The City's Experiment in Industrial Education
Everett’s night school initiative aimed to teach practical trades to workers, reflecting a new vision of the public school as an engine for broader citizenship.
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Mr. Frazier, the city superintendent of schools, holds the vision that the school system should not only be a place to teach 'the tender mind,' but an institution in which the man or woman deprived in early years of the chance to acquire an education may gain that boon. His idea of education is a trained hand and eye as well as a trained mind: industrial education. Shortly before Christmas the school board authorized the formation of a night school to last three months. It was an experiment, but in all some five hundred students were enrolled in the different departments at not a dollar of cost to them. The success of the term just closed guarantees particular attention to this feature next year.
“If you have a square hole, whittle a square peg to fit it. Give to the young man and woman... a practical knowledge of a trade or business occupation.”
Everett's turn-of-the-century experiment with vocational night school highlights the long-standing debate over whether public schools should be strictly academic or career-focused. It’s an early look at adult education as a tool for economic mobility in a growing industrial town.
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