Evening star., 1938-07-19
244 BOYS, GIRLS
|NF0RD SCHOOL
It's Out for Summer, But
Motor Magnate Still
Potters Around.
BY the Associated Press.


school to Henry Ford, in Greenfield
Village. For the only industry Of the
village is education and nothing enters
the village that Mr.. Ford does not ap-
prove.
Mr. Ford, through financial support,
is more or less responsible for dozens
more schools. One is 600 miles up the
Amazon, for the youngsters of rubber
workers One is the famous Martha
Berry group in Georgia, three more
are at Sudbury, Mass. Mr.. Ford is
chiefly responsible for the Dearborn
city schools. And so on.
School is out now in the village,
but Mr. Ford, rs years old July 80,
still potters around. His pupils use
1t for a playground, and it's rare
kid who hasn't had William Holmes
McGuffey quoted to him while sitting
on one or the other of the Ford knees.
Air-Conditioned Cabin.
McGuffey is, of course, one of the
major Ford gods. Mr.. Ford not only
carted the McGuffey log cabin to
Greenfield Village and set it up for
cabin and recently he entertained the
McGuffey societies of the land, of
which there are many, for whole
week end at the village.
Not to mention the sets of Nc
Guffey readers. he has sent various
notables and the collection of Nc
Guffeyiana he has assembled. He
CHI
by McGuffey, senior.
As many know, the Ford educa-
tional principle is that the best way
to learn is to do His village kids take
history Tin spite of the once-famouS
Ford statement that history is
bunk" But they also study machine
shop work and telegraphy, in the foot
steps of another major Ford god
Thomas A. Edison.
What they miss in foreign languages
they make up in manual training.
Recently Mr.. Ford was quoted as being
anxious to interest industry in educa-
ton, not in technical schools, but the
training of our future market"
The village is full Of horse-drawn
hacks of all vintages, including one
four-horse stage coach complete with
spotted coach-dog which rides round
and round ring But although the
hacks will pick you up in. the out
skirts and return you to the entrance
if you are weary, they won't pick you
up at the entrance and take you to the
outskirts.
There is the steamboat Suwanee,
which rests quietly on the "SuWanee
River" behind the little white cottage
from Pittsburgh which many say is
not the Stephen Collins Foster home,
but which does duty for same at the
village.
Water Pumped to Higher Level.
The water is really the River Rouge,
or part thereof. But the natural level
was too low. so the water is pumped
up feet, filtered, and later returned
to its natural habitat
Or take the two jeWelry stores. One
is Sir John Benefits, the one with
the famous clock in which the quar-
ter-hours are struck by squat, painted
figures. This is English, of course,
with no connection discernible be-
tween it and the village, although its
purchase in England caused furore.
The other store is called Magill's.
and it's what you might expect-an
early day store appropriately fur
nished.
And then there is the famous group
on in one corner, just past the Poster
House" First there Is a swiss watch
makers chalet of stone, which is
used as shower room, incidentally
Robert Frost's birthplace from Ann
Arbor, Noah Webster's house from
New Haven, Conn. a white house
called the secretary house, stone
group from the Cotswolds, in England
Cotswold forge complete with
smithy also from England, and a
Cape Cod wind mill complete the
group.
Smithy Popular Fellow.
The smithy is, perhaps, the most
popular feature of the lot, too He
makes iron trinkets all day long, but
If you look interested he will make a
wrought-iron nail before your eyes
with grace and delicacy. He used to
give them away. Now they sell them
Tor nickel at the entrance.
It's a poor Greenfield school child
who hasn't owned one, too.
Mr.. Ford has preserved for his
pupils and the world much more than
this, more even than the Edison build
1ngs from Menlo Park and the Fort
Myers laboratory, some buildings of
which group had to be reproduced
almost from one or two bricks, as the
scientlsts reproduce dinosaurs and
such.
There's -four mill working, trea-
sure for youngsters. There also is
specimen of lunch wagon, brought out
from Detroit. There's a covered bridge
with shiny new roof and there still
are few of the English pigeons i'm
ported with the Cotswold group.
Teres a fine specimen of 1863 red
barn, complete with horses, and an
inn with lean-to kitchen in which
dishes are being washed good deal
Of the time. Mr. Ford has even ar
ranged for young man to sit in one
OF the two chapels on the village
green. just to play the favorite hymns
OF visitors
Found Pieces of Mortar
But unfortunately the prize, from
the pupils standpoint, is fenced away.
And there is a story about it all
Once upon time Mr.. Ford got to
rummaging around in one of the
Menlo Park dumps. He found the
pieces of a mortar, which he had
glued together and returned to Edison.
Then he turned a crew loose on
the dump. They found bottles, both
whole and in bits, some with fluids
IN them. They found old insulators,
stuff that looks like Stag, tangles of
wire, scraps Of metal and much else.
These Mr.. Ford had brought to
Greenfield Village, and today they rest
under 30-foot glass case out of
doors, a glorified dump, no good at all