THE PHILOSOPHY OF MANUAL TRAINING. 329 



themselves solely to the outer event, and leave thfe motive, the idea 

 back of it all, quite undisturbed. The real pivot upon which the 

 manual training movement swings is in the idea. In presenting 

 manual training to you as a scheme in which two opposite and 

 antagonistic ideals are now contending for the mastery, I do but 

 state the fact. But I have large faith that the educational ideal will 

 ultimately prevail, and this in spite of the fact that the schools them- 

 selves — that is, the manual training schools proper — are largely in 

 the hands of the industrialists, and avowedly represent the artisan 

 point of view. I have tried to do full justice to that point of view, 

 and I want to say again that as a substitute for the commercial train- 

 ing of the average high school, with its bookkeeping, and commercial 

 arithmetic and commercial geography, and commercial ideas of life 

 generally, even the artisan training is a marked advance. It is to be 

 welcomed by all who value a more sturdy living and who esteem 

 power. As a man, the decent artisan is infinitely ahead of the smug 

 shopkeeper. Furthermore, the same artisan point of view, by cul- 

 tivating self-reliance, by spreading self-supporting ideas of life, by 

 imparting useful skill, by encouraging self-activity, does render a 

 large social service, and does, quite unconsciously, possess a large 

 educational power. I should be unwilling in any way to belittle this 

 service. It is something to be socially grateful for, and to be appre- 

 ciated at its full value. But the criticism remains true that what is 

 not the best is bad, and the artisan point of view, not being the best, 

 I must maintain is relatively bad. 



Many of the training schools represent this artisan view, and one 

 need never go far afield to find striking examples. In my own city 

 of Philadelphia, which I believe is chiefly known in New England 

 for the excellence of her butter and the whiteness of her doorsteps, 

 there are two manual training schools, in which from the very start 

 the educational purpose has been bravely upheld. The two ideals 

 have been in conflict there as elsewhere, for we are a thrifty city 

 with some talent for turning an honest penny, in spite of our love of 

 comfort and grandfathers, but the fight has been a good one, and in 

 the main a successful one. 



It is always more effective to paint in black and white than it is 

 in neutral tones, but in presenting these two views of manual train- 

 ing as so sharply distinct, I have not been bent, I think, by artistic 

 motives. I believe the two views to be as sharply distinct as I have 

 painted them. 



Assuming, then, the educational point of view on the part of the 

 teacher, we may turn to the second element, the psychology of the 

 child, as our monistic philosophy sees it, and may inquire into the 

 methods which that psychology suggests. 



