stationers' Company; and having a little
means, he began a business at the junction of Cornhill and Lombard
Streets, where he resided through his whole life. His stock of books at
the beginning was worth about two hundred pounds.
At this time many English Bibles were printed in Holland on account of
the better paper and types found there, and vast numbers were imported
to England with large profits. Young Guy, with business shrewdness, soon
became an importer of Bibles, and very probably Prayer-books and Psalms.
The King's printers were opposed to such importations, and caused the
arrest of booksellers and publishers, so that this Holland trade was
largely broken up. It is said that the King's printers so raised the
price of Bibles that the poor were unable to buy them. The privilege of
printing was limited to London, York, and the Universities of Oxford and
Cambridge. Then London and Oxford quarrelled over Bible printing, and
each tried to undersell the other.
[Illustration: THOMAS GUY.]
Thomas Guy and Peter Parker printed Bibles for Oxford, had four presses
in use within four months of their undertaking the Oxford work, and
showed the greatest activity, skill, and energy in the enterprise.
Their work was excellent, and some of their Bibles and other volumes are
still found in the English libraries.
These University printers, Parker & Guy, had many lawsuits with other
firms, who claimed that the former had made £10,000, or even £15,000, by
their connection with Oxford. Doubtless they had made money; but they
had done their work well, and deserved their success.
Concerning Oxford Bibles, a writer in _McClure's Magazine_ says, "In
these days the privilege of printing a Bible is hardly less jealously
guarded in the United Kingdom than the privilege of printing a banknote.
It is accorded by license to the Queen's printers, and by charter to the
Universities of Oxford and Cambridge; and it is, as a matter of fact, at
the University of Oxford that the greatest bulk of the work is done.
From this famous press there issue annually about one million copies of
the sacred book; copies ranging in price from tenpence to ten pounds,
and in form from the brilliant Bible, which weighs in its most handsome
binding less than four ounces, and measures 3½ by 2-1/8 by ¾ inches, to
the superb folio Bible for church use, the page of which measures 19 by
12 inches, which is the only folio Bible in existence--seventy-eight
editions in all; copies in all manner of languages, even the most
barbarous."
The choicest paper is used, and the utmost care taken with setting the
type. It is computed that to set up and "read" a reference Bible costs
£1,000.
"The first step is to make a careful calculation, showing what, in the
particular type employed, will be the exact contents of each page, from
the first page to the last. It must be known before a single type is
set just what will be the first and last word on each page. It is not
enough that this calculation shall be approximate, it must be exact to
the syllable.
"The proofs are then read again by a fresh reader, from a fresh model;
and this process is repeated until, before being electrotyped, they have
been read five times in all. Any compositor who detects an error in the
model gets a reward; but only two such rewards have ever been earned.
Any member of the public who is first to detect an error in the
authorized text is entitled to one guinea, but the average annual outlay
of the press under this head is almost nil."
As soon as Thomas Guy prospered, he gave to various causes. He gave five
pounds to help rebuild the schoolhouse at Tamworth, where he had been a
student a few years before; and when a little over thirty years of age,
in 1678, he bought some land in Tamworth, and erected an almshouse for
seven poor women. A good-sized room was used for their library. The
whole cost was £200, a worthy beginning for a young man.
A little later Mr. Guy gave ten pounds yearly to a "Spinning School,"
where the children of the poor were taught how to work, probably some
kind of industrial training. Also ten pounds yearly to a Dissenting
minister, and the same amount to one of the Established Church.
When Mr. Guy was a little over forty, he gave another £200 for
almshouses for poor men at Tamworth; and the town called him, "Our
incomparable benefactor."
When Mr. Guy was forty-five years of age, in 1690, he attempted to enter
Parliament from Tamworth, but was defeated. This was the second
Parliament under William and Mary. In 1694 he was elected sheriff of
London, but refused to serve, perhaps on account of the expense, as he
disliked display, and paid the penalty of refusing, £400.
In the third Parliament, 1695, Mr. Guy tried again, and succeeded. He
was re-elected after an exciting contest in 1698, and again in 1701 and
1702, and in two Parliaments under Queen Anne.
While in Parliament he built a town hall for the people of Tamworth. In
1708, after thirteen years of service, Mr. Guy was rejected. It is said
that he promised the people of Tamworth, so much did he enjoy
Parliamentary life, that if they would elect him again he would leave
his whole fortune to the town, so they should never have a pauper; but
for once they forgot their "incomparable benefactor," and Thomas Guy in
turn forgot them.
"The cause of Guy's rejection," says the history of Tamworth, "is said
to have been his neglect of the gastronomic propensities of his worthy,
patriotic, and enlightened constituents, by whom the virtues of fasting
appear to have been entirely forgotten. In the anger of the moment he
threatened to pull down the town hall which he had built, and to abolish
the almshouses. The burgesses, repenting of their rash act, sent a
deputation to wait upon him with the offer of re-election in the ensuing
Parliament, 1810; but he rejected all conciliation. He always considered
that he had been treated with great ingratitude, and he deprived the
inhabitants of Tamworth of the advantage of his almshouses." His will
provided that persons from certain towns might find a home in his
almshouses, his own relatives to be preferred, should any offer
themselves; but Tamworth was left out of the list of towns.