VOCATIONAL EDUCATION'

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BY DAVID SNEDDEN

Weft) gorfe

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1920

All right* rcicrved

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COPYRIGHT, 1990, BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

Set up »nd electrotyped. Published June, 19*0.

NortoooU

J. 8. Cuahing Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mm*.. U.S.A.

TO G. S.

42080 5

PREFACE

THIS book is devoted primarily to a discussion of current problems in vocational education. Space has not been given either to historical surveys or to descriptions of contemporary achievement^. Vocational education as a conscious social enterprise constitutes, except in professional fields, a long new chapter in social and educational evolution. Its litera- ture is still largely a literature of aspirations, of shadowy ideals, and of scattered and poorly supported experiments.

But the great social movements of our time have finally brought to us unmistakable demands for democratic and efficient systems of vocational education. Heretofore such school vocational education as we have had has been aristo- cratic— "for the leaders" it was claimed; and non-school vocational education has been haphazard, unorganized, and deplorably lacking in efficiency.

What we call the "contemporary movement for vocational education" is in stark simplicity the result of an enormous social demand for schools for the vocational education of the rank and file of workers. Schools of professional educa- tion for the training of leaders we have long had ; but corporate effort has, until almost yesterday, balked at the problem of providing training schools for workers who toil in the unexalted callings of mine, farm, forest, shop, factory, shipboard, and home.

Hence the new movement must first of all be interpreted as an expansion — and a tremendous one — of the purposes of education by means of those specialized agencies which we collectively designate as schools. It may be that to the philosopher the shadowy ultimate objectives of education

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viii Preface

can be expressed by such " ojnnibus " terms as salvation, grace, moral perfection, physical fitness, social efficiency, the self -realization of the individual, the strong servant of the commonwealth, and those other interchangeable terms which constitute the currency of vague, speculative thinking ; but the age is demanding more specific and more objective inter- pretations of the ends we seek.

As we endeavor to translate aspirations into concrete ideals and working programs endless problems arise. Some of these are problems of meaning; what, aftar all, do we actually mean and intend by vocational education? Under what conditions and to what extent is it different from non- vocational education? Some are problems of aim ; is society expected to provide schools for all possible forms of vocational education? In the case of any given vocation what are de- sirable limits to school directed training, instruction, and idealization? Then there are fundamental problems of method and of administration; having once determined what we seek, how shall we proceed to reach our goals?

As far as practicable, therefore, the writer has addressed his efforts primarily to analysis of these problems. He has deliberately minimized or omitted discussions of those matters as to which substantial agreements seem to have been reached. Critical readers may feel that he has over-emphasized con- troversial issues ; but the writer has believed such emphasis desirable at this time. In dealing with these issues he has usually had two distinct ends in view ; first, to analyze the essential factors of the problem; and, second, to state his own hypothetical surmises and conclusions.

There can be no helpful vocational education that does not rest on a sound system of economics. The painful years are showing us how little legislators, business men, labor leaders, and educators know of the enduring laws of eco- nomics and how, out of the soil of this ignorance, rank poison- ous plants of fantastic creed and malevolent purpose may

Preface ix

easily grow. The ignorance of the citizenry of to-day, con- fronted by the endless economic problems produced by modern conditions of production, is comparable to that of the primitive natives in Mediterranean countries and later in North America when the currents of commerce sowed wide the seeds of the bubonic and other plagues. But there are few current economic problems which do not intimately affect, and are not intimately affected by, vocational education. Man must produce economic goods if he is to live ; he must produce them well and efficiently if he is to live well and efficiently ; and he must be trained long and exactingly if he is to produce efficiently. As far as present conditions of thought permit, the writer has tried to hold up for con- sideration in the background the most pertinent of the eco- nomic problems underlying vocational education.

The conditions under which this book has been written have rendered unavoidable a few major, and a larger number of minor, repetitions. But it is expected that a considerable number of readers will not desire to follow the text as a whole, but instead, to study sections dealing with particular prob- lems. For them the repetition of certain fundamental con- siderations may prove an advantage. The indulgence of the reader is asked also in the matter of bibliographical references. Of substantial bibliographical material in book form voca- tional education has little indeed. The bibliographies listed on pp. 513-14 are largely of articles and other materials of a more or less transient nature.

DAVID SNEDDEN.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAO»

I. THE MEANING OF VOCATIONAL EDUCATION i

II. THE SOCIAL NEED FOR BETTER VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 30

III. THE RELATION OF GENERAL TO VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 71

* IV. PRINCIPLES OF METHOD IN VOCATIONAL EDUCATION ' . 105

V. VOCATIONAL EDUCATION FOR THE AGRICULTURAL CALLINGS 144

VI. COMMERCIAL EDUCATION „ j 190

VII. INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 204

VTII. VOCATIONAL HOMEMAKING EDUCATION . . . .231

DC. PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION 272

X. THE ADMINISTRATION OF VOCATIONAL EDUCATION . 282

XI. THE TRAINING OF TEACHERS FOR VOCATIONAL SCHOOLS. 352

XII. SPECIAL PROBLEMS OF VOCATIONAL EDUCATION . . 369

XIII. SOME FUTURE PROBLEMS ; » 389

XIV. PROBABLE ECONOMIC FUTURE OF AMERICAN WOMEN . 411 XV. THE PRACTICAL ARTS IN GENERAL EDUCATION . . 455

XVI. BIBLIOGRAPHIES 513

APPENDIX A. OCCUPATIONAL STATISTICS 515

APPENDIX B. TERMINOLOGY OF VOCATIONAL EDUCATION . . 534

VOCATIONAL EDUCATION

CHAPTER I

THE MEANING OF VOCATIONAL EDUCATION

Some Definitions Illustrated. — For the purposes of this book, the word " vocation " will be taken in the sense of " calling," " chief occupation," or primary " gainful pur- suit." It can be assumed that every adult in possession of his natural powers renders to the world some form of serv- ice, in return for which he receives the services (or the products of the service) of others. To the rendering of this service, each adult usually devotes definite portions of his time and energy. He tills the soil, weaves cloth, keeps books, commands soldiers, teaches, writes poetry, drives a locomotive, superintends a factory, digs coal, heals the sick, cleans the streets, or keeps a home. For the services thus rendered steadily in the one or the other of these fields his fellows pay him with portions of the results of their service, money, of course, serving only as a convenient measure and means of making such payment.1

1 The man who lives by purely predatory activities exacts goods from others without rendering an equivalent ; but such conduct is, of course, under the ban of society. So is beggary and other forms of getting, without giving, service.

A man who owns capital and keeps it invested is thereby rendering a service to society, since most forms of production require capital. But a man owning much capital may elect to render no other service except

B I

r Vocational Education

Any adult may have other occupations besides his voca- tion; but, commonly, he does not pursue these as primary means of obtaining a livelihood, or of producing sufficient " goods " wherewith he can purchase what he desires of the goods produced by others. These " side " occupations or avocations he may pursue for amusement, — they con- stitute often the play of men; or he may pursue them as a means of health; or he may discharge through them those non- vocational obligations which he owes to society, — that is, to the family, the church, the party, the state, the nation, -as parent, citizen, worshiper, defender. But in no case are these activities properly vocations; etymologically and logically they are avocations — to be pursued outside the hours customarily dedicated to his vocation. Hence, it is not consistent with the usage accepted in this book to speak of parenthood or citizenship or military reserve serv- ice or amateur sport as " vocations."

Kinds of Vocations. — Vocations, of course, may be manual or intellectual ; the worker may be called chiefly to lead and to give orders, or to follow and to take orders.

through keeping his capital in active use. For convenience we may assume that his vocation is that of " investor."

In superficial writing it is sometimes assumed that only " labor " (meaning thereby manual labor) is productive. This, of course, is playing with words. For our purposes, any human effort that results in " goods " valued for human utilization will be called productive service. Hence the soldier who defends the flag, the artist who paints an at- tractive scene, the explorer who reveals new regions, the enterpriser (or entrepreneur) who dares to start a new enterprise, the actor who enter- tains, the mother who gives her best effort to rearing children, and the banker who creates storage reservoirs and " canal " systems whereby capital can be gathered and set to work like irrigating water, are all contributing productive service no less than the fanner, the miner, and the factory operative.

In the sense used here children, as well as decrepit and defective adults, do not render productive service. They may, by their growth or presence, add to the spiritual wealth of the community, but they do not have, usually, productive vocations and they therefore consume but do not add to economic wealth.

The Meaning of Vocational Editcation 3

There are vocational classes in which the service rendered to society is frequently not to be measured by the material return which society or individuals within it give. We think of priests, teachers, artists, inventors, leaders of for- lorn hopes, physicians, devoted soldiers, as all coming more . or less within these classes. But the difference! between highest and lowest workers is chiefly one of degree rather than of kind, as respects value of service rendered and the spirit in which it is rendered. We can distinguish vocational groups in which the workers are strongly actuated by de- votion to the service of the larger human groups; others in which desire for gain and approval chiefly lead men on; and still others in which the primitive emotions of fear, — fear of hunger, fear of poverty, fear of the blows of the slave driver, — force men to work that is often irksome and repellent.

Superficially considered, some vocations seem to be " harder " than others, in the sense that fewer persons can be found willing to undertake or discharge them. We assume that only mature, well-selected, and well-trained men can be physicians, generals, locomotive engineers, writers, directors of enterprise. The differences between the high and low, the well rewarded and the poorly rewarded, voca- tions are in reality the products of social valuations of the service rendered. Intrinsically, it is probably no harder to try to heal the sick, paint pictures, lead a regiment, plan a house, or teach the young than to dig a ditch, sweep a street, operate a typewriter, or weed a garden ; but the standards of service exacted by society differ in these fields so greatly that for certain kinds of healing, painting, commanding, planning, and teaching only the services of individuals of rare native ability and elaborate training are acceptable, whereas very ordinary persons, even if untrained, can ren- der acceptable service in the other fields. Except, then, for certain specialized kinds of service, — e.g. invention, oper-

4 Vocational Education

ation of complicated machinery, — where only the person of unusual gifts and training can accomplish anything at all, it can safely be assumed that the " difficulty " of a given vocation as currently conceived is largely a reflection of the valuations attached by society to the services rendered in and through it. These valuations change, of course. Teaching is frequently left to those of least ability and preparation, but occasionally a man of trained talent is sought and rewarded grandly. Defenders, healers, cooks, painters of pictures, writers of verse, rearers of children — all these follow vocations which at certain times have been depreciated, despised, and given over to the weak and the untrained; while under other conditions they have been exalted and well rewarded, held as the prizes for the for- tunate ones whom nature has gifted and society carefully prepared.

The Variability of Workers Men vary greatly in their

respective abilities to produce valuable service within each vocation. The causes of these variations, in so far as they are not due to external conditions, — character of tools used, supervision, etc. — are to be found in the native abil- ity, experienced-draining, health, and morals of each of the workers. fThe bases for all successful productive work, — hunting, defending, tilling, herding, fabricating, teaching, healing, leading, — are to be found, of course, in certain inherited qualities of nervous system, bone, muscle, and sense organs. These give valuable kinds of strength, en- durance, agility, sensitiveness, and a wide range of intel- lectual and moral powers and qualities.

The prolonged exercise of these qualities, in the human, no less than in the animal, world, tends towards their im- provement. Within limits, skill, technical knowledge, sat- isfaction with results of effort, and appreciation of the social significance of work done, grows with the prolonged exercise of native powers called for by a vocation.

The Meaning of Vc aiional Education 5

But to this growth, due to practice and experience, must be added the equally important growth in vocational powers due to the worker's gradual absorption of the stored and communicated results of the experience of others — fore- runners as well as contemporaries. It is in this respect peculiarly that, in the exercise of productive activities, man so immeasurably surpasses the animals. The success of the animal in the natural state depends upon inherited pow- ers and individual experience alone, including instincts of cooperation, while the success of human beings is achieved largely upon the basis of the individual experience of uncounted numbers of others, communicated by language and otherwise. Back of nearly every vocation as carried on to-day, is a vast social inheritance of discoveries, tested devices, organized technical knowledge, and methods of coordinating the efforts of many.

The Acquisition of the Social Inheritance belonging to any vocation may be, for a given individual, an unsystematized and accidental matter, or it may be definitely organized and regulated. Certain instincts, powerful in youth, and prob- ably never wholly dormant, — curiosity, imitation, owner- ship, workmanship, corm^fcpn for approval or ascen- dancy, as we may roughly^^Be some of them, — impel the worker to glean from all his associates and from the prod- ucts of human effort which surround him, the available fragments of the social inheritance of vocational devices, customs, knowledges, and ideals. In more advanced stages he finds these compacted in books, models, diagrams, for- mulae, and the like. }A

The process of appropriating the social inheritance pecu- liar to a given vocation may insist, so far as a given learner is concerned, largely of the accidental or partial learning which takes place as an accompaniment to actual participation in work itself, in progression from its more elementary to its more advanced stages ; or it may be highly

6 Vocational Education

organized for a definite period. In the first case, the per- son (usually youth or young worker) is primarily engaged in productive work, and as a kind of by-product of that he accumulates, in addition to the results, which are due solely to his own enlarging experience, a large body of knowledge, devices, " tricks of the trade," etc. from his fellows and directors. In the second case, he is primarily engaged in learning how to become productive, his produc- tive work being for the present a secondary consideration. There was a time when a boy became a physician by serving as an apprentice to a practitioner. Almost from the outset, the novice was expected primarily to make himself useful — to assist the healer; but, as a secondary object of both master and apprentice, he was expected to learn from the elder the " arts of healing," the secrets of materia medica. To-day, in the cab of the locomotive engineer, is found a helper whose chief duty is to feed the fires, but who is expected incidentally to learn the arts and to acquire the skill required to later become himself a locomotive en- gineer.

Direct Vocational Education for the Professions. - Society has in large part suM^ted direct vocational edu- cation for the indirect educa^^B( by-education) of appren- ticeship in the training of the physician; but it has done nothing of the kind yet in the training of the locomotive engineer. The youth, aspiring to the practice of medicine, now spends several years with the one object of mastering the accumulated knowledge and the arts of his proposed profession. He may, as interne % a hospital, still serve a period of quasi-apprenticeship ; but he does so only after he has equipped himself Substantially to the point where he could enter upon productive work on his own account. It is clearly within the bounds of possibility that the loco- motive engineer will yet be educated directly for his calling in specially equipped and staffed schools, as are physicians, or in a more nearly related field, chauffeurs, to-day.

The Meaning of Vocational Education 7

The foregoing review of some of the more elementary facts of social science has been essential to bring into relief certain fundamental conditions affecting vocational educa- tion. The relative productive capacity of individuals (their first measure of vocational success) has many sources among which the most distinguishable and important are: heredity; the nurturing effects of environment; the by- education of play, miscellaneous occupations and general education; the by-education of novice or apprenticeship participation in the early stages of the vocation itself; and direct vocational education for a specific calling.

/ II

Vocational By-Education. — It is clear that all purposeful or partially purposeful processes by which one individual promotes the vocational capacity of another should be re- garded as vocational education, broadly considered. Using the term in this sense, it is also evident that substantially all adult persons at all times have received some vocational education. We can, for any given vocation, in any given period, distinguish between different kinds of vocational education as : direct or indirect ; good or bad ; fragmentary or complete ; concrete or abstract ; publicly directed or .left wholly to private effort : and rationally conceived or resting wholly on custom.

Similarly, we must recognize that more or less good or bad vocational education has been involved in the cases of : the youth in primitive society learning the use of bow and arrow from uncle, father, or other (usually older) asso- ciate; the boy on shipboard "picking up" the arts of the sailor; the farmer's boy learning through his tasks as helper to be in turn a farmer; the girl, assisting her mother to execute the numberless arts underlying preparation of food, clothing, and shelter; the apprentice bound out to a master

8 Vocational Education

for a series of years " to learn a trade " ; the student in the college of law, medicine, or dentistry; the young man enter- ing a bank " at the foot of the ladder," and by combination of direct practical experience and outside study fitting him- self eventually for the presidency of the institution; the prospective teacher training for her work in a normal school ; the teacher using his practical experience and sup- plemental study as a means of fitting himself for a superin- tendency ; an immigrant, without knowledge of, or skill with, machinery, placed in a machine shop and directed by the boss in the operation of a particular machine towards the performance of particular processes; and the innumer- able other forms of adjustment whereby at all times the immature, untaught, and unready are nevertheless led, helped, or forced on towards specialized forms of compe- tency for productive work.

For the purposes of this book, a fundamental distinction must at once be made between direct and indirect vocational education. The latter form will usually be described as vocational by-education for the reason that such education is a by-product of activities designed primarily for other purposes. Direct vocational education obviously includes only those forms in which training for a specified vocation is the primary, central, and controlling purpose, and in which production, recreation, control, etc., are all regarded as secondary, minor, or incidental purposes. The student in the medical college is expected to devote his chief efforts, not to the productive practice of medicine, but to learning or otherwise preparing to practice medicine. The use made of his time, the exercises and studies he undertakes, the equipment placid at his disposal, are all designed primarily to accomplish ^finitely conceived purposes of vocational education.

An agency for direct education of any sort is usually called a school. Farms, homes, shops, offices, boats, mines,

The Meaning of Vocational Education 9

and the like are primarily agencies for productive work and not for education. A vocational school may and should do productive work as a secondary objective, but such produc- tive work is an incidental thing, a by-product; the other agencies named often produce education, but that is neces- sarily, for them, a by-product.

It is now clear that at all times in the past and even yet the great bulk of the world's vocational education has been, and is, essentially by-education. The learner has " learned to do by doing " and his doing has been addressed directly to the task of producing valuable service or goods. Even under the highly organized apprenticeship systems of the Middle Ages, the novice was, from the standpoint of his master, engaged primarily in producing. The apprentice, and particularly the father of the apprentice, who had, per- haps, paid a substantial indenture fee, probably conceived of the education to be received as the really valuable out- come ; but it remained true, nevertheless, that as regards the disposition of the learner's time, the use of equipment and materials by him, and the gradation of tasks assigned, pro- duction was the primary, and vocational education the sec- ondary, end.

Ill

Direct Vocational Education. — In point of evolutionary development, the vocational school succeeds to processes of vocational by-education in home, shop, farm, office, ship- board, camp, and road as inevitably as does the school for literary, religious, artistic, civic, or physical education when unspecialized agencies, having these as secondary purposes, prove inadequate to the advancing needs of society. The home once taught reading and writing as by-products of its normal or primary activities (nurture and protection, so far as children were concerned). But the home was always a poor agency through which to insure the necessary minimum of reading and writing. First private schools,

io Vocational Education

then endowed schools, and finally, public schools, came into existence to insure the effective teaching of these necessary branches.

Similarly, the methods of apprenticeship once apparently sufficed to give the instruction and training necessary to those who were to practice the arts of healing with their associated magic and other subsidiary arts. But it long ago became apparent that the methods of apprenticeship were insufficient to prepare healers of the kind sought or required by society under more advanced conditions. The need was first met by medical apprentices' courses of lec- tures in which successful practitioners expounded princi- ples and imparted the information built up through expe- rience. These were gradually succeeded by schools of medicine which presupposed no apprenticeship, but which, building on foundations of a prolonged general education, laid broad foundations of scientific knowledge and com- pleted the structure of medical education by directed prac- tical experience to be obtained through clinical demonstra- tion and hospital practice supervised by experts.

Thus have come into existence vocational schools for the training of engineers, lawyers, teachers, priests, dentists, war leaders, architects, pharmacists, stenographers, book- keepers, accountants, machinists, printers, cooks, barbers, and the like. Sometimes the occupation is so modern and technical that a state of apprenticeship has never devel- oped,— e.g. stenography. Sometimes the methods of the vocational school in selecting talent and training it are from the outset so acceptable that apprenticeship quickly falls into disuse when the product of the vocational school be- comes available, — e.g. the engineering professions in France, Germany, and America. In many cases, owing to poor educational methods in vocational schools or to the slow development of appreciation of their work outside, a long period intervenes between the establishment of voca-

The Meaning of Vocational Education n

tional schools and the widespread acceptance of those trained in them as having superior qualifications. Amer- ican normal schools have had to wage a long and hard cam- paign to have their product generally accepted even as of equal merit with persons just graduated from secondary schools of general education. Private trade schools have been repeatedly condemned because their graduates have, as alleged, not only not learned their trades properly, but have in serious respects been disqualified to learn them through the routine of apprenticeship subsequently. The extent to which American agricultural colleges have jus- tified the investment made in them as respects the training of men to be successful farmers is still debated (it is not questioned that they have been successful in training agri- cultural investigators, soil analysts, and other specialists). Private so-called business and commercial schools for many years exploited the ambitions of young Americans to be- come successful business leaders; and to-day literally hun- dreds of thousands of youths of both sexes are found in public and private commercial schools seeking what appeals to them as a valuable vocational education. That the in- struction and training they receive actually functions prof- itably as vocational competency in any but one commercial calling, is openly questioned even by educators. But the success of these quasi- vocational or alleged vocational schools in attracting students is eloquent testimony of the prevailing popular belief, on the one hand, in the inade- quacy of commercial by-education as received in commer- cial callings themselves, and on the other, of the possibilities of providing effective vocational schools for these fields.

Intermediate Forms. — It is clear that between direct vocational education and vocational by-education certain hybrid forms can be recognized. In a shop, for example, a foreman may for several days devote himself primarily to teaching a new recruit. During this time, production

12 Vocational Education

must be regarded as an incident to the teaching process. In factories or commercial establishments, a recently em- ployed man may be required to serve a period without pay, it l*ing assumed by both parties to the arrangement that the productive service rendered does not more than com- pensate for the education made available. Occasionally, novices will be found in the offices of architects, lawyers, and engineers, or in hospitals, who are contributing produc- tive service indeed, but for whom the primary purpose is some form of vocational education.

Then, too, we must recognize the existence of numerous schools whose function is not to give the entire vocational education as required for the exercise of a calling, but to provide one necessary ingredient in it. A man seeking to qualify for the position of farm implement salesman in Brazil may obtain instruction in Portuguese in a school of languages. An apprentice in a machine shop may obtain in evening school special technical training in some phase of drawing, mathematics, or mechanics.

These forms of vocational education, partially direct and partially indirect, require consideration in their individual forms. It is practically impossible to formulate general- izations regarding them. Usually they are in a state of flux. For example, short course instruction of telephone girls has been replaced in many cases by direct education in special schools for operatives, maintained by the tele- phone corporations. Evening technical instruction tends towards so-called " short unit " courses quite specifically integrated with the day experience and problems of the worker.

The first decade of the twentieth century has witnessed in America a rapidly growing interest in the possibilities of publicly supported vocational schools to serve prospec- tive workers in the industries, agriculture, and home making. The sources and social manifestations of this interest will

The Meaning of Vocational Education 13

be discussed elsewhere. Here, it is only necessary to note that in general, outside the professions and stenography, vocational schools yet play an insignificant part in supply- ing the vocational training required by the three to five millions of persons who annually enter the ranks of pro- ductive work in the shops, homes, offices, farms, camps, and railroads and ships of America. There are good rea- sons for believing that in many of the callings in these fields the efficacy of the by-education of apprenticeship or other participation is steadily diminishing, as a consequence of which there results a vast social wastage of human energy, happiness, health, and life. To trust to by-educa- tion is peculiarly characteristic of an age and* social order strongly influenced by the doctrines of individualism and laissez faire. The prolonged maintenance of" professional schools, private, endowed, or public, represents in some degree the outgrowth of beliefs in the desirability and pos- sible efficacy of social or collective action. The spirit of the age is clearly away from laissez faire and towards col- lective action in vocational education.

IV

Origins. — The coming of vocational education in schools for the rank and file of workers has been dependent in the first place upon a social conviction, held at least by the thinkers, that the historic forms of vocational by-education no longer sufficed for modern needs. This conviction rap- idly developed during the closing decades of the 19th cen- tury in the industries when it was clearly seen how the progress of manufacturing had broken down trade appren- ticeship. It came when it was seen that in the agricultural occupations the old skills and customs must be replaced by new skills (the demands of machine farming among others)* and scientific knowledge. In the commercial world it came

14 Vocational Education

when the rapid evolution of new processes and needs showed the titter futility of trying to develop apprentice- ship training for office and counting-house. And now, even in the elemental and primitive field of home making, the same conviction is growing, namely, that direct school training for this vocation will, in the long run, prove more effective and economical than the hit-and-miss processes of the by-education of the home itself.

There could, of course, be no genuine vocational educa- tion offered through schools until the public believed such ols to be practicable. It has taken nearly a century of blind experimentation, false starts, the pioneering efforts of philanthropists, and the speculations of educators and social give us even our present body of imperfectly (1 knowledge and theory as to the ways and means of training in, or under the direction of, special schools for even a few of the thousands of occupations that men and women — and even adolescent boys and girls, the juvenile workers — must follow.

Many of the difficulties historically encountered in try- ing to provide direct vocational education have been due to the fact that in their earlier stages almost no vocational >ols have been designed to give both the skill and the knowledge required for the successful pursuit of a calling. The evening classes established by the Mechanics Institutes in our industrial cities nearly three quarters of a century ago were intended to supplement apprenticeship. The -h"rt extension courses in special forms of agricultural edu- cation which have long flourished in our agricultural col- leges have usually presupposed a basis of hard practical experience already obtained in the University of Hard Knocks. The mechanical drawing and industrial art classes which spread rapidly after 1870 were in large part also forms of extension education. Even our earlier law and medical colleges — the work of which consisted chiefly

The Meaning of Vocational Education 15

of courses of lectures given by able practitioners of these professions — were designed chiefly by persons who had already served an apprenticeship in the office of lawyer or physician.

Or else these earlier vocational schools were planned to teach the " principles " of a vocation, leaving " practice " to be acquired later in actual experience. The private schools of business practice which so widely exploited the credulity of the public after the Civil War, insisted, indeed, upon skill in handwriting; but for the rest, they taught the " principles " of bookkeeping, commercial arithmetic, com- mercial law, and the like, leaving practical wisdom and skill to be learned later through the hazardous by-education of office, salesroom, and road-canvassing. Modern commercial and business schools, with their hundreds of thousands of pupils, do indeed now teach quite successfully and in a basic way two commercial arts which are vocational chiefly for girls only — namely, typewriting and stenography. But for the great bulk of commercial vocations these schools can hardly be considered, as yet, vocational in any fundamental sense — perhaps the words "technical schools" best de- scribe them. Like the commercial schools, our engineering colleges and their imitators, the "technical high schools," and also the agricultural colleges, have devoted themselves, not to the teaching of vocations in any practical sense, but rather to the attempt to teach those things so dear to the schoolmaster type of mind, to wit the " principles " or the supposedly essential mathematics, art, science, and " tech- nical knowledge " of one or several vocations. Only slowly and reluctantly are these schools adding to their courses "field work," "practical work," "shop experience," and other forms of "learning through doing" -and at first these are required only in the vacations and marginal hours. The pedagogical effectiveness of a system of vocational education divided between earlier technical school study and

16 Vocational Education

later practical experience in the world of actual work is one of the big subjects for future investigation. For very many learners tlu values of this form of " cold storage " of the " principles " of vocational knowledge long in advance of practical application may be very much doubted. (An ni; contribution in this field is the recent Carnegie Foundation " Report on Engineering Education.")

It is now fairly clear that for the industrial and farming callings as these must be practiced by the rank and file of workers, technical school education in advance of practical experience is of little value — in fact, educators of greatest insight have lately come to regard it as having some very bad after-consequences because, for the individual learner, it is apt to be illusory and unreal. The usefulness and large future possibilities of genuine extension education (that is. technical knowledge and special supplemental skills given to those already engaged in the practical pursuit of a calling) are, on the other hand, more obvious than ever, and undoubtedly good extension teaching for all voca- tions has a promising future.

The Modern Movement. — But what we now recognize as the modern movement for vocational education in schools begins with the recognition, on the one hand, that for nearly all industrial and farming callings, technical knowledge acquired in advance of practical experience is of little real value as vocational education; and, on the other, that the acquisition of practical experience in the occupation itself, to be supplemented later by " extension " education in evening school and short course, is acquired frequently under most unsatisfactory conditions.

This modern movement hardly dates back to the begin- ning of the present century, at least in America. The fun- damental question presented to it and by it was this: How can society, by means of specially designed or adapted schools, insure integral or basal training for the numberless

The Meaning of Vocational Education 17

special vocations in which men and women insure their own prosperity and through which the community and the nation themselves become strong and wholesome? How far can the state secure this vocational training without relying upon the unorganized and often incidental training given by master workman, foreman, employer, farmer, or parent ?

To the schoolman the essential novelty of the situation thus presented consists in the requirement that facilities for the practice of the calling in some apparently practical way and under educational direction, shall be provided in, or under the immediate oversight of, the vocational school. No longer could the so-called vocational school consist only or chiefly of classrooms, desks, blackboards, and textbooks, reinforced by a sky-lighted room for drawing, a few base- ment rooms for laboratory or tool exercises, and a sun- room or green-house for plantwork. Not only must the new vocational schools, as proposed, have workshops, or farms, fnit it was even suggested in some quarters that the work done in these shops or on these farms ought to be somewhat like the real work done in the outside world. Visionaries began to talk about " productive work," a " marketable product," " quantity production," a " wage for the learners " !

All of these proposals looked very sensible to the prac- tical man outside the schools, but to public school educators they were too revolutionary. He first resisted flatly, then, when forced by public opinion, and the results of exper- imentation carried on chiefly by private effort, he -evaded, dodged, substituted, confused issues, and appealed to prejudices just like the devotees of any other profession which has heretofore rested largely on a basis of custom and tradition. (Reference is made, of course, to schoolmen in general; there have been some, perhaps many, shining exceptions. )

The last fifteen years, therefore, have been the toddling,

i8 Vocational Education

teething stage of growth of vocational education. It has naturally been subject to many of the diseases of childhood. At times it was not certain that the infant would live; and some have doubted whether it was worth raising. The present writer can say with good grace that it has been a noisy brat; and he is well aware that some of its foster nurses have made uninterested people rather tired by their predictions as to how the infant would some day become a lusty youth who would whip the other and less vulgar youths in the vicinity and even make some respectable older folks look to their laurels.

Since the whole-hearted entry of the national govern- ment into the support and partial direction of vocational education of the kinds here under discussion (especially under the provisions of the "Smith-Hughes" Act), the entire situation has assumed a new aspect. The infant is no longer regarded as a foundling and interloper^ He is growing and learning fast. We can see now that, while he will not meekly confine himself to a corner, neither is he likely to become a bully, even if in a few cases he is given for a while the food and freedom of " dual control." He is really capable of being civilized, even though our refined schoolmaster senses will long object to the workaday clothing that he must perforce wear, and to the odors of machine shop and stable that necessarily cling to him.

The Future. — What of his probable future, during, let us say, the next twenty-five years of adolescence? It is well that we should strive to forecast this future, in order that we may plan for it intelligently. There are, therefore, sub- mitted for preliminary criticism some more or less specu- lative predictions, expressed somewhat categorically for the sake of brevity.

The Meaning of Vocational Education 19

1. Unquestionably, vocational education is destined to have an enormous growth in the near future. There are hundreds, if not actually thousands of callings for which the present methods of vocational by-education, unorgan- ized, incidental, haphazard, are wofully inadequate, either for the good of the individual or for the good of society. For each of these we shall have appropriate vocational schools. From two to three hundred thousand young men each year recruit the ranks of the farmers of this country. Eventually, nearly all of these will have some special train- ing for farming, both at the outset as basal or initial voca- tional education, and later as extension instruction or even extension training. Operatives in all kinds of factories, locomotive engineers, housewives, sailors, soldiers, farm laborers, postal clerks — all these and thousands besides, may be expected to precede their entry upon full-time wage earning by some very direct and positive vocational train- ing during the months or years just preceding the assump- tion of that work; and, after beginning wage earning, they will in continuation, evening, or other type of extension school continue their education towards high forms of vocational competency.

2. Like all other forms of publicly supported education, vocational education will be organized and directed by rep- resentatives of the public, charged, among other things, with maintaining it at a high degree of efficiency, and also in a thoroughly democratic spirit. Usually the same board will direct all types of public education for a given area. But national aid, under constitutional provisions now exist- ing, will have to be given without direct control ; hence the national supervisory body (supervising expenditure of na- tional money) will doubtless continue to be a special body ad hoc. Where one school serves an entire state or a large area — a medical college, a school of printing, a highly specialized school of farming, as e.g., almond growing or

20 Vocational Education

ostrich farming, a dental college, or a school of glass manu- facture— it will probably have its special board, as is the case now often with normal schools, state technical schools, and schools for defective or delinquent classes, or it may be one of several types of schools to be governed by one state board. Each distinctive type of vocational education will necessarily have its own expert specialist direction, both locally and on behalf of the state. The bogy of " dual con- trol." evoked chiefly by a few self seekers on the one hand, or obscurantists on the other, will soon be downed. Pure dual control has nowhere existed; and such temporary ex- amples of partial dual control as have prevailed have been due largely to the exasperation of practically all at the ignorance and " stand-pattism " of the academic pedant who has not infrequently been in control, as layman or salaried specialist, of the existing school machinery.

3. The natural first thought of parents and citizens with regard to what we call vaguely a vocational school is that it ought to be as accessible as the local public elementary school, or at least the neighboring high school. We hear school superintendents asking "what kind of vocational school should be provided in the small town ? " This atti- tude, of course, is the product of our naive and unanalytical thinking about vocational education and the very natural longings of uncritical folk — lay and specialist — that a " panacea " or " vocational simple " can be discovered that will fit all needs alike. It is this same quest after an " easy way " that has begotten our deep faiths in the possibilities of educational " simples " for training mind or character.

But study of the sober realities now convinces us that in many cases the mountain will not come to Mahomet. The youth seeking the vocational school will have to go to the Mountain. In such trades as plumbing, electrical work, pattern making, printing, house-carpentry, poultry-raising, optometry, and automobile repair, it is probable that in no

The Meaning of Vocational Education 21

state can there be provided more than a few centrally located schools. For operatives in textile, shoe, pottery, and munitions manufacture; machine shop production; clothing making; food packing; and cigar making — to mention only a few manufacturing industries — special schools will naturally tend to be located in centers of these highly aggregating industries. Youths from rural areas or in cities where these industries are not found will simply have to leave home to get their desired vocational education in them. Eventually it may prove decided economy for the state to subsidize in part, towards their expenses of liv- ing and travel, those bona fide aspirants who must live away from home whilst getting needed vocational training. We may expect the development of scientific methods of voca- tional guidance in the near future to be such as to guarantee that the vocational choice, once made, will be followed up to the extent normal for that vocation.

4. One of the largest illusions now prevalent in vocational education is that a vocation, once entered upon by a young person, must be followed through life. The fact is that modern life is organized very much on a series of occupa- tional levels, and the beginner naturally enters upon some level adapted to his immaturity and inexperience. No one seriously expects a girl of sixteen to be a school principal or a housewife; yet in many states more than half of all girls at sixteen have already entered upon full time wage earning in callings that are truly juvenile occupations. No one expects a youth of eighteen to be a locomotive engineer, a machine shop foreman, or a contractor. The man who is the typical farmer at the age of forty was probably a hired worker on a farm (his father's or another's) from sixteen to twenty-five, then a tenant or renter farmer and, in middle life, a farmer managing his own land and capital. In all our great manufacturing callings there exist sometimes scores of levels indicated by varying wage rates, and, to a

22 Vacationed Education

large extent, advancement from one to the other is effected on the basis of increasing maturity and experience, and would be greatly simplified and expedited if, preliminary to each new level, adequate specific vocational training could be provided. Even in the so-called skilled or " all-round " trades — which are almost everywhere undergoing an in- evitable economic decline — the age of effective entry on apprenticeship is rising. Anciently in Europe it was in what we would now call childhood's years, and it is still as low as fourteen for many handicraft occupations fol- lowed in Central Europe. In America apprenticeship is rarely begun before sixteen, and in many cases eighteen is now preferred; yet many of those who must eventually become artisans are under necessity of contributing to their own self-support at the age of fifteen and onwards.

The vocational schools of the future — even those giving basic or initial full time vocational education — must be available not only in suitable varieties for those millions who are ready and eager for a period to enter upon juvenile vocations; no less, they must be available for those who are to pass from juvenile occupations to those available for persons in the early flush of manhood ; and still again, when men and women, now mature and self-knowing, seek to pass to higher stages of their callings, to foremanship, or even to wholly different pursuits. Between twenty-two and twenty-five the typical American city-dwelling girl, after from three to seven years of wage earning, leaves behind her first vocation and follows thenceforward the vocation of homemaker. It may well be that in our best agricultural schools in the future we shall train the typical boy of from fifteen to eighteen to be a skillful farm em- ployee ; and that another type of school will be open to him at twenty-five when he is ready to become a managing, self -directing farmer.

5. It is now fairly obvious to all who have their eyes

The Meaning of Vocational Education 23

open that effective vocational education for almost every calling must begin with the. actual practice, in elementary stages, of that calling, on what is now called a productive basis; and that technical knowledge will be introduced and integrated with experience only as the progress of the pro- ductive work, organized, of course, primarily for educa- tional purposes, renders that process intelligible and effec- tive. This is the basis of the productive shop, the tests of " quantity production," the home project in farming and homemaking and the numerous part-time proposals all now being experimented with.

6. The writer is convinced that as soon as we really find ourselves in the pedagogy of vocational education we shall evolve and resolutely hold to the principle that learners engaged in productive work as an educational process shall receive in wages the net worth of their work — its total value, less a reasonable charge for interest, rent, overhead charges, direction (not including education), etc. The value of this wage for pedagogical purposes, as giving the learner a constant measure of the worth of his product — qualitatively and quantitatively — will be inestimable. Only in certain forms of part-time work, and in the well devel- oped home project in agriculture, do vocational learners now realize a wage (or labor) return for their work.^ The process should be extended to all forms of basic (as dis- tinguished from extension) vocational education. Even in home project homemaking (of which we see signs on the horizon), the home in which the girl works must accept as a necessary condition the giving of the girl a money equiva- lent for her practical, productive work.

7. Much remains yet to be done in developing the edu- cational project as the central unit in the pedagogical organ- ization of vocational education. We have made good beginnings in agricultural education; but in industrial, com- mercial, and homemaking education we have, as yet not

24 Vocational Education

even respectable beginnings. We sometimes think a prac- tical "job" is a project; but it is no educational project, certainly, until its related technical knowledge and social insight have been woven or geared into it. We sometimes talk vainly about " projects " in technical knowledge alone. But this is pedagogic silliness and fad following. Tech- nical knowledge by itself organizes very well into problems, experiments, exercises, and topics ; but not into projects.

8. Liberal education and vocational education — how shall they co-exist and correlate? This is still a pons asinorum for all of those educators who cannot think in terms of the twentieth century. Shall we have vocational education in the high school ? Yes, if the floors and grounds of the high school, primarily designed to serve the purposes of liberal education, can be adapted to give practical train- ing to locomotive engineers, coal miners, street car motor- men, sailors, printers, shoe machine operatives, traction engine drivers, poultry raisers, carpenters; no, if sincere and honest (no camouflaged) vocational education for these callings requires the provisions of realistic working con- ditions and genuine productive work.

When the learner, whether at fifteen, twenty, or twenty-five years of age, is ready to enter upon his voca- tion (or, equally, the vestibuled approach to it, provided by the vocational school) shall he give one hour daily to some dainty studies of that vocation, or shall he give to its pursuit an honest seven or eight hours daily? For the present we see neither sincerity nor effectiveness in the " blended " or " layer cake " programs of liberal and voca- tional education as it is often proposed to organize these within the working day. But, after the youth has begun his vocational education, shall we not provide for some continuance of his general or liberal education? Assur- edly — but not within the hours devoted by the average man to his vocation. Let our boys in agricultural and

The Meaning of Vocational Education 25

trade schools be encouraged and helped to extend their cultural interests in evenings and on holidays; let us thus early begin to form, in the hours appropriate to them, the avocational, social, and recreational interests, tastes, habits, and insights that we desire to see these people carry through life. Let us not do the silly thing of trying to use for this purpose the hours that nature and old social custom dictate shall be given to vocational pursuits.

On the other hand, as regards the eight or more years now required to be given by our youths exclusively to gen- eral or liberal education and the four or more years that are optional — let us see that this precious time is utilized to the utmost. We schoolmasters have many sins of omis- sion or incompetency to answer for here, where our aims are so vague, our methods so unscientific, our results so unanalyzed and untested.

9. Many are the superstitions in education that we may expect to see blown up or dried up during the next twenty- five years. We shall certainly plumb the shallowness of the " cold storage " education which seeks to fill the mind with technical knowledge of a vocation before its practice is begun. We shall see the folly of confusing general or liberal education for children in rural communities with vocational agricultural education for those who are to be farmers. We shall learn to appreciate the almost criminal ignorance, the almost willful blindness, of those who deny or dispute the possibilities of definite vocational education for the highly specialized or so-dubbed " unskilled " occu- pations. We shall learn that good schools for the respective species of vocational education are not the rivals of good schools for liberal education, but their very desirable and necessary complements — that together they contribute to the rounded education, but that alone they give only a one- sided education.

26 Vocational Education

VI

Courses and Curricula. — Our educational literature con- tains, as yet, only few and inadequate examples of what can properly be described as principles or programs of voca- tional education. For practical purposes we can distin- guish in the successful practitioners of almost any calling, certain qualities that can be collectively designated as skills (manipulative or manual, mental, and managerial) ; certain other qualities that can be designated as technical knowl- edge; and certain other remoter qualities of ideal, morale, understanding of the social significance of work, and the like which can conveniently be designated as " social appre- ciations." But writers and curriculum makers rarely make vocational competency as a " total thing " the starting point of their work. They assume the continuance of conditions of apprenticeship learning or something analogous to that, after the completion of what is called vocational school education. Frequently vocational school teachers will say, almost boastingly, that it is not their province to train workers — engineers, machinists, salesgirls, etc., as the case may be; theirs is the responsibility only of instructing in " principles," in the " science," or the " art " of the voca- tion. This has long been the position defended by teachers of " applied science " in engineering and agricultural col- leges, and of other technical subjects in schools supposedly educating for " business life," for the homemaking callings, for the " art-using " vocations, and even for " farming " and teaching.

The underlying assumption here, not always expressed in words, is that skills and other similar qualities essential to vocational success must be acquired in pursuit of the vocation itself. The school professes itself able to teach only the technical knowledge and a few forms implicated in technical skill (like drafting for engineering). Some of

The Meaning of Vocational Education 27

the schools of this class now attempt to offer " social appre- ciation " studies related to the vocation — its hygienic, economic, and cultural aspects, to give breadth of view ; but the efficacy of these offerings must still be a subject of doubt.

In the light of current developments of educational thought, however, it would seem indispensable that the entire body of theory heretofore underlying the formation of curricula for professional and other vocational schools be completely revised. These curricula seem almost uni- versally to have been planned with chief reference to the limitations at the time known to exist in providing courses of instruction and means of teaching. The first question was not — what are the total requirements of the vocation for proficiency in the individual? but, how can a school be provided to teach the technical subjects supposedly needed in certain vocations? Hence the historic vocational school has sought only to be a complementary school — before or after practical experience obtained in the pursuit of the calling itself — and has not only remained indifferent to the prevailing requirements of the vocation, but has even sought incessantly to persuade itself that what it did not give in the way of training in skills, managerial powers, etc., was of little importance or was surely to be acquired in actual practice anyway.1

The results have never been satisfactory. Vocational schools have often been conducted by faculties of specialists who were not, and in many cases could not be, successful practitioners of the vocations in question. " Follow up "

1 Certain exceptions should be noted : schools of nursing, because of the peculiar conditions attendant upon their foundation and devel- opment, seem usually to have made the total of vocational proficiency their direct aim ; and schools of medicine and elementary school teach- ing seem latterly to have founded their programs on fairly adequate conceptions of the total requirements of the callings for which prepa- ration was designed.

t

0

28 Vocational Education

uork has been most inadequate and rarely of a kind capable of actually affecting the schools' standards.

It i> not. of course, to be expected that even the most perfect vocational school will give a complete vocational education in the sense of completely equipping the individual for the exercise of his calling at its full rate of compen- sation. This is not accomplished even in professional schools that are most fully developed. The by-education of participation is essential to give complete mastery. But that vocational schools can much more effectively and eco- nomically give certain portions of vocational education than can agencies organized for other purposes and offering in- struction and training only as by-products, is now certain, as regards a large number of vocations. This has been abundantly demonstrated in the case of the professions and in some other callings; and it is intrinsically probable as regards all callings.

VII

Extent and Variety of Vocations. — How many " voca- tions " are now followed in the United States ? No one can say with accuracy. Table I (page 515), abridged from the United States Census of 1910, gives at least these: agri- culture, 30; Mining, 15; Manufacturing and Mechanical Pursuits, 200; Commerce (trade), 35; Commerce (Cler- ical), 10; Public Service, 17; Professions, 30; Domestic and Personal Service (excluding homemakers), 30.

But of course, many of the simple heads used by the Census — such as farmers, farm laborers, coal mine oper- atives, carpenters, electricians, silversmiths, machinists, shoe factory semi-skilled workers, clerks in stores, soldiers, teachers, and agents — are exceedingly composite. There is very little in common, as regards vocational qualifica- tions, !>etween the poultry grower in Massachusetts, the orange grower in California, and the " general farmer " of

The Meaning of Vocational Education 29

Iowa. Coal miners, silversmiths, shoe factory operatives, teachers, and clerks in stores represent in each case many highly distinctive vocations.

The " Trade Specifications and Index of Professions and Trades in the (U.S.) Army" (1918) analyzed 565 dis- tinctive callings, each requiring special qualifications.

Table II (page 531) shows how the United States Census classifies the 105,000 workers reported employed in auto- mobile manufacturing; while Table III (page 532) shows a similar analysis of the specific occupations grouped under " Wholesale and Retail Trade."

It is a safe assumption that at least 2,000 important dis- tinctive vocations are followed by the workers of America, and that for each, specific vocational education in schools may be desirable and is probably feasible.

CHAPTER II

THE SOCIAL NEED OF BETTER VOCATIONAL EDUCATION

Some Necessary Distinctions. — There are many defi- nitions of education, hence there can be many possible defi- nitions of vocational education. The best definitions can be made, as stated in the previous chapter, from observation of the social facts of vocation. All animals, including hu- man beings, have to " earn their livings." The powers whereby animals do this seem largely instinctive, their in- stincts being often perfected by experience. Man also has a large variety of instincts that are basic to the skills and technical knowledge which he gradually builds up. But man, far more, apparently, than any other animal species^ develops a " social inheritance " of useful arts and scientific knowledge, which each new generation must " learn."

The broadest definition of vocational education, therefore, covers all this learning of the social inheritance, as that takes place in the case of any individual acquiring powers of pro- ductive work. But in such learning at least three levels or stages can be distinguished. Children, youths, and even adults are so stimulated by their instincts of curiosity, imi- tation, and emulation that, up to a certain point, they will acquire skill and knowledge from others if only opportuni- are available. Such acquisition is usually carried on in the play or amateur spirit. A second stage comes when, even in very primitive societies, the young or even adults as slaves, are forced to begin work, in the course of which vocational learning takes place as a by-product of such work.

The Social Need of Better Vocational Education 31

A third stage is found when a period is set apart in the life of the individual for systematic education for his vocation.

In this book the words " vocational education " will usu- ally designate only direct vocational education or education in vocational schools where the primary purpose is educa- tion and where production is only an incidental end. The first and second stages of vocational education noted above will usually be described as vocational by-education, that is, as by-product education, the actual skill, knowledge, and ideals acquired in any case being a, by-product of play or of productive work.

No well-informed man will dispute the assertion that such vocational competency as is now found is usually the prod- uct of vocational by-education. Only for certain well- known professions and a few lesser vocations like stenog- raphy are well developed vocational schools yet available. When, therefore, we speak of social demands for "vocational education " we actually mean demands for more direct and purposive education to supplement or to replace the by-edu- cation now or heretofore found. If current social demands for improved vocational education are serious, it must be that the means and methods of vocational by-education, as developed through thousands of years of experience, are not sufficiently effective for modern life. Such ineffectiveness could be due to several causes. Possibly the historic forms have declined in efficacy. Such seems to have been the case with organized apprenticeship in the handicraft trades and some commercial callings. Perhaps the methods of by-edu- cation are ill-adapted to modern conditions in the vocations. Such seems clearly to be the case in the farming and home- making vocations. Perhaps vocational by-education is good, but too expensive of time and energy. Such seems to be the case in various pursuits involving delicate ma- chinery. But back of all of these are certain large facts of economic demand.

32 Vocational Education

I

The Effects of Progress. — One of the most conspicuous of all the results of social progress — under which we must include such factors as increase of population, rising stand- ards of living, more extensive cooperation, growing inter- est in protection and increase of the well-being of the indi- vidual, mastery of natural resources, and the like — is the multiplication of the wants of the individual. Many of these wants, at first regarded as desires for luxuries, soon become in reality the needs of each individual who has be- come a member of social groups having civilized standards of living.

For people trying to maintain an " American standard " of living these wants to-day include factors of housing, cloth- ing, education, recreation, and physical comfort of which our forefathers hardly dreamed, and which still are only re- mote aspirations to many peoples of the Orient and else- where in the world. It is sometimes urged by superficial talkers that " four hours' labor " would produce all that the average man " needs." Perhaps, if we sufficiently restrict the word " needs " ; but it is humanly certain that the aver- age man would, if he found that he could provide the neces- sities of life through four hours' labor — as possibly he could even now in places of ample resources in America — usually elect to work four additional hours in order to obtain thereby better housing, the diversions of travel, and the other " lux- uries," that are sought eagerly by those with rising stand- ards.

Individual Production. — It is axiomatic that in the long run each normal individual should produce or render at least as much service as he consumes.1 Otherwise, a de-

1 In economic literature, distinctions are made between the various pro- cesses involved in production whereby such processes as exchange and transportation are separated from actual first stages of production of raw materials or of elaboration of raw materials into finished products.

Throughout this work, however, the various processes of exchange

The Social Need of Better Vocational Education 33

cline of social energies would ensue. But the capacity of the individual to produce goods, or to render service, varies greatly with age, training, social position, and accessible op- portunity. We expect children, from birth (or before) to the age of six or more, to consume much service and to ren- der none in return (economic service and goods are here meant, of course — namely the means of satisfying needs or desires for which, in common usage, we are accustomed to pay money or exchange service). From six to fourteen in those civilized states which make and enforce laws safe- guarding the rights of children to education and to protec- tion from injurious labor, young people render little eco- nomic service and consume much of it. Somewhere between fourteen and twenty-five according to economic status and vocational ambitions the average individual becomes a pro- ducer. At first he may produce only enough for his own needs, but soon, under normal conditions, he must produce a surplus over his own needs in order that he in turn may do his share in carrying his children over their period of non-productivity, as well as in providing for the non-pro- ductive aged, and other dependents. Finally, after a period of fruitful years, the productive capacity of the worker de- clines and he may spend the closing ten or twenty years of life as a non-producer, his demands being met from the

and transportation are included with production, simply as extensions of the productive processes. We can recognize that all production in- volves the necessity for some transfer and storage on the way to the destination of consumption, even when the consumer of a given article is himself its producer. When a given producer desires to exchange his product for the product of another producer, we have the elemen- tary stages of transportation and exchange, all of which in the last analysis, must fairly be regarded as extensions of the process of pro- duction. The value of a commodity can most truly be estimated when it is ready for consumption, the intervening stages between actual source and the consumer having been passed. In the economic sense, therefore, all that is production which adds economic value to the arti- cle, until it finally reaches and becomes available for the consumer. D

34 Vocational Education

labor of others, or, under best conditions, from the returns received from the stored or accumulated results of his pro- ductive service which are being rented and used by others - interest on invested capital.

Universality of Vocational Education. — It is from the base line or sea-level of these fundamental considerations that we must survey questions of vocational education. Clearly, every person who renders productive service must have had some training to that end. That training, histor- ically, has been good or bad, purposeful or haphazard. It has usually come as a by-product of voluntary or forced participation in productive work accompanied by incidental " showing " of points or " tricks " of the trade. Vocational training has, of course, been but one of the means consciously or unconsciously adopted by society to further the produc- tive capacity of its members. •The development of customs and standards of sustained and cumulative effort (labor, toil, drudgery, the " curse " imposed on Adam) ; explora- tions and inventions whereby nature is controlled to man's purposes; the establishment of ideals and means of storage of products of service for future use (thrift, property, sav- ings, invested capital) ; the organization, specialization, and even regimentation of productive effort towards concert of action in certain forms of production — all of these must be included among the means whereby society endeavors to meet the demands, increasing in geometric ratio, of multi- plying populations composed of members each with increas- ing wants. *-But, in the last analysis, the vocational train- ing of the individual is the most vital simple requirement to be met, because such training alone lays effective founda- tions for other forms of productive effort contributed to society. With rare exceptions, only those persons best trained for their vocations contribute new inventions and discoveries; they only fit effectively into cooperative pro- ductive processes organized in complicated stages and sub-

The Social Need of Better Vocational Education 35

divisions; and they only have a vital appreciation of the needs and possibilities of provident forethought under modern economic conditions.

l/ The primary aims of vocational education being, then, to v enhance directly the productive powers of the individual (the objects of liberal or general education being to improve his powers of utilization), it follows that the effectiveness of that education for any period and for any occupational field, whether as by-education or as direct education, must be de- termined primarily in terms of results as found in the total productive life of the individual — for convenience, let us say between fifteen and seventy years of age. For some callings, the net wage or income return may be accepted as a fairly satisfactory measure of the man's productivity, since that, in a social situation where forces of supply and demand operate normally, is the measure of the products of service, and service itself which other persons are disposed to give him for his service. We can thus measure the production of farmers, sailors, clerks, trade workers, servants, lesser business men, and " average " men in the professions. There are, of course, other callings in which this measure does not apply satisfactorily. /-The homemaker (as wife and mother) customarily receives no wage as such, while some of the most arduous service she renders (e.g. the care of sick children) can hardly be at all estimated in terms of ec^n^mic value. Public apiniwi recognizes that no propor- tionate return in economic gaoxls will probably be made tq the pset, inventor, philosopher, scientist, explorer, soldier, or statesman for the services rendered by him. On the other hand, there exist sinecures (happily a diminishing number) in which, by virtue of some ancient custom or technical twist in the machinery of society, the incumbent, holding to his place like a true parasite, is able to exact from society more than a fair return for the service he renders. Hereditary places, emoluments and titles, and the " pro-

36 Vocational Education

tected " positions in monopolized fields of service are ex- amples no less than those of successful thieves, profiteers, gamblers, and " kept " wives and entertainers. It is also true, too, that for substantial periods the free play of com- petition in rendering service and in obtaining full return therefor may be arrested by the resistance of monopolistic groups so united in close cooperation as to be able to exact disproportionate returns. How far such monopoly pre- vails or is possible under given conditions is a matter for the experts to decide.

Nevertheless the social economist is safe in assuming that in general the prevailing rewards of service secured by any individual express with reasonable accuracy the willingness of others to exchange their service for his service notwith- standing the serious dislocations of effort and disturbances of means which occur from time to time in the normal oper- ation of the laws of demand and supply. If we take ac- count of the workers in America in their millions, — farm- ers, housewives, railway operatives, physicians, teachers, clerks, artisans, mill workers, soldiers, industrial managers, salesmen, — it is fair to assume that, under existing condi- tions of natural resources, utilization of scientific knowledge, economic organization, fostering legislation, immigration, customary working hours, mobility of labor, availability of capital, courage of " enterprisers," and scarcity of "crea- tive " or original capacity, the 'average money return to workers in each class as well as, — with occasional excep- tions,— that to each individual, represents an approximate measure of his productive capacity measured in terms of its exchangeability for the services of others.

Increase of Productive Power. — How far and in what di- rection is it desirable and practicable that such productive capacity be increased, among other means, by vocational edu- cation ? The western nations everywhere and a portion of the Orient have accepted and now approve those

The Social Need of Better Vocational Education 37

conceptions which hold a dynamic society to be desirable, and which approve of social evolution. We now accept the great social desirability of having social evolution — natural, or humanity assisted, — take the direction called progress,— that is, towards producing human life " more abundantly," in the broadest acceptance of that phrase. We recognize, and on the whole approve of rapidly increasing populations even though these involve an apparent overtaxing of the land to produce food, and especially live stock. It is gener- ally held that many of the forms of individual well-being which we hold as socially valuable can be secured only through increase in the purchasing powers of the individual or of a group of individuals. We want for children more years devoted to education, that is, to preparation for effec- tive adult life as that is made possible by further prolonga- tion of developmental infancy and childhood ; we also want for these children better living conditions as a means of growth, — food, shelter, facilities for play, wholesome com- panionship, travel, artistic surroundings, freedom from fear; and we want to guarantee them entry on productive work under favorable auspices. On behalf of adults we aspire to shorter hours of labor, richer opportunities for use of leisure, prolongation of active life, the maintenance of a strong family without excessive present strain or apprehension for the future, and the gradual storage of at least a moderate capital as productive investment. But the attainment of all of those desirable ends presupposes greater productive ca- pacity in the individual either as a result of his own greater capacity personally, or of the development of more favorable conditions for the exercise of that capacity, such as discov- ery of more natural resources, new inventions, better lead- ership, more abundant capital, easier distribution of goods, and the like.

There is now much evidence that, through more effective specialized education, such individual productive gowgrs

38 Vocational Education

can be greatly increased. Here, as in the field of general education, it could readily be assumed on a priori grounds that so important a function as fitting the individual for optimum productive power should not always be left to the irregular and partial operation of processes of by-education. In the professions the processes of by-education, except in the latest stages of such education, have fallen into disuse and have been replaced by vocational school education. It is freely admitted that in all callings involving, for their successful exercise, a considerable amount of technical knowledge, — e.g. horticulture, electric installation, assay- ing, machinery testing, optical grinding, navigation, ac- counting, salesmanship in foreign countries, forest con- servation— some direct special education is indispensable to success.

The movement for more effective vocational education in the United States, and in other civilized countries, — a move- ment which has manifested itself in the shape of widespread interest in the various questions involved, the formation of societies to promote study of the subject and tentative efforts for experimental and constructive work, — must be inter- preted as representing one of the larger efforts of contem- porary society to insure the wide promotion of human well- being under conditions of a steadily increasing population and which is in some directions, at least, pressing heavily upon the means of maintaining the standards of living which have come to seem desirable.

Vocational Education and the Individual. — The primary object of the state or of society in its collective capacity in promoting effective vocational education may be considered to be the safety of the state itself. Nevertheless, the secu- rity and effectiveness of the state can be achieved as one of its conditions only by means of individuals who are in them- selves effective physically, vocationally, civically, and cultur- ally. Furthermore, the function of the state, in the last

The Social Need of Better Vocational Education 39

analysis, is the promotion of the well-being of the individuals composing it, and, under these circumstances, vocational education may be considered also from the standpoint of its possible contributions to individual well-being.

In promoting the well-being of individuals, it is a funda- mental principle that state action or other corporate action should take place only when the competency of the individ- ual himself or of those immediately responsible for him proves insufficient to guarantee an optimum of the condi- tions making for such well-being. By universal consent, the state, then, guarantees a protected childhood to every person born into society, this protection extending even to the point of removing the child from its parents or natural guardians in case their incompetency can be established. The ideal of a protected childhood is also realized through compulsory education, through prohibition of labor of young people ex- cept under stated conditions, and through guarantee of cer- tain opportunities for growth and development such as play- grounds and freedom of movement.

It now becomes sound public policy also to include under the general designation of a protected childhood such a start towards economic independence as the state itself can in- sure in the event that the family and the individual himself prove unable to satisfy these needs. Elsewhere it has been shown that under modern conditions of industry, especially in large centers, the family and industry are proving more and more unable to insure either adequate vocational guid- ance or, more important, sufficient vocational training to constitute for given individuals a reasonably fair start in life.

II

The enhancement of the productive capacity of an indi- vidual by vocational education may first be considered in three relationships affecting himself alone: (a) His produc-

40 Vocational Education

thrc capacity under optimum economic conditions at any given period; (b) his productive capacity as a whole, that is. during the span of his working lifetime; and (c) his productive capacity as a net remainder after subtractions have been made on account of physical, cultural, and civic demands.

Intensive vs. Extensive Productivity. — For example, a given system of vocational training might result in a high productive capacity for a short time, but might fail to lay proper foundations for promotion or other vocational growth. It is believed by some that many forms of modern industrial employment lead to early enforced retirement — railroading is frequently used as an example. The primitive forms of farming, on the other hand, are supposed to admit of useful participation not only of children but also of very old men and women and even when these are not, by virtue of their ownership of capital, in managerial posi- tion. Available data on these matters are, however, inade- quate and obscure. It would obviously be possible to train a person for what is an essentially juvenile vocation and to ignore the vocational needs to be met in adult life.

Or a system of vocational education might be mapped out which would take cognizance of a possible total working lifetime. It is well known, for example, that a large pro- portion of girls now follow a wage earning vocation for some years prior to marriage. A complete program of vo- cational education might include not only this wage-earning period as its objective, but also the subsequent twenty or thirty years of homemaking. There are those, indeed, who also foresee a period in the life of the strong woman when, after her children are grown, the routine of homemaking for two adults will not suffice to keep her powers adequately employed. For this period of her life also, she might well have the needed guidance, training, and opportunity to ren- der such economic service as she can.

The Social Need of Better Vocational Education 41

It is probable that certain complex social problems of labor adjustment are involved in the ideal of so organizing vocational education as to insure a long life of productive, activity. As traditions go at present, the man somewhat past middle age who cannot " keep the pace " set by younger men or by himself when younger, is apt to consider his use- fulness at an end (or the employer does so, with the same result) and to give up his job, possibly to relapse into com- plete idleness. Ideally, of course, society should offer to each, in quantity and quality, opportunities for the work that he can best perform. It seems to be a fact that in primitive stages of industry the aged or impaired man still had oppor- tunities for work which are largely denied him in more ad- vanced stages of economic evolution. Whether labor con- ditions can be so readjusted in the future that the man of declining powers will still find and willingly accept a place of usefulness is one of the unsolved problems of contem- porary social economy.

Non- Vocational Needs. — Vocational powers must also be considered with reference to the other obligations and op- portunities of the individual. A vocation in which a man might be highly productive over a long series of years but which denied him opportunities for family life or discharge of civic obligations would necessarily be heavily discounted by these disadvantages. There are callings in which health risks are great, 'especially for individuals predisposed to specifiable forms of weakness. Here again the claims of the vocation as a field of productive opportunity are not the only claims to be considered. Many juvenile occupations in factories, for which relatively high wages are often paid by virtue of the restricted or specialized character of the activities involved and possibly by the speed required, seem to entail heavy handicaps on physical development. The ad- vantages of t-Jiese, therefore, from a wise social standpoint will be heavily offset by the health liabilities included.

42 Vocational Education

It is possible that America may in the future require what has long been the case in Europe, namely that each male citizen shall be required to devote a portion of his time to the defensive service of his country. Under these conditions, preparation for, and participation in, vocation will measur- ably have to give way to required military training which can be regarded as a secondary vocation. Similar condi- tions of less obvious nature are involved in the possible con- nections between vocation and the. man's civic or cultural life. A vocation such as teaching may, for a given individ- ual, involve cultural opportunities not to be found in mining or farming. The man qualified to profit culturally from an urban environment may very properly refuse to enter a vocation necessitating rural residence, and vice versa.

Ill

Essential Factors in Productivity. — The potential power of an individual to produce economic goods will always be greatly affected by conditions largely beyond his control, of which the following are the most important: a. The nat- ural or other resources available ( fertile land for the farmer, ores for the miner, timber for the woodworker, fibers for the textile worker, interested audiences for the singer, seek- ers after superior medical skill for the physician, husbands and their incomes for the homemaker, etc.) ;

b. Social inheritances of vocational knowledge and method (inventions, customs, arts, technical knowledge of process, etc.);

f. Capital, fixed or mobile, such as is represented by: cleared land, buildings, discovered mines, timber made ac- cessible by roads, transportation facilities, etc., for farmers and miners; buildings, engines, tools, and revolving funds to keep up food supply and wages while goods are in process of production and delivery to final markets, etc., for indus-

The Social Need of Better Vocational Education 43

trial workers; house, furniture, reserve money, etc., for the homemaker; and offices, stocks, and storerooms for com- mercial workers;

d. Social organization of demands for products — or markets — involving, of course, extent and character of opportunities for procuring useful exchangeable goods in return for products ;

e. The inherited bodily powers and capacities of the in- dividual ;

/. The acquired powers and capacities of the individual, - health, civic, cultural — which, while not valued chiefly as affecting vocational competency, nevertheless have impor- tant bearings on it.

1. Basic Essentials. — Obviously no man can farm on rock, mine gold or coal where none exists, build modern houses or ships when there can be had no timber. A teacher or preacher can get no productive return for his services where learners or listeners are not available. ' The voice of one crying in the wilderness " does not command wages. Manufacturing industries, no matter how skillful the work- ers, can produce nothing without a supply of raw materials. Homemaking as defined in this book obviously requires for its practice a place of residence, a husband, children, etc., as necessary working materials.

It is important to note that the part played by raw mate- rials or natural resources in production is affected heavily by what may here be called " pressure of population." When population is sparse, the relative value of raw re- sources may be made to yield the maximum possible re- turn.

2. The Social Inheritance. — In a very true sense pro- duction in modern society is almost completely dependent upon the social inheritance of inventions given by our pro- genitors. The arts of metal working, fabric making, till- age, defense, communication by symbol, preaching, and

n Vocational Education

^^

teaching represent but a part of this inheritance. Of prac- tical importance is the fact that in the processes of social ipetition of peoples, regions, and nations, no less than individuals, the race will in large measure be to those who best use and improve upon the social inheritance, whether that be through a new variety of potato, a better explosive, an improved process of tanning, the invention of a new syn- thetic dye, a better system of filing, the more thorough ex- clusion of flies from the home, or a better balanced ration- ing of an army. Technical knowledge and implements play a part in modern production, the importance of which is fre- quently overlooked by the easy theorizers as to " collective " action. These instrumentalities, as a matter of fact, are largely responsible for the increasing part played by capital and organization in modern production. The actual re- sponsibility of given individuals, even those in directing positions, for the improvement of old, and the discovery of new means of production, is probably smaller than is com- monly assumed and is now diminishing. It is the collective " mind " of the larger groups and perhaps in increasing measure the collective mind of the state itself, which must ultimately assume largest responsibility for the progressive use of the social inheritance of the tools and knowledge in- volved in productive work.

At any given time a comparison of the methods of re- tarded peoples, corporations, or individuals as regards their uses of economic social inheritance is both illuminating and suggestive. In all communities that are " advancing " by prevailing economic standards it will be found that " busi- ness - as the term may be used to denote the aspirations, ideals, appreciations, customs, and knowledge of the thinkers, planners, and leaders — becomes, obviously, intensely con- scious of the importance of improving on historic means and methods. Research and invention are stimulated by pro- tection, reward, and subsidy. In recent years the state has

The Social Need of Better Vocational Education 45

participated largely in these processes. Government agen- cies have been responsible for a very large part of the development achieved during the last half century in Ameri- can agriculture.

Systematized vocational education becomes one. of the*/ most effective means for transmitting the newly developed knowledge. The methods of apprenticeship fail here con- spicuously. On the other hand invention may, and often does, produce the " fool proof " machine which becomes an effective tool in the hands of even a poorly trained user. Good watches, machine guns, stationary steam engines, shov- els, concrete houses, or automatic stop looms will often ren- der excellent service in the hands of illiterate and untrained workers, although these tools themselves represent the cul- mination of ages of invention in their evolution and of end- lessly varied skills and technical knowledges in their fabri- cation. The possible secondary social consequences of the inventive processes which give us these perfect tools are not calculable as yet.

3. Capital in Production. — The part played by capital in production is usually clear to the business man and to the economist, but not at all to hired manual laborers, or, it would often seem, to legislators. The education designed to diffuse such knowledge is, ordinarily, more properly civic than vocational ; but for a person preparing definitely for a known vocation it is highly desirable that his vocational edu- cation should include instruction in the part played by capital in the organized productive processes of which he is to be a part. It would appear, for example, that successful agri- culture in the United States requires increasing outlays of capital in proportion to labor. Unless this tendency is mod- ified by the development of state or corporate owned instru- mentalities, extreme care will have to be exercised in the selection of those to be encouraged to pursue agricultural training towards the " farm owning " vocations in order

46 Vocational Education

that possession of natural gifts of managerial ability be as- sured. Not many men are gifted by nature with the basic qualities required by current standards of security and plan- ning to be managers of large enterprises, and especially those involving much of that easily impaired commodity named

In manufacturing, transportation, and commercial fields of productive enterprise the relationship between capital and profits is often obscure to workers. Indeed it is not, in the case of a given enterprise, always clear to anyone, since the " dividend takers " or stockholders are often investors of capital rather than personal abilities, hence their " prof- its " may often be in reality more " interest " than " profit " as ordinarily conceived — that is, the enterpriser's reward for his knowledge, daring, foresight, and organizing ability. There prevail to-day 'widespread beliefs that "profit-takers " are. as a class, generally so situated that they can exploit laborers and, probably, investors, too. It is easily seen how the rewards of labor are largely controlled by the operation of the law of supply and demand ; and the rewards of capi- tal invested for a guaranteed return (interest on bonds, mortgages, dividends on preferred stock), it is now gener- ally recognized, are also governed in the same way. But much doubt exists still as to whether the rewards of those who have no guaranteed returns as wages or interest — non- salaried entrepreneurs, investors for common stock divi- dends — are governed by the same laws of supply and de- mand. Probably all distributions of shares of product un- der ordinarily prevalent conditions are controlled far more largely by the basic law of demand and supply than by all other factors — custom, monopoly, ignorance, legislation, an« I the like — together ; but until better means than are ivailable are found to make this clear to consumers and various camps of producers, we may expect a continuance of the suspicions, antagonisms, and wars that are at present

The Social Need of Better Vocational Education 47

distracting and demoralizing production. " Related social education " as part of vocational education should, of course, prove increasingly adequate to clear up the situation to various kinds of workers in a given field and enable them to forestall or correct pathological situations of monopoly, exploiteering, etc. But society will probably long be tempted, in some of its divisions, by the " Rhine Gold " of the stored capital essential to modernized production; and just as primitive men could see little use in October of stor- ing large quantities of nuts, seeds, and dried meats against December and January, and often preferred to " feast " at once, so whole groups of people will probably long continue to see in stored capital promising means of present enjoy- ment if only the legal claimants thereto can be dispos- sessed. It will require a very well developed system of civic or economic education to produce effective " social wisdom" here.

4. Social Organization. — Given raw resources, a large social inheritance of inventions and technical knowledge, and abundance of capital, productive processes are neverthe- less without effect unless there be present various forms of social organization. Of these government and laws to de- fine and guarantee security and order may be considered of first importance. Next is regimentation (in no invidious sense) or that coordination of workers by which each takes or receives the part in the total process which he can best perform. Last is commerce with its subphases of trans- portation, storing, and marketing, with endless specializa- tions in banking, credit, inspection, standards, and the like.

Very probably modern production in manufacture, min- ing, lumbering, fishing, and some forms of agriculture would be wholly impossible on present scales except for the very elaborate organizations that have accompanied its evolution. The corporation, as a means of providing for concentration of capital and regimentation of workers from the most to

48 Vocational Education

the least talented, controls to-day in nearly all transportation, distance communication, manufacture, and mining. Every industrial state has found it necessary to produce an elabo- rate body of legislation as well as various agencies of en- forcement in order to protect productive enterprises on the one hand, or their special workers and investors or the pub- lic on the oth«r. Territorial specialization of production has been a marked consequence even where natural localiza- tion of raw resources has not dictated it.

The complexities thus added to the social structure of modern societies are still largely beyond the capacities of any one man adequately to appreciate. Modern government finds the largest single department of its activity in economic legislation. The specialization of producers into investors, employers, and employees gives rise to class consciousness, class organization, and insistent contests for special privi- leges in sharing products.

It is very doubtful whether contemporary means of either civic or vocational education are at all sufficient as yet to give even a forceful minority of prospective citizens appre- ciations, to say nothing of comprehensions, of the vital part played by social organization in the economic production which enables the multiplying wants of dense populations with rising standards of living to be even partially satisfied. Here, as in the case of the place of capital in production, there is every reason why the vocational schools should play a large part in serving both its students and also society.

5. Individual Inheritance. — The ability of a given indi- vidual to produce is in fundamental measure dependent on the factors, largely outside himself, discussed above; but in another sense it is no less dependent upon inherited and ac- quired qualities within himself. A man cannot use the tools or the knowledge given by the social inheritance on the materials provided by nature unless he possess the muscular powers, senses, and organs of intellect characteristic of normal human beings.

The Social Need of Better Vocational Education 49

In fact it is now certain that among men great variations prevail in the amount and quality of the various forms of " original nature " inherited. A man naturally small of body is thereby disqualified for many types of heavy work. History as well as science seem to show that, generally speaking, women cannot do the same kinds and qualities of work as men. Probably the reverse also is often true. A few men seem born with extraordinary endowments of mathematical or musical or exploratory or combative pow- ers. Very likely some men are born with extraordinary potential powers of leadership, business organization, me- chanical invention, or artistic ability. The warm advocates of vocational guidance may have raised unwarranted expec- tations as to the needs and possibilities of " fitting square pegs to square holes," but, nevertheless, every observant worker with adolescents becomes increasingly convinced of the fact that, as the world of work is now organized, there is an " optimum " job for every individual, and that it is of signal importance to that individual and of substantial im- portance to society that he be helped to the discovery of his life work (or successive stages in life work) as near this optimum as practicable.

The operation of the " selective service " agencies created to meet necessities imposed by the war has revealed unsus- pected possibilities of allocating, even through simple psy- chological tests, youths or adults to the forms of study or productive service best suited to them. At this writing it would be premature to summarize the possibilities thus re- vealed; but it is certain that every supervisor, director, and teacher in vocational schools will hereafter find it of the ut- most importance to ascertain, on the one hand, what are the optimum requirements (always judged by sane and practi- cal standards) of the vocations open to those whom they seek to train, and on the other the native qualification pos- sessed by those seeking entry to these vocations.

50 Vocational Education

It is a fair assumption that the modern specialization of industry and tlu- increasing use of automatic and " fool proof " power driven machines serves greatly to extend the range of occupational pursuits in which persons of mediocre or inferior or even abnormal native powers may become productive. When men lived chiefly by hunting it is prob- able that many of the poorly endowed starved to death. But modern tools and organization can be made greatly to help those of good native gifts. Quite probably modern society, and especially the state (which is a clumsy and backward directing body as yet) has not sufficiently lived up to its responsibilities of helping those of inferior powers to get into their optimum work. That is a problem of which social economists are just now becoming keenly apprecia- tive.

6. Acquired Powers. — Finally the productive power of a given individual is very dependent upon his acquired powers. These may be considered under two heads — the powers generally serviceable in life generally, as well, per- haps, as in the vocational activities of life, and those pri- marily serviceable in vocation. Obviously the physical, lin- guistic, artistic, literary, scientific, and moral powers and capacities which schools of general education seek to find, improve, or create have some functional value in vocation as well as in the other activities of life. On the other hand success in a particular vocation always depends upon the possession by the individual of a variety of special skills, ideals, and forms of knowledge which possess little signifi- cance to him apart from his vocation.

Of non-vocational powers and capacities it is impracti- cable as yet to evaluate the importance in modern productive processes. Probably it is futile to attempt to generalize; only by studying the requirements of particular fields of work in connection with particular qualities can we hope to reach useful conclusions. The whole subject has been

The Social Need of Better Vocational Education 51

greatly befogged by the attempts of men of strong academic prepossessions to state " optimum " standards.

Looking at workers about us it is clear that in some voca- tions the ability to speak English is indispensable ; in others it is merely a convenience. One cannot imagine an illiter- ate man becoming a successful physician, lawyer, or editor ; but in many other vocational fields the proportion of success- ful men among illiterates is hardly smaller than that among literate men, due allowance being made for forces of selec- tion. For success in many vocations certain conditions of health are desirable or necessary; but it is not in evidence to what extent " health " is or can be made a product of by-edu- cation or direct education, and how far it is due to inherited conditions. There are many vocations that are open only to persons of established reputation for approved moral be- havior. The bases of the moral character thus required may be due to general school or non-school education; or they may, like health, derive in large part from qualities of " original nature " that can be discovered but not made.

For the present it is sound policy to require that the vo- cational school or other specialized agency of vocational edu- cation take upon itself the burden of proof in sustaining the minimum standards of inherited or acquired general fitness which it imposes at the outset. It can safely be assumed that the men of academic prepossessions who will long be in control of the machinery of vocational education will tend to impose unnecessarily exacting standards. This cau- tionary attitude has nothing to do, be it understood, with the provision of desirable standards of general education to be met either before entry upon vocational pursuits or in direct preparation for such entry. Right minimum standards of cultural and civic education should be established quite in- dependently of vocation, as a rule. It is not improbable that the high minimum cultural standards long imposed by voca- tional schools of theology, law, medicine, military leader-

52 Vocational Education

ship, and other vocations involving so-called leadership have actually been vocational, or at least vocationally selective, in their final analysis and operation. If not, they have prob- ably been unwarrantably and factitiously artificial and un- desirable.

IV

To the educator and to the social economist of the future must be left many as yet partially unsolved problems which intimately affect the extent and character of the vocational education required for given vocations. Among these prob- lems are the following: (a) Should "industry" be expected to provide for its own vocational training? (b) What are the necessary results of specialization? (c) Are the "trades" declining? (d) Would vocational schools "overcrowd" certain callings? (e) Should men be educated to be "em- ployees "? (f) What will be the effects of increasing "state control" of production? (g) Is vocational education demo- cratic? (h) Should vocational education be compulsory? (i) How far should society control conditions of entrance upon wage-earning? In the analyses below the writer's present opinion is frequently indicated, usually as a spur to further analysis and study.

1. Private Vocational Education It is sometimes as- serted that " industry " should provide at its own expense for vocational education. This expectation is usually based upon two misconceptions. If a given employer (it may be assumed that at the outset every worker starts as an em- ployee) could be sure of retaining permanently the services of those whom he might train, then countless employers would undoubtedly devote no less attention to training work- ers than to providing suitable material equipment. But such is not the case. The very great mobility of modern labor renders it impossible for the average employer to de- vote time and energy to the training of novices. Again, it

The Social Need of Better Vocational Education 53

is naively taken for granted by persons who have not studied the matter, that in a given field of production, — e.g. gar- dening, banking, housebuilding, transportation, — there is an important collective interest and, therefore, collective will and purpose which should be enlisted to promote private vocational schools in these fields. But this ignores the acute and persistent competition which normally exists between each unit and every other unit in the same field, — a competi- tion which only gives way slowly before efforts looking to consolidation and combination, which efforts, because they commonly foreshadow monopoly, are viewed by society with suspicion and are even outlawed. It is conceivable that in a new kind of economic order, all the housebuilders of a city or state would be combined, as are now, commonly, tele- phone operators and street car operators, and that they could collectively undertake the vocational schooling of young workers. But for the present, we have to assume that in general the mobility of labor and the competing in- terests of employers will long preclude the development, un- der the direction of industry, of good vocational schools. Exceptions will be found in those industries which have ^v practically suppressed, or at least regulated, competition or have learned to cooperate broadly in certain essential re- spects, — telephone, street car transportation, a few lines of manufacturing like printing, etc. '

2. Specialization. — It is important that the causes and effects of specialization, especially in production and ex- change, should be examined by students of economics from the standpoint of possible effects on vocational education. In the absence of other evidence, we are justified in assum- ing that specialization of productive effort is an economic necessity, that it is one of the most effective means of in- creasing the productivity of the individual worker through his greater use of machinery, development of more skill and concentration on a particular enterprise. In almost no

54 Vocational Education

respects does one to-day detect retrograde tendencies in economic specialization. Every enlargement in units of production, every tendency towards territorial specialization of agriculture, and every advance in the use of tech-, nical appliances seem to be accompanied by increasing subdivision of processes and specialization of the worker. Considering the increasing economic productiveness of the worker under these conditions, it is doubtful if any class of producers would be willing to exchange rewards as they exist under specialization for those which they supplanted, regard being had to growing pressure of population, scarcities of raw materials, and rising standards of living. But specialization is frequently accompanied by what may be described as socially pathological manifesta- tions. Under some conditions, the specialized worker may be described as the " slave of the machine " although prob- ably, in some cases, he could more correctly be described as the " master " or at least the " tender of the machine." In many instances extreme specialization has made the em- ployment of large quantities of comparatively unskilled la- bor a simple matter. But probably, in an equal number of instances, at least, the specialization of the worker and his employment in expensive processes has raised the qualities of skill, sobriety, and general intelligence demanded of him - for example, the chauffeur, locomotive driver, ship cap- tain, farmer using a power driven apparatus, furnace man, elevator man in large buildings, or drill press operative, etc. For the present, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, we can well assume that with rising standards of living and increasing disposition to demand a wide range of consum- able goods, individual producers can achieve their desired ends only by increasing their production through specialized efforts.

It is furthermore highly probable that every tendency to- wards specialized work will produce pathological conditions

The Social Need of Better Vocational Education 55

against which enlarged ideals of social economy will insist on the application of corrective measures, perhaps as forms of social sanitation. For example, it may be found that highly specialized mechanical operations pursued eight hours a day will, in the main, not affect injuriously persons who have already attained to maturity of body and nervous sys- tem, whereas such eight hour a day work on highly special- ized operations might affect very injuriously comparatively young people whose bodies are undeveloped and whose nervous systems are still very plastic.

Again, under some circumstances, machine operations may be so conducted that the speed of the worker is deter- mined by the speed of the machine, over which he has little or no control, and that under these conditions, disastrous re- sults may be produced even on the adult organism. In the light of contemporary knowledge it seems highly probable that for operations of this kind, one essential is that special- ized workers shall be given examinations in order that those most qualified for such mechanical manipulation may be selected. Furthermore the speeding up of machinery over which the operator has no control may have to be regulated by law or inspection.

There are also possibilities that individual workers should be trained to pass, even within the course of one day, from one type of machine to another in order to have a change of occupation and strain. It is entirely possible that large gains would result from transferring, for a part of the day, a specialized operative in a very noisy textile manufacturing room to some other type of similarly specialized work offer- ing materially different conditions.

As regards noise and other operating strains, no amount of argument against specialized work achieves any useful purpose unless it takes account of the increased productivity made possible by such specialization and the relation of that to the higher standards of living demanded by workers.

56 Vocational Education

Whether it is sufficient to trust to the law of supply and demand of labor as a means of adjustment of workers' share in specialized production achieved largely through capital invested and managerial intelligence, as well as labor, is a question that can hardly be discussed here. If, under any given circumstances, a process of specialization of labor does not give to the individual worker any share in the in- creased production thereby made possible, it may be that special social adjustments should be made. This is a ques- tion for the economist and is, of course, particularly tied up with such difficult questions as the minimum wage, arti- ficial interference with laws of supply and demand as regu- lating compensation of labor, etc.

3. The Place of the Trades. — At the present time many programs of so-called industrial training in cities of the United States are in reality more or less complete programs of training for the trades. The word " trade " as applied in industry has various significations, but in the main its con- notations are based upon ideals and practices derived from the time when trades were, in the full sense of the word, handicrafts — that is, hand trades.

It is well known, of course, that the progressive develop- ment of machine production has resulted in a steady decline of handicraft trades. This has been especially true in fields where production on a large scale is possible. One does not commonly associate the idea of trade worker with the opera- tions involved in the production of such staples as cloth, automobiles, glass and pottery, electrical appliances, furni- ture, paper boxes, books, newspapers, ready-made clothing, packed meats, packed fruits and vegetables, flour, sugar, locomotives, rails, crude copper, coal, pig-iron, lumber, shoes, building materials, etc. It is true that some divisions within these fields of production wherein a considerable amount of skill is involved, have come of recent years to be called trades, even though the operation is highly specialized, and

The Social Need of Better Vocational Education 57

in many cases, the participation of the worker is essentially that of machine tender.

Recent years have witnessed the gradual decline of such trades as those of cabinet maker, baker, shoemaker, wheel- wright, potter, etc., while others, such as tailor, dressmaker, etc., are in process of decline. Great changes are undoubt- edly also taking place in the structure and organization of such trades as machinist, plumber, bricklayer, carpenter, printer, and glazier, while, of course, pending changes in in- dustrial processes develop new trades such as those asso- ciated with the installation and maintenance of electrical ap- paratus, steamfitting, and the like.

It is of the utmost importance in the interests of sound thinking about vocational education that we shall not confine ourselves exclusively to the terms and conditions of the handicraft trades. Modern production is specialized and there is every prospect that it will become much more spe- cialized. Standardization of materials for building and even the standardization of buildings themselves, may be a matter of the near future.

It is not improbable, of course, that where, in the process of production, much subdivision has occurred, an individual worker should be trained to cover more than one subdivision, partly as a means of enabling him to shift his services in time of necessity, partly to give him a wider range of work as a means of conserving health, and conceivably also, as a means of enabling him better to understand the sequences of productive processes involved in his field of productive enterprise.

4. Overcrowding of Callings. — One of the earliest ques- tions encountered in establishing vocational schools is the danger of overcrowding certain callings. Nowhere, so far as the writer is aware, is there any adequate discussion of the conditions involved in what are known as " overcrowded callings." Overcrowding must be conceived in reference

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to some relative or absolute standards, and it may be doubted whether, in the absence of these standards, we are justified in calling any one calling more overcrowded than another.

Certainly it would be folly to speak of the medical pro- fession or the teaching profession or farming as over- crowded. Relative overcrowding may be conceived in terms of an established or desired rate of compensation. For example, domestic service is not now overcrowded as evidenced by advertisements in newspapers, if the historic rate of compensation is taken as a basis. On the other hand, if we were to pay domestic servants at the same rate that we pay trained nurses, it may be questioned whether we should not find the calling immediately overcrowded. Newspaper advertisements seem to indicate a perennial scarcity of sixteen to twenty year old girls in department stores and factories. Are we to assume no overcrowding here?

Where attractive rates of compensation have historically existed, there is a tendency for persons to enter the calling and competitively to bid against each other for the higher compensation, thus giving every appearance of an over- crowded field. Would we be justified in saying that the field of unskilled labor is, for example, more overcrowded than that of skilled printers, machinists, bookkeepers, small merchants, lawyers, college teachers, etc.?

Where a calling may demand considerable amount and variety of personal qualities as well as certain forms of technical skill, the advertising of an opening frequently at- tracts persons who possess only in part the qualities desired, but who, nevertheless, hope to find themselves the best among the offering. There is thus given a specious appear- ance of overcrowding in the calling in question. This is noted conspicuously when vacancies in public school posi- tions, in various departments of the civil service, and in managerial positions, are open.

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5. Employer vs. Employee. — Almost every man in the highly civilized modern state stands in some capacity as an employee in society and in some other capacity as an em- ployer. In all forms of corporate organization of business, stockholders may be looked upon as the final employers, while directors are their selected representatives and re- sponsible to them in very much the same sense that actual employees are responsible to their immediate employers. Under the directors in any corporation every person is an employee, but in many cases these also have employers' re- sponsibilities towards other subordinates.

Persons who are employed in a corporation have organi- zations or unions each having their own employed delegates ; thus the employee becomes an employer in turn. It would be exceptional to find to-day in any case of transportation or production through corporations an individual who is not at some time and place an employee and, at some other time and place, an employer, with all of the responsibilities that these relations imply.

In a very real sense every citizen is the employer of " pub- lic servants " from president and governors down to teach- ers and policemen.

Outside of agriculture, homemaking, small shopkeeping, the professions, and a few trades, relatively few adults are ever " independent " workers ; while in nearly all fields of work, young workers first undertake productive service dis- tinctively as wage-earners. These facts must necessarily greatly affect vocational education for young workers. Ought we to think of young men even in agriculture as prob- ably destined to " independent " work before twenty-five ?

6. State Control. — Study of contemporary tendencies exhibits a great variety of developments of state control looking towards the more satisfactory relation of the em- ployee to his work and its returns. Much legislation al- ready exists defining the age at which young workers shall

60 Vocational Education

be employed on so-called " dangerous " machinery or in " dangerous " trades. A very great variety of legislation defining appliances to be used on railways, protective devices in factories, regulations for the use of so-called " danger- ous " chemicals, etc., now exists. Employers' liability laws persistently operate in the direction of regulating, in the light of scientific knowledge, conditions under which work- ers may operate machines, undergo risks, etc.

We also see now extended state control of rates that can be charged by public service corporations, of the extent to which corporations will be permitted to organize in the form of trusts, of the sale of speculative securities, and in addition, of publicity of accounts. In all of these directions we may count upon a steadily increased tendency towards that form of regulation which experience will demonstrate to provide for the maximum of common welfare.

Besides these it is manifest that state ownership or direc- tion of productive enterprises is increasing. The major parts of education, road maintenance, fire protection, light- house maintenance, public service inspection, water supply, waste disposal, mail and package carrying, and dock provi- sion are now municipal, state, or national enterprises. Prob- ably these tendencies will, when understood, greatly affect the needs of, and procedures to secure, vocational education.

7. Is Vocational Education Undemocratic? — Educators, business men, and social economists, who during the last decade have been supporting the movement for more effi- cient vocational education than that which is now provided incidentally and intermittently by farm, home, shop, and office, have encountered various forms of opposition. Be- cause they sought the creation of efficient schools for the training of farmers, trades workers, homemakers, and cler- ical specialists, they have been charged with seeking to de- stroy the regular public schools. Because they urged that, for young people past the age of compulsory school at-

The Social Need of Better Vocational Education 61

tendance, opportunities should be made available for definite and practical training in the technique of trades and other callings, differentiated as these are in the world of practical affairs, they were charged with being interested only in " narrow " education — in the " teaching of mere skill." Because they recognized and held that the training which makes a young man a good tailor is essentially different in all details from the training which makes his brother a good carpenter, they were charged with supporting proposals for " undemocratic " education.

Now the issues of vocational education are far too im- portant to permit of their being damned by the vague word " undemocratic." We want nothing more incorporated into American education, public or private, that is contrary to the sound principles of democracy — we have too much of that. If the plans now before the peoples of many states — notably, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Indiana, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut — for the improvement of systems of vocational education already established with state approval, and under state control and support, are in any respect undemocratic, it is in the highest degree essential that early proof of that fact should be given. Progressive states, east and west, north and south, are, in the persons of their most far-sighted citizens, now planning for state systems of vocational schools. The national gov- ernment provides financial aid and cooperative supervision for at least three types of vocational education — namely, industrial, agricultural, and homemaking — and will doubt- less aid basic commercial education in the near future.

What then are the specific characteristics of the voca- tional education here under consideration, as judged by the legislation already enacted, and administrative plans already promulgated in the states that have got past the stage of dis- cussing? An understanding of these facts is essential to a determination of the possible validity of the charges made

62 Vocational Education

relative to the supposedly undemocratic character of vo- cational education.

EirsL. wherever vocational schools have been established, admission to them is conditioned on completion of the re- quirements of compulsory school attendance. As a rule these requirements include both an age qualification, and also a scholarship qualification — usually at least the com- pletion of the fifth grade. In other words, no youth mav enter a vocational school until he has reached the point where he is equally free to enter the shop or office as a full- time worke: spend his (or her) days exclusively at Farm or home work. To the charge sometimes made that the specialized vocational school is " narrowing " it is a fair retort to question whether it is more " narrowing " than the place in the department store, the specialty in the factory, or the daily routine of office, farm, or home. For these are certainly the prevailing alternatives. In every industrial community, we know that at least half and often many more than half of all the children leave school forever within six months after completion of the requirements of compulsory attendance.

In the second place, the vocational school has found spe- cialization a necessary means of efficiency. Even common sense will satisfy us that the special training required to make a proficient machinist will differ in all significant respects from that required to make a house-painter. Are there any fundamental elements of vocational training common to ste- nography and carpentry ? Practical electricity and tailoring ? Farming and stone-masonry? Teaming and bookkeeping? Homemaking and printing? Persons who have not clearly defined for themselves the special character of vocational education will, in their confusion, contend that certain ele- ments are common among people who successfully follow these vocations, such as elements of health, physique, char- acter, general intelligence, mental acumen, and social ideals.

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The reply, of course, is that in so far as these qualities are not differentiated and specialized according to the vocations being followed, they are the legitimate objectives, not of vo- cational schools at all, but of schools of general or liberal edu- cation. In any northern state, the public school has had at least eight years of the child's life in which to lay the founda- tions of culture, citizenship, character, and general intelli- gence. For our industrial and commercial workers, this is now more commonly ten or even twelve rather than eight years, a larger amount of time on the whole than is given in any other country in the world. It is not certain that our public schools now make very effective use of this time, and it is not in evidence that systematic, specialized vocational training will make no important contributions, as a by-prod- uct, to these general qualities.

During the last decade a great change has taken place in the attitude of Americans towards vocational education ; by which we now mean any specific education designed to pre- pare a person for the effective pursuit of some calling. Formerly, it was seriously questioned whether publicly sup- ported and controlled schools should undertake training for industrial, agricultural, and homemaking callings. This at- titude persisted, notwithstanding that in western state uni- versities the professions were being taught, that even the national government was giving financial aid to higher forms of agricultural education, and that cities had extensively developed commercial departments in high schools.

But it is hard to-day to find an intelligent man who does not believe that, for large numbers of our young people, some form of systematic and direct occupational training is essential — essential from the standpoint of the welfare of the individual, as well as from the standpoint of the com- munity and the state.

This thesis is here submitted : That education as it has been organized heretofore in the United States, while not

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so undemocratic as that of countries where, by means of the varying fees charged for tuition, children are practically segregated along caste lines, has been much less democratic than it will be when a properly organized system of voca- tional schools shall have been created to add opportunities for occupational training to those now existing for general education.

What is the essence of democracy? Does it not consist in removing as far as practicable all artificial barriers (birth, rank, wealth) to the enjoyment of equal opportunities; and mitigating, as far as society can safely do so, the inequalities created by natural conditions?

Now it is fair to characterize as undemocratic a system of schools like that of Prussia, where, for example, at least three different classes of school are open to a boy of thirteen years of age of good ability ; namely, a school in which only a nominal charge is made for tuition, another in which a fee of perhaps eighty marks is charged, and a third charging up- ward of one hundred and eighty marks. Inevitably sons of poor people can go only to the first, whilst the last will in effect be reserved for the sons of the prosperous and prom- inent.

American high schools are not undemocratic in that sense ; they are tuition free, and equally accessible to the son of the washerwoman and the son of the millionaire. But there does exist a condition in America to-day which is essentially undemocratic. Contrast the opportunities now open to the son of the wage-earner who has four or five children in his family with those available for another boy of equal ability whose father has an income of $5000 per year. In the first case, the boy from necessity and from honorable desire, too, not excessively to burden his father, must become a self-sup- porting worker at not later than sixteen years of age. The second boy can postpone self-support until twenty-two or even twenty-five or twenty-eight.

The Social Need of Better Vocational Education 65

But what school opportunities are open to the first boy on completing the eight grades of the elementary school? He can perhaps attend a high school for two years, in which, theoretically, he will be continuing his general or liberal edu- cation, but in which, practically, he will be given only the husks of introductory algebra, a foreign language, ancient history, and very formal English. Practically nowhere can he find opportunity to obtain definite equipment for some field of productive work. He must enter upon employment as an unskilled laborer, one of a horde of the " hired to-day, fired to-morrow " kind. Every step in his advance towards the occupational competency of manhood is beset by vicissi- tudes and oppressive conditions. In some cities, he finds evening schools to help ; in most places, none.

The other boy, less hurried, prolongs his general educa- tion to eighteen, possibly to twenty-two years of age. Or, eager to get at work after two years of general high school work, he finds commercial departments of high schools open- ing opportunities for at least a partial vocational training to him. If he finishes the high school, he finds scores of openings for vocational education before him, state schools of agriculture, engineering or teacher training, endowed schools, often with scholarships, for theology, medicine, law, and other professions. His road to vocational com- petency is beset by no such difficulties, exposed to no such hazards, as that of his fellow.

But these undemocratic inequalities are largely created by society; they are not due to natural causes which the state cannot correct. It is the state which says in effect : " To them that have shall be given, and from them that have not shall be taken away even that which they have."

The hardships wrought by this situation on individuals are apparent, but it is none the less true that society in its collective capacity suffers also ; state and nation are not what they should be when a large per cent of their members reach

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mature life unfitted for first-class productive work, discon- tented and vagrant, ready, often, to turn their anger against the state itself.

What, now, are the essentially democratic characteristics of current proposals for vocational education, as exempli- fied in the legislation of at least half a dozen of the more pro- gressive states? First, the state continues, just as hereto- fore, to exact on the part of each youth a minimum period of school attendance in a school of general education — closing in no case before the completion of the fourteenth year; similarly, it exacts as heretofore a minimum standard of scholarship — usually at least the equivalent of the fifth grade, with a strong tendency still further upward.

In other words, no one is eligible to enter a vocational school until he has reached the point where he is equally eligible to quit school altogether and become a factory hand, an errand boy, a casual laborer of any sort. Let us remem- ber that nowhere is it yet contemplated that attendance on vocational schools shall be compulsory. In the very nature of things, that time cannot come until we shall have available almost as many types of vocational schools as there are vari- eties of positions to be filled. A compulsory requirement then would necessarily look only to enforcing attendance on some type of school, and not to prescribing the particular type for a given individual. It is unthinkable that the state should any more desire to prescribe the particular type of school which a boy shall enter than that it should dictate the particular employment that he shall enter.

What becomes, then, of the charge that the provision of vocational education in schools makes for caste, for an un- democratic condition of society? It is clear that existing economic conditions inevitably produce social stratification. Boys who leave school at fourteen and enter upon the ca- reers which will leave many of them permanently stranded as unskilled workmen will always constitute a social and cul-

The Social Need of Better Vocational Education 67

tural class apart (fortunate for society if they do not con- stitute a political class apart also) from their more fortu- nate fellows who can prolong their education toward profit- able vocations. But is there anything at all in current pro- posals for vocational education that will aggravate this sit- uation? Is it not clear, on the contrary, that every step in the provision of practical education towards earning compe- tency will lessen rather than increase the rifts between dif- ferent economic classes ?

8. Should Vocational Education be Compulsory? — For the present, of course, it would be futile and ridiculous seri- ously to propose to make attendance on vocational schools obligatory, since we have so few facilities available, and es- pecially because we have no adequate knowledge yet of how to organize and conduct schools for vocational education to- wards the great majority of callings. Nevertheless funda- mental principles are clear enough. In a democratic society, as in any other society, the social good takes final priority. The ignorance, short-sightedness, or selfishness of individ- uals or their immediate guardians cannot be allowed to work ill to the commonwealth. It is an evil thing for the larger group when a given individual, naturally qualified, is unwill- ing, or unable by virtue of neglected education, to produce enough to support himself and to aid in meeting the com- mon needs of the group.

Society now lays upon the normal adult the positive re- sponsibility of providing for the support of himself and those towards whom he has assumed legal obligations for support, under normal conditions of economic production. The vagrant and family deserter can be sent to prison. But if experience should show that inability to produce ade- quately is in many instances due to failure to take advan- tage of available opportunities for vocational training then it will seem as logical for society to move towards compulsory vocational as it is now for it to require com-

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pulsory literary education or observance of the essentials of sanitation.

One novel difficulty will be encountered. There is but one reading or writing; there are thousands of vocations. Who shall decide what vocation a given person shall be compelled to learn? Probably present approved practices of providing vocations for adults will give guidance. So- ciety now, except in time of emergency, like war, does not force adults into particular vocations; in democratic spirit it leaves that choice to the individual so long as he seems to make reasonably effective use of his freedom. But if he re- fuses to enter upon a vocation — to go to work — then so- ciety forces him into a prison or " workhouse " where those occupations which can be carried on under prison conditions — rock breaking, jute weaving, shoemaking, road-building, chair caning, broom making, and the like — are prescribed.

We can imagine a state which has provided or guaranteed facilities for vocational education towards every local vo- cation. The youth would be given free opportunity to elect according to his taste, subject to the condition that society would limit entrance to vocations, the normal " absorbing " capacity of which is known. If a given individual, after enjoying opportunities to do so, gives no promise of choos- ing and properly qualifying himself for a vocation, then so- ciety would compel him to choose a field in which educational procedures for " recalcitrant squads " were known to be effective. In times past English courts used to sentence minors or vagrants to the navy. We now commit young delinquents to what were formerly called " industrial " schools where, under compulsion, they are supposed to learn a trade.

Eventually society will exact a guarantee that every youth shall become vocationally efficient before it is too late ; but it will leave to him the largest practicable amount of free- dom by which he will meet the social requirement.

The Social Need of Better Vocational Edi4cation 69

9. Control of Entrance upon Wage-Earning In all civi- lized countries society now clearly asserts the right to estab- lish and enforce minimum standards of age and physical condition for entrance upon wage-earning callings. In many cases, by systems of licensing and certification, it also determines minimum standards of vocational skill and in- telligence to be met. These restrictions may appear some- times to be imposed in the interests of the individual — as where boys under eighteen are prevented from working at machines, or youths under twenty-one are prohibited from telegraph messenger night service ; but in the long run it will be found that it is the common good of the larger society that dictates these interferences with immediate individual freedom.

Does anyone seriously doubt that we are probably des- tined to see a constant increase in this kind of control? Doubtless it will not always be wise — that is, it will be based upon imperfect understanding of what the actual needs of society are. Doubtless restrictive legislation of this kind will often be used for exploitative purposes — since " exploiteering " reaches into many departments of life be- sides those chiefly affected by desires for economic gain. Nevertheless it is along this road that the forces of social economy must, in large part, travel.

We may reasonably expect extension of the principles of compulsory vocational education, as noted above ; we may expect to see restrictions of numbers permitted to enter given fields (perhaps effected through competitive examination, and, when better knowledge is available, scientific " selec- tive service ") ; and we shall probably witness general appli- cations of the "minimum wage " principle.

In the past the skilled workers in a trade were often said to "own the trade"; that is, they established standards of apprenticeship, of wages, and, in large measure, the working conditions. That there should be some form of social reg-

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ulation of these matters, as practiced by the historic guilds, only the most stubborn individualist would deny. Whether other social groupings than the state itself will prove compe- tent for this purpose is still doubtful. Laissez faire will not do, the social economists seem to agree; vocational group control seems to lead to guild selfishness and monopoly; consumers' groupings seem unworkable; and certainly we must apprehend the blundering action of municipality, state, and nation.

One thing is clear : for any vocational field, the vocational schools should represent the best centering of appreciations of needs of the guild of trained workers on the one hand, and appreciations of the requirements of sound public policy on the other. That this has not always been the case with professional schools is to be deplored; but it would seem that medical colleges, engineering colleges, agricultural col- leges, and schools of nursing have set some excellent prece- dents.

CHAPTER III

THE RELATION OF GENERAL TO VOCATIONAL EDUCATION

Origins of General Education. — The world has long been accustomed to schools for direct general education. These have only remote relationships to vocational education. Early in the progress of the evolution of modern civiliza- tion the home found itself unequal to the task of teaching children the arts of reading, writing, and computation, and hence schools were developed for this work. Under con- ditions where some language other than the vernacular was the medium of communication — orally or in writing — for the learned or professional classes, special schools for the classic language and its literature flourished. The evo- lution of the printing arts extended the fields of the general education which all were supposed to have to include at least some geography, history, and, later, science. The nineteenth century brought compulsory education in nearly all civilized countries, and the minimum education thus en- forced has been measured chiefly in terms of ability to read, to write the vernacular, and to perform ordinary arithmetical computations.

