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The Co-Op Industrial Education Experiment, 1900–1917

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

Paul W. McBride
Paul W. McBride*
Affiliation:
Ithaca College
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Extract

DURING THE LATE nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, industrial education became attractive to educators and industrialists. It seemed to be the answer to a vast amalgam of problems arising from the mechanization of the factory. If the work force were better trained, efficiency would improve, fewer accidents would result, and the workers would be more satisfied with their work. Unfortunately, some of the forms industrial education took were clearly exploitative of the workers and apprentices involved. One example was the experiment in co-operative education.

Type
Articles
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 14 , Issue 2 , Summer 1974 , pp. 209 - 222
Copyright
Copyright © 1974 by New York University 

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References

Notes

1. Proceedings of the National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education, Bulletin No. 1 (New York, 1907), p. 6. (hereafter cited as N.S.P.I.E. Proceedings).Google Scholar

2. N.S.P.I.E. Proceedings, Bulletin No. 7 (New York, 1908), pp. 25–26. This bulletin also lists the national membership of approximately one thousand. Of these, about three hundred fifty are listed by title. Practically all of these were affiliated either with educational institutions or industries. The publications of the N.S.P.I.E. are valuable sources of the opinion and practices of labor, education, and business groups in the field of industrial education.Google Scholar

3. U.S., Congress, House of Representatives, Report of the Commission on National Aid to Vocational Education, 63rd Cong., 3d Sess., 1914, House Document 1004, p. 1. Hereafter cited as Vocational Aid Commission Report. Of the five non-congressmen named to the commission, Charles A. Prosser and Florence Marshall belonged to the N.S.P.I.E. The four congressmen who completed the commission were Senator Hoke Smith, Georgia; Senator Carroll S. Page, Vermont; Representative D. M. Hughes, Georgia; and Representative S. D. Fess, Ohio. Smith and Hughes sponsored the legislation for national aid to vocational education which eventually became law. Senator Page had offered similar legislation earlier. Thus, at least five members of the nine man commission were publically committed to a national program of vocational education.Google Scholar

4. U.S., Commissioner of Labor, Industrial Education, 1910, Twenty-Fifth Annual Report of the Commission of Labor, pp. 187–199.Google Scholar

5. N.S.P.I.E. Proceedings, Bulletin No. 13 (New York, 1911), p. 128.Google Scholar

6. Frank, Waldo, “The Beverly Factory Industrial School Plan,” Education, XXV (March, 1915): 443. Vocational Aid Commission Report, p. 95. Addams, Jane, Twenty Years at Hull House (New York, 1911), p. 440. Google Scholar

7. Frank, , “Beverly School Plan,” p. 434.Google Scholar

8. N.S.P.I.E. Proceedings, Bulletin No. 13, Part III (New York, 1911), p. 116.Google Scholar

9. Ibid. Google Scholar

10. Frank, , “Beverly School Plan,” p. 441.Google Scholar

11. Vocational A id Commission Report, p. 96.Google Scholar

12. Frank, , “Beverly School Plan,” p. 441.Google Scholar

13. Vocational Aid Commission Report, Appendix C., p. 96. The statistics show that of the seventy-three enrollees in 1909, only twenty-two graduated four years later. The report also casts serious doubt on the claims of the Union Shoe Company that fourth-year students made a wage of 29¢ per hour. The company paid its full-time apprentices in the class of 1912, a total of $5,338.40. There were at least twenty-two full-time apprentices because that number graduated. Simple arithmetic shows that the 29¢ wage was more mythical than real—29 × 22 = $6.38 (price per hour/per twenty-two students); $6.38 × 50 = $319.00 (price per twenty-two students/per fifty hour work week); $319.00 × 50 = $8,075.00 totals which should have been paid for twenty-two students at an average rate of 29¢ per hour). Using a reverse process on the actual total wages paid ($5,338.40), discloses that the average hourly wage actually paid was not quite 19¢ per hour. Thus, even during the fourth year, when apprentices were supposed to be paid 29¢ per hour, they probably earned no more than two-thirds of that.Google Scholar

14. Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Annual Reports of Various Public Officers and Institutions, Education, 1910, Vol. VIII, Doc. 2, p. 150 (hereafter cited as Massachusetts Education Reports). Google Scholar

15. N.S.P.I.E. Proceedings, Bulletin No. 13 (New York, 1911), p.116.Google Scholar

16. Massachusetts Education Reports, 1910, p. 129. Comparative Statistical Table.Google Scholar

17. N.S.P.I.E. Proceedings, Bulletin No. 13 (New York, 1911), pp. 111–122.Google Scholar

18. U.S., Bureau of Education, The Fitchburg Plan of Industrial Education, Bulletin No. 50, 1913, p. 28. Testimony presented by Matthew R. McCann, English High School, Worchester, Massachusetts (hereafter cited as Bulletin No. 50).Google Scholar

