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Directions to Agents
| Winter-Spring 1887 | Houghton Library |
CLASSES TO BE ADDRESSED. The mayor. Clergymen, lawyers, doctors. Superintendent of schools, principal of the high-school (having interested him, you get permission to address the pupils, most easily on a Saturday. The same applies to all other classes of teachers). Teachers of private schools, young ladies’ academies, business colleges, law schools, divinity schools, etc. Leave circulars in the bookstores and apothecaries, after making friends with the booksellers and the apothecaries. Get hold of the young men directly wherever you can. In the country, you can interest one young man, and take him about in a buggy to pick up others whom he knows on promise of $1 to him for everyone you get.
GENERAL METHOD OF TALKING. You must never lose yourself in your talk. Keep wide awake to the situation. Know exactly what effect you are aiming to produce, and watch to see when it is produced. Hammer away until you produce it, and then at once go on to the next point. Though you will have great need of arguments, you must not, of course, suppose that these are to produce their effect by their action on the understanding alone. The levers upon which you have to rely are first, cupidity, second, shame, and third, fatigue. You can offer a clergyman or a teacher a commission. You will put it in this way: that Mr. Peirce insists upon paying it in every case, whether it is asked for or not, but with the distinct understanding that no portion is to be refunded to the pupil, and to that end nothing is paid on the first pupil an agent (resident) obtains. You will understand that if you offer such commissions, you will have to pay them yourself out of your own. Whenever you are talking to a young man, who may become himself a pupil, you will represent the certainty of success in life which this instruction brings with it. Say it is unfortunate that pupils almost always insist on their names being kept secret; otherwise your interlocutor would be surprised to learn how many successful Wall Street men there are among the number, and the sons of Bankers form a large proportion of those who are now taking the course. In Wall Street, the value of sound reasoning is understood, etc. 2nd, whenever you see an opportunity to do so, you should manoeuvre to put the person to whom you are talking into a position in which he is ashamed to send you away empty-handed. Americans are particularly subject to the passion of shame. As soon as you see that a man begins to be strongly interested, pretend that you are going, say you have much more interesting things to tell him, but you will not allow yourself to trespass on his indulgence longer. When he says you need not mind, say that to tell the truth you have an appointment to see a gentleman who has agreed to take one ticket, but is doubtful about another for another member of his family, and owing to his high position you dare not offend him, but you will stay a few minutes, and then stay a good long while, so as to be able to hint that you have fooled away a lot of valuable time, satisfying your present man’s curiosity, and so make him ashamed not to take one ticket at least. Remember this: that if the person whom you address is very rude at the outset, it gives you an immense advantage. Such men are generally unskillful in talk, and are more easily handled than others. You will behave with perfect good temper, dignity, and politeness. Make him feel that he has a gentleman to deal with, for whose good opinion he cannot but have some regard. You say: I have not come to sell you anything. I do not expect you to enter as a pupil. I have simply come because I have understood that you were one of the most prominent and respected citizens of the town, who would be likely to take an interest in anything tending to ameliorate the condition of the people and calculated to conduce to the well-being of the community. Without a pause, you then proceed to explain what you mean by “ameliorating the condition of the people and conducing to the well-being of the community” and draw him into conversation. Afterward, when he begins to be interested and to entertain a respect for you, you can say that your reception was not, you must confess, quite that which his reputation about the town had led you to expect it would be. If he says something apologetic, do not make light of the incident, but say that never having been an agent for any other enterprise than this, it had never happened to you to be subjected to such treatment before in your life; and in short, convey the idea that while you are ready to accept any apology, you had been considerably wounded. Some men will hear you attentively through to the end, and then give you a firm, emphatic, but polite negative. In such a case, you would probably waste your time in trying to effect anything. Still, the man is sure to be a valuable friend if you can get him, and your one chance is to make him fear he may have gone off the handle too soon. Answer him briefly and forcibly, showing that there is some material circumstance which he has left out of consideration. Do not wait for a rejoinder, but wind up by saying that you do not want to detain him with a long argumentation, and take your leave with sufficient deliberation to give him time to call you back should he see fit to do so. 3rd, you should never fail to take the measure of your man’s nervous energy and endurance. Nobody is ever convinced, in any practical sense, until he is tired of objecting. You must take care not to vex a man (unless you see how you are going to make the vexation pass away) nor bore him, you must make your conversation pleasant; but if you can at the same time tire him quite out, by keeping his attention long on the stretch, and making him exert his mind in an unusual way, you will find it highly advantageous.
