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Show j A REVIEW OF THE HALF-DAY SCHOOL DISCUSSION. " It Is unfortunate that Superintendent Superintend-ent John M. Mills sprung his half-day half-day school plan before he had worked out the details. When the plan was first announced the public believed that the entire public school system In Ogden would be placed on the half-day plan at once. Mr. Mills now says that ho -had no such object in view, but on reading his first communication commu-nication to the press wo find that either conclusion could be drawm It seems to us that Mr. Mills qualified his statements to such an extent that nothing tangible or certain was proposed. pro-posed. He talked of the Gary plan, the FItchburg plan, the German plan, and other plans, none of which, how-over, how-over, Mr. Mills has proposed for Ogden. Og-den. It appears to us further that Mr. Mills was simply feeling the public pub-lic pulse. If he appeared vacillating vacillat-ing or uncertain as to just what he would do. it undoubtedly was because he fenred public sentiment, and also that he did not have back of him the Board of Education. These two things might well cause the superintendent superin-tendent of any school to hesitate. Perhaps Per-haps even the Board of Education may have directed him to feel the public pulse. After having talked with the superintendent su-perintendent for some time, we feel that Mr. Mills has not well worked out the plan to adopt; that he feels something ought to be done and that he Is willing to modify his views to harmonize with the wishes of the parents. Further than that, we are convinced Superintendent Mills will not go, unless the Board of Education Educa-tion should direct him.' So far as we have been able to learn, there is no city that has placed Its entire school system on the half-day half-day basis. Salt Lake City has he chart and first grade on the half-day basis, with no effort to control the children during the half-day vacation. We understand some of the eastern cities have the chart, first and second sec-ond grades on the half-day system without any effort to control t?ie children chil-dren during the other half .of the day. We find, however, that in Fitch-burg, Fitch-burg, Mass., the boys attend the whole day session but work one week at a chosen trade and the next week at school and they have two classes that alternate with each other on this basis, ba-sis, but only in a small way. It is unfortunate that Mr. Mills quoted Germany, Fitchburg, Gary and other school systems that have experimented experiment-ed on the Industrial plan, because we doubt that any of those systems could be put in force, in Ogden to any great extent Fitchburg, for instance, has 10,000 more people than Ogden, and has a population of 150,000 within a radius of ten miles, while Ogden has less than 10,000 outside of Ogden City. The Fitchburg plan provides that any boy of the high school age, upon entering en-tering high school, can sign an apprentice ap-prentice contract to learn a trade in any of the various factories in and around the city. This contract provides pro-vides that the child must put In twenty weeks, of five days each, in the high school and twenty weeks of five and a half days in the factory, and the contract must be signed and guaranteed for a period of four years, and a complete trade is taught during that time. For this the apprentice receives the second year 10 cents for ,each hour's work performed, for the third year 11 cents per hour, for the fourth year 12 cents per hour. The first year the boy gets nothing and is expected to devote his whole time to studying in the high school along the line of the trade that he has selected. se-lected. - With all the factirles surrounding sur-rounding Fitchburg, only fifty miles from Boston, and with such great advantages ad-vantages and under five years' operation, opera-tion, only 49 boyB graduated in their trades during the five years. The applications for the learning of the trades were as follows for the five years: Thirty-four signed up for the year 1909; 15 for the year 1910; 30 for the year 1911; 25 for the year 3912; and 30 for the year 1913, or, out of a total of 37,000 population, 134 boys during the whole five years' experiment, experi-ment, entered this industrial school. Government Bulletin No. 561 gives the complete details in regard to this school system. The boys who entered the industrial system signed up to learn the following follow-ing trades: Eight for drafting; 4 iron molding; 86 machinists; 6 for office work; 6 pattern-making; 2 printing: 10 saw-making; saw-making; 8 textural work; 4 tinsmith-ing. tinsmith-ing. , This is the full result of five yeara work of the system in Fitchburg, Mass., fifty miles xfrom Boston, whore hundreds of thousands of jobs are to be had for every hundred in Utah. Mr. Mills did riot explain this system, sys-tem, as above. We see no reason why the Fitchburg Fitch-burg plan could not be enforced In Ogden for those boys who want to learn trades, but it should not, and would not, interfere with the schooling school-ing of the other children for the full day, as In the past. Now, as to the German system. Government Report No. 665 gives the gjjm of industrial schooling in 6er- J.i -MT,-'.J...,tjiWlTl.,J,l,) j-.,..L,.g.r many. Ti)c German system undoubtedly undoubt-edly is better than the Fiichburg system. Under the German plan every' ev-ery' child must go to school a full day dally for eight years. That prepares him for the high school. No chiU is compolled to continue in