Nor is the female of the species forgotten vocationally. A kitchen and lunch room are run by the girls. Here they prepare palatable dishes and sell them to their fellow-students. Thus the young housewife gains actual experience in the most essential department of good housekeeping. Laundry work, sewing, and other feminine industries are similarly taught, besides stenography, bookkeeping, etc.
In that part of the school buildings and grounds devoted to recreation are to be found swimming pools, one for each sex, tennis courts, baseball diamonds, swings, slides, and other aids to enjoyment loved by and suitable to the young of all ages and both sexes. Instruction in play is just as thorough as in study. The recreation teachers devote their entire time to this work.
An excellent illustration of how the Gary educational system appeals to boys and girls is afforded by the story told the writer by a foreman in the mills of the American Sheet & Tin Plate Co., which has a large plant on the outskirts of the town. His story, told as nearly as possible in his own words, is as follows:
About two years ago, my nephew, left an orphan by the death of his mother, came from Pittsburgh to my care. I had been told that the boy was incorrigible, and would pay no attention to his studies; in fact, that he flatly refused to go to school. And it proved the information was correct. Arriving at Gary he would not even make a pretense at studying, and I practically had to use force to induce him to visit Prof. Wirt with me.
Arriving at the school the boy explained to Mr. Wirt that he did not consider himself in need of an education as his only ambition was to become a house painter. The Professor thereupon suggested that he come to school and learn how to paint, assuring him that he would not be asked to do anything he objected to. Naturally the boy, who was never so happy as when pottering around with a paint brush, accepted the suggestion.
The first day he was given a pot of paint and a brush and put under the care of a painter. In a short time he was fairly adept at laying on color. Then, one day, Mr. Wirt called him in and informed him that some of the classrooms were to be redecorated in several colors and that, in view of his progress, he would be put in charge of the job provided he could make a satisfactory estimate of its cost.
That was a stumper. The boy confessed his inability to estimate, and the necessity for a knowledge of mathematics being thus forced upon him, took up the study enthusiastically. Gradually he was brought to appreciate the advantage of other studies.
To-day that boy would miss his breakfast rather than be late for school. It would take a padlock and chain to keep him away from his studies. And so far as I can find out, he is taking pretty nearly the whole curriculum.
Prof. Wirt has been strongly supported in his methods by the Steel Corporation officials.
Gary is growing rapidly. Two Corporation subsidiaries, besides the Indiana Steel Co., already have plants there. These are the American Sheet & Tin Plate Co. and the American Bridge Co. The American Locomotive and American Car & Foundry companies both big railway equipment manufacturers, not connected with the Steel Corporation, are said to be planning the erection of plants in that vicinity. The Gary Screw & Bolt Co., one of several local enterprises, has a plant for making bolts, nuts, and screws, and employs 800 men.
No less than six trunk lines, the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern, Baltimore & Ohio, Wabash, Michigan Central, Pennsylvania, and Nickel Plate, connect with Gary. Smaller roads entering the town are the Lake Shore & South Bend Ry.; Gary & Southern; Gary, Valparaiso & Eastern; and Gary, Hobart & Eastern. The Elgin, Joliet & Eastern, a Steel Corporation road, has a large freight yard near the steel works.
A village in 1906, Gary is now a city of the second class, having attained that rank in April, 1915.
Interior of Gary School