[1]: 32 ...The law of connection between the healthful, vigorous and locomotive powers of the muscular system, and the state of the affections and operations of the mind, has not yet been sufficiently investigated.
[1]: 45 According to the trustees of the Lane Seminary: [I]t is to the directors no longer a matter of experiment, but of sober fact, resulting from three or four years experience, that the connexion of three hours daily labor in some useful and interesting employment, with study, protects the health and constitution of our young men; greatly augments their physical energy; furnishes to a considerable extent or entirely, the means of self-education; increases their power of intellectual acquisition; facilitates their actual progress in study; removes the temptation of idleness; confirms their habit of industry; gives them a practical acquaintance with the useful employments of life; fits them for the toils and responsabilities of a new-settled country; and inspires them with the independence of character, and the originality of investigation, which belong peculiarly to self-made and self-educated men.... At the close of the session the students, instead of feeling worn out by their efforts, exhibited as much intellectual and physical energy, and as great an elasticity as is usually found in literary institutions at the beginning of a term.
"[4]: 42 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.
"[6] 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.
Since he was "a living, breathing, and eloquently-speaking exhibit of the results of manual-labor-with-study,"[4]: 42 the brothers, trying to support and encourage him, hired him for a year as an agent of the manual labor movement.
[10]: 31 He was "to find a site for a great national manual labor institution where training for the western ministry could be provided for poor but earnest young men who had dedicated their lives to the home missionary cause in the 'vast valley of the Mississippi.
"[1]: 10 A newspaper published a summary of his report: 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.
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 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.
According to Herbert Lull, the reasons for its failure are: As summarized by Geoffrey Blodgett in his analysis of its quick disappearance at Oberlin: It proved unworkable in both economic and educational terms.
[10]: 40 And in 1917, Oberlin graduate L. L. Nunn founded Deep Springs College, which incorporates a version of the manual labor model into its governing philosophy.