492 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol, VII., No. 173 



MANUAL TRAINING. 



In the wave of enthusiasm for manual training 

 which is now passing over this land, it is very 

 difficult to get together the results of experience, 

 and still more difficult to determine whether the 

 plans which work well in one place are adapted 

 to another. Therefore every honest record of a 

 working organization is to be welcomed. Even 

 when the opinions of a writer are not accepted, 

 his statement of facts should receive attention. 



These remarks apply to the volume on manual 

 training, which has lately been published from 

 the pen of Charles H. Ham. The work has its 

 practical, its historical, and its philosophical as- 

 pect. In the first hundred pages there is an 

 elaborate account of the Chicago manual training- 

 school, which was founded in 1883 by the Com- 

 mercial club, — an association of merchants, who, 

 after a discussion of ' How to increase the supply 

 of skilled labor,' pledged the sum of one hundred 

 thousand dollars for the support of an industrial 

 school. A large building has been constructed, 

 and instruction is given in carpentry, wood-turn- 

 ing, founding, forging, and in the making of 

 machinery. The various laboratories devoted to 

 these purposes are described, but the experience 

 of two years is, of course, too limited to be very 

 significant. The general principles of the estab- 

 lishment seem to be in close accordance with the 

 well-known views of Professor Runkle of Boston, 

 and of Professor Woodward of St. Louis. 



In reading this volume we have been impressed 

 with this danger, — that, in giving emphasis to 

 the value of manual training, the worth of 

 mental training will be overlooked. James Rus- 

 sell Lowell, in a recent speech, wittily said that 

 not only are those studies of value which make 

 bread-winning easier, but also those which will 

 make every morsel of bread taste the sweeter. 



The author of the book before us declares at the 

 beginning that it is a theory of the Chicago 

 school, that " in the proeesses of education the 

 idea should never be isolated from the object it 

 represents." Indeed! Can this be so? Are ' ab- 

 stractions 1 to have no lights which the school is 

 I. ..iiixl to respect? How about the idea of num- 

 ber, of form, of quantity, of force ? Probably 

 the author did not see the bearing of his remark ; 

 but he repeats it in these words : " Separated from 

 its object, the idea is unreal, a phantom." This 

 is very different from the saying of Sir Hum- 

 phry Davy, that there is nothing so prolific in 

 abilities as abstractions. Believing as we do in 

 the great importance of manual training, believing 



Manual Iraininn, the solution of nor i a I aial iutl nst rial 

 prohhms. \\\ Chakij.s II. Ham Ni-w York, Harper, 18 u <>. 

 Vi°. • 



that every living being will be happier if be can 

 skilfully use his fingers in some useful art, we re- 

 gret to see the advocates of dexterity defend their 

 views by wrong arguments and defective logic. 



The Johns Hopkins university circular for May 

 states that Professor Rodolfo Lanciani of Rome 

 will give a course of lectures on Roman archeol- 

 ogy during the next academic year. He has been 

 for some years professor of archeology at the 

 Roman university, and inspector of excavations 

 for the city, and is also one of the leading mem- 

 bers of the archeological commission of Rome, 

 and of the Pontifical archeological society. Though 

 still quite young, he is one of the first authorities 

 on Roman archeology, and has followed with 

 greater care than any other archeologist the im- 

 portant excavations that have laid bare, from 1871 

 to 1886, so considerable a part of the ancient city. 

 In 1880 he published "I comentarii di Frontino 

 intorno le acque e gli aquedotti. Sylloge epigra- 

 fica aquaria," a learned work crowned by the 

 Academy of the Lincei. This is but a small part 

 of a great work to which he has been devoting 

 years of research, — a complete topography of the 

 ancient city of Rome, critical and historical. Pro- 

 fessor Lanciani has contributed important papers 

 to the Bull, delict comm. arclieologica, to the No- 

 tizie elegit Scavi, and other archeological periodi- 

 cals, besides separate works, such as 'Iscrizioni 

 dell'Anfiteatro Flavio ' (1880). 



— The recent invention by Dr. J. O'Dwyer of 

 New York, of a new method of treatment to take 

 t he place of the dreaded recourse to tracheotomy 

 in diphtheria and membranous croup, bids fair to 

 be of the greatest importance. His method does 

 away with cutting-instruments entirely, and con- 

 sists simply in the insertion of a tube of peculiar 

 shape between the vocal cords, thus permitting 

 the ingress of air into the trachea. The results 

 already reached by this intubation treatment 

 compare very favorably with those from trache- 

 otomy, as regards the saving of life ; and if, on 

 extended trial, they are borne out, the invention 

 will be ranked wilh the more important ones of 

 the century, in medicine. 



— Mr. S. Hertzenstein of the Zoological museum 

 of the Academy of sciences, St. Petersburg, Rus- 

 sia, is endeavoring to prepare schemes for public 

 iiiiisriinis in Russia, to be promoted by the authori- 

 ties, lb- would be grateful for any reports of 

 American museums, especially such as relate f<> 

 their organization rules or plan of operations. 

 Any BUCh may be mailed to him direct, or may be 

 addressed to him, undercover, to the Smithsonian 

 institution, Washington. 



