Land Problems and National Welfare 



This principle has been advocated for some 

 years, but it is taking a long time to put into 

 practice, and so far the chief development in 

 this direction has undoubtedly been the crea- 

 tion and growth of school gardens, which though 

 excellent in itself does not go far enough. The 

 greater number of children in the elementary 

 schools will have to make their living by the 

 use of their hands, therefore they should be 

 taught to use their hands intelligently during 

 their school life. This does not mean that 

 they should be taught a trade at the elementary 

 school, which would be both impossible and 

 undesirable ; it means that in training the child 

 to use his hands intelligently, he will neces- 

 sarily also be taught to use his brain intelli- 

 gently. 



Seeing then the great and admitted import- 

 ance of this manual training, is it too much to 

 ask that so many hours a week shall be definitely 

 earmarked for such instruction ? To my mind 

 the objective to aim at is that the morning 

 should be devoted to the literary side of educa- 

 tion and say three afternoons a week to manual 

 training, but anything approaching a hard and 

 fast rule must be avoided. The point is this, 

 that book work (much of it to do with books of 

 little value) has become so completely the body 

 and soul of our system, that manual instruction 

 will still be kept out, or at all events not allowed 



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