Wage Earning and Education
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Title: Wage Earning and Education
Author: R. R. Lutz
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WAGE EARNING AND EDUCATION
THE SURVEY COMMITTEE OF THE
CLEVELAND FOUNDATION
Charles E. Adams, Chairman
Thomas G. Fitzsimons
Myrta L. Jones
Bascom Little
Victor W. Sincere
Arthur D. Baldwin, Secretary
James R. Garfield, Counsel
Allen T. Burns, Director
THE EDUCATION SURVEY
Leonard P. Ayres, Director
CLEVELAND EDUCATION SURVEY
WAGE EARNING AND
EDUCATION
BY
R.R. LUTZ
THE SURVEY COMMITTEE OF THE
CLEVELAND FOUNDATION
CLEVELAND · OHIO
1916
COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY
THE SURVEY COMMITTEE OF THE
CLEVELAND FOUNDATION
WM. F. FELL CO. PRINTERS
PHILADELPHIA
FOREWORD
This summary volume, entitled "Wage Earning and Education," is one of
the 25 sections of the report of the Education Survey of Cleveland
conducted by the Survey Committee of the Cleveland Foundation in 1915
and 1916. Copies of all the publications may be obtained from the
Cleveland Foundation. They may also be obtained from the Division of
Education of the Russell Sage Foundation, New York City. A complete
list will be found in the back of this volume, together with prices.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
Foreword 5
List of Tables 10
List of Diagrams 12
CHAPTER
I. THE INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION SURVEY 13
Types of occupations studied 13
The Survey staff and methods of work 14
II. FORECASTING FUTURE PROBABILITIES 18
The popular concept of industrial education 19
The importance of relative numbers 20
A constructive program must fit the facts 23
An actuarial basis for industrial education 24
III. THE WAGE EARNERS OF CLEVELAND 25
IV. THE FUTURE WAGE EARNERS OF CLEVELAND 29
The public schools 29
Ages of pupils 32
Education at the time of leaving school 34
V. INDUSTRIAL TRAINING FOR BOYS IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 38
What the boys in school will do 40
Organization and costs 44
What the elementary schools can do 45
VI. THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 47
Specialized training not practicable 48
A general industrial course 49
Industrial mathematics 52
Mechanical Drawing 54
Industrial science 55
Shop work 56
Vocational information 58
VII. TRADE TRAINING DURING THE LAST YEARS IN SCHOOL 60
The technical high schools 62
A two-year trade course 66
VIII. TRADE-PREPARATORY AND TRADE-EXTENSION TRAINING
FOR BOYS AND MEN AT WORK 69
Continuation training from 15 to 18 74
The technical night schools 76
A combined program of continuation and trade-extension
training 80
IX. VOCATIONAL TRAINING FOR GIRLS 83
Differentiation in the junior high school 86
Specialized training for the sewing trades 88
Other occupations 90
X. VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE 92
The work of the vocational counselor 92
The Girls' Vocation Bureau 94
XI. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 97
SUMMARIES OF SPECIAL REPORTS
XII. BOYS AND GIRLS IN COMMERCIAL WORK 101
A general view of commercial work 106
Bookkeeping 108
Stenography 108
Clerks' positions 109
Wages and regularity of employment 110
The problem of training 111
XIII. DEPARTMENT STORE OCCUPATIONS 115
Department stores 115
Neighborhood stores 116
Five and ten cent stores 117
Wages 118
Regularity of employment 122
Opportunities for advancement 123
The problem of training 124
Character of the instruction 129
XIV. THE GARMENT TRADES 131
Characteristics of the working force 132
Earnings 135
Regularity of employment 139
Training and promotion 140
Educational needs 143
Sewing courses in the public schools 145
Elective sewing courses in the junior high school 147
A one year trade course for girls 148
Trade extension training 149
XV. DRESSMAKING AND MILLINERY 151
Dressmaking 151
Millinery 153
The problem of training 156
XVI. THE METAL TRADES 158
Foundry and machine shop products 159
Automobile manufacturing 169
Steel works, rolling mills, and related industries 170
XVII. THE BUILDING TRADES 173
Sources of labor supply 173
Apprenticeship 174
Union organization 176
Earnings 176
Hours 178
Regularity of employment 179
Health conditions 179
Opportunities for advancement 180
The problem of training 181
XVIII. RAILROAD AND STREET TRANSPORTATION 187
Railroad transportation 187
Motor and wagon transportation 192
Street railroad transportation 193
XIX. THE PRINTING TRADES 195
The composing room 198
The pressroom 201
The bindery 203
Other occupations 204
The problem of training 206
LIST OF TABLES
TABLE PAGE
1. Occupational distribution of the working population
of Cleveland 26
2. Nativity of the working population in Cleveland 27
3. Pupils enrolled in the different grades of the public
day schools in June, 1915 30
4. Enrollment of high school pupils, second semester,
1914-15 31
5. Ages of pupils enrolled in public elementary, high,
and normal schools in June, 1915 33
6. Educational equipment of the children who drop out
of the public schools each year, as indicated by
the grades from which they leave 35
7. Per cent of total male working population engaged in
specified occupations, 1900 and 1910 40
8. Distribution of native born men between the ages of
21 and 45 in the principal occupational groups 41
9. Distribution of third and fourth year students in
trade courses in the Cleveland technical high
schools, first semester, 1915-16 63
10. Distribution by occupations of Cleveland's technical
school graduates 64
11. Time allotment in the apprentice course given by the
Warner and Swasey Company, Cleveland 70
12. Course and number enrolled in the technical night
schools, January, 1915 77
13. Per cent of total population engaged in gainful
occupations during three different age periods 84
14. Number employed in the principal wage earning
occupations among each 1,000 women from 16 to 21
years of age 85
15. Per cent of women employees over 18 years of age
earning $12 a week and over 120
16. Wages for full-time working week, women's clothing,
Cleveland, 1915 139
17. Average wages for full-time working week for similar
workers, in men's and women's clothing, Cleveland,
1915 139
18. Proportions and estimated numbers employed in machine
tool occupations, 1915 161
19. Average, highest, and lowest earnings, in cents per
hour, and per cent employed on piece work and day
work, 1915 162
20. Estimated time required to learn machine tool work 164
21. Average earnings per hour in pattern making, molding,
core making, blacksmithing, and boiler making 166
22. Estimated number of men engaged in building trades,
1915 174
23. Union regulations as to entering age of apprentice 175
24. Union regulations as to length of apprenticeship
period 175
25. Union scale of wages in cents per hour, May 1, 1915 177
26. Usual weekly wages of apprentices in three building
trades 178
27. Average daily earnings of job and newspaper composing
room workers, 1915 199
28. Average daily earnings of pressroom workers, 1915 202
29. Average daily earnings of bindery workers, 1915 203
30. Average daily earnings in photoengraving, stereotyping,
electrotyping, and lithographing occupations, 1915 205
LIST OF DIAGRAMS
DIAGRAM PAGE
1. Boys and girls under 18 years of age in office work 103
2. Men and women 18 years of age and over in clerical
and administrative work in offices 104
3. Per cent of women earning each class of weekly wages
in each of six occupations 119
4. Per cent of salesmen and of men clerical workers in
stores, receiving each class of weekly wage 121
5. Per cent of male workers in non-clerical positions in
six industries earning $18 per week and over 122
6. Per cent that the average number of women employed
during the year is of the highest number employed
in each of six industries 123
7. Distribution of 8,337 clothing workers by sex in the
principal occupations in the garment industry 134
8. Percentage of women in men's and women's clothing and
seven other important women employing industries
receiving under $8, $8 to $12, and $12 and over
per week 136
9. Percentage of men in men's and women's clothing and
seven other manufacturing industries receiving
under $18, $18 to $25, and $25 and over per week 138
10. Average number of unemployed among each 100 workers,
men's clothing, women's clothing, and fifteen
other specified industries 141
11. Percentages of unemployment in each of nine building
industries 180
12. Number of men in each 100 in printing and five other
industries earning each class of weekly wage 196
13. Number of women in each 100 in printing and six other
industries earning each class of weekly wage 198
WAGE EARNING AND EDUCATION
CHAPTER I
THE INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION SURVEY
The education survey of Cleveland was undertaken in April, 1915, at
the invitation of the Cleveland Board of Education and the Survey
Committee of the Cleveland Foundation, and continued until June, 1916.
As a part of the work detailed studies were made of the leading
industries of the city for the purpose of determining what measures
should be taken by the public school system to prepare young people
for wage-earning occupations and to provide supplementary trade
instruction for those already in employment. The studies also dealt
with all forms of vocational education conducted at that time under
public school auspices.
TYPES OF OCCUPATIONS STUDIED
Separate studies were made of the metal industry, building and
construction, printing and publishing, railroad and street
transportation, clothing manufacture, department store work, and
clerical occupations. The wage-earners in these fields of employment
constitute nearly 60 per cent of the total number of persons engaged
in gainful occupations and include 95 per cent of the skilled workmen
in the city. The survey also gave considerable attention to the
various types of semi-skilled work found in the principal industries.
Each separate study was assigned to a particular member of the Survey
Staff who personally carried on the field investigations and later
submitted a report to the director of the survey. Each report was also
subjected to careful analysis and criticism from other members of the
Survey Staff before it was finally passed upon by the Survey
Committee. Mimeographed copies were sent to representatives of the
industry and to the superintendent of schools and members of the
school board and their criticisms and suggestions were given careful
consideration before the Committee and the director of the survey gave
their final approval to the publication of the report. The value of
the work was greatly enhanced through the ample discussion of the
different studies from widely diverse points of view secured in this
way. The industrial studies were carried through under the direction
of the author of this summary volume.
THE SURVEY STAFF AND METHODS OF WORK
The reports of the studies relating to vocational education were
published in a series of eight separate monograph volumes. The names
of the reports and the previous experience in educational and
investigational work of each member of the Survey Staff are as
follows:
"Boys and Girls in Commercial Work"--Bertha M. Stevens; teacher
in elementary and secondary schools; agent of Associated
Charities; secretary of Consumers' League of Ohio; director of
Girls' Bureau of Cleveland; author of "Women's Work in
Cleveland"; co-author of "Commercial Work and Training for
Girls."
"Department Store Occupations"--Iris P. O'Leary; head of manual
training department, First Pennsylvania Normal School; head of
vocational work for girls and women, New Bedford Industrial
School; head of girls' department, Boardman Apprentice Shops, New
Haven, Conn.; special investigator of department stores for New
York State Factory Investigating Commission; three years' trade
experience as employer and employee; author of books on household
arts and department stores; Special Assistant for Vocational
Education, State Department of Public Instruction, New Jersey.
"The Garment Trades" and "Dressmaking and Millinery"--Edna Bryner;
teacher in grades, high school, and state normal college; eugenic
research worker New Jersey State Hospital; statistical expert in
United States Bureau of Labor Investigation of women and child
labor; statistical agent United States Post Office Department;
Special Agent Russell Sage Foundation.
"The Building Trades," and "The Printing Trades"--Frank L. Shaw;
teacher in grades and high school; principal of high school;
assistant superintendent of schools; superintendent of schools;
special agent United States Immigration Commission; special agent
United States Census; industrial secretary North American Civic
League for Immigrants; author of reports on immigration
legislation.
"The Metal Trades"--R.R. Lutz; teacher in rural and graded
schools; superintendent of schools; secretary of Department of
Education of Porto Rico; took part in school surveys of Greenwich,
Conn., Bridgeport, Conn., Springfield, Ill., Richmond, Va.;
Special Agent Division of Education, Russell Sage Foundation.
"Railroad and Street Transportation"--Ralph D. Fleming; special
agent and investigator for United States Immigration Commission,
the Federal Census of Manufacturers, the United States Tariff
Board, the Minimum Wage Commission of Massachusetts, the National
Civic Federation, and the United States Commission on Industrial
Relations.
The work began in April, 1915, and ended in the same month of the
following year. Two members of the staff, with one stenographer and a
clerk, were employed during the entire period. One member of the staff
was employed 11 months, one nine months, one approximately five
months, and one two months.
The field investigations consisted largely of visits to industrial
establishments for the purpose of securing first-hand information as
to industrial conditions and the nature and educational content of
particular occupations. Over 400 visits of this kind were made by
members of the Survey Staff. Many conferences were held with employers
and employees with the object of securing their views as to the needs
and possibilities of industrial training.
The task of tabulating and classifying the data obtained by the
individual investigators in their visits to the local industrial
establishments involved much time and labor. Although it was not found
practicable to maintain complete uniformity in the different
inquiries, the members of the staff kept in close touch with each
other, so that with respect to the points of principal importance, the
results of their investigations are comparable. Practically every
recommendation made in the reports was discussed in conferences with
school principals and with other members of the teaching force engaged
in the teaching of vocational subjects.
Throughout the survey the objective held constantly in mind was the
formulation of a constructive program of vocational training in the
public schools. In outlining the field of inquiry a clear distinction
was drawn between those kinds of general education which have a more
or less indirect vocational significance, and vocational training for
specific occupations in which the controlling purpose is direct
preparation for wage-earning. The studies were purposely limited to
this latter type of vocational training. The survey did not concern
itself with manual training conducted for general educational ends,
with the art work of the schools, or with courses in domestic science
and household arts. These subjects in the curriculum were dealt with
in different sections of the education survey, but were considered as
being outside the legitimate field of the vocational survey.
CHAPTER II
FORECASTING FUTURE PROBABILITIES
The industrial education survey of Cleveland differs from other
studies conducted elsewhere in that it bases its educational program
on a careful study of the probable future occupational distribution of
the young people now in school. It does not claim to foretell the
specific positions that individual boys and girls will hold when they
are adults but it does claim very definitely that our safest guide in
foretelling their future vocational distribution is to be found in the
official figures of the present occupational census of the city.
One of the most familiar and time-worn platitudes of educational
speakers and writers is that "The children of today are the citizens
of tomorrow." In the field of industrial education it is quite as true
that the school children of today are the workers of tomorrow.
Moreover, since occupational distributions change but slowly even in
these modern times, it is unquestionably true that the boys and girls
now studying in the public schools will soon be scattered among the
different gainful occupations of Cleveland's industrial, commercial,
and professional life in just about the same proportions as their
fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters are now distributed.
The plan of the survey in advocating types of present preparation
based on studies of future prospects seems at first sight so obvious a
mode of procedure as hardly to warrant extended explanation. This is
far from being the case. The reader who proposes to follow the
working-out of the principle and to scrutinize the evidence underlying
it must be prepared to scan many a detailed table of statistics and to
arrive at most unforeseen conclusions.
THE POPULAR CONCEPT OF INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION
For many years past the public has given respectful attention to the
arguments of the champions of industrial education. There has been
general assent to the proposition that the schools should train for
and not away from the industrial age in which we live. We have come to
think of the carpenter shop, the machine shop, the forge shop, and the
cooking room as necessary and desirable adjuncts of the modern school
and to our minds these shops have typified industrial education. All
of these have come to be almost synonymous with progressive thought
and action in public education. Very generally it has been felt that
the problems of industrial education were to be solved through the
wider extension of these shop facilities in our public schools.
When these familiar generalizations are submitted to careful analysis
their whole structure begins to totter. In Cleveland about 3,700 boys
leave school each year and go to work. They represent various stages
of advancement from the 4th grade of the elementary school to the 4th
year of the high school. They are scattered through more than 100
school buildings. The problem of industrial education is to give these
boys with their differing ages, their widely varied school
preparation, and their scattered geographical distribution, the best
possible preparation for taking their places in the work-a-day world.
They represent every grade of intelligence, every stratum of social
and economic life, and it is extremely difficult to bring them
together for instructional purposes. They are scattered in little
groups through more than a thousand classrooms.
THE IMPORTANCE OF RELATIVE NUMBERS
Now it is possible to foretell with some certainty what these young
people will be doing a few years from now. Almost all of them are of
American birth and it is certain that in a few years they will be
engaged in doing just about the same sorts of work as are now done in
the city of Cleveland by adults of American birth. The data of the
United States Census of Occupations show us that among every 100
American born men in Cleveland there are eight who are clerks, seven
who are machinists, four who are salesmen, and so on through the list
of hundreds of occupations. The number of American born men in each
100 engaged in each of the 10 leading sorts of occupations is
approximately as follows:
Clerks 8
Machinists 7
Salesmen 4
Laborers and porters 4
Retail dealers 4
Draymen, teamsters, etc. 4
Bookkeepers 3
Carpenters 3
Commercial travelers 2
Manufacturers 2
----
41
This simple list at once calls into question all the standard
assumptions about the extension of industrial education depending on
greatly increasing the number of carpenter shops and machine shops in
the public schools. The figures show that among each 100 American born
men in Cleveland only seven are machinists and only three are
carpenters. Clearly we should not be justified in training all the
boys in our public schools to enter the machinist's trade or the
carpenter's trade when nine out of each 10 will in all probability
engage in entirely different sorts of future work. The more the
figures of the little table given above are studied, the clearer it
appears that our conventional ideas about industrial education need
critical scrutiny and careful challenge. These 10 leading occupations
include only 41 out of each 100 American born men. Moreover, more than
half of these 41 are engaged in mental work rather than in manual
work.
