The last century is admittedly one in which was witnessed the greatest advances in civilization that the world has ever made. All classes in society may be said to have benefited. The rich have been given greater opportunities for the enjoyment of their riches and an enlarged sphere of usefulness opened to them. The poor have had their lot so greatly ameliorated, that given health, very few men in these colonies at all events, are poor except it be their own fault. The art of healing can now restore to health millions who, had they lived in an earlier century, would have suffered agonies. A universal education has opened the doors of colleges and universities and made it possible for those born in the humblest conditions of life, to attain to the most distinguished positions in the land. The private has become the general; the office boy the judge; the peasant boy the President; the full-blooded aboriginal has graduated through our universities and been called to the Bar; and no man can urge class distinction as being the cause of his failure in any ambition that he has faithfully pursued. All classes have benefited; almost all classes have advanced.
Undeniably this advance has brought greater happiness into the world; whether it will continue will entirely depend upon what basis it is intended to secure this advance.
With an increase of wealth and leisure there is the danger of demoralisation. Our society may substitute a false aim for its true one. Already there are an illimitable number of social reformers who are prepared to describe in very definite terms what is the state of perfected society and what laws are necessary for immediate enactment in order that we might rapidly reach that state. We all acknowledge the existence of the prophetic vision, but we limit its range and regard him most audacious who declares that he can describe the heaven in which society shall finally shelter itself securely from all that prey upon her. Advance as quickly as we may, there is a limit to our speed, and the future being all unknown we scarcely like to take it at a plunge. Nevertheless, these social reformers do a good work—their schemes are at least suggestive, and moreover they point out signs of the times. They show us unmistakably that with our advance there is a tendency to become more and more selfish and to regard with less true charity the condition of the weak. One social reformer will say that there will not be any suffering because therapeutics will have overtaken every disease that the flesh is heir to, or better still, that some new discovery will have made it possible to heal all sicknesses without the tedious work ofsurgeons and nurses. Healing will become a pastime like table-turning. Neither will there be any criminals because the whole social state will be so happy, contented, and knit together that inducement to crime will cease. Others will treat the criminal "scientifically," ensuring reforms at the rate of 100 per cent. with lightning-like rapidity. Which all practically amounts to this, that the problem concerning the future of the weak is shelved. To study it deeply would spoil our best theories and therefore it must be got rid of. Dr Chapple has done nothing more than shelve it, for as we have seen his remedy is both practically and morally impossible. Like all others it betrays the selfish spirit. Like them it regards the weak as if they were nothing less than an intolerable incubus on society, a grit in its bearings. It may be that our social advancement will account for this. In old time when communities were small and fixed, the burden of nursing the helpless necessarily fell upon those who were immediately related by ties of blood or neighbourhood, but now the many changes in the method of living and treatment, has made this to a large extent impossible. Institutions have everywhere sprung up, and it is invariably to the advantage of our sick and afflicted that we should commit them to these institutions, which practice has engendered the belief that all our social obligations can be discharged by monetary payment. Not for one moment need we entertain the idea that this belief will ever become a dominating one. Charitableinfluences are more powerful. Nor must we charge the authors of selfish systems with being as uncharitable as their systems. They give expression to a fairly strong and somewhat universal sentiment, a sentiment which we would perhaps disown at once upon its being unmasked and which many refuse to obey upon its appeal to them to act in accordance with its principles. This indicates that society sees many of its assailants in but a half-light. It observes neither their malice nor strength but only a dark ugly form which irritates us and which we would if we could banish by an act of will.
This being impossible we must meet our assailants in a clearer light and destroy them. How can this be done, since it would mean the destruction of evil and the powers of evil? Then it cannot be done, but since evil feeds itself upon its victims we can greatly diminish its power and influence by rescuing all who fall within its grasp. Many we know we cannot rescue for there are certain types of disease mental and bodily which defy our skill and some of all types of moral disease also defy our effort. Still it would be better to say that we do not rescue them, than that we cannot, for what was incurable yesterday is curable to-day, and the most deadly diseases are giving clear evidence that their powers to baffle science are fast giving out. That they will give out, scientific men confidently hope. Neither is this hope groundless for past success warrant it and there again point to another assurance, almost a guarantee. Themiracles of healing which Our Lord wrought were not only to confer relief upon the suffering, not only to give evidence of His Divinity, but also to promise the triumph which would reward the efforts of man seeking to assist his afflicted brother. We will never heal by a word, neither will we raise the dead, for in these works of might we have peculiar evidence of the Divine Providence; but Christ's miracles seem to promise that He, the Light of the World, will yet grant the fullness of that illumination by which the works of healing are done.
