MANUAL WORK. 389 



would result from the pupil always making 

 mere cylinders and discs, and never making 

 full machines or other useful things, there are 

 thousands of means for avoiding that want of 

 interest, and one of them, in use at Moscow, 

 is worthy of notice. It was, not to give work for 

 mere exercise, but to utilise everything which 

 the pupil makes, from his very first steps. 

 Do you remember how you were delighted, in 

 your childhood, if your work was utilised, be 

 it only as a part of something useful ? So they 

 did at Moscow. Each plank planed by the 

 pupils was utilised as a part of some machine 

 in some of the other workshops. When a, 

 pupil came to the engineering workshop, and 

 was set to make a quadrangular block of iron 

 with parallel and perpendicular surfaces, the 

 block had an interest in his eyes, because, when 

 he had finished it, verified its angles and sur- 

 faces, and corrected its defects, the block was 

 not thrown under the bench it was given to a 

 more advanced pupil, who made a handle to 

 it, painted the whole, and sent it to the shop of 

 the school as a paper-weight. The systematical 

 teaching thus received the necessary attractive- 

 ness.* 



* The sale of the pupils' work was not insignificant, especially 

 when they reached the higher classes, and made steam-engines. 

 Therefore the Moscow school, when I knew it, was one of the 

 cheapest in the world. It gave boarding and education at a 



