Wichita eagle., 1886-10-07
MANUAL TRAINING.
ONE OF THE CHIEF DEFECTS OF
OUR EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM.

/
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. It 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 desrise 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 edu
Gated brain is angry. He is obliged to come
down to an uneducated part of his body for
life'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 alonc' The
poor skull full Of protoplasm is driven to take
up with profession, or to dabblo in some
sort of speculation.
But does manual training not mean that
the boy or girl educated to use tools must be-
come a mechanic? OF the graduates Of the
admirable school connected with Washington
university at the last commencement, lone in
tends to be a 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 will work for while in machine shops,
while fifteen or more intend to make a 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 our educated classes despise labor
You cannot get around it For a college
graduate 10 become a manual laborer is con
sidere1 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. TIE
srain ran away with US The tendency has
been to absorb al tho vitality in that ore
crgan Our hair falls cut with cur teeth.
Our ey es are falling and our sense OF smell.
Our endurance is not equal to that Of our
fathers Athletics have done something
toward compensative readidstment. But it
Is necessary that our school system shall be
wholly remoielel. We must not only have
physiology and hygiene taught, but must
have it practiced in body culture.
EdGcation. instead Of undermining health
should create health and character II is
absurd to say YOU have taught or trained
boy when you have only hall killed him
What have you educated Tie turkey !.
stuffed, let Us kll him outright No child
should be confined to Q book over one hour
coIsecutiveiy IN day. Play should be
part OF the enforced curriculum But how
admirably manual training supplements c,
compleDients brain training. Let them 80
from the shop to their books and back again
TRIP THROUGH THE SHOPS.
Let Us look little more into detail Lei
us enter Professor Wociwards School-shops
il YOU prefer to call it. The carpenter sho.,
all sorts of saws, squares beyels. gauges
hammers, mallets. rules, planes. chiselS, bits,
hatchets yhc most beautiful thing here is
orler-sl, the tools in good condition and H.
their own places. hardly ever saw study
where the brain ruled elone, that was de-
Gently kept. Scholars are proverbially lack
ing in tiaines.. an afraid, professor, these
BOYS will never be literary, they are too or
derly Woodturning-not so man. tools;
but system as before. Ny boy Fritz can
scarcely contain himself: il this be study, If
this be school. how delightful. The horror OF
two things broods over the ordinary school