^V AMERICAN MANUAL TRAINING-SCHOOL. 6z\ 



THE FUXCTIOXS OF AX AMEEICAX MANUAL 



TKAIOTXG-SCHOOL* 



By Professor C. M. WOODWARD, Pn. D., 



OF THE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY, ST. LOUIS. 



WITH his gentle lance Emerson pricked many a bubble, and, 

 though collapse did not always follow immediately, the wound 

 was always fatal. In 1844, in his essay on New England reformers, 

 he charged popular education with a want of truth and nature. He 

 complained that an education to things was not given. Said he : " We 

 are students of words ; we are shut up in schools and colleges and 

 recitation-rooms for ten or fifteen years, and come out at last with a 

 bag of wind, a memory of words, and do not know a thing. We can 

 not use our hands, or our legs, or our eyes, or our arms." And again, 

 speaking of the exclusive devotion of the schools to Latin, Greek, and 

 mathematics, " which, by a wonderful drowsiness of usage " had been 

 " stereotyped education, as the manner of men is," he says : " In a 

 hundred high-schools and colleges this warfare against common sense 

 still goes on. ... Is it not absurd that the whole liberal talent of this 

 country should be directed in its best years on studies that lead to 

 nothing?" 



This is evidently too severe, bat we must admit that Emerson 

 anticipated and greatly aided a reform which has been gathering 

 strength for a whole generation. Hence it is to-day scarcely neces- 

 sary that I should present arguments in favor of manual education. 

 The great tidal-wave of conviction is sweeping over our whole land, 

 and the attitude and aspect of men are greatly changed from what 

 they were ten years ago. What I said in 1873 in a public address in 

 favor of technical education was held to be rank heresy. I fear it 

 would be regarded as rather commonplace to-day. The progressive 

 spirit of the age has actually penetrated our thick hides, and we are 

 trying to keep step with the universe. 



In every community the demands of technical education have been 

 discussed, and, in every instance when the old system has been sub- 

 jected to the tests which good sense applies to business, it has been 

 found wanting. 



Defective Education. Is, then, I ask is the education we give 

 as broad and round and full as it ought to be ? Is the time of tute- 

 lage most wisely spent ? Do the results we secure justify the means 

 and methods we use ? Is the relation between education and morality 

 as close as it should be ? Does our education fill the definition of 



* Address delivered at Saratoga Springs, New York, on Thursday, July 13th, before 

 the joint meeting of the National Teachers' Association and the American Institute of 

 Instruction. 



