This tendency to demand the services of _Boy Labour and Apprenticeship

classes of society. To take a single example of quite recent growth: It is

becoming less and less common for the housewife to bring the results of

her marketing home herself; a boy delivers the goods instead. Go into any

shop, even in the poorest part of the town, and make a few purchases; the

shopman will probably offer to send them home for you. There is something

flattering and pleasant in the offer; it is one of the new products of

competition to multiply conveniences instead of cutting prices. The demand

for boys is rapidly increasing; and while the demand is increasing, the

supply of boys has diminished. The raising of the school age, the improved

attendance, and the decrease of truancy, have all removed from the labour

market an immense number of boys. "The Census figures show that there has

been a steady diminution of boys employed under fifteen during the last

quarter of a century." [121] The Labour Exchanges testify to the same

effect, the managers frequently saying: "There is an unsatisfied demand

for juvenile labour of an unskilled type." [122] This growing demand has

two effects. First, as it becomes increasingly easier for boys to obtain

situations, there is less and less inducement for them to show such

industry and good conduct as are necessary to retain their places.

Dismissal has no terrors; it means, if they please, a few days' holiday,

or, if they prefer it, a new employer can be at once discovered. It

becomes therefore difficult for an employer to exercise over the boys the

discipline they need; if he attempt to do so, he will soon find himself

without boys. Lads change situations for the mere sake of change, to see

what happens. "I have known," says Mr. J. G. Cloete, "boys who, within

three years of leaving school, have been employed in as many as seventeen

different occupations." [123] The second consequence of the increased

demand for boys in these kinds of occupations is a rise in wages. The

earnings of these boys are considerably higher than those obtained by a

boy who enters a skilled trade. "The casual and low-skilled employments

give higher wages in the early years in order to attract the boys." [124]

With boys choosing, as they do, their own occupations, high wages at the

outset are more attractive than low wages with the prospect of learning a

trade.

The third characteristic these occupations have in common lies in certain

general conditions of employment. Hours are long; at the same time, the

boy is often idle for long periods, waiting for messages to come in and

parcels to go out. Shop-boys and telegraph-boys are kept hanging about

with nothing to do. The office-boy in a small office is often the whole

staff, and is left alone for hours when his master is out, and "spends his

time either in vacancy, in mischievous expeditions along the corridor, or

in reading trash of a bloodthirsty nature." [125] The boy has often heavy

goods to carry long distances, and overtaxes his strength. Either there

is too much idleness or too much work; these are the alternatives. In

neither case is there the possibility of much supervision.

The fourth characteristic has not received the attention it deserves.

These forms of occupation, though unskilled in the sense that the boy

receives no training in his present place of business, nevertheless demand

qualities of a high standard. The boy must be regular, obedient, and,

above all, intelligent. A dull boy as a messenger is liable to make stupid

and irritating mistakes. The stories of district messengers carrying

letters unaided over the Continent show that the boys possess no ordinary

intelligence. Now, we have already seen that these are the qualities which

are in a peculiar degree the product of the elementary schools. The

schools turn out innumerable boys of this kind. It is not, perhaps, a mere

coincidence that the increasing use of boys in occupations which call for

alertness of mind has gone on side by side with improvements in the

educational system. The State has spent much money on these boys. A boy

who starts to attend school at the age of three and leaves at fourteen has

had spent on him a sum of money which, if invested year by year at 4 per

cent., and left to accumulate till the time for leaving school comes,

would amount to nearly L100. Each year in the 30,000 boys who leave school

L3,000,000 of State-created value is turned adrift. The State has

therefore a right to demand that this capital sum of L100 invested in the

boy shall not be squandered by the employer. He ought to give back at the

age of eighteen at least as valuable an article as he received four years

earlier.

This consideration leads to the last characteristic distinguishing these

occupations. They lead to nothing, and when the boy reaches the end, he

is, in the majority of cases, distinctly inferior in every way to what he

was three or four years before. Evidence in favour of this assertion is

overwhelming. "At the present time, at the age of eighteen, after a four

years' course of employment, whose chief characteristics are the long

hours, the lack of supervision, and the total absence of any educational

influence, the lad is a distinctly less valuable article in the labour

market than he was when he left school four years previously. His only

asset is represented by greater physical strength, accompanied probably by

a marked decrease in general health and vigour. He has lost the

intelligence and aptitude of the boy, and remains a clumsy and

unintelligent man, fitted for nothing but unskilled labour, and likely to

become sooner or later one of the unemployed." [126] "There seems little

doubt that the boy labour is used up for industrial purposes, and that

they are left less capable members of the community, with little prospect

of good work when they become adults." [127] "The most hopeless position is

that of the errand-boy at a small shop in a poor neighbourhood; his

prospects are absolutely nil." [128] "The chart prepared from the forms

filled in by boys who entered life as errand-boys shows that the small

proportion who find steady and skilled employment afterwards have ceased

to be errand-boys very early; the vast majority become workers in

low-skill trades, or general and casual labourers." [129] "Mr. Courtney

Terell, who has been making inquiries from the Passmore Edwards

Settlement, writes: 'I feel confident ... that the messenger work produced

a definite effect on the boys, as will the continual performance of any

one of a definite function which admits of no improvement, and that this

has unfitted them for other work.'" [130] "The injury done to these boys is

not that they are compelled as men to devote themselves to low-skilled

labour, but that from the more or less specialized nature of the work

which has employed this boyhood, they are unfitted to become good

low-skilled labourers." [131]

It is impossible to resist the mass of evidence of this kind which might

easily be increased indefinitely. The boy gains nothing from this form of

employment and loses much. He loses the results of his training in the

elementary school; the habits of obedience, regularity, and industry are

dead; the bright intelligence is dulled, and with the coming of dulness

goes the power of learning. He loses his prospects; his future is the

future of the unskilled labourer--the unskilled labourer, robbed of that

grit and alertness which alone secure for unskilled labour the adequate

reward of permanent employment at a steady wage. His loss is the loss of

the community, which is compelled later to relieve him and his family, and

perhaps in the end find a home for him in the workhouse. And in thinking

of this deterioration, and of that hopeless future which that

deterioration involves, we must never forget that it is not a mere handful

of lads who suffer in this way, but that half the boys who leave the

elementary school start on this dreary journey, and, so starting, bid fare

to reach that dreary end.

Reckoned in money, the State has spent a million and a half on these boys,

and but little comes back to the State or remains with the boy. If it has

gone anywhere, and it probably has, then it has gone into the pockets of

the employers who have sucked out of the boys their value, and then cast

them aside as worthless refuse, a sort of slag or waste product of their

works, for which neither they nor anyone else can find a use. In saying

this there is no desire to censure unfairly the employers. They are

undoubtedly to blame, because thoughtlessness and ignorance in persons of

their position are always blameworthy; but there is nothing deliberate in

their actions, and they are largely unconscious of the harm they are

doing. There is no active cruelty, and often much rude and ready kindness.

The boys to them are merely instruments in the machinery of their

business, for the moment the cheapest instruments that can be found, to be

used until a new and better supply takes the place of those who are used

up. They are ignorant of the consequences of their conduct, and, as their

evidence shows, generally imagine that the boys who leave find suitable

jobs. It is only of late years that numerous investigators and managers of

boys' clubs have revealed the grave results of this thoughtlessness.

