The Sunday tatler and Jersey City express. (Jersey City, N.J.) 1883-1886, 1886-01-24


| $2,015 80 have been expended for the year
| ending March 81, 1885. Toledo, Ohio, has
I decided 10 open a school for drawing and
shop-wcrk in connection with its high
| school. Ii has employed one of the grad
yates of the ST. Louis school as a teacher.
Philadelphia, Cleveland and San Fran
cisco are following suit.
In bis last annual report i. r. Curtis,
Esq, Superintendent of Public Schools in
San Jose, California, urges the mailer
upon the school au horities in very
forcible and practical manner. This city
has a population of less than 10000 Gin
1880, 1867 and as it viii in some meas
ure Illustrate the idea, | will give some
extracts from his very interesting report.
He says:
sBut one effort in this line Of industriaI) educa
ton, SO far as am informed. has been made In
San Jose. This was the introduction Of the art Of
printing in the high school in 1882. All the
members of the junior and middle classeg-seme
ninety or more--were required to spend three
hours week at type setting and kindred work.
The classes were under the tuition of q competent
instructor. and believe. it is admitted that excel
lent results were attained. Yet this experiment
did not outliye year. 1t was urged. and with
much force. that the school was educating too
many compositors- more by far than could find
root and branch, and this material, which had cost
the department about $500. was sold the following
year for fifth Of that sum"
The fault, evidently, was a lack of di--
yersity in the employment. They made
good printers, but they made too many of
them. Useful, as printers undoubtedly
are, it don't do to have all the members of
a community printers. He goes on to say
in his report:
CAS- step In that direction. submit the follow
ing plan for your considerations No claim OF per-
fection is made; but have endeayored to apply
system of industrial education directly TO our city
schools, and If these suggestions provoke discus
sion, and this or some better plan is adopted the
labor will be amply rewarded. The Board of Edu,
cation has an unoccupied school lot on the east
side of Second street. This lot is 1877 X feet square,
It is centrally located, and OF easy access from
every part of the city On this lot building 3Ox50
feet can be erected of rough lumber at cost Of a
few hundred dollars. 1t should be furnished with
ten double work benches. Each bench should be
provided with tools suitable for great variety OF
wood work. This shop would accommodate twenty
pupils at time. During the coming year we will
have four grade classes. containing about 10
pupils, from Is to 10 years OF age. None of these
classes will contain more than twenty boys that
the workshop will be large enough to contain all
the boys OF a Jingle class at time. Each class
should spend one and half hours in the workshop
twice week. Two classes should be taught each
afternoon. The afternoon recess could be utilized
by the pupils in passing from the schoolroom to
the workshop, and Uice uersd. The instruction in
drawing in the schools could be made to aid and
harmonize with the work Of the shop. The work
shop should be in charge of mechanics competent
to give such instruction in the use and manip la
ton Of tools as would be the foundation for
number of different trades. There should be
general preparation for variety of trades, rather
than special instruction in single trade.
The last sentence would indicate that
he he did not want to split 90 the old rock
of having too many printers.
In the next | will give some infcrma-
ton relative TO the manual training school
in St. Louis. r.
HoBoKEN. Dec. 26, 1885.