Chapter III: Introduction: To the Third Edition

BY COL. FRANCIS W. PARKER, Principal of the Chicago Normal School.

The last twenty-five years have brought much of intrinsic value into American education. Rapid increase in population and ever-changing conditions have made imperative demands for schools adequate to self-government.

The Kindergarten led the way to other substantial reforms in education, and called attention to the actual needs of childhood. It proved conclusively that hand-work is one of the dominant interests of the child, and demonstrated the absolute dependence of brain-growth upon Manual Training.

Manual Training is thus a direct outcome and sequence of the Kindergarten. It supplies a need for which there is no substitute. The belief that that which is begun in the Kindergarten should be continued and expanded in all upper grades, forces itself more and more upon thoughtful minds. Modern psychology brings its potent evidence as to the tremendous value of the work of the hand in the building of the brain. The trend of educational thought will always be in the direction of hand training as a fundamental element in education.

Twenty-five years ago Manual Training was little known in this country as a factor in education. Charles H. Ham, imbued with a fervid patriotism, saw clearly that one of the intrinsic needs of education--an absolute necessity in the evolution of a democracy--is the training of the whole being, hand, brain, and soul, through educative work. He was, indeed, a pioneer, beginning his work when there was very little attention given to this important subject, and at a time, too, when it was opposed by nearly all leading educators.

Mr. Ham, together with Colonel Jacobson, brought a strong influence to bear upon the Commercial Club of Chicago, to found a Manual-Training school. This school is now a department of the Chicago University and has been in successful operation for thirteen years. There are in Chicago to-day the Armour Institute, the Lewis Institute, and the Jewish Manual-Training School, all prominent and well established. There is also a high school for Manual Training in connection with the public schools, and, best of all, there are indications which show that hand-work is making its way throughout the grades.

Mr. Ham, without doubt, had a strong influence upon the late George M. Pullman, which led him to provide, through his will, for a Manual-Training school for the children of the city which he built.

Manual-Training schools are now maintained in almost every city in the Union. Much remains to be done before Manual Training takes its true place in education. The majority of these schools now in existence are for boys who have graduated from the grammar school, which leaves the years between six and fourteen with little or no hand-work. Thus the most important period for brain-growth through hand activity is neglected.

The future of Manual Training is to introduce hand-work as the principal factor in the first four years’ work, to be continued in the four years of the grammar grades, and correlated with all other subjects. Indeed, the ideal is to introduce Manual Training in all courses of study, from the Kindergarten to the University, inclusive.

The patrons of Cook County Normal School owe to Mr. Ham the establishment of Manual Training in connection with the primary grades of the school, nearly fifteen years ago; for without the practical aid he gave it, it could not have been accomplished at that time. The children--indeed, all the people of this country--owe him an immense debt of gratitude for his heroic championship of hand-work.

Manual Training gives a true dignity to labor; it calls attention to the place of hand-work in human progress, and as civilization goes on it will have a higher and still higher place in the hearts of the people.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

THE IDEAL SCHOOL.

Its Situation. -- Its Tall Chimney. -- The Whir of Machinery and Sound
of the Sledge-hammer. -- The School that is to dignify Labor. -- The
Realization of the Dream of Bacon, Rousseau, Comenius, Pestalozzi, and
Froebel. -- The School that fitly represents the Age of Steel. Page 1

CHAPTER II.

THE MAJESTY OF TOOLS.

Tools the highest Text-books. -- How to Use them the Test of
Scholarship. -- They are the Gauge of Civilization. -- Carlyle’s
Apostrophe to them. -- The Typical Hand-tools. -- The Automata of the
Machine-shop. -- Through Tools Science and Art are United. -- The
Power of Tools. -- Their Educational Value. -- Without Tools Man is
Nothing; with Tools he is All. -- It is through the Arts alone that
Education touches Human Life. 7

CHAPTER III.

THE ENGINE ROOM.

The Corliss Engine. -- A Thing of Grace and Power. -- The Growth of
Two Thousand Years. -- From Hero to Watt. -- Its Duty as a
School-master. -- The Interdependence of the Ages. -- The School in
Epitome. 14

CHAPTER IV.

THE DRAWING-ROOM.

Twenty-four Boys bending over the Drawing-board. -- Analysis and
Synthesis in Drawing. -- Geometric Drawing. -- Pictorial Drawing. --
The Principles of Design. -- The Æsthetic in Art. -- The Fundamentals.
-- Object and Constructive Drawing. -- Drawing for the Exercises in
the Laboratories. -- The Educational Value of Drawing. -- The Language
of Drawing. -- Every Student an expert Draughtsman at the end of the
Course. 16

CHAPTER V.

THE CARPENTER’S LABORATORY.

The Natural History of the Pine-tree. -- How it is Converted into
Lumber, what it is Worth, and how it is Consumed. -- Where the
Students get Information. -- Working Drawings of the Lesson. -- Asking
Questions. -- The Instructor Executes the Lesson. -- Instruction in
the Use and Care of Tools. -- Twenty-four Boys Making Things. -- As
Busy as Bees. -- The Music of the Laboratory. -- The Self-reliance of
the Students. 21

CHAPTER VI.

THE WOOD-TURNING LABORATORY.

A Radical Change. -- From the Square to the Circle; from Angles to
Spherical, Cylindrical, and Eccentric Forms. -- The Rhythm of
Mechanics. -- The Potter’s Wheel of the Ancients and the Turning-
lathe. -- The Speculation of Holtzapffels on its Origin. -- The Greeks
as Turners. -- The Turners of the Middle Ages. -- George III. at the
Lathe. -- Maudsley’s Slide-rest, and the Revolution it wrought. -- The
Natural History of Black-walnut. -- The Practical Value of
Imagination. -- Disraeli’s Tribute to it; Sir Robert Peel’s Want of
it. -- The Laboratory animated by Steam. -- The Boys at the Lathes. --
Their Manly Bearing. -- The Lesson. 30

CHAPTER VII.

THE FOUNDING LABORATORY.

The Iron Age. -- Iron the King of Metals. -- Locke’s Apothegm. -- The
Moulder’s Art is Fundamental. -- History of Founding. -- Remains of
Bronze Castings in Egypt, Greece, and Assyria. -- Layard’s
Discoveries. -- The Greek Sculptors. -- The Colossal Statue of Apollo
at Rhodes. -- The Great Bells of History. -- Moulding and Casting a
Pulley. -- Description of the Process, Step by Step. -- The Furnace
Fire. -- Pouring the Hot Metal into the Moulds. -- A Pen Picture of
the Laboratory. -- Thus were the Hundred Gates of Babylon cast. --
Neglect of the Practical Arts by Herodotus. -- How Slavery has
degraded Labor. -- How Manual Training is to dignify it. 45