Class L C l^ J Book Ji S Copyiight}!^ r CDPyRICHT DEPOSIT. BEDROCK Education and Employment, the Foundation of the Republic BEDROCK Education and Employment^ the Foundation of the Republic BY .-" ANNIE L. DIGGS PUBLISHED BY THE SOCIAL CENTER PUBLISHING CO. DETROIT, MICHIGAN ^^u v\^ Copyright, 1912, By ANNIE L. DIGGS J^ ©CI.A32844J8 CONTENTS A Foreword vii I The Theory i II The Argument .... 3 III The Proposition Stated . . 9 IV The Evolution of Education . 11 V Organization of the Employ- ment Bureau . . . .21 VI Suggestions to Committees . 27 VII The Agricultural Committee . 31 VIII Industrial Barracks . . .37 IX Farm Villages .... 41 V vi CONTENTS X The Social Center Movement 47 XI The Ethical Mission of the Employment Bureau . . 53 XII Points to Remember , , .65 FOREWORD The system that this little book is designed to establish was not idly con- ceived or hastily set forth. For a quarter of a century I have been a serious student, both in the United States and in Europe — oftentimes an active participant in movements and measures that gave promise of relief to conditions that bear heavily on the lives of my fellow beings. For many years it has been to me an intolerable thought that the misery borne by men and women and children resulting from deprivation of the necessaries of life would be permitted to continue. The raw material exists in superabundance, merely awaiting intelligent and humane supervision to be converted into more than ample provision for all human needs. vii vlii FOREWORD The broad, rich earth yields generously all the good things that are essential to the upbuilding of strong, healthful bodies of men. There is not the slightest reason existent in nature for the blighting deprivation that enervates the bodies, embitters the feelings and corrupts the morals of a vast percentage of mankind. There is no reason except the lack of scientific management addressed to the correction of our industrial chaos. The time is ripe for the inauguration of a remedial method so designed as to eventually compass the entire situation and afiford universal relief. It is none too soon to begin a v^ork that will command the confidence and allay the bitterness of those who feel themselves the victims of injustice. There is a sincere desire among large numbers of the wealthy and well-circum- FOREWORD ix stanced classes to alleviate the distress and permanently better the condition of those who suffer and those whose labor is inadequately recompensed. I am not unaware that there are already in operation many agencies directed to the alleviation of distress and to the solu- tion of the industrial problem. I am not unfamiliar with the political trend that will some day transform our government into a promoter of universal justice and opportunity. Nevertheless, I present the plan out- lined in this little book as one that may be at once begun and that will never become superfluous, no matter what beneficient changes may result from progress along any line. There is in this plan no possi- bility of future collision with any con- ceivable changes in the industrial oi^ social system. X FOREWORD There are thousands of eager, anxious persons in our country now, ready to lend a hand so soon as they become convinced that a proposed method is serviceable and sound. A. L. D. CHAPTER I THE THEORY The theory of the system herein pro- posed is based upon two fundamental facts that enter as vital factors into all social progress and into the development of human character. These two great essentials are EDU- CATION and EMPLOYMENT. Without education — without the quick- ening and training of the intellect mankind would still be loitering in his primitive animalism. Without employment — without the activity and the deftness of human hands 2 BEDROCK in all lines of individual and social enter- prise mere "Education" would be futile. Hence, the supplement — the aftermath of intellectual training is "Employment." Here, then, we have the two talismanic words — Education, Employment — that stand for civilization. These two funda- mentals constitute the Bedrock of all human progress and all individual satis- faction with life. CHAPTER II THE ARGUMENT Without any question, the one estab- lished fact that enlists the widest interest, the loyalty and pride of the citizens of the United States is our public school system. Any attempt to subvert or to change its democratic basis would meet with over- whelming rebuke. And all this devotion, all this loyalty is held in the full face of the fact that as yet the public schools are far from being the promoters of efficiency that they will become. They are very far from having reached the ideals of the most thoughtful men and women of our 3 4 BEDROCK great republic. In no circles is this fact of the lack of many things more keenly realized than among the earnest body of educators. The evolutionary forces already at work to produce a higher degree of efficiency and equipment for the practical business of life by our public schools will in the not far future correct their limitations and may certainly be counted on to produce results unsurpassed in splendid service to the pupils and to our great body politic. Our public schools are an established fact that rests on one essential in the development of human character and social betterment. The theory upon which our public school system is based and which moved its promoters in the days of its small beginnings is that a despotic government may afford a con- tingent of ignorant citizens, but that a ^ BEDROCK 5 