SLOTH
SMELt
a handle the commodity is released and the coin falls into a receptacle, to be afterwards collected by the vendor's agent. Somewhat similar contrivances also are in use as weighing-machines, a pointer indicating the weight of the person, who, after dropping a coin in the slot, steps on the machine-platform to be weighed.
Sloth, any ones of a group of sluggish mammals living on trees in the forests of Central and South America. Their limbs end in hook-like claws, and they are the most strictly tree-inhabiting of all animals. They usually cling to branches with their backs downward. They crawl with difficulty on the ground and rarely descend to it. They are covered with long, coarse hair, the shafts of which are roughened or fluted. This hair is naturally grayish, but in the damp forest it is covered with a growth of algae, imparting a peculiar green color which makes the animal difficult to distinguish among the foliage. The algae disappear in a dry climate, and the hair resumes its natural color. They feed upon leaves, young shoots and fruit. They are silent, inoffensive animals and move mostly at night. About ten species are known. Fossil sloths of colossal size have been found in the rocks.
Sloyd. In Sweden sloyd or slojd originally meant any kind of trade. In 1872 the Swedish government perceived that, owing to the spreading of the factory-system, hem-sloyd or the home industries of the people was. declining, and it therefore sent men round the country to lecture upon these industries. At the same time the Naas school was established by Otto Salomon to give children training in these trades. In this school the educational value of sloyd was recognized, and in consequence the Swedish government introduced sloyd into the public schools as "a system of educational manual-training in which wood is the material employed.'* The term has still further changed its meaning, for in the Swedish exhibit of sloyd in the St. Louis Exposition of 1904, cardboard and ^ metal-working was exhibited. The Naas school now is a government institution, the Slojdldrareseminarium, which should be translated simply Manual' Training College. When sloyd was introduced to America in 1886, we were still partly under the influence of the Russian idea of manual training, which emphasized the analysis of constructive manual processes into successive steps, each of which was more or less distinct and separate, so that attention and interest were turned rather to the making than to the thing made Sloyd, on the other hand, had come to emphasize the appeal to the creative and esthetic impulses, through the selection of simple objects to be made, which should be of use to the maker or to his
friends. This utility was intended to awaken interest in the object made and to furnish a test by which the child making it could judge of its perfection. Further, the sloyd system graded the exercises, according to the development of the mind and body of the child, and not according to the order which prevails in training an apprentice whose powers already are de veloped in larger measure. The Russian system dealt largely with straight lines, especially in the elementary steps; but sloyd, by using the knife as the fundamental tool, was able to begin with curves and with carved work. Sloyd-instruction was individual. In drawing it insisted on drawing from objects rather than from plane-copies. It was adopted in Springfield, Mass., in 1886, in the New York schools in 1888. The Sloyd Training-School was started at Boston as a private institution in the latter year. Until 1896 sloyd was discussed at most meetings of the National Educational Association. A good series of models and outlines of sloyd courses is given in the proceedings of the N. E. A. for 1894, pp. 267-8. But, later, it was apparent that the American idea of manual training so naturally leads to the adoption of the sloyd principles that there was no reason to speak of it as a separate system. As above pointed out, the slo3d methods have also been so modified as to approximate the broader system of manual training which now prevails in this country. The influence of the sloyd movement was undoubtedly needed at the time it was felt* See MANUAL TRAINING.
Slug, a land-snail of elongated form, with a small rudimentary shell, either covering the lungs and heart or entirely absent. These animals have feelers with eyes at the extremities, as in the common snail, but the body is not coiled. The shell when present is a small flattened plate usually concealed in the mantle. Some of the common forms reach in length from two to four inches. They often live in cellars. They live concealed under boards and other objects during the day, but are active at night, feeding mainly on vegetables. In Europe they have caused great injury to garden crops. They hide their eggs cunningly in the roots of plants, in crevices and in protected nooks; they would multiply alarmingly if it were not for bird-enemies and an insect that destroys their eggs. The name is applied also to larvae, as the rose-slug, the larva of a saw-fly, and to various soft-bodied insects.
Smell, the sense that perceives odors. The nerves of smell are an extension of the brain, and are unaffected by any other sort of impression. From the olfactory lobes of the brain they are distributed to the upper part of the nose. The odorous matter is dissolved in the mucous membrane of
