March 23, 1917.

THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN

577

INDUSTRY AND EDUCATION.

Mr. S. C. Laws, M.A., B.Sc., the principal of the
Wigan and District Mining and Technical College,
delivered an interesting address on “ Education and
Industry ” before the Wigan Education Society at this
month’s meeting of the members. The educational system
of any civilised country, he said, reflects perhaps more
accurately than any other of its institutions the ideals
that animate the nation. Broadly speaking, the idea
underlying the educational system of our own country
had been the training and the development of character,
while in the case of’ Germany the educational aim had
been the promotion of efficiency. In England, our
educational outlook had concentrated around the child,
whereas in Germany the child was regarded from the
point of view of an element in a machine, a unit of that
comprehensive organisation, the State. This difference
of outlook, this variety of ideal, was perhaps more
strikingly obvious in regard to that department of educa-
tion which is directly associated with industry than in
any other branch. Our idea underlying industrial
training was typically individual in character, the
popular conception of technical education in this country
being that of a system which provided facilities for the
persevering, ambitious, and capable individual to
undergo a course of training which would fit him the
better to fulfil the duties of his position, and in many
cases probably enable him to qualify for more responsible
employment. Incidentally, of course, the industry with
which the individual was associated benefited by the
acquisition of persons of superior training, and, of
course, the effect of self-discipline and intellectual
endeavour reacted upon the quality of the man, as well
as upon the workman; but first and foremost came the
ide'a of the training and equipping of the individual. Our
provision for industrial education was deficient in that it
failed to reach the ordinary rank and file—quite three-
fourths of the population, in fact; and w’ere inefficient
because it was carried on almost entirely by means of
evening classes, so that, on the whole, the accumulated
output was inadequate both from the point of view of
the energy expended in obtaining it, and of our national
requirements. In saying that education in relation to
industry on any extended .scale was of very recent growth
in this country, Mr. Laws added that he did not over-
look the enormous debt the community owes to earlier
pioneers—men like Sir Win. Mather in Manchester, Sir
Swire Smith in Keighley, and Mr. Alfred Hewlett in
"Wigan—who were concerned in digging the very founda-
tions; but it was not until the passing of the Technical
Instruction Act of 1889 that any national system had
been established. Since that date we had unquestion-
ably made a tremendous advance, and there was every
sign that we were even now on the eve of an unpre-
cedented move forward as regards technical education,
as with other branches of education. The nation was
beginning to regard the native capacity of each indivi-
dual as existing not for his own sake only, but for that
of the community in which he lived and served; and it
was in the interests of the community that the latent
capacity of all should be developed to the full.

Aim of Industrial Education in Germany.

In Germany the aim of industrial education, Mr.
Laws went on to .say, had been to make every leader in
industry a capable leader, every foreman a proficient
foreman, every workman a skilful and industrious work-
man. That system, however, could not commend itself
for our adoption, being too rigid, with no room for indi-
vidual initiative, and the cleavage of caste being too
sharp. On the other hand, by reason of its thorough-
ness, this system, which, however uncongenial to our-
selves, was not at all incompatible with the very different
psychology of the German people, had produced tremen-
dous results that were reflected in the extraordinary
economic development there of the past decade. In
Germany, evening and-Sunday classes were relatively
only of third-rate importance, technical education being
in all essential respects carried on throughout the day.
Germany had been the pioneer of compulsory day con-
tinuation schools, and practically every State in Ger-
many had now exacted that all boys, and in many cases
all girls, should attend such schools during the ordinary
hours of employment for not less than six hours per
week until 17 or 18 years of age, after leaving the elemen-
tary .school at 14. The continuation school led on to
the lower technical school : a day and evening school
attended by young persons of 18 to 20 — attendance,
however, being no longer compulsory. A remarkable
feature was the extent to which the young artisan gave
up his employment for a while in order to take a short
full-time course of .six months or longer in the techno-
logy of his trade. Before he was allowed to practise his
calling, he must acquire his journeyman’s certificate,
and before employing other workmen he must possess a
“ master’s certificate,” the former being obtainable on
the completion of the continuation school course, and
the latter after a further period of technical training and
practical experience; so that owing to their industrial
organisation affecting everybody, from the artisan
upwards, there was a very direct incentive to utilise the
facilities of the technical school. The middle technical
school was a very similar institution, except that it was
attended exclusively by pupils from the municipal
secondary schools and schools of corresponding grades,
pupils who had had no previous technical training, little
practical experience, but a good general education. Then,
over all, there was the technical high school, which
followed upon the year of military service, and was
attended by ex-pupils of the high-grade secondary schools
who had remained at school until 18 or 19 years of age.
The course at the technical high school was usually of
four years’ duration, and was parallel with, but quite
distinct from, the university, the latter preparing for the
“ learned ” professions, the former for industry, agricul-

