isa-normaladvance-1909-00168

Description:	168THE NORMAL ADVANCEindustrial progress through which we are passing is bound to figure in a greater or less degree in our public school work. This influencehas already forced itself upon our schools inthe movement to make Manual Training or industrial work a part of our course of study.Manual Training has demanded a place because it is an important factor in fitting thechild for the civilization in which he is to live.Manual Training cultivates a sympatheticcomprehension of the needs and conditions ofsociety by supplying the pupil with a fund ofknowledge and experience in the light of whichhe is enabled to interpret more intelligentlyhis material and industrial environment. Thechild cannot obtain this appreciation by merereading about those material triumphs whichare the distinguished marks of the age. Aknowledge about things as distinguished froma knowledge of things will not necessarily fitthe child for right living. This argumentis based upon sound pedagogical principles. Tobe told a few things about life and to receivean explanation of a few of the tools that havebeen used by real people in real living is noteducation at all, but is at best only knowledgeof an inferior sort. This has been a fundamental error in much of the old, elementary teaching. All modern elementary teaching, basedupon scientific principles endeavors to fit thechild for right living, not by a study aboutthings through words, but by a study of thingsthrough personal contact, which gives knowledge and experience first hand. A child whohas prepared and woven some raw material intoa rug, moulded clay into some useful or ornamental form, made articles from wood, iron,copper, or shaped some object of beauty oruse from unyielding material, is in a positionto understand mechanical triumphs.Fifty to seventy-five years ago there weremany opportunities afforded a boy or girl tobecome acquainted with his industrial environment by coming into personal contact with thesame. The home then was a little industrialcommunity by itself where each member of thefamily had his duties to perform along industrial lines. They made their own furniture andprepared and wove into cloth material for theirown clothing. The child had an opportunityto gain ideas, first hand, of the whole industrial process from the shearing of the wool tothe manufacture of the finished article. Soit was in other lines of industrial work. Buttoday it is very different. The invention ofmodern machinery and the factory that followed have changed all this, and the home madearticles are now supplanted with factory madearticles. The boys and girls do not have theopportunities of observing or taking part in theindustrial process that they once had. Theirenergies which at one time were spent profitably, are now wasted in idleness or in ways oftheir own choosing, that too. often are thesource of bad habits. Even the father whonow works in the factory does not always understand the whole industrial process. He issimply a machine in the manufacture of perhaps only one part of an article. He has developed the ability to do but one thing whichmay be easily replaced by the invention of moremodern machinery. It is for the above reasonsthat the times demand that our schools dosomething that will enable our boys and girlsto become acquainted with their industrial environment, thus fitting them to become bettercitizens. It .adds to their knowledge a fund ofinformation and an experience which will fitthem to fill their place in society and as individuals, to do lifes work.The demand for a more practical educationis prompted by a true educational instinctrather than by a mercenary motive, and to appreciate this fully we must revise our theoriesof educational value. The educational value ofa subject should be determined somewhat by thefact as to whether it connects directly with theafter-life of the student. Some subjects arevaluable only because they are a means of mental discipline, and as such have high educational value. Others furnish disciplinary valueand connect directlv with the after life of the
Source:	http://indstate.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/isuarchive/id/34198
Collection:	Indiana State University Archives

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