From these considerations one definite conclusion inevitably emerges.
It is that the safest guide for thinking and planning for industrial
education is to be found in a study of the occupational distribution
of the present adults. From the very outset such a study indicates
that the most difficult and important problems which must be met and
coped with are not those relating to methods of instruction but rather
those of organization and administration. The future carpenters and
machinists cannot be taught until we can get them together in fair
sized classes. They represent the most numerous of the industrial
groups and yet their numbers are relatively so few that the average
Cleveland school sends out into the world each year only two or three
future machinists and perhaps one future carpenter.
The trouble with present thinking about this matter has been that we
have noted the very large numbers of machinists and carpenters in the
population and have failed to realize that while these groups are
numerous in the aggregate they are after all quite small when
relatively considered and compared with the total number of workers.
Another important fact that has been almost invariably overlooked is
that many of the present carpenters and machinists are foreigners by
birth and that there is every prospect that this same condition will
maintain in the future. Hence these trades and most other industrial
occupations are not recruited from our public schools to anything like
the degree that has been assumed.
A CONSTRUCTIVE PROGRAM MUST FIT THE FACTS
The simple principle which underlies the method employed by the survey
is the same on which all large business undertakings are conducted.
The results of its application in the field of industrial education
are, however, fundamentally different from those commonly arrived at
on the assumption that nine-tenths of the rising generation will earn
their living in industrial pursuits. The fact is that no such
proportion of the children in school will become industrial workers.
All the native born labor now employed in manufacturing and mechanical
industries constitutes only 44 per cent of the total number of native
born workers in the city. Moreover, nearly half of the industrial
workers are employed in unskilled and semi-skilled occupations for
which no training is required beyond a few days' or weeks' practice on
the job. Such training calls for a mechanical equipment far more
extensive than the resources of the school system can provide, and can
be given by the factory more effectively and much more cheaply than by
the schools.
In the final analysis, the problem of industrial training narrows down
to the skilled industrial trades. Approximately 22 per cent of the
total number of American workers in the city are employed in skilled
manual occupations. This does not mean that a constructive program of
industrial education would affect 22 per cent of the present school
enrollment. All the weight of educational opinion and experience is on
the side of excluding the children of the lower and middle age groups
as too young to profit by any sort of industrial training, while the
evidence collected by the survey goes to show that of the remainder
less than one-fifth of the girls and one-fourth of the boys are likely
to become skilled industrial workers.
AN ACTUARIAL BASIS FOR INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION
Considerations like the foregoing have determined the fundamental
method of the Cleveland Industrial Survey. Plans for the present
generation have been formulated on the basis of future prospects as
foretold by state and federal census data. The methods used were
characterized by a member of the Cleveland Foundation Survey Committee
as "the actuarial basis of vocational education." This is accurately
descriptive, because the method of forecasting the number of men the
community will need for each wage-earning occupation closely resembles
that employed by life insurance actuaries in foretelling how long men
of different ages are likely to live. Such methods are similar to
those commonly used in commerce and industry. They deal with mass data
rather than with individual figures, and with relative values rather
than with absolute ones.
CHAPTER III
THE WAGE EARNERS OF CLEVELAND
In 1910 Cleveland ranked sixth among the cities of the United States
as to number of inhabitants, with a population of approximately
561,000. The city is growing rapidly. From 1900 to 1910 the increase
in the total number of inhabitants was over 46 per cent. The Census
Bureau estimate of the population in 1914 is approximately 639,000.
Of the 10 largest cities in the country only one--Detroit--had in 1910
a greater proportion of its wage earners engaged in industrial
employment than Cleveland. Relatively Cleveland has one and one-fourth
times as many industrial workers as New York, Chicago, St. Louis, or
Baltimore, and one and two-fifths times as many as Boston. On the
other hand a smaller proportion of the adult workers of the city earn
their living in professional, clerical, and commercial work, or in
domestic and personal service employments than in most large cities.
Table 1 shows by large occupational groups the distribution in 1910 of
the working population in Cleveland. The classification is that
adopted by the federal census. More than 56 per cent of the male
workers of the city and about 33 per cent of the women workers were
engaged in manufacturing and mechanical occupations. The trade group
ranks next, about 14 per cent of the men and approximately 11 per cent
of the women being engaged in commercial occupations. Of each 100
women in employment 30 are servants, laundresses, housekeepers, or are
engaged in some other form of personal service, while only five men of
each 100 earn their living in this kind of work. Railroad and street
transportation, with the telegraph and telephone and mail systems of
communication, requires the services of 11 per cent of the male
working population, but uses very few women. About seven per cent of
the men and 15 per cent of the women are employed in clerical work. A
slightly larger ratio of women to men is found in the professional
occupations, due mainly to the large number of women in the teaching
profession. The whole professional group constitutes less than five
per cent of the total working population.
TABLE 1.--OCCUPATIONAL DISTRIBUTION OF THE WORKING POPULATION OF
CLEVELAND, CENSUS OF OCCUPATIONS, 1910
----------------------------------------+---------+--------+---------
Occupational group | Men | Women | Total
----------------------------------------+---------+--------+---------
Manufacturing and mechanical industries | 109,644 | 18,201 | 127,845
Trade | 27,229 | 5,942 | 33,171
Domestic and personal service | 9,546 | 16,467 | 26,063
Transportation | 21,530 | 1,110 | 22,640
Clerical occupations | 14,047 | 8,100 | 22,147
Professional service | 7,204 | 4,869 | 12,073
Public service | 3,461 | 39 | 3,500
Agricultural and extraction of minerals | 1,367 | 80 | 1,447
----------------------------------------+---------+--------+---------
Total | 194,078 | 54,808 | 248,886
----------------------------------------+---------+--------+---------
From the standpoint of vocational training one of the most striking
facts about Cleveland wage-earners is that a large majority of them
are not Clevelanders. Almost exactly half of the men in gainful
employment were born outside the United States and, due to the rapid
growth of the city, there has been a considerable influx of workers
from the surrounding country in recent years, so that a large
proportion even of the American working population was born, brought
up, and educated in some other place. The number and per cent of
foreign born, of foreign or mixed parentage but born in this country,
and of native parentage is shown in Table 2.
TABLE 2.--NATIVITY OF THE WORKING POPULATION IN CLEVELAND. U.S.
CENSUS, 1910
----------------------------+-------------------+-----------------
| Men | Women
+--------+----------+--------+--------
Nativity | Number | Per cent | Number |Per cent
----------------------------+--------+----------+--------+--------
Foreign born | 96,291 | 50 | 16,673 | 31
Foreign or mixed parentage | 55,074 | 28 | 24,275 | 44
Native parentage | 42,713 | 22 | 13,860 | 25
----------------------------+--------+----------+--------+--------
Total |194,078 | 100 | 54,808 | 100
----------------------------+--------+----------+--------+--------
More than three-fourths are foreign or of foreign or mixed parentage.
The proportion of those born in this country of American parentage is
approximately the same for both sexes, but the number of women workers
of mixed parentage is relatively much larger than among the men.
Roughly, of each 10 men employed in gainful occupations, five, and of
each 10 working women, three, were born abroad.
The large proportion of foreigners in the trades has an important
bearing on the problem of vocational training. Some of the skilled
occupations are monopolized by foreign labor to such an extent that
they offer a very limited field of employment for native workmen.
Cabinet making, tailoring, molding, blacksmithing, baking, and shoe
making, are examples. Some of these trades have practically ceased to
recruit from American labor. This condition has to be constantly borne
in mind in planning training courses to prepare boys for the skilled
trades, because of the marked disparity which often exists between the
size of a trade and the field of opportunity it presents for boys of
native birth.
CHAPTER IV
THE FUTURE WAGE-EARNERS OF CLEVELAND
In 1915 there were in Cleveland approximately 50,000 boys between the
ages of six and 15, and 56,000 girls between the ages of six and 16,
the age period during which school attendance is required by law. Of
these 106,000 children approximately 37,000 boys and 38,000 girls were
enrolled in the public schools. Exact data as to those attending
private and parochial schools are not available. The total enrollment
in such schools has been variously estimated as between 25,000 and
30,000.
THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS
The public school system in 1915 enrolled approximately 82,000
children of all ages, of whom about half were boys and half girls.
They are taught in 98 elementary schools and 10 high schools. The
elementary course comprises eight grades. At the beginning of the
school year 1915-16 two junior high schools were opened for pupils of
the seventh and eighth grades. It is to be expected that this plan
will soon be extended throughout the city, so that the enrollment in
elementary schools will be made up of pupils of the first six grades
only. The distribution by grade is given in Table 3. The kindergarten
grades and the special ungraded classes are omitted.
TABLE 3.--PUPILS ENROLLED IN THE DIFFERENT GRADES OF THE PUBLIC DAY
SCHOOLS IN JUNE, 1915
-------------------+--------------------
Grade | Pupils
-------------------+--------------------
1 | 13,108
2 | 10,857
3 | 10,562
4 | 9,323
5 | 8,902
6 | 7,259
7 | 6,429
8 | 4,903
|
I | 3,122
II | 2,100
III | 1,534
IV | 1,399
-------------------+--------------------
About 77 per cent of the children are enrolled in the grades below the
seventh, about 13 per cent in the seventh and eighth grades, a little
over six per cent in the first two years of the high school, and less
than three and one-half per cent in the third and fourth.
There are eight academic high schools, two technical high schools, and
two commercial high schools. The technical high schools are steadily
growing in favor. The registration of boys in these schools increased
about 33 per cent from 1913 to 1915, and of girls about 77 per cent.
During the same period the registration of boys in the academic high
schools decreased slightly, while the increase of girl students was
only eight per cent; in the commercial high schools the number of
girl students increased 20 per cent, while the enrollment of boys fell
off more than 10 per cent. The enrollment by individual schools is
shown in Table 4.
TABLE 4.--ENROLLMENT OF HIGH SCHOOL PUPILS, SECOND SEMESTER, 1914-1915
----------------------------------+-----------------------------+
| Enrollment |
Schools +---------+---------+---------+
| Boys | Girls | Total |
----------------------------------+---------+---------+---------+
| | | |
Academic high schools | | | |
Central | 804 | 711 | 1,515 |
East | 607 | 688 | 1,295 |
Glenville | 405 | 611 | 1,016 |
West | 246 | 377 | 623 |
Lincoln | 277 | 329 | 606 |
South | 213 | 238 | 451 |
| | | |
Total | 2,552 | 2,954 | 5,506 |
----------------------------------+---------+---------+---------+
| | | |
Technical high schools | | | |
East Technical | 1,161 | 548 | 1,709 |
West Technical | 515 | 242 | 757 |
| | | |
Total | 1,676 | 790 | 2,466 |
----------------------------------+---------+---------+---------+
| | | |
Commercial high schools | | | |
West Commercial | 249 | 528 | 777 |
East Commercial | 49 | 96 | 145 |
| | | |
Total | 298 | 624 | 922 |
----------------------------------+---------+---------+---------+
| | | |
All high schools | 4,526 | 4,368 | 8,894 |
| | | |
----------------------------------+---------+---------+---------+
About three-eighths of the high school pupils of the city are in the
technical and commercial schools. Of the boys 56 per cent are enrolled
in the academic high schools, 37 per cent in the technical schools,
and seven per cent in the commercial schools. Of the girls 68 per
cent attend the academic high schools, 18 per cent the technical
schools, and 14 per cent the commercial schools. In the commercial
high school approximately two-thirds of the enrollment is made up of
girls. In the technical high schools the opposite condition prevails,
the girls constituting less than one-third of the total enrollment,
while in the academic high schools the girls outnumber the boys by
nearly one-sixth.
AGES OF PUPILS
The distribution as to ages is shown in Table 5. The largest group is
made up of children seven years old. Between 14 and 15 over 30 per
cent leave school. The loss from 16 to 17 is approximately 43 per
cent, from 17 to 18 about 44 per cent, and from 18 to 19 nearly 62 per
cent.
The compulsory attendance law requires boys to attend school until
they are 15 and girls until they are 16. That the law is not
adequately enforced is demonstrated by the heavy loss between the ages
of 14 and 15, and the fact that the loss between 15 and 16 is
approximately the same for both boys and girls, although girls are
required to attend one year longer than boys. Additional evidence as
to the laxity in the enforcement of the compulsory law is found in the
results of an inquiry conducted by the Consumers' League of Cleveland
in the spring of 1916, in cooperation with the survey.
TABLE 5.--AGES OF PUPILS ENROLLED IN PUBLIC ELEMENTARY, HIGH, AND
NORMAL SCHOOLS IN JUNE, 1915
-------------------------------------------------
Age | Boys | Girls | Total
-------------+-----------+-----------+-----------
6 | 4,255 | 4,180 | 8,435
7 | 5,012 | 4,815 | 9,827
8 | 4,496 | 4,407 | 8,903
9 | 4,268 | 4,103 | 8,371
10 | 4,093 | 3,951 | 8,044
| | |
11 | 3,747 | 3,593 | 7,340
12 | 3,700 | 3,646 | 7,346
13 | 3,676 | 3,631 | 7,307
14 | 3,445 | 3,271 | 6,716
15 | 2,358 | 2,291 | 4,649
| | |
16 | 1,190 | 1,163 | 2,353
17 | 672 | 680 | 1,352
18 | 403 | 358 | 761
19 | 135 | 156 | 291
20 | 41 | 52 | 93
| | |
Over 20 | ... | 22 | 22
-------------+-----------+-----------+-----------
Total | 41,491 | 40,319 | 81,810
-------------------------------------------------
An attempt was made to follow up the cases of all the children who had
left one public elementary school during the period of one year
preceding the study. The work was done by the case method and the
homes of the children were visited. The total number of cases studied
was 117, of whom 89 were girls. It was found that one-third of these
children had graduated and gone on to high school. Another third had
gone to work, and of these, 40 per cent had done so without
graduating. The children constituting the remaining third were staying
at home, and among these a majority had dropped out without
graduating.
Of the eighth grade graduates one-half were found to be illegally
employed, as they were less than 16 years of age. Among those who
dropped out and went to work before completing the course 80 per cent
were illegally employed.
The fact that many girls drop out without graduating and before the
end of the legal attendance period and remain at home indicates that
most of them do not leave on account of financial necessity. This
conclusion is substantiated by the testimony of the girls and their
parents, many of whom say that the girls left simply because they grew
tired of attending and did not see the value of remaining.
These facts point to the necessity for much more effective work in
enforcing the compulsory attendance laws, for far better inspection of
shops and factories to detect violations of the child labor laws, and
above all to such a reform of the schooling opportunities provided for
older girls as will make them and their parents see the value of
securing the advantages of the training provided.
EDUCATION AT THE TIME OF LEAVING SCHOOL
About 3,700 boys and an approximately equal number of girls drop out
of the public schools each year. Most of the boys and a considerable
number of the girls enter wage-earning at once. Their educational
equipment at the time of leaving school is indicated in Table 6.
TABLE 6.--EDUCATIONAL EQUIPMENT OF THE CHILDREN WHO DROP OUT OF THE
PUBLIC SCHOOLS EACH YEAR, AS INDICATED BY THE GRADES FROM WHICH THEY
LEAVE
--------------+---------------------
Grade | Number leaving
--------------+---------------------
4 | 70
5 | 440
6 | 960
7 | 1260
8 | 1630
|
I | 890
II | 590
III | 150
IV | 1410
--------------+---------------------
Total | 7400
--------------+---------------------
Slightly less than one-fifth finish the high school course. Nearly
three-fifths drop out before entering the high school, and
approximately three-eighths before reaching the eighth grade.
Under the present compulsory attendance law a boy who enters school at
the age of six and afterwards advances at the rate of one grade per
year until the end of the compulsory attendance period should cover
nine grades--eight in the elementary school and one in high school--by
the time he is 15 years old. In actual fact, however, only about
two-fifths get any high school training. Nearly all of the rest take
the eight to nine years' attendance required by law to complete eight,
seven, six, or even a smaller number of grades.
It is from this body of pupils that most of the wage-earners are
recruited. In the course of the survey several investigations were
made for the purpose of finding out what educational preparation
workers in various industries had received. One of the most extensive
of these was conducted in connection with the study of the printing
industry. Educationally the printing trades rank higher than most
other factory occupations, yet the average journeyman printer
possesses less than a complete elementary education. Composing-room
employees, such as compositors, linotypers, stonemen, proof-readers,
etc., undoubtedly stand at the head of the skilled trades as to
educational training, but it was found that only eight per cent were
high school graduates. Six per cent had left school before reaching
the seventh grade, and 16 per cent before reaching the eighth grade.
The other departments of the printing industry made a much less
favorable showing.
An investigation conducted by the Survey in the spring of 1915,
covering 5,000 young people at work under 21 years of age, indicated
that only about 13 per cent of these young workers had received any
high school training and that less than four per cent had completed a
high school course. Over one-fifth reported the sixth grade as the
last completed before leaving school, and nearly half had dropped out
before completing the elementary course. Less than seven per cent of
the boys engaged in industrial pursuits had received any high school
training and only 42 per cent had got beyond the seventh grade. The
educational preparation of the boys engaged in commercial and
clerical occupations was somewhat better, nearly 22 per cent having
attended high school one year or more; about one-half had left school
after completing the eighth grade and nearly one-third had not
completed the elementary course.
