than the problem how to train best those who will devote themselves
to a commercial life. This has become a live question recently to the
American people. With improved processes in manufacture, the power of
production has grown far beyond the consumption of our own people.
Consequently America is competing with the great industrial nations
of Europe for a control of the markets of the world. As soon as this
competition became evident, the need for a better trained class of
commercial leaders was felt. The example of Germany has had a great
influence upon other countries. There is a general conviction that
the leading position among commercial nations which Germany has won
for itself is due in large measure to the technical education given
to German artisans and the commercial education provided for business
men. For illustration, the German government has recently established
in Berlin a school where young men, preparing for business careers in
Asia, can learn Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, and Turkish. German youths
have been supplanting English young men, to an appreciable degree, in
the great commercial houses of London. As a consequence, there has been
a strong demand in America for the establishment of commercial high
schools,—public institutions in which German, French, and Spanish will
be taught, together with economics, industrial history, commercial
geography, public finance, social science, etc. These institutions
differ entirely from the business colleges, of which there were 342
in the United States in 1897, in that they are broader in scope and
content. The latter qualify a man to be a good clerk by teaching him
stenography, typewriting, bookkeeping, etc., but the former aim to give
him a broad, liberal education, enabling him to have an intelligent
comprehension of all matters which interest him in active business.
This movement is too recent to have borne much fruit, but in many
of the larger cities of America, as New York, Philadelphia, Boston,
Brooklyn, and Cleveland, commercial courses have been established in
connection with the regular high-school course; and in some of the
larger universities, as Pennsylvania, Chicago, Columbia, schools in
economics and politics have been created,—all with a view to equipping
a young man for an active business career. In view of the present
interest in this movement, more may be expected in the near future.
[Illustration: BOOKER T. WASHINGTON.]
The close of the Civil War brought the American people to a problem,
vast in its importance and intricate in its solution. The negro race
had had no opportunity for education under the institution of slavery.
But with their freedom came the necessity for creating a system of
schools which could be of special help to this new body of citizens.
The South has preferred generally that separate schools should be
provided for the two races. In the ante-bellum days, the wealthier
families usually sent their sons and daughters away from home to obtain
their education under better auspices than their own neighborhood could
afford. So when the war concluded, and there was but little sign of
public schools, a new system must be created, and at once. The first
work toward educating the negro was done by the national government,
through the schools opened by the Freedman’s Aid Society. The different
religious bodies throughout the country took a hand in the good work,
by establishing special missionary boards for work in the South.
Private benevolence lent substantial assistance. George Peabody, the
philanthropist, and John F. Slater, both founded trusts which they
richly endowed to aid in the establishment of schools in the Southern
section. But the greatest work was done through the awakening of the
people to the value of education, leading to liberal appropriations and
to a firm public support.
Within recent years, negro education has assumed a new and interesting
phase. Booker T. Washington, principal of the Tuskegee Normal and
Industrial Institute, Alabama, is the leading educator of the
Afro-Americans, and he has won his high place by the success which
has attended his efforts at industrial education. His school at
Tuskegee was started in 1881, and to-day contains over one thousand
students. While fully appreciating the value of an academic education,
Mr. Washington has felt that the first necessity for his people was
the knowledge that would earn a livelihood. As a consequence, the
industrial side of education has been accented; twenty-six different
trades or industries are in operation at Tuskegee, and one is taught
to each student of the Institute. As a consequence, its graduates have
gone forth into active life, well equipped to become bread-winners and
to fill a useful place in society.
The care of those who, from birth or by accident, do not possess
all the powers of a normal person, has aroused much interest during
the century. The deaf-mutes, the blind, and the mentally deficient,
have each had institutions created, where they are taught as much of
the knowledge of the world as is possible. The instruction of the
deaf and dumb proceeds along two lines. The manual or sign method of
conversation, based on gestures, was founded by Abbé de l’Epée in
1760; while about the same time Samuel Heinicke, a German, introduced
the oral method, by which the eye of the mute is trained to perform
the part of the ear, by learning the meaning of spoken words through
observation of the changes in the position of the vocal organs. Special
institutions for these classes abound in Europe and America, with
the difference that, in the former, they are generally private or
maintained by charity; whereas in the latter they are maintained by the
State. Rev. T. H. Gallaudet and his son, Dr. Edward M. Gallaudet, have
been the leaders in the instruction of deaf-mutes in the United States,
and have achieved a high degree of success.