Thus were laid the foundations of what we call " gen- eral " education — the education which is believed to be necessary or valuable for all, irrespective of the particular vocations which they are to follow. We must not, how- ever, suppose that general education has not had and does not now possess significance as affecting vocational com-

71

7* Vocational Education

petency. At all times parents, and more especially the poorer and less literate, have regarded the acquisition of the arts of reading and writing and particularly computa- tion, as being of the greatest importance in equipping their children for the economic struggles later to be undertaken. At sundry periods the secondary school has been supported chiefly as a means of preparing selected students for pro- fessional apprenticeship or schooling. Even to-day the business house which advertises for a young helper, " high school graduate preferred," causes parents to believe that in some magical way, high school education in itself and apart from its selective effects (which is in reality the result of chief importance to the employer), lays important foundations for specific vocational success. It is even widely believed that the student who, prior to his course in a college of medicine, law, or engineering, completes a lib- eral arts course in a college of general education, is thereby assured of greater ultimate success in his vocation.

Does General Education Function in Vocational Compe- tency?— We have, at present, no satisfactory means of determining how far and under what conditions all that schooling which by common consent we now call general education, actually functions in vocational competency in particular fields. It is clear, of course, that a person who had never learned to read, could not, however talented, suc- ceed under present conditions in the practice of law. A bookkeeper ignorant of the multiplication table, or an engineer unable to solve a quadratic equation is unthink- able. But, taking the content of general education as now ordinarily accepted, we very early reach the point where it is impossible to do more than guess (or, easier still, to fall back on our entrenchments of tradition and prepossession) as to the connections, if any, between general studies and capacity for particular vocational achievement. A thou- sand hours spent on the study of Latin may be the best

The Relation of General to Vocational Education 73

possible investment of that amount of time for a youth destined to become a Methodist preacher ; but the claim may be disputed with considerable probability of success. The agricultural college which requires its future graduates to have given at least six or eight hundred hours to the study of French and German in secondary school or college, may be imposing a very questionable requirement when consid- ered from the standpoint of the probable professional suc- cess of the technical expert in agriculture. There are those who would require youths seeking to equip themselves to be gardeners or live-stock husbandmen to take courses in general physics and chemistry; but it is doubtful whether they have ever studied the actual significance, in the voca- tions named, of either study. In most public commercial schools, prospective stenographers are required to study bookkeeping as a vocational subject, even in large cities; but no available evidence proves that a stenographer in a large city is in general expected or desired to have this extra string to her bow.

Necessary Distinctions. — For the sake of clear thinking, it is highly desirable that we should designate and appraise as vocational studies and forms of training, only those dis- tinctive educational procedures, the results of which can be demonstrated in some one of the vocations recognized and more or less standardized in the world of practical affairs. On the other hand, we should include within the category of general education, all those other customary or proposed school activities which are believed to possess value as con- tributing to forms of physical, moral, civic, and cultural well-being as these may be considered and valued largely apart from vocational competency. A straight back and well developed arm muscles are, indeed, of importance in many vocations ; but they are, for even greater numbers, of importance in living effectively apart from vocation. Hence educational steps taken to insure their development are to

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be classed properly as general education. The ability to read is useful in many callings and indispensable in some; but its importance for the various activities lying outside the sphere of specialized vocation — domestic, religious, civic, cultural — is so much greater, that the educator wisely insists on regarding all but some highly specialized forms of silent or oral reading — for proof readers, preach- ers, and, let us hope, teachers — as belonging to the field of general education. There may be some justification for holding that a moderate knowledge of algebra, physics, and chemistry is at least an important if not a necessary element in the instruction of those who are to constitute our " bet- ter educated classes "; but if requirements in these subjects are imposed in the name of vocational education, let us cer- tainly ascertain in what vocations such knowledge or other power functions, and under what conditions affecting or- ganization of subject matter and methods <?f instruction.

The need of clear thinking in these matters (as well as clear terminologies and documented analyses) is, for two reasons, especially urgent in the present educational era. First, the movement for the development of schools for vocational education has assumed large proportions and commands new forms of public support. Secondly, the ac- tual educational values in general or liberal education of many of the traditional studies is being seriously questioned, especially by those who are applying in some degree the methods of scientific investigation in their inquiries, as a consequence of which the defenders of these studies hasten to put forth large claims as to their vocational relevancy or importance. French and German are widely urged and frequently required in the agricultural and engineering col- leges of America on the grounds of what is probably largely an artificially fostered tradition, namely, that for a substan- tial proportion of the specialists trained in these institu- tions some proficiency in these languages is a distinct voca-

The Relation of General to Vocational Education 75

tional asset. The extent to which algebra is required in commercial schools is one of the curiosities in this well- supported division of alleged vocational education. When- ever the content of the curriculum of an industrial school is under discussion, the well meaning advocates of English language, literature, civics, hygiene, American history, and various sciences appear and urge in language very general and deficient in concrete instance the vocational significance of their favorite forms of learning. A not uncommon outcome of this pressure is that a school designed by its founders to be an effective vocational school for some occupation or group of occupations, and generously sup- ported by the public in that expectation, becomes in fact simply a new and often less effective form of " general " school, and its curriculums more or less meaningless mix- tures of various general and so-called practical subjects. This was conspicuously the case with agricultural colleges in their earlier years, and the weakness has by no means been completely remedied. To a very large extent, it has been true of public commercial schools, endowed and public "technical" schools (of secondary grade), agricul- tural schools, and even industrial and domestic science schools. The crying evil of this situation is, of course, to be found in the wholesale misdirection of energy which i entails. These hybrid schools do not usually give a fair, or in any sense acceptable vocational education; they seri- ously misguide the pupil as regards a possible career and his qualifications therefor; and often they make no really worthy contributions towards the true and desirable ends of liberal or general education. /

II

Vagueness of Objectives of General Education. — A large part of the confusion resulting from the efforts of well

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meaning citizens and educators in promoting these ill- defined and misdirected forms of education can be ascribed to the fact that educators and social economists have not as yet formulated either qualitatively or, far less, quan- titatively, the specific objectives and standards of desirable or feasible achievement in those fields of education which we vaguely call "liberal," "cultural," "general," or "in- tellectual." Historically it has been natural for the schools to accept at their face value appraisements of the educa- tional values of studies made by social organizations and classes supposedly representing " society " in general. Whether the fees of parents, the gifts of philanthropists, or public taxation supported schools in which children were taught the alphabet as a means of reading the Bible, or other schools in which Latin was taught as foundational to the calling of minister or magistrate, it was not the respon- sibility of the school to question the wisdom of its creators. If many parents, whether wisely or mistakenly, insisted that their children have opportunity, or be required, to study drawing or Latin or Spanish or cube root, it was only human that moderately prepared, incurious, harried teachers and principals should say, " We will try to give the people what they think they want." This has been, commonly, the historic attitude of such purveyors to his majesty, the public, as druggists, editors, play-managers, clothiers, fiction writers, and, at times, even physicians, judges, and theologians.

Furthermore, the enormous difficulties involved in trac- ing and evaluating the actual results to the individual and to society, of many specific studies have always constituted and still constitute a serious barrier to the making of workable distinctions between those outcomes of education which possess significance chiefly in connection with voca- tional achievement and those others which give qualities of personal culture, general intelligence, civic and mora]

The Relation of General to Vocational Education 77

behavior, and physical well-being. We can, for example, teach children to " draw " ; but the probable effects of such bits of skill or appreciation as they may acquire in the process on their subsequent powers, as adults, to execute drawings in their vocations or to exhibit taste and dis- crimination in their use of products embodying plastic and graphic art are wholly problematical. In our elementary and secondary schools, we devote no inconsiderable attention to the teaching of history, American and general; but the final social functioning of the knowledge of details and generalizations and of the sympathetic ideals and attitudes thus produced is as yet a most uncertain matter.

In fact, as regards the actual or relative values of the studies and other activities entering into so-called gen- eral education from the kindergarten through the col- lege, we have knowledge (as distinguished from belief or faith) as to almost none, outside the very limited areas of the simple school arts of reading, spelling, writing, computation, and a very meager amount of geog- raphy and hygiene. For the rest — the kindergarten exercises, nature study, music, drawing, literature, his- tory, calisthenics, civics, advanced arithmetic, foreign languages, and the various sciences — we still trust largely to faith, our consciences eased in a degree by the growing vogue of freedom of " election." This means that\ we do not yet possess standards of so evaluating these edu- \ cational means in terms of things of (relatively) final or ) ultimate human worth that we can, on the basis of these calculations, modify, direct, control, and test the results to education of particular means and methods employed. For example, the general conviction that it is good for children of say twelve years of age, to study music gives us no satisfactory guidance as to the kinds and character of music they should study or the most effective means to be employed in its study. What are expected to be the

78 Vocational Education

actual outcomes in human " values " of the study respec- tively of secondary school algebra, physics, English liter- ature? It can hardly be contended that we have so defined and stated these presumptive " outcomes " that we can measure against them the success attending our efforts in teaching them (the definite character of the purely fac- titious and intermediate "ends" of "college admission" tests being, of course, conceded).

The marked progress which has been made in recent years in defining the theory of vocational education has brought into relief the inadequacy of our interpretations of the desirable functioning of non-vocational forms of edu- cation. The multiplication of studies now urged for recog- nition in schemes of general elementary, secondary, and college education forces individuals and institutions con- stantly to make choices, but the criteria or standards for such choices, either in sound sociology or sound psychology, are shadowy in the extreme. Unquestionably the progress of knowledge of the social sciences should soon give us more substantial theories as to the valid aims of general education than we now find stated in educational literature.

Fundamental Distinctions There is here submitted,

tentatively and in somewhat hypothetical form, an inter- pretation of the respective functions of vocational and gen- eral education which, in the experience of the writer, can be of substantial service in the interests of clear thinking and definite practice. It is based upon the fact, easily grasped, that every competent adult, because of his mem- bership in human society, stands towards the worlds of nature and art in a two-fold relationship. He is, on the one hand, a producer of valuable service (or goods, the concrete embodiments of such service), which service and goods he exchanges almost wholly with countless others for the services and goods which they produce and he wants; and, on the other hand, he stands as a recipient, a

The Relation of General to Vocational Education 79

utilizer, a consumer of the services and goods which he thus obtains in exchange.

It is clear that each competent adult is a producer of service during what we call his " working " or " business " hours. Biblical lore ascribes to Adam responsibility for making it necessary that each should labor in the sweat of his brow; but the student of social science finds ample explanation* of man's commitment to industry in the com- petitive struggle, first for existence, and later for advanced standards of comfort — that is, of living satisfactorily. Hence, in very primitive society, men produce as hunters, fighters (for the defender or plunderer renders his group service in this way no less than the hunter), craftsmen, and the like. Later, these occupations are subdivided and added to almost endlessly until we find men and women, even in small civilized communities, who respectively render their service along such specialized lines as tilling the soil, teach- ing, building houses, repairing teeth, transporting passen- gers, publishing newspapers, distributing food, keeping roads in repair, preaching salvation, and healing the sick. But modern commerce also enables men to dispose of the products of their service at a great distance. To this same community are brought the products of the coffee-grower in Brazil, the silk grower in China, the pottery maker in England, the fur hunter in Canada, the engraver in Paris, the writer of poetry in England, and the gold-digger of Australia; indeed, by means of social and mechanical de- vices, we are able to extend the use of a man's products to generations whom he will never see. The American vil- lage is the very real possible recipient of the services ren- dered to the world by Homer, Watt, Beethoven, Pasteur, Columbus, Arkwright, Darwin, and countless others, some still recalled by name, and others whose identity has long been lost.

Now, while the science of economics has long differen-

80 Vocational Education

tinted between the functions of production and consump- tion, the implications of the distinction for education have not been analyzed. But once we perceive that the control- ling purpose of any particular form of vocational educa- tion is, directly and economically, to enhance the service- producing powers of the individual, it then becomes helpful to define the ends of a large portion of what we call gen- eral education in terms of man's- capacity as a consumer, or, if that word connotes material things unduly, as a utilizer, of the services and products of Service, rendered to him by others in exchange for the products of his service.

General By-Education. — But at this point in the discus- sion of education for utilization, we are in danger of being misled if we fail to distinguish between the by-education of home, church, press, stage, and other non-school educa- tional agencies on the one hand, and the direct education of the school on the other. A child learns to care for wheaten bread as an article of diet through the by-education of the home. The better home establishes ^the hygienic ideal and practice of eating at stated intervals — meal times; while the poor home has not yet reached this standard in its by-education. Many persons learn, not through a school but from the by-effects of general association with their fellows, to care for good music, ,or good fiction ; some thus learn eventually to care for poetry, paintings, essays, and the writings of scientists. On the other hand, it has been widely assumed in recent years that to insure a fairly sound development of taste for good reading requires the aid of the direct education possible only in schools.

In other words, when we speak of education, for utiliza- tion we must keep in mind that there, are many agencies offering by-education to this end, and thatjhe educational functions of the school are in reality residual — that is, the school, maintained at large expense, is expected to devote its efforts to meeting those important requirements of so-

The Relation of General to Vocational Education Si

ciety for which the various agencies of by-education are inadequate. Hence we do not commonly use the schools to teach better standards of utilization as regards moving pictures, contemporary fiction, popular music, transporta- tion, decorative clothing, sociability organizations, attrac- tive foods, emotional religion, newspapers, and the like. But to an increasing extent we are employing the direct education of schools to establish right standards of utiliza- tion of literature that is not contemporaneous or at any rate "popular"; of the higher grades of music and drama; of more hygienic and refined decorative clothing; of more hygienic and sanitary ways of living; of the "art" which is believed to count in life; of the devoted work of those altruists who are willing to give far more of service than will be given to them in return; and of all that stored knowledge and ideal which makes for " life more abun- dantly."

The trend of civilization has long been clearly in the direction of narrowing and intensifying the field wherein any one person could be expected to render competent service, i.e. specialization of function; and on the other hand it has tended steadily towards the widening of his field of possible utilization as expressed in his standards of liv- ing, culture, and social participation. We speak of the former as economic specialization. It presses upon every- one to find and to follow assiduously a special line of pro- ductive work. The second tendency is the composite out- growth of democracy, diffusion of knowledge, diversified consumption, rising standards of taste. Its final product is the " civilized " man.

What Gives Liberal Education? — Much confusion has prevailed in recent years among those who have tried to define and value liberal education as that is offered in school and college. It has not proved difficult to provide explana- tions in very vague and general language as to why the

82 Vocational Education

various branches of general learning should be made avail- able to all young people and even urged upon them. It has been held that everyone has a right to share in the " social inheritance " — that accumulation of knowledge, ideal, custom, and taste which the generations have rolled up with ever-increasing rapidity. We have been told in figure that the human spirit is an imprisoned thing looking forth from certain " windows of the soul," and that it is the responsibility of man in his collective capacity to insure the entry into the soul through these windows of the fullest possible abundance of light. Again, it has been held by educational philosophers that the chief aim of general edu- cation in schools should be, not the acquisition of any specified quantum of knowledge in itself, but rather the mastery of those tools of intellect which would insure the individual the powers, after leaving school, of acquiring for himself, from one or many of the fields of human knowledge, such personal possessions as he might desire. A modified form of this theory is found in the belief that the chief function of the more advanced forms of general education is to be found in-" mind training " — in which the mind is conceived as possessing points of analogy to the body which, in gymnasium and on athletic field, can be made strong, pliant, and enduring against all the needs that may later befall.

But it is not apparent that these philosophical specula- tions as to the desirable ends of general education have given us the means wherewith to ascertain the comparative validity of the various specific ends among which choices must constantly be made, nor have they served to indicate by what methods these respective ends could be met. It is not apparent, for example, that the various theories thus far promulgated as to the desirable or feasible purposes of general education have aided us in determining whether Greek should or should not be required or urged as a factor

The Relation of General to Vocational Education 83

in secondary or collegiate (liberal arts) education. We have obtained from these sources no useful criteria whereby, for purposes of liberal education, we could comparatively evaluate the study of the modern languages as against that of classic languages; of classical English literature against modern English literature; or of mathematics and the sci- ences against the so-called " humanities."

Worse still, from the standpoint of educational efficiency, we have obtained little or no assistance in determining what constitutes, or should constitute for any commonly accepted division of knowledge or training, optimum quantities or areas. What shall we accept, in chemistry, for example, as a desirable and practicable amount of knowledge or other mastery to be required or encouraged? What posi- tion and what scope shall we give in secondary school and college to music? art? ancient history? oriental languages? translations or classic literatures ? contemporary events, his- tory in the making? We are still wanting a theory of the purposes of general education sufficiently definite and serv- iceable to enable us to procure, on the basis of it, answers to questions like these.

The theory set forth above — namely, that general educa- tion should be interpreted chiefly from the standpoint of the needs of man as a utilizer rather than as a producer — needs, of course, extended analysis at numerous points. Certain of the earlier disciplines of the elementary schools — notably reading, writing, and numbers — commonly func- tion visibly among the efficiencies of man, both as a pro- ducer and as a utilizer. But the primary justification for their inclusion in programs of general education is, of course, their fundamental importance to good utilization.

Again it is apparent that one indispensable element in sound vocational education is trained power of utilization of those materials which serve in production. The expert mechanic must make use of some phases of mathematics,

84 Vocational Education

drawing, mechanics, and other so-called technical studies. He requires certain definable powers of discrimination and evaluation in choosing his tools, materials, and other work- ing conditions. He can usually employ to advantage any and all knowledge he may possess as to accounting, laws affecting contracts, prevailing market conditions of mate- rials and labor, recent labor-saving inventions, etc. In these special fields, then, he must be an effective utilizer. But, for most vocations, these fields occupy but a small area in contrast with the non-vocational fields of utilization with which he should be concerned. Training a person towards sound utilization within his expected vocational field is, of course, a necessary and feasible part of vocational education. Much of the education required for this pur- pose— the accumulation of wide technical knowledge, the fixing of right standards of taste and discrimination, the building up of ideals — will in reality accrue as by-education accompanying the development of skill in, and concrete ex- perience with, productive work.

Education for Utilization. — A more fundamental ques- tion left, thus far, unanswered, requires an interpretation of what we mean by " education for utilization." We have already seen that the by-education of home, street, and other private agencies accomplishes much in preparing youth to be utilizers. What is or should be the actual residual function of school and college?

We note, in the first place, that utilization, like produc- tion, has its social, no less than its more easily perceived individual, conditions and consequences. Low standards of utilization in art, music, fiction, decorative apparel, bev- erages, travel, and companionship may, conceivably, not harm a particular individual or make of him less of a man than he might otherwise be; but the contagion of his ex- ample may be capable of working a social injury. Again, it is a well-known axiom of the commercial world that

The Relation of General to Vocational Education 85

demand greatly affects, when it does not completely deter- mine, supply. Every additional buyer of mendacious news- papers strengthens their position and correspondingly weak- ens that of the more reputable press. The undiscriminat- ing buyer of packed foods places a persistent premium on adulteration, misbranding, and unstandardized production. The man who is complacently indifferent to the world's accumulation of scientific knowledge is making it harder to add to that knowledge in the future. The woman who seeks, in the purchase of clothing, only her personal satis- factions, may be placing a large premium upon goods pro- duced and sold under bad conditions. She thus handicaps all efforts to raise standards of production and exchange. The man who takes no pains to choose between competent and incompetent medical service is giving to quackery a large advantage in the competitive struggle which always goes on between scientific and pseudo-scientific medicine. The voter who is satisfied if the employee — congressman, sheriff, waterworks engineer, teacher, policeman — whom he, in common with his fellow voters, elects for the per- formance of important public tasks, is merely a " good fellow," an approved member of the " gang," is, by his own complacency and low standards heavily handicapping the public service and deferring indefinitely the day of cleaner politics.

In all departments of human utilization, — religion, sci- ence, history, literature, dress, foods, exercise, housing, companionship, places of residence, expert service, lan- guage, politics, and the like, — incessant competition pre- vails between high and low standards, whether these be viewed from the standpoint of the immediate apparent wel- fare of the individual or from that of the larger well-being in which the society of which the individual is a member has interests no less than himself. The gradual develop- ment of direct education through schools as a means of

86 Vocational Education

insuring higher and more social standards of utilization is clearly in accordance with sound social economy. Hence, the fatuity of the assertions, sometimes made even by edu- cators, that we need less of so-called liberal education and more of vocational education (" in schools," being meant in each instance). As standards of living improve, as man emerges into a true civilization, we shall ever need more extensive and better organized liberal education. Equally, however, we shall need in increasing amounts and varieties, vocational education in proper season for many if not for all those prospective producers whose equipment for voca- tional activities cannot readily be procured through the by- education of home, shop, office, or farm.

Much of the present prevailing confusion in educational thinking is unquestionably due to our failure adequately to distinguish between cultural and vocational aims. Practical men are still accustomed to look for the fruits of general secondary or college education in the forms of vocational competency. Does a college education pay? Business men and educators debate this question, naively assuming that a primary purpose in a liberal arts college course should be an equipment wherewith to earn a living. The obvious reply, of course, should be that it is no purpose of a college course to equip a man to earn a living, hence it is unwar- rantable to try to gauge the success of a college education in these terms. If evidence were available, it would un- doubtedly show that college men in general " succeed," in the economic sense of that term, to a greater extent than non-college men, just as high school graduates doubtless succeed better than their fellows who have not entered, or, having entered, have not completed, a high school course. But to assume that such success is in consider- able degree to be attributed to their direct education ob- tained in these institutions is to indulge in rankest form in that species of fallacious reasoning denoted by

The Relation of General to Vocational Education 87

the phrase "post hoc, ergo propter hoc!' It is patent to any observer, of course, that in the statistical sense, only the biologically, psychologically, and sociologically best of our people — best, that is, as respects native abilities, results of early environment, effects of the by-education of home, street, church, etc. — enter the high school; of these only a still more select superior class graduate; and of these in turn, only the few of most promise (on the whole) graduate from college. Generally speaking, success is the destined lot of these superior persons, quite regardless of the kind of general education they have received.

Illusions of Mental Discipline. — As a matter of fact, much existing confusion regarding the possible functioning of general education derives also from the insecure educa- tional foundations long ago laid in the quicksands of the so-called " faculty psychology." The will-o'-the-wisp of mental discipline has allured into the bogs of educational mysticism at one time or another nearly all educators. The delusion originates somewhat as follows : a given subject of study or training (a favorite with the proponent, of course), — e.g. Latin, algebra, mechanical drawing, joinery, stenography, physics, hygiene, music, Browning, eugenics, — requires for its effective mastery close application, organ- ized effort, and vigorous and sustained use of the " mental powers " — the memory, observation, concentration, logical reasoning, imagination, appreciation of scientific method, etc., etc., of the older psychologists. This favorite subject in fact appears to require the exercise and development of these powers almost more than any other subject known to the proponent; hence, altogether apart from its value as contributing to the building of useful or interesting knowl- edge, tastes, skill, and ideals, it seems to him to be an unequaled subject for the discipline of the mind. But the disciplined mind is fundamental to all forms of success in

88 Vocational Education

life, — cultural, vocational, civic. Hence, even if its " con- tent " value is insignificant, the aforesaid favorite subject should be given prominent place, should even be required of all students because of its virtues as a mental gymnastic. The " trained mind " of course, functions no less certainly in business and other practical affairs than in the less materialistic commitments entailed by membership in civi- lized society. Hence the persistence of fallacies as to the bearings of the disciplinary studies of school and college on " practical," i.e. vocational activities.

It is only when we come to inquire in all seriousness whether " mental training," " mental discipline," the " trained mind " and other phrasings of the same concep- tion, denote realities with which educational processes as now organized can deal that we are confronted by the utterly factitious character of much of the so-called think- ing which has heretofore prevailed in this field. It is only when we find that the world recognizes under each of the vague generic concepts, expressed by such phrases as " rea- soning power," " memory." " observation," " imagination," " scientific method," " enthusiasm," " analysis," a whole host of possible highly specialized powers, some useful, some ornamental, some useless, but in many cases quite unrelated to each other, that we begin to get our feet on to the solid grounds of reality. We then find that there is a large variety of specific mental powers and other acqui- sitions which can be acquired through the customary pro- cesses of general education and which have an important place in personal culture or civic capacity (two useful sub- divisions of liberal education or, as here interpreted, education for utilization), but which have no discernible relation to vocational competency. Vice versa, it is pos- sible to enumerate in the constitution of any individual adult, a large variety of special mental attributes of the utmost importance in vocational competency, but which

The Relation of General to Vocational Education 89

are only remotely related to personal culture or civic capacity. Close analytical thinking in the directions here indicated will do much to dispel some of the fogs of illu- sion which have darkened the way of progressive measures toward a truly modern liberal education and which have equally retarded in a score of ways the evolution of systems of effective vocational education.

The " Vestibule " Conception. — Men and women whose experiences and prepossessions relative to " education " have been developed almost exclusively in connection with " academic " or " general " education are prone to think of vocational schools as extensions upward from schools of general elementary, secondary or collegiate education. For practical purposes such a conception is much less useful and is more misleading than that which regards any particular type of vocational school as an extension downward from, or as a vestibuled approach to, a specified vocation itself.

Many vocations require such maturity on the part of their entrants that no direct connection can be established, between the school of general education and the vocational school. For example, men do not usually become locomo- tive engineers, policemen, sailors, traveling salesmen, street car conductors, farmers or school principals on, or soon after, leaving schools in which they have received their general education. On the other hand, custom, at least, has established that lawyers, physicians and teachers can and should begin their vocational education immediately at the close of their respective periods of liberal education. A very large proportion of operative positions in factories are open only to mature workers, although in many cases presupposing no " promotional " approach through stages of work suited to younger hands.

Of similar nature is the vocation of homemaker. As shown elsewhere in some detail, American women are rarely ready to enter a genuine vocational school of homemaking

QO Vocational Education

at the close of (a) the elementary school period for the least able and prosperous, or (b) at sixteen for the slightly more able and prosperous, or (c) at eighteen or twenty-two for the economically superior classes. For the large ma- jority of urban girls at least, several years will usually elapse between the close of general schooling and entry upon " full responsibility " homemaking.

In all these cases, it is obviously more practicable and serviceable, in planning for vocational education, to think first of the vocation itself — its scope, the usual age of entry upon it, its requirements of age, physical strength and other qualities to be obtained by selection — and from this point of vantage to decide upon the place and character of a suitable vocational school.

Under these conditions, liberal or general schooling will long antedate vocational schooling. In fact it is probable that, given an abundant supply of facilities for vocational education, the life history of many workers will be as follows: Stage I (age 6-14), full time general education. Stage II (age 14-16), full time general education. Stage III (age 16), one third year to full time vocational education for juvenile specialty, with " extension " general education in evening. Stage IV (age 16-19), juvenile full time employ- ment, cultural education in evening. Stage V (age 19-20), one third or one half year of full time training for " man- hood " specialty or " upgrading " work. Stage VI, wage- earning employment, with evening and other extension improvement or upgrading courses. Of course the youth should be urged (eventually required) to remain in school of general education as long as it is clearly profitable (to society or to himself) to do so.

Can There be "General Vocational" Education? — Many educators are seeking the philosopher's stone in vocational education — the one precious means that, reversing the alchemist's dreamed-of process, will transmute ordinary

The Relation of General to Vocational Education 91

school instruction and training into any one of hundreds of special forms of vocational competency. At least they hope to find one panacea to produce " agricultural " com- petency; another to produce "industrial" power; and a third to provide education for " business life." These edu- cators have to serve the " small community " ; they perceive easily enough that local youths growing up in the vicinity will want to disperse into scores of vocations, for each of which it is utterly futile to provide special vocational schools locally.

Hence one quest is for subjects of study common to many vocations. Why not teach " shop mathematics," " busi- ness English," "agricultural science"? Another is for a composite course to prepare young men to be " all round " or general mechanics as these are supposed to be needed in rural and village communities.

The probability seems strong that very little hope exists for " general vocational " education of any sort. There are several reasons for this. First and most important is the fact that in proportion as we seek common elements or factors in vocational competency we move rapidly towards the abstract and general. For example, tailoring, sheet metal work, and carpentry, each requires special mathe- matics; but to teach a common shop mathematics for these three trades we must either teach the special mathematics of three different trades to people who will require only that of one, or else teach a mathematics that will differ little from general mathematics and will prove just as remote from real life and difficult for the average student to apply. Doubt- less there are common elements in the special sciences that underlie machine shop practice, printing, and electrical work; but these common elements are too abstract and elusive for the average " thing minded " learner. Doubt- less, too, the logical thinker among educators can discover many common elements in the mechanical drawing re-

02 Vocational Education

quired respectively by plumbers, automobile repair men and plasterers; but the practical worker usually turns in disgust from all attempts to teach such " general drawing." Prac- tically it cannot be made to function for him.

In the second place, it is not in evidence yet that the future has a place for the jack-of-all-trades, even in rural communities. The repair of rural pumps, harvesters and telephone lines is usually given to specialists who come from central points. Where disabled machinery cannot be repaired by replacing a part it is likely that the whole will be sent to a central repair station, as is the case now with clocks, shoes and automobiles. Easy transportation, par- cel post, interchangeable parts, peripatetic crews of fence builders, well diggers, silo builders, house painters — these modern developments render it less likely than ever that we shall find a place waiting for the future " ready " mechanic in rural and village districts. The entire subject, however, demands further study.

Ill

The Commission on the Reorganization of Secondary Education (of the National Education Association) pub- lished its " Cardinal Principles " in 1918 (Bulletin 35, 1918, U. S. Bureau of Education). The commission holds that seven " main objectives " should determine all secondary school curricula — health, command of fundamental pro- cesses, worthy home-membership, vocation, citizenship, worthy use of leisure, and ethical character.

In general, the commission holds that general and voca- tional education should be carried on side by side in sec- ondary schools. In fact it recommends that the senior high school have its courses differentiated primarily on a voca- tional basis. The following quotations give the essentials of the commission's findings.

" The tradition that a particular type of education, and

The Relation of General to Vocational Education 93

that exclusively non-vocational in character, is the only acceptable preparation for advanced education, either lib- eral or vocational, must therefore give way to a scientific evaluation of all types of secondary education as prepara- tion for continued study. The broader conception need not involve any curtailment of opportunities for those who early manifest academic interest to pursue the work adapted to their needs. It does, however, mean that pupils who, during the secondary period devote a considerable time to courses having vocational content should be permitted to pursue whatever form of higher education, either liberal or vocational, they are able to undertake with profit to themselves and to society." . . .

' The work of the senior high school should be organ- ized into differentiated curriculums. The range of such curriculums should be as wide as the school can offer effectively. The basis of differentiation should be, in the broad sense of the term, vocational, thus justifying the names commonly given, such as agricultural, business, cler- ical, industrial, fine arts, and household arts curriculums. Provision should be made also for those having distinc- tively academic interests and needs. The conclusion that the work of the senior high school should be organized on the basis of curriculums does not imply that every study should be different in the various curriculums. Nor does it imply that every study should be determined by the dominant element of that curriculum. Indeed any such practice would ignore other objectives of education just as important as that of vocational efficiency." . . .

' The comprehensive (sometimes called composite or cos- mopolitan) high school, embracing all curriculums in one unified organization, should remain the standard type of secondary school in the United States." . . .

" When effectively organized and administered (see pp. 27-29) the comprehensive high school can make differen-

94

Vocational Education

tiated education of greater value to the individual and to society, for such value depends largely upon the extent to which the individual pursues the curriculum best suited to his needs. This factor is of prime importance, although frequently ignored in discussions regarding the effective- ness of vocational and other types of differentiated edu- cation." . . .

What is Genuine Vocational Education? — In the estima- tion of the present writer1 the report of the commission almost completely misses the significance of the contem- porary movement for the extension of vocational educa- tion in schools. The apparent failure of the commission to take account of available sociological and especially eco- nomic guidance in this field of education is almost disas- trous because it warps their underlying principles at almost every point. To an educator who has tried to comprehend the sociological and psychological significance of the cur- rent demands for better vocational education, the entire philosophy of the report seems almost hopelessly academic in the unfavorable sense as it relates to vocational educa- tion. (The writer is not aware that any one of the mem- bers-at-large of the reviewing committee has at all identified himself with recent movements for vocational education; and he wonders how closely the three chairmen of the vocational committees scrutinized the " cardinal princi- ples " before approving them. )

It is difficult to believe that the committee gave close consideration either to the history of the evolution of school vocational education as thus far developed, or to the stand- ards and conditions affecting the more than two thousand vocations now followed by juvenile and adult workers in the United States.

1 The material of this section first appeared as an article. The somewhat controversial form has been retained as a matter of conven- ience,

The Relation of General to Vocational Education 95

It will generally be conceded that effective vocational education through schools (that is, instruction and train- ing sufficient to guarantee successful practice of the voca- tion under commercial conditions without subsequent period of apprenticeship) is now found only for such voca- tions as those of the physician, dentist, pharmacist, veter- inary surgeon, mining engineer, surveyor, nurse, elementary school teacher, stenographer, naval ensign and army lieu- tenant. School training for these vocations now proceeds in accordance with determinate standards. In most cases definite goals of attainment are set. The instruction and training are basic, not merely extension. Conditions and standards of practical achievement, no less than related technical and social studies, have been established as part of the educational process.

Now it seems to have escaped the attention of the com- mittee that the modern movement for vocational education rests essentially on social needs and demands that schools shall be provided wherein young men and women may be trained for several hundred different vocations no less effectively than are persons trained for the dozen enumer- ated above. From the psychological point of view there is not the slightest reason why suitably qualified persons should not, through special schools, be trained effectively for such vocations as tailoring, jewelry salesmanship, poul- try farming, coal cutting, stationary engine firing, waiting on table (hotel), cutting (in shoe factory), automobile re- pair, teaching of French in secondary school, mule spinning, power machine operating ( for ready made clothing) , raisin grape growing, general farming suited to Minnesota, lino- type composition, railway telegraphy, autogenous welding, street car motor driving, and a hundred others.

And from the sociological point of view, taking account sometimes of the needs of society (the end that prompts the establishment at public or philanthropic expense of nor-

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mal schools, military academies, and nurses' training schools) or of the needs of the individual who must be helped to acquire competency to practice a vocation for self-support (the end that prompts the support, often on a purely commercial basis, of schools for stenography, law, mining engineering, and automobile driving) there may be exactly as good, if not better, reasons for the provision of vocational schools for these heretofore unsupplied fields as for those for which vocational schools were earlier de- veloped.

Unreal Vocational Education. — It is possible that the committee has been confused by the numberless attempts in recent years to realize some of the supposed ends of vocational education through courses giving information about vocations or through courses supposed to provide for the inferred needs on the part of workers for technical knowledge anticipatory to practical participation in the pro- ductive work of the calling itself. The hundreds of pro- grams of vocational extension education now provided in evening and other schools, especially for the agricultural and handicraft callings, are of course worthy of the highest approval ; but these have nothing in common with the hun- dreds of other attempts made in recent years to teach from books, supplemented by a little laboratory illustration, the principles of farming, electricity, shop mathematics, me- chanical drawing, commercial law, home economics, book- keeping, woodworking, counter salesmanship, printing, and dressmaking to young persons long before these learners have actually entered upon the initial practice of their call- ings and often before they have consciously differentiated callings which they really expect to follow. The number- less attempts of school men, pressed by public demands for vocational education in the interests either of individ- ual youth or the productive needs of the community, to offer the foregoing substitutes for genuine vocational education

The Relation of General to Vocational Education 97

have done much to prejudice all bo na fide proposals for vocational education under the auspices of the established public school authorities.

The educational philosophy of the committee leads to the remarkable proposal that the basis for the differentia- tion of the curricula of the senior high school should be vocational — " In the broad sense of the term " — " thus justifying the names commonly given such as agricultural, business, clerical, industrial, fine arts, and household arts curriculums." But " provision should be made also for those having distinctively academic interests and needs."

-Once, indeed, in the report, we find a statement of the purpose of vocational education that can be approved. !< Vocational education should equip the individual to secure a livelihood for himself and those dependent on him, etc." But within twenty lines we find "the extent to which the (sic) secondary school should offer training for specific vocation depends upon the vocation, the facilities that the (sic) school can acquire, and the opportunity that the pupil may have to obtain such training later." Is this to be interpreted as meaning that the committee would ban all public school vocational education that could not con- veniently be brought within its " comprehensive high school " ? No one doubts, for example, that if the methods of apprenticeship should one day be found manifestly unsat- isfactory as means of training men to be locomotive engi- neers, it would be entirely practicable to establish in the United States a half dozen schools that would do that work no less effectively than schools for dentists or schools for nurses now do their work. Is there any question as to whether such schools could obtain needed facilities ? A few score miles of track, a hundred locomotives, a couple of repair shops, a half dozen class rooms, and working part- time arrangements with a few neighboring railroads — these would be sufficient. Such schools could apply enter-

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ing tests, could base technical knowledge on practice, could easily impart social and health insight and standards, and could graduate locomotive drivers tested and certificated no less than are now ensigns and pharmacists.

But if we tried to teach this calling in a comprehensive high school it would, of course, be difficult to provide all facilities. We could restrict admission to those over 20 years of age; we could perhaps get a second-hand locomo- tive and 30 feet of track into a basement room; and of course we could also provide a nice library and some elab- orate drawings. But with all that would not the practical man say we were playing at the job instead of working at it ? The committee does say that only men should teach in a given field who are skilled in productive work in that field ; and that " the actual conditions of the vocation should be utilized either within the high school or in cooperation with the home, farm, shop or office." But all of this is still very indeterminate until it has been analyzed in terms of at least a few hundred of the typical vocations which men and women now follow. The committee should in any future elaboration of its cardinal principles procure the cooperation of a few persons who can apply sociological methods to the determination of the specific aims, place, content, and methods of several hundred types of vocational education. As a matter of fact these methods are now much more readily applicable to the discovery and for- mulation of programs of vocational education than to the specific objectives to be provided under any of the other main objectives set forth by the committee.

The Vocational Survey. --The method would be applied somewhat as follows : A vocational survey of a given com- munity shows that there are represented among others the following vocations (the workers being between twenty and fifty years of age and therefore past the usual stages of apprenticeship) : 100 women stenographers of whom 20

The Relation of General to Vocational Education 99

can be rated good on a scale of " excellent," " good," " fair," " poor" (standards being found partly in earning power and partly in general proficiency independent of immediate earning power) ; 20 dentists, 10 good; 200 grocers' clerks, 60 good; 40 handicraft tailors^ 15 good; 500 homemakers on budgets of $800-$ 1,200 per year (average four children, living in detached house), 260 good; 30 journeymen bar- bers, 20 good; 10 trained nurses, 8 good; 40 hotel wait- resses, 10 good; 100 factory specialists in furniture making, 20 good; 200 factory specialists on ready made children's clothing, 60 good; 20 market gardeners (owners and " full responsibility " tenants), 3 good; 20 elevator girls (18-25), 5 good; 50 normal school trained elementary teachers, 28 good; 5 high school teachers of history, 2 good; etc.

With regard to each of these various vocations educa- tional sociology at once proceeds to ask: (a) Have the methods of vocational education (mostly non-school, of course) by which all the foregoing workers (the excellent, the good, the fair, and the poor) reached their present pro- ficiency been quantitatively sufficient to provide society with sufficient productive service in these respective fields? (b) Have these methods been such as to provide a reasonable number of openings for that army of youth looking for op- portunity to participate in the world's work and who nor- mally strive forward into these callings? For it is cer- tain that in a crowded world and a dynamic social order and a democratic civilization ambitious individuals must, within reasonable limits, be permitted to " crowd " for places or to make them, otherwise we shall have large occupationless classes, excluded from monopolized vocations, (c) Have the methods by which the "good" workers (and, making allowance for hereditary advantages, no less the "excel- lent") reached their present proficiency been reasonably expeditious, humane, unwasteful, vocationally effective, and not productive of harmful physical, civic, domestic, and cul- tural by-products?

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For example, it might be found that present methods of getting waitresses and elementary school teachers are rea- sonably good, judged by the standards that could be estab- lished under the foregoing questions; that the methods of getting poultry farmers, dentists, and handicraft tailors do not give enough of such workers; that the methods of providing nurses and furniture factory specialists are good, but too exclusive, since they deprive some persons of opportunities to enter and compete for a livelihood in these fields.

The facts thus assembled give us a basis for the evalua- tion, in terms of various practicable standards, of existing methods of vocational education. The fundamental ques- tion now is : What can, and what shall we do for the train- ing of the next generation of workers in each of these fields ? This question immediately resolves itself into three ques- tions: (a) Where, for a given calling, vocational edu- cation has heretofore been chiefly by-education (a by- product of participation in productive work) what can be done by society, possibly acting through the state, to improve it while still leaving it as by-education? (b) Where methods of by-education are demonstrably ineffective or wasteful of human well-being, as is the case in the writer's estimation with a large majority of the more than 2000 distinctive vocations now followed by Amer- icans, when and where and how can we provide means of direct vocational education (that is, specific vocational schools) for these callings? (c) Where direct vocational education now controls in filling certain callings — e.g. sur- veying, electrical engineering, soil analysis, bookkeeping, and law — if it is found that results are wasteful or other- wise ineffective, what shall be done to improve the existing vocational schools?

In the study of many callings, certainly, we are soon forced to conclude that effective vocational education for

The Relation of General to Vocational Education- ici>

the future can only be given through specially designed agencies for that purpose. Here, then, begins the quest of standards for such education as applies to particular call- ings. Reaching this point, the man of academic possession almost certainly falls back on a carefully cherished set of a priori principles. He loathes the task of being held to consideration of a specified calling. Ask him, as the out- come of the inquiries suggested above, how he would pro- ceed to devise programs of direct (vocational school) edu- cation for, respectively, barbers, farmers producing milk as a major and apples as a minor income crop, cooks for small hotels, marine firemen, field salesmen of drugs, reporters, telephone linemen, country newspaper editors, pressmen in book and newspaper printing, tobacco growers (as major), bank cashiers, vampers in shoe factories, moving picture operators, and homemakers on budgets of $700 to $1 ,000 — in the event that the ineffectiveness of the non-school meth- ods of vocational education heretofore followed can be demonstrated — and he is at once balked. For what ages should vocational schools for each of these vocations be available? Why? For which sex if not both? Why? What should be prerequisites for admission? Why? What should be the length and character of practical train- ing through productive work? Why? What should be the length and character of short or long courses or related technical, social, and physical education? Why? What should be standards of completion of training, of gradua- tion, of approval for employment? What should be the expected or guaranteed character of subsequent non-school vocational education ? Why ? What should be the character of expected or guaranteed opportunities for subsequent ex- tension education ? Why ? What should be the expected or guaranteed opportunities for promotional or other upgrad- ing education? Why?

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Vocational Education vs. Civic Education. — A very con- siderable part of the confusion of the committee as regards vocational education can be attributed to its failure to dis- tinguish between the study of vocations for the purpose of civic understanding, guidance, and cultural enlightenment, and the study of (and productive practice in) given voca- tions for the sake of becoming efficient producers.

" Furthermore, it is only as the pupil sees his vocation in the light of his citizenship and his citizenship in the light ^ of his vocation that he will be prepared for effective mem- bership in an industrial democracy," says the report. This is somewhat mystical because so few of us yet understand what is meant by industrial democracy. Are the peoples of Vermont, Texas, Massachusetts, Boston, Bridgeport parts of industrial democracy? Are the physicians, orange growers, bank clerks, factory shoemakers, school teachers, street car motormen, editors, coal miners, colored cotton growers, department store clerks, all (or any of them) members of an industrial democracy?

There can be no question as to the righteousness of the ideal underlying the committee's contention, if we waive the difficult implications of the words " industrial democ- racy." Every man should see as fully as practicable the relationship of his vocation not only to his citizenship, but to his domestic life, his health, his religion, and his personal culture.

In part these interconnections can be studied in connection with the vocational guidance, the practical arts practice, and study of the civic or social order, all of which are factors in the liberal education which is the legitimate purpose — the central obligation in fact — of the liberal arts secondary schools to supply to all pupils as long as they can be induced to remain in that school.

On the other hand, any genuine vocational school (e.g. in medicine, elementary school teaching, stenography) now

The Relation of General to Vocational Education 103

instructs its students in the physical and social knowledge and especially in appreciations that are significant and perti- nent to the vocation being learned, all of which must of course differ from one vocation to another. These are two perfectly practical lines of approach to the interrelation of objectives desired by the committee. But until we can see some of the practical programs exemplifying the com- mittee's somewhat vague, if not mystical, proposals, we shall hardly know whether what they have in their minds involves training for the successful practice of vocations or merely some controlled development towards apprecia- tion of vocations.

We should all greatly like to bring it about, of course, that lawyers and factory hands, coal miners and bank clerks, waitresses and nurses, elementary school teachers and de- partment store clerks, could and would meet always together in club and home on terms of friendly equality and fullest mutual understanding. If the committee thinks it can achieve these results or contribute to them by refusing to approve any supposed divorce (which probably does not exist now in any well developed system of school vocational education) of social-civic education from vocational educa- tion, then the end would certainly justify substantial sacri- fices. But we have much to learn as to necessary limitations of the two types of education from those vocational schools that are provided for our people of greatest ability — our military academies, engineering schools, law schools, normal schools, colleges of medicine and of dentistry !

The members of the committee are chiefly, and rightly, occupied with the liberal education of youth of secondary school age. They cannot, however, ignore the growing strength of motives for vocational participation manifested during these years of adolescence. Hence it would seem that they desire to seize upon these vocational motives and use them as means of furthering liberal education, even

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though the expectations of the large majority of pupils might be disappointed and their energies misdirected in the process. The committee favors the subordination of de- ferred values, and yet, from the standpoint of the critic it seems actually to sacrifice present values to values almost indefinitely deferred where genuine vocational education is involved.

In spite of its seeming insistence to the contrary it is hard to believe that the committee is genuinely interested in any vocational education that can meet the economic tests of our time. Nowhere does it employ the language or the illustrations accepted in current discussion of voca- tional education. Hardly at all does it allude to the social demands that are pressing vocational education forward as one of the large movements in social economy. Towards all current problems, intricate and baffling, of vocational education the committee maintains a serene scholastic aloof- ness, possibly the same slightly contemptuous indifference which characterized the attitude of our scholastic forbears towards manual labor in general. At least the committee can have only itself to blame if it gives that impression to many readers.

The foregoing criticism must not be interpreted as an expression of opposition to the commission's general find- ings as to the need of more extended and better secondary education of all sorts. It is simply a protest against the impracticability of the submitted proposals to provide so- called vocational education in " comprehensive high schools." Such procedure may result in prolonged general education but it will give no sound vocational education.

CHAPTER IV

PRINCIPLES OF METHOD IN VOCATIONAL EDUCATION

The Imperfect Science of Educational Methods. — Back of all educational practices lies a multitude of special and, cer- tainly, a number of general pedagogical principles. In their fundamental aspects, obviously, these must rest on the psy- chology of learning; but in many of their derivative aspects they rest also on social and administrative conditions.

The pedagogical principles of non-vocational education are as yet only partially understood. In producing the skills involved in the primary school arts — reading, writing, num- bers— teachers have long known the values of repetition, drill, and concentration. Lately they have comeTo~atfacri value to motives of attraction rather than compulsion. And it is now an accepted principle m all good training that the realistic associations and values of the step in the process should, in the interests of effective learning, be well compre- hended as well as approved by the learner.

But when we get beyond the elementary stages of general education our grasp of principles is still very meager and unsatisfactory. We know almost nothing of the principles to be followed in making moral education effective under present-day conditions. We talk endlessly about training our pupils " to think " but when analysis reveals the illusory character of some cherished panacea we have no reserves as yet to fall back upon. In accordance with what prin- ciples can we produce the " appreciations " of literature, music, plastic art? We can only make surmises as yet. How shall we proceed to make of the youth of fourteen a

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" good citizen " against his voting days at twenty-one ? We still flounder amidst guesses and random experiments.

Hence it need not surprise us to find how few and unsub- stantial are our " principles " of method for vocational edu- cation in schools. Even in the professional colleges where trial-and-error discovery of methods has been proceeding, in some cases for centuries, pedagogic practices are largely based upon customary methods and means which always tend to become " traditional " in the strict sense of the term - that is, " handed on " by processes of imitation, and un- critically.

Nevertheless it is practicable to derive empirically cer- tain tentative principles which can help in practice. Even- tually we may expect the psychologists to give us the materi- als for reasonably scientific methods, both of general and of particular application.

I

General Analysis. — 1. The word " method'* is here used in a comprehensive sense as covering the more specific means and methods, apart from administration and organization, of realizing a stated aim in education. Effective educa- tional procedure presupposes clear-cut definitions of ulti- mate aims and then of proximate aims to be realized ; analy- sis of the necessary means and methods by which they are to be realized ; the provision of an organization and admin- istrative control adequate to the handling of these necessary means and methods ; practice or procedure in realizing aims ; and finally, the testing of results, the realization of which has been contemplated from the start.

2. It can well be assumed that, in the main, effective methods in a particular field of vocational education can best be derived primarily from study of the vocation in which proficiency is sought. In other words, each distinctive field of vocational education may be expected gradually to de- velop an extensive system of special method. Already in

Principles of Method in Vocational Education 107

schools for the training of lawyers, dentists, agricultural ex- perts, electrical engineers, elementary school teachers, tele- phone switchboard operators, stenographers, and military leaders, a very extensive methodology has been evolved. Equally, it may be expected that in schools for the training of loom tenders, spinners, cutters in shoemaking, screwmak- ers, motormen, counter-salesmen, gardeners, homemakers, power-operators in cloth manufacturing and the like, in every case a special methodology will be provided.

3. Nevertheless, following the analogy of other fields of education, it should be possible also to state certain general principles probably applicable in all fields of vocational edu- cation. In the endeavor to arrive at these general principles careful attention should be given to the methods followed throughout the ages in achieving vocational competency by means of vocational by-education, especially should organ- ized apprenticeship prove fertile in suggestion.

4. Obviously, any discussion of methods in particular fields of vocational education is dependent upon clear-cut differentiation of aims to be achieved. These may be ex- pressed in terms of proximate aims, that is, in terms of pro- ductive competency for near and limited periods; or else they may be so stated also to include expected final stages to be reached and also with reference to the possibilities of advancement, promotion, 'passage from one calling to an- other that may all be involved.

5. Again, the principles of motivation should be given consideration. At the present time, when attendance on a vocational school is not obligatory except in the case of that very limited number of young persons who may be com- mitted to reform schools or reformatories, it should be ac- cepted as a first principle that no vocational education can really be worth while except in the case of the individual who is already desirous of equipping himself for competency in the vocation selected. As far as practicable, vocational

io8 Vocational Education

guidance should be employed to confirm the youth in the wisdom of the choice that he has made. Again, any nor- mal provision which the vocational school itself can make for the stimulation of active learning motives on the part of the student, such as an easy sequence of stages of learning, special exercises for assisting him to pass difficult points, maximurrT-oggpTttmities for concrete participation, especially for students whcrfind abstract learning difficult, sound eval- uation of results of learner's work at every stage and, finally, the giving to the learner of the commercial rewards for his work at the earliest possible stages, deserves fullest practicable development. All of these may be regarded as legitimate and desirable incentives. Perhaps appeal to com- petitive motives might also be made through the giving of rewards to the best or most rapid workers, the method of the bonus, etc., although these are forms of incentive that experience in other fields of education convinces us should be applied sparingly.

6. Another principle of method has to do with the recog- nition at all stages of vocational education of the three fundamental divisions already indicated — namely, that of practical participation, that of mastery of related technical knowledge, and that of social insight. In general, it may be held that the proportion of time given by the vocational school as such (that is, apart from participation in produc- tive work for its own sake under commercial conditions) should be chiefly to practice work at the outset, with a grad- ually increasing emphasis upon technical knowledge as the student builds up a basis of practice for purposes of inter- pretation. As the student grows to greater maturity and experience increasing emphasis should be placed upon the third division of social insight.

7. Experience seems to indicate that another important principle of method to be applied as far as practicable in the case of beginners is that of organizing nearly all teaching

Principles of Method in Vocational Education 109

units, especially in so far as these are concerned with prac- tical work, on what is known as the project basis. The great advantage of tne organization of teaching units on the project basis is to be found, in the pupil's own clear com- prehension, from the outset, of the particular goal of achievement, proximate though it may be, to which he may address himself. A subsequent section of this chapter is devoted to analysis of the project method. (See also dis- cussions in chapters on Agricultural, Industrial and Home- making Education.)

Factors in Vocational Competency. — The competency of the successful worker in almost any calling is a resultant of several factors or components, each of which is to a degree capable of independent analysis. Some of these are purely hereditary in character — such as the types of physical strength, quickness of reaction, powers of endurance and various temperamental feeling and intellectual qualities, as to which men differ greatly among themselves. Some of these qualities are due to the character of the nurture pro- vided in early life — the food, shelter, rest, play, and social stimuli which determine whether growth shall be good or bad, complete or incomplete. Doubtless, too, some of the factors making for the success of the worker receive their character from these portions of his school, and extra-school, education which had been obtained quite without specific reference to a possible vocation.

But leaving all these aside for the time, we can profitably consider those sets of factors into which the productive power of any good individual worker may be analyzed which are primarily the results of his vocational experience, train- ing, and study — whether formal or informal, organized or unorganized, direct or indirect.

The principles of method require recognition in almost all fields of vocational education of at least three fundamen- tal phases, namely: (a) the attainment of practical skill —

no Vocational Education

manipulative or managerial — and other similar results of definite experience; (b) the acquisition of related technical knowledge; and (c) the development of related physical, social and cultural insights and appreciations. A fourth stage may be involved where definite training towards leadership or powers of directing others, presents itself as a special problem, but for the present we shall include this under managerial skill.

The relation of abstract knowledge to skill in a sound scheme of pedagogy constitutes a peculiarly difficult prob- lem for vocational education. Probably with the majority of individuals, and having in view the usual run of occupa- tions, the best approach to the vocation, after having estab- lished certain preliminary ideals, and after havirig discovered an active motive for vocation mastery, should be along the lines of concrete achievement on carefully selected units of the work itself. As fast as this achievement gives a concrete basis for the acquisition of related technical knowledge that also should, in the form of some definite unit, be made a matter of attainment. Finally, with the growing conscious- ness of mastery and the interest in the social aspects of the manipulative or managerial — and other similar results of vocation, it is likely that extended appreciation of physical, social, and cultural aspects can be definitely developed as a series of related " B class " studies.

Correct method not only requires approach through achievement, but also in as many cases as practicable, the learner's own enjoyment of the results of that achievement as found best in convictions of workman's standards reached and secondarily in enjoyment of a certain monetary profit resulting from the work itself. Sound pedagogy suggests, therefore, that wherever practicable, the learner should reap the reward of his efforts in the form of a wage, piece pay- ment, or other valuable return. In rare instances, as in agriculture, the learner's own family may be the direct re-

Principles of Method in Vocational Education in

cipients of the goods produced, but, even here; the funda- mental economic principle should be followed of insuring to the individual definite reward of his labor.

We may readily analyze the mastery of his vocation shown by the farmer into " skills " or manual and managerial per- formance and technical knowledge of the ends, means and methods which will make his work successful. The house- building carpenter must possess numerous forms of special skill, as shown in his use of hand tools conspicuously, and also must have the mastery of technical knowledge which enables him to make plans, read drawings, perform calcu- lations, estimate costs, etc. The worth of the stenographer to her employer is determined partly by her precision and speed in taking dictation and transcribing notes ; and in part by her " knowledge " (as we say in ordinary speech) of spelling, punctuation, and the technical terminology peculiar to her employer's calling, including even facts of geography or history. Any one of us can, in a measure, disentangle in the skein representing the total competency of routine per- formance, the respective elements of skill and technical knowledge (or something closely corresponding to them), in surgeons, nurses, cooks, primary grade teachers, horse- shoers, plumbers, tailors, machinists, automobile repairers, ship captains, grocery-store clerks, locomotive engineers, coal mining operatives, telegraph messenger boys, and poul- try raisers. The distinctions here drawn, it must be ob- served — as e.g. between the stenographer's " skill " in short- hand and her " technical knowledge " of spelling — may not be fundamental or important distinctions psychologically, but they are of great importance in determining educational procedures, as will be shown later.

Analysis of the hundreds of vocations followed by men and women seems to show that the relative amounts of tech- nical knowledge and skill essential to optimum performance vary greatly. The deck laborer, the coal passer, the min-

H2 Vocational Education

ing " mucker " and so-called unskilled physical workers gen- erally, find their services valued largely in proportion to their specialized, and often easily acquired skill in using their exceptional physical strength and endurance. Similarly, the cigarette maker, the chambermaid, the spinner, and fruit-picker and the numberless workers on specialized pro- cesses in factory operations seem to be paid chiefly for the skill that expresses itself in detailed forms of speed and accuracy. The amounts of what may properly be called technical knowledge required or desirable, in the case of these workers, seems very small indeed. On the other hand, one thinks of accountants, field salesmen, surveyors, elec- trical workers, teachers, army officers, pharmacists, report- ers, printers, actors and perhaps housewives and farmers, as possessing relatively great needs of technical knowledge as compared with what is sometimes half contemptuously called — especially by schoolmen — "mere skill."

II

Skill in the " Arts." — To the reader informed as to the evolution of productive processes it will already have oc- curred that at least some of the distinctions here discussed depend upon the stage of advancement reached by the field of work itself. The industrial arts, as they have long been called, possessed a large " content " to be acquired only by practical experience, long before the technical knowledge possible to them had been as it were detached or disen- tangled. Such operations as cooking, tanning, tempering of steel, making of cigars, extracting teeth, making garments, teaching children, gardening, and the like, were highly developed as " practical arts " long before the " technical knowledge " interpreting the practice was understood. Men produced harmonies by aid of voice and instrument long before the scientific facts of musical harmony were un- derstood. Probably the " arts of healing " rendered some

Principles of Method in Vocational Education 113

valuable service to mankind long before there was a science of medicine. The gardening of China is to-day one of the most productive forms of tillage in the world; but the Chi- nese have as yet no agricultural science. In these practical arts there is involved, of course, " knowledge " and that, often, very involved and extensive. It is transmitted by the intimate processes of apprenticeship, as a part of the " tricks of the trade " and to the external observer at least it appears to be an integral part of the skill of the worker. In the fullest sense of the term as used here, technical stands rather for those elements that have been segregated out, put in print, or given graphic representation; but the distinction should not be pushed too far.

The practical bearings of the present discussion appear when we study the evolution of schools of vocational educa- tion and the problems confronting us in America when we try to increase the variety, extend the range, and improve the effectiveness of vocational schools. A survey of this evolution discloses three fundamental facts: (a) the age- old and approved method of teaching practical skill in voca- tion is through actual participation in the work being done, such participation when organized and regulated being called apprenticeship; (b) when, in any vocation, a body of some- what detached or separately organized technical knowledge (including special forms of skill) has been created in or about a given vocation, the methods of apprenticeship or un- organized participation are ineffective in securing needed mastery of this technical knowledge; and (c) it is recogni- tion of this fact that gives rise to demands for special classes or schools which shall insure acquisition of this knowledge or necessary special skill.

Vocational Schools to Supplement Apprenticeship To a

large extent, therefore, the earlier schools that deserve to be called vocational (more correctly to be designated as techni- cal schools) were established for persons already in or com-

H4 Vocational Education

pleting an apprenticeship. In America as early as 1840 there had been founded in our larger cities " Mechanics' In- stitutes," the primary purposes of which seem to have been to provide facilities for the technical instruction of those who had completed their apprenticeship. These Institutes, often endowed by philanthropists, were planned to contain libraries of technical books and drawings and even exhibits of new machines and products. Under them were organ- ized evening classes in drawing, , science, mathematics, etc., for advanced apprentices or journeymen.

It is well known that the system of continuation schools found in Germany had its origin largely in the attempts, sometimes of organized masters or employers, sometimes of journeymen or workers, to provide needed education, gen- eral or vocational, beyond that practicable under the condi- tions of apprenticeship. As far as possible these schools were at first conducted outside of the working hours claimed by the person or employment to which the youth was ap- prenticed — on Sundays, in the evenings, during slack sea- sons, etc. But none of these expedients sufficed to insure needed definiteness or continuity of training; hence the legis- lation, first usually enacted in the smaller states, prescribing a minimum number of hours per week for a stated number of weeks per year during which the worker must attend a duly approved continuation school.

The earlier colleges of medicine and law seem to have been largely devised for apprentices. Their courses consisted chiefly of lectures given by the best known practitioners or specialists of the community. The "teacher-training" col- leges of England were for years open only to those who had served an apprenticeship as "pupil-teachers." Per- haps the most successful work done by the agricultural col- leges of America (when judged by the combined standards of economy of cost and effectiveness of result) has been the " short course " instruction offered in the college itself, and

Principles of Method in Vocational Education 115

the " extension " instruction carried to the farms. The ef- fectiveness of its instruction is due largely to the fact that a large amount of practical experience has already been ac- quired by the learner (he had served an apprenticeship in the University of Hard Knocks, he would say). The cor- respondence school which now so greatly exploits the cre- dulity of the poorly informed achieves successful results in some cases when its courses are taken by persons already having successful experience of a practical character.

In fact, the conception that those elements of vocational competency that we call skill, of performance (including many more or less intangible elements which we ascribe to " experience " only) could be taught by, or under the direc- tion of, a vocational school is very modern. A " school " could teach facts as these were capable of definite formula- tion in printed matter, written problem, or graphic repre- sentation. It could teach the " principles " of the vocation (a form of pedagogic camouflage very dear to the school- master type of mind, and in the case of some few students, quite successful). Even yet the large majority of engi- neering schools, business schools, agricultural colleges and schools, departments for the " preparation " of secondary school teachers, home economics classes, and industrial " technical schools " (technical high schools, schools of me- chanic arts, etc.) make it their primary aim to teach the " principles " and other more or less abstract facts or forms of special skill that lend themselves to the teaching powers of men working chiefly with and through books, blackboards, drawing paper and the like, the abstract methods of approach being rendered somewhat more concrete during recent years by adjuncts of laboratory, studio, experimental " flats," im- itations of " office practice," and gardening " plots/'

Pre-apprenticeship. — Where vocational education for organized trades giving apprenticeship does not appear to be feasible the suggestion naturally arises as to why a so-called

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vocational school should not undertake certain pre-appren- ticeship training which will almost inevitably be along tech- nical rather than practical lines. The writer is unable to see why, where apprenticeship is well organized, any school vo- cational education should be required under the head of pre- apprenticeship. It would be very much better that the learner should formally enter upon his apprenticeship, after which the vocational school should supplement by giving opportunities for extension teaching.

There is very much needed at the present time, an analysis of all of those industrial pursuits for which apprenticeship is still a possibility. It will be found, probably, that not only is apprenticeship declining in the main, but that the very conditions which even yet make apprenticeship learning a possibility in some cases are themselves changing.

It now appears probable that intensive short course work will serve the needs of a vastly greater number of workers in industry and commerce than can ever profit from systematic apprenticeship teaching, at least if modern industry contin- ues to evolve in accordance with current tendencies.

A somewhat illusory objective often urged in connection with so-called pre-apprenticeship training is that of holding the pupils longer in school. Elsewhere, the writer has indi- cated his conviction that this is not a worthy objective in and of itself, and that pupils should be urged to stay in school beyond the compulsory period only in case it is evi- dent that the school has something of substantial profit to offer them. It will be found in many cases, that the period of prolonged attendance, especially on the part of pupils somewhat retarded, becomes a period of semi-idleness in which habits of inattention and half-hearted work are not even offset by vigorous play or other spontaneous activity.

But it is highly desirable that throughout the junior high school period offerings of vigorous practical arts work, not designed necessarily to utilize a vocational motive or to pro-

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duce anything more than a very moderate degree of voca- tional guidance should be available.

Basic Vocational Education. — Our conceptions of the pedagogy of vocational education recently have widened sufficiently to admit the possibility of giving under some form of school conditions, or at least control, the " training " that, supplementing technical instruction, gives finally the completely equipped worker. Numerous examples will occur to the well-informed reader. The best medical col- leges provide the facilities, and encourage the " technically " equipped graduate to take one or more years of practice in clinic and other hospital service. Cincinnati University, in several lines of professional vocational education, develops a " part time " plan whereby the learner, early in the course, shall, under the guidance of his school, participate in " ac- tual " work, perhaps productive work for wages. The more progressive engineering colleges require that their students shall give up one or more vacations to practical work. Schools for the training of teachers for kindergarten and primary schools require the equivalent of three to six months' " practice training." Schools training stenogra- phers lay increasing stress on results in the shape of the speed and accuracy actually demanded in business practice. With very few exceptions the foremost exponents of vocational education for any given calling are seeking to improve the means whereby the practical training or its equivalent re- quired to produce positive skill can be provided. It can cor- rectly be said that the essentials of the twentieth century movement in America for the extension and improvement of vocational education are found in the demands and expecta- tions that this training shall be " practical " - that is, shall give in largest practicable measure the skills and other re- sults which have heretofore been available only from actual participation, systematized or unsystematized, in wage-earn- ing or other productive work.

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The sources of these demands and expectations have been, clearly, twofold, (a) Participation in the economic sense in productive work, and with only secondary reference to educational outcome, has been falling manifestly, even when highly organized under conditions of apprenticeship, to keep pace with the requirements of the age. One does not now expect the prospective physician, lawyer, architect or, even in England, the elementary school teacher, to serve an appren- ticeship prior to professional study. No business man now expects to undertake the initial training of the stenographer or accountant, and he is increasingly reluctant to do it in the case of the file clerk, sales woman, and specialized book- keeper. In proportion as farming, stockraising, home- making, traveling salesmanship, secondary school teaching, and numberless other callings develop beyond the stage of being simple " arts " to be learned by simply beginning to work with or under the somewhat distant direction of other workers — in that proportion does the need of specialized schools which can teach " practice as well as theory " become apparent. In the case of the industrial callings, in many of which a well organized apprenticeship once existed, it has become commonplace knowledge that the evolution of fac- tory production has been accompanied by a steady impair- ment of all the essential features of apprenticeship.

(b) The second substantial reason for modern interest in more comprehensive vocational education is found in the broadening conceptions of possible pedagogical means and methods. The older type of educator associated all impor- tant education with reading and writing. The educational reformers even of centuries ago inveighed in vain against purely abstract teaching but their striving to teach in part by the use of "objects" met little support. The laboratory as an adjunct in teaching science developed in the face of much opposition long after " science subjects " had been grudg- ingly admitted into curriculums of general education (when

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nicely compacted into well-bound texts). Progressive pri- mary teachers heard with approval decades ago the in- junction " have children learn to do by doing," but the seed long fell on stony ground in spite of the lip approval often given. Hence it was necessarily long before the idea could be accepted that entire realms of possible " school " educa- tion might lie wholly outside of and beyond the immediate regions of lectures, books, pens and paper, drawing on black- board and cardboard, and even laboratory instruction itself.

Of course, we are far from being free from the traditions here yet. The school as we have had it for five hundred years or more has derived its pedagogical procedures chiefly from the methods essential to the teaching of the reading and writing of language. Hence the chief and often the only tools which schools knew how to use were printed materials and means of writing. Many curious results persist to this day. We have hardly any substantial pedagogy for the teaching of a foreign language that does not start with the printed page and writing materials. The kindergarten effected a great break with tradition, the good effects of which are felt in the primary schools of to-day. The use of the laboratory as an adjunct in teaching science was also an important de- parture, but one soon corrupted by formalisms nearly re- lated to those it was 'designed to escape. There are still many among us who contend that " mere trade training " is not " education " — one wonders what are their actual con- ceptions of " education."

Ill

Types of Vocational Schools. — The essential pedagogical problems now confronting all attempts at the development of vocational education in schools involve chiefly the relations of the procedures which give, on the one hand, skill or the other results of practice, and on the other, technical knowl-

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edge or special forms of skill in ancillary processes. These relationships may be classified into certain types: —

A. The most primitive form, in which both skill and so much of technical knowledge as can be picked up therewith are given under conditions of actual participation in work, unorganized and often unsupervised, as in the home or on the farm, or else organized as apprenticeship. The great bulk of vocational education still found in the world is of this order.

B. Next in order of historical development is the supple- menting of apprenticeship or other learning through par- ticipation by special schools or classes to give technical knowledge including tributary special skills. Examples as noted above include: the earlier schools of medicine, law, pharmacy, dentistry, and in England, teacher training; the extension and short courses for farmers offered by the agri- cultural colleges ; the evening classes in mechanics, drawing, etc., offered to apprentices or journeymen under the old Me- chanics' Institutes, all " evening industrial " school classes organized under the first industrial school legislation ( 1907- 1916) in Massachusetts, New Jersey, Indiana and other states giving state aid to vocational education; a great va- riety of extension courses given through correspondence or otherwise by private and public agencies.

C. Schools giving technical knowledge of vocations, supplemented by some laboratory practice, but leaving the student to acquire skill and the other results of experience after leaving the school, have flourished in recent years. Of this type are: the medical, law, engineering, and other professional colleges intermediate between the primitive type discussed under B and the very modern type noted in D below; normal schools, usually, before the development of practice; almost all college departments for the so-called training of secondary school teachers; technical high, or mechanic arts high schools for such of their students as

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subsequently enter occupations related to those whose tech- nical aspects have been studied in college; almost all com- mercial or business "colleges," schools or departments of schools; nearly all agricultural colleges and schools; nearly all existing courses in, or schools of, home economics; and many of the earlier publicly supported industrial, including some alleged trade, schools in which the so-called practical work consisted merely of exercises or half play-like at- tempts at practical work.

D. The fourth type emerges when the vocational school undertakes to present not merely technical knowledge, but enough of " real practices " to enable the learner to substi- tute the results of this practice for apprenticeship or other educative participation, either before or after taking his technical studies. The modern medical college provides extensive opportunities for clinical practice for its students ere they leave the institution. The modern normal school requires some months of " practice teaching." The real trade school not only seeks to do " practical " work, but en- deavors to have it done on commercial orders, — " to meet the requirements of the market." The best agricultural schools are to-day teaching the boys " farming," through making them small farmers by means of the " home proj- ect " method carried out on a commercial scale. Engineer- ing colleges are striving to introduce a measure of practical experience into their offerings by requiring students to de- vote one or more vacations to the acquisition of practical experience " in the field " before completing their work. A few schools for the initial teaching of salesmanship (not ex- tension courses for persons already employed) require that the learner shall " work by selling " every Monday and Sat- urday, and throughout the entire month of December (peri- ods when opportunities in mercantile establishments can eas- ily be procured). Almost all forms of vocational education in very recent years have strenuously endeavored to increase

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their facilities for " practical work " notwithstanding the very persistent opposition of the strongly entrenched teach- ers of the technical subjects. The force back of the demand for more practical work has been, of course, public opinion and expressed requirements of employing authorities who are always competing for that service which is most nearly ready to meet their needs.

E. A fifth variety of school designed to procure basic vocational training (technical knowledge plus practical ex- perience) appears when the school, instead of attempting to maintain hospitals, shops, farms, homes, offices, or sales- rooms of its own, uses for its educational purposes commer- cial or other " going " agencies already in existence. In fact, the " home projects " in farming, and the use of de- partment stores in teaching girls salesmanship included under D above are somewhat of this order. The best known examples are the " part-time " experiments in Fitch- burg, Cincinnati, Beverly, and other places. Where contin- uation school attendance is obligatory some devices have been evolved which belong properly under this class. A few colleges send their advanced or graduate students to serve as apprentice teachers under the direction of the training insti- tution, in the surrounding schools.

For each of the foregoing types of vocational schools, doubtless, fundamental methods of organizing and conduct- ing instruction and training of particular kinds will have to be evolved. But, as has been noted before, back of all prob- lems of vocational education lie certain fundamental prob- lems growing out of the economic changes which, long per- sistent, increase now at a geometrical rate of speed. Few writers on education have as yet given adequate attention to modern conditions which tend to increase regimentation of production.

Types of Vocational Education. — The simplest types of teaching in vocational education, are, of course, to be found

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when the elder worker, or more skilled worker, shows the younger or less skilled. At bottom there exists in all per- sons in some degree genuine instincts of teaching, — other- wise to be described as instincts of showing, leading, helping, suggesting, instigating, directing, controlling, governing, or- ganizing, commanding, etc. On the other hand, under the right social stimulus, there doubtless also appear always the " learning " instincts — instincts of following, imitating, yielding, inquiring, submitting to authority, desire to be shown, etc. The operation of these social instincts can be seen on any playground, in any school, shop, or other theater of social activity.

The most complicated types of vocational teaching are to be found in large schools of vocational training where teach- ing functions are highly subdivided, — where, for example, one teacher, who, perhaps, has never practiced the vocation itself, imparts certain technical knowledge, another directs certain experimental work, and still a third supervises ini- tial efforts at practice. Subdivision of vocational teaching of this character can now be seen in normal schools, agricul- tural colleges, medical colleges, schools of navigation, and the like. In not a few commercial departments of high schools, one teacher takes charge of stenography, another of typewriting, a third of commercial law, a fourth of English. A few of the larger trade schools exhibit similar tendencies.

An intermediate stage is found where one teacher or type of teacher is responsible for " practice " and another for so- called " theory " or the " related technical subjects." In a few cases of half developed vocational schools, a teacher of " manual exercises " has been found, who is not himself a master of the trade being taught, but who could teach on a manual training basis, some of the manual training activities involved in it.

There are good grounds for believing that an ideal voca- tional education, at least for the non-professional occupa-

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tions, can best be given by one person who is at once master of its practical phases and at the same time intimately ac- quainted with its technical aspects and who, with these pow- ers combines a large vision as to the possibilities of the right exercise of the calling, to affect for the better, society and the personality of the worker. If we could find a worker with this equipment who is also a gifted teacher, beginners, at any rate, would, tinder his direction, probably grow faster in vocational competency than in any other way. Some suc- cessful experiments in agricultural education have been ex- ecuted on this basis (based upon the " home project," the pupils putting in something over half their time on these home projects, visited by the teacher).

But there is little indication that this method of vocational education will prove successful except in those two classes of callings which in many respects are still in elemental or primitive stages of evolution, — namely, farming and home- making. The same method should be capable of application in many monotechnic industrial occupations (specialized machine processes or subdivisions of trades), but teachers equal to the responsibilities of this position are hardly yet available.

It is highly probable that in most forms of vocational edu- cation, teaching processes will be specialized and even that others than teachers will be required for special phases - business agents to take charge of the administration of work, coordinators to arrange for and supervise, on behalf of the school, pupils assigned to part time productive work in shops, etc. Probably developments in this direction can best be considered by taking the different classes of vocations suc- cessively.

Vocational Education for Specialized Pursuits. It has

everywhere and always been the tendency for men advancing in economic power to specialize their vocational pursuits. This tendency is furthered by all exploration, invention, use

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of capital, improvements in transportation, demands for su- perior service, and the employment of regimental organiza- tion in production.

We find early developments of territorial specialization of production. Furs came from one quarter of the world, spices from another, silks from a third. Complicated sys- tems of exchange of commodities early appeared in the ef- forts of men to obtain from the regions producing them re- spectively precious metals, tin, copper, iron, wines, and dye- stuffs. Later, the production of woolen goods, whale oil, dried fish, leather goods, jewelry, and other art products in localized communities laid the foundations for special- ized production and commerce of the middle and later cen- turies.

The application of steam power to manufacture and trans- portation has enormously increased the processes of territo- rial and personal specialization of production. Certain areas and populations of the world are now engaged chiefly in manufacture; others in trade and commerce; others in fish- eries; others in production of temperate zone food prod- ucts ; and still others, in growing tropical products for food or manufacture.

The invention of machinery has been one large contrib- uting factor to this process of specialization. Improve- ments of rail and water transportation have been essential to the development of any considerable territorial speciali- zation of production. Power using tools have made neces- sary large use of capital in production, thus causing each type of industrial production to enlarge its units and, frequently, to aggregate these in specialized communities — e.g. cotton products in Manchester, edge tools in Sheffield, firearms in Connecticut, pottery in the Ohio Valley, meat packing in Chicago and St. Louis, etc.

Agriculture tends always towards specialization. Fron- tiersmen live by hunting and trapping ; their immediate sue-

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cessors support themselves by lumbering in some regions and by stockraising in others. Tillage, often miscellaneous at first, gradually settles down along the lines of production most adapted to the locality — cotton in the Southern states, wheat in the northwest, fruit in California, cotton in the Southern states, coffee in Brazil, bananas in Costa Rica, wine in Italy and France. Experience and scientific inquiry re- veal the desirability of " complementary " farming — corn and hogs, beets and cattle — in individual units, for maxi- mum use of either land or labor, and also of rotation of crops for soil conservation. Concerted social action may prevent overspecialization on one type production — e.g. cotton in Southern states — and so tend to promote an "optimum" diversification. But however far this may go, it is clear that the future will see steady increase in specialized pro- ducers from the soil.

In commerce and manufacture there seem to be no limits to specialization of individual workers as regimentation de- velops and mechanism is perfected. The application of power has tended to make of the worker a " machine tender " as one can say disparagingly, or a " machine user " or controller if one thinks of the increased control of pro- duction resulting. The driver of a locomotive, the pilot or captain of a ship, the typewriter, the loom operator, the hoisting mine engineer, the gunner firing a modern cannon, the wireless operator, the street car motorman, the farmer driving a harvester, the drill press operative and the book pressman all have this in common — each controls many and involved processes through complicated and costly machinery and in every case the enlargement of working units and the perfection of devices tends to simplify his work and to enable him to give his fullest attention to the immediate service he is employed to render.

The degree of native and of acquired intelligence called for in each case as well as capacity to take responsibility

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necessarily varies. We think of any man or woman — but not a child — as being capable of caring for, and using, a watch, a cookstove, or a sewing machine. We look with more solicitude after the qualifications of one offering to drive an automobile, a team and mowing machine, a steam drill, a planer, a street car, an office-building elevator, or a loom. Only to exceptional men do we entrust the naviga- tion of a ship, the drawing of an express passenger train, the boring of large cannon, the operation of a newspaper printing press, or the rolling of heavy plates. But wherever we can simplify the work of the machine director, make his tools " fool proof," diminish the element of the " personal equation," we do so — and our action in that direction ac- cords with the best efforts of civilized society to transfer, first to beasts of burden, and then to inanimate forces, the drudgery of production. It may be that sometimes we keep the young worker too long with one tool, that a certain amount of shifting would give a better " physical and intel- lectual development from work," and that our means of find- ing the maximum use for the abilities of any one individual are not yet at all what they should be. But these constitute problems of adjustment, not to be solved by the restoration of the conditions of hard production formerly prevailing.

It would not be wholly illogical to assume the existence of a fundamental social tendency towards such harnessing of natural forces that eventually man would be called upon to perform no drudgery. This has long been the dream of toil worn humanity when it should arrive at the land flowing with milk and honey, the New Jerusalem beyond the grave where none need work, and where each artistic soul " in his separate star shall paint the thing as he sees it, for the God of things as they are."

But for the present we cannot escape the conviction that man's increasing wants tend at least to keep pace with his increasing productivity, and that therefore the development

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of greater earning power (in terms of want-supplying com- modities) does not lead to diminution of effort. This is especially seen among prosperous farmers, middle class pro- fessional men, and operators with moderate amounts of cap- ital everywhere. The effects of specialized production upon the probable needs for, and character of, vocational educa- tion are referred to elsewhere. What the effects will be on methods of training and instruction it is too early to predict. In many cases it will greatly increase the needs and require- ments of managerial education. For others it creates acute needs for specialized training in skill, and especially for situations involving combinations of speed and skill. We are now within sight of practicable experimental investiga- tions here.

The "Project" as a Teaching Unit For purposes of

school-room administration, the subject matter used to real- ize any particular purpose in education must be broken up into subdivisions so as to form serviceable " teaching units." Broadly speaking, a subject itself is such a unit — e.g. his- tory, American history, geography, French. An amount of one of these subjects suitable or convenient for a year's work (or other long period) gives us the "course" — an- other type of unit. We speak of a course in First-year French, Advanced Mathematics, etc. Also, for purposes of convenience, we divide courses into subdivisions of vari- ous sorts — e.g. the book, part, chapter (at least in the text- book), section, topic, lesson, etc. For pedagogical rather than administrative reasons, these divisions are also often broken up into sections, such as definitions, exercises, expla- nations, assigned readings, references, rules, questions, vo- cabularies, conspectuses, tables, etc.

Now the primary purpose of making all these divisions and subdivisions is, of course, some form of efficiency — efficiency of organization, of accessibility, of mastery. Usu- ally, as in all other forms of activity, we prefer to have the

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dividing lines or boundaries in educational subject-matter fall where nature itself or the work of man has created chan- nels, cleavages, or natural classifications. But if this cannot be done, we create purely arbitrary divisions. To use com- parable situations in other fields, we find that a grain of wheat, a natural subdivision of " wheat," is too small for practicable handling, but a " field " of wheat too large. Hence we arbitrarily subdivide into bushels, centals, or " sacks " where " manhandling " is necessary. But in ren- dering a beef portable we first naturally " quarter " it, and these we again divide, partly along natural lines. For ease of ascent we break a steep slope up into " steps " and we also often create larger divisions by landings.

Sometimes we find we have pushed the subdividing pro- cess too far or in wrong directions. We are trying to blend elementary algebra and geometry, botany and zoology, etc. Or we subdivide what before was merged — e.g. physical geography and commercial geography, English language and English literature, etc. We have given up the old catecheti- cal unit — the question and the answer; and in such subjects as geography and history, the lesson (which was usually based on one day's working energy of the child in a stated subject, and hence could rarely be a " natural " unit) has largely disappeared. It can still be retained in reading and " language lessons " because these consist largely of exer- cises which can be cut off at any point suggested by the lim- itations of energy on the part of the learner.

The importance of having good teaching units in educa- tion is no less than is the importance of having good working subdivisions of time, matter, force, distance, difficulty, etc., in practical activities elsewhere.

In packing goods we devise packages adapted to, or con- trolled by, the conditions to be met. A box or small crate of cantaloupes may be very light for a man to carry, but a larger box would result in damage to the melons. But

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these small boxes can be crated for handling by trucks. Wheat is sacked in bags adapted to a strong man who must " use no hooks " ; while fabrics can be boxed in packages that no man can lift because truck handling with hooks is prac- ticable. The size of a newspaper, the weight of a volume, the length of a sermon, the duration of a call, the size of a " portion " of food, the height of a table, the width of a farm, the length of a day's work, the height of a room — all these units or divisions are the resultants of certain natural conditions working in greater or less opposition to man's forces and necessities. They all represent compromises, gravitating towards optimum standards.

Varieties of Teaching Units. — But in the organization of the " means " of education — the studies, lectures, " tell- ings," discussions, experiments, exercises, assigned read- ings, memorizings, reports, activities, problems, trials, tests, examinations, etc., through which wre achieve our desired ends — we have given, as yet, insufficient attention to the or- ganization of effective teaching units of the smaller kind — those that would be especially significant to the learner. The " question and answer " unit — as seen at its best in the catechism — was the smallest unit ever devised. It was in part definitely pedagogical and in part definitely logical. It was eminently suited to an age in which authority was the source of all knowledge for the learner, and verbal memor- ization the chief means of fixing in the minds of each new generation the dogmas and other authoritative teachings of the older generation. This unit had also the peculiar ad- vantage of being most easily handled by unskilled and unin- formed teachers.

The " lesson " unit was in part a pedagogical unit — that is, based upon the powers and weaknesses of learners — rather than a logical unit — that is, based upon the inherent characteristics of subject matter. It was, of course, not a true pedagogical unit — that is, taking account of all of the

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characteristics to be found in the child as active learner; it might be called a unit based roughly upon the capacity of the learner to give attention, to endure application, or to give working time. It was, in other words, a convenient task, a sort of day's work, so far as a particular kind of activity was concerned. It was often an arbitrarily sliced-off por- tion of subject matter, and represented frequently no logical division of that subject matter at all — resembling, there- fore, as a unit, a stated length of board or cloth, or a slice of bread rather than tree trunk, a garment or a biscuit.

The " topic " which in many studies succeeded the lesson as the teaching unit of chief importance was especially characterized by its logical relation to some larger unit or " whole " of subject matter, while at the same time it was endeavored in it to take account of the possible focusing of interests and the intellectual " spanning powers " of young learners. In many respects it was therefore an advance upon units previously developed. It lent itself especially well to teaching in which some reasoning, inference, and comparison on the part of the learner was sought in lieu of the verbal memorizing which had formerly prevailed.

A few years ago some of us began Using the word " proj- ect " to describe a unit of educative work in which the most prominent feature was some form of positive and concrete achievement. The baking of a loaf of bread, the making of a shirtwaist, the raising of a bushel of corn, the making of a table, the installation of an electric bell outfit — all these, when so undertaken by learners and handled by teachers as to result in a large acquisition of knowledge and experience, were called projects. Projects of this kind might be indi- vidual or joint (cooperative). They might be executed in an ordinary lesson period or they might claim the efforts of the learner for one or more hours per day for several weeks.

The following were the primary characteristics of proj- ects as thus conceived: (a) the undertaking always pos-

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sessed a certain unity; (b) the learner himself clearly con- ceived the practical end or outcome to be attained, and it was always expected that this outcome was full of interest to him, luring him on, as to a definite goal to be won; (c) the standards of achievement were clearly objective — so much so that the learner and his fellows could, in large part, render valuable decisions as to the work — in an amateur or in a commercial sense — of the product; and (d) the un- dertaking was of such a nature that the learner, in achieving his desired ends, would necessarily have to apply much of his previous knowledge and experience — perhaps hereto- fore not consciously held as usable in this way (e.g. art, science, mathematics, special tool skill) — and probably would have to acquire also some new knowledges and skills.

As in many other forms of learning, the objectives held in view by learner and teacher were often unlike. What the learner imagined as an end the teacher conceived often as a means to some remoter end.

The Project in Vocational Education In the early

stages of the development of certain forms of agricultural and industrial vocational education, a number of educators favored the project as the chief pedagogic unit of organiza- tion. In a sense any concrete job undertaken in a voca- tional school where the realization of valuable results in product constitutes an important end, might be called a " project " ; but to be an " educational project " such a job, e.g. turning a spindle, wiring a room, growing a half acre of potatoes, taking commercial charge of three cows for a year, cooking family breakfasts for a month, making ten saleable shirtwaists, cooperatively building and selling a cottage, etc., must be of such a nature as to offer large oppor- tunity, not only for the acquisition of new skill and expe- rience in practical manipulation, but also for application of old, and learning of new, "related knowledge" — art, sci-

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ence, mathematics, administration, hygiene, social science, etc.

The alternatives to the project as a teaching unit in voca- tional education are several, nearly all of which are exem- plified in any commercial school. They include: (a) the " practical exercise," the processes of which resemble in many respects the actual processes of the practical world, e.g. typewriting, stenographic drill, bookkeeping exercises, but which give no marketable or otherwise usable product; (b) technical subjects, organized topically, but commonly not definitely related to practical exercises then being considered, e.g. commercial arithmetic, business English; (c) joint enterprises of practical but nonproductive character, e.g. commercial school banks, or offices; and (d) jobs on a " gang " basis, largely for the commercially profitable ends of the institutions (not found in commercial schools, but of- ten characteristic of the " practical " agricultural school with a large farm, and of institutions, as seen in chair caning, tailoring, gardening, dish- washing, etc. ) .

In industrial schools the alternatives to the project chiefly found are: (a) the practical job contributing towards build- ing equipment or resulting in gifts to the learner; (b) the exercise; and (c) the series of technical lessons. But these are seldom related, whereas in the " project " it is expected to integrate them all.

About the same time that the word " project " came into popular use in discussions of vocational education, it was also becoming popular in writing on manual training. The systems of sloyd had taught " processes " largely, using " exercises " for this purpose. In each case any given item of practical work was conceived of as belonging to a very definite and logical series cumulative towards some general form of organized knowledge or skill. The " model " was, apparently, more " integral " than the exercise as a stage in a " process," but it did not meet all the pedagogic needs later expressed in the practical arts " project."

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In practical arts (as distinguished from vocational edu- cation) the project was expected to give an integrated out- come and one which appealed to the child's sense of the " worth-while." Hence the logical sequence of a series of projects might be hard to find, whereas, presumably, their pedagogic appeal to interests was manifest. By 1912 the project as a pedagogic unit of organization in practical arts and in vocational education had found a place, if not always a welcome.

Then arose interest in the more effective teaching of science. In science teaching the " experiment " (which was in reality more often simply a directed exercise) corre- sponded to the •Wr-model " and " exercise " in the practical side of manual training. Logical considerations inherent in the subject matter of science gave rise to the so-called " logical order " (another name for the organization which seems most economical and effective to the specially informed and mature adult) which had always dominated in the selection and serial disposition of exercises and abstract studies of school science. Pedagogical organization (another term for the selection of matter and arrangement of steps making the subject most accessible to uninformed and youthful learners, with their childish motives, powers and frailties) had been largely ignored. But when a new start was at- tempted under the flag of " general science " it was found that a few units of the proposed rearrangements of the ma- terials of science could IDC described properly as projects.

For example, if a group of pupils set out to make some photographs with school or borrowed equipment (clearly a project) it is possible to seize the interest and opportunity thus created to give a considerable amount of new knowledge (facts, interpretations), regarding the formation of the image, the use of the lens in adding to the light making the image, the chemistry of light action on certain compounds, the chemical significance of developing, etc. Similarly if

Principles of Method in Vocational Education 135

a group of pupils set out to grow some plants under con- trolled conditions in the schoolroom, it is readily to be seen that this project gives varied opportunities to extend their comprehension of scientific facts and principles. Other proj- ects of a similarly useful and informing nature are now seen to be practicable: to exterminate flies in the school- house; to purify the water supply; to correct smoky lamps; to improve the time-keeping quality of a pendulum clock; to arrange soil conditions for tree planting of the grounds ; to improve a school-bell system; to cleanse spotted cloth- ing; to ascertain the wholesomeness of the home milk sup- ply; to prevent breeding of mosquitoes; to set up a home call-bell system ; to keep the teeth clean ; to improve the home processes of making biscuits ; and a thousand others of simi- lar nature.

We find, however, that the term " project " is hardly elastic enough to cover all the types of units of instruction which might well be organized under the head of general sci- ence. We might want our pupils to obtain some informa- tion as to comets; can we devise what can legitimately be called a project for this purpose? Of course we can call an enterprise destined to give the pupils more knowledge of comets (using books, pictures, and, perhaps, if circum- stances favor, some naked-eye observations and a peek through a telescope) a project in learning; but this simply stretches our useful term to unmanageable and unservice- able dimensions. We do not forget that Webster defines project as : " that which is projected or designed ; something intended or devised; a scheme, design or plan."

Nevertheless it is to be hoped that we could give to the educational project a limited and definite meaning which would make it the designation of a useful type of teaching (or learning) unit, distinct from the lesson, the exercise, the topic, the experiment, the reading assignment, the inquiry, the investigation, etc.

136 Vocational Education

Perhaps it would be well to introduce modifiers to desig- nate different grades or classes of projects. Recently, when cooperating with a committee preparing a manual on house- hold arts, wherein it was desired to set forth as much of the work as possible on a project basis, it early became clear that in the divisions relating to the preparation and serving of food, and the making and repair of clothing, it was easy to find many projects suited to the ages and conditions of the pupils (girls 12-16) planned for. But in the divisions re- lating to the care of children (nursing) and the choice and equipment of the home (housing) it was difficult, if not im- possible, to find suitable projects as these' are ordinarily conceived. To meet the difficulty a new type of project was planned, called an " Observation and Report Project," to apply in nursing and housing. For example, a girl would undertake to survey a given house and study its location, yard, drainage, water supply, exposure to light, cold, etc., 'and make a report, with drawings, etc., thereon. Similar possible projects as to nursing were described.

All these projects were divided into the following classes: Execution projects (school); execution projects (home and school) ; and observation and report projects. In addition, other learning units involving chiefly book study, were described — e.g. " telling " by teacher, exercises and school experimentation (calling them all topics), and of these topics, several kinds were distinguished.

The Project as Correlation Center. — It is well known to all vocational school teachers that endless difficulties are en- countered in trying to " correlate " technical courses of in- struction and practical work. The practical work necessa- rily requires its special organization, owing to gradation in difficulty of stages, etc. But the " related " courses — mathematics, drawing, chemistry, sketching, English lan- guage, foreign language, geography, etc., according to the vocation in view — have all their own "logical" organ-

Principles of Method in Vocational Education 137

izations which cannot, apparently, be disregarded. The mind of the pupil therefore is divided and follows to the end different tracks of learning which do not intersect.

In the " project method," the unit of productive or quasi- productive work becomes the correlation center. The logi- cal order of " related subjects " is necessarily broken up. Units from the related subjects, where naturally connected with the projects, are used. Special units of instruction and even training thus become easily developed.

At first, naturally, the method appears relatively cumber- some and wasteful; but in large measure this appearance may be due to persistent illusions as to the fruitfulness of method of formal instruction and training in related science. The academic mind especially is easily deceived into thinking that a pupil's glib mastery of textbook and laboratory chem- istry will " function " when he becomes a farmer or that a school girl's excellent reciting abilities in physics will con- stitute an asset in her work of homemaking.

Furthermore, we have as yet few acceptable precedents for good vocational projects. We can easily supply pro- ductive jobs in vocational education; but the truly " educa- tional job" — the project — that possesses "root" con- nections with all naturally related fields of knowledge and ancillary skills has usually to be invented. For this work originating powers of a very high order are required, as well as conviction that profitable educational undertakings are to be developed in this direction — a combination not yet often found among educators.

IV

Problems of Method. — In no field are there more genuine " problems " of method than in that of vocational education. To what extent do the effects of specific training extend or transfer? To what extent can we "borrow" motive?

138 Vocational Education

Can vocational education be made to produce incidental " moral values " of general importance ?

Effects of the Theory of Formal Discipline. — In the field of vocational education no less than in the fields of moral and cultural education the theory of formal discipline has played a large part. Nearly all adults who have given no careful study to the questions believe yet that it is possible to teach " observation," to train in " concentration," to pro- duce " mechanical ingenuity." Common experience teaches us, of course, that we can, by training or instruction, pro- duce endless specific powers ; but can we, by teaching certain specific powers very fully, and carefully, produce general powers ?

Suppose a boy is taught to be very accurate in driving nails, or in using a hand-saw in making small building parts ; will he be found more accurate as a consequence in laying bricks or in soldering tinware ? The question is not simple, and psychological experiments to date do riot give wholly decisive answers. Obviously what the boy does in brick- laying or tinsmithing will depend not only on the skills and knowledge which he brings, but upon his desires, his ap- preciations, his ideals. It may be that when he began wood working he had little interest in accurate work. As a re- sult of his first work in carpentry he develops either a fear of the consequences of turning in bad work, or a pride in work that is commended. He may bring to tinsmithing no skills, but he may bring desires, which will enable him to learn faster.

All recent studies seem to indicate, however, that parents, educators and employers tend to expect too much from the possible " transfer " of training. It is endlessly argued that study of plane geometry develops " reasoning powers," that study of Latin or botany teaches " observation," that men- tal arithmetic begets concentration, and that manual train- ing really trains the hand, as the name implies, and also

Principles of Method in Vocational Education 139

trains the mind in exactness, accuracy, etc. It is even pos- sible to find persons who argue that once a boy has learned to saw " squarely," his moral character thereafter will be much more " square " than it would otherwise have been. It requires only moderate experience to show that in these contentions there is some truth, probably much error, and unquestionably a great deal of confusion, due to use of ambiguous words. Of course the study of plane geometry trains in " reasoning powers " — not reasoning powers of all kinds, assuredly, but those peculiarly required for the problems of geometry. Is there such a thing as " reasoning power" in general? Or a "faculty" of reasoning? " Probably not," is the answer of modern psychology. At any rate the words are too vague and equivocal to be of service to the educator.

Nevertheless we may expect to find many consequences of the doctrine of formal discipline long persisting in the peda- gogy of vocational education. For years it was believed that the specific powers acquired in manual training would " carry over " into the trades. It was contended that a learner habituated to the wood lathe would thereby acquire a stock of powers that would serve him in learning the use of any rotary machinery. At least he would have learned the " principles " — those vague abstractions so dear to the academic mind. At present it is held by many that if a young person has learned salesmanship — e.g. of books — he becomes thereby equipped in an important degree to be a salesman of, e.g., automobiles, or in other words he has ac- quired the basic " principles " of salesmanship. Many of the abstract studies found in commercial courses are de- signed to give knowledge of principles — perhaps skill of a " general " nature in a few cases — for use in business life.

Vocational Motives One of the formidable problems

confronting the advocates of prolonged school attendance for all children is that of stimulating active interests in, or

140 Vocational Education

motives for, the work to be taken. Lately certain writers have recommended the enlistment of vocational motives. The Commission on the Reorganization of Secondary Edu- cation has gone so far as to recommend that the principal offerings of the senior high school should center in certain " broad " vocational courses. The intent of this is not so much to assure vocational education as it is to utilize voca- tional motives as " holding powers " for general, and espe- cially for civic, education.

But if the interpretations of vocational education made in this book are sound it will not prove practicable to substitute for it camouflaged general education. To a large extent that has been done for years in commercial education, but here the schools had the advantage of the aspirations of the chil- dren or working people to rise to " higher " callings, the gateways to which appeared to be only the commercial schools. It is very doubtful if interest in " blended " com- mercial courses could be maintained, if these were in active competition with courses of genuine vocational training for the commercial callings. Manual training and technical high schools have attracted large numbers of students, not, it is probable, because of direct appeals to vocational mo- tives, but because these schools have offered college pre- paratory courses and general education more attractive to certain kinds of temperament than the courses of the clas- sical schools.

It is, therefore, greatly to be doubted whether the pro- longation of interest in liberal education, for pupils of av- erage abilities and perhaps little taste for the academic, can be affected by the sincere and effective use of vocational motives. I f honest and straightforward vocational education is provided it will drive out the " blended " type. But it is the responsibility of educators so to improve their offerings of liberal education that these will not require the adventitious aid of vocational motives.

Principles of Method in Vocational Education I41

Students of human nature as well as psychologists are well aware of the existence in all normal human beings of what may well be called " workmanship " instincts. These mani- fest themselves universally in children whose play and games are patterned largely after productive activities; in youth who show besetting impulses to use the tools and to imitate the work of elders; and in the outcroppings of "creative" impulses among adults.

But we are still very much in the dark as to how far these instinctive tendencies alone supply motive force for modern conditions. Often they seem to rise but little above the levels characteristic of primitive social life. They seem ex- cessively dependent upon the play spirit. Only under strong extraneous motives, often, can men and women be depended upon to " work hard," to subject themselves to painful rou- tines, to postpone pleasurable " excursions." Everyone who has tried to assist the poor and irresponsible, to hold adoles- cents to systematic effort, or to organize for productive pur- poses the dwellers in warm climates or the primitive humans of any part of the world knows how imperfectly functional for the conditions created by crowded populations, large uti- lization of natural forces, and rising standards of living are the motives dependent directly upon instincts of workman- ship.

But social life abounds with examples of the successful use of extraneous motives. Strong men early learned to drive their fellows to work by fear. The desire for " gain " - that is, for much-wanted consumable or capital goods - can be extensively utilized. Desire for approval (or to es- cape disapproval ) plays a very large part in holding modern man to toil. Finally, habituation, rendering that which was unpleasant, pleasant in time, and drying up the fountains of competing incentives, makes toil welcome and even neces- sary. Thus civilized society makes the worker, the man of routine, the provident investor, the inventor, the power har- nesser.

142 Vocational Education

We know little as yet relative to the use of vocational mo- tives in schools. With young learners we have counted too heavily upon the instincts to produce. We have seen city children from a starved environment take with avidity to tools when given opportunity and we have too readily in- ferred that these new-born interests were capable of holding them for a thousand hours per year no less than for a half dozen a week. We have learned that even adults, stimu- lated by a knowledge of their inferior earning powers, will rarely persist in " long " courses in evening schools, but that the incentive of a "short unit " course, if it be concrete and visibly related to the day's work, is sufficient to produce valuable results.

The writer is strongly of the opinion that in all schools of basic vocational education we must yet utilize the motive of gain. Only in agricultural schools now can the worker enrich himself from the proceeds of his project. It will be found that no better investment can be made than to give the learner the net money value (barring cost of in- struction) of the productive work he does in learning.

Moral Values of Vocational Education Sound voca- tional education will, of course, produce the specific moral virtues characteristic of the given vocation. The specific fidelities, loyalties, thoroughnesses, and honesties, and other ideals thus produced are, of course, assets or factors in that composite of virtues, known as " good citizenship," " moral character," and the like.

But how far can we rely upon vocational education to produce virtues, that will apply outside the vocation ? The world is familiar with the fact that often a conscientious workman is not a good father or voter, that a man may be the soul of honor with business associates and yet easily capable of dishonorable action towards others. Loyal sol- diers are often blind to public interests. A hardworking farmer may be stingy and a monopolist.

Principles of Method in Vocational Education 143

Probably we are deceived by the fact that among adults our first and most prevalent valuations of men and women are in terms of their vocations. Has a man's law school education and his lawyer's experience given him the " vir- tues " of a good lawyer ? We first appraise him therefor. Is a manual worker punctual, industrious, careful of tools, habituated to give conscientious workmanship? Our first valuation is that he is a good citizen generally.

Inductive study of examples of this kind will probably make clear in the first place the large part played in good citizenship by the specific vocational virtues and also the pre- vailing tendency of reasoning to ascribe to the approved man's education the native virtues that have in reality come into prominence as a result of selective processes. Prob- ably the man who is so endowed by nature that he easily be- comes a good workman is also similarly endowed with many of the qualities that develop into non-vocational virtues.

The entire subject needs examination. Quite possibly skillful teaching at the right moment would be able to " ex- tend " or " transfer " into non- vocational areas, if not the habit and knowledge elements of vocational virtues then in process of formation, at least their " appreciative/' " aspi- rational " or " idealistic elements." A boy caught in decep- tive work can readily be inspired and even trained not to repeat that misdeed. Skillful teaching (the simple old mor- alizing, goody-goody " stuff " will not " go " with a real American boy) might then develop appreciation and ideals of very general application.

CHAPTER V

VOCATIONAL EDUCATION FOR THE AGRICULTURAL CALLINGS

According to the 14th U. S. Census, there were in 1910 engaged in the pursuit of agriculture in the United States a total of over 12,600,000 persons (see classifications on page 515). The variety and value of the products of farms are summarized in the following tables :

TABLE I. VALUE OF ALL CROPS, UNITED STATES, 1909

(Compiled from 14th U. S. Census, 1910)

All Crops $5,487,000,000

Cereals 2,665,000,000

Corn 1,438,000,000

Oats 414,600,000

Wheat 657,600,000

Barley 92,458,000

Buckwheat 9,330,500

Rye 20,421,000

Kaffir corn and milo maize 10,816,000

Emmer and spelt 5,584,000

Rough rice 16,118,600

Other grains and seeds 97,576,000

Dry edible beans 21,700,000

Other beans , . 241,000

Dry peas 10,963,700

Peanuts - 18,271,900

Flaxseed 28,900,500

Miscellaneous seeds 768,625

Grass seed 15,137,683

Flower and vegetable seed 1,411,000

Hay and forage 824,004,877

Tobacco 104,302,866

Cotton and cotton seed 824,696,200

Cotton 703,619,300

Cotton seed 121,076,900

144

Vocational Education for the Agricultural Callings 145

TABLE I. VALUE OF ALL CROPS, UNITED STATES, 1909 (Continued)

Sugar crops $61,600,900

Sugar beets 19,800,700

Sorghum cane 10,170,400

Sugar cane 26,405,952

Maple sugar and syrup 5,177,800

Other minor crops 18,608,000

Broom corn 5,134,434

Hemp 412,699

Hops 7,844,745

All other 595,674

Vegetables 418,110,154

Potatoes 166,423,500

Sweet potatoes and yams 35,429,000

Other vegetables 216,257,000

Fruits and nuts 222,124,216

Small fruit . 29,974,480

Strawberries 17,913,900

Blackberries and dewberries . 3,900,800

Raspberries and loganberries 5,130,200

Cranberries 1,755,600

All other 1,200,000

Orchard fruits 140,860,300

Apples 83,231,400

Peaches and nectarines 28,781,000

Pears . . .: . 7,910,000

Plums and prunes 10,299,400

Cherries 7,200,000

Apricots 2,800,000

Allother. 529,400

Grapes 22,027,900

Tropical and sub-tropical fruits 24,700,000

Oranges 17,500,000

Lemons 2,900,000

Pomeloes (grapefruit) 2,060,000

Figs 803,800

Pineapples 734,000

Olives 404,400

All other ., 143,467

Nuts 4,447,600

Almonds 711,900

Pecans 971,596

Walnuts (Persian or English) 2,297,336

Allother 466,772

Flowers and plants 34,872,300

Nursery products 21,050,822

Forest products of farms 195,306,283

146 Vocational Education

TABLE II. LIVE STOCK ON FARMS

(Compiled from 14th U. S. Census for 1910)

VALUE, 1910.

