Technical training

“ Technical training will more and more be accepted as the prime factor in our educational system, a factor as essential for the farmer, the blacksmith, the seamstress, and the cook, as for the lawyer, the doctor, the engineer, and the stenographer. ”

“ With the exception of mining, the courses of training in these sections are very much the same, and consist of a technical course in a college or a university, followed by a practical training as a pupil in a works. The prior technical education is now being insisted upon by most of the large engineering firms, and, in many of the best works, special courses of instruction are given to apprentices as part of their training by the most experienced engineers of the company. ”

“ I cannot discover that any one knows enough about anything on this earth definitely to say what is and what is not possible. The right kind of experience, the right kind of technical training, ought to enlarge the mind and reduce the number of impossibilities. ”

“ The object is not always to teach the “technic” of an industry, because that can be done only in the workshop, but it may be to teach the science and art upon which all technics are really based. Manual training is of course training to manual labor, which has been called the “study of the external world.” While in all technical education the sciences and arts must be illustrated by practical examples, the main object is to so instruct masters and workmen that they can pursue their craft with [Pg 283] dignity and intelligence, without professing to teach the craft itself. ”

“ We do not class technical training with so-called manual training or handwork of the elementary schools. In our present study however, we shall find that while in the main we are dealing with the technical training of boys from fourteen to eighteen years of age,—comparable in a measure to our high or secondary school courses, we shall also include the industrial, vocational, or trade training of men and boys alike, as well as work in the more simplified forms of handicraft, as carried on in the lower or elementary school. ”

“ It will be seen from the foregoing that a complete system of technical education must make provision for the training of those who are to be occupied as journeymen or foremen in different branches of trade or industry, and also for those who aim at becoming managers or masters or heads of manufacturing firms, scientific advisers or professional engineers. ”

“ Executive heads are demanded who have technical training. This has resulted in the establishment of special technical colleges, and compelled a place for engineering in the great universities. The high intelligence demanded by the vocation itself, and the revolution in training caused by the strengthening of its foundations in general education, has finally, beyond all question, raised the work of application of science to industry to the dignity of a profession on a par with the law, medicine, and science. ”

“ But in trades in which machinery plays a subsidiary part, technical teaching supplies the place of that instruction which, in former times, the master gave to his apprentice, and the workman looks to it to supply him with the knowledge of the principles and practice of his trade, on the acquisition of which his individual success greatly depends. In the former class of industries, technical education is needed mainly for the training of managers ”

“ They urge that, in the interests of the technical industries themselves, the great need is for a training which shall be more than technical,—which shall be thoroughly scientific. Wherever scientific and technical education attains its highest forms in institutions of University rank, the aim is not merely to form skilled craftsmen, but to produce men who can contribute to the advance of their respective sciences and arts, men who can originate and invent. ”

“ The teaching of technology is distinct from trade teaching. In all the technical institutes of London, and in most of those of other towns, none but persons actually engaged in the industry, the technology of which they are desirous of studying, are admitted to the workshop classes. The instruction given in such classes is very different as regards method, and also in its aims and objects, from the training of apprentices in the factory or trade shop. ”

“ There is no doubt of the value of manual training as an aid in giving definiteness, directness, exactness to the mind, but mere technical training alone will be barren of those results, in general discriminating culture, which we hope to see in America. ”

“ In my belief, all methods of technical training are at present tentative, and, to be successful, each must be adapted to the special peculiarities of its locality. This is a case in which we want twenty years ”

“ TECHNICAL EDUCATION. ⁠The special education, the object of which is to train persons in the arts and sciences that underlie the practice of some trade or profession, is technical education. Schools in which this training is provided are known as technical schools. In its widest sense, technical education embraces all kinds of instruction that have direct reference to the career a person is following or preparing to follow; but it is usual and convenient to restrict the term to the special training which helps to qualify a person to engage in some branch of productive industry. ”

“ At present the Manual Training School is a missionary enterprise. Its purpose is to create in the public mind an imperative demand for the incorporation of its scientific methods into the public-school course of instruction.
A vast majority of our people are employed in the useful arts, and distinction in every department of labor now depends upon scientific education. Without technical education or manual training the laborer of the future cannot hope to rise above the grade of a piece of automatic machinery. He falls into the routine of the shop like a cog or lever moved by steam. ”

“ On leaving the secondary school, the American Higher technical training in United States. student may go at once into business: or he may proceed with a four years' course of general instruction; or he may enter a professional or technical school. Some students prolong their education by taking the general course before proceeding to the technical institution. As in the lower, so in the higher grades of instruction, the distinction between general and technical education is not very clearly defined. ”

“ After 12 months of technical training, they will serve an additional 12 months in factories. The trades include mechanics, weld1ng, plumbing, electricity, and construction.
The special goal of this experiment is to establish standards of competence which will be useful to employers and workers alike. Anyone who does not meet these standards will be denied a certificate. ”

