Library Collections: Document: Full Text


Industrial Education

From: The Seventieth Annual Report Of The Directors And Officers Of The American Asylum At Hartford For The Education And Instruction Of The Deaf And Dumb
Creator: n/a
Date: 1886
Publisher: The Case, Lockwood & Brainard Co., Hartford
Source: Perkins School for the Blind

Next Page   All Pages 


Page 1:

1  

INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION.

2  

Industrial training for the youth of our land is a subject receiving marked attention at the present day. Educators, reformers, and philanthropists unite in urging it forward as a crying need of the times. The idea is not a novel one in schools for deaf-mutes. Almost from the foundation of this school, industrial training has formed an important part of the education of every able-bodied pupil. So long ago as 1824, two shops had been built for the use of our pupils. If I am not mistaken, this school was the pioneer in this country of conjoint industrial and literary education, and most of the schools for the deaf in the United States have followed its example.

3  

The success of the experiment, undertaken by the managers of the school with many misgivings at first, very soon demonstrated its wisdom. The habits of industry here acquired clung to the pupils as they went forth to the duties of life, and with rare exceptions they have been industrious, self-supporting, law-abiding citizens, not ashamed to work, and having the knowledge and skill to do their work well.

4  

This double education is insisted upon in the case of every pupil. Sometimes, in mistaken kindness, parents plead to have their children excused from the industrial training, as they will not need to work for a living, or, at least, will not pursue the trades taught here. We can make no exceptions on such grounds. Habits of industry are invaluable, and they should be acquired at the formative period of life. It is of much less importance what one learns to do, than that one should learn to do promptly and well whatever one undertakes. With industrious habits, a trained eye, a skilled hand, and cultivated judgment, one may acquire a new trade with comparative ease, but where all these are wanting, to start on any new line of work is a difficult task.

5  

Our pupils receive instruction in three trades, viz.: cabinet-making, shoe-making, and tailoring. At present there are thirty-six boys at work in the cabinet-shop, twenty-seven boys in the shoe-shop, and twenty-three boys and four girls in the tailors' shop. Most of the girls learn to sew and to do some of the lighter parts of house-work.

6  

In the cabinet-shop the boys learn how to use wood-working tools, and when they have finished their school course, they find it comparatively easy to secure employment in carpenter shops, furniture establishments, or in any other occupation in which that class of tools is used. Those who return to farm life find the knowledge which they have obtained in this branch of instruction valuable in saving the cost of repairs and in the manufacture of many needed and useful articles. The cabinet-shop is supplied with power for the turning-lathe and heavy sawing, but the rest of the work here, as all of that in the shoe-shop and the tailors'-shop, is performed by hand, as the object is not to turn off a large amount of work, but to teach boys the use and proper care of tools.

7  

Shoe-making has proved a useful trade for many boys, as it requires very little capital. One can start in the trade almost anywhere, and very seldom does a good cobbler fail to find sufficient work to make a comfortable living.

8  

Boys in the tailors-shop remain there only until they are large enough to enter one of the other shops.

9  

Drawing is carefully taught in order to cultivate the hand and the eye, and as a preparation for understanding working plans in the mechanical arts, and as laying the foundation for designing and other art work with those who show special talent in those lines.

10  

We do not expect our boys to become thorough masters of their trades before leaving school, but we do expect every boy, who has even a fair amount of mechanical ability, to understand well the use of his tools; to know how to keep them in good order and to do good work. Some of the work in black walnut, done to order by our older boys in the cabinet-shop, would do credit to any journeyman cabinet-maker. This knowledge of tools and the degree of skill attained in their use give the deaf young man a vantage ground on which to stand in the competition with his more favored hearing rival. It shifts to his own end of the beam the weight which, other things being equal, would naturally be in the opposite side of the balance.

11  

Every boy in the shops has the same opportunity to learn, but of course all do not make the same progress. Among the pupils there is the same diversity of mechanical as of literary ability, but it is often the case that the boy, who excels in the school-room, takes but an inferior rank as a mechanic, and vice versa.

12  

This double comparison and competition have a beneficial effect upon the character. The boy, who grows discouraged by seeing himself constantly outstripped in the school-room, has his courage revived and regains his self-respect by seeing his own superior success in mechanical work, and the boy whose vanity thrives on his easy superiority in the school-room is brought to a more just estimate of himself by seeing how easily another surpasses him at his trade. Thus each is led to a fairer judgment of, and greater respect for, the other.

Next Page

Pages:  1  2  3    All Pages