Chapter VI: The New Apprenticeship (2)

In much of the preceding discussion it has been assumed that what the man wants is an all-round training. This is undoubtedly a fact, but by an all-round training is not necessarily meant a training that will produce a craftsman of the old school, equally capable of turning his hand successfully to any of the operations with which his trade is concerned. Except in rural districts, in a few of the artistic crafts, and in certain branches of repairing work, a man of this kind is not generally required. It seems probable that the industrial tendencies of to-day are making decreasing demands for purely manual skill. The Report of the Poor Law Commission contains a valuable discussion of the question, and sums up the conclusions in the following passage: "The general trend of our answers was that the 'skill' of modern industry is scarcely comparable with the skill of labour in the past. One might say that, within twenty years, with the universal employment of machinery and the excessive subdivision and specialization of its use, the character of the productive process has quite changed. There is a growing demand for higher intelligence on the part of the few; a large and probably growing demand for specialized machine-minders; and, unhappily, a relegation of those who cannot adapt themselves to a quite inferior, if not worse paid, position. If, then, the 'skill' which we might have looked for and desired is what might be called 'craftsmanship,' we must conclude that the demand for skill is, on the whole, declining. The all-round ability which used honourably to mark out the mechanic is no longer in demand, so much as the work of the highly specialized machine-minder." [179] But if there seems a less demand for all-round skill, there appears to be an increasing demand for trained intelligence. "In the greater industries employing adult male labour, 'machinery' does not in the least resemble the long lines of revolving spindles one sees in a cotton mill. In the machine tools of an engineering shop there is comparatively little of such automatism, and, even where the machines are automatic, single men are put in charge of a number of machines, and the setting and supervising of these is work probably demanding a higher level of intelligence than ever before. 'I should say the skilled men require even more skill than they did,' says Mr. Barnes, 'because of the finer work and more intricate machinery.... Side by side with automatic machines there has come about more intricate and highly complicated machinery.' 'The semi-skilled of to-day,' says Sir Benjamin C. Brown, 'is in many cases as good as the skilled was a quarter of a century ago.'" [180] Or, as another witness puts it: "The tendency of machinery is always to cause a substitution of intelligence for dexterity, the person who was in effect a machine by reason of his dexterity giving place to one who could understand a direct and mechanical process." [181] There seems also good reason to believe that the demand for intelligence outruns the supply.

In the workmen, usually classed as skilled, the employer requires intelligence, but he wants something more; he wants trustworthiness, and frequently a certain highly specialized manual dexterity. The training of the workshop can supply the third of these qualifications; it cannot, however, supply the other two, which are in the main the products of education. But between the second and the third there is a certain antagonism. Monotony in the workshop does not cultivate intelligence; it is actively hostile to such growth. Unless there is a well-trained intelligence to begin with, the continual performance of a single task will reduce the man to the level of a mere machine. Now, the employer does not want a mere machine; if he did, in these days of inventive genius, he would soon discover something more reliable in the way of machines than flesh and blood. He wants a machine with intelligence; he must therefore have a man. But the intelligence must rest on a broad basis of education, or the machine element will prove too much for it. This is the reason of the statement, found so often in evidence on technical training given by enlightened employers, that what is mostly required is a good general education.

Now we are coming to see that a general education does not imply a certain specific syllabus of instruction; it may be the result of the most varied kinds of instruction. We have ceased to take the narrow view that it consists only in book-learning and aptness with the pen. We have recognized that manual training may rightly play a large part in any system of education, and for the full development of certain types of mind is absolutely indispensable. Consequently, though the employer does not need the man of all-round skill, there is no reason why the workman should not acquire a general use of the tools employed in his trade. Whatever it may be to the employer, the possession of a certain amount of all-round skill is not a matter of indifference to the workman. If he can boast skill in a single operation alone, the bridge that lifts him above the gulf of unskilled labour is very fragile. A change in demand or a new invention may any day render his specialized skill useless, and precipitate him into that gulf whence is no escape. But this is not the case with the man who has received an all-round training. Thrust out of one branch of the trade, he can, if intelligent, comparatively easily find an opening in another. The all-round skill, though not required in the workshop, is necessary to the man if his position in the skilled labour market is to be secure. In a sense, the measure of his all-round skill is the measure of the stability of his industrial status. Further, the possession of all-round skill is a necessary condition of the possession of intelligence. It gives a man a clearer insight into the significance of his trade, and robs monotony of some part of its soul-killing power. Pure specialization is hostile to intelligence; the man who can only do one thing cannot do that one thing well. Finally, from these skilled workmen must be chosen the foremen and small managers, and these people must possess the wider knowledge and a more varied skill. To a large extent at the present time they are not recruited from the large workshop; they come from the country district, where this all-round skill can still be acquired. But, as we have seen, this supply is not inexhaustible, and there are signs that the methods of the industrial revolution are invading the village. Unless, therefore, we are prepared to see a scarcity of trained foremen in the future, we must to-day aim at producing the skilled workman, who is at once intelligent and possesses a general knowledge of the tools of his trade.

