Studies in The South and West, With Comments on Canada

It is useless to enumerate the many railways which touch and affect St. Louis. The most considerable is the agglomeration known as the Missouri Pacific, or South-western System, which operated 6994 miles of road on January 1, 1888. This great aggregate is likely to be much diminished by the surrender of lines, but the railway facilities of the city are constantly extending.

There are figures enough to show that St. Louis is a prosperous city, constantly developing new enterprises with fresh energy; to walk its handsome streets and drive about its great avenues and parks is to obtain an impression of a cheerful town on the way to be most attractive; but its chief distinction lies in its social and intellectual life, and in the spirit that has made it a pioneer in so many educational movements. It seems to me a very good place to study the influence of speculative thought in economic and practical affairs. The question I am oftenest asked is, whether the little knot of speculative philosophers accidentally gathered there a few years ago, and who gave a sort of fame to the city, have had any permanent influence. For years they discussed abstractions; they sustained for some time a very remarkable periodical of speculative philosophy, and in a limited sphere they maintained an elevated tone of thought and life quite in contrast with our general materialism. The circle is broken, the members are scattered. Probably the town never understood them, perhaps they did not altogether understand each other, and maybe the tremendous conflict of Kant and Hegel settled nothing. But if there is anything that can be demonstrated in this world it is the influence of abstract thought upon practical affairs in the long-run. And although one may not be able to point to any definite thing created or established by this metaphysical movement, I think I can see that it was a leaven that had a marked effect in the social, and especially in the educational, life of the town, and liberalized minds, and opened the way for the trial of theories in education. One of the disciples declares that the State Constitution of Missouri and the charter of St. Louis are distinctly Hegelian. However this may be, both these organic laws are uncommonly wise in their provisions. A study of the evolution of the city government is one of the most interesting that the student can make. Many of the provisions of the charter are admirable, such as those securing honest elections, furnishing financial checks, and guarding against public debt. The mayor is elected for four years, and the important offices filled by his appointment are not vacant until the beginning of the third year of his appointment, so that hope of reward for political work is too dim to affect the merits of an election. The composition and election of the school board is also worthy of notice. Of the twenty-one members, seven are elected on a general ticket, and the remaining fourteen by districts, made by consolidating the twenty-eight city wards, members to serve four years, divided into two classes. This arrangement secures immunity from the ward politician.

St. Louis is famous for its public schools, and especially for the enlightened methods, and the willingness to experiment in improving them. The school expenditures for the year ending June 30, 1887, were $1,095,773; the school property in lots, buildings, and furniture in 1885 was estimated at $3,445,254. The total number of pupils enrolled was 56,936. These required about 1200 teachers, of whom over a thousand were women. The actual average of pupils to each teacher was about 42. There were 106 school buildings, with a seating capacity for about 50,000 scholars. Of the district schools 13 were colored, in which were employed 78 colored teachers. The salaries of teachers are progressive, according to length of service. As for instance, the principal of the High-school has $2400 the first year, $2500 the second, $2600 the third, $2750 the fourth; a head assistant in a district school, $650 the first year, $700 the second, $750 the third, $800 the fourth, $850 the fifth.

