Omaha daily bee., 1902-10-19
MANUAL TRAINING COURSE
New Interest Aroused in the Practical Side
Of School Work.
PLAN TO REACH YOUNGER CHILDREN
InstiIIinR Of Habits of Industry In the
PupIls OF Lower Grades the
object of the New
Move.

With the general agitation among edu-
Gators for the Introduction Of manual train
ing or constructive work into the curricu-
lum OF the public schools and colleges, and
the more recent plan for it's introduction
into the lower grades, the Omaha teachers
and parents are manifesting considerable
interest In the subject. and not a few have
entered upon private coures of training that
will at least give them a working knowl-
edge OF II. Miss Meredith Smith OF Omaha,
recently graduated from the Teachers COL
legs of Columbia university, presented the
work last week before the third grade
teachers OF the city schools, and has pre-
pared the following for the benefit Of the
many teachers and parents desiring to know
more Of the work:
Anyone who has for the last few years
taken an interest in education cannot but
be impressed with the attention manual
training is receiving. II is indeed the lead
Ing educational question Of the day.
Colonel Barker, In an address before the
Eastern Manual Training association, said
that nothing had entered the schools of this
country witt such promise of usefulness
and premanency as manual training. For
300 years educational reformers have been
endeavoring to modify the old educational
ideal, which devoted education largely to
a study of words, and have preached an
education which will 1T the Individual more
successfully for practical life.
Children spend ten or twelve years in the
public school and for all that time, there
is given no single line OF work which
aims to arouse the spirit Of industry. This
is ~eminently an age Of industrialism and
the public school education ought to be in
harmony with this existing social condi-
tlon. While 1t cannot pretend to At chill
dren for particular employments, It should
aim to implant in each child the idea OF
doing. the idea that he can do things. 1t
should give a broad training, not a one
sided one, which considers mental develop
ment alone, but one developing power, so
that when the serious affairs of life are to
be entered upon the individual will be equal
to the demands made upon him. Power
means ability to do as we'll as to think.
Mental training is OF value only as It leads
to better doing. Indeed, the greatest mental
activity is aroused in the child by doing
and making, by working with material
things. rather than by abstract mental
processes.
How the Child is Awakened.
The child's mental life is largely made
up OF Impressions Of the material world
and his ideas and imagination grow out Of
his reflections on these impressions.
1t was through an ever increasing mas
terry over material, material forces and
elements that mankind has worked out
this wonderful civilization Of ours. AS the
race has Developed through contact with
things, so should the child be allowed to
develop. We consider our schools greatly
superior to those OF a hundred years or
more ago, but we cannot say that ours
power, better judgment or stronger moral
purpose. Is this not due to the fact that
the children attending the rural schools
spent less time in Intellectual drill and
memory processes and more time in work
about the house and farm, where there
was continually demanded of them men
tai and physical energy in contact with
things?
People are coming more and more to
believe that the child should have as a
part of his school education carefully
planned material upon which to exert his
mental energy. Children enjoy this kind
Of work. They are naturally industrious
and il given a fair opportunity are eager
and anxious to work. The industrious
spirit develops early. but IL It is not
fostercd at this time 1t is apt never again
to become so strong.
II the CnlIu IL 10 learn 10 40 lnlnBs
well there must proceed along with the
mental training a training of the hand
as we'll. What the mind conceives and
plans the hand should be able to execute
Instead Of recognizing the value of hand
training our education seems not only
to neglect all hand work, but also to dis
criminate against those who wish to work
with their hands. ,
Manual training is going to give a new
dignity to this kind of work. 1t is going
to lead the children to feel hat the work
they do with their hands has a place In
their education as we'll as the work they
do with their heads. Not the least i'm.
portant consideration calling for the in
PRODUCTION Of manual training or con
structiye work into our system OF educa-
tion is the pleasure this work gives to the
children. 1t srouses their enthusiasm and
makes the whole course more attractive
Then. too, they can see q value in this