General Woodruff, United States Engineer, orally, and Generals Lee and Gilmer and several other persons have from time to time, by letter, inquired of me the fate of these maps. It may be of public interest to give all the information I have concerning them, for it does not seem to be known how extensive, how complete, and how valuable these surveys were. It was gratifying to my pride to learn that the United States Engineer Bureau was desirous of obtaining our maps, and to hear one of the distinguished officers attached thereto remark that our maps were better than their own. His expressed reasons in nowise reflected on his own service, but accounted for it from the fact that no regular system could be maintained in consequence of the frequent change of commanders of the Army of the Potomac. On Sunday, April 2d, the night of the evacuation of Richmond, about 10 o'clock P. M., I placed in charge of an engineer officer and a draughtsman, upon an archive train bound for Raleigh, North Carolina, a box or two containing all the original maps and other archives of my office, except the field notebooks, which were burned by order of my superior. This officer in charge never has reported to me the fate of this property, nor his own fate. It is supposed it was burned with the train, or pillaged, for fragments of some of the maps were reported to have been seen along that route in North Carolina. Nineteen years after the shipment of this property I received a package of worthless securities, personal property, from a son of General Gilmer in Savannah. He could give no information as to how this package came into his father's possession. I presume General Gilmer did not have them in 1867-8, when I saw him in Savannah, for he did not mention them. This package was in one of those boxes, my camp-desk. Who sent those papers to General Gilmer? and did the sender retain the maps and correspondence? There were many autograph letters from various generals acknowledging with thanks the receipt of maps, with commendations as to their completeness and accuracy. I should like to recover these letters. The negatives of the general maps, to divide the chances of capture, I gave to my private secretary, Some time after, he informed me that he had carried them with him in his flight as far as Macon, Georgia, and on his return, for greater security, had placed them in a lady's trunk, a fellow-passenger's. Hearing en route that all baggage of returning fugitives was to be examined at Augusta, Georgia (which proved to be a false rumor), he incontinently burned them to save them. This is the extent of my information concerning the fate of these valuable maps. On learning this sad fate

of all the evidences of our three years' labor, and that my modicum of glory was thus dissipated in thin air, my feelings were akin to those of Audubon when he learned that the rats had destroyed his labor of years in the wilderness of woods; or, more congenially, perhaps, to those of General Magruder on being informed in advance of written orders that he was to make preparations for evacuating his lines before Yorktown at an early hour. Raising himself on one elbow, when he was roused from his slumbers to hear the verbal order to that purport from General Johnston, he remarked with mingled astonishment and disgust, in that peculiar manner of speech which all who knew him will recognize : "Stevenths (Stevens) thic tranthit gloria pe-nin-thu-læ."

Albert H. Campbell.

CHARLESTON, W. VA., May 17th, 1887.

General Robert B. Potter and the Assault
at the Petersburg Crater.

IN THE CENTURY magazine for September (page 764), in an account of the Explosion of the Mine at Petersburg, it is stated that

each of the three commanders of the white divisions presented reasons why his division should not lead the assault. General Burnside determined that they should pull straws,' and Ledlie was the (to him) unlucky victim. He, however, took it good-naturedly."

There are the best reasons for saying that this statement is incorrect, and among them is a letter written by General Robert B. Potter to one who especially enjoyed his confidence, in which he says:

44

'My division expected and was anxious to have the advance, because they knew the ground, had an interest the best division in the corps." in the work, were in the best condition, and known to be

That he did not have this task committed to him was

well known by his friends to have been the one great disappointment of General Potter's army life, and there from there having been reluctance on the part of any are those who have often heard him say that, so far of the division commanders of the Ninth Corps to take the leading place in the charge, they were all desirous of that honor. The question was decided by General Burnside in order that in the choice there should not seem to be any favoritism, and, especially, to avoid that appearance of partiality for a very dear been said to have influenced him had he chosen personal friend which would not improbably have

Manual Training in Common Schools.*

" of life unto which it please

thinker, as follows: "Conceding for a moment that the Government is bound to educate a man's children, what kind of logic will demonstrate that it is not bound to feed and clothe them?" The argument ignores and refuses to meet the only excuse which has ever been offered for a common-school system, the political basis. The system is not a largess to the recipient, but a natural measure of self-defense on the part of the government which educates. It is necessary, in a democratic form of government, that the voters should be so far educated as to be reasonably relieved from danger of deception by interested parties; when that is accomplished, the duty of the government ceases. To look at the function of government in the matter, as so many of those interested in public education are apt to look at it, as "the prevention of ignorance," is really but another phase of the feeling that the function of government is "the prevention of poverty."