republic in order to endure must have educated citizens. An ignorant, mentally deficient number of citizens is a menace to free government. The danger arising from an ignorant citizenship is twofold: first, the ignorant are the victims of their own limitations, and second, they tempt the keener mem- bers of society to exploit them. There is no safety, no assured perpetuity of the republic save through universal educa- tion. So certain is it that the entire fabric of our government would be jeopardized were the education of its youth left to the vicissitudes of private enterprise that taxation and legislation provide for public management and sup- port of institutions of learning. Precisely the same theory as related to the welfare and the perpetuity of our republic that is at the core of our system 6 BEDROCK of education is also at the core of the industrial problem. The republic is not safe with an ignorant citizenship. Likewise, the re- public is not safe with an unemployed citizenship. It will not do to leave education to the uncertainties or the fluctuations of private enterprise. An educated citizenship is so vital to the nation that legislation, national, state and local, is invoked to secure and develop it. Likewise, an employed citizenship is so vital to national health and national progress that there should speedily be set in motion the machinery of organi- zation to rescue industrialism from the disastrous fluctuations and dehumanizing uncertainty of our private, personal and unscientific regime. It is everywhere and every day appar- ent that education unsupplemented by BEDROCK 7 employment stops short of full protection to society or to the individual. It is economic and ethical unwisdom to edu- cate and equip the youth of the nation and then precipitate them at the close of their school days into a social and indus- trial condition that fails to assure them of the application of their training. The irony of the situation is set forth in ghastly shape when both college-bred and manually trained men are found in bread lines, in the disheartened ranks of baffled seekers of employment, and in the last despairing throng who end it all by suicide. That which has been achieved by organized effort for EDUCATION can also be gained by organized effort for EMPLOYMENT, CHAPTER III THE PROPOSITION STATED The proposition is: To establish a Bureau of Employment in connection with each and every Edu- cational institution throughout the wide domain of the Republic of the United States. The task of the schools is to create efficiency: The function of the Bureau will be to secure Employment for each and every pupil coming from educational institutions. Thus will the two great essentials to human welfare move on together on a systematized basis. 9 lo BEDROCK It is not assumed that the proposition offers a speedy correction of industrial conditions that are our heritage from all past ages. There is no possible presto- change from any industrial or social condition. There can be no revolutionary right- about-face that can transform ignorance into enlightenment. You can't make a republic by killing a king. ^ You cannot, says Emerson, have perfect unions without perfect units. An abiding and ennobling social life must be founded upon industrial and intellectual development. It must be the ripe product of experience and growth. But the great thing, the inspiring thing, is to make the beginning, and to make it with a definite, well-ordered and scientific plan. CHAPTER IV THE EVOLUTION OF EDUCATION At the outset the small number of men and women actively engaged in the Employment Bureau work may appear almost ludicrously inadequate to the mighty purpose of the work, and there will be a multitude of skeptics and objec- tors. When the public school system made its first bow to the general public it was greeted with howls of derision, and there was unspeakable distress lest a something had been evoked that would shatter the existing social fabric. The popular and universal education II 12 BEDROCK hoped for by its promoters had the press and the public largely hostile or indiffer- ent. In 1829, when a group of men, nearly all of whom were manual laborers, weavers, tailors, mechanics of Boston, Philadelphia and New York, organized for the purpose of getting "free public schools, where the children of rich and poor could attend on an equal footing," the proposition was hooted at. A public meeting called to discuss the proposition in Philadelphia, at the old City Hall, was broken up by the police and the speakers arrested and taken to jail. The New York Evening Post of that day called on "the bankers, the preachers, the merchants and other respectable members of society" to organize to put down "this pernicious agitation which threatens to undermine the very founda- tion of societv." BEDROCK 13 It is doubtful if, in the entire nation, there is now another daily paper that uses so much space in fine furtherance of the interests of the American schools as does the New York Post of today. Today there is a thousand million dollars invested in our public schools, and this sum does not include the many millions spent every year for salaries of teachers, for books and other school expenses. Thus far along its glorious way has "Education" marched, and now the time is ripe for the forward march of that other great essential, "Employment." There will, however, be no opposition to this system of employment such as barred the way to the establishment of our system of education. Thanks to the growth of