TncKano-i^) IS neui?). Vo^ofV\ Csv\iil e.duca'V^Ovi Vocational Education Reprint of the Indiana Vocational Education Law, and of Articles from The Indianapolis News on Vocational Edu- cation Methods in Several States and on the Theory of Education Organized to Meet New Economic Conditions T he reprint of the articles included in this pamphlet and of the new Indiana vocational education law, is at the request of the National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education, of which William C. Redfield, secre- tary of commerce in President Wilson’s cabinet, is president, and C. A. Prosser is secretary; and, also, of the Indi- ana Bankers’ Association and several other organizations taking a deep interest in reorganization of the school system. The new Indiana law is generally regarded as the best, as well as the latest enactment, authorizing vocational education. The reproduced articles were written to illuminate its intent and to give information about experience with vocational education as tried elsewhere. While the articles deal largely with vocational education in New York and Massachusetts this is true only because certain schools and methods in those states are especially described as convenient types illus- trating the general subject and it should be stated that vocational schools, both private and public, in many states were visited in the course of the study of the subject. It was necessary to condense the material into ten articles and to write them in popular form for general newspaper reading, and to do this it was found convenient to use as types schools that were last visited on a trip which started in the west and ended in Massachusetts. The purpose of the inquiry was not only to consider the need for reorganization of the present school system and to point out the merits of vocational education, but to find the weaknesses of the new educational proposal and the dangers whi;^ it is likely to encounter. [Indianapolis, June 1. 1913.] THE INDIANAPOLIS NEWS. Feeling That Schools Should Reach Greater Per Cent, of , Children Is Widespread. NEED OF VOCATIONAL WORK Necessity for Training Tpward Effi- ciency Recognized Both by Em- ployers and Workers. IBy E. I. Lewis, Staff Correspondent of The - Indianapolis News] WASHINGTON. April 18.— The educa- tional plant of this country represents a billion dollars of value. The annual mere maintenance cost of the common schools is $500,000,000 and another $100,000,000 an- ‘nually goes to the higher educational schools. The time has come when few who are thinking about the matter, ex- cept the educators of the domineering Old-line school, are entirely satisfied with the returns from the expensive plant or the great annual outlay. The product of these schools is now be- ing labeled “book learning.” There seems to be an awakening to the fact that at least 50 per cent, of the children— or their parents— in this industrial age realize that they need efficient hand learning. There is a growing protest that is beginning to be heard against taxation which provides an education adapted really to the future bread earning and homemaking lives of only 10 per cent, of the children and leaves the other 90 per cent, who must work largel.v with their hands, with compara- tively no training for the real life work before them. Why Children Quit School. Statistics to some folk are always dull. But here are some very simple state- ments that just at this time should bo of exceptional interest and that are easily understood. Cleveland is a typical Amer- ican city. Fifty per cent, of the children for whom taxation is levied for education quit school by the end of the fifth grade and iX) per cent, do not get beyond the sixth. St. Louis is another typical Amer- ican city, and it boasts of its public school plant and service, and still 72 per cent, of the children leave school by^the end of the sixth grade simply because the children themselves, or their parents, do not find in the schools those things which meet the needs of these children for their future life, or fall to interest the constructive hands of the children. Simi- lar statistics for Indiana are not at this time and place available, but they will be presented in time. It is expected that they will not be far from the national to- tals, which show that 90 per cent, of the children between the ages of fourteen and sixteen are out of the schools. • ® '^1'® now millions of boys and girls in this country, between the ages of four- teen and eighteen years, who are out of school and in the wage earning ranks. According to figures compiled by the National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education, more than seven out of ten did not complete the elemen- tary schools; more than three out of four did not reach the eighth year of school: more than one out of two did not reach the seventh year, and almost half did not complete the fifth grade. Great num- bers are said, by investigators,'^© be able barely to meet the tests for ' literacy necessary to obtain working certificates, which in most states are based on the work of the fourth grades of the public schools. These boys and girls, as citizens, will be deficient not only in vocational efficiency — in producing national wealth — but in civic intelligence. New conditions are increasing rather than lessening this unfavorable condition. The defect is now held to be largely one of educational policy. Germany’s vocational education policy is aimed nbt only to produce effi- cient workers to enrich Germany, but to produce a higher, better employed and contented mass of people to understand German problems and to sustain the na- tion by intelligent and patriotic citizen- ship. The elaborate school plant above the purely elementary grades is carried by taxation of all for the benefit of the 10 per cent, or even 20 per cent., if leeway is de- sired in statement— who are able to play for, or are aiming at, the “white shirt and standing collar jobs” of life. The elab- orate superstructure of “higher educa- tional plants and teaching” is for a much smaller percentage, who pursue the “cul- tural course” to its end. There is provi- sion for educating lawyers, doctors, s^tilled engineers and experfs in farming, and for rounding out the lives of those who are going to take life easy, all at public expense. But, nationally speaks 2 VOCATIONAL EDUCATION Inp. it Bceins to ho a fflot that CO por cent., or lialf of the school children of the country, drop out at the fifth prade, and therefore the structure above that is for the service of only half the children and considerably over lialf of them abandon it for the ileld of produel - tve labor before the elementary course end4. Protest From Many Sources. A protest or demand for chaiiKO Is for- mulatlnp. It does not come from any one quarter. This fact is Illustrated here in Washington by the personnel of I’resl- dent Wilson’s cabinet. The new secre- tary of commerce is William C. Uedfield, » manufacturer long identified with the National Association of Manufacturers. The new and first secretary of labor is W. B. Wilson, a miner, long secretary- treasurer of the United Mine Workers during tli« regime of John Mitchell, and ♦auaTIy tong identified with the American Federation of Labor. Both of the.se men have been trained to look on life from different angles of view, but both have one common analysis of the need of the new industrial-commercial age— “efficiency.” An educational plant which does not meet the future needs of. say, anywhere from 50 to 90 per cent, of the citizens -of tomorrow and really meets the life needs •r poislbly 10 per cent, is not, to either, a fulfillment or our national educational claim of “education for and of the masses.” Secretary Wilson, as a r^ember of congress, introduced the big vocational education bill Into the house, and it took his name and that of Senator Page, of Vermont, in its label — “the Page-Wilson bill.” Redfield became head of the Na- tional Society for the Promotion of In- dustrial Education, and in congress the principal second and supporter of Con- gressman Wilson's bill for federal aid of states for vocational education. Avowedly the bill’s provision of $9,000,000 was only an entering wedge by which there is to be begun in this country an overhauling or elaboration of the great educational plant along the lines in which Germany has led in training every child for a greater usefulness and efficiency in his and her life work. National Government to Lead. The Page-Wilson bill went into slum- ber with a lot of other bills In the change of congress March 4, but there is no doubt In the minds of most people here that; the national government is going to take this leadership, and probably on a more elaborate scale than the Page-Wil- Bon bill proposed. Six states have already prepared the way for this reorganization. Massachusetts led seven years ago, and it has vocational schools; New York, Wisconsin, Connecticut and Ohio have taken more or less definite steps, and the recent session pf the Indiana legislature iidoiilf'd Icgl.sliillnn which l.i* t ck!! |■ ll('l| ;i!i, by long odds, the mopl ciunplcl. for tin ', nev,' oi g.'inizutlon. ■•’or fe;ir, bowivir, (hat the aftlliide of S. i ri-la rle;- Wilson iind Hi dll! Id mu m regarded as pei-sonal, ralli,'r Ilian niui sontallve of ereal eleineni: of iiopiilal Ion, II. Is well to (urn to olhir riiord,. 'I'lu- I resolution oti (hl.i^ sulj.lei-t, aflop'.il lli** last American I'^cd era lion of Laln.r con ventton. reviews the Imding of II . i tclal tnvesllgating cominlllee, winch wctil inlo the matter with grc.il research. It com- nu-nlH on annual expenditure of $.aiXMH)(|.iKi0 on taxes for liopular educalloii, and then .says: “Not only are wc eonfronP d by this fa<'l filial fid per eeni, of the j.'i.lidfl.Odafj children leave school by the end of the sixth grade), Imt of the .^i per cent, who remain, only one In three flnt.shes the eighth grade, only ono in five enters tin high school and only one in ihlrt.v fln- l.shes the high school course.” A. F. of L. for Broad Education. Th A. F, of Ij. stands for vocational education— efficient education of the masses for their life work. This organi- zation, in its Toronto declaration, showed its broad view of this subject -that mere- ly industrial training woubl not do. “Wo want the I)Oy and girl to be laugiit ihc fundamentals of civics, the meaning of government, and the rea.son that the law n.u.st bo obeyed. * * • He must be made to realize that the hoy of today is the voter of tomorrow. • • should he taught something, too, of- his own eco- nomic value * • ’ These sentences show very well that more than merely th© three R's and training of the hands is contemplated by labor when it talks of vocational education. 'I'he concluding sen- tence of the Toronto declaration was: "We want men as well as mechanic.s.” Secretary Wilson, Jn discussing voca- tional education, saidt "Our public school system is the best system of instruction that the world has yet produced. It con- veys not only the rudiments, but develops the ability to think. But after we pass the grammar grades our entire system tends toward preparation for the profes- sions and for clerical work. The vast body of our people must, of necessity, be engaged in agriculture and industrial pursuits. Our system has not provided for the young mind and hand to be taught to proceed to the best advantage in agriculture and in the industries. The commercial supremacy of any nation is not so much dependent on cheapness as on the efficiency of its labor.” Where Organizations Agree. . While the A. P. of L. does not repre- sent all labor, and the National Associa- tion of Manufacturers doe's not represent all capital, still it is significant that these two organizations, which are often so radically apart and even in hostility, should have one mind on the necessity of a renovation of the educational plant. Both see that it leads the boy and girl Itilo "tillnd hIIi v Job: an both ferin 1 bi m* iliHl 1: , jfil,., that ;i rr tcrupucttrll v Hlll'iltr drill "billrr lliiiii p'-hool wlxrn wi' li /I) iinthliii II' i riil,'’ Put Hmt li-Hd icvlii'i- t'JO- nomlc ftietur rif tiie nation. A Manufacturer’s Summary. IT. 10. Miles, chairman of the nianufac- lurer.ii' committer; on Iniiuslrlal r rlneat ion, sumnidrlzes: “(iiir crluralora ho ■ hr en like Ihc old-fimt; rjpr:raloi; of biafd fur- naees who threw away th<; : lag as bolh- er.somc and worlhba:;, not knowing that with a little care It woiihl some tbiv b< made into cement anri better thr bfi of the world, ft Is a tjucstlori, hov.ever. If our educators have not a" often thrown away the steel as the cement.” And again, he sumrnaiizr.