Secretary Davis of U.S. Department of Labor says the old apprentice system can never be revived in our country with labor organizations, and divisions of labor into specialties. Too few trades offer young men an opportunity to learn by direct contact.
Our entire educational system is tending toward producing professional classes, with almost no relation to industry and production. Secretary Davis, speaking before the National Society for vocational Education, said it was a mistake to turn out 90 per cent of the young people equipped only for “white collar” occupations.
As a matter of fact in almost any community, by actual count, only 10 per cent of jobs are the “white collar” class. Mr. Davis, himself a product of the workshop, warns us that our country cannot be kept in lead as [an] industrial nation under this system.
Labor organizations shutting young men out from learning trades, and schools and colleges turning out nine professionals when only one is needed, will not maintain our hold upon the trade of the world.
Our country will have to learn the lesson once more that labor and productive industry are the foundation of prosperity and our boys and girls must be made to realize that it is not undignified to toil with one’s hands.
From the editorial page of The Sandhill Citizen, Southern Pines, N.C., Friday, January 18, 1924
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