St. Landry democrat., 1888-08-11
BRAINS VERSUS HANDS.
Why the American Workingmen Are Out
stripping the Foreigners.

stripping the Foreigners
just now, while a certain class of ed
ucational reformers are trying to turn
our American common schools into in
dustrial schools, patterned after Euro
pean models, it is worth while to COM
pare, not only systems, but results.
In Europe the practice of manual and
industrial training is not new. There
in all its mind-dulling, mind-narrowing
certainty this pernicious hand-training
of the mere child has been in vogue for
generations. A sort of fatal necessity,
some would say, but rather, be it said,
a fatal ignorance, has there compelled
the child through course of direct
training in the manual arts to the neg
lect of the development of common in
telligence.
In America the social and civil con-
ditions have permitted the establish
ment of our great free school system
for the culture of the intellectual and
moral part. American common sense
has long since decided that the common
necessities of life outside of and beyond
school hours compel hand labor and
pure hand skill enough. American
foresight has also carefully noted the
fact that only when the hand is guided
by intelligence, by thought and rehec-
ton, based on knowledge, can the best,
the most highly productive manual
skill, be developed Hitherto, indeed,
in the true spirit of our institutions,
American educators have secuted the
idea of degrading the American stock
of men and women by permitting the
mere child to be directly trained to in
dustrial callings. With what result?
The training of American youth in
literature, in mathematics, in science
and in thought has made us nation of
inventors. Universal intelligence has
been brought in contact with the prob
lens of manufacture. The American
brain has aimed to relieve the hands of
all mankind from drudgery, and there
by, too to raise all mankind to higher
plane of thinking and acting. Ameri-
can machinery, the expression of this
commonly ditfused American power of
reflection, is, then, not merely bringing
to every poor mans door the food, the
fabrics, and the thousand luxuries
which formerly were only accessible to
kingly households, but it has, besides,
astonished and stimulated the whole
round world by the boldness and scope
of it's achievements.
Take for contrast the two methods
and two results-Swiss matchmaking
and American matchmaking. 1t is not
so many years since the world turned
to Switzerland for it's accurate time
pieces. There the matchmaker had
been trained in the art and practice of
delicate manipulation from a mere
child, and with such training none
could hope to compete. Much less
could the American. with hand-train-
ing neglected Or ignored. But the bold
American starts his factory and fills it
with Americans-every one intellectu-
ally trained. Hands at first a little
clumsy, but directed by thought,
straightway the brighter workmen in
vent machines as delicate as thought
itself. Invention follows invention I'm.
til, at Elgin, Waltham and even Water
bury, American intelligence proudly
triumphs over its European competi-
tors. Meanwhile the dull Swiss brain,
borne down by generations of the most
exact and exacting industrial training,
still plods on.-Philadelphia News.