Pennsylvania had some public
schools, but parents had to declare themselves too poor to send their
children to a private school before they were allowed the privilege of
sending them there. In fact so much odium attached to these schools that
they were practically useless and the State became distinguished for the
number of children not attending school. As late as 1837 a labor paper
estimated that 250,000 out of 400,000 children in Pennsylvania of school
age were not in any school. The Public School Society of New York
estimated in a report for 1829 that in New York City alone there were
24,200 children between the ages of five and fifteen years not attending
any school whatever.
To meet these conditions the workingmen outlined a comprehensive
educational program. It was not merely a literary education that the
workingmen desired. The idea of industrial education, or training for a
vocation, which is even now young in this country, was undoubtedly first
introduced by the leaders of this early labor movement. They demanded a
system of public education which would "combine a knowledge of the
practical arts with that of the useful sciences.
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