ture, and commerce. There were 11'technical high
schools in the German Empire, exclusive of mining
schools, agriculture colleges, and commercial academies
of similar rank, and these were attended by no less than
20,000 .students. Seeing that the total number of full-
time day students of 16 years of age and upwards in
technical schools in England was less than 2,000, and
that very few indeed of these would be attending courses
comparable in standard with those of the technical high
school, for which the normal age range was 21 to 25, it
would be realised that even if 10 per cent, of our univer-
sity students followed industrial careers, in the matter
of higher technical education, as in the continuation
school, we were working on an altogether different scale
from that which obtained in Germany. In the United
States, although they had so far been less thorough than
Germany in the provision of further education for the
lower ranks of the population, apart from providing
education practically free in all grades, they had
developed very extensively their system of technical
education for higher grades of employment. In
America, even more than in England, applied science
found its home in the universities alongside pure science
and literary studies, no doubt to the advantage of all—
the university, moreover, being widely represented in
industry. Higher technical education was also carried
on on a big scale in independent self-contained institu-
tions, often monotechnic institutions, or schools
organised in connection with a single industry. The
mining school at Golden, Colorado, was attended by
some 211 students taking a four years’ full-time course,
or considerably more than the total number of mining
students attending full-time courses in all the technical
schools and universities of Great Britain together. Much
further down the scale, the American system of education
was noteworthy for its development of the “ works ”
school. There were part-time schools provided by cer-
tain large firms (mainly engineering) for training their
apprentices. Classes were held for about 14 hours per
week in ordinary working hours within the works, and
were designed to give, in addition to theoretical instruc-
tion in subjects like mathematics, physics, machine con-
struction, a training in manipulation of a considerable
range of machine tools. Schools on the same lines had
been provided by the British "Westinghouse Company in
Manchester, and by Messrs. Cadbury at Bournville. In
Mr. Laws’ opinion, America was. the home of educa-
tional experiment.

The Position in England.

In England, technical education, said Mr. Laws, was
distributed roughly in three grades, though the lines of
demarcation were never very clearly defined. There
was the lower technical school, which included but went
somewhat beyond the continuation school, and- was being
attended by pupils 14 to 17 years of age (mostly
ex-pupils of the elementary schools) and for the most
part also composed of evening classes. Following this
was the middle technical school period, which was con-
cerned with two types of pupils : those direct from
secondary schools, and those who had passed up from
the lower technical school; and here again instruction
was-very largely a matter of evening classes. At a
higher stage again, there were courses for the most
advanced instruction and—theoretically, at any rate—
research. This advanced instruction might be taken in
the university or an institution of university rank, such
as the Imperial College of Technology in London, or it
might be represented by -a full-time course more or less
of university standard in a technical institution, such as
the mining diploma course at the Wigan kilning
College; or, again, it might take the form of evening
classes, which necessarily lacked the range of the full-
time course, but were often of an equally high standard
■in the particular branch with which they dealt. It was
clearly a matter of prime importance that men respon-
sible for the initiative and control in industrial organisa-
tions should be of the highest natural ability and apti-
tude, and, in addition, should receive the best possible
training that could be obtained. The universities sup-
plied only a limited number to industry. Where a youth
showed talent obviously above the normal, he should be
given an opportunity to develop it, unhampered by the
necessity of earning a livelihood so long as he was able to
prove himself above the normal of the grade in which
he was actually working. In this way, those who had
exceptional ability would be sure of a university career.
Students achieving the most distinguished university
success would be able to pursue a post-graduate course
before going out into industry, and so on.- One of our
difficulties in this respect in the past had been that some
of our manufacturing firms, having had little or no
experience of the highly-trained man, had not sought
after him, but, on the contrary, had expressed a, decided
preference for the purely “ practical man.” On the
other hand, the university had undoubtedly gone about
with its head in the clouds, and had neither studied the
manufacturer nor his needs adequately. Universities
and industry had, for the most part, lived their lives
apart, with the result that the university graduate,
unless he happened to have proprietary interests, had
not prepared himself for industry, but for a profession,
a further consequence being that when a firm had occa-
sionally required a really well-trained man, they had
often been obliged to import one from Germany or
America. This neglect in the past to secure the proper
share of the best products of the universities for industry
had been a source of fundamental weakness in our pro-
ductive system.

