If your answer is in the affirmative, I would ask you to authorize me especially to do so, by signing the accompanying formula. Printed slip for the parent's answer: Director. I authorize you to let my son participate in the electro-therapeutic exercise of Dr. Poggioli. AMERICAN EDUCATION AS AFFECTED BY OUR RELATIONS TO ASIATIC CIVILIZATION. Our nation, itself the result of transatlantic immigration, developing a civilization having its own characteristics, laying under contribution all the types in Europe and Western Asia, yet differing from all these, has had enough to do to maintain its essential features and assimilate to them the continued tide of population pouring in from Europe. The questions arising out of enforced African migration of a population brought hither as slaves, have, in their only partially effected solution, too nearly sundered the ties of our Union, buried too many hundreds of thousands of our first-born, and loaded posterity with too many millions of debt. It is easy now to see how the early and universal application of principles of education adopted in portions of the country, would have given a more ready and complete assimilation of all incoming foreign populations, whether civilized or pagan, in accordance with American ideas and institutions, and averted the fearful ordeal through which we have passed. Nor can reflective minds fail to feel that the immediate and thorough application of the principles of free common schools alone can successfully complete the triumph of the institutions of freedom, so far secured. Still welcoming a large European population, and in the midst of the final solution of the questions arising out of the emancipation of slaves, we are in a most peculiar manner brought face to face with the overwhelming populations of Eastern Asia. Our transcontinental railroad, and connecting Pacific steamship lines, make our territory one of the highways of the world's commerce with Eastern Asia and its islands. The ubiquity, versatility, and enterprise of American commerce aud character can hardly do otherwise than take the lead of this meeting of the new with the old civilizations. The confluence of new tides of population, however diverse, in the past, presents no parallel. All our citizens believe in the triumph of American destiny, and may, from self-assured habit, regard the issues presented with indifference, save where some special interest is directly affected, or supposed to be, as are the interests of industry by the introduction of Chinese laborers.* The aggregate of arrivals thus far is 104,906 Deducting the estimated number of The questions thus raised have already excited considerable interest and investigation. Rev. S. C. Damon writes to the Sailor's Magazine, under date of Honolulu, July 22, 1870: "To-day I have learned what I did not know before-Chinese seamen are supplying the place of American and European seamen." Widely different opinions are manifested. Sometimes passion has been apparent. Feeling the foreshadowings of these issues, and believing that they should be met not passionately or partially, but by a clear exposition of the facts involved, and a calm and candid consideration of the same, and that essential to this is the immediate turning of the thoughts of our educators in this direction, I have inserted in this report a paper by an able writer, who has had special opportunities for considering the questions raised by Chinese immigration and for apprehending education as the main instrumentality in their solution. My purpose will be gained if public attention is so turned to these inquiries that the facts bearing upon them shall be fully brought before the public judgment and receive its decision. Can any American mind become occupied with these considerations without feeling how much more fully we ought to study oriental civilization, its domestic, educational, and civil ideas, customs, and institutions; how thoroughly we ought to know these peoples as they come to our shores; how wisely we ought to adjust our opinions, our laws, institutions, and method of treating them, that they may not bring to us more harm than we are able to do them good; that this meeting of civilizations may be a steady progression, rather than a deterioration, of the national character? With regard to certain points connected with the inpouring of foreign populations there can be no question. Every newcomer to our soil should acquire a knowledge of the English language; otherwise, we may not anticipate on their part an intelligent acquaintance with the spirit of American life, and consequently they can have no appreciation for it likely to secure adaptation to its peculiarities. Second, all youth, of whatever incoming nationality, should be brought fully under the influence of our best educational opportunities. Third, these two considerations should be specially enforced with reference to girls and. deaths and returns to China, it would appear that there are now less than 100,000 3,519 In 1869.... 