Beginnings in industrial education, and other educational discussions

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Preface

Because this book deals with some educational questions of contemporary importance, from the standpoint of experience, I hope it may interest the lay reader as well as students of Education and directors of educational affairs. It consists of two parts — first, a series of related discussions of an important step forward in vocational education, under state auspices; and, second, a group of eBBSLjB dealing with questions in the field of general education.

About two years ago, the Oovemor of Massachusetts (GK)yemor Gxdld), acting under a statute, appointed a Commission on Industrial Education, to carry on an active propaganda in tiie interest of industrial education throughout the state; and especially, in cooperation with municipalities, to found state-aided schools for the thorough instruction of boys and girls in the leading industries (including agriculture) of the commonwealth. Massachusetts thereby became the pioneer of public industrial education in this country.

Immediately after its appointment the commission inaugurated an active campaign to develop

PREFACE public opinion in favor of the new kind of scliools which the state had authorized. This campaign was carried on by public meetings, and by conferences with small groups of interested persons — representatives of local labor unions, and groups of manufacturers, sometimes of both — in various parts of Massachusetts. It fell to me, as chairman of the commission, to take general charge of most of the smaller conferences, and to address many of the larger meetings. Some of the addresses are here reproduced in the first four sections. All of them, with the exception of the first of the f our, were delivered as they are printed. Taken together, these four papers give some insight into the method pursued by the commission in its endeavor to get the problem of industrial education before the people, especially the people whose interests are most involved in it. Some repetitions appear in them; but they are repetitions with modifications, and in different settings ; and it has seemed to me best to allow them to remain for whatever value the suggestion of the method pursued by the commission may have.

The brief essay on the ^< Industrial Continuation Schools of Munich " was written after a winter's residence in the Bavarian metropolis, and this essay is dosely related to those just referred to.

PREFACE

▼ii

The remaixung sectdons of the book deal with a number of questions of more or less importance ; one of them, at least — the one referred to in the next paragraph — seems to me of vital importance.

The essay on the Professional Training of the High-School Teacher " is a discussion of a single phase of technical training for the teaching profession, which has lately come into prominence. It is unfortunately true that relatively few secondary-school teachers (public and private high-school teachers) now in service have seriously studied their profession. Hence the professional horizon of most of them is limited by their classrooms and the subjects which they teach. Such limitations, it has become increasingly apparent, are not to be tolerated much longer. It is on this account that the National Educational Association appointed a Committee of Seventeen to deal with the professional tnuning of high-school teachers, and the essay under consideration is one of the papers contributed to that report.

The essay on School Instruction in Beligion'' was written just after my return from a study of the subject abroad. My original purpose was to pubUsh some of the data which I had gathered in German schools ; but I concluded not to do that, because of the union of state and church every-

Tiii FBEFACE

where in Germany, and the separation of church and state in this country necessitates a very different discussion of the problem. As I have said in the essay referred to, the instruction in religion in Germany (Bavaria) seems to me not only usually unsatisfactory, but often actually subversive of the very purpose for which it exists. I am aware that all students of religious instruction in public schools in Germany do not share my view, but I can only say that my own attitude is that of many German teachers in secondary schools and in elementary schools, and of many school officers who, when convinced of the sincerity of my quest, expressed their convictions on the subject freely and with great earnestness.

The last essay in the book, namely, the one on the Country Schoolmaster in Bavaria," is the result of a week's experience with a State Inspector of Bural Schools. As relatively few Americans who are interested in education visit foreign rural schools, and consequently most of us know little of the condition and the problems of Grerman rural education, I hope the record of my experience in the rural schools of one of the most important German states may be to others, in some degree, at least, as interesting and instructive as the experience was to me.

PREFACE ix

My thanks are due the Atlantic Monthly, the Boston Transcript, and Education for permission to inclade in this book four papers which appeared first in their pages.

PAUL H. HANUS.

Harvard University, June^ 1908.

Contents

I. Industrial Education 1

n. Industrial Education, u^EB State Auspices, IN Massachxtbettb 29

m. What Ejnd of Indxtstbial School is

II Industrial Education, Under State Auspices, In Massa- Chusetts

The first Commission on Industrial and Technical Education, appointed for one year by Grovemor Douglas more than two years ago, made an important report (in April, 1906) on the need of industrial education, and industrial conditions in Massachusetts. The recommendations of that commission led to a statute requiring the Governor (Grovemor Guild) to appoint a Commission on Industrial Education for a term of three years, and charging this commission with the powers and duties enumerated below.