The sick, it is true, receive greater compassion from their fellowmen than the abnormal, the insane and the criminal. But these latter also demand our consideration if for no other reason than that they menace society. To exterminate them is impossible. A persecution with that end would defeat itself, and the persecutors would become morally infinitely worse than the persecuted.
Secondly: their consideration is demanded from the fact that society has produced the evil plight of very many of them. In the great advance, they have fallen and been trampled on. Their right to fall may be denied, but whose right was it to trample on them? To declare it to have been inevitable that they should be trampled on, simply excuses guilt but not obligation. And the obligation is to make reparation as far as possible.
Thirdly: because what should be a valuable asset to society, contributing substantially to her strength,becomes a hostile power weakening her and hindering her progress. Any of these three considerations received separately is sufficient to convince us of our obligations to this uglier section of the weak, when combined their force is very great. But when we speak to them of peace do they not make them ready to battle? No, their case is not so hopeless as that. David lived under the Mosaic Dispensation, and Moses could give but the law whereas Christ has given His Life. Our method will determine everything. Good advice, good books, good laws will do but little; good work will accomplish all. "The greatest good of the greatest number" is a false ideal and absolutely unworthy either of our charity or our science. "The ultimate good of all" is the end society is destined to accomplish, and anything less is too little for her, anything more is impossible even to conceive.
In working towards this ideal, which we cannot describe with greater definiteness, we are bound to recognise thatGoodnessis our safe and only guide. The general direction of our advance in the past we can easily trace, but the purpose of the devious paths through which we were led is too difficult to understand. Our present puzzles us, our future sometimes appals us. Some rush ahead to see what lies before us and come back injured and pass away as pessimists, others hesitate to advance at all. We cannot outstrip our guiding pillar of light; but following it we are safe to advance. And in following, one of thefirst convictions that comes home to us is that we must allow no waste, neither in the lives of others nor in the energies of ourselves. With this conviction soon comes the startling fact that the energies we are allowing to waste are identically those which were given to us to save the lives of others which are wasting. A wonderful independence exists among us. The social system is bound together by ties of nature, and not merely by those of commerce or benefit. Man is social, not merely gregarious. He enters into the life of his fellow-man and establishes relations which we are bound to call spiritual. Through the media of these relations, influences traverse which are of the most profound we know. These relations when established compel us to acknowledge our duties to one another and give us a delight in discharging them. This delight in turn becomes the power, which opens the eyes to the realization of the great principle of self-sacrifice. Egoism and altruism are not to be mutually exclusive. To seek our own happiness is not to be indifferent to the happiness of society. For what is happiness? not pleasure, but self-realization, and we cannot realise self without realising society.
This interdependence which exists between man and man, and which makes it possible for us to influence one another so powerfully for good or for evil, points out to us that the true aim of every man, namely, to unite his work with that of his fellow-man in a grand co-operative undertaking for the advancement andbetterment of society regarded as a whole and with regard for its units. We cannot realise self if engaged in competition man against man in order to satisfy private ambition. Our object should be to unite and our hostility be provoked, not against one another, weak or strong, but against the powers which attack us individually and collectively.
Necessity then lays the obligation upon us to give our first attention to the rescue of the weak. It was the recognition of this obligation which sent the Christian-Maidens into the suburbs of Rome seeking the exposed offspring of unnatural parents. To say that they would have been better dead, is to speak with that facility which requires neither mental nor moral perception.
