it would seem as if the exalted and reverent ideas just quoted might, with immeasurable national advantage, be realized here.

Doing, as we here use the term, embraces all those school exercises which require the use of the hands. Their motive is not the bare one of mere gain-getting, as some mediævalists say in their ill-natured flings at modern life, but the virtuous one of better enabling every one to "provide things honest in the sight of all men," and to learn to labor, working with their own hands, and of saving them from the mischief which Satan finds for idle hands to do. Leaving penmanship, map-drawing, and ciphering, as already established, we will only dwell on the manual training, which is now receiving so much attention. On a subject on which volumes have been written we only propose here to give, as briefly and clearly as possible, a few guiding principles.

Is the object of manual exercises in the schools to be mainly industrial or mainly educational? If the former, the kind and extent of such exercises may well be left to the operation of the great law of supply and demand, as applied to the leading industries of each industrial center. In a center of manufacture of textile fabrics, for example, there might well be a school of design for printed and woven patterns; and so on for such other industries as would be aided by such supplementary schools.

But if the object of manual training be educational, then we have only to consider that the eye and hand have to be trained to be efficient ministers to the purposes of the mind with respect to correct estimates of size, distance, direction; and thence, of equalities, symmetries, and regularities. Also, the hand is to be trained to firmness, delicacy, and precision of touch. All of these things are fundamental to every handicraft whatsoever, whether strictly mechanical-that is, with every motion constrained by a rigid guide-or free-hand. Now, it is obvious enough, first, that apprenticeship instruction cannot be given in the schools in all the trades; and, secondly, that it is arbitrary and invidious to select one, as carpentry, to be the representative of all, when it can, in very many cases, be so only imperfectly or not at all.

What, then, is the true course to pursue, and under what

rational guiding principles? The means employed to secure such manual training in precision, involving exactness of vision and niceness of touch, as is fundamental to all manual pursuits should possess the following qualifications:

First, they should not subvert existing school arrangements by requiring separate rooms or buildings, but should be capable of being employed in ordinary school-rooms, without noise, dirt, or confusion. Secondly, they should be in themselves, like ciphering and penmanship, universally, or very generally, useful. In other words, we must be governed in their selection by the grand distinction between the "general" and the "technical." Thirdly, they should recognize the distinction familiar in drawing, but running through the list of hundreds of specified occupations recognized in the census report the distinction of mechanical, or constrained, and the free-hand, or flexible. We now submit that the following simple list fulfills these conditions, and is sufficient for all but such special local needs of manual training as will take care of themselves, under the action of the interests concerned with them.

Of "mechanical" exercises, we would select instrumental drawing, geometrical lettering, and the making of paper, wood, or plaster models of geometrical solids and small objects. Of "free-hand" exercises, we would name industrial free-hand drawing, of which, in truth, penmanship and map-drawing are branches; needlework, in the large sense, including knitting and embroidery; or any other appropriate work in some flexible material; or wood-carving of small articles.,

No one, having experience in the matter, could doubt the sufficiency of instrumental drawing for accomplishing the desired and proposed discipline of eye and hand. While writing, many separate single exercises come to mind which are admirable for the purpose, such as the construction of the bisectors of all the angles of any triangle, or of the perpendiculars from each angle to the opposite side, with such perfect precision in fineness and location of points and lines that the three lines, in each case, shall all meet at one point, as they should do. The like is true of exercises of a more interesting practical character, such as the drawing of tiled areas and of regular masonry structures;

while, as to the wide utility of instrumental drawing, all that has already been said under that head on geometry applies to the drawing which is as much its natural accompaniment as ciphering is of arithmetic, map-drawing of geography, or penmanship of reading.

Of free-hand exercises, we can only dwell for a moment on needlework. Time was when, patchwork being begun in the dame's A-B-C school, sewing was continued several hours per week for years at the academy; so that some who there enjoyed opportunities for many successive years made fine ruffled shirts, such as our dressy grandfathers rejoiced in, and then went on to embroidery and painting. Not all, indeed, did so much so early, for not all were at school so long from early childhood, and all were not equally interested and industrious. But the system adopted made this early proficiency possible, and sometimes actual, with those who also showed a marked fondness for literary studies; while a pitiful hour a week permits correspondingly scanty results.

