Milford chronicle., 1925-07-24
and assure a supply of hard wood
for manufacturing purposes.

= Iney may commune TO dLJeuQ SCuOO
|. and graduate better equipped witt
/ theoretical ideas for taking theil
parts in the business, social or po
! litical world. In the olden days o.
yesterday, when the rudementary
education of the small public school
} was practically the only source OpeI
to the boys and girls, it was difficult
to keep pupils in the public schools
The methods of teaching were crude
and failed to open to the children
the possibilities of education, as it
would affect them. The mothers and
fathers, out of odd hours, trained
their children in the practice of
their own professions and the arts
of domestic science with the needle
and the broom. Their ability to in
struct was limited to their own ad-
vantages; while the teachers in the
public school, with a stipend of sal
ary that barely maintained them
during a six months school year, did
the best they could with a very lin
tied training for teaching children.
Under such conditions, it is won
derful to realize what the boys and
girls of America accomplished and
reached out after wider experiences
from their individual experience and
ability to attain. In those days
there was no systematic study as to
how to hold the interest of the chill
dren in education. The routine be-
came irksOme to most children and
they escape to the field, farm or
clerkship in a store; which is free.
dom to them. Only such as am
bition had touched with her magic
wand, strove to- go through and
finally graduate from the higher
grades and entered the colleges.
In these days of electricity and
wonderful mechanical methods of
accomplishing wonderful schemes in
trade or business, the boys and girls
have to be held to their course in
education, so that they may become
valuable factors in professions,
trade, or manufactures, not to men
tion the greatest of all, farming and
horticultural work, it is necessary
to provide during the school days of
the boys and girls, opportunities for
each and all, to follow the trend and
disposition towards creating the
starting point for either profession
or mechanical trade, that will hold
their interest in their school work,
along with athletic games. In the
manual training course the boys
have the opportunity to become IA
miliar with use of tools and with
them and proper materials, create
articles of value for the home or the
Office; and they are doing this very
thing under experienced instructors
in our schools, thereby gaining that
which may be the starting point of
useful life; which, without proper
training could easily in the exuber-
ance of healthy boyhood, have gone
wild and without restraint and so
fail to gain appreciation of their
own possibilities. Such is briefly
what the public schools in the Spe-
cial Districts of Delaware, are do
ing for the boys in addition to edu-
eating them in theoretical knowl-
edge of the main branches which |
underlay all education.
In domestic science the girls are
receiving instruction, which in most
cases their own mothers are not |
capable to impart, or have the abil-
ity to train them in the work of
making and keeping a home. In
this department the girls learn how
to make garments of all kinds for
themselves or others, and gain ideas
by which they will brighten up the
corner of thousands of homes in the
days of tomorrow.
In recent editorial the Manu-
facturer and Industrial Bureau on
this subject said:
Public schools are seeking to COM
bine text books with tools, work
with study, and finding a real Joy
in useful labor as well as in ath-
letics. Making a footstool or cedar
chest for Mother, step ladder or
reading lamp for Dad, or assembling
a radio set for the whole family,
shows school boy activities in the (
work shop reaching into the home.
Spare hours and idle days should
be given to training boys for prac- {
.ical usefulness in life. The press !
ing need of new education, direct
y related to labor, is laid bare by '
The fact that 80 per cent of the work i
Of the world is manual, and that
line-tenths of our young manhood t
S destined to labor for a living {
actual hand labor, not professional
SIN. I
A larger part of the new educa- {
ion must be given to instruction by {
masters of trades, in actual, neces- t
'ary, useful work. It. cannot be linz
ted to text book courses on social {
n vacations Real mammal 1abOr