30 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



boilers by men who would turn out dime novels or problem plays just 

 as cheerfully if the literary current set in that direction. The student 

 of realities in nature and the " nature-fakir " are not on speaking terms 

 with each other. 



Once the students cuts entirely loose from real objects, and spends 

 his days among diacritical marks, irregular conjugations and distinc- 

 tions without difference, his orientation is lost. He loses the distinction 

 between what is inherently true and what is true by agreement among 

 men. He does not go far enough to touch bottom again in the real 

 science of philology. And the average American boy quits the high 

 school in disgust because he can not interpret its work in terms of 

 life — he can not see how its work is related to the world of things as 

 they are. 



As to the relative value of the sciences, that is a minor question. 

 Those sciences are best which give largest play for observation and judg- 

 ment. Those sciences are best which can be taught best, with most 

 accuracy and most enthusiasm. In general, it is better to teach one 

 science well than two imperfectly, and the reason for teaching any 

 science is its helpfulness to the mind, not the fact that there may be 

 money in knowing it. But to have any value at all the science we teach 

 must deal with realities, not book-science. " If you study nature in 

 books, when you go out of doors you can not find her." 



And this, too, is a reason why manual training of some sort ought 

 to form some part of every well-balanced school course. Training of 

 the hand is really training of the brain. This is a motor world we 

 live in — a world in which men do things. We of America are preemi- 

 nently a motor people. We do things. What can I do with it is the 

 first interest of every child. And to learn to do things with the hand 

 is of greater value as mental training than the disentanglement of 

 phrases, or the memorizing of lists of verbal irregularities. The devel- 

 opment of manual training of some sort for all boys and girls will 

 represent the greatest immediate forward step in secondary education. 

 But the purpose of this training must be intellectual, not to teach a 

 trade, and only secondarily to fit for the engineering courses of the 

 universities. 



As the third of the three most important duties of the high school, 

 I would place the mastery of English. The student ought to learn 

 how to write good English — clear, accurate and straightforward. He 

 should read enough good English to know it when it is written. He 

 should study poetry enough to know what it is about, and if he is to 

 do any memorizing, there is nothing that enriches the mind so much 

 as the memory of good verse. I do not know how good English can 

 be taught. Most of the students who use it seem to have grown up in 

 it rather than to have learned it in the schools. But it is the most 



