CITIZENS OF 
 
 TO-MORROW 
 
 THE CONTRIBUTION OF 
 THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS TO 
 NATIONAL PREPAREDNESS 
 
 Bulletin 31 
 
 PUBLIC EDUCATION ASSOCIATION 
 OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK 
 
 September, 1917 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2014 
 
 https://archive.org/details/citizensoftomorrOOdewe 
 
CITIZENS OF TO-MORROW 
 
 The Contribution of the Public Schools 
 to National Preparedness. 
 
 COMPRISING 
 
 Addresses delivered at the Annual Meeting 
 of the Public Education Association by 
 
 JOHN DEWEY 
 SAMUEL GOMPERS 
 OWEN R. LOVEJOY 
 
 on "Learning for Earning, or the Place of 
 Vocational Training in a Comprehensive 
 Scheme of Public Education," and an 
 introductory statement by 
 
 HOWARD W. NUDD 
 
 on the Public Education Association as an 
 illustration of what the Citizens of To-day 
 can do for the Citizens of To-morrow in 
 the way of National Preparedness. 
 
 Bulletin 31 
 
 PUBLIC EDUCATION ASSOCIATION 
 OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK 
 
 September, 1917 
 
THE PUBLIC EDUCATION ASSOCIATION 
 
 OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK 
 
 WHILE there has long been throughout the country a 
 general recognition of the necessity of readjusting 
 public school practice to fit children more adequately 
 to meet the economic and civic demands of modern social life, 
 it is but natural that the importance of a well-trained and effi- 
 cient citizenship should be more fully appreciated in a great 
 national crisis. As the New Republic so well expressed it edi- 
 torially a few weeks ago, the children are in a real sense "the » 
 second line of defense" for the country. America must, for its 
 future safety alone, if for no other reason, see that its future 
 citizens are guaranteed not only the right, but the necessary 
 educational equipment to obtain and enjoy a full measure of 
 the "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness" for which our Re- 
 public was established, and through which only it can endure. 
 To achieve this end in a rapidly changing civilization, it is 
 essential that the old limitations of the traditional school, 
 which make for narrow class education through confining the 
 program almost exclusively to academic training, be removed. 
 The curriculum must be broadened to include a wide variety 
 of work, study, and play opportunities which appeal to indi- 
 vidual tastes and not only enable children to grow in health 
 and intelligence and to discover for themselves, through trial 
 and error in practical life situations from the earliest years, 
 the particular things for which they are best suited, but also 
 to secure later the specialized training in their chosen fields 
 which will equip them to fill with the utmost efficiency their 
 places in the community life. 
 
 New York City, through its courageous departure from 
 time-worn tradition during the past two or three years, has 
 not only made great strides toward this desired goal in its own 
 
 3 
 
school system, but has stimulated communities throughout the 
 country to similar efforts. The widespread reorganization of 
 the elementary schools on the work-study-play plan under the 
 direction of Superintendent Wirt of Gary, Indiana, the exten- 
 sive provision of prevocational courses for older children in the 
 intermediate grades, the introduction into the high schools of 
 the cooperative plan between the schools and industry under 
 the direction of Dean Schneider of the University of Cincin- 
 nati, and the increase in day continuation and evening school 
 facilities for adults and older children who have left school to 
 go to work are truly epoch making when viewed in the light 
 of the size and complexity of the New York school problem. 
 To weld these elements into a harmonious program and de- 
 velop them to their highest efficiency in conjunction with the 
 courses already offered in the high and trade schools is a task 
 that will strain to the utmost the energy and ability of the 
 school authorities for some time to come. 
 
 The Public Education Association will concentrate its 
 energies, as in the past, upon cooperating with the authorities 
 in the prosecution of such a program. As an important factor 
 in accomplishing this end, we look forward with particular 
 hopefulness to the reorganization of the administrative machin- 
 ery of the school system on January first next under a small 
 board of education. We have maintained for years, and recent 
 experience has confirmed the soundness of our contention, that 
 a small, effective board of education, which can discuss funda- 
 mental questions thoughtfully and formulate policies without 
 recourse to oratory and endless debate based to a large extent 
 on misunderstandings and conflicting committee action, is fun- 
 damental to the full accomplishment of practically every re- 
 form in the city school system. Because of this conviction we 
 have worked unceasingly, through bulletins, newspaper arti- 
 cles, public conferences and cooperation with City and State 
 authorities, to create intelligent public opinion in favor of such 
 a board and to secure the legislation necessary to establish it. 
 We regard the success of the Lockwood Bill this year, which 
 was prepared and furthered by the State Department of Edu- 
 cation and which provides a board of seven for New York 
 City, as due in no small measure to our persistent work during 
 the past three or four years. 
 
Events have steadily strengthened our belief in the fun- 
 damental importance of this reform. The personnel of the 
 Board of Education during the past two or three years has 
 been of the highest calibre. Public-spirited men and women 
 of national reputation for vision and broadmindedness in edu- 
 cational and civic affairs have dominated its action. Many of 
 them have devoted an unusually large part of their time to the 
 consideration of its problems. Under such circumstances one 
 would ordinarily expect old weaknesses to disappear and vigor 
 and efficiency in the prosecution of far seeing policies for im- 
 provement to ensue. But such has not been the case. The 
 Board has, it is true, formulated a comprehensive program for 
 enriching the school curriculum, as outlined above and has se- 
 cured from the Board of Estimate and Apportionment over 
 twelve millions of dollars for the alteration of old buildings 
 and the erection of new ones to make possible the reorganiza- 
 tion of congested school districts on the duplicate plan. But, 
 endless red tape and delay in initiating action and carrying 
 out details have resulted in tying up practically all of these 
 funds and kept the Board from achieving more than a small 
 fraction of the results one would ordinarily expect from the 
 time and effort expended. For practically two years, six mil- 
 lions of this amount have been available, and yet only thirteen 
 per cent has been expended. Such delay is clearly due, not to a 
 lack of earnestness or ability on the part of the members of 
 the Board of Education as individuals, but to the system under 
 which they are compelled to operate— to the fact that a board 
 of forty-six, no matter how competent its members may be, 
 is too large to constitute an effective administrative unit. Be- 
 cause of its unwieldy size, the Board has broken itself up into 
 some eighteen committees, with overlapping functions and an 
 established practice of directly administering details, instead 
 of seeing that the expert employees of the system look after 
 
 them. As a consequence there is not, at the present time 
 
 after two years and a half of experiment— a single school in 
 which the duplicate plan has been introduced that has the full 
 physical equipment for which funds have long been available. 
 There are, also, more children at present attending school less 
 than five hours daily than there were over two years ago, when 
 the Gary plan was first introduced to eliminate part-time. It is 
 
therefore obvious, from this single illustration, which could be 
 paralleled by many other instances, that if substantial progress 
 is to be made during the coming year toward providing the 
 facilities essential to a comprehensive program and to the real 
 solution of the part-time evil, a more forceful and effective ad- 
 ministrative unit must be provided. The Public Educat.on 
 Association believes that a small unpaid board of seven mem- 
 bers as provided in the Lockwood Bill, will do this, and stands 
 ready to cooperate in every way with the authorities in work- 
 ing out the organization through which such a board can 
 accomplish its purpose most effectively. 
 
