Good English Pays! WOULD YOU LIKE TO BECOME A High-Priced Stenographer? M. W. Savage, Pres. International Stock Food Co., says he would raise the salaries of all his clerks, salesmen, stenographers, etc., 25 per cent if they would learn to write a correct and effective business letter. Other business men say they would give 50 or 100 per cent more to a stenographer whose English could be depended on. Mr. Cody teaches good English more effectively and quickly than any one has ever done it before. Send for catalogue. An Expert Correspondent? The Mail Order business has become one of the great channels of American commerce. All business is done by catalogue and letter. Hundreds of poor correspondents are employed who will lose their positions just as soon as trained men and women appear to take their places. Mr. Cody is an expert in mail-order correspondence. A Successful Business Man? If you want to make your business win, write your own advertising, prepare your own form letters, educate your managers, for you know ten times as much about your business as any one else does. Mr. Cody has an easy way of teaching you by criticising what you do from week to week in your regular business. You furnish the ideas: he helps you put them in telling words. Send for catalogue. A Good Teacher of English? Superintendent Cooley of Chicago and two-thirds of the public school principals admit that English is the weakest side of our school system. The teaching is not practical enough. It does not give the results. Mr. Cody has a training class for teachers at Northwestern University which costs you but a trifle. He has helped business men. He can help you to help embryo business men and women, your pupils. Private lessons by correspondence. Send for catalogue. An Interesting Social Letter Writer and Conversationalist? Your culture is judged by the English you use. Your social success depends on the winning words you can write and speak. Do you wish to rise a step higher? Nothing will help you more surely or more quickly than the study of Everyday English. Would You Like to Be Newspaper writer? A lawyer who can hold a jury? A proof-reader? Short story writer? Study English with a man who can teach you the art of a masterly literary style. Are You a Foreigner? "We have examined many books intended to teach a foreigner English, and recommend Sherwin Cody's 'Art of Writing and Speaking' as the best. It is in English what Wustmann's famous 'Allerhand Sprachdummheiten' is in German.' -New Yorker Plattdeutsche. Personal classes at Northwestern University (Chicago building). Private lessons by correspondence. PROOF "Crisp, simple, direct. Your notion of simplifying grammar is worthy of the widest publicity."-E. BENJ. ANDREWS, LL.D., Chancellor University of Nebraska. "Your book is a suggestive, well studied, and ably presented treatment of the subject, and tempts one to go right to work applying its suggestions in writing. You have a real talent for putting things clearly and simply."-JOHN F. GENUNG, Ph. D. "I took the book up with a contemptuous sniff, and laid it down with respect. It is the most sensible treatise on the short story that has as yet appeared in England." I. ZANGWILL, Novelist, in Pall Mall Magazine. "When I am at home, Sherwin Cody's books are always on my study table. I "You certainly give big value for the money."-JOHN LEE MAHIN. T PRACTICAL TALKS BY PRACTICAL MEN I. THE NEED OF THE WAGE-EARNER By W. J. ADAM O a man who has spent the greater part of his life in mills and factories, there can be no question as to the value of a technical education; and any man who for the past twenty-five or thirty years has followed the profession of a manufacturer, must admit that technical education and training has done more for the advancement of manufacturing in the United States than all other causes combined; and the rapid strides we have made and are making in this line would be impossible under the old apprenticeship system in vogue with our fathers. The old apprenticeship system took a boy from twelve to sixteen years of age, when he should have been in school learning "why," and tried to teach him "how." It put him in a shop to learn of men who were incapable of teaching. The first two years he did the drudgery of the shop, swept it out, ran errands, hung about, and actually learned nothing but the vices of those with whom he came into contact. The next year he possibly did something which might be called learning a trade. The fourth, fifth and sixth years (for some of these apprenticeships covered this length of time), he made some progress toward being a journeyman. And why should not the mechanic require as thorough an education in his line as anyone? You would r. think of calling a doctor to attend your family who had not spent years in preparing himself for his work, and the excuse that he was a "natural doctor" would not induce you to call him for even a simple sickness. You would not send your children to school to a teacher who had not spent years acquiring knowledge. You would not employ an ignorant lawyer or clergy tion of the mechanic, requires him to know "why" as well as "how." It will no longer answer for a man to know that he does a certain thing because it brings the desired result, but why he does it this way, and why it would not be as well or better if he did it some other way? There seems to be one great trouble with most young men; they are in such a hurry to get to earning money that they do not properly fit themselves for their greater usefulness; and not until they have been in the harness for a few years do they realize their lack, and some never fully realize it, or, if they do, they fail to take any steps to correct it. I hail as one of the blessings to the mechanical world, the advent of the Schools of Correspondence. Here it is that the man who has not had the advantages, or he who has not improved the advantages he has had, and realizes his lack of special education for his life work, can, by a