The Abilene reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1883-1888, 1886-02-11
EUROPEAN TRADE SCHOOLS.
Institutions Devoid of Mental and Moral
Influences.


The most valuable feature of manual
training-its mental and moral inllu-
ence-is very imperfectly understood
in this country, and not at all in Europe,
except in Russia, if indeed it be there,
where the laboratory method of in
struction in the mechanic arts which
bears the Russian name originated.
The trade schools of Germany, France
and England grew out of industrial
rivalries. They are the product of
struggle for commercial, mercantile
and manufacturing supremacy. They
have their root in the merchants grim
law of necessity-the necessity of I'M
derselling his rival. Their purpose, for
example, in France, is to make a doll
for cent less than it can be made in
Germany, and in Germany to make
pen-knife for a cent less than it can be
made in France; and they have the
sanction and support of government,
because they increase the tax-paying
capacity of the subject in the exact
ratio of the increase of his productive
power.
The trade school is the vestibule of
factory or shop, and the trade-school
pupil is an apprentice-an apprentice
hundredfold better trained than the ap-
prentice of the old regime, but still an
apprentice. He becomes cog, a
wheel, pinion, lever or shast in
machine adapted to certain productive
processes. And the more efficient he
is as part of the machine, the less power
he has to determine the share he shall
receive of its products, and the less
capacity wisely to dispose of the fruits
of his labors.
Germany has more trade schools than
any country in the world, but her
people are thereby neither enriched
nor made contented. Every year large
numbers of her labor class bid adieu to
tie the father-land and flock to these
shores, and the drain of the flower of
the labor class of population is an
irreparable loss of national vitality.
The trade school at its best is spe-
cial school which does not aim to give
general education. 1t is hence one
sided. In establishing or aiding it the
State places upon its graduates the
brand of inferiority, since it reserves
for the universities and other institu-
tions of learning its highest honors.
The trade schools of Europe are per-
petuating a system of caste in education
which it is the chief mission of the civ
ilization of this age to destroy. They
graduate carpenters. blacksmiths and
turner's, but they fail to equip men for
an equal chance in the battle of life. In
Holland there is a government commits
sion whose duty it is to procure situa-
tons for the graduates of trade schools,
and to ''watch over them for several
years" The graduates of properly Or
ganized and conducted schools will
create situations for themselves, and
show by the ability and faithfulness
with which they discharge the duties
thereof that they require no watching.
There is disposition in this country,
in some quarters, to initiate the
European system of trade schools.
Prof. Robert II. ThurstOn, of Cornell
University, recommends (D drawing
and the modification of methods of in
struction in the direction of the sciences
in existing schools; (2) the institution
of special courses of instruction, and
the foundation of trade schools,
''having for their object the teaching
of the principles and the practice of the
leading industries in localities in which
such action would be justifed;'' and (3)
the creation of one or more technical
colleges.
There can, of course, be no objection
to the establishment of trade schools
for special purposes; but if Professor
Thurston's proposition comtemplates
the limitation of all technical in
struction to such special schools, it
involves the introduction to the United
States of the European special or caste
educational system-weaying schools
in Massachusetts, ship-building schools
in Maine, schools of mechanism in
Pennsylvania, and agricultural schools
in the valley of the Mississippi. Schools,
they should be called, for the promo
ton of caste, and not merely the caste
of modern Europe. but the more rigid
caste of ancient Egypt, which ''com-
PEELED the man to follow the occupation
of his father, to marry within his class.
to die as he was born," thus making of |
society an organized injustice.
1t is pleasant to turn from the NAL |
thusian theory of the law of life-that |
brutal theory which necessitates the |
starvation of hundreds of men that |
one man be well fed-to the theory of |
and gentleness-that bright |
theory which contemplates the saliva
lion and elevation of the race through |
the development of the best aptitudes
Of all its members. The Russian
American system of manual training
promotes the humane theory of life,
because U it dignifies labor, (2) it is
4 powerful intellectual stimulus, and
(3) it is the great discoverer of truth.
and hence a moral agent of incalcu-
liable force. 1t should therefore be
made part of every system of popu-
lar education. For if it is confined to
the colleges and universities, few will
avail of its advantages, since by the
time the student shall have reached
that advanced stage of his course
he will have contracted a feeling of
aversion toward labor, and will have
'o-called learned professions. The
small number of students enrolled in
the several mechanical art annexes of
5he colleges and universities of the
United States confirms the truth of this
observation. There is, | believe, only
1ne exception to this rule-that of the
Manual Training School of the Wash
ngtOn University of st. Louis, Mo,
which has an enrolment of 229
students. That school is, however,
practically indeDendent of the parent