general intelligence and to a rapidly growing democracy the sentiment is well-nigh universal favoring conditions 14 BEDROCK that afford the fullest employment of each and all of our citizens. Public dis- course, private concern and that greatest promoter of progress, the public press, continually augment the sentiment that tends to the systematic establishment of industry — of "employment" upon a scien- tific and secure basis. The radical changes operating in the conduct of the public schools, and the gen- eral sentiment sustaining these changes, does not necessarily mean the abandon- ment of high ideals of scholarship, nor any diminution of regard for the higher education. It simply means a shifting process that will eventually result in a vastly increased appreciation and appro- priation of the finest possible intellectual culture. Unready, unwilling youth will not have its capacity overtaxed; instead, the BEDROCK 15 maturer years following the activities of useful, wholesome industry will crave the keen delights of fuller intellectual quest. The following instances of the changes in the public schools are typical of the general trend: The superintendent of the Cleveland public schools will soon introduce most radical changes in the school curriculum. While the academic studies will not be wholly side-tracked, the whole trend of the teaching will be along commercial lines, with the idea of teaching the child the things that will mean bread and butter to him. The change will take place in the fourth or fifth year of schooling. The time devoted to academic studies in the earlier years will in this year and the i6 BEDROCK other three or four years be cut more than half, the time so saved being utilized in teaching the child the rudiments of trades and crafts. For the boys, shops will be installed with all the necessary machinery and in charge of competent instructors. They will be drilled in the intricacies of the different trades, both through books and the technical knowledge gained by work- ing in the shops. The girls will be tutored in household duties, part of each day being devoted to teaching them how to sew, cook, sweep, dust, and how to arrange a home in an artistic manner. The Chicago Board of Trade has let the contract for two huge high schools. They are planned along lines that sug- gest an educational revolution and a new conception of the social use and meaning of a public school. BEDROCK 17 Each of these schools will occupy an entire city block, and will contain an assembly hall suitable for general public purposes and having seats for two thou- sand persons. Besides the ordinary class rooms, there will be physical, chemical and electrical laboratories, machine shops, swimming pools, gymnasiums and restaurants. There will be museums of biology and commer- cial geography, greenhouses for the study of plant life, libraries, periodical reading rooms, music halls, studios for sculpture, painting and the artistic handicrafts, bookbinding shops, photographic gal- leries with developing rooms, bank and business offices for practical work, and halls for assembly and dancing. The New York State department of education has recently provided for a six- i8 BEDROCK year elementary course of study to be fol- lowed by three alternative courses leading to business, to trades, or to college prep- aration. Dr. Andrew S. Draper, the New York State commissioner of education, urges that the schools must be no less concerned about the industrial than the intellectual education. Dr. Draper further says: 'When but one-third of the children re- main to the end of the elementary course in a country where education is such a uni- versal passion, there is something the matter with the public schools. "When half of the men who are re- sponsible for the business activities, and who are guiding the political life of the country, tell us that children from the ele- mentary schools are not able to do definite BEDROCK 19 things required in the world's real affairs, there is something the matter with the schools. "When work seeks workers, and young men and women are indifferent to it, or do not know how to do it, there is something the matter with the schools." The managers of manufacturing and commercial enterprises are reiterating their desire to cooperate with the schools and to look to them for their recruiting forces. Agricultural schools, schools of Domes- tic Science, Vocational Schools and Tech- nical Schools are alive with the fervor of desire to turn out efficient workers. In the very nature of the case the estab- lishment of Employment Bureaus will prove to be a great incentive to these most desirable changes in our schools. 20 BEDROCK The Bureau will be the medium of communication, and the promoter of co- operation between the business and the commercial world and the schools having in charge the preparation of their pupils for the best possible service to society. CHAPTER V ORGANIZATION OF THE EMPLOYMENT BUREAU It is a familiar fact that in every com- munity there are numbers of public-spir- ited men and women who are eager to render voluntary service to any movement promotive of social welfare. It is to such persons that this message is addressed. At the outset the workers will be volun- teers. Only those who are moved by the sense of desire to promote a great move- ment will engage in it. Those whose imaginations are quickened by a longing to serve humanity will perceive in this 21 22 BEDROCK work the high patriotism that seeks to pro- vide for future generations better ways of