Wichita eagle., 1886-09-21
aailSE eagle
MANUAL TRAINING.
ONE OF THE CHEF DEFECTS OF
OUR EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM.

When the Poor Boy Goes Out of School.
What Manual Training Means-Result
of Bringing Nerves to the Front-In
the Shops.
There is not a 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 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 despise 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 boy goes
out of the schoolhouse, and he must live
thereafter by means of that part that is not
educated-his hands. He cannot use the
education, or what You have given him for
education, at all; or if at all, SO little that
it chafes at him at his daily toll. His odu-
Gated brain is angry. He is obliged to come
down to an uneducated part Of his body for
ife's living Is the rich boy any better off!
He goes out not compelled to toll with his
hands: but what can his brain do alone. The
poor skull full of protoplas1n 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 10 use tools must be-
come mechanic! OF the graduates of the
admirable school connected with Washington
university at the last commencement, lone in
tends to be physician, another dentist, an
other lawyer. Some half dozen expect a
commercial pursuit; two will raise stock or
become farmers; several hope to become en-
gineers; three aspire to be architects; four or
five viii work for a while in machine shops,
while fifteen or more intend to make higher
course of study, either at the university or
elsewhere"
NO DODGING THE FACT.
"a boy who sees nothing in manual labor
but brute force despises both the labor and
the laborer." There is no lodging the fact
that cur educated classes" despise labor.
You cannot get around it. For a college
graduate to become a manual laborer is con-
sidered 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 prejudice and
the sharp division Manual labor schools
have it for their mission to break up this mis-
understanding. The best brains are finding
it advantageous also to have the best hands.
Our lives under the stress of the older edu-
cation 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 endurance is not equal to that of our
fathers. Athletics have done something
toward comparative readjustnent. 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 character. It is
absurd to say you have taught or trained q
boy when you have only half killed him.
What have you cducated The turkey is
stuffed, let us kill him outright No child
should be confined to a book over one hour
consecutiveiy in IA day. Play should be 4
part OF the enforced curriculum. But how
admirably manual training supplements or
compleGlents brain training. Let them go
from the shop to their books and back again.
TRIP THROUGH THE SHOPS.
Let Us look = little more into detail Let
us enter Professor Woodward's school-ShOls,
if you prefer to call it. The carpenter shop
all sorts of saws, squares, bevels, gauges,
hammers, mallets, rules, planes. chisels bits,
hatchets. The most beautiful thing here is
order-all the tools in good condition and in
their own places. l hardly ever saw study,
where the brain ruled alone, that was de-
Gently kept. Scholars are proverbially lack
ing in tidness. l am afraid, professor, these
boys will never be literary, they are too or
derly. Woodturning-not SO many tools;
but system as before. My boy Fritz can
scarcely contain himself; if this be study, if
this be school, how delightful The horror of
two things broods over the ordinary school,
silence and primness. 1 wasted ten years in
school because these nightmares were insuffer-
able. But was fortunately puny. Fritz is
great, rugged and awfully active piece of
machinery. IF you wish to keep that watch
i'm good order. sir. YOU must not let it run
down" Just 50, Fritz will be spoiled if you
stop him
Strike while the iron is hot! Be alive, boys!
How their eyes sparkle, like the sparks from
the blows. Mrs. Lillypaugh, your son here
will surely get his hands soiled, but my
glory. what hands he will have. Such a
tender love in them! and such grip of truth!
You will be glad by and by to feel his grand
arm around you in your old age. | hate a
musty little boy, done UP in Ponds extract,
and not able TO carry his Latin dictionary.
The machine shop-lathes, planes, drill-and
what is all the time touching the boys imag
ination, power. Everything great is con-
summated and summed up III a steam engine
How should like to resurrect Adam!
mean that Aiam who first took a stone and
fixed handle to it to break ard pound with
/ would like TO have him come in here with
me and see what his first hammer. made l00-
600 years ago, has come to-uhat is going to
come to--can you guess!-"E. Z. F." i'll
Globe Democrat.