for extensive differentiation at twelve or earlier. The time is ripe to recognize that secondary education should involve differentiation according to educational need, and this begins to manifest itself earlier than the traditions of American education have established." Such a plan would of course involve radical changes in the grades beyond the sixth; but there is a growing demand and it is not at all unlikely that they may be made.

A movement such as this for industrial education should appeal to Catholics with more than ordinary insistence. It is in line with the Catholic principle that the education of the child should include his training in all those things that will fit him for life. We have founded and maintain a system of schools in order that his training along religious lines may fit him to live in harmony with its precepts. His preparation for the work that he is to do in mature life is sought in industrial training. A religious training is of course infinitely more valuable; it touches more valuable things and its omission has more deplorable consequences. But a preparation for the industrial life of the world into which fully ninety per cent of our children enter, is not without an appeal, and an appeal that is based on and warranted by the same principles that guide us in the matter of the child's religious education. Education is a "preparation for complete living," and it should embrace a training in those things that will make up so large a part of the lives of most of our children when their school days are at an end. Crippled as we are in the matter of financial resources, it will be no easy task to meet the demands that it will make upon us. There are a fair number of industrial training courses to be found in Catholic schools to-day; there will be more as the days go by and the movement frees itself from the fads and foibles that have attached themselves to it in many places. But for a great number of our schools the mere item of expense entailed by equipment, supplies and salary, will make the day of their installation fairly remote.

It might be useful to consider on the occasion of a meeting such as this, the propriety of sending children from Catholic parish schools to the industrial classes in the neighboring public schools. In congested public school districts, with two or three school buildings, it is not unusual for only one of the buildings to be equipped

for manual training classes. The children from the other buildings in the district attend classes there, coming, sometimes, a considerable distance to do so. Again a separate building is often erected and equipped for industrial training, and the children are obliged to leave their school buildings to attend the classes. The Schwab Industrial Training School at Homestead, Pennsylvania, is such a building. The children from the parochial schools in the town are provided for in the class schedule and attend the school. There can be no objection raised, therefore, on the ground of unusual inconvenience, and as the industrial schools are supported by public moneys, the right of Catholic taxpayers to their share of the benefits that accrue, cannot be gainsaid.

That something is to be done if we are not to handicap our children is very apparent. Apprentices in the large shops of the country are being chosen from among those boys who have had a preliminary industrial training in the common schools. The entrance requirements for admission to the technical schools are not so insistent on this preliminary training to-day as they will be in the near future; but the boys whose work has come in for favorable notice from instructors in close touch with the technical school faculty, will almost inevitably have a better chance for admission to the technical schools, than their less favored fellows. Either we must equip industrial centers of our own in the large cities at a very considerable expense, or we must move for the admission of our parish school children to the public school centers already established. Some of the best industrial schools abroad are conducted under Catholic auspices-that of the Christian Brothers in the Rue de Vaugirard, Paris, is a notable example. Catholic mission work has always embraced industrial training, with what success, the history of the Franciscan missions through California will testify. It is no strange work to which we are asked to set ourselves, but we are asked to undertake it under strange and unusual conditions. Shall we do it? is the question that presses for an answer. Or shall we take advantage of the public industrial schools, our schools too, that are springing up with such astonishing rapidity in every city and town from Maine to California?

DISCUSSION.

REV. OTTO B. AUER, Superintendent of Parish Schools, Cincinnati, Ohio: Should manual training be a part of the Parish School course of studies? To my mind there is no doubt concerning the advisability of its introduction into our schools.

The term "manual training" practically expresses its purpose, which is "to teach the eye to see clearly and to discern minutely, and to train the hand to execute accurately and reproduce faithfully what the eye has seen." In addition to this, both eye and hand are to be placed under complete control of a well-developed and well-regulated will. When taught for these purposes, "manual training" exercises a most useful influence on all the other subjects of instruction in the course of studies.

We of "the pedagogical party" also seek practical results, but we look for them in the proper field-the formation of character.

Briefly stated, the chief advantages claimed for this kind of training are the following:

1-Physical. (a) The eye and hand are trained to their best use. (b) The body is strengthened. (c) Aptitude and handiness are created. 2-Mental. (a) The brain is stimulated to habits of attention. (b) The intelligence is quickened. (c) Knowledge is made definite and precise.

3-Moral. (a) A love for work is created. (b) The dignity of labor is advanced. (c) The love of order is inculcated. (d) Self-reliance is stimulated. (Handbook of Instruction.)

What subjects shall we use to produce these much-desired results? The choice is wide, for a very great variety of subjects presents itself as a means to the end. Allow me here to call attention to some which are found practically in every school; muscular penmanship, free-hand and mechanical drawing, plain sewing and fancy needlework. These subjects, if properly taught, will produce the desired results. Other subjects, more expensive and requiring special apparatus, may be used, but they are not necessary.