Employers who generally enjoy a good reputation as employers are often the

worst offenders. Indeed, the most flagrant example of this exploitation of

boy labour is to be found in the Imperial Government and the Municipal

Service. Mr. Cyril Jackson has in his report devoted much space to the

telegraph-boys in the service of the Post Office. "The boys come from very

good homes, and are often the pick of the family. They are examined

medically, and bring characters." [132] A mere fraction are absorbed in the

adult service. "It appears as if the Post Office is one of the least

promising occupations into which a boy can enter. The better boys go into

it, and it is very depressing to see from our returns how very few of the

very large number discharged at sixteen or seventeen get into as good

employment as their good social standing and general standard of education

should have guaranteed for them." [133] "Everyone of experience seems to

agree that these telegraph-messengers who are discharged exemplify in a

very striking way the evils of a parasitic trade." [134] Yet these things

had been going on for years in a service like that of the Post Office,

which is subject to much criticism by its employees, and yet no attention

had been called to the evil. Unfortunately, boys have no votes, and do not

form trade unions. Other Government departments and the Municipal Service

seem no less ignorant and no less worthy of blame. A short time back the

Education Committee called the attention of the London County Council to

the misuse of its boy labour, and now the Council allows its boys, weekly,

six hours "off" during working hours, and provides classes which they are

compelled to attend. At the same time it has nominated one of its officers

to look after the interests of these boys, and to guide them into useful

occupations.

If the public service is thus guilty, we must not be surprised that

private employers are not conscious of wrongdoing in their use of boys.

The evil is now revealed; there can be no further excuse for ignorance.

How to deal adequately with the problem must be left to the consideration

of the next chapter.

The third division of the unskilled occupations comes under the head

"General Labour." Some 9 per cent. of the boys as they leave school fall

into this class. This is a nondescript class not clearly defined in the

returns. Probably a considerable proportion should be brought into the

preceding class, but there are evidently a large number who could not be

disposed of in this way. Boys employed in warehouses, in gardens and

parks, boys in small places assisting the master in the lighter forms of

labour, boys accompanying their fathers and joining in his work--these

come into this division. The returns are not sufficiently explicit to

yield materials for a critical examination; but one or two conclusions can

be derived from their examination. It will be seen that 22 per cent. of

the parents, as compared with 9 per cent. of boys, are recorded as being

general labourers. There is here no excess of boys; there should not be

the same difficulty in boys finding openings in the adult service as in

those occupations where boys can claim a practical monopoly. Boys have

always taken some part in labouring work, and so passed to the better

class of unskilled labour. Boys in warehouses, for example, frequently

find there permanent situations. Further, the proportion of parents to

sons would indicate the possibility of the two being employed together,

and the boy thus remaining under the supervision of his father. An

examination of individual returns justifies this conclusion. On the other

hand, it is to be remembered that the hours of employment are frequently

very long, and the work arduous and ill suited to the strength of a

growing lad, and in no way regulated by legislation. Taken as a whole, it

is probable that the boys who enter this kind of occupation, though

without opportunity of continuing their education, are not in as forlorn a

condition as those in the previous class. But the whole question is

obscure, and it is difficult, without fuller information, to test the

nature of their training.

THE SKILLED OCCUPATIONS.--The skilled occupations fall into two

classes--those where manual skill is required, and those concerned with

commercial and clerical operations. The former are included under "Trades

and Industries," and the latter under "Commercial Occupations,"

"Professional Occupations," and "Local Government."

1. _Trades and Industries._--From the tables printed on pp. 115-118, it

will be seen that under this heading there are in Table I., the type of a

working-class district, 41 per cent. of parents and 19 per cent. of boys;

in Table II., the type of a suburban district, the figures are 36 and 15

respectively; in Table III., the type of the small trader of the East End,

51 and 42; while in Table IV., the type of London as a whole, the

percentage is in the case of fathers 41, and in the case of boys 22. We

have now to consider the prospects as regards supervision, training and

opening which these trades offer to the boys who enter.

Table III., with its percentage of 51 parents and 42 boys engaged in

trades and industries, presents a pleasing appearance, but the bulk of the

trades concerned belong to the tailoring and other industries where

sweating is rife, where the skill required is of a low order, and the

wages small and often below the level of bare subsistence. The boys learn

something, are frequently employed with their fathers, and have a more or

less permanent outlook, though within the horizon of that outlook is

seldom included the vision of a living wage. They in general do not form

part of the class which finds its way into the ranks of that miscellaneous

unskilled labour whose chief characteristic is casual employment.

Ignoring this table, and taking the table for all London, we find again

the great disproportion of boys and parents. There are two ways in which

the boys may learn. They may become indentured apprentices, or, engaged

only by the week, though sometimes still termed apprentices, they may

enter the workshop, and take what chance is afforded them of "picking up"

the mysteries of the trade.

_(a) Indentured Apprenticeship._--Apprenticeship is of little importance

in London; the system is rapidly becoming obsolete. Whether this is

desirable is a matter of opinion; that it is a fact cannot be gainsaid.

All evidence is unanimous in support of this conclusion. In 1906 a special

committee was appointed by the London County Council to make inquiries

into the question, and, after careful investigation, reported that "in

London the old system of indentured apprenticeship has for many years been

falling into decay. In the majority of the industries it has almost

entirely disappeared; in others it is occasionally found existing in a

haphazard and highly unsatisfactory manner; while in only a few trades can

it be said to be the commonly recognized way of entering the

profession." [135] There are in London various charities, with an income of

about L24,000 a year, which, in accordance with the terms of their trusts,

might be used for purposes of apprenticeship; "but not more than a third

of the income has been devoted to this purpose." "The fact that so small a

fraction of the income has been devoted to apprenticeship indicates that

the trustees have not found it an easy task to find candidates anxious to

be indentured to one of the skilled trades." [136] "The recurring note,"

says Mr. Charles Booth, "throughout the whole of the industrial volumes of

the present inquiry is that the system of apprenticeship is either dead or

dying." [137] The numerous letters to the Press, the wealth of speeches on

the matter, the sundry public meetings presided over by all manner of

persons, from the Lord Mayor downwards, all voice the same opinion. It is

needless to labour the question; we may take it as an accepted fact that

in London indentured apprenticeship is obsolescent, and the system itself

of negligible value as a factor in the training of youths in the process

of skilled trades.

_(b) Picking up a Trade._--Here a boy enters a workshop, and takes his

chance of learning the trade from watching and assisting the men. The

employer is under no agreement to give him instruction--least of all, to

make an all-round craftsman of him. The boy rarely acquires more than a

certain dexterity in the performance of a single operation; and, however

proficient he may become in that operation, his general intelligence and

skill suffer from a narrow and exclusive specialization. The system and

consequences are dealt with at length in the Report of the London County

Council already mentioned. The importance of the problem must be the

justification for a long quotation:

"The high wages a lad can earn as an errand-boy ... are more attractive

than the low wages associated with an industrial training. Earning looms

larger in his imagination than the laborious and less remunerative

learning.... Even if, on leaving school, he obtains employment in a

workshop, his prospects may not be materially improved. As an errand-boy

running in and out of the workshop, if possessed of aptitude and

sharpness, he may in a haphazard fashion pick up a smattering of the

trade. If he is taken into the shop as a learner, he has little chance of

getting an all-round training. He is frequently out of work, and even when

employed seldom learns more than a single operation. The Advisory

Committee of the London County Council Shoreditch Technical Institute[138]

recently held an exhaustive inquiry on the subject, and some of the

conclusions are so germane to the present question that they merit

quotation. 'It is thus possible,' they write, 'for a boy to be at one

branch of a trade for a few months only, and when bad trade intervenes he

is thrown out of employment, and frequently finds himself at twenty years

of age without a definite knowledge of any craft whatever, and he swells

the ranks of the unemployed. We have it on the authority of foremen,

employers, apprentices, and parents, that very little opportunity exists,

even in big houses, for a boy to learn his trade thoroughly; indeed, we

have had students who have been in a workshop as apprentices for three or

four years who could not make a small drawer, and in many cases who could

not square up true or make the usual joints; and in the woodworking trade

their knowledge of drawing when they come to us is practically _nil_. It

is a rare thing to find a young workman who can attack any branch of his

trade successfully. It frequently occurs that, in consequence of extensive

subdivision of labour and excessive competition, a man or boy is set to do

one thing--_e.g._, music-stools, overmantels, chair-legs, sideboards--all

the time. It is true the man or boy becomes skilled in one direction, but

correspondingly narrow in a true appreciation of his trade. It is also a

frequent occurrence that a master who has a job on hand which is slightly

out of the usual run finds it impossible to put it in the hands of his

usual staff. Moreover, when work of delicate design and construction has

to be made from specified drawings, it is extremely difficult to obtain

men who can proceed with the work on their own responsibility. Not only do

these remarks apply to the woodcrafts generally, but they apply with equal

force to such work as upholstery (both stuffing and drapery), to

metal-work, and to carving. In connection with the latter subject, it is a

rare thing indeed for carvers to design a carcass in the rough, and then

to see whether the proposed carved portion is in harmony with the

whole--whether the said carving be too much in relief, too flat, too

expansive, or altogether out of character with the general work. It is

notorious that good polishers and furniture decorators are exceedingly

rare, and many a high-class manufacturer has his goods spoiled on account

of bad polish and decorative treatment.'" [139] It must be remembered that

this last quoted opinion is not the opinion of the amateur, but the

informed opinion of representative employers.