 In addition to devoting our energies to the perfection ot 
 this fundamental reform, we shall continue our efforts to se- 
 cure, not only the extensive introduction of the duplicate plan 
 into the city schools, but also the continuous enrichment of the 
 facilities in the schools so organized. We have frequently 
 said, and are pleased to take every opportunity to reiterate, that 
 we are not primarily interested in the economic aspects of the 
 duplicate-school organization. We are primarily interested m 
 enriching the school life of the children ; and it is only because 
 it has been clearly demonstrated that a greater variety of edu- 
 cational opportunities and a greater flexibility of program can 
 be secured for each dollar expended through the introduction 
 of the duplicate-school plan than through following traditional 
 methods that we have become interested at all in the financial 
 aspects of the question. Because of this fact we believe that 
 the funds thus far expended and thus far appropriated for the 
 introduction of the Gary plan, however extensive or desirable 
 the new facilities provided may be, mark but the beginning 
 of a sound financial program for continuously enriching the 
 work and improving the physical conditions of the public 
 schools in the future. 
 
 There are many other ways in which our experience will 
 enable us to assist the authorities in developing a comprehen- 
 sive scheme of public education. We shall, for example, con- 
 tinue to cooperate as heretofore in extending the visiting teach- 
 er service in the public schools, because we believe that the 
 opportunities which this service offers to handle adequately the 
 difficult, or unadjusted, child are essential to a complete reali- 
 zation of the possibilities comprehended in a program like that 
 
outlined above, which seeks to equip all children to till effi- 
 ciently their places in the community life. We have main- 
 tained a visiting teacher staff of our own for over ten years, 
 in order to demonstrate fully the value of this work, and we 
 shall continue to do so until it is established on a firm founda- 
 tion by the authorities themselves. 
 
 The Association will always lend its active support to the 
 work of the Bureau of Attendance, School Census, and Child 
 Welfare. We have taken an active part in every phase of the 
 evolution of that work and have always regretted the extreme 
 and unjust financial limitations under which it has been com- 
 pelled to operate. There is nothing more fundamental in a 
 great school system like that of New York than a sound pro- 
 cedure for locating and keeping tab on all children of school 
 age through a continuous census or registration, and for seeing 
 that all such children attend school regularly until they are 
 legally excused. It is equally important that this work be 
 carried on from the point of view of child welfare rather than 
 from the point of view of police compulsion. The children 
 who come to the attention of this Bureau are of the type who 
 in adult life become liabilities rather than assets to the State, 
 unless their individual peculiarities and environmental limita- 
 tions are carefully studied early enough to permit the applica- 
 tion of remedies which will enable them to become helpful citi- 
 zens, rather than harmful delinquents and criminals. The 
 present directors of the Bureau, the Association believes, have 
 the right attitude on this point, and deserve the support of 
 every thoughtful citizen who is anxious to make the public- 
 schools in every sense an instrument of real civic prepared- 
 ness along preventive as well as creative lines. 
 
 For the same reason, we shall continue our efforts to pro- 
 vide adequate facilities for handling the mentally and physic- 
 ally defective children in the public schools, who require spe- 
 cial care and special methods of treatment. No more import- 
 ant service can be done for the normal citizens of a state than 
 to relieve them of the burden of caring for the handicapped and 
 misfits by making such persons as far as possible competent 
 to care for themselves. 
 
 We shall also continue our efforts to provide adequate 
 kindergarten facilities for the youngest children in the city. 
 
 7 
 
We have always recognized the value of the kindergarten as 
 an instrument not only for educating the little children but 
 also for changing the point of view of the entire school sys- 
 tem. The ideals comprehended in the Gary, or work-study- 
 play, program are practically the same as those of the kinder- 
 garten as we know it today adapted to the needs of older 
 children. The kindergarten has thus been a leavener in the 
 real sense of the term, and its spirit should continue to perme- 
 ate the entire educational program. 
 
 It would be interesting, if it were necessary to demon- 
 strate further the willingness and ability of the Public Edu- 
 cation Association to assist the school authorities in their diffi- 
 cult task, to outline additional ways in which the Association 
 has contributed to the welfare of the New York City schools. 
 It established, for example, the first evening recreation center 
 in the public schools and assisted materially in organizing the 
 first school luncheons. It initiated as one of its own commit- 
 tees the work now carried on independently by the School Art 
 League and, in cooperation with the Natural Science Commit- 
 tee of the Hunter College Alumnae, the work now conducted 
 by the School Nature League. It has made comprehensive 
 surveys of vocational guidance and of recreation and com- 
 munity centers in New York City and is about to publish the 
 report of a survey of private commercial schools which was 
 made with its active cooperation by a joint committee of rep- 
 resentatives of leading civic organizations under the chair- 
 manship of Mrs. Sidney Borg of the Mayor's Committee on 
 Unemployment. It has maintained for years a school in the 
 Tombs for boys and young men awaiting trial. In fact, there 
 has been hardly an administrative or budgetary matter or a 
 piece of contemplated legislation of fundamental importance 
 to which the Association has not given its critical attention 
 and for or against which it has not taken decisive action. 
 Many of these activities are treated more fully in the publica- 
 tions enumerated on the cover of this bulletin. 
 
 Because of these services in the past and the assurance 
 of their continuation in the future, the Association takes great 
 pleasure in presenting as one of its bulletins at this time the 
 following addresses, which, while they deal specifically with 
 only one aspect of the broad problem of education, nevertheless 
 
 8 
 
indicate clearly ,ts magnitude, and suggest many important 
 ways m which an organization of public spirited citizens like 
 he Public Education Association can further in the immediate 
 future the cause of public education. They were delivered at 
 the annual public meeting of the Association, on February 
 twentieth last, at the Hotel Biltmore. The purpose of the 
 program was to present from three significant angles the broad 
 principles and policies which call for careful consideration in 
 preparing a program of vocational and prevocational training 
 as a part of a comprehensive scheme of public education They 
 are published at this time because the questions they raise 
 constitute one of the most difficult and most pressing problems 
 confronting the school authorities at the beginning of the new 
 school year. They are particularly timely in view of the in- 
 dustrial survey which has just been completed, under the di- 
 rection of Dr. C. R. Richards, of Cooper Institute, by an offi- 
 cial commission appointed by the Mayor. 
 
 Dr. Dewey speaks primarily from the point of view of the 
 educator, Mr. Gompers from the point of view of adult labor 
 and Mr. Lovejoy from the point of view of those who are 
 familiar with the child in industry. All deliver essentially the 
 same message: Elementary education must be broadening in 
 its influence. It must not too early lead children into narrow 
 channels by permitting or causing them to specialize alone 
 specific vocational lines before they have fully comprehended 
 their apt.tudes and powers. After the children have received 
 a fundamental training through a great variety of experiences 
 which afford the rich background essential to a wise choice of 
 a career or vocation, the city should provide public high schools 
 and day and evening vocational and continuation schools 
 which will enable them not only to enter their chosen fields 
 well equipped but also to grow in efficiency and, if later de- 
 sired, to change or make such readjustments in their life 
 work as will enable them to correct a wrong choice and fill 
 their places in the community life to the best advantage 
 
 To the prosecution of such a program of national prepared- 
 ness through education, which will be of equal value in peace and 
 war, the Association can well devote its energies and pledge its 
 unstinted cooperation with the authorities who must see it 
 through. 
 
