Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1884-05-14
EDiU.CATIO AL,
Delivered by w. w. Ranney, Before the
Grand Meadow Literary Society,
March 21st, 1854.
G. D. BELDEN, EDITOR.

i i
Can our schools be improved by practi-
cal departments? We think they can.
The great object of education is to teach
children in their early years the accumu-
lated knowledge of those who have pre-
ceded them; by SO doing we raise them to
| the level which we have attained, and in
cite in them disposition to 90 above and
beyond that point reached by their ances-
tors. Book knowledge alone will not do
this. There must be practical knowledge.
the education of the hand as we'll as the
mind, so that when the various branches
of primary education and the higher
branches have been mastered, the individ-
ual can apply his knowledge to aid in
procuring the necessities and comforts Of
every day life. A boy should be taught
how to draw plan for building, how to
show the various parts of machinery, he
should be taught the use of the saw, the
plane, the square, the level, the plumb,
the trowel, &c. A girl should be taught
how to draw, to sew, to knit. to cut gar
Can these branches of education be taught
in our public schools? We think so. In
dustrial branches might be added to the
curriculum, and portion of the day each
day, or of every alternate day, might be
devoted to practical education.
Commencing with the kindergarten ex-
ercises in early childhood, the boys can be
! taught the forms of the cubes, of spheres,
OF mortice and tenon, of horizontals and
perpendicular of constructing boxes and
miniature buildings They can learn the
names and uses of the different parts of
structure. The girls can learn to sew,
to embroider, to make netting, tatting,
rugs, &c. Thus preparing them for the
every day wants of life. The hand, the
eye, the muscles, will thus become edu
Gated along with the mind. The child
who can have kindergarten education is
having play with its work.
At first in early youth, Gt has been said)
eve have the destructive age; time
when the great object of the child is to see
the inside of everything" to see what
makes them go, or squeak, or rattle; then
the mind comes to that period when there
is tendency to produce something, to
put things together; this is the beginning
OF the constructive age, and now You can
come in with your kindergarten exercises
and amuse as well as instruct the child.
Here the inherent tendency of the child
to construct is taken advantage of, and
the mind and hand are guided so as to
learn something useful: but when the
child passes from this into the grammar
school, what weary, dreary place it seems
to be for the active brain and restless hand!
Is it not true that during the period of
youth, when manual deXterity can be
most easily obtained, the child is confined
entirely to mental exercises, with nothing
to relieve the tedium except an occasional
game OF ball or marbles. From the age
OF six to sixteen years boys and girls are
kept for five hours day at mere head
work, the little amount of music and draw
ing being counterbalanced by the mental
exercises necessary between school hours
BE you rich or peor, is your child any the
worse off if he has practical knowledge
and industrial education. placing him in
possession of some degree of manual dex-
terity? Wecannot see far into the future.
10 day the parents may be rich, tomorrow
they may be impoverished. Is it not bet
ter then, that rich or poor, if the child
must sooner or later rely on it's own re-
sources for subsistence, that he can work
as we'll with his hands as his brain? Are
not many with a collegiate education
starving to-day because they do not know
how to perform manual labor? Ofcourse
intelligent labor is best; the educated man
makes the best carpenter, the best mason,
the best cook, but to do this he must be
educated in the particular vocation he in
tends to follow as we'll as in the branches
generally taught in the schools Had I
dozen children would have each one
taught some trade. That parent does
wrong who brings up a child without
teaching him some way by which to sup
port himself by manual labor. There are
too many middle men, or merchants, toe
many young men and women who are
seeking situations in stores where they can
idle away the greater part of their time
How much better it would be for them
were they so prepared by industrial edu-
cation that they might be able to add some
thing to what already EXISTS to control
the force of nature and make them SUBJ
servient to our wants, to chain the light
ming to car as motor, TO build bridge,
an aqueduct, or canal. to make sea of
sandy desert over which ship may sail
carrying the productions of it's newly wa
tered and now productive shores from
place to place and distribute them readily
in the marts of the world. Ambition for
such enterprises would be fostered, young
ideas would get their direction from these
elementary industrial departments Of the
schools, and many boy who otherwise
would founder along in the science, or
in the mental capacity of counter jumper
or wood-sawyer, W ould rise superior as an
architect, an artiZan, or an inventor of
something new and useful for his fellow
man.