Raleigh High School - Excelsior Yearbook (Raleigh, IN)

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action, thus the musician's mind is out in her very finger tips. She thinks out at the ends of her fingers. The mechanics mind is nearest to his work. With this in mind we can readily see that manual training is supplementary to the studies pursued in our schools. There is probably no line of work to which man- ual training ,and its kindred subject, mechanical drawing, does not add in that it prepares workmen, better prepared for the work they have to do. This may be illustrated by the following observation made by Mr. John L. Mathews: ' A stalwart young German-American butcher, not- ed for his skill of cutting meat and for the pride he had for the appearance of his meat, was putting up a roast. He vouchsafed the information that he was going to night-school at the University. What course? I inquired idly, watching him deftly trim, roll, and decorate two ribs of beef. Mechanical drawing, he replied. Do you like that better than butchering? You are making a mighty good job of that roast. Butchering is a gift with me, just like art, he astonish me by replying, and added, seriously: They are something alike-one helps the other. I've been working at this trade since I was a kid, but I can cut meat a lot better since I began to draw. If I lived in the old country, you know, I would have been trained to draw so I could be a better butcher. Every boy going into any trade gets that sort of training. Whereat I marveled greatly. I marveled even more as time went on and my butcher remained a butcher and did not become an advertising artist. He had the whole sense of the new ideal in educa- tion: to train for a trade as though it were a pro- fession, and to use in that trade all the correlated aid of art and science he could obtain. Drawing helped him to cut in the same fashion that it helps a sculptor to model, the principles perceived in the flat presentation showed him truth in the full mass which was his medium. We are not the first to take up this idea of in- dustrial eduaction. In this, as in many things, we are following the Germans. In Germany for those boys who cannot aford the advantages of the sec- ondary schools, there are provided industrial schools in which the various trades and crafts are taught. The effect is already seen, for in no other country in the world is there so wide a diffusion of knowl- edge and skill among workmen as is found among the common people of Germany. WM. 0. FOX, Supervisor M. T. Page forty one

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'E' l l Page forty Why Manual Training? HE American interpretation of the purpose of education is to prepare for living. The dominant thing in America is life, life in all of its meanings. We sometimes think of our country as possessing unlimited resources. In a measure this conception is right, yet there is certainly a limit to the resources of any country. The economist teaches that at the present time, a time of commercial and industrial progress. every resource must be utilized to the ex- treme. Every mine, every quarry, every field and orchard, and every manufacturing industry must de- velop the maximum of its output in quality and quantity. Competition is sharper than it has ever been before. The world buys in the best market. This necessitates the highest efficiency in workmen, who are to be instrumental in the development of the industries which are successfully competing in the worldls markets. Repeating the American interpretation of the pur- pose of education Ceducation is preparation for liv- ingj brings to us a problem that is fundamentally important, not only among factory owners and pro- moters of industries in general but to the educators of our country 's future workmen. The problem before 'us is,--What can be done for the per cent of our boys? We are trying to make our answer tangible, in fact, we hope and think we have a solution formulated that, when put into our schools, stands ready to lift the boy onto the plane of efficient workmanship. Educators have, since the beginning of the his- tory of education been devising and redevising, throwing away and thinking out new theories but never have they been able to get around the fact, work. Work is here, has always been and will con- tinue to be, so long as material things are the prin' cipal utilities of human life. Every man must eat, drink, have shelter and warmth. To get these things he will have to enter the fields of industry well equipped to do the work that awaits him. It is not the aim to thoroughly equip but to give a boy a right beginning so that he can quickly and profitably step into his place in the economic world. Manual training does not aim to make carpenters, or blacksmiths of all boys but it has as its aim two things: first, to hep the boy to find himself and his place in the industrial sphereg second, to give him an opportunity to work out into tangible form the con- cepts of mathematics and language. Manual training, as the name implies, is a train- ing of the hands to work with the mind. It simply rounds out and makes a more perfect mental develop- ment. We cannot always locate the mind in the brain but we may think of it as being in every part of our bodies which is capable of being trained for

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The Object of Domestic Science HE essential thing in the Domestic Science work is teaching the children helpfulness in the home, giving them a right appreciation for the business of home-making, teaching them the economic Value of the things brought into the home, their proper use and care, and giving them actual help in solving more economically and efficiently the Page flirty-i!VO particular problems which the home-makers in the community are called upon to solve. lt should he remembered that one lesson cannot make an expert seamstress or cook, and that many lessons are required to make an efficient home' maker.. GLADYS AUREIJ US, Supervisor.