though no less baneful, pilferings of the tasteful traveller: it is almost sufficient to excuse the popular tradition, that the whole is protected by a magic charm.

On one side of the court a rich portal opens into the Hall of the Abencerrages: so called from the gallant cavaliers of that illustrious line who were here perfidiously massacred. There are some who doubt the whole story, but our humble cicerone Mateo pointed out the very wicket of the portal through which they were introduced one by one into the court of Lions, and the white marble fountain in the center of the hall beside which they were beheaded. He showed us also certain broad ruddy stains on the pavement, traces of their blood, which, according to popular belief, can never be effaced.

Finding we listened to him apparently with easy faith, he added, that there was often heard at night, in the court of Lions, a low confused sound, resembling the murmuring of a multitude; and now and then a faint tinkling, like the distant clank of chains. These sounds were made by the spirits of the murdered Abencerrages; who nightly haunt the scene of their sufferings and invoke the vengeance of Heaven on their destroyer.

The sounds in question had no doubt been produced, as I had afterwards an opportunity of ascertaining, by the bubbling currents and tinkling falls of water conducted under the pavement through pipes and channels to supply the fountains; but I was too considerate to intimate such an idea to the humble chronicler of the Alhambra.

Encouraged by my easy credulity, Mateo gave me the following as an undoubted fact which he had from his grandfather:

There was once an invalid soldier who had charge of the Alhambra to show it to strangers; as he was one evening, about twilight, passing through the court of Lions, he heard footsteps on the Hall of the Abencerrages; supposing some strangers to be lingering there, he advanced to attend upon them, when to his astonishment he beheld four Moors richly dressed, with gilded cuirasses and cimeters, and poniards glittering with precious stones. They were walking to and fro, with solemn pace; but paused and beckoned to him. The old soldier, however, took to flight, and could never afterwards be prevailed upon to enter the Alhambra. Thus it is that men sometimes turn their backs upon fortune; for it is the firm opinion of Mateo, that the Moors intended to reveal the place where their treasures lay buried. A successor to the invalid soldier was more knowing; he came to the Alhambra poor;

but at the end of a year went off to Malaga, bought houses, set up a carriage, and still lives there, one of the richest as well as the oldest men of the place; all which, Mateo sagely surmised, was in consequence of his finding out the golden secret of these phantom Moors.

I now perceived I had made an invaluable acquaintance in this son of the Alhambra, one who knew all the apocryphal history of the place, and firmly believed in it, and whose memory was stuffed with a kind of knowledge for which I have a lurking fancy, but which is too apt to be considered rubbish by less indulgent philosophers. I determined to cultivate the acquaintance of this learned Theban.

MANUAL TRAINING: ITS EDUCATIONAL VALUE.

[Thomas M. Balliet, in Fifty-ninth Annual Report of the Massachusetts Board of Education.]

Neurologists tell us that, whatever may be true of the brains of the lower animals, the number of cells in the human brain is unalterably fixed long before birth, and is therefore not increased either by physical growth or by education, as was formerly supposed. These cells, although all present at birth, require a long process of development before they reach that stage of maturity which enables them to function. A part of this process consists in the actual growth of the cell through nutrition and cell activity, and another part consists in the putting forth and growth of the connecting fibres with their medullary sheaths which will place the cell in communication with other cells. The proper development of connecting fibres is as essential to a well-organized brain as the development of the cells themselves. The power and efficiency of a human brain depend not so much on the absolute number of cells present at birth as upon the number which are afterward developed to the point where they may be functionally active. This is mainly a matter of nutrition, of hygiene, and of education in the broadest sense of the term. It follows from this that actual brain power is less dependent on mere size and weight of the brain than on its thorough organization. It also follows as a corollary that the schools have it in their power, in effect, to "furnish brains" to pupils, if they develop into functional activity cells which otherwise would have lain forever dormant. It is probable that the number of cells which might develop into functional activity in the case of any human brain is greater than the number which actually does develop, so that the possibilities of education, using the term in its broadest sense, are not restricted within narrow limits.

