INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION TWO CENTURIES AGO. 611 



by which the Poor and the Indians as well as the Rich, will have their 

 Children taught, and the Remainder of the Profits, if any be, to be 

 disposed of to the building of School-houses, and Improvements on 

 the thousand Acres of Land, which belongs to the School." 



" The manner and Profits of a Spinning-School in Germany, as it is 

 laid down by Andrew Yarenton in his own words, in a book of his 

 call'd 'England's Improvements by Sea and Land,' take as followeth : 

 1 In Germany, where the Thred is made that makes the fine Linnens, in 

 all Towns there are Schools for little Girls, from six years old and up- 

 wards, to teach them to spin, and so to bring their tender fingers by 

 degrees to spin very fine ; their Wheels go all by the Foot, made to go 

 with much ease, whereby the action or motion is very easie and delight- 

 ful. The way, method, rule, and order, how they are governed is : 1st. 

 There is a large Room, and in the middle thereof a little Box like a 

 Pulpit : 2ndly. There are Benches built around about the Room, as 

 they are in Play-houses ; upon the benches sit about two hundred Chil- 

 dren spinning, and in the box in the middle of the Room, sits the grand- 

 Mistress with a long white Wand in her hand ; if she observe any of 

 them idle, she reaches them a tap, but if they will not do, she rings a 

 bell, which by a little Cord is fixed to the box, and out comes a Woman, 

 she then points to the Offendor, and she is taken away into another 

 Room and chastized ; and all this is done without one word speaking. 

 In a little Room by the School there is a Woman that is preparing and 

 putting Flax on the Distaffs, and, upon the ringing of a Bell, and 

 pointing the Rod at the Maid that hath spun off her Flax, she hath 

 another Distaff given her and her Spool of Thred taken from her, and 

 put into a box unto others of the same size, to make Cloth, all being 

 of equal Threds. 1st. They raise their Children as they spin finer, to 

 the higher Benches. 2. They sort and size all the Threds, so that they 

 can apply them to make equal Cloths ; and after a young Maid hath 

 been three years in the Spinning-School, that is taken in at six, and 

 then continues until nine years, she will get eight pence the day, and 

 in these parts I speak of, a man that has most Children lives best.' " 



It will be readily seen that this scheme of Budd's is very like that 

 proposed to-day.* What are its striking features? 1. That attend- 

 ance should be made compulsory. 2. It recognized that education to 

 a great degree should be a preparation for life's struggle. Hence the 

 boy is to receive instruction in that which would most naturally be of 

 use to him ; the girl in that which would best fit her for the duties of 

 housewife, never for a moment forgetting the education of the mind. 



* At the annual meeting of the State Board of Education of New Jersey, held at 

 Trenton, July 12, 1887, the following resolution was passed : 



Resolved, That the State Superintendent, in the interval between the present meeting 

 of the board and its meeting in November, make a full investigation of the subject of 

 industrial education now applied to the educational system of other States, with a plan for 

 its adaptation to the school system of this State, and as to the desirability of its adoption. 



