MANUAL OR INDUSTRIAL TRAINING. 387 



with, us in their every-day importance ; and tlieir power of mold- 

 ing social conditions once recognized, the very important query 

 may be considered if they could not be possibly so improved as to 

 secure to the average individual means of subsistence outside of 

 his general culture and the acknowledged moral improvement 

 resulting from it. 



Adaptation of general training to the presumable needs and 

 wants of the individual, rather than to his social requirements, 

 is the programme of the new education that has already modified 

 the old-school routine through the introduction of the psycho- 

 logical basis, and which now proposes manual training as one 

 more step forward. Tried on purely empirical bases, many induc- 

 tions have been arrived at ; still, a general deduction is yet want- 

 ed, before the measure proposed would be worthy of a true peda- 

 gogical interest. 



The pleas for manual training as an educational measure are 

 many, and as the methods employed in instruction must neces- 

 sarily depend upon the end expected, it may not be amiss to exam- 

 ine at least the leading theories. 



Such a critique, nevertheless, based upon the campaign words, if 

 we may so call them, of the different advocates, in the absence of 

 a full exposition of their views, must be made rather in the form 

 of suggestion than otherwise. Thus, the first purpose encount- 

 ered is that of the development of perceptions. One would assume 

 a psychological basis, if the age of the pupil corresponded with 

 the programme in view ; but in the present application perceptions 

 mean sharpness of the sensorium, the first stage of mental growth 

 in the child, generally expected to have been accomplished in the 

 Kindergarten; afterward objective teaching in the elements of 

 natural sciences, aided by collections, etc., would do just as well, 

 and, moreover, would produce as a beneficial result certain gen- 

 eral knowledge not obtainable from the simple manipulation of 

 tools. 



2. " The use of the hand and brain " is a general figure that 

 is certain to be found on every page treating of industrial train- 

 ing. It would do very well indeed if the brains were necessarily 

 taken into co-operation ; but such a general programme depends 

 too much upon the system employed. It will be found entirely 

 unsatisfactory if the means applied be confined to a so-called 

 series of graded exercises in wood or metal work — say cross- 

 cut, rip-saw, nailing, gauging, squaring, etc. — followed, as they 

 generally are, by the x y number of joints about the practical use 

 of which the pupil generally remains in the dark. Brains, if con- 

 sidered independently from their owner, are too apt to be subject 

 to the general law of inertia, and the whole occupation may simply 

 be reduced to an automatic mechanism, especially if it is connected 



