THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE RUSSIAN SYSTEM OF TOOL INSTRUCTION (1763-1893) AND ITS INTRODUCTION INTO U.S. INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION PROGRAMS (1876-1893)

摘要

During the nineteenth century, the Russian system of tool instruction played a key role in linking school-based technical training programs with industry's growing need for technically trained personnel. Apprenticeship training, once adequate to supply machinists for work in semi-mechanized craftshops, could not provide sufficient numbers of technically competent managers, supervisors, and engineers. Highly theoretical civil engineering programs, as were available at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute or the West Point Military Academy, did not include the practical training in basic tool skills that had been the primary focus of apprenticeship training. The Russian system made it possible for schools to provide both theoretical and practical instruction. This study investigates the development of the Russian system of tool instruction at the Moscow Imperial Technical School. The system's adaptation for use in American industrial education programs is also discussed.;Following a brief study of salient socio-cultural conditions in nineteenth-century Russia, Chapter 2 traces the Moscow Imperial Technical School's development from its beginnings in 1763 as a trade school for foundlings, through the 1860s when its faculty first introduced the Russian system of tool instruction, until the 1890s, by which time the system had been disseminated throughout Europe and the United States. Chapter 3 provides a biographical sketch of Victor Della-Vos, the educator who is credited by American industrial education historians with the design of the Russian system of tool instruction.;After a brief discussion of engineering education in America during the second quarter of the nineteenth century, Chapter 4 analyzes various interpretations given to the Russian system. Chapter 5 concludes by noting that from 1876 to 1893, the Russian system gained brief renown in connection with engineering education, only to be overshadowed by scientific advances revolutionizing industry and education. Educators, by 1893, had adapted the Russian system to the needs of secondary-level students not necessarily intending to enter the job market as engineers or machinists. Together with elements drawn from the Arts and Crafts movement and the Sloyd tradition, the idea of occupational analysis based on systematic group instruction, became a part of the secondary and elementary level manual training programs then spreading across the country.