The manual arts

Preface

npHE greatest present problems affecting the -■■ manual arts In education, whether that education be vocational or cultural In Its aim, are centered around the selection and organization of subject-matter and methods of teaching. Believing this to be true, the author contributes the following chapters to the discussion of these problems, hoping that they may be of some service to his fellow workers.

Several of the chapters have previously appeared as articles in magazines. When brought together, however, they have a significance which they did not possess as isolated articles appearing from time to time over a period of several years.

Acknowledgment for permission to republish is due to Education, Educational Review, Vocational Education and Manual Training Magazine.

Chas. a. Bennett.

Peoria, Illinois, March 28, 1917.

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Chapter I. Which of the Manual Arts Shall Be Taught in the Schools?. ... 11

Manual efficiency of our forefathers. Manual work not taught in school, but the three R's taught for their practical value. The expansion of education to include science, engineering and history. Modern living and business conditions compared with those of our grandfathers. The greater use of machinery. Modern home conveniences and labor-saving devices require a more general knowledge of the principles and processes of industry. Appreciation of industrial products and ability to purchase intelligently require industrial knowledge. The school must teach industry. The manual arts classified with reference to subject-matter. The graphic arts a language. Interdependence of the graphic arts and constructive arts. The mechanic arts. Increasing importance of the plastic arts. The textile arts. The peculiar importance of the book-making arts. All of the five groups of manual arts should be taught in the schools.

Chapter II. The Place of the Manual Arts in Education 22

The dual function of the manual arts in education. The manual arts as a means in attaining the end in education. Ways in which the manual arts contribute to social efficiency. The manual arts as a factor in the educative process. Importance of experience. The manual arts regarded as both subject and method. The place of the manual arts in the primary grades; in the grammar grades; in the high school. Variety of materials, processes, experiences, and little technic in the primary grades. Good technic, the formation of correct habits, thoroness, problems of industrial value in grammar grades. Vocational purpose, emphasis on processes that are fundamental, industrial standards in the high school.

Chapter III. The Development of Appreciation 3S

Results of manual arts instruction; power to do, power to appreciate what others do. Conditions of appreciation: ability to produce, ability to express, experience. To know about a work of art is not sufficient basis for appreciation. Illustrations from music. Similar illustrations in water-color painting, art smithing, hammered copper. Difference between appreciation of the thing represented and appreciation of the art employed in representation. Experience essential. Summary. The function of the public schools in reference to teaching appreciation. Public school curriculum should include fundamental processes of the five manual arts.

Chapter IV. Vocational Training: To What Extent Justifiable in Public Schools 46

Educational expenditure in business enterprises. The amount of such expenditure that is justifiable

Table of Contents

Application of the same principle to public education. Purpose of public schools fundamentally vocational. Economic value of education not sufficiently appreciated in America. Emphasis on vocational elements in education need not mean sacrifice of cultural elements. The best cultural education may come thru a training that is fundamentally vocational. The nation is justified in training specialists. Origin of the term "Made in Germany." Motive in the development of vocational education in Germany.

Chapter V. The Selection and Organization OF Subject-Matter in the Manual Arts 54

No need of sharp line of demarkation between vocational training and cultural training. Vocational training in the manual arts is good manual training plus the factory system. Desirable to select subject-matter having present industrial value. Select subject-matter from typical common industries rather than from exceptional or uncommon ones. Statistics concerning industries. Selection of subject-matter based on analysis of industries. Factories recognize the importance of analysis. Different kinds of analysis. Importance ' of selecting typical modern industries for analysis. Group analysis. Each group to contain some vital element or elements. Groups arranged in sequential order.

Chapter VI. The Group Method of Organizing Subject-Matter in the Manual Arts with Reference to Teaching 68

Original purpose of the group method to harmonize class and individual instruction. Difficulties in teaching that called forth the group method. Illustrations of these difficulties. A course of instruction under the group method. Class instruction. Individual instruction. The group method and class management. No two pupils work the same combination of problems. A parallel found in the teaching of history. Illustration of a course. A group described. Allows for varied methods of teaching in the same class. Graph of accomplishment. Individual differences provided for. Individual development combined with class progress.

