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IN THE opposite page a number of illustrations are given of the work of students in the manual training school in Los Angeles, Cal. The cuts are selections from photographs of about twenty pieces made by the students. As far as possible the amount of work devoted to each piece, and the position of the student in the course is designated. The school is under the direction of J. C. Beswick, who writes of its establishment and the work it is doing as follows:

"The Manual Arts High School was started September, 1910, under the able management of Dr. A. E. Wilson, and now has an enrollment of 2,000 students. To give you a better personal understanding of the school I must speak of the actuating force back of the school and all its activities. Our principal, Dr. Wilson, is a man of vision, energy, and good judgment, a great believer of keeping his school in close touch with actual life, and a strong

School and the Work it is Doing

"When the boys enter the cabinet department, they are given a course in bench work involving principles of construction, that are later applied to cabinet work. The boys are then taught to execute the principles by hand, and afterwards, wherever possible, execute the same principles by machinery.

"After the bench work, they are given a short course in wood turning, securing to them sufficient knowledge of the work to enable them to apply wood turning to cabinet construction, when making Flanders Dutch pieces, William and Mary, or Early English.

"After this preliminary training, the boys are treated as individuals and not as a class; each progresses as rapidly as he is able, making as difficult or large a piece as is within his ability.

"The boy is now taught to design whatever piece he wishes to make. I see to it that the student has a design involving enough woodwork in its construction to be of the greatest educational value to the boy. I have found that I create a desire for better designed furniture by helping the boy a great deal with his design. In designing his second piece, the student requires, on the average, only about one-half the help he needed with the first. We make all drawings actual size and detail them.

"One of our successes in the cabinet department has been the incentive and inspiration that the good work of one boy has furnished to many others.

"We feel that we are doing much to create and stimulate in the public a desire for furniture and house furnishings of good design. Unquestionably this means of education develops a taste and desire for better furniture in the boys, who in a few years, will be purchasing furnishings for their own homes. Our annual visitors' day, in the

Ladies' toilet table, finished in soft brown mahogany,

dull, first semester, second year

The

advocate of vocational and industrial education. Manual Arts High School, cost over a half million dollars, and is located on a ten-acre campus in the heart of the busy Southwest section of the city of Los Angeles. It is built on the group plan, arcades connecting all buildings. At the center front of the campus, is the big administration building, flanked on either side, by the art building and science hall, respectively. These form an L. Along one side of the campus are the extensive shops of the Mechanics' Arts department, costing about $100,000. This department comprises machine shop, forge shop, foundry, auto shop, mill, cabinet, pattern, and carpentry workshop.

"The conditions under which the pieces of furniture photographed were manufactured are described below:

William and Mary desk made in walnut, egg shell finish,
first semester of second year

spring, attracts thousands of visitors from the homes of Los Angeles.

"A strong feature of our department is our lecture and demonstration work, before the assembled class. All work turned out here is the honest work of the boys.

"My classes make mostly period furniture, using much mahogany, some walnut, and of course the other cabinet woods, as the style of furniture demands. My classes make but a small percentage of craftsman furniture. Los Angeles harbor is a very heavy importer of mahogany,

walnut, Japanese oak and other cabinet woods in the log, which is sawed into cabinet lumber here.

"We are able to produce much more beautiful furniture on account of the large amount of veneered work that we do. We have made the veneer press, and accessory equipment for this purpose in our own shops. We also teach carving as applied to furniture decoration. I get the best results from this class of work, by first making, in clay, a model from the design. The student then uses my clay model in executing his carving, with very gratifying results.

"We also do some marquetry work where the design calls for it, as in some of the Sheraton pieces. Some of the bandings we make and some we buy.

"Up to date, during the summer months, I have had professional classes, provided for by the board of education. The classes are of elementary teachers preparing for the more advanced work.

"One very interesting part of my work is my teaching in the Polytechnic Evening High School, where I have men from some of the largest furniture stores, planing mill men, cabinet makers and teachers, all working toward advancement. We have 4,000 students enrolled in evening high school.

"In Los Angeles there are eight high schools, three of which have 2,000 students, and three averaging about 1,000 in their day schools. We also have eight intermediate schools."

