Buchanan"s Journal of Man, November 1887.
by Various.
THE SLOW TRIUMPH OF TRUTH.
THE JOURNAL OF MAN does not fear to perform its duty and use plain language in reference to the obstructionists who hinder the acceptance of demonstrable sciences and prevent all fair investigation, while they occupy positions of influence and control in all collegiate inst.i.tutions.
It is not in scorn or bitterness that we should speak of this erring cla.s.s, a large number of whom are the victims of mis-education--of the hereditary policy of the colleges, which is almost as difficult to change as a national church, or a national despotism. The young men who enter the maelstrom of college life are generally borne along as helpless as rowing boats in a whirlpool. It is impossible for even the strongest minds to be exposed for years, surrounded by the contaminating influence of falsehood, and come forth uninjured. But while we pity the victims of medical colleges and old-fashioned universities, let us seek for our young friends inst.i.tutions that have imbibed the spirit of the present age.
Man is essentially a spiritual being, and, even in this life, he has many of the spiritual capacities which are to be unfolded in the higher life. Moreover, there are in every refined const.i.tution a great number of delicate sensibilities, which no college has ever recognized.
There has been no concealment of these facts. They have always been open to observation,--more open than the facts of Geology and Chemistry. Ever since the earliest dawn of civilization in Egypt, India, and Greece the facts have been conspicuous before the world, and, in ancient times, have attracted the attention of imperial and republican governments. And yet, the literary guild, the _incorporated_ officials of education everywhere, have refused to investigate such truths, and shaped their policy in accordance with the lowest instincts of mammon,--in accordance with the policy of kings, of priests, of soldiers, and of plutocrats; and this policy has been so firmly maintained and transmitted, that there is not, to-day, a university anywhere to be found that possesses the spirit of progress, or is willing to open either its eyes or its ears to the illumination of nineteenth-century progress, and to the voice of Heaven, which is "the still small voice of reason."
"_Of the earth, earthy_" is the character of our colleges to-day as it was in the days when Prof. Horky and his colleagues refused to look through the telescope of Galileo. Is not this utter neglect of Psychometry for forty-five years (because it has not been _forced_ upon their attention) as great an evidence of perpetuated stolidity as was the conduct of the Professors of Padua 280 years ago in shunning the inspection of Galileo"s telescope, when the demonstration has been so often repeated that Psychometry is a far greater addition than the telescope to the methods of science and promises a greater enlargement of science than the telescope and microscope combined.
"_Of the earth, earthy_" is a just description of inst.i.tutions which confine their investigations and limit their ideas of science to that which is physical, when man"s life, enjoyment, hopes and destiny are all above the plane on which they dwell and in which they burrow.
Physical science is indeed a vast department of knowledge, but to limit ourselves to that when a far grander realm exists, one really more important to human welfare, is an attempt to perpetuate a semi-barbarism, and the time is not _very_ remote in this progressive age when the barbarism of the 19th century literature and education will become a familiar theme.
The efforts of intellectual rebels to break through the restrictions of collegiate despotism have not yet had much success, and my own labors would have been fruitless in that respect if I had not been able to combine with others in establishing a more liberal college, the _Eclectic Medical Inst.i.tute_ of Cincinnati, which still retains something of the progressive spirit of its founders.
Simultaneously with the American rebellion against British authority, _Mesmer_ in France made an a.s.sault upon that Chinese wall of medical bigotry which Harvey found it so hard to overcome, but although he secured one favorable report from the Medical Academy at Paris, he was never admitted to an honorable recognition. Now, however, the baffled truth has entered the citadel of professional authority and the correspondent of the New York Tribune tells the story as follows:
CHARCOT AVENGES MESMER.
Under this heading the _New York Tribune_ published in September the letter of its regular correspondent at Paris, which is given below:
It shows that in the present state of imperfect civilization the narrow-minded men who generally lead society are perfectly able to suppress for a time any discovery which does not come from their own clique. And when they do yield to the force of evidence and accept extraordinary new discoveries, they either do it in a blundering and perverted manner, or they try to appropriate it as their own and continue to rob the pioneer thinker.
The psychometric experiments of Drs. Bourru and Burot, Dr. Luys and others have not been conducted in the scientific and satisfactory manner in which I introduced them in 1841, but in the hysterical and sensational manner which is now attracting attention.
LETTER FROM PARIS.
Mesmer has been well avenged by Charcot, the great professor who fills the chair in the clinical ward of the Saltpetriere for the nervous diseases of women. Not only, indeed, has this ill.u.s.trious physician shown that the charlatan whom the elder Dumas introduced with such telling effect into his novels, "La Comtesse de Charny" and "Le Docteur Balsamo," was no mere charlatan, but a number of Charcot"s disciples have proved the truth of what Dumas seemed to draw from his rich imagination.
