Los Angeles daily herald., 1889-01-14
Technical Education and the Pub
lie schools.


lie schools.
Few subjects are engrossing more OF
public attention just now than that OF
technical education. The question OF in
Producing more or less Of manual train
ing into the public school system is being
seriously discussed. That it should meet
with most strenuous opposition on the
doorsteps of these institutions, need sur
prise none of us. The average teacher
goes into the schools as the average law
yer goes into his profession, or the aver
age doctor into his. 1t is simply what
seems to him the best mode for him to
make living. At present the system OF
public instruction in practice is altogether
Intellectual. The teachers are not pre-.
pared to give instruction in any depart
ment of manual training. They cannot
set type, engrave on wood, make shoes
or fit dresses. Some of the female men,
bers of the profession are poor hands at
plain sewing. Their own training has at
all times been purely mental, and they
are not equipped to train others outside
of purely intellectual work. To encour-
age manual training in the schools would
be in greater or less measure to encour-
age that which would take Othello's oc-
cupation from him and turn him adrift in
cold word. The opposition and argu-
ments of the average teacher, therefore,
as to manual training in the public
schools, must be taken with much salt
Alta recent meeting of the teachers Of
this State this subject came up, and men
like Professor Campbell were very out
spoken on the subject. Let us see what
their grounds of objections are. One is
in the straight line of begging the ques-
ton. 1t was pleaded that for great
majority of children the school days are
all the time they have for pure mental
training, and much emphasis was laid
on the elevated intellectual status Of the
average American citizen attained by
means of our public school system. In
this latter argument there is much truth
in the former there is none. The public
schools of America have done and are
doing much to put the manhood of our
people on high plane of usefulness and
of enjoyment in life. Those who plead
for manual training in the school do il
with the object in view of enhancing
rather than of diminishing this result.
Those who oppose this policy are stand.
ing in the way of this, however uncon-
scious they may be Of it. Their prejudice
makes them unsafe judges.
Taking our own State, we find that
a large majority of our children may, il
they will, attend school large part Of
each year all the way from six or seven
years to fifteen or even eighteen years Of
age. That is long period, and much
ought to be possible during it. From
the time the boy or girl leaves schoo
until death terminates their earthly
career, each day, even though an indi
vidual should have to rival in senility
the record of the century-living crow
should be one of intellectual progress
With our public prints, our public
libraries and cheap books within reach o
all, it is mans or woman's own fault
however busy the life OF that man Oh
woman may be, if mental betterment i:
not process going forward every day
while life lasts.
| Professor Campbell and other teacher.
of his calibre also claim that it is mis-
take to say that too much mental train
ing and the neglect of manual prac
tice such as characterizes our public
school system tends to superinduct
physical laziness and contempt fol
manual occupations. The man who de
MES the correctness of this view has
dim eyes, or takes off the edge of theil
keenness by spectacles supplied by hii
own prejudices. He cannot have fol
lowed with much closeness of interest
the career of his own pupils after they
have left the high schools. San Fran
cisco is overrun with hoodlums, male
and female, who have been spoiled il
the public schools. And it stands te
reason that this should be 80. The poe
may sneer at the narrowing effects O.
use and want; but it is habit that al
much as natural bent makes us what We
are. The lazy, effeminate. sluggish boy
is one who has never learned by actua
experience the exhilaration that come:
from physical exercise. The slothful
sluggish girl is the one most easily
drawn down into the impure ant
loathsome levels of sensual in
diligence. To bring up boy
or girl to an almost uttel
ignorance Of how to employ their hands
and the muscles of the other parts O
their physical being until they are nearly
of mature age is sure to make manua
occupation and physical exertio1
iIksome in the extreme. No system
of education is worthy the name, or be
comes progressive and wise peopl,
which is one-sided. The body requires
and deserves quite as much attention al
the mind. The hand, the eye, all tn,
muscular part of the man should b,
trained and educated as well as the pow
ers of the mind.
The trouble with our present system il
the public schools is that it is too theoret
ical, too little practical. Too man,
branches of studv are cultivated IN aIlou