Vocational Education-Snedden By W. S. Hiser, Manual Training High School, Indianapolis. One of the first if not the first problem is to get sufficient time to do this work. The work in the present course of study that has never been regarded as vocational must be reorganized. The lower you descend in the grades the more the nature of the pupil demands that he learn through concrete experiences and in the main through the use of his hands. The subjects in the elementary course are there because that in the work and business affairs of life they are found combined in natural relation-in school language correlated. So our problem is easy if we desire to solve it. Choose one or two lines of hand work in the operations of which the pupil needs to experience, both on account of their industrial value and on account of his need of mastering language, arithmetic, writing and art. The parts of these subjects that appear in this hand work are the phases of them that the pupil should be familiarized with. By starting with a typical line of work like "cover paper" construction, for instance, much of all the phases of the subjects demanded in life can be taught in this way effectively and in less time than in the way we go at it hitherto. I have repeatedly demonstrated this. This same principle holds good throughout the pupil's entire school career. Dr. Snedden stresses it on pp. 27, "The Horticulturist," 35 to 40 inclusive. Very likely the most important problem today in the elementary school is the reorganization of the courses and methods of instruction along lines of simplification, elimination and readjustment. Nothing will vitalize the subject of arithmetic more than to create within the school itself a direct use for its processes. The ideal men and women placed before the minds of the children in the school room are the poets, the orators, the painters, the soldiers and the philosophers. It is to such men as Edison, Stevensons, Bessemer, Fulton, Watt, Howe, Huxley, McCormick, Eads Erickson and others like them that the wonderful triumphs of the last century are due. These men have made our modern civilization. Quoting from Arthur D. Dean: "The excellent methods of teaching in the factory schools the, shop problems relating to the formal subjects of arithmetic, algebra, geometry, mechanics and chemistry, ought to have a great influence on the methods of instruction in the public schools. It is a revelation to see the manner of approach, of the applications of theory to practice; each example being a concrete illustration of some mechanical principle of the daily shop practice. Public school teachers well might study the methods of instruction adopted by the instructors of the New York Central lines. Instead of working from theory to practice, the pupils work from practice to theory. They take an old steam pump, run it by compressed air in the school room, and let the apprentices see the way it works, take it apart and examine into the valve motion, make drawings of the various parts, calculate the cubical contents of the cylinders, study the various mechanisms and then go out into the shop and grind the valves. In short, starting with the pump they work out by concrete applications the subjects of arithmetic, geometry, mechanical drawing and mechanics. It is possible to organize the majority of specialized occupations into a number of groups, each one of which represents certain distinctive rudimentary processes connected with common materials. These general processes will later admit of subdivision in the various activities which go toward making up the highly specialized industries. We must have a series of textbooks suitable for the study of those engaged in the trades for use in evening schools. Such books are appearing today and more will come as teachers demand them. These books have to be written by men who know the shops, assisted perhaps, by those who know how to present a subject effectively. See a copy of Ludlow Textile Arithmetic, Ludlow, Mass. It will be a false step to ignore the influence and support which union labor can give to vocational training. If it is organized on a broad basis there is no doubt but that their hearty cooperation and support will be forth coming. It is the state that can develop a plan which will meet the co-operation of employer and employee, of capitalist and of organized labor. The recent movement for industrial and agricultural education in different states is attempting to isolate this work by organizing separate classes of schools. In establishing county agricultural schools in Wisconsin this is being done until these schools get their bearings, course of study, data textbooks and some traditions worthy of preservation; but every one agrees that eventually much that there is in these schools must go into the regular schools. On the other hand, here is what we must strenuously guard against; to attempt to incorporate industrial education in a school where it will be dominated by the advocates of a liberal education, those who have a contempt for things practical, will. be to defeat a plan of education for industrial workers which has already been defeated twice in the past fifty years once when the agricultural and mechanic arts colleges were established and again when the manual arts were introduced. PRIMARY DEPARTMENT Julia Fried Walker, Indianapolis dozen. The teachers of primary reading in words. 