THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



11 



Here we see children studying the things 

 we studied in the little red school house, 

 with touches of nature added here and 

 there. There is a constant effort to grade 

 the boys and girls, so that each child finds 

 full scope for his capabilities. 



The backward children are withdrawn 

 from the regular classes, as are also the 

 especially precocious ones. To go into a 

 class-room where the precocious kiddies 

 hold sway is to see a lot of high-school 

 heads on sixth-grade bodies. It seems 

 almost uncanny to hear such youthful 

 pupils discussing the relations of Japan 

 to the Siberian situation or America's at- 

 titude in the matter of after-the-war 

 trade. 



THE MANUAL-TRAINING COURSES 



When the average boys and girls reach 

 the age of thirteen, they are ready to take 

 up something beside text-books. Aiming 

 alike to prevent square pegs from getting 

 into round holes and to lay the founda- 

 tions for life training, the prevocational 

 school has many lines of work for boys 

 and girls. 



In a boy's department are to be found 

 courses in machine-shop activities, in 

 sheet-metal work, electric wiring, plumb- 

 ing, woodworking, mechanical drawing, 

 sign painting, garment designing, and 

 printing. Each boy has a number of 

 metal tags like those used in every mod- 

 ern machine shop. These are given in 

 exchange for the tools they desire and 

 are claimed when the tools are returned. 



The boys take three courses, which they 

 select with the aid of their teachers. For 

 the fourth term they go back to the one 

 in which they desire to specialize. While 

 they are taking these courses all book 

 work is planned to dovetail with the 

 handwork both in subject-matter and in 

 hours. The sheet-metal worker's arith- 

 metic will deal with sheet-metal workers' 

 problems, and the electric wiring stu- 

 dent's science will involve basic electrical 

 principles. The girls' departments have 

 courses in dressmaking, millinery, home- 

 making, etc. 



When the children finish their work in 

 the prevocational schools, some of them 

 drop out, but most of them go to the vo- 

 cational schools, where they carry on the 

 course already begun. These are high 



schools, training hand and mind together, 

 and fitting the pupils for their life work. 



A boy who finishes the plumbing course 

 at the Vocational School for Boys is a 

 real plumber, and the boy who puts up 

 his building and wires it with every 

 known sort of wire installation can give 

 pointers to many a man who has spent a 

 quarter of a century as an electrician. 



FITTING GIRLS LOR LIFERS RESPONSIBILITIES 



For girls, vocational education reaches 

 its highest expression at Washington Irv- 

 ing High School. Here one sees a com- 

 bination of head, heart, and hand train- 

 ing that transforms the tenement child 

 into a young woman who possesses poise, 

 who has a keen, alert, straight-thinking 

 mind, who knows the responsibilities of 

 life, and who has been imbued with a 

 spirit of high patriotism, right purpose, 

 and clean living. 



To teach 5,600 girls every day, to train 

 them in mind and body as Uncle Sam is 

 training his armies at our soldier cities, 

 is a great task. To take that many immi- 

 grants' daughters and make them orderly, 

 as jealous of the school's discipline as if 

 they were its responsible head, quiet and 

 dignified in lunch-room, class-room, and 

 corridor, gracious as hostesses to visitors 

 and in their auditorium work, and as pa- 

 triotic as if every line of their descent 

 lay through Williamsburg or the May- 

 flower — that is a work inspiring in its 

 proportions and rich in its results. 



With its motto the three big "Fs" of 

 life — Intelligence, Industry, Integrity — 

 Washington Irving High School truly 

 educates head, hand, and heart. A four- 

 year academic course, a four-year libra- 

 rian's course, a three-year commercial 

 course, a three-year dressmaking and 

 costume-designing course, and a three- 

 year industrial arts course are provided. 



Go down into the big auditorium and 

 see several hundred girls in a war-sav- 

 ings stamp meeting, and watch them on 

 the stage making posters. Many a vet- 

 eran "chalk-talk" artist would envy their 

 work. In the design-drawing work the 

 Washington Irving girls produced last 

 winter successes in commercial art that 

 will be in evidence all over the United 

 States before a year has passed, for mer- 

 chants and manufacturers in search of 



