TEACHING MANUAL
AND
INDUSTRIA L ARTS
A TEXTBOOK FOR NORMAL SCHOOLS
AND COLLEGES
BY
Ira Samuel Griffith
i
Professor of Industrial Education
University of Wisconsin
The Manual Arts Press
PEORIA, ILLINOIS
Copyright, 1920
Ira Samuel Griffith
Second Edition, 1921
• ».* *
a-3 /s-? +
Printed in the United States of America
PREFACE
Teaching Manual and Industrial Arts is intended as a text
for use in normal schools and colleges. Its primary aim is to
assist in the making of necessary connections between the more
general courses in educational psychology and theory of teach-
ing and the special work of practice teaching in manual and
industrial arts.
While the discussions of the text largely presuppose a
knowledge of psychology as a prerequisite, mature students
and experienced teachers of the manual or industrial arts who
have had no psychology may be expected to pursue the read-
ing of the text successfully by devoting somewhat more time
and attention to the reference readings suggested at the close
of each chapter. Some experience with manual or industrial
arts subject-matter is necessary for an appropriate apprecia-
tion of the discussions of the text.
Lest the author be accused of inconsistency in the matter
of his choice of philosophical bases for the various discussions,
he would state that he has intentionally made use of both the
analogies of dualism and of the conception of contiguity and
continuity. (Cf. Dewey's "Democracy and Education,"
especially Chapter XXV.) The accompanying charts should
make clear the grounds for justification assumed by the author
in the matter of bases. Why there should of necessity be con-
sidered any lack of contiguity and continuity in the concep-
tion of dualism, and vice versa, philosophy has not been able
to prove. (Cf. "Dualism/' The New International Encyclo-
paedia for a brief statement.) Given permission to select the
experience or interval under consideration, and there is no
reason in experience why this permission should not be
granted, one may with every propriety consider all opposites
3
483359
4 TEACHING MANUA L AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
as having continuity and contiguity as charted, and in every
situation in which there is continuity and contiguity he may,
with equal propriety, take into consideration the opposites. To
use Mr. Dewey's own illustration for induction and deduction,
it is as if one were to look at a stream of running water;
looking in one direction we get one set of implications, looking
Intellect W
Direction of movement
Contiguity, Continuity
r * y
s N o
Rectangle of an experience ideally conditioned.
in the other direction we get another opposite set; withal,
there is contiguity and continuity. We may speak of the
river in terms of opposites, namely, the source and the mouth ;
we may speak of it in terms of contiguity and continuity.
The balance, or mean, or harmony which* the author urges
as an ideal toward which to work does not imply there can
or must be a perfect balance in all things at all times irre-
spective of the interval or experience selected. Rather, it is
a balance in life of the individual or of the social group only
for predetermined intervals or experiences selected for dis-
cussion, with each of these intervals or experiences considered
as a whole. Such a balance is represented in the accompanying
chart by the diagonal of the upper figure. The second chart-
ing represents what happens when a selected experience or
PREFACE 5
interval is not free to develop into such idealism, but is con-
ditioned at the period or interval under consideration thru such
factors as natural development, economic or social necessity,
or otherwise. While only instincts and intellect, manipulative
Manipulative skill fy)
Intellectual
activity (-)
Contiguity; Continuity
Rectangle of an experience conditioned thru nature, economic or
social necessity, or otherwise.
skill and intellectual activity are charted here, it is possible
to chart in a similar manner other opposites. For example,
we might have charted empirical concretes and theoretic ab-
stractions; or, Froebers (1) spontaneity and (2) instruction
in conventional methods of procedure; and, in turn, his (2)
instruction in conventional methods of procedure and (3) cre-
ative effort. In every case there are implications of extremes
but with contiguity and continuity and opportunity for think-
ing in terms of balance when the experience selected is con-
sidered as a whole.
Two methods of procedure are common in the preparation
of teachers. One, most common in colleges and universities,
stresses theory of teaching, emphasis upon principles or gener-
alized information. The other, most common in normal schools,
emphasizes the mechanics of teaching, subject-matter and de-
vices. Each method has its advantages and its disadvantages.
Those trained by the first method are slow in attaining efn-
6 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
ciency in the art of teaching because they lack knowledge
and experience in the mechanics of teaching. They have the
theory but not the art. Those trained in the mechanics or
details of subject-matter and method get under way quickly,
but too often fail to show marked professional growth in the
long run because their training has failed to give them the
ability to see the teaching process as a science. The plan of
this book is one of balance upon the theoretical and the prac-
tical. The discussions in the main body of the text are intended
to be practically helpful to manual and industrial arts teachers
by giving them a basis in science for their teaching practice.
The suggestions in the appendices are no less important. Ap-
pendix I suggests a type of experience which may well be
extended by additional lessons until it shall occupy an amount
of time equal to that devoted to the main body of the text. It
provides opportunity for attention to what we have chosen to
call the mechanics of teaching, attention to details of subject-
matter and to devices.
A reasonable requirement of a student engaged in such work
might well be that of analysis and classification of teachable
content, its selection in terms of functional needs of the group,
and its arrangement into the larger groups or blocks for effec-
tive instruction. However, it has seemed best to postpone this
to a later course, one in Organization and Administration, thus
allowing him time to concentrate in this present course upon
the problems of methods of teaching and daily lesson plans,
with only such organization and administration problems as
have to do with the successful presentation of the lesson, such,
for example, as sequence of operations in a given problem or
job, materials and tools immediately necessary as a part of the
work of the given lesson. In the working out of daily lesson
plans, the general outline for which has been worked out
by a supervisor, to be given to the student-teacher, there will
be provided a better preparation for the organization problem
PREFACE 7
in the large in this later course than otherwise would be. The
present course provides all the information needed for the
practice teaching that the student-teacher will be called upon to
do. Practice teaching must be based upon a supervisor's
course outline rather than the student-teacher's, if the work
of the pupils is to be well ordered and progressive. Later, the
student- teacher may be taught to think of the supervisor's
outline in terms of his own planning.
Acknowledgments are due Dr. W. W. Charters, Director of
Educational Research, Carnegie School of Technology, for
valuable criticism and suggestions as to the general form and
content of the text; also, to Miss Ella V. Dobbs, Assistant
Professor of Manual Arts, University of Missouri, for per-
mission to use certain photographic illustrations pertaining to
elementary handwork. Other acknowledgments will be found
in the main text in connection with materials loaned.
I. S. G.
CONTENTS
Preface . 3
Chapter I. Introduction .13
1. Conflicting aims in Education ; 2 Connections in the ner-
vous system of man; 3. Significance of connections in the
nervous system of man in determining certain aims in educa-
tion ; 4. Connections a basis for method ; 5. Social, economic,
and other factors influence aims and practices ; 6. Summary.
Reference reading. Class discussion.
Chapter II. Classification and Differentiation of the Manual
Arts 27
1. Classification and differentiation of the manual arts; 2.
Technical manual arts; 3. Expressional manual arts; 4. Re-
lation of expressional to technical manual arts ; 5. Harmoni-
zation of conflicting aims; 6. Summary. Reference reading.
Class discussion.
Chapter III. Industrial Arts 47
1. Introduction; 2. Three types of reactive need in industrial
arts education ; types evaluated ; 3. Basis of awards in in-
dustry; 4. Industrial education must provide opportunity for
individual specialization along any one of these three types
of reaction ; 5. Fundamental principles of teaching applicable
to industrial arts ; 6. Effect of emphasizing efficiency in exe-
cution, or skill, in industrial arts education ; 7. Industrial arts
education and cultural values; 8. Dangers to be avoided; 9.
Summary. Reference reading. Class discussion.
Chapter IV. Instincts and Capacities 63
1. Instincts and capacities; 2. The law of association as it
applies to the utilization of instincts; 3. Instincts need con-
trol; 4. Means used to control connections between instinct-
tive and more remote connections ; 5. Conflict of aims in
utilizing instincts; 6. Effect of delayed capacities; 7. The
teacher's problem ; 8. Summary. Reference reading. Osss
discussion.
10 CONTENTS
Chapter V. Application of the Principle of Apperception to
Manual and Industrial Arts Teaching 75
1. Apperception; 2. The learning process; 3. The law of as-
sociation applicable to the learning process; 4. Some seem-
ing violations of the principle of apperception; 5. Logical
sequence; 6. Drill or frequency as an essential factor in
assimilation; 7. Summary. Reference reading. Class dis-
cussion.
Chapter VI. Interest and Attention 85
1. Interest and attention the indispensable basis of every
method of education; 2. The law of association applied to
interest and attention; 3. Feeling of zest versus effort; 4.
Mental assimilation a matter of consciousness; 5. Abstract
exercises versus useful projects ; 6. Drill and feeling of zest ;
7. Logical arrangement of subject-matter versus psychological
development of the individual ; 8. Summary. Reference read-
ing. Class discussion.
Chapter VII. Individual Differences; The Group System . 96
1. The law of probability; 2. Practical significance of indi-
vidual differences; 3. The group system; 4. The group sys-
tem applied to the manual and industrial arts; 5. Grouping
for classification and grading; 6. Grouping for developing
initiative ; 7. Summary. Reference reading. Class discussion.
Chapter VIII. Correlation and Association 115
1. Correlation; 2. Correlation another name for association;
3. Two types of correlation; 4. Advantages and limitations
in immediate correlations; 5. Conflicting aims; 6. Practical
difficulties and aids in correlation; 7. Summary. Reference
reading. Class discussion.
Chapter IX. The Doctrine of Discipline 124
1. The problem of discipline stated; 2. Early revised view;
3. The present view of generalized and specialized training;
4. Effect of present view of discipline upon subject-matter
and method— logical basis ; 5. Modification of choice of sub-
ject-matter due to child nature— psychological basis; 6.
Summary. Reference reading. Class discussion.
CONTENTS 11
Chapter X. Types of Thinking Inherent in the Manual Arts 136
1. Introduction; 2. Three types of thinking; 3. Evaluation of
types of thinking; 4. Instruction on the lower plane and the .
higher plane — storage of knowledge and acquisition of me-
chanical skill ; 5. The danger in extreme emphasis upon man-
ual and industrial arts as a means of developing so-called
generalized habits of reaction — the necessity of associative
thinking as a preliminary to selective thinking; 6. The dan-
ger of extreme emphasis upon associative thinking to the
neglect of selective; 7. Harmonization of conflicting aims
in associative and selective thinking; 8. Modification in prac-
tice due to variation in aims; 9. Summary. Reference read-
ing. Class discussion.
Chapter XI. Teaching Methods in Manual and Industrial
Arts 153
1. Teaching methods; 2. The deductive or imitative method;
3 The inductive or heuristic method; 4. The complete
method ; 5. Modification in method due to variation in aims ;
6. Summary. Reference reading. Class discussion.
Chapter XII. The Lesson; Its Component Parts . . . .162
1. The necessity for carefully matured plans; 2. The six
formal steps; 3. The six formal steps not always inductive;
4. Not every lesson needs to be inductive ; 5. Modern con-
ception of method; 6. Instructive question rather than direc-
tive statement ; 7. Intermediate plan form ; 8. Daily lesson
plan; 9. Summary. Reference reading. Class discussion.
Chapter XIII. Class Management; Discipline 176
1. Maintaining order or discipline a matter of instinct as
well as of training; 2. Successful discipline, to a large de-
gree, the result of thoughtful management; 3. The law of
association applicable to control of conduct ; 4.. General causes
for an unruly school; 5. Specific problems of control; 6.
Summary. Reference reading. Class discussion.
Chapter XIV. Standards and Tests 183
1. Teacher standards; 2. Standards of pupil accomplishment
in manual arts by grades; 3. Specific standards and tests;
12 CONTENTS
4. Standards for form and technic; 5. Tests for form and
technic; 6. Standards and tests for skill in execution; 7.
Illustrating a method of attack in establishing pupil stand-
ards for accuracy in execution in a given specific project;
8. Summary. Reference reading. Class discussion.
Chapter XV. Conditions Which Make for Progress . . . 200
1. Conflicting aims in education; 2. Manual and industrial
arts an attempt to provide a better balance between the
abstract and the concrete in education — between theory and
practice; 3. Need for a scientific treatment of subject-matter;
4. Limitations which arise from undue emphasis upon theory
or science; 5. The place of texts; 6. Race progress demands
that a balance be maintained between conflicting aims; 7.
Summary. Reference reading. Class discussion.
Appendix I. Special Method Procedure ........ 213
1. Special method aims; Directions for observation; type
lessons.
Appendix II. Type Outlines 221
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
1. Conflicting Aims in Education. In no other line of
human endeavor has there been less unanimity and more de-
bate as to aims and practice than in the field of education.
Aims have been defined and redefined and practice has passed
thru an equally wide range of repeated experiments. For ex-
ample, one century, or part of a century, has emphasized
natural or instinctive tendencies, such as may be found in
Rousseau's first teachings; nearly every century at one time
or another has tended to stress the intellectual at the expense
of the manual; the present sees a wide-spread effort to em-
phasize automatic connections in the form of trade or voca-
tional education highly specific in character. Not infrequently
educators have failed to appreciate that certain very important
aims in education conflict one with another and have unwisely
sought to condemn every practice which failed to stress the
particular educational need which they themselves saw. One
educator holds up his hands in horror and exclaims, "What
are our schools coming to! We have painting, and sewing,
and cooking, and blacksmithing ! What next?" Another
wants his school so organized that it will rival real life con-
ditions, even to the extent of having a factory system in which
boys are to be made so skillful they may turn out a product
that will make the system self-supporting, or even profitable.
One proclaims education a preparation for living. Another
insists that education is teaching children to do better those
things children normally like to do.
Educational theory and practice of today is tending more
and more toward the recognition of the legitimacy of a variety
of aims in education based upon the more common character-
13
14 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
istics of individual and social differences in pupils. For ex-
ample, schools are being builded and equipped for the especial
training of boys and girls who, because of economic or other
reasons, do not enter the traditional or general high school.
These schools are stressing vocational information and voca-
tional training. This is as it should be. It is well to remember,
however, that such vocational training meets the need of a
particular group and can no more lay claim to being possessed
of the aim of education than can a college preparatory school.
What is more, the aim of such a training may be such as to
conflict with other equally legitimate educational aims so that
time so spent is useless in so far as these other needs are
concerned.
The homely story of the blind men and the elephant well
illustrates the attitude one is likely to assume with reference
to the beliefs of others educationally, unless he studies dis-
cerningly. The reader will recall that the blind man who
happened to grasp the elephant's ear concluded that elephants
were like palm leaf fans ; the one who touched the elephant's
side concluded that an elephant was like the side of a wall;
the one who grasped the elephant's tail thought elephants were
like rope; while the one who happened to clasp his arms
about the elephant's leg was certain elephants were like tree
trunks. Each was right in so far as he had informed himself
of a part of the body ; he was wrong in his hasty or impartial
generalization as to the likeness of the whole body. In edu-
cation we shall do well to refrain from hasty generalizations
that the whole body of educational need is like that with
which we have informed ourselves and like that alone.
2. Connections in the Nervous System of Man. Before
the place and the method of the manual and industrial arts
in education can be discussed with intelligence, it will be
necessary to review some of our psychology.
INTRODUCTION 15
For the sake of clearness and convenience we may classify
connections in the nervous system of human beings as:
1. Connections between impression or sensation on the one
hand and consequent muscular reaction on the other.
2. Connections between impression or sensation and thought
or consciousness.
3. Connections between one thought and another thought.
4. Connections between thought and bodily action or re-
action.
An example of the first type of connection is found in the
crying of the infant because of hunger or pain, or the feeding
of the infant in its earliest hours before intelligence has arisen.
The touch of the lips of the infant to the mother's breast sug-
gests the appropriate reaction or feeding movement. Such
connections are known as instinctive or unlearned. Intelligence
or thought or consciousness is absent in these early mani-
festations.
Connections of the second type are later in their appearance
and are the result of many conflicting manifestations of con-
nections number one. A familiar illustration of the develop-
ment of such connections is that of the very young child at
a window before which hangs a brightly colored ball. In the
course of its random arm movements, making connections
as in number one, it accidentally strikes the ball or its sup-
porting string. At first the noise resulting from the ball's
striking the glass goes unnoticed. In the course of a num-
ber of such accidental strikings of the ball against the glass
thru such random movements of the arms of the child, there
begin to form in the mind of the child connections between
the idea noise and the bright object. In other words, con-
sciousness is beginning to make its appearance in respect to
these particular connections.
In primitive man, and in the earlier periods of the childhood
of civilized man, such connections as that just described for
16
TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
number two, Fig. 1., almost immediately take the form of
connections between thought and action, connection number
four. The child no sooner connects the impression made by
the brightly colored ball with the idea of noise resulting from
his moving arms than he tries to produce the noise thru moving
Native or
instinctive, re-
actions controlled ,
by feeling
Sensations
or impressions
mainly thru
movement
th
«tf
tion 5
*i
Reactions
PATH I \ *Z I controlled by
Learned Thought +t nought Connect, on~s\ '> nid J* ct > t
—p, — ~ \ Connect ions*3. h " ' - V instinct subject
JJonn.*z.\ /Connections *+\ to intellect j
Reactions
^once controlled*
by intellect
now
feeling
or
habit
Fig. 1. Connections of Mind and Body.
the arms. Such connections between thought and action may,
however, be postponed, taking the form of connections number
three, Fig. 1., connections between one thought and another
thought — all the while delaying action or reaction.
Connections number five, Fig. 1., differ from connections
number one only as to origin. In connections number one,
reactions result from unlearned feelings of relationship; in
number two they find their origin in intellect.
INTRODUCTION 17
3. Significance of Connections in the Nervous System of
Man in Determining Certain Aims in Education. Aims in
education, as has been previously stated, have been variously
given, and educational practice correspondingly modified at
different periods of educational development. Of the varia-
tions which have come, probably none have had greater signi-
ficance than those which have come thru the changing empha-
sis placed upon the various connections diagrammed in Fig. 1.
Since man is not all mind or all body, but one mind so insepar-
ably connected with a body that life ceases at separation, the
diagram is true, of course, only as it represents such emphasis.
An examination of a number of current notions of education
will serve to point out the significance of the statement just
made. For example, we are wont to say "Knowledge is
power." Such a notion of education is bound to result in
emphasis upon intellect, connections between thought and
thought, upon race experience, upon cramming or storage of
facts, upon books, upon long rows of desks and bodily inac-
tivity. Again, we are informed that "It is not knowledge that
is power, but applied knowledge ; not what is known, but what
can be done with what is known." This latter idea places
emphasis upon connections number three and number four,
Fig. 1. Another educational philosopher tells us that "Educa-
tion is what one has left after he has forgotten all he ever
learned." At first thought we are inclined to ridicule such
a notion of education. However, there is truth in the state-
ment. It is merely the placing of extreme emphasis upon
automatic connections, path number three, connection number
five, Fig. 1. The condition one finds himself in when called
upon to explain some method of procedure or position of the
hands in some operation which has been performed many
times, is an excellent illustration of what this educator is try-
ing to designate as education. One can perform the operation,
or he can readily place his hands in position for the required
18 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
operation, but he finds great difficulty in telling another how
it is to be done. Intellect has ceased to function; habit or
feeling has taken its place.
It is essential for a proper understanding of the discussions
which follow that the student have a clear notion of the dis-
tinction which is made between learning thru feeling and
learning thru intellect. The student will readily understand
what is meant by the term intellect. The term feeling, how-
ever, is used in a rather special or uncommon sense. The
following extract from a current newspaper article will illus-
trate the peculiar meaning attached to the word feeling in the
discussions which follow: "French instructors," it says, in
explaining the method of training aviators, "express no pref-
erences, except for the double control in teaching. It permits
the instructor to take his pupils up behind him, and as the
entire control is double (like the coupled handlebars of a
tandem "bike") the teacher guides the aeroplane, but the
pupil, having the same controls in his hands, feels every
movement made by his instructor. Little by little he acquires
the habit and feels that it is he who is piloting, and the instruc-
tor, as he feels the pupil getting the right movement, slackens
and lets the pupil do more and more, until, at the end, the
original positions are reversed — it is the pupil who pilots the
aeroplane and the instructor who feels him thru the double
controls as he does it." This type of learning process is desig-
nated by Dr. Charles H. Judd*, as learning by direct interpreta-
tion — direct in that it does not involve consciousness or
intelligence, or at least tends to eliminate these a's quickly
as possible in favor of learning thru feeling.
The significance of the connections of the nervous system
in determining certain educational needs is clearly set forth
in Henri Bergson's philosophy of the function and origin of
instinct and intelligence when this philosophy has been analyzed
*"Genetic Psychology for Teachers," page 59, et. seq. Appleton, 1903.
INTRODUCTION 19
in terms of the connections enumerated above and diagrammed
in Fig. 1. His discussion serves well to point out the limita-
tions of a type of education which would stress intellect to
the neglect of feeling and vice versa. ''Instinct and intelli-
gence" he says in his Creative Evolution, page 143, "therefore
represent two divergent solutions equally fitting, of one and
the same problem," namely, the problem of meeting one's
environment. "We know," he continues, page 172, in illustra-
tion of the strength of instinct or feeling such as is repre-
sented by path one, Fig. 1., "that the different species of the
hymenoptera that have this paralyzing instinct lay their eggs
in spiders, beetles or caterpillars, which, having first been sub-
jected by the wasp to a skillful surgical operation, will go on
living motionless a certain number of days, and thus provide
the larvae with fresh meat. In the sting which they give the
nerve centers of their victim, in order to destroy its power of
moving about without killing it, these different species of
hymenoptera take into account, so to speak, the different
species of prey they respectively attack. The Scolia, which
attacks the larva of the rose beetle, stings it in one point
only, but in this point the motor ganglia are concentrated and
those alone; the stinging of other ganglia might cause death
and putrefaction, which must be avoided. The yellow winged
Sphex, which has chosen the cricket for its victim, knows
that the cricket has three nerve centers which serve its three
pairs of legs — or at least it acts as if it knew this. It stings
the insect first under the neck, then behind the prothorax, and
then where the thorax joins the abdomen. The Ammophila
Hirsuta gives nine successive strokes of its sting upon nine
nerve centers of its caterpillar, and then seizes the head and
squeezes it in its mandibles, enough to cause paralysis without
death. The general theme is "the necessity of paralyzing with-
out killing." * * * "It is in vain that we try to express
it in terms of any idea : It must have been originally felt rather
20 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
than thought." It is an unlearned feeling of relationships, as
it were, having nothing to do with intelligence or thought.
Its very strength lies in the fact that appropriate action fol-
lows this feeling of relationships without hesitation and conse-
quent representation resulting in consciousness or intelligence.
The preceding paragraph should make plain the fact that
what has, for want of a better name, been called feeling plays
no small part in the control of appropriate responses to stimuli,
and as such must be given appropriate consideration in any
scheme of education. The responses mentioned have to do
with reactions thru feeling not controlled by intellect ; they are
of path one, Fig. 1. There are also responses thru feeling
which responses at one time were controlled thru intelligence
or consciousness or thought. These latter responses are of
path number two, Fig. 1., in their beginnings but are trans-
lated to path number three thru frequency.
Just what relationship intelligence has with feeling in this
transformation may be learned from the following quotation
in Bergson's Creative Evolution, page 145. "The conscious-
ness of a living being may be defined as an arithmetical dif-
ference between potential and real activity. It measures the
interval between representation and action. It may be in-
ferred from this that intelligence is likely to point toward
consciousness and instinct toward unconsciousness. For where
the implement to be used is organized by nature, the material
furnished by nature, and the result to be obtained willed by
nature, there is little left to choice ; the consciousness inherent
in the representation is therefore counterbalanced, whenever it
tends to disengage itself, by the performance of the act,
identical with the representation, which forms the counter-
part. Where consciousness appears, it does not so much light
up instinct itself as the thwartings to which instinct is subject;
it is the deficit of instinct, the distance between the act and
the idea, that becomes consciousness so that consciousness,
INTRODUCTION 21
here, is only an accident. Essentially, consciousness only em-
phasizes the starting point of instinct, the point at which the
whole series of automatic movement is released. Deficit, on
the contrary, is the normal state of intelligence. Laboring
under difficulties is the very essence."
It should not be hastily concluded from the strength of the
plea just made for attention to feeling or direct interpretation
in setting situations for educational experiences that there is
no place or only a small place for attention to intellect. What-
ever man might have gained by a biological evolution along
the line of dependence upon instinct alone to the exclusion of
intelligence, the fact remains that he has chosen to live more
largely thru intellectual control than have hymenoptera and
other insect and animal forms, and that consciousness must
ever play a large part in the education of his young. Adjust-
ment to environment may be accomplished thru instinct, path
number one, Fig. 1.; this same end may be accomplished in
the case of man thru the taking of path number two and thru
repetition reducing mental effort until the reaction takes the
form of path number three. For example, we may take the
case of a physician who performs a skillful surgical operation :
originally, mental effort was strong; by repeated operations
this is reduced until reaction places almost complete depen-
dence upon feeling or sense-impression. The reaction be-
comes a matter of habit. Habit accomplishes for the individual
what instinct accomplishes for the species : an effective reaction
to stimuli without the intervention of thought, or at least it
tends to accomplish this.
Professor James says, "An uneducated person is one who
is nonplussed by all but the most habitual situations." This
negative statement of what education is should remind us that
education has a second task. Habit formation in the realm
of muscle is but one factor, the development of intelligence,
of ability to do selective or original thinking, is of no less
22 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
importance. What is more, it must be recognized that these
two ends or aims, conflicting as they do, can find no setting
in the educational scheme wherein one may be emphasized
without a consequent sacrifice upon the part of the other. We
may choose to emphasize habit in the realm of muscle; we
may choose to emphasize intellect; we may choose to balance
one against the other with a consequent lack of effectiveness
in each as compared with what might have been secured thru
lack of balance. James is stating in another way the fact
that the development of intelligence is an essential part of
education.
4. Connections a Basis for Method. In general, a con-
sideration of the connections in the nervous system of man
justifies the following statements: (1) The cycle of develop-
ment of an individual consists of a period characterized by
instinctive or random movement; (2) out of these random
movements develop consciousness or intelligence; (3) intelli-
gence marks a hiatus or hold-up between instinctive prompt-
ings and consequent motor reaction and as such will have no
value until it takes discharge in the form of action. (4) Only
as man, or the race, maintains a balance between intellect and
feeling is race progress best effected. Individuals may be-
come specialists : some may become mind workers, others hand
workers ; that is, some may emphasize intellect, others habits
controlled by feeling, but race progress demands the main-
tenance of a balance. (5) Individual welfare demands that
this balance be maintained, certainly thru the elementary
period of education or until the natural aptitudes of youth may
have opportunity to manifest themselves.
An education which emphasizes intellectual activity for
any great length of time and neglects opportunity for appro-
priate motor response thru application, is uneconomical, to
say the least, for nothing is assuredly assimilated until it
issues in action of one kind or another. If the application is
INTRODUCTION 23
far removed in time, memory will fail. On the other hand,
an education which is so direct in its connections between
impression and reaction that it allows little time for thought
or reflection, is ill advised in that it neglects to take into ac-
count the fact that man meets new situations more effectively
thru the workings of intellect than of instinct, or at least as
effectively, and intelligence does not function or have a part
in instinctive and automatic connections. The saying "It is
hard to teach an old dog new tricks" is but another way of
saying that unless the memory processes are kept open progress
is not possible. Memory is of mind, of intellect, not of feeling.
5. Social, Economic, and Other Factors Influence Aims
and Practices.. Psychological considerations, such as those
just mentioned, are not the only ones to be considered in de-
termining educational aims and practices, of course. There
are social and economic, ethical and other considerations
equally as important. What is more, not a few of these latter
considerations are conflicting in their aims with those of
psychology. We know, for example, that early fixing of
highly specialized habits in industrial pursuits does not pro-
duce a very high type of education in many respects. We also
know that very few pupils who are destined to perform such
industrial work can remain or do remain in schools thru that
age which best fits the development of intelligence in connec-
tion with their industrial work, Fig. 2. It becomes a question,
then, of turning out a type somewhat better fitted for earning
his bread and butter in industrial work requiring relatively
little initiative or of letting him go without even doing this
much for him. Psychology and ethics will tell us what ought
to be our educational practice ; social and economic needs will
tell us what must be, until that time when our economic con-
ditions are made to square with our ethics.
If the discussions which follow are found advocating higher
types of educational need in that they set situations which tend
24
TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
to develop initiative, it must not be concluded that there is
lack of sympathy for attention to the needs of those who
cannot pursue such courses because of economic need or
otherwise. On the other hand, when the discussions lead to
Percent
retained
100
90
60
70
60
JO
40
60
ZO
10
Percent
Grades High School last
10
ZO
30
40
JO
60
70
60
90
100
Fig. 2. Adapted from Dr. Ayer's "Laggards in Our Schools," p. 71.
a justification of such a type of education as takes the imma-
ture pupil and trains him so specifically for an industrial task
requiring so little intelligence that he can never hope to rise
much higher than a machine tender, it must not be inferred
that this is other than doing the best for the pupil that unfav-
orable economic and social conditions permit.
For example, boys are not sufficiently developed physically
and mentally, to justify the giving of vocational work of a
serious nature much before sixteen years. This fact is evi-
INTRODUCTION 25
denced by the reluctance of employers to take on apprentices
much younger than this. Of course, if they have a type of
work where it is possible to exploit the boy's labor they may
take him on, but if it is a matter of teaching him a trade, for
example, they do not want the boy of younger age. Psycho-
logically, then, the high school age is the place for industrial
training of a serious nature. Over against this fact we must
place the fact that few boys who go into industry as journey-
men remain thru the grammar schools. Raising the limit of
the school age for compulsory school attendance with part-
time work will aid; it does not solve the problem of urgent
economic need in the home.
Rightly considered, then, the problem becomes one of pro-
viding courses that permit pupils to accomplish all they are
able to accomplish in the time available. These in turn are
limited by problems which arise in matters of school admin-
istration, such as lack of funds, lack of sufficient demand for
certain kinds of work, etc., to warrant the formation of classes
and the employment of teachers, lack of suitable teachers, and
lack of adequate salary schedules calculated to encourage
strong men to expend the necessary time and money required
to properly equip themselves for this kind of work.
6. Summary. Aims in education conflict. Since many
of these aims are equally important for purposes of individual
and social welfare, it follows that educational practices must
vary.
An examination of the connections in the nervous system
of man teaches us that society and the race depend for suc-
cessful maintenance and progress upon the development both
of efficient forms of thinking and of action. This balance
may be maintained for society and the race thru the utiliza-
tion of rather highly specialized forms of each type. Elemen-
tary education, however, will do well to maintain a balance
between thought and action for purposes of giving to the
26 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
adolescent a proper basis in action for later specialization in
thought, and vice versa, and for determining aptitudes.
Economic, social, and other needs of society and of the
individual will affect educational aims and practices, fre-
quently running counter to those set by psychology and
ethics. A consideration of immediate economic and social
needs may point to the wisdom of offering opportunity for
early entrance into industry, even at the expense of oppor-
tunity for the development of industrial and social intelligence.
It also points to the need for continuation courses to supple-
ment such lack.
Reference Reading:
Thorndike: Principles of Teaching, Chapter XIII.
James: Talks to Teachers, Chapters III — V.
Charters : Methods of Teaching, Chapter I.
Class Discussion :
1. Discuss the need of motor responses.
2. Differentiate the varieties of motor responses.
3. State the advantages and limitations of verbal responses.
4. Discuss advantages and limitations of expression thru the
activities of the arts and industries.
5. Define education so as to indicate the part to be played by
the manual arts, if you can.
6. James says, "An uneducated person is one who is non-
plussed by all but the most habitual situations." Is there
no place, then, for the training of boys and girls as indus-
trial automatons? Discuss.
7. Supt. Dyer says, "Education is what is left after all that
has been learned is forgotten." Discuss.
8. "No reception without reaction, no impression without cor-
relative expression." "Motor consequences are what clinch
it" (An impression). Can you find an argument in these
statements for manual arts as a means of teaching other
subjects as history, geography, etc?
CHAPTER II
CLASSIFICATION AND DIFFERENTIATION OF THE MANUAL ARTS
1. Classification and Differentiation of the Manual Arts.
Observation of common practices in those activities designated
manual arts or manual training will show wide differences
in the practices, and investigation will make evident equally
wide variation as to basis for justification. Not infrequently
like practices will be found justified upon divergent grounds.
For the sake of convenience, these practices and their grounds
for justification may be differentiated one from another as
they tend to stress one or another of the following functions :
(1) A means of expressing ideas — "No reception without
reaction, no impression without correlative expression.' , "Mo-
tor consequences are what clinch." (2) A means of develop-
ing, certain attitudes of mind and habits of body and mind in
some one or more lines of industrial activity, not as ends in
themselves in connection with the particular trade dealt with
so much as attitudes and habits chiefly useful as a means of
interpreting other related experiences. Upon this ground
every boy of an upper grammar grade may be required to
take woodwork and mechanical drawing even tho it is known
that very few of them will become workers in wood in after
life. Such industrial experience, as differentiated from com-
mercial, agricultural, academic, etc., will make for an apprecia-
tion of things industrial. (3) A means of developing a
knowledge of technical processes and habits of mind and body
in a given industrial activity as ends immediately helpful to
the individual because he will make use of them in the pursuit
of this activity in after life. The first of these we may desig-
nate as expressional manual arts ; the second, technical manual
arts for general educational purposes; the third, technical
manual arts for vocational ends. The function of the first is
27
28 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
free expression; of the second, appreciation of industrial
activities; of the third, efficiency. The first is psychological in
its signifiance; the second is cultural and disciplinary; the
third is vocational.
It must be recognized that such classifications are for con-
venience in discussion and that no clear-cut distinctions actually
exist between such groups in reality. The differences are
matters of emphasis or of tendency rather than of kind. For
example, those values which come thru opportunity for ex-
pression of ideas are to be found in manual arts justified on
the ground of discipline, but in minor degree. Close atten-
tion to acquiring efficiency in some one trade has cultural
value in that it develops appreciation and broadens the horizon
to that extent, minor tho it may be.
The difficulties involved when one undertakes to classify
sharply are seen in the attempt to place a type of work which
is beginning to find favor with administrators of high schools
wherein large numbers of boys must be provided with oppor-
tunity for manipulative activity. These boys are not des-
tined to make their living thru participation in skilled crafts,
at least not as workmen. Administrators with a functional
notion of education object to the traditional type of manual
arts with its justification thru culture, discipline, appreciation,
and are asking for a type wherein the manipulative processes
and the accompanying information will serve as a means the
better to prepare the prospective householder to perform the
many home tasks of an industrial nature requiring minor
technical knowledge and skill. Such work will not class
fully as vocational as the term has been defined; it is
too strongly functional to class as a discipline and an appre-
ciation in its implications. It is, as it were, on the dividing
line between the two. Until this type becomes more common
than it now is we may simply class it as technical manual arts
for general educational purposes.
CLASSIFICATION AND DIFFERENTIATION 29
Manual arts and vocational education for industrial ac-
tivities have been confused as to place and function because they
differ not as to kind but as to emphasis upon certain factors.
The terms vocational, prevocational, industrial or trade, and
pre-industrial or pre-trade are terms which have often been
applied to work differing in no essential characteristics from
Fig. 3. Report on Dominant Aims of Manual Arts Instruction in 156
cities in the U. S. A. From Bulletin No. 32, 1916, Bureau of
Education, Washington, D. C.
what has long been known as manual training. Attempts have
been made to differentiate vocational industrial education from
manual arts by assigning to manual arts a method of pro-
cedure known as the craftsman's while vocational industrial
education would be distinguished by its use of the factory
system of production in quantity.
This differentiation, while convenient, is confusing, for
experience has shown that both manual arts and vocational
industrial arts may accomplish their ends thru either method
of procedure; in fact, both methods are needed in each to
give a complete experience. Probably the notion that manual
arts is primarily a training for appreciation of things indus-
trial, good for all pupils without regard to their probable
future work in life — a culture, a discipline — and that voca-
30
.TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
tional education is primarily a training for efficiency in pre-
paration for entrance into some specific life activity which
the pupil expects to follow, is the most helpful view for pur-
poses of differentiation.
Grade
Purpose
Type of Work
I-VI
General
Educational
a. Expressional — largely
b. Technical — various simple media
VII-IX
General
Educational
a. Drafting Largely tech-
nical, but ele-
b. Woodwork mental. May be
based on home
c. Metalwork repair needs or
o n industrial
d. Other media "types" or both.
XXI
Special
Vocational
Pupil chooses one industrial, as car-
pentry, etc.
Organized for instruction.
Production secondary.
XII
Special
Vocational
Pupil continues subject of XI.
Organized for production.
Instruction secondary.
Part-time work, if possible.
Fig. 4. A Form of Organization of Manual Arts for general educa-
tional and vocational ends.
The terms pre-vocational or pre-trade, then, would apply to
a type of training in the elements of a number of activities or
trades so that the pupil might have a basis for choice. Here
the distinguishing characteristic is the fact that the pupil
realizes that he is headed for some one or another of these
C LASSIFICATION AND DIFFERENTIATION 31
life activities or trades and must make his choice as soon as
possible. Fig. 3., represents graphically dominant aims for
manual arts in 156 cities of the United States as expressed
by those in authority in these cities.* Observation in a number
of these cities reporting different aims shows work differing
in no essential one from the other. It is highly probable that
these expressions of dominant aim as trade, or even prevoca-
tional, as shown on the chart, represent hopes and expecta-
tions based upon hopes rather than justifications based upon
investigation cf what use pupils make of these experiences
after leaving school. Only as the majority of pupils make
use of their school training in specific trades in their future
life's work are we justified in calling such school work trade
training. Only as such school activities provide a definite
basis for choice of future life work for a majority of pupils
are we justified in calling the work pre-vocational.
Expressional * ( L Central
Manual Arts \2. Incidental or illus-
trative.
Manual Arts
Technical j 1. Form — technic
Manual Arts
*
2. Execution — skill
Fig. 5.
A careful investigation of what use public school graduates
make of such school training would probably show a larger
number of justifications of such work on the ground of cul-
ture and discipline. The extremes to which the dogma of
discipline led educators and the more recent exposure of
many fallacies justified under this name probably account
for the hesitation manifest in owning to such an aim as domi-
nant. Whatever the theory or hope, the fact remains that,
whatever values lie in any practice, these are not destroyed
*Bulletin No. 32, U. S. Bureau of Education, Washington, 1916.
22 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
by wrong classification as to function and that values not
present cannot be made so thru mere classification.
The purpose of the classifications made in this chapter is
to point out significant factors making for certain directions
or tendencies rather than to mark off sharp lines of cleavage.
