THE PHILOSOPHY OF MANUAL TRAINING. 323 



Some one, I believe, has been pleased to calculate that the effi- 

 ciency of school work depends upon the equipment to the extent of 

 only fifteen per cent, and upon the 'personnel of the teaching force 

 to the extent of eighty-five per cent. You remember, perhaps, what 

 was said of Mark Hopkins: Put Mark Hopkins on one end of a 

 plank, and a boy on the other end, and you have a university. I do 

 not think these estimates are exaggerated. It is the human element 

 that counts. 



The bulk of our secondary education in America is carried on in 

 the public schools, and there is much to be said in favor of this 

 arrangement, and somewhat to be said against it. The fortunes of 

 these schools are for the most part in the hands of boards of educa- 

 tion, which are composed mainly of prominent and successful busi- 

 ness men — men with a large turn for affairs, and scant patience with 

 the theorizing of philosophers. It is noteworthy that the class of 

 problems with which these men have principally to deal in their pri- 

 vate affairs are concerned with material ends, and it is only natural 

 that, when they come to turn their hands to public affairs, the 

 material aspect of things should most claim their attention and 

 energy. I say that it is only natural. It is none the less unfortunate. 



Now, the personnel of the. teaching force is just one of those 

 immaterial problems with which these popular committees are both 

 by training and disposition least prepared to deal. It constitutes, I 

 think, a particular weakness in public education, and one that we can 

 only overcome by taking the practical conduct of education more 

 and more out of the hands of those admirable citizens whom we may 

 call the friends of education, and putting the matter more and more 

 into the hands of men and women specially trained for this most 

 important service. 



When you come to the carrying out of a special scheme of educa- 

 tion, such as manual training, you will readily see that its methods 

 necessarily depend very largely upon teacher psychology, and I pro- 

 pose to devote the first part of this paper, which has to do with the 

 methods of manual training, to an examination of the attitude of 

 mind which the teacher of manual training brings to his work. 



There are, of course, as many views of manual training as there 

 are people thinking about it, but in a broad way there are two very 

 distinct and I may say somewhat antagonistic views. These are not, 

 however, views which men and women have looked upon and de- 

 liberately elected. They are much more organic than that. They 

 are views which have grown out of their daily living, and represent 

 their unconscious attitude toward life itself. This genesis gives them 

 both the respectability that is inherent in all honest opinion, and. 

 also the fixity that is the most hopeless quality in prejudice. I may, 



