Ira Samuel Griffith

“ 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. ”

“ Make a special point of the fact, which almost every boy overlooks, that the simple forms of outline are invariably the more pleasing. To the beginner design means making something unlike anything that was ever seen on the earth below or heaven above—hence the freakish, fussy forms that are usually offered. Try telling the class you are going to place an excellent form on the board then draw a well proportioned oblong and watch the expressions on their faces. Yet a well proportioned oblong with appropriate decorative form is one of the most pleasing of forms. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ For the most efficient presentation of drawing there will need to be plenty of blueprints or plates from which the student may work. These must be so well executed, as to technique, that the pupil will have before him only the best as models. No one would think of placing before the writing class other than the best models of style and execution in penmanship, yet it is not infrequent to find mechanical drawing students copying from blueprints that are far below standard as to excellence. ”

“ 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 great objection to exercise pieces lies in their inability to create a vital interest on the part of the pupil. The writer has made it a practice to talk over the applications of each exercise and to state briefly the need for the exercise before beginning it. First, that the class because of numbers must be instructed all at the same time; second, that the joints, unlike the simple one-piece objects previously made cannot be remedied or patched up by reducing the size, as in the bread board, when lack of knowledge or skill causes errors ”

“ 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 ”