These facts have a vital relation to the problem of vocational
training. If the great majority of the children who will later enter
wage-earning occupations do not remain in school beyond the end of the
compulsory attendance period, and in addition over half fail to
complete even the elementary course, vocational training, to reach
them at all, must begin not later than the seventh grade, and if
possible, before the pupils reach the age of 14.
CHAPTER V
INDUSTRIAL TRAINING FOR BOYS IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS
In Chapter III the distribution of the wage-earners of the city was
outlined, mainly for the purpose of establishing a basis on which to
make a forecast of the future occupations of the children in the
public schools. Such a forecast is essential as the preliminary step
in any plan of vocational training to be carried out during the school
period, for the reason that without it a clear understanding of the
principal factors of the problem is impossible. The kinds of
vocational training needed by children in school, and how and where
such training should be given, must always depend in the first
instance on what they are going to do when they grow up.
The average elementary school in Cleveland enrolls between 350 and 400
boys. When they leave school these boys will scatter into many
different kinds of work. With respect to the future vocations of the
pupils, the average school represents in a sense a cross section of
the occupational activities of the city. It contains a certain number
of recruits for each of the principal types of wage-earning pursuits.
A few of the boys will later enter professional life; many will take
up some sort of clerical work; a still larger number will be employed
in commercial occupations; and the largest group of all will become
wage-earners in manufacturing and mechanical pursuits.
The future occupation cannot be foretold accurately with respect to
any particular boy, but we do know that, whatever their individual
tastes and abilities, the boys must finally engage in activities
similar to those in which the adult born native male population is
engaged, and in approximately the same proportions. We do not know,
for example, whether Johnny Jones will become a doctor or a carpenter,
but we do know that of each 1,000 boys in the public schools about
seven will become doctors and about 25 will become carpenters, because
for many years about those proportions of the boys of native birth in
Cleveland have become doctors and carpenters.
One of the most impressive facts which comes to light in the study of
occupational statistics is the constancy in these proportions. The
business of any community requires certain kinds of work to be
performed and the relative amount of work required and consequently
the relative number of workers vary but slightly over a long period of
time. This principle is illustrated in a striking way by the list of
occupations selected at random presented in Table 7, showing the
number of persons engaged in the occupations specified among each 100
male workers at two successive census years.
TABLE 7--PER CENT OF TOTAL MALE WORKING POPULATION ENGAGED IN
SPECIFIED OCCUPATIONS, 1900 AND 1910
----------------------------+---------------------
| Per cent of total
Occupation | working population
+----------+----------
| 1900 | 1910
----------------------------+----------+----------
Machinists | 4.7 | 5.8
Saloon keepers | 1.1 | .7
Tailors | 2.1 | 1.7
Commercial travelers | .8 | 1.1
Lawyers | .5 | .4
Barbers | .8 | .7
Bakers | .6 | .5
Physicians | .6 | .5
Carpenters | 3.4 | 3.3
Cabinet makers | .5 | .4
Plumbers | .9 | .9
Stenographers and typists | .3 | .3
----------------------------+----------+----------
With the exception of plumbers and stenographers there was either an
increase or a decrease from 1900 to 1910 in the relative number
employed in each of these occupations. In only one occupation,
however, that of machinist, did the change amount to as much as one
per cent. In all the others the shift during the decade was less than
one-half of one per cent, and in more than three-fifths of them it did
not exceed one-tenth of one per cent of the total number of male
workers.
WHAT THE BOYS IN SCHOOL WILL DO
The figures in this table, presented for illustrative purposes, do not
accurately represent the proportions of boys now attending the public
schools who are likely to enter the occupations named, because they
do not take into account the fact that a considerable number of the
workers in Cleveland came to this country after they reached adult
manhood and that a disproportionate number of these foreign born
workers enter the industrial occupations. For this reason the total
adult working population is not strictly comparable with the school
enrollment, which is approximately nine-tenths native born. When the
boys in the public schools grow up they will be distributed among the
different trades, professions, and industries in about the same
proportions as are the American born men in the city at the present
time. This distribution is shown for the different occupational groups
in Table 8.
TABLE 8.--DISTRIBUTION OF NATIVE BORN MEN BETWEEN THE AGES OF 21 AND
45 IN THE PRINCIPAL OCCUPATIONAL GROUPS
Approximate
Occupational group per cent
Manufacturing and mechanical occupations 44
Commercial occupations 20
Clerical occupations 16
Transportation occupations 11
Domestic and personal service occupations 5
Professional occupations 3
Public service occupations 1
----
Total 100
The figures in the column at the right of the table represent the
number of native born men between the ages of 21 and 45 among each
hundred native born male inhabitants engaged in the occupations
comprehended in the various groups. In the case of the industrial
group the figure is too high, as the census data relative to the
distribution of foreign and native born include all ages, and there is
a smaller proportion of American born adult men employed in industry
than is found in the lower age groups. Extensive computations have
shown, however, that the inaccuracies due to this cause are not
serious enough to affect the use of the figures for our purpose.
Let us now consider what these proportions mean in establishing
vocational courses to prepare boys for wage-earning pursuits. The
future expectations of the boys in a large elementary school enrolling
say 1,000 pupils of both sexes would be about as follows:
_Number of boys who will enter_
Manufacturing and mechanical occupations 220
Commercial occupations 100
Clerical occupations 80
Transportation occupations 55
Domestic and personal service occupations 25
Professional occupations 15
Public service occupations 5
----
Total 500
This distribution includes all pupils, from the beginners in the first
grade to the older boys in the seventh and eighth grades. It is
certain, however, that differentiated instruction for vocational
purposes is not possible or advisable for the younger children.
According to the commonly accepted view among educators, vocational
training should not be undertaken before the age of 12 years, and many
believe that this is too early. In an elementary school of 1,000
pupils there would be about 80 boys 12 years old and over. Applying
to this number the ratios given in the previous table we obtain the
following:
_Number of boys who will enter_
Manufacturing and mechanical occupations 35
Commercial occupations 16
Clerical occupations 13
Transportation occupations 9
Domestic and personal service occupations 4
Professional occupations 2
Public service occupations 1
---
Total 80
The industrial group includes all of the skilled trades and most of
the semi-skilled and unskilled manual occupations. The skilled trades
are usually grouped in four main classifications: metal trades,
building trades, printing trades, and "other" trades, these last
comprising a number of small trades in each of which relatively few
men are employed. With respect to their future occupations the 35 boys
in the industrial group are likely to be distributed about as follows:
_Number of boys who will enter_
Metal trades 8
Building trades 7
Printing trades 1
Other trades 2
Semi-skilled and unskilled industrial occupations 17
---
35
The analysis can be carried still further, for these trade groups are
by no means homogeneous. The building trades, for example, include
over 20 distinct trades, a number of which have little in common with
the others as to methods of work and technical content.
ORGANIZATION AND COSTS
At this point it becomes necessary to take cognizance of certain
administrative factors which have a marked bearing on the problem.
They relate to the organization of classes in elementary schools and
the cost of teaching. In a school of 1,000 pupils there would be at
least five separate classes for the seventh and eighth grades. The 35
boys who need industrial training are not all found in a single class,
but are distributed more or less evenly throughout the five
classrooms, that is, there are approximately seven in each class. A
differentiated course under these conditions is difficult if not
impossible. In a few of the Cleveland elementary schools the
departmental system of teaching is in use. Under this plan something
might be done, were it not that the total number of pupils requiring
instruction relating specifically to the industrial trades is too
small to justify the expense necessary for equipment, material, and
special instruction required for such training. This is true as
regards even an industrial course of the most general kind, while
provision for particular trades is entirely out of the question. The
machinist's trade employs more men than any other occupation in the
city, yet the number of seventh and eighth grade boys in the average
elementary school who will probably become machinists does not exceed
five or six. Not over two boys are likely to enter employment in the
printing industry. The smaller trades, such as pattern making, cabinet
making, molding, and blacksmithing are represented by not more than
one boy each.
A possible alternative is the plan now followed in the teaching of
manual training whereby the boys of the upper grades in various
elementary schools are sent to one centrally located for a short
period of instruction each week. The principal objection to this plan
is that the amount of time now given is insufficient to accomplish
much in an industrial course, nor can it be materially increased
without seriously interfering with the work in other subjects.
The first condition for successful industrial training is the
concentration of a large number of pupils old enough to benefit by
such training in a single school plant. Only in this way is it
possible to bring the cost of teaching, equipment, and material within
reasonable limits and provide facilities for differentiating the work
on the basis of the vocational needs of the pupils. The fact that this
condition cannot be met in elementary schools is one of the strongest
arguments in favor of conducting the seventh and eighth grade work
under the junior high school form of organization.
WHAT THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS CAN DO
The most important contribution to vocational education the elementary
school can make consists in getting the children through the lower
grades fast enough so that they will reach the junior high school by
the time they are 13 years old, in order that before the end of the
compulsory attendance period they may spend at least two years in a
school where some kind of industrial training is possible. That this
is not being done at the present time the data presented in Chapter IV
amply demonstrate. In recent years there has been a tendency to regard
vocational training as a remedy for retardation. The fact is that the
cure of retardation is not a subsequent but a preliminary condition to
successful training for wage-earning. Vocational training is not a
means for the prevention of retardation, but retardation is a most
effective means for the prevention of vocational training.
CHAPTER VI
THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
In 1915 the Board of Education authorized the establishment of a
system of junior high schools in the city, and at the beginning of the
school year of 1915-16 the new plan was inaugurated in two schools.
The Empire Junior High School, situated in the eastern part of the
city, had an enrollment of about 700 children made up of seventh and
eighth grade pupils formerly accommodated in the elementary schools of
that section. The Detroit Junior High School on the west side had an
enrollment of about 400 pupils. No decision has yet been reached as to
whether the course shall include only two years' work, or three years,
as in other cities of the country where the junior high school plan
has been adopted.
A comparison of the course with that for corresponding grades of the
elementary schools shows some marked differences. Less time is devoted
to English in the junior high school and considerably more to
arithmetic, geography, and history. Mechanical drawing, not taught in
the elementary schools except incidentally in the manual training
classes, is given an hour each week. All boys receive one hour of
manual training a week against slightly less than one and one-half
hours in the seventh and eighth elementary grades, but they may elect
an additional two and one-half hours a week in this subject, together
with applied arithmetic during the first year, or with bookkeeping
during the second. Girls may elect an additional two and one-half
hours a week of domestic science, with bookkeeping. The manual
training for boys comprises woodwork and bookbinding.
SPECIALIZED TRAINING NOT PRACTICABLE
In the junior high school, as in the elementary school, the greatest
difficulty in the way of trade training for specific occupations lies
in the small number of pupils who can be expected, within the bounds
of reasonable probability, to enter a single trade. Hand and machine
composition, the largest of the printing trades, will serve as an
example. In a junior high school of 1,000 pupils, boys and girls, the
number of boys who are likely to become compositors is about five. But
to teach this trade printing equipment occupying considerable space is
necessary, together with a teacher who has had some experience or
training as a printer. The expense per pupil for equipment, for the
space it occupies, and for instruction renders special training for
such small classes impracticable. All of the skilled occupations, with
the exception perhaps of the machinist's trade, are in the same case.
An attempt to form separate classes for each of the eight largest
trades in the city would result in two classes of not over five
pupils, three classes of not over 10 pupils, and only one of over 13
pupils. The following table shows the number of boys, in a school of
this size, who are likely to enter each of these trades.
_Number of boys who will probably become:_
Machinists 36
Carpenters 13
Steam engineers 11
Painters 10
Electricians 9
Plumbers 7
Compositors 5
Molders 5
A GENERAL INDUSTRIAL COURSE
The members of the Survey Staff were, however, of the opinion that
through the system of electives in the junior high school, industrial
training of a more general type, made up chiefly of instruction in the
applications of mathematics, drawing, physics, and chemistry to the
commoner industrial processes, would be of considerable benefit to
those boys who, on the basis of their own selection or that of their
parents, are likely to enter industrial pursuits. A course of this
kind is outlined in following sections of this chapter.
The objections which may be brought against this plan are frankly
recognized. It takes into account only the interests of the industrial
group, comprising less than one-half of the boys in the school.
Unquestionably it would tend to vitalize the teaching of mathematics,
drawing, and science for the boys who enroll in the industrial course,
but it leaves unsolved the question of method and content of
instruction in these subjects for the boys in the non-industrial or
so-called academic course. Very possibly future experience may
demonstrate that the plan recommended for the general industrial
course affords the best medium for teaching science and mathematics at
this period to all pupils, in which case a differentiated course would
be unnecessary.
The organization of vocational training in junior high school grades
presents many difficulties which cannot be solved by a more or less
abstract study of educational and industrial needs. Experimentation on
an extensive scale, covering a considerable period of time, is
necessary before definite conclusions can be drawn as to the
limitations and possibilities of such work. It is with a full
appreciation of this fact that the following suggestive outline is
presented.
The purpose of the general industrial course is to afford to boys who
wish to enter industrial occupations the opportunity to secure
knowledge and training that will be of direct or indirect value to
them in industrial employment. It is not expected that by this means
they can be given much practical training in hand work for any
particular trade. The most the school can do for the boy at this
period is to bridge over for him the gap that exists between the
knowledge he obtains from books and the rôle which this knowledge
plays in the working world. It must not be assumed that the transition
can be effected merely by the introduction of shop work, even if it
were possible to provide the wide variety of manual training necessary
to make up a fair representation of the principal occupations into
which the boys will enter when they leave school. It is doubtful
whether, so far as its vocational value is concerned, shop work
isolated from other subjects of the curriculum is worth any more per
unit of time devoted to it than several of the so-called academic
subjects. This is particularly true of the two most common types of
manual training--cabinet making and forge work. Both represent dying
trades. During the decade 1900-1910 the increase in the number of
cabinet makers in Cleveland fell far below the general increase in
population. The blacksmiths made a still poorer showing. Both trades
are recruited mainly from abroad and the relative number of Americans
employed in them is steadily declining.
In the opinion of the Survey Staff a general industrial course should
cover instruction in at least the following five subjects: Industrial
mathematics, mechanical drawing, industrial science, shop work, and
the study of economic and working conditions in wage earning pursuits.
These may be offered as independent electives or they may be required
of all pupils who elect the industrial course. The details of
organization must, of course, be worked out by trial and experiment.
They will probably vary in different schools and from year to year.
INDUSTRIAL MATHEMATICS
Of the hundreds of employers who were interviewed by members of the
Survey Staff as to the technical equipment needed by beginners in the
various trades, nearly all emphasized the ability to apply the
principles of simple arithmetic quickly, correctly, and accurately to
industrial problems. Many employers criticized the present methods of
teaching this subject in the public schools. In the main their
criticisms were to the effect that the teaching was not "practical."
"The boys I get may know arithmetic," said one, "but they haven't any
mathematical sense." Another cited his experience with an apprentice
who was told to cut a bar eight and one-half feet long into five
pieces of equal length. He was not told the length of the bar, but was
given the direct order: "Cut that bar into five pieces all of the same
size." The boy was unable to lay out the work, although when asked by
the foreman, "Don't you know how to divide 81/2 by 5?", he performed the
arithmetical operation without difficulty. The employer gave this
instance as an illustration of what to his mind constituted one of the
principal defects of public school teaching. "Mere knowledge of
mathematical principles and the ability to solve abstract problems is
not enough," he said. "What the boys get in the schools is
mathematical skill, but what they need in their work is mathematical
intelligence. The first does not necessarily imply the second."
This mathematical intelligence can be developed only through practice
in the solution of practical problems, that is, problems which are
stated in the every day terms of the working world and which require
the student to go through the successive mental steps in the same way
that he would if he were working in a shop. The problem referred to
above is one of division of fractions. If we state it thus: "81/2÷5,"
the pupil takes pencil and paper, performs the operation and announces
the result. If we say, "A bar 81/2 feet long is to be cut into five
pieces of equal length; how long should each piece be?", the problem
calls for the exercise of greater intelligence, as the pupil must
determine which process to use in order to obtain the correct result.
It becomes still more difficult if we merely show him the bar and say:
"This bar must be cut into five pieces of equal length; how long will
each piece be?" Several additional preliminary steps are required,
none of which was involved in the problem in its original form. Before
the length of the pieces can be computed he must find out the length
of the bar. He must know what to measure it with, and in what terms,
whether feet or inches, the problem should be stated. Again, if we
say: "Lay this bar out to be cut in five equal lengths," another
step--the measurement and marking for each cut--is added. Many
variations might be introduced, each involving additional
opportunities for the exercise of thought.
It is through practice in solving problems of this kind that the pupil
acquires what the employer called mathematical intelligence. It
consists in the ability to note what elements are involved in the
problems and to decide which process of arithmetic should be used in
dealing with them. Once these decisions are made the succeeding
arithmetical calculations are simple and easy. In technical terms the
ability that is needed is the ability to generalize one's experiences.
In every-day terms it is the ability to use what one knows.
