Arizona republican., 1905-02-21
The Merits of Industrial Schools.

| In the present legislature. as in for
 mer sessions, the question of establish
 ing one or more manual training
 schools in the territory is receiving
 considerable attention. It is open to
 doubt whether the time has arrived for establishing such schools at public ex- pense in Arizona, but the merits of
 the industrial school in the abstract
 cannot be questioned. This is a great manufacturing country as we all
 know. but the opportunities to learn
 mechanical arts are extremely limited. And yet, nothing so surely assures fu-
 ture independence to a boy as a tho
 rough course in manual training.
 There are three principal methods of
 trade instruction, namely, the old ap-
 prentice system; the modern appren- tice system-that is, instruction in trade, combined with instruction in other subjects, and the trade school. Even were it possible for all who de- sire it to become apprentices on the old plan, the apprentice system is wasteful of the boys time. Here is an illustration: In some of the best ma chine shops of Chicago a young man learns a trade in four years, each year consisting of three hundred days of eight hours; tbat is. 2,4O0 hours in all
 Graduates of one of the manual train ing schools of Chicago are admitted to the second year of apprenticeship in these shops; that is, their work in the schools is recognized by the superin- tendents of tEe machine shops as equivalent to 2,40O hours in the shop. But the machine shop work of the manual training school boys has been 300 hours only. That is, he learns in the school eight times as rapidly as in the shop. But it is we'll known that the number of apprentices is limited. We have then, two objections to the old apprentice system; it's waste of time, and it's exclusiveness.
 The modern apprentice system com pines instruction in general subjects with instruction in a special trade. Many manufacturing establishments in Europe have trade instructions Of this kind, and have had for many years.
 Many people object to trade schools. To hear the term arouses their opposi- tion. This dislike is due to niiscon- ception, to ignorance of what a mod ern trade school is. Such people imag- inc a modern trade school to be a shop in which an immature boy is worked eight or ten hours a day and becomse, maybe. a skilfuI mechanic, but is nec- essarily an ignorant man. In mod ern trade school a boy devotes DOT ton of his time to his trade. Whether this portion is half or less depends up- on his age and other conditions. The other part of his time is given to com mon or high school studies. Tn this country the studies would probably be arithmetic, algebra, geometry, history, government, physics, chemistry draw ing, etc. With skilful teaching in q l school of this kind the boy will learn nearly or quite as much from books as he is now learning in an ordinary school He becomes an educated mechanic. In manual training schools of this coun- try a boy of, say, twenty years, has accomplished at least as much from books as the ordinary high school boys learned in the same time. and has learned also as much shop work as is taught in many engineering schools. with enough drawing to enable him to command from ten to fifteen dollars a week as draughtsman. He has also acquired sufficient general knowledge of machinery and materials and executive ability to give him a good control of men. And these man. uaI training schools are not trade schools; that is, the shop and drawing instruction do not occupy so prominent a place in their curriculum as those studies would in a trade school.
 The original manual training schools i were established by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, by the Wash ington University of St. Louis, and by the Commercial club of Chicago. The l first public manual training school was opened in Baltimore in March, 1884. | Now the public manual training school is found in nearly every large city | and in many small cities of the Unit ed States.
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 The Livestock Sanitary Law.