Industrial Training and Technical Education. 1 9 



all popular Governments, was opportunist. It would not face 

 the ratepayer by asking him to pay for industrial teaching, 

 and succumbed to the growl from the gizzard wing of Trades 

 Unionism. 



It is a remarkable fact in considering this question that the 

 Government supports Reformatories for boys and girls convicted 

 by Magistrates, and Industrial Schools for neglected children, 

 the pecuhar feature of these Institutions being the teaching of 

 trades and industries, while the same is denied to the children 

 of honest parents. A large number of voluntary institutions 

 have also been provided by private enterprise to meet similar 

 cases which do not exactly fulfil the Government requirements 

 as regards age and minor details. Industrial training is in fact 

 the predominant feature of all preventive institutions. What 

 can be more illogical than for the State to wait for an adult or 

 child to fail in some respect before he or she can qualify for the 

 benefit of a bread earning education or training ? All education 

 can only be regarded as " preventive," and some would there- 

 fore suppose the wisest and most economical proceeding be, to 

 provide this more suitable education before the individual is 

 brought to the brink of destruction. Surely the children of 

 honest folk, whom the National conscience has decided shall be 

 educated in our Elementary schools, are entitled to find there 

 a system equal to that which is recognized by the Government 

 as suitable for building up into industrious, well conducted 

 citizens the neglected children of the lowest classes of the 

 community. A reference to the publications of that most 

 excellent Society the Refuge and Reformatory Union will give 

 some idea of the amount of Industrial training which is 

 going on quietly and unostentatiously in the various Preventive 

 Institutes partly supported by the State and part by voluntary 

 effort. 



There are in the United Kingdom 1070 Institutions, of which 

 about 700 are Industrial Institutions for the young, and they 

 accommodate 71,185 individuals, of which about 61,000 are still 

 in their youth. In these Institutions 86 different trades are 

 taught, exclusive of the ordinary domestic work of the homes ; 