The cells of the brain which we need especially to consider in connection with manual training are of two classes,-sensory and motor. The sensory cells receive the different impulses which come from the special senses and those which come from the skin and internal organs of the body. The motor cells generate the nerve energy which causes the muscles to contract. These cells are grouped together in different portions of the brain. Speaking generally, the rear lobes of the brain are sensory and the central lobes are motor. These areas are again subdivided. There are in the sensory area a visual centre, an auditory centre and probably a more or less specialized centre for each of the other special senses. In the motor area there is a distinct centre for the arms, the trunk and the legs. In the arm area there seem to be specialized groups of cells for the movements of the fingers, the wrist, the forearm and the upper arm.

To speak more accurately, however, I ought to say that no part of the areas designated as "sensory" or as "motor" is either exclusively sensory or exclusively motor. In all these areas there are pathways for both afferent and efferent impulses. The so-called sensory area is only predominantly sensory and the motor area is only predominantly motor.

It is a striking fact that the area for the arm and hand is very much larger than the area controlling any other portion of the body of equal size, except the face. This seems to be due to the fact that it requires a very large number of cells to effect the fine adjustments and delicate co-ordinations of the muscles of the hand in its infinite variety of movements.

Nerve cells grow and develop like any other parts of the body,-through nutrition and functional activity. The visual cells develop through seeing, the auditory cells through hearing, and so with the rest. The visual area in persons born blind, or blinded in early life, remains in a rudimentary condition through life.

From this it follows that the exercise of the special senses is necessary for the proper physical growth of the brain. It also follows that sense training, in so far as it is a physical process at all, consists not in training the external sense organs, but in developing their brain centres.

Like the sensory cells, the motor cells develop through exercise. It is the function of these cells to generate nerve energy to contract the muscles, and thus to produce and to co-ordinate muscular movements. Voluntary muscular movements have therefore the effect not only of exercising the muscles involved,

but also of calling into activity the motor brain cells which control them. Indeed, these motor cells cannot be made to act and develop except by means of the muscles; and muscular exercise, whether in the form of ordinary labor, of recreation, of gymnastics or of manual training, is absolutely indispensable to the proper development of the motor area of the brain. "It is a common observation," we are told by one of the highest authorities, "that in persons who have been long bed-ridden by chronic disease, and debarred from all muscular exercise, the whole motor area of the brain is, after death, more or less atrophied and water-logged. It is unquestionably essential to the welfare of all motor centres, and especially of the large and complicated motor centres of the hand, that the parts with which they are immediately connected should be used in an active and varied manner." Moreover, this exercise of the motor cells must come during the period of brain growth, if it is to be most effective, and the lack of such exercise during this period is a matter of very serious consequence to the brain. It has been found that the amputation of an arm or a leg after maturity has been reached is not nearly so detrimental to the corresponding brain centre as a like amputation in childhood.

Several corollaries may be safely drawn from these truths. First, the brain has a motor significance, as well as a sensory one. It is not only the organ of the mind, but also a battery in which is generated the nerve force that moves the body. In the lower animals this motor function is perhaps the more important of the two. In man the size of the motor area in the brain depends far more on the complexity of the movements effected by a group of muscles, and on the fine co-ordinations of these movements, than on the mere mass of muscles involved. Hence the motor significance of the brain in man remains great, although it is overshadowed by its function as the organ of sensation and of thought. Physical energy implies a good motor brain area; the man of energy must be a man of brains, no less really than the man of thought, and physical laziness implies a deficiency in the motor part of the brain. With the stolidity and the stupidity of the savage there goes also his inveterate laziness.

In the second place it follows, from what has been said, that the popular distinction between "brain work" and "manual work" is a false one. There is no form of manual labor which is not at the same time, to a greater or less extent, brain work. The difference between "manual work" and "intellectual work,"

so far as the activity of the brain is concerned, is simply one of degree, and one of predominantly motor or of predominantly sensory or central activity.

