CAPTAIN GILDROCK ARGUES AGAINST HIGH-SCHOOLS.
The next day was Sunday; and Captain Gildrock insisted that all the
students should attend church, and refrain from all work and play.
Those who lived in Genverres were allowed to spend the day at home. No
excursions on the river or the lake were permitted, and no scholar was
allowed even to get into any of the boats.
On Monday morning the actual work of the school was begun. The
study-hours were from nine till twelve in the forenoon. The two
gentlemen who were to teach in the scholastic department had arrived,
and promptly at the hour the school was called to order.
“Now, my lads, we are ready for work,” said the captain on the
platform. “I am told that you can all read, write, and cipher. You
have some knowledge of geography and history. I dare say, some of you
have studied Greek, Latin, French, and German, which are all very well
in their place; but we shall have nothing to do with them here. We are
to make good mechanics of you, and not good scholars.”
“Can’t good scholars be good mechanics?” asked Bolingbroke Millweed.
“Certainly they can: I don’t object to any amount of scholarship,”
replied Captain Gildrock rather warmly. “You have been to the
high-school, Bolingbroke; but all that you have learned will not
prevent you from becoming a first-class mechanic. On the contrary,
your education will be a great help to you.”
“That is just what I thought,” added the graduate of the high-school.
“For two or three years an exciting question has been under discussion
here in Genverres,” continued the principal, turning to the two
instructors. “I have taken the practical side of the subject, and I
don’t believe in sending all the boys and girls to the high-school.
When our fathers here in New England planted the schoolhouse by the
side of the church, I don’t believe they meant a high-school.”
“Of course not: such an institution was unknown in their day,--at
least, as we understand it,” replied Mr. Bentnick. “They simply meant
an ordinary common-school education, as we call it now.”
“That must be all they meant; but there has been progress in
education, as in every thing else, since their time,” added Mr.
Darlingby.
“I rejoice in the progress as much as any one can,” retorted the
captain vigorously. “But I believe there is intemperance in the matter
of education as well as in eating and drinking. The first business of
life, in an enlightened or a savage state, is bread and butter. In
other words, a man must get his living before he does any thing beyond
that; and the greater part of our population can do nothing more than
get a living. Do you believe that, boys?”
The boys did believe it, though none of them had ever given much
attention to social and political economy. It was plain enough that
the first duty of existence for every person was to support himself.
“But some are born rich,” suggested Corny Minkfield.
“Then their means of support are provided, but this is not the case
with one in a hundred. The great body of our people have to earn their
own living. The only real objections I have to the high-school are,
first, that it unfits boys and girls for the humble labors of life;
and, second, that it uses up so many of the years of the young in
learning what does not directly help them in earning their own
livelihood,” continued the captain.
“But what they learn in the high-school is a direct help to them in
all the business of life,” suggested Mr. Darlingby.
“Boys and girls spend their time from fourteen or sixteen years of
age, till they are eighteen or twenty, in learning Latin, French,
German, literature, the higher mathematics, and such branches, when
they might learn a trade, or obtain a knowledge of business. When they
graduate, they don’t want to learn a trade, work on a farm, or do
manual labor of any kind. They look down upon such occupations. They
want to be clerks, if they are boys, or marry wealthy men, if they are
girls. They must do something, if any thing at all, that is genteel.”
“There is a great deal of truth in that statement,” added Mr.
Bentnick. “Boys don’t stay in the country, and work on the farm, now
as they did fifty years ago.”
“I had a curiosity, when I was in New York last spring, to inquire
into the salaries paid to clerks and salesmen in dry-goods stores,”
continued the captain. “So far as I could obtain the information, the
average was not above ten dollars a week. Of course, some got two or
three thousand dollars a year, or even double these sums; but I found
that a great many young men worked for five or six dollars a week, and
some for even less. Good mechanics earned from ten to thirty dollars a
week.
“Why, a common laborer got from six to twelve dollars a week. While
mechanics and laborers were in demand, there were multitudes of
counter-jumpers, and other persons who wanted what they called genteel
occupations, who could get nothing to do. In a word, our institutions
of learning have fitted too many for the so-called higher grades of
employment.”
“But sometimes the mechanics and laborers are out of work?” said
Bolingbroke.
“They are, for it sometimes happens that overproduction shuts up the
shops and manufactories. But these men have been taught to work with
their hands, and their bodies have been fitted for such service. When
they can’t get work at their trades, they do something else. Thousands
upon thousands of them go to the great West, and become farmers. They
can always get a living out of the earth, if they can’t any other way.
