For a fuller account of this theory see Burk: From Fundamental to Accessory in the Nervous System and of Movements. Pedagogical Seminary, October, 1898, vol. 6, pp. 17-23.]
[Footnote 10: A Preliminary Study of Some of the Motor Phenomena of Mental Effort. American Journal of Psychology, July, 1896, vol. 7, pp. 491-517.]
[Footnote 11: Encyclopedia of Social Reform, Funk and Wagnalls, 1896, p. 1095]
Trade classes and schools, their importance in the international market--Our dangers and the superiority of German workmen--The effects of a tariff--Description of schools between the kindergarten and the industrial school--Equal salaries for teachers in France--Dangers from machinery--The advantages of life on the old New England farm--Its resemblance to the education we now give negroes and Indians--Its advantage for all-sided muscular development.
We must glance at a few of the best and most typical methods of muscular development, following the order: industrial education, manual training, gymnastics, and play, sports, and games.
Industrial education is now imperative for every nation that would excel in agriculture, manufacture, and trade, not only because of the growing intensity of competition, but because of the decline of the apprentice system and the growing intricacy of processes, requiring only the skill needed for livelihood. Thousands of our youth of late have been diverted from secondary schools to the monotechnic or trade classes now established for horology, glass-work, brick-laying, carpentry, forging, dressmaking, cooking, typesetting, bookbinding, brewing, seamanship, work in leather, rubber, horticulture, gardening, photography, basketry, stock-raising, typewriting, stenography and bookkeeping, elementary commercial training for practical preparation for clerkships, etc. In this work not only is Boston, our most advanced city, as President Pritchett[1] has shown in detail, far behind Berlin, but German workmen and shopmen a slowly taking the best places even in England; and but for a high tariff, which protects our inferiority, the competitive pressure would be still greater. In Germany, especially, this training is far more diversified than here, always being colored if not determined by the prevalent industry of the region and more specialised and helped out by evening and even Sunday classes in the school buildings, and by the still strong apprentice system. Froebelian influence in manual training reaches through the eight school years and is in some respects better than ours in lower grades, but is very rarely coeducational, girls' work of sewing, knitting, crocheting, weaving, etc., not being considered manual training. There are now over 1,500 schools and workshops in Germany where manual training is taught; twenty-five of these are independent schools. The work really began in 1875 with v. Kass, and is promoted by the great Society for Boys' Handwork. Much stress is laid on paper and pasteboard work in lower grades, under the influence of Kurufa of Darmstadt. Many objects for illustrating science are made, and one course embraces the Seyner water-wheel.[2]