The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 1, July, 1862

It was suggested that we should take a carriage the rest of the way, but as our horses were hired to Athens, we decided not to incur the extra expense. Soon after arriving, however, while Dhemetri was making us a soup, and Diomedes was taking care of our horses, and Epaminondas was roasting us a joint of lamb, while we were squatting half-asleep on bolsters on the floor, hugging our knees, looking dreamily at the fire, and longing for supper and bed, the driver of the carriage came in, and addressed us in recommendation of his establishment in his choicest Frank, "Carrozza-very good-ye-e-e-s!' then squatted down on the hearth beside us, hugged his knees, and looked at the fire with infinite self-satisfaction. Whether it was his eloquence that prevailed on our attendants, I know not, but it was determined to provide us with a carriage the next day, at no extra expense. The day was perfect, and the luxury of an easy drive of four hours was very grateful to us after our uncomfortable ride in the Peloponnesus. We dined at Eleusis, and reached Athens early in the afternoon.

ADONIUM

Far dimly back in distant days of eld,    There lived a pretty boy, as parchments tell,    As formed for love and life in lonely dell,With mien as fair as never eyes beheld;Because who saw, to love him was compelled    Straightway, so wizardly he wielded Beauty's spell.His name Adonis—sad of memory!    Whose life, though fair, his death was fairer still,    In dying for a cause, or good or ill;For he heart-crazed the daughter of the sea,Who loved him well, though wisely loved not she:    True hearts are never wise, as worldlings selfish will.Him Venus loved—Love's cherished creatures they!    And Venus wooed with perseverance sore,    Till weary was the lad, the wooing o'er;And while he, hiding in the forest lay,O'ershaded from the sun's unfriendly ray,    Ah me! there came to kill a maddened, foaming boar!Oh! see! from limbs too fair for touch of earth,    As tusk and tusk is savage through them drove,    While rain their dainty power 'fending strove,The pure red liquid life all wasting forth!All wasted, lost? Nay! thence, thence took its birth    Adonium, eternal bloom of martyred Love!Love's martyr is a-bleeding now again;    Sweet Liberty, beloved of earth, doth bleed:    The maddened, foaming boar hath come indeed,And tears our life on many a gory plain;But we—as bled the boy—bleed not in vain:    Our blood-drops—our sons—will be Adonium seed!Who die for Liberty—they never die!    Adonis, dead for Love, doth live anew!    They bloom blood-flowers in the tearful dew,Forever falling on their memory!In veins that are and veins that are not to be,    They ever coursing live, the right, the good, the true!Where sinks the martyr's blood within the sod,    A spirit-plant of universal root,    Divinely radiant, doth upward shoot,Appealing from a wicked world to God!And seen for once, down drops the tyrant's rod;    For men at last have tasted of a heavenly fruit.All good and beautiful of soul thus sprung    From blood, e'en as the Adonium I sing;    And where the blood is purest, thence doth springSuch flowers as by heavenly bards are sung;For since from Christ the fierce blood-sweat was wrung,    Have growths of nobler fruit on earth been ripening!

POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTES

There is positively no class of writers entitled to higher praise, or actuated by nobler motives, than those who are now distinguishing themselves by their labors for Education. They have laid their hands on what is to be the great social motive power of the future—the great subject of the politics of days to come—and are working bravely in the sacred cause.

Yet it can hardly be denied that amid the vast mass of every practical observation and suggestion contained in the educational works with which we are familiar, or even among the really scientific contributors to it, there is very little founded on the great social wants and tendencies of the age. Education is, at present, merely an art; it has a right, in common with every conceivable department of knowledge, to be raised to the rank of a science. This can only be done by putting it on a progressive basis, and placing it in such a position as to aid in supplying some great demand of the age.

The great fact of the time is, the advance from mere art upward to science, from the blossom to the fruit. Practical wants, 'the greatest good for the greatest number,' the fullest development of free labor, the increase of capital, the diminution of suffering, the harmony of interests between capital and labor—all of these are the children of Science and Facts. During the feudal age, nearly all the resources of genius—all the capital of the day—was devoted to mere Art, for the sake of setting off social position and 'idealisms.' As with the nobility and royalty of England at the present day, society enormously overpaid what is, or was, really the police—whose mission it was to keep it in order. But from Friar Bacon to Lord Bacon, a movement was silently progressing, which the present century has just begun to realize. This movement was that of the development of all human ability and natural resources, guided by science. It was a tendency toward the practical, the positive, which is destined in time to bring forth its own new art and literature, is breaking away from the trammels of the old literary or imaginative sway.