The work in applied mathematics should cover a wide range of problems
worded in the language of the trades and constantly varied in order to
establish as many points of contact as possible between the pupil's
knowledge of mathematics and the use of mathematics in industrial
life. Practical shop work is one of the best means to this end. The
trouble with much of the shop work given in the schools is that it
runs to hand craftmanship in which the object is to "make something"
by methods long ago discarded in the industrial world, rather than to
give the pupil exercise in the sort of thinking he will need to do
after he goes to work. Successful teaching does not depend so much on
the use of tools and materials as on the teacher's knowledge of the
conditions surrounding industrial work and his ability to originate
methods for vitalizing the instruction in its relation to industrial
needs.
MECHANICAL DRAWING
At the present time the junior high school course provides for one
hour a week of mechanical drawing. All the boys who may be expected
to elect the industrial course can well afford to devote more time to
drawing. For such boys no other subject in the curriculum, except
perhaps applied mathematics, is of greater importance. In many of the
trades the ability to work from drawings is indispensable and the man
who does not possess it is not likely to rise above purely routine
work.
In a drawing course for future industrial workers the emphasis should
be placed on giving the pupil an understanding of the uses of drawing
for industrial purposes, rather than on fine workmanship in making
drawings. Seventh grade boys can't be made into draftsmen in three
years and if they leave school at 15 they are not likely to become
draftsmen. The ordinary skilled workman seldom has any need to make
drawings or designs, beyond an occasional rough sketch, but he often
has to work from drawings. To put it in another way, drawing to the
average workman is like an additional language of which he needs a
reading but not a writing knowledge. No doubt it would be well to
teach him to write and read with equal skill, but in the two or three
years most of these boys will remain in school there is not time
enough to do both.
INDUSTRIAL SCIENCE
In many of the trades an introductory knowledge of physics and
chemistry is of considerable advantage. Boys in the junior high school
cannot be expected to take formal courses in these subjects, but they
should not leave school without some acquaintance with them and a
knowledge of their relations to industrial processes. A fair equipment
should be provided for demonstrational and illustrative purposes. The
subject matter should be correlated as closely as possible with the
shop work, and the principal mechanical and chemical laws explained as
the shop problems furnish examples of their application.
In addition the boys should be taught the common technical terms used
in trade hand books. The man who expects to advance in his trade will
have to keep on learning after he leaves school. There are many
avenues of information open to him, and the school can perform no more
valuable service than to point the way to the sources of knowledge
represented by reference books, trade journals, and other technical
literature. Some of the popular magazines, such as "The Scientific
American," "The Illustrated World," and "Popular Mechanics" can be
used most effectively to bring home to the pupils the close connection
existing between the class work and the outside world of science and
invention.
SHOP WORK
It is difficult to determine the exact function of the manual training
shop work in cabinet making and bookbinding which figures in the
curriculum at present. That the work was not planned with vocational
training in mind seems clear from the action of the school board in
adding bookbinding to the course about the middle of the year. The
bookbinding trade is one of the smallest in the city, and there is
little probability that more than one boy among the total number
enrolled in both junior high schools will enter it after leaving
school.
Fully three-fourths of the industrial group will later be employed in
occupations where most of the work is done with machines or machine
tools. Even in the hand tool trades, such as carpentry, sheet metal
work, cabinet making, and blacksmithing, the use of machines is
constantly increasing. It would seem, therefore, that some
acquaintance with different types of machines would be of considerable
value to the pupils who may later enter industrial employment. The
number of boys who are likely to become machinists is large enough to
warrant the installation of a small machine shop. Repairing,
assembling, and taking apart machines should occupy an important place
in the shop course. Most boys are intensely interested in getting at
the "insides" of a machine, and the processes of assembling, with
their attendant problems of adjustment and co-ordination of mechanical
movements, afford opportunities for the best kind of practical
instruction. One of the great advantages of this type of shop work
lies in the fact that it consumes little or no material and is
therefore inexpensive; another is that a fairly extensive equipment
can be easily obtained, as any machine, old or new, will serve the
purpose and may be used over and over again.
The extent and variety of shop equipment will depend largely on the
resources of the school system. The more the better, so long as the
money is expended on the principle of the greatest good to the
greatest number, which means that the kinds of tools and equipment
used in the large trades should be preferred to those used only in the
smaller trades.
In order that the time devoted to shop work may yield its greatest
results, it is necessary that every lesson center around knowledge and
ability that will be of real subsequent use to the pupils. It must not
run to "art" and it must not be mere tinkering. Its principal value as
vocational training, in the last analysis, lies in its use as an
objective medium for the teaching of industrial mathematics and
science.
VOCATIONAL INFORMATION
During the second and third years all the boys who elect the
industrial course or who expect to leave school at the end of the
compulsory attendance period should be required to devote some time
each week to the study of economic and working conditions in wage
earning industrial and commercial occupations. A clear understanding
of the comparative advantages of different kinds of employment is of
the highest importance at this period of the boy's life. It seems to
be generally assumed that an adequate basis of knowledge for the
selection of an industrial vocation is an acquaintance with materials
and processes. Such knowledge is valuable, but making a living is
mainly an economic problem. What an occupation means in terms of
income is more significant than what it means in terms of materials.
The most important facts about the cabinet making trade, for example,
are that it offers very few opportunities for employment to public
school boys, and that it is one of the lowest paid skilled trades. The
primary considerations in the intelligent selection of a vocation
relate to wages, steadiness of employment, health risks, opportunities
for advancement, apprenticeship conditions, union regulations, and the
number of chances there are for getting into it. These things are
fundamental, and any one of them may well take precedence over the
matter of whether the tastes of the future wage-earner run to wood,
brick, stone, or steel.
CHAPTER VII
TRADE TRAINING DURING THE LAST YEARS IN SCHOOL
Between the end of the compulsory attendance period and the entering
age in most of the trades there exists a gap of from one to two years
which is not adequately covered by any of the present educational
agencies of the school system.
Two years ago the Ohio State legislature extended the compulsory
attendance period from 14 to 15 for boys and from 14 to 16 for girls.
The result has been to force into the first years of the high school
course a considerable number of pupils who have no intention of taking
the complete four year course, and who will leave as soon as they
reach the end of the compulsory period. That these pupils are probably
not getting all that they might out of the time they attend high
school is no argument against the present compulsory attendance age
limit, which should be raised rather than lowered.
The study of industrial conditions conducted during the survey left
every member of the Survey Staff firmly convinced that the industries
of Cleveland have little or nothing worth while to offer to boys
under 16. Very few of the skilled trades will accept an apprentice
below this age. The general opinion among manufacturers was
unfavorable to the employment of boys under 16. "They are more of a
nuisance than a help," said one; "they are not old enough to
understand the responsibilities of work." "They break more machinery
and spoil more material than they are worth," said another. In several
of the building trades apprentices must be 17 years old, as the law
forbids boys under this age to work on scaffoldings. The new workmen's
compensation law exerts a strong influence in favor of a higher
working age limit, owing to the greater risk of accident among young
workers.
The fact is that the law is still about one year behind the
requirements of industrial life. If a vote were taken among employers
who can offer boys the opportunity to learn a trade it would be found
that a large majority favor raising the working age to 16. Employment
before this time usually leads nowhere, and the pittance the boy earns
cannot be compared with the economic advantage he could derive from an
additional year in a good vocational school. The average boy who
leaves school at 15 spends a year or two loafing or working at odd
jobs before he can obtain employment that offers any promise of future
advancement. These years are often more than wasted, as he not only
learns nothing of value from such casual jobs, but misses the healthy
discipline of steady, orderly work, which is of so great importance
during these formative years of his life.
THE TECHNICAL HIGH SCHOOLS
The two technical high schools, the East Technical and West Technical,
occupy an important place among the secondary schools of the city. At
the present time the two schools enroll nearly two-fifths of the boys
attending high school. The course comprises four years' work. In the
East Technical the shopwork includes joinery and wood-turning during
the first year, and pattern making and foundry work during the second
year. In the West Technical the first year course includes pattern
making and either forging or sheet metal work; and that of the second
year, forging, pipe-fitting, brazing, riveting, and cabinet making.
During the remaining two years of the course the student may elect a
particular trade, devoting about 10 hours a week to practice in the
shop during the last half of the third year, and from 11 to 15 hours
during the fourth year.
The proportion of pupils who graduate is small and the mortality
during the first two years is very heavy. This is due in part to the
fact that the type of pupil who leaves school early is more likely to
elect a technical course than an academic course. About 25 per cent of
each entering class drops out after attending one year, and 25 per
cent of the remainder by the end of the second year. By the time the
third year is reached the classes are greatly depleted and the
survivors as a rule are of the more intelligent and prosperous type.
Only a small proportion of them expect to enter skilled manual
occupations. Table 9 shows the distribution of the third and fourth
year students among the different trade courses during the first
semester of 1915-16.
TABLE 9.--DISTRIBUTION OF THIRD AND FOURTH YEAR STUDENTS IN TRADE
COURSES IN THE CLEVELAND TECHNICAL HIGH SCHOOLS, FIRST SEMESTER,
1915-1916
Trade courses Students
Electrical construction 68
Machine work 52
Printing 28
Cabinet making 22
Pattern making 12
Foundry work 1
----
Total 183
That relatively few of these students will ultimately become
journeymen workmen is shown by the records of the boys graduated in
the past. The principal of the East Technical High School recently
sent a questionnaire to all the students graduated up to 1915, asking
for information as to their present occupations and their earnings
during the first four years after graduation. Of those who replied,
over 60 per cent either were attending college, or employed as
draftsmen or chemists. About 28 per cent were employed in the skilled
trades. The distribution in detail is shown in Table 10.
The data furnished by graduates as to their earnings during successive
years after leaving school supply still more convincing evidence to
the effect that the technical school graduate seldom remains in manual
work more than two or three years. The complete course gives them an
equipment of practical and theoretical knowledge that speedily takes
them out of the handwork class. The technical high schools are
primarily training schools for future civil, electrical, and
mechanical engineers. To the student who cannot afford a college
course they offer excellent preparation for rapid advancement to
supervisory and executive industrial positions, and for drafting and
office work in manufacturing plants.
TABLE 10.--DISTRIBUTION BY OCCUPATION OF CLEVELAND TECHNICAL HIGH
SCHOOL GRADUATES
Occupation Number
Attending college 111
Draftsmen 51
Electricians 33
Machinists 32
Chemists 8
Pattern makers 7
Cabinet makers 6
Printers 3
Foundrymen 1
Unclassified 32
----
Total 284
The output of the schools falls into two main divisions: those who
leave at the end of the second year or earlier, and those who
graduate. The records show that most of the pupils who reach the third
year complete the course, but nearly half drop out during the first
and second years. The benefit they obtain from these two years'
attendance is problematical. The course was designed on the basis of
four years' attendance, and the work of the first two years is to a
considerable degree a preparation for that of the last two.
The principals of both schools are fully alive to the disadvantages of
the course for the large number of pupils who drop out within a year
or two, and admit that such students would derive greater benefit from
more practical instruction aimed directly toward preparation for the
industrial trades. Both believe that the only practicable solution is
a two-year trade course in a separate school, covering a much wider
range of shop activities than the present high school course.
To the only alternative--the institution of a short course within the
technical schools to be conducted either as a part of or
simultaneously with the four year course--they present objections of
considerable weight. They point out that a preparatory course for the
trades and a preparatory course with college as the goal differ not
only in length but in kind. The work in mathematics for the future
civil engineer, for example, must conform to college entrance
standards and involves an amount of study that is quite unnecessary
for the boy whose aim is to become a carpenter or machinist. The first
needs a thorough course in algebra, geometry, and trigonometry; the
second needs industrial arithmetic, with only such applications of
higher mathematics as may be of use to him in his trade. The same
principle holds with respect to other subjects.
What boys who expect to enter industrial occupations most need at this
period is instruction that will be of practical value to them for
future wage earning. It is doubtful whether high school courses which
have been formulated in the first instance to prepare pupils for a
college course can furnish such instruction and it is still more
doubtful whether the trade training required by the future mechanic
and the broader preparation required for the professions can be given
effectively in the same school.
A TWO-YEAR TRADE COURSE
It is the opinion of the Survey Staff that a separate school in which
direct training for the industrial trades is emphasized would result
in more profitable use of the pupils' time and probably induce many of
them to remain in school up to the apprentice entering age. Such a
school, with a curriculum embracing vocational training for all the
principal trades, would easily command an enrollment sufficient to
justify the installation of a good shop equipment and the employment
of a corps of teachers qualified by special training and experience
for this kind of work. Even if only one-half the number who enter the
skilled trades each year attended the school, the enrollment would
reach at least 800 boys.
A trade school of this kind would relieve the first and second year
classes of many pupils that the technical high schools do not want and
cannot adequately provide for. The minimum entering age should be not
less than 14, and no requirement other than age should be imposed.
This would draw part of the over-age pupils from the grades and take
from the junior high school a certain number of boys who could profit
by the greater amount of time given to shop work in the trade school.
A good many will stay only one year, and every effort should be made
at the time of entrance to learn the intentions of the pupil. If it
seems fairly certain that he will not remain longer than a year he may
well omit such studies as have no direct bearing on the trade he
wishes to learn. The courses should follow the lines laid down in the
general industrial course recommended for the junior high school, but
with a greater proportion of the time devoted to practical shopwork.
As the number of pupils for each trade class would be relatively
large, a closer correlation could be effected between the academic
subjects and the work in the shops than is possible in the junior high
school.
Both general and special courses should be provided. Many of the
pupils will wish to specialize on a particular trade. Others who have
not yet reached a decision need a general course that will give them a
wide range of experience with materials and processes. The
organization of classes should be planned so as to permit transfers,
whenever desirable, from the general to the special courses, or
vice-versa.
By the time the pupil has reached the second year he usually will
settle down to steady work on the trade he selects, although here
again the organization should be sufficiently elastic to allow
transfers when there seems to be good reason for making them. It is to
be expected, however, that nearly all the pupils will devote their
time during the second year to practice and study limited to single
trades. The success of the school in holding boys to the age of 16 or
17 will depend on its ability to convince them that the extra time in
school is a paying investment, and this cannot be done unless they
stick to one line of work.
CHAPTER VIII
TRADE-PREPARATORY AND TRADE-EXTENSION TRAINING FOR BOYS AND MEN AT
WORK
Several forms of trade-preparatory and trade-extension training for
apprentices and journeymen workmen are carried on in the city.
Probably the most effective work done in the teaching of boys after
they have entered employment is found in manufacturing establishments
which maintain apprentice schools in connection with their shops.
There are two excellent examples of this type of instruction in
Cleveland--the apprentice schools conducted by the New York Central
Railroad and by the Warner and Swasey Company, manufacturers of
astronomical instruments and machine tools.
The Warner and Swasey Company school was established in 1911. The
course covers a total of 560 hours, extending over a period of four
years. The apprentices attend the school four hours a week for 35
weeks each year. The time allotment for the various subjects included
in the course is shown in Table 11.
In 1915 there were 65 apprentices enrolled in the school, most of them
from the machinist's trade. The sessions are held during working
hours in a room in the factory fitted up with drawing tables and
blackboards. No shop equipment is used. The purpose of the course is
to develop a body of trained workmen competent to take positions in
the factory as foremen or heads of departments. Less than one-tenth of
the total time of the course is devoted to the study of shop practice.
Standard textbooks are used in the teaching of mathematics.
TABLE 11.--TIME ALLOTMENT IN THE APPRENTICE COURSE GIVEN BY THE WARNER
AND SWASEY COMPANY, CLEVELAND
Subject Hours
Arithmetic 35
English 65
Mechanical drawing 70
Shop practice 40
Algebra 70
Geometry 40
Trigonometry 30
Physics 70
Materials 35
Industrial history 35
Mechanics, strength of materials, and mechanical design 70
---
Total 560
The enrollment in the school conducted by the New York Central
Railroad is about 140 boys, nearly all of whom are machinists'
apprentices. They are divided into three classes, the members of each
class attending the school four hours a week. About two-thirds of the
time is devoted to mechanical drawing and one-third to mathematics and
shop practice. The instruction in these two latter subjects is based
on a series of graded mimeographed or blue print lesson sheets,
containing a wide variety of shop problems, with a condensed and
simplified explanation of the mathematical principles involved. In the
main the work is limited to the application of simple arithmetic to
problems of shop practice. No textbooks are used, but the booklets on
machine shop practice published by the International Correspondence
Schools are studied in connection with the course.
In addition to the required classroom work in mechanical drawing, each
apprentice serves four or five months of his term in the regular
drafting rooms of the company. The classroom is equipped with models
of railway appliances and machinery, together with laboratory
apparatus for teaching the laws of mechanics. No machine tools or
other shop equipment are used in the classes. The course covers about
700 hours of instruction exclusive of the time spent in regular
drafting room work. About 20 apprentices finished the course in 1915.
Several of the building and printing trades' labor unions take an
active interest in the training of apprentices, and in at least two
instances the unions maintain evening classes for teaching trade
theory. The Electrical Workers' Union, made up principally of inside
wiremen, conducts apprentice classes taught by journeymen. The
International Typographical Union course for compositors and
compositors' apprentices is undoubtedly the best yet devised for
giving supplementary training in hand composition. It is taught by
journeymen in evening classes, under the supervision of the central
office of the Typographical Union Commission, to which all the work
must be submitted. In February, 1916, about 100 students were
enrolled, of whom approximately one-third were apprentices and
two-thirds journeymen. The course consists of 46 lessons in English,
lettering, design, color harmony, job composition, and imposition for
machine and hand folding. The classes are held at the headquarters of
the union. As the students' daily practice in the shop provides plenty
of opportunity for the acquisition of manual skill, no apparatus or
shop equipment is used in connection with the course.
