508 INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF EDUCATION. 
as living organisms. A correct examination of seeds and buds, to learn 
with what care they are protected, and the provision that is made for their 
life and development before they become independent food-seckers, in- 
volves dissection, which, to be valuable, requires much close and accurate 
oxercise of the eye and hand. Then the child must give much care to 
the preservation of specimens.” This vs all manual training. 
(4) The child must learn geography. To start in this work he must 
come in contact with things ; these he must learn to represent in sand and 
other plastic materials. He must cause steam to be created and to be 
condensed again, creating rivulets for transporting substances, that he 
may learn of the carving of mountains and of the creation of valleys ; for 
without an appreciation of the wonderful work of the sun with water, he 
will never know and understand the chief cause of geographic phenomena. 
This 1s manual training, than which there is no better. 
(5) The child must learn history. The learning of beautiful and use- 
ful forms made by man are the beginnings of the study of the humanities, 
:he beginnings of a knowledge of man’s influence in the world and of its 
nfluence on him ; his dependence on, his control of his environment. 
This is a part of the child’s preparation for the study of history. The 
sarly steps of this work are essentially exercises in manual training. 
(6) The child must learn to draw, which is one important branch of 
manual training. But the early steps of learning to draw are exercises in 
handling things in numberless ways, to learn of the facts of form and of 
“he texture of things, and of the facts that are the causes of form and of 
she texture of things. This is accomplished only by muscular effort in 
esting, adjusting, and arranging ; making or transforming by manual 
sffort, intelligently directed and carefully executed. 
Efforts at learning nature forms and other facts of natural phenomena 
are the first steps in learning geography, for these forms and facts are all 
geographic phenomena, whether plant or animal, whether biological or 
physical. Learning the same nature forms and talking about them is 
he best possible beginning in getting something definitely known to talk 
about, which, in turn, is the first step in the work of learning to read. 
So, while accomplishing the many purposes of a varied curriculum, the 
child is really engaged in but one thing : putting himself in condition to 
learn most profitably. 
The primary purpose of manual training is at least two-fold : first, it is 
to train the eye and hand to do the bidding of the will, thus securing a 
more equable development of the person ; second, it is to give the learner 
increased power and adaptability in getting correct information at every 
step. Of these two purposes, the latter is of the greater importance in the 
earlier stages of growth and development. Information received without 
she use of eye and hand is in many instances unreliable, because not full 
or complete, and is consequently ofttimes misleading. - It is therefore