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 GopyriglitN". 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSm 
 
MtmiU €Ducattonal jHonograpl^js 
 
 EDITED BY HENRY SUZZALLO 
 
 PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON, SEATTLE 
 
 ESTABLISHING 
 INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 BY 
 
 HARRY BRADLEY SMITH, Pd.M. 
 
 Director of Industrial Education 
 
 in the New Tork State College for Teacher t 
 
 Albany^ N, T. 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 
 CHARLES A. PROSSER, Ph.D. 
 
 Director of the William Hood Dunivoody Institute 
 Minneapolis, Minnesota 
 
 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 
 BOSTON, NEW YORK AND CHICAGO 
 
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 COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY HARRY BRADLEY SMITH 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 4 
 
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 OCT -9 i3?6 
 
 W^t 3Riberi(ttie ihtM 
 
 CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
 U . S . A 
 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The purpose of this book is to suggest to a State, 
 a city, or to any community some concrete and 
 practical methods of determining what sort of 
 industrial and trade schools it needs, what should 
 be taught in them, and how to select and pre- 
 pare the instructors who are to do the teaching. 
 It endeavors to be specific, to consider details, 
 and to base its conclusions upon trade conditions 
 as interpreted by the best generally accepted 
 principles of industrial education. 
 
 It should not be confounded with any attempt 
 to investigate and report on the educational 
 systems now in existence or with suggestions 
 for the modification of such systems, except as 
 to the addition of trade instruction for men and 
 women who are going to earn a living by a trade. 
 
 It seeks to offer suggestions that may be fol- 
 lowed by action, that may be used as the basis 
 of actual school establishment rather than as a 
 basis for written report. 
 
 The general outline suggested itself to the 
 author some years ago while working in the trade 
 schools of Germany. The present book is sub- 
 
 iii 
 
PREFACE 
 
 stantially an expansion of this outline, modified 
 and enlarged by subsequent experience and study. 
 The writer wishes gratefully to acknowledge 
 the assistance received in short discussions with 
 Dr. David Snedden, of Massachusetts; Mr. 
 Wesley A. O'Leary, of New York; Mr. Charles 
 R. Allen, of Massachusetts; Mr. A. D. Dean 
 and Mr. L. A. Wilson, of Albany, New York; 
 and especially to acknowledge his indebtedness 
 to Mr. Charles A. Prosser, of Minneapolis, for 
 invaluable survey material, and to an address 
 on "The Study of the Industries for the Purpose 
 of Vocational Education,'' delivered before the 
 National Society for the Promotion of Indus- 
 trial Education in Grand Rapids, Michigan, 
 by Charles R. Richards, of Cooper Union, New 
 York. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Introduction . . . . Charles A. Prosser vii 
 
 I. Selecting the School i 
 
 II. Making the Survey 43 
 
 III. Selecting the Course 79 
 
 IV. Selecting the Teacher 136 
 
 Outline 163 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 By C. a. Prosser 
 
 Director of The William Hood Dun woody Industrial Institute, 
 Minneapolis, Minn. 
 
 Sitting in her rose-bower at Belmont, the shrewd 
 Portia said to the winsome Nerissa, "If to do 
 were as easy as to know what were good to do, 
 chapels had been churches and poor men's cot- 
 tages princes' palaces." It is equally true to 
 say that if to get the proper vocational prepara- 
 tion of youth were as easy as it is to believe that 
 the schools should fit our young people for suc- 
 cessful wage-earning, then the task would straight- 
 way be accomplished. 
 
 It is a rule of life and of service that most of 
 the best things are most difficult to get and to 
 hold. No one debates the benefit which would 
 come to our boys and girls, and to the nation, if 
 they were educated for efficient workmanship in 
 some calling as well as for efficient citizenship. 
 Indeed, we are just beginning to appreciate how 
 much the latter depends upon the former. Yet 
 the task of giving vocational education to meet 
 
 vii 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 the demands of our complicated modern life is by 
 far the most difficult educational question which 
 the country and its schools have ever faced ! 
 
 Notwithstanding this fact, the American peo- 
 ple, impressed with the great need of a system of 
 education which shall fit for life and service, have, 
 with an enthusiasm worthy of the greatness of 
 their cause, rushed into the task of establish- 
 ing vocational education faster than we have a 
 knowledge of the facts regarding the wide variety 
 of occupations so characteristic of American life 
 for which our youth must be prepared; faster 
 than we have teachers with proper experience and 
 training; faster than we have gathered experience 
 to guide us in dealing with the problem under 
 American conditions; faster than we have been 
 able to adopt carefully considered and carefully 
 tested equipment, courses of study, and methods 
 of instruction. What wonder that our discus- 
 sions are academic, our theories conflicting, our 
 wide variety of practice confusing, and our ef- 
 forts in many quarters doomed to failure! 
 
 The way in which this country has gone about 
 getting vocational training is after all character- 
 istic of the way in which we as a people get ahead 
 in everything we do. When a wrong is detected, 
 when a need becomes apparent, when a forward 
 
 viii 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 step is to be taken along any social, economic, 
 or political line, we rush into the task almost en- 
 tirely without any previous study and analysis 
 either of the present situation or the remedy to 
 be applied, crying, "Come on, boys, let's do 
 something!'' 
 
 As a result we usually spend years in ill-consid- 
 ered experiments, conflicting schemes, and wasted 
 effort before we arrive at any meeting of minds on 
 even the principles which are to guide us in deal- 
 ing with the question. There are no better illus- 
 trations of this than the way in which the country 
 has handled the tariff and the liquor questions. 
 
 To be sure, our radicalism so characteristic of 
 a democracy has not been the only moving cause 
 of our lack of scientific procedure in dealing with 
 the questions that beset us as a people. The lack 
 of a forward-looking vision leading us to plan 
 carefully for the future has been peculiarly 
 characteristic of a country blinded by a prosper- 
 ity built upon the exploitation of rich material 
 wealth and optimistic in the face of apparently 
 inexhaustible natural resources. To be where 
 Germany and German efficiency are to-day we 
 should have begun the movement for practical 
 education a quarter of a century ago. 
 
 The freedom of thought and of action in a 
 ix 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 democracy brings conflicting ideas and prac- 
 tices that cannot be reconciled save through the 
 acceptance of principles and standards that rest 
 upon the indisputable basis of fact and experience. 
 As a nation made up of forty-eight States the 
 problem of getting concerted action upon vital 
 questions affecting the common welfare, such as 
 the regulation of the liquor traffic and the es- 
 tablishment of vocational education, is that of 
 dealing with forty-eight sovereignties, each hav- 
 ing its own peculiar conditions and its own so- 
 cial, political, and educational traditions. 
 
 As we grow older as a people, as the disappear- 
 ance of our boasted natural resources forces upon 
 us the necessity of the conservation of our heri- 
 tage and of the promotion of the efficiency of our 
 human resources, as our swelling population 
 presses upon our ability to support life, as the 
 simpler give way to more complex economic and 
 social conditions, we shall be forced to study our 
 problems more carefully and to standardize our 
 methods of dealing with them. Then we shall 
 substitute conservation for radicalism, caution 
 for sentiment, investigation for cheap enthusi- 
 asm, standards for opinions, facts for guesswork, 
 scientific procedure for ill - considered experi- 
 ments, and the expert for the demagogue. 
 
 X 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 Indeed, the country is already making prom- 
 ising beginnings in the application of scientific 
 methods of procedure to public as well as private 
 questions. The cost accountant and the scien- 
 tific management expert are abroad in the land. 
 May their tribe increase! Great national prob- 
 lems are being taken from the hands of Congress 
 and committed to expert commissions for study 
 and recommendation. States have been even 
 more active than the Nation in this reform. 
 Bureaus of municipal research or their equivalent 
 have arisen in almost all of the larger cities of 
 the country to safeguard the taxpayer, not only 
 against the dishonest use of money, but through 
 wise city planning against its foolish use as well. 
 Social workers and the statisticians in increas- 
 ing numbers are seeking the causes of human 
 misery and crime and an adequate remedy for 
 them. The demand for properly equipped peo- 
 ple to make scientific studies of our social and 
 economic and political questions is so great that 
 the departments of sociology, economics, and 
 business administration in our leading universi- 
 ties are being forced to make their work more 
 practical and vital in order to prepare a growing 
 number of young people for this service. 
 
 The schools of the country have caught the 
 xi 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 same spirit. In the regular schools the desire for 
 greater efficiency in courses of study and methods 
 of instruction has already led to a great many 
 studies or surveys, which have both measured 
 the work of the schools as they are and have 
 made recommendations for their betterment. 
 Equally, if not more, significant have been the 
 surveys for vocational education that have been 
 carried on in the last three years. While voca- 
 tional training in schools of less than college 
 grade is, after all, only an infant in swaddling 
 clothes, the effort to get it on a more scientific 
 basis is well under way. 
 
 The movement for vocational education, which 
 is only about ten years old in the United States, 
 met, as do all such innovations and radical de- 
 partures from old ideas and old ways, with strong 
 opposition in many quarters. Consequently it 
 went through almost a decade of agitation and 
 propaganda in order to get a foothold with 
 schoolmen and laymen. That propaganda did 
 its work perhaps all too well. No movement in 
 education has ever taken hold of the imagination 
 of any people as has the campaign here for an 
 education fitting for a wage-earning career, un- 
 less it be Fichte's call upon the German States 
 for a system of education adapted to the genius 
 
 xii 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 of the German people. In fact, vocational educa- 
 tion is not only well afoot with us, but mounted 
 on horseback. In the absence of the vital facts 
 about the vocations, carefully planned experience 
 to guide and properly equipped teachers to in- 
 struct, the movement has been in some danger 
 of falling of its own weight. 
 
 The period of agitation is over and the time 
 for constructive work is already upon us. Per- 
 sonally I should have preferred to see National 
 Aid for Vocational Schools adopted five years 
 from now. But since it was certain that a fed- 
 eral bill making appropriations for the States 
 was certain to pass in some form, it becomes the 
 duty of those closely associated with the work 
 to secure the passage of a bill which will provide 
 for adequate national and state boards of con- 
 trol, secure the gradual adoption of standards, 
 and safeguard the proper expenditure of the 
 moneys allotted to the States. With money go- 
 ing to the States to stimulate them in under- 
 taking on a large scale training in agriculture, 
 industry, and home economics, the need for a 
 careful and progressive study of what shall be 
 done in vocational training and how it shall be 
 done becomes acute! 
 
 The need for information concerning the voca- 
 xiii 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 tions, particularly the occupations in the trades 
 and industries, in order to plan systems of voca- 
 tional training for the schools, has led to a num- 
 ber of surveys. The first of these was the study 
 made by the Massachusetts Commission on In- 
 dustrial Education in 1906, which was followed 
 by similar investigations by state boards and 
 commissions, notably that of the Wisconsin 
 Commission on Industrial Education, and that 
 of the Indiana Commission on Industrial and 
 Agricultural Education. The purpose of these 
 investigations was largely to find the need for 
 vocational education in these lines and to con- 
 sider the broad administrative policies upon 
 which through legislation the plan adopted 
 should be based. 
 
 Within the last two years large cities having 
 the resources to meet the cost of thorough stud- 
 ies have carried on surveys under the direction 
 of persons of experience, to gain the facts which 
 would help them to get the kind of industrial or 
 commercial or household- arts education, partic- 
 ularly the former, best adapted to their condi- 
 tions and needs. Among these have been the 
 studies made by the Richmond Survey, the 
 Cleveland Survey, and the Minneapolis Survey. 
 The first and last of these were conducted by the 
 xiv 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 National Society for the Promotion of Industrial 
 Education as one of its means of serving the 
 cause in a constructive way. The Society is now 
 cooperating with the Indiana State Board of 
 Education, and various local school boards in 
 Indiana cities and counties, in the making of a 
 survey for vocational education in various types 
 of communities in that State; while the United 
 States Bureau of Education is investigating the 
 situation with regard to vocational education 
 in connection with an educational survey it is 
 conducting in the city of San Francisco. 
 
 These surveys are predicated on the idea that 
 they are not only a good business proposition, 
 but that the facts they gather and the expert 
 opinion they offer are necessary to any intelli- 
 gent dealing with the many difficult problems 
 to be met in establishing vocational education 
 of any kind in the community. 
 
 When a patient approaches a physician for 
 treatment, the first step taken by the latter is to 
 make a diagnosis of the situation before he offers 
 a remedy. American communities, with all their 
 justifiable pride in the many good things about 
 the public-school systems, realize that it is ailing, 
 is deficient in provisions for preparing boys and 
 girls to meet the requirements for successful wage- 
 
 XV 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 earning and the highest success in modem in- 
 dustrial and commercial life. The survey makes 
 a diagnosis of the situation and suggests a remedy 
 in the form of a plan or scheme to meet it. 
 
 No competent American business man would 
 think of establishing a manufacturing concern 
 in a new place without making a survey — a 
 careful study of all the important features of the 
 location of the proposed enterprise. He would 
 want to know, for example, the location of the 
 site with reference to a source for raw material, 
 competent labor, and desirable markets. He 
 would look into the physical conditions of the 
 site, its slope, drainage, and composition. The 
 switching facilities for moving fuel, supplies, 
 and finished product would be carefully investi- 
 gated. Perhaps most important of all, his de- 
 cision as to locating his business would depend 
 largely upon the desirability of the community 
 as a place to live and rear his family. 
 
 So in the same way a survey for vocational 
 education is a wise business proposition. The 
 community is soon to be called upon to invest 
 money in site, plant, equipment, salaries, and 
 supplies for the purpose of changing raw mate- 
 rial in the form of untrained youths into the fin- 
 ished product of young men and young women 
 xvi 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 equipped with the knowledge and skill to be- 
 come successful wage-earners in their chosen 
 callings. In order that neither the money of the 
 city nor the time of its young people may be 
 wasted, the vital facts about its vocations and 
 its vocational needs should be gathered and in- 
 terpreted by competent people before the school 
 is begun. If there is any field of education or of 
 human service where the old adage, ^' Look be- 
 fore you leap," applies with more force than in 
 the establishing of vocational schools, the writer 
 does not know what it is. 
 
 Every community, before entering upon a 
 program of vocational education, should make a 
 preliminary study of the conditions to which its 
 plan must be adapted. It may be possible for 
 communities to borrow or copy their school 
 organization and their courses of study for gen- 
 eral education from other places, although this 
 usually results disastrously. One of the most 
 pitiable spectacles in education to-day is the 
 rural community which has borrowed every 
 feature of its work from that of a near-by city. 
 Its manual training has no relation to country 
 life. Its courses of study give no help to the 
 worker in agriculture and lead away from rather 
 than to the farm. All its work is aimed, not to 
 xvii 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 prepare country boys and girls for rural life, but 
 to prepare an occasional and lonely graduate to 
 meet the entrance requirements of the state 
 university. 
 
 In vocational education a community cannot 
 transport bodily any scheme from another place, 
 however well it may seem to meet the needs of 
 the latter. Industries differ in kind from one 
 community to another. When of the same kind 
 they differ in grade and therefore in their de- 
 mands upon workers. They differ in such things 
 as the entrance wage they offer, the health risk 
 to be met, and the opportunities for better wage 
 and promotion presented. They differ in the atti- 
 tude of employers and their willingness to coop- 
 erate with the school by employing its graduates 
 on favorable terms or in employing boys on a 
 part-school, part-shop plan. Likewise communi- 
 ties differ in the attitude of organized labor 
 toward the school and toward recognition of the 
 training given by the school as a part of the re- 
 quired apprentice training. Communities vary 
 from State to State in the age and the conditions 
 under which a pupil may leave school to go to 
 work. 
 
 Even if communities could safely copy their 
 scheme of vocational education bodily after that 
 xviii 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 of another city, they would not get very far. 
 Thus far industrial education for the youth has 
 been established for a very few trades, such as 
 machine shop, carpentry, cabinet-making, print- 
 ing, electrical work, automobile repair and con- 
 struction, bricklaying, plumbing, and gas-engine 
 work, in the case of boys; and dressmaking, mil- 
 linery, cooking, machine operating, and junior 
 nursing, in the case of girls. These fourteen lines 
 are, after all, only '^ a drop in the bucket" when 
 one considers that the last United States Census 
 listed three hundred and eighty-six recognized 
 occupations in the industrial and mechanical 
 industries alone. 
 
 Not all occupations are worth training for, it 
 is true. Nor can the school train successfully for 
 all occupations, some of which must be learned 
 ^^ under the conditions of the trade." But it 
 seems clear that thus far we have only crossed the 
 threshold of our task of providing training for 
 the vocations in industrial and mechanical lines. 
 Vocations are to-day highly specialized, and any 
 training for them, to be successful, must be cor- 
 respondingly highly specialized. The search for 
 common elements in all the vocations, which 
 could be given to the youth as a preparation for 
 each and all of them, has been from the outset 
 
 xix 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 as certain of failure under modern conditions 
 as the search of Ponce De Leon for the magical 
 fountain of youth. 
 
 Without precedent to guide them, upon 
 which they may completely rely in meeting the 
 difl&cult and complicated and highly specialized 
 problem of providing vocational education for 
 its citizenship, communities must base their pro- 
 grams on a local study of conditions and the 
 suggestions and recommendations of those with 
 most experience in deahng with vocational edu- 
 cation. 
 
 Not all communities can or will provide sur- 
 veys carried on by outside parties. In such cases 
 the study if made must be conducted by the su- 
 perintendent of schools or some other local per- 
 son. Even if communities desired a survey by so- 
 called '^experts," there are few persons at the 
 present time with experience sufficient to equip 
 them for the task. Communities are not accus- 
 tomed to pay for such investigations out of their 
 school budget. It may be that in some States 
 such an expenditure from the school fund is not 
 authorized by law. Too often local self-sufficiency 
 opposes outside interference. In many quarters 
 of every community there is an impatience if 
 not contempt for expert service. While the 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 money which a community would spend for a 
 competent survey before undertaking any plan 
 of vocational education would probably be the 
 wisest investment it could make, communities 
 do not always have, or at least they do not think 
 they have, the money for ,such an innovation. 
 
 For all these reasons, and for others that need 
 not be given here, we may expect to see the sur- 
 vey, conducted by persons of experience brought 
 in from the outside, confined, in general, to the 
 larger cities where philanthropy or an awakened 
 public sentiment has made the establishment 
 of vocational education on an extensive scale 
 possible and imminent, and where the call for an 
 expert study is insistent. 
 
 Most of the surveys for vocational education, 
 particularly outside the largest cities of the coun- 
 try, will be conducted by local agencies of which 
 in many if not in most instances the superinten- 
 dent of schools will be the leader. It is for his 
 benefit, and for that of others like him who want 
 to know how to carry on an investigation of the 
 questions germane to the proper establishment of 
 vocational training in a given community, and 
 how to translate the facts when gathered into 
 a policy and a program of action, that Mr. 
 Smith's monograph has been written; and to 
 
 xxi 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 all such his contribution will render the largest 
 service. 
 
 While the greater part of this little book is de- 
 voted to the problems of the survey for vocational 
 education, the author has, with commendable 
 foresight, included in. addition a closing section 
 rich in the information and suggestions it gives 
 as to the steps to be taken and the best ways of 
 getting, as the result of his survey, such things 
 as a proper course of study, advisory committees, 
 and trade agreements. The monograph is really 
 a primer full of valuable analysis, illustration, 
 statement of sound principles, and wise sugges- 
 tions for the student of the subject or the admin- 
 istrator facing the new and difl&cult problem of 
 getting the right kind of vocational education 
 started in his community. 
 
 Especially to be commended is the first sec- 
 tion, where in a colloquial style the author has 
 set forth, with keen analysis and simple lan- 
 guage, the educational and social principles which 
 in his opinion should be observed in any pub- 
 licly supported scheme of vocational education, 
 and the questions that need to be answered by a 
 survey of any given industry before the schools 
 can determine either whether they should train 
 for the industry or how they should train for it. 
 xxii 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 Whether or not we agree with Mr. Smith alto- 
 gether in his statement of principles, we cannot 
 be other than grateful to him for the force of his 
 presentation and for the rich knowledge of vo- 
 cational problems which his keen analysis shows. 
 
 Mr. Smith presents the case for a program 
 rather than a portrait survey. The latter is a 
 study which contents itself with furnishing a 
 picture of the situation, largely statistical in 
 character, for a community where there is no 
 definite prospect of the immediate establish- 
 ment of schools. The former is a study which 
 focuses upon a definite plan of action in a com- 
 munity wanting to establish vocational schools 
 at an early date. It has been aptly said that the 
 portrait survey is best represented by a girl and 
 an adding machine, while the program survey is 
 best typified by a conference. 
 
 Probably both have their place in the move- 
 ment to get vocational education. The portrait 
 survey is doubtless the slow but sure educator 
 and moulder of public thought as the founda- 
 tion of careful, intelligent action at some time 
 in the future. The program survey is the con- 
 structive agent which gathers from the trades, 
 industries, and occupations, not only the perti- 
 nent facts but the attitudes, the cooperations, 
 xxiii 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 and the help of all interests necessary to start 
 vocational education aright in a community 
 where intelligent public opinion is ready for the 
 step and resources are available to finance the 
 undertaking. 
 
 There is a strong temptation in the making of 
 any survey to lay perhaps too much emphasis 
 on the literary and statistical side of the work 
 and to shape the study with the hope that it 
 may become a permanent contribution to the 
 literature of the subject. Personally, the writer 
 feels that the thing most needed and the thing 
 from which communities will in most cases get 
 the largest return is the survey which has its 
 aim fastened upon the immediate usefulness 
 of the study to the city it serves. From this point 
 of view, not only must facts be gathered and in- 
 terpreted and recommendations made, but con- 
 ferences must be held, cooperations established, 
 trade understandings proposed and perfected, and 
 the whole community brought into an enthusi- 
 astic and working support of the plan adopted. 
 This is the point of view and spirit of Mr. 
 Smithes contribution. 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL 
 SCHOOLS 
 
 SELECTING THE SCHOOL 
 
 Our Present Footing 
 
 Some years ago two gentlemen were traveling 
 through a sparsely settled section of Western 
 country and one of them asked a native how 
 far it was to the next town. "About two hours' 
 traveling," said the native, and turned again to 
 his work. After journeying for another hour 
 toward the town, they met another native and 
 again asked the distance to the nearest settle- 
 ment. "About two hours' traveling" was the 
 answer. Two hours more the two friends kept 
 on their way, and for the third time inquired of 
 a native the distance to the next town. "About 
 two hours' traveling" came the answer. "Well," 
 said one of the gentlemen to the other, "I'm 
 mighty glad we are holding our own." 
 
 The industrial educator has many reasons for 
 being "mighty glad we are holding our own." 
 
 I 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 So swiftly has educational thought progressed 
 along practical lines and so decidedly have the 
 manufacturer, the trade unionist, and the trade 
 worker changed their views on the subject of 
 trade training in schools, that the industrial 
 teacher has had to move rapidly if he did noth- 
 . ing more than keep up. It must be confessed, 
 too, that we have not done much more than 
 *'hold our own"; and we ourselves are somewhat 
 to blame for this. 
 
 We have been doing a great deal of thinking 
 along the line of practical trade-school education 
 in the United States, but we have not always 
 thought to the point. We have philosophized, 
 theorized, and speculated too much, perhaps, to 
 accomplish large material results. This is not to 
 say that we have not progressed. There must al- 
 ways be this period of theory and speculation 
 and we are almost through it. In more than one 
 State now we are beginning to find the real 
 trade school. 
 
 Need for facts 
 
 The time has come when we must follow our 
 thinking with action. We must study trade edu- 
 cation as a concrete and business problem as well 
 as an educational problem in order to know what 
 
 2 
 
SELECTING THE SCHOOL 
 
 to do to insure success. We must study each 
 phase of the problem in order to ascertain 
 whether that phase can show us that education 
 for its particular business is or is not needed; if 
 needed, just what is needed, by whom it is 
 needed, and from whom it may best be ob- 
 tained. What the country needs now are facts, 
 and facts are always obtainable if you go about 
 it right. Whenever the people of any State are 
 ready to attack this problem in real earnest, 
 they will soon find themselves developing an 
 educational philosophy and program sufficient 
 to assimilate, interpret, and act upon all the facts 
 presented. 
 
 With this point of view, then, let us turn to 
 our first concrete study. 
 
 Study the industries 
 
 Industrial education depends upon the indus- 
 tries. Every attempt to separate the trade school 
 from a close relationship with the trade has 
 proved disastrous. A study of industrial educa- 
 tion from the educational standpoint alone will 
 not do. If we are to prepare men and women to 
 live in an industrial field, we must study closely 
 the industry by which they are to live. 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 What industries to study 
 
 What industries, then, shall we study? Obvi- 
 ously those which are in the community and a 
 part of the community which is undertaking 
 to establish and pay for the schools. When a 
 careful investigation has convinced a city or 
 village that it has not within its confines the 
 right kinds of industries in sufficient numbers 
 to furnish good employment for all the graduates 
 of its industrial schools, or that it is impossible 
 or unwise for other good reasons to train exclu- 
 sively for the home trades, it can then turn its 
 attention to the industries of the State and 
 Nation. It must then take care to select trades 
 and occupations that have a steady and general 
 demand throughout the whole country, such as 
 printers, painters, barbers, and salesmen, rather 
 than trades that are found only in selected spots, 
 like miners, millers, glasscutters, and quarry- 
 men. By whatever method we select the indus- 
 try to be studied, the method of conducting that 
 study will be practically the same. 
 