Chapter VII. The Use of the Factory System in Teaching the Manual Arts 85

Turning out a salable product is not sufficient guarantee that a school shop is giving supeiror instruction; a factory does that and makes no pretense at being an educational institution. Large factories are teaching their apprentices in non-productive shops organized on an educational basis. Producing woodworking factory shop at Bradley Institute. Its equipment. Disposing of the products of the factory. Cost system introduced Shop order sheet, cost sheet, time slip. Course of instruction. Groups A, B, C, D, E, and F. Conclusions. Value of a producing factory demonstrated for advanced in-

Table of Contents 9

struction; non-producing factory better for early stages of shop instruction. Opinions of manufacturers.

Chapter VIII. Three Typical Methods OF Teaching the Manual Arts 103

Three typical methods described: (i) imitative, (2) discovery, (3) inventive. Utilization of the instinct to imitate. Value of the imitative method in teaching technic, in guiding habit formation. The control of imitation. Claims for the discovery method. Emphasizes individual differences. As a matter of fact pupils will imitate each other if not allowed to imitate the teacher. Discovery method uneconomical. Effect of the inventive method compared with that of the imitative. Student's relation to his work in the inventive method. Summary. All three methods should be used in teaching the manual arts in public schools.

Questions 113

CHAPTER I. Which of the Manual Arts shall be Taught in the Schools?

/^UR forefathers came to this country civil- ^^^ ized and equipped for the tasks before them. They came with habits of worship and reverence, with ideals of liberty and with knowledge of legal procedure. They came also with manual efficiency; some were farmers; others were carpenters, masons, millers, wheelwrights and blacksmiths; the women could spin and weave, sew and cook, clean and manage a household. When schools were established, these were to train men to become lawyers, statesmen and preachers of the gospel. Schools for the manual industries were not needed because everybody worked with his hands, and the theories, recipes and traditions of the crafts were handed down from father to son, or from master to apprentice. The common schools taught all children to read and write because such instruction was considered a necessary safeguard to the democratic form of government which was adopted. Ability to cipher, also, was considered desirable for all, and in the villages and towns it soon became essential because it had to do with money and the sale of merchandise.

Decades came and went and left pioneers still subduing the forest lands and exterminating the Indians. Generations passed; cities began to spring up and grow; the prairie lands of the Central States began to yield an abundant harvest and the mines to give up their rich stores. Manual labor, joined with natural resources, yielded great wealth. But during all this time the school was not called upon to train in manual industry. The school had, however, greatly increased its facilities for training for citizenship and the professions; academies, colleges and professional schools had been established and were rapidly growing into great universities; and the common schools had been multiplied to keep pace with the expanding frontier.

Then came the demand for men trained In science and engineering to build railroads and bridges, canals and aqueducts, engines, ships and machinery of all kinds. This practical demand led to the establishment of schools of science and engineering, and soon the science studies found their way into the curriculum of the common schools. The growth and struggles of the nation demanded a more broadly educated citizenship, and historical studies and the study of social problems also found a place in school work.

While all this remarkable development has been going on In the national life and in the school, the mode of living has changed as rapidly. The simple life of the earlier days has given way to the many complexities of our present life. Now we all want modern houses; we want them individual in design, finished in hard woods, heated by automatically regulated furnaces, supplied with an abundance of water, gas, electricity, and telephones connecting us with our neighbors and friends. We want artistic draperies, rugs and wall coverings, good furniture, fine pictures, statuary and musical instruments. If we compare our present homes with the homes of our grandfathers when we were children, we realize what a rapid and remarkable change has taken place. About the same change has taken place in reference to our food and clothing. Instead of contenting ourselves with what can be raised in our own garden or our own town, we get food from the most distant parts of the earth, and by rapid transportation we have largely overcome the limitations of season. We no longer spin and weave in our own homes ; knitting by hand is almost a lost art, and most of the sewing is done "on the machine." When we turn from the home to business the same is true. The farmer who is not equipped with motive power and machinery, can hardly expect to compete in the market. The ox team has given way to the traction engine, the cradle to the self-binding reaper, and so on thru the list. This is equally true in manufacturing and nearly every other line of business.

