The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-02-09
GIRLS TRADE SCHOOL.
Remarkable Progress of Manhattan
 Institution in Four Years.


 meeting on Thursday, reads almost like fairy tale. Founded only four years ago, totally new movement in America, with no other school to serve as its model in three years the school found itself so crowded for room in its first quarters, on 14th street, that it had to expand its work or turn away crowds of girls pleading for admission It had no money to ex- pand, yet its board of directors voted unanimously to expand. In four months of 1906 the finance committee raised $1250 900, bought the building at No. 209 East 23d street, and the school moved in and was in running order by summer. In this splendid building, ad- mirably equipped and suited for the school, there is room for five hundred students, and with the removal of screens eight hundred can be ac- commadated. In the old building the per capita expense was s16S year. With the greater economy of admin istration now possible it is hoped to reduce this capita to $50 this year.
 The causes which produced the large sum of $l25,00O for a new experience were the results of three years work. Employers, doubtful and indifferent at first, had found that they could get girls trained for their workrooms and capable of advancing their inter- ests at the school. Makers of intri- cate and difficult power machines had offered to give or lend these ma chimes to the school free of charge, that pupils might be trained to oper- ate them, thus demonstrating in the most practical way possible their sense of the value of the trained girl operator, The girls themselves trained at the school found that they could earn more money than they could have done without the training, with prospects of still highter wages, so that more and more girls were asking asking the school for training. More important than either of these causes, within the three years there had grown up in the United States a widespread feeling that industrial training must be incorporated in the public school system, and leading educators and captains of industry were watching this little school as an experiment and a model.
 The new building has advanced the work along many lines. Instead of thirty machines in the power operat- ing room. there are now ninety, run | by two electric motors. In the old building there was no room for fine dressmaking. In the new there is ample room for specialization. The making of uniforms, gymnasium and I bathing suits, underwear, sample gar- ments and suits has gone on apace, and more and more orders are taken for fine, elaborate dressmaking. A swimming suit has been designed and has met with such praise from pro- | fessionals that it is to be patented as the Manhattan Trade School swim ming suit" New Work has been in- ' stituted, like the designing and mak- ' ing of sample garments for the trade, and the stamping and perforating of 1 patterns. Even in the elementary sewing classes the pupils have be- gun at once upon practical articles, and the sales of these have been enough to cover all expenses of prac- tice and materials.
 ! In advanced dressmaking the need | of hemstitching and embroidery for elaborate gowns has caused correla- tion with the electric power depart ment have produced on the machines the Bonnab embroidery, a fine and eX- pensive trimming, for which Amer ica has always gone to Europe hither- to.
 This year has seen the beginning of what will develop into regular trade shops in the school. For instance, when orders come in from customers 1t is evident that they cannot be en- tirely filled by young students. There must be trained professionals in the shop. Also the students work five hours a day--the school day, not the working day. To obviate these difficult ties trade workers are employed at market wages, and their number will be increased as time goes on thus en> abling the school to fill more orders and give the pupils greater variety of work for practice. The trade work CTS are not always to do the more diff ficult things Often they are to do the easiest, so that the students may learn the difficult If a little girl ent- CTS a big dressmaking establishment as apprentice she is likely to be kept making pockets for year or two, when she is not running errands. She has learned to make pockets and is useful to the proprietor in that capa- city, but she is not learning dress making.
 At the school, when she has made one pocket right she will never make another. She will be taught something else and the paid worker will make the pockets. That is the difference be- tween business and education, This system of paid workers has begun in the sewing room, and will be extend- ed into every Gepartment till the school has a series of well equipped shops, where all sorts of things are manufactured for the trade. A new development of 1906 has been little store, where products of the various departments are for sale. This store has enabled the school to give a new line of training, fully as useful as any other, and has brought to light an- other line of ability among the stud nets. Every now and then girl s found who has no aptitude for any line