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HE summer number of the MANUAL TRAINING MAGAZINE is expected to contain: (1) an article on the development and present status of the teaching of manual work for boys in Germany, by Dr. Pabst, director of the Leipzig Lehrerbildungsanstalt für Knabenhandarbeit; (2) an article on some interesting work in manual training which has been done at the State Normal School at De Kalb, Ill., by Mr. L. A. Hatch, principal of the model school at De Kalb; (3) a second article on manual-training equipments, by Mr. William E. Roberts, supervisor of manual training, Cleveland, Ohio; (4) an illustrated article describing a unique kind of summer cottage which might be constructed by manualtraining school students, by Professor Frank Forrest Frederick, of the University of Illinois; and (5) an article on the results of trade teaching in the Mechanic Arts High School, Springfield, Mass., by Arthur D. Dean.

GRAMMAR SCHOOL NUMBER

The January number of the MANUAL TRAINING MAGAZINE is devoted to the discussion of topics of special interest to teachers of grammar-grade work. contains the following articles, besides reports of associations and reviews: "The Thought Side of Manual Training" (illustrated), by Arthur W. Richards, of the Ethical Culture Schools, New York.

Spirit and Purpose of Manual Training in the Elementary School," by Walter J. Kenyon, of the San Francisco Normal School.

"Creative Manual Training," by Grant Beebe, of the Medill High School, Chicago.

The Evergreens" (illustrated), by Edwin W. Foster, of the Brooklyn Manual Training High School,

PRIMARY SCHOOL NUMBER

The October number is a special primary-school number. It contains: Handwork in the Primary Grades," by Professor Charles. R. Richards, Teachers College, Columbia University, New York.

Textile Arts as Constructive Work in the Elementary School," by Clara Isabel Mitchell, of the School of Education, University of Chicago.

Household Occupations in Primary Grades," by Katherine B. Camp, of the University Elementary School, Chicago.

"Artistic Handicraft in the Primary Grades," by Helen M. Maxwell, principal of Corcoran School, Minneapolis..

Entered at the Post-Office at Chicago as Second-Class Mail Matter. Copyright, 19oz, Charles A. Bennett,

Manual Training Tools & Benches

Before you purchase, we should like opportunity to figure with you. We have been for nearly sixteen years past studying the Tool and Bench requirements of schools, and have equipped large and small institutions from Maine to California. By August first we hope to have ready for distribution our new catalogue of these goods, and those interested are invited to register their names for copies. ::

Hammacher, Schlemmer & Co.

New York, Since 1 8 4 8

MANUAL TRAINING MAGAZINE

APRIL, 1902

MANUAL TRAINING IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS'

CHARLES B. GILBERT,

Superintendent of Public Schools, Rochester, N. Y.

ALLOW me to say at the outset that I do not regard manual training as a patent medicine or even a duly authorized prescription for the cure of hunan ills. While I am a friend of manual training, I trust that I am not, to this degree at least, a foolish friend. On the other hand, I do not regard manual training as a subject for the few, the poor, the toilers with their hands, alone. It is a legitimate, proper, and necessary branch of modern education alike appropriate to all, and as such it should be placed in the curriculum of our public schools of all grades. This position I will endeavor to maintain, not because I expect it to be controverted, but because I believe it can be maintained upon other grounds than those usually advanced. As preliminary to my argument. I desire to state plainly a few postulates.

First, there is no limit to the amount of education that the state should offer to its children, unless it be minute specialization, which is not properly education at all. The state not only may, but must, train her future citizens by every means that will make them valuable to her.

Second, education is not a fixed, but is a variable term. What would be complete education today, ten years hence might not be. We cannot base the education of any single generation upon what has been found satisfactory in the past, except to a very limited degree, because all education, and especially that required by a free state for its own perpetuity, involves the consideration of two distinct elements: the being to be educated and the civilization in which he is destined to be a factor. Fitting the child to be a definite, efficient, and beneficent force in society is the end of education by the state. This involves Read before the Eastern Manual Training Association, June 29, 1901.

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the training of all his powers. It also involves the cultivation of a sympathetic comprehension of the needs and conditions of society. This point has been clearly made by Dr. Harris in the report of the Committee of Fifteen.

Such appreciation does not come through the mere receiving of information; what we ordinarily call knowledge, especially knowledge about things as distinguished from knowledge of things, does not necessarily fit the possessor for successful or useful living. That comes only through experience, by which we mean living a life similar in conditions to that for which the preparation is sought. Hence a school should be a microcosm, and the child in school should lead a life which is a miniature of the larger life in the world. This doctrine has been much exploited of late, but will bear it.

A fundamental error of the old elementary education is its insistence that the child is fitted for life when he has been told a few things about life, and has received an explanation of a few of the tools that real people use in real living. This is not education at all. It is, at best, knowledge of an inferior sort.

The superiority of the kindergarten over the ordinary primary school does not consist in the character of the tools used—the gifts, the occupations, the circle upon the floor-but in the fact that it is an institution of which the child is an integral part. He is, while in the kindergarten, living a life to him as real as the life which his father lives, or you, or I. He is a member of a community in which all have a part and which goes through seriously the regular businesses, amusements, and duties of a life which is but a miniature of the life of the great world, and by this actual living he is fitted to be a potent factor in society. The child is entitled to a real daily life, and he whose life is spent solely in abstract contemplation of the past, or in abstract study of arts that men use in life, without direct contact with such life, is robbed of his right, while society is robbed of a trained citizen. This vital connection between the processes of education and the civilization into which the child is growing is the aim of true education.

May I be allowed to digress? This thought that preparation is one thing and realization another did not belong solely to the old education. It was inwrought into the life of the past. It belonged especially to theology, from which it spread to other departments of life.