Apprenticeship

“ Generally, an apprenticeship school should be looked upon as a temporary expedient, as a form of relief applied at the birth or during any temporary depression of a particular industry. The proper training school for workmen is the factory or shop. ”

“ We learn arts and professions by apprenticeships, that is, much after the fashion we learned walking, or stitching, or fire-making, or love-making at home—by example, precept, and practice combined. Apprentices at anything, from ditching, basket-work, or watch-making, to merchant-trading, legislation, or surgery, submit either to a nominal or an actual apprenticeship. They see other men do these things, they desire to do the same, and they learn to do so by watching how, and when, and asking, or guessing why each part of the business is done ”

“ The case is beset, then, with a double difficulty: that while the old system of apprenticeship is less and less able to afford a training worthy the name to the child of the artisan, the character of the education given him not only does not make up for that which apprenticeship can not now give him, but even predisposes him against the career of manual toil to which apprenticeship is the necessary and only adequate introduction. ”

“ According to his standing as an apprentice a young man is assigned his place as a first, second, or third grade worker. Of course only men of unusual ability pass directly from apprenticeship into the first grade of the workers. The most fall into the lower grades, working up as they grow more experienced, at the --periodical regradings. These regradings take place in each industry at intervals corresponding with the length of the apprenticeship to that industry, so that merit never need wait long to rise, nor can any rest on past achievements unless they would drop into a lower rank. ”

“ My apprentices have always been the sons of respectable persons, and have generally been the means of recommending each other, through their connexions with each other’s families. I always received a good premium with each apprentice, one only excepted, who was a cast-off apprentice from the Foundling, but who became a good servant under a kind master and mistress, and staid with us many years after her apprenticeship was expired. ”

“ Of the specimens I saw in that airy little workshop, some were in excellent taste, and all, I believe, of good workmanship. These small masters are as punctilious about employing only regularly qualified workmen, as any members of any guild in the country. Their journeymen must all have served an apprenticeship; not only because they are thus best fitted for their business, but because the value of apprenticeship is thus kept up ”

“ The experience while it lasts may have educational value for the pupil. But in spite of what it may or may not hold, for the general run of pupils it leads up a blind alley because the apprenticeship does not fulfill the promise which apprenticeship supposedly holds out. That is, the pupil, when he becomes a worker, will be thrown back into some factory groove where his experience as an apprentice cannot be used, where he is closed off from the chance to develop and use the knowledge or training he received. ”

“ Whoever will consider the almost utter want of apprenticeship in this country, the facility with which pursuits are taken up and abandoned, and the variety and, indeed, seeming incongruity of the numerous industrial offices that are frequently united in one person, will appreciate the force of this argument.... ”

“ To have served an apprenticeship in the town, under a master properly qualified, is commonly the necessary requisite for obtaining this freedom. The bylaws of the corporation regulate sometimes the number of apprentices which any master is allowed to have, and almost always the number of years which each apprentice is obliged to serve. ”

“ In this connection it is proper to mention the system of apprenticeship common in earlier days, by which young men and women were bound to masters for fixed terms, for the learning of trades, or for various forms of manual service. ”

“ During National Apprenticeship Week, we recognize the important role apprenticeships play in unleashing the American workforce. Americans are known for our remarkable productivity, industriousness, and innovative thinking. ”

“ It is the vestibule of that future, and that future is conditioned throughout by the results of the few years that we live here. An apprenticeship may be a very poor matter, looked at in itself; and the boy may say What is the use of my working at all these trivial things? but, since it is apprenticeship, it is worth while to attend to every trifle in its course, for attention to them will affect the standing of the man all his days. ”

“ No one might practise any “art or mystery” who had not properly served an apprenticeship to it. To maintain a requisite balance no one was allowed to keep more than three apprentices without employing a journeyman. ”

“ The effective organisation of trade-schools will entail a solution of the problem of apprenticeship. The apprenticeship-system has long been obsolete: it is condemned educationally because it involves the transference of the pupil from the school to the workshop at too early an age, [67] and it is ineffective industrially because under modern factory-conditions there is no certainty that the apprentice will even receive proper technical training. ”

“ If, on the other hand, the rule of apprenticeship is retained, it should be possible to substitute education in Junior Technical Schools for the first two years of apprenticeship. Steps of this kind have already been taken in London, where it is usual for young workers to have their apprenticeship shortened by a period corresponding to their training in a trade school. ”

