Ryerson Memorial Volume / Prepared on the occasion of the unveiling of the Ryerson statute in the grounds of the Education department on the Queen's birthday, 1889

by J. George Hodgins

Later Opinions on the Necessity for Manual Training in Our Schools.

So deeply impressed was I of the immense importance of this subject, and of the necessity of providing in our school system for a practical solution of the question which was then, and is now, of pressing importance—viz., manual training in our schools—that in 1876 I prepared and delivered a lecture on the subject, in various parts of the Province. The lecture was founded on the industrial lessons taught to us so impressively at the Centennial Exhibition, Philadelphia, in 1876. These lessons, in their educational aspects, were even more forcibly impressed upon me at the great Industrial Exhibition held in New Orleans, in 1885. Having been there six weeks, as an Educational Juror, on behalf of the United States Bureau of Education, I had abundant and admirable facilities for studying the whole question, and for seeing how it was being worked out (more or less effectually) in the various national school systems which came under review during that enquiry—especially in France. Thus the French school law of 1882 provides that "primary education includes [among other things] the elements of the natural, physical and mathematical sciences, and their application to agriculture, to hygiene, and to the industrial art; manual work, and the use of tools of the principal trades, the elements of drawing, modelling, etc." Apprenticeship schools have also been established, the object of which is to form workmen, as distinguished from foremen, and in which various trades are taught. An official report, published by the United States Bureau of Education in 1882, states that the apprentices of these schools "find employment readily after they have left the workshops, at wages, it is said, varying from five to even as much as eight francs per day."

In discussing this question in the lecture to which I have referred, these passages occur:—

"It is not assumed that every pupil in our schools is qualified, or that he should be compelled, as a matter of course, to engage in the study of elementary science or practical drawing. Far from it. But what I do say is, that those pupils who exhibit a taste for any of the various subjects of natural history, elementary science or practical mechanics, should have an opportunity in the Public and High Schools (of cities and large towns) of learning something about them. In an address by Mr. Gladstone on this subject, he stated that the boys of the English schools, and it is so in our schools, had not yet had fair play in the study of elementary science and natural history....

"There are few schools in which there are not boys possessing talent scientific, inventive, or industrial talent, or constructive genius, which are never evoked, much less aroused or stimulated. As to the question whether for the few the country should be put to the expense of their special training, I answer it in the words of Professor Huxley, who says:—

"To the lad of genius, even to the one in a million, I would make accessible the highest and most complete training the country could afford. Whatever it might cost, depend upon it the investment would be invaluable. I weigh my words when I say: that if the nation could purchase a potential Watt, or Davy, or Faraday, at the cost of a hundred thousand pounds down, he would be dirt cheap at the money.... It is a mere commonplace and an every-day piece of knowledge to say that, what these three men did, (in their special departments of practical science), has produced untold millions of wealth for England and the world, speaking in its narrowest economical sense of the word."

The educational mind of the United States, as well as Europe, is being constantly directed to the consideration of this interesting practical subject. Magazines and reviews, as well as educational journals, freely discuss it. One of the most useful articles on "Manual Training in the Public schools," will be found in the Andover Review for October, 1888. The United States Bureau of Education has also published various reports and papers on the subject. One of the most valuable is an elaborate report on Industrial Education in the United States, published in 1883. Some of the more important railways in that country have also established training schools for their employés.