USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > Quincy > Inaugural address of the mayor, with the annual report of the officers of the city of Quincy for the year 1911 > Part 21
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It is gradually bringing into the light of careful investi- gation also many of the educational practices current in the school room to see if they are handled in the best and most economical way. Experiment stations connected with some of the leading teachers colleges are beginning to com- pare methods and corresponding results of doing the same process with an intelligence and care which will undoubtedly lead to conclusions that in many instances may be definitely accepted as correct.
Whatever the methods adopted and found best, and whatever the course of study may contain or however it may . be modified the main purpose of the instruction, laying the foundation of general intelligence and fitness for citizenship, will remain ever the same. There will always be the same effort to train the habits, physical, mental and moral; to in- duce the proper reflexes. Most of the drill of the school aims to bring about the proper mental reflexes, while to some ex- tent we can stimulate to proper physical habits, and at least encourage to proper moral habits and insist upon them dur- ing the time of school intercourse. These mental habits, which absorb so much of our attention, should not only in- clude the fundamental processes of reading, writing, arith- metic, spelling and the other common studies but should govern the manual processes as well.
Aside from the aim of forming proper habits, there is the further aim of training proper judgments and it is this
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aim especially that distinguishes the American school from the common school abroad. The recognition of individual- ity peculiar and sacred to each child, which must have op- portunity to express itself and develop along its most gifted and promising lines, is a factor which will always keep schools from getting into ruts. The emphasis of this side of educa- tion will develop initiative, ingenuity and ambition in the individual and backed by proper habits will lead to success.
Furthermore there is the aim of imparting and fixing such information as does not come primarily within the range of the mental habits, and which will serve as the foundation upon which the judgments build. These facts of themselves are not many nor burdensome, and in a way subordinate them- selves to the other two aims.
In working toward these ends which are widely recog- nized and agreed upon today there is developed an increasing interest in the child as an individual. We think at the pre- sent not so much in terms of schools and classes as in terms of children, and down in the heart of each teacher has been impressed the fact that the child is in reality the problem. It is this stating of education as a problem of the child, and not of the school, or the teacher, or the subject, or the method, which has led to all the recent developments of educational thought, which have found their outward expression in those phases of public activity which are today being rightly as- sumed as public charges.
Medical and dental inspection, physical direction and vocational guidance, establishment of fresh air schools, of schools for sub-normal children, instruction as to thrift, as to tuberculosis and other miscellaneous matters of like con- tent are all outgrowths of that development of educational thought which has placed the child as the center in the fore- ground.
Furthermore it is this same attitude which is leading to the broad development of evening schools, of summer schools, kindergartens, extra school courses and the many other ac-
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tivities of one sort and another which seek to keep in touch with the child and hold him firm and safe at times, and at ages, when he is away from the guiding influence of the pub- lic school. There is here, of course, the broadest kind of field for future development, and one which has as yet scarcely been touched, but it is one for which there is very evidently a public demand, one increasing in earnestness and one which, paternalistic though it may seem to some, in consequence of this demand is sure to receive increasing attention and de- velopment.
Vocational Education
At the request of the superintendent, the school com- mittee appointed during the year two committees with the request that they investigate respectively the vocational problems of girls and of boys in this city and make recom- mendations as to the course the city should pursue in pro- viding proper vocational training for them either along in- dustrial or other lines. These committees, whose members were appointed because of their special knowledge either of the child or the industrial side of the problem, have accepted the responsible task and may be expected early in the new year to produce practical and reliable reports founded upon local factsand conditions, and their recommendations, if adopt- ed, ought to be of great value to the city from every point of view.
It is not the intention here to anticipate the findings of these committees but it may be timely to explain the condi- tions which seemed to call for their creation.
The whole subject of the after life of the child is undoubt- edly receiving more attention just at present both from edu- cators and people at large, than any other phase of public school activity and this is true of Europe as well as of this country. Present conditions, industrial, social and economic are such as to make it a matter of individual and public con- cern that every child have the opportunity to develop those
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talents to the best advantage which promise best for a live- lihood.
It is unnecessary here to go over again so trite a subject as the difference in home training and opportunities for training between the present day and the past. Neither does it need to be told again how different are the conditions in the industries today and at how great disadvantage are those who enter life unequipped or who make entrance upon the wrong field. These matters have been set forth so many times upon the public platform and in print that they may well be taken as accepted facts and the focus of attention now needs to be directed to those conditions which are purely local and to the very pertinent question as to what our city is going to do about them.
