Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1911-01-21
INSTRUCTION
IN THE SCHOOLS URGED
Assistant Supt. Bruce Tells
Why CoIored Pupils Desert
Their Studies.

In presenting to a meeting of NJ Street
dustrial, trade or vocational education
High School teachers the pressing need
for industrial, trade or vocational educa-
ton for cOlored boys and girls between
the ages of fourteen and eighteen. Roscoe
Conkling Bruce. assistant superintendent
of schools, gave figures TO show that
hundreds of pupils have left school be-
tween the sixth and eighth grades simply
because there is no vocational training
in those years to fit the pupils for earning
a living. He asserted that the schools
were deserted in this manner largely
because of three influences:
Why Studies Are Given Up.
'First-The failure Of the present pub
lie school curriculum TO have studies
which will interest and hold pupils in the
grammar grades. Second-The element
of unrest which is inherent in boys and
girls. and which makes itself evident
from thirteen to fourteen years of age
in a repulsion from abstract work and a
yearning for physical activity Third
The necessity for individual support
which presents itself early IN life 20 a
large per cent Of the worlds population
These three, and other causes, leave be-
But, whatever the cause, these pupils
left school to begin their work of life
after having spent from six to ten years
in the public schools, where their training
has cost their parents from two to three
hundred dollars per year, and the Dis
trict of Columbia from twenty to thirty
dollars per year.
VERY little calculation is necessary to
see that an aggregate of from sl,4OO to
1850 has been spent for the education
r,f has
yet they must start life without being
specially fitted for any particular voca-
ton or calling. nor would they have been
had they stopped anywhere short of the
Business High School or the Normal
School. These young men and young
women recruit the drifting element in
our days population; they are the float
ers of our Industrial society If you
study the boys and girls who thus go
out you will see that the meaning Of
lie has not come to them They secure
employment somewhere, by chance
Callings That Have Passed.
Mr.. Bruce continued
II can remember that when our shoes
needed mending and repairing we al
ways carried them to the old colored cob
bier around the corner; but now the old
colored cobbler has disappeared: young
essary to modern shoemaking and re-
pairing come from Italy and Germany and
the other countries Of Europe which make
feature of trade instruction, and have
set up in his stead. and because they can
do quicker work and better work the
shoe-repairing business is lost to us.
Many of us remember the old whitewash
man, or, If you please, the young white
wash man. who whitewashed or blue
washed our walls. There Is no demand
for Whitewater now: we want our
walls papered and painted and frescoed:
but cur boys have not been trained to
meet the new demand, and the wall dec
orator. trained and experienced in the
schools of the old world, has come, and
dering, and so with many other vocations.
Urges Training in Trades.
Now, these are a few of the questions
that arise: What is the District of CO.
population of young people? How are
these children to be kept longer in school?
How are they to be fitted so as to play
their parts in life more efficiently? How
are they to be trained so that they may
help maintain the standing already at
tanned. and contribute to an advanced
standing of our people in the industrial
world? Can any one suggest a more
plausible a more feasible answer than
thiS-organiZe trade school?
why not offer an opportunity SO that
the boy who leaves school in the sixth or
seventh grade and ultimately drifts into
the job of Internationally not offer such
a boy an opportunity to learn the trade of
bricklaying or stone masonry? Why not
offer to the boy who ultimately becomes
plumbers assistant or a plumber S
laborer an opportunity to learn the
plumbers trade? Why not offer the boy
who finally settles down to the mortar
carriers job an opportunity to become a
plasterer? And where better can such an
opportunity be offered than in trade
school:
MY experience in the night schools
proves conclusively that there are num-
bers of young men and young women,
fifteen years Of age and over. who are
only too anxious either to learn trade
or to gain some technical information
that will tend to increase their bread
winning opportunities