Boy Labour and Apprenticeship

by Reginald A. Bray

Now we are coming to see that a general education does not imply a certain specific syllabus of instruction; it may be the result of the most varied kinds of instruction. We have ceased to take the narrow view that it consists only in book-learning and aptness with the pen. We have recognized that manual training may rightly play a large part in any system of education, and for the full development of certain types of mind is absolutely indispensable. Consequently, though the employer does not need the man of all-round skill, there is no reason why the workman should not acquire a general use of the tools employed in his trade. Whatever it may be to the employer, the possession of a certain amount of all-round skill is not a matter of indifference to the workman. If he can boast skill in a single operation alone, the bridge that lifts him above the gulf of unskilled labour is very fragile. A change in demand or a new invention may any day render his specialized skill useless, and precipitate him into that gulf whence is no escape. But this is not the case with the man who has received an all-round training. Thrust out of one branch of the trade, he can, if intelligent, comparatively easily find an opening in another. The all-round skill, though not required in the workshop, is necessary to the man if his position in the skilled labour market is to be secure. In a sense, the measure of his all-round skill is the measure of the stability of his industrial status. Further, the possession of all-round skill is a necessary condition of the possession of intelligence. It gives a man a clearer insight into the significance of his trade, and robs monotony of some part of its soul-killing power. Pure specialization is hostile to intelligence; the man who can only do one thing cannot do that one thing well. Finally, from these skilled workmen must be chosen the foremen and small managers, and these people must possess the wider knowledge and a more varied skill. To a large extent at the present time they are not recruited from the large workshop; they come from the country district, where this all-round skill can still be acquired. But, as we have seen, this supply is not inexhaustible, and there are signs that the methods of the industrial revolution are invading the village. Unless, therefore, we are prepared to see a scarcity of trained foremen in the future, we must to-day aim at producing the skilled workman, who is at once intelligent and possesses a general knowledge of the tools of his trade.

“We do not to-day,” says Sir Christopher Furness, “want men who are all-round at building marine engines; we do need men who are all-round mechanical engineers—men who can apply the principles of their craft to any form of machinery that may be called for. That is a class of training which cannot be achieved by any system of apprenticeship, and is essentially a matter which the governing authority must handle if this country is to maintain its position in the industrial world.”[182] “The characteristics,” says the Consultative Committee, “that employers most value and most deplore the lack of would appear to be general handiness (which is really to a large extent a mental quality), adaptability and alertness, habits of observation—and the power to express the thing observed—accuracy, resourcefulness, the ability to grapple with new unfamiliar conditions, the habit of applying one’s mind and one’s knowledge to what one has to do.”[183] It is clear that within the narrow sphere of the workshop an all-round training of this kind can never be secured.

We must look, then, to the elementary schools supplemented by the technical institute, to insure to the workmen an all-round intelligence and a general knowledge of the use of tools employed in his trade. For commerce, intelligence and an all-round training are no less necessary. “You produce a better clerk,” it has been said, “if the boy takes an industrial rather than a commercial course.” There is therefore no conflict of interest between what the employer wants and what the workman wants. The employer wants intelligence, and cannot get it from a workman who does not possess a general knowledge of his trade. The workman wants an all-round knowledge of his trade because without it his position as a skilled artisan is precarious and at the mercy of every new invention or change in fashion.

We have hitherto spoken as if all were skilled workmen, and as though the unskilled labourer did not exist. Now, there are at the present time huge armies of men that can by no stretch of imagination be regarded as skilled at anything; but it is by no means clear that it is desirable for this huge army to continue as such. It is generally assumed that the performance of so-called unskilled work requires no training and makes no demand on skill. This is a grave mistake; let anyone, without previous experience, try a day’s digging in his garden, and he will realize the fact. But it is not merely a question of manual training and practice; the unskilled labourer, to be efficient, needs intelligence. Skilled and unskilled work call for, in this age of machines, more intelligence than was wanted in the past. Almost everyone nowadays uses a machine of some sort; and there can be no question that in such use there is a serious lack of intelligence. The unskilled labour engaged with machinery is almost always inadequate and unsatisfactory. The agricultural labourer, for example, has to manage machines whose complex mechanism is far beyond his ill-trained intelligence to comprehend. The same may be said of the general run of machine-minders. Breakdowns, stoppages, and accidents are the costly consequences of their defect. Of all forms of labour, the unskilled labour of to-day is probably the most expensive to the employer. The labourer is worth, as a rule, little more than he receives, and, not infrequently, a good deal less. The preservation of stupidity is among the most foolish and most expensive of modern luxuries. What the employer wants is the intelligent unskilled labourer, and such a class must be the product, not of the workshop, but of the schools. The training to be provided would be very similar to that required by the skilled workman.

