The Lafayette advertiser. [volume] (Vermilionville [i.e. Lafayette], La.) 1865-19??, 1904-11-02
INSTITUTE.
First nonth's Work Very Crafty.
ing. All Departments Full of
Earnest Workers.
Military Drill by Prof. Gayle, Finds
High Favor with Students
Program For Boys Dormi-
t0ry.-Athletic Ass0cia-
ton Doing Good
Work.

To The Lafayette Advertiser:
The first months work at the South
western Industrial Institute is in
every way gratifying tc the friends
and patrons of the school. 1t has
afforded time and opportunity to
settle down to complete and thorough
organization, regular duties, and
good work in all departments.
The student body consists of about
two hundred boys and girls ranging
in age from fourteen to twenty-nine.
The days work begins at $40 a. IN.
and ZONES to an end at 3:2O p. M.
Between these hours the school greatly
resembles a hive of bees. In the
sewing room: and in the cooking
school is a busy thrOng of happy
faced workers. Nimble fingers ply
the needle, weave baskets and make
artistic designs. In the cooking
school are other equally happy faced
girls busily engaged in compromising
dishes to tickle the appetite of the
ungentler sex. Verify, future genera
lions of men will rise up and bless the
work conducted by the Domestic
Science Department. .
But other departments are equally
busy and equally crowded. The
Library is a room that never fails to
attract notice. Here the students
spend their study hour. Here the
librarian quickly and noiselessly
supplies the wants of the students and
supervises them at their study. Here
are to be seen the principal magazines
and periodicals together with the
New Orleans dailies and the principal
country papers of the State.
The work shop too presents a scene
OF activity. The youthful blacksmith
at his forge, the carpenter at his
bench, the cabinet maker over his
piece OF furniture, all animated with
intelligent zeal, all exemplifying the
fact that the industrial needs of our
State bid fair to be supplied and its
industrial Development promoted by
. citizenship whose education and
intelligence are reinforced by a
practical knowledge of trades and
industries.
And SO the Telegraphy Department
and the Stenography and Typewrit-
ing Department, and the Commercial
Department: each supplements the
academic education by giving the
students q knowledge of something
by which he may earn a livelihood
after he leaves school.
Not the least interesting of the
days program is the drill hour.
While the young ladies are taking
their physical culture lesson in the
Gymnasium under the skilled super
vision of Miss McLaurin, the teacher
OF physical culture, the boys are
given q military drill by Mr.. Gayle,
the science teacher, who received his
training at the Louisiana. State
University at Baton Rouge.
1t is wonderful what one month OF
this drill has done for the student
body or corps of cadets as they are
beginning to be called. From q
coDglomerate mass of one hundred
and fifteen or twenty raw and un-
trained, awkward, gswky boys who
could scarcely keep step with them
selves, much less each other, they
have been metamorphosed into
s~oldierly, firm-stepping, steady
nerved young men who are fast be-
coming quick, alert and graceful.
Squads with squad commanders
were first evolved and then from
these squads have grown four COM
panies whose complement of officers
is gradually being chosen from those
whose strong character, natural apti-
tude, and fitness to command, recon-
mend them to the eye of the c0mand-
ant. The very idea of being in line,
OF keeping in step, of going through
military evOlutiOns, has had its effect.
Round shoulders are being held back,
heads r being held erect, and chests
are unconsciously thrown out. So
great is the of the drill and
its effect is SO far exceeding the most
sanguine expectations that uniforms
are . strong probability for the near
future. The uniform cOmmends itself
hOfh m accOa,ut IF its noofroes ord
its cheapness. One uniform costing