A handbook of vocational education

Front matter

A HANDBOOK

OF

VOCATIONAL EDUCATION

Preface

It has taken the United States a long time to see the need of vocational education. The industrial revolution has been so gradual and the stream of immigration has so largely supplied our demand for skilled labor that we have drifted into a perilous situation without any sense of the danger ahead. Now that we realize our position, something like a panic has seized the American people. The cry of the Nation is, " What must I do to be saved ? " Some are for lightening the ship by casting out the wheat into the sea. Others propose to abandon the old craft and trust their lives to the life-boats. Educators who have been studying retardation and elimination have come to the conclusion that the "enrichment " of the course of study has gone so far that now the children are suffering from mental indigestion. They are those who would cast the viii PREFACE

wheat into the sea. They would reduce the subject matter by taking out algebra, foreign languages and histories, and the study of literary masterpieces, leaving the curriculum as it was thirty years ago. Others, especially laymen who see that our schools are not preparing children to earn a livelihood, want us to discard the traditional curriculum of culture and teach only vocational subjects. These are the ones who would take to the life-boats.

Both of the remedies seem unwise and inadequate. The mere reduction of the curriculum in bulk is not a cure for the ills from which we suffer. The vocationalizing of the common schools is the exploitation of a noble institution for greed and gain. The mission of the elementary school is to put the children of all the people in possession of those ethical and cultural ideals which constitute civilization. It is so busy teaching children how to live that it has no time to teach them how to make a living.

The study presented in this volume is intended to show how foreign nations and certain American communities have solved or have tried to solve the problem of vocational education. The

PREFACE ix

work was undertaken originally in connection with a course of lectures on School Administration given by the author in New York University. It is believed that the discussion will be useful to students of education anywhere, as well as to the general public. The employer, the employee, the taxpayer, the publicist, the legislator, are all profoundly interested in the questions here presented.

There is at present no single volume which gives a systematic survey of the general field of vocational education, embodying both the historical and the logical aspects of the subject. A vast body of material has been accumulated, but it lies scattered in magazines and monographs printed in many languages. This handbook is a digest of some of the most important of this literature. In this day of agitation and clamor for change, the greatest need is accurate information, a proper perspective, and a judicial consideration of values. The Nation has poured millions into its common schools ungrudgingly. Now it asks : " What lack I yet ? " In a matter of such great importance deliberate action in the light of complete knowledge is imperative. For,

X PREFACE

as Bacon has written, " Whoever too hastily catches at certainties shall end in doubts, as he who seasonably withholds his judgment shall arrive at certainties."

JOSEPH S. TAYLOR.

July i, 19 14.

CHAPTER II INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION IN EUROPE England

I . The Beginnings

Private Industrial Education 3. Public Industrial Education (i) Organization

(<2) Free Schools (b) Ordinary Evening Schools {c) Science and Art Centers II. Scotland

1 . Organization and Supervision .

2. The Continuation Schools of Edinburgh III. Germany

1. Organization . . .

2. Supervision .....

3. Continuation Schools of Munich

(i) Supervision

{a) Employers' Associations {b) Continuation School Board (^) Cost of Continuation Schools

17 17 18 18 xu

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE

IV. France 42

1 . Origin of Educational System 42

2. Organization of Public Instruction .... 43

3. Vocational Education . . . . . .44

(i) Elementary 44

(2) Practical Schools (Continuation) of Com-

merce and Industry ... 46

(3) National Schools (Secondary) of Arts and

Trades 47

(4) Schools of Agriculture .... 48

(5) Summary 49

Chapter III

I. A Retrospect 50

II. A Study in Values . . . . . . -52

III. Changes in Manual Work 54

IV. The Place of Industries in the Public Education 56 I. Industries in the Elementary School ... 56

(i) The Prigiary Grades 56

(2) The Grammar Grades .... 59

(3) Special Industrial Classes .... 60

(4) A Study of Elimination .... 61

II.

