MANUAL TRAINING. 59 



and involves lathe work in turning as well as the use of the sim- 

 ple hand tools. Four or five patterns are made during the first 

 year. As far as possible each one brings out some new principle 

 and is made a trifle more difficult than its predecessor. The work 

 requires not a little patience and perseverance, for no pieces are 

 accepted which show either inaccurate dimensions or careless 

 workmanship. These two departments comprise the wood work 

 of the year. 



Meanwhile the metal work has also been progressing. Each 

 boy has his bench with its vise and accompanying tools, chisels 

 and files, calipers, and rules. The work of the first term con- 

 sists entirely of chipping and filing. The rough blanks of cast 

 iron have approximately the form of the finished exercise, but 

 they are larger in all their dimensions and their faces are just 

 as they come from the molding sand. To dress them down to 

 the right dimensions, to make the faces smooth and true, the 

 angles right, and later to fit the pieces together so that no line 

 of light shall be visible when they are held up in front of a 

 window or no jamming or friction noticeable when they are 

 taken apart all this requires nice workmanship, the sort that 

 comes only when we put a great deal of effort into it. It is exact- 

 ing work and must not be carried too far, or the little workers 

 grow discouraged. Smithing is also begun during the first year. 

 With the opening of the second term the vise work is reduced to 

 three hours a week, and the two hours thus gained are given to 

 smithing. The first exercises are very simple, mere bars of given 

 dimensions, and are done in lead before they are attempted in 

 iron. The use of the tools and the proper way of handling the 

 pieces may thus be learned more leisurely than is possible with 

 red-hot metal. The anvil chorus is here given every day, the 

 little Vulcans half masters and half mastered in the new set of 

 conditions attendant upon the glowing forges. They are taught 

 to draw the metal, to upset, to weld, to forge, and in general to 

 go through all the typical smithing operations. The work is de- 

 cidedly picturesque. It introduces a new element, that of time, 

 for the metal must be fashioned while it is hot, and makes there- 

 fore a new demand upon the worker he must needs be alert as 

 well as painstaking. ' 



The majority of schools do not follow quite this sequence in 

 their manual work. It is customary to make the joinery and 

 vise work of the first term extend uninterruptedly throughout the 

 rest of the junior year. The plan of making the joinery alternate 

 with pattern-making and the vise work with smithing has been 

 introduced at the Northeast School for a double reason. The vise 

 work, by its very nature, is slow and rather monotonous. It 

 seems to us unwise to dull the boy's interest in his work at the 