living, even as their own progenitors wrought and sacrificed that the world might be a better place for the men and women of today. It was for the sake of their children that the pioneers of the public schools made their sacrificial ef- forts. HOW TO BEGIN A mere handful of men and women may meet in a home parlor and take the first step in organization. An expression of views and a discussion of various ways and means to be employed in that partic- ular locality will precede any formal attempt to organize. A temporary secre- tary of this informal meeting should furnish the press with a statement relative to the purpose of the work. Provision for BEDROCK 23 a succeeding meeting should be made and a speaker who can clearly, pointedly and briefly state the purposes and the large scope of the movement should be selected. A discussion following will generate en- thusiasm that will develop strength and enlist numbers sufficient to warrant a per- manent organization. The official list of a completed Bureau of Employment should comprise: A Chief of the Employment Bureau. Recording and Corresponding Secre- taries. A Committee on Conference with the local Board of Education. A Committee on Conference with the local School Teachers. A Committee on Publication and Prop- aganda. A Committee to communicate with 24 BEDROCK Municipal Authorities relative to employment on Public Works. A Committee on Lectures. A Committee on Agriculture. A Committee on Domestic Service. A Committee on Communication with Commercial Bodies. A Committee on Communication with Manufacturers. A Committee on Communication with existing Employment Agencies. A Committee to secure information from Public Documents relative to Educational and Industrial Progress. A Committee on Counsel and Confer- ence with pupils in course of prep- aration for their future Vocations. A Recorder who shall list the Pupils and designate the work or service for which they are in training. BEDROCK 25 The initial organizations should be left free as to many details in order to be adaptive to the local situations that will vary greatly in rural districts, in small towns, and in the larger cities. As soon as possible a permanent home and meeting place should be secured for the Employment Bureau through the School Board at each local school house. The experience and intelligence of Bureau workers will frequently suggest new modes of operation to meet the changing conditions of education and industry. CHAPTER VI SUGGESTIONS TO COMMITTEES A wealth of material suggestive of practical application awaits the observa- tion of members of committees covering any of the special lines of Bureau work. It is immensely convincing as to the ripeness of time and the wide-spread readiness for this homogeneous movement to note the success of numberless sporadic and organically unrelated enterprises de- signed to develop efficiency in productive industry. It is also most encouraging to note the multiplication of both public and private employment agencies. 27 28 BEDROCK The Committee on Domestic Service will perhaps be the first to obtain results. Incalculable good will grow out of the fostering care that pupils in this line may receive. The vexatious domestic service situation will receive dignified, scientific treatment when those who serve come from the ranks of educated, trained pupils. The Committee on Propaganda should seek to have the purposes of the Bureau brought before educational conventions, women's clubs, social science gatherings and other hospitable organizations. The cooperation of the city and country school boards should be solicited. Parlor lectures are most effective. In cities where a public school lecture course is maintained, a place on the lecture list should be sought. BEDROCK 29 Perhaps the most soul-satisfying and also the most delicate work will fall to the men and women who will be placed in communication with pupils relative to their choice of vocations and the placing of them in situations. A vast field of blessed ministration and of personal in- fluence, second only to that of the grand army of school teachers, is before the Bureau workers who will thus be brought into intimate counsel with young people. The route of the Employment Bureau workers will not lie along the path of martyrdom. A hospitable sentiment is latent, awaiting the definite appeal of action. CHAPTER VII THE AGRICULTURAL COMMITTEE No Other committee in the entire Bureau will be charged with a work so comprehensive and so rich in material and moral results as the committee on land cultivation. One of the most satis- factory features of modern progress is the attention given to improved farm methods and to improvements and modern con- veniences in farm homes. In the State of Kansas alone, where the proportion of farmers who are enjoying more conveniences, and even luxuries, is larger than that of any other State in the 31 32 BEDROCK Union, there are four hundred High Schools teaching agriculture. Kansas also has an Agricultural College where the students are given the advantage of experimental work of the greatest value. Throughout the entire West and South the keenest interest is taken in the Farmer's Institutes, in Experiment Sta- tion work, and in the scientific lectures and practical instruction given by the traveling farm schools. The "Young Corn Growers" of the South and West have had the fostering care of State and National officials. The remarkable success resulting from the supervised and scientific work done by these boys has created intense interest