Chapter 2 1901 - 1910 2:8. Education Programs that Support the Growth of Amateur Woodworking

[in progress 12-24-14]

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"The training of special teachers of manual arts is of comparatively recent origin...." Albert F. Siepert, 1918, page 5. See Sources

Overview:

Sorting out matters associated with vocational education -- which my research tells me is an important component in the growth of amateur woodworking -- is proving more difficult than I anticipated.

In the box above on the left, Siepert's observation about the low quality of preparation to teachers of woodworking for contending with conditions in the classroom echoes with shattering consequences. (As a stop-gap measure, I endeavor to set an account of the evolution of terms historically associated woodworking education in the Glossary entry on Industrial Arts, so that anyone interested in tracing the broad outlines has some guidelines to follow.) But the alleged "low quality of manual arts teachers" is only one condition that creates difficulties for progress in refining a nationwide education system for manual arts. Another is the low age at which boys quit school: at age 14 or 15 years.

The early 20th-century sees the emergence of the concept that American public schools shall prepare people for a role in the industrial society. (Between 1906 and 1917, manual training programs, i.e., the "movement", is known as either "the Industrial Education Movement or "the Vocational Education Movement".)

Click here for a brief background on teacher training for manual arts in the 19th century.

Progress Occurs in Two Directions

First, high schools are considered the logical level for this type education, but proponents soon realize that only about 10 percent of the children complete high school and most of those, coming from upper social strata, head for professional and managerial positions.

Second, vocational training is introduced into elementary schools as early as the fourth grade.

Out of this confusion grows the concept of the junior high school as a vocational training institution. The pivotal document is the April 1906 Report of the Massachusetts Commission on Industrial and Technical Education

(the actual document on the Web:-- Report of the Massachusetts Commission on Industrial and Technical Education, but the link above -- to an issue of the Manual Training Magazine -- leads to a good summary and selected passages; the box below has a very brief summation:

Under the present system of education a large proportion of the boys and girls who leave school at about the age of fourteen, drift into unskilled or low-grade work. The Report of the Massachusetts Commission on Industrial and Technical Education (April, 1906), states that 33 per cent of the children of this state who begin work between fourteen and sixteen are employed in unskilled industries, and 65 per cent in lowgrade industries; thus a little less than 2 per cent are in high-grade industries. This report concludes that the evidence shows thousands of children between the ages of fourteen and sixteen, out of school, out of work, or working at lowpaying, dead-end jobs, a problem to themselves and the community, "the most important question which faces the educational world today."

Source: Columbia University, Teachers College, Educational Reprints, No. 1, Report of the Massachusetts Commission on Industrial and Technical Education (New York, 1906), pp. 25, 30-31.

The Industrial/Vocational Education Movement

The Industrial Education movement emerges in the late 1870s, out of demand for

(1) manual training in the elementary grades
(2) trade training on the high school level.

In the 1880s and 1890s a few vocational or manual-training high schools are established (Woodward's in Boston and Runkle's in St Louis). Public high schools add vocational courses, and elementary schools -- notably Charles Leland/J Liberty Todd in Philadelphia-- intiated arts and crafts programs, under the rubric of manual training; (for more, see Lawrence A. Cremin, The Transformation of the School: Progressivism in American Education, 1876-1957 (New York, 1961), pp. 39-41, 50-56).These initiatives, however, have a limited life-span, not surviving much beyond the turn of the 20th century.

In 1906, with the publication of the Report of the Massachusetts Commission on Industrial and Technical Education, and the organization later that year of the National Society for the Promotion of Indus­trial Education, the push to implement of vocational education programs became active.

Now the matter was more pressing: The industrial education movement involves the child labor and compulsory education movements, the junior high school movement, vocational guid­ance, the neighborhood school concept and more, the very way Americans had traditionally conceive of the public schools.

According to the historian of American education, Sol Cohen,

"Few movements in the history of American education have taken so sudden and so powerful a hold on the minds of school reformers".

Educators, particularly some in the National Education Association and the Departments of Education in the state, the professors of education in the newly formed Teachers Colleges and Schools of Education, put their focus on industrial education. By 1908 the National Education AAssociation rang with oratory and resolutions on its behalf.

"We are besieged with public documents, monographs, magazine articles, reports of investigations too numerous to mention."

Source: H. C. Morrison, "Vocational Training and Industrial Education," Educational Review, 36 October, 1908, page 242.

Ironically, the industrial education movement and the child labor and compulsory education movements had become symbiotic. Why? Until the late nineteenth century, child labor is not only considered acceptable but even worthy of praise. Given the impact of the Industrial Revolution, however -- especially the behemoth machines -- lines of mass production make the concept of child labor in industrial society an entirely different matter.

Child labor, suddenly, is now not considered an uplifting system of apprenticeship education, but instead a system of cheap labor, easily discarded, promising to both

... depress the income of adults ...

...and rob the children of a period essential too their educational and psychological development...

The "Waste" Years: "Get the child out of the factory, and back into the school"

In the early 1900s, many education officials -- and other social critics -- concerned with the child labor problem argue about the schools' centrality in any program of child labor reform. Spurred by Muckraking Journalism -- the Progressives including progressives in the Education movement -- launch a crusade against child labor.

Truly an amazing phenomenon, the ramifications of the industrial education movement are wide. The industrial education movement involves

(1) the child labor and compulsory education movements,
(2) the junior high school movement,
(3) the vocational guidance movement,
(4) the neighborhood school concept, and more,
(5) the very way Americans traditionally conceive of the public schools.

One of the initial aims of child labor reformers is to establish fourteen years of age as the minimum age of school leaving. As Felix Adler puts it,

the movement for compulsory education everywhere goes hand in hand, and must go hand in hand, with the child labor movement.

"Compulsory Education, The Solution Of The Child Labor Problem"," a phrase Lewis W Parker coins in 1908, becomes a key plank in the child labor movement.

For the great majority of children who leave school to enter employments at the age of fourteen or fifteen, the first three or four years are practically waste years so far as the actual productive value of the child is concerned, and so far as increasing his industrial and productive efficiency. The employments upon which they enter demand so little intelligence and so little manual skill that they are not educative in any sense. For these children, many of whom now leave school from their own choice at the completion of the seventh grade, further school training of a practical character would be attractive and would be a possibility if it prepared for the industries. Hence any scheme of education which is to increase the child's productive efficiency, must consider the child of fourteen.

Source: Alvin E. Dodd, Better Grammar Grade Provision for the Vocational Needs of those Likely to Enter Industrial Pursuits"" Manual Training Magazine 11 1910, page 99.

Sources:Paul H. Douglas, American Apprenticeship and Industrial Education (New York, 1921), p. 76; John Spargo, The Bitter Cry of the Children New York, 1906; Robert Hunter, Poverty New York, 1904), pp. 223-60; Edwin Markham, Benjamin B. Lindsay, George Creel, Children in Bondage (New York, 1914); Jeremy P. Felt, Hostages of Fortune: Child Labor Reform in New York State New York, 1965; Robert H. Bremner, From the Depths: The Discovery of Poverty in the United States (New York, 1956), pp. 76-80, 212 and following; Felix Adler, "Child Labor In The United States And Its Great Attendant Evils," Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 25 May 1905; Owen R. Lovejoy, "The Function of Education In Abolishing Child Labor," Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, XXXII (July 1908), 80-91; Lewis W. Parker, "Compulsory Education, the Solution of the Child Labor Problem," Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 92-100; Sol Markoff, The Changing Years: The Na­tional Child Labor Committee, 1904-1954 New York, 1954; Sol Cohen, "The Industrial Education Movement", American Quarterly 20, No. 1 (Spring, 1968), pages pp. 95-110

Whither Amateur Woodworking?

Amateur woodworking is a leisure-time activity. To particpate, it helps to have

(1) time for leisure itself -- not a 60-hour-work-week;
(2) space -- an issue that virtually dictates home-ownership
(3) disposable income -- even the acquisition of hand woodworking tools involve budgetary decisions. alignment-adjust: -- .

Also important, (4) to engage in woodworking it helps to have some introduction to the activity. And remember that (5) urban electrification does not begin until the middle of the next decade.

Because categories 1, 2, and 3, are covered more logically together under home-ownership, I have created a page dedicated to home ownership over the entire 20th century.

Limits of High School Woodworking Programs

Number 4, however, is a different matter. Rhetorically, I think, it is natural to ask, "What is the logical place to be introduced to woodworking?" Personal experience suggests a number of factors enter this equation, but undeniably encountering woodworking in high school shop must be one the most important. In the first two decades of the 20th century, woodworking in high school is limited. Many students are school dropouts when they are 14 years old. Only about ten percent of the children complete high school and most of these, coming from upper social strata, are destined for professional and managerial positions. Presumably, the suburbanite, A L Hall is one of those:

Document 2: "My Workshop at Home" 1908, by A L Hall Suburban Life [Countryside Magazine] 7 November 1908

Other Inducements for Engaging Woodworking: The Arts and Crafts Movement

The fact that most students never enter high school -- or even finish elementary school -- makes the high school manual training program rather ineffective. This program does not reach the majority of the students who are entering society but, instead, concentrates on the high school students who are going on to college or to a supervisory position in industry.

