Abstract
WORKING in wood with carpenter's tools is now provided for in the curriculum of many public elementary schools, as well as in technical schools, with the object of training the manual and visual faculties to act in connection with the mental. Used with care, this manual work becomes a valuable educational agent, but unless it is carried out on an orderly system it degenerates into mere tinkering. Mr. Ricks has kept the true aims of manual training well in mind in the preparation of his work. “Our aims,“ he says, “must be wholly educational. We must arouse interest and quicken intelligence. We must develop and strengthen habits of attention, industry, and perseverance. We must train the eye to accurate observation, and the hand to dexterity in execution.’ The aspirations are commendable, and the author's experience has enabled him to develop a practicable scheme of work in which it is shown how they can be carried into effect. Beginning with a chapter on drawing as a factor in manual training in wood, this is shown to be the fundamental basis of the work. The necessity of exact measurement in all work, and the use of working drawings, is insisted upon; and rightly, for without drawings to scale, exact and intelligent handiwork is scarcely possible. An instructive chapter is given on the various woods used as timber, their structure, growth, preparation and properties. We notice that in explaining specific gravity with reference to timber, Mr. Ricks adopts as his standard the weight of a gallon of water (10 lbs.), the specific gravity of oak thus being 8, of beech 7, and so on. This is convenient for some reasons, but it is apt to create confusion; and if the child afterwards learns that the specific gravity of iron is 7, he will wonder whether the metal or the wood is the heavier.
Manual Training: Woodwork. A Handbook for Teachers.
By George Ricks Lond. Pp. 187. (London: Macmillan and Co., 1898.)
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Manual Training: Woodwork A Handbook for Teachers. Nature 58, 124 (1898). https://doi.org/10.1038/058124b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/058124b0