The following excerpt is from the Superindentent's Report to the School Committee, which was printed in the School Committee Report for 1905 and reprinted in Beverly City Documents for 1905.
MANUAL TRAINING
The training of the hand to skill in manual work has always been regarded
as an essential for every child. In former times, this manual skill was usually
obtained at home on the farm or in the shop, or by a system of apprenticeship
in learning a trade. The mother taught the girls to sweep and keep the house,
to sew and to cook, and often to spin and to weave. The terms of school were
short and the educational requirements of the times were simple because the
social and business life was simple. Except the few that aspired to enter
the learned professions, pupils left school young and learned :1 trade or
the art! of the housewife. The extreme complication and variety of industrial
life to-day; the knowledge of mechanics, electricity, and chemistry now necessary
in many common occupations; the intense competition and the organization of
employees into labor unions that enforce certain restrictions in the employment
of labor have all tended to greatly increase the demands made upon the schools,
to increase the number of weeks of school each year, and to hold the pupil
in school to a more advanced grade, and thus decrease the time for outside
manual work. The change in the home life and Asocial life and the opportunity
for girls to work in shops and stores, and the general relaxation of parental
discipline has tended to prevent the systematic training of young women in
the domestic arts.
Since boys and girls have in a large degree ceased to receive systematic practice
in manual work at home or out of school, there has been a very persistent
and increasing demand for a portion of the school time to be devoted to this
subject. This demand comes first from the bread winners that wish the children
to learn something practical, something that will fit them to earn a living.
Second, it comes from employers of young people. The employers complain that
book learning alone is too theoretical. They want employees that can do things.
Third, the demand comes from commercial houses that compete for the markets
of the world with foreign manufacturers. They complain that American workmen
are superficial, lack originality and taste, and do not appreciate the finer
points of the finished product. Fourth, the demand comes from the heads of
manufacturing establishments for all kinds of foremen and superintendents
that have the general. Education and the detailed knowledge of all parts of
the industry together with the experimental knowledge gained only through
use of the hands. This demand is very insistent and has led in its larger
aspects to the, founding of trade schools such as the Lowell Textile School.
It is the main cause for the unprecedented growth of such schools as the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology. There are many other phases of this modern demand
for industrial training, but space forbids their enumeration. I will only
mention that the most recent and perhaps after all the most insistent and
convincing demand for hand training comes from the educationist. He says that
we truly learn only so much as we practice; what we learn about but cannot
do is of trifling value. Only as we attempt to do a thing do we really learn
how to do it. Learning and doing act and re-act. As we attempt to appl y we
see more clearly; as we see more clearly we apply more effectively and skillfully.
Professor Tyler has pointed out a remarkable physiological reason for manual
training. He says that the vital organs, the heart and lungs, are not stimu1ated
to increased activity by mental exertion a1one. It is necessary to exercise
the muscles in order to re1ieve congestion and restore the perceptive faculties
to their normal powers. In this way manual work actually increases the power
of the mind to acquire know1edge by keeping the mental machinery in proper
condition.
The manual work undertaken in Beverly thus far has been very simp1e hand training,
and has been without material expense to the city. It occupies one period
of fifty minutes a week in grades five, six, seven and eight, besides occasional
simple 1essons in connection with drawing during the drawing time. Sewing
is taught to the girls partly for its intrinsic va1ue and part1y for its va1ue
in training the hands. Nothing is done as yet in the High School except simple
work in the drawing c1asses. Cooking has not been attempted in either High
School or Elementary School. In fact, thus filer, only those simp1e things
that cou1d be done without much expense have been attempted. Were far behind
most of our neighbors in the matter of manual training. In fact, there are
few cities of any educational importance in the United States that are not
seriously grappling with this problem of manual training.
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