Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1872-04-19
I.vDUsTRI.rL BDUC.fTEO.,'.

The legislature of Massachusetts, state
always foremost in the cause of education,
has passed an act which is destined to
work a revolution in the cause of popular
education. The law authorizes cities and
towns to raise funds to establish industrial
schools under the superintendent of the
regular school committees, In which the
scholars are to be taught drawing, design
ing and moulding, the use of tools and
machinery, and the art of cutting and max
ing clothing. The idea of the government
is, we suppose, TO supplement the present
system of common school education by
something little higher and more practi-
cal. Taking the high school as the utmost
limit of the present system of popular edu-
cation, we believe that IL is an acknowledge
cd fact that not more than one in ten of the
scholars in the public schools of any COM
munity ever go beyond them. From the
high school, and often from the grammar
or district school, the mass of pupils find
their way into the trades and avocations.
Not one has been trained with any view to
special fitness for the calling upon which
he enters. Unless possessed of unusual
vigor of mind, he succumbs to routine and
| drudgery, and his spare moments are Civ
| en- TO mental waste or merely physical rec
reation. His mind lacks the special train
| lug that would have enabled him to con-
| quer his physical exhaustion. We know
whereof we speak and have long known
and felt ii. The experience that we have
sketched has been the experience of thou
sands, and is o-day the experience of other
thousands scattered throughout the work
shops of our land.
There is another circumstance which c.
qually shows the failure in an important
respect of our present school system. There
Is not n trade that we know anything a
bout which does not find it extremely diff
tcult TO secure even tolerably skilled work
men. 1t Is next to impossible TO obtain
apprentices who have the ambition and
determination to master the trade they
have chosen. 1t is not so with certain pop
ular callings such as clerking, book-keep-
ing and the like. 1t seems to he little un-
fashionable for bright girl or boy TO learn
n trade. The cause, we verify believe, lies
mainly in our too textual and theoretical
y
There can be no reasonable doubt that
the movement just set in motion in Mass
achusetts will supply partial if not a com
plete remedy for the evils we have pointed
out. 1t is based on palpabe facts and
sound reason. If the training of univer-
sity is advantageous for the professional
man, as it confessedly is, so must be the
raining of an industrial school for the
skilled workman. We are glad that the
experiment is to be tried in Massachusetts,
and should lie equally glad 10 see it tried
in our own State. The professions of law,
medicine and music, which are mastered
only after years of preparatory study and
great expense, have no lack of novitiates.
These professions have their relations to
the schools as memorable as fate, and most
educated young men seem to- think that
honor and wealth can alone he won through
the adoption of profession. So the State
and the people seem to think, for the ave-
nues to the great industrial pursuits are
made neither broad nor inviting BY any
special educational institutions or tempt
ing honors. We look out well for the few,
but leave the many to shift for themselves.
OF ten boys who leave q high school or
academy at the same time, one tindsa" high
err education" specially provided to tit him
for the law, medicine or ministry; while
the nine, who are to be the essential sup
port of the State, find nothing of the sort
They drift into this vocation or that with
out any special training for the calling they
adopt, and with the fewest possible incen-
tives TO excel. 1t is impossible that the
fruits of such system should be different
from what they are. If we would have
skilled, intelligent and contented farmers,
mechanics and artisans, we must crown
our present system of common school edu-
cation with system Of industrial instruc-
ton Il at shall be equally free and widely
dlffused.-NaShua(N. H. Telegraph.