CHAPTER IL

Historical Trends

 

PP sicnncr reads in watnce ocean ee
history of the movement is viewed. The backward glance is simplified by the
excellent record of developments to be found in the proceedings of confer-
ences initiated at Brookwood Labor College in 1924 and held annually since
that time. The brief historical summary which follows has been culled from
the conference notes as well as from literature in the field.”

The labor movement has conditioned the development of workers’ educa-
tion. Events impinging upon American workers at different times have deter-
mined whether their friends and representatives encouraged them to build
organizational, legislative, or educational programs. Consequently, workers
themselves have not always believed in workers’ education.

Groups outside of the labor movement became convinced in the nineteenth
century that adult workers needed more than elementary public instruction.
Middle-class organizations, attempting to advance American democracy or to
regenerate the laboring class socially, sponsored adult education for workers.
Lyceums, mechanics’ institutes, and reading rooms were instituted to prepare
workers for effective use of the franchise, for heightening vocational pro-
ficiency or for solution of a variety of personal problems.

Primary attention to economic action, with only sporadic interest in inde-
pendent politics, kept trade unions occupied with matter-of-fact business prin-
ciples. Since, from this point of view, understanding of larger national issues

*For a discussion of ay een eee gee tite ee
sane, World Woher Ednoess ‘ovements, New York, Columbia University

, 1931; Margaret Hodgen, Workers’ Education in England and the United States,
nn K. Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co., Led., 1925; Alice §. Cheyney, “Workers’

Education in the United States,” International Labour Review; and other sources cited
in the appended bibliography on workers’ education.

 

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