It is often assumed that academic training in itself gives technical skill, that the young woman who graduates from college is thereby prepared for any task which may confront her. This is a misconception of the function of the college. If it does its work well, a good foundation is laid, certain aptitudes and habits of thought are developed, which should make progress in any art or craft more rapid, and judgment more intelligent. On the other hand, long years given to purely academic work, away from the normal conditions of the working world, permit certain powers to lie dormant. Students are trained to deliberation rather than to action. The college woman may need adjustment to the conditions of the shop, the office, or even the school. Training which presupposes the task and keeps it in mind certainly advances the general preparation of any student for her work. If we acquaint her with the immediate problems of the task the necessary period of apprenticeship is shortened and rapid advancement assured. Such training seems reasonable. Why should the education of the girl lie completely outside her work in the world? Why should so deep a gulf be fixed between the school and the later task?
The vocational aim need not diminish the so-called cultural value of a subject. Need the study of bacteriology become less “broadening” because the nurse-to-be recognizes its relation to her future work, knowing that she is to apply its truths in sanitation and disinfection, in antiseptic precautions, in securing surgical cleanliness? Is the “social worker” of tomorrow a less intelligent student of economics to-day because she is conscious of the problem with which she personally is to deal? On the other hand, is a girl more liberally educated because for four “finishing” years of her education her program of studies tacitly ignores all reference to the sacred responsibility which she is so soon to assume—or which she must help others to meet? Rather, is not the whole course of study enlightened and informed by recognition of the goal and by conscious endeavor to reach it? If this be true, education which includes vocational training is far more liberal than that which ignores or excludes it.
It seems to the writer that the trend of educational thought is in this direction. The college woman as well as her less favored sister must be trained, “not simply to be good, but to be good for something”, not simply to be wise, but to be fully and definitely prepared for service;—and this conception is perhaps the most important contribution of higher education to the advancement of vocational training. Remote as it may seem, it nevertheless influences the general ideal. We cannot expect the average parent to take pains to insure in his daughter’s education the thing which the college despises.
If we accept the proposition that the maintenance of the home is woman’s major vocation, all women are included in the group for whom vocational training is essential. The responsibility of providing such instruction is divided between home and school. Exactly as practise under shop conditions is essential for complete industrial training, so practise in a home with wise guidance under normal conditions is indispensable to the best preparation for maintaining a home. Girls who are so fortunate as to live in homes where this instruction is afforded are therefore least in need of supplemental instruction in the public school or other instruction provided for the purpose. The girl who is most in need of industrial training for self maintenance is also likely to be in greatest need of training for home-keeping. Unless she is taught better she will perpetuate the same type of home from which she has sprung, and this in itself is a menace to the community. There is, then, a double reason for providing adequate training in home matters for girls in the more favored homes. Out of their abundance they must help lift the standard of those who are less favored. Home training, however, must be supplemented by general school instruction which approves the higher standard of living, and shows its relation to the community. It is to the advantage of both these groups that standards of right living should be set forth in the schools and approved by them.
It follows that the largest possible influence is inherent in the position of the college woman whose training leads her to recognize the relation of the home to the community, who fits herself to assume her own responsibilities intelligently, and who uses her influence in lifting the standard of the homes which have been less intelligently administered. The college has an indispensable part to play in the development of vocational training. As soon as the college for women incorporates into its accepted program courses which will assist in conscious preparation for the maintenance of the home, the standard of living throughout the country will feel its beneficent influence.
The vocational aim being openly and generally accepted, the public schools will provide for appropriate training. This will include: 1. Provision of courses tending toward intelligent home administration in all programs outlined for women and girls. 2. Some means of testing proficiency in these arts and principles, however acquired, so that at least a minimum amount of preparation will be exacted of all girls. 3. The establishment of centers where household administration can be taught by example and practise as well as by precept. By means of supplementary vacation schools, evening schools and continuation schools, housekeepers, young mothers and others in need of specific instruction may receive the necessary help exactly as the plumber may now reinforce his knowledge through a course in an evening school.
The agencies thus far enumerated will provide the elementary instruction immediately required. Such instruction, however, will not be possible unless suitable teachers are provided, and these must naturally be women of large opportunity and experience. This presupposes higher courses in technical schools or colleges which consider the problem in the large and train teachers and workers for leadership. Again it becomes clear that the college should establish proper technical courses.
The need of three agencies for vocational training is apparent: for the immediate need of the young beginner, the trade school; for the middle group, the technical high school; for the leader, the technical college.
The trade school and the vocational center meet the immediate need of the young worker. Exactly as the girl from the poor and meager home must depend upon intelligent instruction to raise her standard of living, so her judgment and skill must be reinforced when she confronts the problem of self-maintenance. She is pushed by necessity into the ranks of wage-earners, knowing nothing of the field she is entering, and she must make the best terms she can with those who take advantage of her ignorance. As an unskilled worker she must follow the crowd and take what she can get. General schooling has left the hand unskilled and the judgment untrained. She has neither knowledge of her own ability, nor the immediate advantage of a known employment. She is entitled to instruction which considers not trade profit alone but the advantage of the worker, which makes possible intelligent choice of the best course available and shortens the period of unpaid apprenticeship. In short, the education which she sorely needs as she faces self-maintenance is specific preparation for wage earning and the conditions involved in it.
Two conditions are essential to this training: first, a thread of manual vocational work throughout the ordinary school program for all girls, to train hand and eye and develop taste and judgment along practical lines; second, special schools for industrial training, with brief, intensive courses, to which girls may be sent for a preparatory period when facing the necessity of self-maintenance, the minimum requirement of general training having been covered in the ordinary school. These centers of industrial or trade training should be separate from the academic centers and should supply as far as possible the conditions of apprenticeship. They should be free from the fixed classifications and grades of the school, and should afford illustrations and types of vocational experience. To such public provision as may be made for such centers, private philanthropy will for a long while bring its aid, for vocational training must be tied to individual conditions and must ask for coöperation from manufacturer and employer. Supervised apprenticeship in chosen places of work will for a time take the place of organized training schools, as for example, in the case of the hospital dietitian, the house decorator, and the photographer. But elementary courses, requiring accuracy, speed, and an ordinary degree of skill, may even now be provided by the school. The seamstress, the machine operator, the saleswoman, the typewriter, the clerk, the bookkeeper may be trained in such centers.