CHAPTER IV THE INTERMEDIATE SCHOOL Differentiated Programs of Study

1. The Fitchburg School

2. The Cleveland School

3. The Albany and Rochester Schools

4. Other Schools . . .

Industries in the High School

1. Adjustment to the Community .

2. Course of Study of a Rural High School

65 68

79 80 t/

TABLE OF CONTENTS xiii

Chapter V

CONTINUATION SCHOOLS The Shop vs. the Trade School .

The Continuation School

The Part-time System in Cincinnati

1. The Engineering College .

2. Part-time in High Schools

3. The Continuation School for Apprentices

IV. The Laws of Massachusetts and Connecticut

1. The Newton Independent Industrial School

2. The Fitchburg High School ....

3. The Springfield Evening School for Trades

FAGS

83 85 87

87 88 89 92

93 94 95

Chapter VI

I. The Prussian Plan 97

1. Building Trades and Mechanical Engineering . . 98

2. Industrial Arts 99

4. Vocational Teachers for Girls' Schools . . .100 II. The Munich Plan 102

III. The Wurttemberg Plan 103

IV. The Baden Plan 104

V. Summary 106

VI. Plans in the United States . . . .107

1. Teachers of Agriculture 108

2. The Cincinnati Plan in

3. Other Agencies for Training Vocational Teachers . 112

4. A Study of American Conditions . . . '113

(i) Certification . . .- . . .113 (2) Sources of Supply 1 14 xiv TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE

(3) Proposed Schemes for Training Shop

Teachers 116

{a) Scholarships 116

{b) Special Normal Schools . .116

{c) Special Course in Intermediate

Technical School . . • 117 (d) Special Evening Course in Technical College . . . -117 5. Conclusion .117

Chapter VII

I. Scope . 120

II. Vocational Guidance in New York City . .121

1. The Students' Aid Committee . . . . .122

2. A Central Vocational Bureau 124

III. Vocational Guidance in Boston . . . .127 I. Work of the Vocation Bureau 128

(i) Information . . . . . .128

(3) Counsel 130

(4) Vocational Advising 130

IV. Summary 131

Chapter VIII Apprenticeship And Compulsory Education

I. European Experience

1. Switzerland . . . .

2. Germany

(i) The Imperial Industrial Law (2) Apprenticeship Contract

(a) Mutual Services .

(Jb) Examination

TABLE OF CONTENTS XV

PAGE

II. History of the American Apprenticeship System 138

1. Legal Indentures 140

(i) A Concrete Case 141

2. The Entrepreneur 143

3. Trade Union and Apprenticeship . . . .143 III. Compulsory Education 145

2. England 148

3. Scotland 150

4. Ireland 150

5. France 150

6. Switzerland 151

7. The United States 151

(i) The School Census 153

(2) The Attendance Officer . . . .156

(3) The School Visitor 161

Chapter XII Appendix

I. New York Law Relative to Vocational Education

IL Two-year Courses for Boys and Girls

in. An Undemocratic Proposal .

IV. Monthly Report of School Visitor .

V. Murray Hill Pre-vocational School

VI. Vocational Education Bill in Congress

VII. The Wisconsin Apprentice Law .

VIII. A German Apprentice Contract

IX. Wanted: A Job

X. New York Vocational School for Boys

XI. New York Evening School of Industrial Art

PAGE

203 209 213 216 219 220

Index 223

A HANDBOOK

OF

VOCATIONAL EDUCATION

Chapter I Introduction

I. Equal Opportunities for All. — One of the

fundamental principles underlying a public school system is that it shall offer equal opportunities for all. The American public school boasts of this as one of its characteristic merits. An examination of the facts shows the claim to be unfounded. The opportunities are equal only in the sense that all classes may freely partake of the common training given in the elementary school. Beyond that there is no longer even a pretense of maintaining equality of opportunity. For the fortunate few whose ambition and economic condition impel them to prepare for a profession, the state has opened high schools leading to colleges and professional schools. Colleges are often free to this class of students.