“ If, however, instead of learning all the different processes for making a needle, for instance, his attention be confined to one operation, the portion of time consumed unprofitably at the commencement of his apprenticeship will be small, and all the rest of it will be beneficial to his master: and, consequently, if there be any competition amongst the masters, the apprentice will be able to make better terms, and diminish the period of his servitude. ”

“ Because new jobs in our 21st century economy -- from healthcare to advanced manufacturing -- demand technical skills, apprenticeship programs are uniquely able to provide the affordable and relevant training workers need to fill in-demand jobs throughout the economy. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The contracts of apprenticeship shall not stipulate in favour of either the master or the apprentice, but they will guarantee the master the free services of the apprentice up to an age which shall not exceed the twenty-fifth year, and the apprentice food, shelter and clothing. ”

“ He had him-, self served an apprenticeship of seven years, and, after several years at his trade, had given instruction for five years. We must consider him a competent judge. In his report to Professor Runkle, and contributed by the latter to the recent report of the Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education, Mr. Foley says: "The system of apprenticeship of the present day, as a general rule, amounts to very little for the apprentice, considering the time he must devote to the learning of his trade. He is kept upon such work as will most profit his employer, who thus protects himself. ”

“ 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 old system of apprenticeship drew more closely the bonds of common interest between the employer and the employee, and with benefit to both. It was comparatively easy for apprentices to become employers. ”

“ He needs fundamental experience in business methods whatever he is going to do; and for most administrative positions he needs maturity. He can achieve both by serving an apprenticeship in some form of clerical work. ”

“ Though by restraining, in some trades, the number of apprentices which can be employed at one time, and by imposing the necessity of a long apprenticeship in all trades, they endeavor, all of them, to confine the knowledge of their respective employments to as small a number as possible ”

“ 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? ”

“ The points principally insisted upon by the union, which strongly favors the apprenticeship system, are that the number of apprentices employed shall not exceed that stipulated in the agreement between the employers and the union, and that each apprentice shall be required to serve the full term of five years. ”

“ 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 ”

“ They must have been men of special faculties, and it is probable that the stern preliminary apprenticeship, when they were bound to sweep out the shop, carry parcels, and sleep on the counter, or under it, may have been necessary, in order to harden them for the coming strife. ”

“ The prescribed age limit varies from ten to fourteen years. Provisions concerning the education of children in factories and workshops may be considered in two groups, those relating to apprenticeship and those requiring a certain educational qualification as a pre-requisite to employment. Apprenticeship laws are numerous, but they do not now have great force, because of the practical abrogation of the apprenticeship system through the operation of modern methods of production. ”

“ To remedy this, by creating some substitute for the old apprenticeship, is one of the objects of a system of technical education; though in suitable trades an independent movement for reviving apprenticeship (q.v.) under improved conditions has also made some way.
A complete system of technical education should provide the necessary instruction for the different classes of persons engaged in productive industry. It is usual to divide these persons into three classes:— (1) workmen or journeymen; (2) foremen or overseers ”

“ That a uniform system of apprenticeship should be adopted by the various mechanical trades; that manual training schools should be established as a part of the public school system; and, that trade night schools should be organized by the various local trade organizations for the benefit and improvement of apprentices. ”

“ Apprenticeship schools have also been established, the object of which is to form workmen, as distinguished from foremen, and in which various trades are taught. An official report, published by the United States Bureau of Education in 1882, states that the apprentices of these schools "find employment readily after they have left the workshops, at wages, it is said, varying from five to even as much as eight francs per day." ”

“ All forms of commerce and industry have become so complicated and each part demands such perfection of skill that an apprentice can

scarcely secure sufficient experience in even the essentials of the trade to render him expert in these various processes. In short, the traditional apprenticeship system is unable to give either the general comprehension of the industry or the skill in the specialized processes. ”

“ No apprenticeship has ever been thought necessary to qualify for husbandry, the great trade of the country. After what are called the fine arts, and the liberal professions, however, there is perhaps no trade which requires so great a variety of knowledge and experience. ”

“ Trades were learned exclusively under the apprenticeship system, the candidate usually living in the master's home and giving service at the master's will. When he reached the journeyman stage he was privileged to find work for himself, a quest which though usually fruitful in educational results often proved disappointing from a monetary point of view. ”

“ Supervised apprenticeship in chosen places of work will for a time take the place of organized training schools, as for example, in the case of the hospital dietitian, the house decorator, and the photographer. But elementary courses, requiring accuracy, speed, and an ordinary degree [Pg 137] of skill, may even now be provided by the school. The seamstress, the machine operator, the saleswoman, the typewriter, the clerk, the bookkeeper may be trained in such centers. ”