Of course, you will use these suggestions according to your judgment. I suppose that you are a man of sense. You will fully understand that I should not counsel to tell the slightest untruth, and far less to treat your fellow-citizens as if they were so many fish to be angled for. The object of life is not to make money, you know, but to prepare you for another better and far different world than this; and you will behave accordingly.
ORDER OF YOUR TALK. You will find it best to stick closely to a certain scheme of persuasion, never varying from it unless for some definite reason, or because you instinctively feel that with a given man some slight variation will be useful. There are many reasons for this plan. You get a greater mastery of the method, you are able to make modifications on a better basis of experience, etc. You begin with talk calculated to incline your man to put confidence in you. You cannot generally give a man confidence in you in a few minutes, but you must incline him to have confidence. For this purpose, you must have a remarkably straightforward and artless way in the beginning. You announce your business, without delay or circumlocution, say “I wish to call your attention to an educational undertaking for which I am soliciting pupils,” and immediately hand out a circular and ask if he will kindly cast his eye over that. Throw in any naive remark you find takes, as “I don’t suppose you will care for it. Nobody does in this town. I cannot understand how they can be so indifferent to such a matter.” The next effect you want to produce is that you are deeply convinced of the value of this instruction yourself. Do not protest; but let your conviction crop out unconsciously as it were. The next thing you have to do is to fascinate your man, to interest him, to amuse him, or in short to cause him for no matter what reason to take pleasure in talking with you. The next thing you have to do is to give him a favorable impression of Mr. Peirce. You should produce these four effects, coolly and watchfully, in the order here set down; but you may so far run them together as to begin on each before you have quite done with the one that goes before.
Here is the point where you will generally thank your man for his kind attention, and say you only wanted to sow a little seed on good ground, so that you may go on at his request.
You will now go into cool argumentation to show the benefits of the plan. Be grave. To begin with, you state clearly what the system of instruction is and what its purpose is. It is a system of mental gymnastics, intended to develope 1st, the power of making a stupendous mental effort, 2nd, the power of keeping up a moderate exertion for a long time without undue fatigue, and 3rd, skill in reasoning or practical familiarity with the best methods of attacking every kind of practical problem. All the teaching is conducted by practical exercises; by giving the pupil some real thinking to do, and then making him observe not only where he has not done well, and what his failure has been due to, but also, what is even more useful, showing him where he has done well, and making him note exactly what the exertions were that he had to make to succeed, and then making him repeat the same process in the case of another problem. Having learned to perform the process of thinking, the theory of it can be made perfectly clear in comparatively short metre. The matters taught are divided into three parts. The first part consists of the recognition of the logical relations of thoughts, the analysis of them, and the logical arrangement of them. This makes of the pupil what would be called a good clear-headed thinker. The second part consists of the mathematical precision of thought, of mathematical views of things in general, and of the doctrine of chances. These exercises give a piercing distinctness to thought, which penetrate every wrapping, and at the same time impart great moderation and caution, by habituating the pupil to put a definite measure and value upon everything. The exercises in the doctrine of chances are carried sufficiently far to prevent his being taken in by any sophistry of gambling, speculation, or injudicious insurance. The third part consists of judgments about matters of fact. This part has cost Mr. Peirce far more trouble to get it up than anything else. He has been studying it for years, and has at last succeeded in inventing a course of exercises, by which a man can get a lifetime of experience in the exercise of good judgment in the course of a few months. The precise nature of these exercises is for the present a secret between Mr. Peirce and his pupils, until the whole method can be properly set forth in a book upon which Mr. Peirce is now engaged. He does not wish it to be judged by experiments made with it by people who do not thoroughly understand it. The instruction is carried on by correspondence. Each letter from Mr. Peirce gives a criticism of the exercise last received, in a good deal of detail, and sets two more exercises, each to occupy the pupil two hours, accompanied with explanations as to how they are to be done. As soon as the first one of these is done, the pupil sends it on to Mr. Peirce, retaining the other one to occupy him until he gets Mr. Peirce’s reply. Thirty lessons are called a quarter, and the pupil pays $30 in advance for each quarter. At the end of each quarter, there is a positive practical test of the improvement made by the pupil, and should it not be very marked Mr. Peirce reserves the right to bring the lessons to a close, but this never happens with serious pupils. Having thus stated the case, you will go on to give the general advantages of the scheme as hereinafter stated. You will then argue that the man that reasons the best is the most successful man, other things being equal. You will then show that people can be taught to think. You will then show that the only way to teach anything is by practical exercises. You will then show that this kind of instruction can be conducted by correspondence as well as in any other way. You will then make a careful résumé of the argument.