 Howard W. Nudd, Director. 
 
LEARNING FOR EARNING 
 
 The Place of Vocational Education in a Comprehem 
 Scheme of Public Education 
 
 I — Dr. John Dewey 
 
 Proftssor of Philosophy, Columbia University. 
 
 II— Mr. Samuel Gompers 
 
 President, American Federation ol Labor. 
 
 Ill— Mr. Owen R. Lovejoy 
 
 Secretary, National Child Ijabor Committee. 
 
 Addresses delivered at the Annua) Meetiug ol the 
 Public Education Association on February 20th, 1917, at 
 the Hotel Biltmore, New York City. 
 
I 
 
 HE title assigned and announced, "Learning to Earn," 
 
 has a pleasant jingling sound. The "Earn" part of 
 
 it is attractive also. It is, however, objectionable to 
 some persons to see earning brought into close connection 
 with learning. Since words frequently hide facts from 
 us, we inquire at the beginning what the practise has 
 been in this respect in the past. Contrary to the general 
 opinion, popular education has always been rather largely 
 vocational. The objection to it is not that it is vocational or indus- 
 trial, but that it serves a poor, one may say an evil, ideal of 
 industry and is therefore socially inefficient. So-called cultural 
 education has always been reserved for a small limited class as a 
 luxury. Even at that it has been very largely an education for 
 vocations, especially for those vocations which happened to be 
 esteemed as indicating social superiority or which were useful to 
 the ruling powers of the given period. Our higher education, the 
 education of the universities, began definitely as vocational educa- 
 tion. The universities furnished training for the priesthood, for 
 medicine and the law. The training also covered what was needed 
 by the clerks, secretaries, scribes, etc., who have always had a 
 large part of the administering of governmental affairs in their 
 hands. Some portions of this original professional training 
 ceased to be vocationally useful and then became the staple of 
 a cultural and disciplinary education. For it will be found 
 true as a general principle, that whenever any study which was 
 originally utilitarian in purpose becomes useless because of a 
 change in conditions, it is retained as a necessary educational 
 ornament (as useless buttons are retained on the sleeves of 
 men's coats) or else because it is so useless that it must be fine 
 
 13 
 
for mental discipline. Even to-day it will be found that a con- 
 siderable part of what is regarded in collegiate education as 
 purely cultural is really a preparation for some learned pur- 
 suit or for the profession of teaching the same subjects in the 
 future, or a preparation for the profession of being a gentleman 
 at large. Those who object most bitterly to any form of voca- 
 tional training will often be found to be those whose own monop- 
 oly of present vocational training is threatened. What concerns 
 us more directly, however, is the fact that elementary education, 
 the education of the masses, has been not only "Learning for 
 Earning," but a badly conceived learning, an education where 
 the ability of the learner to add to the earnings of others rather 
 than to his own earnings has been the main factor in selecting 
 materials of study and fixing methods. You are doubtless 
 weary hearing the statistics of our school morbidity and mortality 
 rehearsed : the fact that of the school population only one in nine 
 goes through the eighth grade ; one in sixteen enters the high 
 school, and only one in a thousand goes to college. We don't 
 however, ask often enough what these figures mean. If we did 
 ask, we should see that they prove that our present scheme of 
 elementary education is in the first place a scheme of vocational 
 education and in the second place, a poor one. 
 
 Reading, writing, figuring, with a little geography and a 
 smattering of other things, are what the great mass of those who 
 leave our schools leave with. A few get something more These 
 things, when nothing else is added on to them, are pretty nearly 
 pure economic tools. They came into the schools when the better- 
 to-do classes discovered that under the conditions an elementary 
 ability to read, write and figure was practically indispensable for 
 salesmen and shop workers. He who is poorly acquainted with the 
 history of the efforts to improve elementary education in our large 
 cities does not know that the chief protest against progress is 
 likely to come from successful business men. They have clamored 
 for the three R' s as the essential and exclusive material of 
 primary education-knowing well enough that their own children 
 would be able to get the things they protest against. Thus they 
 have attacked as fads and frills every enrichment of the cur- 
 riculum which did not lend itself to narrow economic ends 
 Let lis stick to business, to the essentials, has been their plea, and 
 by business they meant enough of the routine skill in letters and 
 figures to make those leaving the elementary school at about the 
 
 14 
 
fifth or sixth grade useful in their business, irrespective of 
 whether pupils left school with an equipment for advance and 
 with the ambition to try to secure better social and economic 
 conditions for their children than they had themselves enjoyed. 
 Nothing in the history of education is more touching than to 
 hear some successful leaders denounce as undemocratic the 
 attempts to give all the children at public expense the fuller 
 education which their own children enjoy as a matter of course. 
 
 Of late years, the situation has changed somewhat. The 
 more intelligent employers have awakened to the fact that the 
 mere rudiments of the three R's are not a good industrial train- 
 ing, while others of the community have awakened to the fact 
 that it is a dangerously inadequate industrial education from 
 the standpoint of the community. Hence there has arisen a 
 demand for vocational and industrial education as if this were an 
 entirely new thing; while, in fact, it is a demand that the present 
 industrial education be so modified as to be efficient under the 
 conditions of present machine industry, rapid transportation 
 and a competitive market. 
 
 I have made these bald statements because they indicate to 
 my mind the real issue at the present time concerning industrial 
 education in public education. It isn't whether it shall be 
 introduced in order to supplant or supplement a liberal and gen- 
 erous education already supposed to exist — that is pure romance. 
 The issue is what sort of an industrial education there shall be 
 and whose interests shall be primarily considered in its develop- 
 ment. Now, I quite understand that I am here to speak from 
 the educational standpoint and that Mr. Samuel Gompers who 
 is to follow is quite competent to take care of the question from 
 the standpoint of the workers affected by the issue. But to 
 understand the educational issue is to see what difference is made 
 in the schools themselves according as we take the improving of 
 economic conditions to be the purpose of vocational training, or 
 take its purpose to be supplying a better grade of labor for the 
 present scheme, or helping on the United States in a competitive 
 struggle for world commerce. I know that those who have the 
 latter ends chiefly in view always make much of the increased 
 happiness of the industrial worker himself as a product to result 
 from better industrial education. But after all, there is a great 
 difference between the happiness which means merely content- 
 ment with a station and the happiness which comes from the 
 
 15 
 
the struggle of a well-equipped person to better his station. 
 Which sort of happiness is to be our aim ? I know, also, that 
 stress is laid upon ability which is to proceed from a better in- 
 dustrial education to increase earnings. Well and good. But, 
 does this mean simply that laborers are so to have their skill to 
 add to the profits of employers increased, by avoiding waste 
 getting more out of their machines and materials, that they 
 will have some share in it as an incidental by-product, or does it 
 mean that increase in the industrial intelligence and power of 
 the worker for his own personal advancement is to be the main 
 factor? 
 
