Charles H. Ham

“ Not less amply does it give expression to the wit, the genius, the will, the power of man. Put a sword into it and it will fight, a plough and it will till, a harp and it will play, a pencil and it will paint, a pen and it will speak. What, moreover, is a ship, a railway, a light-house, or a palace—what indeed is a whole city, a whole continent of cities, all the cities of the globe, nay the very globe itself, so far as man has changed it, but the work of that giant hand with which the human race, acting as one mighty man, has executed his will. ”

“ Our social problems cannot be settled as those of Europe have been, for two hundred years, by emigration. We have no Columbus, and if we had such an explorer, there is no new hemisphere for him to discover. The lesson of all history is, that selfish people cannot dwell together in unity. The struggle to secure more than a fair share of the products of the labor of all is sure to end in a quarrel; the quarrel ends in a revolution, and the revolution, under the glare of flames, drowns in blood the records of civilization. But in America the man must live with his fellows. ”

“ Carpentry is distinguished for its corners and angles, turnery for its spherical, cylindrical, and eccentric forms. In these forms Nature abounds and delights, and it is in these forms that the rhythm of mechanics exists. It is by the Turners that the arts are supplied with a thousand and one things of use and beauty. The machines, great and small, from the locomotive to the stocking-knitter—without which the work of the modern world could not be done—these wonderful contrivances, seemingly more cunning than the hand of man, owe their very existence to the turning-lathe. ”

“ It thus becomes plain that social and economic conditions are the product of education in things. Art education differentiates the civilized from the savage man. The pathway of progress which now blazes with the glory of electricity stretches back to the gloom of the caves where our early ancestors dwelt; and the steps of this advance consist of improvements in the useful and beautiful arts. From gesture to speech; from pictures to types; from the canoe to the steamship, and from the canal to the locomotive, the race has moved forward, always and only, through art triumphs. ”

“ The laboratory is a labyrinth of belts, large and small, of wheels, big and little, of pulleys and lathes. A student, at a word from the instructor, moves a lever a few inches, and the breath of life is breathed into the complicated mass of machinery. The throbbing heart of the engine far away sends the currents of its power along shafting and pulleys. The dull, monotonous whir of steam-driven machinery salutes the ear, and the twenty-four students take their places at the lathes. ”

“ The lever which wakens this automaton to life, which endows its brain with genius and its fingers with cunning, is the rod of empire. All the lines of modern development converge in the machine-tool shop, and they are all lines of iron, whether consisting of a fine wire strung on poles in mid-air or of huge bars resting on the solid earth. Iron is the king of metals but the slave of man. Its magnetic quality guides the mariner on the sea, and its tough fibre and density sustain the weight of the locomotive on the land. ”

“ The invention of printing, the art preservative of all arts, removed the seal from the lips of learning. The desire to conceal is no match for the desire to print. Thenceforth, through the medium of types, the voice of genius was destined to reach to the ends of the earth; and, more important still, every discovery in science, and every invention in art, became the sure heritage of future ages.
The discovery of America was the crowning act of man’s emancipation. In sweeping away the last vestige of the theory on which patristic geography was based, Columbus freed mankind. ”

“ Tools represent the steps of human progress—in architecture, from the mud hut to the modern mansion; in agriculture, from the pointed stick used to tear the turf to a thousand and one ingenious instruments of husbandry; in ship-building, from the rudderless, sailless boat to the ocean steamer; in fabrics, from the matted fleece of the shepherd to the varied products of countless looms; in pottery, from the first rude Egyptian cup to the exquisite vase of the Sevres factory. And so of every art that contributes to the comfort and pleasure of man ”

“ The object is the flesh, blood, bones, and nerves of the idea. Without its body the idea is as impotent as the jet of steam that rises from the surface of boiling water and loses itself in the air. But unite it to its object and it becomes the vital spark, the animating force, the Promethean fire. Thus steam converts the Corliss engine—a huge mass of lifeless iron—into a thing of grace, of beauty, and of resistless power. Suppose the teacher, for example, desires to convey to the mind of a child having no knowledge of form an impression of the shape of the earth ”

“ This is the very essence of education, its informing spirit. The student no longer thinks merely of becoming an expert turner; he thinks of becoming a man! All the powers of his mind are roused to vigorous action; imagination illumes the path, and reason, following with firm but cautious step, drives straight to the mark. Rapid development results from the combination of practice with theory—rapid because orderly, or natural. ”

