Ira Samuel Griffith

“ The cutting edge, if sharp, cuts the outer layer, the callous part of the ball of the thumb, just a little. The sense of feeling is so keen that the resulting friction, slight as it is, is transferred to the brain of the worker long before any injury need be done the thumb. ”

“ It is possible to create unknown out of what is seemingly unknown. When we stop to analyze the process, however, we find that we have made use of information, appreciation, and feeling that are known. Sometimes we make ourselves believe that our pupils are creating unknown out of unknown without these requisites. Analysis will show that our continued suggestions to him, drawn from our own fund of known are the causes, and not the pupil’s faculty. This method of teaching is the kind we have been used to in design. It works pretty well with small classes and individual instruction. ”

“ Make a preliminary test with the eye before beginning to plane. Sight the arrises of the edge to see where it needs straightening. Examine the end to see which arris is high. Also look to see which way the grain runs. Avoid imperfections in the wood as far as possible in choosing this edge.
It is the part of wisdom to examine the plane-iron to see that the surface planing has not caused the cutting edge to project unevenly. A plane, set out of true, is likely to cause hours of extra work; it defeats every effort that may be made to hold the plane properly. ”

“ We do not mean to imply that manual training and vocational training are the same, but we do mean to say that the educative value of any shop training, whether given from the point of view of general culture or of special preparation for life’s work, is evidenced in the attitude which pupils are allowed to assume toward their work. Incorrect and slovenly habits of thinking and doing have no more place in manual [2] training than in vocational training. Organization of subject matter is as essential in manual training as in any other line of endeavor. ”

“ Even as the pupils of our primary schools learn to read without being conscious of the “dry bones” of language and spelling back of it, so, in the teaching of mechanical drawing, the aim is to arouse in the beginner an interest in the ability to draw and to read drawings, as an accomplishment, and to inspire him to work, because he sees that there is something he needs, wants, and must have.
Little or no effort is made in seventh grade drawing to develop originality. Almost all effort is spent in developing a drawing technique and a good style. ”

“ Inductive or synthetic teaching of design has its place; so also has the deductive or analytic. Happily those educators who insist on the use of one method or the other only are becoming few. In other subjects we are finding that the teaching results which demand the respect and approval of educators of safe and sane judgment are obtained by the use of both methods interchangeably. There is no formal notice when one is to be used or the other—whichever method fits the occasion is used without apology. This is right; to do otherwise is to sacrifice the boy or girl for the sake of the method. ”

“ It is hardly to be expected that any one set of models or of exercises, tho they may be of very great value, will fill the needs of varying local school conditions. The production of a text-book which shall deal with tool processes in a general way without reference to any particular set of models or exercises is the author’s aim. It is believed that such a text will prove suitable wherever the essentials of woodworking shall be taught, whether in grammar, high school or college, and whatever the system of instruction. ”

“ Past efforts show how hopeless is the problem when we strive to give to the pupils appreciation of and feeling for line and form by demanding original forms in the very beginning. The beginner’s efforts at creation are abortive and the appreciation that he derives is nil. By our insistence on this method we have given to our pupils the idea that design means making something out of nothing. ”

“ In spite of the instructor’s best efforts to create a feeling of respect toward the basement shopwork similar to that entertained toward the academic work, pupils in going from the comfortably furnished rooms above, in which the decorator’s art has helped to make everything agreeable to the eye, unconsciously assume an attitude in their first conduct and deportment that places the shop instructor at a disadvantage. ”

“ Practically, it soon becomes evident that young pupils, such as our manual training boys, are lacking sadly in judgment in the power to discriminate between liberty and license in shop conduct. Allow them the privilege of talking to one another about necessary matters without asking permission of the instructor and you must be a strong teacher to prevent abuse of the privilege. To allow unrestricted conversation, however, is decidedly bad. Even with grown men and women working in shops, only restricted conversation is allowed. ”

“ 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 woodworking teacher being the drawing teacher makes it impossible to utilize both shop and separate drawing-room to advantage. The fitting up and heating of rooms that are to be used only part of the school time makes a separate drawing-room an unwarranted expense in grade schools. A satisfactory substitute is to utilize the woodshop benches for drawing benches but to remove all tools, having it distinctly understood that ten or twelve weeks are for drawing, and that, no matter how many drawings are produced by a pupil, he will begin no woodwork until the time allotted to drawing is up. ”

“ Present methods of organization in high schools hardly permit of the teaching of shopwork and design and by the same instructor, which is the ideal way providing, of course, that the instructor is expert in both. This is a combination difficult to find. It is gratifying, however, to know that some schools are insisting that their shop men become informed in design as well as shopwork.
While these drawings are being worked up in the drafting room the pupil’s shop periods are given over to the making of the exercise joints and mastering the principles involved in their making. ”