The woodwork and furniture trades are not peculiar in the characteristic

of inadequate training. "We have reason to believe," continues the Report,

"that if a similar inquiry were made into other trades, the same

unsatisfactory picture would be disclosed. Either the training is

one-sided, or there is no training at all. The consequences are

sufficiently obvious. The skilled trades are, we fear, recruited in the

main by immigrants outside London. In many trades the Londoner is at a

discount. Acquainted as he is with but one or two operations of his

industry, if he loses his situation, it is only with the greatest of

difficulty that he can find another. Mr. Charles Booth states that 'with

carpenters and joiners, brick-layers, carriage builders, engineers,

smiths, and saddlers, the percentages of heads of families born out of

London range from 51 to 59,' An inquiry made of the Technical Board of the

London County Council on the Building Trades in 1858 showed that '41

typical firms in various branches of the building trades having 12,000

employes had only 80 apprentices and 143 learners, instead of 1,600, which

would have been the normal proportion.' The same Report mentions that

'among the foremen and operatives who have come before us, not one stated

that he was born or trained in London.' In these trades the better

positions go inevitably to the country-bred man, with his all-round

training. In the docks alone does the Londoner hold his own. An inquiry

there showed that among the dock-labourers proper more than 72 per cent.

were born in London--a result not calculated to excite any very solid

satisfaction. These facts should arouse serious apprehension concerning

the future of the London-bred citizen. We cannot view with equanimity his

relegation to lower positions, while the better places are given to

better-trained immigrants. We are not prepared to admit that the Londoner

is, on the average, inherently inferior either in intelligence or manual

dexterity to his country-born neighbour." [140]

These quotations indicate clearly the general aspects of the situation.

They show the small prospects boys enjoy who enter a skilled trade in

London. Parents are not blind to the condition of affairs, and it is not

unnatural on their part to allow the boys to go out as errand-boys, where

at least the immediate earnings are larger and the hope of advancement not

much more discouraging.

2. _Clerical and Commercial Occupations._--Including under this head

commercial and professional occupations, and general or local government,

we find in Table I., the type of a working-class district, 6-1/2 per cent.

of parents and 8 per cent. of boys; in Table II., the type of the suburbs,

30 per cent. of parents, and 16-1/2 per cent. of boys; in Table III.,

typical of the East End, 4 per cent. of parents, and 6 per cent. of boys;

in Table IV., typical of London as a whole, 13 per cent. of parents, and

10 per cent. of boys. In the school returns no boy was placed under these

headings unless he appeared in the column "Skilled Work." In judging of

these results it must be borne in mind that the better positions fall to

those who have had at least a secondary education. Nevertheless, clever

boys, who attend evening schools, have some prospects of advancement. One

feature in the returns was the large number of boys who were apparently

employed with their fathers. In many instances boys obtain their positions

as the result of examination. This is true of several banks, assurance

companies, railway companies, and is becoming the general practice in the

Civil and Municipal Service. Many of these examinations are within the

standard of attainment reached by the cleverer boys in the elementary

schools. The boys at their place of employment are taught sufficient to

enable them to do the work allotted them. This is often of a specialized

character; and without further education they cannot expect to escape from

the lowest ranks of clerks. If well conducted, they can probably obtain a

permanent position when manhood is reached, or, at any rate, are not

discharged because they have become men. Change in the methods of

business, or failure of the concern, may entail dismissal; and after

dismissal a new position is not easily obtained. But the lower ranks of

the clerical profession are ill paid, and the need to present a good

appearance makes serious inroads on the meagre stipend. Unless the boy

continues his education and means to rise, his outlook is not very

encouraging. He has, however, the advantage of supervision, of relatively

short hours, and enjoys the possibilities of attendance at evening

schools. In spite of what is often said to the contrary, taking things as

they are, he has the best prospects of those included in the returns. The

fact that so large a proportion of boys coming from the suburbs is found

in this class would seem to indicate that the more thoughtful parents

share this opinion.

_(c) The Passage to Manhood._

The tables quoted on pp. 115-118, and founded on school returns, refer

only to the first occupations of boys as they leave school. It is

unfortunate that no figures exist which trace year by year the later

careers of the boys. All persons, however, who have any intimate knowledge

of the subject agree that the boys repeatedly move in an almost aimless

fashion from one situation to another.

The census returns indicate in a general way the distribution, among the

trades and occupations, of persons of various ages. They do not, however,

give us a yearly survey; and after the age fourteen to fifteen we are

compelled to rest content with figures which cover periods of five years.

The following table is taken from a table printed in a Report to the

Education Committee of the London County Council, made by a special

committee appointed to deal with the apprenticeship question; it is

founded on the 1901 census return:[141]

OCCUPATIONS OF BOYS AND MEN.

PERCENTAGES.

+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

|Class of Occupation. | Age | Age | Age | Age |

| | 14-15. | 15-20. | 20-45. | 45-65. |

|-----------------------------|--------|---------|---------|---------|

|Trades and industries | 14.74 | 31.54 | 35.76 | 38.85 |

|Domestic offices or services | 1.75 | 3.29 | 3.55 | 3.35 |

| van-boys, etc.) | 27.65 | 19.49 | 16.04 | 14.19 |

| and dealers | 6.03 | 12.52 | 14.51 | 9.23 |

|Commercial occupations | 4.61 | 11.50 | 9.55 | 12.40 |

|General labour | 1.46 | 5.53 | 8.46 | 7.02 |

| their subordinate services | 0.73 | 2.00 | 4.55 | 5.08 |

| telegraph-boys) | 3.01 | 2.53 | 3.70 | 2.24 |

|Defence of the country | 0.15 | 1.77 | 1.40 | 0.62 |

| boys at school) | 39.87 | 9.83 | 2.48 | 7.02 |

|-----------------------------|--------|---------|---------|---------|

|Total number analyzed | 41,889 | 208,921 | 869,466 | 313,949 |

+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

In comparing this table with the tables founded on the school returns, it

must be borne in mind that this table is not confined to persons who have

passed through the elementary schools, but refers to all the inhabitants

of London.

The most striking feature in the table is the marked difference in the

distribution of occupations at the age of fourteen to fifteen, and at

other ages. The third column, which includes persons between the ages of

twenty and forty-five, covers the period of a man's greatest vigour, and

may be regarded as the normal or stable distribution. Comparing the first

and the third column, it becomes obvious that the first year, at least,

after leaving school is a year of uncertainty and aimless wandering. The

boys have not definitely chosen any particular occupation as their life's

work. How long is spent in this state of unprofitable drifting the census

returns do not show as the following years are not separated. But the fact

that the distribution in the second column differs materially from the

normal distribution of the third column would seem to indicate that this

period stretches some distance into the years that lie between the ages of

fifteen and twenty.

