In the first place, does anybody suppose that the street-car men, or the teamsters, or the garment-makers care how many boys learn bricklaying or blacksmithing, or any other trade? On the contrary, they claim for their own children the right to learn any trade they see fit to. If the bricklayers' union, or even the national brotherhood of bricklayers' unions, should object to a school of bricklaying, it seems reasonable to suppose that they must stand almost alone in their contention. Labor unions and labor unity are two very different things. There are certain fundamental principles upon which the different unions are strongly united, but the trade-school question will not be one of them. We must draw a line between trade unions and organized labor; the latter is not likely to take a stand in opposition to trade schools.

Let us probe still deeper and see whether it may not be that even the individual unions will find trade schools acceptable. Possibly such schools will prove to be a medium thru which the number of apprentices can be regulated in a way that will be agreeable to all concerned-an institution, in fact, in which labor and capital may sink many of their differences. Lacking direct evidence of observation, let us take a hypothetical case—one that will not come about in the near future, yet not entirely in the category of miracles, Suppose that, by some wise beneficence, there were trade schools enough. scattered over the land, and that employers and employees were agreed that any boy who might wish to be employed in a mechanical occupation must first spend at least two years in an appropriate school. Would an arrangement of that sort tend to regulate the number of apprentices and would the results be beneficial to the boy, to his employer, and to the labor cause?

First, the business of instructing apprentices would be taken from the shoulders of the journeyman and placed in the hands of specialists, where it belongs. This proposition needs no extended discussion. All are agreed that modern conditions make it practically impossible for journeymen to devote any time worth while to teaching apprentices. The nation seems convinced that our only hope lies in the direction of suitable schools, where boys may receive the same careful and all-around instruction that they used to acquire before the decadence of the old-time apprentice system.

Second, every mechanic knows that a large proportion of the young men who begin apprenticeships fail to serve out the full four years. I have no precise statistics on this point, but it seems safe to say that not more than onehalf complete their time. Those who fail have kept out an equal number of worthy young men who were entitled to the opportunity. If all were required to spend the first two years in a trade school, those unfit for mechanical vocations or for the trades they have chosen would be eliminated more effectively and with an avoidance of friction. The management of trade schools being my sole occupation, the only one I ever had, I venture to offer the trade unions a word of advice. If they wish to regulate-restrict, if they will-the number of apprentices, they will find a most effective and advantageous means. of doing so by seeking to bring about some such arrangement as I have outlined,

requiring every apprentice to spend his first two years in a trade school. It would not be necessary to place a limit upon the number of schools or the number of boys admitted to them. The thing to control would be the output and not the input, and the output could be controlled by setting suitable standards. Let the labor interests have a hand in their management. Few will object to any standards they may see fit to set, howsoever high, for the purpose of weeding out the incompetent mechanics in favor of the intelligent, skillful, workman. There will be no complaint if the boy fails to meet high standards, provided he has had a fair opportunity. The opportunity is all that is demanded and the trade-school question will never be settled in the minds of the American people until that is accomplished and every boy shall have a fair chance. Under present conditions the labor unions are charged with restricting the number of apprentices by force and compulsion, and by the same means maintaining a maximum scale of wages and a minimum rate of work done. The plan that I have proposed would accomplish a proper restriction of numbers by putting a premium on skill and intelligence. It would accomplish all that the unions accomplish now, and incidentally it would disarm their critics.

Third, if it were reasonably certain that trade schools would lower standards of workmanship, trade unions would be justified in opposing them-and so would everybody. It is true that most mechanics regard with contempt, or at least with considerable doubt, the quality of instruction given in mechanical schools. Many of them think it is not possible to teach in a school anything substantial in the way of a trade. This lack of confidence is not unjustified. It is only too true that educators have not met, or even approximated, the view-point of the bread-winning masses, and the result has been a constant procession of boys who have prematurely dropped out of school. Even the manual-training schools have not leaned sufficiently to the practical side. Their motto, "we learn by doing," needs revision. We learn by doing, but we do not learn by half doing or by making believe doing. We do not know anything that we have not actually experienced. Now that the theory of formal discipline is going out of fashion, the manual-training high schools are showing more of a tendency to get into touch with the industrial world. Out of them I look for the future trade school to evolve, thru an improvement and extension of their work in a way that will win the confidence of the entire community. There is no logical reason why culture and useful knowledge should not be imparted at one and the same time.

