The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-08-13
COOPERATIVE EDUCATION.

From the ~ Y Tribune
A self-supporting Cooperative Industrial !
School for boys and girls was founded in |
Reuttngen in Germany in 1884, by Herr
Won Werner, the son of the Finance Minister.
The founder was student of the University
of Tubingen, and at the time poor vicar
The institution was opened for poor and des-
titute children, in order to show the possi-
bility of using children's work as a capital for
making such institutions self-supporting, and
of getting rid of the degrading influence of
alT,shouses. Herr Won Werner was assisted
by an excellent lady, who was his true helper
in housekeeping and needlework, which she
taught in his school until her death in 1910.
They worked very hard, and were sometimes
in want of food nevertheless he was able,
in 1910, to buy four cows and to rent some
land. A great misfortune happened to him
at this time-the loss of his place as vicar
but as he could not swear over the symbolic
books, the Government dismissed him from
his vicarship. 1t was a favorite idea of Herr
Werner's not only to give his pupils the op-
portunity to see different occupations. and to
choose freely from them after some expe-
rience, but to keep them from If to Is out of
the way of the dangers of life in large cities,
when they could not have the shelter of
home-life, with friends He therefore adj
mitted outside children as apprentices, but
they were obliged to pass full year on pro-
baton, and to remain four years as APP
prentices
With the assistance of some friends. he
founded, in 1857, paper mill and credit in
stitution in which every one belonging to the
institution could take a share large or small
The next year occurred great hail-storm
and famine, and seventy children left in the
care of the community of Fluorn were put
into the almshouse. Herr Won Werner went
to Fluorn and leaving some of these children
in the care of his friends, took the rest into
his institution for a certain sum paid by the
community He now bought a water-mill in
connection with large farm, so important to
the comfort of the establishment. This farm
of three hundred acres stocked with thirty
six oxen, ten horses, cattle, and sheep was
conducted entirely by two men and these
children. They ground flour, oil, and bones.
1t was very profitable, and very central for
sending vegetables and other provisions to
other similar institutions. From this time
they grew very fast. The paper mill made
every day from fifteen to twenty hundred
weight Of beautiful paper, with the help Of
twenty workmen and one hundred girls.
The large so-called .N0tIcl-H0use contained
the different bureaus under the care of ten
persons the needlework department with
| forty girls; the tailor and show workshops
with from thirty to forty. The G0tteShmfe
| contained the church and school-rooms, the
| home for Herr Won Werner (Which seemed to
have belonged to all the family, and the
| sleeping-rooms for the boys and for hundred
workmen nearly all of whom have been edu-
| Gated in the institution
This institution is now very large and quite
rich. 1t sends its travelling agents over Wur-
| temburg Switzerland, and the Rhine. The
| knitting and crochet-work and network of the
| girls is sold for from thirty to sixty thousand
| horins per year The cotton mill is owned in
| fifty shares; wool factory and chemical llbo-
| ratory occupy twenty houses A Kindergar-
! ten, hospital and bank, also belong to the
! establishment; also a ribbon factory, ma
chine shop, blacksmith's shop, shoemakers'
shops, furniture factory, a tannery, school
of design and engraving, and large machine
| shop and steam works, and two thousand
acres of land. There are nine hundred chill
! dren from two to twenty years of age, and
five hundred and eighty adults in twenty
! three different establishments, entirely self
| supporting. All this is blessed and guided
| by one head and one large heart. The capital
building, although the work was all done by
members of the institution, cost 5000, 900.
| Sometimes the whole town have given secu-
| rity for Herr Won Werner.