in his monograph on the will, but he has devoted another monograph to the subject of attention itself, the work appearing by sections in the Revue Philosophique, of which M. Ribot is editor. The object of the monograph being “to establish and to justify the proposition that there are two very distinct forms of attention-one spontaneous or natural, the other voluntary or artificial.

"The voluntary or artificial attention," he says, "is a product of art, of education, of force of habit (entrainement), of discipline. It is grafted upon spontaneous or natural attention, in which it finds its conditions of existence, as the graft draws its nourishment from the trunk in which it has been inserted. In spontaneous attention the object [attended to] acts by its own intrinsic power; in voluntary attention the subject acts through extrinsic, that is to say, superadded powers [on the object]. In the latter case the end is no more a matter of chance or circumstances, it is willed, chosen, accepted, or at least submitted to, but it still remains for the subject to adjust itself to that end; in a word, to find the proper means of maintaining the attention. Thus this state of voluntary attention is ever accompanied by some feeling of effort."

Now we have heard of this feeling of effort before. In 1880 Prof. William James published an article on the subject which is standard. Within a year or two he has also written an article for a popular monthly under the title "What the will effects," in which he says

"In the volition of consent the idea which serves as motiye or temptation is sufficient of itself to engender action if no other idea stands in the way. But there remains a volition of effort, which seems a widely different thing. Often the idea which serves as our motive or reason for action seems too weak to produce action unless aided by another force. Of this force we seem conscious in the effort of will which we have to make whenever we do a difficult thing. This seems the act of the will par excellence." And a few pages further on he says, when speaking of what happens when we exert our will, "We simply fill our mind with an idea, which but for our effort would slip away."

But will our heredity let us do this? Heredity, that Banquo-like ghost, that ever intrudes its repulsive presence at our educational banquets of infinite possibilities for the intellectual development of our own generation-our efforts to hurry up evolution by ignoring it. But neither teacher nor preacher cares for heredity, as may be conclusively shown by the celebrated Drei Preussischen Regulative of 1854, "by which," says Lindner, of the University of Prague, "the politico-religious party of Prussia, reacting on the agitation of 1848 and not content with restoring the outward conditions of things, desired to possess themselves of the public intellect, and consequently invaded the sphere of the Church and School." In the place of the theoretical," says he briefly, "the regulations would have the practical; instead of the abstract, the concrete; instead of the individual, the historical; instead of religious toleration, a creed; instead of empty principles for intellectual development, the facts given in State, Church, and Family." As the twig is bent so is the tree inclined, said in substance the gentlemen who drew these regulations, which after all is only a way of putting Newton's first law of motion to use in sociology.

If, then, the mind be set in motion in the right direction its vis inertia will keep it moving in that direction, and if the direction is in the way of learning to do by doing, it will not desire to lapse into idleness after the idea has been thoroughly inculcated in the school. If the child has learned to apply himself to his school tasks he will be, it may be supposed, better able to overcome the feeling of effort necessary to apply himself to making a place for himself in the world. In all probability this is what the writer of a very recent and complimented book on education and heredity calls "suggestion."

"The well-known effects of nervous suggestion" says this psychologist, "operate upon the feelings, the intelligence, and the will. It is possible to suggest sensations, ideas, and volitions; in fact, as Shakespere says, to enable one without discomfort to

Wallow naked in December snow,

By thinking on fantastic summer's heat.

"The state of the child immediately after its birth," our author continues, "is more or less comparable to that of a person hypnotized. There is the same absence of ideas, the same domination of a single passive idea. More than this, all children are hypnotizable and easily hypnotizable. In short, they are particularly open to suggestion and to auto-suggestion. All that the child comes to know is then a suggestion, and this suggestion gives place to habit, which is capable of enduring throughout life, as we see the lasting effects produced by nurses frightening their charges.' Monsieur Guyau would fight hereditary habit (instinct) by suggestion. Perhaps even the pure manual trainingist would fight the repulsion exhibited by youth

* Education et hérédité, étude sociologique par M. Guyau. Bibliothèque de Philosophie Contemporaine. Paris, 1889.

toward systematic exertion (whether hereditary or acquired under the baleful influences of the course of study in the public schools) by teaching them in their very school tasks to exert themselves physically according to a method.

Barring the usual extravagance, engendered in all probability by carrying on the propaganda of manual training-booming it, as we Americans say,-the conscientious critic of the new theory for "training the executive faculty" must admit that great stress has been laid by the advocates of manual training on their student's having a definite and-even to the childish mind-a comprehensible end in view when performing his manual tasks; and that tangible materials are given him to attain that end in performing the task. Now, if there is any virtue in the pedagogie maxim from the simple to the complex, and that maxim is convertible into the realization of an idea of a complex whole by the assemblage of simple and tangible parts (a child with his building blocks, for instance), the theory of manual training would have one pedagogic leg to stand upon, at least. If this idea of a whole,-that is to say, the idea to be realized,-is one which requires not too great a call on childish imagination (we hear a great deal about "pussy," etc., in the first reader), and when completed its realization is sufficiently concrete to reward the child by enabling him to recognize the result of his industry, we think that in theory manual training would have another leg to stand on. If this course can be graded, as suggested by Superintendent Draper in the sequel, as school readers are graded, the growing intelligence of the child can be constantly accommodated and his hands occupied in working out his ideas, thereby gaining dexterity and becoming obedient to his will.

