The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-06-24
rHr TRADE SCHOOL LArE.

l law. It says of it. "Every argument which has been used in support of the l project by it's advocates is ignored, and we are furnished with string of fal- lscies which ought not to pass unno- ticed by the friends of the school"
 From this statement the Courier gently but firmly dissents. Let us have bill of particulars rather than gen. eral denial. Is it a fallacy to say that eighty per cent. of the children of wage-earning taxpayers go to work be- fore or soon after they are sixteen or seventeen? Is 1t fallacy to say that this large expenditure will benefit a favored few while the money to pay tha piper Is wrung from all citizens? Is 1 1t fallacy to say that in no more than five per cent of the occupations follow 1 ed by taxpayers can instruction be giv- ell in such trade schools, except at an expense that Is practically prohibitory? | II 1t fallacy to say that few girls who work largely in corset shops, box factories and department stores will l get benefit from trade schools? Is 1t a fallacy to say the cost of education by trade schools Is likely to be excessive per capita because of large permanent outlay in buildings and plants, where boys are to work two or three hours a day for nine months of the year?
 Is 1t a fallacy to say that boy Is like | ly to develop habits of manual dexteri- | ty and industry more in a factory where he is under rigid supervision and strict competition with the stimulus of pe- cuniary advancement, working all day l than in school working two or three { hours day, where the character of his work has no rigid tests of experts? Is 1t a fallacy to say that public funds | thus locked up in fixed capital for the benefit of small portion of the middle | class of citizens will stint the lower schools and suck away from them the | life blood which they so much need, just as now the maintenance of college preparatory courses in small high schools for the benefit of half dozen or so of graduates of children of the l middle class robs the lower schools of | much needed help?
 The lack of apprentices argument which the Times and President Luther have urged so much as justifying very | large expenditure is unsound for two
 reasons. The first is that in the devel- opment of manufacturing industry dur ing the last thirty years the trained
 mechanic, skilled In all parts of his trade, has steadily given way to the
 skilled expert who can by machinery execute a few processes superlatively
 well. That is one reason why England has fallen behind the United States in the boot and shoe industry, because its manufacturers clunK to the old fashioned method of having one man make the whole boot instead of each man make a certain part. The second is that the self interest of manufactur-
 CTS, wherever they feel the need of all round mechanics, has secured such workmen without any expense to the public treasury by maintaining sys- tems of apprenticeshipe. All over the country firms, like the Brown and Sharp Machine Co.,, of Providence, Sargent & O., the Winchester Co.,, and the great electrical companies have done, are doing, and probably will continue to do this thing in far better way than any trade school with an enormous waste of the peoples money can do 1t. If manufacturers prefer the specialized machine opera tor to the old time, all round mechanic, they are probably better judges of what they want than Senator Luther or the Times.
 AS the Times is expert in detecting fallacies let 1t turn it's microscope on
 the gross fallacy lurking in thls sen- tence of its own editorial; That un- skilled laborers ought not to be taxed to furnish facilities which will enable their children to become skilled work CTS is an argument that needs no re- futation. The mere statement is enough" That may be sarcasm, but not argument. All laborers, skilled or l unskilled, as owners or occupiers of houses, are taxed. but very few, with more than two children can keep them at school beyond seventeen years of age. Yet the Times implies that their children in the second line is just as inclusive as the unskiled laborers in the first line. The gross fallacy of its argument will be clear to the veriest schoolboy if we throw it into the fol- lowing syllogism: First, all unskilled laborers are taxed; second, all unskill- ed laborers have or'will have children. seventeen years old whom they can maintain at trade schools; therefore,