The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1908-07-30
FROA OTHER PENS
VOCATIONAL SCHOOLS.

The decision of the school author
tiles in New York city to open two vo-
cational schools for children between
13 and Is, or thereabout, in order to
train them directly in some measure
for industrial callings may be said to
have been literally forced upon them
by the present educational situation.
Probably New York presents an ex-
treme case of great masses of children
leaving the elementary schools before
graduation from the higher grammar
grades. 1t is to be remembered also
that in New York the children of the
well-to-do are not sent to the public
schools in the same proportion as In
smaller cities. The figures, however,
furnish a startling exhibit to educa-
tors. The total enrolment the last
school year in greater New York's ele-
mentary schools was 34,254, yet of
that vast number only 12,S03 were
graduated in June. In Brooklyn the
graduates numbered $500, and in
Manhattan they were even less, 5,005.
The schools thus appear to be a
huge sieve from which the great ma
jority drop before the full elementary
course is finished. These children, of
course. at once enter some petty COM
mercial or industrial calling, or take
to the streets, there to seek an uncer-
tain livelihood or recruit the forces of
vice and crime. They are unframed
l1nQuSlrldlly LOT the Ddttlc VI lie, anu
when society allows the yearly horde
of half-grown juveniles to descend in
this manner upon the industrial and
commercial world, it assumes social
risk amazing to contemplate. The
problem they present has been vtgor-
ously attacked in the past two or three
years by DIR. Draper, the New York
state commissioner of education,
whose addresses on the subject have
been notable. His influence is undoubt-
edly being felt, for the decision of the
board of education in New York city
| to open two vocational schools Is In
| line with his uggestions.-Springf 1eld
| Republican.
HARD TIMES FOR "TRAMPs."
| The "tramps" referred to in the
| headline are not the peripetic person
ages of the road, but the itinerant car
| riers of the sea that have no regular
| business but look for cargoes wherever
| they may find them. They are the
craft that may load ivory one season
and fish scrap the next; that may
/ take the Easter lilies of Bermuda on
| one voyage and the guano of the South
| Sea Islands for the next charter. UP TIC
six months ago the tramp freight
| steamers of pretty nearly the whole
world were as busy as could be. AS
| soon as they could discharge one cargo
| of stuff they were ready to put in an
| other that was waiting, and the de-
mand for their services was greater
than the supply of tonnage available
| But there has come change. AT
| every large port of the seven seas there
| are units, tens or hundreds of 'tramps'
swinging idle at their rusting cables
| with no charters in sight. Not only
have North America, but South Ameri-
can, freights fallen of remarkably
since the panic of last October. The
| real hard times" in shipping circles
commenced with the new year, in 81
| far as the cramps are concerned
! The great liners between New York
Boston and Philadelphia and the Euro
| pean ports are doing the majority OF
/ the freighting business that is now be-
| ing transacted. but even these vessels
J are going out with room to spare; and
| meanwhile the "tramps" are dischars-
ing crews and going temporarily out
Of commtsston.-Sava News.