In default of this general information, we must fall back on special

investigations; and here the facts are drawn from too narrow a circle of

inquiry to be regarded as altogether typical. In his report to the Poor

Law Commission, Mr. Cyril Jackson gives an instructive table[142] (see p.

145). It is founded on biographies of boys obtained from boys' clubs,

schoolmasters, and managers of schools.

I have omitted the ages that follow, as the number of boys concerned was

too few to justify any conclusions. The rapid diminution in the number of

boys when the age of eighteen is reached impairs the value of the last

two columns. In general, the districts from which the boys are drawn are

poor; but the fact that the boys come into relation with various

organizations, and were no doubt assisted by them, should lead us to

believe that the picture presented errs, if anything, by being too

favourable. The steady increase in the trades, and the equally steady

decrease in the number of van-boys, Post Office boys, errand and shop boys

during the first three years is instructive. Trades, skilled and

low-skilled, reckoned in percentages, have risen from 39.4 to 50.9, while

the messenger class has fallen from 40.1 to 23.8. The changes in the

earlier years are the most significant, and little stability of occupation

is reached before the age of eighteen. The age of fourteen evidently

represents the year of greatest indecision and maximum drift.

PERCENTAGE OF BOYS IN VARIOUS GROUPS OF OCCUPATIONS AT EACH AGE.

+-----------------------------------------------------------------+

| Occupations. |Age 14.|Age 15.|Age 16.|Age 17.|Age 18.|Age 19.|

|-----------------|-------|-------|-------|-------|-------|-------|

|Skilled trades | 11.2 | 14.0 | 16.8 | 17.8 | 18.0 | 16.3 |

|Clerks | 14.6 | 15.0 | 16.4 | 15.2 | 15.4 | 14.3 |

|Low-skilled | 28.2 | 32.8 | 34.1 | 33.9 | 32.5 | 34.1 |

|Carmen | 0.6 | 0.2 | 0.6 | 2.6 | 4.5 | 5.1 |

|Van-boys | 8.2 | 6.6 | 5.2 | 4.9 | 2.8 | 1.2 |

|Post Office | 1.4 | 1.4 | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0.3 | 1.2 |

| boys | 30.5 | 22.0 | 18.4 | 15.0 | 12.6 | 10.3 |

| casual labour | 5.3 | 7.0 | 6.7 | 6.9 | 6.4 | 8.7 |

|Army | -- | 0.6 | 0.6 | 1.1 | 3.6 | 4.0 |

|At sea | 0.2 | 0.4 | 0.8 | 1.5 | 2.8 | 3.5 |

|Emigrants | -- | -- | 0.2 | 0.4 | 0.8 | 1.2 |

|-----------------|-------|-------|-------|-------|-------|-------|

|Total No. of boys| 485 | 500 | 474 | 448 | 356 | 252 |

|Unemployed | 1 | 2 | 1 | 13 | 22 | 22 |

+-----------------------------------------------------------------+

In other parts of his report Mr. Jackson has endeavoured to follow the

history of boys who have begun life as errand-boys or as van-boys. "From

the forms returned," he writes, "it seems clear that the theory that boys

can become errand-boys for a year or two, and then enter skilled trades,

cannot be maintained. Very few boys can pick up skill after a year or two

of merely errand-boy work." [143] Or again: "The chart prepared from the

forms filled in by boys who entered life as errand-boys shows the small

proportion who find any steady and skilled employment afterwards, and

those have ceased to be errand-boys very early. The vast majority become

workers in low-skilled trades or general and casual labourers." [144] Of

all the "blind-alley" occupations, that of the van-boy appears the most

deplorable. "The life of the van-boy is a rough and somewhat lazy one.

They have long hours, spells of idleness, and considerable opportunities

of pilfering and drinking." [145] "The chart shows that it is a very low

grade of occupation, and that very few boys who begin as van-boys get into

skilled trades--a far lower percentage, in fact, than errand-boys." [146]

The second point to be noted in the table founded on the census returns is

the large number--nearly 40 per cent.--of boys of the age of fourteen

returned as without specified occupation or unoccupied (including boys at

school). There are in the elementary schools about 5,000 boys between the

age of fourteen and fifteen, and probably about the same number in

secondary schools. Converted into percentages, this 40 per cent. would be

broken up into 24 per cent. at school and 16 per cent. without specified

occupation. The last figure is high, and justifies the conclusion, not

only that the boys of fourteen wander from occupation to occupation, but

that they also are frequently doing nothing. The habit of shifting from

situation to situation necessarily involves considerable periods of

unemployment. Thus early in their career the boys become accustomed to the

evils of casual labour.

We can arrive at the same conclusion by approaching the problem from a

somewhat different point of view. If in some trades we discover an excess

of boys, and in others an excess of men, it is clear that there must be

shocks and shiftings in the passage from youth to manhood. In London the

number of lads between the ages of fourteen and twenty is 17.5 per cent.

of the number of males between the ages of fourteen and sixty-five. If,

therefore, we find the proportion of lads to total males engaged in any

trade, reckoned in percentages, differs much from 17.5, either lads must

at some time pass out of the trade or men come in. On the other hand, in a

trade where this percentage is approximately 17.5 boys who enter have, at

any rate, the chance of finding employment as men. In this sense we may

regard the distribution of lads and men in a trade as normal when this

percentage lies between 15 and 20; less than normal when it drops below

15; more than normal when it rises above 20. The following table may be

taken as an example of trades in which considerable numbers of persons are

engaged:

+---------------------------------------------------------------------+

|---------------------------|--------------|--------------|-----------|

| Building trades | 13.2 | 144.2 | 9.1 |

| Skin, leather, etc. | 2.6 | 8.5 | 14.1 |

| and lodging | 19.9 | 135.2 | 14.8 |

| General labour | 15.0 | 111.1 | 13.5 |

| government | 6.5 | 45.8 | 14.3 |

| Professional | 4.8 | 62.2 | 7.8 |

| Domestic services | 7.8 | 51.7 | 15.1 |

| Commercial occupations | 25.9 | 131.1 | 19.8 |

| Metals, machines, etc. | 14.4 | 92.7 | 15.5 |

| Precious metals | 6.6 | 36.5 | 18.2 |

| Furniture, etc. | 9.3 | 59.5 | 15.7 |

| Textile fabrics | 4.1 | 23.5 | 17.3 |

| (messengers, etc.) | 3.9 | 13.5 | 29.2 |

| Clerks, office-boys, etc.| 23.1 | 83.0 | 27.8 |

| etc. | 52.3 | 236.3 | 22.1 |

| Printers | 7.1 | 34.1 | 20.7 |

+---------------------------------------------------------------------+

If we could have taken the period fourteen to eighteen instead of fourteen

to twenty, these tables would have been even more striking than they are.

But, even as they are, they are sufficient to enforce the lesson that

between the occupation of the boy and the occupation of the man there is a

gulf fixed. The one does not lead naturally to the other. When the boy

becomes a man he does not find provided for him a natural opening; with

more or less pains, he is driven to force a way in trades for which he has

received no definite preparation, and in which diligence and good

character do not afford any guarantee of success.

_(d) Summary._

Before proceeding to examine the conditions of boy labour in other parts

of the country, it will be desirable to summarize the results for London,

and so to determine how far the essentials of a true apprenticeship system

are found in that city.

_Supervision._--The boy should be under adequate supervision until he

reaches the age of at least eighteen. In London, so far as the majority

are concerned, all State supervision ends at fourteen. When the boy goes

out to work what measure of supervision was previously found in the home

comes to an end; it is beyond the power of parents to exert any real

control over the boy. He is his own master, finds his employment for

himself, and leaves it when he thinks fit. Philanthropic enterprise

touches a fringe, and a fringe only, of the boys; their growing sense of

independence resents restraint. The story of the workshop points the same

moral. Personal relations between boy and employer are seldom possible;

and where the demand for the services of boys is unlimited and

unsatisfied, attempts to enforce discipline fail, because, sooner than

submit, the boy seeks another situation.

