Popular Education Part 12

"M. Duhamel Monceau, a celebrated French agriculturist, has made direct and positive experiments for the purpose of testing this question, and has clearly and conclusively shown that the qualities of timber felled in different parts of the lunar month are the same. M. Duhamel felled a great many trees of the same age, growing from the same soil, and exposed to the same aspect, and never found any difference in the quality of the timber, when he compared those which were felled in the decline of the moon with those which were felled during its increase: in general, they have afforded timber of the same quality. He adds, however, that by a circ.u.mstance which was doubtless fortuitous, a slight difference was manifested in favor of timber which had been felled between the new and full moon, _contrary to popular opinion_."

SUPPOSED LUNAR INFLUENCES.--It is an aphorism received by all gardeners and agriculturists in Europe, remarks the same author, that vegetables, plants, and trees, which are expected to flourish and grow with vigor, should be planted, grafted, and pruned during the increase of the moon.

This opinion, however, he thinks is altogether erroneous; for the experiments and observations of several French agriculturists have clearly established the fact that the increase or decrease of the moon has no appreciable influence on the phenomena of vegetation.

This erroneous prejudice prevails also on the American continent. A French author states that, in Brazil, cultivators plant during the _decline_ of the moon all vegetables whose _roots_ are used as food, and that, on the contrary, they plant during the _increasing_ moon the sugar-cane, maize, rice, beans, etc., and those which bear the food upon their _stocks_ and _branches_. Experiments, however, were made and reported by M. de Chauvalon, at Martinique, on vegetables of both kinds, planted at different times in the lunar month, and no appreciable difference in their qualities was discovered.

There are some traces of a principle adopted by the South American agronomes (farmers), according to which they treat the two cla.s.ses of plants distinguished by the production of fruit on their roots or on their branches differently; but there are none in the European aphorisms. The directions of Pliny are still more specific: he prescribes the time of the full moon for sowing beans, and that of the new moon for lentils. "Truly," says M. Arago, "we have need of a robust faith to admit, without proof, that the moon, at the distance of two hundred and forty thousand miles, shall, in one position, act advantageously upon the vegetation of _beans_, and that in the opposite position, and at the same distance, she shall be propitious to _lentils_."

Dr. Lardner gives numerous and extended ill.u.s.trations of the supposed influence of the moon on the growth of grain, on wine-making,[38] on the color of the complexion, on putrefaction, on the size of sh.e.l.l-fish, on the quant.i.ty of marrow in the bones of animals, on the number of births, on mental derangement, and other human maladies, etc., etc.

[38] On this subject the prevailing opinions in different countries disagree, as they do also on some of the others.

The influence on the phenomena of human maladies imputed to the moon is very ancient. Hippocrates had so strong a faith in the influence of celestial objects upon animated beings, that he expressly recommends no physician to be trusted who is ignorant of astronomy. Galen, following Hippocrates, maintained the same opinion, especially of the influence of the moon. The critical days, or _crises_, were the seventh, fourteenth, and twenty-first of the disease, corresponding to the intervals between the moon's princ.i.p.al phases. While the doctrine of alchemists prevailed, the human body was considered as a microcosm, or an epitome of the universe, the heart representing the sun, and the brain the moon.

The planets had each his proper influence: Jupiter presided over the lungs, Saturn over the spleen, Venus over the kidneys, and Mercury over the organs of generation. The term _lunacy_, which still designates unsoundness of mind, is a relic of these grotesque notions, and is defined by Dr. Webster as "a species of insanity or madness, formerly supposed to be influenced by the moon, or periodical in the month." But even this term may now be said, in some degree, to be banished from the nomenclature of medicine; it has, however, taken refuge in that receptacle of all antiquated absurdities of phraseology--the law--lunatic being still the term for the subject who is incapable of managing his own affairs.

Sanctorius, whose name is celebrated in physics for the invention of the thermometer, held it as a principle that a healthy man gained two pounds' weight at the beginning of every lunar month, which he lost toward its completion. This opinion appears to have been founded on experiments made upon himself, and affords another instance of a fortuitous coincidence hastily generalized.

