CHAPTER VI

THE NEW APPRENTICESHIP

In the present chapter we must endeavour to find some remedy for the evils

disclosed in the preceding pages. The old apprenticeship system has broken

up, and there is nothing come to take its place. In consequence, the youth

of the country is to a large and growing extent passing through the years

of adolescence without supervision, without technical training, without

prospects of an opening when manhood is reached. These are defects in the

industrial organization so obvious that they are now attracting general

attention, so grave that there is need of immediate and comprehensive

measures of reform.

In what direction is the remedy to be looked for? From what quarter may we

expect the new apprenticeship to come? The survey of the conditions of boy

labour, contained in an earlier portion of this volume, has disclosed two

forces at work in the training of the youth of the country. The one force

is destructive in its action; the other constructive. Reform obviously

lies in the repression of the former and in the encouragement of the

latter; there is no other alternative.

The force of destruction has been found throughout associated with the

characteristic phenomena of the industrial revolution. The accentuated

spirit of competition, the increasing use of capital and machinery, with

the consequential development of large undertakings, and the rapid changes

in methods of production to meet new demands or to make use of new

inventions, have all alike been hostile to the well-being of the boy. The

system, created by what may be called the natural growth of modern

business organization, has been a system which has, in one form or

another, continually attempted to exploit child labour. Under this system

children, in days gone by, were driven to the mine and to the factory, or

herded in gangs in the fields and barns of the farm, and even at the

present time are allowed to perform tasks far beyond their strength. Under

this system we have watched the slow and continuous decay of indentured

apprenticeship, the steady decrease of facilities for obtaining an

all-round training in the workshop, and the ever-broadening gulf

separating youth from manhood in the sphere of industry. As a result of

this system we have seen the hand of control lifted from the shoulder of

youth, and have noted lads, under the wayward guidance of an irresponsible

freedom, drifting into the path of crime and disorder. We are driven to

believe that it is the young who swell the armies of unemployment, and

have realized with sudden dismay that, young though they are, they are yet

too old to break the set habits of an unfortunate past. And we are

beginning to perceive clearly that these phenomena, of ill omen, are not a

mere accident, but an integral part of the industrial organization; and

to understand that, in spite of numerous superficial changes, the system,

born of the revolution of a hundred years ago, has not altered in

essentials, and now, as then, threatens with destruction the youth of the

land.

That system has never enjoyed full freedom of development, but the limits

set on its power for evil have not come from within; they have come from

without, and been imposed on the employers by the legislative action of

the State. It is the State which has throughout the period supplied the

second or regulative and constructive force in the training of the youth

of the country. It has forbidden the employment of boys in some

occupations, and in others limited the hours of employment. Acting without

any clearly defined plan, but striking at the evils, which gusts of

popular opinion denounced and refused to tolerate, it has yet made

impossible the worst abuses of child labour. It has, however, long since

passed beyond the realm of mere veto, and has these many years entered the

sphere of constructive reform. The scheme of compulsory education, the

provision of opportunities for technical instruction, and the powers,

recently conferred on local education authorities, to attend to the

physical condition of school-children, are all signal examples of the

beneficent influence of the second force.

We are left, then, with these two forces--the force of destruction and the

force of construction; and the fate of the youth turns on the issue of the

struggle between the two. They are not, indeed, the only forces concerned

in the problem of boy labour, but, compared with their influence, all

others sink into insignificance. The State and the industrial system both

possess the characteristic of universality, and no other organization can

make the same claim. Philanthropic and religious associations have always

been found to protest against the abuses of child labour, but their

protest only became generally effective when the State gave to it the

force of law. Philanthropic and religious associations have been pioneers

in the field of education, but the advantages were offered to all only

when the State stepped in and assumed the responsibility. Individual

employers have always been found to offer to their lads humane conditions

of work and full opportunities of training, but these remained the

privileges of a few, and it was only through State interference that the

many obtained their share. As pointing the way to reform, these other

agencies have been, and are, of priceless value to the community, but as

themselves the instrument they have invariably proved a failure. We are

left, then, with two forces which alone need to be taken into account--the

industrial organization and the State. For the creation of the new

apprenticeship system either the industrial organization must reform

itself, or the State must reform the industrial organization: there is no

third alternative.

Let us begin with the first alternative, and ask ourselves whether there

is any reasonable hope of reform from within the industrial organization.

The experience of the past is uniformly hostile to any such expectation.