_Training._--For the unskilled labourer of the future London provides no

training. The schools do, indeed, turn out in the boys ready made and

completely finished articles for boy-work and "blind-alley" occupations,

and three or four years of such employment destroy the most-marked results

of elementary education. The skilled workman of the future finds in the

workshop small chance of gaining that all-round training which will make

of him a man, and not a machine. Technical education for the minority is

successful, but without power to compel attendance and limit the hours of

boy-labour it is only the few who can avail themselves of the

opportunities offered.

_Opening._--Boys' work is separated from man's work, and there is no broad

highway leading from the one to the other. The lad of eighteen is

compelled to make a new beginning just when new beginnings are most

difficult. His power of learning is gone from him, and in the unskilled

labour market alone does he see any prospect of earning immediate wages.

The State Labour Exchange is an infant which has yet to justify its

creation.

In London the provision of supervision, of training, of an opening, is

alike defective, and beyond the age of fourteen for the majority of boys

can hardly be said to exist at all; and, what is most serious, we are face

to face with a state of affairs where there is no sign of improvement, and

where all tendencies indicate for the future an accelerated rate of

progressive failure. In short, London cannot claim even the beginnings of

a real apprenticeship system.

Sec. 2. OTHER TOWNS.

Among the cities London does not stand alone in its conditions of boy

labour. It may indeed be regarded as the most extreme example of

urbanization, but it is nothing more; it is a normal type, not an

exception or monstrous exaggeration. As the capital of the Empire and the

seat of government, it has its own characteristics, but so likewise has

every other town. But dominating all these local variations and giving

uniformity to the conditions of boy labour in our cities, remain the

common features of the industrial development of to-day. This, at any

rate, is the unanimous testimony of all those investigators--and they have

been many--who have studied the problem.

I shall not, therefore, make any attempt to apply to other towns the

detailed method of investigation I have endeavoured to employ in the case

of London. It will be enough to show that the general conditions are the

same. What differences exist are differences of degree, and not

differences of kind.

_(a) The Employment of School-Children._

The investigations of the Interdepartmental Committee has proved beyond

doubt that throughout the country it is common for children, while still

attending school, to work long hours for wages. One or two quotations

will be sufficient to justify this statement. The Report declares "that,

as the door has been closed to their employment in factories and workshops

and during school-hours, there has been a tendency, which many witnesses

believe to be an increasing one, towards their employment in other

occupations before morning school, between school-hours, in the evening,

and on Saturdays and Sundays. Provided they make eight or ten attendances

every week, they may be employed (with a few exceptions, and these little

enforced) in the streets, in the fields, in shops, or at home, for the

longest possible hours, and on the hardest and most irksome work, without

any limit or regulation." [147] Evidence abounded to show that such

possibilities of overwork were frequently realized. Examples have already

been quoted in the case of London, and it is unnecessary here to go over

the same ground again.

That legislation, as at present enforced, has done little to cure the evil

of overwork may be seen from the reports of school medical officers. Some

of these are quoted in the Annual Report for 1909 of the Chief Medical

Officer of the Board of Education. The school medical officers were not

asked to report specially on the problem, but their inspection of

school-children revealed the magnitude of the evil.

"Several school medical officers report on the question of child labour

during 1909. Dr. Thresh (school medical officer, Essex) places on record

the serious extent to which children are employed out of school-hours in

the Grays and Tilbury districts, and gives many individual examples. Dr.

Forbes (school medical officer, Brighton) gives some interesting

particulars from a statement prepared by the Inspector under the

Employment of and Cruelty to Children Acts. In this area the head-teachers

furnish regularly lists of children known by them to be employed out of

school-hours. Among these children it was found that 39, 25, and 22 per

cent. were illegally employed during 1907, 1908, and 1909 respectively.

Dr. Clarke (school medical officer, Walthamstow) found that 19 per cent.

of the boys examined were employed out of school-hours, of whom 19 per

cent. worked an average of eleven hours per week; 32 per cent. worked ten

hours and over on Saturdays; 20 per cent. worked twenty hours or over

during school-days. A full analysis of all children known to be employed

out of school-hours at Yeovil is made by Dr. Page (school medical

officer), who found that 22 per cent. of all children eight years of age

and upwards were so employed, and of these 40 per cent. worked for twenty

hours and upwards per week. Dr. Hope (school medical officer of Liverpool)

produces evidence to show how usefully medical inspection may be linked up

with the arrangements made to put into force by-laws relating to the

employment of children. Thus, all cases where there was reason to suppose

that the by-laws were being infringed were reported to the Sanitary

Department. These children cases numbered 308 during the year, and a table

is given showing in what manner they were dealt with. At Leamington, 119

boys and 30 girls were reported by Dr. Burnet as employed in a

wage-earning capacity either before or after school-hours, and 90 boys and

11 girls both before and after school-hours. Of these, 63 children were of

subnormal nutrition, 22 were suffering from anaemia, 2 from phthisis, 8

from heart disease, and 25 had enlarged tonsils. Several of these children

were quite unfit for such employment, and the subject is deserving of a

thorough investigation with a view to adopting protective measures where

necessary. At Southport, 131 leaving boys (32.7 per cent.) were found to

be doing unskilled or casual work, and in Oldham 179 of the children

inspected were similarly engaged." [148]

As in London, so in other parts of the country, school-children work for

long hours, and no adequate means exist at present to prevent the evil. As

in London, so in other parts of the country, signs of serious physical

weakness are the common accompaniments of this employment, and the health

of the rising generation is injured. As in London, so in other parts of

the country, the forms of employment in which children are engaged are

uneducational, and tend to lead children, when school-days are over, into

the "blind-alley" occupations.

Besides these children, there are about 38,000 "half-timers." [149] It is

needless here to dilate on the evils of the half-time system, which allows

children who have reached the age of twelve to spend half the day in the

factory and workshop. It is condemned by all qualified to pass on it an

impartial judgment. Its continuance reflects little credit on the humanity

of those employers and those trade unions who have repeatedly opposed its

abolition.

_(b) The Entry to a Trade._

The survey of conditions of juvenile employment in London made clear

certain facts. There was the growing demand for boys in what has been

called "blind-alley" occupations, and the demoralizing effect of such

work. There was the difficulty of obtaining adequate training for those

who had entered a skilled trade. There was a general lack of supervision

in the workshop. And, finally, there was no easy passage from youth to

manhood. It is impossible to read the Report of the Poor Law Commission

and the volumes of evidence, or to study the various investigations into

the conditions of sundry towns, without being convinced that London is in

no way peculiar. The chief difficulty in approaching the problem lies in

the selection of the all too numerous witnesses.

The Report of the Poor Law Commission probably provides the best summary

of the mass of evidence on the subject. Both Reports--Majority and

Minority--alike realize the gravity of the problem, not for London alone,

but for the whole of the country. "The problem," says the Majority Report,

"owes its rise in the main to the enormous growth of cities as

distributive centres, giving innumerable openings for errand-boys,

milk-boys, office and shop boys, bookstall-boys, van, lorry, and trace

boys, street-sellers, etc. In nearly all these occupations the training

received leads to nothing; and the occupations themselves are, in most

cases, destructive to healthy development, owing to long hours, long

periods of standing, walking, or mere waiting, and, morally, are wholly

demoralizing." [150] Or, again: "The almost universal experience is that in

large towns boys, owing to carelessness or selfishness on the part of the

parents, or their own want of knowledge and thought--for the parents very

often have little voice in the matter--plunge haphazard, immediately on

leaving school, into occupations in which there is no future, where they

earn wages sufficiently high to make them independent of parental control

and disinclined for the lower wages of apprenticeship, and whence, if they

remain, they are extruded when they grow to manhood." [151] Or, to go to

the Minority Report: "There are the rivet-boys in shipyards and boiler

shops, the 'oil-cans' in the nut and bolt department, the 'boy-minders' of

automatic machines, the 'drawers-off' of sawmills, and the 'layers-on' of

printing works, and scores of other varieties of boys whose occupations

presently come to an end." [152] Or, again: "In towns like Glasgow,

Liverpool, Bristol, Newcastle, the proportions of van-boys, etc., are as

large as in London." [153] Employers do not always conceal the fact: "In

the words of a frank employer, they (the boys) are not taught; they are

made to work continuously at their own little temporary trades." [154] If

we desire actual figures of those engaged in one class of the

"blind-alley" occupations--messengers--Mr. Jackson tells us that "under

fourteen years of age there are no less than 32,536 (23.5 per cent. of

those occupied under that age), while there are 41,659 aged fourteen, and

54,592 from fifteen to nineteen years of age inclusive, of which it is

probable that the bulk are under seventeen years of age." [155] Writing of

Norwich, the same writer says: "There seems little doubt that the boy

labour is used up for industrial purposes, and that they are left less

capable members of the community, with little prospect of good work when

they become adults." [156]

