INDUSTRIAL TRAINING IN NORMAL SCHOOLS.

It is evident that if industrial training is to become a feature of the common schools, it must be included in the normal school curriculum; hence all experiments in this direction are followed with peculiar interest. Hon. James MacAlister, superintendent of schools, Philadelphia, says with reference to an experiment of this kind: It took a good deal of earnest effort to get sewing introduced into the Girls' Normal School, and it was feared by many that it might interfere with what was regarded as the more important work of the pupils. We have learned, however, that no step ever taken in connection with the school has yielded more satisfactory results. The scholarship has not suffered; the sewing exercise affords an agreeable relief to the other duties of the girls, and a graduate now leaves the school skilled in the use of the needle to an extent that must add to the sum of her happiness, in whatever posi. tion of life she may afterwards be placed.

Professor Hagar, of the normal school, Salem, Mass., has tried the experiment of training the girls of his school in the use of common wood-cutting tools with very satisfactory results.

The following prospectus has been issued by Prof. C. M. Woodward, principal of the St. Louis Manual Training School:

PROPOSED TEACHERS' MANUAL INSTITUTE IN SAINT LOUIS.

It is hoped that the following proposition will meet the eye of every teacher in the United States and Canada, and all editors and managers of journals, newspapers, and periodicals are respectfully invited to give it a place in their columns. Our motive is not mercenary; we wish to give practical encouragement to the movement to put manual training into American education. Teachers protest:

"How can we give what we do not possess? How can we teach what we have never learned ?" We are well prepared and willing to help them on.

To teachers, students, and others interested in manual training:

It is proposed to open the shops and drawing rooms of the St. Louis Manual Training School during the summer of 1886, from the middle of June till the end of July or the middle of August, and to organize classes of adults in manual work, for the special purpose of enabling teachers to fit themselves for giving manual instruction.

We contemplate classes as follows:

1. In projection, isometric, machine, and detail drawing; line and brush shading, lettering, tracing, etc.

2. In bench and lathe work in wood, including wood carving.

3. In modeling in clay and plaster; in molding in sand and casting in plaster. 4. In iron and steel forging.

5. In iron and steel turning, planing, drilling, and fitting.

The full details of the programme cannot be published till the number and wishes of applicants are known. It may be assumed that the school will be in session six hours per day and six days per week; that a member may devote his time to one, two, or three subjects; that some consideration may be necessary to secure equal privileges to all members; that sufficient uniformity will be insisted on to illustrate the class-method of tool instruction; that men and women will be received on equal footing; that tuition fees will be at the uniform rate of 12 cents per hour; that all tools and materials in the shops will be furnished; that members will furnish their own drawing instruments and paper; that all drawings and specimens of shop work will become the property of the makers; and that no allowance will be made for occasional absences.

An intelligent and earnest teacher, who devotes four hours a day for six days per week, and for six weeks, will make as much progress as an average 15-year-old boy makes in the shop allowances of an entire year. The same may be said of drawing two hours a day.

The capacity of the school for manual work is as follows:

Forty-eight drawing stands.

Forty-eight wood-working benches and sets of hand tools.

Forty-eight wood lathes and sets of turning tools.

Twenty-four molding and modeling benches.

Twenty-two anvils and forges.

Twenty places in the machine and fitting shop.

And I have an adequate number of very competent teachers.

Now I wish every person who desires to secure a place in the institute during the coming summer, to write me at once, giving his full name, age, occupation, residence, the probable lines of manual work, and the number of hours to be devoted to each. I suggest drawing an hour or two, and one kind of shop work for the rest of the day. If responses are promptly made, I can issue a definite programme in March, and secure places to as many as we can receive. I shall give the preference to teachers and those more than eighteen years of age.

Good plain board and lodging can be found in the neighborhood for five dollars ($5.00) per week.

To school boards and managers I suggest the great propriety and economy of continuing the salaries of such teachers as may attend this Institute, and of paying the same upon my certificate of attendance here. In no other way can they get so cheapcorrect ideas of the methods of manual training.

Should the number of applications be small, the school will not be organized this year.

January 20, 1886.

C. M. WOODWARD, Washington University, St. Louis, Mo.

INDUSTRIAL TRAINING IN THE SOUTHI.

The South offers an important and interesting field for the training under consideration, and while perhaps public opinion has been less active on the subject in that section than at the North, the training has been introduced into a large number of schools.

The action taken by the trustees of the Slater Fund is giving a special impetus to industrial training in schools for the freedmen. It is a feature of nearly all the schools established by the American Missionary Association and the Freedmen's Aid Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and of many other normal schools and universities of the South, as will be seen by reference to the tables and abstracts of the Appendix. A very great want of the South is a system of industrial training for the mass of the colored youth who will never reach the higher grade schools.

Hon. Ulric Bettison, superintendent of schools, New Orleans, in his report for 1885 calls attention to the efforts of Tulane University for the practical training of the youth of that city. He says:

The most effective of its efforts to reach the masses has been perhaps the free instruction furnished in drawing. Evening classes for the benefit of mechanics and others who are occupied during the day have been formed and eagerly attended. On Saturday free instruction is given to all teachers who wish to undertake the course. These classes are fully attended, and the instruction given has made possible the introduction of drawing into our schools.