Teachers are everywhere trained in tax-supported institutions. But the boy who is obHged for whatever reason to become a wage earner at fourteen is not so fortunate. In New York the law compels him, if he is not a graduate of the elementary school, to attend an evening school, there to pore over books after a day's labor. But it seldom offers him preparation for the kind of work he is doing. The girl who leaves at fourteen is no better off. She is, so far as the State is concerned, allowed to shift for herself. There is no further assistance from the school, unless she voluntarily goes to an evening school. Even then she is fortunate if she finds anything that will make her more efficient as a wage earner or helper in the home. In short, the few receive preparation for life's duties at public expense ; the many are turned out of the schools without such preparation. The enlightened nations of Europe have closed up the gap between school and industry. By a system of special schools and governmentregulated apprenticeships, school and vocation interlock, so that no time is wasted in the new adjustment. In our country this gap is wide open. The pupil leaves the school and then gropes around to find life's work. It may take him years to do it;

INTRODUCTION and he may never drift into the particular thing for which he is best adapted. The years between fourteen and sixteen are largely wasted, because

/)in«r<c(t

Relation of School to Industry.^ what was learned in the elementary school is soon forgotten, and no new form of instruction is provided to supplement it. There is no supervised apprenticeship system which insures thorough training in a vocation. In this condition we find the majority

1 The author cannot vouch for the accuracy of this diagram ; but there is no doubt in his mind that the facts correspond in a general way with the graphic representation, which is taken with permission from Hodge's Association Educational Work.

of the male youth of our land, who are soon to become the governing class. The illustration on page 3 is a graphic representation of the relation of the school training of males and their vocations. It is based on census and other government reports. The verticals a and h show the number of boys in school at the ages of ten and fifteen in North America and Germany. The verticals c, d, and e show the number of males as wage earners. Line b is the significant feature of the graph. Note the difference between this Hne in the two diagrams. In America the boy wastes his precious years between fourteen and sixteen in idleness or unskilled and uneducative employment. In Germany he transfers from the pubhc day school to an apprenticeship regulated by the government, with supplementary technical training in a compulsory continuation school. In this way the gap shown in the American curve has been almost entirely removed from the German curve.

In a recent address before the National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education, Professor Carver of Harvard University said : —

"In the present conservation movement it is highly important that we realize two things : first, that our most valuable resources are our people, and second, that we are wasting people more than we are wasting anything else. ... If one will look carefully about he will see, in any community, so many ways in which labor-power is being wasted. . . . There are, first, the army of the unemployed, or the involuntarily idle; second, the imperfectly employed, or the untrained ; third, the improperly employed, or the acquisitively rather than productively employed ; and fourth, the voluntarily idle, commonly known as the leisure class."

II. Training for Citizenship. — The State cannot continue to spend vast sums on high schools and universities and neglect vocational training without repudiating the reasons usually given for maintaining schools of any sort as a public charge. Self-preservation by training future citizens is the justification of the State for spending money on schools. We have come to a point where the State must enter the field of industrial education, and thus give equal opportunity to artisan, farmer, merchant, and professional man. Justice to the individual and the welfare of the State both demand this, course.

There is sound psychology and profound philosophy in the saying, ^' Nothing succeeds like success." The man who is riding on the tide of success sees rainbows on every leaden sky. He becomes an optimist. " God's in his heaven — airs right with the world.'' He is a spring of joy to his family; he becomes a good neighbor and a delightful companion. His health is good, his mind is clear and alert. He is the potential, if not the actual, good citizen. But now let adversity come to him. Let him fail in his chosen endeavor and lose his fortune or his position. Convince him that he has mistaken his calling, that he can never succeed in his present vocation. Get him thoroughly discouraged. Then what happens to him physically, mentally, and morally? He at once becomes a pessimist. He sees a cloud of disaster behind every bow of promise. He is moody and irritable, so that his own children are afraid to speak to him. He shuns his neighbors. He thinks of nothing save his own misfortunes. His health declines. He has neither appetite nor the power of digestion. He envies others more fortunate than himself, and walks the streets with bitterness in his heart. His hand is against every man, and he feels that all the world is against him. He is not the material out of which good citizens are made. He recognizes no duties to society because he thinks society is unjust to him. He may drown his sorrow in debauchery, join the ranks of criminals, or seek refuge in suicide.

