Jasper County Democrat, Volume 12, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 August 1909 — WHERE DO THE SCHOOL BOYS GO? [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

WHERE DO THE SCHOOL BOYS GO?

Ten Thousand Employers of United States Looking to Trade Schools For Skilled Workmen of the Future.

How Trade Schools of Winona Technical Institute, Take the Place of Old Apprenticeship Method.

The school authorities and employers of skilled workmen have been looking intoi the results of schooling in the United States, with some startling re-, suits. They have found that there are about 18,000.000 pupils in the public schools, and not more than 5,000,000 of them get beyond the fifth grade. Of this 5,000,000 not more than 2,500,000 get through the eighth grade. Only get through high school, and not over 200,000 go on to college. The particular point searched for has been to learn what becomes of those who leave the public schools before their education there is finished and who do not get into the high schools and colleges. The seekers after this fact have found that half the number is boys who go into the world to work as day laborers or to gather up a smattering of some trade. The results of this investigation has brought grave concern to the large employers of skilled workmeii, who say that while on the face of the returns many thousands of boys every year begin to learn trades, there is a shortage of from 10 to 50 per cent of

Tnese committees select the instructors, and the men chosen are known to possess two qualifications: They know thoroughly the trade they are to teach, and they also know how to impart their knowledge to boys learning the trade. The boy who goes to Winona Technical Institute gets his chance, whether he has money in his pocket or not. If he cannot pay the tuition, the’amount needed, from |6O to 2100 a year, is lent to him from a scholarship fund. He gives his note for the amount, which is to run for a period of years without interest. After finishing his schopling and going to work he begins to pay off this loan. Scores of boys have made such loans at the institute and .they have returned several thousand dollars. As rapidly as the loans are repaid, they become money available to other boys who desire to borrow. Many of the boys pay their own tuition When entering the institute, so there are many of these scholarships untaken and are open to the first boys who apply' for them. The institute since It opened five years ago has had 1,500 students, and its graduates are now employed all over the United States. The institute cannot produce graduates as rapidly

skilled workmen in the workshops of the United States. The employers have found that for all the hue and cry they make for more and better workmen, their forces cannot be recruited by employers teaching the boys trades in their own shops, as has been done heretofore. The strenuous competition, the unceasing demand for greater and better output of shop and factory, has resulted in such a tremendous pace in the industries of this country that there is no time to train an apprentice and give him an all’round knowledge of some trade, as was done back in early times. In a printing office, for instance, a hoy becomes a feeder of a press at a few dollars a week. So long as he is content to remain a press-feeder at low wages he will stay at a machine year after year, and this is as far along the road to becoming a printer as he will get. Some feeders, of course, get by this point and become pressmen at better wages. But taking the workshops of the country as a whole and they contain thousands of boys who did not finish the public schools and who are “tied to a post” by performing one particular task in a shop, or factory, until they become as much of a machine as the one they operate. It was this condition as found by the employers which has prompted six national associations of employers to go into the effort of training boys to become skilled workmen, to give them complete knowledge of a trade, as was once done by the apprenticeship method. These six associations have concentrated their efforts in the trade schools of Winona Technical Institute, at Indianapolis, and they are making of the institute "the school that gives the boy a chance.” These six associations represent 10,000 industrial concerns of the United States, which have on their payrolls the great bulk of skilled workmen —hundreds of thousands of them. The United Typothetae, made up of employing- printers, has given f 9,000 to the Institute's School of Printing to be used as a scholarship fund, and has helped in gathering up $60,000 worth of equipment for the school. The National Founders' Association has given $12,000 in scholarships to the School for Iron Moulders and has gathered equipment worth many thousands for the use of the school. The Metal Trades Association has» given $12,000 for scholarships in the School for Machinists and is gathering up many thousands of dollars’ worth ot material for the school, which will soon open at the Institute. The National Lithographers’ Association has given $28,000 In scholarships and equipment to the School of Lithography. The tllemakers of the United Btates have given $5,000 for scholarships in the School of Tile-Setting. The bricklayers have given $5,000 for the School of Bricklaying at the Institute. These gifts of money are followed up by close scrutiny on the part of the associations to see that boys In these schools get practical instruction. The associations do this through committees, each of which has one or mor* Indianapolis members, who are in con fitant touch with each school’s affairs

as employers desire to give them work. With their all-‘round knowledge of a trade, which they acquire in an institute workshop, many of them have quickly advanced to places as foremen and superintendents and other positions of responsibility. There have been many striking instances in the institute of boys who are determined to get on in the world. They have gone to the Institute without any money, worked their way through a trade school, and gone at once into permanent employment at good wages. Oqe of these boys is a native of Porto Rico. He sailed from his Island home with only enough money to carry him to Indianapolis, and when he entered the institute’s School of Lithography he had two dollars In his pocket and had borrowed SIOO from the scholarship fund to pay his tuition. He could hardly speak English, but employment as houseboy was found for him in an Indianapolis tome, where he earned his bed and board, going to school through the day. He finished his schooling and is now employed at good wages with an Indianapolis concern as a full-fledged lithographer. In the School for Iron * Moulders there is a boy who was too ambitious to continue living in an Indiana orphans’ home. He entered the School for Moulding without a cent in his pocket He is paying his way with money he earns taking care of furnaces through the winter and with odd jobs about private homes through the summer, and he will make one of the best moulders this school has produced. A dozen Jobs will he open to him as soon as he finishes his schooling. Boys who enter the institute without means resort to many ways of earning money for incidental expenses. They take care of furnaces, mow lawns, drive delivery Wagons, carry newspaper routes—anything that will give them an honest livelihood while they are learning a practical trade at the Institute. They room and board In the private homes around the institute groundß. v

Many fathers who are employers of skilled workmen send their sonß to the Institute to learn a trade In which the father Is engaged, rather than teach the son in his own workshop, the boy going home to help the father carry on the business. Many employers, too, have taken alert boys out of their shops and sent them to the Institute to get a better understanding of a trade, and such a boy usually goes back to his employer to become a foreman or a superintendent. Scores of boys who have finished a trade at the institute have gone home to fire their companions with an am--1 bition to become a skilled workman [ %lth his hands, and It is through this medium that the institute has In part seen Its enrollment grow from year to year. That the national associations of employers are realising handsomely on their scholarship funds and gifts to the institute Is strongly Indicated by the eagerness with which these employers give employment to the graduates as rapidly as a boy can get his schooling.

School for Moulders. Winona Technical Institute,