The few schools that I saw fully sustained their public reputation as to methods, discipline, and attainments. The Normal School, of something over 100 pupils, nearly all the girls being graduates of the High-school, was admirable in drill, in literary training, in calisthenic exercises. The High-school is also admirable, a school with a thoroughly elevated tone and an able principal. Of the 600 pupils at least two-thirds were girls. From appearances I should judge that it is attended by children of the most intelligent families, for certainly the girls of the junior and senior classes, in manner, looks, dress, and attainments, compared favorably with those of one of the best girls’ schools I have seen anywhere, the Mary Institute, which is a department of the Washington University. This fact is most important, for the excellence of our public schools (for the product of good men and women) depends largely upon their popularity with the well-to-do classes. One of the most interesting schools I saw was the Jefferson, presided over by a woman, having fine fire-proof buildings and 1100 pupils, nearly all whom are of foreign parentage—German, Russian, and Italian, with many Hebrews also—a finely ordered, wide-awake school of eight grades. The kindergarten here was the best I saw; good teachers, bright and happy little children, with natural manners, throwing themselves gracefully into their games with enjoyment and without self-consciousness, and exhibiting exceedingly pretty fancy and kindergarten work. In St. Louis the kindergarten is a part of the public-school system, and the experiment is one of general interest. The question cannot be called settled. In the first place the experiment is hampered in St. Louis by a decision of the Supreme Court that the public money cannot be used for children out of the school age, that is, under six and over twenty. This prevents teaching English to adult foreigners in the evening schools, and, rigidly applied, it shuts out pupils from the kindergarten under six. One advantage from the kindergarten was expected to be an extension of the school period; and there is no doubt that the kindergarten instruction ought to begin before the age of six, especially for the mass of children who miss home training and home care. As a matter of fact, many of the children I saw in the kindergartens were only constructively six years old. It cannot be said, also, that the Froebel system is fully understood or accepted. In my observation, the success of the kindergarten depends entirely upon the teacher; where she is competent, fully believes in and understands the Froebel system, and is enthusiastic, the pupils are interested and alert; otherwise they are listless, and fail to get the benefit of it. The Froebel system is the developing the concrete idea in education, and in the opinion of his disciples this is as important for children of the intelligent and well-to-do as for those of the poor and ignorant. They resist, therefore, the attempt which is constantly made, to introduce the primary work into the kindergarten. But for the six years’ limit the kindergarten in St. Louis would have a better chance in its connection with the public schools. As the majority of children leave school for work at the age of twelve or fourteen, there is little time enough given for book education; many educators think time is wasted in the kindergarten, and they advocate the introduction of what they call kindergarten features in the primary classes. This is called by the disciples of Froebel an entire abandonment of his system. I should like to see the kindergarten in connection with the public school tried long enough to demonstrate all that is claimed for it in its influence on mental development, character, and manners, but it seems unlikely to be done in St. Louis, unless the public-school year begins at least as early as five, or, better still, is specially unlimited for kindergarten pupils.

Except in the primary work in drawing and modelling, there is no manual training feature in the St. Louis public schools. The teaching of German is recently dropped from all the district schools (though retained in the High), in accordance with the well-founded idea of Americanizing our foreign population as rapidly as possible.

One of the most important institutions in the Mississippi Valley, and one that exercises a decided influence upon the intellectual and social life of St. Louis, and is a fair measure of its culture and the value of the higher education, is the Washington University, which was incorporated in 1853, and was presided over until his death, in 1887, by the late Chancellor William Green-leaf Eliot, of revered memory. It covers the whole range of university studies, except theology, and allows no instruction either sectarian in religion or partisan in politics, nor the application of any sectarian or party test in the election of professors, teachers, or officers. Its real estate and buildings in use for educational purposes cost $625,000; its libraries, scientific apparatus, casts, and machinery cost over $100,000, and it has investments for revenue amounting to over $650,000. The University comprehends an undergraduate department, including the college (a thorough classical, literary, and philosophical course, with about sixty students), open to women, and the polytechnic, an admirably equipped school of science; the St. Louis Law School, of excellent reputation; the Manual Training School, the most celebrated school of this sort, and one that has furnished more manual training teachers than any other; the Henry Shaw School of Botany; the St. Louis School of Fine Arts; the Smith Academy, for boys; and the Mary Institute, one of the roomiest and most cheerful school buildings I know, where 400 girls, whose collective appearance need not fear comparison with any in the country, enjoy the best educational advantages. Mary Institute is justly the pride of the city.

The School of Botany, which is endowed and has its own laboratory, workshop, and working library, was, of course, the outgrowth of the Shaw Botanical Garden; it has usually from twenty to thirty special students.

The School of Fine Arts, which was reorganized under the University in 1879, has enrolled over 200 students, and gives a wide and careful training in all the departments of drawing, painting, and modelling, with instructions in anatomy, perspective, and composition, and has life classes for both sexes, in drawing from draped and nude figures. Its lecture, working rooms, and galleries of paintings and casts are in its Crow Art Museum—a beautiful building, well planned and justly distinguished for architectural excellence. It ranks among the best Art buildings in the country.