At the present day, up to the present hour, Education—especially the higher education, destined to fit men for leading positions—is still under the old literary regime. We laugh when we read of the two first years of medical study at the school of Salerno being devoted to dry logic, yet the four years' course at nearly all our modern Universities, or, in fact, the course of almost any 'high-school,' is as little adapted to the real wants of the practical leading men of this age as a study of the Schoolmen would be. The 'literature' of the past still rules the practical wants of the present. It is not that the study of the thought of the past is not noble, nay, essential, to the highly cultivated man; but it should be pursued on a large, scientific scale. The study of Greek and Latin, as languages, is not so disciplining nor so valuable as that of the science of language, as taught by Max Müller; and if these languages must be learned, (and we do not deny that they should,) they can better be studied in their relations to all languages than simply by themselves. And as if to make bad worse, the genial and strictly scientific use of literal translations, advocated by Milton and Locke, and generally employed at the Revival of Letters, and during the days when Europe boasted its greatest classic scholars, is prohibited. 'A college education' suggests the employment of the best years of life in studies of little practical use in themselves, and seldom revived, save for pleasure, after graduation. And even where such studies are exceptionally practical; nay, where science and a free choice of languages and literature are left to the somewhat advanced student, we still find the shadow of the past—of the old, formal, and rapidly growing obsolete literature—overawing the more enlightened effort. Deny it as we may, the University is still a feudal institution. Within the memory of man, there existed in England positively no school where the would-be engineer or manufacturer could be fitted for his career and at the same time be 'well educated.' George Stephenson was obliged to send his son to an 'University,' where some scraps of practical science—scanty scraps they were—most insufficiently repaid the expense of education.

The great want of the age is the Polytechnic School, or more correctly speaking, of the Technological Institute, in which the labors of the Society of Arts, aided by the Museum and Library, may serve the two-fold object of informing the public on all matters of science and industry and of aiding the School of Industrial Science. Developed on its largest scale, such an institute should be devoted to the acquisition and dissemination of all knowledge, but under strictly scientific guidance and influences. Literature should there be taught historically, in close connection with mental philosophy, a system which, it may be observed, results in interesting the pupil more in details than the old plan devoted to a few mere details ever did. Art should there be taught, not in rhapsodies over Raphael, Turner, and the favorite fancies of an individual, but according to its unfoldings in human culture, based on architecture as an illustrative medium. 'The lines of connection' between these and the exact sciences should be ever kept in sight, so that the student may never forget 'the countless connecting threads woven into one indissoluble texture, forming that ever-enlarging web which is the blended product of the world's scientific and industrial activity.'

The great aim of such an institute should be the aiding of industrial progress, and the application of generous, intelligent culture to practical pursuits—the whole to be based on exact science. When we look into this community, and see the vast demand for talent in its manufactures, and see how many thousands there are who would gladly be 'liberally educated' men, if the education could only be allied to practically useful knowledge, we at once feel that the time has come for the establishment of such institutes. The demand exists on every side; the supply must come, and that speedily. England, France, and Germany are rapidly improving their manufactures by scientifically educating their master-workmen—the Conservatoire des Arts, and Ecole Centrale, of Paris, the art-schools of the British capital and provinces, the many museums devoted to scientic collection, are all keeping up their factories—shall we be behind them? Let Capital consult its interests, and answer.

We have been induced to put the query, from a perusal of two pamphlets, both directly bearing on this subject. The first is the Ninth Annual Announcement of the Polytechnic College of the State of Pennsylvania, Session 1861-1862, and Catalogue of the Officers and Students; while the second sets forth the Objects and Plan of an Institute of Technology, including a Society of Arts, a Museum of Arts, and a School of Industrial Science, proposed to be established in Boston.'3 This latter, it may be added, was prepared by direction of the Committee of Associated Institutions of Science and Arts, and is addressed to 'manufacturers, merchants, agriculturists, and other friends of enlightened industry in the commonwealth.'

The Polytechnic College of Philadelphia, now in its ninth year, is a truly excellent institution, the practical results of which are shown in the fact that its students, immediately on graduating, have generally received appointments as civil and mechanical engineers, or otherwise stepped at once into active and remunerative employment. Its object, as we are told, is to afford to the young civil, mining, or mechanical engineer, chemist, architect, metallurgist, or student of applied science, every facility whereby he may perfect himself in his destined calling. It is, in fact, a collection of technical schools, or schools of instruction in the several departments of learned industry. It comprises the school of mines, for professional training in mine-engineering, in the best methods of determining the value of mineral lands and of analyzing and manufacturing mine products. Also the schools of civil engineering, of practical chemistry, of mechanical engineering, architecture, general science, and agriculture. To these is added a military department, now under superintendence of a former instructor in West-Point, with the use of the State armory near the college, generously granted by the State, with a supply of arms. We are glad to say that in all these schools the instruction is thorough, not only in theory but in actual practice. The course of the school of chemistry, for instance, comprehends the principles of the science and their actual application to agriculture, to the arts, and to analysis; to the examination and smelting of ores; to the alloying, refining, and working of metals; to the arts of dyeing and pottery; to the starch, lime, and glass manufacture; to the preparation and durability of mortars and cements; to means of disinfecting, ventilating, heating, and lighting. Its students are also practiced in manipulations, testing in the arts qualitative and quantitative; in analysis of minerals and soils, and in many other important practical matters.