12, 874 15,740 The immigration has been chiefly of males, but later immigration has brought with it a noteworthy increase of females. In the year ending June 30, 1867, there were only 8 females arrived-all to Atlantic ports. In 1868 the whole number was 46; in 1869 it was 974; in 1870, 1,116. The total arrival of females to June 30, 1870, 2,144. In regard to occupation, the returns for the year ending June 30, 1870, exhibit the folowing facts: Physicians, 6; carpenters, 71; stone-cutters, 14; mechanics, 14; bakers, 3; barbers, 7; tailors, male, 16; female, 11; cooks, male, 42; farmers, 733; interpreters, 4; laborers, 12,782; merchants, 43; peddlers, 2; sailors, 8; occupation not stated, 11; without occupation, 1,973. women coming with the orientals, that the terrible features of female degradation among them may not be repeated on our shores. Educators will not fail to observe the great effect that the constant return of so many thousands to China, after having obtained some knowledge of and adaptation to American life, must have on the internal struggles in that empire.* *The following, from a communication of Dr. Scudder, in "The Occident" of San Francisco, will indicate that even American teachers can learn something from oriental ideas. He says the author of a celebrated grammatical treatise in the Tamil language, in one part of his elaborate work, gave his views of a model teacher. As a contrast, he first gave the characteristics of a bad teacher, as in capacity, meanness, envy, the substitution of the false for the true, and the habit of blustering. He goes on: "1. A bad teacher is like an earthen pot. When he was educated his instructor put science after science into him, in a regular order, as one might put a number of different colored marbles, one after another, in a certain order, into a jug. Being now filled up, he begins to teach others, but the marbles do not come out according to the arrangement in which they went in. They tumble out helter-skelter. He teaches without definite plan; confusedly. His instructions are like the indiscriminate issue of the marbles carelessly shaken out of an earthen pot. "2. He is like a Palmyra tree, which is crowded with sharp-edged incisive leaves. They who, as pupils, try to get fruit from him, cut themselves for their pains. Some fruits which reach the ground, as wind-falls, may be picked up. The man has too much edge to become a good teacher. "3. He is like a crooked palm standing in a garden. It ought to dispense its shade and yield its fruit within the garden to which it belongs, but, instead of that, it crooks its trunk over the wall, and gives its fruit to those who pass by; so the bad teacher, inattentive to his own pupils, displays his learning to gaping strangers." The good teacher, on the other hand, is described as possessing "good blood, kindness, piety, loftiness of character, erudition, capacities to impart, and knowledge of human nature." He goes on with figures again: "1. The good teacher must resemble the earth in four particulars. The terrestrial globe is vast and of bulk unknown. So must his lore be. The earth is strong, shrinks from no weight, and carries its burdens buoyantly. So must he be. The earth is patient; whether birds peck it, or moles bore it, or the hoe smite it, or the plow tear it, it beareth all. So must he indure the diversified provocations which his pupils may bring to bear upon him. The earth is fertile, and yields to the tiller according to his work. So must he yield in exact proportion to the capacity and extractive energies of his scholars. "2. The good teacher should resemble a mountain in four particulars. It abounds in various products: Gems in its crevices, gold in its veins, grain-fields on its slopes, forests on its summit, cascades over its precipices. Even so let the teacher's literary accomplishments be exhibited in a rich variety. The mountain never runs away, but stands unalterably firm. Let there be an analogous stability in his learning. The mountain is visible from afar, and is still beautiful when its shape melts to a blue outline on the sky. So let his fair fame be. When the plains are consumed by drought, the mountain, musical with running streams, comes to their help, and gives although it receives nothing back. Let the teacher manifest a like spirit of gratuitous im partation. "3. The good teacher is like the beam of a balance in two respects: It banishes doubt by defining to the eyes the exact weight of any substance. The teacher must weigh all the subjects which he handles, show to learners the precise nature of each, expel doubt, and introduce certainty. Two scale-pans are hung to the beam, and it is the EDUCATION AND LABOR. Agitations of the public mind in reference to questions of labor render the relation of education to the results of industry of special present interest. A tendency to hostility between capital and labor has been apparent. Can either afford to suffer the evils likely to arise from an attempt to adjust the differences by an appeal to force? Yet some form of violent action can hardly be avoided if prejudice and ignorance are too prevalent on either side. The parties in interest are put on an equality of citizenship by the very nature of our institutions. There are no great lines of caste any longer acknowledged; 'getting capital exclusively on one side and poverty on the other; or education on one side and ignorance on the other. If such an order of facts should occur, it must be brought about by the efforts of individuals or classes. Shall such endeavors be made, or the opportunity for them offered? The answer depends upon the ability of the parties interested to appreciate the situation and meet its difficulties by ways and means in accordance with reason and conscience. There is offered here in America the fairest field for the successful solution of every irritating question arising between capital and labor, without conflict, without harm to either, without a disturbance of the great harmonies necessary to the highest national prosperity. But reason cannot