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EVENING TRADE CLASSES

In the Order already quoted the purpose of the school is stated as "instructing youths in day or evening classes" and "instructing any persons already employed in the industries in evening classes in such industrial trades or occupations as shall be deemed expedient by the Board of Trustees." Instruction is thus to be provided for two groups:

(1) youths from fourteen to twenty-one years of age desirous of learning; a trade;

(2) any persons, age not restricted, already employed in the industries. The first group, those learning a trade, may receive instruction in either day or evening classes, while the second group, those already in the trades, are restricted to evening classes. Under' present conditions we cannot provide instruction and equipment for learning a trade in evening classes. This is possible only when the school has in its own building machines and equipment suitable for trade instruction or when it has access to an equipment elsewhere.

It would be possible to install a machine-tool outfit in the school building but this is undesirable and would be a wasteful duplication of part of our present equipment at the factory. Is it altogether a dream that some day, not remote, such prosperity shall come to the United Shoe Machinery Company as shall require so much of its plant to run evenings that a place may be found in the factory for this school to teach evening students? There are difficulties in carrying out such a scheme but none more formidable than were met and surmounted when this school was organized.

The second group, those already in the trades, must be taught in evening classes. This branch of industrial school work offers the largest field for service in our community. In our largest manufacturing plant there are at least two thousand men and boys who could be helped to increase skill and earning ability if we gave them the opportunity. In other factories and shops there are many more to whom we should prove a stimulus and practical help.

For this second group I respectfully suggest that work be under- taken in the fall and winter of 1914. There are no substantial objections to the plan. From experience elsewhere with several hundred men in evening classes I am sure that a surprisingly large number of men would enter our evening classes and would find what they sought; men are anxious for advancement and we owe them the opportunity. . The main reasons for this school undertaking this work are:

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