5 cents each or 50 cents the Indiana can not complain that "there are not helps enough." The author of the Child Classics has five pages of suggestions in the back of the Primer and three pages in the back of the First Reader. She has also published, to enable the teacher to drill thoroughly on the words and phonograms taught in the Primer and the First Reader, three sets of cards. These have been made in large clear type that can easily be seen across a school room. The first set contains sixty-three Primer word cards, including fourteen extra large cards on which are reproductions of important illustrations, together with the words which they illustrate. These cards contain one hundred and thirty sight words for drill purposes. Price 50 cents the set. The second set, of forty-one cards, covers thoroughly the phonetic drills taught in the Primer. Price 35 cents the set. The third set, to be used with the First Reader, contains thirty-two phonetic cards which review all of the short and long vowels and all of the consonants, and drill thoroughly on all essential digraphs. Price 30 cents the set. All the words of the Primer and First Reader have been printed in large bold type on manila board for the use of the child on his desk in building sentences. Each card contains seven hundred Child Classics Manual, by Mrs. E. E. Olcott, which tells exactly how to teach the lessons of the Primer in the most effective way. It suggests many helpful devices to use in teaching beginners to read; presents in most concrete manner how best to teach phonics. No teacher can afford to be without the Child Classics Manual. It is worth many times its price. Price 25 cents. Do not complain, dear teachers, and say that there are plenty of helps, but that the aggregate price ($1.40) of these helps places them beyond your reach. These are for sale by the BobbsMerrill Company and by Kiger and Company, Indianapolis. Because of the cry for more help I have looked at these various helps with a critical eye to see if anything had been overlooked. I have only found two things that could be given. They are a list of initial consonants and an arranged list of the vowels for the phonic drill. These two lists may not have been overlooked by the author; she may have thought them unnecessary. All will concede, however, that if they are added to the already prepared help they will save much time. The list of initial consonants is given here in the order in which the letter appears at the bottom of the pages in the primer. Montessori and the Kindergarten. Miss Elizabeth Harrison, of the National Kindergarten College, Chicago, Ill., was a member of the class in Montessori work under Madam Montessori's direct instruction, held in Rome last year. At the request of the United States Bureau of Education, she prepared a careful analysis of Dr. Montessori's work with special reference to the kindergarten. She sums up as follows: Physically: Dr. Montessori has organized definite gymnastics for the muscular development of the child, basing the same on their relationship to the nervous system, but so far has introduced no dramatic play. Froebel would have all bodily exercise done under the stimulus of play, leaving the definite muscular development to the body's response to the demand of the dramatic instinct of the child. The two methods can easily be united to the betterment of the child. Psychologically: Although Dr. Montessori claims that the unfolding of the child's inner life should be the chief aim of edulation, she frankly confesses that she knows no other way to deal with this spiritual life than definitely to train the senses. She says: "The content of our mind is made up of what we take materially from our surroundings by means of sensation." Therefore she emphasizes sense-impressions, but ignores the processes of apperception, memory and imagination by means of which the mind, itself, makes use of these sense-impressions for its own development. She leaves these important activities of the ego undirected and uncorrected by the teacher, although often directed and interfered with by the other children. Froebel, in all his writings, insists also upon the importance of clear sense-impression, but he then shows how each new sense-impression should be correlated, by the mind, with the knowledge already acquired, else the growth of the mind will be confused and hampered by unorganized impressions. He thus emphasizes the energies of the mind as inborn, acting upon the material brought it by means of the senses rather than as something built up from the outside world through sense-impressions. Pedagogically: Dr. Montessori confines her "didactic material" to geometric impressions and utilitarian pur poses. Although his play-gifts are also geometric and the child's attention is sometimes called to the mathematical qualities of his material, Froebel's materials are created more for the purpose of satisfying the child's instinctive desire to take to pieces and put together all materials that come into his hands; in other words, to learn of dimension, form, weight, etc., more through creative play than by direct dictation. Socially: Dr. Montessori would have the child learn his social relations through the actual experiences in the classroom and on the playground. Froebel would have these experiences strengthened by dramatic play, stories and songs which portray the social life of mankind and its interdepend ence. Spiritually: Dr. Montessori is very devout in her attitude toward the spiritual life of the child; she says, "In comparison to this realm all the rest is as nothing." Yet she acknowledges that it is a subject so complex and so deep that she scarcely dares touch upon it, and admits that it is to her as yet a vauge, unsolved problem. Froebel believed that there is a spiritual law of development as definite as the physical law of development, and |