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 Manual Training, p. 1163

It was believed that these experiments opened the door to an education which combined the intellectual and physical; that both mind and body might be disciplined by processes which broadened the man, fitting him to become a useful member to the community and also a producer of wealth. It was maintained that observation, judgment and induction could be cultivated, not only in schools of philosophy and science but in schools of trade and technology. Considering that only about one sixth of the pupils entering the ordinary high school complete the course and that most of those passing through the grammar school do not enter the high school at all, it seemed that some course should be adopted which would retain the majority of young people by a combination of intellectual studies with those having an economic aspect. The result of attempting two such diverse ends has naturally given rise to rival schools, in one of which the intellectual aim prevails, in the other the economic purpose. Those private institutions which perhaps are best known are the schools connected with the Drexel Institute, Philadelphia; Washington University, St. Louis; Armour Institute, Chicago; and that under the care of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston. The curriculum most favored in these institutions embraces (in mathematics) algebra, trigonometry, astronomy and mechanics; (in science) botany, chemistry and physics, with elementary lessons in biology and geology. Composition and rhetoric are not neglected, and in some schools excellent, instruction is given in Latin and in modern languages. As specially distinctive of these schools, however, marked attention is paid to drawing, clay-modeling, tinting, joinery, wood-carving, forging and founding.

In the public schools the introduction of manual training has met with wide approval, until it has become a part of the curriculum both in grade and high schools. In these schools manual training includes the school-arts of writing, stick-laying, drawing, woodworking, clay-modeling, wood-carving, sewing, weaving, painting etc. The handling of simple tools at home, as the knife, the pencil, the pen, the needle, the scissors, the hammer, anticipates the use of similar tools in the schoolroom and helps the child in the development of motor-control as well as of manual skill; in fact, there is hardly anything that he does at his games or his work which does not serve a similar purpose. The course of study in every well-organized school gives a prominent place to some of the other school-arts as well as to writing. Their place in the education of the child is being recognized more generally in all advanced systems of education than ever before. Not only do they develop motor-control and skill in doing things, but each act reacts upon the apperceptive activities, building up clearer notions and more positive definitions. So generally is this fact realized that thinking and doing have become indissolubly united in scientific pedagogical conceptions. Everybody has noticed how quickly a little effort at making a picture or a model of a thing helps him to discover its essential elements and fix them in his mind. Give a child a pair of scissors and set him to work at cutting out paper-pictures and then at cutting out forms in imitation of leaves, triangles, squares, and note how it helps him to clarify his notions of their shapes, sizes and margins. Add to the above a little exercise in drawing them; then let him lay them out with splints, or sew them on cardboard; then model them in clay or soap; then let him paint them in water-colors. Test him on his ability to describe or to recognize them; and his growth will be the best argument for their use. What is true in the simple forms is even more true in the complex, thus on the purely intellectual side supporting the systematic arrangement of a variety of manual training exercises through the grades and into the high school.

The value of manual training on the artistic side is clearly enough seen in its ability to hasten the attainment of physical control and skill in mechanical execution. The average man or woman, on entering some industrial occupation, finds himself greatly handicapped by the lack of manual dexterity which should have been attained in childhood and youth, the only time when it can be attained with economy. Expert lace-makers, jewelers, engravers, seamstresses, pianists and violinists, decorators and designers, penmen and weavers are not the only people who need nimble fingers and well-trained hands for their daily work. They are demanded in every walk in life, and all systems of education should provide for their development.

The expense in the elementary grades for the materials for each of the arts named is not much more than for the materials for writing, and is not burdensome in the higher grades. For an inexpensive little book by Abbott on Manual Training in the Grades, from which illustrations are taken, address F. B. Abbott, publisher, Emporia, Kan. For more elaborate treatises on the whole subject see Tadd's New Method in Education, Love's Industrial Education and Goetz's Hand and Eye Training.

The following brief teacher's working outline in manual training for the first grade, exclusive of penmanship and drawing proper, will furnish a fair view of the work now being done in the best schools. Some phases are necessarily omitted on account of lack of space.

The materials needed are splints for stick-laying, wire half-circles, coated paper-squares of the six elementary colors, a few sheets of common cardboard, a few pounds of well-