Page images
PDF
EPUB
[blocks in formation]

made before the Engineers' Club of Philadelphia, he sets forth the reasons for the adoption of this system and the methods pursued with regard to apprentices.

It became apparent, said Mr. Vauclain, that if we were to remain successful in competition with the world we would have to get to work at once and systematically educate our apprentices, not only in so far as the handicraft is concerned, but that they should have a certain amount of technical knowledge to go with it, and that that technical knowledge should go hand in hand with the manual training that they were receiving in the shops. Very naturally the thought occurred to me, "What are we going to do with the great unwashed-the boys who can not go to school --the boys who are turned out of the grammar schools, perhaps, before they have barely entered them?" The parents must put those boys to work, and, fortunately for us, the laws of Pennsylvania relieve us of this mass of humanity-poorly trained, poorly educated, and with the greed of gain, the only thought their parents have in placing them at work. The law forbids the employment of any boy under sixteen, years of age, and over thirteen, only when his parents go before a magistrate and get a permit; consequently we are able to keep out of our workshops all boys under sixteen, except those who are the sons of widows and who must have employment somewhere. Those boys we employ as messengers, and keep them and train them and bring them along until such time as we can put them to a trade.

Our idea in establishing three grades of apprentices was to take care of the three grades of boys that come to us. First, the boys of the masses-the boys of ordinary education--very ordinary education indeed; these boys we compel to remain with us four years. We require that they shall go outside at night to some of the many night schools and take a one-year's course in elementary geometry and algebra in order to get a slight knowledge of them. The second and third years they must attend drawing school. They must take a two-years' course in drawing outside of the workshops. At the expiration of the four years we give these boys a bonus and we discharge them from our employ. They get a diploma—their indenture is their diploma; their bonus is their reward and the wherewith to go elsewhere and seek employment.

Now, the high school boy is a well educated boy. I defy any young man of eighteen to go before an employer with a better education than those boys who come to us from our Philadelphia high school. He has a good knowledge of geometry and many of the higher branches of mathematics; he knows something of mechanical drawing — enough to go on with the work; therefore, we omit with this boy the preliminary course in elementary algebra and geometry, and we prescribe that for two years he must attend night school in mechanical drawing in order to perfect himself, in order to learn to express his thoughts upon paper as he absorbs ideas in the workshop. We also give this young man a bonus, and we only require three years of service from him on account of the superior education he has when he comes to us. The superior education enables us to grasp more quickly the needs― the place to put him—and he more or less readily absorbs the instructions given him from his immediate superiors through the superintendent of the shop. The bonus this young man gets is $100 in place of the $125 of his more unskilled companion. This $100 we think is sufficient to enable him to go elsewhere and secure employment, and we are never ashamed to let one of those apprentices go for that. He always shows up well. The third man to take care of is the graduate of our universities - the ordinary mechanical engineer who comes to us not quite so green as grass so far as mechanical handicraft is concerned. He is willing to get down

to the hardest work we have in our shop, and he works at it like a steam engine. He has all the technical knowledge that is necessary. He has it, but he does not know how to use it. We encourage him in this manner : We can not indenture him, being a man, but we make a specific contract with him for two years and pay him enough to keep body and soul together. We give him 13 cents an hour for the first year, and 16 cents an hour for the second year, and a clean certificate at the end of that time. We have not had a man of that description for that length of time who has not been lifted out of the position he had contracted for and is enjoying a much more remunerative position and in the line of promotion. Now, it is from these men that we must fill the superior offices in our workshop, and these boys we promote. The man or boy who has determined to get to the top, and will burn his candle at night to gain the knowledge that his more favored companion has received in a better institution of learning than he has attended, also gains his reward. The third boy we must have to fill the ordinary ranks in the workshops, and the better educated we can have the ordinary rank and file in our workshops, the better chance we will have of competing with our foreign manufacturers, the better chance we will have of extending the markets of American manufactures throughout the world, and it is only by this that we can do so.

