WHAT PLACE SHOULD BE ASSIGNED TO INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION.

The subject of this paper requires us to consider, especially, what place in such a plan of instruction ought to be assigned to industrial education. An intelligent treatment of this question demands a definite understanding of what is meant by the term "industrial education," which is used rather loosely in the current educational discussions.

Every man has two spheres of activity: the one, his own particular profession or business, be it what it may, that of merchant, mechanic, farmer, seaman, lawyer, teacher, or the like; the other, his general calling, which he has in common with all his neighbors, namely, the calling of a citizen and a man. Now, the education which fits him for the former of these spheres of activity is called special or professional, or, perhaps more properly, technical, while that education which fits him for the latter is called general.

It is the design of general education to impart the training, the culture, and the knowledge, of whatever kind and degree, which it is desirable that a human being should possess, without regard to any particular vocation or pursuit in life. Its object is to make capable and cultivated human beings. But, in technical education, the end in view is not culture and knowledge for their own sake, but information and dexterity with reference to their application in some special occupation. Here the aim is to impart the ability and skill requisite to success in some particular vocation, to teach the knowledge required to fit men for some special mode of gaining their livelihood. By industrial education we mean specifically that large department of technical education which fits men for all those pursuits not comprised in what are called learned professions. As in the case of general education, it has its different stages or grades. Its elementary stage is that which is requisite to form the workman of every class, especially those persons engaged in skilled manual labor. The secondary grade is that designed for those who immediately superintend and direct workmen, such as foremen, masters, and overseers, who ought to have, besides practical skill, a considerable knowledge of science and its application to their respective branches of business. The third and highest grade is for those whose callings do not demand skill in manual labor, but high scientific attainments and a large amount of special knowledge, such as architects, engineers, and practical chemists. Again, in each stage, this education consists of two parts: the theoretical and the practical. The former imparts the principles of science and the knowledge of their application, with the rules of the arts and the results of experience, so far as they can be given in schools; the latter requires actual work under the eye and training of a master; that is, it requires apprenticeship in the work-shop or the industrial establishment.

EDUCATIONAL ELEMENTS OF SUCCESS.

Now, everybody knows that a man's success in his particular calling or profession depends not so much upon the accident of his apprenticeship as upon what sort of a mind and body he brings to it, what kind of intelligence, of conscience, and of physical soundness and aptitude the system of general education has developed in him. Therefore, not only because men are men before they are merchants, mechanics, or farmers, but as a means of making good merchants, mechanics, and farmers, the first and fundamental aim of all education and of all plans of instruction should be to form capable and sensible men. This general "education makes a man a more intelligent shoemaker, if that be his occupation, but not by teaching him how to make shoes; it does so by the mental exercise it gives and the habits it impresses." General education, therefore, must not be undervalued; it must be amply provided for and rigidly insisted upon; the more of it people have the better for them. To sacrifice it to technical education is to kill the goose that lays the golden egg. But its fanciful superfluities must be lopped off, its non-essentials discarded, and its rubbish thrown overboard, and then, by the side of it, and based upon it, and supplementary to it, technical

education, especially that great new department appropriate to all industries, must be universally created, organized in all its grades and varieties, and amply maintained. In brief, to make education as useful as possible, it must be made, as far as practicable in both of its great divisions, simple, limited, practical, acceptable to the learner, adapted to his character and wants and brought home to his particular case by subdivision and selection. A good deal is said at the present day about raising the standard of education. But is there not rather need of providing the means of education, of selecting, organizing, and administering existing knowledge to the best purpose and advantage?

TECHNICAL TRAINING IN COMMON SCHOOLS IMPRACTICABLE.

