Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1883-12-30
MANUAL TRIMMING.

MANUAL TRIMMING.
Superintendent SEAvER Ofthe Boston
schools Is an enthusiast on industrial
education, and in a recent report states
his views of the necessities and adyant-
ages Of manuel training in schools.
THE new countries most need, not
clerks and scholars" says Mr.. SEArER,
"but skilled workmen. But how shall
we bring it about that many OF our
boys shall learn handicratt? Where
are the opportunities to be found? II
you have ever tried it, you know how
difficult it is to find place III a modern
workshop or factory where trade can
be thoroughly learned. There has been
a great change in our ways of living
ahdd doing work. Two generations ago
boys were less in school and more in
the workshop and on the farm than are
the boys otto. day. And very valu-
able part of their training the farm and
workshop gave them. The skill OF eye
and hand, the ready knack at doing
things, the habit of finding way
through all practical difliculties-in a
word, the Yankee ingenuity which we
boast of as trait OF Our character as a
people, comes from just such training
as this. Now, take this all away, as we
do in modern city life, and keep the boy
at his books forty weeks year till he is
Is to Is years Old, aud what else
have you fitted him for but to
be clerk in store or
student in college," Mr.. SEAvER
uotes that education through appren-
ticeship has disappeared" and this is
exactly the point We nave often COM
mented upon. American parents have
neglected the manual training Of their
children, and become for the most part
so accustomed to the advantages OF the
public school, that no thought has been
taken for the niece SSary outfit which
their sons and daughters need to gain a
livelihood. \ boy graduates from
high school and there is no course of
apprenticeship open to hun, he knows
nothing but books, and under existing
methods of teaching he knows books
hut iudiflerently. What shall he do?
become a clerk: learn to be u merchant,
or enterupOn some mechanical pursuit
which he will pick up" not by any
we'll defined system which may bring
him TO a mastery of such pursuit, bu. a
little here and little there, perhaps uu-
der dozen different employers, until
before he has much more than q Smat-
tering he is a full blown juurneyman
with trades union to dictate him into
joUrueyman's wages that he cannot pos
siDly earn. This state Of affairs existing,
4, is not strange that the parents of
American youth should turn some way
for help, and they turn TO the State,
which heretofore has put the means o!
a hook education il the way of the chill
dren and asks il TO establish technical
schools 10 learn them something useful.
Mr. SEAvER meets the parents half
way aEl recommends q change o. exist
ing methods ius,ho3i training whereby
The children shall have some Of the al
vanlages which fhe new idea Of prac!i-
eel education deman'is. says Mr..
~ENNER:
LET it not be supposed that the
manual training proposed a. a part Of
general education consists in learn
.ng this trade or that trade, nor
SCI in learning the fragmentagy
beginnings OF dozen trades; but rather
hat it consists in developing m&nuei
skill and mastering the fundamental
processes applicable in many trades.
For example, one who can use well the
common wood working tools-the ham,
mer, saw, plane, aUger, chisel and try
.uuare-is ready to enter several difler-
ert trades with immediate advantage
to himself, although he may not yet
ave learned the special details Of any
of them. But tile great educational
value OF manuel training lies in the
method of instruction used. 1t is the
aburatOry methOd-Or in plain English,
| he workshop way which has proved
20 eilectual in the last ten or fifteen
years in reforming the teaching OF
chemistry, physics and the natural
sciences generally. This laboratory or
workshop method lrings the learner
face to face with the facts of nature, his
mind increases knowledge by direct
personal experience with forms of mat.
ter and manifestations of force, no mere
words intervene, abstract statements,
definitions and rules are OF secondary
value, they are not knowledge, but
only the empty frames or cases into
which knowledge may be put when
once it is got. Now, am sanguine
enough to believe that the introduction
| of the manuel training element into
school work would promote still more
this salutary reform-a reform which
seeks to abolish mere nominal teaching,
and replace it by real teaching, that is,
a teaching that trains mental power
rather than loads the memory, that fills
the mind with the solid merchandise of
knowledge and not with its empty
packing cases"
A change IN methods of teaching
which brings more practice in every
day matters than theory in matters
which will not eOncern q child's after
life would be an improvement, certainly.
MEXICAN WAR PENSIONS.