Detroit evening times. (Detroit, Mich) 1921-1958, 1944-06-30

DEAR SIR:
THE articles that recently have been appearing
L in The Detroit Times in exposition of the
cooperative, or wOrk-experience, plan of educa
ton are most timely. The Detroit Times is to be
commended for having used its columns so freely
to furnish the general public with this opportunity
of becoming acquainted with that plan.
AS one who is interested in the general SUBJ
ject, | assume that the following observations,
based on experience, will be welcome.
Taking the country by and large the schools
during the past two years or more have geared
themselves to the war program
They have realized to the full that their main
effort at the present time is to TRAIN MEN TO
WIN THE WAR. That they have done and are
doing remarkably good job in meeting the de-
mandS Of that situation is recognized on all sides.
The schools haUe not, hoDeUer, lost sight of
the truth that their main function, AFTER THE
WAR, UiH be, as it has allOays been, to promote
the DEVELOPMENT OF CITIZENS tUho may be
rOorthy of a just and durable peace.
THE articles in The Detroit Times point to the
l. fact that human beings live in work.a-day
world; that boys and girls as they approach ma
turty should be trained in SPECIFIC SKILLS-
and TECHNIQUES through which they may be
enabled to earn suitable LIVELIHOOD; and that one
means toward that end which the upper schools
might employ to GREATER ADVANTAGE than
heretofore is the cooperative plan, introduced by
Dean Herman Schneider at the University of
Cincinnati quarter-centuly ago.
Promising further observations by the state
n,ent that any type of training is only single
element in the educational process, important
it is, venture to declare that the junior college
executives of California particularly aliUe to
the possibilities INHERENT IN THE ADOPTION
of this plan.
Some six or seven years ago, committee
appointed by the statewide body of these eXecu-
tives (the California Junior College Federation)
studied the implication of the plan exhaustively,
rendered reports and recommendations, and laid
the groundwork for programs in large number
of these colleges, through and by which, when the
war broke out real beginnings had been made in
the Introduction of So-called terminal curricua."
FURTHERMORE, several years ago, the ma
i tional organization of junior colleges (the
American Junior College Assocation) took cog
nizance of the movement, and appointed COM
mittee which has been steadily at work throughout
the whole period to date ACCUMULATlNG
DATA and motivatng LIVELY INTEREST in
the principles procedures and methods involved.
1t may fairly be said that such Roadway had
been attained BEFORE Pearl Harbor in the
spread of these ideas that Junior College eXecu-
tives are awaiting only the end of hostilites to
RENEW THEIR ATTENTION to the EXTEN
SION and EXPANSION of the curricula in their
institutions that lend themselves to the plan.
To make the point concrete:
San Francisco Junior College as much as
eight years ago set up a terminal program of
PRACTICAL TRAINING for young men and
women DESTROYS of entering the hotel and res
taurant industry.
Through the hearty cooperation of regular
phase of their course of Instruction. to enter serU-