44 



and add the manual training. This has been done by a careful grading of the 

 pupils, by securing better teachers and text-books, and by judicious and care- 

 ful elimination cf the nonessentials in the various branches. 



The time to be given to manual training, so that it will not interfere with 

 efficient instruction in other branches, has been carefully considered, and 

 experiments with regard to this have been tried. Some idea of the time occu- 

 pied l)y manual training in some of our larger cities can be gained from the 

 following statements : In Boston 2 hours per week are devoted to manual 

 training throughout the fourth to ninth grades, inclusive, the boys having, 

 drafting, woodworking, and clay modeling, and the girls sewing and cooking. 

 Manual training in the schools of New York City extends through seven 

 grades, with a total of 4 hours per week for both boys and girls during the 

 first 5i years, and 4^ hours during the second half of the sixth year and all 

 of the seventh year. In the seventh and eighth grades of the Washington 

 schools the girls have <ine 2-hour exercise a week in cooking and sewing, and 

 the boys a sinulnr ])erl(id in woodworking. In Allegheny the l)oys have sliop- 

 work 2^ hours and drawing li hours a week for 3 years, and a supplen)entary 

 course of 1 year. In Toledo each ward school has one manual training period 

 of Ij hours a week. The time devoted to manual training in Los Angeles is 

 two 20-minute periods a week through the first four grades, and three 2.j- 

 minute periods throughout the next four grades. The work includes paper 

 folding and cutting, raffia work, reed basketry, cardboard construction, sloyd, 

 drawing, shop practice, sewing, and cooking. In San Francisco manual train- 

 ing for boys includes one lesson per week of 50 to GO minutes in the seventh 

 and eighth grades. Comparatively few of the schools having manual training 

 give less than an hour a \Aeek to this work, and the great majority allow 2 

 or more hours for it. In most cases the work extends over 3, 4, or more 

 years. The average cost of the plant for manual training in the 270 cities 

 reporting work of this kind in 1902 (not including manual training high 

 schools) was $20,000, making a total investment for this purpose of $5,400,000. 

 The current expenditures for teachers, materials, tools, etc, in 1901-2 were 

 nearly $1,000,000. 



MOVEMENT TO INTRODITCE AGRICULTURE INTO THE RURAL SCHOOLS. 



More recently there has developed a movement to introduce the elements of 

 agriculture into the rural schools. This movement has been largely an out- 

 growth of the nature study movement which for a number of years has been 

 encouraged by such agencies as the Cornell University Bureau of Nature Study 

 and the agricultural colleges in a number of other States, as well as by many 

 prominent educators connected with other kinds of schools and colleges. Then 

 came the school garden movement, and in this as in the nature study movement 

 the city schools have led th ise in the country, partly because the children in the 

 city schools have taken a greater interest in such work on account of its novelty 

 to them, and partly because the city schools through better organization and 

 equipment and speci;il teachers have been able to make experiments of this kind 

 more readily than the rural schools. In these experiments, as might have been 

 expected, mistakes were made. Nature study, according to some of its advo- 

 cates, was to be elementary science, with a long list of scientific names, with 

 classifications based on stipules, scales, and caudal api)endages, and with a 

 " why " for everything. It involved such a universal knowledge of science thiit 

 teachers were appalled at the prospect of having to prepare for the innovation. 

 On the other hand, some of the advocates of nature study ^^■ould have no for- 

 ]nality, no classification, no plan — whatever came to hand was a subject for 

 nature study. Facts were to be learned, not because of any bearing that they 

 might have upon the synnnetric.al develoi)ment of the children's faculties, but 

 simply because they were interesting. There was no logical beginning to such 

 study, no pedagogical sequence, no end. Fortunately there were other teachers 

 and students of education who took neither of these extreme views, but who 

 saw in nature study an oitportunity to bring the children into more sympathetic 

 and helpful relations with their natural environment, and at the same time 

 increase their fund of useful knowledge. These teachers, when located in city 

 schools, have brought to the consideration of their nature study classes the 

 trees, shrubs, flowers, and vines found around the city homes, in the jiarks, and 

 in the lawns, and have studied the insects, birds, and other animal life of the 

 city in relation to this plant life. In the country they have considered the 

 plants, animals, birds, and insects which surround the farmer and aid or hinder 

 him in his work, giving much attention to their economic importance and very 