"We do not to-day," says Sir Christopher Furness, "want men who are all-round at building marine engines; we do need men who are all-round mechanical engineers--men who can apply the principles of their craft to any form of machinery that may be called for. That is a class of training which cannot be achieved by any system of apprenticeship, and is essentially a matter which the governing authority must handle if this country is to maintain its position in the industrial world." [182] "The characteristics," says the Consultative Committee, "that employers most value and most deplore the lack of would appear to be general handiness (which is really to a large extent a mental quality), adaptability and alertness, habits of observation--and the power to express the thing observed--accuracy, resourcefulness, the ability to grapple with new unfamiliar conditions, the habit of applying one's mind and one's knowledge to what one has to do." [183] It is clear that within the narrow sphere of the workshop an all-round training of this kind can never be secured.

We must look, then, to the elementary schools supplemented by the technical institute, to insure to the workmen an all-round intelligence and a general knowledge of the use of tools employed in his trade. For commerce, intelligence and an all-round training are no less necessary. "You produce a better clerk," it has been said, "if the boy takes an industrial rather than a commercial course." There is therefore no conflict of interest between what the employer wants and what the workman wants. The employer wants intelligence, and cannot get it from a workman who does not possess a general knowledge of his trade. The workman wants an all-round knowledge of his trade because without it his position as a skilled artisan is precarious and at the mercy of every new invention or change in fashion.

We have hitherto spoken as if all were skilled workmen, and as though the unskilled labourer did not exist. Now, there are at the present time huge armies of men that can by no stretch of imagination be regarded as skilled at anything; but it is by no means clear that it is desirable for this huge army to continue as such. It is generally assumed that the performance of so-called unskilled work requires no training and makes no demand on skill. This is a grave mistake; let anyone, without previous experience, try a day's digging in his garden, and he will realize the fact. But it is not merely a question of manual training and practice; the unskilled labourer, to be efficient, needs intelligence. Skilled and unskilled work call for, in this age of machines, more intelligence than was wanted in the past. Almost everyone nowadays uses a machine of some sort; and there can be no question that in such use there is a serious lack of intelligence. The unskilled labour engaged with machinery is almost always inadequate and unsatisfactory. The agricultural labourer, for example, has to manage machines whose complex mechanism is far beyond his ill-trained intelligence to comprehend. The same may be said of the general run of machine-minders. Breakdowns, stoppages, and accidents are the costly consequences of their defect. Of all forms of labour, the unskilled labour of to-day is probably the most expensive to the employer. The labourer is worth, as a rule, little more than he receives, and, not infrequently, a good deal less. The preservation of stupidity is among the most foolish and most expensive of modern luxuries. What the employer wants is the intelligent unskilled labourer, and such a class must be the product, not of the workshop, but of the schools. The training to be provided would be very similar to that required by the skilled workman.

From the point of view of the employer, we require more intelligence in the unskilled labourer; from the point of view of the community and the man himself, the need is even more urgent. We must not forget the man in the labourer. He is not for all his time an unskilled labourer; he is the autocrat of the home, the father of a family, and, as a voter, one of the rulers of the Empire. These last functions belong essentially to the highly skilled class of work. Uneducated parents are a danger to their children, and so to the future prosperity of the nation; the illiterate voters a peril to the safety of the State. Finally, the man himself, with a wider outlook on the world, and with a life richer in interests, and so with more opportunities of healthy enjoyment, would be a happier and a better citizen. The shame of modern civilization and the abiding menace to its security lie in the miserable horde of stupid, unintelligent, and uninterested labourers who are good for nothing except the exercise of mere brute strength and indulgence in mere animal pleasures, and not very much good even for this.

Looking, then, at the problem of the training of skilled and unskilled workmen alike, whether from the point of view of man or master, we see that the great essential is the possession of a large measure of intelligence. With the continual changes in the methods of industry, men must be capable of changing too; they must be capable of readily adapting themselves to new conditions, and not become petrified in a rigid and inflexible mould. Intelligence, properly developed, means adaptability. If we could secure this, the problem of dealing with the unemployed would be comparatively easy of solution. The inextricable tangle of to-day lies in the hopeless task of securing employment at a living wage for men who are not worth it. Let each man be made good for something, and it will not be beyond the range of wise statesmanship to find that good thing for him to do.

How is the necessary training to be provided? The answer to this question need not detain us long. We have already seen that elementary and technical education can solve the problem in the case of those who have been able to avail themselves of the opportunities offered. The only outstanding difficulty was the difficulty of insuring ready access to all; and this has been surmounted in the proposals of the last section. The raising of the school age to fifteen, the prohibition of the employment of school-children, and the new half-time system, give facilities for education never before enjoyed.

The boy will remain at the elementary school till the age of fifteen, and there will be no employment outside school hours to undermine his health and render him unfit to profit by the instruction given. We have already noticed the transformation of the elementary school now going on, and the multiplication of various types of school. The process will continue, and the results following the raising of the school age will be increased in value. The school will, in the first place, be regarded as a sorting-house, in which the different kinds of ability are discovered and classified. It will next be an institution where proper provision is made to insure that each kind of ability shall have the fullest opportunity of development. The only meaning of a general education is the discovery and the cultivation of the special interests of the individual.

