Sloyd (Swed. slöjd; cf. Eng. sleight) is the name given to a certain system of manual instruction which obtains in the schools of Finland and Sweden, and which has been largely adopted in other countries. The word properly denotes work of an artisan kind practised not as a trade or means of livelihood, but in the intervals of other employment. The fundamental idea of the educational sloyd is to utilise this sloyd-work in the schools in a disciplinary way as an integral part of general education. To this end the older children, generally boys, are engaged for a certain number of hours a week in making articles of common household use varying from simple objects such as a flower-stick or a pen-rest to more complicated articles such as a cabinet or a small table. These objects are made from drawings or from models, but to exact measurements, and the utmost accuracy and finish are insisted upon. The tools employed are the ordinary tools of the carpenter, with certain exceptions, the most important of which is the knife. It is held that work of this kind is valuable, as supplementing and correcting the ordinary school education in the three R's. It fulfils the injunction 'to put the whole boy to school,' it develops faculties that are not otherwise exercised, it trains the eye, and in particular gives a general dexterity of hand which has a direct economical value, particularly in countries such as Finland and Sweden, where the sparseness of the population does not allow of much subdivision of labour. But valuable as are these practical results, the advocates of sloyd maintain that they are only of secondary importance. It is held that in making the models certain educational results, valuable generally, are obtained, which do not follow in like measure on the teaching of the ordinary school subjects, and that, therefore, work of this kind is beneficial for all pupils whatever their future occupation may be. It utilises, as a means of education, the universal delight of children in making things, and in addition to its special function of training the hand and eye it develops in a pre-eminent degree habits of self-reliance, order, accuracy, attention, and industry. It tends like gymnastics to the increase of physical strength, and it has a desirable effect socially, inasmuch as it fosters a liking for bodily labour and a respect for it. Above all it stimulates and exercises the practical intelligence or power of thought in dealing with things. To obtain these results the educational ends of sloyd must be kept prominently in view. The teacher accordingly ought to be a trained teacher who has acquired the requisite manual skill rather than an artisan, and the work ought to be properly graduated, regard being had to the greater or less difficulty of the exercises with tools involved in making each of the models. Besides wood-sloyd, sloyd-work in iron and in card-board (papp-slöjd) is also practised. There are also various systems of wood-sloyd differing in practical details. The main principles of sloyd had been advocated by many prominent educationists, and in particular by Herbert and by Froebel, of whose kindergarten system sloyd may be regarded as a continuation. But it was in Finland, on the re-organisation of the national system of education by
Uno Cygnæus, that manual work was first made a part of the regular instruction in the common schools. In Sweden this branch of education has been systematised and its principles expounded, chiefly by Herr Otto Salomon, director of the great slöjd-seminarium at Nääs (instituted 1872), where every year large numbers of students from all parts of the world receive gratuitous instruction.
Salomon's Teachers' Handbook of Slöjd was translated and adapted for English teachers in 1891 by Mary R. Walker and W. Nelson, who also translated Alfred Johansson's Practical Directions (1892).