It is the recognition, in part, of this obligation which accounts for hospitals, asylums and other charitable institutions. Hence also we endeavour to shelter those born deficient in mental or moral power. Dr Chapple seems to think that the result of all this is that we have made a pretty mess of society. He says, of these weaklings, that Nature has decreed that they should die. A most unscientific statement. Are these charitable efforts to be regarded as profane interference with the sacred decrees of Nature? Nature's decrees are inviolate and none can disturb them. Because these weak, if left unaided, would perish, is that to say that Nature has decreed that they should die? If so, we must say of a man, stricken with typhoid fever, that Nature has decreed that he shoulddie, and that any effort to save him would be but a profane interference on our part with Nature.
What does Nature say of these thatthey do not live,they cannot live, orthey must not live?
History has shown that in the past they do not live.
But in order to discover the decree of Nature we must make a full and exhaustive enquiry into the possibilities which exist under the laws of Nature. So far as this enquiry has advanced it has been made quite clear that the charitable effort of man will recover many that would otherwise perish. The whole science of therapeutics is based upon this discovery.
Dr Chapple says of defectives that they do live but that they must not. Two arguments he brings forward. The first is that Nature has decreed that they should not. This must be a secret communication, for it is not universal knowledge, and the operation of Nature's laws certainly appears to contradict it. The second argument is that they are a burden. The burden analysed amounts to this:—
(a). They are a misery to themselves.(b). They are too costly.(c). They hinder the progress of society.(d). They threaten to overwhelm society.
(a). Who can tell whether the weak are absolutely a misery to themselves. Pain is a mystery which cannot be solved, although to the suffering its benefits are well known. If they would be better out of theway might they not be left to decide that matter for themselves? They, knowing best, cry to us for help. If we were merely gregarious creatures like wolves or sharks we would tear or destroy them in their misery; but as social beings we are bound to answer their cry. To cry for help is instinctive with them, and to respond to the cry is instinctive with us. Surely this is the voice of Nature and this is the decree of Nature.
(b). If this argument be admitted then we are bound to declare that the one aim of both society and individual is to amass wealth. The idea is too sordid for further consideration.
(c). So far from hindering the social progress they most powerfully assist it. The mere bearing of one another's burdens has the most refining and deepening influence upon character. It is most active in creating and establishing our relations one with another. Compassion for the suffering creates a tie between them and us. The intention to help requires our co-operation with others, and so the bond extends uniting first individuals then groups and then the whole of society. Nor must we forget the immense advance in surgery and medicine which is due entirely to the consideration of the lot of the apparently hopeless. Had these even been allowed to perish we should still have needed our surgeons and physicians in a well equipped society, if only to teach us how to prevent seizure by dangerous complaints.
A short time ago many died from ailments whichsurgery can to-day cure with but very little suffering on the part of the patient. Is not this a substantial gain which the bearing of the burden of the weak has brought to man? To mention other triumphs is but to enlarge. If therefore Nature has spoken there can be no doubt that it was to give a promise that she would reward diligent research by revealing the cure of all the ills our flesh inherits. Thus assured, scientific men are most zealously studying the most deadly and most obstinate diseases. Against plague, smallpox, and consumption they can at least give us an effective protection, and almost hourly we expect to hear the shout of triumph accompanying the announcement that the victory over cancer has been gained. When stricken with these diseases we immediately fall into the ranks of the unfit; but we will thank society for having borne its burden when the healing art is brought to such an excellence that, when so stricken, we may soon be restored to the ranks of the fit. The benefit which the past confers upon us declares imperatively our obligation to the future.
(d). Do they threaten to overwhelm? The power of disease is being overcome, and therefore the number of the diseased is being lessened. By being cured, instead of dying, these increase the proportion of the strong to the weak. The obstinacy of certain hereditary diseases but asserts the necessity of prosecuting study more enthusiastically.
But if the strong limit their increase they cannotdemand that exterminating methods should be applied to the weak in order to restore the proportion which they, the strong, have thus by their selfishness disturbed. Nature gives adequate protection so far as numerical increase is concerned, and no scientific man will dare to state that this protection may be disregarded and another demanded.