Total $4,925,000,000

Cattlc ' 1,499,000,000

'Horses . .' • • 2,083,000,000

Mules • - 525,000,000

Asses . 13,000,000

Swine 400,000,000

Sheep 232,000,000

Goats 6,000,000

Poultry ' 154,000,000

Bees 10,000,000

The foregoing figures suggest the magnitude of Ameri- can agricultural interests but they give no satisfactory anal- ysis of the farming vocations as found throughout the states. From the point of view of one type of writer, farming is " just farming," and to talk of a large number and variety of specific vocations within it is almost absurd. From an- other point of view, however, there are scores of different vocations presenting " common principles " only in the last analysis and to the mind exceptionally capable of grasping abstract principles.

There is greatly needed, for purposes of organizing and administering vocational schools of agriculture, an extensive and concrete analysis of present degrees of specialization of the agricultural vocations, together with forecasts of prob- able future tendencies. The term " general farming " so freely used by not a few writers is thoroughly misleading. Quite obviously no "general farmer" in Massachusetts in- cludes oranges, cotton or beet sugar among his products. Farmers in Mississippi do not usually produce raisin grapes, cranberries, or considerable numbers of beef cattle. In the settlement of the frontier there was once a type of general farming the aim of which, supplemented by hunting and fish- ing, was to produce as nearly as practicable all the commod- ities a family required. Now only the rare farmer expects to

Vocational Education for the Agricultural Callings 147

meet fifty per cent or even twenty per cent of his cost of liv- ing from his own products. He works primarily to produce one or more marketable crops or live-stock products. The primary aim of the efficient school of agriculture must be to give competency in producing and marketing these " major " products over a series of years. Secondary to these are many other minor aims to be considered. For much inter- esting data consult G. F. Warren's Farm Management, Macmillan, 1914.

II

Agricultural Schools. — The primary aim of the vo- cational school of agriculture is therefore to produce, for a given area and given economic conditions, the success- ful farmer. Excluding farm laborers there are in this country probably 9,000,000 farmers. It is the most numer- ously followed vocation in the country, after homemak- ing. It may well be assumed that, in the not distant future, every man seeking success as a farmer will, at some stage of his preparation, desire the aid of a voca- tional school. It is not conceivable that the agricultural colleges can meet this demand, even if their primary aims were to train farmers. Agricultural colleges, with their degree requirements and facilities for research, can be expected to train large numbers of persons who will serve in some " leadership " capacity — as technical experts, man- agers of large farms, etc. ; but to expect them to supply the training needed by the rank and file of farmers would be as reasonable as to assume that the technological institutions of the country can train the millions of trade and industrial workers required in our manufacturing and building pur- suits.

If we presume that 30 years represents the average voca- tional " career " of the farmer it is evident that this group of callings requires not less than 300,000 recruits yearly. At

148 Vocational Education

present the great majority of these do not come to their work with any direct vocational training. They have been prepared, as have their forbears for thousands of years, and as are still nearly all tillers of the soil and stock-raisers in other countries, through the by-education of practical par- ticipation as child-helper and hired worker. Organized ap- prenticeship for the arts of tillage and live-stock rearing has probably never existed on an extensive scale. Probably the novice was his father's assistant in so many cases that formal indenture never seemed necessary. That the agri- cultural arts are successfully transmitted through the by-edu- cation of unorganized apprenticeship is demonstrated by the success of these arts in China, Belgium, Mexico and hun- dreds of other regions which have never possessed vocational schools of agriculture. As in the trades, this by-education seems fairly successful so long as the capital employed is small, the bulk of the work is performed by hand-driven or animal-driven, rather than power-driven, tools, and there is little need for the use of scientific knowledge.

The need of vocational schools to train for the agricultural vocations has become felt only recently in America. In a vague way, probably, those persons who were responsible, even more than half a century ago, for the initiation and de- velopment of the agricultural colleges in America and other countries, thought or felt that these institutions would serve as agencies of vocational training for the actual callings of the farm. But in the majority of cases that has not hap- pened and probably could not happen. The agricultural colleges have done several kinds of splendid service, of which the training of experts to perform experimental and advi- sory functions for farmers, and the offering of extension education to farmers at work have been the two of greatest importance. But in the light of our present knowledge, we can hardly expect a series of vocations, the net labor return for which rarely exceeds fifteen hundred dollars yearly, and

Vocational Education for the Agricultural Callings 149

the modal yearly return for which, at least prior to the war, was hardly one thousand dollars, to command the kinds of ability and expensive training required to complete a college course.

Varieties of Agricultural Education From the stand- point of successful farming, vocational agricultural educa- tion may be considered under several distinct heads :

a. There is first the kind of education that can be given by an agricultural college requiring high school graduation as a condition for admission and giving a four year course leading to the degree of bachelor of science. This form of agricultural education is distinctly professional in its char- acter. It presupposes students of exceptional ability and ought to qualify them for positions of expert service or leadership in some capacity.

b. Agricultural colleges have already developed exten- sive lines of " extension " instruction in agriculture. This work may be expected greatly to enlarge in the future. The essence of extension education is to be found in the fact that the persons taking it have already a basis of practical ex- perience on which to build. The types of extension teach- ing most successful in the agricultural college consist of short courses of from one to six or twelve weeks for farmers already at work, correspondence courses along special lines, extension lectures, and demonstration and experiment sta- tion work designed to meet the immediate problems of farmers.

c. The technical school of agriculture for persons either already possessed of some practical experience in farm work, or likely to obtain such practical experience at an early date, while existing now in only a few scattered examples, prob- ably has an important future. The " agricultural school " department found in some agricultural colleges is of this type; so also are certain schools or so-called colleges of agriculture admitting students of sixteen years of age or

150 Vocational Education

upward and which are not insisting on any considerable educational prerequisite. Some county schools of agricul- ture and certain state institutions in New York deserve properly to be called technical schools of agriculture.

(/. For boys from twelve to sixteen the " Home Project Work," related to the " Corn " and " Pig " Club work of former years, has become a widely established and generally useful form of education carried on, like scouting and other voluntary activities, in the amateur spirit. As a contribu- tion to liberal education in the best meaning of that term this work is invaluable; but in no proper meaning of the term, probably, ought it to be called vocational, although to some it will give vocational appreciations and ideals.

e. In a great variety of high schools in the United States are found agricultural courses, based chiefly upon textbooks and some laboratory work, with occasional individual or joint projects undertaken by the pupils. These can hardly be called schools of agriculture in the vocational sense.

/. Finally, we note the vocational school of agriculture as such which undertakes to provide both for the practice and the related technical knowledge for the training of boys from fourteen to twenty years of age and within an area sufficiently small to insure a genuine mastery of vocational practice. This type of school usually proceeds through the use of a home project which becomes for the learner a project of economic importance expected to yield him per- haps not less than one hundred dollars net for a year's work. This project to be successful must be confined to some one definite field of agriculture, such as the raising of potatoes, the raising of a kitchen garden, the raising of a specified amount of poultry, the care of a specified number of dairy cows during the year, the economic management of a speci- fied area of orchard that is taken and improved and the product marketed.

The types discussed may be analyzed in order of ages ap- pealed to, as follows :

Vocational Education for the Agricultural Callings 151

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152 Vocational Education

The Home Project School. — From the point of view of the writer, the only type of school of agriculture that can probably succeed on an extensive scale in the future, is that described under / above. The reasons for this position are as follows: -The economic practice of agriculture tends always towards specialization. The farmer who is making the largest financial return from his agriculture is the man who concentrates his efforts on the basis of scientific prin- ciples. This does not mean that only one crop in agricul- ture or one type of stock raising can give maximum economic success. In the first place, for certain areas of the country, rotation of crops must be practiced in order to insure max- imum utilization of soil. In the second place, successful farming often involves complementary processes, for ex- ample, where corn and hogs, beet sugar and cattle and the like are involved. Again, under some conditions, a farmer must have two or more lines of work in the event that one should prove an economic failure, as, for example, a farmer growing wheat in a region where perhaps in only two years out of three is the rainfall sufficient to guarantee raising crops. Under these conditions, farmers must have a dry weather crop as reserve. Finally, we know that the eco- nomic practice of agriculture involves such an adjustment of lines of production as will provide for the optimum use of machinery, equipment, and especially labor, throughout the year. Subject to conditions like the foregoing, it is re- peated, the economic practice of agriculture tends towards specialization. The man to succeed in any division of it must become more and more an expert in his particular field through scientific study, and furthermore, through delegat- ing where practicable such functions as purchase of ferti- lizers and seeds, disposal of product, the use of expensive machinery, to special agencies designed to make the maxi- mum use of these facilities.

The program of a vocational school of agriculture should

Vocational Education for the Agricultural Callings 153

probably always rest on a one year basis because of the sea- sonal character of agriculture. /& program of instruction in an agricultural vocational school should assume the avail- ability of at least six or eight hours of the pupil's time for six days per week throughout the year. This time might then be distributed so as to give four or five hours a day on the average to practice, perhaps two hours a day to related technical studies and perhaps an hour a day to general readings and conferences expected to develop social insight, this to include class reading of some one standard descriptive text of the agricultural vocations as practiced in various parts of the world and their relation to human well-being. The vocational training of the pupil, in this as in other schools and apart from the general " social insight " course, probably will develop increasingly towards an individual instruction with only occasional conferences at which pupils and teachers will pool their common knowledge and experi- ence.

But the program of an agricultural school must not pre- suppose the same distribution of time every day throughout the year. There must necessarily be two or three months during which the boy, for example, on a farm or crop proj- ect, should give his time exclusively to practice work. There will also be probably two or three months during which four, five, or six hours per day spent in the school would be sufficient. Finally, under some conditions, perhaps one or two school meetings per week, the remaining time to be given exclusively to practice on sub-projects, might be the best way of organizing instruction and practice.

It is probable that division of the teaching force according to practical work and related technical work is almost cer- tainly destined to prove a failure. Only the man responsible for the supervision of the boy's practical work can be ex- pected satisfactorily to take charge of his related technical instruction in that field.

154 Vocational Education

It is essential that the boy should be the chief beneficiary of the net economic returns from his project. Experience has shown that a net return of $70 for a year's work for a boy 14-16 years of age should be regarded as a minimum, while ambitious and energetic boys should be able easily to earn a net return of at least $100. It goes without saying that accurate accounts must be kept with the project, so that all outlay for rent of land (and in dairy and fruit projects, interest on the capital represented by cows, fruit trees, etc. ) , tools, added labor in time of pressure, seed, fertilizer, and the rest should be deduced.

From time to time, questions arise as to a desirable length of vocational agricultural course. As suggested above, every program should be based on the assumption that one year's work will complete for the time being the student's requirements as to agricultural skill and knowledge in a par- ticular project field. It should prove entirely within the possibilities of the school to offer the pupil a succession of projects even extending over four or five years if necessary. For example, a pupil might take as his first project the rais- ing of an acre of potatoes; as his second project, the raising of one hundred head of poultry; for his third project, the raising of a field crop of corn or potatoes or hay or wheat; and as his fourth year project, the care of four or six dairy cows. This, in a sense, would represent the accumulation of several vocational possibilities.

Debatable Issues.1 — The passage of the Smith-Hughes bill by Congress, making provision of national aid for the promotion of agricultural education of secondary grade, together with the many efforts now being made to promote agricultural production in the United States, bring into re-

1 The following sections (pp. 154-164) are taken from an article in School and Society (January 19, 1918). The somewhat personal form is retained because it lends itself to definition of the issues in- volved.

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lief many debatable issues relative to agricultural education. Already, literally thousands of ordinary elementary and high schools throughout the country are making at least pretenses of offering agricultural instruction or training; while the 'agricultural colleges and numerous special schools are rapidly bringing into view the various specific problems involved in making agricultural education really worth while.

Dr. Theodore H. Eaton's recently published monograph, " A Study of Organization and Method of the Course of Study in Agriculture in Secondary Schools," * is an impor- tant and valuable review and criticism of methods and at- tainments in the field of secondary agricultural education to date. In School and Society under the title " A Possible Core for a Program in Agricultural Education " 2 Dr. Eaton has outlined a fairly definite theory for the organization of agricultural instruction and one which manifestly deserves careful consideration. \

To the man engaged in the practical problem of trying to prepare a working curriculum for an agricultural school serving a given area and a given group of students, Dr. Ea- ton's " core " will probably seem almost hopelessly large and complex, not to say vague and elusive. His analysis raises the question as to how far, in view of the uncertainties of educational terminologies, and the known predilections of educators for " omnibus " or " wholly " words, it is profit- able or desirable for writers to attempt to " generalize " agri- cultural education.

Very rightly Dr. Eaton says : " There are all kinds of farmers and all kinds of farms in all kind of places." He should have added " there are many possible kinds of agri- cultural education adapted to many kinds of boys and men according to the ends in view or objectives to be realized."

1 Published by Teachers College, Columbia University, New York.

2 School and Society, December 29, 1917.

156 Vocational Education

The greatest practical danger confronting the various states in their attempts to evolve workable schemes of agricultural education (danger, that is, of false starts, hurtful disillu- sionings, wasted resources and misdirected efforts of learn- ers) will certainly come from the attempts to train boys (and men) to be " farmers " in the general sense — which is only a few steps short of that now discarded ideal of an older theory of vocational education which would train all to be "men " (which is, of course, in spite of its vagueness, a right ideal of liberal, as distinguished from vocational, education).

Now the first distinction of importance to note is the fact that sometimes the words " agricultural education " refer to a very tangible purpose in general or liberal education where the ends in view have little or nothing to do with the voca- tions of tillage or stock raising; and sometimes to a very different thing, namely, the instruction and training destined to prepare a person, in whole or in part, for the successful pursuit of one of the many vocations of the soil.

There is probably little need relatively for " liberal " agri- cultural education through schools in rural communities (especially when the regular schools provide illuminating reading that should increasingly be stimulated in upper grades), since here it comes in large measure as by-educa- tion from rural life itself. But in cities, and especially in large cities, where people are far removed from contact with rural vocations and from appreciation of the social, civic, aesthetic, intellectual, and physical characteristics of rural life and work, there is large need of genuine " appre- ciation " courses in agriculture which can readily be given, with practical gardening, in schools for boys from twelve to eighteen years of age. " Home project " gardening, now being fostered by the national government, is a valu- able means to that end. On the other hand, it is folly to offer expensive education towards agricultural vocations

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except to those who will very probably repay society for its investment by their achievements as successful practition- ers of the vocations for which they have been trained. Hence vocational education in agriculture belongs chiefly to the country until it is demonstrated that substantial numbers of city boys will, in good faith, take it.

Vocational Aims. — Within the field of vocational agri- cultural education it is also of no less importance that we analyze sharply the many scores of distinctive agricultural vocations for any one of which, in a complete system of school education, specific training could be given, and for each of which, of course, there has always been available the crude and poorly directed by-education obtained by younger persons working under the guidance of elders. The words " agricultural education " ought to be used only as the words " professional education " are used — in a general sense, and not as descriptive of a field in which or for which a given individual should be prepared, or a single school organized. Let us imagine a college advertising to give " professional education " ; the immediate question is " For what profession? " We do not train dentists in the same way that we train lawyers; or journalists in the same way that we train electrical engineers.

Similarly, we should cease to speak of so-called vocational schools as training " farmers " (at least schools of second- ary grade; and probably the same rule applied to agricul- tural colleges in the first and second years of their work would result in great improvement in their aims, methods, and results). Let us rather recognize the fact that some successful farmers of to-day are rendering to themselves and to the nation the best possible service by being success- ful poultrymen; others through being successful growers of oranges and still others respectively as market gardeners, as " potato kings," as apple growers, as mule-raisers, as growers of corn and hogs, as producers of milk.

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But in the vocational training which would make of one boy a successful poultry man, there is practically nothing in common with the training which would make another a successful apple-grower in Oregon, any more than there is in the training that would make of one youth a successful teacher of mathematics and another a successful stenog- rapher. The state of Texas might well afford to have a first class school to train youths of suitable age — fifteen years or upwards — successfully to follow the vocation of rice-growing; but such a school would be an absurdity in New England. On the other hand, ought not New England to have several good schools to train youths successfully to produce apples, or milk, or cranberries respectively ?

There survives, of course, and especially in the Atlantic States, the tradition 'of the " all-round " farmer — the farmer who has two or three cows of rather low productiv- ity, a few hens, an assortment of fruit trees, a hay meadow, and a tilled section whereon he tries to grow corn, potatoes, and cabbage. Is it worth while to try to train a new gen- eration for that kind of " agriculture " ? It had its attrac- tive sides doubtless, but it fits very poorly into the economy of the twentieth century. The all-round farmer must fol- low the jack-of -all-trades, the " general merchandise man," and the " handy man."

There will remain, of course, " complementary farming " — complementary in the parallel sense, as where one farm produces corn for hogs and hogs for the market ; or in the alternative sense, as where soil must, for its fullest health, have successive crops of corn, oats and clover. But in training a youth for one of these fields of agriculture, edu- cation in the technique of each complementary part would constitute but one stage of his unified training for the one agricultural vocation as experience demonstrates that to be best organized.

But why does Dr. Eaton say " under a democratic form

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of government it is not possible to prognosticate with sure- ness that any boy will become a farmer, much less that he will take up a certain definite type of farming in a known locality " ? What bearing has that fact on the offering of definite programs of genuine vocational education towards any one or several of the numerous agricultural vocations? Suppose we say : " Under a democratic form of government it is not possible to prognosticate with sureness that any boy will become a dentist or a bookkeeper or something else." Has that any bearing on the policy of establishing a good vocational school for those who make up their minds that they wish to be dentists in view of the fact that the market can yearly provide place for an ascertained number of new dentists ?

If investigation in eastern Massachusetts shows that a substantial number of properly qualified young men can each year find profitable careers in specified types of market gardening, why should there not be provided a school, or department of a school, having the training of successful market gardeners as its distinctive end? Can we stop short of this in the logical evolution of publicly supported vocational education ? Is not this the only method by which education can be made truly democratic? Dr. Eaton him- self says:

" Indeed it is very desirable that such general analyses of different types of farm life in various regions be made (e.g. of the factors of successful life on a dairy farm in the New England states), if we are to succeed in a close adaptation of the educative process to individual and community needs."

But after this, what is the need of a " general scheme " to which the paper seems devoted ?

" The problem in any general scheme becomes one of study of the type activities, so far as such exist, inherent in a life spent in production from the soil."

But does not this proposed " general scheme " lead us

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again straight towards the educational mysticism (and, in the hands of reactionaries, obscurantism) which has so long baffled the development of good vocational education, and which, also, under the guises of " culture," " humanism," and " mental discipline," has even baffled the development of anything like a truly democratic liberal education in the schools of the people? We need, indeed, general schemes of liberal or common or general education because through that we are laying foundations for general culture, com- mon morality, democratic ideals and patriotic citizenship; but in vocational education we must perforce follow the specialization produced by economic forces which the schools can no more control than they can control the motion of the planets.

Specialization of Function. — One can agree with much that Dr. Eaton says regarding the desirability of having "type projects" (in vocational agricultural education) in- clude " complete cycles of production " even when these in- clude the primary elements of " production " as well as the secondary elements of " distribution." But unless this ideal is interpreted in its quantitative as well as in its qualitative aspects, there is every probability that our agricultural schools will have their young learners flounder- ing and bemired in endless swamps of unassimilable technical knowledge (the figure is not nearly so mixed as the actual situation depicted — which can still be observed at first hand in many of the agricultural schools the work of which is described in Dr. Eaton's book). It is especially in this con- nection that educators must get into touch with the tend- encies of the age.

" A man who is his own lawyer has a fool for a client." The man who tries to doctor his sick child may be prose- cuted. As long as the orange-growers of California tried each to market his own product, they lost more money than they made; when they delegated marketing to experts, the

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market was stabilized and rendered a certain source of rea- sonable profit. Why has the corporation, as a form of economic organization, come to dominate so many fields of production and exchange? Because it best provides for specialization and delegation of service. We are constantly praying farmers to " cooperate " ; but such cooperation gets nowhere unless with it there comes employment of special- ists and delegation of function. The apple-growers of the northwest have nothing to do at first hand with the stand- ards of packing of their apples any more than a patient in a hospital has to do with the running of the hospital. These apple-growers have been wise enough to recognize their own limitations — and also wise enough to know the value of employed specialized service (becoming expert just be- cause it is specialized) when that service is carefully chosen and its output scrutinized. In other words, these farmers, as regards packing fruit, do just what all intelligent men do in the use of medical and other specialized service — they learn to distinguish the false from the true, the efficient from the inefficient, and then delegate responsibility.

Now, in the framing of plans of vocational education for agricultural schools we must go chiefly to the practice of successful modern farmers for guidance. We must dis- tinguish sharply between those capacities or powers of the successful farmer involved in abilities to do, to execute, or to perform, and those other capacities or powers involved in abilities to appreciate the need of the services of others and to appraise or evaluate that service when rendered by them. The range of the former requirement narrows year by year as civilized society becomes more complex ; while the range of the latter widens. In the process of distributing the meat products of the country there has evolved a tech- nology so complicated that no one man can grasp more than part of it ; what should or can be the cattle grower's knowl- edge or appreciation of that technology?

162 Vocational Education

We have in view here a problem of educational objectives as to which I think Dr. Eaton has the correct prospective, but which he seems to have failed to set forth clearly in the article referred to. It is a problem in discussing which we need help from the analogies of local and marginal fields of vision, or of primary and secondary returns (product and by-product) in any field of economic production. For con- crete illustration, let us take the case of a class of boys of sixteen who have elected to prepare themselves for poultry- raising as a vocation.

It is clear that each of these boys in his earliest year-round project must learn by first-hand experience to do the neces- sary work of feeding, sheltering, and guarding a workable number of chickens. Should he learn to build an incubator? Probably not; specialists can do that far better than he. How far should he learn the principles of its operation — as far as he knows the principles of operation of the watch that he carries, or as far as he is expected to know the principles of his father's automobile which he drives? Clearly he must learn so much of the mechanism, in each case, as is essential to his responsibilities in the operation of it — and the age moves steadily towards " fool-proof " machinery.

The boy has to buy most of the food for his poultry. What does he most need to know (remembering that he has only one thousand hours in which to learn, under school direction, all that he expects to get relative to poultry-rais- ing) about the available foodstuffs? Here the purpose is to make him a good buyer — a good appreciator or ap- praiser of the services of others. Conceivably, the best advice that can be given him is to consult an expert and abide by his recommendation, rather than to try to be his own lawyer, and to awaken too late to the fact that he has a fool for a client.

Focal and Marginal Fields In other words, at every

stage in successful vocational education towards one of the

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agricultural vocations there must be a small focal field in which skill of planning and performance is the controlling objective, and towards the attainment of which skill daily hard work, rigid thinking and painstaking reading must be insisted on. Here, thoroughness, accuracy, industriousness, conscientiousness, in the senses ordinarily thought of by master workmen, army officers and disciplinarians gener- ally, must dominate.

But besides this there may be a very wide marginal field, a mental and physical penumbra, in which the objectives are less clearly defined, and in one sense less important. Here general reading, an occasional lecture, incidental reflection, and other means of unforced education or even by-educa- tion (by-product education) may well suffice. If we could clearly define and illustrate the differences of the two classes of objectives here referred to, a paper on agricultural edu- cation would not dismay us by its apparent insistence that for one group of projects, the related " technological study will cover the chemistry of plant and animal life, the physics and chemistry of soils, tillage, manuring, drainage, irriga- tion, plant and animal pathology and sanitation, economic entomology, feeding; and the implications lead to botany, zoology, geology and geography as well as to the sciences already mentioned."

The writer suggests the following as one method of study for educators bent on working out curricula of vocational school education for the agricultural vocations. There are in America perhaps ten million men now following these vocations. Of these perhaps five million are reasonably successful, having in view, on the one hand, their native en- dowments and the opportunities made available by nature in the regions where they live ; and, on the other, the standards by which we judge successful performance in other fields for persons of corresponding abilities and natural opportu- nities— physicians, high school teachers, retail merchants, artisans, sailors, hotel-keepers, teamsters, etc.

164 Vocational Education

Now, what are the powers (of personal execution) and capacities (for appreciation of powers of others) typically found in these successful farmers — appraised quantita- tively as well as qualitatively — according to their sev- eral specialties — market gardener, wheat-grower, cotton grower, dairymen selling milk to creamery, etc. ?

Which of these specific powers and appreciations has been acquired at too great cost because, in the absence of direct vocational education in schools, the man had to get them via the wasteful by-education of experience? In what specific respects have these men failed to attain powers and appre- ciations which a good school could give? Until we shall have made some such analysis as this, it is to be feared that our school programs of vocational education for the farm- ing vocations will be bookish, academic, theoretical, because they will aspire to be to the fullest extent general, techni- cal, and scientific. Educators are slow to learn due modera- tion of ambition and demands. They often aspire to con- quer the world only to find that they have lost even the homestead.

Ill

Problems Several very unsettled problems as to the

careers probably open to the boy trained in some variety of farming still await solution. Some of these grow out of the fact that in many parts of America farming is only now passing out of the hands of those who, on homesteaded pub- lic lands, redeemed their land from its original natural con- ditions. Others are due to the enlarging part played by capital in modern, and especially American, agriculture. A third set of problems arises from the temptations presented by industrial, commercial and even professional occupations to young men who have ability and can obtain prolonged education but who do not expect soon to possess capital.

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1. The Acquisition of Land. - - Throughout the entire his- tory of America, until near the close of the 19th century, the youth or young man desirous of beginning work as an independent farmer could easily find fresh land " to the west." Frequently he could secure title to this during the years that he was working for wages, acquiring a small cap- ital and farming experience. Furthermore, as the region settled and transportation conditions improved, even his imperfectly cleared and cultivated land gained steadily in value. A sober, hard-working man, notwithstanding very incomplete training as tiller of the soil or stock breeder, would often find himself comparatively early in life the pos- sessor of considerable wealth — he had become the inde- pendent, managing, capital-owning farmer in whom America has taken such pride. He it was whom the sociologist Ross had in mind when he wrote that it was doubtful if any other act of legislative body, American or European, had con- ferred so many blessings on humanity as our " homestead law " which provided in large part for the disposal of pub- lic lands west of the Alleghenies.

What will be the history of the generations of farmers yet to come? We must assume that usually the beginner in this, as in almost all other vocations, must start with little or no capital and with only small and precarious credit. Commercial and industrial fields of work have simplified the situation by opening endless opportunities for the young man to begin as wage-earner, or as learner on some form of commission basis, and, as he accumulates capital and experience, to work into more responsible positions and even to use his capital in " the firm." Agriculture, too, offers endless openings for the hired worker; but does it, or can it, offer similar or equal opportunities for advancement, for the " investment " of special training, experience, and work- ing capital? That is not yet clear. In the older states, it is noted that tenant farming is steadily increasing. Prob-

i66 Vocational Education

ably much of this is due to the supplanting of the older generation of farmers by younger or more vigorous immi- grants. But it is to be expected that many of the sons of farmers will themselves begin their careers on other than a " hired labor " basis, as renters or tenants — on their par- ents' land or elsewhere. At what age and under what con- ditions will a young man probably thus become a self- directing farmer? Undoubtedly, the answers to this ques- tion will have much to do in determining the scope and char- acter of the vocational agricultural education to be given in the full-time school of farming. If a youth, say eighteen years of age, must expect to spend five or six years merely as a hired man or helper, perhaps largely on an " occasional job " or " casual labor " basis to an active farmer, then it remains still an open question as to how far it is expedient or profitable to teach him in detail the arts and sciences of farming practice — manual performance or managerial — during his adolescent years. If, on the other hand, agri- cultural production were so organized, or could be so organ- ized, that the young man, on graduating from a school of agriculture, could put his skill, knowledge, and powers of planning into actual practice, as is so largely the case now in the industrial and commercial callings, then there would exist the best of reasons why these schools should be ex- .tensively developed and why prospective farmers in large numbers should take advantage of their offerings.

We cfo not yet know, of course, how far vocational train- ing can be Kept effectively in "cold storage." That is, we cannot tell how far the skill, technical knowledge, and managerial ability developed in a youth of eighteen will survive until he is twenty-six if he be given little opportu- nity in the meantime to put his powers in these lines into active and responsible practice — responsible, that is, in the sense that his success or failure in any given practical project will depend upon his own skill, his own knowledge,

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his own planning and managing ability. It seems to be an unfortunate fact that the average farmer, and perhaps the successful farmer most of all, is disposed to give to his em- ployed subordinates, and even to his own sons, little oppor- tunity for taking the initiative or exercising independent judgment. Quite frequently he shows no desire even to re- ceive their suggestions or advice.

It is possible that farmers whose sons work out " home projects " in practical schools of agriculture can be per- suaded to see the very great value of allowing these boys, on completing the requirements of schools of agriculture, to share in the direction of the home farm on some form of minor partnership basis. Obviously, the directors of these schools should actively interest themselves in the after careers of their pupils, for otherwise a large part of the ex- pensive training of these schools is apt to prove " non- functional."

2. Enlarging Capital Units Even more difficult prob- lems are found in the shifting status of agriculture as re- gards the normal amount of capital investment required for most profitable farming in most parts of the United States. In many parts of the country the best farming now involves a capital investment in land, building and tools of from $10,000 to $50,000. Only exceptional persons, work- ing on their own resources, can hope to accumulate a capital of even $10,000 by middle age. Farmers' sons, belonging as they do, to a capital owning class, may expect to inherit the ancestral capital eventually ; but, unless American farm- ers should elect to repeat the disastrous practice of French land-owners in closely limiting the size of families, each son could expect to inherit only from one fourth to one sixth of the ancestral property, and, of course, that inher- itance will, on the average, only take place when the repre- sentative of the new generation himself reaches middle age.

There can be no question but that the greatest crisis con-

1 68 Vocational Education

fronting the present individualistic organization of agri- culture in America is due to the enlarging use of capital made necessary by progress of invention and specialization on a territorial basis of production. There are those who hope and anticipate that intensive farming on small lots of valuable land will enable us to preserve the status of the independent, land-owning farmer with capital of from $1000 to $10,000. But this will certainly necessitate either some form of collective ownership of teams, power-driven tools, sources of water supply, storage apparatus, and the like; or else the complete relegation of these to corporations, as has been the case in sugar production, butter and cheese pro- duction, fruit packing, meat packing, etc. Collective owner- ship by land-owning farmers themselves of necessary ad- juncts seems to have proved successful only in some cases of water supply (for irrigation), fruit packing, and grain- storing plants, etc. Community ownership of ditching and tilling apparatus and expensive breeding stock has proved successful also in some cases, but against these we have to place the rapid growth of privately and separately owned elevators, threshing outfits, seed and fertilizer supplying agencies, and high grade breeding animals. It may be (and for social reasons it is to be feared) that the amounts of capital hereafter necessary in agriculture of the kind which, over the generations, will yield the maximum amounts of product (by which test any form of agriculture will eventually rise or fall) will compel corporate ownership and direction of nearly all if not all the immediate and related factors in this field of production, as has already become the case in manufacture, transportation of commodities, distance com- munication, exchange of commodities, capital investment, etc. Corporation-conducted agriculture would, of course, offer greater opportunities for the trained man possessing no capital than does the present situation.

It is possible that governmental provision of working or

Vocational Education for the Agricultural Callings 169

" turn-over" capital (not capital for fixed investment, at least in land) will help solve some of the difficulties presented to young men who can rent land and possess the qualities and characteristics necessary to obtain credit. But it is doubtful whether this stage can be reached, for the average man, under twenty-five to thirty years of age.

3. Leaving the Farm. --The refusal in many cases of farmers' sons to become farmers themselves is a very old phenomenon, but one which has not greatly disturbed stu- dents of social problems until recently. ' The drift from the country to the city " has been in large part, for the nine- teenth century, a quite normal and inevitable result of eco- nomic transformation, whereby the professional, industrial, commercial, and transporting occupations, which have in all civilized countries expanded much more rapidly than agri- culture during the nineteenth century, have been concen- trated in or about urban centers. The increasing use of machinery in tillage and harvesting has greatly diminished the amounts of labor required to give a stated quantity of farm products.

Furthermore, the status of that man who possessed in- sufficient ability or capital (or both) to become at least a tenant farmer, and who must therefore earn a living as a wage-earner, has long been far less satisfactory in the coun- try than in the town, and conspicuously so if he had a family. Continuity of labor, shelter while working, available quar- ters to be rented for his family, inexpensive diversions and recreations, — all these the laboring man has been able to find more or less abundantly in industrial and commercial centers, while they were exceedingly precarious in rural areas. Farms conducted on the scale and under the con- ditions common in America require large amounts of hired labor for certain short seasons. But the owner and his fam- ily commonly supply all the labor needed during the re- mainder of .the year. In many sections of America this

170 Vocational Education

condition has produced either a permanent scarcity of farm labor ( even while immigration to the country has been at its maximum) or else has been met by the stimulation of a flow of casual labor of a highly irresponsible kind, con- sisting chiefly of single men who can live during the dull seasons by methods well known to the semi-vagrant.

From the standpoint of the rural sociologist the " drift to the city," has seemed chiefly objectionable because of its tendency to carry away the keenest, most enterprising sons of the soil. As in the case of the diminished birth-rate which dismays the student of eugenics, it is differential tendencies in favor of the least fit that constitute the real menace, not the phenomenon as a whole. In some sections, almost the entire original agricultural population has dis- appeared, leaving the land in the possession of recent im- migrants as tenants. In other places, selective emigration of the more enterprising has been so long in process that the remaining inhabitants seem to be, socially, and even biologi- cally in some cases, literally " dregs."

And the end of this selective movement citywards is not yet, largely for the reasons given above relative to the diffi- culties experienced by a young man in getting " started " in independent farming. The ladder of ascent to competency and independence is, for many, far easier and more satis- factory in the non-agricultural callings.

It is obvious that administrators and teachers of voca- tional education for the farming vocations must study these problems and take heed of the results of research even now being promoted towards their solution. Programs of al- leged vocational education formed in obliviousness to the significance of these problems will result in waste of public funds and forfeiture of public confidence.

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IV

The " Project " Method of Teaching Agriculture may best be understood from a summary of the conditions which ideally might be expected to prevail :

1. The " school " for one teacher consists of two rooms, the first, a classroom including office for the instructor, the second, a reading room for pupils, both designed to afford, at the maximum, accommodations for twenty persons. These rooms may be in a local high or elementary school, a small house, or a vacant store.

2. To be admitted to the school, a pupil must: (a) be at least fourteen years of age and have completed minimum requirements of elementary school attendance; (b) be pre- pared to give at least 1200 hours per year to practical work and 400 hours to related reading, study and class work, the whole time to be distributed to the best advantage of the project he undertakes; (c) be able to obtain on a rental basis from his father (or other responsible source) sufficient land, live stock, seeds, fertilizers, tools, supplemental labor, and new capital investment, properly to execute a project; (d) be able to obtain stipulations that products supplied to the home from his project shall be paid for exactly as if pur- chased in the market.

3. The instructor shall be a man possessing, on the one hand, technical college training, at least along the line of the projects which it is desirable to have taught locally ; and also practical experience in the successful management of a farm or of projects on a commercial basis. He shall be ex- pected to spend an average of not less than sixty hours per year in actual contact with the projects of each boy at the scene of this work; and he should be provided with the best means of travel for this purpose that local conditions re- quire (in densely settled areas, street car or foot travel will serve; in more scattered areas, motorcycle, automobile,

172 Vocational Education

buggy, or saddle horse). The instructor, having from ten to twenty boys (a larger number will usually be impracti- cable), should be prepared to give full time to his teaching work (except a vacation period during December and Jan- uary or other months of little farming activity) and only incidental time to community service or expert work apart from teaching.

4. The standards of the school shall require that each boy undertake a project of sufficient magnitude and prob- able value to yield him a reasonable labor return (or labor and profit returns distinguished) for his work after rentals, wages, and borrowings shall have been met. For a boy fifteen years old, accustomed to farm labor, a net labor return of nine cents per hour ($100 to $108 for the year of 1200 hours) would probably not be unreasonable (1919 prices) . For an older boy and especially for a boy working on a second year project, ten cents an hour would be reason- able. If the learner rents cows, horses, orchard trees, hives of bees, or the like, from his father, some arrangement for insurance against capital loss (e.g. by death of animal) should be made.

5. For each approved project the school should supply a booklet describing stages, sub-projects, and giving ample general directions, including for each step a list of page references to books, bulletins, and other reading available in the library. The learner must be required to obtain the instructor's approval to his plans for each succeeding step; and as preliminary thereto, the pupil will have read, as fully as practicable, the available material shedding light on his problem.

6. During the year in which a pupil is engaged upon a project, it is assumed that he will not expect to devote his working hours to other ends — such as work on his father's farm or preparation for college. The school should coop- erate with him in showing him how to spend his non-work-

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ing hours to best cultural and social advantage, — in general reading, music, social games, and the like.

Obviously, the pupil on a serious project (and no play project is contemplated here) can hardly join in the social activities of the cultural high school or in the taking of regular high school studies. Certainly he cannot take " A " class studies designed as preparatory to college. On the other hand, anything the school can now do to accustom the prospective farmer to the richer use of leisure (evenings, holidays, agricultural "dull" seasons) during the times when adult farmers have such leisure will be of the utmost profit. Only the traditions of old-fashioned schoolmasters will pre- serve the notion that in a vocational school hours from the heart of the working day should be taken either for school " sports " on the one hand, or for liberal studies on the other.

7. It is assumed that the program for the pupil will call for little special or separate study of physics, chemistry, accounting, or even of fertilizers, soils and markets; but that when, in the pursuit of a given project, the learner encounters problems that can be illumined by brief side ex- cursions (readings and a few laboratory tests will usually suffice for the needed appreciation and control), these ex- cursions should be taken to the extent that the time and abilities of the learner permit — which will usually be far short of the standards suggested by textbooks, or formal school courses in these subjects. (It will be hard, of course, for most school men of traditionalistic views to persuade themselves that an average boy can gain scientific insight of useful degree and character except via the old road, dear to schoolmasters, of "principles" first; but men of modern training will "find a new way.")

Pedagogical Principles What is the vocational peda- gogy of aim and method implicit in the foregoing condi- tions? These principles at least:

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1. The primary aim in vocational training for farmers is to produce the independent planner or manager — the man who is disposed, by long and varied habituation and ideal, to look ahead, to make provision for the future, to prear- range, to " keep his head running in advance of his feet." Secondary aims are technical knowledge and manual skill. Unlike many other vocations, farming, as practiced most successfully in America, throws a maximum of unspecial- ized responsibility on the individual farmer for scientific planning. Specialization in most commercial and indus- trial pursuits has given responsibility for planning to high- grade specialists.

2. The pedagogical method of the project is to put the learner in a position where, by aid of expert advice sought when necessary, he must plan and conduct, on an essentially commercial basis, at least for one year, one strand or unit of a farming occupation. If, in a given region, successful farming as a whole involves gardening and poultry raising, our young learner, for the sake of successful concentration, becomes a poultry man for one year, a gardener the next, but, in each case, on a commercial basis to the extent of paying for needed hired capital and earning a reasonable labor reward for himself.

3. The essence of successful vocational education as a continuing process consists : first, in the acquisition of skill and managerial ability in such a way that the learner be- comes increasingly capable of estimating his own short- comings and correcting them through self-directed efforts; and, second, in the increasing power of the learner to utilize printed matter as a source of knowledge and direction in new emergencies. Nearly every branch of agriculture has developed a rich technical literature of its own, to which results of research and experimentation are constantly be- ing added. The intelligent farmer who has developed capacities and powers of utilizing and applying published

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matter describing advances in his field, is in the best possible position to profit from the results of " scientific " or " pro- gressive " agriculture. For this reason it is to be expected that the boy who has, under the guidance of a teacher, worked to successful completion one or more projects, wherein he has made extensive use of bulletins and other technical reading materials, and, in solving the scientific problems connected with these, has done some laboratory experiments and has carefully read the interpreting sci- entific literature, — it is expected that this boy, as a man, confronted by new problems in a field already somewhat familiar to him, or by the problems presented in quite a new field, will very naturally at once utilize his powers of assem- bling and reading scientific materials and applying the results to the specific situations confronting him. The flexibility of mind and resourcefulness as regards means and methods that should result from right use of the project method will abundantly justify a considerable investment of money in securing persons properly qualified to execute it.

Rural Schools and Vocational Education for the Farming

Callings The historic rural elementary school has had

poor equipment, short school years, transient and untrained teachers, meager supervision, irregular attendance, and ex- cessive numbers of grades. The historic rural high school has been understaffed and underequipped while its curricu- lum offerings have been excessively formal and quite unre- lated to local needs. During the last few years some bril- liant experimental work has been done in developing im- proved types of rural school organization, and in recon- structing courses of study. A wealth of " aspirational " literature has also appeared, some of the implicit programs of which are probably hopeless, while others may prove workable.

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Actual aims of rural school education beyond the primary grades remain as yet largely undefined, except in the vague language of undiscriminating generalization. In the as- pirational literature referred to it is constantly held that " the rural school must fit for country life " ; and it is inces- santly urged that " agriculture" must be extensively taught. It is often charged that rural school curriculums have been unduly influenced by courses, textbooks, and principles of method devised for city schools. Recently large hopes have been built on the " agricultural high school " as a means of vitalizing secondary education.

It is obvious that the problem of providing vocational education will be peculiarly difficult in the country; since, ordinarily, vocational education involves so much special- ization. Where agricultural conditions are favorable a substantial proportion of farm boys become farmers; but under the socially dynamic conditions which have prevailed in America for the last century (and which will probably prevail for the next century) anywhere from thirty to seventy per cent of farm boys have eventually followed other vocations than farming — the professions, mercantile life, transportation, and, to some extent, industrial pursuits. Now that public policy contemplates making opportunities for vocational education in schools available for every one, the problem of providing such opportunities for country children must be faced. If the mountain will not come to Mahomet, the prophet must go to the mountain. We are here faced with the old problem of the advantages of country life versus those of city life.

Compared with the city community, the country commu- nity has certain advantages, and also certain disadvantages. City dwellers find access to stores, churches, schools, and theaters easy ; their mail comes more frequently, their news- papers earlier; by night their ways of travel are better lighted ; and means of speedy travel are more available.

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But the country dweller has more air, more sunshine, more quiet, and more varied points of contact with nature than his city brother. Most thoughtful people agree that it would be better, on the whole, if all children could be reared, at least to sixteen years of age, in a country com- munity or in a clean, small village (many small villages are less clean than large cities), where the agricultural occupa- tions predominate.

Life in cities makes urgent and necessary certain forms of cooperative effort, which, when realized, add decidedly to the attractiveness of city life. Drainage, water, streets and walks, lighting, policing, fire protection, free delivery of goods — these, cooperatively provided in the city, must in the country be procured chiefly through individual effort. But the country should in return enable a man of given ability to support himself and to build up a competence more certainly and easily than in the city.

We are learning that cooperative effort on a much more extended scale than now practiced is possible and desirable in country communities. In literally hundreds of directions the opportunities for this are being discovered and defined. But, unfortunately, the country community often does not develop men and women who have powers of invention and initiative adequate to meet local needs for varied coopera- tion.

Where one hundred thousand persons are gathered to- gether in one compact community there are sure to be among these a half-dozen persons who combine great abil- ity and great interest in some one phase of cooperative activity. Thus parks, schools, art museums, streets, monu- ments, theaters, lighting, drainage, water supply, social centers, free hospitals, charities, boys' clubs, and the scores of other joint enterprises of the city have each their little group of partisans, supporters, experts.

Such specialized service and interest are hardly practi-

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cable in the country except I * vast for easy inter-

communication. New dev employed. Action

by the state, or by large cooperative organizations like the Grange, may be necessary. The country must gradually, by its demands, call into existence and build up special agencies like the Extension Service of the Agricultural Colleges, Packing Associations and County Agent work.

The country is necessarily always at certain disadvan- tages in organizing and providing schools. Less special- izing of teaching service and supervision, less grading in homogeneous groups, and fewer varieties of educational offerings — these limitations are inevitable. Probably when we shall have learned more of the values of the by-education that accrue from few rather than many associates, life in the open, and early beginnings of normal physical work we shall realize that the country offers large offsetting advantages; but as to these things we yet possess only faiths, verified by but little knowledge.

Country youths will, therefore, have to go to urban centers for education for most vocations other than farming. At any rate they will have to go from home. In time it may prove sound public policy for the state to meet the expenses of travel and residence away from home on the part of those who in good faith seek preparation for vocations other than farming.

To what extent can the farming vocations be taught to youths and adults while living at home? This question brings into relief a series of problems regarding the aims of all education in and for rural communities. The following findings are submitted as contributions to a discussion by no means yet finished.

1. The Aims of Rural School Elementary Education should not be fundamentally different, nor, as aims are commonly stated, at all different for country, as against city, children. It is desirable that country children should learn to read, write, and spell no less and no differently than city

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children. Country children should learn something about American history and world history no less than correspond- ing grades of city dwellers. The geography of Asia, Africa, Europe should be learned to the same ends, to the same ex- tent, and probably, in the main, by the same methods by country as by city children. Music, literature, hygiene, good English expression, science and practical arts should be studied in the country to substantially the same ends as the subjects should be studied in the city.

The methods of rural education, it may well be contended, should, in the case of country children, differ from those for city children; but for purposes of adequate analysis this simple differentiation is too crude. The aims in teaching the geography of Asia to country children will be the same as for city children, as stated above; but in teaching the geography of Asia, the efficient teacher will use to the ut- most, as apperceiving knowledge, everything practicable in the environment of the children — narrow streets and crowded city blocks in some schools, desert wastes in others, and fertile river bottoms in still others, according to local conditions. Hence not only will the methods used in teach- ing the geography of Asia differ as between good country and good urban schools ; they will differ no less as between a country school in Southern Illinois and a country school in the dry lands of Utah, or as between a city school in San Francisco and a city school in Rochester.

We certainly expect, in all good elementary schools, to have nature studied; and sound aims for this subject will be the same for all kinds of schools dealing with children of like ages. But nature study must seek, as its central pur- pose, to render appreciable and intelligible the natural en- vironment of the child — the environment of stars, moun- tains, and valleys, water courses, plants, animals, and har- nessed natural forces. But the natural environment of the child on Cape Cod in winter differs very greatly from the

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natural environment of a child in Southern California springtime, both in town and country. The natural envi- ronment of a child in a mining town of Northern Minnesota differs greatly from that of a child in the East Side of New York. Hence the methods and means of teaching nature study will differ greatly between one city and another city, and hardly less between one rural school and another.

Obviously the same conditions differentiate the methods of teaching hygiene. The essential aims in this subject may be expected to be the same wherever good teaching prevails. But specific objectives of attack and utilization of local conditions will differ greatly, as between different cities or different rural communities no less than as be- tween rural community and urban. The importance of pure water is the same everywhere; but the means of con- trolling its purity will of course be taught to children along lines of local conditions, varying from those found in New York City with its superb supply of pure mountain water to St. Louis with its system of filtered river water; from a foothill home in New York with a splendid spring to a home in flat lowlands where shallow wells furnish the only supply available.

2. Rural Secondary Education Will the aims of rural

secondary education differ from those of the city? Sec- ondary education now includes two very distinct species — namely, general and vocational. General education includes the cultural, civic, and physical. Let us consider general education first. On the plane of general secondary edu- cation (for normal children 12-18 years of age) the first fundamental aim is to secure common powers and appre- ciations in those matters that are essential to social solidar- ity. In part, these ends are realized through the by-education of association and participation in common activities made possible in town and country alike by school attendance. In part, they are realized through such studies as assure

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common standards of cultural and civic habits, apprecia- tions, aspirations, ideals, and insights — along such lines as speech, manners, hygiene, criteria of moral behavior, under- standing of social environment, comprehension of structures and functions of government, appreciations of social forces operative throughout the world. In part, also, the ends of gen- eral education are to be realized through cultivation of indi- vidual interests and talents towards cultural and civic leader- ship — in music, plastic art, foreign language, science, craftsmanship and the like. What should be the weightings of time and energy given respectively to these two types of requirements in secondary education we do not yet know because we are still deficient in reliable sociological standards of educational aim.

Is it at all probable that the aims of general secondary education will differ greatly as between city and country? In what respects ? And for what reasons ? A few surmises may safely be hazarded. Probably literature should be made more of in country than in city schools for the reason that the country dweller's life shuts him away in large measure from the means of congregate use of leisure - theaters, lectures, museums, clubs, etc. Perhaps we need give less attention to the physical training of rural than of urban boys because of the more favorable physical environ- ment of the former.

In every case, of course, local conditions will be utilized as far as practicable as means and methods of realizing aims, whether these aims be identical or different in the case of rural and urban dwellers. Community civics in the city will certainly be taught in terms of city blocks, street-car trans- portation, easily accessible markets, omnipresence of com- mercial entertainment, commercial drainage and water sup- ply, and urgent needs of physical facilities for play. In the country the same subjects would be taught in terms of line fences, difficulties of congregation, remoteness of markets,

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unavailability of commercial entertainment (except liter- ature and mechanical music).

Biology taught in rural high schools will, we should expect, like the nature study of the grades, be interpreted largely in terms of local and accessible examples and con- ditions, just as should be the case with the subject when taught in the city. But conditions for the teaching of biol- ogy in rural high schools will differ no less as between the dairy regions of the Adirondacks and the swamps of eastern Texas than between a " typical " rural, and a " typical " urban environment — if experience should show us that there are such things as types in these matters.

3. Agriculture in General Education. — Many high schools now offer one or more " agricultural " courses paralleling other general courses, such as English literature, foreign lan- guage, history and physics. Agricultural and some other colleges have been persuaded to grant entrance credit to a moderate extent for this work.

In many cases it has doubtless been the desire and intent that these agricultural courses should " function " vocation- ally. To some extent laboratory and field experimental work supplemental to textbook studies has been developed and in a few notable instances really fine cooperative projects and individual productive work have been undertaken. Not infrequently it has been possible to obtain enthusiastic teach- ers from the agricultural colleges. There is available a wealth of splendid textbooks on the various phases of agri- culture, and supporting the whole are the contemporary enthusiasms for better farming, " country life " and " back to the country " movements.

But it is doubtful if these high school agricultural courses function to any important extent in vocational powers. To some rare spirits they probably yield a stock of apprecia- tions and ideals that may lead later to vocational study or practice. At their very best, these schools can offer only

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" agricultural technical instruction " — a very valuable con- tribution to vocational powers when taken strictly under the conditions of extension education, but of very doubtful worth, except for a possible two or three per cent of ab- stract " minded students, as a substitute for basic vocational education.

But these courses are, or can easily be made, valuable factors in general or, more expressively, liberal education. By any adequate definition, the aims of liberal education should include the development of a large variety of appre- ciations, aspirations, ideals, and sympathetic insights relative to the material and social environment of the learner. Any one of the many excellent textbooks on agriculture now available, taught to interested pupils by an enthusiastic teacher, following " beta " methods, will certainly yield rich fruit of culture and civic insights.

The writer has now before him such a book. It goes in detail into the wonderful modern developments of seed corn testing. It has an illuminating chapter on wheat. Alfalfa, irrigation, vegetable gardening, breeding of poultry, classes and grades of horses, erosion of soils, and scores of other alluring topics (to the healthily curious mind that likes that sort of thing) are treated with abundance of illustration and simplicity of language. Probably the book was designed to help train boys to become " general farmers " in the Middle West. Certainly it has no message for prospective produc- ers of tobacco, grapefruit, cotton, cranberries, greenhouse products, oranges, bees, clams, hares, or range cattle. On the other hand its range is clearly too vast for any one individual seeking to become a proficient producer of one major and two minor " money making " crops, even in the Middle West. Perhaps it was designed to serve, like a dic- tionary or encyclopedia, as a reference work, each learner abstracting the things he most needs ; but has any one found a book so used in high school agricultural courses ?

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But with proper methods of treatment the book could be used to excellent advantage as the basis of a " liberalizing " course in agriculture. Suppose it included topics not now included — on cotton growing, orange production, and white pine "cultivated" forests; suppose it discussed the rich possibilities of clam farming, vegetable drying, the total extermination of certain pests; suppose it took us over the world to see coffee, rubber, and tea plantations as well as Chinese gardening, Stassfurth potash mining, nitrogen fix- ation in Norway, and swamp-clearing in Florida; suppose finally, it helped initiate us in an understanding of modern farm machinery, agricultural science, world markets and the territorial specialization of agriculture — would not all this be " liberal " education — and for city boys no less than those destined to remain in the country?

It may be doubted, indeed, whether agricultural courses as now organized and administered do actually realize these ends of liberal education. For one thing their objectives are not well defined. The teachers are usually striving, probably with futile efforts, to produce vocational powers. They therefore require just the kind of memorization, passing of tests, and attention to detail that kills the spirit of truly " liberating " education. They grind, drive, examine, and " flunk." The subject becomes neither the fish of roca- tional education nor the fowl of liberal education — and therefore it now tends to become the red herring of "col- lege preparatory work " for pupils who are not good enough for the classics. When once the colleges — agricultural or other — begin to enforce prescriptions as to what shall be the " content "of high school agriculture then indeed the subject will be hopeless as material for good secondary education.

But we ought to save it. Let our junior high school make much of home gardening — always utilizing to the maxi- mum the amateur spirit. Let our high schools offer short

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courses — none exceeding one hundred hours — - in " Agri- cultural Science," " American Agriculture," " World Agri- culture," and " Amateur Gardening " which shall be inspi- rational, vision-giving, enthusiasm stirring. These courses will not prepare people to succeed in any one of the hundreds of possible agricultural vocations ; but they may guide some choice spirits towards farming, and, of equal importance, warn some unsuited persons away; they will surely serve to indicate to prospective farmers the great desirability of definite vocational training therefor, and the best means of obtaining it; and they will give to nearly all some vision, some finer aspirations, some ideals which will function in personal culture and good citizenship.

4. Vocational Secondary Education for the country will, however, differ greatly from that for the city, will it not? Does this question mean the opportunities that will be pro- vided for country boys, or does it mean the types of vo- cational schools that should properly be placed in a country environment? If the former, not at all; if the latter, the reply is, certainly.

Country-reared boys may be expected to scatter into a great many vocations. Some become respectively doctors, lawyers, teachers, engineers, ministers. Many enter upon commercial pursuits. They move in large numbers to in- dustrial centers and enter upon trade and factory callings. But vocational schools for any of these various callings are likely to be located in transportation and population centers. Thither country boys, village boys, and city boys will move for vocational education.

On the other hand the city is no place for a good school of agriculture any more than it is a good place for a school of mining, navigation, astronomical research, or forestry. Hence both country boys and city boys, seeking good voca- tional schools in these lines, will have to go to places suitable for the conduct of such schools.

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Of course, relatively few city boys may be expected to seek admission to the farming vocations; and, vice versa, a rela- tively large proportion of country boys ought, conditions being normal, to aspire to farming callings ; but these facts must be further analyzed before we can say with easy assur- ance that " country children require a different education from city children."

Of the many semi-illusions found in current aspirational writing relative to rural education none is more deceptive than that cherished under the ideal of the " agricultural high school." Those who believe in the practicability of a " blend " of liberal and vocational education see in the agri- cultural high school an institution which will be increasingly attended by all country children between 14 (perhaps 12) and 18 years of age, and in which the objectives of liberal and vocational education will be pursued almost, if not quite, simultaneously, the one lending motive and inspira- tion to the other. This vision further requires that at the end of the twelfth grade all graduates will receive the same diploma and that colleges will give credit towards admission to units of agricultural work on a par with other subjects.

No one will dispute the practicability of offering in rural high schools very good academic courses in agriculture par- allel with courses in foreign language, history, English lan- guage, science, and mathematics. Excellent textbooks and manuals of guidance for laboratory and even field work are abundantly available. Graduates of agricultural colleges are usually fully as well equipped to present agricultural instruction as are graduates of other colleges to present French, chemistry or modern history. For many students, certainly, the work so offered will prove no less " liberaliz- ing," "culture giving," and "disciplinary" than algebra, physics, or Latin.

But, considering the ages, the antecedent and parallel experiences, and the probable motives of the students, will

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it prove effective as vocational education? The man of aca- demic prepossessions will probably reply " yes." So also will the layman who thinks uncritically, and whose imagination is carried away by the mysteries of test tubes and the sug- gestiveness of well-illustrated textbooks. What will the critical investigator say who seeks to measure results in vocational education by starting with the ascertained re- quirements — in terms of the particular manipulative skills, concretely described general and detailed knowledge, definite managerial powers, and functioning ideals — of a desig- nated type of farmer's calling? Will it appear to him probable that vocational powers genuinely worth while can derive from " studies " predominantly academic, pursued as basic vocational education by students of the usual high school type? It remains doubtful indeed in spite of the alleged success of some experiments " carried " by the en- thusiasm of some rare genius in modern education.

To the writer it seems strongly probable, as stated else- where, that as experience accumulates and is subjected to accurate testing it will be found that effective vocational education is to be accomplished only under conditions of concentration analogous to those required of workers en- gaging definitely in full time productive work. If a boy has 1500 or 1800 hours available for purposes of vocational education in a farming calling or one strongly marked strand of a farming calling, it is probable that many times as much power will be gained by concentrating them within one year of strictly vocational work at the rate of five or six hours daily for 300 days (or 365 days in the case of live stock projects) rather than at the rate of two hours a day for 200 days during four years while giving needed atten- tion to parallel studies so engrossing as foreign language, mathematics, and history.

If these contentions are correct how may we expect to find basic vocational education for the farming callings

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organized in the future? For boys from fifteen to nineteen years of age, resident on farms, the " home projects method " will undoubtedly prevail. Where twelve to twenty boys can be found ready each to give a year to definite training, a school can easily be organized. Practically all that is required is a live and practical teacher, a central meeting room, a good collection of agricultural reference reading, and " project outlines " for each student.

Under the direction of the teacher each boy plans, pref- erably in the autumn, for his project. To be an effective means of education in managerial responsibility it must be of good size — preferably netting the boy at least $100 for his year's work, and claiming, for actual performance and related study, not less than 1000 to 1500 hours in the year. Of course, the boy is expected to rent land, hire equipment and excess labor, and buy seed and fertilizer, under the direc- tion of the teacher, as a part of the management of the enterprise.

The local high school when it can offer room for the center for such a school is doubtless the best and most log- ical place for its location. But the vocational school should not, ordinarily, come under the direction of the high school principal any more than a law school in a university should come under the direction of the dean of the college of liberal arts. The farm school will, of course, like all other public schools of the area, come under the general oversight of the superintendent of schools whose functions will be chiefly administrative rather than supervisory and whose position is analogous to that of the university president.

There are many reasons why the farming school and the high school of liberal education should be very distinctive in local management. The aims of the two schools are fundamentally unlike. Their time schedules must in many cases be also fundamentally unlike. Live stock projects often permit a fairly uniform assignment of time through-

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out the year; but tillage projects make very irregular de- mands, as affected by weather conditions. In the northern states tillage projects make small demands during winter months while they make very large demands for labor dur- ing planting, early growing, and harvesting seasons.

Can or should the vocational student take any " liberal " studies? Obviously if high school programs could be arranged on a " quarter " or other " short term " basis arrangements could doubtless be effected. Historically, the " grammar " school and academy were often attended dur- ing the winter months only by "big" boys and even young men. Some "technical" schools of agriculture are even yet attended chiefly by young men able to " lay off " during the farmer's dull time. Certainly some accommodations could be effected for boys required to give not more than three or four hours per day in winter to tillage projects and the related subprojects, technical studies, and general agri- cultural studies. But, ordinarily, to assume that a boy seriously engaged in tillage, fruit, pig, or poultry projects (an exception may be found in dairy projects) can give scheduled time throughout the usual school year to non- agricultural studies within the customary working day is to persist in a form of thinking which certainly points to dilettantism and trifling with vocational education — a course destined often to produce just the unsubstantial kind of farmer that modern society wants to avoid.

CHAPTER VI

COMMERCIAL EDUCATION

Widespread Development Commercial education in

schools, whether effective or not in giving actual preparation for the numerous commercial vocations, has been for many years much the most widely developed form of so-called vo- cational education in either private or public schools. It is a safe estimate that in 1918 over half a million boys and girls were pursuing " commercial " courses in schools in the United States.

The evolution of commercial education is sociologically very interesting. Attending the enormous expansion of business that followed the Civil War was the development of private " business colleges " which at first flourished largely on the teaching of business penmanship, bookkeeping, and re- lated academic subjects. Later they added stenography and typewriting. They competed severely with the regular high schools, and were, naturally, accused of " exploiting " their pupils. Certainly they proved, in many cases, great sources of revenue to clever advertisers. Employers of clerical workers finally formed the habit of turning to these schools for young assistants or minor specialists. Hence, quite apart from their educational functions, they served as means of selection and as employment agencies for young people ambitious and more or less qualified to begin work in some commercial vocation. In some respects they resembled what, in a few industrial vocations, are to-day called " pre- apprenticeship " schools.

Finally the public schools began the development of

190

Commercial Education igi

" commercial " courses. The rivalry of the fee-charging private schools was, of course, always provocative, and was an especial source of grievance to poor parents who de- sired full opportunities for " free " practical education for their children. The high schools, too, were being attended by increasing numbers of children not qualified by interest or ability to carry the college preparatory studies. Com- mercial courses, especially if " short " and of not too ex- acting standards, were peculiarly suited to these intellec- tual " weaklings," as they were often regarded. Of con- siderable importance, too, was the fact that commercial courses were not expensive. As commonly organized and administered they cost no more per capita than the regular academic courses. Even yet special training courses for commercial teachers have been only very meagerly developed. Except in stenography and type- writing, commercial teachers frequently represent no special equipment whatever.

The Popularity of Commercial Education Though com- mercial education has long been much the most widely de- veloped form of so-called vocational education now found in schools, its actual contributions to various forms of voca- tional proficiency are by no means clear even yet. Why then has it been so widely patronized and supported ? Why, especially, do the sons, and in even greater numbers, the daughters of farmers, laborers, and other persons in mod- erate circumstances throng public and private commercial schools and departments, including the thousands of meagerly staffed ones found in rural and village commu- nities?

Several social conditions must be examined in order to discover explanations of these phenomena: (a) The com- mercial vocations are generally esteemed as being more profitable and respectable than the pursuits of the farmer and trade worker, to say nothing of those of the domestic

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servant and the factory operative. During recent decades particularly, and accompanying the enormous developments of transportation, commerce, and the clerical sides of manu- facturing, publishing, and public service, not only has the proportion of workers engaged in the commercial callings greatly multiplied, but it is evident that in these fields, too, are to be found some rewards much greater than come to men in other fields. The really alluring business prizes are not now found in the professional callings, but in work somehow related to commerce, — trade, transportation, banking, company flotation, etc.

Furthermore, the commercial callings are essentially ur- ban vocations ; and they seem to be well removed from the grimy surroundings of the factory occupations. These factors play a large part in the choice of vocations by young persons. It must not be overlooked that in America, to an extent not heretofore found in history, probably, sons and daughters are expected by their elders to enter upon voca- tions superior to those followed by their parents — supe- rior in popular valuation at least.

(b) It is also a fact that apprenticeship has existed in organized form for very few of the commercial callings. Hence any agency claiming to give vocational preparation for these vocations could easily persuade young aspirants that only through the help of these schools could access to the desired work be procured. This condition has been favored by what has been to the outside world the rela- tively esoteric character of the commercial arts of book- keeping, stenography, and, in earlier years, commercial arithmetic.

(c) The commercial world has opened up an enormous number of places for women, or more properly, girl, work- ers. (In popular fiction and probably to an increasing ex- tent in popular usage generally, the unmarried, but as yet distinctly marriageable, woman is a "girl.") But the

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large majority of these serve only from three to six years as wage-earners, after which they marry. Hence the " turn- over " or " replacement "of these workers is very large and creates a perennial demand for armies of new recruits.

(d) Another factor in the popularity of commercial courses is found in the ease with which the appearances of vocational education can be simulated for business callings. In the earlier days of these schools, a man with a moderate knowledge of theoretical bookkeeping and some skill in bookkeeper's penmanship could, if he were clever advertiser, easily obtain a large clientage. When typewriting and stenography evolved as adjuncts in all business, it was easy to provide for the teaching of these arts in schoolrooms and with only slightly modified school equipment.

(e) The development of commercial courses in high schools has given large opportunities to provide for students not able to meet the standards of the regular courses. At least in their earlier years high school commercial courses, having no genuine vocational standards, were simply mod- ified " general " courses, but designed to appeal more or less to vocational motives. By many teachers these courses were called " dumping grounds of mediocrity." School author- ities saw, in the large attendance they stimulated, proof that the schools were now meeting the " needs of the people." A very large proportion of the pupils attending went, before or after graduation, into clerical or other form of commer- cial work, even though their compensation must long remain substantially that of untrained workers.

To a large extent, therefore, the extensive development and the seeming popularity of commercial education have not rested on substantial grounds of bona fide vocational education. The statement of this fact does not necessarily imply reproach to educators except to that comparatively small number of persons who as private school directors or public school administrators willfully exploited the credulity

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of the public. It has been characteristic of nearly all forms of vocational education, including those for the professions, that for long periods they have been administered quite with- out reference to external needs or effective internal methods. At times this has been hardly less true of apprenticeship than of vocational education in schools.

But criticisms of past efforts must be made and under- stood, if improvements in the future are to be effected in accordance with sound principles. It is certainly true that the commercial schools of to-day still fall short either of sound conceptions of aim or effective adjustments of means and methods. It is submitted that the curriculums of a substantial majority of the large public coeducational com- mercial schools or commercial departments in the United States will be found justly open to the criticisms, favorable and unfavorable, suggested below.

Criticisms of Existing Schools. — Let us take the curricu- lums of some well-known commercial school and apply to them the tests implied in these questions : (a) For what dis- tinctive vocations do they prepare? (b) How are the stand- ard requirements for these vocations ascertained? (c) How are the component elements of the curriculums derived? (d) How are adjustments made for different groups of pupils? (e) How are proximate and ultimate results of work tested?

(a) Examination of commercial courses and of books and articles designed to expound their underlying principles will, it is believed, generally convince the candid critic that, with very rare exceptions, public school courses are not based upon objective analysis of the requirements of vocational life. Rarely are distinctive vocations named, or their re- quirements defined. Usually it is implied, if not specifically stated, " that secondary commercial education consists of that training, direct and related, which has as its aim to equip young people for entrance into business life."

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But in any workable sense, there is no such thing as " business life." The term is too abstract, even metaphys- ical, for the practical purposes of making programs of vocational education. Would it be serviceable to speak of education for " professional life"? Or for "industrial life "? We should at once be confronted by the impatient question, " What profession in particular are you talking about? What trade, or mining, or factory specialty? "

The president of a city bank, a traveling salesman for cigars, a stockbroker, an expert in advertising, an eight dollar a week typist, a hotel clerk, a cash girl, an expert accountant, a department store clerk selling children's shoes, and a bank clerk operating a comptometer, are all in " busi- ness " life; is there any single factor in commercial school education that is " common " to the needs of these various persons in business life, it being assumed that their general schools will have given them the essentials of reading, writ- ing and arithmetic? What are the limits of this " business life"? Are telephone switchboard operators, telegraphers, grocers' delivery boys, fruit 'commission merchants, editors, hotel managers, division superintendents on railroads, trav- eling drug salesmen, dental assistants, architects, clerks, all in "business life"?

The fundamental fact, of course, is that there are scores, if not hundreds of distinctive commercial vocations; and many of these may, as regards needed qualifications, re- semble each other in no single respect. There are commer- cial callings that are no less professions in the fundamental, though of course not in the historic, sense of the term, than are the various forms of engineering; and there are num- berless other commercial callings which are well adapted to juvenile workers sixteen years of age and of only average ability. There are commercial callings that require excep- tional native power and training in certain phases of mathe- matics; and others that require no mathematical powers

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whatever. Some require such highly specialized techniques, as stenography, corporation law, commercial Spanish, or cost accounting; while in others these. things are never heard of. A knowledge of commercial geography will, perhaps, function consciously and directly in the life work of one person in a thousand among the millions engaged in " busi- ness life"; it will function more or less remotely and inci- dentally in the work of one in fifty; while to forty-nine in fifty it will have no more vocational significance than the history of 17th century Ukrainia.

In practically all commercial school programs we find " business English " or some similar subject taken very seriously. But what is " business English " ? Clearly a good stenographer must possess unusual powers in spelling and punctuation ; to what extent as a vocational asset beyond the requirements of cultivated life in general does she need a trained voice? The department store clerk must receive special training in the writing of figures, proper names, etc. ; is it urgent that she be taught the accurate spelling of " ten thousand or more common words, with especial reference to the stenographer's eight hundred ' demons ' " ? Tele- phone companies, in default of public school training of switchboard operators, give painstaking voice drill to these operatives; but have these business workers any special vocational needs for composition or business letter writing ? Or is it at all important that similar voice drill be given to bookkeepers or cash girls?

The same indeterminateness characterizes commercial school mathematics. Until recently few commercial de- partments had the courage to omit algebra. Held there only by forces of tradition of course, its presence has often been defended on vocational grounds ! But what of " busi- ness arithmetic " ? What of the special forms of accuracy and speed sought in addition, or the special forms of arith- metical content knowledge sought in percentage? For

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what vocations, and to what extent in each, are they voca- tionally essential ? We have as yet no accurate knowledge ; and, unfortunately, few promoters of commercial education exhibit active desires to get accurate knowledge.

Stenography constitutes an interesting example of ill-de- fined aims. The vocation of stenographer-typist is the one distinctive calling for which the prevailing commercial school gives functional training. But it has long been clearly destined to be a girl's vocation. It is clearly suited to girls and its' few promotional openings are well adapted to the powers of the small proportion of women who remain permanently in salary-earning work. Nevertheless, for many years our commercial schools have induced, or at least approved, the taking of stenography by boys. The author- ities have talked vaguely about " court stenography " to which women have apparently not yet adapted themselves, and about the need of traveling stenographers to accom- pany business men. But is it known how extensive are these fields ? Again, it has been held, vaguely at best, that stenography is a " good stepping stone " for a young man. Much trading has been done on the names of a few note- worthy examples of men whoJiave risen high above their stenographic stepping stones; and, of course, no one ques- tions but that a large proportion of the men who have be- come salesmen, business executives and the like, once stud- ied, even if they did not, for a wage, practice, stenography. But was such training necessary, or even important, voca- tional preparation for their subsequent callings, in contrast with what might have been accomplished under more in- telligently planned courses ?

A further evidence of the unscientific character of com- mercial courses as usually provided, is found in the length of time assigned to them. The Chinese priest, being asked why pagodas always had fourteen stages, replied — "Pa- godas must have fourteen stages." Why should high

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school courses be four years in length ? Why not three or two years? Is a vocational course of six months in length conceivable for some vocation — e.g. that of cash girl, file clerk, or seller of ribbons? But, with the coming of the junior high school, we are threatened with five year courses. They are a " blend " of the cultural, the civic, and the vocational. The keen, well-endowed, well-sup- ported boys and girls who " live through " these courses will probably succeed in whatever vocations they undertake, as have such well-selected and relatively mature persons at all times in the past. But what of the majority who drop by the wayside, forced out by pressing economic needs, or drop- ping out discouraged by lack of ability?

There are some commercial vocations for which persons under thirty years of age are practically never accepted; and a far greater number for which the age of sixteen is sufficient. Probably stenography has evolved to the point where no one not possessed of " good " native ability, the equivalent of a general education of two years beyond the elementary school, and of substantially twenty-four hun- dred hours' specific vocational training should be advised to compete. But would it not be absurd to set up similar re- quirements for a department of indoor salesmanship? On the other hand would not similar requirements be quite in- adequate for the vocationally trained " bookkeeper " or, perhaps more accurately, accountant?

It is needless here to discuss the failure, as yet, of most commercial schools, to utilize " productive " work as a means of giving the practical experience essential to the vocational success of those who will not be expected to serve a long apprenticeship on leaving the school. The pos- sibilities of " part-time " connections as means of educa- tion for indoor salesmanship are now being seen.

In general, then, it is contended that commercial educa- tion is, as yet, vocational in any accurate sense for only a

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small proportion of those who take it; and that it can be rendered properly vocational only as a result of thorough- going analysis of the scores of commercial vocations for which training is practicable.

Constructive Proposals Obviously all constructive pro- posals for the further development of the various types of commercial education must depend upon sociological analy- sis of the commercial vocations as now carried on or as they may be expected to be carried on in the near future. On the basis of such examination can be determined, first, the rela- tive efficacy of the non-school vocational education which has heretofore operated ; and, second, the practicability and conditions of school vocational education, either basic or extension.

One of the first problems to be solved will be that of ac- curately descriptive terminology. The census, for example, gives us the category " clerks in stores." Is this blanket term at all helpful? Is it at all practicable to give instruc- tion or training to help persons to become " clerks in stores." Ten minutes' walk down the business street of any city will enable us to see working clerks in: soda water fountains; shoe stores; grocery stores; lumber and coal yards; depart- ment store glove counters; hardware stores; and stores for men's clothing. • What are their common forms of voca- tional knowledge'; skill, or ideal? Would not all attempts to give general commercial training to youths who might embark in these callings practically resolve themselves into solemn talks about salesmanship, supplemented by a few bits of specific training in the making of figures, use of cash registers, etc. ?

Suppose, however, we had 100 boys of sixteen, all of whom were as desirous and certain of becoming grocers' clerks in small cities as dental students are of becoming practicing dentists; could we not readily devise means to provide at least two years of rich vocational education for

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them, on a half-time participation basis, probably on a wage of ten to fifteen cents per hour for 30 hours per week?

In other words it seems probable that we shall have to define " store clerk " vocations more specifically than we have heretofore done, as a basis for working programs. One inevitable consequence of this will be the differentiation of schools according to communities. Not every town could expect to have schools respectively for hardware clerks, drug store clerks (some of whom are, of course, now trained — but not for salesmanship — in schools of pharmacy), shoe store clerks and green grocer's clerks. But within a group of neighboring towns could readily be provided one of each of these forms of schools.

No less difficulty is presented by the use in educational institutions of the word " secretary " as descriptive of the follower of a vocational pursuit. Who is a " secretary " ? What are secretarial studies? At what age does a person become a secretary ? Are stenography and typewriting pri- mary or secondary accomplishments in the equipment of the young low-priced secretary or the young high-priced secre- tary or the mature, high-priced executive secretary? Do men and women secretaries usually occupy similar, or very markedly differentiated, fields? Is not the secretarial posi- tion, in any strict use of the term, usually a " derivative " or " promotional " position, akin to that of foreman or business manager? If so, may not "post-experience," graduate, " upgrading," or extension education be the most effective means of education for secretaryship? But if a woman de- sires to complete half or all of a general college course be- fore beginning vocational training, and then, because she desires in the shortest possible space to become a responsible and well-paid secretary — for what program of study, prac- tice, and preliminary employments should she provide? Would it make any difference whether she is to be secretary in a publishing house, a wholesale produce establishment, or the offices of a railway corporation?

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Towards the making of secretaries, executives, and the like we have probably overestimated the possibilities of in- itial vocational education for beginners, and underesti- mated the possibilities of upgrading or " post-experience " education for selected persons of maturity. Under present conditions perhaps all good secretaries should first have " made good " as stenographers, after which six months or one year of special training would accomplish more prob- ably than several years of technical instruction adminis- tered to the novice.

Another group of vocations for which we shall certainly ere long provide vocational education will be that of " trav- eling (or field) salesmanship." It seems probable that in- door or counter salesmanship will soon be monopolized by women or girls. But field salesmanship may long remain essentially a man's calling.

Many wholesaling and jobbing establishments as well as insurance companies, bond houses, etc., now give their own salesmen a certain amount of technical instruction and training subsequent to a period of apprenticeship in the home office. Such local training is obviously very direct and con- crete.

But again we are confronted by problems of " general " vocational education. Certain high schools of commerce now expect a large proportion of their graduates to become field salesmen — of what? They do not know, specifically, so they give them a variety of technical subjects — one or more foreign languages, economics, biology, history of com- merce, accounting, stenography, chemistry, commercial law. Does all this constitute vocational education — or is it merely an attempt at general technical instruction in antici- pation of vocational education (out of school, probably) to be undertaken when once a job has been found ?

The future here also probably lies with much more spe- cific training towards definitely selected vocations, adminis-

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tered to students who, in many cases, will probably be re- quired to have obtained in advance not only a reasonable general education, but also one or more years of practical experience in a contributory but essential field. It may prove inadvisable to send a man out as seller of automobiles, woolen cloth, or textbooks until, precedent to specific train- ing for that work, he shall have served as an operative in the automobile factory, an inspector of the woolen goods, or a teacher in the schools.

Finally, it can hardly be doubted that for many types of commercial workers the tendency towards specialization of function, and therefore, of training, at least in initial stages, for it must continue. In many cases we yet require aspir- ants for the stenographer's vocation to take bookkeeping. Why? Is one stenographer in ten in large cities expected to do anything with bookkeeping? Why should not pro- grams be based upon the actual requirements of the field? A young woman who could prove her competency as ste- nographer and bookkeeper could, of course, command places of special opportunity or need. A few persons who are at once competent in stenography and commercial Spanish are required, especially in seaports, just as are a few dentists or lawyers who know Spanish. Let these double vocations be properly analyzed, prepared for, and the followers thereof rewarded as they deserve.

But the commercial market can absorb multitudes of girls and boys who cannot afford to take prolonged preparation. Girls to operate typewriters and dictaphones ; boys for mes- senger service; girls for filing, or for selling specialties; boys for operating calculating machines — thousands of these posts often essentially for juveniles, sometimes for adults, qualified only for routine specialist work are now to be found and their proportion relative to the whole range of commer- cial vocations is certainly destined to increase. For each of these callings vestibule or upgrading education is no less

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possible than is direct education for the trade of stenog- rapher, profession of accountant, or derived calling of ex- ecutive. Only the addiction of some educators to the prayer wheels of routine will prevent the early recognition of these facts and the provision of means of dealing with them in accordance with sound principles of social economy.

CHAPTER VII

INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION

Scope and Specialization. — For the present, in the ab- sence of better classifications, we shall include among the " industrial " vocations all occupations of mining, manufac- turing, and transportation, as well as the true handicraft trades such as house carpentry, dressmaking, cigar making, and the like. But certain forms of higher expert service — engineers, analysts, inspectors — as well as the higher ex- ecutives found in industries will tend to be classified among the professions, as is now the case with civil engineering.

Examination of the census classifications given in Appen- dix A reveals in part the extensive occupational subdivision of productive processes which is constantly proceeding in the industrial occupations. From the beginnings of re- corded history, indeed, there has been increasing subdivi- sion and specialization of the trades. The great extensions of use of power and applied science found in recent decades has enormously increased the number and increasingly dif- ferentiated the character of all elaborative and transporta- tion vocations. The classifications used by the census are far short of revealing the actual facts. In every highly developed manufacturing area — the English Midlands, Massachusetts, Westphalia, the Ohio Valley, Japan, North- ern France — it is safe to assert that from one to two thou- sand distinct industrial specializations of service are recog- nized by employers and employees. Not all of these, of course, have long established standards or distinct labor

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organizations. Census enumerators find it convenient to " lump " workers in shoe, cotton, pottery, or munitions fac- tories as " semi-skilled " operatives. As new machines are invented, old occupations give way, and new ones appear, often in great variety.

The evolution of the factory system of production (that is, for elaborative processes chiefly), causes the complete disappearance of ancient handicraft trades in some fields — such as those of shoemaker, weaver, cooper, potter; the par- tial disappearance of others — tailor, dressmaker, teamster, glass blower, silversmith, compositor; and the profound modification of others — butcher, baker, furniture maker, book binder, jeweler, plumber, brickmaker.

This evolution has affected less the industrial trades involving production of raw materials — mining, lumber- ing, quarrying — and the building trades, for the reason that operating conditions still force these industries to remain in a measure dispersed. Cotton cloth and even ready-made clothing can be produced in great central establishments; but the production of only some parts of houses — doors, plumbing, and other fixed equipment — can be similarly concentrated. Modern transportation — of ideas (by mail, telegraph and telephone) as well as material commodities — requires a large degree of dispersal of operations; but, nev- ertheless, railway and boat transportation, as well as teleg- raphy and telephony have permitted and required very exten- sive subdivision and specialization of occupations.

Historic Apprenticeship. — Vocational education for many of the handicraft trades was greatly perfected ages ago as apprenticeship. For long periods certain of these trades were " possessed " by hereditary clans. For long periods also they were held by guilds which were given monopolies, and which standardized and evolved the skills and " mys- teries " involved. From the sociological point of view it is evident that apprenticeship was a natural and, under normal

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conditions, effective, method of vocational training where production was so dispersed that men worked almost one by one. " Man and helper " would thus naturally develop close relationships. The opportunities for the learner to " copy " the craft of the elder " master " would be innumer- able. A period of journey manship — experience in work- ing with craftsmen at a distance from the home town — would naturally offset the effects of excessive " inbreeding." Even when the making of special types of cloth, armor, pot- tery, jewelry, and saddlery were, in the Middle Ages, concen- trated in certain cities, it would appear that production was still carried on largely in individual small shops, often con- sisting only of the master and his " apprentice " (who fre- quently " lived in " and, in popular romance, eventually married the daughter of his master) working in rooms adjoining or even constituting a part of the residence.

The progressive impairment and disappearance of appren- ticeship education has inevitably followed the changing of conditions of production. Apprenticeship has little chance where workers are aggregated. Specialization of routine service will inevitably take place. Furthermore, appren- ticeship seems to belong best to those stages in economic evolution when methods of production have become a true practical art, but have not reached the stage when " applied science " can be said to control. The making, as well as the working into serviceable tools, of iron and steel were "arts" long before the scientific principles underlying the processes were understood as in modern metallurgy. In the language of the time, they were " mysteries." Imita- tion, prolonged and painstaking, was the necessary method of learning. There were no direct and speedy ways to the acquisition of skills, and " technical knowledge " consisted chiefly of traditions.

The naive assumption is sometimes made by amateur economists and sociologists that men work or should work

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" for the joy of working " ; but this, of course, is an assump- tion of artistic romanticism and of impractically idealistic philosophies. Men " work " now as they always have " worked " primarily to produce enough utilities wherewith to sustain an approved standard of living. Doubtless all persons are in greater or less degree endowed with " play " instincts which evolve in some individuals to the point that, at maturity, gives us the creative artist, inventor, explorer, or entertainer. But it is doubtful use of language to call these efforts " work " in the sense that the term is generally employed to designate the endless routine, body-straining processes whereby men provide for needs of food, shelter, defense, movement, health, learning, worship, and justice.

It is possible that men of the temperate and frigid zones have so long worked that certain ill-defined instincts have been "acquired" (pace the biologist) which render the individual unhappy if he be given no opportunity to develop them. (Few men would contend that races long resident in the tropics have any such insistent instincts.) It is also certain that, given a long period of habituation to regular and absorbing work (e.g. between the ages of twelve and thirty), an individual is likely to be unhappy thereafter if deprived of opportunity to go on with his favorite employment.

But these are variant and derivative conditions. The fundamental sociological as well as psychological fact is that men work to produce, first the necessities, then the ardently desired luxuries of life, and they are always bent on doing this in the most expeditious way possible. If combination of effort will give better results in terms of exchangeable goods than individualized effort, then sooner or later, and beset by the many vicissitudes involved in learning new customs, we shall find men working in aggre- gates or companies. If the increased harnessing of natural powers will help towards the same end, then we may expect wind and water, steam and gas to be used instead of man and animal power.

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Hence a certain inevitability has characterized modern industrial evolution., Development of facilities for trans- portation has made profitable territorial specialization of production. Brazil specializes iti coffee and rubber; the American Western Plateau in cattle; Fldrida and California in fruit; Pennsylvania and Westphalia in coal and iron; Michigan and Washington in lumber products. Localities which have started on certain types of factory production localize and specialize along these lines, giving us regions of specialized manufacture like Connecticut, Manchester, Lille-Roubaix, and Detroit.

Under these conditions, nearly all old forms of appren- ticeship education have given way. In those trades that still retain features of handicraft production — plumbing, printing, dressmaking — survivals of apprenticeship still persist. In a few modern occupations — of which perhaps locomotive engineering is the best example — new types of apprenticeship, sometimes apparently very effective, have developed. But, in general, modern manufacturing knows little of apprenticeship; modern transportation presents a few new forms only, while the building trades retain not a few survivals, but for which the supplementing aid of trade schools is being increasingly asked. Printing, ma- chine shop work (iron and steel chiefly), and a few ancil- lary trades such as pattern making, molding, and station electrical work retain or have developed forms of more or less organized apprenticeship education, and these are the fields in which some significant trade school education has evolved.

Trade School Education In appraising modern devel- opments of basic industrial education certain fundamental facts must be remembered: (a) Educational as well as pop- ular opinion has chiefly interpreted industrial education as " trade " education. Factory, mining, and transportation pursuits have obviously been followed in large part by what

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ill-informed opinion denominates " unskilled " workers, and which census enumerators, with hardly more accuracy, clas- sify as " semi-skilled " operatives. The trades, therefore, have constituted the aristocracy of the industrial occupa- tions. The public vocational school has been either too restricted or too inefficient to serve as a satisfactory means of access to them thus far.

(b) The introduction of manual training has been ap- proved by the public because of vague convictions that some- how it would give basic, or at any rate rudimentary, trade training. Manual training found its chief available open- ings in woodworking, with metal working and printing in remote second place, and leather and clay working as occa- sional suggestions. The earlier technical schools for boys found the transition from laboratory to certain forms of shop work in electricity not difficult. Hence, when it was perceived by school authorities that something more sub- stantial than manual training was needed to meet popular demands for vocational training for the industrial occupa- tions it was natural that the going forms of manual training should furnish the chief source of working suggestions as well as, not infrequently, teachers and equipment. But, necessarily, these were in the already tested fields. Wood- working, as an indoor vocation, became "cabinet-making," notwithstanding that the cabinet-maker's trade (as a han- dicraft) is nearly extinct in America. Electrical work took the direction of indoor wiring. Some brave transitions from machine woodworking, to "turning" and "pattern- making " were tried until it was realized what a small de- mand existed in modern industry for specialists in these fields. Machine metal working and printing developed more realistic work, although even here existing trade schools are still greatly wanting in standards of performance, a condition which is indicated by the indeterminateness of their connections with apprenticeship and operative specialties.

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(c) Philanthropy, interested in providing for boys and girls deprived of their natural protectors, first pioneered the way in the establishment of trade schools. In a few cases, even of schools established many years ago, standards were reasonably definite and practical. But publicly supported industrial schools have seldom become more than half- developed technical schools — that is, schools imparting in- formation about one or more trades, but giving little prac- tical training in its processes. As in the case of other types of vocational schools — agricultural, commercial, home- making, and eve^ as stated elsewhere, professional — the general educator thinks of vocational competency chiefly in terms of knowledge. He desires to leave to non-school agencies the imparting of skill, of which, it would often seem, he has a low opinion at best.

It is from the basis of the foregoing considerations that we must study and appraise contemporary efforts looking to basic school industrial education. Existing day schools have been severely handicapped by tradition; their promot- ers have seldom faced the realities of modern industrial evolution ; they have never known just how far they ought to go in giving direct vocational education, rather than some mystic " general " or " indirect " vocational instruction; and they have never been quite clear as to what portions of a rounded vocational education they should be responsible for. The well-informed reader will recall a few, but only a few, noteworthy exceptions to the foregoing character- izations. One of the most needed works of research and survey now is an evaluative investigation of existing private and public day industrial schools.

Evening Industrial Schools. — Evening industrial schools for extension education have rarely extended to other fields of operation than day schools attempting basic education. Naturally their extension courses have dealt with related technical subjects rather than with practical training. How-

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ever imperfect their methods, they have been in results probably fairly effective means of technical instruction for those trades that increasingly require the interpretations and suppTementings of applied science, art, and mathematics, since their instruction is in greater or less degree correlated with, and, in the few really good courses, actually integrated into, the practical experience being gained by the learner from day to day in productive work.

Historically, several impediments have been encountered in the development of evening extension industrial educa- tion, (a) Intellectual energies are in most people at low ebb after a ten or even an eight hour working day, even in occupations involving much routine, (b) Evening school courses have usually been general in their nature and in rare cases only, at all closely correlated with practical experience obtained in apprenticeship or factory participation, (c) Teachers could not be trained for, or even primarily em- ployed for, evening school instruction, (d) Little could be done in the way of systematic supervision of evening school-teaching or in the preparation of courses for it.

The shortening of the working day is probably helping solve the problem of the fagged student. Recent legislation tends to deny to students under 17 or even 18 years of age admission to evening classes. But it is probable that for many workers, nature itself has created persistent barriers against obtaining satisfactory results from night school attendance. For young workers short course or part time training will be the line most effective in the future; while for mature workers short course and " dull season " full time " upgrading" instruction on the one hand, and correspondence and other " self help " forms of extension education on the other, will be found capable of almost in- definite development.

Decided progress has been made in recent years towards the " short unit " extension course as the basic factor in

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evening instruction. The short unit is pedagogically adapted to the usual type of evening school student; more than the general, and often severely logical, " long course," which was too often designed to insure mastery of a scheme of " principles," it is capable of being correlated with the actual experience of the learner — if not consciously by the teacher, at least partially by the efforts of the learner himself. Large opportunities still exist for creating out of all possible evening school students in a given area groups fairly homogeneous as respects development and occupa- tions being followed and for providing them with courses of " short unit " instruction which will definitely and visibly reinforce their vocational competency. But one of the larg- est opportunities for effective work in this field is still largely unrecognized by educators — namely, the union of the methods of direct evening school instruction with those of correspondence school instruction in order to devise a new type of presentation having the merits of each and the defects of neither. If, for example, a young mechanic is prepared to give to extension work in related drawing the equivalent of twenty winter weeks, a short unit assignment could be made to him in a pamphlet of fifteen or twenty pages containing detailed and explicit directions and prob- lems for work. An average of two hours each two weeks could be required for conference with the instructor and the presentation of work accomplished. These conferences could be arranged for groups or for individuals. It should be remembered that a fundamental, if not the primary, object of extension education is to render the individual increasingly capable of relying upon himself in advancing his powers over his vocation. Evening school instruction as now organized seeks that end purposefully even to a less extent than day school instruction. Obviously such procedure is very expensive and often of doubtful value. Correspond- ence instruction, on the other hand, is valuable in that it

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throws the learner constantly back upon his own efforts; but the absence of personal contact discourages the large majority who take it.

The provision of specially qualified teachers and super- visors presents endless difficulties at present when basic day school education is so imperfectly developed. But if, as may well be surmised, short course day schools of indus- trial education greatly increase in the near future, it will be readily practicable to provide plans for the utilization of properly qualified teachers in both day and evening schools.

Continuation Schools In current plans for the reorgan- ization of public education in France and England the most far-reaching proposals are those which contemplate requir- ing continuation school attendance up to 18 years of age. It is well known that in the educationally more progressive states of Germany — Saxony, Wiirtemberg, and Bavaria, among others — continuation school attendance up to 16 or 17 and, in a few cases, 18 years of age has been obli- gatory; while in less progressive Prussia some beginnings had also been made before 1914.

In America continuation school attendance is now (Jan., 1919) compulsory in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, in Bos- ton and in one or two cities in Ohio. In several states con- tinuation school bills are being drawn for presentation to the pending legislatures. In many respects the continuation school is one of the most actively developing forms of edu- cation, if not in practice, at least in theory.

There still exist, however, many misconceptions regard- ing the possibilities of continuation schools. How far can the continuation school actually contribute to vocational compe- tency? Frank examination of this question, in the light of such knowledge as is currently available, is always desir- able. The following findings, stated dogmatically for the sake of brevity, express the writer's present convictions, formed after some years of study of, and experience with, continuation school work :

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1. It is entirely in accordance with sound public policy that the compulsory full-time attendance of children in day schools up to the age of 14 should be supplemented by compulsory part-time or continuation school attendance up to 16 or preferably 18. We may therefore expect all states, in proportion to their educational progressiveness, to enact compulsory continuation school legislation during the next few years.

2. The essence of the continuation school lies in two facts : that attendance is within the ordinary working day ; and that attendance is obligatory on all persons of specific ages not otherwise attending schools. Hence, in the true meaning of terms, evening schools or other out-of- working hours schools are not continuation schools; and no effective results can be achieved, practically, from voluntary contin- uation school attendance except within single establish- ments employing very large numbers.

3. The aims of the continuation school education may be vocational, or general. In every case it is peculiarly impor- tant for this type of school that aims, purposes, or objec- tives, be clearly defined, and with reference to particular groups of pupils. The aims for girls will differ from those for boys ; the aims for retarded pupils will differ from those for bright pupils ; the aims for the healthy will differ from those for the unhealthy; the aims for those employed in the factory callings cannot be the same as those for the mercantile callings.

4. The general education offered at any given time in the continuation school may be chiefly designed to make up for deficiencies of previous general education; or to add new contributions along special and novel fields. For the time being it may confine itself chiefly to the department of physical education or to social (civic and moral) education, or to cultural education.

5. Vocational education given in the continuation school

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may be either basic or extension, according as it is designed to teach a new occupation or to advance the learner in the occupation he is already following.

6. Opportunities to give genuine basic vocational educa- tion on a continuation school basis between the years of 14 and 16 will probably be found to be few. Between the ages of 16 and 18 better results may possibly be had in manufac- turing and commercial centers, especially if attendance of from 8 to 15 hours per week can be assured.

7. Opportunities to give extension vocational education at any age will obviously depend upon the wage-earning employments being followed by the young workers. In such fields of work as agriculture, salesmanship, office work, and the handicrafts, the opportunities should be good. In the factory callings where the young workers serve chiefly as operative specialists or helpers, the opportunities are probably not good (although the whole matter is much in need of investigation).

8. In general, it is not to be expected that the contin- uation school by itself can solve the problems of vocational education for children from 14 to 16 years of age. But it can do much, if properly handled, to develop and improve their cultural and civic education, especially because its pupils are, during part of their time receiving the very real and helpful education of contact with the actualities of life in wage-earning work.

9. The ideal plan for the continuation school designed for workers in highly organized fields of production — factories, department stores, etc. — is such as will permit the workers to give half of adult working time to wage- earning employment — thereby making double shifts of young workers possible. Juvenile workers could be de- barred from working more than five hours per day, or thirty hours a week; and, concurrently, be required to attend school at least three hours a day or fifteen hours a week.

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10. Continuation school education can be made valuable only by providing specially adjusted courses of study and specially selected and trained teachers. If we do not pro- vide these, the time spent in schools by pupils will be a time of profitless boredom or of holiday mischief-making, accord- ing to the severity of the disciplinary methods employed.

11. By specially adjusted courses of study, in general or in vocational education, is meant, in part, short unit courses, focusing upon objectives of achievement easily comprehen- sible to the pupil and capable of being consciously related by him to his needs, deficiencies, or interests; and, in part, adapted courses, permitting such methods of treatment as will relate the materials and ends to the learner's outside experience, vocational or non- vocational.

12. Probably young teachers should never be employed in continuation schools. These should be promotional posi- tions, presupposing maturity, selection for special fitness, and a short course of professional training — possibly 100 hours of extension study, or 180 hours, six weeks, of six hour a day special preparation.

13. In administrative charge of continuation schools in state and municipality, where practicable, should be a special administrator aided by special supervisors, qualified to do experimental work as well as to perpetuate routine per- formance.

II

The War's Effects on Industrial Education It is often

said that modern war is essentially an engineering enterprise. But to an unprecedented extent the Great War was likewise a manufacturing and transportation enterprise. At any given time fully as many workers were exclusively employed in war work in the " second " (transportation and supply) and " third " (production) lines of defense as in the strictly aggressive enterprises at the front.

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It was therefore to be expected that in the hurried and far-flung preparation for war which the United States was obliged to make, much experience both as to the needs and as to the processes of industrial education should have been developed. The following are submitted as tentative find- ings in the subject:

1. The war did nothing to abate society's faith in the need of publicly supported and publicly controlled vocational education. In numerous ways it accentuated the need and revealed the possibilities of special forms of that education. For success in war, for success in state building, for the furtherance of efficient democracy, it has become increas- ingly clear that peoples who are to advance in the struggle for survival and for worthy social achievement must have more and better vocational education than ever before. That can be had only through cooperative effort — probably only through state support and state control, as are now accepted policies for various grades of cultural and civic education.

2. As a means of playing its part in the war America embarked on vocational and especially on industrial educa- tion on an heroic scale. Every cantonment became in effect a gigantic boarding school designed to train men for the tem- porary vocations of war. Officers' training camps trained thousands of men for war leadership often by means of courses only a few months in length. In shipyards and munitions factories, the government promoted the estab- lishment of hundreds of special classes to train men and women for new vocations in turning out the standardized implements used directly or indirectly in martial operations. The government used existing schools of engineering and industrial education to train in short intensive courses thou- sands of specialists for sustaining service to the army and navy. It sent hundreds of thousands of young men, not yet old enough for active service, to colleges and schools of

2i8 Vocational Education

general and vocational education, where it designed to fit them for early military service as officers or technical spe- cialists. It encouraged manufacturers to establish " vesti- bule," " upgrading/' and other training department schools within factories, as a means of making trained labor out of untrained labor volunteers.

3. Economic Tendencies. — The demands of the war con- tributed to the clearing up of some matters in the economic world. War obviously intensifies consumption of some famil- iar kinds ; but it also creates new demands upon an enormous scale. For this war America needed large quantities of wheat, sugar, woolen goods, castor oil, tin cups, binoculars, and surgical bandages. We were forced to produce enormous quantities of rifles, aeroplanes, motor trucks, shells, gas masks, carbolic acid, explosives, and wrist watches. In all these fields the pressure has been constant for quantity pro- duction of standardized parts or commodities. America's business preparedness for quantity production was, from the start, good; and such success as we achieved in the war is to be attributed more to our capacity for large scale work than to any other one factor. As a people we utilize me- chanical power to perform work, instead of hand power, wherever possible. As a people we prefer wholesale pro- duction to retail. We take kindly to expensive and complicated machines if they will bear the burdens of large production, if they can " deliver the goods." We pride our- selves on our " big things " — ships, cars, mines, buildings, factories, schools. We like to see operations carried out on a large scale, part coordinating smoothly with part. And where we could move toward, or in war on, a huge scale, il* an efficient manner, we have had confidence in the outcome.

4. But the very success of all this in war, undoubtedly means for the future great ej use of capital, mechanical appliances, large scale outpjut and subdivision of process in industry, commerce, agriculture, and even in many of the

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professions. It means the accelerated decline of handicraft production, the " all-round " trades, historic apprenticeship, economic individualism, the " practical arts." It involves progressively the , vocational (but not cultural or civic) specialization of the inventor, the manager, the foreman, the inspector, and even the routine worker himself. It suggests the importance of a " selective service " for each large establishment, the use of scientific methods in employment, " upgrading," transfer and dismissal of workers. It cer- tainly greatly complicates the problems of vocational educa- tion of all kinds. It is to be feared that it presents a dis- couraging outlook to those who seek, as they think, to revive or to develop the "creative impulse" of an historic type, although it no less surely opens up to all workers opportu- nities for culture and civic usefulness of kinds heretofore unsuspected in industry. It throws a heavy burden of proof upon those who would see our industrial system funda- mentally transformed, in face of rapidly increasing popula- tion, rising standards of living, demands for increased leisure, and diminishing natural resources.

5. For it is much to be doubted if we can reverse present tendencies of economic evolution. We can search out and prevent some of their pathologic effects on human beings, for pathologic effects they certainly have, as have had all other social and economic transitions since men first emerged from the woods of our primate ancestors and began to build fires, invent tools, wear clothes, and employ speech. If the harnessing of the natural forces of wind, water, steam, electricity, and exploding gas means that man can produce the maximum of goods by organizing such mechanisms as will enable him to bring water by turning a spigot, light his buildings by turning a button, draw his trains by sitting at a lever, plow the earth from the vantage of a comfortable seat, cut coal with a power driven chain-saw, or weave cloth with a battery of automatic stop looms, then certainly large

220 Vocational Education

numbers of our future workers will, during their working hours, be, in the best sense of the word, machine tenders, although outside of working hours we hope that they will be cultivated men and women, interested in matters of per- sonal development and civic usefulness. It may be, indeed, that as a means of achieving the maximum of social growth, we shall not in the future have our youth begin on special- ized productive work until mature years have been reached, that we shall all work in gainful routine employment but a few hours each day, and that outside of hours devoted to production we shall engage ourselves as amateurs in response to ancient instincts of workmanship and invention. But we shall not expect back-yard gardening to supply even in small part the world's demands for wheat, beef, sugar, rubber, cotton, and milk. We shall encourage amateur craftsmen in all their hobbies for the sake of the personal development these afford, but without seriously expecting them to min- ister to the world's gigantic demands for cotton cloth, ships, paper, printed matter, picture films, canned fruits, furniture, cars, or transportation. We are probably destined to see our Chinas and Indias following in the wake of the western world in their efforts to stave off hunger, disease, and other concomitants of low productivity, by means of large scale production. If one of the effects of social evolution — accompanying less frequent wars, diminished disease, new inventions, intensive cultivation — is a steadily increasing population and another is rising standards of living, then it is certain that old methods of production will not suffice. In spite of the regrets and misgivings of the conservatives we must expect increased use of machinery, larger use of the capital that machine production requires, greater regi- mentation — self initiated and democratic, we hope — of workers, greater subdivision of productive process, and greater specialization of operatives from industrial general to workshop private. But we have also a right to expect

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from it more democracy, more prosperity, greater spiritual possessions. William Vaughan Moody thinks of " indus- trialism " as a brute, which, untamed and destructive at first, must be domesticated to man's uses :

THE BRUTE1

Through his might men work their wills.

They have boweled out the hills

For food to keep him toiling in the cages they have wrought ;

And they fling him, hour by hour,

Limbs of men to give him power;

Brains of men to give him cunning; and for dainties to devour

Children's souls, the little worth; hearts of women, cheaply bought:

He takes them and he breaks them, but he gives them scanty thought

For about the noisy land,

Roaring, quivering 'neath his hand,

His thoughts brood fierce and sullen or laugh in lust of pride

O'er the stubborn things that he

Breaks to dust and brings to be.

Some he mightily establishes, some flings down utterly.

There is thunder in his stride, nothing ancient can abide,

When he hales the hills together and bridles up the tide.

They who caught and bound him tight

Laughed exultant at his might,

Saying, "Now behold, the good time comes for the weariest and the

least!

We will use this lusty knave : No more need for men to slave ;

We may rise and look about us and have knowledge ere- the grave." But the Brute said in his breast, " Till the mills I grind have ceased, The riches shall be dust of dust, dry ashes be the feast.

" On the strong and cunning few

Cynic favors I will strew ;

I will stuff their maw with overplus until their spirit dies ;

From the patient and the low

I will take the joys they know;

They shall hunger after vanities and still an-hungered go.

Madness shall be on the people, ghastly jealousies arise;

Brother's blood shall cry on brother up the dead and empty skies."

'* Quoted from the collected poems of Wm. Vaughan Moody by per- mission of the publishers, Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston.

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So he plotted in his rage :

So he deals it, age by age.

But even as he roared his curse a still small Voice befell ;

Lo, a still and pleasant voice bade them none the less rejoice,

For the Brute must bring the good time on ; he has no other choice.