But I did not intend to argue this question; though I desire every
young man to think for himself, and form his own opinions. You can
think as you please; and if you believe that high-schools, as managed
at the present time, promote the best interests of the whole people,
you are entirely welcome to your opinion.”
“My father don’t believe in high-schools, and would not send me to
one,” said Phil Gawner.
“Never mind what your father believes: make up your mind yourself, and
have your own opinions, my lad. Now, boys, the studies you are to
pursue here are those which will fit you to become good mechanics. But
I hope you will read and study as long as you live. What I intend to
do is to fit you out with a business that will enable you to earn your
own living.”
Miss Fatima Millweed was present with the record-books with which she
had been provided; and the name, age, and residence of each pupil were
taken. The average age of the scholars was found to be fourteen and a
half. A few were only twelve, but several were eighteen and nineteen.
All of them were graduates of grammar-schools, and some had attended
high-schools and academies. Of course, the schools they had attended
did not fairly gauge their attainments; for some of the oldest, who
had been to the higher schools of learning, were weak in knowledge and
mental power when compared with the ones who had only been to the
lower grades of schools.
“Now, my lads, a few words more, and I shall leave you to your
instructors. The studies you will pursue are all practical ones,” said
the captain, taking the platform again. “The principal branches will
be drawing, natural philosophy, chemistry, geometry, and book-keeping.
Geography, history, arithmetic, and grammar will be taught
incidentally. Before you graduate, there will be a course in botany,
geology, and zoölogy. At one o’clock you will all assemble in the
shop, and make a beginning in the mechanical part of your education.”
The captain left the platform, and left the schoolroom. Mr. Bentnick
was the chief instructor, Mr. Darlingby being his assistant. He
proceeded to organize the classes in the studies the principal had
mentioned. He made such rules as he considered necessary, but they
were not very stringent.
The boys were divided into two classes, according to their
attainments. Ten were found who had made considerable progress in the
four principal studies, and these were the first class. Mr. Bentnick
proceeded to give them a lecture in chemistry. It was conversational,
and the instructor soon found where to make a beginning in the
science.
At the same time Mr. Darlingby began with the rudiments in the second
class. The pupils were provided with text-books, and lessons assigned
for the next day. A start was made in geometry in the same manner, and
by that time it was noon. At quarter past twelve the dinner-bell rang;
and all hands, including the family, the instructors, the pupils, and
Miss Millweed, seated themselves at the long table. It was a sociable
meal; and no one seemed to be under any restraint, though the boys
behaved very well.
Mr. Darlingby had something more to say in favor of high-schools, in
which he had been a teacher for several years. He wanted to know if
Captain Gildrock believed that the higher branches should be taught at
the public expense.
“I think the expense is the least important part of the subject,”
replied the principal; “but I will answer the question. I do not
believe that high-schools should be supported, as a rule, out of the
public taxes.”
“You are very radical in your opinions, Captain Gildrock,” added the
instructor.
“Let us look at it a moment. There are two thousand scholars of all
ages in the public schools of Genverres. Not more than one in five of
them will ever reach the highest class in the grammar-school. The
other four will leave school, and go to work: their parents need them,
or what they can earn. But the parents of all those who fall out of
the schools by the way are tax-payers. Some are only poll-taxes, but a
few of them pay on their little lots of land and houses. It costs
about five times as much to educate a pupil in the high-school as in
the elementary schools. The parents of four-fifths of the scholars
can’t afford even to send their children through the grammar-school
course, to say nothing of the high-school; but they have to pay their
share of the expenses of the high-school, which I contend is not
just.”
“But the safety of our institutions depends upon the education of the
people,” replied Mr. Darlingby.
“Does it depend upon a college education? Why not insist that every
person should be a graduate of a college, and that no person could be
moral and upright without having a college degree?” added the
principal.
“There is reason in all things.”
“You draw the line after the high-school, and I before: that is the
only difference. It would be as just to support the colleges at the
public expense as the high-schools. The education that preserves the
State is not French and German, Latin and Greek, chemistry and
physics; but it is the education that distinguishes the immigrant who
cannot read and write from the farmers and mechanics of this country.
It does not include a high-school training.”
“Then, if a poor man’s son or daughter, with a taste for learning,
wants an education, he shall not have it because his father cannot
pay for it,” added Mr. Darlingby warmly and indignantly.
“You have struck the weak point of my argument, sir,” replied the
principal. “I would have scholarships provided by the State for such
pupils.”
Dinner was over, and the company left the table.