Manual Training In Public Schools

Manual training in public schools is now as important a question in educational circle8 as President Cleveland's message is in politics. One important city in Michigan is about to introduce this new feature into ite schools, and probably it will spread to other places in our state before ite success or failure is determined. Trades schools and technical schools, two forms of manual training, have been definitely settled as useful ; but manual training in public schools is yet too young to be accepted unhesitatingly, although it should not be condemned hastily. The common idea of thoso unfamiliar with what is meant by manual training in public schools, is that it will turn our public schools into workshops for teaching trades, and that it will be at the expense of advancement intellectually. Nothing of the kind is intended. It is based on the idea that the mind and hand can be tralned together. In the use of carpenter's tools, and pen and pencil, the principies of arithmetic and geometry can be illustrated, and fixed in the mind as mere repetition in the clasB cannot do. The idea is, that as the training in the schools enables boys and girls to become better lawyers, ministers, doctors, etc, than they otherwise could become, so would familiarity with all kinds of tools, gained when young, enable them to become better carpenters, blacksmiths, machinists, farmers, housewives, etc. The experience in the Dwight school in Boston with manual training is said to be satisfactory, an article in the American Magazine for January, 1888, setting l it forth at considerable length. In certain dietricts of Maryland, local option has been tried for some time with a considerable degree of success, the disciples of Bacchus being the only pereons who consider it a failure. A gentleman who recently spent some time in two county seats in Maryland, with good opportunity for observation informa us that he saw no saloons anc no drunkenness, and that he found i almost impossible to procure liquor, tor any purpose. Thirsty individuals import it by the cask or jug from Baltimore and drink it at home. Tliere are no bars even in the hotels. Some liquor is probably sold upon the sly, I but the wholesale drinking prevalent in I Michigan and in unrestricted district I there, is unknown. So also is absent I that temptation to form drinking habits I over the bar, which is the constant menace of our young men and boys. Page Bros., of Marshall, carriage manufacturera, say that they need more room, that they havn't necessary capital to get the room, that they are unable to obtain the land for such purpose at a reasonable consideration even if they had capital. They ask the city of Marshall to erect a building 80 feet square and three stories in helght on some vacant land which belongs to the city, and give them a twenty-yeare lease at a nominal rent. They will agree to put in the machinery, and think they could keep 150 men busy. Here's a chance for another booming fund. The magnitude of the wool interest can be seen from the following official statistics given in 1884 : Number of Bheep in the United States. 50,626,626 Pounds of wool clip 308,000,000 Value _ „ .91.168,000 Pounds of raw wool impotted 87,703,931 Value_ 13,593,299 Value of manufactures of wool imported 51,484,872 The value of lands, barns, Bheds, and equipments employed in the sheep industry in the United States has been placed at $408,291,200. More than 1,000,000 persons in this country are flock-owners. Now, we will not harass our free-trade friends with an argument from the Btandpoint of protection. Leaving that aside entirely, there yet remains the question, Should this vast industry be deranged so long as there is no necessity for it 't Is not the proposition to place wool on the free list imm ediately almost preposterous ? I f any reduction were necersary, common sense would díctate that it be done gradually and with extreme caution. L. H. Bailey, Jr., professor of horticulture at the Agricultural college, left on Tuesday to give a short course of lectures in horticulture to a class of seniors and specials at Cornell University. Prof. Bailey is a true product of Michigan, although Harvard employed him for a time. An eastern college president eaid to an Ann Arhor gentleman, "You grow such men out there, and we must have them." The anarchists are at it again. On Dec. 30, 1887, in New York they distributed circulare where workingmen could find them, calling for the destruction of the Corbins, the Maxwells, and the Goulds, with "the torch, the bomb, or the bullet." How long will it be before Borne half-craied man will follow that blood-thirsty advice? AccoBDiNG to the Sanitary News of Chicago, there have been 2000 cases of typhoid fever in Pitteburgh, Pa., during the past three months. The water supply was examined and was found to be unusually full of bacteria, one glassful, it ie estimated, containing 125,000,000 of he sly creatures. The superintendent of the poor in Detroit, Mr. Martin, is mad because other cities and foreign countries are dumping their poor into Detroit, and that the poor fund will have to be increased if this thing continúes. That ever useful Michigan Almanac, published by the Detroit Tribune, is at hand for 1888. It is altnost indispensable to one who needs constantly to learn facts about Michigan.