A comparative study of corporation schools as to their organization, administration, and methods of instruction

Front matter

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S"<'*C'lrSW VVV-.

Part One Chapter

I. Introduction : the problem, the purpose, the plan, the limitations, the organization of material. II. Historical Sketch of Apprenticeship : the rise, the growth, and the decay of the gild apprenticeship system.

III. Public and Private Trade Schools and the Cor-

poration School: the rise, the growth, and the present status of the factory apprenticeship school, the National Association of Corporation Schools.

Part Two

IV. The Efficiency of Corporation Schools as Tested

by the Business Concerns which Maintain Them: the five purposes for which the corporation school is maintained, conclusions. V. Comparative Efficiency of Corporation Schools as to Instruction: The Teachers' Efficiency Score Card, the scoring of teachers, tabulation of results, conclusions.

VI. Comparative Efficiency of Corporation Schools as to Motivation of Work : the motives available for different types of schools, the theory of motivation, conclusions.

VII. Comparative Efficiency of Corporation Schools as to Curricula and Courses of Study: the 3 essential features of curricula, sample curricula, conclusions.

VIII. Comparative Efficiency of Corporation Schools as to Textbooks and Lesson Sheets: the essential features of a good textbook, textbooks and loose leaf lesson sheets discussed, the faults of each, conclusions.

Part Three

IX. Summary of Conclusions, — The Cooperative School, a Solution of the Problem of Vocational Education.

LIST OF TABLES, ILLUSTRATIONS, and CURRICULA

Table

I. Summary of time spent and list of particular

investigations.

II. Corporation continuation schools.

III. Cooperative special training schools.

Teachers' Efficiency Score Card.

IV. Comparative scores made by five students.

V. Scores of eighteen corporation school teachers. VI. Scores of twenty-one teachers in public secondary

schools and technical schools.

VII. Graphical representation of the data of Tables VI and VII.

VIII. Cooperating companies and schools.

Curricula

A. Mechanics' short course, Packard Motor Car

Company.

B. Students' training course in stock room, Western

Electric Company.

C. Engineering for college graduates. Western Elec-

tric Company.

D. Bridge Engineers, American Bridge Company.

E. Union School of Salesmanship, Boston.

F. Electric Engineering, University of Illinois.

G. Scientific, Crane Technical high school, Chicago.

A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF CORPORATION

SCHOOLS AS TO THEIR ORGANIZATION

ADMINISTRATION, AND METHODS

OF INSTRUCTION

Chapter I Introduction

This study is the outgrowth of an interest in vocational education which the writer developed in pursuing a course in that subject. It is an attempt to evaluate a single type of organization for vocational education known as the corporation school. It is an investigation of the training of apprentices and other employees as this training is at present conducted by those business concerns in the United States which undertake to prepare their new employees for efficient service and their old employees for better service.

The purposes of this study are : first, to trace briefly the rise and the decline of the old trade-apprenticeship system; second, to describe briefly the rise, the growth, and the present status of factory apprenticeship schools ; third, to study the corporation schools of the United States from the point of view of their efficiency ; fourth, to show how corporation school directors and instructors may make a greater use of such psychological and pedagogical principles as the experience of public secondary schools and technical schools has shown to be valuable; and fifth, to discover if possible in what manner corporation schools on the one hand and public secondary schools and technical schools on the other hand may be mutually helpful in the solution of the problem of vocational education. The solution of the problem proposed in the fifth purpose, is the desired outcome of this study.

With these purposes in view, the writer has, during the past two years, personally visited a large number of corporation schools in the Middle West, studied their organization, visited their classes, and observed their methods of instruction; and from a much wider field than it has been possible to survey personally, he has examined in detail their textbooks and lesson sheets, their curricula and courses of study.

The first step in this investigation was to become reasonably familiar with the literature of corporation schools. This literature was not large and consisted mainly of magazine articles describing the work of individual schools.

