General Recommendations

The establishment of vocational schools for all children in school over 14 years of age is advocated, as well as compulsory continuation and night vocational schools, with such academic work as may be advisable for all persons over 14 years of age in industry and agriculture.

Education vitally interests all our people and neither money nor time should be spared to make the education of the United States the most thorough, the most potent for human uplift and progress, of any system of education in the world. To lead in this great work is our proper position, not to follow. Thoroughness should be the aim of our Nation and our States. Poorly trained workers in industry are now entirely too plentiful. This should be overcome by excellent vocational training. We believe there are now too many cheap workmen. This Nation should work for men, women, and children who will not consent to cheapness, either in wages, conditions of labor, or character.

The public schools, whether academic or vocational, should be entirely neutral as to unions and their control, and exactly the same should be true as to the exercise of any control for class interests by employers or employers' organizations. And surely there is no room in our schools to warrant the teaching of any degree of hostility toward trade unions or employers' organizations.

The general recommendations of the special commission on National Aid to Vocational education have our most hearty approval and we approve of the passage of a law by the Congress of the United States with that end in view. The need of the States for such assistance is clearly set forth.

It is recommended that Congress authorize by law the creation of a Federal Board to administer funds appropriated by Congress to the several States for vocational education, the Board to consist of three members, one educator, one representative of organized labor, and one representative of organizations of employers, to be appointed by the President with the consent of the Senate, to serve for a term of six years, the first appointments to be for two, four and six years; with salaries of $8,000

each per annum; the Federal Board so constituted to establish rules and standards for expenditures of Government funds awarded to the several States.

The Federal Board shall require of each State asking for Government funds the adoption of the following standards before any awards can be made or funds be appropriated by the Board:

1. Compulsory daytime continuation schools for all children in industry between the ages of 14 and 18 years, for not less than five hours per week at the expense of their employers.

2. Night schools for all persons over 18 years of age who are desirous of further educational opportunities either cultural or vocational.

3. Standards of efficiency for teach

ers.

4. Joint State control in administration of Vocational Education by public school authorities, organized labor, and organized employers, with equal representation.

5. The Federal Board to establish some model schools for industrial training in agriculture and vocations, as examples to the several States.

This problem of vocational education not only is important materially but is intimately a human problem, involving as it does the social welfare and progress of all the people.

The boys and girls of the farm, if assured by proper education of becoming generally successful farmers, will remain farmers, rather than undertake to compete in the industries with properly trained workers of the cities. This will help to solve the problems that are threatening injury to our great agricultural industries, and will eliminate a cause of industrial unrest.

In the farming districts the country school remains practically as it was fifty years ago. Pupils are not taught what is essential to develop them into excellent farmers and farmers' wives, but the cultural education of days gone by is continued, to the considerable exclusion of teaching how to farm and how to manage a farmer's home. Surely the Nation has here a mission of helpfulness to perform that, as a great Nation, it can not longer afford to leave largely neglected. Its prosperity as a

Nation depends upon the character and efficiency of its men and women much more than upon its geographical position or the quality of its soil, and to build character and effectiveness we must lay the foundations well by a proper education of our boys and girls. We should not strive merely for educating them into correctly working automatic machines. The human side must be uppermost and receive attention of the most careful nature. It is not worth while to make square holes and then try to fit into them round men and women.

Education should take into account, at every stage, manhood and womanhood, and where and how the life is to be surrounded, and what can be done through education to make each life successful and therefore worth while. Dexterity is worth while, but good character is more vital to real service in the world of industry and civilization. At present our schools in city and country do not make good, either in the development of skill, in the duties of service, or in a clear understanding of human rights and consequent human duties toward our fellows. Industrial education can not possibly take the place of industrial experience. All that can be hoped for it is that our schools will make their teaching a real preparatory process for entering upon industrial life, with proper conception of life work, instead of no conception at all.

