and I believe it should be insisted upon. That is, if a model is to be 42 inches long, there is no reason why not 85 per cent. of the pupils should get it this dimension, and not inch more or less. We should never, however, ask for accuracy before the pupils are properly prepared for such exercises as imply this element; but at the age of nine it does not seem too extravagant to expect a pupil to locate a point a certain distance from another point, when the process simply means putting the pencil point opposite a certain figure. Neither are the cutting exercises beyond the pupil's power, if cardboard is used as the material of construction.

Just as we insisted upon the accuracy of expression during the first three years in school, we should thereafter insist upon accuracy of dimensions or measurements. Later in school life we introduce accuracy of a higher grade or nature which will call into action the aesthetic ideas of proportion and beauty. Accuracy in one sense or the other is the keynote to the disciplinary significance of manual training.

This discussion on accuracy will again emphasize the necessity of careful progression of the exercises. At no stage of the work should we ask a class of pupils to do what they cannot do well.

I look upon it as unfortunate that this principle is being often violated.

TABLE OF STATISTICS OF MANUAL TRAINING IN THE DETROIT PUBLIC SCHOOLS

What has been said above in regard to accuracy of dimensions applies especially to the regular series of models that is followed by all the pupils

in the class.

More freedom should be given to the pupils in their work on models of their own invention. Independent activity of this nature should be encouraged, and, if accuracy has been attained on the regular models, the pupils will be guided by the habits thus formed in this independent work.

In the chart of the statistics of manual training in the Detroit public schools you will notice that we have special teachers for the boys only in the seventh and eighth grades.

In the fourth, fifth, and sixth grades the work is in charge of the regular grade teachers, each class of boys receiving their instruction in manual training while the girls have their lesson in sewing from special teachers. The course, as you notice, is cardboard construction in the fourth and fifth grades, and knife-work in cardboard and in wood in the sixth grade. I instruct the grade teachers in the different exercises and illustrate the method of teaching the different models, besides emphasizing the aim of the lesson.

In my first talk to new teachers I spend quite a good deal of time defining the aim of manual training as definitely as possible, besides giving as many lessons as my time permits to the different classes in the presence of the teachers. With this assistance I believe the grade teachers can teach the boys manual training just as well as, or better than, special instructors. In the first place, they know their pupils; secondly, they can correlate the instruction in manual training with that of other, related subjects, thus helping to make this new subject an integral part of the curriculum; and, thirdly, they have had extensive experience in teaching. These three conditions are not so easily fulfilled by a special teacher, and they are vital conditions for the success in teaching manual training.

THE PROGRESS AND AIMS OF DOMESTIC SCIENCE IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO

HENRY S. TIBBITS, PRINCIPAL SPRY SCHOOL, CHICAGO, ILL.

The teaching of cooking and sewing, for local reasons called "household arts," was introduced into the Chicago public schools two and a half years ago. A special committee of five members of the board of education inspected at the Hammond School the teaching of these subjects. which they had permitted at private expense. Twenty-five thousand dollars was appropriated for providing equipment and initiating the work for its first year. Of this but $18,500 was used. Equipments for cooking were placed in eleven schools, and have been placed in the new Dewey School. Each of these has been a center to which several neighboring schools have sent the girls of the seventh and eighth grades for cooking lessons, one period of an hour and a half each week. The number of

pupils taught at a center averages 450. In other schools, not contiguous to cooking centers, eleven teachers of sewing have given lessons of an hour and a half each week to the girls of the seventh and eighth grades, the teachers being peripatetic.

November 1, 1900, 4,372 pupils were receiving instruction in cooking and 4,853 pupils in sewing, or 9,225 out of a total of 13,000 girls of those grades.

The teachers are required to be high-school graduates who have taken a course in domestic science in some secondary institution. This secures an able corps of teachers, several of whom have been called to more lucrative positions in other cities.

The courses of lessons in both cooking and sewing are eclectic, having been arranged by the respective associations of teachers. They have been revised and modified as experience has dictated. The cooking lessons are distinctly a plain-food course - lobster salad and charlotte russe being omitted. Each pupil cooks the prescribed food, and either eats it or carries it home. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. The success or failure of a lesson is immediately apparent. Much effort has been given to securing the practical helpfulness of the lessons of the day in the home, where a failure is analyzed and perplexities are dissolved. The grade teachers have often wisely correlated with cooking, physiology, nature study, and some topics of practical arithmetic.

Instruction in sewing is practical in a similar way. A study of the nature of cloth is succeeded by the various processes of its adaptation to clothing. Finally, simple garments are made by the pupil for her own. The related subjects of invention, growth, and manufacture of cloth materials, fibers and fabrics, good taste in dressing, shopping, and laundering, are developed.

use.

Sociologically considered, the church industrial schools have been vastly improved upon in the public school, where not simply the poor, good girl is taught sewing, but every girl in the schoolroom, rich or poor, open-minded or clam-like.

