The Oskaloosa herald. (Oskaloosa, Mahaska County, Iowa) 1885-1919, 1906-05-10
MANUAL TRAINING
EXTRACTS FROM an ADDRESS or
PRES. n. n. sEERLEY.

President H. H. SECRECY OF the State
Normal school will be of special inter
est to our people:
In the last half century there have
occurred notable changes in the edu-
cation and training of our children.
Forty years ago the school was so or.
ganized and conducted that it was
maintained to supplement the work
OF the home in the preparation OF
children for life. Today school-going
has become the occupation of chill
dren and youth, while attendance up
on school is made compulsory. The
course of instruction accepted as es-
sential to the proper education OF an
individual has also been greatly
changed by the process of addition
and expansion, the tendency. being to
exalt the literary, the cultural and
the developmental at the expense OF
tie practical and useful. The result
has been that schools are largely or
ganized and conducted with the CHER
OBJECT Of preparing the pupils for still
higher education rather than with the
purpose of preparing children for ca
reers. AS a matter of fact, there has
come an exaggeration of the inferred
real value of the branches that have
been taught, while the capability and
skill of the worker, the thinker in
things and the qualifications of the
director Of industry and of business
enterprises has been overlooked and
unappreciated.
AT the same time those occupa-
tons, like the professions, that were
absolutely dependent upon the ac-
eepted intellectual and cultural stud
les OF the schools, have been assumed
to represent higher and greater
type of success than did occupations
more industrial and mechanical. AS
consequence of these tendencies
and practices the managers Of educa.
tional agencies find themselves con-
fronting condition, not a theory:
they find the education of the present
lacking in certain remarkably useful
characteristics that We're common in
the training Of forty years ago, not
because appliances and teachers are
of inferior grade, but because the I'M
dertaking is incomplete in plan and
incompetent in certain respects to
meet the needs of the age. 1t is for
these reasons that many are being
made to so reorganize and readJust
matters that progress may be a fact
and preparation for a life career a
possibility as well as an ideality.
Complete Education Sought.
1T is accepted by all who think
upon the problems of education Lat
the aim of all organized effort shou.a
be to develop such system Of in
struction and training as will make
complete education a possibility.
Under the conditions that exist today
education is partially making this
very important result possluIe, there
being no opportunity gwen the Gull
dren to exercise all their faculties,
and particularly those kinds of facul-
ties that are inventive, constructive
and manual. There is need then ior
training in the practical and industrial
as by so doing there may be accom-.
plished complete education. Every
thing that is learned is of more last
ing interest when it has been put into
actual service. To learn to talk about
things las is commonly done, is not
to possess a true knowledge Of work
ing with things, since it must be rec
ognized that the application is OF
larger Importance than information.
1t is not right that after so much time
and money is spent in obtaining an
education that a long tutelage should
still be necessary 10 enable one to-
become contributor to the welfare
and the progress of society, This
situation is not necessary if judgment
and foresight be allowed in educa-
tional management.
at was my privilege in 1904 to-
make a careful investigation Of the
instruction and training given in the
manual arts by the public schools of
the north central states. 1t is true
that there is some difference of opin-
ion regarding the things to be done,
as well as the way in which to do
them. 1t is also true that there Isl
10 perfect solution of the problems
involved, as there are limitations in
the materials that can be used, as
well as in the exercises that can be
profitably undertaken. There is also
universal agreement that industrial
education will not be a panacea for
the ills Of society, nor is it able to be
a substitute for physical education,
intellectual education, or moral educa-
ton. Such education as the manual
arts give is simply an additional
means that is able to bring about
more complete union of education
and life through increasing capability
of personality and adding opportun-
tiles for service and usefulness.
Problem Of Teachers.
There is also another danger to
be avoided in the adopting Of every
new movement, the undertaking OF
such instruction without having capa-
BILE or expert teachers. The manual
arts, to be Of any great important