CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY jpVRNEYS To iJrve nonie^ eK •»-*^,^ — *i^ fly rlLert n^ittes^rd 1 1 lA^/iVli Ji ^Single Copies lo centos • Bjf tKe ^eacrsias The original of tiiis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/cletails/cu31924082458484 To-day, perhaps not until to-morrow, or next week, or next month, or next year you will need a heating or cook- ing apparatus. And then, of course, you '11 want the one most economi- cal, most beautiful, most convenient, most durable; in other words, a " Buck's"— made in St. Louis by The Buck's Stove and Range Company. Mennen's ^?J5^]^ Toilet Powder A positive relief for Sunbnm.PrieUr'Haat, Chafiiw, and all afflictiong of the skin. A« little higher in price, perhaps, than vorthlen substitutes, but a reason for it." Delightful ' after shaving. Sold everywhere, or mailed on receipt of iS cents. , Get Mennen's (the original). Sample free. Save you tried Mennen's Violet iSorfUea) Tahvm Gerhard Mennen Co., Newark, N. J. |T is the nature of man, as distin- guished from the beasts, that he can by conscious effort better his standing in the material world. Character- istically a man is a worker, a creator of values, a world-maker. He alone, of all living things, can conceive designs andi execute them, can imagine conditions that do not .exist and then by patience bring them to pass. To take the world wholly as one finds it and leave it so, is brutal jfc A man is a man only because he is a wealth-producer, an enricher of existence.— CJr^i2L^«S' FERGUSON Tiffany & Co. Visitors to New York Tiffany & Co. cordially invite visitors from out-of-town to in-' ^ "TH HEA spiriti helpt T H KAST ife* Ym mr' ^^f ft; ted to 1 and pie to ealer ! R S vroRK E ERA" is devoted and dedical LTH — physical, moral, menta lal Health d jr^ ^^^^^kJI J^^^ ^^^^^^•^C 5^^ ^^^iWvx] "jw^ ft^aOVRNEY3J^ TnOMA3 ARNOLD \\4liteiv % Elbert- IJy^^ri ootvl done i-rvto o-P-rinied-BooK. Igr vSKop WKicK is dtx^cvst' Atirof iK, Erie Co\it>^ N e -vw^ Yo 1^ 1^ IF / 4 7L.-h c^ '^B> LET me mind my own personal work ; keep myself pure and zealous and believing ; labouring to do God's will in this fruitful vineyard of young lives committed to my charge, as my allotted field, until my work be done. — Thomas Arnold LITTLE JOURNEYS HOMAS ARNOLD was born in Seventeen Hundred and Ninety- five, and died in Eighteen Hun- dred and Forty-two. His life was short, as men count time, but he lived long enough to make for himself a name and a fame that are both lasting and luminous. Though he was neither a great writer nor a great preacher, yet there were times when he thought he was both. He was only a school teacher. However, he was an artist in school teaching — and art is not a thing— it is a way. It is the beau- tiful way — the effective way. School teachers have no means of proving their prowess by conspicuous waste, and no time to convince the world of their excellence through conspicuous leisure, consequently for histrionic purposes, a school teacher's cosmos is a plain slaty grey. School teachers do not fallow in wealth nor feed fat at the public trough. No one ever accused them of belonging to the class known as the predatory rich, nor of being millionaire malefactors. They have to do their work every day at certain hours and dedicate its results to time. For many years Thomas Arnold has been known as the father of his son. Several great men have been thus overshadowed. The father of Disraeli, for instance, was favored by fame and 29 THOMAS ARNOLD fortune, until his gifted son moved into the lime-light, and after that Pater shown mostly in a reflected glory. Jacopo Bellini was the greatest painter in Venice, until his two sons, Gian and Gentile, surpassed him, and history writes him down as the father of the Bellinis. Lyman Beecher was regarded as America's greatest preacher until Henry Ward moved the mark up a few notches. The elder Pitt was looked upon as a genuine statesman, until his son graduated into the Cabinet, and then "the terrible comet of horse" became known as the father of Pitt. Now that both are dust, and we are getting the proper perspective, we see that "the great commoner" was indeed a great man, and so they move down the corridors of time together, arm in arm, this father and son. That excellent person who carried the gripsacks of greatness so long that he thought the luggage was his own. Major James B. Pond, launched at least one good thing. It was this, "Matthew Arnold gave fifty lectures in America and nobody ever heard one of them ; those in his audience who could no longer endure the silence, slipped quietly out. " Matthew Arnold was a critic and writer, who, having secured a tuppence worth of success through being the son of his father, and thus securing the speaker's eye, finally got an oratorical bee in his bonnet and went a-barnstorming. He cultivated reserve and indifference, both of which he was told were necessary factors in success in a public speaker. And this is true. But they will not make an orator, any more than long hair, a peculiar necktie, and a queer hat will float a poet on the tide of time safely into the Hall of Fame. 30 THOMAS ARNOLD Matthew Arnold cultivated repose, but instead of convincing the audience that he had power, he only made them think he was sleepy. Major Pond, having lived much with orators, and thinking the trick easy, tried oratory on his own account and succeeded as well as did Matthew Arnold. No one ever heard Major Pond, his voice fell over the footlights, dead, into the orchestra — only those with opera-glasses knew he was talking. ^But to be unintelligible is not a special recom- mendation. Men may be moderate for two reasons — thru excess of feeling and because they are actually dull. Matthew Arnold has slipped back into his true position — that of a man of letters. The genius is a man of affairs. Humanity is the theme, not books. Books are usually written about the thoughts of men who wrote books. Books die and disintegrate, but himianity is an endless procession and the souls that go marching on are those who fought for freedom, not those who speculated on abstrusities. The credential of Thomas Arnold to immortality is not that he was the father of Matthew and eight other little Arnolds, but it lies in the fact that he fought for a wider horizon in life and education. He lifted up his voice for liberty. He believed in the divinity of the child, not in its depravity. Arnold of Rugby was a teacher of teachers, as every great teacher is. The pedagogic world is now going back to his philosophy, just as in statesmanship we are reverting to Thomas Jeffer- son. These men who spoke classic truth — not transient — truth that fits in spite of fashion, time and place are the true prophets of mankind. Such was Thomas Arnold ! 