THE PHILOSOPHY OF MANUAL TRAINING. 653 



ries of the melodramatic, but I can not walk tlie streets of onr 

 great cities, I can not tnrn north, or south, or east, or west, without 

 confronting faces and figures that speak so hungrily of unappeased 

 human need, that tell me plainer than any words could ever do that 

 we are living in an age of low social ideals, that the social sensitive- 

 ness and the social conscience have yet to be aroused. I used to 

 lay comfort to my heart by contemplating those great and glori- 

 ous economic laws of supply and demand, production and consump- 

 tion, the division of labor, and the other gods of wood and stone and 

 brass that society has reared its altars to. I fancied that it was the 

 function of the more fortunate classes to think for the rest and to 

 lead. But it was an impious thought. One could as logically defend 

 the most complete priestcraft. Why should men pray to God if 

 this company of better-versed supplicants stand ready to pray for 

 them ? 



It was this thought of what I myself might become, this picture 

 of the complete man that might be aroused in me, that awakened me 

 to the needs and the capabilities and the hunger of others. And I 

 count it as one of the most precious of the actual results of manual 

 training that in developing a most intense individuality in those who 

 come under its influence, it fosters no less surely a sincere respect 

 for the sacredness and individuality of others. I can not say that 

 manual training has developed any specific social creed. But it 

 has done this: it has created a profound and rational discontent with 

 the present social regime, and has prompted a practical desire to set 

 men free. It is not revolutionary. It sees in the present enginery of 

 society a means for its liberation. In time this thought will flower 

 into beneficent action. 



The process of evolution is the rationalization of the world. With 

 the passing of the centuries what is capricious, grotesque, impossible, 

 slowly falls away, and there emerges a w^orld of rationality and of 

 order. The transforming power has been the continuous growth 

 of the idea of causation. As this power lays firmer and firmer hold 

 upon the minds of men, they become as gods, knowing good and 

 evil, and pressing nearer and nearer to the life that is immortal. 

 One can not live in such an unfolding world, revealed to him through 

 the experiences of his own inner life, without feeling anew the senti- 

 ment of wonder and of worship, without possessing a sublime faith 

 in the things that are and are to be. It is not a specific creed, but 

 in it abides the essence of all religion, and in it one's relations 

 to Nature and to the Supreme Intelligence are to be sought and 

 found. 



It has been the custom of many of the manual training schools 

 to preserve a careful record of their graduates, and you will find in 



