There are very few amongst us who have any adequate conception of the very valuable work being carried out by the local Technical School which – pending the completion of the Technical School and Railway Institute now in course of construction – is at present housed in the Midland Junction Central School. This fact was forcibly brought home to a representative of the Swan Express who, at the invitation of the secretary Mr M.A. Wishart – visited the school this week while work was in progress. One could not but be struck by the spirit of earnestness which pervaded the classrooms – due in large measure, no doubt, to the fact that instruction is voluntary instead of compulsory. A student who is a student from choice and not because of the compulsion of an inexorable law or an equally inflexible parent is likely to derive the maximum of benefit from the instruction.

  mechanics. Unless this be done certificates in mechanical drawing are not issued. The excellent work which is accomplished in these classes is readily recognised by such large employers as the Midland Railway Co. A.D. Jones and Co. Ltd, and others who require their apprentices to undergo technical instruction.

Mr Stirzarker the instructor of the woodcarving class is an enthusiast, and as a result the student in his class are executing some fine pieces of artistic carving. Mr Stirzarker says he would be glad to see the ladies of Guildford and Midland Junction interesting themselves in this class of work, as in Perth and Fremantle where the classes are largely composed of ladies. He is sure they would find it both interesting and useful. Specimens of this work are in view of Mr Roach’s window, Helena Street. elementary mechanics needs no commendation as in a district in the midst of which are the large Government workshops and Midland Railway shops the ad-vantages of the class must be apparent to all, and those who contemplate placing their lads at any of the engineering trades would do well to see them attend this class.

Mr Bennett, the instructor, an official of the Government Workshops is highly qualified and fully alive as to the requirements of the students. No man is likely to reach top place in his trade with practical experience only the wood-working class is in charge of Mr Wishart, and is largely composed of the students from the Guild-ford Grammar school. The regularity of the students is a clear evidence of the interest the young men take of the class. Every department of wood-working is dealt with from methods of planing to constructing and putting together high grade furniture. The setting up, sharpening and grinding of working tools is a special feature of the instruction.

 appropriately made up of men in the building trades. The instructor (Mr Levido), who is a member of the Institute of Architects, says that his object is to make the lessons as practical as possible in face of the fact that this is primarily a purely drawing class. The beginner in the first place is set to draw his immediate architectural surroundings and the lessons at this stage are necessarily very simple. From these he is lead on to greater intricacies of planning and design. The instructor does not believe in too much actual copying from printed example and the like. The student is encouraged from the first to exercise his originality – within due bounds and under direction, of course. Mr Levido is somewhat of a visionary perhaps in that he hopes his classes may prove to be a leaven that will in time help to improve our present type of domestic and other buildings. A knowledge of geometry and building construction being so indispensable in this class, the student properly should come to the lessons equipped more or less in these. Their deficiencies however are attended to as occasion arises during the course. Mr Levido finds that the graduate from the public schools with whom he has to deal are as a rule sadly deficient in geometry, and suggests that a subject of such universal importance and applicability as this should be given more prominence in our public schools curriculum.

 commences next Monday September 1.

CONTINUATION CLASSES

Simultaneously with the work of the Technical School, classes are conducted in the same building under the "continuation" scheme of the Education Department, which really forms the link between the primary schools and the technical and secondary schools. Altogether continuation classes in 13 subjects are conducted under the immediate direction of Mr Senior, first assistant at the Central School, though the secretarial work in connection with both technical and continuation classes is performed by Mr Wishart.

TRAINING OF CADETS.

To some extent the training of the boys is interfered with by the compulsory military training, and it seems almost a pity that a certificate issued by the secretaries of technical or continuous schools should not form a legitimate excuse for absence from night parades. There are many who would agree that compulsory military training is in the main a desirable thing, who at the same time hold the view that technical instruction of the youth of the country is vastly more important. The number of those who are prepared to undergo this mental training is lamentably few, and would represent only an infinitesimal percentage of the total of those liable to military training. In the continuation classes for instance, the Education Department makes it a condition of free instruction that three subjects should be taken. This necessitates attendance at school on three nights of the week, which is quite as much as a youth can be reasonably expected to give to serious work. Attendance at military parades demands either further inroads on his spare time or else interrupts the continuity of his studies, which is manifestly undesirable.