-s: "Other na- tions, lacking our raw malerials, make tlie cultivation of their human resources the substantial basis of ttieli irrosircrlty and happiness. » • • \Ve must hence- forth sell more brains anri less material. We export bjir iron and import razor blades; export hides and import gloves; export copper and import bronzes: export 14-cent cotton and buy back handker- chiefs that sell at $40; export California prunes and import ' them back from France as Bordeaux fancy prunes. Professor Fischer, of Yale, esti- mates the human capital, the hu- man resources of our country, at $^,- 000,000,000 — five times the money value of all other resources combined. We have been developing property value; and our great educational plant has been almost ignoring the greater resource. It is the development of this resource that has made Germany a commanding world pow- er in commerce. France and Great Brit- ain, the other two of our great competi- tors, are moving in the development of this great resource. Our national future is wrapped up in it, and with it the con- tent of the people.” Industry, as referred to largely in this article, is not all of the problem. 'There is the girl worker and her future, and the great agricultural interests. The plans for a vocational overhauling of the educa- tional plant of the nation covers those problems. They will be touched in later articles. / VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 3 How Vocational Education Is Planned to Hold More Children in School. ITS NEW COURSES OF STUDY Effort to Keep Untrained Children From Entering “Blind Alley” Jobs That Pay Little in Long Run. [By 12. I. Lems, Staff Correspondent of The Indianapolis IsewsJ BOSTON, April 22.— Advocates of voca- tional education contend that any system that fails to meet the lifework needs of 90 per cent, of the children of the coun- try and falls to hold 50 per cent, of them in the schools beyond the fifth grade is plainly defective. They propose to remedy this condition of affairs. Broadly stated, it is proposed that the school plant shall give fundamental and elementary academic training, but shall also directly train the chiidfen for that to which their hands will be put for a liveli- hood. And it has already been shown that under present conditions, at least, it is inevitable that 90 per cent, of the children who are in the schools will have to work with their hands. Under the proposed change the schools will teach “applied knowledge.” At pres- ent, it is asserted, they are wholly teach- ing “organized knowledge with deferred value,” or academic or cultural knowl- edge. Applied knowledge is that which shall have immediate value— vocational application. "Applied Knowledge” Courses. The new education does not mean that the schools are wholly to abandon the field of teaching organized knowledge with deferred value. It does mean, how- ever, that in addition to teaching of this character the state shall provide schools or definite, separate courses of study, in which three “applied knowledge” courses shall be taught. They are; 1. Industrial education. There are over two hundred and seventy indus- tries in Indiana. Not ten of them are within the definite aim of the present plan of education. The Industrial edu- cation proposed does not mean public schools or courses of study in each community that will bring the boy or girl with a certain knowledge ready for effective application to the door of each one of these industries. It is not expected that any city in Indiana will even equal Munich’s forty-seven differ- ent specific vocational courses. But courses can be selected that will be largely adaptable to the needs of the state’s industries. 2. Agricultural education. These schools or courses are to apply knowl- edge and trained skill to the tillage of the soil, care of domestic animals, for- estry and other useful work on the farm— are to forward the work of mak- ■fne two blades of grass grow wh^re one or none is growing now, and to meet with increased products of the soil the tremendous increase In the number of mouths to feed. It is to be, in short, an effort to raise Indiana’s average yield of fourteen bushels of wheat an acre to Denmark’s forty-two bushels, to bring Indiana’s average of ninety-two bu.shels of potatoes an acre up to Germany’s two hundred bushels average: to raise Indiana’s twenty- nine bu.shels of oats an acre to Ger- many’s .50.7. This is the great prob- lem of the nation's future— food’s effi- cient production and with it goes the study of marketing. 3. Household arts education. This is necessarily for the girls in school. The constant change from an agricultural to an industrial, or, rather, manufac- turing status, is increasing. the number of girls that go into productive or wage-earning industry, and the indus- trial education outlined above, is by no means limited to bbys, as will be shown in articles descriptive of girls’ industrial schools. But girls also need another kind of “applied knowledge.” It is still necessary to build a girl’s education, no matter whether she is immediately destined to wage earning, mf’ the expectation that she will mar- ry, have a home and be the mother of a family. “Dismal Procession of Untrained.” Here, briefly is surveyed the broad field of an educational plan which will bring the boy and girl up to the threshold of life’s work much as the present system brings the lawyer, medical man, engineer and other professional workers. This ed- ucation is especially proposed for boys and girls between the ages of fourteen and sixteen years. The new Indiana laws also provide for preliminary vocational training in the elementary schools. It Is expected that by the time the child is fourteen, it will have acquired a "com- mon school education.” This “cultured education” is not to be. eliminated after fourteen years of age, but where the vo- cational schools or classes are estab- lished, at least half of the time is to be given to education of direct vocational aim and value. The last Indiana legisla- ture also extended the state’s control over children from their fourteenth to six- teenth year. W. C. Redfleld, in his recent address in Indianapolis— just before he was elevated to the cabinet as secretary of commerce under President • Wilson — remarked on “the dismal procession of the untrained that emerges from the schools and comes into the factories,” which he showed must be Industrial kindergartens. The reason that the German factory system is so Impressive today is that the factories have ceased to be kindergartens. With children trained into young manhood and womanhood to enter the work, the Ger- man factory can devote Itself to the prob- lems of production instead of schooling. Anyone who knows world commerce knows it is foolish to argue that this is solely to the benefit of the manufac- turer. It is one of the things that has made the world spell Germany with a very large “G.” The same application can be made to the farms. Little, poor- soil Germany produces 95 per cent, of her meat, 85 per cent, of her breadotuffs for her millions. There is another side to this kind of a schooling. It is of direct personal, pe- cuniary advantage to the Individual. Take the boy especially, and aI9o the girl, who, with the parent behind the child, tires of a schooling that has no apparent or immediate connection with the life. Just as soon as the child gets past the com- pulsory attendance age, the boy especially —and more and more often with each suc- ceeding year his sister— drops out of school. Thus it comes that, taking the country over, from eighty-eight to ntnety- two children out of a hundred of fourteen to sixteen years, are out of school. "Blind Alley” Jobs, The boy or the girl enters, more than often, a "blind alley,” or a "dead end’* job. That is a job that offers a fairly at- tractive wage for a child, but leads to nowhere but a shifting, shiftless life or to a child’s wage for the adult that stays with it. Vocational education aims are to equip such children with the particular general schooling for Industry that will lead to development. This thing has been re- duced to figures. A lifetime of work In a “blind alley” occupation will bring in $20,000; an education which leads on in industry will yield $40,000 in a lifetime. And this is industrial, not. pi'ofessional work that is being discsissed. The national Interest in such education is great, as Germany has shown. We sell Germany, for example, 14 cents’ worth of raw cotton, representing little labor and still less brains. Germany sells us hack that cotton for $40. representing $39.86 worth of labor, skill and brains. This analysis can be carried on indefinitely. This nation has the raw materials. It needs the fully developed worker- the $40,000 Industrial worker Instead of the $20,000 one. This, it is argued, also means better homes, more buying and selling, more children, and higher general intelli- gence. Whenever we raise two potatoes for one and educate our people in mar- keting, it means cheaper and better liv- ing, too. Plan for Relief The plan briefly outlined for making all citizens efficient— though, of course, all never will be so— is as follows: 1. Preliminary Industrial, agricul- tural and domestic training in the grades which will serve as giving an opportunity for expression and guid- ance in picking out a vocation. 2. Vocational training, beginning at fourteen years and lasting at least through the early adolescent age, to sixteen years. This is to be given in schools that run all day Just as the present schools do, but in which the academic education is secondary to, and fitted into, a general plan to pro- duce a worker for a vocation. These schools, however, may b© so organ- ized, that children who, at fourteen, years, enter on a wage-earning em- ployment, may or shall go to them part of their time; and hence this . form of vocational education is called “part-time schools.” In these schools the study is is td be directly aimed to round out, broaden the horizon, make more skillful and more thoughtful the child in the particular industry in which it is at work— to remove, in short, the dead wall. The third form of such schooling is the evening school, which is open to all of sixteen years and over, already engaged in useful employment, and which, again, shall deal with the employment in hand or the development desired. Indiana’s Vocational Law. The new Indiana vocational education law provides for all of this. It will be discussed, and the dangers confronting the new proposal will be pointed out in later articles. It is well to understand, however, that the plan for this school- ing of all classes does not contemplate releasing the child from the school sys- tem at 14 years, nor even at 16. The new Indiana vocational education law bears testimony to that fact It provides that the “all-day” and the "part-time" voca- tional education shall be “restricted” to persons over 14 and under 25 years of age, and that the evening schools shall be open to persons over 17 years cf age- no limit being placed at the other end. How this works in schools already estab- lished wlU be shown in other articles. 