PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 707 



The ideal ought to be to train for a trade as though it were a 

 profession — to educate " the whole boy " ; to do more than merely 

 produce workers who will render more efficient service to their 

 employers, and to do this by instruction in the relation of the 

 individual to the community, in his civic function, in the laws 

 relating to personal and communal hygiene — in addition to offer- 

 ing the pupils a reasonable prospect of maintaining themselves 

 in adult life. 



Almost every possible variation in vocational schools has 

 been tried. A big company will maintain its own technical 

 institute where its apprentices are expected to attend for a cer- 

 tain number of hours on certain evenings in the week. (jrou])s 

 of workers may be brought together for a weekly talk 1)y a sub- 

 manager. The advantages are that the instructicMi given is 

 direct ; it can be adapted to every requirement of the particular 

 business ; it is by far the most successful way of getting quick 

 results for a given business. The objections are that the voca- 

 tional education given is incomplete ; it deals wholly with the 

 kind of employe that the employer wants and the training that 

 he requires, which may mean that that worker is wholly or 

 partially unemployable elsewhere; in other words, it is not able 

 to assume the disinterested attitude of the publicly controlled 

 form ; the point of view is limited to the creation of a potential 

 wage earner or producer. Another method has been that certain 

 firms have paid the fees of their apprentices, and even given them 

 a bonus for a certain minimum attendances at certain specified 

 evening classes ; this is jjn^baljlv one of the worst ways of all ; 

 in the first place the employer had but a (|uestionable right of 

 dismissing an employe who did not attend the classes ; secondly, 

 those who did attend did that and nothing more, probably be- 

 cause " too easy getting makes the prize seem light " — -they had 

 not to pay fees, and the ac(|uirement of technical knowledge w^as 

 not necessary in order to be employed as apprentices since they 

 were already so employed under a signed agreement. There is 

 no need to point out the disadvantages and drawbacks of attend- 

 ing evening classes after a full day's lal)our in the works ; again, 

 many looked for a rate of progress entirely ini}X)ssil)le on the 

 pupils present educational ability whatever his previous attain- 

 ment may have been. We are forced to the conclusion that 

 voluntary systems are useless unless they are arranged to inter- 

 cept the pupil as he leaves the primary school and before he 

 gains the employment he desires — i.e., before the consummation 

 of his young ambition. Yet another variety is the " half-time "' 

 system, of which the l)est results are to be found in South Ger- 

 many ; in luigland it has usually been " half-time " at the "wrong- 

 time," and for an insufficient period itself confined to the con- 

 tinuation of an unfinished ordinary school education. The 

 National Advisory Board has ]x)inted out that hitherto many of 

 our exi)eriments in vocatit)nal education have tended to be ob- 

 scured by the " poor white problem." To help the poor is a 



