CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
1. The future occupations of the children in school will correspond
very closely to those of the native-born adult population. The
occupational distribution of the city's working population therefore
constitutes the best guide as to the kinds of industrial training
which can be undertaken profitably by the school system.
2. Industrial training in school has to do chiefly with preparation
for work in the skilled trades. Training for semi-skilled occupations
can be given more effectively and cheaply in the factories than in the
schools.
3. As a rule, industrial training is not practicable in elementary
schools, for the reason that the number of boys in the average
elementary school who are likely to enter the skilled trades and who
are also old enough to profit by industrial training is too small to
permit the organization of classes.
4. The most important contribution to vocational education the
elementary schools can make consists in getting the children through
the course fast enough so that two or three years before the end of
the compulsory attendance period they will enter an intermediate or
vocational school where some kind of industrial training is possible.
5. The survey recommends the establishment of a general industrial
course in the junior high school, made up chiefly of instruction in
the applications of mathematics, drawing, physics, and chemistry to
the commoner industrial processes. The course should also include the
study of economic and working conditions in the principal industrial
occupations.
6. One or two vocational schools equipped to offer specialized trade
training for boys and girls between the ages of 14 and 17 are needed.
At present a gap of from one to two years exists between the end of
the compulsory attendance period and the entrance age in practically
all the skilled trades, which could well be employed in direct
preparation for trade work. Such schools would relieve the first and
second year classes of the technical high schools of many pupils these
schools do not want and cannot adequately provide for. General as well
as special courses should be offered, although pupils should be
encouraged to select a particular occupation and devote at least one
year to intensive preparation for it.
7. The survey favors the extension of the compulsory attendance period
for boys to the age of 16. The industries of Cleveland have little or
nothing worth while to offer boys below this age.
8. The best form of trade-extension training is that provided in a few
establishments which maintain apprentice schools in their plants. This
plan is feasible only in large establishments. It will never take
care of more than a small proportion of the young workers who need
supplementary technical training.
9. Plans for trade-extension training of apprentices depending on the
coöperation of employers have met with slight success. The principle
difficulty is that the sacrifices they involve are borne by a
relatively small number of employers while the benefits are reaped by
the industry in general. Either the industry as a whole or the
community should bear the cost of such training.
10. The vocational interests of young workers and the social interests
of the community demand the establishment of a system of continuation
training for all young people in employment, up to the age of 18
years. The classes should be held during working hours and attendance
should be compulsory.
11. The enrollment in the trade classes of the night schools is far
below what it should be in a city as large as Cleveland. The
relatively small result now obtained is not the fault of the schools,
but is due mainly to the fact that the field of vocational evening
instruction is treated by the school system as a mere side line of the
technical high schools.
12. The survey recommends the organization of all forms of
continuation, night vocational, and day vocational training under
centralized full-time leadership. Only in this way can there be
secured a type of organization and administration sufficiently elastic
and adaptable to meet the widely varying needs of the working classes.
13. Industrial training for girls will consist in the main of
preparation for the sewing trades. Practically no other industrial
occupations in which large numbers of women are employed possess
sufficient technical content to warrant the establishment of training
courses in the schools. The survey recommends a practical course of
needle instruction in the junior high school and the introduction in
the vocational schools of specialized courses in dressmaking, power
machine operating, and trade millinery for the older girls who wish to
enter these trades.
14. The present experiment in vocational guidance and placement should
be extended as rapidly as possible. Courses in vocational information
should be offered in the junior high school and vocational counsellors
appointed to advise pupils in the selection of their future vocations
and aid them in securing desirable employment when they leave school.
The full measure of success in this work demands better coöperation
with outside agencies on the part of teachers and principals than has
been secured up to the present time.