Education and Industry

MR. JOYCE: We welcome as our speaker today, Mr. Herbert H. Lank of Montreal, the President of Du Pont Company of Canada Limited.

Mr. Lank is an international figure. Born in Seaford, Delaware, he was educated at the University of Delaware, and at three Universities in France.

After joining E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. in New Jersey in 1925, he was transferred to that company's affiliated organization in France. Returning to the United States in 1928 he was appointed assistant export sales manager of du Pont Finishes Division. Three years later Mr. Lank was sent to Argentina by the Du Pont Company and became the commercial director of its Argentine organization.

In 1942 Mr. Lank came to Canada from Argentina as a special assistant to the president of Canadian Industries Limited, in which the Du Pont Company held a 42% interest. He was appointed vice-president in the following year and a director in 1949. When C.I.L. was divided into two new companies on July 1, 1954, Mr. Lank became President of Du Pont Company of Canada Limited.

Outside his own business, Mr. Lank is well known for his work in the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. He has served as its chairman, is still a member of its executive council, and is a vice-president and director of the Canathan Council of the International Chamber of Commerce. In addition he is a director of The Toronto-Dominion Bank, a member of the Advisory Council of the School of Commerce of McGill University and active in musical and welfare organizations.

He will speak on "Education and Industry".

MR. LANK: Today, for the 29th time since its founding in 1903, this Empire Club audience is focussing its attention on education. I feel honored at having been given this opportunity during Canadian Education Week.

I propose to expose a few of my thoughts which are an extension of a theme by no means new to any of us. And I am thinking of you as a three-in-one audience: as business and professional men; as parents and as taxpayers.

You and I are shareholders in Canada's biggest business - education. Educationists would probably also assure you that education is Canada's biggest problem.

As shareholders, we have an investment in primary and secondary schools of about one billion dollars, and there is something unusual about being a shareholder in this enterprise: By law we are owners and by law we must remain owners. In any enterprise I know of, it is the owners who decide upon the objectives and judge whether they have been achieved. It is the public's concern, that is, our concern, to see that the product of the schools justifies the investment and meets the need. If the public has that privilege and responsibility as the owner of the Canadian school system and does not adequately exercise it, then we cannot properly complain if the results are not entirely satisfactory.

Have we any problems in Canadian education today? The simple facts are we're seriously short of professionally-trained manpower - doctors, engineers, teachers, chemists, dentists, and we're even short of professional teachers to train these professional people.

As if our current shortage weren't bad enough, our growing population, our expanding economy, and the growing complexity of industrial processes are creating steadily increasing demands for technically qualified man-power. And educational requirements are rising for many jobs currently classified as non-technical.

At the other end of the pipeline, our schools are crowded with 3,000,000 young Canadians, most of whom will stay in school longer than their parents did. But of these 3,000,000 hopefuls too few will enter university; of those, too few will graduate; and of those who do graduate, too few will go into teaching. Every year the shortage of professionally-qualified teachers becomes more serious; we are actually losing ground. In 1951 the shortage was around 5,500; in 1952, 6,500 and in 1953, 7,000. One result is that today 20 per cent of our students in primary and secondary schools are in the hands of teachers who do not have minimum professional qualification. One bright spot is that the percentage of professionally-qualified teachers is slowly rising; but we are still woefully short in numbers.

You are as aware as I am of the factors that tend to make teaching unattractive for young people. Teachers' salaries have doubled in the past 10 years and trebled in the past 15 years but the average salary in provincially-controlled schools (excluding Quebec) was still only $2,510 in 1953. The real tragedy of the situation is that a large part of the public aren't really interested. A survey a month ago showed that over one-fifth of them don't even hold an opinion and another 44 per cent are so unaware of the significance of the situation that they are satisfied with today's teaching salaries. We can be thankful one-third had the courage to say present salaries are too low and we can only hope they prove to be a militant third.

Our continued progress, sociologically and materially, springs from the development and application of man's knowledge and man's ideas. Our hopes rest with the trained .mind.

Today we just haven't enough trained minds or minds-in-training at the professional level. Industry may be slightly better off because it is able to out-bid education for trained people; but this is only part of a vicious circle.

The more qualified people won by industry, the fewer are available to train tomorrow's professions.