Dr. Charcot, who is a cautious man, has publicly admitted hypnotic suggestion. He thinks extraordinary curative effects, so far as the consciousness of pain goes, are to be derived from hypnotism, which is Mesmerism with a new Greek name. But he always exhorts laics not to dabble in it, and medical men to keep their hypnotic lore to themselves. This is charming after the way in which the profession of which Charcot is really a bright light treated Mesmerism. Mesmer was an empiric. But he nevertheless got at the truth.
h.o.m.oeopathy was tabooed because it was not orthodox, by that Sanhedrim known as the Faculty of Medicine. Animal magnetism was long ignored on the ground that charlatans had taken it up and that no doctor who had self-respect could follow them. Mesmerism was treated with no less contempt until a new name was given it, and Charcot declared that there was not only something but a good deal in it deserving the attention of scientists.
Dr. Luys last Tuesday made a communication to the Academy of Medicine on this subject which electrified the members present.
It was on the action, both at a distance and by direct contact, of certain medicated or fermented substances on hypnotic subjects. The latter were all women who could not possibly have got their cue beforehand, and were being observed, while Dr.
Luys operated, by a jury of scientists above all suspicion of having lent themselves to any trickery. Alcohol when put to the nape in a tube no larger than a h.o.m.oeopathist"s vial and hermetically sealed produced exactly the same effect as if imbibed at a bar. Absinthe, haschish, opium, morphine, beer, champagne, tea and coffee were in succession tried with their characteristic effects. But "the cup which cheers but not inebriates" was found too exciting for French neuropaths.
Valerian caused the deepest sadness. The thoughts of the patient were centred in a grave. She was impelled irresistibly to stoop down and scratch the ground, and thought herself in a cemetery exhuming a deceased relative whom she loved. Under the illusion she fancied herself picking up bones belonging to his skeleton, which she handled with tender reverence, and when there was an imaginary mound of them formed she placed, with deep-drawn sighs and tears and genuflections, a cross above them. Under the influence of haschish everything looked rosy and gayety prevailed. The subject was a young girl, very fond of the drama.
She fancied herself on the stage and playing a part which suited her to perfection. It was in a bouffe opera and she sang her score admirably. The sentiments were expressed with delicate feeling. Dr. Luys can, according to the substances he uses, run through the whole gamut of human pa.s.sions and emotions.
What is most strange is that no trace of the fict.i.tious world in which the hypnotized subject has been wandering, remains when real consciousness is restored. It is very rare for even the idea of having been in dreamland to survive the awakening from the hypnotic trance. Dr. Luys says that hypnotic suggestion sometimes has periods of incubation more or less long. The subject is at first gently drawn to do a certain thing or things, and then the drawing becomes an irresistible impulse.
They are first as if tempted and then as if possessed. They can no more help themselves than a man who had got to the verge of Niagara Falls in a boat could help going over.
Dr. Roger moved that the Academy name a Commission to inquire into hypnotic suggestion, near and at a distance. Dr. Bronardel supported him. He said, "All that Dr. Luys has alleged and shown cannot fail to make a noise throughout the world. n.o.body save MM. Burot and Bourru have gone so far as Dr. Luys. He not only forces on the attention of the Academy the question of hypnotism, but of persons being affected by poisonous substances which do not penetrate, or it may be even touch, their bodies.
This is from a legal point of view a great danger. A great social responsibility is involved in the matter. It is the duty of the Academy to have the experiments of Dr. Luys repeated, with others that bear upon them."
Hypnotism, or animal magnetism, has been a little more than a hundred years despised and rejected by the doctors. It was discovered by a Viennese, Mesmer, who belonged to that curious branch of the Freemasons, the Illuminati. When he told Stoerck, the head of the Faculty of Medicine at Vienna, of his discovery, that learned owl begged him not to discredit that body by talking of anything so absurd. He persisted. Sarcasm and then persecution obliged him to go abroad, and he came to Paris in 1778. The world of fashion and the court went crazy about him.
He then set up in the Palais Royal, where, it must be said, in a way that was worthy of a charlatan, he worked his discovery. M.
Le Roy, of the Academy of Medicine, thought him on the scent of a great truth. But the other doctors were of the bats" eyes sort, and hunted Mesmer down. He went to stay at Creteil, where he applied his method and made his famous magnetic pail, which interested M. d"Eslon, head doctor to the Comte d"Artois--later Charles X. He wrote about the magnetic pail. The Academy of Medicine warned him to be more cautious in speaking of quack inventions, and threatened to expel him from membership if he did not retract what he had written. That body even made a new rule to this effect: "No doctor declaring himself in favor of animal magnetism, either in theory or practice, can be a member of this society."
Mesmer, hearing the police had their eye on him, went to Spa.
But the ladies took his part with such ardor that the king named a commission to inquire into his discovery. Its members, too, were owls. They reported that "the magnetic fluid of which Mesmer speaks does not exist." Jussieu stood out against the owls and he only. He said: "All your efforts will not prevent this truth from making its way. They can only prevent this generation from profiting by it."
