Learning moulding, and manufacturing school equipment. (Gary, Ind.)

      The first three grades spend one hour a day in manual training and drawing, which take the form of simple hand-work and are not done in the shops, but in an especially equipped room with a trained teacher. The pupils draw, do painting and clay modeling, sewing and simple carpentry work. The five higher grades spend twice as much time on manual training and drawing. The little children go into the shops as helpers and watchers, much as they go into the science laboratories, and they pick up almost as much theory and understanding of processes as the older children possess. The art work and simpler forms of hand-work are kept up for the definite training in control and technique that comes from carrying through a problem independently. Because the small child’s love of creating is very great, they continue until the pupils are old enough to choose what shop they will go into as apprentices to the teacher. Since sixth grade children are old enough and strong enough to begin doing the actual work of repairing and maintaining the building, in this grade they cease to be watchers and helpers and become real workers. Distributing school supplies, keeping the school records and taking care of the grounds are done by the pupils under the direction of the school office or the botanical laboratory, and constitute a course in shop work just as much as does painting or repairing the electric lights. The school heat and power plant is also a laboratory for the pupils, in which they learn the principles of heating and lighting in a thoroughly practical way because they do much of the work connected with keeping the plant running.

      The shop and science courses of the schools last only a third of the year, and there is a shorter probation course of five weeks. The pupils choose with the advice of their teachers what shop course they will take; if at the end of five weeks they do not like it they may change. They must change twice during the year. In this way the work can not lose its educational character and become simply a method of making juvenile factory hands to do the school repairs. Taking three shop courses in one school year results in giving the pupil merely a superficial knowledge of the theory and processes of any one kind of work. But this is as it should be, for the pupils are not taking the courses to become carpenters, or electricians, or dressmakers, but to find out how the work of the world is done. Moving as they do from one thing to another they learn as much of the theory of the industry as children of their age can understand, while an all-around muscular and sense training is insured. To confine the growing child too long to the same kind of muscular activity is harmful both mentally and physically; to keep on growing he must have work which exercises his whole body, which presents new problems, keeps teaching him new things, and thus develops his powers of reasoning and judgment. Any manual labor ceases to be educative the moment it becomes thoroughly familiar and automatic.

      In Gary, the child of the newly arrived immigrant from the agricultural districts of eastern Europe has as much chance to prepare for a vocation, that is really to learn his own capabilities for the environment in which he finds himself, as the child of the educated American. From the time he enters the public school system, whether day nursery, kindergarten, or first grade, he is among people who are interested in making him see things as they are, and in teaching him how to do things. In the nursery he has toys to play with which teach him to control his body; and he learns unconsciously, by being well taken care of, some of the principles of hygiene and right living. In the kindergarten the work to train his growing body to perform useful and accurate motions and coördination goes on. In the first three grades, emphasis is put on teaching him to read and write and obtain a good foundation for the theoretical knowledge which comes from books. His physical growth is taken care of on the playground, where he spends about two hours a day, doing things that develop his whole body in a natural way and playing games that give him opportunity to satisfy his desire to play. At the same time he is taking the first steps in a training which is more specifically vocational, in that it deals with the practical bread and butter side of life. He learns to handle the materials which lie at the foundations of civilization in much the same way that primitive people used them, because this way is suited to the degree of skill and understanding he has reached. On a little hand loom he weaves a piece of coarse cloth; with clay he makes dishes or other objects that are familiar to him; with reeds or raffia he makes baskets; and with pencil or paints he draws for the pleasure of making something beautiful; with needle and thread he makes himself a bag or apron. All these activities teach him the first steps in the manufacture of the things which are necessary to our life as we live it. The weaving and sewing show him how our clothing is made; the artistic turn that is given to all this work, through modeling and drawing, teach him that even the simplest things in life can be made beautiful, besides furnishing a necessary method of self-expression.

      In the fourth grade the pupils stop the making of isolated things, the value of which lies entirely in the process of making, and where the thing’s value lies solely in its interest to the child. They still have time, however, to train whatever artistic ability they may possess, and to develop through their music and art the esthetic side of their nature. But the rest of their hand-work takes a further vocational turn. The time for manual occupation