Boy Labour and Apprenticeship

by Reginald A. Bray

As regards young persons, if we exclude the Acts relating to mines, which affect a comparatively small number of lads, the Shop Hours Act, with its mild provisions of seats for assistants and a maximum week of seventy-four hours, the only Act which can be said to exert a large measure of supervision is the Factory and Workshop Act. Assuming that the system of regulation there found is adequate, and adequately enforced—both assumptions far from being fulfilled in practice—there remain the young persons who do not come within its provisions. The number of these is very large. In the next chapter figures are given relating to the occupations of London children on leaving school and between the ages of fifteen and twenty. A study of these tables will show that not more than at most a third of the young persons are brought within the scope of the Factory and Workshop Act. A large proportion of the lads engaged in the building trades, and practically the whole of those employed in shops, in transport, in commerce, and in general labour, are excluded. In their case there is no State supervision to regulate the conditions of their work.

Coming to concrete examples, the van-boy may in all kinds of weather spend a dozen hours a day lolling on the tail of a cart, idle for much of his time, and for the remainder holding the horses outside a public-house, or lifting weights too heavy for his strength. The errand-boy, none too well clad or shod, may, delivering parcels and messages, trudge through the cold and rain over long leagues of streets during long stretches of the week. The office-boy may be cooped up in a dark and ill-ventilated office during most of the hours of daylight. The shop-boy may stand ten, twelve, or on Saturdays fifteen hours of the twenty-four in the street or in the shop, with one eye on the goods and the other on a penny novelette. And there is no public authority to say whether the conditions of his employment are satisfactory, no power to have him medically inspected, no possible guarantee to insure that when he passes the threshold of early manhood the vigour and the brightness of youth shall not have given way to the feeble health and the torpor of old age. Unquestionably, we owe much to sentiment for the evils it has denounced and remedied, but we owe also to the régime of sentiment the fact that some two-thirds of the young persons in the country are engaged in occupations carried on without regulation and unvisited by any inspector of the State.

§ 2. STATE ENTERPRISE.

The most signal example of State enterprise in the realm of boy labour is to be found in that huge organization of schools, elementary and continuation, which now cover the country, and whose efficiency is rapidly increasing. The organization has already been described; it remains to summarize briefly its principal effects. First, the boys attend school with astonishing regularity. An average percentage of attendances during the year of ninety-five, and even more, is become common. Truancy is rare, and growing rarer. The truant schools are being gradually emptied, and several have been closed. This result is no doubt in part due to the increased fine for non-attendance, and the pressure thus placed on the parent. But excellent attendance implies much more than the elimination of the truant; it means that, after making allowance for absences due to illness and other sufficient causes, the boy attends school with perfect regularity and punctuality at all times when the schools are opened. Now, this ideal is in the case of the vast majority of boys attained. The result must be attributed to the influence of the teachers over the boy. Prosecution of the parent may cure gross irregularity, but perfect attendance can only be secured by enlisting the co-operation of the boy. The first effect of the school, then, is seen in the almost unqualified regularity and punctuality of the attendance. If we reflect on the home conditions of many of the boys, we shall be compelled to pay a high tribute of praise to the work of the teacher. The second achievement lies in the admirable order maintained within the walls of the school. Ready obedience is the rule, and not the exception. This is in general not the result of a system of harsh discipline—corporal punishment is decreasing at once in severity and in frequency—it is due to the personal influence of the teacher. In the third place, a spirit of industry and active attention pervades the work of the school. In discussing with the authorities of secondary schools the career of the children who have won scholarships from the elementary schools, I have more than once been told that the chief characteristic of these scholars lies in their patient and strenuous diligence. In this respect they serve as an admirable example to the fee-paying pupils. It is true that the scholars are picked children, but ability and diligence are, as experience shows, by no means inseparable companions. Here, again, we see the effect of the school. Finally, the schools are institutions which make for character in the best sense of the word. The moral training is gradually freeing itself from the “do and don’t” of the home, and is beginning to reach the higher level of morality where the command is “to be this, not that.” A standard of school honour is being sought for, and sometimes attained. To take a single example. In what is perhaps the poorest school in all London, set in the most squalid and vice-haunted region, it has been made a matter of honour with the boys who are receiving school dinners to come to the headmaster as soon as the home circumstances temporarily improve and say: “I don’t want a dinner this morning, because father has got a day’s work.”

