This central requirement of industrial education means that
individuals learn to function with conscious creative intention in the
environment in which they live and that their learning furnishes a
basis for critical and informed evaluations in industrial activity. In
the craft period the creative intention required the worker's mastery
over every process of his craft. In this machine age of associated
enterprise the creative intention requires the ability to associate
with others in the administration of industry as well as to take the
place of an individual in the routine of factory work
For the reasons I have just stated the educational experiments I am
suggesting could cover advantageously one of the many industries
which are generally classed as unskilled, and almost any one of these
unskilled routine industries would serve as well as another. Almost
any one of the so-called child labor industries could be made over
into opportunities for young people to experience the stimulating
effect of associating with others in a productive effort, and gain the
impetus which the stimulation supplied to pursue their subject matter
far afield in general mechanics, science, economics, geography,
history and art.
For the educational purposes of the experiment the selection of the
industry would not be made on the ground that the technical processes
of one required greater intellectual activity than another; neither
would the selection depend upon whether or not the industry chosen
offered young people better chances than another for entrance to a
trade where jobs, comparatively speaking, drew fair rates of wages,
or the economic conditions were in other respects superior.
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