methods of expression-1st, by the written, printed, or spoken word; 2nd, by the pencil and brush, using the various kinds of graphic art; 3rd, through the instrumentality of tools and materials, which enable one to express thought in the concrete.' The Committee of Council on Education, in their recent report, speaking of the teaching of cooking to girls, say :-" After the three elementary subjects and sewing, no subject is of such importance for the class of girls who attend Public Elementary Schools, and lessons in it, if properly given, will be found to be not only of practical use, but to have the effect of awakening the interest and intelligence of the children." Surely, what is true of sewing and cooking in the case of girls, is true to a greater extent of drawing and handicrafts in the case of boys.

In many parts of the Continent, manual training has now for some years been associated with elementary instruction. In France, Belgium, Austria, Holland, and Sweden the workshop is a part of the school-building; and in the United States the number of manual training schools of higher grade, somewhat similar to the well-known apprenticeship schools of France, is steadily increasing. Indeed, judging from the published accounts of these schools, and from the writings of some of the most prominent educationists in the United States, an enthusiasm is spreading among Americans in favour of workshop instruction, which is likely to have an important influence on the industrial progress of this eminently practical and inventive people. In the Report of the Commissioners on Technical Instruction, notices will be found of some of the principal continental schools which are now fitted with workshops. Sir John Lubbock, in the article above quoted, has supplemented this information by reference to the "Slöjd" system of manual instruction which is adopted in Sweden. An interesting account of this system has been written by M. Sluys, who is well known to educationists from his connection with the Ecole Modèle of Brussels. Since the Report of the Commissioners was published, the movement in favour of workshop teaching in schools has advanced rapidly in France. Nearly every large town has now its higher elementary school (a type of school as yet scarcely to be found in this country), fitted with workshops for wood and iron; and, out of 174 primary schools supported by the City of Paris, 95 are now provided with workshops, 90 for instruction in carpentry and wood-turning, and 5 for metal work. In these schools, the manual teaching has hitherto been given either before or after the ordinary school hours; but the Municipal Council of Paris attach such importance to this training, that it is proposed to make the workshop instruction a part of the regular school curriculum. This change will necessitate a re-arrangement * "Proceedings of International Conference on Education," London, 1884, vol. ii. p. 58.

of the school hours and the provision of workshops in the remaining 79 schools in which they have not yet been fitted. But it is confidently expected that the Municipality of Paris, which has done so much for the technical education of its artisans, will not hesitate to incur this additional expense. The action of the City of Paris gives additional weight to the recommendation of the English Commissioners on this subject.

Experiments of introducing workshops into elementary schools have been tried in this country, with results sufficiently encouraging to justify the extension of the system. In Sheffield, Birmingham, and Glasgow the results have been eminently satisfactory. In London, the experiment has recently been tried on a small scale, and under not the most favourable circumstances, in the Beethoven Street Schools; but the report of Mr. Tate, the energetic head-master, is so encouraging that the School Board of London is very desirous of extending the system of instruction to a large number of the schools under its control. In his report to the Board, Mr. Tate says:

"This class was started on September 28, 1885, in a shed or workshop built by the Board in a recess in the playground, and the instruction is given by the school-keeper, a carpenter by trade, under the direct supervision of the head-master.

"The boys are chosen mainly from the Seventh Standard, and attendance at the workshop is considered a privilege, and a reward of merit in ordinary school subjects. It is therefore a stimulus and incentive to industry and thoroughness of work. This plan has been so effective that a boy once chosen values the teaching and practice so much that he continues to be chosen each week, and the instruction is therefore continuous, for the class has been virtually the same since it started.

"Boys who have been trained in a good school, and have acquired soundly the rudiments of education, too often when they leave school think that their proper career is a City counting-house, and that to wear black clothes and appear as a gentleman is a fair summit of their ambition. I certainly think that this workshop for upper standard boys will help to dissipate this idea, as it will show boys that, after we have given them the best education which the school offers, we then lead them into the workshop, and so practically show them that the end and aim of our training is to enable them to learn some useful trade and so become good workmen.

"The workshop, I believe, is a valuable training to enable the eye and hand to work in harmony. It is intended to make the school drawing, especially the scale drawing and geometry, apply as much as possible to the work done in the workshop. It is certainly a pleasant relief to ordinary school work. Should a boy not follow a trade when he leaves school, he will at least be able to make his home work comfortable by using the skill and facility which he has acquired in this workshop."

At the expense of the Rev. S. Barnett and a few of his friends, a workshop has recently been fitted in the school attached to St. Jude's Church, Whitechapel. Arrangements have been made for giving instruction in carpentry and turnery to boys, and in modelling and wood-carving to girls of the upper standards, and the results

of the lessons have fully justified the most sanguine expectations of the advocates of this kind of instruction. Those who have visited these schools have been struck with the cheerful interest shown by the children in their work, and by the effect of the teaching in quickening their perceptive faculties and in stimulating their intelligence. The contrast between the listless and often inattentive attitude of children, occupied with some ordinary class lesson, and the eager eyes and nimble fingers of the same children at the carpenter's or modelling bench is most instructive; and no one who has seen it can have any doubt of the educational value of this kind of training. These results, it must be remembered, have been attained by teachers most of whom have themselves been trying experiments, and have been working by the light of Nature without any well-considered methods. Under properly trained instructors, the results would doubtless have been far more satisfactory.

There is good reason to believe that the stimulating effect of workshop instruction on the intelligence of children will be such that, notwithstanding the loss of the time spent in the shop, their progress in their ordinary studies will be in no way retarded.