In the 1890s, for example, J Liberty Todd, a teacher in the Philadelphia-based program -- click here to read more -- of special courses in the Arts and Crafts tradition to middle-class Philadelphian elementary-level pupils writes the following:

The fact that ninety-four per cent of the children leave school before fourteen years of age shows clearly that special schools for the higher grades will not touch the mass, and if we are to do any thing in education our duty plainly lies with these.

Source: J Liberty Todd, "Manual Training Methods in Philadelphia Public Schools", National Education Association, Journal of Proceedings and Addresses: Session of the Year 1894, page 1891; Edward Daniel Bzowski, An Analysis of Some Movements which May Have Influenced the Growth and Development of Manual Arts (PhD dissertation) Baltimore: University of Maryland, 1969

While the program launched by Charles Godfrey Leland and J Liberty Todd did not last into the 20th century, the Arts and Crafts tradition -- including projects actively taken up by amateur woodworkers -- permutated into organizations and even commercial projects eg, Gustav Stickley and others. Stickley's The Craftsman frequently featured articles designed for amateurs to build Arts and Crafts and/or Mission furniture -- see A L Hall's Morris Chair. In addition -- and this factors into the equation with some unknowns attached -- instructors in high school woodworking courses such as Ira Samuel Griffith writes woodworker's manuals that feature Arts and Crafts and/or Mission furniture. This tradition continues until the 1920s, when instructors in woodworking courses begin to opt instead for woodworker's manuals with Colonial Revival designs

A "Cure for Truancy"?

As director of art and manual training in the public schools of New York City, James P Haney writes four notable articles on "Applied Design." Manual Training Magazine VI, pages 129-137 and 210­-221; VII, pages 1-15 and 57-76.

Manual training is the best truant officer a school system can employ. All corrective institutions find that their most valuable agent to a boy's reform is some useful form of handicraft. There are countless agents which serve to draw the boy out of school. The manual arts are the best bonds to hold him in school. They are even better in prevention than in reform.

Work with tools is natural to every boy, for the constructive instinct is deep laid in his physical make-up. While he does such work he is happy. No form of school work gives more pleasure. He learns through it what Harvard University President Charles Eliot has so aptly called "the joy of achievement."

Source: James P. Haney, "A Cure for Truancy", in Boston University. School of Education, American Education 10, no. 7, 1907

The Effects of the Factory System

Destructive to the Guild System, the so-called Factory System injects industry with a subdivision of labor that requires little skill and consequently paid low wages. http://www.woodworkinghistory.com/chapter_1-4_hand_vs_power_tools.htm. This situation plus the refusal of trade unions to accept new apprentices makes it difficult for a boy to get a good job.

Decline of the Russian System

By the time the industrial education movement began in 1906, with the formation of the National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education, the Russian system of manual training is no longer a viable component in American schools. Click here to view the array of chapters on these topics for the 19th century.

A similar circumstance befell the Sloyd system

Introduction of the Illinois State Course of Study

The outline of study suggested in the Illinois State Course of Study, credit for which is due mainly to Professor Charles A. Bennett, the chairman of the committee on manual training in woodwork, has proven a source of very great help to the writer in his efforts to properly present the subject matter of woodwork to his pupils. The introduction to this course is well worth repeating and is in substance as follows:

Any course in woodworking worthy of a place in the eighth and ninth grades of public school work should meet the following requirements:

1.It should arouse and hold the interest of the pupils.

2. Correct methods of handling tools should be taught so that good technique may be acquired by the pupils.

3.Tool work should be accompanied by a study of materials and tools used in their relations to industry. Special attention should be given to the study of trees?their growth, classification, characteristics and use.

4.Drawing should be studied in its relation to the work done.

5.The principles of construction in wood should be taught thru observation, illustration and experience.

6.At least a few problems should be given which involve invention or design or both, thereby stimulating individual initiative on the part of the pupils.

Griffith was the "Man of the Hour" in showing a way out of the dilemma of how to reorganize industrial arts courses along the lines visualized by Bennett's Illinois State Course of Study

Griffith organized Correlated Courses to meet the conditions specified below. Griffith tested and refined this approach himself by following it in his own classes.

The Recommended Arrangement of Woodworking Courses

The course is arranged in groups, each group representing a type of work. These groups are given in the order of procedure. The teacher is expected to provide problems of the greatest value educationally. This means that the things to be made should be worth making and that the process of making them should be interesting to the student.

From this it follows that the things to be made must come to the pupil in an order which gives reasonable consideration to the difficulties to be encountered in making them.

This pedagogical approach follows a ?group plan?, because the advantages of the group system are distinct.

Importantly, -- to minimize the amount of demonstrating and to prevent needless repetitive talking that the instructor must do -- it emphasizes class instruction.

A number of projects having similar tool operations are grouped together. it permits a boy to satisfy his individual needs without interfering with the orderly presentation of the subject matter. It provides work for the fast worker of an interesting and profitable nature until the slow worker completes the minimum requirement.

It provides for the "repeater," who often has to repeat, not because of poor work in manual training but because of poor work in academic studies, by giving him choice of different models upon which to work. In general, the group plan possesses the manifest advantages of class instruction at the same time making allowance for the individuality of the worker.

A Troubling Situation Was the Uneven Quality of Standards for Industrial Education Teachers

Fred Strickler's 1927 Study Helped Sharpen the Focus on the Problem of "Standards" Among Industrial Education Teachers.

The problem boiled down to a conflict or tension between, on the one hand, skill in woodworking processes, and on the other, skill in teaching and classroom management. For more info, check out the charts that Stickler created, below:

The Effect of the Cultural [Arts and Crafts] Movement on Manual Training

The general acceptance of the arts and crafts shifted the emphasis of manual activities from that of hand tool exercises and directed projects to that of creative craft work with an emphasis on individual design and construction. This cultural or arts and crafts movement in juxtaposition with child-centered psychology helped to bring about the demise of the Russian system of manual training.

Source: Edward Daniel Bzowski, An Analysis of Some Movements which May Have Influenced the Growth and Development of Manual Arts diss U of Maryland, 1969

William L. Price, of the Rose Valley Shops, spoke on

THE ATTITUDE OF MANUAL TRAINING TO THE ARTS AND CRAFTS. Beginning with the origin of things Mr. Price pointed out that, from the necessity of working with his hands, man had gained two things: -— (1) joy in the sense of creation and (2) development through his work. We are apt to make the mistake of thinking that if we can get wealth enough we can go out into the markets and buy development. The truth is that development comes only through work. The manual training school is good as a preparation for after life, but it fits the burglar for his work as well as the professional man for his. We must look beyond the preparation and carry the school into life. That is a poor kind of industry where the operative stands all day at the machine doing monotonous work. "You cannot get character as the by-product of the shoddy mill." We teach people how to design beautifully and then get them jobs to do the very reverse. They dare not come back and show their designs. The demand is not for the best but for the purely commercial. There are to-day two thousand arts-and-crafts associations in the United States. They exist as a protest against prevailing industrial conditions. This movement and the manual-training movement should be mutually helpful. In the hands of manual-training teachers lies a power out of all proportion to their numbers. They should impress upon their pupils that to be worth while in the world they must be creators. If the arts-and-crafts movement and the manual-training movement go hand in hand they can revolutionize the world.

The Chart Below Captures in Brief Much of What Occurred in the Evolution of Meanings of Terms, Influential Voices, Etc.

At the turn of the century, two things were happening. The industrial arts movement, primarily a multi-purpose study of industry in general education, was growing and was influenced by the progressive educational temper of the times. ... ... At the same time and often by the same people, great emphasis was being given to the vocational aspects of industrial education. Source: Susan Meabon Bartow, Identification and Synthesis of the Range of Industrial Arts Philosophy and a Comparison of Philosophy With Actual Classroom Practices. Miami University Oxford, Ohio 1983.

Pivotal Events Mark Era of Transition in Industrial Education: The New Educational Psychology on Manual Training: Emergence of Progressive Education

1. The child-centered psychology received strong and united acceptance at the International Congress of Education held at the Columbian World Exposition in Chicago in 1893.

The " Proceedings of the International Congress of Education of the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, July 25-28,1893," held under the charge of the National Educational Association of the United States, contains more than 150 carefully prepared papers by the foremost educators of the world, and of necessity takes the lead among works of this class published during the year.

