WORKERS' EDUCATION
Arthur Gleason
Workers' education is not a course on things in general. It presupposes that labor is gaining power rather rapidly, that something like a crisis will be reached within two generations. It is the humanly imperfect effort to meet that situation of responsibility. …
With the alliance of labor and scholarship in workers' education will come a new unionism, an intelligent journalism, a group of interesting teachers. No big rewards and no newspaper fame await the pioneers of this emancipation. Neither teachers nor students will profit by one penny through their devotion. Workers' education does not say "come and be comfortable." It cannot be dressed in the garments of success. It demands the impossible. It calls for hard and clear thinking, for lonely work, for slow results and unregarded growth. The faithful servant of this calling may read “his victory in his children’s eyes," but he will not live to see the day of its advent. He is building for a long future.
Editor’s Note: Workers' education, conducted under distinct trade union auspices, began in this country with the establishment of an educational department of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union in 1916. Prior to this date, however, we find a number of institutions such as the Rand School for Social Science (organized in 1906), and the National Women's Trade Union League, engaged in the task of workers' education. By 1923, the number of trade union colleges and labor schools had grown to about fifty. Such international organizations as the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (3 West 16th Street, New York City), and the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America (31 Union Square, New York City), have active educational departments, while central trades councils in Boston, Philadelphia and many other cities have organized city labor colleges. The Pennsylvania Federation of Labor conducts a state wide educational work.
In the spring of 1921, the Workers' Education Bureau of America was formed to collect and disseminate information relative to efforts at education conducted by any part of organized labor, to coordinate the work throughout the nation and encourage the formation of additional enterprises. It publishes text-books, conducts a loan library department, assists in supplying teachers, etc. Its headquarters is 476 West 24th Street, N. Y. C., Spencer Miller, Jr., an Amherst graduate, is Secretary of the Bureau which is now under A. F. of L. auspices. An interesting development in workers’ education has been the organization, in 1921, of a residence labor college, Brookwood Labor College, at Katonah, N. Y., with A. J. Muste, as chairman of the faculty, and Toscan Bennett as executive secretary.
24
