Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 25.djvu/366

354 These complaints are invariably unreasonable; for how can one choose at all, or wisely, when he knows so little!

I confidently believe that the development of the manual elements in school will prevent those serious errors in the choice of a vocation which too often wreck the fondest hopes. It is not assumed that every boy who enters a manual-training school is to be a mechanic; his training leaves him free. No pupils were ever more unprejudiced, better prepared to look below the surface, less the victims of a false gentility. Some find that they have no taste for manual arts, and will turn into other paths—law, medicine, or literature. Great facility in the acquisition and use of language is often accompanied by a lack of either mechanical interest or power. When such a bias is discovered the lad should unquestionably be sent to his grammar and dictionary rather than to the laboratory or draughting-room. On the other hand, decided aptitude for handicraft is not unfrequently coupled with a strong aversion to and unfitness for abstract and theoretical investigations. There can be no doubt that, in such cases, more time should be spent in the shop, and less in the lecture and recitation room. Some who develop both natural skill and strong intellectual powers will push on through the polytechnic school into the professional life, as engineers and scientists. Others will find their greatest usefulness, as well as highest happiness, in some branch of mechanical work, into which they will readily step when they leave school. All will gain intellectually by their experience in contact with things. The grand result will be an increasing interest in manufacturing pursuits, more intelligent mechanics, more successful manufacturers, better lawyers, more skillful physicians, and more useful citizens.

In the past comparatively few of the better educated have sought the manual occupations. The one-sided training of the schools has divided active men into two classes—those who have sought to live by the work of their own hands, and those who have sought to live by the work of other men's hands.

Hitherto men who have aimed to cultivate their minds have neglected their hands; and those who have labored with their hands have found no opportunity to specially cultivate their brains. The crying demand to-day is for intellectual combined with manual training. It is this want that the manual-training school aims to supply.

6. —Material success ought not to be the chief object in life, though it may be sought with honor, and worthily won; in fact, success would appear to be inevitable to one who possesses health and good judgment, and who, having chosen his occupation wisely, follows it faithfully. This point might, then, be granted as a corollary to those already given and without further argument; but two points deserve special mention:

I have said that the only article our shops put upon the market is