The following is from Dr. Felix Adler in 1880:

"There is no kind of work that does not become attractive when dignity attaches to it. Work of the hardest kind is performed every day by men of science, work which involves personal discomfort and the overcoming of physical disgust, and yet it is cheerfully done because of the intellectual dignity that elevates such work. Every physician renders, in his practice, menial and repulsive services, which no servant could be hired to render; and the physician, far from being disgraced is ennobled by his service. In the same way, we believe that the tedious work of the working people could be rendered more easy to them, and even elevating, if greater dignity could be made to attach to it; if only more intellect could be put into it. And we look to hand education in the school as a means of accomplishing this desirable object. There are certain mental operations that underlie manual operations. These the children should be taught, so that their manual operation may become transparent to the mental operations that underlie them."

For the past hundred years, the hands have been stripped of their dignity by a social system that has largely ignored their cultural contributions and their contributions to the intellectual development of our species. One of the purposes inherent in Educational Sloyd was to create a regard for the dignity of all labor. This meant that all children were to come to an understanding of the role of the hands in learning and making. Sloyd wasn't just for students from a particular economic or social class, but for all classes. If a person has never been challenged with making something, how can he or she see or understand the value of the craftsman's labor in that which has been made? If that value is not seen or known, how can dignity be understood?

Modern manufacturing methods from the industrial revolution stripped intellect from the process of making. Hands engaged in repetitive motion were to know nothing of the finished product or the overall process of its making or design. Educational Sloyd, unlike the Russian system asked that students be engaged in the making of whole objects, from start to finish and to thereby have a greater intellectual understanding of the maker's meaning and value. It was one of the subtle ways in which dignity of hand labor and craftsmanship was to be restored. Very sadly, Educational Sloyd in the United States fell out of favor in 1901.