Habits of regularity, obedience, and industry, and the cultivation of a sense of honour—these are the chief results of State supervision carried out by means of the schools. Two questions require an answer: Do these qualities, found within the precincts of the school, overflow and affect the conduct of the boys outside the school? Do they last when school-days are over, and the boys gone out to work? With regard to the first, there is good reason to believe that they do overflow. The school training does influence the conduct of the boys outside. No one who has watched a zealous headmaster replace an ancient and inefficient teacher of the old type can fail to have observed a striking change in the behaviour of the boys as seen in the street and in the home. With regard to the second question, we must reply that undoubtedly in many cases the qualities gradually disappear. When we come, as we shall do shortly, to the survey of the conditions of boy labour, we shall not be surprised at this unfortunate truth. It would be difficult to imagine any form of training that would be permanent when all discipline is relaxed or entirely discontinued at the most critical period of the development of the boy.

The elementary school is now made responsible for the supervision of the health of the children. Medical inspection of all children is now compulsory, while medical treatment is made legal. The education authority may also draw on the rates to provide meals for necessitous children. It is too soon to estimate the effect of these new powers, but if they are used with wise generosity they should exercise a profound influence on the health of the rising generation.

But however beneficent may be the influence of the elementary school, it comes to an end abruptly at the age of fourteen, and often a year or two earlier. Up to the age of leaving school, the boy is carefully guarded by the State, and then, with no transitional stage, he becomes a man, and, so far as the State is concerned, all control is withdrawn. Two or three per cent., with the help of scholarships, may pass annually to the secondary school, where State supervision is continued. Not more than 30 per cent. of those who leave the elementary school attend an evening school,[93] and even if they do there is no medical inspection in such places, and little effective discipline is possible for boys attending evening school on two or three nights a week. The remaining two-thirds disappear from the sight of the State, which henceforth renounces all responsibility for their supervision.

We have next to regard the schools as training-grounds for the workmen of the future. We ought not to look to the elementary schools to provide any definite preparation for a trade. Unfortunately, through no fault of their own, and because of the industrial development of the day, the schools are turning out in thousands lads completely equipped for a certain class of occupation. We have already seen that the most signal triumph of the schools is to be found in the habits of regularity, intelligence, and obedience, which they impress on the boys. Now, these qualities are essential to success in all walks of life; but for one form of employment alone are they all that is required. This form of employment includes those occupations in which boys and boys only are engaged, and where the boys are discharged as soon as they become men. The messenger-boy, the shop-boy, the van-boy, and even the boy who attends to some machine which monotonously performs a single operation—the boy who comes into one of these classes need take with him nothing but the three recommendations of regularity, obedience, and intelligence. We shall trace later the disastrous effects of these forms of employment. It is not without significance that the rapid increase in the number of boys so engaged has synchronized with the rapid improvement in the system of elementary education. It is something of a tragedy that the most signal triumph of the schools should be, perhaps, the cause of their most signal failure.

Definite training must be looked for in the continuation school. It is unnecessary to add much to what has been said in the last chapter; the State offers opportunity, but with its existing powers can do little more. Speaking generally, for the child of comparatively well-to-do parents, for the clever child, for the child of unusual energy and physical vigour, these opportunities can be enjoyed; but for the remainder—and that the great majority—they are useless, because beyond the reach of ordinary endeavour.

Of State enterprise in the provision of an opening it is too early to speak; the juvenile branch of the Labour Exchange is only creeping into existence. In the next chapter an attempt will be made to explain how best can be realized the possibilities which lie latent in these institutions.