The second step was to initiate a systematic gathering of information both by personal visitation and by correspondence. Shortly after beginning to gather this information, the writer learned that the National Association of Corporation Schools,^ through one of its committees, was undertaking to gather practically the same information as that desired for this investigation, and an arrangement was made whereby the writer assisted this committee in collecting, tabulating, and interpreting the data with the understanding that he might use for this study any of the data collected. During the year 1916-17 the writer has been a regularly appointed member of this committee and is still acting in that capacity.

This appointment has been fortunate, for as a member of this committee, — the Committee on Special Training Schools, — the writer has had the cooperation and advice of the other members of the committee who are recognized experts in this field. He has had access also to a

*Refs. 19, 27, 31, 33. (References are numbered serially in each chapter.)

Introduction 9

vast quantity of the educational materials of these schools, and to much confidential information which he otherwise could not have obtained. He has also been the recipient of many favors at the hands of corporation officials and the corporation school directors.

Throughout this investigation, comparisons have constantly been made with public-school organization, administration, and practice; and an attempt has been made to discuss these observations in such a manner as to enable administrators and instructors of both public and corporation schools to profit, not only by their own inadequacies but also by the points of superiority of the other type of school.

This study has not been limited to the collection and evaluation of statistical data, nor have the conclusions reached been drawn wholly or largely from such data, though they are frequently reinforced by such statistical information as is available. Such a statistical study, if feasible, would be highly valuable, but the comparative recency of the corporation school movement, and the lack of a recognized system or uniformity in keeping the records of these schools make such a study impossible.

This is not a discussion of the need of industrial training. This need has already demanded and received a large place in the educational literature of the past three decades,^ and numerous societies have been formed for the purpose of fostering industrial training.^

This is not a historical study, though it has seemed necessary to preface it with a historical sketch as a background or point of departure. The history of apprenticeship is a most tempting topic, but that history has been written in a number of extensive studies,* and the real purpose of this study precludes more than a brief excursion into any subsidiary fields however inviting they may be.

The material of this thesis is organized into three parts: Part One, comprising Chapters I, II, and III is a preliminary survey of the field; Part Two, consisting of Chapters IV to VIII inclusive, is the main body of the thesis ; Part Three, consisting of Chapter IX, is a summary of the conclusions reached and a discussion of them.

Chapter I sets forth the general plan of the investigation.

Chapter II is a historical sketch of apprenticeship. It traces briefly the rise, the character, and the causes of the decline of the old craft-apprenticeship ; it emphasizes the economic and social character of the institution of apprenticeship, and the economic, social, and industrial evolution which has demanded a new system of apprenticeship.

Chapter III recites the principal causes which led to the factory apprenticeship system, and traces the establishment of private and public trade and technical schools and the factory apprenticeship school. This chapter introduces the materials and facts which have been collected by the writer in his personal visitation of corporation schools. It treats of the organization and the work of the National Association of Corporation Schools and shows the growing interest of business concerns in the training of their employees. It describes the various types of corporation schools differentiated to meet different needs. It cites the fact that the trade apprenticeship school and the school of retail salesmanship touch two very large and important groups of workers, and suggests that so far as the interests of these groups are concerned, the point of helpful contact between the corporation school and the public school is to be found in some form of cooperative organization.

Part Two presents the detailed information which

Introduction 11

the writer has collected in pursuing this study which has occupied approximately one fourth of his time for two years. The following summary shows something of the extent of the study, though it makes no account of the amount of committee work which the writer has performed.

TABLE I.

Number of corporation schools and company officials with whom correspondence has been carried on 49

Number of corporation school and company officials interviewed 41

Number of corporation schools visited 28

Number of public secondary schools and technical schools visited 19

Number of cooperative schools visited 8

Number of days spent in visiting corporation schools 10

Number of days spent in visiting public secondary schools and technical schools 20

Number of 'teacher efficiency' scorings made in corporation schools 19

Number of 'teacher efficiency' scorings made in public secondary schools

and technical schools 39

Number of schools whose curricula and courses have been examined .... 46 Number of corporation school courses for which sets of lesson sheets

have been examined 31

Number of 'corporation school' textbooks examined 27

Number of other textbooks examined 75

Number of corporation school classrooms and shops visited 44

Number of public secondary school and technical school classrooms

visited 46

In Part Two the writer undertakes to determine the efficiency of corporation schools : to compare the corporation school on the one hand with public secondary schools and technical schools on the other and to show how the work of these two types of schools may be mutually helpful in the solution of the problem of vocational education.

