In the seventh and eighth grades it becomes benchwork
for an hour and a half per week, and is taught by a special manual
training teacher, always a man. In the academic high schools the
courses in joinery and cabinet-making bring the pupils to greater
proficiency, but do not greatly extend the course in width.
Much of this work is of a rather formal character, apparently looking
toward that manual discipline formerly called "training of eye and
hand," instead of consciously answering to the demands of social
purposes. The regular teachers look upon the fifth and sixth grade
sloyd[*sic] which they teach with no great enthusiasm. Seventh and
eighth grade teachers do not greatly value the work.
The household arts courses for the girls have social purposes in view.
As a result they are kept vitalized, and are growing increasingly
vital in the work of the city. Is it not possible also to vitalize the
manual training of the boys--unspecialized pre-vocational training, we
ought to call it--by giving it social purpose?
The principal of one of the academic high schools emphasized in
conversation the value of manual training for vocational guidance--a
social purpose. It permitted boys, he said, to try themselves out
and to find their vocational tastes and aptitudes. The purpose is
undoubtedly a valid one. The limitation of the method is that joinery
and cabinet-making cannot help a boy to try himself out for metal
work, printing, gardening, tailoring, or commercial work.
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