COMMUNICATIONS
To the Editor:
Recently the writer noticed several communications inThe Survey, in reference to the proposition of establishing a separate system of vocational schools, distinct from the existing traditional public school system.
As a reason for the establishment of this so-called “dual” system of vocational education the claim is advanced that, since manual training had been emasculated by being in contact with the public school, so likewise would vocational and industrial education be emasculated if these forms of education were to be carried on side by side with the other schools under the old organization.
The writer having seen the retarding effects of such a “dual” system in one of our larger industrial cities, and Massachusetts having tried and abandoned it, and since the writer is firmly convinced that such a divided system of education will, before long, react injuriously upon the social and ethical life of a state and her communities, and will plague the industries with its uneconomic and unsocial consequences, he is decidedly opposed to such a separated system of vocational schools.
It is a shrewd move to get entire control of the education of the masses of industrial workers, a mentally narrowing, mind killing education which, in its effects, would pull the intelligence of a community down to a lower level, being re-enforced by the ossifying influences of extreme specialization, which are noticeable in shop, store and office in all our industrial centers even now.
Manufacturers and business men do not take kindly to the idea that they should be made responsible for the mental, moral and aesthetic development of their employes and under these circumstances industrial education would soon degenerate into a feudal appendage of our industrial system. Manufacturers, corporations and business men are certainly entitled to a share in the management of our educational system and industrial schools and it is highly desirable that they should claim their share.
But they can accomplish all they need eitheras members of school boards, or as advisory committees on industrial education.
As to the danger of vocational schools being emasculated there is no such danger. No one who understands anything about the matter expects to have vocational or industrial schools articulated with the elementary or high schools in the manner manual training has been and is articulated, but have these lower schools separate in just the same manner as manual training high schools or technical high schools are separate from the academic schools, yet are under the same organization and management without any detriment to their usefulness.
It is true that, if specific industrial education is yoked together with academic education in the high school, industrial education will be emasculated. But then it is due to a managerial blunder of trying to straddle two horses and there is no excuse to make such a managerial mistake the pretext for the creation of an expensive separate system of education. Manual training, as we understand it, was never emasculated because neither by the originators, and the writer is one of them, nor subsequently, was manual training in the elementary and high school considered anything else but an adjunct to academic schools for cultural purposes and down to the N. E. A. meeting at Boston in 1903, Professor Woodward, the father of the American system of manual training, disclaimed any other but cultural purpose for manual training, without any distinct vocational aim.
At the above meeting Dean Woodward, in referring to the manual training work done atSt.Louis said: “The secondary school should enable a boy to discover the world and find himself. I use the word ‘discover’ in the sense of uncover—that is lay bare—the problems, the demands, the opportunities, the possibilities of the eternal world. A boy finds himself when he has taken a correct inventory of his inherited and acquired tastes and capacities”. While many friends of manual training were disappointed in finding it did not revolutionize trade education, it never intended to do that and therefore was not emasculated.
Paul Kreuzpointner.
[Chairman Committee on Industrial Education, AmericanFoundryman’s Association.]
Altoona, Pa.
To the Editor:
I wish to express my hearty appreciation of John A. Fitch’s article inThe Surveyof June 7, on the I. W. W. It is illuminative. The I. W. W. is the one organization that is both hated and feared by our most eminent leaders in business, politics, and religion. There are good reasons for this. The I. W. W. pays no homage to heroes and great men of the past; it has little respect for the laws of the land, because it believes these laws were made to keep them in bondage; and it entirely ignores and repudiates the church, as it holds that the church has always been an instrument to keep the people in ignorance and subjection.
Small wonder it is that this “outlaw” organization receives the contempt and anathemas of conventional, respectable people, who have been taught that everything that makes civilization better than barbarism, is due to the genius and greatness and goodness of a few men, who in turn were but the instruments of Providence. The I. W. W. tells its members to stop bowing the head and the knee to great men and even to God, and to assert the right and power that is theirs, and to depend on themselves alone for the establishment of a new system of industry.
Sound and staid business, political and religious leaders are deeply concerned with what seems to be the trend of thought and action on the part of the “lower” classes. This trend appears to be decidedly in the direction of the very principles and methods of the I. W. W. The “better” class of people believe chaos and anarchy will result if the principles and practices of the I. W. W. predominate; the I. W.W. believe they will always be oppressed, and matters go from bad to worse, if our method of doing business is not fundamentally changed. They believe so fully in the justice of their cause that they willingly accept the scorn, the contempt, the inhuman treatment inflicted on them in jail and out, that is meted out mercilessly for their uncompromising speech and attitude.
This bitter feeling of the “best” people toward the I. W. W., and the dogged persistence of the I. W. W. in their revolutionary tactics, constitute the most acute phase of what the Socialists call the class struggle. This class war will continue till one side or the other is victorious. One reason that the whole matter is so generally misunderstood is that nearly all the newspapers distort and suppress most of the news concerning the activity of the I. W. W.
Mr. Fitch’s article radiates light rather than heat.
A. E. House.
Spokane, Wash.
