of training develops the muscular activities rendered
necessary by man’s early development, which
were so largely concerned with food, shelter, clothing,
making and selling commodities necessary for life,
comfort and safety. The natural state of man
is not war, hot peace; and perhaps Dawson[4] is right
in thinking that three-fourths of man’s physical
activities in the past have gone into such vocations.
Industry has determined the nature and trend of muscular
development; and youth, who have pets, till the soil,
build, manufacture, use tools, and master elementary
processes and skills, are most truly repeating the
history of the race. This, too, lays the best
foundation for intellectual careers. The study
of pure science, as well as its higher technology,
follows rather than precedes this. In the largest
sense this is the order of nature, from fundamental
and generalized to finer accessory and specialized
organs and functions; and such a sequence best weeds
out and subordinates automatisms. The age of
stress in most of these kinds of training is that
of most rapid increment of muscular power, as we have
seen in the middle and later teens rather than childhood,
as some recent methods have mistakenly assumed; and
this prepolytechnic work, wherever and in whatever
degree it is possible, is a better adjunct of secondary
courses than manual training, the sad fact being that,
according to the best estimates, only a fraction of
one per cent of those who need this training in this
country are now receiving it.
[Footnote 1: The Place of Industrial and Technical
Training in Public Education. Technology Review,
January, 1902, vol. 4, pp. 10-37.]
[Footnote 2: See an article by Dr. H.E.
Kock, Education, December, 1902, vol. 23, pp. 193-203.]
[Footnote 3: See my Boy Life in a Massachusetts
Country Town Forty Years Ago. Pedagogical Seminary,
June, 1906, vol. 13, pp. 192-207.]
[Footnote 4: The Muscular Activities Rendered
Necessary by Man’s Early Environment, American
Physical Education Review, June, 1902, vol. 7, pp.
80-85.]
* * * * *
MANUAL TRAINING AND SLOYD
History of the movement—Its philosophy—The
value of hand training in the development of the brain
and its significance in the making of man—A
grammar of our many industries hard—The
best we do can reach but few—Very great
defects in our manual training methods which do not
base on science and make nothing salable—The
Leipzig system—Sloyd is hypermethodic—These
crude peasant industries can never satisfy educational
needs—The gospel of work, William Morris
and the arts and crafts movement—Its spirit
desirable—The magic effects of a brief
period of intense work—The natural development
of the drawing instinct in the child.
