Chapter VIII: The Forging Laboratory

Twenty-four manly-looking Boys with Sledge-hammer in Hand -- their
Muscle and Brawn. -- The Pride of Conscious Strength. -- The Story of
the Origin of an Empire. -- The Greater Empire of Mechanics. -- The
Smelter and the Smith the Bulwark of the British Government. -- Coal
-- its Modern Aspects; its Early History; Superstition regarding its
Use. -- Dud. Dudley utilizes “Pit-coal” for Smelting -- the Story of
his Struggles; his Imprisonment and Death. -- The English People
import their Pots and Kettles. -- “The Blast is on and the Forge Fire
sings.” -- The Lesson, first on the Black-board, then in Red-hot Iron
on the Anvil. -- Striking out the Anvil Chorus -- the Sparks fly
whizzing through the Air. -- The Mythological History of Iron. -- The
Smith in Feudal Times. -- His Versatility. -- History of Damascus
Steel. -- We should reverence the early Inventors. -- The Useful Arts
finer than the Fine Arts. -- The Ancient Smelter and Smith, and the
Students in the Manual-training School. 58

CHAPTER IX.

THE MACHINE-TOOL LABORATORY.

The Foundery and Smithy are Ancient, the Machine-tool Shop is Modern.
-- The Giant, Steam, reduced to Servitude. -- The Iron Lines of
Progress. -- They converge in the Shop; its triumphs from the
Watchspring to the Locomotive. -- The Applications of Iron in Art is
the Subject of Subjects. -- The Story of Invention is the History of
Civilization. -- The Machine-maker and the Tool-maker are the best
Friends of Man. -- Watt’s Great Conception waited for Automatic Tools;
their Accuracy. -- The Hand-made and the Machine-made Watch. -- The
Elgin (Illinois) Watch Factory. -- The Interdependence of the Arts. --
The making of a Suit of Clothes. -- The Anteroom of the Machine-tool
Laboratory. -- Chipping and Filing. -- The File-cutter. -- The Poverty
of Words as compared with Things. -- The Graduating Project. -- The
Vision of the Instructor. 78

CHAPTER X.

MANUAL AND MENTAL TRAINING COMBINED.

The new Education is all-sided -- its Effect. -- A Harmonious
Development of the Whole Being. -- Examination for Admission to the
Chicago School. -- List of Questions in Arithmetic, Geography, and
Language. -- The Curriculum. -- The Alternation of Manual and Mental
Exercises. -- The Demand for Scientific Education -- its Effect. --
Ambition to be useful. 105

CHAPTER XI.

THE INTELLECTUAL EFFECT OF MANUAL TRAINING.

Intelligence is the Basis of Character. -- The more Practical the
Intelligence the Higher the Development of Character. -- The use of
Tools quickens the Intellect. -- Making Things rouses the Attention,
sharpens the Observation, and steadies the Judgment. -- History of
Inventions in England, 1740-1840. -- Poor, Ignorant Apprentices become
learned Men. -- Cort, Huntsman, Mushet, Neilson, Stephenson, and Watt.
-- The Union of Books and Tools. -- Results at Rotterdam, Holland; at
Moscow, Russia; at Komotau, Bohemia; and at St. Louis, Mo. -- The
Consideration of Overwhelming Import. 113

CHAPTER XII.

THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN A NECESSITY.

The Difference between Ancient and Modern Systems of Education. --
Plato Blinded by Half-truths. -- No place in the present order of
things for Dogmatisms. -- Education begins at Birth. -- The Influence
of Women extends from the Cradle to the Grave. -- The Crime of Crimes.
-- Neglect to educate Woman. -- The Superiority of Women over Men as
Teachers. -- Froebel discovered it. -- Nature designed Woman to Teach;
hence the Importance of Fitting her for her Highest Destiny. 123

CHAPTER XIII.

THE MORAL EFFECT OF MANUAL TRAINING.

