Table IV.

Class of Occupation.Number.Percentage.
Parent.Boy.Parent.Boy.
Trades and industries1,30880341·4622·31
Domestic offices or services62911·972·53
Transport (including messengers, errand-boys, van-boys, etc.)3331,36810·5538·00
Shopkeepers, shop-assistants, and dealers32830710·398·52
Commercial occupations2523377·989·36
General labour69633222·069·22
Professional occupations and their subordinate services68102·160·28
General or local government100153·170·41
Defence of the country860·260·16
Higher education—110—3·05
Unemployed—222—6·16
Total3,1553,601100·00100·00

In the interpretation of these tables certain facts must be borne in mind. None of the parents are returned as unemployed; this is because the trade of the parent was asked for, and no account was taken as to whether he was or was not employed. Secondly, the occupations are somewhat vaguely described; this in particular is true of the term “labourer.” More exact information would no doubt have removed the parent from the class “general labour,” and placed him in the class “transport,” and occasionally in the classes “domestic servant” or “shop-assistant.” Thirdly, the messenger-boys are included partly under “transport” and partly under “shop-assistants,” the boy being termed sometimes an errand-boy and sometimes a shop-boy. The term “office-boy,” which appears frequently in the returns, is vague. I have classed the office-boy as an errand-boy unless the school return places him in the column “skilled employment,” when I have included him under the heading “commercial occupation.”

Making allowance for a certain inevitable inaccuracy which belongs to returns of this kind, we have a general picture, accurate in all essentials, of the distribution of boys among the various forms of occupation immediately after leaving the elementary school. The columns which refer to the trade of the parents, and indicate therefore the distribution of the parents among the various forms of occupation, are of considerable value. If we take Table IV., which may be regarded as typical of London as a whole, and compare the last two columns, we shall at once notice the striking difference that marks the distribution of boys and of adults among the several kinds of employment. In “trades and industries,” 41 per cent. of parents are engaged, and only 22 per cent. of boys; 38 per cent. of the boys are engaged in “transport,” and only 10 per cent. of parents. This fact carries with it a conclusion of great importance—son and father can seldom work together. If, for example, 10 per cent. of the parents are included under “transport,” and 38 per cent. of the boys, it is clear that little more than a quarter of such boys can be employed in company with their parents. The actual facts, as revealed by an examination of the individual returns, are much stronger, and demonstrate the extreme rareness of father and son following the same occupation. In the case of “trades and industries” the trade of father and son is not infrequently the same; this is in particular true of “tailoring” trades of the East End, included in Table III., where the proportion of adults to boys are as fifty-one to forty-two. In suburban villadom, pictured in Table III., the clerk is often father to the clerk, while the son of a shopkeeper occasionally assists his parents in the shop. The coster habit likewise runs in families. But with these exceptions father and son do not work together. In consequence, in his first situation the boy is cut adrift from the home and its control, such as it is. He has not his father by his side to note and guide his conduct; and if he enters a skilled trade, he lacks the personal interest of the parent to guarantee his satisfactory training. We have already seen that the school supervision is at an end; in consequence, the only disciplinary influence left is the influence of the employer. The character of the employment and the nature of the supervision of the master become, therefore, of supreme importance to the well-being of the boy. It is consequently necessary to examine in some detail the distinguishing features of the various kinds of occupation. They are usually roughly classed as skilled or unskilled, according as they do or do not lead to a form of employment which requires specialized skill or specialized intelligence.

The Unskilled Trades.—Practically the whole of the unskilled trades are included under the terms “domestic service,” “transport,” “shop,” and “general labour,” and the great majority of the boys who select these occupations may be said to select an unskilled trade. In Table I., a typical working-class district, it will be seen that 66 per cent. of the boys who leave the elementary schools come within this class. In Table II., a suburban area, the figures are 55 per cent.; but a considerable proportion of those included under “shops” appear to be employed in the shops of their parents, and to be learning the business. In Table III., representing the small East End trades, the figures are 44 per cent.; but, judged by wages and conditions of employment, the majority of the 42 per cent. included under trades should be transferred to the class of unskilled work. For all the districts, as a whole typical of London, Table IV. shows the figures to be 58·27 per cent. The figures quoted above ignore the boys returned as unemployed and unknown, the number of these for all London being 6 per cent. They are boys waiting for something to turn up; what will turn up it is impossible to predict. But it is safe to say that a considerable portion will drift into unskilled work.

The unskilled trades fall into three classes. The first and smallest is included under “domestic service.” Under this head are found boys in barbers’ shops, page-boys, club-boys, boot and knife boys. Employment in a barber’s shop is notoriously unhealthy;[116] a barber’s shop is also supposed to be not infrequently the resort of the betting fraternity. The fortunes of the page and club boy await the zeal of an investigator; the knife and boot boy soon passes to some other occupation. Of the three classes, domestic service is the least important and the soonest left by the boy.

The second class, included under “transport” and “shopkeepers,” is far the largest and the most important. In all London some 47 per cent. of the boys are found here; or, if we add a half of the 6 per cent. returned as unemployed, we may say that half the boys who leave the elementary schools belong to this class. It is necessary to take “transport” and “shopkeepers” together, because it is impossible to tell whether a “shop-boy” is merely an errand-boy, or a boy on the road to become a properly trained shop-assistant. It is probable, however, that only a small number could be regarded as future shop-assistants.

Ignoring these exceptions, we have to follow the fortunes of 50 per cent. of the boys leaving school—in other words, of 15,000 persons. Their forms of employment have much in common. In the first place, they are what is known as “blind-alley” occupations—they lead nowhere. Boys only are engaged, and when the boys become men they are cast adrift. Sometimes they are absorbed in the adult service, but more usually, if they have not already left, are given notice, and must at the age of eighteen seek out some new way of earning a living. The report of Mr. Cyril Jackson makes this fact abundantly clear.[117] “The industrial biographies received,” he says, “show clearly that there is generally a time of transition when boys have to seek new occupations, for which they have little aptitude.”[118] Or again: “There appears to be no doubt that the restlessness of many of the boys doing more or less unskilled work obscures from some employers the fact that they are using a greater number of boys than can ever be employed in connection with their trade as men. The employers who have filled up forms often state that they ‘never discharge a boy who is willing to stay,’ or ‘that boys are only discharged for misconduct,’ when it is evident from the figures appearing in the same form that there must be a considerable proportion of the boys passing out of the trade each year.... That many employers, on the other hand, do in fact discharge a considerable proportion of their boys because they have no room for them as men—or, to express the same thing in the form in which it presents itself to the masters, because they cannot afford to offer men’s wages—is shown in the short accounts of the trades in the Appendix.”[119] It is needless to labour the point further, as everyone familiar with the conditions of boy work give evidence to the same effect.

The second characteristic of these trades is that they are mainly concerned with fetching or carrying something—messages, letters, parcels. It is characteristic of that stage of civilization at which we have arrived that we want to save ourselves trouble, or to save ourselves time. Boys are the instruments we use. “Here we are, all of us,” says a modern writer, “demanding an endless number of tiny jobs to be done on our behalf. Every year multiplies these demands, increasing the pace at which the jobs can be done, and the number of them that can be crowded into the time. We learn to expect more and more conveniences at our elbow by which communication can be made, business transacted, messages despatched, parcels transferred, news brought up to date, transit hastened, things of all kinds put under our hand. We touch buttons, press knobs, ring bells, whisper down telephones, keep wires throbbing with our desires, bustle and hustle the world along. And all this in the end means boys. Boys are what we set moving. Boys are the material in which we deal. Boys are our tools. Every wire has a boy at the end of it.”[120]