Continuation or Part-Time Schools

All minors entering industry after 14 years of age are entitled to further aid from organized society in order to enable them to complete their vocational and cultural education. This is possible only through the establishment of compulsory day-time continuation schools of at least five hours per week at the expense of employers, and night schools. The eagerness with which minors and adults take advantage of such schools is sufficient evidence to warrant legislation giving these opportunities to all minors and to such adults as may care to take advantage of them. These schools, in order to be of value, must be compulsory upon all minors in industry up to at least 18 years of age. Schools in the United States should meet fully the needs of every class of pupils, those who expect to enter colleges and prepare for the professions as well as the much larger class that is to enter industrial life. The parents of the wage working class contend, with much reason, that their children are not given the same vocational consideration under our present school systems as are the children of the well-to-do who expect to become lawyers, doctors, and so forth.

The State has established schools to train for a useful industrial life, the mentally, morally and physically deficient, and this effort has the hearty approval of every good citizen. If this work is worth doing. then it must be of vastly greater importance to establish one general scheme of education so as to make useful men and women out of the normal boy and girl, and neither expense nor investigation should be spared to accomplish this most desirable object.

Teachers

It seems self-evident that no one can successfully teach others that of which he has no knowledge himself. We recommend, therefore, in the selection of teachers to impart trade education, that only practical workmen shall be used. They should be selected with care as to character, and, as far as possible, craftsmen should be selected as trade teachers who have a considerable degree of cultural education. The opportunity should be continully extended for the proper education of teachers capable of teaching vocations, and, in so far as it may be advantageous, academic education also. The need of well developed brain power is not waning in the least. What is demanded is the educated hand to apply in industry the ideas and knowledge of the brain. Our children need to know more as to their economic value, and more of their social duties and responsibilities. The school house is the place where much of this should be taught, in order that the duties of honorable citizenship shall be appreciated. Real social service is the highest attainment the individual can aspire to reach. All education is of value in life and the State should properly be held responsible for the education of her children, in order that the best possible use shall be made by the greatest possible number of the opportunities of life as they present themselves from year to year.

Conclusions

The existing system of public education is inadequate. The present specialization of shop conditions is not favorable to a complete mastery of any trade or calling in the shop, store or industry. This being admittedly true, it devolves on our public school system to meet adequately the emergency in conjunction and co-operation with industry. The temperamental differ ence in children must have consideration in determining their life work and preparation therefor. The boy or girl must not become merely a cog in the great wheel of industry. Therefore the urgent need of vocational education in conjunction with practice in the shop or factory that makes each

individual in a few years capable to fit into any place in the industry where help may be required. We now have too many handy men and specialists, who have no place into which they can fit when for any reason their particular work is no longer required.

Vocational education, on account of the wonderful changes in industrial production, must take the place of apprenticeship. To solve this problem right is to find a solu

tion for much of the unnecessary social unrest of our day and generation.

There can be no question that industrial education is coming rapidly. Prejudiced opposition will be futile. The necessity is great and it must and will be met. The National Government should properly per-. form its full share of the responsibilities of meeting this demand for the best and fullest education of our children.

HE time is past when the problem of unemployment could be disposed of either by ignoring it, as was the practice until recent years in America, or by attributing it to mere laziness and inefficiency. We are beginning to recognize that the causes of unemployment are not so much individual and due to the shiftlessness of "won't works" as social and inherent in our present method of industrial organization.

It is important that those who are aiming at the prevention of unemployment in America should never forget that it is a problem continually with us, in good seasons as well as in bad seasons. Occasional crises, with their sympathetic demands for temporary relief, should not blind us to the need for a constructive program. In the meantime the community, as a result of its past neglect to adopt some energetic constructive policy on unemployment, is being constantly confronted with an army of idle workers whose distress, which becomes conspicuous with the approach of bitter weather, demands, and, according to the analysis here presented, deserves adequate relief.

Much unemployment is due to irregularity of industrial operations over which the workers have no control. Periodic abnormal excess of labor supply over labor demand is caused by the fluctuations of industry, which in its present disorganized form makes necessary constant reserves waiting to answer calls when they come. Hundreds of thousands more of workers are needed in good years than in bad years, and in each industry many more are needed in the busy season than in the slack season. Furthermore, in almost every business, special calls arise for more workers to be taken on for a few weeks, a few days or even a few hours. The reserves necessary to meet these cyclical, seasonal or casual demands should be reduced to a minimum. Industry must be regularized.

Much unemployment, also, is caused by the lack of efficient means of transferring workers smoothly and rapidly from job to job. Public employment exchanges must be established.