The present Commission (Governor Guild's commission) on Industrial Education, consisting of five persons, was appointed on August 31, 1906, and was organized in the following month. Since then it has been actively engaged in the endeavor to cany out the provisions of the statute imder which it was appointed. The most important provisions of that statute are as follows : —

(1) To continue the investigation into industrial conditions and industrial education begun by an earlier commission, and to provide for lectures on the importance of industrial education and kindred subjects.

(2) To visit and report on all special schools in which industrial education is carried on.

(3) To initiate and superintend the establishment and maintenance of independent industrial schools (i. e. schools independent of the existing public schools), including schools for instruction in the principles of agriculture and the domestic and mechanic arts, for boys and girls in various centres of the commonwealth, with the cooperation and consent of the municipality involyed or the municipalities constituent of any district to be formed by the union of towns and cities ; such schools to be for children over fourteen years of age. The commission has all necessary powers in the conduct and maintenance of industrial schools, and money appropriated for their maintenance by a municipality and the state is expended imder its direction. The schools are to be supported by money appropriated by the municipality and by the state, the state aiding in the maintenance of such schools in proportion to the expenditure locally for schools. Each payment to any city or town, however, requires a special appropriation by the legislature.

(4) To provide in the industrial schools part-time classes for children between the ages of fourteen and eighteen, and evening classes for such persons and older persons already employed.

(5) The commission is required also to report annually to the legislature on the condition and progress of industrial education during the year, stating what industrial schools may have been established and the appropriations necessary for their maintenance; and, further, to make such recommendations as the commission may deem advisable.

(6) Especially, the commission shall consider and report at an early day on the advisability of establishing one or more technical schools or industrial colleges, providing for an extended training in the working principles of the larger industries of the commonwealth.

(7) The commission must appoint a secretary, who is to be its executive officer.

The statute under which the Commission on Industrial Education has been carrying on its work commits the state of Massachusetts to a distinct policy in industrial education ; namely, that such education shall be given in schools supported by public funds, but independent of the existing public schools. The importance of this policy deserves emphasis. It is nothing more nor less than the establishment of a new kind of public education on a foundation as secure as that of the existing public schools, but with a different leading motive. It means the establishment of schools for vocational training as such, as distinct from the existing public schools, the purpose of which is general education. The dominant motive of the schools to be established under tlie Commission on Industrial Education is, therefore, preparation for a vocation, while the dominant motive of the existing public schools is general culture. It is important to bear this distinction in mind, inasmuch as the leading motive of a school is the most important factor in determining its efficiency. On it will depend the scope and nature of the work done in the school, the qualifications of the teaching force, and the character of the results which the school achieves.

To prevent misunderstanding, I should like to point out that, although the emphasis in this discussion is on vocational education, such emphasis neither ignores nor in any sense disparages the value of general education. We are fairly well agreed in this country that all education, if well done, is valuable. We have profited much by the system of education hitherto developed, and we shall continue to profit by it. Nevertheless, as I shall point out in a moment, this education is inadequate.

One of the most important principles on which our democratic institutions are based is, briefly stated, equal opportunities for all through education and through equal rights before the law ; that is, we insist that in this country every youth shall have the opportunity to make the most of himself, and to lift himself to any social level to which he may aspirei and to wltioh his character, capadty, and industry may enable him to attain. Yet the school system which has been devised to guarantee this right now fails to reach the great majority of our population after they reach the age of fourteen years. It is well known that the great majority of our school-children leave school at the upper limit of the compulsory school attendance age, — fourteen years in most states ; and hence that the educational opportunities offered are not accessible to them.