While the purpose of the system is political, it seems legitimate to attempt to attain as much other good as possible on the way to the goal. If, as a part of the process of making the boy a reasonably good voter, it is possible also to give him the rudiments of a mechanical training, surely time and money spent in this way are very far from being wasted. It is on this ground that the appeal has been made for a certain proportion of manual training in the public schools. It is not intended that the public schools shall be diverted from their proper work into that of graduating expert plumbers, carpenters, or shoemakers: the basis of the system, as above stated, should guard one from any such error. All that is meant is that the training of the hands and eyes should have a place alongside of the training of the mind, body, and heart. There are elementary principles of execution which are common to all trades, or most of them. The boy who has mastered these is prepared, in a measure, for any trade, though he is master of none. It is only asked that boys in the public schools who desire it should have the opportunity, as a part of their ordinary work, of receiving instruction in these elementary principles. They would thus receive education which the State is under obligations to provide for all its voters, and, at the same time, a preparation through which they will be better apprentices and better workmen when they pass out of school.

The argument is offered in reply that the public schools are for all, while this is a preparation designed for a special class. In this form the argument has little weight so long as German, French, music, the higher mathematics, and most of the features of a preparation for college are a recognized part of the educational system of so many States. But the argu* See "Open Letters," in this number.

call " them, and to make it pretty certain that they shall stay there. Nothing could be more baseless than such an idea. It is quite sure that this feature in education would incline boys to be good mechanics, and not mere bunglers; and that this training, if it should become general, would tend to increase the total working force of the country, even though it did not increase the number of mechanics. But it is far from true that this training would be of benefit only to him who is to be an artisan. Even the clergyman or the editor would be the better as a man and in his profession for a practical knowledge of the proper use of those wonderful tools, the human hands. There is no man, in any profession, who would not be better able to do his usual work, at times, for just this training. It is, above most others, a training whose benefits are not restricted to a special class, but are bestowed upon all.

The argument assumes, also, the odd position that the better artisans are the most likely to remain permanently in the artisan class. There are too many examples to the contrary to make it necessary to do more than state this position. So far as the proposition for manual training touches the "special class" which has been spoken of, it aims only to clear the way of the artisan's children to any position which he may think higher and better for them. But the essence of the proposition has no such restricted aim. It aims to help eradicate that pestilent feeling of contempt for work which is the bane of this generation. Better that the rich man's son should be compelled to work with his hands for a year or two than that he should grow up to feel, and to impress upon others, that work is degrading. Better that the sons of our men of moderate means should learn that there is a science and beauty in manual labor than that they should come to believe that there are easier ways of getting a dollar than by working for it. Better that we should have manual training in our public schools than that all our publicschool boys should want to begin life as clerks in brokers' offices, or in any position which is not smirched with manual labor. That feature which has made our country what it is, work and the love of it, is at stake, and the new proposition is a means of saving it.

The only other objection which has been seriously offered caters to one of the worst errors of our modern labor organizations. They aim to restrict the number of apprentices, in order to "make more work" for those already in the trade. What will they say when they see apprentices of a higher grade of intelligence and ability swarming out of our public schools? In answer, it should be said frankly and distinctly that the effect which is implied would be one of the most weighty benefits of the new system. Suppose the lawyers should form an organization for the purpose of

abolishing all the law-schools, restricting the number of students in each office, and so "making more work" for the present number of lawyers: would that accomplish their object? They know that the higher the standard of law in a country is, the more confidence the people feel in the lawyers, and that this is the proper way to "make more work" for all of them; and they wisely multiply law-schools and aim to increase their efficiency. Is it wiser for plumbers, for example, to fight against manual training? Or rather should they encourage it, better the grade of their apprentices and their work, and thus gain a public confidence in their capacity which is very far from existing now? Work is “made" by raising the character of the work. Mr. Carroll D. Wright has most acutely pointed out the fact that the introduction of nickelplating into the manufacture of stoves in this country has "made work" for 30,000 additional operatives, and crowded no one out. It is in this way that thorough manual training is to help the workingman in the future, by making possible branches of work which did not exist before.