The students of geology and mining, of machinery and metallurgy, make, with their professors, frequent visits to the many interesting localities in Pennsylvania or New-Jersey, to the many large machine-shops with which Philadelphia abounds, visit mines and furnaces, and are in every way practically familiarized with their future callings. Instruction in languages and literature, in drawing and in the elements of practical law is, we believe, given in common to all. It is the first, we may say, unavoidable, characteristic of a scientific school, that its work is always well done. Other schools may or may not be specious contrivances, well or ill managed; but the very nature of science is to clear itself in whatever it touches, and be honest and practical. Its tendency is to classify and select, to cast away the obsolete and test and adopt the new and true. Such is by no means an exaggerated statement of the real condition of the excellent college to which we refer, which testifies, by its success, to the excellence of its plan and the competency of its teachers, especially to the administrative ability of its worthy President, Dr. Alfred L. Kennedy.

It can not be denied, that for many years, radicals have inveighed against 'Greek and Universities,' but it has been in a narrow, vulgar, and simply destructive manner, with no provision to substitute any thing better in their place. The growth of science, of the knowledge of history, of culture in every branch, has, however, of late, so vastly increased, that the proposition to reform the old system of study is really one not to tear it down, but to build it up, to extend it and develop it on a grand scale. Since, for example, the influence of science has been felt in philology, how inconsiderable do the Bruncks and Porsons of the old school, appear before the Bopps, Schlegels, Burnoufs, and Müllers of the new! For as yet, even where here and there in colleges a liberal and enlightened method is partially attempted, still the old monkish spirit appears, driving away with something like a 'mystery' or 'guild' feeling the merely practical man, and interposing a mass of 'dead vocables,' which must be learned by years of labor, between him and the realization of an education. The young man who is to be a miner, a cotton-spinner, an architect, or a merchant, may possibly find here and there, at this or that college, lectures and instruction which may aid him directly in his future career, but he soon realizes that the general tendency and tone of the college is entirely in favor of abstract studies quite useless out in the world, and apart from preparation for one of 'the three professions.' He himself is as a 'marine' among the regular sailors, a surgeon among 'regular doctors,' or as a dentist among surgeons. And this in an age when we may say that what is not to be studied scientifically is not worth studying. As our principal object in writing these remarks has been to assert that the Polytechnic Institute, in its either partial or entire form, should exist entirely independent of all other influences, we might be held excused from any mention of such scientific schools as are attached to our Universities. That of Cambridge, Massachusetts, would, however, deserve special mention, from the celebrity of its teachers. In this institute, which has between seventy and eighty students, we have a single school divided into the following departments: that of Chemistry, under supervision of Professor Horseford, in which instruction is both theoretical and practical; that of Zoölogy and Geology, in which the teaching consists alternately of a course of lectures by Professor Agassiz, on Zoology, embracing the fundamental principles of the classification of animals as founded upon structure and embryonic development, and illustrating their natural affinities, habits, distribution, and the relations which exist between the living and extinct races, and a course of geology, both theoretical and practical. To this are added the departments of Engineering under Professor Eustis, that of Botany, under Professor Gray, that of Comparative Anatomy and Physiology, under Professor J. Wyman, that of Mathematics, under Professor Peirce, and that of Mineralogy, under Professor Cooke. It is needless to speak in praise of a school boasting men of such world-wide names as teachers, or to commend it as affording facilities for bestowing a sound education. We do it no injustice, however, in asserting that its tendency is to develop students of abstract science and teachers, while the aim of the Polytechnic school proper is, in addition to this, to supply the manufactures of the country with working men, and the country at large, including those already engaged in labor, with technological information of every kind. It should be a vast reservoir of practical knowledge, where the man of the 'print-works,' in search of a certain dye or of a new form of machinery, may apply, certain that all the latest discoveries will be found registered there. It should be a place where capitalists may go as to an intelligence-office, confident of finding there the assistants which they may need. It should be, in fact, in every respect, an institute simply and solely for the people, and for the development of manufacturing industry. If, as we have urged, it should embrace eventually thorough instruction in every branch of knowledge, this should be because experience shows that the most commonplace branches require the stimulus of genius, which can only be fairly developed by universal facilities. No young man, however practical, could have his Thätigkeit or 'available energy' other than stimulated by even an extensive familiarity with every detail of philosophy, literature, and art, provided that these were properly scienced, or taught strictly according to their historical development.

