Part-Time Systems

Educators say that it is necessary to string out a young person's education over a large number of years. They insist that to teach the fundamental principles above suggested would be like feeding a person protein, vitamines, and the other food essentials in pills instead of in the grains and vegetables as nature provides. They claim that the student needs "bulk" in order to digest his mental food as he needs it to digest properly his physical food. Furthermore, statistics indicate that the educator is right.

This educational bulk, however, should not be loafing, good times, dissipation, etc. Rather this "bulk" should be work in the fields, homes, factories, or stores. Referring to the educators' own illustration of the use of physical food, permit the writer to say that we do not feed a child from five years to eighteen years upon vegetables exclusively and then take away the vegetables and feed him on meats exclusively for the rest of his life! No, we mix the two from early childhood. In the same way we should continually mix study and work. Yet to-day we give our children thirteen years of all study and no work; and then pull away the study and give them all work for the remainder of their lives.

This means that an educational system in order to produce an enduring prosperity must be based upon part-time education. No student should be allowed to enter or remain in high school unless he or she is regularly employed in some useful work. Already interesting experiments are being made along these lines in connection with college work. These experiments should at once be applied to the high schools, which today are training young people to be parasites instead of workers, owing to the use of play, instead of industry, for the so-called bulk.

Some will say that there are not jobs enough to give employment for even part-time to so many young people. This is a fundamental economic error. As more people work, more people are able to buy and this in turn creates more work. With a proper part-time secondary educational system designed to teach young people after they go to work or get married instead of before, we would solve many of our social and industrial problems. For this reason the writer very much favors the work of correspondence schools, extension courses and other forms of education by mail. His only criticism is the way such courses are often advertised and the motives often appealed to in connection with their sale.

Cooperation And Education

Efficient education must be all-inclusive. All groups must be taught the same subjects and the same fundamental principles. The public school in the small city or town is a worth-while example along lines of cooperation. The son of the mill owner and the son of his humblest employee sit side by side in the same school room and derive their education from the same teacher. This is fundamentally correct. The mill owner makes a mistake from every point of view when he takes his son out of that school room and puts him in a private school in the town or, what is worse, sends him away to some other city.

Some one has said that the efficiency of a people is determined by its ability to cooperate. Certainly, the future of America depends on all groups pulling together rather than pulling apart. Mutual understanding between employers and wage workers can never be developed by operating separate schools for different classes of people.

Even the development in certain cities to have "Classical" high schools, "English" high schools and "Technical" high schools is a fundamental mistake. Our investments will not be made to endure by erecting such artificial classifications. An enduring educational system must provide the same fundamental principles for all groups whether executives or wage workers. Two and two make four and should be taught as making four to rich and poor, black and white. Moreover, these groups must learn to understand one another and this can only be learned through association.

The writer cannot too strongly emphasize the importance of teaching different groups to cooperate one with another. Some advancement is being made along these lines to-day. Certain of the older conservative institutions of learning are opening their doors with special courses for those who cannot spend the required time. Yet, with these institutions, the groups are kept separate. The children taking classical work are in one building, while the children taking business studies are in another building. One group is allowed to look down on or look up to the other. This is all wrong. It is contrary to the fundamental principles of religion, good government, economics, and the other essentials in an enduring educational system.

The Writer's Dream

In showing this manuscript to a friend, the writer was asked to prepare a prospectus of what he would consider an educational institution which would make our worth-while investments endure. As a closing portion of this chapter he submits the following:

The Institution should have three Divisions: Division One would be known as the General Division. It would give by mail in elementary form, to a majority of the employees of every industry, the same principles as are taught the executives and the sons of the stockholders. Even when the owner of the plant and his executives have the correct point of view, they cannot themselves be effective unless a majority of the employees look at things sanely also. Hence, an enduring educational system requires that the wage workers of the country be given weekly elementary lessons, based on the same fundamental principles as are being studied by capital and management at college.

Division Two would be for the executives and soon-to-be executives of a corporation or firm who wish additional training in the fundamentals of Economics, Psychology, English, Finance, Science, etc., but are unable to come to a Resident School for personal work. These Advanced Courses however, have another fundamental purpose, namely: In order that the young man who is to come into control of the business may become efficient after his graduation from college, it is very important that the executives with whom he is to work shall have the same vision and be actuated by the same fundamental principles. Only in this way can the plant be operated harmoniously and efficiently. Executives could take this Advanced Division work by correspondence while the owner's son or successor is taking Resident School work.

Division Three would be known as the Resident School, and should comprise intensive one- to two-years' courses. This Division should be designed for men who are likely to come into responsibility or property and give them practical work in finance, production, distribution, and personal efficiency. Men entering this Resident Division should have either one or more years of college or its equivalent in actual work. No formal examinations should be required, but men should be sufficiently mature and seriously interested to have this privilege.