what have the schools or school men to do with this matter? I answer, much; to-day, everything. Humanitarians tell us that want of occupation and false notions of life are two great causes tending toward pauperism, insanity, and crime. Young men and women, thrust upon the world with false views of life, badly equipped for the struggle, with no outfit but that supplied by the schools, and perhaps not having taken advantage of all they might have received in the schools, often become discouraged and fall, some in one direction, some in another; at best a new life is opened, and under favorable conditions much that was learned at school is unlearned or forgotten, and a new curriculum of business or trade is taken up. The best apparent opportunity that presents itself is availed of, and a new career outside of the schools is entered upon, liabilities are incurred, responsibilities are assumed, when, to the amazement of the victim, he discovers that he has mistaken his calling, that a fine carpenter has been ruined in the attempt to make a poor lawyer; it is too late to mend the mistake; a human life is wrecked. A practical training discovers the taste and bent of the student, relieves the strains of the purely mental studies by bringing into activity the physical powers, giving play to both brain and hand, necessitating at all times the watchful application of principles learned in the recitation and lecture rooms, as well as the principles learned in the shops or tool laboratories. This training brings into play, stimulates, and strengthens many important organs of the mind, as form, size, color, weight, ideality, memory, perception, imaginations, reason, order. What will come of a thoughtless, listless, aimless person in the drawing-room or in the shops? Nothing; just the same as in the pure literary work. Have you ever seen a boy at work, or at the finish of a piece of work, in drawing or in the shops? How intent he is. How he hangs over it; how his very soul seems to be in his deft fingers, and how strong and how proud he feels at its completion! There is no uncertainty, no doubt about it; it is clearly seen and known to all to be right or wrong. He has created something; he feels his power; and—I say it in all reverence has he not done a god-like thing? Who can censure him because his whole being feels the new power to attempt other tasks, more complex and more difficult?

We claim that there are certain principles, misnamed manual training-practical training would be a better term-which are valuable adjuncts to the purely mental studies. As I understand it, it is not copying lines upon paper and calling that drawing. It is not cutting up so much wood or metal under the monitorship of an elder boy, or a janitor, or some broken-down mechanic on small pay; but it is instruction and practice in handling and making things; in free-hand, geometrical, and mechanical drawing; in the use of typical tools of all the trades, with the reasons for the peculiarities of the tools and materials used, where grown, or found, or mined, how prepared for man's use, why one kind is preferred to another, where similar materials are plenty, where rare;

in the various operations pointing out the peculiarities of hardness, toughness, brittleness, etc. In laying off drawings and other work the pupil is enabled to apply and to acquire a practical knowledge of mathematics, as arithmetic for the sizes, geometry, mensuration, and trigonometry for forms, physics and chemistry to fashion his tools and work, botany for a knowledge of woods, mineralogy for a history of the metals and coals used, history to warn him against the evils of a purely mental education, geography to show him the conformation of the earth and the location of his neighbors, book-keeping to help him to keep his accounts, and whatever else can be found in books, and from men's experience that can be made of practical use; and we believe that this sort of training gives mental and physical relief, hence mental and physical strength.

Because manual training was tried and allowed to fail fifty years ago is no argument against its introduction to-day. Let us carefully study the subject and rightly apply our knowledge, and it cannot fail. I grant that if we put a carpenter shop into the cellar or garret of one of our school-houses, and a class in charge of a janitor or some other person of equal calibre, for a time all the boys will go there, just as they would go to a game of ball or to the circus; but in a little while they will tire of it, fall off, and the so-called experiment end in a failure. So it would be with music or any other science if the attempt were made to teach it in the same way. Would we expect the chemical or physical laboratory to be successful if treated in the same manner? Select your instructor with the same care that you would use in the selection of an instructor in any of the purely mental branches, and your practical training school is bound to be a success, like the Baltimore Training School, full to overflowing; five years after its establishment the people are demanding more of it.

If the cutting of papers and blocks is beneficial (and we know that it is) to the average and slow student, is it not of even more value to the bright child? If it is desirable to travel over one's country and abroad to liberalize one's education, what would be the objection (were it possible to do so) to go amongst the heavenly bodies for a still more liberal education? Do we not now go among them (as far as we can) by means of our telescopes and cameras? Did not Franklin bring the lightning from the heavens by means of his kite? Have not physicians had practical instruction at the dissecting table for years, and who of us would be willing to trust his case to the care of one who had not had such a training? Shall we ignore and do away with everything that is practical and useful to make room for the humanities? I know it is delightful to sing the song of Helen of Troy, or to quote Horace and Virgil, but as our work is where thousands yearly enter the lowest rank, and at most but a score or two can hope to complete the course, is it not better to give all some of this useful practical training while they are in the schools, so that when they do drop out they will have a strength

and reserve that, if necessary, will enable them to conquer the forest with the axe, build their own houses, or know how men have shortened the distance to the Pacific from six months to about as many days? Five years ago we started a school on this plan in the city of Baltimore; we commenced in a very small way, with sixty boys, average to poor in academic standing; we fitted up a carpenter, a wood-turning, a pattern-making, a moulding, a forge, and a machine shop, and as good a physical laboratory as our small means would permit. For the academic work we mapped out a high school course and a course of work in each of the shops and in the drawing room. This we found to be a difficult task, as there was no precedent for us. While work of various kinds was being done in different parts of the country, there was nothing that was applicable to our conditions and circumstances; so we made our own course, put the boys to work for two hours each day in the shops, with one hour at drawing, and three hours at literary work. At the end of the half year we changed the boy to another shop, but continued the drawing and literary work, only making it more difficult, more advanced, until at the end of three years we gave the boy a final examination, averaged the result with his record in the school, and gave him a diploma, and we are proud of our school and of our boys. We do not say much about those who have gone to the Naval School or to Lehigh, but of the three who are now instructors in our own school, the one who is an instructor in another high school in the State, those who are electricians, draughtsmen, machinists, civil engineers, etc., and of the twenty-six who have come back to us for a post-graduate course in mechanical engineering. The school has grown in favor; we have the four floors of our building proper (we commenced on the two lower floors); the yards are almost filled with annexes; we are compelled to use an old dwelling-house adjoining our own property, and have had to rent a building that is 50 by 50 feet, on the opposite side of the street. We have 513 boys on the roll now, besides the 26 in the mechanical engineering class, and if we had the room we could easily have another 500 or more. The Council has purchased three adjoining lots, upon which it is intended to erect a building this year, which will more than double our capacity. The school is, and from its beginning has been, patronized by the best people in the city-I mean best people from a social stand-point.