It is, therefore, needless to say that we welcome with pleasure the plan of An Institute of Technology, which it is proposed to establish in Boston, and which, to judge from its excellently well prepared prospectus, will fully meet, in every particular, all the requirements which we have laid down as essential to a perfect Polytechnic Institute. Indeed, the wide scope of this plan, its capacity for embracing every subject in the range of science, and of communicating it to the public either by publication, by free lectures, by a museum of reference, or by collegiate instruction, leaves but little to be desired. That there is great need of such an institution in this State is apparent from many causes. In the words of the prospectus, we feel that in New-England, and especially in our own Commonwealth, the time has arrived when, as we believe, the interests of Commerce and Arts, as well as General Education, call for the most earnest cooperation of intelligent culture with industrial pursuits. It is no exaggeration to state that probably no project was ever before presented to the wealthy men of Massachusetts which appealed so earnestly to their aid or gave such fair promise of doing good. The institute in question is one which will in every respect, socially and mentally, elevate the business man or practical man to a level with the college graduate or the practitioner in the three learned professions. It will stimulate progress by still further refining industry, and ally the action of capital to the advance of intellect. It will perform a noble and distinguished part in the great mission of the age and of future ages—that of vindicating the dignity of free labor and showing that the humblest work may be rendered high-toned and raised to a level with the calling of scholar or diplomatist through the influence of science. If we were called on to set forth the noble spirit of the North with all its free labor and all its glorious tendencies, we should, with whole heart and soul, choose this magnificent conception of an institute whose aim is to confer dignity on what the wretched and ignorant slaveocracy believe is cursed into everlasting vulgarity. It is fitting that this practical and eminently intelligent and progressive community should build up, on a grand scale, an institution which will be not only eminently useful and profitable, but serve as a culminating exponent of the great and liberal ideas for which the North has already made in every form the most remarkable sacrifices.

'While the vast and increasing magnitude of the industrial interests of New-England furnishes a powerful incentive to the establishment—within its borders of an institution devoted to technological uses, it can not be doubted that the concentration of these interests in so great a degree, in and around Boston, renders the capital of the State an eligible site for such an undertaking. Indeed, considering the peculiar genius of our busy population for the Practical Arts, and marking their avidity in the study of scientific facts and principles tending to explain or advance them, we see a special and most striking fitness in the establishment of such an Institution among them, and we gather a confident assurance of its preëminent utility and success. Nor can we advert to the intelligence which is so well known as guiding the large munificence of our community, without taking encouragement in the inception of the enterprise, and feeling the assurance, that whatever is adapted to advance the industrial and educational interests of the Commonwealth will receive from them the heartiest sympathy and support.'

As we have stated, the plan proposed is to establish an Institution to be devoted to the practical arts and sciences, to be called the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, having the triple organization of a Society of Arts, a Museum or Conservatory of Arts, and a School of Industrial Science and Art. Under the first of these three divisions—that of the Society of Arts—the Institute of Technology would form itself into a department of investigation and publication—devoting itself in every manner to collecting and rendering readily available to the public all such information as can in any way aid the interests of art and industry. If our manufacturers will reflect an instant on the vast amount of knowledge relative to their specialties extant in the world, which they have as individuals great difficulty in procuring, and which would be useful, but which an Institute devoted to the purpose could furnish without difficulty, they will at once appreciate the good which may be done by it. For many years the only comprehensive summaries of American Manufactures were a German work by Fleischmann, On the Branches of American Industry, to which was subsequently added Whitworth and Wallis's Report—drawn up for the British government, and Freedley's Philadelphia Manufactures—to which we should in justice add the invaluable series of Hunt's Merchant's Magazine, and the Patent Office Reports. The community needs more, however, than books can furnish. It requires the constant accumulation and dissemination of technological knowledge of every kind. It is proposed in the new Institute to effect this partly by publication and in a great measure by the labor of committees, devoted to the following subjects:

1. Mineral Materials—having charge of all relating to the mineral substances used in building and sculpture, ores, metals, coal, and in fact, all mineral substances employed in the useful arts, as well as what pertains to mining, quarrying, and smelting.

2. Organic Materials—embracing whatever is practically interesting in all vegetable and animal substances used in manufacturing, having in view their sources, culture, collection, commercial importance and qualities as connected with manufacturing. This department presents a vast field of immense importance to every merchant and importer of raw material.

3. On Tools and Instruments—devoted to all the implements and apparatus needed in all processes of manufacture.

4. On Machinery and Motive Powers.