THE FRUITS OF MANUAL TRAINING, 355 



evenly-trained hoys; I now wish to add that the article is a new one. 

 You can not determine its value by invoicing the boys who, in the 

 past, have drifted without proper education and without intelligent 

 choice into shops and offices. I do not claim that manual training 

 will change a dull boy into a bright one, or a bad boy into a good 

 one. It is by no means a sovereign remedy for all the evils that boys 

 are heir to ; but it will give the dull boy a chance to become less dull, 

 and the bright one a chance to retain his brilliancy. We have had 

 some bad boys, but I honestly think their badness was less alluring 

 and corrupting and hopeless than it would have been among boys less 

 absorbed in their work. We have had some plain cases of failure, but 

 they had failed everywhere else. It is not safe to reason that, because 

 a boy can not succeed anywhere else, he must succeed in the shop. 

 Brains are as essential to a good mechanic as to a good soldier or a 

 good orator. Undoubtedly, more than half of our boys will find uses 

 for their manual training, and they will have an immense advantage 

 over the untrained boys. They are all fair draughtsmen. They have 

 a wide acquaintance with hand and machine tools, and considerable 

 skill in their use. They have an experimental knowledge of the prop- 

 erties of common materials ; of the effects of heat, and the nature of 

 friction. They have analyzed mechanical processes and been taught 

 to adapt means to ends. Such boys will never become mere machine- 

 men. They will never be content to put their brains away like a piece 

 of ornamental toggery for which they have no daily use. If you wish 

 boys to become narrow, unreflecting, bigoted, and helpless, when their 

 machines break down and when they are thrown upon their own re- 

 sources, don't send them to a manual-training school, for you will 

 surely be disappointed. 



Our graduates have been out of school less than a year, but I have 

 seen enough to justify me in saying that their chances of material sug^ 

 cess are unusually good. As workmen, they will soon step to the front ; 

 as employers and manufacturers, they will be self -directing and effi- 

 cient inspectors. They will be little exposed to the wiles of incom- 

 petent workmen. 



On the other hand, communities will prosper when their young 

 men prosper. This is the dynamic age ; the great forces of Nature 

 are being harnessed to do our work, and we are just beginning to 

 learn how to drive. Invention is in its youth, and manual training is 

 the very breath of its nostrils. 



7. The Elevatioi^ of Mais-ual Occupations from the Realm of 

 Brute, Unintelligeih? Labor to one requiring and rewarding 

 Cultivation and Skill. — A brute can exert brute strength ; to man 

 alone is it given to invent and use tools. Man subdues Nature and 

 develops art through the instrumentality of tools. Says Carlyle : " No- 

 where do you find him without tools ; without tools he is nothing ; 

 with tools he is all." To turn a crank, or to carry a hod, one needs 



