e
smith's and engineering workshops. As for the perfection of the
mechanical work of the students I cannot do better than refer to the
reports of the juries at the above-named exhibitions.

In America the same system has been introduced, in its technical part,
first, in the Chicago Manual Training School, and later on in the Boston
Technical School--the best, I am told, of the sort; and in this
country, or rather in Scotland, I found the system applied with full
success, for some years, under the direction of Dr. Ogilvie at Gordon's
College in Aberdeen. It is the Moscow or Chicago system on a limited
scale. While receiving substantial scientific education, the pupils are
also trained in the workshops--but not for one special trade, as it
unhappily too often is the case. They pass through the carpenter's
workshop, the casting in metals, and the engineering workshop; and in
each of these they learn the foundations of each of the three trades
sufficiently well for supplying the school itself with a number of
useful things. Besides, as far as I could ascertain from what I saw in
the geographical and physical classes, as also in the chemical
laboratory, the system of "through the hand to the brain," and _vice
versa_, is in full swing, and it is attended with the best success. The
boys _work_ with the physical instruments, and they study geography in
the field, instruments in hands, as well as in the class-room. Some of
their surveys filled my heart, as an old geographer, with joy. It is
evident that the Gordon's College industrial department is not a mere
copy of any foreign school; on the contrary, I cannot help thinking that
if Aberdeen has made that excellent move towards combining science with
handicraft, the move was a natural outcome of what has been practised
long since, on a smaller scale, in the Aberdeen daily schools.

The Moscow Technical School surely is not an ideal school.[1] It totally
neglects the humanitarian education of the young men. But we must
recognize that the Moscow experiment--not to speak of hundreds of other
partial experiments--has perfectly well proved the possibility of
combining a scientific education of a very high standard with the
education which is necessary for becoming an excellent skilled laborer.
It has proved, moreover, that the best means for producing really good
skilled laborers is to seize the bull by the horns, and to grasp the
educational problem in its great features, instead