Things are being done at greater speed and in a manner that requires a more elaborate equipment. All this development has immensely increased the output demanded of the producing and distributing industries. This demand in turn has increased the need for skilled workmen. Another factor that has acted with this need is the internal development in the industries themselves, which has come in part from the necessity of a more economical use of materials, but principally from the discoveries of science and their application to industry. If one tries to enumerate the changes in the metal industries alone that have followed the application of electricity in the telegraph, the telephone, the electric light, and electric motors he soon sees how endless is the undertaking. A very important result of this development in the industries is the need of men with a wider knowledge of the materials and processes of industry and the principles upon which the processes and the use of the materials rest. This knowledge is not being handed down from father to son to any great extent, nor from master to apprentice, partly because the factory system does not easily lend itself to education, and partly because the knowledge needed is so new that even the masters themselves find it difficult to keep up with the development. But this need for a wider knowledge of the principles and processes of industry is not confined to the workers in these producing industries. Every man who would intelligently use the modern conveniences of his own home, or the labor-saving devices and conveniences of business life, must know something of the materials and principles of industry; and if he is to have any adequate appreciation of the product — if he is to judge the quality of the thing he purchases or uses, he must know something of the process that produced it. In fact, industrial development has been so rapid and so varied in our country — it has affected every man's life to such an extent that if he is to retain sufficient mastery of his environment to make it serve his needs, he is forced to acquire considerable practical knowledge of the materials, principles and processes of industry. As we have already seen, this knowledge is not being handed down from parent to child in any adequate way, and so we look to the school to furnish it. And if the school is to furnish it, the school must be equipped with the tools of industry.

Having accepted the responsibility for giving instruction in the industries, the school finds itself facing a long series of problems of selection, organization and administration. Most of these problems are still unsolved, tho many of them are being solved.

Perhaps the problem of first importance relates to the selection of subject-matter. Which of the many manual arts shall be taught? Are some more fundamental than others? How can the i6 The Manual Arts

manual arts be classified? What shall be the basis of our choice between them? These questions are consciously or unconsciously being answered for individual schools, but too often without a sufficiently broad view of the needs and the possibilities. To find adequate answers one must survey the whole field of the manual arts as applied to industry; he must search out a basis for classification; then he must select fundamental processes in each class. Perhaps no better classification has been suggested than the following:

(a) the graphic arts.

(b) the mechanic arts.

(c) the plastic arts. {d) the textile arts.

(e) the book-making arts.

These five should be found in every course in the manual arts which extends thru the elementary school period, and if cooking is more art than science, the culinary arts should form a sixth class. The graphic arts were the first to be given a place in school work. These include all forms of drawing, both freehand and mechanical. The industries they represent are numerous — architectural and machine drafting, all forms of engineering drawing, designing for a variety of industries, and illustrating for newspapers, magazines and books. The increasing importance of these arts is apparent to everyone who gives the matter mought, and the more one gives It thought, the more firmly convinced does he become that there is great need of revising many of our school courses in drawing so that they will be in harmony with the needs of the industries. Courses may be made far more practical than they are at the present time without being less cultural, and the more they harmonize with the best industrial practice in these arts, the more highly will they be valued by the community. Too often the drawing work has been a blind struggle for self-expression, when good representation would have been far better. Drawing is a language, and as such, a considerable knowledge of its symbols and forms must precede effective expression, especially in grades above the primary school. The fact that the graphic arts do serve as a language, transmitting thought concerning form and relative size, direction and curvature, tone and color, gives them a unique and important place in their relation to the other manual arts. For this reason, then, the graphic arts are fundamental, and rightly deserve first place In any course of instruction in the manual arts.