The Government of India has been charged with pursuing a suicidal policy in safeguarding the natives against plague and smallpox and in preventing human sacrifice. Their numbers will increase, food supplies will give out, or, worst of all, they may become so powerful as to wrest the supremacy from the European. Charity, however, demands that these measures shall be taken, and the terrors of the future are at best hypothetical. This is but another case in which consideration for the unknown future is apt to hinder us in the discharge of our known duties to the present. History assures us that the guarantee of the future lies in the fulfilment of these duties. The height of absurdity is reached when the attempt is made to establish the proportions of the future. Such efforts defy man.
The burden of the weak is the burden of the strong, and in the bearing of it is brought into view the grand and true ideal of society—the good of all.
Man is endowed with natural powers for assisting his weaker brother, and, above all these powers he has, through supplication the means of engaging the Divine Influence, which simply defies allcalculation against the possibility of reform or recovery.
Where charitable effort in the past has not succeeded it is because it has not gone far enough. Building institutions is sometimes due to a craze and not charity. Thus evils are sometimes accentuated and not mitigated. Such failures must spur to redoubled effort. Hope was never larger than at present.
The old method of dealing with criminals was based entirely upon a doctrine of vengeance. The criminal was regarded as being in every way a normal man, a man who deliberately chose to be a criminal. The possibility of a criminal's moral sense being defective, of his not being able to bring his actions under the control of his will, or of some other sad handicap existing, was never contemplated. His crime was looked upon as a desperate act, for the committal of which he was absolutely without any excuse. The consequence was that an elaborate system of torture was devised in order to deal with him. Readers who are familiar with such books as Marcus Clark's "For the term of his natural life," and Charles Reade's "It is never too late to mend," will require no further description of the horrors of "the vengeance system" which was supposed to be the only rational method of dealing with criminals in the days of the convict settlements.
Since then, popular vengeance has considerably relaxed and the devising of painful forms of punishment has become almost a lost art. The new-born science, with its first powers of articulation, loudly repeat the words of Revelation, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord." A system of vengeanceinstituted by man against man is impossible. As has been stated in a previous chapter, the new penology repudiates all such systems. The amount of pain which an individual is to be called upon to suffer may well be left to the higher tribunal. The obvious duty of man to his fellow-man who is depraved, is to endeavour to recover him. There is no satisfaction in punishing him, but there is every satisfaction in reforming him.
The new penology covers the investigation and study of every circumstance surrounding the criminal as such. No circumstance is so trifling as to be passed by, every detail is carefully studied with the object of discovering what the criminal is and how he came to be such, what are his possibilities, and by what methods those possibilities may be reached.
Maconochie ventured upon the bold assumption that the criminal was a human being, and this assumption proved to be justified. In 1840 he was sent to Norfolk Island to take charge of 1400 double-convicted felons there. He describes them in these words:—"For the merest trifle they were flogged, ironed or confined in gaol for days on bread and water. The offences most severely punished were chiefly conventional; those against morals being little regarded, compared with those against unreasonable discipline. Thus the horrid vices with acts of brutal violence, or of dexterity in theft and robbery, were detailed to me by the officers withlittle direct censure, and rather as anecdotes calculated to astonish and amuse a new-comer. While the possession of a pipe, a newspaper, a little tea, etc., or the omission of some mark of respect, a saucy look or word, or even an imputation of sullenness, were deemed unpardonable offences. They were fed more like hogs than like men; neither knives, forks, nor hardly any other conveniences were allowed at tables. They tore their food with their fingers and teeth, and drank out of water buckets. The men's countenances reflected faithfully this description of treatment. A more demoniacal looking assemblage could not be imagined; and nearly the most formidable sight I ever beheld was the sea of faces upturned to me when I first addressed them. Yet three years after, I had the satisfaction of hearing Sir George Gipps ask me what I had done to make the men look so well?—he had seldom seen a better looking set."
