Institutes of technology are of university rank, and their courses of study lead to a professional degree, generally to that of civil, mining, or electrical engineer. To this grade belong the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, the Stevens Institute of Technology, etc.

Manual training is of modern origin. For while many theorists and scholars during the past four hundred years have declared themselves in favor of such instruction, and while some fitful attempts had been made at intervals to incorporate manual labor with scholastic education in isolated instances, it was not until the year 1860 that a man of sufficient courage and force of character appeared and undertook to reconstruct the educational system of his native land in accordance with the principles of Pestalozzi and Froebel. This was Uno Cygnaeus, of the Helsingfors Teachers' Seminary, who, after long and diligent study of Swiss and German educational authorities, devised an advanced system of manual exercises adapted to pupils beyond the kindergarten age. This is sometimes called the Russian system of tool instruction, though the term Russian system is now generally used to designate that plan of shop instruction under which the pupil produces no finished article, but merely makes component parts of an object, or manipulates the material used, as an educational exercise.

The so-called Russian method of manual training, whether practised in apprentice schools, or trade schools, or in technical schools, is really a misnomer, for there is no one method exclusively in vogue in Russia, either for the training of artisans or for purposes of education for superintendence. Take, for example, the two largest technical schools in the empire, one at Saint Petersburg and the other at Moscow. In the former the course of theoretical training, including drawing, covers four years, then in the mechanical department there is an additional year which is devoted almost solely to shop practice. This embraces a brief course in wood work, iron filing and chipping, use of lathes and planes and other machine tools, and a slight amount of forging. But here there is no aim to construct a machine for actual use. A few have been erected for illustration and these are in the museum of the institute. The purpose here is purely to educate, and the form and finish of the product, as judged by the eye or estimated by the calipers, is the objective result.

On the contrary, the whole plan of the corresponding department of the Moscow Technical Institute is quite different. The course is six years long. During the first year there is given about thirty hours weekly of instruction in mathematics, physics, and free-hand and mechanical drawing. In the second year fifteen hours weekly are devoted to recitations, lectures, and drawing, while eighteen hours weekly are given to shop work, viz., six to carpentry, six to wood turning, and six to lathe work in metals. Very little time is given to bench work in metals, very much to the use of machines. In the third year twelve

hours weekly are alloted to practical work, this being chiefly the construction of locks, the manufacture of which involves the use of both machine and hand tools. A part of the students may employ the prac tice time of this year in pattern work. In the fourth year twelve hours weekly are employed in shop work. The construction of locks or pattern work is continued, and about half the time is equally divided be tween forging and foundery work. In the fifth year the students work twelve hours weekly in the machine shop, and become accustomed to manage all the machines used in any ordinary shop. In this machine shop, besides the 40 to 60 students in each class, there are about 35 journeymen, and the purpose is to manufacture a great variety of articles for sale. So in the foundery 30 journeyman workmen are employed and a great deal of job work and government work is executed. During the last year considerable time is given to designing machinery and to excursions to manufactories in the city.

What Prof. Runkle calls the Russian method is essentially the method of the Saint Petersburg Institute of Technology and of the Novgorod School, an exhibit of the work of which is made at the Chicago exposition. This is the method adopted in shops of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at Boston. But the Moscow method differs from the former in three respects: First, the practice is distributed over five years' time instead of being all crowded into one year; second, it is much more largely machine work rather than bench work with hand tools; third, as much as possible of the practical work is done with a view to the use and sale of the products. The Moscow method is best represented in this country by the shop work of the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, though the latter school carries the idea of construction for use still farther. This method might almost as properly be called Russian as the other.

From Finland the educational reform extended to Sweden and all Scandinavian countries, and thence to the whole world. In adopting the new method, however, each nation has given to it a distinctive In Sweden it is known as sloid; in Germany, manual dexterity, though instead of this term many German writers now use the name adopted by the Strasburg congress, viz., workshop instruction; in France, manual labor; in the United States, manual training, etc. The one characteristic common to all these systems is that the manual work subserves a purely educational purpose. As M. Salomon says of sloid, it is to be used in the service of the school, not that the school should be subordinated to sloid. Swedish sloid, by the way, as expounded by the principal of the Nääs Seminary, consists mainly of wood carving and simple cabinetmaking. A series of one hundred models is placed before the pupil and he is taught how to reproduce cach of them with hand tools. The Nääs Seminary, however, does not represent all phases of so-called sloid systems, but only one. The Swedish models do not satisfy the aesthetic tastes of all nations. S. Ex. 65-2

