just described and a large amount of hand-work that springs from another motive. In working out the culture-epoch theory as it is commonly applied, the children are now allowed to do a large amount of hand-work representing different aspects of the primitive industry and activity. This is of a distinctly lower type, since it is always in accord with a pattern of some sort that has been derived from pictures, descriptions, or other historical sources. When a child builds the model of an igloo used by an Eskimo or the model of a wigwam; or when he builds a rude brick oven in which he bakes potatoes; or when he reproduces a vase in clay, or some form of wood or wicker ware once used by primitive peoples, he is employing a direct form of expression that is invaluable in enabling him to imagine the lives of earlier peoples, and he is getting directly some notions of the conditions that surrounded them. These lessons and such construction are purely illustrative, and they are valuable because they do something toward enhancing indirectly the pupil's appreciation of his own life and its conditions. But they are to be classed with the so-called experimental work in science which is done for the purpose of illustration or to verify the work of others. It is a mistake to claim that such work has much of original value. To be sure, it must not be lightly treated. But it is absurd to suppose that the pupil is discovering anything in particular when he is doing it. When the children build wigwams, "long houses," and similar structures, they are not working out original primitive instincts; they are merely trying to illustrate in a rather faint way, and in play, that which they have been told in a story. Such exercises involve the constructive idea, and to the limits which we encourage play in children they should be encouraged. But they never should, and they never can, be ranked with the constructive work already described, which leads to a product that is valuable, because it is useful and beautiful. The fact is that the primitive instincts of childhood work themselves out independent of the materials employed. The actual need is that they be given freer opportunity to treat thru play, and work in their own primitive and original way the material that is normal to their surroundings. They will thus be enabled to go farther and do better, because what they plan and do will be aided by what they can see. They will not be wholly dependent upon what they have read or have been told. Thus the primitive instincts will work themselves out more fully thru a playhouse made of an old store box which can be fitted up along the lines of a modern dwelling, than they will thru a wigwam which they try to construct after a description or picture. The vital thing to be looked after is the primitive instinct itself, not the material which some primitive people have used or the plans of living they may have followed.

To sum up, it would seem that the constructive idea tends to work itself out with children in two ways: (1) it includes such work as bears at once upon the present social and economic conditions, and it deals with materials derived from the child's own surroundings; and (2) it appears, in play mainly, in an attempt to illustrate stories that they read or that they have been told. It is

not the intention to set one of these over against the other; each has its place, which should be duly recognized by the teacher and properly provided for. There is a tendency now, however, to carry the work under the last head too far along in the grades. It is childish, embryonic, and quickly over with. In the latter division one must put much of the work that is so popular with unthinking teachers. Under this head will fall much, if not all, the work in raffia, bent iron, basketry, mat-weaving, bead-work, and all such forms that do not, and for the most part cannot, result in products whose value the pupils themselves can appreciate. It is almost pathetic to see how teachers wax enthusiastic and eloquent over these transient and trivial aspects of the constructive idea, but remain cold and indifferent to those aspects which when properly worked out mean so much in every way in human life.

These are matters, however, which time and thought will at last properly adjust. The tide has turned, and the current is setting in the right direction. Time was when scholarship and culture were estimated in accordance with one's knowledge of books; the time is rapidly approaching when they will be measured also by what one can do with his hands to uplift the life of man. A good book is worth its influence; its writer is to be estimated in accordance with what he contributes thru its pages toward the quiet and sanity of living. There is no real reason why the man who makes a chair or a table or a bit of ornament in clay or plaster which adds to the peace and comfort of life should not rank in terms of power, of scholarship, and of culture with the one who writes the book that does the same. The value of the output, of the product, in terms of human life, is the test of both, and who shall say that one is the lower and the other the higher? True culture, in algebraic phrase, is the product of righteous thought and action; it is the legitimate offspring of the brain and the hand. Under this conception of culture, the goal of all educational effort, the constructive idea as a means of education has its place assured.

