Page 46 - 1913 November - To Dragma

TO PRAGMA OF ALPHA OMICRON PI 51

drawing, carpentry, and English for foreigners.1 The high schools
offer the regular high school curricula with additional manual train-
ing, commercial courses, and special courses for those wishing to take
civil service examinations. The many trade schools are proficient
in technical instruction, both for men and women, their primary ob-
ject being "to give raw apprentices a solid grounding in their trades
and to afford those already caught in industrial machinery a means
of escape—an opportunity to broaden their experience and improve
their skill."2 Besides the above-named courses, New York offers
classes in salesmanship, illustrating, applied chemistry and pharmacy.

The good that the evening schools are doing can hardly be over-
estimated. For the students employed during the day, they afford
a golden opportunity to obtain a broader culture. The technical
schools greatly promote the wage-earning capacity of the workmen
by increasing their efficiency. Perry, in his very helpful book, has
some interesting statistics showing the actual increase in the wages
of night school pupils.'1 In these days of specialization and minute
division of labor, the skilled workman is becoming more and more
rare, and the evening technical school is a helpful factor in provid-
ing industrial training, the lack of which has produced the condi-
tion of unemployment of so many among our working classes, in the
sustenance of whom society is so frequently called upon to aid.

The women as well as the men are receiving valuable training in
these schools, both as wage earners and as housewives. Besides this
fact, the evening classes afford companionship and recreation for
hundreds of the many lonely young women in our large cities, hence
their possible influence in the mitigation of the great social evil ex-
isting among our lower classes.

England, and many of the countries on the continent, have done
much towards solving the problem of the unemployed and inefficient
labor by making attendance at evening or afternoon technical schools
compulsory. The business firms are forced to allow all workmen
under a certain age enough time each week during which they may
attend the continuation schools. I n England, also in some cities in
the United States, a tuition is charged, the business concerns pay
the fees, believing that they can well afford to do this in view of
their increased returns. In Munich and Bavaria, the attendance of
domestic servants of every kind is required—a long step toward the
solution of the problem of domestic service.

'Perry, p. 29.
2I'erry, p. 25.
3Page 86.