In the history of the last hundred years there is no single exception to

the rule that all general improvements in the conditions of boy labour

have come from without, and not been carried out from within. The

experience of the present repeats in an even more emphatic way the

experience of the past. It is impossible to point to one single example of

an industrial reform now in course of development, and affecting on a

large and beneficent scale the prospects or the training of the boy. It

would be easy to cite a hundred instances of the contrary process. The

whole of the last chapter is nothing but a detailed summary of the

progressive defects of the industrial system, and its attempts to exploit

in its own interests the value of boy labour. We saw how, by the

multiplication of "blind-alley" occupations, the industrial system

contrived to lay hold on and use up most of the products of an improved

elementary education initiated by the State. Past and present experience

are in accord; we cannot look for reform from within.

It is necessary to guard against a possible misinterpretation. There is no

thought here of blaming the employer. The fight lies not between boy and

employer, but between the force of the State and the force of competition,

using the last word to denote the most marked characteristic of the

industrial revolution. The employer is in general as much a victim of the

process as the boy. He cannot be justly blamed for what he cannot be

fairly expected to prevent. The exigencies of competition drive him to

select the cheapest methods of production at the moment. If these methods

involve the exploitation of the boy, it is unfortunate for the boy, but

the employer has no other alternative. To produce as cheaply as his

neighbours is the one condition of success; more remote considerations

cannot enter into a business undertaking. Those well-intentioned persons,

with a smattering of ill-digested science and a system of economics far

removed from all practical realities, who talk amiably of the interests of

employers and their boys, as future workmen, being identical, confuse the

good of the present generation with the good of the generation that comes

after. It is undoubtedly a fact that any system which injures the workers

will in the long-run injure the trade of the country, but this is true

only in the long-run, and the run is often very long. Now, survival in

business is determined in the immediate future. The heavy charges on fixed

capital, the interest on outstanding loans, the weekly wages bill, and the

long tale of daily outgoings, make it impossible for the employer to

follow proper methods of training in the hope that the new generation of

workers will, by their added efficiency, recoup him for his expenditure.

To last till that time he must live through the interval, must obtain that

contract to-day, this order to-morrow, and must get it at a profit--in

other words, he must choose the cheapest method of production here and

now; there and next year will be too late. It will be no inducement to him

to reflect that his methods would in the long-run prove the best, if he

knows that he cannot stay the course. Competition is of to-day; it takes

no account of the happenings of to-morrow. Those who in the struggle

cannot survive this year will not live to reap the harvest of future

years. Agreement among employers on such questions has been found

impossible; the temptation to win by evasion an illicit success proves too

strong for the majority. Those who pursue the better methods disappear;

those who pursue the worse survive to propagate their kind. There is valid

in the world of business a law somewhat analogous to Gresham's law in

matters of currency; the bad pushes out and replaces the good. There is a

real struggle between the interests of one generation and the next. The

employer must concern himself with the things of his own day; it is for

the State, whose life is ageless, to guard the welfare of those who are to

come. By insisting on the methods that are good in the long-run, by

forbidding those which are good only in the immediate present, it places

all employers on the same level, and enables the best of them to do what

was before impossible. It does not thereby interfere with competition; it

merely changes the direction of competition by guiding it into less

injurious channels. But the secret of success, as demonstrated by the

experience of more than a century, must be sought in the enactment of

general regulations, which will apply to all employers, and not be looked

for in what is sometimes termed the spirit of growing enlightenment.

Unless it can be shown that the immediate interest of the employer is one

with the proposed reform, nothing really effective can be done by moral

suasion; while, if the two are in accord, moral suasion is superfluous.

It can hardly be supposed that the contemplative outsider should know the

business of the employers better than they do themselves. The mere fact of

calling to our aid the power of moral suasion should be enough to show

that enlightened self-interest will not suffice; we do not appeal to a

man's conscience when we can appeal to his pocket. If, then, reform and

the immediate interest are not in accord, consent on the part of one

employer means risk of failure in a world where salvation depends on very

small margins of profit.

It is, therefore, for the most part labour lost to devote time to the

consideration of reforms which do not rest on the basis of legal

obligation, and we might at once turn to considerations of State control

and State enterprise if it were not for the fact that in the minds of many

there still remains a hope of the coming of salvation from another

direction. They advocate the revival of the old indentured apprenticeship

system, and believe that they have only to explain the situation

adequately to the employer for him to realize that his interests lie in

its revival. This belief assumes, as already mentioned, that the outsider

knows the business of the employer better than he does himself--a

tolerably large assumption. We might drop the matter with this criticism,

but a re-examination of the old apprenticeship system, in the light of the

industrial revolution and of the proposals for its revival, will help us

on our journey towards the goal of the new apprenticeship. Such

examination will show, first, the conditions which a true apprenticeship

must fulfil; and, secondly, that those who hark back upon the past for

their ideals of reform are conscious that the past must change its dress

before it can hope to commend itself to the critical taste of the present.

