USA > Indiana > Lake County > A standard history of Lake County, Indiana, and the Calumet region, Volume I > Part 37
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EMERSON SCHOOL BUILDING
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system. In the evening schools a total of 1,873 pupils were enrolled, and through these classes many individuals received a semblance of education that otherwise they would not have received at all. Records also show that more than four thousand dollars were spent in medical examination of school children.
EMERSON AND FROEBEL SCHOOLS
Perhaps none of the Gary schools have attracted more attention than the Emerson, on Seventh Avenue between Carolina and Georgia streets, and the Froebel, between Fifteenth and Nineteenth avenues and Madi- son and Van Buren streets. The Emerson school, with grounds, occu- pies a city block, the magnificent building being erected at a cost of $250,000. Its interior arrangements include manual training shops, science laboratories, perfectly ventilated study rooms, a gymnasium and swimming pool and a handsome auditorium, while without, are pretty and well-kept gardens and spacious playgrounds, provided with the best modern apparatus for the exercise and amusement of boys and girls. The playgrounds are open to the public on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays.
The Froebel school is of later date than the Emerson is, and if pos- sible, even more elaborate in construction and settings. The building, with grounds, comprises ten acres, or two blocks, and the property is valued at $300,000. Besides all the features noted in connection with the Emerson school, it has two gymnasiums and two swimming pools. The school and recreation hours, which are observed by these institutions, as well as the other schools in the Gary system, are from 8 A. M. to 12 M., from 1 to 5 and 7 to 9 P. M.
SYSTEM DESCRIBED BY SUPERINTENDENT WIRT
In many American communities, education has been conducted on such traditional and routine lines that it would be difficult to secure satisfying answer to the query, what is the aim and purpose of the school system? In a recent educational report of the Lake County schools, Superintendent William A. Wirt, an energetic and original Hoosier educator, who came to Gary soon after its birth to meet the educational wants of a varied populace and has created a remarkably effective system, succinctly and earnestly answers that question from his studies and experience at the steel city. "In Gary," he says, "the schools try to appropriate the street and alley time of the child by pro- viding opportunities for work and play as well as opportunities for study.
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"In cities and towns the home no longer provides the opportunities for the wholesome work and play of children. Character is formed while the child is active. The acquisition of good character consists largely in the forming of habits of doing the right thing at the right time. In the customary exclusive study school the child is passive, sitting in a school seat. The physical habits formed in such an environment are habits of inactivity acquired from sitting quiet during the school life of twelve years. Only a few children are so book-minded that they are able to form habits of mental activity from the study of books alone. The mental habits formed by the average child in a straight-jacket school seat are largely those of day dreaming. In the cities of the United States the child averages about two and one-half hours per day for the three hun- dred and sixty-five days of the year in a straight-jacket school seat. The habits of activity are formed in the streets and alleys, and for the form- ing of such activities the child has about five hours per day for the three hundred and sixty-five days in the year, or double his school time.
"The home lost the opportunity for character building when it gave up the industrial training of its children and failed to provide for the child's play. Society seems to be so organized in cities and towns that the civic care of the child must now take over industrial training and play. But this additional burden need not be assumed by the established school. The child may live a part of his life in the home, may study in school for two and one-half hours a day, and may learn to work in a separate trade school and play in a playground park for the five hours of the street and alley time. The character forming influence of the street and alley time will be removed and wholesome activities substituted without any additional burden on the established school. In some cities the schools have in a very limited way attempted to provide opportunities for industrial training by manual training courses, and in a limited degree some opportunities for play have been provided by physical train- ing supervisors. But the manual training equipment and teachers, the play facilities and supervisors have added to the annual per capita cost of the established schools. Further progress in this direction seems out of the question unless a much larger financial expenditure is made possi- ble by higher school tax levies. Unfortunately the time for industrial training and play now given by the established schools comes out of the short two and one-half hours' school time and does not encroach on the harmful street and alley time. To eliminate the street and alley time of the child by industrial schools and playground parks provided by other civic bodies than the schools relieves the schools of the burden but in- creases the expenditure for the civic care of the child by raising the taxes of the civic bodies providing these facilities.