Worlds' Columbian Exposition. International Congress of Education. Proceedings of the International Congress of Education of The World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, July 25-28, 1893, under the charge of the National Educational Association of the United States, [N. Y., for sale by N. A. Calkins, 124 East 80th St.,] 1894. 12+ 1005 p. O. cl., $2.50.

There were fifteen department congresses in the Congress of Education, in which were discussed the higher education, secondary, elementary, school supervisions, professional training of teachers, rational psychology, educational publications, business education, kindergarten education, instruction in art, vocal music, technological instruction, industrial and manual instruction, physical education, etc., etc. More than one hundred and fifty carefully-prepared papers were read before these congresses by tin; foremost educators of the world. They are given in this volume almost unabridged ; only where abridgments were necessary to bring the material within the limits of a single volume have they been resorted to. Altogether a most valuable collection of articles for all persons Interested in education.

Manual Training Teachers Association formed at the expositon; an organization that was an outcome of the World's Educational Congress

Its purposes are to secure cooperation in study and experiment; to gather and to disseminate information regarding the principles, progress, and development of manual training, and to promote the professional interests of its members.

At a meeting of classroom teachers the plan and scope of the association was discussed, and a committee on constitution was appointed. The constitution prepared was adopted later by those present at the Chicago meeting. The officers of the association:

--

George. B. Kilbon, Springfield, Mass.,

M. T. S., president;

Geo. S. Waite, Toledo, O., M. T. S., vice president;

and Geo. Robbins, Frankfort, Ky.; Chas. A. Bennett; New York City. secretary and treasurer ?

constitute the executive committee, which is now at work making arrangements for a summer meeting. A copy of the constitution, with fuller particulars, will be sent to anyone interested, upon application to either of the officers

.

Here, for the first time, the nation's educational leaders were presented with a new concept in education - that of beginning with the developmental interests of the child. This child-centered psychology revoked the tenets of faculty psychology and literally eliminated the Russian system of hand tool exercises from the secondary public school program.

2. Dewey's Impact & the Effect of the Industrial Education Movement on Manual Training

2. The publication of John Dewey's The School and Society marked a new era in the history of the industrial education movement. The book describes the experimental curriculum that Dewey and colleagues develops at the Laboratory School of the University of Chicago.

Reflecting the influence of the activity movement of Heusinger and Froebel -- spelled out in the article, "Activity: Logial Theory and Educational Implication" in the 1911 Cyclopedia of Education. Their focus: the social meaning of education in an industrial society. Therefore, they designed the curriculum of the laboratory school around industrial occupations, not taught as distinct subjects (woods, metals, weaving, sewing, etc.) but instead as methods of living, of learning, about processes central to fulfilling a society's basic and secondary needs.

For Dewey, in the classroom and visits to actual settings, children enacted occupations as a "mode of activity on the part of the child which reproduces, or runs parallel to, some form of work carried on in social life" (page 105).

The activities selected for in­struction were those which possessed educational value and repre­sented the fundamental needs of humans (such as food, clothing, and shelter).

As these basic needs were already known to the children and of interest to them, they helped stimulate their educational efforts. The selected activities also provided ways of using the four natural instincts of the children as identified by Dewey in his "psychology of occupa­tions."

These instincts were

the constructive (which employed physi­cal coordination and developed into the use of tools and technical skills),
the investigative and experimental,
the social, and
the expressive.

Thus In Dewey's concept of education, occupations -- recall that the study of the industrial occupations is the focal point of Dewey's elementary school curriculum -- . provided both the content and the method of instruction.

Dewey's Impact on Charles Richards and Fredereick G Bonser

One of the first individuals in the manual training field to be in­fluenced by the work of John Dewey was Charles R. Richards, head of the Manual Training Department of Teachers College, Columbia University.

From 1900 to 1904, in both Richards' talks speeches and writings, Dewey's influence was evident.

Richards advocated Dewey's concept of industrial occupations rather than the traditonal manual training position.

Richards is remembered for his 1904 editorial -- see full text of his 1907 address here in Manual Training Magazine -- that the industrial education profession subsitute the term "industrial arts" for "manual education"

(Richards initially recommended the use of the term industrial arts six months earlier, in an article in Educational Review )

And even before Richard's recommendation, the term industrial arts (in the connota­tion of the Dewey interpretation) is used in 1901 in a speech before the National Education Association, by Clara Mitchell, a teacher in Dewey's Laboratory School.

These ideas were further implemented by their colleague at Teachers College, Frederick G. Bonser. Using Dewey's thinking as the basis for Bonser's psychology of in­dustrial arts, Bonser developed the elementary school curricula around Dewey's theory of occupa­tions in several institutions:

the State Normal School in Cheney, Washington and

Western Illinois State Nor­mal School at Macomb, Illinois

Speyer School (the experimental laboratory school of Teachers College

Bonser called this activity-oriented curriculum industrial arts since it was designed to provide the child with an intelligent understanding of the processes of industrialization as well as of the nature of an in­dustrial society.

to manipulate,

to investigate,

to engage in art activities,

to play,

to communicate,

to socialize.

Outlined in The Speyer School Curriculum, Bonser's recommendations implemented throughout the country.

(The report was later used as a basis for the book Industrial Arts for Elementary Schools by Bonser and Mossman (1923). The book con­tained Bonser's most popularized definition of industrial arts even though he had published many definitions of industrial arts prior to the book's publication.

The industrial arts are those occupations by which changes are made in the forms of materials to increase their values for human usage. As a sub­ject for educative purpose, industrial arts is a study of the changes made by man in the forms of materials to increase their values, and of the pro­blems of life related to their changes. (p. 5)

In later definitions of industrial arts, (1930-ish) Bonser placed more em­phasis on consumer knowledge as industrial arts' primary objective. The significance of the 1923 definition, however, was that it became the basis for many of the contemporary definitions of industrial arts educa­tion (Luetkemeyer & McPherson, 1975).

Directing Learning Activities

In the shift in pedagogical theory - shifting from the teaching-subject-matter point-of-view to the directing learning-activities - the "center of gravity" moved from subject matter to the learning process, that is, to embrace an activity theory of learning, or, put another way, away from an emphasis from teacher activity (method of teaching) to pupil activity (responses to stimuli).

While the shift was gradual, a major source in the shift is the 1915 book, Methods of Teaching in High Schools (New York: Ginn, and Company) by Samuel Chester Parker, is generally taken as the "event" marking the change.

Parker, for the first time, deals with methods of teaching according to directing "types of learning in high-school subjects"

(a) acquiring motor control,
(b) associating symbols and meanings,
(c) practice or drill (automatizing motor and mental associations),
(d) reflective thinking (problem-solving and acquiring abstract and general meanings),
(e) forming habits.

For background on "motor control", see article in volume 4 of paul monroe's Cyclopedia of Education, 1911, pages 321-323. More discussion on motor control as it applies to manual training -- including woodworking -- is on pages 124-129. These articles are by Charles Richardson, William H Burnham, and C H Judd.

As key to his thinking, Parker, acknowledged E L Thorndike's 1906 Principles of Teaching, but similar the writings of other exponents of the "directing-learning-activities" reflect simialr sentiments

Thorndike argues that "education" should be considered not as a moulding of perfectly plastic substances, nor as a filling of empty minds, nor as a creation of powers, but rather as the provision of opportunity for healthy bodily and mental life, of stimuli to call forth desirable activities in thought, feeling and movement, and of means for their wise direction, for the elimination of their failures and futilities, and for the selection of their useful forms.

Until Parker's writing, Thorndike's theory -- "doctrine of self-activity" -- received little recognition. With his proposals, even they took effect slowly, in effect, Parker shifted the focus of attention from the teacher to the learner.

In a chapter, "Interests, the basis of economy in learning," Parker stressed using a learner's active interests as the means to obtain economy (efficiency) in learning. To accomplish this setting, teachers must arrange situations that, ideally, incorporate learning exercises -- "teaching moments" -- which achieve the intended results.

Original Motives for Employing Instruction Sheets

Instruction Sheets definitely fall into this category of teaching theory.

Defining the Elusive Terms

Sorting out the evolution of industrial arts education out is proving difficult than I anticipated. It's not until the latter 1920s that IA programs begin to feed into the creation of conditions in schools that promote things like homeworkshops -- there is actually the emergence of a homeworkshop movement. Because an apprenticeship system did not work successfully as a means of training boys for the trades, other methods were explored, including a program called manual training.

Around 1900, Manual Arts programs merged the Russian System and the Sloyd system with the Arts and Crafts movement.

The Arts and Crafts movement was project-centered, although its supporters claimed that, in keeping with proressive eduation goals, the child was given the opportunity to create and to express himself through the manipulation of industrial materials.

Although the emphasis in the Arts and Crafts system was also on the development of skill, the skills it emphasized were hand skills and the project was the vehicle used to achieve objectives. Industrial Arts was/is -- a "student-centered program" -- or, as we noted above, the type of education that Parker is promoting, emerged out of a scrutiny of failures of earlier programs. Industrial Arts, initally, was devoted to the study of industry. While the project was still the vehicle used to obtain most of the objectives of industrial arts, the program's supporters stressed the individual differences of students and wanted the Arts and Crafts program to free individuals to express themselves independently. Check the graph above that shows the evolution of these programs

The following section is adapted from Samuel J Vaughn and Arthur B Mays, Content and Methods of the Industrial Arts New York: The Century Co., 1924, "The Relationship Between the Manual Arts and Vocational Education", page 16-19, and 57-58. Vaughn and Mays write from a :

Restricted meaning of vocational education:-- The term vocational education has here [i.e., by Vaughn and Mays -- ] been used in its narrow sense in which it must be conceived for training purposes, namely, specific preparation for profitable employment. Ultimately, however, vocational education must compass all those activities, conditions, aptitudes, and accomplishments wit which contribute in any way to one's vocational efficiency. A worker's home surroundings and conditions might, and frequently do, materially alter his efficiency quite apart from considerations of definite vocational knowledge and skill. Certain extraneous habits or peculiarities of temperament and conduct often totally unfit highly intelligent and skilled workmen for the work for which they were trained. Vocational education, therefore, properly conceived, does not restrict itself to a minor segment of life, but should and must become an integral and vital part of the worker's life, about which all other activities and accomplishments will gather. Purpose and terminology of non-vocational work:-- Changes in terminology have not always by any means indicated changes in the content or character of the work which the terms were supposed to designate. In some cases, new terms have simply been attempts to improve upon the preceding ones in describing a little more accurately the work under consideration. In the whole realm of work that has come into the schools in the last forty years under the various names of manual training, industrial arts, vocational education, etc., there may be said to be not more than three fundamental underlying ideas. These have eventually found expression in the types of work offered for the following three purposes: 1. Such shop work as will supply through motor activities and concrete experiences a much needed element in general education, without regard to the future occupation of the students. 2. Work that will provide instruction and typical experiences in a variety of occupations, for purposes of guidance toward future work. It may very seriously questioned whether this work need be essentially different from 1, except perhaps in point of organization. 3. Definite vocational preparation. Manual training, manual arts, practical arts, and industrial arts are terms which have all been mentioned above. Manual training was the original term under which the work was introduced in this country. It was an all-inclusive term used to designate any sort of hand training. All kinds of machinery were strictly taboo in the early days. Since this new education involved physical effort not demanded by any other sort of school work, it naturally became known by this characristic and hence took its name from the form rather than from the content of the work. And, as a matter of fact, this name described rather accurately the early purpose and efforts in this new field. By right of priority, and of acquired significance, it is still in good standing as indicating the shop work in elementary and high schools designed for general educational purposes. Source: Samuel J Vaughn and Arthur B Mays, Content and Methods of the Industrial Arts New York: The Century Co., 1924, pages 57-58

Writing the industrial arts in the middle of the 1920s, Vaughn and Mays argue

"That one part of every individual's education should be vocational and at least semi-technical is self-evident when it is realized that the great majority of the American public is occupied in life's work in some form of manual labor."

If the manual arts shop will provide a form of industrial work which is based upon the principles of educational handwork, and if, in addition to this, the bookwork and laboratory work of the school will take a practical turn, there will be fewer boys in the sixth, seventh and eighth grades who leave school. At this stage in a child's life there is little he can do out of school which will train him for increased efficiency.

The average boy who leaves school at the age of 14 and 16 years will find only such employment as that which may bind him forever to an unproductive service.

On the other hand, his retention in school for three or four years will mean a preparation for lifework, especially so if during this period he is learning things which, when he leaves school, will give him the ability to take up work offering opportunities for growth. School work which will do this for a boy has an industrial value.

Manual training should play no small part in making evident to boys the fact that the school is the best place to acquire a knowledge and skill for the future activities.

It must promote efficiency both in intellectual and industrial attainments and it will do so if the best in manual training is retained and the best in industrial education is appropriated.

Industrial education, so called, and manual arts work must be essentially the same.

To take manual training, Vaughn and Mays argue,

"means the acquisition of a fund of knowledge capable of making its possessor an efficient future worker in the industrial world."

If schooling only provides discipline and culture, the student is insufficiently prepared.

From the outset, say Vaughn and Mays, children must understand -- be taught to consider -- "the importance of their future usefulness in the community in which they are to live."

By training for the vocational and industrial activities of life, a manual arts education becomes part in the process. To uphold the dignity of labor, to make labor with the hands as honorable as any other, becomes an leavening influence. To achieve its designated role, it must help the large number of boys who now leave at an early age to enter life with limitations which make a vocation an ever-present necessity and an avocation next to an impossibility.

In the idiom of Vaughn and Mays' era, to be socially relevant,

"One of the products of the teaching of manual arts and the result of its influence in the public schools should be intelligent industrial workers."

The Necessity for Standards of Good Construction and Appropriate Design

It should go without saying that,in teaching manual arts, two values should stressed:

(1) good construction and (2) good design.

In fact, Fred D Crawshaw and Robert W Selvidge argue, if these are not fundamental outcomes, the manual arts does not deserve the educational values claimed for it.

Too often, sadly, in the teaching of manual arts education, Crawshaw and Selvidge continue, both of these outcomes are neglected. On the left is the "table of contents of the Crawshaw and Selvdge textbook, and below, is a portion of their chapter III: "The Necessity for Good Construction and Appropriate Design". Notce in the box below that I have highlighted a passage where Crawshaw and Selvidge are critical of the level of teaching proficiency achieved by current instructors in manual arts courses. This is a continuing lament. (I will have more to say on this. 3-23-09)

The Necessity for Good Construction and Appropriate Design adaptation of Chapter 3, Fred D Crawshaw and Robert W Selvidge, The Teaching of Manual Arts Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1912, pages 22-24. Early teaching of manual arts in this country laid considerable stress upon technique and skill. The form of work adopted at first was of the Russian type, which called for precise tool manipulation and emphasized the development of skill as one of the most important factors in the use of tools. The first instructors of manual arts, too, were either trained mechanics or engineering school graduates. From the background of training, these men considered it necessary for them, ethically and professionally, to lay stress upon accurate workmanship. Recently, moreover, men not trained as mechanics or engineers have filled manual arts positions. As manual arts in the United States have found their place in the lower grades, and as instructors in recent years have come from institutions which have given less emphasis to the value of skill and more to the educational values of the subject, it has been found that poorer construction has been accepted. Source: adaptation of Chapter 3, Fred D Crawshaw and Robert W Selvidge, The Teaching of Manual Arts Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1912, pages 22-24.

Even after they declare any wish not to enter into a debate of values, nor to compare the value of one element with that of another, Vaughn and Mays still argue that any construction of projects by students below the highest standard that, according to the abilities of their age and developmental level, these students can achieve should not be tolerated.

This is not saying that students in all grades should reach the same standard of excellence in construction. Neither is it saying that any, necessarily, should be expected to attain a skill comparable with that of a mechanic. It implies this, however, that emphasis in teaching should be laid upon the best possible construction.

In these upper four grades, too, the differentiation in the use of materials should begin probably about the fifth or sixth grade. In the sixth grade we believe boys are capable of beginning the use of woodworking tools ....

Crawshaw and Selvidge caution the new teacher

"that the work is tending toward definite and fixed useful hand processes; and the old motto, 'A thing worth doing at all is worth doing well'."

In the upper two grades of the grammar school [what grades?] ... bench woodwork and art metal work, together with freehand and mechanical drawing for the boys, seem nearly to complete the field of possibilities for the teacher of manual arts.... pages 29-30

Boys usually are taught drawing and woodwork only.

But in these grades, woodwork is not essentially vocational in character.

Instead, much of the woodwork consists of small exercises and projects which -- because of their size -- are difficult for students at that stage of development to make.

From an educational point of view, alternatively, the first bench woodwork might better be the making of medium sized box constructions which would involve duplicate measurements, considerable laying out, squaring with pencil and square and sawing on the line rather than to the line.

Such projects as the following are suggested: small boxes and bins, feeding troughs, egg testers, forms for concrete work, etc.

If such work is done in the sixth or seventh grade then the smaller projects necessitating more accurate construction might be undertaken the next succeeding year to be followed in a third year probably the eighth grade by small pieces of furniture.

The high school organization provides for four years of handwork.

The subjects in the following order are usually given:

Bench work in wood,
wood turning,
furniture and cabinet making,
pattern making,
moulding,
forging, and
machine shop practice.

To this list might be added any subject which represents a community industry or trade.

