AN OPPORTUNITY SCHOOL.

Northern Advocate, 9 January 1920, Page 4

AN OPPORTUNITY SCHOOL.

SUCCESSFUL AMERICAN

SCHEME

In Denver, Colorado, a school has 'been started, the admitted purpose of which is to make up for lost opportunities. It keep s open house for those who have had no educational chances, or who have lost or thrown away those they had. Its hours are from 8.30 a.m. till 9.15 and it asks no questions of its guests. The reports of this Opportunity School Which comes from the United States declares that the principal, Miss Emi. ly Griffiths, carries on a course of educational Red Cross work—" a first-aid establishment for ill-nourish ed and debilitated educations." There are no fees; there is no set curriculum} the pupijs are encouraged to ask for instruction in any subject that will be of immediate service to them.

RAPID PROGRESS

The Oppprtunity School started in the autumn of 191f> with a register of 2,400 pupils. In May, 1919, there were 5,000. The predominant classes are occupational, organised to instruct in intended trades, and for persons who wish tp better themselves in their present work. It has been found, too, that employers send their employees to thi s school rather than institute a works' school of their own, and have thus, to a considerable extent, become partners in the sehetme. A special visitor keeps employers in touch with those pupils at the school who are training in the peculiar .requirements of any given trade. The vocabularies of the various shops and factories are studied by the school staff, also special forms of drawing, graphing and mapping used in variou s trades and these are taught to ihe pupils.

HELPING ALIENS,

Since 1916 eighteen hundred aliens have passed thrpugh the "citizenship" class in Opportunity School, and have thus been eanbled to petition for their final citizenship papers. The school also takes its share of dull and "backward pupils, and helps them to pass on tp their proper promotion. A parent troubled about the slow progress of his child at an uvdinarv school may enlist the advice or helo of Opportunity School while continuing tit SfcJjd f he child to school.

The principal states? t}*at what has sruck her most is that th« result of the training is always surprisingly out of proportion to the' effort implied; it takes so little in many cases to lift a worker from the ranks to the inefficient into those of the efficient,