THE PHILOSOPHY OF MANUAL TRAINING. jj-j 



the realization of tlieir aims by looking too steadily at the dazzling 

 ideals by which they are led, and not steadily enough at those humble 

 means which, in the unalterable sequence of cause and effect, must 

 first be realized. The process by which thought is excited in the 

 brain is quite as definite as the process by which an electro-magnet is 

 energized. You must have the magnet and you must have the 

 exciting cause. You must have the brain and you must have the 

 stimulus, an inner something induced by an outer something. 



But about the data of education we are pretty much agreed. Out 

 of the material of babyhood, half plastic, half stubborn, we are by 

 our scheme of education to evolve the potential men and women 

 who knock at the doors of our colleges. Looking at manual train- 

 ing as a method, and comparing the material given with the 

 material wanted, it is very clear that manual training can only 

 form a part of the complete method. To span the gap entirely, 

 and cover the fourteen years between babyhood and college, man- 

 ual training will have to be incorporated into a scheme of edu- 

 cation more thoroughgoing and more psychological than any that 

 has yet been proposed. If genius be the seeing eye, the feel- 

 ing touch, the hearing ear, the efficient brain; and if the high- 

 est and most complete manifestation of our human nature depend, 

 as we believe that it does depend, upon the sensitiveness and 

 soundness of the organism, the educational process which is thus to 

 unfold and perfect the human spirit must include the cultivation and 

 development of all the faculties — touch, taste, smell, hearing, sight, 

 movement — that they may comprehensively and accurately report the 

 outer world; must include the cultivation and development of the 

 emotional life, that it may stimulate the senses to the full exercise of 

 their powers, and, finally, must include the cultivation and develop- 

 ment of those intellectual faculties which convert this rich phenome- 

 nal material into an evolved humanity. I can not in passing forbear 

 the criticism that our current schemes of education, however lofty 

 their ideals, devote themselves too exclusively to the intellectual life, 

 and do not sufficiently concern themselves with the materials out 

 of which that life is built, the sense impressions of the outer world, 

 or with the tool that builds it, the human organism with all its 

 emotional and artistic possibilities. ISTor can I, in declaring manual 

 training to be inadequate to the full demands of a rational education, 

 omit to emphasize that it is the only scheme, including sloyd and the 

 kindergarten, that has attempted to build up the educational process 

 on organic grounds, and that it is inadequate, not because of any 

 fundamental mistake in its philosophy, or inaccuracy in its methods, 

 but simply because these methods do not yet go far enough. You 

 know, perhaps, the rallying cry of manual training — put the whole 



VOL. LIII. — 64 