31 THOMAS ARNOLD 5F Thomas Arnold had been just a little bigger, the world probably would never have heard of him, for an interdict would have been placed upon his work. The miracle is that, as it was, the Church and • State did not snuff him out. He stood for sweet reasonable- ness, but ujjintentionally created much opposition. His life was a warfare. Yeti he managed to make himself acceptable to a few, so for fourteen years this head master of a preparatory school for boys lived his life and did his work. He sent out his radiating gleams, and grew straight in the strength of his spirit and lived out his life in the light. Q His sudden death sanctified and sealed his work before he was subdued and ironed out by the conventions. Happy Arnold ! If he had lived, he might have met the fate of Arnold of Brescia, who was also a great teacher. Arnold of Bres- cia was a pupil of Abelard and was condemned by the Church as a disturber of the peace for speaking ip eulogy of his master. Later he attacked the profligacy of the idle prelates, as did Luther, Savonarola and all the other great church-reformers. When ordered into exile and silence, he still protested his right to speak. He was strangled on order of the Pope, his body burned, and the ashes thrown into the Tiber. The Baptists, I believe, claim Arnold of Brescia, as the forerunner of their 32 THOMAS ARNOLD sect, and certain it is that he was of the true Roger Williams type J- J- Thomas Arnold, too, was filled with a passion for right- eousness. His zeal for the upright, manly life constituted his strength. Of course he would not have been executed, as was Arnold of Brescia — the times had changed : he wovdd simply have been shelved, poohpoohed and deprived of his living and socially crapseyized. Death saved him — aged forty- seven — and his soul goes marching on ! |HE parents of Thomas Arnold be- longed to the great Middle Class, that Disraeli said never did any thinking on its own account, but deferred to and imitated the idle rich in matters of religion, edu- cation and politics to the best of its ability. Dr. Johnson maintained that if members of the Middle Class worked hard and economized, it was in the hope that they might leave money and name for their children and make them exempt from all useful effort. "To indict a class," said Burke, "is neither reasonable nor right." But certain it is that a vast number of fairly intelli- 33 THOMAS ARNOLD gent people in England and elsewhere regard the life of the "aristocracy" as very desirable and beautiful. To this end they want their boys to become clergymen, law- yers, doctors or army ofScers. "Only two avenues of honor are open to aspiring youth in England," said Gladstone, "the army and the church." The father of Thomas Arnold was Collector of Customs at Cowes, Isle of Wight. Holding this petty office under the Government, vrith half a dozen men at his command, we can easily guess his calibre, habits, belief and mode of life. He was respectable, and to be respectable, a Collector of Customs must be punctilious in Church matters in order to be accept- able to Church people, for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven. The parents of Thomas Arnold very naturally centered their ambitions for him on the Church, as he was not very strong. C| When the child was only six years old, the father died from "spasm of the heart. " At this time the boy had begtm to take Latin, and his education was being looked after by a worthy governess, who daily drilled his mental processes and took him walking, leading him by the hand. On Sundays he wore a wide, white collar, shiny boots and a stiff hat. The governess cautioned him not to soil his collar, nor get mud on his boots. ^ In later years he told how he looked covetously at the boys who wore neither hats nor boots, and who did not have a governess .^ Jt His mother had a fair income, and so this prim, precise, exact and crystallized mode of education was continued. Out of her great love for her child, the mother sent him away from 34 THOMAS ARNOLD home when he was eight years old. Of course there were tears on both sides ; but now a male man must educate him, and women dropped out of the equation — this that the evil in the child should be curbed, his spirit chastened, and his mind disciplined. ^ The fact that a child rather liked to be fondled by his mother, or that his mother cared to fondle him, were proofs of total depravity on the part of both. The Rev. Dr. Griffiths, who took charge of the boy for two years, was certainly not cruel, but at the same time he was not exactly human. In nature we never hear of a she-lion sending her cubs away to be looked after by a denatured lion. It is really doubtful whether you could ever raise a lion to lionhood by this method. Some goat would come along and butt the life out of him, even after he had evolved whiskers and a mane. After two years with Dr. Griffiths, young Arnold was sent to Manchester, where he remained in a boy's boarding-house from his tenth to his fourteenth year. To the teachers here — all men — he often paid tribute, but uttered a few heretical doubts as to whether discipline as a substitute for mother- love was not an error of pious but overzealous educators jt At sixteen years of age he was transferred to Corpus Christi College at Oxford. In Eighteen Hundred and Fifteen, being then twenty years of age, he was elected a Fellow of Oriel College, and there he resided until he was twenty-four. He was a prizeman in Latin, Greek and English, and was considered a star scholar — both by himself and others. Ten years afterwards he took a backward glance, and said, "At ; 35 THOMAS ARNOLD twenty-two I was proud, precise, stiff, formal, uncomfortable, unhappy, and unintentionally made everybody else unhappy with whom I came in contact. The only people I really mixed with were those whose lives were dedicated to the ablative." ^ When twenty-four he was made a deacon, and used to read prayers at neighboring chapels, for which service he was paid five shillings. Being now thrown on his own resources, he did the thing a prizeman always does: he showed others how. As a tutor he was a success, and more scholars came to him than he could really take care of. But he did not like the work, since all the pupil desired and all the parents desired, was that he should help the backward one to get his marks, and glide thru the eye of a needle into a pedagogic paradise. ^ At twenty-six he was preaching, teaching and writing learned essays about things he did not understand. From this brief sketch it will be seen that the early education of Thomas Arnold was of the kind and type that any fond parent of the well-to-do Middle Class would most desire. He had been shielded from all temptations of the world; he cotxld do no useful thing with his hands; his knowledge of economics — ways and means — was that of a child; of the living present he knew little, but of the dead past he assumed and believed he knew much. It was a purely priestly, institutional education. It was the kind of education that every well-to-do Briton would like to have his sons receive. It was England's Ideal. 