In Finland all the country schools are slöjd schools.
In 1881 the Legislature of Norway appropriated $1250 for the support of slöjd in the schools.
In France a law (1882) makes manual training obligatory, and a school for training teachers has been established—“L’école Normale Superieure de travail Manuel”—in which there are about fifty students. Prof. G. Solicis was the chief supporter of manual training in France.
In Sweden, in 1876, there were eighty slöjd schools. In 1877 the number had increased to one hundred; in 1878, to one hundred and thirty; in 1879, to two hundred; in 1880, to three hundred; in 1881, to four hundred; and in 1882, to five hundred.
In Nääs, in Sweden, there is a seminary for the training of slöjd teachers.[119] Of this seminary Otto Salomon is director. In the slöjd schools small articles are made for use in the house, kitchen, on the farm, etc. The course of instruction embraces one hundred models. The materials for the first series of twenty-five models cost about 40 cents; for the second series of twenty-five the cost is 75 cents; and for the third series of fifty the cost is $3.25. The annual expense of the manual training in a Swedish country school is about ten to eleven dollars.
[119] “Four young women have graduated from the Slöjd Teacher’s Seminary at Nääs, Sweden, and two of them are now engaged in teaching manual arts.”—Letter from John M. Ordway, A.M., Chair of Applied Chemistry and Biology, and Director of Manual Training, Tulane University of Louisiana.
The technical and mechanic art or trade schools of Europe, generally, whether public or private, do not come within the scope of this work, since their purpose is industrial, not educational.
[E32] “In fine, I have been beloved by the four women whose love was of the most comfort to me: My mother, my sister, my wife and my daughter. I have had the better part, and it will not be taken from me, for I often fancy that the judgments which will be passed upon us in the Valley of Jehoshaphat, will be neither more nor less than those of women, countersigned by the Almighty.”—“Recollections of My Youth,” p. 306. By Ernest Renan. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1883.
CHAPTER XXVII.
PROGRESS OF THE NEW EDUCATION—1883-1898.
Educational Revolution in 1883-4. — Urgent Demand for Reform — Existing Schools Denounced as Superficial, their Methods as Automatic, their System as a Mixture of Cram and Smatter — The Controversy between the School-master of the Old Régime and the Reformer — The Leaders of the Movement, Col. Parker, Dr. MacAlister, and Others — Followers of Rousseau, Bacon, and Spencer — “The End of Man is an Action, not a Thought” — The Conservative Teachers Fall into Line — The New Education Becomes an Aggressive Force, Pushing on to Victory — The Physical Progress of Manual Training — Its Quality Not Equal to its Extent — The New System of Training Confided to Teachers of the Old Régime — Ideal Teachers Hard to Find — Teachers Willing to Learn Should Be Encouraged — The Effects of Manual Training Long Antedate its Introduction to the Schools — Bacon’s Definition of Education — Stephenson and the Value of Hand-work — Manual Training is the Union of Thought and Action — It is the Antithesis of the Greek Methods, which Exalted Abstractions and Debased Things — The Rule of Comenius and the Injunction of Rousseau — Few Teachers Comprehend Them — The Employment of the Hands in the Arts is More Highly Educative than the Acquisition of the Rules of Reading and Arithmetic — What the Locomotive has Accomplished for Man — Education Must be Equal, and Social and Political Equality will Follow — The Foundation of the New Education is the Baconian Philosophy as Stated by Macaulay — Use and Service are the Twin-ministers of Human Progress — Definitions of Genius — Attention — Sir Henry Maine — Manual Training Relates to all the Arts of Life — Mind and Hand — Newton and the Apple — The Sense of Touch Resides in the Hand — Robert Seidel on Familiarity with Objects — Material Progress the Basis of Spiritual Growth — Plato and the Divine Dialogues — Poverty, Society, and the Useful Arts — Selfishness Must Give Way to Altruism — The Struggle of Life — The Progress of the Arts and the Final Regeneration of the Race — The Arts that Make Life Sweet and Beautiful — The Final Fundamental Educational Ideal is Universality — Comenius’s Definition of Schools — The Workshops of Humanity — That One Man Should Die Ignorant who had Capacity for Knowledge is a Tragedy — Mental and Manual Exercises to be Rendered Homogeneous in the School of the Future — The Hero of the Ideal School.