The Manual Training School has been in operation since 1880. It may be called the most fully developed pioneer institution of the sort. I spent some time in its workshops and schools, thinking of the very interesting question at the bottom of the experiment, namely, the mental development involved in the training of the hand and the eye, and the reflex help to manual skill in the purely intellectual training of study. It is, it may be said again, not the purpose of the modern manual training to teach a trade, but to teach the use of tools as an aid in the symmetrical development of the human being. The students here certainly do beautiful work in wood-turning and simple carving, in ironwork and forging. They enjoy the work; they are alert and interested in it. I am certain that they are the more interested in it in seeing how they can work out and apply what they have learned in books, and I doubt not they take hold of literary study more freshly for this manual training in exactness. The school exacts close and thoughtful study with tools as well as in books, and I can believe that it gives dignity in the opinion of the working student to hand labor. The school is large, its graduates have been generally successful in practical pursuits and in teaching, and it lias demonstrated in itself the correctness of the theory of its authors, that intellectual drill and manual training are mutually advantageous together. Whether manual training shall be a part of all district school education is a question involving many considerations that do not enter into the practicability of this school, but I have no doubt that manual training schools of this sort would be immensely useful in every city. There are many boys in every community who cannot in any other wayr be awakened to any real study. This training school deserves a chapter by itself, and as I have no space for details, I take the liberty of referring those interested to a volume on its aims and methods by Dr. C. M. Woodward, its director.

Notwithstanding the excellence of the public-school system of St. Louis, there is no other city in the country, except New Orleans, where so large a proportion of the youths are being educated outside the public schools. A very considerable portion of the population is Catholic. There are forty-four parochial schools, attended by nineteen thousand pupils, and over a dozen different Sisterhoods are engaged in teaching in them. Generally each parochial school has two departments—one for boys and one for girls. They are sustained entirely by the parishes. In these schools, as in the two Catholic universities, the prominence of ethical and religious training is to be noted. Seven-eighths of the schools are in charge of thoroughly trained religious teachers. Many of the boys’ schools are taught by Christian Brothers. The girls are almost invariably taught by members of religious Sisterhoods. In most of the German schools the girls and smaller boys are taught by Sisters, the larger boys by lay teachers. Some reports of school attendance are given in the Catholic Directory: SS. Peter and Paul’s (German), 1300 pupils; St. Joseph’s (German), 957; St. Bridget’s, 950; St. Malaehy’s, 756; St. John’s, 700; St. Patrick’s, 700. There is a school for colored children of 150 pupils taught by colored Sisters.

In addition to these parochial schools there are a dozen academies and convents of higher education for young ladies, all under charge of Catholic Sisterhoods, commonly with a mixed attendance of boarders and day scholars, and some of them with a reputation for learning that attracts pupils from other States, notably the Academy of the Sacred Heart, St. Joseph’s Academy, and the Academy of the Visitation, in charge of cloistered nuns of that order. Besides these, in connection with various reformatory and charitable institutions, such as the House of the Good Shepherd and St. Mary’s Orphan Asylum, there are industrial schools in charge of the Sisterhoods, where girls receive, in addition to their education, training in some industry to maintain themselves respectably when they leave their temporary homes. Statistics are wanting, but it will be readily inferred from these statements that there are in the city a great number of single women devoted for life, and by special religious and intellectual training, to the office of teaching.

For the higher education of Catholic young men the city is distinguished by two remarkable institutions. The one is the old St. Louis University, and the other is the Christian Brothers’ College. The latter, which a few years ago outgrew its old buildings in the city, has a fine pile of buildings at Côte Brillante, on a commanding site about five miles out, with ample grounds, and in the neighborhood of the great parks and the Botanical Garden. The character of the school is indicated by the motto on the façade of the building—Religio, Mores, Cultura. The institution is designed to accommodate a thousand boarding students. The present attendance is 450, about half of whom are boarders, and represent twenty States. There is a corps of thirty-five professors, and three courses of study are maintained—the classical, the scientific, and the commercial. As several of the best parochial schools are in charge of Christian Brothers, these schools are feeders of the college, and the pupils have the advantage of an unbroken system with a consistent purpose from the day they enter into the primary department till they graduate at the college. The order has, at Glencoe, a large Normal School for the training of teachers. The fame and success of the Christian Brothers as educators in elementary and the higher education, in Europe and the United States, is largely due to the fact that they labor as a unit in a system that never varies in its methods of imparting instruction, in which the exponents of it have all undergone the same pedagogic training, in which there is no room for the personal fancy of the teacher in correction, discipline, or scholarship, for everything is judiciously governed by prescribed modes of procedure, founded on long experience, and exemplified in the co-operative plan of the Brothers. In vindication of the exceptional skill acquired by its teachers in the thorough drill of the order, the Brotherhood points to the success of its graduates in competitive examinations for public employment in this country and in Europe, and to the commendation its educational exhibits received at London and New Orleans.