SELECTING THE SCHOOL 
 
 What to study about an Industry ^ 
 
 First of all let us determine whether this in- 
 dustry is one that should be encouraged for the 
 good of the community and the State. 
 
 The work place 
 
 Does it place its workers in clean, ventilated, 
 and healthful rooms, such as those provided 
 by the National Cash Register Company, the 
 Shredded Wheat Biscuit Company, the National 
 Electric Light Company, and many other in- 
 dustries, or in damp, dirty, disease-breeding places 
 like the older textile mills, a large number of the 
 older foundries, oyster-handling cellars, and to- 
 bacco-stripping plants? 
 
 Hygienic nature of the work 
 
 Is there anything about the occupation itself 
 that affects the eyes, nose, lungs, etc., and so, 
 from undeniable data, cuts down the age of its 
 employees? This is the case in glass-blowing and 
 cutting and in metal-polishing, except under 
 the most modern conditions. It is generally true 
 of paint factories, chemical process companies, 
 and always true in drilling and blasting coal 
 mines. 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 Moral and social conditions 
 
 Is there anything in the nature of the work 
 that is morally degrading or anti-social, or is the 
 community proud that it possesses such an in- 
 dustry and glad to publish the fact at every op- 
 portunity? Under the first head would come 
 piano-playing in dance-halls, messenger service 
 to dives and gambling-joints, waiting on table 
 or bar in all-night cafes, and service in billiard- 
 or pool-rooms. Distilleries and breweries, the 
 padrone system and company stores in mining 
 and milling plants would illustrate anti-social 
 conditions not necessarily morally degrading. 
 
 Standing of the industry with its workers 
 
 It is often enlightening to know how an in- 
 dustry appeals to the men who are employed in 
 it. Is there a rather permanent list on the pay- 
 roll, as in railroad work, jewelry-making, cut- 
 glass industries, and the finer grade of steel mills, 
 or is it continually shifting? What percentage 
 of the men drift out of the trade or shop in three, 
 six, or nine months? There is a constant shifting 
 of personnel in the millinery and barber trades; 
 but it represents for the most part a change of 
 location only and not an attitude of indifference 
 
 6 
 
SELECTING THE SCHOOL 
 
 to the trade. On the other hand, the simpler 
 processes in shoe factories and textile plants are 
 very largely performed by a transient class of 
 workers, and the canning factories are notorious 
 for having a completely new set of hands every 
 season. Such work cannot hold a very high place 
 in the estimation of these workers. 
 
 The wage factor 
 
 What percentage of the total number of em- 
 ployees is hired each year? What is the average 
 wage of a beginner without experience in any 
 trade; of a beginner with experience in some me- 
 chanical line? 
 
 Local standing 
 
 Are the men in this industry considered a civic 
 and economic asset by their fellow townsmen? 
 To work for the Gould Pump Works is to have a 
 standing in Seneca Falls; the same is true of a 
 place on the pay-rolls of La France Engine Com- 
 pany, in Elmira; likewise to hold a skilled posi- 
 tion with the Maydole Hammer Company, the 
 L. S. Starrett Company, and the Stanley Rule 
 and Level Company is to have a national stand- 
 ing as a craftsman. 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 Interpreting the above 
 
 The State or community that proposes to put 
 its stamp of approval upon the training for an 
 industry and to contribute financially to such 
 training must determine at the start that the 
 answers to the above questions are favorable 
 to the progress of the community as an economic 
 and civic imit and favorable to the young men 
 and women whose careers the community is pro- 
 posing to shape. If the answers to these ques- 
 tions are unfavorable, the community should 
 publish the fact and refuse to establish a school 
 or class preparing for such employment. 
 
 Child-employing Industries 
 
 While the foregoing facts are most important 
 from a general standpoint, it must not be forgot- 
 ten that industrial education is primarily for the 
 children of industr}^ if we may designate as 
 ^'children'' all minors up to twenty-one years of 
 age. We must therefore study especially the 
 child-emplojang industries. 
 
 What are tJiey ? 
 
 What are the child-emplo}'ing industries of 
 3^our State? Are they healthful and stimulating 
 both physically and mentally? If it was impor- 
 
 8 
 
SELECTING THE SCHOOL 
 
 tant to know this about industry in general, it is 
 many times more important to inform ourselves 
 regarding it in these cases where children are to 
 enter the industry at early ages. Whenever the 
 actual investigation shows that an industry is 
 health-breaking and brain-deadening, a com- 
 munity should refuse to train children for that 
 industry. 
 
 Children employed — number and age 
 
 The next step is to ascertain how many chil- 
 dren these industries employ, at what ages these 
 children enter upon employment, and at what 
 age most of them leave. 
 
 Are numbers excessive? 
 
 In this connection it is important to note 
 whether the children are being exploited to such 
 an extent that the numbers actually employed 
 are in excess of what naturally might be expected 
 in such a community. In many States the com- 
 pulsory education laws prevent this state of 
 affairs, but in the Southern textile mills and to- 
 bacco plants young children are employed in 
 excessively large numbers. Even in States having 
 stringent factory laws, dolls, willow plumes, and 
 artificial flowers are made in the homes by such 
 
 9 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 numbers of little children that the percentage 
 of minors employed in gainful occupations is 
 much too high. Even when the industry may 
 be found healthful and not excessively monoto- 
 nous and deadening, it may be drawing children 
 in such numbers and at such early ages that the 
 efforts of the community should be exerted to 
 check rather than increase the number of chil- 
 dren going to work. 
 
 In this case a compulsory education law may 
 be of more value to a locality than a trade school. 
 Here again a trade school for apprentices after 
 they have entered the trade v/ould be better than 
 one of lower-grade work having a tendency to 
 lead pupils into the industry. A trade school 
 not connected with apprenticeship should not 
 be established in this case unless it could be of 
 such rank as materially to increase the intelli- 
 gence of the beginner, raise the age of entrance 
 to the trade, and so cut down the influx of young 
 children into that industry. 
 
 The age problem 
 
 This will necessitate a study of the age prob- 
 lem from three sides — the actual average age 
 at which the children are now entering, the age 
 at which the employer prefers to have them enter 
 
 10 
 
SELECTING THE SCHOOL 
 
 and his reasons for the same, and the age at 
 which a child, from the standpoint of the com- 
 munity, should enter. Here again we may refer to 
 the Southern textile mills and tobacco-stripping 
 plants and to bell-boys and chore-boys for hotels 
 and boarding-houses. The employers hire the 
 youngest children available for the work because 
 they will accept the smallest pay; in actual fact 
 the children now in these Southern plants are 
 below the ages allowed by our most sensible 
 compulsory education laws; the community has 
 been shown to suffer physically, mentally, and 
 morally for its neglect of these future fathers 
 and mothers. 
 
 If the average entering age is so low that it 
 endangers the welfare of the community's chil- 
 dren and if the employer prefers to have begin- 
 ners at these early ages because of low wages, as 
 in these Southern mills, action should be taken 
 to prohibit this: and most certainly no commun- 
 ity would be justified in establishing a school 
 training these children for such industries. If 
 the entering age is too low because the employer 
 cannot obtain sufficient help without these 
 young children, or if they are put to work by 
 their parents for real or fancied financial reasons, 
 let us know whether the employer will agree to 
 
 II 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 hire more mature beginners at a higher begin- 
 ning wage if they have had special training for 
 his work. Would not their increased efficiency 
 enable him to get along without the younger 
 children? Would not the increased earning ca- 
 pacity of those at work make it possible for the 
 family to keep the others a longer period in 
 school? If it can be shown that older children 
 should be employed and would be employed at 
 proper wages if they were available, a trade 
 school may be planned to train these children 
 after they have reached a specified age, and thus 
 increase the age of entrance and the earning 
 capacity. 
 
 Length of employment 
 
 We must know also the average age at which 
 children leave their employment, to see whether 
 it is worth while to prepare them at all. It would 
 be foolish to prepare children to enter an indus- 
 try where between the average age of entrance 
 and exit there was only a difference of three 
 months, unless it can be shown that the short 
 period of service is due largely to the inability of 
 beginners to profit by the possibilities opened to 
 them. In one of the larger shoe factories in cen- 
 tral New York there is a constant change in the 
 
 12 
 
SELECTING THE SCHOOL 
 
 men employed in the cutting department; this 
 constant changing, we have already seen, is true 
 of the workers in our canning factories and of 
 those in knitting mills and mills producing low- 
 grade cotton textiles. Similar instability is found 
 among the workers on the simpler processes in 
 the making of harvesting machinery, and in one 
 instance a foundry employing three thousand 
 men reported twenty-six hundred yearly changes. 
 Where men and women are continually shifting 
 from one line of employment to another, the 
 community cannot afford to finance their voca- 
 tional training until a study of the trade shall 
 reveal that there are skilled processes requiring 
 special training which this shifting group has 
 never received and which might be expected to 
 hold them more uniformly in one industry. 
 
 In the case of the shoe factory above referred 
 to, there is ample opportunity for advancing 
 these young men to more skillful and lucrative 
 positions, but neither the firm nor its employees 
 have sufiiciently recognized this fact. In the 
 canning factories there are no more skillful and 
 lucrative positions for the workers to look for- 
 ward to, and in the foundry mentioned, the in- 
 ability of foremen to handle their men was given 
 as an important factor in causing this constant 
 
 13 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 shifting. Thus, the short term of service alone 
 cannot condemn an industry; there may be 
 other evidences of a most hopeful nature. 
 
 Opportunity in the Trade 
 
 There may be, for instance, every evidence of 
 neglected opportunities. For this reason where 
 it can be shown that a reasonable percentage of 
 children are actually employed and these at 
 ages agreeable to the community's standpoint, 
 the establishment and nature of the school will 
 depend, not only upon the length of service dis- 
 closed, but also upon the opportunities offered 
 for advancement. Thus, in the machine trades 
 and in printing, in our Northern woolen mills, 
 and in our electric light plants, the age of en- 
 trance upon employment is uniformly high 
 enough to satisfy any community, kept so either 
 by the employers or trade unions or by the na- 
 ture of the work. In the cases of machine in- 
 dustries and printing, however, the opportuni- 
 ties of advancement through mechanical skill 
 are larger than in the other two cases, because 
 the gradation of work is more uniform and the 
 sequence more definite. We must, therefore, 
 know first that the nature of the work is com- 
 patible with a much longer term of service, 
 
 14 
 
SELECTING THE SCHOOL 
 
 and, secondly, that if we prepare the child for 
 this longer term there will be a constant possi- 
 bility of advancement. For this purpose let us 
 suppose ourselves considering one great child- 
 employing industry. 
 
 Are skilled processes ahead? 
 
 Are there skilled processes beyond those ele- 
 mentary ones the children are doing? This is 
 true of all the well-regulated trades offering ap- 
 prenticeship instruction, such as those of the 
 machinist, carpenter, electrician, and printer. 
 If our investigation of this question shows that 
 the employment is of the '' blind-alley" type, 
 in which two or three weeks, or even less, suffices 
 to master all the technical training and skill that 
 can be employed in the work, — which is true 
 of about eighty-five per cent of the paper-box- 
 making industry and of about an equal percent- 
 age of the machine work in shirt and collar fac- 
 tories and in laundries, — it is evident that no 
 trade training at pubfic expense should be pro- 
 vided. If the advanced processes of the work are 
 so simple in nature that all the knowledge and 
 skill needed can be picked up in the trade itself 
 with what little assistance can be given by a 
 foreman, which is possible in plants working on 
 
 IS 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 white goods, in power sewing, straw-hat sewing, 
 and underwear knitting, it is then inadvisable 
 to use public funds for training workers to enter 
 this industry. If the amount of technical infor- 
 mation is small and can be learned with little 
 or no instruction and the required skill is of 
 suiEciently low grade to be supplied by the in- 
 dustry itself, either on the shop floor or in shop 
 apprenticeship classes of short-unit type, as in 
 the simpler processes of shoemaking and glove- 
 making and in machine-tending, it is inadvis- 
 able to train children for this work in publicly 
 supported schools. It is in industries of this type 
 that the shifting factor is most prominent. 
 
 Other training possible 
 
 In these cases, where direct trade training is 
 refused, some other form of instruction might be 
 offered, such as general education in evening 
 schools, training for a better occupation, or for 
 a change of occupation in the same plant, which 
 are discussed later on in this book. 
 
 Fitting the apprentice for advancement 
 
 If it can be shown that there are advanced 
 processes in the industry and that they require 
 skill of high degree and technical information of 
 
 i6 
 
SELECTING THE SCHOOL 
 
 special nature, then it is our business to find out 
 whether the work that is assigned to children is 
 fitting them in any way to advance and master 
 these higher processes and whether they really do 
 so under present conditions. In the case of the 
 well-regulated trades cited above, this might or 
 might not be true, depending upon whether the 
 apprentices were given a series of jobs in rota- 
 tion or kept on one type or piece of work. At 
 one time the Lehigh Valley Railroad started all 
 its apprentices in a shacking department, which 
 had no direct bearing on their future apprentice- 
 ship, and though it may have contributed to their 
 general training, it was the cause of much falling 
 off and shifting on the part of beginners. The 
 Fore River Shipbuilding Company, on the other 
 hand, has had for some years a carefully planned 
 system of apprentice rotation, which not only 
 assures each man a general experience, but sup- 
 plements a classroom course in the technical side 
 of the work. 
 
 It is possible to arrange the apprenticeship 
 work in all high skilled industries so as to pro- 
 vide such successive advancement as just re- 
 ferred to. If it is not provided, it is our business 
 to see that it is provided before the public is 
 taxed to assist in the training of its apprentices. 
 
 17 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 We must know whether a beginner is kept on 
 piece work or moved from one operation to an- 
 other; whether the learner is watched and ad- 
 vanced from one class of work to another accord- 
 ing to the ability displayed. The first \sdll be 
 found the case in the large automobile shops, in 
 specialized plants like those producing machine 
 chucks, and generally in furniture factories, sash, 
 door, and blind factories, and plants of that 
 nature. On the other hand, a careful supervision 
 of apprentices is maintained in the American 
 Locomotive Works, the General Electric Com- 
 pany, the Brown and Sharpe Manufacturing 
 Company and in the Filene Stores in Boston. 
 In a pattern shop, where several simple patterns 
 are in constant demand, would a young appren- 
 tice be kept sLx months repeating these patterns 
 because he could do so rapidly and profitably 
 to the firm, or would the foreman observe when 
 he had reached suflScient accuracy and speed on 
 these elementary patterns and then permit him 
 to attempt others involving new processes? 
 Would a girl in a dressmaking shop be kept al- 
 ways on skirts because she had speed at that 
 work, or would she be permitted to learn the 
 setting-in of sleeves, even though it entailed some 
 loss of time at the start? This depends alto- 
 
 i8 
 
SELECTING THE SCHOOL 
 
 gether too much at the present time on the size 
 of the plant. In a small shop empio\-ing a few 
 girls, the different branches of the trade may be 
 learned by one girl but in large establishments 
 it is quite impossible without a change of em- 
 ployer or a ver\* great sacrince in wages. A 
 graduate of the State College for Teachers at 
 Albany, who had completed a two years' course 
 in dressmaking, entered a local dressmaking es- 
 tablishment in order to acquire conmiercial ex- 
 perience. She was unable at any time during a 
 year to get any instruction in fitting or even to 
 enter the fitting-room, partly through jealousy 
 of the technique and partly because she was an 
 adept at fine hand-sewing and it was desirable 
 to keep her at that work. There is very little 
 educational or trade profit to a beginner who 
 remains for weeks upon any specialized branch of 
 a trade, and it behoo\*es us at once to investigate 
 the causes that have brought about such a gen- 
 eral misuse of the apprenticeship years. 
 
 // not adffomced, wky natf 
 
 If the apprentices are kept upon this kind of 
 piece wock, is it due to something in the nature 
 ol the woik or to some attitude on the part of 
 the employer that will pre\-ent a change in this 
 
 19 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCH00L3 
 
 method if the beginners are trained; or is it due 
 to the fact that proper training for advance- 
 ment is not offered in the shop or outside of it? 
 This is one of the most important questions to 
 be determined : it is a mighty stumbling-block in 
 the way of trade education where the answer as 
 to the employer's attitude is unfavorable. In 
 the dressmaking example cited above, the ap- 
 prentice's difficulties came more largely from 
 the employer's attitude than from any expedi- 
 ency of the shop, although the latter was an 
 important factor. During one of the national 
 meetings of the Society for the Promotion of 
 Industrial Education, a man of wide intelligence, 
 a large employer of labor, and a man of financial 
 standing frankly and publicly placed himself on 
 record as opposed to hiring in his plant any 
 young man who would not be willing to learn 
 the manipulation of one machine, acquire skill 
 and speed in that one partial process, and then 
 remain at that job indefinitely without seeking 
 continually to change around and learn other 
 parts of the work. In a great furniture factory 
 where everything is specialized, this method of 
 production seems indispensable to the employer: 
 as a business proposition alone it cannot seem 
 otherwise to him; but the State is concerned first 
 
 20 
 
SELECTING THE SCHOOL 
 
 for its citizens, not for mechanical systems, and 
 to begin an apprentice on such work and keep 
 him always on the same work, cannot result 
 otherwise than in a citizenship inferior in ca- 
 pacity, narrow in outlook, and excessive in its 
 effort to find recreative reaction. 
 
 Apprentice vs, adult 
 
 An adult citizen, broadly trained in his ap- 
 prenticeship days, capable of a general apprecia- 
 tion of the industry in which he is employed, 
 working not more than nine hours a day, may, 
 without serious injury to himself or his com- 
 munity, be kept on intensive piece work: but a 
 learner cannot grow in such a task. 
 
 Employer creates a ^^ blind alley ^^ 
 
 The first instance, where the employer refuses to 
 do his part, or for a real or fancied reason main- 
 tains that the nature of the work will not permit 
 a change, is similar to the blind-alley employment 
 and should not be supported by the public. 
 
 Shall we train inside or outside the Shop ? 
 
 In the second case, where training is possible 
 but not offered, let us determine, first, whether 
 we can provide proper training in both skill and 
 
 21 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 technical information inside the shop and do it 
 effectively and economically, or whether it is 
 advisable to provide a school outside the shop 
 to give apprentices instruction in one or both of 
 these lines of work. In other words, assuming 
 that the industry has advanced processes re- 
 quiring training of special nature, is there a real 
 need for a separate school at public expense to 
 provide this training? If the industry is so or- 
 ganized that it cannot properly give this train- 
 ing within itself and in its regular activities, 
 then it must be given outside the industry or at 
 least outside the regular work of the industry. 
 
 Training within the industry 
 
 To answer intelligently whether or not an in- 
 dustry made up of both elementary and ad- 
 vanced processes is offering within itself all the 
 opportunities for training that are needed under 
 present conditions, it will be necessary for us to 
 turn again to the collection of facts. Let us 
 know first how many of the children formerly 
 employed in the elementary processes have re- 
 mained in the industry in advanced positions. 
 What percentage of the total number of em- 
 ployees are considered as holding advanced posi- 
 tions? What is the scale of wages, beginning at 
 
 22 
 
SELECTING THE SCHOOL 
 
 the bottom and running to the highest paid 
 operators and foremen, and how many men and 
 women employed continuously for ten years are 
 now drawing low wages as against the same 
 class drawing high wages? We must also find 
 out how long these operatives have held their 
 positions without being advanced in their work, 
 whether they have risen through increased skill 
 or through general knowledge of the processes 
 of the industry and how many have not ad- 
 vanced at all. 
 
 Large number advanced 
 
 If a large number of beginners have ad- 
 vanced to places of importance, this may indi- 
 cate that the industry is itself affording all the 
 training necessary, that no outside training is 
 required; or it may indicate that a splendid 
 opportunity for supplementary training is being 
 neglected. The question is, How long has it taken 
 them to advance to these better places and how 
 many have failed to succeed? Thus, we find in 
 the case of instrument-makers that the work is 
 very largely dependent upon superior skill, that 
 the business offers every opportunity for acquir- 
 ing this skill, and that the employees of such 
 firms as Bausch and Lomb, in Rochester, often 
 
 23 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 have records of service exceeding thirty years. 
 We find also that these long-term employees 
 mostly hold highly paid positions implying skill 
 or responsibility and that their promotions have 
 been steady and systematic. Whatever might 
 be the advantages of a public trade school to give 
 instruction in the science and theory of optical 
 work, it is practically certain that no such school 
 is needed to train in mechanical skill for the 
 optical work done by this firm. 
 
 Large advance hut slow 
 
 For telegraph operators, railroad freight agents, 
 express messengers, and postal clerks there is a 
 large and very general advancement, and the 
 man who remains long enough usually arrives 
 at a very good position; but the rise is unrea- 
 sonably slow. These employees, if denied any 
 outside instruction and left dependent upon the 
 daily routine of business, would seldom rise to 
 any distinctive positions, and where they did, 
 would do so after many wasted years of labor. 
 This line of business offers large advancement, 
 but it does not offer within itseff all the instruc- 
 tion needed to secure this advancement. Where 
 the rise is assured, but has been slow, where it is 
 due to skill and technical information not fully 
 
 24 
 
SELECTING THE SCHOOL 
 
 provided in the day's work, we can accelerate 
 it by training given in part-time and evening 
 schools. This training should bear especially 
 upon the points that experience shows are most 
 difficult to acquire in the trade work itself. 
 
 Small number highly skilled 
 
 Long records of service are still found in some 
 of our American watch factories, but in this case 
 they represent former rather than existing con- 
 ditions. To-day the majority of the employees 
 working in the watch-making factories are un- 
 skilled girls and women who cannot advance to 
 the best-paying positions except through un- 
 reasonably long years of service, and even then 
 in but a few instances. This industry at the 
 present time appears to be satisfying its own 
 needs as regards training in skill. This is because 
 the low-skilled operatives either drop out after 
 a few years or content themselves with long 
 years of service at simple operations and com- 
 paratively small pay. Training in skill is cer- 
 tainly needed here, but it can undoubtedly be 
 given to sufficient numbers by reorganizing the 
 work of beginners, and a public trade school is a 
 doubtful need, inasmuch as so few employees can 
 be advanced to really highly skilled work. 
 
 25 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 Our attention may here be turned to some 
 shorter and less expensive method of publicly 
 supported training for these people. For ex- 
 ample, if investigation shows that a very small 
 percentage of those remaining in the industry 
 after ten years are holding places of importance 
 and skill, due to the fact that the upper positions 
 are relatively few in number, or because there is 
 something in the nature of these positions that 
 makes it impossible to rise from the ranks except 
 in extreme cases of genius, a community may 
 feel justified in offering short unit evening 
 courses or day continuation classes to assist the 
 operatives as far as they can be assisted to the 
 small advancement offered. Another example 
 of this is seen in the overall-making industry. 
 The work is not highly skilled, advancement is 
 limited, and where there is one woman holding 
 a position of responsibility there may be several 
 hundred, many just as capable, who cannot 
 advance because no positions are open. Again 
 in the stained-glass industry there are certain 
 processes dependent upon manipulative skill 
 that offer limited advancement to boys and men, 
 but comparatively few can reach the highest- 
 paid positions because they are so largely depend- 
 ent upon native artistic sense. Compare these 
 
 26 
 
SELECTING THE SCHOOL 
 
 with the machinists' trade, where the highest- 
 paid work is within the reach of any normally 
 endowed beginner who is assured proper train- 
 ing and is willing to work. In a case like the first 
 one, the short course may be given or it may be 
 possible to fit these em^ployees for some other 
 industry offering better opportunities of ad- 
 vancement. This phase of the question is dis- 
 cussed further along in this chapter. 
 
 The foregoing examples assume that, whether 
 promoted to positions of importance or not, the 
 beginners remain in the industry. We shall now 
 consider cases where the industrial mortality 
 plays an important part. 
 
 Apprentice mortality 
 
 If a large number of beginners leave the in- 
 dustry in a few months, it probably indicates 
 that they are receiving a low wage. This may be 
 due to the fact that they are kept in low-skilled 
 occupations and not permitted to advance, al- 
 though as a rule this very repetition of process 
 increases the wage, but curtails the prospect of 
 advancement. It may be due to the fact that 
 beginners are being trained for advancement and 
 thus their immediate earning power is less than 
 when no training is given. This latter is true in 
 
 27 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 the great railroad systems which conduct schools 
 for apprentice training and of other concerns 
 like the General Electric Company and Fore 
 River Shipbuilding Company. 
 