Mental Impulses are often Vicious; but the Exertion of Physical Power
in the Arts is always Beneficent -- hence Manual Training tends to
correct vicious mental Impulses. -- Every mental Impression produces a
moral Effect. -- All Training is Moral as well as Mental. --
Selfishness is total Depravity; but Selfishness has been Deified under
the name of Prudence. -- Napoleon an Example of Selfishness. -- The
End of Selfishness is Disaster; but Prevailing Systems of Education
promote Selfishness. -- The Modern City an Illustration of
Selfishness. -- The Ancient City. -- Existing Systems of Education
Negatively Wrong. -- Manual Training supplies the lacking Element. --
The Objective must take the Place of the Subjective in Education. --
Words without Acts are as dead as Faith without Works. 130

CHAPTER XIV.

THE MIND AND THE HAND.

The Mind and the Hand are Allies; the Mind speculates, the Hand tests
its Speculations in Things. -- The Hand explodes the Errors of the
Mind -- it searches after Truth and finds it in Things. -- Mental
Errors are subtile; they elude us, but the False in Things stands
self-exposed. -- The Hand is the Mind’s Moral Rudder. -- The Organ of
Touch the most Wonderful of the Senses; all the Others are Passive;
it alone is Active. -- Sir Charles Bell’s Discovery of a “Muscular
Sense.” -- Dr. Henry Maudsley on the Muscular Sense. -- The Hand
influences the Brain. -- Connected Thought impossible without
Language, and Language dependent upon Objects; and all Artificial
Objects are the Work of the Hand. -- Progress is therefore the Imprint
of the Hand upon Matter in Art. -- The Hand is nearer the Brain than
are the Eye and the Ear. -- The Marvellous Works of the Hand. 144

CHAPTER XV.

THE POWER OF THE TRAINED HAND.

The Legend of Adam and the Stick with which he subdued the Animals. --
The Stick is the Symbol of Power, and only the Hand can wield it. --
The Hand imprisons Steam and Electricity, and keeps them at hard
Labor. -- The Destitution of England Two Hundred and Fifty Years ago:
a Pen Picture. -- The Transformation wrought by the Hand: a Pen
Picture. -- It is due, not to Men who make Laws, but to Men who make
Things. -- The Scientist and the Inventor are the World’s Benefactors.
-- A Parallel between the Right Honorable William E. Gladstone and Sir
Henry Bessemer. -- Mr. Gladstone a Man of Ideas, Mr. Bessemer a Man of
Deeds. -- The Value of the latter’s Inventions. -- Mr. Gladstone
represents the Old Education, Mr. Bessemer the New. 157

CHAPTER XVI.

THE INVENTORS, CIVIL ENGINEERS, AND MECHANICS OF ENGLAND, AND ENGLISH
PROGRESS.

A Trade is better than a Profession. -- The Railway, Telegraph, and
Steamship are more Potent than the Lawyer, Doctor, and Priest. --
Book-makers writing the Lives of the Inventors of last Century. -- The
Workshop to be the Scene of the Greatest Triumphs of Man. -- The Civil
Engineers of England the Heroes of English Progress. -- The Life of
James Brindley, the Canal-maker; his Struggles and Poverty. -- The
Roll of Honor. -- Mr. Gladstone’s Significant Admission that English
Triumphs in Science and Art were won without Government Aid. --
Disregarding the Common-sense of the Savage, Legislators have chosen
to learn of Plato, who declared that “The Useful Arts are Degrading.”
-- How Improvements in the Arts have been met by Ignorant Opposition.
-- The Power wielded by the Mechanic. 170

CHAPTER XVII.

POWER OF STEAM AND CONTEMPT OF ARTISANS.

A few Million People now wield twice as much Industrial Power as all
the People on the Globe exerted a Hundred Years ago. -- A Revolution
wrought, not by the Schools and Colleges, but by the Mechanic. -- The
Union between Science and Art prevented by the Speculative Philosophy
of the Middle Ages. -- Statesmen, Lawyers, Littérateurs, Poets, and
Artists more highly esteemed than Civil Engineers, Mechanics, and
Artisans. -- The Refugee Artisan a Power in England, the Refugee
Politician worthless. -- Prejudice against the Artisan Class shown by
Mr. Galton in his Work on “Hereditary Genius.” -- The Influence of
Slavery: it has lasted Thousands of Years, and still Survives. 184