36 THOMAS ARNOLD ^UGBY GRAMMAR SCHOOL was endowed in Sixteen Hundred and Fifty-three, by one Laurence Sherif, a worthy grocer. The original gift was comparatively small, but the investment being in London real estate, has in- creased in value until it yields now an income of about thirty- five thousand dollars a year Ji In the time of Arnold there were about three hundred pupils. It is not a large school now — there are high-schools in a hundred cities of America that surpass it in many ways. Rugby's claim to special notice lies in its traditions— the great men who were once Rugby boys, and the great men who were Rugby teachers. Also, in the fact that Thomas Hughes wrote a famous story called, "Tom Brown at Rugby. " Rugby Grammar School was One Hundred and Twenty-five years old when Sir Joshua Reynolds commissioned Lord Cornwallis to go to America and fetch George Washington to England that Sir Joshua might paint his portrait. For a hundred years prior to the time of Arnold, there had not been a perceptible change in the methods of teaching. The boys were herded together. They fought, quarreled, divided into cliques ; the big boys bullied the little ones. Fagging was the law, so the upper forms enslaved the lower ones. There was no home life, and the studies were made irksome and 37 THOMAS ARNOLD severe, purposely, as it was thought that pleasant things were sinful Ji ^ If any better plan could have been devised to make study absolutely repulsive, so the student would shun it as soon as out of school, we cannot guess it. The system was probably bom of inertia on part of the teachers. The pastor who pushes through his prescribed services, with mind on other things, and thus absolves his conscience for letting his congregation go drifting straight to Gehenna, was duplicated in the teacher. He did his duty — and nothing more. Selfishness, heartlessness and brutality manipulated the birch, head was all, heart and hand nothing. This was school teach- ing. As a punishment for failure to memorize lessons there were various plans to disgrace and discourage the luckless one. Standing in the corner with face to the wall, and the dtmce-cap, had given place to a system of fines, whereby "ten lines of Virgil for failure to attend prayers, " and ten more for failure to get the first, often placed the boy in hopeless bank- ruptcy. If he was a fag, or slave of a higher form boy, clean- ing the other's boots, scrubbing stairs, nmning on foolish and needless errands, getting cuffs and kicks by way of encourage- ment, he saw his fines piling up and no way to ever clear them off and gain freedom by promotion. Viewed from our standpoint, the thing has a ludicrous bouffe air that makes us smile. But to the boy caught in the toils it was tragic. To work and evolve in an environment of such brutality, was impossible to certain temperaments. Success 38 THOMAS ARNOLD lay in becoming calloused and indifferent. If the boy of gentle habits and slight physical force did not sink into mental noth- ingness, he was in danger of being bowled over by disease and death jt ji Indeed, the physical condition of the pupils was very bad — small-pox, fevers, consumption and breaking out with sores and boils, were common. Thomas Arnold was thirty-three years old when he was called as head master to Rugby. He was married and babies were coming along with astonishing regularity. He had taken priestly orders, and was passing rich on one hundred pounds a year. Poverty and responsibility had given him ballast, and love for his own little brood had softened his heart and vital- ized his soul. As a writer and speaker he had made his presence felt at various college commencements and clerg3nnen's meet- ings. He had challenged the brutal, indifferent, lazy and so- called disciplinary methods of teaching. And so far as we know he is the first man in England to declare that the teacher should be the foster-parent of the child, and that all successful teaching must be born of love. The well-upholstered conservatives twiddled their thumbs, coughed, and asked, "How about the doctrine of total deprav- ity? Do you mean to say that the child should not be dis- ciplined? What does Solomon say about the use of the rod? Does the Bible say that the child is good by nature? " But Thomas Arnold could not explain all he knew. Moreover, he did not wish to fight the Church — he believed in the Church 39 THOMAS ARNOLD — to him it was a divine institution. But there were methods and practices in the Church that he would have liked to forget. ^ "My sympathies go out to inferiority," he said. The weak- ling often needed encouragement, not discipline. The bad boy must be won, not suppressed. In one of these conferences of clergymen, Arnold said, "I once chided a pupil, a little, pale, stupid boy — undersized and seem- ingly half sick — for not being able to recite his very simple lesson. ^ He looked up at me and said with a touch of spirit, 'Sir, why do you get angry with me? Do you not know I am doing the best I can?' " One of the clergymen present asked Arnold how he punished the boy for this impudence. And Arnold replied, "I did not punish him — he had properly punished me. I begged his pardon. " The idea of a teacher begging the pardon of a pupil was a brand-new thing. Several clergymen present laughed — one scowled — two sneezed. But a bishop, shortly after this, urged the name of Thomas Arnold as master of Rugby, and added to his recom- mendation, this line: "If elected to the office he will change the methods of school teaching in every public school in England." The ayes had it and Arnold was called to Rugby. The salary was so-so, the pupils in number between two and three hun- dred — many were home on sick-leave — the Sixth Form was in charge. 40 THOMAS ARNOLD ^HE genius of Arnold was mani- I fested as soon as he went to Rugby in the management of the boys who bullied the whole school, and did it legally. Fagging was official. The Sixth Form was composed of thirty boys who stood at the top, and these boys ran the school. They were boys who, by reason of their size, strength, aggressive- =^ ness and mental ability, got the markings that gave them this autocratic power. They were now immune from authority — they were free. In a year they would gravitate to the University. We can hardly understand now how a bully could get mark- ings through his bullying propensities, but a rudimentary survival of the idea may yet be seen in big football players, who are given good marks and very gentle mental massage in class. If the same scholars were small and skinny they would certainly be plucked. The faculty found freedom in shifting responsibility for dis- cipline to the Sixth Form. Read the diary of Arnold, and you will be amazed on seeing how he fought against taking from the Sixth Form the right to bodily chastise any scholar in the school that the king of the Sixth Form declared deserved it. If a teacher thought a pupil needed punishment, he turned the 41 THOMAS ARNOLD luckless one over to the Sixth Fonn. Can we now conceive of a system where the duty of certain scholars was to whip other scholars I Not only to whip them, but to beat them into insensi- bility if they fought back. Such was school teaching in the public schools of England in Eighteen Hundred and Thirty. Against this brutality there was now a growing sentiment, of which Arnold was the spokesman — a piping voice bidding the tide to stay ! But now that Arnold was in charge of Rugby, he got the ill- will of his directors by declaring that he did not intend to cur- tail the powers of the Sixth Form — he proposed to civilize it. To try out the new master, the Sixth Form, proud in their prowess, sent him word that if he interfered with them in any way, they would first "bust up the school, " and then resign in a body. Moreover, they gave it out that if