44 
and add the manna] training. This has heen done by a careful grading of the 
pupils, by securing better teachers and text-hooks, and by judicious and care- 
ful elimination of the nonessentials in the various branches. 
The time t«» be given to manual training, so that it will not interfere with 
efficient instruction in other branches, has been carefully considered, and 
experiments with regard to this have been tried. Some idea of the time occu- 
pied by manual training in some of our larger cities can be gained from the 
following statements: In Boston 2 hours per week are devoted to manual 
training throughout the fourth to ninth grades, inclusive, the hoys having 
drafting, woodworking, and clay modeling, and the girls sewing and cooking. 
Manual training in the schools of New York City extends through seven 
grades, with a total of 4 hours per week for both hoys and girls during the 
Qrst .V. years, and 4i hours during the second half of the sixth year and all 
of the seventh year. In the seventh and eighth grades of the Washington 
schools the girls have one 2-hour exercise a week in cooking and sewing, and 
the boys a similar period in woodworking. In Allegheny the l»«,ys have shop- 
work '2h hours and drawing 1| hours" a week for .'! years, and a supplementary 
course of 1 year. In Toledo each ward school has one manual training period 
of li hours a week. The time devoted to manual training in Los Angeles is 
two 20-minute periods a week through the first four grades, and three 25- 
minute periods throughout the next four grades. The work includes paper 
folding and cutting, raffia work, reed basketry, cardboard construction, sloyd, 
drawing, shop practice, sewing, and cooking. In San Francisco manual train- 
ing for hoys includes one lesson per week of 50 to GO minutes in the seventh 
and eighth grades. Comparatively few of the schools having manual training 
give less than an hour a week to this work, and the great majority allow 2 
or more hours for it. In most cases the work extends over 3, 4. or more 
years. The average cost of the plant for manual training in the 27<> cities 
reporting work of this kind in 1902 (not including manual training high 
schools) was $20,000. making a total investment for this purpose of $5,400,000. 
The current expenditures for teachers, materials, tools, etc., in 1901-2 were 
nearly $1,000,000. 
MOVEMENT TO INTRODUCE AGRICULTURE INTO THE RURAL SCHOOLS. 
More recently there has developed a movement to introduce the elements of 
agriculture into the rural schools. This movement has heen largely an out- 
growth of the nature study movement which for a number of years has been 
encouraged by such agencies as the Cornell University Bureau of Nature Study 
and the agricultural colleges in a number of other States, as well as by many 
prominent educators connected with other kinds of schools and colleges. Then 
came the school garden movement, and in this as in the nature study movement 
the city schools have led thase in the country, partly because the children in the 
city schools have taken a greater interest in such work on account of its novelty 
to them, and partly because the city schools through better organization and 
equipment and special teachers have been able to make experiments of this kind 
more readily than the rural schools. In these experiments, as might have been 
expected, mistakes were made. Nature study, according to some of its advo- 
cates, was to be elementary science, with a long list of scientific names, with 
classifications based on stipules, scales, and caudal appendages, and with a 
"why*" for everything. It involved such a universal knowledge of science that 
teachers were appalled at the prospect of having to prepare for the innovation. 
On the other hand, some of the advocates of nature study would have no for- 
mality, no classification, no plan — whatever came to hand was a subject for 
nature study. Facts were to be learned, not because of any bearing that they 
might have upon the symmetrical development of the children's faculties, but 
simply because they were interesting. There was no logical beginning to such 
study, no pedagogical sequence, no end. Fortunately there were other teachers 
and students of education who took neither of these extreme views, but who 
saw in nature study an opportunity to bring the children into more sympathetic 
and helpful relations with their natural environment, and at the same time 
increase their fund of useful knowledge. These teachers, when located in city 
schools, have brought to the consideration of their nature study classes the 
trees, shrubs, flowers, and vines found around the city homes, in the parks, and 
in the lawns, and have studied the insects, lards, and other animal life of the 
city in relation to this plant life. In the country they have considered the 
plants, animals, birds, and insects which surround the farmer and aid or hinder 
him in his work, giving much attention to their economic importance and very 
