Cours de Travail Manuel (Pour les Garçons)

Rédigé conformément au programme des écoles primaires du 27 juillet 1882. Pliage, tissage, tressage - Découpage des surfaces, collage des bandelettes, construction des solides géométriques - Vannerie - Modelage de solides géométriques et d'objets simples. Première partie, Cours élémentaire.Red cloth quarto, 12.5 x 9.5 inches. Complete with 29 chromolithograph plates mounted on paper stubs, opposite explanatory text. Very Good with rubbing to extremities and intermittent foxing of varying degrees, with the most obtrusive represented in the photograph of Plate IV. Some shallow creasing or snags at the bottom page edges just outside the gutter tabs, a few with professional reinforcement from the verso. Gift inscription to flyleaf and publisher's notice to pastedown advertising supplemental materials for the elementary course.

Originally issued with a set of geometric solids, the book begins with a preface defending the merits of manual training and refuting misconceptions about the educational value of the work, which seemed trivial to some. The Jules Ferry Laws of 1881 and 1882 established free, compulsory, and secular primary education in France. These laws had a profound impact on French society--the increase in school enrollment led to the creation of a more skilled workforce and expanded opportunities for children in poorer families. Although it exacerbated existing problems with the waning apprenticeship system, public education in France offered manual training through the incorporation of Froebel's Gifts and Occupations, materials and activities designed to stimulate children's creativity and understanding of their environment. Because a central part of Froebel's philosophy was the development of the child in relation to God, explicit reference to Froebel was phased out as the schools became increasingly strict in secular attitudes, but many of the actual manual training activities remained central to their curriculum.