The first two years of high school are the ones uniformly used for manual arts.

Bench woodwork is the subject usually taught in the first of these two years.

If the suggestion offered for the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades are followed then the first year high school woodwork may well do two things.

First, set adult standards in technique and shop methods, particularly in the use of machines in getting out stock for large pieces of furniture and cabinets, some of which should be made as community pieces by groups of boys working under the leadership of a student foreman.

Second, continue the framing begun in the eighth grade. It is believed that carpentry and architectural drafting must be given a larger place in the high school.

The framing of the eighth grade would naturally be followed by the problem of framing and finishing the outside of a small barn, lake cottage or some similar structure. Second year high school boys would then be able to finish such a building on the inside.

It seemed to come as a distinct shock that although the public school was the school of the people and a free instrument of education, and although the parents seemed ambitious for their children's welfare, yet the children in great numbers, especially the boys, were leaving the school.

Above the fourth grade, the numbers of children who are being eliminated from the school have reached alarming proportions.

Despite the popularity of the high school and its rapidly increasing attendance, it yet remains true that only a comparatively small percentage of the school population ever reach it.

Furthermore, only a fraction of those who finally reach the high school remain through the course.

students became convinced that the work in school was unrelated to the work outside the school and that the school coarses in no way prepared them for definite, wage-earning occupations, but that their main purpose was to fit them for college to which they never expected to go.

Highlighted in the box below is a "truth" that created problems with the "success" of Manual Arts as an Educational program:

The great demand for teachers of the subject has resulted in the employment of many who have had little or no instruction in teaching methods.

