Education and Industry

Education and Industry By Franklin S. Harris, President of Brigham Young University THE story goes that a hen and an egg had a quarrel about which one was the more important. After the disagreement had become acute, the hen turned to the egg and said, "Why, you little hard-shelled, insignificant piece of protoplasm, what do you amount to anyway?" To which the egg replied: "You multi-celled batch of feathered and cackling nothingness, what do you amount to! Have you forgotten entirely that you yourself came from an egg, and that there would be no hens in the world if it were not for the eggs from which they are hatched?" All the discussion in the world of this nature has not been able yet to decide which is the more important, or which came first, the hen or the egg. This is the type of dissension that is sometimes heard between different phases of human relations. I personally have scant patience with all this disagreement about which is more important, education or industry. Both are necessary phases of society. Neither industry nor education can say to the other, "I have no need of thee." Education needs industry; industry needs edu- cation. Either of these trying to go by itself is like a cart attempting to get along with only one wheel; it is certain to be very lop-sided. It is natural for the workers in any line to become so interested in their own activities that they fail to recognize the importance of other branches. The broad-minded, successful man, however, is al- ways willing to give credit to others, and he realizes that his own business or profession must inevitably be tied up with many other interests. School teachers, as a class, have been said to be impractical and to be unsympathetic with industrial enterprises. While I think this accusation is only true in part, still I am sure that school men generally would be very much benefited by closer contact with the practical affairs of life. Since they are teaching those who will go into the various industries, they certainly should have a sym- pathetic interest in these industries and an understanding of their requirements in order that the youths whom they are training will be better able to meet practical problems with which they are to come in contact after school days are past.

286 IMPROVEMENT ERA The school man must also know that the schools themselves are dependent on the products of industry. It would not be possible to have a school very long if industry were at a standstill. It is only when business prospers that there is sufficient wealth available for the highest type of educational activities which all progressive men would like to see established. The workers in education, there- fore, need contacts with industry because they will be better in their work of educating and also because no adequate educational system can ever be built up and equipped with the various modern educa- f **■■■■> » «- 5 &US'\ *! v 1 \ # Photos by W. P. Cottam Top: Class of Normal Graduates who received life diplomas to teach in the state of Utah at the 51st commencement exercises of Brigham Young University, held last June 1. Below: Class of 1927 — 141 members, Brigham Young University, graduated at the 51st commencement, June 1. The five with hoods, in the front row, received Master's degrees. They are Clarence Cottam, St. George, major in zoology; Julia Bateman Jenson, Provo, English; Owen L. Barnett, Provo, education; Wm. H. Wardell, Mammoth, education; James William Harrison, St. George, botany; Henry A. Pace. Price, education,

EDUCATION AND INDUSTRY 287 tional devices unless there are available the funds which industrial enterprises yield. The need which education has for contact with industries is no greater than the need which industry has for education. Has it ever occurred to the reader that higher education is at the founda- tion of practically every modern business? You can scarcely name an industry whose very life is not dependent on discoveries made in colleges and universities. The mechanical devices, such as go to make up our automobiles, locomotives; our power-generating ma- chines, steam engines, gasoline engines, electric motors; all of these things were made possible by the fundamental discoveries made by educated scientists. If we eliminate these, as well as the telephone, the telegraph, the radio, then if we take away such important com- 'modities as steel, sugar, and other things which are 'dependent on the researches of the chemical laboratory, we have very little left. We are likely to think of the work of universities and of research laboratories as being merely theoretical and having no practical value in daily life; but this type of reasoning is sure to lead us into trouble. Those who are familiar with the history of science .will re- member that when Willard Gibbs of Yale University read his paper on the Phase Rule before the Connecticut Academy of Sciences, practical people generally considered that this highly mathematical treatise had only theoretical value and would never be of any practical importance. As a matter of fact, however, a great deal of our modern industry has been able to develop as a result of this highly theoretical mathematical paper. It brought forward information which has made possible complete reorganization of the steel manu- facturing industry and many other industries which are dependent on chemical processes. The beet sugar industry was developed directly by the work of scientific investigators. When Napoleon found himself hedged in on the continent and unable to obtain sugar from the islands because of the British blockade, he at once put his scientists to work to develop a means of securing sugar from some local plant. As a result of the work of plant breeders, physicists, chemists, and other investigators, the process was gradually developed for the improv- ing of the sugar beet plant and for the successful extraction of sugar from it. I might go on for hours and enumerate examples of our ordinary commodities having grown out of the fundamental dis- coveries made in the laboratories by educated people. These are so well known that I need not dwell on them at this time. If history is to repeat itself, the future of practically every industry is likely to be profoundly modified by what activities are in progress within the colleges and universities. The researches

