November 25, 1887.] 



SCIENCE. 



255 



paratory school. It contained the germ of modern-side education. 

 Arnold did not know that he was passing from Melanchthon to 

 Comenius, and that the study of things once set rolling would soon 

 displace the study of words. It contained the germs of a new con- 

 fidence and friendship between boy and master quite as different 

 from the sly sentimentality of the Jesuits as it was from the pom- 

 pous neglect of the old-fashioned courtly don. It contained, alas ! 

 in germ the subjection of the master to the boy in standard, 

 tastes, and habits, which threatens to be the ruin of our public 

 schools. It crystallized also the idea, which otherwise might have 

 disappeared, that a head master must be of necessity a clergyman, 

 ■ and that no school could be properly conducted unless its chief 

 sums up in the pulpit every Sunday afternoon what are supposed to 

 be the spiritual results of the week's emotions. It stamped also 

 with permanence, by a natural misunderstanding, that conviction of 

 a head master's autocracy which prevents the formation in England 

 of a profession of education. The history of English public schools 

 since Arnold is merely the carrying-out under vaiying circumstances 

 of the teaching of his example, and the development, sometimes to 

 ■disastrous ends, of abuses to which that example may seem to lend 

 currency. 



A few words only are needed in conclusion as to the present and 

 future of our public boarding-schools. Nothing has altered their 

 character more than their growth in numbers, which has been the 

 result of popularity. In Arnold's time no public school e.xcept 

 Eton exceeded three hundred boys. Arnold and his contemporary 

 head masters might boast with truth that they knew every boy in 

 their school by sight, his habits, his capacity, his friends. A school 

 thus governed by one man, and penetrated by his influence, differed 

 not only in degree, but in kind, from a school which has of neces- 

 sity become a confederation. In a public school of Arnold's date 

 games were still amusements. Formerly neglected and ignored by 

 pedagogues, they became the nurse of every manly virtue when a 

 more sympathetic eye was turned upon them. Tom Brown's 

 school-days represents the heroism of the forties, — the high-water 

 mark where boyish enterprise and independence reached their 

 height under the influence of manly recognition. During the last 

 ■quarter of a century, games have become a serious business, instead 

 ■of the wholesome distraction of public-school life. They are organ- 

 ized as elaborately as the work. Masters are appointed to teach 

 them like any other branch of study : they form the basis of ad- 

 miration and imitation between boy and boy, and the foundation of 

 respect and obedience between boy and master. It is difficult to 

 keep large numbers of boys, with only five years difference in their 

 •ages, quiet and wholesome without a large development of games. 

 They have been admitted to their full share in the school curricu- 

 lum. A public boarding-school is no longer a place where, amidst 

 much liberty and idleness, there reigns a high respect for character 

 and intellect, and where the ablest boys are left ample room to 

 fashion each other and themselves. It is a place where the whole 

 Ufe is tabulated and arranged, where leisure, meditation, and indi- 

 vidual study are discouraged, and where boys are driven in a cease- 

 less round from school to play-room, from play-room to school, 

 regarding each as of equal importance, and bringing into the most 

 delicate operations of intellectual growth the spirit of coarse compe- 

 tition which dominates in athletics. 



It is difficult to say what changes public boarding-schools are 

 destined to undergo, or whether in an age in which education is so 

 much extended a system so expensive and so exclusive can continue 

 to flourish. The last few years have witnessed the growth of large 

 public day-schools, and any development of national education 

 would be certain to increase their number. Although the Arnol- 

 dian system is little applicable to them on its best side, yet they are 

 of necessity free from most of the abuses to which that system has 

 given rise. An idea may grow up that the home is, after all, the 

 best place for children, and that children are the best safeguard of 

 a pure and happy home. Should English society in its new develop- 

 ment prefer a kind of education which is the normal type of all 

 countries but our own, which improved communication makes it 

 easier to adopt, we shall still have public schools of which we 

 should be proud : they will continue to represent our best national 

 qualities, but they will be very different from the public boarding- 

 :schools of the past. Oscar Browning. 



THE NAAS SEMINARY FOR TEACHERS OF MANUAL 

 TRAINING.' 

