earning a living was a necessary evil, not an essential part in the development of men. It has created the false impression that life was lived in the leisure, not in the working, hours. This is a logical consequence of a restricted view of the province of education. As a result of a broader conception of business education, the curriculum has been enriched by such studies as commercial arithmetic, commercial geography, commercial history and commercial law. Business education is becoming broader, more scientific and systematic.

CHAPTER XII

THE CONTINUATION SCHOOL

In 1900, seven out of every eight children in this country which glories in its public-school system, did not attend school after their fifteenth birthday. Over eighty-seven per cent. of our future men and women are going forth into their life work without proper preparation and without adequate opportunity to receive the benefits of education after they have entered the treadmill of daily life. The greatest national industry is the production of efficient, capable and well-trained men and women; and yet our educational mechanism only gets a firm grasp upon about one in every eight individuals who pass their fifteenth birthday. The typical American child of to-day has only received the training offered by the first six or seven grades of our public school. The business enterprise which was no more efficient in its methods of shaping its product than is the American nation would pass quickly into bankruptcy. This indictment as to the true efficiency of our educational system is severe, but unfortunately true.

The greatest educational and industrial need of to-day is for schools which will assist and train the young workers who leave school for various reasons

at an early age. The public-school curriculum is adapted to the needs of the young man or young woman who is not obliged to commence earning his or her living at an early age. If, however, the young student is obliged to leave school to go into the shop, the store, or the office as soon as our compulsory education laws permit, the benefits of free instruction are placed out of his reach except in a few isolated cases. In other words, the instruction given in the latter portion of the public-school course is accessible only to him who has sufficient funds to enable him to remain in school until the end of his eighteenth year. The boy or girl who works must rely upon other facilities. Here is the great industrial army of boys and girls who are unable to receive anything but the rudiments of an education.

There are thousands of young people in our various private, night and correspondence schools who are receiving instruction in branches which are or ought to be found in the curriculum of the public school. This important class of students ought to be reached through the agency of our public schools. These young men and young women realize that they need the assistance of education in their daily work, and they are industricus; but the public school is not within their reach. It is in session at precisely the time of day when our young workers must be earning their daily bread. Before the shop, the office, or the store closes, the school door swings shut, except, of course, where the public night school is established in a permanent, systematic manner.

By means of compulsory education laws many unwilling children are forced to attend school. They are led triumphantly to drink of knowledge, while this great army of workers thirst for such instruction as will make them better artisans and better citizens. Although approximately fifty per cent. of our skilled workmen are foreign born and foreign trained, we still neglect to adequately provide for the future. Only in recent years has this important phase of education attracted attention. The private, correspondence, and Young Men's Christian Association schools which have sprung up all over this broad land of ours are more or less successfully and faithfully offering industrial, trade, scientific and commercial education to our ambitious workers. The cost of tuition in many of these schools is high, and the work in these, as well as in the majority of our public night schools, is usually not well systematized or organized. The training given in many of our night schools is fragmentary, and falls far short of accomplishing what it should. Systematic, wellorganized and well-coördinated courses which are designed to aid actual workers are needed. However well the private night school or the correspondence school may have answered the purpose in isolated cases, they are not the proper institutions to permanently provide for the great bodies of workers who need such instruction. It is the public, not the private, school which must perform this function. We should copy the good features of the European continuation-school system.

It is frequently urged that these young workers, our future skilled artisans, desire trade and technical instruction. Such training is called special education, a training for the few at the expense of the many, and therefore it is said that such work should not be given a place in the public-school system which is supported by public taxation. An unprejudiced consideration of the case will, however, reveal the fact that much of our present public-school instruction is really special; particularly is this true of that given in our high schools. This instruction is especially valuable to one who wishes to become a lawyer, doctor, minister or teacher, or to one who goes from the high school to the college. Even if this were not true, it could hardly be maintained that all taxpayers are not vitally interested in the industrial progress of the country. If it can be shown that the public-school system may do much to improve the knowledge, skill and efficiency of our future workers all the arguments which have been employed in regard to the support of schools by public taxation may also be used in this contention. Further, it must not be forgotten that the function of early public-school education was in a large measure utilitarian,-the training of ministers and teachers. It aimed, when prolonged beyond the three R's, to educate only those who did not work with their hands,-to train a professional class. The people of the United States are committed to the doctrine of free public education; but it should be carried to the workers.