Printing Trade Schools in France [United States Government Report of] IN 1863 the Chaix Printing and Publishing Company of Paris established a trade school in their establishment, in order to provide competent workmen for the different branches of their industry. M. Alban Chaix, the administrator-director of the company, stated that of the 1,200 persons employed in the establishment 250 were graduates of the company's school. In this school the instruction is giving during the day and is intended both to complete the primary education of apprentices and to provide them with the necessary technical training. Workmen are prepared for all the printing trades, but more particularly for that of compositor, which is the only trade in which M. Chaix believes school training can intirely replace shop apprenticeship. For some trades, as those of designer, lithographer, stereotyper, paper maker (papetier), and bookbinder, a special shop training in addition to that received at the school is required. He states that in general the trade-school graduate possesses a better knowledge of his trade than others, hence he is more useful and can more readily find employment, gain higher wages, and advance more rapidly. Most of the company's foremen and all of their clerks are graduates of their trade school, as are many of the chief workmen and others occupying the best paying positions. He says that work done by the better workmen who have been graduated from the school is more artistic and serves as an aid to the progress of the industry; of the industry and endeavor to form good workmen of them." IT The Training of Apprentices T is pleasing to note the change of attitude on the part of men in the different lines of trade toward the apprentice. It is but a short time since he was neglected and failed to receive the instruction which he had a right to expect in return for his period of service. That all tradesmen have not yet been influenced by the change for the better is unfortunate. Skillful workmen are not being recruited as they should be, because such practical education as the apprentice was getting did not qualify him to be a useful member of the working corps and because the more intelligent and desirable class of young men found a better appreciation of their interest and energy in other fields than in the trades where their services are greatly needed. That the change has occured is shown in the desire of leading and competent tradesmen to see that the obsolete apprenticeship system is substituted by some method of training which will result in the young men becoming first-class workmen when their term of service under instruction expires. Such tradesmen are indentified in the maintenance of training schools and take part in the work of instruction. The Training is everything. also that trade schools in which practical work is well directed affords a better means of educating workmen than does the shop training. He believes, furthermore, that the most important improvement that could be introduced into the system of apprenticeship and trade-school education would be to combine the theoretical and practical instruction of both in such manner as to produce workmen able to earn journeymen's wages upon the expiration of their term of apprenticeship. This he would accomplish by means of a school established, when possible, in the shop for which it is destined to supply workmen. In conclusion, he adds: "Limit the number of pupils to the needs The young man who has had the advantages of a modern school education can grasp the theories and underlying principles of the most difficult trades very quickly in a school which provides competent instructors. The handicraft of any trade is quickly acquired when the best methods of doing work are described and when the opportunity of seeing it done by skilled workmen is afforded. This is the character of instruction that is most needed. Those who have a real interest in the welfare of the apprentice favor giving him an opportunity of becoming acquainted with all the different branches of his trade, rather than confining him to that work in which he shows highest proficiency or making him only a specialist in one branch. If the present trend of trade education continues there will be no difficulty in securing the entrance of the desirable class of men to the different trades. 1 AT The Rights of the Apprentice T the root of the trouble, and the first thing that should be remedied, if good results are to be obtained, is the indifference of the employers, foremen and mechanics. under whose supervision the apprentice serves and to whom he should look for enlightenment. When an employer engages a boy to "learn a trade," the act implies that he should use due diligence to see that he does learn the trade. If he fails in this, he has not kept faith with the boy, the trade at large, or the community upon which he turns a botch workman after having expressly implied that the finished product would be a mechanic. The employer who does this should be ashamed to have it known that he took an unfair advantage of a boy and failed to carry out his contract with him. Having hired a boy to learn the trade, it should be distinctly understood on the part of the shop force, from the foreman down, that the boy is to be taught the trade; that he has some rights that must be respected and that he is entitled to information regarding the trade when he indicates a desire to learn. In too many shops the boy is a mere drudge. He is not allowed to handle tools, to ask questions, or in any way try to advance himself, and it is not considered that he has any rights at all. -H. A. D. in The Metal Worker. FIGHT places in the School of Printing will be vacant early in July, by present pupils entering the workrooms of their employers. These young men will then have spent one year in learning foundation work, in preparation for their entrance to the real workshop. After leaving the School they will go into some of the best printing establishments in the city, and they will have the further advantages of three years' service where they may see and learn from experienced workmen, while earning sufficient wages to make it an incentive for them to become first-class workmen. There will be no wasted time or uncertain gaps in the trade training of these young men ; their indenture