Mr. Beswick sends a copy of the Manual Arts Weekly, which is a five-column, four-page sheet, edited by the students in the Manual Arts High School, and printed weekly in the printing office which is made a part of the equipment of the school, and in which boys are instructed in printing. It is the boast that this is the only paper printed under like conditions. The contents of the paper have to do almost altogether with what is being done in the school. A couple of columns in the issue at hand are devoted to Mr. Beswick's department and the work of his classes. The paper is no experiment, for it is well into its second year.

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Operating a Progressive Kiln

BY A. L. LARSON

HE kiln that I have in mind is of seven car capacity and will produce one car daily, or about 2,500 feet, when run entirely on one inch oak, bass and poplar. Larger plants would require a greater productive kiln capacity, but in the one involved this proves sufficient. This allows for two cars in the tempering kiln. When material that is thicker than one inch is on a truck coming through along with cars that contain one inch material, the thick will not be dry by the time it reaches the discharging end. To keep this in the kiln without retarding progression, we push it out and on a siding until the next car is transferred to the factory, and then it is at once returned to the kiln before it has cooled down sufficiently to do any damage. Naturally, this has a tendency to decrease the amount turned out to some degree, but it makes it easier to get in and out a greater variety of lumber at closer intervals.

The drying of lumber under this process consists of first exposing the material to the direct action of a low pressure of steam intermingling with the lumber; then gradually displacing the steam with dry heat from the heating coil; then gradually, or progressively, moving the lumber forward to the unloading end of the kiln with the heat growing more intense and the humidity growing less as the lumber approaches the door.

The special features of this process consist of the grading of the temperature and humidity from the loading to the unloading end to suit the conditions of the lum

her at the different stages. I aim to carry a sufficient humidity in the kiln that high temperature may be carried, and these two elements, when worked out carefully, will produce very rapid and successful drying. When lumber enters the kiln it is comparatively green and must be sprayed strongly with the temperature at 140 degrees until the hygrodeik shows a relative humidity of 60 to 100 degrees, and the nearer 100 the better to complete saturation, or as damp as possible without staining the lumber at any piling sticks.

To avoid friction and provide easily running cars, each is set with the right hand flange of the wheels against the side of the tee rail, which insures perfect alignment and the moment the car is started it equalizes its weight upon each rail.

Upon the piling sticks depends much of the success in properly drying lumber. When it is desired to make crooked lumber straight, and incidentally to keep straight lumber in that condition, too much importance cannot be made of the fact that the stickers should be of the same thickness and width and should be placed with uniformity. The more frequently the stickers are placed, the straighter the lumber will come out, though the number may vary from three to nine at each course, according to the necessity to be decided by the common sense of the operator. They should, however, be of sufficient number to This can prevent the lumber from sagging when hot. readily be seen by the careful observer. In piling stock on the bunks forming the cars, care is to be taken to make a flue up through the center of the load three or four inches wide to within five or six courses from the top. Then lay these courses on the top of the load, observing, of course, the usual method of having at least an inch between the edges of the boards. This flue aids very much in equalizing the heat throughout the entire load.

After placing the cars in the kiln, close all inlet dampers and doors as tightly as possible, setting the dampers in the stacks about half open. The heat on the coils being continuous, running the usual temperature from 140 to 170 degrees, it is only necessary to immediately turn on the steam spray strong for 15 or 20 minutes, or until the hygrodeik shows that the humidity is close to 90. Then reduce the volume of steam so that the humidity will remain at about this point. The thermometer will register a quick rise, but keep the spray on, it being desirable to raise the temperature to nearly the same degree as it is in the main part of the kiln. This time varies from 24 to 48 hours. The high temperature makes it necessary to carry great humidity in the tempering kiln. When the moisture is coming from the lumber, that will produce the necessary humidity. It is wholly essential that the humidity at the later stage should come from the lumber and not from the spray. To determine this, gradually reduce the amount of steam coming from the spray pipe until it is fully determined that the lumber is throwing off the moisture and is able to hold the humidity. Then move it forward in its regular progress until dry.

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Things Necessary to Success

O KNOW every detail, to gain an insight into each secret, to learn every method, to secure every kind of skill, are the prime necessities of success in any art, craft or trade. No time is too long, no study too hard, no discipline too severe, for the attainment of complete familiarity with one's work and complete ease and skill in the doing of it. As a man values his working life, he must be willing to pay the highest price of success in it-the price which severe training exacts. -H. W. Mabie.

