MANUAL TRAINING IN SCHOOL EDUCATION. 495 



naturally lead up to it. The endeavor of all educators should be to 

 establish such a relation between school instruction and the occupa- 

 tions of life as to prevent any break of continuity in passing from one 

 to the other. The methods by which we gain information and expe- 

 rience in the busy world should be identical with those adopted in 

 schools. 



It is because the opposite theory has so long prevailed, that our 

 school-training has proved so inadequate a preparation for the real 

 work of life. This was not the case in former times ; and the demand 

 for technical instruction, both in our elementary and in our secondary 

 schools, is a protest against the contrast which has so long existed 

 between the subjects and methods of school-teaching and the practi- 

 cal work of every-day life. 



We are always justly complaining that in this country children leave 

 school at too young an age, before they can have had time to properly 

 assimilate the knowledge they have acquired, with the result that they 

 soon forget a great part of the little they have learned. At the age of 

 fifteen or sixteen, when they begin to feel the want of technical 

 instruction, they are wholly unprepared to avail themselves of the op- 

 portunities for obtaining it now brought within their reach. It is to 

 remedy this state of things that continuation schools and recreative 

 classes are much needed. But there can be little doubt, if elementary 

 education were made more practical, that parents would be more 

 willing, even at some sacrifice, to let their children benefit by it. 

 They are often led to take their children away from school, because 

 they do not see much use in the " schooling." Of course, the desire 

 to secure the child's early earnings operates in very many cases ; but 

 I am convinced that it would be easier to persuade parents to forego 

 these earnings, if the school-teaching had more direct reference to the 

 work in which the children are likely to be subsequently occupied. 



Now, in order that manual training may serve the purpose of an 

 intellectual discipline, the methods of instruction must be carefully 

 considered. That the training of the hand and eye, and the develop- 

 ment of the mental faculties, are the true objects of the instruction 

 should never be lost sight of. In many respects, the instruction should 

 partake of the character of an ordinary object-lesson. Before the pupil 

 commences to apply his tools to the material in hand, he should learn 

 something of its nature and properties. The teacher, in a few words 

 introductory to each lesson, should explain to his pupils the distin- 

 guishing characteristics of different kinds of wood, as met with in the 

 shop and as found in Nature, and also the differences in the structure 

 and properties of wood according to its sections, treatment, etc. And 

 he should illustrate his lessons by reference to specimens and exam- 

 ples, a collection of which should be found in every school workshop. 

 Something should be said of the countries from which timber is im- 

 ported, and the conditions under which it is bought and sold, and in 



