Silvanus Phillips Thompson

“ And ought we, then, to be surprised if, in pursuance of the system we have deliberately marked out for the rising generation, we keep our future artisans, till they are fifteen or sixteen, employed in no other work than sitting at a desk to follow, pen in hand, the literary course of studies of our educational code, we discover that on arriving at that age they have lost the taste for manual work, and prefer to starve on a threadbare pittance as clerks or book-keepers rather than by the less exacting and more remunerative labor of their hands? ”

“ One may adapt itself better to one locality or industry, another to another. Our business is not to copy, but to create and to develop for ourselves that which meets our own case. Much as will depend upon the character of each individual industry, all experience shows that there are other factors in the problem of scarcely less importance, and that much also depends upon the individual proclivities of the director of the school, the industrial enterprise of large firms, the far-sightedness of wealthy corporations. ”

“ Apprenticeship, with its wholesome rules, having decayed in everything but form, the lads who enter the shops are never properly instructed, but are made the drudges of the older workmen. What wonder that they acquire habits of idleness and carelessness that not only pursue them through the whole of their work, but, worse than this, corrupt and undermine their morals? ”

“ What, then, must be done? "Apprenticeship is absolutely necessary for the purpose of acquiring a practical knowledge of a trade; without this there can be no guarantee for good and efficient workmanship." Such is the dictum of one who speaks with authority from the point of view of labor, and the sentiment is the expression of that which all admit. Better education of the children—such, in fact, as is contemplated by the provisions of the Elementary Education Act of 1870—may, it is hoped, quicken the intelligence ere the are is reached at which apprenticeship begins: but will it do more? ”

“ Then, and not till then, will the apprenticeship of the future constitute a powerful instrument, not merely for the intellectual, moral, and social improvement of the working-classes, but for the promotion of the wealth and prosperity of the whole nation. ”

“ Without the shadow of a doubt the truth that there is—and alas, that there is—much truth in the outcry concerning the inferiority of training and capacity of the British artisan, may be very largely imputed to the relaxation and degeneration of the old system of apprenticeship; for, with all its faults, it did at least provide that a skilled master should become personally responsible for the training of the apprentice in his craft. ”

“ Here one realizes one advantage possessed by this municipal school over those in which the atelier is simply the workshop of a great business. In the early stages, when workmanship is very imperfect, it is not always well to strive to produce a salable article. Better waste wood, says the superintendent of the shops, than spoil the making of a good apprentice. Better to let the young workman see something of all the different corners of his trade, than by too fine a division of labor to keep him all his years learning only to shape chair-legs. ”

“ Time was when, for the most part, the skilled artisan, who was master of his trade, worked at home in his own house, assisted, it might be, by a few younger workmen or journeymen. Into his house and family he would receive one or two young lads to learn, during a seven years' engagement, the art and mystery of his craft; the master himself working and teaching them his work, feeding and clothing them, and receiving from them in return the value of the services which, as they became more apt in their work, they were able to render. ”

“ It is an education which, so far as it goes beyond the three elements of reading, writing, and arithmetic, is framed in all its essential features upon an exclusively collegiate type of studies; grammar, history, geography, foreign languages, and the like, being introduced, to the utter exclusion in all the most important of the successive "Standards" of any teaching of drawing, of mechanics, of the simplest facts of science or of natural history—of all, in fact, that most nearly concerns the workman throughout his entire career. ”

“ In all the constructive trades the greater part of a workman's instructions are given to him in the form of working drawings. Yet we suffer the budding artisan to pass through the schools ignorant of the first rudiments of a science that is as essential to his work as are the four rules of arithmetic. ”

“ Cæteris paribus, the better educated our artisans are, the better workmen will they make; but we must take care that the education is of the right sort. Now, what will be the verdict of future generations on learning that the education which this great and powerful nation offers to the children of its artisans, to the class that will form the artisans of the next generation, was of a character purely literary, in no sense technical or even scientific? ”

“ With the extension of trade and the wider use of machinery the number and power of the adult employed workmen increased, and with their increase of power came a jealousy, on the one hand, toward the masters; on the other, toward the apprentices, who were regarded as cheapening labor when employed in too great numbers. The conflict which arose between employer and employed gradually merged into one between capital and labor. ”

“ Obviously, with such facts as these staring us in the face, we must admit a flaw in the training given in our primary schools if its result is in so large a number of cases to destroy the natural capacity for manual labor. The fault is not so much in the amount of education as in the nature of the studies. For many trades the training of the hand to work may, and in some must, begin at an earlier age than that at which many children leave the elementary school. In some trades, indeed, the masters definitely refuse to take apprentices above a certain age ”

“ Of all the senses none is more frequently the seat of such deceptive judgments than that of sight; and in the science of physiological optics a very considerable share of attention is claimed by optical illusions. For the purposes of convenience, we may draw a distinction between these illusions, which are the direct result of certain properties or imperfections of the eye as an optical instrument, and those which arise from obliquities of judgment in interpreting the sensations optically impressed upon the retina of the eye. ”

