TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION L. 755 
siderable guidance. Once taught, the child was encouraged to make this success 
the nucleus of further experimental work, which later was focussed, as before, 
upon some failure more or less general throughout the class. 
Dealing later with a group of children who had spent some years upon expres- 
sion work in the infant school, he led more abruptly to those difficulties which 
fell into an easy classification of forms, capable of being mastered by experi- 
ment on the part of the pupil with a little help from the teacher. The interest 
in the work was greatly stimulated by the confidence which the children gained 
through successful control of material, and they showed considerable initiative 
in choosing other work which embodied features thus learnt. 
When dealing with more rigid materials the method adopted was somewhat 
similar, the main difference being that a course of paper-folding was used as the 
starting-point. The exercises were chosen with a twofold object :— 
(a) They were such as were capable of extension by the individual pupils 
in a great number of ways. 
(6) They were models presenting constructional difficulties which would 
later be met in non-folding materials. 
The success of this portion of the work was remarkable from both points of 
view. 
From this point the children were independent of the teacher, except in con- 
nection with the modelling of three forms—the cylinder, the pyramid, and the 
cone. The teaching of these proceeded along the same lines as the early clay 
work, models of vehicles leading to the cylindrical wheel, those of steeples and 
tower roofs to the cone and pyramid. 
The work of the children abounded in evidence that new problems were 
solved, somewhat after the manner of Euclid, by reference to previously esta- 
blished methods. Subjects like geography and arithmetic were found to be 
capable of being taught on similar lines. The curriculum in these cases had to 
be rearranged here and there. The curtailment of unnecessary and unsuitable 
matter was found to be far exceeded by the additions which handwork methods 
made possible. 
8. Manual Training in the Secondary School. 
By T. 8. Usnerwoop, B.Sc. 
1. What Manual Training includes.—Not mere carpentry, since much of the 
best modern school work in science and mathematics and practically all art 
work is involved. 
Its value.—Direct and indirect—i.e., as ensuring physical training with 
parallel mental development, as well as correlating other subjects and offering 
suggestions for research—no matter whether pursued for purely educational or 
for ultimately economic reasons. 
Tits slow development and growth in secondary schoois.—Partly due to the 
overcrowded curriculum and partly due to misconception : the perfunctory con- 
sideration it receives, in spite of increasing realisation of its importance. 
2. What is being done.—Description of a manual training-school; its aim 
end work. 
3. Criticism.—The status of manual training and its apparent line of 
development. 
(a) The attitude of teachers of other school subjects; the lack of apprecia- 
tion of the work, its aims and possibilities; the consequent dissociation of the 
curriculum. 
(6) The prevalence and influence of stereotyped schemes; the tendency to 
encourage ‘tooling’ at the expense of construction and investigation. 
(c) The lack of teachers capable of extracting all that is educationally most 
valuable from the work. 
4. Suggestions for improvement and development. 
(a) Fuller and wider recognition, with extended treatment for younger boys— 
even at the risk of postponing to a later date subjects now regarded as in- 
dispensable: the subject to be placed on an equal footing with others, and 
3c 2 