Apart from the Report of the Poor Law Commission, individual writers of

wide and varied experience outside London have voiced the same view. "It

has never been so easy," writes Dr. Sadler, "as it is in England to-day,

for a boy of thirteen or fourteen to find some kind of virtually unskilled

work, involving long hours of deteriorating routine, in which there is

little mental or moral discipline, but for which are offered wages that

for the time seem high, and flatter his sense of being independent of

school discipline and of home restraint." [157] And the same writer

continues: "Certain forms of industry, which make large use of boys and

girls who have recently left the elementary schools, are in part (except

where the employers make special efforts to meet their responsibility)

parasitic in character, and get more than they ought, and more than their

promoters realize that they are getting, of the physical and moral capital

of the rising generation." [158]

The Rev. Spencer J. Gibb, who has devoted special attention to the

problem, writes: "The characteristic evils of boy work invade office work

in a peculiarly subtle and dangerous form. In every city small offices are

to be found in which the whole of the business, such as it is, is carried

on by the master himself, who has frequently to be absent from his

one-roomed office. The office-boy, who constitutes the entire staff, is

meanwhile left in charge. He has probably nothing to do, and spends his

time either in vacancy, in mischievous expeditions along the corridor, or

in reading trash of a bloodthirsty nature." [159] Under such conditions

supervision and control are negligible factors in the training of the

workshop. It seems unnecessary to multiply examples; all persons of

experience lament the increasing employment of boys in "blind-alley"

occupations, and deplore the general lack of supervision.

The question of the skilled trades has received less attention, and there

is much need of such a careful inquiry in various towns as had been made

by Mr. Tawney in the case of Glasgow. Writing of the woodwork trades in

that town, he says: "There is no regular training system; a boy learns

incidentally, and is only shifted from one machine to another when the

shop needs it.... One of its employes was the best producer of wooden

rings in his town, but could not make a wage at turning a table-leg," and

adds that, "with the exception of a few old men who were trained under the

apprenticeship system, the foremen are the only men with all-round

skill." [160] While of the engineering trades he says: "On entering the

works the lad who is going to be a fitter goes straight to the fitting

shop and learns nothing else; a lad who is going to be a turner goes to

the machine shop and does not learn fitting." [161] Specialization is

pushed even farther, and lads are kept to a single machine. Drilling,

milling, slotting, punching, band-sawing, or screwing machines can be used

after a few days' training, and this is all the experience a boy gets.

And, speaking generally of Glasgow firms, Mr. Tawney says: "Boys are kept,

as a rule, in their own departments. They are not taught; they are made to

work." These facts were obtained as the result of a careful inquiry among

100 firms in Glasgow.

Glasgow, then, repeats the story of London; and there is good reason to

believe that other towns, if submitted to a similar examination, would

demonstrate the fact of the inadequacy of the workshop training of to-day.

Apprenticeship, according to numerous witnesses, is everywhere decaying,

and there is nothing except the technical school rising to take its place;

and under existing conditions the technical school can touch only a fringe

of the problem.

_(c) The Passage to Manhood._

The evidence of the last few pages, relating to the increase in the number

of "blind-alley" occupations and to the inadequate training of the

workshop, would show that, as in London, so likewise in other towns, there

is no easy passage from the work of the youth to the work of the man.

There is a break in the continuity of the service somewhere about the age

of eighteen. New openings have then to be searched for, and new beginnings

made, when the habits of learning have disappeared, even if the

opportunities for it presented themselves.

It would seem superfluous to repeat for other towns the statistical

evidence in support of this statement which was given in the case of

London. "Blind-alley" occupations and troubled passage to manhood

necessarily go together. Mr. Tawney's researches in Glasgow indicate

clearly the difficulties of this transition period. A single quotation

must suffice: "A district secretary of the Amalgamated Society of

Engineers says of a world-famous firm which employs several thousand men

making a particular kind of domestic machine: 'It is a reception home for

young bakers and grocers. Boys go to it from other occupations to do one

small part of the machine.... When they leave they are not competent

engineers, and find it difficult to get work elsewhere.'" [162] Detailed

figures for the country as a whole in respect of certain trades may be

found in Mr. Jackson's Report on Boy Labour. All evidence, from

wheresoever collected, goes to show the existence of the break between the

work of the boy and the work of the man.

* * * * *

It is trusted that sufficient evidence has been produced to prove

conclusively that the conditions of boy labour in London do not differ

essentially from the conditions of boy labour in other towns. The evidence

could have been multiplied indefinitely and, what is most striking, among

the mass of witnesses forthcoming there is none found to venture a

contrary opinion. We may take it, then, as a well-established fact that in

other towns besides London, supervision, training, and the provision of an

opening are alike gravely and progressively defective. In other words,

among the urban districts of the country no true apprenticeship system

exists or is in course of creation.

Sec. 3. RURAL DISTRICTS.

No comprehensive inquiry has been made into the conditions of boy labour

in rural districts and small towns. A few studies of individual villages

exist--as, for example, "Life in an English Village," by Miss Maude

Davies--but these are not sufficiently numerous to justify any general

conclusions. The return on Children Working for Wages, made to the House

of Commons in 1899, gives certain statistics. From the returns on pages 21

and 23 we see that for England and Wales some 5.2 per cent. of children

above Standard I. were working for wages. The percentage for boys alone

would be 8.5 per cent., or for boys eleven years and upwards about 17 per

cent., compared with 24 per cent. for London alone. These figures would

seem to show that, while common, work among school-children over the

country as a whole does not quite reach the London level. So far as can be

gathered from the returns, it is in towns that the employment of

school-children is most frequent, though in rural districts it is frequent

enough to constitute a grave evil.

The same return gives the occupation of children as they leave school. On

page 163 is the summary.

The table is incomplete: "In London the proportion of children is no less

than 94 per cent.; in the group of large urban districts, 72 per cent.;

while in the rest of England and Wales, including the rural districts and

small towns, the percentage sinks to 47." [163] Without a careful analysis,

such as only local knowledge could supply, it would be dangerous to give

much weight to the return. It does, however, appear from the summary that

"blind-alley" occupations bear a close relation to urbanization, and that

the two increase together. Or looking at the question from another point

of view, a boy in rural districts enjoys greater opportunities of

continuity of employment in the passage from youth to manhood than he does

in the towns.