To the Editor:
I have read the various contributions to your symposium on the work before the new Commission on Industrial Relations. In my opinion it is the duty of the employer to provide the necessary safeguards and protection for his employes, such for instance as good light and air, sanitary surroundings, protection against fire and other dangers, reasonable hours of labor, adequate wages, no child labor, facilities for education and self-improvement, healthful living quarters, opportunity for recreation, etc. These and other advantages should be supplied under all circumstances, and there should be co-operation and good feeling between employer and workingman. It seems to me quite probable that the better results which would thus be obtained through the greater efficiency of the employes would more than compensate the employer for any extra outlays which he may have to make to provide such protection, so that in the end it would cost him nothing. The hearty co-operation and friendly spirit which would thus be engendered between the employer and his workingmen would be apt to prevent strikesand other troubles and would decidedly be to the interest of both employer and employe. Any excuse that a manufacturer or other employer of labor might make that if he had to provide this protection to his employes he could not make his business pay seems to me similar to the excuse of one who contemplates putting up a building but says he cannot afford to make the necessary expenditures to provide for the safety of those who will occupy it because with such extra cost the income from the building would not be sufficient to pay a good interest. If he cannot make it pay he should of course not undertake it, but under all circumstances he must build safely. In the same way an employer should see that his employes and workmen receive the necessary protection and he should provide for their absolute safety and do the right thing by them all the time.
Adolph Lewisohn.
[President General Development Company.]
New York.
To the Editor:
I am greatly pleased to see on the cover page ofThe Surveyissue of August 9, a copy of the first Municipal Poster against Alcoholism in the United States. I have wondered in readingThe Survey, that so very much attention was given to different phases of welfare by excellent writers, and the subject of liquor business was not emphasized. It is conceded to be the greatest economic problem of the age, and is the cause of the need of charity organizations, police courts, etc. It is estimated by scientific and prison boards that 75 per cent of the insane, and a greater per cent of criminals, and defectives are now at the mercy of the tax payers of the country as a result of liquor drinking, and liquor heredity. Certainly with such a preponderance of evidence against, and interest in, the subject of alcohol, it makes us rejoice thatThe Surveyhas decided to give a front page to the publicity of municipality interest in this subject.
Luella F. Mc Whurter.
[President Indiana Federation of Clubs.]
Indianapolis.
To the Editor:
While I was staying at Hull House, I saw in their theater a moving picture of the life of Moses. The dial of time turned back, we all became spectators of the events of that great life, almost as though we had been his contemporaries. From the basket in the river to Sinai and the golden calf, it was all there, vivid, true to the Bible story and reverent in tone. I left the theater with much the same feeling as though I had heard a great oratorio, and even today the picture which ran its course in fifteen minutes is more vivid than the story which I have read and taught from childhood.
At a lecture in the University of Chicago last summer, the pastor of a Congregational Church in Madison, Wisconsin, came to me and said that he would like to put the moving picture into his Sunday School room, if I could tell him where he could get the films. All that I could say was to get in touch with the film companies and endeavor to get the ones that he wanted, but I knew that he would have trouble.
There are a considerable number of churches that have already introduced the moving picture into their evening service or their Sunday School. But the difficulty is the same everywhere, it is hard to get films that are suitable. Undoubtedly all the Bible stories can be taught more effectively through the moving picture than in any other way. The church ought to teach its lessons by the most effective means at hand, and many churches would be using the moving picture if they could secure suitable films at a reasonable rate. Mr. Edison has already made a good beginning on a series of films to illustrate the work of the public school.
Inasmuch as the churches need a special type of films, why should not the church federations ask the film companies to produce films of this type and start a church exchange? The churches should indicate which pictures they wanted and furnish Bible experts to supervise the making of the films, so as to secure an accurate and reverent reproduction of the stories. These films might then go out with the approval of the federation like a Sunday School lesson leaf. The film companies would be merely the printers of the material furnished them by the federation.
Besides the Bible stories the great morality and passion plays, like Oberammergau, might well be given, and representations of the great social movements, such as recreation, child labor, tuberculosis, and the like, the films for which are largely available at the present time.
HOUSES SUPPLYINGINSTITUTIONAL TRADEChina and Glass.JAMES M. SHAW &CO.,25 DuaneSt., New YorkReady to Wear Garments.For Men, Women and Children—WholesaleBROADWAY BARGAIN HOUSE,676 Broadway, New York CityDry Goods.FREDERICK LOESER &CO.,484 FULTON STREET, BROOKLYN, N. Y.Newspaper Clippings.HENRY ROMEIKE,110-112 West 26th Street, New YorkHouse Furnishing Goods.C. H. & E. S. GOLDBERG,West Broadway and Hudson Street, New YorkHardware, Tools and Supplies.HAMMACHER, SCHLEMMER &CO.,Fourth Ave., ThirteenthSt., New YorkGroceries.SEEMANBROS.,Hudson and North MooreSts., New YorkAll Hospital Supplies.SCHIEFFELIN &CO.,170 WilliamSt.New YorkIdeal Window Ventilators.IDEAL VENTILATORCO.,120 LibertySt.New YorkElectrical Engineers and Contractors.BATEMAN & MILLER,East 23d Street, New York City
HOUSES SUPPLYINGINSTITUTIONAL TRADE
China and Glass.
JAMES M. SHAW &CO.,25 DuaneSt., New York
Ready to Wear Garments.
For Men, Women and Children—WholesaleBROADWAY BARGAIN HOUSE,676 Broadway, New York City
Dry Goods.
FREDERICK LOESER &CO.,484 FULTON STREET, BROOKLYN, N. Y.
Newspaper Clippings.
HENRY ROMEIKE,110-112 West 26th Street, New York
House Furnishing Goods.
C. H. & E. S. GOLDBERG,West Broadway and Hudson Street, New York
Hardware, Tools and Supplies.
HAMMACHER, SCHLEMMER &CO.,Fourth Ave., ThirteenthSt., New York
Groceries.
SEEMANBROS.,Hudson and North MooreSts., New York
All Hospital Supplies.
SCHIEFFELIN &CO.,170 WilliamSt.New York
Ideal Window Ventilators.
IDEAL VENTILATORCO.,120 LibertySt.New York
Electrical Engineers and Contractors.
BATEMAN & MILLER,East 23d Street, New York City