The daily Alaskan., 1915-11-10
TRAINING THE HAND

| ! ALAALLNALtN 4tLEL KAEAANL
 One participating in an athleti
 contest is often the envy of intelli gent observers, not of necessity be cause the observed is a winner, bu
 often because he evidences remark able control and intelligence in tn, manner of his activity. Let one iI the untraiRed audience be placed among the contestants and he E lmost likely to be a laugbing-stock The winner of the contest may be so less because of inherent pow CT and ability than because of skill, ful training and practice
 | Some seem to believe that our children are sent to the public school to learn how to make a living without manual labor. If We can conceive of a people like ourselves in every way but minus hands, We may see the mOnstrosity suitaDIy illustrating such belief. The brainiest men and women must, af- ter all Is said, find hands to eN- press their brain-poWer. The pub lie school is endeaYorinG to give its patrons a WhOle-sided training, not a Dear-sbaped hsad on a clothes-pin body.
 That English sage, John Ruskin, sad. We are always ia these days endeaYOring to separate intellect aud manual labor; we want one man to be always thinking, and another to be always working, and We call one a gentleman, and the other an operative; whereas the workman ought to be thinking, and the thinker often to be working, and both should be gentlemen in the best sense As it is, We make both ungentle, the one enYying, the other despising, his brother; and the mass of society is made Up of morbid thinkers and miserable workers"
 While many boast of being stu dsrts in "The University of Hard Knocks" the public school is the great melting-pot, and is the most important educational institution of the world. There is a sense in which 1t may be said, the public school is the roots and trees, the high school the blossOms and the college and university the rtpened fruIt of our educational system; and this indicates the order of develop meut. Every university graduate hag Of course, received that which Itbe public school has to offer; but a pitfuIly small number of public school graduates have been permit | ted to accept what the university holds out. How wise, tbens those principals and teachers who realize this great Importance, and, feeling their obli- | gatIon is their opportunity, strive to fit as thoroughly as they are able their pupils for life's needs.
 The introduction of domestic science and manual training iu our public school system is comparative ly recent; but the presence of each evidences the teachers en- deaYor to make the utmost of the'r contact with our children. And when we realize that in addition to the public schools the best of the high schools and tho great uni versailles also have these depart ments, in which I believe they have followed the public school we become aware our entire educa, tional system knows of the need of training the hand
 The boys of the school are espec' lally in mind in this paper. Pos sibly some mother may be induced to prepare a companion paper deal ing with the application of this subject to girls.
 By manual tTanng we mean in IstruCtion and practice with the use cf hand tools in making ar ticlcs from wood or lumber, leath' CT, brass and eOpper-WOrk anC other material The meaning, am aware, may be greatly enlarged l When one comes tn contact with q man who cannot drive a nail' whit cannot saw a board square, WhC | does not know fir lumber fron cotton-woOd, who cannot make simple article of kitchen con venieuce from a good box, who doe not know how to make simple