He may struggle, sweat, and yell, but he knows exceeding well

He must work them out salvation ere they send him back to hell.

All the desert that he made

He must treble bless with shade,

In primal wastes set precious seed of rapture and of pain ;

All the strongholds that he built

For the powers of greed and guilt —

He must strew their bastions down the sea and choke their towers with

silt;

He must make the temples clean for the gods to come again, And shift the lordly cities under skies without a stain.

In a very Cunning tether

He must lead the tyrant weather;

He must loose the curse of Adam from the worn neck of the race ;

He must cast out hate and fear,

Dry away each fruitless tear,

And make the fruitful tears to gush from the deep heart and clear.

He must give each man his portion, each his pride and worthy place ;

He must batter down the arrogant and lift the weary face,

On each vile mouth set purity, on each low forehead grace.

6. Education for Specialized Industries What does all

this mean to education, vocational and general ? In the first place it clearly indicates the need of all the vital effective general education — cultural and civic — that we can secure on behalf of all our citizens, in order that they may appre- ciate, understand and control the very complex economic and political conditions under which civilization in the future is to advance and be conserved.

Much of the training and instruction now given in the grades is very imperfectly functional for modern conditions, and it is the writer's conviction that most of the offerings of the high school are almost valueless from the standpoint of the cultural and civic requirements of to-day.

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For all our pupils we need to extend and enrich oppor- tunities for cultural, civic, and physical education. By all feasible means we must induce our young people to remain in full time, continuation or evening extension schools as long as they can profit from them. Even now nearly half our young people in more advanced communities are remain- ing in schools of general education until sixteen years of age. The proportion of the population remaining in full time schools, the primary purposes of which are civic and cultural education, is steadily rising throughout America. And the day is not far off when we can require continuation school attendance up to eighteen years of age, partly as a means of preparing our citizens for the larger civic respon- sibilities they must carry in the future. As respects voca- tional education, impending changes accelerated by the war will unquestionably be of a sweeping character. We are now learning the futility of manual training, mechanical drawing, bookkeeping, shop mathematics, textbook agriculture, and laboratory home economics as means of preparation for the great majority of vocations, however valuable factors they may be in general education. Even our best trade schools — of dressmaking, plumbing, carpentry, millinery, electrical installation, machine-shop practice and printing — feel themselves continually balked by the dissolving processes taking place. within the historic vocations for which they seek to give training. Our schools (not the colleges) of agriculture succeed with extension vocational education chiefly, and have only in rare instances learned to give basic vocational agricultural education, even when they know whether they have the skilled " hired man," the tenant, or tl)e owning farmer in view as the product of their training. We are not satisfied with our commercial schools which offer vocational education for only two out of possible scores of vocations. As for our dominant factory callings — those which produce our lumber, furniture, cloth, guns, shoes,

224 Vocational Education

tools, machinery, packed foods, drugs, jewelry, books, news- papers, clothes, ships, sugar, flour, etc. — we had made hardly a pretense of offering vocational training for them until forced by the emergencies born of the war. Clearly we must forge ahead, learning more about vocational edu- cation adapted to modern conditions.

7. Vestibule and Upgrading Schools. — We have not yet seriously faced the problem of providing vocational educa- tion for those specialized agencies of production that were so largely instrumental in helping win the war. The vesti- bule and upgrading schools rapidly developed in factories for war supplies when the United States Employment Serv- ice stopped the free migration of workers, suggest many possibilities. These may be inferred from an imaginary description of a large plant with highly subdivided oper- ative processes.

Let us imagine to ourselves a great manufacturing con- cern employing 20,000 workers ranging from managers and scientists at salaries of from $5,000 to $25,000, through foremen and inspectors earning from $2,000 to $4,000 per year, skilled men at from $1,200 to $2,000, and down to operatives, in many cases girls and boys from sixteen to twenty years of age, earning from $400 for the juvenile employees to $800 to $1,200 for those of greater maturity, experience, skill, and technical knowledge.

Because of its organization, use of science and modern machinery, magnitude and favorable location, we are jus- tified in assuming this establishment can produce goods of approved quality at relatively low cost. We may also assume that partly as the effects of legislation and partly as outcome of advanced standards, voluntarily accepted by employees and employers, this factory maintains approved conditions of lighting, hygiene, hours of labor, use of safety devices, etc.

For the purpose of recruiting labor — from the most to

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the least expert — the concern possesses an employment department which, by means of carefully devised tests, ascertains the probable serviceability of all those seeking work. Supplementing this employment department are training departments in which beginners or more mature workers ready for advancement are given a few days or a few weeks training on productive work in some simple operating specialty, receiving in the meantime an agreed upon proportion of the wage for a full-responsibility worker in that department or operation. If the worker comes to the factory with previous experience, he will naturally be assigned to that department for full productive work or for further training in which he can render the best of pro- ductive service for himself and for the establishment, according to his experience and maturity.

Let us assume the cases of several boys of sixteen enter- ing the work of this factory for the first time. In the light of our present knowledge and control of economic and educational conditions what could be done to insure best opportunities for these -boys in their vocational evolution? It is to be assumed that in a factory of the magnitude here described there are many kinds of work and many grades of compensation, and that the boys themselves will vary mate- rially as to their potential powers and future possibilities.

Before the boys begin to work, they are tested. They are employed for departments using large numbers of juvenile workers, sometimes as operating specialists. Be- fore beginning " full responsibility " work they are sent on half wages to a training department (for their specialties). Here, working full time, and on jobs that are similar to those they are later to undertake, they receive intensive training for three days, three weeks, or three months, de- pending on the difficulties of the processes they are to under- take and on their own learning powers. In the training departments, the primary educational processes will usually be

226 Vocational Education

training for skill — for accuracy, speed, safe action, etc., since production by harnessed powers requires this first of all. But in so far as technical knowledge can be related to, or is in any way required in, the productive processes it also will be given. Lectures and reading matter will like- wise be given to the learner to enlighten him as to the pur- poses, social significance, organization, and evolution of the great economic structure of which he has become a living part. Other reading and lectures will enlighten him as to his future personal opportunities in the plant. By yet other means he will be informed as to organizations formed by workers for self-help, advancement of their calling, cooper- ative participation in administration, etc.

Our young workers, after a period spent in " vestibule " schools, will then become full-fledged wage-earners, but, of course, on what are still essentially juvenile occupations. The more capable and ambitious of these boys will, however, soon desire advancement to more difficult and better paying work. For them are provided " upgrading " schools or departments. Like the vestibule schools for beginners, these " upgrading " schools offer, usually, short intensive courses of training for advanced specialties. Pupils for these are recruited from the more promising workers on simpler and less well-paid processes.

Given opportunities of the kind here suggested, we are justified in assuming that the more ambitious and gifted boys will push on from level to level. As they reach twenty- two to thirty years of age some of them will become aware of their possession of natural powers of leadership. They will see possibilities of becoming foremen, inspectors, man- agers, inventors, technical specialists. They will attend special upgrading schools, correspondence schools, or else take a year or two off to go to a technical school or college in the field of their special interest.

The boys to whom nature has been niggardly of gifts

/

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cannot, of course, rise to these heights. But neither can they remain too long in the juvenile operative specialties or those in which they will have to compete with girls or young, unmarried men workers. Sooner or later they must utilize the upgrading school to reach operations offering compen- sation sufficient to support a family. Even when they have reached such a specialty many of them may be expected to take training for other specialties in order to avoid ruts, to have, in time of change, more than one arrow in their quivers.

Is not the plan of vocational education here suggested the only one that will assist our workers in modern highly specialized productive enterprises? Is it not the only one adapted to factories for textiles, locomotives, firearms, jew- elry, clothing, furniture, packed meats, books, newspapers, automobiles, shoes, stoves, and buttons ? Is it not the only one adapted to commercial education for department stores, large banks, commission houses, large offices? May not something analogous to it be the best means of training young men for the successive farming stages of skilled farm hand, tenant farmer on a major and two minor specialties, and finally owning farmer?

8. It is sometimes questioned whether, outside of war- time, vocational education of the kind here mentioned should be supported at public expense. Some unthinking people complain that it benefits only employers. They say, " let in- dustry train its own workers." But they fail to realize that good training of physicians benefits all of us, since we are likewise private employers of physicians. Good training of any sort benefits us or our representatives as employers, and also as employees. But, complain the unreflecting, the employer gets all the benefit. How is this possible so long as there are varying wage scales within a given factory and workers, after training, come into the higher scales? For the present we have to assume the operation of laws of

228 Vocational Education

supply and demand in fixing shares of the worker's product that are to go, respectively, to interest on investment, depre- ciation of plant, overhead charges, profits of enterprisers, and wages. Like the law of gravity, the law of supply and demand is always operative, always limiting. We can, on occasion, and for a time, offset gravity, but only by special machinery and at cost of great outlay of energy. Similarly, in the family group, in an army group, and under some other conditions, like monopoly or illegal oppression, we can offset temporarily the pressure of the law of supply and demand. But we can never stray far from it except with very special machinery and with great cost to somebody.

Problems of Vocational Education for Highly Specialized Vocations The following are some of the essential con- ditions to be included in consideration of problems of voca- tional education for the specialized callings :

1. Many processes will be found for which very young or only slightly competent adult workers are adequate, and for which a few hours', or at most a few days', special vocational training will probably suffice. In these occu- pations juvenile and women workers are apt to predominate.

2. Opposed to these will be processes which require special qualities of bodily strength, maturity, experience, judgment, training, technical knowledge. Men engaging in the work as a life career will be found more numerous in these specialties where requirements are more varied and compensation higher.

3. Some of the more scientific specialties will require workers of advanced technical education. In many cases these places cannot be filled by promotion from among the workers of an industrial establishment, but will seek spe- cially prepared workers - - engineers, draftsmen, assayers, accountants, inspectors, designers — from persons who have had specific vocational school training^

4. On the other hand, many of tne advanced positions

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will require qualities that can probably be most advan- tageously found within the establishment itself, among those workers who have been adding to their natural physical and mental qualifications for such work, the special training or technical knowledge required.

5. In any highly organized establishment a variety of forces operate to keep a specialty worker on one type of job, except when pressing need exists for workers to fill higher places. Only in relatively few cases — like the advancement of locomotive fireman to freight locomotive engineer, and from freight locomotive engineer to passenger locomotive engineer — does there exist a regular and ex- pected line of promotion. Hence, if for reasons of individ- ual or social efficiency, it seems desirable that workers should be encouraged and assisted to seek promotion wherever and whenever practicable, special forces of an educational nature must be set in motion.

6. In highly specialized fields of production it will often be easily possible to train a worker to perform special types of operations of approximately the same difficulty and in- volving the same compensation — horizontally specialized occupations. It is very probable that the shifting of young workers among several of these occupations may prove of great importance from the standpoint of growth in body and mind. It may yet be demonstrated that shifting from one occupation to another will prove of great advantage in relieving the monotony of specialized work.

7. Promotion from inferior to superior occupations now prevails in greater or less degree in all occupational fields, since it is evident that higher places are filled, and demands for service there are only slightly more pressing than below ; but that promotion is now badly organized, wasteful, and in- effective generally. But no initial vocational education can provide for it ; that must be met by special schools of basic or of extension vocational education designed to be avail-

230 Vocational Education

able when the worker shall have reached the approximate stage of maturity and experience requisite for the proposed advanced stage, and when proper vocational guidance tests will have demonstrated his probable qualifications for the different or advanced calling.

8. In many cases promotion will involve simply advance- ment to a process related to, but somewhat more exacting, than the one previously followed. In such instances the possibilities of acquiring suitable training in day continua- tion and evening extension schools and classes should always be examined.

9. But when promotion involves shifting to an occupa- tion for which the old gives little direct preparation, then it is doubtful whether continuation or extension school at- tendance will suffice to give the needed preparation. Prob- ably short-course schools designed to give basic training, followed by part-time wage-earning participation will give best results.

CHAPTER VIII

VOCATIONAL HOMEMAKING EDUCATION

The education of women and girls for the homemaking vo- cations has evolved only to a point where a number of specific problems can be diagnosed. It is the purpose of this chap- ter to state a few of these problems, to suggest some methods for their further study, and to submit certain tentative pro- posals for criticism. As far as practicable, the methods employed will be those being developed in educational sociol- ogy, namely, to base all proposed aims of education upon an analysis and evaluation of those needs of social groups which are to be realized in and through education, school and non- school. The standards will be those increasingly accepted in the general theory of vocational education. The study is de- signed primarily for educators engaged in research in the fields of homemaking and household arts education, or in administering state and national legislation intended to promote such education.

I. PROBLEMS FOR CONSIDERATION

1. Do we possess as yet any definitions of the homemak- ing vocations sufficiently specific and concrete to serve as foundations for the formulation of satisfactory programs of instruction and training for those vocations? Where can they be found? (It is obvious that definitions expressed only in vague general terms render very poor service.)

2. Back of definitions of homemaking, do we as yet pos- sess analyses and classifications of homes sufficiently con-

231

232 Vocational Education

crete to enable us to determine what are, for given social groups and conditions, optimum degrees of efficiency to be expected of homemakers? (For example, the criticism is often heard that existing programs of home economics education are based on excessively high home maintenance standards from the standpoint of those whom they are to serve — that they ignore the $900-$ 1200 income class home, in spite of its prevalence.) * Where can such analyses be found ?

3. Have we as yet any sufficient survey of the effective- ness of the non-school vocational education for homemaking which now prevails (and always has prevailed, possibly in different forms) in various social groups or income levels? Where can the results of such surveys be found? (It is alleged that programs of basic home economics education now take no adequate account of the effectiveness of non- school education, and therefore fail to utilize its results, cooperatively or as basis of correlation.) What, for speci- fied groups or conditions, are the contributions of such edu- cation to (a) ideals and appreciations, (b) technical knowl- edge, and (c) skills, at age levels, 1-12, 12-15, 15-18 for non-wage-earners or school attendants, (rf) 15-18 for wage- earners or school attendants, (e) 18-22 for home "board- ers/' (/) 18-22 for home assistants, and (g) 22-30 for young married women, etc. ?

4. Is it practicable to distinguish in the actual exercise of the homemaking vocation by given individuals the fac- tors, respectively, of "skills," forms of -"related technical knowledge," and forms of " related hygienic, social, and cultural knowledge (and ideals) " in such a way as to de- duce therefrom the best parts which should be played re- spectively by home apprenticeship, school education, and undirected experience, in the total educative processes of producing vocational competency? (Home economics

1 Incomes and prices herein are supposed to be as of 1914 standards.

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classes and courses have heretofore restricted themselves largely to technical instruction; they seem to have done little to produce the two classes of skills essential in homemaking — manipulative and managerial ; and both their methods and results have been freely criticized as " impractical," " over- technical," "excessively wedded to book and laboratory "). Under what conditions can technical instruction alone func- tion in vocational competency — (a) as instruction uncon- nected with home experience for girls 12-16 under conditions of home apprenticeship, (b) as instruction uncorrelated with home experience on part of girls 16-20, (c) as extension instruction to housewives? Does Bulletin 28 of the Federal Board for Vocational Education definitely provide for " training " ? How can training in " homemaking arts " be given? Have we as yet any satisfactory analyses of " train- ing" for homemaking at ages 12-14, 14-16, 16-20, before marriage, after marriage ?

5. In general, it is agreed that the best time for vocational education is just prior to the individual's undertaking " full responsibility " work as operative or manager in the voca- tion itself. When do the following persons usually under- take " full " or " part " responsibility work : farmers' daughters not leaving home until married; domestic serv- ants; women wage-earners from 16 to 23, then marrying and discontinuing outside work; home-staying daughters? How far are girls exceptions to above principle by virtue of constant living in homes? How far do girls at 14-16 pos- sess active motives for entry upon vocational homemaking? How far can results of homemaking instruction or training keep in "cold storage" (without application), e.g., in cases of girls 16-22 working for wages, but living at home? How far can " instincts " for homemaking contribute to expected proficiencies — along food lines, clothing, sick nursing, child care, management? Which of these prob- lems have been well investigated?

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6. To what extent have aims, methods, and administra- tive organization of home economics education taken shape under limitations imposed by conditions of other forms of education? Why do we think of it chiefly as related to ages 14-18 in high schools? As parallel to liberal arts courses? As dependent upon "laboratories" ? As yield- ing almost no forms of cooperation with homes ? How can we provide for investigation of problems of specific aim and method on assumption of " optimum " conditions?

7. What is the "case" method of study? Is it practi- cable to procure, within reasonable limits of precision, type " cases " of home practice, preparation for home practice, needs of preparatory training, present schemes of school preparation, and the like, and tentatively to analyze and evaluate these?

8. What are principles of vocational education in general which are capable of application in homemaking?

9. What is the " home project method " of vocational homemaking?

10. Are the suggestions of Bulletin 28 conclusive?

11. What is the place of household arts in liberal educa- tion?

II. WHAT ARE HOMES?

The " home " is a very much generalized conception. Every person can in a measure appreciate, even visualize, a home or homes. But we still possess no adequate analysis of the essential characteristics and functionings of homes of various kinds. Because of the indeterminateness of pre- vailing " job analyses " of homemaking and the hardly less vague standards of functioning of the home as a social agency, most current proposals and practices toward educa- tion for homemaking exhibit endless evidences of arti- ficiality and impracticability.

1. In the most universal sense, the home is obviously a

Vocational Homemaking Education 235

place for the rest and recreation of adults. It is manifestly also a workshop for the elaboration of consumable goods — foods, clothing, beds, social intercourse, worship, education. In its profounder aspects it is a means for the nurture of children. These functions are interdependent, interlocked; but, for any given type of home, which are more funda- mental, more socially essential, than others? We greatly need concrete analyses of these problems along the lines of the classifications suggested below.

2. It is, indeed, highly desirable that we should have functional analyses of various types of " homes." In the modern world there are many specialized agencies which function, temporarily or permanently, as homes for adults engaged in vocational pursuits — barracks, cantonments, ships, hotels, bachelors' cabins, dormitories, hotels, Pullman cars. There are hivelike homes for children more or less abnormally situated — asylums, boarding-school dormito- ries, institutional cottages. Homes for monogamous families also exist in several species, from the hotel apartment and housekeeping apartment, the urban " row " or semi-detached house, to the detached urban dwelling, and the farm home- stead.

3. If we assume that, sociologically considered, the pri-. mary function of the " home " is to contribute to the rearing of children, then the various species of " family " homes should be divided into a number of varieties according to the scope of their work and the means wherewith it is to be done. The following at least are some of the types that require extended analysis (the words "normal number of children " denote expectancy of from four to six children by time mother is at age of forty) : (a) tenement home, no servant help; normal number of children; annual income less than $800 (1900-1914 prices); (b) same, but income $800-$ 1200; (c) same, except apartment with hot water and heat, and income $1200-$2000; (d) same, income

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$2000-$3000 ; (e) apartment home, one servant, subnormal number of children, income $2500-$4000; (/) same, sub- normal number of children (one), no servant, income under $1200; (g) apartment, subnormal number of children (two), one servant, income $2000-$4000; (h) detached urban or suburban house, no servant, normal number of chil- dren, income under $1000; (i) same, but subnormal number of children, income under $1000; (/) same as (h), but in- come $1000-$1500; (k) same, income $1500-$2500; (/) same, except one servant, and income $2000-$4000; (m) de- tached urban or suburban house, subnormal number of chil- dren (one or two), no servant, income $1200-$2000; (H) detached house, normal or subnormal number of children, three or more servants, income $7000-$20,000; (0) de- tached farm home, excess number of children, net income (money and kind) under $700, colored; (p) same, white; (q) same, white, but net income $750-$ 11 00; (r) farm home, normal number of children, no servant, net income $800-$1000; (s) same, net income, $1000-$1500, irregu- lar help; (t) farm home, normal number of children, two or more servants, income $3000-$ 10,000.

4. It is also desirable that homes should be classified in terms of the ideals or standards toward which they aspire, as well as the conditions they must meet. What are the " standards of living," or perhaps better, the standards of comfort, toward which are striving: (a) The American- born manual workingman's family? (b) The American- born land-owning general farmer? (r) The American- born well-educated professional man or commercial worker? (d) The colored tenant farmer in the South? (e) The re- cent Italian immigrant, manual laborer in city? Sociologi- cal research is needed to define prevailing types, to evalu- ate their persistent and their " fluid " ideals.

5. Of the above types, which are " modal " - that is, statistically most numerous — from the standpoint of the

Vocational Homemaking Education 237

vocational education of prospective homemakers ? Which are most prevalent, or expected to be most prevalent, in given communities? Into which types are the girls whose abilities and favoring home circumstances enable them to " go through " high school likely to fit? Into which types are the girls of a manufacturing city, who leave school at 14-16, likely to fit? What are the types likely to be filled by daughters of poor " renting " farmers? Are we to ex- pect the flat or apartment home to replace the detached house in cities ? in suburbs ? Are home economics teachers expected to prognosticate the future availability of servant help — and for several income classes of homes considered separately? The probable extension of the apartment or flat type of dwelling? The possible evolution of cooperative housekeeping? Development of agencies for the coopera- tive or delegated care of small children? Future possibili- ties of "boarding" life in nurture of children? Cooper- ation of the father, on a short wage-earner's day, in duties of twenty-four-hour day homemaking? Probable future size of family in different social groups ?

6. It is suggested that in class work, where not other- wise specified, the term " home " should imply these con- ditions: detached urban house, no servant, from four to six children, $900-$! 500 income standard, American tra- ditions. From this, as a point of departure, variants could be described. In many cities the "cold water" (no heat supplied), "walk-up" three-to-five-room flat for working- men's families is becoming very common; it means normal number of children at least, no servants, income $700-$1000. Also the separate land-owner's farm home is very prevalent.

III. WHAT Is THE VOCATION OF HOMEMAKER?

Homemaking a Composite Vocation. — It is obvious that the vocation of homemaker is composite to an extent char-

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acteristic of only a very few other occupations. This re- mains true, notwithstanding the extent to which certain functions have in America been removed from the homes — such as weaving, teaching, food preservation, gardening, and, now, baking, brewing, and garment-making. Compos- iteness of vocation is ordinarily a sign of primitiveness. When human beings live under primitive, pioneering, or dispersed conditions, there is relatively little subdivision of labor and exchange of commodities. Every primitive hunter, fisherman, tiller of the soil, warrior, teacher, and housewife is in large measure and of necessity a jack-of-all- trades. The home retains this character long after it has largely disappeared in manufacture, transportation, and com- merce, because the family is the most universal unit of con- sumption and especially of the productive processes that just precede or are intimately associated with consumption. Sociologically speaking, we can again affirm that children are the cause of the present compositeness of the homemak- er's activities. If children could be as effectively reared in barracks, hotels, or asylums as adults can live and carry on consuming activities in these elaborate organizations of specialized service, then we should speedily see the end of the highly localized home.

Organization and specialization of service lead to depth of knowledge, refinement of skill, and intricacy of mana- gerial relations. The small " general " farmer, the country storekeeper, the teacher in a small high school, the village mechanic, the country doctor, like the housewife, must always experience the trials of realizing themselves less com- petent in the special arts, which they must attempt, than the specialists. Utopian suggestions that " homemaking " is (or ought to be regarded as) a " profession " render no service in mitigating the hard reality that for the great majority it must long continue a composite of ill-defined and imper- fectly standardized arts.

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The first step in the process of defining the vocation of homemaker is that of segregating for detailed consideration some fairly common and constant types of home. The second is to analyze, describe, and, perhaps, evaluate the vari- ous prevailing forms of skill, knowledge, appreciation, and ideal now found among those of the practitioners of this type of homemaking who would be judged to be slightly above the average by persons possessed of critical and com- mon-sense judgment.

Analysis of Type Homemaking Vocation. — Let us assume as the type to be considered homemakers in detached village or urban houses, no servants, family budget, $1000-$ 1200 per year, American ancestry, normal number of children (two or three at ages assumed for mothers — 28-34) , moth- ers of elementary school general education, no school edu- cation in homemaking. Call this type M. Taking one hundred of these at random, we can for convenience classify twenty as A grade (excellent), thirty as B grade (good), thirty as C grade (fair), and twenty as D grade (poor). For purposes of determining prevailing requirements of the vocation we can confine ourselves to the B grade on the assumption that their standards are those we desire the next generation, on the average, to approximate, but are also not the effects of exceptional heredity.

The vocational activities of these B grade homemakers can readily be classified under such major and minor heads as those given in the following table; and a consensus of competent critics could assign to these various groups of activities, for the type of homemaker under consideration, crude measures of their relative importance (weightings) along the lines tentatively suggested by the figures here ar- bitrarily assigned (it is assumed that total optimum com- petency would be rated at 10,000 units; and that optimum competency in any one division would be rated as given; and that individual MBx might be rated as shown) :

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TABLE I

CLASSIFICATION AND RATING OF ACTIVITIES OF TYPE M HOMEMAKER

Optimum Rating of

Activity Group {Majors) Standards Individual

for Type M MBx

1. Foods (buying, preparation, serving) . . . 3000 2000

2. Clothing (buying, upkeep, making) . . . 1500 1200

3. Household care and upkeep (beds, clean-

ing, etc.) 1000 900

4. Laundry 500 400

5. Care of children 3000 1500

Activity Group {Minors)

6. Accounting 300 10

7. Sick nursing 300 250

8. Housing and furnishing 100 50

9. Adult sociability 150 150

10. Garden and yard ; 150 100

Detailed Analysis Required But it is clear that such an

analysis as that given above is too crude and general to serve for practical guidance. For one thing, it makes no distinc- tions between skills and related technical (or artistic and scientific) knowledge. Some homemakers are strong in certain skills acquired purely on the basis of imitation and " trial and success " methods under competent direction ; and weak in technical knowledge. Some have excellent technical knowledge but inferior skills. Possibly a third type of power (or appreciation) should also be distin- guished, namely, social insight, or, more adequately, physi- cal, social, and cultural insight. It is also probable that dis- tinctions should be made between manipulative and mana- gerial skills.

Furthermore, any adequate analysis must distinguish, weight, and evaluate numerous concrete subdivisions in the above scheme. " Skills " in preparing foods are not gen- eral, but often very concrete and specific. Skill in bread- making may coexist with lack of it in beefsteak broiling.

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Competency in making certain articles of clothing may be found together with low ideals of upkeep.

Let it be repeated that the first object of the analysis and evaluation suggested above is to ascertain what powers and capacities are now prevailingly found among homemakers of slightly more than average ability as found in a certain type or class. Such analysis should normally precede at- tempts to determine what powers and capacities the next generation of homemakers of similar groups should possess as a result of purposive vocational education. In much of current literature on the aims of home economics confusion exists because aspirations are not presented separately from diagnoses of existing conditions; and also because in diag- noses various types and grades of homemakers are jumbled. The problem of vocational education for the girl or woman who in all probability will direct the labor of two or more servants will undoubtedly be found to be different in many essential respects from that of the girl or woman who is al- most certainly destined to carry the full load of homemaking by herself. No less important at certain points are dis- tinctions between rural and urban homes, and between homes in apartments and homes in detached or semi-de- tached houses. Scientific study is certain to reveal other classifications of importance, based, perhaps, upon climati *, occupational, and other considerations.

IV. SOCIOLOGICAL SCOPE AND STANDARDS OF THE HOMEMAKING VOCATIONS

1 . There are in the United States some 16,000,000 women, chiefly married and widowed, whose principal vocation is homemaking. Of these probably 90 per cent are unable to divide work or responsibility with co-laborers ; hence they must carry on all phases of homemaking work by themselves — conspicuously the procuring, preparing, and serving of

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food, the making and upkeep of clothing, laundry work, house care, care of children, etc. For women of this class, homemaking, therefore, at least among white people, pre- sents relatively few variable features, as between East and West, North and South. Hence, homemaking is the most numerously followed of all vocations. Next to it, in point of numbers, is " farming." But " farming " includes many very unlike vocations, from cranberry, orange, asparagus, cotton or sheep growing as specialties to dairy, grain, mar- ket-garden, or " general " farming.

Domestic service for hire, or favor — specialized and un- specialized — may be classified here as " assistant home- making."

2. From the standpoint of the sociologist the central fact in homemaking is the rearing of children. The monog- amous marriage and the home have evolved side by side, most conspicuously in the north temperate zone, probably in chief measure because of their suitability to the rearing of the children — to the making out of the children the kind of men and women who could best cooperate in producing and sustaining the valuable elements in civilization. All adults must, of course, have places of temporary or permanent abode; but the beginnings of the most realistic home are laid when a man and a woman form a partnership in marriage and soon face their responsibility of rearing through their " prolonged infancy " the children born of the union.

3. Endless conventions, customs, and laws have been evolved to perpetuate and to improve the home as a social institution. Most conspicuous is the division of labor be- tween husband and wife. The prevailing American stand- ard, which expresses in fullest development the standards aspired to in other countries, requires that the husband shall be the " money getter " of the family — that he shall pro- duce the marketable goods (or services) wherewith goods for the home can be purchased. The wife is expected to do

Vocational Hornemaking Education 243

the " elaborative " or preparatory work required in the home to make goods purchased in more or less raw form suitable for immediate consumption. To the mother falls the pro- longed and sustaining care of children, especially when small. To the father falls induction of boys, as they mature, into productive service. To the mother falls the vocational " by-education " of the girls.

a. Space need not be taken here to elaborate the biologi- cal concomitants of these sex differentiations of work, at- titude, and responsibility. Doubtless the respective " na- tures "of men and women have become somewhat biologi- cally differentiated toward the best rearing, as well as toward the best begetting and bearing of children. On the other hand, many apparently deeply rooted differentiations are founded only in social inheritances of customs, conven- tions, and other " social " habits and traditions. These last can, obviously, be much more readily changed than the former.

b. A secondary function of the home is to reinforce and develop personality and community of interest in the adult members of the family group. For these it gives a place of rest and some forms of recreation, protection from inva- sion of weather, and privacy for the social intercourse valu- able to the family group.

4. From the sociological standpoint, therefore, the pri- mary standards of good homemaking are to be found, first in the children brought to approvable manhood and woman- hood through this agency ; and, second, through the enrich- ment of personality (health, sociability, culture) accom- plished for its adult members.

a. It is obvious, of course, that each age brings new con- ditions to assist or restrict the home in the discharge of its social obligations. Schools take over certain functions; adults resort to clubs for sociability and other recreation; the man's workshop is removed to a distance, so that he

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loses contact with adolescent boys; many productive opera- tions that once gave variety to the work of the wife and op- portunities to share work with children are being removed from the home.

V. THE " TOTAL PROBLEM " OF VOCATIONAL EDUCATION FOR HOMEMAKING

One great mistake has frequently been made in construct- ing programs or curricula of vocational education in that teachers and administrators have proceeded to work with existing limitations always in mind from the outset. This procedure is fundamentally unscientific. Programs and cur- ricula should first be worked out on the assumption of opti- mum conditions ; then revisions, corrections, reductions, and other accommodations should be made with reference to known and defined limitations or other modifying condi- tions.

For example : Assume the problem before us is that of providing vocational homemaking education for certain women who are usually factory hands from fifteen years of age to marriage, who commonly marry at from 22 to 25, whose family income from marriage to forty-five will range from $1000 to $1500 (the mother not being a wage-earner) , who will rear from four to six children, and who will live in small urban or suburban houses. It is desired that this homemaking education shall function in reasonably imme- diate competency when first children are born. Let us as- sume that we are working in a manufacturing city with large numbers of recent immigrants.

We know that the actual situations confronting us are endlessly varied. Some of the girls go to work at fourteen, having finished only the fifth grade; others leave after going halfway through high school. Some at fifteen have been well trained in home craft by their mothers, some possess

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little or no skill. Some have been wise " little mothers " and know much about the care of babies, even at twelve years of age; but most of them will have learned nothing of child care by the time their own first baby arrives. Some of them will approach marriage with considerable appreci- ation of the responsibilities of homemaking, others will rush in heedlessly. If a good day vocational school of home- making were available, a few of them would stop work and attend it for one or three months in preparation for their new vocation; but most of them would not. If well adver- tised evening classes in " short units " of homemaking were available, many girls would come for some months, but their interest would center chiefly in making articles of personal wear or adornment, or in cooking dishes suitable for " par- ties"; but a few would do genuinely productive work in evening classes.

Confronted by this heterogeneous and confused situation, how shall we proceed to devise curricula? Efficient pro- cedure certainly requires that we first determine and docu- ment in detail curricula and programs on the assumption of clear-cut and optimum conditions.

1. We can assume as basal these factors: (a) All the girls and women we are to deal with are wage-earners from 14-17 to 21-25. (b) All will marry, and have families. (c) All will be wives of workingmen, having family in- comes of $900-$! 500. (d) It is desirable that all families shall live in accordance with " good " American standards.

2. For the purposes of getting our " total " or " com- plete" curriculum defined we can assume the existence of these conditions: (a) Women engaged to be married and eager to qualify for the vocation of homemaking. (b) The prior experience or home training of these women is so slight and ineffective as to be negligible. (c)The woman free to give three or six months as may be required to " full time " (eight hours daily) for this vocational education.

246 Vocational Education

(d) The woman living with her parents in a small home which can be used in any and all ways as a " productive shop " for educational practice in homemaking. (e) The woman living in the midst of neighbors among whom she can find opportunities to care for sick or to assume charge of infants when work of this character becomes essential to her program. (/) The school so staffed and equipped as to give all needed individual instruction, supervision of home projects, laboratory work, related reading, etc.

In the light of these conditions we produce curricula, pro- grams, courses, projects, etc., having paid due regard to the various kinds of educational products to be produced — skills, applicable knowledge, ideals, managerial abilities, ap- preciations, etc. Overzealous or " theoretical " teachers might well consider warnings and queries at this point: (a) We are not expected to train these young women for a " pro- fession." (b) In view of the multiplicity of operations involved in homemaking, we are not expected to train these young women to be as good cooks as hotel chefs, as good nurses as hospital graduates, as good seamstresses as those working for wages, or as good teachers of little children as kindergartners. Overambitious standards or ideals here de- feat their own aims, (c) What additions to their powers and capacities can we expect these people to make during, say, the first five years of married life, as the burdens of homemaking rapidly increase? (d) Remember, always, that technical knowledge not built on experience is apt to be a useless possession, whereas skill, even if unaccompanied by technical knowledge, has a large place in the world. The ideal, of course, is skills, manual and managerial, illumined by technical knowledge and social insight.

3. Having made our curricula and programs for the sit- uation described above, we can then proceed to make adapta- tions and adjustments of them for situations like these :

a. Where young women have had a substantial appren- ticeship in their own homes.

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b. Where it is not practicable to reach young women, but it is practicable to provide two to six hours weekly of train- ing and instruction in regular public schools during ages 12 to 15 or 16.

c. Where young women are eager for homemaking edu- cation, but home facilities for training are unavailable.

d. Where no school facilities are available and teachers must do all work in the homes of the girls.

e. Where women can or will take training only after marriage, but where their own homes can then be exten- sively used for that purpose.

VI. THE "CASE METHOD" OF STUDY

Probably the most profitable methods of approach to the problems here under consideration from the standpoint of the determination of desirable objectives of vocational homemaking education are to be found in the provision of curricula and programs for typical " case " situations, as illustrated below :

CASE A

A woman, 22 years of age, expecting to be married, wishes six months' full-time training in homemaking. She has been an industrial wage-worker for seven years and knows nothing on the " doing " side about homemaking. She cannot cook, set a table, make a bed, or patch a dress. She has had no experience in handling babies, entertaining small children, caring for the sick, buying furniture, or keeping household accounts. As a " boarder " or consumer in her own home she has the usual " appreciations " of good cooking, well-kept rooms, etc.

Assume that at 30 she is to have three children, that she will have a five-room house, in a suburban or village com- munity, and that the family income will be $1200 annually.

243 Vocational Education

Assume that after marriage she will have to rely largely on herself (not having a mother or other elder person living with her), and that she is ambitious to start married life as a good worker in her new vocation as homemaker.

Assume also the availability of sufficient means to give her a good vocational education — a home as a workshop to meet requirements for prepared food, patched clothing, care of babies, on a strictly productive (as opposed to " exer- cise ") basis, as well as books, laboratory facilities, etc.

PROBLEMS TO BE SOLVED

Problem 1. What should be the specific aims of the six months' vocational education to be provided ?

Problem 2. What amounts of available time (assume 150 working days of eight hours each) should be given re- spectively to :

Majors

a. Foods: selection and purchase, preparation, serving, disposal, re-use, dishwashing, etc.

(a) Skills, practical performance.

(b) Related technical studies.

(c) Related social studies.

b. Clothing: selection, purchase, making, re-making, re- pairs, upkeep.

(a) Skills, practical performance.

(b) Related technical studies.

(c) Related social studies.

c. Care of house : bed-making, sweeping, keeping articles in order; cleansing furniture, wood, glass, stoves, bathroom fixtures, etc.; making minor repairs to lights, plumbing, locks, etc.

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(a) Skills, practical performance.

(b) Related technical knowledge.

(c) Related social knowledge.

d. Laundry, including ironing, etc.

(a) Skills, practical performance.

(b) Related technical knowledge.

(c) Related social knowledge.

e. Children, including sociability and by-education.

(a) Skills, practical performance.

(b) Related technical knowledge.

(c) Related social knowledge.

Minors

f. Household accounting, including especially, planning of expenditures, budget making, use of inventories, segre- gation of expenditures, investment of savings, etc.1

(a) Skills, practical performance.

(b) Related technical knowledge.

(c) Related social knowledge.

g. Housing and furniture: selection, fundamental or long-period readjustments and renovation (not included under " care of house ").

(a) Skills, practical performance.

(b) Related technical knowledge.

(c) Related social knowledge.

h. Care of sick.

(a) Skills, practical performance.

(b) Related technical knowledge.

(c) Related social knowledge.

1 For some types of homes, and perhaps eventually for all, this should be a major.

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i. Adult sociability and social culture (excluding socia- bility with children).

(a) Skills, practical performance.

(b) Related technical knowledge.

(c) Related social knowledge.

;. Yard and garden.

(a) Skills, practical performance.

(b) Related technical knowledge.

(c) Related social knowledge.

Problem 3. What order of presentation of the above subjects should be followed ?

Problem 4. In each case what provision should be made for training in practical skills ?

Problem 5. How should related technical knowledge be given, and in what relation to practice on productive, useful, skill-forming work ?

Problem 6. Should " practical " exercises (non-produc- tive) be accepted in lieu of productive work?

Problem 7. How should related social knowledge be given ?

Problem 8. What tests of final competency in each case should be provided?

CASE B

Identical with Case A, except that the total time available for training for vocation is three months, or seventy-five working days, of eight hours each.

CASE c

Identical with Case A, except that women must continue wage-earning, and can give only four (evening) hours weekly for sixty weeks, divided between two years.

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CASE D

Identical with Case A, except that women can give only time after she is married and living in her own home. Can then give six afternoon hours in school and twenty-four (or more if necessary) hours to productive work in her own home, weekly, for sixteen weeks. Assume teachers with ample time for visiting and supervision of home work.

CASE E

Farmer's daughter, 22 years old, eighth-grade education. Has always helped in farm home and can perform all or- dinary operations with the moderate efficiency produced by home apprenticeship, including care of small children. Has little technical knowledge or social insight relative to the homemaking vocation.

Expects to get married within a year, to have a farm house (northern Mississippi Valley), with cash budget of $600 yearly and income in " kind " (owned house, water, wood, vegetables, fruit, milk) equivalent to $250. As- sume three children at age of thirty and only occasional household help.

Assume possibilities of her attending full time for three months a vocational school of homemaking distant 100 miles from her home. Assume this school to possess all reason- able equipment and teaching force required to carry into effect such programs as it might decide to be desirable for students of the class of Case E.

Problem 1. What would such a school establish as its standards of vocational proficiency for such a woman? Classify objectives separately under the categories given for Case A, distinguishing Binder each between practical skill, related technical knowledge and related social insight.

Problem 2. How will the school test and evaluate the

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powers and capacities in homemaking possessed by the woman at entrance? How will it correlate these with the new powers and capacities it will seek to produce ?

Problem 3. What will such a school seek to offer as training and -instruction under each of the categories given in Case A? Or, what will be its programs of instruction?

Problem 4. What will such a school provide in the way of facilities for practice? In foods? Laundry? Child care? Sick care? Housing?

Problem 5. How will such a school avoid stressing ur- ban conditions ? How can it keep solidly in touch with ru- ral conditions?

CASE F

Identical with Case E, except that the woman has gone to high school and normal school and has taught two years, as a consequence of which her skills and technical knowledge of homemaking at the outset are negligible, while her appre- ciations are normal.

CASE G

Identical with Case E, except that the woman can give three hours daily to the homemaking school, located one hour away, and the remainder to her mother's home, where productive educational work can be done.

VII. SOME GENERAL PRINCIPLES

In the framing and passage of the Smith-Hughes Act, granting national aid to certain forms of vocational educa- tion, home economics was included at the eleventh hour. A distinguished member of the Federal Board for Voca- tional Education has publicly asserted that the home eco- nomics provision was a " monkey-wrench thrown into other- wise perfectly good machinery." Many teachers of home

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economics in elementary and especially in secondary schools who were serenely pursuing the even tenor of their way be- fore the enactment of the Smith-Hughes law now find also that that law is playing the disastrous part of monkey-wrench in their heretofore smooth-running machinery.

What is the vocational education that prepares for home- making or the work of housewife? Under what conditions is home economics " vocational "? What else can the sub- ject be, if not vocational? These, and many other similar questions are disconcerting, if not haunting, many of our home economics teachers to-day. They are destined to put to the test not a few of current traditions as to aims and methods of education in fields only distantly related to the homemaking vocation. They show the utter inadequacy of some current interpretations of educational values made by men of strong academic prepossessions.

The immediate difficulties confronting home economics teachers arise from a few simple but more or less conflicting conditions: (a) Congress enacted the Smith-Hughes law to aid vocational education, and only vocational education. (b) The public has all along believed that the home econom- ics courses which had become so generally established in progressive school systems were vocational in intent and re- sults. Hence the public has insisted that schools maintain- ing these courses should proceed to claim their due share of " Smith-Hughes " money, (c) The administering author- ities have in some cases denied that home economics courses as ordinarily found are in fact vocational, and have insisted on new and sometimes difficult modifications.

Now, it is well known that many differences of mind in this imperfect world are due to failures to define terms and standards. How far is this the situation here? On the other hand, sore contests always arise when progressive action is being taken, the very nature of which necessitates discarding of familiar habits, and readjustment of stand-

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ards. The authorities charged with the enforcement of the law claim that such is often the case here.

The history of the evolution of vocational education shows how present confusion in almost all fields of voca- tional education arises under both the conditions stated above. A few basic inquiries will make this clear. What does " vocational education " mean ? Does it include all those forms of experience, instruction, and training, in school and out of school, which, superadded to the individ- ual's native endowment, finally give him that which we rec- ognize as vocational competency ? Then it will be admitted that, in the sense used, every one, substantially, for thou- sands of years, has received a vocational education — good, bad, or indifferent, complete or incomplete, wasteful or eco- nomical, as the case may be. In that sense, then, every housewife and every domestic servant in the United States to-day has received some vocational education, although few have received any part of that education through an agency which could properly be called a school.

We are now on educational bedrock. When and why do we seek to establish schools for vocational education to sup- plement or replace the other agencies? Only when these other agencies are insufficient to the needs of the time and when a type of school is invented that can give the edu- cation. That has been the history of vocational schools of war leadership, medicine, priesthood, pharmacy, navigation, law, civil engineering, stenography, telephone switchboard operating, nursing, and elementary school teaching. It will probably be the history of schools of journalism, acting, in- door salesmanship, waiting on table, poultry farming, house carpentry, school nursing, automobile repair, homemaking, and engine firing. (It can hardly be said that we have vo- cational schools for this second group of vocations as yet; current attempts are hardly beyond the experimental stage. )

Do vocational schools at first undertake to give complete

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competency for a given vocation — complete, that is, as reasonably practicable for the age at which graduation is expected? Rarely ever. Sometimes they assume a pre- vious period of apprenticeship — as did earlier schools of law, medicine, engineering, and teaching (under the pupil- teacher system in England). Sometimes they have counted upon what is in effect an apprenticeship subsequent to schooling — as do present-day schools of law, medicine, stenography, and engineering. Sometimes, however, they have paralleled practice and study in order to dispense with prior and subsequent apprenticeship, as do present-day schools of nursing and elementary school-teaching and as some engineering, trade, and farming schools are endeavor- ing to do.

It is now good usage to call that kind of vocational edu- cation in schools which presupposes previous or concurrent practice of an occupation, extension teaching; all that in- struction in the art, science, mathematics, and language of a vocation which anticipates or precedes practice of a vocation, technical instruction; and all that vocational education which undertakes to teach practical skill and related technical and social knowledge in close correlation as basic vocational ed- ucation. (But technical instruction not directed towards, and usually functioning in, vocational practice cannot prop- erly be called vocational education.)

In discussing standards for vocational education let us frankly recognize that many professional schools, notwith- standing the years of history behind them, are far from hav- ing yet determined, with any useful degree of precision, either their aims or the validity of their means and methods. Even the best engineering schools are to-day only higher technical schools, although some are now attempting, through summer practice, to give a certain amount of skill and managerial ability. In general, their faculties still sat- isfy themselves with the easy assumption that practical skill

256 Vocational Education

and managerial powers are things that must be learned in " the school of experience " — with all the wastefulness and maladjustment which that involves. Most varieties of commercial education are still on an essentially technical basis — they do not prepare for a given vocation, but only give the instruction supposed to be useful to one beginning what will be practically an apprenticeship in the practice of the vocation. The one substantial exception is stenography and typewriting — here the candidate is, in the best schools, actually prepared to begin at once the commercial practice of her vocation.

Probably the most disputed question in recent and con- temporary movements for the extension of vocational pro- ficiency in various callings has been the value of technical instruction in advance of practice. Long before we had basic vocational schools for such occupations as machine-shop practice, electricity, printing, carpentry, homemaking and farming, our technical high schools had developed courses of technical instruction in, or somewhat related to, these call- ings. But practical men have always been very skeptical of the results of such courses. It is true that these schools can easily be administered so that they will select the most prom- ising candidates for the respective occupations. A little judicious advertising and testing of entrants will accomplish that purpose. Having selected personalities that are certain to attain success in their callings in any event, it is easy and natural, reasoning post hoc ergo propter hoc, to attribute the success of these students to the instruction they re- ceived in school. During recent years a classic example of this kind has been given very wide publicity. A certain technical high school collected data which showed that boys leaving school at fourteen and commencing work at, say five dollars per week, will have been advanced to the point where at thirty years of age they will be earning, say, fifteen dol- lars per week; whereas graduates of the technical high

Vocational Homemaking Education 257

school, possibly starting at the age of eighteen at only five or six dollars per week, will be earning twenty-five to thirty dollars per week at the age of thirty. Now, admitting the facts, they, of course, prove nothing as to the value of tech- nical high school instruction and training. Every observer of schools knows that only very high-grade boys enter tech- nical high schools; that of these only the best survive the first year or two; and that the graduates are a very picked lot, and destined to success in life, schooling or no schooling.

Among all well-informed educators the conclusion is now generally held that for a large majority of callings technical instruction in advance of practical applications — which usu- ally means applications in productive work and under com- mercial conditions — is almost valueless, and sometimes de- cidedly harmful. It is obvious that electrical engineering offers a relatively large volume of technical knowledge. A person of exceptional capacity for abstract thinking can spend several years in mastering this knowledge — as or- ganized in mathematics, mechanics, chemistry, engineering theory, etc. Then he can begin practice, and apply his knowledge as he finds occasion. But every man familiar with the conditions of higher education is aware that only from one to three per cent of persons between eighteen and thirty years of age are able to develop the powers required, according to current standards, of electrical engineers.

In pattern-making, on the other hand, skill bulks large and technical knowledge small. The men who ordinarily enter pattern-making are usually strong in " mechanical instincts " and not so strong in those powers of abstract thinking which are exemplified in the study of mathematics. Every educa- tor knows that appeals to common experience will help us here. We should hardly expect a person to profit greatly from several months' instruction in the theory or technique of swimming before he enters the water. The writer once saw an advertisement, " Horseback-riding taught by mail,"

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but he retained the hope that the recipient of these lessons had a horse to practice on while learning. In training a man to be a barber or a girl to be a waitress, it is apparent that only a very little advance technical knowledge could be given with profit.

In analyzing scores of occupations from this standpoint, it is apparent that two types of considerations are involved, (a) What, in any given vocation, are the relative values of skill and managerial abilities on the one hand, and what we call related technical knowledge, on the other? (b) What are the various learning capacities of those who are likely to enter such vocation ?

VIII. APPLICATIONS OF THESE GENERAL PRINCIPLES

TO HOMEMAKING EDUCATION

It can be readily understood from the foregoing discus- sion what have been some of the obstacles encountered in various endeavors to develop vocational homemaking edu- cation. In earlier stages, when technical knowledge was imperfectly developed, only the practical arts were taught — cooking, sewing, bedmaking, etc. Often, of course, these subjects, as taught in schools, were very superficial and arti- ficial. Then came the enormous development of technical knowledge, especially in the departments of foods, house- hold accounting and household management. Under the head of " domestic art " similar developments of technical knowledge in departments of clothing, housing, etc., were attempted, but with less success.

A second stage of evolution in homemaking education came when, under the collective name of " home economics," courses based on the productive activities of the home as- sumed a largely technical character — it must be remem- bered that laboratory work, experimentation, and practical exercises are integral parts usually of technical instruction, since, almost never, are they designed to produce basic skills.

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Hence the general demand of competent critics to-day that home economics education, seeking to meet requirements of vocational education for homemaking shall : (a) provide for the necessary practical experience in productive work re- quired to produce enduring skills, manual and managerial, if it is to be regarded as basic vocational education; or else (b) connect positively and purposefully with previous practical experience if it is to be regarded as extension vocational edu- cation.

It is denied that vocational competency in homemaking as that is found now in millions of American homes, and as it is desired on behalf of millions more in the future, can be more than slightly produced by technical instruction alone, even if that include laboratory and amateur productive ex- ercises.

It is recognized that some home economics departments take charge of school lunches. This is good productive practice as far as it goes, even if on excessively large scale for home food preparation, but what schools cover the vari- ous fields of foods, clothing, house care, child care, laundry, etc., in this practical way?

IX. THE " PROJECT METHOD " OF TEACHING HOMEMAKING

1. In the total process of producing homemaking compe- tency to function in adult life, we should recognize several distinct stages or even different areas of possible operation. For example :

a. In girlhood, from six to twelve, it is obviously possible for the mother or for a teacher who can control conditions of time, motive, and familiar implements as can the mother, to train the girl in various specific skills — tea-making, dust- ing, outing care of infant, darning — and to attach to these and related operations, appropriate technical knowledge, ap- preciations, aspirations, and ideals.

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b. From ten to sixteen, at least during the time of transi- tions from play motives, interests, and powers to work mo- tives, interests, and powers, it is clearly practicable in the case of a large proportion of girls, to elicit fairly strong in- terests in amateur homemaking — when the desires and mo- tives are for results functioning as in the adult world of work, but the appreciations and powers are still those of the play stage and spirit, unwilling to tolerate long routines, to search for technical knowledge, to undergo drill or training.

In many cases this would seem to be an appropriate time for rich offering of household arts as general education. Appreciations, insights, aspirations, even ideals, can easily be formed in relation to novel situations in homemaking, where familiarity with, and enforced drudgery in, domestic operations has not bred the blase attitude or even contempt. But teachers should be careful not to confuse the results of this general education with those to be derived from effective vocational education.

c. From fifteen to eighteen would seem to be an appro- priate time for offerings of basic or extension vocational homemaking to girls who could see clearly ahead of them wage-earning employment as assistant homemakers, as trained employees in the homes of their mothers or others. For the present, of course, little can be done here because popular valuations of the vocations of " domestic service " are so adverse that self-respecting and ambitious girls seek non-domestic vocations by preference.

d. For young women from eighteen to twenty-five, who expect to become independent homemakers, there exist large opportunities for: (a) extension vocational education for those who, like many farmers' daughters, have already had extensive basic experience in a large variety of homemaking operations; and (b) basic vocational education for those who, like a large majority of factory and office employees, have had almost negligibly small experience in, or even con-

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tact with, domestic operations. Motives may be strongest just before or soon after marriage.

e. Other stages or areas could easily' be defined, espe- cially by taking account of different social classes.

2. The " project " is, from many points of view, the best \ educational device for basic vocational education. It has not yet been tried extensively in homemaking. Its best de- velopments are found in agricultural education. As ap- plied to vocational education, the project is a " job " or unit of productive work, usually of a utilizable or even mar- ketable character, selected and organized as constituting a valuable stage in an educational process.

3. Homemaking projects illustrated :

a. A girl or woman of no previous experience undertakes to make ten shirtwaists of exactly the same pattern and ma- terial. From the making of the first she gets a large amount of new experience, accompanied by a certain amount of technical knowledge, appreciation, etc. In making the re- mainder she increases her skill, organization of effort, etc. Parallel with her work, she can be helped to insight, as to social, hygienic, and other general aspects of her work. If, after the making of ten shirtwaists, further increments of permanent skill or of applicable technical knowledge should be small, then the educational value of the project has largely been realized. Further making of shirtwaists would be val- uable for production rather than education.

b. An inexperienced girl, directed by a competent teacher, gives three hours daily for a month to providing the break- fasts of a family of six. Linked up with the actual prep- aration of the food and washing of the dishes, will be such technical matters as planning variations in menus, selecting and buying materials, keeping suitable accounts. Related studies of nutrition, markets, technical processes, etc., can easily be linked up to, and interpreted by, this project by the teacher through lectures, readings, problems, etc.

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4. Scores of other suitable projects, large and small, can be devised. Care of the outing hours of an infant for two weeks; care of a bed-chamber for two weeks; perform- ance of family washing for four weeks ; washing and dress- ing of a child or infant for two weeks ; baking family bread for a month ; canning four dozen jars of plums ; preparation of five successive Sunday dinners ; keeping the accounts of a family for six months on basis of " slips " supplied by the family; keeping clothing of three children in repair for three months, etc. For service in schools, these projects should be analyzed in detail, reference readings specifically indicated, and related technical and social studies analyzed in detail.

5. Where the previous practical experience of the student justifies the offering of extension rather than basic voca- tional courses, there may be less place for projects, and rela- tively more for topics of study, collection of materials and reports, problems for analysis, laboratory exercises, inves- tigations, etc.

o. For example, a farmer's daughter, age twenty, coming to a short-course, full-time school, who has had much expe- rience with her mother (frequently supplementing her), may be most in need of technical knowledge which she can relate to her already well-assimilated experience. She may most need explanations of the processes she has learned by imi- tation or rule of thumb methods, including improved pro- cesses, accounting, etc.

b. Where home economics is taught as one subject in a curriculum of general education — being paralleled by courses in English, mathematics, physics, etc., it might be possible to give the home economics a vocational flavor by of- fering it, in the case of pupils of known home opportunities, as extension instruction; but the difficulties are great, and the method is seldom used.

c. The " project " is often confused with an " exercise " or even with a " demonstration." For the sake of explicit-

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ness it would seem best to confine the term to a unit of work which combines productive and educative possibilities, and possessing possibilities of repeated performance so as to give skills.

6. Problems of Project Method :

a. What should be the " magnitude " of a project ? This is partly dependent on trie external character oTthe work, partly on the psychology of learners. Young learners need smaller and shorter time projects than older. Every project should take the learner beyond the play stage of experience into the work stage. Short, fragmentary experiences, even in fields of drudgery, may, by novelty, sustain play interest for a time. For girls, twelve to sixteen, it is surmised that valu- able projects should require from ten to fifty hours, no period of application being less than two, and preferably four to six hours. For young women, projects may re- quire twenty to sixty hours, optimum single periods of appli- cation (in productive work and related study) being four hours.

b. What should be the " compositeness " or " complex- ity " of projects? For best learning purposes, probably, a project should center in one natural or normal " strand " or field of activity. Within one day, a housewife dresses chil- dren, prepares meals, makes beds, etc. But a learner can probably make best progress by focusing effort on one or two of these series of recurrent jobs, so as to attend to ac- quisition of skills, interpretations, etc. On the other hand, the related minor jobs normally belonging to a major job should be included in the project. A cooking project not involving related cleaning up ; a laundry project not involv- ing subsequent ironing; a breakfast project not involving buying and accounting — these would probably be unwisely broken.

c. How can related technical knowledge and social in- sight be integrated to the project? Eventually we shall

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probably have hundreds of projects given in detail in book- lets, with references to related readings, etc. For the pres- ent the teacher should seek to build about each project a series of readings, technical and social.

d. Should cooperative projects be provided? Occasion- ally, but not to an extent which will prevent fullest acquisi- tion of individual powers (of execution) and capacities (for appreciation). Cooperative sociability projects are espe- cially good — giving a reception or entertainment, relieving a poor family. Probably also certain projects necessarily of an " observation and report " character — planning the loca- tion of a farmhouse, furnishing a kitchen, etc., could be of a cooperative character.

X. FEDERAL BOARD'S BULLETIN No. 28 (1919)

(Organization and Administration of Home Economics Education)

This bulletin " may be considered as an official answer to the many inquiries concerning matters of policy in home economics education received by the office of the Federal Board.''

In general, the definitions and interpretations found in this bulletin represent the best of available knowledge and practicable expectations in homemaking education. The problems suggested below, dealing mainly with questions of objectives, are expected to arise as further developments take place in this field ; but for sake of concrete analysis these problems are here stated as of the present, and with no in- tention of conveying adverse criticism.

1. It is unfortunate that the law uses the term "home economics " which describes neither a vocation nor the com- mon characteristics of a group of vocations as do the terms " commercial," " professional," etc. The words " home economics " will long continue to connote a group of tech-

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nical studies only, in spite of all effort to the contrary. Educators should now make concerted efforts to settle on more serviceable terminologies.

2. Why should it be held that in " separate vocational schools of home economics " which have " but little articu- lation with the other phases of work of the school system " the courses offered " are usually two years in length, al- though a few schools offer four-year courses " ? Are these arrangements defended? Ought not administrators move steadily toward short, intensive courses, each composed of short units, in vocational homemaking? Will not "long courses " perpetuate the weaknesses of " long-course," over- technical, insufficiently practical, industrial, agricultural and commercial courses?

3. Is it well to try to force the word " laboratory " to in- clude the meanings given? Etymologically, the word " lab- oratory " may mean the same as workshop or place of pro- ductive work; but historically and practically, in thousands of industrial establishments, colleges, and other centers of research, it now means specially equipped places of experi- mentation, investigation, testing, and study. It once meant, also, a place of production of drugs ; but even this meaning is becoming obscured. To try to use the term in a special sense as designating a place for "practice in all the home activities which are taught within the (vocational) school, such as housekeeping, garmentmaking, etc.," is to court end- less misunderstandings, misdirected effort and perpetuation of old traditions of technical instruction. A laboratory is not a place for the practice of a vocation : that is a farm, shop, office, kitchen, home, or school. Let a homemaking school, using " local (or actual) homes " or " school homes " for practice, have one or more small laboratories for test- ing, experimentation, etc. ; but call the practice place a school home or an actual home.

4. Is it wise to provide so extensively for the necessarily

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artificial equipment suggested? Homes are found in large numbers within a dozen blocks of almost all except country schools. These are real homes, where real productive work must be done. Judging by experience in other fields of vocational education, artificial equipments of the kind pro- posed can be used for genuinely laboratory purposes and for demonstration purposes, but never effectively for practice purposes. More readily than in almost any other field it should prove practicable in homemaking to establish coop- erative or part-time arrangements. To realize the max- imum benefits, these should be on a project basis.

5-- "Vocational subjects to be selected (for a course in vocational home economics) should be determined by an analysis of the occupation." This is, of course, indispen- sable, but it should be noted that, for practical purposes :

a. Such an analysis by strands of work or types of daily duty is almost valueless unless it also somehow indicate de- grees of proficiency in each. All homemakers in America now, the very poor no less than the good, can cook, serve, repair clothing, care for children, buy furniture. But we want the next generation to do these things better.

b. Because of the few fundamental types of homemaking and the universality of home activities, central authorities (state or, preferably, national) can make these occupational analyses to best advantage. Individual teachers need much help here, especially while standards are so vague. As sug- gested before, home economics teachers are usually insuffi- ciently equipped with practical knowledge of home produc- tive processes (as carried on in actual homes) as these should be scientifically analyzed, described, and evaluated.

6. " The law provides that schools or classes giving in- struction to persons who have not entered upon employment shall require that at least half of the time of such instruc- tion shall be given to practical work on a useful or produc- tive basis." But the Federal Board here holds " practical

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work on a useful basis " to mean " instruction in vocational subjects designed as preparation for homemaking." Expe- rience will undoubtedly show that this interpretation is in- defensible either as good law or good pedagogy. Practical work on a useful basis is just as capable of recognition and of being provided in homemaking as in gardening, dressmak- ing, carpentry, elementary school-teaching, and hospital practice.

7. Home projects are recommended. But the rank and file of teachers can make little or no progress in home proj- ect work until the leaders shall have worked out guidance materials no less elaborate than are those now found for lab- oratory practice in technical instruction. Many model proj- ects worked out in utmost detail, and hundreds in outline involving close adjustments to varying conditions, are re- quired as preliminary to any effective utilization of the proj- ect method. These should be available in booklet form.

XI. HOUSEHOLD ARTS AS LIBERAL EDUCATION

It is very important that schools of general education, and especially those dealing with girls from 12 to 16 years of age (the period of true amateur spirit of production) should offer courses of household arts, conceived very much as are now home gardening, scouting, and the best manual training, as a means of genuine liberal education. Such courses should preferably be elective, should occupy from two to four hours weekly, and should center in " project " work and general inspirational reading. For a few girls vocational skills and knowledge will doubtless accrue from these courses, as they do for boys in home gardening and shop- work; but unless these are regarded as incidental products the " liberalizing " spirit of the work will be spoiled. Prob- ably appreciations and ideals of ultimate vocational signifi- cance will also accrue for many, but these also should nor-

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mally be regarded as incidental or secondary accompani- ments of effective liberal education suited to these ages. A few general theses are submitted :

1. The fundamental difficulties now encountered in real- izing valuable results from home economics instruction by departmental teachers with girls from 12 to 16 years of age are due in large part to confusion of purposes between voca- tional and liberal. The courses offered constitute minor offerings in schemes of education primarily liberal or gen- eral; the specialized teachers have in view ends that are somewhat vaguely vocational, at least so far as technical in- struction can serve these ends under the circumstances.

2. The primary purpose of schools for children from twelve to fourteen years of age is the giving of liberal, as distinguished from vocational, education. For pupils who elect to continue their general or liberal education in regular high schools, primary purposes should also be found in lib- eral education. There is no evidence that a small amount — one tenth to one third — of total time available, given to vocational education, can be made to function as assured vocational competency.

3. Household arts for girls from 12 to 16 years of age (and, if motive can be enlisted, for boys as well) can cer- tainly be made a means of liberal education. To effect this will probably require some important modifications in the means and methods now usually ^employed.

4. The objectives of liberal education are less easily defined than those of vocational education, the most visible and measurable outcome of which is power of producing in a specified field and for a prolonged period, valuable service or goods, commonly of the kind called "exchangeable," and the exchangeable worth of which is usually for convenience given a money value which readily serves as a measure. " Liberal " education has as its objectives the production of a variety of qualities, many of which may be included under

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such terms as appreciations, tastes, sentiments, ideal valua- tions, ideals, insights, understandings. Liberal education in a given field — language, literature, science, sociability, art, nature, society, religion, government, agriculture, house- hold arts, urban surroundings, etc., etc. — seeks the human- istic ends of deepened and widened social sympathies.

It is very difficult to get teachers to understand the dif- ference between, for example, vocational training and ama- teur execution, because too few teachers have ever been defi- nitely trained for their vocations, as have been physicians, nurses, locomotive engineers, dentists, military officers, and architects. College professors, superintendents, principals of schools, high school teachers, and home economics teach- 'ers are rarely, if ever, trained to a determinate work of teaching. They have received much instruction, of course, which, more or less vaguely, has been assumed to be neces- sary to their success as teachers or executives. But for the rest they have " picked up " their vocations in a na'ive, prim- itive, and more or less " hit or miss " fashion. Hence, edu- cators find it exceptionally difficult to form distinct ideas of what is meant by specified specialized vocational training.

5. What will be some of the means and methods of " liberal " household arts education?

a. It must not be obligatory. The girl must be attracted to it, not driven to it.

b. It must, to the maximum extent practicable, use the girl's own home, yard, bedroom, mother, father, brothers and sisters, pets, dress, health, and aspirations as means of objective interpretation, but always only in the friendliest cooperative spirit. Nothing forced or inquisitorial will do here. To a large extent, teaching must be impersonal, ref- erence always being made to " third parties."

c. Much reliance must be placed on stimulating reading. We have hardly begun yet to produce readings idealizing arid interpreting the home, as the army, scouting and busi-

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ness enterprise have been idealized for boys. Results of in- dividual reading must, of course, be socialized by confer- ence, discussion, reports, etc.

d. The demonstration of standards by " model apart- ment," house, room, article of furniture, curtain, bed, set table, dress, home apparatus, should play a part as objecti- fying means, but due allowances should be made for the " soullessness " of these when they are not in practical operation or use.

e. Demonstrations of process — cooking, clothes-mak- ing, bedmaking, washing of baby, gardening — give vitality and concrete interpretation of standards. The apperceiving powers of girls are obviously great here toward the forma- tion of tastes and standards.

/. Projects are especially valuable as educational means, and naturally the majority will be " home projects " — that is, the inspiration and direction will come from the school, but the time, place, and, largely, the means of execu- tion will be provided by the home. The range of projects offered by the school should be as extensive as practicable so as to give utmost latitude for choice by learners. Proj- ects for purposes of liberal education should possess ele- ments of novelty, appeal to creative powers, and should en- list all that can best be summarized as " amateur powers."

6. What would be some of the specific objectives of household arts organized as a means of liberal education for girls from 12 to 16 years of age?

a. To help the girl to see her own home in its most ideal light. All over southern France, we read, the war-dislo- cated women will take even one room, a bed, a trunk, and a little stove and will make a nest, a home, a haven, a foyer, for frightened, tired, and sleepy children, a place to which the lonesome hard-driven man comes back as to the center of existence for rest, the supreme recreative activities, and social uplift. Only the woman, rich in homemaking in-

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stincts, customs, and, perhaps, training, can make the real home. Can we not, by readings, pictures, discussions, model apartments or houses, help to see the home as the little central power plant or cell whence radiates much of the social energy that makes the world go well ?

b. To help the girl appreciate the facts and problems of the financial upkeep of the home through labor given out- side.

c. To appreciate the fact that labor, devotion, and man- agement, wisely given in the home, are in the highest degree productive, even though not appearing in the United States Census as " gainful occupations."

7. The spirit of the school of liberal education is largely that of high-grade play; the spirit of the vocational school must be that of serious work. Only one worker in ten thou- sand can afford to pick daisies as he travels the roads of work. The spirit of liberal education is that of the traveler for recreation and enlightenment; the spirit of the vocational school is that of the man whg has business at a given desti- nation, which destination he must reach at the earliest pos- sible moment. The spirit of the school of liberal education is diffusive, catholic, rich in varied human contacts; the spirit of the vocational school is one of concentration of effort, singleness of purpose, and contacts limited to those essential in the economic process, moving directly toward fulfillment. " Work while you work," is the motto of the vocational school; "play while you play," of the liberal school.

For interpretations as to what is meant by " liberalizing " education, we must go to such fields as literature, music, history, geography, plastic art, travel, the moving pictures, current reading, and gardening.

CHAPTER IX

PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION

It is not the purpose of this book to analyze the numerous problems of vocational education which are peculiar to that group of callings which we designate " the professions." It is well known that in very large measure these problems vary greatly with each profession. The history of legal education presents almost no points of similarity to that of engineering education; and both differ greatly from theo- logical, nursing, and military education respectively.

But there are a number of current problems of profes- sional education which are almost identical with those found in other vocational fields. Analysis of these may assist in the determination of general principles. In almost all the professions there are found tendencies towards specializa- tion. Wherever, in professional education, schools have been substituted for apprenticeship, strong demands are felt for more effective training as against instruction.

Specialization of Professional Education. — In every pro- fession conflicting ideals and practices exist as regards spe- cialization of practice. These conflicts disturb in a measure current plans for better professional education.

It is uncertain as to how far in the near future further specialization may be expected. These are some suggestive phases of the general problem involved :

1. Teaching as a professional field is undoubtedly in process of extensive specialization. For many years, col- lege teachers have specialized along the lines of their subject- matter. All secondary education has likewise developed

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departmental teaching with the result that men and women preparing for this work find themselves more and more obliged to become specialists. It is sometimes held as ad- vantageous by employing authorities in large schools if these secondary school specialists shall have given service in either an elementary school or very small high school where specialization is impossible, but to impose such pre- vious experience as a requirement is now held as imprac- ticable, and unfair to the lower schools. When, therefore, we speak to-day of the " teaching profession " we are in reality including thereunder a very wide range of specialists such as : kindergartners ; primary school teachers ; elemen- tary school teachers ; departmental teachers of drawing, music, physical training, French, German, English, history, art, mathematics; and also a large number of vocational school specialists such as teachers of stenography, machine shop practice, plumbing, technical mathematics, etc.

2. In medicine there has been for many years a tendency for the more capable men seeking the most remunerative work to become specialists, not uncommonly after a period devoted to general practice. Hence the public recognizes the existence of specialists on: eye, ear, nose, and throat; gynecological practice; diseases of children; pulmonary com- plaints, etc. ; and also not only surgery as a division by itself, but in addition specialties in operative surgery. Fur- thermore, in large cities, one detects a distinct tendency towards more extensive specialization still, such as specialists in diagnosis, in after-care, etc.

The oculist and the dentist may be the forerunners of an army of specialists who will, from the start, devote them- selves to their limited field of work only. Optometry, now legalized in a number of states, may be an early example.

The field of medicine, on its diagnostic, curative, and pre- ventive sides, is becoming so large that still further special- ization may be expected. Public health service, medical

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inspection in schools, surgical and medical work in armies, hospital practice, etc., all involve material differentiations among workers in medicine.

At the present time, except as regards dentists and ocu- lists, it may be said broadly that professional theory favors the maintenance of organization of medical teaching and training on the basis of broad preparation at the outset, followed, after a period of general practice, by specializa- tion. This was formerly the prevailing attitude also as regards the training of teachers and engineers.

How far such an ideal can be maintained on an econom- ical basis is doubtful. The analogies of almost all other fields of human occupation strongly suggest that specializa- tion at the outset is more or less inevitable in medicine as it has proven in other fields; but that such specialization must be so organized as to give adequate knowledge of re- lated subjects goes without question. It is quite possible that the growth of dentistry as a separate profession sug- gests what may ultimately appear in many departments of medical practice, namely that from the very outset, carefully selected persons will be trained for the exercise of special- ties. This may necessitate also the development of specialties in general diagnosis, followed by diagnosis as a highly expert function for the few rare leaders, as sug- gested by the experiences reported from Rochester, Minn. Unless the practice of medicine comes to be a public func- tion supported largely at public expense, it seems impossible that the prolonged preparation now required by the more advanced institutions can be met on the part of those who must ultimately carry on medical practice among the poor, or in rural areas.

3. In the practice of law, as in the practice of medicine, there is an obvious tendency towards specialization, but only after a broad basis of general training and an expected period of more or less general practice. In large offices

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beginners not infrequently specialize from the outset. But few, if any, proposals seem yet to have been made that specialization in preparation for, and practice of, the law should be provided from the outset. But persons desirous of finding " shortcuts " to law practice or of using admission to practice as a convenient stepping stone to political office are still able to find accommodating " short course " and evening schools of law which are practically indifferent either to admission or training standards.

4. Military leadership is at the present time broadly differentiating the two fields of army and naval leadership, the courses of preparation for each field being quite unlike each other. Within each field, however, there seems to be comparatively little effort as yet towards specialization, but the development of special branches of army service such as aeronautics, communication, supplies, submarines, etc., will probably entail much specialization in preparation if military leaders have again to be trained on an extensive scale.

5. The engineering professions are undoubtedly in pro- cess of very extensive differentiation, — a process which has been recognized only in part by the institutions giving training. Heretofore, engineering colleges have probably exaggerated the importance of fundamental training in mathematics, applied science, and drawing, and have under- estimated the importance of practical participation in active work. Graduates of best-supported technical schools now, in large measure, promptly specialize on leaving their insti- tutions in such various lines as electrical engineering, naval architecture, assaying, mining engineering, mechanical en- gineering, railway engineering, civil engineering, sanitary engineering, etc., and there seem to be good reasons to believe that further differentiations may be expected within the next few years.

Here again are problems like those arising in the case of medicine. However desirable may appear a prolonged

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course of preparation for the engineering callings, and how- ever much such prolongation of training may be urged by those educators who are apt to base their conclusions upon a few striking cases of advancement to leadership and in research, nevertheless the desirable optimums of efficiency and economy in preparation for the various fields of engi- neering service are yet to be discovered. Very probably there will be the development of programs for the training of a wide range of specialists who will prepare for their work in shorter time and who can render their service at relatively small cost to the community.

6. The theological callings exhibit as yet comparatively little tendency towards specialization, except, possibly, as regards missionary service.

7. Nursing in recent years has become substantially a woman's calling, but because of the peculiar survivals of apprenticeship in methods of training for it, such training has become almost exclusively standardized in the hospitals. The result is that the so-called trained nurse represents an investment in training and preparation and natural char- acter, which puts such service beyond the reach of any but prosperous individuals and public institutions. An inferior form of home or sick nurse is now available under some conditions but it is not apparent that the training for her work has been standardized as yet.

Various forms of public service are now creating large demands for occupations analogous to those of the nurse. Medical inspection in schools, public health service in cities, welfare service in industrial establishments, to say nothing of the demands imposed by war, are requiring specialized forms of the nursing service for which adequate specialized training has not yet been provided. We are here undoubt- edly in the presence of necessity for specialization against which naturally the traditions of hospital methods of train- ing nurses will long be opposed.

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8. Other professions. There are in process of develop- ment a large variety of other callings which gradually approximate the character of professions. Among these are journalism, agricultural leadership, business administration, accountancy, applied science specialties and " efficiency serv- ice." The extent to which these will be specialized when fully developed is not now apparent, but every tendency is in that direction.1

Pedagogy of Professional Education No adequate at- tention has yet been given to what might be called the pedagogy of training for a profession. Professional schools, as noted elsewhere, were in the main originally simply finishing schools for persons who had completed an apprenticeship in the elementary practice of the calling itself. Later, as apprenticeship became obsolescent in such fields as engineering, medicine, law, and military leadership, the pro- fessional school undertook complete responsibility for the training of the inexperienced novice, but only very reluc- tantly did the earlier schools develop means beyond text- book stage of such preparation. Gradually, however, laboratories have been introduced to supplement lectures and textbook study. Only very recently in medicine and en- gineering has actual practice been provided through summer

irrhe following are some of the "specialized professions" culled from the index of occupations prepared by the Committee on Personnel of the U. S. Army (1918) :

Aeronautical engineer ; analyst, food ; architect — engineer, landscape, naval, ship and all craft, supervising; automobile engineer; bacteriolo- gist — food, general, water and ice ; cartographer ; chemical engineer ; chemist — acid and dyes, analytical, cement, explosives, fireworks, poi- sonous gases, soaps; civil engineering — bridge, buildings, concrete, highways or streets, hydraulics, hydro electric power plant, irrigation, railroad, structural steel, water supply and drainage; dentist; drafts- man; electrical engineer; electrotherapeutist ; epidemiologist; forester; heating and ventilating engineer; hydrotherapeutist ; mathematician expert — calculus, computer, general, trigonometry; mechanical engi- neer; meteorologist; mining engineer; neurologist; nurse; optician; osteopath; pharmacist; physician; physicist; psychologist; sanitary engineer; scientific observer; sewage disposal expert; surgeon; sur- veyor; topographer; veterinarian.

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vacation work and otherwise to supplement technical studies. Nursing is the one profession which has persistently based its preparation upon the older methods of apprenticeship. Under former methods of law instruction the moot or " mock " court was the only semblance of practice possible to the student. In many essential respects, probably, the modern case system of legal instruction (which came as a distinct revolution) supplies at least some of the conditions of practice. Current proposals for the extension of part- time education in professional preparation for engineering and teaching reflect a widespread conviction that much more practical participation must be provided in the professional education of the future. It is not improbable that in engi- neering, medicine, teaching, and military leadership, the largest and most promising developments of the immediate future lie in the direction of the development of part-time systems of preparation.

It has been suggested at a number of points above that quite probably preparation for the exercise of a specialty in a profession will constitute a new order in professional training and practice in the not distant future. There is involved here a conception, still somewhat obscure, of the differentiation between two aspects of professional training, namely, one in which definite executive ability is made the primary purpose, while the other has as its chief end general " appreciation." It is sometimes vaguely said, for example, that the dentist should be a physician also. Economically, of course, it is wholly impracticable to train any one person as a physician and add thereto necessary dental training and have, as a result, a professional man who can give service at a reasonable rate to the public.

But a better knowledge of the essential aims and methods of professional education than we now possess will prob- ably make clear to us the fact that the complete training of the dentist, while necessarily involving a large amount of

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very definite instruction and training in those fields in which he is expected to exhibit proficiency as an adviser and work- man, will also involve a somewhat less definite and much more general study of a wide range of topics connected with the general maintenance of health. For example, it is not expected at all that the dentist shall be competent to advise patients as regards orthopedic or ocular difficulties. Never- theless, some appreciation of the relation of such difficulties to the general health of the body might be advisable for the dentist and would enable him, at least in some cases, to direct his patient to diagnosticians and practitioners who could give him the specialist assistance which he needs.

Similar considerations apply in the case of engineering. Quite possibly, the future will see the development of many special types of workers in the engineering fields. Primary objectives, both in the training and in the practice of such specialties, would be the competent execution of the tasks commonly falling to their lot. The instruction and training necessary for these purposes can well be supplemented by a wide range of more appreciative learning as to the problems of engineers in general.

Another illustration may be drawn from the field of nursing. The functions of the typical school nurse are now being defined with some clearness. Quite obviously a pro- longed course of hospital training is not at all essential to the making of a competent school nurse. The school nurse will not be practitioner or diagnostician in any extended meaning of those terms. It will be valuable for the school nurse, doubtless, to have had at least a few months in hos- pital work, just as it would be of great value that she should have had at least a few months in courses designed for the training of teachers. Nevertheless, the primary efforts of the school nurse in preparation must be directed towards developing definite competency for the meeting and solution of those problems which the school nurse is likely to encoun-

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ter. This involves an almost entirely new field of pro- fessional training.

The Professional Training of Teachers In America spe- cific vocational schools now exist for the training of kinder- garten and elementary school teachers. But only in rare instances yet do we find schools wherein secondary school teachers are trained. Secondary school teachers acquire such practical proficiency as they possess in the school of experience, often, if not usually, to the heavy loss of the pupils upon whom they must practice their untried hands. Since our normal schools are, as yet, far too few to supply enough teachers for the elementary schools (the vast major- ity being women, whose teaching careers last only during three to six pre-marriage years) a large proportion of untrained novices in elementary education also must acquire such competency as they are ever to possess in the " school of experience."

But vocational schools for teachers will yet be developed on a large scale — that is inevitable in our social economy. How far may we expect the general principles of vocational education to be easily accepted by such schools ? This ques- tion is peculiarly important in the case of teachers for vocational schools as shown in another chapter.

Our theories of vocational training in normal schools are very incomplete and conflicting in spite of three quarters of a century of experience in their evolution. Recent studies have shown the extensive variations existing, even within a single state, as regards relations of practice to technical instruction. In the typical normal school, programs of gen- eral and of vocational education are almost hopelessly blended. Lack of clearness as to professional objectives permits many normal schools to devote substantial propor- tions of their energies to the pursuit of such mystical ends as the making of " personality/' general adaptability, culture, common sense, and other qualities, in the endeavor to realize which there is much confusion of means and ends.

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In the growth of practice teaching in all schools we find ineffective definition of vocational objectives in the training of teachers. Originally, such schools were employed largely as places of observation. It was customary at first to speak of the school attached to the normal school variously as " model school," " school of observation," " experimental school," " school of practice." Only slowly have the va- rious possible functions of the practice school for elementary teachers been given definition; and in most cases they yet fall far short of meeting the requirements of sound voca- tional education.

Practice teaching is still provided for only at the end of a considerable period of general or technical study, instead of at the outset where it would constitute a concrete basis for technical study later.

Again, only in a few normal schools of the country is provision made for taking the initial stages of practice teaching on a simple basis for beginners with small classes of five or six pupils. In many cases, novices are still placed in large schools for comparatively short periods which afford little or no opportunity for managerial skill and in which the complications of management seriously confine them. The better ones, naturally, acquire a reasonable degree of competency, but probably, for the average teacher, present methods of practice teaching are very imperfect.

CHAPTER X

THE ADMINISTRATION OF VOCATIONAL EDUCATION

Because the movement for vocational education is essen- tially contemporary and because there exist few precedents to guide organization and administration, the number of unsettled problems in this field is exceptionally large. For ascertained types of vocational education, what are the most effective areas of administration and what the best places of location? What are the best sources of support and control ? How shall surveys be provided, what are the types of schools to be provided, and what the age groups to be served ? How can cooperation with labor unions be assured, what shall be done with " product " arising from the work of the school, can " cooperative education " be made effec- tive, and what can be done with " preapprenticeship " and continuation school education, and can vocational education be compulsory? What is to be the relation of the junior high school to vocational education? These are but a few of the administrative problems which will require extended study on the part of educators and influential laymen in the near future. Only very summary analysis is possible at this point.

School Areas The conditions which determine the area

suitable for the administration of a specified type of voca- tional school include the following: (a) The probable mini- mum area from within which a number of pupils sufficient for economical administration can regularly be assembled who

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desire the form of vocational education under consideration, and who will probably follow that vocation; (b) the inclu- sion of sufficient facilities for practice work on a productive basis, preferably in "going" commercial concerns; (c) the development of an area of taxation designed properly to distribute the cost of maintaining such schools. For many types of professional schools, the state as a whole will doubtless continue to be the administrative area as is now the case where state universities include engineering, med- ical, law, and agricultural colleges, and where the state as a whole maintains one or several state normal schools. Even where the size of the state makes it expedient to have a particular type of vocational school located in more than one place (as, for example, state normal schools) experience seems to indicate the desirability of employing the state as the unit of administration instead of dividing it into dis- tricts. The results of using the state alone as the unit of administration are advantageous in equalizing the distribu- tion of the burdens of support and of the offerings made to students.

It seems very probable that in the smaller or more sparsely settled states many types of specialized trade schools will have to be located at centers of population, and that the state area as a whole will have to be utilized as a basis for the support and administration of these schools. For a time, doubtless, the practice at present prevailing will be followed. The city as an administrative unit organizes and conducts the vocational school. Non-taxed areas (non-taxed for this purpose) send their pupils in and pay tuition; and the state reimburses the tuition — paying for part of its outlay on somewhat the same basis as it reimburses or aids the com- munity maintaining the school. But this is hardly a satis- factory basis for permanent adoption. It resembles the sit- uation prevailing in high school education before high schools were made generally free and generally accessible

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to all young people of the state. Eventually, each type of vocational education must be made generally accessible with- out cost to suitably qualified persons wherever resident within the state ; and the property (or other taxed valuables) of the state as a whole must bear the burden of supporting this education as a needed public enterprise.

Where, however, certain types of industry concentrate in particular regions, it may prove advisable to constitute these regions administrative areas for the specific forms of voca- tional education designed to prepare for them. This would be done on three assumptions: (a) that most, if not all, of the learners of the vocations involved would come from within the area in question; (b) that only within that area would strong interest exist in the maintenance and direction of these types of education; and (c) that the taxable val- uations properly to be drawn upon for local contributions (not state or federal contributions) to this type of education owed their origins largely to these localized industries.

The optimum size of a given type of vocational school will have much to do with determining the area most suit- able for administration. There are good reasons for be- lieving that special types of farming as well as homemaking may be very well taught (at least to the extent of intensive, 2400 hour per year courses, of one or two years in farming, and of six months to one year in homemaking) on the basis of one teacher to a group of fifteen pupils, dividing his or her time between instruction (which will be largely indi- vidual) and supervision of home projects (which will be wholly individual). Under these conditions it is possible that, in a thickly settled farming area, in which many of the boys and girls will desire suitable vocational school training (basic rather than extension) in farming and homemaking respectively, the administrative area for the school could coincide with that for the general high school.

In the case of schools for the building trades, for railroad

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operation, for salesmanship and various other commercial callings, including specialties such as traction engine oper- ation, automobile repair, tailoring, barbering, the callings of hotel cook and waitress and the like, the probable necessity of locating them in populous and generally accessible centers will tend at first to make these centers also the administra- tive units. If such tendencies prevail we may expect an increase in state control, following state supervision.

The location of a given vocational school within the area adapted to it will depend, probably, in most cases, first of all on the opportunities existing for cooperative participation in part-time work under commercial conditions ; and, second, on conditions of accessibility.

The typical medical college is now located in a city where abundant facilities for clinical practice are found. Schools of stenography and typewriting are found most largely de- veloped in commercial centers. Schools for nurses are naturally established in hospitals, preferably those centrally located. Schools of navigation are usually located on boats and in harbors.

In such occupational fields as printing, engraving, ac- countancy, acting, sign painting, clothing manufacture, den- tistry, pharmacy, optometry, and the like, it is highly prob- able that the state as a whole will, in many cases, serve as the most convenient administrative area, and that schools will be located in the one or more largest cities where facilities and opportunities for productive work tend to gather.

It is clear that in the case of many types of vocational schools it will be impossible so to locate them that pupils, especially those residing in village and rural areas, can live at home while attending. Once this necessity is accepted in the case of particular types, the obviously economical procedure will be to locate the school where cooperating practice facilities are most satisfactory. Without doubt the

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cost to the student of traveling to and from the school will eventually be met from public funds because of the sound social policy involved. It might also be well within the limits of sound public policy to provide from public funds for the student's cost of maintenance while away from home. Whether such a policy will receive early approval will de- pend much upon the after consequences of the war, and the extent to which, on the one hand, vocational schools prove themselves really effective, and on the other, the willingness of the public to extend its investments in vocational edu- cation. But if, as is suggested elsewhere, the learner in the basic vocational school receives in wages the equivalent of his net productive work, his living expenses away from home could be in part met without expense to his family or to the state.

Some special cases involving location of schools will arise. It is believed by some that the establishment of schools of farming for city boys would be profitable to a limited extent. Were this done, of course, the practice fields and facilities for projects with live stock would require to be provided differently from those for farmers' sons. Probably the most effective procedure, in case it is found that city boys in substantial numbers can be turned towards farming (which is far from having been demonstrated), would be for the school to rent suitable land in one or more tracts, undertake the necessary capital outlay and then sublet to pupils for independent, commercial projects as in the case of the home projects. Here again it is not certain that facilities can be so provided that pupils can reside at home. Where large cities are served, suitable land may be found only at such distance as to preclude daily commuting.

Again, in cities, some women will be found, who after several years of wage-earning in non-domestic occupations, will desire to take courses in homemaking, while still living in rented rooms or boarding houses. The provision of suit-

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able practice facilities for these will doubtless entail their taking employment as house servants, with stipulations that their time shall be sufficiently free to permit of receiving the necessary instruction while carrying on productive project work in the homes of their employers.

II

Support It seems now probable that the support of

public vocational education will generally be divided among at least three agencies — the local community, the state, and the nation. Several principles underlie and justify this method : (a) The cost of vocational education is heavy, (b) Communities vary greatly in their respective abilities to meet this cost, (c) The benefits of vocational education (in the shape of additions made to public wealth by well- trained workers) tend to diffuse themselves over the entire country; hence as far as practicable the burden of supporting these schools should be distributed to an extent consistent with effective maintenance of popular interest, and feeling of local responsibility, (d) The division of the controls of initial direction and final approval, between local and central agencies which follows naturally on division of sources of support, probably gives the most effective admin- istration possible to a democracy. Local agencies are apt to be concerned with the immediately practical, central agen- cies with the scientifically efficient. Local communities can rarely afford to employ men gifted in leadership; central agencies can frequently do so, because of the wider areas served. Local agencies are close to popular demand; cen- tral agencies to scientific standards. Frequently the local agency can best make initial proposals, while the central agency renders its best service in amending, standardizing, and approving local proposals. By the development of definite differentiations of function between local and cen-

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tral — community and state, state and federal union — agen- cies, so that no twilight zones shall exist permitting divided responsibility or evasion of responsibility, it should prove increasingly possible to realize the maximum of efficiency compatible with final democratic control.

Private Support of school vocational education (on a com- mercial as against a philanthropic basis) has long prevailed on a limited scale. The by-education of apprenticeship and other forms of participation may be assumed to have always rested fundamentally on a commercial basis, — the master took and taught his apprentice primarily because it paid him to do so. Guilds of masters or journeymen occasion- ally collectively bore the expense of some special schooling of apprentices. The continuation schools of Germany and a variety of forms of older extension school education owed their inception largely to these collective efforts. Guilds have also maintained scholarships and even schools for full- time day education, some of which survive in England to-day.

As noted elsewhere, many professional schools, a very few trade schools, and a number of technical-industrial schools have been self-supporting, but as a rule these have required the aid of endowments to supplement the fees paid by students.

American corporations have at various times and espe- cially in recent years undertaken to maintain schools for the instruction and training of selected classes of young work- ers. The latest of these attempts are the " vestibule " and "upgrading" schools established in munitions and other plants which were under great pressure to produce war sup- plies for the war while being deprived by the U. S. Employ- ment Service of freedom to hire employees from rival firms or localities. A unique type of private effort is found in the plan of leading organizations of American printers (employers and employees) to undertake collective action in

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the training of certain classes of skilled workers as special- ists for their industries.

In spite of the variety and commendable character of these attempts, few careful students, it is believed, have any serious expectations that private effort can, under American conditions at least, prove at all adequate to the support of the vocational education needed in this country in the future. Some of the reasons for this position do not yet seem, how- ever, to be popularly understood. The contention, often ex- pressed by individualists in spiteful tones, to " let employers train their own workers " is not infrequently heard also from educators of prominence. School authorities, voicing demands for economy in public expenditures, often take the stand that the cost of directly specialized trade or other vocational training is not a legitimate charge upon public funds. Obviously there still exists much confusion in the public mind, some of which should be cleared up by con- sideration of the sociological problems involved.

Where the employers of certain forms of service are very much scattered and not well organized for cooperative uti- lization of service, it is clearly futile to expect them to train new workers to replace the old. We are all employers of physicians and lawyers, but we do not cooperate to this end. Hence we make no direct attempts to give these employees of ours vocational education. They get that by private effort, or as result of endowment, or through the state, and then sell their services to us individually.

But where employers do cooperate, as in church organiza- tions, their organizations at some point take charge of voca- tional education, either privately or through municipality or state, often aided by endowments. Thus we get agencies for the vocational education of priests, teachers, and military leaders.

Where employers have formed a corporate organization -as in a stock company — on a large scale and with re-

2QO Vocational Education

sources sufficient to enable them to plan their work far ahead, there would be no more inherent reason for their refusing to train their own workers than to provide in advance of need for their own buildings and machinery, were it not for the crucial fact that ownership of laborers cannot be secured, hence no individual employer could be given any guarantee that he could reap what he had sown in the way of investing in the vocational education of those who are to be the workers of the years to come. When persons who are controlled by, rather than in control of, vague generalizations say " let industry train its own work- ers," they probably picture all of the employers in a given field of production acting openly and deliberately in concert — a condition, of course, which both public opinion and legislation have striven strenuously to prevent, and which, except in rare situations, the very fundamental natural laws of economic production effectually prevent. Usually a builder is not in competition with a printer or cloth manu- facturer ; but normally one builder is in sharpest competition with other builders, both for opportunities to sell service and also to buy subsidiary service. If one builder were to make any investment in the training of prospective workers, he knows that he would probably promptly lose them to his rivals. (It can safely be assumed that apprenticeship, to the extent which it is found in the building, manufacturing, mining, or transportation industries, does not now cost the individual employer anything. )

Where conditions give to one employer a substantial monopoly of opportunities he naturally begins to invest in systematic vocational education. The most noteworthy example of this at present is found in municipal telephone service, especially where the employment of girl workers is involved. These, living mostly at home, are not " mobile " workers, as between different cities. Within a given city homemaking is the only extensive " competitive " occupa-

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tion, but this usually comes only after sufficient years of service have been rendered to repay outlay on training.

Large corporations — telegraph companies, railway cor- porations, department stores, manufacturers protected in a measure by patents — often undertake to give a moderate amount of vocational education to their actual or potential employees; but everywhere these attempts seem to find pre- mature limits in conditions growing out of the mobility of labor and the rivalry of competing concerns.

In a broader sense, of course, every employing agency is giving vocational by-education through supervision. But this is not intended to entail any cost in advance of the worker's production. The wage rate for beginners takes care of that.

The following are submitted as representing sound prin- ciples in regard to vocational education under private auspices :

1. Vocational by-education through employment or pro- ductive work can be successful from the standpoint of the employer only when the product of the learner is sufficient to provide for the usual charges against production — wages,

.overhead expense, interest, and profits.

2. Vocational by-education is usually not economical or effective from the standpoint of the employee.

3. Where producers or consumers have such corporate organization that they can be assured of the services of those in whose direct vocational education they make a sub- stantial investment, it becomes a natural course for them to develop facilities for such training. But society is endan- gered by the monopolistic character of such organizations, especially those devoted to production; and eventually its control and attendant guarantees of normal returns of all natural monopolies create conditions under which the cost of vocational education is practically guaranteed by the state — as it was also in the case of vocational schools established by the war industries.

21)2 Vocational Education

4. It is futile to expect sharply competing corporations to unite effectively in providing vocational training for work- ers. Whether employers' and employees' organizations can in the future so unite without detriment to public interest is not yet apparent.

5. In no event can we expect private support of voca- tional education to develop adequately to meet the needs of more than a negligible fraction of the two to three millions of young people who must annually find their way into productive occupations in America.

Public Support. — Within the last dozen years nearly every state in the union has, by its legislation, committed itself to the public support of one or more forms of voca- tional education. For nearly half a century, indeed, many of them had through permissive legislation legalized expend- itures of public funds for commercial education and also for manual training, household arts and agricultural courses ; and while this had probably not been done in the conviction that the work offered would function in specific and imme- diate vocational competency, nevertheless there was involved acceptance of the idea that the courses thus encouraged would ultimately prove more valuable for vocational than for any other reasons. In the debates and discussions on this subject during the twenty years from 1890 to 1910 the thesis was often strongly supported " that trade workers and factory operatives should not be trained at public ex- pense." Equally it was held inexpedient that the schools should train people to be " cooks " or " farmers." But approval of public support for these forms of so-called vocational education that would teach the " principles," or the " underlying science and art " of vocations gained stead- ily notwithstanding the illusory character of objectives often vaguely held.

When, therefore, the conviction gained currency between 1906 and 1915 that much of the work of technical high

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schools, manual training, agricultural, and household arts courses, then being developed, would not meet public expec- tations for vocational education, the soil had been prepared for more positive and practical proposals. It was now a matter of only moderate difficulty, once leading educators and legislators were given accurate information as to pur- poses contemplated, to have enacted legislation providing for state and even national support, for industrial, agricul- tural and homemaking education. The legislation enacted during this period in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jer- sey, New York, Wisconsin, and other states as well as the " Smith-Hughes Act " passed by Congress clearly indicates the serious intentions of legislators that the education thus provided for should be genuinely vocational and should be freely, if not generously, supported at public expense.

The problems involved in the public support of vocational education were thoroughly discussed during this period ; and agreement has finally become so general on the principles involved, that only a summary is needed here.

Principles of Public Support. — 1. It is now agreed that, from the standpoint of sound public policy the state is at least no less obligated to support needed vocational education than it is to support secondary or collegiate general educa- tion. Society at large, and not the individual educated, is the chief beneficiary. Furthermore, if by making such edu- cation free of tuition charges many more persons and among these many of the most promising persons can be induced to take it, then is the state no less justified in assuming the entire burden of this education than it is in fully supporting secondary general education.

2. The desirable limits to public support of vocational education can only be determined by analysis of concrete situations. Where the vocation is of exceptional impor- tance to the state and where individual or other private effort would not suffice to provide educated workers, then collec-

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tive action or public support is easily justified, as has long been the case in the training of military leaders, public school teachers, and other public servants, as well as, more recently, agricultural experts and industrial technicians.

Where a vocation has traditions of apprenticeship, public support of extension or supplemental vocation is easily en- listed ; and where a vocation has had no such apprenticeship public support of basic vocational education can be procured, as in the case of commercial education.

But public support is with difficulty enlisted for those forms of basic vocational education in which apprenticeship has long prevailed and where it is believed it should prevail still. For this there are several contributing causes. Or- ganized labor naturally favors labor or guild control of education through apprenticeship. Educators still have little confidence in their own ability to organize effective basic trade schools. The public looks askance at productive work as a means of education. Hence we have, as yet, very few examples of trade training at public expense that is genuinely basic; existing schools offer mostly either pre- apprenticeship instruction and training (in the strict sense of these words) or else parallel or subsequent extension technical instruction.

It is obvious also that the public is unwilling to support vocational education for those vocations, usually highly specialized and often apparently of the semi-skilled variety, in which large concerns are the chief employers. As noted elsewhere, the public vaguely feels that it is socially obli- gatory upon, as well as profitable for, these concerns " to train their own workers." This public attitude is reinforced naturally by educators, nearly all of whom feel that the obstacles to public administration of basic training for these vocations are almost insuperable.

For a number of years popular interest in public support of vocational education was most easily enlisted on behalf

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of children or youths themselves and especially those whose poverty or lack of particular abilities early cause them to become misfits in, or truants from, public schools of general education. But the programs provided " to hold children longer in school/' " to provide for the mechanically minded boy " to " fill the gap between fourteen to sixteen " or to help the " neglected groups " were usually conceived in a spirit of adherence to the panacea of " general " or at least " prevocational " education and they have probably borne very little fruit, and that of pretty sour quality.

But experience, experimentation, the awakening public conscience, better understanding of real educational values, and the war itself all seem to be working together to bring society to the point where it will freely support any kind and any amount of demonstrably genuine and functional voca- tional education which visibly contributes to the well-being of society, the democratic self-realization of all individuals, and which cannot be guaranteed by non-public agencies. The detailed applications of these principles to many voca- tions remain to be made. Shall we have publicly supported, basic vocational schools for cigarette makers? locomotive engineers? sea captains? hotel clerks? expert milkers? gro- cers' clerks? lawyers? Shall we seek to provide at public expense for the complete (i.e. to journeyman stage) voca- tional education of tailors? plumbers? pressmen? job print- ers ? railway mail clerks ? tugboat engineers ? cutters in shoe factories? If, to people of certain types of ability and under certain economic necessities, sixty days of intensive training for factory operative specialties is relatively as important for vocational success and happiness in life as four years' training for the prospective engineer or physi- cian, or two years for the prospective stenographer, or pharmacist, shall we provide it at public expense ?

It will be evident to the student of educational policies that these problems of limitation to kinds and degrees of

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vocational, resemble very closely similar problems in the fields of liberal and physical education. We now try to force on all certain minimum attainments in civic and cultural fields; but we also deny to large numbers, because of inferior ability or interest, opportunities to share in advanced forms of publicly supported cultural and civic education. Policies of different states differ somewhat, and everywhere they are growing more generous and wise; but limitations are still, and always will be, recognized.

Public Control It can be assumed at the outset that

public control of privately supported vocational education is at present alien to American public policy. Where the state imposes minimum standards for practice (licensing, as in the case of medicine, law, engine-firing, electric instal- lation, nursing, etc. ) these naturally greatly affect standards of private education through apprenticeship or schools ; but these conditions touch as yet only a few vocations.

Public control must be thought of, therefore, as a condi- tion or accompaniment of public support. Several sets of problems arise in this connection, (a) Where different gov- ernmental areas — local or municipal, regional or state, and national — share in such support, how shall functions of control and direction be distributed? (b) Within any given area shall attempts be made to give special functions of con- trol, by mandate or mere opportunity, to one set of interests in some way related to the particular vocation, education for which is in question — such as consumers (of its product), employers, employees? (c) Within any area is it desirable to unify the control and higher direction of all forms of publicly supported education, or is it best to create govern- mental agencies charged with responsibilities towards par- ticular forms?

Local vs. Central Control In a number of states sup- port of vocational education derives from three sources — district or municipality, state, and nation. Paralleling devel-

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opment of this complex means of support have grown certain obvious tendencies in control. The local area in- itiates and actually administers schools ; the state supervises, and, as a final condition of disapproval, withholds its con- tribution; and, similarly, the national authorities supervise work of the states, and as final and effective evidence of disapproval, withhold funds.

We here see in evolution administrative mechanisms which are probably sound in principle, although sometimes slow and cumbrous in operation. The local area is, nor- mally, most cognizant of its own needs — immediate needs, at least. State and nation are best able to procure and or- ganize the work of specialists. In general practice, local and central authorities arrive through conference at working policies and only very rarely will the local authorities refuse to " play," or the central authorities find it necessary to have recourse to the penalizing expedient of withholding funds.

All sorts of specific objections are raised to this distribu- tion of control functions in practice. In America traditions of local self-government can easily persist along with entire willingness to share in subsidies from central sources. But it is certain that all sound governmental tendencies in this country are in the direction of providing that state and national grants of all sorts shall be accompanied by super- vision sufficient to insure their proper and effective expendi- ture. On the other hand the freedom of the local com- munity to " go alone " if it desires is not interfered with.

The fundamental weakness in this system of control will not be found in its immediate administration. For those kinds of vocational education that should be widely dis- tributed and the need for which can easily be felt, the system may prove more effective and more democratic than any other. But it must be remembered that we shall yet require hundreds of forms of vocational education the need for which will not be intensely felt in any given locality,

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nor can local initiative be found sufficient to organize it. For these forms the local area may often have to be not less than the state ; and in many cases, even the state area is too small.

It is not improbable that we shall have to provide in the near future for gigantic schools wherein to train locomotive firemen and engineers. It would clearly be unprofitable to localize schools for this purpose in cities or even local rail- way distributing points. Probably it would be unwise to ask each state to establish such a school. Quite possibly the interest of economy and efficiency would best be served by having ten or fifteen such schools for the country as a whole, located at strategic railroad centers where abundant facil- ities for part-time practice could be available.

If we are to have comprehensive systems of vocational education, it is obvious therefore that provision must be made for initiation and control through very large areas in many cases. We may find ourselves able to rely very satisfactorily on local initiative for such forms as home- making, farming, indoor salesmanship, and house carpentry. Local effort may also amply suffice to provide for highly localized industries — meat packing for Chicago, shoemak- ing for Brockton, steel mill work for Pittsburgh, textile work for Lowell and Philadelphia, pottery for Columbus, paper manufacturing for Holyoke, fruit packing for Stockton, automobile construction for Detroit. But in a wide range of other forms, perhaps national agencies may have to lead, as was, indeed, done in war time.

Advisory Oversight No substantial dissent is made to

the principle that where public moneys are used to support vocational education the controlling agencies, local or cen- tral, should represent the people as a whole in their govern- ing capacity. But in vocational, as in some other forms of special education (e.g. that of the blind, or the orphaned, and of immigrant adults) it is highly desirable somehow to

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enlist the close cooperative oversight of persons peculiarly interested in any particular form. Considerations of voca- tional efficiency no less than that of expediency clearly dic- tate such action as an offset to the administrative ineffective- ness of the normal agencies of democratic government.

In practice this principle has long been accepted, but in ways which require modification for modern schemes of vocational education. Public boards to direct such institu- tions as agricultural colleges, war academies, normal schools, textile schools, and other special technical schools have usually been composed of men and women known to be specially interested in these respective forms of education. At times, indeed, the process of selection has been carried so far in this direction that the governing boards have tended tto represent special or vested interests excessively.