The teaching of the blind is of equal value to education. Two methods
are generally followed; an alphabet of raised letters is employed in
some cases, or, and more generally in the United States, a system of
raised dots or points, which do not resemble the letter in form, but
are a kind of shorthand to the reader. In both methods, the sense of
touch takes the place of sight. In some cases, notably Laura Bridgman
and Helen Keller, the success has been so complete as to excite
universal wonder. Perhaps no institutions alleviate more human misery
than do the schools for the blind, by bringing world-ideas within the
limited horizon of this afflicted class.
Much also has been done for the training of idiots or those who are
mentally deficient. In 1848, the Massachusetts School for Idiots and
Feeble-Minded was opened, and other States followed with equally
generous provision. Within recent years, special schools have been
opened in connection with the school systems of large cities, so
that children who need individual care and watchfulness may receive
more attention than they could secure in the graded class-room. All
these tendencies are exceedingly hopeful, as indicative of society’s
recognition of her duty to those who cannot satisfactorily care for
themselves. Humanitarianism in education has been a powerful and
constant force during the whole of this century.
[Illustration: DR. E. BENJ. ANDREWS, SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS,
CHICAGO, ILL.]
It must not be forgotten that other agencies beside those established
by States have been contributing to education. The Sunday-school
movement is one of the great efforts of the century, to help in
training children by a voluntary organization. In 1781, Robert Raikes
employed some teachers for the poor children of Gloucester, in order
that their Sundays might be spent quietly and with profit. Presently,
as the number of Sunday-schools increased, men and women proffered
their services gratuitously. The teaching followed two general lines,
secular (reading, writing, etc.) and religious. The former was of
help, especially to children who were employed during the week. From
England, the movement came to the West. The American Sunday-school
Union was organized in 1824, and has ever since continued to stimulate
the establishment of more schools of this kind. In 1896, there were
132,697 Sunday-schools in the United States and 9097 in Canada, with
a total membership of 12,288,153 and 721,435 respectively, while it
has been computed that in the world the number of Sunday-schools was
246,658, with an enrollment of 24,919,313.
In European states, they have been solving the same problems as
in America. The importance of education once admitted, the next
problem is to secure the funds and develop the system.[5] Because of
administrative centralization, this has been far easier in Europe than
in America. The Minister of Education in France or Germany orders,
and his directions are carried out; the United States Commissioner
advises, and while his recommendations influence public opinion, yet
the latter method is by far the slower. As a consequence, the European
schools are more systematized and better organized than our own. Their
course of study differs widely in details from our own, and generally
shows more influence on the part of the pedagogical expert. Technical
and professional education has been developed to an exceedingly high
degree. England has had a peculiar problem to face, in determining
the relation between the church schools and the secular schools, and
has only solved it by maintaining both. Most European countries have
adopted the principle of compulsory education for children within
a certain age limit, and the same principle has been accepted in
thirty-two States in America. In general, it may be said that in the
changes in course of study, in equipment, in the teachership, etc.,
Europe and America have been working along parallel lines. As a rule,
these changes have come more quickly in America, where traditions were
as yet unformed; nevertheless, the progress in Europe has been constant
and very great.
[5] The comparative interest in education is well illustrated
by the following extract from an address by Dr. Charles R.
Skinner, recently delivered before the N. E. A.