When the boy leaves the elementary school his interests and ability will guide him to search for employment where they will have most scope. How this opening is to be found is a question that will be discussed in the next section. Let us take the boy who enters a skilled trade--say a branch of the woodwork industry--and follow his fortunes. He can be employed in the workshop for only half the day; during the remainder he must attend the half-time school. We have hitherto looked at this half-time school as a means of exercising supervision over conduct and physical development; we must now regard it as a place of technical instruction. There must, therefore, be various types of schools corresponding to the different groups of trades. The boy who enters a woodwork trade will attend a school designed to meet the needs of that industry. At his place of employment he will no doubt be kept to a narrow range of operations, and in their performance will acquire that dexterity which only workshop experience can give. In the half-time school he will receive the training necessary to make of him an intelligent and all-round workman. Here his ordinary education will be continued; instruction in drawing, in mensuration, and in science--all specially adapted to the requirements of his trade--will be provided; and, lastly, in the school workshop he will acquire skill in the general use of the woodwork tools. If it is urged that it will be difficult to find room in the curriculum for such varied training, it must be remembered that the subjects of instruction will all have formed part of the curriculum of the elementary school, with a bias in the direction of the woodwork industry. The boy will remain at the school for three years, and at the age of eighteen we shall have at least laid the foundation of those qualities required by the employer for success in the workshop and by the workman for success in life.

Let us take now the case of a boy who, on leaving school, finds employment in some occupation which does not lead to a skilled trade, and provides no educational training. Let us suppose he becomes an errand-boy. We cannot prevent lads of fifteen and upwards from being employed in such occupations, however undesirable, but we can at least guard against the more serious evils which are now the result. The boy will only be employed for half the day; he also must attend a half-time school. At this school he will continue his ordinary education; manual training will be provided to make him clever with his hands, while special attention will be devoted to his physical development. He will not, of course, be taught a definite trade, but will learn the general use of tools. How far, then, schools may be specialized, into different types it must be left for the future to decide. We have hitherto never seriously considered the training of the unskilled labourer, and much pioneer work of an experimental character remains to be done. At the age of eighteen the lad, like his brother in the skilled trade, will be a valuable asset in the labour market. We shall have created what we have not got now, and what we much need--a race of intelligent and adaptable unskilled labourers.

There are certain other advantages which the half-time system can claim. First, the training of the workshop and the training of the school are carried on at the same time; instruction and practice go hand in hand. Secondly, only those boys will in general be taught a skilled trade in the schools who have already entered a skilled trade. This removes an objection often felt by Trade Unionists to what they term a multiplication through the schools of half-skilled workmen. Thirdly, we have in it a system of universal apprenticeship. All boys will have been learners, and worked for the same period at low wages. There will, therefore, be no obstacle of a privileged class to make difficulties in the way of those entering a trade who have not passed through the normal course of preparation for it. Fitness for the work will be, as it should be, the sole qualification.

Looked at in a general way, the half-time schools will be called on to play a double part. They must train the man in the interests of the community and in the interests of the trade. From the employer's standpoint these schools must be essentially places of practical instruction in close touch with the workshop. Already, under existing conditions, employers and representatives of the trade have been found willing to form advisory committees to visit the schools, criticize the teaching, and make suggestions for increasing its value. The principle must be extended; only in this way shall we get the expert inspection necessary to secure real efficiency. On the other hand, the education authority, the representative of the community, will manage the schools, and make them training-grounds of true citizenship. Under this double system of control, wisely administered, we shall not lose the man in the worker or the worker in the man; the interests of the individual and the interests of the employer will alike be safeguarded. In a real sense, and in fashion adapted to modern requirements, we shall have brought back the best traditions of the old apprenticeship system in which the gild, standing at once for the community and for the trade, watched over the training of the youth of the nation.

III.

THE PROVISION OF AN OPENING.

The third and last essential of an apprenticeship system is the provision of an opening. In the last chapter we have seen the aimless drift of boys as they leave school into "blind-alley" occupations; we have watched them rapidly slough off the effects of the school training; and we have found them a few years later left stranded without prospects; and we have been driven to confess that this process of waste and demoralization is not a passing phase, but an integral part of the industrial development in its present unregulated condition. Boys, parents, employers are alike impotent to cure the evil; once again we are compelled to look to the State for help. The State must guide the choice of boys as they leave school. It must assist them during the period of adolescence to find better forms of employment, or at any rate to retain and increase the value of the school training, and it must bridge the gulf that now separates the work of the lad from the work of the man.

