Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911, 1907-07-10
MANUAL TRAINING
TEACHERS MEET
DISCUSS COURSE OF STUDY
FOR LOWER GRADES
Professor keyes, Superintendent of
South District Schools at Hart
ford, Conn.,, Advises Against
Uniform Course Idea

OIlllOIHi SOdiSS tdSd
A many sided discussion on the develop
ment of an adequate course of study IN
manual training for elementary grades
took up the greater part OF the hrst SEES
sion of the department of manual train
ing yesterday afternoon in the First
Methodist church.
Frank Nj. Leavitt of Boston, Mass,
president of the department., called. the
meeting to order read the minutes OF the
last meeting and in part said:
I'm spite of the TACT that six other
meetings are being held in various parts
of the city at this hour | am glad to wei,
you will hear practical and instructive
speeches. Manual training. is very young
and there is much TO DO, want 10 see
manual training carried out to the base
ball ground, and as for the crowded city
schools | want to see them have their
share of manual training. out in the
country A move of this kind has been
started in Boston. After crowded subur-
ban cars come to the city in the morning
they take classes out to the country for
practical agricultural lessons" ~
introduced August Ahrens, director OF
manual training at the state normal
school, Warrensburg, Mo-, who presented
Of manual arts. He had accepted his
place on the program with just three
hours notice
The president next introduced Fletcher
3. Dresslar, associate professor depart
ment of education, University OF Call
fornia, Berkeley, Cal
U. C. Man Talks
Mr.. Dresser said in part:
Manual training in Its larger ana
truer sense means learning now 10 enter
into organizing activity with the hands,
and how to come into active participation
with all those fundamental and useful
occupations necessary for modern life
and society. -.
in consciousness Is direct result OF the
growth in the widening and organizing
rela tions of sensory stimulus to motor re:
Spouse. This law of mental development
demands that our courses in manual
training be broadened. 1t requires that
all our school work be adjusted from the
point of view of the organization or body
and mind, to the, end that learning ana
doing are not isolated, separated things.
The whole progress of the normal devel-
opment of children insists that doing is
essential to knowing.
zone of the most urgent needs of our
schools is better equipment for play
grounds, for free play is one of the high
est. forms of manual training, Playing
ball and tennis are better ORGANIZING
mental adjustments than any sort of
work in wood and iron. Our notion Of
manual training should be so broadened
that it should consist not only of shop
work, but of many kinds of field work
and abundance of regular playground eX-
perience outlines of course fitted to
these requirements were suggested
Mrs. Alice Woodwork Cooley of Grand
Forks, N. D., in a brilliant and witty
manner introduced the next speaker,
Charles H. Keyes, a former Californian,
and supervisor of South district schools
of Hartford, Conn. Mr.. Keyes said in
part:
Mr.. Reyes Address
1.-THE problem before us for con-
siderat ton and discussion today involves
many mooted questions of intricacy and
We may help to clear the way
tor few steps on the path toward solu-
ton by recaLlng five special pedagogical
aXioms that are usually promptly and
forgotten by people who un-
dertake the formulation of a course of
study in manual training for elementary
schools.
"The responsibility for inadequate and
courses of sturdy IN manual
school superintendent and his principals.
TO state the proposition in otner form:
The superintendent of schools must be
held responsible for the development of
a rational manual training course and 1t
must be made in the same way that an
effective course of study in any other
subject is produced.
1.-The superintendent and his principals
must see to 1t that proper time and OPP
portunity is provided for doing the pro-
posed work in a way that is worth while
lime tnat can De protected from tHe
demands and encroachments of other sub
jects of the curriculum. The poorest
course of study thus provided for and
protected is better than superior course
without time to be genuine.
at is the duty and responsibility of
and principals to insure
that these courses provide for sucn
forms of manual training only as can be
shown to be educative Interpretation or
genuine self expression. Doing stunts
with knives or needles or planes or
hammers Is not necessary desirable
form of education. Not all CONNECTIONS in
mud or paper, iron or pine, reed or rata,
Irvine or tillo, are either self expression
or educational Interpretation. Educational
manual training is nothing else; and it
is the specific responsibility of the SUI
and his principals to see that
the course in manual training can stand
this test.
Effective Teaching
1.-The superintendent and his principals
are responsible for the sequence and ar
rangement of the material of the course
of study so as to secure proper correla-
ton of teaching endeavor. l am not con-
cerned with a correlation for the sake of
correlation, but / have grave interest in
more correlation for the sake of more eff
fective teaching.
Now, 1 am not sure that any one has
dreamed of a uniform course of study in
elementary manual training for the whole
country or even for all the schools of
single great state. Such plan would APP
pear to the speaker one OF the most un-
wise that could be undertaken, doing
violence to the principle just enunciated.
We have had two crying experiences in
this country illustrating the danger of i'm
planting a system without reference to
its environment and assuming that it
would grow and prosper.
THE sloyd courses of Sweden were
brought to Boston; it took ten years of
Yankee modification to make them go in
New England public schools. Boston
sloyd courses were prescribed for Pasa-
dena and Santa Barbara and it took FIVE
Them fit the public schools of Southern
California
again, the history Of the kindergarten
in America furnishes another illustration
OF the folly of attempting a uniform fixed
course. For years this country was full
of undergraduates working themselves in
to rhapsodies and their friends into costa
sizes over their unchanging and unchange-
able system, the same yesterday, today
and forever. All Of truth had. been dis
covered by reyeresd, leader a;ls; what he ala
the thing IN he done in any land and in