WASTE OF LABOR IN THE WORK OF EDUCATION.

AN ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF INSTRUCTION, AT NORTH ADAMS, MASS., IN AUGUST, 1874; ALSO BEFORE THE CONNECTICUT STATE TEACHERS' ASSOCIATION, AT NEW HAVEN, CONN., OCTOBER 22, 1874, BY P. A. CHADBOURNE, LL. D., PRESIDENT OF WILLIAMS COLLEGE, MASS.

It is supposed that education will prevent a waste of labor; that the educated workman in any productive employment will put his blows in the right place and strike them at the right time, so that his labor shall be more efficient for the good of himself and the world than the illdirected efforts of the ignorant man. To make labor efficient, schools are established for the education of workmen in every industrial pursuit.

MISDIRECTION OF LABOR SHOWN TO BE COMMON IN OTHER KINDS OF WORK.

It is plain, however, that the world, as a whole, is still far enough from making all labor as productive and effective for good as it ought to be. Through ignorance, carelessness, pride, and dishonesty, a large portion of the labor performed is wasted, in that, it fails to produce the desired result or at least adds nothing to the rational enjoyment or progress of the race. We have but to observe for a single day to find too abundant illustrations of this subject. A hundred ignorant laborers, working under their own direction, or rather without direction, in any of the great industrial pursuits of the age, would starve if depending upon the products of their own labor, while that same company, directed by an organizing brain, would support themselves in comfort and leave a handsome surplus for their employer. Through the carelessness of servants, property is daily destroyed; through the carelessness of owners and guardians of property, ships are sunk, cities burned, and there is a constant, needless waste of property through rust and decay. All such loss is waste of labor. Pride wastes labor for show and dishonesty wastes labor on poor material or by so cheating in quality of work as to make good material of no account. So we might enumerate a list appalling in magnitude, until we should feel like joining the crusade to reduce the hours of labor, that men might learn not to waste it, if for no other purpose. If ten hours of labor are now sufficient to enable the able-bodied men and women to support the world, if we could stop the waste through ignorance, carelessness, pride, and dishonesty, eight hours would be better. After allowing for all needless misdirection and

waste, we do not believe that we now get more than six efficient hours out of the ten during which men really do toil. It is safe to say that more than one-third of the time and strength of all who labor is spent in vain.

IS THERE SIMILAR WASTE IN THE WORK OF EDUCATION?

Does this same waste appear in our own work, the work of education, the object of which is to save all waste? In all honesty, we must say yes. Perhaps I might add, there is waste here from the same causes I have already mentioned: ignorance, carelessness, pride, and dishonesty. I might also add that there is waste oftentimes from the necessity of the case. It often happens, in ordinary work, that we have to labor at a disadvantage. The same is true in education.

DIFFERENT CAUSES OF WASTE STATED.

A portion of this waste from all these causes is due to failure on the part of the teacher, partly it is due to the student, and partly to the parent or guardian. We can only point out the conditions of the waste, and the share belonging to each delinquent will readily appear.

IMPERFECT TEACHING A SOURCE OF WASTE.

(1) The first source of waste I mention is imperfect teaching. I do not so much refer to the defective knowledge imparted in the schoolroom, although this is often painfully apparent to those who attend examinations, especially in the progressive natural sciences-I do not so much refer to this as to the wretched habits of study formed in some schools. There are schools without system, without any standard of accurate scholarship, and without any enthusiasm; for a genuine enthusiasm for study is impossible under any false system of instruction.

The student labors, but it is as a man might labor piling stones together to form a wall without any reference to the nature of the work in hand, stones of all sorts going alike into foundation and top. Not only is much of the labor in such a school lost, but the habits there formed cling to the student; and it is only in rare cases that they are ever entirely corrected. Those who receive students from such preparatory schools sympathize with the old Greek musician, who charged double price to all students who had ever taken lessons before coming to him-one-half for correcting bad habits.

Much loss comes from the bungling recitations of those who might be trained to accuracy. It is too often the case that the student is allowed to stumble through the recitation, showing only here and there any proper understanding of the subject, so that he gains nothing in clearness of thought, accuracy of information, or precision in language. A little more careful labor on the part of the student, a little more pressure in the right direction, on the part of the instructor, would render the work of both of double worth.

TIME WASTED ON UNIMPORTANT MATTERS.

