The Expanded and Annotated My Life and Work

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 

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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 

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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.