But just as power to write good English is of comparatively little value without thoughts to express, so the graphic arts are robbed of half their value if not accompanied by some of the other manual arts. Mechanical drawing, for example, becomes too theoretical and often almost useless when not accompanied by woodworking and metalworking. Design, as we have been told so many times during the past few years, and are now just coming to believe, can be taught at Its best only when associated with work In the material into which the design is to be wrought. The use of the object suggests the form ; this Is modified by the materials; both form and materials, together with the toals, limit the design, and often suggest it. If necessary, other examples could be given to show the dependence of the graphic arts upon the constructive arts. Without the graphic arts the constructive arts have no means of communication, no language; they are dumb. Without the constructive arts the graphic arts are lacking in content, in thought. In application. The Interdependence Is thus apparent.

Of these constructive arts the mechanic arts have been most prominent in the minds of advocates of manual training. This is chiefly due to the fact that they deal especially with the two great constructive materials of our civilization — wood and metal. Not only the building and machine industries, but most manufacturing and engineering enterprises — ships, railways, private vehicles, home furnishings and conveniences depend upon the skillful use of these two materials. The mechanic arts therefore appropriately head the list of constructive arts.

In marked contrast with the mechanic arts, yet in many ways associated with them, are the plastic arts. These include brick and tile making, concrete construction, pottery, terra cotta and modeling. These arts at present find their best school counterpart in clay-work. Year by year the industries involving the plastic arts are becoming more and more important. The exploitation of our forests is making recourse to the clay bank a necessity in building. Demonstration of the possibilities of reinforced concrete construction is placing sand and cement in competition with steel. As the cities grow in size calling for more large buildings, the demand for ornamental tiles and terra cotta increases, and under similar circumstances there is an increased demand upon the plastic arts for the decoration of the interiors of buildings. From the standpoint of industry, then, the plastic arts constitute an important division of the manual arts, and from the school standpoint clay-work is one of the very best means of training; it is form study work par excellence.

The fourth group of arts is the textile arts. This includes spinning, weaving, braiding, dyeing, basketry, knitting, sewing, embroidery, garment making — a large number of processes fundamental in our civilization. No further discussion of these is necessary; their vital importance is apparent.

The fifth group consists of the book-making arts — printing, engraving, lettering, leather tooling, bookbinding and construction work with paper, cardboard and paste. While these arts are not as fundamental to man's existence as the fourth group, which provides his clothing, and the second and third, which provide his shelter, they do provide his chief means of storing up thought and transmitting it from one man to another and from generation to generation. This group of arts, then, is essential to progress if not to existence, and to that extent it is fundamental. From the school standpoint this group is one of especial value because it relates so readily to other school work; many of its processes are simple, requiring but little equipment and only such materials as are readily obtainable.

To these five may be added the culinary arts; yet for some reasons the preparation of foods is more fittingly classified among the sciences than among the arts. Undoubtedly it is both a science and an art, and whether it is more one than the other is of no importance here. The essential point is that food-work is fundamental to civilization, and should have a place among the other manual arts in the school.

No school system should be satisfied with teaching only one or two of the manual arts; some practical experience in all of them is necessary to prepare for the enjoyment of modern home and industrial conditions, and essential to an adequate appreciation of the arts of modern life.

The public school has a noble record and should not be diverted from its traditional purpose, which manifestly is to round out preparation for living, not in the remote or the near past, but to-day, in modern surroundings. Thomas Davidson has said that education "has grown with the growth of practical intelligence, and has been in all cases a preparation for life under existing institutions." It is the schoolman's duty to analyze present conditions, determining what constitutes a preparation for adequate living, and then shape the work of his school accordingly.

