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many but only for the few.

What should be done for the great army of workers in our industries, who need at once the skill of the mechanic, together with sufficient intelligence and training to understand the directions of the professional engineers above them? Their number is legion. At the present time this country makes little or no adequate provision for their instruction. This is the realm of secondary education. Whenever we, as a nation, secure the proper point of view - unhampered by the ultra conservatism of the simon-pure schoolman - and approach the subject as the Swiss have done, from a practical, common-sense, industrial standpoint, and build our industries on the solid foundation of science, as exemplified in technical education. then our industrial supremacy will be assured.

The most ringing note on this subject in recent years was sounded by the Advisory Committee invited by the Trustees of the Carnegie gift to present a plan for the technical school which Mr. Andrew Carnegie proposed to establish in Pittsburg. After considering all phases of the question this committee recommended the organization of three schools to be called respectively, the Carnegie Technical College, the Carnegie Technical High School, and the Carnegie Day and Evening Classes for Artisans. The second of these schools was to be most radical. The Carnegie Technical High School as outlined would extend the scope of the present high school to include, besides the subjects ordinarily taught, engineering principles, steam engine and central station practice, pattern making, machine tool work, blacksmithing, steam fitting, surveying, machine design, instrument making, founding, photography, glass blowing, and such other subjects as the local industries might demand. The establishment of such a school would be the Americanization of the foreign trade and industrial school; if it were copied and made general, it would solve for us the question of secondary technical education.

In considering so radical a measure some important features should be emphasized in order to avoid misapprehension. The main idea in such a plan would be to take a boy just graduating from the grammar school and give him a good general secondary education, together with a training on one or more technical or trade lines. Such a scheme would be unsuccessful if the school were to be maintained on the usual high school lines of to-day; it would necessitate a highly elastic or elective plan of operation,

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because no individual could successfully study all the subjects offered. The routine courses in physics, chemistry, mathematics and drawing would necessarily be much shortened; but every progressive teacher knows that much of these subjects, as at present taught, is of little value in strictly technical pursuits. Each one can be revised and reduced to advantage. Much of the laboratory, drafting-room and testing work now done by the technical colleges could be incorporated into the courses, and we should have technical high schools as real "people's colleges." There can be no reasonable doubt that our technical education in the United States is weakest in this spot. In our high-grade institutes of technology we are training the commissioned officers of our industrial army, but the great mass of noncommissioned officers and privates are left uncared for. As indicated in the report of the Carnegie Committee, technical education may be said to run parallel with the general lines of education, and be divided into three parts, corresponding to the grammar, high school and college grades of the established system. The lowest grade is generally picked up in the shop by boys without special training, who have had merely a grammar school education. It is represented in Switzerland by the Sunday, holiday and evening schools for artisans. It develops the "practical man." The highest grade is represented by the polytechnicum and technica in Switzerland and by technical colleges and institutes of technology in this country. These represent the phase of technical education that demands thorough knowledge of mathematics and the sciences, and is distinctly professional in character. Between these two extremes lies the region of secondary technical education which is represented in Switzerland by the trade school and the specialized technical school. In the United States it is represented by more or less feeble efforts in a few trade schools, in a limited number of private institutions aimed to help the workingmen, and in night schools. Besides these instrumentalities there is another, arisen only within the past few years, which for pure bigness eclipses all other efforts the schools of correspondence. While our educators have been discussing mere theories and methods and have been building a Chinese wall about their so-called superb school systems, shutting out all who were too large to walk through the narrow gateways which they themselves had made, private enterprise has discovered

that half a million young Americans outside the walls were hungry for a technical education. Since they were forbidden to enter the sacred city, technical education was sent out to them. When the history of education shall have been written, no greater reproach will rest upon the educators of this decade than their failure to hear the call of this multitude for an education suited to their needs. Technical education is one of the greatest needs of an enlightened democracy and should not be left to private enterprise. With state normal schools where young men and women can be trained for teaching, with state universities furnishing instruction in agriculture, dairying and stock raising, besides training engineers and librarians - technical education supplied at state or national expense it is evident that we are irretrievably committed to the policy of providing technical education at public expense. If the farmer's son can secure at the state university free instruction in scientific agriculture, what good reason is there for depriving the son of a mechanic from securing free instruction in engineering practice, machine tool work, or any other industrial calling, at the city technical high school? The answer of the schoolmaster that the public schools are intended not to teach trades but to develop character, citizenship and general culture, is totally unsatisfactory. We must remember that in order to become a good citizen a man must first secure a livelihood by honest toil; that whatever conduces to greater industrial efficiency in the individual increases the national prosperity and indirectly improves citizenship. Technical education does this. Furthermore, if it is proper to train civil engineers, stock raisers, butter and cheese makers, librarians, and the teachers themselves at public expense, why should machinists, engine men, carpenters, plumbers and house painters be excluded? No cleavage line can be drawn. If technical education is a good thing for one class it is equally good for others. Hitherto the ranks of such workers have been supplied by the influx of foreigners trained abroad, aided to some slight extent by apprentices from selected industries. But we should not, as a nation, depend upon any such uncertain supply. We should follow the example of Switzerland and, recognizing the dependence of national prosperity upon technical education, set about the task of providing an education for all classes of workers suited to their callings. The technical high school, if properly equipped and put in

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close relationship with the trades and industries, will satisfy this national need; it will not be a copy of the European trade school, but rather an adaptation of the trade school which will be in harmony with American thought and American educational ideals.

Industrial warfare is not a new idea, but its sociological effect in giving impetus to technical education during recent years is noteworthy. We are familiar with martial warfare. Our newspapers for the past few years have been teeming with reports of battles, of warfare, of disease and death as the concomitants of war; we have been called upon to pay homage to the prowess which has conquered our enemies on land and sea; we are playing the part of hero-worshippers as we have not done since the Civil War. But in the midst of all this clamor there has been going on largely unknown and unnoticed the most bitter, the most relentless war in the history of the world; a war not for territory, not for naval nor military glory, but for wealth, for industrial supremacy a contest of brain with brain, skill with skill, economy with economy, technical training with technical training. It is only another example of the "struggle for existence." The war in South Africa or the Philippines is less fatal to the workingman than the ceaseless competition of similar workingmen in other countries. It is this unremitting rivalry between workers of the same class the world over that makes the cultivation of the workingman's powers by means of technical education an absolute necessity. That nation which neglects to equip its workmen with the armament of industry-technical education — will surely be defeated and become a decaying nation. These workers should receive immediate and thoughtful attention, for they are the bone and sinew of successful national and industrial life. That they should be technically trained through the medium of the technical high school is at the present time the greatest economic need of the American people.

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