MANUAL TRAINING IN SWEDEN

CARL LIDMAN, OF THE SWEDISH COMMISSION, EDUCATION DEPARTMENT, LOUISIANA PURCHASE EXPOSITION, ST. LOUIS, MO.

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen:

It is well known that Sweden takes an important part in the movement which, directed against exclusive brain-work at school, strives to make systematically arranged manual work an important element of rational education. A Swedish educational sloyd system has been devised and worked out, and afterward adopted in many other countries, both in and out of Europe.

By "Swedish educational sloyd" is meant the system of instruction and the method worked out at the Nääs Slöjdlärareseminarium (Nääs Manual Training College), where most of the Swedish male and female teachers

who impart instruction in sloyd have received their training. In an address delivered at this congress last Monday [see papers of the National Council], the Swedish commissioner, Dr. Lagerstedt, called attention to the Nääs Manual Training College, its foundation, and its work. I will, therefore, exclude this and give a short account of the principles that are characteristic of the Swedish sloyd system, the originator of which is Mr. Otto Salomon, well known also in the United States.

The Nääs system was first mentioned in connection with its significance as a system for training in work, the aim of which was chiefly pedagogical and not economical. The two important fundamental rules of the system stand, of course, in close connection with this: the rule that the instruction shall be methodical, i. e., be given in a methodical way-this in contrast with the plan formerly employed of allowing exterior contingencies to deterimne what should be executed by the pupil; and the rule that the instruction should be given by a pedagogically trained person, and not by the first artisan who offered himself. According to the Nääs system, instruction in sloyd shall constitute a factor in general education, and not be a direct training for any special handicraft. Its purpose is: to awaken an interest in, and a respect for, manual labor; to accustom the pupil to habits of order, exactness, attention, and perseverance; to develop in him dexterity, promptitude, judgment, and skill; to train his eye to discern and his hand to execute; to develop a sense of form and taste; to strengthen his physical powers.

Other important fundamental principles are: that the instruction should be voluntary, not compulsory; that useful objects, and not articles of luxury, should be made; that the articles made should become the property of the children, and not be sold for the benefit of the school; that the work should be carefully executed, and not carelessly done; and that the work should be carried out with the body kept in a good position. It may perhaps seem that all these requirements are self-evident and scarcely worth mentioning. But they and several others have first been adopted as parts of a connected whole, in the Nääs system, and each of them has had to strive hard in order to gain any great degree of general recognition.

Concerning the Nääs method, its chief characteristic is that, in contrast with many other methods in the sphere of instruction in manual labor, it does not build upon practicing abstract exercises-sawing, planing, the use of the chisel, etc., etc.-but upon the making of concrete objects which can be used in daily life, and which hold good when viewed from an æsthetical standpoint. A series of models is used as a guide in construction; this series again being based upon a series of about seventy exercises. As a result of the series of models being based upon exercises, any one model can be exchanged for another which may be more suitable to the place where the instruction is given.

Thus, in the matter of instruction in sloyd, the Nääs system has endeavored to apply the didactic rules of proceeding from the easy to the more difficult, from the simple to the more complex, from the concrete to the more abstract.

As patterns the Nääs method employs either models only, or both models and drawings, or drawings exclusively. Among the models there are many which are termed "modeling models," which are of great importance for the development of the eye and the sense of form. Special weight is laid upon the use of the knife, which, according to the Nääs system, should be the fundamental tool. Sloyd instruction in accordance with the Nääs system is taught chiefly to boys from ten to fourteen years of age, and that is the reason why at Nääs the sloyd instruction has been limited to sloyd carpentry, as being the most suitable for boys of that age. But, as may be seen from the Swedish school exhibit, there are two other kinds of sloyd that have been introduced into several schools-for instance, the Stockholm common schools-namely, cardboard sloyd and metal sloyd; but these also have the same purpose, and are arranged in accordance with the same system as the one exhibited by the Nääs series of models.

The Swedish school exhibit contains also a series of models in manual work for girls, or, as we call it also in this case, sloyd; and this is the reason why I think it proper to make a few remarks in regard to this girls' sloyd.