Fig. 4 suggests a form of organization equally useful to the
student taking the work for appreciation and to the student
taking it for possible usefulness as a means of preparation for
livelihood. It is recognized, of course, that most boys headed
for industry cannot complete such a course because of the
element of time and money. Such pupils will have to have
less related work and more industrial work which will mean
advancement in the shop experience according to necessity
rather than according to desirability.
Whatever these special adjustments may be, the fact should
not be lost sight of that industries which require skilled
workers, which provide opportunities for advancement above
mere machine tending, have little use for boys under 18
years, the age at which they would complete a four year high
school course as outlined. The real problem for solution in
the training of skilled workers is that of providing a way
whereby boys whose parents are poor may remain in school,
or may have training on the job, or in both school and on the
job. This and other problems of organization and adminis-
tration together with 'justification of the form of organiza-
tion of teaching materials in Fig. 4 will be found in the
author's Organisation and Administration of Manual and
Industrial Arts, a companion text in preparation.
2. Technical Manual Arts. For purposes of easy recall
the main divisions and subdivisions of the manual arts may
be visualized as in Fig. 5.
Form may be loosely defined as that body of information
and understanding of the best ways of doing any given thing,
which information has been handed down from generation
CL ASSIFICATION AND DIFFERENTIATION 33
to generation — or, more accurately stated, it is the science
underlying the art or practice which serves to increase the
effectiveness of physical accomplishment of any given task.
For example, thru countless generations of working wood,
men have evolved a method or order of procedure in what
is called squaring-up stock, which order is used by workers
in wood in every civilized country. This order is not arbitrary
or haphazard, altho many an otherwise intelligent worker in
wood cannot state the underlying reasons for this order, but
is based upon the fact that this particular order reduces the
chances for error to the lowest possible number.
This reason underlies practically every other operation in
working wood. A worker in wood, then, is said to possess
good form and technic in respect to squaring-up stock when
he knows and makes use of this particular order. Form applies
to anything one may be able to do to better execution. The
baseball player who places his hands upon the bat in a cer-
tain generally prescribed way and assumes a certain position
at the plate is said to have good form. A convenient expres-
sion for the idea of form as it applies to technical manual
arts is found in the phrase, "conventional order of procedure."
Technic is form in use.
Execution has to do with muscular control in the accom-
plishment of an act. Skill refers to the effectiveness with
which the carrying out of an act meets the demands for such
action. A worker in wood is said to be skillful when, to his
knowledge of the conventional order of procedure in squaring-
up the stock, he has added an ability to actually square-up
the stock with accuracy and ease.
Evidences of good form are best seen when utilized in exe-
cution. For this reason there sometimes arises a question in
the mind of the beginner as to the part played by each. This
difference may be seen readily in the case of any individual
who is called upon to form new habits. One may understand
34 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
fully, for example, all that enters into the riding of a bicycle
or the driving of an automobile, or the flying of an aeroplane
in so far as proper form is concerned ; skill in execution,
however, is a matter of improvement in muscular adjustment
coming only thru trial and error. Two groups of boys of
supposedly equal capacity and experience are asked to square-
up a given number of pieces of stock. The governing con-
ditions are made such that the only difference is, that one
group is informed and has mastered mentally the conventional
order of procedure, the correct . form in squaring-up stock
such as has been handed down from generation to generation.
The other group is not so informed. The value of teaching
proper form is seen when these boys have been set to work,
also the limitations. It will be found that one group has
secured the requisite results more quickly than the other. It will
be found that so far as the actual acquiring of muscular
adjustment thru trial and error is concerned the informed
group has had little advantage over the uninformed.
In case of each group trial and error was the necessary
prerequisite for improvement. The chief source of advantage
of the informed group over the uninformed lay in the fact
that the order of procedure they were taught and encouraged
to follow reduced the chances for error to a minimum. The
athletic coach is of service mainly because he knows and
teaches and encourages his students to make use of good form.
The shop instructor is of service for the same reason. Exe-
cution or the acquiring of skill is a matter in which the pupil
must work out his own salvation, guided, of course, by the
knowledge of proper form or technic. Form is a matter of
intelligence, of consciousness, of connections between thought
and thought. A consideration of matters of form will there-
fore tend to delay or hold off execution. Skill, on the other
hand, becomes effective just to the extent movement can be
freed from conscious control in execution.
CLASSIFICATION AND DIFFERENTIATION
35
Technical manual arts are distinguished from other forms
of manual arts chiefly thru the emphasis placed upon the
teaching of proper form and the development of good technic
in conventional methods of procedure as developed thru race
experience, and upon skill in execution. Teachers of technical
Fig. 6. Doll House Problem.
manual arts will do well to remember that such emphasis
represents but one aspect of educational need to be met thru
what is called the manual arts. They will do well to remem-
ber that psychologically there is little value in emphasizing
technic and skill until a feeling of real need for these upon
the part of the pupils has been developed thru preliminary
spontaneous activities of a similar character which tend to
result unsatisfactorily after awhile because of their not being
36 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
based upon a knowledge of proper form and a fair degree
of skill in execution. They should remember that this acquir-
ing of knowledge of conventional methods of procedure, or
form, and the development of skill in execution are not ends
in themselves, where the highest good of the individual and
society is sought. They are, rather, means to an end, namely,
the development of a more efficient expression than that to be
found in the early stages of spontaneous activity — more effi-
cient because of being based upon knowledge of proper
method of procedure and a degree of skill sufficient to serve
as a foundation for further advancement. Emphasis upon
technic and skill is the middle stage of Froebel's (1) spon-
taneity, (2) instruction, (3) creative effort.
3. Expressional Manual Arts. The term expressional
manual arts is usually taken to mean that type of construc-
tive activity which is free from the necessity of making use
of conventional methods of procedure in the manipulation of
materials or of developing a degree of skill sufficient to have
the product class as other than amateurish and crude from
the standpoint of technic and skill. Manual arts character-
ized by such freedom of expression may be subdivided into
central on the one hand and incidental or illustrative on the
other according as the ideas develop or grow out of the
activity or the activity out of the idea.
If, for example, children of the primary grades are en-
couraged to engage in the construction or furnishing of a
doll house, Fig. 6, and out of this activity the teacher should
cause to be developed lessons in language or number, this
would class as central expressional manual arts. If, on the
other hand, certain ideas are supposed to be in the minds of
the children and the teacher seeks to fix these thru manual
expression, she may do so thru what is known as incidental
or illustrative manual arts, Fig. 7. Such expression not only
assists in fixing the information or ideas but serves as a
CLASS I FICATION AND DIFFERENTIATION 37
means of clarifying such ideas, or at least of showing to the
pupil and teacher a need for further consideration of the in-
formation supposed to have been mastered.
There are those who refuse to consider such expressional
handwork as a part of the manual arts. To refuse to do so
is to neglect an opportunity to make use of, and to assist in
orienting, a kind of work which is of most vital importance
to the manual arts movement as a whole. Much confusion
has arisen because of a failure to distinguish clearly the aims
and characteristics of expressional and technical manual arts.
Fig. 7. Sand Table Problem.
Let it be said in the beginning that those advocates of ex-
pressional manual arts who strive to convince us that expres-
sional manual arts is calculated to produce skill and impart
good technic as a sort of by-product of free expression in
various media without in any way detracting from the value
of the expression or illustration, are confusing the issue.
Since the purpose of expressional and illustrative manual arts
is primarily mental, intellectual, emphasis upon the idea to be
expressed, emphasis upon technic and skill or automatic con-
nections must necessarily tend to interfere with the aim of
this kind of work.
For example, if we choose to have a class construct appa-
ratus to illustrate the earth's movement about the sun, any
38 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
rough block of wood may serve as a base and any rough
objects of a spherical form serve as sun and earth, a piece
of wire appropriately bent may be utilized to hold the bodies
in proper position relative to one another to produce the
motion required. The thing may be hurriedly made and be
very crude in matters of skill in execution and in conventional
methods of working wood; if it but serves to illustrate the
thing desired it has served its purpose. To take time to
teach the conventional method of procedure of squaring-up
stock for the base and the conventional method for modeling
a sphere would be to interfere with the free expression of the
idea, which is the essential thing here. Or, it may be the
making of a hurried blackboard sketch by the teacher in an
attempt to convey better some thought or idea. To take
time to make an elaborate drawing, excellent in technic and
skillful in execution, would mean probably so long a delay
in the conveying of the idea, with a probable centering of
attention on technic and execution, that the essential thing,
the idea to be conveyed, would be lost sight of. Of course,
if the blackboard drawing is one to be used for purposes of
teaching good technic, no pains should be spared to make of
it the best of its kind.
In the case of the illustrative drawing it is well to make use
of such technic and skill as can be without causing a serious
sacrifice upon the thought side. In the case of the hurried
illustrative drawing it is the part of wisdom to erase the same
once it has served its purpose, lest some pupil later confuse
its aim with the aim of a technical drawing to the detriment
of pupil ideals as to a technical drawing and his respect for
his instructor's ability as a draughtsman.
With the limited time usually devoted to expressional manual
arts, central and illustrative, in the schools of today, and the
fact that our grade teachers of the regular school, by whom
this work is to be given, are in the main idea minded and
CLASSIFICATION AND DIFFERENTIATION 39
idea trained, there is in general small need to emphasize
dangers incident to expressional manual arts work. Such
dangers do exist, however, and it may be well to mention
the more common that the enthusiast for this type of work
may not bring his subject into disrepute thru extreme interest.
First, as has been stated, there is the danger of failing to
recognize that the aims and means of expressional and tech-
nical manual arts conflict and that it is hardly possible to
accomplish technical ends in expressional work without doing
injustice to freedom of expression or else failing of accom-
plishment of standards of achievement inherent in results
that shall class as technical.
Second, where the teacher of expressional manual arts
recognizes the fact that freedom of expression is the primary
reason for the existence of such work, there is sometimes a
failure to appreciate the fact that there is also a need and a
place for that other type of experience known as technical
manual arts with its restrictions upon freedom of expression.
Teachers of technical manual arts are equally prone to forget
that their type of work is not the only type which may legiti-
mately find a place in the field of educational endeavor.
Third, there is the danger of allowing a child to express
himself thru crude methods of expression when the problem
is one which calls for what we have designated a more effi-
cient expression — an expression based upon a knowledge of
form or technic and a skill already possessed by the pupil
in such degree as not seriously to interfere with freedom of
expression. For example, in the furnishing of a doll house
in the primary grade, the children may have need for a paper
mat of simple weave and color design. It is quite likely they
will have been taught the technic of such weaving and color
selection in their technical handwork. The teacher will do
well in the furnishing of the house to insist that the children
40 TEACHING MANUA L AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
make use of this technic and skill in the making of the mat
for the house.
Fourth, teachers of illustrative handwork should remember
that a thing which is perfectly clear in the mind of a child
needs no illustration thru construction — words or speech will
save time and time so saved may be utilized for other pur-
poses. If it is participation in activity that is wanted, and
no problems really needing illustration or clarification are
available, the time may well be spent upon technical handwork.
Fifth, teachers of expressional manual arts should remem-
ber that central expressional manual arts, while used pri-
marily as an activity out of which related academic work
such as language and number may be developed, is also a
preliminary to technical manual arts. It is Froebel's (1)
spontaneity, which leads to and prepares the way for (2) in-
struction, thru creating a feeling of need.
4. Relation of Expressional to Technical Manual Arts.
Expressional and technical manual arts have been differen-
tiated with respect to stress upon, or absence of, intellectual
values. It is said that expressional manual arts is strongly
intellectual while technical manual arts is not. This state-
ment needs explanation. There are two kinds of intellectual
activity: (1) a type wherein the individual is responsible
for initiating and working out means to an end; (2) a type
wherein the individual thinks the thoughts of another or
others for the accomplishment of a given end. If reference
is had to this first type, then expressional manual arts is
superior.
However, sight should not be lost of the fact that exercise
of initiative in the planning of means to an end is very ineffi-
cient in accomplishing results until it is based upon instruc-
tion in conventional methods of doing related work and a
fair degree of skill. If this latter type of thinking is not
so high as the first, it is much more efficient in accomplishing
CLASSIFICATION AND DIFFERENTIATION 41
predetermined ends. If one has the advantage upon the side
of a higher type of intellectual activity, the other has the
advantage upon the side of knowledge of race experience
and skill.
It must be admitted, of course, that a conflict does exist
between free expression and instruction in conventional
methods of procedure — one cannot tell a boy how to make
a mortise-and-tenon joint and at the same time have him
discover how it is to be made. Likewise, the development of
great skill cannot be expected at the time a student is men-
tally active in an effort to make the first application of
instruction.
Expressional and technical manual arts have been differ-
entiated by the statement that expressional manual arts has
no subject-matter of its own but is merely a means of teach-
ing other subject-matter, while technical manual arts is an
end in itself and is possessed of subject-matter. Strangely
enough, these attributes are, by others, reversed — expressional
manual arts is said to have subject-matter, while technical man-
ual arts is said not to have subject-matter but to be of value
as a means or method.
These conflicts are accounted for by the fact that both
expressional and technical manual arts have dual signifi-
cance. When it is said that expressional manual arts has
subject-matter, reference is had to that type of expressional
manual arts which has been called central. When expres-
sional manual arts is said to be a means, reference is had
to illustrative manual arts. Technical manual arts utilized
for general educational purposes, as a discipline, is valuable
chiefly as a method. A boy taking woodwork who never
becomes a worker in wood is benefited not so much because
he has mastered the subject-matter of woodwork but because
he has acquired certain attitudes, habits of mind and body
which assist him in interpreting related experiences in later
42 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
life. Technical manual arts for the boy who expects to fol-
low that particular line of work in after life, technical manual
arts for vocational ends, is valuable for subject-matter as
well as method; skill and knowledge of conventional methods
of procedure here are ends in themselves.
5. Harmonization of Conflicting Aims. In general, con-
flicts between expressional and technical forms are best har-
monized in terms of Froebti's (1) spontaneity, (2) instruc-
tion, (3) creative effort. The growth of consciousness, we
are told, is like the clearing of a fog — at first we see darkly,
then, one by one we are able to distinguish or differentiate
objects and to classify. Expressional manual arts is largely
a means of working out this clarifying process in the mind
of the child, not so far removed from that "big, blooming,
buzzing confusion," that one-ness of the individual from
which he works out his differentiations thru movement, ran-
dom at first and later controlled. In performing this func-
tion manual arts is concerned with the expression of ideas
rather than with processes. / *
Of no less importance, altho incidental, is the fact that
such spontaneous or free activity becomes the means of
developing a feeling of real need for knowledge of better
ways of accomplishing results in the manipulation of ma-
terials. With the accomplishment of this, the pupil is ready
for the second of Froebel's steps. Better ways of accom-
plishing results are to be secured thru instruction and prac-
tice in the applications of conventional methods of procedure
developed thru race experience.
This latter constitutes the distinguishing feature of tech-
nical manual arts. Once the pupil has mastered technic and
a fair degree of skill in the particular convention under con-
sideration he should be given opportunity to enter upon step
three, creative effort based upon such instruction. This last
step represents the highest attainment in the educational pro-
CLASSIFICATION AND DIFFERENTIATION 43
cess. It should be the culmination of all manual arts experi-
ence. It is the most efficient type of expression; more effi-
cient than spontaneous expression because of being based
upon knowledge of proper form and a degree of skill suffi-
cient to serve as a foundation for future advancement; more
efficient than the second stage, instruction, because it is free,
the ideas originating in the mind of the worker and not
being imposed by another or others. Tho spontaneity, in-
struction, and creative effort are mutually exclusive at any
one time, yet by close alternation and development the advan-
tages of each may be realized.
It will serve to clarify the confusion which sometimes
exists as to the relation of expressional to technical manual
arts if a definite time for technical manual arts is set aside
on the school program. At such times technic and skill may
be emphasized and both teacher and pupil brought to see
that here the aim is the acquiring of a knowledge of conven-
tional method and of skill — it may be no more than the simple
paper weaving of the first grade. Expressional handwork
may be given during the time of the class, the subject mat-
ter of which it is intended to develop or to clarify and illus-
trate — at any rate, the difference in aims should be evident
to both teacher and pupils and standards set accordingly.
Expressional handwork will find its largest usefulness in
the earlier grades, gradually diminishing in importance as
the children grow older and better able to get ideas thru
words. Technical manual arts will find itself with smaller
time needs in the beginning grades, for little children see
little need for technic and skill, with growing importance as
age increases.
While it is highly desirable that aims in expressional and
technical manual arts be clearly defined and differentiated in
the minds of both pupil and teacher, it should be recognized
that this is merely a matter of convenience and of emphasis
44 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
in conflicting aims. It is desirable, for example, that book-
lets, clay animals, paper mats, woven rugs, etc., made in
technical manual arts periods, where proper technic and form
and skill in execution were emphasized, be utilized in the
working out of expressional manual arts problems, such as
the use of the rugs in the central expressional manual arts
problem of the doll house, or of the clay animals in sandtable
problems in illustrating lessons in geography, history, or
literature, etc.
Again, in any illustrative or other expressional lesson,
pupils should be encouraged to make use of such technic and
skill as they have already secured in the technical manual
arts, in so far as this can be done without seriously interfer-
ing with the free expression of the lesson. Out of such cor-
relations should develop eventually a type of expression
which we have called a more efficient expression — more effi-
cient because of its being based upon technic and skill in
related matters. For example, out of a boy's seventh or eighth
grade technical shopwork in wood, wherein he has been re-
quired to emphasize technic and skill, ought to come an ability
to express his personal desires for the execution of pieces of
woodwork, such as furniture, much more efficiently than if
he had never had such technical experiences. Then, too, if
such a boy has been given at least a few opportunities for
the carrying out of such original pieces of work as his mas-
tery of technic and skill make possible, he will be a more
valuable type of citizen than one who has never been encour-
aged to think or act other than as he is told.
6. Summary. For the sake of convenience the manual
arts may be classified and differentiated according as they
stress one or another of the following functions: (1) A
means of expressing ideas without restraint due to consider-
ations of conventional methods of procedure and skill. (2) A
means of developing certain attitudes of mind and habits of
CLASSIFICATION AND DIFFERENTIATION 45
both mind and body in some one or more industrial lines,
which attitudes and habits are possessed of value chiefly
because they enable the individual to properly evaluate and
appreciate things industrial in his future life contacts. (3) A
means of developing technic and skill in some one or more
industrial lines as ends in themselves, useful because the
individual expects to follow that line or those lines after
leaving school.
When emphasis is placed as in number one above, this is
designated expressional manual art; when stress is placed
as in number two, it is designated as technical manual arts
for general educational purposes ; when the stress is as in
number three, we have what is called technical manual arts
for vocational ends.
Technical manual arts may be divided into considerations
of form, technic, execution, and skill in execution. Expres-
sional manual arts may be considered under subdivisions
known as central and incidental or illustrative.
Technical and expressional manual arts are differentiated
one from the other mainly thru the variation in stress or
lack of stress upon form, technic and skill in execution.
In spite of conflict of aims, both expressional and technical
manual arts can be justified and harmonized as a part of the
educational scheme ; this is best done thru Froebel's ( 1 ) spon-
taneity, (2) instruction, (3) creative effort. Expressional
manual arts is most concerned with number one, spontaneity ;
technical manual arts with number two, instruction; both are
preparatory to number three, creative effort.
Reference Reading:
Thorndike: Principles of Teaching, Chapter XIV, review
Chapter XIII.
Dobbs: Primary Handwork, pp. 1-5, 24-26, 115-121.
Dobbs: Illustrative Handwork, Chapter I.
Judd : Psychology of High School Subjects, Chapters XI, XII
Griffith : _ Correlated Courses in Woodwork and Mechanical
Drawing, pp. 1-2, 7-11.
46 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
Class Discussion:
1. What is meant by the' term expression?
2. What is form; technic; execution; skill?
3. Define form and skill with reference to consciousness.
4. To what extent is expressional manual arts concerned with
skill? Technical manual arts?
5. Enumerate the general principles, as laid down by Thorn-
dike, for teaching manual arts.
6. Discuss two dangers mentioned by Thorndike.
7. State the principles given by Thorndike in securing efficient
execution or skill.
8. Illustrate the effect of delayed capacities upon the proper
organization of manual arts teaching materials.
9. What bearing would Thorndike's "Attention and Execu-
tion" have upon early Swedish sloyd's insistence upon
definite foot position in learning to plane? (The proper
position of the feet is painted upon the floor and the stu-
dent is asked to stand upon these markings.) Would you
ever teach positions?
10. Discuss the principle of self-criticism.
11. Can you harmonize a seeming lack of agreement as to
relative emphasis to be placed upon technic and skill in the
readings in Primary Handwork and Correlated Courses?
12. Examine and try to classify the type of work described in
each of the following:
Dobbs: Illustrative Handwork..
Buxton and Curran : Paper and Cardboard Construction.
Griffith: Correlated Courses in Woodwork and Mechanical
Drawing.
13. Examine back numbers of Manual Training Magazine and
Industrial Arts Magazine for descriptions of different kinds
of manual arts activities, and try to classify them.
CHAPTER III
INDUSTRIAL ARTS
1. Introduction. The term industrial arts is frequently
used to designate a type of work long known as manual arts
or manual training. As used in this text, the term industrial
arts has reference to that type of educational experience
wherein sufficient relative time and direction are given that
it may adequately serve the needs of those boys who have
definitely decided to enter industry upon leaving school, or
may supplement the experience of those already at work in
industry.
It is not proposed in this discussion to enter upon any
extended effort at justification of industrial arts as a part of
education or to explain the various forms of organization or
administration which are to be found. These are fully treated
in a companion volume in preparation. Suffice it to say that
industrial arts finds a place in education as do agriculture,
commercial subjects, medicine, law, engineering, etc., because
society has need for trained workers in industry even as it
has in these other lines of activity, and because an individual
so trained makes a better citizen than if untrained. Indus-
trial arts, with its early specialization, finds a place in elemen-
tary education because of the fact that those it seeks to aid
cannot or do not remain in school thru the high school age,
the age most suited for serious pursuit of vocational train-
ing. Figs. 2 and 4.
2. Three Types of Reactive Need in Industrial Arts Edu-
cation. Reactions in the educational process come about
thru (1) random movement brought about thru instinctive
tendencies, (2) thru simple unconscious imitation, or imita-
tion involving little original thought power, and (3) thru
47
48 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
reflective thinking wherein an analysis of underlying reasons
is an ever important consideration.
The first type of reaction is a necessary stage in every
effort at habit formation. However, it is an expensive
method and one which may be reduced to a minimum by
making use of knowledge obtained thru race experience.
There will always be a sufficient amount of random effort
without needlessly encouraging its kind. One may have all
the knowledge necessary about learning to ride a bicycle but,
as has been said, it is only by repeated trials that one learns
to ride.
The second type of reaction depends upon a kind of intel-
lectual activity which is a necessary part to the learning pro-
cess but which has limitations when depended upon exclu-
sively. Learning by or thru mere imitation with little atten-
tion to analysis and reason may make a very efficient machine
tender or automaton ; it cannot make for race progress. Used
as a means and not as an end this type of thinking provides
a valuable aid thru which to raise the child from one stage
of development to a still higher stage. For example, a boy
would have to spend much time to discover thru random
experimentation all that goes to make up the knowledge and
experience of a first-class carpenter. Thru exercise of the
imitative faculty he may rather quickly be brought to an
efficient stage of development as to knowledge of what the
race has discovered about carpentry and as to mere execution
of what others plan.
The third type of reaction is the highest — a type of reac-
tion based upon an analysis of situation and a reasoning as
to cause and effect. Here the subject-matter and method
of procedure of the lower type are an essential part, but the
horizon of mere practical expediency as to each specific
experience is broadened into one of understanding thru gen-
eralized and systematized consideration of underlying prin-
INDUSTRIAL ARTS 49
ciples. The world has always paid highest tribute to this type
of reaction. The laborer in the ditch may be, and is, doing
a worthy work and should be suitably rewarded. The world
has never paid him as it has paid the engineer who planned
the project of which digging the ditch is a part, or the
skilled mechanic on the job. It is hardly probable it ever will.
3. Basis for Awards in Industry. The author recently
viewed a motion picture film the subject of which was "In
Old and New China." In old China he saw men harnessed
as animals to great, heavy carts loaded with heavy merchan-
dise. Thin, gaunt men they were, with little clothing on
their bodies and only a rag to protect their flesh from the
heavy ropes at which they strained with all their might, a
dozen or more men to each cart. Soon there flashed upon
the screen a scene from new China, among other things a
modern motor truck with liveried driver and a load of mer-
chandise five or six times that being drawn by the dozen
men, moving with apparently no human effort. Once we
have analyzed the various factors involved in the makeup
of these two scenes, we shall have determined the basis for
awards in industry.
In an analysis of the situation in the illustration above we
find representatives of each of the three types of reaction
enumerated in section one. We find the common laborer, we
find the skilled laborer, and, by inference, we find the intel-
lectual, who may or may not have been greatly skilled in
matters of execution in the realm of muscle, the man who
designed or invented the truck. We also have, by inference,
the capitalist. For purposes of this discussion the capitalist
may be eliminated, since the type of reaction he represents
is not greatly different in its origin from that represented by
the inventor, the intellectual.
From this analysis we find, so far as our sympathies are
concerned, the human animals of old China deserving of
50 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
the highest awards. Awards, however, are made according
to economic considerations rather than ethical, as we well
know. Further analysis will show that awards are made
according to the educational investment the individual has
made. It is in or thru the learning process that man makes
his investment, and man learns practically all those things
which place him above the brute creation thru the guidance
of intellect. If, for example, one chooses to learn nothing
more complex than tugging with might and main at a great
rope fastened to a heavy load of merchandise, one may
expect to find competition such that awards for service are
reduced to means of bare existence. If he chooses to become
a skilled mechanician and motor truck driver, he must expend
time and energy in learning those things necessary for effi-
ciency in this kind of work and in perfecting muscular
coordinations.
Lest some one has hastened to the conclusion that effi-
ciency in the learning process, like efficiency in habits already
acquired, is a matter of feeling alone because of emphasis
placed upon feeling in Chapter 1, the reader is reminded
that in the learning process highest efficiency or skill comes
about when the worker has been instructed in the best form
for doing his particular kind of work, as handed down from
generation to generation. The guiding in the assimilation
of such form is the work of intellect. The truck driver had
made a larger initial investment educationally than had the
coolies. He had become skilled in driving and in motor truck
mechanism, if he did it most effectively, thru intellectual
investment as well as thru feeling, in that he had been
instructed in the things the race had found out about motor
truck mechanism and driving. His awards for service are
proportionate to his intelligence and his skill.
What about the inventor; why does he secure so much
greater awards than either truck; driver or coolie ? Cer-
INDUSTRIAL ARTS 51
tainly not because he is necessarily more skilled in the mat-
ters of muscular coordination in execution. In all probability
he had a model-maker construct the model which he submit-
ted to the patent office. Highest awards are given those who
can perfect devices which will save time and energy and
make for comfort and convenience for the race in ways not
before known. This is what we call selective thinking as
distinguished from that of the second type, that of the skilled
mechanic, wherein thinking is chiefly a matter of association.
So valuable or productive is this type of thinking, that the
world rewards it highest even tho its owner may be inferior
in matters of skill in execution in materials.
To revert to our illustration, it is the inventor of the truck
who gets the highest awards. What has he invested educa-
tionally? True, some inventors are born with a type of
mind which naturally puts things together in new ways ; more
inventors succeed by investing hours of time in developing
the thing which afterward brings them great awards. Cer-
tain men are born with tendencies toward skill so that mat-
ters of birth may be neglected for purposes of evaluating the
three types. The inventor makes his investments chiefly in
intelligence of a certain type; it is this type which is the
largest factor making for success or convenience of the race
in guiding execution. In the final analysis, then, investment
thru the learning process may be considered as the basis for
awards. This investment may be in the form of increased
intelligence or skill or both. Intellectual investment in turn
may be of two kinds, common or associative and selective.
4. Industrial Education Must Provide Opportunity for
Individual Specialization Along Any One of These Three
Types of Reaction. Aristotelian philosophy proposed a
social order of things wherein the social body was to be
brought to a high state of economic perfection or efficiency
thru the recognition of class distinctions. There were to be
52 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
the intellectuals, the skilled workers, the common laborers.
Rewards were to be distributed according to class, intellec-
tuals first and laborers last. Members of the classes were to
be determined not by individual preference but by the dictum
of certain members of the social order itself.. Democracy
cannot stand sponsor for an Aristotelian philosophy of indus-
trial education. Democracy is based upon the principle of
equal rights and equal opportunities for all. This being the
case, opportunity must be open always for any boy to be-
come whatsoever he wishes, whether it be intellectual or
skilled mechanic or laborer. This opportunity for individual
freedom of choice in the matter of future occupation is the
distinguishing feature of a democracy from an autocracy.
Since a democracy demands equal opportunities for all, and,
since the intellectual type has been able to command the high-
est awards, education in democracies has not infrequently
drawn the conclusion that its work consists solely in the
training of its young for this type. Education even in a
democracy should provide for all three types of reaction men-
tioned above. There should be extended courses to develop
mental grasp and technical skill, with emphasis upon indi-
vidual welfare commensurate with the individual's later po-
sition as a citizen of the commonwealth. There should be
shorter courses so directly planned and pointed toward indus-
try and the other vocations, and taken at such early ages
that individual welfare seemingly is sunk in specific indus-
trial demands for a machine tender produced in the shortest
possible time. The more extended courses are better, of
course, as a general proposition. Limitations as to time and
-noney available for educational purposes will largely con-
dition the type of education a boy will be able to secure.
Mental capacity and natural fitness will enter as factors. Just
so long as wealth is as unevenly distributed as it is, and no
greater provisions are made for the economically unfortunate,
INDUSTRIAL ARTS 53
education will be doing all it can for a large number when,
thru such vocational experience it provides instruction in
subject-matter and method in the shortest possible time.
Education in a democracy must do more than provide a
course of instruction suited to those who expect to become
members of the director class ; it must also provide instruc-
tion for those going into the skilled labor class. For those
who are unable to take such extended courses, it must provide
a type which will better their condition in life, small tho this
may be. Much of this must be offered thru part-time, or
evening classes, and thru training on the job. There is a
place for every type of reaction in the world's work : reaction
with little mental effort, work wherein the employer does not
desire a thinking individual and where a boy taught to think
in the largest sense would be unhappy; reaction requiring
somewhat more thought power; and reaction which demands
a high degree of intelligence. Opportunities educationall))
are not equal when only that type of education is offered
which the well-to-do and the intellectually inclined may se-
cure ; opportunities are equal when the various types are
provided for.
5. Fundamental Principles of Teaching Applicable to
Industrial Arts. What we shall teach is determined by
social and economic conditions. This being the case, subject-
matter must always have a large part to play in the determi-
nation of educational procedure. When it comes to a question
of how we shall teach, we find a conditioning factor that
modifies the emphasis which might otherwise be placed upon
subject-matter. How we shall teach is, according to peda-
gogical principles, to be determined by child nature. This
means that attention must be paid to individual needs and
desires. These factors, educational subject-matter and child
nature, tend to conflict; it is the teacher's problem to balance
them as best he can, placing emphasis first on one then on
54 TEACHING MA NUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
the other. For example, psychologically, education must grow-
out of the interests and desires of the pupils. If subject-
matter is of such nature that the pupils' desires or interests
cannot be enlisted within a reasonable time, then the process
of education is in vain for those pupils no matter how logi-
cally the subject-matter may be organized or how valuable the
experience may be from the social-economic point of view. On
the other hand, desire must develop into efficient reactions, as
judged by social-economic standards, just as soon as the
developing nature of the pupils will permit. This means a
growing emphasis upon subject-matter.
While the fundamental principles of teaching are applicable
to industrial arts teaching, practice will be found to vary
from that of manual arts for similarly aged pupils in matters
of time allowance, emphasis upon certain methods of pro-
cedure, allowance for individual differences, ability to exe-
cute, etc., and in matters of relative emphasis to be placed
upon thought provoking content and skill in execution, be-
cause of the fact that economic necessity forces children of
certain classes to interest themselves in efficiency in adult
activities before normal development would dictate. Normal
growth of capacity for serious thought and action in social
economic directions is as diagrammed in Fig. 4. According
to this, serious emphasis upon efficiency, the aim of industrial
arts, is not stressed until second, third, and fourth year high
school age, and after a development of interest in, and feeling
of need for, the same has been brought about thru activities
more closely refated to childish interests and capacity.
It is possible to develop a rather high degree of efficiency
in certain kinds of industrial work requiring comparatively
narrow skill and intelligence before the second, third, and
fourth year high school age.* It is possible to develop an
interest in the acquiring of efficiency where the boy knows
INDUSTRIAL ARTS 55
he is headed toward industry and efficiency rather than appre-
ciation. Boys can be induced to take interest in the making
of large lots of equipment requiring much duplication of pro-
cesses if they have developed a consciousness or feeling of
need for efficiency along the line of some industrial pursuit.
Unless this feeling of need can be developed within a
reasonable time, industrial education will be as profitless edu-
cationally as is any other type of education similarly affected.
Knowledge upon the part of the pupil of the large place to
be held by efficiency and the increased time allotment for the
accomplishment of the same will make it possible for the
industrial arts student to approach that 100 per cent efficiency,
which the industrial world demands, much more quickly than
it can be done thru manual arts with its smaller time allow-
ances and its interests in things more personal or individual
and less economic. Even in industrial arts training, however,
as much time as possible should be allowed for the growth
of skill and intelligence, so that industrial arts teaching is
subject in this as in all other respects to the application of
principles of education even as are the manual arts.
6. Effect of Emphasizing Efficiency in Execution, or Skill,
in Industrial Arts Education. Efficiency or skill in execution
can be accomplished only at the expense of attention to intel-
ligence. The truth of this assertion has been developed in
Chapter 1. For example, a quick way to develop efficiency
in the framing of a half -pitch roof in carpentry is to take a
framing square and show the student just how to place the
square on the material, telling him just what numbers to
take on the tongue and on the blade. After this has been
done, the student is to be set to work putting this instruction
into execution, repeating until the reaction is without thought,
as it were. The psychological processes here are represented
by paths number two and three of Fig 1. This example rep-
resents a type of reaction wherein intellect has a part, tho
56 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
not a very large part. Its part consists merely in recalling
the instruction in the earlier stages of application.
A quicker means of developing efficiency in execution, and
many otherwise good carpenters know no other, consists
in the foreman's laying out the patterns for the various kinds
of rafters after which the workmen come along and, using
these patterns, lay out and cut the rafters needed. This
latter type involves comparatively no thought upon the part
of the workmen in so far as a knowledge of roof framing is
concerned; it may well class as Path No. 1 of Fig. 1.
Continuing the illustration, our foreman himself as a rule
has so neglected intellect in order to attend to execution that
he has never taken time from execution to develop intelligence
about the principles governing roof framing. He finds it
easier to take the limited information given him, which infor-
mation consisted of a statement of the rules governing the
framing of rafters for the roof of the square cornered build-
ing, and then attend diligently to applying this. He would
be non-plussed if required to frame or lay out rafters for a
roof the frame of which was not square. Yet the fact is,
that roof framing is a science as well as an art ; once the
principles are understood any kind of a roof can be framed.
Industrial arts can attend to the immediate development
of a high degree of efficiency in execution; it does not of
necessity have to confine its attention to this alone. Just
as in the accompanying illustration from carpentry there was
a type of execution involving little thought, a reaction involv-
ing more thought, and a reaction involving a high degree of
thinking, so in any industrial arts practice we may have the
same situations. Quite likely society will continue to make
progress in the future as it has in the past by the maintenance
of these three classes, those who specialize in science, the
intellectuals of the crafts; those who balance science and
practice, the skilled craftsmen; and those who are proficient
INDUSTRIAL ARTS 57
in execution but must have someone of the intellectuals do
the thinking for them, lay out their work. The fact to be
remembered- is, that we may have efficiency in execution
shortly but that it comes about thru the correspondingly
early elimination of intelligence as it has to do with the
operation under consideration. Efficiency may be delayed
in industrial arts, but eventually it must be secured if the
work is to class as industrial or vocational. It may take the
form of directing others, or of executing what others direct,
or it may balance these.
7. Industrial Arts Education and Cultural Values. What-
ever the value or lack of value of industrial arts as a means
of culture, its right to a place in the field of public school
education must be conceded. Social, economic and other
values justify industrial arts in education. However, there
has been no small amount of discussion as to what effect,
culturally, is produced by industrial arts educational methods.
There is no unanimity of opinion as to what culture really
is : the most common feeling in the matter seems to be that
culture, in common language, consists in one's capacity to
appreciate the other fellow's point of view. If this is true,
then industrial arts is cultural just to the extent it provides
adequate opportunity for breadth of experience and view.
The individual trained to immediate reaction in industrial
lines requiring little thought, and who is never encouraged
to supplement this with other worth while experiences, can
hardly be said to be cultured.
On the other hand, an individual whose education and
experience has consisted solely in academic training along
some narrow line of intellectual activity can hardly be con-
sidered as broadly appreciative of the point of view of that
large body of people who make their living thru working
with their hands. Possibly the boy trained to efficiency in
an industrial line, which training has included training in
58 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
related English, related science, hygiene, citizenship, indus-
trial history, etc., can claim to be possessed of as much culture
as can one who has spent an equal amount of time in train-
ing in purely academic subject-matter preparatory to college
entrance requirements.
If culture refers to opportunity to do selective thinking,
to stress intellect, the illustration from carpentry should make
clear that industrial arts education may and does include that
class we have called intellectuals as well as the class which
depends upon non-intellectual reponses.
8. Dangers to be Avoided. First, there is the danger
of trying to justify the industrial arts thru condemnation of
the manual arts. A more reasonable view will recognize the
legitimate place of manual arts as a means of developing
breadth of experience and appreciation, and as a basis for
future industrial arts experience should the student decide
to enter upon an industrial pursuit as a means of livelihood.
With the limited time devoted to manual arts, 90 to 180
minutes a week in the grades and not over 80 minutes a day
in the high schools, industrial arts will not expect manual
arts to be able to develop an efficiency equal to that which
can be developed where one-half of each day is devoted to
industrial shopwork. It will recognize that students with
the manual arts experience with its limited time, tho losers
in the matter of industrial efficiency, are gainers in other
directions which, for those who are not going into industry,
may be of more value than increased industrial efficiency.
A second danger lies in the confusion not uncommon in
the minds of industrial arts advocates wherein they fail to
differentiate low type industrial activity from higher types.
For example, one may sometimes see bright, capable boys
with time and money to prepare for better things spending
days and weeks at developing efficiency in a type of produc-
tion work requiring little thought. Sometimes the work re-
INDUSTRIAL ARTS 59
quires little skill as well as little thought. The fact that an
educational situation is one from "real life" should not blind
one to the fact that all real life activities are subject to differ-
entiation into varying values educationally and economically.
