MANUAL OR INDUSTRIAL TRAINING. 393 



been seen standing for hours before tbat mysterious automaton, a 

 steam-engine, his little body unconsciously following the motion 

 of the fly-wheel, his eyes fixed intensely upon the valves or gears. 

 On inquiry he may have given you satisfactory explanations 

 about the workijig of the engine, describing minutely its parts 

 and the way they are put together, information that he had ac- 

 quired incidentally and all by himself; and yet the same boy, 

 after a year or so in the school, would have often been pronounced 

 a dunce by his learned teacher, and specially without any love for 

 natural sciences. Why ? Simply on account of his inability to 

 recite correctly the generally incorrect definitions. Many a bright 

 school companion of the writer, having in him all the material 

 wanted to make a splendid technical student or scientist, became 

 a classical literary nobody on account of tlie definitions. Then, 

 again, what a horrible crime, was it not, to have dirty and lacer- 

 ated fingers, resulting from some little galvanoplastics or the like ! 

 " So ungentlemanly " was another time-honored intellectual ob- 

 struction. It may have saved a few dollars' worth of clothes, and 

 even taught some so-called respectability to the boy, but it killed 

 many a good brain. 



Gradually, nevertheless, things began to change; actual ex- 

 periments began to accompany the horrid book of definitions. 

 It is true the teacher, himself generally a very inefficient practi- 

 cal worker, kept all the apjDaratus locked up, and only on extra 

 occasions was the glass closet opened ; but then, what a joy ! 

 what an interest ! what a number of never-ending questions ! 

 "When of a sudden down came the marks for noise, disrespect 

 toward the teacher, speaking without permission, and so on. The 

 presence, however, of the apparatus, even behind the glass doors 

 of the closet, strongly contributed to the general interest in the 

 matter. How eagerly did we not study our abhorred definitions 

 and work for good marks, so as to have the privilege of taking out 

 the apparatus from the closet ! 



In college the collection was more complete, and you had even 

 the right to touch the apparatus, although the teacher alone per- 

 formed the experiments. Soon, however, came the greatest and 

 the most charming of innovations, laboratory experimental work, 

 and finally regular laboratory instruction, when of a sudden — 

 eyes did not see, nose refused to smell, in chemistry ; fingers were 

 found clumsy and the dimensions badly guessed at in physics. 

 Broken glass without end, cut fingers innumerable, miserable 

 experience with the apparatus, that generally refused to work, 

 discouraged many a scholar, especially if the not always good- 

 humored professor or his assistant repeatedly pronounced the 

 melancholy decree: "You will never accomplish anything, Mr. 

 So-and-so. You can not see, you do not smell, you do not recog- 



