Lesson 1
Elementary Schools in Early America

What accounts for the great outburst of major inventions in early America— breakthroughs such as the telegraph, the steamboat and the weaving machine?

Among the many shaping factors, I would single out the country’s excellent elementary schools; a labor force that welcomed the new technology; the practice of giving premiums to inventors; and above all the American genius for nonverbal,“spatial” thinking about things technological.

Why mention the elementary schools? Because thanks to these schools our early mechanics, especially in the New England and Middle Atlantic states, were generally literate and at home in arithmetic and in some aspects of geometry and trigonometry.

Acute foreign observers related American adaptiveness and inventiveness to this educational advantage. As a member of a British commission visiting here in 1853 reported, “With a mind prepared by thorough school discipline, the American boy develops rapidly into the skilled workman.”

A further stimulus to invention came from the “premium” system, which preceded our patent system and for years ran parallel with it. This approach, originated abroad, offered inventors medals, cash prizes and other incentives.

In the United States, multitudes of premiums for new devices were awarded at country fairs and at the industrial fairs in major cities. Americans flocked to these fairs to admire the new machines and thus to renew their faith in the beneficence of technological advance.

Given this optimistic approach to technological innovation, the American worker took readily to that special kind of nonverbal thinking required in mechanical technology. As Eugene Ferguson has pointed out, “A technologist thinks about objects that cannot be reduced to unambiguous verbal descriptions; they are dealt with in his mind by a visual, nonverbal process. The designer and the inventor are able to assemble and manipulate in their minds devices that as yet do not exist.”

This nonverbal “spatial” thinking can be just as creative as painting and writing. Robert Fulton once wrote, “The mechanic should sit down among levers, screws, wedges, wheels, etc., like a poet among the letters of the alphabet, considering them as an exhibition of his thoughts, in which a new arrangement transmits a new idea.”

When all these shaping forces — schools, open attitudes, the premium system, a genius for spatial thinking — interacted with one another on the rich U.S. mainland, they produced that American characteristic, emulation. Today that word implies mere imitation. But in earlier times it meant a friendly but competitive striving for fame and excellence.

名人名言

What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to the soul.

— Joseph Addison

A college diploma does not mean you are educated. Quite the contrary, it means that you have been opened up to a perpetual state of ignorance and thus a lifelong hunger for more — more ideas, more knowledge, more good thoughts, more challenges, more of everything.

— James Lehrer

早期的美国小学

是什么导致了美国早期重要发明的涌现——诸如电报、蒸汽船和织布机这样的突破(breakthrough)?

在诸多形成因素中，我要特别指出如下因素：美国优秀的小学；欢迎新技术的劳动力；给发明者以奖励的制度；尤其是美国人对技术性事物的非语言的、“空间式”思维的天才。

为什么要提到小学呢?因为全靠这些学校，我们早期的机械工人才会能读会写(literate)，并精通算术以及一部分几何和三角学；在新英格兰和沿大西洋中部诸州尤其是这样。

敏锐的外国观察家认为美国人的适应性和创造性得益于这种教育的优势。正如一?853年访问过这里的英国委员会成员所记载的，“通过彻底的学校纪律的训练，美国孩子很快成长为熟练的工人。”

对发明的进一步激励（stimulus）来自于“奖励”制度，这种制度在专利(patent)制度之前产生，并与其共存了数年。这种起源于（originated）国外的方法，为发明者提供奖章、现金和其它奖励。

在美国，为新设备提供的众多(multitudes)奖项在主要城市的国家展览会和行业展览会上颁发。美国人蜂拥到这些展览会上欣赏新机器，这使他们更加坚信技术进步的好处。

在技术创造受到的这种鼓励下，美国工人很容易就掌握了机械技术中所要求的那种独特的非语言式的思维方式。正如尤金·弗格森所指出的那样，“一位技术家所考虑的东西是难以用语言加以确切的描述的；他脑中用来处理它们的是一个视觉的而非语言的（nonverbal)过程。设计者和发明者能够在他们的脑子里把尚未存在的设备安装和操作(manipulate)起来。”

这种非语言的“空间”思维可以具有像绘画和写作一样的创造性。罗勃特·富尔顿曾经说过，“技工应该在杠杆、螺钉、楔子、车轮等之间坐下，像一个诗人处在字母表的字母中一样，把它们视作他的思想的展示，一种新的排列就会传递一种新的思想。”

当所有这些形成因素——学校，开放式态度，奖励制度，空间思维的天赋——在富有的美国大陆上相互作用时，它们产生了美国特征：竞争。如今这个单词意味着纯粹的模仿（imitation）。但是在早些时候，它意味着为出人头地而进行的友好而激烈的竞争。

名人名言

教育之于人的心灵，犹如雕刻之于大理石。

—— 约瑟夫·艾迪生

大学文凭并不意味着你受教育了。正相反，这意味着你已走进永久的（perpetual）无知，所以要用一生去追求更多——更多的想法，更多的知识，更多的好思想，更多的挑战，任何事物都知道更多。

—— 詹姆士·莱勒