The St. Louis University, founded in 1829 by members of the Society of Jesus, and chartered in 1834, is officered and controlled by the Jesuit Fathers. It is an unendowed institution, depending upon fees paid for tuition. Before the war its students were largely the children of Southern planters, and its graduates are found all over the South and South-west; and up to 1881 the pupils boarded and lodged within the precincts of the old buildings on the corner of Ninth Street and Washington, where for over half a century the school has vigorously flourished. The place, which is now sold and about to be used for business purposes, has a certain flavor of antique scholarship, and the quaint buildings keep in mind the plain but rather pleasing architecture of the French period. The University is in process of removal to the new buildings on Grand avenue, which are a conspicuous ornament to one of the most attractive parts of the city. Soon nothing will be left of the institution on Ninth Street except the old college church, which is still a favorite place of worship for the Catholics of the city. The new buildings, in the early decorated English Gothic style, are ample and imposing; they have a front of 270 feet, and the northern wing extends 325 feet westward from the avenue. The library, probably the finest room of the kind in the West, is sixty-seven feet high, amply lighted, and provided with three balconies. The library, which was packed for removal, has over 25,000 volumes, is said to contain many rare and interesting books, and to fairly represent science and literature. Besides this, there are special libraries, open to students, of over 0000 volumes. The museum of the new building is a noble ball, one hundred feet by sixty feet, and fifty-two feet high, without columns, and lighted from above and from the side. The University has a valuable collection of ores and minerals, and other objects of nature and art that will be deposited in this hall, which will also serve as a picture-gallery for the many paintings of historical interest. Philosophical apparatus, a chemical laboratory, and an astronomical observatory are the equipments on the scientific side.

The University has now no dormitories and no boarders. There are twenty-five professors and instructors. The entire course, including the preparatory, is seven years. A glance at the catalogue shows that in the curriculum the institution keeps pace with the demands of the age. Besides the preparatory course (89 pupils), it has a classical course (143 pupils), an English course (82 pupils), and 85 post-graduate students, making a total of 399. Its students form societies for various purposes; one, the Sodality of the Blessed Virgin Mary, with distinct organizations in the senior and junior classes, is for the promotion of piety and the practice of devotion towards the Blessed Virgin; another is for training in public speaking and philosophic and literary disputation; there is also a scientific academy, to foster a taste for scientific culture; and there is a student’s library of 4000 volumes, independent of the religious books of the Sodality societies.

In a conversation with the president I learned that the prevailing idea in the courses of study is the gradual and healthy development of the mind. The classes are carefully graded. The classics are favorite branches, but mental philosophy, chemistry, physics, astronomy, are taught with a view to practical application. Much stress is laid upon mathematics. During the whole course of seven years, one hour each day is devoted to this branch. In short, I was impressed with the fact that this is an institution for mental training. Still more was I struck with the prominence in the whole course of ethical and religious culture. On assembling every morning, all the Catholic students hear mass. In every class in every year Christian doctrine has as prominent a place as any branch of study; beginning in the elementary class with the small catechism and practical instructions in the manner of reciting the ordinary prayers, it goes on through the whole range of doctrine—creed, evidences, ritual, ceremonial, mysteries—in the minutest details of theory and practice; ingraining, so far as repeated instruction can, the Catholic faith and pure moral conduct in the character, involving instructions as to what occasions and what amusements are dangerous to a good life, on the reading of good books and the avoiding bad books and bad company.

