An organized course in woodworking

In preparing this book on "Manual Training" the author has attempted to be thorough rather than complete. No attempt has been made to add anything new to the subject-matter, but only to arrange well known facts so that they will offer as systematic and complete a course of study as is offered in any of the older organized courses.

The arrangement of the text as herein presented is the direct result of five years' teaching the subject of woodworking to beginning classes. This class work was preceded by a number of years of shop work as a journeyman machinist and a factory foreman, as well as by a four years' college course in science and engineering.

Help in preparing the text has been gleaned from so many fields that it would be impossible to make direct mention of all who have given valuable assistance. The author wishes, however, to acknowledge the aid given by Mr. Charles E. Emmerich, principal of the Indianapolis Manual Training High School, and Mr. Paul W. Covert, head of the manual training department, who have allowed such freedom in the conduct of classes that it has been possible to make all parts of the work measure up to a class-room test. Acknowledgment is due Mr. Otto Stark, head of the art department of the Indianapolis Manual Training High School, for his earnest and careful criticism of the models, drawings, and photographs. This criticism has added much to the value of the text. The final drawings from which the cuts were executed were made by Mr. Edward Stark, of Indianapolis.

INTRODUCTION

The child is both physical and spiritual, and education must, therefore, consider both body and soul. Grace and beauty in form, strength and health of body, and skill in execution, are all matters that must be provided for in the course of study. The aesthetic and hygienic phases of child life have been recognized, and when the practical side receives the attention which it merits, head, hand, and heart will become allies in education. Every child must be taught to work, and to the degree in which the home neglects this part of his education, the school must, whether it would or not, take up this phase of his training and carry it to completion. The course of study of the future will provide a complete system of manual training through the grades and high school.


ADJUSTMENT OF WORK OP HEAD AND HAND

When this course is finally perfected it will be a complete adjustment of the work of head and hand. All hand work will supplement head work. All mere busy work, that is to say, work without educative value, placed in the course of study to keep the children quiet, will be eliminated. Manual training, that is, work that will put the children in possession of themselves and tend to fit them for the work that they are likely to do in life, will have passed the fad and experimental stage and will be part and parcel of the educative process.

It may be that the so-called academic subjects, such as grammar, geography, and arithmetic, will be taught more intensively, and that fully as much time will be given to the hand work as is given to the fonner. The element of utility will determine almost wholly the work chosen and the stress to be placed upon it. Children are easily interested in doing things that are really worthwhile. Work that becomes burdensome to either teacher or pupil loses much of its educative value. It may be that in the schools of the future the academic and manual departments will be carried on by different teachers, capable of doing their own work well, but able to relate the two lines of instruction. Until this can be realized, however, the schools as at present organized must do what they can toward training the hand, and a little ingenuity on the part of the teacher can bring surprising results from very meagre resources.


SOME PRACTICAL MANUAL TRAINING WORK

The following suggestions can be carried out in the grades, especially by teachers who are interested in any phase of manual or industrial education.

The possibilities of drawing in legitimate directions are almost unlimited. Accurate constructive work in drawing is of the highest educative value, both in itself and for the aid it may render the other subjects. The teacher who draws well and makes frequent use of the blackboard out-distances all of her associates in the profession who cannot draw. Every phase of nature study furnishes work in drawing. Geography can be made doubly interesting and effective with pencil and chalk. Arithmetic affords constant opportunity for constructive work. All teachers should learn to teach drawing, if for no other reason than to be able to use it in other departments of school work.

Then there is apparatus of all kinds to make, and home-made apparatus is the very best kind. It not only gives the children excellent drill in practical manual training work, but it supplies the school with needed apparatus at the least possible cost. One of the most valuable assets in a teacher's equipment is a set of tools and the ability to use them. It is no mean accomplishment to be able to design and construct a plain gate. It takes commendable skill to make a simple picture frame, and the different ways of fitting pieces into perfect squares call for much practice. A square, a saw, a hammer, a chisel or two, a brace and a bit will furnish an admirable outfit. The marking of a simple piece of apparatus, a box, gate, fence, shelf, or frame for the boys may show the way. As simple an equipment looking toward household industry may serve the same purpose for the girls. There is the designing, cutting, and making of simple garments, to say nothing of other activities in the home which make their chief and lasting appeal to girls. All these and more may be attempted, and may be made to supplement the work in the traditional subjects of study. Besides furnishing the very best of manual training work, they add interest and charm to the older lines of study.

With intensive, interesting, complete work, based upon the home life and industry, running through the grades, and the elimination of all dead, mechanical work based upon tradition, there would be time for much real manual training: bench work for the boys, much closer to the trades than manual training in the high school, and sewing and cooking for the girls. Such work carried through the grades would make more intensive, efficient work possible, and would be the means of attracting a larger number of pupils from the grades into the high school. In the high school, work may be undertaken looking toward higher, more systematic courses in college.

The problem of education is industrial as well as academic, Of the thirty-two million bread-winners in this country, some thirty million must work with their hands. Education must, therefore, exalt the dignity of labor; it must teach habits of industry; it must give ability to apply one's self to the problem in hand ; it must meet the demand for accurate, skilful work. The school work must be more practical for the great army of children in the grades, four-fifths of whom never reach the high school.

One great defect in school work in this country is that we have assumed in both the grades and high school that all children are of equal ability, and that their abilities lie in the same direction, when neither assumption is true. We have not caught the notion of equal opportunity, and then gone about providing for the training of the several abilities so as to fit men and women to meet the actual conditions of life. Education has aimed, and still aims, to train the head, and not the head and hand. It has prepared for college instead of for living. It has been too bookish - adapted only to those who can follow a long educational career. It has trained men for the careers of lawyers, preachers, doctors, teachers, and leaders, though there are not enough of these positions to go around. It has prepared the bosses, and has not thought of skilled labor in the ranks. In this sense it has been practical, but it has not met the needs of the common people, the overwhelming majority of whom must continue to work with their hands. We must make more adequate provision in our schools for the education of those who must begin early to earn their living.


