Manual training: from idealism to vocationalism

• Main Author: Hurley, John Francis
• Language: English
• Published: 2009
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/8154

Manual Training had one of its intellectual origins in Switzerland in the work of Johann Pestalozzi, and was first introduced as a rational, educational programme in Germany by Friedrich Froebel. Pestalozzi and Froebel valued the practical manipulation of physical materials for cultural, educational and psychological reasons. John Dewey, American philosopher, psychologist and educator, believed in these principles and supported the establishment and growth of manual training in the United States. Progressive educators in Canada were important advocates for manual training. A leading "new educator," James Robertson, with the financial backing of William Macdonald, started manual training centres in Canadian schools in 1900. I argue that manual training became part of the Canadian school system for cultural, educational and psychological reasons grounded in the philosophies of Pestalozzi, Froebel and Dewey. The search for social, industrial and educational efficiency, the growth of industrialism, new scientific research, and urban growth were among forces justifying the Royal Commission for Industrial Training and Technical Education in 1914. The Commission provided new reasons and new impetus for manual training in the public school curriculum. Manual Training became a pre-vocational course of study and an introduction to the purely vocational training in High Schools. The vocational function of manual training was reinforced by the Putman-Weir survey of the British Columbia school system in 1925. I conclude with an illustrative portrait of the start of manual training in a mining town, Cumberland, to show the change of purpose of manual training. This investigation was mainly based in library research for historical information. The Robertson evidence was obtained from original documents, and the story of William Macdonald's contribution to manual training required research in McGill University and Macdonald College, Montreal. Manual Training as a vocational course became part of the superstructure of capitalist society preparing students to fit into the established economic order. One influential administrator, John Kyle, conceived of manual training benefiting students from lower classes. Changes in the sixty-eight intervening years, resulting in Technology Education, invite further research.