The apprentice school conducted by the Y.M.C.A. represents another
type of apprentice training. The instruction is given during the day.
The apprentices are sent to the school by various firms in the city
under an arrangement whereby the boys attend four and one-half hours
each week during regular shop time. In February, 1916, the enrollment
consisted of 46 apprentices, practically all from the metal trades.
The employers pay the tuition fee, which amounts to $20 a year. The
course requires four years' work of 40 weeks each, a total of 720
hours. It comprises instruction in shop mathematics, drawing, English,
physics, and industrial hygiene. No shop equipment is used. Fifteen
boys were graduated from the course this year.
The factory apprentice school of the Warner and Swasey Company and New
York Central Railroad type possesses many advantages over any kind of
continuation instruction carried on outside of the plants where the
boys are employed. A better correlation between the class and shop
work is possible together with a more personal relation between
teacher and pupils than is usually found when the pupils are drawn
from a number of different establishments. It must be admitted,
however, that this method of training apprentices is not feasible
except in very large plants, as in small classes the teaching cost
becomes prohibitive. There is little probability that it will ever be
adopted by enough employers to take care of more than an insignificant
proportion of the boys who enter the skilled trades.
The results obtained, here and in other cities, through coöperative
schemes, such as the Y.M.C.A. continuation school, are in the main
disappointing. Their failure to reach more than a few of the boys who
need trade-extension training is due partly to the fact that they
operate under a condition that is fundamentally unjust. One employer
interviewed during the survey stated the case very clearly: "I can see
no good reason why I should make pecuniary sacrifices for the benefit
of my competitors. Very few of my apprentices remain until the end of
their term, because by the time they have completed their second year
other firms which make no effort to train their quota of skilled
workmen for the trade steal them away from me. Any plan for the
training of apprentices which does not apportion the burden among the
different establishments in direct proportion to the number of men
they have, simply penalizes those public-spirited employers who
participate in it."
CONTINUATION TRAINING FROM 15 TO 18
The years between 15 and 18 are among the most important in the life
of the young worker. If left to his own devices during this period, he
is very likely to lose much of vocational value of his earlier
education, because he does not grasp the relation which the knowledge
he acquired in school bears to his daily work. As a result the problem
of supplementary instruction at a later age, when he wakes up to his
need for it, becomes much more difficult than if trade-extension
training had been taken up at once when he entered employment.
The vocational interests of young workers and the social interests of
the community are both opposed to the current practice of "graduating"
boys from the public schools at the ages of 15 or 16 and then losing
sight of them. The fact that the large number who go into industrial
occupations will not or cannot remain in school beyond these ages does
not absolve the school system from further responsibility for their
educational future. There should not be a complete severance between
the boy and the school until he has reached a relatively mature age.
In other words, the school system should maintain, as long as
possible, such a relation with him as will help to round out his
education and lead him to continue it after reaching manhood.
It is the opinion of the Survey Staff that the only practicable
solution of this problem lies in the day continuation school, backed
by a compulsory law which will bring every boy and girl at work under
the age of 18 into school for a certain number of hours per week. Only
through a comprehensive plan that will reach large numbers of young
workers can the difficulties inherent in the administration of small
classes be overcome. The night schools have never been successful in
holding boys long enough to make more than a beginning in
trade-extension training. It is certain that growing boys should not
be expected to add two hours of study to their nine or 10 hours of
unaccustomed labor in the shop. Both individual and community
interests demand that this problem be taken up in such a way as to
obviate the sharp cleavage between the boy's school life and his
working life. From every point of view it is unwise to permit him to
lose all contact with the educational agencies of the city during his
first years at work.
The compulsory continuation school avoids the difficulties which are
responsible for the common failure of those schemes which depend for
their success on the initiative of individuals or the voluntary
coöperation of employers and trade unions. One of its great advantages
is that the principle on which it is based makes for equal justice to
all. There can be no doubt that the decline of apprentice training in
the shops is due partly to the fact that employers find that much of
the time and money it costs goes toward providing a skilled labor
force for competitors who make no effort to train young workers. The
cooperation of employers on a comprehensive scale will be secured only
when the burden is equally shared.
THE TECHNICAL NIGHT SCHOOLS
Night classes are conducted in both of the technical high schools for
two terms a year of 10 weeks each, the pupils attending four hours a
week. A tuition fee of $5 a term is collected, of which $3.50 is
refunded to those who maintain an average attendance of 75 per cent.
No special provision is made for apprentices as distinct from
journeymen, and the trade classes are attended by a considerable
number of wage-earners employed in occupations unrelated to industrial
work. The list of courses offered during the past year, with the
number enrolled in each course at the beginning of the second term, is
shown in Table 12.
A glance at the list of courses shows at once that while the
vocational motive is given first importance, the schools also aim to
provide instruction in cultural subjects which have only an indirect
vocational application. Less than one-third of the students are
pursuing courses which are directly related to their daily work. The
remainder are enrolled in courses which have little or no connection
with their daily occupations. In but four of the courses--machine
shop, architectural drawing, printing, and sheet metal work--are more
than half of the students employed in directly related occupations.
TABLE 12.--COURSES AND NUMBER ENROLLED IN THE TECHNICAL NIGHT SCHOOLS,
JANUARY, 1915
Number
Course enrolled
Mechanical drawing 328
Machine shop 222
Electrical construction 159
Sewing 103
Mathematics 89
Architectural drawing 83
Pattern making 73
Woodworking 67
Chemistry 59
Sheet metal drawing 52
Cooking 46
Foundry work 36
Agriculture 31
Printing 27
Sheet metal shop 23
Business English 20
Electric motors 19
Arts and crafts 18
Millinery 18
Electricity and magnetism 16
------
Total 1,489
The policy of the schools is to form a class in any subject for which
a sufficient number of students make application. Only a small
proportion of the pupils attend more than one year, and the mortality
from term to term is very high, although the tuition fee plan insures
fairly good attendance during the term. The data collected by the
survey indicate that the average length of attendance is approximately
two terms--the equivalent in student hours of less than three weeks in
the ordinary day school.
Most of the men who enroll in night school classes need a course of at
least two or three years. All but a few, however, insist on having
their supplementary training in small doses. Frequently they want
only specific instruction about a specific thing, such as how to lay
out a certain piece of work or how to set up a particular machine
tool. They want to secure this knowledge in the shortest possible
time, and very few want the same thing. A course of two or three years
does not appeal to them. Another difficulty is that their previous
educational equipment varies widely, and some are not capable of
assimilating even the specialized bit of trade knowledge they need
without a preliminary course in arithmetic. As the personnel of the
classes changes to a marked degree from term to term, the courses
undergo frequent modifications. Apparently the teachers and principals
have made a sincere effort to adapt the instruction to the demands of
the men who attend the schools, but the fact is that the difficulties
inherent in such work make it impossible to organize the classes on
any basis except that of subject matter, which means fitting students
into courses, rather than adapting courses to the needs of particular
groups of workers.
The enrollment is far below what should be expected in a city of
nearly three-quarters of a million inhabitants. The total number of
journeymen, apprentices, and helpers from the skilled manual
occupations, receiving trade instruction in the night schools, is
considerably less than one per cent of the total number in the city.
A large enrollment is necessary for efficient administration. Success
in specializing courses in night schools, as in day schools, requires
a large administrative unit. The possible variety of courses is in
direct ratio to the number enrolled. In a class of 200 carpenters
there would probably be, for example, 10 or 15 men who need
specialized instruction in stair-building. On the basis of the present
enrollment of 40 or 50 carpenters the class would dwindle to three or
four, with the result that the per capita teaching cost becomes
prohibitive.
The relatively small result now obtained is not the fault of the
schools, but is due principally to the fact that the great field of
evening vocational instruction is treated by the school system as a
mere side line of the technical high schools. The evening classes are
taught by teachers who have already given their best in the day
classes. The enrollment cannot be greatly increased so long as this
type of education is handled as one of the marginal activities of the
school system, manned by tired teachers and directed by tired
principals. It is a totally different kind of job from regular day
instruction and requires a different administrative organization, with
a responsible head vested with sufficient authority to meet quickly
and effectively the widely varying demands of its students. This will
require the speeding-up of administrative methods in the establishment
of courses and the employment of teachers, a freer hand for the
principals as regards both expenditures and policy, and most important
of all, the organization of all forms of continuation and night school
instruction under a separate department.
A COMBINED PROGRAM OF CONTINUATION AND TRADE-EXTENSION TRAINING
In considering the general conclusions of the survey as to what should
be done in the matter of trade preparatory and trade-extension
training in both day and night schools, it must be borne in mind that
these two types of vocational training are still in the experimental
stage. Their future development will probably involve a wide departure
from conventional school methods and the evolution of a special
technique through trial and experiment. At the present time we can
only formulate certain of the main conditions to which future advance
in these fields must conform.
First of all, it must be recognized that such work is a big job in
itself and cannot be successfully conducted as an appendix of the day
school. It is worth doing well, or it is not worth doing. It needs an
organization sufficiently elastic and adaptable to quickly make
adjustments to unusual and unexpected conditions. It needs the
supervision of a competent director who can devote to it all his time
and energy, and a corps of teachers who not only know how and what to
teach, but who possess a firm conviction of the value and utility of
this kind of instruction. In the hands of teachers who bring to it
only the margin of interest and energy remaining after a hard day's
work in the high school, or who are unable to comprehend the radical
difference between teaching a boy in the day school 35 hours a week
and teaching a boy four hours a week in the continuation school or
evening class, the full measure of success cannot be expected. The
employment of day teachers for night school work has never been other
than a makeshift, and the insignificant results attained in night
schools throughout the country have been due in great measure to this
cause.
Apart from the fact that the interests of adolescent workers
imperatively demand the establishment of day continuation schools, an
additional argument in favor of such schools is that they would
provide a means for making the night trade-extension work effective,
through the use of continuation day school teachers for night school
work. Such a plan would mean that teachers employed on this basis
would have charge of a day continuation class during one session of
four hours, and a night class of two hours, making a total of six
hours' work per day. A plan of this kind would make possible the
establishment of the fundamental conditions for successful
trade--preparatory and trade-extension training in the night schools.
The present system is unjust to both teachers and students;--to the
students because the man or boy who sacrifices his recreation time to
attend night school has a right to the best the schools can give; to
the teachers because no teacher can work a two-hour night shift in
addition to seven or eight hours in the technical high school without
seriously impairing his efficiency.
The development of this plan would necessitate the establishment of
two centers, one located in the eastern and one in the western section
of the city. In these centers should be housed the day vocational
school, the day continuation classes, and the night vocational
classes. This would relieve the technical high schools of a task which
does not belong to them, and which by overloading the teachers
seriously interferes with the work they were originally employed to
do. At present a considerable number of the technical high school
teachers are devoting from one-fifth to one-fourth of their total
working day to elementary teaching, as most of the work in the night
schools is below high school grade.
By bringing together all the trade preparatory and trade-extension
work under one roof, it is possible to secure the highest efficiency
in the use of equipment. Expensive shops can be justified only on the
basis of constant use. If the suggestion for the establishment of a
vocational school is acted upon, such future contingencies as the
continuation school should be borne in mind in planning the buildings
and equipment, so as to permit of extensions as they may be required.
It is practically certain that universal continuation training for
young workers up to the age of 17 or 18 will be made compulsory in all
the progressive states of the country within the next decade. The Ohio
school authorities should get ready to handle the continuation school
problem before the example of other states and the overwhelming
pressure of public opinion forces it upon them.
CHAPTER IX
VOCATIONAL TRAINING FOR GIRLS
The discussions in the preceding chapters have been limited
intentionally to a consideration of the needs and possibilities of
training for wage-earning pursuits in which men predominate. The
conditions which surround vocational training for girls are so
fundamentally unlike those encountered in the vocational training of
boys that a combined treatment leads to needless complexity and
confusion.
Cleveland uses a relatively smaller amount of woman labor than most
other large cities. In only one of the 10 largest cities in the
country--Pittsburgh--is the proportion of women and girls at work
smaller as compared with the total number of persons in gainful
occupations than in Cleveland. In 1900, 20.4 per cent of the workers
in the city were women; by 1910 the proportion of women workers had
increased to 22 per cent, a shift of less than two per cent for the
decade.
A consideration of the occupational future of boys and girls shows at
once how widely their problems differ. The typical boy in Cleveland
attends school until he reaches the age of 15 or 16. About this period
he becomes a wage-earner and for the next 30 or 40 years devotes most
of his time and energy to making a living. The typical girl leaves
school about the same time, becomes a wage-earner for a few years,
then marries and spends the rest of her life keeping house and rearing
children. To the man wage-earning is the real business of life. To the
woman it is a means for filling in the gap between school and
marriage, a little journey into the world previous to settling down to
her main job.
The most radical and important difference between the two sexes with
respect to wage-earning is found in the length of the working life.
The transitory character of the wage-earning phase in the life of most
women is clearly seen in the contrasted age distribution shown in
Table 13.
TABLE 13.--PER CENT OF TOTAL POPULATION ENGAGED IN GAINFUL OCCUPATIONS
DURING THREE DIFFERENT AGE PERIODS
----------------------+-------------+------------+
Age period | Women | Men |
----------------------+-------------+------------+
16 to 21 | 60 | 85 |
21 to 45 | 26 | 98 |
45 and over | 12 | 85 |
----------------------+-------------+------------+
Approximately 85 per cent of the boys and slightly less than 60 per
cent of the girls between the ages of 16 and 21 are at work. In the
next age group--21 to 45--given by the census, 98 per cent of the men
are at work, but the proportion of women employed in gainful
occupations drops to 26 per cent, or about one in four; in the next
age group--45 and over--it falls to about 12 per cent, as compared
with 85 per cent of the men. Of the women still at work in the older
age group, over one-half are engaged in domestic and personal service
as servants, laundresses, housekeepers, etc.
TABLE 14.--NUMBER EMPLOYED IN THE PRINCIPAL WAGE-EARNING OCCUPATIONS
AMONG EACH 1,000 WOMEN FROM 16 TO 21 YEARS OF AGE
Manufacturing and mechanical industries:
Apprentices to dressmakers and milliners 4
Dressmakers and seamstresses (not in factory) 20
Milliners and millinery dealers 17
Semi-skilled operatives:
Candy factories 6
Cigar and tobacco factories 15
Electrical supply factories 10
Knitting mills 11
Printing and publishing 8
Woolen and worsted mills:
Weavers 5
Other occupations 7
Sewers and sewing machine operators (factory) 53
Tailoresses 25
Transportation:
Telephone operators 19
Trade:
Clerks in stores 28
Saleswomen (stores) 35
Professional service:
Musicians and teachers of music 6
Teachers (school) 4
Domestic and personal service:
Charwomen and cleaners 5
Laundry operatives 13
Servants 81
Waitresses 9
Clerical occupations:
Bookkeepers, cashiers, and accountants 26
Clerks (except clerks in stores) 20
Stenographers and typewriters 62
The occupations in which the girls now in the public schools will
later engage can be determined with a relative degree of accuracy by
employing a method in general similar to that utilized in forecasting
the occupations of boys. It must be taken into account, however, that
the wage-earning period for women, except in the professional
occupations, usually begins before the age of 21. For this reason the
16 to 21 age group probably offers the best basis for determining the
future occupational distribution of girls in school. If all women at
work up to the age of 25 were included the figures would be more
nearly exact, but unfortunately data for the period between 21 and 25
are not available. The figures at the right of Table 14 show the
number engaged in each specified occupation among each thousand women
in the city between the ages of 16 and 21. The proportions given for
the professional occupations, particularly teaching, are too small,
because of the fact that few women enter the professions before the
age of 21.
Applying these proportions to the average elementary school unit, it
will be seen at once that the number of girls old enough to profit by
special training is too small in any single occupation to form a class
of workable size. In such a school there would be about 80 girls 12
years old and over. Of the skilled occupations listed in the table
stenography and typewriting offers the largest field of employment,
yet the number who are likely to take up this kind of work does not
exceed five or six.
DIFFERENTIATION IN THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
The organization of the junior high school, where the enrollment is
made up entirely of older pupils, obviates this difficulty to some
extent. Instead of 80 girls there are from 300 to 500, with a
corresponding increase in the number who will enter any given
wage-earning occupation.
Not less than one-eighth and probably not more than one-fifth of these
girls will become needleworkers of some kind. They will need a more
practical and intensive training in the fundamentals of sewing than is
now provided by the household arts course. The skill required in trade
work cannot be obtained in the amount of time now devoted to this
subject. It should be made possible for a girl who expects to make a
living with her needle to elect a thoroughly practical course in
sewing in which the aim is to prepare for wage earning rather than
merely to teach the girl how to make and mend her own garments. As
proficiency in trade sewing requires first of all ample opportunity
for practice, provision should be made for extending the time now
given to sewing for those girls who wish to become needle workers.
This can easily be done through the system of electives now in use.