But what is his will to be made obedient to during this course in which (in theory) he is taught to impress himself on matter and in which he may find out by instruction, what many find out for themselves, that he can impress himself on matter and even on his weaker fellow-men (Aristotelized Oxford graduates for instance)? "We do not neglect the humanities," say the manual trainingists in response. "Our manual training (high) schools are good secondary schools," says Director Woodward of St. Louis.

Our using the foregoing quotations like so many chessmen may remind the learned reader of the story told of Zeno, the founder of the Stoic school of philosophy, who after having successively enrolled himself as a disciple of the different philosophers of Athens, but before formulating his own theory, presented himself as a pupil to Polemo, who responded, "I am no stranger to your Phoenician arts, Zeno." But our purpose must not be misunderstood. It is not that we may cull out a theory for manual training that we have spoken so frequently between quotation marks, but because we desire to represent pro tempore on what scientific principles a manual trainingist might possibly base his theory; and we shall be more than pleased if, in our suppositive argument we have not suggested to him Laocoon's remark about the Grecian horse at Troy: "Quicquid id est, timeo Danaos et dona ferentes."

CAPACITIES FOR USEFUL ACTION.

But does Lord Armstrong's taking term, "capacities for useful action."1 cover the same thing as the "executive faculty?" It would certainly seem so if the attention is confined to the expression wherein, speaking of his commercial republic of 13,000 men and boys, he says, “I can affirm with confidence that had I acted upon the principle of choosing men for their knowledge rather than their ability, I should have been surrounded by an incomparably less efficient staff than that which now governs the Elswick Works."

Yet he means something more than this, for "not only should the mind be trained to habits of thought, and in quickness and accuracy of perception, but the hand, the eye, and the ear should all participate in training exercises calculated to make these organs more available as instruments of mind." He thinks that if the thief-trainer can cause the hand of his pupil to acquire such dexterity as to enable it to empty your pockets without your knowing it, that honesty should have the benefit of the same acquir able deftness of execution. But Lord Armstrong has no more thought of advocating the teaching of a trade in the public schools when urging the training for capacities for useful action than he would have, under any possible combination of affairs, of advocating a kindergarten like that conducted by the amiable Mr. Fagin, the socalled "Jew" in Mr. Dickens's novel of Oliver Twist.

"If," he says, "if in cultivating the hand's mobility, precision, and delicacy of touch, the ability to use simple tools were acquired, it would be advantageous in any line of life that might nltimately be adopted; but to attempt to teach children special trades and processes of manufacture would, I conceive, be a mistake." Thus there appears to be something more palpably utilitarian in this training for capacities for useful action—the training of the hand and eye of the manual train

1 For all this see pages 833 to 837 of the report of the Bureau's for 1887-8, chapter 11.

ingists-than the training of “the executive faculty." It would seem that capacities for useful action stand in the same relation to the main object of manual training as the counting-house value of arithmetic stands to arithmetic as the science of numbers and all that that abstract science implies as an instrument of mental development. In both cases, unfortunately, there is a popular tendency to view the incidental as the main feature.

Such we venture to think is what is meant by the executive faculty which is to be trained and by the training for capacity for useful action or training of the agents of the mind to be the mind's very obedient and humble servants.

The complaint of Shakespeare's Richard that, after all his exertions, there was still another Richmond in the field, must be echoed by him who would keep the run of manual training arguments.

In May, 1887, the legislature of Pennsylvania provided for the appointment of a commission of five, who held their first meeting in December, 1887, and have within a few days published their very comprehensive report. Of this report the third and fourth pages call for the best attention we can give them. The discussion of the meaning of the term manual training on those pages opens thus:

"It is, perhaps, desirable to indicate the sense in which the term industrial education is here used. In recent discussions the terms 'technical education,' 'scientific education,' 'industrial education,' 'manual training,' etc., frequently occur, and it is doubtful whether a clear distinction as to the field they cover is always held in mind by those using them. It is, perhaps, impossible that such a distinction may be made in a way to meet the approval of all educators, but the view upon which the commission has proceeded, which has given direction and coloring to all its investigations, and which has embodied itself in the conclusions presented in this report, may be stated substantially as follows:

"Scientific education [the physical, including chemical, and the mathematical sciences and their application to industry?] may be regarded in one view as almost exclusively theoretical; in another, as almost exclusively practical; this being the familiar distinction between pure and applied science. But since no branch of science can be effectively taught, except as to its theory, without the aids of the laboratory and the actual manipulation of materials and apparatus, all scientific instruction comes to have, almost of necessity, a semitechnical cast [such, for instance, as the civil engineering or chemistry course in a college?] If carried one step further and conducted with reference to its general applications to industry [as in the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale?], it becomes a general technical instruction; if applied to specific industries [a European weaving or an American agricultural school?], it becomes a special technical or technological instruction."

