USA > Michigan > Genesee County > Biographical history of Genesee County, Michigan > Part 27
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Some years ago we recognized fully that the boys who left our shop able only to make good farmers' shoes, or even boots, had no chance whatever to make a living; and even if he could turn out most excellent fine shoes, in order to get work he would probably have to go to a factory and there learn his trade over again. Possibly he could settle down in some small town, get a little shoemaking, and a great deal of mending, and make a fair living. To make our shop of use to our pupils we must train them so that they could go to a factory and ask for work, saying I am a "laster," a "Mckay operator," etc., or go to the city and start to build up a trade as an "artistic repairer." So almost all the old benches were moved up to the garret, and the tools and ap-
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pliances of the factory took their place. A regular system of factory work was introduced. Each boy has to go through the whole system. He is kept long enough in each of the positions to thoroughly know how to do all that is done there, and then moved on to the next, finishing at the cutting board. After that he has a course in handwork, and in designing patterns, and as a finishing touch, systematic instruction in repairing. He then knows all about shoemaking from personal experience. He can select the specialty he wishes to pursue with a full understanding of what he will have to do, and having made an intelligent selection, he can devote the remainder of his time in the shop to acquiring speed and skill, which in future years will mean dollars to him.
For years past actual experience has proved that our shoe shop does turn out workmen who get places and keep them, and whose presence in a factory is apt to bring to the school word that if we have any more of the same sort they will be glad of them. Two or three years ago a new de- partment was added to this shop by fitting up a room, where those boys who expect to live in the country or small towns are taught harness-making.
We hope that it will be distinctively borne in mind that the object of this shop is not to make shoes but shoemakers. The great difference is that if we were running the shop for profit we would put a boy at one thing, and when he learned to do that well and rapidly, would keep him at it. Under this system we could quickly run up the output of our shop to an amount that would supply all this part of Michigan. As it is, we put a boy at different work as soon as he knows how to do what he is at. This policy teaches the boy, but greatly reduces the amount of work done. We supply all of our own pupils, and some few others, principally the officers and teachers of the school, and do not at all interfere with the shoe trade.
PRINTING DEPARTMENT.
Near the old shop is the Turner industrial hall. The appropriation for this building was made by the legislature in 1897, and it was occupied that fall. It is a plain brick building, containing four work rooms, forty by fifty, and cost $5,000. In it are the printing office, the tailor shop, the art and dressmaking departments.
The printing office, on the left as you enter the building, has been in
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operation at this school for many years. Like the shoeshop there was a time when we seriously thought of discontinuing it. We are now debating whether we ought not to introduce type-setting machinery, and so bring the shop up to the requirements of modern times. One of the most expert Mer- genthaler linotype operators in Michigan, Mr. Charles A. Gumaer, of Grand Rapids, is a graduate of this office, and, of course, deaf. He acquired his ability to operate that intricate machine, however, after he graduated.
There is still, and in spite of all machines, there always will be a demand for thorough printers, those who know every branch of their business, and for men skilled in "making up" and "making ready," while a good pressman, one who can do really good work from half-tone engravings, for instance. can always command steady work at fair wages. Several of the graduates of this shop are foremen in printing offices of considerable importance around the state, and our own instructor began here. We believe that by paying great attention to the parts of the business we have indicated, and to job work, we can turn out workmen who even in these times can find steady employment.
TAILORING DEPARTMENT.
The other end of the first floor in Turner hall is occupied by the tailor shop. Here some twenty pupils are at present, learning their trade. Almost all of our boys' clothing is made there, and quite a number of our officers pat- ronize the shop.
Our intention, when this industry was first introduced here, was to make thoroughly good tailors of all those boys who finished the course. We have not done this because no pupil has ever stayed there long enough to more than make a beginning in the last and hardest part of the course- cutting and fitting. They stay long enough to become expert "pants hands" or "coat hands," and then get offers of wages that keep them out of school. Possibly this may be all right, but the boy who leaves two or three years before finishing his education, either in a shop or in school, will not do as well in the long run as the one who waits longer.
Some years ago the strike among the tailors in Detroit, occurring a few weeks before school opened, caused three-fourths of the boys in this shop to stay at home. Most of them have kept the places they found at that time ever since.
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ART DEPARTMENT.
Upstairs, over the tailor shop, is the art department, under the direc- tion of Mrs. H. R. J. Mercer. The pupils are mostly girls, although some boys are there. The pupils who work in the studio have had a course of primary instruction in drawing, and are there to perfect themselves in some branch for which they have shown special ability or affection. Some give fifteen or more hours a week to this work, and others fewer, devoting part of their time to other handicrafts. Drawing, designing, wood carving, plate engraving, art embroidery, pyrography and etching are among the industries taught here.
SEWING DEPARTMENT.