A student who has time and means, mental capacity and phy-
sical ability to enter upon industrial activities of a higher type
should not be allowed, let alone encouraged, to spend large
blocks of time developing efficiency in low type activities.
If, for example, a boy with such time and money for prepara-
tion wants to follow carpentry as a life activity, he should
be encouraged to enter upon a course of training which will
be of such character that he may become a master in his
craft rather than, what is called in derision, a jack carpenter,
one who can do nothing which has not been mentally pre-
digested for him by the foreman.
Conversely, there has been no small amount of confused
thinking brought about largely thru failure to differentiate
values placed upon certain experiences as educational means
and the same type of experiences in real life. The fact that
certain real life experiences of a low type have been selected
for school use in training pupils who cannot, because of
economic or other reasons, take a higher type, has led some
educators to conclude that therefore such low type activities
are an essential part of every individual's training and after-
life experience — in other words, that equality of opportunity
necessitates equality of classes in real life in the matter of
work and reward. We speak of the dignity of common labor
in our efforts to justify equality of opportunity. This is
right, but equality of reward is another matter.
However desirable this latter may be from the standpoint
of ethics, the fact remains that so long as rewards are given
in a competitive market, the unthinking laborer cannot hope
to fare as well as members of the director class whose places'
are won by the few who have added to a fair degree of skill
60 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
and understanding, power to think along new lines. The
fact that originality and initiative are so productive as well
as so rare is what causes the world to regard them and reward
them so highly when they manifest themselves in time or
labor-saving devices. An enthusiastic advocate* of voca-
tional education of large salary may assert that he is willing
to "get into the trench and do his share of the world's dirty
work'' ; in fact, neither he nor any other man of equally keen
intellect is getting into the trench. The world is not asking
him to do this, for it can make better use of his talents as
a member of the director class, as evidenced by the position
and salary it gives him.
The problem is not one of making a president of the United
States of every boy; neither is it one of requiring every presi-
dent of the United States to get into the trench and do his
part of the world's dirty work. It is one of providing oppor-
tunity for the full and free development of every boy, not
neglecting the less fortunate who must occupy the humbler
positions in life as the world classifies them. It is also an
ethical problem of trying, in addition to providing oppor-
tunity for training, to provide means whereby the economically
unfortunate may secure larger training than they otherwise
could. Not every boy may become a Henry Ford in the in-
dustrial world. It is to be hoped a new day is dawning
when, on the other hand, the Henry Fords of industry, com-
merce, etc., will recognize the fact that without the manual
dexterity of the men in their factories their ingenuity and
creative thinking would amount to but little. The laborer
of low degree, and even the skilled laborer, has not always
received his just share in the distribution of profits indus-
trially. The director class too often has violated moral obli-
*Dean E. Davenport, College of Agriculture, University of Illinois,
in address before Parents and Teachers Association, Oak Park, 111.
INDUSTRIAL ARTS 61
gations in taking a share of profits which has left the com-
mon worker in poverty.
9. Summary. Industrial arts, then, may justify types
of training and the placing of emphasis upon connections
making for skill and efficiency without apology. It will not
allow itself to be drawn into a false position of claiming a
low type is a high type when it is not. Neither will it allow
its adversaries to class all industrial arts education as neces-
sarily of a low type. Industrial arts has its types which, to
say the least, compare favorably with types of training in other
lines in matters of science, intelligence, culture. While effi-
ciency in execution largely distinguishes industrial arts from
manual arts, efficiency may be delayed for purposes of devel-
oping intelligence in the work under consideration. In the
final analysis, efficiency must be present if the experience is
to class as vocational industrial, and the pupil must make
use of such experience as a means of livelihood.
Reference Reading:
Judd: Psychology of High School Subjects, Chapters XII,
XIII.
Leavitt : Examples of Industrial Education.
Bennett: The Manual Arts, Chapters IV, VII.
Dewey: Democracy and Education, Chapters XIX, XXIII.
Class Discussion :
1. What factor is emphasized in industrial arts which makes
possible a differentiation from manual arts? What dif-
ferences are there in purpose?
2. Discuss the demands for industrial education as enumerated
by Leavitt.
3. Enumerate and evaluate each of the three types of reactive
needs commonly recognized.
4. Distinguish industrial education of a democracy from that
of an autocracy.
5. Is^ industrial education subject to the same fundamental
principles of teaching as are the manual arts? Why then
do we find decided variations in practice in the matter of
interest, in subject matter, and methods of procedure ?
6. Discuss the effect upon intellect of emphasizing efficiency
in execution.
62 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
7. Is culture possible in industrial arts education?
8. Will industrial arts education bring about the elimination
of class distinctions with an equality of reward? Why or
why not?
9. What then, is industrial arts education with equality of
opportunity expected to accomplish?
10. Discuss some of the dangers incident to industrial arts
education.
11. Would you class as industrial education a type of school
experience wherein children studied about industry and
made replicas of certain factors as best they might. For
example, a type wherein -children studied about the steam
engine, making steam engines out of materials such as they
could work conveniently. Discuss.
12. Examine the work of a number of schools, as described
in their reports, and discuss the value of such work from
the standpoint of industrial training.
CHAPTER IV
INSTINCTS AND CAPACITIES
1. Instincts and Capacities. Instincts have been denned
as natural, inborn tendencies toward definite actions along
lines of racial development. A more understandable defini-
tion, possibly, may be obtained by referring to Fig. 1, Path 1,
in the understanding of which we may say with Prof. Thorn-
dike that instincts are unlearned connections. Capacities may
be defined as connections possible but not in use. The kicking
of the legs, the waving about of the arms, the crying of the
newly born infant are examples of primary instincts. Ability
to think, to walk, to talk are capacities — connections delayed
in the case of the infant but nevertheless possible.
The significance of instinctive or unlearned connections is
not always fully appreciated by prospective manual and in-
dustrial arts teachers. Whether such teachers will be happy
or unhappy in their task depends in no small degree upon
their understanding of the problem of the place of instincts
and their means of control and utilization. Like teachers of
other subjects, they will find themselves confronted by in-
stincts functioning so strongly that to properly "evaluate and
utilize them for useful purposes will form one of the big
problems of their teaching experience. Adults may choose
to live thru Path No. 2, Fig. 1< — thru reason and intellectual
control of actions ; children begin in, and only slowly grow out
of, reactions controlled by instincts, connections largely lacking
in reason and intelligence, Path No. 1, Fig. 1. Instincts in
adult man may have been so subdued and placed under con-
trol of intellect and reason that, as Bergson says, other ani-
mals and insects are superior to man in the effectiveness of
reactions controlled by instinct alone; in children unlearned
63
64 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
connections are sufficiently strong that at all times the teacher
is called upon to exercise self-control lest at some unforeseen
moment his own instinctive tendencies get the better of his
judgment and reason. Whether a teacher is successful and
happy in his teaching depends upon his recognition of the
fact that instinctive tendencies give him the very foundation,
the only foundation for his educational structure; that the
stronger they are the better, provided he in turn has the
strength to properly control and guide them into useful habits
of behavior.
"Every acquired reaction," James says, "is, as a rule, either
a complication grafted upon a native reaction, or a substi-
tute for a native reaction, which the same object originally
tended to provoke. The teacher's art consists in bringing
about the substitution or complication, and success in the
art presupposes a sympathetic acquaintance with the reactive
tendencies natively there." Attention, then, is paid to instincts
not as ends in themselves but as means whereby we may en-
graft other and more remote forms of reaction — reactions
which racial experience has proven helpful to the individual
or to society' or both in enabling the individual or society the
better to meet environment.
2. The Law of Association as it applies to the Utiliza-
tion of Instincts. Psychologists have given us what they
have chosen to call a Law of Association which is so helpful
In the interpretation of the teaching problem, not only as it
applies to the utilization of instincts but to all other connec-
tions, that it should be memorized for instant recall. It is not
a law, as to the certainty with which the result can be pre-
dicted, as are the laws of physics and chemistry, because the
limiting conditions are not so readily determined at all times.
It is enough of a law to be most helpful in understanding and
setting the teaching problem. The Law : The likelihood
that any thought or act will follow another thought or act
INSTINCTS AND CAPACITIES 65
is in proportion to the frequency, the recency, the intensity,
and the resulting satisfaction of previous connections, other
things being equal.
The significance of this law when applied to the engrafting
of remote useful reactions upon instincts is simply that, if
certain remote forms are wanted, they must be connected
with original, unlearned or instinctive reaction often; with
not too much time allowed to elapse between their connec-
tion and the present ; with a vitalness of connection that tends
to burn itself in; and, withal, a feeling of zest or pleasure.
Not all of these factors may be present at any one time, but
the chance for future like connections will be increased just
in proportion as they are present and strong. "Other things
being equal" is simply another way of saying that the con-
ditions, in general, must be similar if the reaction is to be
certain as to similarity to previous reaction. If one is tired
or worried things may not be equal were the connections pre-
viously made when fatigue was not a conditioning factor, etc.
It must have been noted that this law presupposes previous
connection. Occasionally a student will ask how the first
or original connections are made. This is a fair question,
tho the answer has been given. Original connections are
native, unlearned. The order is : first, random movement or
spontaneity, tken comes the opportunity for engrafting or
the making of learned connections as distinguished from un-
learned. The question is not only a fair one but one that
serves well to emphasize the absolute dependence of all
remote forms of reaction upon immediate or instinctive forms
at some time or another.
3. Instincts Need Control. Philosophers in times past
have taken two widely divergent views as to the moral na-
ture of instincts. There are those who thought children were
by nature bad and that it was the part of education to make
them good by thwarting native tendencies. There were those
66 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
who believed and taught that children were by nature wholly-
good and that education consisted in letting the unlearned
connections find expression without hindrance.
This latter view was that of Rousseau as expressed in his
earlier writings; the former view was that of the churchmen
and schoolmen who preceded Rousseau. Philosophers, to-
day, are generally agreed that children are by nature neither
wholly bad nor wholly good but are to a large extent influ-
enced for both good and evil by their ancestry. Mental
activity, for example, may be utilized to think out the solu-
tion of a problem of social helpfulness, or it may be used
to think up some new way to torment teacher or fellow pupil.
Physical activity may be directed to the work of squaring-up
stock for a given useful project and thereby give to the
worker certain habits of mind and body useful in enabling
him to make a sled he wants sufficiently well to withstand the
rough usage to which boys subject sleds, or it may be directed
toward mischievous ends, such as cutting desks, breaking tools,
etc. Ownership may be utilized to motivate the acquiring of
good technic or it may find expression in common theft, etc.,
etc.
4. Means Used to Control Connections between Instinc-
tive and More Remote Connections. Of the means used to
control instinctive connections or connections between
instinctive reactions and reactions more remote, the follow-
ing are common :
1. Guidance or substitution,
2. Neglect or disuse,
3. Inhibition or punishment.
Among other instincts are those of curiosity, physical ac-
tivity, ownership, sociability, emulation, fighting, independence,
kindness, mastery, manipulation, mental activity. Let us illus-
trate means of control in two of these instincts: curiosity
and manipulation. Any shop teacher knows that the first day
INSTINCTS AND CAPACITIES 67
boys enter shop for the first time, if they are just natural
they will open and slam vises, handle tools, and in general
investigate every thing that catches eye, or ear, or hand.
The noise is deafening and tools as well as the hands of the
pupils are likely to be damaged.
Are curiosity and manipulation here undesirable traits of
character or possession ? The novice might say that they are ;
the wise teacher, however, sees in such actions the manifesta-
tion of instincts of such strength and direction that he imme-
diately plans to utilize them for ends other than mere noise
and manipulation. He does not so much regret their appear-
ance, for he has plans for changing their direction toward
useful ends; he may wish certain connections making for
restraint, formed in the academic school room, had partially
carried over in a manifestation of greater respect for tools
and materials of the shop. He knows, had there been no
curiosity upon the part of the incoming class, that the teach-
er's problem would have been a most difficult one. It might
of course have been present without manifesting itself in
such noisy and immediate manipulation. Sticks make poor
performers, whether they be of wood or of flesh.
To illustrate the application of the various means of con-
trol enumerated above, let us revert to the example of the
preceding paragraph. When the boys rush in at the begin-
ning of their first shop experience they may be kept from
breaking tools, slamming vises, and taking chances of injur-
ing themselves, first, by arranging the situation so that neg-
lect or disuse shall obtain. This may be done by not placing
the tools upon the benches until pupils have assembled and
had instruction as to behavior desired. Vises may be fastened
so that they cannot be slammed.
Second, the teacher may prevent their handling tools and
vises by inhibition or punishment. This may be done by
meeting the boys at the door and telling them before they
68 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
enter the room that they are not to handle tools or vises. In
any well organized school such instruction carries the impli-
cation of punishment of one kind or another to come in case of
disobedience.
Third, mere manipulation and unnecessary noise may be
prevented by guidance or substitution. Guidance or substitu-
tion in this case may consist in providing other directions for
exercise of curiosity and manipulation. One teacher, who has
to teach grammar school mechanical drawing on the woodshop
benches, prefers to leave all wood tools off the benches while
the twelve lessons in drawing are being given. This is making
use of neglect or disuse in so far as opportunity to exercise
curiosity and manipulation on wood tools is concerned. Hav-
ing taught respect for tools and equipment thru mechanical
drawing, which has habits more closely allied to habits already
formed in the regular schoolroom in matters of restraint,
he can then connect his desired shop attitudes or habits, with
their greater freedom of action, to the drawing habits with
less need for dependence upon mere authority and fear of
punishment.
Where shopwork is not made to wait upon mechanical
drawing, probably as easy a way as any, where the teacher
has the confidence of the pupils thru reputation (pupils usually
have a teacher's measure before ever they enter his classes
thru acquaintance with pupils who have been in his classes)
is to call the class to order as soon as they have entered the
shop and give instructions as to conduct. Some very good
teachers prefer to let the pupils enter the room unhindered,
handle the tools and slam the vises, calmly waiting the tap
of the beginning bell when they proceed to set the house in
order by a combination, as it were, of several of the means
mentioned above.
It must be recognized that certain of the means mentioned
above are more desirable than others. In order of desirability
INSTINCTS AND CAPACITIES 69
substitution or guidance comes first. Keep a child busy and
he will cause little trouble thru the manifestation of unde-
sirable tendencies. Keep him busy upon useful or well-directed
activity and he not only causes little trouble but is actively
engaged in the educative process. Neglect or disuse is second
as a desirable means. It is negative, as it were, in that it fails
to make use of the driving force of the instinct it seeks to
overcome by neglect. Neglect was suggested in the illustration
above of the drawing teacher, in that tools were not placed
upon the benches. With reference to learning about wood
tools thru the exercise of curiosity, there was a loss. In this
case, of course, there was a gain thru directing curiosity and
manipulative tendencies toward mechanical drawing tools and
processes. Since the woodworking tools were to be intro-
duced later the loss mentioned was one of time only.
Inhibition and punishment (punishment of any kind, such
as removal of privileges as well as corporal punishment) should
be used as a last resort, in general. Appeal to au-
thority (that is what inhibition and punishment amount
to) may be maintained successfully for short and infrequent
intervals, such, for example, as the shop teacher's telling the
entering class to leave the tools and vises alone, that they
would be given opportunity to learn all about them and manip-
ulate them in time. Inhibition and punishment are costly
and uncertain means for they violate resulting satisfaction,
the most important factor in the working of the law of associa-
tion. To violate resulting satisfaction means that greater ap-
peal must be made to frequency and other operating factors
in the law of association to compensate for this loss. The
excessive strength of the factor of resulting satisfaction is
such that very many repetitions will be required as a rule to
counteract its loss.
For example, it is a matter of common observation that a
child will secure a stronger or more lasting connection thru
70 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
doing a thing once when it is connected with something in-
stinctively pleasant than thru doing the same thing a
dozen times when the. thing is not connected with something
intrinsically interesting but which is done thru fear of punish-
ment of one kind or another. Connections made thru authority
with fear of punishment as the incentive rather than resulting
satisfaction are uncertain, for the moment authority is re-
moved the chances for a repeat are unfavorable.
5. Conflict of Aims in Utilizing Instincts. As in teach-
ing other subjects, so in teaching manual and industrial arts
it is not uncommon to find flagrant violations of the principles
of good teaching, as indicated in the law of association applied
to instinctive connections. Frequently, however, such viola-
tions are not the result of lack of knowledge upon the part
of the teacher but rather the result of the necessity for having
to choose between conflicting aims, neither solution being
possible without a sacrifice. For example, certain teachers
recommend the making of models by the teacher and the
placing of these about the walls of the shop in orderly se-
quence. The aim here is to make for clearness of thinking
upon the part of the pupil.
There is a question, however, as to whether the gain in
clearness of thinking thru the pupil's being able to see the
year's work at a glance compensates for the loss of interest
thru the immediate unfolding of the work of the year and the
consequent destruction of curiosity as to what comes next, an
important factor in keeping the pupil keyed-up to the work
in hand. Before the work of any teacher is criticised or con-
demned for violating certain factors of the law of association
as it has to do with the utilization of instincts, the observer
should make certain the violation is not justifiable thru extra
values obtained thru emphasizing other conflicting factors.
Keeping a pupil after hours as a punishment for not making
certain connections desired in school hours may violate the
INS TINCTS AND CAPACITIES 71
law as to resulting satisfaction thru connection in the mind
of the pupil of ideas of dissatisfaction with the work of the
school, a connection not to be desired.
On the other hand, if such punishment serves to make
the pupil take greater satisfaction in making the proper con-
nections during school hours, it may have justified itself. At
its best, of course, it is but a makeshift justifiable only with
the few who are not subject to reasonable teaching situations.
A proper setting of teaching conditions should make for re-
sulting satisfaction upon the part of the class as a whole
with but few exceptions.
6. Effect of Delayed Capacities. The teacher of manual
or industrial arts needs but to recall his own experiences to be
made aware of the fact that various capacities mature or
become available gradually. Unfortunately, many adults
have lost the ability to see themselves as they were as children
at various stages of development. That teacher of manual
arts who seeks to emphasize extreme accuracy and skill in
primary grades evidently has failed to recall that the capacity
to appreciate a need for a high degree of accuracy and skill
is not likely to manifest itself until children have had more
experience of a random character. Then, too, the capacity
to execute with skill is not present with small children, espe-
cially the capacity to execute fine movements. The teacher of
industrial arts who seeks to make mechanics of mere children
finds this a difficult problem. Children of early grammar
grades are lacking in capacity to execute in materials, to use
mechanical judgment, and in ability, as a rule, to appreciate
needs.
If the teacher must arrange his work so that pupils are not
required to make use of capacities before they manifest them-
selves normally, he must also see that capacities are con-
sidered when they do manifest themselves. The teacher of
manual arts who is so interested in expressional manual arts
72 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
that he or she overlooks the fact that there comes a time
when children become interested in, feel a need for, and are
capable of executing work according to conventional methods
of procedure, — such a teacher is pedagogically as inefficient as
the one who forces experiences before they may be had with
economy of effort. Again, that teacher who fails to so plan
his work that pupils may have opportunity to exercise reason
and judgment in the execution of original work because he
has found such a capacity rather weak in earlier years, is not
fully appreciative of teaching opportunities.
Not infrequently there will be a conflict of instinct and
capacity. The desire of grammar school pupils to make large
and intricately constructed pieces of funiture is an example
of the instinct of ownership running counter to capacity to
manipulate tools and materials. The problem here is one of
directing the instinct of ownership toward simpler things until
capacity to execute the more difficult things comes to pass.
A not uncommon question for debate is as to whether chil-
dren should work upon projects intended for home use or on
projects intended for the school. One offers the instinct of
ownership, another offers the group or social instinct. The
problem usually resolves itself into a question not of which
is better, but rather which must take precedence because
stronger. There are certain stages in development when the
instinct of individual ownership is stronger, other stages when
it is not a question with the pupil of mine alone but of the
family and home. Pride in things civic comes later, and often
needs just a little forcing to make it appear at all strongly.
Good teaching will recognize each of these instincts as legiti-
mate means of motivating work, not as ends in themselves
but as means of giving to the pupil experiences of value at
appropriate periods in their development as judged by society.
7. The Teacher's Problem. This, then, is the teacher's
problem : to take what he finds nature and nurture have pro-
INSTINCTS AND CAPACITIES 73
vided his pupils, when he gets them, and to strive to engraft
other remote forms of useful habits of behavior, as he has
time, and as the natural development of his pupils will permit.
8. Summary. Instincts are unlearned connections ; capa-
cities are connections possible but not in use. Whether a
teacher will be happy in his task depends, in no small degree,
upon his understanding of the place of instincts and the means
of utilizing them for useful purposes. Attention is paid to
instincts not as ends in themselves but as means whereby
we may engraft other and more remote forms of reaction,
forms which society has determined are good for the individual
in preparing him to become a member of its body.
The law of association applies to the utilization of instincts
for educational purposes. If we want a pupil to take interest
in a remote connection, one not natively interesting, we must
make connections between some activity natively interesting
and the remote activity with frequency, recency, intensity.
The resulting satisfaction inherent in the native reaction will
tend to become attached to the remote reaction.
Instincts need control for they are not always sure guides.
Means used to control instincts are guidance or substitution,
neglect or disuse, inhibition or punishment, enumerated in the
order of desirability.
Not infrequently the teacher in his attempts to utilize in-
stincts as means of motivating work finds that the utilization of
one instinct conflicts with that of another. In such cases,
all that can be done is to weigh the resulting values one against
the other and choose the one giving the greater returns.
A good teacher will recognize that certain capacities are
delayed and will so plan his work that abilities shall not be
called upon until their time for normal appearance. To do
otherwise, is to demand unnecessary strain. On the other
hand, work should be so planned that instincts will be placed
at work as soon as capacity has matured; to do otherwise is
74 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
to neglect valued assistance. In the conflict between instinct
in one direction and lack of capacity in another, the teacher
will favor the lacking capacity by directing the instinct toward
more reasonable reactions.
The teacher's problem is one of taking the child as he finds
nature and nurture have prepared him, then striving to en-
graft upon these habits other useful habits of behavior such
as the race has determined are good for the child in enablmg
him the better to meet his environment.
Reference Reading:
Thorndike : Principles of Teaching, Chapter III.
James: Talks to Teachers, Chapters III, VII.
Class Discussion:
1. Define instinct. Define capacity. What has education to do
with these?
2. Thorndike mentions the following instincts : Mental ac-
tivity, curio c tty, physical activity, manipulation, collecting,
ownership, sociability, emulation, kindness, pugnacity, mas-
tery, independence, defiance. Illustrate.
3. If instincts are not to be neglected, are they always sure
guides? Illustrate.
4. Thorndike mentions the following capacities: Impression,
expression, connection, selection, analysis. Also the fol-
lowing complexes : Management of things, of men; of con-
crete ideas, of abstract ideas and symbols, self control,
energy, precision, thoroness, originality, co-operation, leader-
ship, self-denial, self-reliance, refinement, sympathy. Illus-
trate.
5. What is meant by self activity? What is meant by the
expression "directed self-activity, not self-directed activ-
ity?" What part has the teacher to play in each?
6. Are you agreed that "activities of neglect, inhibition, and
guidance are even more important than activities of impul-
sion"? Would you vary your answer were a distinction to
be made between elementary education and advanced col-
lege? Are you agreed "that success is in a great measure
not making failures"?
7. State the means used to control instincts, and differentiate
as to desirability.
CHAPTER V
APPLICATION OF THE PRINCIPLE OF APPERCEPTION TO MANUAL
AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS TEACHING
1. Apperception. Apperception, Professor James tells
us, is a very big word for a very simple fact. As one writer
states, "It means simply that if you want to go somewhere you
must start from where you are." It is the process of assimilat-
ing new ideas and habits by relating them to old ideas and
habits.
Simple as this is in statement, it is not so simple when we
strive to apply it. The teacher of design who gathers up all
the books in the library relating to a problem in design for
fear his pupils may go to them for suggestions evidently does
not understand its meaning. Rather, that teacher understands
it who keeps in a filing cabinet mounted prints of every thing
good bearing upon that particular problem, let it be a piece
of pottery, a piece of furniture, or anything else, and encour-
ages his pupils to study such designs before making an attack.
Design is nothing more nor less than combining old elements
in new ways — even the Creator had the elements out of which
to create worlds, we are told. There is danger of copying — ■
this however, is less where pupils are properly taught than
where they are asked to make bricks without straw, as it were.
There must be in the minds of the pupils design elements be-
fore designs can be made. If these are not there they must
be got there thru a relating of new ideas to present ideas, or
new feelings to present feelings.
"What anyone thinks, or feels or does on any occasion de-
pends upon what he has thought or felt or done in the past."
If a boy, operating a universal saw in a wood shop, should
be told to remove the guard, he would, without doubt, act at
once and as desired. If the same instruction were to be given
75
76 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
in some foreign language, he would probably be non-plussed.
To get him to react as desired it* would be necessary to begin
with ideas that were known to him and to connect up these
new sounds with those ideas before appropriate reaction could
be secured.
2. The Learning Process. Froebel, long ago, gave the
following order which is recognized today as a complete state-
ment for ideal method: (1) spontaneity, (2) instruction,
(3) creative effort. Note the order. Compare this order
with that of Path No. 2, Fig. 1.
Not only is Froebel's order characteristic of the small arc
representing any one stage of child activity, but it is also
applicable to that larger arc covering the period from birth
to manhood. Both organization and method of manual arts
teaching are affected by these facts. Note the following :
"1-6 Years — Period of spontaneity characterized by excess of
feeling, expressed thru motor."
Implication — little need for formal school instruction.
"6-12 Years — Period of spontaneity characterized by excess of feel-
ing, expressed thru language, as reading, writing, arithmetic,
spelling."
Implication — manual arts in the main will be used as a
means of teaching other subjects — expressional and illustra-
tive. Technical manual arts begins but is minor.
"12-18 Years, Grades VI, thru H. S. — Period of knowledge, scien-
tific reasoning, characterized by excess of effort, expression
thru both motor and language."
Implication — emphasis upon technical manual arts, a study
of the science or conventions together with plenty of oppor-
tunity for application in shop.
"18 — Period of will, creative effort plus interest; expression thru
language and motor, in most men thru motor."
Implication — trade training, automatic habit formation,
emrjhasis uoon skill.
3. The Law of Association Applicable to the Learning
Process. The law of association indicates clearly the prob-
lem of making effective the process of connecting up new
ideas or new habits with old ideas or habits. Situations must
be set so that the pupil will make the desired connections with
frequency, recency, intensity, and with resulting satisfaction.
PRINCIPLE OF APPERCEPTION J77
If we want a boy to acquire skill in the making of a mortise-
and- tenon joint, for example, we can do so by having him
make a number of joints of the same kind, frequently. This
alone, however, may not be sufficient; if he sees no need for
such activity, frequency may be more than offset thru lack of
resulting satisfaction. Let him make his duplication in the
form of a taboret or some other object he wants, and fre-
quency combined with resulting satisfaction, and probably in-
tensity, will result in the skill desired by the instructor.
4. Some Seeming Violations of the Principle of Apper-
ception. If the principle of apperception means anything,
it means from the simple to the complex. In older manual
training practice this was taken to mean that a series of joints,
parts, must be made before the application, whole, could be
made. Consequently we had planing exercises, sawing exer-
cises, chiseling exercises, and joints galore before a single
application could be made. We had this same counterpart in
academic practice — the alphabet with various sound combina-
tions used to be taught before any reading would be allowed.
Similarity in writing, certain abstract and detached strokes
had to be mastered before any letters or words could be
written. The fallacy of all such practice lies in the assump-
tion that it is impossible to get wholes of sufficient simplicity
that they may be taught as wholes in the very beginning. Cer-
tain wholes in shopwork are easier to construct than certain
parts. A simple one-piece key-rack is much easier to con-
struct than a dovetail joint, a part of a table or cabinet. The
chief weakness, however, lies not so much in the exercise as
an exercise as in the fact that there is not the resulting satisfac-
tion that is carried with a whole, a something of use, and
that the making of certain parts is not always, nor even often,
the same thing as making these parts in a whole.
On the other hand, if exercises are not always necessary
precursors of application, there are too many supervisors who
78 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
have a notion that therefore, they are never permissible or
advisable. To be sure, we should, as a general proposition,
put things together as we expect to have them put together
later. For example, that teacher who had his boys square up
edges and ends on a sleeve board for the sake of giving addi-
tional practice in squaring up stock, when these edges and
ends were to be cut off in making the curves, need hardly be
surprised to find these boys going thru this needless operation
when later they are called upon to make sleeve boards — they
were taught such associations, and by the workings of the
law of association, will tend to repeat such associations un-
less something very intense has been done to break such con-
nections. To say that exercises are always bad is hardly
wise. The fact that attention can be centered upon one diffi-
culty at a time, and that both time and valuable material are
often saved by the preliminary exercise, makes its use well
worth while, once the pupil has had enough simpler experience,
simpler wholes, to have been forced to a feeling of need for
such preliminary exercises. While a child may learn to read
readily by means of the word-sentence method there comes a
time when the alphabet should be taught. A fourth grade
girl could not locate a desired word in the dictionary because
she had never been taught the sequence of the letters of the
alphabet, tho she could read beautifully.
5. Logical Sequence. While the aim should always be
from the simple to the complex, it should be understood that
many times one process is as difficult to master as another,
Whether, for example, accurate sawing to a line should come
before accurate planing to a line is not so much a matter of
relative difficultness — one is about as difficult as the other;
the essential thing in such cases is to so plan that one difficult
thing will have time to become assimilated before another is
introduced. In such cases one can afford to be liberal as to
which process shall be taught first. When, however, it becomes
PRINCIPLE OF APPERCEPTION 79
a matter of free sawing parallel to a line, as when planing
is to be done afterward, there is no question but that such
free sawing should come before the more accurate sawing
to a line.
Manual training and industrial arts teachers are frequently
confronted today with the demand upon the part of superin-
tendents that they conduct their work upon the basis of project
Fig. 8. Cutting-off Jig.
Courtesy of E. E. MacNary, Springfield, Mass.
or problem, or job rather than process arrangement. So long
as freedom of choice as to project is allowed, it is possible
to maintain orderly arrangement of processes, from the sim-
ple to the complex, without violating any of the controlling
factors in the working of the law of association as applied
to apperception, or to the learning process. Those superin-
tendents, however, who arbitrarily select projects and insist
that the manual training or industrial arts teacher have his
boys execute the same forthwith, are, to say the least, not
dealing fairly with the teaching of manual or industrial arts.
Manual and industrial arts teaching is governed by identically
the same laws as govern the teaching of other subjects. It
is doubly important that conditions be favorable for the proper
80
TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
setting of the teaching problem in manual and industrial arts
for manual and industrial arts deal with such resisting mate-
rials that violation of the law of association must mean defeat
of a nature that cannot be concealed from those who know
what the proper results should have been. A superintendent
would hardly ask a beginning
Latin class to attempt to trans-
late Virgil or Cicero, yet he not
infrequently demands that a
beginning manual training or
industrial arts class build pre-
tentious pieces of apparatus be-
fore they have any basis in
technical understanding or well
controlled muscular habits for
such activities.
The discussion of the preced-
ing paragraph is based upon
the supposition that the work
is organized to develop techni-
cal insight and mechanical skill
of hand. It is possible by
means of jigs, Figs. 8, 9 and
10, to so simplify requirements
for skill of hand and technical
understanding that mere chil-
dren can be got to produce
quite imposing pieces of work.
School superintendents not
infrequently confuse educa-
tional values obtained from
this type of work with those of that type intended to
develop skill of hand. The use of jigs is legitimate and the
experience gained has value. It is, however, no adequate
Fig. 9. End View of Planing
Jig. Courtesy of E. E. Mac-
Nary, Springfield, Mass.
PRINCIPLE OF APPERCEPTION 81
substitute for those values which come thru handwork
without the excessive use of jigs. The relative value of the
two types of training has been touched upon in the chapter
on industrial education.
Fig. 10. Boring Jig. Courtesy of E. E. MacNary, Springfield, Mass.
Rewards, as has been said, are commensurate with educa-
tional investment. If the pupil makes a hurried investment
in skill thru the use of jigs, he will not be able to realize upon
this investment as will the pupil who makes the more expen-
sive investment, as to time and energy, in the development
of skill in intricate mental and muscular coordinations. A
machine tender or a mechanic of a mill wherein the work
requires small skill thru the use of jigs does not receive a
remuneration equal to that of the mechanic on the job wherein
82 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
wide skill or muscular coordination is required. This latter
skill must, of course, be marketable. Skill for skill's sake is
of small value. It must also be a skill not capable of ready
duplication by machine processes. Whether the work is pro-
duction by jigs or production by skill of hand, attention must
be paid in each to orderly introduction or sequence of subject-
matter. Sequences when the work is done by the use of jigs
should not be confused with necessary sequences when the
work is to be done thru development of skill of hand in free
manipulation of tools. The value of jigs as an economic factor
in production is not to be questioned, of course ; and their use
in the school course for purposes of attaining certain objectives,
such as the giving of information about, and experience in
quantity production, must be recognized, also, their use as a
preliminary to attainments of skill of hand, as a means of
setting up standards and feelings for proper muscular co-ordi-
nations must be considered.
6. Drill or Frequency as an Essential Factor in Assimila-
tion. Teachers of technical work in the grammar grades
are prone to forget that frequency is an important element
in the extent to which a new connection in ideas or action
will become assimilated. This, no doubt, is due to the excess
of motive or impulsion upon the part of young pupils — the
intense desire to be undertaking something new. It is no
uncommon thing for a grade school boy to have had all the
fundamental tool operations taught him, followed by such
joints as dado, cross-lap, glue, mortise-and-tenon, etc., in the
making of large pieces of furniture. There are always the
exceptions, of course, but in all probability not fifty per cent
of a class having but two and one-half hours or less per week
will have had sufficient repetition, arranged, of course, to
give resulting satisfaction, to have mastered such joints so
that the high school teacher can presuppose such mastery and
plan his work accordingly.
PRINCIPLE OF APPERCEPTION 83
7. Summary. Apperception is the process of assimilat-
ing new ideas and new habits by relating them to old ideas
and habits. "What one thinks or feels or does depends upon
what one has thought or felt or done in the past."
Froebel long ago gave the order of procedure to be followed
in the learning process which order is recognized today as a
complete statement for proper method where time is available
for the highest development of the individual: (1) spontaneity,
(2) instruction, (3) creative effort. This order is charac-
teristic of the large arc covering the period from birth to
manhood as well as the smaller arc representing any one
stage of development.
The law of association applies to the learning process, for
assimilation is nothing more nor less than association — associa-
tion of new ideas with old or new habits with old.
If the principle of apperception means anything, it
means from the simple to the complex. This has been taken
to mean that abstract exercises must always precede projects
or completed wholes. Experience has shown that children
get greater satisfaction thru making projects than thru making
exercises. Elementary manual and industrial arts should
consist of project work rather than exercise. This can be
accomplished without violating the principle of apperception;
it is perfectly possible to have projects so simple that they
may be made without preliminary exercises. On the other
hand, the difficulties children meet in dealing with simple
projects serve to cause them to see the need for preliminary
exercises for certain advanced project work. When this situa-
tion obtains, exercises are legitimate and pedagogically proper.
Application of the principle of apperception implies atten-
tion to proper sequence. Project sequence instead of process
sequence may serve as a basis of organization of subject-
matter provided choice of project or choice of time for intro-
ducing any required project in the course is left to the teacher
84 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS _
or supervisor of the shop or drafting work. When this is
done the teacher or supervisor may preserve necessary se-
quence so that the principle of apperception may not be violated
thru having to introduce the children to intricate processes
before they have built up any adequate basis in past ex-
perience for assimilation. Sequence, where jigs are employed
should not be confused with sequence where dependence is
placed upon skill of hand.
Drill is an essential factor in assimilation. Drill is the fre-
quency factor mentioned in the law of association. In all
drill it should be remembered that frequency so arranged as
to be accompanied by a feeling of satisfaction is very much
more effective than drill not so accompanied.
Reference Reading:
Thorndike: Principles of Teaching, Chapter IV.
James: Talks to Teachers, Chapter XIV.
Class Discussion:
1. Define apperception.
2. State the law of association.
3. From observations state how a teacher prepared the minds
of the pupils for a new idea which he desired they should
acquire.
4. From observations state how a teacher prepared the bodies
of the pupils for a new habit in muscular coordination in
constructive work.
5. What suggestions have you for a better or more efficient
presentation of the problems of 3 and 4?
6. Discuss the application of the principle of apperception to
the teaching of design.
7. "From the simple to the complex." How do you explain
the fact that we begin with wholes rather than with parts
in our teaching. For example, in reading we teach words
and sentences before we teach the alphabet. In woodwork
we teach pupils to make bread-boards, etc., rather than
abstract planing and sawing and joint exercises.
8. Discuss : "To proceed- to the unknown is as important as
from the known." Make an application to some manual
arts problem.
CHAPTER VI
INTEREST AND ATTENTION
1. Interest and Attention the Indispensable Basis of
Every Method of Education. The place of interest in edu-
cation has caused no small amount of debate among educators
and of confusion upon the part of the young teacher. Most
of the lack of agreement has come about thru a lack of agree-
ment as to what is meant by the term interest. For the sake
of clearness we may assume that interest and attention are
one and the same thing ; that we are in this sense always inter-
ested in what we attend to. The boy who cuts the grass
when he doesn't want to do so, because he knows a whipping
will follow his neglect, is interested in what he is doing —
interested to the extent that resulting satisfaction is greater
in doing the unpleasant task than it would be in taking the
whipping. The distinction we debate about, then, is not one
of interest or lack of interest, but interest or attention with
or without a feeling of intrinsic desire or zest. If we attend
to a thing we must be interested in that thing.
Now mental assimilation is a matter of consciousness.
Consciousness and attention are one. So long as we are
conscious we are attending to some one thing or another.
The problem of education is the problem of getting the stu-
dent to attend, to take interest in the thing th?.t society thru
the school and the teacher has determined is good for the
student in preparing him for future life as an individual and
a citizen.
Unfortunately, experiences which society feels the child
ought to have are not always such that the child fully appre-
ciates their need, and therefore they do not have for him a
feeling of zest in their accomplishment. When a child is
85
86 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
forced to do a thing for which he sees no need, he is, without
doubt, making connections which society demands, but mak-
ing them, as he does, with resulting satisfaction only in that
it avoids punishment, the moment the fear and authority are
removed, such connections will, to say the least, be weaker
than those made with an accompanying feeling of zest and
desire.
