AUTOMATIC CONTRASTED WITH SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION--_Continued_.
The Failure of Education in America shown by Statistics of Railway and
Mercantile Disasters. -- Shrinkage of Railway Values and Failures of
Merchants. -- Only Three Per Cent. of those entering Mercantile Life
achieve Success. -- Business Enterprises conducted by Guess: Cause,
Unscientific Education. -- Savage Training is better because
Objective. -- Mr. Foley, late of the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, on the Scientific Character of Manual Education -- Prof.
Goss, of Purdue University, to the same Effect -- also Dr. Belfield,
of the Chicago Manual Training School. -- Students love the Laboratory
Exercises. -- Demoralizing Effect of Unscientific Training. -- The
Failure of Justice and Legislation as contrasted with the Success of
Civil Engineering and Architecture.
A striking illustration of the defective character of both public and
private systems of education, in the United States, is afforded by the
statistics of commercial, railway, and other business failures. In 1877
a careful compilation of figures in regard to the shrinkage of railway
values showed the following result:
“In round numbers, _eighteen hundred millions of dollars_, or
thirty-eight per cent. of the capital reported as invested in two
hundred of our railway companies alone, is wholly unproductive to the
investors, and the greater part is wholly lost to them. This is
sufficiently appalling, but when we consider how many companies that
have managed to keep up the interest on their bonds have wholly, or
almost, ceased to pay any interest on their capital stock, which stock,
in turn, has shrunk to seventy-five, fifty, twenty-five, ten, in some
cases _five_ per cent. of its par value, it will seem to be a reasonable
conclusion that the actual shrinkage and loss to _somebody_ on the face
value of railway investments in the United States has been fully fifty
per cent.!”[51]
[51] _The Chicago Railway Age._
In view of this startling exhibit it is evident that in the projection,
construction, and management of the railways of the United States there
has been gross incompetency.
In 1881 Messrs. R. G. Dun & Co., the well-known commercial agents,
showed that of the wholesale merchants doing business in the city of
Chicago in 1870 fifty per cent. had failed, suspended, or compromised
with their creditors.
Forty years ago Gen. Dearborn, a prominent citizen of Chicago, declared
that not more than three per cent. of the individuals who embark in
trade end life with success. The success meant, doubtless, is unbroken
solvency during the business experience of the merchant, and the final
accumulation of a competence. The mercantile ranks in the United States
afford many instances of individual merchants and firms who have settled
or compromised with their creditors several times, and finally
succeeded--succeeded at the expense of their creditors. But this is not
the success meant by Gen. Dearborn. This statistical information,
furnished by Messrs. R. G. Dun & Co., tends to confirm, approximately,
the verity of the common remark that in trade not one in a hundred
succeeds.
Let us suppose that three merchants in a hundred so conduct their
business as never to ask their creditors for a favor, never to “settle”
for 50 or 25 cents, but always pay “dollar for dollar,” and come out in
the end rich. This is strictly legitimate success. It would be very
interesting to learn what becomes of the other ninety-seven merchants.
Most of them go down after a few years, never again to emerge above the
surface of commercial affairs. They live on salaries, enter the ranks of
the speculative class, or become genteel paupers. But doubtless seven at
least of the ninety-seven “compromise” and “settle” themselves over the
breakers, and finally achieve success. So that of the ten successful
merchants out of a hundred those who succeed at the expense of their
creditors are as seven to three of those who win success by the highest
degree of mercantile merit.
With ninety utter failures, seven successes which involve the misfortune
or wreck of others, and only three untarnished successes in a hundred,
the general ambition to enter mercantile life is simply unaccountable.
Of course the small number of successful merchants have to calculate
upon the failures which will inevitably occur. They must discount the
losses they are sure to incur through those failures--provide for them
by increasing the otherwise sufficient profit of each transaction. In
this way the public pays the cost of each failure. In other words, the
consumer is taxed to pay the expense of ninety complete failures, and
seven partial failures, in every hundred mercantile experiments. This
expense aggregates scores of millions of dollars in this country alone,
every year. The sum of losses by the failure of merchants in good
seasons is very large, and in seasons of commercial depression it is
vast.