 I have said that the way these questions are answered makes 
 all the difference in the world as to the educational scheme itself 
 Let me now point out some of the particular educational differ- 
 ences which will be made according as one or other idea of 
 industry m education prevails. In the first place, as to adminis- 
 tration, those who wish, whether they wish it knowingly or un- 
 knowingly, an education which will enable employees to fit better 
 into the existing economic scheme will strive for a dual or 
 divided system of administration. That is to say, they will 
 attempt to have a separate system of funds, of supervisory au- 
 thorities, and, as far as possible, of schools to carry on industrial 
 education. If they don't go so far as this, they will at least 
 constantly harp on the difference between a liberal or cultural and 
 a money-earning education, and will endeavor to narrow the 
 tatter down to those forms of industrial skill which will enable 
 he future workers to fall docilely into the subordinate ranks of 
 the industrial army. 
 
 In the second place, the conception that the primary object 
 of industrial education is merely to prepare more skilled workers 
 for the present system, instead of developing human beings who 
 are equipped to reconstruct that scheme, will strive to identify it 
 with trade education-that is, with training for certain specific 
 callings. _ It assumes that the needs of industrial education are 
 met if girls are trained to be skilled in millinery, cooking and 
 garment-making, and boys to be plumbers, electric wirers etc 
 
 rf^^ST? proceed on a basis not far removed from ^ 
 
 Of fl,e so-called prevocational work on the Ettinger plan in this 
 
 In the third place, the curriculum on this narrow trade 
 plan wll neglect as useless for its ends the topics in history and 
 
 16 
 
civics which make future workers aware of their rightful claims 
 as citizens in a democracy, alert to the fact that the present 
 economic struggle is but the present-day phase taken by the 
 age-long battle for human liberties. So far as it takes in civic 
 and social studies at all, it will emphasize those things which 
 emphasize duties to the established order and a blind patriotism 
 which accounts it a great privilege to defend things in which 
 the workers themselves have little or no share. The studies 
 which fit the individual for the reasonable enjoyment of leisure 
 time, which develop good taste in reading and appreciation of 
 the arts, will be passed over as good for those who belong by 
 wealth to the leisure class, but quite useless in the training of 
 skilled employees. 
 
 In the fourth place, so far as the method and spirit of its 
 work is concerned, it will emphasize all that is most routine and 
 automatic in our present system. Drill to secure skill in the per- 
 formance of tasks under the direction of others will be its chief 
 reliance. It will insist that the limits of time and the pressure for 
 immediate results are so great that there is no room for under- 
 standing the scientific facts and principles or the social bearings 
 of what is done. Such an enlarged education would develop 
 personal intelligence and thereby develop also an intellectual 
 ambition and initiative which might be fatal to contentment in 
 routine subordinate clerical and shop jobs. 
 
 Finally, so far as such a training concerns itself with what is 
 called vocational guidance, it will conceive guidance as a method 
 of placement — a method of finding jobs. It will measure its 
 achievements by the number of children taking out working 
 papers for whom it succeeds in finding places, instead of by the 
 number whom it succeeds in keeping in school till they become 
 equipped to seek and find their own congenial occupations. 
 
 The other idea of industrial education aims at preparing 
 every individual to render service of a useful sort to the com- 
 munity, while at the same time it equips him to secure by his own 
 initiative whatever place his natural capacities fit him for. It 
 will proceed in an opposite way in every respect. Instead of 
 trying to split schools into two kinds, one of a trade type for 
 children whom it is assumed are to be employees and one of a 
 liberal type for the children of the well-to-do, it will aim at such 
 a reorganization of existing schools as will give all pupils a 
 genuine respect for useful work, an ability to render service, 
 
 17 
 
and a contempt for social parasites whether they are called 
 tramps or leaders of "society." Instead of assuming that the 
 problem is to add vocational training to an existing cultural ele- 
 mentary education, it will recognize frankly that the traditional 
 elementary education is largely vocational, but that the vocations 
 which it has in mind are too exclusively clerical, and too much of 
 a kind which implies merely ability to take positions in which to 
 carry out the plans of others. It will indeed make much of 
 developing motor and manual skill, but not of a routine or 
 automatic type. It will rather utilize active and manual pursuits 
 as the means of developing constructive, inventive and creative 
 power of mind. It will select the materials and the technique of 
 the trades not for the sake of producing skilled workers for hire 
 in definite trades, but for the sake of securing industrial intelli- 
 gence — a knowledge of the conditions and processes of present 
 manufacturing, transportation and commerce so that the individ- 
 ual may be able to make his own choices and his own adjustments, 
 and be master, so far as in him lies, of his own economic fate. 
 It will be recognized that, for this purpose, a broad acquaintance 
 with science and skill in the laboratory control of materials and 
 processes is more important than skill in trade operations. It 
 will remember that the future employee is a consumer as well 
 as a producer, that the whole tendency of society, so far as it is 
 intelligent and wholesome, is to an increase of the hours of 
 leisure, and that an education which does nothing to enable in- 
 dividuals to consume wisely and to utilize leisure wisely is a 
 fraud on democracy. So far as method is concerned, such a con- 
 ception of industrial education will prize freedom more than 
 docility ; initiative more than automatic skill ; insight and under- 
 standing more than capacity to recite lessons or to execute tasks 
 under the direction of others. 
 
 The theme is an endless one. But it seemed to me that the 
 best thing which I, from my standpoint, could do, is to point out 
 that the real issue is not the question whether an industrial edu- 
 cation is to be added on to a more or less mythical cultural 
 elementary education, but what sort of an industrial education 
 we are to have. The movement for vocational educations con- 
 ceals within itself two mighty and opposing forces, one which 
 would utilize the public schools primarily to turn out more 
 efficient laborers in the present economic regime, with certain 
 incidental advantages to themselves, the other which would utilize 
 
 IS 
 
all the resources of public education to equip individuals to con- 
 trol their own future economic careers, and thus help on such a 
 reorganization of industry as will change it from a feudalistic to 
 a democratic order. 
 
 At the present moment, the first bill appropriating federal 
 funds for industrial education in schools below the grade of the 
 college of agriculture and mechanic arts has been passed by the 
 two houses of Congress. So far as provisions for the represen- 
 tation of employers and employed is concerned, the act is a fair 
 one. So far as the interests of education is concerned, the repre- 
 sentation of educators is scandalously inadequate. As passed, 
 the original bill, which safeguarded unified control on the part 
 of the states which take advantage of federal financial aid has 
 been changed so as to make a dual scheme optional with each 
 state. I do not say these things to cast any discredit on the act. 
 I refer to them only to indicate that the passage of the bill illus- 
 trates the whole situation in which we find ourselves. It settles 
 no problem; it merely symbolizes the inauguration of a conflict 
 between irreconcilably opposed educational and industrial ideals. 
 Nothing is so necessary as that public-spirited representatives of 
 the public educational interests, such as are gathered here tonight, 
 shall perceive the nature of the issue and throw their weights in 
 municipal, state and federal educational matters, upon the side 
 of education rather than of training, on that of democratic rather 
 than that of feudal control of industry. 
 
 19 
 
II 
 
 SAMUEL GOMPERS 
 
 President, American Federation of Labor 
 
 MORE than one problem has been waiting for the 
 workers to solve. I mean workers in the larger 
 sense— those who do the creative work of the 
 world. These are the great masses of all nations-they rep- 
 resent the essence of democracy. 
 
