The extent to which kindred subjects can be taught, and the avidity with which boys learn anything, even remotely connected with the practical portion of the teaching, can only be understood by those who have witnessed the enthusiasm of children for manual training lessons.

The method to be adopted in manual instruction, and the most suitable materials to be used, are subjects over which much discussion has taken place, but though some manual training in metal work has been attempted with good results, and clay modelling is sometimes adopted as an early form of art training, the most suitable material in which to work has been found by experience to be, undoubtedly, wood.

Wood is readily capable of being brought to a given form, is strong, light, and clean, and a material familiar to everybody, qualities which are not combined in any other material; and, in addition, larger classes can be taken in woodwork than with most other substances.

Wire work is an exceedingly pretty form of manual training, and is admirably suited for girls, but it is too fragile, and though it can be taught in connection with art drawing, it is not sufficiently associated with good mechanical drawing, to make it a suitable material for boys to work in.

In woodworking, the methods adopted vary in different countries to a considerable extent. In devising a scheme of manual training, it is obviously necessary to examine carefully the methods of instruction already existing abroad, with a view to making a system which shall include their best points, modified, if necessary, to suit the particular conditions and requirements of English life, and which shall exclude whatever may be found defective in those systems.

The best known and oldest system in vogue is the Swedish Slöjd. It is now some twenty years since the classes at Naas were commenced, and the system as now perfected is undoubtedly excellent. The Slöjd is strictly educational in its objects; in no respect can it be said to in the least resemble technical instruction. The exercises are most carefully graded, and are, no doubt, admirably fitted to the requirements of Sweden; but the course so strictly graded and so rigidly enforced in that country is not quite suited to English requirements and English ideas. Herr Salamon certainly says that, in adopting the system in a foreign country, the course may be altered in detail, so long as the exercise substituted for any one of those in the course embodies the characteristics of that exercise. No such modified course has, however, been given to the English public.

In some respect the Slöjd system is distinctly defective however, notably in the association and the quality of the drawing involved. The work is done more from the model than from the drawing of the model, and too many of the models give the most indifferent opportunities for drawing lessons. The construction of some of the joints in the course is not scientifically correct - i.e.., the mechanical principles involved are not correctly thought out and expressed in the construction of the joint. It is said they are strong enough for the Slöjd shop, and this may be the case, but the construction of a simple joint gives the teacher a good opportunity to explain the mechanical principles from which the joint derives its strength, so that it is of great importance that the joint should be correctly made.

A large proportion of the boys who will be taught woodwork in England are taught something of elementary mechanics in object lessons and by other means, and it would be a serious error to undo or falsify this instruction by bad practical tuition. Indeed, if the teaching does not proceed on rational lines it is difficult to see what good result, beyond a certain amount of mere dexterity, will result. Some joints taken in the Slöjd course are too difficult for boys, as they involve an advanced knowledge of solid geometry, and its application to material. The consequence is, that the boys learn these lessons unintelli-gently, and, instead of mental work and bench practice, we get rule of thumb put into practical execution. However well the work may be executed under this system of instruction, it is clear that the lessons must lose much of their force when taught on this mechanical plan. Another serious difficulty in the adoption of the Slöjd models is the length of time required to complete the course. One prominent model alone - the spoon - takes a man from seven to nine hours to execute. Now at an estimate of two and a half hours per week (and it will generally be found impracticable to devote longer in most schools to manual training), the time occupied is formidable, especially when it is remembered that a boy would take some fourteen to eighteen hours over this one exercise. In all this time spent on the model one drawing lesson only would be practically demonstrated by actual work.

Another more technical objection is the great use made of glass-paper. When this is relied on too much, the pupil is apt to be careless in his initial work, hoping to cover its defects by the effacing influence of glass-paper. This is distinctly objectionable, apart from the fact that almost the only training obtained from glass-paper is merely physical.