MEN

ENOMONIE, Wisconsin, is a little city of but 5,600 people, and yet it is the best living proof of what the public school system of the United States can be made to do under proper conditions. It contains within a few hundred acres the most varied, the most complete objectlesson in public education that exists anywhere to-day. Its distinction it owes to one man, Mr. James H. Stout, who has since 1895 been a State Senator. Without him Menomonie would be like thousands of other little cities. Some years ago, when Mr. Stout was a resident of St. Louis, he learned that poverty had broken off the course of a certain student in a manual-training school. In the name of the school he provided for the boy. Interest in the graduate work of this one young man woke an interest in the effect of manual training generally, and the Menomonie manual-training schools and the other Menomonie schools are the outgrowth of thirteen years of resulting experiment.

The original proposition made (in 1890) by Mr. Stout at a meeting of the Menomine Board of Education was this: "I will place upon the school-grounds, in a place to be designated by the Board of Education, a building of proper kind and size, furnished with all equipments necessary for the instruction of classes of boys and girls in the subjects included in the first year of a course in manual training.

| I will also pay the salaries of the necessary teachers, the cost of all necessary materials and supplies, and all the contingent expenses for three terms, or for a time equivalent to three school terms, except such a part thereof as shall be paid by five hundred dollars, which is to be provided by the Board of Education."

It was accepted, and at the end of the probationary time the city adopted the school. Two buildings that dominate an open space of several blocks are now the centre of the public-school life of the town. At this season they stand out bare and strong in the snow, and the covered bridge that spans the distance between them is more a necessity than a convenience. In summer their dark-red brick will show still better, set off by the beautifully arranged plantation of flowers and shrubs that form the school grounds. The work carried on in the two buildings is not separate, but thoroughly interwoven. One building houses the Central common school, from the kindergarten through the high school, and is the headquarters of the Teachers' Training School for Kindergarten and Primary Teachers. The other, the manual-training building, is used by every Menomonie child-those from the outlying schools as well as those from the Central. A school is held in the building for the training of manualtraining teachers, who have always at hand a "school of observation and practice."

A GLIMPSE OF THE WORK.

Manual training from kindergarten to college, coördinated and controlled under one roof, I examined first. At one point At one point Mr. Bauersfeld, one of the instructors, was sketching for me the plan of the carpentry course to prove that it dealt with problems increasingly complex for the mind as well as for the body, when he stopped as if in physical pain.

Oh, that hurts me," he protested to a blond, grammar-school lad. "Normann, come over here and show Muller how to use a chisel." The teacher's wrinkle of distress and the smile that followed set Muller into a good-natured grin, and I glanced at him a few minutes later as he watched, with a new compression about his lips, the clean strokes of the boy who was serving as instructor. The grammarschool lads that I saw were at work in a self-reliant, business-like fashion upon a hickory step-ladder, a whitewood medicine cabinet, a birch towel-roller, an oak piano-stool, red-birch inkstands, footstools, salt-boxes, collar and cuff boxes, plate-racks, picture-frames, and wastebaskets.

Care is taken to suit the instruction to the environment. I was attracted by a particularly smooth, strong sled. "We make sleds usually in the late fall," Mr. Bauersfeld explained. "Sled and snowshovel-and skees. When the band-saws break in a mill nearby Mr. Stout gets them for us, and the sleds are shod with the best of steel." Everywhere I saw this inventive economy using old material in new ways. Some of the boxes were constructed from worn-out desk-tops. "We make kites in the spring," Mr. Bauersfeld went on, "sometimes seventeen different kinds; and then we have a kite day and race airships on the kite-strings. They get a good deal of practice in mechanics out of the rigging of their airships," he twinkled. Beyond the carpentry-room there was a little recitation hall. A long work-counter allowed space for any practical demonstration the conductor of the classes wanted to use. From that and from a tool-room as complete and systematic as any library, with classified nails and classified saws, and from fireproof vault where varnishes are stored which the pupils use in learning the arts of stains, fillers, shellac, and polishing, I emerged to see more results.

