The Birmingham age-herald., 1921-04-14
For Good of
 the Community

IA nore the call of the School of Trades and Industries proposed to be es- tablished at Ragland Alabama depends on the character of the new crops of men and women coming in yearly to replace the void created by age and ineptitude.
 That the boy who knows how to do some one thing we'll is he who forges ahead and carries his community ahead with him is the worlds accepted phi losophy. Men and women with exact knowledge are like strong horses trained, harnessed and prepared to move loads.
 The Ragland school is in this status:
 The state owns tract of 100 acres at Ragland donated by Ragland people. It has appropriated S3O,O0O for a building fund conditioned on the raising of like amount by private subscription Some of the latter has been raised. The remain der is what is wanted to place another manipulating institution on it's feet
 The state is pledged to support of the school once 1t is on it's feet. Getting 1t started is the important thing. It will then grow of it's own weight as Mercy Home, the Boys Industrial school and the the Girls Technical Institute at Monte vallo have grown.
 Why this school? Why are not Auburn and the State University sufficient? Be- cause there are many boys who find these institutions just bit removed from them. They stand in the position of the young fellows who took vocational training in the army. They want to learn how to do things with their hands now.
 Ragland is out in the country. The stu dents at Ragland are to earn part of their tuition. They are to operate farm and do everyday work They are to learn the manual trades, carpentry, blacksmith ing, how to operate machinery; they are to come forth trained workmen ready for mill, mine and factory
 Birmingham goes out in day and raises substantial sums for suffering men and women and hungry children in fara- way lands. It should seem the easiest thing in the world to raise S30,000 to found an institution to train young men to take their part in the industrial world; to make young men who when they seek em- ployment, come prepared to take hold now
 There is school at Tuskegee where negroes are taught the trades and whence they issue as skilled carpenters, bricklay- CTS and operators of stationary engines. These negroes find employment at good wages. There is no school in Alabama where this is done for white boys
 Every manufacturer, every contractor, every farmer knows what it is to train the green hand. Every coal operator knows the overhead expense caused by green hands at the mining pick and the real dan ger of the ignorant coal digger in place where caution founded on knowledge of danger is the first consideration.
 Alabama's farm lands were potentially as productive years ago as they are now They were as fit for pastures for pure bred cattle as they are now They were as capable of the crop diversification as they have been made to yield. The land was not to blame for backwardness on the farm. Ignorance was
 In the early days of mining, milling and iron and steel production in Alabama the state had to send afar for workmen in these trades. Many have since been trained here, but the majority of skilled Workingmen are still imported. This will cease when and only when Alabama trains her own young men vOcatiOnally