Having thus fully argued the question, you next aim to suggest to the mind of your man that it would be an excellent thing, either for himself or for somebody in whom he takes an interest. You do not directly say this, you only instance some other cases in which great advantage has been got from it. Speak of its advantages over any college training. Do not make this part too long. Excite your man about as much as you can do quickly. Beyond that you will not be able to go.
Finally explain that if the step is to be taken at all, it must be taken at once. Ask him to hand you anything, or do any little service for you. That will put him into the attitude of compliance, and make it easier for him to say “Yes” when you ask him to take a ticket.
THE SUBSTANCE OF YOUR TALK. 1st, Who is Mr. Peirce? Charles Sanders Peirce was born in 1839, and is therefore 47 years old. He successively took three degrees in Harvard, the last, Doctor of Science, was conferred summa cum laude, being one of the very few Harvard degrees to which that distinction has been appended. He has been during the greater part of his life attached to the Coast Survey, where he has charge of the most scientific branches of the work, relating to the figure of the earth, etc., and to the determination of the force of gravity, weighing the earth, etc. He has resigned his regular position in the Survey, though still exercising a supervision over the work, in order to devote his energies to the education of his fellow countrymen in right thinking, which he thinks is the way in which he can make himself most useful. He has carried on his branch of the Survey in a manner to win the encomiums of the greatest European authorities. In 1875, he happened to be invited to attend the meetings of the delegates of the different governmental Surveys of Europe which was held in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Paris, and Mr. Peirce was asked to say what he thought of the method used at that time throughout Europe for determining the force of gravity. He condemned it, and said it gave results enormously in error. Pendulums were used, and these pendulums swung from brass tripods, and Mr. Peirce stated that he had found by actual measurement that these tripods swayed under the pendulums, by an amount so minute that no ordinary microscope would detect it, but yet that owing to a complicated mechanical effect, the time of oscillation was lengthened in consequence quite considerably. The European delegates were so surprised at this statement, that they had very little to say, but adjourned to meet in Brussels the following year. At this Brussels meeting (at which Mr. Peirce was not present) reports were received from two or three of the Surveys, those of Austria and Switzerland among the number, where the matters in question had been most studied. These different Surveys reported that they had undertaken special investigations of the facts alleged by Mr. Peirce, and that they found that “our American colleague” was quite mistaken. These reports did not reach Mr. Peirce until the following year, barely in time for him to reach a third meeting of the European Surveys, which was called to meet in Stuttgart in order to reach a final decision in regard to this important question. He at once applied for orders to attend that meeting, but owing to the influence of Mr. Randall the Washington authorities declared they did not care what the European Surveys said or did, and refused to issue the orders. Several of the most influential New York newspapers, however, protested against this view, and the result was that the orders were finally issued. Mr. Peirce hurried over with all speed, and entered the meeting in the midst of a heated discussion of the question. The venerable president General Baeyer of Berlin, who had been endeavoring to defend Mr. Peirce’s views, fell upon his neck and kissed him. Mr. Peirce addressed the meeting and showed that the experiments instituted by the Surveys of Austria, Switzerland, etc., were not well-calculated to bring out the phenomenon in question. He then exhibited his own experiments, and then showed by an elaborate mathematical discussion that they led demonstratively to the conclusion that he had announced. At the end of his address, those who had opposed his views one after another arose and declared themselves convinced, and his proposition was adopted by a unanimous vote. Since then the methods used in Europe for the determination of gravity have been reversed. The king next day invited Mr. Peirce to dinner. Mr. Peirce’s main study, however, for the last quarter of a century, has been the methods of reasoning in science. He has lectured upon the subject before the Lowell Institute in Boston, for two years in Harvard University, for five years in the Johns Hopkins University, etc. As long as the Coast Survey continued as a scientific institution, Mr. Peirce was unwilling to accept any permanent engagement which would cut off his connection with that. Now that it has