The answer does not rest with educationists alone but must come from the joint effort by industry, education and the community as a whole.

First and foremost, we must help to attract more young people to the teaching profession. How? By working towards higher salaries more in keeping with the social worth of the profession, by improving the instruction in teacher-training colleges and encouraging today's teachers to improve themselves.

Second, we must tackle the problem of having potentially good talent, remaining undeveloped, young people of obviously above-average character and ability who may lack the educational opportunities they merit and would seize. Drop-outs of such youngsters in secondary schools represent a loss the nation cannot afford. At the same time, we should stiffen our university entrance requirements, discourage the snap-course members (the "breeze boys") and encourage those with specific goals. False starts by undergraduates who lacked adequate counselling also represent a loss-to the university, the community and the individuals. By first year college we should be able to advise those who will make the best teachers, the best scientists.

Let's take a closer look at one specific problem: the critical shortage of qualified science teachers. Unless their number increases some schools may have to restrict science teaching as has already been done in some sections of the United States and the United Kingdom. At best, it looks as though the standard of science instruction will be lowered and even fewer students may be inspired by the zeal of their teachers to pursue their science studies in university.

In Ontario alone, the proportion of specialized teachers has dropped 15.6 per cent in the past 10 years but the proportion of science specialists has dropped 24.5 per cent. Of the 650 Ontario science teachers in 1953, only 40 per cent were specialists and of these only 15 per cent were under 35 years of age. This suggests also that as present specialists reach retirement age there will be too few even to replace them. To maintain even the present proportion of science specialists in Ontario secondary schools, an annual average of at least 20 honor graduates in science should be entering the teaching profession. In 1953 and again in 1954, only five specialists in science enrolled at the Ontario College of Education. This year nine are preparing for science teaching.

This survey, incidentally, was made recently by a committee of educationists who were asked by my company to suggest where financial aid by industry could best be used. This committee recommended annual scholarships to university science graduates to encourage them to take further professional training to prepare them to become secondary school teachers. They further recommended that fellowships be made available to those already teaching, to do postgraduate work in science or to enable teachers to attend postgraduate summer courses in science.

Here is just one way, it is felt by educationists, in which industry can aid the teaching profession in meeting a common and urgent need.

You are undoubtedly familiar with many effective plans for supporting graduate and postgraduate students. The Massey Report dealt pointedly with this subject and said: "The most effective way to create equality of educational opportunity is through a well-devised system of national scholarships." The Report went on to say that Canada, by her too great dependence on American fellowships for advanced study, particularly in the humanities and social studies, has starved her own universities which lack not only money but the community of scholarship essential to the best work.

One facet of this problem is under study at the present time, the matter of Canadian students in science and engineering who are attending American universities for their postgraduate studies. The Chemical Institute of Canada is conducting a survey this month among such students to learn why they chose an American university rather than a Canadian one, what changes in the current academic picture would have induced them to pursue such studies in Canada, whether there was an advantage in the amounts of fellowships offered in the United States, and what their attitude is towards potential career opportunities in Canada and the United States. The results of this study, which is being underwritten by one company, should be of practical interest to Canadian educationists, business men and government officials.

Considerable is being done in education-industry cooperation. Gifts for buildings and equipment, the endowment of chairs, are obvious additions to the pattern of scholarships and fellowships. In 1951 some 900 Canadian companies reported to the Committee on Corporate Giving that their gifts to education were approximately 10 per cent of their total "charitable" donations. I would hasten to question whether business gifts to education should be classified as charitable donations: I suggest they are an essential cost of doing business and staying in business.

Obviously much more money could be put to work in education. Our national bill for education is still only about three percent of national income though it has risen slightly from the 1929 percentage of 2.7.

Of course, money alone is not enough to ensure the effective and adaptable program of education required by our dynamic society. Industry should also make available to education some of the knowledge and experience it has accumulated through years of applied research, production and management administration.

Just as an example, many companies have in their employ capable engineers, and other scientists who could contribute to the practical training of university students. At the same time, there are in the universities teachers who feel out of touch with industrial developments. Why not an exchange scheme whereby industry loans a selected man to teach full or part-time in the university which, in turn, would send a teacher into industry for a defined period, thus broadening his experience and bringing a fresh viewpoint to bear on some of industry's problems.