It is evident that ninety-seven in every hundred merchants mistake their
avocation. Only three in a hundred are exactly fitted for the business
they undertake. They are morally the “fittest” who survive by virtue of
ability and integrity; the seven who survive by levying contributions on
their creditors may also be regarded as the “fittest” according to the
Darwinian theory. Of the ninety who go down without even a struggle to
“settle” or “compromise,” they answer to the received definition of
dirt--“matter out of place.”
The investigation made by Messrs. R. G. Dun & Co., which resulted in the
statistical information here reproduced and commented upon, was brought
about by the assertion in 1881 of a life-insurance agent that fifty per
cent. of the wholesale merchants doing business in the city of Chicago
in 1870 had meantime failed, suspended, or compromised with their
creditors. Out of this investigation the question logically springs, “Is
not failing in business made too easy?”[52] If “compromises,”
“settlements,” and “failures” carry with them no disgrace, it is but
natural that thousands should take the risk of them in the contest for
the great prizes which are the reward of success. The distinction in the
public mind between the three merchants in a hundred who succeed
legitimately and the seven who succeed by questionable “compromises” or
“settlements” is very slight; and too many of the ninety who fail
utterly retire with large sums of money which belong honestly to their
creditors. Doubtless the life-insurance agent, in depicting the perils
of mercantile ventures, urged the propriety of the merchant fortifying
himself against disaster by insuring his life for the benefit of his
family. This is a legitimate argument when addressed to the merchant in
solvent condition; but the life-insurance agent’s intimate acquaintance
with the shaky finances of nine-tenths of the commercial community
teaches him that a large share of the money he receives in premiums,
comes not from the merchant, but from the merchant’s creditors, who will
soon be called upon, in the natural course of events, to consent to a
composition of his claim, while the shaky merchant will retire with a
paid-up policy of insurance in favor of his family.
[52] “Mercantile honor is held so high in some countries that the
calamity of bankruptcy drives men mad. In France there are numerous
instances of almost superhuman struggles on the part of ruined
merchants to regain, by patient effort and pinching economy, their
lost station in the business community. César Birotteau, Balzac’s hero
of such a struggle, dies from excess of emotion in the hour of his
triumph. ‘Behold the death of the just!’ the Abbé Loraux exclaims, as
he regards, with lofty pride, the expiring merchant.”--“Ten-minute
Sketches,” p. 220. By Charles H. Ham. Chicago and New York: Belford,
Clark & Co., 1884.
It is quite plain that in nine cases out of ten the merchant who carries
a large policy of insurance on his life actually pays for it out of his
creditors’ instead of his own money. To be sure, it may be said that the
nine merchants hope and expect to succeed, as well as the one. But is
not it the duty of the merchant who owes large sums of money to think
more of providing means for the payment of his immediate debts than of
laying up a support for himself and family in the event of failure? Some
disgrace ought to attach to failure in business; that is to say,
disgrace enough to make the merchant cautious and economical, with a
view, not to his own protection in the event of failure, but to the
protection of his creditors, and of his own reputation as a business
man.
These failures, on so vast a scale, of railway enterprises, and the
almost total wreck of mercantile ventures, show that the business of
this country is done, as a Yankee might say, “by guess,” or as the
mechanic of the old _régime_ would say, “by the rule of thumb.” The
conclusion is hence irresistible that the youth of the United States are
not so educated as to fit them for the conduct, to a successful issue,
of great business enterprises. And this is an impeachment of what is
regarded, on the whole, as the best system of popular education in
operation in the world. A system of education which turns out
ninety-three or ninety-seven men who fail, to three or seven men who
succeed in business, must be very unscientific. If the savage system of
education were not better adapted to the savage state, the savage would
perish from the earth in the process of civilization. The savage bends
his ear to the ground and robs the forest of its secrets, not three
times in a hundred, but ninety and nine times. Ninety-nine times in a
hundred he traces the footsteps of his enemy in the tangled mazes of the
pathless wood.
