Page:Hints for the improvement of village schools and the introduction of industrial work.djvu/22

14 together, that cleanliness, order, and good manners should be rigidly enforced. When the schoolmistress is untidy and slovenly; where the room is stuffy and ill-ventilated, or cold and desolate—where all is disorder and dirt—such a school will inevitably fail in training girls successfully for the duties of after life, and the more respectable parents cannot be blamed for refusing to send their children.

Hitherto I have spoken almost entirely of girls. Let us now consider whether it is desirable and feasible to employ boys at Industrial work. Among town schools I have met with a few instances, in which the boys are instructed in printing and carpentering, as at St. Mary's, Southampton, and Painswick, in Gloucestershire, but never having tried anything of that kind, and feeling the difficulty of providing suitable instructors in a country village, I will only say, that the experiments made in the above-mentioned towns appear to have been attended with considerable success, and to confirm an opinion that I have long entertained, viz., that the standard of instruction is not lowered, but invariably raised by the introduction of Industrial work—— not only do the boys become more handy and tractable from the variety of occupation, but, from their general intelligence being quickened, I find that they made more than ordinary progress in the common book-work. The usual school-hours, if entirely devoted to head-work, I believe to be much too long, and am certain that an equal amount can be learnt in a much shorter time, especially if the hours of play are devoted to some more intellectual amusements than marbles, or "pitch and toss." The following extracts from a letter by W. H. Hyett, Esq., to the Dean of Hereford, (published by Groombridge, price 6d.) are well worthy of attention:—

"To interest a boy," says Mr. Hyett, "give him something to handle, not at school only, but at home. To interest parents, let them also see something done—something that they cannot do themselves—something which brings it home to their comprehension that we are teaching the bread-winning arts of life. The complaint is frequent that the poor do not value education. It may be true that they do not value the education which too often has been the only education within their reach; but let us enlist their sympathies by more tangible objects of industry, and try the truth of the complaint by that test. Doubtless in our ordinary schools, where little but imperfect reading, writing, and arithmetic, is taught, the parents soon think, and no wonder, that their children have gained all that they are likely to gain, and remove them; while, naturally enough, not having realized the use of music, geography, or political economy, they are not tempted to continue their children at our better schools to learn things of which they do not see the value; but the efforts they make to retain them at school, when skill in any kind of handicraft is to be picked up, are extraordinary. That we are earnestly striving to train up better Christians, is gradually breaking in upon them, but in their hard and anxious struggle for a livelihood they want to feel that we are making better