Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1921-12-08

are dropping out Tor that reason.
| 1t has been discovered that many
cases, which we so often term failures,
only show inability to adjustment to
the requirements of instruction along
some lines which do not function in
the lives of the boys and girls later
on. One of the strong features of the
vocational schools lies in the fact that
the courses are flexible and a majority
| of these so called slow and backward
students have been properly placed
and with sympathetic faculty they
are finding themselves. Some of the
students who entered soon after the
new school program was established,
have completed their work and have
gone out into industry, better citizens
and better prepared to take hold of
llife's problems.
Most school systems have minis
tered to the needs of few who have
entered law. medicine, theology and
teaching and some few lines of bust
ness, but only inadequately to the
needs of the great majority who have
entered into the productive activities
of a community. Our ideal must be to
make universal education reality on
the fair theory that the man i'm the
shop has an Inherent right to train
ing because he. too. Is part of the
state and has a part to play i'm the
worlds affairs. In WauSau we are
working toward that ideal and new
courses are being offered whenever
school rooms and financial conditions
permit. This ideal will be brought
about in this country, when our citi-
zenship has developed the attitude that
honest labor is dignified no matter in
what line it is performed.
"The vocational school sets up no
requirements for entrance except that
the student shall be ID years of age
or over and shall show that he or she
is physically capable of doing the
kind of work he or she elects. Not on
ly does the boy of IA come, but as we'll
the man of so who for some reason or
other desires to make q new choice
of vocation or learn more of the one
in which he is engaged Students are
promoted from one subject to another
as soon as they show they are able
to do the work. One may conclude that
| this must disarrange organization 1t
may do so but the value to the stud
ent is immense and after all the school
not for the organization.
MANY students come to the voca-
tional school with no definite purpose
and it then becomes the duty of the
director and members of the faculty
| to study each case individually with
view of finding out what can best be
undertaken. Many of this type have
been successfully guided along right
| lines through the use of try-ou' cours
es and we consider try-out courses
| to be one of the important features
| of the school,
Mistaken Idea
| MANY people in Wausau have mis-
| taken idea of what is being done in
| the vocational school. They think that
students. go there and putter around
and make few worthless articles
that have no commercial value what
| soever. We are constantly urging
people to come and pay the school
visit so that they may see what is be-
4 ing done. Very few of the students
make things for themselves, although
| they may do SO if the instructor feels
| that there is an educational value in
the making of that article.
IHe ISIuueHlS are uOt kept on any
one machine but are given a chance
| to master all the machines, so when
! they have finished their course they
are able to step up to any of the or
binary machines used in a machine
shop with feeling of familiarity and
confidence. Students have turned out
gasolene engines, machine shop and
woodworking vises, drill presses, ar
Dor presses, sheet metal mandrels, ma
chine shop tools, gears and various
other commercial projects.
| 'The school does not compete with
local manufacturers in any way but
| seeks their good will and co-opera-
| ton and we feel that the manufactur-
ers and merchants will be benefited by
| this school in that the school is de-
veloping local skilled labor and better
citizens
| with any of the above mentioned
elective courses the boys must take
related work: Mechanical drawing,
that universal language which every
man should be familiar with, the only
language that can be readily under
stood in any country in the world.
This study opens up the great indus
trial world to them and strengthens
their imaginative and constructive
ability. Shop science which opens up
to them the great fundamental laws
of nature; shop arithmetic, English
and citizenship are also given.
''The girls are given as useful cours-
es as the boys. The courses for the
girls are plain sewing, dressmaking,
millinery, study of foods, preparation
of meals, serving of meals, laundry
work, homemaking, interior decora-
ton and related work such as study
of occupations, English, arithmetic, In
dustrial Geography and citizenship.
Homemaking
"A new course in homemaking will
soon be given in the model home built
in the school by the boys. There are
many things that enter into the home
making course because homemaking
as vocation has certain characters
tice which the strikingly different of
analysis. Homemalang is probably
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