The sewing department across the hall from the art room is one of the most important branches of our industrial department, but is one to which the writer, for lack of technical knowledge, can hardly do justice. More pupils are here instructed by Miss Agnes Ballantyne than in any other shop in the whole school. Beginning with plain sewing, a girl goes forward until those who have the ability graduate as perfect dressmakers, many of them able to cut and fit. All of the girls' clothing which we furnish, and a great part of that furnished by the friends of the pupils, is made here. the depart- ment making a proper charge for the work done, materials furnished, etc.
Those girls who so desire and who have the taste and skill necessary, have thorough training in the milliner's trade, learning all that is necessary for them not only to trim their own hats, but, if they desire, to hold a place in a first-class millinery shop, or even to run one themselves.
Separated from all the other buildings by quite a distance, away off in the orchard in fact, is the neat frame cottage which constitutes our contagious hospital. From its position it has acquired the name of the "Orchard cot- tage." It was finished in 1897 and was intended as a hospital to which every case of a contagious disease could be at once conveyed, so as to prevent its spread. At that time we were greatly crowded, and this snug little building offered a chance to carry out a design which the management of the school had long cherished. The orchard cottage was fitted up as a home for a dozen of the older girls, where they could live as a family, doing all the work, ex- cept washing, which women usually do, with the utensils and appliances com-
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monly found in family homes. Miss Mary Crawford, a lady well fitted for the position, was chosen to preside over the house, and a regular course of cooking and housework, with special attention to the serving of meals, was entered upon.
Since then several classes have finished the course there and are good little cooks. They enter heartily into the spirit of their work, are constantly sending samples of their cooking to the superintendent and other officers of the school, and have frequently entertained the board and invited guests at dinners of their own cooking.
Almost every girl in school is looking forward to the time when she will have her half year in Orchard cottage and learn to cook. The only drawback to the plan is that the building is intended for a contagious hospital. More than once it has happened that the cooking school has had to leave a meal half cooked to make room for a suddenly developed case of scarlet fever. The long quarantine of such cases, and the thorough disinfection of the building which must always follow before it can be again occupied, usually make sad work with the cooking class. Fortunately we have had very few such outbreaks.
THE BOYS' DORMITORY.
This building, erected in 1895, is on a knoll near the barn, surrounded by a fine clump of old forest trees. It is the sleeping place of forty-eight boys, and, when first erected, was a great relief to our then overcrowded sleeping rooms. It was the intention to have this building large enough for a hun- dred boys, but the appropriation asked for was cut down a third, and when the bids were opened it was found necessary to cut the building in half to bring it within the sum granted for it.
It now accommodates forty-eight boys, and a close inspection of it will show that boys can keep a building neat and clean when they really try.
BARNS, SHEDS, ETC.
Back of the boys' dormitory are the barns, cow sheds, silo and piggery. From sixty to seventy milch cows are kept here the year round, and every year each one of them is tested by the state live stock sanitary commission to see if any have developed the beginning of tuberculosis. They furnish an
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abundant supply of fresh, pure milk for every one. These are almost all Ayreshire or shorthorns or high grades from those breeds. The fullbloods are all registered animals, and the best of their kind, and we hope that their increase will take the place of the other cows as they become too old to be profitable. The pigs, which we have kept for years, are white Cheshires and have uniformly taken prizes wherever we have shown them. For three- fourths of the year their food costs us nothing, and they are a source of very considerable profit.
This barn merits a more extended description than we have space to give here. Erected from plans drawn by Mr. Clarence Cowles, of Saginaw, with the assistance and advice of Mr. A. C. Wright and Mr. E. F. Swan, both of whom fro mactual experience know what a barn should be, it combines all the modern improvements and appliances that are really useful and helpful in the care of cattle, without any of those fads that are only ornamental and expen- sive, into what is probably the best arranged and most convenient barn in the state.
THE CHILDREN.
Everything here, from the main building to the cow shed, is here for the good of the deaf children of the state of Michigan. The object of it all is that they may be educated, trained and fitted for citizenship. That the school does so fit them is shown by its record. No set of people, anywhere, are more worthy of praise than the educated deaf. While they rarely hold office, and can not possibly rise to the higher offices of the state and nation, they never enter its prisons, nor, with rare exceptions, ask for charity. When they leave school they expect to maintain themselves, and, unless some unexpected mis- fortune falls upon them, they do so.
Our school is free to every child in Michigan too deaf to go to the public schools, who is mentally and physically able to benefit by our training. Still, it is a school, and not an asylum, and is not intended to shelter those whom ignorant, careless, or foolish friends have allowed to grow up without instruction till past the age at which they can receive it. It is a school for the deaf children only, and those whom their friends represent as being "very bright" and hearing perfectly, but not able to "speak," rarely profit by methods of instruction intended solely for those who can not hear. It is very sel-
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dom, indeed, that such children make any progress here, and we do not intend to keep any child here who does not progress.
