CHAPTER VIII. 



BRAIN WORK AND MANUAL WORK. 



Divorce between science and handicraft Technical education Complete 

 education The Moscow system : applied at Chicago, Boston, Aber- 

 deen Concrete teaching Present waste of time Science and 

 technics Advantages which science can derive from a combination 

 of brain work with manual work. 



IN olden times men of science, and especially those 

 who have done most to forward the growth of natural 

 philosophy, did not despise manual work and handi- 

 craft. Galileo made his telescopes with his own hands. 

 Newton learned in his boyhood the art of managing 

 tools ; he exercised his young mind in contriving most 

 ingenious machines, and when he began his researches 

 in optics he was able himself to grind the lenses for 

 his instruments, and himself to make the well-known 

 telescope, which, for its time, was a fine piece of work- 

 manship. Liebnitz was fond of inventing machines : 

 windmills and carriages to be moved without horses 

 preoccupied his mind as much as mathematical and 

 philosophical speculations. Linnaeus became a botanist 

 while helping his father a practical gardener in his 

 daily work In short, with our great geniuses handi- 

 craft was no obstacle to abstract researches it rather 

 favoured them. On the other hand, if the workers of 

 old found but few opportunities for mastering science, 

 many of them had, at least, their intelligences stimu- 

 lated by the very variety of work which was performed 

 in the then unspecialised workshops ; and some of them 