For all the progress that has been made in this country toward the removal from the popular mind of the numerous corrupting and debasing absurdities which have hitherto enslaved it, we are indebted to our enlightened and chastened systems of popular education; and to these, and to these only, may we confidently look for entire freedom from the thraldom.

EDUCATION INCREASES THE PRODUCTIVENESS OF LABOR.

Education has a power of ministering to our personal and material wants beyond all other agencies, whether excellence of climate, spontaneity of production, mineral resources, or mines of silver and gold. Every wise parent, every wise community, desiring the prosperity of its children even in the most worldly sense, will spare no pains in giving them a generous education.--HORACE MANN.

The best educated are always the best paid.--_Foreign Report._

The desirableness of education is manifest, view it in what light we may, and whether as affecting individuals or communities. We have already seen that education, and that alone, will dissipate the evils of ignorance. We now propose to discuss the equally tenable proposition that education increases the productiveness of labor.

That knowledge is power has become a proverb. If it be asked why the labor of a man is more valuable than the same amount of physical effort put forth by a brute, the ready answer is, It is because man combines _intelligence_ with his labor. A single yoke of oxen will do more in one day at plowing than forty men; yet the oxen may be had for fifty cents a day, while each of the men can earn a dollar. Physical exertion in this case, combined with ordinary skill, is eighty times more valuable than the same amount of brute force. The strength of the ox is of no account without some one to guide and apply it, while the power of man is guided by intelligence within.

In proportion as man's intelligence increases is his labor more valuable. A small compensation is the reward of mere physical power, while skill, combined with a moderate amount of strength, commands high wages. The labor of an ignorant man is scarcely more valuable than the same amount of brute force; but the services of an intelligent, skillful person are a hundred fold more productive. I will pause and ill.u.s.trate, for I wish to have every person who arises from the perusal of these pages do so with the fullest conviction that mental culture is of the highest importance even in the ordinary departments of human industry. It is, indeed, hardly less important for the man of business, the farmer, or the mechanic, than for statesmen, legislators, and members of the so-called learned professions.

An intelligent farmer of my acquaintance having a piece of greensward to break up, and having three work-horses, determined to employ them all.

He hence, possessing some mechanical skill, himself constructed a three-horse whipple-tree, by means of which he advantageously combined the strength of his horses. A less intelligent neighbor, pleased with the novel appearance of three horses working abreast, resolved to try the experiment himself. But not possessing the skill requisite to construct such a whipple-tree, he waited till his better-informed and more expert neighbor had got through with his, and then, borrowing it, tried the experiment with his own team. Early one morning, and full of expectation, aided by his two sons and a hired man, he harnessed his three horses to the plow. But one of them, for the first time, refused to draw. After several fruitless attempts to make the team work as first harnessed, the relative position of the horses was changed, when, lo!

although _this_ horse would draw as formerly, one of the others would not. By and by another change was made, and the third horse, in turn, refused to draw. The farmer could not understand it, nor his sons, nor his hired man. His three horses, for the first time, were each fickle in turn. And, what was most surprising, they would all work in either of two positions, but in the third none of them would draw. The honest farmer thought the age of witchcraft had not yet pa.s.sed. At the conclusion of the forenoon he gave up the undertaking in disgust, and, carrying the whipple-tree home, told the story of his unsuccessful and vexatious experiment.

"And how did you harness the horses to the whipple-tree?" inquired the more intelligent farmer. "Why, one at the short end, and two at the long end, where there is the most room for them, to be sure!" was the frank reply.

The power at the short end, I need not say, should be twice that at the long end; whereas he had it reversed. One horse drew against two with a double purchase. He then would have to draw twice as much as both of them, or four times as much as one of them. The fickleness of the horses, then, instead of being the result of _witchcraft_, as he was inclined to believe, was chargeable solely to the _ignorance_ of their hardly more intelligent master. A knowledge of the first principles of mechanics, or, in the absence of this, an ordinary degree of active, available common sense, would teach the proper use of such a whipple-tree. For want of this knowledge, the farmer suffered much chagrin, lost the time of four men, and did great injury to his team.

