A PROJECT IN INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. 633 



totype, though more subdued, is no less ready at repartee. Each gives 

 evidence of an acute mind and a keen perception. But playing in the 

 street, vending the public prints, running of errands, and like employ- 

 ments, do little to instruct or elevate, and, though by no means barring 

 the door to more praiseworthy and remunerative vocations, are so beset 

 with allurements as to dissuade the average youngster from entering. 

 Reared in the street, he is accustomed to excitement, and, as he grows 

 up, discovers neither aptitude for trade nor inclination for any other 

 occupation. In the city of New York are thousands of these street- 

 urchins : some live in the street from choice, while others are driven 

 thither ; some go to the public schools, some to the reformatories in 

 lieu ; while others, again, add variety to their existence by devoting 

 a part of the year to the one and a part to the other. But public 

 schools, excellent as they are in New York, could scarcely be expected 

 to succeed in teaching those not inclined to learn ; and there are those 

 who assert that reformatories do not reform, and hence it is that the 

 lad who has spent the allotted time in the process of being schooled 

 and reformed, often starts active life too young for manual labor, and 

 too isrnorant and unskilled for the work of the artisan. As a result, 

 those are led into a career of crime or indolence whose instincts, under 

 more favorable conditions, would have inclined them in the contrary 

 direction, and whose latent abilities gave more than ordinary promise. 

 Having once tasted the pleasures of untrammeled existence, they evince 

 impatience under restraint and cold indifference to persuasion, and 

 have, therefore, come to be looked upon as incorrigibles, and beyond 

 the reach of charitable effort. 



Dissenting from the prevailing opinion as to these lads, a number 

 of New York business-men, having succeeded in other fields scarcely 

 more promising, determined to see for themselves if kindly treatment 

 and careful instruction would not serve to wean them, or some of them, 

 from the street, and encourage them to employ their energies to better 

 purpose. Led by Felix Adler, whose theories on this subject they had 

 come to adopt, they established, some seven years ago, what is called 

 the Workinocman's School. 



They sought to base their system upon common-sense principles, 

 in which the manual labor of the artisan and the mental work of the 

 scholar should go hand in hand, and both be rendered attractive. 

 It was, too, a theory with these men, that the children of the poor- 

 est, even those of the professional mendicant, could be made, with in- 

 telligent treatment and instruction, the equals of their fellows reared 

 amid more fortunate surroundings ; and from the inception of the en- 

 terprise down to the present time they have eagerly sought out those 

 children who, from appearance and situation, might not unreasonably 

 be looked upon as the least promising subjects for instruction. How 

 well they have succeeded it is not the purpose of this paper to decide. 

 It will be sought simply to lay before the reader a general synopsis of 