In “Aborigines of Australia”[53] Mr. G. S. Lang states that “one day
while travelling in Australia he pointed to a footstep and asked whose
it was. The guide glanced at it without stopping his horse, and at once
answered, ‘Whitefellow call him Tiger.’ This turned out to be correct;
which was the more remarkable as the two men belonged to different
tribes, and had not met for two years.” Among the Arabs it is asserted
that some men know every individual in the tribe by his footstep.
Besides this, every Arab knows the printed footsteps of his own camels,
and of those belonging to his immediate neighbors. He knows by the depth
or slightness of the impression whether a camel was pasturing, and
therefore not carrying any load, or mounted by one person only, or
heavily loaded. The Australian will kill a pigeon with a spear at a
distance of thirty paces. The Esquimau in his kayak will actually turn
somersaults in the water. After giving many illustrations of the skill
of various races of savages, Sir John Lubbock says,
“What an amount of practice must be required to obtain such skill as
this! How true, also, must the weapons be! Indeed it is very evident
that each distinct type of flint implement must have been designed for
some distinct purpose.” He adds, “The neatness with which the
Hottentots, Esquimaux, North American Indians, etc., are able to sew is
very remarkable, although awls and sinews would in our hands be but poor
substitutes for needles and thread. As already mentioned (in page 332),
some cautious archæologists hesitated to refer the reindeer caves of the
Dordogne to the Stone Age, on account of the bone needles and the works
of art which are found in them. The eyes of the needles especially, they
thought, could only be made with metallic implements. Prof. Lartet
ingeniously removed these doubts by making a similar needle for himself
with the help of flint; but he might have referred to the fact stated by
Cook in his first voyage, that the New Zealanders succeeded in drilling
a hole through a piece of glass which he had given them, using for this
purpose, as he supposed, a piece of jasper.”[54]
[53] “Aborigines of Australia,” p. 24.
[54] “Prehistoric Times,” pp. 544, 548. By Sir John Lubbock, Bart.,
M.P. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1875.
The education which enables the savage to make these extremely nice
adjustments of means to ends is scientific. The observation, for
example, of the Arab who draws such accurate conclusions from the
“printed footstep of the camel,” if applied to the problems of civilized
life, would result in success, not failure.
The excellence of this savage training consists in its practical
character, in its perfect adaptation to the end in view. For example,
the Esquimau boy is not instructed in the theory of turning somersaults
in the water, in his kayak. He sees his father perform the feat; he is
given a kayak and required to perform it also. The result is early and
complete success. So of the Arab. In traversing the desert it is
important for him to read every sign, to translate every mark left in
the sand. Upon the accuracy of his observation his life may often
depend. The print of the camel’s footstep may tell him whether he is,
soon or late, to meet friend or foe. Hence from early childhood his
faculty of observation is trained until it soon becomes as delicate and
nice as the sense of touch of a blind, deaf mute. Sir John Lubbock
thinks that a great amount of practice must be required to achieve so
much skill; but the results are due, probably, more to the nature, than
to the extent, of the practice. It is the excellence of the training
that produces results which excite wonder and admiration. The savage is
indolent; he works only that he may eat, and he works well, simply
because he has been taught objectively, instead of subjectively.
The difference in results between the best and the poorest methods of
instruction is very great, as witness the testimony of Mr. Thomas Foley,
late instructor in forging, vise-work, and machine-tool work in the
school of mechanic arts of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He
says,
“It is a great waste of time to spend two or three years in acquiring
knowledge of a given business, profession, or trade, that can be
acquired in the short space of twelve or thirteen days, under a proper
course of instruction. Twelve days of systematic school-shop instruction
produces as great a degree of dexterity as two or more years’
apprenticeship under the adverse conditions which prevail in the
trade-shop.”[55] The manual training methods are the same as those which
enable the savage to perform such feats of skill. They are the natural
and hence most efficient methods of imparting instruction.
