The knowledge and skill which the new men bring to the service of any industry in only what they have picked up in a hap-hazard way. Some bring much and many bring little."

4. This condition tends to increase the cost of production, to limit the output in quantity and to lower the grade in quality. Industries so recruited cannot long compete with similar industries recruited from men who have been technically trained. In the long run that industry, wherever in the world it is located, which combines with general intelligence the broadest technical knowledge and the highest technical skill, will command the markets of the world."

5. "The industries of Massachusetts need, in addition to the general intelligence furnished by the public school system and the skill gained in the narrow fields of subdivided labor, a broader training in the principles of the trades and a finer culture in taste as applied to material, workmanship and design. Whatever may be the cost of such training, the failure to furnish it would in the end be more costly."

6. The state needs a wider diffusion of industrial intelligence as a foundation for the highest technical success, and this can only be acquired in connection with the general system of education into which it should enter as an integral part from the beginning."

The latest philosophy of education re-enforces the demands of productive industry by showing that that which fits n child best for his place in the world as a producer tends to his own highest development physically, intellectually and morally."

RECOMMENDATIONS

There seems to be two lines in which industrial education may be developed - through the existing public school system and through independent industrial schools. In regard to the former, the Commission recommends that cities and towns so modify the work in the elementary schools as to include for boys and girls instruction and practice in the elements of productive industry, including agriculture and the mechanic and dome8tic arts, and that this instruction be of such a character as to secure from it the highest cultural a8 well as the highest industrial value; and that the work in the high schools be modified so that the instruction in mathematics, the sciences and drawing shall show the application and use of these subjects in industrial life, with especial reference to local industries, so that the students may see that these sujects are not designed primarily and solely for academic purposes, but that they may be utilized for the purposes of practical life. That is, algebra and geometry should be so taught in the public schools as to show their relations to construction; botany to horticulture and agriculture; chemistry to agriculture, manufactures and domestic sciences; and drawing to every form of industry."

"The Commission would also recommend that all towns and cities provide by new elective industrial courses in high 8chools instruction in the principles of agriculture and the domestic and mechanic arts; that in addition to day courses cities and towns provide evening courses for persons already employed in trades; and that provision be made for the instruction in part-time day classes of children between the ages of fourteen and eighteen) ears who may be employed during the remainder of that! day, to the end that instruction in the principles and the practice of the arts may go on together."

This report is designed by
CARROLL D. WRIGHT, Chairman, WARREN A. REED, Vice-Chairman, JOHN GOLDEN, Secretary, MARY MORTON KEHEW, GEORGE H. MARTIN, NATHANIEL I. BOWDITCH, JOHN P. MURPHY, SIMEON B. CHASE, GEORGE E. KEITH.

In dealing with this great problem of the course of study, the constant aim of this department has been to omit every unnecessary detail, to economize the teacher's time by scientific methods, and in the introduction of new material, to proceed with great deliberation laying a solid foundation of experience and skill in teaching the new subject and producing results of acknowledged value in each step before proceeding further.

Page 1 | Page 2 | Page 3