INFANT TRAINING

Marlborough Express, Volume LXXVI, Issue 241, 13 October 1942, Page 4

INFANT TRAINING

.flL - LEARNING THE PLAY WAY. COLLEGE PUPILS MAKE EQUIPMENT. The spectacle of a well-known college Principal absorbed in assembling the component parts of a wooden toy boat and a merry-go-lound might have surprised anyone had th^y peeped in at the Board of Governor's meeting room shortly after the termination of yesterday 's business. Actually there was a .good explanation for conduct not usually associated with college Principals— at any rate, when separated from their families. The demonstration was not carried out for amusernent, but for the purpose of explaining to the keenly-interested Board members the theory of a new system of training in manual dexterity and muscular cbntrol which has been introduced for the more juvenile classes of the primary schools. Under this system, explained Mr Stewart, while he was slipping the last funnel of a ship into its appointed socket, the youngsters were given the dismantled parts of a specially-made toy and told to make something from them. The children usually had no idea of what the assembled model might be, and in puzzling out the task derived valuable training in the co-ordinated use of their hands and brains. A large number of different types of toys were necessary, and these were being made in the various manual training centres. Marlborough College pupils were manufacturing a number from blue prints provided, and in doing so were receiving valuable experience. The specimens • he had brought were made at the/ College. Evidently the demonstrator was not lacking in manual dexterity, for the boat, which consisted of perhaps half-a-dozen pieces of various shapes and sizes, was fitted together with an ease which belied its cunning design. However, it was a different story when a member of the Board, unable to resist the temptation of the jig-saw-like contrivance, set about testing his ov/n skill After one or two excusably false starts he succeeded in getting the vessel off the "assembly line," only for the joyful discovery to be made by his associates that the shipbuilding had gone astray, the bottom deck having somehow changed -places with the top.