Maconochie had invented the mark system (the principle of the indeterminate system) and made the prisoners' liberation depend upon their conduct and character and not upon the original offence. Maconochie's experience led him to write in after years to a friend, "if you would try a social-moral one (prison system) you would soon get important results. If our punishments were first of all madeREFORMATORY, and generally successful in this object the prejudices of society against the early criminal would abate." Inspired with this hope of reforming the criminal and restoring him to societyas a useful member, philanthropists began the exhaustive study of the criminal. In prisons where the value of this science is recognized the criminal upon his entry is subject to a most thorough examination, every item of his family history is carefully enquired into. Information concerning the occupation, education, health and character of all who are nearly related to him is obtained, as also the moral and economic conditions of his home life, and the character of his associates. He himself is studied for the existence or traces of disease; for abnormalities, arrested or exaggerated physical and mental development. The strength of his various muscles, the vitality of his organs, his mental and nervous capacity, and his moral susceptibility are all estimated. His powers of self-control are determined. His disposition is carefully studied. His opportunities in life, his educational advantages, his early career, the nature of the crime, the immediate influencing circumstances, as provocation, hunger, cold, atmospheric disturbances are all noted.
Such is a brief outline of the examination, the object of which is to discover as far as possible the real cause which led to the crime, what, if any, were the social, physical, psychical and provocative elements contributing to the cause; what their value; and what are the most promising lines upon which the criminal's reform may be directed. He is by no means regarded as a passive product of forces over which he has no control, nor his crime as theconsequence of himself. It is essential to the success of all reformatory discipline that moral responsibility must be recognised and observed. In fact it may be said, that reformation is complete when moral responsibility, insisted upon by the discipline, becomes at last acknowledged by the man.
Perhaps it may be thought that it is not possible to conduct such a study with anything like accurate results, and that the greater part of it would be mere guess work, as e.g. the determining the capacity of a man's nervous system or his degree of moral susceptibility. This is quite a mistake. There is nothing whatever of a speculative quality in the results advanced by criminologists. Their methods are exact and compare equally with those for the investigation of other phenomena.
It is not claimed that the absolute or the relative value of the data collected is as yet determined, nor yet that any one investigation has been exhausted; but this much can be claimed, that the results obtained are of high practical worth and justify the assurance that the solution of the problem concerning the criminal will soon be reached.
The result of Criminological studies has indicated most clearly that no measures for the prevention or repression of crime will ever be adequate which are not based upon a scientific system of education. Whatever this system may prove to be, it must have one distinct aim, and that is to train all its members to love, and to work for, the social state. This aim must be accomplished most thoroughly no matter what the cost may be.
The decreasing birth-rate points to other conclusions than the obvious one that a large number of persons must be using preventive means. It points to a widespread selfishness which regards children as an intolerable burden, as in fact nothing less than a grievous misfortune. It is obvious that where children are so regarded a blight has fallen upon the domestic life. Home cannot be the brightest spot on earth to them; neither can the father and mother be their sympathetic guides, counsellors, and protectors. Nor can those children be studied (by those who alone have the special faculty for studying them) in order that their secret aims and ambitions and the difficulties which obstruct these aims and ambitions, may be understood.
It follows then that from parental selfishness a great number (and close observation leads one to believe that by far the greater proportion) of the children of this generation and in this colony, are growing up with less care and attention being bestowed upon them than what their parents are prepared to bestow upon even their very horses or their dogs. This factor of parental selfishness cannot be ignored either academically or practically. It must in some way be overcome, or at least its influence for harm must be considerably reduced.
It would be interesting to discover how far this parental selfishness was a deviation from true parental pride. Possibly it may not be so very great as the vast difference in results may lead us to suppose, and if this be so the reorganisation of the child's educational system will not be insuperably difficult.
In many homes where there are more than two or three children, there is a total lack of domestic sympathy and pride. The children are not taught to love one another nor to understand and help one another. Adult influence is very seldom brought to bear upon them, and, worst of all, parental influence is either wanting, deficient or injurious. What children suffer from this want in the development in their natures must of necessity be, and it unquestionably is, sufficient to handicap them throughout their whole life. Parents profess that they have done their best with this or that child and that they have failed, but the fault largely lies in the parents undertaking the taskwith every expectation of failure, and the chief characteristics noticed by the child have been the parental irritability, impatience and incompetence. Having estimated these the child then knows exactly how to gain its own ends and has sufficient determination to persevere until it does. A certain amount of harsh treatment will suffice, until the child is old enough to rebel, in order to keep it in check, or, as is just as often the case, the child may be allowed to have its own way entirely. Under such circumstances it is not a matter of great wonderment that the child should be looked upon as a burden to be fed, clothed, and tolerated until it is old enough to "do something" for itself.
