MANUAL TRAINING. 807 



measure of life too large to permit dying and too small to permit 

 living. What we need for such an evolution is radiant boys, 

 breathing the full breath of life and health, thinking clearly, feel- 

 ing deeply, rich in the fine riches of the human spirit, the riches 

 that come from the expanding and unfolding of the human 

 faculties. 



This is an ideal boy, but it is not an impossible boy. He is a 

 boy of flesh and blood firm flesh and pure blood and he shall 

 not be driven out by any cry of Utopian ! 



It is the sort of boy I have in mind when I pronounce that 

 word which should be a magician's word, the Open Sesame to 

 many a human wonder, the word Education. It is by this stand- 

 ard that I must try all methods of education, manual training 

 among the, rest. It is not so much whether they produce this 

 type of boy we live in a world of the imperfect, one whose beau- 

 ties are daily sung by the minor poets but whether they have it 

 in mind to produce them, and do actually tend that way. 



Now, I have tried to show that manual training has its face 

 turned toward this perfection, and that it does realize a first step 

 toward its attainment. It is this feeling that urges upon us the 

 necessity of other steps. I see very clearly where we should be- 

 gin. We should begin with the naked boy. It is not enough to 

 impress his head. It is not enough to impress his hands. Life is 

 a question of the whole body. I am trying at the present moment 

 to introduce physical examination into our own school, and to 

 place our work upon a sound physiological basis. It is an inno- 

 vation. I do not know whether I shall succeed. Society at 

 present furnishes us with a supply of very imperfect boys, fur- 

 nishes to us who are a set of very imperfect teachers. Between 

 us, imperfect units on both sides, the process of education is to be 

 realized. It is very evident that the remedy for all this is the 

 generation of a more perfect race. And this dream should be the 

 ever-present dream of education. By entertaining it, it will be- 

 come less and less Utopian, and more and more American. There 

 is no reason why we should not realize it. There is every reason 

 why we should. We have only to believe more in men and less 

 in things. 



But, meanwhile, the imperfection is here, and the problem is 

 how to deal with it. 



It has struck me for some time past that the friends of dark- 

 ness are more successful than we, the friends of light, because 

 they so persistently address themselves to the means of accom- 

 plishing their purpose, and only gloat occasionally over the end ; 

 while we, with better purpose and nobler end, we, with education 

 and the universe on our side, are so constantly failing because we 

 set our eyes on the end, and its glories blind us to the means. 



