“A BILL

“To establish a general system of industrial education in the territories of the United States and insular dependencies.PBE 232.3

“Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled: That there shall be established in all the territories subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the United States, including the District of Columbia and the recently-acquired islands, a system of primary industrial education, to the end that all children may become intelligent, skilful, efficient, and self-supporting citizens.PBE 232.4

“Section 2.—That in these schools agriculture and the ordinary arts of civilized life shall be taught practically to all youth who apply between the ages of thirteen and eighteen. Instruction shall include the sciences which underlie these arts, and every pupil shall be required to work with his hands not less than four hours daily under the direction of such schools, with adequate farms, buildings, and a competent force of teachers, and that such schools be free of debt; provided further, that all pupils shall work with their hands for four hours daily for five days of each week of the term.”PBE 232.5

Of the need and the value of this, Prof. Edward Daniells, of Washington, D. C., wrote thus:—PBE 233.1

“This system will cost millions, but it will soon return tenfold.PBE 233.2

“Ignorance is the curse of the land! Not of books, but that more dangerous kind that, wrapped in the conceit of shallow culture, poses for learning and deceives the masses! The old monkish system has had its day; what was good in it has been lost in the growth of the moss and fungus of ages. The mentality of childhood is stunted, dwarfed, and smothered. In the cities it is already yielding to nature study, manual training, and some slight ameliorations. But the country youth are growing up in hopeless savagery in many states.”PBE 233.3

In urging “The Needs of American Public Education” in order to redeem it from its “many and grievous shortcomings and failures.” in a public address delivered before the Rhode Island Institute of Instruction, Oct. 23, 1902, President Eliot so admirably covered the whole ground that we can do no better than to present the principal points of that address.PBE 233.4