The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1888-02-28

sawed into inch strips, it would suffice
for most profitable and accurate drill
in dOve-tailing.
The issue is plainly, whether it is
wiser and in every way better to teach
a boy how to plane, and saw, and make
! good joints by teaching him how to
make table-drawer, or to teach him
how to properly prepare his material
and to fit himself for the construction
! of table drawers or any similar work,
| by teaching him thoroughly well how
! to plane and saw and handle his chisel.
! The first method compels the making
of things, and quickly degenerates into
| the making of salable articles, and
eventually results in making the work
| shop productive and a source of rev.
| enue, whereas as an educational factor,
it would no more be productive than a
class in language or arithmetic. The
second method lays stress on the
handling and care of tools, affording
ample time and varied exercises to
promote such knowledge and skill as
every craftsman should possess. Teach
boy how to sharpen his tools, how to
care for them, how to adjust them skill
fully to given demands, and then con-
OCAllStlG LIS tlhNA lAlAAS VII lAAS
varied operations into which such
tools enter rs factors, and you have
fitted him 10 make not only q table
drawer, but anything which fertile
and inventive mind may suggest.
In this discussion between the reia-
tive merits of the construction and
instruction systems of manual train
ing, | have had in mind especially the
department of carpentry, as being
common to all systems of manual
training. But the principles which
underlie the instruction theory are
applicable to any other department.
Thus in printing, the prime thing to
be gained is rapidity and accuracy in
type-setting and distributing. Hence
where this department is made pro-
ductive, the pressure OF regular job
work or newspaper printing, sensibly
limits the drill in composing and dis
tributing The teacher cannot give
the proper personal attention to each
pupil at each stage of progress while
under the pressure Of job-work. Again,
il is far more beneficial to the boy,
and in schools it is to be supposed that
the training is for the boy and not for
revenue, for such boy to stand at the
case, and set up and distribute over
and over again, and learn one step at
time, than for him to see his work on
paper, and to dabble indifferently in
all the processes of the printing-room.
And so too in blacksmithing it is
better that one step should be thor
oughly well mastered at time. This
is but following the practice of the old
apprentice system. Strike while the
iron is hot'' is a good enough adage,
and had its first utterance, likely
enough, over hot iron ON an anvil,
but what blacksmith would teach a
novice how to strike on a job that
would be spoiled by clumsiness or de
lay? Striking can be taught on cold
bars of iron, and so too with many of
the other processes of a black
smiths shop And when the time
comes for training in the use
of the forge such matters as tenn
perature and the proper handling
of hot iron can be taught according to
the instruction method to much better
purpose than where the necessity of
filling an order necessitates primary
attention to construction. The instruc-
ton method looks at the boy, and
aims to endow him with mechan-
ical skill; the construction method
looks at the thing to be made quite as
much as to the boy who is expected
to be benefited by the making.
But is it not better that boys should
be taught how to make some real
thing, than be constantly taught prin-
ciples? But this is not what the in
structiOn method undertakes. 1t
rather teaches successfully the steps
which must be taken in the making of
a real thing. And when those steps
are mastered. it does not forbid or pre-
vent the manufacture of some article
to show the boys skill in the use of
tools. 1t rather encourages such manu-
facture as the browning course of in
conveyed, and then, true to its
principles, the workshop where the
instruction-methOd prevails graduates
that class and receives its next assign |
ment of unframed boys.
The educational value of the instruc- |
ton method of manual training is very
1t is scientific in its line |
OF procedure, and cOnduces to accuracy |
and Tapidity and skill in the matter of |
1t insists on faithful |
ness and thOroughness and attention. |
1t imparts self-reliance and arouses
mental activity. 1t promotes ply steal |
development, and generates real power |
in the individual
The adaptability of manual training |
as an adjunct to a public school sys-
tenn is controyerted matter. 1t is
objected that such department cam
not be grated on to the public school |
system without seriously curtailing
the present course of study. 1t is per- /
tinent, right at this point, to ask
in the interests of a useful
the present course of study
might not be advantageously curtailed |
to make room for type of training so
likely to prove practically beneficial
as manual training Where the ex-
pertinent has been tried, the loss has
not seemed a very real one. A new de-
parture has been entered upon in New
York City, whereby manual training
s.tO be added to the course in twelve
Of the grammar schools, such studies
As geography and history being much
abridged, and the study of reading in
with the new system of
readers being some
what modified in order to make way