62 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



is done, and it is done, I believe, in a livelier and happier spirit. 

 It is quite possible that the boy himself places a higher value 

 upon the project than upon the process, but no harm is done. It 

 does not change their relative values. I am disposed to believe, 

 too, that the more unconscious the spirit in which a boy works 

 the finer will be his results. It is not necessary to be forever sug- 

 gesting to him that he is being educated. It is quite enough if 

 we older people keep that in mind. The boy himself had much 

 better be engaged with the activities through which we propose 

 to educate him. When one has been teaching for some years let 

 us say for seven, so that I may speak from experience one comes 

 to value increasingly the quality of unconsciousness. The ma- 

 chinery of education ought to be kept strictly out of sight. The 

 child nature is at its best when it is spontaneous. The post-grad- 

 uate course is still tentative. The chief feature in the present 

 plan is the elective character of the manual work. Three courses 

 are offered in art, engineering, and chemistry. It is possible that, 

 with the incorporation of the fourth year into the undergraduate 

 curriculum, groups of parallel studies will be made elective. 



I have been trying to tell, in a very plain and unvarnished 

 way, just what we do at a manual training school. In the next 

 paper I hope to tell why we do it, and, having done it, what it 

 leads to. 



-- 



THE SWISS WATCH SCHOOLS. 



By THEODOEE B. WILLSON. 



ONE need not be specially interested in watchmaking in order 

 to be fascinated with what he will see of watches and watch 

 work in Switzerland. 



The great number of jewelers' shops in the cities, displaying 

 watches in every conceivable form and setting as eight-day 

 watches, watches in pencils, studs, cane-heads, bracelets, rings, 

 etc. will be sure to make him loiter fascinated in front of each 

 window he passes. For minute and ingenious work the Swiss 

 outdo the world. Indeed, to what an extent the Swiss are fur- 

 nishing the world with its pocket time may be guessed from the 

 estimated exports in that line, which are now said to exceed 

 twenty million dollars annually, and this figure can hardly in- 

 clude that unknown amount of such wares bought to some ex- 

 tent by almost every tourist as a present or a souvenir. In almost 

 every European country the watches offered for sale are in large 

 part Swiss. The only rival of the Swiss watch is the American, 

 and even here, despite our development of the industry and high 

 tariffs, the smaller patterns are chiefly Swiss. 



