MANUAL TRAINING IN SCHOOL EDUCATION. 501 



and aptitude for the real work of their life, and so educated as to be 

 able to apply to that work the results of scientific teaching and scien- 

 tific methods. 



In organizing a scheme of technical teaching in connection with 

 our elementary schools, the difficulty has to be met of obtaining good 

 teachers and competent inspectors. The artisan, who is a skillful 

 workman and nothing more, may succeed in teaching the elements 

 of carpentry and joinery ; but he is not the kind of teacher needed. 

 It is of the utmost importance that the instructor should be a good 

 draughtsman, should have some knowledge of physical science, should 

 be an expert workman, and should have studied the art of teaching. 

 To obtain at first such ideal instructors would be impossible ; but 

 there is no reason why, gradually, they should not be trained. Two 

 processes suggest themselves. We might take a well-trained ele- 

 mentary teacher, having an aptitude for mechanical arts, and give 

 him a course of instruction in the use of tools, either in a technical 

 school or in an ordinary workshop ; or, we might take an intelligent 

 artisan, who had studied science and drawing in some of the excellent 

 evening classes which are now found in almost every town, and give 

 him a short course of lessons on method in relation to workshop in- 

 struction. Good teachers might be obtained by either of these pro- 

 cesses. Perhaps the latter is preferable, as it is most important that 

 the teacher who is to inspire confidence should be a good workman to 

 start with and thoroughly familiar with the practice of his trade. For 

 such intelligent and educated artisans there is, I hope, a future of 

 profitable employment. It would be well, however, that in all our 

 technical colleges opportunities should be afforded to teachers in 

 elementary schools of acquiring practice in the use of tools ; and 

 that special training - classes should be formed for artisans, in the 

 organization of workshops and in the best methods of workshop 

 teaching. 



Nearly all educationists have pointed out the many advantages of 

 enabling children at an early age to realize the connection between 

 knowing and doing. Comenius has well said, "Let those things that 

 have to be done be learned by doing them." Rousseau has pithily 

 expressed a similar idea in saying : " Souvenez-vous qu'en toute chose 

 vos lecons doivent etre plus en actions qu'en discours ; car les enfants 

 oublient aisement ce qu'ils ont dit et ce qu'on leur a dit, mais non pas 

 ce qu'ils ont fait et ce qu'on leur a fait." (Remember that in every- 

 thing your lessons ought to be more in actions than in speech ; for 

 children easily forget what they have said and what has been said to 

 them, but not what they have done and what has been done to them.) 

 Locke, speaking of the education of a gentleman for in his day the 

 education of the poorer classes was scarcely thought of says, "I 

 would have him learn a trade, a manual trade" ; and Emerson, in 

 the choice words, "Manual labor is the study of the external world," 



