. Today it is said that
Gary has constructed public utilities and other improvements adequate
for a city of a quarter of a million people, and there is little doubt
that the population will reach that figure before many years have
passed. The city has fine public schools (the Gary system has become
famous throughout the United States), a Y.M.C.A. (costing $250,000), and
an excellent library. The City Hall and the Union station are likewise
notable for the scale on which they are built.

Although Gary was built to order by the Steel Corporation, its
officials did not undertake to control or direct the civic
affairs of the town. Thus, the development of the Gary system of
education was a natural, rather than an artificial one. There was
every opportunity for an altogether new departure, in view of the
inadequacy of school facilities for the fast growing population.
The new system was introduced into the Gary schools by William
Wirt, who had already made some experiments in this direction
before 1907 (when he was called to Gary) at Bluffton, Ind., where
he had been in charge of the public schools. Some of the
fundamental principles of Mr. Wirt's plan are that "students
learn best by doing" and that "all knowledge can be applied."
Latin, for example, is not studied for mental discipline, but for
actual use. The system also involves keeping the school buildings
in use for entertainment or instruction throughout the entire day
and evening, and numerous courses are provided for adults. It has
been said that in Gary "every third person goes to school." The
overcrowded condition in the N.Y.C. Schools led to an invitation
to Mr. Wirt to introduce the Gary plan into several school
districts in the boroughs of Bronx and Brooklyn in 1914-15. The
experiment aroused bitter opposition on the part of those who
suspected it was a sort of "conspiracy" to educate the poorer
children for mechanical rather than clerical occupations in the
interest of "capitalistic industry," and a year or two later N.Y.
returned to the old methods of education.

The plant of the United States Steel Corporation, located between the
Grand Calumet River and the Lake, have the most complete system of
steel mills west of Pittsburgh. Within the first ten years after the
founding of Gary the Steel Corporation had spent $85,000,000 in building
furnaces, ovens, vario