136 BOARD OF AGllICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



Avill be overcome." It is estimated that eighty-three per 

 cent of our school population never, in their school life, go 

 beyond the grammar school, and prol)ably not more than 

 two per cent go beyond the high school. If the lack of a 

 colleoiate education on the part of so many students in our 

 professional schools be an evil so much to be deplored, what 

 shall we say respecting the fact that so many boys and 

 crii'ls — eio'hty-three out of a lumdred — attempt the work 

 of life without having had the discipline and training of the 

 high school ? 



It is, in part, with the hope that a larger number of pupils 

 may be induced to remain in the high school until they com- 

 plete its course that the latest important addition to the 

 high-school curriculum has ])een made, viz., the introduc- 

 tion of the elements of manual training. I say in part ; for, 

 notwithstanding the strong pressure that has been brought 

 to bear upon those who have in charge the direction of our 

 pul)lic schools to eliminate studies that have been called 

 theoretical and to substitute those considered more practical, 

 yet the most intelligent advocates of manual training 

 strongly repudiate any intention of specializing the work of 

 the elementary schools in the direction of economic produc- 

 tion. I quote from Mr. Macalister, superintendent of the 

 Philadelphia public schools, and who, as many of us know, 

 has been one of the strongest advocates of manual training : 

 " The object of the public school is education in its broadest 

 sense. If industrial or manual training cannot be shown to 

 be education in this sense, it has no place in the public 

 school. We have no more right to teach carpentry or 

 blacksmithing than we have to teach law or medicine. The 

 supreme end of education is the harmonious development of 

 all the powers of a human being. Whatever ministers to 

 this end is education ; whatever interferes with its accom- 

 plishment, no matter how valuable in itself, belongs outside 

 of the elementary school." 



It is doubtless well known that in July, 1891, a State com- 

 mission was appointed to investigate methods of manual 

 training and industrial education. From a newspaper 

 abstract of the report of this commission recently made for 