 If a large number of operatives are leaving 
 because no opportunity is offered for advance- 
 ment, or if a large percentage are remaining, 
 but remaining in low-skilled processes because 
 of higher wages, and if in this industry there are 
 highly skilled places to be filled, then the need 
 of a trade school is evident. Where operatives 
 are leaving to seek better wages and thereby 
 neglecting proffered opportunities of training in 
 the industry itself, it will probably be better to 
 organize a specific class in the shop or factory, 
 give it public support, and publish its oppor- 
 tunities than to organize an outside trade school. 
 This throws the emphasis upon the advantages 
 of that particular trade rather than upon the 
 advantages of the school, which acts somewhat 
 as a means of vocational guidance. In many 
 cases it will be more efficient and more economi- 
 cal than the detached class and it will further 
 place the influence and support of the public 
 behind those employers who are willing to offer 
 proper opportunities for training to their young 
 workers. A community may well give serious 
 
 28 
 
SELECTING THE SCHOOL 
 
 consideration to any plan that gives promise of 
 holding apprentices to a fixed trade. It is charac- 
 teristic of American trade beginners to enter 
 several trades one after the other, leaving them 
 all unlearned, to settle at last upon some other 
 trade or business. Occasionally this represents 
 a real effort to find one's place in industry, but 
 usually it is prompted by discontent, craving for 
 change, and lack of foresight, all of which are 
 fostered and encouraged by the lack of a definite 
 and connected course of training which every 
 apprentice must start the day he begins work in 
 a new line or occupation. 
 
 The nature of the work 
 
 Independent of the fact of whether an indus- 
 try is or is not now offering within itself the 
 training and instruction needed by young appren- 
 tices, the question must arise whether there is 
 anything in the nature of the work that will per- 
 mit or prohibit its arrangement to provide this 
 training if the employers desire to do so. First, 
 can we provide both skill and technical infor- 
 mation? It would be entirely possible to do this 
 in the regular work in the case of furniture- 
 making. The plumbers and the carpenters could 
 give the entire training in skill and theory in 
 
 29 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 the course of the daily work if it were necessary 
 to do so, but the advancement of apprentices 
 can be very much accelerated by forming classes 
 out of working hours and giving special training 
 in drawing, blue-print making, arithmetic, and 
 building science. 
 
 Can we give skill alone ? 
 
 Training is readily given so far as skill is con- 
 cerned in such cases as printing, painting, and 
 paper-hanging. The tinsmith, the boilermaker, 
 and enamel-ware workers can best acquire skill 
 in the regular commercial job. The one indis- 
 pensable condition is that the instructor shall 
 be a thorough tradesman, familiar with the 
 handling of young men and capable of doing 
 carefully planned and connected teaching. In 
 trades like these it will be far better to offer 
 special outside courses in the technical knowl- 
 edge needed for advancement. 
 
 In some cases even skill cannot be oJBfered 
 entirely in the trade work. 
 
 Must skill be given outside ? 
 
 Thus, the organization of plants for bleaching 
 and dyeing would ordinarily include complete 
 chemical laboratory facilities, in which training 
 
 30 
 
SELECTING THE SCHOOL 
 
 in all the elementary principles of the chemis- 
 try of bleaching and dyeing could be given if 
 desired. On the other hand, the organization of a 
 textile mill would not include adequate facilities 
 for teaching the chemistry of textiles, although 
 it would afford ample opportunity for training 
 the apprentices in the preparation, mixing, and 
 use of dyestuffs as applied to the work of that 
 particular mill. In the first instance it would be 
 foolish to establish a separate school for the in- 
 struction in chemistry: in the second instance, 
 with few exceptions, it would be necessary to 
 provide a separate laboratory for instruction in 
 textile chemistry. Lastly, such an industry as 
 the Solvay Process Company, near Syracuse, 
 New York, has found it practically impossible 
 to give satisfactory training to its apprentices 
 while they are engaged in their regular work, 
 and has for some years conducted a separate 
 school to aid in their instruction. 
 
 Is general knowledge required? 
 
 In many cases neither skill nor technical knowl- 
 edge plays the most important part in determin- 
 ing the advancement of employees. General trade 
 knowledge, at best not more than semi-technical, 
 is often required for responsible positions, 
 
 31 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 If advancement is due to a general knowledge 
 of the industry, which is true wherever the busi- 
 ness is a distributing agency rather than a pro- 
 ducing agency, or a combination of both, such 
 as the Fairbanks Company, we can certainly 
 hasten it by teaching the theory in special classes 
 for that purpose and organizing a course in the 
 actual practice, to be given in the shop or fac- 
 tory or salesroom during working hours. If the 
 industry is experiencing a lack of well-paid oper- 
 atives for higher processes and this is due to 
 inability to hold the beginners in the industry 
 or inability to train sufficient numbers of those 
 whom they hold, the indications all point to the 
 possibility of great good from some form of pub- 
 licly supported trade instruction. 
 
 Training for foremanship 
 
 The last paragraph suggests to us the impor- 
 tance of knowing whether the industry under 
 consideration finds difficulty in getting opera- 
 tives for its highest-paid positions. This is true 
 of structural-iron workers. It is the case in de- 
 partment-store work, and less than two years 
 ago President Vail, of the American Telephone 
 and Telegraph Company, stated that he would 
 gladly employ twenty-five men at ten thousand 
 
 32 
 
SELECTING THE SCHOOL 
 
 dollars a year each, if he could find men in his 
 business who were capable of earning those sala- 
 ries. Such a statement shows us at once that it 
 may not be only a question of filling such posi- 
 tions as require extra skilled men; but it may 
 reach also to the positions of foreman, assist- 
 ant superintendent, and even superintendent 
 or general manager. These latter cases are es- 
 pecially difficult, inasmuch as they cannot be 
 filled by normal advancement from the ranks. 
 
 Where such difficulty is experienced, it is usu- 
 ally possible to form a class of picked employees 
 and, by carefully restricting the personnel of 
 the class, make a successful effort to train es- 
 pecially for the duties of foreman and superin- 
 tendent. Thus, where a large number of for- 
 eigners are employed in street-pavement work 
 there is not sufficient content in the work of the 
 average laborer to justify a publicly supported 
 school for this trade; but a carefully selected 
 group might well be trained in the fundamental 
 principles of the trade, with the direct intention 
 of fitting these men as section bosses and gang 
 foremen. Later, some of these men might be 
 expected to go of their own volition to a more 
 advanced school where they could find training 
 in the elementary engineering branches that 
 
 33 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 would enable them to become job foremen and 
 contractors. This suggests the whole question 
 of training for foremanship and superintendency. 
 In foreign countries, especially Germany, the 
 day-school work in industrial lines and technical 
 branches below the engineering grade is almost 
 exclusively given over to the preparation of 
 foremen or mechanics of particularly high skill. 
 The Sunday morning schools for apprentices 
 and journeymen are the only exceptions to this 
 in Prussia, and so carefully are the courses and 
 students selected for the other day work that, 
 whereas Hamburg has 3520 students enrolled 
 in its evening classes of all grades of industrial 
 work, there are only 186 registered in the regu- 
 lar day-school trade classes exclusive of Sunday. 
 Moreover, this day work is entirely optional and 
 elective, very little effort is made to advertise 
 it, contrary to the custom with evening classes, 
 and the entire conduct of the schools is based 
 upon the principle that those men who are men- 
 tally and physically qualified for positions of 
 trust and importance will see the value and need 
 of special training and be willing to sacrifice the 
 time necessary for electing one of the advanced 
 day courses. It has always appealed to me that 
 one of the great, if not the greatest, province of 
 
 34 
 
SELECTING THE SCHOOL 
 
 the industrial day school was this fitting of a self- 
 elected and school-selected group of superior men 
 and women for places in the forefront of their 
 industry, leaving the continuation day school, 
 the evening school, and the short-unit course 
 to handle the bulk of the lower-grade work. 
 Thus in any of the instances cited thus far in 
 our study of a particular industry, whether it 
 ojffers advancement from the ranks or not, so 
 long as it is not morally degrading or physically 
 dangerous, we may be justified in attempting to 
 register a superior but small group of ambitious 
 workers and train them for efficiency in directive 
 capacity. This we may do even where we have 
 previously decided that it was not the duty of 
 the community to oiBfer general training to the 
 personnel of the trade. 
 
 In respect to creative ability all men are not 
 created equal, despite the fact that American tra- 
 dition has led many to believe they are. There is 
 a danger that the enthusiast in industrial educa- 
 tion will overlook the greatest factor in indus- 
 trial progress, the unequal man. Not unequal 
 because of inferiority, but by superiority. It is al- 
 ways the unequal man who creates; the others are 
 intelligent or unintelligent accepters. The clas- 
 sical traditions of education have grouped them- 
 
 35 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 selves around the unequal man and have left the 
 masses to accept or not as chance might decree. 
 Industrial education, which is the outcome of 
 a sharp reaction against the selfishness of class 
 education, thinks first of the masses, as it should, 
 but it must not neglect those who are by nature 
 selected to be leaders. It is the duty of present- 
 day education to select and train those who are 
 to create, in order that a new and higher stand- 
 ard may always be presenting itself, and then 
 to aJBford a mass education that will insure the 
 ability of the great working class to accept and 
 make intelligent use of these higher standards. 
 Through this process, of the group rising to the 
 new level set by the unequal man, has come all 
 human progress. 
 
 The Allied Industries 
 
 Returning now to our direct inquiry, we must 
 determine next whether there is a group of allied 
 industries closely connected with our main in- 
 dustry. Thus collar-making has connected with 
 it paper-box factories, printing-shops, laundries, 
 and advertising agencies; paper-making plants 
 often own their own forests; refrigerating plants, 
 fertilizer factories, car building and repair shops 
 and transportation agencies are all allied to the 
 
 36 
 
SELECTING THE SCHOOL 
 
 meat-packing business as a central industry. 
 Chemical and drug manufacturers employ paint- 
 ers, glaziers, varnishers, and oil refiners. 
 
 Are the children and young workers being 
 fitted for any of the allied groups? How many of 
 them are retained as workers in these allied 
 trades? It is not at all uncommon to find grouped 
 around some great industry, which in itself offers 
 only low-skilled occupation to the worker and 
 no opportunity for advancement, several smaller 
 industries or trades dependent upon it, and re- 
 quiring more skill and personal talent than the 
 main industry itself. Thus, printing has litho- 
 graphing, book-binding, and engraving; carriage 
 and automobile firms have painting, upholster- 
 ing, and decorating; all mills and factories have 
 skilled repair men, and nearly all plants where 
 assembling parts is the main feature are depend- 
 ent upon a larger number of allied or semi-allied 
 trades requiring more skill than the central plant. 
 Having refused public support to training for the 
 larger industry, we may find that these allied 
 industries offer an outlet for some of the workers 
 in our treadmill processes, if an opportunity be 
 given them to prepare for this new work. If one 
 or more of these trades find difficulty in securing 
 men and women competent to do their work, if 
 
 37 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 no effort has been made to select and transfer to 
 or otherwise fit for any of these allied processes, 
 a school or class might well be started to prepare 
 the workers in one branch to fill these more de- 
 sirable places in the smaller branches. 
 
 Industries for adult beginners 
 
 Again, we must know whether there are any 
 industries that require adults as beginners and 
 from what source they draw their supply of 
 workers. Do they want untrained beginners in 
 these industries? Do the left-overs from our first 
 industry go into these trades when they are old 
 enough? How many of them? Do they make 
 better workmen because of their apprentice- 
 ship in the first industry or is it valueless and 
 even a handicap to them? An apprentice boy 
 cannot become a fireman, a policeman, a motor- 
 man, or a stationary engineer. Where do the men 
 come from who fill these positions? Running an 
 elevator might be some help to the boy who later 
 becomes an engineer or a motorman, but it would 
 not help him to discharge the duties of a police- 
 man. If he wished to become a policeman and 
 intended to become a policeman, is there any job 
 open to him as a boy that will aid him in prepar- 
 ing for the duties of a policeman? Have we 
 
 38 
 
SELECTING THE SCHOOL 
 
 some industries that take children into an ap- 
 prenticeship ofifering good opportunities, but de- 
 mand them before a certain age and untrained, 
 thus closing the doors to those who have already- 
 served in our first industry? The maximum age 
 limit for apprentices is fixed at eighteen years by 
 the Brotherhood of Bookbinders and by Journey- 
 men Stone Cutters. 
 
 An industry that requires adults as beginners 
 is always short of help unless it be for common 
 day labor: if there is no opportunity for advance- 
 ment in our main industry, if there are no allied 
 industries open to them, we may yet find it ad- 
 visable to select a group and prepare them for 
 one of these industries that require age and ma- 
 turity. There are positions on the railroads, for 
 instance, that cannot be filled by minors or ap- 
 prentices, and yet the training for them is usually 
 a long and tedious process undertaken by the 
 man when he enters the railroad employ after 
 working six or seven years at some employment 
 that was simply a blind alley. A careful survey of 
 such industries as this should be taken into con- 
 sideration whenever a large number of workers 
 in blind-alley or no-prospect industries have been 
 left out of our industrial scheme, because their 
 business offered nothing for which to be fitted. 
 
 39 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 Vocational guidance 
 
 In cases where industries having opportunities 
 and apprenticeship refuse to accept the overflow 
 from our blind-alley occupations, a State-wide 
 department of vocational guidance, able and will- 
 ing to give wide publicity in specific and concrete 
 form to the advantages and disadvantages of the 
 various lines of work offered beginners, by thus 
 pointing out at the start the desirable and unde- 
 sirable jobs and the proper time for selecting the 
 former, will do these workers in bhnd-alley trades 
 more good than any system of trade schools that 
 can be devised. 
 
 The natural tendency of the young worker is to 
 look for a job with good pay in the near future, 
 and to reject places with lower pay at the begin- 
 ning, but higher wages at the top. The workers 
 in positions of the first type should be stimulated 
 to prepare themselves for industries with long 
 processes and lower pay, but leading to perma- 
 nent and satisfactory wages after the years of 
 apprenticeship. 
 
 Right here let us find out what becomes of the 
 other children that pass out every year from our 
 industries which offer work of the simplest kind 
 at the lowest wages, the children that we have 
 
 40 
 
SELECTING THE SCHOOL 
 
 not and cannot find a place for in any of our fore- 
 going planning. Do they go into unskilled trades? 
 What trades? What percentage of them are suc- 
 cessful from the community's viewpoint? Have 
 they any information to guide them in selecting 
 another job? Did they ever think of this while 
 applying for or working in their former places? 
 Here is where the bureau of vocational guidance 
 and the department of trade training touch each 
 other closely. Some of these " unskilled '^ occu- 
 pations are very desirable in certain localities. 
 It may be well even to go so far as to start short 
 courses in training for the general principles of 
 some of these occupations, whereas others will 
 prove most uninviting. Lectures and pamphlets, 
 backed by investigation, can be given to young 
 workers to open their eyes to the blind alley they 
 are already in, and assist them in making a sen- 
 sible choice for the future, whether they go into 
 a trade school to prepare for some skilled trade or 
 enter directly upon one of the so-called unskilled 
 but lucrative occupations. I am personally ac- 
 quainted with a man who has a large yearly in- 
 come from the collection of flag in our swamps 
 and who was led into this business by reading a 
 pamphlet sent out by some society for agricul- 
 tural promotion. 
 
 4X 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 This State-wide publicity will have other bene- 
 ficial effects. It will not only aid us in *^ fitting 
 the man to his job," but it will help most effect- 
 ively in "fitting the job to the man." What effect 
 do you think it would have upon the "place of 
 work" in your State, if a fearless but absolutely 
 fair report should be distributed among its work- 
 men, containing the names of plants and indus- 
 tries where the surroundings were dangerous and 
 unhealthful, due to a lack of remedial effort, and 
 so warning parents against allowing their chil- 
 dren to enter these places in search of work? 
 Even where by nature the work was dangerous, 
 an improvement in safety appliances, ventila- 
 tion, etc., would be sure to follow such publicity, 
 and at least the worker entering the industry 
 would do so with full knowledge of the dangers 
 included and the means of avoiding them which 
 he should expect to find in use. 
 
II 
 
 MAKING THE SURVEY 
 
 As the reader has very possibly discovered before 
 this, the collection of the various facts and answers 
 called for in the foregoing pages constitutes noth- 
 ing more or less than a survey, an industrial and 
 educational community survey. 
 
 Two Aspects of the Survey 
 
 An industrial survey of a community is an or- 
 ganized and systematically conducted study of 
 the local industries, to ascertain the advisability 
 and the possibility of training beginners to enter 
 these industries or assisting those already at work 
 to increase their trade and technical knowledge. 
 
 An educational survey is a similar study of the 
 existing schools and educational institutions of the 
 community, to find out in what measure they are 
 at present offering the general, technical, or trade 
 training called for in the industrial survey, and 
 also the possibilities for reorganization and addi- 
 tions which will enable the existing institutions 
 to supply these demands. 
 
 43 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 From a combination of these two surveys the 
 director and his staff can present a complete re- 
 port of industrial and trade needs of the locality 
 — what part of these needs are being and can be 
 provided for in the regular educational system, 
 just what needs must be provided for outside of 
 the present local educational institutions, and 
 finally, where and how these latter needs are to 
 be taken care of most advantageously. 
 
 The success of the survey will depend first of 
 all upon the personality, experience, and fidelity 
 of the director and his assistants. It is mani- 
 festly impossible to lay out any program, of pro- 
 cedure that will insure these requisites, but it 
 may be urged that great care be exercised to 
 select persons who are familiar with and in sym- 
 pathy with the four great general lines of activi- 
 ties that must be considered, namely, those of 
 the educator, employer, employee, and trade 
 unionist. Some member of the director's staflF 
 should have survey experience, especially along 
 the lines of statistical classification and interpre- 
 tation, and one or more of them should have ex- 
 perience or have thoroughly studied the science 
 of preparing and presenting a survey report. 
 
 Aside from the foregoing, the success of the 
 survey will depend in large measure upon the 
 
 44 
 
MAKING THE SURVEY 
 
 organization and plan of the work to be done. 
 A perfectly clear and definite outline must be 
 evolved. Its parts must be classified, the points 
 sought must be grouped in some logical order, the 
 exact reason for each step must be clear, the as- 
 signments must be definite and the time, place, 
 and manner of returning each sub-report must be 
 specified. The reception, classification, and re- 
 cording of these reports must be provided for, 
 consultations between workers must be arranged, 
 and follow-up questions to clear foggy issues 
 must be included in the general scheme. More 
 important still, arrangements and agreements 
 must be made beforehand with the employers 
 and employees of the industries and particular 
 plants to be studied, insuring their permission for 
 and cooperation in the work of the survey mem- 
 bers and accurate and ample figures and facts 
 upon which to base conclusions. 
 
 The Industrial Survey 
 
 To illustrate the method, care, and precision 
 with which such a survey should be laid out, I 
 cannot do better than to present here a brief out- 
 line of the industrial survey conducted by Mr. 
 Prosser and his assistants in the city of Minne- 
 apolis: — 
 
 45 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 The survey material 
 
 Various agencies cooperating to make the survey a 
 success and the part of each 
 
 1. The Survey Organization. 
 
 Director and assistants: Lays out and con- 
 ducts the actual field work; receipt and classi- 
 fication of statistics and facts and most of the 
 interpretation of the same. 
 
 2. The Local Survey Committee. 
 
 Business men and educators of Minneapolis. 
 General advisory with some personal assistance. 
 
 3. National Society for the Promotion of Indus- 
 
 trial Education. 
 
 Starts the survey through its secretary, who 
 is director of the survey, contributes personal 
 assistance through other oflScers, and gives 
 publicity and assistance through its influence, 
 publications, and conventions. 
 
 4. University of Minnesota. 
 
 Details a committee to conduct a special 
 study of commercial education under direction 
 of a special investigator. Agricultural school of 
 the University details one woman and twelve 
 to fifteen girls to study training of home work- 
 ers. Clerical force provided by University Re- 
 search Bureau and volunteer students of sum- 
 mer school. Group of students to make a study 
 of the facts for purposes of Industrial education 
 in Minnesota. 
 
 46 
 
MAKING THE SURVEY 
 
 Minnesota Department of Labor. 
 
 Details employee to assist in the study of 
 commercial work. Supplies the services and 
 pays all expenses for studying the following 
 points: — 
 
 Statistical information for 1914 report. 
 Irregularity of employment and seasonal 
 
 trades. 
 Trade unionism's part in trade organiza- 
 tion. 
 Correspondence school instruction. 
 Number employed in each occupation for 
 
 each industry. 
 Apprenticeship and training of young work- 
 ers. 
 Special firms and their specialties. 
 Handling information from inquiries on 
 question of further training for workers. 
 Minneapolis Civic and Commerce Association* 
 Contributes material of its 1914 survey. 
 Assistance given by the director of the for- 
 mer survey regarding schedules, etc, 
 Minneapolis Board of Education. 
 Contributes $3500. 
 Gives services of attendance officer three 
 
 days each week. 
 Contributes part time of other officials. 
 Vocational Guidance Bureau gives assistance. 
 Dunwoody Institute. 
 Contributes $3500. 
 
 47 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 Principal of the school assists the director. 
 Makes study of "noncommissioned officers 
 
 of industry/' 
 Makes study of apprenticeship training. 
 
 Classification of all occupations in Minneapolis 
 
 Here follows a general classification of the in- 
 dustries into nine large groups with the total 
 number of employees in each group. The groups 
 are: — 
 
 1. Manufacturing and Mechanical Industries. 
 
 2. Trade and Commerce. 
 
 3. Domestic and Personal Service. 
 
 4. Transportation. 
 
 5. Clerical Occupations. 
 
 6. Professional Service. 
 
 7. Public Service not elsewhere specified. 
 
 8. Agriculture — Forestry and Animal Husbandry. 
 
 9. Extraction of Minerals. 
 
 Occupations not to he considered 
 
 Certain occupations that it has been decided 
 not to deal with are next tabulated as fol- 
 lows: — 
 
 Transportation, Professional Service. 
 Public Service, Agriculture, etc. 
 Extraction of Minerals. 
 
 48, 
 
MAKING THE SURVEY 
 
 Groups that will he studied 
 
 Those of the groups that will be studied are 
 then listed, with notes concerning the nature and 
 extent of the work to be allotted to each. A few 
 examples will sufi&ce to illustrate this: — 
 
 A. Manufacturing and Mechanical Industries 
 . will be most thoroughly investigated. 
 
 B. Domestic and Personal Service will be covered 
 as far as possible by the woman in charge of 
 the study of "women's work.'' 
 
 C. It will be attempted to have a study of Com- 
 mercial Training for clerical occupations made 
 by some outside agency cooperating with the 
 survey, as the cost, approximately $1200, can- 
 not be met by the funds available for the sur- 
 vey. 
 
 And so on. 
 
 Subdivimns under general occupations 
 
 The director proceeds next to divide the gen- 
 eral occupations into specific industries with sta- 
 tistics regarding the workers in each separate 
 industry. The first general heading is, naturally, 
 "Manufacturing and Mechanical Industries," 
 and it is subdivided into fifteen subheadings as 
 follows: — 
 
 49 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 1. Building Trades. 
 
 2. Clothing. 
 
 3. Lumber and Furni- 
 ture. 
 
 4. Chemical and Drug. 
 
 5. Textile. 
 
 6. Clay, Glass, and Stone. 
 
 7. Liquor and Beverage. 
 
 8. Metal Industries. 
 
 9. Supervisors and Tech- 
 nicians. 
 
 10. Food and Grain. 
 
 11. Printing and Engrav- 
 ing. 
 
 12. Boots, Shoes, and 
 Leather. 
 
 13. Tobacco. 
 
 14. Jewelry. 
 
 15. All other industries. 
 
 For each of these industries a set of statistics 
 is given; as, for example: — 
 
 3. Lumber and Furniture 
 Total Number of Persons Employed 
 
 Skilled 
 
 Semi-skilled 
 
 Lahortrs 
 
 Total 
 
 Male 
 
 Female 
 
 Male 
 
 Female 
 
 Male 
 
 Female 
 
 1272 
 
 IS 
 
 1379 
 
 42 
 
 1347 
 
 10 
 
 4065 
 
 From these figures grand totals are found for 
 each group of general occupations. 
 
 Industries in the manufacturing and mechani- 
 cal group that will not he studied 
 
 Those of the above group that will not be con- 
 sidered in the survey, or will receive only partial 
 consideration, are now listed, with the reasons 
 
 50 
 
MAKING THE SURVEY 
 
 why the survey committee has not included them 
 in a list to be thoroughly examined: — 
 
 Tobacco, Liquor and Beverage, Chemical and 
 Drug, Jewelry, Clay, Glass, and Stone, Super- 
 visors and Technicians, and All Other Industries 
 are so set aside by the Minneapolis survey for 
 partial, incidental, or no consideration. 
 
 Take Clay, Glass, and Stone, for instance. It 
 is first divided according to the following table : — 
 
 
 Skilled 
 
 Semi-skilled 
 
 Laborers 
 
 Total 
 
 
 Male 
 
 Female 
 
 Male 
 
 Female 
 
 Male 
 
 Female 
 
 Glass-blowers 
 
 5 
 o 
 o 
 145 
 o 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 188 
 
 9 
 
 39 
 
 40 
 
 7 
 
 3 
 I 
 
 
 
 
 12 
 
 134 
 
 95 
 
 37 
 
 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 
 208 
 
 Brick, tile, terra-cotta . . 
 Lime, cement, gypsum . 
 
