Fort Madison High School - Madisonian Yearbook (Fort Madison, IA)

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E H G SCHOOL TIM cosmopolitan city namely tl1e Emerson school which h ms been c1lled the educational center of the United States One of his ideas is that lt IS a great waste to allow the capital in vested in school buildings to be idle for two or three months of each year so the Gary schools run for twelve months of the year and six d xys of the week The pupils and teaches may take their three months vacation at any trme of the year they choose and the attendance on Saturdays is voluntary All subjects are repeated every three months School opens at eight thirty and has been closing about five oclock but the intention is to continue the dav until six for M1 Wirt says that the only way of preventing the child from undoing all the good he has learned at school IS to keep him off the streets and alleys But no child sxts through all the hours at his desk Indeed no child has what the superintendent calls a straight jacket desk They move from room to room as in the high schools grades The children in the lower grades have about three hours of formal textbook study about three and a half hours of special work 'md the rest of the time is spent on the play grounds under the direction of the teachers trained for that purpose As the children grow older their play time is decreased and the time given to regular lessons mcreased regular work another is taking special work and another is on the play ground This plan increases capacity of the building and explains the treedom from crowded conditions in Gary It has other adv mtages too If 1 child has not understood his lesson for the clay he may cut short his time on the playground and repeat the class And if he is more id vanced in one subiect than another he may enter a higher class in that one study lhis develops the individuality of each pupil The children ire phxsit rlly benefited by this plan for their long hours on the play dround .ue wisely directed A child who is not able to take his regular work may take only his special studies or none at all Tl1ere are several reasons for the superior work of this school lf ach teacher is a specialist in the subject she teaches She knows the work md is capable of presenting it in the most interestmg way The vocztnonal teachers are prepared to make their courses practlcal and even the playground teachers are specially trained The building which contains all the grades from the kindergarten through the high school is very well equipped The regular teachers have every device necessary The vocational teachers are well supplied with tools The T H l H ' E S 25 , ' Q 1 . . . ' 2 . at ' ' ll . . . l f ' ' C - ' ' 5 y ' . 4 H q . L l 7' 5 1 . . , L . ' , . The program is arranged so that while one division is taking , - i I I i ' . Z . C - 1 - Q: .5 r . . -ro Z . . . ' ' I

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T Tl 'l l'- l An .Eng Qemmc-snr .1 fl Lslucarl on Eslmx Riu- SALUIAIORIAN HIS IS '1 perlod of r1p1d lfldllgfflal development :ll 'CQQXW over the world Never before has compet1t1on been ll , ,, 2 , 2 X, y W p it y, p p , ii I Q' 2 lf- Q' H' rf -' 4 ii' I Vi , I a , , y 5 , I , .V I A Q , Q 2: 1l L J 4 Q jg :uf g.- , , Q, E.-kg g sp- , ' 7' , ,4 ' so keen, or the cry for ethclent workers so strong. 'EX . . . fl I: 4- rv ,' 5 - 1 I a f , ' la N 6 1 , . 3 , ' 2 , ,ff . . M- 2- . . ' ', ' 2. 2 ., 2 . 42 ' ' . 2: ' , - 3 2 2 , 2 ' ' 2 . '. 2 Z . . . S , I . 4 I I 1 C . I I ' . . ' ' . ' '2 . 2 2 ' Condxtlons are changing constantly and one ofthe most serlous Cl lt1ClSIl'1S of our modern schools us that they are not 'tccommod ltmg themselves to these changes The puplls leave school wlthout bemg re1lly educated and the vast fIl3.JOI'lfY of them leave school 'ts soon Wx A as the compulsory educatxon laws wnll pernut They have no motlve for golng to school In Gary lndmna they thmk they have solved th1s problem by the mtroductlon of vocatxonal tralnmg Gary has been so wldely dnscussed durmg the last few ye xrs that xt IS hard to real17e how lecently xt has been bullt About e1gl1t years ago the Umted States Steel Corporatlon began thelr great steel mxlls on the southern end of I ike MlChlg3D When the vtst armles of work men moved 1nto the newly buxlt c1ty Gary was confronted by a dnfticult questlon A school system had to be bullt whnh would accomodate the thousands of forelgn chxldren wl1o had come 1n Clllrlllg the f1rst few months The laborers had very llttle taxable property and the mllls ol the bteel Corporatuon were much undervalued Accordmg to the st ate ltws approprxatlons for school purposes tre made on the basxs of tn enurnerttxon taken 1n the PFCVIOLIS Aprll So some of the leadlng men erected and rented to the c1ty 1 moderately lalge and fanly equlpped bmldxng which to then mmds solved the educatxon tl problem entirely But when the pxesent superxntendent Wtlh un Wnt tppeued he lefllbed to C.0l1SldCI'tl1lS as mythzng but t temporaxy subshtute lox the kmd of school whxch iccordmg to h1s ldeas was needed m such a

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If HICH SLI-IOOL TIM chemnstry teachers have all the necessary apparatus The xnstructors nn llterature have a branch of the pubhc lxbrary m the bu1ld1ng The musxc teachers have pnano players and vxctrolas and there are stere opt1can lanterns and motxon pxcture machmes The teachers plan thexr work so that relatnons between thexr subjects may be seen For 1n stance those xn charge of Chemlstry and Domest1c Scnence plan that the g1rls may work wzth fermentlng materxals nn both classes In the pr1 mary classes the chxldren learn geography and readmg from the same game and from keepmg the score they learn addxtzon The prlmary rooms are placed next to the hlgh school rooms and there are long glass doors between It IS the old theory of the younger puplls learn mg from the older ones Mr W1rt reahzes that lf the vocatnonal work ln hxgh school 1S to be practxcal nt must be recogmzed by organxzed labor So at the head of the trade departments he has workmen who are regular members of thexr trade umon When a boy leaves school the tlme spent 1n the school shops IS counted off hxs apprent1cesh1p Phe head of the manual tramlng department makes has work very practncal I stead of g1v1ng the boys pleces of wood of the exact shape and sxze needed for the artxcle they w1sh to make he glves them rough blocks of wood In most manual tralmng classes half the work IS done before the pup1ls begun Thus class makes a great deal of the school furmture There 1sa class nn pamtmg and varn1sh1ng The puntmg office as a very busy place for here all school papers and pamphlets are prmted Many of the boys and some of the gnrls w1ll follow prlntmg as a trade The commercxal classes are m charge of an expert Graduates from th1s department usually get posxtxons at once The Domest1c Sc1ence gnrls serve lunch every day and the gxrls prepar1ng and servmg the lunches are paxd a share of the profits There IS a store IH the bunldmg run by honor puplls wh1ch keeps all kmds of school supphes lhe bank has a set of real officers and check books and deposxt books and It does a good bus1ness nn real monev the money bemg depos1ted xn a cxty bank each day For older people the school IS open from seven to ten each even mg Some come to use the gvmnaslum some the readmg roo1ns and others who have not learned the Enghsh language or who have not had educatlonal advantages early nn l1fe attend the n1gl1t clas es Appxen t1ces often spend an hour or two of the evenxng 1n the shops lhe school IS the soc1al and xntellectual center of the commumty Another thmg wh1ch helps the school IS the lthtude of the bus1 26 T H 1 1 l , E S - ' V - 1 ' ' 1 1 1 ' 1 1 ' 1 1 . ' , I . . . . I n- ' . - v s I . 1 1 iv I D . . , ' V H I n - 1 ' S , . ' - 'K Q . . . I . .