Fourth, just as trade schools will not be allowed to lower standards of workmanship, so they are not likely to reduce wages. Four years spent in a school, earning nothing, will represent an investment on the part of tradeschool graduates, and in the long run they could not afford to accept wages below the current standard.

So much for the prospective attitude of labor interests toward trade schools. On the other side, the thought that trade schools will assume, or

long maintain, a position hostile to trade unions can be disposed of in a single sentence. It is absurd to suppose that they will take a stand against their own organization, many of whom have joined and many more will join the unions. This is not a theory, but a practical condition that I have met in my daily work for a number of years. I would now find myself in an embarrassing position in my work, if it were not that the schools under my direction have always maintained a stand of neutrality on all labor questions.

To contend with all the difficulties confronting it, and to do, even approximately, what is expected of it, the future trade school must have the united support of all concerned, and to this end it must serve the interests of all-the boy, the calling to which he seeks admittance, the employer, the community at large, the state, and the nation. It must preserve harmonious relations everywhere. It must not be dominated by any single interest or by any set of interests. It must be absolutely neutral on the labor question, just as it must be absolutely unsectarian. Labor unions should be invited to take an active interest in them, even to the extent of appointing committees to examine into the work of the school and the qualifications of its graduates. Nothing less than actual contact will answer the purpose; put before the average union as an abstract question the matter of their attitude toward trade schools and there is no telling what fate it would meet at the hands of their lodgeroom orators. The two schools under my direction-the California School of Mechanical Arts and the Wilmerding School of Industrial Arts-have graduated a fairly large number of young men in mechanical trades and most of them have entered the unions. Heretofore it has been our policy to avoid agitation of the tradeschool question among the unions, for two reasons. First, we have felt that we should stand on neutral ground and not take any action that would tend to influence our graduates one way or the other in the matter of union affiliation. Second, we preferred not to force the unions to premature action, having confidence that time would dispel any doubt or fear that might exist among them. Now, however, I believe the time is ripe to extend to them an invitation to join hands in this movement, and I now suggest that the National Educational Association extend such an invitation to the National Federation of Labor. This will not please some of the employers, of course, but let me tell you that competition and other circumstances will prevent employers, as a class, from being overgenerous in their immediate relation to trade schools, notwithstanding their present willingness to promote the cause. This does not refer to those bodies of patriotic and unselfish men who have taken the initiative in recent movements in favor of industrial education, but to the average employer who may be counted on to rate trade-school graduates as low as he can. With both employer and employee actively connected with them, it is not unreasonable to look forward to trade schools as a medium for correcting many existing evils and for adjusting many existing contentions between labor and capital, whereas, with either side predominating in their management, they will tend only to widen the breach. The trade school that is conceived

in a spirit of antagonism cannot survive; it must not be an institution in which labor and capital may perpetuate their differences.

Besides the necessity of safeguarding these important features, there are other attributes that trade schools must possess and other dangers that they must avoid. They must not break too harshly with established conditions in the educational field; they must borrow the best elements from our own established schools and from those of other countries, and must not neglect the accrued experience of past centuries. They need courage to cut loose from wornout traditions, and yet a middle course will prove a safe one.