Physiologists distinguish muscles as "fundamental" and "accessory." The fundamental muscles are the large masses of muscles used in locomotion and in performing movements requiring strength rather than fine adjustments and delicate co-ordinations. They are, for the most part, the muscles which we have in common with the lower animals, and which we have probably inherited from our forefathers who dwelt in trees. The accessory muscles are those which involve fine co-ordinations. They are principally the muscles of the forearm and hand, and those of the vocal organs. Now, it might be argued that manual training is not necessary for the development of the motor centers in the brain, on the ground that gymnastics and outdoor physical exercise are quite adequate to accomplish it. The answer to this objection is the fact that gymnastics and physical exercise, in general, appeal almost exclusively to the fundamental muscles and their brain centers and rarely to the accessories. Nothing short of manual training will reach effectively the important brain cells governing the fine motor adjust ments of the muscles of the hand, as nothing short of actual speaking and actual singing can ever effectively develop the equally important brain cells governing the muscles of the vocal organs. The motor cells controlling the muscles of the joints nearest the trunk develop first, and later, in regular order, those which control the muscles of the more distant joints. Education ought to follow this order of growth; it should avoid training the fingers to make finely co-ordinated movements at a period when nature has not yet got beyond developing brain cells to make the coarser adjustments of the shoulder and elbow joints. Physical training, which appeals to these more fundamental muscles of the proximal joints, should at first precede manual training, which appeals especially to the muscles of the forearm, hand and fingers. This is a principle which Seguin followed twenty years ago in training of the feeble-minded, and is just beginning to be recognized as equally applicable to the education of all persons.

But its purely physical effects on the brain, important as they are, do not constitute the most vital significance of manual training. To justify it solely as a peculiar kind of physical exercise would probably be as wide of the mark as to find the chief significance of almsgiving in the fact that the act of giving develops the muscles of the arm.

What does manual training contribute to the development of the mind? Light strikes the retina of the eye and the impression is conveyed to the visual cells in the brain, where a sensation of color is produced. These cells, after having been stimulated many times, acquire the power of reproducing these sensations in the form of ideas. These ideas are analyzed, compared, put together in new combinations, and finally become a part of the mind's organized body of knowledge. Impressions of sound are received in like manner through the ear, and the sensations which they produce are developed into ideas which finally become an integral part of thought. The same is true of the other senses. products of the different senses furnish in this way the material out of which and by means of which the higher thought products are developed.

The

Can manual training make any similar contribution to the mind's fundamental or basal conceptions? When we move a part of the body we can feel the movement, and without the use of the sense of sight we can tell accurately the position of the part moved. We can tell by mere motor perception the exact posture of any part of our body, even when it has been moved, not by our own will, but by an extraneous force. The inner surfaces of the joints, the muscles and ligaments, are supplied with sensory nerves which conduct to the brain sensations of movement which form the basis of direct motor perception, just as sensations of light and sound form the basis of the perception of color and tone. These motor percepts are developed into motor ideas, which, like ideas of light and tone, enter into the higher thought products and become a part of the warp and woof of the mind's organized body of knowledge, -the only kind of knowledge which is power.

Just as all the conceptions into which ideas of color enter must be imperfect, and all the thinking based on them inaccurate, if these ideas of color are not developed, or are entirely absent, as in the case of congenitally blind, so all the conceptions into which motor ideas enter must be imperfect and the thinking based on them inaccurate, if these motor ideas are but vaguely developed.

Motor ideas are developed by all forms of voluntary muscular movement with any part of the body,-by ordinary work, by play, by gymnastics and by manual training. All these are, therefore, means of motor training. But the large motor area in the brain, governing the infinitely varied and complex movements of the hand, shows that this organ is by far the richest source of motor ideas, and espe

cially that portion of it little appealed to either in gymnastics or in ordinary unskilled labor, -namely, the five fingers and their many sensitive muscles and joints. The hand is therefore a special sense organ, somewhat like the eye and the ear; and an untrained hand is in many respects as unfortunate a limitation as an untrained eye or an untrained ear.

