The Arizona sentinel., 1886-08-07
PRACTICAL EDUCATION.


 Classes in Public Schools.
 It is frequent reply of the sup
 porters of the head-cramming system
 of common school instruction, to the
 advocates of manual training, that the community ''should not pay for tech nical trades" No one has proposed that it should. The idea is to fit chil- dren to learn trades as preparation for
 their life work, just as other children are prepared to take a classical course preliminary to the study of profes- sion. It is argued, and rightly, that the State or the city has as much right, and is as much in duty bound, to teach boy to use his hands as to teach him to use his wits. A hammer, saw, draw. ing-board and lathe are to the mass oi boys what Greek roots and Latin verbs are to the selected few. All are tools with which they are expected to work their way to further knowledge. And, if the community gives the necessary primary and secondary training to tine small class, it certainly may and should do so to the larger one.
 The beneficial effects of the pract cal training were brought out in the report of the president of Girard College at the anniversary celebration in Philadelphia the other day. In the will of the founder of the institution it was provided that the scholars should be bound out, at graduation, ito suitable occupations, as those of agriculture, navigation, arts, mechanical trades and manufactures, according to the capacities and acquire ments of the scholars respectively, con- sulting, as far as prudence shall justify, in the nclinations of the several schol- ars as to the occupation, art or trade to be learned" For time the officers oi the college were able to procure places for the boys where they might extend their education according to this wise provision. But the gradual decay of the apprenticeship system soon made this impossible, and the trustees were obliged to keep the boys until they were eighteen, and then cancel their indent- ures. A short time ago, however, the trustees decided to establish manufacturing school in connection with the college. and the fund at their disposal enabled them to carry out the plan with an ample equipment. ''The boys are now taught the use of tools," says the Philadelphia Record, 'and are given instruction in the mechanic arts of character which can not be excelled in any workshop" As a result of this wise measure, the demand on the trus- tees for apprentices exceeds the supply. Being skilled in the use of tools, and with their natural aptitude for work dis covered and developed, they are ready to begin at once to learn the art or trade without the preliminary loss of time and material involved in trying to instruct youth who know nothing whatever about the work they undertake to do. A knowledge of the night of noun tains in South America, or the length of rivers in Africa, or facility | in solving the useless prize puzzles of grammar and arithmetic is of small | practical use when boy sets out to do things that require trained hand | and eye, a sound judgment, and a knowl- | edge of material things among which his life is to be spent. A healthful tendency, which is the direct result of | this training, was also noted by Presl- dent Fetterolf (avery appropriate name, by the way, for one who is engaged in education from the letters of tradition). He said that whereas for merlY the boys preferred clerBships and other flight occupations to arts or trades, which they could only learn at great disadvantage, since the establish ment of the technical school there has been reversal of the former order of things, and the boys are glad to learn which will give them start in some one of the great producing in- dustries of the country. Their prelim- mary training secures for them prefer ence for employment. It is time that training should be made part of our common school education,-- Bost0n HerqLd,