Evening Republican, Volume 59, Number 69, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 March 1917 — STUDENTS ARE PAID [ARTICLE]

STUDENTS ARE PAID

New Kind of School Established • by Factory Owner. Boy* Made Self-Supporting While Receiving Four-Year Vocational Training Under New Appren. ticeshipAdystem. The new apprenticeship system that has recently been introduced in a Hartford factory seems to offer, one of promising of all remedies that have been tried by American factory managers to prevent labor troubles, increase factory production, lower production costs and generally bring about that co-operation between factory employer and employee that is Indispensable to their mutual prosperity, says the Hartford CouranL ’ One manufacturing company has taken on 180 apprentices as a freshman class in a four-year edmbined praetieal and theoretical course. Each year a new freshman class will be taken on, and in four years it is expected that there will be at least 500 apprentices. The apprenticeship system is in charge of a supervisor of apprentices, who Jis also an experienced teacher; mechanic and a student of the 1 human phase of the problem. He has his headquarters in the room which has been especially equipped for the boys’ use and serves as a classroom and as a lunch and reading room. Here the boys came for a certain period each week, during working hours, to receive instruction gnd training to supplement their shop experience. Much of this Instruction is necessarily technlcaband very much specialized, but at the same time an effort is being made to give the boys a general understanding Gt the fundamental principles that underlie all the mechanical industries and thus make. them more appreciative of their own branch and the more alert 1 to • its possibilities. This room also serves as a so«ial center for the boys and every noon they gather to read, play games and meet with one another. The supervisor is also present and finds in this hour another avenue of approach into the boys’ interests and friendships. Another hold has been got jn the boys through athletics. Teams have been organized and games played, choosing schools for opponents as far as possible. Places upon the teams are dependent upon shop and class records and there are no “athletic scholarships.” This all tends to create a spirit of loyalty, which is as desirable here as in any institution. The boys’ shop experience is obtained in the regular manufacturing departments of the plant. To insure an all-around experience the boys are changed from one department to another as their progess warrants. The minimum stay in one department is six months, and as the boy advances in his apprenticeship his stay in a department is usually lengthened, as he is then better able to profit by the variety of work that he may be given. The course of study is divided into four main garts, mathematics, drawing, science and theory of shop practice.

The boys are taught to look upon their apprenticeship as a period of training and to be more interested in what they learn than In what they earn. At the same time the apprenticeship rates have been placed sufficiently high to make the boy self-sup-porting from the start. The rates for the four-year machinist apprenticeship are respectively 14, 15, 17 and 18 cents an hour and the rates for the other apprenticeships higher than that, running up to 27 cents an hour in the last year. In every case a bonus of SIOO Is paid upon the successful completion of the apprenticeship. There is a material difference between the rates of the molders and the other apprentices on account of the maturity that Is required by the nature of the work. "