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The school was set up to supply the cultural part of the educational system; the opportunity for industrial training was right in the home. As time went on, industry began to leave the home. The textile mills and the manufacturing tailors began to supply clothes; materials for housing were made by commercial companies; the production of food became a large-scale business; the horse gave way gradually to the train and then to the automobile, bus, and airplane. Thus the home and industry became completely separated, yet our educational facilities remained essentially unchanged. Dean Schneider was one of the first to recognize that some of the approaches to education should be changed to meet the new conditions. While attending Lehigh, he felt the need of some practical method of practicing the theory he was learning. One evening, while walking across the campus, he was startled by the roar of a Bessemer converter at a nearby steel plant. Here was the answer to his problem - a large industry, a vast industrial laboratory and a University were within easy reach of each other. Why not bring education and training together again? The student could learn his theory during part of the school year, and then go over to the nearby plant and learn the practical side for the remainder of the year. When the student finished college, he could go right to work without the usual "breaking in" period. Overcoming hundreds of objections to this idea, Dean Schneider won his point and in the last forty years there has been a growing trend on the part of education and industry to unite theory and practice. |
