Transcriber's Note: Some very obvious typos were corrected in this text. For a list please see the bottom of the document.

WAGE EARNING AND EDUCATION

THE SURVEY COMMITTEE OF THE
CLEVELAND FOUNDATION

Charles E. Adams, Chairman
Thomas G. Fitzsimons
Myrta L. Jones
Bascom Little
Victor W. Sincere
———
Arthur D. Baldwin, Secretary
James R. Garfield, Counsel
Allen T. Burns, Director

THE EDUCATION SURVEY

Leonard P. Ayres, Director

CLEVELAND EDUCATION SURVEY

WAGE EARNING AND EDUCATION

BY

R.R. LUTZ

THE SURVEY COMMITTEE OF THE
CLEVELAND FOUNDATION
CLEVELAND · OHIO
1916

Copyright, 1916, BY
THE SURVEY COMMITTEE OF THE
CLEVELAND FOUNDATION

WM. F. FELL CO. PRINTERS
PHILADELPHIA

FOREWORD

This summary volume, entitled "Wage Earning and Education," is one of the 25 sections of the report of the Education Survey of Cleveland conducted by the Survey Committee of the Cleveland Foundation in 1915 and 1916. Copies of all the publications may be obtained from the Cleveland Foundation. They may also be obtained from the Division of Education of the Russell Sage Foundation, New York City. A complete list will be found in the back of this volume, together with prices.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES

LIST OF DIAGRAMS

WAGE EARNING AND EDUCATION

CHAPTER I[ToC]

THE INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION SURVEY

The education survey of Cleveland was undertaken in April, 1915, at the invitation of the Cleveland Board of Education and the Survey Committee of the Cleveland Foundation, and continued until June, 1916. As a part of the work detailed studies were made of the leading industries of the city for the purpose of determining what measures should be taken by the public school system to prepare young people for wage-earning occupations and to provide supplementary trade instruction for those already in employment. The studies also dealt with all forms of vocational education conducted at that time under public school auspices.

Types of Occupations Studied

Separate studies were made of the metal industry, building and construction, printing and publishing, railroad and street transportation, clothing manufacture, department store work, and clerical occupations. The wage-earners in these fields of employment constitute nearly 60 per cent of the total number of persons engaged in gainful occupations and include 95 per cent of the skilled workmen in the city. The survey also gave considerable attention to the various types of semi-skilled work found in the principal industries.

Each separate study was assigned to a particular member of the Survey Staff who personally carried on the field investigations and later submitted a report to the director of the survey. Each report was also subjected to careful analysis and criticism from other members of the Survey Staff before it was finally passed upon by the Survey Committee. Mimeographed copies were sent to representatives of the industry and to the superintendent of schools and members of the school board and their criticisms and suggestions were given careful consideration before the Committee and the director of the survey gave their final approval to the publication of the report. The value of the work was greatly enhanced through the ample discussion of the different studies from widely diverse points of view secured in this way. The industrial studies were carried through under the direction of the author of this summary volume.

The Survey Staff and Methods of Work

The reports of the studies relating to vocational education were published in a series of eight separate monograph volumes. The names of the reports and the previous experience in educational and investigational work of each member of the Survey Staff are as follows:

"Boys and Girls in Commercial Work"—Bertha M. Stevens; teacher in elementary and secondary schools; agent of Associated Charities; secretary of Consumers' League of Ohio; director of Girls' Bureau of Cleveland; author of "Women's Work in Cleveland"; co-author of "Commercial Work and Training for Girls."

"Department Store Occupations"—Iris P. O'Leary; head of manual training department, First Pennsylvania Normal School; head of vocational work for girls and women, New Bedford Industrial School; head of girls' department, Boardman Apprentice Shops, New Haven, Conn.; special investigator of department stores for New York State Factory Investigating Commission; three years' trade experience as employer and employee; author of books on household arts and department stores; Special Assistant for Vocational Education, State Department of Public Instruction, New Jersey.

"The Garment Trades" and "Dressmaking and Millinery"—Edna Bryner; teacher in grades, high school, and state normal college; eugenic research worker New Jersey State Hospital; statistical expert in United States Bureau of Labor Investigation of women and child labor; statistical agent United States Post Office Department; Special Agent Russell Sage Foundation.

"The Building Trades," and "The Printing Trades"—Frank L. Shaw; teacher in grades and high school; principal of high school; assistant superintendent of schools; superintendent of schools; special agent United States Immigration Commission; special agent United States Census; industrial secretary North American Civic League for Immigrants; author of reports on immigration legislation.

"The Metal Trades"—R.R. Lutz; teacher in rural and graded schools; superintendent of schools; secretary of Department of Education of Porto Rico; took part in school surveys of Greenwich, Conn., Bridgeport, Conn., Springfield, Ill., Richmond, Va.; Special Agent Division of Education, Russell Sage Foundation.

"Railroad and Street Transportation"—Ralph D. Fleming; special agent and investigator for United States Immigration Commission, the Federal Census of Manufacturers, the United States Tariff Board, the Minimum Wage Commission of Massachusetts, the National Civic Federation, and the United States Commission on Industrial Relations.

The work began in April, 1915, and ended in the same month of the following year. Two members of the staff, with one stenographer and a clerk, were employed during the entire period. One member of the staff was employed 11 months, one nine months, one approximately five months, and one two months.

The field investigations consisted largely of visits to industrial establishments for the purpose of securing first-hand information as to industrial conditions and the nature and educational content of particular occupations. Over 400 visits of this kind were made by members of the Survey Staff. Many conferences were held with employers and employees with the object of securing their views as to the needs and possibilities of industrial training.

The task of tabulating and classifying the data obtained by the individual investigators in their visits to the local industrial establishments involved much time and labor. Although it was not found practicable to maintain complete uniformity in the different inquiries, the members of the staff kept in close touch with each other, so that with respect to the points of principal importance, the results of their investigations are comparable. Practically every recommendation made in the reports was discussed in conferences with school principals and with other members of the teaching force engaged in the teaching of vocational subjects.

Throughout the survey the objective held constantly in mind was the formulation of a constructive program of vocational training in the public schools. In outlining the field of inquiry a clear distinction was drawn between those kinds of general education which have a more or less indirect vocational significance, and vocational training for specific occupations in which the controlling purpose is direct preparation for wage-earning. The studies were purposely limited to this latter type of vocational training. The survey did not concern itself with manual training conducted for general educational ends, with the art work of the schools, or with courses in domestic science and household arts. These subjects in the curriculum were dealt with in different sections of the education survey, but were considered as being outside the legitimate field of the vocational survey.

CHAPTER II[ToC]

FORECASTING FUTURE PROBABILITIES

The industrial education survey of Cleveland differs from other studies conducted elsewhere in that it bases its educational program on a careful study of the probable future occupational distribution of the young people now in school. It does not claim to foretell the specific positions that individual boys and girls will hold when they are adults but it does claim very definitely that our safest guide in foretelling their future vocational distribution is to be found in the official figures of the present occupational census of the city.

One of the most familiar and time-worn platitudes of educational speakers and writers is that "The children of today are the citizens of tomorrow." In the field of industrial education it is quite as true that the school children of today are the workers of tomorrow. Moreover, since occupational distributions change but slowly even in these modern times, it is unquestionably true that the boys and girls now studying in the public schools will soon be scattered among the different gainful occupations of Cleveland's industrial, commercial, and professional life in just about the same proportions as their fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters are now distributed.

The plan of the survey in advocating types of present preparation based on studies of future prospects seems at first sight so obvious a mode of procedure as hardly to warrant extended explanation. This is far from being the case. The reader who proposes to follow the working-out of the principle and to scrutinize the evidence underlying it must be prepared to scan many a detailed table of statistics and to arrive at most unforeseen conclusions.

The Popular Concept of Industrial Education

For many years past the public has given respectful attention to the arguments of the champions of industrial education. There has been general assent to the proposition that the schools should train for and not away from the industrial age in which we live. We have come to think of the carpenter shop, the machine shop, the forge shop, and the cooking room as necessary and desirable adjuncts of the modern school and to our minds these shops have typified industrial education. All of these have come to be almost synonymous with progressive thought and action in public education. Very generally it has been felt that the problems of industrial education were to be solved through the wider extension of these shop facilities in our public schools.

When these familiar generalizations are submitted to careful analysis their whole structure begins to totter. In Cleveland about 3,700 boys leave school each year and go to work. They represent various stages of advancement from the 4th grade of the elementary school to the 4th year of the high school. They are scattered through more than 100 school buildings. The problem of industrial education is to give these boys with their differing ages, their widely varied school preparation, and their scattered geographical distribution, the best possible preparation for taking their places in the work-a-day world. They represent every grade of intelligence, every stratum of social and economic life, and it is extremely difficult to bring them together for instructional purposes. They are scattered in little groups through more than a thousand classrooms.

