At the end of the nineteenth century, proponents of the manual training movement called for the implementation of manual training classes in America's schools. This movement -- whose distinctive feature was 'the education of the mind, and of the hand as the agent of the mind' -- was supported by a revolutionary rhetoric: manual training classes were supposed to be at the centre of a school transformation dedicated to the principles of 'learning by doing' and 'freedom for the child.' Using archival sources from the city of Menomonie, Wisconsin, this article is conceived as an effort to move beyond progressive reformers' rhetoric in order to understand the functioning of manual training classes. By documenting how progressive reformers changed the curriculum, social purposes and reality of schooling for local pupils, it unveils the irony of manual training reform in Menomonie, ie that the Menomonie schools remained bastions of social order and stability.