Whether the motor sensations are perceived by specialized sensory cells in the brain, like the sensations of light and sound, or whether the motor cells have also a sensory function, and receive directly these motor sensations as well as generate the different motor impulses, is a question with which we need not embarrass this discussion. Consciousness testifies to the existence of these motor sensations and ideas in the mind, no matter what the nervous mechanism may be through which they enter it. Motor perceptions and ideas are gained through muscular movements. Let us notice how they develop, and what their reflex effect is on these very muscular movements themselves. I try to hit a mark with a stone. My first effort sends it beyond the mark, my second not quite to it, my third becomes more accurate, and perhaps my fifth or sixth effort will exactly hit it. After I have once hit it, I find it comparatively easy to hit it again. What is the explanation of this common experience? In throwing the stone the first time I make a guess as to how much muscular effort is required to send it to the mark. When I come to throw it the second time, I recall the muscular feeling which accompanied the first throw and construct in my imagination a motor feeling in the form of effort which will send a stone a shorter distance. I again and again correct this imagined motor feeling, or idea, until I hit the mark. After that I remember as accurately as I can the motor feeling which accompanied the successful throw, and find it comparatively easy to hit the mark again and again.

From this we may deduce the proposition that motor ideas are not only developed by muscular movements, but that it is motor ideas which guide voluntary muscular movements. The element of apperception enters into motor training, just as it does into all other forms of sense training. Just as we "see with all we have seen," so we perform muscular movements with the help and under the guidance of the very motor ideas which similar movements in the past have developed. From this becomes obvious the important truth that manual skill does not reside in the hand, but primarily in the brain and in the mind; that manual training is but another form of men

tal training, and that the hand is but a sixth sense, an additional avenue to the mind.

To speak of an education which "trains the mind and the hand" is, therefore, to show an utter misconception of the functions of manual training. Well-co-ordinated muscular movements of the body imply a well-organized brain, a brain with well developed motor functions. Imbecility affects muscular movements quite as much as it affects thought and speech; and the hand of the idiot is unable to acquire skill, not because it is imperfectly formed, but because the brain centres controlling it are so defective as to be unable to develop accurate motor ideas.

Motor ideas form the basis of manual skill. The degree of skill depends primarily on the number, variety and accuracy of these ideas. From this it follows that exercises in a manual training school must involve a great variety of movements; and, furthermore, that these movements must be as accurate as possible. The sacrifice of accuracy is the sacrifice of almost everything in such training, not simply because habits of accuracy must be developed, -habits which can also be learned outside of the manual training school,-but because the only way in which accurate motor ideas can be developed is by means of accurate muscular movements. This is a kind of accuracy which cannot be learned elsewhere; and inaccurate motor ideas vitiate all after-thinking based on them, just as inaccurate ideas of color vitiate all later thinking based on these. stream of water may become clear, although its fountain be turbid; a current of thought, never; for a stream of water is made turbid by bodies foreign to the water, a current of thought by imperfections in its own constituent elements. Clear and accurate thinking can never result from vague and inaccurate sense-perception, whether of the eye, of the ear or of the hand.

A

It is clear, too, that manual training exercises must be carefully graded. Motor ideas develop in a certain order, just as ideas of color and of tone do. As in developing ideas of color we begin with the fundamental colors and then pass on to the shades, tints and hues, so in manual training there are fundamental exercises which must precede those involving fine motor perceptions and complex motor adjustments.