The Importance of Relative Numbers

Now it is possible to foretell with some certainty what these young people will be doing a few years from now. Almost all of them are of American birth and it is certain that in a few years they will be engaged in doing just about the same sorts of work as are now done in the city of Cleveland by adults of American birth. The data of the United States Census of Occupations show us that among every 100 American born men in Cleveland there are eight who are clerks, seven who are machinists, four who are salesmen, and so on through the list of hundreds of occupations. The number of American born men in each 100 engaged in each of the 10 leading sorts of occupations is approximately as follows:

This simple list at once calls into question all the standard assumptions about the extension of industrial education depending on greatly increasing the number of carpenter shops and machine shops in the public schools. The figures show that among each 100 American born men in Cleveland only seven are machinists and only three are carpenters. Clearly we should not be justified in training all the boys in our public schools to enter the machinist's trade or the carpenter's trade when nine out of each 10 will in all probability engage in entirely different sorts of future work. The more the figures of the little table given above are studied, the clearer it appears that our conventional ideas about industrial education need critical scrutiny and careful challenge. These 10 leading occupations include only 41 out of each 100 American born men. Moreover, more than half of these 41 are engaged in mental work rather than in manual work.

From these considerations one definite conclusion inevitably emerges. It is that the safest guide for thinking and planning for industrial education is to be found in a study of the occupational distribution of the present adults. From the very outset such a study indicates that the most difficult and important problems which must be met and coped with are not those relating to methods of instruction but rather those of organization and administration. The future carpenters and machinists cannot be taught until we can get them together in fair sized classes. They represent the most numerous of the industrial groups and yet their numbers are relatively so few that the average Cleveland school sends out into the world each year only two or three future machinists and perhaps one future carpenter.

The trouble with present thinking about this matter has been that we have noted the very large numbers of machinists and carpenters in the population and have failed to realize that while these groups are numerous in the aggregate they are after all quite small when relatively considered and compared with the total number of workers.

Another important fact that has been almost invariably overlooked is that many of the present carpenters and machinists are foreigners by birth and that there is every prospect that this same condition will maintain in the future. Hence these trades and most other industrial occupations are not recruited from our public schools to anything like the degree that has been assumed.

A Constructive Program Must Fit the Facts

The simple principle which underlies the method employed by the survey is the same on which all large business undertakings are conducted. The results of its application in the field of industrial education are, however, fundamentally different from those commonly arrived at on the assumption that nine-tenths of the rising generation will earn their living in industrial pursuits. The fact is that no such proportion of the children in school will become industrial workers. All the native born labor now employed in manufacturing and mechanical industries constitutes only 44 per cent of the total number of native born workers in the city. Moreover, nearly half of the industrial workers are employed in unskilled and semi-skilled occupations for which no training is required beyond a few days' or weeks' practice on the job. Such training calls for a mechanical equipment far more extensive than the resources of the school system can provide, and can be given by the factory more effectively and much more cheaply than by the schools.

In the final analysis, the problem of industrial training narrows down to the skilled industrial trades. Approximately 22 per cent of the total number of American workers in the city are employed in skilled manual occupations. This does not mean that a constructive program of industrial education would affect 22 per cent of the present school enrollment. All the weight of educational opinion and experience is on the side of excluding the children of the lower and middle age groups as too young to profit by any sort of industrial training, while the evidence collected by the survey goes to show that of the remainder less than one-fifth of the girls and one-fourth of the boys are likely to become skilled industrial workers.

An Actuarial Basis for Industrial Education

Considerations like the foregoing have determined the fundamental method of the Cleveland Industrial Survey. Plans for the present generation have been formulated on the basis of future prospects as foretold by state and federal census data. The methods used were characterized by a member of the Cleveland Foundation Survey Committee as "the actuarial basis of vocational education." This is accurately descriptive, because the method of forecasting the number of men the community will need for each wage-earning occupation closely resembles that employed by life insurance actuaries in foretelling how long men of different ages are likely to live. Such methods are similar to those commonly used in commerce and industry. They deal with mass data rather than with individual figures, and with relative values rather than with absolute ones.

CHAPTER III[ToC]

THE WAGE EARNERS OF CLEVELAND

In 1910 Cleveland ranked sixth among the cities of the United States as to number of inhabitants, with a population of approximately 561,000. The city is growing rapidly. From 1900 to 1910 the increase in the total number of inhabitants was over 46 per cent. The Census Bureau estimate of the population in 1914 is approximately 639,000.

Of the 10 largest cities in the country only one—Detroit—had in 1910 a greater proportion of its wage earners engaged in industrial employment than Cleveland. Relatively Cleveland has one and one-fourth times as many industrial workers as New York, Chicago, St. Louis, or Baltimore, and one and two-fifths times as many as Boston. On the other hand a smaller proportion of the adult workers of the city earn their living in professional, clerical, and commercial work, or in domestic and personal service employments than in most large cities.

Table 1 shows by large occupational groups the distribution in 1910 of the working population in Cleveland. The classification is that adopted by the federal census. More than 56 per cent of the male workers of the city and about 33 per cent of the women workers were engaged in manufacturing and mechanical occupations. The trade group ranks next, about 14 per cent of the men and approximately 11 per cent of the women being engaged in commercial occupations. Of each 100 women in employment 30 are servants, laundresses, housekeepers, or are engaged in some other form of personal service, while only five men of each 100 earn their living in this kind of work. Railroad and street transportation, with the telegraph and telephone and mail systems of communication, requires the services of 11 per cent of the male working population, but uses very few women. About seven per cent of the men and 15 per cent of the women are employed in clerical work. A slightly larger ratio of women to men is found in the professional occupations, due mainly to the large number of women in the teaching profession. The whole professional group constitutes less than five per cent of the total working population.

TABLE 1.—OCCUPATIONAL DISTRIBUTION OF THE WORKING POPULATION OF CLEVELAND,
CENSUS OF OCCUPATIONS, 1910[TableList]

From the standpoint of vocational training one of the most striking facts about Cleveland wage-earners is that a large majority of them are not Clevelanders. Almost exactly half of the men in gainful employment were born outside the United States and, due to the rapid growth of the city, there has been a considerable influx of workers from the surrounding country in recent years, so that a large proportion even of the American working population was born, brought up, and educated in some other place. The number and per cent of foreign born, of foreign or mixed parentage but born in this country, and of native parentage is shown in Table 2.

TABLE 2.—NATIVITY OF THE WORKING POPULATION IN CLEVELAND. U.S. CENSUS, 1910[TableList]

More than three-fourths are foreign or of foreign or mixed parentage. The proportion of those born in this country of American parentage is approximately the same for both sexes, but the number of women workers of mixed parentage is relatively much larger than among the men. Roughly, of each 10 men employed in gainful occupations, five, and of each 10 working women, three, were born abroad.

The large proportion of foreigners in the trades has an important bearing on the problem of vocational training. Some of the skilled occupations are monopolized by foreign labor to such an extent that they offer a very limited field of employment for native workmen. Cabinet making, tailoring, molding, blacksmithing, baking, and shoe making, are examples. Some of these trades have practically ceased to recruit from American labor. This condition has to be constantly borne in mind in planning training courses to prepare boys for the skilled trades, because of the marked disparity which often exists between the size of a trade and the field of opportunity it presents for boys of native birth.

CHAPTER IV[ToC]

THE FUTURE WAGE-EARNERS OF CLEVELAND

In 1915 there were in Cleveland approximately 50,000 boys between the ages of six and 15, and 56,000 girls between the ages of six and 16, the age period during which school attendance is required by law. Of these 106,000 children approximately 37,000 boys and 38,000 girls were enrolled in the public schools. Exact data as to those attending private and parochial schools are not available. The total enrollment in such schools has been variously estimated as between 25,000 and 30,000.

The Public Schools

The public school system in 1915 enrolled approximately 82,000 children of all ages, of whom about half were boys and half girls. They are taught in 98 elementary schools and 10 high schools. The elementary course comprises eight grades. At the beginning of the school year 1915-16 two junior high schools were opened for pupils of the seventh and eighth grades. It is to be expected that this plan will soon be extended throughout the city, so that the enrollment in elementary schools will be made up of pupils of the first six grades only. The distribution by grade is given in Table 3. The kindergarten grades and the special ungraded classes are omitted.

TABLE 3.—PUPILS ENROLLED IN THE DIFFERENT GRADES OF THE PUBLIC DAY SCHOOLS IN JUNE, 1915[TableList]

About 77 per cent of the children are enrolled in the grades below the seventh, about 13 per cent in the seventh and eighth grades, a little over six per cent in the first two years of the high school, and less than three and one-half per cent in the third and fourth.

