The usual practice in elementary manual training has been to omit all strictly exercise pieces. However, the author's experience has been that a preliminary exercise embracing the fundamental tools and proc esses at the beginning Of a course, while the interest is naturally fresh, is very helpful, insuring far better work than when it is omitted. In, fact, the exercise here given has been used by the author with splendid results at the beginning of every year in every course in hand woodworking, whether the pupil had previous experience or not. To say the least, a good exercise is a splendid brief review of tools and processes which form the basis for all later work.