“The United States, to-day the youngest of all, is the only
great nation of the world which expends more for education
than for war. France spends annually $4 per capita on her
army and 70 cents per capita on education; England, $3.72
for her army and 62 cents for education; Prussia, $2.04
for her army and 50 cents for education; Italy, $1.52 for
her army and 36 cents for education; Austria, $1.36 for
her army and 62 cents for education; Russia, $2.04 for
her army and 3 cents for education; the United States, 39
cents for her army and $1.35 for education. England 6 to 1
for war! Russia, 17 to 1 for war! the United States 4 to
1 for education! The United States spends more per capita
annually for education than England, France, and Russia
combined.”
Canada has a well-established and well-regulated system, in which
the principle of free and public education is recognized. The eight
provinces contain twenty-four colleges, and the schools have over one
million pupils. Education is more or less compulsory in all of the
provinces, but the law is not very strictly enforced. In Ontario,
Quebec, and the Northwest Territories there are separate schools for
Roman Catholics; in the other provinces the schools are non-sectarian.
There is a high professional spirit among the teachers, so that the
schools may be expected to keep fully abreast of the times.
The nineteenth century has been a century of continuous advance in
education. Its spirit has been healthy, its achievements are notable,
its work has been great. It would be futile, however, to assert that
all is yet accomplished. The problems in elementary education are so
many and so important that there have been times when solution seemed
impossible. Nevertheless, the system is now established and is assured
of public support, and with an education within the reach of every
child, the security of free institutions is forever guaranteed.
“THE ART PRESERVATIVE”
BY THOMAS J. LINDSEY,
_Editorial Staff Philadelphia “Evening Bulletin.”_
I. THE PRINTING PRESS.
When Benjamin Franklin edited the “Gazette,” in Philadelphia, a century
and a half ago, he set up the type, worked off the paper on a wooden
hand-press of primitive construction, made wooden types for use in his
office, and engraved the cuts with which to illustrate the articles.
In those days printing was an art which figured among the mysteries of
science, and was practiced by men of high social standing and advanced
education. The sixty years which passed between Franklin’s purchase
of the “Gazette” and his death saw the discovery of many scientific
wonders, but the art of printing moved so slowly as to leave it at
the close of the eighteenth century practically in the condition in
which Franklin found it when he began his career as proprietor of his
Philadelphia printing establishment.
And this condition of affairs applied to England as well as to the
United States.
With all the rare ability possessed by the printer philosopher, he was
able to do but little for the advancement of the profession which was
instrumental in making for him an international reputation.
In all that pertains to the printing business there is nothing with
which the name of Franklin is connected as inventor; yet he is referred
to invariably as in the highest degree representative of the “art
preservative of all arts.”
[Illustration: EARLY PRINTING PRESS AS USED BY BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.]
Were the distinguished scientist, statesman, diplomat, printer, and
philosopher to come forth from his grave in the cemetery of Christ
Church, at Fifth and Arch Streets, Philadelphia, and go into one of
the great printing houses of the country, how astounding to him would
be the revelation! No more the wooden types or the unsymmetrical metal
pieces; no more the wooden hand-press, the wood engravings, the ink
balls, and the process of printing a few hundred sheets an hour. The
terrific rapidity with which the newspapers are turned out to-day,
printed, cut, pasted, and folded; the fineness of the work done on
books and magazines; the wonder of one press putting on different
colors at the same time; the setting of type by machines seemingly
possessed of human intelligence; the rapidity and the simplicity of
making stereotype plates; the dexterity of forming ordinary metal
types into all kinds of forms; the millions of books,—secular and
religious,—papers, and general literary productions turned out daily,
would so puzzle the gigantic brain and cloud the understanding of the
philosopher as to cause him to exclaim: “Take me back, O spirit of
death, and let me forever rest from this seething, surging, whirling
sphere of inventive progression.”
When the genius of invention was turned toward the printing art, it is
worthy of note that the press which attracted the greatest attention
was the production of a Philadelphian who once had been an associate of
Benjamin Franklin. It was known as the Columbian press, the invention
of George Clymer, and was regarded as of sufficient consequence to meet
the approval of the printing fraternity of Great Britain as well as of
this country.
In the National Museum in Washington, D. C., is the hand press which
Benjamin Franklin used to print his Philadelphia paper, the “Gazette.”