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PEAKING of luck, consider this: No less than 3,768,455 people passed the busy corner every twenty-four hours. There was a loose brick on the cornice of the building at the busy corner. The chances of this brick falling and hitting any certain individual were 986,578,763,224,521,885,000 to 1. The brick fell and killed a pedestrian. And when they searched him they found a swastika pin in his tie, a four-leaf clover on his watch charm and a rabbit foot in his pocket.

I rather guess that is a fable, but it has a moral that all may read. By the way, I clipped that from "The Book of Smiles," a little house organ that is issued bi-monthly by the Standard Dry Kiln Co., at Indianapolis, Ind. Here's another from the same source: "Advice to married men: When you get mad at your wife, make up your mind exactly as to what you are going to say to her and then don't say it."

for advertising purposes in moving picture shows. I had thought that there was a bet that you furniture manufacturers were passing, and some of you are, but I was agreeably surprised to note the number of furniture

clients this company had on its list. You ought to write them for their proposition.

It is no more necessary to "Swat the fly" than it is to safeguard your machines.

In Shelbyville, factory operations seemed on a par with those of other fairly large furniture centers that I have been visiting. The smaller plants were the busiest. In most cases the factories were operating about forty hours a week and those running full time were concentrating their efforts to keeping their most efficient men working. Those who show their lines in market places were busy with plans for the new designs which they hoped might help produce a larger volume of business during the last half year. As a whole they were a pretty optimistic bunch of men and if they carry this feeling to the market with them it is bound to get a grip on the buyers that is sure to start things going with a rush.

Anyone interested may have the booklet sent regularly if he will write to the company asking for it. It is full of "Smiles" and well worth attention.

One of the newest industries in Shelbyville, Ind., is the Excel Furniture Co., of which Robert H. Mardis is the president. Robert was for many years connected with the Conrey-Davis Mfg. Co., of the same town and therefore ought to know how to make good furniture. The company is making kitchen cabinets, and like other relatively small companies, is getting more business in proportion to its size than its larger competitors. Another new

concern there is the DePrez Varnish Co., which will be heard from pretty strong in the furniture field before many months have passed.

Someone once told me that more kitchen cabinets were made in Indiana than in all the other states in the Union. I was inclined to be doubtful, but having just passed through the state, I reckon that fellow knew what he was talking about. I never imagined there were so many kitchen cabinets in the world as I saw in the shipping-rooms of several plants I visited. It was pleasing to note that they were going to be shipped, too, considering the quietness that prevails in furniture circles.

More push than ambition is required to 'operate the practically obsolete hand-fed rip-saw. Better have a selffeed and give the operator a little more chance for ambition.

Speaking of glues, while visiting at the plant of the Hoosier Manufacturing Co. (everybody knows where), I was interested to learn that all the built-up stock used was manufactured in the company's veneer department and that Atlas glue was the brand that had been used for a long time. So it looks as though vegetable glue is fast getting there.

While in Shelbyville, I ran into the Michelsen Photo & Slide Co., who specialize in making high-grade slides

When it comes to the question as to whether you should pile material on the floor or get more trucks, just bear the fact in mind that a truck will hold more material than can be piled in the same space on the floor and it can be moved a whole lot easier, too.

Interest in black walnut seems to be on the increase. I was talking with the secretary of a large Cincinnati concern that deals exclusively in this product and he told me that they were receiving domestic inquiries daily. And to think that we let this wood all be shipped to foreign countries for so many years. We are a peculiar bunch, anyway. As a general proposition, we want what we don't have, and despise what we can easily get. Which no doubt helps the cost of high living, or as it would be better put, the cost of living high.

I am advised that the Conrey-Davis exhibition space on the first floor of the Exhibition building in Grand Rapids, is to be redecorated, and that Mr. Davis is going up early to supervise the work. By the way, this company is going to have some of the other exhibitors hopping around if they don't look out. I am pledged to secrecy, but a tip to the wise should be sufficient.

The Newark (Ohio) Furniture Company is one of the smaller plants that is bound to be alive after some of the larger ones have had a bankrupt sign tacked up by who could visit the plant. In the first place there is a live wire man in charge of the whole, and he has selected the sheriff. The reason why would be obvious to anyone a bunch of live ones for the several departments. In another place they know what it costs them to make goods and what it costs them to sell them, and they do not sell them at a loss. Enough said.

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DO NOT want to appear before you under false pretenses, and so I say at the outset that I am not a business man; that I know less about political economy than the law allows, and that sometimes I am forced to feel that in my own personal affairs I am almost miraculously impractical.

