Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1888-01-26
Educate the Hands,


training school in Detroit is being agi
tated, and number of prominent citi-
zens have organized TO push the mat
ter. At meeting held recently to dis
cuss the question, Rev. &. Il. Hender-
son of the Woodward avenue Baptist
church, who has made quite a study
of the subject, said: Experience
demonstrates that n manual train
ing school is not more exhaust
ing than the course in preparation
for college, that the exercise in the
sho is real recreation, and that if shop
work is offered to boys the ben ches will
be filled with volunteers. Manual
training is branch of liberal culture
and should be pl ced on level of hon
or and dignity equal to the Greek and
Latin course, It creates powers or
dinally rejected, and makes the body
more completely the servant of the
soul. Therefore the manual training
school is regarded by its advocates as
the most efficient adjunct of moral dis
cipline. 1t gives rational employment to
idle hands, and turns them from
mischief to the creation of useful and
beautiful objects. In England the
outgrowths is advocated ny q great
number OF men of science, education,
| arts and manufactures rs more
efficient means of meeting competition
in trade. The manual training school
is advocated us a most potent proven
tive OF costly crime and pauperism
Giving millions in aims to population
of unskilled laborers, is like pouring
water into Il bottomless abyss or like
| irrigating rock. If we add immortality
to the absence of skill in industry,
| giving an aims would be like irrigating
! Canada thistles or other nOxious
weeds.
The manual training school enlarges
the usefulness of the high school by
| extending the average time of attend
ance of children of the poor. In the
present arrangement education almost
! always ceases alb tut the 10Th year,
! just when the mind is most capable Of
receiving the direct preparation for
| social studies of history and economy.
if shop is opened it will DC part of the
preparation for actual bread winning,
and that without loss of time in literary
brrnches.
Manual training is already intro
| duced into the state public school at
Coldwater and in the reform schools
at Lansin and Adrian. It will be 81
pity if we fail to see that as a prevent
i've of crime it is far more eIhcacious
than the remedies for an evil force al
ready in full current.
The subject is at this hour before a
committee of the Board of Education
and will be decided soon There is
some reason to believe that ii the eN-
| pense of the experimental stage was
borne by private ente prise, the board
would feel justified in furnishing the
room for the shop and such other help
as could be given by the present force of
teachers without extra expense The
expen of starting the shop according
10 figures furnished by President Smart
and Prof toss. of Purdue University
would be for u shop about 80 800, and
for a special teacher one year, $1,000
$500
The High School would be the best
place for trial, because there are the
bright and promising lads who could
most ouicSly see the advantage of such
methods.
''In st. Louis and Chicago separate
schools have been founded by the men
of wealth his is far more costly and
not so good as connection with the
public school system, since it reache
fewer persons.
IF business men would petition the
Board of Education at this time the
action would have much weight. il
such petit was accompanied by an
offer of sustaining the movement
through its experimental stages with a
subscri ton based on their acceptance
of the terms, it would have much more
weight"