4 VOCATIONAL EDUCATION Fact That Most Girls Expect to Marry Produces Some Special Problems. PART THAT POVERTY PLAYS Dtffrculty In Attending Even Voca- tional Schools Shows How Far ‘‘Cultural” Schools Miss the Mark. [By B, I. l«nis. Staff Correspondent of The IndianapoUa Nows] NEW YORK, April 25. — “The problem of vocational education for girls, as those who have to do with the administration of your new Indiana vocational educa- tion law will quickly discover, has pe- culiar limitations,” said Miss Florence M. Marshall, principal of the Manhattan Trade School for Girls, as she led the way through the best known vocational public school for girls In this country. “The very thing that makes a boy, or young man, strive for or at least appre- ciate vocational efficiency is the thing that causes girls not to be impressed with the need of such great efficiency. The boy Is entering industry for a life work and he wants a training that will advance him and give him permanent occupation at good wages; and he, or his parents, counts on a wife and family to support “The girl expects to marry— she Is go- ing Into Industry only temporarily. She comes to us only to get training that will la.nd her in a Job and will give her bet- ter wages than she otherwise would get, pending the time when she marries. She Is actuated by our statement— which the girls know to be true — that almost every ^rl that comes to this school and takes the year’s course Is placed directly in a Job at a wage of at least $5 a week. Great Demand tor Trained Girls. “The manufacturers and shop people besiege us for our trained girls, and girls who show such special aptitude that we can especially recommend them get from 16 to a week to begin on. Girls who remain more than one year and who take positions as straw machine or hat oper- ators, can reach JI2, $15 or $18 a week dur- ing the first season out of school, but they do not, however, have a full year of work in the straw machltie trade. .Sj)eclal em- broidery machine operators frequently reach $8, $10 or $12 during their first sea- son at the trade. The girls know that this public school puts them Into paying em- ployment. It is dlfllcult to hold them a ■ ear. (tn some the economic stress— due to the eoriditlons at home- -is great. "In tlif) time tliat we do have tliein in tti;-. public "cliool heading them directly for their tntdc, and without n,ueh de- fl<-< tlon in liny kind of training, we handle e-.i-ry one individually and promote her font, an 'die horHclf, regardless of any idowe.r aiiaociates, shows ttiul oho cun ad- vance. nj.porttmlty is given to train Ing on all machines and In all branches of her chosen trade. ‘‘Placement Secretary." “The school is running except during August, and pupils are iidinllted on Mon- day of luich week, which means that tlio mcmher.shlp is con.stantly shifting. A diploma Is given to girls who complete the course In the trade selected and the coiirso can be completed by the avernge girl in one year. 'I'ho.se wlio are thus graduated are placed in good positions. W<* have more demands than we can suppl.v for good workers and for this work we main- tain a ‘placement sei’retary.’ Her work is a great part of the school’s plans. .Sho not only keeps in touch with the demands of employers, but also with the girls wo place. If they are not well selected for the work, she sees that they are shifted, or if, for any reason, the girl at any time is out of employment as a graduate of the school, she can avail herself of the opportunities of the placement secre- tary to replace lier. Thus we are certain that our girls get a right start, and. of course, under the right kind of employ- ers.” Little Like an Ordinary School. 'riiere is not much similarity between this school and the ordinary public school. The school building Itself, housing the be.st known and largest vocational school for girls In the country, and un- der the management of a woman who Is credited with being one of the most active forces trying to solve tlie new educational problem as applied to girls destined at least for a time to industry, bears no physical resemblance to the typical schoolhouse. The Manhattan Trade school for girls is in an ordinary business building, differing in no respect In outward appearances from the other tall business buildings making the solid north wall of Twenty-third street. Just beyond Third tavenue. It is down In busy New York, just over on the “east side.” Inside, especially on the top floor given over to high power sewing machines of all commercial types from those used by garment manufacturers to the special ma- chines used in straw hat making, there is the hum and air of a real factory or series of commercial workshops. There are, here and there, study rooms, which have some semblance to a school, and downstairs, on one floor, is an assembly hall, or chapel, where pupils are gath- ered dally and In which there Is nialn- talned the school spirit. Effort to Train Within a Year. “We are trying to meet the demand here,” said Miss Marshall, “to equip the girl for Industry in a year at the most. Therefore, our days approach the length of the factory day. We begin at 9 in the morning and the day’s work ends.-at 6, with one hour for lunch. We have only a month of vacation, and get In 1,576 hours a year, compared with 966 In the high schools. The girl selects her trade and then we train her directly at that trade without any frills, and as she nears the end of the course we begin to require ap- proximately actual trade speed and exact trade requirements. “Thi.s Is, Indeed, a factory,” Miss Mar- shall explained. “Wo work on stuff which Is coniracted for, but wo only make those things which have'educa- llonal value. Working on real cotmner- clal iirodnct, wo get a great deal of the real factor.v or industrial conditions. We teach, as purely vocational— actual In- diistri.-il trades, tl) dreacmaking, (2) mll- llnerv, (.1) lamp shade iiniklng. 14) cloth- ing maciilnn niierallon, (5; embroidery machine operating, )6» elraw machina operating -liat bulhling <71. sampfai mounting, and t8) novelty case making, which Includes elementary MmpTa mounting ami the making of fancy < ase.s, desk seta, m,tui) hasKsts, and a large variety of novelties In cretonncf, broeade,s and other materlala.” Character of the Trades Taught. As will ho shown In another article, the temporary character of glrle’ expect- ed Industrial life has ttius far resulted in voeatlonsl training being pretty well limited to those trades that used to he e.arrled on in tho homo when It was tlio factory, and which will, at tho same time, possibly serve the girl In her home when sho iloes marry -If slio does, Not- w'lth.standlng expectations, a greater and greater number of girls enter tho wage- earning world permanently. Marrlago may even bind her tho closer to It anri, altogether, though girls fall to see it, their Industrial training. It Is argued, should be more comprehensive than they really will accept. The Manhattan Trade School for Girls, like other such schools. Impresses on tho investigator the fact that though a ma- jority of tho children drop out of school at fourteen because of no pressing neces- sity, still there is. at least in every city, an element whose economic distress Is such that ev#!ry member of a family must early become a contributor to tho family revenues. ’The economic pressure hero Is especially apparent. These girls must go to work, and In this schooling the state Is furnishing an education that they need and that Increases their efficiency for In- dustry and their own flnancial return. Aid to Many Unable to Afford School. The “philanthropic side” of this, or the “ethical defect” will later be touched on. In fact, practically all of the girls In this school are from the ranks of the common or most menial workers. This Is their way to something better In life. Here, and In some other such schools, a “student aid fund” Is part of tho “equipment.” TWs fund Is contributed by friends of the school. It Is used to help worthy girls who could not afford to attend the school— or any school— and who would be forced Into sweat shops unless some means were pro- vided for street car fares, luncheons and even. In some cases, clothing. During the last year over seventy-flve girls have been so assisted. All this adds to the "philanthropic de- fect,” but nothing could more emphatical- ly demonstrate the total Inadequacy of the old line “cultural school” to meet the educational needs of this element In ev- ery city. There Is considerable to be said on the side of such education, which makes girls dress makers, for example, and starts them In at living wages, and shows that 63 per cent, of those that are thus educated and cared for are in their second year making $9 or more a week. Teaching of Hygienic Needs. In a brief newspaper article It is im- possible to do Justice to the efforts made In so short a time to do more than in- dustrially train a girl. No girl enters this school except after a searching I)hysical examination. Girls from the tenements too often have Infested heads, wax sometimes is hardened in their ears nnlll it lias to be syringed out, eyes are bad and teeth are worse. Often there is curvature of t.he spine or other sbcloua defect. Tho young men. and women study- VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 5 ing in the nearby medical, surgical, dental and other colleges, are called on to do plenty of work to produce a girl sound for Industry— one who will not, for example, have to lose time because of toothache. The results of this work are little short of marvelous. Girls are also taught that a good fac- tory worker should not have finger nails gnawed off deep— or at all; and that pleasing appearance, good manners and gentleness are Industrial assets, to say nothing of matrimonial. Every girl has to have clean head, clean ears, good teeth, etc., and keep up the established standards. It has been the awakening of many girls, and this. In a sense, is citi- zen making. Girls are taught physical ex- ercises which, as workers, they should have. They are taught how to stand on the restful outer rims of their feet— a great thing to a girl of weak arches. Curvatures are corrected; some girls can not enter work which requires standing, and trade selection Is changed. This side of the work is impressive and especially so when the girls are seen, as finished product and look so healthy and well- mannered. They are advised in matter of dress. Besides Trade Teaching. While five of the seven hours of the school days are applied to the desired trade, other things are taught. There is arithmetic, but not the old kind. It is the business arithmetic of the chosen trade. English also Is of the "applied” type, and there is study and training in design and testing and study of textiles in matters of costs, widths, durability, weaves, prints, dyes and economies. Then there is a study of industrial problems — of the factory system, divisions of labor, sweatshop methods, work of Consumers’ League, trade unions, child labor committee work, labor law relat- ing to and protecting women and girls, factory inspection, and sanitary require- ments In the factory, and what they should be in the worker’s home. The spirit of nationality and the common good is in this worl^ "rhere are also physical training and gymnasium work and a se- vere training in personal cleanliness. There is also small Incidental training in cooking, in preparing and serving the dally luncheon. In addition to this all-day school work, the Manhattan School for Girls also, in night classes, works with the girl in in- dustry who wants more special indus- trial training, or certain home arts. In short. New York is one among the leaders that recognize that our changing economic life has touched the woman — the girl. It has touched the home which was the first, the great, factory wherein the cloth was spun, the corn was ground and made Into food, and even the lighting was cast in candle molds and the soap pre-. pared out of the fats by the action of ashes and water on them. The woman’s early work has been taken away from her. ar^> often reduced to an idler in the home. ^ later economic pressure has be- gun to .orce her out of the home. Whether there Is a direct connection between less than a living wage and im- morality may yet remain a question to be debated, but it is generally recognized that it Is not a good thing for woman- hood or for the future citizenship of any nation to have girl and women workers giving their last ounce of vitality and energy in competitive industrial life for less than what their bodies and minds de- mand In proper nourishment, proper liv- ing conditions, proper diversions. It is also becoming more generally recognized and taught In these schools that not only does a living wage for the workers consti- tute the first just claim on industry, but that when unskilled and other laborers work for lower than living wages they are tearing down not only fair industrial con- ditions in this country, but also the home. It is recognized here that the competing inefficient female worker is, by reason of her very unpreparedness, the greatest menace to her own class and to others. WAGES HD BY How Massachusetts Girls Have Been Benefited by Voca- tional Education. HOUSEHOLD ARTS POSTPONED Experience Shows Young Girls Are Not Interested — Go to Night School Later When “Man" Appears. [By E. I. Lewis, Staff Correspondent of The Indianapolis News] BOSTON, April 26.