Already the necessary organization is in process of formation. We have seen how the establishment of Labour Exchanges for adults has, quite unexpectedly, led to the creation of special departments for juveniles. It is singularly fortunate that this accident has led naturally to the Board of Trade being regarded as the proper authority to carry out the work. It is, however, a fact that Parliament has recently passed an Act which gives power to education authorities to spend money for this purpose. It may do no harm for education authorities to be able, without fear of surcharge, to spend money in co-operating with the Board of Trade, but it would be disastrous if they came to think themselves the responsible authority for the undertaking. One of the chief objects of the machinery is the bridging of the gulf between youth and manhood. We should not enter on this difficult task with much hope of success if we perpetuated the distinction by making the Board of Trade responsible for the work of adults, and the education authorities responsible for the work of juveniles. Further, we are coming to see that questions of employment are questions which must be dealt with by a national, and not a local, body. Only a national authority, with its knowledge of the conditions over the whole country, could be in a position to estimate the prospects in any trade, or to decide as to the right proportions of boys to men. Next, the unit of area for employment bears no relation to the unit of area for educational purposes. Towns are separated from the adjoining districts. The unit of area for London employment, for example, is not the administrative county, but Greater London, and in Greater London there are more than thirty education authorities. If these are not in agreement--and when are thirty local authorities in agreement?--no system of regulation would be effective. If, let us say, the London County Council, in order to discourage the employment of van-boys, declined to supply them through their Exchange, their action would be without result if the adjoining districts did not follow suit, while it is impossible to conceive a more chaotic organization than one which would allow employers in the City to be canvassed for openings by thirty independent bodies.

For these and many other reasons the Board of Trade must be regarded as the dominant authority for the organization of the Juvenile Labour Exchange. On the other hand, there must be close co-operation between the Labour Exchange and the education authority. The Board of Trade has recognized the importance of this co-operation, and is making full provision for it in the machinery it is setting up. It is forming local advisory committees in connection with each Labour Exchange, and is making them practically responsible for the control of the juvenile department. On this committee are appointed persons nominated by the Board of Trade on the one hand, and on the other by the education authority. The committee thus represents the two branches of the organization. These committees are only just coming into existence, and it is too early to judge of their success. The problem is one of immediate practical importance; it is, therefore, desirable to consider a little in detail the principles that should guide them in their work. For the same reason it is desirable to ignore for the moment the proposals made in the preceding sections, to take things as they are, and to show what can be achieved under existing conditions.

The work of the Juvenile Labour Exchange divides itself naturally into a number of different parts or stages. The first stage is concerned with the boy while still at school. Some months before he is likely to leave he must be seen with the view of inducing him to make use of the Labour Exchange to obtain employment. A form will be filled up showing his position in the school, and any particular ability he may have displayed, recording the state of his health as revealed by medical inspection, and indicating any particular desire as to occupation expressed by himself or his parents. The interview and the filling up of the form will be undertaken by someone connected with the school organization--a teacher, or probably a volunteer. The institution of care committees for each school in connection with medical treatment, and the supply of meals to necessitous children, has enlisted the services of a large number of volunteers who would probably be found willing to make themselves responsible for this part of the work. The form, when filled up, will be sent to the Labour Exchange, where, if thought desirable, arrangements will be made by certain members of the advisory committee, in company with the secretary, to interview the boy and his parents.

The next part of the work is connected with the finding of vacancies. Either the employer will notify the Exchange of forthcoming vacancies or vacancies be obtained by canvassing employers. In either case it will be necessary to ascertain exactly the nature and the prospects of the employment. For this work expert knowledge is essential, and it will devolve almost entirely on the secretary or other paid officers of the Exchange. Having found boys wanting employers and employers wanting boys, it will be the duty of the advisory committee to bring the two parties together.

The second stage in the work begins as soon as the boy has obtained employment. It will be desirable, if possible, to secure periodic reports, either by interview or by letter, from the employer, who in the majority of cases would no doubt be willing to give the information asked for. We should then know how the boy is getting on at his work from the employer's point of view. We must also know how he is getting on from his own point of view. For this and other reasons it is absolutely essential to keep in touch with the boy in his home. A tactful person, paying periodic visits to the home and seeing the boy, would soon learn what prospects the employment offered, what progress he was making, and would be able to advise him as to what evening classes he should attend, and to help him in those many ways in which a boy can be helped when first he goes out to work. In this way a large amount of valuable though unostentatious supervision would be kept over the boy. The persons most capable of doing this home-visiting are volunteers. In many cases the member of the school case committee who originally interviewed the boy would undertake the duty of supervision; in other cases we might get the assistance of the manager of a boys' club or other similar institution of which the boy was a member; but in all cases the advisory committee must make provision for supervision in the home. The reports from the home and the reports from the employer would be filed at the Exchange. They will enable the advisory committee to follow the career of every boy placed out, and at the same time gradually furnish a mass of detailed information respecting the employers of the district.

