Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1920-08-31
MILLION VALUE OF
SCHOOL PROPERTY
SUPT. sS. B. TOBEY ISSUES
REPORT ON VOCATIONAL
SCHOOL FOR YEAR

Wausah's Industrial School is an
institution which local people are 60
ing to be increasingly proud OF as
time passes. In no time it has gained
an important place in the city school
system Supt. Tobey has issued the
following report:
This city now has one million dol
lars worth of school property. The
city has not paid that much for it;
but it could not be replaced at pres
ent prices for less than that amount.
The Industrial or Vocational School
is housed in the Central school build
ing which cost without the site about
$4,000. The equipment cost about
$28, 5000 additional.
The Industrial School provides edu-
cational opportunity for three classes
of students:
l. Part time pupils between four
teen and seventeen years who work
in stores or factories and attend
school one or more days per week.
2. All day industrial pupils who at
tend school five days per week.
3. Evening school pupils who at
tend school one or two evenings per
week.
Part time students are all given aca-
demic work in the common school
branches, and are, in addition to this,
given instruction in some trade or
useful occupation. The girls are
taught plain sewing, dressmaking,
minninery, cooking, serving, and home
nursing. The boys are taught cabinet
making, mechanical and machine
drawing, machinists' trade, sheet
metal working, auto repairing, forg-
ing and plumbing.
There were enrolled during the past
year in the all day industrial school
q boys and p girls; in the part
time school lab boys and 1872 girls
were enrolled. In the evening school
PIG boys and men and 312 girls and
women were enrolled.
Six teachers, three men and three
women, were employed in the all day
and part time industrial school and
nine men and six women were en-
ployed in the evening school.
All of the equipment both of the
domestic science department and OF
the woodworking and metal shops
was installed by the boys of the school
under the direction of the teachers.
When one sees the big planer, radial
drill, milling machine, heavy duty
Iathes and other machinery operated
by the boys of from IA to II years of
age, and realizes that these huge ma
chimes were set up even to the mo-
tors, conduits, and electric wiring, by
the boys, he begins to realize some
| thing of what boys can do when given
a good opportunity under inspiring
leadership. All of this machinery and
equipment has been installed since
| the first of last September
During the past school year the
commercial projects completed in
woodworking include the making OF
125 trucks, rs sections for sectional
| bookcases, several office desks, teach
ers' desks, kindergarten tables, and
many smaller articles including hun
dredS of bird houses. In the machine
shops a dining-room truck, six power
grinders, two large clamping presses
thirty bench vices, twelve tool max
ers' small jacks, three thousand looms
for Indian bead work, tool holders for
| shaper. boring tool holders for lathes
pICoo IOl CuItIIS OuI ldUClS
standard rose reamers, stud bolts and
many repair jobs for automobile
shops and others have been complet-
| ed. Many minor repairs in woodwork
and plumbing on the school buildings
| have been done by the boys of the
| school. We find that the fact that they
are doing practical commercial work
| just such as will be met in the shops
| and the factories, gives an added in
| terest in the vocational task and in
duces pupils to do more careful work
| than can be secured from the making
! of things which they know are soon
| to be consigned to the scrap heap
| The work of the girls in millinery
| plain sewing, dressmaking, cooking
| and home nursing, while not taking
| the commercial trend, is none the less
| practical, though the motives appeal
| ed to are somewhat different.
In the evening school 40 men took
mechanical. architectural or machine
drawing. more men than could be &C,
commodated applied for machine shop
| instruction, 100 women and girls com
| pleted the home nursing course
| about 40 girls took the work in Serv-
] ing and the same number were in
| cooking classes, 125 in shorthand anG
| typewriting. 25 in English and book
keeping, like number in French, Sc
in automobile classes, Is in telegra-
ply, and 20 in woodworking.
| very successful short course OF
one week duration in domestic arts
was given early in the summer to &C
| girls, ranging in age from IS to 20
| from all parts of Marathon County
| This course was given in the Voca-
| tional School by field workers from
| the State University working under
| direction of Mrs. Kedzie Jones.
The cost for maintenance of the
| evening school was S2,4S950, or about
| $4.25 per pupil enrolled; and the cost
| for maintenance of the all day and
part time Industrial School was S.
221.37, or about S23.63 per capita.
The Vocational School is already
too large to be adequately accommo-
dated in the first unit, thus far erect
| ed, of the Central School If this city
| grows. as we trust it will, in the flu
| ture as in the past. the Central
School will have to be completed to
| care for the Industrial School and the
increasingly large number of grade
children who will have to be accom-
| modated i'll the building. The records
of this school show a remarkable
growth. indicative of the growing con-
viction that il is serving a highly use
full purpose in the community. 1t is
becoming increasingly popular. and is
offering opportunity to hundreds to
prepare themselves for better and
| more lucrative positions and for safer
| and happier lives.