After mentioning this circ.u.mstance on a certain occasion, a gentleman present gave a parallel case, that occurred under his immediate observation. His neighbor had a yoke of oxen, one of which was large, strong, and beautiful. One day, as the neighbor was pa.s.sing the residence of the gentleman, the latter remarked to him, "You have one very fine-looking ox." "Yes," replied the neighbor, with apparent satisfaction, "and a bonny fellow he is too. He can carry the _long end of the yoke, and grow fat under it_." Here, again, the weaker ox had to tax his strength doubly on account of the advantage which the ignorance of his kind master had unintentionally given to his superior yoke-fellow.

A farmer, or laborer of any kind, who possesses a knowledge of the merest elements of science, and is accustomed to think and investigate, can not only work more advantageously with his team, but he can do more work himself, and do it easier too, than his neighbor of superior physical strength, though of inferior mental capacity. The correctness of this statement may be satisfactorily proved and amply ill.u.s.trated in loading timber, in moving buildings, in plowing, and in almost every kind of work done on a farm or among men, either on land or at sea. The ignorant man will spend more time in running after help to do a supposed difficult job, than it will require for a skillful one to do it alone.

This is true in carpentry, and in all of the mechanic arts. Increase the practical and available education of the laborer, and you enable him to do more work, and better work too, than his less informed a.s.sociate. The following is a striking ill.u.s.tration.

A practical teacher employed some mechanics to build him a barn. The day after the frame was raised, the teacher discovered that it needed to be turned a few inches upon its foundation, to range properly with other buildings. While the mechanics went in several directions to procure what they regarded as necessary help, the teacher, who was familiar with the various combinations of the lever, effected the work alone, and before their return! Other equally striking ill.u.s.trations might be cited.

But education increases the productiveness of labor in a wider and more extended sense. By its omnipotent influence, man is enabled to lay the elements under tribute. The water and the wind, by its mysterious power, are made to propel his machinery for various purposes. The utmost skill of the untutored savage enables him to construct a rude canoe which two can carry upon their shoulders by land, which is barely capable of plying upon our rivers and coasting our inland seas, and which can be propelled only by human muscles, but the _educated man_ erects a magnificent vessel, a floating palace, and, spreading his canvas to the breeze, aided by the mariner's compa.s.s, can traverse unknown seas in safety. To such perfection has he attained in the science and art of navigation, that he contends successfully with wind and tide, and makes headway against both, even when he depends upon the former for his motive power. Yes, education enables man even to tax the gentle breeze to urge a proud ship, heavily laden, up an inclined plane, thousands of miles, against the current of a mighty river.

I can not, perhaps, so satisfactorily establish the proposition which I am now endeavoring to elucidate, nor so well maintain the universality of its application, as by referring to the writings of the most indefatigable and successful laborer in the department of popular education of which our country can boast. I refer to the Hon. Horace Mann,[39] who, a few years ago, in his official capacity, opened a correspondence, and availed himself of all opportunities to hold personal interviews with many of the most practical, sagacious, and intelligent business men in our country, who for many years had had large numbers of persons in their employment. His object was to ascertain the difference in the productive ability, where natural capacities were equal, between the educated and the uneducated; between a man or a woman whose mind has been awakened to thought, and supplied with the rudiments of knowledge by a good common school education, and one whose faculties have never been developed, or aided in emerging from their original darkness and torpor by such a privilege. For this purpose he conferred and corresponded with manufacturers of all kinds--with machinists, engineers, rail-road contractors, officers in the army, etc.; cla.s.ses which have means of determining the effects of education on individuals equal in their natural abilities that other cla.s.ses do not possess.

[39] Late Secretary of the Ma.s.sachusetts Board of Education. Reference is here especially made to his Fifth Annual Report, bearing date January 1, 1842, from which, with his consent, what follows under this head has been substantially drawn.