Father Boyle says, "The prevailing industry of a section colors the course and influences it to a vast extent. In small towns supported by large shops of a special type, it is not unusual to find that the industrial training course in the local schools is designed to feed pupils into the shops."

If this statement is true, and I believe it to be such, it surely contains food for thought. It is well worth the while to consider the advisability of allowing manufacturers and business men to determine the end and the means of education in our schools. Whatever may be said in defense of manufacturers who lend their moral and financial assistance to the industrial training of our youth, no one sincerely believes that their action is actuated by a purely altruistic motive. I believe that we can safely say

that the support given is in proportion to the benefits received by the manufacturer, who views the whole affair as an investment, pure and simple. Father Boyle advises that we consider the propriety, if any, of sending our children to the public schools for this manual training. I am well aware that this is done in some localities, and I have heard many arguments advanced in its favor, but I am still firmly convinced that the practice is detrimental to the parish school. The very fact that the children are sent to the public school for something, which is considered necessary and which their own parish school cannot supply is a frank admission of inferiority, and must create in the minds of parents and pupils a prejudice against their own school.

If the time ever comes when the smithy, the machine shop, the carpenter shop, etc., become a necessary part of the parish school, then we must have our own industrial departments. And we will have them, if necessary. I believe in our people, and I believe in their ready willingness to make all the sacrifices which the complete education of our children may demand. I likewise have abiding confidence in the ever-watchful providence of our Heavely Father, who will not fail to assist "the little ones" to become and remain His loving children.

BROTHER ELIPHUS VICTOR, F. S. C., New York City: I agree with Father Boyle when he says, "It is apparent even to the superficial observer that industrial training, in one form or another, has come to stay. Whether or not it should be adinitted into the grade schools of the country has been definitely settled in the affirmative."

Industrial training has not only an economic value, it has also a social and educational import. Its object is not merely to give the pupil the best possible start toward the life-work in which he will show the greatest efficiency and find the greatest contentment, but it teaches him the dignity of labor and the respect due the laborer. It develops in him, too, personal initiative and gives him an appreciation of the fact that mental effort as well as physical fitness is part of the equipment of the artisan.

Who is calling for this training? The breadwinner. He feels the loss of time he experienced when he entered upon his calling, and wishes that others at their beginning be better equipped than he was. When the breadwinner is a parent the call is all the more urgent. He would like to have his children prepared to enter upon their work intelligently and without loss of time to take up what they may be called on to do. The crowds of wage-earners filling the trade and technical schools opening up all over the country show that this cry is real and vital.

The manufacturer, too, joins with the wage-earner in the demand for manual or industrial training. He knows that the skilled workman tells for lessened cost of production, better quality of work and the maximum quantity of output. But to get the skilled workman we must give some training in manual work to our pupils, so that those entering upon produc

tive and domestic callings may not have to lament a waste of two or three years because of a want of knowledge of that calling or a lack of skill to begin it.

Noble-minded and generous persons with a desire to ameliorate the conditions of humanity, men and women who have some knowledge of life in the large cities, life in the tenements or in flats, who have come in contact with the harder side of life, who are anxious to solve the many problems of childhood, call on us to do something in the line of manual training.

We ourselves know how inefficient are the present courses of study in the elementary and high school to prepare our students for the various walks of life. It is true our high schools do give some preparation for the professions: ministry, law, medicine, teaching. To some extent, too, we are turning out stenographers, typewriters, bookkeepers and clerks. But what are we doing for the producers?—nothing.

Our elementary schools prepare for nothing, the training is all onesided, and will continue to be so until we cease to teach subjects and begin to teach children. Children were made for the social life, let us prepare them for it. As students of education we must know that the uplift of the negro and the Indian is being made by industrial training. The same is true for the defective and the delinquent. Why cannot we do for our normal pupils of the ordinary schools what we do for these classes? If, after the practices of our holy religion, industrial training is the best method, the most successful one in elevating these classes, why do we neglect it? It is not complimentary to any course of instruction or system of education to say that it is only those that are cast out from it or not considered fit for it that are the only ones being made ready to effectively fight the battle of life.

How shall we introduce industrial training? Let us begin by putting drawing back to the place of honor it should hold in a school course. Let us repair the great neglect of having for so long a time forgotten the training of one of the noblest and most useful of our body's membersthe hand.

Epitomizing the words of another, let me say that though the zenith of handicraft has been passed by the perfection of mechanical skill, still we cannot forget that for ages countless hands have left works of surpassing excellence; works in writing, carving, weaving, sewing. Nor should we forget the masterpieces of the great minds of former days in painting, in sculpture, in architecture and in literature that would never be ours were it not for the skilful training of the hand. The loom, the sewing machine, the typewriter, the printing press, the mould, the camera and the electric bath, cocaine and ether have relegated to humbler services the hand itself, the plying needle, the illuminated pen, the inspired chisel, the skilful burin and the daring and flashing scalpel. Yet we must not blame the machine; it is but the extension of the human hand called into being by the exercise of man's highest mental faculties. This has been a diversion. Let me come back.