Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 28.djvu/833

Rh to make and how to make it, but were honor-bound to refrain from accepting any help in the work itself; and it is believed by all interested in the exhibition that the exceptions to strict honesty and truthfulness in regard to the making of the articles were very rare.

The exhibition was open during the day and evening, and the patrons and friends of the schools came in hundreds to see it. Your committee were among the visitors, and were so deeply impressed with the importance of this exhibition in relation to the work of our Association that we determined to make a list of the different kinds of things exhibited, and the ages of the children who made them, with a view of forming from this list some estimate of what children can make and like to make at different stages of growth and development. It is one of the aims of this Association to form a graded system of manual training, and such data as can be obtained from exhibitions of this kind would be invaluable for that purpose. Superintendent Gorton having promised us ample facilities for making the list at another visit when the rooms would not be so crowded, we gave ourselves up to listening to the comments of the visitors; and their lively interest and intelligent appreciation of the exhibit convinced us that it needs only such exhibitions to create a public sentiment in favor of a movement in this direction. Many parents, desiring to give help and sympathy to their children in their school-work, find themselves at a disadvantage. It is seldom that even a well-educated and intelligent parent is conversant with the last new methods of the schools, and his suggestions and help, not being in accord with them, are looked upon by the children as incorrect or old-fashioned. Thus many fathers and mothers are made to feel at times that they are cut off from taking part in their children's education. But here, in this exhibition, is something that bridges the gap between home and school, something the parent knows all about—how that bread was mixed, that garment fashioned, that ladder whittled out, that little wagon painted. Not only can they understand, but they themselves were the teachers. This can become a great power for good to the community through the avenues both of the school and the home.

We subjoin a list in which arc noted down only those articles most characteristic of the grade in which they were found, and in each grade the age of the children is given. There were some remarkable and elaborate toys and fancy-work showing skill, ability, even genius for invention and great application and perseverance; but these were the efforts of children having special capacities or unusual opportunities. It is, of course, a great gain to the community that those having particular aptitudes for industrial pursuits should be encouraged and cultivated; but this Association has, besides this practical aim, another which is broader and more far-reaching, and that is, to find principles by which manual training may be adapted to large classes of ordinary children. The wonderful things that remarkable children