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RATE OF EARNINGS FOR FIVE YEARS

Under another caption is the statement of total earnings for the period. The most important figure as showing the boys' growth and value as a workman is his hourly rate. Owing to conditions attending piece work, it is not always safe to assume that a high rate of pay means a high order of workmanship or vice-versa. A job may be very rich in instruction and practical lessons, but poor in pay. . The hourly rate, however, may be taken as a fair index of workmanship. In the figures given below, every boy. good or bad, is taken into account. The rate given is the actual rate earned, not the rate of the earnings received by the boy. which is only one-half his total earnings.

On this basis we have:

The decrease in rate for the past year is readily accounted for by the poor condition of business at the factory, a condition common to the entire business world. It is very probable that the rate for 1914-15 will be lower and for the same reason. When normal conditions return, a normal rating will result.

It is interesting to note that the rate, twenty-three cents per hour, at which our boys begin full-time work is a natural advance step over the part-time rate and not a sign of "favoritism" by the Company.

The factory week is fifty hours, although during the past year business depression caused the factory to run for fourteen weeks on a forty-one hour week.

CHANGES IN COURSE OF TRAINING

In the early years of the school, topics of study were taught with little definite aim, although much removed from the traditional subjects taught in the grade schools. Experience has developed a' clearer understanding of the content of our teaching. Formerly, the fact that a subject had a technical bearing or could be connected with the experience of a machinist was sufficient to find a place in the school program. Now our tendency is to group subjects into divisions (1) necessary to every practical machinist, (2) desirable, (3) related to the trade, but not so closely as in (1) and (2). In the four main divisions of work during the school- room week-mechanical drawing, mathematics, science, machine and operation study-the material is now in shape for the above grouping and the coming year will find the grouping made exact.

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