— A description of the Boston Public Trade School for Girls would, largely, be a repetition of the ar- ticle telling of the work, methods and aims of the Manhattan Trade School for Girls. Here, however, compared with New York, the economic conditions which throw girls into industry more nearly ap- proximate that of lAdlana cities that may, under the new vocational education laws, be confronted with the problem of giving to girls the vocational education that they need. At the Manhattan Trade School for Girls the economic need of the girls — or rather the economic pressure which is forcing them out of homes as soon as the law will let them go to work— Is strong. Here, and in all the Massachusetts cities, as in Indiana, the economic pressure is not so insistent. But it is here, and in Indiana cities, nevertheless. Meeting of Economic Needs. The trade school and other vocational school work for girls in Massachusetts Impressively brings out the fact that there is a large, and increasingly large, number of girls to whom the ordinary schools after, say, the fifth or sixth grades, do not give the practical wage re- turning education that they or their home conditions require. At fourteen they are free to go, to a limited extent, into industry. If train- ing is not provided they enter industry here at a wage of about three dollars and forty-three cents a week and, too often, get into a "dead end” or "blind alley” job— that is, into a work that offers no future. The Boston Trade School for Girls which, like the Manhattan Trade School for Girls, alms in a one-year course, free of frills, to put the girl di- rectly at the trade she has chosen, showed an average of $6.16 a week as the begin- ning wage of its girls in 1910-11. It is probably higher than that at this time. Value of School-Trained Girls. The commercial producers who employ girls have learned that the state Is giv- ing an effective apprenticeship which all specialized Industry Itself has largely discontinued, and the result is that there is not only a great demand for girls trained in the public schools, but the wages offered to them to begin on have gone up in the last two or three years from about $5 a week to $6, and some- times girls are placed at higher beginning wages than this. The testimony from the trades is that these girls— who, mark it well, are trained by teachers who them- selves were taken from the shops or fac- tories— are ready to go to the machines with valuable goods at once. Their oppor- tunity and training in the schools to work on a variety of kinds of commercial ma- chines, or do a wider range of hand work in their trades, makes them capa- ble of quick advancement in pay. They also. In being able to operate many kinds of machines or do various phases of the work of their ti’ade are able to shift from one kind of work to another as dull seasons affect certain work. Untrained girls, only skilled in using one machine, are laid off when that work is “short.” But, as in the case of the Manhattan Trade School for Girls, the better intro- duction into wage earning and wider adaptability is only part of the advantage. The school places the girl under moral surroundings, as well as making possible a living wage. Here, also, there is the ef- fective "placement secretary,” who not only puts the girl in a place but keeps a record of and guides her, and maintains a connection with trade in general where- by any graduate has a constantly opened avenue to occupation. Regeneration of Trade. There is something, also, in the argu- ment, that some such agency as this, having only In mind the public welfare, will work a certain regeneration in trade. If manufacturers find that it pays them to pay a trained girl $6.16 a week to start on, there may be a lessening of the num- ber that pay less than a living wage. Thus, it will be seen that those who de- sire to step beyond the mere realm to technical education to its relation to per- sonal and national morality have much field for hope. Massachusetts, for example, is the lead- er in the minimum wage for women movement. It has translated the demand for a living v/age into a law that is now about to go into effect. But if industry is required by the state to pay a minimum wage to women, the question arises as to the right of industry to demand an efficient worker. At all events, competi- tive conditions are going to force that, and the girl who is not trained, but who is forced by economic conditions Into the working world, will have a new prob- lem on her hands. Effect of Marriage Expectation. It is Impossible in these girls’ trade schools to get away from the sex point of view. In the article on the Manhattan Trade School for Girls recognition was given to causes that result In limiting all girls’ trade schools in their work to preparation for a restricted number of industries to be entered on "until the girl marries.” It has been mathematically calculated that "a girl’s industrial life is seven years.” Because of the presump- tion that the average girl is going to marry. It is thought advisable to teach her those industries which may be of value to her in her later homemaking life. Therefore, she is trained for com- mercial dressmaking, millinery and kin- dred trades, and for high power machine work in clothing and hat and such lines of manufacture. In as much as the girl thinks she is going to stay In Industry only temporarily, tliose trying to solve the vocational education problem have thus far not seen their way clear to give her as thorough a training as is given boys who go to work for life. But the consideration of sex psychology here in thinking Boston is leading further. Girls differ from boys, it is asserted, in as much as they work only from two motives. The first is love; the second is absolute necessity. Often the two motives are merged into one. The Impell- ing motive sometimes is love or duty to 6 VOCATIONAL EDUCATION an overworkeil niother, ofloii to llttlo brothers and sisters, but always It Is the beed to do HOnie.thlng for somebody. J’eW if any girls enfer a trade school oN'ci'pt becau.so of economic Blr<'sH oti the; home. l'''urthermore, most of them do not like to be classed as factory girls and thi-.\ will lake enough of the commercial dressmak- ing work sometimes to obscure the real fact that they are there for the jiurijos.i of entering a clothing factory as a high power machine operative. Phanges as to Household Arts. All these factors enter Into the solution of the problem. Here, In Massachusetts, where vocational education wa.s Ilrst taken ud by the ^American public school, there is also a tendency now to eliminate Instruction In household arts from the vocational schools for girls. It is an- other case of sex psychology. The theory Is being seriously set up that at about fourteen— the beginning of adolescence- girls, as a rule, lose their Interest In be- comlne a housekeeper, and it is not until "the man” appears on the scene that there again appears, often magically, the natural bent of most young women. The tendency now la to cut domestic training out of vocational education and to give the girl the wage earning training she wants, but to provide night schools to which, It is dlscovei'ed, she will go when "the” man does appear on the horizon. Therefore, the tendency is more and more toward short time, highly centered direct vocational training of girls of fourteen or over who are supposed al- ready to have acquired as much of the cultural education as they can really af- ford. During the vocational training, however, a certain amount of academic training directly applied to “her” pros- pective Industry Is taught and, as In the Manhattan Trade School for Girls, there is also ^ven schooling in industrial conditions and laws. In personal conduct, morality and cleanliness; and physical corrections and development are attend- ed to. Many other phases of this problem that Indiana is taking up are worth thought. There Is developing a group of leaders who look on this trade education of girls as being “philanthropic,” in the sense that It deals with the Individual in pro- viding skill for temporary use. They stand on the ground that vocational edu- cation by general taxation is Justified only when it creates a greater efficiency In Industry which amounts to a national asset, such as superior training has pro- duced for Germany. They p’olnt out that In such girls’ vocational schools the Individual rather than the Industry is benefited per se. Of course, a long argu- ment can be made for and against this stand. It win come up In Indiana. Costly Buildings Not Needed. There is one valuable lesson that the experience of the Boston and Manhattan Trade School for Girls teaches emphati- cally. That Is, that school buildings of the expensive type are not necessary. The Manhattan Trade School for Girls is In a business building. The Bo.ston Trade School for Girls Is in old, but good, con- nected residential buildings. In both In- stances the bulldlng.s are rented, the capi- tal Investment Is kept low and the rental In not high. These buildings are better in Borne ir-spectfl than modern school build- ings. The school;; run eleven months In the. year, and a. groat deal of the work hero h; done in the open air under tents or awnings In courts, or on extended pialform jiorclies, Ireliliid the bulhtinKS. ’^>joli buildings do not have to bo in the high relit dlslrlcte. Ah for ttn> erth.-lcney of the Uolon Hchool. it cun not I -- donlite.i it , ' v the girl a piilillc schooling 1iist It in mediately Inin; luted into wui- e: n glvi .s tier whut her eeoi.oinii ei.ni!,li"i Held- and what llii' ''eioini'e' rr ii.iol do. , tiei give her. Ilel'i', as III C V '.tic Hchool l.s ii|ien at Ill'll; for .dHcial li.nn lug on work or inaelilne that ilie kIi ! Iieed.s for ailviineeinent , uini tie l:i fi ee to collie n;' cun a.II other women It i; lir.iio.s.HlIde, and not neees.Ma r.\ . to iif^. rllic other Hcliool.e for 'tlrh in l.ovvell. wo.ih- umploii, Newton, New Hi'ilfoi d and o'. i <l In- clplf s Ik locally determined. Ma.s.Haeliii.i'ett.s maintains a large niim her of night .school;; for girl.” 'I'hey are of various tyticH school;, to hIiIcIi .girl; In indn.stry may come for addiUonul citi- e'lency. In which girls In Indiislry rna.r get a training for household diilie." wh'-n, poH.slhly, ''the” man appcai-H, and In which women of Jill ages may come for training of varloiis kinds. Alxnit clglit thousand jieople are in tlie piilillc voea- tlonal day and night si’hools, and a very large, number of tliem are women. Thus far Massachusett.s dcelaris lt;'elf only to be e.'cperlmentlng with the great problem of common schooling for the masses, ,and trying to evolve a .system which can be made pretty general. It Is well to note that the products of the Boston schools are sold and that, though the girls are not exploited, this by- product of education aids materially in meeting expenses as -well as in setting a commercial standard of workmanship. One statement Indicates that the piilillc cost of the Boston school Is only about $10 a pupil. WHY CHILDREN WORK. Too many of the old line of educators who are In control of the educational plant of the country have not taken rec- ognition of the conditions which have changed our national life and are forcing the child into industry. Helen M. Todd, In her article on “Why Children Work,” in' McClure's Magazine, of the April (1913) Issue, lifts the veil a little on the changed condition and educational needs of the child In Industry— and the mass of them must go into industry. She says: Ask any twenty children in a factory the question: “Why are j'ou w'orking?” Over and over again, in answer to the question, “What does your, father do?” the reply Is, “He’s sick”; and the same story unfolds in everj’ factory from most of the children you question; “He’s got the brass chills”; “He’s got consump- tion”; ”He’s got blood poisoning”; “He’s paralyzed”: “He can’t use his hands”; “He works in a foundry, and the cupola burst, and he got burned”: “A rail fell on his foot, and it’s smashed”: “He’s dead— he got killed.” He worked in the steel mills, or the stockyards, or on the railroad, and the engine ran over him; he was burned ■with molten metal, or crushed by falling beams, or maimed by an explosion. These stories, told in the soft voices of little children, are endless. To the ques- tion, “Did your mother get any money from the company?” the answer is almost Invariably, “No,” or a shake of the small head, the child not caring to take enough strengtli from Its work even to speak; and when yon ask, “How many children are there besides you?” the numbers usu- ally range from five to seven. And when you sa.v, “How many are there of yon wlio are -working?” the answer i.s sonie- t lines one. sometimes two, .seldom more; anil often, without looking uii. the child an.swers: "My mother she works, and me.” "And how much does your mother make?” “She niake.s 18 cents an hour, scrubbing downtown.” "And liow much do you make?'' “I make I! cents a tlion- sand, pusting on cigar band.s.” "And can yon and your mother earn enongli money to take care of the family?” “Ves, ma’am,” she answers; "we gotta." ONE WEEK IN SHOP THE NEKI IN SCHOOL Vocational Training of Bc^s at Beverly Illustrates One Massachusetts Method. USE OF MECHANIC TEACHERS Provision of Skilled Workmen as In- structors Is Point of Vital Im- portance for Success. I Uy K. I. Lewifi, Staff (.'orreHpondeiit «f Tlia IndiaiiuiiiillH Ni'WhI BEVEBBY. Maas., April J.1. The voca- tional Hcliools of Ma: ; :" hu cl 1 :. pi i sent the striking difference In tli" probli-m of giving boys and girh; in-Pi drlul c'luca- tiun. This dlftereni i- is t . ideally lllii.i- trated in the Be'-'U ly vo> ational hi IiooI. As types, the Boston and .Sew York trade schools for glrb. illustrate the fact that girls Intend to marry; that tliey are forced by ■ conomlc pre.ssurc Into indus- try; and tliat their industrial life being, because of matrimony, only .