As the courses at the Manhattan Trade School developed, an intermediate phase between the preparatory work and the direct trade training took definite shape. This middle ground partakes in many ways of trade processes and lays a good foundation for shop work. It utilizes the early education, gives point to it, awakens in the student enthusiasm for her chosen trade, and shows her that it is worth her while to work hard if she would succeed. It takes from four to eight months, according to the student's ability to meet the requirements. Public instruction could also develop this intermediate field to advantage for those who, not wishing to enter the regular high school course, would be glad to avail themselves of further practical education. Such occupations for women as cooking, sewing, garment and dressmaking, millinery, laundry work, home nursing, household administration, care of children, novelty work, electric power operating, salesmanship, and other interesting activities can well be offered in Vocational Education. As the student in her chosen field plans, considers expenses, and contrives to utilize her material she gains skill, adaptability, judgment, and the true basis of criticism. The world's work interests her as its meaning becomes clear through her own experiences, and she begins to see ways to better her condition and to be a factor in the improvement of her home. She appreciates the value of her early education, and finds it worth while to think clearly and to act wisely; she listens to instructions, asks sensible directions, and goes to work without waste of time. The elementary and intermediate training just described, which the school found it must give preparatory to its real trade instruction, has proved advantageous as an introduction, for the student can now quickly adapt herself to the work in the school shops, as she possesses the foundation qualities needed to make the best worker. She has to begin at the simplest trade work, to be sure, but can rise as rapidly as she shows ability. She has been carefully watched by her instructors and turned gradually in the direction best fitted to her.
Trade Shops
Offering courses in many varieties of trade work exactly as they are found in a city like New York has many recurring difficulties, as has been before stated. The constant and rapid adaptations to fashion, the new mechanical devices introduced, and the labor situations are factors to be considered. The management must be ready at a moment's notice to change, increase, or drop work according to the demands of a fickle market. It would seem, therefore, that at present the problems of the school trade shops are of too serious and unsettled a character for adequate solution by public instruction as at present organized, for (1) it would be difficult to persuade the mass of taxpayers that added tax rates are advisable for beginning a continually altering form of education which has not yet commended itself to all employers or to all wage-earners, and which must be more or less expensive; (2) the usual public school committee man knows little of trade conditions, and would probably be averse to allowing a school the freedom to change at will its course of study and even the very trades it teaches; yet, on the other hand, if the trade school must wait for board action before altering its plans, it would prejudice the value of its instruction, which must be flexible if it would train its students directly for the market; (3) the impossibility of obtaining its teachers from the usual "waiting list" and the difficulties attending the selection of a satisfactory teaching force.
The possibilities for offering highly specialized, skilled work are great, but the poverty of the students limits their time at the day school. To help all girls who work, and who wish to get ahead, night classes have been organized from time to time, and during the day also temporary instruction is offered to any one who has a slack time in her trade. As the school is organized into trade shops, with the same specialization as in the market, a student can enter or be placed from almost any point. This increases its usefulness but complicates its management.
Obtaining and Training Teachers
As trade instruction is new in education, the normal schools have not begun training teachers regularly for these positions, nor, indeed, are they yet prepared to do so. The organizer of a trade school faces, therefore, a serious difficulty in obtaining instructors who are adequate to the task before them.
The following trade teaching staff is needed: supervisors of the various trades; forewomen to direct the school shops; trade instructors to teach the various groups of students the specialized processes; assistants to attend to minor matters in the workrooms; art teachers, who have had experience in designing for the various trades represented; academic instructors who know the working world practically and can give the students a training which, while helping them in their trades, will broaden their knowledge of and sympathy in the world's work. All of these teachers must not only have had experience in trade, but must continually keep in touch with the methods of the outside market. Unsuccessful trade workers, who often wish to teach, or teachers who know nothing of the needs of trade workrooms, cannot adequately prepare students for specific trade positions. Trade knows what it wants, is a severe critic and an unsparing judge. The trade school, therefore, cannot afford to rely on instructors who would be themselves unsuccessful in the market, for the result would be certain failure in the students. Such specific training requires exceptional knowledge in its teaching force. The usual teacher of manual training knows too little of the ways of the workrooms and is too theoretical in her instruction to be trusted to train workers who must satisfy trade demands. On the other hand, the trade worker, good as she may be in her specialty, seldom knows how to teach. She can drive her group of workers, but she cannot train the green hands to do more than work quickly at one thing. She can make them work, but she cannot make them better workers. When she has orders to turn out, her lifelong training makes her think of the rapid completion of the articles rather than the careful development of the students who are making them. If she is not watched she will choose the girl to do a piece of work who can do it well and quickly (but who does not need this experience), rather than the one who should do it in order to have practice in it.
The problem is to find a way to unite the good teacher and the successful worker. Such a combination appears at rare intervals. At the present time the teacher who can adequately prepare young workers for trade has to be taught while she is herself teaching. She may be chosen from either the industrial or the educational field, if she has certain qualities of mind and spirit, but she must now make up the points she lacks, be it experience in trade or ability to teach. Supervisors need special insight and capability, as they are called upon to investigate a new and difficult field, to select from it the subjects needed, and after that to organize education of a most practical kind. They combine the duties of school principal, teacher, forewoman, factory superintendent, and business manager. They must be willing to give themselves to the cause, as they are responsible for the conduct of their departments throughout the year, at night as well as during the day, at least until they can train some one to whom they can delegate some of their responsibility. They need a broad, cultural education and, at the same time, interest and knowledge of the industrial problems of the time, as well as experience in their particular trade. They must have sympathy with the working people and their lives. It is evident that such women are hard to find, and when found or when trained are in demand by other institutions or in business life, in which places they can command high salaries. All efficient trade teachers also are equally in demand in workrooms, hence the school must compete with good business salaries in place of the usual underpay of educational institutions.
In addition to the trade teachers, practical instructors in healthful living and special secretaries needing social knowledge of various kinds are also essential in the modern trade school for girls. Their training adds to the director's responsibilities, for no one at present has the knowledge and experience necessary.
The many problems connected with obtaining an adequate teaching staff seem at present to have but one solution, i. e., the school has to be its own training school for its faculty to a greater or less extent. One source of assistant teachers has been found in students who have made good in trade. Pupils of fair education who show skill and executive ability in their department work and who later succeed in their trade positions have already proved helpful when brought back to the school. Such girls know the courses of instruction, their needs and difficulties, and also the outside workroom demands. If they are given some hints in methods of teaching, their success is greater. European trade schools for girls have drawn many of the best teachers from the student body and have organized teachers' training classes for them. A course of regular training for trade pupil teachers should be given later in American training schools to meet this situation.