The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-11-21
Progress Of Industrial Education
By Frederic J. Haslkin.
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 be arning s15so per week. or an average of s9.So per week for the nine years. The probability Ia that ha will continue nine years more at the $t5.S0 per week. If he had continued to study in . manual training school until he was eighteen. and then at cost of from s1.50D to S2.5o0 spent four years in & technical school. he would. at the age of twenty-two. start on 2 wage of thirteen dollars per week. At the age of thirty-four. while his shop friend was making s15.s0 he would be earning s44 a week. By the time they were both thirty-four. the technical school man would have made $5.o00 more than the shop trained lad. After that the potential value Of tho shop-trained man to the state would be Sib,S00. and that of the technical school man s44,o00. 6 difference of s2s.200 in favor of the latter. Suppose each of the 10.000.0 .00o young people of the United states was to get the came advantage of his shop trained neighbor. The potential value to the nation would amount to nearly three billion dollars.
 It is estimated that at least seventy hve percent of. the women who enter gainful occupations enter those which are not desirable from the stand point of future income. They have no hope of ever getting more than $500 year for their work, because they have no training for better positions. The anual training school offers them an education which will enable them to choose a profitable in- dustry and to steer clear of the un- skilled industries. As there are 5.00o,000 women workers in the United States. the importance of in- dustrial education for girls is evident Several trade schools for women have kept records of the work of their students. and find that they are gett- ing from $1o0 to $200 a year more for their work than those who had no such training.
 The spread of industrial education in the United States has already been remarkable. There are approximately 1,500 cities having 1000 population and over. which have organized systems of public schools, and manual training Is taught in nearly half of these. In 1890 there were only thirty seven cities which had courses In manual trainig. Tn 1894 thcre wore but fifteen independent training schools. and they had less than four thousand students. In 1908 there 113 such schools, with fifty thousand HLuICNNSt dOOGb OA Wh0AAa were boys.
 The number of schools and pupils is thought to have increased at least twenty percent since those figures were gathered. Thero are more than thirty thousand students in tho man uaI training departments of high schools. he figures for 1908 wlIi probably show that in the United States there are 100000 students talk ing courses in manual training. Yet this is but a. very small percentage ceiving this kind of instruction. It Is estimated that there are nearly 25,000- 900 children of public school age in this country, so 1t can be seem that there is still a wonderful lot of work for the Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education to do.
 The people of the United States arc spending annually only about twenty sevens cents out of every hundred dollars of their wealth on the cause of public education. The total ex- country amounts to less than $500. .00o- 900. Only two-thirds of the children of the United States of school age are enrolled in the public schools.
 Less than five percent of the child rem of the United States ever get be- yond the public schools. The others must be content with what they learn there Only two percent ever get to college. The others must have them- selves fitted for life without such advantages. Perhaps three out of every four of them must mako their living with their hands instead Of with their heads. It becomes i'm portant. therefore. that they shall have such training as will ft them for the work.
 Germany attrabutes her success aR q commercial nation to the industrial education of her children. England is also putting forth extra efforts to train her children for some useful oc- supation Germany and England have both discovered that while the three R,s are the fundamentals of an edu- cation. their possession is not alone sufficient to give their pessessor position in which to win livelihood Manual training has materially les sened proverty in those countries. Copyright. 1908. by Frederic J. Has
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 TomOrrOw The United states
 Supreme Court