“'ven years., the field of training is limited and tlie period of public schooling for it also is limited to approximately one year. As a type, the Beverly school forcibly presents the fact that boys deliberately, rather than by economic pressure, enter industry; that they enter It for life and that, perhaps unconsciously, expecting re- sponsibilities of married life, they are moved to aim for efficiency in training that will insure them steady work at good wages and good chance of promo- tion. Always, of course, speaking in gen- eral terms, they can be made to see that denial of immediate, alluring “boy” wages ■will pay great deferred dividends. No Suggestion of Philanthropy. Because of this wholly different condi- tion it is possible to give boys vocational education that really results in a higher efficiency and standards of Industry, and therefore creates a national or state or local asset. This is free of all sugges- tion of philanthropy. Broadly speaking, taxation for vocational or any other kmu of education Is only justified, many hold, when it produces an asset of society m Increasing the efficiency of and for so- ciety. The Beverly school, again used only as an Illustrating type, presents the essential difference between philanthropy and the creaAlon of national or local efficiency. ' , , » Except periodically during the last four years, when it has been the “summer capital” of the nation, Beverly is always overshadowed by one commanding in- dustry, as, for example, Gary is by the United States steel plant. It is the yilant of the United Shoe Machinery Company — "the shoe machinery trust. While this concern by its monopolization of shoe machinery manufacture, and its control, through leasing systems, of the shoe indn.stry, may run afoul of the gov- ernment anti-trust policy, it is certainly a great thing for Beverly. It employs more than four thousand men and its product requires highly skilled workmen. In fact, if a boy does not get into this plant he, VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 7 Industrially speaking-, pretty nearly has to get out of his home to-wn. Adaptation to Local Demand. n’he vocational school here, because of these conditions, is peculiar, but it illus*- trates what might be done, for example In Gary— or in Indianapolis, which spe- cializes in automobiles. Half of the School— the mechanical side of it— is in the United Shoe Machinery’s plant. Its eriuipment is furnished by “the Shoe’’ and the company pays about half the ex- pense, the other half being divided be- tween local taxation and state aid. Of course, all the boys who go through this School are aimed directly for work in the Shoe’s” plant, and the taxpayer is putting up half the cost of educating the boy for the company’s service — covering half the cost of apprenticeship. These questions are going to come up in Indiana and are of greater and deeper interest to both the manufacturer and the taxpayer than really the school’s organi- zation for work. As to the latter, the boys who enter the Beverly vocational school are going into industry for life and are aiming for efficiency. The voca- tional school is under the direction of business men representing the employer and employe classes. Expert workmen are teachers. The course theoretically begins at the fourteenth year and it cuts out of the boys’ lives the “cultural” high school or such upper grades in the grammer school as have not been reached. The vocational school course itself is two and a half years, but it really follows the boy into the factory when he is a full-paid workman, and it may hold him under Its direction three or four years before a graduation certi- ficate is won. though in the last year or two years he may be working at full wages. One Week in School, One in Factory. The school is practically in session con- tinuously, though this week one half the pupils are at work in the factory school and next week the other half will be there. The “Shoe” has set aside one big section of its mammoth and beautiful plant for the sohooling. It has stocked it with all the machines needed and, furthermore, the instructor is permitted to go through the plant and pick out such work as he finds of educational value. In commercial lots, the individ- ual student is put to work on It as a study— working, shaping and fashioning, it to blue prints. Copies of which he must make. The company, of course, requires that its material be worked up into parts without flaws and then it buys that which does pass thos£ requirements. The defective materials have been reduced to 1 per cent., by efficiency. The pupil gets half this pay and the company places the other half into a fund used to pay half the cost of certairi teachers or in- structors. The boys in the shop one week are applying directly those things that, in the vocational school class and draft- ing rooms .and laboratories they were studying the week before, and they also take the problems they encountered one week in the shop back into the vocational schoolhouse for study the next week. Mechanic Instructor’s Work. One “shop” instructor is constantly in charge of the factory school or workshop, and there is at the vocational schoolhouse one director and an instructor in applied ■ science. But there is always with his class, this week in the factory and next week in the school, the “mechanic in- structor,” and he connects the work. Of course, for this work the Instructor has to come from the industry Itself— be a finely trained mechanic or workman in whom has been developed the pedagogical Bide to a certain extent. This is a point that a special article is later to cover, but here it is well to point to Its local ai)pllcation. Klr.st. this company would not place the thoiisaml.s of dollars’ worth of machines at the di.S|)Osal or use of any s(‘hool teacher. Secondly, the company would not SFJend thousands of dollars for this schooling if it did not produce com- mercial product and give e.xpert knowl- edge that no old-line school teacher has. or can obtain. Third, there is that in a boy’s nature that not only wants the practical tiling, but that demands the practical man and respects him though “academically” he may have rough edges. Fourth, in this work it is impog- sible to make an old-line pedagogue into an industrial instructor of this kind; it is the man v.'ho has the years of skilled training and advancement who can be- come the instructor. Point of Vital Importance. The importance of thi.s can not be over- emphasized. It is the rock on which vo- cational education founders when the “cultural” school people insist on a re- versal of the rule. It is the thing which, either in boy.s’ or giUs’ vocational schools, determines whether’ vocational education is to be vocational education or only an- other layer of manual training rejected by a large majority of boys at fourteen because it “teaches nobody anything to work with.” Let the test be local here. What the boys and the company both want is the same thing— high wage yielding work. Superintendent Robinson, of the machine department, employing seven hundred ma- chinists for which most of the boys aim, said: “These boys who come to me after two to two and a half years of this schooling; to go to work on full wages, are better workmen than most men who have been in the shops all their lives. They soon are making better wages. Why? Because modern industry is neces- sarily reduced to specialization. A man goes on one piece of machinery and be- comes very expert on it, but he may be utterly helpless on the next machine to him. Remember this: There are many ‘machinists’ now, but few ‘mechanics.’ There is the difference. “These boys are trained to study and think and to work on all the fundamental machines. They get the science and the- ory and a rounding out of trade ‘acad- emic’ training, and the art of study; and they know something, as mechanics, of draftsmanship as well as how to read all kinds of blue prints, and have a theory of personal conduct, discipline, responsi- bility and citizenship. They have general educational enlightenment. Advantage of Adaptability. “The results are manifold. Suppose we are rushed today or this season on a cer- tain kind o^ lathe work. Here is a highly skilled man on a milling machine who doesn’t know anything about the lathe work, but here is a man from the school who knows one as well as the other. To us this means production; to the worker steady wages and no layoff. Again, here is a man who knows the problems of the draftsman and can see beyond that blue print; a man who has a new, real appre- ciation of small parts because he knows how to make and apply them, and of measurements such as a ten-thousandth of an inch which we employ in machinery making; and he realizes why, they have to be so fine and that a thousandth of an inch departure in a single tiny part means a defective great machine, inas- much as it will not work with such fine precision or perfection. The school aims only to produce good machinists, but they have gained the things that push men ahead and even cause them to de- velop into the draftsman or inventive and improvement end of the business. “What,” asked Superintendent Robin- son. “does all this mean? To the man, better wages. To us, an Immense saving and at the same time greater efficiency and lower cost of production. We lAlltt have to take men from the outside anfl make them ‘machinists.’ We lose a great deal of time and material in schooling; then they may quit and we lose it all. Generally, however, though the man may become skilled, he does not tend to raise productive efficiency in the broader sense of more perfect machines. All this is loss —loss in prestige; in local, national or in- ternational competition; in money; in pro- duction. 