Now, in its best form, as was shown in the second chapter of this book,

the old apprenticeship system was a success. It did afford means of

adequate supervision over the youth of the country; it did supply them

with technical training; and it did provide an opening in an occupation

for which special preparation had been made. But a closer examination of

the problem showed that success depended on the satisfaction of three

conditions: First, it was essential for the apprentice to live with his

master, or at any rate that the relations between the two should be of a

paternal character; the second essential was the universality of the small

workshop, with the facilities it gave for an all-round training; and,

thirdly, an essential part of the system was the existence of the gild,

which represented masters and men alike, and in the interests of all

inspected and controlled the methods of the workshop. With the dissolution

of the gilds we saw the first weakening of the apprenticeship system.

There was now no authority guarding the interests of the trade as a whole;

compulsory apprenticeship was often used as a means of supplying the

employer with cheap and enforced labour, for whose future he had no

responsibility. With the advent of the industrial revolution we watched

the steady disappearance of the small workshop. Training became difficult,

and often impossible. With both masters and men formal apprenticeship lost

favour, and the system entered on its second stage of decay. With the

multiplication of "blind-alley" occupations, with the growing cleavage

between man's work and boy's work, and with division of labour pushed to

its utmost extreme, came, as has been proved, the break-up of the

apprenticeship system.

Now, there is nothing in the signs of the times to herald the approach of

a new industrial revolution and a return to the old order of the Middle

Ages. Machines and machine methods have come to stay, and must stay if the

varied needs of the huge populations of to-day are to be satisfied. The

more serious advocates of the revival of indentured apprenticeship admit

this fact, and fully realize that modifications of the system are

necessary. They suggest that committees of volunteers should assume

certain of the functions of the gild; they should exercise a kindly

supervision over the boy in his home, and take steps to insure that the

conditions of the indenture are observed by the employer. Secondly, they

propose that the one-sided training of the workshop should be supplemented

by technical classes provided by the education authority and supervised by

an advisory committee of representatives of the trade. Finally, they urge

that these proposals, so far from being visionary, have actually been

realized in practice with complete success. Why may not we look for a

general extension of these methods?

The answer is tolerably obvious. The experiments have undoubtedly been

successful. They have shown the steadying influence exerted over the boy

by an indenture; they have shown the advantages that come from friendly

visiting at the home or the workshop; they have shown the value of

technical classes and trade schools supervised by representatives of the

trade. But what they have not shown is that the experiment, while resting

on a purely voluntary basis, admits of indefinite expansion. Indeed, the

fact that the co-operation of the education authority is invoked, in order

to provide technical instruction that shall supplement the training of the

workshop, is sufficient evidence that we cannot dispense altogether with

the assistance of the State. But much more remains to be said against the

possibility of indefinite extension. Take the case of indentures. It is

true that some employers can be found willing to receive indentured

apprentices, and some boys willing to be indentured. But this does not

affect the general rule that the conditions of the modern workshop do not

allow of the use of apprentices, whose training is enforceable at law, or

discount what is a matter of common observation--that neither employers

nor boys like to bind themselves together for a period of years.

Indentures may be an excellent plan for curbing the independence of the

boy, but it does not, unfortunately, follow that the boys who most want

curbing will be the boys who will accept this fretting restraint. What

happens in practice is that a select number of boys willing to submit to

control are brought into relations with a select number of employers

willing to be troubled with boys. This is good as far as it goes, but it

goes no way in the direction of providing supervision for the boys who

most need it. Or take again the question of supplementing in the technical

institute the training of the workshop. Experience here and in other

countries shows conclusively that technical instruction, to be really

effective, must be given during the daytime, when the lad is fresh, and

not during the evening, when he is wearied out by the day's work. But,

ignoring the necessarily limited number of cases in which boys are able to

forgo earning altogether, instruction during the day is possible only

where employers allow their apprentices time off during the day to attend

classes. It is true that some few employers have given this permission,

but their number is strictly limited. In the hope of extending the

principle, the London County Council recently carried out an elaborate

inquiry among employers, but with very small results. "If we compare,"

says the report, "the magnitude of the elaborate inquiry carried out by

the principals of polytechnics and technical institutes, by the skilled

employment committees, and by the Council itself, with the extent of the

success attained, we are bound to admit that the results are of the most

meagre dimensions. There appears no prospect of inducing employers on any

large scale to co-operate with us in the establishment of a satisfactory

system of 'part-time' classes." [173] Extension on a large scale and on a

voluntary basis is impossible.

