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SLOYD.*

By T. A. MOTT.

THE supreme center in education is the

child in its relation to its environments. What is the child, its development, the end in view, the means employed, its relation to nature, to man, to society, to divinity, are all involved in consideration of the subject of method in education? The problem in education is quite definite. Given children at the age of four years what shall be done with them until eighteen, so that they shall evolve into desirable types of men and women? The kindergarten, the elementary school, the high school cover this ground. They form a continuous, coordinated course of work whose results are to some extent what is desired. The problem is to make this course or system such that its workings and results accord with with our notions of life, and satisfy our ethical and social ideas. We must know what is the child nature given to the schools at the age of four years, and what is the result we may expect at eighteen. How shall the material given us grow into the product wanted?

To answer this question is to form a true course of study and method. No scheme of education has any serious claim upon our attention unless it is founded upon some true view of the proper conduct of life. The first question is simply what type of men and women do we want to prevail? What is the social ideal toward which we wish to work? And the one question in regard to the course of study or method is, what process will produce this type-will realize this ideal?

A course of study is an organic thing, not a mechanical construction. It must bring to the growing, unfolding life for which it is intended just the material which this life needs for its highest and most perfect development at every stage of its growth. The nature of the mind of the child and the

laws governing its evolution and growth are in every sense the prime factors to be considered rather than the needs of the child after graduation. The school life may, in a sense, be a preparation for after life; but, in a higher sense, the school should provide conditions for true living at the time.

*Paper read before State Association of City Superintendents at Indianapolis.

The guiding principle that has controlled the formation of courses of study in the past has too often been, the needs of the child the next term, in the high school, in the college, in life after he leaves school, rather than the highest needs of the child which are necessary in order for perfect growth and true living. The important aim in each year's work has been to prepare for the next year. The farmer wants his boy to learn to read and write and cipher so as to meet the needs of the farm life. The merchant desires a little wider reach of knowledge and experience so as to enable the boy to succeed in the more extensive business activities of commercial life. The university professor desires his son to prepare for college. The purpose of education with the majority of the people has been to give the children, through the schools, a better chance to succeed in life after a while. This utilitarian principle has controlled, to a large extent, the formation of courses of study. If bookkeeping, stenography, type-writing, Greek or Spanish were needed by the boy after leaving school they were placed in the course of study. With too many of us the most important consideration is preparing for life rather than living. Emerson said, "We spend a large part of life gathering material to build a palace and end in building a hut." The present generation is spending the large portion of one-third of life in school. We can pass through these brightest years of life but once. Our educational institutions will fall short of their true mission until the school life of the child is rounded and complete, giving him the fullest opportunities possible for joyful living and true development of all his powers. We will probably all agree that in the best thought of to-day, the primary purpose of education is the formation of character-the increase and development of the powers of body, mind, and spirit rather than merely the enlargement of mental possessions. And all agree that character here implies a measure of mental power, a love of beauty in nature and art, a strong sympathy and unswerving moral rectitude, the possession of true ideals of life and the power to live consistent with these ideals, a human organism capable of exercising its functions in the

fullest possible manner. Education can mean nothing else. Every aim proposed by Every aim proposed by the educator not consistent with this high purpose of real living for the child will run counter to the true activities of the child mind, and any scheme of education which neglects any of the higher functions of life is deficient.

Manual training, as it exists in the schools to-day, has come into our system of education from two different directions, and is based upon two radically different ideas in education. In considering this subject both should be taken into consideration. The industrial and utilitarian spirit has, during the past fifty years, prompted the establishment in both Europe and America, of a large

number of industrial schools, trade schools and manual training schools. These are generally upper grade schools, ranking as high schools or colleges. Their purpose has been to give students skill in the trades and general occupations of life. During the past twenty years this industrial spirit has led school boards in many of our cities to introduce the manual training into the regular high school courses.