As regards many forms of vocational education it is clear that, besides the collective interest of society in the welfare and civic development of the learners involved and also its collective interest as representing consumers, in the voca- tional output, there are two other interests closely concerned. In a constantly increasing proportion of cases, the vocational position of the worker for five to twenty years after entry upon work, if not for life, is that of an employee. His employers must assume large responsibilities for the organ- ization and supervision of his work, for his by-education in the work itself, and for the determination of his share of the product. With the increasing intelligence of workers and their growing powers of concerted action it is to be desired and expected that employees will share with em- ployers in discovering and applying principles controlling in these matters. But final decision will necessarily rest with those whose economic responsibilities for initiation are largest.

Hence employers are often the most competent factors in a given vocation to determine what are desirable and fea-

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sible specific aims of vocational education for specific special fields. Educators schooled in the traditions of general edu- cation are usually suspicious of employers in general — partly because academic men do not easily learn the lan- guage of men schooled in material production, and partly because they mistrust the powers and intentions of men strong in executive qualities. But this very aloofness of attitude and remoteness of understanding constitute, often, the best of reasons why the traditional educator should force himself often to sit in consultation with men whose daily work has forced them into practical acquaintance with the conditions and results of vocational proficiency.

No less appreciative of the realities of a given vocation are the daily practitioners of the calling itself. Where sound conditions of apprenticeship have prevailed the qual- ified workers have themselves developed and upheld stand- ards, which, notwithstanding monopolistic tendencies that have from time to time appeared, have enriched the world of craftsmanship.

How, then, can employers and employees, especially in the highly organized vocations, be brought into intimate relationship to vocational schools, as a means of making available their special knowledge, and of preventing the " academic " ignorance of laymen (including general edu- cators) outside the vocation from rendering programs vague and ineffective? In some states the device has been tried of providing, in conjunction with a specific school or depart- ment, for the creation of advisory committees composed of representative employers and employees. In a very few cases these have worked well ; but in many cases they have failed to function properly because of faulty administration. School boards, superintendents and even school directors, are prone to enter upon conferences with these advisers without adequate formulation of measures for consider- ation. They seem to expect advisory committees to be

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prepared to initiate proposals. These are impracticable expectations. To render effective service these advisers should have laid before them in concrete detail proposed objectives, programs, estimates of results — what, in the business world is known as a " prospectus," with " specifica- tions." The reactions of practical men to intelligibly pre- sented plans of this sort are certain to be valuable to the school authorities; while the overcoming of prejudices and hastily formed opinions on the part of the advisers them- selves will ultimately redound greatly to the strength of the school in the community.

Many problems of utilizing private and special knowledge in school administration remain yet to be worked out. Among them are many difficult ones in connection with part-time or cooperative education.

Part-time education, to be at all effective, requires that employers and educators cooperate intimately in formulat- ing plans and in administration. Much of the part-time education now found is of low efficiency because no close coordination exists between school and shop work. Each follows its own channel ; and nowhere do the channels come together.

Very recently a number of large manufacturers have established as private ventures, vestibule and upgrading schools. If these are to be extended, they should receive public support; and if they receive public support they must be under public control; but if that public control is not intimately and understandingly correlated with shop con- ditions, failure of the ventures is inevitable.

In some part-time plans the " coordinator " is made the link between the school and the shop, in a sense representing each. In one case the teacher of " technical studies " to boys becomes an assistant foreman in the shop.

" Unit " vs. " Dual " Control. — In the earlier stages of the establishment of vocational schools in a number of

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states, legislatures created separate state governing or super- vising bodies and permitted the similar erection of local authorities independent of those controlling regular schools. Fears soon developed that " dual " control would lead to harmful " dualisms " in educational administration.

Various historical and social conditions were involved. Historically it has been customary in America to create a special public administrative agency (ad hoc as the English describe it) for a new or exceptional type of education. As noted before, the practice has always prevailed of providing special and often local governing boards for agricultural colleges, state technical industrial schools, normal schools, reform schools, state universities, and the like. Within city areas colleges and some other municipal schools have been governed by their own boards.

When the movement for publicly supported industrial and agricultural schools of a practical character reached the point where legislation could be procured, the proponents of these new types of education were often convinced that the " regular " school authorities — boards no less than execu- tives often — were hostile to the proposed forms of voca- tional training. In many cases there was good evidence that this hostility was not so much against the idea of vocational education as such, as it was against the practical proposals for application of these ideas. The " academic minds," long hostile to manual work, now directed their opposition to such vulgar means as teaching trades by shop practice, farming by working the soil or caring for domestic animals, and homemaking by actual " productive " work in homes.

Hence the conviction that the " infant industries of voca- tional education " must have protection among avowed friends if they were to have a fair start.

But the causes of the opposition to " dual " control in- volved much more than " academic " prejudices. If two forms of separately administered education are competing

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for public funds, taxpayers and the public are distracted by the rival claims for recognition and support. It has also been feared that the prospects of " immediate returns " which the vocational school could hold out would lure stu- dents from the less visible " values "of general education.

As far as local administration is concerned, there is now little opposition to " unit " control in spite of doubts, some- times, as to the actual interest of the academic minds in control in the promotion of genuine vocational education. State and national supervision naturally develop special agencies of oversight, but usually consolidated with those for other forms of education in their final control. The tendency is steadily towards the unification of ultimate supervision and stimulation in some single authority in the state and, where the optimum local areas for two or more forms of education are coterminous, for districts and municipalities as well.

Ill

Surveys The purposes of surveys for vocational edu- cation are of two kinds: (a) the determination of the need of particular types of vocational education, and the condi- tions of their provision; and (b) the effectiveness and econ- omy of established types. For some years to come it is obvious that surveys of the second type will be less needed than those of the first.

Surveys initiated with a view to determining needs for vocational education can be of two very distinctive kinds, in answer respectively to the questions (a) what provision of opportunities for vocational training should be made in a given area for the youths and adults of that area; and (b) what provisions should be made for training persons to fit most effectively into going types of vocations ? Since much of contemporary interest in vocational education has had its roots in the aspirations of social economists and educators,

304 Vocational Education

it has been natural that several of the surveys heretofore made should have been directed primarily to the discovery of vocational opportunities. But surveys made from that point of departure have almost necessarily proven abortive ; we as yet know too little about the ways and means of pro- viding industrial and commercial education except for a bare score of callings. (It is noteworthy, for example, that in none of these surveys has it been possible to make de- tailed and workable suggestive plans for education for fac- tory and salesmanship occupations in spite of the numerical supremacy of these two groups.)

* For ordinary purposes, much the most effective method of vocational survey for purposes of laying foundations for educational policy and program, is that which starts with one definitive occupational field at a time. Fundamentally, such a survey requires that only a few definite points of attack be made :

1. What is the extent, general character and probable future of the vocation in question?

2. Are the methods by which at present persons are fitted for its pursuit (and at each of its levels or varieties) effec- tive and economical from the standpoint of the individual, and socially sufficient from the standpoint of society, and the particular field of production operating in the service of society? And if not,

3. What are the administrative and pedagogic means and methods by which more effective vocational education can be provided?

Questions like the following will be found necessary for guidance in details :

1. Does the occupation require the methodical procedure of professional or trade school preparation ?

2. Does the occupation lend itself to measurement of results in terms of learning capacities within four or five years after school stages of training have been completed?

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3. Does the occupation present opportunities for special- ized training towards foremanship, managership, or small capitalist operation ?

(a) What are problems of the future of the capitalist manager or capitalist operator as found in the cases of farmer, small storekeeper, restaurant keeper, etc. ?

4. Can the trade school procure definite connections with industry, so that if apprenticeship stages exist, definite pro- vision can be made for correlating work of school with them?

5. If a professional calling, does it open opportunity for part time participation? If not, should practice stages intervene before final degree or diploma is awarded?

(a) Consider a general proposal ^that, except in schools doing full productive work in which quantitative as well as qualitative standards can be maintained, no diploma or degree shall issue until after a period of sufficient successful practice supervised by the training institution.

6. To what extent can any type of vocational school other than an extension school justify the maintenance of a curriculum predominantly technical in character?

7. Can the vocational school take a person of no expe- rience in, or practical preparation for, the vocation, and set out to give him a part or whole of the equipment needed for its successful practice?

8. Should the school presuppose some practical experi- ence upon which it undertakes to build, either additional practical capacity, or, more commonly, technical knowledge, that will be of value in the vocation or will lead to advance- ment in it?

(a) In any survey of a plan for vocational education for a given vocation, one of the first essential requisites is an analysis of all of the elements or factors entering into com- plete preparation for the vocation, in order that the appor- tionment may be made of the contributions expected sue-

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cessively from early participation, systematic school educa- tion, formal apprenticeship, later experience, etc. From this study should be determined the contributions that can most effectively be made by the school, whether that be on a full- time or cooperative basis.

In the case of homemaking, some weight must undoubt- edly be given the miscellaneous concrete experience obtained during the ages 6 to 12, or later, by ordinary participation in the home. Similar suggestions apply in the case of farmers' boys and any other occupation in which early help- ful activities are possible.

Again, analysis of the kind suggested here should differ- entiate along the three lines of practical skill, technical knowledge, and social insight, in order that the maximum possible contributions of the school in each case can be ascertained.

9. Can vocational preparatory education, in a large num- ber of cases, be carried forward completely under the aus- pices of a single agency in which few, if any, important cooperative adjustments must be made? Types are found in the normal school controlling its own practice school, the trade school with its own shops, the commercial school with its own productive commercial work (if any is employed), the medical college completely controlling its own hospitals, etc.

Procedures of the kind here suggested, starting either with the locally most extensive lines of productive work, or else with local lines in which the need for vocational educa- tion seems most urgent or else most practicable, could result in the course of a few years in provision of optimum oppor- tunities for a majority of the rising generation. Then, and usually not until then, might a different type of survey be initiated with a view to discovering openings for marginal groups. But the fact should not be overlooked, at least for some years to come, that we have at best only very inade-

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quate means and methods of planning such a survey, or of carrying its findings into serviceable application.

Probable Permanent Types of Organization of Vocational Education The following principles as to types of voca- tional education of probable permanency are submitted :

a. In many vocational fields we cannot trust to the meth- ods of simple participation or even organized apprentice- ship, to give society the vocational powers required in its members. Hence sooner or later vocational schools for nearly all types of callings will be provided.

b. The technical school, as offering extension courses for persons already possessed of a large degree of experience, now occupies a place of substantial and increasing impor- tance. Its offerings of evening courses (or afternoon courses for homemakers), correspondence courses, "dull seasons" all-day courses (as now for farmers), or "short unit " full-time courses for operative specialists desiring to add a specific new form of mastery to their present equip- ment (as has happened so frequently in our ship-building campaign), may be expected to increase in variety, con- creteness and purposiveness of organization, and usefulness in providing vocational extension for experienced workers.

c. But the technical school as a school of initial voca- tional education may be expected to disappear, except pos- sibly in a few cases where the content of a vocation involves a very large proportion of abstract knowledge and can be effectively followed only by individuals possessing highly developed special endowments of mind, especially of an "abstract" character. Law schools, theological schools, and even some types of engineering schools, may conceiv- ably remain long on the basis of " pure " technical schools, although the presumption is against the hypothesis, even in the case of these institutions. Without doubt present types of agricultural schools and colleges, commercial schools, homemaking courses, engineering colleges, technical high

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schools, and the like, in so far as they seek to minister to the needs of learners who have had no previous practical experience, the results of which may be purposefully used as a basis for the technical training given 'in the school, will be replaced by a type of basic (not extension) voca- tional school, in which the provision of facilities for learn- ing through practice of a 'kind closely akin to the practice required in the work-a-day world will constitute the central aim, the central problem of administration, and the most important concern when it comes to the testing of results.

d. Not only will vocational schools of the future tend steadily to approximate two, and only two, types according as they are responsible for either basic or only extension vocational education; in each case it is to be expected that the unfortunate duality which now exists between practical power of execution (skill) and technical knowledge in the earlier stages of the learning of an occupation will be at least modified. This constitutes, in programs of basic training for almost any vocation, a pedagogical problem of the first magnitude. In the case of extension teaching some progress has been made towards pedagogical syn- thesis of technical knowledge and practice by means of short unit courses so devised that when the learner, in his practical work, has reached the stage where he perceives the need of a unit of additional knowledge or skill, he can find almost exactly what he requires, in which case pedagogic integration is assured.

e. The tendency will be, without doubt, in most cases in the direction of segregating " units " of practical achievement — simple stages, easy processes, uncomplicated machines, readily mastered projects — for the beginner, and as progress in practical accomplishment is made in these, to provide closely related units of technical instruction, the connection of which with the practical work will be clearly evident to the learner. The system prevailing so often at

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present, where practical work and technical training and instruction are both given by the school, of keeping the two strands almost completely separated will, of course, have to be modified. It is easily to be seen, for example, that little organic connection is now made between the technical studies and the practical work of such vocational schools as : medical colleges ; normal schools ; trade schools ; agricultural schools with school farms; engineering schools (with vaca- tion work). By means of what pedagogical devices this pedagogic unification can be accomplished, we do not now see, except in a few instances. Undoubtedly the " home project " in farming has shown large possibilities for agri- cultural education; and there seem to be no good reasons why the same device should not be applied successfully in homemaking education when once the need and desirability of basic vocational education for that field shall have been accepted.

/. Wherever practicable, the vocational school of the future will probably endeavor to provide that a maximum of the productive work used as training in practice shall be done in commercial establishments — that is, agencies or- ganized primarily for production, instead of in productive establishments maintained by the school itself. But in many vocations such cooperation may not prove feasible; and in most cases it proves highly desirable that, before a ^earner is " placed out," he shall have been at least initiated into productive work in a school-controlled shop, office, fac- tory, ship, or other productive agency. Probably exceptions to this principle can be made (as experience seems already to have shown) in the case of the farm and the home where subdivision of labor and overhead organization have not been carried so far as to make the reception of the beginner a difficult process. We cannot as yet, of course, predict the possibilities of the employment of either beginners, or of learners who have passed the early stages in the attain-

3io Vocational Education

ment of practical experience, in productive establishments. At present, it appears that in many vocations cooperative arrangements could and will be made; that these will in- volve no " philanthropic " contribution on the part of employer; and that he will employ this labor at rates which will normally prove profitable to him, in view of the extraor- dinary " overhead " expense that may be involved in it. Those beginnings which have thus far proven successful also suggest the very great desirability of giving the learner as a wage whatever " net " value accrues from his work.

g. It is probable, too, that the time is not far distant when the documentary evidence given to the person com- pleting a supposedly vocational course will be based upon the holder's tested powers of accomplishment under com- mercial conditions. The licenses now granted to firemen, pharmacists, opticians, etc., are supposed to attest standards of practical proficiency ; as are, likewise, Civil Service ratings of stenographers, certain types of inspectors, etc. The- oretically there is no impracticability, and there is much social promise, in the proposal that in the not distant future, the approved diploma from any type of alleged vocational school will carry on its face evidence of the holder's prac- tical proficiency.

Age Groupings In educational gatherings the question

is often asked — " At what age should vocational education be commenced? " Usually, but not always, this question is put by educators whose study has not carried them to the point of thinking of vocational education in terms of known and individually considered vocations. They are still think- ing of some vaguely abstract form of instruction or training which might be given to all pupils alike. To provide con- crete thinking it is necessary to ask in return, " Do you mean for the vocation of physician? or stenographer? or locomotive engineer? or city school superintendent? or sea captain? or telegraph messenger boy? or homemaker? or plumber?"

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The " Age at which vocational education should be com- menced " is obviously dependent upon many factors, (a) What is the customary age at which workers are now usually accepted into the given vocation? (b) At what age, under conditions of vocational education provided in special schools, could workers best be inducted into the vocation? (c) What are, or what should be, the minimum requirements of non-vocational education to be imposed before the youth can elect to give his working hours to vocational education or practice? (c?) To what extent and under what conditions is it profitable to devote the youth's working hours to a program of instruction and training partly liberal and partly vocational ?

1. Age of Effective Entrance. — Custom dictates for most vocations an optimum time of entrance. Men rarely be- come "full responsibility" physicians under twenty- four; doffer boys under fourteen ; farm hands under fifteen ; loco- motive engineers under twenty-five; school principals under twenty-eight; soldiers under nineteen; or telegraph messen- gers under fourteen.

Women rarely become fully approved nurses under twenty ; high school teachers under twenty-two; homemakers under twenty-two; school principals under thirty; spinners under fifteen; salesgirls under sixteen; cash girls under fourteen; or waitresses under eighteen.

These lower limits are obviously dictated by several con- siderations, of which vocational skill is only one. A boy of sixteen could easily be trained in six months to drive a locomotive; but public opinion would not tolerate his being put in charge of a passenger train at that age. This voca- tion requires the sense of responsibility that only comes with age. In practice a man who is ultimately to be a locomotive engineer begins some form of railroad work at about sixteen. He progresses through several fairly distinct vocations, and if " upgrading " facilities are good, and he is the " right

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stuff" he can get a passenger train place between twenty- five and thirty-five years of age.

Day telegraph messenger service seems well suited to boys between fifteen and seventeen. (Night service is now given only to men in some states, because of moral risks.) Boys and girls can often perform well " assistantship " tasks when they are not old enough to attempt, or skilled enough for, the performance of " full responsibility " vocations. Boys, even from twelve onwards, may well render delivery service for small stores, bundle carrying, doffing, and cattle herding. But in practice men must be twenty or more be- fore they can be given responsibilities as clerks in grocery stores, farmers, or floormen.

The only way, therefore, to ascertain what is the most effective age for beginning vocational education is to start with a survey of a particular vocation. What is the usual minimum age at which people now become policemen, street car motormen, bank clerks of specified function, sailors, rural school teachers, glass blowers' assistants, farmers' hired men, journeymen printers? The next question is — how much time is normally required to train for each voca- tion, and is it not best that such training should be provided just before entry upon wage-earning in that vocation? Surely only some simple problems in subtraction would require solution if we possessed these facts. Occasionally, of course, we might find exceptions. It is well known that most women in urban environments do not begin " full responsibility " homemaking until about twenty-two to twenty-five years of age. But it is contended that if we are to give systematic education for this vocation we shall have to provide it for young persons between twelve and sixteen, in the majority of cases, if it is to be gotten at all. This may be only a counsel of expediency, however. No one would contend, probably, that if we could have the full working hours and active interest of a woman for one half

.... ,.

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year to prepare her for the homemaking vocation, it would be better to take that time at sixteen, seven years in advance of her marriage, rather than at twenty-two just prior to her marriage.

Again, it is sometimes contended that if a person is to aspire to some vocation of " leadership," he should receive some preparation therefor even during the years devoted to preparation for his initial vocation. But here again con- siderations of pure expediency probably now dictate recom- mendations.

2. Changing Ages of Admission Two opposed tenden- cies are evident in prevailing ages of admission to vocational practice when schools of basic vocational education become available. The slow, cumbersome, and ill-directed pro- cesses of by-education are shortened and the proficiency of the individual greatly increased; but, on the other hand, social requirements for maturity, general education, and the like are increased. Vocational schools have so improved the training of nurses, elementary school teachers, dentists, pharmacists, stenographers, and assayers that very young people could easily qualify for these callings if general standards had remained what they were when transitions from apprenticeship to school training took place. But these standards have themselves steadily risen.

It has sometimes been thought that trade training, if accomplished in schools of basic vocational education rather than through apprenticeship, would result in bringing men to the stage of journeymanship much earlier than has his- torically been the case. Doubtless it would if other require- ments did not change. But even the age of entry upon apprenticeship has been steadily rising during the last cen- tury for all, or nearly all, trades. It is doubtful if the substitution of school training even for all of apprenticeship in the craft trades (of which complete training probably no examples can yet be found) would permanently lower the age of entry upon the journeymanship stage.

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It is hard to discover any vocation in which the effective age of entrance would be lowered by provision of direct vocational education. But it must be recognized that mod- ern methods of manufacture, selling, office work and trans- portation offer endless new varieties of possible juvenile employment (for present purposes it would be well to regard any occupation customarily open to untrained work- ers under twenty years of age in large numbers as a juvenile occupation). For many of these a few weeks or at most a few months specialized training would often be highly profitable. The results, superficially considered, might seem to involve a lowering of the age of entrance.

3. Minimum Requirements of General Education. — No one now disputes the right of society to require that each individual shall be guaranteed opportunities for at least a minimum general education. Equally it is agreed that society has the right to require that each individual shall give a stated minimum of time to school attendance and shall, if humanly practicable, reach a minimum standard of proficiency.

But there exists as yet no substantial agreement on min- imum standards. Several factors must be considered. What is a reasonable amount, and what the general char- acter, of the non- vocational education that society requires? What, in the case of different classes of individuals, is the amount of general education they can profitably take? To what extent, at the least, should parents be expected to sup- port their children exclusively as consumers? Is it expe- dient that society, in some collective capacity, assist parents in the support of their children while the latter are com- pleting expected requirements in general education ?

Educators have not yet so established the valid objectives of general education beyond the primary grades that min- imum standards can be defined in terms of their actual worth. We can easily insist on minimum essentials in read-

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ing, writing, spelling, and perhaps arithmetic; but when we say that fifth grade or eighth grade standards must be met we are imposing requirements in terms of purely conven- tional norms, the validity of which is as yet far from having been determined. Certainly before even the dull and unin- terested of our youth are permitted to leave behind them all opportunities for general education (physical, social, and cultural) they should have reached required levels and varieties of knowledge and habit (would that we could say appreciation and ideal as well) in hygiene, civics, geography, literature, American history, and English speech. But how can we define, let alone really evaluate, these requirements ? The problem is still before all educators who are not to be contented with purely traditional standards. For the pres- ent the low limits in our progressive states are set at the age of fourteen and the fifth grade. In other words, no one may leave the general school (or enter a vocational school) until after the fourteenth birthday has been reached, and the fifth grade passed. But it is felt by many that these requirements are too low. Too low for what? For the individual? or for society? Faith answers, " for both," but faith is a poor judge in these matters. It is too apt to be charged with soft sentimentalism.

One aspect of the difficulty is found in our inability as yet to say how much education, at least as defined in terms of school studies, given individuals can " take on." A large percentage of retarded pupils now constitute a mourn- ful reality in our elementary schools. What would or could these get from longer attendance ? It is of doubtful worth, either to society or to the individuals concerned, that a lot of slow, uninterested pupils be forced to attend school between the ages of fourteen and sixteen unless the school can give them some kind of profitable training and instruc- tion (that is, for civic and cultural purposes).

Before we can dogmatically decide upon minimum stand-

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ards of general education required to be met before voca- tional specialization is begun, we must, clearly, work towards better determination of valid objectives, so defined as to indicate desirable and practicable grades as related to known degrees of native ability or learning power.

But there are other very important factors which must affect standards of minimum general education. Society is now organized on the basis of parental support of chil- dren. The American standard of living requires that the father, and, until the children can help, the father only, shall be the wage-earner for the family group. The size of the normal family is decreasing, but social economists tell us that in social groups that are not undergoing social degeneration the normal family must contain from four to six children. If the father must support these wholly as consumers until, say fourteen years of age, the measure of his economic responsibility is easily computed. Farmers, small store keepers, and a few others are still able to enlist the economic cooperation of children from six to fifteen years of age outside of school hours; but other workers cannot What shall determine reasonable limits to the economic responsibilities of parents under these conditions? We may not, except at our peril, either unduly sacrifice the size of the family or impose upon the burden-bearing powers of the father.

If we are ready to adopt a wholly new type of social policy, then, of course, the problem alters fundamentally. We may collectively assist parents — all, or at least those most needing it — to carry the burden of non-productive children giving their working hours to school between the ages of fourteen and eighteen. At least we might do it for the families of most promising children — as is sometimes done in England by means of " supporting " scholarships. But here we enter upon very new lines of public policy, before undertaking which we certainly need better estimates

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than we now possess of the actual values, to the individual and to society, of the kinds of education, cultural, civic, and vocational, which we can give to different classes of youth from fourteen years of age upward.

4. General and Vocational Education Combined Finally

it is clear that the proper " age of beginning " vocational education is also affected by our policies towards the sep- aration or combination of the two types of objectives. We can, for practical purposes, assume that each youth has available for educational work between the ages of fourteen and twenty-two from five to eight hours daily, for two hundred to three hundred days yearly. These working hours can be given either to vocational education, general education, vocational productive practice, or a combination of the three, or any two. Outside of working hours the youth has leisure hours for physical, cultural, and social recreation, and for rest. In his leisure hours he will con- tinue to grow physically, culturally, and socially; and these hours can be used to further liberal education of the " beta " or B class type.

Let us assume the case of a youth normally due to enter, at the age of twenty, a vocation for which two years of full "working" time, basic school vocational education are ordinarily required. Among possible courses open to him the following are typical. He may devote all his working time up to the age of eighteen to procuring a general educa- tion and then give his full time for two years to obtaining a vocational education. Or, between the ages of sixteen and twenty, he may give half his time to vocational, and half to general education. Under the first conditions, he would begin what would be called his vocational education at eighteen ; under the second conditions, at sixteen.

Which course will give best results ? Obviously we need to know what we mean by " best," and how we rank the pos- sible vocational education of these years with general educa-

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tion in individual and social values. The present writer is emphatically of the opinion that when we shall have actually determined the valid objectives of school vocational educa- tion, for such callings as those of the dentist, shoe salesman, type B general farmer, elementary school teacher, plumber, machine shop foreman, house carpenter, cotton mill weaver, and hundreds of others, we shall find it impracticable to provide that working hours shall be used on a " blended " program. We shall discover that acceptable results can be procured only by programs providing for close concen- tration and part-time adjustments with productive work and involving a corresponding shortening of the period to be devoted exclusively to vocational education. A similar re- quirement will be that as much time as practicable be re- served for full-time liberal education.

IV

Labor Unions and Vocational Education. — To educators as well as laymen, the probable future development of voca- tional schools seems to be very much conditioned by the attitude of " labor," organized and unorganized. It is sub- mitted that experience to date justifies the following con- clusions :

1. The general attitude of the best informed leaders of organized labor is clearly expressed in the following state- ment made by President Gompers (quoted from Manual Training and Vocational Education Magazine, Vol. 16, p. 329) :

" In 1904 another committee on education was appointed, and again in 1905 another committee, and again in 1906. In 1907 the A. F. of L. at its annual convention resolved that 'we do endorse any policy or any society (this I may state included and had special reference to the National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education) or associa- tion, having for its object the raising of the standard of industrial edu- cation and the teaching of the higher technic of our various indus- tries.'

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" The committee to which this resolution was referred reported it 1 decided to record itself in favor of the best opportunities for the most complete and best industrial and technical training obtainable,' and it recommended an investigation of industrial school systems.

"In 1906 the committee on education attested 'with satisfaction the splendid progress accomplished by the Executive Council along the lines of industrial education,' and submitted to the convention a set of reso- lutions in which it stated that ' industrial education is necessary and inevitable for the progress of an industrial people.'

" Industrial education was before the convention of 1909, at which time I myself stated in my report that the A. F. of L. favored public industrial education, and opposed only narrowly specialized training under the control of private interests. Organized labor has always opposed and will continue to oppose sham industrial education, whether at public or private expense. It has opposed and will continue to oppose that superficial training which confers no substantial benefit upon the worker, which does not make him a craftsman, but only an interloper, who may be available in times of crisis, perhaps, as a strike breaker, but not as a trained artisan for industrial service at other times. Industrial education must train men for work, not for private and sinis- ter corporation purposes.

" I refer to this by way of explaining what it is that has at times in the past aroused labor's opposition to what has been unfairly called industrial education. It will be found that wherever labor has opposed what has been put forth as industrial education, the enterprise called industrial education has been something entirely different from what Richmond is instituting in its public school to-day.

" To the 1909 convention of the American Federation of Labor I took pleasure in submitting this : ' That since technical education of the workers in trade and industry is a public necessity it should not be a private, but a public function, conducted by the public and the expense involved at public cost.' You people in Richmond are doing to-day precisely what the committee of the A. F. of L. recommended five years ago should be done.

" In 1911 the A. F. of L. came forward in support of a bill in Con- gress providing for national aid in establishing vocational education in the public schools of the country. Since that date up to the present time the A. F. of L. has consistently, persistently, and unremittingly advo- cated the establishment of industrial education in the public schools."

2. But, in the actual processes of establishing vocational schools in a given community or state, opposition is fre- quently encountered, due to the following causes :

a. Employees suspect that employers are interested in vocational training primarily to the end of making available

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a supply of labor to be used in time of strike or other difficulty.

b. Where a trade is in process of decomposition, special- ized processes being substituted for " all-round " processes

-carpentry in large centers, printing (of books and news- papers), clothing making, machine shop practice, glass manufacture, and many others — organized trade workers greatly fear the employment of " short " intensive courses in vocational schools to produce specialist operatives who will take work at reduced wages.

c. When educators have succeeded in establishing in a given community one or a few types of apparently success- ful vocational training, there is danger that an excessive number of learners will crowd into these lines, and so greatly disturb conditions in that center.

d. Laborers in skilled trades often allege that the voca- tional school, as thus far developed, cannot teach skills ac- cording to desirable standards of efficiency as maintained by these trades.

3. But labor unions have almost never opposed estab- lishment of extension instruction or training for persons already employed as apprentices or assistants. Opposition is expressed chiefly against trade training that precedes apprenticeship.

4. Supporters of vocational education often urge labor- ers to second their efforts on the ground that the children of the laborers themselves will be the chief beneficiaries of free opportunities for vocational training. But these well-meant suggestions often fail to elicit sympathetic response for the reason that very frequently artisan and other organized workers do not desire their children to follow occupationally in the footsteps of their fathers. To a large extent in America, and in fact as part of what " Americanism " means to many in the way of freedom of opportunity to advance, parents desire their sons and daughters, the more capable at

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least, to work into " higher " or " better " occupations than those followed by their parents. Unskilled manual workers try to get their children into skilled industrial or semi- skilled commercial occupations; skilled industrial workers aspire to have their children in commercial occupations, teaching, and lower grades of public service; while pros- perous farmers, artisans, and commercial workers develop ambitions that their most capable children shall prepare for the professions or for the more profitable commercial call- ings. Hence the appeal to organized laborers to consider their own children often fails of response; they have con- sidered their own children, but not as candidates for their fathers' kinds of vocations.

5. Notwithstanding the occasional selfishness or panic of organized labor, it is probable that when a sincere, well- planned, and properly supervised program of vocational education shall have been evolved in a community, leading representatives of labor having been freely consulted in the process, such labor will not persist in opposition. As a rule the civic interest and Americanism of really influential labor men is more basic than their specific devotion to unionism or their natural desires artificially to protect their own field of employment.

Disposal of Product. - - The ideal vocational school should, in the opinion of best authorities, have its students working from the start on a commercial product, control of which lies wholly within the school. But, obviously, the practicability of this will vary greatly according to the vocation for which training is being given.

Where the possible product is of a kind that can profit- ably be produced in small shops it is easy for the school to equip and maintain such a shop of its own. This should be easy in such fields as the manufacturing of children's and men's clothing, fruit packing, furniture making, shoe- making, printing, and various forms of repair work, —

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shoe, automobile, trunk, blacksmithing, etc. But where manufacture has developed a very large and costly organiza- tion as the productive unit of maximum effectiveness it may prove beyond the powers of the school to provide its own plant. No school, probably, could have its own shop for the manufacture of steel rails, cannon, automobiles, locomotives, ships, glass, or cement. It is questionable whether a school could manage successfully in the production of watches, pottery, brick, electric appliances, leather, packed meats, cotton cloth, jewelry, books and newspapers, and pressed metal ware. It would probably not prove feasible for a vocational school for the railway trades to own its own rail- road in competition wtih private enterprise, but if the govern- ment were the controlling agency in railway traffic certain sections or branches of the system of a given area could be transferred to the control of vocational schools whereon commercial service could be rendered.

In farming, fishing, coal-mining, and ship transportation a vocational school can certainly provide the management to make commercially successful the farms, fishing equip- ment, coal mines, and ships that such schools might own and use. That examples of such control in the past have not always proven successful cannot be denied ; and that the attempts of vocational schools to manage these large enter- prises will always be accompanied by considerable risks, is unquestionable. But, in some cases at least, no satisfactory alternative may be found. The United States government, in providing vocational schools for aviators, has not hesi- tated to employ extensive equipment, although, of course, it has been under no obligation to deliver a commercial out- put as an immediate by-product of its training processes.

In house carpentry and probably in other trades of build- ing or installation — including road building, forestation, and under some circumstances, conceivably, boat building, Street paving, orchard planting, etc. — experience seems to

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have shown that if a " revolving " fund is given the school wherewith it may purchase the needed land, materials, and tools required to erect a house (or build a boat, or section of road, plant an orchard, etc. ) , after which the finished product is sold and the revolving fund replenished from the pro- ceeds, most satisfactory results will be secured. Here again, obviously, very good management is essential but the bur- den of such management is not an undesirable or unprofit- able one to impose upon the genuine vocational school.

Where productive enterprise is still conducted on a small scale — farming, gardening, stockraising, homemaking, child nursing, cooking, laundry work, small store retail selling, and especially where the learners are usually able to work with equipment belonging to parents — it is doubt- ful whether the school should try to conduct independent productive enterprises. In these cases the best work of the school will probably be accomplished by providing for the organization of productive work at the home or at a place of " apprentice " employment — e.g. child nursing or laundry — and then linking up technical instruction, on a part-time basis, with such home practice. Certainly this method gives largest promise in agricultural education and, obviously, homemaking offers the most extensive field for its develop- ment.

Proceeds from Productive Work In the administration

of vocational schools where a commercial product is made and sold, the disposition of the proceeds involves many knotty problems. The following are submitted as essential principles :

1. It is freely accepted that all sound vocational educa- tion involves the doing of concrete productive work, using for this purpose the appropriate special equipment and ma- terials suited to the trade being learned. Examples: (a) A boy learning agriculture must raise a valuable product from the soil, using farmers' tools, (b) A boy learning print-

324 Vocational Education

ing should individually, or as a member of a group, do a substantial amount of printing, (c) A girl learning cook- ing as one of the arts of homemaking should prepare sub- stantial amounts of valuable food, using kitchen, kitchen equipment, and food materials.

2. Productive work in a vocational school is never a primary end in itself. Education in the occupation con- cerned is the primary end. Productive work is to be re- garded as a by-product, and a necessary by-product. It can- not, however, be truly productive work unless it has value, unless it is capable of being sold. Make-believe work, toys, and the like, do not constitute true productive work. It is not expected, of course, that the productive work produced by learners will be of first quality. On the other hand, it cannot be tolerated that it should be of unsalable quality.

3. The time of teachers or pupils in State-aided voca- tional schools should never be devoted to productive work for its own sake. To do this involves a misdirection of State and local money. School authorities must decide when the law of diminishing returns operates as regards education through productive work, and terminate such work at this point. Hence it may always be assumed that the productive work of a properly managed vocational school will be essentially a by-product of educational processes.

4. The factors of cost in productive work may be con- sidered under the following heads: (a) The equipment for technical instruction, such as school buildings and general equipment, library books, etc. (b) Instruction, and in- structor's supervision of productive work, (c) The ma- terials and special tools for productive work ; for example : Land, horses, hand tools, seed, etc., for gardening; paper, printing presses, ink, etc., for printing; lumber, planing ma- chines, etc., for cabinet making, (d) Special equipment. (e) The labor of pupils.

5. The special equipment and materials used in produc-

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tive work may be supplied from the following sources: (a) The pupil, or the pupil's family, as when a boy uses home land and tools for farming ; when a girl uses home kitchen, equipment and foodstuff for cooking. (b) The agencies maintaining the school, — the school acting as custodian and trustee. For example : Community and state, or either, may provide land for farming, domestic animals for plow- ing or dairying, etc.; kitchen equipment for commercial cooking; printing shop for printing, etc. (c) Private par- ties for part-time work. Examples: Owners of machine shop offer equipment and tools for pupils to work; owners of farms offer land and equipment for gardening, etc.

6. In determining ownership of productive work, it may be assumed that community and state maintaining voca- tional schools will not charge against productive work either general equipment for technical instruction, or instruction, including instructional supervision of pupil's work. Hence the two legitimate charges against productive work will be for (a) materials and special equipment used in productive work, and (/;) labor of pupils.

7. On the other hand, it should be recognized that, by custom and sound theory, the learner himself has no neces- sary claim on any part of his productive work. He is seek- ing an education. Under an apprenticeship he or his parents often pay for such education and get no return for immedi- ate productive work. In the older professional vocational schools the learner pays and gets no direct return. Hence it would not be inexpedient for state and community main- taining vocational schools to insist that any surplus of value created by productive work after cost of materials and special equipment has been met, should be retained by state and community.

8. But it may prove expedient, pedagogically, to allow pupils to share, under some conditions, in part or all of the products of their productive work. This should be deter- mined by experience. The following are special cases :

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9. Where the pupil or his parents supply substantially all of the materials and special equipment, the pupil and his par- ents might well absorb the surplus value. For example, a boy obtains from his father land, tools, seed, etc., for gar- dening; a girl obtains from her mother kitchen equipment, foodstuffs, etc., for cooking; a girl obtains for herself, or in her home, dress goods, sewing machine, etc., for dress- making.

In all these cases it might prove expedient for a pupil to retain net value of product created.

10. An employer offers shops and equipment for indus- trial education. He is entitled, of course, to costs of ma- terials, fair rent for equipment, and usual managerial prof- its. A surplus over might be returned, in the shape of wages, to the pupils, or net product might be divided between pupils and school (it being understood, of course, that the school is regarded only as trustee, it having been assumed at the start that the school has no inherent right as a definitive organization to any share in productive work).

11. When the school itself undertakes productive work, the value created does not belong to the school but to the agencies maintaining the school, the school acting as trustee. Hence, out of value of product may be paid: (a) Cost of materials (returned to school appropriation from which payments have been made) ; (b) Rent, to community for special equipment (as distinguished from general instruc- tional equipment) for particular work; (c) Wages to pupils; (d) Surplus, divided between agencies maintain- ing instruction.

12. It has been urged, and there are precedents for the following claims under some circumstances where materials and special equipment are supplied by or through the school : (a) That the pupil might retain the product created by himself. (This has frequently been done in manual training and cooking schools. In industrial schools it may appear

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desirable that it should be done in the case of those wood products, like furniture, which fit easily into the home, or clothing, which could be used by the family, or even agri- cultural products raised on the school farm.) (6) That the valuable product should be retained by the school itself, as a part of its upbuilding equipment, (c) That the valuable product should be retained by the city or town maintaining the school.

13. As regards retention of product by pupils, in case materials and equipment are supplied by or through the school, the following are grounds for believing it inexpedi- ent and undesirable, (a) There is no necessary relationship between factors of cost of materials (including tools used) and labor of pupils, in the value of product. Under some circumstances the value of the materials may constitute 75% or 80% of the value of a product, — under others, only W% or 15%. If the pupils retain product, the temptation is to exploit the school by asking for more valuable mate- rials. ( b ) In only a few lines of productive work is the prod- uct itself of any value to the pupil. Rarely in electrical work, house carpentry, printing, machine shop practice, pattern making, and numerous other trades, can the pupil use the product. Examples of valuable products created, which pupils can use, as thus far known, are found chiefly in cabinet-making and dressmaking. Cabinet-making is still closely allied to manual training, and it is not certain that much of the work done in the study is truly vocational, (c) In view of the uncertainty as to whether pupils can use prod- uct, if practice is followed of giving pupil product under some instances, injustice is done to other pupils. If pupils are to share in values created by them, a uniform policy must be followed by which all pupils, in all lines of work, should share equally, unless it can be shown that pedagogic incen- tive is much more needed in some lines than others, which is doubtful, (d) Fundamentally, the chief objection to

328 Vocational Education

pupils sharing in work is that the whole thing is put on the basis of manual training, and not on the basis of the true productive shop. -In the commercial shop workers never take away the product. If they want samples, they must buy them in the "market, as other people.

14. It is undesirable that the school should absorb value created through productive work, for the reason, chiefly, that this would put a constant premium upon repair work and adding to equipment in the school, instead of compelling the school to produce for a market and to meet the condi- tions of the market. Patch-work construction about the school often comes perilously near to the old exercise method, where students built little brick walls, or set up dummy walls for electrical apparatus, and then tore them down again. Furthermore, not all lines of trade give work that can be used in the school.

15. It is undesirable, also, that the community maintain- ing the school should absorb value of product created, ex- cept a due share for rent of special equipment supplied by community only. Town and state should create a revolv- ing fund, and town and state should share in net returns from productive work, even if this operates towards re- duction of cost of instruction.

16. Hence, the simple principles to be followed in reim- bursement might be the following: (a) Special equipment for productive work shall be supplied by town, (b) All materials to be consumed in productive work shall be sup- plied from the maintenance fund, (c) The school shall be regarded as the holder or trustee on behalf of the town and state, of all values created by productive work, (d) Prod- ucts created by productive work may be sold to : ( 1 ) pupils, (2) pupils' families, (3) school, (4) town, or (5) private parties. But in all cases these must be regarded as buyers on an equal footing. A market price must be established for the product, which is a fair price, quality being consid-

The Administration of Vocational Education 329

ered, but not of such a nature as to disturb market levels of price.

17. The proceeds of productive work shall be divided as follows: (a) Rent may be paid to the town for special equipment used, (b) Wages may, if desired, be paid to pupils on the basis of agreed-upon terms, (c) Net re- maining amount shall be credited equally to State and town, as co-partners in maintaining the school.

Cooperative Preparatory Vocational Education. — Very great difficulties will always be encountered by vocational preparatory (i.e. basic vocational) schools in providing practice work on a commercial basis. A fully equipped school for this purpose will usually involve large expendi- tures of capital for equipment and endless difficulties of en- try of product into commercial markets. Where the school is training for public service, as in army, navy, teaching, experiment station service in higher phases of agriculture, etc., difficulties are not so great.

Hence wherever practicable, vocational education should be organized on cooperative basis, the school giving those phases, technical and social especially, for which it is pecul- iarly fitted, and the student obtaining practical experience under commercial conditions. By almost universal consent, this represents pedagogical practice of maximum potency, if cooperative arrangements can be effectively made. But such cooperation will involve great difficulties, unless cer- tain types of organization are effected.

1. Experience thus far seems to indicate that under the following conditions cooperation is most easily practicable :

(a) Where a farm is owned by an individual farmer, not working in a definite organization, the detachment of suffi- cient land and equipment for a comparatively practicable farm for the boy seems to be feasible.

(b) Where an industry or commercial establishment is managed on a very large scale so that space, equipment, and

Vocational Education

even supervision can be detached in sufficient quantity to justify the maintenance of a class of pupils, here again, co- operative arrangements are easily feasible.

(c) In vocational homemaking, use of the girl's home for vocational purposes ought to prove entirely practicable.

2. Under the following conditions, cooperative work thus far seems to be fraught with much difficulty :

(a) Where a highly organized industry cannot afford to detach separate space, equipment, and supervision, for a vocational class, and hence where school pupils, if intro- duced at all, must be introduced as individuals alongside of experienced workers, thus greatly complicating supervision.

(b) The teacher coming from a public school system, and being obliged to take charge of a room rather than serve as an assistant foreman.

(c) A boy, not the son of a farmer, having to be placed on a farm as a laborer, in which case unintelligent produc- tion on gang labor basis may result.

We need detailed analyses of cooperative possibilities under such conditions as presented by: a sailing ship; a steamer; freight-train service; banking houses; small stores; department stores; hotels; automobile driving; mining; highly organized agriculture ; skilled building trades, etc.

3. The following are essential conditions to effective cooperative vocational education :

(a) From the outset the general pedagogical plan of ad- vancement, sequences of tasks, adjustment of technical to practice work, must be provided by the school itself.

(b) The schools should give a short introductory period of practice in order to minimize difficulties of supervision on the part of coordinators or shop foremen.

(c) The schools should also take charge of successive ad- vancement in stages and, if necessary, give short introduc- tory practice at outset of each.

( d) No cooperation should be asked for from productive

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agencies unless it can be achieved without economic sacri- fice, taking account of overhead service, on their part. Any other proposal is uneconomic, and, in the long run, destined to failure.

These conditions require concrete analysis from the stand- point of agriculture, counter salesmanship, field salesman- ship, secretarial work, house carpentry, the printing shop, printing specialties, engine driving, engine firing, station- ary engineer, etc.

Preapprenticeship Where vocational education for

organized trades having well-developed apprenticeship does not appear to be feasible, the suggestion naturally arises as to why a so-called vocational school should not undertake certain preapprenticeship training which will almost inevit- ably be along technical rather than practical lines. The writer is unable to see why, where apprenticeship is well or- ganized, any school vocational education should be required under the head of preapprenticeship. Very much better that the learner should formally enter early upon his ap- prenticeship, after which the vocational school should sup- plement by giving opportunities for extension teaching.

At the present time there is very much needed an analysis of all of those industrial pursuits for which apprenticeship is still an alleged possibility. It will be found, probably, that not only is apprenticeship declining in the main, but that the very conditions which once made apprenticeship learning practicable are themselves changing.

Intensive short course work will serve the needs of a vastly greater number than can ever profit from systematic ap- prenticeship teaching, at least so far as most highly organ- ized modern industries are concerned.

A somewhat illusory objective often urged in connection with so-called preapprenticeship training is that of holding the pupils longer in school. This is not a worthy objective in and of itself. Pupils should be urged to stay in school

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beyond the compulsory period only in case it is evident that the school has something of substantial profit to offer them. It will be found in many cases that the period of prolonged attendance, especially on the part of pupils somewhat re- tarded, becomes a period of semi-idleness in which habits of inattention and half-hearted work formed are not offset by vigorous play or other spontaneous activity.

But, as stated elsewhere, it is highly desirable that through- out the junior high school period and later if needed, offer- ings of vigorous practical arts work should be made, not designed necessarily to utilize vocational motives, nor to produce anything more than a very moderate degree of vo- cational guidance, but primarily for the purpose of insur- ing maximum " general " development.

The Continuation School In a few American states, we

now find beginnings of the continuation school, school at- tendance within the working day being called for to an ex- tent of from four to eight hours weekly. . From the stand- point of sound educational theory, there can be little doubt that the future holds in store very great opportunities for the development of continuation school instruction and training.

It should be understood that German experience in the de- velopment of continuation schools will not necessarily serve to shed light on American problems. European continua- tion schools, in large measure, evolved from the attempts of guilds and employers' organizations to provide, under school conditions, certain forms of education which they were obliged to give as part of apprenticeship. The first continu- ation classes were held frequently on Sundays in order to give employed children an opportunity to acquire the knowl- edge which was insisted on under conditions of apprentice- ship.

In America, many new conditions must be encountered. It is by no means yet clear as to how far industry can adapt

TJie Administration of Vocational Education 333

itself to conditions where children are away from work from four to eight hours weekly.

Furthermore, programs of continuation school instruc- tion are still matters of experimentation. That a small part of the education to be given can be of definitely vocational character is probably true; but for the majority of pupils, it is certain that only a more general form of liberal educa- tion, utilizing to the utmost the practical experience that the children are obtaining, can be devised.

The successful prosecution of any form of continuation work involves special equipment of shops, laboratories, and especially cases where work may be stored during the ab- sence of the class.

Furthermore, in certain fields of cultural and civic edu- cation, the continuation school should also make a definite new start, connecting such work with the practical experi- ence being obtained by the learner.

The ideal towards which the continuation school must strive is to be found in half-time school attendance from 14 to 18 years, during which abundant opportunity shall be given for " short course " introduction to new occupations or for short course transition from lower to higher levels in occupations.

Specially trained teachers — preferably teachers who have had some years' experience in day schools, after which they have taken the equivalent of at least one-half year's full time " graduate " or special training for this work — will be indispensable to the success of a continuation school pro- gram. In general, only men should teach the boys, and women the girls.

Continuation Schools should be defined to include only schools on which attendance is compulsory for a minimum of a stated number of hours per week within the ordinary working day of young persons regularly employed gain- fully. Hence evening schools, part-time vocational schools

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in which pupils are working in shops to obtain vocational experience, or short course schools for voluntary attendance are not continuation schools. It will be here assumed that a minimum program of continuation school attendance re- quires at least four hours weekly for forty weeks yearly be- tween the ages of 14-16.

Courses offered in continuation schools may be of one or more of several kinds, — physical, cultural, social, basic vocational or extension vocational. It may be assumed practically that extension vocational education in continua- tion classes is based upon the experience obtained during the day in wage-earning work.

Vocational Aims To what extent will it prove prac- ticable in practice to offer vocational training in continua- tion schools to youths between fourteen and sixteen ? More adequate analysis of the experience of the German states, and of Denmark, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania is required before we can answer this question with confidence; but it is the writer's present conviction that such opportunities will be found to be fewer than has been supposed. The reasons for this supposition are these: The vocations commonly followed by youths from 14-16 and to an increasing extent from 16-18 are essentially juvenile occupations — that is, occupations that are only suited to juvenile workers and that are not the normal introductory stages of vocations to be followed by adults. This is especially the case with the highly specialized industrial and commercial vocations. As- sistant homemaking is rarely an organized wage-earning calling for girls from 14-16 and it is not yet certain whether wage-earning occupations will be available in agriculture for boys or girls of these years. Probably small-store merchandising offers to-day the most promising field of wage-earning employment for youngsters desirous of fol- lowing juvenile work into related manhood stages. For young store workers, therefore, whether employed as deliv-

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ery boys, assistant sellers, or in other capacities, surveys may show that continuation school instruction of an extension vocational character may well be profitable.

To what extent and for what vocations can basic voca- tional education be offered to advantage? Our knowledge of the vocations available and the most effective means of training therefor is altogether insufficient to say, but this prediction may be justified. Where systems of basic voca- tional training on a four to eight hour weekly schedule are brought into competition with full-time, short course voca- tional education, the latter will generally win popular ap- proval and support. Even eight hours weekly for forty weeks could only give the same amount of time that eight hours daily would give in forty days. Most young workers of families having American standards of living will be found able to discontinue wage-earning for thirty to sixty days if thereby they can be assured of effective training for higher levels of productive work. It is not impossible, in- deed, that once legislation assures a working day of moderate length to young workers, the compulsory continuation school attendance which will probably soon be required in all states up to and including even eighteen years of age will be made so flexible that the required hours of attendance can be met in twenty days of eight hours each as a minimum, thirty days of six hours each, or forty days of four hours each. This will permit opportunities for intensive short course training where it is desired to achieve definite forms of vo- cational competency.

It is probable that the time of continuation school attend- ance between the ages of 14 and 16 will be utilized chiefly for purposes of liberal, cultural, and social education. With the practical experience obtained daily by young wage-work- ers, even four hours weekly can be made of great service in ripening and extending general education. To some ex- tent, too, this time can be well used for purposes of physical

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education ; but for that purpose we shall need programs and teachers very different from those now available.

Compulsory Vocational Education Even when it is

urged that school attendance on a full-time or part-time basis shall be made obligatory up to eighteen years of age, it is not yet suggested that vocational education shall be made obligatory. Our knowledge of the desirable and possible objectives of vocational education is too vague as yet for that. What are principles of desirable and expedi- ent action as regards obligatory vocational education ? It is now regarded as no undue infringement of individual rights to compel acquisition of education in literacy. Will a simi- lar social attitude ultimately be taken as respects minimum vocational competency? The following considerations are important :

1. The primary object of the state or of society in its col- lective capacity in promoting effective vocational education may be considered to be the safety of the state itseH. But the security and effectiveness of the state can be achieved only by means of individuals who are in themselves effective physically, vocationally, civically, and culturally. Further- more, the function of the state, in the last analysis, is the pro- motion of the well-being of the individuals composing it, and under these circumstances, vocational education may be considered also from the standpoint of its possible contri- butions to individual well-being.

In promoting the well-being of individuals, it is a funda- mental principle that state action or other corporate action takes place only when the competency of the individual him- self or of those immediately responsible for him proves in- sufficient to guarantee an optimum of the conditions making for such well-being. By universal consent, then, the state seeks to guarantee a protected childhood to every person born into society, this protection extending even to the point of removing the child from his parents or natural guardians

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in case their incompetency can be established. The ideal of a protected childhood is also realized through compulsory education, through prohibition of labor of young people except under stated conditions, and through guarantee of certain opportunities for growth and development such as playgrounds and freedom of movement.

It now becomes public policy also to include under the general designation of a protected childhood such a start towards economic independence as the state itself can in- sure in the event that the family and individual themselves prove unable to satisfy these needs. Elsewhere it has been shown that under modern conditions of industry, especially in large centers, the family and industry are proving less and less able to insure either adequate vocational guidance or, more important, sufficient vocational training, to constitute for given individuals what might reasonably be called a fair start in life.

The welfare of the individual must be considered from the following standpoints : a young person born into society represents, economically speaking, a liability during his first fourteen to twenty-two years according to the prevailing standard of living and the calling for which he is to be fitted. Thenceforward, as long as properly employed, the individ- ual produces a surplus of economic goods until illness or the decrepitude of age begins, when his productive capacity declines, finally reaching the zero point and thereafter, eco- nomically speaking again, the individual becomes a liability to society. Collectively speaking, the individuals of society must, during their period of productivity, produce not only sufficient for their own maintenance, but a surplus sufficient to meet the needs of young and old dependents, the needs of non-producers in society who must be carried (delinquents, defectives, chronically ill, etc.), and also such an amount as may be necessary to add to the capital, both fixed and mobile, of society. z

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It is clear that through proper training in skill, related knowledge and vision, the individual enhances his productive capacity. Reference must again be had to the fact that the total productivity of the individual is dependent upon many other factors besides his individual skill or possession of technical knowledge, such as the current state of inventions, the presence of natural resources, the presence of initiating powers, the type of prevailing organization in industry, etc. Of these, of course, the skill and technical knowledge of the individual are the elements that are most completely within his own control. The others, to a large extent, are a part of the natural or social inheritance with reference to which the individual is in a considerable degree helpless.

Under modern conditions of production involving large amounts of technical knowledge and organization of indus- try, we can assume that the proportion of unskilled labor that can be used, or of those who can bring to work only physical strength, is diminishing rather than increasing. Some of the factors here involved are confessedly obscure and until the supply of technically qualified labor in any given field is demonstrably larger than the demand, we shall have to take the position that the training of those who would otherwise be unskilled becomes permanently a source of increased productiveness.

2. Apart from increase of economic productiveness the vocational education of the individual may be considered also in reference to his welfare as contributing materials to his joy in work, conservation of health and strength, open- ing opportunities for leadership, making for thrift and sav- ings, lessening the deadening effects of routine work and giving certain important cultural derivatives from the work itself. All of these may be regarded as important and nec- essary factors in the well-being of the individual and prob- ably to be achieved most effectively through a broad and rightly directed vocational education.

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3. Granted social provision of ample opportunities for vocational education, it may be assumed that from seventy to ninety per cent of all persons will in due season take reasonable advantage of such opportunities. It would cer- tainly be sound policy to force the remainder, even if at a belated period, to come under a regime of compulsory at- tendance and obligatory learning of a vocation, much as we now require youthful prisoners in juvenile reform schools and reformatories to " learn a trade," where it is evident that other agencies do not make provision for such educa- tion.

The Junior High School is undoubtedly rapidly evolving and being approved as a new type of school in American edu- cation. Its probable relation to vocational education is not yet clearly defined. It seems expedient therefore to analyze some of its salient features in detail.

Proposals for the junior high school type of school or- ganization are chiefly, as yet, proposals for administrative readjustments. We hear, as yet, very little regarding prob- able pedagogical changes — in courses of instruction and methods of teaching as now desired or expected in the upper grades. In large measure the new type of organization is sought simply as a means — in the minds of many persons an indispensable means — of attaining the educational goals which, long ago, we set ourselves for children in upper grades, and in some cases for all children over twelve years of age.

1. The existing type of organization as found in almost any urban community in the United States is usually as fol- lows:

(a) The elementary school consists of eight or nine grades, children in which, ranging from five to about fifteen years, are all housed in one school building ;

34O Vocational Education

(b) From one fifth to one third of the pupils twelve years of age and upward are found retarded in grades below the seventh, competing with younger and, as a rule, brighter children.

(c) The grade teachers teach all subjects in grades be- low the seventh ; and in the seventh and eighth, all but man- ual training for boys and household arts for girls and, oc- casionally, music and drawing, which are taught depart- mentally ; while in perhaps three to five per cent, only, of all schools are fairly comprehensive systems of departmental teaching found.

(d) The upper grade teachers are women, with in- creasingly rare exceptions; these women have not had spe- cial training for upper grade work, but are, as a rule, the abler of the teachers, who obtained their first experience in country schools or lower grades (upper grade positions fre- quently carry better salaries, and are therefore sought by women who expect to remain permanently in teaching).

(e) The course of study is uniform for all pupils alike, except for the differentiation of manual training for boys, and household arts for girls; its primary elements being: English language, English literature, geography, American history, and arithmetic; while hygiene, science, drawing, music, manual arts, civics, etc., are secondary or incidental elements, foreign language and vocational guidance being rare elements.

(/) Standards of graduation are determined almost wholly by the -prevailing standards of admission to high school; hence, as a rule, less than fifty per cent of all pupils required to attend school obtain the elementary diploma.

2. The school organization which is urged as being more effective — namely, the junior high school — should have the following features :

(a) All children from five to twelve (except children under twelve who have finished the sixth grade) should be

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taught in schools located near their homes (schools which in cities need not exceed four or five rooms in size), staffed by women teachers only.

(b) These lower elementary schools should never be very large — ten or twelve rooms would be a desirable maxi- mum — and the principal should be simply a head teacher ; but for each fifty to seventy teachers in these schools in any community there should be a woman supervisor of instruc- tion.

(c) All children between twelve and fifteen years of age (including children under twelve ready for the seventh grade, and excluding children under fifteen ready for the regular or senior high school) should be sent to the central junior high school or intermediate school (it should be assumed that a walk of one and one half, or even two, miles is not excessive for this purpose).

(d) Promotion should, as far as practicable, be by subject so that a retarded pupil, for example, in the fourth grade in arithmetic may, if qualified, enter seventh grade geography; and a boy backward in history may nevertheless take eighth grade industrial arts (manual training) if qualified.

(e) The course of study in the central school should offer the pupils a large range of elective or optional studies in addition to certain essentials in English language, Eng- lish literature, American history, community civics, and geography which should be prescribed for all ( for retarded pupils special classes in these subjects to be formed).

(/) Teaching in the junior high school is expected to be departmentally organized by subjects, or, preferably, along lines of the Gary plan, by groups of related subjects ; and it is expected that this organization will produce a demand for specially qualified teachers.

(g) If the state is willing to pay the price, a certain pro- portion of men teachers should be assigned to departmental positions, not primarily because they are necessarily better

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teachers than women, but because it is desirable to introduce, in boys' classes at any rate, the influence of masculine per- sonality.

Those of us who favor such reorganization of education as will give us the six-three-three plan or the six-two-four plan — with the junior and senior high schools either as two and four year or three and three year schools respec- tively, and in any event as large central schools — do so because we believe that, on the whole, the psychological conditions of children as well as their social needs justify such reorganization, even if it cost the community slightly more financially. What are those conditions, and what are these needs ?

1. The conditions are summed up in the two words " in- creasing variability." Uniform programs of education, uniform teaching methods, and non-specialized teachers pre- suppose groups of people of substantially uniform charac- teristics. But all recent inquiries tend to bring into relief facts as to the increasing unlikeness of children beyond twelve years of age. We recognize them as differing mod- erately as regards height, weight, and bodily strength; materially as regards abilities in such studies as literature, vernacular language, and history; and very greatly indeed as regards abilities and interests in music, plastic and graphic art, abstract mathematics, foreign language, and manual constructive work.

We should not, of course, fall into the foolish error some- times made in educational writings, of supposing that these differences are greater (whatever that may mean) than are the resemblances or likenesses in the case of any two chil- dren. Two children of twelve may differ in height by as much as fifteen inches, but almost never do they differ by twenty-five per cent of the height of the shorter. No two children differ as much in respect to ability to learn a for- eign language as either one does from a horse or other

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animal as respects such learning. In the absolute sense, therefore, it may be repeated, the facts of resemblance among young human beings (as regards the elements that make groups of them relatively homogeneous) are vastly more numerous and significant than are the facts of unlike- ness. But as regards the facts of likeness and unlikeness that are important to education, to the ends and purposes for which schools exist, all evidence points to the desirability and essential humaneness of all arrangements, which permit, in processes of instruction and training, recognition of deep- seated differences of ability, taste, and general educability.

Let us now make two general propositions as to which there will be no serious debate.

(a) If, possessed of endless resources and hampered by no restrictions of any kind, we were making educational programs for our children, we would doubtless, in light of what we now know regarding the unlikeness of individuals among them, make the programs for no two of them exactly alike in all respects. We would pay tribute to obvious differences as regards the gifts bestowed by the gods of heredity and early environment; and we would not ignore the probable opportunities and limitations decreed by fortune in the child's future life. We would strengthen some of his already strong powers; and where he was weak we might justly forego to strive for the powers for the founda- tion of which nature has done so little.

(b) On the other hand, except in rare cases of genius or defect, it is not practicable to educate children on the basis of strictly individual qualifications. In education, as in war, industry, transportation, worship, housing, and enter- tainment, economy and general efficiency require that we deal with people in squads, platoons, and divisions. We must have companies and regiments for fighting; congre- gations for worship; gangs, crews, and departments in industry; audiences and parties for entertainment; passen-

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ger groups and classes for transportation; and grades and classes in schools. To talk of individual instruction, except as that is practicable within group organization, is to talk nonsense, except where the few children of wealth and rank are concerned. We can, of course, strive to produce the maximum of individual thought, initiative, and action on the part of the learner in the class, just as we can on the part of the unit in the squad, crew, congregation, audience, or passenger group. But it is clear that individuality of action in these groups must, while the ends of group action or reception are to be met, be greatly subordinated to the requirements of subjection to orders and enforced limita- tions, uniformity of stimuli, and conformity in behavior.

In the organization of groups for school education, there- fore, we cannot, though we would, provide special programs for each individual (as' men and women did for Helen Keller). We must provide for a certain amount of regi- mentation, classification, grouping. But these groupings must not be fixed in rigid groups. We must not allow the school to become a Procrustean bedstead to an extent greater than is absolutely necessary and inevitable. We have had the school compared to a saw mill, cutting its " stock " into standardized lengths. Schools have done this in the past. Like armies, churches, and transportation, schools have at times made the organization of groups an end rather than a means, forgetting that the units with which they deal are in considerable measure unlike.

2. Besides the psychological " conditions " of the indi- viduals composing our school classes, what are their social " needs " that justify the proposed reorganizations of upper grade work? The keynote to these needs will be found in the words " progressively increasing differentiation." Mod- ern civilized life is like modern industry or modern army organization. Functions are being increasingly differen- tiated, and activities and interests specialized according to all kinds of capacities and opportunities.

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But it should be clear at the outset that as regards fitting individuals for group life the school has two different func- tions, which are at times in conflict. The groups into which children must fit are of various kinds. There are large groups and small groups — as (a) the nation, the religious denomination, the political party, the potential army of defense, the readers of good books, the economic organiza- tion; and, opposed to these, (b) the local community, the particular church or sect, the political gang, the squad or mess, the partisans of a particular book or writer, the embattled employees of a particular industrial establishment. There are vocational, as against cultural, groups — farmers, machinists, bankers, teachers, waitresses, homemakers, and defenders, as against patrons of art, readers of classic liter- ature, subscribers to specified magazines, visitors to the " movies," illiterates, etc. Various other groupings may be distinguished — such as family groups, racial groups, so- ciability groups, economic cooperative groups, worshiping groups, etc.

Now it is one of the functions of education to predispose and fit its pupils for assimilation with the larger, as against the smaller, groups, in the interest of a wholesome social order, harmony, and economy of effort. We, therefore, seek that all American children shall speak a common tongue, write a mutually understandable prose, have a com- mon knowledge of certain standard literature, comprehend and appreciate alike the important facts of our geography, history, and civic life.

But it is another function of education to see that our young people are fitted efficiently to discharge their respon- sibilities in the small groups of which they will inevitably be a part. Membership in, and sympathy with, the large groups of civilized society are essential to the harmony of the social order; but active and properly coordinated par- ticipation in the activities of smaller groups is essential to

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efficient personal growth, individual efficiency, and ultimate usefulness.

Hence the desirability of partial group differentiation of pupils even as early as twelve years of age. Their needs include fitting for those special group activities in which they can most profitably serve themselves and society. As to some of these children it is certain that their opportunities for school education will close forever at or near fourteen years of age. We may not always know the particular individuals of whom this is true — although a shrewd social diagnostician, knowing the facts as to the home conditions, school standing in studies, intellectual interests, general moral behavior, and physical conditions of one hundred children at twelve years of age, could, I think, guess right as to ninety per cent of them. But even if we do not know the future as regards particular individuals, we do know it in large measure of collected groups, in the statis- tical sense — we know of probable numerical ratios and percentages; hence any refusal on our part to provide opportunities into which individuals will fit as well as may be on the initiative of themselves or their parents, with perhaps our advice, is wasteful, inefficient, and essentially undemocratic.

There is a certain small percentage of our pupils who, by virtue of their probable future opportunities for usefulness and self -gratification, ought to have early opportunity to study a foreign language — German, French, Portuguese, Russian, or Japanese. Here again, at the age of twelve we may not be able to select just the persons who should be advised to do this; but if the opportunities are provided, and if parents are fully advised as to the conditions, re- quirements, and probable fruits of this work, and if admis- sion to it is restricted to those who have shown superior ability in the vernacular, choices will be right perhaps fifty or seventy per cent of the time.

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It is assumed here, of course, that no vocational training as such will be given in the junior high school. That will come later and will naturally require a large degree of specialization — in a city the establishment of even hun- dreds of different and unlike specific vocational schools to prepare for the hundreds of separate commercial, industrial and domestic occupations into which modern life is divided.

But in the junior high school large opportunities should be given for practical arts training, which, while not voca- tional in its outcome, may help towards vocation-finding, and will certainly give insight into the ideals and social significance of occupational life, if properly directed.

To be of real service, however, practical arts education (industrial arts, agricultural arts, household arts, nautical arts, and commercial arts are all included under this head) must be diversified according to the fundamental interests of children; and the spirit in which each type of work is to be approached should be that of the amateur. Courses should be flexible. A pupil entering printing for the first time, for example, should have the option of several simple introductory projects; after he has given reasonable atten- tion to any one he should, if he wishes, be permitted to take up projects in a totally unrelated field — e.g. gardening.

Hence the need of the flexible course of study which only the junior high school type of organization can provide.

Let us repeat: The proposed junior high school type of school organization is an administrative means — a neces- sary means — to certain essential forms of improvement of the education of young people from twelve to fifteen years of age.

Principles of Aim. — The following are submitted in con- clusion as essential principles governing the organization of curricula of the junior high school :

1. Junior high schools are to be considered as of two types:

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Type A, replacing present seventh and eighth grades (the 6-2-4 plan), to offer normally two years of instruction (with occasional provision for a " graduate " year parallel- ing, but not replacing, the first year of the regular high school). Modal ages of pupils expected, seventh grade 13 years, eighth grade 14 years.

Type B, replacing present seventh and eighth grades and first year of high school, to offer, usually, three years' work (the 6-3-3 plan). Modal expected ages by grades, 13, 14, and 15.

For purposes of convenience it is assumed that full-time attendance of all children to the 14th birthday is enforced, after which attendance (except for much retarded pupils, and except, in some states, continuation school attendance) becomes voluntary.

2. There is no suggestion in American school legislation, and almost none in educational theory generally accepted in this country, that any kind of training that might properly be called vocational should be required or even offered within that period of the child's life, during which general school attendance is obligatory. This is certainly sound policy. Hence the A type of junior high school, at least, must be expected to devote itself almost, if not quite, exclu- sively to giving what, as opposed to vocational training, should be called general or liberal education — that is, gen- eral education towards good citizenship, towards personal culture, and towards physical fitness, as the numerous spe- cific powers and qualities under these heads are approved among our people, irrespective of the particular vocations they follow. But amateur participation in the simple phases of occupations which the pupils do not expect to follow — printing, gardening, typewriting, bicycle repairing, house painting, as well as observation of, and much reading about, the occupations which men and women actually follow, are to be regarded as valuable elements in liberal education.

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These socializing phases of liberal education which lead to widened and deepened vision, rich experience, enlarged sympathies, and genuine humanism should be greatly ex- tended in the junior high school. All of these approaches to new experience and enrichments of old experience will in a measure, too, serve the purposes of vocational guidance. Hence all general vocational guidance (and, under some cir- cumstances, even the specific individual diagnosis and recom- mendation that should immediately precede placement in vocational school or vocational employment) is to be re- garded a legitimate part of the general or non-vocational education appropriate to the junior high school.

3. Practical arts courses, involving maximum practicable amateur participation for general education, will surely be offered to a greater or less extent in prosperous and pro- gressive junior high schools, than in grades and high schools in the past. If the public approves the idea of the " longer school day " we may expect to see as much as two hours daily available for practical arts participation. But, ob- viously, there are so many varieties of practical arts courses, long or short, to be drawn upon, that great flexibility of offerings and large freedom of election by the pupil will be desirable wherever administrative necessities and economics do not render it impracticable.

4. What can or should be the vocational contribution of the type B junior high school? Obviously, the majority of the pupils in the third grade or year of this school will still be interested in obtaining a general education, in most cases to be continued in senior high school or college. But some will have the desire, or be under the necessity, of entering early upon productive work. What can be done in or by the B type of junior high school in its third (or even a fourth graduate year) to prepare these for their vocations?

An adequate answer to this requires analyses, on the one hand, of possible vocations, and, on the other, of suitable

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procedures preparatory thereto, which analyses educators of academic prepossessions have been loath to make. What are the actual vocations for which, in specified communities, youngsters of from fourteen to sixteen years of age can be trained (or otherwise prepared) in whole or in part? Can the " junior high school," conceived chiefly as a faculty and curricula, effectively include such preparation in its work?

Only definite surveys in each case, taking account of local conditions, can give final answers to these questions. But there are a few principles that seem now possible of definition.

Probably, outside of agriculture, there are very few " trades," systematic training for which can profitably be begun as early as fourteen or even fifteen. For homemak- ing, motives are probably not ripe — and certainly voca- tional training is wasted on those who have no keen, vital motive for it. The manual or craft trades — dressmaking, machinist work, cooperage, blacksmithing, hand tailoring — are steadily disappearing, except in the case of the few in building trades and personal service — house carpentry, plumbing repair, barbering, waiting on table, shoe repairing, and horseshoeing. But in commercial and industrial fields, subdivision of labor and specialization of process have done much to make available to young people at almost any age specialized callings which, for juvenile workers — and for them only — pay well. Proper provision of opportunities for vocational training for juvenile workers at the close of the periods normally devoted to juvenile employment — for doffer boys, e.g. at seventeen or eighteen, for factory girls, perhaps just before marriage — has yet to be made by society. But it is certain that for the usual juvenile occu- pations, very brief courses of thoroughly practical training will suffice. One month of intensive training for the doffer boy, three months for the messenger boy, six months for the

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salesgirl, and eight months for the power operator would doubtless suffice.

Can the junior high school effectively offer such training? Experience seems to answer in the negative. Probably it will require the evolution of the " vestibule " school.

CHAPTER XI

THE TRAINING OF TEACHERS FOR VOCATIONAL SCHOOLS

Dearth of Vocational Teachers. — During the last few years educational administrators, called upon to provide various types of vocational schools, have been compelled to make bricks without straw. Naturally teachers have been unavailable. Men technically equipped in various agri- cultural branches were to be had ; specialists in bookkeeping and stenography could be found in business; and skilled trade workers could be had from the crafts and factories at salaries a trifle above those paid to high school teachers. But these men were not teachers ; and only rarely were they equipped to cope with teaching in fields where traditions are few and each man is expected to hew out the paths of method for himself.

From the manual training field came a few men who had become, through their own efforts, real teachers of carpen- try, machine shop metal working, printing and electrical in- stallation. Household arts or home economics teachers have striven valiantly to answer the call for teachers of vocational homemaking; but since the essential characteris- tics of training for this vocation (or these vocations) is still somewhat obscure, it is impossible as yet to predict results.

Until the passage of the Smith-Hughes Act, very little effective provision had been made by the states for the training of vocational school teachers. A few commercial, and many agricultural and home economics, school graduates had been prepared to teach technical subjects in their re-

352

The Training of Teachers for Vocational Schools 353

spective fields; but there were few who could teach business practice in any of its aspects, or farming or homemaking. A few evening classes designed to prepare selected trade workers to teach their specialties had been established. But all of these sources have been understood to be provisional, and unsatisfactory at best.

The pressure of war training for the shipbuilding and other industries forced the development of some valuable " short course " training of men, already skilled as indus- trial workers, to become teachers of practice in industrial specialties. The lessons of this training still await appli- cation.

During the next decade it is certain that a large amount of study will be given to the training of vocational school teachers. The conditions and problems analyzed below will certainly require a large amount of investigation.

Types of Vocational School Teaching. — The simplest types of teaching in vocational education are, of course, to be found when the elder worker or the more skilled worker shows the younger or less skilled. At bottom, doubtless, there exist in all persons genuine instincts of teaching — otherwise to be described as instincts of showing, leading, helping, suggesting, instigating, directing, controlling, gov- erning, organizing, commanding, etc. Likewise, under the right social stimulus, there probably always appear in nor- mal individuals the " learning " instincts — instincts of fol- lowing, imitating, yielding, inquiring, submitting to author- ity, desire to be shown, etc. The operation of these social instincts can be seen on any playground, in any school, shop, or other theater of social activity.

On the other hand, the most complicated types of voca- tional teaching are to be found in large schools of vocational training where teaching functions are highly subdivided, — where, for example, one teacher, who, perhaps, has never practiced the vocation itself, imparts certain technical knowl-

2 A

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edge, another directs certain experimental work, and still a third supervises initial efforts at practice. Subdivision of vocational teaching of this character can now be seen in normal schools, agricultural colleges, medical colleges, schools of navigation, and the like. In not a few commer- cial departments of high schools, one teacher takes charge of stenography, another typewriting, a third of commercial law, a fourth of English. A few of the larger trade schools exhibit similar tendencies.

An intermediate stage is found where one teacher or type of teacher is responsible for " practice " and another for so- called " theory " or the " related technical subjects." In a few cases of half -developed or self-styled vocational schools, a teacher of " manual exercises " has been found, who is not himself a master of the trade being taught, but who un- dertakes to teach on the basis of exercises, some of the special activities supposed to be involved in the trade. The cabinet-making, printing, woodturning and lathe work of some manual training high schools, the needlework of household arts schools, the " business practice "of the com- mercial schools, and the school gardening of agricultural schools are examples.

There are good grounds for believing that an ideal voca- tional education, at least for the non-professional occupa- tions, can best be given by one person who is at once master of its practical phases, and at the same time intimately ac- quainted with its technical aspects, and who, with these powers combines a large vision as to the possibilities of the right exercise of the calling to affect for the better society and the personality of the worker. A worker with this equipment who is also a gifted teacher would probably advance beginners, at least in vocational competency, faster than could any other type of teacher. Some successful ex- periments in agricultural education have been executed on this basis (based upon the "home projects," the pupils giv-

The Training of Teachers for Vocational Schools 355

ing something over half their time to these home projects, supervised by the teacher).

But there are few indications that this method of voca- tional education will prove successful except in those two classes of callings which are in many respects yet in an ele- mental or primitive stage of evolution, — namely, farming and homemaking. The same method should be capable of application in many monotechnic industrial occupations (specialized machine processes or subdivisions of trades), but teachers equal to the responsibilities of such work are as yet hardly available.

It is highly probable that in most forms of vocational education, teaching processes will become increasingly spe- cialized, and that even others than teachers will be required for special phases — business agents to take charge of the administration of work, " coordinators " to arrange for and supervise, on behalf of the school, pupils assigned to part- time productive work in shops, etc. Probable develop- ments in this direction can best be considered by taking the different classes of vocations successively.

Teachers in Professional Schools Professional schools

now usually procure their teachers in one of two ways: (a) successful practitioners in the profession itself are detached to become teachers, either on a part or whole time basis ; or (b) promising graduates, even with no practical experience, are given assistantships and are then slowly elevated to higher rank, the requirement often being imposed that some special study or research, and perhaps travel abroad, shall parallel the earlier years of service.

Normal schools now usually procure their teachers under method (a). Formerly, when medical and legal education in college consisted chiefly of lectures, these lectures were usually given by well known practitioners. On the other hand, agricultural and engineering colleges, and those schools of law and medicine which are integrally related to

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university organizations and which tend to become more complete as respects the offerings of their various depart- ments, usually recruit their teaching forces under method (6). In these cases, however, there is always a considerable amount of pressure to draw into the teaching staff success- ful practitioners from the field. There are some indica- tions that this practice will increase in the future, although the lack of teaching ability shown by practitioners consti- tutes a common obstacle.

Normal schools, while still making little provision for the training of their own teachers through having novices be- gin in assistantships, are increasingly disposed to insist on a period of graduate or advanced professional study as a preliminary to the acceptance of a normal school teaching position on the part of candidates otherwise of acceptable maturity and concrete experience.

Agricultural School Teachers There are, as yet, in the

United States few agricultural schools (as distinct from agricultural colleges) which offer what is even remotely and partially a vocational education for the various voca- tions comprehended under the collective terms of gardener, farmer, and stock raiser; hence the problems of training teachers for these schools have not really come to the front as yet. Until the essential pedagogy and administrative principles which shall characterize effective vocational agri- cultural education have been formulated and generally ac- cepted, we shall have to content ourselves largely with spec- ulation.

Nevertheless, some things are now clear. If boys of from fifteen to eighteen years of age are to be trained to be successful gardeners, farmers, and stock raisers (or, more pretentiously, horticulturists, agriculturists, breeders, dairy- men, etc.), a large amount of definitely organized practical experience must be made an essential part, and probably a major part, of this training. Experience tends to show that

The Training of Teachers for Vocational Schools 357

this generalization holds, even in the case of those boys who have lived, and, in out-of-school season, worked, on farms.

Clearly then, the teachers of practical agriculture to these boys must themselves be capable of doing successfully those forms of farming which they undertake to teach. Clearly also, they must have a good background of technical (or " related science ") knowledge of agriculture. In other words, the man who is to direct the practice of any phase of agriculture by vocational school pupils must possess the equivalents of three sets of qualifications: (a) he must be an experienced farmer or at least demonstrably capable of being a successful farmer; (b) he must have a technical or scientific knowledge of agriculture (at least in his special field), ordinarily the equivalent of that required for a de- gree in agricultural college; and (c) he must have dem- onstrated some genuine teaching ability.

It is undoubtedly the obligation and opportunity of the agricultural colleges of the United States, in view of their large responsibility to state and nation, seriously to under- take the task of training teachers for agricultural schools who will meet these requirements. Probably, however, two antagonistic conditions will have to be overcome before they will do this effectively. In the first place, as indicated above, the actual requirements of successful vocational edu- cation for the agricultural vocations must be defined, formu- lated, and made a matter of demonstration. In the second place, the authorities in charge of agricultural colleges and the other related agencies of scientific agriculture must be- come cbnvinced that there is a place, and a large place, for vocational education in agriculture below the level of the college. In the main, they are not now genuinely convinced of this and so remain indifferent, if not in some cases secretly hostile, to proposals for the effective training of teachers for such schools.

The problem will probably be simplified when American

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secondary education in its administration shall have taken that large step — almost leap — which is necessary to place secondary school teaching on a professional basis; namely, of refusing to accept a bachelor's degree, even when it has been obtained partly on the basis of so-called educational courses, as indicating the equivalent of professional prepar- ation for teaching. The country ought to be quite ready to stand for a legally imposed requirement that at least one year of definite professional preparation additional to the requirements of the bachelor's degree shall be met on the part of all secondary school teachers, as is now required in one state, and provided by a few colleges.

Once this requirement is established, the agricultural col- leges will find in this graduate professional year at least an opportunity, if not an incentive, to give professional prep- aration to prospective agricultural school teachers, especially those who are to undertake the teaching of practical agri- culture. These agricultural colleges, though offering osten- sibly vocational education, are still tied to the chariot wheels of the B.S. degree which can in no true sense be a profes- sional degree, and which must always seriously deflect the aims of professional education.

Doubtless education for the agricultural vocations will be so specialized in large schools as to permit of a moderate proportion of places for technically equipped specialists who may nevertheless have only a bowing acquaintance with the practice of agriculture. But in general, it is to be ex- pected that eventually all persons teaching agriculture towards vocational ends will have had some experience in the practice of that calling.

It is probable that the study of general agriculture, or special phases, such as home-gardening, practical nature study, etc., will have a growing place in schemes of general or liberal education, especially for children from ten to sixteen years of age. Work of this character will not be

The Training of Teachers for Vocational Schools 359

regarded as vocational, and will not require teachers hav- ing practical knowledge of agriculture.

Commercial School Teachers Few agencies now exist

which have as their object the training of commercial school teachers. Commercial schools and departments have only rarely defined their objectives at all in terms of vocational efficiency, hence they have not created a demand for teachers demonstrably able to meet the practical requirements of a commercial vocation. They make use of several kinds of specialists — one who " knows " a system of stenography, one who can teach typewriting, and others who can teach the academic subjects such as commercial geography, Eng- lish, law, and mathematics (these rarely deserve to be called the " related technical " subjects, in view of the " academic " methods employed in teaching them).

Usually the teachers of the technical subjects, — type- writing, stenography, bookkeeping, business methods, etc. — are taken from approved graduates of public or private commercial schools. In not a few instances, persons with training for, and, possibly, experience in, regular school positions take some commercial work and thus qualify as teachers of commercial subjects.

Many universities are now establishing business or com- mercial departments, but there is no evidence that these will seriously undertake the training of teachers for commercial schools.

Some years ago, the Massachusetts State Normal School at Salem established a special department for the training of commercial teachers. At first the course was two years in length; in 1912, it was lengthened to three years; and in 1914, a fourth year was added, to be given exclusively to field work as described below.

In general, the Salem department does not train specialist teachers within the field of commercial teaching, — that is, teachers of stenography as distinct from teachers of book-

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keeping, and other specialties. Theoretically, each gradu- ate is expected to be able to teach any and all commercial subjects that might be required in the business department of a small high school. Necessarily, the equipment of these graduates cannot be very complete at any point, especially as they must have taken small portions of numerous studies, technical and pedagogical. Necessarily too, they are quite lacking in the vocational viewpoint or the capacity to trace the results of the subjects they teach in their practical func- tioning. To them, " bookkeeping " is chiefly a set of " principles," not an extremely variable form of practical achievement in the world of business affairs. Hence the subject as taught actually functions in practice only as the study of trigonometry as taught in school or college func- tions in civil engineering. Typewriting and stenography are learned more as specific arts, but even here it is difficult to approximate the requirements of the business world.

Many of the graduates of the Salem school have attained success as teachers in high schools having commercial de- partments, notwithstanding the comparatively general and necessarily incomplete character of the training they have received. This success has in part been due to the fact that the high school departments in which they have been em- ployed have been, in reality, only quasi-vocational. In many cases the principals of these schools have been more con- cerned to make their so-called commercial departments serv- iceable means of general education (sometimes for an in- ferior class of students), than to insure their functioning as agencies of definite vocational training for commercial occupations presenting known requirements.

In 1914, the Board of Education added a fourth year to the Salem training course; but without increasing the actual amount of school work required. It was planned that each student, after two years' attendance in the training school, should obtain wage-earning employment in offices

The Training of Teachers for Vocational Schools 361

or stores for the third year, and return to complete the course in the fourth year. It was desired that the year of wage- earning employment should, as far as practicable, be divided in equal parts among the following four commercial occupa- tions: salesmanship; bookkeeping; general office work (cler- ical) ; and stenography and typewriting. In practice, of course, this ideal scheme, owing to the exigencies of obtain- ing employment, could not always be carried fully into exe- cution.

Nevertheless, even under most unfavorable conditions, there is every reason to expect that the year of practical work required will give the prospective commercial teacher a valuable body of experience with some of the concrete real- ities of the commercial occupations, as a result of which she will surely teach with greater vocational purposiveness.

There are, as yet, almost no institutions undertaking to place the training of teachers for the vocational commercial education of its various possible kinds on a higher basis in the United States. No very strong demands seem as yet to exist for such an institution; possibly such demands will not be made until the true character of vocational education shall have been more adequately defined than at present. In large part, commercial education in America seems to be in a state of arrested development, halting at a kind of midway technical stage between "general " and " integral " or basic vocational education.

Industrial School Teachers. — The training of teachers for industrial schools presents many novel problems. In the first place, there are in existence no institutions seriously undertaking such training at present. In the second place, the industrial occupations have become indefinitely subdi- vided until, in any large community, they literally number many hundreds. In the third place, many of the recently developed industrial trades or specialties or specialized jobs, as they may be called, seem on the surface to demand no

362 Vocational Education

special training in their workers. Nevertheless, it is now clearly apparent that for the sake of the workers themselves as well as for the sake of the industries and the economic prosperity of the country dependent upon them, industrial education of many types must soon be developed under public auspices. It is highly probable that within a short time the Smith-Hughes Act with its national grants will act as a gigantic stimulus to the prorrlotion of industrial educa- tion in all industrial states.

For the purposes of discussion here, every industrial spe- cialty for which wages is paid will be called a trade, no mat- ter how far its subdivision may have been carried. Further- more, the three fundamental aspects of vocational training; namely, (a) that having to do with the attainment of prac- tical skill, (b) that having to do with acquiring related tech- nical knowledge, and (c} that having to do with acquir- ing general knowledge related to the vocation, will be here respectively called (a) trade practice, (b) trade technology, and (c) trade sociology.

In a complete program of industrial education for any one occupation, there would be included under (a) (trade prac- tice) all that training based on practice in productive work, such training to involve rigid tests of capacity to produce quantity of output as well as quality of output, as a final con- dition of approval.

Under (b) (trade technology) will be included all that systematic instruction in related sciences, arts, mathematics, and special technique and " tricks of the trade," which go to make up technical proficiency.

Under (c) (trade sociology) will be included all that in- struction in the history of the occupation, its economic and social significance in the world at the present time, the legal rights and obligations of its workers, principles of sanita- tion and hygiene as applied in the industry, and many other facts of a sociological nature.

The Training of Teachers for Vocational Schools 363

A fundamental assumption regarding industrial education for trade pursuits which may differentiate that education in greater or less degree from other forms of vocational educa- tion is to the effect that trade technology and trade sociol- ogy cannot advantageously be taught in advance of trade practice. In the professions, and, doubtfully, in agriculture, homemaking, and some commercial fields, it seems to be possible in a degree to teach occupational technology and occupational sociology to some advantage in advance of the teaching of the earlier stages of occupational practice. All experience is convincing on the point that this is not practicable or desirable in industrial education.

Furthermore, it is probable that in the majority of cases, trade technology and trade sociology cannot advantageously be taught at a considerable interval subsequent to the ac- quisition of the results of trade practice. Hence, the gen- eral assumption that effective industrial education involves the adoption of means whereby trade practice, trade tech- nology, and trade sociology shall be taught in some manner that is substantially pari passu, or in intimate correlation. Probably, some means whereby the acquisition of a moderate amount of the skill resulting from trade practice shall be followed by a substantially equal period devoted to building on this basis related trade technology and trade sociology will prove most effective.

The first assumption to be made relative to the training of teachers for industrial schools is that no one can be a suc- cessful teacher of trade practice who is not himself capable of entering the trade itself as a fully equipped journeyman. Furthermore, it is assumed that no one can be a suc- cessful teacher of trade technology who has not had sub- stantial experience, although not necessarily the amount required of a journeyman, in the practice of the trade itself. Finally, it is assumed that the only safe teacher of the trade sociology appropriate to any particular industrial calling is

364 Vocational Education

one who in a variety of ways has had some actual experience in that calling itself. The further assumption may safely be made that a teacher of trade practice will not ordinarily need to have the equivalent of a general high school educa- tion, although, of course, the possession of such a general education would be of undoubted advantage to him. The following may then be regarded as some of the distinctive problems involved in the training of industrial school teach- ers. ( 1 ) From what sources shall the student body be de- rived? (2) How shall trade practice training be pro- vided? (3) How shall training in trade technology and trade sociology be provided? (4) How shall training in methods of teaching and school administration be provided ? (5) How shall students be supported during their train- ing ? (6) What teaching force must be provided ?

1. At present, persons seeking to teach in industrial schools are taken chiefly from the trades themselves, and are given by one means or another a meager training in trade technology, trade sociology, and methods of training. An- other small source of supply has been the manual training school from which a few men of practical capacity have been recruited. These methods of securing industrial school teachers are precarious for a number of reasons, which do not require discussion here.

Provided sufficient facilities for a complete training could be made available, undoubtedly the first sources of students for prospective teachers could be found by taking young men and women who possessed the equivalent of a good ele- mentary education, and perhaps of a two years' high school education, and subjecting them to such training that after a period of from four to six years, they would have acquired the equivalent of the practical skill of journeymen in their respective occupations and would also in the meantime have acquired considerable proficiency in methods of teaching and other necessary subjects. In time, it might be expected

The Training of Teachers for Vocational Schools 365

that trade or industrial schools would supply some excellent material for training schools of this character.

2. Assuming the existence of a body of young students not yet having had experience in trades, but who are desirous of becoming trade teachers, how shall they be given practical experience substantially equivalent to that expected of the journeyman in the trade ? The maintenance by a training in- stitution of productive shops sufficient for this purpose would be difficult and expensive, and it would be especially hard to insure that these shops would reproduce faithfully the condi- tions of production in the commercial world. Undoubtedly, best results would be secured by a cooperative working ar- rangement with industries whereby the novices could be assured of sufficient opportunity on a part-time basis to cover all the stages of apprenticeship in the industry under actual commercial conditions. It might prove advisable for the training institution to give a few months of introductory shop practice as a means of insuring that the novice who was seeking a place in the industries could come to his first wage- earning, or at any rate, responsible work, with some slight preparation. This scheme of training for any particular trade would probably involve special arrangements for part- time participation. Under some circumstances, the novice might give one wreek to productive work and an alternate week period to the study of his theoretical subjects in the training institution. Perhaps for many industries an ar- rangement involving alternate periods of one month, three months, or a half-year might prove more advantageous. In every case, the training institution should provide that for any particular job in the commercial world, a pair of stu- dents should be available so that continuity of service to the employer could be assured.

3 and 4. Training in trade technology and trade sociol- ogy, as well as in methods of teaching and other related pedagogical subjects, manifestly cannot be given in the in-

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dustry itself. These subjects should be provided for by the training institution, in every case under the guidance of spe- cialists in the trade itself. In the last stages of the training of the prospective teacher, some facilities for practice teach- ing, perhaps in the capacity of an assistant in existing voca- tional schools, should be made available.

5. There are special reasons why prospective industrial teachers should have the question of their support during the period of training carefully considered. As a rule, these teachers will come from the families of artisans and others who can hardly be expected to provide for their sup- port during the prolonged period of training. After the first year of the course of training outlined above, it should prove easily possible for the learner to earn enough through his part-time participation in industry to meet his immediate necessary expenses. The lowest sum now usually paid to quite young part-time workers in trade work is 10 cts. an hour (all figures are based upon 1914 prices). For the more mature student under consideration here, this could undoubtedly be increased to 15 cts. or 20 cts. an hour in many trades, which, on the condition of half-time partici- pation in wage-earning work, would suffice to meet, in large part, expenses for living, that is, from $180 to $240 per year.

6. Particular attention would be required in the matter of providing a suitable teaching force for a school of the character here contemplated. The training institution it- self would necessarily have to contain a few specialists in trade technology, trade sociology, and methods of teaching. Quite probably, in time, one person could be found who could equip himself to give the trade technology and the trade sociology of from three to half a dozen distinct trades, especially those in related fields, such as the building trades or the textile trades or the transportation trades.

One of the most important officers of instruction would

The Training of Teachers for Vocational Schools 367

have to be the person who would supervise the progress of students in their shop work. This man corresponds to the coordinator now found under Dr. Schneider's arrangement in Cincinnati University. It is understood, of course, that the student working in a commercial establishment is under the immediate direction of the foreman, as is every other workman, and that at any given time the foreman and the learner are both concerned primarily with production. In the shifting of the worker from one job to another, however, the recommendation of the coordinator must play a large part, and it is to the coordinator that the student must look for an interpretation and analysis of his experience as well as for many suggestions looking to its improvement. In many cases, doubtless, the coordinator could give the trade tech- nology and trade sociology required for a particular field of trade training.

The following are certain concrete proposals based upon the foregoing:

Let it be assumed that there have been established in various parts of the country, industrial schools for the training of plumbers. These schools are in search of teach- ers for whom the prevailing salary is from $1400 to $1800. An industrial normal college undertakes to train these work- ers. The following are the plans that might be followed :

Plan A. The industrial normal college advertises eve- ning pedagogical courses for journeyman plumbers, these courses being designed to give so much pedagogy and also so much of the trade technology and the trade sociology of plumbing as may be necessary to provide proper equipment for teachers of plumbing. If the supply of properly qualified journeyman plumbers were sufficient for such a comparatively inexpensive means of training teachers, this plan might suffice to meet existing demands.

Plan B. The industrial normal college might advertise courses wherein young men possessing the equivalent of a

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high school education could receive two or more years' train- ing in the technology of plumbing, the sociology of that trade, and some training in methods of teaching. The graduate from these technical courses would then be ex- pected to serve at least a two years' apprenticeship as a plumber, after which he would be approved as a teacher in an industrial school for plumbers.

Plan C. The college might advertise courses of from four to six years in length wherein young men of from six- teen to twenty years of age, possessing the equivalent of a two years' high school education, might be trained on a part-time basis (part time in industry and part time in school ) , to become teachers of plumbing. After the first half year, on the basis of present practice, it might be assumed that these young men as assistants in plumbing would be paid from 10 cts. to 20 cts. per hour, for the services, thus earning from $120 to $240 per year, on a half-time basis. The technical courses in the institution would be closely re- lated to the practice being followed in the field. During the last years of a four or six years course, a part-time expe- rience as assistant teacher in an industrial school could be substituted for participation in the industry itself.

CHAPTER XII

SPECIAL PROBLEMS OF VOCATIONAL EDUCATION

Vocational education in schools is of comparatively mod- ern development especially in other than professional fields. Hence, administrators still encounter a large number of un- solved problems. Furthermore, all education is still in pre- scientific stages of development; and in proportion as efforts are made to reach scientific stages, new problems are re- vealed in the fields of liberal or general education, which also affect vocational education. The object of this sec- tion is chiefly to attempt to analyze and to give definite statement to some of these problems.

Every attempt looking to clearer analysis and definition of the problems of vocational education will hasten the day of experimental and other systematic attempts at their solu- tion. This process of analysis and definition should be steadfastly opposed to the thinking in terms of " omnibus " generalizations that is so commonly characteristic of ad- dresses and published articles dealing with the purposes and methods of vocational education. Definition, systematic or- ganization or experience, experiment, measurement of re- sults — these are some of the means by which education may be expected gradually to take its place among the depart- ments of applied science.

In some instances these problems have been outlined in previous chapters, but they are restated briefly here for the sake of encouraging special study. SB 369

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I. THE RELATION OF GENERAL OR LIBERAL, TO VOCATIONAL EDUCATION

Problem 1. To what extent do studies designed for lib- eral education " function " * as to their content in various fields of vocational training?

For example, do Latin, ancient history, and algebra " function " at all in the training of the physician for his vocation ? Do mechanical drawing and science " function " in the making of the bookkeeper? Do the studies of music and graphic art make any recognizable contribution toward the efficiency, on the vocational side, of the machinist, the farmer, or the cook? Are there cases where study of graphic art contributes to the productive powers of dress- makers— of high grade, average grade and low grade? Under what circumstances, if any, do mathematical studies contribute to the proficiency of farmers or carpenters ? Or studies of chemistry and physics to homemaking?

Problem 2. To what extent and in what way do studies in general or liberal education so " function " in mental train- ing as indirectly to make important contributions toward vocational efficiency?

For example, does the study of mathematics contribute specifically to the development of the mental powers, in kind or degree, requisite in the lawyer, the dentist, the music teacher, or the homemaker? Do the interests and types of appreciation developed in the study of literature " function " at all as valuable mental qualities in the training of the en- J gineer, the house carpenter, or the clerk?

Problem 3. To what extent and under what conditions do various special types of vocational education so " func- tion " as to result in the knowledge, appreciation, and ideals that are important in liberal education?

JThe word "function" is used here in the sense that means and methods as adopted lead to results as intended. Studies, as well as methods of instruction, are means to ends ; they " function " when the ends are realized as intended.

Special Problems of Vocational Education 371

For example, in the case of a student who has studied little or no science, what will the vocational study of agri- culture contribute as a by-product to his general insight into the applications of science ? In what way will the study of teaching as a profession supplement deficiences in liberal education? Will an effective program of vocational train- ing for the house painter contribute materially to his general intellectual and esthetic development ?

Problem 4. To what extent and under what conditions will systematic vocational education contribute, as regards mental training, to the ends that are valuable in general education ?

In what ways, for example, does the close application to practice and theory required in the training of a printer develop such so-called general intellectual powers as atten- tion, concentration, order? Or how do the concentration and close thinking required on the part of a boy studying farming practically and theoretically result in the develop- ment of corresponding general mental powers? To what extent do the strong interests frequently evoked by voca- tional studies call into activity mental powers left inactive in general education ?

Problem 5. To what extent is it expedient and desirable that the beginnings of systematic vocational education shall be postponed until after a definite degree of general or liberal education has been attained?

For example, if we assume that pupils are required to attend school until 14 years of age, is it expedient or de- sirable that from 12 to 14 a program consisting in part of vocational, and in part of liberal, education shall be made available? Is it practicable or desirable, in the case of youths from 14 to 16 who are to enter industrial callings at 16 years of age, to offer combined programs of liberal and vocational education prior to that age?

Problem 6. In case it seems desirable to divide the pupil's

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time at any given stage between vocational and liberal edu- cation, how shall the division be made?

For example, shall studies be alternated by hours, as in an ordinary commercial high school; that is, one period, perhaps, being given to algebra, another to stenographic practice ? Or shall the day be so divided that one half may be effectively given to concentration on vocational pursuits and the other half to general education? Or is a division on the basis of longer periods desirable; for example, one week being given to liberal education, another to vocational ; or six months to liberal and six months to vocational educa- tion? Is a third program preferable, whereby the central part of each working day shall be given either to vocational or to liberal education, as the case may be, with the marginal part to the other type? For example, pupils might work from 8 to 3 o'clock on general studies (or vocational stud- ies), and from 3 to 6 on vocational studies (or liberal stud- ies). In practical life, it will be remembered, men usually pursue their vocations during the greater part of each work- ing day, reserving evenings, holidays, etc., for recreational and cultural purposes.

II. PROBLEMS OF SO-CALLED GENERAL VOCATIONAL EDUCATION

It is contended that certain studies or practices serve as a basis for general vocational education ; that is, presumably, give fundamental elements needed in many callings.

Problem 1. To what extent are any of the studies usually found in a program of general education (excepting reading and writing) vocationally fundamental to a number of call- ings?

For example, it was formerly asserted that the study of Latin was vocationally fundamental to the subsequent study, for professional purposes, of law, medicine, theology, edu-

Special Problems of Vocational Education 373

cation, and botany. It has long been thought that the study of mathematics is vocationally fundamental, not only to the engineering professions, but also to law, medicine, and almost all other advanced pursuits. It is a widespread be- lief that mechanical drawing is fundamental, in a vocational sense, to industrial, agricultural, and perhaps even commer- cial pursuits. Again, there survives a belief that a pro- gram of vocational education might be devised which would train the so-called handy or all-round practical worker.

Problem 2. Does modern society present a general de- mand for the person who, while not exceptionally proficient in any calling, is ready and practical in many ; for example, the man " handy" with tools, the "all-round" clerk, etc.? Are there demands for ready men of this type in village or rural communities? In large factories? On shipboard? In regimental camps? In large buildings?

Problem 3. What courses of practical instruction will train the " handy " man, as he is in demand, for example, in farming communities? In which and how many of the following lines should he be reasonably adept — electric in- stallation, tractor repair, well boring, animal surgery, house painting, concrete laying, horseshoeing, chimney building, water pipe laying?

III. PROBLEMS OF THE TRANSFER OF RESULTS OF VOCATIONAL EDUCATION

Problem 1. To what extent and under what conditions do the results in skill, knowledge, appreciation, and ideals (or of practical experience in general) in one occupational field constitute an asset for entrance into another ?

Problem 2. To what extent can the results in skill, knowledge, appreciation, and ideals (or of practical experi- ence in general) obtained in one occupational field be uti- lized as a basis for systematic training toward another occu- pational field?

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The following are examples of these problems : ( 1 ) To what extent does expertness in running constitute an asset in learning to swim ? (2) To what extent can a thorough- going education in the practice of medicine be utilized when the doctor wishes to become a farmer? (3) How far can professional competency as a bookkeeper be regarded as an asset when the bookkeeper wishes to become a machinist? (4) If a man has been well trained as a machinist, to what extent can such training be drawn upon in equipping him to be a house carpenter? (5) A farmer's son " picks up " a great variety of vocational experience; to what extent does this constitute an asset when he wishes to become a physi- cian, a locomotive engineer, a manager of an industrial en- terprise ?

(a) It is obvious that these problems are capable of be- ing scientifically investigated as soon as psychology possesses the necessary tools. There exist now a large variety of pop- ular beliefs or prejudices on the subject. For example :

( 1 ) Some vocational school authorities believe that boys aged 16 or more, who wish to learn a trade, succeed much better if from 14 to 16 they have had a miscellaneous indus- trial experience as job workers in various unskilled or ju- venile occupations. But effect of selection is obvious here, and is probably deceptive. Only boys of exceptional char- acter, probably, seek admission to industrial schools after such a period of miscellaneous experience.

(2) There is a widespread belief that the varied and often intensive experience obtained in farm life constitutes a valuable basis for almost any kind of subsequent employment.

(3) It is also believed in some quarters that persons who have for several years habituated themselves to a special line of manufacturing or commercial employment (for example, bookkeeping, shoemaking, draftsmanship, weaving) are permanently disqualified in large measure from taking up employment in other fields. •

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(&) Even superficial analysis will show that these prob- lems must be approached with reference to particular types of qualities involved. For example, few people would assert that skill obtained in playing baseball can be directly utilized in learning to swim. On the other hand, results of physical development, such as lung power, strength of arm muscles, etc., obtained in baseball may constitute valuable assets in learning to swim. Again, the life of the farmer's son may give little direct preparation in skill or knowledge for the work of a physician, but, on the other hand, a general atti- tude toward work, a disposition to finish jobs once under- taken, an appreciation of the value of money or recogni- tion resulting from successful work, may in large measure be transferred.

(c) Much will depend, naturally, upon the relation- ship of the various occupations involved, according as these deal with similar working conditions, similar tools, identical materials, etc. One would expect a drill press operator to bring to the work of the planer a variety of important as- sets, while one would not expect the bookkeeper to bring to house carpentry at least similar assets.

(d) It must be recognized that prolonged practice in any occupation may, in an important degree, disqualify the per- son for pursuit of another not related to it. The man who has followed farming for several years is in many respects disqualified to become a counter salesman of dry goods; the actor disqualified to become a farmer; the machinist to become a bookkeeper, etc.

(e) The question is an important one for several reasons. In the first place, there are many occupations which cannot be entered upon in youth — for example, that of locomotive engineer. The locomotive engineer must have served in some other calling for several years, for which, presumably, he could have systematic training. Will his previous ex- perience as stationary engineer or as fireman constitute, in

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the long run, a sufficient preparation for his work as loco- motive engineer? Again, systematic vocational education in schools for some occupations is easily possible ; for others, extremely difficult. If a transfer can be easily effected, then we might train a person to be first a house carpenter or a farmer, even though we knew that eventually he would fol- low the sea as a sailor or work underground as a coal miner.