It had been built for him in London, where he had used it about five
years prior to its being brought to Philadelphia.
What a curious-looking affair it is! Yet it was little less in the way
of primitiveness compared with that used prior to 1817, when Clymer’s
Columbian came into use. When these productions are contrasted with the
magnificent contrivances of to-day, from which can be thrown sixteen
hundred papers per minute,—papers of ten, twelve, and fourteen pages,
printed on both sides, pasted and folded,—the comparison is like
putting the steamboat of Fulton by the side of the monster ships which
cross the Atlantic ocean from New York to Southampton in less than five
days.
The Columbian press was looked upon, when presented to the printers, as
an advance worthy of note in the art. It is easy to imagine how much
prominence was given Clymer’s invention when it was placed beside the
old common press. To-day, this supposed-to-be great piece of mechanism
would not even be dignified by a place in the most un-modern backwoods
printing establishment. And yet from this were printed the literary
productions of Great Britain, as well as of the United States, in the
early part of the nineteenth century.
The Columbian mechanical advancement consisted of the use of rollers
for inking the type,—very much like the process now employed in inking
the type when a rough proof is desired,—thus dispensing with the
balls, which were managed by boys; the use of screws under the bed of
the press to hold in position the form, into which had been securely
adjusted the type; and the application of a long bar to obtain pressure
sufficient to make the impression on the paper. The picture of this
press shows the flat carriage upon which was placed the type, the
platen or pressing surface, the bar which forced the platen upon the
type, the spring which carried the platen back to position when the
impression had been taken, and the track upon which the carriage was
moved forward and backward,—primitive enough, and sufficiently simple
in construction to show the limited capacity of the inventive genius of
our great-grandfathers.
It was about 1829 when the Columbian gave way to the Washington press,
and this was used for some time for fine book-work. The feature of it
was an automatic inking roller attachment.
While the Washington press had the capacity for producing fine work, it
was deficient in the speed required for meeting the demand then growing
for books and newspapers. Then the printers turned to a cylinder press
which had appeared in the last decade of the eighteenth century. The
London “Times” had taken hold of it, and brought it to such a condition
that its speed was raised to something like a thousand impressions an
hour. König, a native of Saxony, in 1815, produced a press for printing
both sides of the sheet. It resembled two single presses placed with
their cylinders toward each other, the sheet being carried by tapes
from the first to the second cylinder. Its capacity was 750 sheets,
both sides, an hour.
[Illustration: THE COLUMBIAN PRESS.]
Cambridge University about this time was furnished with a press in
which the types were placed on the four sides of a prism, the paper
being applied by another prism. It proved unsuccessful. In this
press, however, were first introduced the inking rollers formed of
a combination of glue and molasses. Rollers are made of these two
materials to this day.
Cowper, an Englishman, in 1815, introduced curved stereotyped plates
and fixed them to a cylinder. Two place cylinders and two impression
cylinders were soon afterward worked together on one press by Cowper,
printing both sides of the sheet at the rate of one thousand copies an
hour.
This seems to have been the period when inventive skill began to
assert itself in the printing press. The educational advancement of
the people in this country and in Europe, with the lack of facility
for furnishing information of the campaigns of Napoleon Bonaparte, the
desire for facts regarding the events transpiring in England, France,
and Germany, the meagreness of the details which had been furnished
of the conflict between Great Britain and the United States in 1812,
convinced the publishers of newspapers in this country and abroad that
the laws of supply and demand were not equally balanced. The outcome
of this was a press constructed to print both sides of the sheet from
type, and was soon followed by the introduction of four impression
cylinders. These were applied to the reciprocating bed to carry the
type for one side of the sheet, the sheets being fed from four feeding
boards, the impression cylinders alternately rising and falling, so
that two sheets were printed during the passage one way, the other two
on the return passage. A pair of inking rollers between the impression
cylinders obtained ink from the reciprocating board.
[Illustration: WASHINGTON HAND PRESS.]
The capacity of this press was five thousand an hour, and this was
regarded as a feat worthy of public mention, record of it being made in
the newspapers of that period in a way which shows the general interest
in the work.