 There have been many educational theories and plans but 
 hey did not deal with life; they were concerned with abstrac- 
 tions, general principles, things and conditions no longer in 
 action; a short, the static side of the world. There has been 
 a delicate shrinking from mixing intellectual training with the 
 crude, or as some think the "sordid" details of earning a liveli- 
 
 It was only in response to a democratic demand, general 
 though vague and inarticulate in many places yet definite in 
 others, that there came a real effort to develop education that 
 was concerned with life— the vital processes of living This 
 democratic educational movement is comprehended under the 
 term "Industrial Education." 
 
 The organized labor movement has been an insistive oro 
 ponent of industrial education and vocational training. There is 
 
 nvolved m th:s proposal the same fundamental demands nd 
 .dea ls found th organized labQr moyement nd 
 
 There 57* ^ k the S P irit ° f ^oc ^ 
 
 h " C S but one "WW!,** in the world that is truly democratic 
 £ he large sense and that is the organized labor movement 
 ■s the only agency through which the masses of all nation ' can 
 express themselves freely, fully and can exercise self-goveZent 
 The labor movement reverses principles as generally vkwed 
 by other orgamzations. It places economic power and the p ro 
 
cesses of production first. Upon this economic basis is built the 
 superstructure of life. Material civilization, the product of cre- 
 ative power, becomes the instrumentality to serve all interests 
 and desires in life. The labor movement recognizes that while 
 men cannot live by bread alone, bread is that which enables them 
 to coordinate their physical power in order to achieve their pur- 
 poses and spiritual ideals. The economic furnishes the basis 
 to maintain life and to satisfy purposes and ambitions of living. 
 
 The labor movement recognizes the rights of each individual. 
 Its purpose is to collectively maintain and protect these rights. 
 Its plan is practical organization and collective self-governed 
 action. 
 
 The demand of the labor movement for industrial education 
 seeks to make these same principles the basis for education. In- 
 stead of attempting to inspire students with unswerving reverence 
 for authority and with undue respect for abstractions and the 
 metaphysical attitude of mind, the labor movement wants an 
 education that begins in a scientific way to understand and control 
 environment. 
 
 Only through control of environment comes independence 
 of thought and action. 
 
 Only with independence is there opportunity for personality. 
 
 The labor movement appreciates the transcendent import- 
 ance and power of personality. 
 
 We are fully aware of the tremendous dangers growing out 
 of the fact that now only a few are granted the opportunity to 
 develop personality. There is no greater or rarer thing in the 
 world than personality, but the way to safeguard us against undue 
 power attaching itself to any individual or group of individuals 
 who have this greatest of all boons is to accord the same oppor- 
 tunity to all. 
 
 Industrial education is education that gives each boy and. 
 girl firm grasp on natural facts, and therefore, ability to use 
 these facts in order to make their environments serve their needs 
 and purposes. Such education provided for all has a vital rela- 
 tionship to our Republic's destiny. It places the nation on a 
 stable foundation and gives it opportunity to solve the problem 
 upon which the nation's salvation depends — economic justice. 
 
 The fundamental purpose of the labor movement in advocat- 
 ing industrial education is to enable the masses to attain such a 
 degree of information and development that they can mobilize 
 
 21 
 
their creative power and earn ^uch participation in the direction 
 of production as will enable them to raise the standard of living 
 for all. 
 
 There have been high walls separating the schools from the 
 city streets. The new education must tear down that wall and 
 connect life in the school with life in the city. 
 
 Men are organically connected with the materials of civiliza- 
 tion. This fact should be fundamental in education. 
 
 Education is part of the child's life and, like all living, is 
 preparatory for the rest of life. 
 
 Industrial education in the wide sense demanded by or- 
 ganized labor means such knowledge of environment as will 
 enable the individuals to control the material and productive 
 forces of the world. That knowledge implies both technical 
 information as well as spiritual understanding and imagination 
 that connects the daily processes and routine of life with the 
 great purpose toward which all life is moving. Such industrial 
 education in the elementary schools will give to children enough 
 driving force to produce and utilize forces for satisfactory living. 
 It means the ability to produce results as well as that imaginative 
 intuition that glorifies life and gives purpose and confidence. 
 
 But education that stops with that achievement is not suf- 
 ficient. Production alone does not insure proper standards of 
 living. There must be stimulated in all of the citizens initiative 
 and ability to do what the labor movement calls team work. In- 
 formation of technical knowledge is the basis, but in addition 
 there must be social, democratic intelligence. 
 
 One of the greatest revelations of the present European War 
 has been the marvelous effectiveness of the team work of the 
 German people. Technical information and industrial skill in 
 Germany, and now in all of the belligerent countries, has been 
 put at the service of all of the people through their marvelous 
 cooperation. That same thing in peace though permeated and 
 directed by a democratic spirit, is what the organized labor move- 
 ment asks the public schools of the United States to accomplish. In 
 other words, we ask that in addition to broad industrial education, 
 the schools shall conscientiously endeavor to give opportunities 
 for the development of personality in the democratic masses. This 
 will result in genuine self-government, in production and in all 
 economic relations of the nation. It will mean democracy in all 
 the vital relations of life. It will result in a nation which has 
 
 22 
 
power of organic action, a systematic whole functioning for the 
 welfare of the masses. There is a most dangerous movement 
 which seeks to pervert the proper purposes of industrial educa- 
 tion and to make the whole movement undemocratic. The spirit 
 of that movement is the same as that which underlies all efforts 
 to exploit and to establish special privilege for a few. That 
 movement seeks to limit industrial education, to turn it into 
 channels of narrow trade training. Such a mistake would restrict 
 the mental life, understanding and personality of the majority 
 of the citizens of this country. It would mean that the masses 
 would be prevented from becoming as intelligent and as powerful 
 as they might be from living the broad lives of usefulness to 
 which they might attain in order that a few employers might 
 more quickly amass fortunes and secure profits at the expense 
 of human life opportunities. 
 
 After this broad primal education, vocational education 
 should be provided for those who wish to find it necessary to 
 begin remunerative work. Vocational training should be an 
 addition to elementary education — not a substitution or a limita- 
 tion. For it should never be forgotten that the elementary schools 
 are the universities of the masses. 
 
 Specialized training in the form of instruction along voca- 
 tional lines is necessary, but it is supplementary and must follow 
 the broad, general instruction comprehended in the term of indus- 
 trial education. 
 
 Girls and boys go out of the school into the city's work. 
 The school has failed if the pupil cannot attack work in the 
 factory or in the shop with the same feeling of mastery and 
 personal significance with which a professional exults in his 
 ability and accomplishments. 
 
 The girl in the shoe factory who performs the same infini- 
 tesimal process thousands of times a day has a right to an educa- 
 tion that assures her grasp on her personality and protects her 
 mind from the grip of the machine with which she works. The 
 same principle applies to the boy. 
 
 The workers need the protection and the wisdom assured by 
 knowledge of scientific laws. They need to understand the de- 
 velopment and conservation of their bodies. Education can incul- 
 cate the attitude of mind that regards a human being as sacred, 
 created for the joy of living, for cooperation in production and 
 
 23 
 
for action in all affairs of life as well as fortify each boy and 
 girl with information to realize the ideal. 
 
 One thing more, the public schools nourish the fountain 
 head of democracy — if they are corrupted then the cause of 
 freedom has suffered a mortal injury. 
 
 It is therefore fundamental that money for public education 
 should come from public funds. Money from any other source 
 or under private control has bred and must inevitably breed sus- 
 picion and poison the well and source of information. School 
 taxes must be adequate to provide proper educational oppor- 
 tunities for all. Schools must be democratically managed, or- 
 ganized and financed. 
 
