-Education for the industries. Second-Education in the industries. As things are, it is not practicable to do much in the way of teaching trades or any kind of industrial employments in connection with public ungraded schools, though in cities or in High schools something of this kind may be done. He would speak principally of industrial education in the first sense, that of education which prepares for the profitable pursuit of the industries.

The elements of industrial education-using the term in the sense just specified--ought to include thorough, clear, definite and working knowledge of at least the following: (1.) Reading of our language as embodied in written words, and the language of form as embodied in drawing. The language of words and the graphic language should be made equally familiar. (2.) The power of giving expression to thought in the two forms mentioned before-writing and drawing. (3.) The art of computation for business purposes and the keeping of accounts. (4.) The leading social, moral, and political principles by which the laborer is related to the State, to capital, to other laborers, and the obligations and duties to which these give rise. (5.) The sciences which underlie the various industrial processes. In order to see clearly how our primary education may be better adapted to the wants of the working classes, let us recall some of the ways in which even a limited education-limited in quantity, but good in quality-will add to a worker's value. Among many things the following may be specified:

He is more readily instructed in the duties of his work: more self-controlled, and needing less supervision. Being more intelligent, he works to better advantage and produces more in a given time. He is more industrious; less inclined to idleness and dissipation, and less liable to become a pauper or a dead-beat. He is less liable to join in strikes or engage in those excesses to which they sometimes lead.

If to the elements of a common-school education we add instruction in the elements of the moral, social, and political sciences, the valuable results are much increased. A laborer thus prepared is better able to avoid dangers which threaten himself or others; to detect and remove difficulties which cause expense and delay; to discover simpler and shorter methods of work, and thus to add to his power as a producer. A careful estimate, based on extensive inquiries, makes the gain in all these ways amount to from 25 to 1,000 per cent of the productive ability of a laborer who is entirely uneducated.

The relations of the common school to the working classes are very great, since nearly all laborers are educated in these schools. This being the case, it is obvious that, if the common-school studies and methods are especially adapted to any class of people, it ought to be to the working classes. Our school work is not so well adapted to the wants of working people as it ought to be in the following, among other, particulars:

First-it is too bookish. The book is taught instead of the subject; words are taught instead of ideas; the relations of words are considered instead of the relations of thoughts or of things.

Second-Our courses contain too many things. The multitude of subjects studied preclude the formation of habits of continued work at a single thing.

Third--The studies pursued are too often dictated by fashion instead of being adopted from a consideration of their fitness. For working people who do not take an extended education, book-keeping is a much more useful study than algebra, yet the latter is studied by ten times as many people as the former-because it is the fashion.

Fourth-The metaphysical refinements of modern methods in many cases require children to follow, or attempt to follow, the course of their own mental operations in the attainment of intellectual arts, where the pupil is unable to comprehend the philosophy of the process, and in the attempt to do so fails to acquire the art. This becomes sometimes ludicrously obvious in the attempt of children to master the subtleties of some of the "logical solutions" given in some works on mental arithmetic.

Fifth--There is too much cultivation of the knowing powers to the exclusion of the active. A man's intellectual standing should be measured not by what he knows, but by what he can do. Knowledge is not power, but only a condition of the attainment of power.

Among the MEANS OF REFORM may be mentioned:

First-Concentrate the pupil's work on fewer subjects, and thus develop the power of continuous work.

Second-distinguish between knowledge and skill; and remember that skill can not be obtained but by practice.

Third-Test a pupil's advancement in the knowledge of an art by calling upon him to practice the art, rather than to tell how it ought to be done. For years many teachers have been, ostensibly, teaching grammar as the art of correct writing; but instead of testing the learner's knowledge by asking him to write, he was asked to analyze or parse, as though this was any certain test of his ability to write correctly.

Fourth-Separate the useful and necessary parts of arithmetic from those things which are only curious, or disciplinary (?), and teach the more important first, leaving such things as "casting out the nines," "finding the true remainder," "contractions," "arbitration of exchange," "circulates, or repetends," &c., &c., for the high school or college.

