CHAPTER VI Welding Theory and Practice
Broom-making has been recently included among the industries for girls at Tuskegee. Hundreds of brooms were being worn out every year in sweeping the floors of more than seventy buildings; and I venture to say that more brooms were used up for the same amount of floor space than at almost any other institution of the kind. Wherever you may go in the shops, or halls, you will find some one busy with a broom most of the time. The litter in the carpenter shop or the mattress-making room is not allowed to accumulate until the end of the day, but is swept up so often that visitors sometimes ask me whether there is a moment of the working day when some one is not wielding a busy broom somewhere in the institution.
It was this reason that inspired the home manufacture of the needed supply of brooms. It had been found possible to supply most of the needs of the school by student labour, and after establishing a summer canning factory, which Chaplain Penney directs while the Bible School is not in session, making brooms seemed a natural evolution of supply and demand. But investigation showed that none of the instructors knew anything about making brooms, and that the Experimental Farm had not yet taken up the task of raising broom-corn. These obstacles were not serious in comparison with many others which had been attacked in the industrial school.
A way was found to make the first sample broom, and gradually the needed machinery was installed. Then the director of the Agricultural Department discovered that broom-corn could be raised on the farm, and now students can be equipped to take the industrial knowledge home with them, and also to grow the crop on their own farms. This department keeps the school supplied with good brooms at small cost, and out of a minor need grew another useful industry. The lesson in this little story is that finding a way to solve the problems closest at home helps to build up the community at large. It was found, also, that the work of the class room could be correlated even with broom-making, and made to harmonise with the Tuskegee theory of education of head and hands together. The girls were asked to write compositions descriptive of their work in this industry, and some of these efforts have been very creditable.
MATTRESS-MAKING
All the mattresses and pillows used at the Institute are made by the students]
I insert one of these compositions as a sample:
"BROOM-MAKING"
"I am a nice large broom just made Tuesday by Harriet McCray. Before I was made into a broom, I grew over in a large farm with a great many others of my sisters. One day I was cut down and brought up to the broom-making department, and was carefully picked to pieces to get the best straw. I was put in a machine called the winder. Here I was wound very tightly, and then put in another machine called the press. I was pressed out flat and sewed tightly. Out of the press I was carried to the clipper, and all of my seed and long ends were cut off. From the cutter I was carried to the threshing machine and combed out thoroughly, and put in the barrel for sale. I was sold to the school for thirty-five cents. He will use me very roughly in doors, and when I begin to get old, I shall be used in sweeping the yards. When I am worn completely out, I shall be pulled to pieces to get my handle, which will be used again to make a fresh, new broom."
Class-room work is also made a part of the training in this varied catalogue of industries in successful operation at Tuskegee: Agriculture, basketry, blacksmithing, bee-keeping, brick-masonry, plastering, brick-making, carpentry, carriage trimming, cooking, dairying, architectural, free-hand and mechanical drawing, plain sewing, dress-making, electrical and steam engineering, founding, harness-making, house-keeping, horticulture, canning, laundering, machinery, mattress making, millinery, nurses' training, painting, saw-milling, shoe-making, printing, stock-raising, tailoring, tinning, and wheelwrighting.
It will be seen that the school is a community unto itself, in which buildings can be erected, finished, and furnished, the table supplied the year round, and economic independence achieved in a large measure. But this work is for the benefit of the student, not to make the school self-supporting. Therefore, no one side of his education must be neglected in order that he may be for the time a more productive labourer in his department of industry. It would be wronging both him and the system to keep him at the work-bench all the working hours in order that he might turn out the greatest possible number of shoes, or window sashes, or fruit cans in a week.
BASKET-MAKING
Special effort is made to have the students use the natural products of the region as material
For example, if you should chance to visit the carpenter shop, you would find a score of young men turning out the finished material for some new building in process of erection, or at the lathes turning out the interior finishings. But in a small room in one corner, having a hard time to be heard above the din of the steam saws, is an instructor with a class of students, who are learning to draw up contracts for jobs in carpentry or building. They are not going out with the expectation of always being carpenters at day wages. They should know how to make contracts as "boss carpenters," to build houses, or repair them, or how to hire other men to build houses for them. Therefore, they learn to draw up specifications in both legal and practical form, so that when the occasion arises they will know how to work with intelligence.
Their class-room work in spelling, mathematics, grammar, and English composition comes effectively into play. They find out that a carpenter has small chance of getting ahead unless he can use his head intelligently. He writes out a contract, for example, to put up a four-room house, on a basis of three cash payments—when he takes the job; when the roof is on; and when the house is turned over to the owner. This contract is read aloud by the instructor, who asks the other members of the class to criticise it. One of them points out a flaw which would allow the owner to "crawl out" of his bargain on a technicality. Another is pleased to discover that the arithmetic is so faulty that the estimates of the cost of material would land the contractor in the poor-house. Then the student begins to see that his so-called academic teaching is as important in his calling as his skill with the plane, the saw and the miter-box, and that he cannot hope to become a good carpenter unless he is also a diligent scholar.
