METHODS IN INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. 211 



de Saint Nicolas in regarding the aim of producing good workmen as 

 higher than that of establishing a self-supporting school. The Insti- 

 tution de Saint Nicolas is, thanks to the self-denying labors of the 

 Frhres, self-supporting so far as the ateliers are concerned, though the 

 pupils pay for their board and lodging. The Ecole Professionelle of 

 MM. Chaix et Cie., which is but one example of a considerable num- 

 ber of similar establishments, is looked upon as one of the main causes 

 of the prosperity of the concern. To establish such a school in any 

 large business establishment requires little additional expense beyond 

 the salaries of teachers. The cole Communale is a most valuable ex- 

 periment, and shows with what slender outlay some useful instruction 

 in manual labor can be added to the resources of an elementary school. 

 The Ecole Municipale, with its kindred schools at Lyons and Havre, 

 enable us to realize what an apprenticeship school may become if taken 

 in hand by a rich and powerful municipality. 



Turninfr once more to the conditions which obtain in our own 

 country, the thought naturally occurs. Which of these very different 

 types of school will best suit the requirements at home ? On which 

 line shall we proceed in our attempt to adjust to the altered social 

 and industrial conditions of our time the apprenticeship of the past ? 

 Probably no one of these varied types will meet the thousand possible 

 cases which may present themselves in the working out of the problem. 

 Possibly there is room for all these types of apprenticeship school, side 

 by side, or room even for new and untried types. One may adapt 

 itself better to one locality or industry, another to another. Our 

 business is not to copy, but to create and to develop for ourselves that 

 which meets our own case. Much as will depend upon the character 

 of each individual industry, all experience shows that there are other 

 factors in the problem of scarcely less importance, and that much also 

 depends upon the individual proclivities of the director of the school, 

 the industrial enterprise of large firms, the far-sightedness of wealthy 

 corporations. In France many of the schools have been initiated by 

 the municipal or communal authorities. In Germany it is the town 

 or the state that has made the venture. Will our town councils or 

 our school boards ever think the experiment worth a trial, or is cen- 

 tralization too fierce and too frigid to countenance the attempt ? All 

 that is most valuable in the results obtained in the majority of the 

 typical cases afforded by the Parisian schools can also be attained by 

 private local enterprise, if guided wisely and well. Private local 

 enterprise may surely hope for a success at least as great at home as 

 that which it has already won across the Channel. And obviously the 

 various industrial establishments know best the strength and weakness 

 of their own resources. If a guiding and organizing central institution 

 is needed, and it probably will be, it will be forthcoming so soon as 

 there is work for it to do. But no central organization or institution 

 can be expected to do the work which, at the outset, the local in- 