There are eight academic high schools, two technical high schools, and two commercial high schools. The technical high schools are steadily growing in favor. The registration of boys in these schools increased about 33 per cent from 1913 to 1915, and of girls about 77 per cent. During the same period the registration of boys in the academic high schools decreased slightly, while the increase of girl students was only eight per cent; in the commercial high schools the number of girl students increased 20 per cent, while the enrollment of boys fell off more than 10 per cent. The enrollment by individual schools is shown in Table 4.

TABLE 4.—ENROLLMENT OF HIGH SCHOOL PUPILS, SECOND SEMESTER, 1914-1915[TableList]

About three-eighths of the high school pupils of the city are in the technical and commercial schools. Of the boys 56 per cent are enrolled in the academic high schools, 37 per cent in the technical schools, and seven per cent in the commercial schools. Of the girls 68 per cent attend the academic high schools, 18 per cent the technical schools, and 14 per cent the commercial schools. In the commercial high school approximately two-thirds of the enrollment is made up of girls. In the technical high schools the opposite condition prevails, the girls constituting less than one-third of the total enrollment, while in the academic high schools the girls outnumber the boys by nearly one-sixth.

Ages of Pupils

The distribution as to ages is shown in Table 5. The largest group is made up of children seven years old. Between 14 and 15 over 30 per cent leave school. The loss from 16 to 17 is approximately 43 per cent, from 17 to 18 about 44 per cent, and from 18 to 19 nearly 62 per cent.

The compulsory attendance law requires boys to attend school until they are 15 and girls until they are 16. That the law is not adequately enforced is demonstrated by the heavy loss between the ages of 14 and 15, and the fact that the loss between 15 and 16 is approximately the same for both boys and girls, although girls are required to attend one year longer than boys. Additional evidence as to the laxity in the enforcement of the compulsory law is found in the results of an inquiry conducted by the Consumers' League of Cleveland in the spring of 1916, in cooperation with the survey.

TABLE 5.—AGES OF PUPILS ENROLLED IN PUBLIC ELEMENTARY, HIGH, AND NORMAL SCHOOLS IN JUNE, 1915[TableList]

An attempt was made to follow up the cases of all the children who had left one public elementary school during the period of one year preceding the study. The work was done by the case method and the homes of the children were visited. The total number of cases studied was 117, of whom 89 were girls. It was found that one-third of these children had graduated and gone on to high school. Another third had gone to work, and of these, 40 per cent had done so without graduating. The children constituting the remaining third were staying at home, and among these a majority had dropped out without graduating.

Of the eighth grade graduates one-half were found to be illegally employed, as they were less than 16 years of age. Among those who dropped out and went to work before completing the course 80 per cent were illegally employed.

The fact that many girls drop out without graduating and before the end of the legal attendance period and remain at home indicates that most of them do not leave on account of financial necessity. This conclusion is substantiated by the testimony of the girls and their parents, many of whom say that the girls left simply because they grew tired of attending and did not see the value of remaining.

These facts point to the necessity for much more effective work in enforcing the compulsory attendance laws, for far better inspection of shops and factories to detect violations of the child labor laws, and above all to such a reform of the schooling opportunities provided for older girls as will make them and their parents see the value of securing the advantages of the training provided.

Education at the Time of Leaving School

About 3,700 boys and an approximately equal number of girls drop out of the public schools each year. Most of the boys and a considerable number of the girls enter wage-earning at once. Their educational equipment at the time of leaving school is indicated in Table 6.

TABLE 6.—EDUCATIONAL EQUIPMENT OF THE CHILDREN WHO DROP OUT OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS EACH YEAR,
AS INDICATED BY THE GRADES FROM WHICH THEY LEAVE[TableList]

Slightly less than one-fifth finish the high school course. Nearly three-fifths drop out before entering the high school, and approximately three-eighths before reaching the eighth grade.

Under the present compulsory attendance law a boy who enters school at the age of six and afterwards advances at the rate of one grade per year until the end of the compulsory attendance period should cover nine grades—eight in the elementary school and one in high school—by the time he is 15 years old. In actual fact, however, only about two-fifths get any high school training. Nearly all of the rest take the eight to nine years' attendance required by law to complete eight, seven, six, or even a smaller number of grades.

It is from this body of pupils that most of the wage-earners are recruited. In the course of the survey several investigations were made for the purpose of finding out what educational preparation workers in various industries had received. One of the most extensive of these was conducted in connection with the study of the printing industry. Educationally the printing trades rank higher than most other factory occupations, yet the average journeyman printer possesses less than a complete elementary education. Composing-room employees, such as compositors, linotypers, stonemen, proof-readers, etc., undoubtedly stand at the head of the skilled trades as to educational training, but it was found that only eight per cent were high school graduates. Six per cent had left school before reaching the seventh grade, and 16 per cent before reaching the eighth grade. The other departments of the printing industry made a much less favorable showing.

An investigation conducted by the Survey in the spring of 1915, covering 5,000 young people at work under 21 years of age, indicated that only about 13 per cent of these young workers had received any high school training and that less than four per cent had completed a high school course. Over one-fifth reported the sixth grade as the last completed before leaving school, and nearly half had dropped out before completing the elementary course. Less than seven per cent of the boys engaged in industrial pursuits had received any high school training and only 42 per cent had got beyond the seventh grade. The educational preparation of the boys engaged in commercial and clerical occupations was somewhat better, nearly 22 per cent having attended high school one year or more; about one-half had left school after completing the eighth grade and nearly one-third had not completed the elementary course.

These facts have a vital relation to the problem of vocational training. If the great majority of the children who will later enter wage-earning occupations do not remain in school beyond the end of the compulsory attendance period, and in addition over half fail to complete even the elementary course, vocational training, to reach them at all, must begin not later than the seventh grade, and if possible, before the pupils reach the age of 14.

CHAPTER V[ToC]

INDUSTRIAL TRAINING FOR BOYS IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS

In Chapter III the distribution of the wage-earners of the city was outlined, mainly for the purpose of establishing a basis on which to make a forecast of the future occupations of the children in the public schools. Such a forecast is essential as the preliminary step in any plan of vocational training to be carried out during the school period, for the reason that without it a clear understanding of the principal factors of the problem is impossible. The kinds of vocational training needed by children in school, and how and where such training should be given, must always depend in the first instance on what they are going to do when they grow up.

The average elementary school in Cleveland enrolls between 350 and 400 boys. When they leave school these boys will scatter into many different kinds of work. With respect to the future vocations of the pupils, the average school represents in a sense a cross section of the occupational activities of the city. It contains a certain number of recruits for each of the principal types of wage-earning pursuits. A few of the boys will later enter professional life; many will take up some sort of clerical work; a still larger number will be employed in commercial occupations; and the largest group of all will become wage-earners in manufacturing and mechanical pursuits.

The future occupation cannot be foretold accurately with respect to any particular boy, but we do know that, whatever their individual tastes and abilities, the boys must finally engage in activities similar to those in which the adult born native male population is engaged, and in approximately the same proportions. We do not know, for example, whether Johnny Jones will become a doctor or a carpenter, but we do know that of each 1,000 boys in the public schools about seven will become doctors and about 25 will become carpenters, because for many years about those proportions of the boys of native birth in Cleveland have become doctors and carpenters.

One of the most impressive facts which comes to light in the study of occupational statistics is the constancy in these proportions. The business of any community requires certain kinds of work to be performed and the relative amount of work required and consequently the relative number of workers vary but slightly over a long period of time. This principle is illustrated in a striking way by the list of occupations selected at random presented in Table 7, showing the number of persons engaged in the occupations specified among each 100 male workers at two successive census years.

TABLE 7—PER CENT OF TOTAL MALE WORKING POPULATION ENGAGED IN SPECIFIED OCCUPATIONS, 1900 AND 1910[TableList]

With the exception of plumbers and stenographers there was either an increase or a decrease from 1900 to 1910 in the relative number employed in each of these occupations. In only one occupation, however, that of machinist, did the change amount to as much as one per cent. In all the others the shift during the decade was less than one-half of one per cent, and in more than three-fifths of them it did not exceed one-tenth of one per cent of the total number of male workers.

What the Boys in School Will Do

The figures in this table, presented for illustrative purposes, do not accurately represent the proportions of boys now attending the public schools who are likely to enter the occupations named, because they do not take into account the fact that a considerable number of the workers in Cleveland came to this country after they reached adult manhood and that a disproportionate number of these foreign born workers enter the industrial occupations. For this reason the total adult working population is not strictly comparable with the school enrollment, which is approximately nine-tenths native born. When the boys in the public schools grow up they will be distributed among the different trades, professions, and industries in about the same proportions as are the American born men in the city at the present time. This distribution is shown for the different occupational groups in Table 8.