In the winter an instructor in the Agricultural Classes may teach his students to familiarise themselves, through books, with insect pests which infest the peach tree. They are asked to give their own ideas of the "borer," or the "scale," but this information is not allowed to be packed away in the attic of memory, to be forgotten like so much useless lumber. The real examination comes in the spring, not in written papers, but in the school orchard. The same instructor takes the class among the peach trees, and, with branches in their hands, they are required to identify the "borer," and apply to the trees the remedies laid down in their books and lectures.
When a new building is to be erected, the school industries join their activities in a common cause. The project sets in motion, first, the wagons to be used in removing the excavated material. The young men in the wheelwright, blacksmithing, and harness-making rooms see their work tested, for they have made and equipped all the heavy farm wagons needed for this hauling. Along with their daily work with the hands, the patterns and instructions had been given them on blackboards and in lectures. They have trained their minds, they have learned handicraft, and the combined results are applied. Their wagons and harness are not to be sent away or put on exhibition. They must stand the strain at home, and if they are faulty it cannot be hidden.
IN THE SCHOOL'S SAWMILL
Then come the brick-makers, turning out 20,000 bricks a day in the school kilns. They know whether they have made good bricks when they see them handled, and put into the walls by the student masons. In the course for brick-masonry, there is practical demonstration the year round. All the brick work on the buildings of the school is done by students, under the supervision of the instructors. Plastering and repair work, both inside and outside of the buildings, is in charge of the Brickmasonry Division. The theory is taught in the class room, the practical test is always close at hand. The brick-mason and plasterer has one hundred and eighteen lessons in the fundamental principles of the trade, he is taught how to make estimates on different kinds of work, he has a course in architectural drawing, and he does research work in trade journals. So much for theory, but his diploma of efficient mastery of his trade is built into the walls of the Tuskegee buildings. They show whether he has learned to be a brick-mason, or whether he has merely learned things about brick-masonry.
The school sawmill turns out the lumber for the building in course of erection. The instruction in saw-milling includes these branches of information:
"Names of machines and their uses. Care of machines. Defects of timber trees. Felling timber trees and loading logs on wagon. Measuring lumber and wood. Industrial classes. Drawing. Scaling logs to find their contents in board measure. Grading lumber. Running planer and other machines. Care of belts. Saw filing and caring for saws. Designing and making cutters for mouldings. Calculating speed of pulleys. Arrangement of machines in a planing and saw mill, etc."
Theory and practice in this department are dovetailed in the finished work in the interior of such a structure as the Carnegie Library, or the new Collis P. Huntington Memorial Building, where the wood work, handsomely finished in Southern pine, is the product of the school saw-mill and planer, the carpenter shops and the paint-shop.
IN THE MACHINE-SHOP
Three years are required to complete this course
The equipment of the machinery, engineering, and foundry department and the courses of study offered are designed to give students a thorough training in their various branches. The machine shop is equipped with the latest machine tools, driven by power from an Atlas engine. All the repair work on the mechanical equipment of the school, including steam pumps, steam engines, woodworking machines, printing presses, metal working machines, is done in this shop. About fifty different machines outside of this department, including the complete steam laundry, the agricultural and dairy machinery, are in daily operation, furnishing the best possible demonstration of the theory taught in the classes. In the course for steam engineers, the young men are able to study the working of eleven different steam engines, seven steam pumps, twelve steam boilers, and a complete water-works system, with miles of piping, valves, gauges, recording apparatus, etc. The instructors lay out the courses in theory and written work, and the mathematical studies are applied in work on blue-print drawings and free-hand sketches.
A foundry is in daily operation, and here the castings used in repair work for the school are made. When the Tuskegee cotton-raising party went to Africa, the castings for the cotton press sent with them were made in the school foundry. In the plumbing and steam-fitting division, the tools and shop equipment are ample for training in lead and iron work, for water and steam piping systems in buildings of various kinds. The plumbing and steam fitting in nearly all the buildings of the Institute were done by the classes of this division. This work includes sinks, bath-tubs, steam radiators, lavatories and sanitary closets. More than eight miles of piping of various sizes, for steam and water, are in use on the school grounds, with all the necessary valves, expansion joints, unions and fittings. The tinsmithing shop turns out nearly every kind of tin work from covering a house to making a pepper-box. The apprentice becomes a first-class tinsmith in two years' training. More than two thousand one-gallon fruit cans were made by the students last year in addition to many other useful articles.
The object of the course in electrical engineering is to give the student a foundation upon which he may build along any special line he may choose later. Arc and incandescent lighting is in use at the school, and there is a complete telephone service connecting most of the buildings and offices through a central station. The students learn not only how to install these systems, but to maintain them in the highest state of efficiency. The dynamos and other electrical machinery of a complete powerhouse are in operation for lighting the school buildings and grounds, so that the student finds practical work at every turn in his course.
