Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1909-03-23
FOR TRADE EDUCATION.

local branch of the National So
ciety for the Promotion of Industrial
Education has been formed in New
York City to embrace school men. man
ufacturers and others interested in the
establishment of schools for vocational
taken up by the body. public opinion
will be fostered, and legislation will be
promoted.
Superintendent w. II. Maxwell OF the
New York public schools. addressed
the society at recent meeting on the
need of vocational instruction and the
difficulties to be met. He said in part
First. trade schools are needed.
They are needed for the sake of our
industrial wealth and efficiency. They
are needed for the sake of the boys and
girls of this city. The best preparation
for a trade is the manual training high
school where. in connection with Gle
ments of a liberal education. students
receive instruction IN drawing. In tools
and in applications of art to industry.
But these schools breed engineers not
journeymen. Hence we need schools to
give training that will shorten and en-
rich the period of apprenticeship for
the journeyman.
Second. such schools must be a part
of the public school system. and must
articulate directly and closely with the
elementary schools, to the end that
boys and girls between IA and Is. or at
least 16. may obtain that training
which will enable them to be of use in
a shop: because it is in the public
schools that the boys and girls are
found who need such training.
Third. to carry out this articulation.
elementary schools should have man.
ual training to discover these boys and
girls who have an aptitude for me-
chanical pursuits. Brains are as neces-
sary in mechanical pursuits as in law
or theology
Some of the things that stand In the
way of the change Superintendent
Maxwell contemplates in his address
are. he says:
"F'irst, apathy of manufacturers who
have shown little desire to obtain really
skilled American workmen, as. for eX-
ample the firm which established a
school to train apprentices and found
that they were taken away by other
firms as soon as they had learned a few
tricks of the trade.
Second, apathy of the financial au-
thorities of the city. who have just cut
out the amount asked for by the board
of education for shops and Kitchens
and given only $4,000 for a trade
school, 1t is encouraging. however to
remember that the first annual appro-
priation for manual training in Brook
lyn was only $4,000. If we make good
use of the small appropriations, the
demonstration will secure larger appro-
priations in the future
Third the foolish or nebulous argu-
ments of many of those who have been
advocating trade schools. Arguments
have been foolish when they became
pleas for the elimination of existing
high schools and the conversion of
these institutions into trade schools
While the advocates of trade schools
have been talking the board of educa-
ton has established and maintained
five prosperous and useful evening
trade schools which are patroniZed
largely Ny apprentices. These evening
trade schools confine their operations
chiefly to the building and machininsts'
trades. Shall we stop there? What we
need farther is we'll thought out plan
of co-operation between the school and
the manufaeturer, such as that at
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