44© THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



not. Men will teach for bread and butter just as they will preach 

 and pray. Too many are in the school because they have nothing 

 else to do. They have not elected teaching. Like their boys, they 

 must undo a great deal of their past, and this in a man requires 

 not a small degree of plasticity. Some possess it, some do not. 

 To look within the soul and draw one's inspiration from that well 

 of living water is not given to all men ; to communicate it, in all 

 frankness and generosity, to but few. Our education has made 

 us all too cautious. We are too afraid of speaking out and ex- 

 pressing our inmost convictions. And so our goodness, if we 

 have any, does not prove contagious. No wave of spirituality 

 proceeds from our teaching. 



In contending against these odds, the pressure from without 

 and the insufficiency within, the 'teacher experiences alternations 

 of hope and despair. The faculty of a manual training school is 

 commonly made up of young men. The more thoughtful among 

 them have been attached to the movement by its immense prom- 

 ise, but under their hopefulness there is observable a current of 

 almost premature seriousness. It is a grave task to undertake 

 the regeneration of humanity, even when it is in the bud. 



In attempting to carry out this idea of boy development, the 

 atmosphere of the school is an object of constant solicitude. 

 Great care is taken that it shall not be charged with the miasma 

 called information. It is to be kept fresh, and, above all, morally 

 wholesome. Character is to be grown there, but one spirit must 

 pervade the school ; it is that of a divine egotism. The boy is 

 taught that for himself the one object of supreme importance in 

 the whole universe is himself. His gaze is directed toward the 

 naked human soul, stripped of the false props of apparel, of fam- 

 ily, of possessions, even of knowledge. He is led to do this and 

 that not for the sake of the product, although this is duly valued, 

 but for the sake of the doing, and the reaction it will have upon 

 himself. Education is thus made intensely subjective. The worth, 

 the dignity, the responsibility of the individual are given greater 

 emphasis than the facts of geography, of grammar, or of history. 

 It is in this spirit, the constant recognition of a definite end, that 

 manual training attempts to work. It would not do, however, to 

 talk to boys very much about the soul. It is an abstraction to 

 them, and they would soon cease to listen. They must be made to 

 feel it. The task is a very subtle one ; its nature must never be 

 forgotten, but seldom displayed. The kingdom of heaven can 

 not be taken by violence. It is through gentleness and patience, 

 through love and sympathy, that the inner recesses of boys' 

 hearts are to be reached. They have been taught in a vague way 

 that the body has a soul. The statement is here reversed, and 

 they are made to feel, if possible, that the soul has a body. They 