Technical instruction, then is, say the commission, the teaching of science with specific reference to its industrial applications, and, as a term, is almost universally applied to the higher ranges of such instruction, while industrial instruction "may properly be considered applicable to the lower ranges. Then taking up the term manual training, they discuss it thus:

"Manual training, in the strict sense of the term, would mean simply the training of the hand, but as currently used with reference to education the words indicate such employment of the hand as will at the same time train the eye to accuracy and the mind to attention. The scientific element, or the teaching of science pure and simple, is not necessarily involved in the expression. As, however, pure science can scarcely be taught without locking somewhat towards its applications, so manual training can not be made an effective educational process, except by constant reference to the broad foundation in the mathematical, physical, and natural sciences upon which it rests."

The commission, therefore, deem that the term "industrial education" "involves both the idea of manual training with reference to its industrial applications, and the idea of educational or intellectual training, which, with reference to industries, must be largely on the scientific side;" and they understand the term and use it as meaning primarily education; education with reference to practical life, but still education; "the training of the hand, the eye, and the brain to work in unison; the training of

The amount of information contained in this report is unprecedented. No other volume has so exhausted the field of technical instruction. In our last report chap. XV, the propaganda, the curricnlum, and the statistics of manual training as we understand the term, were treated for the first time seriously. But the commission have not attempted to digest but have contented themselves with arranging (by States) the very complete information their diligence procured.

If the reader desires to put himself into possession of the facts and theories on the subject of manual and industrial training, he should secure not only the two works already spoken of, but also Consul Schoenhof's recent report on Technical Education in France," published by the State Department at Washington, and Circular No. 2, 1889, of this Bureau.

the whole child in such a way that his inward powers may act effectively through fit instruments upon his external surroundings, and receive from them accurate and informing impressions." The commission does not wish to appear as a critic, much less as an opponent of the public schools, "but the widespread introduction of scientific knowledge and scientific methods into all the industrial processes of the day, makes it necessary that the great mass of our children who leave the school at the age of fourteen or sixteen, if they are not to be launched unprepared into an unknown world, must acquire such training in the public school as will give them at least some elementary knowledge of the facts and the forces with which they will be brought face to face as soon as the doors of the schoolhouse shall close upon them;" for, says one of "our friendliest and most 'judicious critics: Too large a class of young people in America, of both sexes, are seeking pursuits not requiring manual labor.'"

All this is quite in a line with Mr. Herbert Spencer's plan of education, and it certainly is not "training" as opposed to "knowledge." And as Lord Armstrong, in his Cry for Useless Knowledge," says that workshops and factories where actual business is carried on are the proper schools for the learning of trades and industries, so it may be said that the place for learning the facts and forces of the world with which the child is brought face to face is in the school of the world, not in the public school, though it may be perfectly legitimate to use the public school to give the child the capacities for useful action which go by the name of industry, patience, and determination to meet the facts and forces of the unknown world when he is launched into it-if public or any other school life can. While Professor Woodward and others, therefore, claim that manual training can give these or other equally essential qualities, their arguments and facts will receive an intelligent and a sympathetic consideration that must command their respect, though our neutrality in the propaganda may not meet with their entire approval.

Speculating upon these matters we have examined carefully the information that is annually arriving, to see whether manual training in theory is drifting towards industrial or technological education, or is filling an imputed lacuna in the development of the child left by the usual literary course of the schools. The attempt is difficult under any circumstances, but the difficulties are intensified when an attempt is made to balance the record year by year. It requires historical retrospect to strike such a balance.

THE MANUAL-TRAINING COURSE SHOULD BE A GRADED COURSE, AND IT IS NECESSARY TO BEGIN AT THE LOWER END OF IT.