The question which we have to answer is, What becomes of this great majority who leave school at an early age? The investigations of the Commission on Industrial and Technical Education, appointed by Governor Douglas, showed that we have in Massachusetts probably not less than twenty-five thousand of these young people, and that these young people are engaged in various kinds of juvenile occupations, in which they have no opportunity to apply what they have learned. Accordingly, they forget most of what they have learned in school, and by the time they are young men and young women on the threshold of citizenship, they are sometimes actually more ignorant than they were when they left school. The investment of the state in their education is, therefore, largely wasted. Like many other investments, it has, in their case, not been carried far enough to gaarantee satisfactory returns. The situation, however, is even worse. Not only has their normal educational development been arrested, but the unfortunate education of shifting experience and environment has tended to prevent the development of efficient manhood and womanhood in most of them.

Again, these young people have an earning capacity but little above that which they had when they left schooL They have not learned what it is to become adapted to a given employment ; to make progress in efficiency in a given kind of work ; to be attached to a certain locality ; to look forward to founding a home ; and the serious disadvantages of all this in American life need hardly be dwelt upon. In other words, they find themselves without a career at an age when the answer to the question. What shall I do? should have been settled, and when their usefulness in their several careers should begin to open to them the significance of increasing earnings and the responsibilities of a home and of community life, and when the prospects of progressive well-being should be assured.

The investigations already referred to also indicated that the great majority of this large number of young people in Massachusetts would be in school if they realized that the school promised an increased earning capacity; and the investigations ol the present commission tend to confirm this view.

It is dear, therefore, from what has just been sidd, that our present provision for public education fails to accomplish the preparation for social efficiency which all public education should provide.

A little while ago I referred to the fact that this country has profited much by the system of education which it has developed ; but I asserted that it was no longer adequate. I have just pointed out that it is inadequate because it does not develop the social efficiency of a very large proportion of our population. It does not directly prepare the majority of our young people for self-support, with the prospect of steady work and the means of progressive well-being ; and these are the fundamental elements of social efficiency . Like every other social institution, our present provision for public education should, therefore, be scrutinized with a view to ascertaining what modifications should be made in it, and especially what additions should be made to it, in order that it may effectively meet contemporary demands.

The public-school system of the past, with its "literary" training, was the best education for young people in an age in which they could not escape acquaintance with community activities ; an

INDUSTEIAL EDUCATION 39 age in wliich life was simpler ; in wliich each person, whether child or adult, had a part to play ; an age in which the children participated in the occupations of their parents, had their own duties to perform about the household, on the &rm, in the store, the shop, the factory ; an age in which the children, therefore, knew precisely what the occupations are with which society ke&ps itself going, by actual participation in them. As they grew older, they oould not fail to realize the significance of a skilled vocation ; and they early formed their own vocational purposes, as a natural result of their experience and environment.

Modem social conditions have changed all that. It is usually impossible to-day for urban children to know by participation the occupations of their parents, — especially of the father. He leaves the house early in the morning, and returns late in the evening. His day is spent in the office, or in the factory, or in the shop, engaged in work in which the children have no part, and which, in many cases, they do not even see.

The best education which the schools could offer at a time when the children participated in all community activities, to some extent at least, was to extend their intellectual horizon and to develop their intellectual powers through books. To-day we need ibis extension of the intellectual horizon, by all the means which the school for general education supplies, more than ever ; but it is clear that we must also assume a responsibility for developing in children a consciousness of the part which they will ultimately play in the world's work, and a desire to equip themselves for it. The education which the community life no longer affords must be provided in the school. That is to say, it is the duty of the public school to provide the children with a general acquaintance with our means of production, distribution, and transportation, with our institutions, our social organizations and activities ; and this duty they have begun to discharge by gradually enlarging the scope of their instruction.

While this enlargement has given rise to many technical problems not yet solved by the teaching profession, and while there is even much contemporaiy confusion and sometimes congestion in our programmes of study in elementary schools and high schools alike, our contemporary public-school education is vastly better than it ever was before, so far as general education is concerned. With all their faults, our contemporary public-school programmes furnish an approximation to our contemporary conception of general culture. The older programmes of study are outgrown ; the present programmes are the result of changing social conditions and the increasing complexity of our civilization.

Nevertheless, with all its growth, our provision for public education fails to reach the great majority of our population during the critical period of later childhood and youth. During those important years when the child rapidly becomes a man ; when, therefore, the influences to which he is subject are likely to be permanent, — duiing those years the beneficent influence of the education he has received is too often, as I have already said, imder present conditions, likely to be dissipated, and to be replaced by the untoward educational influences of shifting environment and experience already referred to.