But, neglecting the question of possibilities, is the revival of an

indentured apprenticeship, as a method of learning certain trades, in

itself a thing to be desired? There remains one difficulty that has never

satisfactorily been surmounted. If indentured apprenticeship is the door

leading to a skilled trade, there will be a movement in the trade to close

all other doors. Those who have paid a premium, or at any rate served

their time for low wages, cannot be expected to allow without complaint

vacancies in the trade to be filled by men who have not passed through a

similar period of servitude. If the door is closed, there is no way of

recruiting the trade in times of expanding business. But, in general,

prohibition has not proved practical, and other ways of entry are

discovered, and as these ways are easier, it is only natural that people

should tend to choose the easier path. Indentured apprenticeship has never

escaped from this dilemma; either the trade is closed to strangers when

there is no means of expansion, or the trade is open when there is no

inducement to be apprenticed. The change in modern industry, with its

tendency to break down the barriers between trade and trade, only

accentuates the acuteness of the dilemma.

Finally, assuming indentured apprenticeship to be both practical and

desirable, would it provide a solution for the problem of boy labour? It

is obvious that it would only touch a fringe of the question. We have

already seen that some two-thirds of the children, as they leave the

elementary school, enter a form of occupation which leads only to

unskilled labour, and even for that provides no adequate training. An

apprenticeship system would not affect these two-thirds. A boy cannot be

apprenticed as an errand-boy, or in one of those workshops where

practically only boys are engaged. Not only is this class the most

important in respect of numbers; it is also the class most urgently in

need of control. It is here that degeneration and demoralization are most

marked, while it is here that indentured apprenticeship offers not even a

shadow of a remedy. A system which ignores the majority, even if it

provided for the favoured few, cannot be regarded as affording a possible

solution of the problem of boy labour.

We cannot, therefore, look to the revival of apprenticeship, even when

supplemented by technical training, to carry us far on the road of reform.

It would, however, be a mistake to under-rate the lessons of the

experiments. They have shown the value of indentures as a means of

controlling the boy; they have shown the value of sympathetic supervision;

and they have shown the value of the technical school in widening the

inadequate training of the workshop. The defects of the experiment lay in

the necessary limitations of the case. Remove the limitations, and you

remove the defects. We want universal indentures, universal supervision,

universal training. To guard against the dangers of creating a privileged

class through the establishment of an apprenticeship system we must see to

it that all alike serve a period of apprenticeship. Obviously, we cannot

apprentice all boys to employers; we must, therefore, apprentice all boys

to the State. There is nothing new in this proposal. Already, through the

law of compulsory attendance at school, all boys are so apprenticed

between the ages of five and fourteen. What is necessary is an extension

of the period of an already existing apprenticeship system.

In the search of a means of preventing an evil, the most difficult task is

always to exclude the inadequate and the irrelevant. When all paths of

advance, with one exception, have been blocked, there is no longer any

choice or risk of losing one's way. We have now seen that all ways, except

the way of collective control and collective enterprise, fail to reach the

desired goal, and, having exhausted all other alternatives, must fall back

upon the State. Some do this willingly, some reluctantly, but all, with a

few exceptions that may be disregarded, appeal to the State when they are

convinced that help can be looked for from no other source. We are now in

that position, and must frankly face the situation.

Failing assistance in any other direction, we must call on the State to

organize a new apprenticeship system. Such a system must make due

provision for supervision, training, and an opening. It remains to be

considered how these three essentials can be secured.

I

SUPERVISION.

A boy must be under some sort of supervision until he reaches at least the

age of eighteen. Such supervision must have respect to his physical

well-being as well as to his conduct. Neither the home, nor philanthropy,

nor the workshop can be looked for to provide this supervision. They have

all failed, and that failure is progressive. The State remains as our only

hope. The State has not failed; it has made impossible the worst abuses of

child labour, and through its educational system has been an influence for

good in the moral and physical development of the children. Its success

has been great, and that success has been progressive. Where it has

failed, it has failed because its supervision has been withdrawn too soon.

The remedy is obvious: we must extend the sphere of State supervision.

Three reforms are urgently necessary: (1) The raising of the age of

compulsory attendance to fifteen; (2) the complete prohibition of the

employment of school-children for wages; and (3) the compulsory attendance

of lads between the ages of fifteen and eighteen at some place of

education for at least half the working day. With regard to these

proposals, it may be said that all three are supported by the Minority

Report of the Poor Law Commission and by the labour organizations which

have in general expressed their approval of that Report. (1) and (3) are

the recommendations of the Report of the Education Committee of the London

County Council, adopted unanimously by that body in February, 1909; while

(1) and (3) also received a qualified approval from the Majority Report of

the Poor Law Commission, and from the Report of the Consultative Committee

of the Board of Education on Continuation Schools. They have, therefore,

behind them a strong backing of expert opinion.

_(a) The Raising of the School Age._

More than ten years have elapsed since Parliament last raised the age of

compulsory attendance. There is almost universal agreement that the time

has come for adding another year. The discipline of the school is

successful while it lasts, but fails in permanent effect because it is

withdrawn too soon. In the last chapter we saw from the study of the

census tables that for at least the first year after school the boys have

settled down to no very fixed employment. Many of the skilled trades do

not take learners and apprentices before the age of fifteen. "It is

clear," say the Education Committee of the London County Council, "that

the year after leaving school--the year, that is, between the ages of

fourteen and fifteen--is for the children concerned a year of uncertainty.