The cost of domestic science is $1.81 per pupil per year; the cost of manual training is $3.34; the cost of German is $4.86. This is based upon the average for the past year. These figures are significant for comparison either with other studies or with domestic science in other cities. The salaries of teachers of cooking and sewing in Chicago are the same as those of grade teachers, ranging from $500 the first year to $900 for the tenth year. Much of the success of the teaching of cooking depends, of course, upon the method. It is distinctly a laboratory subject, and, like all other laboratory work, is vastly superior when individual equipment is supplied. Hence we have the individual sets of dishes and a stove for each pupil. By using small portions, when they suffice, the expense for material is inconsiderable, even with individual instruction.

One and one-fourth cents per pupil per week is the allowance in Chicago. While individual desires will ever increase the cost of equipment, it is possible and wise to equip for the teaching of cooking upon just as accurate and scientific principles and practical use at the expense of $150 for a class of twenty-four as at the rate of $500.

One of the noblest movements of the present day is that which would magnify the home. The chair, bright light, and gorgeous embellishments are a more harmful element in the saloon than its alcohol. If the honest arts of the home may be made less irksome because they are better understood, and more attractive because they are more artistic, we shall have come to the root of this matter. The evening meal of the factory hand may be made more tempting than the lunch counter, and the clothing of the family, as well as the arrangement and tidiness of the living-room at home, may be as attractive as the gilded home of vice. Domestic science may become the unsuspected, and yet not the least efficient, enemy of the saloon.

Instruction in cooking in Chicago is well amplified in its scientific relations. The simple biology of yeast and vinegar is developed. A careful classification of food values as fats, proteids, carbohydrates, mineral matter, etc., accompanies the study of the composition of the human body and its food requisites. The dietetic principles of suitable proportions of these food elements are given, and the complementary nature of certain foods is shown. The reasons for the use of hot or cold water; the relative merits of boiling or baking, of the raw and cooked states, of acid and base - such scientific data, adapted to the age and knowledge of pupils, enter into cooking lessons and furnish the science to enrich the household arts. The dealing with material things introduces elements of accuracy and order not found in the strictly intellectual subjects. Just as in all forms of manual training, small groups of muscles are co-ordinated and deft manipulations mastered, thus realizing complete and extended reactions.

The useful hints, skilled methods, and adept ways acquired by the teachers in their special training are imparted in turn to the pupils, and, as in all education, the experience of the race is placed at the disposal of the child. The girl accustomed to black bread and beer for dinner, to poorly cooked food wastefully used, learns to prepare palatable dishes from economical materials. It is difficult to measure the beneficent practical value of domestic science in these humble homes. It is a theme for eloquence, and insures permanency to the subject of study, no matter how much it may be temporarily buffeted about as a fad. the girl of luxury, with servants at home, whose life may be distinctly social, frivolous, and gay, domestic science yields an appropriate sense of the importance of the human body, its nourishment and clothing - thus introducing a more harmonious and reasonable life. In the wealthier

To

school districts of Chicago domestic science has been as welcome to the girls as in the districts of humbler homes.

It has never been seriously charged or believed that domestic science demeans the course of study, or is a preparation for domestics. We teach cooking and sewing at the age when pupils unconsciously learn that honest toil is not disgraceful. Mrs. Richards found in Boston that fourth-grade girls gladly received lessons in scrubbing and cleaning which older girls disdained.

The impotency of the woman who says she cannot sew on a button or mend a rent is a disease peculiar to modern urban life. The young bridegroom may profess to the wife who forgets to salt her first oatmeal that he likes the oatmeal very much better that way; but sentiment does not blossom freely from a ground of indigestion.

Aside from the general effects of domestic-science training, its specific effect, upon every third or fourth girl of distinctly motor predominance, is marked and extremely salutary. Every teacher of manual training, cooking, or sewing will bear witness to the aptitude of certain otherwise backward pupils in these studies which involve the more extended motor reactions. The course of study is thus flexibly adapted to the predominant activity of the pupil.

The teaching of sewing and cooking may be considered again in the light of school occupations. While they train hand and eye, there is ever present a directing mind having in view a distinct end. "I made this loaf of bread." "I planned and sewed my own dress." The peculiar advantage of cooking and sewing as school occupations is that they each parallel practical arts at home. The home is the practice department for the lessons of domestic science. No need can be more evident than that of food and clothing. It springs from a fundamental instinct. Few desires are more strong than to be well fed and well clothed. Reason gives as a secondary basis the desire for long life and a life of bodily comfort. Theoretically this gives us a most substantial basis for interest. Practically it proves a true basis, for pupils of cooking and sewing in Chicago never ask to be excused from the studies because they dislike them. There is increasing call for the introduction of the studies in the schools which do not now have them. Despite the disadvantages of being compelled to walk a long distance from the home school once a week in variable weather, the girls who study cooking are enthusiastic and regular in their attendance, altho the subject is quasi-optional and no other subject compels such travel. The interest is sufficient to overcome all reluctance to preparing material and cleaning utensils. An interest in digestion becomes an all-around satisfied interest when the pupil actually cooks and eats and comfortably assimilates the food of which she has just been studying in her physiology.

Domestic science is an integral part of any scheme of sound correlation.