In attempting to apply these general views and considerations to the common-schoolproblem, especially with reference to industrial education, it is, perhaps, necessary to say a few words in the first place concerning the practicability of teaching trades or skilled handicrafts; that is the practical department of industrial education in the elementary school. Ever since Rousseau, in his ideal system, prescribed, for his model pupil, apprenticeship to a trade, in connection with his scholastic tuition, the idea of introducing the workshop into the common school has not been without its advocates. In France this question has at different periods occupied the attention of the government, and the system was put in operation in many localities under the auspices of the administration of public instruction. But the experiment was a failure, although made under favorable conditions, and all traces of the workshop have disappeared from the schools where it was introduced. It is safe to say that this idea is condemned by all the best pedagogical authorities in the world. The all-sufficient objections to it are, first, that the whole of the limited period assigned to the common-school-course is needed for general education and the acquisition of useful knowledge; secondly, that at the common-school-age the physical development is not adequate to the purposes of most manual trades; thirdly, that it is too early for the pupils to choose their callings; and fourthly, the impracticability of allowing a choice of trades on account of the cost involved in providing for instruction in several. It must be concluded, I think, that the effect of putting the workshop into the school can be no other than to make a poor school and a poor workshop, and to defeat the great object of common-school-education, that of securing the development of the mind and the acquisition of useful knowledge necessary for success in all industrial pursuits.

HALF-TIME SCHOOLS CONSIDERED.

There is another contrivance for combining school-instruction with industrial manual labor, known as the half-time system, which places the workshop, not in the school, but by its side. The theory of this plan is that the pupil is to be kept at school during the period prescribed by law, but that, after arriving at a certain age, say 10 or 12, his time is to be divided between the school and apprenticeship, or manual labor, in some industrial occupation, in the manufactory or on the farm. The schooling is reduced to half the usual number of hours per week. This plan originated in England, where it has found much favor, and it has been in operation to a limited extent in some of the manufacturing-towns of Massachusetts. On the continent of Europe it has not made much progress. Very respectable English authorities maintain that where this system has been tried the pupils make as much progress in their studies as those who attend during the whole time; that the results of three hours' schooling daily are equal to those of six hours. If it is true generally that half a school day is as good as a whole day, there is certainly an enormous waste of time and money in carrying on schools! I can conceive of schools conducted in such a manner that half the ordinary number of hours of attendance would be worth as much as the whole number. But it cannot be true of really good schools. And it is impossible that the half-time course should be generally accepted as the equivalent of the wholetime course, unless the obligatory years of attendance are proportionally extended.

Half-time-schooling, continued from 12 to 16 years of age, in connection with manual labor in an apprenticeship, might be as good as whole-time-schooling, extending only from 12 to 14 years, and perhaps better; but the half-time system, as at present understood, is no solution of the common-school-problem, but only a makeshift, a concession to the pressure of poverty and the demands for cheap child-labor in manufacturing-establishments.

WHAT, THEN, IS THE PROVINCE OF THE COMMON SCHOOL?

What, then, is the function of the common school in relation to industrial education? I answer, that the common school must not be appropriated to the teaching of any specialty, as such. It must undertake to teach only those branches which are generally useful in all callings and in the common affairs of life, and not those which belong exclusively to particular occupations. And yet the common school of the present day must accomplish far more than was expected of it in former times, in respect to the range of subjects taught. The elements of what is called the new education, namely, science and art with reference to their application to industrial pursuits, must be included in the modern common-school-course. The introduction of this new education and the re-adjustment of the old, to adapt it to the new condition of things, seem to me to be one of the problems of common-school-instruction. The specific thing to do is to introduce as many subjects of general practical utility as possible without overloading the programme. There is but one mode of accomplishing this desirable object, and that is by a judicions limitation of requirements and a simplification in the handling of the subjects. The branches of this new common-school-education, which are especially applicable to industrial pursuits and at the same time serviceable in the common affairs of life, are drawing, geometry, (with the application of arithmetic to mensuration,) natural history, physics, and chemistry. These are the branches which lie at the foundation of industrial education. I take the ground that a knowledge of the elements of these branches is universally needed, and that knowledge it is the function of the common school to impart. This seems to me what is desirable and practicable in the way of industrial education in the schools designed for the mass of children. And in addition to these, or, possibly, in part as a substitute, all girls should be taugh needle-work, and the cutting and fitting of garments, and the elements of household economy.

