Boatbuilding -- Juvenile fiction; Boats and boating -- Juvenile fiction
The Sylph, under the charge of the first officer, immediately fastened
to her, and she was towed to her berth at the wharf, where she was to
remain until the next school year began, in September. But the visitors
were eager to examine her, and an arrangement was made by which all who
desired could pass on board, make the circuit of her deck and then leave
without causing an uncomfortable crowd. Through the cabin doors and the
opening for the skylight they could see something of the cabin, while
the fore-scuttle gave a partial view of the cook-room.
The young officers and crew of the Sylph told their friends they should
see her after she was rigged, her sails bent on, and the cabin and
cook-room were furnished. There could be no doubt, so far as the
students were concerned, that the young ladies who gushed so prettily
over the craft would be invited to sail in her.
With this great event ended the second school year of the Beech Hill
Industrial School. The students were certainly satisfied with the
experience they had had there, and, notwithstanding the sharpness of the
discipline, they had only pleasant memories of the past. Those who had
been there two years were well prepared to earn their own living. Though
none of the machinists or carpenters could be called finished workmen,
they were skilled enough to obtain moderate wages. It would require more
years of study and practice to make them into first-class mechanics.
None of them had yet completed the course of instruction, though the
needs of their parents compelled seven of them to leave the school and
assist in supporting families. By this time the reputation of the school
had been established, and there were applications for three times as
many young men to work as engineers, carpenters, and machinists. Good
places were secured for those who were obliged to leave.
Three of them were to run stationary engines, one was to work as a
carpenter, and three more were to learn trades for which their education
had fitted them to a considerable degree. The principal had given them a
lecture on the subject of wages, in which he bluntly told them that they
could not expect full wages, for they were not competent to earn them.
They were not yet physically able to do the work of a man, and they were
not competent to do all that would be required of them in their several
trades and callings. They had learned a great deal, and had acquired
considerable dexterity; but if they were judged by what they did not
know, they would stand as weak vessels. No man ever learned out in his
trade, and the time never came when there was nothing more to learn.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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