Under the head of "industrial instruction" the State superintendent of New York remarks that the experiences of all lands are being eagerly inquired after and put forward as aids to a satisfactory conclusion, and that naturally wide differences of opinion, even in the opinion of persons best qualified to judge, are being developed. Extravagant assertion and intemperate argument are frequently advanced to sustain criticism and suggestions which lack a more substantial foundation. Yet all this arouses a spirit of inquiry and creates a movement toward a higher plane and in more practical directions. There is a sentiment abroad that insists that the time of the schools, shall not be wasted in nonessentials, and that the school course from kindergarten to university shall be an interdependent and well-coördinated whole. "Besides this there is a most decided and determined movement in the direction of practical affairs and everyday employments. Kindergarten work, molding in clay, modeling in sand, studying the forms of objects and delineating those forms upon paper, the cultivation of the industrial and decorative arts, and the use of mechancal tools have come to be recognized as things which stand in a progressive relationship to each other, as work which cultivates boys and girls more broadly and completely, which assists rather than interferes with their purely literary and mathematical education, and which consequently has a legitimate place in the curriculum of the school."

It is believed, however, Mr. Draper continues, that this practical course will have a telling influence on the school work of the future more speedily if the fatility of commencing at the wrong end is recognized. With characteristic impetuosity there is too much tendency to jump at conclusions. "To put carpenters' tools even under the direction of a practical carpenter into the hands of a boy who has not had his observing and perceptive faculties sharpened, and whose hand has not been trained to dexterity by the earlier processes in the industrial course, is not very unlike trying to teach him history before he can read understandingly. The time will be wasted. It will not make him a carpenter, for time and facilities are not equal to it. It will not promote his intellectual education, for it will have no foundation to rest upon.?

NO DISTINCTION POSSIBLE IN NEW YORK CITY BETWEEN PEDAGOGIC BRANCHES AND MANUAL-TRAINING BRANCHES.

In our last Report, at page 859, it was only possible to give a meager account of the introduction of manual training into the public schools of the city of New York. The report of the city superintendent had not yet arrived, nor did it arrive until October, 1889. Using this report we find the following interesting information which would have added very materially to the remarks of our last Report and supplemented the New York course of study given on pages 853-856 of the same volume. "This highly interesting method of instruction," says the city superintendent, "has been pursued in twenty schools and departments during the last year [1888]. The total number of pupils in these schools and departments is about 10,000, and steadily, carefully, and encouragingly have these children worked in the course mapped out by the board of education. Owing to the shortness of the period during which the experiment has been tried, it would be unwise to express a definite opinion in regard to the future of manual training. From present appearances, however, it is certain that the children have a love for it and their parents have a keen appreciation of its advantages. All the branches of this course of study are thriving, and there is an important point-all the branches, separation of them being impossible. People who dream of pedagogic branches and manual-training branches in the same department as separate and unrelated things have not yet grasped the subject. The manual of this course of study has been so arranged that all the branches of education are interwoven in such a manner as to make a distinction impossible. Manual training does not mean merely the training of the hand; it means the training of our every faculty."

THE COMMUNITY NEEDS TO BE EDUCATED OUT OF THE ABSURD IDEA THAT THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS CAN BE MADE SHOPS FOR TEACHING TRADES.

The superintendent of Paterson, N. J., in his last report speaks of the false view of manual training taken by the public.

"The scope of the work proposed in manual training was such as to lead, I think, to an overestimate of the result possible when the conditions under which our schools labor are taken into consideration. Many people supposed that we were to forthwith begin the teaching of trades-carpentering, blacksmithing, brass-working, etc., for the boys, and for the girls dress-making, bread-making, and many other of the accomplishments desirable in the female sex. It should be understood that manual training in its intended application to our schools does not embrace the teaching of a trade, and moreover that a single year is not sufficient to show our elaborate application of the manual-training feature in public education. Difficulties are to be met and overcome in adjusting the ordinary work of the school to the new conditions imposed by the incorporation of manual instruction. The community needs to be educated to such an extent in the ethics of the 'new departure' as to create a bond of sympathy. Once let it be demonstrated that the boys and girls of our schools not only need not sacrifice the traditional studies of the schools, but that manual training gives a zest to them-is not only manual but also intellectual in its outcome-and we shall be enabled to take further steps in finding time and place for its pursuit. We have accomplished quite as much as ought to have been expected with the means at our command. It may be deemed unfortunate that the heralding of its introduction, to the limited extent that has been possible with us, should excite such exaggerated anticipations. We shall eventually adjust our conditions to meet all reasonable demands of manual instruction. Its incorporation in the work of the schools has enlisted the best thought of eminent educators, and time and experiment will render the verdict. We have merely made a beginning."

A DOUBT ON PECUNIARY grounds.

The question as to the good resulting from an education in manual training in addition to the present course of study is open to argument, says the president of the Hoboken Board of Education, where manual training has been tried 3 years. One of the principal objections against it seems to be that it will divert attention from a course of study which is developing the child's natural faculties. The enthusiasm of the pupils for the work he is inclined to attribute to its novelty. He adds, however, that the board of trustees of the industrial education of New Jersey report that the system of manual training is working harmoniously and effectively, and claim that it will soon be regarded as an indispensable adjunct of our public-school system. This, however, is a matter which, with its costs and relative good, is as yet an unknown quantity."

ED 89-27