systematic use of a little time each day, acquire the education which will make him valuable, not a hewer of wood and drawer of water, but one of the class of men whose services will always be in demand. If this should fall into the hands of any such man, let me say to him that he can find an hour a day for study, let something else go; this hour a day in the course of a year will make him a much more valuable man in his line of work; and at the same time he will learn how to learn, which is the biggest education a man can have. Let nothing stand in your way, but improve the hour every day and you will be surprised with the results. Others have done it and you are capable of it. America needs just this class of men. Do not be in a hurry to get what you may consider a good job; fit yourself and the good job will surely be looking for you. The American Machinist, in reviewing our text books on drawing says (in part):- "There are not many books on mechanical drawing which the practical draftsman feels are satisfactory. With all their effort they somehow fail to 'get there.' We have just seen a copy of the instruction paper on this subject which is put out by the American School of Correspondence (prepared by C. L. Griffin) and feel bound to say that we have found an exception to the rule. Indeed it is not too much to say that in the methods followed it stands in a class by itself . . The discussion in the text, of not only the form of the machine parts themselves, but also the tools and shop processes to produce them, affords considerable insight into the influences affecting good machine design. Without introducing any mathematical analysis or investigation, which is beyond the province of this book, much practical consideration as to the restrictions imposed by existing shop methods upon theoretical construction will be suggested and the student encouraged to use his judgment thereon If this is not effective instruction then we do not know the article. EQUIPMENT NOTES The Missouri-American Electric Company, St. Louis, Missouri, has greatly extended the capacity of its plant, and the building now has a floor space of about 20,000 square feet. The plant is equipped with a large number of labor-saving devices, some of which have been invented and patented by Mr. McDonnell, vice-president of the company. The William H. Wilkinson Company, formerly of 350 Atlantic Avenue, Boston, has moved to West Medway, Mass., where its new factory is in full operation. This Company manufactures a complete line of oil cups and lubricating devices of every description. The Scranton Steam Pump Company has recently brought out a new steam trap to meet the demand for a trap to stand the extremely hard service found in the coal mines, where steam lines are sometimes several thousand feet long and where ordinary traps have proved useless. Brown Corliss Engine Company, Corliss, Wisconsin, has opened up a new department in the Wells Building, Milwaukee, for handling a full line of sawmill machinery. This Company has also taken on a full line of blast furnace gas engines and will carry both these lines in connection with the regular Corliss engine and rolling-mill work. It is seldom that a manufacturing company has the honor of having both members of the firm presidents of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. Of the firm of Warner and Swasey, machine tool builders, Mr. Warner is a past president of the Society and Mr. Swasey the newly elected president. The Mexican Light & Power Company, Limited, City of Mexico, will soon let contracts for the material, equipment, etc., of the Nexaca power plant, which is to develop a capacity of 40,000 h. p. for transmission to the City of Mexico. Work is being rapidly pushed forward on the equipment of the New Milford Power Company's plant at Bulls Bridge on the Housatonic river, in Litchfield County, to Waterbury, New Britain and Cheshire, to operate the traction and lighting properties of the Connecticut Railway and Lighting Company. This is the greatest power enterprise ever undertaken in Connecticut. The distance from Bulls Bridge to Waterbury is over thirty miles; and to New Britain and Cheshire, it is considerably greater. The current will be transmitted by six cables, each containing seven wires. These form two lines of transmission wire, the poles paralleling each other at a distance of twenty-five feet. The wires are made of aluminum. Plants for the distribution of power are being built at Waterbury, New Britain and Cheshire. It is expected that the system will be entirely completed by sum mer. The International Telephone Manufacturing Company of Chicago has recently greatly enlarged its manufacturing plant, and completed a set of special tools for manufacturing a new, improved generator-call, self-restoring drop switchboard system. The Metropolitan Street Railway Company of New York proposes to change over to electricity about forty miles of street railway now operated by horse-cars. An electric lighting plant has been installed in Leavenworth, Wash., by Kilbourne & Clark Company of Seattle, Wash. The new bridge connecting Manhattan with the Eastern District of Brooklyn, which was recently opened to the public, is a triumph of modern engineering skill. Anthony N. Brady and associates of New York, have recently taken over $1,000,000 stock in the United Electric Light & Power Company, of Baltimore, Maryland; and the completion of the great project for the electrical development of the falls of the Susquehanna River on the Niagara plan, is now assured. A power plant is to be installed on the Agua Fria River, which will pump water and furnish electricity for the mines. A large reduction plant and an air compressor for machine drills is also to be installed. The Columbus Railway & Light Company has placed a contract for an automobile truck which will carry jacks and other equipment for temporary aid to disabled cars, and will also carry four hose bridges for use at fires. (Continued on page 92) |