persons to one another. If an individual
is not able to earn his own living and that of the children dependent
upon him, he is a drag or parasite upon the activities of others. He
misses for himself one of the most educative experiences of life. If he
is not trained in the right use of the products of industry, there
is grave danger that he may deprave himself and injure others in his
possession of wealth. No scheme of education can afford to neglect
such basic considerations. Yet in the name of higher and more spiritual
ideals, the arrangements for higher education have often not only
neglected them, but looked at them with scorn as beneath the level of
educative concern. With the change from an oligarchical to a democratic
society, it is natural that the significance of an education which
should have as a result ability to make one's way economically in the
world, and to manage economic resources usefully instead of for mere
display and luxury, should receive emphasis.

There is, however, grave danger that in insisting upon this end,
existing economic conditions and standards will be accepted as final.
A democratic criterion requires us to develop capacity to the point of
competency to choose and make its own career. This principle is violated
when the attempt is made to fit individuals in advance for definite
industrial callings, selected not on the basis of trained original
capacities, but on that of the wealth or social status of parents. As a
matter of fact, industry at the present time undergoes rapid and abrupt
changes through the evolution of new inventions. New industries spring
up, and old ones are revolutionized. Consequently an attempt to train
for too specific a mode of efficiency defeats its own purpose. When the
occupation changes its methods, such individuals are left behind
with even less ability to readjust themselves than if they had a less
definite training. But, most of all, the present industrial constitution
of society is, like every society which has ever existed, full of
inequities. It is the aim of progressive education to take part in
correcting unfair privilege and unfair deprivation, not to perpetuate
them. Wherever social control means subordination of individual
activities to class authority, there is danger that industrial education
will be dominated by acceptance of the status quo. Differences
of economic opportunity then dictate what the future callings of
individuals are to be. We hav