The Waterbury Democrat., 1931-03-16

a more intimate hitch-up between the schools and the economic man. darins of each American commun- ity or q goodiy portion of our youth will go jobless in the no-man' s-land of mass production. You can under stand how such a title intrigued me. But the results were even bet ter than I hoped for. There were only two formal speakers at the meeting, Dr George M. Wiley, assist ant commissioner of education of the state of New York and Miss Barbara II. Wright, supervisor of counselors of director of placement, Minneapolis public schools. Dr Wiley, in one of the most interest Ing, If one of the longest papers l ever listened to at a convention, gave stupendous aggregation of statistics founded on question naire sent to scores of schools in the state of New York asking those schools to report on just what all the former pupils in those schools are doing as their life work. The paper of Miss Wright also long and interesting. and illL strated by charts or hgures as large as school maps, was along the same line. She pre- sented an incredibly definite and complete picture of all the boys and girls of all the public schools of Minneapolis at their life work. You
 might ask, why is that so interest Ing? But I might ask in return, what ate we running a system of schools for if not to keep us as a community to take care of every en- trant to our schools not only in school days but when school is done. Dr Wiley and Miss Wright both laid special emphasis on the fact that we
 teachers are responsible not only Tor those who continue through school but for all who drop out by the way. I may add as an aside that Professor David Snedden of Columbia has just begun to preach a new doctrine to which I, as super intendent of schools, most cordially subscribe. Snedden says, We must as q nation not only teach the head and the heart, but also the hands.
 We must provide some way of guid- Ing our youth, even if we have to guide them officially by schools to the end of their teens and into the beginning of their twenties, or we are economically and vocationally lost as a nation." How is 1t to be done? Well, I don't exactly know yet. But let me get back to the "articulation" meeting in Detroit. I have begun to believe that 1t Is not the formal things of a convention but the by-products which count most. l always look for results after the formal papers are delivered. They came.
 It seems that Detroit has already begun this hitch-up between educa- tion In industry for which I have so far been looking mostly in vain. To be sure. we have 1t to some ex- tent in our employment agencies and In our more or less haphazard att tempts to get jobs" for our grad uates. But there arose on that hoor Detroit teacher (unfortunate- ly l was too interested in his testi- mony even to ask his name) who had successfully made match be- tween school and industry, We know that the chain store age sg here. Tn some respects it is worse than the stone age; but like the corpses which have reached the cemetery it IS here to stay. Well, this man, who IS a sort of liaison officer between the chain stores and the schools, i'hs SoHlelHiHS ueHn1te at last Tn the business not only of finding employ ment. He began with one little group of boys working in one of the kresge stores. He made arrange ment for them 10 go to school for two weeks. and then work for two weeks. They began with a mini- mum wage of fourteen dollars a week. They continued that year. l92S-29. and one of the group be- came store manager. The idea spread. and now I understand there are many such classes. And 1t seems that three or four other cities have tried the scheme and found it suc- cessful. Haven't we here the germ Of practical and permanent employ ment for at least some of our youth? Can't the scheme be tried Tor many other kinds of employ ment?
 wish I had time 10 write more. But l dare say l have tested the endurance of the board to the ut- most. There were half a dozen other major problems discussed at the convention, such as:
 q. The more efficient education )f teachers.
 b. The formation of classes for accelerated pupils.
 c. Research work in education.
 d. Character training in it's many