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ENTRANCE REQUIREMENTS

Experience of the past two years has developed a standard for entrance higher than originally planned. The "Waiting List" kept in my office has usually about twenty-five names of applicants divided into "Favorable" and." Held Over". In the- first group are placed boys who have passed their fifteenth birthday who are at least five feet four inches in height, have good physique, and have completed one year in the High School. Now that a hard worker can qualify for entrance on full-time in two and a half years, the above requirements are essential that we may send out boys who are mature enough and physically able to stand' the strain of working all their time in the factory, depending on 'their own resources to "make good".

From this "Favorable" list are chosen the boys who will seemingly profit most by the opportunity presented them by the' school; priority of application is secondary to this consideration. The record of the applicant in the grade schools is looked up' and given 'careful consideration, but is not usually a predominant factor for acceptance. The spirit of the boy towards hard work is a very weighty factor.
The "Held Over" list is consulted frequently and the progress; of the boys on this list is inquired into. As soon as possible the- names are transferred to the higher list.

COST OF THE SCHOOL COMPARED WITH EARNINGS FOR FIVE YEARS

On another page is a reproduction of a chart prepared to, give in graphic form the leading financial facts regarding the above points. Instead of our school year I have chosen for comparison the fiscal year of the State Board of Education, which ends on November 30. These figures, then, come down to December 1, 1914. It will be seen. that the total cost of the school for equipment and maintenance was $25,772.47. While no one could expect the students' wages to pay the expenses, it is a gratifying fact for comparison that the total wages received by the part-time boys, for the same period were $22,560.76: The cost of maintenance paid by city and state was $23,929.75, but the important fact, for us locally is this: the total net cost to the city was $13,807.58. Compare this with the wages received and we find that for every dollar spent by the city the boys added one dollar sixty-three cents to the wealth o f the community.
Reduced to a per capita basis: for an expenditure by the City of an average of $48.99 for each boy in the school, the training given him has helped him earn $79.63.

DOES THE COMMUNITY PROFIT BY ITS INVESTMENT IN THE SCHOOL

I have made my answer to this question in the most conservative terms. In round numbers the total wages received by the graduates, full-time and part-time boys, last year was $40,000. It is not fair to claim all of this amount as due to the work of the school; these boys would presumably be at other remunerative work. Using as a fair basis of comparison a wage of $8.00 per week for an untrained boy of the same age as our graduates and full-time boys and $7.00 per week for boys of the same age as our part-time boys, a corresponding number of untrained workers would earn $29,000 per annum. The difference between these amounts, $11,000, represents the net return to the community on its investment in the education of these boys. The City spent last year $3,300 and for this investment added $11,000 to the wealth of the community, a gain of one hundred forty-two per cent.

In its five years' support of the school the City has invested in equipment and maintenance $14,000. Last year, one year only of the five, our boys earned the equivalent of an annual interest of twenty-one per cent.

From the money standpoint alone the investment pays, but this takes no account of the added returns in the far greater and more lasting additions to intelligent and prosperous citizenship. An investment that has given its citizen-to-be three years' valuable training in a trade that has no limit to its possibilities, that has more than doubled their earning capacity, that has helped them establish permanent homes, that has given them a "nest egg" in the bank -- does anyone question whether it pays? Yet, the school is only in its early stages and better things are to come.

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