The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-08-10
TECHNICAL SCHOOLS.
A Branch of Education in Which
Great Britain ExceIs.
Y. E. Curtis, in Chicago Record.

w. E. Curtis, in Chicago Record.
A great public benevolence in which Eng
land is far in advance of the United States
is her technical school system for the edu-
cation of the laboring classes in the useful
trades and applied sciences. 1t is a fire.
quent and often q Well-1ounded criticism
of the high schools in America that they
ruin boys for mechanics and girls for serV-
ants by educating them beyond their sta
ton, and turning them out into the world
with false notions of the value of book
learning and no useful accomplishments.
These faults are being gradually corrected,
but in England the popular idea is to edu-
cate a nation of mechanics and train the
hands well the mind. When boy
has obtained thorough knowledge of the
rudimentary branches he is sent to a tech
nical school, where he is taught q trade,
and where as his natural tastes and skill
line of industry for which he shows the
greatest aptitude.
There are similar schools in Chicago and
other cities, but they are comparatively
few, and are generally established and
maintained by private benevolence. In
England such institutions are a part of the
public school system, and are found In al
most every village and in all the factory
towns The municipal authorities of each
community concern themselves in assisting
the sons and daughters of the working
class to attain special knowledge and skill
in the trades and industries to which that
particular town owes its prosperity. In
Manchester, for example, which is the
greatest textile market in the world, there
are a large number of such schools, sup
ported by the taxpayers, to educate oper-
atives for the mills. They are taught de-
signing, spinning, bleaching, dyeing, weav-
ing, chemistry, physics, metallurgy and
every art and science that pertains to the
peculiar manufactures of that city. so that
the next generation of operatives will sur
pass in skill and understanding those who
have gone before them.
In Birmingham the technical schools are
devoted to the metals chiefly. In Glasgow
a new generation of Shipbuilders and iron
workers is being trained at the public ex-
pense with practical as well as a theo-
ret1cal knowledge of the industries of the
city and the demands of the markets in
which It's products are sold
These technical schools are largely sup
planting the apprentice system, which was
almost universal in Great Britain few
fitted to do the work of journeyman as
soon as he graduates, and has a consider
able advantage over his father for the
reason that he has a knowledge of the
theoretical and scientific side of the trade
which the former could not obtain during
his unpaid service as an apprentice. There
are hundreds of thousands of boys and
girls being educated in the public schools
Renee will be master mechanics in it's
shops and factories, and their intelligence
and knowledge will not only serve to ad-
vance their own welfare, but the wealth
and the prosperity of the nation.
The general government and several of
the States in our own country are main
tanning agricultural colleges for the educa-
ton of farmers on the same principle, for
we are supposed to be an agricultural ma
ton, Great Britain is a manufacturing
nation 1t should be said, too, that agri-
cultural schools are as scare over here as
mechanical schools in the United States.
but when we consider the growth of our
mechanical industries and the keen COM
goods 1t is time hat we were educating
a nation of mechanics as we'll as farmers.