A farmer hiring a laborer for one season who has received a good common school education, and the ensuing season hiring another who has not enjoyed this advantage, although he may be personally convinced of the relative value or profitableness of their services, yet he will rarely have any exact data or tests to refer to by which he can measure the superiority of the former over the latter. They do not work side by side, so that he can inst.i.tute a comparison between the amounts of labor they perform. They may cultivate different fields, where the ease of tillage or the fertility of the soils may be different. They may rear crops under the influence of different seasons, so that he can not discriminate between what is referable to the bounty of nature and what to superiority in judgment or skill.

Similar difficulties exist in estimating the amount and value of female labor in the household. And as to the mechanic also--the carpenter, the mason, the blacksmith, the tool-maker of any kind--there are a thousand circ.u.mstances, which we call accidental, that mingle their influence in giving quality and durability to their work, and prevent us from making a precise estimate of the relative value of any two men's handicraft.

Individual differences, too, in regard to a single article or a single days' work, may be too minute to be noticed or appreciated, while the aggregate of these differences at the end of a few years may make all the difference between a poor man and a rich one. No observing man can have failed to notice the difference between two workmen, one of whom, to use a proverbial expression, always "hits the nail on the head,"

while the other loses half his strength and destroys half his nails by the awkwardness of his blows; but perhaps few men have thought of the difference in the results of two such men's labor at the end of twenty years.

But when hundreds of men or women work side by side in the same factory, at the same machinery, in making the same fabrics, and, by a fixed rule of the establishment, labor the same number of hours each day; and when, also, the products of each operative can be counted in number, weighed by the pound, or measured by the yard or cubic foot, then it is perfectly practicable to determine, with arithmetical exactness, the productions of one individual and cla.s.s as compared with those of another individual and cla.s.s.

So, where there are different kinds of labor, some simple, others complicated, and of course requiring different degrees of intelligence and skill, it is easy to observe what cla.s.s of persons rise from a lower to a higher grade of employment.

This, too, is not to be forgotten, that in a manufacturing or mechanical establishment, or among a set of hands engaged in filling up a valley or cutting down a hill, where scores of people are working together, the absurd and advent.i.tious distinctions of society do not intrude. The capitalist and his agents are looking for the greatest amount of labor or the largest income in money from their investments, and they do not promote a dunce to a station where he will destroy raw material or slacken industry because of his name, or birth, or family connections.

The obscurest and humblest person has a fair field for compet.i.tion. That he proves himself capable of earning more money for his employers is a testimonial better than a diploma from all the colleges.

Now many of the most intelligent and valuable men in the community, in compliance with Mr. Mann's request, examined their books for a series of years, and ascertained both the quality and the amount of work performed by persons in their employment, and the result of the investigation is a most astonishing superiority in productive power on the part of the educated over the uneducated laborer. The hand is found to be another hand when guided by an intelligent mind. Processes are performed not only more rapidly, but better, when faculties which have been exercised in early life furnish their a.s.sistance. Individuals who, without the aid of knowledge, would have been condemned to perpetual inferiority of condition, and subjected to all the evils of want and poverty, rise to competence and independence by the uplifting power of education. In great establishments, and among large bodies of laboring men, where all services are rated according to their pecuniary value; where there are no extrinsic circ.u.mstances to bind a man down to a fixed position after he has shown a capacity to rise above it; where, indeed, men pa.s.s by each other, ascending or descending in their grades of labor just as easily and certainly as particles of water of different degrees of temperature glide by each other--under such circ.u.mstances it is found, as an almost invariable fact, other things being equal, that those who have been blessed with a good common school education rise to a higher and a higher point in the kinds of labor performed, and also in the rate of wages received, while the ignorant sink like dregs, and are always found at the bottom.