Mr. Swire Smith, a member of the late Commission on Technical Instruction, states "that the half-time children of the town of Keighley, numbering from 1500 to 2000, although they receive less than fourteen hours of instruction per week, and are required to attend the factory for twenty-eight hours per week in addition, yet obtain at the examinations a higher percentage of passes than the average of children throughout the whole country receiving double the amount of schooling." This answers the objection so often raised, that the curriculum of elementary schools is already overcrowded. Possibly

it may be with literary studies, but not with practical work, and the combination of the two will go far to correct the tendency to overpressure inherent in our system of payment by results.

As a general rule, children should be required to have passed the Fifth Standard before being admitted into the shop. They should receive two lessons a week, and each lesson should be of about two hours' duration. No fixed rule can at present be given as to the number of children who can be taught by one instructor. For convenience of supervision the shop should be fitted for the accommodation of not more than twenty-five children. On starting a class, each pupil requires more individual attention than later on. A class of beginners, therefore, should not consist of the full complement of children. Where the same shop is used for bench work and lathe work, it will be found that a double lathe will occupy four pupils, that eighteen can be accommodated at three carpenters' benches, each of not less than 14 feet 6 inches in length, whilst two may be engaged in sawing. Besides the benches and lathes, the school

should contain a large blackboard, a cupboard, which is better than boxes for holding tools, and a grindstone.

In estimating the expense of adding this subject to our elementary school course, we have to consider the cost-first, of equipping the workshops; second, of the material used; third, of the teaching.

Supposing a shed or some other room to be found, which can be used as a workshop, the cost of equipping the shop with benches and with the necessary tools need not exceed thirty shillings for each pupil's place, and the workshop can be used by different sets of pupils at different times. Moreover, a shop need not be fitted at once with the full complement of benches; for, after a time, the more advanced pupils may be employed in making some of the additional fittings required.

The cost of material is inconsiderable. The children soon learn to construct various articles for their own homes, which, on payment of the cost of the material consumed, become the property of their parents. Some, too, might be employed in making models and other objects, including certain workshop fittings, which might be purchased for the use of other schools. At the same time, care must be taken that the work is always subordinated to the educational purpose of the instruction.

Of the actual cost of the teaching no very exact estimate can as yet be formed. Much depends on the system adopted. If the instruction were given during school hours, it would take the place of some other lesson, and, by a proper arrangement of time-tables, might be given at very little additional expense. In some of the schools in which the experiment has been already tried, special teachers have been appointed, who have received a certain fee for each lesson. But if several schools in the same district combined, one teacher might be engaged, and either the children might be brought to a common centre, as in the case of the cookery classes, or the teacher might go from school to school, as in the case of the science teaching in Birmingham and Liverpool. The latter plan might be more convenient for the schools; but the former plan would be more economical, as enabling one shop and certain tools to be used by several sets of children.

It would be necessary under any circumstances that the instruction should be encouraged by a system of grants, or by some equivalent external aid. A system might be organized of paying grants on the results of the individual work of each pupil; but all the disadvantages of the method of "payment by results" would be emphasized in the case of workshop instruction, and the teaching would lose much of its disciplinary value. The amount of the grant should depend mainly on the average number of children in attendance. A grant of four shillings, as in the case of cookery lessons, and the

recognition of the subject by the Education Department, would afford sufficient encouragement to induce certain School Boards and School Managers to make manual training a part of the curriculum of the schools under their control. The total amount of these grants would be but a slight addition to our education expenses. According to the last report, the whole number of children presented for examination in the Sixth and Seventh Standards was 112,455. Of these, we may assume that about 60,000 are boys. Supposing half this number to elect to receive workshop instruction, the grant would amount to £6000 a year. But even this estimate is excessive as an addition to our present expenditure. For many of the children might take handicrafts in lieu of one of the specific subjects on which grants are now paid.* It may, therefore, I think be asserted that, the workshops being once equipped, the additional cost in grants of introducing handicraft teaching into the curriculum of our elementary schools would not exceed £5000 a year; and for this comparatively small expenditure about 30,000 boys might be annually sent out into the world from our elementary schools endowed with practical skill at their fingers' ends, imbued with a taste and aptitude for the real work of their life, and so educated as to be able to apply to that work the results of scientific teaching and scientific methods.

In organizing a scheme of technical teaching in connection with our Elementary Schools, the difficulty has to be met of obtaining good teachers and competent inspectors. The artisan, who is a skilful workman and nothing more, may succeed in teaching the elements of carpentry and joinery; but he is not the kind of teacher needed. It is of the utmost importance that the instructor should be a good draughtsman, should have some knowledge of physical science, should be an expert workman, and should have studied the art of teaching. To obtain at first such ideal instructors would be impossible; but there is no reason why, gradually, they should not be trained. Two processes suggest themselves. We might take a well-trained elementary teacher, having an aptitude for mechanical arts, and give him a course of instruction in the use of tools, either in a technical school or in an ordinary workshop; or, we might take an intelligent artisan, who had studied science and drawing in some of the excellent evening classes which are now found in almost every town, and give him a short course of lessons on method in relation to workshop instruction.

*It may be well here incidentally to call attention to the relatively small amount of grants earned for specific subjects. Out of 352,860 children, who last year were examined in elementary subjects in the Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Standards, only 64,376 presented themselves in specific subjects, the total amount of grant paid being £14,662 118. 8d. Of the children on account of whom these grants were earned, Sir John Lubbock tells us, that less than 25,000 were examined in any branch of science.