2. The Law of Association Applied to Interest and At-
tention. The educator's problem consists in hitching or
engrafting reactions not immediately possessed of a feeling of
zest, which reaction society has determined are helpful for the
individual in enabling him the better to meet his environment,
upon reactions which are immediately possessed of a feeling
of zest. The law of association, then, may be modified to
read: The likelihood that an individual will be interested in,
or pay attention to, or have a feeling of zest in, a thing or act
is in proportion to the frequency, recency, intensity and result-
ing satisfaction of previous connections between that thing
or act and some thing or act which is natively possessed of a
feeling of zest.
A grade school boy is not normally possessed of a feeling
of zest in the making of working drawings. Let him be in-
formed that only as he makes preliminary working drawings
for certain pieces of woodwork, can he be allowed to attempt
such pieces of woodwork, and the beginnings of a practical
application of the above rule are being made. A high school
boy has a desire to make a library table. The instructor wishes
him to acquire tool technic in the making of a mortise-and-
tenon joint. The leacher can get such a boy to make a pre-
liminary mortise-and-tenon joint with a feeling of zest by
associating in the mind of the boy the idea of the necessity
for complete mastery of technic of the mortise-and-tenon
joint as an aid the better to make the table.
3. Feeling of Zest Versus Effort. The fact that a thing
INTEREST AND ATTENTION 87
is difficult does not of necessity mean that its accomplish-
ment may not be accompanied by a feeling of zest; nor does
the fact that a thing is easy mean that a feeling of zest must
be present. We like to do those things we can do well —
those things in which there is a growing skill, a feeling of
mastery — not so hard as to discourage, and not too easy.
The wise teacher will not seek to give easy experiences to
his pupils under the mistaken notion that thereby he makes
possible feeling of zest, nor, on the other hand, will he allow
his pupils to plunge into deep waters of effort because they
have an immediate interest in some thing manifestly too diffi-
cult for them at that stage of development. For example,
ask a beginning class in woodwork what they would like to
make, and not uncommon answers are : library table, hall
clock, desk, etc. A good teacher will not ridicule such desires,
but will utilize them as a means of attaching a feeling of zest
or interest or attention to the simpler beginning projects by
explaining that the desires are all right but that they will
have to wait awhile until greater skill and understanding can
be developed. This, he may explain, is to be got thru the
making of simpler projects, which he will then introduce.
Prof. Thorndike's practical advice: "Get the right things
done at any cost — but get them done with as little inhibition
and strain as possible," is good advice to those advocates of
a pedagogy so soft that it encourages pupils never to feel
called upon to do anything which involves effort and strain,
or to do some things thru a sense of duty, the doing of which
is not immediately possessed of a feeling of zest. It is also
good advice for those who ridicule the effort to attach a feel-
ing of zest to tasks not immediately so possessed thru associa-
tion of these tasks with activities or ideas natively so possessed
— for those who glorify effort or strain as a discipline.
4. Mental Assimilation a Matter of Consciousness. In
86 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
2l preceding section of this discussion the statement was made
that mental assimilation was a matter of consciousness — this
by Professor John Dewey. A proper understanding of this
is necessary if those who advocate the doctrine of interest,
or feeling of zest, as a necessary basis in every method of
education are not to be confused in their practice and con-
founded by their adversaries.
It is possible to sugar coat certain mean tasting medicines
and give these to children without their being made aware
of the mean taste, only the sugary taste, and still secure a
desired medicinal reaction. It is possible to have children
develop certain useful muscular reactions under the guise of
play. When it comes to a matter of connections involving
mind or intelligence it is impossible to make such connections
without the child's being aware of what is going on. For
example, a boy wants a sled ; society thru the school is not
particularly concerned with the furnishing of a sled for that
boy, or any other boy — that is the business of the home and
the parent. Society, however, does want that boy to acquire
certain useful industrial habits, among other things. It finds
it can have the boy acquire these thru making the sled, and
acquire them easier, or with less strain than thru a set of
abstract exercises. What is the problem? — Not one of con-
cealing from the boy a knowledge of the technical pro'cesses
involved, but eminently one of fixing his attention upon them.
So far as the boy is concerned this knowledge of correct
methods of procedure is merely a means to an end — a means
of securing a well-made sled. So far as society is concerned
the sled is a means to another end — the acquiring on the boy's
part of useful knowledge and habits. The sled was a means
of motivating the technical work thru creating a feeling of
need for technical knowledge and skill.
Some teachers are even frank enough to explain to begin-
ning classes just what the situation is — a cooperative plan
INTEREST AND ATTENTION 89
whereby both society and boy may accomplish their* aims
and ends — one, the making of a more useful citizen, and the
other, the sled. Mental assimilation here is a matter of con-
sciousness upon the part of the boy. Contrast this with that
type of experience wherein boys are given no instruction in
proper technical methods of procedure but by some miracle
are supposed to assimilate it unconsciously. It is not assimi-
lated unless attention is centered upon it. This is the reason
it is unwise to claim development of technical understanding
and skill in expressional and illustrative manual arts where at-
tention is so exclusively centered upon the idea to be expressed
and not upon tool technic.
5. Abstract Exercises Versus Useful Projects. In sec-
tions 3 and 4 of Chapter V there was discussed the place of
the abstract exercise and the useful project in manual arts
teaching. The strength of an exercise lies in its permitting
concentration of attention. Its weakness lies in its inability
to secure an accompanying feeling of zest when required
before the pupil has had any opportunity to try himself out
and thus discover the need for such exercises as a prelimi-
nary to application.
The weakness of a series of abstract exercises not fol-
lowed by application in a real project lies in the fact that
connections formed in dealing with parts cannot be substi-
tuted wholly for connections formed in dealing with those
parts in a whole. For example, we may give mature students
a course in carpentry joint-making and hold their attention —
even securing a feeling of zest. Valuable as this experience
may be as a preparation it cannot take the place of the appli-
cation of these joints in a completed carpentry project, such,
as a house or barn.
The question, then, is not one of abstract exercises versus
useful project, for the answer is evidently abstract exercise
and useful project. The question really is one as to the appro-
90 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
priate time or place of introducing the exercise so that it
may take on a feeling of zest; this time is certainly after the
pupil has had enough experience of a simpler kind to cause
him to have a feeling of real need for such exercises as a
preliminary to the making of his useful project.
6. Drill and the Feeling of Zest. By the law of associa-
tion repetition or frequency is an essential factor in fixing
connections, in other words, drill. No little confusion exists
as to the merits of drill. One educator conducts experiments
in spelling wherein one group of students is drilled and an-
other group is not formally drilled, and proves to his satis-
faction that drill or frequency is of no value. An examination
of the facts in the situation would probably show that the
deciding factor was not frequency so much as resulting sat-
isfaction. While repetition or frequency has value always in
fixing connections it has its greatest value only when accom-
panied by a feeling of real need and a feeling of zest and
resulting satisfaction. A few connections with intense re-
sulting satisfaction will fix those connections better than a
very large number of repetitions or frequencies not so accom-
panied.
For example, a certain instructor decided that he wanted
to develop skill in accurate sawing. He took as one of his
earliest problems in the course what he chose to call a count-
ing board. Now, his pedagogy in choosing the counting
board, or a so-called useful project, was all right. He also
conceived the idea that, if skill in sawing was to be developed,
there must be repetition or drill, so he planned his stock that
the boy would make a rather large number of preliminary saw
cuts before making the final cut, Fig. 11. By every element
of logical reasoning each cut should have been better made
than the preceding, and the last cut the best of all. In actual
teaching practice, the beginner made the first cuts with a
certain degree, or lack of degree of accuracy, but as a rule
INTEREST AND ATTENTION 91
the cuts got worse instead of better. Noting this fact, not
a few boys exercised their reasoning "faculty" and skipped
the intermediate cuts making the final cut without further
delay. What was the trouble? As a Normal school problem,
this logical analysis and presentation of the problem would be
Fig. 11. Game Board.
found to work. It didn't work as a beginning problem in
seventh grade woodwork because these boys had not enough
experience to have developed a feeling of real need for the
preliminary sawings, and most of all, these preliminary saw-
ings interfered with getting at the game board, which was
the thing that interested them.
Should there be drill, or frequency, in the making of con-
nections desired? Yes, but so planned that it has meaning.
Eight abstract dado joints should not be made in an eighth
grade. One preliminary joint can be made to function here,
but, after that, let the repetition be made in the form of a
taboret, a bookshelf, etc. — some project wherein the boy will
constantly feel the need for his best effort on each joint.
Engineering schools, even, are abandoning long continued
series of abstract exercises, for even mature men do better
where there is some incentive for drill other than the mere
acquiring of efficiency.
7. Logical Arrangement of Subject-Matter Versus Psy-
92 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
chological Development of the Individual. The discussion
of the section just preceding should have developed the idea
that logical arrangement of subject-matter does not always
harmonize with the developing nature of children. In such
cases there are often found two extremes in educational
practice — one, which disregards logical arrangement of sub-
ject-matter in its eagerness to gratify every native tendency
of children; the other extreme is that which breaks children
by inflexible authority until they fit into this logical arrange-
ment of subject-matter.
Good pedagogy recognizes this conflict in aims of society
and native interests of children and so plans that it may be-
gin with emphasis on the latter and by associations transfer
these native interests to those things society demands of an
educated individual. Society determines what shall be taught ;
child nature, psychology, determines how this shall be taught.
8. Summary. It has been said that interest is the indis-
pensable basis for every method of education. For the sake
of clearness we may assume that interest and attention are
one and the same thing. An individual, then, is always inter-
ested in anything to which he attends or of which he is defi-
nitely conscious. Interest or attention may be accompanied
by a feeling of zest or desire, or it may not; it is to this
feeling of zest we refer when we speak of interest in a popu-
lar sense, as in the statement above.
The problem of education is one of getting children to
attend, to take interest in the things society, thru the school,
thinks best for the pupil in preparing him to meet environment,
and to do so with an accompanying feeling of zest. The law
of association makes clear how this problem is to be solved
when we apply it as was designated in the chapter on instincts
just preceding. The likelihood that any remote reaction will
be possessed of a feeling of zest is in proportion to the re-
cency, the frequency, the intensity, and the resulting satis-
INTEREST AND ATTENTION 93
faction of connections made between the remote reaction and
reactions immediately or natively possessed of a feeling of
zest.
Not infrequently, ease of accomplishment is confused with
feeling of zest, and effort with its lack. The fact that a thing
is difficult does not of necessity mean that its accomplishment
may not be accompanied by a feeling of zest; nor does the
fact that a thing is easy of accomplishment mean that a feel-
ing of zest must be present. A wise teacher will not seek
to give easy experiences under the impression that in so doing
he makes possible, of necessity, a feeling of zest upon the
part of the pupils. Neither will he shun assigning difficult
tasks, when those tasks are necessary, just because, for the
time being, they happen to be lacking in feeling of zest.
Thorndike's practical advice: "Get the right things done at
any cost, but get them done with as little inhibition and strain
as possible" is good for extremists who glory in a soft peda-
gogy which never asks children to attack difficult problems
as well as for those who glory in effort for effort's sake.
Certain muscular habits may be secured without the child's
being conscious of what is going on; in the case of mental
habits there can be no assimilation without consciousness or
attention upon the part of the pupil. This means that the
teacher in his attempts to attach a feeling of zest to some
remote reaction by associating it with some reaction immedi-
ately possessed of a feeling of zest cannot do so without at
some time and in some way fixing the pupil's attention upon
the remote reaction. The teacher's effort should be not one
of concealing the remote reaction desired of the pupil by
society, but rather one of getting him to attend to the fixing
of the habits of the remote reaction as means, so far as the
pupil is concerned at this time, of securing the thing in which
the pupil is intrinsically interested. In such a manner, atten-
tion may be fixed upon the making of abstract exercises pre-
94 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
paratory to application in projects. Projects, however, of
a simpler nature must precede this latter experience else the
pupil has no basis for developing a feeling of need for the
exercise.
Drill is an essential factor in fixing connections. An erro-
neous conception that drill cannot be accompanied by a feeling
of zest is not uncommon. It is possible to so attach duplica-
tion of process to reactions natively possessed of a feeling of
zest that drill secures values which come thru repetition and
thru accompanying feeling of satisfaction. Drill not so accom-
panied, depending merely upon frequency or repetition, very
largely defeats its own ends. Eight joints of a given kind
in a taboret a boy wants are better than eight abstract exer-
cises repeated as so much drill.
Logical arrangement of subject-matter and psychological
considerations of development of the individual conflict. Good
pedagogy seeks to harmonize this conflict by granting society
the right to determine what shall be taught but insisting that
psychology shall determine how this shall be taught.
Reference Reading:
Thorndike: Principles of Teaching, Chapter V.
James: Talks to Teachers, Chapters X, XI.
Dewey: How We Think, Chapter V.
Allen : The Instructor, the Man, and the Job, Chapter
XXXVII.
Class Discussion :
1. Differentiate interest from attention, if you can.
2. Enumerate kinds of interest.
3. Differentiate feeling of zest from interest.
4. State the law of association so as to make it applicable to
interest.
5. Thorndike says : "Get the right things done at any cost,
but get them done with as little inhibition and strain as
possible." Observe how this is being done in some class,
and try to determine what governed the teacher in deter-
mining the right things.
6. List a number of ways of securing interest (feeling of
zest) in constructive work, and state the approximate de-
INTEREST AND ATTENTION 95
gree of strain you expect to have manifested in securing
the result desired.
7. A child makes a sled. Is interest here a means or an end ?
Explain.
8. Dewey says : "Mental assimilation is a matter oi conscious-
ness." Is there any value in having a boy make a taboret
to produce tool technic and skill when he seemingly cares
nothing about tool technic and skill but only for the fin-
ished taboret? Explain.
9. Can you see any place for the abstract exercise in shop or
construction work? Justify your answer in view of the
fact that interest is the indispensable basis of every method
of education.
10. If attention cannot be demanded, how, then, can it be
secured?
11. State the law of attention.
12. What effect has a pupil's posture upon his attention? Why?
CHAPTER VII
INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES J THE GROUP SYSTEM
1. The Law of Probability. If one were to take a num-
ber sufficiently large to exclude serious effects from acci-
dental variations of anything in nature, and classify according
to some particular characteristic, the curve plotted to repre-
sent such variations would be similar to that of Fig. 12. This
Fig. 12. Probability Curve.
is known as the probability curve and the law, the law of
probability. It is also known as the biological law. For
example, if we take 1,000 or more people and classify them
as to height, we get a distribution such as that of Fig. 13.
If we take an equally large number of manual training boys
and give them like tasks, then classify them according to
the time taken to perform the task we get a similar distribu-
tion. In a similar manner we find differences in ability to
execute work, in ability to understand proper technic, in inter-
est as to projects to be made, etc., etc. No two people are
exactly alike.
2. Practical Significance of Individual Differences. In
its largest or group significance individual variations have,
to a certain extent, always been recognized in our scheme of
96
INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES
97
education. We have the various grades in the common and
high schools, and special schools for the subnormal and the
delinquent, in the larger cities at least. We have recognized
6 8 70 Z 4
Stature in inches
80
Fig. 13.
Frequency-distribution of Stature for 1000 Cambridge Stu-
dents. From Yule, Theory of Statistics, p. 91.
certain educational needs of common interest, such as arith-
metic, reading, writing, citizenship, health, etc. After this,
we have differentiated according to larger special activities,
as agriculture, manual arts, household arts, etc. Fig. 14, a and
b. We have recognized differentiations in schools in types
of instruction and types of connection to be made for those
going into the professions. Within very recent years we have
begun to make provisions in full-time, part-time, and even-
ing schools for those who must early leave school and enter
upon vocational activities as compared with those who will
98 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
take a college course. Fig. 14, c and d. The problem of this
discussion, however, is not concerned so much with these
larger differentiations of subject-matter as with the finer
Fig. 14a. Comparative Educational Needs in the State of Missouri.
Census 1910.
groupings for teaching purposes within the manual and indus-
trial arts.
Older manual arts teaching practice seemingly tried to ig-
nore facts of individual differences. Courses were organized
as tho all children were alike in mental ability, in ability to
execute in wood, metal, and other media, in interests, etc. A
certain number of exercises were to be made in so many
periods; the teacher set the problems, which were the same
for all. The young teacher who planned his work in this
manner, of course, quickly found himself in a dilemma — fast
workers completed the task before the period was up; slow
INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES . 99
workers couldn't get thru on time ; the superintendent refused
to allow the fast workers to be excused before the close of
the period, for various reasons. Rather quickly and unpleas-
antly it dawned upon the young teacher that such differences
existed and that some means must be found to provide for
them. Had he not been hampered by public school condi-
tions, he might easily have solved the problem by providing
a teacher and a course of work to fit the needs of each pupil.
Not being able to do this he is driven to see that, while no
two individuals are exactly alike, there are enough similari-
ties or likenesses to make possible certain groupings.
3. The Group System. The so-called group system of
organization and instruction is based upon the fact that, while
no two individuals are exactly alike, no two individuals are
entirely different, and that similarities are sufficiently numer-
ous to make possible certain groupings among a number of
individuals for purposes of subject-matter organization and
instruction. Examine Fig. 13 for illustration. The fact that
the curve is constantly changing its direction indicates that
none of the men measured for height were of exactly the
same stature. On the other hand, it will be noted that the
interval used as a unit of measurement is the inch. Obviously,
with any large number of men examined, not a few will be
found to fall within a given measurement such as this.
This inch represents, then, an -interval selected here as of
sufficient size for purposes of analysis, as is indicated by the
curve as plotted. It would have been possible to have taken
a smaller interval ; it would have been possible to have taken
a larger one. To have taken a smaller interval would have
been to increase the accuracy with which the curve could
have been plotted or the accuracy with which the analysis
could have been made. To have increased the interval would
have been to have decreased the accuracy of differentiation.
There is, of course, such a thing as having groups or inter-
100
TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
Fig. 14b. Illustrating a Survey and a Plan Suggested for Meeting a
ard's "Some Facts Concerning the People, Industries and
INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES
Local Community Need in Industrial Arts. Charted from R. J. Leon-
Schools of Hammond" (Indiana). Population 20,925 (1910).
102 TZACHJXG XfANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
vals so small that they are difficult to handle as a means of
practical investigation. Again, the interval may be so large
as to fail to distinguish individuals one from another in
Fig. 14c. Educational Activities Based upon Vocational
Interests or Needs.
groups sufficiently numerous to indicate anything of value.
If, in Fig. 13, for example, an interval of eight times one
inch had been used, all men then would have classed as one
and nothing as to differences could have been told, — no curve
could have been plotted. Figs. 12, 15, and 16 can be similarly
analyzed.
The essential thing to be derived from a consideration such
as that of the preceding paragraph is the fact that wherever
there is change and difference, whether in time or in char-
acteristics of one kind or another, the only means we have of
making an analysis — of plotting the curve — is to break up
INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES
103
the movement into intervals or groups each based upon some
finite unit of measurement. The group system in organiza-
tion and teaching manual and industrial arts is merely an
The, Leisure Hour
i Outgrowth of jhop
"safety firjf
Interest in home and 1^,
comm unity hygiene \ 5 i
1^1 Safety
vl
\
*&&**<^
J&&**
&*&?*>
*:
V a* 1 / £»?„">£ c< "**ct with all %%* ^ % *\W
c *. >; ^e a e man - i \p *■ % % ^/
**«*; ***». jfo>/». ^ /,oo/ ' vl % "S. \s^
'on,
The
Good Citizen.
Fig. 14d. The Tradesman and His Opportunities for the Larger Life.
By Assistant Professor James McKinney, University of Illinois.
application of this practical device, as old as time itself, by
which certain areas, to refer to Fig. 15, may be set off between
the base line and the line which represents progress.
104
TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
Philosophically we make use of the group system in every
consideration of a given characteristic of any kind which is
dynamic or changing or moving, for, to consider implies to
select, and selection is possible .only thru grouping. In the
discussion which follows, then, it should be remembered that
New sub j ect- matter
Accumulated know-
ledg e and sH\\\.
Grade W
Grade Ml Grade JZ
Fig. 15. Accumulation of Knowledge and Skill thru Progressive
Grouping of Subject Matter.
it is not a question as to whether we shall group or not group
but rather as to the most convenient size of the group we are
to use as an interval for purposes of practical considerations
of matters of administration.
4. The Group System Applied to the Manual and Indus-
trial Arts. Historically, American manual arts practice
has been influenced greatly by two foreign movements — the
Russian system of tool instruction and Swedish sloyd. The
former was organized by M. Victor Delia Vos at Moscow for
purposes of better training men for railway shop and engineer-
ing work, and was thoroly technical in its aspects. Swedish
sloyd arose in response to a demand for a better type of
INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES 105
citizenship. Both systems emphasized orderly introduction
of instruction in the use of tools, the former by the use of
abstract exercises, the latter mainly thru the use of the useful
model. In methods of teaching, the former made use of the
class as the unit while the latter gave instruction individually.
American practice makes use of both exercise and useful
model and the instruction is by class first with this supple-
mented by individual instruction as necessary.
Examine the type outlines, Griffith: Correlated Courses,
pp. 12-15; 22-26, Technical Shopwork and Mechanical Draw-
ing, Grades VII-X. It will be seen that the subject-matter
here is grouped under certain headings. The work is sup-
posed to be sequential in the main, going from simple to more
difficult operations. After the first group there are a number
of projects in each group. Each project in a given group is
similar to that of every other project in the group. A student
upon completing at least one project in each group will have
completed the minimum essentials in this course of work.
Now, as to allowances for variations in speed, the class
remains working in a group until at least one project has been
completed by every boy who is to be considered as passable.
This means that the rapid worker, while he gains no more
than the slow one in instruction or technic does gain in fa-
cility in execution and in opportunity to make more things.
Allowance is made for variation in interests in that a boy
has freedom in his choice of projects within the group. Still
further allowances for variation are made in these type out-
lines in that the farther a boy progresses the larger the num-
ber of projects from which to select. Also, after a fair degree
of efficiency and understanding is secured, he is not only
permitted but encouraged to modify the projects the better
to meet his individual needs, subject only to limitations of
the group processes. Should he want to make a project not
in the groups, he is expected to abide his time until the group
106 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
having the instruction pertaining to the making of that project
shall have been reached.
It will have been noted in the examination of the typical
outlines referred to above that the farther a student advances
in the work the larger is the amount of subject-matter and
experience in any given group, Fig. 15. The amount of new
subject-matter is not necessarily much greater but the accu-
mulating technical knowledge and skill makes it possible to
construct projects which are quite complicated and which
require much time for completion. In grade eight any one
student will complete not more than three or four projects
at the most, together with the accompanying drawings, while
in grade seven he will have completed six or seven projects
in the same time allotment. In high school the projects are
more involved in construction than in the eighth grade.
A question might be raised as to the advisability or desir-
ability of limiting pupils to choice within a group. Only in
this way is it possible to care for large numbers, and child
nature has, as has been said, more likenesses than differences.
Boys of twenty years ago took interest in taborets at a certain
stage of development; they still take such an interest. So
long as the taboret serves a useful purpose in education better
than something else, it should not be eliminated merely for
the sake of change. It is possible to select representative pro-
jects which will secure interest and at the same time permit
orderly instruction in tool processes. It is recognized that
such an arrangement is somewhat formal — individuals are
not treated wholly as individuals.
In answer to such criticism it may be cited that no man
lives to himself alone in society, and that if education is,
among other things, a preparation for living, such limitations
are helpful rather than harmful. The homely story of the
Irish immigrant, brought before the police judge in New
York City for assault, illustrates the point at issue. He had
INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES 107
"punched" another man's nose. "Why did you do it, Pat"?
asked the judge. "Faith, your Honor"! he replied, "I had
always heard in Ireland that America was a land of liberty,
and I was just exercising my liberty when this man's nose
got in the way." The judge replied, "This is a land of liberty,
but your liberty ends where the other man's nose begins. You
are sentenced thirty days for assault."
Expressional manual arts, central and illustrative, will take
its groupings not according to processes but according to pro-
jects determined by the subject-matter of the academic work.
If, for example, the aim is to develop number and language
ideas thru the construction of the doll house, the construction
work will be arranged with this thought in mind, the teacher
having in mind the academic requirements in number and
language work for a given month or week for a given grade.
An examination of the type outlines in Appendix II, Expres-
sional Handwork. Grades I- VI, will indicate groupings of
expressional manual arts quite suggestive in character.
Industrial arts, like manual arts, will have to be organized
for teaching purposes upon a group basis. The present finds a
number of different practices in common use. One set of
administrators advocates a grouping wholly on the basis of
production. Instruction, they say, will care for- itself as an
incident to production. Others advocate a grouping accord-
ing to instructional needs, production being an incident. The
chief difficulty in grouping here is due to the fact, already
mentioned, that the giving of instruction, which has to do
with intellect, is opposed to the development of efficiency, which
has to do with feeling and skill. Industrial arts must develop
efficiency, but efficiency depends upon instruction.
It is not within the province of this text to discuss fully
the problem of appropriate grouping of subject-matter. But
in general, it may be said that those schools which have differ-
entiated subject-matter and experiences into groups for pur-
108 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
poses of instruction on the one hand and of production or
efficiency on the other, with rather close alternation, come
nearest a proper solution. For an example of a typical group-
ing for industrial arts purposes, consult Bennett's The Manual
Arts, pp. 96-99. It will be noted that an instructional group
precedes each production or efficiency-producing group. The
alternation is so arranged that the student gets a basis for
future production work in each new group thru instruction
and preliminary exercise. This is superior to the Russian
system, for in the Russian system the opportunity for prac-
tical application, or the securing of efficiency, came only after
a rather extended course in instruction and exercise.
It should be especially noted that production projects are
to' be selected and so placed in the groups, that they shall
provide opportunity for gaining efficiency in the application
of the instruction of the preceding group. This implies fore-
thought upon the part of the teacher in selecting his project
work to see that experiences are introduced in a reasonable
order as to difficultness and to see that all necessary experi-
ences are provided for at some place.
Quite different is this practice from that wherein the insti-
tution executes orders for work as such work happens to be
needed about the building. If the process is to be really
educative it must be "construction for instruction, rather than
instruction for construction"; certainly not construction
merely for construction's sake. A class might spend two or
three years doing repair work about school buildings and
still have no adequate preparation for carpentry as a trade.
Experiences must be selected and arranged beforehand and
not left to chance. If there is to be growth, as there must
be if the process is educative, the curve which represents
accomplishment must be constantly changing and ever be up-
ward in its general direction. For practical purposes it must
change group by group, and growth must be possible thru
INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES 109
not too great steps at any one interval, Fig. 15. If the steps
are too great, trouble will be occasioned thru violation of
the principle of apperception.
In the industrial arts, the number of students assigned to
any one teacher for instruction and oversight is generally
much smaller than is the case in manual arts. This makes
possible greater differentiation in management. Industrial
arts teachers often have such small numbers in a group that
the progress of students may be independent one of another,
with the instruction individual.
In view of the fact that efficiency is such an important fac-
tor in industrial arts, and the further fact that individual
instruction is so expensive, there is a question as to whether
public schools are justified in differentiations so great as to
permit of individual instruction. Rather, the group might
better be set for normal time, and normal quantitative and
qualitative production requirements, with class instruction
at stated intervals. The fast workers gain in efficiency in
execution tho they may be held back somewhat thru having
to await instruction in new subject-matter because of class
organization based upon the slower students' capacity to exe-
cute. It must be recognized, of course, that certain types of
industrial work lend themselves to class instruction better than
others. Availability of duplicate equipment also will qualify
groupings as to numbers to be accommodated at any one
time. Instruction wherein the student is introduced to dan-
gerous machines, as in a wood shop, will have to be given
to smaller groups of students than will instruction in smithing,
etc.
5. Grouping for Classification and Grading. Since no
two individuals are exactly alike the curve which represents
any selected characteristic, as has been stated, will constantly
vary, Fig. 12. For purposes of convenience we may group
individuals as in Fig. 16 — 2 per cent excellent, 23 per cent
110 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
superior, 50 per cent medium, 23 per cent inferior, 2 per cent
failure. The so-called average pupil may then be considered
as of the 50 per cent medium group. Some institutions even
accentuate such differences by an award of 30 per cent excess
credit to the 2 per cent E, 15 per cent excess to the 23 per cent
S, with a diminished credit of 15 per cent from the I. F,
Z3%
JOZ
M
23%
&
F
Fig. 16. A Given Characteristic Arbitrarily Distributed for Con-
venience in Classification.
ordinarily, does not represent the mentally or physically sub-
normal or defective. These are not supposed to be allowed
in a normal group, but rather F stands for those who have
ability but who do not apply themselves to the task assigned
as they should to meet the essentials set for that particular
group.
Larger or smaller intervals might have been selected, of
course, but for practical purposes those suggested will be
found convenient and sufficiently limiting in scope. Any
teacher of extended experience knows how profitless is the
time spent in trying to estimate pupils or to group them in
smaller intervals. Those teachers who mark pupils in terms
of percents or half percents unnecessarily burden themselves,
if they are doing their work conscientiously. The chief pur-
pose of grading is that of rewarding good work, and pupils
find rewards that are distributed as mentioned equally as
INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES 111
stimulating as where the teacher seeks to refine the intervals
to fractional percents. Some instructors grade simply as
"passed" or "not passed." Experience seems to show that
such a large unit is not sufficiently discriminating as a reward
to get all pupils to do their best, many strong students being
satisfied to do merely passing work who otherwise would do
superior or excellent.
There will be occasion to refer to this section in the dis-
cussion of standards and tests, Chapter XIV.
6. Grouping for Developing Initiative. Mention has
been made of the fact that, once a fair degree of understanding
and skill has been developed in technical manual arts, a pupil
is to be encouraged to modify designs in a group to meet
his individual needs. Also, that *he is to be encouraged to
design his own projects, subject only to awaiting the time
they can be constructed with projects of similar processes.
In addition to this, it seems advisable to set aside an occasional
group where attention can be centered upon individual initia-
tive. Such groups may be limited to the extent the projects
designed shall have no technical requirements other than what
have been taught in previous groups.
7. Summary. If one were to take a number sufficiently
large to exclude serious effects from accidental variations of
anything in nature and classify according to some particular
characteristic, the resulting numerical distribution would make
evident the fact that no two are exactly alike. If the results
were to be plotted in the form of a graph, the curve would
offer visual proof of such variations. The law by which
these distributions are controlled is known as the law of
probability.
In its largest significance individual variations have, to
a certain extent, always been recognized in our scheme of
education. The problem of this discussion is concerned not
so much with these larger differentiations of subject-matter
112 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
needs as with the finer groupings within the manual and in-
dustrial arts for teaching purposes.
The so called group system of organization and instruction
is based upon the fact that, while no two individuals are
exactly alike, no two are entirely unlike, and that similarities
are sufficiently numerous to make possible certain groupings
among a number of individuals for purposes of organization
and instruction. The essential thing to be derived from a
consideration of the group system is the fact that wherever
there is change or difference the only means we have of
making analyses is to break up the movement into convenient
intervals or groups, each based upon some finite unit of meas-
urement. The group system in manual and industrial arts
is merely an application oi this practical device, as old as
time itself. In the discussion, the question is not one of
grouping or not grouping, but rather as to the most convenient
size of the group for purposes of practical consideration of
matters of administration and instruction.
Historically, American manual arts practice has been greatly
influenced by two foreign movements — the Russian system
of tool instruction and Swedish sloyd. Both systems empha-
sized orderly introduction of tool instruction, one thru the
use of exercises and the other thru the useful model. The
former made use of class instruction, in the latter the instruc-
tion was individual. American practice makes use of both
exercise and useful model. The instruction is by class first,
and this supplemented by individual attention as necessary.
For purposes of convenience in classification for rewards
thru grading, we may group individuals as 2 per cent excellent,
23 per cent superior, 50 per cent medium, 23 per cent inferior,
2 per cent failure. Larger or smaller intervals might have
been selected; for practical purposes those selected are con-
venient, easy of administration, and sufficiently limiting to
serve the purpose.
INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES 113
Certain groups should be set aside in technical manual arts
wherein the student may be given opportunity to exercise initi-
ative. At first, such attempts should be limited to the appli-
cation to new projects of information obtained thru past in-
struction. Whether such groups shall be set aside in indus-
trial arts depends upon the aim of the course. Any course
which is intended to develop leadership and its responsibili-
ties should certainly provide such group opportunities.
Reading References :
Thorndike: Principles of Teaching, Chapters VI, VII.
Bennett : The Manual Arts, Chapters VI, VII.
Allen : The Instructor, the Man and the Job, Chapters V-
VIII.
Griffith: Correlated Courses, pp. 10-28.
Class Discussion:
1. Judging from the graphs on pages 71, 72, 75 of Thorndike's
Principles of Teaching, what conclusion do you draw as to
the advisability of attempting to secure a like amount of
work or the same degree of technic and skill from all the
pupils?
2. What is your opinion of an arrangement for purposes of
classification — 2 to 5 per cent, excellent; 20 per cent, su-
perior; 50 per cent, medium; 20 per cent, inferior; 2 to 5
per cent, failure?
3. Explain in what manner Thorndike's graphs seem to justify
such classification.
4. What is your understanding of the term, average pupil?
5. What is your opinion as to the advisability of giving excess
and diminished credit — 30 per cent excess for E; 15 per
cent for S ; 15 per cent diminished credit for I.
6. Does F stand for defective or subnormal in the above
scheme ?
7. If "every stimulus must be given not to children in gen-
eral, but to a particular individual or group characterized
by certain peculiarities", what of class teaching?
8. Granted sufficient teaching force or staff, is individual in-
struction better than instruction to a reasonable number
possessing like peculiarities? Discuss.
9. Tn public schools, individual instruction is < hardly possible
irrespective of any considerations of desirability. State
114 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
definitely just how you expect to make allowances for varia-
tion on the part of your pupils in the matter of interest,
execution or skill, and technic or form.
10. How do you expect to develop initiative and at the same
time teach the pupils the conventional ways of manipulating
the material to be worked on?
CHAPTER VIII
CORRELATION AND ASSOCIATION
1. Correlation. No other topic has appeared so fre-
quently upon the programs of the drawing and manual train-
ing associations in the United States as that of correlation.
To correlate or not to correlate seems to be an ever present
topic for discussion. Shall manual training shopwork and
design be correlated? Shall shopwork and mechanical draw-
ing be correlated? Shall machine drawing and machine shop
work be correlated? Shall shopwork or drawing and aca-
demic subjects, such as arithmetic and English, etc., be cor-
related? Some teachers frankly oppose correlation; some
favor correlation provided their special subject becomes the
center or core about which the correlations are to be made.
Others recognize correlation as highly desirable but believe
such a conflict exists in any attempt at correlation that each
special subject must go its own way.
Correlation is the native state of mind of children. Re-
ferring to Professor James* famous phrase, it is out of a big,
blooming, buzzing confusion that consciousness arises as a
result of a differentiation of elements which go to make up
this confusion. This analogy serves well to indicate both the
strength and the weakness of correlation as an educational
principle. If consciousness is a development out of oneness
— out of a "big, blooming, buzzing, confusion" thru differen-
tiations, it may readily be inferred that little children are to
be taught thru closely correlated subject-matter — not arith-
metic as arithmetic, not handwork as handwork, but all a
part of one unified experience. As they grow older, differen-
tiations may well be emphasized until we have arithmetic,
language, science, manual training, etc. — each as a subject in
itself.
115
116 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
2. Correlation Another Name for Association. Correla-
tion is but another name for association and what has been
said of association and the law of association applies equally
to correlation. If we would be assured that certain connec-
tions, as that the facts of mechanical drawing will be utilized
in connection with the wood shop problems, we must see that
such connections are made with frequency, recency, intensity
and resulting satisfaction. The more specific and direct the
connections or the correlation, the more certain are we that
such connections will be made again under similar circum-
stances. The more general the instruction and the wider the
possibilities for application, the weaker are the connections
likely to be.
3. Two Types of Correlation. For the sake of convenience
we may speak of correlations as of two types — immediate and
remote or direct and indirect For example, a class of fourth
grade children may be taken to a blacksmith shop. They may
watch the men at work; question as directed as to tools, pro-
cesses, etc., etc. Upon returning to the school they may write
up their experiences in the form of very definite lessons both
in language and in number work. They may make drawings to
illustrate parts in their lessons — drawings of the anvil with
the names of the parts properly placed thereon, etc. They
may make booklet covers to hold these and similar lessons,
decorating the cover page. This might well be considered a
correlation between elementary handwork and design, lan-
guage and number work, and blacksmithing. Blacksmithing,
however, will not be taught that class until second year high
school, and then to the boys only. Nevertheless, we may
justly call even blacksmithing a correlation — a remote cor-
relation or, as Dr. Judd calls it, a correlation in the mind of
the child rather than a correlation of time.
An example of immediate or direct correlation will be
found in the outlines for woodwork and mechanical drawing.
CORRELATION AND ASSOCIATION
117
Griffith, Correlated Courses, pp. 22-26. An attempt has
been made here to make the mechanical drawing serve the
woodwork thru having the principles of mechanical drawing
taught in the making of drawings for the woodwork. The
Absence of correlation
c £
D F
Correlation
Correlation to be made
Fig. 17.
woodwork in turn serves the drawing thru motivating it, that
is, giving the boys a feeling of real need for the drawing
experience.
4. Advantages and Limitations of Immediate Correla-
tions. Certain advantages and disadvantages which accrue
thru the correlating of one subject with another or one ac-
tivity with another may be illustrated by a diagram such as
that of Fig. 17. If a journey is to be made from A to B a
traveler will experience little uncertainty and delay upon a
road which has no intersecting roads. If there should be an
intersecting road from C to D, he may have to stop and
inquire at the cross-road which road to take to go to B. Let
him come to another intersection like that at E-F, and again
he hesitates — the greater the number of intersections or con-
118 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
nections the more time will he lose in stopping to determine
the right road. So in correlations, the more widely we relate
an idea or an act, the less efficient is any one connection,
which otherwise can find expression in one direction only.
We increase the cross-roads, as it were, and these tend to
hold up the traveler as he is not held up when he can go
only straight ahead.
From considerations like this we might conclude that cor-
relations or associations are to be avoided; that educational
ends are best served when we specialize — take a direct route
to a specific end. If we wish, for example, to teach percentage
to a carpenter, let us teach it not as principles of percentage
with its by-paths or cross-roads into banking business, into
sheet-metal trade, etc., etc. In other words, let us take path
A-B which has no cross-roads. Now, so long as one so
taught continues to travel the road of percentage in carpentry,
well and good — this direct method is most efficient. However,
suppose such an one should be called upon to travel not from
A to B but from A to G, and no cross-roads are present, Fig.
17. According to the law of association he will not know
how or where to get off the road A-B, except by trial and
error. As Professor James would say, he is non-plussed.