Outside of these there is a large number of children, roughly speaking, one in every fifteen hundred of the population, who can not be educated at the public schools, because they can not hear what is said to them. These children, no matter what their degree of deafness, or whether they were born so, or the affliction has only recently befallen them, are those for whom this school is intended. They come to us from every part of the state, and from every state and condition in life. Some come from homes where life itself is an education, some come from the health-giving farm, some from city slums, and some have no place that they can call home.
People often ask: "Are not deaf children very passionate?" "Are they not very hard to manage?" and other questions which seem to point to an idea that a deaf child is very different from his hearing brothers and sisters. The truth is that a deaf child, when he comes to us for the first time, is exactly what his training has made him. Some of our children are well behaved, polite little ladies and gentlemen ; some of them are rough and boister- ous; some of them are absolutely lacking in self-control-spoiled children through and through-a few show unmistakably that blows and neglect are all that they expect from grown people. In every case they are what their training has made them. It is harder for parents to train deaf children, be- cause they can not reason with them, and because their affliction speaks so loud to a parent's heart that restraint of any kind is very trying and seems almost cruel.
SPEECH TEACHING.
In addition to regular school studies we teach a large proportion of our pupils to speak and read the lips. So much has been said on this subject in the regular reports of this school for the past few years that it hardly seems necessary to add more, but for some reason, and by some means, neither of which we know, the report has been spread over the state that the Michigan school for the deaf is behind the times-that it does not teach, nor even try to do so. Nothing could be more false. Every child who enters this school has regular, long continued instruction in speech, from specially trained teachers, and this instruction is continued for at least a year, whether the child seems to improve or not. In addition to this we have twenty-four classes, all
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taught by specially trained teachers, where speech is used constantly in the schoolroom. We are perfectly willing to compare the speech of our pupils with that of any deaf children in the world. We positively assert that there is no danger, whatever, of any child losing speech while at this school, and that any child who could be taught to speak anywhere, will be so taught here. These are strong words, but an examination of our oral classes will convince any fair-minded person that they are true, and we challenge such a test. It is very easy to boast of what one will do in the future, but we are speaking of what we are doing now, and have the accomplished results to show.
TRADE TEACHING.
In addition to school work every pupil in Flint learns a trade. In speak- ing of the buildings we have told all about these. This trade teaching is considered a very valuable part of the school training, and no pupil is excused from it. The habit of working formed in the shops is considered as valuable as anything we give our pupils, and if any one is too good to learn a trade and acquire this habit, that person is entirely too good to come to this school. When a pupil enters the sixth grade regular systematic work at a trade must begin.
DISCIPLINE.
This work is a very great assistance in the discipline of the school. It seems to make both boys and girls more self-reliant and more easily influ- enced by advice and reason. While our principles do not go to the extent of saying that corporal punishment should never be inflicted, as a fact its admin- istration is very rare in this school. None, except the superintendent, ever uses such means, and it is now years since he has found a boy whom he thought needed it. Punishment of any kind is very rare. The one most often employed is to sit in a chair, in the presence of some responsible person, and do absolutely nothing. An hour or two of this generally brings a repentant frame of mind to the most obstinate. Deprivation of play, or privileges, work- ing on Saturdays, paying for the property of others destroyed wantonly, or by gross carelessness, are the means which, with talks from teachers, the heads of shops, or the superintendent, we have usually found sufficient with the boys; while the most hardened sinner among the girls has always melted at
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the threat of being carried to the superintendent. No one connected with the school knows what would happen if a girl was really carried to the super- intendent's office because she would not behave.
CHOIRS. 1
The fact that music and song can form no part of the education of the deaf makes a great gap in our home life. No totally deaf person cares at all for these things. Many find it hard to understand how hearing people can care so much for them. But the deaf keenly appreciate graceful motions and enjoy seeing them made by several persons in unison. We have our "choirs," who sing hymns, patriotic airs, or even comic songs as occasion requires, keeping perfect time, but doing all in silence, and speaking only by gestures.
One needs only to watch the faces of the other children while one of these "choirs" is rendering a selection to be convinced that they fully appre- ciate the performance. The story-teller, too, is as popular with them as among the Orientals. A boy or girl who can remember a story and repro- duce it in clear and graceful signs, is always sure of a large and attentive audience.
AMUSEMENTS.
Our children play very much as others do. Deafness limits the physical power to a very slight extent. Our boys hold their own at football, baseball, tennis and all other games of strength and dexterity with other boys of their age. Our girls play basket ball and tennis as well, dance as gracefully, are as fond of flag and fan drills as any girls.
Thanksgiving day and Washington's birthday are always occasions on which both boys and girls exert themselves to the utmost, and the entertain- ments which they get up for those nights are always unique and amusing. Sometimes queer obstacles are encountered. One pantomime of the sur- render of Cornwallis came near being a failure because none of the boys were willing to forswear their country and become British soldiers, even for an hour. An entirely new addition to the historic account had to be improvised, and after laying down his gun each British soldier was allowed to protest that, though he had fought against Washington he saw the error of his way and intended to be a true American forever afterward.
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