The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1888-02-28
INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION.
The Educational Value of Manual
Training.
Read by Rev. W. B. Oleson at the Social
Science Association Feb. 20. 1883.

Science Association Feb. 20. 1883.
The scholastic theory of education
proceeds on the assumption that the
end OF education is the acquisition OF
knowledge, rather than the generation
Of wer,-knowledge standing fol
what is obtained from books, and
power for what is obtained from things
and from skill in dealing with things.
Thus courses of study are arranged
with reference to the absorbing power
of the human mind. Ample time is
allotted to arithmetic, geography,
spelling, language, grammar, and ele-
mentary science The brain absOTbs
facts in these directions that train the
memory and discipline the perceptiye
and reasoning faculties. \ consider
able store of information is thus ac-
cumulated by the process of absorption.
This absorbing side of human faculty
is what is stimulated by our schools,
as at present organized. Training for
the expressing side of human faculty
is only incidentally provided. For, it
is held, if the brain be thoroughly
trained, then the hands and the voice,
our only avenues for expressing what
the brain has absorbed, Will somehow
take care of themselves. But it is ev-
ident that they do not take care of
themselves The unframed hand is
not the willing and efficient servant of
the trained brain. In so far as hand
and voice are not schooled to obey
readily and accurately the mandate of
the brain, Just so far is brain-culture
incomplete and wasteful. The hand
and voice are altogether too essential
to the adequate employment of brain
force, to allow of their neglect. Our
scholastic system of education accord
ngly makes provision, albeit very
scant provision, for the expressing of
ideas through the medium of penman-
ship, drawing, and music.
To the unitarian, this seems very
bare record for our schools to achieve.
So far as practical fitness for life and
its employments is concerned, these
forms of expressing brain power are
all too limited. They render it posi-
bic for boys TO become clerks, and
copyists, and accountants, and, as Il
natural result, we find these occupa-
tons overcrowded. There are thous-
ands of boys graduated annually from
city schools throughout the United
States, whose sole manual skill con-
sists in the ability to write a reason
ably fair hand. Their purely schOl-
astic training has given them bias
away from manual employment, if it
does not likewise in many instances
create a positive distaste for work.
And vet as writer il the Andever
RecicW has said, "a majority of chill
dren i'm schools which are supported at
public expense are from families of
working people, and will themselves
engage in manual labor" Labor is
the inevitable lot of the majority
writes Froude; and, "the stubborn fact
remains that after the years which
have been spent at school, the pupil is
launched into life as unable as when
he first entered the schoOl-door to earn
a siXpence, possessing neither skill nor
knowledge for which any employer in
England will be willing to hire his
services Every one, after little
thought, must be impressed with the
manifold uses to which the hand is
put, in the practical occupations of
life. The United States census enum-
crates one hundred and seventy-twO
occupa tons as manufactures and me-
chanical and mining Industries. All
these occupations call for q certain
mastery of the hand by the brain
which the schools do not convey. The
inventive faculty is not stimulated by
the ordinary course of study. 1t was
declared at an annual meeting of the
American Social Science Association
that scarcely any inventors have been
taught in the public schools.
With the most primitive appliances,
and at the greatest possible inconveni
ence boys will invent and construct
things for their own amusement, that
fairly amaze good mechanics. | have
seen a native boy with a rubber band
and single and a one-bladed jack
knife, construct steamboat that
would move two feet across the water
of its own volition. / have seen Ha-
waiian boys make Il better croquet set
out of monkey-pod wood, with the
sole help of iack-knife, than could be
bought in the stores for so.
And vet the schools make only
slight recognition of this natural ten
dency of boy nature in the direction of
and constructive skill. That !
surely cannot be the natural method
of education which essentially ignores
Ollt W liblG Sltlt VI llll4llellA ltlNullN anu
rather than promotes, the !
power of the human brain.
1t was due to the conviction that a
comprehensive education should pro-
vide for this neglected faculty, that |
manual training schools were estab- |
lished in various large cities through
out the United States. They were not |
engrafted on the public system, but |
were established and have been MAIN !
tanned very largely at the expense of |
The Chicago Manual !
Training School was established by |
the muniticence and under the direc-
ton of "The Commercial Club" an |
of sixty merchants. The |
Worcester Free Institute was likewise !
and endowed by several |
manufacturers of Worcester. |
The New York Trade Schools were
by master builder, who
has maintained them thus far at his /
own expense. In these various schools
the distinctive feature is the education
of the mind, and of the hand as the
agent of the mind. The time of the
pupil in school is about equally di-
vided between the study of books and
4. l. l, IL.