The technical processes or their acquisition are of educational value,
because they furnish the necessary experience for the evaluation and
appreciation of workmanship; or would furnish a basis for such a
valuation if the educational factors which are common to all industry
were matters in which all the workers participated and were matters
which they understood. It may be that there are certain mechanical
processes which have universal technical significance and on that
account would have special educational value, but even if those
processes were determined and selected for industrial instruction and
acquisition, it would not imply that those who acquired them were
industrially educated. They would be industrially equipped to act as
efficient factory attachments, but the acquisition of processes, even
the fundamental ones we have had ample opportunity to discover, do not
inspire creative interests and desires.
Because educational content in modern factory work is not accessible
to the mass of workers, we have fostered the illusion that the
educational subject matter of industry was inherent in the technical
process of fabrication. As we have fostered this illusion, we have
missed the educational principle applicable to the craft period,
as well as to the present, that the condition of the educational
requirement, is that workers' participation in productive enterprise
coincide in the long run with creative intention and accomplishment.
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