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Practical Boys to Industrious Adults

LOCATION: SANDERS SIDE ENTRANCE (NORTH)

As the first of its kind in the country, the Jr. High Practical Arts School gave students the option of being self-sustainable outside of the higher education system by providing 7th and 8th grade students with hands on experience and training in job skills they could use right after graduation.

But, someone needed to train Practical Arts teachers. Thus in 1911 the Fitchburg Normal School created its own Practical Arts program to “fit teachers for manual training and various forms of industrial work.”  Director of the new department, Willis B. Anthony, spoke of the goal and importance of the program:

Bringing “real life” to “school life” quickly became more popular after the Smith-Hughes Act of 1917 provided federal funding for vocational education. This created the vocational system we have in schools today. While vocational education teaches students a specific trade, the practical education students received at the Normal School’s Jr. High was meant to be exploratory. Junior High boys taking the Practical Arts Course would dabble in many trades, giving them a more rounded set of skilled experiences that might guide their vocational choices.

While national educators argued for the importance of practical arts education in the 1920s, Fitchburg Normal School’s PA program, established the decade before, had a 100% graduate placement rate through to the end of the 1930s.

Fitchburg Normal School’s 1916-1917 catalog lists the PA program as a three year curriculum designed “to teach the work classed under practical arts, industrial arts, and manual training to boys between the ages of twelve and sixteen” for “various forms of industrial work.” By the 1922 catalog subject matter being taught expanded to other fields such as automobile repair and gardening.

Fitchburg Normal School's President, Charles Herlihy, saw the success became a national spokesperson for Industrial Education and under his presidency in 1931 the Practical Arts program was relaunched as a Bachelor of Science degree. No more one-year certificates and two-year degrees.

As time passed, the Practical Arts program evolved. With World War II veterans returning home and the increased popularity of high school industrial arts courses and vocational and technical schools, enrollments skyrocketed. Higher enrollments justified constructing the 1963 Sanders building. Curriculum changes shifted significantly in the 1970s with scientific innovations in industry and the rise of the computer, which also lead to new facilities in the 1976 Conlon Fine Arts building.

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With its expanded curriculum and modern facilities, the Practical Arts program was renamed the Industrial Arts program. These updates allowed for the theoretical and manual study of industrial science, computer science, home heating and cooling systems, graphic arts, ceramics, internal combustion engines, solar energy, and more.What started as teaching boys to be self sustainable turned into boys creating self sustainable technology.

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