In this school Mr. Stout works out an occasional problem outside the curricu

lum. Once he asked a class of boys at the beginning of a year "to make something quite independently. "Make anything you want to," he said. They wrestled faithfully, and the results were atrocious but interesting. Mr. Stout had found out what was in their minds. The objects were locked up and forgotten till the end of the year. Then they were produced, and great was the mirth of the class over their own work. They had learned since making these articles how to appreciate grace of outline as well as mechanical perfection. They could no longer conceive such crudities. The material for this woodwork is bought in the rough, green lumber, and the instructors reduce it to any shape they wish. I looked at a mass of oak and birch and some slabs of red cherry that will some day be the superintendent's desk. It was carefully set up in the drykiln, the hot air circulating between the planks. Close at hand was the planingmill, where blocks and boards are cut by the instructors into any shape desired. The economy and utility of this way of purchasing is evident even to a novice.

I

From the wood-working department I went into the iron-working rooms. had spent much time in the immense forge-shop, where twenty-two "downdraft forges" were busy, and I had wandered in the din of anvils, and peered into hooded fires, and been startled by a trip-hammer controlled by a high-school boy of fifteen. I had gone somewhat breathless through a kind of royal machine shop, where striplings were handling gigantic forces with a steady concentration that made the air alive. I had given to the extraordinary equipment of the mechanical drawing-room a more intelligent and less thrilled attention. was ready for more lathes and draughting-boards. But I was not prepared for the foundry. The pit and the crane, the bucket-ladle capable of producing a twoton casting, the melting-room with its brass furnace, its "cupola" for iron, its floor of removable iron plates, its iron loading-stage beneath the floor, were vital with the sense of human mastery over material. In the faces of the boys bent over the machines this mastery had been plain-the tension of their work blended with the fine contentment of power rightly applied. This was the work of the boys.

Domestic Science. The girls study

"domestic science" in a department of six large sunny and well-arranged rooms. The real interest in this work to a quickwitted girl is furnished in the pleasure of acquiring knowledge in the study of fabrics and textiles, manufactures and materials, in the working out of an original problem. A girl is given a group of foods to be reduced to their food elements by the study of scientific tables. If in the group (designed perhaps for a breakfast) the girl finds a food whose nourishing elements exist in an equal amount in a cheaper material, then the substitution is made and the cost reduced. To a group of girls is frequently given the preparation of one or two or three meals the cost of whose raw materials shall not exceed a definite amount. These meals are served to invited guests, chiefly fathers and mothers, and the entertainers take turns in acting as hosts and waiters. One of these meals I saw in the process of serving. A high-school girl had been given a dollar, out of which she was to provide for twenty-five people. Here is the record: Cream tomato soup, croûtons, veal loaf, potatoes, bread and butter, milk. Tomatoes, 12 cents; veal, 40; potatoes, 14; bread, 15; milk, 15; butter, 10. Total, $1.06. Twenty-seven people served. Deftness and a trim and accurate handling of materials, with the brain planning behind the work, are the objects for which the department labors under Miss Laura G. Day. Home experiments are recorded methodically, so that at the end of the year every child has cardcatalogued her struggles. The children are known and their homes are known. Deception is practically impossible.

The Art Department.-The art department is another of Mr. Stout's experiments. The beauty of the collection it contains can best be suggested by the effect it produces. "I'd dragged through a sick day, flogging myself on from minute to minute till late in the afternoon," one woman said to me, "and at the very end of my labors I had to climb up to the art-room on an errand. In five minutes I was well. There is something about beauty that comforts you all over." One holiday-time Mr. Stout sent Miss Kate Murphy, the director of this department, to Japan, and her Japanese treasures came back with her to find a place with Greek and Moorish spoils. The pupils naturally resort to the art department to examine such acquisitions.

The whole system of manual training is so planned that it occupies in time little more than two hours a week. Nor do the school-children spend all their other school-hours in the ordinary studies. They are given the finest possible facilities for exercise.

Gymnasium and Swimming-Pool.-Mr. Stout gave the schools a $75,000 gymnasium which he maintains. Menomonie is the only place where you can go indoors from a temperature 38° below zero and find a class of public-school boys swimming in the waters of a warm indoor lake, or a class of public-school girls splashing in the lively competition of a first swimming lesson. Mr. Stout's belief in educated bodies is put into stalwart practice. This plunge has none of the effect of goldfishes in a bowl. It is eighty feet by thirty-the largest swimmingtank in the world open to school children

and at one end it drops to a good depth for diving. The effect of the high wainscoting and the lining (both of opalite), of the smooth whiteness of the marble margin, of the flash of nickel in the showers beyond, and of the motion of clean bodies through clear water, has a beauty that is not marred by the splash of agitated waves and the shouts of truly happy children. No child can get into the plunge save by the way and use of shower-baths. A turnstile lets him out when he is ready to dress. Running water provides constant change, and once a week, at this season, the place is emptied and thoroughly cleaned.