But our school system is also at fault, for by it our children are crammed with an amount of information the whole, or even the greater part, of which very few of them will ever use. Imagine the object, if one can, of spending the precious hours of a child's educational life in teaching it the names of every dozen or so of the different towns of each county in the United Kingdom, and at the same time entirely neglecting its moral training and giving very little attention to the physical.
If a child be bright he has every consideration from his teachers and receives from his companions the opprobious nickname of "Teacher's Pet." He gains a reward, perhaps a medal, and at the annual distribution of prizes the speech-makers point to the coming legislators and successful men of business in a mannerwhich conveys to this scholar the idea that the one thing to live for is to gain an exalted position in the world. This would not be so bad in itself, were it not that the love for honest labour is not inculcated at the same time, and consequently the children imagine that they are going to be pitchforked into prominence. As an evidence, witness the speculative spirit so universal among our youth. They hope to make their way in life simply by "striking it lucky." Personally I have spoken to a large number of boys about the ages of from fourteen to sixteen years and I have never yet been able to find a boy who could tell me definitely what he would like to be. His father looks about for something for him to do without any knowledge of the boy's possibility of greatest success lying in one well marked direction. The boy remains in a billet only so long as he fails to get another with a greater wage attached to it, and when perhaps twenty years of age are reached he is conscious of where the true lines of his destiny lie; but it is then too late for him to begin the necessary education, and the consequence is that his life loses its inspiration. Now it is quite possible that if our school system were so reorganised that parents saw as a result that their children developed a true love for labour and worked with definite purpose, that they would take a more intense pride in them and enter more sympathetically into their labours and ambitions. The education of the child would thus be brought to react upon the parent and tend immediatelyto reorganise the domestic life and bring it closer to the Hebrew conception, which conception when realised would most thoroughly solve the problem of the moral regeneration of the race. It is impossible for the State to have to commence to educate the parent except by reactionary methods and by compelling the observance of all legitimate obligations. That our present school system does not react favourably upon the parent must be obvious from what has already been said. In the past when only the fortunate few were able to secure the advantages of a good education, they, for the most part, recognised the greatness of their opportunity and prosecuted their studies with zeal. But to-day, with an universal educational system the value of these opportunities is, by the child and sometimes by the parent, very much lost sight of. The child needs now a stimulant, something to arouse and sustain his interest in his work. He should learn to regard his school work with pleasure and his home with affection.
The three principal standpoints from which education is regarded are:—(a) the utilitarian, (b) the disciplinarian, and (c) a compromise between the two.
The Utilitarians consider that an educational system should store the mind of the child with such knowledge only as shall be of direct value to it in its after life. The disciplinarians consider that a child's education should content itself with so developing thefaculties that when matured they may be adequate for such mental tasks as the after life or vocation may provide. The middle course is held by those who endeavour to train the faculties of the child in the manner prescribed by the disciplinarians, but in so doing, they employ the mind upon exercises, the accomplishment of which, is of immediate and permanent value.
The education system in New Zealand is constructed upon the utilitarian basis. The children's minds are crammed with knowledge—USEFULknowledge let it be called—and they are encouraged to be diligent because of the great benefit this knowledge will be to them when they become men and women—which development the child of eight expects will be attained sometime before the end of the world, and will then come by chance. The reward of the child's labour is thrown into the far distant future, and is so entirely lost sight of as an inspiring factor, that artificial rewards have to be provided and the child ponders over his lessons in the hope of winning one of Ballantyne's or Henty's "Books for Boys."
Now, the facts of a child's life demonstrate conclusively that the child is capable of having all its interests absorbed in its work. The diligence with which it will build up a doll's house out of a soap box, a jam tin, a few stones and any odds and ends that it can lay its hands on, is sufficient evidence of this. The child loves to make things for itself, and its affection for the rude creations of its own mind isfar greater than that for its most gorgeous and expensive toys. Upon the recognition of these facts, the kindergarten system is based.