[55] Report on “The Manual Element in Education,” p. 30. By John D.
Runkle, Ph.D., LL.D., Walker Professor of Mathematics, Institute of
Technology, Boston, Mass.
The manual training school is a kindergarten for boys fourteen years of
age. Miss S. E. Blow, in formulating the theory of the kindergarten,
describes the methods of the savage’s school, and those of the manual
training school, as follows:
“It is a truth now universally recognized by educators that ideas are
formed in the mind of a child by abstraction and generalization from the
facts revealed to him through the senses; that only what he himself has
perceived of the visible and tangible properties of things can serve as
the basis of thought; and that upon the vividness and completeness of
the impressions made upon him by external objects, will depend the
clearness of his inferences and the correctness of his judgments. It is
equally true, and as generally recognized, that in young children the
perceptive faculties are relatively stronger than at any later period,
and that while the understanding and reason still sleep, the sensitive
mind is receiving those sharp impressions of external things which, held
fast by memory, transformed by the imagination, and finally classified
and organized through reflection, result in the determination of thought
and the formation of character.
“These two parallel truths indicate clearly that the first duty of the
educator is to aid the perceptive faculties in their work by supplying
the external objects best calculated to serve as the basis of normal
conceptions, by exhibiting these objects from many different
stand-points--that variety of interest may sharpen and intensify the
impressions they make upon the mind, and by presenting them in such a
sequence that the transition from one object to another may be made as
easy as possible.”[56]
[56] “The Kindergarten. An address, delivered April 3, 1875, before
the Normal Teachers’ Association, at St. Louis, Mo.”
This admirable exposition of the theory of scientific education solves
the mystery which has always enveloped savage skill. It also affords a
philosophic explanation of the fact discovered by Mr. Foley, namely,
that the student of the manual training school acquires as much
knowledge in one hundred and twenty hours as the apprentice of the
machine-shop does in two years. In a word, it shows exactly why
scientific education is so incomparably superior to automatic education.
Mr. Foley asserts, in substance, that the scientific methods of the
manual training school are twenty times as valuable to the student as
the unscientific methods of the trade-shop are to the apprentice.
In a familiar letter to the author, Prof. Goss[57] shows why the methods
of the manual training school are so very valuable. He says:
“In such a school, or course, a student is taught to perform a series
of operations, involving practice with a variety of tools, on pieces of
suitable material. It is not to be supposed that his ability to make a
certain piece is directly valuable, for the experience of a lifetime may
never require him to make it again. It is not expected that while making
the piece he will learn a number of formulated facts relating to his
work, and its application to other work, for that is not the best way to
learn. Nor can we expect him to acquire a high degree of hand skill
(accuracy and rapidity of movement combined), for this his limited time
will not permit. But he does this: he works out a practical mechanical
problem with every piece he makes. He sees how the tool should be
handled, and how the material operated on behaves. He comes to
understand why the tool cuts well in some directions and not so well in
others; and all the time he queries to himself where it was that he saw
a joint like the one he is making. He is an investigator--as much so as
a student in chemistry. His mind must always guide his hand; his
reasoning opens new fields of thought with every stroke of the chisel.
[57] Prof. William F. M. Goss, a graduate of the school of mechanic
arts of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and at present
instructor in the mechanic arts department of the Purdue University.
“A boy ten years old, who was a member of a class under my direction in
Indianapolis in 1883, is reported to have said, ‘Why, mother, I never
looked at the doors and windows so much in all my life as I have since I
began at the wood-working school.’
“I tell my students how to go to work, when they are likely to make
mistakes, and how mistakes may be avoided. In operating along the line
directed they thoroughly understand what they are doing, and why they do
it. They see on all sides of their work.
“If I have several different tools for doing work of the same
character, I frequently give a student first one and then another, until
he has tried them all. Then I ask him which he likes best, and why.
