has built for him to occupy, and so to drill, so to teach, so to develop the boy that he shall fill the mold to the uttermost and that the cast shall not be faulty from your neglect?

The idea or scheme of the elementary schools is to prepare the child for high school, and the idea of the high school is to prepare for college. The whole curriculum, the whole training, is for that one idea or end. Not all go to college; not all can go. Seventy-five per cent have no need for it; 50 per cent will be severly handicapped by having a college education; some do not have the means. The great majority have to leave school at the age of fifteen to go to work. The necessities of life, of family, make many a child of sixteen a bread-earner. What have you done to prepare him for this serious reality? It is soon to be the problem for you to map out your course to suit the needs of the child-not what those who have gone before have thought, not what you may deem the proper thing, but what the boy needs. The time is coming when you will be called upon to provide clerks for the stores, stenographers for the offices, and apprentices for our shops, and the public will demand that you be able to do it. This may interfere with that which you call culture and it may change the idea or meaning of so-called cultural education.

People are rapidly learning that a college or university diploma does not necessarily spell culture. We are too prone to call cultured the agriculturalist whose hands have never touched the plowshare, but whose knowledge has come from books, papers, and colleges; too prone to call cultured the surgeon whose knowledge is deep only from long years of study and reading, yet whose hands have never wielded the knife in removing or correcting some disorganized portion of our anatomy. That culture which has zeal without practical knowledge, and enthusiasm without sanity, should no longer sit with the mighty. We admire and love real culture, that culture which brings peace, happiness, and contentment to the community, which builds homes, rears families, gives them the conveniences of life and some of the luxuries, which makes one honor and love his neighbor, and makes one interested in the affairs of the town, the state, and the nation-a culture whose mission is objective and not always subjective. The prevalent idea that a college or university education is synonymous with culture, coupled with the idea that culture and work are foreign to each other, is one reason why we have so many young men in college and coming from college with no fixed idea of the future, no sane view or thought of life's work, with faculties practically wild and undisciplined, without willingness to do as they are told, and without that disciplined faculty of concentrating their attention on unpleasant work or necessary tasks. The term "cultural" is too closely allied to a life of ease and luxury, and this so-called cultural education fits him for such a life and not for a life of work, not for a life which finds real happiness in work and in life's material things.

Our public educational system, in all its teaching and textbooks, selects a few characters of history as examples of emulation-those who grew great in wars and bloodshed, Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon, Grant, and Lee. Mere mention is made of the inventor of the printing press; I do not see anything in our modern histories of George M. Pullman, of Matthew Baldwin, of Edison, of Marconi, or of Luther Burbank, and any one of these has done more for the commercial world, and for our own comfort and happiness, than all the generals and heroes of war and bloodshed of all times.

No wonder our business men decry the failure of our college men when you are making them dreamers and criticize even our high schools when indirectly you are teaching social ostracism against him who by the sweat of his brow earns his living; against the mechanic of today, whose genius may startle us ten years hence; teaching education and culture and not work, not the love of work, nor the true greatness and nobleness of work.

We teach our apprentices that the trade they have indentured themselves to learn is the best possible vocation for them; we teach them that not all the great brainy men of the country are practicing law, practicing medicine, making laws in Congress, or engaged in professorial work; that there are just as many and great brains in agricultural work as in law, just as wonderful minds in engineering as in medicine, just as ponderous thinking in financial fields as in the professor's chair; we teach them that the plumber or machinist is of as much value and use to the community as the lawyer or banker, that a good carpenter or a good tinner is far more valuable to the town and community than a poor doctor or a poor banker; we teach them that the average earnings of our graduate machinist apprentices now working in our shops are greater than the average earnings of the lawyers or doctors of Kansas, of Virginia, or of any other state; we teach them the great value of clean living, of clean thinking, and of good citizenship. We have our rules and regulations governing the employment and training of apprentices, but only two "don'ts" appear therein. We say: "You must not drink intoxicants or smoke cigarettes," and we enforce it. We say: "You must work and not loaf." The worker is rewarded, the loafer is disciplined. The other regulations were made to safeguard the boys' interests.

