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SCWWCE. 



LVoL. IX., No. 319 



well-conducted manual-training school produces 

 as great a degree of dexterity as two years' ap- 

 prenticeship under the adverse conditions which 

 prevail in the typical trade-shop. The institu- 

 tion that affords such scientific instruction is 

 necessarily expensive. The Chicago manual-train- 

 ing school received an endowment fund of one 

 hundred thousand dollars ; but the tuition-fee 

 therein is two hundred and forty dollars, for the 

 course of three years, and yet the institution is not 

 self-sustaining. 



2. The necessity for industrial features is far 

 less imperative in country than in- city schools. 

 The country boy learns, very early in life, to do a 

 host of things by doing them. He almost invari- 

 ably finds his way to a shop containing the typi- 

 cal hand-tools, and learns to use them ; and 

 through such use his eyes, his hands, and his 

 mind are trained. Ruskin expresses this idea in 

 a terse sentence : "Let the youth once learn to 

 take a straight shaving off a plank, or draw a fine 

 curve without faltering, or lay a brick level in its 

 mortar, and he has learned a multitude of other 

 matters which no lips of man could ever teach 

 him." Every exercise of farm-work in which the 

 youth engages, develops the observation and ren- 

 ders the judgment more accurate. A rainy day 

 in the shop, with the saw, the hammer, the plane, 

 the chisel, and the square, is better than a week 

 of the city boy's school. The experience of the 

 country boy in field, forest, and shop, is the most 

 important factor in his education. It is to these 

 industrial features of his training that he owes 

 his undoubted superiority to the city youth. Too 

 much prominence cannot be given the fact that 

 it is in the country that the race is regenerated. 

 Rousseau's remark, "Cities are the graves that 

 swallow up the human species," is worthy the 

 careful consideration of educationists. The 

 founding of manual-training schools in cities is 

 an effort to give to city children that knowledge 

 of things which is obtained by country children 

 out of school. 



It is, hence, impracticable, for the time being,' 

 because of its great cost, to add industrial train- 

 ing to the curriculum of the country schools ; 

 and it is unnecessary to do so, since a thousand 

 things are learned for nothing by the country 

 boy, through the daily exercises of labor and 

 play, which can be mastered by the city youth 

 only in special schools established and conducted 

 at large cost. 



Charles H. Ham. 



The meaning and application of the term ' school 

 education ' is broadening year by year ; not in the 

 sense of increasing the number of the subjects of 



knowledge for the young people to study, but in 

 discriminating with a view to lessening them, 

 thereby providing the means for a better, more 

 natural growth of the mental and physical powers. 

 The limit of this abuse of the privileges of school, 

 by compelling an excessive use of the brain, we 

 believe is reached ; and the best teachers all over 

 the state and country are seeking earnestly for a 

 remedy. Just now attention is being largely 

 turned tow^ard industrial or manual training ; and 

 notwithstanding one of the leading papers in the 

 country says editorially, "Industrial education 

 should be kept out of the ordinary common school, 

 these cannot have any further branches," there is 

 wisdom in the movement. 



Let us see. One great object in introducing 

 manual training into the schools is to reduce the 

 number of the subjects of daily study, of a purely 

 intellectual character. Some of these are known 

 to be of doubtful utility. Drop them out and 

 give them occupation, just what they need, and 

 this is abundantly supplied by a systematic course 

 in manual training. 



Before the chOd has entered school at all, it has 

 learned to use to the best advantage the eyes in 

 seeing, the ears in hearing, and the hands in ma- 

 nipulating. Vast stores of knowledge have been 

 acquired. But once in the school-room, and these 

 sources of education are cut off. What is to be 

 gained thereafter in knowledge and wisdom must 

 be obtained from a book. Right here manual 

 training steps in ; and by means of it, if properly 

 conducted, the little one again sees things, hears 

 things, and handles things. The child is again 

 restored to the outside world, and to happiness. 



Labor is apt to be considered disreputable : to 

 work with the hands is looked upon as humiliating. 

 People entertaining these ideas will sometimes 

 resort to follies and crimes, rather than be classed 

 with those who thrive by manual toil. Here, 

 again, a judicious course in manual training steps 

 in and clothes the young person with the honors 

 of usefulness and recognition. Elegant leisure, 

 idleness, and all the resultant follies are not found 

 in his vocabulary. 



As a rule, young children do not easily become 

 interested in the study of books. They have 

 small powers to understand, and weak memories 

 to retain what they with difficulty comprehend, 

 and for which they have but little or no use. 

 Hence, if they get on with their studies, it must 

 be done by cramming and learning by rote. In- 

 dustrial or manual training opens a way to inter- 

 est them, to develop and employ their perceptive 

 faculties, and to make the otherwise unattractive 

 experiences of school- life cheerful and pleasant. 



A great nation engaged in developing its re- 