The first power-press used in the United States was made by Daniel
Treadwell, of Boston, in 1822. Two of them were used by the Bible and
Tract societies.
The London “Times” had succeeded in applying steam to the movement of
the printing press as early as 1814—a cylinder press being brought
into requisition, to the use of which they had the exclusive right.
Following the Treadwell press, about 1825, came the improvements of
Samuel and Isaac Adams, and the general use of the press which is still
worked in the book offices of this country and Great Britain. It was on
one of these Adams presses, in 1863, that was printed the book written
by Dr. Elisha Kent Kane, describing his second expedition in search of
Sir John Franklin, the Arctic explorer.
[Illustration: OLD WOODEN FRAME ADAMS BED AND PLATEN BOOK PRESS.]
It was found that the Adams press could be used for newspaper as well
as exceedingly fine book-work, its construction admitting of the
use of plates or type, and its speed such as nearly came up to the
requirements of that period. In this press a feed board holds the
paper, which is fed by hand to a second board or tympan, having points
to make holes in the sheet to regulate the second side. The type rests
upon a bed which is raised by straightening a toggle-joint against the
upper plates.
The fountain for the ink is carried at one end of the press. The inking
rollers pass twice over the form. The paper is caught by grippers,
carried in a frame called a frisket over the form (or type), receives
the impression, and is carried by tapes to a fly frame in the rear
which delivers it to the sheet board.
With the two-, three-, and four-cylinder presses, the Adams press,
steam power and various improvements in the make of inks and rollers,
the first half of the nineteenth century was looked upon as having
made for the printing press extraordinarily rapid advancement. Great
Britain held first place in the production of newspapers and books, the
United States was a slow second, then came France, Germany, Russia,
Italy, Spain, and Austria, in the order given. The greatest evidence of
this march of improvement was the enormous increase in the production
of the Bible, and the bringing of the cost to a figure which then was
looked upon as placing it within the reach of all classes. Scientific
and literary works were being put out in great numbers, newspapers
were being started in every town in this country and England, and the
editions put out in such European centres of advancement as Paris,
Madrid, Berlin, Brussels, London, Liverpool, Dublin, Glasgow, St.
Petersburg, Vienna, and Rome reached proportions then supposed to
be enormous. The London “Times” at that period had a circulation of
about 30,000,—and this was the leader in journalism. In the United
States the leading newspapers did not issue daily editions greater
than 20,000, while a circulation of 10,000 daily was regarded as being
entirely satisfactory to the business ideas of the average publisher.
The opening of the last half of the nineteenth century may be spoken
of as a quiescent period. It was the calm in the affairs of the United
States which preceded the occurring of stormy events which put to
the full test the strength of the young republic, the attitude of
the nations of the old world toward us, and the power of the people
successfully to maintain a government “of the people, for the people,
and by the people.”
Millard Fillmore became the President of the United States in July
of 1850, succeeding Zachary Taylor, who died. The Congress had taken
a stand on the disturbing question of slavery by the passage of the
fugitive slave law, and had made the first step toward freedom for
the negroes by the abolition of the slave trade in the District of
Columbia. It was in this year that New Mexico and Utah were admitted
as Territories, the entire population of the United States being only
23,191,876; ten years later the population reached 31,443,321. The
people were beginning to realize how important was the printing press
in placing them in communication with the statesmen of the country.
They were looking to Webster, Calhoun, Clay, Meredith, Everett,
Scott, Crittenden, Collamer, Marcy,—then in the fullness of mental
vigor,—and they were demanding information of their acts in the
cabinet, their speeches in Congress, their views on state rights and
slavery.
It was at this time that the Hoe American Printing-press Company
startled the world by producing the ten-cylinder press, the speed of
which was limited only by the ability of the feeders to supply the
sheets. The first one of them to be used in the United States was that
upon which the Philadelphia “Public Ledger” was printed. It at once
came into general use in Europe and America. Its speed was 20,000
copies an hour.