Fig. 18 further illustrates the advantages and disadvantages
of correlation. Correlation may be likened to a city having
many connecting roads leading into it. A cross-country auto-
mobilist will find it easy to get into such a city. When he
attempts to get out, however, he finds more confusion than
he would have found had there been but one road.
5. Conflicting Aims. From what has been said it may
readily be seen that generalized and specialized training are
but one aspect of the problem of correlation or lack of cor-
relation and that the aims conflict. The stream of conscious-
ness is of a given volume. When we spread it out thru many
connections or correlations, we necessarily make it shallow;
CORRELATION AND ASSOCIATION
119
when we deepen it thru specialization and the elimination of
connections we necessarily make it narrow. Shallow minded
people are equally as unfortunate as are narrow minded peo-
Fig. 18. Illustrating Advantage and Disadvantage of Correlation.
pie, and vice versa. A person who can do everything usually
can do no one thing well. On the other hand, a person who
is narrowly trained may be called upon to meet life along
some other line of endeavor; he is then non-plussed. The
problem is one of those educational problems which do not
admit of an ideal solution. In general education we must
spread out to a certain extent for we want to produce a type
120 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
of individual capable of meeting a number of situations fairly
well. After these minimal essentials of breadth have been
obtained, we ought to separate pupils into groups for pur-
poses of specialization, narrowing and deepening their con-
nections within the special group. By refering to Fig. 14 a, b,
c and d we get a good notion of the educational problem as it
has to do with generalized subject-matter and special subject-
matter. These charts may represent the life of an individual as
it has to do with his formal education. The problem is to a
very large extent an administrative problem as well as a
psychological and pedagogical problem. We do not and can-
not in our schools teach individuals, we must teach groups
with like characteristics and like life aims.
6. Practical Difficulties and Aids in Correlation. Chief
among the difficulties of correlating subject-matter which has
become differentiated into subjects is the fact that what may be
a sequence in one is not necessarily a sequence in the other.
For example, a certain high school wood shop and drafting
department decided to correlate their work. It. was decided
that the drafting room should make up the working drawings
for the wood shop. The first problem in the wood shop was
a piece of furniture — the boys had had grammar school wood-
work and pencil drawing. This proved a satisfactory shop
problem but as a drafting problem for first work in inking
it was entirely too difficult. Usually, in such cases, it is pos-
sible to make a correlation by slight modification of procedure
in the drafting room. Pupils may be given preliminary ink-
ing problems of a simpler kind. The outlines for woodwork
and mechanical drawing, Correlated Courses, are correlated
in this way. Certain exercise problems in drawing are utilized
to bridge such gaps and thus permit each of the correlated
subjects to have a logical sequence of its own. Again, in
another school mechanical drawing, as to development and
intersections, was taught wholly as abstract or unrelated
CORRELATION AND ASSOCIATION 121
material in the freshman year. In the sophomore year in
sheet metal, applications of these same principles occurred.
Not a few boys failed to see any relation between the fresh-
man drawing and the sheet metal application and had to be
taught the application as new matter. A wise teacher of
drawing will take time to make such connections in the minds
of the boys by pointing out such applications and by the in-
troduction of not a few sheet metal drafting problems as a
part of the work in drawing.
7. Summary. Correlation is the native state of mind
of little children and they must be taught in terms of closely
related subject-matter and experiences. As they grow older
differentiations are to be emphasized until we have arith-
metic, language, construction work, etc. — each with subjects
matter of its own, with a right to its own organization in
the main.
Correlation is but another name for association and what
has been said of association and the law of association applies
with equal force to correlation.
For the sake of convenience, we may speak of correlations
as of two kinds or types— immediate and remote. In remote
correlations the connections are made in the mind of the child
rather than in time. In immediate correlations the desired
connections are accomplished in time as well as in the mind.
Certain advantages accrue thru the correlation of one sub-
ject with another; also certain disadvantages. The problem
of generalized versus specialized training is but one aspect
of the problem of correlation or association. It is one of
those educational problems which do not admit of an ideal
solution. The best that can be done is to lay as broad a
foundation thru correlations and associations as time and
economic conditions will permit, and then upon this to erect
a specialized structure made so by eliminating all correlations
122 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
or associations or interests which do not lend themselves to
the purpose in hand.
Chief among the practical difficulties which interfere with
close correlation of one educational subject with another is
the fact that sequence in one rarely corresponds with sequence
in another. Frequently, however, a thoroly satisfactory cor-
relation can be made if each instructor will make cer-
tain adjustments in the sequence of his subject-matter to
accommodate that of the other.
Reference Reading:
Thorndike : Principles of Teaching, Chapter VIII.
James: Talks to Teachers, Chapters VIII, IX, XII.
Class Discussion:
1. State the law of association as it applies to impressions; to
memory; to habits involving muscular reactions.
2. From observations made, enumerate evident regard for the
law of association in some manual arts teaching.
3. Describe any evident violation of the law if you have seen
such and suggest a remedy.
4. Concentration, repetition, and recall are means used to fix
connections. State how the teacher observed was securing
these.
5. Why have a child build a piece of woodwork which inter-
ests him rather than one which does not?
6. Which is better pedagogically, a taboret with eight joints
of the same kind or a joint disconnected from any object
of interest repeated eight times, where the acquiring
of proper technic and skill are the aims of the teacher.
Would you modify your answer were one of the following
specified : in lower grades, in upper grades, in high school,
in university?
7. Why have recitations upon assigned reading bearing upon
the work being done in the shop?
8. What is gained and what lost, if anything, by having
mechanical drawings precede the making of projects?
9. When manual arts is given as a means of teaching other
subjects as history, etc, what is gained and what is lost?
10. Practically all teachers believe in correlation — correlation
of other subjects with their own. It is said that every
subject has a right to organization as a subject in itself;
CORRELATION AND ASSOCIATION 123
what do you conclude as to the possibility of correlation if
this is true?
11. As manual arts teachers, what attitude do you expect to
take in the matter of correlating your subject with other
subjects?
12. Give an example of correlation in manual arts; in the in-
dustrial arts.
CHAPTER IX
THE DOCTRINE OF DISCIPLINE
1. The Problem of Discipline Stated. Whether the old
conception of the mind as a bundle of faculties, each working
independently of the experiences with which it deals, was
merely a convenient academic solution of the impossible prob-
lem of any one mind's encompassing all knowledge, or whether
the theorist evolved the faculty psychology first, and. pedagogy
made use of it because of its convenience, is a matter of small
moment. What is of importance to the teacher of manual
and industrial arts in this connection is that he have a clear
conception of the problem of discipline as an educational
means or an end.
Since the time of Locke, educational practice has in the
main justified itself upon the ground of discipline, the older
view being that it mattered not what the subject-matter might
be, discipline of mind in one thing necessarily meant discipline
of mind in other things. For example, the study of Latin
was supposed to strengthen the memory so that a good Latin
student would be of necessity a better salesman of codfish in
which a memory of faces is involved. Attending church twice
on Sunday was thought to be a discipline which would carry
over on Monday and make a man honest in his business, even
as he was honest on Sunday in his church service. Making
boys accurate and neat in manual training was to make boys
accurate and neat in personal matters, etc., etc.
From what has been said in Chapter VIII about the diffi-
culties confronting education in its efforts to correlate or en-
compass all knowledge and all useful habits of muscle and
mind, and at the same time differentiate and specialize so
that each thing considered might be worth while, such a doc-
trine of transference of habits of mind and muscle, irrespective
124
DOCTRINE OF DISCIPLINE 125
of associations or connections, provided a happy solution.
According to this doctrine it mattered little what was taught
in school provided it was taught so as to develop some faculty
of the mind, as memory, will, etc. Even manual training in
its earlier days was guaranteed to make a boy honest, accur-
ate, neat, etc., in all things, irrespective of connections, once
a boy passed thru these experiences in his manual training. A
boy made neat in his woodwork was supposed of necessity to
become neat in his personal appearance, etc., etc.
Unfortunately for the peace of mind of those who think,
psychological and pedagogical investigations and experiments
failed to sustain any such doctrine in its entirety.
2. Early Revised View. Upon investigation and experi-
mentation it was thought that the development of habits of
memory, will, honesty, accuracy, skill, etc., in any one direc-
tion was but slight guarantee that such habits would be found
in other directions. The conclusion was drawn by certain
experimentors that general training was an impossible thing
and that only specific end was of any value. Even if we
thought we were training the memory thru Latin, in fact we
were only training it in ability to remember Latin. That if
we wished to develop memory in any other line we could do
so only by dealing specifically with that particular line.
Naturally, this view presented a difficult problem to the
teacher. A limited time for the education of a youth, a world
wide racial knowledge and experience with which to acquaint
him, and then to be informed that only as each pupil was
habituated to each highly differentiated experience, was that
experience of value ! If a boy was to form habits of honesty,
accuracy, or neatness, he could not be expected to do so
except as he was taught such habits in each and every line
of endeavor. If a child was to be taught arithmetic, it would
have to be arithmetic of the baker, the broker, or the seam-
stress. There could be no general education.
126 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
If the older view of habit transference without connections
was false, and it is so recognized, the newer view led to some
extreme generalizations or implications in the opposite direc-
tion. Common observations are sufficient to indicate that cer-
tain habits seem to function in subject-matter and method
greatly different from that with which these habits originally
were formed. A boy who has had a good course in woodwork
generally does better work the next semester when he takes
up forging, altho the subject-matter is quite different. A boy
who has had a good course in forging the first semester does
better work in woodwork the second semester An engineer-
ing upper classman or graduate, as a general thing, keeps a
neater note-book than upper classmen in other schools not
demanding painstaking care in note-book work, etc.
3. The Present View of Generalized and Specialized
Training. It is generally recognized today that while there
is no such thing as a generalized habit, specialized habits of
mind and muscle are so intricately interwoven in their con-
nections that oftentimes it is difficult to detect any connec-
tions. It is out of this inability that the doctrine of generalized
habits has grown.
The law of association should give us the explanation of, or
the answer to, the question of transference of habit. The
likelihood that one thought or act will call up another thought
or act is in proportion to the frequency, recency, intensity
and resulting satisfaction of previous connection, other things
being equal. No connection, then no likelihood of recall.
An examination of any real or seeming transference of habit
will show that such connections are due to :
1. Similarity of subject-matter of specific experiences.
2. Similarity of method of procedure.
3. The extent to which such experiences have been made
to take the form of ideals, or of rules, or of principles which
serve as connecting links.
DOCTRINE OF DISCIPLINE 127
The boy who has had woodwork the first semester is bet-
ter prepared to do metalwork the second semester, among
other things, because habits of exact measurement in wood-
work and metalwork are not unlike — similarity of method of
procedure. Again, a boy who has had woodwork, among
other things, has formed a habit, probably, of systematic
methods of attack in woodwork, which habit has been dis-
sociated from woodwork and made to take the form of an
ideal — not systematic method of procedure a desirable thing
in woodwork alone, but system a desirable thing always.
A boy who is given habits of neatness, accuracy or honesty
in the making of a bird house is that much better for the
experience. School time, however, is too short to teach
neatness, accuracy, honesty, in the one thousand and one
things in which the elements are necessary. While "empiri-
cal concretes," the specific experiences, "and not abstractions
give the basis for association" (Judd), it will readily appear
that attention, devoted to associations wholly within that
experience and no attempt made to connect certain elements,
dissociated thru abstractions, with other situations is a short
sighted policy. That is, the correct way to teach neatness,
accuracy, honesty, etc., is to teach them, for example, as
necessary factors in making a sled, a taboret, etc. However,
this should not be the sole end of education so far as these
elements are concerned. After a boy has had a number of
such experiences, it should be the aim of good teaching to
get him to dissociate or abstract these elements and hold them
in mind as things always to be desired in all situations. This
abstracting process approximates pretty closely the old idea
of generalized training — the essential difference, however, lies
in the fact that only as such associations are made between
empirical concretes and ideals and between these ideals and
specific application is it possible to have a so-called transfer.
If by discipline we mean this possible connecting up of one
128 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
thing, idea, or experience to another thing, idea, or experience
by means of ideals and principles, then discipline is not only
possible but is the main justification for most of our particu-
lars of subject-matter in general education. For example,
woodwork is a very common requirement in seventh and
eighth grades in nearly all progressive schools. Why wood-
work, in preference to any other kind of industrial activity?
Certainly, only a few boys out of any class are to become
workers in wood. For these few, of course, similarity of
subject-matter is an essential argument for this particular
experience. Rather do we judge the" highly specific experi-
ence, such as cabinet making or the still broader experience
— woodwork — upon the ground of discipline as just inter-
preted. When we think of this experience not as woodwork
but as industrial experience as differentiated from the profes-
sional, the agricultural, etc., then similarity of subject-matter
and similarity of method procedure enter in as very essential
arguments in justification.
4. Effect of Present View of Discipline Upon Subject-
Matter and Method — Logical Basis. A discussion of the
basis of subject-matter belongs primarily to organization of
manual arts rather than to teaching manual arts. It seems
advisable, however, in view of the discussion just preceding,
to indicate briefly such basis, especially since such bases are
pre-supposed in all of the type form lessons referred to in
this book. First, since expressional or illustrative manual
arts is a matter of assisting in the clarification of ideas of
other subject-matter, as geography, history, etc., it can hardly
be said to have subject-matter of its own. Certainly, its or-
ganization will be subordinated to that of subjects it seeks to
serve. Examine the suggested outlines for expressional and
illustrative manual arts, Appendix II. With technical manual
arts and industrial arts, however, the situation is different.
Technical manual arts and industrial arts, being ends in them-
DOCTRINE OF DISCIPLINE 129
selves, more essentially, have a right to sequential organiza-
tion of subject-matter peculiarly their own.
The selection of subject-matter and method of procedure
in technical manual arts and industrial arts will be governed by
1. The extent of similarity which will exist between such
subject-matter selected for school purposes, and subject-
matter the pupil will deal with after leaving school.
2. The extent of similarity which will exist between method
of procedure in such subject-matter selected for school
purposes and methods of procedure in subject-matter
pupils will deal with after leaving school.
3. The extent to which such subject-matter can be gener-
alized — put into the form of principles, or made to take
the form of a science. The extent to which specific atti-
tudes, or attitudes formed in connection with specific
experiences,, can be made to dissociate themselves and
take the form of ideals.
Education in general should begin as at the center of
Fig 14-a or 14-b working outward as the development of the
child's nature permits.
Where children leave school at an early age and enter upon
trade or industrial work, Fig 14-c and d chart educational
connections which should be made available. To do less is
to lay our boasted public school system open to the charge of
inequality of opportunity for acquiring an education.
5. Modification of Choice of Subject-matter Due to
Child Nature — Psychological Basis. If society determines
what shall be taught, child nature must determine how and
when it shall be taught. Children are not born logically
minded and any logical arrangement of subject-matter and
method must accommodate itself in its beginnings to child
nature. Boys of high school age are intensely interested in
wood-turning; there is little place in the work of the world
for wood-turners. Manual training men, a few years ago,
130
TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
decided to throw out wood-turning for this latter reason. It
is highly probable that wood-turning can justify itself on
grounds of creating an attitude of interest and joy in work
with machines that will make it well worth while, even tho
Fig. 19. Training Room for Apprentices, Lakeside Press, Chicago.
few boys ever can become professional wood-turners. The
same thing is true of furniture construction.
Again, similarity of subject-matter and similarity of method
of procedure must accommodate themselves to an organiza-
tion suited to the impartation of new ideas and new experi-
ences. Were experiences in school to be made identical in
subject-matter and method to those of the real world, there
would be no need for schools. Instead of reproducing the
entire real world condition in any one industry, such as car-
pentry or cabinet making, certain typical processes and blocks
of subject-matter will be selected and utilized in so far as
they lend themselves to progressive learning and doing. A
complete vocational educational experience, will, of course,
DOCTRINE OF DISCIPLINE
131
involve experience under actual vocational conditions, follow-
ing or accompanying such training or instructional blocks of
experiences. For example, large printing houses have every
facility for training boys to become printers thru placing them
Fig. 20. Training Room for Apprentices, Lakeside Press, Chicago.
in press-rooms and composing rooms where real life condi-
tions obtain. They do place them there one-half time but not
primarily for instructional purposes. The instruction of these
boys is given in an especially fitted room having equipment
for printing at one end and school desks at the other end,
Figs. 19 and 20. Likewise, large manufacturing plants differ-
entiate instruction from production, Figs. 21 and 22, giving
part time to instruction and part to production.
In the smaller communities where limited numbers make
a modified form of organization for instruction necessary, or
in larger communities where trades and industry are of such
132
TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
a character that group instruction is not possible or advisable,
instruction will have to be individual and on the job. The
principles of organization and classification of teachable con-
tent and its arrangement for effective instruction will not
differ. Certain related work, such as mathematics, drawing,
Fig. 21. Shop Apprentices in Class of Mechanical Drawing, Schenectady
Works. Courtesy of General Electric Co., Schenectady, N. Y.
science not infrequently may still be given in classes thru
part-time instruction even where the manipulative processes
must be taught on the job thru the instructional foreman.
6. Summary. Whatever may have been the origin of
the doctrine of discipline, it is important that the teacher of
manual and industrial arts have a clear conception of the
problem of discipline as an educational means or as an end.
Since the time of Locke, educational practice has in the main
justified itself upon the ground of discipline, the older view
DOCTRINE OF DISCIPLINE
133
being that it mattered not what the subject might be, discipline
of mind in one thing necessarily meant discipline of
mind in other things. In view of the difficulties confront-
ing education in its efforts to correlate or encompass all
knowledge and all useful habits, and at the same time differ-
Fig. 22. Training Room for Machinist Apprentices, First Year. Cour-
tesy of General Electric Co., Schenectady, N. Y.
entiate and specialize so that each thing considered might
be worth while, such a doctrine of transference of habits,
irrespective of connections or associations, provided a happy
solution. Unfortunately, psychological and pedagogical ex-
periences failed to sustain any such doctrine in its entirety.
Investigation and experimentation failed to sustain the
original belief and out of this arose a belief that only specific
training or training toward a highly specific end was of any
value. This new view presented a difficult problem to the
134 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
teacher, especially in general education where he did not
know the specific future of any of his pupils. If the older
view claimed too much for itself, the newer view led some
to extreme generalizations in the opposite direction.
It is generally conceded that there is no such thing as a
generalized habit in the sense that training in one activity will
carry over into another wholly unrelated activity. On the
other hand, specialized habits are so intricately interwoven
that it is often difficult to detect any connections. Out of this
inability has come the doctrine of transference without connec-
tions. The law of association provides the answer to the
question as to transference. No connections, then no trans-
ference. Such connections may be made thru similarity of
subject-matter, similarity of method of procedure, thru gen-
eralization or idealization. Connections of the third type
are so very economical of time that education of the past has
confined its attention to this type very largely. It is to this
type the psychologist of today, who advocates transference,
refers. "Transference takes place whenever generalization
is reached." (Judd.) If by transference we mean this pos-
sible connecting up of one idea or experience with another
idea or experience thru generalization or idealization, then
discipline is not only possible but is the main justification for
most of the particulars of subject-matter in general education.
The selection of subject-matter of technical manual arts and
industrial arts will be governed, as is all other subject-matter
and method, by similarity of subject-matter, similarity of
method of procedure of school experiences to that of probable
future life experiences, and extent of generalization and
idealization possible. Education in general, then, will begin
with such subject-matter as is common to all activities, gradu-
ally differentiating into special lines to meet special needs.
The above basis for choice of subject-matter is social, eco-
nomic, and logical. Children, however, are not born logically
DOCTRINE OF DISCIPLINE 135
minded, and any logical arrangement of subject-matter and
method will have to accommodate itself in its beginnings to
child nature. Also, considerations of similarity of subject-
matter and similarity of methods of procedure must accom-
modate themselves to an organization suited to the imparta-
tion of new ideas and new experiences — in other words, to
considerations of instruction.
Reference Reading:
Thorndike: Principles of Teaching, Chapter XV.
Judd: Psychology of High School Subjects, Chapter XVII.
Bennett: The Manual Arts, Chapter V.
Colvin: The Learning Process, Chapters XIV-XVI.
Class Discussion:
1. What is meant when a subject is said to be justified as a
part of the course of study on account of its disciplinary
value ?
2. What is the view of those who uphold what is known as
the doctrine of formal discipline?
3. Have you in your reading ever observed any argument for
manual arts seemingly based upon this doctrine?
4. Under what conditions may improvement in one special
power assist in the improvement of another or others ?
5. If "mental capacity is highly specialized", upon what
grounds do you justify a course of study which requires
all boys of seventh and eighth grades to take woodwork in
a city school system?
6. Consulting the chart, Fig. 14b, would you say that a city
would do better by its boys if it were to offer subjects
other than woodwork, such as metalwork, printing, agricul-
ture, etc.?
7. In a small city, where the necessary money cannot be pro-
vided for these various options and only woodwork can be
provided, upon what grounds can you justify woodwork
for all boys?
8. Will teaching a boy accuracy, neatness, truthfulness, etc.,
in the making of a sled cause him to be more accurate,
neater, and more truthful in other matters? If an affirma-
tive answer is given, explain the conditions under which
the transfer is brought about and the relative likelihood of
transfer or amount of transfer.
9. Consulting the charts, Fig. 14 a, b, c and d, again, explain
how you would justify: 1. General Education. 2. Manual
Arts. 3. Highly Specialized or Vocational Education.
CHAPTER X
TYPES OF THINKING INHERENT IN THE MANUAL AND
INDUSTRIAL ARTS
1. Introduction. Psychologists have differentiated
thinking into two types — associative and selective. Authors
of pedagogical literature have been content to accept this
differentiation with the result that two distinct schools of
thought as to educational method and practice have arisen.
The first is composed of men who seek to stress the develop-
ment of initiative, originality, and a resourceful attitude in
pupils, minimizing authority and benefits which accrue from
race experience. The second is composed of men who stress
authority and race experience and make little effort to
develop initiative and originality. A rather voluminous liter-
ature has been the result of the controversy carried on by
members of these two schools of thought. Much of this
literature consists of rather vigorous criticism of the other's
point of view. Manual arts and industrial arts methods, and
the theory upon which the methods have been based, have had
no small amount of such criticism. In order to properly eval-
uate such methods, which methods are presented in the chap-
ter following, effort will be made in this chapter to evaluate
the types of thinking which are common and which furnish
the basis for theory as to method and aims.
The educative process is concerned chiefly with associa-
tive thinking and with selective thinking of certain well-de-
fined types. One who has followed the discussions which
have taken place between these two schools of thought is
impressed with the fact that much of the misunderstanding and
lack of respect for each other's view is due to the assumption
of extreme positions. If, instead of making use of an evalu-
ating unit or interval which divides the subject into two parts,
136
TYPES OF THINKING 137
we were to take a smaller unit, one that would give us three
parts, Fig. 23, we should find it easier to analyze and orient
our positions with greater success. In no case is an experi-
ence one of associative thinking solely, or of selective think-
ing solely. In every case of associative thinking there is
some selective thinking and in every case of selective think-
ing there must be associative thinking; it is a question of
degree. For this reason we are at liberty to select any unit
or interval of measurement we may deem advisable.
2. Three Types of Thinking. Instead of discussing the
traditional two types, associative and selective, let us consider
what we may call common associative, select-associative, and
selective. The term select-associative has been introduced as
a means of designating a type of thinking which is more
selective than common associative and more dependent upon
association than is selective. It is a type of thinking of great
importance to the technical manual and industrial arts.
Common associative thinking is that kind of thinking which
finds expression when two women with nothing in particular
to do meet and carry on conversation over the back-yard fence,
that kind of thinking which finds expression when men meet
about the fire in the village store with nothing in particular to
do but pass the time away. Such thinking is "more or less
rambling, with no central idea — a mass of detail related in
time rather than in reason." It is as if one were to sit by the
side of a stream watching the various forms of floating ma-
terials pass by without any attempt ever to arrest any of
them for a useful purpose of some kind or another. Suppose,
however, that one were a fisherman, whose comfort in winter
depended upon his getting from those passing floating materials
his winter supply of wood. As the various materials pass by,
he does not idly let them all pass but selects therefrom those
which best serve his purpose. This latter typifies what takes
place in selective thinking or reasoning. As the stream of
138 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
consciousness flows on thru common associations, the mind,
as it were, selects therefrom those things which serve the
purpose under consideration. The fisherman does not deter-
mine what shall pass by; neither does the mind determine
what thoughts or ideas shall pass by in the stream of con-
Common
Associative or
Random Thinkin g
Type I Type Z Type 3
Fig. 23. Three Types of Thinking.
sciousness. What thought or action shall follow another
thought or action is determined by the frequency, recency,
intensity, and resulting satisfaction of previous associations,
other things being equal. If the mind does not arbitrarily
determine what shall pass by, it certainly does have the power
to choose from among those things as they pass by. It is
this ability to choose and to postpone reactions which dis-
tinguishes man from other animals.
Now, that we have examined the two extreme types of
thinking, we ought to be prepared to orient the middle type,
select-associative, Fig. 23, without difficulty. Not all asso-
ciative thinking is of such random character as that of the
women engaged in conversation over the back-yard fence or
of the idle men about the fire of the village store. Neither,
on the other hand, may the agent or individual be as free
to make selections and choose his own terms as was the fisher
beside the river. For example, it may be a student in tech-
nical manual arts or an industrial arts course wherein he has
TYPES OF THINKING 139
been taught and shown just how to make a joint of a certain
type, or some other technical operation wherein the teacher
has made use of conventional methods of procedure in his
instruction and his demonstration. The type of thinking the
student engages in when he tries to execute instructions in
the making of the project is not to be classed as random;
there is a definite goal toward which the student is working.
Neither can it be classed as selective in the sense that the
student is a free agent to work out his problem as he likes.
It is a type of thinking we have chosen to call select-associa-
tive^ — selective in that there is a definite end in mind upon
the part of the student in view of which he makes selection
of favorable ideas as they pass thru consciousness by associa-
tion, associative in that the goal and the means are set by
society and the race thru the teacher. The chief effort of
the boy in his selection is one of determining thru recall the
proper means or method of procedure. The sample we get
by placing our measuring unit at this middle position, Fig. 23,
is classed as associative in pedagogical writings. The reader
will do well to remember, however, that it has selective ele-
ments but that those selective elements are selective on the
part of the race and not the boy; that the boy confines his
effort to thinking them over and acting them out thru asso-
ciation.
3. Evaluation of Types of Thinking. The first type,
random thinking, may be dismissed from further considera-
tion by the statement that it finds a place in the educative
process thru necessity rather than thru choice. It is the basis
for the second and the third types. Being instinctive, our
chief concern is one of direction rather than encouragement.
When we give it direction it then becomes type two and three.
It is given a place in our discussion because it is a distinct
type and one which often is confused with type three as to
educational significance. This first type is not regarded highly
140 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
in the world's work. Being the most common, the least
economical, and requiring as it does no educational invest-
ment, it is the least paid. It is the chief mental characteristic
of the unskilled labor class. Type two is not so common as
type one; its rewards are correspondingly greater. The re-
sults it accomplishes are of greater value to society. It is the
chief mental characteristic of the skilled labor class. The
greatest rewards are reserved for the third type; this is the
chief mental characteristic of the inventor or director class.
This stratification of society into the common associative
thinking class, or unskilled; select-associative, or the skilled;
and the selective, or inventor, or director class is a social ar-
rangement or racial development which finds an exact coun-
terpart in individual development. In the individual there
comes first unorganized action and thought. Out of this spon-
taneity comes more efficient or skilled reactions, because they
are aided thru instruction or thru teaching of such associa-
tions as race experience has found helpful. Third, comes
creative effort most worth while because it is based upon in-
struction in the things of past experience.
Of course this third type is highly to be desired and every
effort made to develop it. However, it should be remembered
that most of the world's work is done by type number two,
and that it is not only not possible to produce any very large
number of striking examples of number three type, but that
the most effective training for number three type requires
a certain amount of elementary experience in number one and
number two as preliminaries for number three.
4. Instruction on the Lower and the Higher Plane —
Storage of Knowledge and Acquisition of Mechanical Skill.
When pupils are required to comprehend and retain facts as
an aim; when skill is aimed at as an end in itself, this, Dr.
Frank McMurry has characterized as instruction on a lower
plane. When facts are to be comprehended and remembered
TYPES OF THINKING 141
as means not ends; when efficiency is the goal, and the aim is
to make pupils high minded, judicious, forceful, self-reliant, —
this he calls instruction on a higher plane.
Quite evidently the meaning intended to be conveyed is that
of the two justifications : Justification thru similarity of sub-
ject-matter and similarity of method of procedure, and justi-
fication thru the development of ideals and principles and
rules that may serve as connecting links to a wider range of
experience than the little specific experiences given in school ;
this latter is to be the chief justification. By instruction on
the lower plane he means instruction which emphasizes mere
associative thinking — emphasis upon what to do and how to
do it rather than why a thing is done as it is. By instruction
on the higher plane he refers to that type of instruction which
emphasizes the method of selective or purposive thinking,
initiative, originality, inventiveness, not of the teacher but of
the pupil. When a boy is given a blueprint and told just how
to proceed in the making of a mechanical drawing copy or
a tracing of this blueprint, — this type of instruction he would
class as on a lower plane. The associations the pupil makes
in making his mechanical drawing copy or his tracing are
those the teacher has made for him. The thinking for the
boy is reproductive rather than productive. An excellent
copy or tracing may result and yet the boy may be ignorant
of the meaning of the drawing or of the principles in-
volved in its construction and fail to dissociate such ideals
as neatness, etc. Not so with the teacher who designed the
project and made the original tracing and blueprint. The
designing of the project necessitated selection, analysis, reason-
ing. Again, a workman digging a foundation for a house has
always associated "rock encountered in excavating" with "throw
it out." He comes upon a rock which is so large it cannot be
thrown out without special equipment not at hand. Analysis of
the situation, selection of the favorable ideas which pass by in
14 2 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
associative thinking enable him to associate the idea of the
rock almost below excavation level with the idea of digging
around it and letting it sink a little lower and not trying to
take it out, and a new solution is afforded.
It is this resourceful attitude of mind, this refusal to be
non-plussed by all situations except those which are most
habitual that Dr. McMurry considers the end of education.
5. The Danger in Extreme Emphasis upon Manual and
Industrial Arts as a Means of Developing So-called Gener-
alized Habits of Reaction — The Necessity of Associative
Thinking as a Preliminary to Selective Thinking. It is
quite possible for one to deduce from argument for extreme
emphasis upon manual and industrial arts as a means of devel-
oping initiative, resourcefulness, etc., that subject-matter and
conventional method of procedure are of no moment. Not
infrequently, educators in their eagerness to point out the
limitations of associative thinking and the advantages of selec-
tive thinking lead young teachers to conclude that associative
thinking in its entirety is to be avoided as an undesirable
thing in education.
As a matter of fact the development of initiative, origin-
ality, resourceful attitude of mind, etc., are themselves means
and not ends. The end is the efficient application of these
ideals, and such applications imply necessity for attention to
subject-matter and methods. A man may have a Ph. D., a
sign that he is considered by some higher institution of learn-
ing as possessed of a resourceful attitude of mind, and still
find himself utterly non-plussed in the presence of a stalled
automobile engine he happens to be driving, while a very
"ignorant" mechanic may meet the situation by so simple an
operation as removing and cleaning a spark plug. As a
counter irritant there may be offered Prof. Thorndike's rather
extreme opposite view: "Training the mind means the de-
velopment of thousands of particular independent capacities,
TYPES OF THINKING 143
the formation of countless particular habits, for the working
of any mental capacity depends upon the concrete data with
which it works." (Principles of Teaching, p. 248.) Dr.
Judd states the case for associative thinking when he says,
' 'Empirical concretes and not abstractions give the basis for
associations." Associations in turn give the basis for selec-
tive thinking. Associative thinking is an absolute prerequisite
for selective thinking and most of the world's work is carried
on thru this rather than thru high selective. The fisherman
by the river, to revert to our original illustration, could not
pick out suitable firewood for his winter's supply did not
the stream carry an array of materials past.
6. The Danger in Extreme Emphasis Upon Associative
Thinking to the Neglect of Selective. If teachers of tech-
nical manual arts and industrial arts need to be warned of
dangers in extreme emphasis upon one or the other of the
factors mentioned above, observation and conversation would
seem to indicate that the warning should be one against ex-
treme emphasis upon associative rather than upon selective
thinking. From the very nature of the problem it is to be
expected that technical manual and industrial arts teachers
will concern themselves very largely with the problem of
habituating their pupils to certain lines of thought and action
thru associations wherein race experience and conventional
methods of procedure play a large part. They should under-
stand, however, that the product of such instruction is not
of the highest type. They should know that many of the
specific experiences they give their pupils may easily be made
to take the form of generalizations by which latter means
their ability to meet new environment or new situations is
made possible. A student taught to think of roof framing,
referring to our past illustration, in terms of principles rather
than in terms of certain numbers to take on the tongue and
blade for each pitch and each cut of each member, will most
144 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
certainly be better able to meet the many diverse problems
of roof framing than one who has not been taught to generalize
his particulars of instruction.
In fact, only in this manner can such a student meet situa-
tions which are new — situations he has not been taught to
meet specifically. One is justified in entertaining a healthy
skepticism as to the teaching methods and ability of any
manual or industrial arts teacher who prides himself on never
reading the literature of his craft or who feels that books
possess nothing for him. Generalized experiences are passed
on from one to another by or thru words, either word of
mouth or the printed page, largely the printed page. The
teacher who never reads usually never thinks in terms be-
yond the particular associations taught him ; he seldom gen-
eralizes. His pupils consequently receive little encourage-
ment to do more. Race progress, socially and economically,
is possible only thru selective thinking. Even our select-
associative type is not the highest type. There must be oppor-
tunity for the third type, selective thinking.
7. Harmonization of Conflicting Aims uvAssociative and
Selective Thinking. It is impossible to place extreme em-
phasis upon associative and selective thinking at one and the
same time, just as it is impossible for the fisherman to let all
the fire and other woods float by and yet take out some for
his own use. For example, it is impossible, as has been
previously stated, to teach a boy just how to make a mortise-
and-tenon joint according to methods race experience has de-
veloped and at the same time have him discover how a mor-
tise-and-tenon joint is to be made. The former is associative ;
the latter selective. The former is instruction on a lower
plane; the latter is supposed to be instruction on a higher
plane. The former is deductive; the latter inductive. The
former defeats initiative, the latter is supposed to give it
exercise, etc. The former is our type number two ; the latter
. TYPES OF THINKING 145
is supposed to be number three, and right here is where
trouble often comes. It is more likely to be number one
rather than number three when men of purely academic train-
ing try to develop creative effort in technical manual or in
industrial arts. They fail to recognize that instruction must pre-
cede creative effort if it is to be worth while — if it is to be
anything more than spontaneity, a preliminary to instruction.
How then can we teach pupils the conventions of any craft,
give them the benefit of what the race has discovered and
also develop initiative, a resourceful attitude of mind, etc? If
we cannot tell a pupil how a thing is to be done and at the
same time have him discover how it is to be done, what can
we do? The answer, obviously, is, first, arrange the experi-
ences so that those conventions the race has developed, and
which children could not discover in the time available, will
be given them by the teacher deductively as instruction. Sec-
ond, arrange enough groups of experiences that pupils will be
encouraged to put together such information and experiences
in new combinations, and at such times that invention, initia-
tive, etc., may be encouraged and strengthened.
In seventh grade woodwork, for example, teach boys proper
methods of squaring-up stock, etc., by instruction and demon-
stration. If this type of instruction is criticized as on a lower
plane, as not calculated to develop a resourceful attitude of
mind, grant that it is, but justify it in your own mind and in
your practice by having it serve as the instructional part of
Froebel's (1) spontaneity, (2) instruction, (3) creative ef-
fort. Do not, however, fail to intersperse groups which will
allow pupils to modify dimensions and design projects of their
own, just as soon as instruction and skill make this possible
and profitable. We cannot accomplish skill and intelligence
at one and the same time ; we can, however, alternate the
emphasis and thus accomplish a result that best makes for
progress. Technical manual training and industrial arts must,
146 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
as far as conditions permit, strive to develop the qualities
mentioned by Dr. McMurry; this can be done best and only
thru instruction on a lower plane as a prerequisite to instruc-
tion on a higher plane. Care should be taken to distinguish
between creative effort based upon instruction and spontaneity
not so based. Each has its place but they are essentially
different stages or aspects of the educational process.
The inference as to method in general, then, is clear: We
are to pay attention to the empirical concretes; education is
to be based upon specific concrete experiences. Out of these
experiences are to come the generalizations, the abstractions,
the rules, the theory, the ideals which shall serve to connect
these specific, concrete experiences with other specific, con-
crete experiences not otherwise related. Such a method de-
mands more than mere generalization and abstraction; it de-
mands application of these to new situations or experiences.
If it were desired to produce an intelligent carpentry foreman,
one with a resourceful attitude of mind, we must not try to do
this by having him disregard the subject-matter of carpentry.
We must not have him dwell always in the world of random
experimentation on the ground that in such a world he is
exercising initiative and avoiding associative thinking which
comes thru being told how and what to do. We must not
expect him to develop a resourceful attitude of mind that is
really worth while without passing thru a certain amount of
elementary thought experience such as number one and num-
ber two before stressing number three. In other words, util-
izing the instincts of number one we would by instruction or
association hitch on all the lessons race experiences can give
about carpentry. Out of this should come an ability to do real
creative thinking and execution in carpentry. The educa-
tional process is complete only when this embryo has had
opportunity to apply his derived theory to new situations.
8. Modifications in Practice Due to Variation in Aims.
TYPES OF THINKING 147
In all that has been said in the discussion so far, the assump-
tion has been that conditions are ideal and that every boy has
time and financial means to pursue a type of educational ex-
perience which makes due allowance for natural development
and which is calculated to train him for the highest positions,
whether in a trade or other line of life activity. Such ideal
conditions do not exist, of course. It will be found neces-
sary, therefore, to institute practices to meet social and
economic conditions which come short of preparing a student
for this highest type.
One should not expect, for example, to find in an elemen-
tary industrial arts course, wherein limited time makes a
hurried preparation for industry necessary, much attention
being devoted to the development of originality, initiative,
resourceful attitude of mind, etc. Rather the attention will be
found centered upon associative thinking wherein the school
seeks to give to the boy highly specific associations, such as it
can, pertaining to some specific activity, determining these as-
sociations from race experience and immediate individual need.
Likewise, a boy being trained for the skilled labor class will be
given more training thru associations and less opportunity
for generalizations than will another being trained for direc-
torship.