To what kind of employers or to what classes of employment shall we send boys? To all who ask, or to only selected number? Experience will no doubt show that there are certain employers of such a kind that under no circumstances ought we to trust them with boys. The number of such will be very small, and presents no serious difficulty. We should not supply boys until we had a guarantee that the conditions offered were improved. The question of the class of employment requires more careful consideration. There is a danger into which the advisory committee may easily fall. Recognizing the evils of "blind-alley" occupations, they may be inclined to refuse to send boys to such forms of employment, and only recommend boys to places where there is a prospect of learning a trade. Such a policy would be a fatal one. We should not thereby discourage "blind-alley" occupations, employers would get their boys as they have got them in the past, and the only result would be that we should lose all control over the boys, be unable to move them later to better situations, and so leave the problem not only unsolved, but, for want of knowledge, without possibility of solution. We ought not in the Labour Exchange to bar out any form of employment unless we are prepared to make that employment illegal by Act of Parliament. Street-selling might fairly come within that category, and no doubt other forms of employment will later be brought within the same class. But to bring them within that class, accurate information as to evil effects must be collected in order to stiffen public opinion, and if we wash our hands from the outset of all responsibility for such trades, we shall never have that accurate information. The first step in the way of regulation is that accurate knowledge which a detailed supervision of the boys placed out alone can give. There will, however, always be a temptation for the Exchange to confine its activities to the skilled trades, and let the others go. In Munich, for example, we find the education authority devoting much attention to the apprenticeship section of the work, while "unskilled labourers appear to be left to the Labour Exchange, and they receive, therefore, no advice in selecting their work." [184] The same tendency is seen in this country among the various voluntary associations for obtaining employment for boys. They have concentrated almost exclusively on the skilled trades. The results, expressed in figures or percentages, are pleasing, but altogether misleading. They ignore the large residuum which drifts without advice and without supervision into the less favourable openings, and in matters of social reform it is the large residuums that count. It is always nice to get a nice place for a nice boy that we know; but if we do no more, there is no reason to believe that our action is of any advantage to the community at large. The nice places always are filled, and not infrequently the only effect of interference is that A., who is known, gets the job instead of the unknown B. The Labour Exchange must resist this temptation. It should aim at inducing all employers to obtain their supply of boy labour from the Exchange; its influence will then be at a maximum.

The mere establishment of a Juvenile Labour Exchange cannot create favourable openings; it cannot in itself alter the direction of the demand for labour. It might, therefore, be asked what is the use of an exchange for boys who can already find employment of a sort more easily than is good for them? First, there are the advantages of supervision and the opportunities for friendly advice and sympathy; secondly, there is the task of collecting accurate information which will lead up to legislative action, and the system of regulation which is ultimately inevitable; thirdly, while not closing the door to the "blind-alley" occupations, there is no need for the advisory committees to press them on the parent. They would, on the contrary, point out the evils, and suggest either that the opening should be refused or accepted only as a temporary expedient. The object should be to induce the parent to refuse situations which did not afford any prospects of learning or allow time off to attend a continuation school. The "blind-alley" occupations would disappear to-morrow if parents stubbornly refused to permit their boys to fill them. For the moment, moreover, the advantage is all on the side of the parent, as the demand for boys outruns the supply. But neither individual parent nor individual boy can take advantage of this fact; they have not the knowledge or the opportunity to make their voices effectively heard. There is no trade union of parents or trade union of boys, or, indeed, can be, in the "blind-alley" occupations. Collective bargaining must be done for them, and the advisory committee must be its instrument. They must first create the opinion among the parents, and then give effect to it through the Exchange. If employers found that, so long as they refused to offer better conditions, they were either unable to get boys or only got the least satisfactory boys, there would be a strong inducement for them to change their ways. Finally, there is the reverse of this system of educating the parents--the educating of the employers. There is already growing up a feeling among employers that if they cannot give the boys employment as men they might at least offer them opportunities of continuing their education. At a conference held in 1910 between agencies interested in the welfare of boys and employers of labour, under the presidency of the Chairman of the London Chamber of Commerce, the following resolutions were unanimously adopted: "That the London Chamber of Commerce be asked to consider the advisability of establishing a register of its members who would be willing to engage or apprentice boys with a view to the co-operation of the Chamber with the various institutions interested in the welfare of boys." "That employers of labour be recommended, by reducing the present hours of labour or otherwise, to give such facilities as may be possible consistently with the requirements of their business to enable boys and youths to obtain technical instruction." Judicious canvassing among a certain class of employers may, therefore, lead to most beneficent results. It should also be borne in mind that in London and other towns into which there is a large immigration of adult labour, there is room for new openings leading on to skilled trades.

While much can unquestionably be done under existing conditions to improve and supervise the conditions of boy labour by means of the Juvenile Labour Exchange, it is certain that sooner or later there will be need of regulation by Act of Parliament. Probably the best course would be to give the Board of Trade power in the case of certain occupations to limit at their discretion the employment of boys to boys engaged at the Exchange. If in addition the proposals made in the previous sections were to become law, we should be in a very strong position to launch the youth on the ocean of manhood with all the prospects of a successful voyage.

IV.

GENERAL CONCLUSIONS.

At the end of a long and rather complex discussion it is desirable to attempt some general summary of what has already been achieved and of the proposals necessary for the creation of a true apprenticeship system. It will make for clearness if we take a boy and follow his career through its various stages.