The establishment of classes in power machine operating during the
junior high school period appears to be impracticable, due to the
immaturity of the girls and the small number who could profit by such
instruction.
A discussion of the present sewing courses in the public schools will
be found in Chapters XIV and XV, which summarize the special reports
on the Garment Trades and Dressmaking and Millinery. In the present
chapter the consideration of these occupations is limited to an
examination of the administrative questions connected with training
for the sewing trades.
SPECIALIZED TRAINING FOR THE SEWING TRADES
The compulsory attendance law requires all girls to attend school
until they are 16 years old. This forces a considerable number into
the high schools for one or two years before they go to work. As a
rule the type of girl who is likely to enter the needle trades selects
the technical high school course, not because she has any idea of
finishing it, but because she believes it offers a less tiresome way
of getting through her last one or two years in school than the
academic course. The technical course requires three and three-quarter
hours a week of sewing during the first two years. The student may
elect trade dressmaking and millinery during the third and fourth
years.
Very few girls who can afford to spend four years in high school ever
become dressmakers or factory operatives. If the school system is to
do anything of direct vocational value for them it will have to begin
further down. Most of them leave school before the age of 17 and the
years between 14 and 16 represent the last chance the school will have
to give them any direct aid towards preparation for immediate
wage-earning.
For successful work in machine operating the class must be large
enough to warrant the purchase and operation of sufficient equipment
to give the pupils an opportunity for intensive practice. The only way
this condition can be secured is by concentrating in large groups the
girls who need such training. Little will be accomplished in training
for the sewing trades without specialization, and specialization in
small administrative units is impossible. The teaching and operating
cost in a school enrolling, say 200 girls, who want the same kind of
work, can be brought within reasonable bounds. In a school where the
total number who need specialized training does not exceed 10 or 15
the cost is prohibitive.
In the opinion of the Survey Staff a one or two year vocational course
in the sewing trades should be established. The entrance age should
not be less than 15. Courses should be provided for intensive work in
trade dressmaking, power machine operating, and trade millinery. A
conservative estimate of the number of girls who could be expected to
enroll for courses in these subjects is 500. A trade school might be
established where only this type of vocational training would be
carried on, or it might be conducted in the same building with the
trade courses for boys recommended in a previous chapter. In either
case the number of pupils would be sufficient to warrant up-to-date
equipment and a corps of specially trained teachers.
Training for the sewing trades consumes more material than any other
kind of vocational training. For this reason economical administration
requires some arrangement for marketing the product. During the latter
part of the course the school should be able to turn out first-class
work. The familiarity with trade standards the pupils obtain through
practice on garments which must meet the exacting demands of the
buying public has a distinct educational value. The Manhattan Trade
School for Girls in New York City and other successful schools in the
country operate on this basis. There is reason to believe that there
would be little difficulty in making arrangements with the clothing
manufacturers in Cleveland to furnish a good trade school as much
contract work as the classes could handle.
OTHER OCCUPATIONS
From one-fourth to one-fifth of the girls in the school will later
enter employment in commercial and clerical occupations, as
stenographers, typists, clerks, cashiers, bookkeepers, saleswomen, and
so on. Their needs will be considered in Chapters XII and XIII, in
which the findings of the special reports on Boys and Girls in
Commercial Work and Department Store Occupations are summarized.
A relatively small number will become semi-skilled operatives in
industrial establishments, such as job printing houses, knitting
mills, and factories making electrical supplies, metal products, and
so on. As a rule such work requires only a small amount of manual
skill or deftness. Not much training is needed and it can be given
quickly and effectively in the factories.
About one-ninth of the girls in the school will enter paid domestic or
personal service of some kind. The household arts courses probably
meet the needs of girls who may be employed in such occupations as far
as they can be met under present conditions. The woman domestic
servant occupies about the same social level as the male common
laborer, and a course which openly sets out to train girls to be
servants is not likely to prosper. The load of social stigma such work
carries is too heavy. At some time in the future it may be possible to
ignore the traditional and universal attitude of our public toward the
so-called menial occupations sufficiently to consider training
servants. At present such a possibility seems remote.
CHAPTER X
VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE
Very few of the army of young people who become wage earners each year
take up the occupations in which they engage as the result of any
conscious selection of their own or of their parents. They drift into
some job aimlessly and ignorantly, following the line of least
resistance, driven or led by the accidents and exigencies of gaining a
livelihood. They possess no accurate or comprehensive knowledge of the
advantages and disadvantages of different types of wage earning
occupations, and frequently take up work for which they are entirely
unfitted or which holds little future beyond a bare livelihood.
THE WORK OF THE VOCATIONAL COUNSELOR
The plan now followed in the technical high schools of the city, by
which one teacher in the school specially qualified for such work is
charged with the duty of advising pupils who leave school and aiding
them in securing desirable employment, could be adapted to the junior
high school, where the need for service of this kind is even greater
than in the technical high schools. Such work requires men who have
had some contact with industrial conditions, and who possess sound
judgment, common sense, and a fairly comprehensive knowledge of the
local industries. If the curriculum embraces the course in "Industrial
Information" suggested in a previous chapter, the teacher of this
subject might well be designated as vocational counselor for the boys
in the school. A course similar in nature should be provided for the
girls and a woman teacher selected to advise them when they leave
school. Considerable difficulty probably will be experienced in
securing women teachers competent to assume this task, but any
wide-awake teacher who will devote some attention to published studies
of industrial conditions and get in touch with the local organizations
engaged in the investigation of wage earning employments, such as the
Consumers' League and the Girls' Vocation Bureau, can soon acquire a
fund of information that will enable her to offer valuable suggestions
and advice to girls who expect to become wage earners.
The vocational counselor must guard against conventional thinking and
the mass of "inspirational" nonsense which forms the main contribution
to the vocational guidance of youth provided in the average
schoolroom. The ideals of success usually held up before school
children seem to have been drawn from a mixture of Sunday school
literature and the prospectuses of efficiency bureaus. Boiled down the
rules prescribed for their attainment are two: first, "Be good;" and
second, "Get ahead." The pupils are told about well-known men who
became famous or rich, usually rich, by practicing these rules.
Occasionally there is some prattle about the "dignity of labor," as a
rule meaningless in the light of our current ideas of success. We do
not think of a well-paid artisan as "successful." His success begins
when he is promoted to office work, or becomes a foreman.
The inherent difficulty with ideals of success which demand that the
worker become a boss of somebody else is that the world of industry
needs only a relatively small number of bosses. Theoretically it is
possible for any individual to reach the eminence of boss-ship. In
real life less than one-tenth of the boys who enter industrial
employment can rise above the level of the journeyman artisan, at
least before later middle age, because only about that proportion of
bosses are needed.
The task of the vocational counselor will consist in putting the
pupil's feet on the first steps of the ladder rather than showing him
rosy pictures of the top of it. For the great majority the top means
no more than decent wages. This, after all, is a worthy ambition,
frequently requiring the worker's best efforts for its realization.
THE GIRLS' VOCATION BUREAU
The Girls' Vocation Bureau, for the placement of girls and women in
wage-earning employment, has been in operation about six years. At
present it is under the general charge of the state and municipal
employment bureau, although part of the funds for the support of the
bureau is raised through private subscription. From July, 1914, to
July, 1915, the Bureau secured positions for nearly 11,000 girls and
women. Of these approximately 12 per cent were girls under 21. In many
instances only temporary employment is secured, although efforts are
made to place the girls in permanent positions. More girls are placed
in office positions than in any other line of work, but a considerable
proportion take employment in factories, domestic service,
restaurants, and stores.
A careful record is kept of each applicant's qualifications, home
conditions, the names of employers, etc. The Bureau endeavors to keep
in touch with the girls after they are placed through follow-up
reports and visits by members of the office staff or by volunteer
investigators.
This spring every school in the city was visited by representatives of
the Bureau in the endeavor to interest principals in the work of
placement, and arrangements were made for sending to the Bureau lists
of the girls who were expected to leave school permanently. This
effort met with slight success, as only about 100 girls were reported
from all the schools in the city, although the number of girls leaving
school each year from the elementary grades alone is over 2,000. In
all cases the girls were visited by a representative of the Bureau and
urged to return to school, or if they were determined to seek
employment the advantages of registering in the Bureau were brought to
their attention.
It is to be hoped that more effective coöperation between the Bureau
and the schools can be established and that plans for a placement
bureau for boys similar in method and aim to the Girls' Bureau may be
realized. The matter of placement is the most difficult part of the
vocational counselor's duties, and an arrangement whereby the
vocational guidance departments of the various schools might serve as
feeders to a central placement bureau would probably in the long run
give the best results. Both guidance and placement are new things in
the public schools and efficient methods of administration can be
worked out only through trial and experiment.
CHAPTER XI
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.
CHAPTER XII
SUMMARY OF REPORT ON BOYS AND GIRLS IN COMMERCIAL WORK
Particular attention is given throughout this report to the
differences which exist between boys and girls in commercial
employment with respect to the conditions which govern success and
advancement. The majority of boys begin as messengers or office boys
and subsequently become clerks or do bookkeeping work. As men they
remain in these latter positions or, in at least an equal number of
cases, pass on into the productive or administrative end of business.
The majority of girls are stenographers, or to a less extent,
assistants in bookkeeping or clerical work. Boys' work may be expected
to take on the characteristics of the business that employs them;
girls' work remains in essentials unchanged even in totally changed
surroundings. Boys' work within limits is progressive; girls' work in
its general type--with individual exceptions--is static. Boys as a
rule cannot stay at the same kind of work and advance; girls as a rule
stay at the same kind of work whether or not they advance. Boys in any
position are expected to be qualifying themselves for "the job ahead,"
but for girls that is not the case. Boys may expect to make a
readjustment with every step in advancement. Each new position brings
them to a new situation and into a new relation to the business. Girls
receive salary advancement for increasingly responsible work, but any
change in work is likely to be so gradual as to be almost
imperceptible if they remain in the same place of employment. If they
change to another place, those who are stenographers have a slight
readjustment to make in getting accustomed to new terms and to the
peculiarities of the new persons who dictate to them. Bookkeeping
assistants may encounter different systems, but their part of the work
will be so directed and planned that it cannot be said to necessitate
difficult adaptation on their part. The work of clerical assistants is
so simple and so nearly mechanical that the question of adjustment
does not enter. These girl workers do not find that the change of
position or firm brings them necessarily into a new relation to the
business.
Even moderate success is denied to a boy if he has not adaptability
and the capacity to grasp business ideas and methods; but a
comparatively high degree of success could be attained by a girl who
possessed neither of these qualifications. A boy, however, who has no
specific training which he can apply directly and definitely at work
would be far more likely to obtain a good opening and promotion than a
girl without it would be.
The range of a boy's possible future occupations is as wide as the
field of business. He cannot at first be trained specifically as a
girl can be because he does not know what business will do with him
or what he wants to do with business. The girl's choice is limited by
custom. She can prepare herself definitely for stenography,
bookkeeping, and machine operating and be sure that she is preparing
for just the opportunity--and the whole opportunity--that business
offers to her. Her very limitation of opportunity makes preliminary
choice and training a definitely possible thing.
[Illustration: Diagram 1.--Boys and girls under 18 years of age in
office work in Cleveland. Data from report of Ohio Industrial
Commission, 1915]
The difference between boys and girls begins at the beginning. Boys
are given a larger share of the positions which the youngest worker
can fill. Diagram 1 illustrates this and the figures of the United
States Census for 1910 clearly corroborate it. Boys are taken for such
work and taken younger than girls, not merely because the law permits
them to go to work at an earlier age, but also because business
itself intends to round their training. Girls, on the contrary, are
expected to enter completely trained for definite positions. This fact
alone would in most cases compel them to be older. Furthermore,
because boys in first positions are looked upon as potential clerks,
miscellaneous jobs about the office have for them a two-fold value.
They give the employer a chance to weed out unpromising material; and
they give boys an opportunity to find themselves and to gather ideas
about the business and methods which they may be able to make use of
in later adjustments.
[Illustration: Diagram 2.--Men and women 18 years of age and over in
clerical and administrative work in offices in Cleveland. U.S. Census,
1910]
Diagram 2 shows that girls' training, if it is to meet the present
situation, must prepare for a future in specialized clerical work;
boys' future must apparently be thought of as in mostly the clerical
and administrative fields. The term "clerical" as here used, covers
bookkeepers, cashiers and accountants, stenographers and typists,
clerks and a miscellaneous group of younger workers such as
messengers, office boys, etc. "Administrative" covers proprietors,
officials, managers, supervisors, and agents, but it does not include
salespeople.
The usual commercial course gives impartially to boys and girls two
traditional "subjects" which they are to apply in wage earning
whatever part of the wage earning field they may enter. These are
stenography and bookkeeping. The evidence collected during the survey
shows that these are rarely found in combination except in small
offices. Of the men employed who are stenographers, the majority are
of two kinds: (1) those who use stenography incidentally with their
other and more important work as clerks, and (2) those for whom
stenography is but a stepping-stone to another kind of position. The
only firms which make a practice of offering ordinary stenographic
positions for boys are those which restrict themselves to male
employees for every kind of work.
Independent stenographic work of various kinds is of course open to
the sexes alike. In Cleveland there are a few women in court
stenography. The 10 public stenographers' offices were found upon
inquiry to include two men and 10 women. No figures regarding
convention reporters were obtainable. In the positions of the
bookkeeping group also there was some sex difference. The accountants,
bookkeepers, cashiers, pay-masters and other persons of responsibility
are, in large offices where both sexes work together, much more
likely to be men than women; the assistants who work with these may be
of either sex, but girls and women are likely to make up the greater
portion. Of the small office this is less generally true. Boys who do
machine operating are usually clerks whose machine work, as in the
case of stenography, is merely an adjunct to other work; with girls
machine operating is either the whole of the position or the most
important part of it.
The essential difference between the clerkship which boys for the most
part hold and the general clerical work which girls do is that the
boys' work is unified and is a definite, separate responsible part of
the business, usually in line for promotion to some other clerkship;
the girls' is a miscellany of more or less unrelated jobs and is not a
preparation for specific promotion.
A GENERAL VIEW OF COMMERCIAL WORK
All commercial occupations may be roughly divided into two classes:
those which have to do with administrative, merchandising, or
productive work, and those which carry on the clerical routine which
the others necessitate. The first class of occupations may be
designated by the term "administrative work" and the second by
"clerical work." A varying relation exists between the two which
depends chiefly upon the kind of business represented. In some kinds
clerical work is the stepping stone by which administrative work is
reached; in others employment in clerical work side-tracks away from
the administrative work.
There is, of course, a future of promotion within the limits of
clerical work without reference to its relation to administrative
work. The practical aspect of it is, in most kinds of business, that
the subordinate clerical positions far outnumber the chief ones.
Promotion of any sort depends largely upon individual capacity; but
this general distinction may be made between promotion in clerical
work and in administrative work; in the clerical field it tends to be
automatic but limited; in administrative work it comes more often
through a worker's initiative or individuality than through automatic
progression and it has no arbitrary limits.
Obviously one kind of person will be adapted to an administrative
career; another to a clerical one. Even a beginner in wage earning
might be able to classify himself on a basis like this; yet it is not
essential, for in many cases it is possible that his first positions
recognize this choice. He needs fundamental experience in business
methods whatever he is going to do; and for most administrative
positions he needs maturity. He can achieve both by serving an
apprenticeship in some form of clerical work. The important things for
him in the early part of his career are to understand the distinction
between the two classes of occupations; to sense the relation he holds
to the business as a whole; and to act intelligently in the matter of
making a change.
BOOKKEEPING
The bookkeeping which modern business, except in the small
establishment, demands of young workers is certainly not the journal
and ledger bookkeeping of the commercial schools. A modern office
organization may have in its bookkeeping department of 20 persons only
one "bookkeeper." This person is responsible for the system and he
supervises the keeping of records and the preparation of statements. A
minority of his assistants will need to be able to distinguish debits
from credits; the rest will be occupied in making simple entries or in
posting, in verifying and checking, or in finding totals with the aid
of machines. The bookkeeping systems employed show wide variation, not
only in different kinds of business, but in different establishments
in the same kinds of business. Many firms are using a loose-leaf
system; some use ledgers; and others have a system of record keeping
which calls for neither of these devices. Bookkeeping work, especially
in the positions held by girls, is frequently combined with
comptometer or adding machine work, with typing, billing, filing, or
statistical work; but rarely, except in the small office, are
bookkeeping and stenography--the Siamese Twins of traditional and
commercial training--found linked together.
STENOGRAPHY
Stenography is used throughout business chiefly in correspondence; to
a less extent for report and statement work, for legal work, and for
printer's copy. The stenographer in any business office, more than
other clerical workers, is supposed to look after a variety of
unorganized details including the use of office appliances, the filing
of letters, and sometimes dealing with patrons or visitors in the
absence of the employer. She is more important to the employer in his
personal business relations than any other employee, except in the
case of those few employers who have private secretaries.
CLERKS' POSITIONS
In the case of large corporations, which are by far the largest
employers of clerks, this work has been standardized to a marked
degree. The organization of the office work of the telegraph,
telephone, and express companies, the railroads, and the occasional
large wholesale company in Cleveland is a nearly exact duplication of
that of other district or division offices controlled by these
companies in other cities. The same is true of the Civil Service.