The railroad company realizes fully that this system of training boys is a recruiting scheme and shall not be used as a matter of convenience. While the system is in fact a great convenience, the Santa Fe Railway System has taken a broad view of things, which is a wise course in preparing for the future.

It is not all work with our apprentices. The system is not a merciless machine moving in one fixed path, for it is humane in the extreme. Fields are provided for athletic contests in baseball, football, and basket-ball

between apprentice schools of the various localities, and some athletic teams are allowed to go from five hundred to a thousand miles for such contests. The boys have their clubs and social organizations. Brass bands of from twenty to forty pieces, orchestras, and glee clubs may be found at several places. All of this that indulgent corporation encourages and fosters.

While discipline is strong and determined, it is tempered with mercy. We no longer send a boy home or suspend him for any infraction of our rules and regulations. We do not let him loaf in the streets subject to all kinds of temptations, which a suspension would offer. We penalize him on his agreement by making him serve a little longer. For every day which we would have suspended him, we add that much to his regular apprentice time. The rule works both ways. Afterward, by close application to business for a stipulated period, he may have part or all of his penalty removed.

We keep a real record of all the apprentices. We know the boy before he enters the service, and the records in my office will tell me what he has done each day during his four years' apprenticeship, his good deeds and his bad ones. We do not stop here. Our records show that we follow up that young man. If he moves to any shop on the system our record follows him, sometimes precedes him. If he leaves the road and goes elsewhere we know and keep up with him; know what he is doing, how he is doing it, and the wages he is getting. Seventy per cent of all the mechanics we have graduated the past six years are with us today. Twelve per cent are occupying official positions.

In the year just passed, 1913, the Santa Fe Railway System, which reaches thirteen states, paid into the treasury of the state of Kansas alone $420,000 in taxes for the support of her schools. No wonder Kansas has fewer illiterates than any other state in the Union. We have never used this to bring about a curriculum that will fit the boys particularly for our service, but we do hope that it may be used to the better advantage of the thousands of boys and girls who must leave school at sixteen and go out into the world to earn their daily bread. It is up to you superintendents. I pray you may look at it in its right light and not deaden your ears to their appealing cry.

DISCUSSION

PAUL KREUZPOINTNER, chairman, Committee on Industrial Education, American Foundrymen's Association, Altoona, Pa.—It is very gratifying to know of the progress being made along lines of trade and shop school training as outlined so ably by Mr. Thomas and Mr. Gustafson. We are fully aware of the value of such schools, and it is highly creditable for us to have as many of them with as many students as has Germany.

We have now 144 railroad shop schools with some 6,000 apprentices, and some forty private corporation schools with about 3,000 apprentices, but when we realize what the ndustries of our country need along lines of skill and general intelligence in order to carry

on their work successfully, and when we further contemplate that there are some eight millions of industrial workers of all kinds, who, in one way or another, have to contribute their share, however little it may be, to material prosperity and the general mental and moral welfare of the country, then all the shop and trade schools help us but very little to meet the educational problems of the industrial masses. Out of every hundred railroad shop workers, there are but two or three in shop schools, and out of every hundred workers in the shops, only four or five of the kind of graduates the Ranken and similar schools turn out are needed.

