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THE HE 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 5.40 P.M., excepting Saturday afternoon.

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

For further information address SAMUEL F. HUBBARD, 20 Parmenter Street, Boston. Telephone Richmond 1069-1.

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THE

HE education of youth should be more closely confined to that which can be directly utilized. The time wasted in ornamental studies that never can be made of use varies from one to four, and often more, of the most precious years of life, and passes many on to an age when they cannot take up studies or an apprenticeship which in a few years might enable them to make a good living. All children should have a common school education, but when they have attained this the parents or guardians should discover, if possible, the capabilities of their children and then decide for what vocation they shall be trained. What sense is there in spending valuable time studying subjects which, because they cannot be utilized, will soon be forgotten?

Few of our educators are in a position to comprehend the necessity of the practical as compared with the book-work of the professional or classical

student. Every energy has been directed to perfecting the latter, and now this should be done for the former. Good literature on the practical aspects of life and the attainment of skill can be made to serve as text-books as much as studies on political economy, history, and English literature. Once it is recognized that there is as much need of the practical as the professional, text-books will be forthcoming that will improve the views of the masses in a way now impossible. It is not to be expected that a change of this kind can be made in a few years, as the machinery of education is naturally devised at the present time for carrying out the contemporary tendencies. Even our universities and colleges are at the present time driven to combat the evils of excess in sports, which, unfortunately, are strongly backed up by the public support given to athletic games. The excesses in this line are now so opposed to the aims of these institutions that at a recent gathering in New York City, of professors and instructors, measures were taken to prevent the loss of time resulting from these games, to the great detriment of classroom and laboratory work.

The revolution in industry through the speciali. zation of the past twenty years is a move toward the attainment of the practical in science that has not received the recognition it deserves. It really means that no one should expect

Easy lies

the head that thinks it knows

it all

to master more than one vocation. At one time an individual could undertake to be master molder, machinist, and blacksmith, but this is not possible now. All who are highly skilled in the art of founding understand that he who wishes to be in the lead, or the master of the sand heap and cupola, either as a worker or manager of men, can spend every minute of a ten-hour day in the shop and his evenings in study and research during a long life, and still have much to learn.

To be a practical people we must, in connection with the other reforms mentioned, specialize our studies and labor so as to be masters of one vocation, not "jacks of all trades and masters of none." The smatterer or "would be" is an affliction that causes many of our industrial enterprises great losses and perplexities. To the lower working classes it means high cost of living and much misery, which is entirely uncalled for and should not exist.

REMEMBERING that the world is always with

in one year of starvation, and within two or three years of being naked, shall we not devote a part at least of the time of the school to preparing men and women to feed the hungry and clothe the naked.-Edward Atkinson.

CHARLES M. SCHWAB'S ADVICE TO BOYS

SEVERA

EVERAL years ago Charles M. Schwab, then the president of the United States Steel Corporation, gave an address to the graduating class of St. George's Trade School of New York City. The audience contained some two hundred East Side boys who were learning trades, and Mr. Schwab's talk was simple and full of directness and common sense. Coming from a man who has risen from the ranks with no aid but his own inherent qualities, to the head of the greatest industrial concern in the world, his remarks have peculiar value for every young man with ambition to succeed in life. Mr. Schwab said, in part:

I am going to talk to you just as though you had come to my office asking for advice, and the first thing I will say to you is, Come alone. Do not come with somebody's backing, but learn to rely on yourself. This is the first lesson. If you come introduced by somebody of influence, it will always leave room for others to say that whatever position you may get, you got it by influence and not because of your individual merit. No true success is built on influence. You must build your position for yourself. A boy who starts with influence behind him starts with a double handicap.

Then there is another thing that is essential. You must do what you are employed to do a little better than anybody else does it. Everybody is expected to do his duty, but the boy who does his duty a little more is the boy who is going to succeed in this world. You must take an interest in what you are doing and it must be a genuine interest. I once knew a man who went to a school such as this to look for a boy to employ. The superintendent, when asked to recommend one, said that all of the boys (there were about ten) were equally capable. But the other said he thought there must be one better than the rest and asked the superintendent to request all to work an hour later that evening. All stayed, but of the ten there was only one boy who was so interested in his task that he forgot to watch the clock, and this boy was chosen. He is now at the head of a great corporation that employs 30,000 men.