CHAPTER II. The Place of the Manual Arts in Education

AS the field of school education broadens, its aims and methods become more varied and complex, and often confused. This is certainly the case today in that departmicnt of education which deals with the manual arts. The motives for the introduction of these arts have come to be so varied that to think clearly concerning this phase of school work is very difficult. This is perhaps fundamentally due to changing social ideals and consequent demands, but it is partly due to a failure of educators to recognize that the manual arts function in school education both in attaining the end of education and in facilitating the educative process. The teacher needs to keep in mind this dual capacity which the manual arts possess as a means in education.

This duality of function is not peculiar to the manual arts. It is equally true of the natural sciences, and many have been the pedagogical battles fought out in that field in times past. One can readily recall the time when the science teachers were dwelling in two camps, one emphasizing the facts of science and the other the method. It would seem, therefore, that the arts might have profited by the experience of the sciences, but in much of the discussion during the past fifteen years, this surely has not been the case and is not today. One man looks upon the manual arts as a body of subject-matter to be taught as he would teach the facts of history; another insists that the manual arts must be regarded as a fundamental method of education, and claims to care little or nothing for the subject-matter involved in this method. The place, therefore, of the manual arts in the one case is quite different from that in the other. One leads chiefly to a mastery of the materials and the manual processes of industry, the other to a new motive and means of expression in teaching other subjects. The man whose vision penetrates deep enough sees that the big truth concerning the manual arts includes both of these, and that instead of being in conflict, they are really in harmony. When this viewpoint has been gained. a most fundamental step has been taken toward finding the place of the manual arts in education.

In discussing this larger view, four propositions may be considered:

/. In so far as the end in education can be attained more readily through the employment of the manual arts, these arts should have a place in education.

The end of education changes from age to age as civilization advances, and should be in harmony with the Ideals and Institutions of the time. At the present time no end seems so much In harmony with needs and the highest Ideals as that of social efficiency In the Individual. In Its broad Interpretation, this term seems to summarize all other worthy alms, and points toward a goal not yet reached. Taking for granted, then, that the ultimate end of education Is social efficiency in the individual, the manual arts should have a place In school education corresponding to their effectiveness in helping men to become socially efficient.

As social efficiency in the individual means first of all that each individual must be directly or indirectly a productive member of society, the arts must answer the demand of productivity. To be productive a man must at least "pull his own weight." He may do so either "directly as a productive agent, or indirectly by guiding, inspiring, or educating others to productive effort."^

As productivity in the great majority of Individuals Is the direct result of the Intelligent and skillful use of the hands, it follows that training in the manual arts, which more than any other division of school work develops such use of the hands, should be given a place sufficiently large to allow such training to be effective. Until sufficient time is allowed in the school program for manual arts, no one should expect large results from them. With a time allowance which will require as much

^Bagley: The Educative Process.

of the pupil's effort as Is given to the other fundamental studies, both Inside and outside the school, the manual arts will yield results which count large on the side of productivity.

The manual arts contribute to social efficiency In several ways. They not only give vocational power, contributing largely to ability to earn a livelihood, but they Impart first-hand knowledge of the material accessories of modern life. Every man's effectiveness and happiness is dependent in some measure — sometimes In large measure — upon the ease and Intelligence with which he utilizes the modern conveniences In his own home or the material devices which make for economy and efficiency In business life. Moreover, the manual arts develop appreciation of beauty In Its relation to material form, color, tone, and texture, which is an element not only in esthetic enjoyment but In general efficiency and productivity. And, further, the manual arts provide a means in addition to written language, of transmitting from generation to generation and age to age, some of the choicest thoughts and feelings of man. Since the manual arts contribute so largely to social efficiency, and social efficiency is the end sought in education, the manual arts deserve a place in school work.

2. In so far as the educative process can be accelerated and made more thoro thru the employment of the manual arts, these arts should have a place in education.