exercise its sway without knowledge, nor knowledge be possessed without the means of its acquisition. Capital and labor must be both able and willing to see and consider each others' interests. Make all of either class able to read, able to discriminate correctly between right and wrong, render intelligence and virtue supreme in deciding their questions of individual interest, lift them up, so that the horizon of each will embrace the interests of all, and the folly and wickedness of an appeal to force or fraud on either hand will be too apparent to invite the attempt. They would then see how much they have in common, how closely and inseparably they are yoked together. Education in its large sense, the development of all the powers of man for the best uses, offers for each interest the grand instrument for the solution of its difficulties. With this belief, strengthened by the conviction that no question could be more thoroughly national or pertinent, I have addressed a series of inquiries, first, to observers; second, to workingmen; third, to employers, calling for an expression of opinion upon the relation of education to the productiveness of labor. The necessity of the inquiry is strongly enforced by the flat denial on the one hand that education adds to the pro function of the beam to be just between them and declare for the dish that is heaviest without fear or favor. Let there be a similar impartiality. "4. The good teacher should be like a flower. Let him imitate the gentle motions of its soft petals. When he teaches, his utterance should be like the fragrance, and his facial expression like the sweet-faced bloom of a morning flower. Then, as the flower, he will be the indispensable ornament of every festive occasion." ductiveness of industry; while, on the other, the effort to place this matter beyond controversy is ridiculed as raising questions already long since universally answered in the affirmative.* Three thousand copies of these inquiries were prepared, intended to offer the opportunity of bearing testimony in regard to the points raised, which were sent to every class in every section of the country. Only an attempt to open the investigation is made in this report. An accompanying paper is presented upon the general subject of education and labor, written by one specially interested in the question. The first question of the series related to the opportunity of the person interrogated to judge correctly, so as to be able to answer the remaining questions; being as to whether he had employed any number of laborers, how many, and in what kind of labor, and where; with appropriate variations when addressed to workingmen and observers. The other questions were as follows: 2. Have you observed a difference in skill, aptitude, or amount of work executed by persons you have employed, arising from a difference in their education, and independent of their natural abilities? 3. Do those who can read and write, and who merely possess these rudiments of an education, other things being equal, show any greater skill and fidelity as laborers, skilled or unskilled, or as artisans, than do those who are not able to read and write; and, if so, how much would such additional skill, &c., tend to increase the productiveness of their services, and, consequently, their wages? 5. What increase of ability would a still higher degree of education-a knowledge * An editorial in The State Journal, published at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, November 3, 1870, is of the latter character, in which, under the caption "An Official Dogberry," the writer says: "The sagacious Dogberry observes, 'To be a well-favored man is the gift of fortune; but to read and write comes by nature."" Applying this to the case in question, he says: "The Commissioner (of Education) questions the soundness of the observation, and is making elaborate efforts to disprove the propositions it suggests. Not disposed to trust the ordinary processes of reasoning, he has, with great care, prepared and sent out several series of questions to 'employers, to intelligent workingmen, and to impartial observers."" Then, quoting the series of questions in terms of ridicule, and suggesting that others be added, such as "Which can man do without best, fire or water?" "Which is the most useful animal, the horse or the ox?" and that the whole be referred to the "Mackerelville Debating Society," he says that Pennsylvania and other States, acting "on the conviction that education is good for the citizen and for the Commonwealth, have established and maintained schools during a full century," &c. "The terrible query is now raised as to whether this labor, the expenditure of money, public and private, has been for good or for evil? Christian societies, even churches, are involved. Have they been doing the work of the evil one? Have they been pursuing a doubtful policy, not knowing whether men should be made better or worse, for time and for eternity, thereby?" On the other hand, many men display a decided opposition to the education of some forms of labor. For instance: W. R. Butler, esq., planter, of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, would "prefer the uneducated, sprightly negro on the farm." R. J. Trumbull, esq., planter, of Skipwith's Landing, Mississippi, thinks that "among negroes there seems to be no advantage in education, as, thus far, it has been generally used." B. I. Harris, esq., planter, of Sparta, Georgia, observed that "a limited education, in most cases, is hurtful. |