INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION AND THE STATE 



[Summary] 



LUTHER L. WRIGHT 

 Superintendent of Public Instruction 



I admire and reverence this beneficent institution because 

 it has always been democratic, has always kept close to the 

 people, and has never forgotten its purpose. I congratulate the 

 state on having at its head a man who has the ability to make 

 it what it is. 



The public school is the creator and preserver of democracy. 

 In it every individual takes his rightful place. It levels among 

 children all distinctions of wealth. It humbles pride of birth. 

 Native, rugged strength is the leader in that democracy. There 

 is no fear for democracy from the hordes and swarms of foreign- 

 ers who have come and are daily coming into this country like 

 a cloud of locusts. The public school will make Americans of 

 their children in language, ideals, thought, and customs. This 

 Americanizing process cannot be stayed or thwarted so long as 

 the public school can have these children. 



The common school is a hopper into which are poured all 

 kinds of grain, German, Irish, Polish, Scandinavian, Italian, 

 and Hungarian, but it all comes out flour whose grade is essen- 

 tially American. The elephant feeds on the trees of his native 

 jungle, but what he absorbs becomes elephant and not tree. 

 So whatever America absorbs from Europe, if it can but go 

 through the American public school, becomes American and 

 not European. 



Industrial education is the problem for this state, and you 

 who make public sentiment will solve it. Speed the day when 

 manual training, domestic science, and agriculture shall be 



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