We in my company are well pleased with our experience in employing university and secondary school teachers during the summer. For example, at our Maitland plant we had with us last summer two teachers from the Brockville Collegiate Institute and an associate professor of chemistry from the University of Toronto. We plan a repeat this summer, because it's good business for them and for us.

In addition to the methods of help already mentioned, industry can provide much more in the way of teaching aids, more informative booklets, films and process charts; it can arrange more plant visits for students and teachers alike; it can provide more assistance in vocational guidance at all levels, by having representatives take part in student forums and bringing in school vocational counsellors to study first-hand your needs and standards.

Even more pointedly, there is need for an informative booklet outlining career opportunities and satisfactions in the field of teaching, for distribution throughout the secondary schools. The teachers' organizations would gladly provide the material if a sponsor would arrange publication. These career opportunities might similarly be publicized in national advertising throughout Canada.

One of the newer major developments at the university level is the school of business administration. Judging by the number of senior employees encouraged to take extended courses, these schools are undertaking to provide a helpful and practical service. But they must be assisted by business itself in planning and organizing their programs, must draw on us for material and frequently borrow instructors and discussion leaders.

The basic needs, of course, are for closer liaison between education and industry right across the board, so that needs, plans and methods are mutually understood. I wonder, for example, how many educationists have any realistic idea of the time and effort devoted in business to staff recruitment, training and development. That is a major function in every well organized business. One of our department managers periodically reminds his staff that one of his prime responsibilities is to find people he can conscientiously promote; and I can assure you it is one of his most difficult duties.

On the training of production staff, I would cite an illustration from one of our own newer plants, a rather technical operation employing several hundred people who were previously inexperienced in the type of thing. Among other technicians we required 30 instrument mechanics for whom there is a rapidly rising need. We recruited our men, each with junior matriculation, and then gave them each 780 hours of training, equivalent to more than 19 five-day weeks. We gave them specific training in mathematics, physics, chemistry, draughting, care and use of equipment and so forth. The training cost per employee in that group of 30 was $1,600, including wages, instructors and incidentals.

I'm glad to add that this new demand for instrument mechanics has been recognized and a course is now available at the Ryerson Institute of Technology here, a fine example of education responding to industry's needs. As industrial operations grow increasingly complex, educational requirements for industrial jobs will continue to rise - and continue to evolve as technology changes.

This microphone before me is a reminder that more and more of us these days feel we have something to say on this vital subject of education. In fact, it's one of the more popular topics in thoughtful groups, public and private.

Like any head of a family and employer of young Canadians, I have some knowledge of what is going on in the educational field and among our Canadian educationists. I believe most of them are quite aware of what could and should be done to improve our educational system and that they are taking aggressive and imaginative action to the extent that you and I, as taxpayers and business men, make it possible for them to do so. I suggest that they have too often been getting rather low grades from the Canadian public, when they should have been receiving the A's they deserve.

Adequate support will be forthcoming only when the public comes to realize the extent of the nation's current and long-term educational needs, and to realize what joint action must be taken to meet those needs.

Canada will continue to grow only to the extent that trained manpower is available to develop the reserves of natural wealth and of the spirit. Canada will continue to grow as we equip ourselves with new technology and apply it. Canada will continue to grow-in the broadest and best sense-as our material progress is accompanied by deeper satisfactions for the individual. Our future wellbeing will be best achieved by parallel development of the technical skills, the social sciences, the arts and the spirit.

Education cannot stand still any more than life can stand still. If our educational development is to match that of our nation's it must advance-and on a broad front. It will inevitably do so if each of us takes an active and intelligent interest in it, if we become informed of what our schools are already doing for us, if we realize how dependent our national growth is on our educational system, and if we think out more clearly what the future requires of that system.

Education in Canada will progress as we are prepared to turn theory into practice; and thoughts into action; as we are prepared to match the dedication of our teachers with our own dedication of dollars and individual interest.

As taxpayers and as business men, we have in this heavy responsibility, a wonderful opportunity - if we have but the vision and courage to realize it. And may our children and their children say of our generation - "they gave to us that jewel which no thief can steal - the wealth of knowledge".

THANKS OF THE MEETING were expressed by Mr. C. R. Sanderson, a Past President of the Club.