XI School and Shop
For the present, at least, there are a great number of children who must leave school at fourteen, whether they have completed the grammar grades or not. With them, the problem of education shapes itself into this question: “Shall they be well or badly prepared for their work?” The boys enter the shops and mills; the girls marry and make homes. Are they to be efficient workers and housekeepers? The answer rests largely with the schools.
Ohio has provided, for the solution of the problem, a continuation school law, modeled on the more extensive plans of the German Continuation School system. The law reads: “In case the board of education of any school district establishes part-time day schools for the instruction of youths over fourteen years [of] age who are engaged in regular employment, such board of education is authorized to require all youths who have not satisfactorily completed the eighth grade of the elementary schools to continue their schooling until they are sixteen years of age; provided, however, that such youths, if they have been granted Age and Schooling Certificates and are regularly employed, shall be required to attend school not to exceed eight hours a week between the hours of 8:00 A. M. to 5:00 P. M. during the school term.”
Cleveland and Cincinnati, acting under this authority, have established continuation schools. In Cleveland they are voluntary; in Cincinnati they are compulsory. In both cities, children between fourteen and sixteen may attend school, during factory time, for four hours each week.
Little enough, you protest. Yes, but it is a beginning.
The child in such a continuation school may choose between academic work, art, drawing and designing, shop-work, millinery, dressmaking and domestic science. In some cases a continuation course is possible. Thus far the system has worked admirably.
Equally significant are the Massachusetts Vocational Schools, which are intended to provide a technical training for the boys who wish to pass directly from the grammar school into industry.
Under the Massachusetts law, the state pays half of the running expenses of any vocational school which is organized with the approval of the State Director of Vocational Training. The Springfield school, under the supervision of E. E. MacNary, is housed on one floor of a factory building. The boys may not come at an earlier age than fourteen and Mr. MacNary insists, where possible, that they complete the regular seventh grade work before coming to him. His school, which includes pattern making, cabinet work, carpentry and machine shop work, is run on the “job” plan. That is, a boy is assigned to a job such as making a head-stock for a lathe. The boy makes his drawings, writes his specifications, orders his material and tools, estimates the cost of the job, makes the head-stock and then figures up his actual costs and compares them with the estimated cost. Not until he has gone through all of the operations, may he turn to a new piece of work.
“We tried the half-day and half-day in shop plan,” Mr. MacNary explains, “but it was not a success. It disturbed the boys too much. So we hit on the plan of letting each boy divide his time as he needed to. When he has drawing and estimating to do, he does that and when the time for lathe work comes, he turns to that. It breaks up any system in your school, but it gives the best chance to the individual boy.”
One day a week all of the boys meet the teachers in conference to discuss their work and to make and receive general suggestions.