When I hear a manager say he has had so many men call in his efforts to secure a foreman, he has tried and tried to get certain men to do certain work and failed, I pity that man. That man has not the courage to go down in his pocket and labor for a few years to train men to fill these positions, and if you can put out coin your if you have

the small courage to hand it over to these young men-you will get it back tenfold before you know where you are.

The manufacturer has the commercial side of the question to deal with. He can impart the commercial side of the business in connection with the technical training. He must be a manual student commercially. He must be able to make that work pay. He must be able to get it out for a certain sum of money, and he must be able to get it out well for that money, because the better his product is, the more work will come into that workshop; and, therefore, if the

foreman, or the superintendent, or the owners, or the managers of these manufacturing institutions will give their time and attention to the handicraft -- the manual training they certainly should expect to get the technical portion for the work of their students outside. Now, in order to make a scheme of this sort successful, one must make a business of it. You cannot hand these boys over to the tender

Although the chief aim of an apprentice system

must be to turn a lad into a skilled workman, any

system worthy of adop

mercies of a foreman, because it is not one out of

fifty who can take a boy tion in this countryshould also make sure that he is and who can say to himso educated that he will be a good citizen. self, "That boy is perfect Richard T. Auchmuty. on that work; here, give him another planer; there is no use keeping that boy on that work any longer." No, he will keep him there until the superintendent says, "You must not keep that boy there any longer; you are doing him an injustice." In order to avoid such a condition of affairs, I felt that we should have a superintendent of apprentices, a man whose business was to look after the apprentice, not only in the shop but out of the shop-a man who would see that he is taken care of, and. see that the foreman does not take advantage, but as fast as the boy learns he must be pushed along. We hire him for what he learns from us for the future, and we must have that boy pushed along so that he can learn, so that he can absorb everything that is capable of being absorbed in that shop. If he is not capable of being pushed along so fast, he is pushed along slowly and more care is taken of him. We do not want to allow that boy to sink down into disappointed youth. We just want him when he is twenty-one to be able to work and to go on and keep on working with irresistible energy.

FIFTY years ago Ralph Waldo Emerson

charged popular education with a want of truth and nature. He complained that an education to do things was not given. He saw that literature, far from being the only factor in civilization, was not even the chief one. He said, "We are students of words; we are shut up in schools and colleges and recitation rooms from ten to fifteen years, and come out at last with a bag of wind, a memory of words, and do not know a thing. We cannot use our hands, or legs, or our eyes, or our arms."

APPRENTICESHIP IN ENGLAND IN THE MIDDLE AGES

[From "Methods of Social Advance." C. S. Loch editor. Published by Macmillan & Co., New York and London, 1906.]

APPRENTICESHIP in the Middle Ages

was an essential part of the guild system, under which industry was effectively organized and regulated, roughly speaking, from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries. The aim of the guilds was to maintain the standard of quality of the goods produced, and the standard of life of the craftsman. This was attained by the enforcement of apprenticeship as a means of entrance to the trade, as well as by inspection of goods and regulation of prices. The only exception to apprenticeship was in the case of a father teaching his son his own trade, when binding form of indenture was not as a rule used, the interest of the father to train his son properly being held sufficient security. Antagonism between capital and labour was in the Middle Ages practically nonexistent. The apprentice lived under his master's roof. His master stood in loco parentis to him during his term of servitude, and was responsible alike for his moral as for his craft training. Division of labour was very little known, and a craftsman had to carry through all the processes of manufacture himself. To qualify himself for this in each trade he was bound for not less than seven years.

The sixteenth century saw the decay of the guild system as an effective institution, but the ideals for which the guilds had striven were still recognized and the means by which they had sought to attain them adopted, viz. the maintenance of the quality of output by apprenticeship and inspection.

