The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1903-11-07
INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION.
Origin of the Modern School Method-Ihe
Miller Institution of Albemarle County,
Virginia, Pioneer of Its Glass.

| Miller Institution OF AlDemarle Couhty'
| Virginia, Pioneer of Its Glass.
The industrial idea in education has be-
come such a fad in recent years that peo-
ple have come to think of it as very
modern innovation. Hence, many read
ers will be surprised to learn that this idea
is really about 100 years DID, and that it
had its birth in the mind OF Vlrglnlan
named Samuel Miller. When Samuel
Miller was a mere boy-a little ragged,
barefoot boy-his heart went out to the
other poor children of his native county,
and he resolved that some day he would
build them a great school, where they
should not only be taught the learning OF
books, but where they should also receive
the best training of hand and eye. This
resolution, formed as boy, he kept before
him as man, and the result is the Miller
Manual Labor School of Albemarle. In
this school, with its million dollar plant
and its 25O pupils, clothed, fed and edu.
Gated free of cost to themselves, Samuel
Miller's early dreams have been more than
realized
The Miller School holds unique posi-
ton in being the oldest industrial institu-
ton in the United States. Here is located
the first shop building erected in this coun,
try for purely educational purposes, and
here many of the problems connected with
manual training had been fully worked out
many years before they had even occurred
to most of the colleges that now make a
speciality of this feature.
The life of the founder is very inter-
esting one, not so much because OF his rise
from poverty to wealth by sheer grit and
pluck, for in this respect he is only one il
iustration among thousands, but because
his was life given up wholly to one idea,
an idea for which he worked and struggled
and sacrificed. For in his case there was
real sacrifice. Even after he had become
millionaire he practiced the closet econ
omv, and lived in the plainest, simplest
manner, denying himself all the luxuries
that his wealth might have purchased In
order that he might be able to leave all the
richer legacy to the poor children of his
beloved county.
Tn plain view of the Miller School, and
only mile or two distant, run range OF
hills. which, from their rugged and irreg
ular appearance, have won the name OF
Ragged mountains. In one of the hollows
of these mountains, and in little cabin as
poor as the poorest, Samuel Miller first
opened his eyes on the world. 1t IS hard
TO imagine more unfavorable circumstances
than those under which he began the
struggle of life For there was poverty,
real, abject, grinding poverty, in the Mil
Ter household, and young Samuel had to
begin very early in life to add his meagre
earnings to the family income. As lit
tie ragged, barefoot boy he used to wan
der over the hills and mountains near his
cabin home, picking wool from the briers,
where it had been left by passing sheep
This wool his mother would make into
stockings and sell, and in this way and by
the various methods of earning living
denominated ''by hook and crook, she
and her son managed to make fair shift
of getting along. Later on, little Samuel
helped to make bricks at % cents a day.
Some of these very bricks have been used
in the construction of the buildings OF the
Miller School. There is something very
striking as we'll as appropriate in the fact
that, even as boy, Samuel Miller should
have been helping to build, unconsciously
though it might be, the great school that
was to stand as the most fitting monument
to his memory.
In the time that be could spare from
his toll he managed to pick up from the
crude 'sold field schools of his day fair
ly good English education. Then he tried
his hand for while at teaching in one of
these same little log school houses, but he
must have found the work Of the peda-
gogue not entirely to his taste, as he soon
gave it up for business career. His first
business venture was small grist mill on
one of the rushing mountain Streams neal
his cabin Here he ground corn for the
neighbors, and by dint of hard work and
economy managed in a few years to save
enough money to go into the tobacco bus
mess in Lynchburg, Va In this business
he amassed a large fortune, most of which
went, after his death, to educational insti
buttons considerably over million dollars
to the Miller School, besides large endow-
ments to the University Of Virginia and
the Lynchburg Female Orphanage.
To Samuel Miller belongs the distinc-
ton of being the father of industrial edu-
cation in America. He seems to have
been the first man in this country to con-
ceive of manual training as an important
part of general education, or, at least, the
first one to put this idea into practical OPP
Grafton. By the terms of his will, made
in 1859, he provided for the establishment
and maintenance of a school on the man
ual labor principle, where the pupils should
be fed, clothed and instructed in the
branches of a good English education, the
various languages, agriculture and the use
full arts. Mr. Miller died in 1866, but,
owing to vexatious law suits extending
over a number of years, it was not until
10 years later that the school was formally
opened and the nrst pupils admitted.
At first there was decided prejudice
against the school on the part of the peo-
pie of the county, who regarded it as a
miserable little charitable institution, but
this prejudice has entirely died away, un-
til now, for every vacancy, there are from
10 to Is applicants, many Of them chill
dren of well-to-do families, who have to
be ''turned down. in favor of their more
needy neighbors. Every few weeks the
superintendent receives letters from people
of means in various parts of the country,
offering to pay large sums for the advan
tages that the poor children of Albemarle
enjoy free of cost. To such applicants
there is but one reply, reference to Mr..
Miller's will.
From its beginning, the school has been
peculiarly fortunate in having as its super
| intendent Cant Charles r. VaWter mar