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"It is the conviction of the Gary school management that not only is the wholesome character building of the child inseparably linked with his work and his play, but that for the great majority of children, the mastery of the academic school subjects cannot be separated from work and play. The child must want to know and must be willing to put forth
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By Courtesy of Frank F. Heighway, County Superintendent of Schools.
FOLK DANCES, EMERSON SCHOOL, GARY
effort to learn the things the established school has to teach. The child himself is the greatest factor in the learning process. He must educate himself. No teacher can do this for him. Adults often say that if they had their school days to live over again they would improve their oppor- tunities better than they did. What a pity that when we now as adults Vol. 1-26
THE FROEBEL SCHOOL BUILDING
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want to educate ourselves we do not have the opportunity. When we had the opportunity to educate ourselves we did not want to. Cannot something be done to prevent the recurrence of this tragedy in the lives of the children today? Is it not possible for children to want to edu- cate themselves right now while they have the opportunity? Talking to them about the importance of an education will not have much more influ- ence with them than it had with us. No one questions the fact that as children we were talked to enough about the value of an education. The reason why we are willing to educate ourselves now as adults is not be- cause some one has talked to us about the matter, nor because we have read about it in a book. It is because every day of our lives we are dis- appointed in that we cannot do the things we would like to do or get the things we would like to have because of our inability and lack of training. We have discovered that we need a well-trained, capable mind and well- trained, capable hand for success in life. If the child is to appreciate the opportunities of the school he must feel the need right now for the things the school is teaching or should teach. To tell him that he will find out and realize in twenty years hence will not do. In the child's play and in his work all sorts of needs for the academic school studies can be created. The child cannot do the things that he would like to do or get the things that he would like to have, because he has not mastered the academic school subjects. The child can be bitterly disappointed every day because of his inability and lack of training and can be sent to his teacher of the academic subjects with a vivid. real appreciation of the importance to him of the things the school has to teach. When the child wants to know and is willing to put forth an effort to learn the things the school should teach, then the teaching process becomes a simple matter. The Gary schools include the workshop and playground along with the study room, not because they wish to sugar-coat the study with sentimental play and work. The study room schools need the workshop and playground to motivize the school studies. We do not wish to remove the difficulties from the school, but we do wish to increase the child's power so that he can put forth sufficient effort to master the difficulties and find great joy in so doing.
"The school cannot crowd into the study room time of two and one- half hours a day the workshop and the playground time. The five hours of the street and alley time are sorely needed for the workshop and play- ground activities. Besides the street and alley time is undoing the good work of the home and school and must by all means be eliminated. The school day in Gary is, therefore, three hours for study. three hours for work and constructive play and two hours for voluntary sport. The schools in Gary have only half as many study rooms, only half as many
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school desks as there are children enrolled. While one set of children are in the school seats in the study room learning to read, write and figure from formal drill and text books, another set of children are on the playgrounds, in the gymnasiums, swimming pools, auditoriums, gar- dens, science laboratories and workshops. All of the school facilities are occupied all of the time. The pupil capacity of the study room is doubled.
"The school plants are open from 8 A. M. to 5 P. M., and from 7 P. M. to 9:30 P. M. The enrollment for adults for evening activities almost equals the enrollment of children for day school activities. The school plant designed for the study, work and play of children in the day school is also admirably adapted for adult use at night. The unit sehool plant in Gary accommodates the day nursery, the kindergarten, the common school grades and the high school in each building. The facilities provided for the older children during the day are designed for use of adults at night. These facilities include gymnasiums, swimming pools, seience laboratories, auditoriums and large corridors and rooms for receptions, dances and parties, entertainments and club rooms. The following workshops are provided: Carpentry, cabinetmaking, steam and gas fitting, plumbing, printing, machine fitting, electrical work, foundry, forging, painting, sheet metal work, domestic science and art, laundry, mechanical and architectural drawing, industrial mathematies, etc.