A well rounded training school, like this one, where the usual literary branches, elementary science, chemical and physical laboratories, freehand and mechanical drawing, carpentry, carving, pattern making, wood turning, moulding, chipping and filing, blacksmithing, tin and other sheet metal work, machine-shop work and management and care of steam engine and boiler, and study of tools and machines all have their proper place and receive due attention, must, in the very nature of things, develop the highest type of man for any occupation in life. For will they not develop form, size, color, weight, perception, memory,

reason, and invention, so that, put him where you will, he will carve for himself comforts which no amount of purely intellectual training will enable him to do? For the mechanic, the engineer, and the scientist, perhaps, it will not be questioned; the farmer will be better enabled to select, repair, and use his tools, machines, and buildings, besides doing better work with them; will enable him to make "two blades of grass grow where but one grew before;" the lawyer will better understand complications in many cases of patents, divisions of land, of buildings, or the working of some machine; the physician and dentist can better care for and use the delicate instruments of their profession and devise others for the benefit of suffering humanity; the merchant, for a kuowledge of the wares in which he deals and the houses and vessels in which his goods may be stored; the school-master and school officials, to plan and devise the best furniture and appliances for the pupils' comfort and advancement; jewelers, to fashion and use the delicate and complicated tools of their trade; the clergymen, to be in sympathy with the working portion of their congregations, and to be able to act intelligently on building committees when orphanages, parsonages, or churches are to be built.

But I have wandered from the question, and if you will pardon me I will come to the point and close. After due consideration, it is my opinion that to do least violence to the present system of schools it would be well to devote three hours each week to kindergarten methods, practical elementary geometry, and simple free-hand drawing on the slate, in addition to the present studies, for the whole time in the primary grades, for both males and females. Four hours each week to be devoted to free-hand drawing from industrial models, measurements with the rule, elementary practical geometry, together with the intellectual work of the grade for the first two years, for males. For the females I would recommend the substitution of simple fancy needlework for the rule measurements. For the two next higher grades, for males, in addition to the literary work of the grades, I would have mechanical drawing for forty-five minutes each day, and one hour each day in carpentry, carving, pattern making, forging, chipping and filing, and moulding. For the corresponding grades for females, in addition to the academic work of the grade, free-hand drawing from models or geometrical drawing for forty-five minutes each day; needle-work, garment cutting and making, patch-work and darning, book-keeping, one hour each day; music one hour each week; at the end of this grade the girl to enter one of the female high schools; in addition to the present literary work, to receive instruction in free-hand, geometrical, or artistic drawing for one hour each day for the entire course of four years, as well as instruction in the art of house-keeping, garment making, needle-work, music, book-keeping and type-writing, cooking, wood carving, engraving, printing. On the completion of the seventh grade, for males, the young man to select his occupation or trade, devoting

four years at the school, from 8 A. M. to 5 P. M., with one hour at noon for recess, four hours each day to be devoted to literary work and science, and four hours to instruction and practice in the chosen occupation and drawing.

The following occupations to be thoroughly taught:

Carpentry, wood turning, carving; or pattern making, moulding; or sheet metal work, tin, brass, copper; or blacksmithing; or machinist; or book-keeping and accounts; or civil engineering; or architecture; or electrical engineering; or printing; or agriculture.

I grant that this advocacy of trade schools may sound radical, particularly to those gentlemen who have not convinced themselves or been convinced that manual or practical training is a valuable adjunct to one's education, to say nothing more of its assistance as a mental tonic, as it were, strengthening brain and muscles, and perception and inven. tion; but public education for all children must end in something. Be as democratic as we may, States must be more paternal in these matters.

Associations of master builders, and mechanics, and parents on every hand are sending petitions to our legislatures and councils asking schoolmen to formulate a plan for such education. For the lower grades the work can easily be done by the present corps of teachers. For the specialties, graduates of technical or manual training schools can do the work. The change can be made gradually and at comparatively little cost.

The discussion was continued in the following paper:

HOW AND TO WHAT EXTENT MAY MANUAL TRAINING BE INTRODUCED INTO CITY SCHOOLS?

BY H. W. COMPTON,

Superintendent of Toledo Schools.

If this were a question as to the advisability of introducing manual training into the city schools, or a setting forth of the advantages to be gained by this procedure, the topic would admit of easier discussion. It would present a theme susceptible of more fluent discourse. I could easier tell what 'twere good to do than be one of twenty to follow mine own instructions. I could easier set forth the advantages of manual training from a theoretical stand-point than tell just how to proceed in making it an integral part of the public school system in large cities. The mice of the fable were happily engaged in planning how to circumvent their foe, but were dismayed when it came to actually putting the bell on the cat. This question of actually putting manual training into the schools is rather too intensely practical and business-like. It is more agreeable for those who know but little about the subject practically to talk about the psychological basis of it and the economic prin