INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. 



By Hon. Payson Smith, State Superintendent of Schools. 



The main address of the evening was by State Superintendent 

 of Schools, Payson Smith, whose subject was Industrial Educa- 

 tion. He spoke in substance as follows : 



\\'hat then should be the attitude of the ]\Iaine school system 

 towards those practical phases of education that are included 

 in what we call industrial education? 



COMMON SCHOOI.S FURNISH FOUNDATION. 



It goes without saying that the primary purpose of the com- 

 mon schools is not to fit children for specific vocations. The 

 elementary schools, dealing with children up to the fourteenth 

 or fifteenth year should place their strongest emphasis on the 

 teaching of those fundamental subjects that form a basis of 

 other education. The historic subjects of the common schools 

 should continue to be the vital elements around which the in- 

 struction of these schools should center. 



SCHOOL SUBJECTS VITALIZED. 



These subjects need, however, to be taught in a more direct 

 connection with the afifairs of the real world in which the child 

 daily lives. The instruction given in school should not be de- 

 tached from the realities, but should deal with them. Arithmet- 

 ical problems should be of the kind that the boy will have occa- 

 sion to use outside of school. Geography should deal more 

 with facts nearer the child and less with those remote from him. 

 History should be more than a recital of events. * It should be- 

 come, so far as good teaching can make it, a guide to good citi- 

 zenship. All subjects taught in the common schools are not 

 parts of that which we generally term industrial education, but 

 all of them may be so taught as to lead the child into a better 

 realization of his own powers, into a clearer vision of the de- 

 mands the world will make of him and to that extent they 

 make for a more efifective contact of the individual with society. 

 Hence they do have a bearing in increasing the efficiency of each 

 social unit. 