Then there was another boy. Eighteen years ago this boy, then 15 years old, was carrying water for the men in a great steel works. It was a poor job, but he did it better than anybody else, so that he attracted attention to himself. When there was an office position open he was selected to fill it. He rose to be general superintendent, then manager, and he is now at the head of the great Carnegie Steel Company, with thousands of men under him. Another thing is needed, boys, and that is to get an early start. The boy in business who starts with

ness.

a trade school education, at 17 or 18, will get a start that the boy who goes through college will never catch up with, other things being equal. That does not apply to the professions, of course-only to busiOf the many great men in the commercial world whom I have met, the majority received nothing but a common school education, but they made an early start. At a meeting I attended recently there were forty men of influence in the financial world. The question came up, How many were college men? It was found that only two of the forty were college graduates. Now, when I speak of a successful man I do not mean merely a money-making man; I mean the truly great men, in manufacturing and industrial lines. These men, as a rule, had not the advantage of a college education, but had a taste for mechanics and took advantage of their opportunities from the start.

In a manual training school like this that I established fifteen years ago at Homestead, Pa., there was an electrical department. One of the boys was constantly working over an electrical machine. He worked after school hours and late at night, and. attracted the attention of those in charge of the school. So he was finally given an opportunity to go into the works with which the school was connected. A few months ago I went to these works, and calling the heads of departments together, I unfolded an important project and asked them who was the man to be intrusted with it. Electricity was to play an important part in the scheme. To a man they all pointed to this former boy in the training school, and he was intrusted with the place. This man is now general superintendent of the Homestead Steel Works.

THE

HE instruction received by an apprentice in preparation for his trade is a service rendered to him in the training of his body in manual dexterity, in order that a few years later this manual dexterity may increase his income-earning power. Apprenticeship is, as it were, an investment in the body to be returned at a later time (with interest), just as the planting of a tree is an investment in the tree in order that its fruit may be secured in later years. The same principles apply to any training or education for a profession. When a young man studies law, medicine, journalism, music, or prepares for any other profession, he is investing in his own person, with the hope that the sums thus invested may ultimately be returned to him (with interest). The same is true of physical training. Many of the most successful are those who, like President Roosevelt, in early life saw the wisdom of developing a strong body, and in consequence have increased their producing power in mature years.-Irving Fisher, Ph.D., "Nature of Capital and Income."

ADVOCATING TRADE SCHOOLS AND A MODERN INDENTURED APPRENTICESHIP SYSTEM EDITED AND PRINTED AT THE NORTH END UNION SCHOOL OF PRINTING, BOSTON, MASS.

VOL. I

NOVEMBER, 1907

"A STRIKING INSTANCE"

The following extract about the North End Union School of Printing is from an article on " Private Trade Schools for Boys," by Professor C. R. Richards, of the Teachers' College, New York, published in Charities, a New York weekly journal, which devoted its entire issue of October 5th to "The Movement for Industrial Education."

ANOTHER institution of this type, and a most

interesting and suggestive one, is the School of Printing of the North End Union, Boston. Evening classes in printing were started by the school in 1900, but it was found after a few years of experience that three evenings a week were inadequate for the proper training of compositors, and in 1904 the present day school was inaugurated. The question of articulating the school with the employing shop, so that the boy would be enabled to continue his progress under favorable and sympathetic conditions and develop into the higher grade of printer, was given careful consideration and as a result an apprentice agreement was established with a number of master printers of Boston.

No. II

spent in the school and the remaining three in the shop. At the end of the school period the apprentice enters his employer's service at a wage of $9.00 a week, with an increase each six months. . . .

As a result of two years of trial of this plan the school authorities state that there is no disposition on the part either of apprentice or master to modify its provisions. The active co-operation of leading printers of the city on the board of supervisors and

(From the Inland Printer)

THE EDUCATION OF THE APPRENTICE

A LESSON IN ENTOMOLOGY

on the apprenticeship committee is, of course, a vital factor in the success of the school. There are at present fourteen apprentices in the school, which is its full capacity. For the twelve months' instruction a tuition fee of $100 is charged. The support of the school comes from these fees and contributions from master printers. Commercial work is not done in the school. The rent, heat, light and the services of the director contributed by the North End Union,

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are

The results obtained by the School of Printing during its brief existence give

it a significance out of all proportion to its modest numbers and bring it forward as a striking instance of an institution which, through active co-operation with employers and careful study of the needs of the situation, has developed peculiarly effective working relations with commercial conditions.

