PRACTICAL EDUCATION. "JOC) 



where the arrangements for instruction to girls of the meaning 

 of maternity and motherhood cottld not offend the susceptibihties 

 of the most correct. 



The type of vocational school that would be more generally 

 suited to this cotmtrv's needs is represented by the School of 

 Rural Housekeeping at Bouchout — now most likely a shelled 

 ruin — in gallant Belgium ; here girls from fifteen to seventeen 

 took turns at marketing for the school, took turns at cooking, 

 and worked successively in the laundry, the garden, the poultry 

 yard, and the dairy. The school was free and the length of the 

 course was one year or according to the age of the pupil and 

 her circumstances. Wherever one may go on the continent of 

 Europe, whether to the Swedish and Danish* vocational high 

 schools and farm schools involving ])racticallv no ex])ense but 

 board, to the higher commercial schools of Antwerp teaching 

 its ]:)tipils commercial correspondence in at least three languages 

 and where the most advanced course for the consular service is 

 given, to the Ferine Eeole of France for peasants' sons, and 

 her more advanced })ractical agriculture classes, to the Ecolc 

 D' Horlogeric at Geneva, where the famous Cieneva Watch- 

 making is taught ; to the German Ackerbauschulen, where strong 

 lads of seventeen not only receive free instruction, but some 

 pay on completing the course — we find a curricuhuii planned for 

 workers, carefully graded according to their promise of ability, 

 and containing all the Aocational fundamentals for efficient life. 



No reference to the progress of vocational education in 

 Europe would complete without the fullest consideration of 

 what has been effected in Germany. The horror we feel at her 

 recent actions as an avowed enemy must not prevent that exam- 

 ination of her educational progress in this one direction, which 

 may enable us to defeat a more subtle r^rm of invasion, the 

 swamping of the local workers by foreigners of better vocational 

 attainment. A Germany conquered is not a Germany vanished ; 

 the indemnity will have to be paid by her people ; her birth-rate 

 is high, and her seething population must find an outlet. How 

 else than by emigration, by a reduced cost of production, by 

 competition at home and abroad, but — preferably abroad ? I 

 write of things I have seen, and heed shotild be given to the 

 warning " Mark over.'"t 



The system of vocational education in (iermany is supple- 

 mentary, and is compulsory as soon as employment is obtained ; 

 this requires part-time attendance for eight to ten hours a week 

 during the day-tlme,% for which the emj^loyer must pay wages 

 as if the boy or girl were actually employed in the shop or 

 counting-house. If the young employe has not completed the 

 elementary day school course there is no admittance to trades 



* Skibbet Skole fur Skibs Kokke. Copenhagen, Ships' Cooks School, 

 t Enemy aeroplane approaching. Warning call in German South- 

 West Africa. 



X " Day " ends at 7 p.m. generally. 



