Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1922-07-04
The Education American oker-By Frederic j. Hasn

in the simplest language. Inoy are manu-
featured and sold cheaply SO that they are
within the reach If any worker. Among the
subjects treated are literature, science, soci-
ology, history, politics, labor and finance. The
aim is not to change mans vocation or to
help him increase his earning capacity, but
simply to provide him with general educa-
tional background which will enable him to
use intelligently the vote which he enjoys.
Perhaps the greatest cause Of modern in
dustrial unrest" declares Spencer Miller,
Jr., secretary-treasurer of the Workers Ed
vocational Bureau of America, lies in the fact
that in The highly specialized modern in
dustry worker does not get any creative
satisfaction out of his work. man may be
trained to fasten on the same bolt to the
same piece of machinery as soon as the law
permits him to leave school, and he may
stay at the monotonous work for thirty years.
GAS a result he has no sense of his rela-
ton to the industry of which he is part
and no sense of the industrys relation to
society. He stores up resentment, naturally,
because ha has no creative outlet whatever
He does not share in the adventure and en-
terprise of the organization for which he
works. This suppression of his creative i'm
pulse has been responsible for the psychosis
The laborer has developed. 1t IS manifested
throughout the industrial world in dissatis-
faction and disc ontent.
Incubus of FeudaIism
"The work of the bureau and of the work
ers universities is to provide these men with
the cultural background Whic.i will enable
them to use their creative energies. The
modern industrial world suff-rs from an in
cubus of the old feudal system perhaps not
so much in America as in Great Britain, but
even to a great extent here. Over there is
no free land, industry is highly centralized
and the workers are struggling under an in
heritance of old injustice.
"Under the feudal system and the early
trade system a man was apprenticed to a
certain work at an early age and he was
kept at it throughout his life. In former
times this man could find certain creative
satisfaction in his work becaus. he had the
entire making of it. But with the develop
ment of industry, specialization came about
and men were trained to do only one in
fnitesimal part in the creation of a finished
product from a factory. They had no educa-
ton and no training to make them use their
leisure in creative pursuits. They knew moth
ing about what was ding on in the world
$50 it came about that when they were
granted political privileges they were not
equipped to use them intelligently. That
is ,sually the case: the form Is usually
achieved before the substance. We had the
form of democracy, but we had not real de-
mocracy, because workers were not equal to
the bourgeoisie and higher bourgeoisie in the
fundamentals Of education
"What is actually working out with the
workers colleges is that among the 10000
900 workers in the western world there is
now vast number Of them who are taking
courses which give them q sound knowledge
o. the fundamentals of history, sociology,
finance, industry, politics, labor, literature,
and art. The colleges are not vocational;
they have nothing t do with quick means
to monetary success or higker wages. They
are cultural solely and simply. They are
founded on belief that the workers can
and will enjoy higher and better life and
that the whole of society will profit by it if
creative outlet is given to the man who works
with his hands,.