Fulton County tribune. (Wauseon, Ohio) 1883-1925, 1917-10-12
STUDENTSARE PAID
New Kind of School Established
by Factory Owner.
Boys Made SeIf-Supporting While Re.
ceiving Four-Year Vocational
Training Under New Appren-
ticeship System.

The new apprenticeship system that
has recently been introduced in
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 130 apprentices as a freshman class
In four-year combined practical and
theoretical course. Each year a 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
especially equipped for the boys use
and serves as a classroom and as a
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 a 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 a 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
approach into the boys interests and
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" This all tends to Gre
ate spirit Of loyalty, which is as de-
strable here as in any institution.
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 upor
their apprenticeship as period OF
training and to be more interested IL
what they learn than in what the,
earn. At the same time the appren
uceship rates have been placed suffi
ciently high to make the boy self-sup
porting from the start. The rates fo
the four-year machinist apprentice
ship are respectively IA, 15, II and L;
cents an hour and the rates for tn
other apprenticeship higher than that
running up to 81 cents an hour in tn
last year. In every case a bonus o
500 is paid upon the successful com
pletion of the apprenticeship. Their
Is a material difference between tn
rates of the molders and the other ap
prentices on account of the maturit,
that is required by the nature of tn
work.