Page images
PDF
EPUB

Graduates of the Rochester Shop School.-The records of 36 graduates of the Rochester Shop School were compared with those of 696 other boys in the same city who left the grammar school at 14 to 16 years of age. The boys are admitted to this shop school at 14 years of age. The 36 spent on the average 14.9 months in the school. The average wage of these shop-trained boys on leaving the school was $7.50 per week, which rose to $9.06 by the end of 12.5 months. The untrained boys, on the other hand, averaged only $4.89 per week during the year and had changed jobs on the average every 17 weeks, whereas the trained boys held their jobs on the average, for 12.5 months. Over 95 per cent of the untrained boys were still in the unskilled occupations with no outlet or hope of promotion, whereas 94 per cent of the trained boys were in skilled industries with good prospects of promotion.1

Earnings of graduates of Lowell Textile School. The authorities. of the Textile School of Lowell, Mass., are quoted in the American School Board Journal1 as follows:

Results of a recent canvass of the alumni lead to the belief that nearly 60 per cent of the graduates from the day classes are receiving a salary of over $1,000 a year; 20 per cent are receiving $2,000 a year and over, with some cases of $4,000, $5,000, and $7,000 salaries. The first graduate has not yet been out from the school 10 years.

Earning power of graduates of Newark Evening Technical School.The New Jersey commission on industrial education in 1908 made a careful study of the salaries of the graduates of the Newark Technical School, which had been in existence long enough (since 1884) to show clearly what was the effect of its training. Definite information as to salaries received was secured from 85 per cent of these graduates. The condition of the other 15 per cent was looked into by the commission enough to convince them that the results secured from the 85 per cent would apply equally well to those from whom they did not get definite replies to their questions. These students carried on remunerative work at the same time that they were studying in this school. The average graduate was found to have begun his work at 14 years of age at a salary of $3.55 per week, and to have risen rapidly until at 37 years of age the average salary was $42.03 per week. Those in the machine trades had begun at $3.76 per week and had gone to $57.17 per week by the time they were 37 years cid. The United States census at that time showed the average salaries paid in the country to be approximately as follows:

Unskilled machine industries...
Unskilled building trades_
Skilled machine trades__

Skilled building trades_

$8

12

18

23

1 Taken from the report of the board of education of the city of Rochester for 1913, by W. A. O'Leary in his "Report on the Wage Value of Vocational Training," pp. 1430-31. 2 May, 1909, p. 25.

[graphic][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][merged small]

The figures are from the Report of the New Jersey Commission on Industrial Education. This school was established in 1884. The salaries of 85 per cent of the graduates were secured. Others not secured were thought to be equally good. This is a night school, the students earning salaries in regular work during the day.

Those boys, then, by taking the training offered in that school had made themselves over seven times as valuable as average unskilled machinists and over three times as valuable as average skilled machinists.

Further recognition of the value of education in increasing efficiency is seen in the establishment by the railroads and by numerous large business enterprises at their own expense of special courses, night schools, and day schools for their employees. They have found it impossible to secure from our present inadequately equipped school system the supply of well-educated workers that they need.

Value of education in a railroad shop.-In answer to a question as to what, if any, increase in the value of their workmen had been brought about by a quite complete system of shop trade schools which had been introduced, the representative of a large railroad corporation replied:

We have ascertained that the efficiency of apprentices has increased 25 per cent; that is, on account of our system of instruction they are able to accomplish that much more work than they could before we adopted our present apprentice system. We are, through the medium of our skilled shop instructors, able to use the apprentices on all classes of work, while formerly they were engaged in the simpler classes of work as well as on the simpler machines. Under our present system, however, we are able to use apprentices on any machine, even the most complicated. While we can not measure this in percentage or even dollars and cents, it is a matter of great convenience; especially is it so when a regular man operating some difficult and complicated machine lays off a few days, and it is not economical to put another man in his place on account of not being familiar with the work of the machine; in lieu of which we place an apprentice on the machine and with the help of the instructor he is able to give a fair day's output. In this alone we can save fully 25 per cent.

We have found also that our graduated apprentices' earning capacity has increased 18 per cent over and above those who did not have the advantage of our apprentice instruction. This fact is particularly emphasized by our shop foremen, who greatly prefer having one of our apprentice graduates than to have a mechanic who has served an apprenticeship on other roads and who has not enjoyed the benefits of our present apprentice system.

While all these percentages are not accumulative, you can safely bank on about 25 per cent increase in efficiency in the boys, due to our method of training and educating them.

Another great advantage I should mention is that when our apprentices are graduates they are capable of operating any machine or doing any class of work in the department in which they have served their apprenticeship. While this can not always be measured in dollars and cents, it is of immense benefit and value to the officers in charge of the shop, as they always have young mechanics in the shop who can perform any class of work which may arise, and one man's leaving the service will not tie up a single machine nor cripple the service.1

In considering the value of these several studies it could be said that Mr. Dodge was an exceptional employer, and that the work of

1 Quoted by W. S. O'Leary in his Wage Value of Vocational Training, pp. 1431-32.

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][ocr errors]

The first quotation is from Sir Norman Lockyear's "Brain Power in History." The second is cited by Sir Norman from a speech by Mr. Haldane.

the General Electric Co. represents an unusual type of work that especially demands education; that the Massachusetts commission did not study enough cases; that the studies of the Brooklyn teachers did not include always a large enough per cent of the pupils of the school, and so on for the rest of the numerous studies. Any one of these studies may not be conclusive, but when all of them point so clearly and without exception to the greatly superior earning power of the educated, the conclusion is irresistible..

SALARIES OF COLLEGE GRADUATES.

Earnings of Princeton graduates.-In the "Decennial Record of the Class of 1901, Princeton University," a report is given of the salaries received by the members of this class during the first 10 years after graduation. The number from whom reports were secured each year varied slightly, but on the first year 111 reported an average salary of $706, which by the fifth year increased to $2,039.42, and by the tenth year, with 149 reporting, reached $3,804. This high average is in spite of 19 teachers and clergymen in the class, whose average salary in the tenth year was between $1,700 and $1,800—about half what the classmates in other professions and in business were receiving. The Princeton class of 1906 likewise started out with an average salary reported of $859.60, which at the end of five years had risen to $2,225.80, showing practically the same rate of increase as was seen in the class of 1901.1

Earnings of Yale graduates.-A study has also been made of the salaries received for the first five years by those who went out in 1906, both graduates and nongraduates, from the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale.2 Reports were secured from 188, or about twothirds of the class, showing that the average salaries received were as follows:

First year---
Second year.

Third year-
Fourth year_

Fifth year.

$683.85 898.30 1, 257. 24 1,686. 14 2, 040. 04

Earnings of a Harvard law-school class.-A similar study of the Harvard law class graduating in 1905 showed that two years after graduating, with 163 reporting, they were receiving an average salary of $1,188, and that five years after graduation, with 151 reporting, the average had climbed to $2,616,3

1 The Decennial Record of the Class of 1901, Princeton University, pp. 344-345, and the Fifth Record of the Class of 1906, Princeton University, pp. 245-259.

2 Yale Alumni Weekly, 22: 6, Sept. 20, 1912.

Yale Alumni Weekly, 21; 244-45, June 19, 1912.

« PreviousContinue »