Chapter IV introduces the main part of the thesis and undertakes to show the efficiency of corporation schools as determined by such standards as are set up by business concerns themselves. The aims advanced by business concerns in the establishment of training departments are : first, to develop to the limit the efficiency of the individual employee ; and second, to increase industrial efficiency in general. They determine this efficiency by the extent to which they contribute to the following results: first, an increased supply of trained employees; second, an increase in the number of men quEdified for promotion; third, an improved product; fourth, a decreased turnover of labor; and fifth, less waste of materials and fewer accidents.

Chapter V describes that part of this study in which the corporation schools have been compared with public secondary schools and technical schools in the matter of instruction. It describes in detail the ''teachers' efficiency" score card which has been ^ developed and which embodies the ten points used as a basis of making this comparison ; and sets forth in detail the procedure and the results of this scoring.

Chapter VI is a discussion of motives. It treats of the various motives available for both types of schools, and undertakes to show that corporation schools have an advantage over the other type of schools in certain motives which seem to be inherent in the corporation school.

Chapter VII is a comparison of the courses of study and curricula used in corporation schools with those used in public secondary schools and technical schools. This comparison is based upon an examination of the outlines of courses and curricula found in the literature secured from these schools, and is made on three points : logical arrangement of courses and course-topics, time allotments to various courses and course-topics, and appropriateness of subject matter.

Chapter VIII is a comparison of the two types of schools as to lesson-sheets and textbooks. Such principles of textbook making as seem to be commonly recognized are formulated, and the lesson-sheets and textbooks which have been secured from both types of schools have been examined in the light of these principles.

Part Three, consisting of Chapter IX, is a considera-

Introduction 13

tion of the fundamental principles which govern the character of education in a democracy, and a discussion of the inadequacy of the corporation school in the light of these principles as a solution of the problem of vocational education. This chapter summarizes the conclusions reached in the chapters of Part One and Part Two, and shows how the cooperative trade and continuation school which may be made to embody the points of advantage of both corporation schools on the one hand, and of public secondary schools and technical schools on the other, offers the nearest approach to the solution of the problem of vocational education.

Chapter II. Historical Sketch of Apprenticeship

Business concerns have not usually been credited with philanthropic motives, and their assumption of the responsibility for the training of their employees has not usually been attributed to philanthropy. This task has been undertaken as a matter of necessity which has grown out of economic and social conditions.

The most important of these factors are, the decline of the old apprenticeship system^ which was so successful in the small shop of the past which, within the last generation has given way to the factory ; and the inability of other organized means of education to provide in an adequate measure that specific trade and vocational training demanded in the modern factory.

The apprenticeship of the gild system which served tradesmen so well in the past, but which is to the present generation in America almost unknown, had its origin in the social and industrial fabric of a time so remote that the earliest historians speak of it as a matter of course.^

' ' The craft gild or trade gilds of the Middle Ages had their origin in necessity. All sorts of industrial frauds and shoddy workmanship were practiced by the more irresponsible artisans, and the gilds were originally formed to protect their members against unskilled and dishonest labor. ' '^

Apprenticeship reached its greatest success as a means of training skilled workmen in England and on the Continent during the fifteenth and the sixteenth centuries.*

Apprenticeship IS

But even at its best the gild apprenticeship system was not a complete or satisfactory solution of the industrial situation of the period. True, it did furnish to the young man who was fortunate enough to secure an apprenticeship, not only the mastery of a skilled trade but also access to the only practical education of the times, and a social standing fully equal to that of his master. Masters were required not only to teach the apprentice his trade and to furnish him good food, clothing, and shelter, but also to educate him and to give him religious instruction.^ The English apprentice from the Fourteenth to the Sixteenth centuries became to all intents and purposes, during his apprenticeship, a member of his master's household, entitled to participate in all social activities upon a perfect equality with his master's family.