In the gymnasium are all the modern developing appliances, a wilderness of lockers, and a suite of wonderful dressingrooms. It is in use day and evening. Mr. MacArthur, the director, works according to a very sound theory. He says: "The characteristic features of the instruction given in this school are that the girls receive the same attention as the boys, and that the training of both begins while they are young. . . . It is previous to her fourteenth year that a girl can best be developed and strengthened for the duties of life. Up to that time she is the boy's equal or superior in physical prowess if given an equal chance, but the conventionalities of modern society rob her of freedom during her years of growth and cause her to become delicate and unhealthy. No amount of subsequent physical training will compensate for the loss of freedom during the years

from nine to fourteen. Every pupil (be- | ginning with the second grammar year) is permitted to come to the gymnasium three times a week to engage in the more vigorous work of climbing the ropes or ladders, jumping the horse, making "nests" on the parallel bars, and to indulge in the luxury of a shower-bath. If children are given the opportunity to experience the delightful effects of a good bath, it is safe to say that they will find some way of keeping clean when they are men and women.

From the second year of the grammar school, before which they have two classroom lessons daily, pupils begin the twicea-week systematic gymnasium instruction during school hours that lasts through the high school, and each of these classes has a weekly swimming-lesson. One of Mr. MacArthur's beliefs is the giving of equal care and attention to all pupils, not selecting a group of those already well developed for special training, while the rest shift for themselves, the common way. The clumsier the boy the more determinedly does Mr. MacArthur keep him to his task. The result so far has been a surprising all-around excellence and a remarkable athletic record for the school teams. Menomonie boys won the relay race and banner at the Wisconsin meet, and one of them, Waller, holds the United States championship for the 440-yard dash at the Amateur American Athletic Union games in Chicago. The school record shows the name of Arthur Olson, who threw the 12-pound hammer 144 feet 10 inches; Edwin Grobe, whose broad jump was 19 feet 7 inches; Frank Van Hoesen, who vaulted 9 feet 6 inches; and a Louis Seely, who hurled the discus about 100 feet. The development attained is not a bunchy, prize-fighting muscularity, but a balanced strength and suppleness that comes very near perfection.

Miss Bornheim, the assistant, is herself an embodiment of the health and glow of the wholesome word she preaches. Nothing that I saw in the department impressed me so much as the very small girls hanging by their toes, their knees, one hand, anywhere on anything, and always sure, always happy to the bubbling point, and already with something of the good-tempered self-control taught by all true sports. The mastery of the body the pupils are learning now will be mastery of the future. They won't grow

up to cry when they want to smile! The free exercise hours, no less than the gymnasium class, are under trained direction. The general public, too, admitted for a trifling amount to a shower-bath, a tubbath, a Turkish bath, or a plunge, make constant use of their privileges. Bowling-clubs of "grown-ups," go to try the perfect alley, wear gymnasium costumes, and stay for a bath when exercise is over. Men's classes and women's fill the evenings. Many an invalid mother regains her health here, forgetting her headache under the systematic drill and the stimulating shower. Here parents and schools come into close touch, the city grows year by year cleaner and better, the bodies of its dwellers are freshened for work, and their minds are occupied with healthful action.

The Teachers' Training Schools.—The Stout Training School for Manual Training Teachers, now in its first year, is under the direction of Mr. John H. Mason, a Worcester Polytechnic man who has been for two years on the faculty of the New York Teachers' College at Columbia University.

