HOW THE USE OF TOOLS IS TAUGHT.

Frequent requests have been made for detailed descriptions or drawings of the models actually used in the several shops. Such requests have generally been refused, for several good reasons. In the first place, the main object of one or more lessons is to gain control and mastery of the tool in hand, and not the production of a particular model. The use of the tool may be well taught by a large variety of exercises, just as a knowledge of bank discount may be gained from the use of several different examples. No special merit can be claimed for a particular example; neither can a particular model or series of models have any great value. No good teacher is likely to use precisely the same set twice.

Again, the method of doing a piece of work, and not the finished piece, may be the object of a lesson. To illustrate: Directions are given to a class in carpentry to saw a piece of wood, holding it upon the bench-dog. A pupil is found attempting to do the work holding it on a trestle. On being corrected, he insists that he can't do it so well in that way. The teacher replies, or should reply, "Then that is the way you should do it, until you can do it well." Now, the exercises by which certain methods of using tools are to be taught, often depend upon varying circumstances, such as the quality of the material, the age of pupils, and the pupils' knowledge of working drawings. Instead of giving particular descriptions of exercises, we prefer to state the general methods by which the use of the various tools is taught.

The tools are not given out all at once; they are issued as they are needed, and to all the members of the class alike.

In carpenter-work the tools used are the cross-cut, tenon, and rip saws, steel square, try square, bevel and gauge, hammer, mallet, knife, rule and dividers, oil-stones, and slips; and of edge-tools, the jack- and smoothing-planes, the chisels and gouges. Braces and bits, jointer-planes, compass-saws, hatchets, and other tools, are kept in the shop tool-closet, to be used as needed.

The saw and the plane, with the square and gauge, are the foundation tools, and to drill the pupils in their use numerous lessons are given, varied only enough to avoid monotony. The pupil being able to plane a piece fairly well and to keep to the line in sawing, the next step is to teach him to add the use of the chisel in producing simple joints of various kinds. The particular shapes are given with the intent to familiarize the pupil with the customary styles and methods of construction.

The different sizes of the same tool-chisels, for instance-require different care and methods of handling, and the means of overcoming irregularities and defects in material form another chapter in the instruction to be given.

With the introduction of each tool, the pupils are taught how to keep the same in order. They are taught that sharp tools are absolutely necessary to good work; to make them realize this is a most difficult task.

TURNING.

In a general way, much that has already been stated applies to wood-turning. Five or six tools only are used, and, from previous experience, the pupils know how to keep them in order. At first a large gouge only is issued, and the pupils are taught and drilled in its use in roughing out and producing right-line figures; then convex and concave surfaces; then in work comprising all these—all in wood

turning with the grain. A wide chisel follows, and its use in conjunction with the gouge is taught.

After this a smaller gouge, chisel, and parting tool, and a round-point are given, and a variety of shapes are executed. Next comes turning across the grain; then bored and hollow work; next, chucking, and the various ways of manipulating wood on face-plates, chucks, mandrels, etc. ; finally, turning of fancy woods, polishing, jointing, and pattern-work.

Of the course in iron-work, nothing must as yet be said, for the reason that we desire to speak only of work gone over, and that department is not yet fully developed.

THE ORIGIN AND PURPOSE OF THE SCHOOL.

The Manual Training School owes its existence to the conviction, on the part of its founders, that the interests of St. Louis demand for young men a system of education which shall fit them for the actual duties of life, in a more direct and positive manner than is done in the ordinary American school.

We see, in the future, an increasing demand for thoroughly trained men to take positions in manufacturing establishments as superintendents, as foremen, and as skilled workmen. The youth of to-day are to be the men of the next generation. It is important that we keep their probable life-work in view, in providing for their education. Excellent as are our established schools, both public and private, it must be admitted that they still leave something to be desired; they do not, and probably they can not, cover the whole ground.

It is believed that, to all students, without regard to plans for the future, the value of the training which can be got in shop-work, spending only from four to twelve hours

per week, is abundantly sufficient to justify the expense of materials, tools, and expert teachers.

It is very well understood that many students can not wisely undertake the full course of intellectual study now laid down for the regular classes of a college or polytechnic school. It occasionally happens that students who have special aptitudes in certain directions, find great difficulty in mastering subjects in other direction. In such cases it is often the best course to yield to natural tastes, and to assist the student in finding his proper sphere of work and study. A decided aptitude for handicraft is not unfrequently coupled with a strong aversion to and unfitness for abstract and theoretical investigations.

There can be no doubt that, in such cases, more time should be spent in the shop and less in the lecture and recitation room.

One great object of the school is to foster a higher appreciation of the value and dignity of intelligent labor, and the worth and respectability of laboring-men. A boy who sees nothing in manual labor but mere brute force, despises both the labor and the laborer. With the acquisition of skill in himself comes the ability and the willingness to recognize skill in his fellows. When once he appreciates skill in handicraft, he regards the workman with sympathy and respect.

In a manual training-school, tool-work never descends into drudgery. The tasks are not long, nor are they unnecessarily repeated. In this school, whatever may be the social standing or importance of the fathers, the sons go together to the same work, and are tested physically, as well as intellectually, by the same standards. The result in the past has been, and in the future it will continue to be, a truer estimate of laboring and manufacturing people, and a sounder judgment on all social problems.

APPENDIX SECOND TO CHAPTER V.

"THE Imperial Technical School of Moscow is a highclass special school, principally intended for the education of mechanical constructors, mechanical engineers, and technical engineers.

"The school consists of two divisions, general and special, each of which has a course of three years. The special division is divided into three branches-mechanical construction, mechanical engineering, and technological engineering.

“The three years' course of the general division embraces the following subjects: Religion, free-hand and linear drawing, descriptive geometry, general physics, zoology, botany, mineralogy, chemistry, geodesy, analytical geometry, higher algebra, differential and integral calculus, general mechanics, drawing of machine-parts, the French and German languages, i. e., all scientific subjects, the previous knowledge of which is required from the pupils of all the three following branches.

"In the special department, the three years' course of the three branches contains the following subjects: Organic and analytical chemistry, metallurgy, practical physics, mechanical and chemical technology, technics of wood and metals, analytical mechanics, construction of machines, practical mechanics, railway construction, engineering and constructive art, projecting and estimating of machines, works, and mills, industrial statistics, and book-keeping.

"A fourth division is designed exclusively for the education of foremen (contremaîtres), and is called the Practical Section. It is reserved for pupils who have received