TABLE 8.—DISTRIBUTION OF NATIVE BORN MEN BETWEEN THE AGES OF 21 AND 45
IN THE PRINCIPAL OCCUPATIONAL GROUPS[TableList]

The figures in the column at the right of the table represent the number of native born men between the ages of 21 and 45 among each hundred native born male inhabitants engaged in the occupations comprehended in the various groups. In the case of the industrial group the figure is too high, as the census data relative to the distribution of foreign and native born include all ages, and there is a smaller proportion of American born adult men employed in industry than is found in the lower age groups. Extensive computations have shown, however, that the inaccuracies due to this cause are not serious enough to affect the use of the figures for our purpose.

Let us now consider what these proportions mean in establishing vocational courses to prepare boys for wage-earning pursuits. The future expectations of the boys in a large elementary school enrolling say 1,000 pupils of both sexes would be about as follows:

This distribution includes all pupils, from the beginners in the first grade to the older boys in the seventh and eighth grades. It is certain, however, that differentiated instruction for vocational purposes is not possible or advisable for the younger children. According to the commonly accepted view among educators, vocational training should not be undertaken before the age of 12 years, and many believe that this is too early. In an elementary school of 1,000 pupils there would be about 80 boys 12 years old and over. Applying to this number the ratios given in the previous table we obtain the following:

The industrial group includes all of the skilled trades and most of the semi-skilled and unskilled manual occupations. The skilled trades are usually grouped in four main classifications: metal trades, building trades, printing trades, and "other" trades, these last comprising a number of small trades in each of which relatively few men are employed. With respect to their future occupations the 35 boys in the industrial group are likely to be distributed about as follows:

The analysis can be carried still further, for these trade groups are by no means homogeneous. The building trades, for example, include over 20 distinct trades, a number of which have little in common with the others as to methods of work and technical content.

Organization and Costs

At this point it becomes necessary to take cognizance of certain administrative factors which have a marked bearing on the problem. They relate to the organization of classes in elementary schools and the cost of teaching. In a school of 1,000 pupils there would be at least five separate classes for the seventh and eighth grades. The 35 boys who need industrial training are not all found in a single class, but are distributed more or less evenly throughout the five classrooms, that is, there are approximately seven in each class. A differentiated course under these conditions is difficult if not impossible. In a few of the Cleveland elementary schools the departmental system of teaching is in use. Under this plan something might be done, were it not that the total number of pupils requiring instruction relating specifically to the industrial trades is too small to justify the expense necessary for equipment, material, and special instruction required for such training. This is true as regards even an industrial course of the most general kind, while provision for particular trades is entirely out of the question. The machinist's trade employs more men than any other occupation in the city, yet the number of seventh and eighth grade boys in the average elementary school who will probably become machinists does not exceed five or six. Not over two boys are likely to enter employment in the printing industry. The smaller trades, such as pattern making, cabinet making, molding, and blacksmithing are represented by not more than one boy each.

A possible alternative is the plan now followed in the teaching of manual training whereby the boys of the upper grades in various elementary schools are sent to one centrally located for a short period of instruction each week. The principal objection to this plan is that the amount of time now given is insufficient to accomplish much in an industrial course, nor can it be materially increased without seriously interfering with the work in other subjects.

The first condition for successful industrial training is the concentration of a large number of pupils old enough to benefit by such training in a single school plant. Only in this way is it possible to bring the cost of teaching, equipment, and material within reasonable limits and provide facilities for differentiating the work on the basis of the vocational needs of the pupils. The fact that this condition cannot be met in elementary schools is one of the strongest arguments in favor of conducting the seventh and eighth grade work under the junior high school form of organization.

What the Elementary Schools Can Do

The most important contribution to vocational education the elementary school can make consists in getting the children through the lower grades fast enough so that they will reach the junior high school by the time they are 13 years old, in order that before the end of the compulsory attendance period they may spend at least two years in a school where some kind of industrial training is possible. That this is not being done at the present time the data presented in Chapter IV amply demonstrate. In recent years there has been a tendency to regard vocational training as a remedy for retardation. The fact is that the cure of retardation is not a subsequent but a preliminary condition to successful training for wage-earning. Vocational training is not a means for the prevention of retardation, but retardation is a most effective means for the prevention of vocational training.

CHAPTER VI[ToC]

THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL

In 1915 the Board of Education authorized the establishment of a system of junior high schools in the city, and at the beginning of the school year of 1915-16 the new plan was inaugurated in two schools. The Empire Junior High School, situated in the eastern part of the city, had an enrollment of about 700 children made up of seventh and eighth grade pupils formerly accommodated in the elementary schools of that section. The Detroit Junior High School on the west side had an enrollment of about 400 pupils. No decision has yet been reached as to whether the course shall include only two years' work, or three years, as in other cities of the country where the junior high school plan has been adopted.

A comparison of the course with that for corresponding grades of the elementary schools shows some marked differences. Less time is devoted to English in the junior high school and considerably more to arithmetic, geography, and history. Mechanical drawing, not taught in the elementary schools except incidentally in the manual training classes, is given an hour each week. All boys receive one hour of manual training a week against slightly less than one and one-half hours in the seventh and eighth elementary grades, but they may elect an additional two and one-half hours a week in this subject, together with applied arithmetic during the first year, or with bookkeeping during the second. Girls may elect an additional two and one-half hours a week of domestic science, with bookkeeping. The manual training for boys comprises woodwork and bookbinding.

Specialized Training Not Practicable

In the junior high school, as in the elementary school, the greatest difficulty in the way of trade training for specific occupations lies in the small number of pupils who can be expected, within the bounds of reasonable probability, to enter a single trade. Hand and machine composition, the largest of the printing trades, will serve as an example. In a junior high school of 1,000 pupils, boys and girls, the number of boys who are likely to become compositors is about five. But to teach this trade printing equipment occupying considerable space is necessary, together with a teacher who has had some experience or training as a printer. The expense per pupil for equipment, for the space it occupies, and for instruction renders special training for such small classes impracticable. All of the skilled occupations, with the exception perhaps of the machinist's trade, are in the same case. An attempt to form separate classes for each of the eight largest trades in the city would result in two classes of not over five pupils, three classes of not over 10 pupils, and only one of over 13 pupils. The following table shows the number of boys, in a school of this size, who are likely to enter each of these trades.

A General Industrial Course

The members of the Survey Staff were, however, of the opinion that through the system of electives in the junior high school, industrial training of a more general type, made up chiefly of instruction in the applications of mathematics, drawing, physics, and chemistry to the commoner industrial processes, would be of considerable benefit to those boys who, on the basis of their own selection or that of their parents, are likely to enter industrial pursuits. A course of this kind is outlined in following sections of this chapter.

The objections which may be brought against this plan are frankly recognized. It takes into account only the interests of the industrial group, comprising less than one-half of the boys in the school. Unquestionably it would tend to vitalize the teaching of mathematics, drawing, and science for the boys who enroll in the industrial course, but it leaves unsolved the question of method and content of instruction in these subjects for the boys in the non-industrial or so-called academic course. Very possibly future experience may demonstrate that the plan recommended for the general industrial course affords the best medium for teaching science and mathematics at this period to all pupils, in which case a differentiated course would be unnecessary.

The organization of vocational training in junior high school grades presents many difficulties which cannot be solved by a more or less abstract study of educational and industrial needs. Experimentation on an extensive scale, covering a considerable period of time, is necessary before definite conclusions can be drawn as to the limitations and possibilities of such work. It is with a full appreciation of this fact that the following suggestive outline is presented.

The purpose of the general industrial course is to afford to boys who wish to enter industrial occupations the opportunity to secure knowledge and training that will be of direct or indirect value to them in industrial employment. It is not expected that by this means they can be given much practical training in hand work for any particular trade. The most the school can do for the boy at this period is to bridge over for him the gap that exists between the knowledge he obtains from books and the rôle which this knowledge plays in the working world. It must not be assumed that the transition can be effected merely by the introduction of shop work, even if it were possible to provide the wide variety of manual training necessary to make up a fair representation of the principal occupations into which the boys will enter when they leave school. It is doubtful whether, so far as its vocational value is concerned, shop work isolated from other subjects of the curriculum is worth any more per unit of time devoted to it than several of the so-called academic subjects. This is particularly true of the two most common types of manual training—cabinet making and forge work. Both represent dying trades. During the decade 1900-1910 the increase in the number of cabinet makers in Cleveland fell far below the general increase in population. The blacksmiths made a still poorer showing. Both trades are recruited mainly from abroad and the relative number of Americans employed in them is steadily declining.