EDUCATION AND INDUSTRY 289 of the laboratory will determine in large measure the trend of the mechanical industries in the future just as they have done in the past. While there is still plenty of room for improvement, one of the great benefits which come to the industries from education is that of furnishing leaders or executives. A good man at the head of an industry often means the difference between success and failure. Now I am not going to attempt to say just what the educational systems do to prepare men and women to be executives, for the factors involved are so numerous that no one could properly com- prehend them all. Such things as better training in clear thinking, a broader point of view, clear understanding of fellow-men, and general improvement in social attitude, are among the benefits which every man receives from his education. It matters not where you look today, you find that educated men are slowly but gradually assuming the leadership of the more important industries. Investigations made within recent years show that more than half of the really great executives of America are college bred. Almost all engineers and lawyers are college educated; forty- five per cent of the executives in metal and rubber industries come out of the colleges. Who's Who in America, which is probably our best standard of judging eminent people, records that in 1924 and 1925 nearly sixty per cent of all the executives mentioned in that volume had received higher education. Sixty-five per cent of the bankers, sixty-two per cent of the manufacturers, fifty-nine per cent of the capitalists, forty-one per cent of railway officials, had received their training in colleges. These figures are all the more striking when we realize that only five or six per cent of the total population were educated in colleges. There seems to be no doubt from these figures that the directors of business find themselves more capable when their minds receive the benefits of higher education. The self-made man of pioneer days is not being supplanted with the self-made man of today. Business is steadily being put on a scientific basis, and the more this becomes true the more must the leaders have the training given in our higher educational institutions. Industries, which will not live up to the spirit of the age will find themselves gradually forced to give way to those which do. Apparently it is not altogether scientific information in a specific line of business which goes to make a successful business executive. Those who are given a thorough general education seem to be able more rapidly to adjust themselves to whatever situation they are placed in than are those with a less thorough training. The experience of the Great Western Sugar Company comes to mind as an illustration of this. College educated men (not

290 IMPROVEMENT ERA necessarily graduates) rose to a position of foremanship in a little over three years; whereas, it required foremen with elementary educa- tion nearly eight years to attain this position. College men became superintendents of the factories in a little over six years while the average elementary school man rquired almost fifteen years. Expe- rience elsewhere teaches the same facts, that the higher the education the quicker the rise to leadership, and the more exacting the higher positions, the more likely are the better educated men and women to be at the helm. In manning your industries with men who are most likely to make the most of the situations about you, as well as in seeking the mechanical improvements already mentioned, the fact stands out that the greatest benefit will come to the industries if the youth is encouraged to continue schooling until they acquire as much as possible of the instruction and ,the spirit which is gained from our educational institutions. The industries will continue to prosper more and more as each of the executive positions is filled with men and women who have trained minds. A confirmation of this tendency for productivity and pros- perity to follow better education of prospective executives, is found in the way the increase in income of the United States has just about kept pace with the increase in the number of high school and college students. Income per individual was just about the same for the years 1850 to 1870, prior to the beginning of the great enrollment of high school and college students in the latter part of the past century. The per capita income has increased three times since then, and the increase just about kept pace with the increase in number of high school and college students. Not only does a good educational system help to produce good executives, but it is a benefit to those doing the manual work. It is a well demonstrated fact that productivity per man is greater among the educated than among the relatively uneducated countries. Pro- duction per capita in most industries is considerably higher in America than in other countries. Northern European workers pro- duce considerably more per man than southern and eastern ones in the same occupations. The result of this is greater earning power for the worker and therefore greater buying power, which is the key to industrial prosperity. I have just returned from a year of travel throughout the Orient and Europe, and there I had brought to my attention more forcefully than I have seen it before, the fact that efficiency in in- dustry goes along very closely with the training of the individuals. The nations that give attention to education are the prosperous ones, and those that neglect it are the ones which are nearest starva-

EDUCATION AND INDUSTRY 291 lion. In Japan I found the spirit of education permeating every phase of life, and as a result there was no real want in that country; every one was busy, and people generally were in a prosperous condition. After the great earthquake and fire which destroyed millions of dollars worth of property and many lives, the people were able rapidly to revive from the dreadful conditions in which they found themselves. In China, on the other hand, I found very much want, and along with this I found that the spirit of education was very low. In the city of Peking, for example, when I was there, just a year ago, all the schools of the city, as well as their university, were closed on account of lack of funds. The public funds were being used in a civil war, and people did not seem to comprehend the importance of keeping the educational machinery going. At the theaters I found many thousands of people; they had enough money for amuse- ments. There also seemed to be enough for gambling to run ram- pant, but education was not supported. As a result, on every hand there were evidences of want and actual suffering on the part of the people. In India I found very low standards of living. There I found also that education was held in very low repute. This, in spite of the fact that England is gradually infusing into the people a desire for greater education. Relatively few of the people of India are able even to read or write, and when it comes to the women the number is negligible. Only two per cent of the women can lay any claim to anything at all in the shape of an education. After going through all of these countries in Asia, as well as visiting Egypt and most of the countries of Europe, it seems per- fectly obvious to me that it is impossible to build up a great national prosperity when most of the people are in ignorance. It also seems very plain that where a large majority of the people are educated, and where technical information is found on every hand, a stable industry is sure to develop even in the face of relatively poor natural conditions. This tendency for education to help men and women to be most effective in their work is due, not only to the better reasoning, better muscular coordination, and better powers of observation which modern schools strive to produce, but also to a better choice of oc- cupation. Up-to-date schools try to throw the spotlight of in- telligent inquiry on the more important industries, thus helping the student to see enough of the activities so he will not need to enter any field blindly. Where the education is continued past the first years of high school, there are opened up various office, technical, and managerial positions. This gives the individual an opportunity