In spite of their restrictive regulations the guilds had proved themselves incapable of entirely excluding "unlawful men" from the exercise of their trade, and they had followed the mistaken policy of making their regulations against outsiders more narrow and restrictive, instead of attempting to modify them in accordance with the needs of the times. Not only was there a considerable influx of foreign artizans during the sixteenth century, but the hired sevants or labourers began to creep into the trade as it were by the back door. The opposition shown to this class was undoubtedly a hardship, and involved a certain economic loss to the community, but it is doubtful whether the class existed to any considerable extent, except in those trades where capital and

the division of labour first appeared, as for instance in the West of England clothing trade. In these, as soon as division of labour was introduced, it became manifest not only that a seven years' apprenticeship was not in all cases necessary, but that it would be impossible to enforce it. Towards the close of the eighteenth century the introduction of machinery, growth of the capitalist class, and increased division of labour, revolutionized industrial methods. Not all trades were equally affected, but the greatest change was wrought in the chief industry of the country, namely, the textile. The old kind of apprenticeship was no longer suited to this trade,but the famous Act of Elizabeth enforcing it was unrepealed till 1814, and convictions under the Act became very numerous. This attempt to enforce the system where it was no longer suitable brought it into disrepute, and the legal interpretation of the statute rendered possible manifold hardships and inconsistencies. Not infrequently the new capitalist employer took unjust advantage of the Act. The mill-owner, for instance, no longer wanted skilled workmen capable of carrying out all the processes of manufacture; he needed a vast number of "hands" as auxiliaries to his new machines, each performing one small monotonous process. To obtain these hands as cheap as possible he resorted to childlabour on a large scale. The workers were frequently forced, by threat of dismissal and the loss of their now reduced wages, to put their children to the mills, bound by a one-sided agreement to the benefit of the master. The child-labour of the mills was also largely recruited by the parish apprentices, sent in scores at the age of six and upwards, chiefly from London but also from other large towns, bound by the Guardians under the Statute 43 Elizabeth "for the relief of the poor." Thousands of hapless London children were thus sent into virtual slavery among strangers, to supply the needs of the northern mill-owners, and not a soul concerned himself in their welfare. Small wonder that when this abomination was put an end to, the system of apprenticeship proper never revived in these trades, and that ill odour clung to the word. Except in these trades, however, and in those new industries, such as engineering, which were springing out of the new order,apprenticeship was still very largely the custom at the close of the eighteenth century, and it has survived more or less continuously to the present day.

[blocks in formation]

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 School is continuous and pupils may enter at any time. The hours are identical with those of a regular workshop, from 7.40 A.M. to 5.45 P.M., excepting Saturday afternoon.

The tuition fee for one year is $100. Applicants must be sixteen years of age or over.

Further imformation may be obtained by addressing SAMUEL F. HUBBARD, 20 Parmenter Street, Boston.

THE APPRENTICESHIP BULLETIN is intended to be issued each month in the year, except July and August. Price 25 cents for the ten numbers. The composition and presswork are done by the apprentices in the School.

WITHOUT a willingness on the part of

an employer to take some responsibility and make provision for systematically advancing his apprentices in legitimate shop-work, it is difficult to see why he should expect to have loyal, competent workmen in the future. It is a short-sighted policy for an employer of skilled labor to depend upon the chance of getting workmen whom some one else has trained. Let him consider what it would mean to the reliability and efficiency of his own working force at the end of five years, if each year he should take one or two apprentices and give them a fair chance to learn the trade in his work-rooms.

WHO can question the great advantage

to a boy of the moral discipline of apprenticeship where a wise selection of a firm is made? The mere existence of an indenture will not, of course, secure that the apprentice is turned out a skilled workman, A trade must be selected which the boy is capable of acquiring, and a master competent to have him properly instructed.

APPRENTICESHIP CONDITIONS IN

THE

pose

LONDON, ENGLAND

HE Apprenticeship and Skilled Employment Association of London, England, is an organization of a number of affiliated local committees having for their object the promotion of industrial training for boys and girls, by apprenticeship and other methods, including arrangements for attendance at trade schools and at technical classes. This association was formed in 1902 for the purof establishing a central agency to deal with the industrial employment of boys and girls. For a number of years there has been a growing feeling that boys and girls leaving elementary schools were wasting time and opportunity by drifting from one employment to another, and that the standard of industrial skill was suffering from a lack of thorough technical training. Various isolated bodies have been dealing with the problem, but up to 1902 there was no central organization and no convenient means of communication between one local committee and another.

