Many pretty homes, a number of them owned by steel workers, make attractive the residential section of the town. The Gary Land Co. has erected a great number of these houses—1,000 or more—and these are offered for sale at prices representing approximately the cost of the land and improvements, with a special discount to plant employees. The prices of these houses range from $1,500 to $25,000. The company also offers for rent, at exceedingly nominal rates, houses built for the most part of concrete and equipped with electricity and all other modern conveniences. All these dwellings are attractively finished and each has its plot of green in front.
The visitor to Gary is never allowed to leave the town without seeing the Y. M. C. A., the finest building in the city, erected at a cost of $260,000 and the gift to the town of the man whose name it bears. The building contains a gymnasium, swimming pools, class rooms, club rooms, dormitories, and so on. Opposite the Y. M. C. A. is the beautiful Carnegie Library, and not far off, the Federal Building. The Gary Hospital, built and maintained by the Corporation, is absolutely modern, both in equipment and management, and bears favorable comparison with similar institutions in the largest cities.
But the town, Gary, is known first and foremost as the birthplace of the most modern and efficient educational system. The Gary plan of training youth, with modifications, has been extensively copied in many large cities. Unfortunately, after a rather inadequate try-out in New York City, it was abandoned; apparently, however, chiefly because local politics made it impossible for those in charge of the work there to get full results from the Gary methods.
Professor William Wirt, an enthusiast on the training of youth and an iconoclast so far as old methods are concerned, is at the head of the Gary school system. In fact, he originated it. When the town officials and those of the Steel Corporation took up the matter of education, they went at it in a thorough manner and looked around for the best school principal to be obtained. Wirt’s plans were approved, he was chosen for the post, and given a free hand in modeling the entire system. The Emerson and Frœbel schools were the result.
Wirt proceeded to turn topsy turvy many of the old ideas in education. He started off with one big advantage over other reformers—he was able to arrange all details from the beginning, even the building of the schools, in accordance with his plan, and he worked out a scheme under which the youth of the town enjoys a vocational training completely equipping graduates of the school for entering practically any chosen walk in life.
But Prof. Wirt has done more than this. He has succeeded in making education attractive for the young people of Gary.
One of Wirt’s pet theories, not one new or exclusively his by any means, is that play is as essential to the growing boy or girl as study, and in the schools work and play are so alternated as to double the number of children which the school buildings would ordinarily accommodate, one class working while another uses the playgrounds. Thus, with three school buildings, well over 3,000 children are fully provided for on full time.
The curriculum includes all the regular school subjects, as well as many others, including music and a number of sciences. A large auditorium is devoted to the study of history and geography, which are combined into one subject and inculcated with the assistance of lantern slides or moving pictures, visualization of scenes and events being made use of to attract interest and assist memorization. The same idea is employed in other studies, the room devoted to natural history, for instance, being equipped with a wide variety of stuffed animals and even with small live ones.
The range of vocational subjects taught runs from painting, carpentry, and iron work to accountancy and architectural draughtsmanship. Each subject is taught in a room with the proper equipment, there being a carpenter shop, paint shop, foundry, draughting room, etc., and each trade or profession is taught, not theoretically, but by practice. Teachers for these subjects are not chosen from college faculties, but are skilled workers in the different lines, and the students or apprentices to each trade make articles used in the school itself. This serves not only to reduce the cost of maintenance of the school but to give the pupils the interest in their work that comes from seeing the product of their skill in actual use.
Thus, the youthful carpenters make tables, chairs, desks, etc., that can bear comparison with high-grade factory products; the painters keep the schoolrooms and buildings spick and span; the draughtsmen plan additions or improvements; the accountants keep the school books. In every case a concrete end is served to the benefit of the school and the pupil.