292 IMPROVEMENT ERA to follow his natural inclinations, and consequently to work where he can make the best use of his abilities. We find altogether too many misfits in the industrial world, and this tendency is much more marked among the uneducated than among those who are trained. We might expect this, since the latter are not so often forced to follow uncongenial work; their possibilities are greater, which gives them an opportunity to go where they will have the maximum returns for their efforts. The question may arise in the minds of some about the value of elementary education. Those who remember the schools of twenty or thirty years ago, and have not bothered to investigate the modern schools, are likely to under-estimate what the elementary schools of today do for those who attend them. In the light of modern investigations, however, there is excellent ground for saying that even manual laborers are the better for every year they attend school. One study which included several thousand ordinary workers in factories indicated that the earning capacity steadily in- creased as the grades reached in school increased up to the seventh. The increase was greatest between those who had only one year of elementary education and those who had none, and the added benefit for each additional year just about followed the curve of diminishing returns. Russian workmen's i relative wage was as follows: No education, 1.00; 1 yr., 1.16; 2 yr., 1.29; 4 yr., 1.43; 5 yr., 1.48; 6 yr., 1.52; 7 yr., 1.54. These are averages of many cases, and of course there might have been many exceptions to the rule. In fact most of us know of such exceptions, and tend to hold them up as examples that the grade schooling of the past has not been cf much practical good. The factory study mentioned included only students trained under the old methods. Those who are intimately in touch with the modern schools know that there has been a radical change toward greater practical application of the subjects taught. The old arith- metic which dealt with abstract principles has been replaced by one which deals with subjects having a direct application to daily life. The fundamental facts of science which were formerly con- fined almost exclusively within the walls of universities are now almost as well known by youths in knee trousers as they were a generation ago by the average college graduate. When young men and women with such knowledge enter the doors of your industrial concerns, you must expect to find at least some of them searching for better ways of accomplishing your work than you now have. Where there has been the right spirit of co-operation between the schools and industries, such as has been the case in Gary, Indiana.

EDUCATION AND INDUSTRY 293 the young men and women often discover their natural inclinations in the industrial world and are able to specialize in the manual train- ing schools so thoroughly that they are exceptionally well prepared to serve the industries before their compulsory school age is past. A subject which is only recently receiving attention in the schools is that of disease and accident prevention. After an indi- vidual has had much of his vitality sapped by diseases, or has been maimed for life through accidents, he often cannot exert himself as he should, and this hinders him from taking the part he should in the industrial world. Some such defectives can perform almost as much as normal persons in some industrial positions, but it often happens that they are inefficient workers who are poorly paid, and consequently they are poor consumers, who tend to hold industry back. Statisticians tell us that our bill for preventable accidents and diseases runs into billions of dollars. Within comparatively recent times some of our schools have been laying considerable stress on this matter of accident and disease prevention, and in these schools much good has been done. But we are still backward in this matter. European school systems have been emphasizing health for many years and their children expe- rience proportionately fewer accidents and avoid certain types of disease much better than do ours. In America a few of our more forward cities, such as St. Louis, Detroit, and Cleveland, have by emphasizing accident prevention in their schools reduced the number of accidents as much as seventy per cent in some cases. Committees representing industry have frequently felt them- selves called upon to beat down the cost of education to the lowest possible amount, thinking thereby that they are saving just as much money as they can squeeze out of education. This is certainly a very short-sighted policy, because education cannot be considered as an expenditure apart from receipts; it is in reality an investment, and probably the finest investment that can be made by any society. When the costs of education are reduced too low, it becomes in- evitable that there will be poor equipment, and that on account of the low salaries of teachers only those of inferior ability and those who are poorly trained will be attracted to the profession. Certainly any business man can do no better than to give his children proper educa- tion, and the amount actually invested in this process is relatively small when compared with amusements and other expenditures which we all make. Even apart from our own individual desires to have our chil- dren receive proper schooling, society in general must realize that the money invested in education will be returned to it many times in dollars and cents,