Staunton spectator and vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1896-1916, 1907-05-10
Education True Handicraff.
Concluded from last week.

Concluded from last week
The great question asked of every
boy and of every girl leaving our
s ,hOos and knocking at the doors of
the various arts and professions is not,
What do you know but What can you
do? Whether banker desires an ac-
countant or the cotton mill man su
p srintendent. or the railroad magpate
a general manager, or the plain man
a laborer, every one of them is looking
for the man who can do things. Even
among the women at their social gath
erings, the woman who can do things
and can make things, reigns princess
of entertainment. The woman who
can devise, who can make. who can
arrange the decorations, the diaperies,
the menus, and the what.nOts of
house party is a wonderfully convent
ent parsonage. Intellectually apart
from the ability to perform is WORTH
the real activities of life whether in
dustrial, CONNER ciaI. or purely social.
People in all departments of real life
are busy with their hands bringing |
things to pass-doing things.
No man who has not learned to CO.
ordinate hand and eye movement can,
without the greatest difficulty, find a
place in the struggle for existence or
even in the field of social service. One
need not wonder at this. If he but re
member that actual physical work is at
the bottom of the advanceme ment of each
generation of successful business men.
No nation and no generation of peo-
pie have attained success who have not
come UP thru the struggle of physical |
effort. The one lost man in the crisis
of financial reverse is the man who i,
does not know how to do anything :,
with his hands.
1t is not q question as to whether we
shall educate thru hand work. l t IS a j..
question as to whether we shall edu-
cate at all. 1t is of the nature of the
human mind to express it's thoughts ,
most clearly In motor active FORMS A..
Yet find cruel teachers. and more G
cruel school boards. offering the child !
only the outlet of empty words. Hele
In our school-rOOm sits bundle of sup
pressed physical activity with not a
lick of work to do; forced to sit pas
3ively like a pound of absor bent cotton
and gulp down the barren words in
stead of being allowed to work out in
forms it's own active i'm ),
pulses. Imagine the terrible strain
from the Imprisonment of 8
spirit, the cramping of individuality. y
and the suppression of embryo thoughts f
because no avenue of escape has been n
supplied by our schools. Physical ac-
5ivity is the dominant impulse of child !
hood.
1.-The emphasis of our school work
must be more and more upon construc. e
5lon and giving out" Every child +
Ongs In his school day to live as other +
people live, to do things as grown peo- +
pie do them. But in the ordinary con- {
ception the school is not place where
the child lives at all. 1t is the prison Y
where be sits still, does nothing, and q
calls it studying. These motor i'm q
pulses must be organized and directed ,
oy the teacher. The child must be al. \
Owed to live in school much as be is re {
]uired to live out of the school. In n
TACT, the school must become minia q
ture society before it Can train chill q
1ren for participation in social life
In the language of Americas S most ia. 4
nous educational philosopher, 1.-The '
school should not be regarded as pre- h
,aration for life, it should be regarded
rs life itself bruce R. Payne, Uni o
versity of Virginia.