350 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



digests generous rations of a varied diet. Did you ever see one 

 whose mind was nauseated with spelling-books, lexicons, and gram- 

 mars, and an endless hash of words and definitions ? And did you, in 

 such a case, call in the two doctors, Johann Pestalozzi and Friedrich 

 Froebel ? And did you watch the magic influence of a diet of things 

 prescribed by the former, and a little vigorous practice in doing^ in the 

 place of talking y under the direction of the latter ? 



The students of a well-conducted manual-training school are intel- 

 lectually as active and vigorous as in any high-school. Nay, more, I 

 claim, and I have had good opportunity to observe the facts, that even 

 on the intellectual side the manual-training boy has a decided advan- 

 tage. I have been in charge of both kinds of school, and I know 

 whereof I speak. The education of the hand is the means of more 

 completely and efficaciously educating the brain. Manual dexterity 

 is but the evidence of a certain kind of mental power ; and this men- 

 tal power, coupled with a familiarity with the tools the hands use, is 

 doubtless the only basis of that sound, practical judgment and ready 

 mastery of material forces which always characterize those well fitted 

 for the duties of active, industrial life. 



I go a step further. When the limit of sharp attention and lively 

 interest is reached, you have reached the limit of profitable study. If 

 you can hold the attention of a class but ten minutes, it is worse than 

 a waste of time to make the exercise fifteen. The weary intellects 

 roll themselves up in self-defense, and suffer as patiently as they can, 

 but the memory of those moments of torment lingers and throws its 

 dreadful shadow over the exercise as it comes up again on the mor- 

 row ; and how automatically, as these over-taught children take their 

 places again, do they begin to roll themselves up into an attitude of 

 mental stupidity ! Intellectual growth is not to be gauged by the 

 length or number of th^ daily recitations. I firmly believe that in 

 most of our schools there is too much sameness and monotony ; too 

 much intellectual weariness and consequent torpor. Hence, if we 

 abridge somewhat the hours given to books, and introduce exercises 

 of a widely different character, the result is a positive intellectual gain. 

 There is plenty of time if you will but use it aright. Throw into the 

 fire those modem instruments of mental torture — the spelling and 

 defining books. Banish English grammar, and confine to reasonable 

 limits geography and word-analysis. Take mathematics, literature, 

 science, and art, in just proportion, and you will have time enough for 

 drawing and the study of tools and mechanical methods. 



Manual exercises, which are at the same time intellectual exercises, 

 are highly attractive to healthy boys. If you doubt this, go into the 

 shops of a manual-training school and see for yourselves. Go, for in- 

 stance, into our forging-shop, where metals are wrought through the 

 agency of heat. A score of young Yulcans, bare-armed, leather- 

 aproned, with many a drop of honest sweat and other trade-marks of 



