CHAPTER X.
MANUAL AND MENTAL TRAINING COMBINED.
The new Education is all-sided — its Effect. — A Harmonious Development of the Whole Being. — Examination for Admission to the Chicago School. — List of Questions in Arithmetic, Geography, and Language. — The Curriculum. — The Alternation of Manual and Mental Exercises. — The Demand for Scientific Education — its Effect. — Ambition to be useful.
We have now passed in review all the school laboratories, from the engine-room, or laboratory where power is generated, to the Machine-tool Laboratory where power is utilized, or harnessed, and compelled to do the work of man. We have observed the student, in his first effort over the drawing-board, struggling laboriously to make a straight line, and in the Laboratory of Carpentry, trying with varying success to make a tenon fit the mortise, and we have stood by his side in the Machine-tool Laboratory in the moment of his triumph exhibiting his graduating “project”—a miniature engine throbbing under the pressure of steam, and doing its work with admirable precision. But we have seen only the manual side of the curriculum. The mental side is still to be shown. The claim made in behalf of the new education is that it is better balanced than the old, that it is all-sided, that it produces a harmonious development of the whole being, that it makes of the student a man fully furnished for the battle of life, mentally, morally, and physically. Accordingly the curriculum of the Manual Training School combines with the laboratory exercises a variety of mental exercises of quite a comprehensive character; and first, certain mental requirements are necessary to admission, as witness the following from the first catalogue of the Chicago Manual Training School:
“Candidates for admission to the Junior year must be at least fourteen years of age, and must present sufficient evidence of good moral character. They must pass a satisfactory examination in reading, spelling, writing, geography, English composition, and the fundamental operations of arithmetic as applied to integers, common and decimal fractions, and denominate numbers. Ability to use the English language correctly is especially desired.”
The following questions were used at the first examination for admission to the Chicago school.
ARITHMETIC.
Transcribe work sufficient to show processes. No credit given for results alone.
1. Change to decimals and find the sum of 4⁄5, 5⁄8, 11⁄16, 9⁄20, 41⁄50.
2. Divide the product of 285⁄7 and 134⁄9 by the difference of 85⁄12 and 44⁄5.
3. Divide .00875 by 121⁄2.
4. Reduce .395 of a mile to integers.
5. If a locomotive move 5⁄8 of a mile in 11⁄12 of an hour, what is its speed per hour?
6. A man invested 1⁄5 of his money in land, .125 of it in stocks, $12,000 in a vessel, and had $55,500 remaining. How much did he invest in land?
7. Bought a square mile of land at $75 an acre. I reserved 160 acres of it for streets and alleys, and divided the remainder into lots each 66 feet front by 200 feet deep, all of which I sold for $15 per front foot. The expense of surveying, etc., was $2000. What did I gain?
8. How many balls, each 1⁄4 of an inch in diameter, are equal in weight to a ball of the same material 1 foot in diameter?
9. Find cost of material for making box, inside measurement 4 by 2 by 3 feet, of inch lumber, worth $30 per M., 1⁄25 of the lumber purchased being wasted. Include in the cost 7 dozen screws at $1.80 per gross.
THE STUDENTS WITH THEIR BOOKS.
10. What is the height of a rectangular cistern capable of containing 600 gallons, the bottom of which is 7 by 11 feet, inside measurement?
GEOGRAPHY.
1. Name the five most populous cities of the United States in order of population. On what water is St. Petersburg? Dublin? Rome? Calcutta? Cairo?
2. Locate the principal coal fields and iron regions of the United States. What minerals occur in Illinois?
3. Draw map of Illinois, showing by what States and by what waters bounded. Locate the capital and the largest city of Illinois.
4. Name the outlet of Lake Erie; of Lake Champlain; of Great Salt Lake; of the Black Sea; of Lake Victoria Nyanza.
5. Compare the latitude and climate of Spain and Illinois.
6. How does the island of Great Britain compare in area with the United States, or with any one of the United States which you may mention?
7. How do the Alps compare in height with the Rocky Mountains? Name the highest peak in Europe; in North America; in South America; in the world.
8. How does climate vary with altitude above the sea level? Illustrate by an example.
9. What is the cause of day and night? Of changes of seasons? What is latitude? Longitude?
10. When it is 11 A.M. by “Central Time” in Chicago, what is the hour by “Eastern Time” in New York City? What is the hour in London? Is “Central Time” in Chicago the true time? Why?
