TECHNICAL EDUCATION. 475 



TECHNICAL EDUCATION. 



Br A. CURTIS BOND. 



THE general increase in schools of design, technical schools, and 

 like institutions, has created no little comment, and given rise, to 

 some extent, to opposition. 



It is a difficult matter to reconcile the differences between the op- 

 ponents and those who favor this form of instruction, for the reason 

 that the question, in a measure, is one of pecuniary interest to both 

 parties. 



There are many instances in which technical education may justly 

 be claimed to be a necessity, and naturally, in those professions which 

 demand a knowledge or a character of schooling, that can be more 

 thoroughly conveyed by means of that which instructs in the theories 

 of a craft or art, as distinct from its practice. 



In the case of the architect, for example, nature may indicate the 

 urgencies of the profession ; it provides for the beautiful, for the 

 attractive features, but the details it avoids ; teachers must show the 

 mechanical portions of the work, and instruct in the principles which 

 make the building possible and form a support for the decorative exte- 

 rior. The necessity of such teachings was recognized by early nations, 

 and in their architecture and designing its value was taken into con- 

 sideration, and its spirit must have existed among the early Aryans, 

 as its materialized form did with the skilled and finished draughtsmen 

 of Egypt and Greece. 



We may easily realize the increased need of technical training to- 

 day over the necessity of two thousand years ago. At that time, the 

 artist himself did the work, the actual labor ; he evolved the idea and 

 executed it, the brain that conceived the thought guided the hand that 

 gave that thought substance and shape. Every touch of the chisel 

 imparted life, for the spirit of the worker went into the stone, and it 

 was molded and shaped by the genius of the thinker. Now it is me- 

 chanical : the artist originates, others execute, and this execution must 

 follow patterns, designs, plans. No scope is given the workman ; he is 

 bound by lines beyond which he dare not go, and his fancy, if he has 

 any, serves naught in the creation of his subject ; drawings control 

 this creation, and the living translator of those drawings, from what 

 was in the past an intelligent reasoner, has become in the present an 

 automatic machine. 



Disposing thus of a man's individuality, some means are essential 

 to convey the thought of the designer into the hand of the worker, 

 and customs have grown and laws have been adopted that will serve 

 as a sort of mental telegraph between these two laws which govern 

 the flight of the artist's fancy and instruct the artisan in an under- 