IV. THE PROBLEMS OF PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION

The problems of professional education are in the main remote from the purpose of this book. But one of general interest is that relating to the extent to which a program of professional training should base the so-called technical studies upon foundations of practical experience.

Problem 1 . To what extent does effective vocational edu- cation for any profession require that the present order of studies, which involves the giving of technical instruction in advance of practical experience, should be modified, or even reversed in order that a certain amount of practical experi- ence shall be taken perhaps at the outset and at intervals in the course of professional training?

For example, in the training of teachers it would be prac- ticable, if desirable, to have a certain amount of^practice teaching done at the very start as a basis for the subsequent study of methods, theory, etc. An engineering student might at the outset be given practical employment in some- thing of an apprentice capacity along practical lines. A prospective physician might serve as a hospital orderly, nurse, etc., before completing his training.

Problem 2. To what extent shall training for professions which are not as yet clearly differentiated presuppose, as a basis, a complete professional training along the lines of pro- fessional training already established ?

In agriculture, for example, professional fields of " ad-

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ministration of agricultural plants," " rural engineer/' " ru- ral journalist," etc., seem to be in process of differentiation. In medicine, there is a demand for specialists in such fields as optometry, school physician, etc. In the commercial occupations, certain fields of expert inquiry, statistical work, and salesmanship seem to be assuming the proportions and standards of professions. In industry, we have as yet sys- tematic training for the positions of foreman, overseer, and the like, only in very few fields.

(a) At present it is often assumed that before one may take up professional training in these undifferentiated or " nascent " professions, it is necessary that he should have a complete professional training along some established line. This process, however, is costly, and it is a question whether the resources of the community or of the individual trained are always equal to it. The question of necessity must also be considered. For example, the school nurse and school physician represent distinct demands to-day in special- ized fields for which it is doubtful if the historic training of the nurse and of the physician are at all necessary prerequi- sites. The professions of rural engineer and of rural jour- nalist may, on the other hand, be of such a nature as to re- quire not so much a large amount of technical training in agriculture, as maturity and a wide range of experience be- fore they are taken up.

(b) In many instances, indeed, the problem involved is one of maturity and experience rather than the purely tech- nical training of the person embarking in such work. Most directive or managerial positions require as primary essen- tials, maturity and experience. It is quite probable that in some of these professional lines the ultimate solution will be that the person will take a definite amount of practical training for the historic occupation itself, and will then en- ter upon some field of practice with a view of returning, later, for advanced study toward managerial or other related

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work. It has been proposed, for example, that a school for the preparation of superintendents and principals of schools should presuppose perhaps five years of experience as teacher before systematic study for the administrative work is begun.

V. PROBLEMS OF INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION

Because of the highly differentiated character of the trades and industries a series of problems arise in industrial education which have not yet appeared in other fields.

Problem 1. To what extent and under what conditions shall training be given for highly specialized occupations in manufacturing and other related callings where so-called " unskilled " or specialized service is in large demand?

For example, in the manufacture of cotton and woolen cloth, the number of specialized occupations is now nearly one hundred. Some of these seem to require little or no special training, and may be adequately supplied by the labor of children or women. In shoemaking it is said that the number of specialized operations for each of which individ- ual workers are employed now reaches several hundred and is steadily increasing. Similar tendencies toward differen- tiation and specialization of occupation are found in food- packing, iron and steel working, small hardware and jewelry manufacturing, printing and publishing, the building trades, transportation, and even certain phases of agriculture, such as sugar production, wheat growing, etc. The building up of department stores, large jobbing houses, and the like in commerce increases, also in a large degree, specialization in salesmanship and clerical service.

(a) There is no evidence that the tendency toward ex- treme differentiation and specialization in occupational fields will be stayed. In proportion as economic units of produc- tion and exchange enlarge, supervision becomes more efH-

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cient, and mechanical devices are invented and improved, so, it would appear, in almost all occupational fields special- ization and the relatively large employment of unskilled serv- ice seem to increase. The persistency of this tendency will depend upon the economic advantages resulting from such specialization.

(b) On the other hand, from the standpoint of the in- dividual worker, serious questions, as yet very slightly in- vestigated, arise as to the psychological, moral, and physical effects of extremely specialized occupation. A large part of personal growth in character, physical powers, and prob- ably also in mental capacity has always been dependent upon the occupation followed. Early specialization may con- ceivably result in partial or complete arrest of development in these lines.

It is probable, however, that specialization of occupation for one whose physical, growth has been completed is much less dangerous than for one still plastic. Hence, while ex- treme specialization for a worker at 15 years of age may give bad results, the same may be not at all true if the occu- pation is entered upon at the age of 22 or 23. This repre- sents a promising field for further inquiry and investiga- tion.

(c) In the meantime there are good grounds for urging that all persons be given an opportunity for systematic voca- tional education, either in some trade requiring various oper- ations, or over a series of the special operations found in a highly specialized manufacturing or other economic pro- cess.

Problem 2. To what extent and under what conditions can training for f oremanship be organized and conducted ?

In almost all fields of organized industry the post of fore- man, overseer, or other special director of groups of workers is clearly recognized. Such posts commonly require (1) the degree of expert knowledge of the occupation which a

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skilled worker is supposed to possess; and also (2) qualities not easily described, but related to leadership, capacity to direct workers, knowledge of human nature, organizing abil- ity, etc.

(a) Foremen must combine, of necessity, native ability with high degree of training; hence almost invariably these must be selected men who have had considerable experience.

(b) Experience does not suggest that industrial schools can train foremen, as such, economically. Young people from 14 to 20 years of age can hardly be selected with refer- ence to their native ability to serve as foremen. Hence, training in the special lines of knowledge required for fore- manship would be largely wasted. On the other hand, when skilled workmen are selected after several years of experience for positions of foremanship they often find themselves handicapped for lack of the technical knowledge which fore- men should have.

(c) Probably the need should be met by (1) a syste- matic course, offered to all alike, toward the occupational pur- suit itself, followed by (2) opportunities at evening schools and short courses for workers who have had a few years' experience in the industry, further to qualify themselves if they desire.

Problem 3. To what extent shall prolonged courses of industrial training be offered to girls in industrial and other occupational fields, who, in the main, will spend but from four to seven years in the occupation, after which they will take up homemaking?

The Census of the United States shows that at the present time there are employed in this country a very considerable number of girls from 14 to 20 years of age. It is well known that the large majority, probably at least 90 per cent of these in the wage-earning callings, will take up homemak- ing as a career between the ages of 20 and 27. The prob- lem of the industrial training of these, therefore, involves,

Special Problems of Vocational Education 381

on the one hand, comparatively short courses of training, and, on the other, courses which will produce the maximum degree of efficiency in early stages.

Problem 4. Are there callings in industrial fields inter- mediate between those of a strictly professional nature, such as engineering, and those of a strictly trade nature, for which a large degree of technical instruction, as distin- guished from practical training, is desirable?

It is sometimes alleged that there are such technical fields, for which, for example, the technical training offered in some of our high schools might be suited. Draftsmanship is sometimes alleged as an example, while in other fields such occupations as assaying, computing, and the like, may serve as examples. No sufficient analysis of these possi- bilities has yet been made.

Problem 5. What, at any given stage of vocational train- ing for the industrial occupations, should be the proportion of time and energy of the pupil given, respectively, to tech- nical instruction and to practical training?

Extreme and opposed examples of the problem under con- sideration are the following: (1) In the making of the machinist, a boy beginning at the age of 14 might devote his first two years very largely to such technical studies as draw- ing, mathematics, mechanics and shop exercises, together with shopwork and shop English, and on the other hand give a minimum amount of attention to productive shopwork of a thoroughly practical nature. Between his sixteenth and eighteenth years the proportion of time given to his shop- work might be very greatly increased, with a diminution of the amount of attention given to technical work.

(2) On the other hand, a program of training could be devised by which during the first year he might give from 60 to 80 per cent of his time to productive shopwork, with rela- tively only a small amount of technical instruction related to it. In his later years the proportion of time given to shop-

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work might be diminished, and the proportion of time given to technical instruction might be greatly increased.

The problem involved is not one merely for a given in- dividual, but one which shall meet the requirements of the large proportion of individuals as these present themselves for training. The first program might be the better for the person, if he could be found, who possesses inherent quali- fications for foremanship; but it might prove exceedingly wasteful for that large majority of prospective workers in iron and steel who have little capacity for abstract thinking. The second program might prove much the better for the so- called " concrete-minded " people, and might also prove more effective for those who were capable of surviving four or more years of training as given.

VI. PROBLEMS OF COMMERCIAL EDUCATION

The chief problems found in commercial education at the present time, apart from those involving its relationship to general education, are found in connection with the unan- alyzed character of the occupations, from the standpoint of programs of commercial training.

Problem 1. To what extent should commercial occupa- tions other than those of (a) accountancy and bookkeeping, (b) stenography and typewriting, be differentiated for the purpose of vocational education?

Statistics show clearly that in the commercial world ap- proximately 80 per cent of the workers are found in fields of salesmanship, etc., as against 20 per cent in the specialized fields of accountancy, and stenography and typewriting. For the former occupations, however, little or no systematic vocational education is yet offered, in the main because re- quirements of these occupations that might be met by school vocational training have not been defined.

Special Problems of Vocational Education 383

VII. PROBLEMS OF HOMEMAKING EDUCATION

The two chief problems connected with homemaking edu- cation at the present time are (a) those connected with the more effective coordination of that education with the home activities of the pupils and (b) those connected with the age at which it is efficiently practicable to begin systematic vocational homemaking education.

Problem 1. To what extent and under what conditions in a program of systematic vocational homemaking educa- tion can cooperation with the home be secured, and the equip- ment and facilities of the home be utilized for purposes of practical training?

(a) Every girl seeking a homemaking education must either live at home, in school dormitory, or under other conditions involving close contact with the various opera- tions for which she is being trained. An efficient program of vocational homemaking education will involve the exten- sive use of the facilities thus offered.

(b) The problem presents different aspects, according as the vocational day school or the vocational evening school is under consideration. The principle is the same in both cases, however.

Problem 2. At what age is efficient homemaking educa- tion most practicable?

It is quite probable that there must be differentiation of groups for homemaking education, according to age as af- fected by the occupations followed. For example, it may be doubted whether girls who from 14 to 21 years of age will be wage-earners in occupations not related to the home, and who will be either living at home as boarders or in boarding houses, can efficiently respond to vocational home- making education until somewhat late in their wage-earning careers. Again, when conditions of caste shall have been so changed that home employment on a wage basis shall be

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attractive, systematic vocational education for this might well be begun at 14 or 15 years of age. In the case of girls not contemplating wage-earning careers, but who design to remain at home, systematic vocational education might well take place during the high school period.

VIII. PROBLEMS OF AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION

Some examples now exist of successful programs of agri- cultural vocational education wherein the home farm is successfully combined with the school for instruction and for the direction of practical work. The two problems at present most pressing are ( 1 ) the provision of opportunities for practical training for city boys, and (2) the problem of combining secondary vocational agricultural education with preparation for higher institutions for the study of agriculture.

Problem 1. Under what conditions can boys living under urban conditions be provided with facilities for that portion of vocational agricultural education connected with practical work?

Experiments are being made in the direction of renting vacant land adjacent to cities for this purpose and putting boys in charge of their work on a project basis.

Problem 2. To what extent is it practicable for boys in the course of receiving a vocational agricultural education properly to qualify themselves for an agricultural college?

Obviously the requirements of an efficient vocational agri- cultural education are defined by the conditions of success- ful farming. It is not yet clear as to what should consti- tute the minimum requirements for admission to the agri- cultural college. Probably the college should distinguish in its work between degree work and courses of agriculture of a practical nature.

Special Problems of Vocational Education 385

IX. PROBLEMS OF THE ADMINISTRATION OF VOCATIONAL EDUCATION

The effectiveness of any form of vocational education de- pends largely upon the degree to which those directing it comprehend and respond to the practical requirements of the occupations for which training is being given. There arise, therefore, (a) problems as to obtaining teachers who have had experience in the occupation for which training is being given; (6) problems of keeping these teachers in intimate contact with the practical requirements of these occupations; (c) problems of maintaining or providing in connection with the executive authority in charge of the schools, specialists in vocational education; and (d) problems of providing, either in the legislative authority in charge of the schools or in an advisory relationship, representatives of the fields for which training is being given.

Problem 1. To what extent and under what conditions can teachers in vocational departments be equipped with practical experience obtained through actual participation in the callings for which they are giving education ?

(a) Experience seems to prove that effective vocational education can only be given by persons who have had suffi- cient experience in a practical capacity, in a particular oc- cupation, to enable them to succeed on a commercial basis.

For example, where normal schools undertake to train teachers for successful teaching (and not merely to teach prospective teachers certain subjects of study) experience seems to show that such teachers must themselves have been successful in the field of practical work. In medical col- leges it is rare to find successful teachers who have not been commercially successful in practice. The best engineering teachers are those who have served some years at commer- cial work. In such trades as plumbing, pattern making, and others it is now agreed that a successful teacher must him-

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self have reached a stage where he could readily procure profitable employment. The situation is not clear as regards commercial and agricultural teachers, but doubtless the same principles apply in these fields, as well as in homemaking.

(b) Granting the necessity of a considerable amount of practical experience on the part of teachers, the following are methods by which it could be obtained in conjunction with suitable training in the art of teaching: Vocational schools might take as teachers only persons who have al- ready demonstrated their capacity in the world of practical effort, giving them in greater or less degree, just prior to their entrance on teaching, such training in the art of teach- ing as is practicable.

This method has been followed in the past by medical col- leges, theological schools, and to some extent, engineering colleges and law schools. It is now followed by trade schools, and to a small extent, by schools of agriculture.

(c) A person seeking to become a teacher in a vocational field might take pedagogical courses, followed by a certain amount of practical experience as a prerequisite before tak- ing up teaching. This is the prevailing method in normal schools and in some engineering schools.

(d) A course of training might be devised whereby the prospective teacher would first take a course in a school looking toward teaching, followed by one or more years of practical participation in commercial work, this to be suc- ceeded by a definite period of study of the art of teaching, preliminary to taking a teaching position. This method is being proposed as a basis for the training of teachers of commercial subjects, etc.

Problem 2. To what extent and by what means shall teachers in vocational schools be required to keep in close contact with the occupational fields for which they are giv- ing training?

Jt is probable that in fields like industry and agriculture

Special Problems of Vocational Education 387

and others where changes are taking place efficiency can be produced only by strongly requiring that teachers shall not only observe but actually participate, on a commercial basis, from time to time in the work in fields in which they are giving training. The most available means to this end would be periods of leave given from the school, during which teachers should participate in such work. This prac- tice is now found in some engineering fields.

Problem 3. To what extent and by what means shall specialized direction be provided in the executive adminis- tration of vocational education?

(a) The problem is one affecting (1) the headship of a department; (2) the directorship of a vocational school; (3) the general supervision of vocational education in an administrative unit, such as town or city; and (4) the ad- ministrative supervision of vocational education on behalf of the state, or other large unit of administration.

(b) It is assumed that the headship of a department must be in the hands of one who is a specialist himself in the oc- cupation for which training is being given.

(c) The directorship of a large vocational school having several departments will probably not be in the hands of a specialist in any one department, but rather in the hands of one who is a pedagogical expert in many lines and a good administrator. Eventually, such a position will probably be filled by promotion from headships of departments, such selection being made on the basis of natural ability for an administrative position.

(d) There are good grounds for believing that in each city, or other administrative unit having many vocational schools, there should be an assistant superintendent special- izing in the field of vocational education, including there- under industrial, commercial, homemaking, and agricultural work offered, but not including professional. Whether he should also have supervision of the practical arts work as

388 Vocational Education

a phase of general education or when offered prevocation- ally is doubtful.

(e) Similarly, where the administration of vocational education is supervised on behalf of the state there should be organized a separate department, dealing exclusively with vocational education.

Problem 4. To what extent and under what conditions shall representatives of the various vocational fields partici- pate in the lay administration of vocational schools?

(a) It should be assumed that every single vocational department in a system should feel the influence of repre- sentatives of laymen in the occupational field concerned (in- cluding both employers and employees, where these distinc- tions are clearly defined).

(b) Obviously, it is impracticable to include laymen in this capacity in the school committee or board itself without making the latter unduly large. It may be assumed that a layman from one occupational field has not more capacity to assist in the administration of vocational education in an- other than any other layman.

(c) Experience seems to demonstrate that the more effec- tive course is to place all vocational schools under the admin- istration of the regularly constituted school authorities, be- cause these are supported by public money, and to provide for each distinctive department a small advisory committee for the activity of which the department head shall be pri- marily responsible.

CHAPTER XIII

SOME FUTURE PROBLEMS

" Creative Impulse in Industry." — Miss Helen Marot, in her book under the above title (New York, 1918), has sug- gested one or more large problems of modern economic life which possess not only general importance but have also an intimate bearing upon all questions of future vocational education.

Miss Marot's book is in part a criticism of the present industrial order and in part a prospectus of a plan for developing certain special agencies whereby opportunity can be given for experience in giving exercise to the " creative impulse " in production.

So far as we can give concrete expression to our most fundamental conceptions of " highest human values," to the "life more abundantly " which seems always to have been the " purpose " of social and personal evolution, we find these " values " making, on the one hand, for the " hap- piness " of the individual and, on the other, for the "in- crease "of society. Among the factors making, in greater or less degree, according to the individual, for the develop- ment of individual personality, is the exercise of what we vaguely call the creative instincts. Demands for growth and self-expression are imperious in childhood; and their analogous qualities seem also imperious in some adults. On the other hand, the command to labor which was, accord- ing to one account, laid long ago upon Adam and his de- scendants, seems to have involved since then severe circum-

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scribing of man's activities and probably suppression of a large proportion of the creative impulses of every indi- vidual.

Modern social economy cannot be less interested in the opportunities that make for enriched personality than in those that make for such social means to that end as security, wealth, righteousness, sociability, knowledge, and the like. Every effort looking to fuller and better general or " liberal " education looks to that end. Every advance in invention, the application of science and organization in production, and all use of natural powers as substitutes for human power in doing the work of the world, whereby man's rising standards of living can be met while at the same time reducing the hours required for production, are contributing to the same end through increase of leisure and the means of utilizing the same.

It is highly probable that we are as yet but at the begin- nings of our educational efforts to give scope and enrich- ment to human personality. If the means suggested by Miss Marot can add to the process, they will be welcomed. But whether the objectives towards which she aspires can be realized along the lines she hopes — that is indeed a problem.

For it is apparent throughout Miss Marot's book that she has little confidence in the " present social order," at least in so far as it is organized by " business." Miss Marot re- flects a social philosophy which, while very ancient in its essentials, has become more potent in recent years in proportion as economic systems have become more complex. It is a philosophy in which strong feelings, idealistic aspira- tions, formulae, and facts are extensively blended. In this philosophy one finds reference made almost never to such elemental facts as limitations in the earth's producing pow- ers, effects of increase of population, rising standards of : wants, and the social need of conservation — of material

Some Future Problems 391

resources, human strength, working tools, order, and knowl- edge. It is a philosophy which premises the harmfulness, if not the malevolence, of certain types of institutions which have been of slow growth. On this philosophy she builds her refusals to approve certain current educational pro- posals and her advocacy of others. The following extracts are believed to be representative of this philosophy :

" Sometime the war will end and we shall be called then to face a period of reconstruction. The reconstruction will center around indus- try. The efficiency with which a worker serves industry will be the test of his patriotic fervor, as his service in the army is made the test during this time of war. All institutions will be examined and called upon to reorganize in such ways as will contribute to the enterprise of raising industrial processes to the standard of greatest efficiency."

" American business men before the war appreciated the educational system which made people over into workers without will or purpose of their own. But the situation was embarrassing as these business men were not in a position to insist that the schools, supported by the people, should prepare the children to serve industry for the sake of the state, while industry was pursued solely for private interest."

" Business is concerned wholly with utility, and not like workman- ship, with standards of production, except as those standards contain an increment of value in profits to the owners of wealth. It was during the Guild period that business came to value workmanship because it contained that increment."

" The logical development of factory organization has been the com- plete coordination of all factors which are auxiliary to mechanical power and devices. The most important auxiliary factor is human labor. A worker is a perfected factory attachment as he surrenders himself to the time and the rhythm of the machine and its functioning; as he sup- plements without loss whatever faculties the machine lacks, whatever imperfection hampers the machine in the satisfaction of its needs. If it lacks eyes, he sees for it; he walks for it, if it is without legs; and he pulls, drags, lifts, if it needs arms. All of these things are done by the factory worker at the pace set by the machine and under its direc- tion and command. A worker's indulgence in his personal desires or impulses hinders the machine and lowers his attachment value."

" The economic organization of modern society though built on the common people's productive energy has discounted their 'creative potentiality.' We hold to the theory that men are equal in their oppor- tunity to capture and own wealth; that their ability in that respect is proof of their ability to create it ; a proof of their inherent capacity. It is a proof, as a matter of fact, of their ability to compete in the general scheme of capture ; their ability to exploit wealth successfully."

39 2 Vocational Education

"Modern industrial institutions are developed by an exclusive cul- tivation of people's needs and the desire to possess is responsible for the production of a mass of goods unprecedented and inconceivable a century and a half ago. The actual production of all of these goods is unrelated to the motive of men's participation in their production; the actual production in relation to the motive is an incident."

" It is almost axiomatic to say that a system of wealth production which cultivated creative effort would yield more in general terms of life as well as in terms of goods, than a system like our own which exploits creative power. It is obvious that the disintegrating tendency in our system is due to the fact that production is dependent for its motive force on the desire to possess."

" Before scientific management was discovered, business manage- ment and machinery already had robbed industry of productive incen- tives, of the real incentive to production: a realization on the part of the worker of its social value and his appreciation of its creative content"

" Nevertheless the intention of all and the spirit of the scheme is to do as near nothing as possible in exchange for the highest return. The whole industrial arrangement is carried on without the force of pro- ductive intention ; it is carried forward against a disinclination to produce."

"It is incredible to factory managers that workers object to being taught 'right' ways of doing things. Their objection is not to being taught, but to being told that some one way is right without having had the chance to know why. This resistance to being taught, it seems, is nothing more or less than a wayward desire of a worker to do his own way because it is his way, and of course from the managers' point of view, that is stupid."

" A responsible part in which production does not mean merely doing well a detached and technical job; it means facing the risks and sharing in the experimental experience of productive enterprise as it serves the promotion of creative life and the needs of an expanding civilization."

"The creative significance of a product in use, as well as an appre- ciation of the act of creating, would be evident if modern production of wealth, under the influence of business enterprise and machine tech- nology, had not fairly well extinguished the appreciation and the joy of creative experience in countries where people have fallen under its influence so completely as in our own."

" It is the present duty of American educators to realize these two points : that industry is the great field for adventure and growth ; that as it is used now the opportunities for growth are inhibited in the only field where productive experience can be a common one. Shortly it will be the mission of educators to show that by opening up the field for creative purpose, fervor for industrial enterprise and good workmanship may be realized; that only as the content of industry in its administra-

Some Future Problems 393

tion as well as in the technique of its processes is opened up for experi- ment and first-hand experience, will a universal impulse for work be awakened."

" It is for educators to realize first of all that there can be no social progress while there is antagonism between growth in wealth (which is industry) and growth in individuals (which is education) ; that the fundamental antagonisms which are apparent in the current arrange- ment are not between industry and education but between educational business."

" The craftsmanship period is valued in retrospect for its educative influence. There was opportunity then as there is not now for the worker to gain the valuable experience of initiating an idea and carrying the production of an article to its completion for use and sale in the market ; there was the opportunity then also as there is not now, for the worker to gain a high degree of technique and a valuation of his workmanship."

" Educators have opposed the desire of business to attach the schools to the industrial enterprise. They have rightly opposed it because industry under the influence of business prostitutes effort."

" The ideas which we find there have not sprung from schools or colleges but from industry. The institution of industry, rather than the institution of education, dominates thought in industrial education courses. It is the institution of industry as it has affected the life of every man, woman and child, which has inhibited educational thought in conjunction with schemes for industrial schools. No established system of education or none proposed is more circumscribed by institutionalized thought than the vocational and industrial school movement."

Speaking in terms of social evolution the development of what we call " industrialism " - which is primarily a series of phenomena growing out of the harnessing of natural powers such as wind, steam, electricity and gas — is but of yesterday. It is inevitable therefore that it should still be attended by many pathological conditions which society has moved too slowly to correct. No one could wish to dis- parage sincere and intelligent efforts to provide remedies or initial correctives to those now existing.

On the other hand, radically destructive proposals com- monly confound the subject and the disease. It is poor economy to tear down a leaking house when neither time nor means are at hand to build another. Because Miss

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Marot's strictures are echoed by many other educators op- posing vocational education for what is sometimes mistak- enly called " efficiency," they deserve examination no less than the attendant proposals.

The two most fundamental social facts in the modern industrial system are the multiplication of population and at the same time rising standards of living or increased desire for consumable goods. To meet these conditions men tend towards maximum use of capital and the tools it will purchase, regimentation and specialization of service from that of the highest executive to the lowest paid opera- tive, and delegation of function to the one best qualified by nature and training to perform it. These are the lines of least resistance, the apparent optimum resultants, the " fit " that seem destined to survive.

Miss Marot is right in thinking that one of the unde- sirable by-products of this is, at least for some individuals, the stifling of the creative impulse. But what about the facts, especially on the historical side? Does Miss Marot think we have gone backward in this matter since 1776, or 1496, or 476, or 350 B.C. ? We must, of course, be careful of our logic in making inferences here. Booker Washing- ton used to protest against the unconscious habit exhibited by most people in comparing blacks and whites : they usually compare the best white man with the worst negro. He suggested that we try the exercise of comparing for a time good negroes with bad white men. Are we to think that the average (or statistically modal) stone-cutter, or weaver, ! or shoemaker, or wheat grower, or gold miner (omit the prospector), or brick- wall builder, or bottle maker, or sailor, \ or food packer, has less opportunity for exercise of creative impulses than had the average man in these fields hundreds or thousands of years ago ? Or does she think the average small Alabama cotton grower, Labrador fisherman, New England farmer, Chinese gardener, Illinois farm housewife,

Some Future Problems 395

rural school teacher, village maid-of -all- work, office general clerk, country grocer, Mexican goat farmer, have greatly better opportunities for exercise of creative impulse than average locomotive engineers, coal miners, specialty teach- ers in large schools, New Bedford weavers, Waltham watch- makers (eighteen-year-old girls), department store clerks, Grand Rapids furniture makers, or Detroit automobile mak- ers? I think the naive assumptions now widely prevalent about these matters do considerable violence to individual psychology and to sociology. How do the men and women in these various fields compare in looks, health, zest for life, and cultural outlook at age 30? 45? 60? The occupa- tions given in the first group above are but slightly as yet affected by " economic organization of modern society " — hardly at all as respects outlets for creative impulse.

Everything practicable should be done to enhance oppor- tunities, whether on the primitive farm or in the home with its necessary composite of elemental operations; or in the shoe factory or department store, for exercise of creative impulses. But it is no use following Utopian visions in this matter or disregarding the fairly fixed facts of life in the individual and in the group. When a process, like, say, the planing or surfacing of wood, or the mixing of concrete, or the washing of dinner plates, has become standardized and the machinery for its performance well developed, the process may have to be repeated millions of times as routine. When experience shows that it is more effective for a train dispatcher to plan movements of trains and an engineer to receive and follow directions, one result is a shutting out of experiences which were combined in one man in days of " teaming." But why rebel ? We certainly cannot go back? Any one of us, obliged to fight, would greatly prefer to be a soldier in a small guerrilla band of equals than a trench fighter on the recent French front. But the guerrilla soldier is practically valueless in modern defense.

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Miss Marot quotes on page 81 : " The big electrical engines which are being introduced in the railroad system are rapidly eliminating the factors of judgment on the part of the engineer and transforming that highly skilled trade into an automatic exercise."

That is true. But railroading did the same for stage- driving; and stage-driving did the same for "packing " on muleback ; and muleback packing did the same for the man- carrying which still survives in China and the mountains of South America. But will the electric locomotive engineer be less of a man than the stage-driver or the Chinese long- distance porter ? Look at them in Grand Central Station.

Now it is extremely doubtful whether the " average man "of any considerable group in America is to-day less well off in any of the obscure essentials of happiness than the corresponding man among his ancestors in the eight- eenth, thirteenth, or fifth centuries, or among corresponding men to-day in China, India, Australia, or Argentina. It is, of course, statistically demonstrable that as respects certain concrete "values" he is decidedly better off. But, the idealists contend, he should be better off in all respects, and he would be if he had his deserts — if some more or less mystic agents of evil did not perpetually despoil him. To this the sociologist must reply with much doubt, "pos- sibly; but how can you establish it?" Individual instances prove nothing; and passionate aspirations no less than pas- sionate antipathies are poor guide-posts to knowledge.

None of us reject either the characterizations or the hopes expressed in William Vaughn Moody's "The Brute"; but we have the right and obligation to study and select the means which will realize the desired ends. It seems highly probable that the harnessing of science and natural powers in economic production means increasing regimentation, specialization of inventive function, and narrow routine per- formance. But we can afford to pay a considerable price

Some Future Problems 397

in these if they bring us doubled leisure, facilities for growth, security and abundance of the enduring goods of life. Is labor an end in itself? It has never been esteemed such in sound social philosophy. It is a means to " life more abun- dantly," as are the economic goods which are its outcome.

II

Democracy and Education In his book on the philoso- phy of education — Democracy and Education ( New York, 1917) — Dr. John Dewey devotes one chapter to the "Vo- cational Aspects of Education," besides making reference to vocational aims in other chapters. Dr. Dewey has also dealt with problems of vocational education in various articles in journals.

The present writer finds himself in agreement with much that Dr. Dewey urges, both by way of criticism of historic forms of school education, and of positive proposals for the improvement of that education. The reconstruction of school curricula, at least for children under twelve years of age, along lines suggested by Dr. Dewey, will without doubt prove of very great value to the individual as well as to society.

But in what Dr. Dewey writes about contemporary social situations (in their economic aspects) as these con- stitute backgrounds for proposals for vocational education, as well as in what he suggests by way of criticism of current proposals for vocational education, the writer finds it very difficult to discover the foundations of practicable programs either for social policies in general or for educational policies in particular. This difficulty is increased by the fact that Dr. Dewey rarely discusses the problems of vocational edu- cation in concrete terms of the age groups, vocational specializations, and limitations of native abilities which are the unescapable realities of all contemporary social life as

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that presents itself to social economist and educator every- where.

No well-informed educator will take exception to many of the criticisms of historic forms of education set forth in the chapter referred to above. Undoubtedly much of past and even of current discussion of vocational education, as well as of liberal education, has involved deeply entangled philosophical dualisms. But, from the standpoint of the recent writings of the proponents of widespread development of publicly supported vocational education, as well as from that of dictionary makers who seek to crystallize popularly accepted meanings of terms, is it helpful to say, as a contri- bution to a definition of vocation, " A vocation means noth- ing but such a direction of life activities as renders them perceptibly significant to a person, because of the conse- quences they accomplish, and also useful to his associates " ? Nor does it seem helpful to make " vocation " synonymous with "occupation" or "career." Again, when Dr. Dewey says, " The dominant vocation of all human beings at all times is living — intellectual and moral growth," he is using the term in an unrestricted way that entails confusion of thought for many.

For several years it has seemed to many of us much more serviceable, as well as in accordance with popular under- standing as interpreted by the makers of dictionaries, to restrict the term " vocation " to that more or less continuous (in the sense of being taken up day after day) occupation by which adults primarily produce the exchangeable services or commodities essential to their support. Temporarily, a man may have other occupations than his vocation, just as, permanently, he may have one or more avocations besides his vocation. A man's occupation outside of hours devoted to his vocational life may be that of recreation, or extending his personal culture, or helping his wife in her vocation — that of homemaking — or in drilling for military service,

Some Future Problems 399

or in forwarding the ends of his political party. The word " career," on the other hand, seems more inclusive than vocation. It includes not only the idea of vocation suc- cessfully pursued, but its consequences on social position, prestige, opportunities for leisure, etc.

Because, historically, the welfare of man as well as that of his family has depended so greatly upon the success wherewith he pursues his vocation, it has been natural for that vocation to hold a central or primary place among the activities with which he concerns himself — and especially as he becomes purposive, self -controlled, and " civilized." Furthermore, it has been natural for society to think of man in terms of his calling more frequently than in terms of his other occupations, just as it frequently happens that a man's dress, manners, facial expression, and even mental and social characteristics are often greatly affected by his vocation. Nevertheless, as " civilization " advances, society probably thinks less rather than more in terms of the man's vocation, partly because the range of his possible activities outside his calling, especially in urban communities, becomes more ex- tended. Of four persons at a club largely indistinguishable in dress and manner, one may be, as to business, a lawyer, another a bank cashier, another a college teacher of modern languages, and the fourth a real estate dealer. By their non-vocational activities they are variously designated as Catholics or Unitarians, Republicans or Socialists, golf- players or hunters, family men or bachelors, and the like.

Of the artisans going home after an eight hour day's work, one may be a horseshoer, another a stairbuilder, an- other a riveter, and a fourth a pattern-maker. But they, too, have their varied non-vocational activities in which they may join cooperatively with each other, or occasionally cooperatively with the clubmen above.

It seems to be a social fact of general application that the more primitive and undifferentiated a man's vocation, the

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more it seems to affect and control all his other activities. The primitive farmer, sailor, fisherman, hunter, domestic servant, priest, homemaker, teacher, and small trader seem to follow their respective vocatiohs three hundred and sixty- five days in the year and twenty- four hours in the day. But is this a condition approved by men possessing the advantages of high vocational competency and good general intelligence? Is it not a fact that for these the ideal is " work while you work, play while you play " ? In all high- grade professional, commercial, and agricultural pursuits (and one sees signs of it too in military, navigational, and homemaking pursuits) there is an increasing tendency for each person to have a definite working day or schedule of working hours, after which, having produced a sufficient amount of those economic goods (commodities or service), whereby he becomes entitled to his needful share of the goods produced by others, he turns to his other activities — to his avocations, and his recreations, or to his religious, political, domestic, social, or cultural duties.

It is in the light of these tendencies that the following passage from Dr. Dewey's chapter referred to above must be examined :

" We must avoid not only limitation of conception of vocation to the occupations where immediately tangible commodities are produced, but also the notion that vocations are distributed in an exclusive way, one and only one to each person. Such restriction of specialism is impos- sible; nothing could be more absurd than to try to educate individuals with an eye to only one line of activity. In the first place, each indi- vidual has of necessity a variety of callings, in each of which he should be intelligently effective; and in the second place any one occupation loses its meaning and becomes a routine keeping busy at something in the degree in which it is isolated from other interests. No one is just an artist and nothing else, and insofar as one approximates that condition, he is so much the less developed human being; he is a kind of monstros- ity. He must, at some period of his life, be a member of a family; he must have friends and companions; he must either support himself or be supported by others, and thus he has a business career. He is a member of some organized political unit, and so on. We naturally

Some Future Problems 401

name his vocation from that one of the callings which distinguishes him, rather than from those which he has in common with all others. But we should not allow ourselves to be so subject to words as to ignore and virtually deny his other callings when it comes to a consideration of the vocational phases of education."

Vocational Specialization Now, whether we like it or

not, it is a fact that vocational specialization is the rule in the modern economic order. It has proceeded far in those callings collectively designated as commercial and industrial. It is steadily proceeding in the professions and agriculture. It seems the inevitable accompaniment of the efforts of men, confronted by the pressures resulting from increasing den- sity of population and rising standards of living, and aided by the possession of invented tools, scientific knowledge, ambitious leadership, and reserve capital. The more able and enlightened men and women of our time in all lines are seeking opportunities to do their economically produc- tive work — the part constituting their vocations as here defined — in highly specialized fields. If we compare the specialized productive vocations of California, Massachu- setts, or Wales on the one hand, with those of Turkey, Bengal, or Shantung Province on the other, the distinctions between old and new, archaic and modern, retarded and progressive, will at once appear.

Dr. Dewey seems to feel that this subdivision of labor is undemocratic besides being otherwise undesirable :

" Any scheme for vocational education which takes its point of departure from the industrial regime that now exists, is likely to assume and to perpetuate its divisions and weaknesses, and thus to become an instrument in accomplishing the feudal dogma of social predestination. Those who are in a position to make their wishes good, will demand a liberal, a cultural occupation, and one which fits for directive power the youth in whom they are directly interested. To split the system, and to give to others, less fortunately situated, an education conceived mainly as specific trade preparation, is division of labor and leisure, culture and service, mind and body, directed and directive class, into a society nominally democratic. Such a vocational education inevitably discounts the scientific and historic human connections of the materials

2D

4O2 Vocational Education

and processes dealt with. To include such things in narrow trade education would be to waste time; concern for them would not be ' practical.' They are reserved for those who have leisure at command — the leisure due to superior economic resources. Such things might even be dangerous to the interests of the controlling class, arousing discontent or ambitions 'beyond the station* of those working under the direction of others. But an education which acknowledges the full intellectual and social meaning of a vocation would include instruction in the historic background of present conditions ; training in science to give intelligence and initiative in dealing with material and agencies of production; and study of economics, civics, and politics, to bring the future worker into touch with the problems of the day and the various methods proposed for its improvement. Above all, it would train power of readaptation to changing conditions so that future workers would not become blindly subject to a fate imposed upon them. This ideal has to contend not only with the inertia of existing educational tradi- tions, but also with the opposition of those who are intrenched in com- mand of the industrial machinery, and who realize that such an educational system if made general would threaten their ability to use others for their own ends.

" But this very fact is the presage of a more equitable and enlight- ened social order, for it gives evidence of the dependence of social reorganization upon educational reconstruction. It is accordingly an encouragement to those believing in a better order to undertake the promotion of a vocational education which does not subject youth to the demands and standards of the present system, but which utilizes its scientific and social factors to develop a courageous intelligence, and to make intelligence practical and executive."

Now it is certainly true that in the present industrial regime there are all sorts of undemocratic possibilities. But are these inherent? If so, how do we explain the fact that with perhaps one exception, modern industrialism has advanced farthest in countries and regions most noted for political democracy — Scotland, Massachusetts, northern France, northern Italy, Michigan? One does not look for modern industrialism in Turkey, Russia, India, China, or Egypt, notwithstanding their natural resources and their pressure of population.

Vocational vs. General Education. — It is one of the most pronounced contentions of the proponents of effective and democratic vocational education (for all, that is, — a few

Some Future Problems 403

leaders, as Dr. Dewey properly says, have long had these opportunities in the undemocratic order of the past) that one effect of modern specialization of occupation is to render impracticable any considerable blending, on the one hand, of vocational and non-vocational education, and on the other of vocational education for one vocation with that for another. In actual administration this should mean that each pupil should complete, to the fullest extent practicable, his non- vocational or liberal full-time education (largely designed to prepare him effectively for the non-vocational duties of life) before beginning his necessarily specialized vocational education, and that thereafter his liberal educa- tion should be continued outside of " working hours."

Vocational education, it must repeatedly be said, consists only of divisions or subjects of all possible instruction and training which primarily prepare one for the effective exer- cise of vocation over that span of years during which it is, or normally should be, followed. In practice, we think of the vocations of the barber, poultry grower, bookkeeper, tailor, sailor, high school teacher of physics, grocer, dentist, machinist, stenographer, house carpenter, cattle grower, priest, army officer, miner, and the like as filling up a long span of life, and for each of them specific vocational training and instruction — in a special school or elsewhere — is quite conceivable. It is true that for the successful pursuit of all or most of these vocations good health, good moral character, and literacy are also valuable or essential. But, in greater or less degree, the qualities and powers included under these terms are valuable or relatively essential alike for all the vocational, as for the no less important non- vocational, activities of life. Hence these become the proper aims of general or non-vocational education. It is only to the production of those specific skills and forms of knowl- edge wherein the dentist differs, as respects the production of economic goods, from the barber that the words voca- tional education, properly or in best recent usage, apply.

404 Vocational Education

Now this may mean educational dualism, but if so, it is a dualism based upon the present and probable future realities of life. But it is in reality a kind of pluralism of ends by which we are confronted. We do not teach singing by the same means, in the same places, or at the same times that we teach arithmetic. We expect the man or woman con- sciously and purposefully to differentiate play from work; and in all good domestic or school regimes we expect young people, at least those upward of twelve years of age, to do the same, in the degrees appropriate to their development. In our well-ordered life, we differentiate seasons for sleeping, for eating, for friendly social intercourse, for concentrated work; and no less, we differentiate the processes of training and instruction by which we habituate the young to these respective spheres or types of activity.

It is certainly true that a man's various activities sum up into a kind of unity, as does a house, a farm, a tree, the human body, or any other composite of more or less inter- dependent parts. But, for practical purposes, we can con- sider not only separateness of part or function, but also the special means of producing or improving specific part or function.

For many readers the fact that Dr. Dewey does not carry his discussion to the point of at least illustrating by con- crete reference to age groups proves a source of uncertainty and confusion. With such a statement, for example, as " the only adequate training for occupations is through occupations " all can agree. But when he says, " to pre- determine some future occupation (vocation?) for which education is to be a strict preparation is to injure the possibilities of present development and thereby reduce the adequacy of preparation for a future right employment," we find ourselves in agreement or disagreement according to the age and other conditions of the particular persons under consideration. Would Dr. Dewey apply this dictum in the

Some Future Problems 405

case of a young man of twenty who, one or two years before completing his general college course, makes up his mind, on his own initiative, or is even induced to do so, that he will specialize in preparation for the practice of medicine on graduating from college? If a young woman, pressed by family circumstances to become self-supporting at a rela- tively early age, is advised to enter normal school at eighteen years of age and take the training required to make her a good elementary school teacher, will this "predetermina- tion" injure her possibilities of future development? But it is still a social fact as it always has been, that the great majority of young people elect, or are obliged, to become productive workers (often in juvenile vocations, of course, from which they will seek other vocations more suited to adults when they acquire the requisite maturity, experience, and, in some cases, training) between the ages of fifteen and eighteen. It is highly desirable, certainly, that, as far as practicable, these early choices of vocations should not be final and irrevocable — and nowhere has freedom to shift from calling to calling been further developed than in America. Towards assisting and rendering more effective this mobility of labor — its present wastefulness is appall- ing— agencies of vocational guidance and of vocational training at the right stage should be developed to the utmost. If, however, Dr. Dewey has in mind the possible voca- tional predestination of young children or youths yet far removed from the necessities of entering upon productive work, then of course the best of sociological and educational opinion is entirely in accord with him. Under these con- ditions, we can heartily approve his recommendation that " the only alternative is that all earlier preparation for voca- tions be indirect rather than direct." But, in fact, where vocational specialization has proceeded far — as in the mod- ern industrial and commercial center — it may be doubted whether much of an " indirect " nature can be accomplished

406 Vocational Education

that will function later as specific vocational competency. Hence it may prove most effective to preserve as dominant aims in all earlier education, physical, moral, and cultural growth and training, as these are required for a common basis of good citizenship and good personality, irrespective of the particular vocation to be entered upon later. That as large a part as practicable of this " general " education should consist of means and methods designed to enable the youth to " find himself " as respects the vocations most suitable for him in later years goes without saying. No item of his " social education " is more important than this.

Educative Values in Vocations One other problem dis- cussed by Dr. Dewey is certain to give difficulty to the social economist and educator. Dr. Dewey is right in analyses of present industrial and commercial specialization (pp. 366- 68). Without doubt, " while the intellectual possibilities of industry have multiplied, industrial conditions tend to make industry, for great masses, less of an educative resource than it was in the days of hand-production for local mar- kets." Precisely: and it is for just this reason that many educators hold as necessary the conscious differentiation of education for citizenship from education for vocation. We may say, indeed, that modern production, as a condition of economic efficiency, tends to regiment its workers as work- ers; but it should not, and does not, if properly safeguarded, regiment them as citizens or cultured personalities.

For the sake of a fairly illuminating comparison, let us press further the analogy between an industrial and a mili- tary army. In each specialization of function proceeds very far. Workers, according to their inherent and acquired powers, are variously differentiated for the performance of specialized forms of work. A few highly gifted and trained persons are placed (either by democratic election or by imposition from outside) in positions where planning on a large scale and far in advance of the event is required.

Some Future Problems 407

In many connections and at many levels, specialists are at work performing detailed functions and effecting specific coordinations.

Now it is generally conceded that in each type of army, multiplication of functions has gone so far that it is utterly beyond the power of even the most gifted person to acquire^ even moderate appreciation, to say nothing of executive mastery, of the various specialized processes involved. The president of a railroad system is never expected, however able, to be a locomotive engineer, tunnel digger, train dis- patcher, freight agent, repair shop superintendent, or con- ductor. The general in the army is never expected to be an aviator, signaler, machine gun operator, truck driver, surgeon, or paymaster. But neither is it practicable, even if it were ideally desirable, for the locomotive engineer to understand, in any technical sense, the plans of the directors to extend their trackage, to petition for higher rates, to begin the systematic training of telegraphers or to adopt a new style of freight car. It is not practicable for the machine gunner to know the plans of those " higher up " with regard to feeding the army next winter, or improving on range finders, or taking steps to lessen communicable diseases. In all these cases, we are in the presence of limitations inherent in the very conditions of modern social organization.

On the other hand, in political democracies the soldier and the industrial specialist, whether of high or of low rank, are also citizens and more or less cultured individuals (i.e. socially perceiving and feeling personalities). In these capacities, like all other citizens and cultured individuals, they should have the fullest practicable opportunities of comprehending, enjoying, and reacting upon the world of which they are a part. The soldier votes upon questions that affect the policies of the army of which he is a part; but no less he must also vote upon questions that affect the railway system of which vocationally he is no part. The

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locomotive engineer is expected as a well-informed man to know something of the significance of the railway system in which he is one instrument; but, no less, he is expected to know also something of the other railway systems, of his country's army system, and of all other social agencies which make up the vital elements, civic and cultural, in the world of which he is a part.

It is apparent that Dr. Dewey, as all other persons sen- sitive to the pathological situations produced by the modern industrial order, greatly desires educational readjustments that will, as he hopes, tend to remove the limitations implicit in the systems described above. What many of us doubt is the practicability of achieving the desired ends along the lines indicated by Dr. Dewey. In so far as the suggestions contained in the following paragraphs can be carried out in schools of general education, he has our hearty support. But in so far as he makes these proposals as possible contri- butions to programs of vocational education, they seem pur- poseless and futile :

" Both practically and philosophically, the key to the present educa- tional situation lies in a gradual reconstruction of school materials and methods so as to utilize various forms of occupation typifying social callings, and to bring out their intellectual and moral content. This reconstruction must relegate purely literary methods — including text- books— and dialectical methods to the position of necessary auxiliary tools in the intelligent development of consecutive and cumulative activities.

" But our discussion has emphasized the fact that this educational reorganization cannot be accomplished by merely trying to give a tech- nical preparation for industries and professions as they now operate, much less by merely reproducing existing industrial conditions in the school. The problem is not that of making the schools an adjunct to manufacture and commerce, but of utilizing the factors of industry to make school life more active, more full of immediate meaning, more connected with out-of-school experience. The problem is not easy of solution. There is a standing danger that education will perpetuate the older transitions for a select few, and effect its adjustment to the newer economic conditions more or less on the basis of acquiescence in the untransformed, unrationalized, and unsocialized phases of our defective industrial regime. Put in concrete terms, there is danger that voca-

Some Future Problems 409

tional education will be interpreted in theory and practice as trade edu- cation : as a means of securing technical efficiency in specialized future pursuits.

" Education would then become an instrument of perpetuating un- changed the existing industrial order of society, instead of operating as a means of its transformation. The desired transformation is not difficult to define in a formal way. It signifies a society in which every person shall be occupied in something which makes the lives of others better worth living, and which accordingly makes the ties which bind persons together more perceptible — which breaks down the barriers of distance between them. It denotes a state of affairs in which the interest of each in his work is uncoerced and intelligent: based upon its congeniality to his own aptitudes. It goes without saying that we are far from such a social state ; in a liberal and quantitative sense, we may never arrive at it. But in principle, the quality of social changes already accomplished lies in this direction. There are more ample resources for its achievement now than ever there have been before. No insuperable obstacles, given the intelligent will for its realization, stand in the way."

Obviously the questions here raised by Dr. Dewey are sociological first and educational second. Society, in its pro founder evolutions, uses education as a means ; and it is, of course, true that the education of to-day determines in part what the next generation shall think and feel. But educators are prone to lose sight of the fact that throughout all historic times education has been the means employed by the controlling forces in society; it is merely a pleasing fantasy that educators as a class have any extensive control of this means. The "social forces" growing out of man's instinctive nature, out of the economic limitations which surround him, and out of the social inheritance which he has created must largely determine what, in any age and clime, shall be the directions taken by those servants of the majority will, the educators.

Hence, when Dr. Dewey speaks with confidence of the " unrationalized and unsocialized phases of our defective industrial regime " he may or may not be suggesting prac- ticable opportunities to the educators. It is clearly not the business of the educator with his inexperience to tear down

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existing social structures of long standing and slow evolu- tion in the vague expectation that he, with the aid of some school children, can rebuild them along sound architectural lines. Nor would it seem worthy conduct in him to stand aside and refuse to share in amending present conditions because, forsooth, he thinks they should be reconstructed in their entirety.

Of course education should operate as a means of trans- forming the industrial order — provided we have some rea- sonable assurance as to the practicable courses of such trans- formation. But we can only put into the schools to-day what the statesmen, writers, scientists, philosophers, enter- prisers, warriors, and inventors thought out clearly or did effectively yesterday. Until the scouts and the adult van- guard have reached some agreement as to the roads ahead, the plastic generation in the rear must hold to the tried paths — any other course means ruin.

It is not to be understood that Dr. Dewey himself advo- cates, on the part of educators, as regards the present " industrial order " either revolution or even " passive re- sistance." Only when his conclusions shall have been given concrete analysis and application to specific situations can we be certain just what their significance is. With his desire that general education in all grades shall, as a means of promoting good citizenship and democratic culture, employ to the fullest realistic contacts with the vital pulsat- ing environment — an ideal eloquently elaborated in the third chapter of H. G. Wells's New Machiavelli — all educa- tors are in profound sympathy. Rightly conceived and realized, that ideal does mean " education for an industrial society" -liberal education, that is; but it has little to do with vocational education. That is something different, sociologically and psychologically. We shall be able to learn what it is only as we take up the actual economic strands of contemporary social life and study them one by one, free from emotional prepossession and self-deception.

CHAPTER XIV

PROBABLE ECONOMIC FUTURE OF AMERICAN WOMEN *

Any comprehensive program of vocational education must be designed primarily to prepare young persons for the effec- tive exercise of productive vocations as now found ; it may be designed secondarily and incidentally to anticipate probable social changes in the character and incidence of vocational activities; and, under some circumstances (taking due ac- count of the relatively fundamental and only slightly con- trollable character of economic forces), to further desirable, and to restrain undesirable, economic tendencies by its em- phasis on one or the other of different possible educational objectives.

It is well known that the economic position of women has\x already changed greatly during the last century, and con- spicuously in communities in which productive work is chiefly of an industrial and commercial character. It is probable that many of the economic changes now in process will continue along lines already established, some of their social, cultural, and physical consequences becoming in-y^ creasingly evident. But it is also certain that societies in which concerted and intelligent action, looking toward con- servation of the best in human resources and the promotion of higher social standards generally, has become an estab- lished policy, will insist on securing improved conditions for the development of the young, and with especial emphasis on sound family life. ^The mother of children is the logical primary custodian of children's well-being; and in their rear-

1 This chapter in substantially its present form first appeared as a paper in the American Journal of Sociology.

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ing will be found, inevitably, the best vocation for many women — best for the individual herself and best for the society which she serves. S

For training in the performance of all forms of economic service, including the rearing of children, women in the past to an extent even greater than in the case of men, have been dependent upon the by-education of productive service itself as carried on by elders. The daughter has learned the thou- sand practical arts of homemaking as an assistant to her mother, supplemented by the trial-and-error methods of her own home when responsibility for its conduct fell to her lot. The domestic servant has learned under the direction of mistress; the tiller of the soil under leadership of field fore- man or forewoman; the factory hand under shop overseer; the clerk under employer or supervisor. For only a few women's callings — teaching, nursing, stenography — have the methods of unorganized or organized apprenticeship been replaced by systematic vocational training.

But no student of contemporary social conditions or of current proposals -for improvement in our social economy can doubt that an enormous extension and improvement of systematic vocational education under public control and direction is inevitable in the near future. The provision of universal and perfected means of direct vocational education at the proper time (usually after the essential foundations of liberal education shall have been laid) clearly constitutes one of the most necessary stages toward the good citizen- ship, the social efficiency, now being sought in our compli- cated societies. It is hard for us to realize that almost in proportion as economic processes become scientific and highly organized, the possibilities of getting reasonably satis- factory vocational training as a by-product of early partici- pation in productive work itself — possibilities that were very large under primitive conditions of production — stead- ily diminish. Hence the need for vocational training as

Probable Economic Future of American Women 413

itself a specialized stage or process apart from, or closely guarded within, the productive processes themselves. Such segregated vocational training is certainly not less needed to-day for women, than for men, workers ; and, in spite of the necessarily primitive and composite character of the domestic vocational arts, it is probably not less needed as a means of efficient homemaking than as a means of effective service in commercial, industrial, agricultural, and profes- sional callings.

At present, very naturally, all programs for the vocational training of girls and women are largely provisional and even opportunistic. In fact, they are based primarily upon first- hand appreciations, not of social needs in general, but of certain marked socially pathological situations that have been seen vividly, first by social workers, then by educators. But to a constantly increasing extent, these programs must come to be based upon scientific knowledge of what are the established or probable fields of women's work; the probable transitions in economic service that will be made by women of given classes, ages, and abilities; the physical, social, and cultural concomitants of each prevailing type of work ; and the most effective reasons and means of giving and testing definite vocational training therefor.

It is the purpose of this paper to analyze certain problems, as yet largely unsolved, relative to the probable economic future of American women during the twentieth century, on the assumption that present tendencies will continue in directions already established ; and, in the light of the prob- abilities described, to suggest possible policies and programs for the vocational education of girls and women. As a pre- liminary to the anarysis of these problems, it seems desirable to summarize briefly certain general conclusions as to which it is believed substantial agreement among well-informed students of economics and social life generally exists. These are:

414 Vocational Education

1. Women, normally, have always been producers of economic serv- ice no less than men.

2. Productive work has always been largely differentiated between men and women as to location and character.

3. The admission of woman to non-domestic occupations, though attended by great difficulties, is now substantially an accomplished fact.

4. Woman's participation in non-domestic occupations promises to be increasingly regulated by law, in the interests of a sound social economy.

5. The effective rearing of children in the capacity of wife and mother must always have priority of importance as woman's work.

6. Few effective means of vocational education for non-domestic employments have yet developed for women.

A. SOME ACCEPTED POSITIONS

1. Women as producers. — In all normal societies, and in all but a few exceptional cases of individuals and small classes, women have always been producers of economic serv- ice equally at least with men. (The term "economic serv- ice " is here used to include the rearing of children, leader- ship in planning and directing work, defense of the state, socially approved commercialized entertainment, and teach- ing, no less than the production of material utilities.) It is a reasonable expectation that women will, in proportion to their strength and ability, always continue to be, no less than men, producers of valuable service. From time to time in past history, as well as at present, wealthy and power- ful men have been able and have preferred to maintain their wives, daughters, and female entertainers in that half -para- sitic condition which enhances their aesthetic and convivial attractiveness. This practice is clearly traceable to begin- nings in ages of conquest when the men of the conquering class reserved to themselves the vocations of fighting, law- giving, and general administration. It has rarely affected so large a proportion of the population in the past as to lead to disastrous eugenic consequences; but the effects of segre- gating from useful service a substantial proportion of women and of making of them a non-productive " decorative " class

Probable Economic Future of American Women 415

may be proving disastrous in areas where great industries and commerce have enabled, not 1 or 2 per cent, but 10 or 20 per cent of strong men to become so prosperous that they can carry into effect their very natural ideals of maintaining their wives in idle luxury, their daughters in parasitic use- lessness, and their entertainers in a state of " conspicuous," but socially unproductive, consumption. But it is to be ex- pected that the increasing social insight of our time will soon forewarn and forearm us against this form of social disease. (See Olive Schreiner's Woman and Labor.)

2. Differentiation of productive work. — In all societies of which we have record there have existed tendencies, never wholly complete, toward differentiation of productive work along sex lines. Defense and aggression against animals and hostile humans has fallen largely to men, probably in part because of their greater mobility, and in part perhaps because of their greater share of the combative instincts (as in some animal species). The care of young children (in- cluding the giving of much early by-education) seems nat- urally to fall to women, partly because the physical condition of their functions requires them to be less mobile and un- doubtedly because maternal instincts making for child care are stronger than are the paternal instincts to the same end, especially as applied to very young children.

On these foundations, as societies have evolved, many other differentiations have taken place. Men, being first warriors and hunters, have then become trappers, explorers, sailors, fishermen, drovers, traders, miners, and lumbermen. Women become cooks, weavers, dressers of skins, food packers, gardeners, milkers, brewers, builders, wood gather- ers, nurses, and teachers of little children. Old men and handicapped men shared early in the more home-centered occupations. When more roving occupations failed, men in the settled regions have often seemed to specialize in those forms of productive service requiring most sustained and

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greatest physical strength, especially if these occupations are carried on at some distance from the home. Occupations of building, heavy tillage, transporting, and merchandising thus fall to men, although in all primitive societies where women seem to develop bodily strength nearly, if not wholly, equal to that of men, and especially when war or slavery forces men away, women seem readily to become heavy tillers and bearers of burdens — occupations which probably they have never more than partially surrendered.

The invention of machinery and the use of power have often had the effect of centering production in factories away from the home; and apparently men first fall heir to these new vocations, such as baking, machine weaving, machine shoemaking, iron and steel working, brickmaking, brewing, milking, food packing, etc. Certain occupations — originally domestic and apparently shared equally by men and women, especially healing and religious ministry — be- came early monopolized by men, while others, like enter- taining, teaching, lore transmitting, literature making, etc., have after a period of such monopoly returned to the state of being " open " to men and women equally.

In modern industrial and commercial societies, so much productive work is centered in factories, office buildings, large stores, and other places far removed from the home that we have, conspicuously in all urban communities, and visibly even in rural communities, the phenomenon of women wage workers — that is, women who no longer render their service in the family unit (and receiving payment, not in money, but in kind) but in places and conditions unconnected with the home. The United States Census for 1910 shows that of all the enumerated inhabitants the following percentages of each age group were engaged in " gainful " occupation : *

1 Fourteenth Census, IV, 73

Age 10-13 Age 14-16 Age 16-20 Age 21-44 45 and upward

Males 17 per cent 41 per cent 79 per cent 97 per cent 86 per cent

Females.. 8 per cent 20 per cent 40 per cent 26 per cent 16 per cent

Probable Economic Future of American Women 417

Of the more than eight million women wage workers (in ' ' gainful " occupations) included in these figures, probably about one million are domestic servants ; the rest are follow- ing occupations away from the home and having no direct connection therewith. The figures from previous censuses show that the proportions of women wage workers are stead- ily increasing (the percentages in 1900 were for the re- spective age groups about 6, 18, 32, 21 and 13).

3. Difficulties of transition to non-domestic employ- ments. — The increasing necessities laid upon women to find opportunities for productive service away from the home have naturally resulted in conflicts of ancient custom with new conditions. Where rising standards of living had re- leased women from hard and grimy manual occupations — tillage of soil, harvesting, milking of cows, drawing of coal in mines, wood carrying, fish cleaning and distributing, as practiced in Europe, were early tabooed by the prosperous American settler for his " women folk " - it has been deemed degrading for women to resume them. Probably, also, acquired physical disqualifications for such " mascu- line " employments, due to more " delicate " rearing, have played an important part in preventing any return to them.

Where men had long monopolized certain attractive oc- cupations (preaching, practice of law, medicine, teaching in mixed or boys' schools, clerical office work — until after the Civil War — "political office-holding," indoor salesmanship — until the eighties — telegraphy, machine-shop work, tail- oring, dentistry, pharmacy, architecture, and engineering), there had naturally developed strong prejudices against the entrance of women competitors. All sorts of barriers, some due to motives consciously mean and selfish, others to com- mendable, even though short-sighted, desires to keep women out of " non-wholesome " surroundings, abnormal work, or employment that might impair the home, have been raised. Very naturally, in those to whom the wish must be father

2E

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to the thought, it has been conceived that woman's strength of body or, no less often, of mind, could not be equal to the requirements of the work as standardized for men workers.

When strikes or war deprive a given field of employment of male workers, employers naturally seek to recruit their forces with women, if immigrant or colored men are unavail- able. This " unfair " competition of women with men arouses keen apprehensions and leads to prejudices that long survive the events that provoke them. Women workers or- ganize, or act in organized ways, less readily or effectively than men ; hence where the workers of a given field — shoe- making, cigarmaking, bookbinding, typesetting, telegraphy, tailoring, and other similar fields — have secured and are maintaining advantages through organization each threat- ened invasion of " scab " women workers is bitterly re- sented. In some fields of highly subdivided labor, the su- perior nimbleness and powers of concentration of girl work- ers are a perpetual irritation to their less dexterous brothers and male cousins.

For these, as well, doubtless, as for more obscure reasons, resting on vague instinctive reactions (some of which, per- haps, are sounder than appears on the surface), the way of woman's advance into the fields of wage-earning work has been made painful and often degrading. Nevertheless, op- position has steadily given way. There now exist in law or fixed custom relatively few obstacles to woman's entry upon any calling that may be elected. Vexatious handicaps and restrictions of a more or less disguised nature are still found in large numbers, of course, especially in transitional stages ; but substantial and organized opposition is found only where invasion threatens to break down the standards of protection and compensation painfully secured through long efforts of organized labor.

Hence we can assume the early removal in almost complete measure of the factitious barriers to woman's entry upon

Probable Economic Future of American Women 419

any field of work she may seek, and her undisturbed right to participate in its rewards and to share in responsibility for its development so far as this may be consistent with her other obligations to society and to herself.

4. Social regulation of women's non-domestic work. — Statutory regulation of the conditions of women's work rep- resents a social tendency of very modern development, and yet it is already so deeply rooted in our best ideals and prac- tice of social economy as reflected by scientific thought and by legislation that we must accept it as an established condi- tioning force in relation to woman's place in the modern economic world. This regulation by law of the conditions under which women may work is unquestionably designed in the interests of woman's obligations to society and to her- self.

In America and those other civilized nations that have shared in the " industrial revolution " we already see em- bodied in legislation many provisions regulating the partici- pation of children in wage-earning work; and along with these appear statutes governing for women, hours of labor, factory conditions, night work, minimum wage, dangerous employments, and amount and quality of toil as related to time of childbirth. Unless present tendencies shift radi- cally, we may expect a continuous development of regulatory laws and ordinances of this character; and, if scientific knowledge and sound social ideals prevail, we may expect them increasingly to provide for the protection of the health, moral character, standards of living, and family responsibil- ities of the worker as well as, in respects not included in these, to insure that she discharge in best practicable ways her responsibilities to society as citizen, mother, defender, and producer. In the case of any given individual and for a given space of time, much of this regulation will seem un- duly restrictive and even repressive ; and, indeed, under poor direction, it may easily become that, no less than the ancient

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regulatory ordinances of king, church, and guild. Never- theless, social needs here will clearly have the ascendancy, in part because of the fact that so many women wage workers are young and insufficiently cooperative, and therefore eas- ily exploited ; and in part, because of their supposedly low re- sisting powers, as compared with men, against low standards of living, excessive hours, moral exposure, and physical hardship.

5. The effective rearing of children. — The struggle of an individual to live — to obtain a living and to maintain a desired standard of comfort — need not necessarily involve service valuable to the community nor responsibility for the maintenance of a family or the rearing of children. In the struggle of any given composite social group to survive and advance itself, however, it is inevitably required that first consideration be given to the conditions that make for the effective rearing of children. But the possible contributions respectively of men and women to the rearing of children are necessarily differentiated. In the long run a given society dare not permit either men or women in any substantial num- bers to subordinate their family responsibilities to other ends. The pursuit by a people of permissible economic objectives must, for the great majority, be in chief measure a means to wholesome family life (the central and controlling function of which is successful child-rearing) , else such a people will perish. In some far-off day society may find means of dele- gating most of the work of child-rearing to special agencies; but current proposals to that end are usually Utopian.

With advancing standards and more intelligent social and private control, we may assume that, as contrasted with the present, the following will progressively be the essential features of family life as relates to the effective rearing of children: (a) the burdens (and compensating satisfactions) of rearing children will be more evenly distributed than at present — involving somewhat larger families for the more

Probable Economic Future of American Women 421

intelligent and prosperous, and somewhat smaller families for others than prevail now in America ; (b) for a society not willfully static nor deteriorating in numbers, each normal family will be expected to bring to maturity three children or more according to prevailing rates of marriage, sterility, etc.; (c) marriages will be more intelligently made, and will be entered upon with greater preparation for the responsibil- ities involved; (d) children, and especially very young chil- dren, will be better cared for, and the death-rate among them will steadily diminish; (e) until the state subsidizes the rear- ing of all children (an expedient frequently proposed, but unlikely of adoption in the near future) it will give financial assistance only to mothers who, having established approved marriages, are through unforeseen contingency deprived of the needed cooperation of husband — widows' pensions, allowances to wives of drafted soldiers, and injured work- ers, etc. ; (/) where service needed in the rearing of children can best be given by the mother, she may expect to be forced and, if necessary, assisted, to devote herself to that work; and where service can best be given by agencies other than the home — school education, health inspection, etc. — it is to be expected that these will be maintained at public ex- pense.

In general, a sound society must insist on proper and ade- quate motherhood, and will protect it as far as is socially practicable.

6. Vocational education for non-domestic employments. - By vocational education is here meant any and all forms of experience-getting, instruction, training, and supervision which finally make the worker productive, including the poorly organized training of simple shop experience under supervision, as well as the systematized training of appren- ticeship and trade school. The very conditions under which women have followed productive callings away from the home have prevented the development of valuable private or

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public training except in a few fields, such as nursing, teach- ing, and clerical work (chiefly stenography). The woman worker has been introduced first as helper to more skilled male workers or as a specialist on highly subdivided pro- cesses as spinner, cartridge filler, buttonhole-maker, folder, garden weeder, can filler, labeler, file clerk.

Furthermore, she has seldom come in to " learn the busi- ness " — as, not infrequently at least, has her brother. She has had necessarily the attitude of a casual laborer taking a temporary job. Experience convinced her employers that in 80 or 90 per cent of all cases she would leave early to get married. Often she has been less than a casual laborer; she has been a child earning " pin money," and contributing for a time toward her own support in her parents' home. As a girl she neither wants to stay permanently, nor does she care especially to be advanced to more complicated work. The very processes by which work has been subdivided and mechanized to fit her powers and limitations have wiped away traditions of apprenticeship and beliefs in importance of definite vocational training. The chief function of the employment manager becomes to pick girls of most promise of native ability; and the forewoman (or, often, foreman) may be trusted soon to " fire " those who could not " make good."

Except in a few lines of work (e.g., telephone service, select office service, and department stores catering to custom somewhat above the average, in which some good special pri- vate vocational training has already been developed) the employers of women workers have always been in sharpest competition with each other, and ready at all times to " steal " each other's best workers; hence any given employer was practically precluded from giving his workers special training; he would only find his best workers stolen and himself the poorer for his efforts.

From the standpoint of making the work of young, unin-

Probable Economic Future of American Women 423

terested, untrained girl and women workers productive of useful service, the modern industrial and commercial mana- ger has wrought wonders through his use of machinery and organization — as expressed in massing of capital, use of inventions, development of speedy power-driven machinery, subdivision of process, perfection of supervision, advertis- ing for help, penalizing specific forms of incompetency, etc. Cloth manufacture, department-store merchandising, cart- ridge making, bookbinding, watchmaking, fruit and meat canning, cigarette making, clothing manufacture, drug pack- ing, telephony — these and many other similar lines repre- sent wonderful modern organizations of production; but they do not usually involve the systematic vocational educa- tion of workers and, probably, may not be expected to do so in the near future. The very success of this form of enterprise has indeed led to the conviction that training for occupation is nonessential where machine production can be organized on a gigantic scale — a clear case, of course, of reasoning post hoc ergo propter hoc. Because we see a thousand productive processes evolved to utilize the services of the untrained girl, we assume that the trained girl of equal age will find only these processes available for her. But to accept this conclusion would mean the abrogation of all of society's supposed powers of invention along educational lines. Are only competing employers original and inven- tive? To train girl workers for non-domestic vocations will give us many problems; and these will be analyzed and solved. But it is futile to expect competing employers to solve or even to state them for us.

That woman in the twentieth century will be largely free to enter upon any productive work that she may elect, sub- ject to that degree and kind of state regulation that will in- sure protection of the state's interest in her well-being; and that it is possible and profitable for society collectively,

424 Vocational Education

through the state, to undertake to fit her for such work — these are the preliminary theses upon which to base a study of the numberless particular problems for the individual woman and for society which have already developed and which may be expected to continue to develop in connection with her efforts to fulfil the destiny laid upon her originally, we are assured, by Eve, who, in the words of William Vaughn Moody, lived to sing to the Lord :

Behold, against thy will, against thy word, Against the wrath and warning of thy sword Eve has been Eve, O Lord ! A pitcher filled, she comes back from the brook, A wain she comes, laden with mellow ears ; She is a roll inscribed, a prophet's book Writ strong with characters.

B. UNSETTLED PROBLEMS

The economic transitions of recent centuries, and espe- cially in the countries where " industrialism " has progressed farthest, have given rise to many difficult social problems, some of which, at least, seem more acutely to affect women than men. Among the most pressing of these problems are those discussed below.

1. Combining domestic with non-domestic work. — Dur- ing the transition period wherein has developed extensive employment of women in non-domestic industries, there ap- pear many cases in which women simultaneously carry on homemaking and work outside the home.

(a) Tillage of the soil, harvesting, fish cleaning and dry- ing, milking, herding, wood gathering, and some other semi- domestic occupations, having been in large part woman's work long before the " industrial revolution," have persisted in all primitive communities. Colored women in the South, peasant women in all the continental countries of Europe and Asia, and recent immigrants to America, by reducing home work to a minimum, by developing much muscular power

Probable Economic Future of American Women 425

and physical endurance, are obviously able to bear many children, to bring some of these to a rugged maturity, and at the same time to perform what is frequently described as a " man's work " away from the home.

(b) In manufacturing and commercial centers, there are found many families in poor financial circumstances. In these, fathers are usually dead, deserters, invalided, or dis- sipated, or else are employed irregularly or in some un- skilled, poorly paid work. As a consequence, the mothers, simplifying their home work to the utmost, seek wage-earn- ing employments. They work in mills, as " day " domes- tics, as cleaners of office buildings, and in other fields in which unskilled laborers, made energetic by desperate ne- cessity, are in demand.

(c) A few women of superior talent — actresses, sing- ers, teachers, writers, saleswomen — have, after marriage, continued to follow apart from the home the productive service in which they had become adept before marriage. As a historic fact, many of these women have, naturally or voluntarily, remained sterile; but in other instances they have reared normal families, aided by employed domestic service.

(d) A small number of mothers, having brought a nor- mal number of children to that degree of maturity where their immediate demands for " mother-care " have been less pressing, have resumed former employments or undertaken new work away from the home, sometimes as a means of furthering personal development or as a means of adding to family income.

2. Homemaking as an exclusive vocation. — But in the large majority of cases in all countries where a substantial portion of the population has reached a comfortable stand- ard of living, work outside the home for the married woman is held in disapproval both by expert and by popular opinion.

426 Vocational Education

(a) Where young men and young women are both en- gaged in wage-earning, it is customary for them to abstain from marriage until, in each case, the man's income is be- lieved to be sufficient to " maintain a home " — which im- plies the expectation that the wife shall be relieved of obliga- tion to work for wages and shall be free to give her time ex- clusively to the upkeep of the home and the care of the children expected in it.

(b) The laboring man whose wife must "go out to work " becomes an object of pity or contempt according to the degree to which he is culpably responsible for such necessity.

(c) It is generally conceded that in the case of all fam- ilies having young children and modal incomes — in Amer- ica this might well mean children under fourteen or fifteen — the absence of the mother in wage-earning work operates to the serious physical and moral detriment of the children unless substitute care be provided. Such detri- ment must, obviously, be interpreted in terms of an ap- proved real or expected standard of living, as this makes for physical and moral wholesomeness. It is clear that a rising standard of living means new requirements on mother care.

(d) Families in exceptionally good financial circum- stances have long followed the practice of delegating care of children in large part. Employed nurses and tutors take charge during younger years ; and in England the boarding school claims many boys and some girls after nine or ten years of age. Whether the rearing thus provided is equal or superior to that which the mother, devoting her energies primarily to her children, could give, is yet an open ques- tion; but in view of the very small number of families to whom this delegation of parental responsibilities is finan- cially practicable, the question is of small importance. Once in a million cases, perhaps, we can find a Madame Schu- mann-Heink who can, by virtue of unusual physical strength

Probable Economic Future of American Women 427

and exceptional talent for a non-domestic vocation, render great service away from the home and at the same time rear a fine family ; but social programs can hardly be based on cases so exceptional.

3. Demands for " better families." — In the evolution of conscious social policies relative to the homemaking voca- tion, to supplement the present social inheritance of cus- toms and traditions based partly upon old human instincts and partly upon empirical experience accumulated un- der the spur of necessity, it is clearly urgent that the conditions of effective homemaking in accordance with modern approvable standards should be analyzed, delimited, and described. What constitutes optimum " mother-care " of infants and children? To what extent, under what circumstances, and at what financial cost can that care, in whole or in part, be delegated? To what extent, under what circumstances, and to what advantage, financial or other, can the pursuit of occupations supplemental to, or in substitution of, mother-care be profitably followed by the mother ?

It is needless to state here that from the standpoint of so- cial evolution the primary function of the home is the rearing of children during the prolonged years of " infancy " which has become a racial condition in the human species. The adequate maintenance of the home, at least in temperate zones, has entailed the monogamous and life-long union of the father and mother, and, as a consequence, the home serves the important secondary function of being a place of rest and recreation for the father, who is of course essen- tially a non-domestic worker. The mother, as homekeeper and children's guardian, develops various kinds of domestic productive service, which are best generalized under the term " homemaking." In all normal societies it can be as- sumed that the two parents contribute equally to the com- plete support of the home. Under special circumstances —

428 Vocational Education

e.g. where men extensively develop social habits of dissi- pation, where prosperous men put a premium on the decora- tive functions of wives and daughters, in settlement of the frontier, or where, after a long period in which men have specialized in defensive functions and women in manual toil, conditions of peace are established which do not for a time diminish the woman's work, but permit the man to exist in comparative idleness — the men in some of these cases, or the women in others, are forced to make a disproportionate contribution, whether of labor or of suffering; but such con- ditions occur only in exceptional classes and periods.

Rising standards of living and changing conditions due to civilization impose upon both parents larger responsibil- ities, often only partially offset by increase of knowledge, of productive power due to invention, etc. A longer period of parental protection for children; diminished mortality and morbidity rates; more adequate nurture, clothing, shel- ter, and education; more "social" advantages; later entry upon self-supporting employment; a " better start in life" — these become goals, individual and social, of family rear- ing in all civilized societies. The three most visible effects of these rising standards are : the mother must give fuller personal care to her children, especially in their younger years ; the father must increase his output of productive serv- ice in order to procure the exchangeable goods necessary for family support; and the state undertakes certain func- tions— e.g. education, and, in less measure, health super- vision and relief of destitute — which parents cannot well perform.

A secondary social product of these rising standards ap- pearing in recent years, and especially in most progressive societies — as judged at least by conventional standards — is the voluntary diminution of the number of children to be reared, and, by inference and expectation at least, the more adequate rearing of this diminished number. A first man-

Probable Economic Future of American Women 429

ifestation of this tendency is found in the postponement of marriage among many classes, and especially the profes- sional; a second, in the diminished marriage rate, at least in some societies, of the socially " unfit " — the dissipated, the defective, and the ne'er-do-well; a third, in the social disapproval of excessively large families — the " rabbit warren" type — especially among the poor; and a fourth, in voluntary restriction among the sensitive and intelligent of the size of family to that which is in a measure com- patible with the interests of the parents in the proper rearing of their children, the conservation of the health of the mother, and the building up of a capital reserve for the par- ents in their old age.

That the possibilities of restricting size of family in the interests of quality of human beings reared can be and are subject to gross abuses is unquestionable. Without doubt, an undue number of men now forego marriage altogether, some from the most selfish of motives. Some men, and doubtless some women, remain celibate because of the ac- quisition of excessively developed qualities of so-called re- finement, which represent in reality only refined selfishness. It is certain that in countries like France, New Zealand, England, and America, where social caste has broken down and ascent in the social scale is easy, a disastrously large proportion of married couples evade altogether or in large part their obligations to society as regards insuring families of proper size. Motives for this are varied, ranging from the completely selfish to those involving, perhaps, a mis- guided sense of social gain to result from the success of the unhandicapped man in art, science, business leadership, war leadership, or social prominence.

" Down to Gehenna or up to the throne, He travels fastest who travels alone."

It is still, of course, a complex unsettled problem as to how far the entire ange of powers and capacities of the

430 Vocational Education

mother of a normal family, capable of being devoted to productive service, may not be required for child-rearing, especially during the years from marriage to the time when the youngest child shall be at least twelve years of age. In the case of a woman marrying at twenty-three years of age and rearing four children, it is reasonable to assume that her personal care will be closely required on behalf of her chil- dren until she is forty-two years of age. It is furthermore here offered as a contention that by all modern standards the family responsibilities of such a mother during her twenty most active years must claim substantially all her effective working time and energy. Society may be ex- pected increasingly to look upon the supersession of maternal duties, either by voluntarily assumed or by enforced labor in non-domestic vocations, as in the nature of a misfortune to the rising generation. Variations from this principle there will undoubtedly be ; but they will arise from circum- stances so exceptional that they will be of the nature of those variations from the normal, the justification of which on the part of given individuals will entail a substantial burden of proof.

4. Domestic versus non-domestic vocations. — What are the relationships likely to prove .most common between woman's work in homemaking and her work in non-domes- tic employments? The history of recent decades points to the following possible answers :

(a) The postponement of marriage together with the withdrawal of many kinds of productive work from the home has rendered it necessary for the daughters of the fam- ily, no less than the sons, in large numbers to seek openings for productive service away from the home. This is espe- cially true of communities devoted largely to industrial and commercial pursuits. For example, the Census of 1910 shows the following proportions (percentages) of women of each age group engaged in " gainful " occupations:

Probable Economic Future of American Women 431

STATE	FEMALES 10-13 YEARS	FEMALES 14-15 YEARS	FEMALES 16-20 YEARS	FEMALES 21-44 YEARS	FEMALES 45 AND UPWARD
Massachusetts . . . Iowa	Percentage .3 7	Percentage 24 9	Percentage 60 29	Percentage 39 20	Percentage 18 9
Pennsylvania Kansas	1.3 .7	21 4	44 22	23 16	13 10

All of these figures are rendered difficult of interpreta- tion for the purposes in hand here by the fact that the fourth age group includes at least two or three and, for certain higher economic levels, probably four to six years of the usual " premarriage " wage working years of the women involved. Nevertheless, it is clear that in all states, and con- spicuously in those predominantly industrial and commer- cial, from one fourth to nearly two thirds of all women give their " premarriage " years (after school years close) to non-domestic employments; and there is little reason to expect that this condition will change in the direction of in- creasing the proportion of domestic work.

(b) Where regular home employment is insufficient for mother and growing daughters numerous attempts are made to bring wage-earning, non-domestic work into the home. In cities the addressing of envelopes, feather-work, novelty work, and piecework (for example, sewing on of buttons, etc., on manufactured clothing) are sought. In a few coun- try areas the manufacture of cheap cigars by the farmers' wives and daughters in the home has proven profitable. But no general developments in this direction can now be traced, and the trend of " sweatshop " legislation, as well as the opposition of social students to the probable incident abuses (hygienic, forced child labor, etc.), would seem to indicate that such forms of work have little future. The develop- ment of electrically driven textile and other machinery has led to some extravagant hopes that each home may once again become what it formerly was in some cases — a little

43* Vocational Education

workshop for the whole family. For the present these ex- pectations must be regarded as Utopian. Problems of or- ganization, supervision, and transportation seem insur- mountable. The natural lines of development of non-domes- tic work for rural women would seem to be in the direction of soil tillage and light stock raising ; but these also as " ex- tra-home " vocations for women seem to be diminishing rather than increasing.

(c) It is here assumed that, as stated before, society can- not well expect or even permit non-domestic " full-time " wage work for women after marriage and during the time when children are still young.

(</) Could " part-time " wage-earning work for mothers be approved? If a mother cannot teach a full day, could she not teach a half day? Could not mothers living near factories give four or five hours daily to wage-earning? These questions are often raised; and public interest in them is such that much experimentation may be expected in the near future. The theoretic possibilities of good arrange- ments of this sort seem strong; but some of the most for- midable obstacles to them are generally ignored. Modern production involves a constantly enlarging proportion of capital (tools, housing, etc.) and organization (supervision, regimentation, routine) in proportion to labor. To an in- creasing extent labor must work according to schedule, else waste of capital (idle tools, etc.) and excessive cost of " overhead " service — supervision, planning, etc. — become inevitable. The outlook for part-time service, especially if the " part-time " must also be somewhat irregular, is not promising, but nevertheless requires fullest experimentation.

(e) Can women, after children are grown, find profitable non-domestic employment? The answer involves the same difficulties as those discussed under (d) above, and the added one that these possible workers would be past the age at which they could readily learn new processes. Here,

Probable Economic Future of American Women 433

also, close analytical studies of existing situations and exper- imentation seem highly desirable.

5. What are " suitable " types of work for women? —

(a) It can readily be assumed that most women, by in- stinct and as a result of custom inheritance, are peculiarly qualified for " homemaking " work as that has evolved through the ages. But where homemaking is required of a highly trained and gifted woman, it may seem in individual instances socially less productive than other work for her. To what extent and under what circumstances can she dele- gate homemaking? Some problems arising in this connec- tion have been discussed above.

(b) It is probable that old preconceptions as to the " in- tellectual unfitness " of women for certain types of work will have to be put into cold storage during the twentieth cen- tury, at least until a time when more scientific evidence rela- tive to general dissimilarities between men and women as to intellectual quality shall have been accumulated and inter- preted. Only relatively few men, of course, are capable of meeting the intellectual standards set by the age for scien- tific research, practice of a profession, military leadership, teaching advanced students, literary production, business leadership, etc. Whether, given the same social in- centives and opportunities, the percentage of women who could attain to equal proficiency is smaller or larger is cer- tainly not yet known.

(c) Among economically prosperous peoples it seems that women develop less physical strength and those kinds of hardihood that we customarily identify with work in the open than do men. As a consequence, it is customary to as- sume that women cannot do many of the kinds of heavy work in which men frequently engage. This impression is heightened by the fact that among many of the best-known mammals and birds the female is less strongly built than the male. On the other hand, among primitive peoples and

2F

434 Vocational Education

the economically less prosperous tillers of the soil to-day (Asia, Central Europe) women by custom carry on much heavy work, and, apparently, develop bones and muscles hardly less strong and capable of enduring long and heavy work than those of men. At all stages in recorded history, where the ideal of the " decorative " woman has prevailed among the leisure class or workers of high rank, girls of these classes have been reared with standards of small feet, slender waists, half-developed muscles, and soft skins in view. The product has often been a much, if not exces- sively, feminized woman, who, among her other defects of specialization toward the " beautiful," includes a greatly diminished capacity for heavy physical toil and endurance. The same results would happen and frequently have hap- pened to men as effects of similar ideals and consequent practices. How far, therefore, we must accept as inherent woman's alleged natural disqualifications for heavy work - lifting, tilling, building, digging, portering, mining, etc. - seems yet an open question.

If, however, it should prove that, naturally, a smaller body and less physical strength are the portion of women in general, or that women should, on account of possible in- juries to organs essential to child-bearing, be spared " heavy work," then the consequences in vocational education will be important, although probably less important as mechanisms employing natural powers become perfected. The same re- sults would follow, of course, if it should appear that those decorative qualities in women which seem to require certain kinds of physical underdevelopment should prove to be more than adventitious assets to society. Conceivably, it may be very important, from the standpoints of aesthetic demands, sexual selection, etc., that all women should be schooled and shaped to the physical attractiveness and delicacy formerly possible only to the wives, daughters, and specialized en- tertainers of the conquering and the wealth-holding classes,

Probable Economic Future of American Women 435

If this be so, then we shall differentiate indoor salesman- ship, teaching, light factory work, and the like as suitable employments for young women during their premarriage years, because, on the one hand, these young women, softly reared, will prove unadapted to heavier work, and because, on the other hand, they will thereby avoid those forms of toil which most handicap them as regards physical attractive- ness. Obviously, the unsettled problems here are numer- ous, intricate, and perhaps, until we shall know more about social psychology, baffling. But it is highly probable that, owing to natural or social fitness, men will prevailingly con- tinue to fill some occupations and women others. The rea- sons for this differentiation may be economic rather than physical and social. But, as the place and circumstances of a given occupation change, it may well pass from one sex to another. Milking, baking, and skin-dressing, once tied up with the home, first were women's work; but, away from the home, they become men's occupations. The work of the street-car conductor was formerly heavy and disagreeable to an extent that marked it out manifestly for men; but when the job becomes one chiefly of collecting fares in the pro- tected entrance of a car, there is no reason why it should not be given to a woman, or, more properly, a girl.

6. Can men and women workers expect equal pay for equal work? --There are many obscure elements involved in this problem. It has previously been suggested that, under average economic conditions, women do as much work as men. This is very different from saying that men and women can compete on equal terms in non-domestic (or, obviously also, domestic) forms of employment. The fol- lowing special problems are involved :

(a) It is essential that " pay for work " should be thought of as far as practicable in terms of exchange of economic utilities and not in terms of the counter " money." Men and women work, primarily, in order that they may

436 Vocational Education

produce, beyond the products of their labor which they can themselves consume, products which can be exchanged for the required products of others. It is practically impossi- ble to designate absolute " values " for these products; all experience shows that, except in the case of collective inter- ference with demand in the interest of health or safety, the " values " attached to various forms of service and product are the resultants of demand and supply. Private individual or corporate effort can interfere somewhat with the oper- ation of the law of supply and demand in regulation of values (as expressed in prices), as through corporate mo- nopoly, trade-union regulation, fashion, advertising, educa- tion ; and the state through minimum wage laws, sumptuary regulations, state monopoly, can also cause some marked divergences from the normal values determined by the free operation of the law. Nevertheless, like sea-level as a base of earth measurements, or year-round average temperature in a given area, the resultant values given by the law of sup- ply and demand can never be ignored or greatly departed from. In general, then, it may be assumed that when the demand for the services or the products of any class of workers is large and the supply of such service or product small, a relatively large quantity of " exchangeable " goods will be offered; and, when reversed conditions prevail, a small amount; and that neither custom, private monopoly, nor law can more than slightly affect this resultant.

(b) Society does not now subject children, dependent poor people, the sick or the aged, those severely handicapped physically, or those who, like soldiers, are temporarily drafted for public service, to the struggle involved in the competitive industrial order. But it does require normal adults to be " self-supporting," which means, in fact, that these are expected to sell their services in the best possible market, and that buyers of such services or their products will strive to get them at the best possible (buyer's) price.

Probable Economic Future of American Women 437

Broadly speaking, then, a given normal child from birth to perhaps sixteen consumes more economic service day by day than he produces, the adverse balance being largest from perhaps nine to sixteen. Thereafter he produces more than he consumes until perhaps sixty-five years of age, the max- imum favorable balance being between the years twenty-five and fifty. From sixty-five to death at eighty, this individual consumes more than he produces, apart from the service rendered to society by even the very old man as " capital holder." It is from sixteen to sixty-five, in this case, that the law of supply and demand regulating wages operates.

An extreme school of collectivists would abrogate the operation of the law of supply and demand by establishing the principle " to each according to his needs, from each according to his ability," which is now, on any given eco- nomic plane, the custom-based practice as regards children. But for the present we must assume among independent adult workers the nearly free operation of competition in buying and selling services (or their products). Under these conditions, subject to slight offsets from custom and monopolization, " equal pay for equal work " will certainly prevail ; and the pay will always be that for which the cheap- est worker can be had. This process will necessarily be ob- scured (perhaps in a measure departed from) in public serv- ice (e.g. public school teaching) where standards of service rendered are indefinite and the employer — "the public" seems possessed of unlimited means of adding to the com- pensation of workers alleged to be " underpaid." Simi- larly, in the case of large corporations having great assets and not subject to keen competition, sentiment or fear may for a time force wage rates to artificial levels, doubtless often the case with " high officials " and sometimes with the rank and file of workers.

(c) But in almost every case it is practically certain that men and women will not work alongside each other on terms

438 Vocational Education

of economic equality. The " pull " of economic demand for persons of a given grade of native ability, training, and adaptability will not operate equally. For example, to one thousand men chosen at random, economic opportunities are now available of such kind and quantity as to make, let us say, elementary school teaching at present rates of com- pensation a tenth or twentieth best calling; whereas to an equal number of women it is now a first, second, or, possibly in some cities, a third best calling. Naturally and inevitably, unless society places a special premium on men because they can render a kind of service that women cannot render, such teaching will become " woman's work " and the men will strive toward those callings which pay better.

(d) A very large factor in this economic differentiation, although obscurely recognized at present, is the difference in demands being made upon men and women workers re- spectively. For a given economic level, it may be assumed that during the years constituting the " premarriage " pe- riod for women in large numbers, youths and maidens will impose demands for wages only slightly above the living ex- penses of the individual. But between ages twenty-five and fifty, in the large (and therefore controlling) majority of cases the situations of permanent men and women workers (in the case of women, chiefly celibate) change in marked degree. The permanently single woman at twenty-six may, and, in the case of teachers, nurses, etc., often does, have as many " dependents " as men of the same age; but at forty- six society expects the man to have four to seven depend- ents, whereas the single woman, who is the only frequent competitor, now, commonly, has only herself. Because this is so in the controlling number of cases for a given so- cial plane of intelligence, standard of living, and natural competency, all components of the " demand " made by the class collectively for exchangeable goods (the measure of normal wages), men workers from twenty-five to fifty will

Probable Economic Future of American Women 439

strive to preempt fields into which women cannot fit; and, equally, women will be given almost exclusive possession of those forms of work which they can do best. Some of the stronger of the women will always be looking longingly into the fields given to the men; and their potential rather than real competition may be expected always to be a source of irritation, apprehension, and recriminating discussion.

7. Women in the professions and leadership. — To many young women of ability and ambition come, very naturally, aspirations to prepare themselves for those professional call- ings, as well as forms of leadership, for which many years of expensive training and of poorly remunerated appren- ticeship are essential. Many capable women of middle age who are in their own thoughts permanent celibates, become ambitious to be promoted to positions of authority and leadership for which their abilities and experience seem to qualify them. In these cases women have always encoun- tered obstacles more or less factitious, the vestigial remains of which still are found.

The problems involved here are by no means solved, how- ever, when artificial barriers to training and promotion have been removed. Take, for example, the practice of medicine as a profession; should we recommend it as a desirable voca- tion to a young woman of requisite ability and interest? Persons preparing for this profession usually embark on its study at or about twenty to twenty-three years of age. They will probably be thirty years of age before they can expect to be self-supporting. Cost of training is heavy, both to the individual and to the state (or, in lieu of state support, philanthropic endowments provided for the encour- agement of this professional training). Granting that a properly qualified woman who remains single can build up and maintain a good medical practice, should the young woman be encouraged to undertake the preliminary steps involved ? We should first, of course, decide as far as prac-

440 Vocational Education

ticable whether, for the woman prepared to practice medi- cine, homemaking and family rearing are compatible with a professional career. Instances of the successful union of the two we have, of course; but do they prove the desirabil- ity of the attempt in general? Or should we assume that the woman who wishes to prepare herself for a difficult pro- fession should, in effect, pledge herself to celibacy?

Similar problems arise in connection with leadership as found in such posts as foreman, school principal, depart- ment-store buyer, hotel manager, etc. Most of the women who work at teaching, manufacturing, store salesmanship, and clerical service are young; during their earlier years of service they usually expect to marry, and often their interests in matrimonial prospects constitute an absorbing preoccu- pation. At the time when the best men workers in these fields are just beginning to feel that their experience con- stitutes a solid basis for further study, many of the best women workers terminate their wage-earning careers. Those who find it desirable or necessary to go on are apt to come late to the conviction that they should begin to qualify them- selves for promotion to directive work. Should we endeavor to induce the ablest of these workers early to begin to plan for promotion ? The situation in public education is a good example. From 75 to 90 per cent of all teachers in the ele- mentary and high schools are women. Beginners of both sexes start on a substantial parity as regards compensation and duties. But positions of direction go chiefly to men. Prepossessions of employing authorities — that women principals cannot manage big boys, that women teachers do not work so well under women principals — play a part in this, but probably not a great part in recent years. More marked is the indisposition of women teachers (except kindergartners) during the ages from twenty-four to thirty to take leads, to show professional initiative, to prepare for advanced work.

Probable Economic Future of American Women 441

Obviously, problems involved in women's relationship to vocations exacting long preparation must be studied in the light of agreement upon principles (or well-supported hy- potheses at least) as to the desirable attitude of women toward family life, and necessary limitations imposed by family life.

8. The "college woman." — Only within recent years have women in large numbers sought a college education. Now they seem likely to exceed the number of men in liberal- arts courses. The relation of a " liberal-arts education," leading to the degree of A.B., Ph.B., LL.B., or non-technical B.S., to prospective vocations, is yet a matter of uncertainty to the public and, it would also seem, to college professors. No one can pretend that a general college course is voca- tional in any definite sense, except possibly for some depart- mental work in high-school teaching — and that is the case not so much because any college prepares for that work as because high-school teaching itself is not yet, in America, based upon professional standards.

Nevertheless, the colleges generally do not make the actual functions of a college education clear to their students or to the public. College professors, in debates and articles, defend affirmative answers to the question, " Does a college education pay? " without distinguishing sharply between the " paying " which is essentially financial and the outcome of successful participation in vocations, and those other kinds of " paying " which are the effect of enrichment in personal culture, enhanced values in citizenship, greater control of health, and the like.

It will prove, of course, very hard to ascertain whether a college education ever or generally pays in the first sense. College students, and, still more, college graduates, repre- sent of course the picked personalities of the time and regions to which they belong. Only persons of superior heredity, superior rearing, and superior lower education, in

442 Vocational Education

general, go to college. Success (as commonly esteemed) in vocational, as well as in other -activities, is, in general, assured for these superior persons. Whether a general college education adds to prospects for success in a vocation is clearly not certain, notwithstanding the blind devotion of many college professors to the magic of " mental discipline." That a college education " pays " through enrichment of personal culture and general social or civic usefulness is probable, otherwise the " liberal-arts courses " lose all excuse for being.

Now the situation confronting women graduating from general college courses is difficult. They are naturally superior persons. They are not generally committed to op- portunities for homemaking careers. They want to be self- supporting. They dislike to enter upon "unskilled work." Their mature abilities and, as they often think, their educa- tion qualify them for something better. What are the possibilities ? Their brothers used to feel the same ambition to begin high up the ladder of earning and responsibility; but now the men usually know enough either to go to a vocational (professional) school after leaving college or else begin at the bottom of the ladder on a railroad, in a broker's office, or even on a farm. But there are few vocational schools open to these women ; their mothers fre- quently oppose their beginning at " the bottom " of any ladder. What can they do ? Trifle away time entertaining and being entertained, awaiting the expected " engagement " to enter upon the vocation of homemaking? Confessedly, present conditions present here more unsolved than solved problems.

9. Effects of mechanization and regimentation. — Cur- rent tendencies toward the mechanization of industrial pro- cesses and the regimentation of workers are strong. It is the writer's conviction that further evolution of these tendencies is inevitable. Already it is clear that mechanization of work

Probable Economic Future of American Women 443

and subdivision of process greatly increase the variety and range of opportunities open to unskilled and immature girls —they can readily become " tenders " of even complicated machines. It is probable that " machine-tending " will spread. Harvesting, tillage, even milking and ditch-digging, are now done in part by easily managed machines. Could not women drive street cars, electric locomotives, traction- drawn plows, automatic fodder-grinders, as well as adding- machines, looms, tool-grinders, power-driven sewing ma- chines? Machinery makes a given quantity of productive work easier, and more or less interesting and stimulating. There are as yet many unsolved problems here, and they are for the moment at least of even more concern to women than to men, because women more readily than men fall victims in the numerous pathological situations incident to, if not even in some cases inherent in, " modern " industrialism.

10. General education. — In all the more progressive American states all girls (as well as boys) are required to attend full-time day schools of general education between the ages of six and fourteen. A constantly increasing pro- portion of young persons from the more prosperous families attend, in addition, high schools (whose primary purposes are also found in the field of general, as distinguished from vocational, education) for one or more years, while the ambitious daughters of the very prosperous go also to college.

The objectives actually realized through this general education (or, in its higher stages, better named, " liberal " education) have not yet been definitely ascertained or described, especially in the upper grades and liberal-arts colleges. In the minds of many persons these objectives include some having relation to vocational fitness. It is obvious, of course, that a person unable to read or write is automatically debarred thereby from many non-manual vocations. But it is not so clear that a general high-school

444 Vocational Education

education is essential to the pursuit of higher vocations, public opinion to the contrary notwithstanding. The fact that girls or boys graduating from high school are, on the whole, a " selected " group (as regards native abilities, good early nurture, effective character formation in the home, etc.), and, therefore, likely to succeed well in vocational pur- suits which they undertake and to give satisfaction to their employers, has, owing to the prevalent habit of reasoning easily post hoc ergo propter hoc, caused employers and even parents to associate success with the high-school education itself — as cause and effect.

But, as an accompaniment of the development of more definite plans for direct vocational education, it is becoming increasingly evident that general or liberal education has, and can have, little positive relationship to vocational com- petency. The primary objectives of effective general edu- cation are to be found in personal culture, civic and moral strength, and physical well-being, as these constitute desir- able assets among men and women quite irrespective of vocation. The quality of the physical, social (civic and moral), and cultural education now given in upper grades, high schools, and colleges leaves much to be desired, perhaps in largest degree as it affects girls and women. Much of it rests on psychological assumptions that are largely wrong. Its specific objectives have been determined in hard-and- fast form frequently by authorities (like committees on college admission) who have very slight knowledge of the actual qualities, powers, and capacities of those for whom they are prescribing, and even less of accurate knowledge of the social conditions to which these young women should be adjusted for later life and in which they can render valuable service. Nevertheless, some important advances have been made in recent years and greater ones are in prospect in proportion as education becomes more scientific as regards its aims and methods.

Probable Economic Future of American Women 445

But it is now rather clear that vocational education and comprehensive general education cannot effectively be car- ried on side by side. The one tends to exclude the other or rather to take a primary place in the interests and the atten- tion of the learner. Up to fifteen or seventeen or nineteen or twenty-one years of age, according to strength of intel- lectual interests, family economic circumstances, and social incentives generally, youths can be led easily to give primary attention to " growth," development, and training toward the non-vocational activities of life. As incidental and sec- ondary to this liberal education they can readily be induced to " work for wages " after school hours and during vaca- tions, to read about " careers," and even to study trigonome- try, business English, or other subjects of a demonstrably " prevocational " character for ascertained vocations.

When, on the other hand, the time comes — in the case of a few at fourteen, for many at sixteen and at eighteen, and for the exceptional at twenty or twenty-two — for the youth to enter upon a vocation, or upon specific and demon- strably functioning training therefor, as a result of the interplay of his own instinctive development with the pres- sure of social forces upon him, then he tends, in response to a very real natural incentive as well as wise customs pressing upon him from society, to give to his vocation the lion's share of his interest and effort. None of us could well wish it otherwise. But there is one course which should be followed in the case of the young person concentrating on the earlier stages (as learner or operative) of his voca- tion; outside the hours — usually the best of the working day — given to that he should be induced, even aided by supplemental training and instruction and by the public pro- vision of suitable means, if necessary, to give his leisure hours to higher rather than to lower physical, civic, and cultural pursuits. If, for example, a girl of sixteen in a clothing factory or in a " power operating " school prepara-

446 Vocational Education

tory thereto is giving fifty- four hours per week to learning or practicing her vocation, then she should be assisted and inspired to devote a reasonable number of her leisure hours - from thirty to fifty per week — to those extra vocational activities that will most enrich her life, continue the growth of her personality, and offset the inevitably cramping effects of her vocational pursuits — since all vocations, even those of homemaking, elementary-school teaching, and nursing, have their " cramping " effects no less certainly than dress- making, cigarette making, spinning, waiting on table, and selling in a department store.

Now the time at which " full-time " general education should or will cease depends upon many conditions. For many girls and boys in our schools intellectual interests seem greatly to have flagged before fifteen years of age. Where the home economic interests are poor, where the father of four or six children is carrying the burden of supporting an expensive family on a workingman's wages, sensitive chil- dren at fifteen or sixteen years of age become eager to help carry the family's load. Some of these children become interested in earning money wherewith to purchase com- modities and amusements attractive to themselves. In the case of many city boys of good physical development, the instinctive desire to be doing something " heavy " or " use- ful " with their muscles doubtless often exerts a strong pressure toward " getting to work." Now that it has be- come customary for a large proportion of girls to become wage workers away from the home, the same social pressures are doubtless felt by them as by the boys. Other consid- erations also affect entrance upon wage-earning employ- ments. For many trades the age of sixteen is, or rather was formerly, looked upon as a desirable time for beginning apprenticeship. The repellent character of the work offered during the first two years of the usual high-school course for pupils who have no expectations of finishing the course

Probable Economic Future of American Women 447

has the effect of rendering all school work intensely dis- tasteful.

It is to be expected that workers in vocational guidance will ere long have given us some standards to guide us in advising girls when to substitute a vocation or vocational training as the central interest of the working day for the work of the school of " general" or "liberal" education. The naive assumptions of academic schoolmasters that one " cannot have too much of general education " are, of course, essentially ex parte contentions. The vague con- victions of these same authorities that pupils will continue to profit materially from further attendance on schools of general learning as long as they attend are probably widely at variance with the facts, at least as schools and courses are now provided for youths from twelve to eighteen years of age. More to be approved, perhaps, at least in urban environments and under sharply competitive industrial con- ditions, is the contention that the longer pupils remain in school the better prepared they will be, in maturity and physical resisting power at least, to withstand the abnormal strains and other adverse conditions incident to modern in- dustrial employment.

1 1 . Some conditions affecting vocational education. — As introductory to discussion of problems of vocational educa- tion of women and girls, it is necessary to recognize: (a) that the successful pursuit of any and all vocations requires that the individual should somewhere and somehow have been trained for that pursuit ; ( b ) that under historic conditions such training has been the expected by-product (by-educa- tion) of actual participation in the earlier and simpler stages of the vocation; and (c) that only in recent times and, as yet, under exceptional conditions has it been feasible or desirable to separate vocational training for proficiency from vocational participation for production.

Furthermore, it must be recognized that the modem de-

448 Vocational Education

mand for specialized vocational education (in schools) arises from these convictions more or less widely held: (a) that for many vocations — homemaking, dressmaking, teaching - the conditions and efficacy of apprenticeship have deteri- orated greatly in recent years; (b) that for many other vocations, especially of modern development — stenography and clerical work generally, salesmanship, and scores of kinds of factory employments — apprenticeship education never has been carried to the point of being more than a crude method of trial-and-error selection, accompanied by the slow and clumsy building of experience; (c) that the absence of systematic provision for vocational education works immeasurable harm to individuals, young and old, in permanently holding their productive efficiency below the requirements for a normal standard of living; and (d) that society itself is thereby the loser at all points in the elements that make for social wholesomeness and progress.