It is a matter of no little moment to decide, on scientific grounds, what kinds of manual work are educational and what kinds are not; in short, what kinds of manual exercises are to be introduced into a manual training school. Large groups of muscles are more easily con

tracted than small groups, and the fundamental muscles are more easily contracted and co-ordinated than the accessories. A boy ought to write only with the muscles of his arm and hand, but in his first attempts he contracts muscles all over his body, and throws even many of the muscles of his face into contortions. It requires less skill to grasp the handle of an ax, using all the muscles of the hand and arm, and chop wood, than to seize a penholder by means of two fingers and a thumb, and perform the act of writing. What we commonly call "unskilled labor" involves large groups of muscles, and mainly the fundamental muscles with their coarser adjustments; whilst skilled labor" involves small groups, and in the main the accessory muscles with their finer adjustments. Unskilled labor, therefore, develops but few and crude motor ideas; skilled labor, on the other hand, develops accurate motor sensations and ideas, and fine co-ordinations of muscular movement. The latter alone is educational. Indeed, the heaviest kind of manual labor dulls the motor sensations and makes men stolid. Human beings are not educated by being made beasts of burden.

This, again, enables us to determine what kinds of tools are to be used in a manual training school. The ax, the crow-bar and the pickax have no place in such a school; they appeal to large groups of muscles, and require but crude motor co-ordinations. On the contrary, the jack-knife, the chisel, the saw, the hammer, the jack-plane and the lathe appeal to small groups of muscles, and require accurate motor ideas and delicate muscular co-ordinations.

I have been speaking of the brain only. The spinal cord also must be considered in education. The spinal cord is made up of sensory and motor cells in the centre, and of conducting fibres in the outer portions. Many impressions made on the senses go no further than the cells in the chord; they never reach the brain. You tickle the foot of a good-natured friend when he is asleep; he draws it back without waking up, and without being conscious either of the tickling or of the movement. The impression was carried from the skin along afferent nerves to the afferent cells in the cord. From there the nerve energy travelled to the efferent cells, and thence along efferent nerves to the muscles, causing them to contract. It never reached the brain. Such an act is called a reflex act. The spinal cord is the organ of reflex action. Many acts at first require conscious action of the brain, but later become habitual and unconscious.

Such acts are relegated by the brain almost wholly to the basal ganglia and the cord; they become almost identical in character with strictly reflex acts.

At

In this way the brain is relieved of much work. To illustrate: at first a child uses his brain in walking; later he can walk from habit, and walks therefore with his spinal cord. first we spell with painful consciousness; later we spell familiar words of our vocabulary with little or no consciousness. Children ought to be trained to write and spell mainly with the spinal cord, and use all their brain power in thinking the thoughts to be expressed. We do many things with the spinal cord to relieve the brain. We walk with the cord; we write and spell with the cord; I suppose we knit and gossip with the spinal cord; indeed, we may sing and pray, not with our hearts, nor with our brains, but with the upper part of our spinal cord. We tip our hats to each other, not with our brains, but mainly with our spinal cord; and when we meet people whom we do not wish to see, we often shake hands mechanically with the spinal cord,—hence we speak of a "cordial welcome."

Much time is lost in the life of every one of us because our early training did not relieve the brain of a great deal of the purely mechanical work which the spinal cord can do with very much more precision and accuracy. To make a conscious cerebral process of what ought to be short-circuited and made a function of the cord, is a waste of power.

From all this we may deduce this principle for manual training: the muscular movements involved in the handling of tools are made at first by nerve energy which comes from the brain, but after these movements become automatic by practice the brain relegates them almost wholly to the spinal cord. Such movements cease to be of much educational value when they are no longer directed consciously by the brain. Any process in manual training ought to stop when it ceases to be brain work. Here we have a difference between the manual training school and the trade school. The manual training school stops when the point mentioned is reached; its purpose is purely educational. The trade school continues the training in skill even after the process is relegated to the spinal cord, in order that the person may develop the power of producing as large a quantity as possible of goods of a high grade of finish, in a given time, for the market; its purpose is economic. This is a basis for the distinction between the two which has been overlooked in discussions of manual training.

The human infant has the most immature