of blue prints and specifications for a number of houses which have been built in Boise. Two of the public school buildings were designed by the department and all necessary blue prints and specifications drawn by the boys, thus saving the cost of the architect on about $70,000 of construction. It is doubtful if this particular feature of the work can be commended for all small communities, as the amount saved in architect's fees might easily be dissipated in uneconomical or defective construction without the facts being discovered until too late. If an instructor is available who has had practical building experience, and who can assume the responsibility involved, the plan has many advantages and attractions. Agriculture. The aim of the four years' course is to train definitely for the farm by giving actual practice in farm operations. A special chemical laboratory for agriculture is provided. Students bring samples of soil from their home farm for analysis. The courses offered include: Farm crops, farm soils, farm mechanics, horticulture, farm animals, farm chemistry. Since Boise is an important distributing center for agricultural implements, a plan has been developed by which boys from the high school conduct field demonstrations of farm machinery for prospective purchasers. The school board owns some stock, and a dairy association has been organized with a membership of about 50 owners of dairy cows. The boys test several hundred cows each month, keep records of food and milk production, and make regular reports. Several farm surveys have been made to determine the phases of farm work that are practicable. In various other ways that might be mentioned the public schools of Boise seem to be rendering practical community service in addition to what has been the traditional work of the schools-teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic-and there is evidence that the fundamentals are not suffering because of the awakening interest in the new lines of effort. SPRINGFIELD, MASS. The Springfield school system is facing the problem of meeting the wide range of demands that are being made on it in the field of manual and vocational training. The present organization includes: 1. Handwork in the first five grades for boys and girls, part of which is an industrial trade, as illustrated in the studies of transportation, small house building, cement block work, and block printing. 2. Special hand work for the feeble-minded classes, taking into account the personal interest and pathological needs. 3. Special handwork for retarded groups, as suggested by special interest, and offering direct application to the fundamental studies. 4. Manual training for grammar-school boys in the sixth to ninth grades, inclusive (Springfield has the nine-grade system), having a strong industrial tendency and showing a relation to the activities of the city. Some of the projects are: Small house frames, derricks, bridges, cement work, the telegraph, and printing. 5. Practical arts or prevocational work to groups of boys and girls 12 years of age and over who for various reasons can not complete their schooling and presumably will profit by the course. The morning is devoted to classroom work, and the afternoon to the active or prevocational work. One teacher has charge of both kinds of work, and uses the experience of the afternoon work to vitalize the morning classroom work. In the afternoon, the boys have experiences with a variety of trades, each trade furnishing work from six to ten weeks. These experiences consist of carpentry needed about the school building, cement work in the building or about the yard, school furniture made with the aid of jigs, electrical wiring in the building, and printing for their own and other schools. It is intended that gardening and some simple business experience be included. Specialists are called in from different trades, as occasion demands, to give the children contact with people actually in the trades who can keep work within practical bounds. These experiences offer many opportunities to the teacher in applying the classroom work. Arithmetic and English may be made to deal with all of these activities; history with electrical work and printing; and geography with cementing, woodwork, and electrical work. The training, of course, offers special opportunities in the English work. These practical arts groups are not considered as feeders to the vocational school, but are conducted as distinct educational units. There are several modifications of this plan in operation in different parts of the city, each adapted to the practical needs of the locality. Groups of girls are to be organized on the same basis as the boys' groups, with such activities as cooking, nursing, sewing, and homekeeping, bringing in a specialist when occasion demands. 6. The vocational school is a trade-training school, admitting boys 14 years of age or over who have reached the seventh or a higher grade. There are three-year courses in carpentry, pattern making, machine work, and printing. A half-time agricultural course has been organized. Pupils in this department assume their regular school work for the morning session, and give their afternoons to the agricultural work. The vocational-school boy must select his trade before entering. Attendance for the past year reached 110. The school is organized on the project basis, the experience of each boy centering around the job that has been assigned to him. There are three types of teachers: The shop instructor, who is a practical mechanic; the technical instructor, who deals with the related subjects, as shop arithmetic, drawing, etc.; and the academic teacher. Each job which the boy undertakes is attacked in the following order: 1. Making sketches in the shop. 2. Working drawings. 3. Writing specifications. 4. Writing out estimates. 5. Filling out operation sheets. 6. Doing the job in the shop. 7. Making out cost records to compare with estimates. 8. Writing complete shop notes. The job is continued six hours a day until it is completed. These steps follow each other in order, without regard to the school program or schedule, although a record is kept of the time taken for each step. To supplement these individual experiences, the boys are scheduled for two half days per week in the classroom for courses in industrial history, industrial geography, English, shop mathematics, and citizenship studies. The boys spend one-half of their school time in the shop. The job scheme has proven to be far more efficient than the usual correlation scheme for establishing true relationship between the shop and the nonshop work. The situations about which the boy writes and estimates are real and are a part of his own experience. The kind of job given the boys has an important bearing on the success of trade training courses. No exercises or models are placed in the shop; each job is something that is wanted either in the vocational school, in another school, or to meet a cash order. Rarely does the boy make something for himself. His interest is in the doing of the job. An effort is made to determine what are the most effective methods of starting beginners in the different trades. The method of giving exercises or models involving fundamental processes has been discarded. In 1912 the machine-shop department experimented with beginners by giving them operative work in turning out quantities of pieces, using jigs and fixtures in the process. The tests that were made indicated that the boys who had had this experience of operating jigs and fixtures gained considerably in hand skill, as well as in tool operation, over the boys who started with simple handwork projects or who were given a series of models to make on the machines. The vocational school makes it possible for the boy, after nine or ten years' attendance at school (six or seven in the elementary schools and three in the vocational school) to go out and earn from $1.50 to $3 a day in avenues of employment that are fairly constant and offer advancement. 