The sense of touch is integral to the human experience. Tactile experiences give us a sense of depth and help make us aware of the extension to our environment. As babies, tactile experiences are the very first we encounter as we begin to navigate the world. There was a time when kids grew up with a more tactile experiences. Camping was a big thing, and was often associated with packing a knife or two, and maybe an axe. You learned to build fires, carve things, and dam creeks. It was just what you did. At home you may have built tree houses, or other things. Life was likely much simpler than it is now (mainly because there were no electronics). What one did learn was a respect for all things sharp. You got to know how to use a knife, either a pocket knife or a hunting knife to sharpen a stick, or cut through food. If you accidentally cut yourself, you learned the lesson and moved on. You learned that these things were extensions to your hands. They were tactile experiences. Even the task of making fire – you learned the danger of fire, and how it should be handled properly. There was never any issue with hurting yourself seriously because you respected the sharp and hot things. Sure we hurt ourselves, but that was part of growing up. A knife that accidentally got too close, usually because we weren’t using it properly.
One of the problems with society today is that everything is considered dangerous – even pocket knives, or metal playground swings. We have succeeded in raising many children who have no clue how to manipulate a knife, or whittle a stick. Unimportant you say? Technology is more important! But here’s the thing, in a survival situation unprepared people just panic. They have no clue how to build a shelter, how to find food, how to chop wood. When the power goes out, we are essentially sent back to the dark ages, and electronics will not help you. It is tactile experiences that have paved the way for our thousands of years of success, but we can and should not merely brush them aside. Tactile crafts improve hand-eye coordination more than any video game ever will because they are real, and three-dimensional. Building a model airplane or ship, or even drawing will do way more for your tactile skills than any simulated experience. It will also teach patience, and how to undertake fine, intricate work.
Ultimately making things with your hands probably makes you smarter.
Aristotle said “The hand is the instrument of instruments, and the mind is the form of forms.” Surely we must give some real and fundamental training to the hand. Surely we must give some real and fundamental training to the hand. This hand skill is to be acquired by all, not because they are to work, but because they cannot afford to be without a training that makes brain co-ordinations form sense connections, and therefore aids or makes intelligence, reason, imagination and judgment in the shortest way. This hand skill is requisite, not necessarily to enable its possessors to become artists or artisans – though possessing art skill and capacity through esthetics is essential to complete culture, and this is the side usually to be considered – beauty acted.
J. Liberty Tadd, New Methods in Education, p.39 (1901)
❄︎ James Liberty Tadd ran the Public Industrial Art School of Philadelphia (which operated from 1880-1916). His book, New Methods in Education, is divided into a number of sections, each dedicated to some element of his teaching philosophy. The first portion deals with students learning manual-training drawing, original design, and creative drawing. He then transitions to modelling in clay and wax, and finally wood carving. In this way the hand becomes skilful, the eye trained to artistic excellence, and the mind taught to work with hand and eye.
working by hand 