James K. Mills, Esq., of Boston, who has been connected with a house that has had for the last ten years the princ.i.p.al direction of cotton-mills, machine shops, and calico-printing works, in which are constantly employed about three thousand persons, and whose opinions of the effects of a common school education upon a manufacturing population are the result of personal observation and inquiries, and are confined to the testimony of the overseers and agents who are brought into immediate contact with the operatives, expresses the conviction that the rudiments of a common school education are essential to the attainment of skill and expertness as laborers, or to consideration and respect in the civil and social relations of life; that very few who have not enjoyed the advantages of a common school education ever rise above the lowest cla.s.s of operatives, and that the labor of this cla.s.s, when it is employed in manufacturing operations which require even a very moderate degree of manual or mental dexterity, is unproductive; that a large majority of the overseers and others employed in situations which require a high degree of skill in particular branches--which oftentimes require a good general knowledge of business, and _always_ an unexceptionable moral character--have made their way up from the condition of common laborers, with no other advantage over a large proportion of those they have left behind than that derived from a better education.

A statement made from the books of one of the manufacturing companies will show the relative number of the two cla.s.ses, and the earnings of each; and this mill, we are a.s.sured, may be taken as a fair index of all the others. The average number of operatives employed for the last three years is twelve hundred. Of this number there are forty-five unable to write their names, or about three and three fourths per cent. The average of women's wages, in the departments requiring the most skill, is two dollars and fifty cents per week, exclusive of board. The average wages of the lowest departments is one dollar and twenty-five cents per week.

Of the forty-five who are unable to write, twenty-nine, or about two thirds, are employed in the lowest department. The difference between the wages earned by the forty-five and the average wages of an equal number of the better-educated cla.s.s is about twenty-seven per cent. in favor of the latter. The difference between the wages earned by twenty-nine of the lowest cla.s.s and the same number in the higher is sixty-six per cent. Of seventeen persons filling the most responsible stations in the mills, ten have grown up in the establishment from common laborers or apprentices.

This statement does not include an importation of sixty-three persons from Manchester, in England, in 1839. Among these persons there was scarcely one who could read or write; and although a part of them had been accustomed to work in cotton-mills, yet, either from incapacity or idleness, they were unable to earn sufficient to pay for their subsistence, and at the expiration of a few weeks not more than half a dozen remained in the employment of the company.

In some of the print-works a large proportion of the operatives are foreigners. Those who are employed in the branches which require a considerable degree of skill are as well educated as our people in similar situations. But the common laborers, as a cla.s.s, are without any education, and their average earnings are about two thirds only of those of _our_ lowest cla.s.ses, although the prices paid to each are the same for the same amount of work.

Among the men and boys employed in the machine shops, the want of education is quite rare. Mr. Mills does not know an instance of a person so employed who is unable to read and write; and many have a good common school education. To this, he thinks, may be attributed the fact that a large proportion of persons who fill the higher and more responsible situations come from this cla.s.s of workmen. From these statements the reader will be able to form some estimate, in dollars and cents, at least, of the advantages of even a little education to the operative; and _there is not the least doubt_, says the same authority, that the _employer is equally benefited_. He has the security for his property that intelligence, good morals, and a just appreciation of the regulations of his establishment always afford. His machinery and mills, which const.i.tute a large part of his capital, are in the hands of persons who, by their skill, are enabled to use them to their utmost capacity, and to prevent any unnecessary depreciation.

Each operative in a cotton-mill, according to the estimate of Mr. Mills, may be supposed to represent from one thousand to twelve hundred dollars of the capital invested in the mill and its machinery. It is only from the most diligent and economical use of this capital that the proprietor can expect a profit. A fraction less than one half of the cost of manufacturing common cotton goods when a mill is in full operation, is made up of charges which are permanent. If the product is reduced in the ratio of the capacity of the two cla.s.ses of operatives mentioned in this statement, it will be seen that the cost will be increased in a compound ratio. Mr. Mills expresses the opinion "that the best cotton-mill in New England, with such operatives only as the forty-five mentioned above, who are unable to write their names, would never yield the proprietor a profit; that the machinery would be soon worn out, and he would be left, in a short time, with a population no better than that which is represented by the importation from England. I can not imagine any situation in life," he continues, "where the want of a common school education would be more severely felt, or be attended with worse consequences, than in manufacturing villages; nor, on the other hand, is there any where such advantages can be improved with greater benefit to all parties. There is more excitement and activity in the minds of people living in ma.s.ses, and if this expends itself in any of the thousand vicious indulgences with which they are sure to be tempted, the road to destruction is traveled over with a speed exactly corresponding to the power employed."

