Industrial education

“ The institution of industry, rather than the institution of education, dominates thought in industrial education courses. It is the institution of industry as it has affected the life of every man, woman and child, which has inhibited educational thought in conjunction with schemes for industrial schools. No established system of education or none proposed is more circumscribed by institutionalized thought than the vocational and industrial school movement.
Educators have opposed the desire of business to attach the schools to the industrial enterprise. ”

“ The Growth of Industrial Training.—The movement that is perhaps most widely discussed to-day is the introduction of vocational training into the systems of education. Social reasons for industrial education. There is now an especial need for this type of training. Since the industrial revolution and the development of the factory system, the master no longer works by the side of his apprentice and instructs him, and the ambition of the youth can no longer be spurred by the hope that he may himself some day become a master. ”

“ Now what we mean by giving you an industrial education is to teach you so to put brains into your work that if your work is butter-making, you can make butter simply by standing at a machine and turning a crank.
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If you are studying chemistry, be sure you get all you can out of the course here, and then go to a higher school somewhere else. Become as proficient in the science as you can. ”

“ But instruction in mechanical processes and practice in technique of manufacture are the husks of industry when divorced from the planning, the management, the examination of problems, the determination of the value of goods in their use and in their place in the market, the division of labor throughout an enterprise, the relation of all persons involved to each other and to the product. The schools with their industrial education courses do not undertake to supply their young people with an opportunity to plan ”

“ The establishment of trade schools by the public school authorities is now a matter of discussion in every manufacturing city in the land. Manufacturers and philanthropists alike are clamoring for the introduction of industrial training into the public schools.... The true reason for industrial education lies ... in the fundamental conception of modern education—to fit the child for his life environment.... ”

“ Industrial education in its widest sense, in which mental development and liberal culture are the leading aim, in connection with a thorough knowledge of the industries in their relations to science, should be promoted as an important factor in the world's progress, and the gaining of technical skill in the handicrafts which have been so largely superseded by modern improved methods should not be allowed to usurp a dominant influence. ”

“ Concrete and practical methods of determining what sort of industrial and trade schools are needed in our large industrial communities are considered by Harry Bradley Smith, director of industrial education in the New York state college for teachers. ”

“ All this may seem too ideal and impracticable to think of in connection with industrial education, but if we consider industry and industrialism as the center of our whole civilization, as it appears to be now, what less ideal educational foundation will be sufficient as preparation for and control of the industrial life? ”

“ The demand for industrial education has grown out of a reorganization of the industries and trades of the world. The great industries of the country require men of trained minds and directive intelligence to organize and control them. MechanicalPage 148 skill is in great demand, and workmen must be trained not merely in dexterity and skill in the use of tools, but they must be so instructed in the principles governing science that they shall be able to reach results of the highest practical value in the sciences and arts. ”

“ If the demand for technical instruction is to be fully satisfied, a great part of our existing system of education must be reconstructed, and the training provided in our several schools must be made a more fitting preparation for industrial work than it is at present.
Schools in which the course of instruction is not specialized with a view to any particular industry, but is so arranged as to form a general preparation for manufacturing or other trade pursuits, are often spoken of as professional, technical, or trade schools ”

“ A really efficient workman must be to-day an intelligent man who has had good technical training in addition to thorough common school, and perhaps even higher training. To meet this situation the industrial schools began a further development; they established distinct Trade Schools for the thorough training of better class artisans, and at the same time they sought to preserve for the purposes of general education, such of the simpler processes of elementary trade learning as were best suited therefor. ”

“ And now, what should this industrial education be? Many men, hastily looking over the subject, have jumped to the conclusion that it should consist in simply teaching the plain arts of husbandry and of mechanics; that is, that the great object should be to train young men simply or mainly to hoe or spade or plough in the fields, or to make chairs or shoes, or hats or boats, in the shops. ”

“ In consequence of these facts it is insisted that school instruction should be given to make good the absence of shop practice; that a general system of industrial education should be developed to give our workingmen systematic training in the various trades. ”

“ The best method of Industrial Education is to keep the technical idea preëminently in view, and to teach, first, those principles which will be of real and practical use in an industrial life or profession. It is evident that the great mass of the people must be industrial workers in some form ”

“ High schools in all parts of the country are giving commercial courses in increasing degree. The first type of industrial education to be extensively cultivated in the United States was commercial education. This consisted in133 training for clerical positions and was carried on for the most part in private “business colleges.” The reason for the early demand for this particular kind of training is to be sought in the fact that America has for years been a country devoted on a vast scale to exporting raw materials. ”

“ And finally, improved industrial and technical education is essential, whereby the loss in skill through the introduction of new inventions and machinery may be minimized, and the productivity of the laboring class be increased. ”

