Evening star., 1898-07-12
First Session of Important Depart
ment at Masonic Hall.
EDUCATION OF INDUSTRIAL CLASSES
Topic Of a Paper by Prof.. Snyder
Of Michigan.
GREAT AND GRAVE PROBLEM


streets, and after address by the presi-
dent Edward o. Session of PEORIA paper
treating of education for the industrial
classes was read by Prof. ]. L. Snyder of
the Michigan Agricultural College.
Prof. Snyder said that in general terms
the industrial classes include farmers, me-.
chanics and all other persons who work
with their hands for a living. During the
early history Of this country they COM
posed nearly the entire population, but in
recent years the demand for trained men
Tor the professions and other callings has
lessened the proportion of those engaged in
industrial pursuits But this sturdy stock
have been and are still the bone and sinew,
the stay, of this nation. They have made
this country what it is, and the future
welfare of this nation is in their hands.
If this country continues to be prosperous
the industrial classes must be intelligent
and contented The industrial conditions
have changed very much within the last
quarter of a century, and the condition of
the man who can simply work with his
hands is steadily growing worse in this
country, but for the man who is able to
put brains into his work there We're never
brighter prospects than at the present time.
More Education Needed.
There is only one way by which the in
dutrial classes can keep abreast of the
times and maintain the high position of
honor which has always been accorded
them in this country, and that is by more
and better education. The average school
life of the child in this country is but a
small fraction over four years. Children
belonging to our working classes receive
very little over three years of school train
Ing. This means that seventy-five per cent
of these children never get beyond the
third reader; fifty per cent of them, per-
haps never reach it. But one out of eight
including all classes, attends school after
the age OF fourteen, one out of thirty-one
after the age of eighteen and but five out
of each thousand enter college.
Great and Grave Problem.
The great problem to be evolved by edu-
Gators is how to KEEP this great body of
children in school for a longer period of
time. Our public school system, formed at
a time when education was scarcely
thought necessary for the men who toiled
for living, has steadily led young people
away from industrial pursuits. 1t makes
no pretense to meet the special needs of the
industrial classes. The object is not to
train students from the ordinary walks of
HE for the vccauons to which they natural
iy belong, but 1t rather seeks to stimulate
them to break away from present environ
ments and seek a calling free from manual
labor. If manual training and other prac-
teal subjects were introduced into our
courses of study two results would follow:
First, pupils would be induced to remain in
school longer, and, second, the knowledge
ana training given would better prepare
students for their life work
Our present courses of study are arranged
for the ten percent who expect to take
higher education. Would it not be better
10 reverse this order and arrange our
courses of study to satisfy the ninety per
cent who will not be able to enter the sec
ondary schools nor the university?
Domestic Science for Girls.
discu: sicn followed. led by Superinten-
dent 4. Mackey of Reading, Pa, and ther
followed a carefully prepared paper by
Mrs. Ellen NJ Richards Of the Massachu-
sets Institute of Technology, on Domestic
cience as a Synthetic Study for Girls.
II the youth must always begin again 1T
the beginning and, as an individual make
ms way through the epochs of the worlds
civilization, and if the aim of education
is to have the pupil reach the highest in
teliectual and moral standpoint of the
lace in the briefest time and with the
greatest economy of effort, said Mrs Rich
ards, 1t is evident that in the recapituIa-
ton OF the experimental knowledge Of the
race, slowly accumulated through one or
two hundred centuries, a thousand wears
of race development must be condensed
into one year of the child's life 1t there
fore behooves all who have to do with the
education OF children to search for the fun
damental Ideas of each race epoch as ami
maj, savage, early barbarian, later bar
barian and early civilization
according to the Romans, the highest
development of the animal mo5e Of
thought is reached by the child in the first
part of its second year. The long epoch
of savagery Is shortened for the child into
two or three years by the circumstances
of family life. He does not need to search
for subsistence, to provide shelter for him
self nor to invent language. His environ
nent does this and he only needs to cor
relate himself with it, to discover himself
as an individual.
The early barbarian epoch therefore.
comes to the average child at three to five
years; picture writing, symbolic Of dawn
ing religious ideas, the making of rude i'm
plements, the beginnings IF ownership.
Inc later barbarian ideas, use of sharp
tools, ornamentaion of articles for cere-
monlal obSerVances, acquisition of prom
erty, BEGINNING of government these be-
long to the years from five to eight
Schemes That Are Neglected.
The epoch of early civilization. including
the beginnings of arts and of manufac-
lures, OF industrial processes and the con-
sequent growth of ideas of house life and
architecture, has, it seems to me, been ne
elected in most schemes of education. l
beieve that from eight 90 eleven the child
should be allowed to quicken his mind as
the race was stimulated, by the pleasure
of producing results by his own labor, and
that these results should be more or less
which they Were developed that in the
time spent by child in painfully toilins
ever fine stitches in one bit of patchwork a
large doll might be most effectively dress
ed in barbarian fashion. showing the effect
of color and form and ideal, and that this
rapidity of action in coarser material will
lead to wider insight into race meanings.
From eleven to fourteen the differentia-
ton of sex occupations begins as it did in
the progress of civilization. Women re-
tired indoors, spun, wove, embroidered
altar cloths, priests yestments and tapes
tries. They were finding out natures re-
sources and applying them to personal
use; in short. all fundamental industry had
threads in this epoch and influenced all ac-
tivity.
A Real Foundation.
OF the seven fundamental ideas as given
by Morgan, education has taken cogni-
zance of language, government and re-
ligion and neglected house life and archi-
lecture. and to great degree family life
and subsistence. and yet the latter are the
foundation On which the former are build
ed. The child thus misses a most heipful
7,"ius which comes from the building
up from the abundant resources Of nature