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manual training. It is the intention of the board of education to develop this work along lines more definitely practical and educational than has been the case hitherto. The equipment has been carefully planned, and is quite complete for the purpose.

A thoroughly practical woodworking man has been put in charge of the shops, in order that the work may be in accordance with the procedure in industrial shops. Some of the practical problems undertaken include: Dining tables for use in the cafeteria, stools, bookcases, kindergarten tables, sand tables, and the like. Metal shops are to be developed later on similar lines.

The domestic science in the high school has been reorganized, also, and the course now requires two years of work in the grades for entrance. The problems for study in the high school deal with the scientific values of food, the cost of living, dietetics, home nursing, and other allied topics. Girls may now take special courses in household chemistry and household physics.

Continuation classes in salesmanship have been organized for department store clerks. In conjunction with the State University of Iowa, night school courses will be offered in gas engines, carpentry, shop mathematics, and other branches for which there may be demand.

CINCINNATI, OHIO.

Cincinnati has probably received its share of attention from the public by reason of the important educational experiments that have been conducted there during the past few years by the public school department, the University of Cincinnati, and other agencies. Nevertheless, it may be worth while to note briefly a few significant points.

Continuation school.-Three quite distinct forms of continuation schools have been developed in Cincinnati: (1) The apprentice school for machinists' and printers' apprentices; (2) the compulsory school for pupils at work between the ages of 14 and 16 who have not completed the eighth grade; (3) voluntary classes for mothers and young

women.

The compulsory continuation school was organized in 1911, an attendance of four hours a week being required of all pupils at work between the ages of 14 and 16, until the completion of the eighth grade. Subsequent legislation and a ruling of the attorney general have considerably modified the plans and organization of this school. In September, 1914, the school will be confined almost wholly to a small group of 15-year-old boys. Because of these enforced changes the administration is now applying itself to special problems: The possibility of organizing voluntary classes for young people beyond the compulsory school age who are at work, and the necessity of

doing something to meet better the needs of the young people retained in school.

Under the first, salesmanship classes have been organized in three of the large department stores, a teacher from the continuation school being sent to each store for two lessons per week. Under the second, considerable attention has been given to the problem of varying the instruction and plans of work to meet the needs of pupils between 14 and 16 who, in the future, will be retained in school, but who will leave as soon as the law permits.

A committee of principals appointed by the superintendent of public schools has prepared a report on a plan for prevocational classes, which has been adopted by the principals' association. This plan provides for special classes for children who are ineligible for the continuation school; the time of the classes is to be divided equally between shop work and academic work, the academic work to be closely related to the industrial work; the industrial work of these classes is to be of the widest possible diversity in order to afford the child the greatest variety of opportunity; each elementary school is to care for its own prevocational classes wherever possible, and, when necessary, centers are to be established in which the work may be carried on. The report of the committee recommends that the work shall be so "conducted that these children shall not feel that they are in school simply to spend the time till they can go to work, but shall be inspired to further work and higher education." The report further recommends that teachers of the greatest skill and sympathy shall be selected for both the industrial and academic work.

Industrial education survey.-The eighty-fourth annual report of the superintendent for the year ending August 31, 1913, contains the outline of a plan for an industrial education survey, the first step in which is to be a survey of the printing trades. This, it is hoped, will indicate the kind of training that should be offered in preparation for efficiency as wage earners. After the printing trades have been studied it is purposed to undertake similar studies of the clothing, shoe, and building trades, and possibly others later.

These studies are made possible by the action of the directors of the Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce in their decision to finance the survey and to conduct it in cooperation with the educational authorities. In addition, the cooperation of organizations of employers and and employees has been secured. The Central Labor Council has appointed a committee on industrial education for this purpose. The chamber of commerce has assigned to this work Mr. C. R. Hebble, its civic and industrial secretary; and the superintendent of public schools has assigned Mr. Frank P. Goodwin, of the Woodward High School.

Vocational guidance.-The vocational guidance movement in Cincinnati began during the last school year with groups of eighth-grade teachers who have been studying the question, and the teachers of Woodward High School who have been experimenting with it in its relation to high-school students.

Those who have given attention to this problem in Cincinnati have reached these tentative conclusions with reference to vocational guidance:

Vocational guidance should be an educational process; the life-career motive should be used as a means of prolonging the period of school life; the business of the teacher should be to direct the child to that kind of education for which he is best adapted and which will best prepare him for the vocation of his choice; and school courses and methods of instruction should be adapted to fit pupils for the work which they are likely to do.

Since the present curriculum already utilizes all of the available time of teachers and students, it has been decided that no additional course of study should be arranged to accommodate the work in vocational guidance. This instruction has been included in a course in civics, thus emphasizing the natural connection between vocational success and good citizenship. In addition to regular classroom instruction, the work consist of lectures by citizens qualified to speak on the various phases of vocational life and of visits to industrial plants.

THE VOCATIONAL SCHOOL OF THE LOYAL ORDER OF MOOSE AT MOOSEHEART, AURORA, ILL.

One very significant item in the evidence of progress in vocational education is found in an experiment on a large scale now being conducted at private expense a few miles outside of Aurora, Ill. A half million members of the Loyal Order of Moose are putting a half million dollars annually into building a "vocational university" on a 1,000-acre farm on the Fox River, about 35 miles west of Chicago, to care for the education of all normal orphan children of indigent members, who are to be sent to the institution under contract to remain until the age of 21 years.

Range of activities.-The child may select agriculture or horticulture, the raising of cattle, hogs, sheep, horses, or poultry, according to his bent, or he may select any one of the building trades or printing.

Half of the time of the pupil is spent in academic studies and half in the chosen vocation. When the first class of children is ready for the technical high school the building and instructors will be ready, and so, too, with provision for higher technical education.

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Financial support.-Each of more than a half million Moose mempays, with his quarterly dues, 25 cents into the Mooseheart fund. It is expected that the order at the end of five years will have in resi

dence at Mooseheart several thousand children, but not more than the $500,000 annual income will provide for. Every child willing to acquire the higher technical education will be given it, and the boy with a bent for farming, or the girl with the bent for cooking or homekeeping, will be taught the underlying scientific facts of the chosen calling.

Capacity. There are 145 children now at Mooseheart, and 44 others have been accepted by the board of governors. Provision will be made for wintering 215 children in 1914-15, and for three times as many in the following winter.

The children are governed by the "assembly," which they themselves constitute, and in which they make laws and administer justice for themselves.

CONCLUSION.

In conclusion, it may be well to call attention to the fact that during the past year there have been a number of ill-considered attacks upon public-school work in manual training and the household arts, made by overzealous advocates of what they are pleased to call "real" vocational education. These criticisms seem to be animated by the notion that the best way, or one good way, to advance the cause of vocational education in the public schools is to discredit the work attempted under the name of manual training. Some of these pronouncements have contained nothing whatever of a constructive nature, and consequently very little real good can be traced to them. There are clear and unmistakable distinctions between thorough vocational training, given by practical teachers who know through wage-earning experience the occupations for which they are attempting definitely to prepare pupils, and the work now done in many school systems as manual training and household arts. There is no need of confusing the two. It must be acknowledged that the manual training as carried on in some places is appropriately characterized a foolish waste of time." On the other hand, there can hardly be a successful denial of the proposition that the best of the manualtraining work is just as essential and just as defensible as a part of the complete plan of education as anything that has yet been suggested under the name of vocational education. It can not be too strongly emphasized, therefore, that there is a better way to advance the interests of vocational education than to tear down or discredit anything that is worth while in other departments of the publicschool system.

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73226°- -ED 1914-VOL 1-19

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