PROGRESS IN AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 273 



is a widespread interest in the general subject of industrial education, 

 or special training for vocations," but that our people generally, and 

 even those who are most interested in the subject, have no definite 

 idea as to its proper scope or method. ''Compared with the opportuni- 

 ties afforded in Europe for acquiring knowledge and skill in productive 

 industrv, the work now being done in Massachusetts is striking-lv and 

 painfully inadequate," and while in this country "the general public 

 has been strangely blind to the narrowness of the public school educa- 

 tion," in Europe there is "the universal recognition of the necessity 

 of special education for every form of industrial life." One of the 

 conclusions of the commission was that "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 

 reenforces the demands of productive industry by showing that that 

 which fits a child best for his place in the world as a producer tends to 

 his own highest development physically, intellectually, and morally." 



There seem 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 domestic arts, and that this instruction be of such a character as to 

 secure from it the highest cultural as well as the highest industrial value; and that the 

 work in the high schools be modified so that the instruction in mathematics, the sci- 

 ences, 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 

 subjects 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 schools instriiction in the principles of agriculture 

 and the domestic and mechanic arts. » * * 



The commission recognizes that there should be no interference with the public 

 school system as it exists by a separate authority having coordinate powers with thoae 

 of the board of education, yet it believes that the elements of industrial training, 

 agriculture, domestic and mechanical sciences should be taught in the public schools, 

 and, as already stated, that there should be, in addition to this elementary teaching, 

 distinctive industrial schools separated entirely from the public school system. The 

 foregoing recommendations, together with the bill embodying the views of the com- 

 mission as to separate industrial schools, solves this problem. 



Instruction in public elementary and high schools would naturally and logically 

 lead to the entrance of students on the work of the independent industrial schools, and 

 the Commission on Industrial Education, as recommended, would deal solely and 

 entirely with such schools, leaving the school authorities on their own initiative to 

 introduce new industrial courses in the public schools. * * »* 



294b— 07 18 