The introduction of departments of Manual Arts in a few American universities and the rapid increase in the number of teachers of manual arts subjects in the public schools make a hand book on this field seem advisable. This bulletin is presented to meet the needs of those who desire information concerning the introduction and maintenance of manual arts work. In addition to information of this character there is given some of a more general nature, that this bulletin may serve the purpose of a handy reference book. The courses of study contained herein are not alone the individual drafts of the authors, but are the result of revisions and combinations of courses of study made and adopted by different associations which have given special attention to such courses during the past few years. The courses presented are suggestive only and should be regarded as such. They should express close coordination in the handling of all manual arts materials. The illustrations are introduced as a supplementary text. They suggest the type of work considered in the courses of study outlined and represent good examples of present day design and construction. The methods suggested for teaching the subjects for which outlines are presented are intended to aid materially in standardizing the manual arts work. The great demand for teachers of the subject has resulted in the employment of many who have had little or no instruction in teaching methods. For these and others it is hoped that the suggestions referred to will be of material value both as direct aids in teaching and as hints for supplementary study. clip pages need to read again for material :-- below from page 101 NEEDS FOB FUTURE STRENGTH AND PERMANENCE One of the most pressing needs is for better trained teachers in the work. There is a strong movement in the leading institutions of collegiate grade, giving courses for teachers of this subject, to raise the standard of requirements for graduation. School boards and superintendents should aid in this movement by requiring more thorough training. It should be understood that a few weeks of work in a summer school does not qualify a teacher to teach manual arts. The ability to teach the subject means something more than the ability to do, even fairly well, certain forms of handwork. Time and money should not be wasted on teachers who have not had adequate training. Another important need is a clear understanding of the purpose of handwork. Handwork may be taught as a subject or it may be used as a method of teaching other subjects. These different aims require work of a different character and a different method of treatment. It is necessary, therefor, for the teacher to have a well defined conscious purpose. recommend these sources: William Noyes, Handwork in Wood, by Peoria, IL: Manual Arts Press, This is the most complete book on woodworking ever written for teachers of manual training. It is a scholarly work and stands at the head of the lists of books on this subject. Woodworking, a series of four steps: 1. Correlated Courses in Woodwork and Mechanical Drawing. 2. Projects for Beginning Woodwork and Mechanical Drawing. 3. Advanced Projects in Woodwork. 4. Essentials of Woodworking. No. 1 is a manual training teacher's every day helper. No. 2 is a book of projects for 7th and 8th grades. No. No. 3 is a book of projects for high school students. No. No. 4 is a student's text book for the grades and high school. The series is written by Ira S. Griffith and published by The Manual Arts Press, Peoria, IL Elementary Woodworking, by Edwin W. Foster. Ginn & Co., Chicago, 111. This book is divided into two parts, (a) Tools and their Uses, (b) Woods. It is an excellent little books for seventh and eighth grade work. Beginning Woodwork, by Clinton S. Van Deusen. Manual Arts Press, Peoria, 111. The book gives1 a clear description of the fundamental processes in making a number of useful articles. It is well illustrated and can be used to advanage by beginners who do not have the services of an instructor. Bench Work in Wood, by W. F. M. Goss. Ginn & Co., Chicago, 111. A good treatment of tools and the elements of wood construction. It also contains some valuable information on timber and its preparation. This has been a standard book on woodwork for many years. Problems in Woodworking, by M. W. Murray. Manual Arts Press, Peoria, 111. This is a collection of problems for the upper grammar grades or the first year of high school. It contains some excellent suggestions. Problems in Furniture Making, by Fred D. Crawshaw. Manual Arts Press, Peoria, 111. This book presents a series of problems in furniture construction which can be worked out in the high school. The working drawings are very complete. The book also contains a discussion on design, construction and wood-finishes. Sloyd in the Three Upper Grammar Grades, (Teacher's Edition) by Gustaf Larsson. George H. Ellis Co., Boston, Mass. This book contains a brief discussion of Sloyd and presents a number of working drawings. Wood Craft, The Gardner Printing Co., Cleveland, Ohio, page 109 crawshaw and selvidge. appendix of crawshaw and selvidge:APPENDIX A: A BRIEF REVIEW OF THE MANUAL ARTS MOVEMENT The development of the teaching of the arts in America is so intimately related to the development of shop work in the. technical schools that it is impossible to give an adequate account of either without also considering the other. In this brief review it is our purpose to direct attention chiefly to hand work in the schools below college grade. We shall consider, only incidentally, the work in engineering and technical schools. There were many sporadic attempts to introduce handwork into the schools prior to 1876, but they had little direct and permanent influence on the subsequent development of manual arts work. The first of these attempts was represented by what were generally known as "Manual Labor Institutes." Nearly all cf the denominational and philanthropic schools established in the United States, from 1820 to 1840, were dominated by the manual labor idea. This idea was taken from the Fellenberg School at Hofwyl, Germany, but the directors of American schools, in most instances, had grasped only the outward form arid did not understand the pedagogical principles on which the work of Fellenberg was based. If one may judge by the published statements of the time the manual work had but two motives; first, the student could greatly reduce the expense of obtaining a higher education; second, the exercise incident to the manual work resulted in better health and greater mental vigor. Apparently no attempt was made to put the work into educational form. The chief purpose was to sustain the student while in school. This accounts, very largely, for the ultimate failure of the scheme. Improved economic conditions and increasing social relations and formalities made manual work less necessary and less popular. Hence the number of students demanding manual work decreased and most of the institutions giving it failed before the middle of the century. Some of them, such as Oberlin, developed into colleges. A few still 112 ThE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN exist and retain the manual work; but it has heen placed upon an educational basis. A second introduction of tool work in schools, an experiment of somewhat greater significance, was known as "The Whittling School." This was opened in the chapel of the Hollis Street Church, Boston, 1871, under the charge of Mr. Frank Rowell. In 1876 it combined with the "Industrial School" of Boston, which had been organized in 1874, and the friends and supporters of the two schools formed an association known as "The Industrial Education Society." This society provided for the maintenance of the school until it was finally taken over as a part of the public school system of Boston and established in the Bwight School Building, 1882. In 1877 this society issued a report, "An Account of an Industrial School in Boston for the Season 1876-'77." The following extracts from the report show something of the character of the school: "The city gave us the use of the ward-room on Church street, and there, on the evenings of Tuesday and Friday of each week, from 7 to 9 o'clock, the school has been held. * * * Thirty boys were admitted to the school. Their ages ranged from twelve to sixteen. About half of them were still attending the day school; the others were employed in stores and offices." This was followed by an outline of the work: "A course of twenty-four lessons in wood-carving was prepared, with special reference to securing the .greatest amount of instruction with the least expenditure for tools and materials. It was not designed to make finished workmen in wood carving, but to take advantage of the natural inclination toward handicraft the Yankee taste for whitling which belongs to most boys, and to develop and guide it to useful applications." The following statement of the object of the school was made: "The object of the school was not to educate cabinetmakers or artisans of any special name, but to. give the boys an acquaintance with certain manipulations which would be equally useful in many different trades. Instruction, not Construction, was the purpose of this school." This report is of special interest for two reasons. It presents a developing series of exercises in tool-work for boys of the grammar school grade. These exercises were given for the purpose of instruction and were apparently uninfluenced by ideas from any other country. The second important point is a suggestion that instruction in the? use of a half dozen universal tools be given in the grammar school course. It seems strange that such a significant experiment and such definite suggestions should have no important and direct influence in the immediate subsequent development of manual training in the United States. Professor Woodward is of the opinion that the reason for this failure lies in the fact that "toolwork was all or nearly all that was taught. There was no drawing worthy of the name and no science and no mathematics to stimulate a taste for the element of construction." An interesting little manual was the outgrowth of the work ir. this school. It was published by Ginn, Heath & Company, 1882, under the title, Wood-Working Tools; How to Use Them.. It was the first manual training work published in America and is still issued by Heath & Company. The exercises in the manual are unmistakably Russian, and are quite similar to those used in the shops of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at that time. There is not a trace of the old carving exercises which were mentioned in the report of the Whittling School, 1877. The carving exercises were abandoned during the winter of 1877-78 for the Russian exercises which had been made popular by the report of President Runkle of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology upon the tool work which had but recently been begun in that institution. An interesting experiment was made at the Worcester Free Institute, Worcester, Mass., now the Worcester Polytechnic Institute. This school was opened in 1868 with a machine shop in which skilled workmen were engaged on contract work. T he students of mechanical engineering worked in the shop with these workmen when, doing the shopwork stipulated in their course. Practical trade instruction was given but there was no attempt to put the work on a pedagogical basis. Purdue University was one of the pioneers in the introduction of shopwork, which was under the direction of Professor W. F. M. Goss, who is now Dean of the College of Engineering, University of Illinois. The work of Dean Goss, both as a teacher and as a writer, was an* important factor in the development of manul arts teaching, especially in the west. In 1870 the University of Illinois established a woodworking shop in connection with the course in architecture, and an iron-working shop for students in mechanical engineering. In 1871 Stevens Institute, Hoboken, N. J., established a series of shops in which students receive instruction in several lines of construction work. In 1872 the Polytechnic School of Washington University, St. Louis, established a large and well equipped shop for working in both wood and metals. The University Catalogue of 1875 says: "The general method of conducting the work is as follows: A sketch of the piece or task to be constructed is given a class with all needed dimensions. Each student then makes a drawing of it to some convenient scale, with details and exact measurements. "The class then goes to the shop, is furnished with the requisite materials and tools, and each member is shown by an expert how to execute the work. Every piece must be reasonably perfect or it is rejected and a new one required. Although the students work in the shop no more than four hours a week, the experience is valuable. It is not supposed of course that skilled work can be produced by this method, but it is certain that such training will make better judges of workmanship." This shows something of the . progress that had been made, prior to 1875, toward putting manual work on an educational basis.... In 1868 Delia Vos issued a report in which he gave an exposition of what has been known as the "Russian method," but this report did not reach American school men until some eight years later. This system of instruction, as he outlined it, was based upon three things: the analysis of tools and tool processes, the analysis of material, and the analysis of construction problems. On the basis of these analyses he arranged a series of problems, or exercises, in which the various elements or processes were arranged in a logical and systematic order. The exercises thus arranged . were taught without any appreciable regard for the principles of psychology or pedagogy as this great Russian engineer was probably not familar with the doctrines of interest and motive... The result of President John D. Runkle's investigation was the establishment of a system of tool instruction in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1877. This being a technical school with mature students, the Russian system was adopted with a few changes. It was later found advisable to make some modifications, but the example thus set was followed by other technical schools and today we find a large number of the old Russian exercises in the shop course of nearly every technical school in the country. President Runkle not only demonstrated the desirability of shop work in technical schools; he was one of the leaders also in the effort to establish the work in schools of lower grade. However, it remained for Professor Calvin M. Woodward of Washington University, St. Louis, to demonstrate the possibilities of shop work for boys in the high school. The shop, established by Professor Woodward at Washington University in 1872, had been continued. In 1877 this shop was greatly enlarged and its privileges were extended to the students in the preparatory school. This arrangement continued until 1880, when the St. Louis Manual Training School was established. (This is the name suggested by Professor Woodward, and after much discussion and considerable opposition it was finally adopted.) The founding of this school was an epoch-making event in woodworking education. The extremely orthodox adherence to the Russian system, as maintained in the St. Louis school, is shown in Professor Woodward's book: "The Manual Training School." In 1893 he issued the following statement: "The curriculum of the manual training school has undergone very few changes since the first one was established in St. Louis in 1880. In all independent manual training schools the length of courses is three years. The daily programme contains six periods, each period being either fifty or sixty minutes. Each pupil has mathematics one period, science one period, language or literature one period, drawing one period, and shop two periods. Working sections contain from 20 to 25 students, who are taught as a unit, each section having its own order for the day. Most schools offer French and German, as may be elected, and some offer Latin. All prepare students for admission into colleges and technical schools not requiring a preliminary knowledge of Latin and Greek. All aim to give a thorough laboratory training in chemistry and physics, and require constant study of literature and practice in English composition. Some have good facilities for the study of biology. In all, the tool work embraces: "Woodwork. Joinery, turning, wood carving or parquetry, and pattern making. "Plastics. Molding, casting or modeling. "Hot-metal Work. Forging, tempering, soldering and brazing. "Cold-metal Work. Bench and machine cutting, fitting and finishing of iron, steel, arid brass; the thorough study of elementary forms, and project work. During this period of development of manual arts work in the high schools, Boston and Springfield, Massachusetts, and a few other cities were making an effort to introduce the work into the grades. The difficulty was to arrange a course pedagogically sound yet to bring it within the power of the 118 THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN child to execute. Mr. Frank Leavitt of .Boston introduced scroll saw work, and Mr. Charles R. Richards of Pratt Institute worked out a scheme known as "slip work" or "flat-woodwork" which was distinctly Russian. The plan was to make a number of the principal joints in the flat. For this hej used thin wood and the chisel knife. Although some progress was made it was soon demonstrated that the Russian system was inadequate in the grammar grades. The Sloyd system of work was given recognition about this time in grades below the high school. In 1888 Mrs. Quincy A. Shaw founded the Sloyd Training School in Boston and brought Mr. Gustaf Larsson from Sweden to take charge of the school. It was destined to have an important influence on the development of manual arts work in the United States. The Sloyd movement in Sweden was a result of the somewhat belated industrial revolution in that country. The Increasing use of machinery and the development of the factory system was destroying the home industries. The evils which usually accompany great economic changes were present here. Intermittent employment led to complete idleness and resulted in the increase of bad habits. The peasant class was restless. The social readjustment to the changed method of production was slow. It takes a people a long time to learn that we cannot turn back, nor long delay, the march of economic forces; so there was heard in Sweden the cry for the return to "the good old times." The movement was distinctly reactionary as it was an attempt to revive a decadent industry. The general characteristics of the movement in its earlier stages are shown in a report of A. Sluys to the minister of education in Belgium, from which the following is an extract. (This report was published in full by the New York Industrial Education Association, 1889, under the title, "Manual Training in Elementary Schools for Boys," by A. Sluys.) "The nature of the objects to be manufactured by the children is also important. It touches considerations of a high order, which at first sight do not appear, and in connection with which we are about to make some suggestions. At Naas, every work of luxury, or pure fancy, or for mere ornament, is prohibited; the method only includes the construction of useful objects which can be employed in the families of the children attending school. Their nature is determined by the social position of the parents of the students; they belong generally to the farming or working class, as do the great majority of those in other places who go to the public schools. Such an object while useful in the home of a rich citizen, would be out of place in the humble lodging of a workman or peasant. For these last, everything is a luxury which has no direct value in the housekeeping. * * * Besides, this question has a moral aspect which should engage our attention. Experience proves that children who have been altogether taught construction of objects of luxury feel afterwards a strong dislike for making useful and indispensable ones. * * * We insist upon the importance of this principle, because in highly civilized countries many children of workmen and peasants show a strong tendency to despise manual labor, aspire to abandon the condition of their parents and to embrace professions that they consider more superior, such as clerkships in mercantile houses or public offices." In 1872 Herr Abrahamson opened a work-school for boys at Naas, Sweden. Herr Otto Salomon was made director of the school. In 1874 he organized a department for the training of teachers which afterwards developed into a great school for the training of Sloyd teachers. In the school Salomon undertook to put the work on an educational basis and make it distinct from what was known as "practical Sloyd." He selected 9. series of exercises to secure certain educational ends. The work was carefully arranged with respect to difficulty of process, and the sequence of the models was strictly maintained. The typical Sloyd course consisted of fifty models embracing eightyeight motor exercises. Most of the exercises were small and the knife was the chief tool used. The cost of material and equipment was not great. This, together with the fact that the tools and the models were easily handled by boys of twelve years of age, commended the system for use in the grades. In his "Theory of Educational Sloyd", Salomon gives the following statement of the aims of the work. "The formative aims are: 1. To install a taste for, and a love of, labor in general. 2. To inspire respect for roujgh, honest, bodily labor. 3. To develop independence and self reliance. 4. To train in habits of order, exactness, cleanliness, and neatness. 5. To train the eye and sense of form. To give general dexterity of hand, and to develop touch. 6. To accustom) to attention, industry, perseverence, and patience. 7. To promote the development of the physical powers. "The utilitarian aims are: 1. To give directly dexterity in the use of tools. 2. To execute exact work. Some of the most striking characteristics of the Sloyd methods and practices may be stated as follows: 1. All instruction must be individual. 2. In the early stages the pupil works from models instead of drawings. 3. The exercises are selected for their educational value in inculcating habits of order, exactness, cleanliness, and neatness. 4. The articles made are useful in the peasant homes of Sweden. 5. The work has little significance from the standpoint of industrial or technical training. The Sloyd work in America has developed into something quite different from the work as organized and carried on by Herr Salomon. Mr. Larsson has studied with Salomon at Naas and he came to America a worthy exponent of the ideas represented by that school. In America he found conditions vastly different from those in Sweden, and he began at once to modify the system to meet the requirements of the new situation. This meant a modification of some of the old models, the introduction of new ones, and the development of a satisfactory system of working drawings. While based on the same general principles, the modifications resulted in a much broader system of training than that developed at Naas. Special attention was given to the arrangement of the work for the upper grammar grades, and it is in this field that sloyd has had its greatest success. It was not long after the introduction of the Sloyd system that its influence was felt in the high schools, where the Russian system was used. The useful model appealed to many high school teachers as well as to the high school boys. On the other hand, the sloyd was influenced by the technical character of the Russian system. As a result there was in many schools a system which was a combination of the two. The Russian system had stood for class instruction; the sloyd system for individual instruction; but there was developed a system of class instruction supplemented by individual instruction which was more efficient than the one and more economical than the other. This breaking away from an orthodox adherence to either of the systems was regarded as heresy by the adherents of the respective systems, but it was the first step toward the creation of a distinctly American system of manual training a system which is quite generally followed in American high schools today. Another important factor in the creation of the American system was the development of the Arts and Crafts movement. William Morris, the artist and craftsman, was the leading spirit in its organization. It was a revolt against the ugliness and dishonesty of our commercial products. The plea was for a return to the old methods of hand production where, it is sometimes assumed, every artist was a craftsman and every craftsman was an artist. This was another attempt to go forward by going backward. Such production cannot exist to any extent beside the labor saving devices in the modern factory. However, the movement had a profound influence on design, especially in house furnishings. It taught the association of beauty and usefulness and helped to bring into closer relations the handwork and the art in the schools. The Arts and Crafts furniture was full of suggestions for the school shop. Its chief characteristics were beauty of design and simplicity of construction. It contained, in a very pronounced way, five of the six most important requisites of manual training shop work, to wit: 1. It furnished a useful model. 2. It supplied a great variety of the most importnat construction problems with a motive for working them out. 3. It gave an opportunity and a motive for the study of drawing and design. 4. It furnished a motive for the study of materials. 5. Such work had a distinct cultural or general educational value, in so far as that means the ability to appreciate the service the society renders us. The Arts and Crafts movement made a substantial contribution to the development of manual training. This new work, however, was to be influenced by industrial conditions, and what may be termed the "movement for industrial education." The recent demand for industrial education has called for another principle that manual training must have a direct industrial significance. This has led to the establishment of special courses in some of the manual training schools so that students may specialize in some particular line of industrial work. It has led also, to the co-operative or school-factory plan of developing tool instruction. We have seen also the development of a class of schools known as industrial schools and trade schools. These schools are intended to give special training for industrial pursuits. Doubtless they are destined to play an important part in the future development of our educational system, but up to the present time only a few have been established as a part of the public school system. We may now look for the development of an American Continuation School patterned after the schools of that name in Germany. It is interesting to note that, at Moline, Illinois, a movement to introduce the school-factory system of instruction in industrial work has resulted in the initiation of such a plan this year, 1910. The plan as outlined provides for one week in the high school and the suceeding week in some manufactory of the city for all boys sixteen years of age or more. It is doubtful if interest in school work can be maintained under such conditions, but the authorities at Moline feel that the plan is worth trying. A somewhat similar plan is being tried at Cincinnati, Ohio, Fitchburg, Massachusetts and other eastern cities in the United States. The foregoing discussion, it is hoped will enable the reader to form a comprehensive idea of the failures and successes which have led to the present status of the manual arts in American public school systems. Source: Fred D. Crawshaw and Robert W. Selvidge, The Teaching of Manual Arts Second Edition Madison: The University of Wisconsin, 1912, page 7 (BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN, No. 546: High School Series No. 11-- FRED D. CRAWSHAW was then Professor of Manual Arts at Wisconsin. Crawshaw was assisted by Robert W. Selvidge, Assistant Professor of Manual Training, Department of Manual Arts, University of Missouri)