PUBLIC OPINION.

The disposition manifest for several years among leaders of public opinion to attribute the distaste for manual labor on the part of our young people to the influence of the public schools is passing away. Other and more probable causes of the evil are attracting attention, and other agencies are suggested for its correction. Said Prof. Charles O. Thompson: "It is safe to rest upon the certain endowment of private institutions for the teaching of handicraft. Nearly $10,000,000 have been given to found institutions of technology, and mainly by private givers, since 1868, and the good work still goes on." Every year chronicles some new and important movement in this department, due to private benefactions or the enterprise of some corporate body.

SPECIAL SCHOOLS.

One of the most recent instances is the inauguration by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company of the Baltimore and Ohio Technological School, for the promotion of a higher course of instruction for the apprentices of the service than is now attainable. The headquarters of the school are at St. Clare, Baltimore.

The following information is derived from a report of the operation of the New York Trade Schools:

These schools were opened four years ago for the purpose of giving young men instruction in certain trades, and to give young men already in the trades an opportunity to improve themselves. The results of the past four seasons have proved the success of what at first was an experiment. Many young men are now earning high wages who were unable to obtain work before joining the schools.

Instruction was given the first season in two trades, the attendance being thirtythree. Instruction is now given in eight trades, and the attendance the past two seasons has averaged two hundred. The New York Trade Schools are not intended to be either a charitable or a money-making institution. They are not managed in the interest of, nor are they in opposition to, any trade organization. Skilled labor all over the United States commands the highest wages. The demand far exceeds the supply, and is constantly increasing. In the large cities this demand is supplied chiefly from abroad, owing to the difficulty young men in the large cities experience in finding an opportunity to learn a trade. A thorough knowledge of a trade yields its possessor, if he works but two hundred days in the year, an income equal to that received from $20,000 invested in government bonds. Young men can now obtain this knowledge at the evening classes of the New York Trade Schools without interfering with the work by which they may be earning a living during the day.

The schools are conducted on the principle of teaching thoroughly how work should be done, and leaving the quickness which is required of a first-class mechanic to be acquired at real work after leaving the schools. The experience of the past four years has shown that from one-third to one-half a day's work can be done after one season's course of instruction, and that from one-third to one-half a day's wages can be obtained. Full wages have usually been obtained in from six months to two years after leaving the schools, according to the nature of the trade. Young men who were exceptionally quick at learning have obtained full wages at once, but it is the opinion of the management that steady work at moderate wages is the more profitable in the end.

Progress at a trade school is necessarily rapid. Skilled mechanics are employed as teachers. It is their duty to show each individual how work should be done, to see that he does it correctly, and to point out the difference between good and bad work. It is constantly sought to ascertain, not only what the pupil knows, but in what he is deficient. Such a system can rarely be pursued in a workshop where each employé is necessarily employed upon the work he can do best.

In both American and foreign schools where trades are taught to beginners, the trade instruction is usually combined with a general instruction extended over several years. Although the results of this system of combining trade instruction with a general education are excellent, it does not meet the wants of young men who must support themselves or contribute to the family support. The system, therefore, which seems adapted to American wants is to leave the general education to the public schools, and confine the work of a trade school to the manual and scientific instruction necessary to make a mechanic.

INSTRUCTION IN COOKERY.

In Boston an experiment has been made which it is to be hoped may lead to permanent provision for giving girls attending the public schools instruction in cookery. During the year the school committee intend to permit the girls of three schools to attend the School of Cookery conducted by the North Bennett Street Industrial School, and the girls of five other schools to attend the Boston School Kitchen, No. 1, which is conducted under the direction of the committee on the Manual Training School at Mrs. Hemenway's expense. She agreed to pay the expense of a teacher and of the materials until July, 1886, when she desires to present the "plant" to the school committee of Boston. The committee on the Manual Training School urge the school committee to assume the expense of this school in the following September.

The "First Mission School of Cookery and Housework" of Washington, D. C., was established in 1881, by Mrs. A. L. Woodbury, for the free instruction of young girls who are unable to pay. It is managed by a small committee of ladies. The number of pupils is limited from want of funds to thirty-six; they are divided into practice classes of six-each class receiving a lesson once a week in cookery and whatever else will enable them to make their own homes comfortable.

The zealous labors of Miss Juliet Corson in establishing schools of cookery and in

exciting public interest in the training have been duly noticed in former Reports. Since 1883 Miss Corson has been continuing her work with marked success, lecturing upon the subject and conducting classes in the principal cities of the East and of the Pacific coast. As a result of her efforts in Oakland, Cal., the committee on industrial education of the Oakland board of instruction resolved to make an experiment in the introduction of cookery into the public schools of that city. In Philadelphia the ladies of the Public Education Association arranged with the board of education for two experimental lessons in cookery to be given by Miss Corson in the normal school of that city. The experiment was tried with the view of ultimately introducing into the public school system a department of "household science."

TABLE XI.-SCHOOLS OF THEOLOGY.

The following is a comparative statement of the number of schools of theology (including theological departments) reporting to this Bureau each year from 1875 to 1885, inclusive (1883 omitted), with the number of professors and number of students: