Worth Having by Harvey Shoup

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Mar 23, 1905

Worth Having

By Harvey Shoup

MANUAL training is of primary importance in true education. If parents recognized this fact as they should, the mistaken idea in the minds of many young people as to what constitutes an education, would be removed. From a lack of proper training, the majority of the youth of to-day look upon manual work as being low and degrading. They think that education is a mental development for some professional work which requires no physical labor. But true education is directly the opposite of this view. It is the harmonious development of the physical, the mental, and the moral powers.

The proper place for an education of this kind to begin is in the home. The training of a child's hands to do little domestic duties skilfully and well should be regarded by the parents as of equal importance with the teaching of his letters. He should not be allowed to perform any duty in a hurried, slipshod fashion that he may be at play. This kind of service causes him to dislike work, and it soon becomes a drudgery. On the other hand, if he is taught to take an interest in his work and do it thoroughly, no matter how menial it may be, he will soon see the true dignity of the task, and take a pleasure in doing it; for thoroughness makes all work a pleasure.

A child brought up in this way, with the proper estimate placed on the value of work, will have little difficulty in making his way through the world. His health will be better, and his morals stronger; for he will be guarded against many of the evils which tempt the idler. He also has the advantage in the pursuit of any course of study, if thrown upon his own resources; for his knowledge of practical work becomes a means to an end, the means of accomplishing this purpose. The acquiring of facts becomes easier as his experience has already developed his judgment beyond one who has not had this training, and the lessons learned, instead of becoming mere theories, are compared with past experiences, and put in practise, and thus made practical. Instead of having a fictitious view of life, he will see it as it really is, for experience has taught him some of its sterner realities; and when obstacles and perplexities come, he will be better able to grapple with them and make them stepping-stones to his final goal.

Looking at manual training from these view-points, it will occupy a position of equal importance with the mental or spiritual training in any system which aims at true education. The student, graduated from a school of this character, carries with him into life an insurance policy of inestimable value. Should he meet with failures in a professional line, he still has something to rely upon for a livelihood, and with confidence in his ability to work, he starts with renewed courage to reach the top of the ladder of success.

HARVEY SHOUP.