from crawshaw and selvidge, page 44: A very complete syllabus on "Wood and Wood-working," by William Noyes of Teachers' College, Columbia University, New York, N. Y|, gives general information on reference material (which may be considered under the head of "supplies") for assigned readings and themes.

Pedagogical Shifts That Impact Woodworking Education

Source: Adapted Walter S Monroe, Teaching-Learning Theory and Teacher Education, 1890 to 1950 Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1952, from CHAPTER 3, adapted from pages 111-135 Changes in Teaching-Learning Theory . (c) Directing learning activities (This book is not online.)

From 1890 to 1950, in most writing by cognitive psychologists, until about 1915, the focus is on the elementary-school situation in mind. Noticeably, the directing-learning-activities theory pertained to high-school teaching, while the guiding pupil-experiencing theory was advanced mainly by authors thinking primarily of the elementary-school situation.

Directing Learning Activities

In the shift in pedagogical theory - shifting from the teaching-subject-matter point-of-view to the directing learning-activities - the "center of gravity" moved from subject matter to the learning process, that is, to embrace an activity theory of learning, or, put another way, away from an emphasis from teacher activity (method of teaching) to pupil activity (responses to stimuli).

While the shift was gradual, a major source in the shift is the 1915 book, Methods of Teaching in High Schools (New York: Ginn, and Company) by Samuel Chester Parker, is generally taken as the "event" marking the change.

Parker, for the first time, deals with methods of teaching according to directing "types of learning in high-school subjects"

(a) acquiring motor control,
(b) associating symbols and meanings,
(c) practice or drill (automatizing motor and mental associations),
(d) reflective thinking (problem-solving and acquiring abstract and general meanings),
(e) forming habits.

Parker, acknowledged E L Thorndike's 1906 Principles of Teaching as key to his thinking, but similar points of view are reflected in the writings of other exponents of the "directing-learning-activities" approaches..

Thorndike argues that Education should be considered not as a moulding of perfectly plastic substances, nor as a filling of empty minds, nor as a creation of powers, but rather as the provision of opportunity for healthy bodily and mental life, of stimuli to call forth desirable activities in thought, feeling and movement, and of means for their wise direction, for the elimination of their failures and futilities, and for the selection of their useful forms.

Until Parker's writing, Thorndike's theory - "doctrine of self-activity" - received little recognition. In effect, Parker shifted the focus of attention from the teacher to the learner.

In a chapter, "Interests, the basis of economy in learning," Parker stressed the utilization of students' active interests as the means of obtaining economy ( efficiency) in learning. To accomplish this ideal setting, teachers needed to arrange situations that incorporate learning exercises, and Instruction Sheets definitely fall into this category of teaching theory.

Assignments.

Assignments refer to classroom activity where teachers request the students to conduct exercises: --

read (study ) certain pages in the text or supplementary references,

solve certain problems,

determine the answers to certain questions,

write a theme,

prepare a report on a specified topic,

do certain laboratory exercises, and the like.

Considered definite bases for learning, these often involve instructions for doing the exercises, explanations designed to assist students the students understand what they are to do, and even actual assistance relative to anticipated difficulties.

After 1915, there have been developments relative to both learning exercises and the associated directive procedures. Little attention was given to the nature of assignment, but in the limited treatments there was emerging a recognition of its potentialities as a means of directing learning activity.

Following 1920 increased attention was given to the assignment, especially the learning-exercise phase. An essential feature of the Dalton plan 73 was the "job assignment." The "contract plan" involved a system of differentiated assignments." In both cases the assignment was presented in written form. By 1931 the "written assignment" ( instruction sheet, job sheet, workbook) had become a widespread practice.

In some cases teachers prepared written assignments, but large numbers of published workbooks were available.

