The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1898-10-31
BY J. M. TANNER,

These words, like education, have
come to have a very general meaning
and yet they convey to the mind of the
reader the idea of associating in a
common operation the hand and the
head. Technical schools, while they
aim to give an advanced training, are
generally schools of engineering and
applied sciences which relate to the in
dustrial interests of our country. Out
of these schools has grown the idea
that manual training might be so or
gained as to give to a larger number
trade. Such institutions are in no
sense colleges or universities They do
not pretend to give advanced instruc-
ton, neither are their students quail
fed for what is popularity termed pro-
fessional life. The manual training
school, in so far as it is regarded as a
branch of technical training. is in
tended for a larger class of citizens,
generally known as artisans or trades
people.
Such a school was organized for the
first time in Utah at the Agricultural
college. where an appropriation for
that purpose was made by the last
Legislature. 1 shall confine my re-
marks, therefore, chiefly, to this branch
of school work in our state. All the
reasons of state which have sustained
in the past the growth of professional
schools are doubly applicable to schools
of manual training that include
much larger number of our citizens.
The idea of manual training that is
now taking root in Utah is that the
young man with any gift of mechan-
ical device may learn a trade and at
the same time receive a fair common
school education. The system as it
operates in our state today is this: A
student registers for trade, making a
selection in either wood or iron work
One-half of the day is devoted to the
shops, the other half to the classroom.
The evenings are devoted to the prepa-
ration of the studies. no preparation
being required for the shop. The
studies, as far as possible, are made to
contribute to the needs of the artisan,
though English and arithmetic are al
ways fundamental. The students are
so classified that those who take their
shop work in the forenoon have their
recitations in the afternoon, and vice
versa. The shop work limits to some
extent the number of studies that
student may take. but as an offset to
this limitation, he may become more
proficient and more interested in those
fewer studies than he has been in the
many.
The experiment of one year has been
in the highest degree satisfactory. As
a rule, most of the young men of the
state are unaccustomed to the seden-
tary habits of the students. Their
school days have been interrupted.
They have been irregular and their
lives for the most part have been de-
voted to those physical vOcations which I,
have called forth bodily activities. Upon J
the schoolroom a sudden /
change of habit has proved a hindrance
Or an obstacle to their interest in the /
school work. Sometimes it has resulted |
in sickness that has taken them from /
the schoOlroom altogether. To devote !
the entire day to study has been found 1
Nature has demanded /
physical exercise, and boys of this clas- !
have. as a rule, resorted to college /
sports, such as football and baseball !
and other athletic exercises. And in .
ruth it may be said that very few have /
devoted more time to the classroom, |
when all their time has been set apart /
'or that purpose, than those who have /
devoted a half day to the shops. In .
most cases the habits of twenty years
preclude men from following a profess
'ional career; the physical has so COM
oletely dominated the mental qualities
md habits that are necessary for con-
inued school life.
The old idea has prevailed that the
school was place intended for a train
ng exclusively of the mind and that
he mind could be trained only by
means of books and the teacher who
Used the books. The laboratory and the
however, have reformed our
IDEAS of education wonderfully in that
We have come tO know that the mind iS