SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXII. No. 549. 



tlements and their like, which are found in 

 the most densely settled portions of cities, 

 and which have to do with children who 

 find little or none of the gentle or softening 

 influences of the average American home. 

 These methods certainly bring a minimum 

 of good to children of whom reasonable 

 obedience and courteous bearing are ex- 

 pected in their home life. 



To the kindergarten belongs the initial 

 work of manual training. By that often 

 abused phrase I particularly mean geo- 

 metrical drawing and instruction in hatidi- 

 crafts of various kinds. Indeed, a rela- 

 tively large proportion of the kindergarten 

 pupil's time ought to be engrossed by 

 manual training, because the brain is then 

 specially amenable to training in the pre- 

 cise control of the senses; and this man- 

 ual training ought to be carried up through 

 the grades in the elementary schools with 

 gradually decreasing allotment of time un- 

 til it is nearly (or even entirely) succeeded 

 by purely mental studies when the high 

 school is reached. All that is now done 

 with manual training in the high schools 

 can be better done in the lower schools. 

 But brains can be as easily produced by 

 wishing, as precision of thought and act 

 can be produced by an untrained teacher. 



There is the rub in the situation. 

 Poorly taught manual training is paxtic>>,- 

 ularly dangerous because it encourages lack 

 of precision in perception, performance and 

 judgment, at the very time in his develop- 

 ment when the habit of slovenly inaccuracy 

 is most readily impressed upon the pupil. 

 Less harm from poor teaching in this 

 branch results in the high school than in 

 the kindergarten, because the older child is 

 less readily and less permanently affected 

 by slovenly processes, if he has previously 

 been under wise instruction. Also, better 

 teachers, with reasonably good training, are 

 available for the high school teaching of 



manual training, because better wages are 

 there afforded. How can we expect — who 

 should expect — accuracy of observation, 

 precision of act and accuracy of thought 

 to be inculcated in small children by a 

 young woman who possesses not one of 

 those important attributes herself, and who 

 has never learned that they are important 

 — indeed, essential — to the highest success 

 in man or woman? 



Gentlemen of the secondary schools, if 

 you will lend your attention judiciously to 

 reforming the schools below yours, and 

 will really produce the reformation, you 

 will be relieved of that disconcerting and 

 mischievous pressure that is now directed 

 towards securing for manual training a 

 considerable portion of the time of the 

 secondary school curriculum which is now 

 occupied by what are commonly called dis- 

 ciplinary studies. 



A few of the better universities acknowl- 

 edge that a small amount of manual train- 

 ing is appropriate to the list of entrance 

 requirements, and such an acknowledgment 

 is quite usual by the engineering colleges 

 (the University of Wisconsin admits not to 

 exceed one unit out of the fourteen units 

 of high school work accepted for entrance 

 into engineering courses). Such a pro- 

 portion is substantially as much as ought 

 to be made a part of the high school cur- 

 riculum, but it ought to be only the final 

 capping of a stout pyramid of drawing and 

 handicrafts which has its capacious lower 

 leaf in the primary school or kindergarten. 

 In this connection, let me say that much 

 confusion exists in the minds of many re- 

 garding the relations of trades schools to 

 high schools and of trades schools to uni- 

 versity courses in engineering. Each of' 

 these has its own place, and they should 

 not be confused. 



Precision of observation, accuracy of ex- 

 ecution and clear reasoning are necessary 