any pupil complained to the master concerning the Sixth Form, the one so com- plaining would be taken out by night and drowned in the classic Avon. There were legends among the younger boys of strange dis- appearances, and these were attributed to the swift vengeance of "The Bloody Sixth." Above the Sixth Form there was no law. Every scholar took off his hat to a "Sixth. " A Sixth uncovered to nobody, and touched his cap only to a teacher. And so had custom become rooted that the Sixth Form was regarded as a sort of a police necessity — a caste which served the school just as the Army served the Church. To reach the 42 THOMAS ARNOLD Sixth Form were paradise — it meant liberty and power — liberty to do as you pleased and power to punish all who ques- tioned your authority. To uproot the power of the Sixth Form" was the intent of a few reformers in pedagogics. There were two ways to deal with the boys of the Sixth — fight them, or educate them. Arnold called the Rugby Sixth together, and assured them that he could not do without their help. He needed them — he wanted to make Rugby a model school-^a school that would influence all England — would they help him? The dogged faces before him showed signs of interest. He continued, without waiting for their reply, to set before them his ideal of an English Gentleman. He persuaded them — melted them by his glowing personality — shook hands with each, and sent them away. The next day he again met them in the same intimate way, and one of the boys made bold to assure him that if he wanted anybody licked — pupils or teachers — they stood ready to do his bidding. He thanked the boy, but assured him that he was of the opinion that it would not be necessary to do violence to any one — he was going to unfold to them another way — a new way, which was very old, but which England had never tried. 43 THOMAS ARNOLD O an applicant for a position as teacher, Ariiold wrote: "What I want is a -inan who is a Chris- tian and a gentleman, an active man, and one who has common- sense, and understands boys. I do not so much care about scholar- ship, as he Will have immediately under him the lowest forms in the school, but yet, on second thought, I do care about it very much, because his pupils may be in the highest forms; and besides, I think that even the elements are best taught by a man who has a thorough knowledge of the matter. However, if one must give way, I prefer activity of mind and an interest in his work to high scholarship : for the one may be acquired far more easily than the other. I should wish it also to be understood that the new master may be called upon to take boarders in his house, it being my inten- tion for the future to require this of all masters as I see occasion, that so in time the school barracks may die a nat- ural death. With this to offer, I think I have a right to look rather high for the man whom I fiz upon, and it is my great object to get here a society of intelligent, gentiemanly, and active men, who may permanently keep up the character of the school, and if I were to break my neck to-morrow, carry it on." ^ ^ The great teacher is not the one who imparts the most facts — he is the one who inspires by supplying a'nobler ideal. Men are superior or inferior just in the r&tio that they possess certain qualities. Truth, honor, frankness, health, system, 44 THOMAS ARNOLD industry, kindliness, good cheer and a spirit of helpfulness are so far beyond any mental acquisition that comparisons are not only odious but absurd. Arnold inspired qualities, and in this respect his work at Rugby forms a white mile-stone on the path of progress in pedagogy. ^ Ideas are in the air, and great inventions are worked out in different parts of the world at the same time. Rousseau had written his "Emile," but we are not aware that Arnold ever read it. ^And if he had, he probably would have been shocked, not inspired by its almost brutal frankness. The French might read it — the English could not. Pestalozzi was working out his ideas in Switzerland, and Froebel, an awkward farmer lad, in Germany, was dreaming dreams that were to come true. But Thomas Arnold caught up the threads of feeling in England and expressed them in the fabric of his life. His plans were scientific, but his reasons, unlike those of Pestalozzi, will not always stand the test of close analysis. Arnold was true to the Church, but he found it convenient to forget much for which the Church stood. He went back to a source nearer the fountain head. All reforms in organized religion lie in returning to the primitive type. The religion of Jesus was very simple — that of a modem church dignitary is very complex. One can be understood ; the other has to be explained and expounded, and usually several languages are required Jt Jt> Arnold would have his boys evolve into Christian gentlemen. And his type of English gentlemen he did not get out of books 45 THOMAS ARNOLD on theology, it was his own composite idea. But having once evolved it, he cast around to justify it by passages of scripture. This was beautiful, too, but from our standpoint it was n't necessary. From his it was. A gentleman to him was a man who looked for the best in other people, and not for their faults ; who overlooked slights ; who forgot the good he had done ; who was courteous, kind, cheerf til, industrious and clean inside and out ; who was slow to wrath, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord. And the "Lord" to Arnold was embodied in the Church and State. Arnold used to say that school teaching should not be based upon religion, but it should be religion. And to him religion and conduct were one. That he reformed Rugby through the Sixth Form is a fact. He infused into the big boys the thought that they must help the little ones ; that for a first offense a lad must never be punished ; that he should have the matter fully explained to him and be shown that he should do right because it is right, and not for fear of punishment. The Sixth Form was taught to unbend its dignity and enter into fellowship with its so-called inferiors. To this end Arnold set the example of playing cricket with the "scrubs."^ He never laughed at a poor player nor a poor scholar. He took dull pupils into his own house, and insisted that his helpers, the other teachers, should do the same. He showed the Sixth Form bow much better it was to take the part of the weak, and stop bullying the lower forms, than to set the example of it in the highest. ^ Before Arnold had been at Rugby a year, 46 THOMAS ARNOLD the Sixth Form had resolved itself into a Reception Com- mittee that greeted all newcomers, got them located, intro- duced them to other boys, showed them the sights and looked after their wants like big brothers or foster-fathers. Christianity to Arnold was human service. In his zeal to serve, to benefit, to bless, to inspire, he never tired. Such a disposition as this is contagious. In every big business or school, there is one man's mental attitude that animates the whole institution. Everybody partakes of it. When the leader gets melancholia, the shop has it — the whole place becomes tinted with ultramarine. The best helpers begin to get out, and the honeycombing process of dissolution is on. ^ A school must have a soul just as surely as a shop, a bank, a hotel, a store, a home, or a church has to have. When an institution grows so great that it has no soul, simply a financial head, and a board of directors, dry rot sets in and disintegra- tion in a loose wrapper is at the door. This explains why the small colleges are the best — when they are — there is a personality about them, an animating spirit that is pervasive, and preservative. Thomas Arnold was not a man of vast learning, nor could one truthfully say that he had a surplus of intellect, but he had soul plus. He never sought to save himself. He gave himself to the boys of Rugby. His heart went out to them, he believed in them — and he believed them even when they lied, and he knew they lied. At heart, he knew that humanity was sound — he believed in the divinity of mankind, and tried hard to forget the foolish theology that taught otherwise. 