It is a fact that is well understood among the citizens that an unusually high percentage of the public school chil- dren in this city graduate from grammar school and reach the high school. In fact the percentage of such pupils in this city is equalled by very few cities in the country. Add to this the fact that the school population is rapidly growing and we see the necessity of looking ahead in order to make the right provision for the pupils.
It is found, as has been stated, that the high school in two or three years time will be uncomfortably filled so that it is none too early now to cast about for relief. The city is reaching the point now where any change in the high school policy should be in the line of differentiation of schools rather than the continuance of differentiated departments in an en- larged building. The thought suggests itself that possibly the immediate remedy for prospective congestion and the first step in the way of distinct and differentiated schools will come through the adoption of recommendations which these committees in search of opportunities for vocational training will offer. The development of our school system will iney- itably be in the direction of making opportunities equal for all classes of boys and girls who attend our schools. The boy who wants to be a plumber or a machinist must be carried
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along just as far on his path toward the goal as the boy who wants to be a dentist, a physician or a bookkeeper. While the work which lays the foundation of a life of general intelligence will in each case be the same, there must be provided at a stage as early as may be necessary such differentiation as the hoped for after life will need. Nor should this differentiation be such that it will be any bar or handicap in the way of a boy of conflicting desires whose hopes for the future have not yet crystalized and whose aims may shift and change frequently and freely before finally they settle and point out the real vo- cation.
Toward a broad educational policy of this sort, the school system has been leading for some years. There has been a gradual extension in the elementary schools of the work in manual training, which is an underlying factor of so much value for later years and in the high school there has been a complete re-organization into departments, with added c- quipment and courses and instructors for the manual arts and household arts work.
A definite description of this development will be found in more detail in the report of the head master of the high school with a statement as to the effect this development has brought about in the distribution of pupils among the different courses in the school.
This broadening of opportunities is all very well and neces- sary for those pupils who are still in the public schools, but there are the large numbers who are leaving us every year to seek occupations and an entering wedge into the industries, as well as those who having made entrance upon their life's work are in need of help and advice to make their footing more secure and their advance in intelligence and capacity more rapid. What of them? If public education has as its purpose the production of a more efficient citizenship, then certainly it must concern itself with both these classes. For the young men and women who have already left school, practically the only means of help will come through the evening school, and the development of this feature of public
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education in this city especially on the industrial side, has barely begun. Our evening drawing school has in a general way been meeting the needs of a large number of young people every winter through its courses in free hand and mechanical drawing of a broadly inclusive nature. The attempt this year to search out one or two groups, that might be interested in work of a more specialized type, met with a response which called for the employment of an additional teacher, and the work proved of a nature so satisfying to those instructed that a request came from them for the continuance of the courses for twenty nights into the new year. The course in monument design and that in mechanical drawing appealed to persons who were vitally interested and for that reason their success was assured. A request sent by the school committee to the State Board of Education asking that the evening drawing school be inspected by its representatives with a view to its approval as a state aided industrial evening school was followed by a careful investigation by the state and verbal notice of approval has already been received with suggestions for a further extension of this department in the future along lines which the state will outline, and which undoubtedly the special committee now considering the problem will recom- mend.
There is still further, the problem of education for the boy who is just going into the industries and who will become either a mechanic of high skill or one of rather low grade, according as he receives intelligent help during his early years in the industry. There is a steadily growing movement in this country to provide part-time or half-time instruction for such boys along lines that will make them skilled to a very high degree both in the theory and the practice of the trades. Ex- actly what can be suggested or recommended in this direction will not be clear until the committee is ready to report. There is however this that may be said safely in advance of the re- port of the committee-that there is ample need and field for the development of a system of education along industrial lines; that such a system well developed is a tremendous asset
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to any city looking to the industries for its expansion, for reasons that are too obvious to require explanation; that a well rounded system can be worked out in Quincy that will be of relatively small per capita expense as the state and city bear the burden equally; that the introduction of such a system within a reasonable time will probably postpone the need of providing more high school accommodations for some years to come, thereby deferring an expense which would necessarily be heavy.
In every way this problem is the most prominent and important one before the educational department and we look to the citizens to give it the study and the support that it deserves. While the problems of girls on the vocational side are less prominently in view and less discussed, they are none the less real, and while the plan of development will be less complex than that for the boys, there will undoubtedly be recommendations made by the committee of women, which is investigating these problems, which will be relatively easy of adoption and prolific of good in the education of our girls.
