502 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



later drawings are mere copies. They have enough in them that is 

 original to require that they shall be understood before they can be 

 made. The free-hand work is no less important. From an evolution- 

 ary point of view it is even more important, for it requires greater 

 power and greater concentration, and in developing the aesthetic 

 faculty it makes an even more substantial contribution to life as 

 a fine art. The work is similar to the elementary work of the art 

 schools. It is in touch with the shops in supplying all the designs 

 for the ornamental iron work and for the wood carving, and it 

 includes, on the constructive side, an important part of manual train- 

 ing, and one that I hope to see still more developed in the future, the 

 work in clay modeling. 



I have purposely left the consideration of the strictly manual 

 training part of the curriculum — that is, the tool work — to the last, 

 and I have done this that I might make it very clear that the human- 

 istic studies, and the mathematics, and the science, and the drawing 

 are quite as essential a part of the school as the tool work; and also 

 that I might make it very clear, beyond all peradventure and even 

 perhaps at the expense of repetition, that manual training is a scheme 

 of education, a deliberate attempt to shape evolution toward definite 

 social and moral and assthetic ends, and is very far from being a 

 mere system of hand training. At its best, the school is a practical 

 as well as a philosophic unit. It has one purpose and one method. 



The instruction in tool work occupies about one third of the en- 

 tire time — that is, ten periods a week. In the first year, at the older 

 schools, this is equally divided between wood and metal. In the dis- 

 position of the time, the different schools are pretty much agreed. 

 In the details of the work no two schools are alike. All the manual 

 training work is still fluid and experimental; but, to hear some of 

 us talk, you might think that there was something quite fij?:ed and 

 sacred about it all. You have perhaps remarked the very solemn 

 and knowing air that the tailor takes on when he assures you that 

 a certain coat or gown is or is not in style. I never quite believe him; 

 but, nevertheless, I am always impressed that any one should even 

 pretend to have such inscrutable knowledge. It is a little bit the 

 same here. 



The wood work during the first year may consist of two terms 

 of joinery and one of turning. It is very attractive work. There 

 is something fresh and sweet about the smell of the wood. It con- 

 jures up all sorts of pleasant pictures of sawmills and logging camps, 

 and, though it is a passing pain to remember that the tree has been 

 cut down, if you happen to be a lover of trees, still the wood never 

 seems quite a dead thing. The feeling grows very strong, as you stand 

 in the wood shop, that you would like to stop there and go to work 



