MANUAL TRAINING 217 



that books will sour. Try it with the chap who 

 hates school, and do not forget that the shop itself 

 is a school. To develop the hand is as important 

 as to develop the brain. To learn to do is better 

 than simply to remember. To get the habit of ap- 

 plying knowledge as quickly as acquired to everyday 

 affairs, and in this way using all that you find out, is 

 the one great need in human life, and it is the real 

 education. 



I believe in public free schools, for in no other 

 way can most children get any education worth while, 

 but I am sure that the home and the school have been 

 too radically divorced. 



The laboratory is closely associated with the shop, 

 and, as I have told you, I established such a depart- 

 ment directly over the shop. It soon became the cen- 

 ter of life, of discussion, of examination, and compar- 

 ative investigation. Those who did not care for 

 tools found that which was both interesting and use- 

 ful in the laboratory. Country life is made up 

 largely of flowers, insects, birds, rocks, and the evo- 

 lution which is told by the life in animal and vege- 

 table nature. 



The country home that knows nothing of these 

 things and brings up its children to know a bird sim- 

 ply as a bird, whether thrush or sparrow; to look 

 upon all insects as merely bugs or bees or flies, is 

 stupidly superficial. The very first information that 

 a boy should have should concern itself with soils, 

 rocks, watercourses, and generally with that which 



