The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-06-22

"ODAY, in Gary, Ind, has been
 evolved one of the most remark
 ably successful educational sys- tems in the public schools this country has ever seen. The problem was to pro- vide education for an industrial popula- tion containing 2S different nationaities. That problem has been solved by the methods worked out by William A Wirt, the superintendent. In an article on these Gary schools in the July Hampton's en- titled Keeping the Children in School" Rheta Childe Dorr says:
 ''The basis of MT. Wfrt's system is an intelligent acceptance of the fact that times have changed iu the past genera tion, and that the town and city home not only in Gary, but elsewhere, can no longer fulfll it's original responsibilities toward children. There was time when the moral and general training of chill dren could be done in the home and could hardly be done anywhere else. Because, at that time, the home was an industrial center The children learned by doing They formed habits which determined their whole future lives.
 
 cooking, sewing, preserving, manufac- turing in the farm or village home, was highly educational because it formed hab-
 it's of independent thinking, initiative, and industry
 ITO have learned to know the right thing to do,' says MT. Writ is not char acter, but to have formed the habit of doing the right thing is character. Wben the home lost the opportunity for the in- dustrial training of it's children. it also lost it's power for efficient moral and gen. eral character training, because these were inseparably linked with the indus trial training,''
 ''We are too prone to accept a situation. continue a system, cling to an ideal, long after it has served it's purpose. Our school system, fo rexample, is surrounded with conventionaities, the very meaning of which has been forgotten. Why do we inviarably have vactions in summer Because two generations ago, when the public schools were established, the chill drens labor was needed on the farm in summer. Why do we dismiss children from school in the middle of the after nOOn. They usSu tO lcth tildt tilllc bC- fore supper to do the chores.
 "In this day and generation, especially in cities it is not only futile, it is crimi- nal to allow children to run idle during three months of the year. 1t is, to put it mildly, dangerous to turn them into the streets from o'clock until dark. This is MT. Wirt's firm conviction, and that is why, in Gary, the children are kept in school from S;SO until { and }. "Please do not picture these youngsters at their desks during eight hours of the day In the first place, no child in Gary
 has desk. He hax a locker where he keeps his outer clothing and his books. | The desks belong to the children who l happen at the time to be using them I Neither are the children kept at work during eight hours of the day. Most [ I | the time they are usefully, happily, ideal | ly just living, doing a number of things all cbildren love to do, and ought to do, l in order to acquire character.
 "They live in a veritable child world, a | world in which there is plenty of work | to do, but the work is so pleasingly ming | led with play and exercise that no one ! is/ ever bored or wearied About three hours each day are devoted to formal ! work in reading, writing, arithmetic and history. About three and half hours each day are given to manual training, natural science, music, literature and formal gymnasium work. The rest of the time is given to free activities in the gymnasium, swimming pools and in the fve-acre playground The manual train ing shops and the school laboratories are open during these free periods and many of the older pupils choose to work ir | them alone pursuing some problenh oi
 working out some ideal of their own. "Children of all ages. from the kinder
 garten to the high school, live together | in this child world. The little first reader
 children have their simple manual train | ing building doll houses, modelling in ella, and the like, in close proximity to thu