Farm Shop Work - Practical Manual Training #252176

In most of our thinking to-day on the subject of manual training or practical arts in the rural schools, we have stopped with the idea of woo'dwork. Too Often this woodwork is taught with little reference to its connection with the home life and agricultural career of the boy. The courses and methods have been borrowed all too frequently from the work of the city schools. The farm boy and man must work in wood: in the making of fences, in the repair of tools and machinery, and in the repair and construction of farm implements, conveniences, and buildings. It is far more important that he should know how to deal with wood in these things than that he should be highly skilled in the making of mission furniture. It is training in the work of the ordinary rough carpenter rather than in that of the finished furniture maker that will be most beneficial to the farmer. He needs to know how to handle all the ordinary tools of the carpenter and how to put wood together. His practice should be on farm things and should result in a usable output of farm things.