cr CHAPTER XIII HANDWORK Utility" is the watchword of the twentieth century, and every branch of human effort must meet the test. Science is no longer satisfied with mere speculation, but has become the willing servant of mankind. It diligently searches out the truth, but as persistently hunts a practical application of it. Education has been dragged before the bar and pleads guilty. In consequence it has been forced to throw out of its curricula a whole list of tasks which served no practical purpose, which merely enveloped the student in complacent wisdom and left him staring helplessly at his fellow men. Efficiency, not information, has become the educational ideal. Brain and hand must work together in the solution of life's problems, for to be efficient, as has been well said, is to put thought and feeling into forms which will reach the thought and feeling of others. Little children are by nature efficient, for they are distinctly motor in their reactions. They turn toward construction instinctively, and handwork in the schools has become the surest means of personal expression and power. Children need plastic material upon which they may stamp their mental images. They need a medium which will receive and objectify their impressions. The constructive, representative instinct which the child so vigorously makes use of is nature's way of helping him to balance mental accounts. By means of it he sifts impressions, and labels them for use. Use establishes intimacy, possession. Wear a suit of clothes, and it takes on the individuality of the owner; use an idea, project it, give it form, and it becomes a personal possession. The child's world is objective; his images are based upon sense perceptions, and he cares for immediate and visible embodiment of facts. Let him register the ideas he receives in some form of motor discharge. Give him plenty of handwork, for it will make use of the impressions of sight, sound, and touch under the fruitful direction of his creative imagination. Do not be content with school work which makes use of the eye alone, but provide the child with forms of expression which make a larger demand upon his sense centers. Give him an opportunity to coördinate eye and hand by offering him work which demands their coöperation. Handwork gives the child an opportunity for efficiency in social service. He is full of a desire to help, to contribute something. In his undeveloped state his service must be limited to the things which he can do with his hands.. He is not capable of protracted effort, but the simplicity and finality of the constructive work satisfy his desire for direct and immediate results. Handwork wisely directed. enables the child to contribute things of beauty and value, and therefore arouses a social pride. In school work the children need evidences of fruitful effort. They must struggle some time before they can feel their progress in reading and writing, but in handwork they can fairly possess success. They feel the uplift of immediate achievement, of personal power. Originality of expression is the aim of handwork, but originality is not ready-made. It is the result of experience and an accompanying increase of technique. There should be as definite a relation between the demand and supply of technique in handwork as there is between the demand and supply of any commodity. The demand for technique should grow out of the use of a variety of suggestive material. Material which suggests or hints a process will make a demand upon originality and call for technique. [Handwork may not be judged by the technical results obtained, but by the knowledge the child has gained of the uses and the possibilities of material. Handwork belongs to the realm of art. It is intimate and personal in character and is a question of individual adjustment. It demands a creative atmosphere and does not thrive under the strict silence of the ordinary school period. Joyous human relations must surround the work done with the hands. The children should be allowed and encouraged to share their work with one another; to compare, discuss, and lend a hand. It is the child who is permitted to whirl the finished article in the air and invite admiration of it who will feel the glow of creativity. The child who follows the solemn dictation of his teacher and then silently puts his work away has no consciousness of victory. He will never know the joy of the true craftsman. If some freedom is allowed during this period, many boys and girls will receive the first commendation of their playmates through a bit of skillful handwork. This glow of success will be a revelation. This concrete evidence of power will awaken new energy which will flow over into other lines of effort. What is the moral reaction from work with things? The child's ideas, thoughts, become tangibly visible. Suppose all thought took visible form, would it not startle some of us to look up and see the distorted figure of our habitual thoughts? Handwork must be true and clean to be worth while. A lie in the concrete cannot be hidden; it carries its results with it. The child who works with his hands must think, deliberate, and stand by his conclusions. Exclusively intellectual effort is subjective and incomplete, and may become selfish in its motive, but work with the hands is altruistic, objective, and humanizing. Do not give the children a lot of characterless objects to make. The standard of handwork should be use or beauty, or both. Keep the work close to the lives of the little people. Let them make wagons, jumping jacks, paper dolls, boats, and engines. Such effort will do more to establish honest regard for property than all the sermons you can deliver. Possessions, accompanied by a sense of the labor involved in the making, will open a new page of ethics to the small boy or girl. The child who makes coat hangers, tags, holders for rubbers, pencil boxes, etc. is protecting his neighbor's property as well as his own. He is learning self-respect and independence by supplying his own wants by the work of his hands. Every primary room should contain a sand table upon which may be set up illustrative work. Each child may have a part in building the farm, the Indian or the Eskimo village, the circus or store. Community work and a common responsibility establish a feeling of comradeship of which the schools are sorely in need. It gives an opportunity for just comparisons and mutual suggestions. The children will work in pairs or in groups of three or four, solving their problems independently but being obliged to conform to the general purpose or plan. If the added joy of secrecy is given by making something to present to another grade, the enthusiasm and effort of the children will pass all expectations. This community spirit is contagious, and boys and girls from the fourth, fifth, even sixth and seventh grades, have been known to make daily visits to the primary room to see what the kids are making now." The next step is to ask if they may contribute something. Indeed, the school is running over with these opportunities for coöperation, self-help, and personal pleasure in work, but these vital, human aspects of life do not flourish in a silent, austere atmosphere. They are set going by the light of enthusiasm in the teacher's eye and by the wisdom of what seems to be undirected effort. Handwork is frequently criticized because the material used is so expensive. This is a just criticism, and every teacher should make it a matter of pride to search out cheap material and not be content to check off long lists of costly stuff for the school boards to pay for. For instance, why order tilo-matting for the free-hand sewing when coffee sacking, which grocery stores sell for a song, makes a fine substitute? Old kodak rolls, which the proprietors give away for the asking, may be used for silhouettes in freehand cutting, whereas the black paper used for that purpose is very expensive. Spools, ribbons, old chalk boxes, newspapers, scraps of wood from the manual-training shop which are usually thrown out, and nature material brought by the children offer endless opportunities. A bottle of paste made of flour and water costs a few cents, while the bottles bought by the schools come nearer to the dollar mark. For large brush work with the younger children do not use paints, and then have all the parents asking that art work be omitted, but make an order of cheap dyes which come in all the standard colors and are easily handled. In many cases ordinary pasteboard will take the place of bristol board, and manila paper, which is cheap, may be adapted to a thousand purposes. The character of the primary work should retain the kindergarten flavor. The primary child is still a kindergarten child, with a little more conscious purpose, with increased power of concentration, added control of material, |