and it is predicted that the improved methods will revolutionize farm work. The Bureau Committee on Agriculture should be alert to gain information BEDROCK 33 relative to these special instances and endeavor to arouse enthusiasm among pupils who may be induced to devote themselves to that greatest of all human industries — land cultivation. The work of this Committee will thus become educative, and will generate that zealous application and practical efficiency that will eventually ensure employment. Simultaneously with the interest in specialized training, there arises the con- sciousness of the need of its utilization, and the further need of intelligent, sym- pathetic agencies ready to secure employ- ment for the skillful workers. In Oregon, 50,000 children are busy gardening. The State Superintendent of Public Instruction started the children in this work and he has received enthusiastic support from public and private sources. 34 BEDROCK The little gardeners are thus early im- bued with a sense of the dignity of manual labor and they also receive the physical benefits and the moral inspiration of out- of-door life. A most important service can be per- formed by this committee in gathering and imparting information relative to the Farm Villages of Europe. One of the serious drawbacks to agri- cultural life is the isolation of the homes of the farmers. The success of the Pingree vacant lot culture proved that children and adults will gladly and profitably engage in rais- ing vegetables. This Committee should seek to cooper- ate with State agencies and independent organizations that endeavor to supply to the farmers, from the ranks of the unem- ployed, farm hands at harvest time, in BEDROCK 35 fruit-picking season, and also the securing of permanent helpers. The Bureau Committee on Land Cul- ture should consist of "land enthusiasts" who could be relied on to foster all endeavors tending to train the workers, as well as to secure work, for all tillers of the soil. CHAPTER VIII INDUSTRIAL BARRACKS There is within the radius of a few miles of every city and town in the United States unused land that might be placed at the disposal of the Employment Bureau for the purpose of demonstrating what can be done by Intensive agriculture. This enterprise might be carried on by the labor of the pupils of the public schools working under the direction of competent persons, and it would serve the double purpose of education and remu- nerative production. 37 38 BEDROCK In France, where the best methods are used, the farmer measures his land by feet and yards. The backyard gardens of France produce the bulk of the food eaten by their owners. On the ground of this School Experi- ment Station there might be erected a building, inexpensive, yet not unsightly, for the living accomodation of a portion of those engaged in the work. Two sea- sons of application could transform a bald, unattractive place into one bright with the beauty of vines and flowers. The adornments that nature yields should be cultivated as the crown jewels of utility and material production. There is no limit to the possibilities of human helpfulness that could grow out of these School Experiment Stations. The buildings could become the Barracks and home anchorages of many industrial sol- BEDROCK 39 diers. Properly managed, they could be made to serve as way stations for trained and graduated pupils in other lines of industry on the way to the permanent employment not speedily obtainable for them by the Employment Bureau. In many places in the West where pupils live at a distance from the school- house, conveyance is provided for them. This method could be used and the Experiment Station be utilized for the open-air schools so strenuously urged by Dr. Woods Hutchinson and by other critics of some features of our public schools as at present conducted. CHAPTER IX FARM VILLAGES What with rural free delivery, travel- ing libraries, telephones, automobiles and the possibility of all modern conveniences in the home of the prosperous farmer, there is little left to be desired except the one great desire for social life and for advantages that can only be had v^here many people live in close proximity. The grouping of farm homes in the Old World furnishes valuable directions for our own ''back to the land" people. The old-time farmer working after the fashions of generations before him sought 41 42 BEDROCK to cultivate the greatest obtainable num- ber of acres. The newer methods re- quiring fewer acres make possible the locating of the home buildings within a village area. * Grouped around the schoolhouse as the social center, the homes o-f market gar- deners, poultry-raisers, dairymen, fruit- growers and grain-raisers might cluster. ^ The easy possibilities of most delightful social life lie within this plan. Lectures, entertainments and religious observance on Sundays in the schoolhouse would be within easy distance of the villagers. The glee club, church choir and bands of in- strumental music could be cultivated. Grouped about a parked center con- taining the band-stand, these modest yet artistic country houses could look out on a broad, beautiful lawn generously sup- BEDROCK 43 plied with seats and lined with flower- bordered promenades. All of these things could be had in one or two seasons if the "back to nature" people could pool sufficient capital, but lacking money there would be merely the necessity for more time to carry out the design. There is always the blessed provision for the building of the greatest feature