 Marble and stone 
 
 Potteries 
 
 145 
 
 134 
 
 222 
 
 7 
 
 
 
 150 
 
 
 
 283 
 
 4 
 
 278 
 
 I 
 
 716 
 
 The director and his assistants proceed to 
 analyze the above table to decide the advisabil- 
 ity of a careful study of these trades. 
 
 First, "Marble and stone" is set aside, to be 
 dealt with in connection with the building trades. 
 It is next decided that "Lime, cement, and gyp- 
 sum" constitutes too small a field for study and 
 the plants are too scattered. It is seen also that 
 no skilled labor is employed in that work. "Pot- 
 teries " is also discarded as too small. " Brick, tile, 
 
 SI 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 and terra-cotta " is also discarded as too small and 
 unskilled. " Glass-blowing/' itis decided, is purely 
 mechanical and cannot be taught except "on the 
 job/' The committee state, however, that it is 
 worthy of study, but cannot be considered be- 
 cause of its unimportance in this locality — only 
 five skilled laborers being employed. 
 
 The survey authorities also note that the art 
 side of marble, stone, pottery, brick, tile, and 
 terra-cotta will receive attention under a sepa- 
 rate study of "Art in Industry"; thus a special 
 study of them is not needed. Jewelry, for instance, 
 is omitted from consideration as a manufacturing 
 industry because its greatest need is training in 
 taste and skill in applied design, which receives 
 full consideration under "Art in Industry." 
 
 So the different trades that are to be omitted 
 are taken up step by step, classed for indirect 
 study or discarded entirely because of small size, 
 unskilled nature, undesirable influence, or unim- 
 portance which justifies their rejection. 
 
 Industries in the manufacturing and mechanical 
 group that will be studied 
 
 1. Building Trades. 
 
 2. Metal Industries. 
 
 3. Clothing Industries. 
 
 52 
 
MAKING THE SURVEY 
 
 4. Lumber and Furniture. 
 
 5. Food Industries. 
 
 6. Textile Industries. 
 
 7. Leather, Boots, and Shoes. 
 
 8. Printing and Engraving. 
 
 9. Foundry Operations. 
 10. Engineers. 
 
 Each of the above subdivisions is then taken 
 up and again subdivided into individual trades^ 
 dividing the workers as to skill and sex the same 
 as in the preceding tables. The subdivision of 
 the metal trades is here given in detail as an 
 example: — 
 
 
 Skilled 
 
 Semi-skilled 
 
 Laborers 
 
 Toiai 
 
 
 Male 
 
 Female 
 
 Male 
 
 Female 
 
 Male 
 
 Female 
 
 Moulders, founders, cast- 
 ers 
 
 460 
 382 
 304 
 no 
 212 
 136 
 755 
 
 36 
 9 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ° 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 161 
 
 
 12 
 
 S6 
 
 595 
 
 7 
 
 20 
 892 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 2 
 2 
 
 
 48 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 177 
 
 
 4 
 28 
 173 
 
 13 
 444 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 460 
 
 Tinsmiths 
 
 382 
 
 Boiler-makers 
 
 304 
 
 Fillers, grinders, buffers. . 
 Mechanics 
 
 1x0 
 213 
 
 Oilers of machinery 
 
 Blacksmiths 
 
 136 
 
 7S5 
 
 Machinists, millwrights. . 
 Furnaces and rolling mills 
 
 Structural-iron work 
 
 Copper and brass facto- 
 ries 
 
 2894 
 
 365 
 
 36 
 
 25 
 
 Automobile factories .... 
 Car and railroad shops . . . 
 Lead and zinc factories . . 
 Tinware and enamelware 
 All others 
 
 87 
 
 770 
 
 7 
 
 1389 
 
 
 
 5324 
 
 X 
 
 1743 
 
 52 
 
 839 
 
 7 
 
 7966 
 
 S3 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 The table is then analyzed. 
 
 **A11 other works'' is to be omitted as ^Hoo 
 indefinite and scattered." Structural-iron work 
 it is decided to handle in connection with '^Build- 
 ing trades." Copper, brass, lead, tinware and 
 enamelware, and zinc are discarded because the 
 number of workers represented is too small. 
 Automobile factories are not considered for the 
 same reason. It is interesting to note here the 
 part that local conditions play in the survey and 
 its analysis. In Detroit, automobile factories 
 would have been studied as one of the great fac- 
 tors of the metal trades. The ten remaining trades, 
 after the above are eliminated, are then set down 
 for consideration and study. 
 
 The committee notes further, ''The classifica- 
 tion given above for the census is an awkward one 
 for our purposes here. In general all the remain- 
 ing occupations in the table and others will be 
 covered in the study of establishments." 
 
 Domestic and personal service 
 
 Each of the fifteen trades of the manufacturing 
 and mechanical industries to be studied having 
 been given the same minute preparatory analy- 
 sis as that for the metal industries, the survey 
 proceeds next to take up the second large divi- 
 
 54 
 
MAKING THE SURVEY 
 
 sion of occupations to be considered, *' Domestic 
 and Personal Service.'' 
 
 This larger group is broken up into twenty- 
 nine individual occupations, exactly as has been 
 done for the manufacturing and mechanical in- 
 dustries, and then in a similar manner those 
 which are to be studied and those which are to 
 be omitted are grouped separately. The entire 
 process is essentially the same as in the examples 
 previously given, and is repeated just as carefully 
 for each trade under each general occupational 
 heading in the first table of industries. 
 
 Instructions for field workers 
 
 In order that those who are to do the actual 
 field work of the survey may follow a uniform and 
 intelligent method, insuring the collection of all the 
 information needed, there were prepared sheets of 
 directions for field workers. The importance of 
 such directions cannot be overestimated and the 
 more detailed they are the better, provided the 
 investigator is not hampered by useless red tape. 
 
 Memorandum 
 
 In the first place, each worker receives a mem- 
 orandum giving him the list of all the survey ma- 
 terial he should have before entering upon his 
 
 55 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 investigations. The serial number and the form 
 number of each piece of material, chart, card, or 
 direction sheet is given on this memorandum, and 
 as all the written and printed matter is classified 
 according to some form number and some serial 
 number, this memorandum *^ provides identifica- 
 tion numbers so that the material can be called 
 for readily at the office." From the list the in- 
 vestigator can locate at once all or any part of 
 the material he will need at any time. A copy 
 of the memorandum follows: — 
 
 Serial I. Form s-a. 
 
 Memorandum to field workers giving general serial 
 number and form number for all material called 
 for by the ^^Instructions to Field Workers^' 
 
 The reference numbers are as follows: — 
 A. For material under / of "Instruc- 
 tions":— 
 
 1. For scope and guide charts. 
 
 (a) Preliminary Survey Serial I Form i 
 
 (b) We want to know : — 
 
 From the schools Serial I Form 2-a 
 
 Training for industry " I " 2-6 
 
 Kind of jobs in industry " I " 2-c 
 
 2. Departmental chart " I " 3 
 
 3. "Suggestions bearing on depart- 
 mental chart" " I " 4 
 
 4. "Memo, of statist, information" " I " 6 
 
 5. Information from Employers 
 
 (items 3 to 8, dept. chart) " I " 7 
 
 56 
 
MAKING THE SURVEY 
 
 6. Occupation cards, 25 in set Serial I Form 8 
 
 7. Flourmill " III " 6 
 
 8. Letters of introduction " I " 9 
 
 9. Statistical information " II " i 
 
 B. Material under V of "Instructions": — 
 
 1. Place of art in industry: — 
 
 (a) Manufacturers* schedule " IX " i 
 
 (b) Specialty stores schedule ... " IX " 2 
 
 (c) Department stores schedule. " IX " 3 
 
 2. Noncommissioned officers of in- 
 dustry " XII 
 
 Departmental chart 
 
 To illustrate the detail to which these direc- 
 tions have been worked out, let us select topics 
 2 and 3 under division A on the memorandum. 
 
 The first is the departmental chart. This is a 
 chart, 19 X 30 inches in size, with three large head- 
 ings at the top, "Industry," "Establishment," 
 "Department." Down the left side are twenty- 
 six question groups needed for the report of the 
 study of a particular industry, plant, and depart- 
 ment. These questions relate to the job, its na- 
 ture, its wages, its workers, its prospects, its 
 required training, — in short, the points which 
 when filled in on the chart will enable the survey 
 committee to analyze intelligently the depart- 
 ment and establishment represented and its con- 
 tribution to the general knowledge of the indus- 
 try in which it is classified. 
 
 57 . 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 Suggestions bearing on the departmental chart 
 
 The second topic selected, or number 3, is a set 
 of suggestions for field workers regarding the use 
 of the departmental chart. They are very full 
 and exact and much more complete than the syn- 
 opsis of them which is here given. 
 
 The questions on the departmental chart are 
 arranged on the sheets of suggestions in the order 
 that they appear on the chart and are numbered 
 as on the chart. Under each of these numbered 
 headings the field worker is given suggestions as 
 to the meaning and scope of the question, the 
 best method of approaching it, and the details of 
 information that are desired. 
 
 When it is remembered that this is done spe- 
 cifically for each one of the twenty-six questions 
 on the chart, it will be seen how important such 
 directions seemed to the survey committee. 
 
 As an example, take the directions given for 
 question 9. 
 
 9. What the Worker Does in the Occupation. 
 
 I. What are the important operations per- 
 formed by the worker? 
 What is wanted is not a description of the manu- 
 facturing process in which he is engaged, but an 
 account and description of what the worker himself 
 
 58 
 
MAKING THE SURVEY 
 
 does. Watch him work. Keep your eyes on his ac- 
 tions, not those of the machine, and record those 
 actions that are important, showing judgment, skill, 
 experience, or responsibility. 
 
 2. What is the responsibility of the worker? 
 By this is meant what is the essence of the task he 
 
 performs, where his responsibility begins and ends. 
 
 3. Illustrations. 
 
 Below are given statements of what the worker 
 does which illustrate what is meant by the above. 
 
 Further instructions for field workers 
 
 In addition to the above detailed suggestions, 
 each field worker receives general instructions 
 regarding the investigation he is doing. The fol- 
 lowing important points may be noted: — 
 
 Materials and aids 
 
 I. The worker should have these things in his 
 possession. 
 
 1. Four scope and guide charts. 
 
 (i) (3) Typewritten copies of the charts, 
 ''We want to Know.'' 
 
 (2) Typewritten copies of the charts, 
 ''Preliminary Survey.'' 
 
 (4) Pertinent and significant informa- 
 tion should be noted, whether called 
 for by the departmental chart or not. 
 
 2. Some twenty-five or more copies of the 
 departmental chart, 
 
 59 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 3. A copy of the *' Suggestions bearing on the 
 Departmental Chart." 
 
 4. A few copies of ** Memorandum of Statis- 
 tical Information from Employers." 
 
 5. Some thirty to fifty copies of a blank 
 reading "Industry-Plant-Location." One 
 card for each occupation in the plant. 
 
 6. Blanks for items on departmental chart. 
 
 7. A write-up of the study of the flour mill 
 industry. A guide, not a copy, of what the 
 survey is trying to get. 
 
 8. Letters of introduction and recommenda- 
 tion. 
 
 9. Statistical information furnished by the 
 . State Department of Labor. Name, loca- 
 tion, number of employees, specialties, 
 etc., for each firm. 
 
 11. Directions to field workers assigned to the 
 study of an industry. 
 
 [Here follow specific directions for the guidance of 
 those possessing the material before mentioned and 
 preparing to use the same. The directions are num- 
 bered and like the "instructions" are much fuller 
 than the general suggestive outline given here.] 
 
 1. Not all establishments can be studied; take one 
 of each important kind or type, each to be thor- 
 oughly analyzed and described. 
 
 2. Using the statistical sheets from the State De- 
 partment of Labor, analyze all establishments 
 of the city in the industry; choose one of each 
 
 60 
 
MAKING THE SURVEY 
 
 type and submit analysis and choice for ap- 
 proval. 
 
 Take letters of introduction to the oflSce of each 
 plant studied; explain what you want to do; 
 ask for assistance of the director if permission 
 is refused. 
 
 Get an analysis of the plant into departments 
 from the manager or superintendent. Get an 
 analysis of each department into jobs in order 
 of sequence from the superintendent or depart- 
 ment head. 
 
 Have the office of the firm fill out blanks (see 
 No. St under i, page 60), one for each occu- 
 pation in the plant, answering questions 3 to 8, 
 inclusive, on the departmental chart. (These 
 questions have to do with employees hired and 
 dropped and with wages.) Information strictly 
 confidential. 
 
 Interview foreman or department head to get 
 answers for questions 9 to 26, inclusive. Use 
 answer blanks (No. 6, under i, page 60.) 
 Study the occupation yourself; go to the worker 
 and check your information ; work back and forth 
 between foreman and workers. Try different 
 workers. (Use blanks Nos. 3 and 6, page 60.) 
 When certain your information is correct, trans- 
 fer to the departmental chart. Give cross-ref- 
 erence to answer blanks. 
 
 Study only one establishment of a type. Fin- 
 ish up and write it up before starting a new type. 
 
 61 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 Use of cards for field notes 
 
 10. A quantity of 4 x 6 cards for each question on 
 the chart, except No. i, with headings for refer- 
 ence and filing. 
 
 11. Where obtained (here directions are given). 
 
 12. Where to use, interviewing foremen, workers, 
 etc., and in conferences with advisory commit- 
 tees. 
 
 13. How to use them; one card for each interview, 
 etc. 
 
 14. What to put on them; everything of significance, 
 etc. 
 
 15. What to do with them; assemble by "jobs or 
 occupations"; use in forming concise statement 
 of your conclusions, etc. 
 
 16. Where finally to leave them (directions given). 
 
 17. Minimum number of cards, twenty-five for 
 every job studied. 
 
 The reader will note here that the field worker 
 has three different blanks for constant use. First, 
 there are sets of twenty-five different cards, sev- 
 eral of a kind, perhaps, one for each interview, 
 but all pertaining to one job (see No. 6, page 60) ; 
 second, are the blanks No. 5, under i, page 
 60, one for each occupation or job in the plant, 
 upon which are recorded questions regarding 
 salary, hiring, dropping, etc.; and lastly, is the 
 departmental chart, to which all the above in- 
 
 62 
 
MAKING THE SURVEY 
 
 formation is finally transferred in condensed 
 form. The plant is then before the committee in 
 complete form — individual opinions, jobs, de- 
 partments, plant. 
 
 III. The write-up of each study made. 
 
 [Under this heading are given very complete direc- 
 tions concerning the manner in which the informa- 
 tion ascertained by the field workers is to be prepared 
 and written up.] 
 
 1. From your notes write up the study of the in- 
 dustry. Confine yourself to items on the de- 
 partmental chart. Supply the office of the sur- 
 vey with information of any kind suggested by 
 any of the material under No. i above. 
 
 2. Study the write-up of the flour industry. Do 
 not follow it, but be guided by it. 
 
 3. Outline the way you propose to ''put up'' your 
 material and submit same for approval. 
 
 4. Tell your story in the simplest language and 
 most direct way possible. 
 
 5. Submit your write-up for consideration and 
 suggestion and rewrite until you get it right. 
 
 Conferences with representatives of other 
 establishments of the same type 
 
 I. Conferences will be arranged with as many 
 employers of the same type as possible. Where 
 business is organized, a joint conference of both 
 employers and employees will be arranged or a 
 
 63 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 separate conference arranged with each. Con- 
 ferences will be held with advisory committees 
 for all trades that have them. 
 
 2. A copy of your write-up will be put in the hands 
 of each member at the conference or sent to him 
 in advance. It will be gone over word by word 
 for criticism and suggestion. 
 
 3. Rewrite until your story is approved by the 
 trade and the oflSce. 
 
 Other things to watch and do 
 
 Watch for the place of art in the industries you 
 study. Study the noncommissioned officer in each 
 occupation. Analyze and make notes regarding 
 points needed above those of the ordinary worker 
 and such technical information as will help to reach 
 these positions. 
 
 Get information regarding,the kinds of schools and 
 classes recommended by the trade for training prepara- 
 tory to these occupations. See special instruction sheet. 
 
 Special instruction sheet for training 
 
 COULD SUCH INSTRUCTION BE MOST PRACTICALLY 
 AND HELPFULLY GIVEN INSIDE OF THE INDUS- 
 TRIAL ESTABLISHMENT, OR IN PART-TIME DAY 
 COURSES, OR IN EVENING CLASSES IN SPECIAL 
 SCHOOLS ? 
 
 I. At the outset, the investigator must be able to 
 explain what is meant by the different kinds of 
 part-time schools and evening schools. This 
 should be talked over with the director. 
 
 64 
 
MAKING THE SURVEY 
 
 2. Here again opinions of foremen, gang bosses, su- 
 perintendents, and workers should be gathered. 
 
 3. So the opinion of the field worker should be 
 written. 
 
 4. The director should gather same material from 
 the advisory committee. 
 
 This constitutes the general lay-out of the en- 
 tire industrial survey. If the reader will study it 
 carefully, in connection with the report of the 
 National Society for the Promotion of Industrial 
 Education on the Minneapolis Survey, he should 
 have at hand all the general information neces- 
 sary for planning and carrying out a similar sur- 
 vey in his own locality. 
 
 The Educational Survey 
 
 It remains now to say a few words only regard- 
 ing the educational or school survey. School sur- 
 veys are not uncommon in this country, and are 
 much easier to conduct than industrial surveys, 
 and for this reason only a few general suggestions 
 and a few details are included in this study. 
 
 Extent 
 
 To give anything like a comprehensive view of 
 all the educational opportunities offered by a 
 community for advancement in industrial lines, 
 
 6s 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 the investigator must examine much more than 
 the curriculum of the ordinary public schools. 
 Here consideration must be given to existing 
 part-time and evening schools, private schools, 
 Y.M.C.A. classes, commercial schools, classes 
 conducted in commercial plants, and correspond- 
 ence instruction. Before beginning the study of 
 any of these groups, it is well to associate with the 
 investigator an advisory local committee of influ- 
 ential men who will assist and support the move- 
 ment and help with the deduction of principles. 
 
 The public school 
 
 It is usually easy for the investigator to secure 
 the course of study of the public day schools. 
 The subjects therein given for the upper grades 
 and high schools should be classified under three 
 heads: those in no way related to industrial and 
 commercial education, which group is eliminated; 
 those indirectly bearing upon trade proficiency, 
 set aside for further consideration; and those of a 
 direct vocational nature. 
 
 The classes of semi-industrial nature, such 
 as economics, commercial geography, arithmetic, 
 drawing, and chemistry, are then considered in 
 the light of the findings of the industrial survey 
 to see which of them, if any, are most likely to be 
 
 66 
 
MAKING THE SURVEY 
 
 supplying the educational wants shown by the 
 study of the industries to be real needs. These 
 classes will merit the most careful investigation. 
 The other semi-vocational subjects may be given 
 consideration as far as time and money permit, 
 for the investigator can never tell where he may 
 open up an unthought-of opportunity for advanc- 
 ing technical information. Those public-school 
 classes that are directly for vocational purposes, 
 including all manual training, prevocational in- 
 struction, vocational schools, trade schools, etc., 
 under public direction, will naturally receive very 
 careful attention. 
 
 From these investigations the survey must 
 establish how, when, and to what extent the 
 public schools are providing the education, tech- 
 nical knowledge, and special information that 
 has been shown to be necessary for carrying out 
 the local industrial program. It must determine 
 where and what the omissions are and find the 
 responsibility for such omissions if they are 
 chargeable to the already existing classes. It 
 must decide what additions, changes, and re- 
 adaptations are desirable both for the schools and 
 the industries, and it must set aside those educa- 
 tional phases of vocational instruction that do 
 not fall within the province of any public school. 
 
 67 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 Part-time and evening schools 
 
 A careful survey must also be made of the part- 
 time and evening schools, which are usually a 
 most fruitful field for extending technical and 
 trade information. Something of the scope of 
 such an inquiry may be seen from the following 
 outline used in Minneapolis: — 
 
 Serial VIII. Form A. 
 
 Questions submitted to evening schools 
 
 1. What courses did you conduct in industrial, 
 technical, and business subjects? 
 
 a. How many classes in each subject? 
 
 b. Total enrollment in each subject? 
 
 c. Average attendance? 
 
 d. Evenings a week? 
 
 e. Weeks in the year? 
 
 /. Total number of class meetings during 
 the course? 
 n. Entrance requirements: — 
 
 a. Age? 
 
 b. Scholarship? 
 
 c. Experience? 
 
 m. How do you get the pupils for the classes? 
 
 a. By advertising? 
 
 b. By soHcitors? 
 
 c. By correspondence? 
 
 d. Other methods? 
 
 68 
 
MAKING THE SURVEY 
 
 e. Are your present methods of securing 
 students statisfactory to you? 
 
 /. What methods are used to secure regu- 
 lar attendance? 
 IV. Have you specified times for admitting pupils? 
 
 a. Have you preliminary registration or are 
 pupils admitted at any time? 
 
 b. If pupils are admitted at any time, how 
 do you group them? 
 
 By their desires? ... Or by their fit- 
 ness, determined by conference with 
 instructor or director? 
 
 c. To what extent are students grouped 
 according to their occupations or experi- 
 ence? 
 
 d. If possible, please give the registration in 
 each class by occupation. 
 
 e. What proportion of your students attend 
 for two years? For three years? 
 
 /. What proportion of your pupils have had 
 correspondence-school courses? 
 V, What tuition is charged for the instruction? 
 
 a. Is tuition ''by the term," *'by the 
 course'' or by the lesson? 
 
 b. What additional fees are charged? 
 
 c. Is any part of the tuition refunded? 
 On what conditions? 
 
 d. What tools, supplies, or texts are fur- 
 nished by the student? 
 
 e. Approximate cost? 
 
 69 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 VL Instruction: — 
 
 a. Is instruction by lectures? 
 Class instruction? 
 
 Or individual instruction? 
 
 b. How many subjects may the student 
 pursue in one term? 
 
 c. Describe the equipment of the school for 
 doing the work of each course. 
 
 d. To what extent are textbooks used in 
 various courses? 
 
 e. Name texts used in each class. 
 /. Are examinations given? 
 
 g. Please furnish any examination questions 
 which you may have in the subjects of- 
 fered in your school. 
 
 h. What certificate or other acknowledg- 
 ment of the successful completion of sub- 
 jects or course is given? 
 
 i. What is the value of your certificate? 
 In your own courses? 
 In other schools? 
 In securing a position? 
 
 y. What facilities have you for placing 
 graduates in positions? 
 What follow-up records are kept of grad- 
 uates? 
 VII. Qualifications of instructors: — 
 
 a. Academic training? 
 
 J. Technical training? 
 
 c. Trade or commercial experience? 
 
 70 
 
MAKING THE SURVEY 
 
 d. Personal quaKfications? 
 
 List of machines used in business courses. 
 VIII. Relations with employers: — 
 
 a. Do employers come to you for help in 
 securing promising employees? 
 
 b. What efforts do you make to inform em- 
 ployers that their employees are attend- 
 ing evening school endeavoring to make 
 themselves more proficient in their work? 
 
 c. Do you have any advisory boards or 
 conference committees of any kind from 
 the business or trade to assist in stand- 
 ardizing your instruction? If so, what 
 do these committees do? 
 
 With the answers to these questions in hand 
 and having selected and placed beside them the 
 educational and trade needs of all the occupations 
 not otherwise provided for, the investigator can 
 quickly and somewhat surely lay out the courses 
 and classes that merit particular inquiry. The 
 results of his personal investigation are then 
 added to those from the public-school survey. 
 
 Private and commercial schools 
 
 In most communities the private schools will 
 be of a business-school type. Occasionally pri- 
 vate industrial schools or institutes will be found 
 and will be investigated, either under the plan 
 
 71 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 laid down for evening schools or under the one 
 herewith submitted for commercial schools: — 
 
 A. It is advisable first to form a committee of 
 representative citizens. 
 
 1. Number to be decided, S to lo. 
 
 2. Duties: — 
 
 Criticism, suggestion, and support. 
 
 B. Study of the opportunities for commercial edu- 
 cation given by the private schools. 
 
 I. The standard of judging the school is 
 based on the following factors: — 
 
 (i) Prerequisite preparation of the 
 pupils demanded by the school. 
 
 (2) Equipment of school. 
 
 (3) Experience and preparation of the 
 teaching force. 
 
 (4) Attitude of teacher and principal 
 toward — 
 
 (a) Education. 
 
 (b) Practical work. 
 
 (c) Placement. 
 
 (d) Follow-up. 
 
 (e) Survey. 
 
 (s) Estimate of t5^e of teachers and 
 pupils. 
 
 (6) General atmosphere of the class- 
 -room. 
 
 (7) Follow-up of school graduates: with 
 comment from employers on work. 
 
 72 
 
MAKING THE SURVEY 
 
 (8) Study of dropping out as a test of 
 practicality of course. 
 
 (9) Giving of tests worked out by Na- 
 tional Associated Schools of Scien- 
 tific Business, These tests to be 
 given to five representative pupils 
 of graduating class of each school 
 for the purpose of determining 
 individual eflSciency. 
 
