Twelve years of 180 days each, or a total of 2,160 days of school, bring the child, therefore, an added life income of $20,000, or a return of between nine and ten dollars for each day spent in school. Education and earning power in Wisconsin.-Mr. O. B. Staples made a study of the amount of schooling and of the incomes of 500 adults, representing 75 per cent of the population of Lake Geneva, Wis.1 of those who had had less than five years of schooling only 22 per cent had an income of over $700 per year, while of those who had had as much as nine years of schooling over 77 per cent were making over $700 per year. This was in spite of the fact that many of those who had attended school for nine years or more were women, who for the same work are paid lower salaries than men, and young highschool graduates who had not been long out of school and hence were just getting a start. Earning power of Minneapolis school children.-Supt. B. B. Jackson, of Minneapolis, studied the earnings of 3,345 pupils who left school at the end of the eighth grade and found that they started life with an average salary of only $240 per year. A similar study made by him of the salaries of 912 graduates of the high school showed that they started out with an average salary of $600 and after six years were earning an average of $1,380.2 Education and farm income in New York.-Warren and Livermore, of Cornell, made a study of 1,303 farmers in four townships of Tompkins County, N. Y. They found that no college graduate had been reduced to the position of a renter, and that only 17 per cent of the renters had more than the district-school education. The average labor income was as follows: Of 1,007 with district-school education___ Per year. $318 622 847 Of those with high-school education, 20 per cent were making over $1,000 per year, while only 5 per cent of those with district-school education were making that much.3 Education and farm income in Indiana.-"A Farm Management Survey of Three Representative Areas in Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa" showed that 273 land owners operating farms possessed education and secured labor incomes as follows: 1 Elementary School Teacher, 10: 261-269, Feb., 1910, "Is there a Relation between the Amount of Schooling and Financial Success in Later Life," by O. B. Staples. 2 Quoted in School Education, Nov., 1914, p. 5. 3" Education of Farmers," in An Agricultural Survey, Cornell University, Bulletin 295. 'Bul. No. 41, U. S. Dept. of Agr., quoted in Rural Manhood, Sept., 1914, pp. 301-303. This table fails to indicate any decided superiority in annual producing power on the part of those landowners with the higher education. The college graduates are $495 a year ahead of the common-school graduates, but on the other hand they have a capital of $42,781 each as against $27,494 for the common-school graduates. The small superiority in income might be due to the superiority in capital. Furthermore, the four totally unschooled men made more on the average than the average made by those with common-school education. Here again the results are not dependable, since four is too small a number to use in getting an average; one exceptional man would put the average far out of place. Then, too, many farm owners put their earnings in improvements to the soil and in upbuilding the farm, so that the real annual production is not shown by the cash labor income. In the case of renters this large factor of error would be much reduced and the renter's cash labor income would more nearly represent his actual producing power. In this same survey 247 farm tenants also were studied, with the results shown in the following table: Education and labor income of land renters. In this case the superior labor incomes of those with better education are very noticeable, and especially so the superiority of the much younger high-school graduates over the unschooled and over the common-school graduates. While the high-school graduates have a larger average capital and work larger farms, this difference is hardly enough to account for the superior earning power shown by the high-school graduate in farming. The number of college gradnates and of illiterates is too few to serve as a basis for any safe conclusions. Education helps Missouri farmers. In 1912 the Missouri College of Agriculture conducted a survey of 656 farms in Johnson County, Mo. Of these farms, 554 had only a district-school education, while 102 had received more than that. It was found that the better educated farmers operated 33 per cent more land and owned fourfifths of the land they operated, as against three-fifths owned by those with only district-school education; they kept one-sixth more stock, worked 14 per cent more land per workman, and earned 71 per cent more clear labor income per year. Prof. O. R. Johnson, in concluding his report of this survey, says: While other factors may have played some part in his greater earning capacity, yet from a careful study of the organization of his business it appears that education must have played a very large part in his greater earning ability. Salaries earned by pupils of Beverly (Mass.) Trade School.-The results of the strictly technical or trade school education have been just as unmistakable as have been those of the schools of general culture. The "Fourth Annual Report of the Trustees of the Beverly Industrial School, 1912," gives the earnings from year to year, as they passed through the school, of the 12 graduates who had spent two and a half years in the school. This school requires as part of its course of study actual piecework in the mills under all the requirements and conditions of ordinary factory work, except the additional instruction given by teachers and the part time devoted to school work. Summing up these results, the secretary says: * * * The wage-earning capacity of these boys when they entered school is conservatively estimated at $6 per week The wage-earning capacity of these boys at the time of graduation ranged from $15 to $18 per week. In 120 weeks of shopwork under school directions the boys increased their average earning power in competition with other workmen and under actual factory conditions by more than 250 per cent and were, in fact, earning at the close of the period wages at the rate of $800 per year. These final salaries are not estimates, but are actual amounts earned by these boys in the factory working on full time at the end of the school course. That the practical machinists appreciate the value of this school work is shown by the fact that while only 5 machinists and metal workers in 1910-11 sent their sons, 22 sent them in 1911-12, of whom 20 were from one of the big factories in which the school boys had been given part of their practice work. The Baron de Hirsch Trade School. This school takes in young men who are already at work and gives them 5 months of trade education. These young men are usually those who have gone out of the public schools early and found themselves making unsatisfactory progress in industry. The wages of 839 of the graduates of this school were studied and gave the following interesting results:1 These graduates had entered the school at an average of 17 years of 1 Taken from the report of the national commission on vocational education, by W. A. O'Leary in his " Report on the Wage Value of Vocational Training," pp. 1437-40. age, when they were receiving an average of $6 per week, with poor prospects of increase. Immediately on graduation they earned on the average $7.28 per week and within two years were earning $12 per week, with prospects of more or less steady further increase for 10 or 20 years. One hundred and fifty-eight machinists that entered at an average salary of $6.66 went back to work after five and a half months of schooling at an average of $8.96 per week; 66 carpenters that entered at $6.14 went out at $9.01 per week; and 270 electricians that entered at $5.76 went out at $7.12 per week. Of more value than the 24 to 47 per cent increase in wages resulting from the six months' school training was the great prospect for continued future advance for many years, as opposed to the early maximum salary reached by the untrained. Graduates of the Milwaukee School of Trades.-The wages received by 25 graduates of the Milwaukee School of Trades who went into the pattern-making industry were investigated and compared with the wages of others who entered this field through apprenticeship. During their four years of apprenticeship the apprentices each received a total of $1,433.75. During the first two years after leaving the trade school those entering this industry from the trade school received on the average a total of $1,635.92. It thus appears that before he is 20 years of age the trade-school graduate had received in two years a larger total salary than the apprentice had in four years and was already well ahead of him in the wage scale. The president of the school writes: "I am convinced that if we follow up the experiences of the graduates of the other three trades, we would find even greater advantage gained." 1 Graduates of the New York Vocational School for Boys.-The New York Vocational School for Boys gives only two years' preparatory trade training to 14-year-old boys, or younger boys who have completed the grammar school. The records of the salaries of all the first graduates of this school after six months of employment, as compared with nongraduates working in the same lines, were as follows: 1 Report on the Wage Value of Vocational Training, by W. A. O'Leary, pp. 1426-27. 2 Quoted from the report of the principal of the New York Vocational School for Boys for 1911-12, by W. A. O'Leary in his "Report on the Wage Value of Vocational Training," p. 1430. |