“Falsehood and cowardice
Are things that women highly hold in hate.”
This is the rational age, though not less truly chivalrous than that of Arthur and his knights; for, as Ruskin well says, “The buckling on of the knight’s armor by his lady’s hand is the type of an eternal truth—that the soul’s armor is never well set to the heart unless a woman’s hand has braced it.”[117]
[117] “Sesame and Lilies,” p. 97. By John Ruskin, LL.D. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1884.
The distinguishing features of this time are its homes and its schools, and the purity of the one and the efficiency of the other depends upon woman. It was reserved for Froebel to rescue woman from the scorn of preceding ages by declaring her superior fitness for the office of teacher—the most exalted of civil functions.
The growth of the kindergarten has not been commensurate with its importance. Indifference and prejudice have united to discourage progress. Ancient contempt of childhood—that contempt which in Persia excluded the boy from the presence of his father until the fifth year of his age[118]—projects its sombre shadow down the ages. But manual training, which is the kindergarten in another form, is leading captive the imagination of the American people, and where the imagination leads, woman is in the van. Woman is to man what the poet is to the scientist, what Shakespeare was to Newton, the celestial guide. She tempts to deeds of heroism and self-sacrifice. She is less selfish than man, because a more vivid imagination inspires her with a deeper feeling of compassion for the misfortunes and follies of the race. Her intuitions are truer than those of man, her ideals higher, her sense of justice finer, and of duty stronger; and she has a better appreciation of the moral value of industry, remembering the temptations of her sex to evil through habits of idleness, enforced by the decrees of custom. And she is our teacher, whether we will or no—our teacher from the cradle to the grave—and it is through her ministry that we are destined to realize our highest mental and moral ideals.[E32]
[118] “Herodotus,” Clio I., p. 136.
This sketch of the history of manual training in the United States is doubtless incomplete. It is, however, sufficient to show that the subject is already one of absorbing interest in all parts of the country.
Manual training in the public schools of Europe can scarcely be called educational, since the pupils usually make articles for household use. The purpose is purely industrial, and hence the mental culture received in the course of the manual exercise is the mere incident of a mechanical pursuit. But the making of things in the schools of Europe is gradually extending.
In Denmark an annual appropriation ($2000) is made by the Legislature for the encouragement of slöjd (hand-cunning) in the schools. All pupils in Danish and Swedish schools make things.
In Germany, Dr. Erasmus Schwab published in Vienna, in 1873, a book, “The Work School in the Common School.” Rittmeister Claussen Von Kaas, of Denmark, travelled through Germany and delivered lectures on manual training, and now there is a considerable agitation of the subject.