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.