in the case, that is the public schoolhouse. Of no less importance than the social side, this plan would furnish protection and that feeling of personal safety so often sadly lacking in the isolated country home. On the business side there lies the substantial benefits resulting from co- operation in marketing products and in wholesale buying. The motor truck conveying the produce direct to market could also be employed 44 BEDROCK to carry the grain-raisers and other workers to their more distant fields. In addition to the purely agricultural character of the rural village, manufac- turing and the interchange service that the larger village would require is en- tirely practical. A special committee of the Employ- ment Bureau could render no greater service to the hosts of chartless people now seeking escape from the burdens and the unwholesome conditions of city life than to study the Garden Cities of Eng- land, at Bourneville, Port Sunlight, and elsewhere, together with the farm vil- lages in Hungary and in other European states and placing the inspiring informa- tion, together with practical suggestion, for their own use before the public, A rural village developed by this fos- tering oversight should always include BEDROCK 45 the "Industrial Barrack" building as a place of sojourn and temporary or special employment for public school pupils. Should the reader of the foregoing sug- gestions incline to cold scepticism, or stranger still, to indulge in a desire to be facetious, let him but acquaint himself with the long list of tragic happenings that follow the path of the countless throng of young men and women, who, lured by the social lights of the cities, leave the farm because of its lack of just such things of sentiment and beauty as can be furnished by the Farm Village. CHAPTER X THE SOCIAL CENTER MOVEMENT The School Social Center movement has been thought of, talked of and writ- ten about until it has reached the stage of local and national organization. It has its roots in a great social need that aims to unify and to thus render effective many things related to social improve- ment and individual welfare that with- out such unification would move halt- ingly along the path of progress. Starting out upon the sound proposi- tion that the schoolhouses of the nation are the logical and the most available centers of local effort for the enlighten- 47 48 BEDROCK ment of the adult population In matters pertaining to human advancement, its propagandists make a clear call to the public to note the fact that school build- ings belonging^ to the public are not utilized to anything like their capacity for educational or social purposes. Day schools for the young by no means exhaust the possibilities of the schoolhouse. There are the evenings and the school vacation seasons when many facilities for adult occupancy are afforded. In several large cities, night schools and free public lectures are most success- fully conducted. In the country it is no new thing to turn to the schoolhouses as the available social center. Lectures, literary societies, entertainments, reli- gious services and political meetings find the public schoolhouses open to them. BEDROCK 49 The Social Centerist seeks to introduce the country usage into city practice. Fie fervently declares his belief, not only in the facility for the promotion of benefi- cent enterprises, but also in a larger realization of human brotherhood result- ant from the neighborly spirit engendered by frequency of meeting in the local schoolhouse. One reproach of city life is the cold aloofness of individuals from all save those of their own social set. The Social Centerist sees in the schoolhouse gather- ings a large corrective of this coldness. Within the precincts of every schoolhouse there reside families of various degrees of circumstance. It not infrequently transpires that the poorly circumstanced people are the most interesting person- ally. The growing evils of class distinc- tion and class consciousness would be 50 BEDROCK greatly checked by the development of a neighborhood loyalty to such mutual in- terests as would promote personal ac- quaintance, sympathy and understanding. Even to those of mental as v^ell as ma- terial superiority there might come a rich harvest of the blessing of giving of their best in thought and good-will to their less fortunate neighbors. Mr. Boyd Fisher, a New York Social Centerist, says: "It is a neighbors' meet- ing, in the schoolhouse which they own, to discuss anything which affects them. "Class distinction certainly cannot be preserved in a schoolhouse. People go there to discuss sanitation, plumbing, streets, sidewalks, milk supply, or any subject of common interest. They go on a common footing, as citizens, and the citizenship spirit breaks out in enthusiasm." BEDROCK 51 The Legislature of Wisconsin, reflect- ing the public sentiment created by Social Centerists, under the leadership of Professor Edward J. Ward, of the Uni- versity of Wisconsin, has enacted a statute requiring all local school boards to open the schoolhouses for the discussion of public questions and for other purposes whenever requested to do so by any citi- zens' organization that is non-partisan, non-sectarian and non-exclusive. The Social Centerists will find among the School Employment Bureau workers their strongest allies. In fact, the two movements have close kinship and should cooperate in their organized capacity. CHAPTER XI THE ETHICAL MISSION OF THE EMPLOY- MENT BUREAU Citizens of the United States have