CHAPTER XII.

MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL TRAINING.

I. MANUAL TRAINING AND INDUSTRIAL DEPARTMENTS IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS.-Purpose Location, equip ment, and course of training-Coordination with the other studies of the system-Cost-ReaultsOpinions of superintendents as to the advisability of introducing manual training into the public schools-Industrial training in schools for the deaf; in schools for the blind; in reform schools; in schools for the feeble-minded; in Indian schools; in colored schools-Societies for the promotion of manual training. II. MANUAL TRAINING AND TRADE SCHOOLS.-St. Louis manual training schoolChicago manual training school-Baltimore manual training school-Other manual training schoolsNew York trade schools-Statistics of manual training schools (Table 67)-Summary of statistics of industrial schools (Table 3)—Statistics of industrial schools (Table 69).

I. MANUAL TRAINING AND INDUSTRIAL DEPARTMENTS.

IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

The introduction of manual training as a public school study may be said to be yet in the experimental stage, rendering an exposition of its condition less complete and more difficult than an account of the more thoroughly organized branches of the system of public schools. The recent addition of the study, however, invites inquiry as to the objects to be attained by its introduction, the methods of accomplishing them, the cost entailed, and the results; while the agitation against the so-claimed overloaded curriculum of the upper grades of the public schools calls for an examination of the manner of interpolating a study new in a twofold sense into that curriculum. The reports of the city superintendents and other school officials have therefore been examined with reference to these heads of inquiry; for no better testimony, it is thought, could be obtained than that of the agents of the people at whose expense the new study has been introduced and is supported.

Purpose.-In Portland, Me., the superintendent of the city schools was encouraged by a petition signed "by all to whom it was presented," to ask the city council for a grant of $1,500 to establish a manual training school, because the belief is gaining ground in our own country, as well as in other countries, that youth should be edncated in the use of the tools of industry as well as in books; and in other cities it has been found by trial that this can be done during school life without impeding other studies." Considerations of a fiscal nature sent the matter over for a year. The school committee of Springfield, Mass., say: "It has been and will continue to be the aim of the committee to bring the course of study in the schools into harmony with the best and most practical educational methods known, in order that the analytical, reasoning, and constructive powers of the scholars may be developed, that they may become familiar with practical things and leave school equipped with knowledge that will be useful to them in whatever honest occupation they may follow. As nearly 95 per cent. of the scholars who go out from the schools will from necessity become engaged in some kind of manual labor, it is important that manual training should have an established place in our school system." In New Haven, Conn., it is considered "as a protest against the teaching of mere words, aud makes its eloquent appeal for recognition on the ground that it supplies an element in education that has been almost entirely lacking."

In his report for 1-85-86, the superintendent of the Newburg, N. Y., schools, after remarking "that drawing gives the qualifications of a good mechanic except the practice," continues: "These views have long been held by the board of education of the city of Newburg, and in order more fully to carry out the ideas involved therein, this board has established a manual training school for the more perfect and symmetrical development of the hand and eye. A most weighty and practical reason for this is that by far the greater number of pupils must after leaving school get their living and employment by the use of their hands and eyes. Primarily, the aim of the manual training school is to train the hands of the pupils, to give them the power of doing."