The capacity of the school since the completion of the “addition” alluded to in the “historical note” is two hundred and forty students. The first class was graduated in June, 1883; the second class in June, 1884. The establishment of this excellent school is due first to the energy and educational foresight of Dr. Woodward, and second, to the munificent money donations of three citizens of St. Louis—Mr. Edwin Harrison, Mr. Samuel Cupples, and Mr. Gottlieb Conzelman. Other citizens emulated their noble example, and the result was a sufficient fund for the support of the school, whose purpose is to demonstrate the practicability of uniting manual and mental instruction in the public schools of St. Louis and of the country. With a single further quotation from the prospectus of the second great manual training school in the United States, on the subject of labor, we close this too brief notice:
“One great object of the school is to foster a higher appreciation of the value and dignity of intelligent labor, and the worth and respectability of laboring men. A boy who sees nothing in manual labor but mere brute force despises both labor and the laborer. With the acquisition of skill in himself comes the ability and willingness to recognize skill in his fellows. When once he appreciates skill in handicraft, he regards the workman with sympathy and respect.”
Considerable progress in manual training has been made in the State agricultural colleges of the country. In twelve of these colleges drawing and tool practice have been introduced. Generally the tool practice covers pattern-making, blacksmithing, moulding and founding, forging and bench-work, and machine-tool work in iron. The most pronounced success has been achieved at Purdue University, Lafayette, Ind., under the directorship of Prof. Wm. F. M. Goss, who graduated from the school of Mechanic Arts of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1879.
Manual training in connection with the public-school system of education has been inaugurated in Boston and Milford, Mass.; New Haven, and the State Normal School, New Britain, Conn.; Omaha, Neb.;[100] Eau Claire, Wis.;[101] Moline, Peru, and the Cook County Normal School, Normal Park, Ill.; Montclair, N. J.; Cleveland and Barnesville, Ohio; San Francisco, Cal.; and Baltimore, Md.
[100] In charge of Albert M. Bumann, B.S., graduate of the St. Louis Manual Training School, class of 1885.
[101] In charge of William F. Barnes, B.S., graduate of the St. Louis Manual Training School, class of 1885.
On the occasion of the annual meeting of 1884 of the National Educational Association of the United States, at Madison, Wis., manual training received a very large share of the attention of educators. Very creditable exhibits of various manipulations in wood, iron, and steel were made by the following institutions, namely, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Purdue University, the St. Louis Manual Training School, the Illinois Industrial University, the University of Wisconsin, and the Spring Garden Institute of Philadelphia. There were also about thirty kindergarten exhibits, and a large number of exhibits of specimens of drawing from public schools in various parts of the country.
Prof. Felix Adler’s educational enterprise in the city of New York—The Workingman’s School and Free Kindergarten—is unique in this that, while it is entirely a work of charity, it is the most comprehensive educational institution in existence, as appears from the following description of its course of instruction:
“The Workingman’s School and Free Kindergarten form one institution. The children are admitted at the age of three to the kindergarten. They are graduated from it at six, and enter the workingman’s school. They remain in the school till they are thirteen or fourteen years of age. Thereafter those who show decided ability receive higher technical instruction. For the others who leave the school proper and are sent to work, a series of evening classes will be opened, in which their industrial and general education will be continued in various directions. This graduate course of the workingman’s school is intended to extend up to the eighteenth or twenty-first year.
“From the third year up to manhood and womanhood—such,” says Prof. Adler, “is the scope embraced by the purposes of our institution!”