The marvelous efficiency of Germany is due in large part to the fact that her great middle classes have been made efficient through a national system of trade schools.
The prosperity and perpetuity of a nation rests largely upon its ability to provide an adequate number of highly trained experts to be leaders, inventors and executives. In a democracy, these skilled leaders are especially important. Among the problems to be solved are questions of government, education, finance, economics, business, industry, health, manufacturing, engineering and mining. Any nation that lacks guidance in these particulars is indeed weak and pitiful. The universities, colleges, and higher technical schools supply nine-tenths of these experts, yet in the U.S. to-day there are only 250,000 students enrolled in all the colleges and universities of the country; this is about one to 500 of the population, a number entirely inadequate to perform the tremendous service that will be expected of this nation in the near future.
LESSON XXI
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
1. State the nature of the school.
2. How did the ideal of universal education arise?
3. State the chief function of the school.
4. Name the habits and ideals peculiar to the school.
5. What is the secondary purpose of the school?
6. Contrast the efficiency of the home and the school.