On the other side, manual training based on a purely educational idea has forced its way into the primary and intermediate schools. Froebel, believing in the unity of the human organism and close interdependence of body and spirit, founded a system of manual work for the kindergarten and primary schools through and by which the education of the hand and muscles of the child should proceed on parallel lines with that of his mental activities. The thought underlying the work of Froebel and his followers has ever been that manual training is essential to the rounded and full training of the child, and has not at any time been based on the idea of promoting the principles of skilled labor or giving an industrial trend to the life of the community. Manual training permeates the whole of Froebel's philosophy. "The kindergarten," one has said, "is activity touched with sentiment"; but the only purpose of this activity is the complete development of the child as an organism whose function is thinking, feeling and doing.

In Sweden there grew up early in this century under the inspiration of certain students of Froebel, a system of manual training for elementary schools based entirely upon

the highest educational idea. It was not called manual training but was given the name of Sloyd. This system involves the idea of planning and executing of creative work-and is a direct and beautiful application of that principle of self-activity which Froebel made the corner-stone of his educational structure. It is permeated with the real Froebelian spirit, and is worthy to follow the kindergarten in a rational scheme of education.

The Sloyd system seeks to develop the body by a series of physical velop the mind by means of the rich mental movements physiologically arranged to deand not the less to develop the heart by enreactions that accompany motor activities; listing in all the work the child's good will and unselfishness. Sloyd has been well deand enjoyed as to stimulate and promote fined by Larson as: "Tool work so arranged vigorous, intelligent self-activity for a purpose which the child recognizes as good." under proper direction, are put to work to Children are given tools and material and, make useful and beautiful objects. Under material hay; the tool may be the stick and this system the tool may be the rake and the the material clay; the tool, the scissors and the material paper and paste; the tool, the saw or plane and the material wood; the important fact being that this work be adapted to the needs of the growing child. "Tools are but artificial hands invented to increase work for children the aim is culture, the man's power to do." In all this manual work done with tools requires fine coordination of mental activity and muscular action, and while developing the voluntary motor energies and motor parts of the brain it develops energy and force of character and love of work.

Thus we see the two great factors that have been uppermost in incorporating manual training into the educational systems of the nineteenth century. However, we should say that a careful reading of the industrial courses of study planned for grammar and high schools in this country during the past ten or fifteen years will show that the true educational or culture spirit has largely predominated over the industrial. If the Sloyd work or manual work in the lower grades is to have a permanent place in our educational philosophy, it must rest entirely upon the idea of its value as an agency in the deepest culture of the child. Upon no other ground

can this work hold its place in the schools of the future.

Spencer and Froebel each made a prominent part in their philosophy the fact of the unity of man's organism. It may be convenient to consider man in the three-fold as

pect of body, intellect and heart; but this

division has hindered the educational world in perceiving the real unity of man's nature. One of the great principles of modern educational thought is this unity in the life of man. In the light of this principle educational philosophy sees man as an organic whole, and the educational process whose function is to expand and develop this organism must deal with a physical, intellectual and emotional life in full harmony and correspondence.

The interdependence and close union of mind and body is at the foundation of all that is best in the new education, and of all the philosophy of manual training. One can no longer speak of the education of the hand, the intellect, the emotions, and will, by different methods and in different institutions. "Every good thought strengthens and vitalizes some power of the body. Every wholesome exercise of the body invigorates the mind. The action of each is carried out in terms of the other. Each conscious act of the body is first rehearsed in thought. If you go on a journey or build a house you do it first in mental action. An idea proceeds each conscious act, is indeed father of the act and essential to it."

But the converse is just as true. "The drama of the inner life would be quite impossible without the imagery and symbolism of the bodily life. Every bodily experience affects one or more of our sense organs and sends one or many impulses along the nerves to the brain, and every nerve current setting in from the outer world to the world of brain manifests itself there as a fact of consciousness. The richer and more varied these im

pulses or sensations, the richer the stream of thought." We cannot, to the fullest extent, develop the intellect without a corresponding training of sense and muscle to be the servants of the mind. Neither can there be any high degree of development of manual power without a corresponding mental development.

