Los Angeles daily herald., 1886-11-07
MANUAL TRAINING.
One Of the Chief Defects of Our
Educational System.

Sensational System.
There is not child in the world that
ought to try to live by his wits alone;
nor one who ought to be compelled to
live by the work of his hands alone.
Most boys that enter our schools have
to grow up to the idea that they are to
work with their hands. 1t follows that
a few are to grow up to the idea that
they need not toll at all with their hands.
So we have in our educational system
to look out to educate our two classes;
our high caste and low caste boys and
girls. Naturally, the one caste will de.
spise the other; and the other will pay
back with hate. So, by and by, you get
your social division of laborers and cap
italists, and with it the moral dynamite
of eternal dislike.
Common education is not education at
all, when it has taught reading, writing
and the usual school curriculum. The
poor buy goes out of the schoolhouse,
and he must live thereafter by means of
that part that is not educated-hish hands.
He cannot use the education, or what
you have given him for an education, at
all; or if at all, so little that it chafes
at him at his daily toll. His educated
brain is angry. He is obliged to come
down to an uneducated part of his body
for life's living. Is the rich boy anv bet
ter off? He goes out not compelled to
toll with his hands; but what can his
brain do alone? The poor skull full OF
protoplasm is driven to take up with
profession, or to dabble in some sort OF
speculation.
But does manual training not mean
that the boy or girl educated to use tools
must become mechanic? vi the gradu.
ates of the admirable school connected
with Washington university at the last
commencement, lone intends to be
physician, another dentist, another
lawyer. Some half dozen expect COM
mercial pursuit; two will raise stock or
become farmers; several hope to become
engineers; three aspire to be architects;
four or five will work for while in ma
chine shops, while fifteen or more intend
to make a higher course of study, either
at the university or elsewhere"
NO DoDGING THE FACT.
ga boy who sees nothing in manual
labor bat brute force despises both the
labor and the laborer." There Is no
lodging the fact that our educated
classes" despise labor. You cannot get
around it. For a college graduate to
become manual laborer is considered
coming down. Until very recently the
crowd from our colleges went nowhere
but into the professions. Slowly this
is changing, but there is still the prelu-
dice and the sharp division. Manual
labor schools have it for their mission
to break up this misunderstanding. The
best brains are finding it advantageous
also to have the best hands.
Our lives under the stress OF the older
education brought the nerves to the
front. The brain ran away with us.
The tendency has been to absorb all the
vitality in that one organ. Our hair
falls out with our teeth. Our eyes are
failing and our sense of smell. Our en-
durance is not equal to that OF our
fathers. Athletics have done something
toward comparative readjustment. But
it is necessary that our school system
shall be wholly remodeled. We must
not only have physiology and hygiene
taught, but must have it practiced In
body culture
Education, instead of undermining
health, should create health and char
acter. 1t is absurd to say that you have
taught or trained a boy when you have
only half killed him. What have you
educated? The turkey i stuffed, let US
kill him outright. No child should be
confined to book over one hour CON
seuutively in day. Play should be