The encouragement of research, both on the part of
the universities and the Government, the public, and
the manufacturer, was one of the pressing needs in the
application of science to industry in the future. The
framework for higher technical education in England
existed, but, as a nation, we were not sufficiently con-
cerned to utilise its possibilities for the advancement of

industry and the progress of mankind. We needed to
extend our system of scholarships right through to the
university, to place sums of money at disposal so that
those who went into industry at an early age might, if
they showed the requisite ability and determination, be
enabled to leave their employment for a while in order
to obtain the highest theoretical training in the funda-
mental principles, on the successful application of which
the progress of the industry with which they were asso-
ciated depended. The speaker’s view was that there
were three possible courses open for technical education.
First, by a part-time course, or by evening classes,
though these were not very satisfactory, three years of
this training being only equal to one year’s full-time
course. Secondly, there was the technical knowledge
gained by taking a one, two, or a three years’ course at
a specialised technical school; and thirdly, there might
be two years’ employment, followed by a full-time course
of from one to four years, the pupil having attended part-
time classes during the period of employment. "Whilst
this course had everything to recommend it, we had not
yet arrived at that complete co-ordination between the
school and the works which was necessary for the exten-
sive development of this system, though a modified pro-
cedure, known as the Sandwich system, was being fairly
extensively adopted by engineering firms on the north-
east coast, and in a less degree in connection with the
Wigan and other mining courses. In this plan, periods
of study and works experience alternated with one
another so that the youth spent the winter months in
school, spring and summer at the -works, and so on
throughout the apprentice life. During the session
1912-1913 there were in the aggregate only 1,760 students
attending full-time courses in technical institutions in
the country, whilst the total number of ex-secondary
school pupils attending part-time classes was nearly
146,000. For the whole country, there were only about
600 full-time students of 16 years of age and upwards in
technical institutions attending courses in engineering,
less than 400 taking courses in commercial subjects, and
about 100 each in mining and in chemistry, while 65 was
the number for courses in connection with the textile
trades, and so on. No one would suggest that we could
hope to continue to compete on equal terms with such
nations as the United States and Germany, unless we
took steps to secure that our industries had a more
adequate supply of the most highly-trained recruits; and
one of the problems of re-construction would be to secure
a much more complete co-ordination between school and
industry, with a view to the selection of the more capable
apprentices for the highest technical training. Mr. Laws
pointed.out that, according to the Census Returns of
1911, some 1,275,000 persons were employed in the
engineering industry in its various branches, and, assum-
ing an average working life of 40 years, this meant an
influx of 32,000 recruits annually, of whom 300, assum-
ing an average technical school life of two years, or, say,
1 per cent., had had the benefit of a full-time technical
course, the number receiving the equivalent of this by
means of evening classes being necessarily very small.
Only about 50 preparatory trade schools, or junior tech-
nical schools existed in this country, these being of two
types, one specialising in a trade, with other teaching
also, whilst the other type taught processes as part of
hand-and-eye training, giving more time to general
education. No doubt the junior technical school would
prove a most effective educational instrument, but the
secondary school should have the first pick, so that bright
boys might have as wide and general a training as they
were capable of assimilating. Of the 600,000 children
leaving the elementary schools of the country annually,
13,000 left before attaining 13 years of age, 35,000
became half-timers at this stage, 176,000 more left on
attaining 13 years, and only 40,000 remained after 14
years of age. It had been estimated by Lord Gainford,
formerly (as Mr. J. A. Pease) President of the Board of
Education, that not more than 14 per cent, of the
600,000 leaving the elementary schools maintained
attendance for a single complete session at some form of
continued education. Now that we were warned that
the taxpayer would be required to find an additional
£6,000,000 to £10,000,000 annually for education, we
might hope that this would be used for the creation of a
really adequate system of fundamental training, with
means adjusted, as well as might be, to the end in view,
so that the young worker of the future might not only
receive prolonged supervision and mental training, but
that this might be directed towards securing the maxi-
mum of response on the part of the pupil. It was
rumoured that we were about to see a movement in this
direction by the establishment of day continuation
schools of six to eight hours per week duration, univer-
sally up to 17 or 18 years of age, which would mean the
most far-reaching development of our educational
system since the Act of 1870, and would inevitably bring
the schools and industry into more intimate relation,
since classes would be conducted during ordinary work-
ing hours, and the onus would be upon employers to
allow the necessary “time off” to attend. In Ger-
many, such schools had had a wonderful effect in
reducing blind-alley occupations for boys, and in pro-
moting the training of the workman, and there could be
no doubt that.such a system adapted to suit the English
character would effect a similar revolution in this
country.

The lecture was followed by discussion, to which Mr.
Laws replied; and he was accorded a hearty vote of
thanks for his address.

The clergy now engaged in war work include the Rev.
H. Fame, Grimthorpe, miner; Rev. R. E. Johnstone,
Rossington, miner; Rev. C. P. Shaw (vicar), and Rev. D.
Collins, Goldthorpe, colliery lampmen; and the Vicar of
Ravenfield, who works at a tar by-product plant.