OCCUPATIONS OF BOYS ON LEAVING SCHOOL IN (1) LONDON, (2) LARGE URBAN AND

MANUFACTURING DISTRICTS, AND (3) RURAL AND SMALL URBAN DISTRICTS OF

ENGLAND AND WALES.[164]

+----------------------------------------------------------------------+

|----------------------|---------------|---------------|---------------|

| | No. | % | No. | % | No. | % |

|Agriculture | 101 | -- | 730 | 2 | 17,950 | 26 |

|Building | 787 | 3 | 1,973 | 4 | 3,744 | 5 |

|Woodworking | 905 | 4 | 591 | 1 | 661 | 1 |

| and shipbuilding | 949 | 4 | 4,090 | 8 | 3,119 | 4 |

|Mining and quarrying | -- | -- | 1,584 | 3 | 6,510 | 9 |

|Textile | 49 | -- | 6,046 | 13 | 5,522 | 8 |

|Clothing | 665 | 3 | 1,634 | 3 | 1,612 | 2 |

| trades | 1,121 | 4 | 868 | 2 | 680 | 1 |

|Clerical | 2,060 | 8 | 5,666 | 12 | 2,727 | 4 |

|In shops | 3,584 | 14 | 6,084 | 13 | 7,045 | 10 |

| etc., boy | 10,283 | 40 | 10,496 | 22 | 9,917 | 14 |

| vendor | 964 | 4 | 1,472 | 3 | 1,223 | 2 |

|Teaching | 120 | -- | 430 | 1 | 557 | 1 |

|Domestic service | 301 | 1 | 173 | -- | 1,090 | 2 |

| indefinite | 2,256 | 9 | 4,159 | 9 | 4,817 | 7 |

|----------------------+--------|------|--------|------|--------|------|

| Total occupied | 24,145 | 94 | 45,996 | 96 | 67,174 | 96 |

|No reported occupation| 1,623 | 6 | 2,097 | 4 | 2,765 | 4 |

|----------------------|--------|------|--------|------|--------|------|

| Grand total | 25,768 | 100 | 48,093 | 100 | 69,939 | 100 |

+----------------------------------------------------------------------+

There is good reason to believe that the prospects of an all-round

training are more favourable in a village than in a town. The fact,

already mentioned, that immigrants from rural districts obtain the better

positions in London trades, especially in the building trades, would seem

to justify this conclusion. There is also the general consideration that

rural districts are always nearly a century behind the industrial

development of the towns, and represent therefore an older condition of

affairs. Workshops are smaller, the gulf between man and employer less

impassable, and the old paternal relation between boy and master more

possible of attainment. We may therefore assume, without much risk of

error, that training is better in rural districts than in towns.

On the other hand, while it is true that in industrial progress the

villages lag behind the towns, they still follow them, though at an

interval. Machine-made goods, especially in the woodwork trades, are in

villages replacing the hand-made goods, and the demand for manual

dexterity is to this extent decreasing. It would also seem to be true that

the old indentured apprenticeship is falling into disuse. In the Wiltshire

village of Corsley, for example, while apprenticeship occupied a prominent

position in the past, in the story of to-day it passes almost without

mention. In Miss Davies's[165] study of the occupations of the inhabitants

of that village, only one apprentice is mentioned. It is also a fact that

those who are concerned with the administration of local charities for

apprenticeship are finding increasing difficulty in discovering masters

who are willing to take boys as indentured apprentices, even for a

premium, and boys who are desirous of being indentured.

We may, perhaps, therefore assume that, while the conditions of boy labour

are more favourable in rural districts than they are in towns, the old

machinery of training is falling into disuse, and no adequate substitute

is taking its place.

THE BREAK-UP OF APPRENTICESHIP.

The survey of the elements that make up the apprenticeship of to-day is

now complete. Each of the factors which contribute to the result--the

State, Philanthropy, the Home, the Workshop--has been examined, and their

influence appraised. It is therefore possible to pass judgment on the

system, and, by realizing the present situation in all its relations, to

understand clearly the nature and the extent of the problems which call

for solution in the immediate future.

The period of apprenticeship has been shown to divide itself naturally

into two parts. There are the years during which the boy is at school,

ending somewhere about the age of fourteen. For the right use of these

years we have seen that the State is beginning to accept full

responsibility. Whether we have been concerned with the conduct, the

physical welfare, or the training of the child, we have found collective

enterprise assuming new duties, and carrying them out with a growing

enthusiasm. Nor can we have remained blind to the large measure of success

achieved. If defects here and there mar the result, they are clearly the

defects that belong to all experiments in the early stages, and are

obviously not the ineradicable faults of a worn-out system. In short, so

far as regards the earlier years of the apprenticeship of to-day, there is

no cause for despondency. Progress is the distinguishing characteristic of

this first period; the boy is the centre of influences increasing in

number, and deliberately planned to promote his well-being. One

disquieting phenomenon that calls for attention is the large mass of

school-children working long hours. Health is undermined, the effect of

education impaired; while the occupations, essentially of the

"blind-alley" type, encourage an unfortunate taste for this form of

employment. Further, the various local authorities, especially in rural

districts, have been very lax in using the powers conferred by the

Employment of Children Act.

The second stage of apprenticeship covers the years between the ages of

fourteen and eighteen. In our survey of this period we have been unable to

find much cause for satisfaction. The State no longer recognizes its

responsibility for the well-being of all its youth; it is content to offer

opportunities of training to those who are able and willing to avail

themselves of these advantages, and these last form only a small minority

of the whole. The success of evening schools, technical institutes, and

other places of higher education, so far as concerns those who come within

that sphere of influence, only adds to our regret that that sphere of

influence is so narrowly restricted. The majority, at least two-thirds, of

the boys pass out of the control of the State, and for the completion of

their apprenticeship we must look in other directions. Our search in these

other directions has met with little reward; we have found everywhere

failure, and, what is worse, failure that is rapidly progressive. Nowhere

on a large scale can we discover provision made for the supervision and

training of juveniles; from all sides we receive a tumult of complaint

that things have gone astray. Philanthropic enterprise, whether

represented by the religious bodies or lads' clubs, laments the lack of

control over the boys, and frankly confesses its inability to deal

satisfactorily with more than a small minority. The testimony of the home

is the same; parents complain of the growing independence of their

children, and to a large extent have ceased to attempt to exert any

restraint over the conduct of their sons. Under the stress of modern

industrial conditions and accentuated urbanization, the old patriarchal

system of the family has broken down; the home represents an association

of equals, in which, perhaps, the young can claim a predominant influence.

When we pass to the workshop, in the hope of reaching law and order and

constructive thought, it is only to be confronted with the most signal

example of an organization which defies every principle of a true

apprenticeship system. That the boy of to-day is the workman of to-morrow

is a thought that suggests itself to only a few of the most enlightened

employers. To the many he is merely a cheap instrument of production to be

used up, and then scrapped as waste machinery. He is kept at "his own

little temporary task"; and, to make things worse, he is in so much demand

that discipline cannot keep him very steadily even to this, or his

services will be withdrawn. With the separation of man's work from boy's

work there is no easy passage from youth to manhood. With the minute

subdivision of operations, there is small chance of a lad in a skilled

trade becoming a master of his craft.

Apart from the small amount of medical inspection required by the Factory

and Workshop Act, no attempt is made to insure that the growing lad is

physically fit for the work in which he is engaged. His health is the

concern of no one till its breakdown brings him under the Poor Law or

thrusts him into the ranks of the unemployable. Undisciplined, with health

and training neglected, the lad of eighteen tends to find himself more and

more left without prospects, and a person for whom no one in particular

has any particular use. In short, our survey of the problem of the

apprenticeship of to-day shows conclusively that we have, in the true

sense of the word, no apprenticeship system. The old apprenticeship system

has broken up, and there is nothing come to take its place.

