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his record is satisfactory.
A record of the class and shop work is kept and also of the industry the boy
displays in each. It is the marks in industry which are used in making subse-
quent adjustments of his scholarship. In addition to his scholarship each boy
is given a small amount each month which must be deposited in his savings
account. This thrift fund must be left in the bank as long as the boy remains
in the school unless he is given permission by the authorities to use it for an
emergency.
One by one the problems of managing the school are being solved and bet-
ter ways of accomplishing its objects are being discovered. At the beginning
it was the custom to give the boy one third of the day in class work and two
thirds in shop work. This daily adjustment was found to be a hindrance to
progress, and now the boy takes his training in blocks of weeks—one week
in the class and two weeks in the shop. Classes are continuous, the various
groups taking their weeks in turn.
The best instructors obtainable are on the staff, and the text-book is the
Ford plant. It offers more resources for practical education than most uni-
versities. The arithmetic lessons come in concrete shop problems. No longer is
the boy’s mind tortured with the mysterious A who can row four miles while
B is rowing two. The actual processes and actual conditions are exhibited to
him—he is taught to observe. Cities are no longer black specks on maps and
continents are not just pages of a book. The shop shipments to Singapore,
the shop receipts of material from Africa and South America are shown to
him, and the world becomes an inhabited planet instead of a coloured globe
on the teacher’s desk. In physics and chemistry the industrial plant pro-
vides a laboratory in which theory becomes practice and the lesson becomes
Why Charity? • 193
actual experience. Suppose the action of a pump is being taught. The teacher
explains the parts and their functions, answers questions, and then they all
troop away to the engine rooms to see a great pump. The school has a regu-
lar factory workshop with the finest equipment. The boys work up from one
machine to the next. They work solely on parts or articles needed by the com-
pany, but our needs are so vast that this list comprehends nearly everything.
The inspected work is purchased by the Ford Motor Company, and, of course,
the work that does not pass inspection is a loss to the school.
The boys who have progressed furthest do fine micrometer work, and they
do every operation with a clear understanding of the purposes and princi-
ples involved. They repair their own machines; they learn how to take care
of themselves around machinery; they study pattern-making and in clean,
well-lighted rooms with their instructors they lay the foundation for success-
ful careers.
When they graduate, places are always open for them in the shops at
good wages. The social and moral well-being of the boys is given an unob-
trusive care. The supervision is not of authority but of friendly interest. The
home conditions of every boy are pretty well known, and his tendencies are
observed. And no attempt is made to coddle him. No attempt is made to ren-
der him namby-pamby. One day when two boys came to the point of a fight,
they were not lectured on the wickedness of fighting. They were counseled to
make up their differences in a better way, but when, boy-like, they preferred
the more primitive mode of settlement, they were given gloves and made to
fight it out in a corner of the shop. The only prohibition laid upon them was
that they were to finish it there, and not to be caught fighting outside the
shop. The result was a short encounter and—friendship.
They are handled as boys; their better boyish instincts are encouraged; and
when one sees them in the shops and classes one cannot easily miss the light
of dawning mastery in their eyes. They have a sense of “belonging.” They
feel they are doing something worth while. They learn readily and eagerly
because they are learning the things which every active boy wants to learn
and about which he is constantly asking questions that none of his home-
folks can answer.
Beginning with six boys the school now has two hundred and is possessed
of so practical a system that it may expand to seven hundred. It began with
a deficit, but as it is one of my basic ideas that anything worth while in itself
can be made self-sustaining, it has so developed its processes that it is now
paying its way.
We have been able to let the boy have his boyhood. These boys learn to be
workmen but they do not forget how to be boys. That is of the first impor-
tance. They earn from 19 to 35 cents an hour—which is more than they
could earn as boys in the sort of job open to a youngster. They can better help
194 • The Expanded and Annotated My Life and Work
support their families by staying in school than by going out to work. When
they are through, they have a good general education, the beginning of a
technical education, and they are so skilled as workmen that they can earn
wages which will give them the liberty to continue their education if they like.
If they do not want more education, they have at least the skill to command
high wages anywhere. They do not have to go into our factories; most of them
do because they do not know where better jobs are to be had—we want all
our jobs to be good for the men who take them. But there is no string tied to
the boys. They have earned their own way and are under obligations to no
one. There is no charity. The place pays for itself.
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