training in this country indicates that along these lines we have been very successful in developing our courses. It is maintained that an attempt to organize a single course of study in terms of tools, materials, and exercises would be of small avail and add little to the further development of this department of educational activity. It is moreover maintained by our advanced thinkers that greater good will result if special attention were given to the problems demanding consideration in different sections of the country, and courses rich in material suggestiveness be developed rather than one single

course.

I am not in sympathy with any attempt made to formulate at this time or at any time a set course of study to be held up as a model. It would be most unpedagogical to do so, and in fact quite unnecessary. All we can hope to accomplish here is the formulation of a statement of principles, by which any attempt at systematizing handwork may be guided and the educational value measured. You will agree with me that hard and fast rules cannot be laid down governing all schools, regardless of needs and conditions which prevail in different localities.

The conditions that manual-training organizers meet are so changeable that we cannot "fix" anything. There is no such thing as fixation. In science the knowledge of yesterday gives way to the discoveries of today. Creeds are being changed to harmonize with a new social order of things. Progress is the keynote in all departments of thought and activity. Progress must characterize education as well. New conditions demand new practices, and practices must be in accordance with the signs of the times. In manual training as in no other department of education we are dealing in a very intimate manner with children, their environment, and the conditions under which they are to be educated. We must if our work be truly effective suit the work to our local conditions. What might be found a justified practice in one community would not meet the requirements in another. The work must be adapted to the child, not the child to the work. In times past we have aimed to make clothespins of an approved pattern. We have adopted bodily courses "made in Germany" and forced them upon altogether different types of boys and girls for whom they were not designed. It is expedient for us to make no attempt to formulate a course of study and call it "the one." However applicable a course might be for one place, the different conditions at another would not be met by it.

Important as a consideration of tools and equipment may be in determining a course of study; important too as exercises and problems may be and the many technical details that perplex the teacher; vital as these are in shaping and giving content to manual training on the material side, it is for us to restrict our consideration to the principles which make manual training truly worth while, and which secure for it a recognized place on the school program. Unless a course in handwork is based on these principles it appears to me our efforts are quite useless.

An intensive study of manual training or even an incidental visit to the usual lesson in manual training cannot fail to convince one that many of our efforts are valueless and that much of what is claimed for it can be questioned. Why is this so? Why this doubt of the efficacy of manual training even on the part of those most interested? Is it due to the fact that we have not brought the philosophy down from the clouds and made it practicable? Or is the pedagogy of handwork understood by the elect few, while the application of the principles is left to the uninitiated? Certainly the limited meager training possessed by a great many teachers accounts for the sharp criticism provoked against manual training by Bruce R. Payne, of the University of Virginia.

He says:

Comparatively speaking, the most uneducative, the most unpedagogic, the most unreasonable subject taught in American elementary schools today is handwork in any of its forms. Observe whatever recitations you please and you will have the privilege of witnessing one which to a large extent is void of real thought, void of pedagogical principles, void of reason upon the part of the pupils, but abounding in dogmatism, disconnected facts, with an abundance of doing, but with no conscious theory in the doing.

The child's reasoning faculties are not seriously applied in the process of learning. He is not given a large principle to reason out in its details but is simply left to follow in the most servile manner such directions as are given him. The training of the pupil is not the chief idea in this process. Until the teacher has a thought in mind and succeeds in getting that thought into the child's mind, all handwork amounts to nothing but a mere handling of tools and materials. Handwork is not properly educative until the doing upon the part of the teacher and pupils is the conscious application of a clearly conceived theory. So long as it is conducted upon any other basis than this the teacher is nothing more than a carpenter, a seamstress, or a cook.

Is this a true picture? In part I think it is. And what is more to be regretted handwork is but an element for display, a show, a mockery of sincerity of purpose. The same writer further says:

This attitude and method is unpedagogic and uneducative for no stress is laid upon the rich field of thought represented by the many phases of handwork in vogue in our schools. They do not lead the pupil to sympathize with the great fields of real life from which things are taken. He may be prepared for doing a certain thing, but is not prepared for life at all. In fact all this kind of teaching does not look so much to the growth of the learner and the needs of society, but to the skill in rapidity and the production of a finished article. The pupils thus trained never do much more than the actual performances taught them in the school, for the power to reason in general or in particular is not trained at all.

I offer no apology for quoting Mr. Payne at length. While he has overdrawn the picture we must admit there is more truth than fiction in what he says. It is not for us to condemn the worst, and still the worst pursue, but its in the light of systematic examination, consideration, and deliberation to discover, if we can, the basis upon which it rests, the end which it serves, and the means and methods best suited to accomplish those ends. When our various courses of handwork are subjected to an analysis as indicated above, we can assign them to a legitimate place in the curriculum. And this formulation will not be the work of any one person in any one place, but it will be the

fruitage of all interested in this particular phase of educational effort. Only by patient, earnest, original, and systematic examination and experimentation can we contribute to that body of thought and activity for which the term manual training shall stand.

What can we advance as the basis of manual training? I would have you conceive that the main definite end of manual training for the individual is the systematic training of the hands in constructive work thru the instrumentality of tools and the manipulation of materials. Manual training is physical training and as such must be systematically taught in order to get any return worth the effort. It is intellectual training in that it imparts a knowledge of tools, materials, and processes. This knowledge added to systematized physical training should make for power and efficiency in social and industrial service, in so far as the individual can participate in such service. The basis of manual training is educational.

