The tradesman scarcely ever gives ideal worth to his work, but is ridden by the routine of his craft, and the soul is subject to dollars." Children set to work at a machine or at some partial process

From The Survey, April 19, 1914.

develop no general intelligence, but only a highly specialized skill. When work in their particular line is slack, they find themselves out of employment, with no power to do anything else. They become discouraged, and grow up to join the ranks of the discontented, the dependent, or the delinquent.

CHAPTER II

INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION IN EUROPE

I. England

1. The Beginnings.

In England there was no national system of public education until 1870, when Parliament enacted a law which insured elementary education to all the children in the land. In 1770 Burke deplored the tendency shown by Parliament to exercise control upon the people, whereas "it was designed as a control for the people." This remark of Burke's reflects the attitude of the rising democracy of England at the time. During the following century the democratic forces assumed an aggressive attitude and finally triumphed in the Act of 1867, which decided once for all that the British government, though monarchical in form, should in reality be democratic. Then followed the usual corollary, that if the people are to rule they must be educated; hence three years later Parliament established a national system of schools.

2. Private Industrial Education. The beginnings of industrial education in England may be traced to Dr. George Birkbeck, professor of natural and experimental philosophy at the Andersonian Institution in Glasgow. He conceived the idea of establishing free lecture courses for the dissemination of scientific knowledge among the working classes. Between 1815 and 1825 Mechanics' Institutions were founded in all parts of England to the number of two hundred and twenty. Some of these were kept alive long enough to be converted into technical schools. Others degenerated into clubs; still others died. Very few succeeded to the extent expected by their founders. The principal reason for the failure of the movement was that those who were intended to benefit by the lectures did not possess even the rudiments of an education; and hence they received little profit from their instruction. These lay efforts therefore proved futile, and nothing durable resulted except the two or three technical schools into which several of the Mechanics' Institutions were converted.

3. Public Industrial Education. In 1837 the Committee of Trade secured the sum of $7500