6z8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



is the plea of mine for an education to things ; for a training of the 

 hand and eye as well as the intellect to lives of useful employment ! 

 Yet half the colleges in the United States ape the English universities, 

 and half the high-schools ape the colleges. 



The result of all this has been a certain false sestheticism which 

 turns away from the materialism of our new notions. The highly cul- 

 tivated would soar away into purer air and nobler spheres. There is a 

 feeling more or less clearly expressed that the material world is gross 

 and unrefined ; that soiled hands are a reproach ; that the garb of a 

 mechanic necessarily clothes a person of sordid tastes and low desires. 

 As Dr. Eliot, of St. Louis, has expressed it, " It is thought to be a sad 

 descent for a university whose aim should be the highest education to 

 stoop to the recognition of handcrafts of the mechanic." 



Manual Education. Perhaps no better general statement of the 

 new creed has been made than that of Stephen A. Walker, in a speech 

 already referred to. He put it for us thus : " Education of the hand 

 and the eye should go along, pari passu, with the education of the 

 mind. We believe in making good workmen as well as in making 

 educated intellects. We think these are things that can be done at 

 the same time, and our proposition is that they can be done better to- 

 gether than separately." 



As I said in the beginning, this proposition is meeting with general 

 favor among the people. I have pointed out the sources of some of 

 the opposition ; it remains for me to touch upon the two objections 

 which I surmise are about the only ones in the minds of my hearers. 

 You ask first, " Is your proposition practicable ? " You doubt the feasi- 

 bility of uniting in a real school such incongruous elements as arith- 

 metic and carpentry, history and blacksmithing. You fear either that 

 the shop-work will demoralize the school, or that the shop-work will 

 never rise above the dignity of a mere pastime. 



!NTow, I claim not only that what I propose can be done, but that it 

 has been done in St. Louis, and perhaps elsewhere as well. 



Organization of a Manual Training - School. Professor 

 Thompson, in his valuable essay on the apprenticeship schools of 

 France, classifies French technical schools under four heads : 



1. The school in the workshop or factory. 



2. The workshop in the school. 



3. The school and the shop side by side. 



4. The half-time schools. 



To the first class the school is subordinate to the factory ; the boys 

 or girls learn a particular trade, and everything in the school as well 

 as in the shop is designed to meet the wants of those expecting to 

 enter the particular trade. For obvious reasons there can be no gen- 

 eral adoption of such a combination in the country. Professor Thomp- 

 son gives his verdict in favor of the school and the shop side by side, 

 though there is much to recommend the second plan. 



