As dean, Woodward began experimenting with manual skills education. Following an influential demonstration of the Della Vos, or Russian, method of tools instruction at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, Woodward began making plans and gathering support for a similar initiative in the U.S. This culminated in the opening, in 1879, of the St. Louis Manual Training School as a subordinate department of Washington University. Without resigning his other duties, he filled the directorship of the school. The school was a pioneer of its kind in the United States, and served as the model in organizing other similar schools, in consequence of which Woodward's expositions of the aims and value of manual training have had much influence in shaping the new education both inside and outside the United States. During the 1880s, the Manual Training School was the largest and most well-attended public high school in St. Louis.