Whatever effects standardization may have upon opportunity, it
obviously makes for definiteness in regard to training requirements.
All the positions are graded on the basis of experience and
responsibility and a logical line of promotion from one to another has
been worked out.
The report contains detailed studies of different kinds of clerical
work in the offices of transportation and public utility corporations,
retail and wholesale stores, manufacturing establishments, banks, the
civil service, and small offices employing relatively few people. In
each of these such matters as character of the work, opportunities for
advancement, kind of training needed and special qualifications are
taken up.
WAGES AND REGULARITY OF EMPLOYMENT
Stated briefly the conclusions of the report with respect to wages and
regularity of employment in office positions are as follows:
The wage opportunities for clerical workers, especially men, lie in
business positions outside the limits of clerical work. Men clerical
workers average about the same pay as salesmen and more pay than
industrial workers. Women clerical workers receive more than either
saleswomen or industrial workers. Employment is much more regular in
clerical work than it is in salesmanship or industrial work. For men
clerical workers the wage opportunity is better in manufacturing and
trade than in some kinds of transportation business. For women it is
better in manufacturing and transportation than it is in trade. Men's
wages tend to be higher than women's in all branches of clerical work.
Among the clerical positions, bookkeeping shows the highest wage
average for men; clerks' positions show the lowest. Stenography shows
the highest for women; machine work the lowest. Men bookkeepers show
their best wage average in the wholesale business, clerks in
transportation, and stenographers in manufacturing. The small office
gives better wage opportunity to women bookkeepers and men
stenographers; the large office favors women stenographers and men
clerks.
For boys, there is some indication that advanced education and
commercial training, in their present status, are less closely related
to high wages than are personal qualities and experience. For girls,
the combination of high school education and business training is the
best preparation for wage advancement. A general high school education
and usually, business training, are essential to the assurance of even
a living wage. Business training based upon less than high school
education is almost futile.
THE PROBLEM OF TRAINING
Six chapters of the report are devoted to a consideration of the needs
and possibilities of training. The work now being done in the public
schools of the city is discussed in detail, with suggestions for a
better adaptation of the courses of study and methods and content of
instruction to the needs of boys and girls who wish to prepare
themselves to enter clerical occupations. The observations on training
for such work may be summarized as follows:
Commercial training should be open to all students whom commercial
subjects and methods can serve best; but graduation should depend upon
a high standard of efficiency.
Statistics show that commercial training is not to be looked upon, in
a wholesale way, as a successful means of taking care of backward
academic students.
Commercial students' need for cultural and other supplementary
education may be even greater than that of academic students.
The graduation rate of commercial students in public schools has been
increased since the organization of a separate commercial high school
and the number of students entering has been decreased.
Commercial high schools receive a grade of children who are about
medium in scholarship and normal in age.
Commercial and academic high school teachers are similar in scholastic
preparation and in the salaries they are paid.
The Cleveland Normal School does not prepare definitely for the
teaching of commercial subjects. Commercial teachers are nominally
supervised by the district superintendents.
Public schools receive 29 per cent of the city's day commercial
students. The private schools receive a few more than the sum of
public, parochial, and philanthropic schools.
Public schools receive 22 per cent of the city's night commercial
students. The private schools receive more than twice as many as the
public and philanthropic schools. There are no night commercial
classes in parochial schools.
The length of the day course in most private schools is eight months
or less; in public schools it is four years.
The public school, if it believes in longer preparation for commercial
work than most private schools give, should demonstrate the reason to
parents and children.
Training for boys and girls should be different in content and in
emphasis.
The usual course of study in commercial schools is suitable for girls
and unsuitable for boys.
A girl needs, chiefly, specific training in some one line of work. She
has a choice among stenography, bookkeeping, and machine operating.
A boy needs, chiefly, general education putting emphasis on writing,
figuring, and spelling; general information; and the development of
certain qualities and standards.
For students electing to go into commercial work, general education
may be taught more effectively through the medium of commercial
subjects than through academic ones.
Boys' training looks forward to both clerical work and business
administration; but as clerical work is a preparation for business and
is likely to occupy the first few years of wage earning, training
should aim especially to meet the needs of clerical positions.
Clerical positions for boys cover a variety of work which cannot be
definitely anticipated and cannot therefore be specifically trained
for. But certain fundamental needs are common to all.
Most of the specialized training for boys should be given in night
continuation classes.
Girl stenographers need a full high school course for its educational
value and for maturity. Girls going into other clerical positions can
qualify with a year or two less of education; but immaturity in any
case puts them at a disadvantage.
Boys' training, for those who cannot remain in school, should be
compressed into fewer than four years. Immaturity in the case of boys
is not a great disadvantage.
Bookkeeping has general value in the information it gives about
business methods and for its drill in accuracy. To some extent it may
aid in the development of reasoning.
Much of the bookkeeping in actual use in business consists in making
entries of one kind only and in checking and verifying. Understanding
of debit and credit, posting, and trial balance, is the maximum
practical need of the younger workers.
Penmanship demands compactness, legibility, neatness, and ease in
writing; also, the correct writing and placing of figures.
The chief demand of business in arithmetic is for fundamental
operations--adding and multiplying--also for ability to make
calculations and to verify results mentally.
Undergraduate experience in school or business offices may be a
valuable method of acquainting students with office practice and
routine and with business organization and business standards.
CHAPTER XIII
SUMMARY OF REPORT ON DEPARTMENT STORE OCCUPATIONS
The field covered in this volume is limited to the business of retail
selling as carried on in the department stores and some other stores
of Cleveland. The retail stores considered can all be assigned to one
of the three following classes: (1) The department store of the first
rank which draws trade not only from the whole city and the suburbs
but also from the towns and smaller cities of a large surrounding
district; (2) the neighborhood store which does a smaller business
within narrower limits, drawing its trade, as the name indicates, from
the immediate neighborhood; (3) the five and ten cent store, well
known by syndicate names, where no merchandise which must be sold
above 10 cents is carried.
DEPARTMENT STORES
The five largest department stores in Cleveland employ about 5,800
people distributed among several mercantile departments, and in a
variety of occupations that find a place in the industry. Of these
5,800 people approximately seven-tenths are women and three-tenths
are men; 90 per cent are over 18 years of age and 10 per cent are
under 18.
The entire force of a store is sometimes arbitrarily divided by the
management into "productive," and "non-productive" help. From 40 to 60
per cent of the employees were reported as actually taking in money,
while the remainder, the "non-producers," were engaged in keeping the
business going and making it possible for the "producers" to sell
goods.
The greatest number of opportunities either for employment or
promotion are in the selling force. This is often spoken as being "on
the floor." Both boys and girls may find employment here, though a
large majority of the sales force is made up of them. Speaking in
general terms, men are only employed to sell men's furnishings,
sporting goods, bulky merchandise, such as rugs, furniture, blankets,
etc., and yard goods which are difficult to handle, such as household
linens and dress goods. Positions as buyers and buyer's assistants are
not restricted by sex and boys and girls may both consider them as a
possible goal.
NEIGHBORHOOD STORES
A neighborhood store is that type of department store which draws its
trade from a comparatively limited area of which the store is the
center. The kind of goods carried are practically the same as in the
large department store and the variety of merchandise may be nearly as
great; but the selection is more limited because of the small stock.
Promotion to selling positions is more rapid in the neighborhood
stores than in regular department stores. One reason for this is that
a larger proportion of the force is "productive," _i.e._, selling.
This proportion may run as high as 80 or even 90 per cent, as compared
with the 40 to 60 per cent of "productive" help in large department
stores.
Employment in these stores is looked upon as desirable preliminary
training for service in larger department stores. This is the general
opinion held by those who hire the employees in the larger stores. The
selling experience gained in neighborhood stores is looked upon as
general, in that it gives an acquaintance with a variety of
merchandise rather than an extensive knowledge of any line of stock.
This experience makes the employee adaptable and resourceful. Another
advantage of neighborhood training for sales people is the fact that
they are brought into closer human relations with the customer and
thus learn the value of personality as a factor in making sales.
FIVE AND TEN CENT STORES
Cleveland had in the fall of 1915 six large stores where nothing
costing over 10 cents is sold. These belong to three syndicates or
chains. To show the extent to which this business has developed it may
be stated that the largest of these syndicates, which controls three
of the six Cleveland stores, has 747 branches in different parts of
the country.
The number of saleswomen in a single store ranges from 12 to 70. The
total number in the six stores was approximately 226. The shift in
this branch of retail trade is large, as there are continual changes
in the selling force. One store reported the number of new employees
hired in six months as being about equal to the average selling force.
The managers of the five and ten cent stores without exception stated
that they preferred to hire beginners who were without store
experience. The hours of work are longer and the conditions under
which the work is done are more trying than is usually the case in the
larger department stores.
The girl who expects her application for employment in the five and
ten cent store to be accepted must be 18 years old in order that she
may legally work after six o'clock. It is better for her to be without
previous selling experience (unless in other five and ten cent
stores), as employers in these stores prefer to train help according
to their own methods.
WAGES AND EMPLOYMENT
The wages paid beginners in the department stores are fair as compared
with other industries employing the same grade of help. Boys and girls
when they first enter employment receive from $3.50 to $7, depending
on the store where they get their first job. In addition to the salary
most department stores give bonuses or commissions through which the
members of the sales force may increase their compensation. The
Survey Staff worked out comparisons on the basis of data supplied by
the State Industrial Commission between the earnings of workers in
department store occupations and those in other industries. Diagram 3
shows graphically a comparison of the wages of women workers in six
different industries. An interesting point brought out by this graphic
comparison is that retail trade constitutes a much better field for
women's employment as compared with the great majority of positions
open to them in other lines than is commonly assumed to be the case.
This is brought out even more clearly in Table 15, which compares, on
a percentage basis, those who earn $12 a week and over, in all of the
industries of the city employing as many as 500 women in 1914.
[Illustration: Diagram 3.--Per cent of women earning each class of
weekly wages in each of six occupations]
TABLE 15.--PER CENT OF WOMEN EMPLOYEES OVER 18 YEARS OF AGE EARNING
$12 A WEEK AND OVER
Office employees, in retail and wholesale stores 31.8
Employees in women's clothing factories 22.5
Saleswomen in retail and wholesale stores 21.0
Employees in men's clothing factories 13.3
Employees in hosiery and knit goods factories 7.9
Employees in printing and publishing establishments 7.7
Employees in telephone and telegraph offices 6.3
Employees in laundries and dry cleaning establishments 4.4
Employees in cigar and tobacco factories 3.9
Employees in gas and electric fixtures concerns 3.2
If the data were for retail stores only and did not include wholesale
stores, then office work, which now stands at the head of the list,
would probably not make so good a showing, although the superiority
over the selling positions is, from the wage-earning standpoint, so
marked that there seems to be no escape from the conclusion that on
the whole women office workers are better paid than women in the sales
force. On the other hand the proportion of saleswomen earning $12 and
over is from nearly seven times as great to not far from twice as
great as it is in the factory industries, if we except the workers in
women's clothing factories, whose earnings per week are better than
those of the saleswomen.
With respect to the men employed on the sales force of the department
stores a somewhat different situation exists. In Diagram 4 a
comparison is made of the wages paid in sales positions with the wages
paid in clerical positions. Here it will be noted that men who sell
goods in retail and wholesale stores earn more on the average than men
occupying clerical positions, such as bookkeepers, stenographers, and
office clerks. This comparison does not include traveling salesmen. A
further comparison of the earnings of the men in stores with the
earnings of male workers (omitting office clerks) in the different
industries of the city employing the largest number of men is given in
Diagram 5, which shows the per cent in each industry earning $18 a
week and over.
[Illustration: Diagram 4.--Per cent of salesmen and of men clerical
workers in stores receiving each class of weekly wage]
In comparing wages in stores with those in the manufacturing
industries it must be not forgotten that the working day and week in
the larger stores is shorter than in most of the factories. Hence a
comparison of earnings on the basis of wage per hour would show a
still greater advantage in favor of both sales persons and clerical
workers.
[Illustration: Diagram 5.--Per cent of male workers in non-clerical
positions in six industries earning $18 per week and over]
REGULARITY OF EMPLOYMENT
In department store work and in nearly all branches of retail selling
there is a marked fluctuation in the number employed during the year.
Sales work in the department stores is seasonal in the sense that a
large number of extra sales women are taken on during the Christmas
season for a period of temporary employment, usually lasting from one
to two months. The proportion of the total working force for the whole
year employed in such transient jobs is approximately one-fourth. How
selling positions in retail and wholesale stores compare with other
fields of employment in this respect is seen in Diagram 6.
[Illustration: Diagram 6.--Per cent that the average number of women
employed during the year is of the highest number employed in each of
six industries]
OPPORTUNITIES FOR ADVANCEMENT
In regard to promotion in department stores it should be noted that as
a rule the executives are made in the business and are not, as in some
industries, brought in from the outside because they must have some
special training which the organization itself does not provide. Not
only in Cleveland but in other cities where studies of the same kind
have been made it has been found that practically all the people
holding important floor positions have come up from the ranks. The
various lines of promotion through the different departments are
analyzed in detail in the report.
THE PROBLEM OF TRAINING
That vocational training for department store employees is both
desirable and possible is proved by the fact that most of the large
stores in Cleveland make some provision for the instruction of their
workers. Some of these classes are carefully organized and excellently
taught with every promise of increasing in usefulness. Others employ
methods of instruction which belong to the academic school of an
earlier decade and give evidence that the problem of vocational
training with which they are presumably concerned is not even
understood.
From the standpoint of the school there are two well recognized kinds
of training possible for department store employees: trade preparatory
and trade extension training. Eventually it may prove practicable to
organize instruction of both kinds, but it is the opinion of the
author of the report that under present conditions the surest results
can be expected from trade extension training. In trade extension
instruction the members of the group to be dealt with have already
secured their foothold in the industry; and having mastered at least
the rudiments of their job they have acquired a basis of experience
which may be utilized for purposes of instruction. These people are
responsive to teaching organized with regard to their needs, for daily
experience is demonstrating to them their deficiencies.
The success of the proposed training will largely depend upon the
employment of simple and direct methods that shall place this
knowledge in the hands and head of the person or group needing it. The
application of this instruction must be immediate and practical and
must not be dependent upon the working out of a complicated course or
schedule.
The organization must be flexible enough to admit of bringing together
a group having a common need, although they may come from different
departments of the business. Since the unit of class organization is
not previous school experience or similar employment, it will be seen
that this class should be held only until the need is fully supplied
and should then give place to another organized on the same basis.
As in all vocational teaching, the size of the class should be
limited. To make this work really effective, the instructor should
come in sufficiently close contact with all pupils to enable him to
obtain a personal knowledge of their needs and capabilities. A further
necessity for small classes and individual instruction is found in the
fact that there is a constant shift of employees in the industry as
well as frequent accessions from the outside.
It readily can be seen that this is not a problem of the regular
school and that it cannot be met by ordinary classroom methods. Part
time or continuation classes, such as have already proved feasible for
other kinds of trade instruction, are the most practicable methods of
doing this work.
Classes for the instruction of employees are already maintained in the
majority of large stores. The extension of this plan of separate
responsibility is one way of meeting the problem. But this method has
certain obvious faults. The unequal opportunity which it affords to
department store employees as a body is a conspicuous drawback. The
value of the instruction so given, moreover, will always depend to a
large extent on the comprehension of the problem by the firm
maintaining the classes. The method involves much duplication of
effort, which is particularly wasteful when the instruction of small
groups is involved.
Another possible method would be for the several department stores to
get together and coöperate in providing instruction. There would seem
to be no reason why stores should not unite for this purpose as well
as for any other. The advantages of this method are economy of
maintenance and administration, the ability to command expert service,
and the possibility of securing and sharing the results of a great
variety of such experiences as does not consist of exclusive trade
secrets.
The number of people whom it would be necessary to employ exclusively
for the purpose of conducting these classes would be small as
compared with the results accomplished. Collectively these stores now
have in their employ a body of highly paid experts in all lines of
merchandise. A large amount of the most accurate technical knowledge
covering the work of all departments is already available in the
several stores. These are valuable resources which should be utilized
by a coöperative school of this kind.
For the head of such a school, it would be desirable to secure a man
or woman of more than usual ability and discernment who, above all
else, could sense the business and routine of each contributing store
from the standpoint of the employee and of store organization. It
would be the business of this person to become familiar with the
available sources of knowledge in the different stores and then
arrange for the presentation of this knowledge to the various classes.
By coöperation with the floor men, heads of sections and departments,
as well as with the employees themselves, he should come into close
contact with the requirements of the workers and should gather from
the different stores those who, because of their common need, can be
made into a "school unit." It would also be necessary to employ
assistants of practical experience who would attend to the details of
routine teaching, and act as interpreters for those experts who have
the knowledge but not the ability to impart it even to a small class.
It is realized that a scheme of this kind would involve the overcoming
of many objections and difficulties of adjustment before it could be
put into actual operation. It would necessitate mutual concessions and
forbearance on the part of everybody concerned, but the results would
unquestionably justify the labor.
