Crossville chronicle. [volume] (Crossville, Tenn.) 1894-current, 1917-04-18
STUDENTSAR PAID
New Kind of School Established
by Factory Owner.
Boys Made Self Supporting While Re-
ceiving Four-Year Vocational
Training Under New Appren-
ticeship System.

The new apprenticeship system that
has recently been introduced in a
Hartford factory seems TO offer
one of the most promising of all rene
dies that have been tried by American
| factory managers to prevent labor
troubles, increase factory production,
lower production costs and generally
bring about that cooperation between
factory employer and employee that Is
Indispensable to their mutual prosper
ity, says the Hartford Courant. One
manufacturing company has taken
on 100 apprentices as freshman class
in a four-year combined practical and
theoretical course. Each year new
| freshman class will be taken on, and in
four years it is expected that there
will be at least 500 apprentices.
The apprenticeship system is In
charge Of supervisor of apprentices,
who is also an experienced teacher,
mechanic and a student of the human
phase of the problem. He has his head
quarters in the room which has been
and serves as Il classroom and as n
lunch and reading room. Here the
boys came for a certain period each
week, during working hours, to receive
instruction and training to supplement
their shop experience. Much of this
instruction is necessarily technical and
very much specialized, but at the same
time an effort is being made to give
the boys general understanding of
the fundamental principles that under
lie all the mechanical industries and
thus make them more appreciative of
their own branch and the more alert
to its possibilities. This room also
serves as social center for the boys
and every noon they gather to read,
play games and meet with one another
The supervisor Is also present and
finds in this hour another avenue of
friendships.
Another hold has been got on the
boys through athletics. Teams have
been organized and games played,
choosing schools for opponents as far
as possible. Places upon the teams
are dependent upon shop and class
records and there are no athletic
scholarships"
The boys shop experience is OBJ
tanned in the regular manufacturing
departments of the plant. To insure
an all-around experience the boys are
changed from one department to an
other as their PROCESS warrants. The
minimum stay in one department is
six months, and as the boy advances
in his apprenticeship his stay in a de-
partment is usually heightened, as he
is then better able to profit by the
variety of work that he may be given.
The course of study is divided into
four main parts, mathematics, draw
ing, science and theory of shop prac-
tice.
The boys are taught to look upon |
their apprenticeship as period of |
training and to be more interested in |
what they learn than In what they
earn. At the same time the appren-
ticeship rates have been placed suffi- |
GENTLY high to make the boy self-sup-
porting from the start. The rates for |
the four-year machinist apprentice |
ship are respectively II, Is, II and 10 |
cents an hour and the rates for the
other apprenticeship higher than that,
up to q cents an hour in the
last year. In every case bonus of
500 is paid upon the successful COM
pletion of the apprenticeship. There
is material difference between the
rates of the molders and the other ap-
prentices on account of the maturity
that is required by the nature of the
work.