47 THOMAS ARNOLD Like Thomas Jefferson who installed the honor system in the University of Virginia, he trusted young men. He made his appeal to that germ of goodness which is in every human soul. In some ways he anticipated Ben Lindsey in his love for the boy, and might have conjured forth from his teeming brain the Juvenile Court, and thus stopped the creation of criminals, had his life not been consumed in a struggle with stupidity and pedantry gone to seed that cried at him, "Oh, who ever beard of such a thing as that ! " The Kindergarten utilizes the propensity to play ; and Arnold utilized the thirst for authority. Altruism is flavored with a desire for approbation. The plan of self-government by means of utilizing the Sixth Form was quite on the order of our own " George Junior Republic." "A school," he said, "should be self-governing and cleanse itself from that which is harmful. " And again he says, "If a pupil can gratify his natural desire for approbation by doing that which is right, proper and best, he will work to this end instead of being a hero by playing the rowdy. It is for the scholars to set the seal of their approval on character, and they will do so if we as teachers speak the word. If I find a room in a tumult, I blame myself, not the scholars. It is I who have failed, not they. Were I what I should be, every one of my pupils would reflect my worth. I key the situation — I set the pace, and if my soul is in disorder, the school will be in confusion. " Nothing is done without enthusiasm. It is heart that wins, not head, the round world over. And yet head must systematize 48 THOMAS ARNOLD the promptings of the heart. Arnold had a way of putting soul into a hand-clasp. His pupils never forgot him. Wherever they went, no matter how long they lived, they proclaimed the praises of Arnold of Rugby. How much this earnest, enthusi- astic, loving and sincere teacher has influenced civilization, no man can say. But this we know, that since his day there has come about a new science of teaching. The birch has gone with the dunce-cap. The particular cat-o '-nine-tails that was burned in the home of Thomas Arnold as a solemn ceremony, when the declaration was made, "Henceforth I know my children will do right ! " has found its example in every home of Christendom. We no longer whip children. Schools are no longer places of dread, pain and suffering, and we as teachers are repeating with Friedrich Froebel the words of the Naza- rene, "Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven. " Also we say with Thomas Arnold, "The boy is father to the man. A race of gentlemen can only be produced by fostering in the boy the qualities that make for health, strength and a manly desire to bless, benefit and serve the race. " 49 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO EAST AURORA BY HELEN SAYR GRAY PASSENGERS on the Pennsylvania Railroad do not go through East Aurora without knowing it. As the train draws into the village, they are greeted by a big sign by the wayside: "Sinners, this is East Aurora. Folks who don't know how Ifo take The Philistine had better not— All Baba." Like Fitzgerald, who divides fame with Omar, and who used to attribute all his risky ideas to a m3rthical sailor by the name of Posh, what€i,ver Mr. Hubbard sees fit to express in bucolic phraseology he attributes to Ali Baba, who for many years has been hired man. It was on the occasion of the annual Philistine Convention that I last visited East Aurora. Several hundred of the Faithful had come on a pilgrimage to Mecca. I rejoiced to be among the number. We found ourselves in a pretf^ New York village with shady streets, white frame cottages and old fashioned flowers. The Roycroft influence is everywhere seen in newly painted houses and well kept yards. In the freshness of the early morning when a mist hangs over the wooded hills and fields, and in the evening when the air is perfumed by the foliage, the village is at its best. As you stroll through the streets at night, toads hop off the walk, as you pass. " The Philistine" and "Little Journeys' ' present a religion of health, happiness, success, courage, and -good cheer, a religion of service instead of a religion of services ; but notwithstanding, formal religion still thrives side by side with it in East Aurora. There are a dozen churches — some of them no bigger than a bandbox — in the place, though the population is only twenty- five hundred. The Roycroft Inn is unique. There are out-of-door bedrooms on the porches, and the rooms are not numbered but are named after famous men and women. The best three are dedicated to Ruskin, William Morris and Emerson, patron saints of the Roycrofters. After seeing several of the rooms, if asked what colors they are decorated in, you cannot say. You recall only the harmonious effects. The dining-room is furnished with huge round polished oak tables and Ali Baba benches, which impressed me as being the height of perfection in bench-making. In the centre of each table was a tall vase of peonies. There are flowers and ferns every- where — in the o£Sice, the salon, the library, and on the porches — big vases and bowls filled with poppies, buttercups, or daisies. Carved on the doors or on planks suspended by chains from the beams of the ceilings or printed on cards are mottoes : Blessed is the man who has found his work. Those who act their thought and think little of their act are the ones who score. Why not leave it to Nemesis? Never explain. Your friends don't need it and your enemies will not beUeve you, anyway. Atlas could never have carried the world, had he fixed his thought on the size of it. The man who does not enjoy his work will never enjoy any- thing. ^To lose one's self-respect is the greatest calamity J- On the door of the Chapel is this from Ruskin : — ^Lif e without industry is guilt. Industry without art is brutality. Until a few persons recently undertook to show to the con- trary, it had always been thought that a factory must be dirty and unsightly. What did it matter if it was? It was only a factory. No comforts or conveniences were supplied, except those that were absolutely necessary. Such a thing as mak- ing the premises attractive was not thought of, and|if it had been, would have been regarded as foolishness — a sheer waste of money. ii The Roycroft Shop is the antithesis