I . The Habit of Success. — Dr. Luther Halsey Gulick has a chapter in one of his books on The Habit of Success, from which the following is quoted : —

"The principle of the habit of success is constantly demonstrated in athletics. In practicing for the high jump, the beginner will start with the stick at that height at which he can jump it easily, and he will raise it every time that he clears the stick, so that he must always jump higher. And when by the greatest effort he succeeds in clearing the stick at his approximately greatest height, he will put it still an inch higher — at a point where he must of necessity fail. For a long time he will struggle under conditions where failure is almost inevitable. This excess of effort always means the use of unnecessary muscles and combination of muscles in the endeavor to find some better way to jump. That disturbs that precision of movement which is essential to any first-class athletic performer. It is known as 'form.' The result is that through his excess of effort he never learns to jump as well as does a boy who most of the time jumps within his ability and who thus acquires perfect form, perfect control. This is not to say that a good jumper never tests himself; he does. But the bulk of his work is done under conditions where he can succeed, where he can carry his body in the most perfect form." ^

* Mind and Work, by Luther H. Gulick, Doubleday, Page & Co., 1908, p. 8.

2. The Munich Idea. — This is the foundation upon which Dr. Kerschensteiner has erected his system of vocational training in Munich. " Moral forces, like skill in work, grow on no other soil than joy in work," says the Herr Direktor. " The joy of work," he continues, " which diffuses itself throughout these schools must not be placed only in the service of intellectual and technical training, but no less in the service of moral training, or, as I call it, of civic education. For this reason the instruction must be organized as early as possible from the standpoint of a free community of labor." ^ That is, there is to be team work in the school, numbers of students being engaged on a common piece of work. This develops the fundamental virtues, the essence' of which is, the spirit of social service, joy of achievement, and loyalty to the work and interests of others. The deep significance of vocational training from the point of view of the State is thus revealed. To give to the embryonic citizen a taste of the arts of leisure and refinement, without providing him with skill by which to secure these things, is to sow the seeds of

1 Three Lectures on Vocational Training, by Dr. Georg Kerschensteiner, The Commercial Club of Chicago, 191 1.

discontent. We try to make good citizens by giving formal lessons in civics. But a knowledge of the institutions of the country and of the rights and duties of the citizens does not in itself suffice to make a citizen. " A man may even be an admirable teacher of civic science and a first-class villain at the same time." ^ But skill in some art which he delights to practice, and on which he can rely for the means of livelihood, results in the formation of those physical, moral, and intellectual habits which constitute the texture of noble manhood.

Speaking of the perfection of workmanship in the arts and crafts of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Dr. James J. Walsh says: —

"The supremely interesting feature of this popular education was its effect upon the lives, and minds, and happiness of the workmen. Men got up to their work in the morning not as a routine occupation in which they did the same things over and over again, until they could scarcely do them any more, and then came home to rest from fatigue in weariness of mind and body. . . . They came to their work with an artist's spirit, hopeful that they would be able to express in the material what they saw so clearly with their mind's eye . It was tiresome working, but the hours were not long, and always there was the thought of accomplishment worthy of the

^ Kerschensteiner, op. cit., p. 14.

lo HANDBOOK OF VOCATIONAL EDUCATION

cathedral or the abbey or the town hall, worthy to be placed beside the masterpieces in the best sense of that dear old word, that their fellow workmen of the other gilds were accomplishing around them. . . . When technical schools can lift men up to this plane, then, indeed, there is a chance of happiness even for workmen." ^

III. America a Mere Stevedore. — The editor of Vocational Education ^ recently published an editorial on the present economic and commercial status of the United States, from which the following is quoted : —

"It may be a shock to our characteristic American jingoism to be told, what is undoubtedly true, that with the most intelligent body of workers in the world and the most efficient, if properly trained, we are little else than a huge stevedore, bearing down to the ships of the sea crude and semicrude materials for the employment of the capital, labor, and intellect of foreign nations, and that those who are best informed see within a period, which to the far-sighted is only a day, our wonderful country importing these same materials, and our producers handicapped by excessive cost. The battles of the future between nations will be fought not with Dreadnaughts but with the products in the markets of the world. The nation will be victor, with all that such a victory means to the life of its people, which is able to put the greatest amount of brains and skill into its product. The great

1 Education: How Old the New, by James J. Walsh, New York, Fordham University Press, 1910, p. J69.

INTRODUCTION ii

commercial nations of the world have already entered upon extensive schemes of practical education. Germany boasts that within ten years there will be no such thing as an untrained workman, from chimney sweep to high-grade artisan, in the empire. Of the 20,000,000 workers in the United States, it is safe to say that not 25,000 have any opportunity to secure proper education of the kind that Germany gives for their callings. We have practically no schools to meet their needs. It has been truly said that, in most of the states of the Union at least, the only way in which a boy or girl can secure an industrial training is to be born feeble-minded or commit a crime !"

IV. The Industrial Revolution. — Two factors have operated to modify, practically to revolutionize, the economic status of the wage earner within the last sixty years. These factors are (a) the substitution of machinery for hand labor, and (b) the aggregation of capital and the subsequent concentration of manufacturing into enormous establishments and centers of production. From the colonial days down to within our own time, farming was the most important industry in our nation, and the farmer's boy generally expected to remain on the farm and was satisfied to do so. Many of the manufacturing industries were established on the farm and were thus widely distributed. The author recalls, for instance, the following industries operated in connection with farming, within a radius of a mile or two from his own home: tailoring, shoe making and cobbling, carriage making, house painting, blacksmithing, tinsmithing, cider making, bee culture, carpet weaving, carpentry, cabinet making, milling, saw-milling, harness making. The more enterprising of the farmer's sons learned one or another of these trades, and when farm work was slack they worked at their trade, thus occupying their idle moments and increasing their incomes. They were satisfied to stay on the farm and happy in the work.

How was it with the farmer's daughter? She worked on the farm and expected nothing else. She helped in the dairy, and did all kinds of domestic service gladly. She even sometimes helped in the field during busy times, and " raked the meadow sweet with hay." She felt it no disgrace to work with her hands, and frequently she took service at a neighboring farm, being treated in all respects as a member of her employer's family. She learned to sew and make her own clothes, and patched the coverlid for the bed, which was quilted at a " party," the neighboring dames being invited to the number of fifteen or twenty. The quilting was completed in a single afternoon and ended with a feast and dance, to which the husbands and swains were admitted.

Now contrast present conditions with the picture just presented. Cities have multiplied and increased in population, so that now thirty-two per cent of all the children enrolled in our public day schools live in cities of four thousand inhabitants or more. At least half the population lives in villages or cities. The city has become the manufacturing and distributing center. The farmer shoemaker has disappeared, and the farmer's shoes are made in Massachusetts. The handloom and the spinning wheel have been sent to the museum. The farmer's cloth is woven in New England, and his clothes are made in New York by people who come from Russia. His wagon comes from South Bend, Indiana; his furniture from Michigan; his carpet from Philadelphia ; his lumber from Oregon ; his flour from Minneapolis. Instead of hiring a dozen neighbors to cut his grass and cradle his grain, he drives a self-binder through his field which drops the sheaf ready to be stacked and garnered. If he be one of those prairie farmers of the West, he drives twenty horses attached to a monster machine which cuts, threshes, cleans, and bags his grain in a single operation.

The number of manufacturing establishments has increased since i860 only fifty per cent; while the value of the manufactured product has increased over seven hundred per cent, in the same time. This means that the average factory turns out fourteen times as much as it did fifty years ago. The farmer's sons and daughters are educated in the district school, the township high school, the college, or State university. They enter one of the professions or drift to the cities to take part in commercial or industrial pursuits. They no longer like to labor with their hands. The boy does not care to farm, the girl is not expert in the domestic arts. *' It is bad enough," says Commissioner Draper, " for an attractive Miss to be unable to make a loaf of bread, or broil a steak, or use a needle ; the limit is passed when a college makes her such a little idiot as to think it is smart to boast of it.'' ^

The children of the city are all dreaming of professional or intellectual pursuits. They no longer learn trades. Two thirds of them leave to go to

1 Industrial and Trades Schools, New York State Education Department, 1908, Dr. Andrew S. Draper, Commissioner of Education.

work before they have graduated from the elementary school. They have very little knowledge of books, and they do not know how to do anything with their hands. The boy becomes a messenger, office boy, grocery boy, or butcher's boy ; the girl goes to some mercantile or manufacturing establishment to begin a dreary life as a wage earner in an ill- ventilated and ill-lighted shop or store. ^

The wages they receive at first hardly suffice to pay the car fare. If they go to a factory, they learn to operate a single machine ; but they get no comprehensive insight into the manufacturing process as a whole. As Emerson says : " Man is thus metamorphosed into a thing, into many things. The planter, who is Man sent out into the field to gather food, is seldom cheered by any idea of the true dignity of his ministry. He sees his bushel and his cart, and nothing beyond, and sinks into the farmer, instead of Man on the farm.

1 Miss Alice P. Barrows in New York Times, March 2, 1913, reports as follows: —

"Of the 302 children studied, twenty-four were still in school, thirty-nine had not gone to work. They had either stayed at home or gone to business or trade school. Two hundred and thirty-nine had gone to work. They had entered 406 jobs. Of these jobs, ninety-four were 'outside' errands; nineteen were 'on wagons'; sixteen at newsstands; twenty-nine were in department stores; twenty-seven in office work; forty-four in miscellaneous inside work, and 177 in manufacturing."

The tradesman scarcely ever gives ideal worth to his work, but is ridden by the routine of his craft, and the soul is subject to dollars. '^ Children set to work at a machine or at some partial process

From The Survey, April 19, 19 14.

develop no general intelligence, but only a highly specialized skill. When work in their particular line is slack, they find themselves out of employment, with no power to do anything else. They become discouraged, and grow up to join the ranks of the discontented, the dependent, or the delinquent.

Chapter II

I. England

I. The Beginnings. — In England there was no national system of public education until 1870, when Parliament enacted a law which insured elementary education to all the children in the land. In 1770 Burke deplored the tendency shown by Parliament to exercise control upon the people, whereas " it was designed as a control for the people.'' This remark of Burke's reflects the attitude of the rising democracy of England at the time. During the following century the democratic forces assumed an aggressive attitude and finally triumphed in the Act of 1867, which decided once for all that the British government, though monarchical in form, should in reality be democratic. Then followed the usual corollary, that if the people are to rule they must be educated; hence three years later Parliament established a national system of schools, c 17

2. Private Industrial Education, — The beginnings of industrial education in England may be traced to Dr. George Birkbeck, professor of natural and experimental philosophy at the Andersonian Institution in Glasgow. He conceived the idea of establishing free lecture courses for the dissemination of scientific knowledge among the working classes. Between 1815 and 1825 Mechanics' Institutions were founded in all parts of England to the number of two hundred and twenty. Some of these were kept alive long enough to be converted into technical schools. Others degenerated into clubs; still others died. Very few succeeded to the extent expected by their founders. The principal reason for the failure of the movement was that those who were intended to benefit by the lectures did not possess even the rudiments of an education; and hence they received little profit from their instruction. These lay efforts therefore proved futile, and nothing durable resulted except the two or three technical schools into which several of the Mechanics' Institutions were converted.

3. Public Industrial Education. — In 1837 the Committee of Trade secured the sum of $7500 out of the public treasury for the establishment of a central Government School of Design, and in 1 84 1 several provincial schools of design were organized with the aid of government grants. But the efforts of the national government in this field were desultory and insignificant until 1851. In that year an International Exhibition was held in Hyde Park. The comparison of products there shown proved England to be sadly deficient in manufactures; and therefore the profits of that exhibition were devoted to the purchase of land at South Kensington and the opening in 1853 of the " science and art department " of the now famous South Kensington Museum. The department was created to control and organize industrial education. In the absence of a system of secondary schools, it was necessary to make elementary education the foundation of industrial training. But at this time all the elementary schools were still provided through voluntary effort, and so inadequate was the provision made for the education of the people, that even in 1870, in the city of London itself, scarcely more than fifty per cent of the school population found accommodations in the schools. In 1856 the Education Department was created, and the Science and Art Department was transferred to the new Education Department, which henceforth controlled primary and industrial education. In 1870 Parliament, as we have seen, passed the law which made provision for primaryschools at public expense sufficient in number to meet all the national needs.