establishes them in their position long enough to "make good," and their employers have interest enough in them to give all the opportunity to be found in a busy workroom for becoming proficient in their work. By this arrangement the knowledge obtained in the School may be made of most practical value. Industrial Education [From the catalogue of the Exhibit of Industrial] Conditions, Boston, April, 1907 UNDER the present scheme of education we frankly absolve ourselves of all responsibility for the vocational training of nine-tenths of the new generation, so far as the school is concerned. We are still acting on the worn-out presumption that the home, the farm, the shop, the counting-room will supply this absolutely essential instruction. The opportunities of general culture outside the school have vastly increased as the chance for the apprentice has dwindled; yet we multiply book studies in our school curriculum, while introducing only an excuse for training in productive skill. We send the vast majority of our boys and girls from the grammar school out into occupations in which they learn little or nothing and are often demoralized. There are two "wasted years" from 14 to 16 during which, as progressive employers recognize, they are not sufficiently matured for productive labor. This very period is a peculiarly valuable time for inculcating, under sympathetic and bracing influences, the working principles of some skilled calling. The recovery of this period, at least, for purposes of preparation for livelihood would mean that each young person involved would rise very soon to a higher wage standard, would have a position with a future, steadier employment, and a longer working life. He would find more stimulus and satisfaction in his work, selecting it on the basis of aptitudes which his training had discovered to him. He would have versatility to adapt himself to inevitable changes in industrial processes and administration. He would have an ampler mind and a sounder character; for it is coming to be seen that properly planned vocational training has unexpected disciplinary and cultural values. He would develop productive capacity to match his restless desires as a consumer. He would become in the full sense a producer-citizen with his face set against political parasitism. By his better capacity for making human, as well as material, adjustments, as well as on account of his high standard of living, he would contribute powerfully to all forms of association among workmen for the maintenance of wages. The training of girls for industrial employment will put them above the competition of the pin-money women, and give some relief North End Union School of Printing Parmenter Street, Boston Board of Supervisors J. STEARNS CUSHING, J. S. Cushing & Co., Norwood GEO. H. ELLIS, President United Typothetæ of America J. W. PHINNEY, American Type Founders Co., Boston H. G. PORTER, Smith & Porter Press, 127 Federal St. GEO. W. SIMONDS, C. H. Simonds & Co., 297 Congress St. JOSEPH LEE, Vice President Massachusetts Civic League SAMUEL F. HUBBARD, Superintendent North End Union A. A. STEWART, Instructor THE SCHOOL OF PRINTING was established in January, 1900, by the North End Union, under the supervision of a number of leading master printers of Boston. It has had to demonstrate its purpose in practical results, and is gradually being recognized by those who realize the important need in the trade of such a method of technical instruction. The aim of the School is to give fundamental and general instruction in printing-office work, and to offer young men, through a system of indentured apprenticeship, an opportunity to learn the things which are becoming each year more and more difficult for the apprentice to obtain in the restricted and specialized conditions of the modern workshop. The course of study embraces book, commercial, and advertising composition, and platen presswork. The School is supplied with hand and job presses, roman and display types of various styles, and the usual furniture and material of a modern printing office. The tuition fee for one year is $100. Applicants must be sixteen years of age or over. Further information may be obtained by addressing SAMUEL F. HUBBARD, 20 Parmenter Street, Boston. from the downward pressure of the woman's wage standard. Domestic work taught as a skilled vocation will tend to give the housewife her just independent economic status. The presence of school-trained workmen would mean rapid development of our industries within their present range of production, the introduction of new departments in existing plants and the creation of entirely new industries based on fresh applications of science and art. Capital now too cautiously invested at home, or sent to other parts of the country, would be drawn into this aggressive movement. Indeed every journeyman of the new type would be himself an addition to the state's working capital, and instead of displacing labor, would still further widen the demand for it. The people as a whole would in turn push production on to a higher stage. Industrial education in Massachusetts is a statesmanlike policy for realizing to the full upon our only raw material, the one priceless sort, for which this state is unrivaled the latent efficiency of the people. Careful investigation makes it clear that parents very generally appreciate the necessity of such training for their children, and are prepared to make many sacrifices. Beyond that, the community must act in its own large interest and see that all young people with gifts for skilled work shall have their opportunity in spite of every obstacle. THE APPRENTICESHIP BULLETIN ADVOCATING TRADE SCHOOLS AND A MODERN INDENTURED APPRENTICESHIP SYSTEM JUNE, 1907 Edited and Printed at the School of Printing, North End Union, Boston THE SYSTEMATIC TRAINING OF APPRENTICES VOL. 1, NO. 6 cessful carrying out of an apprenticeship system would result within a decade in the disappearance of the incompetent class and their replacement by men fit and able to do good work and earn good wages. It is high time that the employers took definite action looking to the re-establishment of the apprentice. I believe all THE lack of a proper system of apprenticeship in the printing business is slowly but surely reducing the supply of competent workmen, especially in the