And this is because we have no school that appeals to a large proportion of our pupils and parents ; a school that by its very nature suggests the possibility of a career in some skilled pursuit. More general education, followed by professional education, is beyond the pupil's means. He therefore naturally takes advantage of the first opportunity to work for wages that presents itself to him, and that opportunity usually leaves him stranded at the age of eighteen or nineteen among the hosts of the imskilled.

42 nroUSTRIAL EDUCATION

It is therefore our plain duty to urge the public schools to point out to their pupils, toward the end of the elementary-school period, the significance and the importance of the skilled vocations. While the choice of such a vocation may happily be deferred for the fortunate ones who can go to the high school, it is high time for those who now leave school at fourteen years of age — the upper limit of the compulsory attendance age — to recognize the momentous significance of their choice of a life pursuit. But, suppose they do recognize it, where can we send them to-day to realize their vocational purpose?

A generation and more ago it was possible for the youth who was obliged to leave school at fourteen or fifteen to enter one of the skilled vocations as an apprentice, and learn the whole of a trade in the course of a few years. It is well known that this is no longer possible. The specialized condition of modem industry makes it impossible for the youth to learn the whole of any trade, even when the inclination exists to teach him a trade. Moreover, he is not wanted there at aU until he is at least sixteen years old. The work of a modem shop consists of a number of specialized operations, and the youth who now secures work in a shop leams one of these operations. The man in the machine sliop, in the shoe factory, in the printing establishment, now works at only a part of the product.

The contrast between the sort of workman which a modem shop may develop and the sort of workman which was developed in the shop a generation ago was admirably illustrated by testimony given at a hearing on industrial education at the State House not long ago. This man said that he had learned his trade in Germany. He was past middle age, and therefore belonged to an earlier generation of machinists. He applied for work in a machine shop in this country, and he was asked, What can you do?" **I am a machinist," he said. The foreman asked him again what he could do, meaning of course, what machine he could run ; and the man replied, with the dignity of a well-trained and efficient workman, "/am a mmhinisV^ Such machinists are to-day practically unknown as the product of shop experience.

That is to say, the man who learns his " trade " in a shop to-day leams only a single process, or a very small number of processes, and this process or these processes together constitute only a part of Qxe work which must be done on the raw material before it is turned out a finished product. Usually he knows little or nothing of the other processes to wliich ih6 material is subject on its way througb the shop, and also commonly he knows little or nothing of the machine on which he is working. If the machine gets out of repair, the shop has machinists who repair it. Under such circumstances, it is no wonder that a man becomes an automatic worker. He becomes almost, as has been often said, a machine " himself. If work happens to be slack in his department, he may be laid off, and must wait for employment until work is needed again of the kind that he can do. Under such circumstances a steady job is not likely to be his portion. Further, he cannot aspire to be foreman, or superintendent, or manager, except under very unusual circumstances. He may steal " his trade, as the phrase is ; that is, he may go about from one factory to another, trying his hand at different machines, until he has consumed six or seven years in learning all the machines of a given shop. Under such circumstances he wastes much valuable time and even then he fails to learn the theoretical foundations of his trade, even though he may acquire all the processes that belong to it. The obstacles thus presented to an ambitious man are exasperating ; and if baffled, in spite of his persistence, in attaining his end, he is likely to swell the ranks of the permanently dissatisfied, and with his limited insight into social conditions may even become a menace to the stability and progress of society.

It should also be pointed out that it is not pro^ fitable to-day to employ boys under sixteen or seventeen in the shop, even at the least remunerative employment which the shop affords. Consequently, boys from fourteen to sixteen must turn their attention to the juvenile occupations already referred to, in which the prospect of an upward career is impossible. It should also be noted that by the time these young people are eighteen or nineteen years of age many of them are lost to the skilled occupations altogether.

The specialized condition of industries to-day, to which reference has been made, also demands a larger supply of foremen and other officers, — a larger supply than was formerly needed ; but the men are not available. Manufacturers have repeatedly asserted during the past two years, in my hearing, that if they could find the competent, skilled workmen they need, they could largly increase their plants and largely increase their output ; that they never have all the foremen they need; and that it is exceedingly difficult to find managers and superintendents. It is easy to find the man for small wages, but the man who is competent to take the post commanding a higher wage is difficult to find. At the same time, it is dear that a state like Massachusetts is dependent for its prosperity on its industries, including agriculture. It is clear that a region poor in mineral wealth and in natural resources generally must develop the resources it possesses in men and women.