the hlfh school in Germany. It is not called the high school there, but Is known as "continued school" or school of conlinur.lion, which is voluntary. These continued schools furnish a high school -education in connection with the learning of a trade. That is, the school is continuous a'i day but a portion of the day is used for regular school studies and the other portion of the day to learn trades. In Germany, a general board Is appointed, appoint-ed, which has charge of these continued con-tinued or industrial schools, and we find that on this board the labor unions uni-ons are represented, and in one instance in-stance we find that a non-union organization or-ganization selected a representative of the board who worked with the union uni-on representative. It appears that the German government dons not make a distinction between organized and unorganized labor and that both are represented, and the trad is taught under the German government are in harmony with the ideas of the .jreat body of laboring men of the German empire. It will be seen that the proposition made by Mr. Mills does not meet the German system, as the Germans teach trades not in half-day school but full day school, and then only after the children have mastered the first eight grades. The German industrial, in-dustrial, or continued schools, are provided with the finest factory machinery ma-chinery and tools that can be purchased. pur-chased. If Mr. Mills proposes to turn the high school Into a German industrial school, there can be no objections; in fact we believe It would be generally approved by the people. But it would cost some money mon-ey to fix up such an industrial school. The machinery, tools, etc., would be expensive. As previously stated, we do not think Mr. Mills has exactly outlined just how and what he will enforce. We do not think the board of education educa-tion knows just what Is wanted or what they are about to do, Undoubtedly Undoubt-edly Mr. Mills and the board of education edu-cation are studying the system of industrial in-dustrial schooling and, after mature consideration, the board of education will decide on some change or addition addi-tion to the present system. We do not believe there is any intention on the part of the board of education to place the schools of Ogden on a half-day half-day basis, even if Mr. Mills should desire it, and we do not believe Mr. Mills desires anything of the kind. It would cost the. schools just as much to teach the children half a day and take care of them socially or otherwise oth-erwise for the other half of the day. If in five years Fitchburg, Mass., could rally only 134 boys to take the industrial training, within fifty miles of Boston with a million people, there surely is no hope of any great number of the Ogden boys taking to industrial schooling, especially not before be-fore the high school is reached. The columns of the Standard are open to both sides for discussion of great public problems, of which our school system is undoubtedly the greatest, and the parents of our children chil-dren have a right to demand from their servants, the board of-educa-tion and the superintendent of schools, that they be heard when a radical change in the education of their children Is proposed, and we do not think that the statements made by Mr. Mills and his defendants defend-ants were such as would convey a detailed plan, explaining the changes proposed so that an individual with, average intelligence could understand just what was contemplated. One of the best educated men in the city stated that he had read all of the statements of the defenders of the plan proposed and that up to date he had been unable to state just what the proposition was. He said further that he has talked with Mr! Mills himself and could not learn from Mr. Mills just what was wanted want-ed and how to accomplish it As soon as the members of the board of education has a plan to propose, we hope they will submit it to the parents before even acting on it. If this is done, there need bo no fear for the future of our school system. Here is a letter Mr. Mills sent to a citizen last Friday. It does not present the half-day school: "Dear Sir: Your request to have your son excused from school to help you In your struggle for your large family has been considered. I do not see, however, how we can grant it. You are an able-bodied man, drawing, draw-ing, I suppose, a good salary for you are in a good position. I think some work would be good for your son, but to release him from school all day would be to his educational detriment, detri-ment, even though you send him to night school as you promised to do. "It is true we have excused a great number of boysrom school all day, but In these cases it was the wise and only proper-thing to do. There are many others in your condition, and if we should excuse your boy, we would bo discriminating. I know the task of providing for a largo family is a difficult one, and I sympathize with you Jn your efforts. I would be very glad to excuse your bov to work if he gets in his four units of study, which is a full day's work but under our present organization', he cannot quite take these four units, and get his study time, but by lengthening length-ening the day according to our new plan, each half day will be long enough to take in all the studies of the day, and under that plan we might excuse your boy for a half day, and he will still get his full day's schooling, providing he does some studying at home. Yours very truly, (Signed) "J. M. MILLSi Supt." |