"The Gary schools try to give the children an opportunity to do many kinds of work and find out the things for which they are best fitted. We believe that it is just as important for a boy to have a chance to try painting, for instance, and learn that it is not the work for which he is fitted, as it is for other boys who should be painters to have a chance to learn the trade. We do not wish to assume the responsibility of vocational guidance, but try to provide an opportunity for intelligent vocational selection.
"Sinee groups of pupils of all ages are playing, working and studying all of the time during the school hours, special provision can be made for exceptional children. A child who is weak physically and not able to play can give the entire school time to the playground. gymnasium, garden and workshops. A child who is weak in arithmetic or any other subjeet ean be given extra time in other classes in arithmetie or the particular subjeets needing such extra time. Each child ean have just the amount of work in each department and the kind of work that he individually needs.
"It is also possible to make any combination of elasses in any sub- jects. Fourth and eighth grade pupils, for instance, may be combined
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in science and shop work and separated in other subjects. When the work in any subject is of such a character that younger children can learn better by working with older children, they have the opportunity. The direct teaching of the instructor is supplemented by the uncon- scious education of living in a world of wholesome play, work and study. The indirect teaching of the older children is of great value to the younger, and the responsibility thus assumed has the highest educational value for the older children. We try to give the children not a play- ground, not a shop, not a study room, but a life."
LARGE SLAV ELEMENT
To understand one of the great difficulties under which Superintend- ent Wirt has had to contend in organizing a "working system" of public education for the City of Gary, it is only necessary to recall the fact that of the large foreign-born population of the place fully sixty-five per cent are Slavs, many of them fresh immigrants and quite ignorant, and that this great horde rushed into Gary substantially within a period of five years. It is needless to tell the intelligent American that the representa- tives of that race naturally inerease with great rapidity, as the women become mothers early and often, so that the problem of educating the children is a constant and perplexing one. It is estimated that the divi- sion of the Slavs who have settled at Gary is substantially as follows: Servians and Croatians, 5,000; Poles, 3,000; Bohemians, 3,000; Slavo- nians, 2,500; Hungarians, 1,500; Macedonians, 1,000.
COMMERCIAL BODIES
There are a number of institutions which, although not identified with the city officially, have so contributed to its metropolitan standing and its development that it seems appropriate to mention them at this stage of the story. Among these is the Gary Commercial Club, whose fine building on Broadway was erected in 1912. It has about five hundred members, including most of the substantial men of Gary, and has done splendid work in the promotion of the institutions of which the city is most proud. Its secretary is Arthur D. Schaeffer.
The Chamber of Commerce is a later organization with similar aims to those which govern the Commercial Club. Its president is L. A. Bryan; treasurer, ex-Mayor T. E. Knotts; and secretary, W. P. Pat- terson.
HOSPITALS
Then there are Gary's three hospitals. That built and maintained by the United States Steel Corporation for the care of injured employes
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connected with any of its industries was completed in 1911, at an approx- imate cost of $240,000, and has accommodations for about one hundred patients.
The Gary General Hospital, incorporated under the state laws for $10,000, was opened in 1912, and is a home institution, with stock mostly owned by Gary citizens.
The Mercy Hospital, which is in charge of the Sisters of St. Francis of Burlington, Iowa, was not completed until 1913, at a cost of $140,000. It occupies a site valued at $30,000, which was donated by the Gary Land Company. It is said that the Gary Commercial Club raised $50,000 within six days to further the Mercy Hospital, which certainly embodies the latest ideas in construction, equipment and service.
NEW POSTOFFICE TO COME
Although the editor cannot write as history the erection of Gary's new postoffice, in 1913 Congress appropriated $125,000 for that purpose and its site has been selected on Fifth Avenue, immediately east of the mag- nificent Y. M. C. A. building.