of all this. It is light and well ventilated. No litter is allowed to accumulate. There are pictures on the walls, potted plants, vases of flowers, and pianos. The grounds are attractive, especially in spring when the fruit trees are in blossom and in midsummer when the golden glow, of which there are clusters at intervals all about the place, is in bloom. The Roycroft institution is an illustration of the plan of getting an education and earning a living at the same time. It shows what can be accomplished by right living in a beautiful en- vironment. "The education gained at the expense of nerves and digestion is of small avail. We learn in times of pleasurable animation, by doing, through expression, through music and the manifold influences of beauty and harmony. The intent of the Roycrof ters is not to impart truth, but rather to create an atmosphere in which souls may grow." A few of the best educators of to-day are now advocat- ing that students should devote a part of each day to physical work. Elbert Hubbard is one of these. He does not approve of quitting work to get an education any more than he ap- proves of quitting work to devote one's self to love or religion. Such an arrangement lacks balance and sooner or later proves the undoing of those who attempt it. The student whose edu- cation is wholly mental inevitably pays the penalty for his violation of natural laws. Athletics furnish physical exercise for a part of the student body, but reach comparatively few. The rest are spectators. Departments of play have been intro- duced recently in the women's colleges. This is commendable and necessary, but play is not a substitute for work. Physical work each day is as natural and necessary as food or sleep. Ruskin summed up the situation when he said, "It is only by labor that thought can be made healthy, and only by thought that labor can be made happy." The Salon of the Inn is a stately, beautiful room designed by Mrs. Hubbard. The floor and paneled walls are of weathered oak, and all around the room is a frieze painted by Mr. Alexis iii Fournier typifying the art and the civilization of nations jt In successive scenes are shown the temples of India with their strange carved idols, a shepherd boy playing with his pipes l>eside a crumbling ruin of Greece while he tends his flocks ; Some, Paris, London overhung with fog and smoke, and the radiant glory of Italy. Night hangs over the Sphinx and the pyramids of Egypt and over the tents and camels of a caravan encamped in the desert. In the picture of America is an Indian wigwam shut in by snow with a haze of purple and golden sunset showing through the bare branches of the trees. In the other part of the canvas is the Roycrof t Chapel in spring, when the apple trees are in bloom. At night the light is very subdued, as the electric bulbs are concealed by the beams of the ceiling and light up the paintings instead of the room. There are no rugs, no bric-a-brac, and no curtains to detract from the beauty of the walls and floor, no furniture except leather cushioned window seats, a piano and some chairs. ^ Shirt-waist suits are the favorite garb among men. Fra Elbertus sets the fashion by wearing a grey flannel shirt and khaki trousers. Overalls and suspenders are much in evidence. ^ Elbert Hubbard is preaching more forcibly than any other writer of to-day the gospel, not of the Hereeifter, but of the Here and Now, the folly of neglecting the present in regretting the past and anticipating the future, the gospel of health, the wholesome life of joy, of work. It used to be thought that work was a curse, but now it is realized that it is not work, but the lack of it, that is a curse. Not only does he preach this gospel, but he practices what he preaches. In the morning of the Fourth of July Mr. Hubbard spoke on health. Some one has said bad habits are the only hell, an assertion no one except those of a theological bent will under- take to dispute. People acquire habits of living that inevitably prove their undoing ; they violate every law of health and then expect a bottle of medicine will cure them. It is this super- stition that the medical profession fosters and that he attacked, illustrating his talk with some reminiscences drawn from his iv father's experience as a doctor. To enforce his views on right living, Fra Elbertus has a "Sick Benefit Fund" for his employees. This fund is obtained not by taxing those who are well to support the sick, but by fining the sick for their folly. At the end of the year the proceeds are divided among those who have kept well. ^ During his talk he digressed to speak of the guests who come to the Inn and are hard to please. "They must sit at a health food table. They must sleep with their heads to the North. I don't know why they come here, unless it is that God is disciplining me. " He ended by calling on Dr. C. S. Carr of Columbus, to reply to the charges he had made against the medical profession. The meeting then adjourned to the spring a few blocks away. ^ Many of the meetings were held out-of-doors there in an amphitheatre built on a bank in the shade of some big trees and facing a beautiful landscape. Dr. Carr tried to show that there are times when medicine is necessary, by citing as illustration some of the cases he had been called to see. He concluded by telling of a case of rheuma- tism he was called to attend. "The patient was a hard-work- ing old farmer, sixty years old. All his life he had lived on farm fare. Now he was laid up with what is called rheiunatism and was in excruciating pain. I dosed him with Epsom salts. What would you have done in such a case? " he inquired, turning to Mr. Hubbard. It was dinner-time. So we had to wait until the next day to hear what Mr. Hubbard would do. In the afternoon Mr. M.M.Mangasarian of Chicago, spoke on the religious needs of America. Mr. Mangasarian is a very graceful, polished speaker. His quiet method of delivery is in pleasing con- trast to the bellowing that poses as oratory. Once upon a time he was a Presbyterian minister. Sixteen or seventeen years ago he left that faith and for a time was at the head of the Society for Ethical Culture in Chicago. Of late years he has been the lecturer of the Rationalist Society in Chicago, known as the Independent Religious Society. In a speech packed f ixll of thought-challenging ideas he made an eloquent plea for a free, progressive, reasonable religion — a religion of ideas. Owing to the prejudices in which we have been raised, it is customary to suspect persons who do not cherish the same religious dogmas as we do, or believe in any at all, of lacking moral ballast. "Our first and greatest need, " said he, "is a free religion. We call ourselves free but we are slaves to an Asiatic religion. We need a progressive religion as well as a free one. With our religion of to-day, when a man would go in a certain direction pursuing his investigations, he comes to a sign barring the way, 'By order of Moses, no thoroughfare. ' " The hands that work are better far than lips that pray. A man gives a hostage for good citizenship when he buys a home and is eamin| money to pay for it. A woman who is earning money to pay for a home is not found crying with self-pity over her lot. z "Woman as a wage-earner with property rights has never been seriously considered jt In England a bride's dowry is turned over to her liusband, and the law entitles him to dis-^ pose of this property in his will as he may see fit. Marriage is a unilateral contract. 