Nearly half are returned as without specified occupation. No doubt a large

proportion of the number are attending some place of education, but it is

no less true that a considerable number are not classified, because for

the time being they are doing nothing. They have thrown up one situation

and are looking out for another. In this respect we must remember that it

is a common practice--at any rate, so far as the poorer section of the

community is concerned--for the children, and not their parents, to select

for themselves the form of occupation and find for themselves situations.

The children are too young to choose wisely, and, as a natural

consequence, shift from place to place until they discover something that

suits their taste or ability. It would be difficult to imagine a more

unsatisfactory method of training. Till the age of fourteen they are

carefully looked after in school; at the age of fourteen they are set free

from all forms of discipline, and become practically their own masters. We

must not, therefore, be surprised that under such conditions the effect of

the school training is transient, and the large amount of money spent on

their education to a great extent wasted." [174] And, summing up the whole

case for the raising of the school age, the Education Committee say: "The

advantages of keeping children at school until the age of fifteen are many

and obvious. They receive an extra year's instruction at a time when they

are most apt to learn; they are kept for another year under discipline

just at the period when it is easiest to influence permanently the

development of character. With the extension they escape the year of

aimless drifting from occupation to occupation, and, when called on to

choose a profession, they will have a year's extra experience to help

them in the choice. We may hope that under these new conditions the

tendency to follow the line of greatest initial wages will decrease, and

be replaced by a tendency to consider as of paramount importance prospects

of training and hope of future advancement." [175]

In raising the school age we should take the opportunity of getting rid of

certain anomalies which now exist. While for the vast majority of children

in London and many other places attendance is compulsory up to the age of

fourteen, exemption is possible at the age of twelve and thirteen for a

small minority. In certain parts of the country large numbers of children

are allowed to leave before the age of fourteen. It is unfortunate that it

is the cleverest children who are entitled to this earlier exemption. We

are here looking at the problem of apprenticeship from the standpoint of

supervision, and in the case of supervision age and not mental attainment

must be the determining principle. The bright precocious boy of twelve or

thirteen is precisely the boy who stands most in need of control. Morally

and physically he is likely to suffer from the effects of premature

freedom. The sleepy dullard, who is kept at school until fourteen, could

be freed from discipline at an earlier age, with less risk of serious

harm. In raising, then, the age of compulsory attendance to fifteen, we

must abolish the privileges of exemption and the powers of local option,

and enact that all children shall attend school full time until they reach

the age of fifteen.

_(b) The Prohibition of Child Labour._

Much space has in this volume been devoted to the task of demonstrating

the extent and the evils of child labour. It has been shown that anything

except the very lightest employment is physically injurious. It has been

made clear that the work in which children are engaged is frequently

demoralizing, while it never paves the way to entering a skilled trade

when school is left. They are essentially "blind-alley" occupations.

Further, we have seen good reason to believe that the habit of earning

money and the precocious sense of independence so encouraged are not in

the best interests of order and discipline. We note the evil in its worst

form under the "half-time" system. "The half-timers," we are told, "become

clever at repartee and in the use of 'mannish' phrases, which sound clever

when they dare use them. They lose their childish habits ... some of the

boys commence to smoke and to use bad language." [176] Finally, it has been

proved that limitation of the hours of employment in the case of

school-children is in practice impossible; there is no ready way of

detecting breaches of the law. We are, therefore, driven to the conclusion

that, unless the evils are to remain--and this is not tolerable--we must

prohibit altogether the employment for wages of children liable to attend

school full time.

Various objections are made to the proposal. We are told by many of the

witnesses who appeared before the Interdepartmental Committee on

Wage-earning Children that a little light work was good for boys; it kept

them out of mischief. Ignoring the difficulties of insuring that the work

shall be little and light, they do not seem to make out their case. In

London, as has been shown, not more than a quarter of the boys during the

course of their school time are ever engaged seriously in paid employment.

If, therefore, the work was beneficial, we should expect to find in the

after-career of the 25 per cent. evidence of the advantages they have

enjoyed, and in the case of the 75 per cent. signs of failure due to their

less fortunate training. But all experience points in the opposite

direction. It is the 25 per cent. who drift most generally into the

"blind-alley" occupations; it is from this 25 per cent. that the majority

of hooligans and youthful criminals are recruited.