 C. The determination of the extent of solicitation 
 on the part of private commercial schools. 
 
 1. Interview with all pupils who have regis- 
 tered and decided to enter private com- 
 mercial schools upon leaving the eighth 
 grade. 
 
 2. The tentative investigation of typical 
 schools: — 
 
 (The investigation being a determina- 
 tion of the number of eighth-grade chil- 
 dren solicited, together with an interview 
 with these children.) 
 
 3. Selection of one class of freshmen in high 
 schools as test for amount of solicitation 
 private schools do in the summer. 
 
 D. A comparison of the courses given in these 
 schools with the commercial training found 
 necessary to supply the requirements of local 
 employers: — 
 
 Are the courses full enough? 
 Are they too general? 
 
 73 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 Is information accurate? 
 
 Are local commercial methods used and local 
 
 conditions regarded? 
 Is preparation for specific work given or for 
 
 general commercial uses? 
 Are necessary courses lacking? 
 E. Students: — 
 
 Are students selected for fitness? 
 Are students selected for age? 
 Is successful follow-up work done? 
 Have employers confidence in the work? 
 
 The Commercial Industrial Survey 
 
 If actual commercial opportunities and needs 
 have not already been established in the course 
 of the industrial survey, it will be necessary, 
 along with the study of business schools, to con- 
 duct an investigation into the opportunities and 
 requirements for office work and other forms of 
 commercial employment. The following sugges- 
 tions will illustrate the nature of such an in- 
 quiry: — 
 
 A. Investigation of the occupational opportunities 
 
 in a large number of representative offices. 
 
 I. Types to be selected upon the advice of 
 
 the advisory board and to include the 
 
 entire range of work in small and large 
 
 offices. 
 
 74 
 
MAKING THE SURVEY 
 
 2. Personal interviews with the employers 
 on the question of the present success or 
 failure of adequate preparation for office 
 work on the part of public and private 
 schools. The formulation of definite sug- 
 gestions from the employer as to his re- 
 quirements for the changes in th^ school 
 curriculum which he is willing to advocate. 
 His attitude toward cooperative classes. 
 
 3. Checking of the list of office machines and 
 equipment in use. 
 
 4. Data on hours, wages, overtime, advance- 
 ment, and physical conditions. 
 
 B. Personal interview with boys and girls already 
 placed in office work, for the purpose of getting 
 the point of view of the worker in regard to 
 preparation and opportunity. 
 
 1. 125 pupils from public schools. 
 
 2. 125 pupils from private schools. 
 Random selection, 5 for each of the fol- 
 lowing years: — 
 
 1909-10 1911-12 1913-14 
 
 1910-11 1912-13 
 
 3. Individual records secured by settlements 
 and social workers. 
 
 C. Outline of opportunities for men and women. 
 
 1. Advanced positions of special responsibil- 
 ity. 
 
 2. Direction of advancement from office 
 work to any form of commercial work. 
 
 75 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 (These facts to be obtained through the 
 survey and by personal interview with 
 men and women who have made good in 
 business with a view of obtaining informa- 
 tion as to the method of their success.) 
 3. Opportunities for commercial work of low 
 grade in small establishments, and what is 
 minimum of education or training neces- 
 sary, 
 
 (i) To meet the demands of the work 
 engaged in. 
 
 (2) To fit worker for advancement. 
 
 The conclusions and recommendations of the 
 survey resulting from the entire investigation 
 into commercial work and education may be 
 then summed up something as follows: — 
 
 A. Siunmary for conclusions. 
 
 1. Basis: — 
 
 (i) Present survey. 
 
 (2) Survey of 1913 in Minneapolis, 
 191 5 in Minneapolis. 
 
 (3) The studies made in Boston and 
 Cleveland, and the report of P. V. 
 Thompson, "Commercial Educa- 
 tion in Public Secondary Schools.'' 
 
 2. Interpretation of the evidence gathered 
 as a means of throwing light on the organi- 
 zation of commercial work in public and 
 private schools. 
 
 76 
 
MAKING THE SURVEY 
 
 (i) Whether a four-year course is the 
 best plan. 
 
 (2) Where the point of selection of 
 definitely vocational courses should 
 be reached by the pupil. 
 
 (3) Whether a two-year commercial 
 course is necessary or valuable. 
 
 (4) Comparison of success of pupils — 
 
 (a) Of less than high-school edu- 
 cation. 
 
 (b) Of less than common-school 
 education. 
 
 (5) Whether a fifth year of expert tech- 
 nical training is needed. 
 
 (6) Need of standard of apprenticeship 
 system — 
 
 (a) Through cooperative courses. 
 
 (b) Through probation period. 
 Concluding statement of the attitude of 
 the survey toward public and private com- 
 mercial schools. 
 
 (i) What is their present function? 
 
 (2) Are any of their methods detri- 
 mental to the good of the student, 
 the vocation, or the public? 
 
 (3) If these schools are found in any 
 way to be either wasteful or detri- 
 mental, what is the fairest and best 
 method of dealing with them? 
 
 (4) Are they filling all the needs of the 
 local commercial occupations? 
 
 77 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 (5) If not, can they be reorganized to do 
 so? 
 
 (6) Are additional facilities needed for 
 commercial instruction? 
 
 Other Forms of Education 
 
 The foregoing outlines will suffice to indicate 
 the form of inquiry that would be made into 
 Y.M.C.A. classes, private short courses, and cor- 
 respondence schools. All these avenues of ap- 
 proach to the practically minded student should 
 be included in the investigations of the survey. 
 The correspondence school especially should be 
 thoroughly studied to find out just how many 
 people it is reaching, how long it holds them, 
 what it actually does for them, their trade ad- 
 vancement resulting from this study, cost, meth- 
 ods of instruction, methods of advertisement and 
 publicity, and such other facts as may help to 
 show their value and true function in the local 
 educational scheme. 
 
 What has been said here upon the educational 
 survey is recognizedly far from complete, but it 
 would seem that a pretty definite idea has been 
 given as to the nature, scope, and method of such 
 a survey, and this is the only end which it is 
 possible to attain without going far outside the 
 province of a book of this nature. 
 
Ill 
 
 SELECTING THE COURSE 
 
 Advisory Boards 
 
 Once the answers to the inquiries suggested in our 
 opening section have been fully formulated and 
 the kinds and types of schools that should be 
 established have been decided upon, it devolves 
 at once upon the local authorities to prepare 
 courses of study presenting the nature and details 
 of the instruction to be given in each course and 
 in each subject of the course. Where this in- 
 struction is to deal with direct prevocational 
 training, trade-preparatory material, trade-ex- 
 tension work, or actual trade instruction for 
 pupils over sixteen years of age, it is advisable 
 and well-nigh absolutely necessary to associate 
 with the authorities directing the work an advis- 
 ory board of representative citizens to assist in 
 the formation of courses. 
 
 An advisory board may or may not have execu- 
 tive powers, and its function differs from those of 
 the regular board of education in that the former 
 is a group of specially selected men who are par- 
 
 79 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 ticularly fitted to give advice regarding the ac- 
 tual subject-matter to be taught and may not 
 have any authority over the autonomy of the 
 school, whereas the latter directs the actual busi- 
 ness conduct of the institution and seldom is 
 capable of giving expert advice regarding the 
 information to be imparted or the means and 
 methods used to impart it. 
 
 An advisory board should consist of from five 
 to seven members, excepting where there are a 
 large number of trades in one school, when it is 
 well to have each trade represented on the board. 
 In some cases it is found better to have a separate 
 board for each skilled trade taught. This insures 
 careful supervision of the material used for in- 
 struction, but may prove exceedingly awkward 
 unless the function of such boards is purely ad- 
 visory and not executive. 
 
 In general an advisory board should be made up 
 of an educator, preferably the executive ofiicer of 
 the school, representatives of employers, or, bet- 
 ter still, the employers themselves, and skilled 
 employees from local plants. Wherever the trade 
 represented has a local labor union, a representa- 
 tive of organized labor should have a place on 
 the board. The personnel of the board should be 
 selected with a view to preventing a monopoly of 
 
 80 
 
SELECTING THE COURSE 
 
 direction by any one interest, while affording rep- 
 resentation to all, and at the same time bringing 
 to the service of the school the intelligent advice, 
 interest, influence, and standing of the strongest 
 and most influential people of the locality. 
 
 It should be the duty of this board or boards to 
 pass final approval upon the subject-matter of the 
 trade instruction to be given, and also upon the 
 order in which the various projects are presented. 
 The members should also pass upon the equip- 
 ment, nature, and price, before it is purchased, 
 and upon all other matters that pertain distinctly 
 to the technique and science of the business un- 
 der consideration. 
 
 This board may also aid in working up coop- 
 eration between the employers of labor and the 
 school by championing the adoption of such un- 
 derstandings as the one indicated by the follow- 
 ing card, which is given by Rochester firms to 
 young people applying for positions: — 
 
 At the present time this firm is only employing 
 workers (under eighteen years of age) recommended 
 by the Department of Public Instruction. If you de- 
 sire a position we would suggest that you communi- 
 cate with Raymond C. Keople, 308 Municipal Build- 
 ing. Hours 9 to 10 A.M., 4. 30 to 5.30 P.M. 
 
 Yawman & Erbe Mfg. Co. 
 81 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 By such means the trade schools reach many 
 new pupils and the employers secure much better 
 workers. 
 
 Trade Agreements 
 
 One of the most valuable services that an 
 advisory board can render to any school is to 
 assist in bringing about a series of trade agree- 
 ments between the school and the employers and 
 between the school and organized labor. A trade 
 agreement means a complete written understand- 
 ing between the school and an employer of labor; 
 for instance, regarding the instruction and train- 
 ing to be offered in the school and in the shop to 
 workmen and apprentices employed by the con- 
 tracting manufacturer. It specifies how long the 
 course shall be, its details, how many pupils shall 
 enter, and what shall be required for satisfactory 
 completion of the work. 
 
 The school defines the arrangement of time in 
 the week; the employer contracts to allow pay for 
 certain specific school hours and agrees to hire so 
 many graduates at a fixed rate of pay when the 
 course is over, or to continue in his employ a cer- 
 tain number of graduates at a stipulated increase, 
 if the men are already on his pay-roll. The trade 
 union would at the same time allow a certain per 
 
 82 
 
SELECTING THE COURSE 
 
 cent credit on apprenticeship time to such of its 
 apprentices as satisfactorily completed this extra 
 work. 
 
 The above is an ideal case. In actual practice 
 such agreements usually fall into four large divi- 
 sions. 
 
 Tentative agreements 
 
 A tentative agreement is one in which the em- 
 ployer gives his approval to the idea of trade 
 training for his men, agrees to urge his appren- 
 tices to take such training, and signifies his will- 
 ingness to cooperate with the school, and to be 
 guided in his selection and payment of appren- 
 tices by the results actually attained. 
 
 General agreements 
 
 In a general trade agreement the employer 
 gives his approval to particular specified courses 
 of study, and agrees to give those who complete 
 these courses special consideration when he hires 
 new men, and also to favor them in times of slack 
 work when employees are laid off. An example 
 of such a trade agreement follows: — 
 
 83 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 Steamfitters 
 
 Memorandum of courses for journeymen steam- 
 fitters and helpers at the William Hood Dunwoody 
 Industrial Institute for the year 191 5-16: — 
 
 I. The approval of the union and the employer of 
 these evening courses is asked: — 
 
 (a) Free evening classes for journeymen 
 steamfitters and helpers will be offered 
 at the Dunwoody Institute for the year 
 1915-16. 
 
 (b) These classes will begin in October and 
 continue through the winter. 
 
 (c) Classes will be continued so long as an 
 average attendance of not less than 12 
 persons is maintained. 
 
 (d) The following unit courses, attached to 
 this report and marked "Exhibit A," 
 will be offered. 
 
 (e) Upon the completion of any unit course 
 a certificate to this effect will be issued 
 to the student by the Dunwoody Insti- 
 tute. 
 
 II. The approval by the union and the employer of 
 this arrangement for the further training of 
 helpers is asked: — 
 
 (a) The Steamfitters' Union is to require all 
 helpers entering the steamfitting work 
 after August i, 1915, to attend, for two 
 
 84, 
 
SELECTING THE COURSE 
 
 seasons of not less than seven months 
 each, evening classes at the Dunwoody 
 Institute, bearing on steamfitting not 
 less than two nights a week. 
 
 (b) The employers shall agree to give prefer- 
 ence in the employment of workers to 
 the helpers attending such classes and 
 in the reduction of their force in dull 
 times to give the same preference. 
 
 (c) That an advisory committee of five 
 members be appointed by the trustees 
 of the Institute, two of whom shall be 
 employers and two employees engaged 
 in the steamfitting business. The fifth 
 member of the committee, who shall be 
 its chairman, shall be a representative 
 of the school. 
 
 (d) The authorities of the school, with the 
 advice and assistance of the advisory 
 
 • committee so secured, are to assist in 
 standardizing the work of this dull- 
 season school. 
 
 v|T I hereby approve of the above plan and agree to 
 
 carry it out so far as _ ^^^ [ concerned. 
 •^ we are ) 
 
 (Signed) 
 
 {Name of person or firm) 
 
 85 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 Specific trade agreement 
 
 The specific trade agreement is like the general 
 trade agreement in that it specifies definite 
 courses to be completed, with the nature, time, 
 and other details of the course. It differs from 
 the other agreements in that the employers here 
 agree, either to hire a certain specified number of 
 graduates each year, term, or other unit of time, 
 or to hire as many of the graduates as trade con- 
 ditions warrant at the time, and to start them at 
 a fixed wage, given in the agreement, and to give 
 regular advancement after three, six, nine months 
 of work, or according to some similar scheme of 
 wage agreement. 
 
 The following agreement, from among those 
 now in use in the city of Rochester, will further 
 illustrate this kind of understanding: — 
 
 For Machinists 
 
 I. That the Shop School shall give to boys who 
 are not less than fourteen years old and who 
 have completed at least the sixth grade, or pref- 
 erably to boys who have completed the work of 
 the elementary schools, a general industrial or 
 "try-out" course of such length as the school 
 authorities may deem necessary, and shall 
 
 86 
 
SELECTING THE COURSE 
 
 select those who have an aptitude for and an 
 ambition toward the trade of machinist. 
 
 2. That the Shop School shall give boys thus 
 selected a preparatory course of approximately 
 two years, one half of each day being spent in 
 shop practice and the other half in the study 
 of shop mathematics, mechanical drawing, 
 applied science, industrial history, civics, and 
 English. 
 
 3. That upon the satisfactory completion of this 
 course the metal trades employers of Roch- 
 ester shall employ these boys in such num- 
 bers as trade conditions and shop management 
 shall warrant, at the following schedule of 
 wages: — 
 
 $ 9.00 per week for the first six months. 
 
 $10.00 per week for the second six months. 
 
 $11.00 per week for the third six months. 
 
 $12.00 per week for the fourth six months. 
 
 (Note). In the event of any boys earning by 
 piece work more than the above scale, the 
 balance shall be held back by the employer 
 and paid to the boy as a bonus at the comple- 
 tion of the two years' apprenticeship. 
 
 4. That during the two years' apprenticeship the 
 employer shall allow each boy, during working 
 hours, an amount of time ojff equivalent to one 
 half-day each week, for continuing his studies, 
 such time to be taken when manufacturing 
 conditions will best permit. 
 
 87 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 5. That the first three months of employment, 
 as provided in Articles 3 and 4 shall be con- 
 sidered a probationary period and the diploma 
 of the school shall not be awarded until the 
 satisfactory completion of this probationary 
 period. 
 
 6. That the members of the Machine Industry 
 shall select a committee of three of their num- 
 ber who shall: — 
 
 (i) Inspect frequently the work of the Shop 
 School and offer criticisms and sugges- 
 tions for the improvement of the work. 
 
 (2) Suggest tests that shall measure the pu- 
 pil's progress in manipulation skill and 
 technical knowledge. 
 
 (3) Suggest tests that shall measure the 
 qualifications of boys for graduation. 
 
 Board of Education, 
 
 Attention of Alfred P, Fletcher y 
 
 Assistant SupL, Rochester, N,Y. 
 Gentlemen: — 
 
 We are interested in your proposition to train 
 boys for the machinists' trade and if business con- 
 ditions are normal, we shall be able, in 1916, to take 
 two boys, 18 years old, as apprentices, after having 
 completed a two years' course in the Machine 
 Department at the Rochester Shop School. These 
 boys will be employed by us at the following wage 
 scale: — 
 
 88 
 
SELECTING THE COURSE 
 
 $ 8.00 for the first six months. 
 $ 9.00 for the second six months. 
 $10.00 for the third six months. 
 $11.00 for the fourth six months. 
 With a bonus of $100.00 to the boy who completes 
 two years' work with us. 
 
 We would be willing to allow the boy the equiva- 
 lent of one half-day off weekly to continue his work 
 in the Shop School and would pay him for this time. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 Eastman Kodak Co. 
 (Signed) J, H. Haste, Mgr. 
 
 Agreement with Rochester Master Painters and 
 Decorators Association 
 
 1. The Shop School shall give to the boys who 
 are about sixteen years old and who have com- 
 pleted at least the seventh grade, or prefer- 
 ably to boys who have completed the work of 
 the elementary schools, a general industrial or 
 "try-out" course of such length as the school 
 authorities may deem necessary, and shall select 
 those who have an aptitude for and an ambition 
 toward the trade of painting. 
 
 2. The Shop School shall give boys thus selected 
 a preparatory course of approximately two 
 years, one half of each day being spent in shop 
 practice and the other half in the study of 
 shop mathematics, mechanical drawing, ap- 
 
 89 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 plied science, industrial history, civics, and 
 English. 
 
 3. Upon the satisfactory completion of this course 
 the painting employers of Rochester shall em- 
 ploy these boys in such numbers as trade con- 
 ditions or shop management shall warrant, at 
 the following scale of wages: — 
 
 $2.00 per day for the first year. 
 $2.50 per day for the second year. 
 $3.00 per day for the third year. 
 
 4. The members of the Master Painters and Dec- 
 orators Association of Rochester shall select a 
 committee of three of their number, who shall, 
 first, inspect frequently the work of the Shop 
 School and offer suggestions and criticisms for 
 the improvement of the work; second, suggest 
 tests that shall measure the pupils' progress in 
 manipulative skill and technical knowledge; 
 third, suggest tests that shall measure the 
 qualifications of the boys for graduation. At 
 a recent meeting of the employers of painting, 
 sixteen, or all present, agreed each to take a 
 boy in 1916, 
 
 During the second year at school, the em- 
 ployers will use the boys whenever possible, 
 and pay them $1.00 per day. 
 
 Personal agreements 
 
 In somes intances the employer has agreed 
 with the individual apprentice directly, offering 
 
 90 
 
SELECTING THE COURSE 
 
 to hire or increase the wages of the worker named 
 in the agreement after a certain number of weeks 
 spent in the trade-instruction class, provided the 
 agreement is countersigned by the school authori- 
 ties at the completion of the period. 
 
 Of course there is every possibility for varia- 
 tion of the above to conform to local demands, 
 but the principle of all trade agreements is the 
 same, to offer an incentive to the beginner in the 
 school and to provide assured outlet for the suc- 
 cessful graduates. 
 
 With the advice and cooperation of the advis- 
 ory board, the local investigator would now turn 
 his attention to the problem of fixing the courses 
 of study to be offered in the different classes that 
 have been decided upon as a result of the survey 
 reports. 
 
 Determining the Course of Study 
 
 Well-organized^ highly skilled trades 
 
 The simplest possible case is the one where a 
 large number of beginners are employed in the 
 early processes of an industry that follows these 
 processes by others, growing more and more diffi- 
 cult, to which but few of these beginners succeed 
 in attaining. Furniture designing, interior deco- 
 
 91 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 rating, stained-glass window-making will illus- 
 trate this on the art side; astronomical lens- 
 grinding, the boring and rifling of cannon, and 
 work of like nature are other examples more 
 largely dependent on skill. 
 
 Field for advancement 
 
 Where the number of skilled workers offering 
 themselves for advanced processes is less than 
 the number required, or where it can be shown 
 that a fair percentage of the beginners can be 
 provided for higher up when they are competent 
 to advance, we have a clear field. All the indus- 
 tries just mentioned above are in this category, 
 and as a more unexpected instance it may be 
 cited that the demand for expert tinsmiths and 
 cornice workers now far exceeds the supply. 
 
 On what does advancement depend? 
 
 Charles R. Richards, in his admirable treat- 
 ment of this subject, points out that the first 
 thing to determine is whether the advancement 
 will depend upon skill alone, technical knowl- 
 edge alone, or a combination of these two. Mr. 
 O'Leary divides technical knowledge into two 
 parts, *Hrade knowledge," generally picked up 
 by the mechanic in his trade experience, and 
 
 92 
 
SELECTING THE COURSE 
 
 "technical information," which comes from 
 more or less formal study and training. 
 
 Trade needs determine course 
 
 In any case I maintain that the course of study 
 must be based directly and in most cases abso- 
 lutely upon the needs of the industry itself and 
 not upon the value of the instruction from an 
 educational or pedagogical point of view. 
 
 Need for skill 
 
 If it can be shown that skill alone is needed, 
 then skill must be provided first, last, and al- 
 ways, no matter what else is taught. As exam- 
 ples may be mentioned machine-tending, and 
 the work of packing, boxing, and sorting, ironing 
 shirts, counting money, and many other occupa- 
 tions of like nature. The authority conducting 
 the trade school should then study each successive 
 step in the industry from a very different stand- 
 point from that of the first investigation. He 
 should find out in each detail of the work just 
 what skill is required. Consult with experts and 
 old employees to find out what parts in the differ- 
 ent processes have proved the greatest stumbling- 
 blocks to advancement. Such stumbling-blocks 
 are the laying of round chimneys for the brick- 
 
 93 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 layer, arches for the mason, irregular and coni- 
 cal roof-framing for a carpenter. He should lay 
 out his course to provide this skill in successive 
 steps, laying the greatest emphasis upon those 
 parts that, in the experience of the past, have 
 caused the retardation of the largest number. 
 In other words, we must teach pupils the specific 
 trade and the subjects taught must be determined 
 by the actual demand of the employer. 
 
 Need of technical knowledge 
 
 If it be found that technical knowledge is 
 needed alone or in connection with skill, provide 
 for this technical knowledge, but do not confuse 
 it with general technical knowledge. A carpenter 
 wants no course in general mechanics, but a 
 course in the mechanics of structural woodwork- 
 ing. Provide your technical knowledge as specif- 
 ically as you provide skill, based upon the same 
 minute investigation of need and consultation 
 with experts. Whatever general principles are 
 needed, give them with their immediate applica- 
 tion to the business in hand. 
 
 Both skill and technical knowledge needed 
 
 If it be found advisable to give both skill and 
 technical knowledge, the foregoing principles 
 
 94 
 
SELECTING THE COURSE 
 
 will still apply, and the instruction in each of 
 these branches should in general be separated 
 from the other. There are occasions when both 
 the skill and the technical knowledge may be 
 given at one and the same time, when they must 
 be given together; as in the case of a butcher, 
 who can only learn the exact location, size, qual- 
 ity, etc., of different cuts of meat by actually 
 engaging in the cutting of meat. In most cases, 
 however, the skill must be given in the shop inde- 
 pendent of both general and special information, 
 and the technical knowledge can be given either 
 inside or outside of the actual working place. 
 Wherever it might meet, the class in technical 
 information would be organized as a unit sepa- 
 rate from the shop force. Whenever a class is 
 organized in this way, as a distinct unit, there will 
 arise the question, Shall it be a part-time class, 
 meeting at hours set apart in the daytime, or an 
 evening class? 
 
 When shall the Instruction be given? 
 
 So long as the work is collateral with the years 
 of apprenticeship it must be one of these two. 
 But it is quite possible that the question will also 
 be raised as to the value of giving certain techni- 
 cal information in an all-day school preceding the 
 
 95 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 entry into industry or in a similar school follow- 
 ing the earlier years of work and fitting for more 
 advanced positions yet to come. 
 
 The day school 
 
 In such cases as those presented by electric- 
 power-plant engineers and operators, stationary 
 steam engineers, and expert telephone or tele- 
 graph erecting foremen and inspectors, there is 
 good reason to believe that a one-year all-day 
 course preceding the actual entry into the busi- 
 ness would be valuable. Certainly a one- or even 
 two-year all-day course following some years 
 of apprenticeship and directed to the scientific 
 study of the advanced theory and practice of 
 these trades, together with efiiciency, manage- 
 ment, etc., will bring abundant financial return to 
 any competent man who completes it. The chief 
 engineer of a large car-heating company told me 
 last year that he was not concerned for a trade 
 school to teach the technique of his business, nor 
 yet for a part-time school to assist in such teach- 
 ing. He wanted boys to come to him already 
 grounded in the fundamental principles of shop 
 drawing, shop arithmetic, carefulness, accuracy, 
 and attention to all directions, just such work as 
 is given in the New York general industrial day 
 
 96 
 
SELECTING THE COURSE 
 
 school, and maintained that he would then teach 
 them his business and guarantee them lucrative 
 places. Before taking up, therefore, the part-time 
 and evening schools, it will be well to give rather 
 careful consideration to the problem of all-day 
 trade-school instruction. 
 
