EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



Vol. XXT. August, 1909. Xo. 2. 



The programme of the recent convention of the National Education 

 Association at Denver Avas remarkable for the attention given to in- 

 dustrial education. Nearly one-half of all the papers, addresses, and 

 reports presented at the convention dealt in some direct way with 

 one or more phases of industrial education. So decidedly did this 

 subject dominate all others in the papers and discussions of the gen- 

 eral sessions and the different department meetings that it shows 

 clearly the almost universal demand for the reorganization of public 

 school curricula along lines giving greater emphasis to local indus- 

 trial and domestic affairs — agriculture, manual arts, and home eco- 

 nomics. It might almost be said that the desirability of introducing 

 such work as rapidly as possible into the regular work of the public 

 schools was taken for granted, and that the problems troubling those 

 who attended the Denver convention related to methods, administra- 

 tion and the training of teachers. 



There was also considerable discussion on the purpose and value of 

 industrial teaching. The purpose, it was quite generall}^ agreed, is 

 not so much to uplift agriculture or manufacturing or business, as it 

 is to raise the level and increase the efficienc}' and happiness of those 

 engaged in these pursuits. This was brought out by L. D. Harvey 

 in his presidential address, in which he maintained that industrial 

 education is much more than education for skill in industrial proc- 

 esses. '' Industrial education," he said, " has for its purpose the 

 acquiring of a body of usable knowledge of greater or less extent 

 related to industrial conditions, processes, organization, and to the 

 administration of industrial affairs, involving the gaining of some 

 skill in the use of such knowledge and the securing of mental, aes- 

 thetic and ethical training through the acquisition and use of the 

 knowledge indicated." 



This interpretation of the purpose of industrial education was also 

 adopted by James W. Robertson, president of Macdonald College, 

 in his address on '' Education for the Improvement of Rural Con- 

 ditions." He maintained that the purpose of education in rural 

 schools is not primarily to make a bigger steer or a bigger ear of 

 corn, but '* to make a better home for a better child." '' The whole 

 idea of education," in his opinion, " is to make the earth an ideal 

 home for the race," and this will not be accomplished by training for 



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