The workbook/Instruction Sheet strategy provides opportunities for applying such desirable options as:

clear statement of objective,

questions or problems as points of departure in study,

suggestions and directions with reference to the study process,

self-instructive devices,

provisions for optional work, and the like.

The brilliant teacher, Ira Samuel Griffith captured the dilemma facing the industrial arts fraternity in the following way:

In the introduction of Correlated Courses, Ira Samuel Griffith, argues that members of society may be roughly classed into four groups:

those who think without doing;

those who do without thinking;

those who neither think nor do; and

those who think and do because of their thinking.

This fourth class, Griffith claims, comprise the productive, constructive, organizing element of society.

The public schools, Griffith argues, should produce members of this fourth class.

It must be evident to all that for the production of a thinking and doing individual the two forms of activity should be carried on side by side:

the doing growing out of the thinking, and

the thinking made clear and definite through the doing.

For Griffith, given this human condition, and more important, to take advantage of it, to build on it, it is appropriate for the manual training education to develop an approach which sorts out an appropriate relationship between these two essential elements --the thought element and the skill element -- that will make manual training education valuable as a school subject.

Griffith continues:

Manual training suffered by having the one side -- skill -- emphasized when the European systems -- the Russian and the Sloyd systems -- were introduced.

With the application of pedagogy -- the Progressive or ?constructivist? movement -- public education has suffered by having the other -- the thought side -- unduly magnified. Both of these elements are important.

For Griffith, experience demonstrates that, to be practicable, an education system should make the most of each of these elements. In the past, efforts in one direction often resulted in a sacrifice in the other.

When the thought side was emphasized there was a falling off in the accuracy of the results.

When skill was magnified it was attained only with a sacrifice of the thought element.

With regret among many educators, the inevitable conclusion was reached that the introduction of original thinking on the part of the pupil must meant sacrifice on the skill side.

Concerning this phase of the subject Professor Richards writes:

In order to develop in the highest degree independence of thought and power of initiative the pupil must be given opportunities for determining ends and working out means. Only in this way is the natural cycle of mental activities-- thinking, feeling and doing -- fully realized and made effective. The practical realization of this principle means, of course, a distinct problem of instruction. The problem is essentially one of proportion and balance between freedom of expression on the one side and skill and mastery of process on the other. Extreme emphasis on the one leads inevitably to a class of crude and ill-considered products while attention restricted to the other results in mere drill and formalism.

Further, in "The Manual Training Teacher," Charles L. Binns, an Englishman just returned from a trip through the United States, writes of manual training in the grades as follows:

The lack of exactness is the main defect of American manual training. But there are many compensations to be balanced against this, and these arise chiefly, in my opinion, from the fact that the teacher is allowed more liberty to follow his own judgment in teaching the subject than is the case [in England]. He has more scope for exercising his initiative, with the result that he retains the freshness of interest and enthusiasm for his work that our own stereotyped and restricted schemes do much to quell. There is a fine spirit of free activity, eager interest, and industry permeating most of the manual training classrooms. Even the inferior work is done with a happy glow of achievement that half excuses it. ...

To emphasize unduly the aim of rigid mechanical accuracy generally means a sacrifice of the thought side of the work. Those qualities which lead eventually to the realization of the pupil's highest powers -- such qualities as intelligent self direction; an alert resourceful attitude of mind; and power to plan means to an end -- are too valuable to lose for such an aim....

At the same time a system of handwork that ignores a reasonable standard of accuracy does not count for much. In the course of my visits I found more than once not only an almost entire disregard for exactness in the work of the boys, but also an almost entire neglect on the teacher's part to strive for it. Something may be said for a method which grants the pupils liberty to express themselves freely in their work, if the results are critically examined and the errors pointed out, but to accept and pass complacently work manifestly inferior is quite inexcusable.

What accounted for this (un)balance?

The German educator, Georg Kerschensteiner, following a tour of the United States where he observed American manual training, critized it by saying:

He could not see why children are encouraged to make big pieces of furniture before they can square up a piece of wood properly or make a single joint of the type that must be multiplied many times in the piece of furniture, if it is properly constructed. For Kerschensteiner, the first requisite in training for skill is to cultivate joy in work.

"It is in that way that we appeal to the heart," and "it is only when the feelings are brought into action that we can most truly educate."

Thus it is desirable to organize our manual training and mechanical drawing that allows for both thought and skill.

What System Shall We Use?

It was generally conceded that manual training -- as exemplified by the Russian system of joint making and the Swedish system of model making -- fails to empower to the fullest the child's talents.

The educational theory of the time argued that interest by the student is an indispensable component of education, a situation that thus condemns the Russian system, so far as its application in non-technical schools is concerned, while Swedish Sloyd, unmodified, is weak in that it fails to take into account the reflective phase of interest, namely, the power of self-initiative.

In other words, "educational manual training's" weakness was its undue emphasis upon the thought element resulting in too great sacrifice of that other equally important element, skill or accuracy.

Says Griffith,

The manual training movement is to be congratulated in that all signs now seem to point to its speedy delivery from the hands of these latter extremists. Is it too much to hope that out of our past experiences with the joint making Russian system with its admitted disciplinary value, the Swedish model making with its effort to utilize the energy of the worker toward useful products, and the self expression of the pedagogical movement with its attendant elements of interest and initiative there may come a manual training practice that shall be marked by a combination of the best of these elements with a consequent elimination of the weaknesses of each.

The Illinois State Course of Study

The outline of study suggested in the Illinois State Course of Study, credit for which is due mainly to Professor Charles A. Bennett, the chairman of the committee on manual training in woodwork, has proven a source of very great help to the writer in his efforts to properly present the subject matter of woodwork to his pupils. The introduction to this course is well worth repeating and is in substance as follows:

Any course in woodworking worthy of a place in the eighth and ninth grades of public school work should meet the following requirements:

1.It should arouse and hold the interest of the pupils. 2. Correct methods of handling tools should be taught so that good technique may be acquired by the pupils. 3.Tool work should be accompanied by a study of materials and tools used in their relations to industry. Special attention should be given to the study of trees?their growth, classification, characteristics and use. 4.Drawing should be studied in its relation to the work done. 5.The principles of construction in wood should be taught thru observation, illustration and experience. 6.At least a few problems should be given which involve invention or design or both, thereby stimulating individual initiative on the part of the pupils.

Griffith organized Correlated Courses to meet the conditions specified below. Griffith tested and refined this approach himself by following it in his own classes.

The Recommended Arrangement of Woodworking Courses

The course is arranged in groups, each group representing a type of work. These groups are given in the order of procedure. The teacher is expected to provide problems of the greatest value educationally. This means that the things to be made should be worth making and that the process of making them should be interesting to the student.

From this it follows that the things to be made must come to the pupil in an order which gives reasonable consideration to the difficulties to be encountered in making them.

This pedagogical approach follows a "group plan", because the advantages of the group system are distinct.

Importantly, -- to minimize the amount of demonstrating and to prevent needless repetitive talking that the instructor must do -- it emphasizes class instruction.

A number of projects having similar tool operations are grouped together. it permits a boy to satisfy his individual needs without interfering with the orderly presentation of the subject matter. It provides work for the fast worker of an interesting and profitable nature until the slow worker completes the minimum requirement.

It provides for the "repeater," who often has to repeat, not because of poor work in manual training but because of poor work in academic studies, by giving him choice of different models upon which to work. In general, the group plan possesses the manifest advantages of class instruction at the same time making allowance for the individuality of the worker.

Sources: Ira Samuel Griffith, Correlated Courses in Woodwork and Mechanical Drawing, Peoria, IL: The Manual arts Press, 1912; Albert F. Siepert, "Courses of study for the preparation of teachers of manual arts" Washington, DC: Dept. of the Interior, 1918, page 5 (United States Bureau of Education, Bulletin no. 37.) 30 pages; Samuel J Vaughn and Arthur B Mays, Content and Methods of the Industrial Arts New York: The Century Co., 1924; Walter S Monroe, Teaching-Learning Theory and Teacher Education, 1890 to 1950 Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1952, from CHAPTER 3, adapted from pages 111-135 "Changes in Teaching-Learning Theory:-- Directing learning activities" (This book is not online.); Henry John Sredl History of Industrial Arts 1920-1964 1964 diss.); G. Eugene Martin and Joseph F. Luetkemeyer, "The Movements That Led To Contemporary Industrial Arts Education", Industrial Arts Education: Retrospect, Prospect, 28th Yearbook of the American Industrial Arts Association and the National Education Association 1979, pages 1-? ; Edward Daniel Bzowski, An Analysis of Some Movements which May Have Influenced the Growth and Development of Manual Arts diss U of Maryland, 1969; Susan Meabon Bartow, Identification and Synthesis of the Range of Industrial Arts Philosophy and a Comparison of Philosophy With Actual Classroom Practices. Miami University Oxford, Ohio 1983.

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