Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 53.djvu/512

494 because some girl friend sticks up her nose at the dirt and the aprons, and calls the boys mechanics. And I should like to say in passing that I think we do not sufficiently realize the importance of having girls entertain high ideals of boyhood, and boys entertain high ideals of girlhood, for sooner or later each sex is bound to be what the other sex wants it to be. When I hear men running down women, or women running down men, I always feel very sorry, but I feel disposed to say: My friend, this may be so, but if so, it is partly your fault.

The average age of this composite group I should place at something over fourteen. The boys may enter at thirteen, and I am told that in New England they commonly do so, but the work as at present arranged is better suited to older boys.

The curriculum is divided into five departments:

 1. The Humanistic, or Language Group. This includes English language and literature; French, German, Spanish, or Latin; history, civics, and economics. 2. The Mathematical Group. This covers advanced arithmetic, plane and solid geometry, algebra, plane trigonometry, elementary surveying, and bookkeeping. 3. The Science Group. This includes physical geography, biology, physics, chemistry, and an introduction to steam and electrical engineering. 4. The Drawing. This is both mechanical and free hand, and includes instruction in clay modeling, in plant analysis for decorative purposes, and somewhat of the history and practice of architecture. 5. The Manual Training. This is the most distinctive part of the curriculum, and includes wood work—joinery, pattern making, turning, and carving; vise work—chipping, filing, and fitting; smithing; sheet-metal work; ornamental iron work, and finally the machine-tool practice in constructive work.

This is a very full curriculum. The studies are all useful, and in the main well selected, but the amount of time that may be given to each is somewhat limited. The principal criticism to which the curriculum is open is indeed right here. It is not possible to offer the full equivalent of the four-year course in three years, and give so much of the time to the manual occupations. Let us look more closely at the disposition of the day. It is commonly divided into six periods of from forty-five to fifty minutes each. As there is no school on Saturday or Sunday, this gives thirty periods a week in which the curriculum must express itself. In the first and second years of the course, half of each day is given to manual work—that is, to tool work and to drawing; and the other half is given to the