The price the apprentice paid for these privileges was not small. It included in some cases, the payment of a very considerable sum of money^ and the giving of a bond to remain in the service of his master usually for a period of seven years without wages or other remuneration than that mentioned above. It was a big price to pay for the learning of a trade but there was no other way. Apprenticeship was the only door through which one could become a master or even a journeyman entitled to ply a skilled trade. The privileges of skilled workmen and masters were a much desired goal but the journey thereto was long, arduous and expensive.

This golden age of apprenticeship corresponds very closely to the period af cathedral building on the continent, and the high character of the craftsmanship is still attested by many of those noble structures.

The regulation of apprenticeship was usually exercised by the gilds, or craft gilds, which included all the members of any particular craft in each town or parish,

•"Ref. 1, pp. 50 et. seq.

«Ref. 1, Chapter II.

16 Study OP Coeporation Schools

and which usually ruled with an iron hand. The weavers, the dyers, the spinners, the goldsmiths, the carpenters, and the workers in practically every skilled trade were organized into craft gilds which controlled not only the work of their particular trades but the individual and social life of the members as well.

Ai^ stated above, the apprenticeship system was not a complete or satisfactory solution of the industrial problem. At the very time when the system was at its best the lower strata of society, — the serfs and the unskilled laborers — were without education or training of any kind, and their suffering and degradation were almost beyond description. At the same time, the gentry as a class were densely ignorant of any useful occupations and lived in idleness, filth and vice.*^

The stratification of society was horizontal and distinct, and the oppression and misery of the lower strata resulted partly from the upper class, the gentry, but most of all from the middle class dominated by the gilds.*

The decline of the golden age of the gilds and of apprenticeship dates from the middle of the Sixteenth Century, and may be attributed, in part at least, to the arrogance of the gilds and to the restrictions which they placed upon skilled labor. ''Limitation of the number of apprentices and the long term of apprenticeship resulted in prejudice against the gilds and a resulting unwillingness to recognize the privileges enjoyed by the gilds. "9

The specific events which mark the beginning of the decline of apprenticeship in England are: the passage of the Artificers Act, or the Statute of Apprenticeship, as it is called by some writers,^^ in 1562 ; and the law of 1601, making it compulsory upon free holders and mas-

Apprenticeship 17

ters to accept as apprentices such beggar children as might be designated by the parish clerk.^ ^

The former of these laws provided : first, for government control of the amount! of wages which might be demanded,^ 2 thus prohibiting the extortion frequently charged to gilds; second, a seven-year apprenticeship open only to the sons of freemen, and prohibiting any one^^ not having served an apprenticeship from carrying on any craft ; and third, the appointment of government officers to enforce the regulation of the gilds. The preamble of this law states that its object was to reenact, to codify, and enforce the many regulations which had been permitted by gild influence to become inoperative.^*

Writers disagree as to the effect of the Artificers Act upon the gilds, ^^ but whether due to the operation of this act or not, the influence of the gilds waned steadily after the Sixteenth Century.

The second law, called the Act of 1601, entitled An Act for the Relief of the Poor, elevated the apprenticeship system to a position of great economic importance while it produced an almost exactly opposite effect ultimately, upon the gilds.^^ The fifth section of this law provided that, "parish authorities may bind out such poor children, male and female, as apprentices until they arrived at the age of maturity. "^^ This law had the effect of continuing the institution of apprenticeship at a time when the gilds were on the decline. In fact the operation of this law had much to do with this decline. The ultimate influence upon apprenticeship, however, was unfavorable. Naturally the great increase in the number of apprentices resulting from this law had its counterpart in

"'Ref. 4. Chap. III.

