708 PRACTICAL KDUCATION. 



traditional impulse, and is justifiable if the aim of the help is to 

 obviate the need of charity ; vocational education can do much 

 in this direction for the dependent and the delinquent through 

 that type of institution known as the industrial school. It is, 

 however, " the normal boy and girl of the non-indigent classes " 

 that form the greater national asset, and to whom we must afford 

 every opportunity to develop their working power with the least 

 waste to themselves and to the State. For these, trades schools 

 are necessary as separate institutions. 



Other countries have long provided for the ordinary boy 

 or girl who is unable to go on to the secondary school as a 

 means of learning a trade. As early as 1857 Holland established 

 its first trades school in Amsterdam ; there are now over forty 

 such schools throughout the length and breadth of that country. 

 The most complete of these is the Ambachtschool No. 3, in the 

 magnificent new building on the Timorplein in Amsterdam. It 

 has accommodation for 1,000 boys, and it was full in 1914. 

 These are ])ure trade schools and not merely " technical insti- 

 tutes," as we understand them ; specific trades are taught by 

 tradesmen instructors to boys who have completed the ordinary 

 or elementary school course; each boy enters at about 14 years 

 of age, and the course covers three years; many boys remain for 

 a fourth year. The trades taught include house-decorating and 

 painting, masons' work, plastering and bricklaying, carpentry, 

 cabinetmaking, electrician's work, and the trade of engineer's 

 mechanic. Related school subjects are taught both for voca- 

 tional efficiency and citizenship, the standard of the instruction 

 in these subjects being partly a revision of the elementary school 

 course, and partly secondary in treatment. There is no com- 

 pulsion, the pupil is free to come or go as he pleases ; but no 

 employer, no matter how small his way of business, will take 

 an apprentice unless he can produce the standard trades school 

 certificate. The surprising tiling is that such small towns as 

 Alkmaar, Tiel, and Apeldoorn* have equally complete trades 

 schools, but, of course, of smaller pupil-capacity ; it must not be 

 thought that these are government forced institutions ; on the 

 contrary, they are established by a species of local option, and 

 the expenditure is met — one-third Iw the municipality, one-third 

 from the Education Vote, and the remaining third from the 

 Royal Treasury Funds — ^the source of revenue in all cases being 

 the taxes. These boys' schools are parallelled by similar and 

 other institutions for girls. The most coniplet'ely equipped 

 domestic school is undoubtedly the Hiiishuudt School voor 

 Meisjes in Amsterdam ; built in the newer residential quarter 

 about two years ago to accommodate some 30 boarders, this 

 institution is a kind of higher grade domestic science school for 

 the daughters of the more well-to-do ; among many excellent 

 features, mention must be made of the physiology clas.s-room, 



* Nos. of inhabitants, ronghly : Amsterdani', 590,000; Apeldoorn, 

 38.500; Alkmaar, 21,500; Tiel, 11,400. 