cities. The result is that we find one class of workmen receiving considerably more than the scale of wages, and a vastly larger class of incompetents, drifting from one office to another, being put on when there is a rush and dropped as soon as work slackens. This cannot go on forever: a move must be made in some way to provide trained men for doing the better class of work. There is no good sense or good management in continuing the present system or lack of system, which fails altogether to provide for educating and training men to be good workmen. Since the labor unions have not had the wisdom to strengthen their ranks by gathering together only their best workmen and developing others equally skilled, it devolves upon the employers as a matter of necessity to force the situation and engage in a systematic development of apprentices. The United Typothetæ of America has taken up this question at various times, in a desultory way, appointed committees and passed resolutions, but no positive action has resulted, and the apprentice question today is just where it was ten years ago, while the need of good workmen has doubled. The army of half-trained workmen contains very numerous men who would have made good workmen had they ever been taught, but they have been turned loose on the trade, to the detriment of all concerned. Their situation is pitiful. The inauguration and suc cumstances the tendency has inevitably been to give the apprentice only the menial tasks of the shop and to leave him to pick up the trade as best he can. Moreover, the competitive demand for cheap labor regardless of efficiency, especially in contract work given to the lowest bidder, has frequently tempted half-taught apprentices to sacrifice their trade education to an immediate increase in wages. Thus apprentice labor has come to mean merely cheap labor. The conditions of modern industry are, for the most part, too strenuous to allow of any serious attempt at the education of boys in the shop.. Another cause which has contributed largely to the decline of the apprenticeship system in this country has been the fact that the American boy has been unfitted by the purely literary training of his public school education to engage in any manual calling. The employer is confronted, not only by the expense and trouble of training apprentices, but by the unwillingness and unfitness of the native born to learn a trade. As a result, employers have found it more profitable to import foreigners educated in Europe than to train apprentices. Within recent years this tendency has been checked by the contract labor laws, but the impression still prevails in many quarters that Europe is a never ending source of supply of educated, skilled workmen, while it is forgot far in making concessions to unionism ought American trade schools to go? They seem to be following in this respect the policy that is wise. They do not now antagonize the unions, as was done in some cases a few years ago, by advertising their instruction as a means of overcoming union restrictions on apprenticeship; Perhaps the most valuable result but while holding a conciliatory attitude toward the unions the schools shape their policies, not to harmonize with unionism, but to answer best to the needs they are maintained to meet. Fortunately, as labor-unionism becomes far-sighted and sound, its old monopolistic ten that, as a general rule, the foreign laborers | opposition to the teaching of trades now who come to this country are not likely to be as skilled as those who remain in the country where they were educated and contribute to its industrial success. SHALL THE TRADE SCHOOL BE OPEN TO ALL, From "Getting a Living," by Geo. L. Bolen THE many trade schools of Great Britain that teach complete trades-some supported from philanthropic endowments and others from public funds, technical instruction being provided by all the important cities are generally kept open in the evenings only, and almost invariably admit none who are not already at work in the trade taught. This restriction is a concession to the unions. As a rule the schools that are open to all confine their teaching mainly to theoretic principles, as do higher institutes of technology, and give but little practice with tools, aiming only to fit for quickly attaining high proficiency under ordinary apprenticeship. On the Continent also, where trade schools are older and much more numerous than in Great Britain, and where general industrial instruction reached some years ago a high development, the trade pupils are mostly persons already at work in the trade, are sons of journeymen or masters, or are inhabitants of towns given over to some special industry-in short, they are persons who it is assumed will of course follow the trade concerned, and whose right to enter it is therefore not questioned by the union. How seems to be surely and somewhat rapidly passing away. THE HE fact that most so-called "apprentices" are not competent workmen at the end of a term that would ordinarily constitute an apprenticeship, is due to the fact that under the conditions in which industry is carried on to-day, neither the employer nor his workmen give any attention to instructing such "apprentices." Nor is this to be wondered at when we consider the flimsy and uncertain terms upon which boys are employed in the average workshop. It is difficult, in a busy workroom, to give a beginner the attention that he is entitled to when he is bound by indenture; and there is no doubt that concientiousness on this point has caused many employers to refuse to consider apprentices. Instead, they prefer to employ errand-boys and lumpers to do the work that ordinarily falls to the apprentice in the beginning of his career. It was to meet such a condition as this that the North End Union School of Printing was established. It takes the boy who has determined to learn the trade, and gives him instruction and shop practice for one year, so that when he goes from the School he has enough knowledge and experience to do something of value, as a printer, in his employer's workroom. In the School he does not become a journeyman or an expert, and he must still learn many things and acquire proficiency in his work; but he has obtained a foothold, and his further trade education should be no tax upon his employer other than to give him |