 Three types of day schools 
 
 To my thinking, at the present stage of trade 
 education there are only three types of all-day 
 industrial schools that can justify themselves for 
 public financial support. This does not in any 
 way reflect upon the value of privately supported 
 institutions which do not correspond to one of 
 these types and of which there are numerous 
 excellent examples in this country. 
 
 The prevocational school 
 
 The first of these three types is the commonly 
 called prevocational school, which industrializes 
 the final two years of an elementary-school 
 course, and should be used only in districts where 
 a large number of children attending the common 
 schools come from the homes of tradespeople, a 
 very small percentage of whom would give their 
 children schooling beyond the elementary grades. 
 
 The course of study in such a school should 
 
 97 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 bear upon a limited number of the most promising 
 industries of the locaKty, and if it is partially 
 State-supported, on a few of the most attractive 
 general industries found in the State. The work 
 of all the elementary grades preceding, which can 
 be applied to these industries, should be applied; 
 drawing, mathematics, and whatever else can be 
 found fundamental to a group of the industries 
 included in the curriculum should be given in 
 concrete and appHed form. The shop work should 
 be varied enough to discover the special apti- 
 tudes of the pupils, but at the same time it should 
 consist of actual trade processes, done to trade 
 standards and by the approved methods of the 
 commercial shop. The drawing and arithmetic 
 should all originate in the shops through actual 
 needs for the same. Although the finishing, 
 tracing, and blue-printing may be done in the 
 drafting-room and the mathematics problems 
 worked out in the classroom, the moving spirit 
 of this coordinated work should be an acknowl- 
 edged need felt in the shop or workroom itself. 
 
 The elementary trade school 
 
 The second type of school is an elementary 
 trade school, and offers training for those chil- 
 dren only who are not yet sixteen years of age, 
 
 98 
 
SELECTING THE COURSE 
 
 who have completed the regular common-school 
 course provided by the community, and who have 
 definitely selected a trade v\rhich will not allow 
 them to work as apprentices until after their 
 sixteenth birthday. The purpose of such a school 
 is twofold: to prepare for entrance into a skilled 
 trade, and to prevent young men and women 
 entering blind-alley and unskilled occupations 
 because their chosen trade will not be open to 
 them for one or two years. Such a school should 
 not train, except on a part-time basis, for any 
 calling that will accept its pupils in general pro- 
 ductive labor. It should not accept pupils who 
 have not completed the common-school course 
 unless it conducts prevocational classes similar 
 to those in type one. The curriculum of such a 
 school will be essentially the same as that of the 
 part-time school for the same trade, except that 
 the shop work will all be done in the school and 
 will include a large number of simple processes 
 that were omitted from the specific shop instruc- 
 tion of pupils who are at the same time working 
 in the trade. The classroom instruction in sci- 
 ence, drawing, commercial geography, shop math- 
 ematics, or whatever is given, should be related 
 to the real needs of the trade and not be influ- 
 enced by the type of work done in the common 
 
 99 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 schools. The shop work should be laid out in a 
 system of definite steps based upon processes 
 increasing in complexity and degree of skill re- 
 quired, rather than upon a series of jobs to help 
 the pupil over stumbling-blocks and supplement 
 the daily work in the trade, as was done in the 
 part-time evening classes. It is often a very 
 good idea to arrange these steps in groups, each 
 group a short-unit course in form, but not in 
 t>pe, and these units linked together in logical 
 order to shape the student's complete experience. 
 A very large number of these steps — as many 
 as possible — should be real cormnercial jobs and 
 not mere exercises. A trade-school pupil might 
 better be set to work wdth practice material to 
 perfect himself in some process, in order to con- 
 tinue his work upon a commercial job by using 
 that process on the job as soon as he is fitted to 
 do it, than to be given an exercise piece upon that 
 process, only to see the piece scrapped after com- 
 pletion and another exercise take its place. 
 
 This all-day school has two very decided ad- 
 vantages over the part-time and evening school. 
 The first is an economic advantage, that of time. 
 The pupiPs entire day being under the direction 
 of one superintendent, no time lost in going and 
 coming from factory, and the shop practice be- 
 
 lOO 
 
SELECTING THE COURSE 
 
 ing laid out more exactly than is possible where 
 production commercially is part of the scheme, 
 enables the school to cover more ground in shop 
 and class instruction than can be covered by 
 part-time classes in the same number of days, 
 even if the time given to shop work is exactly the 
 same in both cases. The second advantage is 
 pedagogical : it is the advantage of being able to 
 control the pupiFs entire experience, class, shop, 
 play, environment during the daytime, associ- 
 ates, and instructors, and is more valuable for 
 younger than for older pupils. It must be ac- 
 knowledged that because of these advantages the 
 supporters of all-day trade schools for all kinds 
 of trade training have some very good arguments; 
 but I am still of the opinion that where the part- 
 time system can be established, the advantages 
 to the apprentice outweigh the losses of the all- 
 day system. The time spent in school will still 
 dominate much of his experience, and there is no 
 place in which to learn promptness, speed, obedi- 
 ence, trade standards, the value of time, value of 
 material, value of initiative, the sociology of the 
 wage-earner, and learn them well, that is the 
 equal of a well-conducted shop, factory, or busi- 
 ness house. 
 
 lOI 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 The advanced trade school 
 
 The third type of all-day publicly supported 
 trade school is the other extreme. It is the high- 
 est type of trade school imaginable below the 
 technical college. To it should come men and 
 women with distinctly assigned educational re- 
 quirements capable of sustained interest and an 
 appreciation of deferred rewards. This school 
 should fit only for those of the high skilled indus- 
 tries that demand a large fund of technical in- 
 formation which it is difficult to acquire except 
 through an extended course of training. Each 
 course should deal with all the basic principles 
 of the subject, the application of these principles, 
 their coordination in the industry, and anything 
 else that can be shown to be demanded for suc- 
 cessful competition in that particular field. 
 
 For the present, at least, I should leave all the 
 industrial education that falls between these two 
 extremes to the part-time day school, the eve- 
 ning classes, and the short-unit courses, although 
 I am convinced that the all-day industrial school 
 must form the cornerstone of our great American 
 system of industrial training, because it stands 
 both below and above the other sources of train- 
 
 I02 
 
SELECTING THE COURSE 
 
 Part-time and evening classes 
 
 We will return now to a discussion of the rela- 
 tive value of part-time and evening instruction, 
 because the vast majority of employers will de- 
 pend upon either the part-time or evening school 
 for the training of their employees. 
 
 The part-time class has several advantages 
 over the evening class. In the first place, a full 
 and steady attendance is assured; it is more 
 closely connected with real work in the mind of 
 the apprentice if it comes in working hours; the 
 students are mentally more capable of attacking 
 new principles. In the cases of street-pavement 
 layers, building carpenters, and men who work 
 all day in the open air, this last factor is not so 
 important; but for indoor workers in shops and 
 factories, salesgirls, draftsmen, and workers in all 
 such occupations the evening classes are likely to 
 prove a mental and physical strain. The part- 
 time class in a somewhat different form may also 
 be adapted to the seasonal occupations. A large 
 number of occupations, like road construction, 
 farming, and inland water navigation, cannot be 
 pursued at all seasons of the year. During slack 
 seasons the younger of the employees may be in 
 attendance upon a part-time school. In much 
 
 103 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 the same manner the part-time class can be ar- 
 ranged to fit the slack hours of regular trades. A 
 grocer needs his men in the morning and a baker 
 does not. A barber has dull hours that are almost 
 always the same from day to day; similarly with 
 the hotel-keepers and restaurant proprietors. 
 The part-time school may fit their needs exactly. 
 It would appear, therefore, that where the part- 
 time class can be arranged for, it will certainly 
 give good results, as will also a combination of 
 part-time and evening work as described later; 
 but considering all types of classes that might be 
 formed and the general attitude of the employer 
 as it is expressed to-day, in most cases an eve- 
 ning school will do the most good to the largest 
 number. 
 
 Right here let me say that two nights a week, 
 with good attendance watched and enforced, is 
 much more valuable than four nights a week, 
 with twenty-five to forty per cent of absences, 
 no rigid rules of attendance, and consequently 
 an ever-shifting audience for the instructor. The 
 best method of obtaining good attendance in 
 evening classes is through trade agreements with 
 unions and employers which bring forces to bear 
 upon the apprentice that he cannot well afford 
 to affront. Where he is allowed certain credit in 
 
 104 
 
SELECTING THE COURSE 
 
 money or on apprenticeship service for his time 
 in the evening classes, he is pretty likely to give 
 good attendance. Compulsory attendance by 
 State law is resorted to in some instances and 
 may be worked out to give very beneficial results. 
 A substantial fee may be charged on registering 
 and returned to those having seventy-five per 
 cent attendance, or all credit toward a night- 
 school certificate may be dependent upon a fixed 
 minimum attendance record. Attendance in all 
 cooperative schemes of education is a factor that 
 needs more consideration than it has heretofore 
 received, and we have already, under ''Trade 
 agreements," mentioned some ways in which the 
 employer and trade union may help in the matter. 
 
 Where shall the Instruction be given? 
 
 Having determined when the instruction in both 
 skill and technical information is to be given, 
 the authorities laying out the course must deter- 
 mine next where this instruction is to be given. 
 
 In a special building 
 
 Where skill alone is required and can be given 
 with an inexpensive equipment in some build- 
 ing set aside for it, it might better be done in 
 this way. Most of the skill needed for pattern- 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 making and bricklaying and the advanced work 
 in printing can be given in this way. It is very 
 difl&cult to give this skill during the regular 
 day's work. 
 
 In the plant during special hours 
 
 If the equipment is large and expensive, such 
 as manufacturing machinery, an arrangement 
 should be made to use the machinery in the plant 
 itself out of working hours, the cost being as- 
 sumed by the community. It is to be understood, 
 of course, that the skill referred to here is not the 
 general skill that comes through daily practice 
 in the routine of the trade, but special skill which 
 can be acquired much more quickly by specific 
 instruction and practice, skill that is diflScult for 
 the apprentice to pick up in the shop, or that 
 involves in the learning process a waste of ma- 
 terial, the skill that helps the beginner over his 
 stumbling-blocks. It is the "quality" of skill, 
 the "quantity" being left to the commercial 
 practices. 
 
 Within and without the plant 
 
 Where both skill and technical knowledge are 
 required, an arrangement might well be made to 
 give the former in the shop or factory, under a 
 
 1 06 
 
SELECTING THE COURSE 
 
 rompetent instructor working in specific time set 
 aside from the regular working day, while the 
 latter would be given in evening classes meeting 
 in some public school. The illustrations already 
 given, chemical processes, wall-paper designing, 
 gunsmithing, electrical and stationary engineer- 
 ing, machinists, optical workers, and scores of 
 other highly skilled trades, require skill and 
 technical knowledge, and the equipment for ac- 
 quiring skill is too large and expensive to be 
 duplicated in the ordinary trade school. In such 
 cases the apprentice should be paid for the time 
 given to instruction in the shop. 
 
 Reorganization within the plant 
 
 Under certain conditions this shop instruction 
 can be given to apprentices during working hours 
 and in connection with regular productive labor, 
 instead of using the plant out of working hours in 
 time specifically set aside for instruction. In such 
 a case the authorities in charge of the instruction 
 must insist upon a reorganization of the appren- 
 ticeship work in the factory to cooperate with the 
 organization of the trade school. Under an ar- 
 rangement of this kind, the theory of wall-paper 
 design would be taught in a class meeting for 
 instruction purposes only, while the same appren- 
 
 107 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 tices would acquire drawing technique during 
 their regular daily work of tracing, coloring, en- 
 larging and modifying the designs of others. 
 Chemical and metallurgical processes, comple- 
 mentary drawing and mathematics for skilled 
 trades like gunsmithing, tool- and cutter-making, 
 etc., would form the basis of class instruction, 
 the skill being given in a reorganized apprentice- 
 ship instruction upon the shop floor. Certain 
 parts of the technical work, which would be 
 classified under Mr. O'Leary's head of ''trade 
 knowledge," might be more readily taught in the 
 shop, in conjunction with skill, than in the class- 
 room and would be so arranged. There would 
 also be cases where the more formal technical 
 information would need to be taught in the shop, 
 as the theory and practice of indexing on a miller, 
 but it would be done in time specifically set aside 
 for the instructor's use, and not, like skill, in the 
 daily routine of work. 
 
 Master of apprentices 
 
 That part of the factory work which is to pro- 
 vide the skill must be under the direction of a 
 competent master of apprentices, who shall be 
 responsible for their training in skill, so that it 
 will not be left to the haphazard attention of the 
 
 io8 
 
SELECTING THE COURSE 
 
 foreman or superintendent. Mr. Magnus Alex- 
 ander, of the General Electric Company in Lynn, 
 Massachusetts, was especially designated by 
 that company to direct the work of its appren- 
 tices. The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Rail- 
 road employs a master of apprentices, who, with 
 the aid of numerous assistants, directs the begin- 
 ner's training throughout the entire system. The 
 master workman holding such a position must 
 lay out the processes to be taught in a definite 
 and systematic plan, rotate his apprentices so 
 that each one will pass through the series of proc- 
 esses, give such assistance as is needed, keep an 
 individual record of the accomplishment of each 
 apprentice, and keep in touch with the classroom 
 work, if there is any. 
 
 Dangers to he avoided 
 
 The danger of this system is the exploitation 
 of the boy. When he works in regular hours at 
 regular work, the tendency to keep him on one 
 job which he is doing well and rapidly is well-nigh 
 irresistible. When properly done, this method of 
 rotation at regular work will give even better re- 
 sults than segregative instruction in all the lower 
 grades of skill and in most of the higher grades, 
 excepting only such high-grade work as requires 
 
 109 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 the constant attention of one instructor and 
 where the processes of production are slow and 
 expensive, like steel engraving and high-grade 
 optical work. The employer will benefit materi- 
 ally by all this instructing of apprentices; I be- 
 lieve thoroughly in the system commonly used in 
 Europe, where the apprentice attends school 
 about ten hours a week, four on his employer's 
 time and six on his own time. 
 
 Wherever a community feels that it is advis- 
 able to do some of the instructing in the daytime 
 on the employer's time, the employer should 
 willingly cooperate, but if he refuses, a law com- 
 pelling him to allow such instruction would be 
 justifiable. On the other hand, the instruction 
 so given must bear directly upon his work: 
 namby-pamby courses, general education, etc., 
 ought not to be provided at the expense of an 
 employer. 
 
 Art in Industry 
 
 This subject is so closely related to courses of 
 study that must be pursued in training for the 
 advanced positions of many of the well-organized 
 and highly skilled trades, and lends itself so read- 
 ily to formal instruction in any type of trade 
 school, that it has been found inadvisable to re- 
 
 IIO 
 
SELECTING THE COURSE 
 
 late it specifically to any of the foregoing topics. 
 It well deserves a title of its own. 
 
 Whoever is planning any of the courses of in- 
 struction heretofore referred to must give careful 
 consideration to the place in the course that shall 
 be assigned to instruction in the theory and prac- 
 tical application of the principles of art, taste, 
 and design required for perfection in the trade. 
 Some idea of the wide application of such train- 
 ing may be had from a glance at the following list 
 of occupations in the city of Minneapolis which 
 have deserved a study especially from the stand- 
 point of the art involved : — 
 
 Agricultural implements, artificial stone, auto- 
 mobiles, baskets, boots, shoes, brass and bronze 
 products, brick and tiles, boxes, paper, fancy 
 goods, rattan, willow split, bicycles, department 
 and retail store purchase and display, architects, 
 advertisers, carpenters, painters, interior deco- 
 rators, paper hangers, and many others. 
 
 To determine exactly what place art shall have 
 in the outline of work and the exact nature of the 
 instruction to be given, we must again resort to 
 an investigation of the trade itself. 
 
 What positions are there where the employees 
 can exercise taste? What training are they re- 
 ceiving in this direction? Do they succeed in 
 
 III 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 getting all the training needed under present 
 conditions? Is there a demand by the consumer 
 for improvement in the appearance of the prod- 
 uct? Could a training be given to those seeking 
 the positions listed above that would enable them 
 to satisfy this demand? Exactly what should this 
 training be? Should it accent color, form, finish, 
 or quality, — all of them, or which of them? Is 
 design, original or adapted, an important factor? 
 Where the trade involves distributing rather 
 than producing, it is desirable to know whether 
 color, harmony, line, textures, proportions, and 
 the acquisition of a convincing vocabulary along 
 these lines will prove desirable. Take, for in- 
 stance, the making of book-covers, carpets and 
 rugs, cut-glass, draperies, embroidery, furniture, 
 jewelry, millinery, ribbons, toys and notions, — 
 the art for production is not the same as that 
 needed for distribution. Design, originality, a 
 mastery of color harmony, a knowledge of the 
 relationship of the design to the actual process 
 of manufacture, and the demand of the con- 
 sumer are necessary for production. To sell these 
 wares requires no special ability in design, a good 
 knowledge of color harmony, no knowledge of the 
 principles of manufacture, but a close touch 
 with the demand of the consumer. It demands a 
 
 112 
 
SELECTING THE COURSE 
 
 training in taste, proportion, finish, quality, an 
 ability to read human nature, and a vocabulary 
 sufficient to cover any emergency. Which of 
 these can and should be provided for? 
 
 It is not the business of the trade school to 
 train the general consumer in the artistic appreci- 
 ation necessary for intelligent consumption, — 
 that is, for the purchase and use of such articles 
 as pictures, clothing, furniture, carpets, and 
 other furnishings of like nature, — except as an 
 incidental education that must come along with 
 preparation for vocational efficiency. Such train- 
 ing as a major part of the work belongs to prac- 
 tical arts courses in general education, in pub- 
 lic schools, in art schools, and in the various 
 institutes. 
 
 With a clear understanding of the foregoing 
 principles and a careful investigation of each 
 trade or occupation to determine its exact oppor- 
 tunities and requirements, the place of art in 
 industry should be readily determined for each 
 course of study projected. 
 
 Unorganized or Low-skilled Trades 
 
 We shall next consider an industry that has not 
 sufficient outlook in advanced processes to war- 
 rant an extended training in part-time or evening 
 
 113 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 classes, but in which limited but rather prompt 
 advancement can be expected through training 
 in short-unit courses. We may again refer to 
 paper-box making, fifteen per cent of which is 
 too difficult to be picked up on the shop floor; to 
 special hand laundry work, machine-tending, of 
 a somewhat advanced type, such as paper-cut- 
 ting and folding apparatus, which must be ad- 
 justed for each job, and the more advanced units 
 of such highly specialized industries as shoe- 
 making and automobile manufacturing. 
 
 Short-unit courses 
 
 The short-unit course has been devised espe- 
 cially to meet these conditions. It is provided to 
 meet the needs of people who want only a limited 
 amount of instruction, who must have immediate 
 help, and who are not as a rule expected to con- 
 tinue a long and systematic course of instruction 
 for high-skilled positions. The short-unit courses 
 should be laid out as a series of distinct problems, 
 five or ten at the most, each one complete in itself 
 with all its correlated work. The pupil on enter- 
 ing should know exactly what his first problem is. 
 It should include the ability to do quickly and 
 well some one thing needed for a step forward in 
 his commercial work. It should not be some par- 
 
 114 
 
SELECTING THE COURSE 
 
 tial process, fundamental principle, or general 
 rule; it should be a specific, concrete job, to be 
 done, with or without the ^'why," as the case 
 may be. 
 
 Thus, in the paper-box class the lesson might 
 hinge upon the figuring-out of the amount of 
 stock needed to fill an exact copy of an order 
 taken from the books of the company, or it might 
 refer to so simple a process as the holding of a 
 box and applying the paper jacket where this 
 is not done by automatic machinery; the first 
 laundry lesson would teach the proper method 
 of ironing one garment; a machine-tender would 
 be shown the safest and most rapid method of 
 setting up and feeding one machine; and so on 
 through the entire list. The pupil should go 
 away from his first lesson realizing what he has 
 learned and wishing he had known it before. 
 When the first problem is completed, he should 
 have the feeling of having definitely finished one 
 useful thing. 
 
 Series of courses 
 
 It is better to have a series of short courses, 
 each of five or ten problems, and register for each 
 course, than to lay out a long series of lessons 
 based upon fundamental processes to be mastered 
 
 115 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 Qrst and applied later on. The maker of a short- 
 unit course should work like a clipping editor by 
 stepping into the industry itself and cutting out 
 step after step for his course from the most impor- 
 tant of the actual jobs which he finds are neces- 
 sary for advancement. 
 
 Training for allied industries 
 
 Let us next take up an industry that in itself 
 offers little advancement, but has several allied 
 industries that afford rather attractive fields. 
 Upholstering and leather-working, drop-forging 
 of steel axles, making rubber tires, and painting 
 and decorating have been mentioned already as 
 offering better fields of advancement than those 
 found in the central assembling factory of many 
 automobile and carriage firms. 
 
 If one or more of these fields are worthy of reg- 
 ular trade training in skill or technical informa- 
 tion, we have already covered the ground with 
 our discussion of part-time and evening classes. 
 If each allied trade, too simple for extended 
 training, can be covered by short-unit courses, we 
 have again touched upon every phase of this 
 work, excepting one, the possibility of grouping 
 these allied industries for the purpose of instruc- 
 tion, 
 
 ii6 
 
SELECTING THE COURSE 
 
 Allied groups 
 
 After laying out a definite course in each allied 
 trade, compare these courses and determine 
 whether there are technical principles and general 
 information that form the imderlying basis of a 
 group of these trades, and if so, form combined 
 classes in these subjects. This is much more 
 likely to be true of a series of simple allied trades 
 or divisions of work grouped around one central 
 industry than it is of a number of separate indus- 
 tries not so related. It must not be confused with 
 the "common content" idea, which proposes to 
 relate a group of diversified, high-skilled trades 
 through general principles that underlie the 
 group. The relationship here is specific and is 
 based upon a comparison of the courses actually 
 laid out for each division. There are several dis- 
 tinct trades or branches of the industry connected 
 with the making of yarn; the same is true of the 
 leather industries, of furniture-making, and of 
 paper-making. Many of these divisions are sim- 
 ple enough for short-unit courses and are really 
 allied trades. A fund of general information 
 about the central industry runs through each 
 allied trade, and general technical principles will 
 be found that are necessary to each division. 
 ,117 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 These should be carefully sifted out and com- 
 bined classes formed for their presentation. 
 
 If the same kind and degree of skill are needed, 
 but with different applications, give this skill 
 first. This would be the case, for instance, in 
 bleaching and dyeing. Wherever possible, group 
 these allied trades or divisions, give principles 
 and manipulation common to the group, and 
 specialize afterward in a short-unit course for 
 each division. This not only saves time and ex- 
 pense, except where there are a large number of 
 beginners for every allied trade, but allows a se- 
 lection of occupation after some experience, gives 
 a firmer foundation, makes it easier to take up 
 another trade in case of economic necessity, and 
 broadens the scope of a beginner's vision as he 
 looks over the industrial field. 
 
 Fitting for a New Occupation 
 
 . When the problem is to take men and women 
 who are working in one industry and put them in 
 a trade school, in order to fit them for another 
 industry that demands adult labor, or offers no 
 opportunity for young beginners to enter the in- 
 dustry as apprentices or otherwise, the treatment 
 is radically different. 
 
 1x8 
 
SELECTING THE COURSE 
 
 Related to apprentice's work 
 
 There is just a possibility that there may be 
 points of likeness and contact between the indus- 
 tries in which the children are working and those 
 which are demanding adults, but this is very 
 unlikely. If such a point of contact can be found 
 for any two of the industries, it should be used as 
 the connecting link between that which the chil- 
 dren are doing and the work they will be expected 
 to do, and the course of study in our trade school 
 should begin by exemplifying this relationship 
 and building upon it as a foundation. The pres- 
 ence or absence of such points of contact may 
 also be used in determining the advisability of 
 attempting to fit for certain industries in the 
 State, where the beginners must come from mi- 
 nors already employed in other lines of work. 
 
 There is no such thing as a young boy serving 
 an apprenticeship as a chauffeur; the trade itself 
 is not skilled enough to warrant years of appren- 
 ticeship, and the laws in most States and employ- 
 ers in all States forbid young boys the opportu- 
 nity of learning in actual practice. The chauffeur's 
 trade, however, is a very good trade, and a city 
 might be justified in taking young men in shops 
 and factories, where they are familiar with ma- 
 
 119 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 chinery and the use of tools, and training them, 
 in courses of short-unit type, to fill positions as 
 chauffeurs. The same city might refuse to train 
 grocer's clerks, bookkeepers, and errand boys for 
 the chauffeur's trade, on the ground that the 
 total lack of connection between their work in and 
 out of school would necessitate a much longer and 
 more expensive training than the city would be 
 justified in giving for so simple a trade. 
 