I should add that the influence gained by the hypnotic operator remains after the subject awakes from the trance. Its action then reminds one of the characters in the legends of olden times who sold their souls to Satan. The Emperor of Brazil is very anxious to study hypnotism, or, at least, to dip into it when he comes back to Paris.
The reader will observe in the foregoing letter and in all medical literature Mesmer is spoken of as a "charlatan" and "empiric."
Charlatan is an opprobrious term, but "empiric" literally means one who follows experience instead of dogma, and should therefore be an honorable designation; but as the medical profession has always been dogmatic, and therefore hostile to empiricism, or fidelity to experience, it has made empiricism an opprobrious term. Dr. Mesmer was neither an ignoramus nor a quack, but a graduated physician, although his t.i.tle is generally omitted. He had more enthusiasm than philosophy, but he was far in advance of his contemporaries, who had neither, and deserves to be honorably remembered.
OLD INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION.
The greatest triumph in the profession of education ever achieved by man was that of EZEKIEL RICH, of New Hampshire, born in 1784, whose successful experiments at Troy, New Hampshire, were fully reported in 1838 to the American Inst.i.tute of Instruction, and were described in the last edition of the "_New Education_."
Mr. Rich demonstrated that a solid scientific, literary, moral, and industrial education, qualifying boys and girls for a successful business life, and greatly superior to the education now given, might be imparted to youth while they were also sufficiently occupied in the industrial way to _pay all their expenses_.
This is incomparably beyond anything that even the most famous teachers have ever done, for it brings the gospel of industrial salvation to all struggling laborers who dwell in poverty--not immediate salvation for themselves, but salvation for their cla.s.s, by making education free for all, and giving to the children of the poorest laborer the opportunity of a career in which independence is sure, and wealth a possibility.
The profession of teaching, like all other professions, runs in its fixed grooves or, as popularly expressed, its "ruts," and it will be long ere the n.o.ble example of RICH will inspire a spirit of imitation.
His exposition of his method lay almost half a century unnoticed, until I brought it before the National Educational a.s.sociation.
Upon the subject of Industrial Training, Mr. Geo. P. Morris has resurrected an old treatise, published by Thomas Budd, in 1685, describing East and West Jersey, in which he lays down a system of practical education which he wished to see adopted in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
He wishes a thousand acres of land given to maintain each school, free for the poor, the rich, and the Indians--the _children being_ _maintained_ free of expense to parents from the profits of the school "_arising by the work of the scholars_." They are to be occupied in "learning to read and write true English, Latine and other useful speeches and languages, and fair writing, arithmatick and bookkeeping; and the boys to be taught and instructed in some mystery or trade, as the making of mathematical instruments, joynery, turnery, the making of blocks and watches, weaving, shoemaking, or any other useful trade or mystery that the school is capable of teaching; and the girls to be taught and instructed in spinning of flax and wool, and knitting of gloves and stockings, sewing and making of all sorts of useful needlework, and the making of straw-work, as hats, baskets, etc., or any other useful art or mystery that the school is capable of teaching.
"3. That the scholars be kept in the morning two hours, at reading, writing, book-keeping, etc., and the other two hours at work in that art, mystery, or trade that he or she _most delighteth in_, and then let them have two hours to dine and for recreation; and in the afternoon, two hours at reading, writing, etc., and the other two hours at work at their several imployments."
Budd quotes from a book by Andrew Yarenton an account of the spinning-schools in Germany, as follows: "In all towns there are schools for little girls, from six years old and upwards, to teach them to spin, and to bring their tender fingers by degrees to spin very fine; their wheels go all by the foot, made to go with much ease, whereby the action or motion is very easie and delightful. The way, method, rule, and order how they are governed is, 1st. There is a large room, and in the middle thereof a little box like a pulpit.
2ndly, There are benches built around about the room, as they are in playhouses; upon the benches sit about two hundred children spinning, and in the box in the middle of the room sits the grand mistress, with a long white wand in her hand," with which she designates the idle for punishment.
"They raise their children as they spin finer to the higher benches. 2d. They sort and size all the threds, so that they can apply them to make equal cloths; and after a young maid has been three years in the spinning-school, that is taken in at six, and then continues until nine years, she will get eight pence the day, and, in these parts I speak of, a man that has most children lives best."
Eight pence a day at that time was good wages for an artisan.
Thos. Budd was more than two hundred years ahead of the teachers of America, for they are just beginning to introduce Industrial Education, and they have not reached up to this idea of making the work of pupils pay their expenses, which Budd proposed, and which Rich realized.
In Yarenton"s account of the spinning-schools, the reader will observe that the children are occupied solely in spinning, their minds being left without culture. How easy would it have been for the grand mistress, instead of merely watching their work, to have been instructing them orally in any species of knowledge, or leading them in singing, which would have made their time pa.s.s delightfully, and cultivated all the finer sentiments of the soul.
RICH has the honor of proving that this could be done, and that there was no fatigue, but continual pleasure all day long when the monotony of work was relieved by instruction, and the instruction that would have been monotonous by itself was made pleasant by being intermingled with hand work.