There are few industries in Quincy that employ girls, and none of these employ what might be called skilled workers, so there is no opportunity of co-operation between the school department and local industry as there is in the education of boys. But in the greatest industry of all for girls, that of home making, undoubtedly much more can be done and more girls can be given help than is the case now.
The High School
Mention has already been made of the most pressing problem that the high school has to face, that of accommoda- tions, and suggestion has been made as to how the ultimate solution of that problem may be brought about. The marked increase in the attendance within a year has been due not alone to increase in the entering classes but especially to diminishing the number of withdrawals due to failure of the
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school and the individual to get best results. This one a- chievement of making the individual succeed is the greatest that a high school can have to its credit, and whether it be brought about by improved curriculum, broader equipment, more careful departmental arrangement, improved character of teaching, sympathetic management, or all in conjunction, its successful accomplishment is highly creditable. All these characteristics have been evident during the year with results that an examination of the report of the school will show.
Of especial interest is the rather complete change in the kind of work elected by the pupils within the last two years. In the report of 1909 attention was called to the fact that the school was becoming one sided in its departments. The present report shows how rapidly and broadly the household arts and manual arts departments have come to the fore with a probability for still further extension next year. Other items of general interest are discussed in the report of Mr. James D. Howlett, Head Master of the school which is appended herewith.
To Mr. Albert L. Barbour, Superintendent of Schools:
I submit herewith my second annual report on the work of the high school, a report for the year 1911. This report cites some conditions and activities, and with these some needs, in the life of the school.
For the first time in the history of the school the enrol- ment has passed the eight hundred mark. The figures at this date compare with the figures of a year ago as follows:
1911 1910
Whole number enrolled.
828 770
Whole number at date. 779 687
These figures show an increase of fifty-eight in the number enrolled, and an increase of ninety-two in the number at date. It is gratifying to note that the increase in the number at date is relatively much greater than the increase in the number enrolled, as this shows that the loss of pupils, for one cause-
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or another, has been much less the first four months of this year than the loss for the corresponding period a year ago.
The school is losing nothing of its enviable standing as a place of preparation for higher institutions. More pupils than ever are going on to colleges, technical and normal schools. At the same time that it is maintaining and strength- ening this more strictly academic department, it is building up, under the same roof, other strong departments, depart- ments where boys and girls are being trained for industrial and commercial pursuits. The work done in these depart- ments will compare favorably with the work done in the separately housed and expensively equipped technical and commercial high schools in other cities. Last year I gave an outline of a course in one of these departments, the course in sewing and dressmaking. I give here an outline of two other courses, the courses in mechanical drawing and manual train- ing; and with this outline a brief statement from the head of the department of manual arts:
"The aim of this department is to meet the needs of the different pupils in the most practical way possible. As now planned the work is correlated with its different divisions. The boys are given thorough drill in the essentials of mechani- cal drawing, and opportunity for the development of a con- siderable degree of skill with the instruments. With their training in drawing and shop work they should be able to make creditable progress in a drafting-room, or in the mechan- ical trades. A course in monument design is now being worked out to meet the local demands of this work. The courses in manual training are being extended as rapidly as room and equipment will permit. In addition to the room for general bench work an adjoining room has been equipped with machinery for small classes in wood and metal turning, and pattern work. This room has been provided with six speed lathes, one screw cutting lathe, one combined revolving oil stone grinder, one universal saw bench, one portable electric glue heater; one five horse power motor to drive the circular saw and screw cutting lathe and a three horse power motor
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to drive the speed lathes and oil stone grinder. This room is also provided with a large workbench. Through the courtesy of the Fore River Shipbuilding Company this department has received as a loan a generous supply of patterns, and a small engine. This material is in daily use, for sketches and working drawings, and is of great value to the department. In the manual training classes thirty-six desks are being made for the mechanical drawing room. These desks pro- vide drawer accommodations for two hundred eighty-eight pupils. They are being well made in plain oak at a cost of about thirteen dollars each. This is a saving of over fifty per cent. of the lowest estimated price by manufacturing concerns."
Course in Mechanical Drawing
FIRST YEAR: Practice in lettering. Measuring and lin- ing problems. Introductory practice with drawing instru- ments applied to problems in geometry. Location of the different views of working drawings, explained and demon- strated by the use of "projection planes." Practice in work- ing drawings, of objects made in shop, with special drill on dimensioning drawings. Problems in working drawings and orthographic projection, two views given to find a third. Development of surfaces.
