70%--or Else

Probably the most democratic and hardest-working school in the U.S. is the one conducted in Detroit's old Le Baron Body plant by the Briggs Mfg. Co., which switched last year from automobile bodies to planes. In that efficient technical school Briggs executives, plant managers and foremen study side by side with green boy & girl apprentices, old auto workers, Negroes. Briggs executives have a stiffer course, must get 70% on their report cards or be flunked out.

In the Briggs school (900 students, 63 instructors), which graduated its tenth class last week, classes are held on company time. Trainees get 65-c- an hour to start, are raised to 80-c- before the six-week course ends. Executives have to attend the Briggs training school, not to take the stuffing out of their shirts but to save their shirts: no matter how much they knew about automobile bodies, they have a lot to learn about making planes. So far, none of them has flunked; in fact, most of their grades have averaged above 90%.

Girl students are uncommonly good looking. Possible reason is a jocular order which School Director Henry John Roesch gave the employment manager. "Hire me a lemon, Joe," said Roesch, "and out you go." Kitty McNulty, pert ex-stock girl training to become a junior inspector on aircraft, is a typical non-lemon. "I like this work a lot," says she, "because it keeps your mind awake."

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