Again, it may be well to call attention to the fact that em-
phasis upon generalizations, rules, theory, etc., may justly
find a place in certain types of schools at the expense of
attention to specific concrete experiences. Such work, how-
ever, is subject to serious limitations unless it is based upon
at least a small amount of individual experience with the
concrete experiences or data out of which the theory is de-
duced and at least a limited opportunity for application.
No school should be judged adversely as to method until
its aims are known. Even then, a fair-minded investigator
will not judge a school until he has made a survey of its
148 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
work as a whole. It is possible for one to emphasize asso-
ciative thinking for a period of a year or even more, empha-
sizing instruction and conventional methods of procedure.
Manifestly, if the plan of such a one calls for opportunity
to make applications of such instruction the following year
in creative effort, an inspector would be unjust to condemn
the work of this teacher upon a visit or two to his seventh
grade work when his eighth grade work called for opportunity
for expression. It might be the better part of wisdom to give
such opportunities at less great intervals — the principle, how-
ever, is the same. Neither will a fair-minded inspector con-
demn instruction which is associative largely when such work
is for special ends, such as early entrance into industry.
9. Summary. The educative process is concerned with
associative and with selective thinking of certain well-defined
types. Much of confusion and misunderstanding has arisen
because the evaluating unit used is too large to give sufficient
definiteness in attempts to analyze situations as they have to
do with types of thinking. In no case is an experience one
of associative thinking solely, or of selective thinking solely.
In every case of associative thinking there is selection and
in every case of selective thinking there is association; it is
a question of degree. For this reason we are at liberty to
choose any measuring unit we may consider advantageous.
The unit which divides situations into three instead of two
parts will be used in the discussions which follow.
Our three types are : common associative, select-associative,
selective. The new term select-associative is introduced to
designate a type of thinking which is more selective than com-
mon associative, and more dependent upon association than
selective. Common associative is that type of thought wherein
there is apparently no central idea, just a mass of detail — an
uncontrolled stream carrying every variety of floating thing
related in time rather than in reason. Selective thinking is the
TYPES OF THINKING 149
type wherein the individual sets his own goal, works out sub-
ordinate detail, etc., thru his own analysis and selection. Our
select-associative type is a type wherein there is a central
idea and subordinate detail, but a type wherein the teacher,
or society thru the teacher, has provided the central idea
and given it its setting thru careful instruction and demon-
stration.
In our attempts to evaluate these different types of think-
ing we may dismiss type one with the statement that it finds
a place in the educative process thru necessity rather than
thru choice. It is the basis for the second and third types.
Being instinctive, the chief concern is one of direction rather
than of encouragement. The first type is not regarded highly
in the work of the world. It is the chief mental character-
istic of the unskilled labor class. Type two is not so common
and its rewards are correspondingly greater. It is the chief
mental characteristic of the skilled labor class. The greatest
rewards are reserved for type three which is the chief mental
characteristic of the inventor or director class. This stratifi-
cation of society into common associative, select-associative,
and selective types of thinking classes is a social arrangement
or racial development which finds an exact counterpart in
individual development. While the third type is the highest
and effort should be made to develop it, it should be remem-
bered that most of the world's work is done by type two, and
that type three depends upon a certain amount of experience
in types two and one as a preliminary.
When pupils are required to comprehend and retain facts as
an aim — when skill is aimed at as an end in itself, this, Dr.
McMurry characterizes as instruction on a lower plane. When
facts are comprehended and remembered as means not ends,
when efficiency is the goal, and the aim is to make pupils high
minded, judicious, forceful, self-reliant, this, he calls instruc-
tion on a higher plane. By instruction on a lower plane, he
150 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
evidently means instruction which depends upon associative
thinking, similarity of subject-matter and similarity of method
of procedure. By instruction on a higher plane he means
instruction which depends upon selective thinking, upon gen-
eralizations. Generalizations, or development of a resource-
ful attitude of mind, he considers the end and aim of education.
Not infrequently, educators in their eagerness to point out
the limitations of associative thinking and the advantages of
selective thinking lead young teachers to conclude that asso-
ciative thinking is a thing to be avoided. Such teachers need
to be reminded that "Empirical concretes not abstractions
give the basis for associations," and that associations in turn
give the basis for selective thinking.
On the other hand, teachers of shopwork often become so
concerned with giving to their pupils instruction and demon-
strations of conventional methods of procedure, in order
that they may have the benefit of race experience, that they
forget race progress is possible only thru selective think-
ing and that the type of thinking their pupils are getting by
such methods is not adequate.
It is impossible to place emphasis upon associative and selec-
tive thinking at one and the same time. One cannot tell a
boy how to make a mortise-and-tenon joint and at the same
time have him discover how it is to be done. It is possible
to harmonize conflicting aims, or to attend to the two kinds
of thinking by alternation wherein there shall be interspersed
with the instructional groups other groups which give oppor-
tunity for application of such instruction in new ways. The
inference as to method in general is clear: we are to pay
attention to empirical concretes — specific experiences with
concrete materials; out of these will come abstractions or
generalizations, rules, theory, ideals; these in turn are to
serve as connecting links whereby the student may be enabled
TYPES OF THINKING 151
to make more economical use of past experiences in meeting
new situations.
The discussion so far has presupposed ideal conditions
wherein only the needs of the individual psychologically are
considered. It must be recognized that social and economic
need will make necessary the establishing of schools and
classes for the economically unfortunate wherein emphasis
may be placed upon a type of reaction manifestly not involv-
ing a high type of thinking. Again, there may be other types
of school which may, with equal justice, emphasize general-
ized experiences at the expense of concrete or specific. No
school or class should be judged adversely until a survey of
its work as a whole, together with its aims, has been made.
Reference Reading:
Thorndike: Principles of Teaching, Chapters IX, X.
James: Talks to Teachers, Chapter XIII.
Final Report of Board of Estimate and Apportionment, Com-
mittee on School Inquiry, New York City, 1911-1913, Vol.
1, pp. 56-58, 211-236, 249-259, 294-298.
Dewey: How We Think, Chapter VI.
Class Discussion.
1. Give an example of common associative thinking.
2. Give an example of selective thinking. Of selective associa-
tive thinking.
3. Differentiate common associative, select-associative, and
selective thinking by means of examples from the manual
and industrial arts.
4. When the teacher so organizes his work that pupils are re-
quired to comprehend and retain facts as an aim — when
skill is aimed at as an end in itself — this, Dr. McMurry calls
instruction on the lower plane — "storage of knowlege and
acquisition of mechanical skill." By what right does he
call it so?
5. When facts are comprehended and remembered as means,
not ends, when efficiency is the goal, and the aim is to
make pupils high-minded, judicious, forceful, self-reliant,
this he calls "instruction on the higher plane." By what
right?
6. In the light of past readings in Thorndike's Principles of
Teaching, do you conclude that there is no place in the
educational scheme for emphasis upon that kina of instruc-
152 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
tion which McMurry designates instruction on the lower
plane? Justify your answer.
7. Which is worse, never teaching the conventions of the
activity (Conventional methods of procedure developed
thru race experience and handed down from generation to
generation — Cf. Sargent: Fine and Industial Arts in Ele-
mentary Schools, pp. 6, 7) in which the pupils are engaged
on the ground that to do so is to give instruction on a
lower plane, or never to allow initiative (selective think-
ing) upon the part of the pupils in that activity?
8. State your order of procedure in a proposed manual or in-
dustrial arts problem whereby you introduce your pupils
to experiences in selective thinking and at the same time
make such thinking efficient because based upon a knowl-
edge of conventions involved. (Cf. Griffith: Correlated
Courses, pp. 18-20) (Cf. Sargent: Fine and Industrial Arts,
pp. 52, 89.)
9. Classify the following as to plane of instruction: Teacher
hands a pupil a blueprint day after day to be copied or
traced; teacher marks on execution.
10. Examine Bennett's Problems in Mechanical Drawing and
classify the types of instruction.
11. A pupil makes a booklet from specific instructions; classify
such instruction. What other experiences are needed to
give the child experiences based upon instruction on a
higher plane? Note that "instruction on the higher plane
implies a central idea and subordinate detail. Associative
thinking is more or less rambling with no central idea —
just a mass of detail related to one another in time rather
than in reason."
12. Differentiate or designate the type of thinking predominant
in each of the following: expressional manual arts; tech-
nical manual arts for general educational purposes ; indus-
trial arts wherein the aim is a machine tender, a skilled
mechanic, a foreman.
CHAPTER XI
TEACHING METHODS IN MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
1. Teaching Methods. Two distinct methods are com-
monly recognized, the deductive, or imitative and the
inductive, or heuristic. The terms discovery method and
inventive method will be found not uncommonly. Dis-
covery and invention are essentially inductive and will be
so treated in the discussion which follows.
Just as we found in the consideration of associative and
selective thinking of the preceding chapter, that schoolmen
were divided into two rather hostile camps because of the
selection of too large a unit of measurement for purposes of
analysis, so in method discussions we find the same situation.
As it was found possible to reconcile conflicting ideas in the
matter of associative vs. selective thinking values by assum-
ing a smaller unit or interval for purposes of differentiation,
so we shall be able to overcome the difficulty of the methods
conflict. Instead of debating the question as to which is
the proper method — inductive or deductive, discovery and
invention or imitation, we may have three methods, 1. Induc-
tive method, 2. Deductive method, 3. Complete method.
Those who see only skill and automatic connections, or
feeling, as an end in education, path number 3, Fig. 1, are
bound to champion imitation and demonstration — deductive
teaching. Those who see in education the development of a
resourceful attitude of mind — intellect, will emphasize the
heuristic or inductive method. Those who see in education
the necessity for developing a certain amount of skill and
technic that the effort to develop a resourceful attitude of
mind may be worth while because of its being based upon
some degree of understanding and some skill, and who insist
153
i
154 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
that this resourceful attitude shall find expression in efficient
application, will make use of both the imitative, or deductive
and the heuristic, or inductive methods, the complete method.
It must be recognized that it is only for the sake of analysis
that we can differentiate these — there can be no inductive
thinking without deduction, no deductive thought without in-
duction. That is, no new idea can get into the mind unless
it is related to some old idea for interpretation. For example,
a geographer goes into a new country. He finds new rivers
and new mountains. He plots them and makes a map to
show their locations. The process is one of discovery, induc-
tion. The emphasis is on the new. Now in a minor degree
the process was deductive. Were it not for his past experi-
ences with, or knowledge of, the nature of rivers and moun-
tains he would not have recognized the new phenomena as
such. Now, let another person take this map and go to this
country. He looks at the map and notes a river located at
such a place. He goes to the place, finds the river by means
of the map. The process here is essentially deductive — the
emphasis is upon the old, upon the map. Yet the new is
present too. These methods differ then in emphasis, in direc-
tion of approach.
2. The Deductive or Imitative Method. The chief ad-
vantage of this method is economy of time. If society wants
a boy to learn how to square-up a piece of stock, or to learn
the conventional way of making a mortise-and-tenon joint,
the quickest way is to tell him and show him just how to do
this. In the boy's effort to make the joint and to square-
up the stock there is a certain amount of discovery going
on, of course, but the chief mental effort is one of association
in time rather than in reason, trying to recall what was heard
and what was seen in the lecture and demonstration. The
process is one of imitation rather than of discovery so far
as the learning method is concerned.
TEACHING METHODS 155
The weakness of this type of instruction lies in the fact that
it does not tend to develop a resourceful attitude of mind
but rather the reverse, dependence upon others. While dis-
covery is present at first in varying degree, the quicker the
mental connections can be eliminated thru the direct connect-
ing of sensation and reaction in this particular thing the more
efficient the worker becomes. The development of a resource-
ful attitude of mind implies emphasis upon mental connec-
tions, and any method of instruction which tends to eliminate
such connections by the making of the connection thru feel-
ing cannot be considered a fitting method for that purpose.
It should be recognized that there is a large place for dis-
covery in the execution of the most carefully demonstrated
exercise. This is well illustrated in the following: "There
is a psychology in every tool with which a child deals. For
example, take the saw. If you are a child you grasp it in your
hand and begin to work. Any child gets from this tool such
an abundance of bewildering experiences that he hardly
knows what to do with it. He feels it in his hand and when
it comes in contact with the wood, he feels the pressure, he
feels the new sensations which come to him thru his skin, he
looks at the point of attack and his eyes are full of color
and form. This great mass of experience flowing into his
consciousness bewilders him. We say to him, 'go slowly,
take one stroke, then wait and readjust.' If he should go on,
at the end of the first stroke, he would be getting so much
more experience that he would not know what to do with
himself. Watch him after he has made a little way into the
board with the saw. Now, the saw turns and binds. He gets
more experience but he does not realize the fact that he has
been turning the saw. The moment your skilled technician
gets the sensation that comes from the saw binding in the
groove, he knows what is wrong and he handles the saw so
as to bring it in proper relation again with a turn of his hand-
156 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
But your boy is bewildered. He gets so much sensation he
does not have attention for anything else. There are more
lines before him than he has any appreciation of, the lines
get mixed up on the saw, and if he lands anywhere near the
line he is very grateful for that much of an achievement.
The process of learning is a slow unravelling of all this mass
of experience. Skill comes from adjusting movement to
sensation." (Judd, 1915 Report, Western Drawing and
Manual Training Association.)
This discovery process, as is indicated by the quotation, is
ample enough, with every aid that can be given thru careful
demonstration and instruction in the ways race experience
has developed, to occupy the attention of the boy. If new
processes are introduced this same type of experience is being
repeated in new settings so that even in a four-year manual
training course where demonstrations are a regular feature
of the full four years' work, there is discovery. This experi-
ence, however, is not a sufficient one. The reactions are so
closely related in time to the sensations thru feeling that
intellect does not have as great opportunity to function as
must needs be to make for that which the educator chooses
to call a resourceful attitude of mind.
3. The Inductive or Heuristic Method. The inductive
or heuristic method, in its primary significance, refers to a
learning thru mere discovery wherein no definite goal is set.
Like the explorers of a new country the pupil travels about
as fancy dictates. Of the three stages of development,
(1) spontaneity, (2) instruction, (3) creative effort, the
heuristic method, in its primary meaning, refers to the ex-
periences of type number 1.
Among educators, however, the inductive or heuristic
method more nearly approximates what might be designated
the inventive method. A definite goal is set, either by pupil
or teacher, and the pupil is supposed to work out an adequate
TEACHING METHODS 157
solution. Instead of the teacher's leading the way, telling and
showing, as in the imitative or deductive method, the pupil
leads the way, the teacher following and not interfering ex-
cept as the pupil goes so far astray that the experience be-
comes of little value.
It is not necessary to set forth here the advantages which
come thru the inductive or heuristic method, the assigned
readings cover these sufficiently. Suffice it to state that race
progress is possible only thru this type of thinking. "Intelli-
gent self direction, an alert resourceful attitude of mind, and
power to plan means to an end are its fruits when wisely
administered."
4. The Complete Method. The complete method is
neither inductive nor deductive but both in varying degree.
First one and then the other, alternating as the unfolding
nature of the child demands. Froebel's spontaneity, instruc-
tion and creative effort point the way. Creative effort, dis-
covery, or invention, is of slight value until based upon a
knowledge of, and a fair degree of skill in, the conventions
of the activity in which the creative effort is to be. Instruc-
tion in conventional methods of procedure is of slight value
unless based upon a feeling of real need thru spontaneous
activity or activity not directed and controlled by instruction.
Spontaneous effort, in the very nature of things, must be
self initiated and free from external authority, inductive.
It is a discovery process with all the limitations which come
from an attempt at creative work without information which
comes thru race experience, and skill. Instruction consists
in giving to the pupil information such as the race has col-
lected thru countless ages of experimentation, with an oppor-
tunity to acquire enough skill to make possible the next step
in the learning process. Instruction is deductive, and under
authority. It is not free except as the individual has been
brought to see a real need thru the experiences of spontaneous
158 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
activity, and then only partially, but is one of the steps toward
a real freedom. Creative effort consists in utilizing all the
information and skill obtained during the period of instruc-
tion toward working out experiences not encompassed in
instruction.
The introduction to the 1912 Illinois State Course of Study
in Manual Arts, by Prof. Charles A. Bennett, is a practical
statement which gives full recognition to the principles just
enunciated : "Any course in woodworking worthy of a place
in the eighth and ninth grades of public school work should
meet the following requirements:
1. It should arouse and hold the interest of the pupils.
2. Correct methods of handling tools should be taught so that
good technic may be acquired by the pupils.
3. Tool work should be accompanied by a study of materials
and tools used in their relations to industry. Special atten-
tion should be given to the study of trees — their growth,
classifications, characteristics and use.
4* Drawing should be studied in its relation to the work done.
5. The principles of construction in wood should be taught
thru observation, illustration and experience.
6. At least a few problems should be given which involve in-
vention or design or both, thereby stimulating individual
initiative on the part of the pupils.
The course is arranged in groups, each group representing
a type of work. These groups are given in the order of pro-
cedure. The teacher is expected to provide problems of the
greatest value educationally. This means that the things
to be made should be worth making and that the process of
making them should be interesting to the student. From this
it follows that the things to be made must come to the pupil
in an order which gives reasonable consideration to the diffi-
culties to be encountered in making them."
5. Modification in Method Due to Variation in Aims.
Aims will vary; likewise, we must expect methods to vary
with these varying aims. While we shall find in every attempt
to use any one method elements of the others, as has been
pointed out, we may profitably indicate variations in placing
TEACHING METHODS 159
emphasis. For example, primary grades will be found em-
phasizing spontaneity in expressional manual arts; grammar
grades and early high school will be found emphasizing in-
struction in conventional methods of procedure, later high
school will place emphasis upon creative effort. All of these
grades, primary, grammar, and high school, will give atten-
tion to technical subject-matter and methods, and all of them
to a certain degree will allow for spontaneity and creative
effort, or should, but the emphasis is as stated. Even in the
work of a given grade in any given technical work, there will
be groups set aside for the exercise of creative effort, where
the work is wisely planned. The instructional groups will
predominate, however, in the upper grades and early high
school.
Then, there is the need of the industrial arts group for
variation in methods emphasis. Those boys who are to be-
come foremen and directors will need more groups wherein
creative effort is based upon instruction than will the type
which is to go into low skilled or semi-skilled work where
ability to follow orders and execute with facility is the chief
prerequisite.
In general, wherever we seek to develop skill, we shall make
use of authority, imitation, demonstration. If we want to
develop initiative, resourcefulness, we shall make use of
authority, imitation, demonstration, no more than is absolutely
necessary to give a sufficient basis in understanding and skill
for experimentation upon the part of the pupil.
As in thinking types, so in methods, the work of a teacher
must not be condemned until the work as a whole of that
teacher has been surveyed, including a consideration of the
special needs of the class of pupils he may be instructing.
6. Summary. Two distinct methods of teaching are
commonly recognized — deductive or imitative and inductive or
heuristic. We may have three methods, and, for purposes
160 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
of harmonizing conflicting aims, we offer the following:
(1) inductive, (2) deductive, (3) complete. Those who em-
phasize automatic connections, feeling, will champion imita-
tion and the deductive method. Those who seek to stress in-
tellect and the development of a resourceful attitude of mind
will make use of the inductive or heuristic method. Those
who seek to emphasize creative effort based upon information
and experience in conventional methods of procedure, will
make use of both the imitative and the heuristic, the com-
plete method. It must be recognized that it is only for the
sake of analysis that we can differentiate inductive from de-
ductive. In every act of induction there are deductive ele-
ments and vice versa. Methods differ in emphasis and direc-
tion, not kind.
The chief advantage of the deductive or imitative method
is one of economy of time. The weakness of this type lies
in the fact that it fails to develop a resourceful attitude of
mind. Rather does it develop a dependence upon others. It
should be recognized that there is a large place for discovery
in the execution of even the most carefully demonstrated
exercise. This experience, however, is not sufficient to class
it as of that type the educator has in mind when he speaks
of developing a resourceful attitude of mind.
The inductive or heuristic method, in its primary signifi-
cance, refers to learning thru mere discovery wherein no
definite goal is set. Among educators, however, it has refer-
ence to a situation wherein a definite goal is set, either by
the pupil or the teacher, and the pupil asked to work out
an adequate solution. Intelligence and self direction, an alert,
resourceful attitude of mind, and power to plan means to
an end are its fruits when wisely administered.
The complete method is neither inductive nor deductive
but both in varying degree. Froebers (1) spontaneity, (2) in-
struction, (3) creative effort point the way.
TEACHING METHODS 161
Aims will vary; likewise we must expect methods in the
manual arts to vary with these. The industrial arts will be
found to have need for these same variations in method. In
general, whenever we seek to develop skill we shall make use
of authority, imitation, demonstration. If we desire to de-
velop a resourceful attitude of mind, initiative, originality, etc.,
we shall make use of these no more than is necessary to give
a basis in understanding and skill for purposes of experimen-
tation on the part of the pupil. As in thinking types, so in
methods, the work of a teacher should not be condemned
until the work of that teacher as a whole has been surveyed.
Reference Reading:
Charters: Methods of Teaching, Chapters XIII, XIV.
Bennett: The Manual Arts, Chapter VIII.
Bagley: The Educative Process, pp. 239-247.
Thorndike: Education, pp. 168-196.
DeGarmo: Principles of Secondary Education, Vol. II, pp.
178-182.
Dewey: How We Think, Chapter VII.
Griffith : Correlated Courses in Woodwork and Mechanical
Drawing, pp. 7-11, 41-51.
Class Discussion:
1. Discuss rather fully the advantages and the limitations of
the deductive or imitative method.
2. Discuss the advantages and limitations of inductive or
heuristic method when not based upon instruction in the
conventional ways of manipulating the materials under con-
sideration.
3. Differentiate and illustrate the complete method.
4. In each of the above methods, would emphasis placed upon
one method or another be modified were a certain grade
specified, as primary, grammar, high school, university?
5. What method would most likely be found wherein pupils
were being prepared for occupations industrially requiring
low skill or limited skill? ( What method where a wide
range of intelligence and skill is to be demanded? Where
the pupils are being trained for leadership in industry, such
as foremen?
CHAPTER XII
THE LESSON — ITS COMPONENT PARTS
1. The Necessity for Carefully Matured Plans. Even as
consciousness in youth evolves out of a "big, blooming, buzz-
ing confusion" and takes form and becomes of value as it
differentiates one thing or experience from another or others,
so good teaching becomes of value just in proportion as the
young teacher differentiates ideals, aims, and the details of
preparation and presentation of subject-matter. Inspiration,
feeling, instinct are valuable, of course, as has been pointed
out, but intelligent direction is no less a part of the teach-
ing process.
There should be thought out the larger plans of organiza-
tion of teaching materials. The essential governing factors
as to choice of subject-matter and method of presentation,
have been presented in preceding lessons. Typical outlines
in various media and for various grades will be found in Ap-
pendix II. This larger organization is best treated under
Organisation and Administration of Manual and Industrial
Arts, the subject of a companion text in preparation. Tak-
ing for granted this larger organization of subject-matter, the
present discussion will concern itself with the detailed daily
or weekly lesson plan, and particularly with method of presen-
tation.
2. The Six Formal Steps. For purposes of analysis,
the followers of Herbart frequently divide a lesson into six
parts; (1) preparation, (2) presentation, (3) comparison,
(4) abstraction, (5) generalization, (6) verification or appli-
cation. In actual teaching, of course, the lesson goes forward
in this order only in a general way. The division, too, pre-
supposes that each lesson is a complete whole, whereas certain
lessons for rather extended periods of time may be given
162
THE LESSON—ITS COMPONENT PARTS 163
primarily as preparation lessons looking forward to future
application. In such cases steps number four and number five
may receive but slight emphasis. Such lessons will be strongly
deductive, imitative as opposed to inductive and develop-
mental. Later lessons will be strongly inductive, calculated to
develop initiative and creative effort.
Preparation consists in having the pupils recall to mind
certain previous knowledge or information and experience,
which knowledge, information and experience are necessary
as a means of connecting up new knowledge or information
and experience with which it is desired to make the pupils
acquainted. Preparation in information in technical manual
arts is mainly a matter of securing recall thru examinatory
questions or the recitation on assigned readings, bearing on
past experiences. (Cf. type form of daily lesson plan, which
follows.)
Presentation in technical manual arts consists in conveying
to the pupils new materials for assimilation. This is usually
done by means of demonstration and instruction.
Comparison consists in the association of one set of ex-
periences with another set. For example, a student may be
taught to hold the head of the gage against the face edge in
gaging a piece of stock to width for a hat rack. He may be
taught to hold it against the face edge in gaging a piece of
stock to width for a counting board, etc. Before he can
take the next step, abstraction, he must have compared one
set of experiences with other sets, noting wherein they are
similar and wherein they differ. In the case of the gaging,
he should note in such comparisons that the gage head is
always held against the face edge, abstracting the common
element ; then he is ready to take the next step, generalization,
and make the deduction that gaging for width should always
be done with the gage head or block against the face edge.
164 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
In similar manner he may be got to deduce other principles
or rules for working wood or metal.
Verification, or application, consists in taking such derived
principles or rules, and making them serve to shorten the
time of experimentation. Once the student has learned that,
in gaging widths, the gage block is to be held against the
face edge, he is to be given an opportunity to govern himself
accordingly in other situations similar in respect to this factor
until. the habit of always holding the gage head against the
face edge in gaging width is fixed.
3. The Six Formal Steps Not Always Inductive. It is
customary to associate the six formal steps with the inductive
method primarily with its emphasis upon the development
of a resourceful attitude of mind. The six formal steps
might as well be associated with the deductive method with
its emphasis upon authority, upon subject-matter and method.
The determining factor is whether the teacher or the pupils
perform steps 3, 4, and 5, make the comparisons, abstractions
and generalizations. Only so long as the children make the
comparisons and draw the correct conclusions is the method
inductive. In actual practice the teacher often either cannot
or does not consider it advisable to wait long enough for the
children to dp this but tells them the deduction, or rule, or
principle to be derived. The method, then, is essentially de-
ductive. Both types of teaching method are legitimate. The
ends to be served are different, but both are legitimate. Some-
times one, sometimes the other is to be emphasized. Some-
times the alternation of emphasis covers a period of years ;
sometimes it is so immediate it is difficult to distinguish when
one and when the other is being served.
4. Not Every Lesson Needs to Be Inductive. There
are those educators who would have every lesson inductive
in method. The young teacher will do well to recall that
THE LESSON— ITS COMPONENT PARTS 165
knowledge of subject-matter and conventional method of pro-
cedure and the development of a fair degree of skill are essen-
tial factors in the educational process even as in the develop-
ment of a resourceful attitude of mind; that the telling or
showing or associative or deductive method is the most effec-
tive method of giving the young this heritage of race experi-
ence. It is not a sin pedagogically, for example, to tell a
boy, when he does his first gaging for width, that the gage
is always to be held against the face edge in gaging for width,
if in so doing the way is being prepared and time thereby
saved for the setting of a larger problem in analysis or com-
parison and generalization. The unfortunate thing is never
to set any problems wherein the pupil will be called to do
analytical thinking, on the one hand, and on the other to
mislead oneself into thinking he is providing opportunities
for such thinking when he is defeating such ends thru un-
willingness to wait for the pupils to make the necessary de-
ductions.
5. Modern Conception of Method. While the method
of teaching developed by Herbart and his followers has proven
wonderfully helpful in assisting young teachers the better to
formulate and regulate the conduct of the instructional pro-
cess, it is open to certain objections philosophically which
make it more or less unacceptable to the modern educator.
Representing, as it does, a conception of instruction as some-
thing static and fundamentally logical it has had to give way
to a conception of instruction as something dynamic, "mov-
ing," psychological. As a means of assisting the teacher in
formulating his own thought into logical form thru careful
analysis, it is still practically helpful ; as a conception of what
the conduct of the instructional period is likely to be, or
should be like, it is misleading.
Prof. John Dewey, in How We Think, has formulated a
166 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
more acceptable conception of instruction. In this conception
of the method of instruction we have the occurrence of a
problem or a puzzling phenomenon; observation, inspection
of facts to locate and clear up the problem; then the forma-
tion of a hypothesis or the suggestion of a possible solution
together with its elaboration by reasoning; then the testing
of the elaborated idea by using it as a guide to aew observa-
tions and experimentations. Or, as Dean W. W. Charters
states it:
[ defined
1. The problem \ or
[undefined
[aided by suggestion as necessary
2. The solution -{ or
[by elaboration
3. Verification.
The young teacher will do well to read carefully Chap-
ter XV in Dewey's How We Think and Chapters XIV, XV,
XIX in Charter's Methods of Teaching. He will then be able
to profit by a study of such detailed lesson planning directions
as are found in the assigned readings without coming to grief.
He will know that, once the lesson plan has been formulated
in all its details and his own thought clarified thereby, the
best thing for him to do is to lay the formal, logical plan
aside and concentrate his attention during the development
of the lesson upon taking advantage of every opening which
presents itself favoring the solution of the problem, irre-
spective of its place in the logical arrangement previously
made. He must, of course, keep in mind the problem, the
general plan of attack which he has formulated for securing
the solution, and see that the supposed solution meets the
test of verification thru utilization in further experimenta-
tion. He must also have his materials and tools prepared and
THE LESSON— ITS COMPONENT PARTS 167
ready just as far as this can be anticipated. He must have
some system for the effective management of the class so that
he may take advantage of all such administrative devices
as will aid in the successful solution of the problem under
consideration.
6. Instructive Question Rather than Directive State-
ment. As far as possible the preliminary and instructive
question should be used in the setting and in the solution of
a problem rather than directive statement, "telling as little
as possible, and inducing the pupils to discover as much as
possible." Of the two extremes, never telling anything and
always telling everything, neither is better. Even in the most
intricate situation it is possible by means of preliminary and
instructive questions to vitalize a demonstration as it cannot
be done by mere direction and at the same time cause no
loss in the matter of presentation. For example, let it be
the problem of conveying the idea of the need for making
working drawings in beginning shopwork. The teacher may
convey the idea by a statement of fact as he sees it. He may
convey the same idea by asking if any boy in the class has
ever seen a mechanic looking at a blue paper with white
lines on it and from this beginning thru other preliminary
instructive questions develop the idea of need for drawings.
The second method is superior to the first in so many ways
that it is surprising that manual and industrial arts teaching
makes no more use of it than it does in actual practice. There
are times, of course, when it is quite evident the pupils will
have to be told. Even here the preliminary question within
certain limits is of value. It serves to impress upon each boy
the fact that he does not know and that he must attend to
instruction or demonstration as it has to do with that particular
thing. It becomes an aid in preparation.
Preliminary and instructive questions are of the greatest
168 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
aid in the proper maintenance of discipline or conduct. Only
as pupils are participants are they attentive to the work in
hand. A good teacher not infrequently asks questions as he
demonstrates for no other reason than to cause his class to
feel that they are a necessary part of the demonstration. That
is, he may know that they have no adequate answer for the
various steps in the first making of a mortise-and-tenon
joint, but he questions as he demonstrates nevertheless. Of
course the questions must be sensible or reasonable ones and
have a direct bearing on the work in hand.
7. Intermediate Plan Form. The type outlines in Ap-
pendix II give the first and largest outlook of subject-matter
for teaching purposes. Coordinate with Method of Presen-
tation are more detailed factors o.f organization which, to a
certain extent depend upon the method of presentation and
vice versa. These may be considered in what, for want of
a better name, may be designated Intermediate Plan Form.
The following are the factors to be considered:
Subject Tools
Group or Block Materials
Processes or Sequence Correlations
of Operations Cost
Method of Instruction Sketches (Teacher's)
Projects to Cover Reading References (for Teachers)
The outline may be as follows:
Example 1.
Subject: Story Telling; Expressional or Illustrative Hand-
work.
I. Group. Paper Cutting and Poster Making, Stories,
Grade I.
//. Projects. Various incidents connected with the Story of
the Three Bears.
///. Processes. Paper cutting, mounting cuttings.
IV. Method of Instruction.
Story of the Three Bears developed by members of the
class, if possible. If not, to be told by teacher. By ques-
THE LESSON— ITS COMPONENT PARTS 169
tion and answer, develop idea of incident or incidents to
be illustrated.
Develop ideas of number of bears, sizes, etc.
Develop idea of number of chairs, sizes and condition,
etc., those things which are to enter into illustrating the
incident chosen or agreed upon by the children.
Which bear's chair was damaged most? How will it
look? etc.
How do chairs look? How do bears look?
Develop the desire on the part of the children to make
cuttings.
Develop the idea of relative spacings and placmgs of the
objects which are to make up the incident. T nstruct the
class about the cutting. Show the class how the pasting
is to be done.
V. Tools. Scissors.
VI. Materials. Rough gray paper, or scrap paper; paste.
VII. Correlations. Language, number work, nature, home in-
terests.
VIII. Cost. lc or less.
IX. Sketches. Teacher's sketches or cuttings to illustrate,
when necessary, certain obscure parts or facts or forms.
X. Reading References.
Example 2.
Subject: Technical Manual Arts.
Paper and Cardboard Construction, Grade I.
/. Group. Mounting Folders.-
//. Processes. Cf. Buxton and Curran, Paper and Cardboard
Construction, p. 19.
///. Method of Instruction.
Develop the idea of need for folders; a means of caring
for story cuttings, etc.
Demonstration of new processes in detail.
IV. Projects. Single-fold folder.
Double-fold.
Triple-fold.
V. Tools. Scissors; rule marked only in inches; pencil.
VI. Materials. Rough gray cover paper, 6x9; paste.
VII. Correlations.
Folder to hold expressional manual arts work in
language, etc.
Number work.
VIII. Cost.
IX. Sketches. Single- fold, double-fold, triple-fold; dimen-
sioned.
X. References. Buxton and Curran, Paper and Cardboard
Construction, pp. 18, 19, etc.
8. Daily Lesson Plan. With the larger outline plan
showing in a general way the proposed arrangement of sub-
170 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
ject-matter for a year or a number of years, and the interme-
diate plan showing the essential factors necessary for a proper
preparation in the way of equipment, methods, correlations,
etc., further detailing might seem unnecessary. Teaching ex-
perience, however, will make clear that it is necessary or at
least advisable to prepare a daily lesson plan.
Slavish dependence upon form, it is true, makes for loss
of vitality in teaching, just as in any other kind of endeavor.
A certain preacher in a large city in the Mid-West once asked
another preacher of the same city how it happened the second
preacher always had good audiences while he himself did not.
"I work diligently on my sermons," the first preacher said,
"and carefully write them out in full. Why is it I cannot
hold my audiences, and how do you manage to hold yours?"
"You read your sermon?" the second preacher asked. "Yes."
"Well," the second preacher said, "I can only state that I,
too, carefully prepare my sermons, even to writing them out
in full. However, I never take a manuscript into the pulpit.
At most, I make use of only a few key words as notes to
assist memory. These, I place in an inconspicuous place and
follow them thru casual glances rather than thru direct ex-
amination. If I have any success, it must be due to this."
It is so in teaching. Slavish dependence upon notes, outlines,
and textbooks "killeth the spirit." On the other hand, the
spirit is not likely to exercise itself very effectively unless
careful preparation has been made beforehand.
The form which follows is one taken from the author's
Correlated Courses in Woodwork and Mechanical Drawing.
Lesson Outlines, p. 105. Any adequate understanding of
it will necessitate reading pp. 68-70 of the same text.
(Woodworking Group V.)
Recitation :
How to proceed where there are two or more like parts?
THE LESSON— ITS COMPONENT PARTS 171
The aim in handling the different tools in duplicate work?
Illustrate.
How hold the hammer? Illustrate.
Nails — How made originally? Forged and cut?
How are wire nails made?
Two classes and three kinds of nails? Differences?
History or meaning of 10-penny, etc.?
How else are nails designated?
Preparation for Demonstration;
Assignment for Lesson 26 in Essentials of Woodworking, sec-
tions 67, 68, 69.
Demonstration :
Nailing position; withdrawing nails; setting nails.
Work :
Group V.
The immediate problem here is one of learning to nail,
withdraw nails, set nails in order the better to construct a box.
The solution is to be attained by (a) getting the pupils to
refresh their minds thru a more or less formal review of
some of the material developed in a lesson immediately pre-
ceding, which material is needed as a basis for the presenta-
tion of materials of the new lesson, (b) Thru suggestions
contained in pictures and thru the reading of that portion of
a text bearing upon this immediate problem, new ideas are
presented and preparation is made for still another method
of approach, namely, the demonstration. The demonstration
presents to the mind of the boy thru the eyes, and, as the
teacher explains, thru the ears, what he more or less imper-
fectly got thru the readings and pictures. The readings and
demonstration give to the boy the benefit of race experience
as it has to do with this particular problem and make it possi-
ble for him thereby to reduce chances for error to the lowest
possible terms, (c) The boys next go to the benches and
work out the instruction in proper "form" of nailing, etc.,
thru trial and error.
In the above mentioned lesson we might have considered
172 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
we had a complete lesson, namely, (1) the problem; (2) the
solution; (3) the application. Most manual and industrial
arts teachers make use of this type of lesson solely and con-
sider their task completed upon the completion of a series of
such lessons. It is better, however, that we consider such
a lesson as incomplete as to the cycle making for the highest
type of education. We may consider that we have steps (1)
and (2) — the problem and its solution, the making of the
particular box mentioned being merely a part of the solu-
tion, namely, execution as differentiated from information.
Application, as conceived by Dewey, does not find a place in
this particular lesson. Opportunity for applying the informa-
tion and skill developed in the above lesson, to the working
out of new and original situations based upon this instruction
and experience must come in later lessons. As such, this
lesson serves well to point out the significance of a statement
previously made, that not every lesson needs be a completed
whole, and that certain lessons for a rather extended period
of time may be formulated looking for the completion of their
cycle in the future. In this lesson we have emphasized in-
struction in conventional method of procedure; the activity
consisted merely in trying to put the technical information into
effect under the direction of the teacher ; opportunity for cre-
ative effort based upon this instruction is postponed. There
is a danger, of course, in too extended a postponement.
An examination of daily lesson outlines, such as can be
found in other texts, will show that a number of forms are
possible. The essential thing is not that the young teacher
follow the form of any one person, but that he be made to see
the necessity for some kind of a form such as will enable him
to present his lessons from day to day with intelligence and
understanding, not only each day's work, but each day's work
with reference to preceding and succeeding days and the
THE LESSON— ITS COMPONENT PARTS 173
year or years as a whole. Education implies progression;
progression implies forethought.
9. Summary. Good teaching becomes of value just in
proportion as the young teacher differentiates ideals, aims,
and the details of preparation and presentation of subject-
matter. Problems of organization of the larger blocks of
subject-matter may well be left to organization and administra-
tion; problems of detailed subject-matter and of method of
presentation belong to teaching of manual and industrial arts.
