Creative Impulse in Industry: A Proposition for EducatorsMarot, Helen
Science
Creative Impulse in Industry: A Proposition for Educators
Marot, Helen
Business and education -- United States; Technical education -- United States; Working class -- Education -- United States
The ideas which we find there have not sprung from schools or colleges
but from industry. The institution of industry, rather than the
institution of education, dominates thought in industrial education
courses. It is the institution of industry as it has affected the life
of every man, woman and child, which has inhibited educational thought
in conjunction with schemes for industrial schools. No established
system of education or none proposed is more circumscribed by
institutionalized thought than the vocational and industrial school
movement.
Educators have opposed the desire of business to attach the schools
to the industrial enterprise. They have rightly opposed it because
industry under the influence of business prostitutes effort.
Nevertheless, hand in hand with industry, the schools must function;
unattached to the human hive they are denied participation in life.
Promoters of industrial education are hung up between this fact of
prostituted industry and their desire to establish the children's
connection with life. They have tried to meet opposing interests; they
have not recognized all the facts because the facts were conflicting,
and their minds as well as their interests, institutionally speaking,
were committed to both.
This was the impasse we had apparently reached when the war occurred;
it is where we still are. But ahead of us, sometime, the war will end
and we shall be called then to face a period of reconstruction. The
reconstruction will center around industry. The efficiency with which
a worker serves industry will be the test of his patriotic fervor, as
his service in the army is made the test during this time of war. All
institutions will be examined and called upon to reorganize in such
ways as will contribute to the enterprise of raising industrial
processes to the standard of greatest efficiency.
The standard of mechanical efficiency as it was set by Germany was one
of refined brutality. During the progress of the war, the significance
of that standard is being grafted into the consciousness of the common
people of those nations which have opposed Germany in arms. It is the
industrial efficiency of Germany, uninhibited by a sense of human
development that has made her victories possible. It is that
efficiency which has kept a large part of the world on the defensive
for over three and a half years. Germany's military strategy is, in
the main, her industrial strategy; it represents her efficiency in
turning technology to the account of an imperial purpose.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account