Manual Training. 519 



recreative and somewhat pretty, and would no doubt be admirable 

 in a Pottery District, but, alas ! decorative china manufacture is not 

 one of our productive works. I might even go so far as to say that 

 class of drawing is suitable for a private school for young ladies, 

 where the veneer of a so-called finish is more highly thought of than 

 a sound education, ^leanwhile, in our primary schools, where it is 

 run for show purposes, the practical drawing is neglected. As 

 ninetv per cent, of our pupils will have to be workers — keen, alert, 

 self-reliant, ready with pen and pencil, something more is needed than 

 to make them dreamers of the beauty of flowers, or of the delightful 

 shades of a butterfly's wing. Although I doubt, with the crude 

 shn']es of colours used for brush and crayon work, they might be 

 distorted dreams. Let us first teach in our primary schools Drawing 

 as the Alphabet of Art. Anyone who tried to teach Reading before 

 the Alphabet was mastered would be looked upon as a lunatic and 

 a crank. Some people are to be found who look upon artists as 

 cronks. Be that as it may, the so-called Drawing in the lower 

 standards is no preparation for higher Manual Training in the upper 

 standards, or the practical needs of after-school life. At present 

 the application of brushwork is limited to the washing in of maps, 

 or the colouring of an architectural drawing, or the washing in of a 

 mechanical drawing in an engineer's office, to show different materials. 

 Adults need facility in using a firm point, such as a pen or pencil, 

 in sketching. If they want to illustrate an idea, or give an outline 

 for construction, the brush is the last thing anyone would think of 

 using. 



I was much struck with the sketching powers of the pupils of 

 a certain school. Sketching was encouraged in every way possible. 

 For instance, in an arithmetic lesson, where the sharper pupils would 

 be finished the set work before the slower ones, so that there should 

 be no idling on the part of the sharp ones, the quicker ones were 

 allowed to practise sketching on spare paper provided. This was 

 turned to account in the essay and composition tasks of the upper 

 standards, by the pupils being required to illustrate bv pen or pencil 

 sketches, the written matter. The results of that happv combination 

 were delightfully good. 



Manual Training takes into consideration the co-ordination and 

 correlation of drawing and dexterity by various occupations. To 

 secure n proper gradation. Drawing, combined with manual exercises, 

 should be compulsory in every class of primary and secondary 

 schools. 



One of the greatest reasons for advocating compulsory Manual 

 Training is that the great dividing line between civilised and uncivil- 

 ised man is the use of tools — the axe, saw, plane, hammer, square, 

 chisel and file ; and the modern machine shop is but an aggregation of 

 these tools driven by steam. T. Carl vie wrote : " Man without tools 

 is nothing, with tools he is all." Doubtless the old stvle of education 

 produced men of learning, but the new style of education — " Learn- 

 ing by Doing " — will produce men of action and resource, because 