The educative process is one of gaining experience either directly, or Indirectly, thru other persons or their records in books or works. In this process of gaining experience, the value and effectiveness of indirect experience is dependent to a very large extent upon related direct experience. There Is no substitute for such of these direct experiences as are fundamental, and the greater the number, the greater will be ''the mass of apperceiving ideas," tho after some fundamental direct experiences have been gained, it is often economy to make use of indirect experiences. To gain the fundamental direct experience at the time when needed and in the right relation to associated indirect experience is most desirable. To bring this about is largely the work of the school, and therefore the school must have the necessary means at hand.

Applied to the manual arts, this indicates that if these arts are to be effectively taught in the school, or if real appreciation of these arts is to be developed, first-hand experience must be gained In them In the school. It Is folly to try to teach a girl to appreciate needlework without giving her needle and thread and cloth and teaching her to sew, but after she has learned the fundamentals of sewing this knowledge will serve as a basis for the appreciation of results in needlework quite beyond her skill to produce, and wholly beyond her ability to appreciate before she had learned the fundamentals of needlecraft. Moreover, many of the other subjects of the school curriculum — certainly of the elementary school — are naturally so interwoven In the manual arts and find practical application so widely thru them, that direct experience In these arts provides a motive, a need, recognizable by the child, which is at the basis of many of our modern methods of teaching. A child wants to make a picture book. In making it he must measure and he must divide; he should also increase his practical vocabulary; In addition to these he may learn something of the early history of books and of the source of paper and strawboard and cloth and paste ; he may then collect pictures and learn something of the lives of the men who painted them and the thoughts and feelings they desired to express thru them. Thus the manual arts serve as a method or means of teaching other subjects, and so contribute an element of value in the educative process.

5. If the place of the manual arts in education depends upon their service In attaining the end of education and their value In the educative process, then they should be regarded as both subject and method.

The history of handwork In education reveals two traceable tendencies concerning the place of the manual arts which have been more or less In conflict. One has been to regard these arts as a subject and the other as a method.

Dr. Pabst of Lelpslc has pointed out ^ that Heuslnger believed that the Impulse to activity should be used to lead man to avenues of knowledge which otherwise would remain closed to him. Froebel emphasized and developed this idea and placed handwork at the very center of the curriculum. Herbart, on the contrary, and many of his followers, use handwork as a means of teaching the other school subjects, and make handwork dependent upon the other branches of Instruction for its problems. Salomon in Sweden, Goetze in Germany, and most of the early leaders of manual training in England and in this country regarded their work as a subject co-ordinate with other subjects in the curriculum, while Colonel Parker and several child-study specialists in this country and in England have given marked emphasis to handwork as a method in education; and much of the literature of the subject of a few years ago was written from the viewpoint of these men. During the past few years, with the advent of the movement toward industrial education, there has been a growing tendency again to give emphasis to the manual arts because of their content value, but, let it be hoped, without forgetting their process value.

Today it seems clear that the manual arts in education should function both as subject and

^Handwork Instruction for Boys, translated by Bertha Reed CofFman.

method. The advocate of either view by Itself seems not to present the whole truth. To contend that In order to have educative value, work in the manual arts must smack of a trade, or to look upon these arts in the school as merely producing certain specified material forms In clay or wood or metal, without reference to how they are produced; or again, to think of the manual arts as merely a body of facts to be learned about materials, tools, forms, colors, and processes, is to fail to get an adequate Idea of the place of the manual arts in education. On the other hand, to insist, as some have done, that the function of the manual arts is to provide a concrete method of teaching other school subjects, or to supply a motive or need which will admit of a better method of teaching the other subjects, is to reveal an equally inadequate conception of the function of the manual arts In education. Only thru the unification of these two views of the manual arts, regarding them as possessing at once the characteristics of both subject and method, can we hope to get the true and adequate conception which will be a safe guide in organizing manual arts work In the school.