Page:Hints for the improvement of village schools and the introduction of industrial work.djvu/7

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industrial occupations can be successfully combined with book-learning in our National Schools, is a subject which has of late years attracted the attention of the friends of education. It has been warmly discussed, and declared to be impossible by some; while by others it is thought that such a combination of hand-work and head-work would make our National Schools to be more valued by the parents—would retain the children longer at school—and would be the means of introducing those habits of cleanliness and order, and that knowledge of domestic economy, in which the labouring classes in this country are now for the most part very deficient. It is a subject on which we may theorize for ever without coming to any satisfactory conclusion. Practical experience can alone decide both whether the plan be feasible, and whether the anticipated results can be obtained. It seems therefore to be the duty of any school managers, who have actually made the trial, to state the result, whether it be favourable or the contrary, that others may profit by their experience.

The remarks I am about to offer, have no plea for appearing in print, except upon this ground, viz., as being the result of an experiment made on a small scale in an ordinary agricultural village of four hundred and forty inhabitants, and of several years' close observation of the habits and wants of the labouring classes.

The plans and estimates appended, with the information respecting government grants, may perhaps be of service to any school managers who are desirous to make a similar trial.