March 18, 1887.] 



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muscles are strengthened, a njore harmonious de- 

 velopment attained, and there is less fear of their 

 growing crooked There is no reason to dread 

 their becoming left-handed : in more delicate 

 manipulations, the right hand will always remain 

 the better man of the two. 



Does slojd help forward the mental develop- 

 ment ? Surely work which draws out and exer- 

 cises energy, perseverance, order, accuracy, and 

 the habit of attention, cannot be said to fail in 

 influencing the mental faculties ; and that it 

 should do so by cultivating the practical side of 

 the intelligence, leading the pupils to rely on 

 themselves, to exercise foresight, to be constantly 

 putting two and two together, is specially needed 

 in these days of excessive examinations, when so 

 many of us are suffering from the adoption of 

 ready-made opinions, and the swallowing whole, 

 in greater or smaller boluses, the resu.lts of other 

 men's labors. 



We want whole men and women, the sum total 

 of whose faculties is developed, who have learned 

 to apply their knowledge, not only in the emer- 

 gencies, but in the daily occurrences of life ; and 

 this readiness — this steadiness of nerve, the or- 

 dered control of that wonderful machine the body, 

 the cultivation of the practical side of us — can 

 only come by exercise, and this is given by means 

 of slojd. Let us also remember that all skilled 

 work, however humble it may appear, is brain- 

 work too : the hand is the servant of the brain. 

 If any one doubt this, let him try to make, from 

 first to last, some complete object, however insig- 

 nificant, — be it the modelling of a leaf, cube, or 

 even a ball, or the making of a wooden spoon, — 

 and, I answer for it, he will gain a new respect for 

 hand-work, not only from its usefulness, but the 

 skill it requires. 



What does slojd do for the moral training of 

 the child ? It implants respect and love for work 

 in general, including the coarser kinds of bodily 

 work. In the fierce competition which exists in 

 all civilized countries (and nowhere fiercer than 

 in our own), which springs in so many cases from 

 the desire to push on to some fancied higher level 

 of life, what a clearing of the moral atmosphere 

 would be effected if the rising generation could be 

 imbued with the feeling, deepening as they grow 

 up into conviction, that it is the man who digni- 

 fies or degrades the work, — that all labor which 

 proceeds from a worthy motive is of equal worth, 

 and that the right work for each one of us, and 

 consequently the noblest, is the work we can do 

 best! 



But this is not all which slojd effects in the way 

 of moral influence. It tightens and strengthens 

 the bond between school and home. Every thing 



which the child makes is for home use, is prized 

 there as his own honest work, and as the product 

 of the skill which he is gaining at school. Among 

 the working-classes, the actual use of the things 

 made by the children (besides the wholesome 

 pleasure and pride they call forth) is found to do 

 much, in the countries where slojd is practised, 

 to reconcile the parents to their children remain- 

 ing at school even when they are beginning to be 

 of use at home and to be able to earn something. 

 They have tangible proof, in the objects brought 

 home, that their children are learning something 

 which makes them useful and handy, and which 

 will make them readier in future in learning a 

 trade. 



I will only mention one other point in which 

 slojd bears good moral fruit. I mean, it implants 

 in the child a sense of satisfaction in honest work, 

 begun, carried on, and completed by fair means 

 and by his own exertions. In these days of 

 scamped work, of dishonest tricks to be found in 

 all trades and manufactures, what can we say too 

 much in praise of a system which will give our 

 boys and girls a sense of the dignity of work, a 

 scorn and contempt for what is slovenly or tricky ? 

 The slojd system is completely opposed to the 

 modern principle of division of labor, which is no 

 doubt a necessity in the present conditions of life, 

 but which would be disastrous in education, where 

 the aim must be the development of each indi- 

 vidual, not the getting through a given quantity 

 of work in the shortest and cheapest way. I feel 

 sure that a boy or girl who, at a period when 

 impressions are most lasting, has had the solid 

 satisfaction of carrying out a piece of work from 

 beginning to end, will not be satisfied, in adult 

 life, with becoming a mere machine for drilling 

 holes, putting on pins' heads, or tui'ning out chair- 

 legs by the hundred, but will, in his leisure hours, 

 vindicate his dignity and skill by doing some work, 

 whether practical or intellectual, worthy of a hu- 

 man being. We must remember, too, that a large 

 part of the distress in bad times is due to the fact, 

 that, if the particular fragment of work which a 

 person is capable of is taken from him, he can do 

 nothing else whereby to earn his bread. 



I can only speak in the briefest way of the cry- 

 ing need there is for some such practical training 

 as is given by slojd. I am not an enthusiast for 

 the particular form of it which I have studied 

 myself at NaSs, and which I have seen at work in 

 the Swedish schools, where I wish I could trans- 

 port you, so that you might see for yourselves the 

 earnestness and energy of the young workers, the 

 dexterity with which they handle their tools, their 

 extreme carefulness (for no damaged or careless 

 work is passed), and the independent manner in 



