Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 46.djvu/71

Rh In the senior year the manual work shows entire singleness of purpose. It is somewhat technical in character. The machine shop devoted to it is equipped with machine lathes, drill, planer, shaper, and vises. It has quite the appearance of being ready for serious work. The early part of the year is given to a series of formal exercises—turning straight and tapering cylinders, cutting right and left screw threads, shaping irregular parts of mechanisms, drilling, fitting, and going through the manifold operations required in machine construction. In the latter part of the year a series of mechanical projects is undertaken. These vary from year to year, and are simple or elaborate according to the capacity of the group of boys constructing them. They include such mechanisms as steam engines, centrifugal pumps, force pumps, overhead carriers, screw propellers, dynamos, and motors. The finished projects have the advantage over simple exercises of requiring a nice interchangeability, and giving splendid practice in the assemblage of parts. At the end of the year the total amount of work done is not very large. It looks, indeed, almost insignificant in comparison with the elaborate mechanism needed for its production. It will bear examination, however, and it has involved many operations and many principles.

The output of work in the manual department represents two classes—formal exercises and finished projects. The first are almost as abstract as a problem in geometry. They are numbered, labeled, and graded. They have the flavor of the schoolroom about them. The second are more concrete. They represent intrinsic worth in addition to the lesson they have taught. They have, however, no industrial value. They are never sold. They remain the property of the school, lending their beauty to the furnishing of the building, and also serving as an example and incentive to succeeding classes. They have as high an educational value as the more formal exercises, for they are carefully chosen and embody principles which are quite as general. In the early days—that is to say, some eight years ago when manual training was less secure in its educational position than now, I used to be much afraid of anything which betokened a value apart from the little workmen themselves. The production of finished articles seemed to indicate t> e shop rather than the school. This was the cause of my distrust. But now my feeling is different. I begin to set a higher value upon these completed projects. I see that it is possible to make an object of beauty, and even of utility, and get quite as deep a lesson out of the operation as if the object were ugly and useless. One may require the same careful workmanship, the same strict regard for dimensions, and may bring into play the same set of muscles in the one as in the other. In addition, there is the advantage of a keener interest. More work