The manual training school is a kindergarten for boys fourteen years of age. Miss S. E. Blow, in formulating the theory of the kindergarten, describes the methods of the savage’s school, and those of the manual training school, as follows:
“It is a truth now universally recognized by educators that ideas are formed in the mind of a child by abstraction and generalization from the facts revealed to him through the senses; that only what he himself has perceived of the visible and tangible properties of things can serve as the basis of thought; and that upon the vividness and completeness of the impressions made upon him by external objects, will depend the clearness of his inferences and the correctness of his judgments. It is equally true, and as generally recognized, that in young children the perceptive faculties are relatively stronger than at any later period, and that while the understanding and reason still sleep, the sensitive mind is receiving those sharp impressions of external things which, held fast by memory, transformed by the imagination, and finally classified and organized through reflection, result in the determination of thought and the formation of character.
“These two parallel truths indicate clearly that the first duty of the educator is to aid the perceptive faculties in their work by supplying the external objects best calculated to serve as the basis of normal conceptions, by exhibiting these objects from many different stand-points—that variety of interest may sharpen and intensify the impressions they make upon the mind, and by presenting them in such a sequence that the transition from one object to another may be made as easy as possible.”[56]
[56] “The Kindergarten. An address, delivered April 3, 1875, before the Normal Teachers’ Association, at St. Louis, Mo.”
This admirable exposition of the theory of scientific education solves the mystery which has always enveloped savage skill. It also affords a philosophic explanation of the fact discovered by Mr. Foley, namely, that the student of the manual training school acquires as much knowledge in one hundred and twenty hours as the apprentice of the machine-shop does in two years. In a word, it shows exactly why scientific education is so incomparably superior to automatic education. Mr. Foley asserts, in substance, that the scientific methods of the manual training school are twenty times as valuable to the student as the unscientific methods of the trade-shop are to the apprentice.
In a familiar letter to the author, Prof. Goss[57] shows why the methods of the manual training school are so very valuable. He says:
“In such a school, or course, a student is taught to perform a series of operations, involving practice with a variety of tools, on pieces of suitable material. It is not to be supposed that his ability to make a certain piece is directly valuable, for the experience of a lifetime may never require him to make it again. It is not expected that while making the piece he will learn a number of formulated facts relating to his work, and its application to other work, for that is not the best way to learn. Nor can we expect him to acquire a high degree of hand skill (accuracy and rapidity of movement combined), for this his limited time will not permit. But he does this: he works out a practical mechanical problem with every piece he makes. He sees how the tool should be handled, and how the material operated on behaves. He comes to understand why the tool cuts well in some directions and not so well in others; and all the time he queries to himself where it was that he saw a joint like the one he is making. He is an investigator—as much so as a student in chemistry. His mind must always guide his hand; his reasoning opens new fields of thought with every stroke of the chisel.
[57] Prof. William F. M. Goss, a graduate of the school of mechanic arts of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and at present instructor in the mechanic arts department of the Purdue University.
“A boy ten years old, who was a member of a class under my direction in Indianapolis in 1883, is reported to have said, ‘Why, mother, I never looked at the doors and windows so much in all my life as I have since I began at the wood-working school.’
“I tell my students how to go to work, when they are likely to make mistakes, and how mistakes may be avoided. In operating along the line directed they thoroughly understand what they are doing, and why they do it. They see on all sides of their work.