Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 25.djvu/365

Rh thing is one way, practically another. The truth is, that correct theory and practice agree perfectly. If in his theory one leaves out a single element of the problem, or fails to give each its due weight, his theory is false. The school-men have been so accustomed to living in an ideal world, the world of books and books only, where they have found only ideal problems, and they have been so ignorant of the real world and the conditions of real problems, that their solutions have very generally been false.

A harmonious culture develops common sense, and common sense is at the basis of good judgment. We aim to raise that kind of fruit. Boys who put every theory to the practical test, who know something about what the idealists call "the total depravity of inanimate things," who probe and test every statement and appliance, with whom authority and tradition, the bane of too much "book-learning," have little influence, and who therefore are apt to take things at their true value, are fitted to focus correctly upon the problems of real life.

We hear much, and with good reason, of the value of directive intelligence. To be a director one must have good judgment. He who would successfully direct the labor of other men must first learn the art of successful labor himself; and he who would direct a machine properly must understand the principles of its construction, and be personally skilled in the arts of preservation and repair. Dr. Harris, therefore, tells but a half-truth when he says that "The new discovery (the invention of a new tool) will make the trade learned to-day, after a long and tedious apprenticeship, useless to-morrow. The practical education, therefore, is not an education of the hand to skill, but of the brain to directive intelligence. The educated man can learn to direct a new machine in three weeks, while it requires three years to learn a new manual labor."—("Education," May-June, 1883.)

This last sentence is not clear to me. Somehow it seems to imply that the man who learns to run a machine should be more intelligent and requires more education than the man who made it. As to "directive intelligence," I respectfully submit the following as a substitute for the dictum of Mr. Harris: "The practical education is, therefore, an education of the hand to skill and of the brain to intelligence. The combination will give the highest directive power."

5. —This point is one of the greatest importance, for out of it are the issues of life. An error here is often fatal. But to choose without knowledge is to draw as in a lottery, and when boys know neither themselves nor the world they are to live in, and when parents do not know their own children, it is more than an even chance that the square plug will get into the round hole.

Parents often complain to me that their sons who have been to school all their lives have no choice of occupation, or that they choose to be accountants or clerks, instead of manufacturers or mechanics.