Boy Labour and Apprenticeship

by Reginald A. Bray

(a) The Elementary School.

It is obvious that, with the variety of children every school contains and their tender age, no definite trade training can be given in the elementary school. On the other hand, we have advanced far beyond the old educational ideal of providing a common and uniform type of instruction in the common school. Types of school are being multiplied to meet the needs of different kinds of pupils. Provision has long since been supplied for the mentally and physically defective, and serious attempts are now being made to break up and classify that huge group which includes the so-called normal child. In addition to the varying types of elementary school which are in process of being adapted to the differing needs of the locality, and the different classes of child, we have, under the elementary school system, what is known as the “higher elementary school.” Originally a school specializing in science and of little value, it is tending to become, under the more recent regulations of the Board of Education, a school where a definite bias, either in the direction of commerce or industry, is given to the curriculum. It is true that the number of schools called “higher elementary” shows little signs of increase.[89] This is due to the rigid and inflexible rules of the Board of Education, which seem expressly designed to kill, and not to encourage, the experiment. But while the name is being dropped, the thing is being preserved and multiplied. London, for example, has recently adopted a scheme for the development of sixty of these types of school, to be called “central schools.” The curriculum of each school is determined after taking into account the industrial needs of the neighbourhood in which it is placed. The education given is general in character, but the selection of subjects has special reference to some profession or group of trades. Broadly speaking, there are two general types of school, the commercial and the industrial. The industrial type is already subdivided into the woodwork and the engineering type, and further subdivisions will gradually be formed. In these schools no attempt will be made to teach a trade, but such subjects are included in the curriculum as will be found useful in the trade. In the woodwork type, for example, in addition to a considerable amount of time devoted to practical instruction in woodwork, special attention is given to the kinds of arithmetic and drawing required by the intelligent carpenter. An elaborate scheme for picking out between the ages of eleven and twelve the children suitable for these different kinds of school has been drawn up. A four years’ course of instruction is provided for. In order to induce the poorer parents to allow their children to remain beyond the age of compulsory attendance, the education committee offers bursaries, thereby exercising that negative form of compulsion technically known as a bribe. Other education authorities are establishing schools with similar aims. The experiments are recent, and mark an important and new development. Two advantages are anticipated. First, the variety in the types of school and the careful selection of scholars will promote intelligence by providing that particular kind of educational nutriment best adapted for encouraging the growth of a particular order of mind. Secondly, by guiding the interests of boys in the direction of various occupations, it is hoped that on leaving school these interests will lead the boys to enter those occupations for which to some extent they have been prepared, and in which they are most likely to succeed. The elementary schools, as a body, will thus become a kind of sorting-house for the different trades, and be freed from that charge, to some extent justified, of catering only for the lower ranks of the clerical profession.

(b) The Continuation School.

It is becoming year by year more generally recognized that a system of education which comes to an end somewhere about the age of fourteen is incomplete and profoundly unsatisfactory. Without attendance at a continuation school of some kind, a boy rapidly loses much of the effect of his previous education, and at the same time is deprived of all opportunity of enjoying the advantages of a more specialized training. To meet this need a complex system of continuation school has grown up. It lacks, however, the element of compulsion, except that negative form already alluded to—the bribe of a scholarship. Looking at the machinery as a whole, it may be admitted that the State does afford considerable opportunity to those anxious to continue their general education, or to obtain some specific form of technical instruction. Whether sufficient use is made of this opportunity is a question that must be answered in the following chapter. But taking the machinery as a whole, and as it exists under the best education authorities, the machinery does touch to some extent the principal trades and professions.[90]

1. Provision is gradually being made for those likely to succeed in the higher branches of industry and commerce. The number of secondary schools is being increased, their quality improved, and their types varied. Technical institutes providing day and evening classes of an advanced character are being rapidly multiplied. University instruction, aided out of public funds, is becoming more plentiful and efficient, and, whether during the day or in the evening, is year by year offering larger opportunities to students. Progress is especially marked in the faculties of economics and technology. Scholarship systems, more or less incomplete, make access to these institutions possible for the poorer classes of the community. The trend of development seems to suggest that a system of organization, calculated to provide training for the highest positions in the industrial and commercial world, is developing along the following lines:

Between the ages of eleven and twelve the brightest children will be transferred from the elementary to the secondary school. The secondary school will provide a course of instruction extending to the age of eighteen. Broadly speaking, there will be three types of secondary school, the first giving a general and literary education, the second specializing in commerce, and the third in some branch of science and technology. At the age of eighteen the suitable students will be removed to the University, where they will receive a three or four years’ course of instruction suitable to the profession they are intending to enter. It is probable that at the age of fourteen there will be an additional, though smaller, transfer of children from the elementary schools, in order that provision may be made for those who have slipped through the meshes of the scholarship net at the first casting. Scholarships with liberal maintenance grants will make readily accessible to all who are fit the advantages of a prolonged education. Evening classes, leading even to a degree, will remain for those who, for one reason or another, have failed to obtain in their earlier years the advanced instruction they now require.

An organization of this kind is not at present found anywhere in its complete form, but it is sufficiently complete in certain directions to be considered here, where we are concerned with attainments, and not reserved for a later chapter, where we shall be examining new paths of progress.

2. For those likely later to fill the position of foreman, or to become the best kind of artisan, the day trade school is provided. The boys enter the trade school on leaving the elementary school about the age of fourteen or fifteen, and go through a two and sometimes a three years’ course of instruction. These schools continue the education of the boy, with special reference to the trade concerned, and at the same time devote a large amount of time to supplying an all-round training in the various skilled operations the trade requires. They are essentially practical in character, and this practical character is often assured by a committee of employers, who visit the school and criticize the methods of instruction.

3. For those already apprenticed to, or engaged in, the trade two forms of instruction are provided. The most satisfactory are the classes attended during the day. Attendance at such times can only be secured by inducing the employers to allow their lads time off during working hours. In some cases the element of compulsion is introduced by the employers, who make attendance at such classes a condition of employment. The other form of instruction is provided during the evening at a technical institute. In either case the instruction is of a practical nature, and designed to supplement the training of the workshop.

4. For those who have entered, or desire to enter, the lower walks of commerce, or the civil or municipal service, there is the evening school of a commercial type, usually held in the building of an elementary school.