At the age of five or thereabouts he will enter the elementary school. It is to be hoped that the reorganization of the public health services and the more careful attention devoted to the period of infancy may send him to the school free from those physical defects so common now, and healthy within the limits of nature. Here he will begin his education. Improved methods of teaching will make for increased intelligence and the growth of numerous interests, while physical exercises, medical inspection and treatment, added to the supply of wholesome food to the necessitous, will promote the healthy development of his body.

At the age of eleven comes an important epoch in his career. It is then that, if found suitable, he will, with the help of a scholarship, be sent to the secondary school, and thence be led along a broad road to the University. Failing the winning of a scholarship, he will, if he display any special aptitude, be drafted off to a central school with a commercial or industrial bias. Failing, again, the proof of any exceptional ability, he will remain in the ordinary school. In either case he will continue at school till the age of fifteen, will be forbidden to work for wages outside school hours, and will throughout be periodically examined by the school doctor.

With the approach to the age of fifteen begins the second important epoch in his career. Some time before the day of leaving school arrives he will have been interviewed by a friendly volunteer, who, with the help of the school record and medical register, will be able to decide for what form of employment he is best suited. In the meanwhile the Labour Exchange will have found for him a suitable opening, or, failing this, a temporary situation pending a more satisfactory and permanent position. If he gain a place in a skilled trade, the half-time school, which he must attend for the next three years, will add to the training of the workshop that all-round training, whose result is intelligence and adaptability, required to make of him an efficient artisan. If he is destined to fill the ranks of unskilled labour, he will likewise attend a half-time school carefully designed to enable him to play a useful part in the world of life. In both cases he will remain for half-time under the supervision of the education authority; in both cases periodic medical inspection will watch over his physical development, and if it show him physically unfit for the work he has undertaken, he will be found employment more suitable to his strength; in both cases the advisory committee of the Labour Exchange will receive reports from the home, the school, and the employer, and these reports will enable them to discover whether the occupation and the training are well adapted to foster his natural abilities. For three years, while at work, he will also remain at school; for three years his training will be guided by employers who will see to it that it turns out the efficient workman, and by the education authority, which, acting in the interests of the community, will see that it makes for the efficient citizen.

In process of time, with the gradual accumulation of experience, and with the knowledge of the Board of Trade behind it, the advisory committee will be able to adjust the supply of boys in course of special training to meet the demands of special trades, and even if some unforeseen transformation of industry upsets the calculations, there should be no insurmountable difficulty of disposing of lads at the age of eighteen who are at once well conducted, physically fit, and intelligent.

We come back to the position from which we started in the introduction--the need of securing for the youth of the country adequate supervision up to the age of at least eighteen, appropriate training during that period, and at its conclusion the provision of an opening in some occupation for which special preparation has been given. We have seen that for at any rate a large section of the people these conditions were satisfied during the best days of the gilds, and that they were satisfied in direct proportion to the extent to which the gilds stood for the common interests. With the decay and disappearance of the gilds the training of the youth became a matter of individual bargaining between parent and employer. No authority, standing for the common good, superintended the process. Apprenticeship might be enforced; its efficiency could not be guaranteed. Further, the existence of apprenticeship tended to create a privileged class who resented the intrusion of those who entered a trade by other means. With the coming of the industrial revolution, training itself became more difficult. The large workshop and the division of labour were unfavourable to apprenticeship. Employers wanted to use boys, and not to train them. Rapid progress of invention continually discounted the value of acquired manual skill, and parents could not see at the conclusion of the apprenticeship any prospect of a favourable opening in a skilled trade; while the gradual break-up of the system of supervision bred a spirit of independence among boys which rendered them disinclined to bind themselves for a period of years. Finally, competition, with the urgent need of surviving the struggle of to-day, made it hard for employers to prepare for the future by providing for the training of the future workmen. The industrial system gave no guarantee for the efficiency of the next generation of workers. The old apprenticeship system had broken down.

But in the period of general disintegration there was slowly developing--at first unconsciously, and later with more clearly directed effort--an organization which made for constructive reform. It was called into being as a last resort, and to save the country from the ruin which was threatened by the exploitation of children. Competition demanded the sacrifice of to-morrow to-day; the State, whose interests belong to all time, was driven to forbid the sacrifice. Competition demanded that children of tender years should labour in the mines and the factories, and under conditions that made all health a mockery; the State insisted on a minimum standard of health and safety for its children. The standard, low at first, has steadily been raised. Thus has grown up the regulation of child labour and the Acts relating to factories and workshops. Competition cared nothing for the education of the children; it wanted to use them up and cast them on the waste-heap. The State, recognizing the dangers of an uneducated people, established by slow degrees a system of universal education. So the struggle between the two has gone on, the State only interfering as a last resort and in despair of other means to stop the evil. Throughout its action has been generally beneficial, but the benefits have been limited because that action has been partial and patchy. Much of the expenditure, for example, on education has been wasted just because the education came to an end too soon. The time had come for a more comprehensive study of the situation that should indicate the faults of the existing system.

