The present day demand for industrial education has had the effect of
somewhat discrediting the more formal manual training commonly found
in the upper elementary grades and early high school years. This work
is usually conducted in special shops and by special teachers, and the
question is being raised whether, with all these advantages, more vital
results might not be attained.
Whether these criticisms are justified or not, the present interest in
industrial education is strengthening the demand for more effective
construction work in grades four, five and six. It is a growing
conviction that there must be laid, in the earlier grades, a strong
foundation on which to build a practical education in the later grades
whether directed toward industrial, commercial or professional life.
The appearance of this book, therefore, is timely because it
outlines a course suitable for grades five and six which stimulates
constructive activities and develops industrial intelligence. It should
be noted that its industrial significance is much wider than its
title, “Bookbinding for Beginners,” would indicate, as even a hasty
examination of the book will show, and also that it is so planned that
it may be used successfully in schools where special teachers and
expensive equipments are impossible.
The book is different from, and, I believe, superior to others of its
kind for the following reasons:
First, because the projects it presents, the methods it advises,
and the results it anticipates have all been worked out by actual
experience with thousands of boys and under conditions which may be
duplicated in almost any schoolroom. The author’s personal experience
with the problems incident to the giving of manual training by the
grade teacher includes that which she gained as a successful grade
teacher herself, supplemented by some years of supervisory work in a
large city system. She is therefore conversant with every possible
phase of the school problem.
Second, because the methods of instruction which the book employs are
such as to develop in the pupils the very qualities which are the
surest foundation for subsequent success in manual or mental work of
any kind, namely initiative and originality combined with intelligent,
logical, careful attention to details.
Third, because it gives the teacher just the help needed to save her
from all unnecessary work in securing and handling suitable material,
in stimulating the pupils to intensive activity and self-expression,
and in judging or measuring the results of her work, without relieving
her of the necessity of intelligent effort on her part. It thus
gives the overburdened teacher the maximum help, and the specially
interested, the maximum opportunity for original supplementary work.
For the above reasons I confidently recommend the volume to the
attention of all who are seeking to introduce an inexpensive but
effective form of manual training into the middle grades of the
elementary schools.