It is also argued that there are certain tasks which only children can

perform, because they occupy only a small portion of the day. Papers must

be delivered and milk left at people's houses. But in Germany much of this

work is done by old men,[177] and even in this country the "knocker-up" in

the morning is not a child, but an old man. Employers in the textile

trades declared that it is only by beginning young that children can

acquire the necessary quickness and deftness of touch. But as these trades

absorb in the adult service only a small proportion of the children

engaged, and seeing that in many instances the half-time system has been

dropped as uneconomic, there does not seem much force in this objection.

Moreover, it cannot be beyond the power of manual training in the schools

to provide a fitting and less injurious substitute.

The arguments in favour of the continued employment of school-children are

the arguments of the old world, and the new world is becoming a little

tired of the arguments of these old-world people. The time has come to

make a stand, and insist that for all children there shall be insured the

blessings of childhood. The first step in this direction lies in making it

impossible for them to enter the ranks of the wage-earners as long as

their names remain on the roll of the elementary school.

_(c) The New Half-Time System._

The proposals for raising the school age and for prohibiting child labour

during that period will do much to strengthen the system of supervision.

Another year of school discipline; another year of medical inspection and

medical treatment; protection during another year from the evil effects of

overwork and from the demoralization due to "blind-alley" occupations and

premature earning--these reforms will bring us some way on our journey

towards the new apprenticeship, but they will not bring us the whole way.

There remain the three years which lie between the ages of fifteen and

eighteen, and include the greater part of the period of adolescence--in

some respects the most important period in the development of a human

being. It is during these years that character begins to take its

permanent set; it is during these years that, with the coming of puberty,

there is most risk of ugly and dangerous outbreaks; it is during these

years that physical health demands the most careful attention; and it is

during these years that, with the exception of the failures of

civilization--the physically, the mentally, and the morally

defective--there is no real supervision or, under existing conditions, any

hope of securing it.

To allow irresponsible freedom during these years is to court disaster; to

give it suddenly and in an unqualified degree, as it is given now when the

school career is brought to an abrupt end, is to follow a course condemned

by all educationalists. No parent, even the most thoughtless, among the

well-to-do classes would think of treating his son in this fashion. His

whole scheme of education is founded on the principle of a slow and

gradual loosening of the bonds of discipline. The close supervision of the

private school is replaced by the larger liberty of the public school,

which in turn opens into the greater but still restricted freedom of the

University.

Freedom must come slowly. We want a bridge between the elementary school

of the boy and the full-time workshop of the man. Such a bridge would be

created by the establishment of the proposed half-time system. For half

the day--or at any rate, for half his time--the lad between the ages of

fifteen and eighteen would be compelled to attend a place of education,

and only during the remaining half be permitted to undertake employment

for wages. The advantages of this proposal are many. First, the influence

of the school would be retained for an additional three years, and under

the half-time system the freedom of the youthful wage-earner would find a

suitable limitation in the half-time control of the school. Secondly, we

should have the opportunity of another three years' medical inspection and

medical treatment. With supervision over the health of the community

continued until the age of eighteen we might fairly anticipate a rapid

improvement in the physical efficiency of the worker. In particular, we

should be able to detect, in a way now impossible, the effects of various

forms of employment on those engaged in them. Inspection under the

provisions of the Factory and Workshops Act, as has been shown, is too

limited in character to do more than pick out a few young persons

obviously unfit for the occupation they have selected; but, with the

education authority responsible for the health of juveniles, and using to

the full extent its powers to provide preventive measures or to veto in

the case of certain individuals certain forms of work, we should have gone

far to secure that no one should enter on or remain in a trade for which

he was physically unfit. Thirdly, as already shown, a half-time system is

the only really effective way of limiting the hours of juvenile

employment. If the lad is compelled to be elsewhere than in the workshop

for half his time, we have an automatic check on excessive work. Other

advantages of this system will appear when we come to deal with questions

of training and the provision of an opening.

The half-time system should be made compulsory throughout the country; it

ought not to be left to local option to decide. The local rating authority

naturally wishes to encourage the establishment of workshops and factories

within its area, and would be unwilling to adopt Acts which might prove a

deterrent. It would be a most unsatisfactory state of affairs for

employers to evade the spirit of the law by moving into districts where

the law was not enforced. It is a little unfortunate that the Education

(Scotland) Act, 1908, which allows a limited amount of compulsion in

connection with continuation schools, is founded on the principle of local

option. The recommendations of the Consultative Committee of the Board of

Education are vitiated in a similar way. Local option can never be really

successful. It will elect to act only where there is least opposition from

employers--in other words, where action is least necessary; and it will do

nothing where boy labour is most exploited and regulation most urgently

required. In one direction alone can local option be allowed with

advantage. It may be permitted to decide on the precise kind or kinds of

half-time to be enforced within their area. Boys might attend school on

the half-day system or on the alternate day system. Or, again, they might

spend three days in the workshop and three days in the school, or under

certain circumstances devote six months of the year to the workshop and

the remaining six months to the school. It would be desirable to allow the

local authority considerable liberty in their methods of adapting the

half-time system to the special needs of the trades of the district,

provided always that a true half-time system was established.