a deterioration of the system. Masters, no longer subject to gild regulations, neglected the education of their apprentices, and denied them the social equality of the home. No general law to compel masters to attend to the education of *' parish" apprentices, aside from craft instruction, was enacted in England until 1802.-^

Other influences which contributed to the decline of apprenticeship were: the rise of the rural industries; the waning influence of the gilds owing to the rapid increase of skilled labor, making it impossible for the gilds to control longer the price or the conditions of labor; and later, the rise of capitalism and the factory system. This decline covers the period from the middle of the Sixteenth Century to the present time. While the number of apprentices was greatly increased as the result of the act of 1601, during the Seventeenth Century the efficiency of the apprenticeship declined rapidly from the points of view of industry and of social welfare. Since the Seventeenth Century the number of apprentices has gradually decreased, while the demand for skilled tradesmen has uniformly increased.

The industrial history of this period of decline is marked by such dark pages as child labor and the debtos^'s prison. ^^ The larger number of apprentices and the decline of the vigilance of the gilds in governing the treatment of apprentices, made it possible for unscrupulous masters to take large numbers of apprentices, and then by economies in feeding, housing, and educating them to make their services extremely profitable. In these conditions is found the origin of the almost unbelievable evils of child labor in the Nineteenth Century in the factories of England and the United States. ^^

What has been said of apprenticeship in England and

"Ref. 1, pp. 62 et seq.

Apprenticeship 19

on the Continent applies in a large measure to the United States. Trade apprenticeships, however, were never so common in the United States as in Europe, owing to the advent of the factory system before the United States had attained any great importance as a manufacturing nation. The condition of apprentices and the laws relating to them in the American colonies were generally more favorable to the apprentice than in Europe. In Massachusetts, in 1642, in Connecticut, in 1650, and in Virginia, in Queen Anne 's reign, legislation provided for the instruction of apprentices in reading, in the laws of the country, and in religion, over a century before such enactments were made in England. ^^

The factory system in Europe was not an outgrowth of the introduction of steam power and labor saving machinery, but it was the direct growth of the newer apprenticeship system which developed, in part at least, as the result of the Artificers^ Law and the Law of 1601.

But whatever may have been the origin of the factory system, it has, by the division of labor, and by the use of power machinery, revolutionized many of the skilled trades. Now, instead of mastering a trade and turning out a finished product, the factory worker needs but to become an expert in a single process, or in the operation of a machine which makes, not a complete product, but a minor part of it. The factory thus has a tendency to develop piece-workers rather than all-round mechanics or masters of trades, and has resulted in an almost entire discontinuance of trade apprenticeships.

In 1895, forty typical building-trades employers had 12,000 men and only eighty regular apprentices, though the normal number allowed according to union rules was 1,600.22 The United States Census 23 in 1909-10 shows a total of 77,371 apprentices in the United States, or one for every 322 adult workers, when there was approximately 25,000,000 wage earners in occupations aside from agriculture.

'^ The rapid development of labor saving machinery in the Nineteenth Century, and the growing complexity of manufacturing and marketing processes have created a demand for skilled workmen in almost every line of manufacture and business, far beyond the ability of any heretofore known method of apprenticeship to supply. In this condition is found the basis of the need for a new method of apprenticeship. The evolution of this new method of apprenticeship is described in the next chapter.

Chapter III Public and Private Trade Schools, and the Corporation School

The assumption by organized society of the responsibility of teaching any new subject has always been preceded by private enterprise assuming that responsibility,^ from motives of either business or philanthropy. If the private project meets with success and popular approval, the burden is usually somewhat tardily assumed by the public. Hence it was, that long before public sentiment had become conscious of the duty of assuming the burden of teaching the prospective industrial worker the rudiments or the mastery of a trade or vocation, first, tradesmens' organizations and later private philanthropy had felt the need and had provided for it by establishing trade schools. Business concerns had also succumbed to the pressure of necessity and had undertaken the task of training their young workers for various positions.

