THE PHILOSOPHY OF MANUAL TRAINING. 337 



potent industrialism, is becoming each year more educational, and 

 this is most encouraging. 



To stimulate this many-sided interest, and to cultivate genuine 

 sentiment and aesthetic appreciation, are large elements in the method 

 of manual training, but it shares this with other schemes of educa- 

 tion. The part of its method which is distinctive is physiological. 

 It is the cultivation of the brain through the body, and more espe- 

 cially the cultivation of the brain through the activities of the hand, 

 the setting up of definite mental reactions as the result of definite 

 muscular movements. Experiment shows that the brain does not 

 act as a whole in its reactions with the outer world, but that for 

 the various activities of life there are specialized local brain centers. 

 Furthermore, function is shown to be directly dependent upon 

 organ. If the organ be impaired, the function is crippled. If 

 the brain center be destroyed, the function is annihilated. The 

 reverse is also true — the inhibition of the function, and the organ 

 atrophies. The exercise of the function means the health and growth 

 of the corresponding center. The localization of brain function is 

 one of the most interesting results of modern experimental psy- 

 chology, and is well worth the attention of all interested in social 

 movements. If these local brain centers could be stimulated and 

 developed by increased contact of their tributary extremities with 

 the outer world, we should have a strengthening of the brain tissue, 

 a more sensitive organism, and, as a final result, a general increase of 

 intellectual power. The most complete power would come from the 

 most perfect development of all the parts. We want no repression, 

 no thwarting, no deadening. We want the expansion of all the parts 

 by the wholesome exercise of all the functions. And this expansion 

 must go on pari passu, not the abnormal growth of one center 

 through the undue exercise of its corresponding function, with the 

 starving of surrounding centers and functions, but the normal and 

 wholesome growth of all. As the hand is the chief instrument of 

 touch, its exercise will cultivate the tactile and visual centers. By 

 the skillful framing of these manual activities, and their arrange- 

 ment in due sequence, we shall bring about a corresponding series 

 of mental reactions of the highest evolutionary and educational value. 

 Manual training means hand training; sloyd means skill; but the 

 hand training is in reality the training of that part of the brain 

 which directs the hand, and skill is in reality a mental quality. One's 

 ■cleverness in arranging the manual work comes in right here. It 

 is not in securing a series of mental reactions, for they would come 

 willy-nilly, but it is in securing a series of mental reactions of the 

 most desirable sort. 



The term manual work is often used very loosely to include all 



TOL. nil. — 24 