 If there be philanthropic friends of education who desire to 
 bestow a portion of their enormous holdings to the cause of edu- 
 cation, let them arrange for a graduated income tax or some 
 other effective means. But public agents must be given control of 
 the money. The taint of capitalistic exploitation can only be puri- 
 fied by restoring to the public ill-gotten gains to be used by the 
 people for the people. 
 
 Public schools of a democracy serve a great function, we 
 want to keep them free from domination by big business — free 
 to serve humanity, freedom, truth — free to make of the cosmo- 
 politan masses within our country a united, effective nation cap- 
 able of doing great deeds and living greatly. 
 
 24 
 
Ill 
 
 OWEN R. LOVEJOY 
 
 Secretary, National Child Labor Committee 
 
 HE place I occupy is rather embarrassing because it is 
 
 a unique experience to find myself on a program where 
 
 I am compelled to agree with all the preceding speakers 
 have said. If I could find some place to attack some of their 
 utterances or to take issue with the principles they have ad- 
 vanced, I should find it very much more spicy and perhaps 
 easier. 
 
 The place of vocational training in a comprehensive scheme 
 of public education, which is the general topic, would be rather 
 easy to define. It would involve training for life's vocations on 
 the assumption that all the other kinds of training needed by the 
 members of society were being provided. Since we have not in 
 this country developed a comprehensive scheme of public educa- 
 tion, but are only struggling along toward it and trying to develop 
 it, and since there is a disposition in some quarters to make voca- 
 tional training a kind of separate educational development, or a 
 separable appendage, apart from the general plan of education, 
 our discussion becomes more complicated. 
 
 A simple analysis of the purposes of education, seems to me 
 to indicate two of chief concern. 
 
 First, children should be trained to live. This is the pur- 
 pose of a comprehensive scheme of public education. Nothing 
 less should satisfy the demands of a city, concerned as we are 
 with the broad and useful intelligence of all its citizens. 
 
 Second, children should be trained to make a living, or to 
 secure a livelihood. This also is to be applied in its broadest 
 possible way, with no relation whatever to class distinction. I 
 am just as sure that the son of the millionaire should be trained 
 to some useful occupation in life, just as the son of the so-called 
 
 25 
 
day laborer is to be trained to some useful occupation in life, as 
 I am that both of these children have an inalienable title to all the 
 finest culture and refinement that a comprehensive scheme of 
 public education can provide. 
 
 But certain difficulties stand in the way: the poverty of many 
 parents; the unwillingness of most of us to allow ourselves to be 
 taxed sufficiently to provide this comprehensive scheme of edu- 
 cation, with all that is involved ; the lack of training on the part 
 of many teachers to carry out the provisions of such a scheme ; 
 the disposition of a great many members of school boards 
 throughout the country to project the experiences and surround- 
 ings of their own childhood into the present, and to think what 
 was good enough for them in their boyhood or girlhood is cer- 
 tainly good enough for the children of the present day. 
 
 I have been brought face to face with this disposition, ex- 
 pressed by men of leading positions in a great many common- 
 wealths. It has been my privilege, during the past ten or twelve 
 years to appear before the Legislatures of some thirty or thirty- 
 five states to appeal for better child labor laws, and I think in 
 almost every instance, while the bill was pending, some man was 
 sure to get up before the Legislative Committee and make this 
 speech, almost in the same words, and always in the same spirit. 
 He would say, "Now gentlemen, about this child labor business, I 
 want to tell you I went to work when I was eight years old and 
 it never clone me no hurt." And then he proceeds to swell up 
 to show how he was not hurt by going to work when he was 
 eight years old, and his assumption is that because he found em- 
 ployment that not only trained him to make a living, but added to 
 the resources of his life every day, in the little corner grocery or 
 blacksmith shop, or doctor's office, or in ninety-nine cases out 
 of a hundred, out on the back forty acres of his father's farm — 
 because he had that kind of an environment in his boyhood, he 
 jumps to the conclusion that all the children who are employed in 
 the variety of industries, entirely different from those, must be 
 benefited today. Therefore why should we make all this disturb- 
 ance about taking children out of industry and putting them into 
 school ? 
 
 In addition to the handicaps I have mentioned, there is a 
 rather general belief that certain kinds of labor are the appointed 
 lot of certain kinds of people and that it would be a mistake 
 to ever educate those destined for these lower careers. 
 
 26 
 
In order to have vocational training find its proper place in 
 this comprehensive scheme, I want to submit a few propositions 
 which have already been discussed by the preceding speakers. 
 All I can do is to state them in cruder and different terms. 
 
 First. The school period must be lengthened. I am assum- 
 ing all the time that this vocational training presupposes a com- 
 prehensive scheme of public education. "Learning for Earning" 
 presupposes such a comprehensive scheme. 
 
 The school period must be lengthened. So long as the 
 average American child leaves school in the sixth grade, we can 
 neither instill the principles of life nor impart the skill to earn. 
 Both are impossible. Fortunately, we are not quite in that posi- 
 tion here in New York City, and if you are thinking solely about 
 the local application of this problem, this point does not quite 
 apply because our children here get six, seven or eight, and some 
 of them more, grades of schooling, but taking the children of the 
 country as a whole, the average boy leaves school in the 5th 
 grade, and the average girl leaves school in the 6th grade and 
 they never return. 
 
 When we look out upon the life our nation is living, in 
 many states we find that running all through, from the position 
 of those who do the cruder forms of hand labor, those who do 
 the finer kinds of manual trades, and on through our professions, 
 through business, through politics, even through our diplomatic- 
 service, we bear the awkward hallmark of a sixth grade educa- 
 tion, and we are only reaching out towards the national greatness 
 we boast so much about, and we will never attain it so long as we 
 are complacent about allowing the bulk of the children of this 
 country to leave school in the fifth or sixth grades. 
 
 Second. The school curriculum must be stripped of much 
 of its formality and deadly routine and quickened with features 
 that reflect actual human experience. To contend that the child 
 who sleeps by the hour over the Greek root he is supposed to 
 be pulling out is adding culture to his life, while the child who 
 is quivering in every nerve to try to discover the real mechanic- 
 ism of the latest type of carburetor is getting nothing but training 
 for a job, is simply pedagogical nonsense. One boy goes to sleep 
 and does not learn anything, and the other boy stays awake and 
 is sure to get something. He is adding to his life and he is 
 beginning to prepare himself to keep himself alive by earning a 
 living. 
 
