him in habits of good thinking; it is suggestive of the pure and wholesome.

Would you have the boy deft of hand and gentle of touch and keen of eye, and, in a homely word, "handy" the whole day long? You will not lead him away from but into the paths that turn to these if you place in his little restless hands the tools of the sloyder. They are hands, too, these tools; they grip him in a strong, loving grasp, and they hold him steadily to the right. It is not only that sloyd is becoming popular all over Europe and advancing in America; it is not this that interests us so much in a study of its workings as the tremendous force of its influence for purer lives and healthier bodies and wholesomer brains. Sloyd is not a panacea for sin. It will not unbind the brutal cords that some coarse spirits bind about them, but it will so fill in the otherwise unoccupied corners in the boy's life that he will not find room for the bad that might have lodged itself.

Let one go through the model school building on the grounds of the World's Fair in Stockholm, held in that city during the past summer, or walk through the long galleries of the Museum of the North where the sloyd exhibits were displayed, or visit the exhibit in the building of the city of Stockholm, and it would be sufficient to dissipate any lingering doubts, if such existed, as to the practicality, so to use the word, of the sloyd of Sweden. The exhibits, which covered, one would almost say, acres of wall and floor space, were the tangible evidences of the tical side of sloyd, the results of the training of the children in the home of the system. These exhibits would demonstrate to you, not only that there is theory in sloyd, but that there is practice in it as well—the most practical of practice.

prac

Mention any article you will which has value and significance in domestic economy, mention any article which enters into the affairs of the kitchen or the dining-room or the living-room, any article which is in use in the shop or on the farm or in the store or in the office—any article makable by hand-and you will not have far to fare before you shall find it, beautifully, substantially, intelligently made by the hands and the brains of these Swedish boys and girls.

I have stood in front of one of these ex hibits and tried to think of something in use in the common life of the every-day world which was perhaps a trifle difficult to make

a fine, keen tool of some specialized nature, a pair of shoes, a dress; have wondered if I should find some such thing as the handiwork of a Swedish lad or lass; and it was always there for the looking. You cannot mention any article of common use in modern, life susceptible of manufacture by hand and hand. held tools which these children have not made. They have taken the rough plank and made it into a substantial, handsomely carved dining-room table, and they have made the saws and the chisels and the beautifully finished planes and the hammers and mallets and carving tools with which it was constructed and adorned. They have taken the raw flax, have spun it into delicate threads with spinning-wheels which their own little hands have made, and then have woven it into fine or strong or beautiful fabrics in looms which they themselves built with precision and care and skill. They have taken

a bar of iron or steel, and out of it, at forge and on anvil and by planer and shaper and what not, they have made such tools as might put to shame many a one you would pay a round price for in the tool-maker's shop. They have made penholders and penwipers, bread-boards and hat-racks, chairs and choice draperies, window-curtains and stepladders, baskets and paper flowers, petticoats and music-racks, match-safes and broiling-irons, straw hats and picture-frames, shears and bed-sheets, ice-picks and sad-irons—where shall we stop?

Sit

Pick up that boxwood plane before you. Is it not symmetrical in form, beautifully finished, well fitting to the hand, keen in its steel blade? Every portion of it was made by a boy. Look over that little girl's dress is it not fine in its fit, taut and snug in its sewing, attractive in its simple ornamentation? Not a hand has been at work on it but the hand of a girl scarce into her teens. down to that dinner-if so be you are fortunate enough to be invited-which has been spread for the poor children of the schools who cannot pay perhaps more than one ore, far less than a cent, but who, if possible, must pay something to keep away the sad savor of pauperism-do you need a daintier, more appetizing, more wholesome repast, better bread or toothsomer roast mutton, or betterflavored vegetables? And yet not an article in the bill of fare but has been taken from its raw state and made into its present edibleness by the hands of some young girl whose father may be a leader in the nation's parliament,

or a professor in a university, or a merchant prince along the Drottningotan, or a day laborer on the streets of Stockholm.

And, best of it all, the children are delighted with their labor. It cannot in truth be called labor, and yet it is not by any means play; it fills in that large middle, oftentimes empty, ground in the child's life when to be employed at what will dignify and elevate and strengthen for the future life is so seriously important.

It has been less than a round quarter of a century since the spirit of those ancient utensils of the medieval times stepped out of its long hiding-place and started to lead the children of Sweden in the paths of sloyd. And yet so great has been its progress that there is scarcely a child in the realm who has not been touched and inspired by its magic wand.

When the principles of sloyd were first introduced into the schools of Sweden, about twenty-five years ago, the chief aim, primarily, was to overturn the old method of overworking, to give the child's brain plenty to do, but to steadily guard against overcrowding it, by introducing into the course of study systematic training in sloyd, so attractively presented that the question of compulsion never enters into the child's thoughts. Sloyd has been

emphatically a labor of love. Early in the decade from 1870 to 1880 the movement gained steadily in strength, many private schools for the teaching of sloyd alone having. been established. In addition to the work in public and private schools, the work of the Naas Normal College, situated not far from the city of Gothenburg, had an important bearing upon the system. A wealthy gentleman named August Abrahamson, interested in sloyd to a marked degree, established this college on his private estate. The main object of the College is to train men and women in the teaching of sloyd-the most important sloyd training-school in the world. There is no charge whatever for instruction. the aim of the founder being to facilitate, in all ways possible, the work of those who have determined to give up their lives to teaching sloyd to children. Here the method of instruction has ample scope for illustration. The school is in a beautiful place on a great estate where to nature's art has been added the art of man. The students are given every opportunity for the development of their best powers. There are no restrictions, either, as to nationality, and all the world is free to study sloyd at Naas. In the year ending with the spring of 1897 there was a large attendance. Up to that date there had been in the school 2,627