rea- son to be proud of the splendid material progress of the country. Yet, it is sadly said, this same progress has been at cost of some fine traits of character, and of some sweet, old homely ways of half a century ago. Lavish expenditure and extravagant display among the wealthy classes have set up unwholesome standards and stimu- lated feverish desire to possess the things that dazzle. Youth says: "Dainty ap- parel, fine houses and artistic surround- 53 54J BEDROCK Ings appeal to our natural love of the beautiful; if we cannot buy this beauty with the wage of labor let us sharpen our wits and try other ways." The men of hard hands and aching backs, seeing the inequalities in living conditions, grow bitter and there is cleav- age in social life. The begrimed worker says: "I build the palaces, but Mine Own whom I fondly love may never live in one." And so the social gap widens and there is scepticism when religious teachers talk of the brotherhood of man. The men and women of hard hands and aching backs make answer to re- ligion : "How shall we keep our bodies fit temples for the indwelling Holy Spirit while we must live in dark, unsanitary houses, subsist on insufficient food, ex- haust our strength and sap our vitality by monotonous drudgery?" BEDROCK 55 Over and above all other tortures that poverty entails is the awful feeling of un- certainty of parents concerning the future of their children. With great patience and sublime fortitude the father and mother will work out their own tasks and accept their own lot, but the fearsome future before their children hurts them worst of all. Before the men and women workers of the School Employment Bureaus there opens up a highway of service that will powerfully operate to restore the old-time faith in human brotherhood: They may hold up sweeter, simpler standards of living before the youth of our country; they may establish that blessed sense of security that assured employment affords. Not even to religion is the way so open to ministrations as to the workers of the Employment Bureaus. The Church is 56 BEDROCK under suspicion of desire to upbuild its own edifice and the estranged and morbid toiler turns away. Politics is held to be largely a game played for self-interest and exploitation. The nature and adequacy of our govern- ment are widely questioned. A considerable proportion of our citi- zens do not confide in political promises, nor do they believe that legislation un- whipped of revolution will correct the maladjustments of our industrial com- mercial system. There is abroad in our country a cold fear lest the nation is moving toward the tragedy of physical conflict and the con- sequent destruction of even such measure of orderly conduct as is now maintained. Against this wide-spread dishearten- ment, against this cynical distrust, and against the awful unwisdom of revolt BEDROCK ^7 there could be no stronger counter influ- ence than would emanate from the edu- cational institutions, the Employment Bureaus and the Social Center activities that would all be massed on the side of non-disruption and evolution. The atmosphere of our public schools has been overcharged with emphasis upon the value of purely intellectual training. As a result the aspirations of pupils have been mainly in the direction of the pro- fessions and aloof from the social needs of the handicrafts. The Establishment of Employment Bureaus will greatly accelerate the changes now so insistently recommended for the public schools, and will generate an atmosphere of strong and bracing re- spect for manual labor. The ideals and aspirations of pupils will include excel- 5» BEDROCK lence and success along all the lines es- sential to production and the crafts. It is none too soon to begin the great work of social regeneration by way of individual and localized appeal and close personal efifort. The fine neighborliness that years agone characterized our American life can be restored by the warm interest that will spring from association. The little refinements that make winsome and gra- cious the everyday conduct will supplant rudeness, flippancy and irreverence when there is social converse such as may be held in all the cities, towns and rural school centers in our beloved land. The simpler life will surely spring from neighborly mingling of the richer with their poorer human kin. The ostentation and the arrogance of the rich will die of shame in the presence BEDROCK 59 of the poor. The grotesque, tawdry and most pitiful attempts of the poor to imi- tate will cease for lack of models. Not to the poorer ones alone will the rich blessings of schoolhouse neighborli- ness come. To those whose unsatisfied lives have been wasted in frivolity because they knew no better program will come the larger riches. The world seems very cold and hard to the dispossessed and to those whose days stand for drudgery. There are everywhere men and women, not old in years, yet aged by hardships, whose very souls are sick; they need — ah, how they need — not charity — for shame not that — but guidance to self-help and the reign of justice in the land. With the nation-wide attention con- stantly directed by the activities of School Employment Bureaus to the vital need of 6o BEDROCK employment for the educated, self-re- specting young men and women of the public schools, there would arise a vast desire among the people to so arrange and adjust the industries and all social service as to furnish opportunity for all. What room is there for doubt that, in a time not tragically