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]

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.

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]

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.

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]

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.

“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.

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.

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.

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]