A proposition to add fully developed trade-schools to our common-school system is open to objections which do not apply to that of simple manual training. The latter would do no more than show the pupil, by a practical test which is clear to his own apprehension, whether he has an aptitude for such work, and give him an insight into the principles of symmetry and order which underlie it. If there is any valid objection to giving it a place in the State's scheme of commonschool education it should be considered at once, for the support of the manual-training proposition is a growing

one.

A Southern Man Ahead of his Time.

ON page 435 of the present number of this magazine, the authors of the Lincoln history have referred briefly to the opposition made to disunion in South Carolina by James Louis Petigru in 1861, and on page 432 is given a photograph of his bust.

Something in the character of the independent, farseeing man, and in the peculiarly generous appreciation of his worth displayed by his fellow-citizens, calls for further attention. Clear-eyed and just, he rarely failed to see and follow the eternal truth that underlies all prejudice, education, and passion. In his private practice, in the courts, in his personal relations to all men, in the nullification troubles in South Carolina, where nothing but his efforts and those of James Hamilton kept the State from civil war, this was always shown. But the time came, when, foremost man of the State as he was, he had no power to stem the flood of passion setting in toward disunion. Not for a moment then did he lose his keen insight nor the firm hand with which he held himself in check. He was not an abolitionist, and he had no feeling against slavery; but he had no hope or faith in revolution. He felt that it was wrong in policy and false in principle. He put no trust in the prevailing faith of the Southern people, that a State would be permitted to secede in peace. He saw that secession would put into the hands of the North a power over the South and slavery that nothing else could give,- a power to gain the aid and sympathy of the whole world, to make war on Southern soil, and to free the slave. If the South

were alarmed at the possibilities of danger in a raid like that of John Brown's, what remedy, he asked, could be gained by rushing into war with the wealthy and populous North- with the civilized world? He saw in secession ambition and wounded vanity; he saw anarchy and civil war; he saw the abolitionist triumphant; he saw the South devastated; he saw division, and sorrow, and ruin; he saw crime. On the other hand, he felt that there was nothing to fear in Lincoln's election. He recognized the fact that the North was outstripping the South in numbers, and wisely counseled the South to yield her political supremacy with good grace. He discerned many reasons for Lincoln's success, but in none read danger. Time, he claimed, would right all wrongs, and avert all disaster. But his arguments were less than useless: secession came; war followed. For the rest of his life he was never again in sympathy with the purposes of his people, though he yielded to their decision, and held common cause in their sorrow. He was a solitary scholar in a world where all others were fighting men. He went his way, and his people went theirs. Whenever their paths crossed he was unfailing in courtesy and kindness; but he never concealed his regret for their action, nor his fear of the ultimate downfall of their hopes.

On the part of the people of South Carolina there was displayed a more generous tolerance of his obnoxious views than would seem possible. Even during the tumult of secession they elected him to their highest salary and most important trust-to codify the State laws. In spite of the satire and ridicule that he hurled at them, they continued to elect him until the work was done. His freedom of speech never destroyed their confidence in him, nor lessened their magnanimity; neither did he restrain it to gain their favor. The case can have

few parallels in the history of any country. The fame of such a man, renowned lawyer and great private citizen, is necessarily fleeting; it is forgotten when the generation in which he lived has passed away. That there might remain some slight token of one who was great in many ways, and, above all, great in his faith in the indissolubility of the Union, it was a fitting incident in the centennial celebration of Charleston, in 1883, that Mayor William A. Courtenay brought about by presenting to the city a bust of James Louis Petigru. It ought to stand to the city as a perpetual reminder of the magnanimity of its people and the faith in the Union which its great citizen held in an hour when apparent self-interest and patriotism and right all cried out against his firm belief. It is a token of the renewed love of his fellow-citizens for our common country; it is a sign that the past is utterly past, and that the same future lies before us all.