There is no serious difficulty in the way of compelling attendance at the

half-time school. It would be enforced just as attendance at the

elementary school is enforced, and by the same officers. Further, no

employer would be permitted to employ a boy between the ages of fifteen

and eighteen who could not show satisfactory evidence of attendance at

school. Or if, as may be the case, it is found desirable to permit boys to

be engaged only by means of the Labour Exchange, the Labour Exchange

itself would prove a most effective way of enforcing attendance.

There is nothing new or impracticable in the principle of the proposal.

Compulsory attendance at continuation schools can be required in Scotland.

Such attendance is compulsory in parts of Germany and Switzerland.[178] It

is exacted by certain employers in this country from their apprentices.

Further, the fact that for many years the half-time system has been in use

in the case of many important industries, and tens of thousands of

children so employed, demonstrates clearly enough that there is nothing

impossible in the application of a half-time system to juveniles. It

would, no doubt, cause some inconvenience, and some employers might

dispense with the services of juveniles; but no more difficulty would

arise than has arisen when any fresh regulations have been imposed; and we

should see, as we have always done in the past, the employers who

predicted inevitable ruin before the event, as soon as the proposal became

law adapt themselves, with that placid content and admirable success which

they have always displayed after the event, to the new condition of

affairs.

_(d) The Parents' Point of View._

The three proposals just made have one characteristic in common-they all

directly set a limit to the employment of children and young persons. It

is possible that some readers may regard them from another point of view,

and say that in limiting employment they seriously diminish the income of

the family. Will the poor parent, whose lot is pitiable enough as things

are, be able to stand the loss?

In considering this, the parents' point of view, we must guard against

being caught in the noose of a vicious circle. We must not perpetuate an

evil in order to mitigate its present effects. Many, probably most, of

those parents whose income hovers about the margin of possible existence

are in this pitiful position because their own childhood has been

neglected. As children, they have been overworked, and they are now

physically unfit for regular employment; as children, they have been

allowed to go uncontrolled and untrained, and now, as men, they are paying

a heavy tax for the earnings of their boyhood. They receive little because

they are worth little; their work is precarious because the sphere of

their usefulness is small. We must not allow their children to live as

_they_ lived when children, and so pass on to the next generation the

taint of inefficiency and its consequent wages of starvation merely

because to-day wages of starvation need to be supplemented. We can never

hope to overtake and pass an evil if we always cast it in front of us. The

one clear message to the reformer of to-day is that he should look to

prevention, and not merely to cure; and the one clear hope of a nation's

future lies in insuring to every youth, as he crosses the threshold of

manhood, the fullest realization of that development whose promise was his

at birth. It might be well worth while for a country lavishly to endow

poverty for a generation in order to free itself once for all from its

fatal infection. But there is no reason to believe that we must resort to

this drastic measure because there is no reason to believe that the

proposed restrictions of child labour will in any way injure the parents.

Take first the earnings of school-children. There is very little reason to

believe that they often make any effective contribution to the income of

the home. They are irregular, they are small, and very frequently the

boys retain them as pocket-money. Where they are large, as in the case of

children employed during the pantomime season, they often form a

convenient excuse for the parent to go idle for a time. The only large

exception to this rule is the case of the widow. Here, indeed, the

earnings do usually find their way home, materially increase the miserable

pittance allowed by the guardians, and must be regarded as a tax levied on

children in aid of the ratepayer. Humanity and a reformed Poor Law may be

trusted to remove the tax.

Take next the raising of the school age to fifteen. The age has not been

raised for more than ten years, and when it was last raised it was raised

without friction and without complaint on the part of the parent. We

might, perhaps, have expected that the percentage of attendance would have

decreased because of the difficulty of enforcing it on the children of

poverty-stricken parents. This has not been the experience; indeed, the

last decade has been remarkable for the rapid rise in that percentage.

There is not a scrap of evidence to show that the last raising of the

school age caused even temporary suffering on a large scale. Never was a

large reform carried out with greater ease. There is no reason to believe

that, if we raised the age again, that favourable experience would not be

repeated.