Consequently the only possible claim that I can have upon your patience and consideration must come from the fact that my job, for some fifteen or twenty years, has been that of searching for the new and significant things in the progress of business and reporting those observations as clearly and as accurately as possible.

No man can do this kind of work year after year and cover the whole of our splendid country in his observations without gathering some impressions so deep and lasting that they are profound convictions. One of the strongest convictions that has come to me in the course of this kind of research is the feeling that the most vital and important form of business crystalization yet developed in association work, is, if you please, the coöperation of competitors to the end of improving the ethics, the methods, the practices, the standards of any industry as a whole.

You furniture men who furnish the stage settings for the millions of domestic dramas of American family life ought, of all men, to have the keenest appreciation of the fact that the home is the central unit of our civilization and that no family shelter-whether palace or hovel —can be a real home that does not represent the practical results of cooperation.

Built at the Hearthstone

The first business association ever formed was built around the hearthstone; it came into being with the first household where the good of the family was recognized to be greater than the selfish interest of any individual member of it.

If mutual confidence, mutual interest and mutual effort are the things that make a home pay unfailing dividends of peace, order, economy, security and progress, it is a short step to the conclusion that honest coöperation, founded upon mutual confidence and interest, ought to bring like results in any line of business.

War is the most wasteful of all human activities.

It is the most uneconomic and unjustifiable field of effort to which man can devote his energies. But the fact remains that business of this country has been a battle field, and a savage one, too, ever since the first politician raised the rallying cry "free competition."

Is there a man here today who has not repeatedly said to himself, if not to others, that business is war? Can any man among you honestly say that he has not at times felt himself forced to fight the bitter, bushwhacking war of frenzied competition by tactics of which he is ashamed? I doubt if there is one such here.

And yet we are taught to believe that "competition is the life of trade"-you have heard that before-that it is only a little lower than the angels, a trifle less sacred than the Constitution of the United States. Perhaps it is. Anyhow we will take it for granted without discussion. The real question, however, is this:

istic of trade in this country in the course of the last twenty years the kind and type of competition that ought to be perpetuated?

Is it fair as well as free? Heaven knows it has been intense but is it intelligent? Does it benefit the public as much as it benefits the politician who uses it as a war cry?

Does it feed the consumer one-half as generously and as frequently as it fees the lawyer, the loan man, the sheriff and the bankruptcy bargain hunter?

There is such a thing as honest, intelligent and fair competition-but the output is limited and mainly confined to samples. Perhaps you have never known any other than fair competition among furniture manufacturers, but frankly I doubt that this is the case. Reckless of Consequences

The chances are that your competitive tactics have been no better and no worse than those of the average industry of this country since the almost universal acceptance of the doctrine that the competitors who will not reach for each other's throats-regardless of cost and reckless of consequence—are not competitors, but conspirators.

Perhaps in saying this I ought to make it clear that I have not the slightest sympathy with that kind of cooperation that has the taint of price fixing attached to it. If it had not been for the fact that the association nest was first fouled by the gentlemen's agreement, there would not be today half the difficulties in the way of progressive association and federation work that are met with by the men who are seeking to carry this kind of coöperation to its logical limit and to a complete conclusion.

And perhaps here is the place to say that this logical conclusion appears to me to be the federation of associations whose interests naturally touch elbows and are represented in a completed product or line of products.

How All Are Affected

For illustration, the goods on the shelves of the family grocery represent, to some extent at least, the work of four distinct associations-that of the food specialty manufacturers, the canners, the wholesale grocers and the retail grocers. Each one of these associations has a vital and invested interest in these goods and at the same time each association has its special contentions to maintain. There are admittedly certain trade abuses that can never be cured without the coöperation of all these four factors in food handling. There are certain lines of waste in getting the food from the man who first receives it in the form of raw material, on through the hands of wholesaler or jobber and the retailer to the table of the ultimate consumer that can never be eliminated without the consistent, intelligent and constant coöperation of all the forces represented in these four associations.

To attempt to work out these problems without federated action would be as futile as would have been an attempt to snuff out by individual and unorganized effort the abuses that unbridled competition, that unrestrained commercial greed, had brought into the retail grocery business, the wholesale grocery trade, the canning trade or into competition between the food specialty manufac

Is the kind of competition that has become character