19. N.S.P.I.E. Proceedings, Bulletin No. 13 (New York, 1911), p. 96. Testimony of W. B. Hunter, director of the Industrial Department, Fitchburg High School. The manufacturers cooperating with the Fitchburg plan were: Simonds Manufacturing Company (saws and knives), Fitchburg Steam Engine Company, Bath Grinder Company (grinding machines), Blake Steam Pump and Condenser Company, Cowdrey Machine Company (wood-working machinery), Putnam Machinery Company (general tools and machinery), Fitchburg Machinery Company, Brown Steam Engine Company, Jenison Company (tinsmithing and pipe engineering), and the Goodnow Company (iron works).Google Scholar

20. N.S.P.I.E. Proceedings, Bulletin No. 13 (New York, 1911), p. 96. In this testimony, W. B. Hunter showed that at 10¢ per hour, a student earned $5.50 per week; at 11¢, $6.05 per week; and at 12.5¢, $6.87 per week. All three totals were obviously based on a fifty-five hour work week.Google Scholar

21. U.S., Bureau of Education, Bulletin No. 50, p. 21. The bulletin shows that the student worked twenty-eight weeks of fifty-five hours each or 1,540 hours per year—if he took a two week vacation. This obviously left the boy 110 hours short of his contract or two full weeks. Thus the student could not take his contract-guaranteed two-week vacation without delaying the beginning of his next academic year. The only other alternatives were to forego the vacation altogether, or work a sixty hour work week (five hours overtime per week) throughout the entire year. The contract was vague about whether the student was required to work during traditional school vacations such as Christmas or Easter, but apparently, the language could be construed to require such work.Google Scholar

22. U.S. Commissioner of Labor, Industrial Education, 1910, p. 188. The agreement was made between the parents of the student apprentice and the participating company. The high school was not a party to the contract, but acquiesed to the procedure. The contract allowed the company to suspend or relieve a student “without previous notice.” Google Scholar

23. If Frank's figures were correct, the average gross wage for the second and third year at the Beverly School, was 9¢ per hour (4.5¢ net). Therefore, the average wage paid for the last three years at Beverly was 9.3¢ per hour or only 1.7¢ per hour less than the average wages paid under the Fitchburg plan. Once again the arithmetic to figure the average net wage for the last three years at Beverly is simple: 4.5¢ (1st year) + 4.5¢ (2nd year) + 19¢ (3rd year—see footnote 17) = 28.0¢ ÷3 = 9.3¢.Google Scholar

24. U.S. Bureau of Education, Bulletin No. 50. Google Scholar

25. Ibid., pp. 17–18.Google Scholar

26. U.S. Commissioner of Labor, Industrial Education, 1910, p. 189.Google Scholar

27. Actually, the Fitchburg Industrial School probably over-extended the duration of its course work no more than other industrial schools. The Massachusetts Education Reports , p. 144, described as follows the courses offered by the Boston Printing and Bookbinding School: “A four year course in printing, a four year course in printing and bookbinding, and a four year course in bookbinding and printing.” The only four year course excluded was in bookbinding, and one guesses that the school was not far from inaugurating it.Google Scholar

28. N.S.P.I.E. Proceedings, Bulletin No. 13, Part II (New York, 1911), pp. 62–68.Google Scholar

29. Ibid., pp. 67–81. For statements from company spokesmen, see U.S. Commissioner of Labor, Industrial Education, 1910, Chapter IV. The Solvay Company spokesman testified to the grim fact, “School is in session fifty-two weeks per year,” p. 180.Google Scholar

30. U.S. Bureau of Education, Industrial Education, 1908, Bulletin No. 6, p. 33 (Hereafter cited as Bulletin No. 6).Google Scholar

31. N.S.P.I.E. Proceedings, Bulletin No. 10 (New York, 1911), pp. 100–01.Google Scholar

32. N.S.P.I.E. Proceedings, Bulletin No. 3 (New York, 1907), p. 27.Google Scholar

33. N.S.P.I.E. Proceedings, Bulletin No. 10 (New York, 1911), p. 103.Google Scholar

34. U.S. Commissioner of Labor, Industrial Education, p. 257. Wages for the fourth year were not mentioned. A question yet unanswered is why industrial schools were of four years duration. A New York Central Railroad official testified that “A student can be taught, on the average, to turn out 7/8 of the mechanics output after three or four days.” U.S. Bureau of Education, Bulletin No. 6, p. 38. Yet the N.Y.C. R.R. operated a four year mechanics course. In marked contrast, some of the Philanthropic industrial schools such as the Baron Van Hirsch Trade School in New York City graduated qualified skilled workers after only 5½ month. One motive for the extended duration of the course work was that it brought with it an extended supply of sub-paid workers. From the educator's point of view, a four year program coincided with the normal academic requirement and it kept juveniles off the street until they were more employable.Google Scholar