THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



9 



Photograph by Paul Thompson 



GARMENT- WORKERS PARADING DOWN MADISON AVENUE*. NEW YORK CITY 



Thousands of such humble folk as these find habitations in brownstone fronts that once 

 were homes of the rich. The rich, fleeing with the approach of business, went uptown and 

 duplicated their downtown brownstone fronts, and so millionaire mill-owner and poor gar- 

 ment-worker may live alike behind a brownstone front, the one above Fiftieth street and the 

 other below Twenty-third. 



In times gone by all elementary educa- 

 tion was planned to fit boys and girls for 

 colleges, and those who couldn't continue 

 in the appointed channel found them- 

 selves half fitted for college, but not at 

 all fitted for life. Then some one pro- 

 posed that boys and girls whose educa- 

 tion was almost certain to be limited 

 should spend their school days prepar- 

 ing for their life work rather than for 

 the college they would never be able to 

 attend. 



From that suggestion developed the 

 idea of vocational education, which is 

 now accomplishing wonders. Perhaps 



more than any other one agency, it is 

 helping to transform in heart and action 

 the alien life of the metropolis into part 

 and parcel of our body politic. The im- 

 migrant's children are being fitted for 

 that economic independence which comes 

 with skilled hands instead of being sent 

 forth from school with untrained hands 

 and poorly trained minds. 



A day spent in visiting New York's 

 prevocational and vocational schools 

 gives one much heart and hope. Go with 

 me down on the lower East Side, where 

 the tenement flourishes in all its fabled 

 glory, and visit a prevocational school. 



