[109] Annual Catalogue of the Iowa Agricultural College.
The Le Moyne Normal Institute of Memphis, Tenn., is a private school, “sustained chiefly by benevolently disposed people at the North, for colored youth.” In a letter to the author the principal of this school thus describes the manual features of its curriculum:
“Besides our Normal work proper, we give girls of the school two years’ training in needle-work of different kinds, one year’s instruction in choice and preparation of foods, with practice in an experimental kitchen, and six months’ training in nursing or care of the sick. One hour a day is given to each of the foregoing subjects for the time indicated.
“I am about to erect workshops for training for our boys in the use of wood-working tools, and in iron-working and moulding—the course to comprise two years’ time, two hours per day at the benches. We shall also have type-setting and printing as specialties for individual students. This work will be in operation in January, 1886.”[110]
[110] A. J. Steele.
The professor in charge of the Mechanical Engineering Department of the University of Michigan writes to the author as follows:
“There can be no doubt in the mind of a sane man that this practical instruction [laboratory work] is exactly what is needed by our engineering students. We are assured of that fact by the expression of gratification on the part of our engineering alumni to find here the very instruction which they were obliged to spend two or three years to secure after graduating. We give our students work of an elementary character for a few weeks, or until they become accustomed to tools, when we put them to work on some part of a machine. If they spoil it, well and good—it goes into the scrap-heap; if they succeed, they have the pleasure of seeing a perfect machine grow up under their eyes and hand. Students having matured minds, as most of ours have, work better with a definite plan in view. We always require them to work from drawings. Our course in forging is very popular; and it is especially useful, as it gives our young men that knowledge of the different kinds of iron and steel which will be of the greatest benefit to them as engineers.”[111]
[111] Mortimer E. Cooley, Assistant Engineer, U. S. Navy.
The National Educational Association of the United States, at its last meeting, at Saratoga Springs, N. Y. (1885), took a great step forward in the adoption of a resolution[112] endorsing the kindergarten. The association was, however, singularly illogical in its subsequent action, in voting to lay upon the table a resolution[113] recommending the introduction of manual training to the public schools. The kindergarten and manual training are one in principle, and should be one in practice. All educators will soon see this, and the National Educational Association will no doubt soon place itself as heartily on record in support of manual training as it has already done in support of the kindergarten.
[112] “Resolved, that we trust the time is near at hand when the true principles of the kindergarten will guide all elementary training, and when public sentiment and legislative enactment will incorporate the kindergarten into our public-school system.”