It would be incredible if serious consequences did not accompany this

complete break-up of the apprenticeship system; and it needs but little

search to discover evils of far-reaching significance. There is first the

evil of an uncontrolled youth. A child at the age of fourteen is not

fitted to enjoy the independence of an adult. This statement is a truism,

but there is tragedy in the fact that society of to-day confers, as we

have seen, this irresponsible freedom, in a more or less unqualified form,

on the majority of boys when they leave the elementary schools. In the

hooligan of the streets or in the youthful criminal we have the most

striking example of the fruits of an undisciplined boy. The report of the

Commissioners of Prisons for the year ending March 31, 1908, makes this

clear. Writing of the Borstal Association, they say: "In this admirable

report" (the report, that is, of the Borstal Association), "which should

be studied by all who are interested in the causes of crime, after

specifying many circumstances which induce the criminal habit, they refer

in particular to the absence of any system of control or organization for

the employment of the young, as one of the principal causes of

wrong-doing. 'When a boy leaves school the hands of organization and

compulsion are lifted from his shoulders. If he is the son of very poor

parents, his father has no influence, nor, indeed, a spare hour, to find

work for him; he must find it for himself; generally he does find a job,

and if it does not land him into a dead alley at eighteen he is fortunate,

or he drifts, and the tidy scholar becomes a ragged and defiant corner

loafer. Over 80 per cent. of our charges admit that they were not at work

when they got into trouble,'" [166] The Poor Law Commission calls attention

to the evil effects of certain forms of employment which the boys choose

because of the freedom they give."'Street-selling, for example,' says the

Chief Constable of Sheffield, 'makes the boys thieves.' 'News-boys and

street-sellers,' says Mr. Cyril Jackson, 'are practically all gamblers.'

'Of 1,454 youths between fourteen and twenty-one charged in Glasgow during

1906 with theft and other offences inferring dishonesty, 1,208, or 83.7

per cent., came from the class of messengers, street-traders, etc.,' says

Mr. Tawney." [167] And it would be easy to multiply indefinitely examples

of this kind. It must not, of course, be assumed that all boys become

hooligans or criminals, but all do suffer from the want of control and the

need of a more disciplined life. Hooliganism is merely an extreme type of

a disease which in a milder form fastens upon the boys who are allowed

unrestrained liberty. The disease is the disease of restlessness--the

restlessness of the town, the dislike of regularity, the joy in change for

change's sake, and the habit of roving from place to place.

This disease, with the lack of proper technical training, leads on to

unemployment when the age of manhood is reached. Unemployment is not the

fate of the old only; it is becoming common among the young. "The

percentage of men under thirty years of age qualified for assistance

under the Unemployed Workmen Act, 1905, was:[168]

+------------------------------------------------------------+

| |Up to March 31, 1906.|Twelve Months ending|

| | | March 31, 1907. |

|-----------------|---------------------|--------------------|

| London | 23.9 | 27.4 |

| Whole of England| 27.3 | 30.2" |

+------------------------------------------------------------+

"It has become clear," says a manager of boys' clubs with a very wide

experience, "to all students of the labour problem that a wrong choice of

their first work--or, rather, no choice at all, but a drift into it--is

responsible for the presence of considerable numbers of young men amongst

the unemployed." [169] The Reports of the Poor Law Commission, Majority and

Minority alike, repeatedly voice the same opinion. "The great prominence

given to boy labour, not only in our evidence, but in the various reports

of our special investigators, leads us to the opinion that this is perhaps

the most serious of the phenomena which we have encountered in our study

of unemployment. The difficulty of getting boys absorbed, through gradual

and systematic training, in the skilled trades is great enough; but when

to this are added the temptations, outside the organized industries, to

enter at an early age into occupations which are not themselves skilled

and give no opportunity for acquiring skill, it seems clear that we are

faced by a far greater problem than that of finding employment for adults

who have fallen behind in the race for efficiency--namely, that the growth

of large cities has brought with it an enormous increase in occupations

that are making directly for unemployment in the future." [170] The

Minority Report is equally emphatic. "There is no subject," it says, "as

to which we have received so much and such conclusive evidence as upon the

extent to which thousands of boys, from lack of any sort of training for

industrial occupations, grow up, almost inevitably, so as to become

chronically unemployed or under-employed, and presently to recruit the

ranks of the unemployable. In Glasgow nearly 20 per cent. of the labourers

in distress are under twenty-five, and one-half of them are under

thirty-five." [171] Or again: "It has been demonstrated beyond dispute that

one of the features of the manner in which we have chosen to let the

nation's industry be organized is that an increasing number of boys are

employed in occupations which are either uneducative (in the sense of

producing no increase of efficiency and intelligence) or unpromising (in

the sense of leading to no permanent occupation during adult life);

secondly, that there is a constant tendency for certain industrial

functions to be transferred from men to boys, especially when changes in

the processes of manufacture or in the organization of industry are taking

place rapidly. The resulting difficulty is the double one of the

over-employment of boys and the under-employment of men." [172]

It is hoped that the present chapter may have made clear the various steps

in this unfortunate process of industrial development. First, we have the

qualities which are the result of the school training--qualities of

regularity, obedience, and intelligence--qualities required, indeed, in

all forms of work, but supplying a complete technical outfit alone for the

"blind-alley" occupations. The boys leave school, having had expended on

them in each case a capital sum of public money of about one hundred

pounds. They are valuable assets, and employers have discovered the fact,

and adjusted their methods of production or distribution to make full use

of this new and valuable supply. High wages attract the boy, who makes his

own choice, and earning is regarded as more attractive than the laborious

and less remunerative learning.

This leads on to the second stage, the "blind-alley" occupation or the

skilled trade where there is no real training. Four years of this kind of

work dissipate the effects of elementary education. Too often weakened

physically by long hours of employment, demoralized by the life of freedom

and the fatal facility in obtaining a second job when fancy has made him

throw up the first, robbed by disuse of the power to learn even if the

inclination were present, he is, at the age of eighteen, a distinctly less

valuable asset in the labour market than he was four years before. The

hundred pounds investment of public money intended for life has been

squandered in youth; the employer has possessed himself of it; and when

the boy asks the wages of a man, he is informed that his services are no

longer wanted, and told to transfer them elsewhere.

Then comes the final stage of degeneration--unemployment or

under-employment. The habit, acquired through four years of constant

practice, of throwing up a job on the smallest pretext, remains with the

lad of eighteen, but the facility of finding another is no longer his. The

intensity of the demand for men varies almost inversely with the intensity

of the demand for boys; the two are competitors in the same labour market,

and of the two the boy is the cheaper and the more efficient instrument of

production. Further, habits of boyhood have too often bred a liking for

casual employment, with its frequent holidays. Here, also, the employers

are willing to oblige him; they find it convenient to have at their beck

and call a reserve of labour which can be drawn upon when business is

brisk, and discharged in times of slackness. Finally, if he desires

regular employment, it is none too easy to discover a suitable opening.

The sphere of his usefulness is small; he has for sale a certain amount of

animal strength, none too well developed, but has little else to offer. He

can push and he can pull indifferently well, but in the world of industry

there is not, as is supposed sometimes, an unlimited demand for pulling

and pushing. And all the time he is faced with the fact that recruits to

the army of pushing and pulling are coming from all sides. Men skilled in

the performance of a single operation, and robbed of their well-paid

employment by a new invention; men from decaying trades and incapable

through lack of training of adapting themselves to fresh conditions; men a

little past the vigour of manhood; men discharged for misconduct; men who

have lost their work through the bankruptcy of a company or the death of a

master--all alike, when everything fails them, turn in desperation to

pulling and pushing; and meanwhile machines of novel design decrease year

by year the demand for pulling and pushing.

All these effects, with innumerable variations, are the result of a wrong

start, and of the neglect during the years that lie between the ages of

fourteen and eighteen. Want of supervision, want of technical training,

want of an opening for which special preparation has been given--these are

the three great and characteristic evils of the present industrial

situation. Taken together, they are a negation of all apprenticeship in

the true sense of the word. During the course of the last few years we

have at least learned to know the cause of our suffering, and to know the

cause is at least the first step in the path of prevention. And, further,

we have begun to see rising from the ruins of the old stabilities of life

and the ancient order of industrial organization an edifice--small,

indeed, at the moment, but bearing the mark of constructive thought,

because reared by the growing power of collective enterprise; and, knowing

this, we can turn in a spirit of hope to the task of creating a new

apprenticeship system.

This tendency to demand the services of boys has spread through all