Manual labor college

George W. Gale was the founder of the first and best-known American example, the Oneida Institute of Science and Industry, and he thought the concept was his, although there are European predecessors. He and many of the other pious Yankees were persuaded that manual labor was to be the central practical feature of the coming American, Christian program of education. In 1830 Gale wrote: "Depend on it, Brother Finney, none of us have estimated the importance of this System of Education. It will be to the moral world what the lever of Archimedes, could he have found a fulcrum, would have been to the natural." As he put it slightly later, in his circular and plan for Knox College, "the manual labor system, if properly sustained and conducted, ...is peculiarly adapted...to qualify men for the self-denying and arduous duties of the gospel ministry, especially in our new settlements and missionary fields abroad."{{cite web ==Theodore Weld and the Society for Promoting Manual Labor in Literary Institutions==

Theodore Dwight Weld had studied under Gale for three years, and was convinced of the wisdom of the manual labor movement, which he recommended unsuccessfully to Hamilton College.{{cite book According to its constitution, it was "the object of this society to collect and diffuse information, calculated to promote the establishment and prosperity of manual labor schools and seminaries in the United States, and to introduce the system of manual labor into institutions now established."{{cite news In Weld's January, 1833, report to the Society he stated that "In prosecuting the business of my agency, I have traveled during the year four thousand five hundred and seventy-five miles miles [7,364 km]; in public conveyances [boat and stagecoach], 2,630 [4,230 km]; on horseback, 1,800 [2,900 km]; on foot, 145 [233 km]. I have made two hundred and thirty-six public addresses." A newspaper published a summary of his report: {{quote|He endeavors to show, in the first place, that the present system of education makes fearful havoc of health and life — that it effeminates the mind — that it is perilous to morals — that it produces an indisposition to effort, and destroys habits of activity and industry — and that it is so expensive that its practical effects are antirepublican. From these premises he derives the conclusions — 1st, That bodily exercise is indispensable to man, demanded alike by the necessities of his corporeal, intellectual, and moral nature, his individual happiness and social usefulness: and 2d, this exercise should be incorporated into our systems of education and alternated with study in all seminaries of learning. He next considers the arrangements of time for this exercise, the amount to be taken, and the kind of exercise best adapted to accomplish all the objects desired. He points out the objections to some of the more common modes of exercise, and then proceeds to show the benefits of the Manual Labor System, as furnishing exercise natural to man, and adapted to interest the mind — as peculiarly happy in its moral effects, furnishing the student with important practical acquisitions; promoting habits of industry, independence and originality of character; rendering permanent all the manlier features of character; affording facilities to the student in acquiring a knowledge of human nature; greatly diminishing the expense of education; increasing the wealth of the country; tending to do away [with] those absurd distinctions in sociely which make the occupation of an individual the standard of his worth; and finally, as having a tendency to render permanent our republican institutions. The objections commonly urged against the system are examined and answered; and the obstacles which at present retard its progress and success are pointed out. The reasoning and suggestions of Mr. Weld on the various topics embraced in his report, are forcible and full of interest. In support of his different positions he has introduced a great number of extracts containing the views and sentiments of the most distinguished physicians and litarary men connected with public institutions, whoso experience nnd opportunities for observation give great weight to their testimony. The whole pamphlet embodies a mass of facts and information of great value and interest, and cannot fail, we think, to be instrumental in diffusing more correct and enlightened views on the important subject on which it treats.{{cite news Weld recommended Cincinnati, which he visited twice, as "the logical location [for the new school]. Cincinnati was the focal center of population and commerce in the Ohio valley." The new and barely-functioning Lane Seminary in Walnut Hills, Ohio, near Cincinnati, was coincidentally looking for students. On Weld's recommendation, the Tappans chose it as the site for a national institution. See Lane Theological Seminary for more on it. With Weld very much at the head of it, the first national debate on slavery in the United States was held there, followed by the first organized student movement; students resigned en masse, many going to the new Oberlin Collegiate Institute. ==The need for a New England school==

The New Hampshire Anti-Slavery Society, at its first convention, in 1834, passed a resolution expressing its support for the New England Anti-Slavery Society's resolution calling for a manual labor school "in some most eligible portion of New England", to address "the general want of mental cultivation of the colored population of our country".{{cite book ==The failure of manual labor in colleges==

Although a variety of colleges incorporated manual labor to some degree, in most cases it was abandoned after only a few years, and it was all but gone by 1850. According to Herbert Lull, the reasons for its failure are: • Labor was treated as a source of revenue, to support unrelated college activities. • The labor was not linked in any way to the students' educational or career goals. Agricultural labor, for example, was of little relevance to the student preparing for a pulpit. • The work became drudgery. Students wanted some leisure, some play. • The work did not fulfill the financial expectations colleges had of it.{{cite journal As summarized by Geoffrey Blodgett in his analysis of its quick disappearance at Oberlin: {{quote|It proved unworkable in both economic and educational terms. Student labor was simply too expensive and inefficient. It cost more to raise crops than it did to buy produce from local farmers. Furthermore, however beautiful in theory the idea of integrating learning and labor, in practice the two did not reinforce each other, but rather competed, to their mutual disadvantage. ..."They rested on their hoes in the cornfield to look into their inner consciousnesses, and the manual labor cause suffered in the interests of philosophy."{{cite book However, "the 'manual labor' movement waxed and waned in the 1830s, but in one form or another, its ideas never died."{{cite book ==Selected list of manual labor schools==

• Albany Manual Labor Academy, Albany, Ohio, 1850–1862. • Union Literary Institute, Randolph County, Indiana, which accepted students of any race and was called "a nigger school" ==See also==