Please see the Transcriber’s Notes at the end of this text.
Correlated Courses
IN
Woodwork
AND
Mechanical Drawing
By Ira S. Griffith, A. B.
Assistant Professor of Manual Arts, Bradley Polytechnic Institute, Peoria, Illinois.
Author of “Essentials of Woodworking,” “Woodwork for Amateur
Craftsmen,” “Projects for Beginning Woodwork and
Mechanical Drawing,” and “Advanced
Projects in Woodwork.”
The Manual Arts Press
Peoria, Illinois
Copyright
Ira S. Griffith
1912
[1]
PREFACE.
The author wishes to state that the basis of the following coursesrests more upon the art or practice of teaching manual training thanupon the theory. It is the result of carefully prepared plans executedunder public school conditions by the author himself, covering a periodof some nine years of experimentation. Wherever plans, or theory,were found producing results which common sense indicated plainlywere not for the pupils’ highest good, practical expediency supplantedtheory.
If manual training practice in the two upper grammar grades hasmerited criticism it has been because school men have not taken itssubject matter seriously enough.
It is too much to hope that results can be achieved that are trulyeducative, when a shop, however well equipped, is turned over to ateacher but slightly experienced in, and appreciative of, the “finer points”of the subject matter to be dealt with. Loose and unorganized effortsin any line of work cannot become educative, it matters not what finespun theories may be offered as proof to the contrary. Indeed, muchpositive injury may be done.
If the present demand for vocational training teaches manual traininganything, it is that the subject matter of manual training mustreceive more serious attention. The aims of manual training andvocational training, in one sense, are not so very different; both seek,or should, to assist the boy to become a “thinking doer.” The distinctionis mainly a matter of “direction” and of allotment of time,with possibly a slight difference in the placing of the emphasis on oneor the other of the words “thinking doer.”
We do not mean to imply that manual training and vocational trainingare the same, but we do mean to say that the educative value ofany shop training, whether given from the point of view of generalculture or of special preparation for life’s work, is evidenced in the attitudewhich pupils are allowed to assume toward their work. Incorrectand slovenly habits of thinking and doing have no more place in manual[2]training than in vocational training. Organization of subject matteris as essential in