Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 53.djvu/354

338 forms of mere bodily work, such as the activities of the day laborer, of the washerwoman, and the domestic servant. But such work is not hand work. It is strictly bodily work, and the hand serves merely as the clutch by which the particular tool, whether shovel or broom, is fastened to the body. The main mental reaction is fatigue. But manual work proper is the sense of touch applied to the carrying out of some definite and intelligent purpose.

We do not yet know enough of these mental reactions to reach any finality in the matter of the manual exercises. It is for the present experimental. In the most progressive schools you will find a large amount of flexibility. The exercises of one year will not be the exercises of the next. There is the constant hope of something that will yield richer returns. But the underlying principle is the same. It is distinctly physiological, a system of brain gymnastics by which an expansion of function brings about the development of the organ. It is founded upon a monistic philosophy of life—a belief that man with all his diversity of need and of power is essentially one, a unit organism.

The mental reactions that manual training brings about are essentially ethical, and, since conduct has to do so largely with one's relations with one's fellows, they are also essentially social. The most evolved conduct, that which displays the most complete adaptation of means to ends, can be the result only of a completely rounded intelligence. Complete morality means the setting up of definite moral ends, and it also means their attainment. We weaken the moral fiber deplorably, it seems to me, in our modern way of looking at things, when we lay such moral and legal stress upon the motive, and so little upon the performance. The emphasis is not justifiable. Since motive and act stand in the direct relation of cause and effect it may be charitable but it is certainly not scientific to couple a good motive with a bad act. If the moral ends have been clearly seen, if that vision of the complete life has been fairly grasped, the more difficult and it seems to me the essential part of morality, the attainment of the complete life, still remains to be fulfilled. To accomplish this part of its mission, manual training seeks to make very clear the relation between cause and effect, and to eliminate the capricious and grotesque. Every bit of manual work is a practical adjusting of means to ends, an object lesson in causation, and when finished, it stands there before us, and tells us in very plain and unequivocal language whether the thing has been well done or ill. There is no room here for idle excuses.

These are some of the methods of manual training. Not one of them is sacred or fixed or unalterable. They are mere tools, a process, a means to an end, something to be altered, relinquished,