According to the latest statistics from the Bureau of Education at Washington, there are about 60,000 students in all of our shop schools, trade schools, and technical high schools, and of all these only about five or six out of every hundred are eventually found in shops as mechanics or at the lathe or bench. Upon the other hand, history tells us in unmistakable terms, and those who have their eyes open can see it plainly enough now, that in the end the masses always will rule and if they do not rule by intelligence they will rule by brute force. Hence it is not the two or three out of every hundred found in the shop school as described by Mr. Thomas, or the four or five out of every hundred industrial workers turned out by the Ranken and other technical schools, who will eventually rule this country, but it is the seven or eight millions for whom we have made no provisions, and who, as industrial and economic conditions now are, must get their industrial and civic training in part-time and continuation schools. Therefore since part-time schools of the Fitchburg kind will not attract many, it will be left to continuation schools to prepare the great mass of our industrial workers in shop, store, and office for their vocational and civic duties. This will be all the more necessary because we have to meet the competition of the 800,000 German industrial workers who have been and are being trained in the continuation schools of Germany, and who, with the exception of the unskilled laborers and mine workers, get, in many cases, better industrial and civic education than we give our young people in our shop and trade schools. And not only Germany but all other industrial countries are making strenuous efforts to train effectively their industrial workers.

From all my experience and observations of the workings of large shops, mills, and factories, during more than a generation, industrial and economic success depends not so much upon the specific trade training of the highly skilled few, but it depends in the last analysis upon a comparatively high degree of general intelligence of the masses of the industrial workers in shop, store, and office. With the decrease of quality or quantity of our natural resources, when the waste of material and time multiplied by millions of hands daily amount to enormous quantities annually, it is not the high skill of the few, but the general intelligence of the many which must secure for us, not only material success in our industries, but also that intellectual and moral standard in the community whereby peace and order and general good will are vouchsafed for our country. Since it is manifestly impossible to diffuse this education for the masses, as far as the school can do it, thru our high schools, we must do it with the help of continuation schools and a compulsory law.

TOPIC: HOPEFUL EXPERIMENTS

A. MISSISSIPPI CANNING CLUBS

SUSIE V. POWELL, STATE AGENT, GIRLS' CLUBS, UNITED STATES BUREAU OF PLANT INDUSTRY, JACKSON, MISS.

In February, 1911, under instructions from Seaman A. Knapp, cooperating with the State Department of Education, the Canning and Poultry Clubs were first organized in Mississippi. This first year the work was

confined to two adjoining counties, with an enrolment of one hundred and fifty members. In 1912, the clubs were organized in twelve counties, most of these being in the southern part of the state where the ravages of the boll-weevil were most felt. In 1913, twenty-three counties were organized, including several northern counties. Already, for 1914, thirty-two counties have been organized with a membership that will probably reach five thousand. The state agent of Girls' Clubs is also supervisor of school improvement and has promoted the club work thru the state and county school improvement associations. One of the requirements for organizing a club in any county is that the county superintendent and his teachers. shall pledge their co-operation as follows:

1. By organizing local clubs in their school communities.

2. By sending the names and addresses of members to the county agent. 3. By arranging for club meetings at which the county agent may instruct the club members.

4. By correlating the common-school studies with the club work as a center of interest.

The second requirement is that sufficient funds be raised to pay the salary of a woman to supervise the club work for at least two months. As long as the appropriation from the General Education Board lasts this amount is supplemented. The average term of service in 1914 will be about five months. The local funds are given by business men, club women, boards of trade, and boards of supervisors. It is due these women who are acting as county agents that it be said that while they receive pay for their services for a few months in the year, they have worked at the organization of the club work for ten or twelve months in each year.

The local clubs elect the usual officers and meet every two weeks to study the bulletins and letters of instruction and to report on their work. Programs for these local clubs are furnished from the State Department of Education, and all the material for these programs may be found in the textbooks on agriculture and the bulletins issued from the Bureau of Plant Industry. These programs consist of lessons on the hotbed, cold frame, preparation and cultivation of the soil, staking, pruning, spraying, and the canning processes. At these meetings the girls learn club songs and yells that embody the very spirit of co-operation. They learn to make their uniform cap and apron, which teach by their daintiness the lesson that household work and neatness of dress should go hand in hand.

The purposes of the club for girls are:

1. To make living conditions in the home cheaper and better by conserving the vegetables and fruits that would otherwise go to waste and having these in a permanent form for the family table, instead of having a superabundance for a few months and living on meat and bread the rest

of the year.