Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1908-04-10
Practical Manual Training.

In its last issue the Wool and Cot
ton Reporter, the leading textile mill
paper of the country, pays a warm
tribute to Agent Page of the great
York cotton mill plant of Saco for his
success in training up young men for
positions as department heads, super
intendents and agents in the cotton
manufacturing industry. At a time
when many minds are occupied in de-
vising methods of technical training
for the youth of this country, and
when many influences are tending to
poison the minds of the American
youth against honest manual labor.
particularly employment In textile
mills, it is very refreshing to learn of
a system of practical education of
mill hands by the agent of the York
mills, at Saco, Me. For some years
Mr.. Page has operated a plan Of sup
plying not only his own mill but many
other textile mills with expertly trained
in northern New England are enthu-
siastic over the success of the York
system.
The agent of the mills took 10 boys
from the Saco grammar schools ut
about IA years Of age, and put them
into the mills under pay and under his
direct supervision. They were given
a year in each department, and when
"a or Is years of age, or after 10 years
service, with increasing wages as they
advanced, they are remarkably well
fitted for Overseers and superinten-
dents, and in many cases entirely COM
petent to manage a moderate sized
mill. This sort of education counts for
the boy who has his own way TO make
in the world, and when he is still a
young man, he has all the Gualifica-
tions of an expert mill hand, and is in
position to draw salary anywhere from
$1,000 to ss,5O0 year as opportunity
offers.
This plan of Mr.. Page is not in the
line OF philanthropy, but purely a
business undertaking, the purpose be-
ing to bring up body Of young men
to grow with the rapidly expanding
York mills, and earn good salaries
right at home where they can become
leading citizens in their native town.
The best people in Saco are deeply in
terested in the practical mill education
gained by the Page method, and much
of the general objection to mill help is
thus overcome. AS fast as one of the
young men graduates, or completes
his 10 years service, his place is filled
oy the selection of a boy from the
grammar school, and the ranks of the
10 apprentices, or whatever they may
be called, are always complete. In
it's commentator of Mr.. Pages work
at Saco the Wool and Cotton Reporter
says:
THE Page system is the most prac-
tically beneficial to the greatest num-
Der Of boys of any scheme of technical
education we have yet heard OF. The
boys chosen are not probable presi-
dents nor prospective captains Of fl
nance, but sons of ard-working pa
rents. or of widows in very moderate
circumstances. They are boys who
under no probable condition could at
tend the textile schools, and but for
the Page system they would drift into
the mills as ordinary workmen and
probably remain ordinary worknen ali
their lives in majority of cases. But
at the York mills, they are thoroughly
trained. under the personal direction
CT one of the best manufacturing
agents in the country, for positions of
trust, and the cases are rare, indeed,
where they have failed to make good
to the credit of themselves and their
agent.
while there are hundreds able to go
to the textile schools and get the
foundations of practical mill expert
ence, there are many rough edges that
have to be worn off by hard knocks
in the mills before they become quail
flied to assume executive work, and
the only advantage such young men
have over those of the Page system is
book knowledge. and we are told that
not few of the York apprentices are
overcoming this feature by home study
or correspondence courses.
What Saco is gaining by the Page
system is possible in all the mill towns
and cities, and the general adoption of
a plan similar to that SO successful at
the York mills would, in connection
with the textile schools, furnish an
abundance of expert overseers and
suparintendents for the future, and
completely remove that vague appre-
hension of mill managers as to where
their future experts are coming FROM