A CITY OF CHURCHES
The City of Gary is a city of churches, as its people are of many nationalities and religious beliefs and are largely composed of those who have been taught that church-going is a life activity which admits of no question. So many of the churches are formed by those of foreign birth, many of whom do not speak English and worship through the medium of their mother tongue, that it is impossible to obtain sketches of all such religious bodies ; and, were it possible, it is doubtful whether the record would be of much interest or value to readers of this history. So that all that has been attempted has been to record the origin and present status of the principal churches of the young city.
The foregoing statements apply to the societies and labor and national unions which are so plentiful in the Steel City. They are all young and strong and are serving their purposes, whether social, protective or benevolent.
HOLY ANGELS CATHOLIC CHURCH
Both the Catholics and the Disciples of Christ (Christian Church) conducted services at Gary when it was very infantile. Rev. Thomas F. Jansen, present pastor of the Holy Angels Catholic Church, was one of
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the first priests of his faith to visit Gary. Soon after the first shacks commenced to be erected for the workmen laying the foundations of the steel mills Father Jansen made a call upon a sick communicant of his church. He came on horseback, and not long after this pastoral call gathered a few Catholics and founded the church called Holy Angels. This is now one of the strongest organizations of the Catholic church in the Calumet region, Holy Angels parish embracing some two thousand souls. It has a handsome house of worship on Seventh Avenue, and under the same roof is a school of about four hundred pupils, opened in 1909, in charge of the Sisters of Notre Dame. The grounds are also occupied by a sisters' home and the priest's residence.
FIRST CHRISTIAN CHURCH
In 1906 a tent was pitched on the sands of Gary for the first meeting of the Disciples of Christ and others who might join the services. After a few years of struggle in halls and other temporary quarters, the Gary church, under the leadership of Rev. N. H. Trimble, erected the building now occupied at Seventh Avenue and Jefferson Street. It was dedicated in August, 1911. Rev. S. W. Nay is the present pastor of a large church known as the Central Christian.
FIRST METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH
This organization was founded in April, 1907, and completed its church on Adams Street in 1911. The society has a membership of more than four hundred, and since its organization the pastoral service has been almost equally divided between Revs. George E. Deuel and Joseph M. Avann.
The history of the First Methodist Episcopal Church is thus given in the Calumet Survey of 1913: "The last place where Methodism has planted herself in the Calumet region is in the magic City of Gary. Her beginnings here were almost contemporaneous with the beginning of the city. Rev. George E. Denel and his excellent wife, both having grad- uated from Garrett Biblical Institute in April, 1907, were at once called to this important field, and laid the foundations of the church, under the supervision of Dr. D. M. Wood, the superintendent of the Hammond district. They found the people living, for the most part, in shacks and tents. Most of the laborers were from across the seas, and there were but few women. No suitable place could be found in which to hold serv- ices. The people met in the homes, later they secured a hall, and two or three years later they occupied a store room on Fifth Avenue, where
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GARY HOTEL
LOOKING DOWN BROADWAY
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they remained until they moved to the basement of the new church. Although the Methodists were first on the ground, they were not the first to build. The slow, tedious process required to get aid from the Board of Home Missions and Church Extension postponed the erection of the present edifice too long. Unlike most localities, it was impossible to raise the money on the ground; the people were paying fabulous prices for rent, or were trying to pay for their homes by installments. After repeated efforts to secure aid from individuals and the church, the Board of Home Missions and Church Extension granted a gift of $6,000, which later was added to by another of $4,000. Lots had previously been secured by the wisdom and farsightedness of Doctor Wood from the Gary Land Company, which were later presented to the church as a gift from Judge E. H. Gary. On these lots at the corner of Seventh Avenue and Adams Street was built the present attractive and imposing struc- ture at a cost of $32,000, and dedicated by Bishop McDowell, September 29, 1912. When the Sunday school rooms, parlor and social rooms shall be added, this will be one of the finest churches in this part of the state. The membership of 400 is thoroughly organized, sustaining all branches of work to be found in the most modern and successful church. In addi- tion to the congregation subscribing $22,000 toward the present structure, and the heavy running expenses, they recognize their obligation to pro- mote the interests of the Kingdom in other parts of the city. A mission has been started in the south part of the city, a church will soon be built in Glen Park. This mother church promises to be fruitful, earing as best she can for this great field. Large congregations greet the pastor every Sunday; the Sunday school, under the efficient leadership of Professor Hirons, has reached an enrollment of 400. This congregation has been generously aided by the Board of Home Missions toward the support of its pastor. Next year it will be self-supporting. Only two pastors have served this charge, George E. Deuel and Joseph Mereer Avann. The present pastor, Doctor Avann, is deservedly popular with his people and wields a wide influence in the city."
