they could not have been secured if they had been needed. When children generally ran wild in the country-in the woods, along the streams, across the fields-and when parents led lives of manifold bodily activities, on the farm, or in the shop, with plenty of air, and exercise, and change, there was little need of what Herbert Spencer has called the "factitious exercise" of the gymnasium. A man who swung an axe all day had little use for Indian clubs. But the life of to-day differs from that of a generation ago in being largely urbanized, and largely specialized. Urbanization, generally speaking, tends to deprive of air and space, to force people to ride instead of to walk, to cramp the chest, curve the back, "wing" the shoulder-blades, dwarf the legs, and protrude the abdomen. Specialization tends to cultivate a narrow set of muscles or powers, and at the expense of "general somatic life." Both tend to overwork the nerves and underwork the muscles. To these conditions is to be added the fact that children to-day spend a longer time than formerly under the physically cramping and devitalizing influences of schools. For both urbanization and specialization the specific remedy is afforded by the specialist in physical education. As an integral part of the school he undertakes to provide the exercise which the conditions of life do not afford, to counteract the ills incident to indoor and sedentary occupations, to fortify the body in childhood and youth so that it can stand the strain of later life.

Any one who will glance through such an admirable book as that recently written by Dr. Luther H. Gulick on "Physical Education by Muscular Exercise" (Blakiston, Philadelphia) will readily see that the task of the teacher of physical training is a most delicate one. He must adapt the exercises to individual needs; must realize that he is dealing not merely with muscles but also with nerves and with minds, with a psycho-neuro-muscular organism. Pupils whose nervous force is already low should not be required to give swift response to quick commands, or be subjected to the strain of competition or excitement. On the other hand, pupils whose neuromuscular force is greater than their mental control, may be trained in attention, imagination, thought, and will, by performing exercises at command; for "we think in terms of muscular action"; "the muscular system is the organ of the will."

The aim of the specialist in physical education in American schools seems to be a combination of two strongly contrasting systems: gymnastics and athletics. The old-time German gymnast (described by Dr. Gulick) has powerful shoulders; the individual fibres of the muscles stand out prominently; he has a powerful grip. The muscles upon his chest and shoulder-blades are prominent. His chest appears large; but this may be due rather to excessive muscle than to the position of the ribs; the thorax is rather flat from repeated severe exertion of the abdominal muscles. The muscles of the legs are vigorous, but are light in proportion to the development of the

shoulders and arms. He can do almost anything on the apparatus when suspended by his arms, but he cannot run for long distances, and is not graceful as a walker or jumper. He is apt to be "musclebound," and is often the slave of his own condition-his muscular establishment being an expensive one to maintain.

The pure athlete, on the other hand, of which the English schoolboy is a type, works less for abstract indoor muscle-building, and more for concrete sports and games. "His characteristic games and sports, and exercises, are running, jumping, throwing, wrestling, boxing, cricket, football, lawn tennis, hunting, fishing, horseback-riding, rowing, mountain-climbing, and so on. These exercises furnish conditions more similar to those under which the body was developed in evolutionary times than do the more or less artificial exercises of the gymnasium. Each part of the body is exercised in accordance with the way in which it is developed; the heavy work is done by the legs, work demanding speed and agility is done by the arms; the arms do not support the weight of the body for long periods as they often do in systems of gymnastics. He is fairly strong, is erect and graceful. He is a fleet runner, and has splendid endurance. He rides horseback; can spar and wrestle. He has played his game of football, and has rowed in one of the many crews in his university. He is quick, hardy, can take care of himself in an emergency; is used to handling himself in a crowd. He cannot do any particular gymnastic feats with skill, nor is he interested in them. During later life he will drop his active participation in most of the more strenuous sports; but he will ride, play golf, swim, row, and will always maintain a keen interest in these things."

The aim of physical education in America is to produce neither gymnasts nor athletes, but a happy combination of both-to build a body whose "different parts are so related to one another as to produce a whole in which each part is exactly adapted to perfect coöperation with every other part." The means employed to this end naturally combine some features of both systems; but the emphasis is increasingly laid, even among the schoolboys and girls, on athletics; and properly so. Athletics calls for and includes gymnastics, but gymnastics does not necessarily issue in athletics. It is proper to regard the body as a means; it is not proper to regard it as an end in itself. It is interesting to note that this change of emphasis in physical training is in line with similar changes in other school subjects, in manual training, in drawing, and in literature. The abstract and the subjective have in every case given way to the concrete, the objective, and the practical.

MISTAKES, MISAPPREHENSIONS, AND FALLACIES,
CONCERNING MANUAL TRAINING.

BY

CALVIN M. WOODWARD, DEAN OF THE SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING, WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY, AND PRESIDENT OF THE ST. LOUIS BOARD OF EDUCATION.

NOTE. Not the least important part of Physical Education is the work of Manual Training, and we are glad to have the opportunity of presenting the following refutation of the mistakes, misapprehensions, and fallacies concerning it from the pen of so able and competent an authority as Dr. Calvin M. Woodward. It should not be forgotten that Manual Training is a physical exercise which combines, as no sport or pastime can do, the elements of intellectual interest and muscular development,-a combination which, it will be observed, nearly all the authorities contributing to this volume claim to be the highest desideratum in Physical Culture.-[Č. W.]

A

MOTHER recently said to a friend who had advised her to send her son to the Manual Training School: "Yes, if I wish my to seek the companionship of carpenters and blacksmiths, I suppose I ought to follow your advice. But I hope and expect my son to become a cultivated man, and to seek the companionship of cultivated men."

Similarly, an educational writer prophesied when the Manual Training High School of Philadelphia was opened, that its "graduates would probably form a degraded mass of operatives."

