1. Show the specimens, or similar ones, suggested in the

program.

2. The method of studying each specimen may be somewhat as follows:

Pupils may observe

(a) Size, form, color.

(b) Other characterizing features.
(c) Method of getting air, or breathing.
(a) Facts about eating.

(e) Means of locomotion.

(f) Facts about seeing, hearing, etc.

3. The specimen may be used for a drawing lesson.

4. The pupils may learn from the teacher or from books:

(a) Where the specimen lives.

(b) Its habits.

(c) Its usefulness.

(d) Other common animals belonging to the same group.

5. Some exercise may be given in classifying.

6. Supplementary reading may be pursued in connection with these lessons.

1. Specimens suggested in the program should be shown. 2. Pupils should observe concerning each specimen –

(a) Size, form, color.

(b) Lustre.-Does it shine?

Hardness.-Soft, moderate, hard.

Cleavage.-Does it break more easily in one direc

tion than in another.

(c) Other characterizing features.

3. Begin with rocks and lead to the study of minerals by showing that they are in rocks, as the component parts.

Study the structure and history of common rocks.

History of fragments, pebbles, gravel, sand, and mud.

Action of gutter streams, water in cracks and pores, rivers, sea waves, weather.

Production of soil.

Rocks formed from the remains of plants; from the remains of animals.

Strata, beaches, mountains, ripple marks, rain prints, animal tracks, fossils.

History of the earth's crust.

MANUAL TRAINING.

IN WHAT IT CONSISTS; ITS EDUCATIONAL VALUE; ITS PLACE IN THE SCHOOLS.

By S. T. DUTTON, SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS, New Haven.

Manual Training is the cultivation of the mind through the hand and eye, which are closely wedded in all working, whether in art or industry. The mind directs all activity of the body, and there is no such thing as training the eye to see, the ear to hear, or the hand to do, except as the mind is active in directing these actions.

The senses are the channels through which all information flows to the mind, and the tongue and the hand are the principal avenues through which thought flows outward and expresses itself in language and action. All deeds, whether great or small, are conceived in thought. In thought they are nourished and grow until at length they spring forth to beautify and bless the world, or to blight and curse it. The expression of thought in word and deed is to the mind what muscular exercise is to the body. As the body must be nourished by proper food, and must receive suitable exercise, so the mind, through the senses, gets its nourishment, and by means of its own activity grows stronger and preserves a healthy tone.

But there is also the principle of inter-dependence; the same activity that insures health of body conduces also to health of mind; the brain is no less an organ than the hand, and therefore demands pure blood for its sustenance. Physical exercise then is as good for the mind as for the body, and, in so far as Manual Training has in it the element of exercise, it serves a good end. But when, by means of the eye and the hand, the mind executes its own thought in modeling, in drawing, in painting, in carving, in designing or in construction, there is an immediate reaction upon itself quite different from what occurs in case of the automatic movements of running, walking, or skating. Could we look in upon the brain and study the chemical changes which are

at once the cause and result of its activity, we should see that when it acts as an executive there is the greatest possible rebound of vital force and the wastes of tissues are the soonest repaired. The farmer or the mechanic whose brain is chiefly exercised in directing this manual labor leads a healthier life mentally and physically than the clerk or professional man who follows sedentary pursuits. This is doubtless partly due to the beneficial effects of outdoor life with its attendant exercise, but it is due more particularly to the bet ter equilibrium of brain and muscle, and the healthy reaction of one upon the other. Manual Training undertakes to adopt this law in human economy as an educational factor, and to increase the power of the growing youth by training him in those manual arts that call forth productive thought. No one can deny that power is gained from doing, and that repeated acts of doing lead to all that is implied in the terms habit and skill. Recognizing then at the outset the unity of being as expressed in man, and the reciprocal relations existing between the intellectual and physical, we see in what Manual Training consists.

But leaving this more theoretical view, let us see what the child's environment requires. By no choice of our own are we born into the world. Here we must live and here we must work. The constitution of this planet is such, and human needs are such, that we are compelled to deal with things and forces. We must contend with heat, cold, hunger, and disease. The battle for civilization has been a contest for the supremacy of man over nature. To be sure, history is very shadowy on this subject, and although we enjoy the fruits of partial victory, we know little of what they cost. We do know that the inductive philosophy of Bacon has opened the way for rapid progress and that the close of the present century will witness marvelous things achieved through scientific discovery and mechanical skill. The occult forces have been made to do man's bidding, to bear his burdens, and to flash his thought across ocean and continent. Methods of transacting business have changed and are changing. A student of any one of the learned professions has to face an increasing number of problems; problems that pertain to the material and social condition of the world. Statements of scientific truth have to be revised daily. Human invention, and skill expressed in machinery has revolutionized nearly all kinds of labor. Through the chemical arts, materials hitherto neglected have been utilized for the service of man so that it can truly be said, nothing is to be discarded or treated as