CHRIST CHURCH ( EPISCOPAL)
In November, 1907, Christ Episcopal Church was founded as a mis- sion, and in November, 1908, was admitted into the Diocese of Michigan City as a parish. Its rectors have been as follows: Rev. L. W. Apple- gate, from date of organization until March, 1911; Rev. Cody Marsh. April, 1911, to April, 1912; and Rev. William N. Wyckoff, from August, 1912, to the present. The church has a membership of 350, and a hand- some home of Bedford stone, erected in 1910 on West Sixth Avenue, at a cost of $35,000.
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FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH
The First Baptist Church of Gary is a strong organization occupying a substantial and tasteful house of worship on Jefferson Street, near Fifth Avenue, opposite the Y. M. C. A. Building. In January, 1909, it was organized at the residence of Mrs. Harriet Cathcart by Rev. F. M. Huckelberry, president of the Indiana Baptist Convention, and Rev. A. Ogle, state superintendent of missions. Its constituent members num- bered twenty. The pastors of the church have been Rev. George W. Griffin, from date of organization to July 1, 1909; Rev. J. E. Smith, from that date until June 30, 1911; the pastor now in charge, Rev. H. E. Wilson, since January 1, 1912. The building now occupied as a house of worship was dedicated in November, 1913. It is modern in all respects, even to the gymnasium in the basement, for the use of the younger mem- bers of the church and Sunday school. The latter has an enrollment of about two hundred and fifty, and connected with both organizations are the usual auxiliaries.
BAPTIST CHURCHES FOR COLORED PEOPLE
Three Baptist churches have been organized in Gary to meet the wants of the colored people, which form quite a large element in the population. The First Baptist Church on Washington Street is the strongest, having a membership of about one hundred. It was founded in June, 1908, completed its church building in June, 1913, and has been served by Rev. William H. Scruggs, Rev. A. H. Blake, Rev. G. M. Davis, Rev. G. A. Oglesby, and Rev. Charles E. Hawkins.
The Antioch Baptist Church is a smaller organization whose mem- bers worship on Washington Street under the pastorate of Rev. J. L. Saunders, and the King Baptist Church is conducted by Rev. G. M. Davis, with no settled habitation.
THE PRESBYTERIANS
The Presbyterians are well represented at Gary-the First Presby- terian Church on Sixth Avenue, under the pastorate of Rev. F. E. Walton; the Westminster Presbyterian, at Tolleston, with Reverend Krouse in charge, and the United Presbyterian Church on the east side of the city, Seventh Avenue. The last-named was organized February 22, 1909, with sixteen charter members, and now is about seventy-five strong. Its house of worship was completed in 1910, and Rev. John W. McClenahan has served as its pastor from the first.
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FIRST REFORMED CHURCHI
Organized in November, 1910, in August of the following year the First Reformed Church erected an edifice of worship on Washington Street. It has a membership of about forty and has been served by Rev. Paul D. Yoder and Rev. J. M. Johnson.
JEWISH TEMPLES
The Jews of Gary are represented in the religious field by two con- gregations, which were both organized in 1910. On May 9th of that year the Temple of Bethel was organized, and the rabbis in charge have been Rev. Edgar Green and Rev. M. II. Krauss, the present incumbent having served since April 1, 1912. The congregation has a membership of 120.
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