Between the highest and the lowest schools there is a like call
for hand-craft. Seeing this need, the authorities in our public schools
have begun to project special schools for such training, and are looking
for guidance far and near. At this intermediate stage, for boy and girls
who are between the age of the kindergarten and the age of the college
or the shop, for youth between eight and sixteen, there is much to be
done; people are hardly aware how much is needed to secure fit training
for the rising generation.
It seems sometimes as if one of the most needed forms of hand-craft
would become a lost art, even good handwriting. We cannot give much
credit to schools if they send out many who are skilled in algebra, or
in Latin, but who cannot write a page of English so that it can be read
without effort.
Drawing is another kind of hand-craft, quite too much neglected. I think
it should be laid down as a law of the road to knowledge, that everybody
must learn to draw as well as to write. The pencil maybe mastered just
as readily as the pen. It is a simpler tool. The child draws before
he writes, and savages begin their language with pictures; but, we
wiseacres of this age of books let our young folks drop their slate
pencils and their Fabers, and practice with their Gillotts and their
Esterbrooks.
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