568 



SGiujsrcu, 



[Vol. IX., No, 227 



part? some were weeding, some were watering 

 plants ; others gathered fruit and vegetables, and 

 prepared them for the market. The flower-garden 

 is the most interesting part to the stranger. Here 

 I saw a company of boys laying out ornamental 

 flower-beds. Beauty, taste, and skill, coming from 

 such young hands, fill the stranger with admira- 

 tion. 



At other seasons of the year the boys are en- 

 gaged at various light crafts in work-rooms, such 

 as the making of baskets, brushes, brooms, etc. ; 

 light and plain carpentry, where the use of tools 

 is taught. The hammer and saw are the princi- 

 pal tools for the younger class : with these they 

 are taught to drive nails and saw boards at various 

 angles. Type-setting and book -binding are taught 

 to the advanced and older classes. 



Each boy receives a small remuneration for his 

 work when it is faithfully and obediently per- 

 formed. The money, however, is not directly 

 paid to him, but is put into a savings bank for 

 him ; and from time to time he I'eceives his cer- 

 tificates of deposits, which the boy, with a face 

 all aglow with inexpressible delight, carries home 

 to his parents for safe keeping. 



As the industrial training of boys requires 

 grounds, extra buildings, tools and appliances, 

 and in many cases extra teachers, it can only be 

 indirectly connected with the public schools. 

 And although the government encourages manual 

 training for boys, there are great difiiculties in the 

 way of making it universally obligatory. For 

 this reason it is not mentioned in the school law 

 as one of the regular branches to be taught in the 

 public schools, but must be left entirely to private 

 and municipal efforts, with indirect aid from the 

 government. But girls' manual training, or, as 

 it is called in Germany, ' female hand-work,' pre- 

 sents none of these difficulties ; so that it finds a 

 place in the school law. The following is a trans- 

 lation of article 13, p. 6, of the school law of the 

 grand-duchy of Hesse : " The following are the 

 branches to be taught in the common public 

 schools : religion, reading and writing, composi- 

 tion and grammar of the German language, arith- 

 metic, mensuration, history, geography, natural 

 history, vocal music, drawing, gymnastics for the 

 boys, and for the girls instruction in female hand- 

 work." 



Female hand-work, however, is no new thing 

 in the public schools. From the very earliest 

 times of school history, girls have been known to 

 take their knitting and sewing to school ; and in 

 our country, in the early part of this century, 

 not only the girls, but the boys also, used to knit 

 their own stockings at school. But the work 

 then performed had no educational end in view. 



The industries were yet undeveloped, and every 

 family was obliged to manufacture its own cloth- 

 ing. Each member of the family had to lend a 

 helping hand, so that the work done at school 

 seems to have been performed through necessity. 



This is not the case with the hand-work per- 

 formed in the schools in Germany now. Its pur- 

 pose is purely an educational one, — to train the 

 hand, and develop its cunning. And to guard 

 against selfish and calculating tendencies, the pu- 

 pil is not permitted to make any thing to be worn 

 by any one ; for nothing is more mischievous, 

 and more directly opposed to the harmonious de- 

 velopment of a child's mental powers, than a 

 calculating motive, — the motive whose chief out- 

 look is material gain. This manual training is 

 pursued for its own sake, as a mental and ethical 

 discipKne, and by no means for its economic 

 value. 



The parent furnishes the child with the needed 

 material, which, when the child has finished its 

 course, may be as useless as the paper upon whick 

 it has written its language-exercises. And yet,, 

 for all this, no one complains that it does not pay. 

 The benefits of industrial training are best under- 

 stood by the authors of school law. From another 

 page of the school law I make the following trans- 

 lation : "Female hand- work is not only to have a 

 practical purpose, bearing upon the proper man- 

 agement of a home, but it must also tend to train 

 girls early to habits of usefulness, and to develop 

 the virtues of endurance, patience, industry, econ- 

 omy, and benevolence, and to refine the taste for 

 order and for becomingness in dress," 



The instruction is based upon philosophic prin- 

 ciples, and is imparted in a systematic manner. 

 None others but teachers who have taken a 

 thorough course in the industrial-training schools- 

 for female teachers are permitted to teach at all ; 

 and when you enter a room, no matter whether it 

 be the lowest primary or the highest grammar,, 

 you will find a teacher there who understands her 

 business thoroughly. 



Two to three hours each week are given to in- 

 dustrial training, generally on Tuesday and Thurs- 

 day afternoons. 



Knitting is the first exercise, and the ordinary 

 forms of meshes are continued throughout the 

 seventh year. Sewing is next introduced. 



Among the first lessons in sewing are the use 

 of the thimble and scissors, threading the needle, 

 and the ways of holding the cloth while sewing 

 and cutting ; a lesson is also given upon the dif- 

 ferent kinds of thread. The stitch-lesson is first 

 performed on paper : after a while, a cheap kind 

 of muslin is substituted. Every lesson is made a, 

 class drill. The children work by dictation : all 



