Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 July 1895 — A TRADES SCHOOL. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

A TRADES SCHOOL.

Carpenters, Printers, Plumbers and Telegraphers. The trades school of St. George’s Prostestant Episcopal parish, New York, is the successful evolution of on idea to keep youngsters out of mischief at night. It occurred to the rector of the church that it would bo a good plkn to arrange some form of entertainment that wonld attract a certain class of boys in the parish evenings. From this arose the Boys’

Club of St. Goorge’s. Only carpentory and drawing wore attempted at first, but the plun met with success from the outset, and soon other floors were taken, and plumbing, printing and telegraphy were added, and then manual training for the little chaps too small to try the trades, that their' hands might be trained to use the tools when the time came to essay tho higher branches. Now 250 boys work six nights a week in tho school, and as many more regret that luck of room deprives them of the benefits of the instruction given there. Many of the pupils are employed during the day, but gladly work at the trade school benchos at night, that they may soon be able to earn an artisan’s wages. The instruction that they receive is of tho best. The directors of all the classes are experts in their respective lines, and are paid to teach the boys. Tho oarpontry class, which bends over the benches on the ground floor, is in charge of a cabinet maker who is In business for hlmsolf, and tables and desks and clothes horsos and hatracks and various other products prove that his instruction hus fallen on fertile minds. A master plumber imparts the socrots of his craft to aspirants who sco visions of big fortunes In tho near future, and the room in which they work is bright with joints and coils and connections, all done by tho boys, and as well ns any man could do them. Eight ensos of typo, flanked by a hand press and “proving galley” give aspiring young printers a chance to soo themselves in print, and a foreman of a big job office gives tho boys, as teacher, the benefit of his experience. Tho printers aro already a means of money saving to the parish. They do all the church printing, and every month got out St. Goorgo’s Industrial Herald, a publication devoted to the interests of the school. An expert hus tho class in tolcgraphy, and ho not only teaches them how to sond and recolvo. but makes them run lines, make repairs, store the battery and take entire clmrgo of all the electrical apparatus. An oloctrlcal contractor has charge of the drawing class, while tho manual training school is under u competent man.