56 Timeltn. 



performing the least complicated manipulative task. The development of 

 the ' : knut ' ; or the '"dude" or the "fop," weird products of an 

 effete civilization as they are sometimes considered, is in reality merely a 

 bizarre expression of atrophied capacities, inevitable in a system of train- 

 ing in which the relation between hand and mind is ignored. 



It is pretty clear that hand training should take a prominent place in 

 our Codes. At present even where an opportunity for this arises, as in 

 Agriculture or Nature study, so warped are the prevailing notions of in- 

 struction, that the attempt is made to teach these subjects largely from 

 a book. 



Books of course may be made of use in most subjects if great dis- 

 cretion be exercised by the teacher, but the elementary school of the 

 future will see much less of them than does the present type ; for, as 

 Herbert Spencer said nearly half a century ago, ' : Intellectual progress 

 is from the concrete to the abstract " while books are essentially an 

 abstraction from the concrete. 



How easy would be the progress of the pupil who has dressed and 

 squared a piece of timber, from consideration of the concrete solid to 

 the meaning of inches and other standards of measure, areas, squares and 

 even cubes of the object actually in his hand. From this to the nature 

 and structure of wood, the tree and its place of growth, the class of plant 

 to which it belongs, the articles of use to which this timber may be put, 

 and from that to references in literature to various trees is all by way of 

 an easy sequence in which all the subjects of the codes, besides one or 

 two not there, are naturally taught ; correlation of ideas, comparison in 

 respect of toughness, hardness, elasticity and so forth at the same time be- 

 ing induced in the pupil's mind. Or if he be set to dress a bit of stone and 

 finally polish it. a similar wide field is opened up. The places where the 

 stone is found, the rocks near it, some harder, some softer, some heavier, 

 some lighter, the buildings and works for which it is adapted, would 

 afford scope for reading, writing notes and making calculations which 

 would induce an interested activity of brain — the aim of every teacher 

 who understands his business. Here the mere knowledge gained is not 

 the sole consideration, it is the correlated activities induced that is im- 

 portant, though it is at the same time true that knowledge comes more 

 rapidly by way of the fingers than by any other sense organ. Even the 

 primary conception of that vital group of facts of first importance in the 

 art of living in a world of solid things — hardness, weight, conformation, 

 solidity — would scarcely have become known without them. 



So much however have the fingers been ignored in school systems 

 that the ridiculous scholastic ideal of a class prepared to soak in know- 

 ledge is summed up in the preliminary command i: Arms folded. " 



Let it be here remarked that all this has nothing to do with 

 " Technical Education primary or secondary, nor am I proposing to intro- 

 duce Carpentry or Joinery or Blacksmithery or White smithery or Shoe- 