It has been previously noted that under American con- ditions the great majority of girls and women do and will in each case continue to follow two widely unlike vocations — a wage-earning vocation from youth to young woman- hood, often from sixteen to twenty- four years of age — after which they will follow for life the vocation of home- making. In some important respects this situation compli- cates all problems of vocational education for girls and women, although, in the case of commercial and industrial vocations, these complications are only slightly more serious and difficult than others found in the vocational education of boys and men.

The first difficulty usually encountered is that the girl does not take her wage-earning vocation seriously. For her it is merely a means to the earning of money. 'She hopes and expects not to follow it long. Except as it brings more money she is not greatly interested in promotion. Given the opportunity to take vocational training, she seeks to

Probable Economic Future of American Women 449

shorten the period o^ such training as much as possible. She remains indifferent to the cooperative help of unions. She develops little of the esprit de corps of work. She is easily exploited and the best discipline for dereliction is found in a system of fines.

But the most unsettling difficulty, doubtless, is that her second vocation, homemaking, is one toward which condi- tions prevent her from moving in anything like a direct way. She must wait the will and pleasure of others. It is often hardly considered dignified openly to anticipate the new career and to prepare for it. As a consequence of the fact that the wage-earning girl has been for several years hardly more than a boarder in her parents' home or the home of others, and has given little serious thought and almost no preparation to the work of homemaking, it happens fre- quently that she enters upon this work with the na'ive cheer- fulness and ignorance of a child and lets her domestic happiness drift upon the rocks of incompetency and discord to the great harm of herself and loss to society.

A third difficulty is encountered as respects those profes- sional vocations for which a long term of years is required in preparation. Capable and ambitious women graduates of high school and even college occasionally manifest keen ambitions to become physicians, architects, painters, writers, or teachers in college or normal school. As a rule these callings require from three to five years of expensive pro- fessional training, followed by several years of quasi- apprenticeship, during part of which the individual must be supported (at large expense) by her family, and during no part of which can she expect to be entirely self-supporting. Should girls at eighteen or twenty, who will probably marry before they are thirty years of age, be encouraged to enter upon the long road of preparation for these professional careers, taking the time and using the equipment frequently of expensive institutions of training? Would such training

20

45© Vocational Education

•^

give valuable assets toward homemakfig at all in proportion to the outlay made upon it? Many differences of even ex- pert opinion will be found here.

The rapid development of production by means of machinery and the specialization of processes made possible in all highly organized industrial and commercial produc- tion have opened endless opportunities for wage-earning work to women and especially to girls of average capacity and moderate training. Endless varieties of productive work are to be found in industrial establishments to-day in which all that is required of the girl is that she shall be an alert machine-tender. Cloth and clothing manufacture, cigarette making, fruit packing, small hardware production, bookbinding, jewelry making, printing, telephony, paper-box making — these are but suggestive examples. Somewhat more skilled are the commercial occupations — clerical and salesmanship — which, by virtue of subdivision and special- ization, are being rendered, to a substantial extent, increas- ingly accessible to half -matured and slightly trained girl workers.

12. Vocational levels. — It is often naively assumed that specialized economic production offers, or should offer, opportunities for workers generally to rise in their work toward places of greater responsibility and reward in the same way that was true of the handicraft and other unspe- cialized callings. This vague assumption has been respon- sible for the tendency to designate so many juvenile callings as " blind-alley " or " dead-end " occupations.

But it is probably much nearer the facts to describe mod- ern specialized callings in factory, store, and large office as consisting of levels largely, if not wholly, unconnected with each other. The work on certain levels is peculiarly suited to the powers of young people, and often to persons of quite mediocre native abilities. On other levels, maturity and perhaps native ability are required, but not necessarily

Probable Economic Future of American Women 451

experience on lower levels in the same establishment. Nat- urally there are many exceptions to the principle here stated in general terms, but in the making of educational programs it is not now the exceptions but the prevalent conditions which require emphasis, in view of the deep-seated ignorance of many educators now influencing the development of voca- tional education. It is clearly to the interest of the worker as well as of society that transition from lower to higher levels should be rendered as easy and timely as practicable for each worker when maturity and ability justify it. That is far from being the case at present. Where production is highly organized, all the work of one " level " being con- fined to one great room or even shop, the best workers of this level are retained as long as possible, and every barrier is interposed to their movement upward — a situation in direct contrast to the "ladder" system of advancement inherent in most phases of a complex or handicraft calling, such as dressmaking, teaching, farm work, and nursing, where increased skill and general competence grow as parts of a more or less unified structure.

Few systematic means have yet been devised toward assisting the worker to prepare for the better-paid levels. Entry upon these is frequently attended by difficulties of the same general character as those encountered in getting employment in the first place. Uncertainty, hardship, in- itial blundering, the domineering attitudes of foremen and forewomen, all make these transitions extraordinarily pain- ful and hazardous. Vocational training of the right sort is required for young workers in all highly organized indus- tries no less in transition from intermediate or lower stages to higher stages than at the outset.

13. Vocational training for specialized vocations. — Most of the wage-earning work upon which girls and women enter is of a highly subdivided and specialized character, and this promises to be increasingly the case. War production

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has taken almost wholly the direction of enhanced " quantity production " of " standardized goods " - cartridges, uni- forms, canned meats, aeroplane wings, shells, rifle sights, army shirts, and the like.

For the sake of the happiness of the worker herself as well as for the sake of enhanced production and general economic well-being, it is highly desirable that, as prelim- inary to entry upon productive work in any specialized process, the girl should receive specific and effective voca- tional training (and, where necessary or desirable, related instruction and social insight) in that process. For many specialized processes a few weeks, or, at most, months, may amply suffice to give this training, providing there be ded- icated to it the same full working day, spirit of concentra- tion, and pursuit of specific and definitely conceived ends that are characteristic of the vocational pursuit itself. Of intensive vocational training of this sort, either for first entry upon wage-earning or as a means whereby the worker of some experience can be assisted to advance to higher or better-paid levels, our public vocational schools provide as yet very few examples. Private effort has resulted in some suggestive experiments and examples upon which publicly supported work may be expected hereafter to be based. It requires courage, imagination, and practical insight of kinds not common among educators to undertake the promotion of intensive, " short-course " vocational training for produc- tive specialties, especially when such training obviously in- volves large use of " productive work " as an educational means, followed by definitely organized " part-time " par- ticipation on a wage-earning basis. Some day we shall in this connection realize better than we do now the large possibilities of the " vestibule school " (a type which should not be refused public support solely because the best place for its location is in a building chiefly dedicated to industry or commerce).

Probable Economic Future of American Women 453

14. Homemaking education. — Space does not here per- mit extended discussion of the possibilities of vocational education for homemaking. Widespread attempts are now being made to introduce this vocational education under the name " home economics " into upper grades and high schools. Where girls have had or can be induced to obtain a large amount of practical experience in their own homes, and if the school instruction is definitely correlated with such home experience, the net outcome will be a form of " vocational extension education " which may prove to be somewhat valuable for farmers' daughters and others not leaving the home to work for wages. But for the large majority of girls in our industrial and commercial cities, home economics education given at the ages from twelve to sixteen will probably produce little permanent power of " execution " ; but it will, when properly organized, give rise to appreciations of a fairly definite sort, useful as foun- dations for subsequent training in skill and management.

But effective homemaking education — for the modal American home expecting three to five children, and oper- ated without help of servants — can be given only when " motive " is ripe. If girls of from seventeen to twenty could look forward to acceptable wage-earning careers as household domestics, then the year (or possibly more) just before entry upon that calling would be the best time for definite, practical education for that form of homemaking service. A few girls at sixteen or eighteen years of age - only daughters, or daughters with invalid mothers — can doubtless be found who will be effectually interested in pre- paring to take charge of the domestic work in their own homes. These two may be expected, in cities or suburban areas, to constitute a sufficient number to justify provision of practical training adapted to their needs.

But as regards the great majority of girls who serve some years as wage-earners apart from the home, it is doubtful

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whether active motives for learning homemaking can be counted upon until after several years in the wage-earning career have passed, and the young woman has reason to anticipate the coming of conditions which will enable her to establish a home of her own. The years immediately preceding and immediately following marriage are, in the last analysis, the best for education in homemaking as a vocation. Of course existing social valuations — conven- tions, prejudices, fashions — are now opposed to programs having such education in view. But social valuations can readily be changed when sufficient leaders of ability see the light and are willing to spread it. There are many social forces now working in America toward the improvement of the home and the elevation of the vocation of homemaking.

CHAPTER XV

THE PRACTICAL ARTS IN GENERAL EDUCATION1

INTRODUCTION

Manual Training and Household Arts, when first proposed as subjects of study and practice for upper grades and high schools, were believed by many to offer the only available means of giving in schools what was some years ago vaguely conceived as vocational training — " education through do- ing," " tool experience," " tool sense," " technical knowl- edge," as it has been variously called. For many years com- mercial courses have been offered in high schools (and some commercial studies in the grades) with the avowed intention of assisting pupils towards wage-earning callings. Many persons still believe that household arts for girls, and agri- culture for boys, as these subjects can be presented to pupils of ages ranging from twelve to sixteen who are carrying in addition regular programs of academic studies, can make important contributions towards vocational efficiency.

But as one result of over a decade of intense interest in vocational competency as a distinctive end of one form of school education — culminating in the passage of legislation providing national aid for industrial, homemaking, and agri- cultural vocational education of less than college grade — we now see that little of importance for vocational ends can

1 This chapter, in substantially its present form, was first published in the Teachers College Record for January and March of 1918.

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be accomplished through the manual training, general com- mercial courses, gardening and agriculture, and household arts as these are found incorporated into customary academic curricula. Most students of educational values are now forced to the conclusion that vocational education in schools can be profitable only when the student, whether at fifteen years of age or at twenty, having completed existing re- quirements of compulsory school attendance, and having, in addition, given so much time to secondary and higher aca- demic studies as he desires, is ready for the time being to give to the mastery of a vocation substantially as much time and concentrated energy as he would give to it if working for wages or under conditions of apprenticeship. It is also agreed that for the sake of effectiveness conditions should be such that a large proportion — perhaps not less than half — of the student's time available for vocational education can be given to the actual practice of its processes, even as these are carried on in commercially productive shops, offices, homes, farms, and salesrooms — and, ideally, so organized as to give him a wage or other financial return representing compensation for at least a part of his productive effort.

Having reached the conclusion that the practical arts (to use a collective term for all the four chief forms) have little bearing on vocational education, it remains for educators to analyze more clearly than has heretofore been done their educational values for all that non-vocational education which we call " general " or " liberal." That such values are to be found in an especially important measure for urban children, few educators would now dispute ; but there exists as yet no satisfactory analysis of the reasons why we may expect to find these values, nor of the probable character of the detailed means and methods of instruction by which they are to be realized.

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II

SOCIOLOGICAL AND PEDAGOGICAL BACKGROUNDS

The Sociological Situation out of which has developed modern demands for practical arts education in schools, as well as various historical attempts to explain and meet these demands, may be summarized as follows :

1. In primitive societies everywhere, men and women as means of self-support, protection, and diversion, develop a large number and variety of utilitarian or practical arts, the knowledge and skill required in which have been transmitted from generation to generation by social imitation in various forms. \ Capturing animals on land, water, and in air ; fight- ing hostile peoples; building defenses against men, animals, and weather; preserving foods; working wood, stone, and metals; tanning skins; making baskets, textiles, and other fabrics; brewing; tilling the soil; carving and otherwise dec- orating stone and wood ; domesticating animals ; healing the sick; recording and transmitting knowledge; enforcing cus- toms; traveling; interpreting auguries — these and scores of other arts, slowly evolved, become part of the social in- heritance.

Even to-day where conditions of life are simple, we find centering in the family group many scores of practical arts. On a remote farm, we find : tillage of soil; training of horses ; building of walls, fences, dwellings; preserving foods by drying, salting, and canning; baking of bread; cooking of meats and vegetables; the making of various articles of clothing; digging of wells, drains, and ditches; the making of roads; shoeing of horses; burning charcoal; butchering; packing of ensilage ; making cheese and butter ; breeding of animals ; keeping of books ; educating children, etc. Similar lists could be made where the environments are those re- spectively of the woodsman, fisherman, small shop keeper, gypsy, and home craftsman.

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In these primitive homes, ancient or contemporary, the children early become participants in the economic processes. On the average small farm children from five years of age onward are in a measure producers of useful service. They guard animals, run errands, help to "clean up," weed gar- dens, fetch water and wood, and in many other ways con- tribute to the economic maintenance of the home and farm establishment. In part, this service is rendered in response to instinctive desires to imitate the activities of elder work- ers; in part, to win the grateful approval of the older per- sons assisted ; in part, more or less unwillingly, as tasks im- posed and uncompensated ; and occasionally, for money or other material reward.

This participation during childhood and youth in the practical arts activities of the home, shop, farm, fishing boat, and other simple economic agencies was doubtless universal until quite recently ; and is still practicable in some degree for perhaps ninety per cent of all girls, and over fifty per cent of all boys in the United States. ^ But it is clear to every observer that opportunities for it are everywhere diminishing. The suburban home gives to the boys of six to sixteen years of age only rare and meager opportunities to share in productive work of any sort; and practically none at all to work with older youths or men, especially those like father, brothers, and " hired help " who would be sympa- thetic and cooperative. In the case of girls, the suburban home still affords some opportunities for helpfulness, where most of the service is not delegated to servants; but even there, we find that many of the practical arts have been spe- cialized away from the home. Baking, laundering, dress- making, and gardening survive in urban communities only in vestigial forms.

On more progressive farms, boys are given less to do and assist their elders less frequently than formerly. \ " Boys " cannot be trusted to drive good horses, milk good

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cows, manipulate costly and perhaps dangerous machinery, construct well-finished fences, drains, and wells, convey to market carefully packed products, repair well-kept harness, or otherwise share in the elaborated and technical processes characteristic of good modern farming. Specialized work, soon becoming drudgery, there is, of course, in abundance; but the art, skill, talent, and even inventive genius involved in its organization and mechanisms are commonly special- ized far away from the ken of the boy. Such work, too, takes little hold on imitative instincts, and does not round into particular projects or achievements which make so de- cided an appeal to growing youth.

Because the home, the working environment of the grow- ing girl, is usually less developed and specialized than the industrial, agricultural, commercial, and professional fields in which men and boys work, girls both in city and in rural homes still become participants in many of the practical arts. When it is remembered that servants are found in perhaps fewer than ten per cent of the homes of America; that the average family money income in perhaps ninety per cent of these homes is under $1,500 per year; and that the functions of the wife and mother must always involve a large amount of preparation of food, repair of clothing, nursing of children, cleaning of floors, dishes, and garments, making of beds, and caring for the sick, it is evident that, outside of school hours, the large majority of American girls still live in an atmosphere of productive work, where participation is natural, easily effected on a " short unit " basis, and open to all the incentives of attraction and compul- sion normally required for the gradual induction of young people into the useful activities of the world.

2. Withdrawal of Practical Arts from Homes So long

as social evolution continues in directions now established, children will share less and less in the economic activities of their parents. » Several contributing causes for this are

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found. The first is that economic activities, except as re- gards homemaking, simple farming, primitive fishing, and very small merchandising, are now no longer carried on in the immediate home environment. In the professions, rail- roading, large merchandising, and other forms of business, almost all forms of manufacturing, and in well-developed agriculture and fisheries, it is customary for the chief work- ers in the family other than the homemaker to "go to work " at early hours, and often for periods of several days. From the standpoint of the growing children, this " going to work "of their elders means transition to remote places and behind forbidding walls whither childish imaginations can hardly follow, and whence, of course, come no incen- tives for childish participation in the work of the "big people."

But this centralization of productive industry has its causes in the fact that, in a sense, the " practical arts " have ceased to be, having been replaced by those systematized forms of production which constitute modern "business," "manufacture," "transportation," "professional enter- prise," etc. In all these fields, we are in the presence of ap- plied science, use of natural forces, organized and specialized effort and employment of fixed and mobile capital in pro- portions that are large in comparison with the labor involved. We can hardly doubt that the processes which have made it possible for modern industry, by means of harnessed forces and organization, to multiply the productiveness of a unit of human effort and thus make it possible for constantly larger populations with rising standards of living to live on given areas, will continue. We may reasonably expect the small "mixed" farm, the little workshop attached to the home, the primitive fishing equipment, and merchandising establishment "in front" or "below" the residence, to dis- appear, and with them the educational advantages which childish participation as co-workers in these centers of labor afforded.

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3. Practical Arts for Development Have these educa- tional advantages been important? It is this inquiry which gives significance to past and present attempts to establish " practical arts " as courses in schools. Perhaps the best analogy for the problem here suggested will be found in the evolution of educational opinion regarding the place of physical play in development. The natural disposition to- wards physical play, so instinctive during childhood, has usually found abundant opportunities for space, implement, and social incentive in the simple and staple environment of our ancestors. Little importance was customarily attached to physical play — it was often regarded as one of the nat- ural " weeds " of life, to be disposed of as soon as occasion and means of enforcing the serious thought and work of life could be provided.

But the growth of urban environments, the migration of peoples, and, at one stage, the premature forcing of children into routine labor, by impairing opportunities for physical play, revealed its importance and necessity in the develop- ment of the child, j To-day the best opinion generally holds that abundant physical play during the plastic years of in- fancy, childhood, and youth is desirable for all forms of growth, and indispensable to the best and highest forms of that growth — physical, moral, aesthetic, intellectual. The biological reasons for this are, to a large extent, obscure, but the biological situation involved is not. Whatever the orig- inal causes, nature has undoubtedly provided that an impor- tant part of the child's physical (and mental and social) de- velopment is to be achieved through the activities constitut- ing play. Withholding opportunities and incentives for such play probably always results in a dwarfing of the child's development. Consequently, when circumstances of re- stricted material environment or isolation operate to pre- vent play activities, society, represented by the city, the village, the church, the family, and other groupings is now

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seeking purposefully to provide favorable play facilities and incentives. Hence the modern play movement, regarded by social economists as one of the most important means of off- setting the deteriorating effects of highly artificial environ- ments wherein children must be reared.

Now it is inherently probable that if we possessed ade- quate knowledge of child development, of the physical, psychical, and social processes by which the plastic infant becomes the matured man or woman, we should find that early participation in practical arts activities constitutes, like physical play, as narrowly defined, also a highly desirable means to normal development and, perhaps, an indispensable means to the highest forms of that development. We should expect this to be so because of the many thousands of years of man's evolution during which children early began partici- pation in the economic activities which always claimed so large a part of the attention of the adult members of the family group. For countless centuries, so far as we know, children matured in economic power through the appren- ticeship of the family group — through that instinctive early sharing in useful work which at first closely allied it- self to the play life, and only imperceptibly passed under the yoke of sustained purpose and rigidly held routine.

Probably then, all forms of childish participation in the practical arts of the simple home, workshop, trading place, farm, mine, and fishing station have been important, even indispensable elements in the making of men and women. If so, when conditions arise that shut children away from opportunities for such participation, society will find it neces- sary by some means to supply the missing opportunities for growth or development.

4. Practical Arts Courses in some form have been grad- ually finding a place in schools for upwards of a hundred years. Schools for orphans and delinquents, attempting to supply all the developmental means of the home, carried

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over needlework, choring, gardening, and other useful work. In some countries, training in needlework for girls was long ago delegated to the schools as naturally as training in pen- manship. The demands voiced by Pestalozzi and his fol- lowers for " object teaching," while only remotely related to practical arts, did represent a tendency in educational thought towards greater concreteness and less bookishness in school work.

Wherever sympathetic educators have brought city boys or girls — or others deprived of opportunities for partici- pation in home work — into shops equipped with tools (in- cluding those appropriate to the household arts), they have almost instantly perceived in the avidity with which these young people entered upon constructive activities, manifes- tations of needs for expression of workmanship instincts that are deep-seated, and that probably have a close relation- ship to all forms of fundamental development — moral and mental no less than physical, social and cultural no less than vocational.

For a number of reasons, the evolution of practical arts as school subjects has taken place most rapidly in cities. Progressive movements in education usually start in cities, philanthropy frequently leading the way. Educational re- sources wherewith to procure equipment are commonly found most readily in prosperous and generous centers of population. Urban segregation of peoples along economic and other lines brings into relief in masses those most in need of specialized or extended educational treatment. In the case of practical arts the deprivations of an artificial en- vironment are first clearly seen in cities. Furthermore, in cities where industries gather, appear greatest needs for vocational education, which, in the estimation (probably mistaken) of many people heretofore, could best be met through practical arts instruction.

It has been natural, therefore, that in the processes of ex-

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tending and enriching school education during the last half century, we should have seen many and varied attempts to incorporate practical arts in some form adapted to children into school curricula all the way from the kindergarten to the senior year of the high school.

5. Historic Experiments We need not here recount the

history of constructive work or handwork in the kinder- garten and lower grades ; of manual training or sloyd for up- per grade boys ; of " mechanic arts " in special high schools for boys; of sewing and cooking for girls of upper grades, or "home economics" for those in high schools; or of gardening or agriculture in rural or village schools. All of these have been interesting and suggestive developments, and each has contributed something to our present stock of educational ideas.

But it is necessary here to review the aims which seem to have controlled the introduction and development of these practical activities, even where now we perceive that these aims were grounded in a very mystical and uncertain peda- gogy, since, in large measure, we have yet to discover satis- factory foundations, demonstrable or hypothetical, for practical arts teaching.

Certainly we can regard with much respect the objectives long held, more or less clearly, on behalf of practical activ- ities in classes for younger children — namely, to give op- portunities for expression, to give concreteness and realism to school work, and, more recently, to provide vital centers of correlation for the more abstract school subjects. But we now see that, however sound the vague pedagogical the- ories here involved, commonly the very fragmentary and often very formal exercises in handwork developed consti- tuted at best a frail basis for the activities and correlations desired; nor has subsequent experience improved the situ- ation greatly except in work for children under ten years of age.

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The Disciplinary Theory More open to criticism has

been the " disciplinary " theory which even yet controls heav- ily — without now being admitted as such — in manual training for upper grades and high schools. The very words " manual training" reflect the prominence of this theory, the implications being that through some definite exercises with tools the " hand " can be trained for a large variety of the useful works of life. Of course, the " hand " can be trained, and in hundreds of ways — to write with a pen, to pitch a baseball curve, to handle a dentist's forceps, to discern by touch the quality of cloth, to thread a needle, to button a jacket, to turn a screwdriver, to drive a hammer, to deliver the blow of the pugilist, to roll a cigarette, to play the violin, or to manipulate the typewriter. But we now see that each of these forms of skill is specific and individual, and probably almost wholly unrelated to any other. We can certainly train the hand — but only by deciding first for what particu- lar form of skill or power we wish to train it, and then mov- ing directly towards that. We should like to believe that much training in tying knots or whittling will lay founda- tions for other forms of manual skill to be acquired later. If the girl with hand trained for rapid action on piano keys could learn typewriting with greater facility than her sister who has had no piano practice, we could find ways for re- ducing the time and effort required to learn many vocational arts ; but there is no evidence that we can thus utilize some of the effects of one " skill " in other and, what seem to be only when superficially considered, related fields.

We are forced thus to the conviction that there is little foundation for what is commonly held as the " disciplinary " theory in education — that some specific forms of training in mental or physical skill or in moral habit will " transfer " or " spread," and thus give foundations for powers to be employed later. We shall have to relegate this theory to the limbo wherein are to be found shelved the " panaceas " or

2H

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curative "simples," the "philosophers' stones," the "foun- tains of youth," the philosophers' ultimate formulae and primordial substances, and all the other more or less mystical or magic simples wherewith humanity, aspiring towards the light, has tried to project its understanding beyond the bounds of tested experience.

Probably laymen more than educators have imputed to practical arts in the schools significant values for vocational education, although at times educators have not been slow to take advantage of public credulity in this respect to ob- tain additional funds for school work. Indeed, under the influence of the disciplinary theory referred to above, it has always, of course, been easily possible to infer that any value arising from handwork could and would function in voca- tional competency.

The situation here involved is by no means simple, partly because in certain fields of productive work like the home and the small farm, the activities there carried on are still often primitive and in reality practical arts, and capable, therefore, of being in a measure related to the practical arts possible in the schools. On the other hand, in the fields of professional, industrial, nautical, commercial, and military activities, where specialization has gone far, and the simple character of the primitive practical arts has almost com- pletely disappeared, it is doubtful if any important intimate connections have ever been established between the practi- cal arts work that has been done by pupils under sixteen years of age and the vocational pursuits carried on in the world of productive work. But it has been easy for parents and others interested in vocational training to be deluded by the practical appearance of the shops and laboratories devoted to practical arts work. In some cases, notably in bookkeeping and typewriting, where social striving for more attractive fields of employment made it practically certain that most of the pupils electing these subjects would eventu-

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ally go into commercial occupations, whether their school training were good or bad as vocational preparation, even the pupils themselves have, after completing their work, continued to be deceived by its specious resemblance to real vocational education.

The final evolution in a number of states of a definite de- mand for special public schools that shall offer genuine vo- cational education (culminating in the Smith-Hughes act extending national aid for the support of such education) has tended to clear up the previously confused situation as regards the relation of practical arts to vocational education. It is now recognized by careful thinkers among educators that manual training in its various varieties can contribute \S practically nothing to vocational competency; that however valuable the general household arts work may be for general education, it contributes but little of substance to direct preparation for homemaking; that textbook and laboratory courses in agriculture are remote from the vocational effi- ciency demanded for farming, while home gardening may have only slightly greater significance; and that the com- mercial courses of our schools are now not quite fish and not quite fowl, and will have to be so divided that definite vocational training can be provided for those who have al- ready elected a vocation while for others the bookkeeping, typewriting, etc., can be made to function as elements in general education.

Vocational Guidance Finally are to be noted the wide- spread attempts during the last two or three years to justify several forms of practical arts instruction on grounds of their contributions to vocation finding or guidance. We must recognize the importance of providing at as early a stage as practicable for such experiences as will enable youths to ascertain, both negatively and positively, their probable vocational powers and interests. If by some form of practical arts teaching such guidance could in substantial

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measure be given, we might well afford to sacrifice to this end some other objectives possible to these subjects.

But the present writer is of the opinion that such guid- ance, through practical arts, is only feasible in slight meas- ure and can be effective with only a small proportion of youths twelve to sixteen years of age. The chief difficulty is that of representing in any school shop the realities of commercial production — its demands for commercially val- uable qualities and quantities of work, and for the social atmosphere of work. At best the school devoted to general education can introduce within its walls only quite amateur- ish and often very un-real elements of vocational life — as witness the cabinet-making, the gardening, the bookkeeping, and the cooking and sewing of junior and senior high schools.

No less serious an obstacle is the difficulty of actually rep- resenting in any school the numerous special lines of pro- ductive work found in any industrial or commercial com- munity. If we note the long list of local occupations re- ported by the United States Census for such a commercial city as Rochester, New York, we can readily infer the im- practicability of giving all, or any important proportion of them, representative treatment in school shops.1

1 Males and females in selected wage-earning occupations in Roch- ester, N. Y. :

(Males) Fruit growers and nurserymen; garden laborers, gardeners, orchard and nursery laborers; apprentices (in manufacturing and me- chanical industries); bakers; blacksmiths; brick and stone masons; buffers and polishers (metal); builders and building contractors; cab- inet makers; carpenters; compositors, linotypers, and typesetters; elec- tricians and electrical engineers; engineers (stationary); firemen (except locomotive and fire department) ; foremen and overseers (man- ufacturing) ; laborers (in mechanical and manufacturing industries) ; helpers in building and hand trades ; lithographers ; machinists and mill- wrights ; managers and superintendents (manufacturing) ; manufac- turers and officials; molders, founders, and casters (iron); painters, glaziers, and varnishers (building) ; painters, glaziers, and varnishers (factory); plumbers and gas and steam fitters; semi-skilled operatives in furniture, piano, and organ factories; semi-skilled operatives in printing and publishing ; semi-skilled operatives in shoe factories ; semi-

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It will be contended that while most commercial produc- tion is greatly specialized, a few type materials, machines, and even processes, can be selected which will serve to inter- pret them all. This is an attractive theory and deserves careful testing against the facts of experience. It seems to savor somewhat of the mysticisms behind which the edu- cator, as did once the physician, still conceals his ignorance of realities.

Doubtless, through any well-devised and very flexible plan of practical arts instruction, a small number of pupils will discover positive and negative interests — attractions and repulsions — which will have some bearing on the vocation finally selected. Perhaps five per cent of the boys sampling wood-working, electrical working, printing, gardening, and house repair will find among these their vocations — while another five per cent will find that for these lines of work they distinctly do not have ability or liking. Such contri-

skilled operatives in suit, coat, cloak, and overall factories; sewers and sewing machine operators ; shoemakers and cobblers ; tailors ; tinsmiths ; chauffeurs; conductors (street railroad); draymen, teamsters, and ex- pressmen; laborers (road and street building and repairing); laborers (steam railroad); locomotive engineers; motormen; clerks in stores; commercial travelers; deliverymen; insurance agents and officials; laborers, porters, and helpers in stores; real estate agents and officials; retail dealers; salesmen (stores) ; firemen; guards, watchmen, and door- keepers ; laborers (public service) ; policemen ; clergymen ; draftsmen ; lawyers, judges, and justices; musicians and teachers of music; physi- cians and surgeons ; barbers, hairdressers, and manicurists ; bartenders ; janitors and sextons; porters; saloon keepers; servants; waiters; agents and canvassers; bookkeepers, cashiers, and accountants; clerks; collec- tors ; messenger, bundle, and office boys.

(Females) Dressmakers and seamstresses; forewomen and overseers (manufacturing) ; milliners and millinery dealers ; semi-skilled opera- tives in button factories; semi-skilled operatives in printing and pub- lishing; semi-skilled operatives in shoe factories; sewers and sewing machine operators (factory) ; tailoresses; telephone operators; clerks in stores; retail dealers; saleswomen (stores) ; musicians and teachers of music; teachers (school) ; trained nurses; boarding and lodging house- keepers; housekeepers and stewardesses; laundresses (not in laundry) ; laundry operatives ; midwiyes and nurses (not trained) ; servants ; wait- resses; bookkeepers, cashiers, and accountants; clerks; stenographers and typewriters.

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butions to vocation finding will be acceptable when inciden- tal to the pursuit of more general and substantial objectives, but, surely, they would in themselves constitute no justifica- tion for giving practical arts subjects a prominent place in school curricula.

6. Summary. — It would seem, then, that we have, as a re- sult of nearly a century's interest in practical arts instruc- tion in schools (to say nothing of the pioneering efforts of innovators like Comenius, Pestalozzi, and others) reached the following conclusions :

(a) For children otherwise deprived of "natural" op- portunities for early and gradual induction into productive activities, the need is great that schools shall provide such opportunities as part of their offerings towards general development, general training, and general instruction.

(b) But it is now rarely practicable, even if it were im- portant, to secure vocational competency through the means and methods of practical arts participation, because of changes in most fields of economic production.

(c) Neither is it practicable to hold as primary objectives of practical arts education such ends as self-expression, hand training, vocation finding, or provision of centers of corre- lation for instruction in other types of subject matter, ex- cept, possibly, in the lowest grades.

(d) The final justification for the provision of abun- dant opportunities for practical arts participation in schools is to be found in the contributions such amateur participa- tion makes to general development, in ways analogous to the contributions of physical play.

7. But if general development, especially for youths from twelve to sixteen years of age, be held as the primary objective of practical arts education, then fundamental re- visions of currently accepted traditions as to means and methods are essential. As preliminary to a discussion of these, agreement should be had as to use of terms.

The Practical Arts in General Education 471

III

PROPOSED DEFINITIONS AND DISTINCTIONS

As a basis for constructive work in proposing educational policies, and in evolving practicable administrative plans, the following are suggested as useful definitions and distinc- tions in the effort to determine desirable and feasible ob- jectives for practical arts education in schools :

1. All kinds of instruction, training, and fostered devel- opment, provided through schools, may be classified as (a) general (common, liberal, or non-vocational) education and (b) vocational education.

2. Vocational education includes only those educational objectives that are determined by the requirements of spe- cific vocations ; and, because the vocational activities of men are greatly differentiated, these requirements are distinctive according to the specific vocation for which preparation is being made. As a corollary, there can be no " general " vo- cational education.

3. General education includes all objectives determined by the requirements of common citizenship, common culture, and general development of important powers and capacities in selected individuals, irrespective of future occupation.

4. In the case of each body of "subject-matter" of in- struction, type of training, or species of fostered develop- ment of inherent powers and capacities, it is obvious that effective practice requires that there should at all times be a "primary" or controlling objective, towards which all other possible objectives must be regarded as secondary or incidental and, therefore, as not controlling of means and methods of education. It follows that means and practices in schools designed to function as general education cannot be expected to yield more than incidental value to the proper ends of vocational education; and vice versa.

472 Vocational Education

5. It is clearly possible to teach in schools an almost end- less variety of practical processes and technical knowledge as these are characteristic of the economically productive oc- cupations (productive of first-hand or exchangeable eco- nomic utilities) in which men and women engage or have in the past engaged. But such teaching may have, in any given case, as its controlling objective, to prepare the youth for effective participation in a vocational sense in the occupa- tion upon which the specific teaching is based; or, quite otherwise, the objective may be simply to provide for the acquisition of general experience, for participation in whole- some activity of a non-vocational (possibly amateur) char- acter, and for the development of interests, appreciations, and tastes as are stimulated by such activity. The first is properly a vocational objective ; the second, no less certainly, a general or liberal objective. There is no satisfactory evidence that, except in the case of rare individuals, both can be ministered to by the same form of school practice, method, or spirit of work.

6. Hence the proposal that all use in schools of practical activities and immediately related knowledge based upon the occupations of men shall, when directed towards produc- ing specific vocational competency, be designated as voca- tional education; and when used as elements or phases of general education, as practical arts.

7. The proposals and recommendations made in this pa- per are based upon the following hypotheses as to desirable and profitable educational aims :

a. The objectives or purposes of all education1 fall roughly into two classes according as the controlling purpose

1 The word " education " is here used to include all forms of develop- ment, instruction, and training for which conscious provision is or can be made by society. It includes the direct education of the schools, and also the by-education of shop, home, church, press, police power, street and playground, etc., in so far as these naturally provide or can be designed to provide examples for imitation, suggestions, openings, op- portunities, and incentives for developmental play, and other activities.

The Practical Arts in General Education 473

in any case is : (a) the facilitating and furthering of the nor- mal development of the child along lines largely natural, instinctive, spontaneous (herein called beta types of learn- ing), or (b) so training and instructing the child that he shall possess later, and especially in manhood, certain spe- cific powers and capacities deemed of importance in civilized life (herein called alpha types of learning).

( 1 ) Illustrations. Under the first head we should place : all ordinary physical play and those games to which children readily take on basis of imitation; all ordinary powers of running, walking, climbing, creeping, swimming (when learned young) , conversing in the vernacular, singing, danc- ing, sharing in everyday occupations; the acquisition of knowledge from story, natural contact with environment, naive experimentation, childish participation in vocations; all eager participation in physical, social, or intellectual activ- ities when once systematic training has removed mechanical difficulties, as fiction reading, social dancing, card playing, travel, theater attendance, tennis, letter writing (for a few), amateur gardening, musical execution, craftsmanship, and the acquisition of a vocation by " picking it up."

(2) Under the second head we would include all those forms of direct and positive education having as ends: to read, write, and spell in the vernacular; to read or speak a foreign language (as involving others than children under five); to read musical notation; to play an instrument; to meet well the requirements of a vocation ; to know with some degree of accuracy as well as ability to recall and use, the facts and relations presented in specified areas of history, science, geography; to be able to execute with some degree of precision work in drawing, writing, calculation, construc- tion, and other fields in which, qualitatively or quantita- tively, the powers sought represent the exactions of civil- ization upon the " natural " man.

b. In the early stages of their evolution, it has not been

474 Vocational Education

the function of the schools, as specialized agencies of educa- tion, to provide for the " beta " types of learning described above. It was expected that, in the limited time and with the limited means at their disposal, the schools should devote their efforts exclusively to the alpha types, thus leaving to the home and other non-school agencies responsibility for providing the opportunities for development described above as beta types of learning.

c. Under modern conditions, and more particularly in urban or other communities where non-school facilities for natural or " beta " types of learning are deficient or other- wise ineffective, society progressively delegates to the school responsibility for promoting these types. In large measure, this explains: the use of the kindergarten, especially in cities; promotion under the auspices of the school of play- grounds, games, athletics, and physical play generally; the development in schools of libraries, story telling, musical and art exhibitions, and other means of promoting natural satisfaction of intellectual interests; and the promotion of the social (i.e. sociability) sides of school life.

d. Any education designed directly and purposefully to fit for vocation clearly belongs in the alpha category. It is doubtful if any serious attempt to provide in schools for vocational by-education would be profitable, although doubt- less some important by-education towards vocation results from the purposive pursuit of educational ends properly to be described as cultural and social (or, together, lib- eral).

e. On the other hand, it is highly probable that, for all young persons and especially during the transitional years from the age of twelve to sixteen, or even eighteen, a large amount of participation in practical activities related to and suggested by the vocational activities of men and women will make contributions to development — physical, social, cultural, perhaps, remotely, vocational — analogous in im-

The Practical Arts in General Education 475

portance and general character to those made by physical play. But contributions to education through such partici- pation in practical activities clearly belong to the beta class of educational ends, given above. If provided for in, or under the auspices of, schools, it is doubtful if they should ever be required to partake of the specific and determinate character of the alpha type of learning, especially since final results are to be found simply in the general development of the individual and not in specific powers and capacities re- quired in civilized society. In so far as specific forms of manual skill are required in vocations — except handwrit- ing— these must be acquired through direct vocational edu- cation.

/. As in the case of kindergarten activities, provision for play under the direction of the school, nature study, story- telling, chorus singing, library reading, and other forms of beta education, it becomes the duty of society (to itself as well as to its individual members) in any given locality or situation to provide for practical arts participation only when either (a) the non-school agencies become less able than formerly to provide for it; or (b) because of changed conditions, there arises a greater need than existed formerly for this form of assisted development. If we assume the normal social environment under which boys and girls have been reared for thousands of years, usually to have included abundant opportunity for early participation as little helpers, assistants, amateur workers in the easier phases of the voca- tional activities of their elders, then it may easily follow that, under modern economic conditions, the need that prac- tical arts be developed in or through schools arises for the reasons given under (a) above.

g. It can readily be shown that opportunities are denied the children of many communities to-day to participate in the easier stages of the vocational activities of their elders. Probably the desirable development of these children can be

476 Vocational Education

effected only by the provision through the schools of oppor- tunities for the participation in practical arts activities which their environment denies them.

h. For convenience we may classify practical arts sub- jects suited to schools and especially for youths from twelve to sixteen as follows :

(1) Agricultural arts: home gardening; tree planting and nursing; poultry raising; food packing; "corn club" work; pig clubs; milking; butter and cheese making; fruit drying; farm product marketing; farm mechanics; etc.

(2) Industrial arts: cloth weaving; house repair and building; house painting; installation of screens, drainage, water supply, electric bells, electric lighting, central heating ; machine dissection and reassembly (sewing machines, guns, lawn mowers, stoves, pumps, bicycles, motors, optical instru- ments, vacuum cleaners, washing machines, lathes, etc.) ; bookbinding; printing; photography; wall papering and dec- oration; fabrication of playground apparatus; furniture making; tool sharpening; wall building; road construction; boat building; photo-mounting; engraving; mechanical draughting; pottery and glass making; shoe repairing; tail- oring and clothing repair; tinsmithing; mining; jewelry making; cigar making; teaming; bread baking; food pack- ing; and scores of other activities based upon building, man- ufacturing, mining, and transporting industries; etc.

(3) Commercial arts: typewriting; business penman- ship, arithmetic, documents, English; display advertising; selling ; bookkeeping ; package making ; comptometer manip- ulation; filing; banking; telegraphy; dictaphone operation; etc.

(4) Household arts: kitchen cooking; camp cooking; food preserving; food buying; food serving; house plan- ning; toy house construction; home (or room) decoration; furniture choosing, distributing, upkeep; bed-making; re- pair (or upkeep) of apparatus for plumbing, heating, light-

The Practical Arts in General Education 477

ing, cleaning, ventilating, screening, cooking, sewing; in- fant nursing (feeding, cleaning, dressing, exercising) ; sick nursing; decorative window and yard gardening; clothing buying, making, repairing; accounting; entertaining; par- ticipation in festivals; and many others.

(5) Nautical arts: fishing; fish planting; boat making; boat sailing; etc. (a division not yet found in American schools).

IV

PROPOSALS FOR INDUSTRIAL ARTS

The Comprehensive Shop The following proposed shop

for boys from twelve to fourteen years of age with a tenta- tive program of activities is here described in order to give a measure of concrete exemplification to the pedagogical findings set forth in the present paper.

Let us assume a city junior high school of 1200 pupils, chiefly from twelve to fourteen years of age, which offers to boys three elective courses in practical arts : namely, the " agricultural," the " commercial," and the " industrial." In each of these courses, the amount of time to be given by pupils enrolled will vary from two to ten hours per week, administrative economy requiring that a pupil shall enroll for some definite number of weekly periods. Assume fur- ther that experience shows that an average of 300 boys will enroll in the department of industrial arts and that the average weekly attendance will be five hours per pupil.

Let us in addition suppose that for the principal hous- ing of the industrial arts department there is provided one large shop room about sixty feet square, with a mezza- nine floor, the whole providing about 5000 feet of floor space. This room is to be lighted, heated, and ventilated in accordance with approved principles of factory construc- tion.

478 Vocational Education

The industries (excluding commerce, agriculture, and homemaking) of the day, and especially those of the region from which the pupils are drawn, are canvassed for activ- ities which will probably appeal to the amateur practical in- stincts and ideals of boys from twelve to fourteen, and through which they can realize products that will possess some vital significance to them as results of amateur effort. At least one set of the necessary tools or machines will, in each case, be installed. If the character of the work or the implements in any case (such as photography, forge work, gluing, etc.) requires a measure of seclusion or protection, small areas of the large shop might be glassed in for this purpose.

In the light of experience or our knowledge of inherent probabilities, we may assume that equipment for the follow- ing purposes would find a place : wood-working tools such as hand and power tools suitable to the making of simple articles of home and school furniture (book-cases, tables, chairs, etc. ) , playground apparatus, etc. ;• power and hand sharpeners for knives and other home cutlery, chisels, saws, axes, hoes, etc. ; printing press, type, etc. ; forge, anvil, and other equipment necessary for making hoes, picks, hinges, and various repair parts; cameras, dark room, etc., for ama- teur photography; appliances for half-soling and patching shoes; tools and materials for vulcanizing and repairing bicycle tires, tubes, and garden hose; sewing machines and other materials for tailoring and pressing; kit for simple plumbing repair work at home or in school; equipment for installing signal bells and practice instruments for teleg- raphy, telephony, and wireless; equipment for home and school painting, varnishing, and glazing; tools for book- binding; appliances for tinsmithing repair, and minor sheet metal construction; equipment for the execution of small construction jobs in concrete ; tools for work with decorative metals; and many others. Probably examination of indus-

The Practical Arts in General Education 479

tries not represented above, e.g. mining, textile manufac- ture, pottery and glass making, food packing, paving, trans- portation, engine driving and repair, leather working, and the like will reveal many other possible projects meeting the dual requirement of giving a serviceable product, and of being suitable as regards magnitude, safety, and costs for boys, from twelve to fourteen years of age.

As a rule, sufficient equipment for only one worker at a time in one field or department would probably be supplied, except in the case, perhaps, of certain frequently used hand tools.

Project Basis Obviously, the industrial arts work would

have to be organized on a " project " basis; that is, a pupil or a group of cooperating pupils would be given opportunities to elect definite units of constructive work, each of these having an integral character, each suggesting or demanding appropriate standards of execution, and each leading to a serviceable or enjoyable product. But there should be placed before the learner much more than some meager di- rections for his project. Ideally, he should have access to several examples of previously executed work on any type of project — executed by former pupils, the teacher, or even procured from commercial channels. To these concrete examples should be added an abundance of printed and illus- trated descriptive matter, not merely of projects adapted to youthful capacity, but also of those gigantic projects through which man by his enterprise is changing not only the con- ditions of human living but the very face of the earth itself.

Under these conditions, our large open work shop would naturally be divided into various small sections, some of them inclosed, and in each of which would be gathered suitable 'concrete examples of work done, together with printed matter, pictures, etc. A substantial part of the educational value of such a shop would be realized simply through the

480 Vocational Education

opportunities afforded to all pupils to observe tools in use, projects in various stages of completion, pictures of related commercial projects, etc.

It is not here assumed that all the boys of the junior high school would come, or would be admitted, to this industrial arts shop. Attendance should certainly be optional, and no one should be permitted to enter or to remain unless pre- pared to take the work in a serious amateur spirit and to conform to the necessary disciplinary requirements of the place — which, of course, will be very different from those of a schoolroom, and will probably more nearly resemble those of a well-conducted shop, except that under reasonable restrictions full opportunities should be given to any pupil to observe processes other than those in which he is himself engaged.

It is apparent, too, that no serial arrangement of projects is necessary or desirable. Naturally, the approval of the instructor would be required before a pupil could undertake a given project; and that approval would be withheld if the pupil lacked the strength, skill, or knowledge probably re- quired to execute it in accordance with reasonable amateur standards. It would, of course, be a reasonable requirement that a pupil thus undertaking a project suited to his abilities would be expected to complete it, or else be debarred from the shop.

The working out of the kind of pedagogical plan here con- templated may at first sight seem to require a large amount of teaching service ; but this will probably prove unnecessary. It should be expected that each learner will obtain working directions and suggestions chiefly from printed matter, as is now so often the case with boys carrying on projects at home, and for whom, as is well known, a great variety of serviceable books have been prepared. Excellent sugges- tions for this form of pedagogical approach can be found in the Boy Scout handbooks.

The Practical Arts in General Education 481

Furthermore, the shop should be self-governing in large measure. No pupil should be present against his will, and no one should remain who cannot readily accept the restric- tions which must necessarily obtain. When boys and girls are required to attend school, there is involved, as one con- dition, compulsory attendance on certain kinds of studies and exercises; but surely the practical arts ought not to suffer from the presence of the reluctant and the ill-disposed, if for no other reason than that the educational values of the subject, both for the interested and the uninterested, will probably then be nullified. If, indeed, it should prove nec- essary to compel some pupils to take practical arts work for any reason, then the "compelled" ones should be given space apart, and perhaps should be set to work at " disciplin- ary" manual training — a sort of "awkward squad," "guard duty," or forced labor — if we must use analogies from other fields where the willing must be distinguished from the forced, the orderly from the disorderly.

Where a school is large and rich enough to make a large variety of offerings, it will naturally happen that a given pupil can take but a small portion of these. It is doubtful, too, whether any serious effort should be made to induce the taking of one type of industrial arts project rather than another. If one boy prefers to confine his efforts largely to electrical and other mechanical projects, while another centers his attention for a year on printing and bookbinding, have we any satisfactory reasons for demurring? Again, if a boy wishes to execute just one project in photography, or printing, or shoe repairing, taking his time for perhaps only one month, should we complain? At least, until we have more experience, we shall find it desirable to provide for the largest amount of elasticity which is consistent with administrative limitations.

21

482 Vocational Education

PROPOSALS FOR AGRICULTURAL ARTS

The Home Farm Project. — It is in gardening or agricul- ture, probably, that the soundest pedagogy of practical arts instruction has thus far been exemplified. School gardening and especially home gardening (including small live-stock raising) extending to the various corn, pig, and canning con- tests at their best, as directed by city and country schools, exhibit the following valuable features of practical arts in- struction: (a) The work is not compulsory — only those desiring to undertake projects do so. (b) The work is chiefly practical, and when at all well executed results in a valuable product in which the pupil and his friends can take pride, (c) The work organizes naturally on a project basis — usually individual, sometimes joint, (d) The pu- pil must rely largely upon his own efforts, assisted by printed directions; no excessive amount of teaching service is re- quired, (e) The execution of projects on an amateur basis gives a large fund of very concrete experience, in all prob- ability making important contributions to cultural, physical, moral, and, in a degree, vocational development. (/) Each project offers opportunity, in addition to practical work, for a considerable amount of correlated reading, both technical and general.

Experience has shown that home gardening (which is the most effective form of agricultural practical arts) re- quires, for its general development, the following means: (a) For a small state or for a portion of a large one there should be a general director who shall acquaint teachers with possibilities, issue leaflets, supervise contests (these are prob- ably not very necessary, and undoubtedly they develop ob- jectionable features), and in a general way promote public and educational interest in this work, (b) In each village

The Practical Arts in General Education 483

or city school there should be delegated to one teacher of some special ability the time, means, and authority to pro- mote home gardening, provision being made that such spe- cial teacher shall continue in active service with his boys (and some girls) through the summer months. (Probably one teacher can supervise the work of upward of 100 pu- pils.) (c) Provision should be made by the school for certain means and incentives such as detailed directions, seeds, exhibitions of products, badges, etc.

Granted these facilities, and in cities the necessary land, there exist at present no reasons why in most American communities, public schools should not offer agricultural practical arts, especially to boys from twelve to fifteen, as an attractive and very profitable elective.

Under rural and village school conditions, it is probable that a considerable number of those taking agricultural arts in general education will eventually enter upon farming, gardening, or stock raising as a vocation ; but it seems unde- sirable that, even where this results, serious efforts should be made to give the instruction and training for youths from twelve to fourteen a vocational bias. The amateur spirit, so well shown in the best home gardening now, and which properly combines the play spirit with interest in adult vo- cations and productive work, should be preserved. In cities, where this work probably has greater educational value than in the country, it is not to be expected that those taking it will, except in rare instances, find their way into agricul- tural vocations. When agricultural arts operate towards revealing deep interests and aptitudes (vocational guidance), we may accept the result with gratitude, but without regard- ing such a result in the case of five or even ten per cent of our pupils as serious cause for attempting to develop vocational guidance as a primary aim in that work.

484 Vocational Education

VI

PROPOSALS FOR HOUSEHOLD ARTS1

The Home Project In planning for work in household

; arts, it is of primary importance to remember that substan- tially every girl of from twelve to sixteen years of age to be reached by it lives as a member of a household and in the constant presence of the activities involved in the purchase and preparation of food, selection, construction, and upkeep of clothing, nursing of children, home management, etc. The girl in the home, like the boy on the farm, has readily accessible in her own surroundings all the equipment re- quired for the pursuit of household arts. The situation here is radically different from anything now found in the domains of industrial and commercial activities, where, if we desire to use examples for education, we must usually create complete special equipment for this purpose.

Hence, the equipment provided by the school for the teaching of household arts should be considered chiefly as complementary to that already existing in the home envi- ronment of the pupil, and its use should be of such a nature as constantly to correlate with projects executed at home under the inspiration and supervision of the department of household arts in the school.

As in the case of those taking commercial arts, pupils taking household arts will in many cases later enter upon the vocations (homemaking, chiefly) upon which the practical arts work is based. Obviously, however, there is a marked difference. Under present conditions, few city girls enter upon homemaking in a genuinely vocational way until they are from twenty to twenty-five years of age, and after a considerable period of wage-earning in vocations unre- lated to homemaking. Hence, household arts will serve

1 Sec also discussion of this topic in chapter on Homemaking Education.

The Practical Arts in General Education 485

little or no purpose as vocational guidance. But it can be made, without doubt, to lay important foundations for better appreciation, taste, utilization, and standards of living.

Probably a suitable center for household arts instruction on the basis of non-vocational practical arts should provide as essential equipment the differentiated accommodations of a home — namely, bedroom, kitchen, and living room, with provision for separate parlor, dining room, pantry, cellar, etc., in environments where these prevail as accommodations for a majority of those whom the school serves. But, cleafly, these should serve chiefly for the initial exemplifica- tion of projects that should, like those of home gardening, be executed in the home. They would be used chiefly for demonstration. It is needless to say that the standards employed in demonstration cannot greatly surpass in cost- liness, finish, or general excellence those accessible to the pupils in their homes, without nullifying the usefulness of the instruction given.

As in the case of other forms of practical arts, the chief work of the pupils will be found in connection with proj- ects. Of these every home offers a wide range of possible choices. The following classification of projects and topics used in a manual prepared by a committee of the faculty of the household arts department of the Massachusetts State Normal School at Framingham has proved suggestive :

1. The buying, preparation, and serving of food, grades 7<-10:

(a) Working projects — school and home:

1. Preparing cocoa

2. Rolled oats

3. Apple sauce

4. Fruit canning

5. Wheat muffins

6. Tapioca custard

7. Beef stew

486 Vocational Education

(b) Working projects — school:

1. Pot roast

2. Coffee

3. Dried pea soup

(c) Topics:

1 . Cereals

2. Milk foods

3. Beverages

4. Vegetable cookery

5. Evaporated fruits and vegetables

(d) Home projects:

1. The preparation of a family breakfast

2. The canning of fruit for winter use

(e) Observation and report projects — none

2. The buying, making, and upkeep of clothing, grades 7-10

(a) Home and school working projects :

1. The making of a kimono and nightgown

2. Repair by means of hemmed patch

3. Making bag for dust cloth

4. Buying, repairing, and laundering stockings

5. Making of summer dress

(b) Home projects :

1. The family mending basket

2. Shrinking of cottons

(c) School projects:

1. Making of pattern

2. Pressing of ribbons

(d) Observation and report projects:

1. Sewing equipment

2. The sewing machine

(e) Topics:

1. Study of cotton dress materials for school wear

2. Laundering of cotton dress materials

3. Care and repair of woolen garments

4. Styles

5. Clothing budget for school girl

6. Comparative cost of home and public laundering

The Practical Arts in General Education 487

3. Household management, grades 7-10:

(a) Home working projects :

1. Care of a bedroom

2. The making of a bed

3. Setting of a dining-room table

4. Use of decorative plants in home

5. Care of fixtures and fittings of a bathroom

6. Campaign against household pests

7. Decoration of living room (&) School working projects:

1. Making of bed as demonstration in school plant

2. Growing bulbs for use in home

(c) Observation and report projects:

1. Study of furniture arrangement in home other than

that of pupil

2. Ventilation of a dining room

3. Arrangement and care of medicine cabinet

4. Arrangement and use of cellar space

(d) Topics :

1. Dangers of dust

2. The use of sunshine and open air in hygiene

3. Decoration of the home

4. Wall papers

5. Labor-saving devices in kitchen

6. Readjustments of rooms for summer use

4. Child nursing, grades 8-10:

(a) Home working projects :

1. The exercise of an infant

2. The feeding of an infant

3. The bathing of an infant

4. The clothing of a child one year of age

(b) Observation and report projects:

1. The cries of an infant

2. The sleep of an infant

3. The clothing of an infant under one year of age

4. The habits of a child over one year of age

488 Vocational Education

(c) Topics:

1. The feeding of an infant in hot weather

2. The exercise and activities of a child one year of age

3. The diseases of children — their prevention and control

4. Infant mortality

5. Housing, tenth grade:

(a) Observation and report projects :

1. The hot-air furnace

2. House plumbing

3. House location

4. Use of garden space

(b) Topics:

1. Location of house

2. Lighting of house

3. Construction materials, etc.

6. Accounting, tenth grade :

(a) Home and school working projects:

1. The elaboration of a family budget

2. Keeping home accounts

(b) Topics:

1. The card-index system

2. Standards of living

3. Marketing

7. Illness, tenth grade:

(a) Home and school working projects:

1. Use of poultices, compresses, hot-water bags

2. Preparation of food for sick

3. Preparation of trays

4. First aid

( b ) Observation and report pro j ects — school demonstration :

1. The making of a bed for invalid

2. The giving of a bath to invalid

3. The giving of medicine

(c) Topics :

1. Sick-room methods

2. Study of poisons and antidotes

3. Care of patient

The Practical Arts in General Education 489

VII

PROPOSALS FOR COMMERCIAL ARTS

Paralleling industrial, agricultural, and household arts in well-equipped junior high schools should be a division of commercial arts in which the aims and methods should closely resemble those controlling in the other divisions — that is, the range of activities or projects should be drawn chiefly from the world of trade or commerce ; projects sat- isfying amateur instincts for productive service intermediate between free play and systematic productive work should prevail ; and considerable freedom as to individual programs should be allowed.

The fields of commercial activity which seem to offer projects most adapted to the junior high school are: type- writing, bookkeeping, use of calculating machines, filing, drawing of commercial papers and correspondence, simple banking transactions employing " school " money, and simple bank equipment, various buying and selling transactions, etc. Probably stenography is not a suitable source of work- able projects.

Because of the superior attractiveness of the commercial occupations it will probably happen that a considerable pro- portion of pupils electing this division of the practical arts in the junior high schools will eventually enter commercial vocational schools, and later commercial vocations. In many cases parents will look upon this work as possessing definite vocational values and in some cases the resulting knowledge and skill will probably prove vocational assets. Nevertheless, these constitute no good reasons for giving prominence to the vocational aims. Parents should be defi- nitely informed as to the actual purposes controlling in the work, and through vocational guidance pupils should be carefully informed as to vocational possibilities ahead. For

Vocational Education

example, persons under eighteen rarely find profitable em- ployment as bookkeepers or typists; the amount of sales- manship that can be taught to girls under fifteen in schools can prove hardly more than a " play " asset towards real salesmanship as a vocation; the business world offers few satisfactory permanent openings to young men as typists and stenographers; and other facts of similar character.

VIII

PEDAGOGICAL UNITS FOR PRACTICAL ARTS COURSES

Teaching Units. — However comprehensive or intricate the final ends of any department of education, it is necessary that the processes shall be greatly subdivided. As in other forms of work, we must break large tasks into units adapted to the working day, and perhaps to the working week, sea- son, and year. These working units may be of a strictly cross-section character, as, for example, where a large " job " is broken into units, one for each day ; or they may involve shif tings in the kind of work done, as where a farmer sub- divides his large project, " the year's crop," into such unlike sub-projects or stages as (a) planning the work, (b) put- ting soil in condition, (c) planting, (d) tillage of growing plants, (e) harvesting, (/) marketing, etc.

It is the writer's conviction that in contemporary dis- cussion of curricula and methods, insufficient attention is given to the importance of organizing effective teaching units. The older artificial units of lesson, chapter, etc., have been replaced, it is true, in part by the more logical " topical " organization; but, unfortunately, the latter is in most cases probably too "logical," and insufficiently "pedagogical."

In the practical arts field it ought not to prove difficult to organize a series of serviceable teaching units if the pedagog- ical principles suggested above prove acceptable. Obviously,

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the most important of these units is the " project." As com- monly used and defined, the word " project " designates an enterprise or undertaking, the outcome and intermediate means and methods towards the realization of which are held in mind with considerable clearness. We furthermore usually associate with the word a high degree of practicabil- ity and an outcome of a definitely material and useful char- acter. We hear much of mining, industrial, agricultural, and commercial projects and we associate with the term fairly detailed plans and specifications. A " proposal " or " proposition " with its " projections " appealing to investors becomes a " project " when details have been elaborated, when experts have passed upon certain aspects.

The Project As adapted to school practice, the term

might well be confined to those activities which center in the " projection " of a plan for a concrete end to be achieved chiefly through constructive effort of hand working with brain and in which the achievement of the concrete and valu- able product is the controlling purpose sought. In this sense, a subject studied in books is not a project ; neither is a labora- tory experiment in which the end is to ascertain certain facts to add to knowledge. Exercises, even those in composition, typewriting, wood-turning, and draughting, in which the con- trolling purpose is the enhancement of specific forms of skill and in which the concrete product is in reality a useless by- product, ought not, properly speaking, to be called projects.

The history of manual training shows the evolution of certain types of project teaching. The earlier manual train- ing used, chiefly, exercises. Later, sloyd evolved some " real projects," but of a very formal and stereotyped character, since the sloyd project was very consciously a means to j certain definitely conceived ends of skill and knowledge. More recently, manual training has found many real proj- ects, some of which link up genuinely with amateur inter- ests, especially in the grades.

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Probably home gardening and household arts (except where needle-work " exercises " still persist) offer at present best developed plans for "project" organization; manual training, or industrial arts, is in transition; while the com- mercial arts have not yet emerged from the cloudland of quasi-vocational education.

However, other units besides the working project as here described are needed in practical arts. There is a place for a type of learning activity in which the pupil observes the operation of economic processes and their results. If the pupil thus observing is expected simply to retain in memory some of the knowledge he has acquired through observation, then the learning unit might perhaps be called a topic, or, under some circumstances, a demonstration. But if the pu- pil is expected to organize, formulate, document, and perhaps illustrate the results of his observation, then the whole process could legitimately be called an Observation and Re- port Project or, possibly, a Survey Project. For example, in household arts, under the general topic " Housing " it would be impracticable for a girl to locate or erect a house. But she could derive much of value as experience and appre- ciation through observing systematically and carefully the location of one or more houses or the essential features of their construction. If, now, to give definiteness and intelli- gibility to her observations, a careful plan is made therefor, in the execution of which she records facts, makes drawings, and otherwise gives definiteness and coherence to her work, the whole undertaking might properly be called a " survey " or " observation and report " project. Other examples can be conceived in connection with the inspection of farm de- vices and product by agricultural arts pupils ; visits to mills and other places of concrete productive work by industrial arts pupils ; and observation of office procedure by commer- cial arts pupils.

Topics and Readings. — At least two other kinds of teach-

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ing units require a place in practical arts education — namely, topics and readings, tinder some circumstances, where concrete work is not practicable, or where it seems desirable to assemble and interpret information from many quarters, the topic will prove valuable. But in practical arts in which emphasis must necessarily be on other than purely intellectual approaches and experience, the topic should al- ways play a minor part.

Of much more importance, probably, will be " readings." Back of every practical achievement the youthful amateur should be conscious that there are to be found in reading matter descriptions, explanations, and interpretations of a technical, social, or popular character, opening up to him the world of adult enterprise. The boy who undertakes a proj- ect in " wireless " should at all stages have access to every type of printed matter in that field that can prove suggestive ; and similarly for the girl on a bread-making project, the boy or girl on a "potato-raising" project, and the girl on a typewriting project. Where there is shown a disposition to take the readings without the practical project surely it is only the Gradgrinds of education who would discourage the youth ; and where an unimaginative boy wants only the proj- ect, without any reading, certainly we have no good reason to forbid the play of his natural interests.

IX

THE PROBLEM OF VALUABLE PRODUCT

The question is frequently asked, " Should a valuable product be sought in practical arts work ? " Or, with some- what different meaning, " Should a commercial product be required ? "

The question derives in part from contemporary discus- sion of vocational education. Here the weight of expert

494 Vocational Education

opinion is undoubtedly in favor of requiring a commercially valuable product — that is, one salable in the open market or fit to take the place of a commercial product in domestic or local consumption — as the outcome of almost all practical work done by students. This condition is imposed, notwith- standing endless difficulties of administration, because of the conviction that only through work on salable products or in rendering service which can meet commercial demands can sound vocational training be given. The best vocational schools now require that the pupil shall have his efforts finally measured, not only in terms of the qualitative excel- lence of his product as judged by market standards, but also in terms of quantitative output — that is, by the learner's rate of work.

Amateur Production In the case of genuine practical

arts instruction, however, where ends of liberal education chiefly control and the dominant spirit sought in the work is that of the amateur at his best, while the question of a valuable product is important, it does not follow that serious attention should be given to the production of a marketable or commercial product. We can think of an amateur pho- tographer producing photographs that will be valuable to his family and friends, but not salable. In the wood-work- ing shop, the boy may turn out a Morris chair which will long be cherished by his family, but which probably could not be marketed, even if produced in quantity. There is no inher- ent reason why pupils in practical arts should not produce large quantities of playground apparatus, construct outbuild- ings, and do useful work in the repair and maintenance of buildings, grounds, plumbing, etc., all of which must be defined as productive, but hardly of a commercial character.

On the other hand, in those fields where economic activ- ities, specialization, and exchange are less highly organized, the amateur production of the school may often be substi- tuted for products and service to be obtained in the open

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market. Thus the vegetables raised in the home garden will serve just as well the economy of the rural or village home as the product bought outside; the pastry, preserved fruit, and garments made in the household arts department will all serve to take the place of articles that otherwise must be purchased.

Nevertheless, in the economic sense, this amateur practi- cal arts production can never assume much magnitude, since rate of output will hardly ever be a considerable factor in its pedagogy (in sharp contrast with good vocational educa- tion) and learners will not be held to routine repetition for the sake of perfecting skill (as will, again, be the case in effective vocational education).

In general, then, we may expect practical arts education, as developed for children upwards of twelve years of age, to result often in products that shall appeal to their producers as valuable — valuable as satisfying instincts of curiosity and construction, as providing facilities for play, as enrich- ing the home, as adding to the equipment of the school com- munity, or even contributing to farm, village, or urban com- munity. The varied activities of the shops, laboratories, and grounds of the Gary schools have always appealed to the writer as being full of suggestions in these respects. The public services rendered in the best amateur spirit by the Boy Scouts also serve to point the way. In several normal schools in Massachusetts, notably those at Fitchburg and North Adams, upper grade pupils have often been enlisted in repair work and minor construction for the institution as a whole. Live rural schools frequently enlist their boys for various building and ground improvement projects, and their girls for provision of hot dishes for lunch in such a way as to effect excellent practical arts teaching. There is to be found large social value in joint or cooperative proj- ects where the visible local community, school, or region is to be benefited. Again, it is evident that project work

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which manifestly enriches or improves living conditions for the home and the family, always can be made to have a strong appeal. Successful examples in raising vegetables, canning fruit, baking cakes, repairing shoes, sharpening cutlery and lawn mowers, making furniture, constructing window screens, and making dresses, already are being re- ported. Others can be developed in keeping accounts, writ- ing business letters, repairing plumbing, varnishing furni- ture, binding books, installing bell outfits, repairing clothing, etc. In these and endless others yet to be devised the really important ends of practical arts education in effecting gen- eral development, widening appreciations, and producing utilities in the amateur spirit can be met.

PROBLEM OF CORRELATING PRACTICAL ARTS WITH OTHER SUBJECTS

For almost a quarter of a century, American educators, stirred thereto especially by interpretations of Herbart's educational doctrines, have endeavored to give general ap- plication to certain so-called " principles of general method." Of these, the principles of "interest," "correlation," and " inductive method " have been the most clearly defined.

The principle of interest has been widely applied, and with generally good results. But, despite numberless at- tempts, it is probable that little of substantial value has yet been achieved through application of the principle of corre- lation.

Each body of subject matter taught in the schools for the sake of building knowledge or specific useful habits tends to have developed its own logical form of organization — that is, stages, sequences, significant centers, etc. This is espe- cially true of those subjects described elsewhere in this chap- ter, which are administered towards producing " alpha "

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types of learning. But the demands of correlation are for such a linking together of subject matter as will prevent the formation in the child of isolated and (apparently) unre- lated groups of ideas or unrelated forms of skill. In very few cases have the makers of textbooks or courses of study been successful at once in preserving the logical unity of a given subject — e.g. history, drawing, arithmetic, a foreign language, the geography of Asia — and at the same time in effecting any form of unified arrangement with another sub- ject. A few good teaching units wherein are combined cer- tain portions of geography and history, of gardening and natural science, of graphic art and construction, of literature and English language, have been devised; but these, if util- ized in each case, are only fragments of the larger subjects from which portions have been abstracted. In no case, so far as the writer is aware, has any substantial portion of the total content of a " subject " used in schools for pupils upward of ten years of age, been used effectively in " corre- lation " with another.

Nevertheless, teachers are still always in quest of possible "correlations." The logical positions of those who urge more correlations are unassailable ; it is only when we try to effect practical applications that our efforts fail.

Problems of Correlation. — In no field of subject matter has the desirability of correlation been more frequently urged than in practical arts. It readily appears that arith- metic and drawing are, or should be, extensively used in manual training; that science is of special significance in gardening and cooking; that accounting should play a large part in the commercial arts, household arts, and agricultural arts; that graphic and plastic art, apart from mechanical drawing, should figure largely in all constructive work ; and finally, that in all forms of practical arts there should be opportunity to teach, or at least to give practice in, both the oral and written forms of the English language.

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Nevertheless, here again we find few successful attempts at correlation which do not involve the substantial disap- pearance of one or the other subject as a whole or as a " unity." Of course, where, as in construction work for the lower grades (and perhaps nature study), there can be found no "subject" as a whole, nor any very distinctive educa- tional ends, then its substantial submergence in a more fully organized subject may not be objected to.

But in the seventh and eighth grades, for example, both drawing and arithmetic are assumed to have definite ob- jectives peculiar to these fields, as also does manual training or industrial arts. Can we then successfully "correlate" arithmetic and manual training? Or drawing (or fine arts) and manual training? Practically, it seems that this has not yet been done, and perhaps it cannot be successfully done. This does not mean, of course, that when arithmetic is needed in manual training, fullest possible use should not be made of opportunities to give practice therein — it is only suggested that no matter how far we carry this process we shall only have utilized some fragments of the subject "arithmetic." Again, in teaching arithmetic — that is, in taking the necessary steps to realize the valuable ends that have been set before the teacher of arithmetic — it is to be expected that any source of experience vital to the learner shall be drawn upon for concrete illustrative materials; and these sources will at times include his manual training work. But merely drawing on such a source will not suffice to " teach manual training."

The writer is of the opinion that eventually we shall suc- ceed in realizing some of the ideals of correlation; but in order to do so we must fundamentally revise some existing traditions and standards as to the organization of teaching units. For the present it is not profitable to enter into a discussion of what might be done in this direction.

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XI

PRACTICAL ARTS PLAY OR WORK?

No satisfactory distinctions for purposes of educational theory and practice have yet been drawn between play and work. Practical experience and common sense convince us that important distinctions exist in fact, and that these should have a vital bearing on educational programs.

Formerly, the school was thought of as existing for work only — and intellectual work at that. If pupils were per- mitted some intermissions for play, this was done only as a grudging concession to recognized necessities of order and capacity for further work. But with more of the child's time at its disposal, a more humane spirit directing, and greater insight into child nature developing, the school be- gan to make provision for play as well as for work. At first play was thought of in the more strictly physical sense. Only lately has it been recognized that what may well be called social play (indoor group games, sociability, visit- ing, etc.) and intellectual play (desired reading, enjoy- ment of music, attendance on moving pictures, etc.) are also eagerly sought by children and, within limits, are like- wise desirable and necessary for purposes of full develop- ment.

Many of the recent enrichments of the curricula of ele- mentary schools - - often the " fads and frills " - have been brought in to meet a vague and not always articulate demand, on the part of teachers, for more abundant gratifi- cation of these desires for " play." But in any development of this kind we can always recognize the persistence of the old Puritan distrust of play, of anything that savors of the " natural" man. " It doesn't matter what you teach a boy, so long as he doesn't like it, Hennessey," says Mr. Dooley. The persistence of this spirit, opposed by the so-called doc-

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trine of interest, has led to a state of much confusion in Amer- ican education, a confusion growing as much out of our fail- ure to draw necessary distinctions between play and work, as from sheer distrust of play itself.

But the drawing of some of these distinctions, even if not final in all respects, is absolutely essential to a proper deter- mination of the place of practical arts in school curricula. For it is inevitable and probably highly desirable that in some degree the best of the play spirit should enter all practical arts work.

And here we must enter a warning against a too ideal- istic interpretation, either of child nature or of the relation of education to that nature. No real educator would now deny the very great importance of providing for a large number of activities for all children at least under sixteen years of age that can be executed in the genuine play spirit. On the other hand, only extreme idealists would desire to see the spirit of the kindergarten, even at its best, prevail to the entire exclusion of activities in the work spirit in the grades. From seven or eight years of age onward, prob- ably, children should spend a part of each day in definite work, perhaps even drudgery. The time so spent should not be long — thirty to ninety minutes per day divided into intervals of reasonable length, and rising, perhaps, at age sixteen to four or five hours per day — and it is manifestly important that the pupil and those whose opinion he re- spects should be convinced that the time so spent will always give profitable results — in terms of useful training, valu- able knowledge, power to proceed to higher stages of learn- ing, etc. Against these requirements, the pupil and those influencing him should be helped to recognize clearly those phases of school activity in which the play spirit may domi- nate.

Play vs. Work. — But how shall we distinguish between play and work? Practically, the world makes these dis-

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tinctions largely on the basis of their respective relations to fatigue or weariness, or accompanying lack of interest. Any form of activity may be play so long as the actor has surplus of energy and interest sufficient to make the activ- ity or its immediate results a pleasure in itself. But when it becomes necessary, because of some form of external pressure, to pursue the activity long after immediate inter- est has been exhausted, then it becomes work. We can think of a man with abundant energy who has done little walking recently, setting out to tramp to a place fifty miles distant. At first his walking gives him all the sensations of play. After perhaps five miles, he reaches the point where, if he were under no compulsion to proceed further, he would terminate the trip. But let us assume a situation where he must go on and complete the trip that day. He settles to what we should now call his task. His muscles become sore, fatigue sets in, all his nature cries out to him to stop. He labors on; he works hard. If he has no personal interest in the trip except to escape pain, we say that it becomes for him drudgery. At the outset we can conceive his desire for the first part of the trip to be, like his available physical energy, a positive or plus quantity; at the end of five miles, his positive desire is diminished to zero. Later it is negative, and increasingly so as he toils along.

Now it is doubtless true that among artists and a few others, valuable contributions to the world's productive serv- ice are made in the play spirit, and with all the circum- stances of a play time; and it may be, too, that certain classes of routine workers, like business men, have worked so long that the work or routine has become essential to their happiness. But in general, and interpreting the common activities of men, work is done because it has to be done, and play is entered upon because of the immediate appeal it makes. From this point of view, the major portion of the school activities of children are properly to be described as

502 Vocational Education

work — further to be qualified, perhaps, as mental or intel- lectual work ; and the activities which, not prescribed, are en- tered upon by these same children voluntarily, willingly, joyously — whether games and other physical activities, reading, attendance on photo-plays, or constructive activi- ties — are to be designated as play.

In this connection it should be noted that all modern schools recognize the importance of play — including kinds other than physical — and, where the environment of the pupil proves deficient in providing it, they endeavor to offer compensatory opportunities. All the activities of the kin- dergarten are supposed to be carried on in the play spirit; in the lower grades it is increasingly assumed that the play spirit should be given free scope; and in higher grades, while this spirit is usually taboo in class work, the free activities — of athletics, social intercourse, literary clubs, etc. — permitted or even encouraged, are testimony to our approval of the play spirit. It is the writer's present con- viction that failure in the lower grades clearly to distinguish between those objectives that should be realized in the work spirit and those that should be achieved through the play spirit is a source of extensive and harmful confusion. As stated above, there seem to be no good reasons why even quite young children should not perform a certain amount of very definite work daily, provided the time given to it is suitably alternated with time for play.

Assuming a sharp distinction to be drawn between those objectives of education which belong with play and those others that should be realized in the spirit of work, to which category does practical arts belong ? It is clear that in much of our practical arts training in the past — especially sewing and sloyd — the attempt has been made to hold to the spirit of work, the motive here being to produce the same disci- plinary results that were expected from the other "hard" subjects. In gardening, cooking, metal work, wood-turn-

The Practical Arts in General Education 503

ing, typewriting, etc., it has been much less easy to organize school work in such a way as to bring in sustained routine, and exacting standards with their accompaniments of toil and drudgery. So, perhaps in spite of teachers' intentions, pupils have persisted in taking these subjects much in the same spirit in which they take the games of the playground — and frequently, of course, with the result that some caus- tic critic would, in the spirit of Mr. Dooley, declare the ac- tivities so pursued (hardly to be called "work") to have no "educational value."

The thesis developed elsewhere in this section is, of course, that the really valuable ends of practical arts teach- ing are probably to be utilized through maximum utilization of the play instincts of children, as best expressed, perhaps, in the term " amateur activities," with all the flexibility, ab- sence of prescription, and refusal to encourage formalism, which that phrase implies.

XII

PRACTICAL ARTS ABOVE THE AGE OF SIXTEEN

The programs of practical arts teaching suggested above are designed principally for children from twelve to sixteen. Are there places for similar offerings for youths above six- teen, perhaps during the last two years of the high school period ?

Under present economic and social conditions, from one half to three fourths of all persons have, on or before reach- ing the age of sixteen, definitely embarked on a vocation, either a juvenile vocation or the early stages of an adult vocation, or else they have entered upon specific training for a vocation. From ten to twenty per cent more of youths will at this time be preparing definitely to enter higher in- stitutions of learning. In all these cases, the desirability of

504 Vocational Education

out-of-school cultural or social interests is to be assumed, but it is doubtful whether these interests will take the form of the amateur constructive work which could be promoted by a school. Where practical interests are strong, it is usually probable that one or more years in a vocational school, even if that be followed by return to a general high school, as frequently happens, for example, in the case of agricultural school students, is to be preferred to further experience with practical arts which may tend at the later age to foster dilettantism.

Furthermore, we have as yet no satisfactory knowledge as to how far a reasonably rich program of practical arts work for pupils during the years from twelve to sixteen, presented as a series of offerings to be elected, will satisfy constructive interests. It is certain that in many cases cultural and developmental needs, so far as they can be sat- isfied by practical arts education at all, will be met fully by the age of sixteen, when the serious purposes of life begin to take firm hold of the average youth. It would seem, there- fore, wise to devote our best efforts in planning and provid- ing for practical arts instruction to the years from twelve to sixteen.

Probably the greatest difficulties in establishing clearly de- fined schemes of practical arts will be encountered in the departments of household and commercial arts where at- tempts to serve vocational ends will persist until such time as examples of definite vocational education for the com- mercial vocations and for homemaking shall have been worked out. It will be hard for many educators, to say nothing of the public, to understand why typewriting, book- keeping, cooking, and sewing, when taken at all, should not be expected to " function " vocationally.

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XIII

PRACTICAL ARTS BELOW THE AGE OF TWELVE

No attempt is made in the present book to interpret the significance and place of practical arts in the education of children under twelve years of age. In current practice the work of the first six grades (with the possible exception of needle-craft in some schools) has no ostensible vocational aim. Consequently, it can be assumed that the controlling aims are found in the enrichment of experience, the provi- sion of vital activity centers for the correlation of the more formal subjects, etc. In more progressive schools, the practical arts instruction now conforms in large measure to the pedagogical standards advocated by those modern edu- cational thinkers who have favored enrichment of curricula and especially the maximum employment of " natural " activities in the learning processes. Existing limitations of practice are due chiefly to the fact that teachers of children in the first six grades, none too well trained at best in the administration of practical arts instruction, are obliged to handle this along with all other subjects, and, frequently, with only the equipment that can be introduced into the ordinary schoolroom. Departmental teaching of practical arts in the lower grades is rarely found, and is not yet seri- ously proposed except under such conditions of fundamental reorganization of curricula and length of school day as are involved, for example, in the " Gary system."

The published programs of practical arts for the first six grades even yet reveal a wide diversity of underlying peda- gogical theories and practice ; in fact, the existing situation seems filled with confusion. There is available a wealth of materials, but so far, little satisfactory provision seems to have been made for adapting these to the requirements of the teacher who must teach all subjects to a grade, or to

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work out effective correlations with the more formal sub- jects.

It is the writer's conviction that practical arts instruction in the first six grades represents in many essential respects a field of education materially different in aims and methods from that discussed in this book.

XIV

PRACTICAL ARTS IN THE "GARY SYSTEM "

One of the most impressive features of the much dis- cussed " Gary system "is the large amount of time given to practical arts. This is made possible through the eight-hour school day, of which a period of substantially two hours in length is expected to be devoted regularly to some form of practical arts, including drawing, even in the case of chil- dren in the intermediate grades.

The distinctive features of the practical arts work (chiefly in industrial, commercial, and household arts fields) in the schools of Gary are these : pupils are expected to engage in serviceable or useful activities — the exercise basis is not approved; and the teachers in each department must be capable of doing skilled productive work in that department — whether that be bookkeeping, printing, plumbing, prepa- ration of meals, painting, shoe repairing, or school furniture making.

Accepting as impracticable for the present any attempt to sell the products of the practical arts deparfment, and rec- ognizing the limited demand which the homes of the pupils can provide, the Gary school authorities have taken over for the practical arts departments various forms of necessary work within the school system itself, such as printing forms and leaflets, painting buildings, repairing plumbing, wood and electrical work, keeping accounts, preparing and serving

The Practical Arts in General Education 507

of school lunches, making playground apparatus and school furniture, etc. For each department of work one or more skilled artisans or practical workers are supplied, these to lead in doing practical work and to use the pupils as assist- ants. It is intended that the productive work done by these departments shall not cost the school system more than would have been required to procure equivalent service in open market.

Because of the variety of practical work offered, individ- ual pupils have a considerable range of election; and it is apparently designed that the actual administration of practi- cal arts work shall be exceedingly flexible in regard to re- quirements. For example, pupils desiring to " sample " sev- eral fields can take short courses in each ; while others desir- ing to remain a year or more in one department, e.g. print- ing, can apparently have their desires gratified.

A curious arrangement is attempted for younger pupils, those from eight to twelve years of age. Provision is made whereby, on occasion, these may serve as " helpers " or " as- sistants " to older pupils in their practical arts work — thus acquiring through observation and very elementary partici- pation, experience on a basis of childish experience such as normally comes to a boy on the farm or a girl in the home.

No attempt can be made here to evaluate the results of the Gary system of practical arts teaching. Needless to say, it presents endless difficulties and complexities in its experi- mental stages (beyond which it has hardly gone as yet), and equally \\ cannot be doubted that in practice many of the plans held forth can be materialized only to a slight extent.

It is essential, however, to understand clearly, in view of current confusion, that the practical arts work of Gary is not designed primarily to give preparation for a vocation. Its controlling purpose is to provide for actual contact with realities, and first-hand experience in a variety of shops

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rather than a broad experience in one shop. The system is organized on the idea that vocational training is the last thing that any of the superintendents of the plants in Gary would wish the schools of Gary to give, even if it were financially possible. The authorities think that there is no demand at all from the employers of labor in the Gary in- dustries for direct vocational education for the children of Gary. What they want is that the public schools send to them boys and girls who are strong physically, industrious, reliable, and intelligent. That is, they want young men who have had a training which gives them a foundation upon which they may learn the things that are to be taught in the industries by the industries themselves.

From the standpoint of the theory of values held by the Gary school authorities, it is desirable that many boys should, for example, take some or many weeks in the printshop ; but it is quite immaterial whether any of these ever become printers by vocation. But in order that the printing done by the pupils shall effectively function in their general de- velopment and training, it must deal with productive proj- ects, be taught by real printers, and be carried on under approximately commercial conditions.

XV

ADMINISTRATIVE PROBLEMS

The organization and administration of programs of practical arts education, as herein proposed, may naturally be expected to present many unfamiliar and difficult prob- lems, even to those school boards and executives who have already done much with household arts, manual training, commercial education, and gardening. On the other hand, the expense of providing for and conducting the work will doubtless be much reduced as the result of careful planning.

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The following are believed to be important considerations relative to the administration of practical arts education for children from twelve to sixteen years of age:

(a) Attendance cannot well be made obligatory in those classes where work of beta character is being carried out. Compulsory attendance as well as compulsory tasks will de- feat the best purposes of the work for those who voluntarily elect it — which, under good teaching, may be expected of not less than eighty per cent of all pupils. If a substantial minority remain who must be forced, then a special type of work should be devised for them, as a sort of awkward or recalcitrant squad under discipline. To this group could be relegated those forcibly excused (or excluded) from the volunteer classes for " non-conformity " or " incompatibility of temperament."

(b) Space, equipment, and teaching service for practical arts must be departmentalized. Land area and equipment (for gardening) and home space and equipment (for house- hold arts) should be sought first of all in the homes of the pupils, and only that should be provided in the school which may be required, on the average, to supplement that found outside. For commercial arts and industrial arts, working opportunities outside the school will usually be hard to get, hence the school must be prepared to provide room and equipment for these divisions. It may prove desirable in many cases to provide rooms for practical arts apart from main buildings; and such structures ought frequently to be erected by pupils themselves (e.g. sheds for agricultural tools, workshop for mechanical operations, salesrooms, even household arts quarters). In a number of states these would require only crude heating apparatus, if any, since pupils will presumably work standing and will be physically active.

It is also important that equipment should in part be made by pupils, and that, as far as practicable in complicated fields,

510 Vocational Education

equipment discarded in factories, on farms, in offices, and in homes should be employed. From the standpoint of many of the purposes of practical arts, second-hand and even obsolete types of cameras, wood-stoves, typewriting ma- chines, sewing machines, lathes, printing presses, drills, plows, plumbing, bicycles, gas engines, etc., often readily available, should render acceptable service.

(c) The school program should provide for a possible two hours daily or ten hours weekly in practical arts, for all pupils who have no outside employment. In many school systems this would involve lengthening the school day. The writer favors the so-called Gary form of administration in this respect — a long school day, with physical play, practi- cal arts, and strictly academic studies, alternating in such a way that space and equipment suited to each major type of activity are in constant use. Special exemptions as to hours should be made for pupils having outside employment. Ob- viously, a large amount of flexibility in administration of practical arts work must be provided for. Pupils are pre- sumed to be free to elect any one of the major divisions ; and, if varied offerings are available within any one of these, to elect projects. As indicated above, it may also be assumed that pupils are free to take no practical arts at all, provided school time is otherwise profitably employed.

(d) Teaching force. For any given field of education we can only expect to find fully equipped teachers available some years after we shall have defined the field and devel- oped a general demand for suitable teachers. Doubtless, few teachers are now available for the types of practical arts here proposed, but many manual training, commercial, agri- cultural, and household arts teachers could, with some en- couragement and special training, adapt themselves to the requirements of the new work.

Eventually should be developed assistant, non-salaried teachers or leaders from among older pupils themselves, as

The Practical Arts in General Education 511

has been done so successfully among the Boy Scouts. We talk often about the schools as agencies to train leaders, but we give almost no opportunity in the organized work of schools (many such opportunities are found in the voluntary activities of the pupils themselves) for experience in lead- ing or directing. Of course, this assistant teaching service itself should be organized on a " short unit " project basis, as all the work in practical arts.

(e) The financial support of practical arts education, like all new things sought in progressive school systems, will re- quire additional revenues, but probably not greatly more than is now given for similar work. If, through the prac- tical arts department, school buildings can be kept in repair and a variety of constructive work for the municipality be done, as seems to be a demonstrated possibility in Gary, a part of the cost, at least, would be offset. Again, as sug- gested above, if vocational ends are disregarded, much of the necessary equipment can be made by pupils, or can be purchased second-hand at nominal cost.

CHAPTER XVI

BIBLIOGRAPHIES

The literature of vocational education consists largely as yet of magazine articles, school reports, and bulletins. The time is hardly ripe for the making of a critical bibliog- raphy of this material. The bibliographies referred to be- low are easily accessible and will suffice fairly well for the beginner. Students doing special work on any topic will find it necessary at an early stage to supplement titles found in these bibliographies through research of their own.

1. Under topical titles used in the index of this book ar- ticles of value will often be found in : Monroe's Encyclope- dia of Education; Poole's Index; Readers9 Guide; Bibliog- raphy of Books on Education in Columbia University Li- brary; Burnham's Bibliographies of Books on Educational Subjects (Clark University, 1912) ; and U. S. Bureau of Education's Monthly Record of Current Educational Pub- lications.

2. The following are special bibliographies : National So- ciety for the Promotion of Industrial Education, Selected Bibliography on Industrial Education, Bui. No. 2 — U. S. Bureau of Education, Bui. No. 22 (1913) ; Bibliography on industrial, vocational and trade education. — U. S. Bureau of Education, Bui. 10 (1912); Bibliography of Educa- tion in agriculture and home economics — U. S. Bureau of Education (June, 1914) ; List of references on vocational education.

3. Valuable special bibliographies will be found in these books: U. S. Commissioner of Labor, Annual Report, 1910,

2L SI3

514 Vocational Education

pp. 521-539. . . . National Education Association, Proceed- ings, 1910, pp. 766-774. . . . Lapp, John, Learning to Earn, pp. 381-389. . . . Dean, A. D., The Worker and the State, pp. 345-355. . . . Monroe, P., Principles of Second- ary Education, passim. . . . Johnston, C. H., High School Education, passim. . . . Johnston, C. H., The Modern High School, passim. . . . Robinson, E. (Readings in) Vocational Education, pp. xi-xlix (useful for magazine references). . . . Manual Training Magazine, Vol. 17, pp. 372-376 (bibliography of vocational surveys).

4. For fundamental ethical and economic problems, use- ful bibliographies can be found in : Dewey and Tufts, Ethics (chapter references) ; and Guide to Readings in Social Eth- ics and Allied Subjects (Harvard, 1910).

APPENDIX A. OCCUPATION STATISTICS

The statistics reproduced below from the Thirteenth U. S. Census are given space here because they exhibit better than could any verbal description, the almost bewildering variety of vocations that are now followed by American workers. These tables, too, will abundantly repay study on the part of persons interested in such topics as the specialization of industrial pur- suits, the prevalence of women in wage-earning occupations, the proportions of workers in different occupations, and the numbers of the so-called semi-skilled in manufacturing pur- suits.

Table I is an analysis of all wage-earning occupations. Table II illustrates the varieties of special vocations found in one line of manufacturing (and it will be remembered that the automobile industry was still in its childhood stage in 1910). Table III illustrates the subdivisions now made in the voca- tions of salesmanship.

TABLE I. — Total Persons 10 Years of Age and Over in each Specified (Gainful) Occupation, Classified by Sex: U. S. Census, Vol. 10, 1910

OCCUPATION	TOTAL	MMK	FEMALE
Population 10 years of age and over All occupations ....	71,580,270 38,167,336	37,027,558 30,091,564	34,552,712 8,075,772
I. Agriculture, forestry and animal	12,659,203	10,851,702	1,807,501
	61,816	59,240	2,576
	35,014	32,237	2777
	5,865,003	5,607,297	257,706
Farm laborers	5,975,057	4,460,634	1,514,423

515

Appendix A

TABLE I. — Continued

OCCUPATION	TOTAL	MALE	FEMALE
Farm laborers (home farm) . . . Farm laborers (working out) . . . Turpentine farm laborers .... Farm, dairy farm, garden, orchard, etc., foremen , •	3,310,534 2,636,966 27,557 47,591	2,133,949 2,299,444 27,241 39826	1,176,585 337,522 316 7765
Dairy farm foremen	1,086	1,001	85
Farm foremen	42,420	34,915	7,505
Garden and greenhouse . . . . ; , ... Orchard, nursery, etc. .....	1,311 2,774	1,223 2,687	88 87
Fishermen and oystermen . ... . Foresters	68,275 4,332	67,799 4,332	476
Gardeners, florists, fruit growers, and nurserymen v	139,255	131,421	7,834
Florists .	9,028	7977	1 051
Fruit growers and nurserymen . . Gardeners	46,541 79,894	44,186 75,481	2,355 4,413
Landscape gardeners	3,792	3,777	15
Garden, greenhouse, orchard and nursery laborers	133,927	126,453	7474
Cranberry bog laborers Garden laborers . .	1,384 81,314	1,316 76372	68 4942
Greenhouse laborers	17,757	16796	961
Orchard and nursery laborers . . Lumbermen, raftsmen, and wood- choppers	33,472 161 268	31,969 161 191	1,503 77
Foremen and overseers	4798	4798
Lumbermen and raftsmen .... Teamsters and haulers	114,036 15038	113,999 15038	37
Woodchoppers and tie cutters . . Owners and managers of log and tim- ber camps	27,396 7,931	27,356 7927	40 4
Stock herders, drovers, and feed- ers » »	62975	62090	885
Stock raisers	52521	50847	1674
Other agricultural and animal hus- bandry pursuits .,	44,238	40,408	3,830
Apiarists ....	2145	2020	125
Corn shellers, hay balers, grain threshers, etc	5,617	5617
Ditchers. . . .	15 198	15 198

Appendix A

517

TABLE 1. — Continued

OCCUPATION	TOTAL	MALE	FEMALE
Poultry raisers and poultry yard laborers	15384	H777	•3 {.nj
Other and not specified pursuits . II. Extraction of minerals . . Foremen, overseers, inspectors . . Operators, officials and managers . Coal mine operatives .	5,894 964,824 23,338 25,234 613 924	5,796 963,730 23,328 25,127 613 519	98 1,094 10 107 405
Copper mine operatives Gold and silver mine operatives . . Iron mine operatives	39,270 55,436 49603	39,251 55,397 49564	19 39 39
Operatives in other mines . Quarry operatives	47,252 80,840	47,169 80795	83 45
Oil, gas and salt well opera- tives .	29,927	29580	347
Oil and gas well operatives . Salt well and works operatives . III. Manufacturing and mechanical industries •• I'.'	25,562 4,365 10,658,881	25,548 4,032 8,837 901	14 333 1 820 980
Apprentices	118,964	103,369	15595
Apprentices to building and hand trades	28031	27999	32
Dressmakers' and milliners' ap- prentices	12,011	31	11980
Other apprentices	78,922	75339	3583
Bakers	89,531	84,752	4,779
Blacksmiths forgemen	240519	240 488	31
Blacksmiths	232,988	232,957	31
Forgemen etc	7,531	7,531
Boiler makers	44761	44761
Brick and stone masons .... Builders and building contractors . Butchers' dressers (slaughterhouse) Cabinet makers	169,402 174,422 16,351 41,892	169,387 173,573 16,349 41,884	15 849 2 8
	817,120	817,082	38
Compositors, linotypers and typeset- ters -V . . i •	127,589	113,538	14,051
	25,299	25,292	7
Dressmakers and seamstresses (not	449,342	1,582	447,760
Dyers	14,050	13,396	654

Appendix A

TABLE I. — Continued

OCCUPATION	TOTAL	MALE	FEMALE
Electricians and engineers .... Electrotypers, stereotypers and lithog- raphers . . •'•«• 5	135,519 12,506	135,427 11,929	92 577
Electrotypers — stereotypers . . .	4,368 8,138	4,268 7,661	100 477
Engineers (mechanical) ...	14514	14514
Engineers (stationary)	231041	231031	10
Engravers	13,967	13,429	538
Filers, grinders, buffers and polishers (metal) '. .	49,525	46,679	2,846
Buffers and polishers .	30496	28191	2305
Filers . .	10236	10069	167
Grinders	8,793	8419	374
Firemen (except locomotive and fire department )	111,248	111248
Foremen and overseers (manufactur- hiEr)	175098	155 358	19740
Furnacemen, smeltermen, beaters, pourers, etc	36,251	36,226	25
Furnacemen and smeltermen . . . Beaters *	19,735 10,120	19,719 10,111	16 9
Ladlers and pourers .	679	679
Puddlers	5,717	5,717
Glass blowers	15,564	15,474	90
Jewelers, watchmakers, goldsmiths and silversmiths	32574	30037	2,537
Goldsmiths	5,757	5,553	204
Jewelers and lapidaries (factory) . Jewelers and watchmakers .... Laborers : Building and hand trades .... General and not specified . . . Helpers — "building and hand trades ...	10,631 16,186 934,909 869,478 65431	8,783 15,701 919,031 853,679 65,352	i,848 485 15,878 15,799 79
Chemical industries	41,741	39,711	2,030
Fertilizer factories	9,847	9,757	90
Paint factories	2,959	2,842	117
Powder, cartridge, fireworks, etc., factories •.	4,277	3,947	330
Other chemical factories . .	24,658	23,165	1,493

Appendix A

TABLE I. — Continued

OCCUPATION	TOTAL	MALE	FEMALE
Clay, glass, stone industries . . . Brick, tile, terra cotta factories . Glass factories -. •	154,826 77,954 24634	152,438 77,333 23686	2,388 621 948
Lime, cement, gypsum factories . Marble and stone yards ... ;|J Potteries .	36,083 6,915 9,240	35,931 6,847 8,641	152 68 599
Iron and steel industries .... Automobile factories . •, ••	482,941 15783	476,801 15644	6,140 139
Blast furnaces, rolling mills . . Car and railroad shops . . •• • Wagon and carriage factories . . Other iron and steel works . •. -. Other metal industries	202,392 48,342 12,391 204,033 44,773	201,030 48,114 12,232 199,781 42134	1,362 228 159 4,252 2,639
Brass mills •. .	10885	10606	279
Copper factories . . . .-'	11 586	11 532	54
Lead and zinc factories .... Tinware and enamel factories . . Other metal factories . . . . Y Lumber and furniture industries . . Furniture, piano and organ fac- tories	7,945 7,587 6,770 317,244 28,077	7,871 6,709 5,416 313,228 27188	74 878 1,354 4,016 889
Saw and planing mills •• ••	260 142	258 361	1781
Other wood working factories Textile industries	29,025 87146	27,679 71,107	1,346 16,039
Cotton mills	37804	32,037	5,767
Silk mills .	3798	2686	1,112
r Woolen and worsted mills . . . Other textile mills	12,290 33,254	10,245 26,139	2,045 7,115
Other industries .	426 126	386897	39,229
Charcoal and coke works . . . Cigar and tobacco factories . . Clothing industries	11,446 16,392 10240	11,431 11,436 5424	15 4,956 4816
Electric light and power plants . Electrical supply factories . . . Food industries: Bakeries	8,176 11,434 4,510	8,011 10,053 3,755	165 1,381 755
Butter and cheese factories . . Fish curing and packing . . . Flour and grain mills . . . '.- Fruit and vegetable canning, etc.	4,816 4,870 9,243 4,670	4,688 4,637 9,152 3,683	128 233 91 987

520

Appendix A

TABLE I. — Continued

OCCUPATION	TOTAL	MALE	FEMALE
Slaughter and packing houses . Sugar factories and refineries . Other food factories ....	33,903 8,755 11,248 16,549	32,471 8,647 8,658 16534	1,432 108 2,590 15
Liquor and beverage industries . Oil refineries .....	18,857 11215	18,294 11 151	563 64
Paper and pulp mills	31388	29959	1429
Printing and polishing . . Rubber factories . . . •	7,041 13546	5,217 12224	1,824 1322
Shoe factories	10277	7952	2325
	20,798	20491	307
Turpentine distilleries Other factories . . . . . •	6,405 150 347	6,354 136 675	51 13672
Loom fixers	13254	13254
Machinists, millwrights, tool makers . Machinists and millwrights . . . Tool makers, die setters, sinkers . Managers, superintendents (manu- facturing) .	488,049 478,786 9,263 104210	487,956 478,713 9,243 102 748	93 73 20 1 462
Manufacturers and officials .... Manufacturers	256,591 235 107	251,892 230 809	4,699 4298
Officials . . .	21 484	21 083	401
Mechanics . ...	34787	34745	42
Gunsmiths, locksmiths, bellhang-	3251	3248	3
Wheelwrights	3,732	3,732
Other mechanics .......	27804	27765	39
Millers (grain, flour, seed, etc.) . . Milliners and millinery dealers . . . Molders, founders, casters (metal) . Brass molders, founders, casters . Iron molders, founders, casters . . Other molders, founders, casters . Oilers of machinery	23,152 127,906 120,900 6,512 112,122 2,266 14013	23,093 5,459 120,783 6,509 112,070 2,204 13990	59 122,447 117 3 52 62 23
Painters, glaziers, varnishers, enam- elers, etc •	337,355	334,814	2,541
Enamelers, lacquerers and japan- ners	2,999	1968	1 031
Painters, glaziers and varnishers (buildings)	273,441	273,060	381

Appendix A

521

TABLE I. — Continued

OCCUPATION	TOTAL	MALB	FBMALB
Painters, glaziers and varnishers aactorv)	60915	59786	1 129
Paper hangers	25577	24780	797
Pattern and model makers .... Plasterers	23,559 47682	23,006 47676	553 6
Plumbers and gas and steam fitters .	148,304	148,304
Pressmen (printing)	20084	19892	192
Rollers and roll hands (metal) . . . Roofers and slaters .	18,407 14078	18,384 14078	23
Sawyers	43,276	43,257	19
Semi-skilled operatives : Chemical industries	30,705	17158	13547
Paint factories ... ...	3920	3292	628
Powder, cartridges, fireworks, etc., factories	5,263	2858	2405
Other chemical factories .... Cigar and tobacco factories . . . Clay, glass and stone industries . . Brick, tile and terra cotta facto- ries	21,522 151,519 88,628 13407	11,008 79,947 79,167 12649	10,514 71,572 9,461 758
Glass factories	41,877	37,927	3,950
Lime, cement and gypsum facto- ries	8546	8,417	129
Marble and stone yards .... Potteries	8,539 16,259	8,389 11,785	150 4,474
Clothing industries	144,607	95,715	48,892
Hat factories (felt) . .	26,575	22,377	4,198
Suit, coat, cloak, overall factories Other clothing factories .... Food industries	54,211 63,821 88,834	44,878 28,460 52,312	9,333 35,361 36,522
Bakeries	8,938	3,008	5,930
Butter and cheese factories . . . Candy factories	11,598 30,943	11,065 13,608	533 17,335
Flour and grain mills	3,992	3,750	242
Fruit and vegetable canning, etc. Slaughter and packing houses . . Other food factories	5,290 9,448 18,625	2,127 7,121 11,633	3,163 2,327 6,992
Harness and saddle industries . . Iron and steel industries	22,650 368,313 20,902	21,958 345,271 20,222	692 23,042 680

$22

Appendix A

TABLE I. — Continued

OCCUPATION	TOTAL	MALE	FEMALE
Blast furnaces and rolling mills Car and railroad shops .... Wagon and carriage factories . Other iron and steel works ... Other metal industries	70,130 47,684 22,178 207,419 69750	67,746 47,405 21,236 188,662 48904	2,384 279 942 18,757 20846
	16885	14350	2535
Clock and watch factories . . . Gold and silver and jewelry fac-	15,628 16,651	9,252 10,474	6,376 6,177
Lead and zinc factories .... Tinware and enamelware facto-	1,864 10,611	1,601 6,674	263 3,937
Other metal factories •	8111	6553	1 558
Liquor and beverage industries . .	31,503 21830	29,664 21250	1,839 580
	3,444	2,648	796
Other liquor and beverage facto-	6,229	5,766	463
Lumber and furniture industries . . Furniture, piano and organ fac-	167,490 62,812	154,292 58,304	13,198 4,508
Saw and planing mills .	66060	63684	2376
Other wood working factories Paper and pulp mills	38,618 36383	32,304 25,803	6,314 10,580
Printing and publishing	67469	32808	34661
Shoe factories .	181 010	121744	59,266
Tanneries	33553	31,713	1,840
Textile industries: Beamers, warpers, slashers . ; . •	16,693 7,693	9,612 4,855	7,081 2,838
Silk mills ... . .	4628	1408	3,220
Woolen and worsted mills . . Other textile mills	2,570 1,802	2,059 1,290	511 512
Bobbin boys, doffers and carriers Cotton mills	22,514 16,798	17,622 14,398	4,892 2,400
Silk mills	617	320	297
Woolen and worsted mills . . Other textile mills .....	2,899 2,200	1,824 1,080	1,075 1,120
Carders, combers and lappers . . Cotton mills	23,956 15,939	18,050 11,729	5,906 4,210

Appendix A

523

TABLE I. — Continued

OCCUPATION	TOTAL	MALE	FEMALE
Silk mills	143	60	R.3
Woolen and worsted mills . . Other textile mills	5,358 2516	4,447 1 814	911 70?
Drawers, rovers and twisters . . Cotton mills	29,995 19472	12,480 Q 535	17,515 0077
Silk mills ....	3*825	1 472	2 353
Woolen and worsted mills . . Other textile mills Spinners	4,465 2,233 74059	866 607 27783	3,599 1,626 4/i ?7fi
Cotton mills	48025	15874	• 321 SI
Silk mills	3443	1 046	2 397
Woolen and worsted mills . . Other textile mills Weavers	13,387 9,204 203 718	6,997 3,866 104284	6,390 5,338 99434
Cotton mills	92840	48929	43911
Silk mills . .	36 171	18435	17736
Woolen and worsted mills . ,fc Other textile mills	31,857 42850	17,197 19723	14,660 23 127
Winders, reelers and spoolers . . Cotton mills	64,333 27509	7,270 3226	57,063 24283
Silk mills	16126	1 222	14904
Woolen and worsted mills . . Other textile mills	7,543 13 155	932 1890	6,611 11,265
Other occupations .	214992	101 120	113872
Cotton mills	50349	30625	19724
Silk mills	13,820	4995	8825
Woolen and worsted mills . . Other textile mills	30,891 119932	18,601 46899	12,290 73033
Other industries	308,861	191,925	116,936
Electrical supply factories . . Paper box factories Rubber factories	24,677 17,887 30,283	13,636 4,859 20,814	11,041 13,028 9,469
Other factories	236,014	152,616	83,398
Sewers and sewing machine operators (factory)	291,209	60,003	231,206
Shoemakers and cobblers (not in factory)	69,570	68,788	782
Skilled occupations . .	16,808	16,560	248
Annealers and temperers (metal) . Piano and organ tuners	1,901 6,633	1,894 6,528	7 105

524

Appendix A

TABLE I. — Continued

OCCUPATION	TOTAL	MALM	FEMALE
^Vood carvers	5368	5308	60
Other skilled occupations ....	2,906 35731	2,830 35726	76 5
Structural iron workers (building)	11,427	11 427
Tailors and tailoresses	204 608	163 795	40813
Tinsmiths and coppersmiths ....	59,833 56423	59,809 56399	24 24
Coppersmiths	3410	3 410
Upholsterers . . .	20221	18 928	1293
IV Transportation	2 637,671	2 531 075	106596
Water transportation (selected occu- pations) : Boatmen, canalmen and lock keep- ers	5304	5289	15
Captains, masters, mates and pilots	24242	24242
Longshoremen and stevedores . . Sailors and deck hands	62,857 46510	62,813 46498	44 12
Road and street transportation (se- lected occupations) : Carriage and hack drivers .... Chauffeurs	35,376 45785	35,339 45752	37 33
Draymen, teamsters and express-	408 469	408396	73
Foremen of livery and transfer companies	6606	6606
Garage keepers and managers . . . Hostlers and stable hands .... Livery stable keepers and managers Proprietors and managers of trans- fer companies	5,279 63,388 34,795 15598	5,256 63,382 34,612 15368	23 6 183 230
Railroad transportation (selected oc- cupations) : Baggagemen and freight agents . . Baggagemen . . •	17,033 12273	17,028 12273	5
Freight agents ... , ' ,	4760	4755	5
Boiler washers and engine hostlers	10409	10409
Brakemen	92572	92572
Conductors (steam railroad) . . .•	65,604	65604
Conductors (street railroad) . . ;	56,932	69,693
Foremen and overseers	69933	56932	240

Appendix A

525

TABLE I. — Continued

OCCUPATION	TOTAL	MALE	FEMALE
Laborers	570 975	567 522	3453
	543 168	539 920	3248
Street ra.ilroa.ds	27807	27602	205
Locomotive engineers	96229	96229
Locomotive firemen	76381	76381
l^fotormen	59005	59005
Officials and superintendents . . . Steam railroads	22,238 19805	22,236 19803	2 2
Street railroads	2433	2433
Switchmen, flagmen and yardmen . Switchmen and flagmen (steam railroad) Switchmen and flagmen (street railroad) . ...	85,147 73,419 2153	85,095 73,367 2153	52 52
Yardmen (steam railroad)	9575	9575
Ticket and station agents .... Express, post, telegraph and tele- phone (selected occupations) : Agents (express companies) . . . Express messengers and railway mail clerks	24,138 5,875 22,021	22,930 5,804 22,018	1,208 71 3
Express messengers Railway mail clerks	6,781 15240	6,778 15,240	3
Mail carriers	80,678	79,667	1,011
Telegraph and telephone linemen . Telegraph messengers ....	28,350 9,152	28,347 9,074	78
Telegraph operators	69,953	61,734	8,219
Telephone operators •	97,893	9,631	88,262
Other transportation pursuits : Foremen and overseers Road and street building and re- pairing	14,738 7,064	14,333 7,064	405
Telegraph and telephone compa-	3,843	3,439	404
	3,016	3,016
Other transportation	815 33,237	814 32,962	1 275
Steam railroad . . •	27,661	27,525	136
	2,268	2,265	3
	3,308	3,172	136

526

Appendix A

TABLE I. — Continued

OCCUPATION	TOTAL	MALE	FEMALE
Laborers	221,437	221,176	261
Road and street building and re- pairing	180468	180468
Street cleaning	9946	9946
Other transportation	31,023	30,762	261
Proprietors, officials and managers Telegraph and telephone compa- nies	14,839 10,089	13,411 8680	1,428 1 W
Other transportation	4,750	4,731	19
Other occupations (semi-skilled) . Steam railroad	38,693 24375	37,729 24105	964 270
Street railroad	5,187	5 147	40
Other transportation . . .	9,131	8477	654
V. Trade	3,614,670	3,146,582	468,088
Bankers, brokers and money lenders . Bankers and bank officials .... Commercial brokers and commis- sion men	105,804 56,059 24,009	103,170 54,387 23,690	2,634 1,672 319
Loan brokers and loan company of- ficials	2111	1 989	122
Pawnbrokers	1232	1,191	41
Stockbrokers	13,729	13,522	207
Brokers not specified and promot- ers	8664	8391	273
Clerks in stores	387,183	275,589	111,594
Commercial travelers	163,620	161,027	2,593
Decorators, drapers and window dressers .	5,341	4,902	439
Deliverymen	229,619	229,469	150
Bakeries and laundries	24,030	24012	18
Stores	205,589	205,457	132
Floorwalkers, foremen and over- seers . .	20724	17649	3,075
Floorwalkers and foremen in stores Foremen, warehouses, stockyards, etc . .	17,946 2,778	14,900 2749	3,046 29
Inspectors, gaugers and samplers . . Insurance agents and officials .... Insurance agents	13,446 97,964 88,463	11,685 95,302 85,926	1,761 2,662 2,537
Officials of insurance companies . .	9,501	9,376	125

Appendix A

527

TABLE I.— Continued

OCCUPATION	TOTAL	MALE	FEMALE
Laborers in coal and lumber yards, warehouses etc .	81 123	80450	673
	16663	16655	g
Elevators	6346	6335	\l
Lumber yards	43398	43389	9
Stockyards \Varehouses	5,998 8718	5,991 8080	7 638
Laborers, porters and helpers in stores Newsboys	102,333 29708	98,169 29435	4,164 273
Proprietors, officials and managers . Employment office keepers .... Proprietors, etc., elevators .... Proprietors, etc., warehouses . . . Other proprietors, officials and managers	22,362 2,260 5,118 4,393 10591	21,352 1,540 5,105 4,368 10339	1,010 720 13 25 252
Real estate agents and officials . . . Retail dealers	125,862 1,195,029	122,935 1,127926	2,927 67103
Salesmen and saleswomen .	921 130	663410	257720
Auctioneers	3990	3985	5
	4,380	1,250	3130
Sales agents	35522	31424	4098
Salesmen and saleswomen (stores)	877,238 20,734	626,751 19,921	250,487 813
Wholesale dealers, importers and ex-	51,048	50,123	925
Other pursuits (semi-skilled) . . . Fruit graders and packers ....	41,640 4,715 15,405	34,068 2,677 15,378	7,572 2,038 27
Other occupations	21,520	16013	5,507
VI. Public service (not classified elsewhere)	459,291	445733	13558
Firemen (fire department)	35,606	35,606
Guards, watchmen and doorkeepers . Laborers (public service) Garbage men and scavengers .	78,271 67,234 4,227	78,168 66,505 4227	103 729
	63,007	62,278	729
Marshals, sheriffs, detectives, etc.	23,599 6,349	23,219 6,162	380 187
	9,073	9,071	2
Probation and truant officers . . .	1,043	855	188

528

Appendix A

TABLE I.— Continued

OCCUPATION	TOTAL	MALE	FEMALE
Sheriffs - V '	7,134	7,131	3
Officials and inspectors (city and county) • •	52254	49668	2586
Officials and inspectors (city) . . . Officials and inspectors (county). . Officials and inspectors (state and United States)	33,210 19,044 52,926	32,199 17,469 43389	1,011 1,575 9,537
Officials and inspectors (state) . . Officials and inspectors (United States) .	7,202 45724	6,662 36727	540 8997
	61,980	61,980
Sailors, soldiers and marines . . . Other pursuits ....	77,153 10268	77,153 10045	223
Life-savers	2,158	2,158
	1,593	1,552	41
Other occupations	6517	6335	182
VII Professional service ....	1 663 569	929684	733 885
	28,297	16,305	11,992
	16,613	16,311	302
Artists, sculptors and teachers of art .•	34,104	18,675	15,429
Authors, editors and reporters . . . Authors	38,750 4368	32,511 2310	6,239 2058
Editors and reporters	34,382	30201	4,181
Chemists, assayers and metallurgists Civil and mining engineers and sur- veyors • . . • •	16,273 58,963	15,694 58,958	579 5
Civil engineers and surveyors . . Mining engineers	52,033 6,930	52,028 6,930	5
	118,018	117,333	685
College presidents and professors . . . Dentists	15,668 39,997	12,710 38743	2,958 1,254
Designers, draftsmen and inventors . Designers	47,449 11,788	44,437 9,211	3,012 2,577
Draftsmen ... .	33,314	32,923	391
Inventors	2,347	2,303	44
Lawyers, judges and justices .... Musicians and teachers of music . . Photographers	114,704 139,310 31,775	114,146 54,832 26,811	558 84,478 4,964
Physicians and surgeons	151,132	142,117	9,015

Appendix A

529

TABLE I.— Continued

OCCUPATION	TOTAL	MALE	FEHALB
Showmen	20096	18988	1 108
Teachers	599237	121 210	478 027
Teachers (athletics, dancing, etc.) . Teachers (school)	3,931 595306	2,768 118442	1,163 476864
Trained nurses	82327	5819	76508
Veterinary surgeons	11 652	11 652
Other professional pursuits .... Semi-professional pursuits .... Abstractors, notaries and justices . Fortune tellers, hypnotists, spirit- ualists	15,677 64,926 7,445 1600	7,585 44,532 6,660 380	8,092 20,394 785 1220
Healers (not physicians and sur- geons)	6834	2162	4672
Keepers of charity and penal insti- tutions	7491	5246	2,245
Officials of lodges, societies, etc. . Religious and charity workers . . Theatrical owners, managers and officials	8,215 15,970 11322	6,245 7,081 11027	1,970 8,889 295
	6049	5,731	318
Attendants and helpers (professional service)	18601	10315	8,286
VIII. Domestic and personal service Barbers, hairdressers, manicurists . . Bartenders ;	3,772,174 195,275 101,234	1,241,328 172,977 100,984	2,530,846 22,298 250
Billiard room, dance hall, skating rink, etc., keepers ... . .	16,761	15,943	818
Billiard and pool room keepers . . Dance hall, skating rink, etc. . . Boarding and lodging house keepers . Bootblacks	13,859 2,902 165,452 14,020	13,700 2,243 23,052 14,000	159 659 142,400 20
Charwomen and cleaners	34,034	7,195	26,839
Elevator tenders	25,035	25,010	25
Hotel keepers and managers .... Housekeepers and stewards .... Janitors and sextons	64,504 189,273 113,081	50,269 15,940 91,629^	14,235 173,333 21,452
Laborers (domestic and professional service) .	53,480	50,265	3,215
Launderers and laundresses (not in laundry) . .	533,697	13,693	520,004

2 M

530

Appendix A

TABLE I. — Continued

OCCUPATION	TOTAL	MALE	FEMALE
	111,879	35,899	75,980
Laundry owners, officials and man-	18,043	17,057	986
Midwives and nurses (not trained) .	133,043 6,205	15,926	117,117 6,205
	126,838	15,926	110,912
Porters (except in stores) . •	84128	84055	73
Restaurant, cafe and lunchroom keep-	60,832	50,316	10,516
	68,215	66,724	1,491
Servants ...	1 572 225	262,676	1,309,549
Bell boys, chore boys, etc. . . . Chambermaids	18,329 39,789	17,667 187	662 39,602
Coachmen and footmen	25667	25667
Cooks	450440	117004	333,436
Other servants	1 038,000	102,151	935,849
Waiters	188,293	102,495	85,798
	29,670	25,223	4,447
Bathhouse keepers and attendants . Cemetery keepers	4,595 4,842	3,125 4,811	1,470 31
Cleaners and renovators (clothing, etc)	14860	12215	2,645
Umbrella menders and scissors grinders	1,053	1,016	37
Other occupations	4320	4056	264
IX Clerical occupations	1 737 053	1 143,829	593,224
Agents, canvassers, and collectors . . Agents	105,127 50,785	96,325 48,495	8,802 2,290
Canvassers .... .	18595	13980	4,615
Collectors	35747	33,850	1,897
Bookkeepers, cashiers, accountants . Clerks (except clerks in stores) . . . Shipping clerks	486,700 720,498 80,353	299,545 597,833 78,192	187,155 122,665 2,161
Other clerks	640,145	519,641	120,504
Messenger, bundle and office boys . . Bundle and cash boys and girls . . Messenger, errand and office boys . Stenographers and typists	108,035 10,866 97,169 316 693	96,748 4,274 92,474 53,378	11,287 6,592 4,695 263,315

Appendix A

S3*

TABLE II. — Statistical Analysis of Special Vocations within a Certain Industry: U. S. Census, 1910

Automobile factories .