'i'he last means higher prices to consumers.” Here he was getting at the creation of a national or local a.sset such as Germany has created. Philanthropy had entirely dl.sappeared. Results in Wages to the Boys. Analyzed on a “profit and loss” basis the showing is interesting. The boys come from the common schools. Reports show that they are sons of clerks, shop- keepers, shoemakers, tailors, chauffeurs, laborers, machinists and other workmen. A boy’s earning capacity in Beverly Is liberally, estimated at $6 a week, which capitalized on a 5 per cent, a year basis represents a working capital value of $6,000 a year. The wage earning capacity of boys, after two and a half or three years of this public schooling, is $15 to $18 a week. Capitalized on a 5 per cent, basis, this shows the marvelous increase from $6,000 to $15,000 to $18,000 a year work- ing capital. But the boy here is only on the thresh- old. Another set of figures is interest- ing. Professor James M. Dodge, presi- dent of the American Society of Mechan- ical Engineers, in his notable and elab- orate formula, finds that the average un- trained worker in this country reaches his maximum of earning at twenty-three years of age, the average then being $15 a week. The future of the untrained be- yond this becomes precarious. They are in “blind alleys” and “no-thoroughfare” work. Only 6 per cent, rise above the level, 35 per cent, remain in employ, 20 per cent, leave the work of their own accord, and 40 per cent, are dismissed. Here at seventeen and a half years or eighteen, the vocationally educated pupil of the Beverly school has a capitalized value of $15,000 to $18,000 at the beginning of a career which may contribute greatly to the advance of national commerce, while at his maximum the untrained worker has only a capitalization value of $1.5,000 and he holds back instead of ad- vancing Industry. This is the German problem here at home. Cost of the Schooling. The averaf*' cost of this vocational public schooling is about one hundred dollars a pupil a year. The boy actual- ly earns and gets in productive work in his part-time shop work about four dol- lars a week, which not only does not take anything out of industry, but pays for his schooling and puts $200 in circula- tion locally for tbe half of the $100 that the local community puts up— the state paying the other half of the amount of maintenance falling to public expense. It is impossible to go into each one of these voactional schools in which local conditions vary the type to an extent. At Quincy, for example, the pupils are in four factories under slightly, different conditions; at Worcester the shopworK is done in the school which has its own equipment and produces a commercial product. At Fitchburg the boys work as indentured apprentices In many plants ever,y other week. All of these “week about” schools, differing widely perhaps as to detail, apply the general princi- ples set out in the description of the Bev- erly undertaking. All that are success- ful are on an actual work basis, under direction of men who are workers, not theorists, and taught by skilled workers, not school teachers. s VOCATIONAL EDUCATION They Were Largely Equipped by Work of Pupils Themselves. OLD FACTORY WAS USED As Boys Learned Various Trades .They Converted It Into a Thorough- i going Shop at Little Expense. [By E. I. Lewis, Staff Correspondent of The IndlaJoapoUs News] NEW BEDFORD, Mass., April 28.— The New Bedford Industrial school pre- sents another phase of this state’s ex- perimentation in education of people for the work of life. There Is in connection with this public school a department for the education of ^irls in millinery, dress making and cooking more on a home vocation than an indfustrlal basis. Essen- tially, however, the New Bedford Indus- trial school is a vocational school for boys. It takes the boy at fourteen years, who is not getting what he wants or likes in the ordinary school. He goes to this school the same as he would to the other public school, but the “cultural” line of education is cut down to below 60 per cent, and is wholly applied to his chosen Industry. The real bent of the work is to train the boy to become (1) a machinist, (2) a woodworker, (3) a steam engineer, or (4) an electrician. When he gets through this school he Is not only theoretically prepared to take up such work by entering a shop as an appren- tice, but is. Instead, supposed to be prac- tically in possession of the trade and ready to go into a real Job as a full- fledged workman, or very nearly that. School Has Its Own Shops. This kind of vocational school for boys differers from the other group, of which Beverly was described as a type, inas- much as here the boy Is continuously in the school plant, whereas in the Beverly type of schools he is in an actual manu- facturing or industrial plant one week or one day and in the vocational school building itself the alternating week or day on closely conected up school work. The’ New Bedford type of vocational school, however, has Its own shops. At least half the time and often more than that. Is spent In the school's shops or “factories” In overalls, working on real coinnierolal work. J-'or example, New Bedford has built a very co.stly hlati scliool building. The steam englneeilng students have been at wroat l^e to learn.” “I couldn’t learn.” ihe children don’t holler at ye and call ye a Christ-killer in a factory.” “They don t call ye a Dago.” “They’re good to you at home when you earn money.” xouse can eat slttln’ dowm, when youse wmrk. ’ You can go to the nickel show.” X ou don t have to work so hard at night when you get home.” “Yer folks don’t hit can buy shoes for the Daoy. You can give your mother yer ^wi®’tyelop.” “What ye learn in school *^2 good. Ye git paid just as much in the factory if ye never was there. he never went to school.” 1 hat boy can’t speak English, and he gets $6. I only get $4, and I’ve been through the sixth grade.” “When my brother, is fourteen, I’m going to get him a job here. Then, my mother says, we’ll take the baby out of the ’Sylum for the Half Orphans.” “School ain’t no good. When you works a whole month at school the teacher she gives you a card to take home, that says how you ain’t any good. And yer folks hollers on yer an’ hits yer.” “Oncet I worked in a night school in the Settlement, an’ in the day school too. Gee, I humped myself. 1 got three cards with ‘excellent’ on ’em. An’ they never did me no good. My mother she kept ’em in the Bible, an’ they never did her no good, neither. They ain’t like a pay envelope.” “School ain’t no good. The Holy Father he can send ye to hell, and the boss can take away yer job er raise yer pay. The teacher she .can’t do nothing.” One of the Many Means by Which Practical Education Is Carried On. VOCATIONAL SCHOOL VARIETY Instruction for Adults as Well as Young People, Aiding Workers Toward Advancement. [By E. I. Lewis, Staff Correspondent of The Indianapolis News] BOSTON, April 29.— Boston— all Massa- chusetts— is little short of a great labora- tory of experimentation in vocational ed- ucation. The variety In the details of conducting the schools is too great for anything like a complete review of them. For example, upder the state aid law. similar in some respects to the new Indi- ana vocational education law’s provi- sions for state aid, a model home has been opened in the candy workers’ sec- tion of Boston. It is a four-room affair, furnished cheaply, but in good taste and durability, to which classes of girls come from the big candy factories. The classes are groups of ten girls, and the course extends over thirty weeks, the girls com- ing twice a week for two-hour sessions, the employers giving them the time off work without deduction in pay. Setting of the Model Home. The model home is within easy stone’s throw of famous old North church, in whose belfry was hung the signal light which sent Paul Revere, awaiting the sig- nal over In Charleston, speeding up through every Middlesex village and town, calling the minute men out. If Paul were to return to Boston and stroll up the old church hill he would wonder what all the jargon of uttered sounds meant. Twenty thousand Italians are colonized in close quarters around the old church, and per- haps- another five thousand orthodox Jews are mixed in with them, or within a quar- ter of a mile of the old church. Down into this Little Italy and Warsaw Ghetto has been dropped the little four-room apartment, behind whose windows bristle white curtains. Inside, the girls are taught, in their little groups of ten, American home methods and ideals. 'rhe whole house is furnished and all the work Inside, from cooking to general housework, is organized on the basis of the home of a husband who is getting $15 a week. As a rule, the girls who come to it are expecting to marry very soon, and. as a rule, they marry $15 men. Among other tilings, the thirty weeks’ course im- presses on them the fict that before they marry the couple must save up enough money to buy the furniture and full house equipment, if they are really to have a home. In this little home the furniture is of the plain best mission type; the walls are papered in good taste; cheap but well chosen pictures are^ properly placed, and the simplest little curtains impressively show the attractiveness of cleanliness. There are good, inexpensive table china and glassware and 4treal silver” knives, forks and spoons. The kitchen is mod- ern, even to an inexpensive but substan- tial cabinet and a good, durable work table; and likewise is the bedroom sen- sibly fitted up. Everything is “homey” and wonderful- ly simple and clean, and perhaps it is the first time such girls have ever come into a house that was in order, was not chock full of red plush furniture, bric-a-brac and litter, and is really New England in its primness. All the testimony, and the way the girls come to it in “continuation classes,” twice a week, indicates that it makes a tremendous impression. The “real sliver knives, forks and spoons!” Oh, how they wish they could have “real silver knives, forks and spoons” when they marry; and how won- derfully delighted they are when they find that if they will Just quit going to the moving picture show every night they can save up enough to have them, for they cost only $5! And the plain white curtains! It Is pitiful the way some of them pat the bed and take to the cook- ing. Such “model home” public schools are to be opened in mill centers. So goes vocational education In Massachusetts in one of its many phases. Out of Industrial “Blind Alleys.” Twice a week the errand, stock and cash boys and girls, in squads, troop out of Boston stores on two hours of the em- ployers’ time, to take “continuation work,” which is aimed to open up tha blind alley they are in industrially. This -term, “blind alley job,’’ must have been coined down here. It really means some- thing in this big city, whose curving, hlg- gledy-piggled.y streets follow the old cow- paths and other original lanes and short- cuts. A stranger, hurrying, starts in what seems to be a rather pretentious thor- oughfare, and soon he |flnds that it ends in a lot of jagged angles, none of whicli has an outlet. The hurrying stranger has to go way back to where he entered and make a new start to get anywhere. He has been in a blind alley. That is exactly the predicament of the children before coming to the continua- tion school. Ungulded, but tired to death of the old school, or forced out of It by economic pressure, they have fallen into one of life’s blind alleys. The great effort now Is to get them out of it, or find them a wall they can climb over— and boost them over it. So long as they stay in the “blind alley” they are going to work for children's wages. They are getting from $3.50 to $5.50 a week— and there is not much left for their work when .their car fare and meager lunches come out of it. Already some are getting along sixteen, seventeen or eighteen years of age. So, by the grace of their employers, they are coming to a public school that is training them for promotion— for places in the office or positions as salesmen and sales- women. They come for four hours a week for thirty weeks, and it is wonderful how they take up applied arithmetic, reading, writing, commercial geography, spelling, hygiene, physics and those arts of sale.s- manship which run from meeting a cus- tomer properly to turning the mind of that possible customer in favor of the store. And when they have mounted this blind alley wall, or get out, they may seek further development by the same processes in other classes which are aimed to make a salesman or saleswoman capable of better positions— direction, buy- ing, etc. Continuation Schools. It is impossible in a limited space to tell fully of this highly interesting wodk. Only types can be given. Young men from the wholesale shoe and leather houses— many of them college graduates, by the way — likewise go to the continuation schools for two-hour classes twice a week, and 10 VOCATIONAL EDUCATION thor« study leather from the ralslne of the cattle in different parts of the world, through th(! slaughterlug. murketlng, tan- ning and other proceHsos Into Hhocs, and eijulp ttieinselres with seureliing linowl- edge of different hinds and nnu llth-y of leather and