Instruction in girls' sloyd is not compulsory in the schools of Sweden. A subvention from the state was first obtained for girls' sloyd in 1897, the boys' sloyd having enjoyed that advantage already some twenty years earlier. Girls' sloyd has, nevertheless, been kept going, and during the last two decades it has even succeeded in acquiring a place in the curriculum of many schools where this subject was previously wanting.

The cause of this is that we begin more and more to see the importance of manual work of different kinds as a means of education. In connection with this the necessity has arisen of having a system for the subject in question. Such a system existed already in Germany; viz., the so-called "Schallenfeldt method." In the beginning of the eighties this method was introduced into Sweden, but it was soon found to be less suitable to our conditions. The question then was to work out of this method a Swedish method of our own. An attempt in this direction is the "Stockholm method" (common-school method), planned by Miss Hulda Lundin, superintendent of girls' sloyd in Stockholm, which has been introduced extensively both into our training colleges and into the secondary schools for girls.

The aim of the instruction in girls' sloyd, according to the above-named method, is to exercise hand and eye; to quicken the power of thought; to strengthen love of order; to develop self-activity; to inspire respect for carefully and intelligently executed work; and at the same time to prepare girls for the execution of their domestic duties.

The solution of this problem is in no wise easy, but the experience of years has taught us that it can be obtained by applying the following principles:

1. The instruction should be given as much as possible by practical demonstration of the subject. In sewing it is accomplished by a sewing-frame, and in knitting by means of large wooden needles, and balls of thick, colored yarn. At the same time blackboard drawings are constantly being used.

2. The exercises should be planned and carried out in the most strictly progressive order, so as to enable the pupils to execute well the work required of them.

3. When the pupils enter upon a new phase of work the instruction should be given to the whole class collectively; otherwise the time which the teacher could devote to each pupil separately would be insufficient for thoro instruction.

According to this method the instruction should comprise knitting, plain needlework, darning, mending, marking, tracing pattern designs, cutting out underclothing and other garments.

What has now been said with regard to girls' sloyd is intended to show that the teacher has not only to instruct, but to educate her pupils; and besides technical ability she should also possess pedagogical skill.

There is no longer any lack of efficient teachers. Instruction in sloyd, as above mentioned, has already been introduced into our training colleges for female teachers. Besides this, of late years a number of courses have been given for training teachers in methodical instruction in sloyd. During 18821903 more than one thousand teachers have been trained in girls' sloyd by Hulda Lundin's course.

The instruction in needlework in the secondary schools for girls aims at giving the pupils technical skill in plain needlework, knitting, hemstitching, embroidery, patching, darning, marking, etc. The different kinds of stitches are introduced in series, increasing gradually in difficulty.

In some schools a course of plain dressmaking is also given. Besides, the pupils in most secondary schools have the opportunity of learning art embroidery, as during the autumn term they are allowed to do different kinds of fancy work, special consideration being given to the development of their sense of color and of beauty. Swedish patterns and national needlework are chiefly chosen for this purpose.

From what I have now said it may be seen that the Swedish sloyd system is based on certain general principles and not necessarily connected with any special series of models. Director Salomon says very truly:

Remember that you can work according to our system without using one of our models, and that it is possible to use our models and still not follow our system. We must not forget that the letter of the law killeth, but that the spirit giveth life.

REPORTS ON WORK AS SHOWN BY EXHIBITS

I. POSSIBILITIES OF ART IN CONNECTION WITH HAND-WORK, AS
SHOWN BY EXHIBITS FROM THE TEACHERS COLLEGE,
NEW YORK CITY

MISS MARY B. HYDE, INSTRUCTOR IN MANUAL TRAINING, TEACHERS COLLEGE, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, NEW YORK CITY

A few years ago the term "manual training" seemed a very narrow one, particularly to those more directly interested in other fields of work. Nevertheless, today the manual element in school work is recognized, by those who have given it careful consideration, as an essential factor in the all-around development of the individual.