The association facilitates the work of the local committees and encourages the formation of new ones by acquainting their promoters with the methods of those already in existence, and it also undertakes the work of arousing public interest in the object of the association by meetings and conferences.

The local committees endeavor to get in touch with the managers and teachers of elementary schools, polytechnics, and working boys' and girls' clubs within their districts. They collect industrial information and deal with applications of young people for employment, and they make terms between employers and employees, with the object of securing thorough training and fair conditions to the employees and satisfactory workers to the employer.

In answer to several questions by one of the supervisors of the School of Printing, asking for information about apprenticeship conditions in London, Miss Dalglish, secretary of the Apprenticeship and Skilled Employment Association, sent the following replies:

(1) Do you aim to revive an indentured apprenticeship, modified to fit present conditions?

We do aim at reviving a modified form of apprenticeship by enabling boys to become apprenticed under fair conditions,

and also by enabling employers to obtain suitable boys, with the understanding that the Committee will provide a fourth party to the indenture, who will have the power to inquire into any dispute that might arise.

(2) How general, or to what extent, does the apprenticeship system obtain among employers? The apprenticeship system is still very general: in some cases employers have abandoned it, owing to the difficulty of finding satisfactory boys, and they can sometimes be persuaded to return to indentured apprentices again. Boys have been bound to more than thirty trades. The Jewish Board of Guardians, who are not affiliated to this Association, and who began work many years ago, have now nine hundred apprentices (boys and girls) under their charge. Our work is a much later development, so it is hard to judge whether apprenticeship has increased, but I think we can safely say without the intervention of Skilled Employment Committees it would have decreased. (3) Are apprentices taught the various steps of the trade with proper care and supervision? Under a proper indenture, and with the supervision of the Committee, the trade is properly taught-certain branches being specified in the indenture; if these are not taught the indenture would be cancelled. Without this supervision the trade may or may not be taught many firms we consider undesirable on this account, the boy being left to pick up the trade as best he can.

(4) If the apprenticeship system is not used by employers to promote efficiency and skill in their beginners, what system is used?

If the apprenticeship system is not used by employers, they either (a) Select from their errand boys those who are brightest and teach them the trade. (b) Employ “learners" -boys of the age of apprentices who come to learn the trade with no binding agreement on either side; in this case whether they really learn the trade depends on the master and on the quickness of the boy. There is an understanding that he will be taught but no agreement, and the boy may leave at any time, which he frequently does for very trivial causes. (c) They may employ no boys but trained hands and, where necessary, errand boys.

(5) Are the trades suffering from the lack of skilled workmen, and, if so, is there any con

certed action on the part of employers to give the necessary training to those entering the trades? We consider that skilled trades are suffering from lack of skilled workers, and that unskilled labor is likely to increase out of proper proportion. The errand boys, van boys, messenger boys and semi-skilled workers, as they become men, find it increasingly difficult to get work and turn to casual labor. Employers as a body have not awakened to the necessity of better training but the establishment of trade schools by the London County Council shows that the danger has been recognized, that skilled workmen are becoming fewer owing to the lack of training. Employers have shown willingness to help in organizing trade schools and to serve on advisory committees. As an Association we prefer that the system of apprenticeship should be revived where the employer trains his own workmen, rather than that the State should do it for him in trade schools, but both our apprenticeship committees and the

trade schools are so new that it is difficult to say which will produce the best results, or whether it will be possible to arrange a part-time system between the workshop and

the trade school.

SINCE 1900 the city of Munich, Bavaria,

has been transforming its continuation schools for elementary - school graduates (corresponding to our grammar-school graduates) into elementary technical schools for apprentices in the trades and in business. The city maintains nearly forty different kinds of these schools, which are in charge of the general school authorities, assisted by the leading men in the trades represented. Professor Paul H. Hanus, chairman of the Massachusetts Industrial Commission, has written a brief account of this scheme of technical education, which the boys in the School of Printing have made into a booklet. postage stamp will bring you a copy. If you are interested in it, a request with a

The wise printer learns by the experience of others. The average printer learns by his own experience. The foolish printer never learns even by experience.

[blocks in formation]
« PreviousContinue »