THE APPRENTICESHIP SYSTEM. From the introduction of the first labor-saving machine dates + the decline of the apprentice. After the introduction of a machine comes the demand for men trained in the use of that particular machine, and in proportion to its first cost it is expected to replace the capital originally expended upon it, with at least ordinary profits, before it is worn out and thrown on the scrap heap. The same is true in regard to man. A man educated at much labor, time, and expense in any of the various skilled employments is expected to obtain higher wages than those which are paid to the common laborer. Thus, in a measure, will be returned to him the expense of his education with at least ordinary profits on that which forms his capital, and he is expected to do this within a reasonable time, regard, of course, being had for the uncertainty of life in the same manner as it is had for the durability of the machine. In former times, especially in Europe, the laws and customs required that any person desiring to exercise certain branches of skilled labor must serve an apprenticeship. During the continuance of the apprenticeship the whole labor belonged to the master, but as soon as the apprentice became a workman, and received the wages of a trained journeyman, he was expected to reimburse himself for the years spent in learning his trade. Up to the present day the need of apprentices has not been felt to any apparent extent, but now on all sides is heard the statement that skilled labor is difficult to obtain, and the introduction of laws and resolutions in State legislatures looking toward a technical or trade education for the young persons who are growing up in our midst indicates a desire to return to old conditions, varied according to the differences in trade life as it is to-day. [3] 1 A recent lecture delivered before the Technical Club in Frankfort, Germany, by Director Back of the Frankfort Industrial School, was suggestive and of practical value. Mr. Back was one of the commissioners sent by the German Government to visit the St. Louis Exposition and to gather material for a report concerning industrial conditions in the United States. According to Director Back the subject of training industrial and technical apprentices does not receive in the United States the same general and widespread attention as in Germany. The following is a condensation of a portion of his address: In America a young man has much less opportunity than in Germany to learn in a practical way all the details of a trade, and thus to become a skilled workman in a thorough sense of the term. This is largely due to a difference of systems, the general tendency in the United States being to reduce prices by almost entirely substituting machinery for hand work, by using a limited number of designs, and by manufacturing in immense quantities. Consequently a workman usually becomes familiar with only one of the many details of manufacture, and seldom has an opportunity to follow an article through all the different processes required for its completion. Moreover, there is little occasion for hand work except in connection with repairs. Nevertheless, it is always necessary to have a few trained workmen to attend to the final adjustment of parts and to put the finishing touches to a completed product. The scarcity of such skilled workmen is now being complained of more and more in the United States. Most owners of small establishments which still employ hand workers, especially those in large cities, are unwilling to take the trouble and assume the responsibility of training apprentices. This training is done, if at all, principally in small towns or in the country. Consequently the United States is now unable to supply its own demand for skilled laborers, the best trained men being largely immigrants from Europe, and especially from Germany. As this scarcity is at last being recognized as a weak point in the industrial development of the United States, efforts of various kinds are now being made to provide means for increasing the number of apprentices and for instructing them and other young men in a manner which will prove later on advantageous both to them and to the manufacturing interests of the country. A well-known firm in Philadelphia, for instance, now accepts three classes of apprentices, who are paid according to the quality of their preparatory education, and who, after they have been systematically and thoroughly trained, are given regular and profitable employment. There have been established also, especially in the Eastern States, a number of good industrial schools, where young people of both sexes are instructed in various kinds of useful hand work. Some of the States have provided excellent legislation relating to apprentices, but this has heretofore been of little use, owing to general indifference on the subject and to the unwillingness of employers to train apprentices and develop them into skilled workmen. Moreover, the Government itself has not set a good example in the matter to manufacturers, for in its own unusually well-arranged workshops no apprentices are employed.* It would certainly appear that the public has been a long time in discovering that the only good workman is the one who has learned his trade and learned it thoroughly; that only the regularly trained artisan is the one to be relied upon; and that few practical men of the present day will deny that there are advantages in apprenticeship. No one would perhaps advocate the restoration of the old gilds with their exclusive privileges, but many would perhaps be inclined to advise the institution of some order or degree by which in certain trades a man who has passed through a regular apprenticeship might be distinguished from the man who is not so qualified. Mr. Edwin P. Seaver, former Superintendent of the Boston Public Schools, for many years has expressed an interest in the apprenticeship question through its bearing upon mechanic arts instruction in the public schools. As early as 1883 he began the advocacy of this kind of instruction extended so as to include trade schools, to be not merely a satisfactory substitute for apprenticeship, but a much better thing than apprenticeship ever was. He said: What we have now in the way of mechanic arts instruction and trade school instruction is only a beginning. It would seem to be for the highest interests of the State that all young people be educated in such a way as to become self-supporting, and if those who would like to become self-supporting by learning a trade are excluded from the private shops, the State would do well to give them the opportunity to learn a trade in public schools or shops. Mr. Seaver further expressed himself to the effect that "The best thing a trade union can do to promote the public interest would be for it to insist that all apprentices taught in private shops should be well taught, that private shops should be as wide open as possible to receive apprentices to be well taught, and that when this is insufficient public shops should *This is an error, see page 30. |