'With all my worldly goods I thee endow,' is nothing but a joke. The laws do not sustain the provision. In the wedding-service a woman contracts to obey, and obedience used to be compelled at the whipping-post and ducking-stool. It is said that women are not inventive. "It is said that man needs woman for a helpmeet. Not long ago a man said to me :< Man needs woman for his best develop- ment. She is his left hand. ' I asked him if he did not believe in ambidexterity, and he looked mystified. ^ "We are much indebted to Mrs. Eddy for her contribution to the cause of woman's rights. Christian Science is a demonstra- tion of equal rights for men and women. Mrs. Eddy did better than argue the question. She quietly assumed and lived equal rights and incorporated equality in the religion she fotmded. Q"A married woman who does not receive an equitable share of her husband'^ income is as much a dependent as the tooth- less old man on the veranda of the poorhouse who moves to keep in the sun. Especially if she loses her youthful charms is she made to feel her dependence. Sentiment has not made any just division of the business partnership of husband and wife. It is wrong that the money due a wife is not turned over to her. She needs the responsibility of ta&ing care of it to train her judgment. When a woman receives no money from her husband except what she has to ask for, beg or steal from him, there results the still htmt through trouser-pockets, deceptions, accusations, tears, misery, money for peace. The symptoms are treated. The cause remains untouched. "To feed, clothe, and think for a child when he is old enough to take care of himself is to pauperize him. The same is true of women. To shield woman from responsibilities and think tot her is barbarous. Every man and woman should support himself or herself and' earn not only for support, but to have something left over. Each should be economically free." Q Mrs. Hubbard is manager of the Inn, vice-president and gen- eral superintendent of the Roycroft corporation. She hires and discharges all epiployees and fixes their salaries. She also teaches, lectures, and writes. Mr. Liberty Tadd, head of the Public School of Industrial Art of Philadelphia, gave two illustrated lectures on the methods he has evolved of teaching art, manual training, and nature- .^tudy, methods that educate hand, eye, and mind by means that cpnserve vitality and develop a union of thought and action. Mr. Tadd holds that pupils should le'am to draw as automatically as they write. After sufficient practice they do not have to stop to think about forming the letters of the alphabet as they write. They are free to give all their atten- tion to the ideas they wish to express, and the same should be the case in drawing. They should learn to draw in the same way they learn to write, not by laboriously working over the letters a long time, erasing and correcting them, but by con- stant practice. Any one can learn drawing just as well as hand- writing. Special talent or genius is not necessary for the mechanicsd part of the work in either writing or drawing, but only in the field of creative work. "Automatic facility is as necessary in drawing as in playing the piano," said he. "To acquire such facility I have my pupils do a good deal of drill work on the blackboard, using both hands at the same time, or either hand. The drawings are made on a large scale. Thus the eyesight is not strained by peering at small lines. No attempt is made at sketching or painting with the left hand. The older pupils can draw complex designs, using one hand, then the other, in four to six minutes. The advantages of thus training the left hand are manifold. In two hundred and forty trades or crafts the workmen use both hands quite freely' and in some of them they use the left hand as much as the right. "Another radical feature of my methods is the system of rotation. Our pupils do not take a course of drawing and then xii ftt some other time in their lives a course of modeling, but in every grade from the lowest up, they work in the four departments, drawing, designing, clay-modeling and wood- carving. In some schools where this system is in use, the chil- dren change from one branch to another at each lesson, in others at every fourth lesson, and in others they finish a piece of work in each branch before a change is made. Experience proves that a much deeper and more lasting impression is secured when pupils make the various forms in different medituns .»» jt "Another featiire of the methods I use had advocate for ele- mentary work in education is exercises for acquiring accurate and permanent organic memories of environment: i — From nature — flowers, sheUs, animals, insects, etc.; 2 — From art works and ornaments of the best periods; 3-^— Creative design- ing in various materials. The nature-study drawing registers in the brain impressions of beauty that are a joy to the pupils all their lives. In the elementary stages of education, draw- ing and modeling properly taught from the most common and simplest and most interesting forms, train the per- ceptive faculties of children more than any other study, strengthen the memory, judgment and imagination, and arouse that spirit of investigation so powerful in all children. 9 "Many people have a hazy recollection of facts they learned at school by listening to lectures or reading books, but they seldom forget what tiiey have learned by experience in their business and by doing. For example, a lesson about a plant makes a feeble and fleeting impression unless locked in the brain through the medium of as many senses as possible jt If a pupil £awi and models a plant, dissects it and makes drawings and diagrams of the various parts, attaching the names to each, first with the plant before him and then from memory, a more permanent impression is made. Looking at the plant and handling it is not enough. If looking at and handling things train people to see, why is it that not one person in fifty can tell whether the handle of a spoon curves xiii up or down? Rambles, talks by the teacher, looking at and handling objects are useless in nature-study, unless the impressions and information are made orgamc by perform- ing work that compels systematic reaction of the motor centres to ^eld a product. Telling is a feeble mode of impress- ing the mindk 'Actions speak louder than words.' The mind is made dull and torpid by too much verbal memorizing, too much print, too much telling, and too little doing. Too often children are introduced to the sources of information that books Supply, instead of those sources that nature and experi- ence supply. I^ their information is obtained from books only, there results a consumptibn of vitality, a dissipation of energy, a diversion of the attention, and a prevention of the impulse that prompts to action. Too much book-learning makes the student a sponge-like absorber of what he reads, divorces ideas from action, paralyzes the motor centres. All the motor