LC 10% I 25 Book £_ TO UNITED STATES BUREAU OF EDUCATION BULLETIN. 1913. NO. 19 WHOLE NUMBER 529 GERMAN INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION AND ITS LESSONS FOR THE UNITED STATES By HOLMES BECKWITH WASHINGTON GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 1913 BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF EDUCATION. [With the exceptions indicated, the documents named below will be sent freeof charge upon application to the Commissioner of Education, Washington, D. C, Those marked with an asterisk (*) are no longer available for free distribution, but may be had of the Superintendent of Documents, Government Printing Office, Washington, D. C, upon payment of the price stated. Documents marked with a dagger (f) are out of print. Titles are abridged.] 1909. No. 1. Facilities for study and research in Washington, Arthur T. Hadley. No. 2, Admission of Chinese students to American universities * John Fryer. *No. 3. Daily meals of -school children. Caroline L. Hunt. 10 eta. *No. 4. The teaching staff of secondary schools. E. L. Thorndike. 10 cts. No. 5. Statistics of public, society, and school libraries in 1908. *No. 6. Instruction in the fine and manual arts. Henry T. Bailey. 15 cts. No. 7. Index to the Reports of the Commissioner of Education, 1867-1907. *No. 8. A teacher's professional library. Classified list of 100 titles. 5 cts. No. 9. Bibliography of education for 1908-9. No. 10. Education for efficiency in railroad service. J. Shirley-Eaton. *No. 11. Statistics of State universities, etc, 1908-9. 5 cts. 1910. No. 1. Reform in teaching religion in Saxony. Arley Barthlow Show. No. 2. State school systems, Oct. 1, 1908, to Oct. 1, 1909. E. C. Elliott. fNo. 3. List of publications of the United States Bureau of Education, 1867-1910. No. 4. The biological stations of Europe. Charles Atwood Kofoid. No. 5. American schoolhouses. Fletcher B. Dresslar. *No. 6. Statistics of State universities, etc., 1909-10. 5 eta. 1911. *No. 1. Bibliography of science teaching. 5 cts. No. 2. Opportunities for graduate study in agriculture. A. O. Monahan. *No. 3. Agencies for improvement of teachers in service. William C.Ruediger. 15 cts. *No. 4. Report of the commission to study the public schools of Baltimore. 10 cts. No. 5. Age anoT grade census of schools and colleges. George Drayton Strayer. No. 6. Graduate work in mathematics in universities. No. 7. Undergraduate work in mathematics in colleges and universities. No. 8. Examinations in mathematics. No. 9. Mathematics in technological schools of collegiate grade. *No. 10. Bibliography of education for 1909-10. 15 cts. *No. 11. Bibliography of child study for the years 1908-9. 10 cts. No. 12. Training of teachers of elementary and secondary mathematics. No. 13. Mathematics in elementary schools. *No. 14. Provision for exceptional children in the public schools. 10 eta. *No. 15. Educational system of China as recently reconstructed. H. E. King. 10 cts. No. 16. Mathematics in public and private secondary schools. *No. 17. List of publications of the U. S. Bureau of Education, October, 1911. 5 cts. No. 18. Teachers' certificates (laws and regulations). Harlan Updegraff. No. 19. Statistics of State universities, etc., 1910-11. 1912. •No. 1. Course of study for rural-school teachers. F. Mutchler and W. J. Craig. 5 cts. No. 2. Mathematics at West Point and Annapolis. No. 3. Report of committee on uniform records and reports. No. 4. Mathematics in technical secondary schools. (Continued on p. 3 of cover.) UNITED STATES BUREAU OF EDUCATION BULLETIN, 1913, NO. 19 - - - - - - - WHOLE NUMBER 529 GERMAN INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION AND ITS LESSONS FOR THE UNITED STATES By HOLMES BECKW1TH WASHINGTON GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 1911 * / D. OF D. JUN 25 1913 n £ CONTENTS. Page. Preface 7 Part I.— The United States. Chapter I . — The apprenticeship system 9 Chapter II.- — Opinions of employers and employed 19 Chapter III. — Industrial schools in the United States 27 Chapter IV. — Results and omissions of our industrial education 40 Part II. — Germany. Chapter V. — The background of the industrial schools 49 Chapter VI. — Guilds and chambers of industry 56 Chapter VII. — Apprenticeship 64 Chapter VIII. — The system of industrial schools 77 Chapter IX. — The industrial schools of Hamburg 87 Chapter X.— The industrial schools of Berlin 96 Chapter XI. — The industrial schools of Munich 109 Chapter XII. — Results of the industrial schools 122 Part III. — Conclusion. Chapter XIII. — Some suggestions for our industrial training 133 Appendixes. A. — A German apprentice contract 145 B. — The Wisconsin apprentice law of 1911 147 List of references 149 Index 153 3 LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Education, Washington, April 2Jf., 1918. Sir: It is generally conceded that Germany has done more toward adapting industrial education to the needs of the people than has been done in the United States. Conditions in the United States differ widely from conditions in Germany, and the details of adapta- tion must therefore be different, but the underlying principles are the same. In arriving at an understanding of these principles, and for suggestions in applying them under American conditions, a clear presentation of industrial education in Germany can not fail to be helpful. I therefore recommend that the manuscript prepared by Dr. Holmes Beckwith, and transmitted herewith, be published as a bulletin of this bureau. Kespectfully, P. P. Claxton, Commissioner. The Secretary of the Interior. 