The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-10-23
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What is illiteracy? and who is the i1fiterats man7 are questions which may sound childish. but are they? Al most any one will tell you that one who cannot read. write and spell. who has no knowledge of arithmetic, gram mar, geography and other usually taught studies Is an filitsrste. q
 .Perhaps that definition is correct. but does 1t answer the question fully7 If young man has perfected himseif in all branches of book knowiedge, but has no capacity for applyirg that knowledge; if be has received no prac- tical training of any Kind and9is not quafifed to contest with others in the hattie of life. is he an educated man Of what use would chest of fine car penter's tools be to man who has no mechanical training or talent? He would be as helpless as he would be If he were perfectly trained, but had no toels to work with. ss
 The same is true in lesser degree of. the other sex. All that can be learned from the books will not teach girl to malke dresssor cook a good meal. It cannot be urged that there is no necessity tor practical traiuing. 1T ths girl is 70 circumstanced that she will not De required to do her own work. All are not. thus favored. and It sometimes--or oftentimes--happens that young girl brought up in wealth and luxury. with no thought that she will ever be required to do any kind Of manual labor, lnds herself 60 sit- uated that she must depend on her own exertions. Then che finds that an im- portant part of her education has been neglected and that she is practically helpless. Is not the young man or the young woman. situated as we have outlined, an iHiterate7
 Lately we have been reading a very l Interesting work calledt Practical l fdeslism." by William Dewitt ], Hyde. which deals with the ideals and reaii- ties of life in a highly instructive l manner. The author takes the posi- I ton that the surgeon. the dentist and I the artist, as we'll as the mechanic. need proper manual, training for the business. to be followed. For those who intend to follow strictly profess sional occupations there are schools and colleges specially intended to teach them the branches of their sev- eral professions. For the many who are to go into the ranks of manual workers there are too few. opportuni- ties. The esresuit is that after they re- ceive all the education the schools can give them they must set in anew and learn how to use their hands. so as to utilize their book Knowledge. Would l 1t not be better to teach both head and hand at the same timer In the words of Felix Adler: 'The manual iaborer must have time for intellectual i'm provement. The intellectual classes on the other hand must learn manual labor" In short. each boy may be so taught that he can adapt himself to whatever circumstances and conditions the future may have in store for him.
 <Nhu hOCS hOt thAo aPPass -PCAhoPS hO more limited degree. to the girls as we'll? Few. of them can look into the future and see just what is in store for | them. Though the conditions of their early. days may make 1t appear im- probable that they will ever be forced to depend on their own exertions they can never be sure of 1t. All of us know of instances where the woman of the house has found herself with | out help or means to employ 1t; where cook and seamstress are beyond her reach and then. too late, she regrets the lack of that training which would have made her independent of all hired help.
 And this brings us back to the orig inal proposition: are men and women | fully educated without such manual training as will fit them for whatever station in life they may be called on to occupy? If they have their heads stored with book learning but cannot do any kind of manual work are they not in a certain sense illiterate7 Would | IT not Dc peltST TUT the LuLuIe IT OuT sons and daughters could acquire at school some practical knowledge of the duties that may fall to any one in the battle of life7
 These are serious questions brought out by brief study of Practical Idealism," and we have only touched on the subject. EducatioEal methods have changed much even within a .hu- man generation. Whether some of the changes are for the better may be questioned. but we think serious re- | hectIen will convince any one that the training which, does not educate both head and hand is not the training to insure the highest form of American citizenship.