Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1909-04-25
THE UNIONS AND
 TRADE EDUCATION

TRADE EDUCATION Latest Venture of Printers Organiza-
 tiOn-7O0 Students a Year-SOmc
 from Great Britain and Distant
 Colonies.
 During the past two or three years the American public has been treated 10 much comment and suggestion on the matter of trade education. In the industrial centers there are local so- cieties actively promoting this object, while the National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education is designed to advance the interests oi the new idea in national way.
 Meantime Americas oldest and most progressive labor organization the International Typographical Union-has formulated and launched a system of technical education that furnishes display, job. and all other compositors an opportunity to ac- ulre a knowledge of the principles underlying good typography, which can not be taught in printing offices. Owing to the diversified needs of it's
 
 printers in small country towns and those in the largest metropolitan offl- ces. the union was compelled to adopt the correspondence system, but the instruction is imparted along the lines of the best and most modern educational methods.
 The art schools have been levied on for the benefit of the working printer The principles of design and color harmony are taught scientifcal- ly. the students applying them to practical work (done in type or by pencil sketches) under the personal supervision of competent instructors. Heretofore education in typography has been by the empirical method, but the I. T. U Course aims at show ing the how" and why of good typography in scientific manner. The student first masters the under lying principles and then solves the trade problems submitted to him in the light of that knowledge. The ! keynote of the instruction is found in Ruskin's aphorism, Unity and simplicity are the sources of beauty" 1. The Course is sold for $20, which does not cover the cost of outfit. tui- tion, postage. etc. As purely con- mercial venture, it would cost at least $60, but the International Union in order to stimuAte and encourage the study of their art by printers, de- frays all advertising and other pro- motional expenses out of it's funds, and in addition gives a rebate or prize of $5 to each student who fin- l shes the lessons with ordinary dili- gence and intelligence. Many local unions supplement this by offering additional prizes to their members and apprentices working in union of i fees It is estimated that the total union expenditure on account of the educational scheme is between $S,000 and $1O.O00 a year.
 1 The I. T. U. Commission on Sup plement Trade Education, which has this work in charge, promulgated it's first advertisement asking for stu dents last March, and in year has secured an enrolment of more than seven hundred. These include expert printers as old as sixty, and youths of seventeen and eighteen. The ex- perienced competitors say they find much in the Course that is valuable the first graduate being one of the highest -salaried men working at. the trade.
 There have been schools of typo graphy in continental Europe and Great Britain for many years, the idea being given it's great stimulus in the latter country by the many-sided
 William Morris. who did so much 10 improve the appearance of the print ed page, out British employing print CTS who have examined the I. T. U. Course methods of instruction, as we'll as the secretary of the British Typographical Union (for many years a director of Manchester's famous