PRACTICAL EDUCATION. /I 1 



in his handling- of a practical trade subject. This state of chaos 

 was remedied by the semi-insurgent class being- handed over to 

 the Meistcr,'-^ who taught in the Gesellc or journeyman 

 class. This man is a modern past-master in his trade ; managers 

 of the Fachforfbildiiiigscli!tlr)i'\ see to that. He was at variance 

 with parts of the official instruction books, and could give valid 

 reasons for his departure from the strict line; he knew more 

 than many of the smaller emplovers, and was at once able to 

 group the class according to the quality of their practice in the 

 trade ; he saw that more than half his class had not seen the 

 practice of the point under discussion, and he introduced models 

 and pieces of his own work ; there were still some dull brains 

 in his class, and the next step was simple : he put them to work 

 with such scrap material as he could find. The old adage " that 

 an ounce of practice is worth a ton of precept" was justified: 

 Hercules had cleansed the Atigean stable ! The discussion be- 

 tween the managers was heated, and the authorities were im- 

 sympathetic, but he won in the end, and the Fachschulcn are to 

 adopt the methods of Sotith Germany by basing the instruction 

 upon demonstration, teaching and practice in workshops as an 

 integral i)art of the vocational school. 



The centre of the South German system is Munich; here 

 imder the gtiidance of Dr. Kerschensteiner the system has been 

 perfected to a very high pitch. Munich has something over 

 fifty trades, for which teaching is given, with over ten thousand 

 boys and nearly an eqtial number of girls in attendance in well- 

 equipped classes, and workshops all housed in splendid build- 

 ings. The success of the system may be gathered from the 

 fact that from 1910 ( ?) onwards only 8 per cent, of the boys of 

 Munich did not enter some skilled trade. Practical men direct 

 almost all the sub-divisions of the commercial, painting and 

 decorating, building, printing, mechanical engineering, wood and 

 metal working trades, besides such miscellaneous ones as shoe- 

 making, wigmaking, baking, confectionery, and so on. The 

 teachers are men taken from the trade and taught to teach; 

 the reverse process has not been found satisfactory, but. in the 

 event of tradesman instructors not being forthcoming, academic 

 teachers are given furlough on full pay in order to learn a trade 

 for a time stifficiently long to master it for the more elementary 

 stages of the teaching.. In the tipper or advanced trades classes 

 many of the instructors are part-time men, especially in applied 

 art subjects like commercial photography and sculpture ; in the 

 case of stucco work an artist instructs as well as an artisan. 



The age at which the selection of a trade is made would 

 shock those who look upon the age of fourteen years as too 

 early to begin to specialise; at about ten years of age the boys 



* The recognised grading in trades are, rmighly : Lenter, apprentice ; 

 Gcselle, jonrneyman: Mcistcr, master workman. 



t Compulsory Trades School, Fachschulen abbreviated form. 



