Pratt Institute - Prattonia Yearbook (Brooklyn, NY)

Page 28 text:

Ill i i i FOUNDER ' S ADDRESS (From Pratt Institute Record, October, 1899.) Teachers, Scholars, and Friends: I confess to a little embarrassment to decide which of the many things of interest connected with my experiences in the development of this enterprise should command my attention in speaking to you this morning. How shall my child be educated? is such an old question, and has been answered so many times, and in so many ways, since teaching began, that we cannot hope to offer much that is original, but we have wished to furnish facilities for a trial in Brooklyn of the best type of combined academic or high school instruction, with manual training. The idea in this course, which we have named the Technical High School Department, is not to teach the pupils any trade, but to educate them to work patiently, systematically, and constantly in the use of hand, eye and brain. We think such as finish this three years ' course will, by the combined training of all their powers, be able to decide for themselves what life-work they are best calculated to 22

Page 27 text:

ii m W hi Harou) I. Pratt, .hsislanl Trrasiirrr

Page 29 text:

succeed in. Among the elements of value we hope to realize from this course of instruction is an object lesson on the question of industrial or manual training. The rapid development of the Institute led me, in April, to ask our secretary, Mr. F. B. Pratt, and my private secretary, Mr. HefBey, to accompany me in a hasty trip to the Old World, to see, if we could, in what lines its longer experience would serve as a guide for us. We visited twenty leading cities in England, France, Austria, Switzerland, and Germany; studied carefully, saw the workings of many schools; learned how to understand and appreciate reports of our consular agents; and as a result have come home convinced that Pratt Institute was not unnatural in its conception, nor vague in its design ; and while we did not find anything just like it, we did find great activity in endeavoring to educate the people in applied art and in specific trade-schools. We feel that nothing presents so broad a field, or one so full of promise for the American nation, as attention to such things as will tend to educate the people to a knowledge of the artistic as applied to their home life, and to a love of it because they appreciate it. I have reason to believe that in our own Art Department many have been taught this, and also to realize that certain phases of it lie at the foundation of all industrial pursuits; that it ennobles, that it is an element of civilization, and that the essence of good art is to be found, above all things, in honest and good workmanship. In the Department of Domestic Science I am sure many have received that courage which comes from a consciousness of being able to do well some specific thing, and from the feeling that a knowledge of household employment is thoroughly con- sistent with the grace and dignity and true womanliness of every American girl. The aim of this department is to afford women a training in those branches of science and art which pertain not only to good housekeeping but to home-making — to the preparation of clothing, of economical and wholesome foor, and to such knowl- edge of sanitary and hygenic laws as shall tend to secure comfortable and healthy homes at the least expense . The housewife who knows how to manage tlic details of her home has more courage than one who is dependent upon servants, no matter how faithful they may be. She is a better mistress, for she can sympathize with them and appreciate their work when well done. We especially wish to enlarge our facilities in this department, so as to help those families who must live on small incomes to make tlie best disposition of this money in wise purchases, economical use of material, and little waste. One aim of this department is to make the home of the workingman more attractive. In the Department of Mechanical Arts the instruction given should be most valuable and important to every thrifty mechanic. The demand is for a better and better quality of work, and our American artisans must learn that to claim first place in any trade they must be intelligent. They must study, learn to draw 23 k '