60 Technical Education. 



their own labour might hereafter be practically directed ; hence 

 when it is time for lads to leave school both they and their parents 

 are too often utterly at a loss to know what the lad is to be put 

 to, or what he is fit for. He has been taught to work hard to get 

 result fees for his teacher, and he is glad to be relieved from this 

 labour. Beyond this he has rarely no other definite idea as to the 

 necessity, value, or object of the education he has received. 

 Without this he is heavily handicapped in his future struggle 

 for existence. Referring to the use of tools in schools, the lec- 

 turer said there are many things desirable that are not always 

 practicable. This seems to be the case with reference to teach- 

 ing the use of tools in schools, where our youths, as a rule, have 

 so short a time to devote to the cultivation of the senses and 

 mental faculties as means for acquiring and properly applying 

 the laws and principles that underlie the practical industries of 

 the country. Other agencies besides tools may be employed 

 for the purpose of developing and directing manipulative skill, 

 or dexterity of hand, such, for example, as drawing and modelling. 

 The lecturer strongly recommended this, as well as the study of 

 natural science, and stated that the defective training in the 

 elementary school is a great hindrance to the effective working 

 of the more practical classes under the Science and Art Depart- 

 ment, for a great deal of the students' time is lost in their school 

 making up the elementary deficiencies. This is most marked. 

 The School of Art and the teachers' time, which should be 

 devoted to the more advanced studies, is wasted in endeavouring 

 to get the student to grasp the more elementary lessons in 

 drawing. No wonder that the parents and friends so often 

 complain of the time spent on elementary work, and the slow 

 progress made by the students. Mechanics wanting this 

 elementary instruction attribute their slow progress at schools of 

 art to the teachers' want of practical knowledge rather than to 

 their own want of elementary knowledge. Had the student's 

 eye and hand been properly trained in the elementary school 

 at the time when the eye and. hand are most readily trained, 

 he would be prepared to profit by the teaching in the School 

 of Art, and advance to higher stages more rapidly. The lecturer 