All recognize the fact that the man with a trained intellect and will, when sense and

muscle are developed, becomes the most. useful and powerful of men in the mechanical world. We must also recognize that the man, who has had the most rounded development of bodily power, will, in the long run, prove the stronger in those departments of life in which the highest forms of purely intellectual effort are demanded.

Dr. Hall has said, "We think in terms of muscular action, more or less remote, and all the parts of the body that are concerned in original activity are more or less active in thought. Nerve currents are constantly going to muscles and from sense organs, all being a part of the thinking apparatus or at least concerned in the act of thought. In animals and men, taken at large, the scale of intelligence corresponds to the scale of wideness of range of muscular activity, and, on the whole, those persons capable of living the richest psychic life are those whose early life gave them the richest and fullest experience in regard to their muscular activities."

The different portions of the brain have different functions. In one portion are the cells that receive impressions of hearing. In another those that receive impressions of sight. Each sense has its own brain area and these are developed by the exercise of the senses and can be developed in no other way. The visual area remains in rudimentary condition in children who have never had the use of their eyes. It is believed that over one-half of the brain area is composed of motor cells which generate the nerve energy that controls voluntary muscular movement. The man who performs skilled manual labor uses his brain as really as he who writes a book. These motor cells like other parts of the brain and body can be developed only by exercise in the control of muscular action. It has been shown that motor centers atrophy if not put to use. Where an arm or leg has been amputated in early childhood the brain cells which control the limb have been found by examination in quite a rudimentary condition. Imbeciles show their brain defects quite as much through their muscular movements as in their thought. The person with a weak body is apt to have weak will power.

Voluntary muscular activity is essential to healthy, vigorous growth of body and mind. This exercise may come through work, play, gymnastic exercise or manual training. However, this activity to be most.

effective in education must be directed, must be pleasant, must call into action the higher powers of discrimination and thought, must be purposeful and be controlled by the will. Undirected play, or rude work with shovel and pickax have little educational value. The manual training of the school requires of the child skill and effort. It puts into his hand tools with which to work that require fine coordinations between mind and muscular action, developing not only muscle but thought power, discrimination, judgment, self-control, self-direction. Unless it is true that this form of motor training makes an important contribution to intellectual development, unless brain power results from this work, it should not have a place in the elementary school.

Froebel and the leaders of Sloyd work have found in the instincts of play and activity common to all animals and to children, the foundation for much of the philosophy that underlies their work. We think of instinct as the inborn, spontaneous impulse that moves the being, without reasoning, towards actions that are essential to its existence, preservation and development. Each instinct stands as a sure guide in the life of the being in which it is planted, and plays a vital part in its development and growth. The instincts of play and activity in healthy children are as great magazines of stored force implanted in their beings, which, for years, will impel them to strong, joyous action, which is in itself necessary to their health and true growth both mental and physical. When this spontaneous activity of the child is to any large degree repressed it results in weakness of body and

mind.

Froebel says, "Play is the highest phase of child development; it is the purest and most spiritual activity of man in childhood and is typical of human life as a whole. It gives joy, freedom, contentment, inner and outer rest and strength. The plays of childhood are the germinal leaves of all later life, for the whole man is developed and shown in these games in his tenderest dispositions." The child in his games lives over the life work of the race, he plays home, church, school, state and the industries and

trades.

In all manual work, in the kindergarten and in Sloyd, the true nature and function of play and youthful activity are recognized,

and the attempt is made to regulate and guide this natural activity in such a way as to lead the child gradually and naturally into healthful work, securing for work some of the spontaneity, joy and freedom that characterizes play.

The founders of the different systems of manual education have all seen, in the instincts of play and activity implanted in the child, a guide. They have seized upon these great impulses of growing life, and have sought by this system of child work to satisfy the demand for action that exists in all life, and, at the same time, so to guide this action that the results may in the highest sense coordinate the powers of body and mind, to the end that character and power may result.

