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PATTERNS OF WORKERS’ EDUCATION

 

communistic tools was the chief objective of political groups. Trade unionists
supported educational preparation for service in their own organizations.

Conferences have revealed that as workers’ education has developed, the
different objectives have been levelled by a common focus upon the labor
movement; in other words, by the belief that workers must be educated be-
cause of and not in spite of their position in society. At present, there is gen-
eral consensus of opinion that, as expressed at a meeting in 1937, “the pur-
pose of workers’ education is to make workers more aware of their common
problems, to make them intelligent about them, and active in solving them.” os
It is still true, however, that diverse sponsors emphasize different problems and
their solution in programs of disparate activity. But the sphere of workers’
education in all instances has come to be the labor movement within the
encompassing community.

Pioneers in the field discussed earnestly whether they should try to reach
only a few workers or the masses. The needs of the labor movement have
decided the issue; both leaders and rank and file members must be educated.
Recent conferences have considered every worker a potential student or par-
ticipant in workers’ education. Men and women, workers in industry, busi-
ness, commerce, domestic service, and agriculture, organized or unorganized,
are to be stimulated to study their problems and to find ways of meeting them.
Experts must be developed within the labor movement to equal specialists in
business and government and to bridge the gap between workers and their
representatives.

A variety of recruiting devices has developed. Workers are brought
together through social rallies, musicales, games and sports. Thus individuals
may discover that others have similar interests and every worker may be able
to find satisfaction in either large or small units.

The environment in which workers live and labor has determined that their
education should be extensive, centering principally around the social sciences.
As early as 1924 the belief was expressed that although “the social sciences
constitute the basis of workers’ education” attention should be given to a “com-

 

* Francis J. Gorman, President of the United Textile Workers’ Union, Address to
Conference in Workers’ Education, New Bedford, Massachusetts, May 8-9, 1937 (mimeo-
graphed and issued by a committee of the Conference, 1937).

Hilda W. Smith, “Workers’ Education as Determining Social Control,” Annals of
en Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 181-182 (November, 1935),
p. 83.

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