334 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



hand — tends rather, indeed, to make it too heavy. Moreover, the 

 work is rather hard for children. In basket-work, the fingers alone 

 are exercised ; few tools are required or mastered, the younger children 

 can not finish off a basket, and it is an additional disadvantage that 

 the work is done sitting. Bookbinding is too limited and too difficult ; 

 moreover, it does not afford sufficient opportunities of progressive diffi- 

 culty. Work with cardboard is in many respects very suitable, but it 

 trains the fingers rather than the hand, and does not sufficiently de- 

 velop the bodily vigor. On the whole, then, working in wood is rec- 

 ommended, and it is remarkable that it was long ago suggested by 

 Rousseau : 



Tout bien consider^, le metier que j'aimerais le mieux qui fut du goutde mon 

 eleve est celui de menuisier. II est propre, il est utile, il peut s'exercer dans la 

 maison, il tient suffisainment le corps en haleine ; il exige dans 1'ouvrier de 

 J'adresse et de l'industrie et dans la forme des ouvrages que l'utilite determine, 

 F61egance et^e gout ne sont pas exclus. 



Abrahamson has prepared a hundred models, which the children 

 are successively taught to make, commencing with a very easy form, 

 and passing on to others more and more difficult. The series begins 

 with a simple wooden peg, and the series includes a paper-knife, spoon, 

 shovel, axe-handle, flower-stand, mallet, boot-jack, a cubic decimetre, a 

 mason's level, chair, butter-mold, and ends with a milk-pail. 



When the model is finished it is inspected. If unsatisfactory, it is 

 destroyed ; yet if it passes muster, the child is allowed to take it home. 

 It is all his own work ; no one has helped. It is, indeed, found impor- 

 tant that the children should make something which they can carry 

 away, and much stress is laid on the condition that they should make 

 it entirely themselves, from the beginning to the end. If one does 

 one part, and one another, if one begins and another finishes it, neither 

 practically takes much interest in it. 



The objects made are all useful. At first, some were selected 

 which were playthings, or merely ornamental, but the parents took 

 little interest in articles of this character ; they were regarded as mere 

 waste of time, and have gradually been discarded. 



The different objects must be gradually more difficult. When the 

 child is able to make any model satisfactorily, he passes on to the 

 next. He must never be kept doing the same thing over and over 

 again. Useless repetition is almost sure to disgust. The man has to 

 do the same thing over and over again, but the child works to learn, 

 not to live. 



Lastly, I may mention that the objects selected are such as not to 

 require any expensive outlay in the matter of tools. 



The result, we are assured, gives much satisfaction to the parents, 

 and great pleasure to the children. 



A weak point in our present educational system is, that it does not 



