but a normal development, and therefore that we must have a unit and
not a dual system. Only thus can we insure that vocational education
will remain education at all and not just provide a training-school
for docile labor as an annex and a convenient entrance hall to the
factory system. Only thus can we insure democracy in the control of
this new branch of public activity. Only thus can the primary schools
be kept in touch with the advanced classes, so that the teacher, from
the very kindergarten up, may feel that she is a part of a complete
whole. Then indeed will all teachers begin to echo the cry of one whom
I heard say: "You ask us to fit the children for the industries. Let
us see if the industries are fit for the children."

Another point in which we must somewhat modify any European model is
in the limited training provided for girls. A country which is
frankly coeducational in its public schools, state universities and
professional colleges, must continue to be so when installing a new
educational department to meet the changed and changing conditions of
our time.

The parliament of organized labor in the United States has taken a
liberal view and laid down an advanced program on the subject of
vocational training. In 1908 the American Federation of Labor
appointed a committee on industrial education consisting of nineteen
members, of whom two were women, Agnes Nestor, International Secretary
of the Glove Workers' Union, and Mrs. Raymond Robins, President of the
National Women's Trade Union League of America. Its very first report,
made in 1909, recommended that the Federation should request the
United States Department of Commerce and Labor to investigate the
subject of industrial education in this country and abroad.