observed in other schools?' They ask: Does not the interest which these boys manifestly take in their tool-work, in fact and of necessity, diminish their interest in and love for their books?' This is a natural inquiry, and some of our shrewdest visitors of late spent considerable time in our recitation-rooms searching for an answer to this question. Those of you who have listened to recitations in this school may be prepared with an answer. The testimony of our teachers, some of whom have had several years' experience in other schools, is very pertinent here. They all say that these boys do better work than do boys of the same grade without the stimulus of the manual training.

"My own conclusion, based upon the observation of the influence of manual education for at least eight years, — (for we had manual training with the students of our polytechnic school of Washington University, St. Louis, several years before the school was in existence),-my conclusion is that not only does our workshop not detract from the interest boys take in books, but it stimulates and increases it, either directly or indirectly. In mathematics, physics, mechanics, and chemistry, the help is direct and positive. Note, for instance, the mental arithmetic involved in the execution of a pattern from a working-drawing. No one can learn from a book the true force of technical terms or definitions, nor the properties of materials. The obscurities of the text-books (often doubly obscure from the lack of proper training on the part of the author) vanish before the steady gaze of a boy whose hands and eyes have assisted in the building of mental images. No classes in physics or chemistry were ever so ready as ours to help illustrate their text-books.

"Then, on the literary side, the habit of clear-headedness and exactness in regard to the minor details of a subject, which is absolutely essential in a shop, stretches with its wholesome influence into their study of words and the structure of language. As Felix Adler says, the doing of one thing well is the beginning of doing all things well. I am a thorough disbeliever in the doctrine that it is educationally useful to commit to memory words which are not understood. The memory has its abundant uses, and should be cultivated; but when it usurps the place of the understanding, when it insidiously beguiles the mind into the habit of accepting the images of words for the images of the things the words ought to recall, then the memory becomes a positive hindrance to intellectual development. The influence of manual training, when associated, as it is here, with mental culture, is intellectually and morally wholesome."

Dr. S. S. Laws, president of the University of Missouri, in a recent public statement, said that the learning of a trade was incompatible with the attainment of high mental cultivation. For, said he, when physical exercise becomes toil, there is a drain on the strength which must be recuperated before either mental or physical effort can be made again to advantage.

Now he was thinking of hard, wearisome toil, like that of the daylaborer with his ten hours of hard work. And on that basis he is of course entirely correct; but his remarks have no application to the students of a manual-training school. Our boys are never weary, and in their estimation the shop-hours are too short. The effect is like that of agreeable, judicious exercise, and the mental effect is posi tively good. From my own experience, I know the value of interesting exercise. By a daily row of an hour's length I am made capable of more and better intellectual labor; but to be a waterman and toil at the oar would unfit me for anything but sleep.

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I confidently reassert my claim, that judicious manual training,— training, mark you, conduces to perfection of mental and moral character. The finest fruit of all education is character; and the more complete and symmetrical, the more perfectly balanced the education, the better the fruit. Does any one ask for fuller details of our methods of instruction? I must not dwell upon them here: they are fully stated in our Fourth Prospectus, which may be had for the asking.

3. My third division of the fruit almost goes without saying. Men of sound judgment, who correctly estimate men and things, are said to possess common sense. We aim to cultivate that kind of fruit. Boys who put every theory to the practical test, who probe and gauge every statement and appliance, with whom authority and tradition, the bane of too much classics, have little influence, and who, therefore, have some conception of the proper perspective of human progress and human history, are apt to focus correctly upon the world and society of-today.

4. My next point, the Choice of Occupation, is one of the greatest importance, because out of it are the issues of life. An error here is often fatal. But to choose without knowledge is to draw as in a lottery, and when boys know neither themselves nor the world in which they are to live, it is at least an even chance that the square plug gets into the round hole.

Parents sometimes complain that their sons do not have a decided taste for a particular kind of work, and a wish to follow a particular kind of vocation. As a rule these complaints are very unreasonable. How can one choose wisely when he knows so little? Allow me to quote a few words from our catalogue:

"It is confidently believed that the developments of this school will prevent those serious errors in the choice of a vocation, which often prove fatal to the fondest hopes. It is not assumed that every boy who enters this school is to be a mechanic. Some will find that they have no taste for

manual arts, and will turn into other paths,-law, medicine, or literature. Some who develop both natural skill and strong intellectual powers will push on through the polytechnic school into the professional life as engineers and scientists. Others will find their greatest usefulness, as well as highest happiness, in some branch of mechanical work, into which they will readily step when they leave school. All will gain intellectually by their experience in contact with things. The grand result will be an increasing interest in manufacturing pursuits, more intelligent mechanics, more sucful manufacturers, better lawyers, more skillful physicians, and more useful citizens."

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Will it be to the point if I tell you what our graduates have chosen to do? The result of their choice lies beyond our knowledge in the future, but you may wish to know what, after three years with us, they wish to do. Will it tell against, or for the value of, the school if say that more than half the class wish to begin life with some form of manual labor, as mechanics or draughtsmen? Does it make for, or against, the system if I say that out of twenty-nine graduates eleven will continue their studies in the higher department of the polytechnic school with a view to becoming finished engineers? Six or seven wish to enter shops and become thorough machinists, several would become architects, one an engraver, one a blacksmith, one a bricklayer and builder, one a stock-raiser, one a dealer in real estate, and one, about the ablest member of the class, is to be a farmer. All had been taught the principles of book-keeping, yet not one wished to be a book-keeper or a clerk. All are willing and able to work.

