Historical Essays on Apprenticeship and Vocational Education

by Jonathan French Scott

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1914. ... CHAPTER VII. ECONOMIC REASONS FOR VOCATIONAL EDUCATION IN AMERICA A study of the history of education reveals the fact that educational movements and educational systems are, in far greater measure than is generally realized, the outgrowth of social and economic conditions. Education is the attempt of a civilization to perpetuate what it believes to be most vital in itself. This attempt is sometimes so successful, however, that a type or a phase of education often persists beyond its time of real usefulness. Suited to the conditions of one period, it has little value in a later age when the social forces that gave it birth have passed away. The study of rhetoric at Rome, of intense practical value in the time of Cicero, when the state needed orators to defend its liberties, became the useless ornament of a decadent nobility when the Roman Empire fell under the sway of the imperial hierarchy. When a type of education has thus persisted and lost its value there comes, sooner or later, the demand for a readjustment to the life of the times and the construction of a new type, or types which will more perfectly mirror the age. Such a readjustment is taking place today in America; there is a deep-seated demand that education be brought in touch with "life." Much under discussion at the present time is the movement for further vocational education, which some believe to be a passing fad, others the product of enduring causes of varied character--psychological, sociological, and economic. The aim of the present chapter is to examine certain of the economic factors underlying this movement and thus to show that in future this type of education is likely to be of greater importance than some of its most ardent admirers now realize. Reprinted from the Pedagogical ...

36 pages, Paperback

Published January 31, 2012