In like manner many people have taken it for granted that no one who had brains or ambition enough to do something else, would concern himself with the arts of a mechanic; hence, if they see a boy in a shop with tools in his hands, the inference is natural that he is either dull or low-minded.

I am not surprised at such mistaken ideas and inferences, for all the literature and philosophy of the ages has taught the same thing. Plato and Aristotle taught that contact with the practical arts was degrading, and that tool work of all kinds belonged to slaves.

This prejudice, ancient and modern, was founded on ignorance and caste. To-day the wall of prejudice whether founded on ignorance, or built by artificial caste distinctions, is being torn down and removed. Skill and culture go hand in hand, and there is no divorce between science and arts. Let me speak of the more common fallacies and mistakes of both parents and teachers in regard to Manual Training.

1. Manual Training is not the same thing as manual labor. If a boy works in a shop or on a farm, it is assumed that he gets manual training-he may have a taste of manual training, sometimes he has considerable, but generally he gets very little. I was a farmer's boy, and worked on a large Massachusetts farm till I went to college. I learned to plough, to chop wood, to hoe, to mow, to use a shovel and a

fork. I could yoke oxen, harness horses, and milk cows, but the scythe and axe were the only edged tools I could use, and I did not learn to use properly either bench or machine tools upon woods and metals. So a boy in a shop learns a few motions, perhaps a few tools, but nine-tenths of his time-perhaps more than that-is given to mere labor, to doing things he knows how to do, and which yield, not education, but wages. No farmer's boy learns how to draw-neither does the shop laborer learn the relation that drafting bears to construction. Manual labor means hard work, with the large muscles, for eight or ten hours per day, while the mind is absent or dormant. So long as the work in hand is interesting, and one is trying to master it, there is education and a measure of mental growth; but when sharp attention ceases, education stops, and only manual labor continues. I am reminded of a remark made to me recently by a gentleman in middle life, a very excellent carpenter, when I was watching my boys, twenty-four of them, at work making their first weld in the forging shop. He seemed intensely interested as he watched the young students at their work. I said: "You seem to like to see the boys work. Do you understand what they are doing?"

"Yes," said he; "I worked a year once in a blacksmith shop." "Well," said I, "then I suppose this operation of welding is a very simple matter to you."

"Not at all," said he. "I never made a weld in my life. I never got a chance; I worked hard at all sorts of labor. I kindled the fire, pumped the bellows, and I did some 'striking' for other men, but they never let me try to make a weld." Then he added, with a good deal of feeling, "These boys learn more in one week about the really essential art of forging than I learned in half a year. And the secret of it is, they have a thoroughly skilled workman who is competent to teach and to use practically every principle involved, and who does nothing but teach; and he gives every boy a chance to actually learn every step in the business, and they spend no time in just doing things they know how to do fairly well."

2. It is assumed that in learning how to use tools, one must immediately make something-a toy, a piece of furniture, or a machine. The assumption is unscientific. One does not begin arithmetic with bank discount, or mensuration. The fundamental rules must first be mastered. The soldier learns how to use his rifle without once shooting at an enemy. The piano pupil learns scales, intervals, and fingering, before once venturing upon Beethoven or Rubenstein. So a manual training pupil learns the simple alphabetical steps of every tool, and the elements of every process before he attempts to combine them. A synthesis may follow a mastery of the analytical steps involved in a construction, but it comes at the end, not at the beginning, of the lesson series.

Much less is a pupil at the beginning prepared to select his tools, or to choose or design his exercise. The Latin pupil might as well

select his author or write his own grammar. The manual arts should be taught logically, and learned systematically.

3. It is a mistake to suppose that every boy can learn how to use tools correctly by himself without a teacher, and that he must not be "shown." Modern tools are the product of many generations of careful study on the part of skilful men. The more elaborate the tool, the more brains have been mixed with it. There is one best way with every tool and every step in its use, and the chances are a thousand to one that the boy when left to himself will not find that best way. As well let him guess at the meaning of words without a dictionary; or learn by himself how to hold his knife and fork; or how to manage an automobile.

Self-taught people-while better than untaught people as a ruleoften suffer keenly from wrong habits, and they are always handicapped as compared with the pupils of a good teacher. We all know how much it means in art, in literature, and in science, to be under the careful personal direction of a master. It is equally valuable to the pupil in manual training. The theory of every tool, and its correct use, and the analysis of every process should be shown, and made perfectly clear by a master mechanic and a skilful teacher.

4. It is a mistake to suppose that the most valuable thing in manual training is its availability as an introduction to the fine arts. Undoubtedly, it is of service in leading to art study, as an abundant experience has shown, but I think its economic or industrial value is far greater. Manual training directly opens the way to industrial efficiency and to technical colleges. While it unfits no one for any occupation, it clearly leads up on the one hand to the doors of industrial establishments; on the other hand, it leads straight into our technical schools.

Some of our graduates are artists, quite a number are architects, but far more are engineers and manufacturers. Of course, many begin as mechanics, but they soon rise to positions where they direct other mechanics or draftsmen.

5. I regret to say that some people think, or fear, that manual training lowers the moral and intellectual tone of a school; that where manual training goes in something fine and refining must go out. That is a sad mistake. No school was ever on a higher moral plane than a good manual training school, and I doubt if any was more strenuously intellectual. The manual training boy learns to insist upon accuracy, precision, fitness, strength-in other words, concrete truthfulness. Again he puts theories to actual test; he challenges authority-and demands a trial. He asks the what, and how, and wherefore; and wants the latest reports in science, and the last invention in the arts. Psychologists tell us that manual training is essential to the full development of the brain, and therefore indispensable to intellectual culture.

6. Finally, it is a mistake to suppose that success in the shops of