KINDERGARTENS AND MANUAL TRAINING. 379 



2. They have entirely changed their views as to the relation 

 of the bodily powers to mental training ; and 



3. They have changed their views as to the right time in 

 which to lay the foundations of moral character. 



While these advances were being made in the science of ped- 

 agogy the human body as a means of development for the mind 

 and soul began to be discovered ; and, instead of its being re- 

 garded as a mere shell or scaffolding wholly outside and apart 

 from the unseen nature, it was found out that the " sound body " 

 in which the wisest of the ancients lodged their " sound mind," 

 had much to do with the growth and perfection of the spiritual 

 nature. 



In April of 1891 some of the leading educators of this country 

 held in Boston a conference on manual training ; and we make no 

 apology for copious extracts from the phonographic report of 

 their addresses, as they contain the latest utterances of the per- 

 sons best qualified to speak on the theme we are considering. 



Said President Eliot, of Harvard : " The wisdom of my parents 

 caused me to be taught carpentry and wood-turning before I was 

 fifteen years old while I was yet a member of the Boston Latin 

 School. It has been of great use to me all my life, and a great 

 pleasure. Then, later, after graduating at college, I became a 

 chemist by profession. I studied that difficult science for years, 

 and then I taught it for years. In every science a great deal of 

 manual skill is necessary for the student and the teacher. The 

 progress of the world in natural science during the last century 

 has been greatly due to the trained senses eyes, ears, noses, and 

 fingers of the experts in those sciences. 



" Then for the last twenty years I have seen that one of the 

 great improvements which have been wrought in education in all 

 civilized countries has been the individualization of instruction 

 so as to meet the precise needs and develop the capacities and 

 powers of each individual, at each stage of his development. 



" I am old enough to remember when the brain was supposed 

 to be the seat of the mind, just as the lungs were held to be the 

 furnace that warms the body. I remember being taught that the 

 animal heat was kept up in the lungs, but we all know better 

 now ; we know now that whenever an atom is consumed, in what- 

 ever part of the body, there heat is generated, and therefore that 

 the animal heat pervades the whole organism. It is just so with 

 regard to the human mind : it pervades the body. It is not in the 

 head, but it is all over the body, and when you train the hand or 

 the eye or the ear, you train the mind : manual training is mental 

 training. Never admit that manual training is anything distin- 

 guished from or in opposition to mental training. In the skill of 

 the artist's hand, in the methodical, accurate movement of the 



