Morning journal and courier., 1883-12-21
mANUAL TRAINING IN sCHooLs.

| There are schools in Boston in which chil- industrial arts, in connection with the ordi- l nary school duties. The experiment thus far has been highly successful, especially in the schools where girls are taught sewing, cutting, dressmaking, etc. At 8 recent meet l ing Mir. Robert Swan, principal of the Win throp school for girls, said that when the i'm troduction of industrial education in his school was first proposed he was doubtful about=its usefulness, but experience had shown that the regular studies were not neg
 lected and the progress of the pupils WIS not hindered by this break in the old routine On the contrary, the sewing exercise afforded l rest and recreation. He began the experi-
 ment with an ungraded class, composed of girls who were behind in the studies pursued by girls of the same age. They were taught to cut and make various garments, including
 their own dresses. When these girls gradu ated they readily obtained profitable employ ment as seamstresses, while other girls who had gone through the full course of study and had also graduated at the normal school
 were unable to find anything to do at which
 
 well satisfied with the result of teaching school girls to sew that he now thinks they ought to be taught to cook. And thousands of sufferers all over this broad land will agree with him.
 Mir. Edwin P. Ssaver, the superintendent of the Boston public schools, has prepared an extended argument in favor of the general introduction of manual training in the school system. He recognizes the fact that the present educational system tends to unfit our youth for any form of manual labor by ere ating distaste for it. and fostering the mo- tion that employment in store or in an of fee Is somehow more respectable. Educa- ton through apprenticeship to trades has disappeared, and the time has been filled up with large amounts of school book instrue- tion, and the consequence is that, through lack of opportunity, the native aptitude of many boys for handicraft is quite ignored He says further: The great educational value of manual training lies in the method of in- struction used. It is the laboratory method -or in plain English, the workshop way which has proved so effectual in the last ten or fifteen years in reforming ths teaching of chemistry, physics and the natural eciences generally. This laboratory or workshop meth cd brings the learner face to face with the facts of nature; bis mind increases knowl edge by direct personal experience with forms of matter 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.
 MT. Seaver says much more upon this | question that is sound. The matter is one of | great importance and deserves attention ev- erywhere. Most people will have to work | with their hands for long time yet, and | their early education should be in the right | direction. And the few who will not be | obliged to do manual labor would not be | harmed by knowing something about.it