 Not related to studenfs present work 
 
 In most cases there will be an abrupt line of 
 separation between the two lines of work. It 
 must now be remembered that the pupils in our 
 trade school are to be dependent upon the school 
 alone for their success. There will be no coordina- 
 tion or cooperation between the school and their 
 daily experiences, nor will there be a background 
 of skill or technical atmosphere to draw upon 
 during instruction. This is a more difiicult case 
 than any we have considered before. In the short 
 time allotted to evening work, we must give all 
 the skill, all the special information, and all the 
 atmosphere that is needed for a new trade. The 
 curriculum in this case must be absolutely deter- 
 mined by the needs of the new job. It must not 
 give an unessential thing, and, since time is so 
 
 1 20 
 
SELECTING THE COURSE 
 
 valuable, it should be planned step by step to 
 the very end before the first lesson is given, so 
 that if it exceeds the allotted time, it may be re- 
 arranged according to the trade value of each di- 
 vision. It cannot give technical information and 
 leave skill to the daily practice in the shop; it 
 cannot give the most essential points in skill and 
 leave the little ones to come by practice; it must 
 give every detail of skill and technical knowledge 
 that it expects to make use of at any time in the 
 entire course. It should plan for visits to the in- 
 dustry, in small groups, and covering one phase 
 at each visit. There should be talks, pictures, 
 exhibits given by experts in the industry, to 
 produce the right atmosphere and to correct 
 any false environment that might exist in the 
 old industry which claims their daily labors. The 
 instructors here should be experts in the indus- 
 try studied. Finally, the time allowed must be 
 greater than in previous cases. 
 
 With these restrictions I believe this work can 
 be done successfully. 
 
 Woman's Work 
 
 Up to this point the principal emphasis has 
 been put upon the work for men, but along with 
 this problem of taking men from one industry 
 
 121 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 and fitting them for another comes this much 
 broader but much simpler problem of fitting 
 women for the home while they are at work in 
 some gainful occupation that offers no future. 
 Even if it does oft^er a future, the majority of 
 these women and girls will at some time be home- 
 makers. If they leave productive labor and oc- 
 cupy themselves exclusively in the home, this 
 becomes their occupation in Hfe and demands a 
 fit training; if they remain in industry and also 
 keep up a home, as thousands do, there is all the 
 more need for the most scientific and concise 
 training to provide direct and economical meth- 
 ods, short cuts, time-saving appliances, and 
 healthful, wholesome, and attractive ideas for 
 eating, sleeping, and living. Moreover, the blind- 
 alley and short-term occupations are filled with 
 women and girls, the shift in personnel of employ- 
 ees is kaleidoscopic, and every normal woman has 
 some ideal of her own home. This question has 
 been written upon and spoken about so con- 
 stantly that it will be useless for me to present 
 further arguments. 
 
 Home-making 
 
 Training as housewives should be given. It 
 should comprise sewing, undergarment making, 
 
 122 
 
SELECTING THE COURSE 
 
 making of children's clothing, mending and mak- 
 ing-over garments, and simple dressmaking. 
 Every article should be practical, complete, and 
 ready to wear when accepted. Directly corre- 
 lated with the above should be enough element- 
 ary textiles to determine the nature, quality, and 
 reasonable cost of the most common dress goods, 
 with simple tests for wool, cotton, linen, etc., and 
 enough laundry to give the methods of washing 
 different materials and colors; soaps, simple dye- 
 ing, and bleaching. 
 
 It should comprise cooking, a purely manipu- 
 lative course, telling what to cook and how to 
 cook it, the selection of meats and vegetables 
 from economic and dietary standpoints, chil- 
 dren's foods, some simple invalid dietaries and 
 home tests for determining the purity of food- 
 stuffs, freshness of eggs, and similar points. 
 
 It should comprise home science: ventilation 
 with window boards and cotton screens; care of 
 fires; sanitation of sinks, traps, cupboards, etc.; 
 some few lessons on common bacteria, with de- 
 tection and prevention; lighting, with cost of 
 same; personal hygiene; and the science of home 
 accounting, with the value of cost-keeping, 
 weighing and measuring, and buying in bulk. I 
 presume the expert domestic-science teacher will 
 
 123 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 say that much is left out of the above and the 
 uninformed will maintain that all this can be 
 learned in the home; but to the first I answer 
 that these women want definite daily problems 
 only, stripped of all theory excepting the simplest 
 and that most easily applied; and to the second I 
 say, simply, visit their homes, 
 
 Woman^s trade training 
 
 In respect to the regular trade training of 
 women to earn a livelihood, I should not wish, 
 because of the emphasis previously laid upon 
 man's work, to appear unmindful or inapprecia- 
 tive of the immediate and growing need for inves- 
 tigation into all women-employing industries, as 
 such, whether men are also employed or not. 
 
 In the vast department-store industry and 
 with all retail firms lies a most promising field. 
 Not only are employers willing and anxious to 
 cooperate in any school for salesgirls, but the 
 minimum-wage law, now coming into operation 
 in our States, will make such instruction indis- 
 pensable to the girl herself. When the minimum 
 wage of a sales position is automatically raised 
 from $6 to $9, for instance, the firm will at once 
 comply and pay the $9, but they will not pay it 
 to a $6 girl. The employee must earn $9, or give 
 
 124 
 
SELECTING THE COURSE 
 
 way to some one else, perhaps from some other 
 city or State, who can earn the minimum allowed 
 by law. The $6 girl has only two alternatives, 
 increase her earning capacity or get out. The 
 demand for trades courses in the art of selling, 
 conducted by the community, assisted by the 
 mercantile firms, taught by experienced salesmen 
 and saleswomen who have also been trained in 
 the art of instructing, will be felt immediately 
 in every State where the minimum wage is 
 adopted. 
 
 The same will be true of like classes in all lines 
 of wage-earning occupations for women. 
 
 Training in General Efficiency 
 
 Up to this time we have held ourselves con- 
 sistently to a discussion of courses of study inti- 
 mately connected with the work which the pupils 
 are doing in the trades or with the work of some 
 industry into which they are expected to go. A 
 great danger lies in the tendency of professional 
 teachers to drift away from the immediate issue 
 and actual concrete problems because of their 
 own training and their own ability to evaluate 
 mediate interests. The employee and his em- 
 ployer have no such ability, taken in the large, 
 and the time and intellectual equipment at the 
 
 125 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 disposal of the trade teacher forbids this ideal 
 method of treatment. 
 
 This does not mean, however, that we are to 
 make human machines of our pupils. There are 
 many other things that can be given besides skill 
 and technical knowledge which will be a distinct 
 benefit to the young worker in his trade. Thus, 
 his own physical condition is of the utmost im- 
 portance, as are the habits that improve or re- 
 tard it. 
 
 Accuracy, care, forethought, method, and the 
 habit of thinking about his work, the work of 
 others, and possible improvements are indispen- 
 sable to a mechanic's preferment; but a preach- 
 ment on alcohol, a course in ethics, and training 
 in the psychological processes of thought will 
 accomplish nothing. These subjects are not to be 
 v/ritten into the course of study of the pupil, but 
 into that of his teacher. They are to be absorbed, 
 to be acquired as habits are acquired by imita- 
 tion and the influence of environment set up by 
 his instructor. You cannot teach cleanliness to a 
 group of boys when their instructor is spitting 
 tobacco juice into a sawdust pile, or exhort them 
 into systematic methods when they are searching 
 all over the shop or tool room to find some mis- 
 placed tool or piece of stock. These things, to- 
 
 126 
 
SELECTING THE COURSE 
 
 gether with thoughtfulness for fellow workmen, 
 duties to one's employer as regards wasted time 
 or material, and the other personal traits that 
 make a man popular with his fellows and valu- 
 able to his superiors, must be soaked in, daily, 
 almost unconsciously, because of the persistent 
 forethought and example of the instructor, and 
 because the pupil, in following this example and 
 actually putting its principles into practice, 
 makes them a component part of his shop experi- 
 ence rather than of his course of instruction. 
 
 General education in trade schools 
 
 And now arises the oft-mooted question. Shall 
 we teach some general education in our industrial 
 schools? 
 
 So far as I can see, this question resolves itself 
 into a simple analysis of the needs of the minors 
 under consideration and into the question of 
 whose business it is to supply these needs. The 
 all-day industrial school, as indicated before, 
 either completes the general education or builds 
 upon it and extends it to provide the means of ad- 
 vanced training. It must give general education, 
 of course, and, wherever it draws public funds, it 
 should be compelled to train for citizenship. 
 
 For the part-time school, the evening classes, 
 127 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 and short-unit courses, the first matter to be con- 
 sidered is, Are they supported by public funds? 
 If they are not supported by public funds, the 
 question of general education must be left to the 
 authorities conducting the school. If they are 
 wholly or in part supported by the public, then 
 the public has a right to demand that training 
 for good citizenship be given in all these classes; 
 but in my judgment it is inadvisable, from a 
 practical standpoint, ever to enforce this right in 
 the case of short-unit courses; and it is foolish 
 to force it upon the other classes until a careful 
 investigation has shown that proper training in 
 this subject has not been given and cannot be 
 given in the public schools. 
 
 Civic training 
 
 By civic training in this instance is meant 
 specific classroom instruction in the duties of 
 citizenship, not the thousand and one little side- 
 lights on good citizenship that are intimately 
 connected with industrial life and may be em- 
 phasized by a good shop teacher many times in 
 the course of a year. Unquestionably the appren- 
 tice should be trained in citizenship; but it may 
 be better for the State to improve this training 
 in the common schools and restrict the entrance 
 
 128 
 
SELECTING THE COURSE 
 
 into publicly supported part-time and evening 
 schools until after such training has been received. 
 
 Formal civic training may be impossible at the 
 early age at which the apprentices leave the com- 
 mon school; it may be impossible to interest 
 them in civic ideas divorced from their industrial 
 ideas, but if it is possible to give it in connection 
 with the general education, it is much better 
 there than as a part of the industrial course. Our 
 experience has shown that the apprentices, in 
 evening classes, at least, have no more interest 
 in civic training and are no more adapted to it 
 than the children of the upper grammar grades. 
 The burden of proof should rest with those who 
 desire to add civic training to the industrial 
 course. 
 
 ' At all events, no training of a general nature, 
 civic or otherwise, unless it is absolutely needed 
 for the trade work, should be given in time paid 
 for by the employer unless he consents to the 
 same. When he pays the taxes of his local schools, 
 he is providing his share of the expense of the 
 general educational training of the community. 
 
 This will not operate as a hindrance in case of 
 the half-time system and such cooperative sys- 
 tems, where the employer agrees to pay a certain 
 fixed wage for the pupil's entire time, half to be 
 
 129 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 spent in his shop and half in the school. The wage 
 scale is fixed according to the specific agreement, 
 and the success of the plan requires an entire 
 agreement between the school and the employ- 
 ers, not only regarding the courses to be given in 
 the school, but also regarding the jobs to be given 
 in the shops. 
 
 The particular danger lies in empowering a 
 community to take apprentices out of a shop or 
 factory for certain hours a week, compelling the 
 employer to pay the same wage as before, and 
 then using this time for general education or civic 
 training. Such a course, although justified where 
 the training given on the employer's time is 
 strictly trade training which the apprentice needs 
 for advancement and is not getting in the shop, 
 cannot be justified where the training is not re- 
 lated to his shop work and consequently does 
 not ofifer his employer any return for the time he 
 is compelled to pay for. If the employer agrees, 
 there can be no legal objection. 
 
 Regarding general education other than civic, 
 every State should have a minimum general edu- 
 cation without which no normal child should be 
 permitted to leave the public school except under 
 special provision for continuation work. Where 
 the pupils of an industrial part-time and evening 
 
 130 
 
SELECTING THE COURSE 
 
 school can be shown to have passed this mini- 
 mum educational requirement, the public should 
 not have authority to force general education in 
 these schools. Where the pupils have not com- 
 pleted this minimum requirement, the school 
 would be a continuation school and would be 
 compelled to offer general work enough to com- 
 plete the minimum course. Short-unit courses 
 should never be continuation courses, but they 
 might be included as a distinct unit in the work 
 of a continuation school. 
 
 General education needed for industrial 
 
 efficiency 
 
 Nothing in the above should be construed to 
 indicate that industrial school authorities are not 
 to be permitted to offer general education when- 
 ever such courses are deemed advisable for the 
 advancement of their pupils in the industry. 
 Under such circumstances the authorities must 
 again investigate the industry in the training for 
 which they propose to include this general edu- 
 cation. 
 
 What is the average schooling of the beginner 
 now going into the industry? Is the industrial 
 progress hampered most by lack of trade train- 
 ing, lack of brains, or lack of general education? 
 
 131 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 Recall again the car-heating engineer, who stated 
 that his beginners were hampered very largely 
 for lack of general training, and not for want of 
 specific trade instruction. Would this general 
 training have been given in the public schools or 
 was there sufficient schooling and too little appli- 
 cation? Is more common schooling needed? How 
 much more? Can it be given better before en- 
 tering the trade or after entrance, when it comes 
 along with the practical application? The inves- 
 tigator here must be careful to distinguish be- 
 tween an apparent and a real need for more gen- 
 eral education. Apprentices often appear lacking 
 in common-school subjects when in fact they are 
 lacking in the ability to apply what they know in 
 those subjects to the concrete problems at hand. 
 They appear to lack general education; what they 
 really need is specific and special courses training 
 them to use what they already know. It is doubt- 
 ful, for instance, if short courses in plane geom- 
 etry, solid geometry, elementary physics, etc., 
 given in the usual way, would be of much service 
 in assisting an apprentice to figure out the cutting 
 speed on a lathe, the amount of material wasted, 
 or the weight of a casting made from a pattern, 
 although these results depend upon principles in 
 the subjects named. A thorough sixth-grade 
 
 132 
 
SELECTING THE COURSE 
 
 course in denominate numbers would supply all 
 the general education really needed, — not all 
 that would be desirable, but all that would be 
 absolutely essential; and the rest is to be specific 
 application to concrete problems. 
 
 If the general schooling needed is considerably 
 above the minimum requirement of the State, 
 would it pay these beginners to enter a regular 
 school and obtain it there? What is the average 
 education of the students in the trade class? What 
 are their financial conditions? The answers to 
 these questions, and similar ones that will sug- 
 gest themselves, should determine in the minds of 
 the trade-school authorities how much or how 
 little general education to include in the work. 
 Wherever possible, general schooling should be 
 approached through its practical adaptation to 
 the trade and not as a disjuncted subject. As has 
 been so ably pointed out by Professor Richards, 
 where little skill and little or no technical knowl- 
 edge are required by any line of employment that 
 offers fair places as a return for experience alone, 
 it usually indicates the need of general continua- 
 tion school instruction rather than trade train- 
 ing; and where skill and technical knowledge are 
 requisite to advancement, it usually indicates 
 the need of special training following all the 
 
 133 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 general schooling required to profit by such 
 training. 
 
 Moral and recreational subjects 
 
 It remains only to say a few words regarding 
 one type of general education that will prove of 
 tremendous value to a State or Nation in promot- 
 ing the happiness and welfare of its people. The 
 industrial revolution of the last thirty years, with 
 its increasing subdivision of labor, its multiplica- 
 tion of processes, and the invention of semi- and 
 wholly automatic machinery, has brought forth 
 hundreds of thousands of jobs that not only are 
 entirely lacking in all stimulus to physical and 
 mental growth, but are actually deadening to 
 mind and body by their monotony. Whenever 
 States, cities, corporations, or citizens can do any- 
 thing to alleviate this condition, they are morally 
 bound to do it. Reading courses, music and 
 applied art, lectures, entertainments, the public 
 schools open in the evenings for concerts and 
 dancing, athletics, gymnasium work, playgrounds 
 and recreation-center classes, anything that will 
 prove successful in a community, meet the ap- 
 proval of its people, and offer relief from that 
 monotony of existence which is driving men to 
 the saloons and gambling-tables and women 
 
 134 
 
SELECTING THE COURSE 
 
 to the dance-halls and cafes, should be pro- 
 vided. 
 
 But we must temper our sentiment with sense; 
 we must see clearly just what end these courses 
 are to achieve, and, working for that end, divorce 
 them from all pretense of industrial and trade 
 training, all relation to our practical instruction 
 for shop and factory, — the one having to do 
 with the hours of labor and the other with the 
 hours of leisure. 
 
 As there is a time for work and a time for play, 
 so there is a time for work training and a time for 
 instruction in the wise use of leisure; but in nei- 
 ther case will it prove successful to attempt both 
 lines at the same time. 
 
IV 
 
 SELECTING THE TEACHER 
 
 The Importance of the Teacher 
 
 The longer I live and the more I come in contact 
 with teachers and pupils in every type of school, 
 both in this country and in Europe, the more I 
 appreciate the value of the teacher as the one in- 
 dispensable factor in any system of education. It 
 is to me a matter of both wonder and regret, when 
 I am shown over some magnificent building, ex- 
 pensively furnished, the heating, lighting, and 
 ventilation in charge of a licensed engineer, mag- 
 nificent machinery and shop equipment compris- 
 ing every possible type of tool and machine, and 
 then find the instruction being given by mechan- 
 ics who have never had even an elementary course 
 in the mechanics of teaching, never made out a 
 practical course of study, never prepared a 
 month's work in advance, and are unable to keep 
 even moderately good order in their classes. Or, 
 still worse, to find some underpaid and over- 
 worked regular school teacher, who has had a six 
 weeks' summer course in preparation for indus- 
 
 136 
 
SELECTING THE TEACHER 
 
 trial work or has taken a manual- training course 
 two hours a week for the year, put over industrial 
 or apprenticeship classes that require mechanical 
 skill, shop knowledge, an appreciation of indus^ 
 try from the inside, and experience as a worker 
 in the trade under instruction. 
 
 The standard 
 
 Let us first set standards for our various teach- 
 ers, find what it will cost to hire teachers that 
 reach these standards or as nearly reach them as 
 can any one to be procured for that work, set 
 aside this cost, and then use what remains of our 
 appropriation to provide the place and the equip- 
 ment. Nine times out of ten a $2500 teacher with 
 an $800 equipment will turn out superior work 
 to that of an $800 teacher with a $2500 equip- 
 ment. The former will find a way to provide the 
 tools in some shop or factory, but the latter cannot 
 find a way to provide additional personality and 
 mental power. 
 
 The first step in selection 
 
 First of all, then, what sort of teachers do we 
 need, where are they to be found? If we must 
 train them, how and by whom shall it be done? 
 
 137 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 The Experience of Germany 
 
 I will refer you first to the experience of Ger- 
 many in regard to the sort of teachers that have 
 proved most successful. 
 
 Directors 
 
 There are ten directors in the ten evening trade 
 schools of Hamburg held in public school build- 
 ings; five of them are principals of the same build- 
 ings in the daytime, three hold advanced licenses 
 as instructors in higher schools, while two are 
 teachers in the common schools. Of the four day 
 trade schools housed in one main building given 
 up exclusively to trade instruction, not one has a 
 director who is primarily a school man; all have 
 directors who are engineers, experts in the trades 
 taught, but especially trained for directing school 
 activities. The trade schools run under the direc- 
 tions of trade unions all have tradesmen as di- 
 rectors. The work of the day school is distinctly 
 higher in type than the work of the night schools. 
 
 It would appear, then, that for the higher and 
 more technical day school an engineer or expert 
 tradesman is selected as director and is obliged 
 to take training in school direction, whereas for 
 the less technical night-school work, a school 
 
 138 
 
SELECTING THE TEACHER 
 
 principal or teacher is preferred. It is to be re- 
 membered that all these evening schools are 
 under the direction of one inspector, who is a 
 rather high type of educator and business organ- 
 izer, and who is in no way connected with the 
 common-school system of the city. The manage- 
 ment of the system is separated from that of the 
 common-school system, but the direction of each 
 evening school is placed in the hands of a regular 
 teacher responsible to this special trade-school 
 inspector. 
 
 Teachers 
 
 Of the 223 teachers employed in the ten eve- 
 ning schools, 45 are tradesmen, 5 rectors of day 
 schools, 9 teachers in high schools, and 164 are 
 common-school teachers. Thus, in the evening 
 school, where nearly all theory is taught, the prac- 
 tical work being done in the commercial shops 
 during the day, 178 school teachers are employed 
 as against 45 tradesmen. Of these 178 school 
 teachers, only 3 are giving any work in the nature 
 of shop instruction, while of the 45 mechanics, 7 
 are engaged in classes of pure theory and 38 in 
 shop work or on shop problems. 
 
 In general we may say that in all these trade 
 schools the professional teacher is employed to 
 
 139 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 impart theory and as far as possible for elemen- 
 tary technical work, the actual shop instruction, 
 the advanced technical work, and certain classes 
 in advanced theory being left to the mechanic. In 
 every instance, however, the professional teacher 
 has taken a course in practical training for the 
 trade he is to teach and the tradesman has fin- 
 ished a course in pedagogy. In no case has the 
 mechanic stepped directly from his shop, or the 
 teacher from his classroom, into the trade school 
 without special preparation. 
 
 Summary 
 
 Looking back over these statements they may 
 be summed up as follows: Where the facility in 
 imparting information and the preservation of 
 interest and discipline are most important and 
 the technical knowledge is simple enough to be 
 acquired by study, the professional teacher is 
 selected; where the skill, knowledge of the trade, 
 and technical information are more important 
 than the method of presenting them, the mechanic 
 is selected. 
 
 140 
 
SELECTING THE TEACHER 
 
 Training for the American Teacher 
 
 Principles of teaching 
 
 First and foremost in the American trade 
 school we must require of every teacher a train- 
 ing in the mechanics of teaching. This may be 
 anything from a carefully planned course in some 
 educational institution to frequent short talks 
 between a rural-school superintendent or princi- 
 pal and his one industrial teacher concerning the 
 outlining of a course, the instruction by demon- 
 stration and individual help, proper methods of 
 examination, and the principles of discipline. It 
 should not be a study of formal pedagogy, but 
 a study of practical trade teaching; and no one 
 should be permitted to teach without it. 
 
 Trade knowledge 
 
 Secondly, we must demand a rather intimate 
 knowledge of the trade to be taught, whether 
 gained through actual experience as a worker in 
 the trade or through special training in the prin- 
 ciples of the trade given in specially organized 
 courses for that purpose. Thus the trade worker 
 would present his experience as a mechanic and 
 his training in the principles of teaching before 
 being employed as a shop instructor or teacher of 
 
 141 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 the higher classes in technical knowledge. The 
 professional teacher would present evidence of 
 special training in courses given for apprentices in 
 the trade, or in special courses fitting teachers to 
 instruct in this trade, and also from visits, study, 
 and, if possible, some weeks' actual work in the 
 trade, before he is hired to teach the classroom 
 work and elementary theory of that industry. 
 Under such an arrangement the drawing and 
 shop mathematics of the mechanic and building 
 trades, the chemistry of textiles, dyeing and 
 bleaching, the composition and spelling of the 
 printing trade might be given by these profes- 
 sional teachers; the shop practice, design and 
 final estimating, the advanced processes of the 
 textile industry, and the actual designing and 
 printing being left to expert tradesmen. 
 
 My own experience has shown that there are 
 more school men who can acquire the elementary 
 trade principles than there are mechanics who can 
 become proficient in the art of teaching; also, that 
 it is easier to teach the school man than the me- 
 chanic. It has also proved that in many cases the 
 school man with some trade training gives better 
 satisfaction in the classroom not in the shop than 
 the mechanic with some pedagogy; but wherever 
 I have found a mechanic who did master the 
 
 142 
 
SELECTING THE TEACHER 
 
 principles of teaching he has proved to be the 
 most valuable man in the entire group. 
 
 The community's part 
 
 For this reason a State or community that pro- 
 poses to offer trade instruction should provide 
 opportunity for its tradesmen to receive training 
 in the art of teaching and should seek diligently 
 for those who prove to be natural instructors; 
 and it should provide at the same time classes, 
 visits, excursions, lectures, and short terms of 
 practical work in various trades, where the com- 
 mon-school teachers may acquire sufficient tech- 
 nical knowledge to do the elementary classroom 
 work of the trades. 
 
 The danger is, however, that for financial or 
 other reasons the community will seek to employ 
 these professional teachers in giving the actual 
 trade training. In such cases the element of at- 
 mosphere, and all that it stands for, is lacking. 
 It is like a picture or a play; it only represents 
 real life. Even though the professional teacher 
 has gone into the industry and learned it, if he 
 was a teacher when he did so he never got the 
 viewpoint of the apprentice and journeyman who 
 lived in that trade, by that trade, and never ex- 
 pected to work in any other trade. Let the school 
 
 143 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 man give such related classroom work as he can 
 do best; but place the high-grade mechanic or 
 trade worker in charge of all work that must be 
 an exact duplicate of the work done commer- 
 cially. I have seen a school teacher train a class 
 in the names of various cuts of meat, their ap- 
 pearance, cost, food-value, waste, etc., and do it 
 more successfully than any butcher in the city 
 could have done it; but I never yet saw a school 
 teacher who could pick up a knife and equal a 
 butcher in instructing that class how to cut up a 
 carcass. 
 
 Details of a Teachers' Training Course 
 FOR THE Mechanic 
 
 How shall the State provide these various 
 opportunities for training? 
 