Our Daily Bread.

IN commenting upon a paper in which this subject was presented by Professor Atwater at the meeting, last August, of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the "New York Times" speaks as follows:

"It is much to be wished that his conclusions might be presented to the people who most need them, and in a form that they could understand and would accept. These people are manual workmen, both skilled

These suggestions are excellent. But why not other clergymen as well? The people of limited means are not all Catholics, nor do Protestant ministers fail to appreciate the need of caring for the material as well as the spiritual wants of their flocks. They, too, are anxious for the great mass of humanity outside the churches, and know that such means as these are among the most efficient for getting the multitudes who ignore the Church to feel that it and its spiritual ministra. tions are for them. Is it not a matter for all who are

intent upon bringing New Testament Christianity more and more into the affairs of daily life and using it to elevate the masses of mankind? Christianity and the Church are the great agents of the world's charity and its "higher education." In different ages these functions have necessarily been exercised by the Church in different ways. One way which the present phase of material and intellectual progress makes essential is the application of the teachings of science to the material, and hence the moral, elevation of men. Not that churches should set up cooking-schools or clergymen become experts in chemistry, but that the rightfulness of economy should be taught, its simpler principles explained, and people encouraged to think and learn about them, and helped to use them. The members of the medical profession, too, might aid greatly, as indeed they do. They see the practical needs and can, in their daily intercourse with the families they visit, suggest much that is helpful.

Of course the facts of food-economy must be got into popular shape, but this is being done. It is only in these later days that science is getting hold of them. In the series of articles now appearing in THE CENTURY it has been necessary to devote many pages to explanations of the fundamental principles of nutrition and the experiments upon which they are based, because much that is important has not yet been put into English: even the latest text-books do not contain these things. Further articles, like the one in the present number, will give practical details and their application in the directions of domestic and social economy, health, and morals. In due time simple manuals and other publications will doubtless become common, and the subject thus be placed more fully before the people.

The industrial schools are taking up the chemical, physiological, and economic phases of the subject. There is a demand that instruction in this, as in other branches of applied science, be given to the pupils of the public schools, and the first steps in this direction have already been taken in some cities.

But one great difficulty is the lack of information. More research is needed. The work of some of our boards of health and labor bureaus is beginning to tell. The agricultural experiment stations established and to

by an Act of the last Congress, will acquire information of value. But much that is pressingly demanded requires peculiar facilities for its production, such as are found only in the laboratories and libraries of the great educational institutions, and is dependent for its best development upon the intellectual attrition and the opportunities for continuous study which such establishments alone can offer. In the European universities these facilities are provided by the Government; with us they depend upon private munificence. investigations which Professor Atwater has told of in THE CENTURY as carried on in this country have been largely dependent upon private aid. Those in which he has been engaged at Wesleyan University would have been impossible without it.

The

The endowment of research is one of the most useful forms of public benefaction. Here is a way in which it may be made extremely useful. A few hundreds of dollars will make a valuable piece of investigation, a few thousands, an important research, possible. A laboratory built and equipped for a sum which many a man invests in a house at a watering-place, or a pleasure yacht, and an endowment that would yield a revenue equal to the annual cost of the house or yacht, would bring results of untold value to the world.

We do not see how anything could more clearly demonstrate the folly and crime of an anarchical movement in America than the papers by Mr. Kennan, on the condition of affairs in the Russian Empire, now being published in THE CENTURY.

These criticisms-proceed from a country whose relations with Russia are particularly cordial. They are printed in a periodical where "The Life of Peter the Great," published as a two-years' serial, did much to increase the amicable interest of Americans in the affairs of Russia, and they are from a hand that has shown conspicuously its friendliness toward the Russian Government.

Without favoring or defending the methods of the Russian revolutionists, Mr. Kennan shows that the violence which individuals, or groups of individuals, are guilty of in Russia, is a natural result of the absence of civil liberty. The Russian Liberals (not revolutionists) demand - what? The readers of the November CENTURY have seen the moderation of their demand: they desire freedom of speech, freedom of the press, security for personal rights, and a constitutional form of government. America, above all nations of the world, means these very things. Anarchy, and the dastardly methods of the anarchist, have no slightest color of excuse to exist in a free country. And, thank Heaven! America is continually making it evident that a free country is abundantly adapted to the defense of its own freedom; that is to say, of its own existence.

