The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1907-08-30
LITTLE CARPENTERS.


Children of Five and Six Make Arti.
Giles of Value to Themselves.
Boys and girls of fvesand six years
OF age Dusty working at diminutive
carpenters benches with such sup
posedly dangerous tools as real saws
and planes is sight in a New York
school which rarely fails to draw ex-
pressions of surprise from visiting
strangers. One of these visitors,
woman, said to an instructor: aren't
you afraid to give such dangerous
and complicated tools to little chill
dren? Why don't you give them
something simple-like knife?"
"a knife?" said the instructor.
"Why, 3 knife is one of the most
dangerous and complicated tools you
can give child. If the knife is sharp
enough to work with the child Is Ii.
able to cut himself accidentally. To
cut himself with saw he must place
his fingers deliberately under the
blade and saw for some time. And
with a plane l don't believe he could
cut himself"
This belief that saw and plane are
proper tools for little children, girls
as well as boys, is the result of long
investigations by the manual training
faculty of the Ethical Culture School,
the first to try the experiment with
such children. And the results of
the use of simple" tools have been
so satisfactory that bench work has
been made a regular feature of the
curriculum. In fact, portion of the
large workshop has been devoted to
the children, and for them A. w. Rich.
ards, the director, has designed and
had built a diminutive work bench
fully fitted up for the kind of work
boys and girls of this age are allowed
to do.
At this work bench, as part of their
regular school course, these children
saw and plane wood and by means
of nails make all sorts Of toys of real
use to them in their games. The
articles fashioned in this way are ex-
ceediogly simple in construction. To
make them the child must plane or
saw wood into given length or width
and then nail, without any effort at
joinery, the several pieces together.
A block of wood with strip nailed
to it becomes a chair; handle and
a fiat piece make shovel; three
pieces similarly nailed make sled;
a handle, cross piece and some
nails for teeth give a rake; pieces
saved from curtain pole make
wheels for simple cart which really
goes. The children of six and seven
years of age in the first grade take
an ordinary wooden box, cut windows
in it and finally build on the top of it
a simple, slanting roof, which makes
of it a complete playhouse. All of
these things are made without the
use of knife.
"The educational advantage OF
teaching such little children to use
these TOOLS" says an instructor, lies
in the fact that only simple broad
muscular movements and adjustments
are needed by the child and that tan
gible results can be obtained which
are actually of value to the small
worker. When the child's work is
through he has something of value
to himself to show for it, because
the process always leads to some
concrete object. The motions of saw
ing, planning and hammering do not
require anything like the degree OF
skill that the simplest use of knife
makes necessary. The saw can cut
only in one general direction, the
plane cannot shave off more than a
certain thickness. In each of these
tools the childs hand grasps large
handle, the blade of which is fixed
at a given angle. In the case of 4
knife the child would have to hold
on to a small handle and then, in adj
dition to directing the general stroke
OF the knife, pay minute attention to
the angle of the blade to the wood.
The slightest variation of angle of
this blade varies the cut. The knife
is made for all sorts of cutting,
curved, at an angle or straight, de-
pending entirely on the nicely of mus
cular adjustment of the user. Such
attention and skill are not to be ex-
pected of tiny fingers. and to attempt
to secure them is to lay burden on
the child, make impossible any en-
joyable products of his work, and to
substitute for exercise in broad free
movements and broad muscular con-
troll minutiae of advanced mus -dlar
action. The saw and the plane, with
their simple action, do not require,
for elementary results. the finely diff
ferentiated muscular adjustments. -
New York Tribune.