A Report on Vocational Training in Chicago and in Other Cities
Letter to the Board of Directors of the City Club of Chicago
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To the Board of Directors of the City Club of Chicago:
GENTLEMEN, -- The subjoined report has been in process of growth since the latter part of 1909. The committee of the club on Public Education for 1909-10 presented to the directors of the club, in November, 1909, a plan for the study of the needs for industrial and commercial training in Chicago, of the actual training which is given there, and especially of the industrial and commercial training which is given elsewhere in the country. The plan was presented by the board to Mrs. Emmons Blaine, whose generosity made it possible to meet the expenses of the investigation. Mr. Ernest A. Wreidt undertook for the committee a detailed study of the problem of industrial training in Chicago and elsewhere in the country. The committee secured the services for a few months of Mr. Walter C. Campbell to study the problem of commercial training in Chicago, and the commercial schools and courses in Boston, Cleveland and St. Louis. At the suggestion of the committee, Mr. Irving M. Ristine made an intensive study of the results of the schooling of a number of boys engaged in Chicago's industries, who had left school at different grades from the fifth up. These three gentlemen were engaged in research in education in the graduate school of the University of Chicago, and at certain points were given advice and suggestions by members of the faculty of the Department of Education of the ]University, for which we wish to express our great appreciation.
When this material had been gathered it was turned over by the club Committee on Public Education for 1910-11 to a sub-committee consisting of Mr. Wreidt, who had in the meantime become a member of the Committee on Public Education, Mr. William J. Bogan, principal of the Lane Technical High School, and Mr. George H. Mead, the chairman of the committee. This sub-committee has been occupied up to the present time in formulating its recommendations and in putting the material in form for submission to your body. These recommendations were presented in outline by the sub-committee to the Committee on Public Education iii June, 1911, and were approved by that committee. Beyond this the responsibility
(vi) for the report rests upon the sub-committee. The report has not been considered by the committee of the club on Public Education for 1911-12.
We desire in presenting this report to express our own great appreciation of Mrs. Emmons Blaine's intelligent interest and generosity, also our appreciation of the cordial cooperation of the Chicago Association of Commerce with the sub-committee in investigating the conditions and needs of industrial training in Chicago. The Education Committee of that association recommended such cooperation to the Executive Committee of that body, and that committee gave the sub-committee assistance of the most valuable kind, furnishing letters signed by their president, the chairman of the Executive Committee and the general secretary, to all the chairmen of their subdivisions, thus facilitating approach to the different houses and manufacturing establishments in Chicago. We wish to express our great appreciation of the ready cooperation of the Committee on Schools of the Chicago Federation of Labor, who turned over to us the replies made by the unions comprised in the Federation of Labor, to the questionnaire which is quoted in our report. We desire, finally, to express our great appreciation of the frequent assistance given us by Mrs. Young, Superintendent of Education in Chicago, and by others in the office of the Superintendent of Education.
With this preface, we respectfully present to you the following report on Vocational Training in Chicago and in other cities.
ERNEST A. WREIDT,
WILLIAM ,J. BOGAN,
GEORGE H. MEAD, chairman,
Sub-committee.
March 12, 1912.
