The herald., 1898-03-30
ur Teacher" 1t was essentially as fol
MANUAL TRAINING

Our Teacher 1t was essentially as fol-
lows:
MANUAL TRAINING
Manual training is large subject, not
to be exhausted in single discourse or in
many. will therefore content myself with
discussing only one phase of my subject
It is surely no heresy to claim that the
benficient influence of the deed is needed
in education. There can be no sound prep
aration for complete living which divides
the life of child and throws away one
half A training which shuts the child in
upon himself does not deserve the name.
The fact is few children will submit to such
a one-sided education, their instinct for
action and for an objective life is too strong.
On the playground, at home, or even in
school, the instinct for doing and making
something finds a vent If this manifests
itself in school it is called mischief or worse
and is conscientiously punished. Outside
of school it is. up to a certain point, toll
Grated, for liberation is easier than repres-
sion. But it proceeds vigorously without
guidance and is not thought of as valu-
able educational process.
Sometimes this demand for doing takes
a definite, sometimes narrow form. Some
practical enough. 1t is insisted that the
school should prepare for life and that
there is manifest failure if the boy makes
his first acquaintance with business and
business methods after he quits school.
Now 1t would require little argument to
show that an education which turns out
carpenters or tradesmen alone is narrow
and on low plane and such training do
IA Tbo CT
not for less thinking but for more doing.
The proper balance must be maintained.
1t is this advantage macy times multiplied
that I claim for manual training. 1t brings
into school the same healthful and illum-
mating influences that action brings into
life. In the matter of clear and definite
thinking what help can compare with the
process of the draughting room and the
shop? 1t commits its maker. 1t is the re-
fiex of his thought and any errors in it are
the result of errors in the thought or in the
execution.
eff there are any such, the boy learns
from them to be more clear and accurate
next time in his thinking and doing. so
the student learns to be rigid and impartial
in judging his own work. His thoughts
and words are hard to detach from himself
but his exercise in the shop has been born
into independent existence. So the student
learns to be rigid and impartial in judging
his own work. He learns something too
of the seriousness and inexorableness of
life. In the sloyd room he learns he must
not dawdle-there is no encouragement
for indecision. He must make sure he is
right and then go ahead two of the most
valuable lessons life can teach US. School
has been too much Of a preparation for life
with too little actual life. The boy has
been getting ready for one thing by doing
something else. He looks forward to a
life of action and accomplishment and pre-
pares for it by retiring from the active du-
ties of life and dwelling in a world of
thought. The education that prepares only
for getting living wastes itself in prov1d
ing that which Is indeed an essential, but
after all only a means, and it loses sight
of the end which alone gives the means
significance and value.
CHILD STUDY
Prof. e. D. Starbuck of Stanford univer-
sity followed in short but interesting lee
ture on Child Study" taking as his SUBJ
5ect, Mature Hews First in the Rough
He described first how nature builds in
minerals and in plants and then said that
the teacher is learning the secret that the
same process of development is followed
in the human being. The measurements of
the muscles of q child show that nature
develops the heavy parts of the body first
and the accessories afterward The finger
tips Of the young child are less proportion
ately developed than are the muscles of
the arm.
The same process is going on in the neur-
illogical, or nerve, growth. First the
branches grow, then the leaves. If this
were thoroughly understood, it would aid
very materially in the work of the school
room. In the old-fashioned copybooks. at
which small children were set with a fine
pointed pen to copy letters of certain math-
ematical proportions, their eyes were