“ Standardization in the manual training shop is just as desirable and as profitable as in commercial shops. Not infrequently young teachers begin their work with the idea that the greater variety of tools and materials they can introduce into their course the richer is its content. To a certain extent this is true but experience will soon prove that there is a limit beyond which it is not profitable to go. In grammar schools, with classes of twenty, it is inadvisable to have more than one plane on a bench—or even in the general tool equipment, if the courses [60] outlined herewith are followed. ”

“ If manual training practice in the two upper grammar grades has merited criticism it has been because school men have not taken its subject matter seriously enough.
It is too much to hope that results can be achieved that are truly educative, when a shop, however well equipped, is turned over to a teacher but slightly experienced in, and appreciative of, the “finer points” of the subject matter to be dealt with. Loose and unorganized efforts in any line of work cannot become educative, it matters not what fine spun theories may be offered as proof to the contrary. ”

“ To proceed with the old is objectionable in that the worker forgets his new instruction before he has opportunity to apply it. To start new work before finishing the old is bad in that the pupil will have lost interest in the old when asked to complete it after finishing the new work. Not to complete the old at all would be a practice too vicious to be tolerated for a moment.
In the seventh grade this overlapping is not a serious problem, for the objects being small and quickly finished allow all to finish the old group before the instruction of the new has faded. ”

“ In the seventh grade the pupil is given little opportunity to exercise his initiative in either woodwork or drawing. The reason for this, as has been previously stated, is a firm belief that initiative in any subject to be of value must be based upon a fair knowledge of the subject matter dealt with, its limitations and its possibilities. In other words, that appreciation must precede invention or initiative. ”

“ The whole subject of design as it relates to the manual training shop is one that has demanded thought on the part of the author. It is one of those places where teaching theory failed to bring efficiency either in the results obtained in design or in the reaction upon the boy. He has been forced to the opinion, from his own experience and from his observation of the efforts of others to teach design to grammar school pupils, that the cause for dissatisfaction and discouragement is due to our insistence upon one and only one method of presentation—the inductive or synthetic. ”

“ The effect that violent work at one side of a double bench will have upon fine or accurate laying out by some boy on the other side of that bench is not difficult to imagine. The only argument in favor of a double bench is economy of space. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Even today, when it is a well established fact that handwork as a part of our educational course has not only proven its worth but is prophesied a greater place in our educational scheme in the form of industrial training, some school authorities not only place shops in basements of old buildings but plan new buildings with basement shops. ”

“ A glance at the outline on woodworking will show that the projects in eighth grade and in high school are most all of such a nature as to demand considerable repetition of processes. For illustration, in the making of the taboret there are eight dado joints. We have heard so much of the non-educational value of repeated processes that one may be inclined to question the arrangement of a course which introduces but two joints in the course of a year’s work, as is done in the eighth grade of this outline. ”

“ On the contrary he stated with marked emphasis that 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.” ”

“ In the grammar schools the problem is but slightly different. In a city of any size, shopwork will need to be given in centers. The alternative of a shop in each school with an instructor going from shop to shop on different days of the week is hardly practicable. The equipment of a shop is a matter of too great cost to have it lying idle part of the school time. There is added disadvantage in that a peripatetic shop instructor cannot “keep up” his several shops with divided interest as well as he can keep up one in which he works constantly. ”

“ In the very first drawing, for example, and all others, insist on having lightly penciled blocking out lines of indefinite length—lines that are just visible, that is all. Do not allow the pupil to form the habit of drawing a heavy line between two points previously located. It is needless to say that the pencil must be of good lead, properly sharpened, and kept sharp. It is an excellent plan to insist that all construction or blocking out lines be left just as originally drawn, no eraser being used at all. If lightly made, as they should be, they will be inconspicuous in the finished drawing. ”

“ In this discussion, we should ever keep in mind that the American public school system is maintained mainly to prepare boys and girls for good and useful citizenship; that this is a democracy in which neither individual nor class is to be exalted unduly and that our system of education must result neither in the chaos of anarchy nor in the dull formalism of a despotism. To the writer it appears that manual training as practiced before the psychologist took possession was quite typical of the countries from which its influence came, Russia and Sweden-formalism. ”

“ Where the full two hours and a half are devoted entirely to shopwork, especially if the shopwork is of such a nature as to make little appeal to the interest of the pupil, this argument is valid. If, however, each period has its recitation on assigned study and its demonstration on the new work to be presented there remains but two hours of work requiring the student to be on his feet and, if the interest is what it should be, very few boys will complain of fatigue. ”

“ This, with a definite understanding on the pupil’s part that drawing technique is the major and the utility of the drawing the minor consideration, should put the pupil in the right attitude toward his drawing work and make it possible to secure the best drawings he is capable of producing. No one, not even a finished draftsman, could produce good drawings surrounded by the noise and dust of neighboring woodworkers. Under the alternating system there are always slow pupils who, if they finish their drawings before they make the application, must do it while the others are working in wood. ”