Manufacturers and pro- prietors

Officials

Managers and superin- tendents

Foremen and overseers

Bookkeepers, cashiers, accountants ....

Clerks (general) . . .

Clerks (shipping) . . .

Designers

Draftsmen

Messenger, errand and office boys

Purchasing agents . .

Stenographers and typ- ists

Blacksmiths

Boiler makers ....

Cabinet makers . . .

Carpenters

Electricians and electri- cal engineers . . .

Engineers (mechanical)

Engineers (stationary)

Locksmiths

Machinists

Mechanics (not other- wise specified) . . .

Millwrights

Painters

Plumbers

Tinners

Tool makers

Wheelwrights ....

Apprentices . . . . .

Assemblers and erectors

Bench hands .

TOTAL VOKKKKS 105,758	Body makers (not spe- cified)	TOTAL WORKKBB 1,338
987	Braziers	117
373	Carriage and wagon builders	214
1,613 2,342	Case and steel hardeners Chauffeurs Core makers	85 780 252
2,299	Drillers ....	553
4,304 718 155	Engine and motor build- ers (not specified) . . Filers	102 208
1,071	Finishers	943
	Firemen	234
334	Fitters	105
240	Forgemen and hammer- men	209
2,074 1341	Grinders (metal) . . . Helpers . . .	499 942
73	Inspectors	1,258
454	Laborers	15,692
1,398	Lamp makers (not speci- ified)	155
1,196 318 720	Lathe hands and turners Machine hands (not specified)	338 1,957
58 28659	Metal workers (not specified) ....	660
	Molders	529
1766	Oilers .......	115
398 4,131 288	Packers and wrappers . Pattern makers . . . Platers	148 526 111
1 064	Polishers .....	1,429
1737	Press hands	245
142	Repairers ......	687
1,104 3648	Rubber workers (not specified)	169
469	Sewers .	189

532

Appendix A

TABLE II. — Continued

Solderers

Teamsters

Testers

Top makers (not speci- fied)

Trimmers .

TOTAL WORKERS

167

260

1,578

249 2,303

Upholsterers

Woodworkers (not speci- fied)

Other specified occupa- tions

Not specified occupations

TOTAL WORKERS

583

1,587

1,484 1,474

TABLE III. — Statistical Analysis of Certain Commercial Vocations: U. S. Census, 1910

Wholesale and retail

trade

Merchants and dealers

(wholesale) : Importers and exporters

Jobbers *

Other wholesale dealers Merchants and dealers

(retail) : Agricultural implements

and wagons .... Art stores and artists'

materials

Automobiles . . . ; . Bicycles . . . . • ,

Books

Boots and shoes . . . Butchers and meat deal-

ers

Buyers and shippers of

grain

Buyers and shippers of

live stock

Buyers and shippers of

other farm produce . Buyers and shippers (not

specified)

TOTAL WORKERS

3,577,771

4,905

3,181

42,962

8,518

2,370 4,597 1,532 3,118 19,346

124,048

11,535

32,516

6,864

896

Candy and confection- ery

Cigars and tobacco . .

Carpets and rugs . . .

Clothing and men's fur- nishings

Coal and wood ....

Coffee and tea . .

Crockery and glassware, queensware ....

Curios, antiques and novelties

Delicatessen stores . .

Department stores . .

Drugs and medicines .

Dry goods, fancy goods and notions . . ^ .

Five and ten cent stores

Florists (dealers) . . .

Flour and feed ....

Fruit

Furniture

Furs

Gas fixtures and electri- cal supplies . . . .

General stores . . ,. >

Groceries .

TOTAL WORKERS

29,538

17,728

1,238

35,273

24,466

5,351

2,508

2,735

3,031

8,970

67,575

65,283

4,331

2,934

9,469

19,000

22,209

2,280

1,526

88,059

195,432

Appendix A

533

TABLE III. — Continued

Hardware, stoves and cutlery

Harness and saddlery

Hucksters and peddlers

Ice

Jewelry

Junk

Leather and hides . . .

Liquors and wines . .

Lumber

Milk

Music and musical in- struments .

TOTAL WORKERS	Newsdealers	TOTAL Wouna 7,075
39,663 7,541	Oil, paint and wall paper	6818
80,415	Opticians	6,284
7,361 29,962	Produce and provisions Rags	29,639 1975
15,219 2,475	Rubber goods .... Stationery	493 5,823
17,736	Timber	765
26,485 14,694	Other specified retail dealers	20,383
5222	Not specified retail deal- ers	54.725

APPENDIX B. TERMINOLOGY1

PRELIMINARY

Education is still largely in the " prescientific " stages of its development. As a consequence, it derives its terms and sym- bols almost exclusively from the everyday vernacular of the people. But the terminology thus developed necessarily lacks in definiteness and consistency. No two speakers on a given subject will be found to use terms derived from the popular language in exactly the same sense. Great confusion and waste of effort thus result.

The time has not yet arrived for educators to do what has been done in the fields of medicine, engineering, scientific agri- culture, and other fields of applied science — that is, develop a technical terminology consisting of new terms and symbols coined for the purpose, and giving exact and unvarying mean- ings. In education it will be necessary for some time to con- tinue to use, in the main, the old familiar words and phrases, with their numerous variations of meaning and their almost unlimited special connotations.

But educators can do this: They can agree to use certain words and phrases for the time being in certain definite ways, and with certain consistent meanings, arid when making depar- tures from this usage clearly indicate the grounds and extent of their divergence from the meaning agreed upon.

To this end there is required a series of definitions of the terms most frequently employed in education, and furthermore, such an extended analysis, with abundance of concrete illus-

1 These explanatory definitions were first prepared by the author for a committee on vocational education of the National Education Asso- ciation, and published as Bulletin 24 (1916) of the U. S. Bureau of Education. Suggestions made by many friendly critics have been freely used in revising them for this book.

534

Appendix B 535

tration, as will show to anyone acquainted with educational thought actually what is meant by the nomenclature thus es- tablished. Most persons find it difficult to translate abstract terms and phrases into concrete and definite meanings. It is obvious also that during any period of marked activity in the development of an educational movement, new and varied sit- uations arise which interest laymen as well as schoolmen. The very rapidity of that growth often anticipates the development of a clearly defined theory of education or social economy. To assist somewhat in avoiding the confusion in thinking and language resulting from the above conditions, this chapter has been prepared. The usual plan has been to follow and precede definitions with an extended analysis of the ideas in- volved, and to append numerous concrete illustrations of the types of vocational education referred to.

The earlier developments of this type of education in the United States began in Massachusetts. Consequently, there has grown up in that state a considerable background of theory, practice, and experience which has necessitated the use of terms with rather clearly defined meanings. For this reason some of the suggestions as to the use of terms and meanings are based upon usages originating there, more particularly by the board of education, which was required by law to super- vise various forms of vocational education. This had made it necessary to evolve, and use consistently, a somewhat definite terminology. Other terms and definitions have, however, been utilized in this terminology. The whole is to be regarded as an effort somewhat to overcome the tendency in one field of education to follow a loose, general, and sometimes almost meaningless terminology.

/. General Definitions and Distinctions

1. (Definition). Vocational education is any form of edu- cation, whether given in a school or elsewhere, the purpose of which is to fit an individual to pursue effectively a recognized profitable employment, whether pursued for wages or other- wise.

536 Appendix B

Webster's Dictionary defines vocation as follows: Destined or appropriate employment, calling, occupation, trade, business, profession.

Among the specific occupations for which vocational educa- tion may be given are the following: Physician, electrical en- gineer, teacher, bookkeeper, salesman, stenographer, machinist, plumber, bricklayer, printer, dressmaker, cook, weaver, gar- dener, florist, farmer, poultryman, homemaker, mother's assist- ant, domestic servant, sailor, fisherman. This list is capable of being added to indefinitely. There are, at least, some hun- dreds of different occupations for each of which specific voca- tional training is practicable. I*

(a) By " purpose " is here meant the purpose or aim which is held in view, and in conformity with which all steps are taken, in arranging programs of instruction, selecting practical work, devising tests, etc. The aim is said to " control " the selection of the means and methods of instruction used in realizing the aim.

For example, if it is the purpose of given courses of training respectively to produce a machinist, a physician, and a printer, the requirements of these respective occupations will control in the choice of the materials and methods of instruction. In the vocational course, as such, matter will not be included which does not have a clearly perceived relationship to efficiency in the vocation.

(b) The purposes which should control in a given program of vocational education obviously can be found only by study- ing the vocation itself for which training is to be given. On the basis of the results of this study, means and methods of training and instruction must be devised, and a predetermined degree of efficiency in the proposed calling constitutes the aim or objective, in the light of the demands of which the means and methods of such training and instruction are selected.

For example, the means and methods employed in the train- ing of a printer may differ absolutely from those employed in the training of a house carpenter. What means (including thereunder subjects of study, courses of instruction, textbooks, material equipment, etc.) and methods (methods of teaching,

Appendix B 537

class organization, adjustment of practical to technical work, etc.) shall be employed in each case will depend wholly upon the requirements of the occupation itself.

(c) The extent to which training can be given for a recog- nized vocation will, in the last analysis, also depend upon the inherited and acquired powers of the individual who is to be trained, and on the economic conditions determining the age at which the person enters upon the pursuit of a given occupa- tion.

In common practice, only persons of exceptional native en- dowment and opportunities for prolonged study are admitted to classes preparing for the practice of medicine, engineering, teaching, etc. In every trade school, many applicants are re- fused, or are early eliminated, because of physical or other un- fitness for the successful pursuit of the trade. A person obliged to become self-supporting at 14 or 15 years of age cannot reasonably be expected to profit from the introductory stages of prolonged courses of instruction designed to require the time of a more favored student up to the age of 18 or 20.

*(d) In practice, any program of vocational education should be .based upon the requirements of a definitely analyzed calling, and the means and methods should be modified, so far as prac- ticable, with a view to their adjustment to the needs and possi- bilities of a group of individuals having a common purpose, and possessed of somewhat similar qualifications.

(e) Vocational education of any specific kind " functions" when, as a result of a definite amount of training, an ascertain- able degree of proficiency in the exercise of a vocation is shown in the individuals trained.

For example, if it can be shown that a given course of in- struction (embracing practical training and theoretical instruc- tion) in dentistry produces in most of those taking such course a definite ability successfully to practice dentistry, then such training is said to " function " effectively. Again, if in the case of a young man, already a successful worker in the ma- chine shop calling, a definite series of short units of training in some form of mathematics or drawing adds obviously to his industrial ability, then such training is said to " function." If,

538 Appendix B

on the other hand, 40 per cent or 50 per cent of the persons completing, for example, a course of study alleged to fit for farming are able to show no marked improvement in practice as a result of such training, or if an equal number, after hav- ing had such training, enter other callihgs, then the " function- ing" of such instruction may be regarded as doubtful or im- perfect.

2. Major divisions of education of equal rank with voca- tional education. — Other major divisions of education be- sides vocational education are: Physical education, social edu- cation and cultural education. Physical education may be held to embrace all forms of training and instruction the con- trolling purposes of which are to conserve and promote useful development of the body and its capacity for effective " func- tioning." Social education may include all forms of training and instruction designed to make for better group living and activities. Included under this head are moral education, civic education, ethical training, and much of religious instruction. Cultural education may here include all forms of training and instruction designed to develop valuable cultural interests of an intellectual and aesthetic nature, including permanent in- terests in such fields as art, literature, science, and history. Cultural education also includes training in the use of intel- lectual " tools," or " instrumentalities " of general (not particu- lar, i.e. vocational) application, such as the efficient use of the vernacular language in reading, writing, and speaking, a second language, etc. Social education and cultural education are often described jointly as " general " and in later stages as " liberal " education.

3. Distinction between general and vocational educa- tion. — General education aims to develop general intelligence, powers of appreciation in all common fields of utilization, and powers of execution with such intellectual instruments as lan- guage, mathematics, scientific method, etc., without reference to recognized or specific callings; while vocational education has its aims, and, therefore, its means and methods, determined in any case by the requirements of a specific calling.

For example, experience proves that it is desirable for all

Appendix B 539

persons to be trained to read and to write, without reference to the specific callings which they may ultimately pursue. Equally, all people should be trained to appreciate and to choose wisely for their own use valuable products from such fields of human effort as* literature, art, economic goods, and the specialized service of others. All persons should also be trained in the habitual actions, appreciations, knowledge, insight, and ideals, which constitute approved moral conduct and good* cit- izenship. The forms of education designed to produce these ends may be further subdivided and described by such terms as " elementary education," " academic education," " general sec- ondary education," etc.

4. Distinction between vocational and practical arts educa- tion. — Vocational education is also to be distinguished from various forms of so-called " practical education," which may resemble, in their processes, vocational education, but which do not result in definite forms of vocational efficiency.

The various forms of non-vocational education here comprised under the term " practical arts," include manual training, sloyd, manual arts, arts and crafts when pursued as part of general education, household arts, simple gardening and agri- cultural education, many phases of commercial education, etc.

(a) The various forms of practical arts education as now given in schools are not properly vocational, although some- times mistaken for vocational education, because they do not result, except by chance, in recognized forms of vocational efficiency, nor are they assumed to be given to persons who have defined vocational aims. The means and methods they adopt are not selected with a view to the preparation of the pupil for recognized callings.

(b) Various forms of practical arts education have an im- portant and valuable place in general or liberal education, as a means of enlarging general intelligence, developing sound ap- preciation of economic products, and, in part, in laying the foun- dations for vocational choice.

(c) Practical arts education is sometimes termed " prevoca- tional education," because of the belief that a suitable program of practical arts training will make important contributions

540 Appendix B

toward the individual's ability to choose a vocation wisely. Its value to this end depends largely upon the degree to which the individual has already developed vocational interest and a de- sire to choose a suitable vocation.

5. Distinction between direct (or systematic) vocational education and indirect vocational education. — A large amount of vocational education, in the broad sense of that term, espe- cially for the unskilled or semi-skilled occupations, is an indirect result or a by-product of association and cooperation with older people engaged in productive occupations. One is said to "pick up " skill, vocational intelligence, or vocational ideals in this way. Among primitive peoples usually, and even in civil- ized society in many fields, such as homemaking and farming, indirect vocational education is common. There is a tendency in society to substitute systematic or direct vocational educa- tion for indirect (and therefore, presumably, uneconomic and ineffective) procedures.

6. Distinction between systematic vocational education through schools and through other agencies. — Vocational education may be carried on through a school (an agency spe- cialized for this purpose) or through other agencies, primarily specialized for other and, usually, profit-making purposes, and only secondarily adapted to systematic vocational education. Apprenticeship in the trades, and, originally, in the professions, is an example of such non-school systematic vocational educa- tion. Farmers and homemakers sometimes quite systemati- cally train their children to follow their own vocations. Com- mercial establishments often provide for the definite instruc- tion and advancement of young assistants. There is a manifest tendency on the part of society to transfer to school agencies vocational education, because of the greater degree of concen- tration and effectiveness thus made possible, and because, under modern conditions, economic agencies are unable to give due attention to systematic vocational education as a secondary phase of their responsibilities.

7. Distinction between private and public vocational schools. — Vocational schools may be supported by private agencies either through endowments or through fees received from stu-

Appendix B 541

dents. Such schools, when controlled by private agencies, are called " private vocational schools." They may further be distinguished according as they are (a) endowed with more or less philanthropic intent, and having no object of profit in view ; or (b) as being on a commercial basis in having profit making as a chief end. Public vocational schools are those supported, at least in part, under public expense, and are usually under the control of publicly constituted authorities. Professional schools in state universities, trade and commercial schools conducted by municipalities, agricultural and homemaking schools conducted by states or subdivisions thereof, etc., are examples of public vocational schools.

As a rule, professional schools in the United States have not been organized for profit. Many commercial, and some trade schools, are conducted for profit. Philanthropy has also en- dowed many trade schools for dependent or defective children.

//. Major Divisions of Vocational Education

1. Major divisions of occupations. — The economic or pro- ductive occupations (as distinguished from leisure and cultural occupations) which men and women follow (chiefly for self- support) may, for convenience, be grouped in six large classes; namely, the professions, the agricultural pursuits, the com- mercial pursuits, trades and industries, homemaking pursuits, and nautical pursuits.

The major divisions of wage-earning occupations recognized by the last United States census are : The professions ; agricul- ture; domestic and personal service; trade; clerical occupa- tions; public service; mining; manufacturing and mechanical industries ; and transportation. The United States census does not recognize the division of nautical pursuits, nor does it include homemaking pursuits (because non- wage-earning) under the head of domestic occupations. For convenience here mining, manufacturing, and transportation are classed as " industrial " pursuits ; and trade and clerical occupations as " commercial pursuits."

2. Major divisions of vocational education. — The suitable major divisions of vocational education, corresponding, in the

542 Appendix B

main, to those of the economic occupations, are these: Profes- sional education, vocational commercial education, vocational agricultural education, vocational industrial education, voca- tional homemaking education, and nautical education.

It is advantageous to subdivide vocational education into the six divisions given above, because each division has many of its own distinctive pedagogical characteristics, based largely upon the phases of the occupation for which training is being given. It is clear, however, that in many cases a hard and fast classi- fication will not be practicable. For example, cooking as a wage-earning occupation will be classed under the industries, whereas cooking as a part of homemaking will come properly under homemaking education.

For other purposes, vocations may be grouped into (a) those requiring a relatively large amount of technical or abstract knowledge, such as the practice of medicine, law, teaching, en- gineering, and bookkeeping; and (b) those requiring or appear- ing to require a relatively large proportion of manual or other form of bodily skill, such as dentistry, machine-shop practice, dressmaking, and farming. In popular language, the distinc- tion is made between " brain workers " and " hand workers." Also, it is important to make distinctions based on the suitable age at which workers can take up vocations (the so-called "age of efficient entrance into industry"). A person is rarely ex- pected to take up responsible work in the practice of medicine before the age of 22 or 23 ; in engineering before the age of 20 ; and in teaching at least before the age of 18. Many trades can- not be followed effectively until the worker has reached the age of 18, on account of the bodily strength required, or responsi- bility with machinery. Again, industrial vocations are fre- quently divided into the skilled and unskilled, to many of the former the word " trade " being applied.

(a) Because many forms of apparently practical education (i.e. training for productive pursuits), which are not in reality vocational (as defined above), are already designated by such terms as " commercial," " agricultural," " industrial," etc., it seems necessary that the term " vocational " should be included in each designation of a form of vocational education except

Appendix B 543

the professional and nautical, as " vocational commercial edu- cation," " vocational agricultural education," etc.

(b) There is a sense in which the term " industrial " is also applied to many occupations lying outside of the trades and manufacturing pursuits, as when we speak of " industrial his- tory," " industrial disturbances," " industrial and political de- velopment," etc. This usage has also been extended to the field of education, so that there is a popular sense in which " in- dustrial education " means nearly every form of vocational edu- cation, except, perhaps, homemaking and professional educa- tion. This loose and indefinite usage should be discouraged.

3 (Definition). Professional education includes those forms of vocational education the direct purpose of each of which is to prepare individuals for the successful pursuit of a recognized profession.

Among the professions recognized by the United States cen- sus are : Law, medicine, engineering, journalism, theology, architecture, acting, dentistry, teaching, music, literature.

Leadership in agriculture, leadership in war, and leadership in institutional management should probably also be included among the professions.

(a) Vocational education for the professions, like voca- tional education for the trades, was formerly carried on through apprenticeship, but now schools of medicine, law, theology, and military leadership have entirely replaced apprenticeship as a means of systematic vocational education for these professions. Schools for these professions originated in some cases several centuries ago. Vocational schools of engineering and teaching were first founded early in the nineteenth century. Almost every profession (except acting, and, in a measure, secondary school teaching and journalism) now has numerous well-or- ganized schools of vocational training. Conscious apprentice- ship methods seem to survive only in training for nursing and, in a measure, acting and journalism.

(b) In some professions, such as medicine, law, and teach- ing, the state safeguards standards by means of certification or licensing. In these cases the requirements of such certification greatly affect standards of vocational school work. The

544 Appendix B

practice of state certification is carried much further in Euro- pean countries than in America.

(c) Certain studies found in schools or colleges, prelimi- nary to the professional course, are now recognized as prepara- tory or " prevocational " to professional study. Examples of these are biology as prevocational to medicine; history and economics as prevocational to law ; trigonometry and physics as prevocational to engineering; etc. It was formerly asserted that studies such as Latin and modern languages were prevoca- tional to almost all of the professions. The validity of this contention is now disputed.

4 (Definition). Vocational commercial education includes those forms of vocational education the direct purpose of each of which is to fit for some recognized commercial calling.

Among the commercial callings enumerated by the United States census are those of agent, banker and broker, bookkeeper and accountant, clerk and copyist, commercial traveler, mer- chant and dealer (retail), merchant and dealer (wholesale), messenger and office boy, officials of banks and companies, packers and shippers, salesmen and saleswomen, stenographers, etc.

Most of the training for commercial pursuits is still obtained in and through the callings themselves. Schools for systematic vocational commercial training exist for only a few occupations, such as those of bookkeeping and accountancy, and stenography and typewriting. A few schools have also been founded to train salesmen and saleswomen, clerks, etc.

(a) It is desirable that steps be taken to analyze and define the essential features of the various commercial occupations for purposes of adapting to each its appropriate vocational training. For examples, there are two distinct forms of salesmanship, namely, counter or indoor salesmanship and field or traveling salesmanship. These various types require dif- ferent school training. But each of these will also be specialized according to types of articles sold and conditions of selling. Selling automobiles has little in common with selling books.

(b) The term "commercial education" has also long been employed to designate courses of study dealing with specific

Appendix B 545

phases of practice or knowledge applicable in, or derived from, the commercial callings. Such education has frequently been fostered as vocational education, although its actual outcome in vocational efficiency — that is, its positive vocational " func- tioning"— has not been demonstrated and is still in doubt. This has, perhaps, been particularly the case when these al- leged vocational studies have been carried on in public high schools. The approach to them has usually been bookish and theoretical, and comparatively slight effort has been made to base either practice or intellectual study on the actual require- ments of commercial callings.

The studies commonly employed in this capacity are account- ancy, bookkeeping, commercial law, industrial history, history of commerce, business arithmetic, typewriting, stenography, business practice, etc.

(c) Much so-called " commercial education " in public and private schools doubtless has, or can be made to have, value as a part of liberal or general education designed to give young people some appreciation of, and insight into, the commercial occupations. Training and instruction of this character might also do much in directing young people toward efficient choice of commercial occupations and in giving vocational ideals.

(d) Unfortunately, no clearly defined line is yet drawn, especially in public schools, between commercial studies that are expected to " function " vocationally and those which are designed as part of a general or liberal education. This is a source of much misdirected effort, and probably many young people are permanently handicapped by the failure of schools to distinguish between these two objectives.

5 (Definition). Commercial education, or preferably " com- mercial arts education," includes those studies derived from, or based upon, the commercial pursuits which are designed to give liberal or general education and to contribute to vocational guidance and vocational ideals in the field of the commercial occupations.

The term " commercial arts education " may seem somewhat forced in this connection, but there are good analogies in the departments of industrial arts education, agricultural arts edu- cation, and household arts education (which see).

546 Appendix B

6 (Definition). Vocational agricultural education includes those forms of vocational education the direct purpose of each of which is to prepare students for some one of the agricultural occupations.

Among agricultural occupations are those of agricultural la- borer (in various varieties), dairyman, farmer or planter (many species), gardener, florist or nurseryman, stock raiser, bee keeper, poultry keeper, etc.

Agricultural education of various kinds is now given in agricultural colleges. This includes much work of an essen- tially secondary grade (in extension classes, etc.), while a part of it is of a collegiate or professional level. A small number of agricultural secondary schools are also equipped to give actual vocational education toward agricultural pursuits.

Agricultural occupations being as yet less specialized than either professional or industrial occupations, agricultural edu- cation preserves a relatively general character. Much so-called " agricultural education " is still only quasi-vocational, because it does not give definite and actual preparation for agricultural vocations. But short lecture courses and demonstrations are valuable when offered to experienced farmers, capable of carrying the knowledge thus acquired into practice, making it " function."

(a) The term " agricultural education " is also applied to various forms of agricultural study, frequently having as an alleged end vocational education in agriculture. As found in most schools, the studies embraced under agricultural educa- tion are usually bookish and theoretical. Their actual " func- tioning " in competency to pursue such callings as those of the farmer, gardener, florist, poultryman, stock raiser, etc., is often doubtful, but their contributions to general or liberal education may be important.

(b) Agricultural education, so called, as now carried on in many schools is, or can be made, a valuable factor in liberal or general education. Appropriate studies under this head can give appreciations of, and insight into, agricultural occupations and the importance of agriculture both as an economic pursuit and as a means of social development. Furthermore, the study

Appendix B 547

of agriculture to this end may give important vocational guid- ance and lead to the establishment of vocational ideals. It can also be made a valuable means of illustrating applications of various forms of science. It can, therefore, be regarded as an important form of liberal education.

(c) In many cases school authorities seem as yet to make no clear-cut distinction between vocational agricultural educa- tion and agricultural instruction, which is actually non-voca- tional in its results, but may be made of importance in liberal education. As a consequence, effort in this direction is doubt- less frequently misdirected.

7 (Definition). Agricultural arts education includes those forms of training and study based upon agricultural pursuits and designed to enhance general intelligence, to promote appre- ciation of agriculture as a form of economic activity, to show wherein various sciences have practical application to human affairs, and to give vocational guidance and to inspire voca- tional ideals as these relate to the field of agriculture. Agri- cultural arts education, therefore, constitutes an important division of liberal education, both in the elementary and the secondary field.

8 (Definition). Vocational industrial education includes those forms of vocational education the direct purpose of each of which is to fit the individual for some industrial pursuit or trade.

Among the trades and industrial pursuits enumerated by the United States census are those of the carpenter and joiner, mason (brick and stone), painter and varnisher, paper hanger, plasterer, plumber and steam-fitter, roofer and slater, oil-well worker, chemical worker, brick and tile maker, glassworker, marble and stone cutter, potter, fisherman, miner, baker, butcher, confectioner, miller, food packer, blacksmith, iron and steel worker, machinist, boiler maker, stove maker, tool maker, wheelwright, wire worker, shoemaker, harness maker, tanner, bottler, brewer, distiller, cabinet-maker, woodworker in general, brass worker, watchmaker, silver and gold worker, tinplate worker, bookbinder, box maker, engraver, paper-mill operative, printer, lithographer, dyer, cotton-mill operative, knitting-mill

548 Appendix B

operative, silk-mill operative, woolen-mill operative, dress- maker, hat maker, milliner, seamstress, shirt maker, tailor, broom and brush maker, charcoal burner, steam engineer, fire- man, photographer, tobacco operative, upholsterer.

(a) For many of the foregoing vocations no systematic vo- cational education at present exists, either in schools or under non-school agencies.

Among the industrial occupations for which neither organ- ized apprenticeship nor vocational schools as yet offer training are mill operatives (in general), food packers, box makers, general woodworkers, shoemakers (in factories), general iron and steel workers, etc.

(b) For a number of the foregoing occupations wherein skill is required, the chief form of training available at the present time is apprenticeship, of a more or less organized char- acter.

The large majority of persons following such pursuits as those of carpenter, plasterer, plumber, stone cutter, machinist, etc., are still trained through the agency of apprenticeship.

(c) For some of the foregoing occupations, well-organized vocational schools (generally called trade schools), supported either privately or publicly, are available in various parts of the country, although the total number of workers trained by them constitutes, as yet, but a small proportion of those re- quired by the industry.

Among the occupations for which definitely organized vo- cational schools, giving either complete training or partial train- ing adjusted to the practice obtained in the industry, are these : Carpenter, house painter, plumber, machinist, bricklayer, cab- inet maker, pattern maker, sheet metal worker, bookbinder, sign painter, electrical worker, printer, dressmaker, milliner, etc.

In foreign countries well-organized day or part-time voca- tional schools are found also for such occupations as those of baker, butcher, weaver, cook, teamster, lithographer.

Some industries have organized special schools for such occupations as those of motorman, glove maker, photographer, linotype operator, telephone operator, confectioner, etc.

(d) The term " industrial education " is frequently applied

Appendix B 549

to a variety of forms of practical, or apparently technical train- ing, based upon operations characteristic of some industries.

Among the forms of so-called practical training to which the term industrial education is sometimes applied are manual training, sloyd, mechanical drawing, technical training, me- chanics arts training, printing, bookbinding, metal work, etc.

(e) Like commercial arts education, and agricultural arts education described above, the really valuable objectives in " this industrial education " (which may properly be called " indus- trial arts " education) should be realized through the participa- tion of the pupil in the practical phases of selected processes, as these may be found adapted to the pupil's experience, phys- ical powers, etc. Practical participation in industrial arts processes can be supplemented by reading, visits to industrial establishments, experience in analyzing and assembling ma- chines, etc., all of which may have as a controlling purpose the increasing of the pupil's general intelligence, the stimulation of his powers of wise utilization, the laying of founda- tions for vocational choice, arid the interpreting of contem- porary life. All these constitute valuable contributions to general education.

9 (Definition). Industrial arts education includes those forms of training and study based upon industrial pursuits and designed to enhance general intelligence and give vocational guidance in the field of industrial occupations.

(a) Reform schools for juvenile delinquents have been in the past, and are sometimes still, called " industrial schools." When these institutions ceased to be looked upon merely as prisons, or houses of refuge, public sentiment demanded that vocational training should be given in them, in view of the prob- able fact that neither the opportunities of apprenticeship nor of home vocational training would be available for these unfor- tunate youths. Hence, even 50 years ago a form of systematic vocational training was undertaken in reform schools. Prob- ably only a small part of this training ever actually " func- tioned " in vocational power, because of wrong pedagogical methods employed.

10 (Definition). Vocational homemaking education in-

550 Appendix B

eludes those forms of vocational education the direct object of which is to fit for homemaking as practiced by the wife and mother in the home and also for some specialized forms as practiced by household employees, housekeepers, or other wage-earning assistants to the homemaker.

A large variety of more or less unspecialized activities are carried on in the home. These include the preparation of meals, laundering, house cleaning, garment making, garment re- pairing, the nursing of children, minor repair work in the equip- ment of the home, etc. In homes conducted on a somewhat elaborate scale, specialized forms of service may be found, the workers being housekeepers, cooks, waitresses, chambermaids, nurses, butlers, janitors, etc.

Among occupations which were formerly carried on in the home, but have been since specialized away from it, are those of spinning, weaving, milking, butter and cheese making, tan- ning, barbering, brewing, food packing, shoemaking, furniture making, etc. Other occupations which now seem to be in pro- cess of being specialized away from the home are baking, gar- ment making, fruit preserving, etc.

(a) As in the case of farming, there is comparatively little specific vocational differentiation within the average home. Notwithstanding the removal from the home of many specific forms of productive work, homemaking remains a distinctive and clearly defined vocation for the wife and mother living under normal family relations as well as for specialist workers in homes and institutions. It is ordinarily a composite voca- tion, utilizing various forms of skill and related knowledge. Vocational education for homemaking must, therefore, aim to produce as many forms of power as the distinctive home oper- ations now require, each to a degree suited to the time, energy, and native ability of the learner. It is especially necessary that in the homemaker an harmonious union of various forms of skill and knowledge should be found.

(b) From 60 per cent to 80 per cent of all women eventually become homemakers. Modern social and economic conditions are such that the majority of these spend the years from sub- stantially 16 to 20 or 25 in wage-earning pursuits (only a small

Appendix B 551

proportion being connected with homes), after which home- making is entered as a career to be followed for life, or at least for many years.

(c) During recent years, many forms of education have been introduced into private and public schools as designed to minister to the development of homemaking power or apprecia- tion. These are variously named " household arts," " domestic science," "domestic arts," "household economics," "home economics," " domestic economy," etc. Frequently they have been introduced into schools as subjects of study and laboratory experiment on the same basis as other studies. The extent to which these studies " function " vocationally, if at all, for homemaking is yet in doubt, especially when they are followed only from two to five hours per week. In most instances it is probable that the training thus given should be regarded as effective rather on the side of liberal than of vocational edu- cation.

(d) The study of household arts (with the aid of suitable textbooks, laboratory experimental work, etc.) can obviously be made a valuable feature of liberal education, in the sense that such study can improve standards of utilization and develop larger ideals of home life. Women exert an exceptionally large influence on standards of consumption in the fields of artistic products, economic utilities, and specialized service. For this reason, it is especially important that as a phase of their general education they should be instructed and trained as to most effective standards of utilization.

11 (Definition). Household arts education includes all those forms of instruction and training based upon the occupa- tions of the home or household, and which are designed to pro- mote higher standards of appreciation and utilization in the field of the activities associated with homemaking, to promote right conceptions of the social importance of the home as a nursery of childhood and a haven for the wage-earners of the family, and to show wherein the various arts and sciences have practical application in domestic life. Hence, household arts education can be made a large factor in the liberal education of womanhood.

552 Appendix B

12 (Definition). Nautical education is the term used to designate those forms of vocational education, the controlling purpose of each of which is to train youths for such occupations as those of the fisherman, the sailor, the ship captain, and the like. These forms of training have not yet been clearly differ- entiated in the educational practice of America. A few spe- cial nautical schools of a technical character exist, and in the United States naval service facilities for training seamen are provided.

///. Pedagogical Phases of Vocational Education

1. Major and minor phases. — Vocational education, as re- spects its organization for teaching purposes, presents in almost every instance two quite distinct major phases and one minor phase; namely, the concrete, practical, or manipulative major phase; the technical or theoretical major phase, the subjects of study under the latter head being sometimes referred to as the " related subjects " ; and a third relatively minor phase embracing those studies and practices designed to promote vocational ideals, general insight, and other knowledge and ap- preciation which are pertinent, but not directly necessary for the particular vocation for which training is being given.

In the training of the dentist there is required: (a) Practical work in filling, etc. ; (b) theoretical study of anatomy, etc. ; and (c) possibly some study of the history of dentistry, of the practice of dentistry in other countries, of the need on the part of the dentist of offsetting the strains of his calling by suitable exercises for the sake of his own health, etc. In the training of the teacher there is required: (a) Practice in teaching; (b) the study, from the standpoint of the teacher, of the subjects which she will expect to teach, as well as methods of teaching, school hygiene, etc.; and (c) the history of educational admin- istration, the lives of noted educators, etc. In the training of the machinist is required: (a) A large amount of practical ma- nipulative work in constructing valuable objects from steel or iron; (b) study of such phases of mathematics, drawing, mechanics, etc., as apply to the practice of the machinist; and

Appendix B 553

(c) possibly some study of the history of the evolution of the iron and steel industries, of the distribution of these industries in various countries, of special hygiene for metal workers, etc.

(a) The foregoing are the phases of a program of system- atic vocational education. It is recognized, of course, that a program of liberal or general education may be carried on side by side with a program of vocational education. A student might give half his day to vocational education and the other half to liberal ^education ; or he might give one week to the one and another week to the other. A more common arrange- ment is to have the student give the best part of his working day to vocational education, with provision made for some cul- tural or civic studies, exercises, or participation, in marginal time. For example, the Massachusetts program permits from 10 per cent to 20 per cent of the day to be given to cultural training. This may be in English literature, music, or other lines of interest and importance.

(b) The problem of the proper combination of general with vocational education is one to be determined on the basis of aims and the requirements of efficient practice in each field, taking due account of the economic necessities of the learner. It is contended in some quarters that, if general or liberal education be blended with vocational, neither form becomes efficient. The question as to how far the two forms may be adjusted within a given day or other period efficiently must be deter- mined by the experiment.

2 (Definition). Basic vocational education includes both major and minor phases, all so coordinated as to produce a desired total of vocational competency.

Extension vocational education is frankly one phase only, based upon the assumption of the competency of experience in productive work or training under other agencies to give other phases.

Technical instruction can be properly designated as voca- tional (for one phase) when it can be shown that for a sub- stantial proportion taking it, valuable vocational powers are an outcome.

Few examples of genuinely basic vocational education in

554 Appendix B

schools are yet available. The best schools of medicine, ele- mentary school teaching, and stenography give nearest ap- proximations.

3 (Definition). The concrete, practical, or manipulative phase of vocational education in any occupational field in- cludes all phases of learning through actual and direct partici- pation in the practical processes characteristic of the vocation itself.

The following are examples : The prospective physician ob- tains concrete training through his hospital service, the teacher in his practice teaching, the engineer in actual field work, the journalist by serving as reporter, etc. Persons preparing for the commercial callings are expected to receive concrete or practical training through typewriting and stenography of a presumably practical nature made a part of the course of in- struction through various types of exercises in salesmanship, the undertaking of practical work in accounting, etc. Manip- ulative or concrete work in agriculture as a means of training is provided through having the learners actually engage in the raising of crops, on a large or small scale, participation in har- vesting and other practical work during summers and vacations, the care of domestic animals as a part of the animal husbandry course, etc. In various forms of vocational industrial educa- tion, practical work is provided through having prospective machinists manufacture parts of the equipment of the school, through the manufacture of salable products, etc. ; prospective dressmakers spend a part of their time in making a salable prod- uct, etc. Practical or manipulative work in homemaking in- volves the preparation of meals, the actual making and repair of garments, the care of children, etc.

Concrete, practical, or manipulative work in vocational edu- cation may be (a) on a non-productive or (b) on a productive basis. Productive manipulative work may involve no compen- sation to the student worker or regular compensation to him. In general, modern pedagogical theory favors productive work as against non-productive work, where practicable. The dis- tinction is this : Non-productive work is not commercially profit- able; when the pupil is through, his product is laid aside or

Appendix B 555

destroyed. Productive work is commercially profitable. Its results are used to increase the equipment of the school itself, to render service in the schools of the local community, or to be sold. Again, students who do productive work which is used in the school or sold may not be compensated for the same on the ground that it is their partial contribution toward the cost of their education, or they may receive a small wage for the same. Pedagogical theory favors the latter plan, where prac- ticable, because of the greater interest evoked and because the environment produced is similar to that in which the pupil will later follow his vocation.

4 (Definition). Productive practical work includes all forms of practical work as a part of vocational education, the material results of which are of evident value to society.

The services of internes in hospitals, of prospective teachers in training schools, of boys doing their productive work on a home farm, of shopworkers in city schools doing repair work on school buildings, of homemaking pupils taking charge of the preparation of meals for schools, etc., all represent forms of productive practical work.

5 (Definition). Non-productive practical work includes all practical work as a part of vocational training the output of which can be put into no practical use.

Examples: Business college students keeping books, doing typewriting, etc., of a non-marketable character; agricultural school students raising products which are not marketed or con- sumed; engineering students making extensive surveys the results of which are of no commercial value; shop students constructing articles that are simply kept for exhibit or de- stroyed, etc.

(a) Vocational education in the past was carried on largely in shops, and through other commercial vocational agencies, under a more or less organized system of apprenticeship. The pupil learned almost exclusively through actual participation in concrete work. His tasks were sometimes graduated as to difficulty, either by chance or design. The pupil learned mainly through imitation, his superior sometimes showing him the "tricks " and various devices. Vocational education under

556 Appendix B

apprenticeship is usually more effective on its practical than on its technical side.

Many examples still survive of learning through apprentice- ship. A locomotive engineer obtains his training first as a fireman. A nurse frequently obtains all of her training through actual nursing in a hospital. Until very recently, many teachers in England obtained their training solely as apprentices, being known as " pupil teachers." In many skilled trades, organized apprenticeship still survives, in one form or another. Leadership in many vocational fields is reached through promotion from the lower stages — essentially a method of learning through actual participation which is with- out the direction characteristic of apprenticeship.

(b) Because recognition of the value of actual participation in concrete work took place early in the development of voca- tional education in schools, endeavors have frequently been made to employ substitutes for participation in the actual pro- cesses themselves where participation in the commercial occu- pations is difficult or impracticable. This may be called prac- tical work on an " exercise " basis.

The following are examples: The law student practices in a moot court. The engineering student carries on surveys around the campus. Commercial schools devise imitation money, set up receiving windows, etc., and carry on " make-be- lieve " business having some semblance to actual business. The agricultural student is given small plats on which to raise plants, or he shares in a form of " group " or " gang " labor directed by some teacher. The wood-working student is given exercises on lathes and other machines, the products of such exercises having no commercial value.

(c) Several problems are still unsolved as regards concrete work in many lines of vocational training. Can commercially practical work be presented in properly graduated stages? What shall be the unit, or project, in the practical work? Can practical work in a school take the place at all of practical work under commercial conditions apart from the school? Is it economically desirable that the practical work of a school be sold in open market? Shall the pupil be compensated for his

Appendix B 557

practical work? How shall the practical work be related to necessary technical training? How far shall the student be permitted to subdivide his practical work in the direction of becoming a specialist, as in machine-shop working, textile working, etc.?

6 (Definition). Apprenticeship is a term here used to in- clude all forms of systematic vocational education through the participation of the learner, under the direction of skilled work- ers in the actual work of various productive occupations.

Well-known examples are the apprenticeship arrangements in the various skilled trades. Other examples, not always in- cluded under the term, are the "pupil-teacher system," for- merly prevalent in England, the training of nurses in hospital practice, the training of commercial experts in commercial houses through systematic advancement from one type of em- ployment to another, the methods employed in the Middle Ages of training knights and priests, the methods formerly prevalent by which physicians, lawyers, etc., first took service as youths under older practitioners, etc.

Apprenticeship as a means of vocational education is gen- erally believed by students to be declining in possibilities and importance. It has almost disappeared in all the professions except nursing, acting, and journalism. In the industries the substitution of manufacturing processes for crafts production, and the subdivision of work made possible, has greatly dimin- ished the field for apprenticeship training. In occupations calling for increased amounts of technical knowledge (various electrical trades, plumbing, gardening, etc.) the methods of apprenticeship prove unequal to the task of giving, in satisfac- tory form, technical instruction. Evening vocational schools were first organized to compensate for this deficiency.

7 (Definition). Technical, theoretical, or "related sub- ject " phases of vocational education include those readings, lectures, and studies and exercises in mathematics, science, drawing and art, laboratory experimentation, etc., which furnish organized knowledge of, and practical insight into, the so-called " technical aspects " of vocations. The technical studies ap- propriate to any vocation can only be determined by a study of the requirements of that vocation itself.

558 Appendix B

The following are examples of the technical knowledge re- quired in certain vocations: For the physician, physiology, special phases of chemistry, materia medica, etc. ; for the elec- trical engineer, certain phases of applied mathematics, drawing, the principles of electricity, some of the principles of mechanics, etc.; for the farmer, agricultural science, embodying selected phases of botany, soil physics, chemistry of fertilizers, hygiene of domestic animals, meteorology, accounting, exchange forms of mechanics as applied in farm machines, etc. ; for the book- keeper, some phases of mathematics ; for the house carpenter, certain phases of drawing, mechanics, building materials, and mathematical calculations; for a teamster, local geography, mechanics of vehicles, hygiene of domestic animals, etc. ; for the dressmaker, certain phases of art, drawing, mechanics, etc. ; for the homemaker, specific phases of food chemistry, decora- tive art, simple forms of mechanism, etc.

(a) With regard to the great majority of vocations, no sat- isfactory analysis has yet been made of the related technical studies which are pertinent and valuable. But it has become evident that the content of technical training which actually functions in many vocations is much less than has been as- sumed. The inherited traditions of academic education have caused many people to believe that all of the phases or parts under a given inclusive subject should be studied, notwith- standing the absurdities to which this contention leads. For example, botany and chemistry as separate abstract subjects are sometimes taught in agricultural schools ; prospective mechanics are induced to study algebra and geometry; and a prospective house carpenter is urged to take a general course in mechanical drawing, although, in each case, the successful workers in these fields will employ only very limited and special phases of these subjects. It is obvious that progress in the development of programs of vocational education will involve a clear differentiation of the technical training needed in each vocation. Experience will probably show that so-called " foun- dations " in general knowledge of abstract scientific, or mathe- matical, or art subjects, are often relatively valueless for vocational purposes.

Appendix B 559

(b) In some discussions of vocational education the related technical studies are sometimes called the " academic subjects." This usage is confusing, and should be discouraged. The word "academic" should be restricted to the field of general, or liberal, education.

8 (Definition). A technical school is a school designed to give technical knowledge only, as that is involved in some recog- nized vocation or group of related vocations.

The following are examples: Schools of law and medicine originally taught only the more theoretical phases of these pro- fessions. Only in the more recent stages of their development are they introducing practical work also as a means of instruc- tion. Schools of engineering originally taught chiefly engi- neering mathematics, drawing, science, etc., giving little or no practical work. Some schools of technology still confine them- selves to this; but in many others shopwork, summer-camp work, compulsory practical service in mines, etc., are now added, to give necessary practical experience. The earlier agri- cultural colleges and schools taught primarily the mathematics and sciences supposed to constitute a basis of knowledge for agricultural practice. Some commercial schools offer only in- formational studies regarding commercial operations. Tech- nical high schools teach chiefly certain phases of applied science and art, illustrated with laboratory practice. Much of the home- making taught in contemporary high and other schools, under such heads as " household arts," " domestic economy," " house- hold economics," etc., is primarily an attempt to give technical knowledge only of the processes involved in homemaking.

(a) Technical education had its origin and took its shape primarily through the attempts of society to supplement ap- prenticeship as a means of vocational training, the apprentice- ship giving practical experience, but not related technical knowledge. Evening vocational schools, as well as day schools, came into existence, first, to give related technical knowledge.

The first medical colleges, as well as other professional schools, in many instances assumed that the student had already served an apprenticeship as an assistant to a practitioner.

(&) The value of technical education when administered

560 Appendix B

without connection with practical training must be considered solely with reference to its actual efficiency in contributing to a complete scheme of vocational education. In some of the higher fields, as engineering, technical knowledge alone may constitute a very valuable foundation, whereas, in many of the trades, it may, if unaccompanied by practical experience, be almost valueless. The entire matter is one requiring further scientific study.

(c) Secondary technical schools as now found in the in- dustrial, agricultural, and commercial fields can only occasion- ally be called " vocational schools " in the sense used here, be- cause the instruction in them is not adjusted to the require- ments of a distinctive vocation. Commonly their teaching is of a general nature, unrelated to the actual requirements of callings as now organized. It is probable that their teaching does not generally " function " in direct vocational power. In a few cases the effects of the training given may be vocational, as in the case of draftsmen and analytical chemists.

(d) Technical schools sometimes offer studies the actual value of which may consist in the establishing of ideals and appreciations. A normal school, for example, may offer the history of education, which is not properly a technical study, but the study of which may give rise to ideals of teaching. Such a study properly belongs under the head of " General vocational studies."

9 (Definition). General vocational studies are those which, when considered with reference to a particular calling, seem to lead to the development of ideals, general interest, and social insight, but without contributing to specific forms of use- ful knowledge, skill, or power.

The following are examples: The physician may study the history of medicine or the hospital practices of the past, or he may read the biographies of such men as Jenner, Pasteur, and Lister. The engineer may study economics and the rise of modern industry, labor problems, and geological science. The teacher may study general psychology and the history of edu- cation. The prospective machinist may study the general lit- erature of his subject, the history of the evolution of steel

Appendix B 561

working, industrial hygiene as related to his calling, etc. The prospective clerk may study commercial geography, the history of exchange, and modern banking problems. The prospective homemaker may read of the homes of the past or of the pres- ent in other lands, etc.

(a) It is obvious that in and about any particular calling a large amount of literature may be gathered which, properly used, should do much to promote ideals, to give insight into the social relationships of the calling, to develop an apprecia- tion of its hygienic and psychological aspects, and to lay the foundations for an appreciation of the possibilities of advance- ment for the worker.

(b) The actual value of so-called general vocational educa- tion is still open to question. It is exceedingly easy to organize and administer various forms of " general vocational " educa- tion in accordance with academic traditions. It may lead to " industrial intelligence," a quality which, if it exists as ordi- narily conceived, is much in demand. It is probable that the actual value of general vocational education is very dependent upon the degree to which it has been preceded by foundations in practical experience and definitely related technical studies.

IV. Pedagogical Devices in Vocational Education

Vocational education requires the development of new and sometimes unfamiliar pedagogical devices, most important of which, for the present, are those signified by the terms " proj- ects," " short unit course," " correlation of technical and practi- cal training," and " productive work."

1 (Definition). A project in vocational education is a definite unit of instruction which combines practical or manip- ulative achievement with a definite enhancement of power to apply related technical knowledge.

(a) Practical work alone may correspond to what is known as a " job " in many lines of industry. A project is an " edu- cational " job ; it has educational value, and it ought to have economic value.

(b) Growth in capacity to apply related technical knowledge

2o

562 Appendix B

may involve application of general knowledge already obtained, as where a student in carpentry learns to make further use of his previously acquired knowledge of board measure ; or it may involve the acquisition of new technical knowledge, as that is immediately related to the job in hand.

(c) A complete project usually involves the following steps on the part of the learner:

1. Purposeful consideration of the conditions to be met in undertaking the job.

2. Planning how to meet these conditions, in terms of the materials of the trade, trade operations, suitable tools, etc.

3. Preparation of needed preliminary working aids in con- ventional forms, such as drawings, working plans, etc.

4. The performing of such calculations as may be necessary, including figuring cost, ascertaining amount of stock to be used, and other conditions.

5. The execution of the job as planned, and in accordance with specifications.

6. The submission of a proper report of the job.

7. In some cases, a disposal of the project on an economic basis.

The following are examples of projects : An engineering stu- dent employed to lay out a grade as required by a railroad ; a hospital interne given charge of a case; a teacher taking full charge of a group of pupils ; an agricultural student undertak- ing to raise an acre of corn, and to market the same, or to take charge of two dairy cows for a year, including the proper care, feeding, and milking of these; an industrial-school student undertaking a definite job of work as this is carried on hi com- mercial enterprises ; a pupil in a trade school making a dress, or a group of pupils in a school of carpentry erecting a cottage ; a student in homemaking preparing the family breakfasts for a month, etc.

( d) Projects may be subdivided into major and minor proj- ects, the latter being subdivisions of major projects.

For example, a boy in an agricultural school might undertake to raise an acre of potatoes, this being his major project. For practical purposes, he would subdivide this into a series of

Appendix B 563

minor projects, each one a unit in itself. A class of pupils in an industrial school might undertake the construction of a machine, each boy having some one piece of work assigned to him as his minor project, or even some one operation. A girl undertaking the preparation of the family breakfasts for a month might make her minor project temporarily the study and practice required in preparation of one dish.

(e) It is obvious that projects may be individual or coop- erative. It is conceivable that in industrial schools, large cooperative projects might be undertaken by a class, with appropriate subdivisions, each subdivision forming a project by itself.

(/) The project has no definite counterpart in academic or general education. Much of the work in general education was formerly organized on the " lesson unit " basis. In such sub- jects as mathematics, history, geography, English, it is now organized on the " topic unit " basis. The study of a classic selection in a foreign language, and the execution of a manual training enterprise provide the nearest analogies.

(g) The alternative to the project organization of voca- tional work is, on the one hand, the job as the unit of practical work, and, on the other, the logically organized course of in- struction in technical subjects.

(h) In many lines of vocational education, satisfactory series of projects have not yet been developed. Obviously, the development of a project system of organizing vocational work presents very great difficulties, and especially to persons pre- possessed in favor of the logical organization of technical sub- ject matter.

2 (Definition). The short unit course is an intensive form of training and instruction which is intended to meet, in a lim- ited number of lessons, a specific need of a particular group of learners. Each unit deals with some one teachable phase of a trade or other occupation, and is complete in itself.

The short unit course has thus far been worked out primarily only in the fields of agricultural, industrial, and homemaking education. In agriculture, short unit courses are found in con- nection with extension work, where, in the course of a week or a

564 Appendix B

few weeks definite instruction is given in both the manipulative and technical phases of some one specific field of practice in agriculture or animal husbandry. In evening industrial schools the short unit course is designed to give quite specific instruc- tion, either of a manipulative or technical character, in some one phase of the trade or occupation being followed, or to be followed. It is assumed that the short unit course, when tech- nical in character, will be related to the practical work already being followed by the learner.

The following are examples: Five lessons in the use of spraying ; 5 lessons in orchard cropping ; 5 lessons in farm ac- counting; 5 lessons in grafting; 10 lessons in kiln drying of lumber ; 10 lessons in the use of the buzz planer ; 5 lessons in the use of the sliding rule ; 6 lessons in thread cutting ; 20 les- sons in cotton sampling; 5 lessons in the making of a shirt waist.

3 (Definition). The correlation of technical studies and practical work includes such pedagogical devices as involve the integral relation of technical studies with jobs of practical work as found in the project method of organization.

The following are examples: Mechanical drawing may be taught as a general subject, apart from its particular applica- tion to the work of the machinist, house carpenter, or dress- maker (probably general, or general technical, rather than vo- cational) ; or, as opposed to this, it may be taught in intimate correlation with the practical work of training for various specific vocations. A pupil studying house carpentry may ac- quire power in mechanical drawing through exercises closely adjusted to the practical work which he is taking from day to day. Different forms of drawing would therefore be required for the machinist, the plumber, the electrician, etc.

Such sciences as botany and zoology may be studied by a prospective farmer, independent of their particular applica- tions in agriculture (therefore general education). As op- posed to this, the student of agriculture may undertake to raise an acre of potatoes, and in conjunction with this problem study those phases of plant and animal life which are essential to the success of his enterprise.

Appendix B 565

A girl may study the mechanical principles of movement of air currents as a matter of physics (general). As opposed to this, she may be instructed in the practical problems of making various types of stoves burn effectively, and in conjunction with this problem such matters relating to the circulation of air currents in stoves as will reinforce her practical experience.

In view of academic traditions, it is not difficult to teach various sciences, as well as mathematics and drawing, as sepa- rate abstract subjects. It is now generally believed that for most pupils, at least, the learning of these subjects in the abstract does not contribute to efficient vocational training. On the other hand, the integral correlation of phases of these techni- cal studies with practical work presents obvious pedagogical difficulties, but its vocational value is unquestioned.

V. Types of Schools for Vocational Education

1. Vocational schools classified. — Vocational education in schools, like other forms of education, may be carried on in day schools (in which the student is under the control of the school for substantially all of his working time) ; evening schools (in which the student is regularly employed, and is under direction of the school only for his evening hours) ; or continuation schools (in which the student is regularly employed, and is un- der control of the school only for a limited number of hours taken from his working day).

These schools may be further classified as follows :

Day vocational schools :

(a) Unified, or combined.

(b) Dual, or cooperative —

(1) Full responsibility.

(2) Part responsibility. Evening vocational schools :

(a) Preparatory.

(b) Extension. Continuation vocational schools:

(a) Preparatory.

(b) Extension.

566 Appendix B

2 (Definition). A day school for vocational education is one which requires that the pupil be under the direction of the school for substantially the greater part of each working day, for at least five days in each week, for the major portion of each year.

Day vocational schools are of several types, according as the practical or productive work in them is done under the same roof and in direct relation to the technical instruction, or sep- arately from it. Among these are the " unified " or " com- bined " type, and the " dual " or " cooperative " type.

3 (Definition). A day vocational school of the unified or combined type is one in which all phases of a complete (or basic) program of vocational education are carried on under one roof, or general building, under the immediate control and direction of the school.

The following are examples of unified, or combined, day vo- cational schools : A medical college immediately controlling its own hospital, and opportunities for clinical and practical work ; an engineering college possessing its own shops, summer camps, mines, etc., for experimental and practical work; an agricul- tural school owning its own farms, gardens, and live stock; a commercial school with differentiated opportunities for various forms of practical work in accounting, typewriting, salesman- ship, etc. ; an industrial school having its own productive shops and other facilities for constructive work; a homemaking school owning a house or apartment in which practical house- keeping is carried on, including such branches as cooking, sew- ing, laundering, care of rooms, nursing, etc.

It is a present tendency in vocational education to insist that the practical work given in training shall be of a productive, commercially profitable, and marketable character. Hence, we have instances of medical colleges managing serviceable hos- pitals ; normal schools using as practice schools public schools in the community ; schools of carpentry leasing or buying land, erecting buildings, and selling the same; dressmaking schools marketing their product ; electrical workers' schools doing neces- sary labor about school buildings ; printing schools taking or- ders on a commercial scale; homemaking schools supplying meals and other products for sale or use outside ; etc.

Appendix B 567

A few instances exist where day vocational schools have complete control of practical work carried on within the con- fines of an industrial or other establishment at some little dis- tance, but which is, nevertheless, completely under the control of the instructing force of the school.

4 (Definition). A day vocational school is of the dual or cooperative type when the complete program of vocational training involves the cooperation or other relationship of two agencies, one, more specifically the school, giving technical and related instruction, and the other an institution or agency hav- ing commercial or practical ends in view, but placed in a coop- erative relationship as a means of furnishing opportunities for practical experience to properly prepare pupils.

The dual, or cooperative, day vocational school is of two dis- tinct types, according as (a) the authorities in control of the school also control the adjustment and assignment of the prac- tical and productive work as this may be used for educational purposes, or (b) the control of the practical work for learners is independent of the school authorities.

5 (Definition). A day vocational school of the dual or co- operative type is a full-responsibility school when it has the direction of the arrangement of practical work for learners when this is carried on in independent establishments.

The following are examples of day vocational schools of the cooperative type having full responsibility: A medical college sending its students into hospital practice in a hospital under other management, but with arrangements whereby the work done by the students shall be completely under the direction of the college authorities ; a normal school sending its students into the public schools of a local community, the students remain- ing completely under the direction of the normal school author- ities ; a group of engineering students taking a job of practical work, to be carried out wholly under the direction of the college authorities ; an industrial school sending a group of boys into an industrial establishment, where equipment and space are placed at their disposal for carrying out productive work, the actual program of such work being under the direction of the school authorities; an agricultural school, the pupils in which carry

568 Appendix B

on, on their home farms, practical productive work under the complete direction of the school.

6 (Definition). A day vocational school of the dual or co- operative type is a part-responsibility school when the actual work of students sent into other establishments for purposes of practical training is controlled by, and largely under, the direction of the industrial establishment itself.

The following are examples of the dual or cooperative type having part responsibility : A normal school sending its students into public schools where these students are not under the con- trol of the normal school, for the sake of practical experience ; an engineering school arranging that its students shall have op- portunities for practical work on railroads, in mines, and else- where, in the capacity of assistants or laborers; a commercial school sending its students into offices or mercantile establish- ments during busy seasons or at other times, for practical ex- perience; an industrial school arranging the group of its stu- dents who shall, during alternate weeks, or at other regular intervals, work as apprentices, assistants, or laborers in indus- trial establishments; an agricultural school sending its pupils out on farms for practical experience, or in cooperation with parents or others in carrying out practical processes on the farm; a homemaking school sending its pupils into their own homes to carry on the home processes, subject to the require- ments of the home itself.

(a) The day vocational school of the cooperative " part re- sponsibility " type must not be confused with the " part-time " school, which receives pupils from industrial establishments where they are already employed. (This type of school will later be defined as a modified form of continuation school.) At times the actual distinctions in character between the oper- ations of the two schools may be difficult to define ; but the essential difference is determined by the fact that in one type the pupils go from the school to the employing establishment with a view to obtaining practical experience, whereas in the other type the pupils go from the employing establishment to the schools for the purpose of obtaining supplemental train- ing. The latter is properly " trade-extension training," dis- cussed under continuation education.

Appendix B 569

(b) The efficiency of any form of dual or cooperative vo- cational education depends upon the degree to which the prac- tical experience obtained in the shop and the technical instruc- tion obtained in the school are coordinated, correlated, and in- tegrated. In some existing so-called part-time plans the prac- tical work of the pupil is only remotely related to the technical instruction. Such an arrangement results in poor vocational education. An agricultural student spending his summers on a farm will obtain valuable practical experience, but much of it, being unrelated to his school work, will not constitute a valuable part of vocational education. Technical instruction in homemaking, without practical experience under the direc- tion of the school, is but poorly supplemented by the miscel- laneous practical experience obtained at home. To send a commercial pupil into an office or mercantile establishment dur- ing a busy season is much better than no practical experience during the course of school training; but such practical expe- rience will be related only remotely to the concrete teaching. Normal schools find the practice of sending students into schools not under their direct control of doubtful value, and in any case helpful only in the last stages of their vocational train- ing.

(c) Theoretically, vocational training under cooperative or dual arrangements should ultimately prove the most effective, if proper coordination of the separate agencies can be procured, because then the required practical experience is obtained un- der genuinely commercial conditions, a situation most difficult to develop in a unified day vocational school. Satisfactory co- ordination of effort between school and commercial establish- ment for dual or cooperative vocational training is now difficult to obtain, partly (a) because commercial and industrial estab- lishments conducted for profit are indisposed to advance learn- ers through successive stages of practical work, and (b) be- cause teachers of technical studies are indisposed or unable to adjust technical instruction to the requirements of practical experience, preferring to teach technical studies on some purely logical basis. In time the following two methods of meeting these difficulties may be developed:

570 Appendix B

( 1 ) Vocational schools having groups of pupils in need of, and ready for, practical experience may offer the services of these to industrial establishments on suitable terms, on condi- tion that these pupils, under the supervision of instructors, be allowed to fit into practical work at such places and to such de- grees as will be educationally profitable, while at the same time involving no economic loss on the part of the employer. (This arrangement would be especially suited to pupils from 14 to 18 years of age.)

(2) Teachers of technical subjects will be required to adjust their instruction so that, as their students who are regularly employed in establishments are advanced from stage to stage of work, the technical teacher will adjust his training to the requirements of the practical work. This will usually require that subjects of study based upon purely logical foundations in technical subjects be replaced by short unit courses and exercises based upon the practical work of the student.

7 (Definition). A "factory" vocational school is one located in some adjunct capacity to a productive enterprise al- ready in operation.

Training classes in large factories, large farms, on shipboard, in army camps, shipyards, banks, and department stores are examples.

8 (Definition). A vestibule school is a factory school de- signed to give preparatory training or instruction to new em- ployees, the latter usually being already on the pay roll.

9 (Definition). An upgrading school is a factory school designed either to improve the already employed worker's pro- ductive powers in his present department or to prepare him for advancement to a better paid or otherwise more advan- tageous department.

10 (Definition). Evening vocational schools are schools in which the hours of instruction lie outside of the customary working day. Evening vocational schools are of two types, extension and preparatory.

11 (Definition). The extension evening vocational school is a school in which a young person already employed in some occupation receives, during evening hours, vocational education

Appendix B 571

in subjects closely correlated with the work which he follows during the day, and calculated to assist him toward greater efficiency or more advanced work in that calling.

The following are examples: A young man following the trade of machinist, receiving an evening-school training in mechanical drawing and calculations related to his work, or practical instruction on machines closely related to those he operates during the day, or calculated to give him more tech- nical knowledge of them; a man already engaged in raising poultry, obtaining in night classes technical instruction in the more scientific phases of poultry raising ; a man engaged during the day in the practice of medicine, law, or engineering, study- ing in an appropriate evening school subjects related to his pro- fessional work ; a domestic employed in a home, studying more advanced phases of cooking and sewing, in evening classes.

12 (Definition). Preparatory evening vocational schools are those in which is offered vocational training unrelated to the occupation followed by the student during the day.

Few satisfactory examples are yet available as to profitable evening preparatory vocational education. The time is usually loo short, the student too tired or uninterested, to make satis- factory progress. The following examples are suggested: Girls in textile mills studying homemaking, the latter work be- ing divided into short units, such as shirt-waist making, the preparation of lunches, laundering, etc. (as now provided in special legislation in Massachusetts) ; a bookkeeper taking machine-shop practice, with a view to becoming a trained worker upon a special machine ; a clerk studying, in an evening law school, for the purpose of passing bar examinations.

It is important to consider how far preparatory work in evening vocational schools may be developed in the future on what is known as the " short unit " basis. The most success- ful extension work in evening schools of a definitely vocational character is now organized on the short unit basis, which means that the learner is enabled to acquire skill in a particular pro- cess, with a particular machine, or to learn how to solve certain problems or to use certain devices, the necessity for which ap- pears in connection with his daily work. It is possible that in

572 Appendix B

evening trade preparatory schools similar results can be pro- cured by a strictly practical " short unit " organization.

13 (Definition). Continuation vocational schools are schools which are attended for a limited number of hours each week, within the customary working day, by persons regularly employed.

(a) Continuation vocational schools, like evening vocational schools, may be " trade extension " or " trade preparatory " schools.

(b) In practice evening vocational schools are adapted to workers upward of 17 or 18 years of age, while continuation vocational schools are primarily adapted to young workers from 14 to 18 years of age.

14 (Definition) . Extension continuation vocational schools are schools giving instruction or practice directly related to the occupations being followed by the pupils.

If the time given to the school is considerable — perhaps al- ternate days or weeks, or a half of each working day — then such schools are often called " part-time schools." Many, if not all, of the great variety of occupations followed by young persons offer opportunities for supplemental or extension train- ing in vocational schools on the continuation basis. The fol- lowing are examples : A messenger boy learning the geography of the community in which he works in order to improve his efficiency as a messenger; a machinist being taught in short unit courses a variety of devices and operations essential to his advancement or greater efficiency ; a salesgirl being taught de- vices of salesmanship ; a farmer being taught particular phases of tillage, animal husbandry, etc.

15 (Definition). A preparatory continuation vocational school is one which undertakes to teach the student a new trade or other occupation, or to give him an essential part of the training required for such trade during hours in which he is in attendance.

16. Modified forms of continuation vocational educa- tion. — Various modified forms of continuation vocational edu- cation exist, according to the character of the occupation fol- lowed and the time available for related study.

Appendix B 573

Part-time vocational education includes plans whereby young people regularly employed are released for regular periods, sometimes alternate weeks, in order to obtain instruction and practice in matters related to their occupations. Farmers dur- ing dull seasons attend the short courses offered under exten- sion agencies or in agricultural colleges. Apprentices are some- times sent away to other establishments for temporary employ- ment, primarily to learn new or related processes. Physicians in practice sometimes engage in hospital practice for short periods, in order to obtain new knowledge. In Germany and England the more capable workers in certain technical trades are sent to special schools for limited periods to acquire mastery of mathematical and technical processes needed in order to become foremen or overseers.

" Improvement " or " general " continuation schools, not of a vocational character, are common in Germany and are found at present in two or three states of the United States. These aim to utilize the continuation period of instruction to further general education.

VI. Administration of Vocational Education

The administration of publicly supported vocational educa- tion involves the same problems as those found in the public control and direction of general education. The relationship of the administrative organization of general education to the administrative organization of vocational education introduces questions of " dual " versus " single " control. The types of schools and the internal organization of schools introduce prob- lems of differentiation of schools, and divisions and depart- ments within schools.

1 (Definition). Dual administrative control of education exists when, either in the state or in the local community, or in both, the agencies for the control of vocational education are distinct from those for the control of general education.

Examples : In Massachusetts for several years a commission on industrial education had complete authority over industrial schools on behalf of the state, its operations having no con-

574 Appendix B

nection with those of the existing state board of education. In a few Massachusetts communities, separate boards of trustees are in charge of industrial schools.

2 (Definition). Single administrative control is found when vocational schools are organized and supervised by the same authorities as those charged with responsibility for gen- eral education.

In Massachusetts at the present time, the state board of edu- cation exercises certain functions alike with reference to voca- tional and general education. In most Massachusetts com- munities, a local school committee, working through a superin- tendent of schools, is in charge of both forms.

In practice, neither dual nor single control is found in a pure form. Experience shows the wisdom of arrangements whereby, in communities properly appreciative of vocational education, there shall be ultimate single control, but with a differentiation of specific agencies for the direction and supervision of each form of education.

For example, in Massachusetts a single board of education, working through a commissioner, supervises on behalf of the state vocational education arid so much of general education as it is authorized to supervise under the law. Under the com- missioner, however, is one deputy commissioner designated to deal with vocational education, and another deputy commis- sioner to deal with other forms. Wisconsin, Indiana, New York, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut present examples of more or less modified forms of control. In some instances, where separate local boards exist, the board for vocational education may be created by the board in charge of general edu- cation, or the two boards may have common membership.

3 (Definition). A vocational school is an organization of instructors, pupils, courses, buildings, equipment, etc., devoted to vocational education for one or more distinct vocations.

An analogy is found in university organization, where, under one general control, departments, or schools for the teaching of the various professions and the liberal arts exist.

4 (Definition). A vocational department in a vocational school is an organization of teachers, equipment, etc., designed to train young people for a single recognized occupation.

Appendix B 575

Thus, a vocational industrial school may have departments for the training of plumbers, pattern makers, cabinet-makers, printers, etc., and experience may show that very little of the actual training required for these different occupations will be alike or in common. A vocational commercial school might have departments for the training of accountants, stenogra- phers, clerks, salesmen, etc. A department of " general instruc- tion " in a vocational school is an organization of teachers, equipment, etc., designed to give the non-vocational instruction required in common by several departments of a vocational school.

5 (Definition). A division in a vocational school includes two or more departments dealing with related materials, and involving, to some extent, related processes.

Thus in a large vocational school there might be a wood- worjdng division embracing such departments as pattern mak- ing, cabinet-making, and house carpentry ; a machine-shop divi- sion; a printing division, etc.

6 (Definition) . A departmental advisory committee in the administration of vocational education consists of two or more persons, preferably representing, respectively, employers and employees in a given vocational field, for which the department to which it stands in an advisory relationship is giving voca- tional training.

The successful administration of vocational education under public control requires the active cooperation of representatives of the occupations for which training is being given. A useful means to this end, where vocational schools are under the gen- eral direction of the regular school authorities, is the advisory committee consisting, in the main, of employers and employees in the particular industry for which a given department is offering vocational training. Good administration requires that the advisory committee shall be brought into intimate con- sultative relationship to all new proposals as to standards and conduct of vocational training in the department concerned. The responsible head of the department must, in an executive capacity, be responsible for securing the conditions which shall enable the advisory committee to be active and effective.

576 Appendix B

VII. Practical Arts Schools, Departments, and Studies

In private and public schools a variety of studies and prac- tices have developed during recent years that may be described collectively by the words " practical arts." Various forms of practical arts education are to be sharply distinguished from vocational education. Experience proves that practical arts training, of one form or another, may make valuable contribu- tions to general education. It is not yet evident that practical arts education, as ordinarily carried on, makes substantial con- tributions to vocational efficiency. It may be made to affect vocational choice and perhaps stimulate vocational ideals. Among the forms of practical arts education are these :

1. Manual arts training in lower grades. — Manual train- ing in lower grades is that form of practical arts education in which boys and girls, usually during the work of the first six grades, have practice with a variety of exercises or projects resembling projects carried on in practical life.

This manual training includes whittling, clay modeling, paper folding, picture mounting, needlework, weaving, and a variety of other constructive activities within the range of the experi- ence of children under 12 years of age. In this work, boys and girls usually do the same exercises, and these are taught by the regular class teacher.

2. Manual training in upper grades and high schools. — Manual training in upper grades and high schools, as the term is now used, applies mainly to wood and metal working, including at times printing, bookbinding, and various forms of construc- tive work as arranged for boys from 12 to 16 or 18 years of age. The term " industrial arts " is now preferred, inasmuch as the words " manual training " connote theories of formal discipline no longer accepted.

In this field of manual training, well-defined programs of bench, forge, and metal working are now found. This work is usually taught by departmental teachers.

3. Household arts for upper grades and high schools. — Corresponding to manual training for boys from 12 to 18 years of age are now found in upper grades and high schools a

Appendix B 577

variety of practical exercises in cooking and sewing, and occa- sionally in other homemaking fields, designed to give girls from 12 to 18 years of age insight and taste with regard to domestic operations.

In forms slightly, if at all, modified the same subject is called " home economics " and " domestic economy." Sewing and its allied lines are sometimes included under the term " domestic art," while cooking and its allied lines are sometimes called " domestic science."

4. Agricultural arts education. — In some elementary and high schools, exercises based principally upon tillage are now found as constituting a phase of general education. In some cases home gardening, school, gardening, and laboratory work in agricultural science are added, as well as reading exercises regarding live stock, etc.

5. Commercial arts or business education. — In elementary and high schools a variety of studies and practical work in book- keeping, typewriting, commercial paper writing, and the like have been introduced in recent years, but no real distinctions between " vocational " commercial education and " general " vocational education have yet been made.

6. Practical arts high schools. — Under the influence of the movement for manual training a variety of special forms of high schools have developed, each frequently with some special characteristics. They are variously known as " manual train- ing high schools," " manual arts high schools," " mechanics arts high schools," " technical high schools," etc. A practical arts high school in Boston is organized for girls' work in household arts exclusively. Technical or manual training high schools frequently have departments of household arts for girls.

VIII. Prevocational Education

1 (Descriptive). Within the last few years the term " pre- vocational education " has been introduced into educational literature, apparently with several meanings.

(a) The term " prevocational education " sometimes refers to studies and practices which, while not constituting a specific

2P

578 Appendix B

part of vocational education, nevertheless, are assumed to be a valuable or even essential preliminary thereto.

In a broad sense, ability to read and write is preliminary and essential to almost any form of vocational pursuit under mod- ern conditions. Similarly, a knowledge of arithmetic is essen- tial as preliminary to the commercial and many other callings. In professional education biology and chemistry, for example, are frequently spoken of as " prevocational " to the study of medicine ; history and economics to the study of law ; Greek and Latin to the study of theology; mechanical drawing and trig- onometry to the engineering professions, etc. Similarly, it has been held that manual training or sloyd (tool work with wood and metals) can be " prevocational " to the mechanical trades. Whether any particular study " functions " as prevocational training can, of course, be determined only by observation and experiment.

(b) The term "prevocational education" at present seems more commonly to be used to designate programs of instruc- tion and training designed to assist an individual in making an intelligent choice of an occupation, through giving him oppor- tunity to participate in a series of practical experiences related to many vocations.

For example, it has been asserted that manual training courses are, or can be made, of value in enabling a boy to " find himself " as regards his natural aptitudes for some one of the tool trades. Similarly, it has been asserted that so-called " commercial " studies and practices as found in public high schools enable the youth to " find himself " as regards his apti- tudes for some commercial calling. It has been claimed that students taking mechanical drawing frequently discover from this their qualification or lack of qualification for various trades in which mechanical drawing applies.

(c) The importance of prevocational education of the type described under (b) increases in proportion as intelligent voca- tional guidance develops, on the one hand, and varied opportu- nities for systematic vocational education are established, on the other. We may assume that, in time, in any urban com- munity a large number and variety of departments of voca-

Appendix B 579

tional education will be open to a youth at 14 or 16 years of age. It will be important that the youth choose wisely the school which he shall enter. It is not economical on the part of a vocational school to admit a considerable number of persons who must early be eliminated because of innate or other dis- qualifications for the work selected. If programs of prevoca- tional education can be developed which will accomplish this end, much good will result.

It has been suggested, for example, that through the seventh and eighth grades, instead of the present somewhat rigid courses in manual training, there should be presented to boys a large variety of opportunities to participate in constructive and practical work along industrial, agricultural, and com- mercial lines. The exercises and opportunities for practical achievement should be related as closely as practicable to vari- ous occupational pursuits as now followed. Considerable op- portunity for election should be given, and for the early giving up of uncongenial forms of work. Good amateur standards should prevail in this work, rather than so-called " professional standards." The teachers should be persons possessing varied forms of skill and wide industrial experience, selected with a view to their capacity to advise boys wisely as to vocations in which they would probably succeed. Similarly, it is suggested that opportunities could be provided for girls to " find them- selves " in homemaking, industrial, and commercial pursuits.

(d) The problem of the immediate future is to define the purposes of prevocational education, if useful purposes can be found, and then to adapt programs of practice and instruction to the realization of these ends.

2 (Definition). Prevocational education, as the term is most vividly used, includes any form of education designed to enable a youth to discover for which one of several possible vocations he is best fitted by natural ability and disposition, the program of instruction and practice for this purpose being based mainly upon actual participation on the part of the learner in a variety of typical practical experiences derived from the occu- pations involved.

580 Appendix B

IX. Vocational Guidance

1 (Descriptive). Vocational guidance represents an at- tempt (first through philanthropic initiative and support, and later appearing through agencies for public education) to lessen the misdirection of energy and general loss of effectiveness at present involved in the efforts of young persons, especially in urban centers, to find suitable employment.

The historic agency of vocational guidance has been the home. Under primitive and settled conditions, the occupation of the child usually followed that of the father. In the modern urban community, the home becomes less and less adapted to giving effective vocational guidance. There is also available, now, a large amount of organized knowledge as to hygienic conditions surrounding any given field of work, the require- ments which such work makes for intelligence or special train- ing, etc., which can be imparted by organized effort. As con- ditions now exist, youths are commonly unprepared to take ad- vantage of the opportunities for becoming more efficient and for promotion.

2 (Definition). Vocational guidance includes all system- atic efforts, under private or public control, and excluding the traditional activities of the home, the conscious and chief pur- pose of which is to secure the most economical and effective adjustment of young people to the economic employments which they can most advantageously follow.

Examples of the various means now employed, at least occasionally, for this purpose are: (a) Selected readings given under the guidance of the school, with a view to conveying in- formation as to economic activities, the qualities demanded in the various vocations, etc. ; (b) systematic reading and study of specially prepared pamphlets descriptive of the opportunities, requirements, etc., of various particular lines of employment — usually given under the direction of teachers; (c) individual or group conferences of pupils with teachers, for the purpose of discussing vocational opportunities, conditions required, etc. ; (d) systematic study of young persons from the stand- point of their physical and intellectual make-up, with a view

Appendix B 581

to advising them as to lines of employment which they can most effectively enter; (e) " prevocational training " (see page 577), consisting of limited amounts of practical experience in connection with exercises taken from various lines of practical work, with a view to discovering the pupil's fitness therefor, or enabling him to discover his own more fundamental aptitudes and interest; (/) systematic study of various economic lines of employment, with a view to obtaining specific data to be used in advising young persons seeking employment; (g) maintenance of employment agencies for young persons in day or evening school, with a view to assisting them to obtain work in suitable occupations.

Vocational schools in general, in more or less organized forms, offer vocational guidance and act in a measure as em- ployment agencies in placing their graduates. This is especially true of normal schools, industrial schools, commercial schools, technological institutions, and universities.

INDEX

Administration of vocational education, 282-351

Advisory committees, 298

Age of entrance on vocations, 311

Age of pupils for vocational schools, 310

Agricultural competency through by-edu- cation, 148

Agricultural education, 144-189; in rural education, 175-189; problems of, 384; varieties of, 149

Agricultural vocations, importance of, 144

Agriculture in general education, 182 ; in high schools, 150 ; in junior high schools, 184

Agriculture, dimensions of projects in, 187 ; project method of teaching, 171; schools of, 147 ; schools of, teachers for, 356

American Federation of Labor, reference to, 318

American women, probable economic future of, 411-454

Apprenticeship, 9; decline of, 206; de- cline of, in professions, 10; for pro- fessions, 114; historic, 205 ; supple- mented by vocational schools, 113; wanting in commercial callings, 192

Arts, practical, 455-511

"Arts," skill in the, 112

Automobile industry, statistics of, 531

Basic vocational education, 117; denned, 553

Bibliographies, 513-514

"Brute, The," by William Vaughn Moody, 221

Business English, 196

By-education, denned, 8; in general edu- cation, 80

Capital, place of, in production, 45 Carnegie Foundation Report on Engineer- ing Education, 16 "Cold storage" education, 25 Commercial arts, 489

Commercial callings and apprenticeship,

192 Commercial courses, criticisms of, 195;

in high schools, 193

Commercial education, 190-203; con- structive proposals for, 199; extent of, 190; popularity of, 191; problems of, 382 ; specialization of, 202 Commercial school teachers, 359 Commercial vocations, varieties of, 197 "Commission on the Reorganization of

Secondary Education," 92 Comprehensive high school, 93 Compulsory vocational education, 67 Continuation schools, 114, 213; adminis- tration of, 33 2 ; essential features of, 2 14 ; vocational aims in, 334 Control of vocational education, 206 Cooperative vocational education, 329 Cooperative vocational schools, 567 Correlation, problems of, 497 Courses for vocational schools, 26 Courses of study, differentiation of, 346

Definition of vocational education, 534-

S8i

Definition of vocations illustrated, i Democracy and education, 64, 397 Democracy and vocational education, 60 Dewey, Dr. John, reference to, 397 Dewey's "Democracy and Education,"

397-410

Disposal of product, 321 Domestic work of women, 424 'Dual administrative control," denned,

573 Dual control, 301

Eaton, Theodore H., reference to, 155 Economic future of American women, 411-

454

Economic organization, 47 Economic tendencies shown by war, 218 Economics, fundamental problems in, 394

583

5*4

Index

Education for utilization, 84 Education, varieties of, 30 Educational methods, 105 Employment legislation, 69 Employment, state regulation of, 59 Employer vs. employee, 59 Engineering professions, 275 English, commercial, 196 "Equal pay for equal work," 435 Evening industrial schools, 210 Evening school instruction, improvement

of, 211

Extension agricultural education, 149 Extension courses, "short unit," 211

Factory schools, 224

"Faculty psychology," 87

Families, better rearing of, 427

Families, effective, 420

Families, restriction of size of, 428

Farm callings, essentials in, 165

Farmer, "all-round," 158

Farming, general, 158

Farming vocations, varieties of, 144

Farm management in vocational educa- tion, 174

Farm projects in agricultural arts, 482

Farm project school, 152, 150

Farms, increasing size of, 167

Farm vocations refused by farmers' sons, 169

Federal Board's Bulletin on Homemaking, 264

Formal discipline, effects and theory of, 138

Form discipline of namual training, 465

"Full responsibility school," denned, 567

Gary System, 506

General education, minimum requirements

of, 314 ; objectives of, 75 ; origins of, 71 ;

related to vocational competency, 72;

relation to vocational education, 71-104 "General" vocational education, oo, 372 General vs. vocational educational, 445 Gompers, President, quoted, 318

High school commercial courses, 193 High schools, junior, 339; rural, 180 Home economics, 231-271 Homemaking as an exclusive vocation, 425 ; as a vocation, characteristics of, 237

Homemaking education, 231-271, 453; by project method, 259; case method applied to, 247 ; problems of, 231 ; re- quirements analyzed, 248; Smith- Hughes Act, 252

Homemaking projects, 484

Homemaking vocations, analyzed, 239; sociological characteristics of, 241

Home project earnings, 154

Home project work in agriculture, 150

Homes, how described, 234

Household arts, 260, 267, 484

Individual, acquired powers of, 50 Individua.l, qualities of, in production, 48 "Industrial Democracy," 102 Industrial education, 204-230 ; defined,

547 ; for trades, 208 ; problems of, 378 ;

the war's effects on, 216 "Industrialism," criticized, 391 "Industrial order," present, 408 Industrial schools, endowed, 210; evening,

210 Industrial school teachers, 361 ; proposed

methods of training, 367 Industries, scope of supervision of, 204

"Jack-of-all-trades," 92

Junior high schools, 339 ; aims of, 347

Labor unions and vocational education, 3i8

Land for prospective farmers, 165

Law as a profession, 274

Liberal education and vocational educa- tion, fundamental distinctions between, 78

Liberal education, enrichment of, 223; field of, 38 ; sources of, 81 ; through household arts, 267

Liberal education vs. vocational educa- tion, 24

Machinery, effects of, on women's labor,

416

"Machine tenders," 54 Manual training, 455 ; experiments in, 464 Marot, Miss Helen, reference to, 389 Marot's "Creative Impulse in Industry,"

380-397

Mechanics Institutes capitalized, 14 Medicine as a profession, 273

Index

5«5

Mental discipline, illusions of, 87

Mental training, effects of, on method, 138

Methods of teaching, 105

Methods, problems of, 137

Moody, William Vaughn, quoted, 221,

424

Moral values in vocational education, 142 Motives for vocational education, 139 Motives from instincts, 141

Nursing, pedagogy of, 279

Objectives of education, distinguished,

471

Objectives of general education, 75 Organization of vocational education,

permanent types of, 307

Pedagogy of agricultural education, 162 Pedagogy organization of vocational edu- cation, 308

Practical arts, administrative problems of, 508; classified, 476; and vocational guidance, 467; correlation with other subjects, 496 ; for older pupils, 503 ; for young pupils, 505; in the Gary System, 506 ; in general education, 455- 511; origins of, 457; pedagogic units for, 490; play motives in, 499; with- drawn from homes, 459; work motives in, 499

Practical arts courses, evolution of, 462 Practical arts education, denned, 539;

aims of, 461 ; defined, 471 Practical skill, how taught, 113 Pre-apprenticeship, 115, 33 1 Pre-vocational education, defined, 577 Private vocational schools, 52 Problems of agricultural education, 164 Professional education, 6, 272-281 ; peda- gogy of, 277 ; problems of, 376 ; super- vision of, 272

Professional schools, teachers for, 355 Professions, varieties of, 277 Product, disposal of, 321 ; in practical arts,

493 ; workers' share of, 36 Production, amateur, 404 ; and distribu- tion, 32; reasons for, 207 Productive power, increase of, 36 Productive work, 23 ; ownership of, 323 ; proceeds from, 323 ; retention by pupils, 327

Productivity, basic factors in, 43; es- sential factors in, 42 ; intensive vs. ex- tensive, 40 ; of the individual, 32

Project, defined, 561

Project method in homemaking education, 259

Project, the, as correlation center, 136

Project, the, in teaching, 128

Projects in agriculture, 482 ; in industrial arts, 479 ; in practical arts, 491 ; in vocational education, 23 ; type, in agriculture, 160; varieties of, 136

Regulation of women's work, 419

"Related subject," defined, 557

Report on "Cardinal Principles of Second- ary Education," 92

Rural schools, aims of, 178; and agri- cultural education, 175

Rural secondary education, 180

Rural vocational education, 185

Salem Normal School, 359

Schreiner, Olive, reference to, 415

Secretary as vocation, 200

"Short unit," extension course, 211

"Short unit," course, denned, 563

"Skills" in vocations, in

Smith-Hughes Act, 18; and homemaking

education, 252

Social inheritance of vocations, 5 Social inheritance, the economic, 43 Social knowledge related to vocation, 102 Specialization, economic, 1 25 ; in agri- culture, 162; of production, 53; of production in war-time, 218; of voca- tions, analyzed by Dr. Dcwey, 401 Specialized industries, education for. 222 Specialized vocations, education for, aa8,

4Si

"Speeding up," SS Standards of living. 32 Statistics of occupations, 515-533 Stenography as a vocation, 197 Supply and demand, law of, 46 Surveys for vocational education, 303

Teachers in agricultural schools, 356; in commercial schools, 359; in industrial schools, 361 ; in profminnil schools, 355; professional training of, »8o; training of, for vocational schools, jjj- 368

586

Index

Teaching as a profession, 272 Teaching unit, the project as a, 128 Teaching units, varieties of, 130 Technical instruction in homemaking, 256 Technical knowledge in vocations, in Technical school, defined, 559 Technical schools, 15 Technical schools of agriculture, 149 Terminology, 534~58i Tests, vocational, 49 Trade school education, 208 Trade schools, denned, 1 1 Trades in United States, 29 Trades, the decline of, 57 ; the place of, 56 Training of teachers of vocational schools, 352-368

Unit control, 301

United States Census, reference to, 28;

statistics from, 515-533 Up-grading schools, 224 Utilization, education for, 84

Variability of workers, 4

Vestibule schools, 224

Vocational aims in agricultural education, 157

Vocational by-education, 7

Vocational competency, factors in, 109

Vocational diseases, 55

Vocational education, advisory oversight of, 298; administration of, 282-351, 385; and general education com- bined, 317; and labor unions, 318; and liberal education, fundamental distinctions between, 78; basic types, 117; bibliographies of, 513-514; com- pulsory, 67, 336; curricula for, 26; cooperative, 329; defined, 31, 534-581; direct, 9 ; derived from vocations, 89 ; distinguished from general education, 735 determination of need of, 99; for agriculture, 144-189; for homemaking, 231-271; for professions, 6, 272; for specialized pursuits, 124; for women, 412,421; for women, conditions affect- ing, 447; future of, 18; hybrid forms of, ii ; local vs. central control of, 296;

. major divisions of, 541 ; modern move- ment for, 16; moral values of, 142; in continuation schools, 213; in junior high schools, 339 ; in private schools, 52 ;

in schools, origins, 13 ; in war-time, 217 ; partial forms of, 12 ; pedagogical phases of, 552; primary aims of, 35; public control of, 296 ; publicly controlled, 19 ; public support of, 63 ; relation to general education, 71-104; school areas for, 282 ; social demands fffr, 31 ; some future problems of xlj 80-410; special problems of, 360-388 ; surveys for, 303 ; the project in, 132; transfer of results of, 373; types of, 122; undemocratic, 60 ; unit vs. dual control, 301 ; uni- versality of, 34; unreal kinds, 96; un- specialized, 90; varieties of, 119; vs. civic education, 102; vs. "general" education, 402 ; vs. liberal education, 24> 370 J when genuine, 94

Vocational guidance, defined, j>8o; through practical arts, 467

Vocational homemaking, problems of, 244

Vocational levels, 450

Vocational motives, 139; for general education, 140

Vocational schools, accessibility of, 20; age of admission to, 62 ; and organized labor, 294 ; corporation support of, 288 ; definition of classes, 565; for agri- culture, need of, 148; for professions, 10 ; indeterminateness of, 75; location of, 285 ; private support of, 288 ; public support of, 292 ; specialization in, 62 ; supplementing apprenticeship, 113; sup- port of, 287; training of teachers for, 352-368; types of, 119; varieties of, 22

Vocational schools, admission standards for, 51

Vocational school teaching, types of, 353

Vocational survey, 98

Vocational training, as vestibule to voca- tion, 89

Vocational training through practice, 22

Vocations, as social inheritance, 5 ; changes of age of entrance upon, 313 ; defects of, 41 ; defined by Dr. Dewey, 400 ; edu- cative values, 406 ; general education needed in, 51 ; kinds of, 2 ; of women, domestic vs. non-domestic, 430; over- crowding of, 57; pathological con- ditions in, 54; physical fitness for, 48; shifting in, 21; statistics of, 515-533; varieties of, 99; variety of, in United States, 28

Index

S»7

Wage-earning, control of entrance upon,

69

Wage-earning employment of women, 417 Wages for productive work, 23 Warren's "Farm Management," reference

to, 147

War's effects on industrial education, 216 Woman, the "college," 441

Women, as producers, 414 ; in professions. 439; probable economic future of, 411- 454; problems of vocational education for, 447; regimented labor of, 442; "suitable" work for, 433

Women's entrance upon wage-earning em- ployments, 417

Workers, variability of, 4

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