We come now to the new half-time system. The earnings of boys between

fifteen and eighteen years are considerable. To diminish them by one-half,

it is urged, would be to adopt a course which would prove intolerable to

the poor parent. Now, in the first place, though it is true that the lads

could be employed for only half the time they were before, it by no means

follows that they would only receive half the present money. We have

already seen that the demand for boys far outruns the supply. The

half-time system would halve the supply, and, though some employers might

cease to use boys, the demand would certainly not be halved. The demand

for boys would then considerably exceed the demand of to-day. The rate of

wages would, in consequence, rise. The boys would no doubt earn less, but

certainly more than half of what they now earn. In the next place, it must

be remembered that the parent rarely receives the whole of the boy's

earnings even during the first year, and each year the proportion of wages

that comes to the home grows less. At the age of seventeen it is seldom

that more than half finds its way into the family exchequer. The boy keeps

the rest, and, as we have already seen, the large amount of money he has

to spend on himself is by no means an unmixed benefit. The parent cannot

usually get from the boy much more than is required to keep him; indeed,

he is afraid to enlarge his demand lest the boy, who is economically

independent, should leave home. But under the half-time system, though he

may earn his keep, he will rarely earn enough to support himself outside

the family. In addition, the fact of being compelled to attend school will

be a healthy reminder that he is not yet a man, and so check the growing

spirit of independence. Home influence and parental authority will thus

be strengthened, and the father will be able to exact a much larger share

than before of the boy's earnings. Now, if the earnings are not diminished

by so much as half, and if at the same time the parent obtain an increased

proportion, it is by no means clear that the home affairs will suffer.

Among the poorest families, where home discipline ceases altogether when

the boy leaves school, it is quite possible that the financial position of

the parent will be improved rather than worsened.

But we have not yet taken into account what is, perhaps, the most

important consideration. The three proposals under discussion will

undoubtedly largely diminish the amount of work performed by boys, but

will not diminish the amount of work that requires to be done. Somebody

must take up the tasks formerly allotted to boys, and, if boys fail, men

must fill their place. Now, the work was given to boys because, to give it

to men would cost more. In future, the work will be given to men, and more

money will be paid for it than before. In other words, the increased

earnings of men will more than make up for the diminished earnings of

boys, and much more than compensate for the loss, because, as we have

seen, only a portion of the boys' earnings ever reach the home. Or we may

look at the question from another point of view, and say that the

decreased use of boys will mean an increase in the demand for men, and,

consequently, an increase in the wages of men. The Minority Report of the

Poor Law Commission arrives at these three proposals by starting from the

opposite point of view, and advocates their adoption not primarily for

the good of the boys, but for the good of their parents. In the task of

decasualizing labour, they are met with the difficulty that a considerable

number of men will in the process be thrown out of employment altogether.

Work must be found for them, and the easiest and the best way to find it

is shown to be the withdrawal from the labour market of persons, like

children, who ought not either to be employed at all or to be employed for

such long hours as at present. Hence arises the suggestion of a rigid

limitation of boy labour. It is much in favour of these proposals that

they are the outcome of an elaborate analysis which in the one case begins

with the man, and in the other with the child. We may take it, then, as

clear that, from the parents' point of view, there is nothing to hinder us

in raising the school age to fifteen, prohibiting the employment of

school-children, and instituting a new half-time system.

II.

TRAINING.

The second essential in an apprenticeship system worthy the name is the

provision of adequate training. The word "training" is used in its

broadest sense to include preparation, not only for the life of the

workman, but for the life of the citizen as well. In the preceding chapter

we have seen that the scholarship schemes, connecting the elementary

school with the University, and rapidly increasing throughout the country,

are offering opportunities of training for those likely to rise high in

the professional, the commercial, and the industrial world. It is probable

that sufficient attention has not as yet been given to the supply of the

most advanced kind of technological instruction, but the fault is being

remedied, and the defect is due rather to lack of knowledge than to lack

of will; and it is the instruction, and not the facilities of access to

it, that is wanting.

What we are concerned with in this chapter is the training of those

destined to fill the posts of foremen and managers of small undertakings,

of the skilled workmen of the future, and of those never likely to rise

above the ranks of unskilled labour. We are also concerned with those who

will occupy corresponding positions in the commercial world. It has

already been shown that the training of these persons is one-sided and

inadequate, and, in the case of the majority, can hardly be said to exist

at all. On the other hand, we have seen good reason to believe that the

technical school can be, if not a complete substitute for the workshop, at

any rate a necessary and fitting supplement. The day has gone by when it

was necessary to argue at length the uses of technical instruction.

Employers in this country, as they have long since done on the Continent

and in America, recognize the advantages. Yearly, whether by compelling

the lads in their service to attend the technical school, or forming

themselves into committees to advise as to the most desirable methods of

teaching, they are displaying a keener interest in the question, and a

fuller faith in the possibilities of practical training given outside the

walls of the workshop.

The defect of existing arrangements has been shown to lie in their

limitation. For the majority technical instruction has been unsatisfactory

or impossible of access. We must show in the present chapter how all may

enjoy the advantages of training; but before doing so we must consider, a

little more closely than has been done before, the kind of training

required by the petty officers and the rank and file of the industrial

army.

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.