Manual training in the United States has depended on private and local initiative. There had been no national movement prior to 1917 The Ethical Culture Society of New York City made the first step by opening handwork classes for small children in 1878 in connection with its workingmen's school. This was followed in 1880 by Washington University, Saint Louis, Mo., under the direction of Calvin A. Wood ward. This experiment consisted of a fully equipped manual training high school with a variety of shopwork in wood and metal, me chanical and in such appropriate aca demic work as science and mathematics. It was a pioneer school and its success was noticed by many of the large American cities. By 1900 a majority of American municipalities had adopted some form of manual training. Work for girls as well as boys was included in the program. The courses for girls included sew ing, dressmaking, millinery, burnt wood, leather and art jewelry; for boys it included joinery, wood-turning, pattern-making, forging, ma foundry, sheet-metal, printing, elec tric wiring, etc. In the elementary school hand work has likewise found a large place on the program, beginning in the kindergarten and con tinuing through the elementary grades. The activities include paper folding and paper cut ting, basketry, clay-modeling, wood-carving, raffia work, etc. Correlation with drawing is more and more the rule. The best practice in the public schools now relates drawing to the experiences of the child. Design is the basis of the work and the design of the drawing class frequently becomes the project of the handwork-class in the upper grades. Manual training in the American high school early de veloped into a distinctive institution. Its hand work or shop-work program is only remotely related to industry. The projects are often im practical because they are chosen, not because of their utility or industrial significance but be cause they illustrate fundamental processes of industry. Type constructions are used as ana lytical studies of various manufacturing proc esses. A complete product is not sought nor are such elements as time, commercial value and shop atmosphere made a part of the instruction. The purpose of this typical Manual Training High School is vaguely educational, remotely industrial. As such, it fails to meet the needs of many industrial communities.
The Vocational change of sen timent became apparent immediately after the Saint Louis Exposition of 1904. Educators
who had investigated the subject in Europe and America, who saw the display of the nations' handwork, seemed to feel the need of training that related more closely to life motives. Manufacturers demanded industrial efficiency and appeared to have no confidence in the vague results of the typical Manual Training High School which was a traditional school with shop facilities. A demand arose for "shops with schools attachedD or with school facilities. Manual training was soon modified so as to add the vocational appeal to boys and girls of 14 years of age and upward. The handwork of the seventh and eighth grades has come to be known as "prevocationaP in the' sense that the processes of many vocations are taught with the purpose of giving the child an opportunity to choose wisely with the aid of vocational advisers among teachers, parents and industrial or voca tional experts. The logical step to follow this "prevocational" work is the trade school so that the advance of the vocational and .industrial motives makes the old manual training ideal recede.
Industrial Education and Manual ing.— Industrial education is a more compre hensive term than manual training. It includes all that was at •first expected from manual train ing as a stimulus to efficient workmanship; that vocational and uprevocational" training propose; all that trade education seeks to secure. The emphasis is now on training and the spe cialized education pertaining to special indus tries, while the vague educational results'of man ual training which it was claimed would come by transfer of faculties, drop below the horizon.
The great demand for skilled workmen in the army and navy has led to the adoption of a national program of industrial education under the direction of the War Department. Colleges and technical schools in all parts of the country are teaching trades indispensable in warfare, using the equipment of former manual training and industrial schools. Thus is im pressed on men's minds the Milky of industrial skill in sharp contrast with the relative inutility for the work in hand of much of the traditional education, including the typical manual training schools. The organization of industrial educa tion on a national basis is thus assured. It supersedes manual training and takes its place side by side with technical education. See EDU CATION, INDUSTRIAL; EDUCATION, TECHNICAL; VOCATIONAL EDUCATION.