202 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



factory for a week and then to school for a week. This form 

 of school is in actual operation in Boston, in Cincinnati, and in 

 quite a number of other American cities. The school work of 

 the pupils who are learning a trade bears as directly as possible 

 upon the matters relating to that trade. If it is a trade that 

 involves the reading of blue prints part of the school work con- 

 sists in making blue prints and drawings. Some of the school 

 work will involve a study of the material that goes into the 

 product and an investigation of the use, demand and sale of the 

 product. There is a combination in this "part time" school of 

 the actual learning of the trade under trade conditions with 

 a development of the mind of the individual along lines that 

 are related specifically to the trade that he is learning. This 

 sort of school has been used in a number of European cities with 

 very great success. It is having a successful trial in quite a 

 number of our American cities. It is even being pushed up 

 into higher education. The University of Cincinnati, one of 

 the few municipal universities in America, has an arrangement 

 of that sort for its students. Large numbers of the college 

 students of the University of Cincinnati work half time in 

 some of the great industrial plants of the city and spend the 

 other half of their time in university halls. The combination 

 is satisfactory so far to both the manufacturer and the uni- 

 versity, just as the combination with younger people is satis- 

 factory in the cities where that is being tried. 



Another form of school, working upon this same problem, is 

 what is known as the Improvement School. The Improvement 

 School had its origin in Continental Europe. It originated in 

 one of the cities of Germany where it started as a Sunday 

 school, meeting at a time not to conflict with the hours of wor- 

 ship. The school lasted for three or four hours each Sunday 

 and sustained classes for workmen from the various factories. 

 The workmen from a particular industry w^ere formed into 

 one class, and those from another industry into a different 

 class. The instruction bore directly upon the particular prob- 

 lems that confronted them in the work they w^ere doing. They 

 brought from the factory the questions about which they wanted 

 more information. The fundamental desire of the school was 

 to help these men to a little higher level in the vocation which 

 they had chosen ; to make out of them a little better workmen 