How is the educational value of any course in manual training to be determined? The educational value of any course in handwork is not to be judged solely by the character of the things constructed. Only in the way the exercises contribute to the child's future development, all his life, are they to be judged. In what the exercises teach of ways and processes of doing, the nature and characteristics of the materials used in construction, have they any value. If they do not connect very directly with anything in practical life and contribute to an understanding of industrial and social facts and forces, and at the same time make for social and industrial efficiency and well-being, it were better to abandon manual training and substitute something in its place.

What is the aim of manual training? This is an old question, one nevertheless to be uppermost in our minds in shaping courses of study. The completed exercise is not an end in itself, but is simply the concrete approach to an end. The object affords skill in the manipulation of tools and materials, and makes for power. By skill is meant growth of power and control over the things of the mind and hand in any form of useful effort. Intelligent and systematic training makes for skill and power which is no mean accomplishment.

A good course in manual training is characterized by orderly sequential growth and development. As a rule manual training departments in public schools are conducted in a go-as-you-please, slipshod, aimless, and almost purposeless manner. Like infinity, "beginning everywhere and ending nowhere." Skill is a matter of growth, and growth comes thru systematic, intelligent exercise and training. Skill means knowledge of technique, but it is not the end and final aim of a course in manual training. To quote Professor Chamberlain, "I would have technique, but if it had to be gained at the expense of producing boys with individuality gone, with independence dwarfed, and power and leadership undeveloped, I would bury technique and look for soul."

An adequate course is a flexible course-adequate because it lends itself to individual initiative on the part of the pupil, permitting of planning and

execution along original lines, to the end that the pupil may fully enter into that deep and lasting joy which comes when he has thought out something, created something entirely his own. Such a product is an art product, for art is the expression of joy in work.

The well-rounded course in manual training requires a psychological basis to insure its educational fulfillment. The work for any one grade will be determined by the nature of the child to be taught, that is by his mental and physical needs and capacities. At different stages of his growth and development these factors will need to be taken into consideration. Boys and girls will have to be regarded as totally different beings. It is an error to train both along the same school lines generally.

In the future more than in the past the child's native interests will be taken into consideration. The course will not, however, grow out of the fleeting, spasmodic, and temporary impulses of childhood into a fragmentary, unrelated scheme of work, but temporary interests and needs will be wisely directed and shaped toward purposeful and permanent ends.

In addition to individual interests, aptitudes, and needs, education and training will have to reckon with social, industrial, and agricultural demands as they reflect and in turn act upon local conditions and real life. The strongest kind of relations should be established between the school and the social life of the community. The establishment of such relations affords opportunity for the study of typical industries and occupations in the world at large and serves as an introduction to the history of their development.

In this particular our courses are the weakest. We have succeeded well in bringing into play tool practice quite representative of the best performance in actual industrial occupations, tho by no means in all instances. Technical facts have not been safe in the hands of teachers. The social aspect has been most seriously neglected. No greater function can manual training have than to put the child into possession of its social inheritance, for he ought to fully sympathize with men and women engaged in industrial pursuits and occupation. The child should know society as it knows the things society has need of. Our manual-training courses should seek to establish this larger relatedness with many-sided life.

Reality does not always characterize the type of article made. The chief idea evidently is to emphasize doing at the expense of consistent execution by well-defined means and methods. A random selection of isolated problems lends itself to this idea, at expense of consistent thought-provoking exercises. The natural development of the powers of the child are sacrificed for the finished product intended for display. The finished product we must have. Simplicity, structional beauty, and appropriate design will prove its artistic merit and value. At the same time it will stand the embodiment of conscious doing, the expression of well-conceived plans and purposes. The art-craft movement with its sane and wholesome ideals will find expression and give color especially to the work in the upper grades.

The planning, the execution, the finished problem will lead the child from the immediate work at hand to a vast field of related and highly educative matter found in books and the realms of science and industry. Why should not the mutual ramification of subject matter composing a body of thought as valuable as history and literature, perhaps more cultural because more humanizing-bearing so intimately upon many-sided life, represent a body of thought and action as dignified as any of the older school studies and as truly educational? Why does it not command more serious attention from all school officers and grade teachers? Why is it so often the fag end of the school work? The reasons are evident in the criticisms I have read. We cannot lay claim that the short time allowed handwork and the position it holds in the school program is evidence of a non-progressive school board and an unappreciative attitude on the part of grade teachers. Rather must we cast out the mote which is in our own eyes to see clearly the beam which is in our neighbor's eyes. It is true nevertheless that if we hope to accomplish what we believe manual training can accomplish more time must be awarded it. A stronger appreciation must be developed, ample equipment and suitable materials. must be provided.

To organize and keep in operation an adequate course in manual training needs for its final fulfillment earnest, sincere, intelligent, progressive, hearty co-operation from all school officers and teachers. Sympathy for manual training should not be fostered to further selfish ambition or magnify the position of any teacher directly concerned with its organization and administration. The work must live for the boys and girls who are to be educated by it. When this is done and when its educational basis is fully recognized and appreciated then "all things shall be added unto it."

This presentation may appear somewhat dogmatic. I at least wished to get before you certain matters, and I presume that if there is anything conclusive about what I have said the following summarization can be made: An adequate course of study is one which

1. Aims to be truly educational and imparts to the individual knowledge and power that makes for social and industrial efficiency and well-being.

2. Takes into recognition the psychological and physiological life of the individual at each stage of development and the differentiation of the sexes, and adapts the work to the needs and capacities of each.

3. In so far as practicable will correlate with the industrial or agricultural occupations of the community and the interpretation of the same.

4. Will assert its greatest merit in a large way by the wholesome, wellarranged, well-defined, clear and distinctive body of thought and activity made directly applicable to the pupil thru the instrumentality of tools and materials, and finished product.