Scientific American Supplement, No. 446, July 19, 1884Various
Science
Scientific American Supplement, No. 446, July 19, 1884
Various
Science -- Periodicals
and by private individuals or communities of individuals.
From whatever source it is provided, technical education in the United
States comes mainly within the scope of two classes of institutions,
viz., agricultural and mechanical colleges; although the two are, as
often as not, combined under one establishment, and particularly it
forms the subject of a national grant. Indeed, it may be said that the
scope of industrial education embraces three classes: the farmer, the
mechanic, and the housekeeper; and in the far West we find that
provision is made for the education of these three classes in the same
schools, it being an accepted idea in the newer States that man and
woman (the housekeeper) are coworkers, and are, therefore, entitled to
equal and similar educational privileges. On the other hand, in the more
conservative East and South, we find that the sexes are educated
distinct from each other. In the East, there is generally, also, a
separation of subjects. In Massachusetts, for instance, the colleges of
agriculture and mechanics are separate affairs, the students being
taught in different institutions, viz., the agricultural college and the
institute of technology. In Missouri the separation is less defined, the
School of Mines and Metallurgy being the, only part that is distinct
from the other departments of the University.
One of the chief reasons for the necessity for hastening the extension
of technical education in America was the almost entire disappearance of
the apprenticeship system, which, in itself, is mainly due to the
subdivision of labor so prevalent in the manufacture of everything, from
pins to locomotives. The increased use of machinery, the character of
which is such as often to put an end to small enterprises, has promoted
this subdivision by accumulating workmen in large groups. The beginner,
confining himself to one department, is soon able to earn wages, and so
he usually continues as he begins. Mr. C.B. Stetson has written on this
subject with great force and earnestness, and it will not be amiss to
quote a sentence as to the advantages enjoyed by the technically
workman. He says that "it is the rude or dexterous workman, rather than
the really skilled one, who is supplanted by machinery. Skilled labor
requires thinking; but a machine never thinks, never judges, never
discriminates. Though its employment does, indeed, enable rude laborers
to do many things now which formerly could only be done by dexterous
workmen, it is clear that its use has decidedly increased the relative
demand for skilled labor as compared with unskilled, and there is
abundant room for an additional increase, if it is true, as declared by
the most eminent authority, that the power now expended can be readily
made to yield three or four times its present results, and ultimately
ten or twenty times, when masters and workmen can be had with sufficient
intelligence and skill for the direction and manipulation of the tools
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