Correlated courses in woodwork and mechanical drawing

by Ira Samuel Griffith

If the one-fourth day period is to be used, it will be necessary to give recitations and demonstrations on alternate days, and will necessitate introducing the work lower than the seventh grade. It is hardly profitable to begin serious, systematic work lower than the seventh grade, and when it is begun in seventh grade it is hardly possible to make it serious with a time allotment of less than one-half day each week.

There is not the same need for recess in shopwork as in academic work. A five minute rest period is sufficient to permit pupils to make known to each other their wishes or information. In this way it is possible to dismiss the pupils ten minutes earlier than they otherwise would be, thus allowing the morning class extra time for reaching home.

In the high school the time allotment is generally permitted to be governed by the periods arranged for the academic subjects. The common arrangement is to give two consecutive periods equal to two of the recitation periods of the academic subjects for shopwork and another for drawing each day thruout the week. If the periods are one hour each, which is unusual in high schools tho common in colleges, but one period is given to the shop.

Where manual training has been given serious consideration in the seventh and eighth grades of the grammar schools under competent instructors it ought to be possible to cover the necessary benchwork in wood in the first half of the freshman year of the high school. This will leave the second half for turning or for benchwork in metal, preferably the latter.

To mechanical drawing the first half of the freshman year of one period each day should be devoted, followed in the second half by freehand drawing, perspective and design.

The mechanical drawing of the grammar schools, it will be noted in the lesson outlines, takes the first twelve weeks or lessons of each year. Mechanical drawing in grammar schools is usually presented in one of three ways. First, by having the pupil make his drawing then immediately make the object drawn in wood, carrying on woodwork and drawing side by side thruout the year. Second, by having the pupil make the object in wood first, followed by the drawing. Third, by taking the first ten or twelve weeks of the year for making up all the drawings of that year, following this with a continuous application in wood.

After experimenting thru a number of years the writer finds the third practice possesses many marked advantages. Among other things that make it more satisfactory are the following: It permits concentration of the pupil’s attention upon one thing at a time. Where woodwork and drawing are carried on side by side or even where they alternate the pupil’s attention and interest are divided. So much more interesting do the pupils find the woodwork with its freer activity that the drawing suffers immeasurably, it being almost impossible to get anything like the proper attitude toward the technique of drawing when the young pupil is allowed to see the immediate application in wood all around him. The instructor’s struggles for neatness and accuracy in the drawings are no match for the barbarous haste of the beginner in his desire to get thru with the drawing and get at the woodwork. It is impossible to get concentration on drawing in a woodshop with tools all about and the knowledge on the part of the pupil that only the drawing separates him from the tools.

The ideal way would be to have a separate drawing-room and equipment as in high school. This, however, is impracticable in most grammar schools. The woodworking teacher being the drawing teacher makes it impossible to utilize both shop and separate drawing-room to advantage. The fitting up and heating of rooms that are to be used only part of the school time makes a separate drawing-room an unwarranted expense in grade schools. A satisfactory substitute is to utilize the woodshop benches for drawing benches but to remove all tools, having it distinctly understood that ten or twelve weeks are for drawing, and that, no matter how many drawings are produced by a pupil, he will begin no woodwork until the time allotted to drawing is up. It becomes possible to secure the right attitude toward the drawing. By this concentration of attention both drawing and woodwork are the gainers.

Second, it enables the shop instructor to tell what supplies are going to be needed for the woodwork and to get them delivered in time without returning from his summer’s vacation several weeks before school begins. In the twelve weeks of drawing the woodworking tools and equipment can be looked over and put in order in plenty of time without breaking into the summer months that belong to the instructor. Where the woodwork begins at the beginning of school in September the instructor must either take the fore part of his vacation at the close of school to put his tools in shape or, if he has them simply cleaned and vaselined by the pupils and stores them for the summer, he must come back several weeks before school. This is true whether he does his own sharpening or has it done, and the advantage in having woodwork begin some weeks later than school is very manifest.

Third, this latter arrangement gives the pupil an intelligent preview of the whole year’s work in wood thru the drawings he makes in the first ten or twelve weeks.