In Sweden a very successful attempt has been made to construct the whole of the primary system upon this basis, and for this purpose Sloyd has been introduced into the schools. Certain Sloyd exercises have made their appearance in our New Zealand schools and have met with somewhat severe criticism, the whole system being condemned as being ideal theoretically, but valueless practically. It took many years before the Swedish system was perfected, and it should follow obviously that a very partial experiment, such as the colonial one has been, gives no idea of what value the complete system may achieve.
By Sloyd, we understand a system of educational hand-work. The children are employed upon various kinds of hand craft with the object of developing their mental, moral, and physical powers. The object isNOTto make artisans of the children, although undoubtedly those children who afterwards become tradesmen find that the educational principles of their trade has already been grasped by the intellect, but the same will apply to those entering any legitimate vocation without exception.
Although there are many different kinds of Sloyd, woodwork has been discovered to be the most useful, and it alone survives the severe tests imposed. A glance at the accompanying table will explain what is meant.
COMPARATIVE TABLE OF DIFFERENT KINDS OF SLOYD.
Key:A - Does it accord with children's capability?B - Does it excite and sustain interest?C - Are the objects made useful?D - Does it give a respect for rough work?E - Does it train in order and exactness?F - Does it allow cleanliness and neatness?G - Does it cultivate the sense of form?H - Is it beneficial from an hygienic point of view?I - Does it allow methodical arrangement?J - Does it teach dexterity of hand?
Branches of Sloyd.ABCDEFGHIJSimple Metal WorkYes & noYesYesYesYes & noTolerably NoYesYes?YesYesSmith's WorkNoHardlyTolerablyYesNoNoNo?Yes & noPerhapsNoBasket MakingNoHardlyTolerablyYesNoYes?NoNoNoNoStraw PlaitingYesYes?YesYes & noYesNo & yesNo?NoYesNoBrush MakingNo?Yes??YesYes?TolerablyYesNoNoNoNoHouse PaintingNoNoYes & noYesNoNoNoNoNoNoFretworkYes?No & yesNo & yesNoYesYesNo & yesNoNo & yesNoBookbindingNoNo & yesYes TolerablyHardlyTolerablyYes?NoNo?PerhapsTolerablyCardboard WorkYes & noYes?YesNoYes very highYesYes?NoYesNo?Sloyd CarpentryYesYesYesYes?YesYesYesYes?YesYesTurneryNoYesYes?Hardlypartly (not quite No)Yes?YesNoNoNoCarving in WoodYes?Yes & noYes & noNoYesYesYes & noNoYesNoClay ModellingYesYesNoNoYes & noNoYesNoYesNoFrom "Theory of Sloyd," Salomon.
The objects of Sloyd are:—(a) to instil a taste for, and love of, labour in general.
Note.—(For this analysis of the Sloyd system the author has based his study upon Herr Salomon's works "The theory of educational Sloyd" and "The Teacher's hand book of Sloyd.")
Children love to make things for themselves and prize their own work much more than ready made articles. The educator should follow Nature's lead and satisfy this craving. By a skilful direction of the child's interest a love for labour in general is instilled, and rewards are found to be unnecessary, the children being only too eager to achieve. To sustain their interest in the work they are engaged upon must be useful fromTHEIR OWN STANDPOINT. The work should not be preceded by fatiguing exercises, but the first cut should be a stroke towards the accomplishment of the desired end. The exercise must afford variety. The entire work of the exercise must be within their power and not requiring the aid of the teacher to "finish it off." It must be real work and not a pretence; and the objects should become the property of the children. To give children intricate joints to cut is of no real value. The child has no genuine interest in what are simply the parts of an exercise, it must make something complete and useful in itself. To make a garden stick accurate according to model is of more value than to make the most intricate joint. One may say that the child who could do the one could do the other, but that is notthe point, for the object is not merely to gain manual dexterity but to develop all the faculties of a child, and this is what the complete exercise achieves and in what the partial exercise absolutely fails.
(b) To instil respect for rough, honest, bodily labour, which is achieved by the introduction of the work into schools of all grades so that ALL classes of the community may engage upon it, and by the teachers taking pride in it themselves, and by their intelligent teaching of it to their classes.