In the opinion of the Survey Staff a general industrial course should cover instruction in at least the following five subjects: Industrial mathematics, mechanical drawing, industrial science, shop work, and the study of economic and working conditions in wage earning pursuits. These may be offered as independent electives or they may be required of all pupils who elect the industrial course. The details of organization must, of course, be worked out by trial and experiment. They will probably vary in different schools and from year to year.

Industrial Mathematics

Of the hundreds of employers who were interviewed by members of the Survey Staff as to the technical equipment needed by beginners in the various trades, nearly all emphasized the ability to apply the principles of simple arithmetic quickly, correctly, and accurately to industrial problems. Many employers criticized the present methods of teaching this subject in the public schools. In the main their criticisms were to the effect that the teaching was not "practical." "The boys I get may know arithmetic," said one, "but they haven't any mathematical sense." Another cited his experience with an apprentice who was told to cut a bar eight and one-half feet long into five pieces of equal length. He was not told the length of the bar, but was given the direct order: "Cut that bar into five pieces all of the same size." The boy was unable to lay out the work, although when asked by the foreman, "Don't you know how to divide 8½ by 5?", he performed the arithmetical operation without difficulty. The employer gave this instance as an illustration of what to his mind constituted one of the principal defects of public school teaching. "Mere knowledge of mathematical principles and the ability to solve abstract problems is not enough," he said. "What the boys get in the schools is mathematical skill, but what they need in their work is mathematical intelligence. The first does not necessarily imply the second."

This mathematical intelligence can be developed only through practice in the solution of practical problems, that is, problems which are stated in the every day terms of the working world and which require the student to go through the successive mental steps in the same way that he would if he were working in a shop. The problem referred to above is one of division of fractions. If we state it thus: "8½÷5," the pupil takes pencil and paper, performs the operation and announces the result. If we say, "A bar 8½ feet long is to be cut into five pieces of equal length; how long should each piece be?", the problem calls for the exercise of greater intelligence, as the pupil must determine which process to use in order to obtain the correct result. It becomes still more difficult if we merely show him the bar and say: "This bar must be cut into five pieces of equal length; how long will each piece be?" Several additional preliminary steps are required, none of which was involved in the problem in its original form. Before the length of the pieces can be computed he must find out the length of the bar. He must know what to measure it with, and in what terms, whether feet or inches, the problem should be stated. Again, if we say: "Lay this bar out to be cut in five equal lengths," another step—the measurement and marking for each cut—is added. Many variations might be introduced, each involving additional opportunities for the exercise of thought.

It is through practice in solving problems of this kind that the pupil acquires what the employer called mathematical intelligence. It consists in the ability to note what elements are involved in the problems and to decide which process of arithmetic should be used in dealing with them. Once these decisions are made the succeeding arithmetical calculations are simple and easy. In technical terms the ability that is needed is the ability to generalize one's experiences. In every-day terms it is the ability to use what one knows.

The work in applied mathematics should cover a wide range of problems worded in the language of the trades and constantly varied in order to establish as many points of contact as possible between the pupil's knowledge of mathematics and the use of mathematics in industrial life. Practical shop work is one of the best means to this end. The trouble with much of the shop work given in the schools is that it runs to hand craftmanship in which the object is to "make something" by methods long ago discarded in the industrial world, rather than to give the pupil exercise in the sort of thinking he will need to do after he goes to work. Successful teaching does not depend so much on the use of tools and materials as on the teacher's knowledge of the conditions surrounding industrial work and his ability to originate methods for vitalizing the instruction in its relation to industrial needs.

Mechanical Drawing

At the present time the junior high school course provides for one hour a week of mechanical drawing. All the boys who may be expected to elect the industrial course can well afford to devote more time to drawing. For such boys no other subject in the curriculum, except perhaps applied mathematics, is of greater importance. In many of the trades the ability to work from drawings is indispensable and the man who does not possess it is not likely to rise above purely routine work.

In a drawing course for future industrial workers the emphasis should be placed on giving the pupil an understanding of the uses of drawing for industrial purposes, rather than on fine workmanship in making drawings. Seventh grade boys can't be made into draftsmen in three years and if they leave school at 15 they are not likely to become draftsmen. The ordinary skilled workman seldom has any need to make drawings or designs, beyond an occasional rough sketch, but he often has to work from drawings. To put it in another way, drawing to the average workman is like an additional language of which he needs a reading but not a writing knowledge. No doubt it would be well to teach him to write and read with equal skill, but in the two or three years most of these boys will remain in school there is not time enough to do both.

Industrial Science

In many of the trades an introductory knowledge of physics and chemistry is of considerable advantage. Boys in the junior high school cannot be expected to take formal courses in these subjects, but they should not leave school without some acquaintance with them and a knowledge of their relations to industrial processes. A fair equipment should be provided for demonstrational and illustrative purposes. The subject matter should be correlated as closely as possible with the shop work, and the principal mechanical and chemical laws explained as the shop problems furnish examples of their application.

In addition the boys should be taught the common technical terms used in trade hand books. The man who expects to advance in his trade will have to keep on learning after he leaves school. There are many avenues of information open to him, and the school can perform no more valuable service than to point the way to the sources of knowledge represented by reference books, trade journals, and other technical literature. Some of the popular magazines, such as "The Scientific American," "The Illustrated World," and "Popular Mechanics" can be used most effectively to bring home to the pupils the close connection existing between the class work and the outside world of science and invention.

Shop Work

It is difficult to determine the exact function of the manual training shop work in cabinet making and bookbinding which figures in the curriculum at present. That the work was not planned with vocational training in mind seems clear from the action of the school board in adding bookbinding to the course about the middle of the year. The bookbinding trade is one of the smallest in the city, and there is little probability that more than one boy among the total number enrolled in both junior high schools will enter it after leaving school.

Fully three-fourths of the industrial group will later be employed in occupations where most of the work is done with machines or machine tools. Even in the hand tool trades, such as carpentry, sheet metal work, cabinet making, and blacksmithing, the use of machines is constantly increasing. It would seem, therefore, that some acquaintance with different types of machines would be of considerable value to the pupils who may later enter industrial employment. The number of boys who are likely to become machinists is large enough to warrant the installation of a small machine shop. Repairing, assembling, and taking apart machines should occupy an important place in the shop course. Most boys are intensely interested in getting at the "insides" of a machine, and the processes of assembling, with their attendant problems of adjustment and co-ordination of mechanical movements, afford opportunities for the best kind of practical instruction. One of the great advantages of this type of shop work lies in the fact that it consumes little or no material and is therefore inexpensive; another is that a fairly extensive equipment can be easily obtained, as any machine, old or new, will serve the purpose and may be used over and over again.

The extent and variety of shop equipment will depend largely on the resources of the school system. The more the better, so long as the money is expended on the principle of the greatest good to the greatest number, which means that the kinds of tools and equipment used in the large trades should be preferred to those used only in the smaller trades.

In order that the time devoted to shop work may yield its greatest results, it is necessary that every lesson center around knowledge and ability that will be of real subsequent use to the pupils. It must not run to "art" and it must not be mere tinkering. Its principal value as vocational training, in the last analysis, lies in its use as an objective medium for the teaching of industrial mathematics and science.

Vocational Information

During the second and third years all the boys who elect the industrial course or who expect to leave school at the end of the compulsory attendance period should be required to devote some time each week to the study of economic and working conditions in wage earning industrial and commercial occupations. A clear understanding of the comparative advantages of different kinds of employment is of the highest importance at this period of the boy's life. It seems to be generally assumed that an adequate basis of knowledge for the selection of an industrial vocation is an acquaintance with materials and processes. Such knowledge is valuable, but making a living is mainly an economic problem. What an occupation means in terms of income is more significant than what it means in terms of materials. The most important facts about the cabinet making trade, for example, are that it offers very few opportunities for employment to public school boys, and that it is one of the lowest paid skilled trades. The primary considerations in the intelligent selection of a vocation relate to wages, steadiness of employment, health risks, opportunities for advancement, apprenticeship conditions, union regulations, and the number of chances there are for getting into it. These things are fundamental, and any one of them may well take precedence over the matter of whether the tastes of the future wage-earner run to wood, brick, stone, or steel.

CHAPTER VII[ToC]

TRADE TRAINING DURING THE LAST YEARS IN SCHOOL

Between the end of the compulsory attendance period and the entering age in most of the trades there exists a gap of from one to two years which is not adequately covered by any of the present educational agencies of the school system.