 If any inquiring friend of manual training endeavors to find 

 Naas on any ordinary map ol Sweden, he will be disappointed. It 

 is an old Swedish country-seat, beautifully situated on the pretty 

 lake Savelangen, about ten hours' journey from Gothenburg. The 

 railway from Gothenburg to Stockholm passes in the vicinity, and 

 the intending visitor to Naas leaves the train at Floda station. 

 From Floda to Naas is a short journey by boat or on foot. The 

 two settlements are not more than an hour's walk apart. 



Naiis itself is situated on the highest point of a narrow strip of 

 land. The lake here is about thirty metres broad, and is spanned 

 by a substantial stone bridge. The castle is attractive, but repre- 

 sents no particular style of architecture. On both sides of the lake 

 are beautiful woods in which the birch and the alder predominate. 

 The situation is as lovely as nature and art can make it. 



Herr August Abrahamson bought this place about fifteen years 

 ago. He began at once to set aside a certain portion of his great 

 wealth, acquired as a merchant in Gothenburg, to aid the popula- 

 tion of his own neighborhood, and to improve their condition. He 

 began by rebuilding many of the peasants' poor houses, and by 

 teaching them something of systematic agriculture. Afterwards 

 he built three schools in which instruction is given free, and for 

 their support he donated the handsome sum of 225,000 crowns, or 

 over $50,000. 



In the year 1872, Herr Abrahamson opened a school for boys 

 from ten to fourteen years of age." The curriculum of this school 

 contains twenty-two hours weekly of instruction in religion, lan- 

 guage, history, geography, natural science, writing, arithmetic, 

 singing, and gymnastic and military exercises," and twelve hours 

 weekly of instruction in manual training. The manual training has 

 in this, as in almost all the other schools of Sweden (those of 

 Gothenburg alone are an exception), no other aim than to prepare 

 the boys for any trade whatsoever. The aim is thus a purely ped- 

 agogic one. Manual training is treated as a means of education, 

 and is placed side by side with the other school-studies. By means 

 of the methodical instruction in the use of tools and in the con- 

 struction of one hundred objects, carefully arranged and graded, 

 the pupil acquires a general manual ability which is of great ad- 

 vantage to him, no matter what calling he afterwards follows. Be- 

 sides this, the manual training furnishes a healthy physical exercise, 

 and, with the gymnastic instruction, affords an excellent means of 

 escape from over-brainwork. It is also found that manual training 

 gives the pupils a love for work and an enjoyment in it, and de- 

 velops in a thorough manner their independence, attention, in- 

 dustry, and perseverance. 



In the year 1874, Herr Abrahamson established a similar school 

 for girls between ten and fourteen years of age ; and the aim 

 of this school was not only to instruct the girls in the usual subjects 

 of a school course, but to make them adepts in the domestic arts. 

 In the plan of studies, twenty-one hours a week are devoted to the 

 usual studies, and fifteen hours a week to manual instruction. 



Herr Abrahamson was, however, determined to extend his phi- 

 lanthropy as widely as possible, and to work for the cause of edu- 

 cation, not in his neighborhood alone, nor in Sweden only, but in 

 general. Thoroughly imbued with the idea of working out an 

 harmonious scheme of instruction for children, to the completion of 

 which the greatest educators have urged as necessary a graded 

 course of instruction in manual work, Herr Abrahamson founded 

 in June, 1875, ''"'-e Seminary for the Instruction of Teachers in 

 Slojd (manual training) ; and this institution has since acquired a 

 wide and well-deserved reputation. 



During the first five years of its existence, the seminary course 

 had in view the preparation of special teachers for the courses in 

 manual training. The course lasted one year. To enter the sem- 

 inary, a candidate must be at least eighteen years of age, in good 

 health, and with such preparation in school-subjects and physical 



1 From S. Rudin's Bericht uber eine £ 



'^ The Swedish pubhc schools are of two distinct grade 

 for children of from six to ten years of age ; and the 

 children of from ten to fourteen years. 



3 The Swedish boys receive in the public school their military instruction, and ; 

 ;d in the handling of weapons, as are cadets in other c 



the elementary school, 

 school proper, for 