Or, in place of the last question: What are the termini of the Illinois and Michigan Canal? What waters are connected by the Suez Canal? Of what water route does the Suez Canal take the place?
LANGUAGE.
1. Correct in every particular, and give reason for each correction:
a. The man which was sick has went to his work.
b. Every person should attend to their own affairs.
c. Such expressions sound harshly.
d. Between you and I, this is a real easy examination.
e. The cause of the tides were not wholly unknown to the ancients.
2. “Pleasantly rose next morning the sun on the village of Grand Pré.”
How is the idea of the rising of the sun modified?
3.
Flashed as they turned in air,
Sab’ring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wondered.”
Change to good prose.
4. State the meaning of each prefix and suffix in the following words: Emigrate; Immigrate; Illegally; Admissible; Thoughtlessness; Affixing.
5. a. Why is the final e of “service” retained in “serviceable?”
5. b. Write the present participle of “befit;” of “benefit.” What difference in spelling? Why?
5. c. Define Ancient; Venerable; Obsolete.
6. Write an essay on Chicago, mentioning the rapid growth of the city; its land and water communications; its commerce and manufactures; its public buildings; its institutions of learning and charity, and any other items which may occur to you.
Having passed the ordeal of the foregoing battery of questions the student of the Ideal School finds his mental exercises alternated with manual exercises throughout the entire course in something like the following order, namely:
Junior Year.—(1.) Mathematics—Arithmetic; Algebra. (2.) Science.—Physiology; Physical Geography. (3.) Language.—English Language and Literature; or Latin Reader. (4.) Drawing.—Freehand Model and Object; Projection; Machine; Perspective. (5.) Shopwork.—Carpentry, Joinery, Wood-Turning, Pattern-Making, Proper Care and Use of Tools.
Middle Year.—(1.) Mathematics.—Geometry. (2.) Science.—Physics. (3.) Language.—General History and Literature; or Cæsar. (4.) Drawing.—Orthographic Projection and Shadows; Line and Brush Shading; Isometric Projection and Shadows; Details of Machinery; Machine from Measurement. (5.) Shopwork.—Molding, Casting; Forging, Welding, Tempering; Soldering, Brazing.
Senior Year.—(1.) Mathematics.—Plane Trigonometry; Mechanics; Book-keeping. (2.) Science.—Chemistry; or Descriptive Geometry and Higher Algebra. (3.) Language, etc.—English Literature, Civil Government, Political Economy; or Cicero, or French. (4.) Drawing.—Machine from Measurement; Building from Measurement; Architectural Perspective. (5.) Machine Shopwork.—Such as Chipping, Filing, Fitting, Turning, Drilling, Planing, etc. Study of Machinery, including the Management and Care of Steam Engines and Boilers.
Latin and French may be taken instead of English Language, Literature, and History. Instruction will be given each year in the properties of the materials—wood, iron, brass, etc.—used in that year.
Throughout the course, one hour per day, or more, will be given to drawing, and not less than two hours per day to laboratory work. The remainder of the school day will be devoted to study and recitation. Before graduating, each pupil will be required to construct a machine from drawings and patterns made by himself. A diploma will be given on graduation.
The new education is a blending of manual and mental training. It recognizes the fact that science discovers and art utilizes, and that these two forces move the modern world.
At present the Manual Training School is a missionary enterprise. Its purpose is to create in the public mind an imperative demand for the incorporation of its scientific methods into the public-school course of instruction.
A vast majority of our people are employed in the useful arts, and distinction in every department of labor now depends upon scientific education. Without technical education or manual training the laborer of the future cannot hope to rise above the grade of a piece of automatic machinery. He falls into the routine of the shop like a cog or lever moved by steam. To avert this dire misfortune our common schools must be made institutions for manual as well as intellectual training. They must inculcate the dignity of labor not by precept merely, but by example. It is not enough that schools of technology, polytechnic institutes, and manual training schools are being established here and there by private subscription. The supply of these classes of education is only a drop in the bucket to the public demand. Technical and manual training must be made part of the general public educational system. In our city high-schools we now fit boys for college. In those schools we must hereafter fit them for the colleges of art. When this shall have become the fashion in education there will be thousands of high-school graduates with a grand passion for mechanical pursuits—boys with more curiosity on the subject of the expansive force of steam than on the subject of “Greek roots;” with more ambition to invent something useful to man than to learn how to draw a bill in chancery; with a stronger desire to discover a new secret in electricity than to carry off a prize for the best Latin oration.