5. Correct choice brings success in all the elements of a manly career. The man who choses correctly is happy in his work; his labor blesses and enriches both society and himself. Success does not imply wealth, but it does imply competence. It implies the making the most of one's self, according to capacity.

We hear much, particularly from our friend Dr. Harris, of directive intelligence as a great end, or a means to a great end. But he who would successfully direct the labor of other men must first learn the art of successful labor himself; and he who would direct a machine. properly must understand the principles of its construction, and be personally skilled in the arts of preservation and repair. Mr. Harris, therefore, tells but a half-truth when he says that [EDUCATION for May-June, 1883] "the practical education is not an education of the hand to skill, but of the brain to directive intelligence," and the connection in which this is said contains something rather disparaging to manual labor. I do not claim to fully understand him, and I may be in error, so you shall judge for yourselves. He says:

"The new discovery (the invention of a new tool) will make the trade learned to-day, after a long and tedious apprenticeship, useless to-morrow. The practical education, therefore, is not an education of the hand to skill, but of the brain to directive intelligence. The educated man can learn to direct a new machine in three weeks, while it requires three years to learn a new manual labor.”

This last sentence is not clear to me. As to directive intelligence, I respectively submit the following as a substitute for the dictum of Mr. Harris:

"The practical education is, therefore, an education of the hands to skill and of the brain to intelligence. The combination will give the highest directive power."

This matter of directing a machine reminds me of a story told of Boston, over twenty years ago, in the Massachusetts Teacher. It was reported at the Hub that in one of the great cities of the West an establishment had succeeded in making a steam fire-engine of great efficiency. (Those Western cities have a way of taking the lead sometimes.) So Boston ordered an engine, taking a guarantee that it should work so and so. The machine arrived, and was exhibited by its makers. Its performance was marvelous, and altogether satisfactory; so it was accepted, paid for, and the makers went home. A picked crew of active Boston boys was placed in charge of the newcomer, and people almost longed for a big fire that they might witness its sudden extinguishment. The big fire came and so did the machine, but the water failed to rise to the exigency of the occasion. It hissed and foamed and screamed, but threw no water. It was a great disappointment. The next day it was sent to a shop and overhauled. The next fire it failed again. The city fathers then turned round and sued the makers for selling them a machine that wouldn't go. The maker came on to defend himself. Said he: "Gentlemen of Boston, that machine was all we claimed for it. It was made by the most skillful workmen, and, in their hands, it worked to perfection, as you yourselves saw. The men you placed over it were without skill, and you sent it to a locomotive-shop, where they don't know what fine workmanship is. Put the machine in proper hands and it will redeem itself. What you evidently need here in Boston is directive intelligence."

6 and 7. I claim next, as fruit of the introduction of manual edu cation, the elevation in honor and respect of the manual occupations of men. A brute can exert brute strength; to man alone is it given to invent and use tools; hence man subdues nature and builds art

through the instrumentality of tools. Says Carlyle: "Nowhere do you find him without tools; without tools he is nothing; with tools he is all." To carry a hod one needs only the muscles of a brute. To devise and build the light engine, which, under the direction of a single intelligent master-spirit, shall lift the burden of a hundred men, requires human intelligence and human skill. So the hewers of wood and drawers of water are in this age of invention replaced by planing-mills, and water-works requiring some of the most elaborate embodiments of thought and skill. Can you stand beside the modern drawer of water, the mighty engine that day and night pumps from the Father of Waters the abundant supply of a hundred thousand St. Louis homes, and not bow before the evidence of "cultured minds and skillful hands" written in blazing characters all over the vast machinery?

In like manner every occupation becomes ennobled by the transforming influence of thought and skill.

The farmer of old yoked his wife with his cow, and together they dragged the clumsy plow or transported the scanty harvest. Down to fifty years ago the life of a farmer was associated in all minds with unceasing stupefying toil. What will it be when every farmer's son is properly educated and trained? Farming is rapidly becoming a matter of horse-power, steam-power, and machinery. Who, then, shall follow the farm with honor, pleasure, and success? Evidently only he whose cultivated mind and trained hand makes him of the tools he must use. With his bench and sharp-edged tools, with his anvil and his forge, his lathe and his tap, he will "direct" his farm-machinery with unparalleled efficiency.

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Do not suppose, as some appear to do, that the continued invention of tools will diminish the demand for skilled labor,-for, on the contrary, it will increase it. Said Mr. William Mather, of Manchester, England, to a Philadelphia reporter a few days ago, "The higher the development of mechanical contrivances to reduce merely manual 、 labor, the greater in other directions will be the demand for a finer skill and mechanical knowledge." In general, whenever in the progress of the arts an occupation involves the skillful application of scientific principles; when its instrumentalities are the products of close observation, logical thought, and manual skill, the dignity and attractiveness of the occupation is greatly increased.

Manual exercises, which are at the same time intellectual exercises, are highly attractive to healthy boys. If you doubt this, go into the shops of a manual-training school and see for yourselves. Go, for instance, into our forging-shop, where metals are wrought through