“ We have come to think of the carpenter shop, the machine shop, the forge shop, and the cooking room as necessary and desirable adjuncts of the modern school and to our minds these shops have typified industrial education. All of these have come to be almost synonymous with progressive thought and action in public education. Very generally it has been felt that the problems of industrial education were to be solved through the wider extension of these shop facilities in our public schools. ”

“ This does not mean that a constructive program of industrial education would affect 22 per cent of the present school enrollment. All the weight of educational opinion and experience is on the side of excluding the children of the lower and middle age groups as too young to profit by any sort of industrial training, while the evidence collected by the survey goes to show that of the remainder less than one-fifth of the girls and one-fourth of the boys are likely to become skilled industrial workers. ”

“ And here is the mistake of those who would degrade a manual training school into a manufacturing establishment. The fact should never be lost sight of for an instant that the product of the school should be, not the polished article of furniture, not the perfect piece of machinery, but the polished, perfect boy. The acquisition of industrial skill should be the means of promoting the general education of the pupil; the education of the hand [351] should be the means of more completely and more efficaciously educating the brain.... ”

“ The purpose of the general industrial course is to afford to boys who wish to enter industrial occupations the opportunity to secure knowledge and training that will be of direct or indirect value to them in industrial employment. It is not expected that by this means they can be given much practical training in hand work for any particular trade. The most the school can do for the boy at this period is to bridge over for him the gap that exists between the knowledge he obtains from books and the rôle which this knowledge plays in the working world. ”

“ The members of the Survey Staff were, however, of the opinion that through the system of electives in the junior high school, industrial training of a more general type, made up chiefly of instruction in the applications of mathematics, drawing, physics, and chemistry to the commoner industrial processes, would be of considerable benefit to those boys who, on the basis of their own selection or that of their parents, are likely to enter industrial pursuits. ”

“ In justice labor should share in the technical improvements which characterized the nineteenth century and will revolutionize to a still greater extent the industries of the twentieth. The practical question in this connection is as to the best method for labor to secure its claim to a share in the increased production. One answer, to which we will turn next, is by increasing its efficiency through better industrial education and training. ”

“ For many years past the public has given respectful attention to the arguments of the champions of industrial education. There has been general assent to the proposition that the schools should train for and not away from the industrial age in which we live. ”

“ On the industrial and social side of history, which is being more and more emphasized, it is of great value to the child to become acquainted, even though on a small scale and through the simplest implements and machines, with the construction of machinery and modes of manufacture. For a lesson on the Industrial Revolution in England, for example, it will give pupils a better understanding of the changes, if they know something, through their own activities, of the way of making cloth. ”

“ The more the figures of the little table given above are studied, the clearer it appears that our conventional ideas about industrial education need critical scrutiny and careful challenge. These 10 leading occupations include only 41 out of each 100 American born men. Moreover, more than half of these 41 are engaged in mental work rather than in manual work.
From these considerations one definite conclusion inevitably emerges. It is that the safest guide for thinking and planning for industrial education is to be found in a study of the occupational distribution of the present adults. ”

“ The strongest case for commercial industrialism can be made out under the head of scientific knowledge. Since the industrial revolution there has been an enormous increase both in the general level of education and in the number of men devoted to learning and research. The importance of science for industrial progress is very evident, and all industrial States encourage scientific research. ”

“ Further than this, after being provided with group leaders of civilization, and a foundation of intelligence in the public schools, the carpenter, in order to be a man, needs technical skill. This calls for trade schools. Now trade schools are not nearly such simple things as people once thought. The original idea was that the "Industrial" school was to furnish education, practically free, to those willing to work for it ”

“ The elementary schools and the junior high schools cannot conduct satisfactory trade-preparatory courses for the building industry for the reason that they do not bring together at any one point a sufficient number of these future workers to make it possible to teach them economically. This is a consideration which conditions every plan for the organization of industrial education. ”

“ Technical Colleges 2. Secondary or Intermediate Technical Schools [15] 3. Schools and Museums of Industrial Art 4. Schools for Foremen 5. Schools for the Textile Trades 6. Trade and Industrial Continuation Schools 7. Industrial Drawing Courses 8. Other Institutions for Industrial Education.
The order followed in the present study is finally given below. It is one not to be found elsewhere, but more closely resembles that of Dr. Pabst (the second classification) and that found in the Seventeenth Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor. ”

“ In the first place he demands that education shall include learning to work or an actual preparation for industrial occupations. He appreciates and favors the Kindergarten as the first step in this direction, to be followed up by developing schools and technical institutions to teach the practice as well as the elementary principles of various mechanical trades. He gives an interesting account of several industrial schools and manual institutes, chiefly in New England, which have for their object the training of the young in the skillful and intelligent exercise of hand-labor. ”

“ Industrial Training in the United States.—Industrial training first began to be offered in the United States during the latter half of the nineteenth century by means of a number of evening continuation schools. These were established through philanthropy in the larger cities, and included the Cooper Union and the Mechanics’ Institute in New York ”