The Belgian people, for example, while employing what they call a sloid system in their schools, reject the sloid models of Sweden as uncouth, and make use of an entirely different set of their own invention. Denmark, too, has adopted sloid into her educational system. But, as may be seen from the detailed description of Danish sloid by Prof. Mikkelsen, there is but a slight resemblance between its methods and those in vogue in Sweden. In Scandinavia wood sloid prevails, but metal sloid and polysloid systems exist elsewhere. There is, therefore, no single sloid system, but there are many systems of sloid. It must never be forgotten that the mode of educational organization in Europe differs widely from that of the United States. In several continental states, for example, a manual training system is established by law and the schools themselves are aided by direct subventions from the government. The same thing is true of trade and technical schools also. With us, on the contrary, whenever public manual training schools are founded, the work is usually done by local boards, by municipal authority, or by private enterprise, and the undertaking assumes the character of a tentative experiment. Hence, we have no uniform system of manual training in this country, but only a number of independent, heterogeneous ventures, some of which, however, have already demonstrated their right to exist.

But there are several incorporated manual training schools in the United States which surpass anything of the kind to be found abroad. In these, something more is taught than the use of mere hand tools. Machine tools for wood and metal work abound, and the colossal mechanical appliances for testing the strength of materials, etc., (to be seen in the Chicago, Saint Louis, Toledo, and Philadelphia schools) dwarf into insignificance the relatively meagre equipments of the foreign schools of this class. In short, Europe has nothing in the nature of a manual training school equal to any of these great American institutions; nor has the Old World a single institute of technology that can bear comparison with the best of our own.

In respect to technical and trade schools the conditions are, with a few exceptions, exactly reversed. There is nothing more admirable than the European systems of trade and technical teaching. Their thoroughness is proverbial, and the specialization of their training comprehends. the minutest details. The German Fuchschule, where a single specialty is taught-upholstering, for example-turns out, at the end of the course, a thoroughly competent workman. The dyer who learns his art in the Crefeld laboratories is versed in all the subtile chemistry of colors; and, from his knowledge of the composition of fabrics, understands how to compute, to the fraction of a pfennig, the cost of dyeing a given number of yards blue or yellow.

'A like thoroughness characterizes the instruction given in the horological schools at Besançon, Geneva, and Coventry, great centres of the watchmaking industry. It is a distinguishing feature, also, of the pro

fessional schools of tailoring, dressmaking, and artificial flower making in France, Belgium, and Switzerland; of the Austrian wood carving and cabinetmaking schools; of the German schools for locksmiths and horseshoers; and even of the fishing schools of the Scandinavian peninsula.

In the fishing school, for example, the topography of the coast-line is minutely taught by means of charts and maritime excursions, and the youth becomes as well acquainted with every headland and bay of his native country as with the physiognomy of his teacher. He studies the tides, winds, and currents. He is made full sailor. He learns the habits of fishes, the season for catching, the proper bait for different species, the best methods of curing his catch and preparing it for market. Besides all this, he acquires a knowledge of French and English nautical and commercial terms, and familiarizes himself with the prices current of various lands. His training, if not equal to a liberal education, is an excellent preparation for his vocation in life.

A few of the trade and technical schools of the United States take rank with their European prototypes. Of these, the New York Trade Schools, the Pratt Institute, the textile department of the Pennsyl vania Museum and School of Industrial Art, and the New York Institute for Artist-Artisans are examples. But the most of our schools of this class are far inferior, in respect to the fulness and completeness of their teaching, to the foreign models.

Yet, in our half-developed state colleges of agriculture and the mechanic arts we have the foundation for a better system of technical instruction than exists anywhere today; and in the establishment of such noble institutions as the Drexel Institute, the Williamson Free School of Mechanical Trades, the Armour Institute, etc., one may discern the promise of future American primacy in the industrial arts.

However, it is not with the prospective, but with the present condition and effects of industrial education that we now have to do; and we purpose to consider this subject in the following chapters.

In considering the subject of the present status of industrial training in the succeeding chapters, no attempt has been made to take a census of the various institutions in this and other countries in which industrial training in any form constitutes a feature. At the present time the number of institutions equipped for manual and trade training is of no great consequence. It is rather the organization and methods of representative schools which are something more than experiments that we wish to know. The chief object, therefore, has been to draw from original and other sources the facts which should most clearly show the actual progress which has been made relative to the introduction and prosecution of studies in manual training and in trade schools, and their influence on the individual. Only those sources which are considered most authentic have been used to supplement the original inquiries of the Department.