called "training of eye and
hand," instead of consciously answering to the demands of social
purposes. The regular teachers look upon the fifth and sixth grade
sloyd[*sic] which they teach with no great enthusiasm. Seventh and
eighth grade teachers do not greatly value the work.

The household arts courses for the girls have social purposes in view.
As a result they are kept vitalized, and are growing increasingly
vital in the work of the city. Is it not possible also to vitalize the
manual training of the boys--unspecialized pre-vocational training, we
ought to call it--by giving it social purpose?

The principal of one of the academic high schools emphasized in
conversation the value of manual training for vocational guidance--a
social purpose. It permitted boys, he said, to try themselves out
and to find their vocational tastes and aptitudes. The purpose is
undoubtedly a valid one. The limitation of the method is that joinery
and cabinet-making cannot help a boy to try himself out for metal
work, printing, gardening, tailoring, or commercial work.

If vocational guidance is to be a controlling social purpose, the
manual training work will have to be made more diversified so that
one can try out his tastes and abilities in a number of lines. And,
moreover, each kind of work must be kept as much like responsible work
out in the world as possible. In keeping work normal, the main thing
is that the pupils bear actual responsibility for the doing of actual
work. This is rather difficult to arrange; but it is necessary before
the activities can be lifted above the level of the usual manual
training shop. The earliest stages of the training will naturally be
upon what is little more than a play level. It is well for schools to
give free rein to the constructive instinct and to provide the fullest
and widest possible opportunities for its exercise. But if boys are
to try out their aptitudes for work and their ability to bear
responsibility in work, then they must try themselves out on the
work level. Let the manual training actually look toward vocational
guidance; the social purpose involved will vitalize the work.

There is a still more comprehensive social purpose which the city
should consider. Owing to the interdependence of human affairs, men
need to be broadly informed as to the great world of productive
labor. Most of our civic and social problems are at bottom industrial
problems. Just as we use industrial hist