The vocational courses in the boys’ technical high schools continue the pupils’ study in the regular academic subjects, and give them work in excellently equipped shops. There is work in printing, carpentry, forging, metal work, mechanical drawing, and in the machine shop, well supplemented by the art department. The pupil does not specialize in one kind of work, but secures general training. The object of all the vocational courses in the grammar schools is to prepare the pupils for any branch of work that they may want to take up by giving them an outlook over all the branches of work carried on around them. The work is cultural in much the same way that it is cultural in Gary. The success of these courses in bringing boys back to school, in enabling others to catch up with their grade, and in keeping others in school, points strongly to the fact that for a great many pupils at least some work which will link their school course to the activities of everyday life is necessary.
The technical high schools give two-year courses for the pupils who can not afford to stay in school for four years. They are designed to give a boy training for a definite vocation, and are at the same time broad enough to count for the first two years of high school work if the boy should be able to go on later. At the Lane School two-year courses are given in patternmaking, machine shop work, carpentry, electricity, printing and mechanical drawing; all of these courses include work in English, shop arithmetic, drawing, and physiology. The four-year pupils take one of three courses, according to what they expect to do. The technical course prepares students for college, the architectural course prepares for work in an architect’s office, and the general trade course prepares for immediate entry into industry. During the first two years of work the student devotes his time to the study of general subjects, and during the last two the major part of his time is put in on work that leads directly to the vocation that he has chosen. The two-year course has not cut down the total attendance at the school by offering a short cut to pupils who would otherwise stay four years. On the contrary, it has drawn a different class of boys to school, those who had expected to go directly to work, but who were glad to make a sacrifice to stay on in school two years longer when an opportunity appeared to put those two years to definite account in training for the chosen occupation. All these technical high schools have shown conclusively that boys and girls like to go to school and like to learn, when they can see whither their lessons are leading. Giving the young work they want to do is a more effective method of keeping them in school than are truant officers or laws.