Fifth--Composition must take the place now occupied by grammar, and the latter be carried forward to its true place in the curriculum of the college or high school.

Sixth--Penmanship should have regard principally to plainness, and rapid execution. Fancy flourishing may be considered "an extra."

Seventh-The pupil should be made to feel that he has mastered some one thing. When a pupil feels that his studies are too many for him, he is in a bad way.

Eighth-He must recognize the fact that culture and discipline are not so much dependent upon what is taught, as upon how it is taught. The most perfect clearness and definiteness must be regarded as indispensable at all stages.

Ninth-Drawing, as a means of cultivating the perception and remembrance of forms and their relations, and of developing the power of exact and comprehensive observation, must be taught from the beginning of the school course. The pupil must learn to be as familiar with the form language as with the word language.

Tenth-Reading must be taught as a means of obtaining knowledge rather than of communicating it. Especial pains should be taken to cultivate the ability to read easily and understandingly; and, if possible, every pupil should be taught to love reading.

These changes and reforms, if carried out judiciously, would save a large part of the years now devoted to the study of the common branches, and leave time to teach the elements of the natural sciences and other things which every intelligent working man needs to know.

Such a change in our methods of instruction as is indicated would, it is thought, greatly improve them for the use of those who will ultimately engage in industrial pursuits, and not in the least interfere with the best progress of those who aspire to higher scientific or professional education.

DISCUSSION.

Dr. JOHN HANCOCK, of Ohio-We shall, most of us, probably agree as to the importance of technical instruction; but, as to the manner of impart ing it, we shall some of us differ. I, for one, can not agree that technical instruction can ever be substituted in our schools for general instruction. I do not believe that we should have different schools for different occupations. The boy does not know what work he is going to do, and I am glad that he does not at that age. In other countries the boy does know, because he follows the occupation of his father. I may, perhaps, say of myself that I am an educator that labors, but when I went to school I could not see that I was going to be a teacher. I did what came, and I would have the American boy do whatever lies at hand, and I believe that the proper education is that which gives a man power to do this. If we give the pupil this to the best of our ability, we can not go far astray. I cannot agree to any crystallization into classes that would be likely to result from so early a determination of the occupation of the pupil. The son of the workman of to-day is the lawyer of to-morrow, and the son of the President of to-day may be the workman of to-morrow, and we can't specially fit either for his occupation, because we don't know what it will be. We should make general instruction the trunk of our educational tree, and let technical instruction grow out of it. For some the technical instruction should grow out nearer the root, and for others further away. I do not wish to be understood as opposed to technical instruction, but strongly in favor of that broad, generous instruction in the common schools that fits for all occupations.

Prof. THOMPSON-I claim that if the common schools are adapted to any one it should be to the working man rather than the professional.

Dr. HANCOCK-In answer to that I would say that the education that is the best for any man is best for the working man.

Mr. CHASE, of Louisville-I should like to know whether industrial education for girls has been discussed. It can not be denied that something is needed in that line. They go through the High School, and when they come out of it they feel themselves upon a different plane from their parents, and are discontented with their former surroundings, and yet have no means of supporting themselves in any other. Now,

should there not be some industrial occupation connected with their education? I must indorse what the President of the Association said this morning about the need of this thing. There is room for inquiry if we can not take up this matter and give something that will be more valuable than what we now give them.

Pres. J. D. RUNKLE, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology-In Brookline, near Boston, we have in all respects an excellent High School, yet this fact we cannot ignore: It leaves too many of its graduates without special connection with their future life. I believe that something can be done to remedy this defect-that we can formulate the industrial pursuits so as to teach them in our common schools even much better than grammar is now taught.