27 March 1914
LADIES COLUMN
FASHION AND THINGS FEMININE
BY IDA MELLER

A characteristic of the newer dress modes is adaptability and this is due in a great measure to the mixed effects that are among leading fashions. Gowns made up of skirts of one material and coatees or basque – blouses of another, are fashions that have come more and more to the front with the advance of the season. The mode is a very convenient one, admitting of the use of good remnants in-sufficient in themselves for a complete dress.

Just now, while muslin reigns a popular fashion, is the dress made up of plain and flowered or striped muslin, or of broderie anglaise, allied to soft white muslin, but almost every material is pressed into the service of the "mixed" dress which occasionally exhibits some strange alliances as cambric and satin.

Some of the prettiest of two material frocks are those made with skirts of white voile, casement cloth, or crepon, and coats of flowered muslin- or the tops are in the form of a Russian tunic or blouse made of rosebud muslin or one of the new tissue materials.

Very new and dainty is a frock with skirt of cream cotton voile, topped by a frilled cross- over coatee bodice of cream voile printed or embroidered with single pink roses and made up with short basque, parted in front.

______________________

HOUSEKEEPER
1 April 1914
French chalk applied to grease spots on flannel suits brings out the grease if the garment is held near the fire.

Laces can be both "creamed" and "starched" by rinsing them in water to which a well-beaten egg has been added.

One teaspoon of vinegar is a substitute for an egg and makes a cake light in which dripping has been used instead of butter.

8 May 1914
IDENTIFYING AIRCRAFT
In time of war it would surely be difficult to determine the nationality of an aeroplane flying at a great altitude. It is conceivable that friendly aircraft might be bombarded and hostile machines allowed to escape. The sky is usually so luminous that a flying machines appears silhouetted against it. Hence the device used in the Balkans of painting the outer ends of Greek biplane wings and the vertical rudder with the national colours blue and white was not very successful. Whatever identifying marks a machine may carry must be large. Flags flown horizontally might answer, but even these in great altitudes must appear merely as appendages. Besides if they are not to impede the machine they must be very light. At great altitude the nationality of an aeroplane might be recognised not by the colour of its flag but by its distinctive design. In Morocco and in the Balkans the problem of distinguishing friend from foe did not arise, simply because in both campaigns the use of aircraft was rather one-sided. The doubt whether an aircraft is friend or foe might cause the forces on the ground to lose a few fleeting moments during which they have a chance of bringing down an air scout. Moreover there are at present too many types. The same service types are to be found in several armies. Hence it would be difficult, if not impossible, to recognise the nationality of a flying machine from its build as sailors recognise a ship by the cut of her jib. It is far easier to identify airships chiefly because of their size. There is no possibility of mistaking a German Zeppelin for any other type of craft. With the Parseval the task is perhaps more difficult all the more so since several European armies are equipped with vessels of the Parseval types. The German "M" type is easily recognised and so is the French Lebaudy.

-------------------------------

Friday , April 24 1914

TECHNICAL EDUCATION
NEW MIDLAND JUNCTION SCHOOL
OPENED BY MINISTER

  awakened by education. It was in schools of this kind that the students came in touch with dead things and make them live; their aspirations became greater; their view of life broader. The strong mind like rich soil, was bound to yield a profitable harvest, but with-out direction and training it would be a harvest of worth-less weeds – a harvest of superstitions, of vices of follies. Those who went from schools such as this would go as missionaries amongst their fellow men, carrying the blessings of education far and wide. If we were to excel amongst the nations of the world it would not be by means of vast armies and magnificent warships. Not in the smoke of conflict, nor the clashing of arms, was the conquest of the world to be accomplished, but in the training and the disciplining of the mind. Just as the human race, by reason of its intelligence, was superior to the wild beasts, so would the intellectually and morally so-und nation prove itself superior to the undisciplined forces of the more savage races. Holding this view of education he felt a genuine pride in declaring this institution open.