“ Those who would degrade the body, in order, as they imagine, to exalt the mind, should consider more deeply than they do the importance of our muscular expressions of feeling. The manifold shades and kinds of expression which the lips present—their gibes, gambols, and flashes of merriment; the quick language of a quivering nostril; the varied waves and ripples of beautiful emotion which play on the human countenance, with the spasms of passion that disfigure it—all which we take such pains to embody in art—are simply effects of muscular action.... ”

“ Slavery became the corner-stone of the Roman State, and slavery and labor were synonymous terms. The Roman supply of laborers was maintained by depopulating conquered countries. In the train of the legions, returning to Rome in triumph, there were not only statues, paintings, and other works of art, but thousands of men, women, and children destined to slavery. And the laws in regard to slaves were terrible, as laws touching slavery must always be—for a state of slavery is a state of war. It was a law of Rome that if a slave murdered his master the whole family of slaves should be put to death ”

“ A false system of education led to political incongruities of the grossest character, as, in the preamble to the Constitution, the declaration of its high purpose—to establish justice and secure the blessings of liberty—and in the body of the instrument a guaranty of the slave-trade for twenty-five years, and a compact that it should be the duty of the national army to shoot rebellious slaves, and the duty of free citizens, of the free States, to hunt down escaping slaves and surrender them to their owners in the slave States. ”

“ With the hot steam coursing through its steel-ribbed veins the brain of this automaton thinks the thoughts foreordained by its inventor; its hands do his bidding, its arms fetch and carry for him, its feet come and go at his beck and nod. This automaton feeds on iron, steel, copper, and brass, and produces the watch-spring and the locomotive, the revolver and the Krupp gun, the surgeon’s lancet and the shaft of a steamship, the steel pen and the steam-hammer, the vault-lock and the pile-driver, the sewing-machine and the Corliss engine. ”

“ Why do we provide for popular education? Is it out of pure generosity that the rich citizen consents to be taxed to pay for the education of his poor neighbor’s children? Does the man who has no children willingly surrender a portion of his estate for the education of the children of others, as an act of benevolence? Not at all. There is no security for property in a community devoid of education and consequent intelligence. Intelligence alone confers upon property a sacred character. ”

“ How is it that the mind invents a steam-engine consisting of a hundred pieces, so that, each piece being made by a different hand, the machine shall, when set up, ninety-nine times in a hundred, at once perform the work of five hundred horses without strain or friction, but when it grapples with law and fact in the chair of lawyer or judge produces a most pitiable wreck of justice? ”

“ Thus slavery has kept its brand of shame upon the useful arts for thousands of years, and the mind of man has been so deeply impressed thereby that it does not react now that slavery is extinct. Like the slave released from bondage, who still feels the chain, still winces and shrinks from the imaginary scourge, the mind of man continues to revolve automatically in the old channels. ”

“ Nor does empire depend less upon the hand now than it did in the morning of time.
The hand no longer grasps the knotty stick; it no longer menaces mankind. But it wields the mechanical powers. It imprisons steam and electricity, and keeps them at hard labor. It makes ploughs, planters, harvesters, sewing-machines, locomotives, and steamships. It digs canals, opens mines, builds bridges, makes roads, erects mills and factories, constructs harbors and docks, reclaims waste lands, and covers the globe with tracks of steel over which the commerce of the world is borne. ”

“ Why generate steam if there is no engine to be operated? Steam may be likened to an idea which finds expression through the engine—a thing. Why store the mind with facts—historical, philosophical, or mathematical—which are useless until applied to things, if they are not to be applied to things? And if they are to be applied to things, why not teach the art of so applying them? As a matter of fact, the system of education which does not do this is one-sided, incomplete, unscientific. Rousseau says, “Education itself is certainly nothing but habit.” ”

“ The building, well-designed for its occupancy, is large, airy, open to the light on every side, amply provided with all appliances requisite for instruction in the arts and sciences, and finished interiorly and exteriorly in the highest style of useful and beautiful architectural effects. The distinguishing characteristic of the Ideal School building is its chimney, which rises far above the roof, from whose tall stack a column of smoke issues, and the hum and whir of machinery is heard, and the heavy thud of the sledge-hammer resounding on the anvil, smites the ear. ”

“ The art treasures of Europe are destined to cross the ocean, in the track of the column of emigration, if the flower of her labor class continues to flee from her standing armies and navies, as the statues of Rome followed the army of the modern Cæsar. For where the flower of the world’s labor class gathers, there wealth most abounds. Labor, not gold and silver, is the source of wealth, hence it is to the laborer that art triumphs are due, and this is the order of their development. The laborer provides for immediate, pressing wants; he is prudent, and accumulates a surplus ”