Manual training is deserving of far more attention than it has received.
Schools should be established that, in addition to the highest mental
and moral culture, shall provide the best possible facilities for
physical development and industrial training. Instruction should be
given in agriculture, manufactures,—covering as many as possible of the
most useful trades,—also in household economy, healthful cookery,
sewing, hygienic dressmaking, the treatment of the sick, and kindred
lines. Gardens, workshops, and treatment-rooms should be provided, and
the work in every line should be under the direction of skilled
instructors.
[Sidenote: _Learning a Trade_]
The work should have a definite aim, and should be thorough. While every
person needs some knowledge of different handicrafts, it is
indispensable that he become proficient in at least one. Every youth, on
leaving school, should have acquired a knowledge of some trade or
occupation by which, if need be, he may earn a livelihood.
[Sidenote: _Financial Outlay_]
The objection most often urged against industrial training in the
schools is the large outlay involved. But the object to be gained is
worthy of its cost. No other work committed to us is so important as the
training of the youth, and every outlay demanded for its right
accomplishment is means well spent.
Even from the view-point of financial results, the outlay required for
manual training would prove the truest economy. Multitudes of our boys
would thus be kept from the street-corner and the groggery; the
expenditure for gardens, workshops, and baths would be more than met by
the saving on hospitals and reformatories. And the youth themselves,
trained to habits of industry, and skilled in lines of useful and
productive labor,—who can estimate their value to society and to the
nation?
[Sidenote: _Agriculture_]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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