SECOND YEAR: Review of the principles of orthographic projection applied to working drawings. Location of points, lines, planes, and solids in relation to the planes of projec- tion. Conic sections. Intersections and development of surfaces. Machine design-helical curve applied to screw threads. Problems in proportion of bolts, nuts, wrenches, and other machine parts. Principles of isometric projection applied to problems in construction. Original design of some piece of furniture, to include working drawings and isometric views of the same.
THIRD YEAR: Problems in mechanism-crank and lever connections, cams, etc. Freehand sketches of machine parts, and drawings made to scale from sketches. Design of simple
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mechanical devices-swing arm brackets, jack screws, etc. from which patterns are to be made. Linear perspective applied to problems in monument design.
FOURTH YEAR: Freehand perspective sketching of archi- tectural or machine details in outline, and light and shade. Option of continuation of work in machine design, architec- ture and building construction, or monument design. Talks on modern drafting-room practice.
Course in Manual Training
FIRST YEAR: Review of tool exercises of grammar grades. Progressive exercises with woodworking tools applied to problems in construction, which includes the following com- mon joints: butt, half lap, notch, mortise and tenon, dovetail, and miter. Staining and finishing surfaces.
SECOND YEAR: Problems in furniture construction. Wood turning, and pattern work.
THIRD YEAR: Building construction. Framing model of house designed in drafting-room. Exercises on screw cutting lathe.
FOURTH YEAR: Continuation of problems in building construction, and machine-shop practice.
This outline gives some idea of the scope of the work in this department. It, also, shows-as anyone at all familiar with local industries will readily observe-a serious attempt on the part of the school to adapt its curriculum to the spe- cial needs of this particular community. The call of the com- munity for work of this kind is most urgent; so urgent indeed that the department is overcrowded, and the demand is upon us for more room. In two years the number of pupils taking mechanical drawing has increased from seventy-nine to two hundred sixty-five, and the amount of time devoted to the subject has been more than doubled. A like condition exists in the manual training; and some of these pupils are now on half time, for want of suitable accommodations. The school faces the alternative, to curtail its work, or en-
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large its plant. "Was not the building designed for more pupils than have yet enrolled"? some one may ask. True, but not for pupils enrolled in manual arts. There is a vast difference beteeen the amount of room in which one may ac- quire book learning, and that required for bench learning. And who will say that the boy at his book is more deserving than the boy at his bench? Communities in city and in country are awaking to the call of both. Personally, I would have this school provide the best possible preparation for the boys and girls who are going on to other institutions. At the same time, I would have the school do just as much, notwithstanding that it must be done in an entirely different direction, for the larger number of boys and girls who here round out their school life, who here complete their school equipment for the world and the world's work. Far from taking any backward step, or in anywise curtailing the ad- vantages already offered, the school should increase these advantages, for boys and girls alike; increase them to the point, a point not yet reached in many schools, where the girls shall have acquired a working acquaintance with some of the numerous ways of livelihood now open to women, and where the boys shall have learned not merely to toy with tools but to toil with them, not merely a playhouse knowledge but some of the knowledge and skill of the workshop.
Something might be said of what the school is doing, and of what the school ought to do, for the physical welfare of its boys and girls. The lunch room is in its second year of very successful operation, and more pupils than formerly are using it. The girls, as noted last year, are in charge of a most competent physical director. It is the wish of Dr. Smith, physical director for the city, that the boys, too, be placed in charge of some assistant who will be able to give more time and attention than Dr. Smith, with all the other schools of the city on his hands, can possibly give to the high school. How invaluable such an assistant may be has been shown by Mr. Staff's splendid work in coaching and supervis- ing the boys' games the present year. Were it possible to
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get a wide hearing through a report of this sort, I should here appeal for a properly constructed and properly restricted playground, a playground not merely for the use of the high school, but for the boys and girls of all the schools of the city. This way lies one of the city's deepest needs, and at the same time one of its richest opportunities.
Very grateful acknowledgment is here made of the following gifts to the school: From Colonel Edward Ander- son, for the school library, two hundred fifty volumes of books and publications, many of which are rare works, of inestimable value to the department of American history and civics. From the class of nineteen hundred eleven, several pictures for the walls of room thirteen. From the class of nineteen hundred fourteen, stone pillar and plot of shrubbery, for the improvement of the grounds in front of the building. I wish it were possible to add here an acknowledgment of some improvement to the grounds at the back of the building, but as yet all that may be said of these is "How long, O city, how long?"
I thank you and the members of the school committee for kindly counsel and co-operation; I make record, also, of my deep appreciation of my fellow teachers, their work and their worth.
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