NOTEMBEB 1, 1907] 



SCIENCE 



583 



known as manual training is to some extent 

 encouraged in our schools, but it foi-ms no 

 part of the child's continuous education. 

 It is still hampered with conditions incon- 

 sistent with its proper place in the curri- 

 culum, and is uncoordinated with other 

 subjects of instruction. Moreover no con- 

 necting link has yet been forged between 

 the teaching of the kindergarten and work- 

 shop practise in the school. We speak of 

 lessons in manual training as something 

 apart from the school instruction, as some- 

 thing outside the school course, on the 

 teaching of which special grants are paid. 

 Twenty or thirty years ago people used to 

 talk about "teaching technical education," 

 and from this unscientific way of treating 

 the close connection that should exist be- 

 tween hand-work and brain-work our au- 

 thorities have not yet freed themselves. 



It is true we have long since passed that 

 stage when it was thought that the object 

 of instruction in the use of tools was to 

 make carpenters or joiners; but, judging 

 from a report recently issued by the board 

 of education, it would seem that it is still 

 thought that the object of cookery lessons 

 to children of twelve to fourteen years of 

 age is the training of professional cooks. 

 Until the board's inspectors can be brought 

 to realize that the aim and purpose of 

 practical instruction in primary schools, 

 whether in cookery or in other sub- 

 jects, is to train the intelligence through 

 familiar occupations, to show how scien- 

 tific method may be usefully applied in 

 ordinary pursuits, and how valuable 

 manipulative skill may thus be incidentally 

 acquired, it does not seem to me that they 

 themselves have learned the most elemen- 

 tary principles of their own profession. 

 An anonymous teacher, writing some weeks 

 since in the Morning Post, said: 



The cookery class can be made an invaluable 

 mental and moral training ground for the pupils, 

 the most stimulating part of primary education. 



It teaches unforgettable lessons of cleanliness and 

 order, of quickness and deftness of movements. 

 The use of the weights and scales demands accu- 

 racy and carefulness, and the raw materials pun- 

 ish slovenliness or want of attention with a thor- 

 oughness which the most severe of schoolmasters 

 might hesitate to use. Practical lessons in chem- 

 istry should form an important feature of each 

 class. . . . The action of heat and moisture on 

 grains of rice provides an interesting lesson on 

 the bursting of starch cells, and the children's 

 imagination is awakened by watching the hard 

 isolated atoms floating in milk change slowly to 

 the creamy softness of a properly made rice pud- 

 ding. The miraculous change in the oily white of 

 egg when it is beaten into a mountain of snowy 

 whiteness gives them interest in the action of air 

 and its use in cookery. 



Can the teaching of grammar or the 

 analysis of sentences provide lessons of 

 equal value in quickening the intelligence 

 of young children? 



I must add one word before passing 

 from this suggestive illustration of the 

 value of scientific method in the treatment 

 of educational questions. We live in a 

 democratic age, and any proposed reform 

 in the teaching of our primary schools 

 must be tested by the requirement that the 

 revised curriculum shall be such as will 

 provide not only the most suitable pre- 

 paratory training for the occupations in 

 which four fifths of the children will be 

 subsequently engaged, but will, at the 

 same time, enable them or some of them 

 to pass without any breach of continuity 

 from the primary to the secondary school. 

 There must be no class distinctions sepa- 

 rating the public elementary from the 

 state-aided secondary school. The reform 

 I have suggested is unaffected by such 

 criticism. The practical training I have 

 advocated, whether founded on object les- 

 sons furnished by the field, the workshop 

 or the home, would prove the most suit- 

 able for developing the child's intelligence 

 and aptitudes and for enabling him to 

 derive the utmost advantage from attend- 

 ance at any one of the different types of 