The most notable, because the most successful examples of craft gild schools for apprentices are to be found in Germany.2

' ' In Germany as in no other country, the people have been unwilling to break with the past, ' ' and a conscious effort has been made to perpetuate by legal enactments, the handicraftsman and the small tradesman, and especially the institution of apprenticeship. The effect of this legislation is shown in the statement that "30 per cent of German industry is still carried on under the handicraft system. ' '^

These ends have been accomplished by enacting two quite distinct sets of laws, one affecting the small tradesman and the gilds and the other those phases of industry affected by the factory system.^ The advantages of the apprenticeship system have been maintained by legally restoring the powers and privileges of the gilds. * ' Ninetenths of the present trade schools {Facliscliulen) are the work of the gild schools, the origin of many of which is in the Middle Ages/'^ ''Of the 251 industrial schools participating in an educational exposition in Dresden, in 1898, 88 were founded by societies, 48 by the state, and 47 by private individuals. ' '^ While it has been the policy of most of the German states to assume the control and assist in the support of these schools,'^ many of them still retain, in a large measure, their original character.

Gild schools in France in the Middle Ages were numerous, and their industrial importance was great, but the arrogance of the gilds brought a reaction upon themselves in 1776 which greatly limited their powers, and the drastic laws of 1791 definitely abolished the gilds.

It was left for private enterprise to initiate the movement to rehabilitate French industrial training, which had been so ruthlessly destroj^ed by the revolution. The Duke de la Rochelle, at his own expense established a school ' ' with a department for industrial training, which was the first institution for special trade instruction in France. ' '^ It was declared a national school by the First Republic in 1799. Upon this humble foundation, has been developed a thorough system of state industrial and technical schools.

In Great Britain, the movement was somewhat later in developing, and private enterprise is credited with instituting the movement which has grown in recent years into a real interest in vocational training. This movement was initiated about 1784, by David Hale, who built at his own cost, a boarding house and school for five hundred charity children from the New Lanark cotton mills. "9

The modern industrial technical school and technical school movement dates from 1801, in which year Dr. George Burbeck, established mechanics' classes at Anderson's University, at Glasgow; and it received a new impetus in the founding of the Mechanics' and Apprentices' Library in 1823. ''The first building erected in England with accommodations for the various departments of scientific work for the dyer, the carpenter, the mason, and the machine maker, was built by private subscription for the Manchester Mechanics ' Institute, in 1824. "10 —s^

The development of trade apprenticeship schools in the United States may be said to date from the activity of the Worcester (Massachusetts) County Mechanics' Association, which was formed in 1841 for the purpose of ''perfecting the mechanics' art", and which in 1866 opened a school for apprentices with 140 members the first year. 11 The New York Trade School, foundedi^ by Col. Richard T. Auchmuty, in 1881 was also "a pioneer venture. ' '

As to public industrial education, one authority states,! 3 that up to 1870, no school of an industrial character existed except the higher institutions established as the result of the first Morrill Act, passed in 1862.

Though private industrial and technical schools, and schools fostered by trade unions, increased in number i*

"Ref. 16, Chap. I.

these schools were quite unequal to the task of developing competent workers, fast enough to meet the growing demands of industry. Public sentiment, too, was slow in developing to a point where industrial and trade training seemed to be a public responsibility. Business concerns were therefore forced to undertake the training of their jown apprentices.

This condition existed both in the United States and in Great Britain, and to a less extent in Germany, because the German State early recognized the necessity for state support of industrial and apprenticeship schools.^ ^ ~ So far as the writer has been able to ascertain, the first apprenticeship school maintained by a business corporation was established by the Chaix Printing Company of Paris, in 1863.^^ The oldest American corporation school is that founded by the R. Hoe Printing Press Company of New York in 1875. ^^ Notwithstanding these few pioneer corporation schools, the movement did not attain any considerable impetus until about 1905,^^ since which time the growth in the number of such schools has been quite rapid.

A corporation school as defined for this study is a school maintained by a business concern, quite independently of outside control, for the purpose of fitting its new employees for efficient service, or for the further training of its older employees to fit them for positions of greater responsibility, as foremen, executives, or technical experts.