Whatever else the printer's apprentice of the past generation
may have failed to learn, his older fellow-workers never failed
to initiate him into the mystery of "seeing type-lice."

Under the terms of this indenture, boys at least sixteen years of age who wish to attend the school first make application to a member of the apprenticeship committee. If this member approves the applicant, he is sent to some employing printer who, provided his judgment is favorable, agrees to accept the boy as an apprentice if he shows fitness for the trade after three months' probation in the school. In case this period is passed successfully, the boy then spends nine months more in the school, attending nine hours a day, fifty-four hours a week. The apprenticeship agreement provides for a term of four years, the first of which is

WHILE every one is ready to endorse the ab

stract proposition that instruction fitting youths for the business of life is of high importance, or even to consider it of supreme importance; yet scarcely any inquire what instruction will so fit them. It is true that reading, writing, and arithmetic are

taught with an intelligent appreciation of their uses; but when we have said this we have said nearly all. While the great bulk of what else is acquired has no bearing on the industrial activities, an immensity of information that has a direct bearing on the industrial activities is entirely passed over.

PRACTICAL AND THEORETICAL TRADE TRAINING From "Industrial Efficiency," by Arthur Shadwell Published by Longmans & Co.

HERE seems

THERE

to be a general opinion that technical education has not had much to do with the industrial expansion of the United States in the past. It has certainly played a very much smaller part than in Germany. Most of the large

Many men are like wheelbarrows, and must

be pushed to
make them

For, leaving out only some very small classes, what are all men employed in? They are employed in the production, preparation, and distribution of commodities. And on what does efficiency in the production, preparation, and distribution of commodities depend? It depends on the use of methods fitted to the respective natures of these commodities; it depends on an adequate knowledge of their physical, chemical, or vital properties, as the case may be; that is, it depends on Science. This order of knowledge, which is in great part ignored in our school courses, is the order of knowledge underlying the right performance of all those processes by which civilized life is made possible. Undeniable as is this truth, and thrust upon us as it is at every turn, there seems to be no living consciousness of it: its very familiarity makes it unregarded.--Herbert Spencer.

THE EMPLOYERS' RESPONSIBILITY

WHE

go. Are you in the wheelbarrow class?

HEN the employing printers complain of the inefficiency of their employees they are entitled to little sympathy on account of the losses such inefficiency entails on them, for each incompetent was drafted into the trade by some careless employer. The great majority of master printers neglect to exercise ordinary care in selecting lads to learn the trade. The ignorance of the average compositor is astounding, when the nature of his business is considered. When every master printer makes it his duty to carefully examine and select the learners, preventing the poorly-educated and those of limited intelligence from entering on a trade which requires a semi-literary education, the evil of incompetent workmen will be eliminated and the whole status of the trade will be improved. Let each employing printer who neglects this obvious duty find in every incompetent workman he employs a reminder that he or men like him created the incompetent workman. Let him take his losses patiently, for is he not the victim of his own neglect?

Henry L. Bullen.

ALL concentration means deafness and blind

ness outside the circle which is lit up by the lamp of attention. The concentrated beam of the search-light on a battle-ship is typical of the mind of a busy, well-trained man.-Richard C. Cabot, M.D.

concerns were built by men of energy who
had little or no schooling, and rose from
the ranks. The present provision has
come since the great railway and indus-
trial development, and in consequence of
it. The rapid expansion caused a demand
for trained men, who could not be sup-
plied fast enough. This, I think, accounts
for what I have called the supply from
above. There was an opening for men of
good education, and the colleges hastened
to fill it.
The pace has continually in-
creased, and the large corporations some
times "order" men by the dozen. When

I was at the Technological Institute in Boston I was told that the United States Steel Corporation had just ordered a batch of fifty; they had to go to the works on trial for a year. The large numbers turned out in recent years must be having a considerable effect. Yet I see that in 1900 onefourth of the total number of "manufacturers and officials" engaged in manufacturing and mechanical occupations were foreigners. I think this highly significant fact must have escaped the attention of those who think that Europe has much to learn from America in the matter. The myth of "the American workman" and his superior skill has been dealt with more than once. Technical education, high and low, appears to suffer from the national defect of want of thoroughness, which arises from the craving for short cuts. Hence the correspondence schools and the attempt to teach industries in school without practical experience. Opinion may be divided on the question whether technical schooling ought to be preceded, accompanied, or followed by practical training. I can only form a second-hand judgment derived from men of experience, but their verdict is decisive. I have asked the question of a great many leading manufacturers and managers in all three countries, and they were unanimous in condemning school training without practical experience. In the German technical schools previous practical knowledge is usually insisted on for a full course of study. In America the theoretical study precedes practical work, and the complaint of manufacturers is that it often unfits men for the workshop. Some high authorities have found the American training shallow and superficial. This coincides with the experience of the Rhodes scholars at Oxford in other studies. American university graduates have been found less well grounded than English schoolboys of the same class.