7. The technical high school is for boys who can attend school for 13 years and may be preparing for higher technical schooling or for the better positions in industry. For the girls, it offers college preparatory and domestic training. Some of the branches of vocational training still undeveloped in Springfield are the continuation school, short unit evening courses for trades, and part-time courses. Mr. Egbert E. MacNary, supervisor of manual training and principal of the vocational school, has had charge of the administrative details of this work during the five years of its development. ROCHESTER, N. Y. When the evening schools opened in September, 1914, provision was made for courses in shop arithmetic for carpenters and woodworkers at East High School, West High School, Rochester High School, and School No. 26, instead of at East High School only as in previous years. This step was taken in view of largely increased enrollment, and in the effort to make the school facilities more available. These courses are arranged to be completed in 24, 48, or 72 lessons, according to the previous preparation of the student. Survey. During the summer of 1913 the chamber of commerce made a survey of three industries: Woodworking, machine and metal working, and garment making. The survey was directed by Raymond C. Keople, of the department of vocational education of the public schools. As a result of the survey a meeting was held in the rooms of the chamber of commerce in February, 1914, which was attended by practically all of the machinists of Rochester. The machinists adopted an agreement to take boys from the Rochester shop school after two years' training in the machine shop, paying them the following scale of wages per week: First six months, $8; second six months, $9; third six months, $10; fourth six months, $11. Similar agreements are being negotiated in the garment-making trade. Part-time and continuation work.--At the beginning of the summer, 1914, the German American Button Co. requested the board of education to enter into a part-time school agreement for girls of 14 to 16 years of age. Girls who applied for working permits from January to July were interviewed to enlist their interest in a plan of weekly alternation between school and factory. Twenty girls are taking the course, of whom 10 are working on the alternate week basis. The girls receive preliminary training at the school, including sewing and cooking. A summer class is conducted at the Rochester shop school for printers. After a three months' try-out course at the school, the boys are employed in printing establishments at an initial wage of $4.50 per week. The boys work in the shops and attend school on the alternate week basis. Evening courses.-Bulletin No. 4, September, 1913, is entitled "Information Concerning the Public Evening Schools." It gives a list of 185 courses offered in the evening schools for 1913-14, classi Preparatory courses for municipal civil-service examinations..... Total..... 185 Follow-up work. The department of vocational education has followed up every boy or girl who has left either trade or vocational school, securing information regarding character of employment, rate of wages, life ambitions, etc. Studies are being made of the earnings of trained and untrained boys. An important phase of the vocational work is the visiting of industrial plants by the boys and girls of the vocational schools. About 70 trips were made during the past year to factories representing all types of industry. SIOUX CITY, IOWA. In 1913 a survey was conducted under the direction of the board of education in cooperation with the commercial club. As the result of this study, some very interesting and profitable work has been accomplished during the past year, especially in the organization of recreation and playground facilities and social centers. A beginning in vocational education has been made by the establishment of a department of printing in the high school, under the direction of a practical and experienced printer who had been at the head of the mechanical department of a prominent daily newspaper. A course of study has been organized covering four years of work. Two hours per day are devoted to subjects other than printing, among them shop mathematics, principles of reporting, and journalism. The printing department has been more than self-sustaining, if account is taken of its product. It has done all of the printing of the board of education, including numerous reports, course of study, examination questions, reports and programs of the Northwestern Educational Association, and other work. The department has the indorsement of the typographical union. The commercial department has been completely reorganized, and now offers one-year, two-year, three-year, and four-year courses, each of which is so arranged as to lead definitely into the one of next higher standing. A pupil is thus able, after completion of one of the shorter courses, to continue his work in another course without loss of time or repetition of work done. Considerable progress has been made in organizing the work in vocational guidance, which Sioux City prefers to term vocational information. In this work it has been possible to enlist the interest and support of the commercial, industrial, and professional men of the city. The work which the young people have done has brought them so definitely in touch with various forms of activity going on in the community that business men are convinced of the practical value of what is undertaken. As a result of this enlisted interest the manufacturers' association tendered a banquet to the members of the classes in vocational information, at which time there was presented a full discussion of what Sioux City is doing and the requirements and conditions for success in the various departments of industrial and commercial effort. This was followed, a little later, by a banquet given by the commercial club to representative students from all the schools of the city, with the same general purpose. The installation of the shops in the new high-school building was made the occasion of reorganization and enlargement of the work in |