In workrooms conducting trades which use paste, gum, and glue, the following special equipment is required:
| Glue pots, gas, each | $7.50 | upward |
| Glue pots, electric, each | 21.75 | upward |
| Hand cutter, each | 50.00 | upward |
| Cabinets, tables, chairs, and irons, see above | ||
The cost of equipping a shop would be from $200 to $400.
Special machines for perforating designs or for pleating materials are often needed in teaching the garment trades. Wholesale prices can usually be obtained when the order is large. Dealers have also shown themselves willing to sell their machines at low prices, to loan them, and even to give them to a school which has proved its ability to train good workers.
When it was appreciated that the original quarters of the school were too limited, the Board of Administrators went to work with great enthusiasm and in a few months collected the requisite money and bought a large business loft building at 209-213 East 23d Street, at an expense of $175,000. To put it in order for work cost $5,000 in addition. The former equipment was used and $5,000 more was spent for such needed items as: machines, $3,200; motor, $352; perforating machine, $38; additional master clocks, $233; chairs and tables, $850. The school is furnished in a simple, businesslike manner, the equipment merely reproducing good workroom requirements, i. e., essentials only.
The budget for the first year, 1902-1903, was $22,094.16, of which the salaries for teachers took about one-half and the rent and maintenance covered the other half. During this year there were 113 students admitted. In 1908-1909, after six years of rapid growth, the educational budget is $49,000, or more than double the original, of which the salaries are $38,806; the supplies, $1,710; printing and publishing, $600; maintenance, $9,900. At the beginning of 1908 there were 254 students in the school; 689 were registered during the year, making a total of 943 girls, being almost nine times the number in attendance during the first year.
The Support
The Manhattan Trade School has depended for its support entirely upon voluntary contributions. There have been few large donations and the donors represent all classes of the community—patrons of and workers in sociological, economic, philanthropic, and educational fields, employers of labor, and auxiliaries of many kinds of workers organized for special purposes. The most significant help, perhaps, and the largest in proportion to its income, has been that of the wage-earners themselves—not only the girl who has benefited by the instruction, but the general mass of women workers. These women, knowing the difficulties in their own struggle to rise, have shown themselves willing to set apart weekly a small sum to help young girls to attain quickly efficiency through systematic training. The auxiliaries of wage-earners are a mainstay of the school on account of their helpful enthusiasm, their practical suggestions, their interest in girls trained there, and their regular subscriptions on which the Board of Administrators can depend.