Something which cannot be shown to children, but it will come to them later on as an inheritance, is the effect of manual work upon their whole being.  Manual work gives balance and harmony in the development of the growing creature.  A child does not attain its full power unless every faculty is exercised in turn, and to think that hard mental work alternated with hard physical exercise will give it full and wholesome development is to ignore whole provinces of its possessions.  Generally speaking, children have to take the value of their mental work on the faith of our word.  They must go through a great deal in mastering the rudiments of, say, Latin grammar (for the honey is not yet spread so thickly over this as it is now over the elements of modern languages).  They must wonder why “grown-ups” have such an infatuation for things that seem out of place and inappropriate in life as they consider it worth living.  Probably it is on this account that so many artificial rewards and inducements have had to be brought in to sustain their efforts.  Physical exercise is a joy to healthy children, but it leaves nothing behind as a result.  Children are proud of what they have done and made themselves.  They lean upon the concrete, and to see as the result of their efforts something which lasts, especially something useful, as a witness to their power and skill, this is a reward in itself and needs no artificial stimulus, though to measure their own work in comparative excellence with that of others adds an element that quickens the desire to do well.  Children will go quietly back again and again to look, without saying anything, at something they have made with their own hands, their eyes telling all that it means to them, beyond what they can express.

With its power of ministering to harmonious development of the faculties manual work has a direct influence on fitness for home and social life.  It greatly develops good sense and aptitude for dealing with ordinary difficulties as they arise.  In common emergencies it is the “handy” member of the household whose judgment and help are called upon, not the brilliant person or one who has specialized in any branch, but the one who can do common things and can invent resources when experience fails.  When the specialist is at fault and the artist waits for inspiration, the handy person conies in and saves the situation, unprofessionally, like the bone-setter, without much credit, but to the great comfort of every one concerned.

Manual work likewise saves from eccentricity or helps to correct it.  Eccentricity may appear harmless and even interesting, but in practice it is found to be a drawback, enfeebling some sides of a character, throwing the judgment at least on some points out of focus.  In children it ought to be recognized as a defect to be counteracted.  When people have an overmastering genius which of itself marks out for them a special way of excellence, some degree of eccentricity