The Goldfield news and weekly tribune. [volume] (Goldfield, Nev.) 1911-1947, 1914-03-21
Vocational Training and Miners

VOCQIlODQl 1 TQI7I1X uIlQ lXl1ETS
Discussing educational matters a few weeks ago, says the Mining
and Scientific Press, we mentioned the contradictory expressions of
opinion by Mr.. Nicholas Murray Butler, president OF Columbia Uni
verity, and Mr.. 7. w. Robinson, as regards vocational training. Mr.
Butler sees in a dangerous agency working toward a stratihed social
order and the extinction of individual initiative On the other hand
Mir. Robinson believes that it results IN great r industrial efficiency
and increased truth, morality, and attention to civic duty. This con
hnt Of opinion illustrates how little has really been determined regard
ing the best way to correate education with life. In the old days of
household industries vocational training was obtained at home. The
school could well afford to devote itself exclusively to stimulation of
the intellectual. life Of the pupils, because the other work was done. AS
the factories grew up the school held its own, but the specialization OF
his father had acquired while learning how to earn his living. The
very absence of such stimulus led him to value it the more, and Amer
lea has come to be known for the lavish expenditure made upon schools
Yet no rejecting person feels sure that the public school system is do
ing for future citizens what may rightly and properly be expected.
We have received from Mr.. G. Mem. Ross a thoughtful letter
discussing this fact and calling attention to the Virginia City School OF
Mines, a outsrowth Of the "Comstock Class of Mining and Metal
lurgy, of which Mr.. Ross was the originator. We have had oc-
casion previously to commend the work of this school and to express
the wish that others OF its type might be founded. 1t is a school for
working miners and is designed to afford to the men in the mines an
opportunity to learn about the things that concern them most in their
daily life. 1t is akin to the continuation schools Of the German sys-
tenn, though its pupils do not necessarily come to it with the same
thorough preparation. In Illinois, with the hearty cooperation OF
miners and operators. the state university is taking up the work of
miners institutes, and in various parts of the country there is a feeling
of distinct need OF a closer relation between the schools and the lives
OF miners as well as OF mechanics III general. 1t IS not that more col
leges OF mines are wanted, for there arr more than enough now.
More engineers arc trained than can be absorbed by the industry,
but the man i'll the ranks does not get the attention that he deserves
1t IS not too much to say that private correspondence schools afford
now the most effective means that we have for meeting the needs OF
the miners, though the larger manufacturing companies make pro-
vision for helping their men to learn. 1t is we'll known that the great
majority OF the students i'll the public schools never get beyond the
grades. They so into the mines, mills and factories with only the
clements OF an education, and they face there a wholly new discipline
and a wholly new set of ideals. In an effort to hold the boys at the
same time to bring shop and school together, the University OF Gin
cmnati has arranged with owners of large plants for a cooperative
course One set OF scholars works in the shops in the morning and
in the schools i'll the afternoon, and exchanges places with another set
at midday. In this way there is no interruption OF routine, and yet
school and work re taught at the same time. Mr. Ross proposes a
similar plan for all lines OF work, but would extend it to the lower
grades as well as the high school and college. This in accord with
sound pedagogy, since Madam Montessori has shown that such train
ing should be begun at the earliest possible moment.
MIR. Ross points out that i'll each community it would be possible
thus to give at the same time both vocational training and a general
education to each child. The suggestion is worthy of the most care
ful consideration OF professional educators. TO our way Of thinking
lit is the absence OF vocational training that endangers the present free
rise OF a workman from the ranks to leadership. There is nothing
which would seem likely to make a man more class conscious in the
dsagreeable sense of the term, than the knowledge that he had, some
way, been cheated out of the learning and broad training that would
permit him to rise from the dead level. Some years ago the farmers
woke up to the fact that the schools and colleges were not doing for
them what they had a right to expect. The result was the system OF
agricultural colleges short courses, farmers institutes. experimental
farms. and the whole system OF agricultural education which is the
newest and in many WAY the most interesting phase of the American
educational system. The nst attempts were crude. and the system is
lar from perfect even vet, but it has abmdanty justified itself in re
turns both of money and human character. If Mr.. Ross suggestion as
a whole is too radical for us now. why. 1T least. cannot theminers have
what the farmers already have:
r. r-l Co. D-.i -. ii &C., II. = I n