The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 50
History of the School
History of the School.
The Ordinance establishing the Manual Training School, was adopted by the Hoard of Directors of the University, June 6. 1879.
The lot was purchased and the building fronting on Eighteenth Street begun in August of the same year. In the November following, a Prospectus of the school was published. In June, 1880, the building being partially equipped, it was opened for public inspection, and a class of boys were examined for admission. On September 6, 1880, the school opened with a single class of about fifty pupils. The whole number enrolled during the year was sixty-seven. A public exhibition of drawing and shop work was given June 16, 1881.
The second year of the school opened September 12, 1881, and closed June 14, 1882. There were two classes, sixty-one pupils belonging to the first year, and forty-six to the second year, making one hundred and seven in all. Of the second-year class, forty-two had attended the school the previous year.
During the summer of 1882 the large addition fronting on Washington Avenue was built and furnished.
The third year of the school opened September 11th, 1882, and closed June 14th, 1883, with the graduation of its first class. Twenty-nine young men received diplomas and medals. The enrollment for the year was 175. The exhibition of drawings, recitations and shop work lasted two days.
Three Articles of the Ordinance establishing the school are appended.
Article II.
"Its object shall be instruction in Mathematics, Drawing, and the English branches of a high-school course, and instruction and practice in the use of Tools. The Tool-instruction, as at present contemplated, shall include Carpentry, Wood-Turning, Pattern-Making, Iron Clipping and Filing, Forge-Work, Brazing and Soldering, the use of Machine-Shop Tools, and such other instruction of a similar character as it may be deemed advisable to add to the foregoing from time to time.
"The students will divide their working hours, as nearly as possible, equally between mental and manual exercises.
"They shall be admitted, on examination, at not less than fourteen years of age, and the course shall continue three years."
Article IV.
"The expenses of said school shall be provided for, so far as possible, by gifts and endowments specially contributed for the purpose, and all such gifts and endowments shall be held sacred and apart, and shall be used only for the direct purpose for which they have been given, unless by consent of the respective donors or their legal representatives."
Article V.
"For every sum of $1,500 contributed for the establishment or permanent endowment of said school, the donor shall be entitled to a certificate of scholarship, under which he shall have the right to send one scholar to said Manual Training School, free of tuition charges, so long as said school shall exist."