Excellent Examples of High School Work which is Really Profitable. These Machines will Work and Develop Power which can be Measured
A Manual Training Shop
Is it any wonder that education is so ineffective at times? In the light of present-day appreciation of physiology and psychology it is increasingly clear that education has furnished an impersonal, rather stilted system of stuffing along restricted lines for a warm-hearted, all-inquisitive, nature-loving human animal which automatically refuses to be nourished thereby, and forages elsewhere. Although the child's judgment can by no means be followed concerning what is best for him, his instincts and possible future will serve as a most excellent guide. His early training must take into account those interests which are most keen and lasting and use them as the framework for instruction, and all subsequent stages of training involve a distinct obligation to build upon this elementary foundation, with a view to social worth. Most children will have to earn a living (the girl usually helps by managing the home), and this necessity is preëminent. But whether rich or otherwise, the ideal of social worth remains for all. And the least the home can do is to nurse childhood's efforts and experiments in play and occupation which lead finally to mature judgment and conceptions.
How to Use Books with Boys
Boys probably obtain more help from books than girls do because they are more self-reliant, more assertive and impatient. And as has been indicated, more books have been written for boys, but the same general method of use is common to both. The boy too finds in the book of crafts, mechanics, science, or sport a stimulant and incentive. He reads it much as he would a story of adventure. No matter what his greatest enjoyments may be, the perusal of accounts of others' juvenile activities widens the productive horizon in a way not to be ignored, and for this reason "How to Do" books of all kinds are a serious element in the boy's life, at a time when he is less concerned with what to do than with how to produce something. But there is a danger in this catholicity of interest: it may become dilettantism. The boy may merely potter or fuss with one hobby after another, more because he cannot supply the need for more and more information, than because he does not care. Hence it is worth while from time to time to add more fuel to the flame of ambition in a given direction, to provide books and tools, a working place or shop, and open the way for progress in some stated direction.
