Richmond daily register. (Richmond, Madison County, Ky.) 1917-1978, 1921-07-05
ENGINEERING NO
LURE FOR YOUTH
Where Are Our Mechanics to
Come From7 Asks the Amer
lean Society.
FOR CONTINUING SCHOOLS
Proper Educational Facilities Denied
to $4,000, 900 Persons, One Man Says
Half the Children Leave School
Without Real Education.

Chicago.--Which is to blanche
boy or the job? The boy of few
years back always went through the
engineering stage Of his ambitions.
That was just before the military ca
reer hit him, and years before he
yearned for the life of the big game
hunter.
The boy Of 1921 seems to have
strayed Oft the track. He displays so
little enthusiasm in the life of the en-
gineer that it's becoming a mOmentous
problem. Members of the American
Society of Mechanical Engineers are
worried over the question, Where are
our mechanics to come from?
Apprenticeship no longer appeals to
the youth of today. Trade schools are
all right, but there are not enough of
them.
The solution appears to the society
to be Il happy medium between the
school and the shop-some of each, not
all out of books, nor all hard, physical
work. When middle course is per-
fected the engineers believe that the
boys interest i'm the science will re-
vive.
Seventy per cent of the youth of
the United States lack the natural abil
ity TO go through high school, accord
ing to III. j.. Miles of the National AS
ISOLATION of Manufacturers.
Mr.. Miles made the statement in a
plea for better cooperation of the in
duStries and the schools. He said that
of the 30 per cent that are able to
ura 10 from hiOh Snhnn1 1nSc than
half have ability enough to go through
college.
No Real Education.
Half OF the children of the country
leave school forever without any real
education" he declared. 1--WE should
make equal provision for those who
cannot go to college by setting up for
wage 'earners and others in connection
with their employment or otherwise
the equivalent of high school and col
lege education adapted to their circum-
stances.
An authoritative investigation of o.
O45 high schools indicates that only
1000 of those investigated profess to
teach ,civics, and only 1876. less than
3 per cent of the total, use accredited
texts, and these are used in the third
year of high school, therefore avail
able mostly to students destined for
college. In the remainder of the high
schools, social studies mean talks on
current events with Indifferent mate
rial as basis.''
Mr.. Miles, who has been conducting
survey of the nations educational re-
sources and needs, said that proper op-
pOrtunity for education has been de-
prived 3S,OOO,OOO persons, and that the
national intelligence Of the nation
stands indicted for that reason. He
praised the former German empire for
its educational system, and declared
that, despite its apparent disregard for
society as whole, 1t has shown the
way toward real education.
Compulsory Schools.
"By a survey of 1O5 of Germany's
Leading industries, IS per cent of the
men in foremost places in managerial
and technical departments were little
working boys who quit school at
fourteen added Mr.. Miller. '"They
grew up with the right sort of com
pulsOry continuation schools and later
selectively had special technical train
ing with the assistance of their en-
ployers and otherwise. Most of the
graduates Of Germany's technical col
leges served. under the leaders from
work schools and higher vocational
institutions of which there are prac
tically none in democratic America"
Future leaders of American indus
| try will be recruited from colleges and
workshops linked together by a co
operative educational system, accord
| ing to Prof Dugald c. Jackson of the
| Massachusetts Institute of Technology
who supported the theory of Mr.
1 Miles