Efficiency is the most obvious product of instruction. Neither Mr. Stout nor the director, Mr. Mason, believes that because a man can manipulate wood and iron he is therefore able to make wood and iron work a means of education to a grammar-school boy. Against the protest of the authorities, five Menomonie high-school graduates have been employed as manual-training teachers on the strength of their common-school work. One young graduate at the school is receiving $1,200 at the Throop Polytechnic Institute, Pasadena, California. Another is director of the manual-training work at Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, and one of the girls fills the same position in Manitowoc. The girl was recently confronted by a request for woodwork in addition to domestic science. She had never received any instruction in the management of wood and metal, but she did not sit down supinely and say, "I can't." She showed the resourcefulness of her training, appealed to her home school, and with written instruction, plans, and advice from headquarters, opened her new department. Next year she will take the regular teachers' course.

I saw another high-school graduate perched at a huge drafting-table in the mechanical drawing room at Menomonie

preparing plans of the buildings for the St. Louis fair. These are some of the results of the training.

Mr. Mason and his colleagues, Miss Day and Miss Murphy, stand ready to cooperate in every special case needing elastic treatment, so that into the work in domestic science, in form and color, in mechanical drawing, and in wood-working, pupils are slipping regardless of sex. The directors of the schools, from Mr. Stout to the youngest professor, would be glad to see any boy or girl given the best the school offers. The conditions that curtailed the girl's opportunities are fast changing. Menomonie people in educational insight have advanced beyond the world outside.

The most attractive features of the kindergarten and primary training-school, under Mrs. Logsdon-Coull, are the blending of the kindergarten with the primary school. The director endeavors to eliminate the type of teacher who says to a mother, "Your Johnnie is the dearest child! I just love him!" and to a fellow teacher, Johnnie is the worst child I ever knew." The work is done seriously and sincerely, and it counts. In Menomonie the first-grade teacher does not receive the kindergarten child with a shrug.

The County Schools.-Dunn County, Wisconsin, in which Menomonie is, established one of the first two county agricultural schools in the world, and with it the county school for training rural teachers. The building that serves as headquarters for both stands in the Menomonie group, where its students have the use of the Stout Gymnasium, and are part of the student life of the town. These schools, which were favored by Mr. Harvey, then State Superintendent, were secured by Mr. Stout's efforts in the Wisconsin Senate. Dean Henry, the remarkable director of the State University College of Agriculture, has a grip on the rural life of the State that is lifting it year by year. Mr. Stout believed district agricultural schools could reach remoter and less-traveled people, wake up communities whose boys would not attend State institutes, and so reënforce the work of the university.

The County Training School for Rural Teachers at Menomonie accordingly takes girls straight from the village school and gives them a year or more of normal and upper-grade work. They learn how to study and they find out how to teach.

Association broadens them, ambition grows, and when they have earned their first salaries many go on to one of the seven State normal schools. The effect of the training is visible even to a stranger. Fifty-four per cent. of the teachers of Dunn county are graduates of this school, that is only beginning its second year. Mr. Morrison, the principal, and his associates, personally supervise the work of the graduates. Miss Allen, one of these associates, took me with her on one of her expeditions. Covered with furs that met our ear-lapped caps, we drove twenty-seven miles to see two schools. In the Red Cedar District, No. 4, we found a slender girl, Miss Della Bonell, with forty-one children present out of forty-six. They ranged in age from babyhood to teens, forming almost as many classes as there were children. An array of tin dinner-pails stood on the floor beside the big stove. The wall had the framed picture of Lincoln given by Mr. Stout to all the schools, and some pictures of one of his "traveling picture groups," which he sends about the State. On a stand was a tool chest furnished with a complete set of tools. This is Mr. Stout's gift to each country school in the county, and Miss Bonell showed me her blue-print plan of work furnished by Mr. Mason at Menomonie, and the woodwork already produced by the children.

In the short time that we stopped, Miss Allen found out what difficulties were blocking the school path, heard a reading-class, and took in hand a grammarclass of one big girl, who was in floundering depths over the poetry she was trying to untangle. "It's too hard for her," announced the supervisor. "Let her find the subjects in your sentences: The sun is shining brightly, and the visitor who came to day looked as if she had enjoyed her ride. That's quite as complicated, and the child knows what it means." The teacher brightened. She had feared that she might be held responsible for the examples "in the book." The connection between the rural schools and the parent school through such inspections as this, new as it is, is vital. Need and help, question and answer, letter and interview, keep the work alive. A beautiful desk chair, the gift of the parents, and new windowshades, put in for this particular teacher, were some of the signs of this life.

All through the county, thanks to Mr.