The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-12-06
THE TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
INFORMATION BUREAU
By FREDERIC j. HAsKIN, Director.
MashinGton, D. c.
LEARNING TO WORK.

Washington, D. c., Dec. Sup
pose that you are a young man en-
gagged in the printing trade, having
begun as an apprentice and worked
up to the grade of journeyman print
err and that you wish to open a SHOP
of your own. 1t is assumed that you
have saved enough money to make a
first payment on a job press OF
course you will know all about your
machine and how to run 1T, because
that is your business. Now custom
err comes to you with a big job. He
wants to know what you will bid on
an issue of five thousand twenty-page
circulars advertising new incubator.
What is there in your experience TO
teach you how to figure the cost OF
that job?
Y, Ir customer also wants your adj
vice, as a professional, concerning the
makeup of his circular, so that il
will be most effective, and he further
expects you to read proof on 1t, and
put it into clear and forclble Engllsa
that will be Understandable to a child
and will not offend a person of Guilt
waited taste. What will there have
been in your experience as printer to
fit you for these requirements? Some
thing in the way OF chance opportu-
nifty, perhaps, but nothing in the way
of systematic tr aiming.
Decline French in Sleep.
learned is how to run your machine.
Furthermore. if you look about for
school in which to learn these things
which are necessary to your further
progress, you are unable to find it.
The public schools in your town will
teach you to read and write, which is,
of course, necessary to a printer or
any one else. But at that point most
of them depart from the line of neces-
sity, as a skyrocket leaves the horizon
They offer you a course in Latin, so
that you may spend your leisure hours
chanting the Odes of Horace in the
original. They offer you course in
botany, and after hard days work,
you can go out in the vacant lots and
rest your mind by tracing the rela-
tiohship between the common spinach
(creamed or plain) and the trailing
arbutus. They teach you French, not
so you can speak it; but so you can
decline irregular verbs in your sleep.
All of these things are offered to
you in the same guise that the Ger
mans hand us their frightfulness; to
wit, as culture. The purveyors of this
modern high school culture seem to
overlook the fact that there would be
just as much culture in a study of the
relation of art to printing, with special
courses in margins. types, and two
color processes, and that for you, an
ambitious young printer, there would
be a great deal more use in this latter
form of culture.
Vocational Training.
The federal board for vocational
education proposes to open in every
important city in the United States
schools which will teach the young
printer these very subjects; will give
him the chance not only to learn how
to be a journeyman printer, but to go
as far in the printing trade as his
brain and his nerve will carry him.
And not only the young printer is to
come in for this course of education
which is some use, but also the young
electrician, the young plumber, and
the young man in every other line of
! industrial work, including agriculture.
And not only the young ones but all
of the old ones who are not too old
to learn, will get a share of the bene-
| fits. The hours will be so adjusted
! that a man can hold his job while
learning something about the job just
ahead.
| This new boon in the educational
world is conferred by an act of con-
gress called the Smith-HugheS act,
| which was passed last February The
| board was organized last summer, and
! is Just now getting well under way,
with every indication that 1t is really a
/ live institution and not merely one
more board for the writing of reports
land observing of the sacred ritual of
| the Great Red Tape.
Real Money to Spend.
The most significant thing about
this board is that it has some real
money to spend. It does not merely
Investigate and advise" the state
| governments and the people, as do so
many federal boards. created by poll
ticians with a thoughtful eye on that
political Christmas tree, the United
States treasury This board actually
gets a little chunk of the money
which the people put up to spend on
schools for the people. For every
dollar it spends the state has to put
up another dollar. These funds are
to be used in founding vocational
classes in the public schools. The work
in each state which takes advantage
of the arrangement (Which will be al
of them) will be supervised by state
board The plans of this state board
will have to be approved by the fed
1 eral board in Washington, and the fed
eral board will also have number
of regional inspectors who will keeI
a watchful eye on the way the state
boards spend their money.
This, when you come to think of it
is a long step toward making the fed
era1 government responsible for the
education of the people. Heretofore
it has aided colleges and schools by
giving them tracts of public land
but it has had no strings on these
gifts: the states have been at liberty
to use them as they saw fit-whicf
was variously and not always to thu
best advantage. Now government i!
? going to supervise the spending o
every nickel of these vocational edu
cation funds; and this is welcome new
! to the common American who ha
learned that government is about TIL
one force in the nation that he cal
surely trust. Government may maxi
mistakes, but it doesn't make profits
will Teach All Principal Industries
2 The Washington board consists o
, the secretaries of agriculture, com
merce and labor and the United State
, commissioner of education, and tire
: citizen members who are supposed t
? represent the commercial, agriculture
. and labor interests. This board leave
the real work to a staff of trained ed
!. ucators, of which DIR. Charles A.fPros