The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1922-08-04
EDUCATION AT
WRONG ANGLES.
SO is INDUSTRY
(By Henry Ford in Dearborn indie
pendent)

If it is difficult or impossible to
learn during school hours what is
wrong with our educational methods
| (and the educators are loudest in
saying that much is wrong), it may
| be possible to learn during vacation
time What is concealed under school
routine may be revealed in vacation
! freedom. The benefit of school dis
cipline, if any, ought to be apparent
when opportunity comes to use it.
The first thing that school vaca-
| ton impress upon us is the helpless
conGition in which the schools leave
most boys. They have learned moth
ing that they are eager to practice;
| they have studied nothing that they
are eager to test. So far as their
own feeling goes, there is a gulf be-
| tween the interests of the classroom
and the interests of the world at
large. To the eyes of the boy, the
school and the world are not engaged
in the same things at all. His eX-
perience has not given him any prac-
teal hand-hold on the life that swirls
about him. AS a consequence, the
vacation period is not nearly so
pleasant for the boy as older folks
think it is. 1t throws him out of
the routine that exercised authority
over him. it does not throw him into
anything else but idleness. He is
largely left to his own devices. He
tries to play" but it is harder for
a boy to play" in this mechanical
age than it ever was before. After
his temporary gladness because of
his release from school, vacation be-
comes really a problem for the boy
of energy.
Sometimes he tried to work, to get
job somewhere, but there are not
many jobs for boys who can stay
only two months; and so we learn
another thing from vacations, name
ly, We nave no place for our boys.
We have not taken them into con-
sideration. We have rid ourselves
of them by placing them in school,
that is, by placing them in the at
mosphere and under the control of
the most practical element of our
population; and then we have for
gotten them.
Time was when there was a place
for the boy; he was his fathers sue
cessor and it was never too early to
begin to learn. The economic con-
ditions of fathers were such that
they could have their sons with them,
learning and helping and growing
up into the real life of their times.
From generation to generation there
was a bond of work as well as do
nestle ties running along in all fam
lilies. Farming communities were like
clans. In the towns it was common
to see business signs like these:
"John Macdonald and Sons" and
still later, "MacDonald Brothers"
and still later, macdonald Brothers
and Sons" On the doctors signs
there were often two names: "Thom-
as Higgins Smith, M. D. & DR.. T.
: H. Smith, Jr.," Families chung to-
: gether because they had been
brought up together and learned to
work together. If a man had a
farm, his boy was with him there.
If he had a store, there was a place
: for the boy. If he was contractor
in a small way, there was always
, something for his boy to do.
This has largely passed Men go
to their work in the morning; it is
! not their own place where they are
; free to have their boys; at night
, they are tired. or at least have little
: surplus enthusiasm for a boy-rais-
! ing job. And so the head of the
! house goes one way, and the boys
: Of the house their other ways. Less
, and less do boys follow the trade
Of their fathers. Boys formerly
, boosted that when they grew up
: they were going to be what their
fathers were. That was when boys
knew something about what their
fathers did. But now they don't
! know. In many cases fathers don t
: want their boys to follow them in
: trades or business; in many cases
! boys think that progress consists in
substituting white collars for their
fathers shop Overalls. However it
; may be accounted for, there is the
condition: there is little place for the
: boy at the really formative period
. of his life.
The school, of course, would fit
/, triumphantly into this period if it
! were not of a character training in
stitution. There were a lot of edu-
catiOnal fads we did not learn in the
old McGuffey days, and there were
, lot of facts that were not stuffed
into our heads, but there was one
thing we did learn and it was this
t there is such thing as character,
= As you turn over the school readers
/ of the day, that note is lacking They
= seem afraid of it. Our education
Y has become morally colorless. The
moral element has been smothered
d This fact. of course, is the last in
t dictment against the common run of
schools. If the schools only turned
out boys and girls. young men and
4 women. strongly equipped with at
= least a sense of the ideals of char
, acter. all the rest could easily be
cared for.