Such a study has been attempted in the present volume. The task has been comparatively easy, because the evils are generally admitted. What has not hitherto been recognized sufficiently is the fact that these evils are growing, and not in course of removal. The various factors in the process have been examined, and, ignoring the State, they are clearly inadequate, and progressively inadequate, to the task of solving the problem. As a last resort the State remains. If the principles underlying the training of youth are admitted, if out of the various possible forces concerned all with one exception have been proved defective, then we must put our hopes in the one exception. We must enlarge the sphere of influence of the State. How this should be done has been shown in the present chapter.

The principles underlying the proposals have all been drawn from experience, and are founded on the apprenticeship system, but applied with modifications suitable to changed conditions. Under the gild system there were three interests concerned and conjoined--the interests of the master, the interest of journeyman and apprentice, and the interest of the community. Since the gilds have gone these interests have become separate and increasingly antagonistic. For the successful training of the youth of the country the claims of these clashing interests must again be brought together and reconciled. Ultimately and in the long-run they are identical; it is only competition, with its dimmed and narrow vision, that made the cleavage. It is hoped that the proposals outlined in this chapter will point the road towards a final peace. Let us, in conclusion, bring them to the test of the three essentials for which a true apprenticeship system must make adequate provision.

There must be supervision--supervision of conduct, supervision of health. Under the new apprenticeship system the State will be the ultimate authority for the supervision of conduct. Till the age of fifteen the boy will remain subject to the control of the schools. Long experience has demonstrated the beneficent influence exercised by the teachers over the children even under present conditions, when the school career is brought to an end at the age of thirteen or fourteen. There is, therefore, nothing wild in the expectation that, with compulsory attendance extended to the age of fifteen, we shall receive richer and more lasting fruits. For the next three years, the critical period of a boy's life, with its first experience of the workshop and the sense of independence which comes with earning wages, the supervision of the State will only in part be withdrawn. During these years he will be compelled to attend the half-time school, and so continue under the control of the education authority. Nor is this all. The advisory committee of the Labour Exchange will advise him in the choice of employment, assist him to obtain it, and generally watch over his career. Thus, helped on his journey and surrounded with wise and friendly influences, he will approach the threshold of manhood with such promise of success as good habits and an ordered life may bring.

The State, likewise, will be responsible for the supervision of the boy's health. Periodic medical inspection will watch and aid his physical development. We have not yet learned to appreciate the full value of this periodic inspection; it is, however, destined to become the most powerful instrument of reform. The ill-nourished child, the delicate child, the child in the early stages of phthisis, the child of negligent parents, the child from the overcrowded or insanitary home--all these, the future weaklings of the nation, we know them now only when the evil has too often outrun the possibility of a cure and it is too late. Under the new conditions we shall detect the evil in its first beginning, while there is yet hope. Medical inspection is also the key to the situation after the boy goes out to work, and for three years he will remain under its control. At the present time we only dimly realize the disastrous effects that come to a boy from the choice of an occupation ill-suited to his strength. We forbid a few forms of work, attempt for the most part ineffectively to limit the hours of employment in a few others, but in our clumsy fashion legislate as a rule for the normal child, and it is the abnormal child that suffers most. Under the new conditions there will be no work for children under the age of fifteen, while for the three following years medical inspection will enable us to legislate for the individual boy, taking into account his physical characteristics. Not only shall we be able to help a boy to avoid making a wrong choice, but we shall be able to remove him as soon as medical inspection shows him unfit for the work. Thus, to the age of eighteen the State has its finger on the pulse of the youth.

Secondly, there must be an adequate provision of training, special and general, accessible to all. Here, again, we are building on the firm rock of solid experience. The elementary schools have proved themselves to be schools for the cultivation of intelligence. With a year or two added to the school life; with the relief from that distracting influence which comes from wage-earning while at school; with the improved methods of teaching and a clearer differentiation of types of school to suit varying types of mind--reforms already under way--we may fairly hope for a general rise in the intelligence of the boys. The half-time school, with its three years' course, will supply the more specialized training required in the different trades and occupations, while committees of employers will provide the expert criticism essential to success.

Finally, there must be the provision of an opening in some form of employment for which special preparation has been given. The Labour Exchange, the juvenile branch worked in close co-operation with the adult section, will supply the opening, while the technical training will give good guarantee for the adequacy of the preparation. The Elementary School, the Half-time School, the Education Authority, and the Advisory Committee, all acting together, will insure a safe passage from youth to manhood.

The new apprenticeship system is more complex than the old--it lacks something of the picturesqueness of the Middle Ages--but it finds its compensation in an organization at once more flexible and more comprehensive, and therefore better suited to stand the shock of those huge changes in methods of production and methods of living which have been the ungainly offspring of the industrial revolution.

LIST OF AUTHORITIES

I

PARLIAMENTARY AND MUNICIPAL PUBLICATIONS

Elementary Schools (Children Working for Wages), Parts I. and II., Parliamentary Return. 1899.

Report of the Interdepartmental Committee on the Employment of School-Children. 1901.

Report of the Departmental Committee on the Employment of Children Act, 1903. 1910.

Report of the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws and the Relief of Distress. 1909.

Report by Mr. Cyril Jackson on Boy Labour. 1909.