 27 
 
One of the difficulties with this fifth and sixth grade educa- 
 tion we have been giving our American children is not only in its 
 extent, but in its motive. To a large extent we have been training 
 all our children for a vocation, the vocation to which Professor 
 Dewey referred when he mentioned the fact that the whole 
 educational curriculum has for years, in a way, been vocational ; 
 that is, we have been training for the professions, we have been 
 training for certain kinds of business. But, we have taken it 
 for granted in preparing our curriculum that every child who 
 first enters the kindergarten is going up through the elementary 
 school, and from the elementary school he is going through the 
 high school, and from the high school he is going through college 
 and from college he is going to the university and take some post- 
 graduate work. We know, as a matter of fact, that but a small 
 percentage of the college students get any further in their educa- 
 tional career, and that a very small percentage of high school 
 graduates go through college, that a small percentage of those 
 who are in the elementary school go into high school and yet we 
 have been going on that theory, and the result has been that we 
 have been building educational ladders. When the child was 
 able to go clear through and climb over the top, he came into the 
 kingdom. The whole thing was rigged up for the lucky five per 
 
 cent 
 
 What we need today is to grow a tree of knowledge, instead 
 of building a ladder of knowledge so that if the child has to get 
 off at any of the lower rungs of the ladder, it won't be a ladder 
 that he gets from, but it will be the tree. A branch of that tree 
 cut off at any point will bleed life, and the child will be getting 
 something significant today; he will not simply be preparing for 
 something that is going to be significant in ten or twenty years 
 from now. He will be living while he is studying. 
 
 Third. The classes must be reduced in size. A part of the 
 fault of this formality and deadly routine in the school curriculum 
 is due to the burden of numbers. Just as our cities have been 
 boasting of being big, and being proud of it,— I made a terrible 
 b under the other day out in Lincoln, Nebraska, by mentioning 
 hat there was one large city in the State, and they pricked up 
 their ears immediately and were all bristles until I hurried to 
 make myself right by making it "inordinately big, of a diseased 
 size and then they were mollified-in the same way we have 
 been boasting of the bigness of our schools. We have been proud 
 
 2S 
 
that they have a large number of children. We should remember 
 that a mother is supposed to be doing a full day's work if she 
 takes care of one, two or three children, and yet, in the school 
 a sixteen-year-old girl, who does not have any children of her 
 own, is capable of taking care of forty or sixty of them. That 
 is preposterous. We ought to rid ourselves of that fallacy in 
 our educational plan. The result of these large classes has been 
 the inevitable tendency to turn out a factory product. Our 
 children are "mill-run*'. Instead of that we need them "hand- 
 educated", individualized, because there are no two alike. You 
 will never find two children in your own family alike, much less 
 children of neighboring families. 
 
 Fourth. Industry must become a social service. There has 
 been a great deal of criticism in this movement for vocational 
 training. A part of it has emanated from the school man criticis- 
 ing the business man, and a part of it has emanated from the 
 business man criticising the school man. Business has been 
 quick to say that if our schools were properly organized and had 
 the right kind of curriculum, as soon as the boy got to his four- 
 teenth birthday and had been through five or six grades, he would 
 fit himself into his niche in life and proceed immediately to be 
 a power in the business world. That is unfair to the school, be- 
 cause no school can be so equipped, no school can furnish either 
 the broad general education, or the more specialized industrial 
 training that will fit a child at fourteen years of age either to 
 know what his life is to be, or if he did know it, to undertake it. 
 He is still an infant, and he ought to be treated as an infant. 
 
 School men are inclined "to say that the business world is 
 so devoid of educational features, or is so separated from the 
 whole program of social development that a broad kind of educa- 
 tion is not needed if children are to learn to labor. Both these 
 criticisms are, in my judgment, unfair. The school wants to 
 reproduce as nearly as possible the conditions that are faced by 
 the individual in the life of the community, so that the school 
 will be a sort of mirror of the community life, industrial and 
 otherwise. 
 
 Business, on its part, must become so social that its processes 
 and motives will not mean the sacrifice of life and health and 
 personal independence and self-respect for those who have to 
 engage in it. We know that to-day there are several million 
 people of this country living on a wage that is considerably below 
 
 29 
 
what experts claim is absolutely necessary to maintain life, to 
 keep soul and body together. As long as that is the fact, we 
 cannot talk about the sacredness of that kind of labor. It is not 
 sacred, it is profane ; it is profaning the human body, it is pro- 
 faning the human soul. It is an insult to God who made the 
 human being to confine people to that kind of life. 
 
 Fifth. We must recognize the necessity of a broad foun- 
 dation as a pre-requisite to vocational training, that is, the par- 
 ticular kinds of vocational training that are being discussed. This 
 is already recognized in the professions, but I wonder if you 
 have noticed a tendency to create a widening breach between the 
 professions and the manual trades in the matter of preparation. 
 
 The boy who is going to be a doctor or a lawyer or a clergy- 
 man or a teacher needs very much more time to prepare for that 
 profession than his father or his grandfather needed. He must 
 lay a broader, general foundation. He must get himself more 
 generally equipped. He must have more general knowledge, and 
 then upon that general preparation he superimposes the structure 
 of his professional specialty. 
 
 In the manual trades exactly the reverse is the tendency 
 today. Instead of having the child who is going to be a shoe- 
 maker learn the trade better than his father did, or than his 
 grandfather did, he needs to learn about one-sixty-fourth part of 
 the shoemaker's trade, to learn how to drive one kind of a peg 
 into one part of one kind of a shoe. So the tendency in a great 
 many trades is — instead of laying a broad, general foundation 
 before he is sent out on the particular mission of earning his 
 living, instead of superimposing his special training upon the 
 broad foundation — to substitute that special training for the gen- 
 eral training, to make it take the place of a broad educational 
 foundation, and send him out earlier and more poorly equipped 
 than his ancestors were into the highly specialized work into 
 which he is supposed to be predestined. 
 
 If all kinds of labor that need to be performed by human 
 beings arc sacred, then we ought to see to it that the child who 
 is going out to work in any trade should have his childhood se- 
 cured to him first; that the territory of childhood should be 
 inviolate ; that he should have an opportunity to see this world, 
 to comprehend as much of it as he can, to absorb into his soul 
 as much knowledge of the universe as he is able to comprehend, 
 and then upon this, go out to the specialty. As Mr. Gompers 
 
 30 
 
said, the girl whose job is to work day after day at one power 
 machine needs the fortifying influence of this previous training 
 to save her soul from becoming dwarfed and stunted and ingrow- 
 ing as a result of that specialized kind of work. 
 
 Formerly, with that old educational system that did not 
 recognize these so-called modern vocations, we used to go around 
 through the schoolrooms, or teachers did, with little scissors and 
 snip off the unpromising buds of the schoolroom and throw them 
 to the limbo of unskilled labor. The school did not complain 
 because the dull children were weeded out and the bright ones 
 remained, and the children who were sent out to unskilled labor 
 did not complain. They had been sand-bagged into acquiescence ; 
 they did not know any better. 
 
 Now, instead of snipping them off, there is a tendency on 
 the part of some who are agitating for industrial education ex- 
 hibits to make it a separatist movement — to keep all these other 
 kinds of vocational education right where they have been in the 
 general curriculum of the school, but for those who are to go 
 into certain limited kinds of trade, set them off as a sort of 
 unholy group of manual workers. I want to protest against hav- 
 ing the ambitions, or the idealism, or the possibilities of any child 
 frustrated either by the poverty of his home or by the pre- 
 destinating disposition of the community, to be put at certain 
 tasks, or upon certain jobs which may be entirely alien to his 
 spirit. 
 
 If the nation were facing a deficit, I should not feel it proper 
 to take this position, but we are not facing a deficit. We are 
 now struggling to find how we can invest our rapidly accumulat- 
 ing surplus. The nation is richer than ever before. We can 
 afford to care for our children, and the proper time for us to 
 begin on a broad basis to do it, and to see that all the children 
 of the present day have a fair chance, is now before some crisis 
 comes. 
 
