What is Industrial Education?

• Published in: The American journal of sociology 1925-05, Vol.30 (6), p.652-664
• Main Author: Weyand, L. D.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Apprenticeships; High schools; Industrial education; Industrial training; Junior high schools; Pedagogy; Recreation; Students; Trade and industrial education; Vocation; Vocational education
• ISSN: 0002-9602; 1537-5390
• DOI: 10.1086/213765

New institutions develop alongside old ones. Both the old and the new have cultures of their own. Maladjustment results. Such is apparently the case with modern industry and traditional education. The conscious purposes of the proponents of industrial education are probably of local origin. Promoters of industrial education are professedly meeting the needs of the schools or of industry or of both. Some pupils "need a weaker mental menu" than others; industrial education serves as "roughage" for diluting a too concentrated mental diet. Pupils tend to leave school at too early an age; industrial education is a means of prolonging the school life of the major portion of the school population. Workers lead a monotonous life; industrial education is proposed as a means of giving eyes to laborers and of making each job a window through which the worker may look out upon the world with which his work relates him with intelligent appreciation. Finally industrial educationis proposed as a means of supplying employers with better trained and more adaptable hands. Whether it fulfils all, or any, or none of these purposes need not be considered here. But back of this movement is a condition that is stimulating men to effort along these lines. It is malco-ordination of two sources of our culture. Where "industrial education" is accepted as a fixed and ready-made remedy for this lack of adjustment the cure is probably little or no better than the older stereo-typed way that developed in response to needs long since antiquated. But when industrial education is a method of seeking the way that works well in each concrete situation the case is different. And lack of uniformity in school and courses resulting from honest search for such a value may be welcomed.