Two years ago the Ohio State legislature extended the compulsory attendance period from 14 to 15 for boys and from 14 to 16 for girls. The result has been to force into the first years of the high school course a considerable number of pupils who have no intention of taking the complete four year course, and who will leave as soon as they reach the end of the compulsory period. That these pupils are probably not getting all that they might out of the time they attend high school is no argument against the present compulsory attendance age limit, which should be raised rather than lowered.

The study of industrial conditions conducted during the survey left every member of the Survey Staff firmly convinced that the industries of Cleveland have little or nothing worth while to offer to boys under 16. Very few of the skilled trades will accept an apprentice below this age. The general opinion among manufacturers was unfavorable to the employment of boys under 16. "They are more of a nuisance than a help," said one; "they are not old enough to understand the responsibilities of work." "They break more machinery and spoil more material than they are worth," said another. In several of the building trades apprentices must be 17 years old, as the law forbids boys under this age to work on scaffoldings. The new workmen's compensation law exerts a strong influence in favor of a higher working age limit, owing to the greater risk of accident among young workers.

The fact is that the law is still about one year behind the requirements of industrial life. If a vote were taken among employers who can offer boys the opportunity to learn a trade it would be found that a large majority favor raising the working age to 16. Employment before this time usually leads nowhere, and the pittance the boy earns cannot be compared with the economic advantage he could derive from an additional year in a good vocational school. The average boy who leaves school at 15 spends a year or two loafing or working at odd jobs before he can obtain employment that offers any promise of future advancement. These years are often more than wasted, as he not only learns nothing of value from such casual jobs, but misses the healthy discipline of steady, orderly work, which is of so great importance during these formative years of his life.

The Technical High Schools

The two technical high schools, the East Technical and West Technical, occupy an important place among the secondary schools of the city. At the present time the two schools enroll nearly two-fifths of the boys attending high school. The course comprises four years' work. In the East Technical the shopwork includes joinery and wood-turning during the first year, and pattern making and foundry work during the second year. In the West Technical the first year course includes pattern making and either forging or sheet metal work; and that of the second year, forging, pipe-fitting, brazing, riveting, and cabinet making. During the remaining two years of the course the student may elect a particular trade, devoting about 10 hours a week to practice in the shop during the last half of the third year, and from 11 to 15 hours during the fourth year.

The proportion of pupils who graduate is small and the mortality during the first two years is very heavy. This is due in part to the fact that the type of pupil who leaves school early is more likely to elect a technical course than an academic course. About 25 per cent of each entering class drops out after attending one year, and 25 per cent of the remainder by the end of the second year. By the time the third year is reached the classes are greatly depleted and the survivors as a rule are of the more intelligent and prosperous type. Only a small proportion of them expect to enter skilled manual occupations. Table 9 shows the distribution of the third and fourth year students among the different trade courses during the first semester of 1915-16.

TABLE 9.—DISTRIBUTION OF THIRD AND FOURTH YEAR STUDENTS IN TRADE COURSES
IN THE CLEVELAND TECHNICAL HIGH SCHOOLS, FIRST SEMESTER, 1915-1916[TableList]

That relatively few of these students will ultimately become journeymen workmen is shown by the records of the boys graduated in the past. The principal of the East Technical High School recently sent a questionnaire to all the students graduated up to 1915, asking for information as to their present occupations and their earnings during the first four years after graduation. Of those who replied, over 60 per cent either were attending college, or employed as draftsmen or chemists. About 28 per cent were employed in the skilled trades. The distribution in detail is shown in Table 10.

The data furnished by graduates as to their earnings during successive years after leaving school supply still more convincing evidence to the effect that the technical school graduate seldom remains in manual work more than two or three years. The complete course gives them an equipment of practical and theoretical knowledge that speedily takes them out of the handwork class. The technical high schools are primarily training schools for future civil, electrical, and mechanical engineers. To the student who cannot afford a college course they offer excellent preparation for rapid advancement to supervisory and executive industrial positions, and for drafting and office work in manufacturing plants.

TABLE 10.—DISTRIBUTION BY OCCUPATION OF CLEVELAND TECHNICAL HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATES[TableList]

The output of the schools falls into two main divisions: those who leave at the end of the second year or earlier, and those who graduate. The records show that most of the pupils who reach the third year complete the course, but nearly half drop out during the first and second years. The benefit they obtain from these two years' attendance is problematical. The course was designed on the basis of four years' attendance, and the work of the first two years is to a considerable degree a preparation for that of the last two.

The principals of both schools are fully alive to the disadvantages of the course for the large number of pupils who drop out within a year or two, and admit that such students would derive greater benefit from more practical instruction aimed directly toward preparation for the industrial trades. Both believe that the only practicable solution is a two-year trade course in a separate school, covering a much wider range of shop activities than the present high school course.

To the only alternative—the institution of a short course within the technical schools to be conducted either as a part of or simultaneously with the four year course—they present objections of considerable weight. They point out that a preparatory course for the trades and a preparatory course with college as the goal differ not only in length but in kind. The work in mathematics for the future civil engineer, for example, must conform to college entrance standards and involves an amount of study that is quite unnecessary for the boy whose aim is to become a carpenter or machinist. The first needs a thorough course in algebra, geometry, and trigonometry; the second needs industrial arithmetic, with only such applications of higher mathematics as may be of use to him in his trade. The same principle holds with respect to other subjects.

What boys who expect to enter industrial occupations most need at this period is instruction that will be of practical value to them for future wage earning. It is doubtful whether high school courses which have been formulated in the first instance to prepare pupils for a college course can furnish such instruction and it is still more doubtful whether the trade training required by the future mechanic and the broader preparation required for the professions can be given effectively in the same school.

A Two-Year Trade Course

It is the opinion of the Survey Staff that a separate school in which direct training for the industrial trades is emphasized would result in more profitable use of the pupils' time and probably induce many of them to remain in school up to the apprentice entering age. Such a school, with a curriculum embracing vocational training for all the principal trades, would easily command an enrollment sufficient to justify the installation of a good shop equipment and the employment of a corps of teachers qualified by special training and experience for this kind of work. Even if only one-half the number who enter the skilled trades each year attended the school, the enrollment would reach at least 800 boys.

A trade school of this kind would relieve the first and second year classes of many pupils that the technical high schools do not want and cannot adequately provide for. The minimum entering age should be not less than 14, and no requirement other than age should be imposed. This would draw part of the over-age pupils from the grades and take from the junior high school a certain number of boys who could profit by the greater amount of time given to shop work in the trade school.

A good many will stay only one year, and every effort should be made at the time of entrance to learn the intentions of the pupil. If it seems fairly certain that he will not remain longer than a year he may well omit such studies as have no direct bearing on the trade he wishes to learn. The courses should follow the lines laid down in the general industrial course recommended for the junior high school, but with a greater proportion of the time devoted to practical shopwork. As the number of pupils for each trade class would be relatively large, a closer correlation could be effected between the academic subjects and the work in the shops than is possible in the junior high school.

Both general and special courses should be provided. Many of the pupils will wish to specialize on a particular trade. Others who have not yet reached a decision need a general course that will give them a wide range of experience with materials and processes. The organization of classes should be planned so as to permit transfers, whenever desirable, from the general to the special courses, or vice-versa.

By the time the pupil has reached the second year he usually will settle down to steady work on the trade he selects, although here again the organization should be sufficiently elastic to allow transfers when there seems to be good reason for making them. It is to be expected, however, that nearly all the pupils will devote their time during the second year to practice and study limited to single trades. The success of the school in holding boys to the age of 16 or 17 will depend on its ability to convince them that the extra time in school is a paying investment, and this cannot be done unless they stick to one line of work.

CHAPTER VIII[ToC]

TRADE-PREPARATORY AND TRADE-EXTENSION TRAINING FOR BOYS AND MEN AT WORK

Several forms of trade-preparatory and trade-extension training for apprentices and journeymen workmen are carried on in the city. Probably the most effective work done in the teaching of boys after they have entered employment is found in manufacturing establishments which maintain apprentice schools in connection with their shops. There are two excellent examples of this type of instruction in Cleveland—the apprentice schools conducted by the New York Central Railroad and by the Warner and Swasey Company, manufacturers of astronomical instruments and machine tools.

The Warner and Swasey Company school was established in 1911. The course covers a total of 560 hours, extending over a period of four years. The apprentices attend the school four hours a week for 35 weeks each year. The time allotment for the various subjects included in the course is shown in Table 11.

In 1915 there were 65 apprentices enrolled in the school, most of them from the machinist's trade. The sessions are held during working hours in a room in the factory fitted up with drawing tables and blackboards. No shop equipment is used. The purpose of the course is to develop a body of trained workmen competent to take positions in the factory as foremen or heads of departments. Less than one-tenth of the total time of the course is devoted to the study of shop practice. Standard textbooks are used in the teaching of mathematics.

