Shiner gazette. [volume] (Shiner, Tex.) 1893-current, 1909-06-10
lRE 4. 4. NOIFE VOCATIONAL SCHOOL,
4 Private Industrial and Text Book Institute Of The Very Latest
Best Now Offered to Boys.

The all-b0Ok traditional inStruc-
ton in the schools of this country
gives the one boy in ten destined for
the professions and for business lead
ership more or less satisfactory
preparation for his life work 1t
does not, however, so prepare the
nine boys in ten who are destined for
manual pursuits.
There is great army of boys to
whom the traditional all-book course
of study does not appeal Such boys
drop out of school in the grades to
accept unskilled and Juvenile employ
ment in which they frequently re-
main till the duties of manhood are
upon them without the vocational
training to earn mans wages.
Many of these boys have the natural
gifts to excel as mechanics, machin-
lists, engineers, architects, contract
ors and foremen.
Our Educational system will not be
genuinely democratic till it appeals
as strongly to the mechanical boy as
it does to the professional boy. For
twenty-five years, as State and City
Superintendent (the last six years in
charge OF the San Antonio Public
Schools), have labored strenuously
to make education more democratic,
through the introduction of manual
training, school gardening, supple
mentary reading, merit in the selec-
ton and promotion of teachers, etc.
In the hope of doing more to make
education democratic, / have invested
the modest savings of years in a pri-
vate vocational school which will
open in San Antonio, Texas, Septem-
Der, 1909 The teachers (who will be
all men) will be selected with special
reference to their teaching power and
their influence upon boys. Improved
tools and machinery for wood and
iron work will be provided. Approx
imately half Of the time will be given
to high order of practical vocational
training; the other bali, to book
training more serviceable Il believe)
than the book training now univer-
sally given in the schools. In history,
literature, nature studies, and indus
trial achievement, instead of memoir
izing the dry facts of a few pages at
a lesson, pupils will read, at lesson,
from ten to twenty pages, that they
may understand and appreciate.
Much use will be made Of visits to
business and industrial plants, OF
natural science excursions, and of
practical talks from leaders in vari-
GUS fields Of achievement. No en-
trance examination will be required.
Each boy will be put to work at that
for which he seems to possess the
greatest aptitude, and led, by the
most direct route, to efficiency in his
chosen field. The work will not be
crippled through slavish efforts to
prepare pupils for entrance to the
zchool above-the high school, the
college, the university.
The mechanical courses include:
/. Woodwork bench work, turn
ing, cabinet work, and pattern MAX
ing, accompanied by strong course
in mechanical drawing calculated to
fit the student for foreman, contract
lor, or practical architect
2. Iron work-forging, machine
shop work, casting. The iron work
will also be accompanied by strong
course in mechanical drawing.
3. Plumbing, tin work.
The Commercial course will in
Glide typewriting, shorthand, book
keeping, commercial arithmetic COM
tpercial geography and commercial law
Students will be thoroughly
grounded in the mathematics defin-
itely related to the respective courses.
The book work will consist of slim
ulating reading along the four funda-
mental lines of history, literature,
natural science and industrial and
commercial achievement.
Pa Ample practice will be given in
oral and written composition, round
table discussions and debates, espe-
cially emphasizing spelling and pen
manship.
At the January, 1908, meeting of
the National Society for the Promo
ntion of Industrial Education, w. r.
Il Warner of Warner & Swasey Co.,
Cleveland, Ohio, related an eloquent
story of a poor boy who lived twelve
miles from the railroad; repaired his
mothers clock, sewing machine, ETC.;
having only seen pictures of locomo-
4ivea and having read aholIf them he