(2) The second point I make is the teaching of unimportant things. In connection with some studies are found many things that either have no essential connection with them at all, a mere temporary connection, or one that is worthy the attention of professionals alone. It makes one shudder to think of the trash which scholars have been compelled to learn in connection with the simple studies of grammar, geography, and arithmetic, to say nothing of the waste of labor in connection with classical studies and the higher mathematics. Many grammars insist upon distinctions and definitions which confuse rather than enlighten the beginner. Perhaps no teachers are left who compel their students to commit long lists of prepositions and adverbs, so that they may know them to be such in parsing; but other things as absurd are required, not in common schools alone, but in colleges.

Poor text-books come in here for their share of blame. Small textbooks, containing only the essentials of the subjects treated of, only those parts that have life in them, that cannot be eliminated without leaving the subject imperfect, are rare. It takes a brave man, and one merciless towards himself, to make a small, simple, but thorough text-book. Such books we must have, if we use text-books at all. If one doubts the propriety of thus cutting down text-books, let him take his best scholar after completing an ordinary book and ask him to write out all he knows on the subject. The book he makes will be small; and, in general, the larger the text-book he has used, the smaller will be the book which represents his own knowledge of the subject. If this Institute of Instruction would appoint a committee of five to select the best text-books on all the subjects taught in our schools, have this committee solemnly bound not to add a single line, but let each one be encouraged to strike out every rule, list, and problem that he thinks could be spared, my belief is that every author so treated would find his text-book vastly improved. He would probably think at first that the book was ruined, as students are apt to think their essays are ruined when the professor draws his pen through what they consider their finest sentences.

WANT OF THOROUGHNESS A PROLIFIC SOURCE OF WASTE.

(3) In my opposition to the too common methed of loading down a subject with what is unimportant, do not understand me to recommend that we should teach but a little of the subject. I wish to throw aside all useless weights, that we may run the better; all non-essentials, that we may make thorough work with the essentials. One of the most prolific sources of waste in the work of education is that we content ourselves with a mere smattering of things that are of no use at all, unless they are learned thoroughly. Those things which we have neither the time nor talents to learn thoroughly should, as a general rule, be left untouched. There are exceptions to this rule, I am aware. How much time is wasted on French by those who never learn to speak or even

read the language; on musical instruments by those who never can, or certainly never do, get beyond the point where all their performances are hard labor to themselves and torture to listeners. In languages and higher mathematics there are many things that some minds simply grasp for a moment, if at all, and they are gone, and so completely gone that they are of no use, directly or indirectly. Some claim here that, although the thing is forgotten at once, we have the benefit of the mental exercise in acquiring it, and this is worth all the labor. There is certainly good in mental exercise. The question is, Can it not be ob tained on more advantageous terms than by learning a little of difficult studies to be forgotten?

WASTE FROM MISAPPREHENSION OF THE REAL PURPOSE OF STUDY.

(4) And this brings me to the next statement, that there is waste of labor in making the studies too hard. There is somehow a notion, ingrained in many of us, that it is good for us and for the little ones to be afflicted; and so it is. But it is not good for us to afflict ourselves, or the children committed to us, except as a rare case of discipline. The whole structure of the world brings all the affliction we need, if we rightly improve it; and the road of learning, which old authority declared to be no royal road, is hard enough to tax all the powers of every student to their full extent, even when his teacher is at hand to direct in every place of doubt and to lend his aid where the way is hard and the feet are weary It was an old notion that children must be toughened by exposure to cold and wet and be made healthy and energetic by calling them out of bed for hard labor when they ought to have been asleep. Children lived through such hardships, it is true-some of them did; and for a time those who had strength to live seemed to improve in health under the hard usage. But short lives, rheumatism, and broken constitutions in middle life were the general products of such a hardening process.

A like notion has too often prevailed in regard to intellectual training. The charm of "thoroughness" and "independent work," both excellent-indispensable in their places-induces many ambitious teachers to make drudges of their students, till all ambition and enthusiasm are utterly gone from them. By giving such students work only apportioned to their strength, keeping them for a time from all contact with the knotty points, or lending them a helping hand by showing the method of untying such knots, they might have gone on with courage till they could grapple successfully and joyfully with the hardest problems of any science. Many a teacher has seen such discouraged, disheartened boys, who utterly loathed all study, simply because it had always been demanded of them in a kind beyond the mastery of their unaided strength. And some of us have seen learned and faithful teachers who tormented themselves and disheartened their students, because these teachers could not understand the difference between thoroughness and indiscriminate cramming with non-essentials.