Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 53.djvu/522

504 displayed with such prodigality in the construction of cheaper houses does something to prejudice one against the lathe. The forms turned out in the schools are not all beautiful, but they might be. They consist of rings, balls, vases, tumblers, balustrades, dumb-bells, Indian clubs, and the like, and are very sound and true in the matter of workmanship.

The manual work for girls during the first year usually includes joinery and sewing. The homely arts of mending and darning are taught, and also the more scientific processes of draughting patterns and cutting out garments.

The second year's work in wood may cover two terms in pattern making and one in carving. The main tools are the saw, plane, chisel, gouge, lathe, sandpaper, and gluepot. The work in pattern making is wonderfully nice and exact, and makes other wood work seem rough by contrast. Pattern makers as a class know this, and show a becoming appreciation of their own work. They quite look down on less exact workers. I have often wondered that, with their immense skill in wood and varnish, they do not turn to some more profitable and artistic work—such, perhaps, as violin making. The art of Stradivarius and Guarneri and Amati might prove recoverable. The present work in pattern making is very technical, and can not be other than an industrial abstraction, since the patterns are only used for forming the molds into which the molten lead and iron are afterward to be cast.

The wood carving is more human and more artistic. It used to be very elaborate and in very high relief; but this meant that the teacher had to do too much of it. It is now less ambitious and truer. The articles are smaller, and the carving is in lower relief. The so-called chip carving, borrowed from sloyd, has been introduced with advantage. It is effective artistically and is well within the boys' capacity. The regular wood work ends with the second year. In sloyd schools, wood is the material most used, and I think that it will occupy a larger place in the manual training school proper as the educational idea prevails.

The girls, meanwhile, during this second year, have also been taking wood carving, and have been extending their knowledge of sewing by fitting garments as well as cutting them out, by using the machine, and by instruction in the selection of materials.

The work in metal is limited, of course, to the boys. It is more varied and elaborate, and from an indusrtialindustrial [sic] point of view also more important. It is not, however, so attractive as the wood work. The noises are more trying—the anvil chorus is only one out of many possible sounds. Nor are the odors of the metals agreeable. The pictures of mine and furnace that they bring up are not pleasant.