shoes. Trips are made hv these classes to the slauKhter houses, the lannerles, the leather houses and the shoo factories, llrst to those turning out three ihousaiui iiairs of shoes a day and then to a larger plant, turning out fifteen thou- sand pairs a day. ihese men are fitting themselves for hetler and higher service, or for business for themselves. The courses In salesman- ship. banking, ttie clothing trade, dry goods and other mercantile and clerical lines are coininerclally thorough. -., 1 interesting “nlglit continuation school is run In the afternoon. Cooks, waiters and others around hotels and Pnbllc places who can not speak i!,ngllsh come to this continuation school twice a week. The school also teaches Spanish and Italian for commercial and tnauslrial purposes to Americans. One of the departments of this public Bcnooling now being organized l.s for girls of ten years or over, who must bring a baby sister or brother with them. It is found that the foreigners turn the In- fants over to little daughters to care for them, and this school is to teach them how to care for them properly, and to take the high presssure call off the little White hearse. This public ‘‘continuation school" op- erating '.n the daytime in Boston, helping boys and girls out of blind alleys and helping others to greater efficiency, is now patronized by about one thousand people, who are taking the full courses and are working hard at them. Others have to drop out to make room for the really ambitious. Night Vocational Schools. Then there are the night public voca- tional schools in Boston and all over Atassachusetts, where people in the trades in the daytime can come and take courses of study as outlined in the de- scription of the New Bedford public in- dustrial school. They give night school course.s in which machinists, for example, can learn to opeiate another kind of ma- chine, or can study to become a tool- maker; in which janitors, for example, rai.se into positioiis of licensed firemen and firemen into licensed engineers. Such, courses are provided for practically all the fundamental arts. Metal workers, structural Iron workers, carpenters, etc., can learn draftsmanship, or plan making, and the blue-print reading art. It is proposed to open development schools of this kind for teamsters. In night schools women in industry may learn other kindred machines or allied trades or arts: and women of all kinds can take courses in household arts for home purposes. Then, on top of all this vocational, higher efficiency and good citizenship work carried on at public expense, often utilizing the clay vocational school equip- luent, the mechanical arts schools, and the domestic arts eciuipment of public schools, ig the great superstructure of day and night work by private societies. Home of it is very great and reaches not iiiiriiln (Is, but really thousands of people in the state. 81111 on top of this is the !'r(.at vocational work of the commercial H'.tiools whicli. In day and rilght sessions, tiiin out bookkeepers, stcuiographers, typ- li-' . etc. Actual ne-ds of education are b‘-'-iuriIng to he met here. Age Lines Are Broken Down. The linpr'cMsIVi thing Is lluit In prac- tii .illy all M.'i :c'’hu (-Its town.s and cities flo-.v, oni can pur ue practically unj vocational, honie-makliiK or cltlzen- inukiug line of (tiici.c /(iKjtiier lnipr»-sys| ve tiling Is that wlille Mjisvactiii ■, 1 1 is eyl- dently st-eltig ttis, tlicri* is unottier edii- liou ttiaii tliat of llie old line ‘'cullurol" type, wlilcli So iiiaMy Ijoys and girl:; re- ject Or tun not afford. It is also tciirltig down tlie age llruilatlon.s. In tliesc great experiments everybody, at 1( ust up to for- t.v j’ears of age, Is u child In the eyes of the educulor.s In inulter- wliereln he or she nced.s develoiuneiit. And iirovislori of sclioollng for peoide, from ttie ten« year-old girl wlio iniisl care for liuliy to a forty-year-old mactilnist wlio wishes to advance, is com|ng to be regarded as a legitimate charge on society In soino form or oilier. Massachusetts has a JS.OOO.OOO equip- ment ill free day and nlglit schools for the improvement of the textile industry, and its workers. The upkeep cost is hea.vy, and the attendance, except in night cla.sses, i.s not very satisfactory, tills lias taught Massacliusetts, or is teaching her, one great tiling, 'riiut Is, not to make a big outlay on school build- ings— a feature emphasized in the articles descriptive of the New Bedford public industrial school, and of the Boston and I Manhattan Trade Schools for (Jlrls. 1 Ma.sachusetts is proceeding likewise in 1 vocational education for boys on the t farm. But the vocation agrliultural work is another story to be handled sep- arately, for it is of great interest to In- ' diana. HIGH WAGES AND CHEAP WAGES. It has been aptly said that America is little else than a huge stevedore, bearing down to the ships of the sea crude and semi-crude materials for the employment of the capital, labor and intellect of foreign nations. Exportation of these partly manufactured materials is a de- pletion of our natural resources, the heritage of the age.s In mine, forest and soil fertility, never to be restored. Every bushel of w'heat exported car- ries 27 cents’ worth of phosphorus, every bushel of corn 13 cents, and each pound of cotton 3 cents. These figures fairly represent the supposed profits. Today our best agricultural states, even those only fifty years under cultivation, yield only half as much an acre at the thou- sand-year-old soils of Europe. We have been capitalizing soil values to an ex- treme and hurtful extent, where we thought ,we were making real and sub- stantial profits. There were reasons in the past for these exportations of various raw and semi-crude products, and we have, on the whole, splendidly prospered; but those reasons are no longer effective. Now we must use every effort to send our products abroad ready for consump- tion, carrying the maximum and not the minimum of American labor and skill. Think of the difference in the amount of labor carried by a typewriter and a bar of iron; a planer and a billet. The exports of England, Germany and France are fin- ished products, mostly labor; most of ours carry only enough labor to make them fit for ships cargo. Our labor is in many re.spects the most efficient in the world. We are proud of "our men behind the guns”; their broth- ers, the men behind the machines in our factories, have no less of ability and courage of accomplishment. There is brains in a typewriter, in a sewing ma- chine, In shoes. Those are already ex- ported in volume, and point the way to tens of thou.sands of other products, whlcli can he made as welcome in foreign markets. Tliese sliow, too, that high-paid American wages are cheap wages. H. E. MILES. Chairman of tlie Educational Committee (if the National Manufacturers’ Associa- tion. GETS TO BOyS AND Indiana’s Proposed New Educa- tion Has Already Been Tried in Massachusetts. RESULTS PUT TO SURE TEST Work of Boys Side by Side With That of Fathers Shows Up One or Other Quickly. Illy E. I. I.ewU, Staff Correspondent of The IncllariapoliH NewM| NORTH IlAMB'ro.N, Masn., May 2 — The revolt In cultured Massachut.' tts against exclusively "cultural’’ education and It.s leadership of a national movement for a public school system that will impart "ap- plied knowledge," or vocational educa- tion, has a very close connection with In- diana’s new agricultural policy. Perhaps It may be news to Indiana farmers that there Is new state agri- cultural policy. It is one of the optional sort— Its local adoption resting with lo- calities or communities. It is a fact that the state, by the enactment of the new vocational educational law, does recede from the old policy of providing public free courses of study only to produce "agriculturists.’’ The privilege is now ex- tended to the farming communities to educate their boys to be "farmers," and witli the privilege go state funds. In short, the state has opened a way for agricultural communities to give the boys and girls of the farm the kind of educa- tion they probably need. Indiana's New Law. The new Indiana vocational education law provides that “any school city, town or township may, through its board of school trustees or school commissioners or township trustee, establish vocational schools or departments [in the existing schools] for industrial, agricultural and domestic science education in the same manner as other .schools and departments are established,” and may maintain them the same as the other schools are maintained, or by a special tax levy. The law ' also specifically states that these schools shall be of less than college, grade— in fact, common schools of special character— and that the.v arc designed to meet the vo- cational needs of persons over fourteen years of age. In other words, they are for the boys and girls w'ho drop out of school just as soon as the compulsory school attendance age limit is reached. 'The new idea is to get hold of them then and by a new kind of schooling, continue to educate them, but to educate them as workers. Elementary and Advanced Teaching. The new Indiana law goes further in the case of agriculture. It requires that elementary argiculture be taught in the grades. Local advisory boards are pr(y- VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 11 ’ Tided for. and there is provision In the state organization for a deputy or “agent” of tlie state superintendent of public instruction, wlio is also connected witii Purdue university's agriculturaJ ex- tension work, wiio shall be in supervision Of the public school agricultural work. Teachers of such vocational subjects in the schools will liave to pass a special ex- amination, Most of them should, it is thought, be farm boys witli Purdue agri- cultural station training. The state will pay two-tliirds of the instruction cost In all of these schools teaching agriculture. The Indiana law goes still further. It provides that "whenever twenty or more residents of a county, who are actively Interested in agriculture, shall file a peti- tion for a ‘county agent,’ together with a deposit of $.'i00 to be used In defraying expenses of such agent”— but in reality as an evidence cf good faith— the county council “shall” appropriate annually the sum of $1,500 to be used in paying the sal- ary and other expenses of “said county agent.” County Agents’ Duties. The county board of education “shall then apply to Purdue university for the appointment of a county agent,” appoint- ments being for one year. Then the state will, through Purdue university, reim- burse the county to the extent of one- half the annual salary of the county agent, the state limiting its half, how- ever, to $1,000, This county agent’s du- ties include “assisting” the county super- intendent of schools and the teachers in giving “practical” education in agricul- tural and domestic science. The “prac- tical” means a great deal. The county agent is also to get in with the farmers, co-operating with them in their institutes, farmers’ clubs and other organizations, and it is also to be his duty td conduct practical farm demonstrations, boys’ and girls’ clubs and contest work and “other movements for the advancement of agri- culture and country life”: and he is also to give advice to farmers on practical farm problems. I" .short, there are providea now ample facilities for any community, or any county, to have an altogether new kind of school or parts of schools, for children over fourteen years of age who want to know their soil and how to grow bigger, better and more corn or anything else: while for the girls there is provided Mucatlon in house arts and economies. The law in providing an expert adviser for farmers also takes the limit off the school age. Imported From Massachusetts. This new Hoosier idea is imported, for the most part, from Massachusetts — in reality, from down here in the Connecticut river valley. Only Indiana is going fur- ther in the “county agent” provision. How does this new wrinkle work in Massachu- setts? It is a little too soon to answer the question. One thing, however, seems to ne pretty thoroughly demonstrated, and it is a result that was not expected. Here the town and city boys are trooping out to the agricultural schools and are getting tremendously interested. Like most, peo- ple who have not lived in the country and who do not realize that farm work is real work, they seem to be outdoing the coun- try boys in interest in the new country vocational education. They are dead in earnest. The schools are organized on the “part- -time” basis, like the Industrial schools previously described. That means that the boy works “on the .job” part of the time. In agricultural public schools this really means that the boy is supposed to have a bit of real farm land or live stock placed in his hands at home. Over it he is master. In applying for admittance to these agricultural vocational schools the boy signs his name to a state printed form which concludes with: “I promise to do my best to master and to carry out the teachings of this course in both 'project study’ and 'project work.’ ” But this is not enough. The parent and guardian must sign a form whlcli includes this: '1 • • ♦ promise that he shall have suffi- cient time, land and equipment for Ids homo 'project work’ in connection witli the course. 1 promise to the school my support and co-operation, and state tliat I understand what the course is to be and wliat the demands on the pupil’s time will be.” Those pledges have the pupil and his parents or guardian, tied up pretty well. How the Farm Pupil Works. The terms “project study” and "project work” mean the pupil’s part-time job. It may, for example, be an acre of corn. It may be certain live stock— it is likely both, and some garden, too. The boy has his own land, cows, chickens, or part of the garden. In the agricultural school, especially in the winter, he studies it. ap- plying to the problem all of the sciences pos-slbly touching agriculture. The “Eng- lish Work” may be the reading of good, highly trustworthy, well written and se- lected farm journals: his mathematics is of the applied kind. He carries at the same time, especially in winter, certain cultural studies, as well as learns how to mend harness and to do farm carpenter- ing, forging and a lot of other things. He spends a half day at real work. When, however, spring approaches he has his “project” mapped out. Suppose it is corn. It is not raised in any school “plot,” and cared for only up to school adjournment. No, it is an acre at home — right up _to, or in, his father’s corn field. He has worked out his theory, even to plowing, fertilizing and handling. He advises with his teacher — who later assumes another relation— and from cleaning the land, and plowing, planting and fertilizing, through to harvesting and marketing, this is his and not his father’s “job” and production. When he is at home for his work half day, he is not absent from school, pro- vided he is at work on his “project”— ;and at times he stays the full day, when it is time for plowing and planting. When the regular school year ends the teacher be- comes an inspector, riding around on his motorcycle. He has, already, taken a three months’ vacation in the dull winter months, after harvest. He carries the boy and study through the production year. And Here Comes the Acid Test, When one gets down to vocationa\^ edu- cation, here is the acid, test. The “old man” with his old methods has corn right alongside the boy’s corn, and fathers do not like to be beaten at their own game. If the boy does beat him out, lo, there is an awakening— and sometimes the “old man” looks up the expert and wants ad- vice that he formerly scorned. If, how- ever, the boy, after having probably fig- ured out more expensive fertilization and handling does not show results, voca- tional education and all this new theory of agriculture and making two blades grow where one grew before, gets a tre- mendous setback. If the old methods all through the community beat out the new school’s ideas, the new school must close up shop, not because support would be withdrawn, but because the boy is look- ing for results and would drop 'at. This has not happened in Massachu- setts. The boys have been bringing a new light to the old home. It has only been two years since this new agricultur- al vocational education began. Not a school has closed, and this year they jumped from five to seventeen. Of course, there are failures. It is strange just how sometimes the “boy” breaks out and spoils a good start, and sometimes, of course, pest and other unforeseen calam- ity comes, notwithstanding sprays. But me boys are so far ahead of the ‘ old man” th’at the schools Increase in num- bers and greatly in utteudanci- and th* old people want to come to . venlng class- es in .some instaiices. Land for the City Boy. But the citj’ or town boy does iiif the m.inlfold sides of IrjduHtry means a b|g final Improvement In wages, not only for thomselvi-H l)Ut for the benefit of all. These children are taught. In all thesn courses, nmctlcal sanitation; Instructed In the rlgnl.s of workers and their obliga- tions to society and their fellow-workers; and It Ims been shown iiow they are in- structed not onl.v how to make better wages, blit al.so how to keep homes and clilldren and perform those other services w'bich go to nuike up not only an elilelent, but an enlightened, W'orker. It Is a simple, yet typical declaration, tbi.s first jiaragrnph of the Philadelphia public voeiillonal school.^' oulltno of work: "Tlie purpose of the trade schools i.s to develop intelligent workingmen and promote good citizenship.” Effect on Citizenship. Side by side with this may bo placed this excerpt from C. A. Prosser'.-j “Prac- tical Arts ajid Vocational Guidance": ".Since they must work somewhere, most of these children fthosn who drop out of .school] find their wav. largely by accident, into low-grade skilled or unskilled occupations— the great cnlld employing industries and enterprises w'blcli arc always wide open at the bottom, but closed at the top, so far as permanent, desirable employment Is concerned. Here, because their work lacks purpose and hope, they drift about from one position to another, changing In Some states. It is said, from one unskilled position to another on an average once every four months. The resulting moral degradation to the child and the tremendous cost to the employer can not be estimated. • • • They find themselves at sixteen in the .same position as at fourteen— starting life without any adequate preparation for wage earning. Their menial, mo- notonous, more or less automatic work not only gives no skill, but also arrests rather 'than develops Intelligence and ambition. Out of the great army of children who leayo the schools at fourteen to go to work and get from those schools no further attention. come the nc'er-do-we.Ils. t: losfi-rs, the iriiinps, gHiiiblcrM, firdstll iiIpb jmil crlmlnali.-. for whose ’crslty in the appointment of some person actively connected with the agricultural extension work at Purdue as an agent in supervising agricultural education, who shall serve in a dual capacity as an agent of the state superintendent and an assist- ant at Purdue university. The board and the authorities of Purdue university may fix the proportion of the salary of such agent to be borne by Ahe state and by the university. Such person shad be subject to removal for cause by the state board of education. All expenses incurred in discharge of their duties by deputies and agents shall bo paid by the state from funds provided for in this act. Advisory Committee. Sec. 9. Boards of education or town- ship trustees administering approved vo- cational schools and departments for in- dustrial, agricultural or domestic science education, shall, under a scheme to be approved by the state board of education, appoint an advisory committee composed of members representing local trades, in- dustries and occupations. It shall be the duty of the advi.sory committee to counsel with and advise the board and other school officials having the management and supervision of such schools or depart- men t.s. Admission to Schools — To Whom Made. Sec. 10. Any resident of any city, town or town.slilp in Indiana, which does not maintain an approved vocational school or department for Industrial, agricultural or domestic science elucatlon offering the tvpf oi training which he desires, may make application for admission to such f .bool or department inalntolned hy an- .it ... I < It V, town or townslilp or any I ' 'joI of sceoijtiary grafle' maintaining an apjoo.'d Industrial, ucrlciill ursil or do- rr., ilit - ■ le;;r:' ; ' hool or rl(;part7nent. The nti.t. i-'.ard nt eiliiraitlon, who.se di-clslon Bi.: r be filial, n,ay opp'ove or disapprove .■ i' ll appll': I Hen In making such decl- I on U.': iiojird fdiall luko Into considera- tion tho opportunltie'- for freo vocational training in Ibc coii'miiiiit v In ■■ lii'h lb. iippllciint rc.iUlfs; tii.- llnn.iolel of the Community, the 'ige. >'C. iirrueire tion, aptitnd' and prevl'uis rei ord of tb- iiiuill- eanl, and all otlu r reler ant cii . iiin sta nces. Tho school ■ ity or I. ■< n or town, li n mi which the person rr sld. : , 'vho tcis h' ■ ii admitted as above orovhlcd, to an proved vocailonsi .■"■hool or d.-part im nt for indust'lal. agrtciilliiral or ■loni''ili<’ .science cilucalion. inaintainod liy aiioib»>r city, town or towiishlii or ofh'-r ol. shall pa.v such tuillon fee ar ma.'. bi' ll-cii by the state hoard of education; and the state shall reimburse such school rlty or town or township as provided for In this act. If any school city or town or town- ship neglects or refuses to pay for such tuition, It shall be liable therefor in an action of contract to the school city or town or township or cities and towns and townships or other school maintaining the school which the pupil with the approval of the said board attended. Compulsory Attendance. Sec. 11. In case the board of education or township trustee of any city, town or township have established approved voca- tional schools for the in.struetlon of youths over fourteen years of age who are engaged In regular employment. In part time classes, and have formally ac- cepted the provisions of this section, such board of tru.stees are authorized to re- quire all youths between the ages of four- teen and sixteen years who are regularly employed, to attend school not less than five hours per week between the hours of 8 a. m. and 5 p. m. during school term. County Agent — Petition. Section 12. Whenever twenty or more residents of a county, who are actively interested in agriculture, shall tile a peti- tion •with the county board of pdu.^ation for a county agent, together witli a de- posit of $500. to be used in defraying ex- penses of such agent, the county hoard of education shall file said petition, with- in thirty days of its receipt, with the county council, which body shall, upon receipt of such petition, appropriate an- nually the sum of $1,500 to be used in paying the salary and other expenses of said county agent. When the county appropriation has been made the county board of education shall apply to Purdue university for the appointment of a county agent vi'hose appointment shall be made annually and be subject to the approval of the county board of education, and the state board of edu- cation. When such appointment has been made, there shall be paid annually from the state fund provided for in this act, to Purdue university, to be paid to the county providing for a county agent, an amount sufficient to pay one- half the annual salary of the county agent appointed as herein provided: Provided, that not more than $1,000 shall be appropriated to any one county. Provided, -further, that not more than thirty (30) counties during the year end- ing September 30, 1914; and sixty (60) counties during the year ending Sep- tember 30, 1915, shall be entitled to state aid. It shall be the duty of such agent, under the supervision of Purdue univer- sity, to co-operate with farmers’ insti- tutes, farmers’ clubs and other organiza- tions, conduct practical farm demon- strations, boys’ and girls’ clubs and con- test work and other movements for the advancement of agriculture and country life and to give advice to farmers on practical farm problems and aid tlie county superintendent of schools and (he teachers in giving practical educa- tion In agriculture and domestic science. The county board of education Is hereby authorized to tile monthly hills covering .salfiry and cxfienses of county agent, the same to lie approved by Purdue nnivor- slty, with (lie county auditor who slia.ll |o:i Ilfli at Irma o; ti.o li'v.. nietlio