Manual Training
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food, to deal with accidents and emergencies, to treat disease, to build
a house, or a church if need be—often these make all the difference
between success and failure in his lifework.
In acquiring an education, many students would gain a most valu-
able training if they would become self-sustaining. Instead of incurring
debts, or depending on the self-denial of their parents, let young men
and young women depend on themselves. They will thus learn the
value of money, the value of time, strength, and opportunities, and will
be under far less temptation to indulge idle and spendthrift habits. The
lessons of economy, industry, self-denial, practical business manage-
ment, and steadfastness of purpose, thus mastered, would prove a most
important part of their equipment for the battle of life. And the lesson
of self-help learned by the student would go far toward preserving
institutions of learning from the burden of debt under which so many
schools have struggled, and which has done so much toward crippling
their usefulness.
Let the youth be impressed with the thought that education is not to
teach them how to escape life’s disagreeable tasks and heavy burdens;
that its purpose is to lighten the work by teaching better methods and
higher aims. Teach them that life’s true aim is not to secure the greatest
possible gain for themselves, but to honor their Maker in doing their
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part of the world’s work, and lending a helpful hand to those weaker
or more ignorant.
One great reason why physical toil is looked down on is the slip-
shod, unthinking way in which it is so often performed. It is done from
necessity, not from choice. The worker puts no heart into it, and he
neither preserves self-respect nor wins the respect of others. Manual
training should correct this error. It should develop habits of accuracy
and thoroughness. Pupils should learn tact and system; they should
learn to economize time and to make every move count. They should
not only be taught the best methods, but be inspired with ambition
constantly to improve. Let it be their aim to make their work as nearly
perfect as human brains and hands can make it.
Such training will make the youth masters and not slaves of labor.
It will lighten the lot of the hard toiler, and will ennoble even the
humblest occupation. He who regards work as mere drudgery, and
settles down to it with self-complacent ignorance, making no effort to
improve, will find it indeed a burden. But those who recognize science