IMPORTANCE OF DRAWING AS A COMMON-SCHOOL-STUDY.

Of these branches of industrial education, I attach the greatest importance to drawing as being the most universally useful, both as a means of general culture and as an instrument of practical utility; it is a thing of use in every department of business and in every condition in life; it is in itself an expressive language, easily depicting to the eye what no words, however well chosen, can represent; it is the best means of cultivating the power and habit of accurate observation and of developing the perception and the love of the beautiful in nature and in art; it is the fundamental branch of all industrial education; it is indispensable for the architect, the engraver, the engineer, the designer, the draughtsman, the molder, the machine-builder, the headmechanic, and indeed to all skilled craftsmen; it is calculated to afford invaluable aid to the inventive genius of our people; it is an instrumentality for illustration which should be in every teacher's hands; and, if properly taught, it more than compensates for the time it takes, by facilitating instruction in other branches. Scott Russell, an authority of the first order in respect to industrial education, says: "Every bit of work which a man does has to fit into some other bit of work of some other man's doing. Each man should therefore understand the plans of the complete work on which he and his fellows are engaged, in order to work well to the other's hand, and the only way to get this thorough understanding of plans is to have learned to draw them himself. Complete plan-drawing applied to his own business is therefore essential to a good workman." Drawing has been well called the sixth sense of the skilled workman. All our best authorities in industrial science are agreed that the manufacturing-inter

ests of this country are in pressing need of the development of art-culture, and the only adequate basis of this culture is a thorough system of elementary drawing taught in all cominon schools.

INCORRECT VIEWS ABOUT THIS STUDY.

Undoubtedly the cause of our past neglect of this branch is found in the general ignorance in regard to its nature, objects, and utility. Drawing has been regarded as a merely ornamental study, of little or no use in practical life, to be allowed only to those pupils who have time on their hands, after having acquired a competent knowledge of what are ignorantly deemed more useful subjects. But the light is breaking; the reform is now fairly inaugurated, and I trust the time is not distant when every child will be taught elementary drawing. No time should be lost in making drawing an obligatory branch of instruction in the common schools of every State. It is nearly five years ago since this important step was taken in Massachusetts, and at the same time it was made obligatory on all towns and cities containing ten thousand inhabitants and upwards, to open free industrial drawing-schools for adults. This action of the legislature originated in a petition largely representing the mechanical and manufacturing-interests of the State, setting forth the disadvantages under which they had to compete with foreign manufacturers for want of workmen skilled in "drawing and other arts of design." Subsequently a State normal art-school was established, for the special purpose of training teachers of drawing and the other departments of art-education. Each of the State normal schools has been provided with an art-department and a special teacher of drawing. Over all the interests of this department of instruction supervision is exercised by a State-director of arteducation, an art-master possessing a rare combination of qualifications for the important task assigned to him. The remarkable success of this movement makes it plain that it was not begun too soon. The productive industries of the State will, at no distant day, reap a rich harvest from this educational provision.

Practical elementary geometry is another of these industrial branches which has been most unaccountably neglected in our common schools. Nearly fifty years ago Josiah Holbrook advocated the teaching of this subject in primary schools, and prepared some charts and a little manual to facilitate this object, and, when a child, a few weeks in a school where this plan had been adopted, gave me all the knowledge of geometry that I carried with me to college; and it was a knowledge which I have always regarded as of no small practical value. Several years ago ex-President Hill, of Harvard College, prepared a little text-book for teaching children from 5 to 8 years of age the elements of geometry. Such instruction, he contended, should precede the logical drill required by such a book as Colburn's First Lessons in Arithmetic. The key to his idea of the treatment of the subject is contained in a sentence in the preface, in which he says, "I have avoided reasoning, and simply given interesting geometrical facts, fitted, I hope, to arouse a child to the observation of phenomena and to the perception of forms as real entities." Practical geometry would be taught, of course, in connection with mensuration of angles, surfaces, and solids, on the one hand, and in connection with drawing on the other, in the solution of geometrical problems by the use of the compasses and ruler. These implements are peculiarly the scholar's tools, and I mention it as a curious pedagogical fact that in Germany and Austria all the pupils of the common schools are required by law to be provided with them. President Hill looked at this subject in its relations to culture, but Scott Russell, looking at it as a technical study, says: "Every workman should, for the most part, be able to conceive clearly and accurately, in his own mind, the shape of everything he may have to make or work with. This makes it a first condition of skill that he should master shape in his own mind, and that mastery requires him to be a geometer. If that were true there might be written over every skilled workshop the substance of the ancient Greek inscription, 'No man ignorant of geometry enters here.""