Suppose we are to make a drawing-board. The class having already been
made familiar with the principles governing the shrinkage and warping of
woods, is asked in what way the cleats, to prevent warping, may best be
fastened to the ends. The question is left open for a day or two, and
sketches are submitted and views exchanged on the subject.
“I frequently ask my students to pass to me, in writing, as many facts
(not in the form of a composition) as they can think of regarding
certain stated features of their work--not facts to be obtained from
books, but from things they have seen and with which they are familiar.
The replies are often remarkable for accuracy and force of statement....
“The manual training school that does not by its work inspire thought
and encourage investigation is poor indeed; the school that assumes its
work to be _mind training by hand practice_ is the ideal school, and the
school that will succeed....
“My answer to your second and third questions is already evident. I
consider an hour in the shop as valuable for its intellectual training
as an hour of book-study, and two hours in the shop as valuable as two
hours of study. I do not think that a student can take two hours of
shop-work in addition to a full course of outside study; but I am
convinced that two hours in the shop can be made to take the place of
one hour of study without extra burden to the student. Therefore, this
being done, the student will get as much again intellectual benefit from
the shop as he would get if the shop-work equivalent in time were given
to book-study.”
This description of the mental operations which accompany the laboratory
exercises of the manual training school shows the intimacy of the
relations existing between the brain and the hand. It shows how they act
and react upon each other, and affords an explanation of the remark of
Dr. Belfield,[58] that the laboratory exercises are in fact a great
strain upon the mental constitution of the student. This observation of
Dr. Belfield, one of the most distinguished teachers of the old _régime_
in the United States, entirely justifies the claim made in behalf of the
scientific character of manual training as an educational agency, for it
shows that such training is in no sense automatic. If manual training is
a great strain upon the mental faculties, it must be because the use of
tools stimulates such faculties to great activity. And if this is true,
the mental discipline derived from manual training must be
proportionally great. This is a pivotal point; for if the observation of
Dr. Belfield is well founded in fact and reason, it proves to a
demonstration the high educational value of manual training--proves its
superiority over all the methods of the old _régime_.
[58] Henry H. Belfield, A.M., Ph.D., Director of the Chicago Manual
Training School.
Prof. Goss says, “The manual training school student is an
investigator--as much so as a student in chemistry. His mind must always
guide his hand, his reasoning opens new fields of thought with every
stroke of the chisel. He sees on all sides of his work.”[59] And Dr.
Belfield says that these varied operations of the mind cause a severe
mental strain. It would be difficult to find a better exemplification of
scientific education than a course of training which exercises
simultaneously the powers of both body and mind, a course which with
every fresh burden put upon the mind puts new vitality into the body.
This is, indeed, the very opposite of automatic education, and we may
well call it scientific education.
[59] “No extent of acquaintance with the meanings of words can give
the power of forming correct inferences respecting causes and effects.
The constant habit of drawing conclusions from data, and then of
verifying those conclusions by observation and experiment, can alone
give the power of judging correctly.”--“Education,” p. 88. By Herbert
Spencer. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1883.
Another leaf from the experience of Dr. Belfield is worthy of
reproduction here. On the 20th of February, 1884, he took the sense of
the students in his school on the question whether or not they should
indulge in a vacation on Washington’s birthday anniversary. Somewhat to
his surprise the vote was almost unanimous in the affirmative. He
acceded to the wishes of the students, but no sooner was the
announcement made, than he was besieged with applications from nearly
all of them for permission to convert the holiday into a work-day in the
laboratories! Dr. Belfield has been compelled to post a peremptory order
against the occupancy of the school laboratories by the students on
Saturdays, which are regular vacation days.