They must be well articulated with the grammar school-altho there follows from this as a corollary the most serious consideration of all. Under our present scheme of eight elementary grades a child, beginning at the age of six should finish at fourteen, and usually does finish at about fifteen. Entering a trade school at fifteen he should graduate at nineteen, and many would be only seventeen or eighteen, which is far too young for their acceptance as full journeymen. This phase of the situation is admirably handled in the report of the Massachusetts Commission of Industrial and Technical Education, which appeared a year or so ago and which has been so widely and so favorably noticed. The years from fourteen to eighteen are therein called the "wasted years" in the lives of most children, because during those years they are drifting about in fruitless and often degrading employments, which are the only occupations open to them until they become old enough to begin apprenticeships in the higher classes of trades. The New York Trade School, as I have mentioned admits young men between the ages of seventeen and twenty-five only. That, you see, is clearly a matter of expedience, and does not go far toward solving the real problem. The commonwealth of Massachusetts having put its finger on the sore spot and having set out to find a remedy, the outlook is far brighter today than ever before.

In fact, this movement in Massachusetts is only one indication of what seems to be a general awakening thruout the land. A few months ago there was organized a National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education. It has representatives present at this meeting of the National Educational Association for the purpose of promoting the general movement and to urge the next step in their program, which is the organization of state committees thruout the United States. Another movement having an important bearing on this subject is the Social Education Congress, recently organized in Boston. That association also has large plans and promises much, if one may judge from the high character of the papers presented at the initial meeting. The national importance of developing industrial education beyond its present status was also urged by President Roosevelt in his last message to Congress.

The time is ripe and there is a splendid opportunity for this newborn department of the National Educational Association to take up this work as an important part of its province. You asked me, Mr. Chairman, to come here prepared to offer suggestions concerning the function to be assumed by

this department. I would suggest that, among other things, we take it upon ourselves to serve as a clearing-house for the National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education, for the Social Education Congress, for associations of manufacturers, for the National Federation and other organizations of labor, and for all other interests and elements that will patronize us—not omitting our chief concern, the grand army of American boys and girls.

TECHNICAL EDUCATION IN HIGH SCHOOLS AND
COLLEGES

ARTHUR H. CHAMBERLAIN, ACTING PRESIDENT OF THROOP POLYTECHNIC
INSTITUTE, PASADENA, CAL.

There are many qualities essential to success and to the mental and moral growth of the individual and of the state. Honesty, responsibility, simplicity, judgment, leadership-these attributes are at the very foundation of our welfare. But the culmination of all the virtues, the final aim of the sum total of our faith and our endeavor is the doctrine of service. In the bustling, moneymaking, ambition-loving, progressive life of this twentieth century, when the conflict for place and for power takes the not always imaginative form of a hand-to-hand encounter; when money too often counts for more than the man and selfishness and greed seem to overshadow the finer qualities of human nature now it is that the value of service stands out clear and distinct.

In the last analysis the whole civic state is built upon the gospel of service; all moral and social virtues, all standards of right living, all ideals of life, and all rules of conduct bear a close relation to and find their roots in the spirit of true service. It is the beginning and the end. It is the rendering of true service that makes possible the establishment of moral and educational institutions and it is the necessity for service that makes imperative the need everywhere for organizations that ennoble and uplift.

Service is another word for life. It is the spirit that prompts us to aid our friend, our brother, our neighbor; to seek out those who have fewer opportunities and are more unfortunate than ourselves and lend assistance where it is most needed. To be of service to our fellows we must be not thinkers and dreamers only, we must be doers as well. It is not enough to be willing to do, to help, to assist; we must actually take hold, and work, and accomplish results. As Edward Everett Hale says, "Look up, and not down; look forward and not back; look out, and not in; and lend a hand.' Education is the process of training for service. Whether we contend that education should train for citizenship or for life; whether it is designed to fit for participation in the world's activities or in life itself; whether it should aid in the unfolding of the human powers or furnish that which shall make possible a complete development; whatever we may determine the purpose of education to be, we are lost in the vagaries of terminology and mean only a training for service.

The high school and college offer large opportunity for such training and