Some boys are taught to become blacksmiths and in their shop they do everything from putting a new blade into a pocket-knife to rebuilding an automobile.
"An automobile!" you say. "Where did they find it?" It happened in a curious fashion. Elat was in German territory and when the Great War began and the Germans were driven away, they did not wish to leave behind anything that would be of help to the French army, so they piled up all their bicycles, motor cycles, automobiles, and trucks and wrecked them with sledges and blew them up with dynamite. To be sure that nothing was left they set fire to the wreck. The French officers came along and looked at the pile of scrap iron and said, "Junk! Nothing worth taking with us," and gave it to the mission. When Fred Hope saw it, his eyes shone just as if they had taken him into a big supply store and said, "Help yourself." Some people might have shrugged their shoulders in despair, but Mr. Hope and his assistant, Mr. Cozzens, set the boys at the school to work on the junk heap, and out of it they made an automobile. This model is not to be bought in the American market, but it has a number of good points all its own. Then they made an auto-truck. What was left was made into a steam engine which runs the shaft that in turn runs a planer, a boring machine, a shingle mill, a grinder, and a large lathe.
During the war there was no oil to be had for the machinery, but Mr. Hope did not stop all the wheels and cable to America that he would have to close the school.
"See all these beans growing around us," he said to his boys. "They are almost like the castor beans we have in America, and Americans make oil out of the castor bean. Bring me a jack from the carpenter shop." The boys ran to get the jack. "Now, turn it upside down and make a press out of it."
They mashed the beans until a thick oil ran out. Then Mr. Hope bought peanuts, not ten cents worth in a paper sack from the corner store, but tons from the farms where they grew. The boys mashed them until barrelfuls of oil were stored away. It was a better grade and much cheaper than the oil they bought from Europe. Today two hydraulic presses make the manufacture of oil easy.
"What shall we do now?" asked a boy one day. "There are no more of the American brooms."
"Why not make brooms here in our own school?" said Mr. Hope.
They planted broom-corn seed and it grew so well that now broom-making is one of the trades taught at Elat.
During the war there was no soap to be had. Some people said, "How dreadful!" but Mr. Hope said, "What good luck! We shall have to find a way to make our own soap."
He sent to America for lye, and the school has added soap-making to its other work.