TABLE 11.—TIME ALLOTMENT IN THE APPRENTICE COURSE
GIVEN BY THE WARNER AND SWASEY COMPANY, CLEVELAND[TableList]

The enrollment in the school conducted by the New York Central Railroad is about 140 boys, nearly all of whom are machinists' apprentices. They are divided into three classes, the members of each class attending the school four hours a week. About two-thirds of the time is devoted to mechanical drawing and one-third to mathematics and shop practice. The instruction in these two latter subjects is based on a series of graded mimeographed or blue print lesson sheets, containing a wide variety of shop problems, with a condensed and simplified explanation of the mathematical principles involved. In the main the work is limited to the application of simple arithmetic to problems of shop practice. No textbooks are used, but the booklets on machine shop practice published by the International Correspondence Schools are studied in connection with the course.

In addition to the required classroom work in mechanical drawing, each apprentice serves four or five months of his term in the regular drafting rooms of the company. The classroom is equipped with models of railway appliances and machinery, together with laboratory apparatus for teaching the laws of mechanics. No machine tools or other shop equipment are used in the classes. The course covers about 700 hours of instruction exclusive of the time spent in regular drafting room work. About 20 apprentices finished the course in 1915.

Several of the building and printing trades' labor unions take an active interest in the training of apprentices, and in at least two instances the unions maintain evening classes for teaching trade theory. The Electrical Workers' Union, made up principally of inside wiremen, conducts apprentice classes taught by journeymen. The International Typographical Union course for compositors and compositors' apprentices is undoubtedly the best yet devised for giving supplementary training in hand composition. It is taught by journeymen in evening classes, under the supervision of the central office of the Typographical Union Commission, to which all the work must be submitted. In February, 1916, about 100 students were enrolled, of whom approximately one-third were apprentices and two-thirds journeymen. The course consists of 46 lessons in English, lettering, design, color harmony, job composition, and imposition for machine and hand folding. The classes are held at the headquarters of the union. As the students' daily practice in the shop provides plenty of opportunity for the acquisition of manual skill, no apparatus or shop equipment is used in connection with the course.

The apprentice school conducted by the Y.M.C.A. represents another type of apprentice training. The instruction is given during the day. The apprentices are sent to the school by various firms in the city under an arrangement whereby the boys attend four and one-half hours each week during regular shop time. In February, 1916, the enrollment consisted of 46 apprentices, practically all from the metal trades. The employers pay the tuition fee, which amounts to $20 a year. The course requires four years' work of 40 weeks each, a total of 720 hours. It comprises instruction in shop mathematics, drawing, English, physics, and industrial hygiene. No shop equipment is used. Fifteen boys were graduated from the course this year.

The factory apprentice school of the Warner and Swasey Company and New York Central Railroad type possesses many advantages over any kind of continuation instruction carried on outside of the plants where the boys are employed. A better correlation between the class and shop work is possible together with a more personal relation between teacher and pupils than is usually found when the pupils are drawn from a number of different establishments. It must be admitted, however, that this method of training apprentices is not feasible except in very large plants, as in small classes the teaching cost becomes prohibitive. There is little probability that it will ever be adopted by enough employers to take care of more than an insignificant proportion of the boys who enter the skilled trades.

The results obtained, here and in other cities, through coöperative schemes, such as the Y.M.C.A. continuation school, are in the main disappointing. Their failure to reach more than a few of the boys who need trade-extension training is due partly to the fact that they operate under a condition that is fundamentally unjust. One employer interviewed during the survey stated the case very clearly: "I can see no good reason why I should make pecuniary sacrifices for the benefit of my competitors. Very few of my apprentices remain until the end of their term, because by the time they have completed their second year other firms which make no effort to train their quota of skilled workmen for the trade steal them away from me. Any plan for the training of apprentices which does not apportion the burden among the different establishments in direct proportion to the number of men they have, simply penalizes those public-spirited employers who participate in it."

Continuation Training from 15 to 18

The years between 15 and 18 are among the most important in the life of the young worker. If left to his own devices during this period, he is very likely to lose much of vocational value of his earlier education, because he does not grasp the relation which the knowledge he acquired in school bears to his daily work. As a result the problem of supplementary instruction at a later age, when he wakes up to his need for it, becomes much more difficult than if trade-extension training had been taken up at once when he entered employment.

The vocational interests of young workers and the social interests of the community are both opposed to the current practice of "graduating" boys from the public schools at the ages of 15 or 16 and then losing sight of them. The fact that the large number who go into industrial occupations will not or cannot remain in school beyond these ages does not absolve the school system from further responsibility for their educational future. There should not be a complete severance between the boy and the school until he has reached a relatively mature age. In other words, the school system should maintain, as long as possible, such a relation with him as will help to round out his education and lead him to continue it after reaching manhood.

It is the opinion of the Survey Staff that the only practicable solution of this problem lies in the day continuation school, backed by a compulsory law which will bring every boy and girl at work under the age of 18 into school for a certain number of hours per week. Only through a comprehensive plan that will reach large numbers of young workers can the difficulties inherent in the administration of small classes be overcome. The night schools have never been successful in holding boys long enough to make more than a beginning in trade-extension training. It is certain that growing boys should not be expected to add two hours of study to their nine or 10 hours of unaccustomed labor in the shop. Both individual and community interests demand that this problem be taken up in such a way as to obviate the sharp cleavage between the boy's school life and his working life. From every point of view it is unwise to permit him to lose all contact with the educational agencies of the city during his first years at work.

The compulsory continuation school avoids the difficulties which are responsible for the common failure of those schemes which depend for their success on the initiative of individuals or the voluntary coöperation of employers and trade unions. One of its great advantages is that the principle on which it is based makes for equal justice to all. There can be no doubt that the decline of apprentice training in the shops is due partly to the fact that employers find that much of the time and money it costs goes toward providing a skilled labor force for competitors who make no effort to train young workers. The cooperation of employers on a comprehensive scale will be secured only when the burden is equally shared.

The Technical Night Schools

Night classes are conducted in both of the technical high schools for two terms a year of 10 weeks each, the pupils attending four hours a week. A tuition fee of $5 a term is collected, of which $3.50 is refunded to those who maintain an average attendance of 75 per cent. No special provision is made for apprentices as distinct from journeymen, and the trade classes are attended by a considerable number of wage-earners employed in occupations unrelated to industrial work. The list of courses offered during the past year, with the number enrolled in each course at the beginning of the second term, is shown in Table 12.

A glance at the list of courses shows at once that while the vocational motive is given first importance, the schools also aim to provide instruction in cultural subjects which have only an indirect vocational application. Less than one-third of the students are pursuing courses which are directly related to their daily work. The remainder are enrolled in courses which have little or no connection with their daily occupations. In but four of the courses—machine shop, architectural drawing, printing, and sheet metal work—are more than half of the students employed in directly related occupations.

TABLE 12.—COURSES AND NUMBER ENROLLED IN THE TECHNICAL NIGHT SCHOOLS, JANUARY, 1915[TableList]

The policy of the schools is to form a class in any subject for which a sufficient number of students make application. Only a small proportion of the pupils attend more than one year, and the mortality from term to term is very high, although the tuition fee plan insures fairly good attendance during the term. The data collected by the survey indicate that the average length of attendance is approximately two terms—the equivalent in student hours of less than three weeks in the ordinary day school.

Most of the men who enroll in night school classes need a course of at least two or three years. All but a few, however, insist on having their supplementary training in small doses. Frequently they want only specific instruction about a specific thing, such as how to lay out a certain piece of work or how to set up a particular machine tool. They want to secure this knowledge in the shortest possible time, and very few want the same thing. A course of two or three years does not appeal to them. Another difficulty is that their previous educational equipment varies widely, and some are not capable of assimilating even the specialized bit of trade knowledge they need without a preliminary course in arithmetic. As the personnel of the classes changes to a marked degree from term to term, the courses undergo frequent modifications. Apparently the teachers and principals have made a sincere effort to adapt the instruction to the demands of the men who attend the schools, but the fact is that the difficulties inherent in such work make it impossible to organize the classes on any basis except that of subject matter, which means fitting students into courses, rather than adapting courses to the needs of particular groups of workers.

The enrollment is far below what should be expected in a city of nearly three-quarters of a million inhabitants. The total number of journeymen, apprentices, and helpers from the skilled manual occupations, receiving trade instruction in the night schools, is considerably less than one per cent of the total number in the city.