Report of the Commissioners of Prisons for the year ending March 31, 1908.

Report of the Chief Medical Officer of the Board of Education for the year 1909.

Report of the Consultative Committee of the Board of Education on Higher Elementary Schools. 1906.

Report of the Consultative Committee of the Board of Education on Attendance, Compulsory or Otherwise, at Continuation Schools. 2 vols., 1909.

Report on the By-Laws made by the London County Council under the Employment of Children Act, 1903, by Chester Jones. 1906.

London County Council Report of the Medical Officer (Education) for the year 1906.

London County Council Report of the Medical Officer (Education) for the year 1909.

London County Council: Medical Treatment of Children attending Elementary Schools--Report of Education Committee. 1909.

London County Council: Home Circumstances of Necessitous Children in Twelve Selected Schools. 1909.

London County Council: The Apprenticeship Question. 1906.

London County Council: Report of the Higher Education Sub-Committee on Apprenticeship: Agenda of Education Committee, February 24, 1909, pp. 412-425.

London County Council: Technical Education Board Report on the Building Trades. 1899.

London County Council: Report by Miss Durham, Inspector of Women's Technical Classes on Juvenile Labour in Germany. 1910.

London County Council: Report by Mr. R. Blair (Education Officer) on Organization of Education in London. P. S. King and Son, Westminster.

County Council of Middlesex: Report by Mr. A. J. Bird (Inspector of Schools) on Employment Bureaux for Children of School-leaving Age.

Urban District Council of Finchley: Annual Report of the Medical Officer of Health, including the Report to the Education Committee for the year 1908.

Gloucestershire Education Committee: Report of the Minor Committee to consider Certain Proposals for the Creation of an Apprenticeship Fund and a Labour Bureau. 1907.

II

AUTHORS

ABRAHAM AND DAVIES: Factories and Workshops. 1902.

ABRAM, A.: Social Life in the Fifteenth Century. 1909.

ALDEN, MARGARET: Child Life and Labour.

ASHLEY, W. J.: Introduction to English Economic History. 1888.

BEVERIDGE, W. H.: Unemployment. 1909.

BLACK, CLEMENTINA: Sweated Industry. 1907.

BLAIR, R.: Some Features of American Education. 1904.

BOOTH, CHARLES: Life and Labour of the People, 9 vols. 1896.

BRAY, REGINALD A.: The Apprenticeship Question, in _Economic Journal_, September, 1909.

BRAY, REGINALD A.: The Town Child. 1907.

CHRISTIAN SOCIAL UNION: Report on the Employment of Boys in the London Area. 1910.

Continuation Schools in England and Elsewhere, edited by M. E. SADLER. 1907.

CREASEY, CLARENCE H.: Technical Education in Evening Schools. 1905.

CROWLEY, RALPH H.: Hygiene of School Life. 1909.

CUNINGHAM, W.: Growth of English Industry and Commerce: Early and Middle Ages. 1905.

CUNINGHAM, W.: Growth of English Industry and Commerce: Modern Times, 2 vols. 1903.

DAVIES, MAUDE F.: Life in an English Village. 1909.

FRERE, MARGARET: Children's Care Committees. 1909.

GIBB, THE REV. SPENCER J.: The Problem of Boy Work. 1906.

GIBB, THE REV. SPENCER J.: Boy Work and Unemployment. C.S.U. Pamphlet.

GORDON, OGILVIE: Handbook of Employments. 1908.

GREEN, J. R.: History of the English Peoples, vols. i. and iv. 1896.

GREEN, MRS. J. R.: Town Life in the Fifteenth Century, 2 vols. 1894.

HALL, G. STANLEY: Adolescence, 2 vols.

HASBACH, W.: History of the English Agricultural Labourer. 1908.

HAWKINS, C. B.: Norwich: A Social Study. 1910.

HAYWARD, F. H.: Day and Evening Schools. 1910.

HOGARTH, A. H.: Medical Inspection of Schools. 1909.

HUTCHINS AND HARRISON: A History of Factory Legislation. 1907.

JACKSON, CYRIL: Unemployment and Trade Unions. 1910.

JEBB, EGLANTYNE: Cambridge: A Brief Study in Social Questions. 1906.

KEELING, FREDERIC: The Labour Exchange in Relation to Boy and Girl Labour. 1910.

KIRKMAN, GRAY B.: A History of English Philanthropy. 1905.

KIRKMAN, GRAY B.: Philanthropy and the State.

KNOWLES, G. W.: Junior Labour Exchanges. 1910.

MACMILLAN, MARGARET: Labour and Childhood. 1907.

MOSELEY: Educational Committee Report. 1904.

NICHOLLS, SIR G.: History of the English Poor Law. 1898.

ROGERS, J. E. T.: Six Centuries of Work and Wages. 1884.

ROWNTREE, B. S.: Poverty: A Study of Town Life. 1901.

RUSSELL, C. E. B.: Manchester Boys. 1905.

RUSSELL AND RIGBY: The Making of the Criminal. 1906.

RUSSELL AND RIGBY: Working Lads' Clubs. 1908.