energy is then dissipated in dreaming, in castle-building, and the dreamer becomes incapable of action ; but art and real manual training make vital and alive the connection between the inner thought and the outward action." There were a number of other speakers, among them the Princess Viroqua, Madison C. Peters, Henry Frank, Phoebe Cousins, SadaJdchi Hartman, Charles Sandburg, Clarence Darrow, Elizabeth Towne and Richard LeGallienne. Whenever a discourse proved heavy or tedious, Fra Elbertus came to the rescue. He would get up and make a few jocose remarks and thus relieve the tension. He \mderstands as few people have ever done the secret of true balance in public speaking, in writing and in work, the balance of the serious with the humorous, the pathetic with the merry, of work vrith rest jf> Ji He knows that ideas do not always come on tap, that, they cannot be relied on to flow when one sits down at his desk and cudgels his brains, but that the most spontaneous results are obtained when one is engaged in something else besides an effort to coax them forth. So he puts himself in a receptive xiv Lood and digs in the garden, rakes the yard, trims dead ranches from the trees, trattips, rides horseback, and lo, the leas surge through him. Is style reflects his spontaneity, the buoyancy of success. Is out-door life and exuberant good health, his joyousness, is poise, the diversity of his experiences. He sees life in all s phases. In his youth he engaged in a score or more of dif- irent enterprises, and so had a varied business experience. 1 his travels, in his capacity as employer, and as host to lousands of visitors who go to East Aurora every year, he Leets all kinds of people. Distinguished visitors are invited to >eak, to read, recite, or play in the Roycroft Salon or Chapel ad they give their best. He has sought to know the illustrious ten and women of history, both the living and the dead, and is friendship with them has been one of the principal factors L making him what he is. QWho but a sorely tried em- ioyer could have written that inimitable fable about Satan L "The Philistine" of March, 1907? It is a companion- lece to "A Message to Garcia," which has been translated Lto eleven languages and reprinted over twenty-four million mes, and deserves as wide a circulation, he sage of East Aurora is never tedious. He does not write . jhnsonese. He is the most vivid, forcible, and epigram- latic of living writers. He is lord of language. His vocabu- ry is remarkable for its extent, his language for its pictur- iqueness. His insight, wit and humor, give his writings a mstant freshness and charm. One test of a masterpiece is lat it fills the reader with a sense of its completeness. He els that it cannot be improved on, that there is nothing Lore to be said. Much that Elbert Hubbard has written iswers to this description. The Fra" is bold, brief, spicy, saucy. In it Fra Elberfus equently surprises the reader with adages recast in a new inn to show a different aspect of the case, an art in which he ccels. For instance, "All things come too late for those who ait," "Opportunity knocks once at each man's door; but XV if you yourself are knocking when she calls, you will not hear her," says Hubbard; and again, "The rolling stone gathers no moss, but it often acquires some much needed polish." "To make mistakes is human; to profit by them is divine," Hubbard's cleverness is nowhere shown to better advantage than in the advertising pages of "The Fra. " To induce readers to look through the advertisements, he devised the scheme of interspersing among them flashes of his wit and well chosen quotations from some great writer. When he writes the advertisements himself, as he sometimes does, he makes them as interesting as any of his other writings. There was a time when magazines would not publish any- thing from the pen of Elbert Hubbard, and when the news- papers had no word of praise for him, but joined in an anvil chorus. Many newspapers still continue to ignore or assail him, especially those whose editors are not fsuniliar with his writings ^d have never seen the work of the Roycrofters in East Aurora; but the tide turned long ago. Through all the storm and stress he was perfectly able to take care of himself . It was easy for him to endure such attacks, for he had the antidote of success to sustain him, and moreover he was intei^t on doing his work and so gave little heed to his enemies. Q The' amount of work he has turned out in the last fourteen years is prodigious, a Titan's task. People marvel that he can accomplish so much. His health and power of concentration alone cannot account for it. The secret: of it is that he has an efficient helper, his wife. She is his best critic and helps him not only with criticism and suggestions, but in the preparation of "Little Journeys " and in the writing of his books, to which work, from her experience as a student and a teacher, she brought an equipment of a wide knowledge of literature and history as well as of many other subjects. When the "Little Journey to the Home of John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor" appeared, and extracts were quoted in it from Mill's autobiography, in which he sai4 his writings were not the workof one mind, but of the fusion of two, there were xvi le people who knew Elbert Hubbard only slightly who Ucted that, when he wrote his autobiography, he would the same. The prophecy came true a few months ago in his latest book, "White Hyacinths," came out, a large : of which is autobiographical. t he pa3re the highest tribute to his wife, who caused him hirty-three years of age to be bom again. "To her' I owe [ am. I have known her for twenty years. I have written over three thousand letters and she has written as many ae. Every worthy theme and sentiment I have expressed he public has been first expressed to her or, more likely, rowed from her. I have seen her in almost every possible rency of life : in health, success, and high hope ; in poverty, what the world calls disgrace and defeat. But disgrace is those who accept disgrace, and defeat consists in acknowl- ing it. She is not content to pierely think and preach her osophy,but has the will to live it.The joyin work wdl done, sweet taste of food earned by honest effort, the absolution t comes through following one's highest ideals are hers." he first page of "White Hyacinths" begins with the mphant note, "The past is mine." When asked if he lid care to live his life over again, even though denied the tior's privilege of correcting the second edition, he is one tie few people who can and does say he would. In the con- usness of the success he has achieved, he has nothing to . With the poet of old he can chant: Happy the man and happy he alone, He who can call to-day his own. He who, secure witliin, can say. To-morrow, do thy worst, for I have lived to-day. Be fair or foul, or rain or shine. The joys I have possessed, in spite of fate are mine. . Not heaven itself upon the past has power. But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour. CORNELL JNIVERSHY LIBRARY 3 1924 082 458 484 All books are subject to recall after two weeks. Olin/Kroch Library DATE DUE SEirr Tm^ * '«W^ iiUf*™" \r\t\r\ «w86 GAYLORD PRINTED IN U.S A