Much stress is laid by the manufacturer on the necessity of industrial intelligence" and skill in the workman. This means that the workman shall be able to understand the necessity of working with economy of time, material, and effort, as well as skilL All these are indispensable to the efficient workman. The manufacturer also demands a sense of responsibilily in the workman. He demands observance of shop and business ethics. He wants character. Now, the state demands these characteristics of its citizens, whatever their vocation may be. Such characteristics, however, cannot be developed out of nothing. The way to make a man feel a sense of responsibilily is to develop resources within him, the effectiveness of which he feels in his daily work. If he can see the significance of his resources, of intelligence and skill in what he does, the sense of responsibility will develop naturally. It is just this which the modem shop fails to develop. It tends, as has been said, to make a man a machine ; it tends to develop in him only a narrow kind of efficiency ; it fails to help him to see the significance of his work for himself, for his employer, and for society. Is it any wonder that, under such circumstances, the workman fails to show the characteristics which are in such demand?

From the foregoing, it is clear that the difference between our mode of living to-day and a generation or more ago, and the difference between the conditions of all our productive industry to-day and a generation ago, indicate that a new educational need has arisen, because of our changed social and industrial conditions. This need can only be met by the establishment of schools that will give our youth the intelligent insight into the vocations which they choose, and incipient skill to be efficient in them. Such schools would send into our industries youth fully equipped to meet the exigencies of modem life. They would be good citizens as well as good workmen, for they would understand the significance of all that they did as well as its important profit to themselves. The consciousness of resources would render them progressively responsible and efficient workers in the shop, and equally progressive and efficient members of society.

I greatly regret that the time at my disposal will not permit me to discuss two very important phases of industrial education; namely, agricultural education, and the industrial education of girls and women* You already perceive that I need all the time at my disposal for a single phase of this vitally important subject. But the Massachusetts Commission on Industrial Education has a profound interest in agricultural education and in the industrial education of girls and women ; and is doing all it can to promote their development. To simx up :

(1) Our present provision for public education is inadequate. Its dominant aim^ — a worthy aim — is general culture : but it makes no provision for training for specific usefulness in some skilled vocation for those who must leave school when fourteen or fifteen years old, and who therefore must face at an early age the momentous question, What shall I do to insure early self-support and progressive well-being as I grow older?

(2) The progressive development of all highgrade industries requires skilled workmen, possessing industrial intelligence; that is, comprehensive insight into and intelligent interest in their several trades, as well as skill.

(3) The present conditions of production are unfavorable to the training of such workmen in the shop or factory, and sometimes render such training impossible.

(4) All industries, whatever their grade, need more men than are now obtainable who are capable of acting as foremen, superintendents, or managers, — men possessing the comprehensive insight, interest, and skill necessary for the organization and direction of a department or a shop.

(5) Such men, whether workers, foremen, or superintendents, are now usually developed in this country, in general, by chance; and they are then self-made men, possessing the merits but also the conspicuous shortcomings of their training.

(6) Meanwhile, boys and girls, young men and young women, are not only not directed toward the trades in our existing schools, but are often actually directed away from them by the bookish education of those schools and their purely academic traditions. Manual-training high schools are institutions for general education, like the academic high schools ; although, unlike them, they serve to give a certain class of pupils a high-school education with the help of manual training, or, like them, to prepare their pupils for professional training in some college or engineering school. Manual training is not industrial training, and should not be confused with it. Manual training gives, if well done, a general ac-

60 mDUSTEIAL EDUCATION quamtance with our oonstraotiye and productive activities. It may make a pupil generally ^^handy,'^ and hence may serve as preparation for industrial training. But it goes no farther. Industrial training, on the other hand, means vocational training, — training in trades and in agriculture. It aims to develop industrial intelligence and skill in particular vocations. It does not properly begin until the pupil is at least fourteen years old. It does not make a journeyman, but it gives each worker at a skilled vocation a training that enables him to earn a living wage at eighteen or nineteen, and that gives promise of increasing efficiency as time goes on.