In the post-graduate course, lectures are given and examinations made in ethics, psychology, anthropology, biology, and physics; and in the published abstracts of lectures for the past two years I find that none of the subjects of modern doubt and speculation are ignored—spiritism, psychical research, the cell theory, the idea of God, socialism, agnosticism, the Noachinn deluge, theories of government, fundamental notions of physical science, unity of the human species, potency of matter, and so on. During the past fifty years this faculty has contained many men famous as pulpit orators and missionaries, and this course of lectures on philosophic and scientific subjects has brought it prominently before the cultivated inhabitants of the town.

Another educational institution of note in St. Louis is the Concordia Seminar of the Old Lutheran, or the Evangelical Lutheran Church. This denomination, which originated in Saxony, and has a large membership in our Western States, adheres strictly to the Augsburg Confession, and is distinguished from the general Lutheran Church by greater strictness of doctrine and practice, or, as may be said, by a return to primitive Lutheranism; that is to say, it grounds itself upon the literal inspiration of the Scriptures, upon salvation by faith alone, and upon individual liberty. This Seminar is one of several related institutions in the Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and other States: there is a college at Fort Wayne, Indiana, a Progymnasium at Milwaukee, a Seminar of practical theology at Springfield, Illinois, and this Seminar at St. Louis, which is wholly devoted to theoretical theology. This Church numbers, I believe, about 200,000 members.

The Concordia Seminar is housed in a large, commodious building, effectively set upon high ground in the southern part of the city. It was erected and the institution is sustained by the contributions of the congregations. The interior, roomy, light, and commodious, is plain to barrenness, and has a certain monastic severity, which is matched by the discipline and the fare. In visiting it one takes a step backward into the atmosphere and theology of the sixteenth century. The ministers of the denomination are distinguished for learning and earnest simplicity. The president, a very able man, only thirty-five years of age, is at least two centuries old in his opinions, and wholly undisturbed by any of the doubts which have agitated the Christian world since the Reformation. He holds the faith “once for all” delivered to the saints. The Seminar has a hundred students. It is requisite to admission, said the president, that they be perfect Latin, Greek, and Hebrew scholars. A large proportion of the lectures are given in Latin, the remainder in German and English, and Latin is current in the institution, although German is the familiar speech. The course of study is exacting, the rules are rigid, and the discipline severe. Social intercourse with the other sex is discouraged. The pursuit of love and learning are considered incompatible at the same time; and if a student were inconsiderate enough to become engaged, he would be expelled. Each student from abroad may select or be selected by a family in the communion, at whose house he may visit once a week, which attends to his washing, and supplies to a certain extent the place of a home. The young men are trained in the highest scholarship and the strictest code of morals. I know of no other denomination which holds its members to such primitive theology and such strictness of life. Individual liberty and responsibility are stoutly asserted, without any latitude in belief. It repudiates Prohibition as an infringement of personal liberty, would make the use of wine or beer depend upon the individual conscience, but no member of the communion would be permitted to sell intoxicating liquors, or to go to a beer-garden or a theatre. In regard to the sacrament of communion, there is no authority for altering the plain directions in the Scripture, and communion without wine, or the substitution of any concoction for wine, would be a sin. No member would be permitted to join any labor union or secret society. The sacrament of communion is a mystery. It is neither transubstantiation nor consubstantiation. The president, whose use of English in subtle distinctions is limited, resorted to Latin and German in explanation of the mystery, but left the question of real and actual presence, of spirit and substance, still a matter of terms; one can only say that neither the ordinary Protestant nor the Catholic interpretation is accepted. Conversion is not by any act or ability of man; salvation is by faith alone. As the verbal inspiration of the Scriptures is insisted on in all cases, the world was actually created in six days of twenty-four hours each. When I asked the president what he did with geology, he smiled and simply waved his hand. This communion has thirteen flourishing churches in the city. In a town so largely German, and with so many freethinkers as well as free-livers, I cannot but consider this strict sect, of a simple unquestioning faith and high moral demands, of the highest importance in the future of the city. But one encounters with surprise, in our modern life, this revival of the sixteenth century, which plants itself so squarely against so much that we call “progress.”