and why not?

Today was my first day of round two of box making at the Marc Adams School of woodworking and I was too busy teaching to have taken any photos. I'll do better tomorrow.

In1888, Felix Adler addressed the National Conference of Charities and Correction in Buffalo, New York and described the relationship between manual arts and the development of productive will in children, particularly as it applied to the delinquent child. He noted:

"... history, geography, and arithmetic are not, as a rule, interesting to young children, especially not to young children of the class with which we are now dealing. These listless mind are not easily roused to an interest in abstractions. Secondly, it is a notorious fact that intellectual culture, pure and smile, is quite consisted with weakness of the will. A person may have very high intellectual attainments, and yet be morally deficient. I need hardly warn my reflective hearers that, when emphasized in the importance of the will of intellectual culture, I had in mind the intellectual process as applied to acts. To cultivate the intellect in its own sphere of contemplation and abstraction, apart from action, may leave the will precisely as feeble as it was before."

Any questions about this? You have doubts? Take a look at American politics. It can serve as an example of what happens when folks get out of touch. Is there actual truth in what these folks do and say? It is important that we train children in doing real things, that allow them to self-assess and take responsibility for their own growth. Make, fix and create...