The Importance of Industrial Training in Our Schools
By Florence Howell
WHEN I speak of industrial work, I am conscious of the fact that we do not all experience the same mental effect. It is an ambiguous term to many—something which may, and does, suggest various things, to as many minds. There are some who think of it as meaning the manufacture of articles for commercial purposes; other minds refer at once to gardening, floriculture, general farming, or—to use a word that covers all these—agriculture; again we distinguish it as cooking, sewing, housekeeping, domestic hygiene, and the physiological sciences; while to still others it is merely the construction of those fancy articles, more or less useful, classed as the manual arts. It is this phase of the subject that has taken such strong hold upon the people of the public schools, and is now being almost generally used throughout the country to the exclusion, in part or in whole, of its other important issues. With this diversity of ideas concerning the subject, it would be well to come to some conclusion as to the sense in which the term should be used. Industrial training includes all these things and more; it embraces every subject that relates to the physical, mental, and moral well-being; and there is scarcely a subject pursued in any school or college which is not included in, or can not be correlated with, industrial training. “It means knowledge through the exercise of brain, bone, and muscle. The greatest curse of our world in this our day, is idleness. It leads to amusements merely to please and gratify self. The students have had a superabundance of this way of spending their time; they are now to have a different education, that they may be prepared to go forth from school with an all-round education.”—Mrs. E. G. White. God has given to every man the privilege of working. It is an endowment bestowed upon him by his Creator. To shun labor is to go back to the blanket stage; and the educational system that does not fit both mind and body for some special duty in life is not the system we desire. A father was once heard to say, “I want my son to go to school and be educated so that he will not have to work as hard as I did.” No! that was not what he wanted. He didn’t want his son educated so that he wouldn’t have to work, but educated so that he could work, and accomplish more than his father did. A distinction should be made between work and drudgery. In the early days of this country every man was his own farmer, blacksmith, miller, carpenter, and cabinet-maker; and every woman not only made her own clothes, but wove the cloth and spun the wool and flax. In exchange for benefits conferred by civilized society the average man must work. If all are obliged to labor, then clearly the joy of living must be found in one’s daily duties. Work is God’s panacea for trouble. Drudgery is synonymous with ignorance. In early times when soils were rich, implements crude, and keen competition unknown, there was necessarily much drudgery connected with farm life; muscle ruled in those days. There was but little draft upon gray matter. Conditions have undergone radical changes, however. Soils have become more or less impoverished; competition has arisen in every line of production; insect enemies that prey upon crops have increased, as well as fungus diseases—all of which but signifies that successful agriculture requires the highest type of ability. Success under present conditions implies an intimate knowledge of soils, plants, animals, insects, and diseases of animals and plants. All these things but go to prove that our people must work in a scientific way. There is a cause for every effect. God put it there, and he desires that we shall understand and work in harmony with these forces of nature. If the people of the world are beginning to see the importance of this, how much in advance ought Seventh-day Adventists to be, who have had instruction along this line since Jesus set the example in his Galilean school. FLORENCE HOWELL.
(To be concluded)