In summing up, we confess to surprise at the few heads under which, having regard to the ever-present and important distinction between primary and incidental, the essentials of elementary and universal public education can be placed. We have: Reading, and, incidental to it, geography, history, biography, travels, useful arts, science, morals, grammar, spelling, and composition; and, as manual accompaniments, penmanship and map-drawing, any one or more of these to be developed into separate studies or not, according to circumstances. Mathematics, embracing arithmetic, the study of number, and geometry, the study of form, and the foundation of all manual training. Handwork, mechanical, in general sufficiently represented by instrumental drawing, and the making of paper, wood, or plaster models of regular forms; free-hand, represented by ornamental drawing, needlework, and any convenient and appropriate hand textile work.

S. EDWARD WARREN.

THE FAITH CURE DELUSION.

THE timid souls who, in these latter years, have been suffering under an anxious dread lest the tendencies of science should carry the whole world into hopeless materialism, may well pluck up heart as they regard the latest phases of popular medicine. The novelties that are just now most talked about under the titles of "Mind Cure" and "Christian Science" and "Faith Cure," are as far removed from that gross form of error as can well be conceived.

The first of the three is an artless application to the subject of pain and disease of the well-known Berkeleian argument for the non-existence of the material universe, the "argument which admits no refutation and produces no conviction." Since sickness and pain are only forms of consciousness, having no objective reality, what more obvious than that they should be treated as such? The seat of disease being the mind, let the mind be treated with mental influences, and not the body with drugs-admitting, for a moment, the popular prejudice that there are such things as drugs and bodies. This method of dealing with illusive diseases by an illusive treatment at the hands of an illusive practitioner has much to recommend it, if only it can be consistently carried out. But at one critical point, so far as we are informed, it has constantly and conspicuously failed. The fee of the physician (or metaphysician," as he delights to call himself) remains, up to the present date, a hard, metallic, refractory, and objective fact, which obstinately refuses to immaterialize itself. Until the mind cure makes the final and splendid advance by which the doctor's bill shall be satisfied through his inward contemplation of ideal gold and greenbacks, its chief value must continue to lie in the popular protest which it makes against materialism by means of its funny books and its considerable number of devotees.

แ

Concerning the "cure" which advertises itself under the

trade-mark of "Christian Science," we would speak with the diffidence becoming to those not fully informed. It may be sufficient to define it as neither Faith Cure nor Mind Cure, although something like both of them; the professors of each of these curious arts finding it necessary to denounce the other two as humbug and charlatanry, and to warn the injured public that they themselves have "no connection with the shop over the way."

The distinction of the Faith Cure, with which we have to do in this article, is that it has nothing to do with science, whether mental or physical, but plants itself boldly and exclusively in the domain of the supernatural. It relies upon an alleged divine promise which it claims to find in the Epistle of James,* and consists in abstaining from medical advice and treatment of every sort, and in sending, instead, for the male or female practitioners of the "cure," who apply, instead, a sacramental anointing with oil," together with prayer. It is claimed that the divine promise is express, clear, unmistakable that the anointing and prayer shall be followed by the healing of the sick, although when this fails to follow there is always some adequate explanation at hand to save the credit of the divine word. And it is further claimed that in the devotees of this system we have a shining example of primitive and apostolic piety, a childlike faith, an obedient following of the letter of the divine word, which puts the rationalizing half belief of ordinary modern Christians to shame.

This latter claim is not to be tolerated. It is often treated with a most mistaken patience. It is quite without foundation. Among these "high-livers" and "faith-curers" there are some more or less intelligent people, some good people, and some not so good. As we meet them casually we commonly find them pitiably bloated with spiritual self-conceit. Their childlike following of the Scripture is apt to stand in a huge delight in their favorite scraps of the sacred text and their favorite blunders of interpretation. As a class they are no whit better than the plain, ordinary Christian who loves God and his neighbor, does his daily work faithfully, and pays his debts a hundred cents to *Chap. v. 14, 15.