Maple Avenue Evening High School - Progress Yearbook (Los Angeles, CA)

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Sl-:iii and Quality the Demand Tracie Extension the Hope By D. C. CASSELMAN Secretary-Manager Los Angeles Builders' Exchange T no time in history has there been such a demand for skill, quality, and general efficiency in the building industry as V the present. While we may be equal, in a degree, to meet the exigencies of to-day, what of the future? Without elaboration or comparison as to other crafts, mention of the fact that Govern- ment statistics show that 53? of the plasterers of to-day are forty-six years of age or older, may be of interest. What is being done to supplant the retiring members of this partic- ular craft and others as Well? The Vocational Training and Trade Exten- sion Schools appear the very best short cut practical solution, and the thought and theory developing throughout the land is evidence that such schools as the Maple Avenue Evening High School should receive the united recognition and support of the community. The department at Washington, Board of Education, and civic organi- zations in general, have recognized the importance and beneficial results of such work, properly applied. This is not intended for the apprentice alone, in fact, the endeavor is beyond, all things included. The Worker who is ambitious, industrious, and far-seeing enough to realize the value of better trade training and to devote his spare time to Page Thirty-seven

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learn to read plans. It is not essential for the men in the building trades to become accomplished draughtsmen but, if they can picture in their minds what the architect shows on a plan or an elevation, they can express in a concrete form to a better result than when they have to be told by some one else what the drawing means. Most hf us see objects in perspective, the designer shows objects in right lines at true lengths or to scale. The men in the trades can be easily taught to picture the object as it appears when assembled without spending years of study as draughtsmen. The blue print which the builder has on the job seldom shows the struc- ture in isometric projection. If it were so he would see the finished job beforehand because it would appear to him like other objects about him. It requires considerable training to become a skilled draughtsman but that is not necessary for the average builder. He should, however, study free- hand sketching which will enable him to express his ideas in such a way to the mechanic that there will be no doubt in the mechanic's mind. So much material is wasted and work bungled up through inability to interpret plans that, if the man-hours and man-days wasted daily on build- ing work from this cause could be counted, the sum would be appalling. - Many workmen who claim to be master workmen in their trade are inefficient because they cannot interpret blue prints. This is largely their own faultg it is comparatively easy to learn if one is willing to study along a definite line of endeavor. There are too many workmen today who content themselves with the idea that they know enough to get by , as the expression goes. The time is rapidly approaching when greater technical skill will be required. If higher pay is expected by the craftsman he must be able to deliver the goods and no one can do that without being prepared to the highest standard attainable. T To that end then, every artisan in any trade should be able to interpret plans of the work he is performing, learn the language of the designer and the result will be a better product, less waste, higher wages, lower cost to the buyer and satisfaction to all parties concerned. Page Thirty-six

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the acquirement of that knowledge, may be safely put down as a good citizen, a safe citizen and a poriftable citizen. The prejudice against trade schools - and there has been such pre- judice - has been that such schools put theory above practice and turned out mechanics on papern who became completely lost when they got into the thick of the work on 'a job. Any school which with necessarily limited quarters, claims to be able to take an untrained, inexperienced person and make a thoroughly equipped mechanic out of him in a few short months, is claiming something that any practical man in the industries knows to be an impossibility. A canvas of the situation as regarding Vocational Training at the present time would 'seem to show that the most necessary and advisable thing to do is to work towards -a system of practical trade-extension in- struction by Which the workers could be classified and the experienced mechanic who has learned his trade in the past, given the things which he lacks - the more scientific methods which the industry has evolved since the time he learned his trade - and the learner or apprentice given the necessary preparatory and supplemental training to perfect him in what- ever grade or year he belongs so that every step he takes may be along the most approved and scientific, and therefore most economic, lines, thus producing a finished and efficient mechanic. Page Thi!-ty-eig-ht Architectural Drafting Class