TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION I. 727 
it brings the tonic effect of dealing with the unvarying laws of matter and 
being compelled to face the obvious fitness or unfitness of the visible results ; 
it awakens the healthy pleasure of shaping material to a predetermined 
form by patience, foresight, and skill. 
So much progress has been made with manual work as a cultural subject 
that the author left that phase in order to consider the question whether 
manual work for the purpose of industrial education should be given any 
place in elementary schools or not. 
The fact is significant that in many localities 80 per cent. of the pupils 
leave at or before the close of the elementary course. These children drift 
into unskilled occupations, taking whatever work pays best. They are likely 
to spend two important years in employment which awakens no industrial 
interests and offers no vocational outlook. 
Should not elementary schools provide, in an optional course, training 
planned definitely to promote industrial efficiency and awaken industrial 
interests, even if this necessitates work which involves a utilitarian test of 
the product? It was urged for these 80 per cent. that the elementary school, 
from which they go directly into industry, should as compensation give them 
only cultural studies. No sharp definition exists, however, between cultural 
and industrial education. Most of the activities which raise men from 
savagery involved a utilitarian test of their results. ‘ Utilitarian ’ is a word 
the meaning of which becomes more inclusive with advancing civilisation. 
Experiments with an optional course in which pupils, during one hour 
each day, made boxes, portfolios, &c., in quantity for the city, have been 
tried, and show the following results :— 
1. Interest in economy of material and time. 
2. A willingness to contribute the product to the city, showing that the 
motive of ownership of the results is not necessary to interest. 
3. No loss of thoroughness in other school subjects. 
4. Increased efficiency in planning and handling material. 
5. Interest in and attraction to more complete industrial courses. 
Some of the pupils who leave school at fourteen years of age to enter a shop 
instead of a high school do so because of financial stress. Co-operation 
between high school and shop, which allows half time in each, promises to 
meet many of these cases. A larger number leave because they and their 
parents feel that work is more worth while. The influence of well-planned 
industrial courses will tend to keep these pupils to the end of the elementary 
ecurse and interest them to enter high schools equipped with similar courses. 
4. London Trade Schools. By C. W. Kimuins, M.A.; D.Sc. 
The problem of problems in London and elsewhere is to prevent children 
of fourteen years of age drifting into unskilled labour in which there is 
no element of permanence. The difficulty is increased by the decay and 
gradual disappearance of the apprenticeship system and the altered con- 
ditions of employment in workshops which make them unsuitable places for 
the training of craftsmen. 
An elaborate scheme of junior, intermediate, and senior scholarships 
established by the London County Council makes ample provision for the 
brilliant children of the London elementary schools. The really capable 
child, even of the poorest parents, may reach the highest position by means 
of the scholarship ladder, passing at the age of eleven years into the secondary 
school, and thence by means of scholarships at the age of nineteen to 
the university or higher technical school. Provision is also made for the 
transference of children who do not reach scholarship standard to pass on 
to a higher form of elementary school in which a special bias may be 
given in training for commercial or industrial life in a course of instruction 
extending for a year or two beyond the age of compulsory attendance. 