The most perfect development of child life comes from the home where culture and industry combine in the influence thrown around the young. From the well-ordered farm home come the vast majority of the leaders among men. It is here that the powerful impulses of joyful activity are made use of for the good of the child and those around him. In the labor of the farm home the child becomes a helper at a very early age. His work is useful in that he helps to increase the comforts and wealth of the home, he aids and gives rest to those who are overworked, and in some degree comfort to those who love him. It is joyful to him in that he takes part in the work others are doing, in that he sees its value, and also in the fact that it calls out the highest powers of which he is capable. Under proper guidance this work of the child in taking part in the industrial life around him, in the work in which he sees value, becomes a most powerful agency in securing for him the habit of doing something, the belief in success, a calm sense of power to do, a conviction of mastership, which are so essential to fullness of life and work in school and in after life. These are indispensable to success in intellectual the industrial life on the farm may be splendid results that come to the child from reached in the home of the village or city, provided it is possible to add to the culture of the home a broad industrial training, where the child may join with other members of the family in useful, healthy labor, the results of which bring joy and plenty to the home, and increase the common store,

and in the results of which the child may acquire skill and judgment and courage to enter upon life's duties himself. But homes are rare in cities and towns where there is any opportunity to provide useful occupation for the child that will utilize his innate active force in a way that will tend to his development. The conditions of modern city life, the narrow home, and the school combine to suppress the active impulses of the child.

The sewers, the water-works, the gas companies, the street cars, the delivery and express wagons, the great army of men who clean alleys and streets, the grocer, gardener and farmer who bring food to the door, combine to take from the city child the opportunity of useful activity. For a little while each day, in spite of the forces of suppression, he breaks out in riotous play in street or alley, unguided and with little result except muscular exercise. Where these combined forces of modern city life succeed in keeping the child quiet it results in the death of all prospects of his becoming a strong, hopeful, courageous, useful citizen. The boy and girl are compelled to be idle much of the time and are prevented from living

lives of use to those around them. Bad habits and bad thoughts result from the suppression of motor and physical instincts.

The problem before us is, can the school of the city supply the child with this opportunity for useful, joyful, directed physical effort. Can the school provide means which will result in a training of the eye and the hand, in giving the child an abiding belief

in his own power to do, in coordinating his power to do and to think, in giving the child work in which he is interested because of the value and beauty of its product, and become a direct means of instruction and true culture? Simply stated, from three to four hours daily in the life of every healthy, growing child should be given to physical activity. Shall the school by means of manual training departments direct a portion of this activity to educational ends?

This question is being answered in the affirmative by many of our best cities and by all the great leaders in educational movements of to-day. It cannot be many years until all cities that seek to do their whole duty in the education of their children, make the manual training a department of all elementary and high school work.

Finally, the life of the true citizen is to be largely spent in doing useful things for those around him; into putting into being the production of his own thought and power, in "externalizing his internal" for the benefit of society. Shall the bright days of childhood and youth be spent without being given opportunity to do daily that which is good or beautiful, to develop the latent powers of self expression? In the Sloyd and manual training work in connection with the school opportunity is given daily for the growing child to put forth into reality the product of his thought, to externalize his ideal, to develop his powers of self-direction and selfexpression. Every detail of this work will seek to unfold and develop the whole being and complete life of the child.

RICHMOND, IND.

LITERATURE IN PRIMARY GRADES.

By ANNA LEMIRA MOORE,

POSSIBLY no question gives more con

cern to the conscientious teacher in the primary grades than that of literature. The terms literature, reading and language are used so loosely in the discussions concerning the objects to be attained by their study that it is difficult to select a terminology which shall be definite and at the same time comprehensive.

The question of great importance in the

beginning of the active school life of the child is the manner in which he learns, rather than the subject of which he learns. There are certain funds of knowledge which all children acquire before they ever enter school of any kind; which they would learn were they entirely isolated from all but their immediate family but possessed of their natural faculties. These things they learn unconsciously through the exercise of ob

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