 Mechanics of teaching 
 
 The easiest to provide from the point of equip- 
 ment and the most difficult from all other stand- 
 points is the mechanics training in pedagogy. 
 Any public-school building will serve as the 
 place; the work should be given in the evening 
 during the winter months and should require not 
 less than eighty to one hundred evenings of actual 
 attendance. We have found it satisfactory to run 
 
 144 
 
SELECTING THE TEACHER 
 
 twenty-five weeks, two evenings per week, turning 
 out a class every other spring, but this is largely 
 a matter for decision in each individual case. 
 
 The class of mechanics should be restricted in 
 number and very carefully selected. Each appli- 
 cant should bring a record of his service as ap- 
 prentice and journeyman, a recommendation in 
 writing from his present employer, and should 
 make application in person to the man directing 
 the work. Those who for any reason are deemed 
 unfit to enter the class should be rejected. Into 
 this question enters a consideration of personal 
 appearance and manner, conversational ability, 
 hopes and ambitions and reasons for entering the 
 class, age, experience, and any other points that 
 indicate the probability of success or failure. The 
 most promising applicants up to the limited num- 
 ber prescribed should be selected, and if there still 
 remain some, not undesirable candidates, a few of 
 them should be held as alternates. 
 
 From this it can be seen that the man in charge 
 of the organization of this class must be an ex- 
 pert. He should understand men, be familiar 
 with the principles of teaching, have a general 
 knowledge of the trades to be covered, and under- 
 stand thoroughly the running of a trade school. 
 Preferably he should be the principal of a trade or 
 
 145 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 vocational school, a director of industrial work in 
 city schools, or at least a teacher of long experi- 
 ence in industrial or trade teaching. He must 
 understand what type of mechanics make the 
 best trade teachers and how to select that type. 
 
 Probation period 
 
 Having selected the class, a probation period of 
 two or three weeks should be allowed for volun- 
 tary or compulsory dropping out and replacing 
 from the alternate list. After this period expires, 
 the regular registration should be made and a 
 substantial financial fee collected from each man 
 or woman, the same to be retained or returned 
 under certain attendance restrictions as decided 
 upon by the authorities in charge. Experience 
 has shown that people value most what they are 
 willing to pay for, and the most valuable people 
 are always willing to pay. This is simply our final 
 sift in the sifting process. We are now prepared 
 to discuss what these mechanics shall be taught. 
 
 Since the mechanics of teaching is the one sub- 
 ject required of all and the one which by its na- 
 ture admits of presentation to mixed groups of 
 trade workers, I am including a suggestive out- 
 line giving in a concrete way what this subject 
 ought to cover. 
 
 146 
 
SELECTING THE TEACHER 
 
 Outline of work 
 
 With but slight variation the following plan 
 can be adapted to training teachers for a large 
 variety of trade work: — 
 
 1. Industrial education. 
 
 What it means. 
 Why it has arisen. 
 Present needs. 
 Future possibilities. 
 
 2. Industrial schools. 
 
 Various kinds — name, nature, aim, and 
 
 province of each. 
 Comparison with manual training. 
 
 3. Value of an outline. 
 
 First sketch. 
 
 Rearrangement in specific order. 
 
 4. Course of study. 
 
 Relation to equipment. 
 Definite aim. 
 
 How much skill? 
 
 What processes? Jobs? 
 
 Allied subjects. 
 
 5. Special points on adapting outlines to trade work, 
 
 6. Equipment. 
 
 Relation to work planned. 
 Bids — specifications. 
 Firms — general cost. 
 Arrangement in shop or work room. 
 Individual or general tools. 
 
 147 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 7. The shop exercise. 
 
 Definite idea. 
 Previous preparation. 
 Readiness of tools and materials. 
 Clear instruction. 
 Demonstration or individual work. 
 
 8. Recitation and examination. 
 
 Proper questioning. 
 
 Trade standards for judgment. 
 
 Trade terms. 
 
 Interest — memory — judgment. 
 
 Rating shop work and exercises. 
 
 The practical examination marking. 
 
 Self-checking for the teachers. 
 
 9. Discipline. 
 
 Direct — disorder, loafing, absence, tardiness. 
 Shop ideals and class spirit. 
 Indirect — system (tool room, stock room). 
 Self control (between students). 
 Value of time and material. 
 Work ideals — social justice. 
 10. Records. 
 
 Efl5ciency cards — general cards. 
 
 Judging students. 
 Time cards and job tickets. 
 Want book — efficiency records of tools and 
 
 materials. 
 BUls. 
 
 148 
 
SELECTING THE TEACHER 
 
 11. Materials and products. 
 
 Purchase: In bulk? 
 
 As needed? 
 Disposal. 
 
 Selling product. 
 
 Giving to student. 
 
 Building for school or system. 
 
 Contract work. 
 
 Student compensation. 
 
 12. Place of industries in modern education. 
 
 13. Relation of trade unions to trade education. 
 
 14. Health — industrial hygiene and safety. 
 
 15. State laws — rules — regulations and financial 
 assistance. 
 
 16. Differences between trade and industrial in- 
 struction on one hand and regular school teach- 
 ing on the other hand. 
 
 Economic — social. 
 Individual — discipline. 
 Age — environment. 
 Earning capacity — scholarship. 
 
 Method of preparing the outline 
 
 In preparing an outline of this kind, if there are 
 already successful schools established in the 
 industries for which these people are training, 
 find out what the directors of those schools con- 
 sider most important for their instructors to 
 know, what mistakes and weaknesses are most 
 
 \M9 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 common among beginning teachers, and such 
 practical first-hand information, and then pro- 
 vide in your course for discussions of these points. 
 I use the word ^' discussions" advisedly. These 
 practical people cannot at first enter intelli- 
 gently into a discussion of the matter contained 
 in this outline. Some considerable time must be 
 devoted by their teacher to talks and comments, 
 largely by himself alone. References to books, 
 pamphlets, magazines, bulletins, etc., should be 
 carefully selected and assigned to prepare a back- 
 ground for discussion. The more important top- 
 ics should be run through and commented upon, 
 and as soon as the class has a fund of information 
 from which to draw discussion, this method 
 should be adopted. The instructor in mechanics 
 of teaching should be the director of the industrial 
 work or present credentials of efficiency equal to 
 those mentioned for the one selecting the class. 
 
 Drawing, mathematics, and other subjects 
 
 If the trades included in this training class for 
 teachers are the regular manufacturing and build- 
 ing trades dependent upon drawing and applied 
 mathematics, these subjects should be required 
 of every man who cannot show evidence of pro- 
 ficiency in rapidly applying them to the work of 
 
 ISO 
 
SELECTING THE TEACHER 
 
 his trade. The relationship between the drawing, 
 mathematics, and the shop work should be em- 
 phasized. Where drawing and mathematics do 
 not enter into the trades, but elementary chem- 
 istry, geology, metallurgy, or some other science 
 does, that science should be required under the 
 same conditions as given for drawing. Four years 
 of experience in training mechanics for industrial 
 teaching has shown us the necessity and impor- 
 tance of providing for a considerable amount of 
 additional training in drawing, mathematics, and 
 science, all three bearing directly upon the trades 
 work. We have been unable to depend upon the 
 previous knowledge regarding these subjects of 
 even our highest-grade mechanics, although in 
 some cases it was necessary only to review work 
 which they had once had to reorganize it under 
 fundamental principles so as to apply it intelli- 
 gently to trade teaching. To be able to use ap- 
 plied mathematics in a shop and to be able to 
 explain the how and the why of this use to an 
 apprentice are very dijSerent things, so our 
 mechanics find. 
 
 Shop practice 
 
 The actual shop practice of these prospective 
 teachers should be divided into two parts — 
 
 151 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 (i) training in any process of the industry, any 
 machines in the industry, or any work in their 
 particular branch of industry in which they are 
 not already proficient; and (2) practice teaching. 
 We have had high-skilled machinists, drawing 
 from $1300 to $1450 a year, who knew practically 
 nothing about the universal milling machine or 
 the universal grinder. Pattern-makers, who had 
 worked so many years in one factory that they 
 were doubtful regarding the best methods of con- 
 structing patterns of an entirely different nature, 
 have also registered in the class. It has been 
 found advisable to provide some opportunity for 
 additional shop work for these men, although it 
 has never needed to be extensive and has usually 
 been but a small part of the entire training. The 
 men themselves are depended upon to suggest 
 during conferences the nature of the shop work 
 in which they are weak and for which they feel a 
 need of supplementary training. 
 
 Practice teaching 
 
 The practice teaching is absolutely essential to 
 the proper training of the mechanic for school 
 positions. It should be given under conditions as 
 nearly as possible like those the mechanic will 
 meet in his first school job. It should be super- 
 
 152 
 
SELECTING THE TEACHER 
 
 vised, discussed, subjected to all the tests of dis- 
 cipline and system that occur in the regular trade 
 school, and must be given to fair-sized groups of 
 young men or women actually at work in the 
 trade. The latter may be provided by forming 
 classes of apprentices under the direction of reg- 
 ular instructors, and detailing the men or women 
 from the teachers' class to instruct these ap- 
 prentices for a certain number of nights under 
 supervision. After the close of the first series of 
 practice lessons, a short time may well intervene 
 for discussions, visits to other classes, and prepa- 
 ration for further teaching, after which the pro- 
 spective teacher is again placed in charge of a 
 class and given more responsibility and authority. 
 
 Where the community has not the mill, fac- 
 tory, or shop equipment to carry on this work, an 
 arrangement can nearly always be made with a 
 technical high school, college, factory, shop, or 
 mill, that has the desired equipment, for use of 
 the same outside of regular working hours, and 
 subject to the supervision of some employee of 
 the firm who is compensated by the community. 
 The rental in such case is often less than the in- 
 terest on such an equipment as the municipality 
 would need to provide. 
 
 By varying these suggestions to meet the local 
 
 ^52 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 needs and by selecting trades which are promi- 
 nent in the community and which can be prop- 
 erly provided for both in equipment and number 
 of apprentice classes, any locality can offer a 
 very satisfactory opportunity for its mechanical 
 experts to acquire proficiency as teachers. 
 
 Training the Professional Teacher in 
 Trade Subjects 
 
 In order to train the professional school teacher 
 to handle trade subjects a more elaborate system 
 of equipment is necessary, but the actual instruc- 
 tion is more easily provided. 
 
 Theory 
 
 So far as theory is concerned, these teachers 
 need only the general principles underlying trade 
 education. This may be given them in a series of 
 lectures and discussions conducted in a classroom 
 by the director or head teacher in the industrial 
 system, but this is to be recommended only where 
 there are no schools in operation. Where there 
 are evening trade schools, the entire group of 
 teachers registered should be taken by the direc- 
 tor on a series of visits to the various schools. 
 The work in each school or class should be ex- 
 plained, the aims, results, and methods used to 
 
 IS4 
 
SELECTING THE TEACHER 
 
 attain these results, the peculiar problems and 
 difficulties of each trade teacher, discipline, and 
 all such matters that go to make successful trade 
 instruction should be pointed out and made note 
 of. These should later be discussed and examined, 
 and the members of the class should furnish proof 
 to the instructor that they have obtained the 
 proper point of view. 
 
 Trade principles and skill 
 
 These teachers must also be given an elemen- 
 tary but thorough training in the principles of 
 the trade, the classroom work of which they are 
 to teach. It is not sufficient for them to know this 
 classroom work itself, but they must also know 
 something of the hand work that goes with it, the 
 shop conditions, the gradations of work as ap- 
 prentices advance, if they are to obtain the best 
 results in their teaching. 
 
 The actual classroom work may be given them 
 by some instructor at that time engaged in doing 
 that work, or by some experienced trade teacher 
 who has studied out and prepared a proper 
 course of study which will form a basis for a 
 beginning. The drawing, mathematics, science, 
 English, business practice and system, civic 
 training, and all such allied work can always be 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 arranged for without difficulty. Competent men 
 in the trade can be found to instruct the teachers' 
 class in these matters, and only men in the trade 
 itself should be selected for this work. It is im- 
 portant that these teachers get the work entirely 
 from the tradesman's standpoint, and that it 
 shall relate immediately and always to the prac- 
 tical use in the trade; the method and felicity of 
 imparting the knowledge in these cases is of sec- 
 ondary importance. The class brings these latter 
 qualities from its professional work. 
 
 That part of the classroom teacher's training 
 that depends on pure skill can be given in any 
 shop or workroom containing the requisite appa- 
 ratus; therefore, if there are any educational in- 
 stitutions, public or private, in the vicinity, that 
 possess such an equipment, arrangements should 
 be made to give this training in skill in the regular 
 classes of that school, or to use its equipment and 
 possibly its instructors or director in special eve- 
 ning instruction. 
 
 If the equipment is inexpensive, or one that is 
 portable and not likely to be injured, it may often 
 be borrowed from some industrial concern, used 
 for a certain number of weeks, and then returned 
 to the owners. Such equipments as samples of 
 wools, cloths, leather, patterns, designs, and 
 
 iS6 
 
SELECTING THE TEACHER 
 
 innumerable others that any one can suggest, are 
 readily borrowed for use in evening-school in- 
 struction. Where the equipment will serve for 
 many classes and be a permanent asset, it can be 
 purchased; but this is inadvisable in industries 
 with a constantly changing product. 
 
 Industrial appreciation 
 
 Even more important than the training in skill 
 is the training in industrial appreciation, which is 
 acquired only through contact with the industry 
 itself. The community may provide for this 
 training in three different ways. 
 
 The simplest and least expensive is to arrange, 
 with the different industrial concerns whose work 
 is to be taught, for the entrance, as actual begin- 
 ners in the industry during the summer vacation, 
 of such regular school teachers as desire to equip 
 themselves for teaching the classroom work of 
 that particular trade. The compensation will be 
 that regularly allowed for beginners, supple- 
 mented or not by the community as may be de- 
 cided upon. This method has the advantage of 
 allowing a large number of people to obtain this 
 experience. 
 
 The second method is to arrange for work on 
 Saturdays and such fixed holidays as are allowed 
 
 157 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 the schools and not the shops, during the entire 
 time the schools are in session. This is much 
 more difficult to arrange because of the intermit- 
 tence of employment, half-holidays, and general 
 attitude of employers to consider it a nuisance. 
 The teachers, however, work without compensa- 
 tion as a rule, which aids in securing the job. It is 
 often possible to arrange so that the work of a 
 school teacher will come entirely in the forenoon, 
 and the afternoons, or some of them, can be 
 devoted to shop work. 
 
 The third, best, and most expensive plan is for 
 the community to select, from those completing 
 the work of the teachers' class, one or two of the 
 most promising and arrange for them to spend 
 the next half-year in the industry, drawing the 
 same salaries they receive when teaching, less the 
 amount earned in the shop. These men or women 
 would then become the supervisors of the class- 
 room work done by those who were trained as 
 suggested in the first or second way and would 
 also teach in the trade classes in the evening. 
 They would form the selected group from which 
 to pick teachers for all-day schools and for part- 
 time instruction in trade work. 
 
 Under this arrangement a city might, for in- 
 stance, have a group of fifty or sixty public- 
 
 158 
 
SELECTING THE TEACHER 
 
 school teachers taking the work in trade-teaching 
 methods, visits to classes, etc. This would be 
 divided into several smaller groups studying the 
 drawing, mathematics, chemistry, English, and 
 other allied subjects decided upon as necessary 
 for the beginning apprentice, the work being 
 given in a classroom by an expert. These same 
 groups, some of them combined when possible, 
 would be taken into some shop or work room and 
 given the elementary principles and skill of the 
 trade itself, and from time to time certain mem- 
 bers would be relieved from their other work and 
 detailed to give class instruction to groups of 
 apprentices formed from the various trades. At 
 the close of the course, these second groups of 
 teachers would be again divided into classes of 
 strictly one trade or part of a trade and then 
 assigned for summer work in the industries. At 
 the close of the summer, two or three picked men, 
 selected for their efficiency in teaching classroom 
 subjects and for their work in the trade, would 
 be continued in the commercial shops or fac- 
 tories at the expense of the community. 
 
 The whole remaining list of satisfactory gradu- 
 ates would then be made up into an eligible list, 
 from which the director of evening trades schools 
 would select his classroom teachers. From those 
 
 159 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 who obtained satisfactory experience in this 
 work, and also from the specially selected two or 
 three previously chosen, the day trade schools 
 would select their classroom instructors. Any 
 city that follows this plan, modified to meet its 
 conditions, will secure good trade-school instruc- 
 tion. 
 
 It will be contended that the expense of this 
 training will be considerable, but it will not ex- 
 ceed the expense now met without complaint in 
 supporting our normal schools, training schools, 
 training classes, and educational departments in 
 State universities, whose purpose it is to turn out 
 capable teachers for the public schools. 
 
 Trade training will never reach a very high 
 degree of efficiency so long as mechanics, neither 
 trained nor specially selected, are chosen as our 
 instructors; public-school teachers, unfamiliar 
 with trade conditions, have charge of our class- 
 rooms, and political appointees have direction of 
 the community's industrial educational system. 
 
 Conclusion 
 
 In the foregoing pages an effort has been made 
 to point out first of all a general line of study to 
 be applied to the various industrial activities of a 
 State in order to determine whether or not pub- 
 
 i6o 
 
SELECTING THE TEACHER 
 
 licly supported trade education should be given. 
 Where an affirmative answer resulted from the 
 above, suggestions were given regarding the na- 
 ture and types of trade training to be established. 
 General rules for determining the courses of 
 study were presented, and in some cases more de- 
 tailed suggestions were given as concrete exam- 
 ples of what such courses should be like. Lastly, 
 the selection and training of teachers for these 
 trade schools was treated as fully as it is practi- 
 cable to handle a subject that must needs be 
 modified continually to meet local necessities. 
 
 It is perfectly well known to the author that 
 all this is suggestive rather than final, and that 
 many minor and concrete branches of the subject 
 have been merely touched upon or omitted alto- 
 gether; but it is beheved that what has been said 
 is entirely sufiicient to form a working basis for 
 any community to start with. So far as the de- 
 tails of education are concerned, the results of 
 experience in each community are the only safe 
 milestones of advancement. 
 
 Without a doubt these schools will be a perma- 
 nent and ever-increasing benefit to the children 
 of industry. They will be a benefit to the em- 
 ployer and to every citizen who hires the services 
 or purchases the output of skilled mechanics. It 
 i6i 
 
ESTABLISHING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 
 
 still remains to be determined just how great the 
 advantage is to the employer, in order to arrive 
 at an equable proportion of the paid working 
 time that may be demanded for trade instruction. 
 
 It will also be interesting to observe whether 
 they advance the interests of the trade unions or 
 not. If the unions continue to work for quantity 
 of numbers, irrespective of skill, it is doubtful if 
 the industrial schools will have other than Httle 
 effect on their strength. If, however, the unions 
 seek to increase their influence through the ex- 
 cellence of their membership and the quality of 
 work the union members are able to produce, 
 these industrial schools will prove a powerful 
 factor in advancing the reputation of the unions. 
 
 We are not, however, concerned directly with 
 these problems, but indirectly with all of them. 
 We are concerned in working out some common 
 ground of mutual advantage, so definite and 
 plain that the State, the employer, and the union 
 will join hands for a common cause, the uplifting 
 of the children of labor, and through them, of 
 labor itself. 
 
OUTLINE 
 
 I. SELECTING THE SCHOOL 
 
 Our present footing i 
 
 a. Need for facts 2 
 
 b. Study the industries 3 
 
 c. What industries to study 4 
 
 What to study about an industry 5 
 
 a. The work place 5 
 
 b. Hygienic nature of the work 5 
 
 c. Moral and social conditions 6 
 
 d. Standing of the industry with its workers. . . 6 
 
 e. The wage factor 7 
 
 /. Local standing 7 
 
 g. Interpreting the above 8 
 
 Child-employing industries 8 
 
 a. What are they? 8 
 
 b. Children employed — number and age 9 
 
 c. Are numbers excessive? 9 
 
 d. The age problem 10 
 
 e. Length of employment 12 
 
 Opportunity in the trade 14 
 
 a. Are skilled processes ahead? 15 
 
 b. Other training possible 16 
 
 c. Fitting the apprentice for advancement 16 
 
 d. If not advanced, why not? 19 
 
 e. Apprentice vs, adult 21 
 
 /. Employer creates a ** blind alley" 21 
 
 163 
 
OUTLINE 
 
 5. Shall we train inside or outside the shop? 21 
 
 a. Training within the industry 22 
 
 b. Large number advanced 23 
 
 c. Large advance but slow 24 
 
 d. Small number highly skilled 25 
 
 e. Apprentice mortality 27 
 
 /. The nature of the work 29 
 
 g. Can we give skill alone? 30 
 
 h. Must skill be given outside?.' 30 
 
 i. Is general knowledge required? 31 
 
 6. Training for foremanship 32 
 
 7. The allied industries 36 
 
 8. Industries for adult beginners 38 
 
 9. Vocational guidance 40 
 
 II. MAKING THE SURVEY 
 
 1. Two aspects of the survey 43 
 
 2. The industrial survey 45 
 
 a. The survey material 46 
 
 b. Classification of all occupations 48 
 
 c. Occupations not to be considered 48 
 
 d. Groups that will be studied 49 
 
 e. Subdivisions under general occupations 49 
 
 /. Industries in the manufacturing and mechani- 
 cal group that will not be studied 50 
 
 g. Industries in the manufacturing and mechani- 
 cal group that will be studied 52 
 
 h. Domestic and personal service 54 
 
 i. Instructions for field workers 55 
 
 j. Memorandum ^ 55 
 
 164 
 
„ OUTLINE 
 
 k. Departmental chart ^ 57 
 
 /. Suggestions bearing on the departmental 
 
 chart 58 
 
 tn. Further instructions for field workers 59 
 
 n. Materials and aids 59 
 
 0. Use of cards for field notes 62 
 
 p. Conferences with representatives of other 
 
 establishments of the same type 6^ 
 
 q. Other things to watch and do 64 
 
 3. The educational survey 65 
 
 a. Extent 65 
 
 b. The public school 66 
 
 c. Part-time and evening schools 68 
 
 d. Private and commercial schools 71 
 
 4. The commercial industrial survey 74 
 
 S- Other forms of education 78 
 
 III. SELECTING THE COURSE 
 
 1. Advisory boards 79 
 
 2. Trade agreements 82 
 
 a. Tentative agreements 83 
 
 b. General agreements S^ 
 
 c. Specific trade agreement S6 
 
 d. Personal agreements 90 
 
 3. Determining the course of study 91 
 
 a. Well organized, highly skilled trades 91 
 
 b. Field for advancement 92 
 
 c. On what does advancement depend? 92 
 
 d. Trade needs determine course 93 
 
 e. Need for skill. 93 
 
 i6s 
 
OUTLINE 
 
 /, Need of technical knowledge 94 
 
 g. Both skill and technical knowledge needed. . 94 
 
 4. When shall the instruction be given? 95 
 
 a. The day school 96 
 
 b. Three types of day schools 97 
 
 c. The prevocational school 97 
 
 d. The elementary trade school 98 
 
 e. The advanced trade school 102 
 
 /. Part-time and evening classes 103 
 
 5. Where shall the instruction be given? 105 
 
 a. In a special building 105 
 
 b. In the plant during special hours 106 
 
 c. Within and without the plant 106 
 
 d. Reorganization within the plant 107 
 
 e. Master of apprentices 108 
 
 i /. Dangers to be avoided 109 
 
 6. Art in industry no 
 
 7. Unorganized or low-skilled trades 113 
 
 a. Short-unit courses 114 
 
 b. Series of courses 115 
 
 c. Training for alUed industries 116 
 
 d. Allied groups 117 
 
 8. Fitting for a new occupation 118 
 
 a. Related to apprentice's work 119 
 
 b. Not related to student's present work 120 
 
 9. Woman's work 121 
 
 a. Home-making 122 
 
 b. Woman's trade training 124 
 
 10. Training in general efficiency 125 
 
 a. General education in trade schools 127 
 
 b. Civic training 128 
 
 166 
 
OUTLINE 
 
 c. General education needed for industrial 
 
 efficiency 131 
 
 J. Moral and recreational subjects 134 
 
 IV. SELECTING THE TEACHER 
 
 1. The importance of the teacher 136 
 
 a. The standard 137 
 
 h. The first step in selection 137 
 
 2. The experience of Germany 138 
 
 a. Directors 138 
 
 h. Teachers 139 
 
 c. Summary 140 
 
 3. Training for the American teacher 141 
 
 a. Principles of teaching 141 
 
 h. Trade knowledge 141 
 
 c. The community'§ part 143 
 
 4. Details of a teachers' training course for the 
 
 mechanic 144 
 
 a. Mechanics of teaching 144 
 
 h. Probation period 146 
 
 c. Outhne of work 147 
 
 d. Method of preparing the outline 149 
 
 e. Drawing, mathematics, and other subjects .. 150 
 
 /. Shop practice 151 
 
 g. Practice teaching 152 
 
 5. Training the professional teacher in trade 
 
 subjects 154 
 
 a. Theory 154 
 
 Z>. Trade principles and skill 155 
 
 c. Industrial appreciation 157 
 
 6. Conclusion 160