Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911, 1907-08-19
TEACH TRADES
IN SCHOOLS.
MILWAUKEE, FIRST TO PROVIDE
OPPORTUNITY
INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION OPEN TO
PUPILS
Wisconsin Leads Way, Legislatures of
Many Eastern States May Fol-
low In This Practical
Work

letters or inquiry, manteSung interest IN
the Milwaukee School of Trades and in
the law under which Wisconsin is the
first state and Milwaukee the first city
in the United States to provide for the
incorporation of schools of trade in the
public school system, have been received
from all parts of the country by M. H.
Grossman, secretary of the school, and
other officers. Based upon these letters
predictions are made by Mr.. Grossman
that the legislatures of at least ten states,
mainly in the east, will at their next ses-
sion follow Wisconsin's example and pass
bills authorizing the establishment and
maintenance of schools of trade as part
of the public school system.
These letters of inquiry have come espe-
cially from the manufacturing centers of
the east since the Inauguration Of the
movement for legislative authority to
take over the Milwaukee school. Re-
quests for copies of the Wisconsin bill,
which astonished even its most cordial
friends by receiving the unanimous APP
prevail of the joint legislative committee
and by passing both senate and assembly
without dissenting vote, have been re-
ceived from philanthropists well known
manufacturers and public spirited men in
New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut,
New Hampshire, Maine, Pennsylvania,
California and many other states
Noted Men Indorse School
The history. of the school is an inten-
sely interesting one. Among those who
have visited the Milwaukee School of
Trades before 1t was taken over by the
school board and during its maintenance,
first by the Merchants and Manufacture
ers' association and then by its own in
corporated body, and who have given 1t
highest Endorsement are the commission
of educators of England, appointed by the
British parliament to visit the United
States educational institutions; Prof. Will
liam Kent dean of the College of En-
cheering of the University of Syracuse of
Syracuse. N. Y; M. W. Alexander, super
intendent of the apprentice department of
the General Electric company Of Lynn,
Mass, and also vice president of the
National Association for the Promotion
of Industrial Education; Harry S. Biting,
superintendent of the Williamson School
of Mechanical Trades of Williamson, Pa,
and Prof. l.. P. Breckenridge, director of
the engineering experiment station of the
University of Illinois at Urbana, Ill.
All of these men inspected the school
most carefully in all its detail, Dean
Kent, who is an acknowledged authority
on engineering the country over, spending
six hours in a most exhaustive inquiry
and following it by declaring that the
school was unquestionably the best in the
country. Superintendent Biting, who
came from Philadelphia to inspect the
school, declared it to be superior in
equipment to his school with it's endow-
ment of $1.7O0,O00 and a building fund of
over $4,000, and it Is said that there is
no machine shop in the country more.
thoroughly equipped than the Milwaukee
school.
Leads Way for Industrial Education
1t is believed that Wisconsin, by the ac-
ton of its legislature and the subsequent
action of the Milwaukee school board, has
taken it's place as the advance guard in
a general movement for industrial educa-
ton which will sweep over the entire
country within the next few years. Presi-
dent Roosevelt has publicly declared 1t to
be one of the great needs of the country.
Prof. James C. Monaghan, late of the de-
partment of commerce and labor, insists
that in industrial education lies this coun-
try's hope of retaining its commercial
supremacy against Germany, which has
become a commercial power mainly
through its schools of trade and indus
trial art and in spite of lack of natural
resources such as have given America its
present position, and also against Japan,
which is adopting Germany's educational
methods together with what is best in this
country's system, and the National Asso-
citation of Manufacturers has recognized
the need which exists by appointing a
committee to investigate it and placing a
large fund at the committees disposal.
Other Cities to Follow
Already Oshkosh, Racine and La Crosse
are agitating the establishment of trades
schools under the new Wisconsin law and
it is probable that there will be additional
ones opened in Milwaukee. In cities of
the first class the vote of the school board
alone is necessary for the establishment of
the schools, but in other cities the recon-
mendation of the board must be Endorsed
by popular vote upon the demand by petit
ton of 20 per cent of the electors.
In the light of the general belief that
labor unions are opposed to trade schools,
the consistent Endorsement and support
given by Milwaukee union men and social
lists to the Milwaukee school is regarded
as noteworthy and significant. In the
conferences preceding the framing of the
bill, Fred M. Brockhausen and Frank j.
Weber, leaders among the socialists and
labor organizations, met with the direc-
tors of the SCHOOL at their invitation and
Assemblyman Weber introduced the bill
in the assembly From the first the Mil
waukee Master Plumbers association has
taken an active interest in the plumbing
department of the school.
Brief History of School
The Milwaukee School of Trades was
opened January 2, 1906, under the auspices
of the 4,-erchants and Manufacturers as
ISOLATION and as the result of the move
ment actively pushed by F. w. Sivyer.
Later separate board was incorporated
and within the last few weeks the valu-
able property, with an equipment which
inventories conservatively estimate at $40,
00O has been turned over to the school
board, free of debt and without any ex-
pense to the board. After months of pre-
liminary investigation, the school was
modelled after the New York trade school,
and so rapid has been its growth that
within eighteen months 1t has doubled the
extent of it's accommodations, now occu-
plying an entire manufacturing plant.
while it's average enrolment has been 12C
young men from all walks of life. Some
of them have gone to their daily school
tasks in automobiles, while others have
been forced to toll all day and attend the
evening classes which were to fit them for
more remunerative labor.
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