MANUAL OR INDUSTRIAL TRAINING. 389 



any particular number of lessons, appears too sanguine altogether 

 if compared with actual reality. It is true that a given number of 

 lessons of practical instruction in the tool-house may give quite a 

 broad understanding of the elements of the trade to students con- 

 versant with its theoretical knowledge ; but such is not granted, 

 and hardly possible, in the case spoken of. Theoretical mechanics 

 calls for its quota of higher mathematics, which is here outside of 

 the question. Practically, then, we run the risk of turning out 

 Jacks of all trades and masters of none. The pupil graduating from 

 any of these departments will in the best of cases be an indiffer- 

 ent artisan. He will certainly have acquired an acquaintance with 

 tools, and will possess considerable insight into the special arts, 

 but empirical, detached, and uncorrelated as his knowledge would 

 be about the processes, the habitual routine, a good portion of 

 life's experience, will be still wanted to make him a desirable arti- 

 cle in the industrial market. Besides, although it unmistakably 

 would increase the efficiency of our workingmen, public schools 

 can not be converted into special trade schools. Thus it is clear 

 that the field is open as yet for a theory and practice in industrial 

 training, which, taking hold of the necessities felt, and basing a 

 system of instruction upon a rational method of analysis of the 

 age of the pupil and his other educational requirements, would 

 ■ suggest a method that would finally bring the discipline within 

 the ranks of serious educational measures. 



The understanding of the cause of a given movement is almost 

 equivalent to the mastery of the movement. Considering the 

 increased interest in industrial training, one can perceive in it 

 the reaction of two great demands for change and relief — to wit, 

 the economical industrial, and the educational proper. In indus- 

 try, the world, propelled by the advance in knowledge of natural 

 sciences, has outgrown the old apprentice system. Sciences ap- 

 plied have made the old trade secrets a tradition of the past. 

 The multiplicity of machinery has made the special skill of hand- 

 work, previously so important, only a secondary consideration ; it 

 has also occasioned a subdivision of labor so definite and minute, 

 as apparently to make even the special knowledge of a whole 

 trade not indispensable, so long as a workingman may simply be 

 continually employed to attend to some special machine. The 

 result of such industrial development, considered from that point 

 of view, has only diminished the need of personal initiative, and 

 gradually changed the " previous master of tools into the tool of 

 a machine." New patents, improvements in process or machinery, 

 introduction of new devices, so frequent in industry to-day, have 

 diminished also the permanency of employment. A special 

 worker or feeder on. x y patent machine becomes obsolete as 

 soon as x' y' replace the previously used x y ; and, one-sidedly 



