The Cordova daily times., 1919-02-06

Arthur H. Miller, superlntenueut o- native schools for this division. is strong advocate of vocational schools throughout Alaska. Mr.. Miller has been in Cordova for several days, ana before leaving this morning for Cop per Center to look after the Interior natives. he furnished the Daily Times with the following communication on subject which he considers of vital importance to Alaska:
 We submit for your serious consld- eration the question whether our neglect of vocational and industrial training in our public schools has not a vital bearing upon the most serious problem confronting the American people today, viz., the labor problem.
 Who is going to perform what IS now classed as the common task? we can not all be proprietors or profes- sors. Our efficient school system, amply providing for scholastic training, mas overcrowded the professions, leaving a large number of our high school, col lege and university graduates with full cargo of classroom theories and nothing to do but go West and hire out as cowboys, farm hands or other so-called common labor. They have head full of aspirations and varsity lingo, but not even handful of prac- tical knowledge of how to make their living in the place circumstance has thrown them.
 High school, college and university atmosphere has offered them nothing to give them either relish or fitness for the farm or factory.
 Many enter unnecessary occupa- tions or crowds into the "above com mon labor" jobs, where either brain or body sweat is unknown. Perchance some become human float, ride the brakebeams for a few years, and finally make a hit writing Saturday Evening Post thriller of "A True Story of My Life from Uni versity to Adversity.'
 It is also worthy of note to observe the large number of scientific jimmy icfc nd fo o1y ,.,,1 lege men.
 Then there is the remittance man, not to mention the army of middle men and curbstone brokers.
 For the girls who graduate from our schools there is the haven of mar | riage, but this precipitates from Phi Betta Kappa to baking biscuits, which also presents difficulties like the serv- ant girl problem, the living in apart ments and taking your meals out, or perchance attending the cooking dem- onstration at the department store. What has this to do with the labor problem? Very much. And if we do pot solve this common labor prob l lem which we have reduced to the class of despised occupations it is likely to dissolve us.
 If We can elevate the common task
 to it's proper place of importance we sEall have made much progress to- l ward the goal.
 | That vocational education has dt- rect and important relation to labor problems is shown by the considera- tion given this subject by the Ameri- can Federation of Labor, as set forth in reports at a meeting of that or ganization in the year 1917 as fol- lows:
 Because the wage earners have been taught by life that equal edu- cational opportunities adapted to the needs of all are condition requisite to equal economic opportunities, they have been foremost in pressing de- mands for the incorporation of in dU3trial training and vocational training as part of our public school system.
 ''The old cultural ideals of educa- ton, dealing with the abstract only, denied to the great majority of chil- dren an education adapted to their minds and natures, and hence failed to fit them for the duties and possi- bilities of the work of life. There have come ideals of education that toach out of life and work; that deal with the concrete materials Of en- vironment and the duties and activl- ties of life. This education seeks to put into the lives appreciation of the significance of service performed, an appreciation that shall illuminate all of work and life."
 Additional evidence of the need or vocational training in our schools Dy no less authority than the commis- l sionar of at1ucatiOn Is found In e4-