The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1918-02-05
THE TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
INF ORMATIOM BUREAU
~ FREDERIC }. HAsKIN. Director.
Washington. ID. C.
EDUCATION FOR DRAFTED MEN
Educators Have Formed a Plan to
Supply the Government with
Trained Workers.

Washington, Feb. 1.-The war de-
partment has under consideration
plan for supplying its need of tech
nicaliy trained workers by sending
large number of drafted men TO
school.
The government is being assisted in
the development of this plan by
large number of educators from all
parts of the country who have come
to Washington to help solve educa-
tional problems growing out of the
war Already 121 institutions for
technical training have offered their
plants to the government. If the plan
advocated by the educators is adopted,
these institutions, together with IN
dustrlal plants and schools at training
camps will be organized into great
educational system where drafted men
will learn trades ,and will be paid by
the government for their time while
under instruction. This training Will
be given not only to men who have
had some experience in the trades
necessary mental and physical quail
fications to- become proficient. 1t will
mean that the conscript who is will
ing to study and able to learn may get
valuable educational advantages from
his period of service.
The need for some such plan of
training has been growing steadily
more evident. The census of men
now in the cantonments has shown
that not nearly enough skilled work
ers are found among the conScripts to
fill the needs of the army, while many
of those who have had some expert
ence in needed trades require further
training before they can be used
Some oe the trades needed are repre-
sented not at all, or by negligible
numbers among the drafted men. A
further difficulty in the training of
some of these is caused by the fact
that the equipment necessary for Civ
ing instruction is very scarce. and can
not be found outside of technical in
situations and Industrial. plants.
The federal bureau for vocational
education, which has been orga nized
under the Smith-Hughes act to CO.
operate with the states in founding vo-
cational training schools, has tried to
meet the need for technically trained
men by establishing evening classes in
schools thruout the country. But
these evening classes while of great
assistance, are necessarily unable to
produce thoroly trained men in short
time. And thoroly trained men is now
one of the most pressing needs of the
government. Secretary Baker has
written a letter to all of the division
heads in the war department directing
them to lay before the federal board
of their needs in the way of trained
men, Letters received by the board as
result of this order already show a
need for 100000 skilled workers and
these letters refer to only a part of the
trades in which men are required.
The educators who have offered the
services of their schools and instruc-
tors to the government argue that this
evidence shows the necessity of some
extensive system of training under "a
centralized board of control. They
urge the creation of such a board by
act of congress, and the appropria-
ton of funds to pay the operating ex-
penses. The federal board for Voca-
tional education is to act as a clear
ing house for all work carried on by
the schools
If this plan is put into effect, draft
ed men who have had some experience
in trades or who are especially fitted
for and DESTROYS of learning them, in
stead of being sent Immediately to the
training camps, would be detailed to
the various technical schools and in
dustrial institutions, where they would
devote all of their time to learning
trades under military discipline, and
on government pay and subsistence.
1t is stated that unless men are paid
to devote all of their time to study
they cannot be efficiently trained in a
short time.
Representatives of the 121 technical
schools which have offered their
equipment and services to the govern
ment, state that if this plan is put
promptly into operation the regular
work of these schools can be ter
minated by May first, and their plants,
dormitories and instructors made
available for training army men. It is
estimated that these schools can edu--
cate an average of 500 men each, and
that by October first. they alone could
furnish the army with about 10000
trained men.
In the case of some of the trades
needed by the army, there is no
equipment for training men either at
the cantonments or in the schools,
while owing to the scarcity and high
price of all industrial materials this
equipment would be very difficult and
expensive to obtain. Gas welding and
vulcanizing are given as two examples
of such trades. 1t is believed that
these trades can best be taught by
detailing drafted men on pay and sub
sistence to industrial plants where
classes will be maintained between
shifts of work.
This plan for supplying the army
with trained men is one which has
been used by the navy department not
only during the war but before. The
navy enlists a man, details him to a
school or industrial plant for special
course of intensive training on paw
and subsistence and puts him on duty
as soon as he has obtained the neces-
sary proficiency. 1t is largely due to
this system of navy schools that the
navy has not had the difficulty ex-
perienced by the army in supplying its
needs for technically trained men. OF
course, owing to the smaller person.
mel of the navy, and to the fact that
the expansion made necessary by the
war was not proportionately so great.
its problem has been a much simpler
one than that faced by the war de-
partment.
The army has also made use of this
plan on a small scale, and now has