Natural training is scientific training. The fondness of the student for
the manual training school is evidence of its scientific character. He
is fond of it because it is natural. Miss Blow says of the child: “Only
what he himself has perceived of the visible and tangible properties of
things can serve as the basis of thought, and upon the vividness and
completeness of the impressions made upon him by external objects will
depend the clearness of his inferences and the correctness of his
judgments.” This is the education both of the kindergarten and the
manual training school, and it brightens, stimulates, and develops,
while automatic education stupefies.
Mr. Foley, formerly of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
declares, as the result of his experience, as already stated, that the
scientific methods of the manual training school are twenty times as
valuable to the student as the unscientific methods of the trade-shop
are to the apprentice. But we have shown in a former chapter that the
training of the trade-shops of England, during the past one hundred and
fifty years, has been better than that of the English schools and
universities; in a word, that England is more indebted for her greatness
to her apprentice system than to her school system. It follows that the
school system of England must have been almost indescribably poor.
That the system of popular education in the United States, which is much
more comprehensive, and presumably better, than that of England, is very
poor indeed in results, is shown by the statistics of railway and
mercantile disasters; and it is scarcely necessary to remark that these
disasters show prevailing methods of education to be as defective
morally as they are mentally. The reason of this is that, being
automatic, they lead neither to the discovery of truth nor to the
detection of error. It is easy to juggle with words, to argue in a
circle, to make the worse appear the better reason, and to reach false
conclusions which wear a plausible aspect. But it is not so with things.
If the cylinder is not tight the steam-engine is a lifeless mass of iron
of no value whatever. A flaw in the wheel of the locomotive wrecks the
train. Through a defective flue in the chimney the house is set on fire.
A lie in the concrete is always hideous; like murder, it will out.
Hence it is that the mind is liable to fall into grave errors until it
is fortified by the wise counsel of the practical hand.
It is obvious that the reason of the demand for the manual element in
education is not so much that industrial interests require to be
promoted, as that mental operations may be rendered more true, and hence
more scientific. What we need more than we need a better class of
mechanics is a better class of men--men of a higher grade both morally
and intellectually. The study of things so steadies and balances the
mind that the attention being once turned in that direction great
results soon follow, as witness, the history of discovery and invention
in England.
The world moves very fast industrially, but very slow morally and
intellectually. Mechanics stand the test of scrutiny far better than
merchants. Civil engineers and architects are more competent than
railway presidents, lawyers, judges, and legislators. The reason of this
fact is that mechanics, civil engineers, and architects are educated
practically in the world’s shops and the world’s technical schools. They
are trained in things, while merchants, railway presidents, lawyers,
judges, and legislators have only the automatic word-training of the
schools. It is notorious that criminals are not punished in this
country. Suppose there were such a failure of bridges as there is of
justice. That is to say, suppose nine-tenths of the bridges constructed,
whether for railway or other purposes, should fall within a few months
of their completion. What would be thought of the technical schools
whence the civil engineers graduate?
Ninety-seven merchants in a hundred fail. Suppose ninety-seven buildings
in a hundred, constructed under the direction of architects, should
tumble down over the heads of their occupants six months after their
erection. The education of the architects would no doubt be regarded as
defective.
Buckle says of English legislation, “The best laws which have been
passed have been those by which some former laws were repealed.”[60] It
will be admitted that the same is true of American legislation.[61] In
other words, the average legislator is wiser in the statutes he repeals
than in the bills he enacts. What if the incompetency of the legislator
were paralleled by that of the machinist? Suppose ninety-seven in every
one hundred locomotives should break down on the “trial-trip,” and be
returned to the builder’s shop for remanufacture. Such a result would be
an impeachment of the education of the locomotive builder.
[60] “History of Civilization in England,” Vol. I, p. 200. By Henry
Thomas Buckle. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1864.
