Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 33.djvu/409

Rh than the training of the hand and eye principle. This, as we saw, belongs duly to the fitting-school and not the college.

Thus sciences are found to-day to call for an adequate elementary preparation, and this one requires, as we have seen, an adequate training of the senses to be begun at the natural age alongside of certain elements of knowledge. It is ridiculous to expect that such a minutely specialized field as that covered by the sciences to-day should suddenly be successfully approached by some mysterious roundabout way, and through the study, say, of Roman antiquities and the like, which have no bearing whatsoever either on the theory or practice of sciences or on the inductive reasoning found so important in these branches. Detached facts, with which you have to begin, may be easily seized and remembered by a boy of twelve, but they escape the mnemonic power of a young man from college; and if collegiate higher instruction is to bring fruits and actual results, its higher working must be free from elementary difficulties. We do not expect a young man who had not mastered arithmetic to begin calculus; and there is just as much discrepancy between atomic theory, specific heats, etc., and the experiments of the burning of a candle, hydrogen and oxygen generation, the piece of chalk and vinegar, etc.

So far, then, the future of industrial interests at large demands a general practical preparation replacing the old apprentice system. It is claimed for such a system that it would enable the workingman, through the command of adequate knowledge, to become free from his present bondage, and make him again the master, instead of the tool—not of capital, as some socialist friends would declare, but of his true superior and master, the powerful automaton, the machine. On the other hand, we find also a similar necessity claimed by the scientific professions. Equally with other concerns, one can but recognize that agricultural interests could be fully benefited only by the measure recommended, and that the business part of the population would hardly lose their time spent in training, as specialization in industry calls for an adequate specialization in business. Some general kind of technical or industrial knowledge would be easily appreciated by any business man, either behind his desk, in selling and buying, or in his leisure hours at home, where it would be found a valuable source of healthy exercise and recreation. The omnivalence, therefore, of manual or industrial training once granted, its methods may be now approached.

From the start it is evident that, instead of forming the additional fifth wheel of our pedagogical vehicle, the measure spoken of is entitled probably to a good half of the total traction.