any
one of them may well take precedence over the matter of whether the
tastes of the future wage earner run to wood, brick, stone or steel."

This conclusion is fatalistic, but it is a brave one. It does not fall
back on weak substitutes for reality; it does not throw the glamor of
history and the aesthetics of industry around trades with the poor
hope that they make up for the content which is not there; it does
not foster the assumption that training in technique of industry or
physical science can enrich, under the circumstances, the worker's
experience to any important extent. It accepts the bald truth that all
the material classed as cultural will count for nothing of value in a
factory worker's life in comparison with the highest possible wage in
the most enervating of industries. It stresses this highly important
factor, as it should, but merely as a physical necessity. There
is vital education in the consciousness of self-support, in the
consciousness that one is earning the living one gets. But under
present conditions the educational experience of wage recompense is
not so significant as it might be if it measured the value of the
labor performed; if it paid the worker according to his needs, and if
he gave in return for the wage according to his ability.

The Gary school system is a notable effort in public school education
to fulfill children's desire for productive experience. It is in
striking contrast to the German scheme as it is based on processes
which have educational force and significance. In saying this I
differentiate between training for industry and participation in
the industrial activity which is an organic part of the life of the
children and of the community. The children are an actual part of the
repair and construction working force on Gary school buildings and on
the equipment. As the children are involved in the upkeep of a school
it becomes their school. They experience the responsibility of
maintaining the school plant, not by some artificial scheme of
participation, but by the actual application of trade standards and
acquired technique to operations which have for them and those with
whom they live important significance. They gain in their work a first
hand knowledge of industrial processes and activity. In conjunction
with skilled mechanics they work on the carpentry, the plumbing, the
masonry, the installation of electricity used in the school building.
They do the school prin