STUDENTS AT WORK IN THE SCHOOL'S FOUNDRY
He has learned how to build and equip a building. He is taught also how to design it in all its parts. All students in the day and night schools who are in the Mechanical Department are required to take instruction in mechanical drawing. The work of the first year is largely preparatory. It begins with simple geometrical drawing, to accustom the student to the use of instruments and to teach him accuracy and neatness. This is followed by work in projection, which finds application in scale-drawing of simple objects. As soon as a fair knowledge of the instruments has been attained, with a thorough drill in free-hand sketching, the study of design is carried far enough to secure an understanding of the principles, and facility and accuracy in the construction of drawing plans. Strictly speaking, mechanical drawing begins with the second year of trade work, with the study of materials and working drawings. During the last quarter of the third year the student learns how to make blue, solar, and black prints. During the fourth year several excursions are made by the class to the shops, the buildings under construction, the brick-yard, etc. In such excursions detailed notes must be taken and a satisfactory report submitted upon the things seen and examined.
The course of architectural drawing covers three years, and aims to give thorough instruction in drawing, building construction and design. In all cases, the general mechanical and artistic training is supplemented by the course of study in the Academic Department. On entering the third year of the architectural course, the student, in addition to his regular work, is given actual practice in office training and general superintendence. The student visits also the trade shops, and is required to attend classes in heating, electrical lighting, and plumbing. Many of the most satisfactory and imposing buildings of the school were designed in our architectural department.
It will be seen from the foregoing survey that the students are able to build and equip a large building from top to bottom, inside and out, and these object lessons of their own handiwork stand clustered over many acres, a city in itself built by young coloured men, most of whom were wholly ignorant of systematic mental or manual training when they asked to be admitted to Tuskegee.
They maintain also what may be called the running machinery of the institution. The carpenters learn wood-turning and cabinet-making. They make the furniture used in the class rooms and dormitories. Their regular division has been so crowded in recent years that it was found necessary to organise an auxiliary division, called the "Repair Shop." Here all the school's repairs in wood work are done, and the training has proved so valuable that it has been made a separate course of study extending over three years. In the blacksmith shop is performed the ironing of carriages, buggies, and wagons, of which a hundred are used by the school, in addition to making all kinds of implements and the shoeing of horses. Hundreds of farm implements are repaired here. The student blacksmith is not a mere labourer. He is taught how to run a shop of his own. He learns how to make out bills for material, how to keep shop supplies, and a part of his time is devoted to mechanical drawing and class room work.
CLASS IN MECHANICAL DRAWING
The division of wheelwrighting is fitted for work in all details of the trade. The students have constantly on hand new work, such as the building of wagons, drays, horse and hand carts, wheel-barrows, buggies and road carts. A great deal of repair work must be done to keep the farm equipment in first-class shape, and the shop is constantly patronised for this kind of work by the farmers of the town and neighbourhood. The school has a standing order for farm wagons from merchants in Tuskegee and Montgomery. These are turned out complete, and have proved serviceable and popular. All of the harness used by the school, and a large quantity sold outside, is made in the harness-making department. All the vehicles turned out by the blacksmith and wheelwrighting divisions are finished by the students in the carriage-trimming shop.
The visitor, therefore, who wishes to inspect the Tuskegee Institute, is met at the station by a carriage built by the students, pulled by horses raised on the school farms, whose harness was made in a school shop. The driver wears a trim, blue uniform made in the school tailor-shop, and shoes made by student class work. The visitor is assigned to a guest room in a dormitory designed, built, and furnished by the students. His bathroom plumbing, the steam heat in his room, and the electric lighting were installed by students. The oak furniture of his room came from the shops. The young woman who takes care of his room is a student working her way through the Institute. After supper, she will change her wearing apparel to a blue uniform dress and a neat straw hat, all made in the school. The steam laundry sends over to know if the visitor wishes some washing done, and girl students send it back, proud of the snowy polish of shirts and collars. The visitor is asked to be a guest in the teachers' dining-hall. The bill of fare may read as follows:
BREAKFAST:
Breakfast food, ham, fried cakes, bread, syrup, coffee, tea, butter, fruit.
DINNER:
Roast beef, tomatoes, rice, corn-bread, sweet potatoes, buttermilk, snap beans, dessert.
SUPPER:
Cold ham, tea, bread, syrup, butter, milk, fried potatoes, coffee.
In looking over this program, the guest will discover that the ham, roast beef, vegetables, cornbread, syrup, butter, milk, and potatoes are products of the school farms, raised, cared for and produced by student labour.
Throughout these varied fields of industrial and productive activity, the following objects are kept constantly in view, and their relative importance is in the order of their enumeration:
To teach the dignity of labour.
To teach the trades, thoroughly and effectively.
To supply the demand for trained industrial leaders.
To assist the students in paying all, or a part, of their expenses.
THE BLACKSMITH SHOP