THE SPIRIT OF MANUAL TRAINING. 439 



is much, to exhibit on stated occasions to the public gaze and com- 

 mendation. The other harvest is slow in maturing. It taxes 

 faith and hope. It does not offer material well suited for public 

 display. Yet this intangible result is so valued by those who 

 labor for it, that they are content to wait, persuaded that a well- 

 spent present can afford to leave the future to divine law. 



In nearly every manual training school these two elements are 

 present. In one way this is an advantage, for they act as a check 

 upon each other. The practical side is kept from becoming sor- 

 did ; the spiritual side from becoming visionary. But the balance 

 of power between the two is of the utmost importance, for it 

 determines the character of the school. If it be on the one side, 

 the tendency of manual training must be regarded as unfortu- 

 nate — the educational ideal is degraded ; life contracts. If it be 

 on the other, no finer nursery can be imagined for the rearing of 

 a race which shall be strong in its passion for goodness and for 

 knowledge. It teaches that the worth of a man lies in what he is. 

 The question is one of fiber, not of veneer. 



It is not unnatural that an enterprise with so ambitious a pur- 

 pose should constantly bring disappointment to its projectors. 

 When one has poured out his whole soul in an effort to regenerate, 

 even a reasonable amount of success does not satisfy him. He 

 looks, perhaps, for too much. The currents in human affairs 

 which do not make for righteousness are too strong to be easily 

 stemmed. The influence of the school is working against very 

 powerful counter - influences. Arrayed against it are the low 

 maxims of the street and the market, the sensationalism of much 

 of our current literature, and not infrequently the indifferent moral 

 atmosphere of the home itself. It is not alone that these opponents 

 have contemporary power, but they have been in office for from 

 thirteen to fourteen years. "We have to fight not only the present, 

 but the past as well. The leaven of the new ideas goes frequently 

 into very obdurate dough, and its working is correspondingly 

 sluggish. We must cope with both the boy and his great-grand- 

 mother. 



A difficulty keenly felt in these schools is the necessity of 

 spending the first few months in the negative work of undoing. 

 Children, as a rule, are very badly trained. They are taught to 

 work under a false stimulus, and from vicious motives. Their 

 morality is generally the morality of rewards and punishments. 

 Were the childish heart less beautiful and less pure than it is, 

 the injury done to it would be even more irreparable. 



Nor are these the only difficulties. The spirit of manual train- 

 ing is ethical and evolutionary. But, unfortunately, not all of 

 those who presume to teach in such schools have themselves 

 caught its fine meaning. One can not communicate what he has 



