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Many years ago Prof. W. A. Travis decided that a school which would give a practical, industrial education would supply what he considered lacking in our present educational system, and the result is the establishment in Collegeport of what is known as the Gulf Coast University of Industrial Arts.
No subject at the present is receiving larger attention than that of
practical education. In the Collegeport district the Gulf Coast
University of Industrial Arts is demonstrating that best practical
education for boys and girls may be had by them at the cost of
earnest effort upon their part. The effort to earn an education by
their own hands is a great education in itself.
The school has 350
acres of which constitute the farm, nurseries, gardens and campus.
It has already collected dairy stock implements, teams and tools for
work on these grounds. It has a nursery stock valued at $6000. These
things have been accumulated, not from gifts, but from the results
of labor performed by the students under management of the
instructors.
It is the purpose of
the school to keep the highest sane literary curriculum and at the
same time fit the boy and girl for immediate useful work the moment
they graduate. For instance, the boy will know how to manage a farm,
or how to direct a working force in such a way as to get the
greatest cheerful response from the force under his charge. He will
be able to construct buildings. He will be taught to successfully
grapple with the problem of supply and demand and the proper
distribution of products. In fact, his education will be intensely
practical.
The girl will be
trained in household duties and economics by actual work in the
kitchen, laundry, dining room and parlors of the home. Her
instruction in literature, music and art will at the same time make
her the best social companion.
This school has been in
successful operation for three years, having graduated its first
academic class in June of this year. The school was the first to
turn the virgin soil and plant the first crop in the vicinity of
Collegeport. It is at present a vital force in locating and settling
the very best class of people in the community, for people seek a
location where such a school is in operation.
There are many people
in the North who desire a locality for removal from the rigid
winters of those States and provinces.
The school has seen
this need and has already solicited these people. It is now
improving properties for homes, for those who can not live here the
whole year because of their business interests in the north. The
situation is thus unique. The students are here whose services are
readily had to care for the grounds, through which services under
the guidance of their teachers a compensation for an education and
at the same time the education itself acquired. The student spends
an average of six hours per day for his literary and scientific
instruction and four hours per day for practice. While the practice
is educational it is at the same time equivalent to money paid for
tuition and board.
Even the buildings of
the school will be built by student labor. The experience of the
school management is that the labor of the students is of the very
highest class, as each student is desirous of the very best results
since the results determine in a measure his class grades.
At the present time the
school has properties which it has placed upon the market. These
properties are being improved by planting a small orange orchard on
each lot. Many of these lots are already sold to Northern people.
The students are caring for these orchards for a term of years. The
revenue from the sale of these lots will be sufficient in amount to
erect a number of buildings for the school. This fact illustrates
one way how the purpose of the school to make itself self-supporting
and self-endowing is carried off. The farms, orchards, dairies,
gardens, nurseries, hotels, manufacturies, etc., will provide other
means of support and self-endowment.
One great fundamental
teaching of the school is that no student should look for any
advantage in this world without a just return on his part for what
he receives. He is also taught that there are plenty of resources in
the earth to give him an opportunity to become a public benefactor,
and that he ought not to look for advantages simply for self at the
expense of another. The spirit of "graft" is frowned upon in this
school.
The
much discussed subject of what constitutes a true education is
practically solved in the method of instruction adopted by |
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Copyright 2006 -
Present by Carol Sue Gibbs |
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| This page was created Jun, 2, 2006 |
This page was updated Jul. 17, 2008 |