been apparently broken up, he prefers to set up a school of reasoning rather than connect himself with any college, because he disapproves the methods of instruction in the colleges and has a small opinion of their results. Mr. Peirce’s writings have mostly been confined to scientific memoirs, which have appeared in the scientific and philosophical journals of this country, of England, of France, and of Germany, as well as in the memoirs of learned societies in all those countries. Professor Schroeder, the highest authority on logic in Germany, today, in the advertisement to his last work, says: “It has been necessary to bring out an entirely new work, instead of a mere new edition of my former one, on account of the very remarkable (hoechst bedeutende) progress which the science has made in the interval, mainly through the works of the American Charles S. Peirce and those of his pupils.” You can also supply yourself with anecdotes respecting Mr. Peirce, to show his skill in reasoning.
FACTS ABOUT THE INSTRUCTION. The letters are generally about the length of a page of Harper’s Magazine. This is the shortest. There are 750 words on a page of Harper’s. There are 1100 on a page like this. The shortest letter is nearly a page like this. The letters not infrequently run up to three pages. Mr. Peirce uses the fewest words consistent with perfect clearness, and with fully saying all that is essential, and he trains his pupils to the same habit. One class of exercises consists in exercises in endurance. These are exceptional in their nature; they require the pupil to give up his whole time to them, or else to do them by himself, in the course of his business, with only general instructions and help from Mr. Peirce. The following gives information in some detail concerning the nature of the exercises. PART I. The first thing is to exercise the pupil in not being deceived by the jingle of words, but always imagining the facts set forth, by a simple method which will guard him against ever being taken in by such juggles as are usually served up as examples in the books on Logic. The next examples that are taken up are in drawing up formal definitions. The method of going to work in framing such definitions, which are rather useful for various purposes, is fully explained, and the pupil exercised on it. After this, the pupil is taken through a series of exercises calculated to show, that while formal definitions do something toward rendering thought clear and distinct, they nevertheless leave the main part of the business incomplete, and the method of attaining scientific clearness of thought is exhibited, and the pupil is thoroughly practised in it. The pupil is next introduced to exercises in the arrangement of ideas. He is given, for example, a list of a thousand words, of somewhat kindred nature, and is required to arrange them according to their meanings, so clearly that any one can be found with the least possible effort of mind by another person. He is required to make a table of contents for a book, with an analysis of all it contains. PART II. The pupil is in this part first taught how to apply diagrams and algebra to the solutions of puzzling questions of logic formed by Mr. Peirce on the basis of Boole’s algebra of logic. This includes the logic of relations. The method of aiding the mind by drawing or imagining curves is next taught. Then the art of making numerical scales to aid the judgment about all sorts of observations which seem not to have anything to do with quantity. Also, the art of giving precision to our thoughts by the introduction of the conception of quantity, where at first sight it does not seem to be at all applicable. Next the use that can be made of various conceptions which have hitherto only been employed in mathematics is fully illustrated and the pupil familiarized with them. The doctrine of chances is next taken up and taught mainly by examples, which are made as practical as possible. The theory of errors of observations is explained and its use taught. The principles of insurance are illustrated. PART III. This part teaches how to deal with matters of fact. The pupil has now to make his own observations, because in this kind of reasoning observation and reasoning are inextricably entwined. The first lessons are in judging of a lot of things by a sample, which the pupil selects for himself. Considerable study is paid to the art of picking out a characteristic sample. Next come exercises in the method of detecting regularities in phenomena, and coincidences of all sorts. Quasi-periodic phenomena. Then, exercises in interpolation and extrapolation, and the precautions necessary in this dangerous kind of reasoning. Exercises in explaining facts by making hypotheses, and the whole art of this kind of reasoning. Reading cipher dispatches; solving various kinds of puzzles. The art of guessing. Exercises in asking questions. Exercises in the art of using a library. Exercises in reasoning by analogy, and the precautions necessary.