For purposes of analysis, the followers of Herbart divide
a lesson into six parts: (1) preparation, (2) presentation,
(3) comparison, (4) abstraction, (5) generalization, (6) veri-
fication or application. Preparation consists in having pupils
recall to mind certain previous information and experience
which information and experience are necessary as a means
of connecting up new information and experience with
which it is desired to acquaint the pupils. Presentation in
technical manual arts and in industrial arts consists in con-
veying to the pupils new materials for assimilation as a basis
for steps to follow. This is usually done by means of the
demonstration. Comparison consists in the association of one
set of experiences with another or other sets. Out of this
comparison comes abstraction of the common element and
this in turn is followed by generalization. Verification or ap-
plication consists in taking such derived rules, principles and
ideals, and utilizing them as a means of reducing the time of
experimentation in the meeting of new situations where the
common element is present.
The six formal steps are usually thought of as inductive in
character. Not infrequently the teacher cannot or does not
consider it advisable to wait for the children to make the
comparisons, the abstractions, and the generalizations, but
174 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
tells them; in such cases the method is deductive for the
pupils.
Not every lesson needs be inductive; there is a large place
for the deductive type.
The method of the six steps of the followers of Herbart
is open to certain objections philosophically. A better con-
ception is that in which the instructive process is considered
as "moving" and dynamic, rather than set or static. In this
newer conception there is (1) the problem; (2) the solution;
(3) the application. The young teacher, while he should plan
no less carefully, should know that such planning is valuable,
not as a cast iron mould into which the happenings of the
lesson period are to be compressed, but rather as a means of
clarifying his own mind that he may be the better prepared
to take advantage of every opportunity which presents itself
as an aid in expediting the solution of the problem under
consideration by the class or group.
The instructive question rather than the directive statement
should be used in the presentation of lesson materials. Such
preliminary and instructive questions will be found aids in the
maintenance of discipline.
Coordinate with the discussion of Method of Presentation
are more detailed factors of organization, which to a certain
extent depend upon method of presentation and vice versa.
These are considered under what is designated, Intermediate
Plan Form.
Teaching experience makes plain the advisability of pre-
paring a daily lesson plan in addition to the yearly outline
and the intermediate plan. Slavish dependence upon form
makes for loss of vitalness in teaching, just as in other kinds
of endeavor; it "killeth the spirit." On the other hand, the
spirit is not likely to exercise itself very effectively unless
careful preparation has been made beforehand. This is to
THE LESSON— ITS COMPONENT PARTS 175
be accomplished in part thru the daily lesson plan. It is not
essential that one particular form be adopted by all; it is
essential that some form be used. Education implies pro-
gression ; progression implies forethought.
Reference Reading:
McMurry: The Method of the Recitation, Chapters XII, XIV.
Dewey: How We Think, Chapter XV.
Charters: Methods of Teaching, Chapters XV, XIX.
Allen: The Instructor, the Man and the Job, Chapters IX,
XXX.
Griffith: Correlated Courses, pp. 68-70, also note pp. 91-132.
ClabS Discussion:
1. Into what divisions will you plan your period given you for
technical manual arts?
2. Do you consider it advisable to have such divisions in ex-
pressional manual arts, or manual arts as a means of teach-
ing other subjects?
3. Why is it advisable to have one division each set aside for
the lesson — recitation and demonstration?
4. What percent of the total time available may profitably be
devoted to the lesson?
5. Do you understand that a demonstration is guided wholly
by instructive statements or is there a place for the in-
structive question?
6. Give examples showing the same problem deductively pre-
sented and inductively presented.
7. If a textbook is in the possession of each boy, what would
be gained and what lost by having a reading of the sub-
ject-matter relating to the demonstration before the demon-
stration is given?
8. If you were asked to choose a text would you prefer one
treating of processes in general or in connection with par-
ticular projects? Why, or why not?
9. Of what practical value is a knowledge of the six formal
steps? What objections are there to their full acceptance?
10. Develop a lesson plan after Professor Dewey's conception.
11. In what manner will the method of the lesson differ in in-
dustrial arts teaching in the industrial school where boys
are expected to enter low-grade industrial activities, and
in industrial schools where the boys have time to take
extended courses looking toward highly-skilled and di-
rectorate positions?
CHAPTER XIII
CLASS MANAGEMENT — DISCIPLINE
1. Maintaining Order or Discipline a Matter of Instinct
as Well as of Training. Not infrequently one hears the
expression, "Teachers are born, not made." An examination
of the elements of strength of teachers to whom such refer-
ences are made will show that in the great majority of cases
it is such teachers' ability to govern boys and girls evenly
and well that has attracted attention, and an enumeration of
such elements of strength and weakness will reveal most of
them as inborn. Bagley mentions the following factors which
enter into the making up of what we call favorable teaching
personality, arranged in what he considers their order of
importance: (1) address (manner of meeting people);
(2) personal appearance; (3) optimism; (4) reserve (dig-
nity); (5) enthusiasm; (6) fairness (objective attitude);
(7) sincerity; (8) sympathy; (9) vitality (vigorous person-
ality) ; (10) scholarship. The following factors making for
unfavorable teaching personality are also mentioned : ( 1 ) hesi-
tation; (2) manifestation of temper before the class;
(3) tactlessness (failure to get pupils' point of view about
trivial things ; failure to utilize dormant tendencies ; failure
to "explain" to parents) ; (4) failure to institute definite order
of procedure; (5) lack of "teaching voice" (shrill, high
pitched; noisy; thin, feeble, with poor enunciation, monoto-
nous delivery which puts to sleep.) While a teacher may,
thru conscious control, modify unfavorable natural tenden-
cies, he will never work so successfully nor so easily as one
possessed of favorable natural tendencies.
2. Successful Discipline, to a Large Degree, the Result
of Thoughtful Management. Successful discipline, other
176
CLASS MANAGEMENT— DISCIPLINE 177
things being equal, is, according to Thorndike, the result of
(1) keeping each child occupied with work which holds the
interest of the majority of the class at least ; (2) maintaining
standards which make the majority of the class feel that they
have to apply themselves if they are to receive the awards
which go to good students; (3) making use of friendly
rivalry; (4) placing individual responsibility, as in individual
assignment; (5) having a time schedule and working to it
at full steam ahead until the period is up; (6) having the
work progressive always.
3. The Law of Association Applicable to Control of
Conduct. If a teacher wishes a pupil or pupils to react
in a given manner to a given stimulus, he will see to it that
conditions are so set that the desired reaction shall follow the
given stimulus with frequency, recency, intensity, and result-
ing satisfaction. If an undesirable connection has been formed
it is to be broken thru disuse, or substitution, or inhibition.
4. General Causes for an Unruly School. According to
Bagley, the most frequent causes for an unruly school are:
(1) harshness and unsympathetic treatment; (2) indulgence
and weakness of control; (3) inadequate preparation and
brief tenure of teachers.
5. Specific Problems of Control. Experience as super-
visor of practice teaching in manual arts will serve to point
out the futility of trying to deal in any extended way with
specific problems of control, elements of strength and weak-
ness vary so greatly in young teachers. The chief source of
difficulty is not that young teachers do not know what factors
make for success and what for failure, but that they lack in
ideals or standards. The development of such ideals is a
matter of time and association and cannot be handed out
ready made. If students have been accustomed to college
teachers, whom they respect, talking, while teaching, with
178 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
toothpick in hand, or hands thrust deep in trouser pockets,
or cigarettes alight, they are likely, other things being equal,
to have no higher standards when they go out to teach.
There are a few things which most young teachers of technical
manual arts may well be advised about. A number of these
the author has treated in the assignment in Correlated. Courses
in Woodwork and Mechanical Drawing, pp. 65-68; the dis-
cussion of a few others follows:
In nearly every class there will be found the occasional fel-
low who does not choose to follow instructions, or to make
desired connections. It is the part of wisdom, whenever it
can be done, for the instructor to go quietly to such a one
and attend to him without attracting the attention of the class ;
a softly spoken, kindly, but firm address is usually sufficient.
If the challenge is an open one then the instructor, if he is
wise, will single out the offending individual and treat him
as an individual. Even where a number of pupils are guilty,
singling out one is strongly advised. It does little good, ordi-
narily, to scold a class, or to scold a few thru scolding a class.
The fact that there are other guilty ones does not in any way
excuse the one called out. He may be given to understand that
he is responsible for himself alone, and that the instructor
will attend to the others in his own time and way. Boys
quickly learn that in union there is strength. The wise
teacher will do well to deal with each individually.
The almost universal resort of a young teacher in dealing
with an offending pupil is to tell him to leave the room.
Unless some provision has been made beforehand for the
care of pupils so banished, the cure is worse than no atten-
tion at all. Pupils so banished to the halls soon find com-
panionship or at least leisure time for play. Resulting satis-
faction usually follows, for in most communities, the severest
punishment falls short of counterbalancing the pleasure or
CLASS MANAGEMENT— DISCIPLINE 179
satisfaction which comes from class attention or notoriety
and being sent to the hall with its leisure. A better plan is
to have such an offending member seated at one side of the
room where he cannot trouble his fellows, with nothing to
do. After a short time at this "occupation" he will usually
ask permission to return to his work; few boys can stand
inactivity long. With such a request once made, the teacher
can quickly determine whether the offender means business
or not, and can act accordingly. This treatment is only for
the occasional offender. If any considerable number offend,
it is an indication in all probability that something is wrong
with the teacher and his plans. Where reasonable interest
abounds there is likely to be no problem of discipline for any
considerable number.
A very common source of trouble for a beginning teacher
is his lack of foresight in instructing his class to the effect
that when he asks a question of the class no boy is to answer
aloud until his name is called. Boys of grammar school age
like nothing better than to confuse a young teacher who asks
questions of a class without preliminary instruction, by each
and all answering and continuing to answer, ever louder as
other members repeat. The confusion becomes deafening
and the young teacher finds himself helpless because unable
to make himself heard in the hubbub he unwittingly started.
Children are quick to detect elements of strength and re-
serve power in a teacher. They seldom or never as a class
take for granted the possession of such elements except as
they are manifested thru trial. They are strangely alert and
intelligent concerning the justness or unjustness of a teacher's
rulings. They are strangely merciless toward a teacher show-
ing signs of weakness and lack of character or reserve force.
To maintain a proper balance between a freedom which will
develop individual moral independence and a sense of social
180 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
justice and at the same time maintain restrictions that will
prevent license and interference with the teaching and learn-
ing process, is no small problem. It is a problem which
challenges the best of teachers. Withal, Thorndike's state-
ment with reference to interest may with equal propriety be
applied here : "Get the right thing done at any cost, but get
it done with as little inhibition and strain as possible." Make
use of authority, if necessary, but only as a last resort. At
best, it is but a temporary measure to tide over until the pupil
can be induced to want to do the right thing.
6. Summary. An examination of the elements of
strength and weakness of teachers in the matter of class man-
agement will show that the great majority of these are inborn
or instinctive. While a teacher may, thru conscious control,
modify unfavorable tendencies, he will never work so suc-
cessfully nor so easily as one possessed of favorable ten-
dencies.
Success in maintaining discipline, other things being equal,
is the result of thoughtful management.
The law of association applies to control of conduct. If a
teacher wishes to have pupils react in a given manner to a
given stimulus, he will see to it that conditions are so set that
the desired reactions shall follow the given stimulus with
frequency, recency, intensity, and resulting satisfaction. If
an undesirable connection has been formed, it is to be broken
up thru disuse, or substitution, or inhibition.
According to Bagley, the most frequent causes for an un-
ruly school are (1) harshness and unsympathetic treatment;
(2) indulgence and weakness of control; (3) inadequate
preparation and a brief tenure of teachers.
With reference to specific problems of control, it may be
said that it does little good to scold a class or to scold a few
members thru scolding the class. Unless some provision has
CLASS MANAGEMENT— DISCIPLINE 181
been made for caring for pupils so dealt with, it is poor
policy to send pupils to the corridors as a means of getting
them out of the room. A wise teacher will not put questions
to a class without having first instructed them not to reply
until called upon individually after a question has been put.
It is well for the young teacher to remember that to properly
maintain a balance between freedom which will develop indi-
vidual moral independence and a sense of social justice and
at the same time maintain restrictions that will prevent license
and interference with the learning and teaching process, is no
small problem. Make use of authority if necessary, but only
as a last resort.
Reference Reading:
Thorndike: Principles of Teaching, pp. 179-187.
James: Talks to Teachers, Chapter XV.
Bagley: School Discipline.
Griffith: Correlated Courses, pp. 65-68.
Class Discussion:
1. Thorndike says, "The law of selective thinking applies to
conduct." State this law and explain its practical signifi-
cance.
2. State the law of suggestion as it applies to conduct, and
explain its practical significance.
3. Successful discipline is to a large degree the result of
thoughtful management. The secret of success, other
things being equal, is the result of (1) keeping each child
occupied with work which holds the interest, at least of
the majority of the class; (2) maintaining standards which
make the majority of the class feel that they have to apply
themselves if they are to secure the rewards of a good
student; (3) making use of friendly rivalry; (4) placing
individual responsibility, as in individual assignment; (5)
having a time schedule and working to it "at full steam
ahead" until the period is up ; (6) having 'the work pro-
gressive always.
Make application to the manual arts indicating just how
you expect to utilize each.
4. Bagley mentions the following as general causes of an
unruly school: (1) harshness and unsympathetic treatment;
(2) indulgence and weakness of control; (3) inadequate
182 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
preparation and brief tenure of teachers. Illustrate each in
some specific manual arts teaching.
5. Many young teachers, when sorely pressed, will send an
unruly pupil out of the room into the corridor. Would
you? Discuss.
6. Pass judgment upon the rule so often found in elementary
shops: "Talking is permissible so long as it does not in-
terfere with the work."
7. Can you see any possible danger in the young teacher's
putting questions to the class as a whole instead of to some
individual ?
8. What do you expect to use as a final means of inhibiting
undesirable tendencies? (Suppose corporal punishment is
absolutely forbidden.)
9. Which do you expect to employ, your authority as a teacher
or the innate sense of honor upon the part of the pupils
to get results compatible with good scholarship and good
citizenship?
10. A shop tool is missed, would you make the class as a whole
pay for it in case it cannot be found? (Collective repara-
tion for collective offenses.)
11. Do you expect to find the rules in college applicable in
grammar schools?
CHAPTER XIV
STANDARDS AND TESTS
I. Teacher Standards. Much work remains to be done
before it can be said there is a scientific basis for teacher
standards. The accompanying factors are considered by
supervisors of Kansas City, Missouri, public schools in esti-
mating the value of a teacher to the system. While the score
card is made for teachers of all kinds of work, it ought to
prove suggestive and helpful to the teacher of manual or indus-
trial arts who cares to know what elements are being consid-
ered by his superiors. One who forms a habit of thinking
of teaching efficiency in terms of the various factors which
go to make up such efficiency will be much more likely to be
correct in his judgment than one who depends upon snap
judgment.
DETAILS OF RATING
I. Personal Equipment —
1. General appearance; 2. Voice; 3. Natural aptitude for
teaching; 4. Accuracy; 5. Industry; 6. Enthusiasm and
optimism ; 7. Integrity and sincerity ; 8. Promptness.
II. Social and Professional Equipment — '
9. Courtesy to associates, pupils and patrons; 10. Under-
standing of children; 11. Ability to meet and interest
patrons ; 12. Interest in lives of pupils ; 13. Cooperation
and loyalty ; 14 Professional interest and growth ; 15 Daily
preparation; 16. Use of English; 17. Accuracy of knowl-
edge; 18. Breadth of scholarship.
III. Administrative Technic —
19. Care of light, heat and ventilation; 20. Neatness of
room ; 21. Discipline and governing skill ; 22. Initiative and
Self-reliance; 23. Adaptability and resourcefulness; 24.
Self-control; 25. Tact; 26. Sense of justice; 27. Economy
of time.
IV. Teaching Technic —
28. Definiteness and clearness of aim; 29. Skill in habit
formation; 30. Skill in stimulating thought; 31. Skill in
teaching how to study; 32. Skill in questioning; 33. Choice
of subject-matter; 34. Organization of subject-matter;
183
184 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
35. Care in the assignment of lessons ; 36. Skill in motivat-
ing work; 37. Attention to individual needs.
V. Results—
38. Attention and response of class; 39. Growth of pupils
in subject matter; 40. General development of pupils; 41.
General influence.
2. Standards of Pupil Accomplishment in Manual Arts
by Grades. The following very excellent charting of hand-
work accomplishment by grades appears in Handwork in
Religious Education by Addie Grace Wardle, and is repro-
duced here by permission of The University of Chicago Press.
It should be studied in connection with the Outline for Grades
I to VI, Outlines in Teaching Manual Arts, Appendix II.
KINDERGARTEN :
(a) Interest :
1. Handling of material.
2. Changing forms as accompaniment of pupil's changing
thought.
3. Imagination basal.
4. Nothing intermediate between idea and result.
(b) Ability to be Cultivated.
1. Free constructive ability.
2. Not imposed plans, not value attached to results.
3. Thinking naturally in art expression — tendency to ex-
press in symbols as well as in words.
4. Knowledge of simple forms and recognition of their
representation.
5. Recognition of simple colors and their use for blocking
in representation.
(c) Work to be Given.
1. Free drawing with pencil — suggestions but not patterns
— and free construction work.
2. Crayola — rubbed surfaces out of which figures are cut.
3. Coloringt with crayolas within drawn patterns.
4. Coloring prints.
5. Simple water-color washes.
6. Mounting of pictures.
7. Border designs — simple.
8. Simple paper cuttings and tearings.
GRADES I-II
(a) Interest same as above. A little additional value attached
to results.
(b) Ability to be cultivated:
Readiness to illustrate ideas, however crudely— drawing
used as a language.
STANDARDS AND TESTS 185
(c) Work to be Given.
1. Rapid use (molding) of materials, such as sand and clay.
2. Border designs as frames, pictures and paper-cutting.
3. Simple pictures for crayola, blackboard, and water-color
work.
4. Collections of colors, flowers, papers, etc.
5. Paper-cutting and tearing and their mounting.
6. Simple paper folding.
7. Beginning of work in wood and reed.
GRADES III-V
(a) Interest :
1. Not satisfied with transformation of material by imagina-
tion.
2. Results become important; permanency and use impor-
tant.
3. Intermediate means of attaining results, the object of
attention.
4. Organized activity (age of organized play).
5. Larger use of tools — skill in use a matter of concern.
6. Desire to represent truthfully and to picture different
effects.
(b) Ability to be cultivated:
1. Use of patterns, designs — to shape materials as prede-
termined.
2. Care and skill in use of tools — ability to express a given
thought with increasing completeness.
3. Some intellectual control — thinking things out ahead.
4. Discrimination of colors.
5. Correct judgment of general proportions by the eye
rather than by measurements.
(c) Work to be given:
1. Simple geometric relations of vertical, horizontal, and
parallel as involved in simple drawings.
2. Rhythmic arrangement in border and surface patterns.
3. Pleasing arrangements within enclosed spaces, etc.
4. Bilateral symmetry and its methods.
5. Collection of samples for color groups. Discrimination
in sorting colors.
6. Arranging colors.
a. Complementary color schemes.
b. Value schemes.
7. Appearance of objects in different positions.
8. Modification of natural forms for designs.
9. Interpretative images (type forms).
a. Geometric relations.
b. Animal forms.
c. Plant forms.
d. Forms of rectilinear and curvilinear construction,
10. Simple map constructions.
186 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
11. Coping-saw work.
12. More difficult construction work.
13. Beginning of written work creation.
GRADES VI-VIII
(a) Interest:
1. Sustained purpose — a final end.
2. Accuracy according to pattern or idea, conformity to
reality.
3. Interest in real life, deflection from school.
4. Sympathetic interest in art activities of others — historical
and practical.
(b) Ability to be cultivated:
1. Use of drawing as a means of explanation and descrip-
tion.
2. Clear, visual patterns.
3. Orthographic reading.
4. Rapid sketching.
5. Accurate scientific sketching.
6. Good taste in beauty of form and harmony of color.
7. Knowledge of art history and art as a vocation.
(c) Work to be given:
1. Geographical drawings and map modelings.
2. Flower and plant shadow pictures for foreshortening
and delicacy.
3. Blueprints (for nature study).
4. Different arrangement of leaf, flower, or object drawn.
5. Matching in water-colors the colors of plants, etc.
6. Balancing in design, also more bilateral symmetry.
7. Appreciation of demands and limitations of decorative
work.
8. Perfect matching of color by mixing of water-colors.
9. Development of intensity color schemes.
10. Representation of moods of nature effects.
11. "Rapid descriptive sketches, well constructed drawings,
truthful records of observations."
12. Completed pictures in pencil, crayon, or water-color.
13. Careful constructional work.
s 14. Advanced work in the crafts : bookbinding, woodwork,
! reed and raffia work.
\S. Landscape sand modeling.
3. Specific Standards and Tests. No small amount of
work has been done in academic work, along certain lines
in an effort to provide a more scientific basis for evaluating
pupil work. Scales of more or less value have been worked
out for such subjects as composition, handwriting, number
work. In manual arts little has been done toward setting
STANDARDS AND TESTS 187
up uniform objective standards ; each teacher has been a law
unto himself, marking pupil work as his feelings dictated.
It is highly probable that no perfectly objective set of stan-
dards of universal application can be secured. It is possible,
however, to do something toward setting up certain standards,
and an attempt will be made herewith to point out a method
of attack which any teacher may use in his efforts to inject
a little more science into his system, or lack of system of
marking. In Chapter II, manual arts was differentiated into
(1) expressional or motor expression, (2) technical or motor
education. Technical manual arts or motor education was
subdivided into considerations of form and technic, and exe-
cution and skill. The distinguishing characteristic of motor
expression was said to be spontaneity, that of form and technic
was said to be instruction, while execution and skill were
said to be characterized by trial and error. A third division
of the manual arts might have been made, as motor expres-
sion based upon motor education, the characteristic of which
would be creative effort based upon knowledge and skill.
The subject of standards and tests in motor expression or
expressional manual arts may be dismissed with the state-
ment that the pupil has done all that is to be expected in any
given piece of expressional work when the idea or ideas to
be expressed are clearly evident to other members of the
class and when the pupil has exercised such technical skill
as is needed for the purpose in hand. Evaluation of technical
skill in expressional work will have to be determined in the
light of the amount of technical training the pupil has had up
to the time of the given expressional lesson. For example,
let it be a fifth grade problem in "Sketches to Illustrate His-
tory, Stories of the Romans," Appendix II. Certainly, such
sketches, while illustrative, should not only convey the ideas
intended with clearness and exactitude, but should also show
188 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
a technical superiority over those of first grade in proportion
to the amount or degree of technical instruction in drawing
and representation.
4. Standards for Form and Technic. Form and technic
have to do with ideas and with instruction. The woodworker
has a certain order of procedure in squaring-up a piece of
stock, in laying out and making a mortise-and-tenon joint, etc.
These methods of procedure are not arbitrary but are the
results of race experiences in working wood wherein methods
which reduce possible chances for error to a minimum have
been evolved. Good form and technic represent the science
of an activity, and have their basis in reason.
What shall determine standards for form and technic in
any line of endeavor? Evidently an analysis of trade prac-
tice itself will give us such standards. Formerly, much of the
form of the trades could be obtained only by word of mouth.
Today much good work has been done and is being done in
the matter of recording in book form the form of the various
trades. Any good text, then, dealing with the principles of
working the materials of a craft will provide proper standards
for form as it has to do with that craft.
There remains the determining of certain minimal essen-
tials for each grade for each kind or type of school. What,
for example, may we reasonably expect a boy to know about
the principles of working wood after a year in the 7th grade
with 2y 2 hours a week devoted to systematic working of
wood? An examination of the Lesson Outlines, Correlated
Courses, pp. 91-132, will indicate what one teacher thinks
pupils may reasonably be expected to know after certain
hours spent in certain grades upon certain kinds of work.
5. Tests for Form and Technic. Since form has to do
with ideas, in so far as relation of teacher to pupil is con-
cerned, the oral and written quiz with final examination pro-
STANDARDS AND TESTS 189
vide a test for form. The recitation, discussed in Chapter XII,
is merely a testing of recollection of form thru the oral quiz.
The reasons shop men neglect to test form are two — first,
they fail to appreciate the need for having pupils hold in
memory knowledge of correct form, and, second, the shop
time is so short they dislike to utilize any of it for mental
WOODWORK la
Quiz No. 2. Name
1. Large squares of one piece of steel are called
The long arm is called the
and the short arm the
2. Dividers are used for (1)
(2) , (3)
3. Pencil lines are easiest removed from wood by means of
should never be
sandpapered.
4. Four steps in putting a saw in order are (1)
(2)
(3) (4)
5. In all duplicate work the aim of the worker should be
before laying it down and taking
up another.
6. A wire gage for nails differs from a screw gage in that
7. Some of the parts to a lathe are ( 1 ) (2)
(3) (4) (5) (6)
(7) (8) (9) (10)
(11) (12) (13) (14)
All shearing cuts in turning depend for success upon keeping the
bevel or grind to the surface cut.
Fig. 24. Blank Quiz.
tests. The argument for having pupils "keep the memory
processes open" as regards form and technic will be presented
in the chapter following. Fig. 24 is an example of a blank
quiz, the use of which makes the element of time utilized for
testing form a negligible one. Such quizes are made out by
the teacher in multigraphed form. The student has merely
to fill in the appropriate word or words. The exact words
of the text are not demanded, but only such words as convey
the proper meaning. Such tests can be completed in not to
exceed five minutes. Pupils who cannot complete them in a
190 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
reasonable time should be required to hand them in anyway.
Not infrequently the time required to answer is indicated upon
each paper and the paper weighted somewhat accordingly. A
second advantage of the blank quiz lies in the ease with which
it can be graded. The teacher merely marks the errors, counts
them and the number so resulting serves to rank the student
among his fellows.
Such tests should not be mistaken for other than tests of
memory, or recollection of form. A second test, a test for
technic, which is form in use, should consist of observation
at stated intervals of the manner in which students apply
this knowledge in execution. It is possible that so high a
correlation exists between application of proper form, or
technic, and excellence of material result that such observa-
tional tests may safely be omitted. Teaching experience seems
to indicate the advisability of such observational tests, espe-
cially with the younger pupils.
6. Standards and Tests for Skill in Execution. The
factors which enter into the making of excellence in execution
are many. So many, in fact that the only hope of constructing
a workable set of standards and tests lies in the ability to
discover correlations between factors such that the number
may be reduced to a reasonable set. The factors most com-
monly considered are (1) speed, (2) accuracy, (3) neatness.
Only in the most general and unscientific way have standards
been set for any of these factors for various grades of vari-
ous kinds of schools. It may be that it is not possible or
desirable to reduce manual arts to the necessity of meeting
the demands of standards and tests of a scientific character.
Certainly there is need for more uniformity as to standards
and tests than now exists in manual arts teaching.
Standards for time exist in practically all kinds of trade
work. Any. hand-book on cost data will give standard time
STANDARDS AND TESTS 191
allowances for various kinds of work. For example, a car-
penter is expected, standard time, to place 1000 ft. of
2"x4" wall studs in 32 hrs. ; 1000 shingles on plain roof in
3^2 hrs., etc. Some men will place more, some less, but
a reasonable time allowance is as given. Evidently, the tool
for testing time is the watch or clock. This is what is known
as an objective test; it is a matter of fact, not of opinion.
Accuracy or skill in execution in the trades, we are told,
must be 100% perfect. That is, a printer is not excused be-
cause he has allowed only one misspelled word to creep into
the final form of the book. Of course, among the different
trades there are variations in requirements. Carpenters are
not supposed to be satisfied with a joint unless it fits snugly
at all points. A machinist may be required to work within
the 1/1000 of an inch, a carpenter never. This 100% perfec-
tion, then, is relative. What is meant is not absolute perfec-
tion of standards, but perfection of attainment which approxi-
mates closely standards set in the trades. Tests usually applied
in woodwork are for accuracy of dimensions — length, width,
thickness ; for squareness ; for straightness. Tests for dimen-
sions will be made with the rule, tests for squareness with
the try-square, tests for straightness with a straight-edge for
objective test and by sighting with the eye for subjective test.
Neatness is more difficult to measure. The eye alone is
used to determine the general appearance of a project, whether
plane marks are left on surfaces, whether arrises are kept
sharp and clean, whether corners are split, etc. Only as the
eye, or the mind back of the eye, is trained to recognize cer-
tain standards of excellence is the test of value.
Such personal elements as (1) attitude, (2) attention, (3)
industry, are usually taken into account in grading a pupil
for the month — -they should not be considered in evaluating
a given piece of work for neatness, speed and accuracy. Atti-
192 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
tude, attention, industry, like neatness, are subjective, de-
pending upon the ideals the individual teacher may have as to
these matters.
7. Illustration of a Method of Attack in Establishing
Pupil Standards for Accuracy in Execution in a Given Spe-
cific Project. A mechanic may be held to 100% efficiency
in accuracy or skill in execution and time for accomplishment.
In manual and industrial arts, some allowances should be
made for the fact that the student is a beginner and not a
mechanic. It may be found advisable, for example, on the
first piece of woodwork to demand 100% accuracy in square-
ness only, centering the attention upon this with the under-
standing upon the part of the pupil that dimensions are to
be made as large as possible, consistent with the 100% at-
tainment in squareness. The element of speed may be
neglected except in a very general way — a maximum time
allowance may be made, after which the class is to move on,
or be given a demonstration upon new subject-matter.
The following example* will serve to illustrate a non-tech-
nical method of attack in setting standards. As it is based
upon only 66 student participants the results are not to be
taken as absolute, even for the class of students specified.
At least 1000 cases should be examined to give the results
that are reliable. Sixty-six college freshmen, never having
had any woodwork, were each given a board 6"xl2", sur-
faced on two sides to %" in thickness. After a careful dem-
onstration they were asked to plane the two edges straight,
square to a selected and marked face-side, and parallel one
to the other. They were told no board would be accepted by
the instructor until there was 100% efficiency of attainment
in these respects — that is, until the instructor could detect
no light between try-square and edge and no variation in
*Data arranged by L. R. Fuller, sometime Assistant in Manual Arts,
University of Missouri.
STANDARDS AND TESTS 193
width of board with the sliding try-square test. They were
also told to take off no more shavings than absolutely neces-
sary to secure the required result, that the student with the
fewest shavings removed would rank highest
The results tabulated were as follows:
Amount removed from width in 16ths of an inch:
2/16 — 2 cases.
12
— 1 cases.
3 — 8
13
—
4 —16
14
— 6
5 —11
15
— 1
6 — 6
16
—
7 —
20
— 1
8 — 6
28
— 1
9 — 3
31
— 1
10 — 2
46
— 1
11 —0
Now, according to the Law of Probability, of Chapter VII,
the distribution of these amounts according to the number of
students involved will be as follows:
2% used 2/16" of board or less
23% " 2/16 to 4/16" of board
50% " 4/16 to 7/16" "
23% " 7/16 to 1 7/8" "
2% " over 1 7/8
For the sake of convenience in combining rankings in
several factors, we may arbitrarily assign certain numerical
scores to each of these ranks as follows :
Standards for scoring width of first exercise.
2/16" or less =Score 1.
2/16" to 4/16"=Score 2.
4/16" to 7/16"=Score 3.
7/16" to 1 7/8"=Score 4.
over 1 7/8"=Score 5.
194 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
In a similar manner, these students were instructed to make
the two ends square to the face-edge and face-side taking off
no more stock than was necessary to secure 100% accuracy
in squareness. A careful demonstration was given, and the
instructor accepted no piece until it failed to show any light
between end of the board and the try-square blade.
The results were as follows.
Amount removed from length in 16ths of an inch:
1/16 — 2 cases
9
— 5 cases
2 — 2
10
— 5
3 —2
11
— 5
4—5
12
— 5
5 — 2
16
— 1
6 —18
18
— 2
7 — 7
24
— 1
8 —4
Distributing these length variations according to the Law
of Probability the result is as follows:
2% used 1/16" of board or less
23% " 1/16 to 3/8" of board
50% " 3/8 to 5/8" of board
23% " 5/8 to 1 1/8" of board
2% " over 1 1/8" of board
Assigning numerical score values we have
Standards for Scoring Length in first exercise.
1/16" or less =Score 1.
1/16" to 3/8"=Score 2.
3/8" to 5/8"=Score 3.
5/8" to 1 l/8"=Score 4.
Over 1 l/8"=Score 5.
Tn a similar manner other factors such as time, neatness,
etc., may be scored.
STANDARDS AND TESTS 195
These scorings for each student may next be combined and
the result will give each his ranking among his fellows. If
an average is struck after combin'^g, grades may be assigned
as follows:
l=Excellent.
2=Superior.
3=Medium.
4=Inferior.
5=Failure.
Once having determined an objective set of standards for
a sufficiently large number of individuals to exclude serious
Fig. 25. Scoring Device for Woodwork Dimensions.
effects from accidentals, a scoring device similar to that of
Fig. 25 might be constructed for certain test problems to be
given at stated intervals on predetermined types of work.
This device is for scoring width of board in edge planing and
length in end planing in the" problem for which standards were
just developed. The various boards of any class are merely
laid upon the table, one edge or end against the stop and the
proper score is read at the other edge or end.
Fig. 26 shows a type of limit gage for commercial testing
of commercial metal machine work. There are two limits,
a maximum and a minimum. The piece of work to be tested
must pass thru one but not the other. There is no reason
the school shop should not possess and make use of the gages
196 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
used in the trades. Industry has objective standards for
nearly everything — especially in manufacture. Industrial
arts teaching must ever keep in
mind such standards since the
development of efficiency is the
end and aim of all industrial arts
teaching.
Manual arts teachers too
often have few standards or
tests other than those derived
from their feelings in the matter.
With large classes and full
teaching schedule they find little
b . . . . j f . Fig. 26. Limit Gage for Test-
time or interest in developing ing Machine Products.
more scientific standards and
tests. The very least any young teacher can do is to make
many visits to other shops in an effort to educate his feelings
as they have to do with standards. The second thing is to
set about developing a set of standards and tests which
may be applied semi-occasionally, just as the blank quiz
test is applied semi-occasionally. With enough teachers
working together upon such similar tests, some sort of a
standard for speed and accuracy in various types of work
ought to result that will make for more just grading. The
teacher's first duty is to teach, of course; a teacher with
proper information as to what pupils of a certain grade may
reasonably be expected to accomplish will teach better than
one who has no such conception.
8. Summary. Much work needs be done before it can
be said that there is a scientific basis for teacher standards.
Not a few cities have determined upon certain factors to be
considered in attempts to evaluate teachers of their system
for purposes of promotion. Manual and industrial arts
STANDARDS AND TESTS 197
teachers may be benefited by making a study of these factors
Only in a very general way have standards of subject-
matter requirements for different grades in different types
of schools been set.
In matters of standards and tests for pupil accomplishment
within any given type of work, it may be said that the factors
to be considered are, in a large part, those enumerated in
Chapter II. In expressional manual arts, we may dismiss the
subject with the statement that the pupil has done all that is to
be expected in any given piece of work when the idea or ideas
to be expressed are clearly evident to other members of the
class and when the pupil has made use of such technical skill
as is required for the purpose.
Technical manual arts and industrial arts will consider
form and execution as factors making for standards of pupil
accomplishment. Form has to do with ideas and with the
assimilation of instruction in conventional methods of pro-
cedure. Analyses of trade practice will provide standards
for proper form. Such analyses can be found in reputable
texts dealing with the conventions of the craft under considera-
tion. There remains the determination of certain minimal
essentials of subject-matter requirements for each grade in
each type of school.
The oral and written quiz with final examination provide
a means of testing form. Tests for technic, which is form in
use, will have to be made by the teachers observing the pu-
pils at work. Shop men neglect the testing of form and tech-
nic, as a rule, because they fail to appreciate the need for
having pupils hold in memory knowledge of correct form;
also, because they hesitate to reduce the already brief shop
time by taking time for mental tests, even where these have
to do with the subject-matter of the shop.
The factors most commonly considered in testing for skill
198 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
in execution are speed, accuracy, neatness. Standards for
time exist in practically all kinds of trade work. The means
for testing time is, of course, the clock or watch. Trades
claim to be satisfied with nothing less than 100% perfection.
This does not mean absolute perfection of standard, for
standards in trades are relative ; it means only that nothing
less than well-recognized minimum trade standards is accept-
able.
A mechanic may well be held to 100% efficiency, on the
basis of trade standards, in both speed and accuracy in exe-
cution. In manual and industrial arts some allowances must
be made for the fact that the student is engaged in the learn-
ing process. Instruction and speed attainment conflict. In
presenting new subject-matter we may choose to emphasize
accuracy or we may choose to emphasize speed, or we may
balance the emphasis with a consequent falling off of effi-
ciency in either. Schools, conducted properly, that is, with
attention to learning as well as developing speed, cannot hope
to compete with industry wherein the workmen have ceased
to learn, but have all their time and attention for speed at-
tainment. From such studies of student speed and accuracy,
neatness, etc., wherein large numbers are considered, ever
looking to trade standards as ideals, it will be possible to
establish reasonable standards of attainments for students at
various stages of their development in both speed and accur-
acy. Human elements, too, such as attitude, attention, indus-
try, should be taken into account in grading pupils for reward
but not for grading product.
Reference Reading:
Sargent: Fine and Industrial Arts for Elementary Schools,
pp. 21-25, 44-46, 77, 79, 128.
Collins : Drawing and Constructive Work for Elementary
Schools, pp. 75, 80, 85, 90, 94, 100, 102, 104, 106, 107.
Leavitt: Examples of Industrial Education, pp. 191-200.
STANDARDS AND TESTS 199
U. S. Army : Trade Specifications and Index.
U. S. Army : The Rating Scale, Personnel Work in the United
State Army, 1919.
Class Discussion:
1. State as concisely as possible just what subject-matter you
think might well be considered as standard for primary
grades, intermediate, upper grammar, and high school.
2. Making use of the Kansas City "plan for measuring merit
or efficiency of teachers," score a number of manual or
industrial arts teachers. If possible, visit and make your-
self acquainted with the work of the drawing and manual
or industrial arts teachers of the public schools.
3. As yet, no one has worked out a set of objective scales
or tests or standards for manual arts, as has been done
for handwriting and composition in academic work. Every
opportunity should be taken to find out how teachers of
good reputation professionally are grading.
