8i6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



One of the noticeable features of the exhibition was an apparent 

 decline in originality of invention and spontaneity of thought after 

 the first year or two at school. Pride in the execution of good work 

 seems to have been exhibited most prominently in the middle period. 

 As the girls grew older and were trained in household and needle and 

 fancy work at home, their products exhibited more variety, but not 

 more novelty, and they continued to contribute specimens till their 

 highest age at school. But, while some work was furnished by girls 

 of over fourteen, very little was exhibited by boys of corresponding 

 age. They found themselves too unskilled to make good specimens, 

 and were too proud to exhibit poor ones. Another fact deserving 

 notice is that, in the work of the boys during the first years of school, 

 there were apparent a love for color and a skill in using it for decora- 

 tion and design, equal to that displayed by the girls ; while in the 

 later years the use of color becomes exceptional with the boys, but 

 still continues to prevail, with evidences of increased skill, in the work 

 of the girls. 



When a few days ago we were requested to prepare this report, 

 Superintendent Gorton was consulted, and from him it was learned 

 that this Yonkers experiment was of two years' growth, and that the 

 idea originated in Mount Vernon. The first exhibition of the kind was 

 held in the public-school house of that village nine years ago, and 

 with the exception of two years the exhibitions have since been regu- 

 larly continued. The parents and citizens have always taken great 

 interest in them, the children have enjoyed and felt pride in them, 

 and the teachers have cheerfully done the extra work. The present 

 principal of the school, Mr. Charles Nichols, heartily approves them as 

 a source of good moral influence. 



As results of an investigation of this subject, your committee 

 would sum up as advantages accruing from the exhibition of the 

 home-work of children through the medium of the schools : A bring- 

 ing together of the home and the school, thus conducing to a better 

 acquaintance between the parents and the teachers ; giving to the 

 teacher a better knowledge of the child's home influences and sur- 

 roundings, thus enabling him to exercise a more intelligent care over 

 the development of the child's moral character ; giving to the parents 

 a better insight and new interest in the schools and their management, 

 with an overflowing of the moral influence of school training into 

 homes where intelligent discipline is unknown ; a greatly increased 

 respect in all quarters for handicrafts ; the diffusion of the principle 

 that in the liberal education of the individual a development of man- 

 ual skill, as well as a harmonious unfolding of the mental faculties, 

 should be looked after, and that these react favorably on each other 

 in various ways. 



The facts were made clear that some children are especially en- 

 dowed with native capacity for mechanical contrivances, which needs 



