Manual training play problems

When teaching manual training in the upper grammar grades, I announced that a special class would be formed the next afternoon for all boys interested in special work. Two dozen applicants met the next afternoon after school. It was agreed that we should call ourselves the "Experimental Mechanics," that the hours should be 3:30 to 5:00 each afternoon after school and 10:00 to 12:00 each morning on Saturdays and holidays, and that punctuality would be required for each boy to hold membership in the class.

The morning of Thanksgiving Day, Clinton Toms, a son of the superintendent of several of the large factories of the city, came in fifteen minutes late.

"Why, Clinton! What does this mean!" I said. "Oversleep yourself this morning?"

"No, sir. I was up before five o'clock. Papa said I must level up the front yard this morning, so I got up two hours before breakfast and worked until daylight with a lantern fastened to the wheel- barrow so that I could come over and work on my glider," was his reply.

On another morning two boys, whose parents did not permit them to join the "Experimental Mechanics," came to school quite late. Upon inquiry, I found that the boys had gotten up before daylight in order to try out in the near-by hills a large glider which they had constructed in a neighbor's barn. The glider came to grief, and the parents reprimanded the boys when they heard about it; but this did not deter the boys from later building a large-size aeroplane. Everything was ready for flying the aeroplane, except putting in the motor, when the parents became aware of the fact that the boys actually intended to fly it; and it too was destroyed, but in a somewhat different manner from the glider.

These instances of the interest in "constructive-play" activities manifested by the children, which continue so forcibly to come to my attention, have been the spur which has prompted me to organize such problems in available form so that the boys and girls can construct them at school or at home.

All the detailed problems herewith presented cover several years of personal work with children in the settlements and the vacation schools of New York City and Pittsburgh, and in the regular public schools in various parts of the United States. These problems are practical for school work because we have tried them out on the playground and in the school workshop. In thus being tested, faults of construction have been found and corrected, and improvements in design have been made. I have found that working from the drawings of a problem that has not been tested by experience is often times a costly experiment. Many of the problems suggested in the boys' magazines have simply been worked out of an adult mind ; and, when these directions for construction are followed by the boy, the object has oftentimes failed to work. Unless the boy is especially talented or has someone to help him over the obstacles, the difficulty has been so dismaying that it has put a damper on his future self effort. By having the drawings and photograph accompany definite suggestions for the construction of each problem, I have found that it is possible to have the children at school or at home intelligently construct objects that are a source of satisfaction and pleasure to themselves.

I wish to express my sincere thanks to the many friends who have so kindly helped me with their suggestions and criticisms, and especially do I thank the boys and the girls who have so generously and willingly made the various problems that are shown in the photographic illustrations.

WILLIAM S. MARTEN.

It is true that the present existing conditions of school work are far from what they should be. Smaller classes, more time and material for constructive work, and better equipment are important conditions necessary to secure good results in school work, but more important than these are the intelligent selection of equipment and obtaining of supplies as well as proper class management. The wise class teacher knows that too much individual instruction is as bad, if not worse, than the formality necessitated by large classes, that the boys and girls should to some extent be thrown upon their own resources and left to think out for themselves the solution of their own problems. The wise teacher also considers equipment in its application to conditions. The writer has seen most successful vacation school work in poor districts carried on with a very meager equipment, when only such tools and materials as entered into the home life of the children were available. In other poor localities of the same city where the best of equipment was secured, the result was a failure because the tools and materials furnished did not carry over into the home life of the children. The result of this well-intentioned but unwise effort made the boys dissatisfied with home conditions because the tools and materials provided were outside of the reach of the boy in his own home life. The best benches and tools were installed, and wood was secured from the mill in perfect condition for assembling, rather than using improvised benches and making use of packing boxes, cigar boxes, old clock works, cereal boxes, barrel hoops, and scraps thrown out by industrial plants.

In many places the writer has made arrangements with the factories to obtain at slight cost materials that were used for the shop work problems. For instance, for the summer school work of the Playground Association of Pittsburgh, Pa., we obtained from one of the box factories enough strips of wood, simply at the expense of the hauling, to supply all of the vacation schools with material to make many problems requiring thin strips, such as toys, gliders, and kites. From another woodworking mill we obtained loads of the select pieces of scrap wood and supplied this to each of the schools. This wood sold for firewood was used to make the smaller problems. Children were encouraged to bring in and make a collection of odds and ends that served a purpose in this kind of work. A list of usable things was brought to the attention of the children so that they knew what to collect. The following is a list of things from which an intelligent selection will be found useful for this work:

Excellent training and economic advantages are gained in making use of the odds and ends and raw materials at hand. Storage closets, corner shelves, or boxes should be provided in which to keep the assortment of various things thus collected. By no means allow this storage closet to become simply a pile of junk. Remember that system and order is necessary in caring for all supplies. Even greater care is necessary in handling this kind of material.

The following suggestions will give some idea of possible economy in the use of materials: (1) box edging, from box factory, for kites, gliders, and thin wood toys requiring strips; (2) select scraps of wood from the woodworking mills for various small problems; (3) hogs- heads and barrel hoops and staves, and reeds and cattails, for bows and arrows; (4) tin waste from factories, and tin cans for parts of toys, etc.; (5) orange crates for kites and all thin wood problems; (6) packing boxes for house furnishing rooms; (7) springs, wheels, and old clock works for toys and elementary science apparatus; (8) cereal boxes, candy boxes, etc., for house furnishing problems; (9) cigar boxes for thin wood projects requiring boxes; (10) drug packing boxes for ring toss, games, etc.

To construct the object it is necessary to understand the drawing. In order that the boy or the girl may understand the use of the drawing more easily, the photograph and the accompanying Drawings, suggestions are offered as a help. To clearly understand and Printed the drawing and printed directions, it is important that Directions, the materials and tools be taken in hand. As the work progresses under these conditions the directions will become clear to the worker. Some advantages of these drawings lie in the freedom that is possible in planning the problems (the dimensions given are intended as suggestions only); the possibility of individual expression in form, outline, and decoration ; and the possibilities for individual creativeness and inventiveness in the mechanical arrangement of parts and movements.

There are many opportunities for the play of individuality even in the large classes if a reasonable amount of time is taken for the preparation of the lesson and for its execution. Almost any problem can be used as a type, and with it various modifications of proportion and outline are possible. With paper and scissors in the hands of the pupils, individual outlines can be developed, and these can be used as templates or patterns. In thus working out the outlines it is important that plenty of time be allowed for class discussions of good and bad proportions of the patterns cut. A careful leading up to the final results is bound to produce satisfactory results. In cases where time for this development is not possible, patterns worked out by capable pupils or by the teacher must be provided.