Waterbury evening Democrat., 1908-05-14
INDUSTRIAL TRAINING.
Fitchburg to Try It in the Public
 Schools.

terest is evinced in Fitchburg in a plan to incorporate industrial train ing in the public schools by a system of cooperation between the schoolf and manufactories. The plan was dis cused at meeting of the Fitchburg Iron Workers association the other night, at which Dean Herman Schnei- der of the University of Cincinnati described the system in vogue at that institution Members of the titchbure Manufacturers club and other repre- sentative organizations were present and it is said that the superintendeni of schools and high school principa in Fitchburg approve the plan. The mayor announced that at the next meeting of the school committee he would appoint a committee to confer l with committees from the Iron Work CTS association, Woman's club, Manu- lecturers club and other organiza- tions
 1 In regard to this plan it should be stated that the National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Educa- | tion has recently appointed com mittee of ten to work out an arrange ment of trade schools as an integra. | part of the public school system. The chairman of this committee is Dl Henry D. Pritchett, president of the Carnegie foundation, and Dr w. H. Maxwell and Dr T. M. Ballet of New York, Dr Paul Hanus of Harvard uni versity, Leslie w. Miller of Philadel- phia, Elmer k. Brown of Washington and other educators generally promi- nent or having special aptitude in the technical side. make up the commit | tee. The advocates of this plan O. industrial training express much in- terest in the workings of the Univer- sity of Cincinnati's engineering course, which was described at the Fitchburg meeting. The courses are so arranged that students work in factories during the summer and all ternate weeks of the school year, ev- cry other week being devoted to study at the university. The course coveri six years. Applicants are admitted into the shops in July. By September the foremen of the shops decide which are the most promising workmen, and these are set to work in the theoreti- cal courses. They are paid 10 cent; an hour for shop work for the first six months, with the increase of {; cent an hour for each following hal. year, There are now 50 students working under these conditions.
 Before attempting to devise a plan for developing system of trade schools in connection with our public schools, educators, parents and tax payers should give very careful con- sideration to the question whether i, is at all feasible to attempt to fit the boys and girls for the trades by such an arrangement. It should be borne in mind that many of the very edu- cators who are working to promote trades courses in the public schools as opposed to independent industria schools, put very little faith in vaca. tional schools of any sort, considered as a substitute for the apprentice sys
 tenn. In other words, they look upon such courses more as a means of gen. eral discipline than as a practica
 preparation for work in the shops Virtually they deny that industria education can be made to do the things that is claimed for 1t.
 To illustrate this, 1t is of inter- est to quote from an address deliv- cred in Boston last November by Leslie W. Miller. president of the i, Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art, who is one of the committee of 10 already referred to. Mir Miller said: Trade high schools such as have already been estab-
 lished or proposed. cannot differ
 much from manual training, tech nical, industrial. or any other kind of high schools with an industrial
 purpose more or less clearly de- fined. for the reason that they must he high schools first and trade , schools afterward: their pupils will
 be those who want. and can afford 10 go to a high school. and their in- structors will be high school teach CTS. They will he a little more spe.
 cialiZed with reference to the char
 acter of certain groups of trades
 but neither of these will amount to very much Tn differentia.ing the
 work of the trade high school oi the future lif 1t comesl from man, ual training or technical high
 schools of to-day. There Is no req.
 son why they should" Again he
 says: "To he quite frank, too.
 doubt very much whether the kind of specialization on the work of any
 trade which would be possible in a . public high school. even if We could
 get the boys to take 1t. would lead
 to results that would count for much
 when they came to enter the shops
 as workmen." After referring tC
 the comprehensive way that indus
 trial education is dealt with in Ger
 many under state supervision. MI
 Miller concludes: "lf our pride h
 the public school system and oui
 duty toward it can he stated in term,
 comprehensive enough to include all this then industrial education is public school question before any
 thing else: but if this reference oi
 the question Is to mean that tho
 oyervorked woman who Is wesrinf , out her life as a grade teacher Is C
 he our main dependence in further
 ing a work of such magnitude a'
 this. then we are witnessing th'
 commission of a tremendous mls
 take"
 We quote these-views of Mr Mile uaN.