Inudstrial Education

Abstract

TECHNICAL education may be regarded as falling naturally into two main divisions, (1) the education of the higher ranks of those engaged in industrial work, and (2) the education of the rank and file. From time to time one or other of these divisions occupies the more prominent place in the public interest. Recently, probably as a result of the discussions following the publication of the reports of the Poor Law Commission, special prominence has been given in the Press and elsewhere to the problem of the industrial education of those who will become in the near future the skilled workmen, artisans, and craftsmen of this country. Two recent attempts to influence public opinion in this matter may be here briefly recorded. Probably the more useful of the two is an attempt to organise a National Industrial Education League, the main object of which, in the language of its promoters, is “to make elementary education go hand in hand with industrial training, and to stop the criminal waste of the nation's best asset by giving our boys, before leaving school, a sound elementary industrial training.” This proposal “has already received the approval of fifty-seven trades' councils, and of the representatives of 3,000,000 of industrial workers.” In addition, promises of support have been received from many large employers of labour, distinguished educationists, and well known public men. Special stress is laid upon the fact that, “while the present system of technical education has benefitted many, it has left uncared for, and can never reach, the bulk of the children who are destined to become industrial workers.”