The Portland daily press., 1895-12-19
MANUAL TRAINING WORK.
A Visit to Principal Babb's School
Room.

- Room.
What they are Doing Now and How They
Do It-Some Comment on the Value OF
1t.
Principal George II. Babb of the Man.
ual Training School, held an informal
reception yesterday forenoon, having in
vited the members of the school commit
Tee and representatives of the press tic
witness the work of his pupils in the elias,
room at the North school and to see thai
the quarters are somewhat cra1nped,
One of the classes of the Second Grade
was at work when the PRESS represen
tative called yesterday. This grade in
cludes boys from IL to ID years of age.
There were about 20 in the class and they
were all very busy at their desks, saving
and planning and boring and chiseling.
The handling of tools and the fragrance
of the wood makes carpenter shop an
attractive place to almost any man. To
boy it is especially SO. These boys were
putting much more vim and roal interest
into that work than boys of that age gcn.
orally do in studying book.
From the appearance one would natur-
ally suppose that these boys we're being
taught the carpenters trade And SO
they are, If they wish to become car.
penters, but they are being taught at
the same time how to train the eye and
hand and how to think and execute
their thoughts in the line of material
results. They are shown how to put into
practice the theory that they learn in the
Grammar schools.
For example one of the models that the
First Grade boys copy is a handsome lit
tie book shelf with drawer at the bot
tom and an ornamental bracket under
meath to support the whole thing on the
wall. This bracket is in the shape of a
right-angled triangle, the hypotheneuse
boing the brace. In getting the dimen-
sions of this bracket the student practi-
cally applies the rule that the square of
the hypotheneuse of a right-angled TRAN
gle is equal to the sum of the squares of
the other two Sides" Having made a
bracket by means of this rule the student
is of course, sure to remember it better
than if he had simply dealt with plans
and figures. This is the value of manual
training.
A physician recently told Mr.. Babb
that if he had had that training as boy
he wouldn't have made SO many blunders
in his profession as he had. Another
physician said that if he had had manual
training, he wouldn't have made the mis-
takes, after setting a broken leg, of not
properly adjusting the weights SO that
the bone knit together, with the leg lit
tie bent His eye was not true
MI. Babb gave sample recitation by
his class in the second grade. They all
gathered He held up a block of wood
and asked the relation of the sides to
each other The reply came that thew
were perpendicular to each other and
made right angles; that is angles of 30
degrees. When asked how they could
prove it was an angle of 80 degrees the
little fellows were rather puzzled but
finally one of them said, Draw circle. y
He drew circle and divided it into
four quadrants and set the end of the
block into one of the quadrants, thus
proving that it was an angle of go de-
grees.
In his room in the top story of the
North school, Mr.. Babb instruots twelve
classes, that include about 300 boys. The
third grade boys are from 8 to 10 years
Old; the second grade from 10 to IA and
the first grade from IA to 16.
These are Grammar school bows and
they come from the North, Smaller and
Centre street schools, and the Second
Grade boys of the jackson school.
B MI. A. D. Dean, Mr.. Babb's assistant.
has class room Eat the Vaughan street
school, and instructs the boys from the
Butler and West schools and the First
and Third Grades from the jackson
school.
The First and Second Grade boys have
half week in the Manual Training
school send the Third Grade boys only a
half day in their weeks.
This continual use Of tools naturally
odd jobs about the house. One man re-
Gently said to Mr.. Babb: "You don't
know how much good that's doing nv
boy. He's fixing up lots OF things for nv
wife that COULDN'T do.''
The room at the North school is GER
tainly crowded. The grindstone has to
occupy the space where one of the work
benches should be-
One OF the First Grade boys is making
a writing desk as Christmas present for
MS mother. Two First Grade boys from
feak's Island named Dow and Mackin-
sosh nave made for Mr.. Babb recently,
from plans provided by him, a set of
ieives with sliding doors, to hold the
plans by which all the workNo the school
is done.
Hadattah Lodge, 1. o. o. f.
These officers We're elected last night: