A study of the Boston mechanic arts high school; being a report to the Boston school committee

Front matter

' Copy 1

Being a Report to the Boston School Committee

BY

Contents

Foreword 5

Findings in Brief 8

FINDINGS

Foreword

1. Reasons for the report. — This report presents the results of a study of the Mechanic Arts High School undertaken at the request of the Boston School Committee. Its aim has been to determine to what extent the school is effectively performing in the school system the purpose intended by the committee of preparing boys for advantageous entrance to industry on the business and directive side. With the wisdom of that purpose this report has nothing to do.

Owing largely to the rapid development of industrial education in Massachusetts during the past few years and a changing conception of the purpose and place of manual training, the aim of the Mechanic Arts High School has of late frequently been called in question and several investigations have been made with a view to determining just what kind of service the school ought to render the city of Boston and how that service can best be performed. The first of these studies was made by Mr. Arthur L. Williston, director of Wentworth Institute, and the second by the business men's advisory committee for the school, consisting of Messrs. Fish, Alexander, Burton, Lindall, Green, Ziegler, Russell, and Kaven. The findings and recommendations of this present report are compared with those of the two previous studies.

2. Scope of the report. — This report is concerned with these two questions: (1) How far is the school now effectively accomplishing the purpose of the school committee, and (2) what changes, if any, should be made in the work of the school in order that it may better accomplish this purpose.

3. Spirit of the report. — It should be understood at the outset that this investigation has been undertaken in no hostile spirit and that this report is not intended as an indictment of the headmaster and the faculty of the school, or a criticism in general of their efficiency.

The Mechanic Arts High School was organized in 1892 as a manual training high school. An early report of the committee in charge of the school indicates that they believed it should be a fundamental purpose of the institution to serve as a high school offering systematic instruction in the mechanic arts and drawing, and that preparation for the engineering college was also a legitimate part of its work. This policy has been consistently followed since the founding of the school and until recent years has had the approval of the sub-committee in charge of it, as well as that of the executive officers of the school committee responsible for its supervision.

In agreement with this policy, the headmaster and his associates have built up a school which has stood in the front rank of similar institutions throughout the country. Few schools can show among their teachers a better esprit de corps or, on the part of their pupils, a finer spirit of manliness and studious attention to work. Few schools, indeed, possess instructors of greater teaching ability or more sympathetic understanding of adolescent boys. Abundant credit should be given those charged with the administration of the school for the wisdom, the skill, the large executive ability, and the incessant labor necessary to develop such an institution.

In recent years, however, the School Committee has adopted a change of policy for this school. It is with the administration and development of the institution in the light of this new policy that this report is primarily concerned.

4. Method of the report. — In making this study, the Boston School Committee, as the final authority, was asked to state the purpose it wished the school to accomplish. The effort has been made to test the school by this aim. To a very large extent, the study has relied upon the headmaster for information. This information he has always been very ready to furnish and the findings given herein are largely based on data obtained from this source and included in the Appendix of this report. (See Appendix E.) The thanks of the writer are due the headmaster for his kindness and courtesy in giving his assistance in this manner. The data from the school office were supplemented

Foreword 7

by a number of visits to the school and conferences with the members of the faculty. The records of the Boston School Committee, the reports of the Mechanic Arts High School and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and answers to printed questions by students both of the English High School and the Mechanic Arts High School, have also been drawn upon for information.

Grateful acknowledgment is here made of the exceedingly valuable information and helpful suggestions contributed by a number of persons, particularly by Mr. Arthur Williston, director of Wentworth Institute, and for the active and able assistance of Mr. W. A. O'Leary, director of Evening Training Classes for Teachers at Pratt Institute, in the preparation of this report.

FINDINGS IN BRIEF

1. The aim of the Boston School Committee for the school is, as has been stated, the preparation of boys for advantageous entrance into industry on the business and directive side. The Committee has said it is not the function of the school to prepare for the engineering college. 1

2. The aim of the school itself seems to be at variance with that of the School Committee. This is indicated by the published reports of the school setting forth the aim of the course of study, the course of study itself, the statements of the headmaster, the text-books used, the type of examination given, and the character of the instruction. Instead of aiming to prepare boys for advantageous entrance into industry on completing the high school course, there is every evidence that the controlling aim of the school is to give boys general education and to fit them to enter the engineering college.

3. Some of the students of the school wish to be prepared for industrial careers of the kind contemplated by the school committee. Evidence of this is found in the fact that less than 15 per cent go to higher institutions, and that a fair percentage appear to go into some form of industrial work.

4. No attempt is made to select boys who wish to be trained in accordance with the stated aim of the school committee. There is no organized method of reaching such boys or bringing the school to their attention and no attempt is made either at or before the time of entrance to determine a pupil's purpose in selecting the school or his fitness to take the special training it is expected to offer.

5. The course of study is not the right kind to give the training desired by the school committee. It is too abstract and too far removed from the practical experiences the pupil will meet

1 Throughout this discussion the term engineering college will be used to mean a school of college grade, like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, or the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, offering instruction in engineering branches. The term wili be used as synonymous with the expressions: the technical school or college, the higher scientific school, and the higher technical school.

Findings in Brief 9

when he goes into industry. The academic part of the course is essentially the same as that of any general high school.

6. The kind of instruction is not that required to prepare boys for industry. — The shops are largely organized on an exercise basis and the instruction throughout the school, principally owing to the lack of correlation between shop and classroom, is not sufficiently practical.

7. The classes are much too large for efficient work. This is especially true in the shops. To a certain extent large classes appear to have been a conscious policy of the school in the effort to keep down the cost of instruction.

8. The majority of the instructors of the school are well qualified to give the kind of instruction required by the aim of the school committee. Many of them have a large asset of practical experience which the school is not now utilizing to best advantage. A few are not equipped to train boys for industrial pursuits and probably cannot acquire the necessary qualifications.

9. The shops and equipment of the school are in the main admirably adapted to training boys in accordance with the aim of the committee. The shops, however, are too crowded and the shop equipment is not sufficiently varied. Some of the equipment necessary for efficient instruction in printing and the application of power in industry is lacking.

10. The school is not necessary as a preparatory school for the engineering college. The English High School is preparing nearly as many pupils for the engineering college and appears to be doing it at least as well and probably better than the Mechanic Arts High School.

11. The school fails to meet the needs of the 85 per cent of its pupils who do not go to the engineering college, because it serves primarily the interests of the 15 per cent of its pupils who do.

12. The headmaster is evidently not in agreement with the School Committee regarding the purpose of the school.

Summary of Recommendations

This report makes the recommendations that:

(1) No changes of any kind be put into effect before September, 1914.

(2) All classes now in school be allowed to graduate on the present basis.

(3) All changes be made gradually beginning with the class of 1918.

(4) The school gradually abandon all attempt to fit for the engineering college and confine its instruction to preparing boys for industry in accordance with the aim of the school committee given herein.

(5) The course of study be immediately reorganized for the first year, according to the suggestion given in Appendix D and be put into effect in September, 1914.

(6) The whole course be gradually reconstructed according to the suggestions given herein.

(7) Such subjects as foreign languages, general science, and general mathematics, which belong to the field of general education or of college preparation, be eliminated from the course.

(8) Suitable agencies be established for finding and selecting boys who wish to be trained for industrial careers and who have the right kind of interest and ability.

(9) The shops be organized on a commercial basis.

(10) Instruction in the shop, the classroom, and the laboratories be more closely correlated with each other.

(11) The customary use of text-books be largely discarded and the materials for instruction be gathered from such sources as the school shops, outside plants, and trade literature. Experience goes to show that instruction, when given by highly competent teachers, can be worked out much more pedagogically without the conventional use of the usual text-book which should serve as reference rather than as lesson plan.

(12) Visitation to industrial plants and lectures by business men and experts from outside plants be included in the instruction.

(13) All instructors be required to have some industrial experience as a qualification for service and those who do not have such contact or cannot acquire it be gradually transferred to other high schools and replaced by those who do possess such qualification.

(14) Varied equipment, as described later, be added to the school.

(15) The school day be lengthened to 7 hours for the class of 1918, of which not less than six shall be given to actual instruction.

Findings in Brief

(16) The number of pupils in shop classes be reduced to not more than 28 to each teacher.

(17) Shop work be required of every pupil throughout the course. 2

(18) A placement bureau, in charge of a vocational counselor, be established.

(19) The course be so arranged that boys may elect drafting during the last year, or may specialize in some one industrial field.

(20) Boys who discover after entering the school that they wish to prepare for the engineering college be transferred to some other high school, and it be the duty of a special vocational guidance committee to advise concerning such transfers and see that they are made to best advantage.

(21) Part-time courses of instruction be established which will enable the school to place its students on actual industrial work, while taking training for a portion of their time in the classroom, and which will enable those who have gone to work to secure through the school the further preparation they need^

Points of Agreement with the Findings Regarding Existing Conditions Described by Previous Reports

The findings of this report agree with those of Mr. Arthur Williston made in a previous report in every main condition, and especially in the following particulars:

(1) No adequate system is maintained for selecting boys for admission to the school.

(2) Preparation for the engineering college is the controlling aim of the instruction.

(3) Mechanical branches taught do not furnish adequate mechanical training.

(4) The small per cent of pupils who go on to higher institutions of learning can be cared for in other high schools.

(5) The teaching of many subjects, such as physics and mathematics, is too academic.

(6) Shop work is not sufficiently practical in character.

(7) There is a lack of correlation between the work of shops and classrooms.

(8) English is well taught.

2 An exception should be noted in the case of the elective course in drafting in the 6enior year. (See p. 32.)

(9) History is not sufficiently industrial in character.

(10) Classes are too large.

(11) Shop instructors are required to teach too many periods.

(12) Cost of instruction is abnormally low.

(13) The English High School offers better preparation for the engineering college than does the Mechanic Arts High School.

(14) The equipment is inadequate to train for industry in a practical way.

Points of Agreement with the Recommendations for Changes Made by Previous Reports

This report agrees with the reports of Mr. Williston and of the Business Men's Advisory Board in regard to the following recommendations.

(1) Systematic plans should be put into effect for reaching the right group of pupils.

(2) Only those qualified to profit by industrial training should be admitted to the school.

(3) The school should give up all attempt to prepare for the engineering college.

(4) The school should aim to prepare boys for industrial vocations.

(5) All instruction in foreign languages should be omitted.

(6) Work in pure mathematics should be reduced and instruction both in science and mathematics should be specialized.

(7) Shop work should be prescribed for everybody throughout the course.

(8) There should be some latitude in the choice of course in the fourth year.

(9) Classes should be reduced in size.

(10) The school day should be lengthened.

(11) A placement bureau should be established.

(12) Records should be kept of the boys' experience and success in the industry after graduating from school.

(13) More shop space should be provided.

(14) The equipment of the shops and laboratories should be so far as possible such as would be found in the shops, tool rooms, and testing rooms of commercial plants.

(15) Arrangements should be made for the transfer of misfit pupils from the Mechanic Arts High School to other schools.

FINDINGS

WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THE SCHOOL AS DEFINED BY THE SCHOOL COMMITTEE?

1. Purpose of the school as stated by the Committee. — The School Committee, in instituting a change of policy, has officially stated the purpose of the school to be "the preparation of non-commissioned officers of industry." 1

2. The term "non-commissioned officer" as just stated, is here used to mean a subordinate executive or assistant on the business and directive side of productive industry. He may, for example, be a detail designer or engineer's assistant in a factory or manufacturing plant, or the motive power department of a steam or electric railway; an assistant engineer for a power plant or office building; an inspector for a factory and steam boiler insurance company; a salesman for the sales department of factory and machine houses; a tester of apparatus; a sub-fore-

1 "The Mechanic Arts High School is designed to prepare boys for industrial efficiency. Training for industrial efficiency may be of at least three different kinds: (1) That which fits for productive skill as an advanced apprentice looking forward to journeymanship and leadership on the productive side of industry, such as is represented by the training given in the Boston Independent Industrial School for Boys (Brimmer Building) and in other all-day schools, of the same type together with part-time and continuation schools, yet to be established; (2) that which, by the advanced instruction in technical colleges like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, fits for technical insight giving favorable entrance as a commissioned officer in business and industry, looking forward to leadership on its technical and business side; secondary school preparation for such technical colleges is being given satisfactorily by other Boston high schools and according to previous decisions of the School Committee, is not hereafter to be a part of the work or service of the Mechanic Arts High School; (3) that which aims to give through a school of secondary grade both the technical knowledge and the elementary experience in certain industrial processes which will make the pupil 'industry and business wise' as a preparation for favorable entrance as a non-commissioned officer in industry looking to promotion and leadership on its business and directive side.

"It is the belief of the School Committee that inasmuch as the first two of the different kinds of training for industrial efficiency are being given satisfactorily by other Boston institutions, the purpose of the Mechanic Arts High School should be to confer the third, and that the training of this character given by the Mechanic Arts High School should meet the same demand in industry which the High School of Commerce is attempting to meet by fitting boys to become non-commissioned officers, in business and commercial pursuits." — Statement of Boston School Committee in correspondence relating to this report.

man; an assistant manager or chief. These titles carry various meanings in different industries, but in general this type of employment is filled by a subordinate executive rather than a highly technical expert. A very suggestive list of the many different kinds of positions to which the work of the school should lead is given in Appendix K.

The non-commissioned officer should know the general processes, methods of production, materials, and machines of productive industry, as well as shop and business organization. He need not have the skill of hand of the trained workman or the special knowledge of the technical expert, but he should have an appreciative understanding of both good workmanship and technical knowledge.

On graduating from the school the pupil would not, of course, be ready to assume immediately the leadership for which he had been preparing. While his training should enable him to make advantageous entrance into his future work he would still have to acquire the expert knowledge of business and industry and the judgment, essential to leadership, which comes only through experience. On entering business, therefore, he might well be termed a novitiate in industry who is looking forward to serve as a prospective officer or as a sub-engineer of industry.

No amount of schooling or technical training however desirable and excellent can take the place of actual experience in industry itself. Both are necessary. The pupils in the school should be given the discipline of hard work as well as a knowledge of how to work. They should be made at the outset to understand that much straight hard work in subordinate positions lies before them. The Mechanic Arts High School should give them a type of training which will fit them to go out into industry with enough power and practical usefulness to get a good start with the prospect always ahead of advancement in proportion to their ability and effort.

For several years a few commercial high schools have been training the commercial cadet for business, leaving largely to the private business college the task of preparing the skilled workers in the ranks such as bookkeepers, stenographers, and typewriters. The Boston High School, of Commerce, for example, is definitely engaged in training boys for such advantageous entrance into commerce as shall enable them to fill

School Committee's Statement of Purpose 17

eventually subordinate executive positions at least in the distributive as contrasted with the productive side of business. It is the understanding of this Report that the School Committee desires the Mechanic Arts High School to serve in a similar way in the preparation for advantageous entrance into industry of industrial recruits, who shall eventually fill subordinate executive positions at least on the productive side of industry.

3. The statement of purpose quoted above is in accord with the policy adopted by the School Committee several years ago, with reference to the purpose and administration of its high schools. That policy was to maintain a number of high schools like the English High School, the Latin Schools, and the various district high schools, whose aim should be to give general preparation for life, including preparation for higher institutions of learning, and to surround those schools with special schools like the Boys' Industrial School, the High School of Commerce, and the Girls' Trade School, whose aim should be to give to particular groups special preparation for specific kinds of service. This action of the School Committee took the Mechanic Arts High School out of the class of general high schools and made it a special school and gave it as definite an aim as that of any other special school.

4. The difference between the Mechanic Arts High School and the Boston Industrial School for Boys. It may be well here, for the sake of clearness, even at the risk of prolonging the discussion, to point out the difference between the aim which the Boston School Committee in the foregoing correspondence has set up for the Mechanic Arts High School and that for the Boston Industrial School for Boys.

The latter school is intended for boys who desire to be prepared to enter, as advanced apprentices looking toward journeymanship, such skilled trades as those of the machinist, carpenter, electrician, and printer. The Mechanic Arts High School is designed for the boy who expects to enter productive industry, not as an apprentice to a skilled trade, but, in a sense, as an apprentice in organization, management, or both.

Since the completion of an elementary school course is not absolutely necessary to a fair degree of success in the trades, the Boston Industrial School for Boys does not require a common school diploma, its entrance requirement being the ability to do the work of the school successfully. Since the callings open to the graduates for which the Mechanic Arts High School prepares, are of a higher grade, only graduates of the common school are admitted.

5. A special school has to meet certain conditions which a general school does not have to meet because it has been charged with a special instead of a general duty. It must secure a group who want the particular kind of instruction the school has been directed to confer; it must give its pupils a training which obviously prepares them to realize the aim established by the committee; and the great majority of its graduates must show as a result of their training efficient service in the particular field the school is intended to serve.

When the United States government established at Annapolis an academy for the special purpose of training officers for the navy, it became the duty of those in charge of the institution to accept for training only those persons who wished to become naval officers. Having secured such a group it was clearly the business of the naval academy to give the cadet the kind of training which obviously fitted him to become a naval officer. To justify its existence the academy at Annapolis must further show that the great majority of its graduates actually enter the navy and that they continue in the service as successful officers.

6. Four tests of the school: The answer to the question "How far is the Mechanic Arts High School meeting the aim of the School Committee?" depends, therefore, upon what answers can be returned to the further questions:

(a) Is the aim of the school in accord with that of the committee?

(b) Is the school reaching the group who wish to be trained for industrial careers in accordance with the aim of the School Committee?

(c) Is it giving the right kind of training for this purpose?

(d) Are the graduates of the school, on the whole, going into industry in the kinds of positions contemplated by the Committee in their statement of aim?

II

HOW FAR DOES THE AIM OF THE SCHOOL AGREE WITH THAT OF THE SCHOOL COMMITTEE?

1. The aim of those charged with the administration of the school is not in accord with that officially authorized by the School Committee. The published reports of the school, the statements of the headmaster, the course of study, the character of the instruction, and the occupations of the graduates all show this to be true.

2. The published reports of the school give its aim as general education rather than vocational training. The first report issued in 1897, four years after the school was opened, states, in effect, that it is not the controlling aim of the school to "give vocational preparation, but an all-round education. m

3. An examination of the statement just quoted shows that the school never specifically aimed to prepare boys for productive industry. It is there stated that the primary purpose is to secure an "all around development of the pupil" and that "the training which it gives is as valuable to a boy who is to become a lawyer or a physician as to one who has to work at the bench or to superintend a manufacturing plant." It is also pointed out that "the work is not arranged with special reference to vocational ends" and implies that preparation for profitable employment is regarded as a by-product. The primary aim of the school, therefore, so far as it can be gathered from the printed reports, is not vocational training — as is intended by the School Committee — but general education.

The revised copy of the report of 1897, issued in 1903 and still circulated from the school office, phrases the aim in essentially the same words. The course of study printed in 1897 was slightly modified in 1903. Except for the substitution of ele-

1 "While the primary purpose of the school is to secure the harmonious development of all the powers of the pupil, without special reference to vocational ends, the fact is not overlooked that the manual dexterity and knowledge of mechanical principles acquired at school will be, for many boys, the immediate stepping stones to profitable employment." — School Document No. 2, 1897.

mentary science in the first year, for one-half the time, formerly given to drawing, there has, since that date, been no change in the printed course.

During this period there have been pronounced developments in the fields of secondary technical and vocational education, not only in methods of instruction but also as to the aim and content of the courses of study. With this development there has also come a clear distinction between manual training and vocational education and a new understanding of the function of the manual training and the technical high schools. The fact that meanwhile the school has not materially changed either the aim or the course of study raises the question of how far it has adjusted itself to meet the changing educational thought of the times.

If it be objected that the reports referred to above are out of date, it should be noted that they are still distributed from the school office to grammar school teachers and others and that they contain practically unchanged the course of study now in use, which is a large index of the aim.

4. These reports give preparation for college as a large aim of the school. "The primary purpose of the course is to meet the needs of boys whose school life is to end with the high school, but it also provides excellent preparation for the higher scientific schools. The training in shop work and drawing enables pupils who enter such higher institutions as the Lawrence Scientific School of Harvard University, or the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, to anticipate equivalent work in those institutions, and thus gain valuable time for advance courses." 1

5. The headmaster of the school admits that the school is to a certain extent a general high school offering cultural education as its dominant purpose, but he apparently believes that the aim and course of study as contained in the published reports just quoted should not be materially changed. 2

1 School Document No. 2, 1897, page 1.

2 In a series of questions submitted to him as a part of this study among others were the following: (1) Do you regard the Mechanic Arts High School as a general or vocational school? (2) If it is a general high school, how does its work differ from that of the usual high school? (3) If it is a vocational school, for what vocations or trades or occupations does it fit?

The replies to these questions follow:

"The curriculum of the Mechanic Arts High School includes many of the branches usually found in high schools, and they are taught in the same way except that de-

Agreement of Aim of School and that of Committee 21

6. The headmaster believes that the instruction of the school should prepare boys for the engineering college. It seems fair to infer from his answer to the question given below that he advocates one course of study which at the end of four years will enable all pupils to pass successfully the entrance requirements of the engineering college. 1 Nowhere does he suggest differentiated courses of study with different aims, but rather that as "a fundamental principle" the institution " should be properly articulated with the schools below and above it" so that there might be " movement from it to higher institutions of the same type" — which he declares to be " fitting and logical."