THE PHILOSOPHY OF MANUAL TRAINING. jj^ 



blossoms and tlie tree grows, as the eartli moves and tlie star shines, 

 all as the result of an inner quality, all in fulfilling the law of life, 

 so the soul of man when it turns from the piety of the cloister to the 

 piety of Nature is under the stress and strain of no moral conflict, but 

 is at peace. Morality spans the difference between what is and what 

 ought to be. When these coincide in the perfect life, morality has 

 fulfilled its function and must cease to be. The gods are not moral. 

 To attain the divine perfectness is to outgrow morality. These young 

 people of eighteen, in whom we are interested if they are to come into 

 the perfect life, must do so as the result of their own spontaneity, and 

 as unconsciously as possible. The process of education which is to 

 endow them with a perfect organism and plant in them the seeds 

 of the complete life fails unless it leave them spontaneous and whole- 

 somely unconscious of themselves. One of the most dangerous dan- 

 gers of the schools, if I may so express it, is self-consciousness. It 

 mars nearly all whom the schools touch, and makes unendurable the 

 teacher of too long a term of service. 



The term organism, once for all, stamps the man or woman, boy 

 or girl, as a unit, and we may speak of the bodily, emotional, and 

 intellectual functions of the organism without being misunderstood. 

 We may conveniently enumerate under these three heads those essen- 

 tial human qualities which are of prime importance in the educational 

 data. The bodily life includes birth, nutrition, growth, reproduction^ 

 death. We may limit nutrition, restrict growth, avoid reproduction, 

 but we can not escape the first and last of these great functions, birth 

 and death. Yet complete morality is only satisfied with the complete 

 discharge of all these functions. The morality of birth lies with our 

 ancestors. They owe it to us, as we owe it to our children, to give 

 birth only to sound, true bodies. Yet a perfectly healthy man or 

 woman is a rare sight. The morality of nutrition and growth is the 

 morality of hygiene and health. It is satisfied only with strong, sound, 

 beautiful bodies, beautiful not only to look upon, but beautiful in the 

 perfection with which they operate, the sound digestion, strong pulse 

 beat, free circulation, deep breath, keen hearing, sharp eyesight, deli- 

 cate touch, discriminating taste, quick will, co-ordinated movement — 

 a long list, truly, but not longer than the requirements of the per- 

 fect life. 



The morality of parenthood is bound up so closely with th& 

 emotional life, and is most holy when most closely bound, that it 

 seldom finds distinct utterance, and such utterance as we have is- 

 mostly false — on the one side, the celibacy of religious orders; on 

 the other side, a reputed duty to the state or to the race. I find the 

 sanction of marriage and parenthood to reside in the individual. 

 Men and women are better into whose lives the mystery of birth has 



