Some Thoughts in Favor of Wood Sloyd by Lotta Bell

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · May 9, 1907

Some Thoughts in Favor of Wood Sloyd

By Lotta Bell

EMERSON said, “We are students of words. We are shut up in schools and colleges and recitation rooms for ten or fifteen years, and come out at last with a bag of wind,—a memory of words,—and do not know a thing. We can not use our hands or our legs or our eyes or our arms.” These words may express too strongly the situation he wished to portray; but Emerson had in mind a much-needed reform even in his day.

Other writers have expressed the same sentiment embodied in the above quotation by saying we fostered idleness under the old method. A student goes to school and is graduated for the sole purpose of becoming a clerk, a stenographer, or a doctor, or of mastering some other occupation in which he may gain a livelihood without manual labor. Then, too, it has been said that there is a lack of harmony between the schoolhouse and the busy world outside. But this was in the past.

To-day I am glad that it is not necessary for me to give arguments in favor of manual training. It has become a part of the regular program of every well-organized school. On the other hand, I would be considered slow, narrow-minded, or one sided by the great educators of to-day if I could not see and know the value of the results accruing from the introduction of manual training in the schoolroom. One particular line of manual work—the wood sloyd—has won its way into the schoolroom on account of its intrinsic value as a factor in education.

Following are a few thoughts gleaned during my short experience in this work. There are, it is true, certain tasks that are required to be done in a certain given way. You may hear the child say, “I can’t do it so well that way.” Later he will find by his mastery of the proper method for cutting, sawing, or planing, that he can accomplish his given task much easier than before, far more accurately, in less time, and with less expenditure of energy.

No teacher will outline and use precisely the same method in this subject for all classes, with exactly the same list of models to be finished, any more than she would in any other class, but will vary them to meet the demands of the children. Nearly every model is drafted before it is constructed. It is one thing to make a drawing, and it is quite another thing to put that draft into execution by turning out a neatly made model in wood.

The pupils begin to realize this quite fully by the end of the second or third lesson, having learned from actual experience that an error which may not be very noticeable in the draft, and perhaps be overlooked, becomes very conspicuous in the finished article. The students naturally come to be more accurate and exacting in their work as they gain experience in it, not only in the sloyd room, but in all other branches as well. The result of the work may be seen in their several characters. They become more careful in their words. There is a greater simplicity in their statements, and honesty is developed. The dexterous training of the hand is, after all, a form of mental development, so by training the hand we aid the mind. Review the life of some great statesman. Nine chances out of ten he is a man who has been taught the dignity of labor by an early training in manual work.

LOTTA BELL.

(To be concluded)