(c) To develop independence and self-reliance. The child requires individual attention, the teacher must not tell too much, the child should endeavour as far as possible to discover by experiment the best methods for holding and manipulating tools, and also to be allowed as much free play as possible for its judgment.
(d) To train in habits of order, exactness, cleanliness, and neatness.
Which are acquired by keeping the models well within the children's range of ability, demanding that the work shall always be done in an orderly manner and with the greatest measure of exactness that the child is capable of. How far cleanliness and neatness may be instilled is apparent from the nature of the work.
(e) To train the eye, and the sense of form. To cultivate dexterity of hand and develop touch.
The models are of two kinds:—rectilinear and curvilinear. The former are tested by the square, therule and the compasses, but the accuracy of the latter depends upon the eye, the sense of form and that of touch. This training enables the child to distinguish between good and bad work and to put a right value upon the former, to understand the right use of ornament, and also cultivates the æsthetic taste upon classic lines. An enormous number of jerry built articles are sold, which the public readily buy simply on account of their ornamental appearance. If the ability to distinguish between good and bad work were more universal it would go far towards improving trade morality.
(f) To cultivate habits of attention, interest, etc. The success of the work requires that the mind shall be closely concentrated upon it. The nature of the work excites the interest of the child, and under careful direction this interest is sustained throughout. A genius has been described as a man capable of taking pains—a master of detail. Sloyd is eminently suited for concentrating the attention upon the details of work and for training the Sloyder to be thorough and never content with "making a thing do."
The desire of the child to finish the work and to finish it well, overrides any element of impatience or irritability that may be in his character, and in a natural way introduces the elements of patience and perseverance in his work. These qualities are not confined to his Sloyd work but extend throughout his character, so that he realises that the work of life all contributes to some definite aim.
(g) Uniform development of the physical powers. Statistics collected from any country show that many forms of disease before unknown among the young, are now very prevalent among the children taught in the schools. These diseases are attributed to the many hours during which children are required to sit and to the bad positions they assume during those hours. Skoliosis—curvature of the spine—a serious disease, as it produces displacement of the internal organs, nose bleeding, ænemia, chlorosis, nervous irritation, loss of appetite, headache, and myopia, are diseases which are declared by experts to accompany the present system of education.
Sloyd when properly taught tends to develop the frame according to the normal standard. It may not be as good as gymnastics in this direction: but it has this advantage that it trains the pupil to engage in his work in such a manner as not to hinder nor stunt the development of his body, and not to cramp the vital organs in such a manner as to interfere with the discharge of their functions. The pupils are taught to use both hands and to develop both sides of the body. The following chart from Herr Salomon's work will show to what degree the body may develop on a lopsided manner when one side only is used in performing work. The chart shows the sectional measurement of the chest of a boy of thirteen years of age who for three years had worked at a bench using the right side only.
The foregoing brief analysis may show the ends which Sloyd is destined to accomplish, and upon the value of those ends no explanation is required. Habits of industry, patience and perseverance are inculcated. The child learns to know his own power and how best to use it. His tastes are cultivated and he learns to love work and understand the true dignity of labour. Such results are not the results of the copy book but they are permanently impressed upon the child's character. That such an education must react upon the parent is obvious. The child's life is full of aim and he does everything with a purpose, and in such a child only the most depraved parent will fail to take interest, and children have this characteristic, that they force their knowledge upon the notice of their parents whenever they can. The boy who begins to learn house painting soon expresses the wish to paint his own home; if carpentry, he wishes to build a shed; if joinery, he wishes to make a table; and how often one notices a home where tidiness and order are due to the educated child, and where taste in furnishing is accounted for by the daughter's cultivated æsthetic taste. Children then, so trained as the Sloyd system provides, may contribute enormously to the happiness and brightness of the home life. Instead of regarding them as a burden their parents will behold them with delight and pride, and instead of looking out for "something for them to do," indifferent whether it be driving a cart, selling in a shop, or clerking in a lawyer's office, they will find that the child himself has a definite idea of where his after course should lie, and they will do their utmost towards assisting him to follow it.