APPRENTICESHIP CONDITIONS IN GERMANY

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Abridged from Report of U. S. Commissioner
of Labor, 1902.

O comprehensive idea of what is being done in Germany for the development of trade training can be obtained without a knowledge of the great efforts that are being put forth for the preservation of the apprenticeship system in those trades for which it is adapted. The following important provisions of the law regarding apprenticeships show the great solicitude for the preservation of this system of trade instruction and the care taken that apprentices shall be properly instructed in their trades:

In the handicraft trades only those persons have the right to direct apprentices who are twenty-four years of age and have completed the term of apprenticeship prescribed by the chamber of trades in the trade in which it is desired to instruct apprentices, or have exercised that trade without interruption for five years, either on their own account or as foremen, or in a similar capacity. The superior administrative authorities can, however, accord this right to persons not fulfilling these conditions. Before doing so they must take the advice of the guild to which the applicant belongs.

for each trade, either by guild commissions, apprenticeship shops, trade schools, or State boards of examiners, the necessary commissions will be created by the chamber of trades.

The title of master can be borne only by journeymen who, in their trade, have acquired the right to have apprentices, and who have passed the master's examination. In general this examination can be taken only by those who have exercised their trade as journeymen for at least three years. The examination is given by a commission composed of a president and four other members chosen by the supe

Success lies beyond a swing-to door, and the lobby is always full. Some get through the door marked "Push" and some through

rior administrative authorities, and must show that the candidate is able to value and execute the ordinary work of his trade, and that he possesses other qualifications, especially ability to keep books and accurate accounts, fitting him to carry on the trade on his own account.

The duties imposed upon the employer are to instruct the apprentice in all matters relating to his trade; to require him to attend an industrial or trade continuation school; to see that he applies himself zealously and conducts himself properly; to guard him against bad habits, and to protect him from bad treatment on the part of members of his household or companions. The employer must personally direct the work of the apprentice, or place him under the direction of a competent person charged with his special instruction. He cannot require of him work beyond his strength or that which may be injurious to his health, and must not deprive him of the time necessary for his school instruction or for divine worship. Apprentices not living at the houses of their employers must not be required to perform household duties.

the

door

marked
"Pull "

Apprenticeship can be served in a large industrial establishment or be replaced by work in an apprenticeship shop or other establishment for industrial education. If an employer is a member of a guild, he is required to submit to it copies of all apprenticeship contracts made by him within fifteen days after their conclusion. The guilds may require the contracts to be made before them.

In the absence of regulations promulgated by the Bundesrath or central State authorities, the chamber of trades and guilds can make provisions limiting the number of apprentices that may be allowed.

In general the term of apprenticeseip is three years, though it may be extended by the addition of not more than one year. The chamber of trades, with the approval of the superior administrative authorities, and after having consulted with the guilds and associations represented, may fix the duration of apprenticeship in each trade.

Upon completing his term of service, the apprentice must be admitted to the examination for a journeyman's certificate. This examination is taken before commissions, of which there is one for each compulsory guild. Other guilds can have an examining commission only when permission has been ob tained from the chamber of trades. When provision has not been made for the examination of candidates

If the number of apprentices of any employer is out of proportion to the amount of the latter's busi ness and the instruction of the apprentices is thereby jeopardized, the lower administrative authorities may compel the dismissal of some of the apprentices and forbid the taking of new ones, so as to bring their number within a certain limit.

The Bundesrath can determine for special categories of industries the maximum number of ap prentices that may be employed. Until fixed in this way the central Government can take similar action, and when this Government fails to act the chamber of trades can limit the number of apprentices.

Nothing is more instructive than to see with what enthusiasm the masters have responded to the wishes of the legislators as expressed in section 97 of the industrial code: "The guilds have specially the right to organize and direct trade schools." Educa tion is the true function of the guild. The small em. ployers, supported by their workmen, do not recoil before the sacrifices necessary. Regardless of the fact that they are forming competitors in the market, they are seeking to enfranchise the workman by the

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