A History of Inland Transport and Communication in England

by Edwin A. Pratt

"Railroads, as a whole, through a representative body such as the American Railway Association, should in a comprehensive way take up the matter of the education of railway employees. As they now have committees devoted to standards of construction, maintenance, and operating practice, they should also have a standing committee, of a character to command confidence, who should sedulously foster a closer relation between the railroad and educational agencies. This could be done by roughly grouping railroad service into classes according to the requirements of service, indicating the efficiency required in a broad way, and studying the curricula and course of experience leading up to such efficiency. Such a body should officially gather all railroad literature and accumulate the nucleus of a railroad museum. In various ways the teaching force of educational agencies, training toward railroad employ, could be drawn into study and discussion of the practical everyday problems of railroad work. The large public policies involved in railroad operation are to-day left to the doctrinaire or accidental publicist, when they should be a subject of study and effective presentation by the highest grade of trained experts which the associate railroads could draw into their service. On the other hand, such a standing committee could stimulate and guide the practice of railroads in their methods of handling and instructing apprentices. Between the instruction and practice in the service on the one side, and the instruction outside the service on the other side, they could foster a closer relation, making them mutually supplementary. In developing approved plans for recruiting the service they would necessarily indicate the lines of a more direct access than now exists from the various schools to apprenticeships in the service, and suggest the best methods by which such apprenticeships would be gradually merged into the full status of regular employ at the point of special fitness."

On this side of the Atlantic the railway servants' education movement has assumed two phases—(1) secondary or technical education of junior members of railway staffs in mechanics' institutions or kindred organisations, created or materially supported by the railway companies, and already carried on during a period of, in some instances, over sixty years; and (2) a "higher education" movement, of a much more advanced type, developed since about 1903, and conducted either in special classes held at the railway offices or in connection with a University, a mechanics' institution, a local educational body, or otherwise.

It is impossible in the space at my command to give a detailed account of what every railway company in the United Kingdom is doing in these directions. Some typical examples must suffice.

To begin with mechanics' institutions and other kindred bodies, these are by no means purely educational in their scheme of operations. They include many social and recreative features which, in effect, should play a no less important part than educational efforts in promoting the general efficiency of the railway worker by helping to give him a sound body, a contented mind, and a cheerful disposition as well as more skilful fingers or a better-cultivated brain. In the United States, judging from what Mr Eaton says on the subject, all such "welfare" work as this, though carefully fostered, is regarded by the railroad companies as a purely business proposition; and he does not attempt to credit them with any higher motive than regard for the almighty dollar. Here, however, while there has been full recognition of the financial value of increased efficiency, the companies have, also, not failed to realise their moral obligations towards their staffs. Hence in seeking to promote the welfare of their employees they have been inspired by motives of humanity, goodwill and honourable feeling in addition to, or even as distinct from, any pecuniary advantage the shareholders themselves might eventually gain therefrom.

Crewe Mechanics' Institution dates back to 1844, when the Grand Junction Railway Company provided a library and reading-room, and, also, gave a donation for the purchase of books for the men employed in the railway works then being set up in what was, at that time, a purely agricultural district. In the following year this library and reading-room developed into a Mechanics' Institution, the primary object of the railway company being to afford to the younger members of their staff at Crewe greater facilities for acquiring theory in classes at the Institution to supplement the practical knowledge they were acquiring in the works, though the benefits of the Institution were also to be open to residents of Crewe who were not in the company's employ. The management was vested in a council elected annually by the directors and the members conjointly; and this arrangement has continued ever since.

Larger premises were provided in 1846, in which year the Grand Junction combined with the London and Birmingham and Manchester and Birmingham Companies to form the London and North-Western Railway Company. The classes were added to from time to time until they covered the whole range of subjects likely to be of service to the students. Beginning, however, with the 1910-11 session, the art, literary and commercial classes which had been held at the Institute for sixty-four years were transferred to the local education authority, the Institute retaining the scientific and technological subjects. In addition to the ordinary work of the classes, the more recent developments of the "higher education" movement have led to systematic courses of instruction—extending over four-year periods—in (1) pure science, (2) mechanical engineering, (3) electrical engineering and (4) building construction. An Institution diploma is given to each student who completes a course satisfactorily. Visits are, also, paid to engineering works, electrical generating stations, etc. Most of the teachers are engaged at the Crewe works, and the instruction given is thus of the most practical kind.

One feature of the Institution is the electrical engineering laboratory, provided by the directors of the London and North-Western Railway, who have further arranged for a number of apprentices to attend at the laboratory one afternoon every week to receive instruction, their wages being paid to them as though they were still on duty in the works. There is, also, a mechanics' shop, with lathes, drilling machines, etc., electrically driven.

Since 1855 the directors of the London and North-Western have given an annual donation of £20 for books to be awarded as prizes to successful students employed in their locomotive department and various other prizes and scholarships, including Whitworth scholarships, are also awarded. The Institution is affiliated with the Union of Lancashire and Cheshire Institutes, the City and Guilds of London Institute and the Board of Education, each of which bodies holds examinations and awards prizes and certificates. The library has now over 12,000 volumes.

In addition to the reading-room the Institution has coffee, smoking and recreation-rooms. Special attention is being paid to the social side of the Institution's work through the appointment of a "Teachers' Committee for Social and Recreative Development," the particular purpose of this committee being to organise sports and entertainments and to secure the formation of a literary society.

At Wolverton there is a Science and Art Institute at which many classes are held, and, although none of these are directly under the management of the London and North-Western Company, as at Crewe, the very successful and numerous courses in engineering subjects and railway-carriage building conducted by the committee of management, working in connection with the Bucks County Council, receive the active support and encouragement of the company's directors.