A large enrollment is necessary for efficient administration. Success in specializing courses in night schools, as in day schools, requires a large administrative unit. The possible variety of courses is in direct ratio to the number enrolled. In a class of 200 carpenters there would probably be, for example, 10 or 15 men who need specialized instruction in stair-building. On the basis of the present enrollment of 40 or 50 carpenters the class would dwindle to three or four, with the result that the per capita teaching cost becomes prohibitive.

The relatively small result now obtained is not the fault of the schools, but is due principally to the fact that the great field of evening vocational instruction is treated by the school system as a mere side line of the technical high schools. The evening classes are taught by teachers who have already given their best in the day classes. The enrollment cannot be greatly increased so long as this type of education is handled as one of the marginal activities of the school system, manned by tired teachers and directed by tired principals. It is a totally different kind of job from regular day instruction and requires a different administrative organization, with a responsible head vested with sufficient authority to meet quickly and effectively the widely varying demands of its students. This will require the speeding-up of administrative methods in the establishment of courses and the employment of teachers, a freer hand for the principals as regards both expenditures and policy, and most important of all, the organization of all forms of continuation and night school instruction under a separate department.

A Combined Program of Continuation and Trade-Extension Training

In considering the general conclusions of the survey as to what should be done in the matter of trade preparatory and trade-extension training in both day and night schools, it must be borne in mind that these two types of vocational training are still in the experimental stage. Their future development will probably involve a wide departure from conventional school methods and the evolution of a special technique through trial and experiment. At the present time we can only formulate certain of the main conditions to which future advance in these fields must conform.

First of all, it must be recognized that such work is a big job in itself and cannot be successfully conducted as an appendix of the day school. It is worth doing well, or it is not worth doing. It needs an organization sufficiently elastic and adaptable to quickly make adjustments to unusual and unexpected conditions. It needs the supervision of a competent director who can devote to it all his time and energy, and a corps of teachers who not only know how and what to teach, but who possess a firm conviction of the value and utility of this kind of instruction. In the hands of teachers who bring to it only the margin of interest and energy remaining after a hard day's work in the high school, or who are unable to comprehend the radical difference between teaching a boy in the day school 35 hours a week and teaching a boy four hours a week in the continuation school or evening class, the full measure of success cannot be expected. The employment of day teachers for night school work has never been other than a makeshift, and the insignificant results attained in night schools throughout the country have been due in great measure to this cause.

Apart from the fact that the interests of adolescent workers imperatively demand the establishment of day continuation schools, an additional argument in favor of such schools is that they would provide a means for making the night trade-extension work effective, through the use of continuation day school teachers for night school work. Such a plan would mean that teachers employed on this basis would have charge of a day continuation class during one session of four hours, and a night class of two hours, making a total of six hours' work per day. A plan of this kind would make possible the establishment of the fundamental conditions for successful trade—preparatory and trade-extension training in the night schools. The present system is unjust to both teachers and students;—to the students because the man or boy who sacrifices his recreation time to attend night school has a right to the best the schools can give; to the teachers because no teacher can work a two-hour night shift in addition to seven or eight hours in the technical high school without seriously impairing his efficiency.

The development of this plan would necessitate the establishment of two centers, one located in the eastern and one in the western section of the city. In these centers should be housed the day vocational school, the day continuation classes, and the night vocational classes. This would relieve the technical high schools of a task which does not belong to them, and which by overloading the teachers seriously interferes with the work they were originally employed to do. At present a considerable number of the technical high school teachers are devoting from one-fifth to one-fourth of their total working day to elementary teaching, as most of the work in the night schools is below high school grade.

By bringing together all the trade preparatory and trade-extension work under one roof, it is possible to secure the highest efficiency in the use of equipment. Expensive shops can be justified only on the basis of constant use. If the suggestion for the establishment of a vocational school is acted upon, such future contingencies as the continuation school should be borne in mind in planning the buildings and equipment, so as to permit of extensions as they may be required. It is practically certain that universal continuation training for young workers up to the age of 17 or 18 will be made compulsory in all the progressive states of the country within the next decade. The Ohio school authorities should get ready to handle the continuation school problem before the example of other states and the overwhelming pressure of public opinion forces it upon them.

CHAPTER IX[ToC]

VOCATIONAL TRAINING FOR GIRLS

The discussions in the preceding chapters have been limited intentionally to a consideration of the needs and possibilities of training for wage-earning pursuits in which men predominate. The conditions which surround vocational training for girls are so fundamentally unlike those encountered in the vocational training of boys that a combined treatment leads to needless complexity and confusion.

Cleveland uses a relatively smaller amount of woman labor than most other large cities. In only one of the 10 largest cities in the country—Pittsburgh—is the proportion of women and girls at work smaller as compared with the total number of persons in gainful occupations than in Cleveland. In 1900, 20.4 per cent of the workers in the city were women; by 1910 the proportion of women workers had increased to 22 per cent, a shift of less than two per cent for the decade.

A consideration of the occupational future of boys and girls shows at once how widely their problems differ. The typical boy in Cleveland attends school until he reaches the age of 15 or 16. About this period he becomes a wage-earner and for the next 30 or 40 years devotes most of his time and energy to making a living. The typical girl leaves school about the same time, becomes a wage-earner for a few years, then marries and spends the rest of her life keeping house and rearing children. To the man wage-earning is the real business of life. To the woman it is a means for filling in the gap between school and marriage, a little journey into the world previous to settling down to her main job.

The most radical and important difference between the two sexes with respect to wage-earning is found in the length of the working life. The transitory character of the wage-earning phase in the life of most women is clearly seen in the contrasted age distribution shown in Table 13.

TABLE 13.—PER CENT OF TOTAL POPULATION ENGAGED IN GAINFUL OCCUPATIONS DURING THREE DIFFERENT AGE PERIODS[TableList]

Approximately 85 per cent of the boys and slightly less than 60 per cent of the girls between the ages of 16 and 21 are at work. In the next age group—21 to 45—given by the census, 98 per cent of the men are at work, but the proportion of women employed in gainful occupations drops to 26 per cent, or about one in four; in the next age group—45 and over—it falls to about 12 per cent, as compared with 85 per cent of the men. Of the women still at work in the older age group, over one-half are engaged in domestic and personal service as servants, laundresses, housekeepers, etc.

TABLE 14.—NUMBER EMPLOYED IN THE PRINCIPAL WAGE-EARNING OCCUPATIONS
AMONG EACH 1,000 WOMEN FROM 16 TO 21 YEARS OF AGE[TableList]

The occupations in which the girls now in the public schools will later engage can be determined with a relative degree of accuracy by employing a method in general similar to that utilized in forecasting the occupations of boys. It must be taken into account, however, that the wage-earning period for women, except in the professional occupations, usually begins before the age of 21. For this reason the 16 to 21 age group probably offers the best basis for determining the future occupational distribution of girls in school. If all women at work up to the age of 25 were included the figures would be more nearly exact, but unfortunately data for the period between 21 and 25 are not available. The figures at the right of Table 14 show the number engaged in each specified occupation among each thousand women in the city between the ages of 16 and 21. The proportions given for the professional occupations, particularly teaching, are too small, because of the fact that few women enter the professions before the age of 21.

Applying these proportions to the average elementary school unit, it will be seen at once that the number of girls old enough to profit by special training is too small in any single occupation to form a class of workable size. In such a school there would be about 80 girls 12 years old and over. Of the skilled occupations listed in the table stenography and typewriting offers the largest field of employment, yet the number who are likely to take up this kind of work does not exceed five or six.

Differentiation in the Junior High School

The organization of the junior high school, where the enrollment is made up entirely of older pupils, obviates this difficulty to some extent. Instead of 80 girls there are from 300 to 500, with a corresponding increase in the number who will enter any given wage-earning occupation.

Not less than one-eighth and probably not more than one-fifth of these girls will become needleworkers of some kind. They will need a more practical and intensive training in the fundamentals of sewing than is now provided by the household arts course. The skill required in trade work cannot be obtained in the amount of time now devoted to this subject. It should be made possible for a girl who expects to make a living with her needle to elect a thoroughly practical course in sewing in which the aim is to prepare for wage earning rather than merely to teach the girl how to make and mend her own garments. As proficiency in trade sewing requires first of all ample opportunity for practice, provision should be made for extending the time now given to sewing for those girls who wish to become needle workers. This can easily be done through the system of electives now in use. The establishment of classes in power machine operating during the junior high school period appears to be impracticable, due to the immaturity of the girls and the small number who could profit by such instruction.

A discussion of the present sewing courses in the public schools will be found in Chapters XIV and XV, which summarize the special reports on the Garment Trades and Dressmaking and Millinery. In the present chapter the consideration of these occupations is limited to an examination of the administrative questions connected with training for the sewing trades.

Specialized Training for the Sewing Trades