of name an open one, still believing in the validity of the reasons I have adduced in favor of the truly descriptive name, the mechanic arts high school, but ready to bow to usage, the arbiter in all questions of language, if it should be thought best to adopt the other name.

Respectfully submitted,

EDWIN P. SEAVER.

APPENDIX.

A PLAN FOR A MECHANIC ARTS HIGH SCHOOL IN THE CITY OF BOSTON.

The grade of the proposed school and its relations to existing public schools are best marked by naming it a high school, while the words mechanic arts indicate the characteristic feature of its course of study. The curriculum of this school, like that of the other high schools, should begin when that of the grammar school ends. It should be three years long. The requirements for admission should be a grammar-school diploma or the equivalent examination, age not less than thirteen, and a good character.

The school time, twenty-five hours a week, should be shared by shop-work, book-work, and drawing in about the proportion of ten hours to each of the two former and five hours to the last. But if it should be thought best to introduce military drill into the curriculum of this school, - and there are good reasons to be urged for doing so, the needed time could be taken from the book work and the drawing equally. Then the distribution of time would be as follows:

Before speaking of the shop-work in detail, it may be well to dispose of the other branches of the school-work in a few words. The book-work should be in English language, in mathematics, and in science; but a part or the whole of the science could be replaced by a foreign language if circumstances made it desirable

for any considerable number of boys to make such a substitution. This might well be the case with boys preparing to enter some higher institution of learning, as, for example, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

In English language, the chief effort should be in the direction of training to clear and correct use of language in both oral and written expression. Literature and history would not be directly the subjects of study in this department, but they would supply the material to be worked upon; and thus incidentally the pupils would become acquainted with a few works of the great writers.

The mathematics should include elementary algebra, plane and solid geometry, descriptive geometry, and plane trigonometry. A thorough acquaintance with these branches has been found essential to the best success, both in drawing and in mechanical construction.

The science should be physics and chemistry. The method of teaching both these branches should be that known as the laboratory method. If circumstances make this method impracticable,

as is the case now in some high schools, the time would be better spent in the study of a foreign language. The day for mere book-work and lecture-notes in science has gone by. Some of the apparatus used in the laboratories may be made in the shops by the boys; but not all. There is an important limit to be observed in this matter. Boys should not be set to making their own chemical or physical apparatus unless the knowledge to be gained from such making be at least as valuable as the knowledge to be gained from any other kind of shop-work that could fill the same time. To set boys to making things for no other reason than to save money in the running expenses of the school is wrong; for it is to sacrifice the boys to the school, whereas the school exists only for the benefit of the boys.

The drawing should be carried on with constant reference to the shop-work, which it is designed to assist, and from which in turn it will receive assistance. As educational agencies, drawing and construction belong together as two parts of one whole. Neither is fully efficacious without the other. Like the two blades of a pair of scissors, each requires the aid of the other to do its own work. The drawing teacher will, therefore, keep the shop

work constantly in view, coöperating with it, and using it as the chief source from which to take illustrations. The shop teacher, on his side, will see that every piece of work, however simple, be executed from drawings made by the pupil. Thus the whole work of the drawing-rooms and shops becomes one course of practice in the expression of ideas, through drawing, and construction. The drawing will be chiefly of the kind known as mechanical drawing; but the æsthetic side of the work should be provided for by adding a reasonable amount of free-hand drawing.

The shop-work will be described first in outline and then in more detail.

The first year's shop-work should consist of carpentry and wood-turning chiefly; but, for the aesthetic side of the work, there should also be a considerable number of lessons in woodcarving. The year's work should be drawn up in a fully detailed series of lessons or exercises, which should be required of all pupils alike, the whole class beginning each new exercise in the series simultaneously. Then there should be drawn up a parallel series of supplementary exercises, to be given, as occasion may require, to those quicker pupils who complete the regular exercises in less than the allowed time.

In the shop-work of the second year the wood-work is continued and becomes pattern-making. This is accompanied and followed by a brief course in moulding and casting. The material used for casting may be either plaster or soft metal. The latter is easily managed, and may be melted over and over again, thus avoiding waste. The same may be said of brass. Although there appears to have been little experience with the casting and finishing of brass thus far in the schools, there is good reason for believing that experiments in this direction would prove very satisfactory.

Iron cannot advantageously be used, for it would necessitate the expense and the trouble of a cupola. Besides, the process of ironcasting, to be of much educational value, would involve more knowledge of metallurgy than could well be contemplated in a school of the character now proposed.

Whatever iron-castings might be needed for the third year's work could best be procured at a commercial foundry in the usual