BOYS AND GIRLS SOON TO BECOME BREAD-WINNERS

One of the greatest criticisms that can now be made upon our schools, city, town, and country, is that no tangible, vital relation exists between school education and the other essential forms of education. Since the home and the farm and the shop no longer train the children efficiently, there is a greater call upon the school to take up the work so cast off. But the school has not assumed the responsibility nor met the new demand, and it cannot do so as at present organized.


The great majority of the children in school to-day will shortly need to become bread-winners, and they will have to work with their hands. They will take up every form of industry. The farm and factory and mine and shop will demand skilled labor. It is doubtful whether the schools of town, city, or country are doing the best that can be done for these children. No impractical thing, nothing that raises impossible ideals and false hopes, nothing that belittles or ignores honest work and lessens efficiency, should have time and place in the schools. The nature and needs of the particular child must determine what shall be done.

If this nation is to endure, all of the people must be educated. If they are to be prosperous and happy, they must be intelligent, temperate, industrious, skilful, and constantly employed. These qualities come only with the right kind of education. They make for manhood and womanhood.

The proper introduction of manual and industrial training in the grades and in the high school will be the means of keeping larger numbers of bo3rs and girls in the schools through both the grades and the high schools. It will raise the average intelligence in the country, and will direct larger numbers of our young people toward the higher institutions of learning.

So, in the way indicated, industrial training is to get a foothold in the schools. Its development depends upon the teacher. It is a question of the teacher's ability to use the material at hand - material furnished by the home life of the child and the industrial life of the community. A consideration of experiences in the shop and on the farm will furnish the very best opportunity for teaching the dignity of labor, and for showing the advantages of farm life and other industries. It will open a way for showing how to proceed intelligently in any occupation. The main thing is to teach the boy and girl how to attack a problem and to carry it to a successful solution. And they need to be taught that skilful execution is one of the chief factors in success of any kind. From the stand-point of character-building, it matters but little upon what problems pupils work, but the attitude displayed and the habits formed as they attempt a solution are matters of great moment. Intelligent attack, orderly procedure, skilful execution, painstaking completion, habits of industry, good, honest work, respect for labor, the ability to do things - these are the qualities that belong to real education.

The work offered in the following pages is intended for the boys in the seventh and eighth grades, and the first and second years in the high school.

It will be found valuable to teachers of these grades, both for its method and its subject-matter. It is a course of study in wood-work, particularly, for the boys of the grades named, while at the same time it gives enough of method and device and direction to make successful work possible without making it burdensome. It does not presuppose on the part of the teacher special training in the manual arts, but, on the contrary, brings to the untrained teacher the help of a specialist, who furnishes in the following pages an abundance of carefully graded problems that admit of solution in shops of simple construction and equipment. Given a teacher of average ability, and some appreciation of the meaning of the new movement in education, and this book will quickly find its proper place in the industrial development of the boys of the community.

Teachers should recognize the fact that the principles of pedagogy used in presenting the academic subjects are the basis of all teaching, and that they should be applied to the teaching of industrial subjects.

The first and indeed the greatest difficulty encountered in teaching wood-work is to begin in such a way that the child will do a definite thing and at the same time not be swamped in the number and variety of tools and operations which he must use. To that end it will be well to keep the following well-known facts in mind.

1. The work must be definite and must proceed from the simple to the complex by easy and successive stages.

2. No work should be assigned to a child which it cannot do in a reasonable time and with some degree of success.

3. One new fact or one new operation is all that should be included in any assignment, and it is by no means necessary that every assignment include something new.

At first the interest of the pupils is centred in the tool, for it is new to them. The teacher who does not take advantage of the newness of the tools to develop some little skill in their use and a knowledge of the working parts, before the novelty is gone, places upon himself and the pupil a dead load which must be lifted later.

In the beginning the child has no standard of accuracy. He does not know the requirements of a working face or a joint edge, or when a joint is well fitted, and such knowledge is difficult to get from a book.

The class demonstration should furnish this information. The teacher should be careful, however, not to make a demonstration too long, and should leave a sample of his own work where the pupil can refer to it as a standard.

The knowledge and skill of the teacher should always be an inspiration to the class.

No pupil should be allowed to begin a piece of work, however simple, until he has a clear statement of the problem.

The first four problems in the suggested course of study are arranged so as to centre the attention of the pupil on a single tool and its use. The frequent references made to the main text call the attention of the pupil to the fact that the first problems do not include all that is necessary for them to know. They will soon realize that they are enjoying a handicap and will not object to having it gradually removed.

One of the most difficult problems for the teacher is to aid the pupil in selecting a suitable article to make. As a rule, the pupil will want to make something which requires much more time and skill than he has. To begin a piece which the pupil is not able to finish leads to discouragement and waste of time and material. On the other hand, the work must be serious enough to call for his best effort and the result must appeal to the pupil as being worthwhile. In the beginning classes it is believed that the freedom of choice from a small group of models or drawings will insure better class teaching and more direct results than will come from the use of a larger group.

The subject of trees and their uses should be the object of outside reading.

Publications of the government department of forestry furnish valuable information on the subject of forestry and lumbering. These publications are free. The encyclopaedia will give much interesting information on lumbering and any particular kind of tree.

The school library or the shop reading-room should be supplied with catalogues of builders and cabinet hardware and lists of lumber which are on sale in the locality.

When all possible has been said, the text and the course of study are but tools in the hands of the teacher, who is the master mechanic.

E. G. Allen,