Decembeb 28, 1906.] 



SCIENCE. 



843 



in good working order. Such an examina- 

 tion would tell far more than any mere 

 written examination. To be sure, I might 

 feid it difficult to read and interpret what 

 would be written there, but the record 

 would be there to the minutest particulars. 

 This branch of my subject outruns both 

 my time and my ability. But there are 

 experts, and they are veritable men of sci- 

 ence, and they are most welcome to the 

 eompanionship and fellowship of this asso- 

 ciation. 



MANUAL TRAINING. 



Closely related with this of brain culture 

 is the subject of manual training, M^hich 

 has recently gained a foothold in our 

 scheme of rational education. Its nature 

 and educational value are still under dis- 

 cussion. This relationship is well shown in 

 a paragraph which I take from one whom 

 I am always glad to quote.^ Said he: 



In man, the size of the motor area in the 

 brain depends far more on the complexity of the 

 movements affected by a group of muscles, and on 

 the fine coordination of these movements, than 

 on the mere mass of the muscles involved. Phy- 

 sical energy implies a good motor brain area. 

 The man of energy is a man of brains, no less 

 really than the man of thought. 



Physiologists distinguish muscles as ' funda- 

 mental ' and * accessory.' The fundamental 

 muscles are the large masses of muscles used 

 in locomotion and in performing movements re- 

 quiring strength rather than fine adjustments and 

 delicate coordinations. They are, for the most 

 part, the muscles which we have in common with 

 the lower animals and which we have probably 

 inherited from our forefathers who dwelt in trees. 

 The accessory muscles are those which involve fine 

 coordinations. They are principally the muscles 

 of the forearm and hand, and those of the vocal 

 organs. Now it might be argued that manual 

 training is not necessary for the development of 

 the motor centers in the brain, on the ground 

 that gymnastics and outdoor physical exercise are 

 quite adequate to accomplish it. The answer to 

 this objection is the fact that gymnastics and 

 physical exercise in general, appeal almost ex- 



* Professor Thomas M. Balliet, of the University 

 of New York. 



clusively to the fundamental muscles and their 

 brain centers, and rarely to the accessories. Noth- 

 ing short of manual training will reach effectively 

 the important brain cells governing the fine motor 

 adjustments of the muscles of the hand, as noth- 

 ing short of actual speaking and actual singing 

 can ever effectively develop the equally important 

 brain cells governing the muscles of the vocal 

 organs. The motor cells of the brain controlling 

 the muscles of the joints nearest the trunk develop 

 first, and later, in regular order, those which con- 

 trol the muscles of the more distant joints. Edu- 

 cation ought to follow this order of growth; it 

 should avoid training the fingers to make finely 

 coordinated movements at a period when nature 

 has not yet got beyond developing brain cells to 

 make the coarser adjustments of the shoulder and 

 elbow joints. Physical training, which appeals to 

 these more fundamental muscles of the proximal 

 joints, should at first precede manual training, 

 which appeals especially to the muscles of the 

 forearm, hand and fingers. 



We have in the above statement a scien- 

 tific explanation of the educational value 

 of manual training, so far as it relates to 

 the growth and development of the brain. 



As some of you know, I have had some- 

 thing to do with the introduction and de- 

 fense of manual training as an educational 

 feature. There was from the first no ques- 

 tion of its economic value to the great mass 

 of American boys, and largely for that 

 reason it met with favor among people who 

 were more concerned with the work the 

 boy would be given to do after his brain 

 and hands had been developed, than with 

 the means and activities by which the finest 

 and most useful development of the whole 

 boy could be secured. 



A study of the whole field of education, 

 classical and technical, led me, in 1879, to 

 organize a school for boys of high-school 

 age in which , manual training should be 

 combined with intellectual training ; to put 

 the liberal arts and the mechanic arts side 

 by side in the same curriculum; to deal 

 simultaneously with material forces and 

 appliances and with spiritual forces and 

 appliances ; to cultivate not alone or chiefly 



