, is that
parents of working class children are penurious; or that they are too
ignorant to understand the deteriorating effect of factory life on
children; or that they are too hard pressed in their physical needs to
consider the best interest of the children. This reason given for the
failure of the schools to supply children with matter of interest or
significance to them, explained only why children did not want to stay
in school; it did not explain their eagerness to enter industry. None
of the reasons accounted for the zest of the children for wage earning
occupation.

The failure of the schools to hold the children gave educators who
recognized the artificial character of school curricula, their best
reason for introducing matter relating to industrial life. The
children's preference was indeed a valuable indication where reality
or real subject matter would be found. The change off from old school
subject matter to instruction in methods of industry was a logical
experiment. But the movement for industrial education was not inspired
by a watchful sympathetic observation of children's needs; it was in
line with the general theory, more or less accepted, that schools
should be a reflection of the children's environment; it was in line
with the demand of employers for efficient workers either equipped for
specific processes or adaptable to factory methods.

If the promoters of industrial education had been observers of
children from twelve to fourteen and sixteen years, they would have
found that as they left school they were eager not for skill in
technical processes, not for wages, not for greater freedom of
association in adult life, not for any of these alone, but for all of
these as they were a part of the adventure of the adult world in which
they lived. "We have neglected to study the most vital thing in the
situation, namely the zests of the young ... we have not taken account
of the nature of the great upheaval at the dawn of the teens, which
marks the pubescent ferment and which requires distinct change in the
matter and method of education. This instinct is far stronger and has
more very ostensive outcrops than in any other age and land, and it is
less controlled by the authority of school or the home. It is a period
of very rapid, if not fulminating psychic expansion. It is the natal
hour of new curiosities, when adult life first begins to exert its
potent charm. It is an age of exploration, of great