MANUAL OR INDUSTRIAL TRAINING. 395 



vantageously than the training of the hand and eye principle. 

 This, as we saw, belongs duly to the fitting-school and not the 

 college. 



Thus sciences are found to-day to call for an adequate ele- 

 mentary preparation, and this one requires, as we have seen, an 

 adequate training of the senses to be begun at the natural age 

 alongside of certain elements of knowledge. It is ridiculous to 

 expect that such a minutely specialized field as that covered by 

 the sciences to-day should suddenly be successfully approached by 

 some mysterious roundabout way, and through the study, say, of 

 Roman antiquities and the like, which have no bearing whatso- 

 ever either on the theory or practice of sciences or on the induct- 

 ive reasoning found so important in these branches. Detached 

 facts, with which you have to begin, may be easily seized and 

 remembered by a boy of twelve, but they escape the mnemonic 

 power of a young man from college ; and if collegiate higher in- 

 struction is to bring fruits and actual results, its higher working 

 must be free from elementary difficulties. We do not expect a 

 young man who had not mastered arithmetic to begin calculus ; 

 and there is just as much discrepancy between atomic theory, 

 specific heats, etc., and the experiments of the burning of a can- 

 dle, hydrogen and oxygen generation, the piece of chalk and vine- 

 gar, etc. 



So far, then, the future of industrial interests at large demands 

 a general practical preparation replacing the old apprentice sys- 

 tem. It is claimed for such a system that it would enable the 

 workingman, through the command of adequate knowledge, to 

 become free from his present bondage, and make him again the 

 master, instead of the tool — not of capital, as some socialist friends 

 would declare, but of his true superior and master, the powerful 

 automaton, the machine. On the other hand, we find also a simi- 

 lar necessity claimed by the scientific professions. Equally with 

 other concerns, one can but recognize that agricultural interests 

 could be fully benefited only by the measure recommended, and 

 that the business part of the population would hardly lose their 

 time spent in training, as specialization in industry calls for an 

 adequate specialization in business. Some general kind of techni- 

 cal or industrial knowledge would be easily appreciated by any 

 business man, either behind his desk, in selling and buying, or in 

 his leisure hours at home, where it would be found a valuable 

 source of healthy exercise and recreation. The omnivalence, ^ 

 therefore, of manual or industrial training once granted, its 

 methods may be now approached. 



From the start it is evident that, instead of forming the ad- 

 ditional fifth wheel of our pedagogical vehicle, the measure 

 spoken of is entitled probably to a good half of the total traction. 



