Las Vegas free press. (East Las Vegas, N.M.) 1891-1???, 1892-07-27
MANUAL TRAINING.

ing department will be established
in connection with the New West
academy of our city. 1t is under
serious consideration, with the
chances in its favor.
This is new educational move
ment that is said by thinking men
to promise more toward solving the
great labor and socialistic questions
than all the unions and protective
organizations that were ever estab-
lished.
1t is a movement that has come to
stay. Not a week passes but the
reader of educational literature notes
the establishment of new training
school or of a training department
in an already established institution
of learning. Within the past decade
the results already gained have made
it hosts of converts and friends in all
parts of the union. 1t is movement
that will remain till it has wrought
out the most striking and salutary
results to the American people of any
educational movement of the age in
which we live.
1t is a new discovery that the me-
chanical arts can be reduced to GER
tain fundamental principles. These
principles are not only pertinent sub
jects of school study, not only valu-
able agencies of intellectual training
and development, but their acqui-
sitlon constitutes the broadest, the
surest and the best basis for a knowl-
edge of many of the trades. The
acquisition of these principles not
only enables the young artisan to be-
come master of his chosen trade in
one-ffth of the time he would re-
quire without it, but makes him far
more skillful workman.
This is no random statement. 1t
has been demonstrated beyond ques-
ton by the recent remarkable report
of the trustees of Girard college.
Every one knows that this is an in
o.;t,.;o, for 4bo oJnoot;o, &C n m,
tain class of helpless boys. Years
ago, when a class had finished its
course of study, the boys were bound
out to learn trades by the ancient
process of imitation. Their appren-
ticeship would consume from two to
five years, according to the mechan-
ical art they had selected. This Gus.
tom has of late years fallen into dis
use. When the change took place,
the boys were left on the hands of the
trustees, drug on the market. Just
at this time some one suggested
manual training department in con-
nection with the college. 1t was
without delay adopted.
Since that time the boys of Girard
college are in constant demand
among the great manufacturing es-
tablishments of Philadelphia. They
not only learn the duties assigned
them in one-ffth of the time stated,
but are far more skillful, and hence
useful to their employers.
1t should be noted that this is not
the opinion of mere theorist or en-
thuslast, whose exaggerated and i'm
aginary claims sometimes retard-
rather than advance important move
ments, but of the "hard headed" bus
mess men of Philadelphia.
Manual training is a practical and
useful form of physical exercise. 1t
utilizes the boys proverbial love of
tools for both mental and mechani-
cal training. 1t puts him IN posses
sion of a kind of knowledge and a
degree of skill in handicraft, the ex-
ercise of which, even if he never be.
comes mechanic, will mean gain
and satisfaction to him in after life.
Who need be told that the man