856 REPORT—1904. 
temperament, and to stimulate them, as nothing else had done, to work at other 
things. This was the great advantage of manual teaching. 
The difficulty at first experienced, and now by no means wholly overcome, 
was the supply of competent teachers. As a matter of educational principle, the 
teachers should be the ordinary school teachers. It was recognised at first, by 
those who had the direction of manual instruction, that to insure good methods 
the instruction should be given by highly trained teachers, and that the village 
carpenter or blacksmith would not make a competent instructor. For this reason 
the City Guilds’ Institute, which was the first body to give a certificate of com- 
petency to teachers, admitted to its examinations none other than certificated 
teachers in elementary schools. But the pressure of opinion, the practice of the 
late School Board for London, and the demand for teachers, which rapidly over- 
took the supply, compelled the Institute to widen the door of admission to its 
examination. Moreover, the Institute was not averse from trying the double 
experiment of training educated teachers in manual work, and of training skilled 
artisans in the methods of instruction. Both experiments have been attended 
with fairly satisfactory results, although it must be admitted that, however the 
teacher may have been trained, it is essential that he should be first of all well 
educated and skilled in the methods of imparting knowledge, in order that manual 
work may become an integral part of the school curriculum, and may be closely 
associated with the teaching of other subjects of the school course. 
It is not until we recognise the fact that many subjects of instruction may be 
taught in connection with workshop training, and that the methods of the work- 
shop may be made applicable to the teaching of other subjects, that manual in- 
struction will have found its proper place in our elementary and higher schools. 
To this end the instruction must be continuous from the early Kindergarten 
exercises till the boy or girl leaves the school. Hitherto the material employed 
in manual instruction has been wood and iron. But if the instruction is to be con- 
tinuous, other materials and other methods than those at present adopted must be 
employed. The manual instruction must be made the means of progressively de- 
veloping the child’s intelligence, and of providing subjects for inquiry and thought 
in the region of elementary geometry, arithmetic, and mensuration, and to some 
extent in the rudiments of natural and experimental science, from the earliest 
age throughout the child’s entire school career. This is essential, and this funda- 
mental proposition must dominate and determine methods of imparting manual 
instruction in all types of schools. 
Accepting this general proposition, we see how small a part of the manual 
training field has, so far, been systematically surveyed. We have to remember 
that at present the course of manual instruction in all our schools is discontinuous 
and broken. Between the age when Kindergarten exercises cease and the time 
when a boy is fit to pass to wood-working tools, z.c., roughly, between the ages of 
eight and eleven, a boy receives no instruction by manual methods, except per- 
haps in drawing, and relies almost exclusively upon oral teaching. This lacuna 
in his practical education has to be filled in. Methods of instruction have to be 
discovered and materials for workshop exercises have to be suggested which will 
serve for this unexplored interval—from the time he leaves the infant school till 
he is qualified to enter the ordinary school workshop. In connecting these two 
periods care must be taken that the secondary influence of manual instruction 
shall also be continuous—that the training in observation, measurement, and 
reasoning shall be developed by appropriate exercises for each successive year. 
In the training of girls much has to be done in this direction. Without 
favouring early specialisation, I cannot arrive at any other conclusion than that 
manual instruction should be different, not in aim, but certainly in subject, for 
the two sexes. Except as regards sewing, which although in some cases useful 
for boys, is essential for girls, the manual instruction for girls, from eleven or 
twelve years onwards, should be largely, if not entirely, associated with the 
domestic arts. In cookery and in needlework, and generally in subjects relating 
to household management, there is ample scope for that practical teaching, that 
workroom training which may be made to yield the same educational discipline 
