DeSoto times. (Hernando, Miss.) 1879-1898, 1890-11-20
MANUAL TRAINING.
II Is Bound to Take the Place of the Mort
bund Apprentice System.

Dund Apprentice system
The apprentice system, which former
ly afforded the means of trade educa-
ton, has been almost wholly abandoned,
and is now hardly anywhere in practical
use in this country 1t is thing OF the
past and the fact that it has been aban'
doned would seem to be conclusive evil
dence that it's day of usefulness has
ended Something, however, must take
Its place. Skillful workers in wood and
skilled workers in metal will be needed
as long as the world stands and men
live upon it, and skill does not como by
chance. If employers no longer care to
take tho trouble of imparting instruc-
tion to youth, if carpenters no longer
find it profitable to keep boys at work
for months with the fore-plane and the
splitting-saw, and if blaCksmiths no
longer need apprentices to fashion horse
shoe nails, it is still necessary that a
proper proportion of the youth Of the
country should have careful training OF
the eye and hand for the prosecution of
these and other mechanical industries.
1t is already pretty clearly demonstrated
that this training must come through
the manual school, and that the results
will be superior to those attained under
the old system. That has gone anyway
Machinery now does the work which
once made the apprentice profitable to
his master, and it may not be wholly an
evil that it does so. The apprentice, as
formerly employed during great portion
of his term of service, found but little
calculated to develop reasoning powers
He was required to do work month after
month which required but little skill,
and which he could learn to do as we'll
in few hours or days at most as he
could do in lifetime. Much OF this
time and labor was loss to apprentices.
In the manual training school, on the
contrary, no one has any interest to keep
the pupil at mere drudgery. No more
time is devoted to learn to plane square
piece of wood or metal than Is actually
necessary in each individual. When a
pupil has mastered a lathe he is not kept
at turning for months together on some
simple pattern, as would be the case
under the old system in almost every
shop Time, much valuable time is
lost, but the course is not shortened
thereby. The time is saved simply to be
improved in developing the reasoning
powers and broadening the mind of
the pupil-apprentice. He is taught to
work and to think. He is shown to do
what he is set to do, and, at the samo
time, his books teach him the principles
and the reasons of things. As a result
he comes out from his course in the
manual school equipped as few appren'
tees under the Old system were ever
able to equip themselves They have
had theory and practice combined. The
hand has been trained and the mind
brCadened. Neither has been cultivated
aG the expense of the other, and he will
enter the activities Of life at trcmcn-
dous advantage over what he could have
secured in any other way. Manual train
ing in combination with the work of tho
school-rOom is destined to be fully rec
ognized very soon as the most practical
form of education for the great majority
of the youth of the Nation, Manchester
IN. H.. Union.