A third method, already in operation in Boston, New York, and Buffalo,
calls for the coöperation of the stores and the schools. This
partnership, it is claimed, makes certain that the needs of the pupil
are considered before the demands of the business. It insures equal
opportunity for all employees so far as instruction is concerned and
it divides the expense of maintenance between the industry and the
school. It is to be regretted that this scheme frequently results in
the employment of teachers who, although certificated for regular
school work, have no other qualifications, instead of persons of
practical experience. The employment of such teachers too often leads
to the following of ordinary school practices and academic traditions
rather than the methods and practice of business.
In some quarters it is maintained that this instruction should be
entirely taken over by the public schools, thus relieving the store of
any responsibility in the matter. It is probably not now advisable for
the school to assume full responsibility for such training. The heavy
expense involved and the physical limitations of the schools would
make it difficult, without the coöperation of the store, to reproduce
the trade atmosphere necessary for real vocational training. As a
result, the instruction would become abstract and theoretical, with
the major portion of the effort limited to a continuation of
elementary school subjects taught with reference to their application
to department store work.
CHARACTER OF THE INSTRUCTION
The analysis of the industry shows that in each occupation or job
there is a definite amount of knowledge which must be acquired by the
efficient worker. A study of this analysis and of the examples of
technical knowledge needed by the worker at different points in the
industry will show that no such thing as a general course is possible.
In every case the character of the instruction should be such that it
will answer a definite need of the employee. What this instruction
should be in specific cases can be settled only, on the one hand, by a
thorough analysis of the occupation to determine what demands it makes
upon the workers, and on the other, by a careful study of the workers
themselves to ascertain how far they have been unable to meet these
demands without assistance. Lessons can then be organized dealing with
such subject matter as individuals or groups have failed to grasp, the
lack of which limits their efficiency or restricts their usefulness.
It can readily be seen that this instruction will cover a wide range
of subjects, from the use of fractions needed by checkers and
salesgirls in yard goods sections, to the special technical knowledge
of fine furs required by the salesperson who handles this
merchandise.
The method by which this instruction can best be given is in a series
of short unit courses. In every case the length of the course is to be
determined by the subject matter. For instance, two one-half hour
lessons may be a "course," when this time is sufficient for the
necessary teaching.
The group or class to which this instruction is given might be made up
of those who need the same technical knowledge, although they might
expect to make a different application of this instruction. For
instance, the unit course on silks might be given to a group composed
of salespeople from the silk section, the waists and gowns section,
and the section of men's neckwear.
The report gives detailed examples of the kinds of technical knowledge
needed in the different departments of the store. It maintains that
such instruction cannot be successfully given by regular school
teachers. As in other industries the teacher needs actual experience
in the occupation for which training is given. Academic training and
teaching experience are desirable and valuable, but among the
qualifications demanded of a teacher of this kind they are of
secondary importance.
The final chapter of the report contains valuable instructions for
young persons who desire to secure positions in retail trade. These
instructions cover such matters as work papers, methods of securing a
position, and requirements for employment in various kinds of
department store work.
CHAPTER XIV
SUMMARY OF REPORT ON THE GARMENT TRADES
The clothing industry in Cleveland has grown very rapidly in recent
years. During the 10 year period from 1900-10 the number of persons
employed in the industry increased approximately 100 per cent. This
increase was much greater than the increase throughout the country as
a whole and was more than twice as large as the increase in the
population of the city. There is every indication that this rapid
growth is still continuing. It is estimated that approximately 10,000
workers are employed in the industry at the present time.
The distribution of men and women in the industry is most interesting.
The making of men's garments has been more fully standardized and is
subject to fewer changes than the making of women's garments. In this
standardized and systematized branch of the industry the women now
outnumber the men. In the manufacture of women's garments, where the
styles change more frequently and the work is of a more varied
character, more men than women are employed.
The methods of work are of three general types: The old tailoring
system known as "team work," or a slight modification of it; piece
operating; and section work. Under the team system, used extensively
in the making of women's coats, a head tailor hires his own helpers
(operators and finishers), supervises them and pays them by the week
out of the lump sum he receives for the garments from the clothing
establishment. Under the piece operating system each operator sews up
all the seams on one "piece," or garment, and each finisher does all
the hand sewing on one garment. Each operator and each finisher is an
independent worker. The whole body of finishers keeps pace with the
whole body of operators. Piece operating is used almost entirely in
dress and skirt making, and to some extent in coat making. The section
system is based on the subdivision of processes into a number of minor
operations. The workers are divided into groups, each group making a
certain part of the garment. The various operations are divided into
as many minor operations as the number of workers and quantity and
kind of materials will warrant. Each of these minor operations is
performed by operators who do nothing else. This specialization has
been carried to a high degree in the manufacture of men's clothing,
and section work is increasingly used on women's coats.
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE WORKING FORCE
One of the objects of the study was to find how many positions there
are for men and women in each occupation in the industry. Through the
coöperation of employers data were obtained from the records of 50
establishments employing a total of 8,337 garment workers,
approximately four-fifths of the total number in the city. The
distribution of workers by sex in the various occupations is shown in
Diagram 7. The apportioning of work to the two sexes seems to depend
partly upon the weight of materials and partly upon previous training.
The men are mostly foreign born tailors who have had the kind of
training necessary for the more complicated work. The women are
largely American born of foreign parentage, trained in American shops
and employed chiefly upon operations that may be learned in a
relatively short time. Cutting and pressing are practically
monopolized by men. Nearly all hand sewers are women, except for a few
basters on men's clothing. Most designers are men, although a few
women designers are found in dress and waist shops.
In the largest trade,--machine operating,--about two-thirds of the
workers are women. In no trade in which both sexes are employed is the
difference in their work more apparent. The weight of materials
decides to some extent the division of operating between men and
women. Some employers are of the opinion that garments made of such
thick materials as plush, corduroys, and cheviots are too heavy to be
manipulated under needle machinery by women and consequently employ
only men operators. Where light weight materials are used, as in the
manufacture of dresses and waists, delicacy in handling is required,
and nearly all the operators are women.
[Illustration: Diagram 7.--Distribution of 8,337 clothing workers by
sex in the principal occupations in the garment industry]
Four-fifths of the men and two-fifths of the women employed in the
industry are of foreign birth and the majority of the native born
workers are of foreign parentage. There is an increasing demand for
workers who understand English, due to the fact that they are able to
follow directions more intelligently.
There are relatively few workers under the age of 18. Many firms will
employ no one under this age because of various complications which
arise in connection with the age and schooling certification of girls
between the ages of 16 and 18. Of 25 women's clothing factories
visited during the Survey only nine had any workers under 18.
According to the report of the Industrial Commission of Ohio for 1914
only eight per cent of the workers employed in making men's clothing,
and less than two per cent of the workers employed in making women's
clothing were under 18 years of age.
EARNINGS
In general the wages paid in garment making compare favorably with
those of other manufacturing industries. This is particularly true
with respect to the earnings of women workers. A considerably larger
proportion of the women employed in the garment industry earn what may
be considered high wages for industrial workers than in any of the
larger factory industries of the city. This is clearly shown in
Diagram 8 which lists nine of the principal fields of industrial
employment for women. The proportions of women receiving under $8 a
week are lower in men's and women's clothing than in the other seven
industries. In the proportion of women receiving $12 and over, women's
clothing ranks first and men's clothing third.
[Illustration: Diagram 8.--Percentage of women in men's and women's
clothing and seven other important women employing industries
receiving under $8, $8 to $12, and $12 and over per week.]
The comparison of the wages paid men employees shown in Diagram 9 is
somewhat less favorable. Women's clothing ranks with printing and
publishing as to the proportion of male workers receiving the highest
specified earnings per week. Men's clothing ranks sixth among the
industries compared.
The various kinds of work do not command fixed wage rates, as do many
other types of industrial employment. Quantity of output as well as
quality of workmanship is an important factor in the determination of
wages. Men generally turn out a greater output than women on the same
kind of work and piece workers usually earn more than those paid by
the week. The lowest, average, and highest wages for each of the
principal occupations in the two branches of the industry are shown in
Tables 16 and 17.
One reason often given for the higher earnings received by workers on
women's garments is the greater irregularity of employment in this
branch of the industry. This, however, does not sufficiently account
for the difference. The most weighty reason is that a higher degree of
adaptability is required of workers than is the case in the
manufacture of men's clothing.
[Illustration: Diagram 9.--Percentage of men in men's and women's
clothing and seven other manufacturing industries receiving under $18,
$18 to $25, and $25 and over per week]
TABLE 16.--WAGES FOR FULL-TIME WORKING WEEK, WOMEN'S CLOTHING,
CLEVELAND, 1915
---------------------------------------+--------+----------+---------+
Workers | Lowest | Average | Highest |
---------------------------------------+--------+----------+---------+
Assorters, women | $6.00 | $8.75 | $14.00 |
Hand sewers, women | 6.00 | 10.00 | 20.00 |
Trimming girls | 7.00 | 10.25 | 15.00 |
Operators,* women | 6.00 | 12.00 | 30.00 |
Sample makers, women | 10.00 | 12.75 | 15.00 |
Examiners, women | 8.00 | 13.50 | 18.00 |
Models, suit and cloak | 10.00 | 15.25 | 21.00 |
Forewomen | 9.00 | 16.25 | 25.00 |
Operators,* men | 7.00 | 17.75 | 50.00 |
Pressers, men | 9.00 | 18.25 | 35.00 |
Cutters,§ men | 8.00 | 19.25 | 30.00 |
Pattern graders, suit and cloak, men | 13.00 | 22.00 | 27.50 |
Sample makers, men | 13.00 | 22.50 | 25.00 |
Examiners, men | 16.00 | 25.00 | 45.00 |
Head tailors, men | 18.00 | 25.00 | ... |
Foremen | 14.00 | 30.00 | 75.00 |
---------------------------------------+--------+----------+---------+
*: Includes piece and section operators and helpers to head tailors
§: Includes all cutters except foremen, apprentices, and pattern graders
TABLE 17.--AVERAGE WAGES FOR FULL-TIME WORKING WEEK FOR SIMILAR
WORKERS, MEN'S AND WOMEN'S CLOTHING, CLEVELAND, 1915
---------------------------------------+--------------+--------------+
Workers | Men's | Women's |
| clothing | clothing |
---------------------------------------+--------------+--------------+
Hand sewers, women | $9.50 | $10.00 |
Section operators, women | 9.25 | 11.25 |
Examiners, women | 7.00 | 13.50 |
Section operators, men | 16.50 | 15.25 |
Pressers, under | 12.00 | 15.75 |
Forewomen | 11.00 | 16.25 |
Pressers, upper | 18.50 | 19.50 |
Cutters, cloth | 18.75 | 20.00 |
Examiners, men | 17.75 | 25.00 |
Foremen | 29.25 | 30.00 |
---------------------------------------+--------------+--------------+
REGULARITY OF EMPLOYMENT
The making of women's clothing is seasonal, to meet a seasonal
purchasing demand. Most people purchase their summer clothes in April
and May, and their winter clothes in October and November. During the
months previous to these purchasing seasons a large number of workers
are needed, but after the height of the purchasing period employment
becomes less and less steady until the first demands of the new season
are felt. During the rush season a greater number of workers is
employed, or the output may be augmented by increasing the speed at
which the work is performed or the number of hours in the working day.
A combination of these methods is frequently used. During dull periods
the workers may be busy from a few hours a week to full working time;
while in rush periods they may work not only the regular working
hours, but in addition a good deal of over-time.
Compared with other manufacturing industries as regards regularity of
employment men's clothing makes an excellent showing while women's
clothing ranks low. In Diagram 10 the average number of unemployed
among each 100 workers is shown for men's and women's clothing and for
15 other large manufacturing industries in the city. Men's clothing
leads the list, with an average unemployment of four among each 100
workers, while women's clothing ranks 14th, with 15 among each 100.
TRAINING AND PROMOTION
Designers learn their work through apprenticeships to custom tailors
and cutters and by taking supplementary courses in drafting and
grading of patterns in a designing school. Most designers in
Cleveland have had training in designing schools in New York or
Chicago.
[Illustration: Diagram 10.--The black portions of the bars show the
average number of unemployed among each 100 workers in men's clothing,
women's clothing and 15 other specified industries]
With but few exceptions organized training for machine operating is
found only in the largest establishments. There is general agreement
among employers that it takes a girl who has never operated a machine
before about four weeks to learn an easy operation well enough to be
taken on at regular piece rates. A much longer time is required to
become a first class worker on a single operation, and to acquire
skill in a group of operations takes from one to two years.
Girls are not usually employed as hand sewers unless they know how to
do plain sewing. A girl who starts with this knowledge should be able
to learn factory sewing well enough to earn fair wages within from six
months to a year.
In cutting, which has a so-called apprenticeship lasting from two to
six years, there is no formal system of instruction. Boys must pick up
the trade from observation and practice. Beginners start as errand
boys, cloth boys, bundlers, or helpers.
Pressing is usually learned in cleaning and pressing shops. It takes
about eight weeks for a green hand to become a good seam presser. To
become a final presser on skirts and dresses requires from six months
to a year, and on jackets and cloaks from two to three years.
Examiners have usually had considerable previous experience as machine
operators or finishers. The length of experience depends on the kinds
of garments and ranges from three to eight years.
Trimmers and assorters learn their work as helpers to experienced
employees. A year or so of experience is required before they can be
entrusted with responsible work.
Foremen are selected from the working force or, in a few cases,
trained especially for their positions. Although there are few
opportunities each year for advancement to foremanship, employers
declare they cannot get enough persons of ability to fill vacancies. A
study of the previous experience of foremen and forewomen made by the
survey shows that they come from nearly every department of the
factory. The length of previous experience among the cases studied
ranged from three months to nine years.
EDUCATIONAL NEEDS
The quality which proprietors of garment making establishments value
above all others in their employees is adaptability. The reason for
this is that the manufacturing of clothing differs from almost all
other kinds of industrial work in the frequency with which changes
take place in the size and shape of the product and in the range of
materials which must be handled by the same workers. There is an
annual change in the weight of cloth used for the different seasons,
from light to heavy and from heavy to light. The size and shape of the
pieces which compose the finished garment are determined by changes in
style which vary from the minor modifications occurring yearly in
men's clothing to the radical changes in the style of women's
clothing. A wide variety of fabrics is employed, ranging from thick to
thin, smooth to rough, closely woven to loosely woven and from plain
weave to fancy weave. In one season a single establishment will make
garments from as many as 200 different fabrics, and each operator is
likely to work upon 60 or more different kinds of cloth.
In view of the fact that many of the workers are foreigners or of
foreign parentage, and that the frequent changes in styles and
materials require the giving of detailed instructions by foremen,
instruction in English is of more importance in the garment trades
than in occupations where there is a larger proportion of native born
and where the products and processes are more uniformly standardized.
All clothing workers should have a practical knowledge of the
fundamental operations of arithmetic. Where the piece and section
systems are in operation it is important for the worker to keep
account of what she has accomplished and to know enough arithmetic to
check her own record with the tally kept by the foreman or payroll
girl. Some of the occupations, such as cutting, involve a considerable
amount of arithmetical computation.
As in other trades, all workers and prospective workers need a general
knowledge of industrial conditions. They would greatly benefit from a
better understanding of the supply of labor, factors affecting prices,
organization of workers, industrial legislation, the relative
importance of the field of employment in different industries, the
nature of important industrial processes, and the like. At the present
time there is little opportunity for gaining such information either
before entering any specific line of work or afterwards.
For certain small groups within the clothing industry there are needs
in the way of technical training that are important and at present
unsupplied. Training in applied mathematics, drafting and design would
be of benefit to a considerable number of employees who are occupying
or working towards advanced positions.
A large proportion of the women workers need skill in hand sewing.
Before girls enter the industry they should have careful and
systematic training in plain sewing stitches, sewing on buttons and
other fasteners, and button hole making.
Machine operating is the most important occupation in the industry,
and employs more women than any other occupation in the city, except
perhaps dressmaking. After a careful study of the characteristics of
this occupation and the various conditions affecting it, the survey
reached the conclusion that there should be established by the school
system a trade course for prospective power machine operators.
SEWING COURSES IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS
In the elementary schools manual training sewing is given in the fifth
and sixth grades. It consists of one hour a week of hand sewing taught
by a regular grade teacher or sometimes by teachers of domestic
science or other special subjects. The aim is to give the girls a
knowledge of practical sewing which may be of use to them in the home.
In five of the elementary schools hand and machine sewing is taught by
special sewing teachers. About four per cent of all the seventh and
eighth grade girls in the elementary schools receive this instruction.
In the technical high schools the sewing course covers four years
work. During the first two years all girls are required to take plain
hand and machine sewing three and three-quarter hours a week. In the
third and fourth years they may elect either millinery or dressmaking,
and special courses in these subjects are provided for girls who wish
to prepare for trade work. The aim of the sewing course as stated in
the outline of the East Technical High School is "(1) Preparation for
efficiency in the selection of the materials used in sewing and the
construction of articles relating to the home and family sewing: (2)
laying the foundation for courses in college, normal school, or
business school." A two year elective course in sewing is provided in
the academic high school as a part of the home economic course. The
aim of this sewing, which is called domestic art, is stated thus:
"Problem--my personal appearance is one of my chief assets. What can I
do to improve it?" Dressmaki
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