DAIRY AND SEED IMPROVEMENT MEETINGS. I99 



clusively that the claims of the early advocates of manual 

 training were not well founded. Do not misunderstand me. 

 Manual training has been a great addition to our educational 

 practice. It has rendered a helpful service but it has not devel- 

 oped skilled mechanics. It has not made young men able to 

 earn a living in a trade. It has rather had the effect of giving 

 boys, and, later in its development, girls, an added interest by 

 appealing to them on the concrete side and thus helping in the 

 development of their intellects. The manual training idea and 

 practice is worthy of high commendation. It has saved thou- 

 sands — tens of thousands — of boys, for it has given them a new 

 impetus, a new desire to develop their minds. But, as I said 

 a moment ago, it has not made them mechanics. At the very 

 heart of it, it has never intended to do that. You cannot give 

 to an individual a vocation by a few hours' w^ork a week. You 

 can give him a certain interest in things and through that inter- 

 est you may develop in him a desire to improve himself. 



There has grown up in recent years an insistent demand, 

 coming from many quarters, that our boys and girls be given a 

 chance to prepare specifically for a vocation, the preparation 

 to be of such a character as to fit them to earn wages as skilled 

 mechanics. Education of this sort takes the name vocational, 

 or industrial. In its higher form it is known as technical edu- 

 cation. The language of this new form of education has not 

 yet been well defined, and so there is a variety of terms applied 

 to almost the same idea. 



Is there a need in this country for some sort of specific 

 training for a vocation? I think it will require no argument 

 to get your consent to an affirmative answer. America perhaps 

 more than any other of the highly civilized countries of the 

 world, suffers industrially from untrained, unskilled workmen. 

 In the great manufacturing centers we find that the managers 

 of factories have a tale of woe because of the lack of skilled 

 workmen. There are a few reasons why this condition exists. 

 In this country more completely than in most other countries 

 the apprenticeship system has broken down. It seems that in a 

 Republican form of government like ours the apprenticeship 

 system is rather repugnant. It savors too much of slavery and 

 so does not have a very great foothold in America. Some of 

 our states have recently enacted apprenticeship laws that prom- 



