Vernon County censor. [volume] (Viroqua, Wis.) 1865-1955, 1898-10-26
MANUAL TRAINING.
Burnett Visits Menomonie,
Where More Boys Graduate
Than Girls.
SENATOR sToUT,s ACTIVITIES.

| His $4,000 school Building Girls Learn
| to Cook and Sew-Good Roads, Rare
| Pictures, Libraries and Other Methods
| of Frightening Country Life.
| Madison, Wis. Oct. 1S.-M enomonie, In
Dunn county, the capit;ii seat, aud thir-
teen miles from where A. f. Hall, anti
| pass champion comes from, Is famous
as the seat of Senator Stout's manual
/ training school.
/ In this little city of 5000 people on the
/ Big Cedar liver. two and one-half hours
| ride from St Paul, plated in 1859 and
/ almost wholly ninging on the saw arc
/ erist mills and fancy stock farms and
| other activities of the multi millionaires
/ of Knapp, Stout & Co., Is o manual
/ training school, than which there is no
| finer equipped in the United States 1t
| is Senator Stout's gift to the city. The
4 plant cost $4,000 without the equip
ment. Through it every boy ana girl
of the public schools of Menomonie Sits
| A fine building was burned Feb. 2. 1896,
| whereupon Senator Stout cheerfully
| built another one-finer still. Wiscen-
| sin has been slow in adding industrial
| training to the curriculum but the OBJ
| ject lesson in the little lumber city in
| the western part of the state is slowly
doing it's work. Two years ago the
legislature appropriated 81. 500, to be d-
| vided among ten cities which should
meet the requirements in manual train
| ing in connection with high school work,
/ and that number of cities are receiving
$3.50 each. But many cities, like Madi-
| son, with 5000 children, who should be
| learning the use of tools and acquiring
skill with eye and hand, report moth
| ing. except a little kindergarten, when
| asked what is being done in the way of
this great innovation in education.
More Boys Graduate Than Girls.
| Menomonie has been using it since
| 1898. l asked for some visible results
| to prove its effectiveness. Two i'm
| portant facts were cited
| /. The successive graduating classes
in the high school show more boys than
| girls.
2. The military company from Menom-
/ onie in the late war reports more men
| assigned to special duties-engineering
armorers, artificers, carpenter work,
| cookery-than all other Wisconsin COM
| parties combined.
| 1T was the training school that gave
| us the advantage" said the soldiers
! when they returned and a great part
| of them had enjoyed the benefits of the
| school.
| Senator Stout is the president of the
| school board. His good sense and pa
| tience admirably supplement his gem
/ erosity. He is a rare man for his city
| and for Wisconsin. His business cares
| are relegated to others, so that his
| time is free, for the public service. He
| is state senator, a regent of the uni
| versitX a member of the commission
| building the historical library at Madi-
| son; a member of the state library
| commission. and trustee of the Dunn
| county insane asylum; poor commits
sioner and president of the Menomonie
| schools. He is at the training school
| every day and looks after the details
| of engine room and the sodding like
| the business man he is. He is quiet and
| modest and extremely sensible. The
| respect accorded him in Menomonie,
| whittier he went from 81. Louis in 1899,
| is marked. He lives in palace of
| house, as do the Tainters and the
| other partners of the big lumber firm.
| He has wife and three children. The
| family are Unitarians.
| A MilIionaires Good Sense.
| I was struck by the good sense re-
| quisite to being a successful philan-
| thropist. Senator Stout did not build
big school and support it indefinitely
| while his poorer fellow citizens laid
| down and enjoyed it. He said to them:
| Now, let's have modern high school"
| So they bonded the city for $4,000 for
| the high school, and the ladies formed
| an organization to ra Sc money to beau
tify it and the grounds. The city pays
| the teachers in both the training and
high schools and the other bills. and no
doubt when the city has evinced its
| thorough good faith Senator Stout will
| give them his building. He early rec
! ognized the Importance of kindergarten
| work. But the citizens were slow to
take hold. So for some years he him
self quietly paid the bills. Today this
little city has 27S children under trained
| Undergraduates record probably IN
| excelled in the United States. And now
| the city pays the bills.
|
| In it each pupil of the high school
| spends an hour day. and in it, too.
| the younger children, boys and girls,
| have an hour; or else the teacher goes
| to the various ward schools and in
| structs them. So there is manual train
| ing for al, from the earliest years
| when the kindergarten unconsciously
| merges into manual training The OBJ
| nj tpnin nj oh
| es on the regular" curriculum is
| pointless. because this hour per day is
| extra-it encroaches on their play
time, or rather it is regarded as di-
| version. We looked in the forge room,
| where boys IN the third year OF the high
| school work There were twenty-five
FORCES, with the patent under draft,
obviating the necessity for individual
chimneys. In the machine shop were
j a dozen 16-inch lathes, and bigger ones
and smaller. There was room where
tools were given cut on check, as in
| a factory There were facilities for
chipping and filing metals. In the mold
| ing room they make castings, having
| first drawn and made the patterns.
| There were iron and brass furnaces
from which they drew the molten ma
terials. The woodworking and pattern
| shops would delight the boy who makes
a water wheel with jaeknife anq a..
old soap box. There were drawing
rooms. where the plans and blue prints
are outlined, and lathes for turning
spools and cups and tool handles and
| other wood work.
And the girls are not neglected. There
are two women teachers who know all
about cooking and sewing and art. Miss
Laura G. Day of Missouri has the
household arts, and Miss Kate Murphy
teaches drawing and instructs in art
Good things are growth, and this
training school is constantly widening
its field AT present cooking has been
| extened to the eighth grade girls, who
have two periods week, with twG
years course in the high school, when
more time is devoted 10 the kitchen;
And even younger girls will soon ps
introduced to cook cry. There is g dlB-
ing room. On six big tables they learn
to prepare the raw materials. and they
learn to build a wood fire and get the
best results from coal.
Girls In White Aprons and Caps.
Each girl has her locker, and when
the class is rsl1ed ip white aprons and a
| white aidow-iike affaif on their heads