se the work of the school,
and to second its demands that play space be given to West End children.
The manufacturers have become interested because in less than a decade
the Oyler School has changed the face of the community, creating
harmony out of discord, and order out of chaos.

The struggle of Oyler is the story of a man, a delivered message, a
thriving, enthusiastic school and a reborn neighborhood. Many years
ago--about twenty to be exact--a young man named Voorhes was made first
assistant in a West End school. Like other young men who go into school
work he applied himself earnestly to his tasks, but unlike most of them
he did some hard thinking at the same time. Among other things he
thought about the relation between the school and the community,
wondering why the two were so completely divorced from one another. Then
the problem was focused on one concrete example--a boy named John,
nearly sixteen years old, who had succeeded in getting only as far as
the eighth grade. John, who had never taken kindly to language or
grammar, began thinking pretty seriously toward the end of his last year
in the grammar school. He tried, he struggled, but the syntax was too
much for him. After all, it was not his fault, and he complained
bitterly against a punishment in the form of "leaving down" for
something which he could not help. His training was so inadequate that
he was entirely unable to pass the high school examinations which, in
those days, were like the laws of the Medes and the Persians.

"I am safe in saying that he did not know the difference between a verb
and a preposition," said Mr. Voorhes, "but during the grammar lesson he
could make a drawing of the face of the teacher that was in no sense a
caricature. This phase of his ability gave me a cue to what might be
done for him. Knowing both the superintendent and the principal of the
Technical School, I talked the situation over with them, begging them,
with all the persuasive power at my command, to take the boy,
forgetting his shortcomings, and magnifying his peculiar talents, which
I felt sure were considerable along mechanical lines. They acceded to my
request, giving John a place in the school, to which he walked three
miles back and forth daily for three years. For many years John has been
superintendent of the lighting plant of a large city, and his experience
has always stood out before me as a terrible rebuke to the then dominant
educational regime, w