Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 13.djvu/28

* MANUAL TRAINING. 16 MANUAL TRAINING. all}- applied to the use of constnu-tive baud work iu the schools, as a feature of general education. The term is broadly used to include the work of both boys and girls in various materials, in which case instruction in domestic art and science is understood, but it is often used in a narrower sense as relating only to the work with tools commonly given to boys. The earliest ollkial recognition of manual training a-s a legitimate part of school work was obtained in European countries. As early as 18.i8, L'no Cygna?us organized a plan of manual training for the primary schools of Finland, and in ISGU instruction in some branch of manual work was made com]iulsory in the training col- leges for male teachers in that country, and in all primary schools for boys in country districts. .Sweden is, however, the country which con- tributed most toward the early (levclopment of manual training, and from which has come the largest influence in its propagation. In 1872 the Government reached the conclusion that schools for instruction in Sloyd were necessary to counteract the tendency toward concentration in cities, and the decline of the old home indus- tries. The schools first established had natu- rally an economic rather than an educational significance. This was changed, however, as the movement grew, until a thoroughly organized scheme of educational tool work for boys between twelve and fifteen years of age was developed. In 1877 the work was introduced into the folk- school, and the Government granted aid in sup- port of the instruction. In 1807 it is reported that Sloyd instruction was given in about 2000 schools. The [sloyd Seminarium at Xiilis, estab- lished in 1S74 under the direction of Otto Solo- man, has not only Ix'cn an active and stimulating force in the development of the work in Sweden, but has exercised a far-reaching influence upon the thought and practice of other countries. At present Sloyd is taught in all the regular normal schools of the country. In France manual training was made obliga- tory in the elementary priniary schools by the law of 1882. The olllcial progranmie for manual training is very complete and thorough, but its provisions are only partially realized because of the failure of conununes to ])rovi(le workshops, and of the insuHicieiit supply of trained teachers. In Paris one hundred and twenty-four schools were equipped with workshops in 1807-98, and at this time one-third of the regular teachers in the city schools had taken normal courses in mantial training. A feature of the French work is the variety of materials and processes used, and the fact that han<l-work instruction has been planned for every grade of the elementary pri- mary school. Germany, although the seat of a very active propaganda issuing from the German Association for Manual Training for Boys, has done very little toward incorjiorating manual training with the regular wcuk of the common schools. A large number of workshops have been established in various parts of the Empire, supported mainly by individuals and societies, in which pupils of the public schools are given instruction out of school hours. The educational ministries of Prussia, Saxony, and Raden now make annual contributions in aid of this instruction, but the work is obligatory in only a very few places. Manual work for girls, on the other hand, has been for a long time a compulsory branch of in- struction in the common schools of Germany. The Manual Training Seminary at Leipzig, founded in 1887 by the Association for Manual Training for Boys, under the leadership of T)r. Waldemar Golze, is the active centre of the movement, and the main institution lor the training of teachers. The history of manual training in the United States involves both the development of the idea and the development of practice. Expressions of the layman's point of view are presented in such books as the following: Ham, Manual Train- ing (London, 1880) ; McArthur, Education in its Uelation to Manual Industry (Xew York, 1884) ; .Tacobson. Higher (Iround (Chicago, 1S8S). In the field of practice, little of a purely educational cliaracler appeared before 1878, at which time the Workingman's School was founded by the Ethical Culture Society of New York. This in- stitution comprised a kindergarten and an ele- mentary school, in which manual work formed from the first a vital and important part of the educational scheme. The general movement, however, took its large beginning, as has l)een the case with so many educational movements, at the top instead of the bottom of the school system. In 1880, through the elVorts of Dr. Calvin A. Woodward, the Saint Louis Manual Training School was opened in connection with Vashington University. The work of this school attracted wide attention, and its success led to the speedy organization of similar schools in other large cities: Chicago, Baltimore, and Toledo, 1884; Philadelphia, 188,'5; Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Omaha, 1886. The first provision for girls' work in these schools was made in the case of the Toledo school, and included sewing, dressmaking, niillinery. and cooking. In 1895 the Massachu- setts Legislature, under the lead of the State Board of Education, made it obligatory upon every city in the State of .30.000 or more inhab- itants to estal)lish and maintain manual training in a high schocd. The rapid development of this tyjie of second- ary school has resulted in an institution peculiar- ly .merican. In other countries the introduction and spre:>d of manual training has been contined to the elementary school, and no institution ex- ists in Europe, of a purely educational character, that presents any ])arallel to the comprehensive and costly e(piipment of these schools. The shop- work comprises joinery, turning, pattern-making, forging, and nuicliine work, and sometimes foun- dry practice and tinsmithing. The nature of this work has been very similar in the various schools, and until late years has been almost uniformly based upon the principles of the 'Russian System.' The central idea of this .system of shopwork instruction, developed in a technical school for the instruction of engineers, is the analysis of a craft into its elementary processes and constructions, and the presentation of these details in an orderly and sequential scheme as separate elemenls. Compared with the develop- ment of maiuinl training in the high school, the introiluction of the work in the public element- ary school came at first but slowly. Experi- mental classes in carpentry, the expense for which was borne by Mrs. Quincy A. Shaw, were conducted at the Dwight School in Boston, in 1882. Those were taken under the care of the citv and transferred to temporary quarters in the English High School building in 1884, but