“ Says another correspondent: "Training in research is in fact essential to every technical man. The young technologist will be confronted by new problems not covered by anything in literature or in his past experience. Training in research is training in the art of solving unsolved problems, and the practical man who has had discipline of that kind has a great advantage over his more conventional competitors. The Germans recognize this principle, and behold their marvelous industrial growth. The student in every department of science should be taught to think as well as to do." ”

“ Whilst the changed conditions of production, consequent mainly on the application of steam power to machinery, demanded a special training for those who were to be engaged in productive industry, the prevalent system of education was not adapted to the requirements of these persons, and schools were wanted in which the necessary instruction could be obtained. Other circumstances resulting mainly from the application of steam power to machinery have rendered technical education necessary. ”

“ Manual training is reduced to a series of ordered assignments calculated to secure the mastery of one tool after another and technical ability in the various elements of construction—like the different joints. It is argued that pupils must know how to use tools before they attack actual making,—assuming that pupils cannot learn how in the process of making. ”

“ Therefore, ‘technical education’ is a suitable and proper designation of the training which is given to apprentices, &c., in the strictly technical details of their trades, arts, or professions—i.e. in the skilful moving of things. ”

“ The innumerable applications of scientific discovery to practical engineering, and especially the rapid growth of Electrical Engineering, have made it absolutely necessary that a modern engineer worthy of the name should have some knowledge of science. The older method of training for the young engineer was that he should be articled to an engineer in practice, and, apart from the training he received in office and works, he got no scientific training unless he were enthusiastic enough to attend evening classes in some technical institution. ”

“ The technical college will, moreover, be compelled to employ instructors who can so teach the technical subject that it shall not only give the knowledge and training desired, but shall also yield sound culture, become truly liberalizing and vision-giving. ”

“ 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 ”

“ The only collegiate training one of the most distinguished American engineers of the last generation had was a general literary course followed by a law course. Further, [Pg 510] a considerable number have successfully practiced engineering, after only a general college education, and this in recent years when engineering curricula have become widely differentiated. Examples in other lines of business could be cited to show that a knowledge of technical details is not the most important element in a preparation for a profession or for business. ”

“ We allude to the training received by the students of special mechanical and technical institutions, and by the apprentices in trade-shops. The proof of this is found in the world’s railways, ships, harbors, docks, canals, bridges, telegraph and telephone lines, and in a thousand and one other manifestations of skill in art. In the adaptation of means to an end, and in nicety of construction, the mechanic and the civil engineer show, in innumerable ways, with what thoroughness both their minds and their hands have been trained. ”

“ Exact knowledge, which in a manner of speaking is synonymous with the engineer, is needed in high places in our nation. Men of technical education and training have demonstrated their fitness as servants of the people in the few instances where such men have taken over the reins of administration in certain specified branches of our government. ”

“ Manual training occupies the exceptional position of having come from both directions, from above, from the technical schools, and from below, from the kindergarten and from sloyd, and to have brought from both of these sources fundamental ideas much at variance with each other. In the technical schools manual training is pursued purely as an end in itself and absolutely without thought of its culture value. ”

“ There were special technical schools conducted by the gilds by means of apprenticeship and the journeyman training, which enabled them to teach those who cared to have it all the knowledge necessary for construction work of various kinds. ”

“ It must be said also that the training-school for domestic servants must be a failure as long as it is out of harmony with the tendencies in all other fields of education and industry. Technical schools are everywhere springing up, and the demand for them is constantly increasing. But the technical school teaches general and fundamental principles, the wood carver learns drawing, the plumber chemistry, the architect mathematics, and the engineer mechanics. In each trade or profession the first step is the principle underlying it, and the second the practical application of the principle. ”

“ There are advanced technicums for such specializations as mining, medicine, veterinary medicine, and industrial chemistry. All schools include courses in Marxism-Leninism, higher mathematics, and physical education in addition to the courses of specialization. Also on the technical-vocational level are six-month training courses that are organized by factories, cooperatives, and other enterprises. These courses are designed to improve the workers' skills or to retrain workers for other areas of specialization. ”

“ It is not to be denied, upon the other hand, that technical schools and special courses of commercial education might greatly enhance our capabilities, if care were taken to prevent them from usurping too far the practical business or industrial training which seems to be the secret of our success thus far. In the more and more strenuous competition which is evidently waiting us, our manufacturers, exporters and trade representatives abroad will need to be provided with a variety of information which cannot be acquired except by academic instruction. ”

“ They must inculcate the dignity of labor not by precept [112] merely, but by example. It is not enough that schools of technology, polytechnic institutes, and manual training schools are being established here and there by private subscription. The supply of these classes of education is only a drop in the bucket to the public demand. Technical and manual training must be made part of the general public educational system. In our city high-schools we now fit boys for college. In those schools we must hereafter fit them for the colleges of art. ”