Mind and hand: manual training the chief factor in education . s or clamps. A final visit is now made to the furnace. The fusionis found to be complete; the pigs are converted intoa molten pool. It only remains to pour the hot metalinto the moulds. The instructor seizes an iron ladle linedwith clay, holds it under the spout of the furnace reser-voir until it is nearly filled with the glowing fluid, liftsand carries it carefully across the room, and pours thecontents into a mould. Then the students, in squads,after having been cautioned as to the deadly nature ofthe molten mass they are to hand
Mind and hand: manual training the chief factor in education . s or clamps. A final visit is now made to the furnace. The fusionis found to be complete; the pigs are converted intoa molten pool. It only remains to pour the hot metalinto the moulds. The instructor seizes an iron ladle linedwith clay, holds it under the spout of the furnace reser-voir until it is nearly filled with the glowing fluid, liftsand carries it carefully across the room, and pours thecontents into a mould. Then the students, in squads,after having been cautioned as to the deadly nature ofthe molten mass they are to handle, follow the exampleof their instructor. At this moment the laboratory ap-peals powerfully to the imagination. The picture it pre-sents is weird in the extreme. From the open furnacedoor a stream of crimson light floods the room. Thestudents wear paper caps and are bare-armed; their facesglow in the reflected glare of the furnace-fire; they marchup to the furnace one by one, each receiving a ladlefulof steaming hot metal, and countermarch to their benches,. THE FOUNDING LABORATORY. 55 where they pour the contents of their ladles into themoulds. Still holding his empty ladle in his hand, the instruct-or watches the progress of the lesson with keen interestantil the last stream of metal has found its way intothe throat of the last mould. He recalls the story ofVulcan, the God of Fire, and of all the arts and indus-tries dependent upon it, and wonders why he was notdepicted pouring tons of molten metal, in the fonndery,rather than sledge in hand at the forge. Then he regardsthe class with a benignant expression of pride, begs forsilence, and says, Thus were the hundred brazen gatesof ancient Babylon cast long before the beginning ofthe Christian era. Herodotus did not think to tell usmuch of the state of the useful arts in the early time ofwhich he wrote, but the brazen gates attracted his atten-tion, and he described them: At the end of each streeta little gate is found in the
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