From the point of view of the employer, we require more intelligence in the unskilled labourer; from the point of view of the community and the man himself, the need is even more urgent. We must not forget the man in the labourer. He is not for all his time an unskilled labourer; he is the autocrat of the home, the father of a family, and, as a voter, one of the rulers of the Empire. These last functions belong essentially to the highly skilled class of work. Uneducated parents are a danger to their children, and so to the future prosperity of the nation; the illiterate voters a peril to the safety of the State. Finally, the man himself, with a wider outlook on the world, and with a life richer in interests, and so with more opportunities of healthy enjoyment, would be a happier and a better citizen. The shame of modern civilization and the abiding menace to its security lie in the miserable horde of stupid, unintelligent, and uninterested labourers who are good for nothing except the exercise of mere brute strength and indulgence in mere animal pleasures, and not very much good even for this.

Looking, then, at the problem of the training of skilled and unskilled workmen alike, whether from the point of view of man or master, we see that the great essential is the possession of a large measure of intelligence. With the continual changes in the methods of industry, men must be capable of changing too; they must be capable of readily adapting themselves to new conditions, and not become petrified in a rigid and inflexible mould. Intelligence, properly developed, means adaptability. If we could secure this, the problem of dealing with the unemployed would be comparatively easy of solution. The inextricable tangle of to-day lies in the hopeless task of securing employment at a living wage for men who are not worth it. Let each man be made good for something, and it will not be beyond the range of wise statesmanship to find that good thing for him to do.

How is the necessary training to be provided? The answer to this question need not detain us long. We have already seen that elementary and technical education can solve the problem in the case of those who have been able to avail themselves of the opportunities offered. The only outstanding difficulty was the difficulty of insuring ready access to all; and this has been surmounted in the proposals of the last section. The raising of the school age to fifteen, the prohibition of the employment of school-children, and the new half-time system, give facilities for education never before enjoyed.

The boy will remain at the elementary school till the age of fifteen, and there will be no employment outside school hours to undermine his health and render him unfit to profit by the instruction given. We have already noticed the transformation of the elementary school now going on, and the multiplication of various types of school. The process will continue, and the results following the raising of the school age will be increased in value. The school will, in the first place, be regarded as a sorting-house, in which the different kinds of ability are discovered and classified. It will next be an institution where proper provision is made to insure that each kind of ability shall have the fullest opportunity of development. The only meaning of a general education is the discovery and the cultivation of the special interests of the individual.

When the boy leaves the elementary school his interests and ability will guide him to search for employment where they will have most scope. How this opening is to be found is a question that will be discussed in the next section. Let us take the boy who enters a skilled trade—say a branch of the woodwork industry—and follow his fortunes. He can be employed in the workshop for only half the day; during the remainder he must attend the half-time school. We have hitherto looked at this half-time school as a means of exercising supervision over conduct and physical development; we must now regard it as a place of technical instruction. There must, therefore, be various types of schools corresponding to the different groups of trades. The boy who enters a woodwork trade will attend a school designed to meet the needs of that industry. At his place of employment he will no doubt be kept to a narrow range of operations, and in their performance will acquire that dexterity which only workshop experience can give. In the half-time school he will receive the training necessary to make of him an intelligent and all-round workman. Here his ordinary education will be continued; instruction in drawing, in mensuration, and in science—all specially adapted to the requirements of his trade—will be provided; and, lastly, in the school workshop he will acquire skill in the general use of the woodwork tools. If it is urged that it will be difficult to find room in the curriculum for such varied training, it must be remembered that the subjects of instruction will all have formed part of the curriculum of the elementary school, with a bias in the direction of the woodwork industry. The boy will remain at the school for three years, and at the age of eighteen we shall have at least laid the foundation of those qualities required by the employer for success in the workshop and by the workman for success in life.

Let us take now the case of a boy who, on leaving school, finds employment in some occupation which does not lead to a skilled trade, and provides no educational training. Let us suppose he becomes an errand-boy. We cannot prevent lads of fifteen and upwards from being employed in such occupations, however undesirable, but we can at least guard against the more serious evils which are now the result. The boy will only be employed for half the day; he also must attend a half-time school. At this school he will continue his ordinary education; manual training will be provided to make him clever with his hands, while special attention will be devoted to his physical development. He will not, of course, be taught a definite trade, but will learn the general use of tools. How far, then, schools may be specialized, into different types it must be left for the future to decide. We have hitherto never seriously considered the training of the unskilled labourer, and much pioneer work of an experimental character remains to be done. At the age of eighteen the lad, like his brother in the skilled trade, will be a valuable asset in the labour market. We shall have created what we have not got now, and what we much need—a race of intelligent and adaptable unskilled labourers.