CHAPTER XV
CONDITIONS WHICH MAKE FOR PROGRESS
1. Conflicting Aims in Education. A careful reading
of the discussion of previous chapters of the book should
have pointed the fact that education is confronted with many
conflicting aims and ends and that what may be gained by
over emphasis upon one line is counter-balanced by a loss
along another line. When we stress instinct we neglect in-
telligence, and vice versa. Theory, science, the general, knowl-
edge, technic, form are opposed to practice, the art, the
specific, doing, skill, execution. Referring to Fig. 1, the
former have to do with connections between thought and
thought, connections No. 3, Path No. 2. The latter have to
do with either Path No. 1 or Path No. 3. Either of these
latter connections tends to interfere with connections No. 3
of Path No. 2. The general vs. the specific has been suffi-
ciently discussed in Chapter VIII, Correlation and Associa-
tion. Intellect vs. feeling has been discussed in Chapter I.
Technic vs. skill will be found discussed in Chapter II. Other
conflicting aims have also been treated ; space will be taken
in this chapter merely to point out some conditions which
must obtain in manual and industrial arts if progress is to
be made.
2. Manual and Industrial Arts an Attempt to Provide
a Better Balance Between the Abstract and the Concrete
in Education — Between Theory and Practice. Fig. 27
shows graphically the distribution of people in the state of
Missouri engaged in the larger pursuits. From this it will
readily be seen that by far the greater part of her people are
engaged in the manipulation of concrete things rather than
abstract ideas. To neglect in our schools the giving of oppor-
tunity for technical experience and expression thru the
200
CONDITIONS WHICH MAKE FOR PROGRESS 201
manipulation of concrete materials is to ignore the welfare
of that vast majority of our people who will live by the manipu-
lation of materials. "Improvement in one special power
rarely, if ever, means equal improvement in general." Years
of training in generalizations based upon haphazard concrete
experiences will not help much when, in after life, the boy
Number of thousands of persons occupied over /o years of age
SO 100 ISO ZOO ZiO 300 <3SO 400 4S0
Male
Female
Agriculture
Mechanical Work g*^
Trade ^a/e
Female ■
Transportation JgJJ^ ^^
Domestic Service g*^ ^^
Clerical Work »°% ale ™
Professions %&„ J-
M """S Femok ™ .
Public Service %%* ■
Fig. 27. Distribution of Persons Engaged in Gainful Occupations in the
State of Missouri, Census Report, 1910.
or girl is brought face to face with the necessity for quick
decision accompanied by prompt execution in a world of
concretes. Indeed, such discipline may even prove a hind-
rance thru having developed an attitude of mind which re-
quires much time to consider all of the niceties involved in
the passing of judgment upon derived abstractions, abstrac-
tions interesting in themselves but of less moment at the
time than the prompt execution of the task in hand.
A paragraph from an article in the Medical Review of Re-
views, September, 1915, reads: "Attentive control — the
power of fixing the attention on one thing and then doing it
to the exclusion of all others — is 'the one aim of true educa-
202 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
tion/ yet its loss is increasing at an alarming rate. We rind
more and more people who are victims of indecision, who
cannot make up their minds." If school life is to be devoted
exclusively to generalities, to abstractions, and "mental
capacity depends upon the concrete data with which it works,"
need we be surprised to find indecision when the product of
the school is brought face to face with the realities, with the
necessity for dealing with concretes? "To learn by doing is
to learn with the best aids psychology and science have been
able to discover." The remedy for a race afflicted with inde-
cision is a liberal introduction of subject-matter which will
give to the children plenty of specific experiences with such
concretes as may be found in the practical subjects. If such
school experience should do no more than continue the re-
spect, interest, and pleasure which little children have in the
manipulation of concrete materials, it would have better served
the 95 per cent who must make their living by such manipula-
tions than to have made them feel that theirs was a life of
enforced drudgery.
All industrial pursuits depend for success upon a recogni-
tion and understanding of certain conventional methods of
procedure coupled with an unconscious tendency to act, once
the recognition of what comes next enters the field of con-
sciousness, or is suggested thru reflex muscular control or
feeling. The data of the practical subjects, habits of mind
and body, the attitudes, are to be got only thru experiences
with the data and methods of procedure common to such
subjects. Accuracy of judgment developed in a study of
formal logic is of little aid when judgment of a practical na-
ture based upon experience with specific practical data is de-
manded. Every child should have some experience along one
or more practical or technical lines of endeavor. The greater
the number of lines available for choice the better, provided
they are well organized and well taught.
CONDITIONS WHICH MAKE FOR PROGRESS 203
The author would be false to the subject did he not again
call attention to the fact that, while most academic subject-
matter deals too exclusively in generalities to supply a com-
plete educational experience, manual training, as now taught
by many with little or no qualifications for teaching the sub-
ject, often deals too exclusively with the details of industrial
experience. If manual training and industrial arts are to
take the large place in the educational field which awaits them,
they must so organize and teach their subject-matter that
details of specific experiences shall be seen by the pupil in
their larger relationships. Manual training and industrial
arts teachers must remember that their subject is to be justi-
fied not alone by similarity of subject-matter and similarity
of method of procedure but also by the extent to which it
enables students to formulate these specific experiences in
terms of general principles and ideals.
3. Need for a Scientific Treatment of Subject-matter.
The man of so-called practical training too often is inclined
to ridicule the efforts of the man engaged in making a study
of the science underlying such practical activities. A few
examples will serve to illustrate the need for scientific treat-
ment of subject-matter. The following on "Tone Placement"
is from a metropolitan daily : "Recently I heard a distin-
guished singer. At first the voice seemed to have quite an
unusual color. It seemed more like an instrument than a
human voice. Little by little I became accustomed to the
quality, and finally began to like it. I wish to speak of the
placement of this voice. The best tones were of a medium
quality and volume and quite satisfactory. But they were
placed by Nature. I could tell that, because, if they had been
acquired by the study of tone placing the singer would have
employed her knowledge of tone placing on her high tones
and would have been equally successful in producing a good
high tone — at least a good F or G, which were, I believe, the
204 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
tones she sang in a somewhat hit-or-miss manner. This un-
certainty — hit or miss — was apparent in all her songs. Now,
if this singer had known exactly how she was taking her
good middle tones, she would sing the high ones successfully.
If she would focus her breath above the upper front teeth
and the roof of the mouth, she would produce a good tone
every time. I am sure of this, because she gets a good tone
sometimes. She would then guide her breath up and let it
float out of an open throat — open above the larynx. If a
tone sounds veiled, that is a sure sign it is not properly pro-
duced. Placing a tone means that the vocalized breath must
be carried up against the roof of the mouth. In this way
resonance will be secured and clarity, the veiled sound disap-
pearing."
Again, a carpenter of ten years experience presented him-
self for an examination in carpentry. He was given a piece
of 2"x4" and told to frame the side-cut for an octagon jack.
Altho he could frame the side-cut for a jack on a square
corner he was non-plussed when asked to frame the same
cut on an octagon jack. Now, as a matter of fact, the car-
penter who can frame an octagon jack side-cut, except by
cut-and-try method is rare. Why? Not because the cut is
a difficult one to make — it is no more difficult than the same
cut for a square corner jack — but simply because he has not
mastered the science of roof framing. He has been taught to
think in terms of a certain specific type of roof, and the specific
numbers to be used in framing that type rather than to think
in terms of principles.
These specific experiences are the necessary basis for the
science or theory of an art but they do not in themselves con-
stitute science. Only as these specific experiences are gen-
eralized do they take the form of science. Science emphasizes
selected experiences, Cf. Chapter X.
Much so-called new manual training and industrial arts,
CONDITIONS WHICH MAKE FOR PROGRESS . 205
with its stressing of subject-matter only, is likely to cause a
distinct educational loss thru its emphasis upon mere associa-
tion rather than upon additional selection. The so-called
practical manual arts and industrial arts which take the form
of chores about the home, repair work about the school,
building of school equipment without due regard to proper
principles underlying the activities, mere emphasis upon what
to do with little upon why it is done that way, is of limited
educational value.
4. Limitations Which Arise from Undue Emphasis up-
on Theory or Science. If the practically trained man has
his weaknesses, the scientifically trained man, with no basis
for his science or theory in practical experience, is also sub-
ject to serious handicap. This is the greatest cause for weak-
ness in our academic system of education as it is constituted
today. Educators, recognizing as they do the great value of
theory, science, take little children and from first grade thru
university, strive to stuff them with principles, rules, theory,
science, abstraction. Eight years of grammar school, four
years of high school, four years of college, and possibly three
more years of graduate work — all devoted to an attempt to
master rules, principles, science, is a rather wasteful process.
Lacking a suitable basis in practical experience, the thinking
becomes one of memory, of association rather than reason
or selection, to a large extent. An examination upon subject-
matter covered will prove that only a very small part of that
studied is remembered to the end of the preparatory period.
Even if all the rules and principles were remembered and
understood there would still remain the necessity for educa-
tion thru feeling which we have tried to point out is no small
part of a complete education. A boy may be taught all the
science of riding a bicycle or of flying the aeroplane; only
as he has opportunity for forming the necessary muscular
adjustments thru riding the bicycle or flying the aeroplane
206 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
can we say that his education in these respects is complete.
Science, technic, form, cannot in any way serve as a sub-
stitute for trial and error in execution ; what it can do is to
reduce the number of trials thru reducing the chances for
error to the lowest possible number and providing the con-
necting link so that one set of specific experiences may func-
tion in another set, in so far as reduction of chances for error
is concerned. The carpenter who knows how to frame a
side-cut for a jack of a square corner roof, will not be non-
plussed when asked to frame a side-cut for an octagon jack
if he knows the science of roof framing. A pupil who has
merely studied roof framing principles, without applications
of any kind will find himself non-plussed when he tries to
frame an octagon jack, in a way the carpenter is not. All
the science in the world about roof framing will not make it
possible for the student to frame an octagon jack without
the same trials and errors for muscular adjustment that the
carpenter experienced in his earlier days.
Theory or science, then, is of value only when applied.
Too long continued attention to theory without application
makes for lack of meaning in theory. Both theory and appli-
cation alternating at not too infrequent periods are necessary
to a vital educational experience.
5. The Place of Texts. Not a few manual and indus-
trial arts teachers, taking their cue from certain so-called
practical men of the trades, ridicule the use of texts in shop
classes. Manual training and industrial arts, they say, are
in the schools as a protest against a bookish education. If
academic education has over-emphasized a study of rules,
principles, theory, manual and industrial arts will not better
the situation by going to the opposite extreme and emphasiz-
ing feeling or direct interpretation to the exclusion of attention
to the science underlying the subject-matter with which they
are dealing.
CONDITIONS WHICH MAKE FOR PROGRESS 207
Texts in manual arts are of two kinds: (1) Those which
deal with the principles of working the materials of any-
given craft not as principles but as specific directions in con-
nection with some specific project or projects. The principles
of squaring-up stock, for example, are not treated as such but
are treated as steps in making a specific project, as a taboret.
(2) Those which deal with principles only, projects and the
project operation sheets being given on a separate form. It
should be recognized that a treatment of subject-matter which
fails to dissociate principles from specific projects is of less
value in certain ways than one which causes the pupil to think
in terms of principles so dissociated. A pupil who follows
specific project directions is doing associative thinking not
selective. While he will or may succeed on a given project
better than one whose directions are to be got from general
principles, he will most likely be non-plussed when a different
project with similar principles involved is presented him.
"Language, written and spoken, serves to connect theory
and practice." A properly written text is a good teacher's
tool for the economical connecting of theory and practice.
Only as the memory processes are kept open is it possible to
make theory function in practice. Only as the memory pro-
cesses are kept open is it possible to effectively adjust one's
self to new situations thru knowledge. Textbooks dealing
with principles afford a tool whereby the individual may keep
memory processes open thru study and review.
6. Race Progress Demands that a Balance be Main-
tained Between Conflicting Aims. The complete educa-
tional experience involves experience with specific concretes;
put of these experiences thru contradictions should come ab-
straction and generalizations in the form of rules, principles,
theory, and science. The third step consists in the applica-
tion of these rules, this science or theory to new situations.
208 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
Race progress demands that a balance be maintained between
conflicting aims, such as theory and practice, etc.
As in the discussions of previous chapters, so in this, what
has been said must be taken as the result of an approach from
the psychological or individualistic point of view. There is
still to be considered the social and economic and ethical
approaches.
Social and economic considerations necessitate the
further statement that maintenance of balance in conflict of
aims making for race progress does not depend upon the
maintenance of balance of these factors in individuals. In
fact, race progress appears to be most favored when indi-
viduals and classes do not maintain balance but specialize.
Some men may become the thinkers, some doers in the world's
work. In the long run, however, there must be a balancing
of individual or class specialist of one type against individual
or class specialist of opposite type — not in numbers but in
the meeting of social need. Social and economic considera-
tions, then, afford the basis for justification for the education
of types not recognized as wholly or highly desirable from
the standpoint of psychology or of the individual. It is on
this latter basis that we allow and encourage the training for
the three types of reactive needs — the common laboring, the
skilled, the director.
In the recognition of the place of these three types of
reactive needs in education and in the granting of the just-
ness of differentiation in awards on the basis of educational
investment, it should not be taken for granted that the pres-
ent situation as to the relative amounts of awards is approved.
Undoubtedly members of the laboring class, in most com-
munities, are not receiving a just share comparatively. A
section hand who labors ten hours a day, on work that must
needs be done, at a rate of one dollar ?nd seventy-five cents
a day, certainly is not getting a fair share from railroad re-
CONDITIONS WHICH MAKE FOR PROGRESS 209
turns in which the president is paid one hundred thousand
dollars per year. The section hand usually has the larger
family, and human needs as to food and clothing, medicines,
etc., have a minimum limit below which they cannot go with-
out causing harm to the individual, his family and indirectly
to the social order itself.
The remedy for such unjust distribution, in the absence of
sufficiently compelling ethical motives, is being found in col-
lective bargaining of labor. Here again is seen a need for
balance. Collective bargaining finds its strength in numbers.
So long as its demands are not unjust — are such as to allow
difference in award sufficient to encourage greater educational
investment upon the part of individuals — all will be well. Once
let the power in numbers place all awards on the same basis
and the race must deteriorate thru lack of individual initiative.
There are certain well-recognized types of development. In
every step in evolution, results have been brought about or
have become possible thru variations suitably rewarded. De-
stroy suitable rewards and man ceases to make the effort
necessary to exercise initiative; he becomes an associative
thinker instead of a selective. We say of an individual often
times : he is vegetating. The inference is clear : progress is
possible only thru effort; continued effort comes only thru
suitable reward.
7. Summary. Theory, science, the general, knowledge,
technic, form are opposed to practice, the art, the specific,
activity, skill, execution. The manual and industrial arts are
the result of an attempt to provide a better balance between
the abstract and the concrete, between theory and practice.
An examination of the occupational data, such as may be
found in the United States census reports, will make evident
that many more people live thru the manipulation of concrete
materials than thru the manipulation of ideas or abstrac-
tions. Education should look to the training of indi-
210 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
viduals along lines of materials manipulation as well as ab-
stractions—the practical as well as the theoretical. Habits
of mind and body, the attitudes, such as have to do with the
manipulation of concrete materials, are to be acquired only
thru experiences with data and methods of procedure common
to such subjects. Theory cannot supplant practice; neither
can practice, on the other hand, supplant theory.
Not infrequently, the man of so-called practical experience
is inclined to ridicule the efforts of the man engaged in mak-
ing a study of the science underlying such practical activities.
Specific practical experiences are the necessary basis for the
science, or theory, or art, but they do not of themselves con-
stitute such science. Only as these specific experiences are
generalized do they take the form of science. Much so-called
new manual training and certain kinds of industrial arts,
with their stressing of practical phases only, are likely to
cause a distinct educational loss thru emphasis upon mere
association to the exclusion of selection.
If the practically trained man has his weaknesses, the
scientifically trained man, with no basis for his science or
theory in practical experience, is also subject to serious handi-
cap. Eight years of grammar school, four years of high
school, four years of college, ,and possibly three years of
graduate — all devoted to an attempt to master rules, princi-
ples, science, is a rather wasteful process. Science, technic,
form cannot in any way serve as a substitute for trial and
error in execution — for feeling. Theory or science is of value
when applied. Too long continued attention to theory without
application makes for lack of meaning in theory. Both the-
ory and application alternating at not too infrequent periods
are necessary to a vital educational experience.
Not a few manual and industrial arts teachers, taking their
cue from certain so-called practical men of the trades, ridi-
cule the use of texts in shop classes. If academic education
CONDITIONS WHICH MAKE FOR PROGRESS 211
has over-emphasized a study of rules, principles, theory, man-
ual and industrial arts will not better the situation by going
to the opposite extreme in emphasizing feeling or direct in-
terpretation to the exclusion of attention to the science under-
lying the subject-matter with which they are dealing. Texts
are of two kinds, differentiated according as they do or do
not deal with principles dissociated from application to some
particular set of specific projects. The former is somewhat
more difficult for student and teacher to use, but is superior in
that the student must learn to think in terms of selective
rather than associative connections. A properly written text
is a good teacher's tool for effectively connecting theory and
practice.
Race progress demands that a balance be maintained be-
tween conflicting aims, such as theory and practice. Social
and economic considerations necessitate the statement that bal-
ance in conflict of aims making for race progress does not de-
pend upon maintenance of balance of these factors in the indi-
vidual. Some men may become thinkers, some doers in the
world's work. In the long run special groups of a given type
must be balanced by equally strong groups of opposite type. It
is on this basis of social and economic rather than psychological
need that training in low reactive types as well as higher
types is justified. Such recognition of a place in education
for low reactive types as well as higher should not be taken
as signifying unjustness of present differentiations of awards
on the basis of educational investment. Neither should the
granting of the justness of differentiation in awards be taken
as implying the justness of relative amounts of awards as at
present . distributed. Undoubtedly, members of the laboring
class, in most communities, are. not receiving a just share of
awards for effort. The remedy for such unjust distribution,
in the absence of sufficiently compelling ethical motives, is
being found in the principle of collective bargaining. Here
212 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
again we need to maintain a balance. Appeals to power in
numbers carried to the extreme of destruction of variations in
awards will tend to eliminate originality and initiative.
Reference Reading:
James: Talks to Teachers, Chapter XIII, p. 150.
Judd : Genetic Psychology, pp. 58-68, 136-147.
Davidson: A History of Education, pp. 1-17.
Dewey: How We Think, Chapters X, XI.
Griffith: Correlated Courses, Chapter I.
Class Discussion:
1. Under what condition is progress most possible, emphasis
upon theory or upon practice, upon the general or the
specific, upon knowledge or upon action?
2. State the limitations which arise when either extreme is em-
phasized to the exclusion of the other for an undue length
of time.
3. Recent progress in Germany industrially has been due to
a wise balancing of science (knowledge) and industry
(action). Give some specific examples.
4. How do we get our theory? What are some of the limita-
tions of an education made up wholly of a manipulation of
formulas, principles, and laws, a knowledge of which is got
wholly from textbooks?
5. Of what value is shopwork to engineering students who
do not expect to have to do any great amount of shopwork?
6. Would you say that a system of handwork can be justified
wholly upon the ground of skill of hand — ability to per-
form readily certain highly specific operations? In gen-
eral education or trade training?
7. Rule of thumb methods need what else to make them worth
while for general educational purposes?
8. Can you see any place for texts in shop classes? State
such advantages as you think may accrue from assigned
readings upon related theory accompanied by recitations
the following lessons.
9. State such limitations as you see in the use of texts in
shop classes.
10. Judd says the teacher must "keep the memory processes
open." What does he mean?
11. A man has worked fifteen years at his trade. Will he of
necessity make a good teacher of his trade? Why or
why not?
12. A man without other experience graduates from a corre-
spondence course in machine work, will he make a good
teacher of machine work? Why or why not?
13. State your conclusion as to theory vs. practice, knowing
vs. doing.
APPENDIX I
Special Method Procedure
1. Special Method Aims. The work of the preceding
chapters might well be classed under the heading of general
method. An attempt was made to connect general principles
of educational psychology with the special problems of teach-
ing the manual and industrial arts. Before the student is
thrust into actual teaching conditions, such as obtain in prac-
PROGRAM CARD
for
OBSERVATION OF MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
TEACHING
(Fill out in triplicate) Student's name
Subject
School
Grade
Teacher
Day — Hour — Date
M T W T F
(Reverse side of card.)
Instructions. — (1) Each student will elect a subject for observation
teaching method according to his interests or his sub-
ject of specialization.
(2) He will examine the day-hour program of the
manual arts work of Elementary or of University High
School, or of other schools available for observational
work, and make out a trial program.
(3) When this trial program has been approved by the
instructor of Teaching Manual and Industrial Arts and
the supervisor of practice teaching or the supervisor
of other schools to be visited, a final program in tripli-
cate is to be made out — one for the instructor, one for
the supervisor, and one for student.
Fig. 28. Program Card.
tice teaching, it seems advisable to afford opportunity for the
making of more specific connections. Special method lessons
herewith seek to suggest a method of attack. Each lesson
213
214 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
involves two kinds of experience — one, individual planning of
the teaching elements of given type lessons together with
presentation and explanation of the same by some member
of the class followed by class discussion of teaching methods
used; two, observational work of expert teaching in manual
arts followed by a carefully prepared report. The aim in
this work is not so much one of study of organization of
subject-matter and administration as of attention to the art
or practice of teaching as tested by the principles discussed in
the preceding chapters.
2. Directions for Observation. (1) Secure from the
instructor of Teaching Manual and Industrial Arts four blank
forms, Program Cards, Fig. 28.
(2) Using one of these cards as a trial card make out a
trial program or schedule of proposed observational work
to cover at least fourteen observational periods. Teaching
schedules for Elementary and High School will be found
posted in places designated by the instructor of Teaching
Manual and Industrial Arts.
Make a selection of but one subject, as expressional hand-
work, technical handwork, mechanical drawing, etc., and
confine observations to a detailed study of the teaching of some
one person. Observation of the work of other instructors is
advised, as arrangements can be made, but mainly for the
purpose of assisting in a proper evaluation of the work of
the teacher whose work has been elected for study.
(3) Submit the trial program for approval to the in-
structor in Teaching Manual and Industrial Arts and the
supervisor of Practice Teaching.
(4) Upon approval, make out program in triplicate and
provide one for instructor, one for supervisor, and one for
self.
(5) Factors to be considered in making observations are
SPECIAL METHOD PROCEDURE 215
fully discussed in the chapters preceding. The student, while
he may and should make note of any number or of all of
these factors in any one lesson observed, will do well to pay
special attention to some one factor at each lesson observed.
For example, the first observation period may be set aside
for especial attention to the teacher's outline of manual arts
work, and the aim of the work as a whole. The second period
may be devoted to those factors discussed in Chapter II, the
next to those of Chapter III, etc., etc.
Each lesson should be carefully written up and these notes
used in the writing of a final report. The final report should
show that the student has learned to think of his special
problem in terms of educational principles — in terms of analy-
sis and reason as well as in terms of mere practical expe-
diency. Care should be taken to avoid hasty generalizations.
For example, a teacher may have planned to devote several
periods to emphasis upon skill as opposed to initiative. Before
such a teacher is condemned, it will be well to inquire of him
as to his plans, in his general scheme of manual or industrial
arts instruction, for the development of initiative.
3. Type Lessons. The aim in the type lessons experience
is to accustom the pupil-teacher to the sensation of stand-
ing before a class and presenting a lesson which he and his
fellows have carefully prepared in outline form beforehand,
and for which he on his appointed day has also prepared his
materials and tools. Where classes are not too large and
students have not developed too great self-consciousness with
loss of imagination, it is possible to reproduce classroom con-
ditions, with the exception of those of discipline, to advantage.
Where these conditions do not obtain, it is necessary to have
the one demonstrating take time to explain the conditions
which obtain in the problem being presented, and the means
used to meet the situation. While this latter experience may
216 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
be less embarrassing to both demonstrating teacher and fel-
lows, it falls short of emphasizing as vitally as it might the
points to be brought out. It is one thing, for example, to
explain how an illustrative lesson in the story of the Three
Bears is to be given, and another thing to actually teach the
class, even tho the class be one's fellows.
In elementary handwork the class may well add to demon-
stration the actual carrying out of instruction in work. In
technical shopwork such type lessons will probably have to
end with the demonstration.
I. Topic: Type Le sson I
Special method — Type lesson. Expressional or illustrative
handwork. Paper cutting and poster making. Stories,
Grade I.
TI. Required Reading:
Dobbs: Primary Handwork, Chapters I-IV.
Zeitz : Outlines. Appendix II herewith.
Dobbs: Illustrative Handwork, pp. 38-52.
III. Suggested Reading:
Other books on Elementary handwork. Cf. library finding
lists.
IV. Assignment :
1. Making use of the form given in Chapter V, Dobbs:
Illustrative Handwork, develop in detail an expressional
lesson in paper cutting and poster making illustrative of
some incident connected with the story of the Gingerbread
Man.
2. Student demonstration or teaching assigned to ,
who will make all preparations beforehand in the way of
materials and tools in consultation with the instructor.
3. Begin observational work.
I. Topic: Type Lesson II
Type lesson — Expressional or illustrative handwork.
Sand table chart. Grade II.
Stevenson : Child's Garden of Verses, The Swing.
II. Required Reading:
Zeitz: Outlines, Appendix II.
Dobbs: Primary Handwork, Chapter VII.
Stevenson: Child's Garden of Verses, The Swing.
Dobbs: Illustrative Handwork, pp. 57-74.
SPECIAL METHOD PROCEDURE 217
III. Assignment :
1. Making use of the form in Chapter V, Dobbs: Illustrative
Handwork, develop in detail an illustrative lesson on the
subject, The Swing, from Stevenson's Child's Garden of
Verses, as you would have it worked out upon the sand
table in Grade II.
2. Student demonstration or teaching assigned to ,
who will make all necessary preparations beforehand in
the way of materials and tools in consultation with the
instructor.
I. Topic: Type Lesson III
Type lesson — Technical handwork. Paper and cardboard con-
struction, Grade I. Booklets (loose leaf), braid,
cord.
II. Required Reading:
Zeitz : Outlines, Appendix II.
Buxton and Curran : Paper and Cardboard Construction, p.
138.
III. Suggested Reading:
Other books on elementary handwork. Cf. finding lists in
the library.
IV. Assignment :
1. Making use of the form in Chapter XII, herewith, develop
in detail a technical handwork lesson on Booklet Making
for Grade I.
2. Student demonstration or teaching assigned to ,
who will make all necessary preparation beforehand in the
way of materials and tools in consultation with the in-
instructor.
3. Continue observational work.
I. Topic: Type Lesson IV
Type lesson — Technical handwork. Raffia, Grade II, Rugs for
doll house.
II. Required Reading:
Zeitz: Outlines, Appendix II.
Dobbs: Primary Handwork, pp. 40-45.
III. Suggested Reading:
Other books on elementary handwork. Cf. finding lists in
the library.
IV. Assignment :
1. Making use of the form in Chapter XII, develop in de-
tail a technical handwork lesson on Rug Weaving for doll
house for Grade II.
218 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
2. Student demonstration or teaching assigned to ,
who will make all necessary preparations beforehand in
the way of materials and tools in consultation with the
instructor.
3. Continue the observational work.
I. Topic: Type Lesson V
Type lesson — Technical manual arts. Mechanical drawing.
Grade VII.
II. Required Reading:
Griffith : Projects for Beginning Woodwork and Mechanical
Drawing, pp. 5, 6, 7 and plate 50.
Griffith : Correlated Courses in Woodwork and Mechanical
Drawing, p. 91, Lesson 1, Grade VII.
III. Suggested Reading:
Other books on mechanical drawing. Cf. rinding lists in the
library.
IV. Assignment :
1. Making use of the form in Chapter XII herewith, develop
in detail a technical drawing lesson for Grade VII.
2. Student demonstration or teaching assigned to
who will make all necessary preparations beforehand in the
way of materials and tools in consultation with the in-
structor.
3. Continue observational work.
I. Topic: Type Lesson VI
Type lesson — Technical manual arts, Mechanical Drawing.
Grade VII continued.
II. Required Reading:
Griffith : Projects for Beginning Woodwork and Mechanical
Drawing, pp. 5, 6, 9 and plate 1.
Griffith : Correlated Courses in Woodwork and Mechanical
Drawing, p. 91, Lesson 2, Grade VII.
III. Assignment:
1. Making use of the form in Chapter XII herewith, develop
in detail a technical drawing lesson based upon the reading
assigned above.
2. Student demonstration or teaching assigned to
who will make all necessary preparations beforehand in the
way of materials and tools in consultation with the in-
structor.
3. Continue observational work.
SPECIAL METHOD PROCEDURE 219
I. Topic: Type Lesson VII
Type lesson — Technical manual arts. Woodwork. Grade VII.
II. Required Reading:
Griffith : Projects for Beginning Woodwork and Mechanical
Drawing, pp. 5, 6, 9 and plate 1.
Griffith: Correlated Courses in Woodwork and Mechanical
Drawing, p. 98. Lesson 13.
III. Suggested Reading:
Other books on mechanical drawing. Cf. finding lists in the
library.
IV. Assignment :
1. Making use of the form in Chapter XII herewith, develop
in detail a lesson in technical woodwork based upon the
reading assigned above.
2. Student demonstration or teaching assigned to
who will make all necessary preparations beforehand in the
way of materials and tools in consultation with the in-
structor.
3. Continue observational work.
I. Topic: Type Lesson VIII
Type lesson — Technical manual arts. Woodwork continued.
Grade VII.
II. Required Reading:
Griffith: Projects for Beginning Woodwork and Mechanical
Drawing, pp. 5, 8, 22 and plates 2-4.
Griffith-: Correlated Courses in Woodwork and Mechanical
Drawing, p. 98, Lesson 14.
III. Assignment :
1. Making use of the form in Chapter XII herewith, develop
in detail a lesson in technical woodwork based upon the
reading assigned above.
2. Student demonstration or teaching assigned to
who will make all necessary preparations beforehand in the
way of materials and tools in consultation with the in-
structor.
3. Continue observational work.
I. Topic: Type Lesson IX
Type lesson — Technical manual arts. Metalwork. Grade X.
II. Required Reading:
Hooper and Shirley: Handcraft in Wood and Metal, pp. 66,
67, Steel scriber. Forging only.
III. Assignment :
1. Making use of the form in Chapter XII, develop in de-
220 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
tail a lesson in technical metalwork based upon the read-
ing assigned above.
2. Student demonstration or teaching assigned to ,
who will make all necessary preparations beforehand in the
way of materials and tools in consultation with the in-
structor.
3. Continue observational work.
I. Topic: Type Lesson X
Type lesson — Technical manual arts. Metalwork continued.
Grade X.
II. Required Reading:
Hooper and Shirley: Handcraft in Wood and Metal, pp. 66,
67, Steel scriber continued. Cleaning up, hardening, tem-
pering.
III. Assignment :
1. Making use of the form in Chapter XII, develop in de-
tail a lesson in technical metalwork based upon the read-
ing assigned above.
2. Student demonstration or teaching assigned to ,
who will make all necessary preparations beforehand in the
way of materials and tools in consultation with the in-
structor.
3. Continue observational work.
In a similar manner other lessons may be developed as
desired. In industrial arts, if the work is organized for a
rather distinct differentiation between instruction and produc-
tion, as is the case of the work of the Lakeside Press School,
Figs. 19 and 20, and the General Electric Co., Figs. 21 and 22,
all those type lessons dealing with instructional problems may
be made to take the form used in technical manual arts. The
chief consideration here, as in technical manual arts, is to
see that systematic and orderly introduction of instruction in
new subject-matter and methods is made possible. In type
lessons in industrial arts for production, instruction will be
secondary; the emphasis being placed upon the development
of efficiency in the work in hand, which work presumably is
based upon instruction already given in the school shop.
APPENDIX II
Type Outlines
The type outlines which follow are intended to provide
readily accessible reference material for grades I through VI
out of which the student may build type lessons. In addi-
tion to these outlines the student will do well to make himself
familiar with the material contained in standard texts having
to do with subject-matter under consideration. A list of texts
containing such reference material may be found by con-
sulting library finding lists.
The outlines which follow are arranged in an order pre-
supposing an organization of teaching materials in manual
arts for general educational purposes as follows:
(" a. Expressional f Central and illustrative
Grades I-VI...4 j handwork.
Lb. Technical handwork [
f Technical shop and drafting work,
a. Mechanical drawing.
Grades VII-IX
How to carry a gun
Street cleaning methods
*5b
How to make a stretcher
How tuberculosis is spread
>>
What to do in case of drowning
A model dairy
How to stop bleeding
Places where germs breed
Harmful work of flies
Posters illustrating
Figures illustrating fractions
l
use of fractions
Figures illustrating decimals
£
measures
Measures
*«-.
money
The farm and its products
<
store problems
Checks and bills
TYPE OUTLINES
225
SPECIAL DAY PROJECTS
PICTURE-MAKING AND CONSTRUCTION— GRADES I to VI.
Columbus Day — Ships, animals, Indians, wigwams, bow, arrow.
Hallowe'en — Ghosts, pumpkins, apples, corn, jack-o'-lanterns,
witches, bats, cats.
Thanksgiving — Trees, turkeys, log huts, animals, cradles, corn,
wigwam, Indians, pilgrims.
Christmas — Trees, candles, stars, stocking, games, sleds, Santa
Claus.
Lincoln's Day — Log cabin, ax, wooden shovel, pig.
Valentine's Day — Valentines, envelopes.
Washington's Birthday — Cherries, hatchets, colts, hats (three cor-
ners), coach, sword, raft.
Longfellow's Day — Home and life, illustrations for "Children's
Hour", "Miles Standish", and other poems.
Arbor Day — Trees, spades, picks, sprinkler.
Circus Day — Animals, wagons, clowns, chariot, balloons.
May Day — Baskets, flowers, May-pole, queen.
St. Patrick's Day — Shamrocks, snakes, lizards.
Decoration Day — Flags, guns, caps, cannon.
Easter — Rabbits, chickens, eggs, baskets, flowers.
EXPRESSIONAL HANDWORK— CONTINUED
SANDTABLE AND CONSTRUCTION
Grade I.
Grade II.
Grade III.
Indian life
Field and Pasture
Dopp Series
Columbus Day
White Cloud
Cave Dwellers
Thanksgiving
Jose the Cuban
Tree Dwellers
Christmas
Boy
Robinson Crusoe
Lincoln Day
Garden of Verses
The Line of Golden
Washington Day
The Lighthouse
Light
JV
Eskimo home
The Swing
Mother Ocean's
C3
Three little pigs
The Story of Ab
Children
•3
An apple orchard
Eyes and No-eyes
The lumber camp
Playgrounds
St. Patrick's Day
A cattle ranch
m
Local activities
St. Valentine's Day
Home life in other
Little Red Hen
lands
Billy Goat Gruff
Japan
China
Holland
226 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
EXPRESSIONAL HANDWORK— CONTINUED
SANDTABLE AND CONSTRUCTION
Grade I.
Grade II.
Grade III.
V
01
3
Play houses
Homes of story
Own home as doll
ffl
Own home
book friends
house
— . *
Homes of story-
Own homes and
Homes of other
si
book friends
homes of other
children
•S
Three Bears
children
Japanese
JPU
Little Jack
White Cloud
Eskimo
1)
Horner
Red Riding Hood
Bedouin
fa
The Three Little
Swiss Children
c
a
Pigs
The Dutch Twins
9
What is in
Sources of materi-
Co-operative work
u
grocery store
als in stores
postoffice
dry goods store
Do they come from
tire department
( )
Arrangement of
Useful trees (lum-
measure
3
stores
ber)
time
rt
Care of food
Ornamental trees
Animals that fur-
"C
Sanitation of store
nish clothing
3
and factory
Animals that fur-
G
Protection of
nish food
M
workers against
fire and accident
Panama Canal and
locks
Mine and mine ma-
chinery
Plants that furnish
clothing
Plants that furnish
food
Manufacture of
clothing
228 TEACHING MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS
>
M
9
1
O
Bound books
Box (hinged lid)
paper
Calendar pad
(cloth, paper)
Corners for
blotting pad
(cloth)
Large portfolio
Lettering
Water wheels
Electric apparatus
Models of
machines
Athletic apparatus
jumping
standard
hurdles
Handkerchief box
Stationery case
Match case
Wood baskets
6
>
M
a
Booklets
type —
stiff cover
loose leaf
use —
drawings
maps
nature notes
themes
Portfolio
Calendar pads
(also cloth oi»
wood)
Waste basket
Box (cardboard)
Lettering
Block print, wall
paper, rugs, etc.
Mechanical toys
Sled
Wagon
Coping saw work,
three-ply animals
N fC
H ,— 1
Q «
N "3
<>
i s
w 'a
>
M
5
<
■
O
Booklets
type-
paper back N.B.
Japanese sewing
use — ■
maps
stories
heroes
Penny padholder
Clipping case
Telephone pad
Calendar pad
Picture mount
Filing case (with
two envelopes)
Lettering
Block print
Balancing figures
Toys
jumping jacks
tops
kites
Coping saw work,
one-ply animals
Poll furniture
« =s
o
S ^
Oh
S o
« "a
w
Q
<
M
a
Booklets
type —
separate leaves
Japanese sewing
use — >
drawings
stories
nature notes
Stiff paper box
Bookmarks
Portfolio
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OTHER BOOKS BY THE AUTHOR
IRA S. GRIFFITH
Correlated Courses in Woodwork and Mechanical Drawing
A teachers' manual giving reliable information concerning or-
ganization of courses, subject matter, lesson outlines, methods
of teaching, etc. The most complete and thorough treatment
of the subject of teaching woodworking ever published.
Woodwork For Beginners —
A simple treatment of elementary woodwork especially adapt-
ed for use as a text in the seventh and eighth grades.
Essentials of Woodworking —
The standard textbook on elementary woodworking for stu-
dents in the eighth and ninth grades.
Woodwork for Secondary Schools —
The most complete and comprehensive textbook on secondary
school woodworking ever published.
Carpentry —
A well illustrated textbook for students and apprentices of
carpentry. It deals with frame house construction in a clear
and fundamental way.
Projects for Beginning Woodwork and Mechanical Drawing —
Contains a collection of working drawings of 50 projects es-
pecially suited for classes in the seventh and eighth grades.
Furniture Making — Advanced Projects in Woodwork —
Contains an excellent collection of working drawings of pro-
jects — mainly furniture — suited for high school classes.
Roof Framing Tables —
A remarkably convenient device for use by the carpenter and
the apprentice "on the job" in framing the various members
of square and rectangular roofs.
Send for Catalog.
Correspondence Invited.
THE MANUAL ARTS PRESS
PEORIA, - ILLINOIS
THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE
STAMPED BELOW
AN INITIAL PINE OF 25 CENTS
WILL BE ASSESSED FOR FAILURE TO RETURN
THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY
WILL INCREASE TO 50 CENTS ON THE FOURTH
DAY AND TO $I.OO ON THE SEVENTH DAY
OVERDUE.
FF P lO 1,
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