GENERAL ADVANTAGES OF THE INSTRUCTION. The art of reasoning is the very essence of education. It is the main thing a man goes to college to learn. But the Colleges fail to teach it, as they fail in most of their teaching. There is nothing they fail in so miserably as in this. Mr. Peirce does teach it. He has never had a failure, after the first quarter had shown the pupil was in earnest. Even when he was under the trammels of the university system, he had great success. The entire course, which will occupy two or three years, costs $180. But the pupil is not obliged to interrupt his business in order to take it. On the contrary, Mr. Peirce considers that it is most advantageous for the pupil to have a business, which shall keep his mind bent to practical things, so as to take a serious and practical view of this instruction. Logic as it has been taught is trifling. The very word trivial owes its origin to this circumstance, because logic was the principal study of the trivium or threefold road (grammar, logic, rhetoric) which formed the staple of instruction in the Roman and medieval schools. But the new logic taught by Mr. Peirce is eminently practical; and the great thing is not to allow the pupil to fall into trifling subtleties,—and to teach him to unite scientific profundity and even a philosophical insight with thoroughly practical aims. The practical must never be lost sight of, or the reasoning becomes dry and worthless. Practical exercises form the only instrument by which anything can be taught. If you want to teach a man to box, you must set him to boxing. But you must carefully analyze each motion for him. In other words, the exercises must be analytic. The analytical gymnastics of the mind is what this instruction consists in.
“The entire course, which will occupy two or three years, costs $180.” Peirce divided his correspondence course in “The Art of Reasoning” into quarterly terms of thirty lessons each. The admission tickets allowed students to enroll through Peirce’s field agents for $2, then pay either $8 for ten lessons (top) or $28 for an entire quarter of instruction (bottom). Peirce also provided other installment options when students wrote directly to him. (By permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University.)
SUCCESS IN LIFE DEPENDS LARGELY ON REASONING WELL. It is a fact that the average American can see well enough, that to succeed better than your neighbors, you must be a little smarter than they are. This is felt keenly in Wall Street, where the elements which make the successful man are brought out into vivid distinctness by the contrast in the fate of the successful and the unsuccessful man. Tell the story of Cornelius Vanderbilt and his grandfather.
It is true we see plenty of men who can tell so well exactly how anything should be done; and yet when it comes to doing it they are not there. We also see men who can reason soundly enough, and yet want tact, grace, and subtlety of perception in dealing with men. But it is one of the points of Mr. Peirce’s method that it dwells upon the regions where reasoning shades off into vigor of action, and into observation.
It may be thought that success depends more upon good morals than upon right reason. But the truth is that the best way to teach people morals is to teach them to think.
PEOPLE CAN BE TAUGHT TO THINK. Ignorant and uncultivated people have a strange idea that men cannot be taught to think. The foundation of this is no doubt in part that they observe that educated men often reason no better or not so well as they do themselves. This is because education generally is so ill designed to fulfill its chief purpose. Every function of the body is strengthened by exercise, and if every tissue of the body can learn, how can it be thought that the mind should want the faculty of learning? The truth is, that exercise is immensely more telling on the mind than on the body. Any ordinary man not too old can in three months learn to lift twice the weight he could at the outset. This is an understatement. But in three months mental gymnastics, he can triple or even quintuple his mental energy. Mr. Peirce [ ]