H. Bartlett, Esq., of Lowell, who has been engaged ten years in manufacturing, and has had the constant charge of from four hundred to nine hundred persons during that time, has come in contact with a very great variety of character and disposition, and has seen mind applied to production in the mechanic and manufacturing arts possessing different degrees of intelligence, from gross ignorance to a high degree of cultivation, and he has no hesitation in affirming that he finds the best educated to be the most profitable help. _Even those females who merely tend machinery give a result somewhat in proportion to the advantages enjoyed in early life for education_, those who have a good common school education giving, as a cla.s.s, invariably a better production than those brought up in ignorance.

In regard to the domestic and social habits of persons in his employ, the same gentleman adds, "I have never considered mere knowledge, valuable as it is to the laborer, as the only advantage derived from a good common school education. I have uniformly found the better educated, as a cla.s.s, possessing a higher and better state of morals, more orderly and respectful in their deportment, and more ready to comply with the wholesome and necessary regulations of an establishment.

And in times of agitation, on account of some change in regulations or wages, I have always looked to the most intelligent, best educated, and the most moral for support, and have seldom been disappointed; for, while they are the last to submit to imposition, they _reason_, and if your requirements are reasonable, they will generally acquiesce, and exert a salutary influence upon their a.s.sociates. But the ignorant and uneducated I have generally found the most turbulent and troublesome, acting under the influence of excited pa.s.sion and jealousy.

"The former appear to have an interest in sustaining good order, while the latter seem more reckless of consequences. And, to my mind, all this is perfectly natural. The better educated have more and stronger attachments binding them to the place where they are. They are generally neater in their persons, dress, and houses; surrounded with more comforts, with fewer of 'the ills flesh is heir to.' In short, I have found the educated, as a cla.s.s, more cheerful and contented, devoting a portion of their leisure time to reading and intellectual pursuits, more with their families, and less in scenes of dissipation. The good effect of all this is seen in the more orderly and comfortable appearance of the whole household, but nowhere more strikingly than in the children. A mother who has a good common school education will rarely suffer her children to grow up in ignorance. As I have said, this cla.s.s of persons are more quiet, more orderly, and, I may add, more regular in their attendance upon public worship, and more punctual in the performance of all their duties."

Mr. Bartlett thinks it would be very difficult, if not impossible, for a young man, who has not an education equal to a good common school education, to rise from grade to grade until he should obtain the berth of an overseer, and that, in making promotions, as a general thing, it would be unnecessary to make inquiry as to the education of the young men from whom you would select. Very seldom indeed, he says, would an uneducated young man rise to "_a better place and better pay_. Young men who expect to resort to manufacturing establishments for employment, can not prize too highly a good education. _It will give them standing among their a.s.sociates, and be the means of promotion among their employers._"

The final remark of this gentleman, in a lengthy letter, showing the advantages of education in a pecuniary, social, and moral point of view, is, that "_those who possess the greatest share in the stock of worldly goods are deeply interested in this subject, as one of mere insurance_; that the most effectual way of making insurance on their property would be _to contribute from it enough to sustain an efficient system of common school education, thereby educating the whole ma.s.s of mind, and const.i.tuting it a police more effectual than peace officers and prisons_." By so doing he thinks they would bestow a benefaction upon those who, from the accident of birth or parentage, are subjected to the privations and temptations of poverty, and would do much to remove the prejudice and to strengthen the bands of union between the different and extreme portions of society. He very justly regards it a wise provision of Providence which connects so intimately, and, as he thinks, so indissolubly, the greatest good of the many with the highest interest of the few; or, in other words, which unites into one brotherhood all the members of the community, and in the existing partnership connects inseparably the interests of Labor and Capital.[40]