SOME BY-PRODUCTS OF INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION
Some By-Products of Industrial Education Report of Wisconsin Commission upon Plans for the Extension of Industrial and Agricultural Training, Issued Jan. 10, Points Out in the Following Striking...
...This does not mean, then, that it must be merely utilitarian, but the effect of it must be such that we can answer definitely the question...
...How can we, when four-fifths of the boys and girls do not go to high school or college...
...There is no doubt that the system by which citizenship is taught in the German continuation schools has its effect upon this spirit in that country...
...and the general carelessness of our ideals concerning government...
...We Must Reach the Great "Four-fifths" REFORMERS IN AMERICA are striving to get some knowl- edge of why corruption is rampant here...
...in fact, hardly know what American citizenship is...
...If the industrial education advocated by your committee will lead merely to a better economic man, it will not reach its highest aim...
...There is no doubt that courses in hygiene, sanitation, protective devices in machinery as well as the courses is citizenship, are indisptnsible in these schools...
...They naturally form their ideals under these conditions...
...we may create temporary organizations for the purpose of reforming government...
...These are powerful influences which are basic and cannot be omitted...
...Will he be a better factor in our life today...
...We put enormous sums of money into the fight to teach people how to overcome this great plague...
...IT WAS THE GERMAN PHILOSOPHER, Humboldt, who said: "Whatever you put into the State you must first put into the schools...
...It is obvious that in order to make this system so that all these questions can be answered in the affirmative, additions must be made to the industrial program...
...We can never eradicate political corruption unless we use the same determination and begin at the time when a young man can be taught something about citizenship...
...The boy leaves the common school with but rudimentary ideas of his duty towards this government...
...If a man was seized with tuberculosis, people said: "Well, what can we do...
...It must be judged by its byproducts as well as by its result in dollars and cents...
...He will die...
...There is no better way of learning than by debating, and a sound and thorough knowledge of public questions can be acquired in all continuation, evening and industrial schools by this method...
...What was done about it in the end...
...He sees the poor in the slums around him, he realizes the desperate fight for existence, he often finds that his only help in that strife is the political boss or the corrupt politician...
...Indeed it would seem to your committee that the same methods which have been used so successfully in industrial education, could be used in the teaching of citizenship...
...If we teach this in college, or the high school we will not hit the mark...
...Is it any wonder that when nothing is done to cure political corruption, it should be as rife in these places as tuberculosis...
...Sanitary conditions of factories, sanitary conditions of homes, progress towards health and the fighting of disease, the economies practiced by the cutting down of injuries and of sickness caused by carelessness in factories, the cheapening of industrial insurance—all come from this source...
...as well as upon the health and stamina of the race, and cannot be underestimated...
...Does it seem possible that any industrial prosperity which comes from industrial education will be of any real use to us in the future, if conditions similar to these exist...
...Our great success in the battle against tuberculosis comes largely from a determined effort to educate our people in a knowledge of that disease, its prevention and cure...
...It comes largely from the overcrowded, unsanitary districts in our cities...
...The Germans have not forgotten to do this...
...There is at present a widespread movement which finds expression in boys' republics, in citizenship classes in schools, and in patriotic plays, all of which tends to dramatize or visualize the teaching of patriotism and citizenship...
...How can we fight this political tuberculosis and have any success...
...It was the custom to allow the poor people who had tuberculosis to die in these horrible unsanitary tenements without doing anything to eradicate the scourge...
...We may have reform periods or spasms...
...We may pass all the resolutions we want to, but the only way to cure political corruption in our cities is to cure it the way we are stamping out tuberculosis—by education...
...Will he have a better physique...
...Any industrial education without these other factors will be a dismal failure...
...Its outlines for debates upon public questions could be used by these classes and the necessary traveling data or traveling libraries could be sent to them...
...The Germans look upon the law and the state as great moral forces, but it is doubtful if the lesson of moral obligation would be any more effective in Germany than it is in this country, unless this same foundation in education exists...
...Now we are winning the battle and we are driving this disease out of our cities and our country—by education...
...The teaching of civics has been recognized as difficult, and is too often poorly done, but even the little civics which is taught in our high schools is something...
...Scientists had for a long time known that if patients could be segregated and fresh air and cleanliness could be provided, that we would stand a good chance of winning the battle against tuberculosis That terrible disease had its main seats in the horribly over-crowded sections in our cities, inhabited mainly by immigrants or the sons and daughters of immigrants...
...They come in contact with the worst types of citizenship we have among us...
...He cannot help getting a perverted idea of citizenship...
...Will the boy who is industriously educated under this system be a better man or a better husband...
...They are seldom or never omitted in the best continuation schools abroad...
...Will he have a higher sense of moral obligation...
...Will he be a better citizen...
...It must be judged by its effect upon the life of the people and upon human happiness and a varying number of our great problems, social and economic and moral, with which we have to deal today...
...Better Citizens Through Education NOW IF WE can supplement this splendid fundamental training (industrial education) with some definite knowledge of actual conditions and real appreciation of government, there is no doubt that the results will be those sought for...
...If we strive to build up prosperity through industrial education without building up the health of the average man or average woman, and without building up true citizenship, we will not have really democratic education...
...In practically every continuation class in Munich a boy has to take one hour a week of this training, for four years...
...10, Points Out in the Following Striking Chapter that Thorough-going Industrial Training Lays a Good Foundation for the Making of a Better Citizenship...
...Nothing practically has been done in the common schools...
...We had what were known as the "lung blocks...
...F'ght Political Diseases Like Other Ills WE HAVE ELIMINATED other diseases as the result of this great movement and as a by-product of our methods...
...The combating of political corruption, as well as physical disease, is one of the great by-products of this work, the effect of which has not been fully understood in connection with other correlated movements in Germany...
...However good the stock from which they came, the great majority of our immigrants know very little about the history of our country...
...We had in America a few years ago awful conditions in the slums of our cities...
...It come* from the same source...
...In this connection, the debating department of the University Extension Division could be of great service...
...When an immigrant comes to this shore, he has to wait five years before he is naturalized...
...It comes largely from alien population pouring into the country at the rate of over a million a year...
...that we cannot make people good by law...
...To be in its truest sense efficient, it must be a truly democratic education, an education which will fit all the needs of all the people...
...We can do nothing...
...Consider tuberculosis for a moment...
...they see the deference to wealth acquired by corruption...
...It is but a trursm to say that intelligence is aided when disease is curbed and good, cleanly conditions exist in the home...
...Our lawyers tell us that very little can be done by legislation...
...We never can completely fight disease, political or physical, unless we teach these four-fifths in some way, how to fight...
...will it improve the moral situation...
...The cumulative effect of this upon citizenship is very great...
...With desperate odds against us, we began a great campaign of education...
...They are noted as a law-abiding and patriotic people...
...Will he be more truthful, honest...
...In those five years what education in citizenship does he obtain...
...we may deliver lectures, or our magazines may lead in pointing out the defects in government, but we will never get a true sense of obligation to the state until we teach that obligation...
...Our political disease goes hand in hand with our physical disease...
...All of this, it seems to us, could be in some degree adopted in all industrial classes and we believe that no state aid should be given unless some such teaching be a part of the curriculum of each school...
...By teaching cleanliness, fresh air, sanitation, we have helped to drive away typhoid fever and pneumonia, and to raise the physical and mental standards of our people...
...We are fighting political corruption and physical disease at the same time...
Vol. 3 • April 1911 • No. 6
