Certain individual schools throughout the Empire deserve special mention, the Royal Fachschule of Iserlohn, the first in Prussia, being a notable example. Here handwork is combined with industrial art adapted to metal work. Boys who entered the trade were, in the early days of the school, found to be in need of both theoretical and practical work, so each has a place in the curriculum. The length of the course is three years, covering the trades of designers, wood carvers, moulders, founders, turners, chasers, engravers, gilders, and etchers. Here are taught drawing in all its branches; modeling in wax and clay; history of art and metal work; elements of chemistry and physics; mathematics; German. Practical work in the department in which the student is engaged, is given, the student stating on entrance what subject he desires to take up. The time of instruction is from eight to twelve, in the winter season, and from seven to eleven in the summer. The afternoon session is from two to six. In the engineering trade school, three hours per day are devoted to ornamental drawing, German, physics and arithmetic. As the instruction is planned for working people it is largely theoretical.
The Reimscheid school is of the apprenticeship order. Attention is given the making of edge tools and such other implements as are manufactured in the district. All students take drawing and design as applied to iron work. They are made acquainted with the different kinds of iron work that can be carried on in the home; are schooled in the use of the tools made; learn regarding the markets at which they are sold, and the various methods of their manufacture. Thus a general understanding of the principles underlying his trade is given the boy and he becomes acquainted with the commercial side of his calling while undergoing the necessary preparation in manipulation. The theoretical work is given in the morning and what shop practice is offered is in the afternoon from two to seven. The tuition is twenty dollars per year.
The Pottery Trade School at Hohr Grenzhausen, Prussia, is under State control. There are day and evening classes, the former attended for the most part by the sons of manufacturers; the evening classes by men and women who are employed otherwise during the day. There are Sunday classes also. Decorated stoneware is given much attention. The day class boys enter with a fairly good knowledge of drawing and have perhaps attended the Fortbildungsschule. Drawing, descriptive geometry, modeling in clay and wax, new forms of vessels and original ornamentation, painting, designing and decorative art, manufacture of earthenware, lectures and study of collections, make up the curriculum. Any original model made becomes the property of the father of the boy, or of the person financially supporting such boy during his attendance at school. Two duplicates of the model must be left at the school. The courses are three years, daily sessions, Saturdays excepted. The fees are nominal, being only five dollars per year for the day classes, thirty hours weekly, and one dollar for evening work, two hours weekly. Pupils living outside the municipality pay six dollars per year for day instruction.
The Furtwangen, or Black Forest schools are made up of several divisions, giving rather a high class of instruction. Clock making, wood carving, and straw plaiting, are largely carried on.
This paper would not be complete without some mention of the system of apprenticeship in vogue in Germany. The Lehrwerkstätten or apprentice shops play a considerable part in the industrial life of the Empire. In some instances they are maintained in connection with the trade schools, or again, are semi-private or separate shops. The apprenticeship shops on the one hand, and the continuation schools upon the other, are doing much of the work formerly undertaken by the trade schools proper. While manufacturing upon a larger scale is recognized as possessing advantages over the smaller productive plants, it has seemed wise to hold to the handicrafts, in a measure at least. The apprentice system helps to preserve the traditions and sentiments of the German people, by handing down these handicrafts. The associations, vereins, and guilds of past time, are to-day, through the aid of legislation, coming to the fore, and bringing with them many boys trained in the shops under the masters. To show the power and scope of the guild, and in some cases it is incumbent upon a community to form a guild whether or no, let me give the following quotation:
“Persons carrying on trades on their own account can form guilds for the advancement of their common trade interests. The object of the guild shall be:
1. the cultivation of an esprit de corps and professional pride among the members of a trade;
2. the maintenance of amicable relations between employers and their employes, and the securing of work for unemployed journeymen and their shelter during the period of their nonemployment;
3. the detailed regulations of the conditions of apprenticeship and the care for the technical and moral education of apprentices;
4. the adjustment of disputes between guild members and their apprentices, as contemplated by the law of July 20, 1890, concerning industrial arbitration.”