We, especially, who are teachers and parents, should see to it that the
young get "hand-craft" while they are getting "rede-craft." How can this
be done?
Mothers begin right in the nursery, teaching little fingers to play
before the tongue can lisp a sentence. Alas! this natural training has
often been stopped at school. Hitherto, until quite lately, in schools
both low and high, rede-craft has had the place of honor, hand-craft has
had no chance. But a change is coming. In the highest of all schools,
universities, for example, work rooms, labor places, "laboratories," are
now thought to be as useful as book rooms, reading rooms, libraries.
What mean those buildings which you have seen spring up within a few
years past in all the college greens of New England? They are libraries
and laboratories. They show that rede-craft and hand-craft are alike
held in honor, and that a liberal education means skill in getting and
skill in using knowledge; that knowledge comes from searching books and
searching nature; that the brain and the hand are in close league. So
too, in the lowest school, as far as possible from the university, the
kindergarten has won its place and the blocks, and straws, and bands,
the chalk, the clay, the scissors, are in use to make young fingers
deft.
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