distant, American in- telligence will devise ways and means to use the country's superabundant natural resources for the common good? It might easily be that child labor, sweat-shops, foul tenements and other cruel things would disappear when the awakened conscience of the people of each Social Center ached hard enough to set their brains moving toward the prac- tical solution of industrial problems. The Employment Bureaus will say to the business world : "Here are a fine, com- petent lot of young Americans just grad- BEDROCK 6i uated from our vocational schools." Will the business world long continue to invite these young recruits into the sweat-shop or into a business conducted on a basis so narrow as to offer a wage below the line of decent living? Will the business world much longer say: "Come, ye splen- did young men and women that are to carry on the destiny of our glorious re- public, come into our factories and com- pete with hollow-cheeked, waxen-faced children"? Oh, no; answers of that sort will not be made very many more shame- ful years. Our nation must, if it would save its soul alive, provide an industrial system that will not permit even one of its little ones to fall through the crevice beneath which yawns an abyss now tragically filled with human wrecks out of work and out of hope. 62 BEDROCK Not many long years hence our recast public schools will so multiply as to hold and educate every child in our great re- public. Coextensive with our nation- wide education there must go a sane and scientific system of employment. And so the Kingdom of Work will come to its own. Work is part of the bread of life. Work is the demand of the child, the de- light of the youth, the satisfaction of ma- ture years, and the comfort of old age. Work is not alone social service. It is social sanitation and salvation. "The balm of sorrow is a busy life, The flower of living is some work to do." How more than unwise, then, to longer deny to this great fundamental that su- pervision upon which efficiency, adapta- tion and universal application rest. BEDROCK 63 And why not all this and more than the best of forecasts can tell? Is not humanity divine in origin and essence? Do not men and women like to do good things when you give them half a chance? CHAPTER XII POINTS TO REMEMBER The establishment of School Employ- ment Bureaus will be a continual re- minder to the public and to the public schools that our system of education should be largely recast in order to meet the urgent demand for efficiency in vo- cational training. * * * The work of the Employment Bureau will make enormous appeal to the con- science and the intellect of the nation relative to the necessity for providing full 65 66 BEDROCK opportunity and humane conditions for the toilers of the nation. Whatever is archaic, inadequate or unjust in the in- dustrial realm will be corrected when the general intelligence and desire of the people are enlisted in the solution of our industrial problems. * * * Without doubt the agencies already in operation for the promotion of scientific agriculture will eventually solve the problem of the high cost of living that baffles the economists of our day. Em- ployment Bureaus will devote especial energy to the fostering of the ''back to the land" endeavor. * * * The Employment Bureau, through its BEDROCK 67 localized activities, will eventually re- individualize our national life and restore the old-time spirit of neighborliness in communities. * * * The Employment Bureau in its broad efifect will vitalize a sense of human kin- ship. It will develop local friendships, check the wanderlust and stimulate a patriotic devotion to the nation whose institutions prove beyond all doubt a gen- uine interest in the well-being and the high character of its citizens. * * * In the not far distant day the school- house will offer to every youth in all the nooks and corners of our broad land facilities for the development of his in- 69 BEDROCK tellect and the best training for his life work. Along with this high service of the nation to each individual will go as a matter of course the definite oppor- tunity to devote the trained faculties of the pupil to his own maintenance and to his part in the social service of his day and time. Education and Employment must become coextensive and coexistent. * * * The inauguration of Employment Bureaus will be at the first conducted by volunteer workers, but eventually the system will become an integral part of the public school system of the entire nation. * * * The Manhattan Trade School for Girls, 209 East 23d Street, New York BEDROCK 69 City, during four years of successful operation is a complete object lesson establishing the workable nature of the ("Bedrock" proposition. The school is now a part of the public school work of New York City. * * * The Intercollegiate Bureau of Occu- pations, 38 West 32d Street, New York City, is now in its second year of rapidly increasing usefulness, both as an efficiency promoting and an employment agency for college graduates. * * * The President of the National Social Center Association is Josiah Strong. His address is : Bible House, New York City. Prof. Edward J. Ward, the founder 70 BEDROCK and promoter of the Schoolhouse Social Center movement, may be addressed for information at Wisconsin University, Madison, Wisconsin. The Chairman of the Social Center Department of Employment Bureaus is Annie L. Diggs, Detroit, Michigan. The National Organizer of School Employment Bureaus is Cora G. Lewis, Kinsley, Kansas. i\3V IS 8S!^