5 PREFACE. The purpose of the present study is to ascertain in what ways we in the United States may develop industrial education so that it may be of the greatest service to industry and to industrial workers; as well as to the whole people. The economic viewpoint and eco- nomic aspects have dominated the pedagogical, and the practical outcome has at all times been kept to the fore. Industrial education for the masses, for the rank and file of the workers, has been the chief concern. I have not concerned myself with agricultural nor with com- mercial education, however impoitant these fields may be. Industrial education for girls and women has been taken up but slightly. In the United States we lack large practical experience with in- dustrial education for the mass of workers. Of all countries, Ger- many has had probably the largest and most fruitful experience with such education and has most to teach us. To learn at first hand from German experiences, I spent the summer of 1911 investi- gating industrial education in Germany. The cities visited were selected with a view to their importance industrially and include a number of the chief industrial centers in various lines of manufac- ture. The following cities were visited: The city State of Hamburg; Leipzig, Dresden, Chemnitz, and Plauen in Saxony; Munich in Ba- varia; Mannheim in Baden; and Berlin, Magdeburg, Frankfort on Main, Coblenz, Cologne, Dusseldorf, Elberfeld, Barmen, Dortmund, Essen, Duisburg, Crefeld, Munchen-Gladbach, Rheydt, and Aachen, in Prussia. Numerous industrial schools of all grades were visited, a large proportion of which were in operation. Inquiries were made of school directors and teachers, and members of school boards, as to the organization, methods, and results of the schools. The rela- tions of the schools to and their results on industry, and the attitude of industrial employers to them, were especially investigated. In almost every city the chamber of industry was visited and inquiries made of these bodies, which are the best fitted of all to represent the opinions of the masters. In addition, a considerable number of school reports and other printed data were collected, of which one could learn only when on the ground. It may be questioned whether German experience is likely to be largely useful to us in the United States, on account of our differ- ences, economic, political, and temperamental. In Part II I shall note some of the economic differences. The psychological and political differences are well known. Suffice it for the present to say that I believe these constitute no essential bar to our adoption of 7 8 PREFACE. such features of German industrial training as I shall recommend. It is to be understood, however, that details may and probably must be modified; at times this modification may approach the essentials. It is as yet too early to say what these modifications will be. Two terms used require special mention. The German term " Fort- bildungsschule " has usually been translated "continuation school.'' This translation does not give the accurate meaning in most cases where the term is used. Following Dr. A. A. Snowden, in his book, The Industrial Improvement Schools of Wurttemberg, published by Teachers College, Columbia University, in 1907, I have ren- dered the term "improvement school. " In case of a few schools that are merely continuation schools, merely continuing the subjects of the common school, the same term has been rendered "continuation school." It is believed that this distinction in terms will clarify a real distinction in meaning, and that the scope and aim of almost all German Fortbildungsschulen are much better represented by the term "improvement schools." The term "trade school" when applied to the United States is used, agreeably to current usage, to mean a school which teaches the operations as well as the science of a trade or trades. The same term when applied to Germany is used in a different sense, agreeably to German usage as to terms and practice as to schools. A "Fach- schule" in Germany is a "specialty school" or "trade school," and such a school may teach the practice of a trade or trades, or may and often does confine itself strictly to technical (theoretical) training. My gratitude is due to Prof. Henry R. Seager, of Columbia Uni- versity, for his advice and criticism. A number of others, loyal friends of industrial education, kindly gave me their counsel. I ac- knowledge especially the aid of Prof. Charles R. Richards, director of Cooper Union, New York City, who suggested many of the topics which I later investigated; Dr. A. A. Snowden, of the New Jersey Commission of Industrial Education; Prof. Paul Hanus, of Harvard University, chairman of the Massachusetts Commission on Indus- trial Education; Prof. John Graham Brooks; Prof. M. E. Sadler, of the University of Manchester; and Mr. Charles H. Morse, of the Massachusetts Commission on Industrial Education. I can not here acknowledge by name the numerous German schoolmen, cham- ber of industry officials, and others, who received me very courteously and with detailed care aided me in my inquiry. To them, as a group, I give my hearty thanks. Two men I will mention whose help I especially appreciate, Herr Schulinspektor August Kasten, of Ham- burg, and Herr Direktor Kandeler, of the Second Compulsory Im- provement School of Berlin. Finally, my greatest debt is due to my wife, for her criticism and her patient and careful performance of the arduous clerical labors necessary for preparing the book for publication. I offer the study for the earnest consideration of those who wish to see the industrial efficiency of our citizens increased. Holmes Beckwith. GERMAN INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION AND ITS LESSONS FOR THE UNITED STATES. PART I. THE UNITED STATES. CHAPTER I. THE APPRENTICESHIP SYSTEM. When we ask by what means are our industrial workers now trained for their work we must, to answer intelligently, examine into the present status and tendencies of the apprenticeship system. If these be such that apprenticeship meets, and promises to continue to meet sufficiently, the needs for individual training, what function have industrial schools to perform? That apprenticeship, in combination with all other activities now in the field, does not adequately meet present needs is shown by the complaint heard from many sides of the lack of skilled workmen. The apprenticeship system took its rise in medieval handicraft work. A youth would bind himself to a master workman for a period which came in most cases to be fixed at seven years, work for him, and in turn live in his house and be taught "the art and