Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1880-03-06

'Industrial Education.
There are certain facts Of current history
which give great importance to the subject Of
Industrial education. 1t is notorious, In the
first place, that the old system Of apprentice
the American artisan gets the knowledge and
skin which enable him to work at q trade, Is
not obvious. In one way or another he man
Employment has '' praccticaiiy ceased to be
through an old-fashioned apprenticeship.
Among the causes that have conspired to pro-
first be mentioned the influence Of common
schools Quarrel with the fact as we may, 1t
cannot be successfully denied that the influence
Iected to their processes and social influences
for the common employments Of life. The lad
who has made successful beginning Of the
cultivation Of his intellect, does not like the
Idea Of getting living by the skillful use of
his muscles, In mechanical employment. 1t
does not account for everything to say that he
gets above it. It is enough that he likes the
line OF Intellectual development in which he
1nds himself, and has no taste for bodily labor.
SO he goes further, or, stopping altogether,
seeks some light employment demanding his
grade Of culture, or tries to get his living by
his wits. Mechanical employments are passing
more and more into the hands of foreigners.
General Armstrong, OF the colored college at
Hampton, in a recent search for blacksmtths
shops at the North where he might safely place
number of Indian lads, found no Americans
to deal with. Every blacksmith was an Irish
man.
fit is asked why there is not universal
effort made for the reinstatement Of the ap-
prentice-systems, welreply that there is a very
ugly lion in the way. An item of news which
has just gone the round Of the papers states
the case as it stands. A plano maker COM
planned that he could not get men enough to do
longed to society that had taken upon itself
to regulate the number OF apprentices he could
be perm ftted to instruct in the business. They
had Ii itedj this number to one utterly INSULT
M ND no
less. They had even cut down the number re-
Gently, so that there was no way for him but
to tmporq his workmen, already Instructed,
from abroad. In brief, there is a conspiracy
among ::society-men, all over the country, to
keep American boys out OF the useful trades;
and Industrial education Is thus under the ba n
put down by the strong hand Of the law. It is
thus seen that while the common school ma
turally turns the great multitude of its atten-
Gam.s s aMa a rGm manual those
no freedom TO DO SO, because great army Of
soctety-men stand firmly in the way, OverruI-
ing employer and employed alike.
The public hardly needs to learn that the re-
suit Of the indtspositt0n and inability to learn
trades among American boys is about as disas-
trous as can be imagined. 1t is found that in the
criminals who never learned trade to those
who are skilled wOrkmen Is as six to one. The
army of trampS who have infested the country
for the last few years is largely composed Of
whatever. These men, who beg at our doors,
are mainly men who never learned a trade, and
Who can handle nothing but shovel. A New
York clergyman, possessing a large family of
boys, recently declared from his pulpit that he
intended that every lad of his family should
learn some mechanical employment, by which,
In an emergency, he could get living. He was
right. 1t Is in the emergencies of nfe-t is
when men find themselves helpless and with
out the power Of earning money-that they
slip into crime, and become the tenants of
SO the American people must, sooner or later,
De driven TO the establishment OF industrial
schools. To learn how to work skillfully with
the hands must become a part OF common edu-
cation. Rich and poor alike should be taught
how to work, for it is quite as likely that the
rich will become poor as that some Of the poor
be, p ,or education which fails to prepare a
man to take care Of himself and his dependents
in life. We understand what to do with
criminals. We confine them and set them to
nails. The reform schools never leave out the
element of manual industry. Why is it not
just as legitimate to teach the virtuous how to
take care of themselves without crime as it is
vicious?
Indeed, there is no place where men can learn
to work 50 well as In schools, where they can
visited shop recently where hosting appa-
ratus is made blocks" or tackle as it is
called-but there was not man In the shop,
from the master down, who could explain the
principle and power of the pulley. They had
learned their business of some routine mechanic
who had no intelligence In the principles OF his
art, and they were obliged to confess to a
stranger that they were ignorant OF the nature
OF their work, and, consequently, without the
power to make any improvement in it. Now,
ifthe money spent in education really units
the great majority for the work of life. or
rather, fails to fit them for work, whyl should
we go further ia this direction? There are
practical difficulties in plenty. but the thing
has already been successfully tried in more
than one country, and this is an inventive ma
tion. The cost is the real dlfhculty-the cost
and the Indifference of the public mind. We
have made sort Of god of our common school
system. 1t is treason to speak word against
it. A man is regarded as a foe to education
who expresses any doubt Of the value of it.
But we may as well open our eyes to the fact
that IN preparing men for the work of life, es-
pecially for that work depending upon manuel
skill, it Is hindrance and failure. To learn
to make painted wagon Is almost to cover the
field OF the mechanic arts To draw wagon
upon paper In whole land in working parts, to
build and finish the woodwork, to forge and
file the iron work, to go through all the joinery
Of one.-Scribner'S Monthly.