Hon. J. P. WICKERSHAM, of Pennsylvania-I belong, perhaps, to another department, but I feel that these questions are among the most important that come before us at this meeting. We are certainly prepared for the higher technical schools. That is not questioned. But the President of the Association had in view this morning the question whether our common schools can not be turned more in this direction. I must agree with Mr. CHASE as to the need of this. I have seen large classes come out of our high school and go back home without a qualification for anything. We see the same fact in the demand for places involving light work like book-keeping. Our people are partly right in saying that the common schools are not doing what they should for the common people. It would not be a bad thing if half the time of the girls were taken up in learning sewing, telegraphy, wood-carving, and other arts of like nature. I believe that it is practicable that the work for girls may be divided in this way. With boys the case would be more difficult, but we find in Europe that they do the same with boys. I am not sure but that if half the money expended in the schools of our cities were expended in the erection of shops to teach the boys and girls trades it would be better.

Dr. CHASE-I have a case in point--a fact. A woman of culture-a graduate of a high school-is now in the Alms-house of this city because she could do no kind of work-not even iron the simplest article of clothing. Thus she became a burden upon her friends. Now, I ask, wouldn't it have been better to have used part of the money expended in her education in teaching her to cook and to sew and to iron.

The Hon. W. D. HENKLE, of Ohio-That lady was foreordained to the alms-house. I want to offset that story. In the reports of HORACE MANN on Education in Massachusetts, it is shown that educated girls perform more work than those not educated. One of my sisters went into the kitchen quite early and learned to do housework. Another, younger, went through the high school first. The latter learned more housework in the five weeks before she was married than the other did in as many years.

Dr. HANCOCK-We forget the fact that schools are not the only educational institutions. A girl can learn housekeeping better under her mother's direction than in the school, and the best place for a boy to learn farming is on his father's farm.

Prof. THOMPSON--It is not the thing taught alone, but the spirit in which

it is taught. Teachers do not hold out to boys the promise that they may become good mechanics and good farmers, but that they may become good lawyers, presidents, &c.

Hon. J. L. PICKARD, of Illinois-I can not believe that this looking for something higher is a bad thing. If the character is only right, there is no danger of producing a tramp or a beggar. If there were a little lifting up of the girls at home we should not hear this complaint about them. We want an elevation of feeling at home. I don't believe we are going to introduce the study of trades into our schools. Let us feel that it is character that we want, and that education is the building up of that character that shall make a man ashamed to do a mean thing. Among our idle men I don't find educated men. Employers turn off those first that are least valuable, and these are the ignorant ones.

Pending the discussion, Prof. ALEXANDER HOGG, of Texas, said that. there was a singular inconsistency as to the teaching of the examples adduced; that he was in sympathy with all that had been said, but as to the how the reformation should be brought; that while there was much truth in what had been said, there was an indisposition, not to be denied, to perform manual labor; that this could be in a measure corrected-would be in time. But that the public schools are not responsible for it; that it would take time to bring into popularity industrial education; that personally he belonged to the laboring classes, and his labor for the future should be directed to dignifying and raising up the industrial classes.

The Chairman, Dr. J. R. BUCHANAN, remarked that as the discussion was completed he would present to the Department a petition (which he then read) from leading citizens of Louisville and who had been called the fathers of the common-school system of Kentucky, requesting the members of the Industrial Department to address the citizens of Louisville in reference to the best measures to be adopted by a city for the promotion of Industrial Education. This petition he considered already answered by the proposed discussion of the subject by the Association at a mass meeting of citizens. Regarding himself as the oldest and most radical friend of industrial education in the United States, he was delighted with the progress of the cause and had never heard in any assemby more of common sense, wisdom, and earnest eloquence than in the afternoon's proceedings. He desired only to offer one suggestion of the many which the occasion prompted him to utter. Education should be a preparation for life and should be like the life to which it prepares. Life is labor-life is duty. Every noble life is pervaded by duty, and duty is embodied or realized only in labor for its end. This constitutes the solidity of character and the true greatness of life. An education which does not feel the hourly pressure of duty in the hourly performance of work, which is duty, is an unmanly education, as it does not qualify one for life-but enfeebles his character, by preparing him for literary inaction instead of manly achievement.

The life of the student must be pervaded by the strong impulse of duty driving to action-or to labor, and in that labor he comes into contact with the grand realities of life and develops that greatness or efficiency which comes from action alone.

Every noble life is a life of duty and duty is synonymous with labor.