“ The pupils of this school are not apprenticed at all in the ordinary sense; there is no contract, and they earn nothing. Most of them are very young—even as young as eight or nine years—nor have they yet completed their elementary education. If they stay out the prescribed three years' course, they not only get as good a schooling as in any of the ordinary elementary schools, but they will also have seen something of constructive industry. During the first two years they are sent to work for a day at a time, in rotation, in one or other of the occupations of the workshop. ”

“ Everything is done with the utmost system. Every line set up by a pupil is, if possible, so much contributed to the current work of the firm; and, as time exercises are frequent, the value of rapidity in work is learned. At the end of the apprenticeship the pupils elect—almost without exception—to become employees of the firm, and enter at once into the rank of participants in the yearly division of profits. Of nearly seven hundred persons employed, two hundred and fifty-eight are now participants, of whom about eighty are past apprentices. ”

“ The number of persons employed was also greatly augmented; instead of the old fealty between master and men there came estrangement more and more, until sometimes the workpeople scarcely ever saw their veritable employer. Under these circumstances the conditions of apprenticeship were completely changed, not suddenly, but gradually, until the apprentice became merely the boy worker, with less wages but more solemn engagements than a journeyman. The master to whom he was bound no longer taught him his trade ”

“ In that famous codicil to his will wherein Benjamin Franklin devised so many thoughtful legacies to promote the well-being of the land and city of his adoption, he wrote—and we must remember how intimate and many-sided was his acquaintance with the condition of labor in his day—these ever-memorable words: "I have considered that, among citizens good apprentices are most likely to make good citizens." ”

“ The distaste for work on the part of the artisan children on the one hand and the incapacity and ignorance which result from the chaotic state of apprenticeship on the other hand alike call for a more trenchant remedy. It is absolutely necessary, in the first place, that the children should enter earlier upon manual labor, that they may gain some skill with their fingers ere they pass the perilous point at which their taste or distaste for work may be acquired ”

“ On the contrary, that superiority, which arose out of quite other economic causes, was the very thing which stirred up the Germans, Swiss, Belgians, and French to devise schemes for training workmen more efficiently and intelligently than was done in England, since only by such means could they hope to compete with her industries. Let the significant fact, that a very large proportion of the foremen of workshops in our skilled industries are Germans or Belgians, attest the result of a higher technical training. ”

“ The crumbling edifice of apprenticeship is made to repose upon a basis of literary studies which positively unfit the young apprentice to enjoy the few benefits which that obsolete institution can still offer. ”

“ But no central organization or institution can be expected to do the work which, at the outset, the local industries must initiate for themselves and develop by their own resources, and direct by the light of the consciousness of their distinctive needs. ”

“ Not ignoring what is so valuable in consideration of the circumstance that the training is to be a preparation for after-life—the commercial value of the time and labor—it differs from the Institution de Saint Nicolas in regarding the aim of producing good workmen as higher than that of establishing a self-supporting school. The Institution de Saint Nicolas is, thanks to the self-denying labors of the Frères, self-supporting so far as the ateliers are concerned, though the pupils pay for their board and lodging. ”

“ The advantages of thorough training by the continuous care of the master were unquestionably proved by the universal adoption of the system. The ancient trade guilds grew and acquired their legal status upon this usage as their very foundation, and a seven years' apprenticeship formed the one necessary qualification for the possession of the right to exercise the following of any occupation or employment, art or craft, recognized among the handicrafts of the time. ”

“ Spacious refectories, commodious well-ventilated dormitories, and a large gymnasium form features of the school. The results of the system are significant. The aim of making intelligent workmen is really attained, and though the pupils have learned but one métier, and are in general better adapted for small businesses than for large, their repute for steadiness, skill, and general intelligence is such that the patrons have little difficulty in placing their pupils when their term of apprenticeship is over, and usually in circumstances where their earnings are about the average. ”

“ In France there are the technical schools of Douai, Chalons, and Aix, the École la Martinière of Lyons, the Horological School of Besançon, the Apprenticeship School of Havre, where workers in wood and iron are trained, and twenty others, including five or six in or near Paris. The technical schools of Paris present, indeed, so much diversity in their several organizations and results that it would be extremely difficult, even by going over a much wider area, to find so many different yet thoroughly characteristic types. ”

“ The taste for manual work is imbibed at a very early age, and there is not wanting evidence to prove most distinctly that even a very small amount of manual labor introduced into the elementary school serves to keep alive the capacity for active employment, and the manipulative skill of the fingers. ”

“ To establish such a school in any large business establishment requires little additional expense beyond the salaries of teachers. The École Communale is a most valuable experiment, and shows with what slender outlay some useful instruction in manual labor can be added to the resources of an elementary school. The École Municipale, with its kindred schools at Lyons and Havre, enable us to realize what an apprenticeship school may become if taken in hand by a rich and powerful municipality. ”