Page:Hints for the improvement of village schools and the introduction of industrial work.djvu/23

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workmen. … In a village school under my eye, where there happened to be a carpenter's bench, and a few tools, and where most of the elder boys had bought their half-a-crown case of mathematical instruments, some of them soon after bought the materials, and, with the aid of a zealous and ingenious master, made for themselves small but useful square drawing boards, and neat and true T squares. No particular stimulus was used to induce the attempt. The compass and ruler asked for their companions, and the plane and the saw made them. So that these boys, as far as all the necessary instruments are concerned, have placed themselves in a position to copy or make any ordinary working plan that may be wanted; and in fact there are eight or ten boys in the upper class, who have made neat working drawings of the furniture and buildings of the school, quite as good as could be produced by master builders or carpenters in our small towns."

The principles here enunciated appear to me to be sound and good, but until our masters receive a style of education very different from the present, I fear that there will be many practical difficulties in carrying out such views. For small country villages the cultivation of a garden seems the most natural form of Industrial work for boys, and it is certainly the easiest to carry into effect. There is indeed no practical difficulty about it, nor need there be any expense to speak of involved in making the experiment, whenever the managers can obtain a piece of land in the immediate vicinity of the school. In almost every village there is some jobbing gardener, or other suitable person, who, for a small payment, would give practical instruction to the boys two or three afternoons in the week. In such cases the duty of the schoolmaster would be to exercise a general superintendence, and to give home lessons occasionally out of the "Finchley Manual," "Glennie's Handbook," or some other suitable treatise. The elder boys would of course work under the gardener in rotation, seven or eight at a time, and should be carefully taught to keep the accounts on a regular and systematic plan; in short, the school garden accounts should be farm accounts on a diminutive scale. The Committee of Council, besides paying one-half of the rent of the land, and one-third of the cost of the tools, allow the Managers 5s. a head for each boy under instruction, which in most cases would be nearly sufficient to pay the wages of the gardener. We have now about an acre and a quarter of land attached to the school at Shipbourne. At the end of the first year the loss was considerable (being nearly £12,) but much of it arose from the necessity of draining and otherwise improving the land, which is a cold, stiff clay. This year, when the produce comes to be sold, I hope that both ends will nearly meet, as we have in hand a considerable quantity of potatoes, besides other vegetables, to be disposed of in due time. But even if no profit could ever be derived from the garden, (which I see no reason to suppose) I should still consider it a most valuable adjunct to the school, partly because it supplies