“In a paper read to the Statistical Society in May, 1873, Mr. Janson,
Vice-president of the Law Society, stated that from the statute of
Merton (20 Henry III.) to the end of 1872 there had been passed 18,110
public acts, of which he estimated that four-fifths had been wholly or
partially repealed. He also stated that the number of public acts
repealed wholly or in part, or amended, during the three years
1870-71-72 had been 3532, of which 2759 had been totally repealed. To
see whether this rate of repeal has continued I have referred to the
annually issued volumes of the ‘Public General Statutes’ for the last
three sessions. Saying nothing of the numerous amended acts, the
result is that in the last three sessions there have been totally
repealed, separately or in groups, 650 acts _belonging to the present
reign_, besides many of preceding reigns....
“Seeing, then, that bad legislation means injury to men’s lives, judge
what must be the total amount of mental distress, physical pain, and
raised mortality which these thousands of repealed Acts of Parliament
represent.”--“The Man _versus_ the State,” pp. 50, 51. By Herbert
Spencer. New York: D. Appleton & Co.
[61] “So thoroughly have the conscience and intelligence of the North
apprehended these facts [neglect to educate and enlighten the
freedmen], that while the Nation has done nothing they have given in
private charity, intended to remedy this evil, nearly a million
dollars a year for nearly twenty years. This is the instinct of a
people _versus_ the stupidity of their legislators.... Of the true
character of the South he [the author] was, like all his class,
profoundly ignorant, almost as ignorant as the men who made the
Nation’s laws.”--“An Appeal to Cæsar,” pp. 52, 56. By A. W. Tourgée.
Ninety-seven in every hundred boys who graduate from the public schools
and embark in mercantile pursuits fail. Suppose ninety-seven in every
hundred watches made in the American watch factories should prove to be
worthless. The watch companies would, no doubt, soon be in the hands of
the sheriff. But, as a matter of fact, the Elgin National Watch Company,
for example, makes twelve hundred watches a day, and each and every one
of them is an almost perfect time-keeper.
There is, then, no such failure of the arts as there is of justice; no
such failure of mechanics as of merchants; no such failure of
locomotives and watches as of legislation. It follows that the education
of artisans is better, more scientific, than that of merchants, judges,
lawyers, and legislators. And this is a very significant fact when it is
considered that the State does much for education in _belles-lettres_
and scarcely anything for education in the arts and sciences.[62]
[62] The reason why statutes fail more frequently than steam-engines
and bridges is not wholly because the legislator has to deal with
human nature and the mechanic with inanimate matter. Steam and
electricity are subtle forces, but man has quickly mastered them and
successfully applied them to a variety of uses.
It is not to the interest of any one that the machinist should make a
defective locomotive, for example; but it is often to the interest of
some one that the legislator should enact vicious laws. Vicious
statutes are enacted with a design to injure the public in order that
certain individuals may be benefited thereby.
If the mind should act as honestly in legislation as the hand does in
construction, statutes would not have to be repealed yearly.
We have fallen into the habit of regarding education as a polite
accomplishment having very little to do with the real business of
life; but this is not the fact. Education begins in the cradle and
continues through life; and it makes the man what he is. If he goes to
the penitentiary it is his education that sends him there. If he is
sent to the General Assembly of the State or to the Congress of the
Nation, and there helps to enact vicious laws, it is his education
that is responsible for such laws. If the man as a citizen sells his
franchise at the polls, or his vote in the legislative hall, for
money, it is the education he has received that is responsible for his
baseness.
It will be said that the explanation of the greater apparent accuracy
of the work of the hand is to be found in the fact that it operates
upon matter while the mind deals with metaphysical subtilties. The
contention will not be that mind is less plastic than matter, but that
it is more difficult of comprehension. But how do we know this to be
the fact? Where has the experiment been tried of honest contact mind
with mind? It was not tried by the ancients. It is not on trial in any
part of the world to-day. There is, hence, no place in which to seek
evidence as to how mind would act upon mind if treated honestly, as
matter is treated by the hand. But if the quality of selfishness is
eliminated, there will be no difficulty in bringing all minds to an
agreement, as the parts of a watch are brought into harmonious and
useful action. And it is through the hand that this beneficent union
is destined to be effected; for the hand is the source of wisdom,
which is simply the power of discriminating between the true and the
false.