 When a crisis comes, as has been threatened in the last few 
 days we shall soon find ourselves lapsing into the same state of 
 mind the European nations are in. 
 
 People ordinarily think the great war is a war in which the 
 lives of men are being sacrificed, but the children are being sacri- 
 ficed, also. 
 
 Lord Ashley, the Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, began a 
 hundred years ago, to agitate for child labor laws in England, 
 
 31 
 
and for a century they have been building up laws to protect the 
 little children of that country. Now, under the stress of war 
 the structure is being torn down. The same is true in France 
 and Austria and Italy and Germany. 
 
 I saw a statement the other day from a source that purports 
 to be authentic but is probably somewhat exaggerated that in the 
 city of Budapest alone four thousand children under eight years 
 of age are working a twelve-hour day in munition plants. 
 
 I am not going to blame those people, assuming that they 
 were right in entering upon the experience on which they have 
 entered. Perhaps there was nothing else for them to do, except 
 to grind up the seedcorn, but I want to protest at this moment, 
 before the storm breaks, if it does break, we shall see to it that 
 the children of our country are secured or kept within the safety 
 line, and that first of all we shall see that they get enough of an 
 educational foundation so that they will be able to participate in 
 all that we mean when we talk of the duties and possibilities of 
 American citizenship. 
 
 32 
 
PUBLIC EDUCATION ASSOCIATION OF THE 
 CITY OF NEW YORK 
 
 Founded 1895 Incorporated 1899 
 
 The Public Education Association was founded in 1895 to 
 study the problems of public education, investigate the condi- 
 tion of the common and corporate schools, stimulate public 
 interest in the schools and propose from time to time such 
 changes in organization, management or educational methods 
 as might seem necessary or desirable. Its efforts are con- 
 fined to the welfare of the New York City public schools, but 
 it seeks to shape these efforts in accord with the best educa- 
 tional theory and experience of the country. 
 
 OFFICERS 
 
 Charles P. Howland, President 
 Joseph R. Swan, Vice-President 
 Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer, Honorary Vice-President 
 W. K. Brice, Treasurer 
 Howard W. Nudd, Director 
 
 EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE 
 
 Mrs. Miriam Sutro Prick, Chairman 
 W. K. Brice George D. Strayer 
 
 Clyde Furst Joseph R. Swan 
 
 Mrs. E. C. Henderson Mrs. Joseph R. Swan 
 
 Charles P. Howland Miss Katharine Tweed 
 
 Miss E. S. Williams 
 
 TRUSTEES 
 
 Chester Ai.drich 
 Frederick VV. Allen 
 W. K. Brice 
 Charles C. Burlingham 
 Joseph P. Cotton 
 Mrs. Arthur M. Dodge 
 Mrs. Learned Hand 
 Mrs. E. C. Henderson 
 Charles P. Howland 
 Miss C. R. Lowell 
 
 Mrs. George McAneny 
 
 Frank M. McMurry 
 
 Ogden l. Mills 
 
 Mrs. Miriam Sutro Prick 
 
 Mrs. F. Louis Sladb 
 
 Percy S. Straus 
 
 Willard D. Straight 
 
 Charles H. Strong 
 
 Joseph R. Swan 
 
 Mrs. Charles L. Tifkany 
 
 Miss Hklkn Wise 
 
 The work of the Association is carried out through a 
 trained staff and a number of standing and special committees. 
 The results of this work are presented to the members and 
 to the public through reports, bulletins, leaflets, public con- 
 ferences and discussion in the daily press. 
 
 Every citizen should be informed about the conditions 
 and progress of the public schools and take an intelligent and 
 effective part in furthering their welfare. 
 
 If you are not a member of the Association you are 
 invited to join. 
 
PUBLICATIONS OF THE PUBLIC EDUCATION ASSOCIATION 
 
 In addition to the general reports of the work from year to year, the 
 Association has published the following bulletins 
 and special reports : 
 
 BULLETINS: 
 
 No. 1. Organization and Program. 
 *No. 2. The Permanent Census Board— Howard W. Nudd. 
 No. 3. Conferences. 
 
 No. 4. Enlarged Work of the Association. 
 
 No. 5. The Report of Professor Moore. 
 
 No. 6. Is the Moore Report "false"? 
 *No. 7. The Current Activities of the Public Education Association. 
 *No. 8. Work for the Mentally Defective Children in New York City. 
 
 No. 9. Shall the Schools Serve Luncheons ? 
 *No. 10. Vocational Guidance Survey — Alice Barrows Fernandez. 
 
 No. 11. An Old Story with a New Name. Chapter I. ] 
 
 No. 12. An Old Story with a New Name. Chapter II. I Mclce'" 
 
 No. 13. An Old Story with a New Name. Chapter III. [ Bills. 
 
 No. 14. An Old Story with a New Name. Chapter IV. J 
 
 No. 15. Report of the Visiting Teachers — Mary Flexner. 
 *No. 16. The Compulsory Attendance Service of New York City — Dr. Jesse D. 
 Burks, t 
 
 tNo. 17. Elementary School Problems — Dr. Frank M. McMurry. t 
 
 tNo. 18. The New York School System of General Supervision and Board of 
 
 Examiners— Dr. Edward C. Elliott, t 
 tNo. 19. Commercial Education — Dr. Frank V. Thompson, t 
 tNo. 20. The Course of Study iu the High Schools of New York City— Dr. Calvin 
 
 O. Davis, t 
 
 No. 21. A Study of the Feeble-Minded in a West Side School in New York 
 
 City — Elizabeth A. Irwin. 
 No. 22. The Board of Education and the Professional Staff— Dr. Charles W. Eliot. 
 No. 23. The Schools of Gary— Harriet M. Johnson. 
 
 No. 24. A Small Board of Education for New York City— Howard W. Nudd. 
 No. 25. An Unpaid Board of Nine for New York City Schools — Howard W. Nudd. 
 No. 26. What the Gary Plan Means for the New York City Schools— Howard W. 
 Nudd. 
 
 No. 27. Home Rule in Education for New York City. 
 
 No. 28. A Gary School's Success in New York City — a report by Associate 
 
 Superintendent William McAndrew. 
 No. 29. "Evaluating" the Gary Schools in New York City— A Critical Analysis 
 
 of the Report of Dr. Burdette R. Buckingham by Howard W. Nudd. 
 No. 30. When a Little Feller Needs a Friend— A Plea for more Kindergartens in 
 
 New York State — Howard W. Nudd, with a cartoon by Briggs of 
 
 the Tribune. 
 
 REPORTS : 
 
 *Report on the Feeble-Minded in New York— Dr. Anne Moore. 
 *I!rief on the Education Chapter of the Proposed Charter. 
 
 A Primer of Public School Progress. 
 SColored School Children in New York— Frances Blascoer. 
 ! Truancy — Elizabeth A. Irwin. 
 
 A Description of the Bureau of Compulsory Education of the City of Philadelphia- 
 Howard W. Nudd. 
 tOfficial Wirt Reports to the Board of Education of New York City. 
 tThe Visiting Teacher in New York City— Harriet M. Johnson. 
 
 The Case of the Julia Richman High School— by the Julia Richman High School. 
 
 •Out of print. tl5c. per copy. <25c. per copy. 'Abstracts of New York School Inquiry Reports-