Industrial Training in the Public Schools.

PHILADELPHIA.

́T gives me great pleasure to state that the efforts made to introduce industrial training into the public schools of Philadelphia have been attended with the most unqualified success. The provisions thus far made for carrying it into operation are as follows:

1. The Kindergarten. This feature of our school system is of recent origin, and is as yet imperfectly organized. It is our purpose, however, ultimately to make the Kindergarten the foundation of all the education given in the public schools of the city.

2. Instruction in Sewing to Girls. All the girls above the first two years of the school course receive systematic instruction in sewing. The classes now number about twenty-five thousand girls. Our expe rience has been that from the age of nine years it is possible for girls to make rapid progress in the elementary processes of sewing, and, as they advance, to make practical application of these processes to the making of garments. The sewing lessons do not interfere in the slightest with the other work of the schools. They afford a pleasant rest to the children, who seem greatly to enjoy the hour devoted to this occupation. My opinion is that there is a good deal of educational value in the sewing work, over and above the practical application which will be made of it in real life.

3. Industrial Art Training. A school is maintained for the children attending the grammar schools, in which instruction is given in free-hand drawing, modeling in clay, wood-carving, and simple joinery work. This school is open to both boys and girls, who receive two hours' instruction per week. The training has a marked influence upon the productive faculties of the pupils, and the results prove how strong the artistic tendency is in the general average of children.

4. The Manual Training School. This is the chief feature of our industrial education. It is a school to which boys who have finished the grammar-school course are admitted upon examination. In addition to a good secondary education in the English language, history, mathematics, and science, and a thorough course in drawing, instruction is given in the nature and use of the fundamental tools, and in their application to the chief materials used in the industries of the world. The success of this school has exceeded our highest anticipations. The manual training has a marked influence upon the mental and moral character of the boys-producing a thoroughness and earnestness in every task which is quite unusual among boys of their age. The average age of the pupils when admitted is about fifteen years. The course of instruction occupies three years.

It will thus be seen that in Philadelphia we have made a beginning in several directions with industrial, or as I prefer to call it, manual, training. The problem remaining to be solved is such an extension and coördination of these elements as shall furnish a con

tinuous and progressive course of manual training all along the line of the pupils' education.

It is scarcely three years since these efforts to graft industrial training on the public schools of the city was begun, but it has already won the confidence of the community, and there is a growing demand for its further extension throughout the school system. I believe that the incorporation of industrial training into the public schools of this country is only a question of time. The misunderstanding as to its purposes arises chiefly among those who have no personal knowledge of its practical operation and management. My conviction is that before a great while it will be universally accepted as the greatest advance which has been made in the public education of the United States for half a century.

Yours very truly,

James MacAlister, Superintendent Public Schools, Philadelphia, Pa.

NEW HAVEN.

IN trying to incorporate industrial training as a part of our public-school course, we have avoided attempting anything that would interfere materially with work already established. Plain sewing has been introduced in all intermediate schools, much to the satisfaction of both parents and children. Although only one hour per week is assigned to this branch, considerable skill has been acquired, and very neat specimens of needlework are now to be seen in many schools.

An attempt to adapt the occupations of the Kindergarten to primary schools has been measurably successful. This "busy work," so called, is intended to train the hand and the eye, assist the teaching of reading, writing, and numbers, employ the activities of children in a pleasant way, and lay the foundation for drawing and higher manual work.

During the past year, Prang's models for teaching form have been introduced, with exercises in clay modeling. This furnishes the best basis for industrial drawing, which is now a part of our curriculum.

Early in the year a manual-training shop, capable of accommodating twenty-four boys at once, was opened, and ten classes, selected from the several grammar schools of the city, have received two hours' instruction each week. The boys thus instructed have, as a rule, been full of interest, and with about thirty lessons have become fairly proficient in the use of tools.

The effect of these several forms of industrial effort

upop teaching generally is good. The value of dealing with things rather than with words is becoming an axiom in all our schools.