A careful arrangement of public works to be increased in slack seasons and in the lean years of private industry would serve to keep part of the reserve army of labor occupied. Public work must be systematically distributed.

After the regular and the reserve armies of industry have been organized, there may remain a large surplus of labor which is not needed in industry, and the presence of which serves only to flood the market and to lower the general condition of employment. This surplus must be prevented or absorbed.

While reserves of labor are essential to the operation of fluctuating industries, the industry and the public should recognize their responsibility to return these workers to industry in efficient condition, with good health and spirit, and to preserve them from degenerating through privation into the class of unemployables. Adequate unemployment insurance must be established.

The widening of economic opportunity and the development of economic organization just indicated will provide the best sort of "work test" to determine whether a man is willing and able to work, but really unable to find work. It will result in the definite marking off of the class which is either unable or unwilling to work, the unemployable, who are in great measure the product of the community's neglect to deal constructively with the problem of the unemployed. For this class there must be varied constructive care, aiming wherever possible at their early restoration to normal working life and independence.

THE

HE government ownership question is growing rapidly-some say alarmingly. It is probable that before 1916 it will become a storm center with its focus near the White House.

Nevertheless, the real case of government ownership has never been presented to the public. Every book and article I have read dwells on the question of the comparative efficiency of private and government roads; yet this is not the main point at all. I will spend one paragraph on this point, and then pass to the principal considerations which will compell the government to take over the railroads.

The most common argument used against the efficiency of government ownership is that freight rates are higher in Europe, where the government owns the roads, than in America, where private companies own them. There is a certain amount of truth in this, mainly of the accidental kind. But, as a matter of fact, the argument is valueless; for in Europe, water transportation, especially by river and canal, is so generally developed and so cheap, that, as a rule, only expensive freight travels by rail. So, to any man who drags out this time-worn argument against government ownership we may say that he has proved nothing, except that he has failed to consider the subject in an intelligent light. The truth is, no comparison of rates can be made which is worth making.

But even if we admit, for the sake of argument, that the government will not operate railroads as efficiently as private companies, although I believe the opposite is true, still the case for government ownership is not materially weakened. Leaving out all questions as to comparative efficiency of government and private railroads, government ownership will free industry, stimulate production and reduce the price of the ordinary necessaries of life. At a conservative estimate it will save the American consumer over a million dollars a day.

The key to industrial success is not merely the power to make things well and cheaply. It is also the power to ship things well and cheaply-to assemble the raw product and carry the finished product to market at the lowest possible cost. In order that the business of making things may reach the highest efficiency, and in order that any manufacturing concern, large or

small, shall be able to profit by its own ability and energy, we must first see to it that it cannot be controlled, beaten or driven out of business by a less capable company which, through its ownership or control of railroads, is able to get and keep the whip hand. The maximum of industrial efficiency and freedom can only be brought about by placing production and transportation under separate ownership and control. And this can only be done under government ownership. There is found the reason why the prosperity of American industry (and this includes both capital and labor, employer and employee) is dependent upon the federalization of our transportation systems.

When you find an industrial monopoly which has become firmly established in business life (and by monopoly I mean a company or a group of companies, such as the Standard Oil Company or the Steel Corporation, even though the courts in their judicial decisions may not agree with me, which have been able to kill competition and fix the prices throughout the whole trade), you will also find that it controls some element of industry which the rest of the trade must have in order to do business, but which it cannot obtain on equal terms with the trust. Sometimes this advantage is an exceptional access to raw material and sources of energy, such as ore, coal, water power, oil and other natural resources; sometimes it lies in being able to command capital with peculiar ease, or again, it may be in the skillful manipulation of tariff schedules or the ownership of patented processes. But in at least three cases out of five the key to monopoly -the peculiar thing which gives one industrial concern the power to dominate all others in the same line of business-is control of transportation.

A careful study of the organization and subsequent history of any American trust invariably discloses the fact that it has not gained its monopoly or price-fixing power either through size, economy or ability, but by cornering something which other people in the same business need. This is not a theory. It is a fixed and practical economic law upon which all American industrial monopoly rests; and the promoters of our trusts have fully recognized it and cherished it as devoutly as the priests of