It is not necessary in the elementary stage to demonstrate geometrical propositions,

but to learn the construction of geometrical forms and to acquire a knowledge of the most important geometrical facts in their relations to practical life.

No one will question the value of the knowledge of physical science as a means of economizing and utilizing both time and labor. The application of science to the productive industries has multiplied the comforts and conveniences of life to an extent which it is impossible to estimate. But there yet remains a rich harvest to be reaped from the advantages of such a general elementary knowledge of the physical sciences as is capable of being imparted in the common school. "Our whole working power depends on knowing the laws of the world; in other words, the properties of the things which we have to work with, and to work among, and to work upon." The mass of people must, of course, rely for the greater part of this knowledge on the few experts who devote themselves to its several departments. But an elementary knowledge of scientific truths is essential for every human being, and this elementary knowledge the common school should give.

The object-lessons in the primary grades serve as an introduction to this knowledge. In the higher classes the most useful truths and facts in natural history, natural philosophy, and chemistry are to be taught, not by committing to memory the words of textbooks, but by actual observation and experiment. Every common school should have its museum of natural history and the necessary apparatus for the simplest experiments in physics and chemistry.

PRESENT WASTE OF TIME IN COMMON SCHOOLS.

It may be said, and doubtless will be said, that all this knowledge is very useful, but it cannot be given in the common schools; that there is no room or time for the studies I have enumerated, if justice is done to what are called the indispensable branches. This leads to the question of the proper limitations of studies and to the question of methods of teaching, questions which can be only touched upon here. But I want to say that I think there is an immense waste of time on the studies usually taught in the common schools in various ways, and that if the time of teachers and pupils were properly utilized all that I propose could be accomplished. Take spelling. Why should a child who will have little use to make of spelling be kept drilling on this barren branch until he can spell a hundred per cent. of picked words? Why should years be occupied in memorizing, or learning in any way, the contents of a large textbook on geography? Why should a pupil be kept on arithmetic until he can solve the most difficult problems at sight? Why should these things be insisted upon to the entire neglect of the fruitful subjects I have called the new education? By the proper limitation and simplification of the old branches time enough might be gained for the

new ones.

And then I must take the liberty to say here that I think the prevailing theory in this country, in respect to the method of elementary teaching, is, to say the least, open to criticism. That theory maps out the child's mind into certain faculties and proceeds to administer what is supposed to be the needed discipline to each with a view to produce a harmonious development. I do not mean to say that valuable results may not be produced in this way; but, so far as common schools are concerned, I believe better practical results would be reached, by beginning with mapping out the knowledge which it is desirable for the pupil to possess, and then teaching these branches in their proper order, in the most straightforward and practical way, giving no exercises with special reference to mental gymnastic training. By this course, I think, there would be a vast gain, not only in the useful knowledge acquired, but in the effective mental discipline imparted.

I do not mean to say that a knowledge of the science of the human mind is useless to the teacher of an elementary school. The more of this knowledge he has the better. If he understands the order of the development of the mental faculties he can more intelligently adapt his teaching to the capacities of his pupils, and thus economize their power of learning and his own power of teaching. In framing a course of elementary