The following excerpt is from the Superindentent's Report to the School Committee, which was printed in the School Committee Report for 1907 and reprinted in Beverly City Documents for 1907.

INDUSTRIAL TRAINING

Industrial training differs from manual training in much the same way that a course in pharmacy differs from a course in chemistry. One aims to teach the knowledge and skill necessary for the applicant to have in order to procure his certificate as a registered pharmacist; the other aims to teach those general laws of the elements and their compounds and the laboratory technique that are fundamental to all the special applications of chemistry, whether it be to drugs, to fertilizers, to soils, to dyestuffs, to foods, or to any of the other almost numberless branches of industrial or applied chemistry.

The aim of the public schools bas been in the past to teach those elements of general knowledge that were fundamental to general intelligence and mental development, leaving to the operators of the various industries or to the workman himself the task of furnishing the requisite special knowledge and skill required in the various trades and occupations other than the so called learned professions, and the higher technical pursuits under the general head of engineering.
The purpose of the general educational movement now apparent allover the world is the broadening of the scope of public education to include definite and specific training to prepare pupils to become ordinary workmen or journeymen in the various trades and occupations. It aims more particularly to reach boys and girls that have attained the age of fourteen and have left or are about to leave the public schools. To such pupils, the Day Industrial School would offer instruction for two to four years in the theoretical knowledge fundamental to a particular trade and in addition, would afford either in the school shop or in some regular factory or workshop ample opportunity for comprehensive practice of the various parts, of the trade under factory conditions. Generally the arrangement is to divide the class in a particular line of work into two groups. While one group is in school for one week studying the theoretical side of the trade, the second group practices in the shop. On the following week group number one works in the shop and group two in the school. In some cases, a small weekly wage is paid for the work in the shop. In the case of Agriculture the practice work is on the farm of course.

To meet the needs of another class of industrial workers, Evening Industrial Schools are maintained to teach the theoretical knowledge connected with various trades to those working at the trade in the day time. This evening work is necessarily more fragmentary and less comprehensive than the regular course of a day industrial school. Nevertheless, it bas proved very valuable and has these advantages that a much larger number will avail themselves of such work than would take an extended course in a day industrial school, it is maintained at comparatively small expense and easily adjusts itself to meet the needs of all classes of workmen and all sorts of trades or occupations. There cannot be such close articulation between school and shop and the shop work is not necessarily educational and progressive, leading to the mastery of a trade.

For two years Beverly has maintained an Evening Industrial School and previous to that had taught some industrial subjects in the regular evening schools. During the past year the Evening Industrial School has been more thoroughly organized and has been very successful and has demonstrated that it can perform a valuable service for this community. The principal subjects taught were shop arithmetic, engineering mathematics, and machine drawing, free hand industrial drawing, architectural drawing, industrial science and combustion engines. No classes were organized for the benefit of shoe workers or for those employed in the various agricultural pursuits and in other minor Beverly industries. There is a clear demand for landscape architectural drawing. Probably other agricultural subjects, if offered, would attract a sufficient number to warrant the formation of classes. Courses preparing for the civil service examinations for licenses to operate steam boiler for heating or power are needed; a course in typesetting would be beneficial to the printers and those seeking employment in that line; and teaching the operation of power machines would assist those seeking employment in shoe stitching rooms; cooking, sewing, dress making and millinery might well be taught to girls.