d. The rooms used for industrial purposes must be approved by the inspector. Where but one room is used for a department not less than 700 square feet of floor space shall be considered adequate, and all rooms must be properly lighted and well ventilated.

e. Schools receiving $2,500 aid shall maintain a farm building large enough to store supplies, tools, and machinery, in case the plot is remote from school building.

7. Credits.

If the work be done satisfactorily, two periods given daily to an industrial subject or subjects for one year shall count as a credit.

CHAPTER XIV

INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION

The Economic Trend of Education. As the political idealism of the nineteenth century produced the free, tax supported and state controlled school system, the economic necessities of the first decades of this century produced a series of modifying forces that are certain to alter both the form and the function of the different grades of institutions belonging to the public educational scheme. A number of the important features of the vocationalizing process, resulting in the marked variation of educational procedure and organization and in the likely public preference for new types of educational institutions, are emphasized in these five selections that deal with the general subject of industrial education.

I. PUBLIC EDUCATION AND INDUSTRIAL TRAINING

1. The Unity of the Public Educational System

[From Dewey, John, An Undemocratic Proposal, in Vocational Education, Vol. II (1913), pp. 374-377.]

No question at present under discussion in education is so fraught with consequences for the future of democracy as the question of industrial education. Its right development will do more to make public education truly democratic than any other one agency now under consideration. Its wrong treatment will as surely accentuate all undemocratic tendencies in our present situation, by fostering and strengthening class divisions in school and out. It is better to suffer a while longer from the ills of our present lack of system till the truly democratic lines of advance become apparent, rather than separate industrial education sharply from general education,

and thereby use it to mark off to the interests of employers a separate class of laborers.

These general considerations have a particular application to the scheme of industrial education which has been proposed for adoption by the next legislature of the state of Illinois one of the leading industrial states of the Union, and containing its second largest city. This scheme proposes a separate State Commission of Vocational Education and a separate Board wherever the community may wish to develop any form of industrial education. In other words, the entire school system of the state as a whole and of such communities of the states as may desire to do something definite in the direction of industrial education, is split into two for the education of all above fourteen years of age. Since whatever a state like Illinois may do in such a matter is sure to have influence in other states in this formative period, educators all over the country should be aroused to help ward off what, without exaggeration, may be termed the greatest evil now threatening the interests of democracy in education.

The statement of the scheme ought to be enough to condemn it. The least reflection shows fundamentally bad features associated with it. First, it divides and duplicates the administrative educational machinery. How many communities have such an excess of public interest in education that they can afford to cut it into two parts? How many have such a surplusage of money and other resources that they can afford to maintain a double system of schools, with the waste of funds and the friction therein involved? Second, the scheme tends to paralyze one of the most vital movements now operating for the improvement of existing general education. The old time general, academic education is beginning to be vitalized by the introduction of manual, industrial and social activities; it is beginning to recognize its responsibility to train all the youth for useful citizenship, including a calling in which each may render useful service to society and make an honest and decent living. Everywhere the existing school system is beginning to be alive to the need of supplementary agencies to help it fulfill this purpose, and is taking tentative but positive and continuous steps toward it. The city of Chicago in this same state of Illinois probably ranks behind no other city of the country in the extent and wisdom of the steps already taken, steps which will of necessity be followed by others just as fast as those already taken demonstrate their efficiency.

EVILS OF SEPARATE CONTROL WORK BOTH WAYS

These two movements within the established American public school system, the proposed scheme, if adopted, will surely arrest. General education will be left with all its academic vices and its remoteness from the urgent realities of contemporary life untouched, and with the chief forces working for reform removed. Increasing recognition of its public and social responsibilities will be blasted. It is inconceivable that those who have loved and served our American common school system will, whatever the defects of this system, stand idly by and see such a blow aimed at it. Were anything needed to increase the force of the blow, it is the fact that the bill provides that all funds for industrial education raised by the local community be duplicated by the state, although the funds contributed by the state for general school purposes are hardly more than 5 per cent of the amount raised by local taxation.

Thirdly, the segregation will work disastrously for the true interests of the pupils who attend the so-called vocational schools. Ex-Superintendent Cooley of Chicago, who is understood to be responsible for the proposed bill in its present form, has written a valuable report on "Vocational Education in Europe." He quite rightly holds in high esteem the work and opinions of Superintendent Kerschensteiner of Munich. It is noteworthy, that this leading European authority insists upon all technical and trade work being taught in its general scientific and social bearings. Although working in a country definitely based on class distinction (and where naturally the schools are based on class lines), the one thing Superintendent Kerschensteiner has stood for has been that industrial training shall be primarily not for the sake of industries, but for the sake of citizenship, and that it be conducted therefore on a purely educational basis and not in behalf of interested manufacturers. Mr. Cooley's own report summarizes Mr. Kerschensteiner's views as follows:

"If the boy is to become an efficient workman he must comprehend his work in all of its relation to science, to art, and to society in general. . . . The young workman who understands his trade in its scientific relation, its historical, economic and social bearings, will take a higher view of his trade, of his powers and duties as a citizen, and as a member of society."

Whatever may be the views of manufacturers anxious to secure the aid of the state in providing them with a somewhat better grade of laborers for them to exploit, the quotation states the point of view which is self-evident to those who approach the matter of

industrial education from the side of education, and of a progressive society. It is truly extraordinary that just at a time when even partisan politics are taking a definitely progressive turn, such a reactionary measure as the institution of trade and commercial schools under separate auspices should be proposed. It is not necessary to argue concerning the personal motives of the bankers and manufacturers who have been drawn into the support of the measure. Doubtless many of them have the most public spirited intentions. But no one experienced in education can doubt what would be the actual effect of a system of schools conducted wholly separate from the regular public schools, with a totally different curriculum and with teachers and pupils responsible to a totally independent and separate school administration. Whatever were the original motives and intentions, such schools would not and could not give their pupils a knowledge of industry or any particular occupation in relation to "science, art and society in general." To attempt this would involve duplicating existing schools, in addition to providing proper industrial training. And it is self-evident that the economical and effective way to accomplish this move is to expand and supplement the present school system. Not being able to effect this complete duplication, these new schools would be confined to aiming at increased efficiency in certain narrow lines.

UNITY OF PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM ESSENTIAL

Those who believe in the continued separate existence of what they are pleased to call the "lower classes" or the "laboring classes" would naturally rejoice to have schools in which these "classes" would be segregated. And some employers of labor would doubtless rejoice to have schools supported by public taxation supply them with additional food for their mills. All others should be united against every proposition, in whatever form advanced, to separate training of employees from training for citizenship, training of intelligence and character from training for narrow industrial efficiency. That the evil forces at work are not local is seen in the attempt to get the recent national convention on industrial education in Philadelphia to commit itself in favor of the Illinois scheme.

The only serious danger is that a number of sympathetic and otherwise intelligent persons should be misled, and on the basis of a justified enthusiastic support of the principle of industrial education (with whatever supplementary agencies may be found necessary) jump to the support of this scheme, not realizing what