mysteries" of his trade. The personal relations were exceedingly close, and the personal factors dominated the technical — conditions under which the system was at its best. The interest of master united with that of the apprentice in seeking thorough training for the latter, because the long apprenticeship gave the master abundant chance to gain, if he had trained his apprentice to become a skillful worker. The result was a system which, for the type of industries of the day, was probably better than any other which could be devised. The apprentice and his master were in the early days of the system on an approximate social equality in the sense that they came from the same social class. The apprentice looked forward to becoming within a few years a master himself, and this anticipation was often fulfilled. In the later middle ages, the guilds, or organizations of the masters of a craft, opposed such improvement of the status of the apprentice and tried with much success to restrict mastership to the families of guild members. Other great defects of the medieval system were that the apprentice was required to spend much of his time doing household 9 10 GERMAN INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION". tasks and other drudgery which advanced him little or not at all in his craft training, and the period of apprenticeship was often longer than was necessary thoroughly to learn his trade. In the United States apprenticeship in its early stages was much like the system in medieval times. Legal indentures were the rule, in which parent or guardian, justice of the peace, or benevolent society, acting for the youth, bound him out to manufacturer, mer- chant, craftsman, or mariner, usually for the period terminating at his majority. 1 Both parties appeared in court and swore to carry out the provisions of the written indenture, whose terms were made to suit the special desires of the parties concerned. The policy of the State was to have all youths of artisan class taught a trade, and neglected and orphan children provided with a home. Thus any failure of the employer to carry out his contract made him liable to damages. The State further protected the apprentice by requiring from him promises of good behavior, while he also was punishable for violation of his obligations. Parents desired indentures to insure to their boys a chance to learn a trade fully, while employers desired the contract that they might be protected from loss of the services of the apprentice during his last and most valuable years of training. The indenture involved a real loss of personal liberty; and much of the law of apprentices, as that concerned with runaways, classed them-, in effect, as slaves. The contract assumed an equality of master and apprentice which did not, in fact, exist. This inequality appeared in its worst form in the compulsion put on the apprentice, as in medieval times, to do odd jobs by which he learned nothing and by which his term of apprenticeship was unduly extended. The apprentice found himself after a time doing as good work as a journey- man while he must for years accept an apprentice's meager wage. A feeling of resentment against unjust treatment developed in his mind and frequently vented itself in slighted work. Expanding ideas of personal liberty in the mind of the apprentice, in which he but fol- lowed the spirit of the times, conspired with industrial changes to cause the gradual decline of the use of the indenture. 2 The industrial revolution ushered in methods of production and transportation whose results on industry as well as on social life generally are clearly marked. Among others, the concentration of industry, the increase in the use of capital, organization of workers in a hierarchy of ranks, and the use of machine tools, conspired against the apprenticeship system. The technical elements have come, in most of our modern industries, to dominate the personal, at least in the sense that relations of man and man are chiefly deter- mined by technical considerations. Now the best in the apprentice- ship system depends on personal relations for its efficiency, on mutual i Motley, J. M. Apprenticeship in American trade unions. Pt. I, ch. 1. ' Ibid., ch. 1, p. 17. THE APPEENTICESHIP SYSTEM. 11 understanding and adaptation of master and apprentice, teacher and taught. The master craftsman of the earlier days, who was often at the same time merchant, has given way to the entrepreneur, the administrative and financial head, and to the master craftsman who works for wage as superintendent, foreman, or skilled worker. The former, our modern entrepreneur, no longer works with and teaches his apprentices; he delegates those functions to subordinates; takes, as a rule, less personal interest in the welfare of his apprentices, and concerns himself chiefly with other, and to him apparently, more pressing matters. Moreover, the necessities for competing for a wide, and in many cases a world market, and thus increasing output and lowering cost by every possible device, have left little time for superintendent, foreman, or journeyman to instruct apprentices. It is not to the interest of any subordinate to instruct the apprentice unless the entrepreneur requires it, and moreover pays for it as fully as for regular work. Consequently, in the great majority of shops, the apprentice is compelled more and more to shift for himself and "pick up" his trade as best he may, which is generally not very well. Pieceworking journeymen would, it is said, not even deign to shut a door unless their comfort required it; still less would they show an apprentice how to do anything. Even a journeyman paid by time is likely to find, in the long run, that instruction given to appren- tices is at his own cost and means just so much less bread and butter in the mouths of his family. An example of this condition is given by the amusement with which a printer speculates as to the result to a journeyman in a big city office who should have the temerity to enter on his time card, "Half an hour spent showing Johnny the why and how of the Smith job." Why, then, does not the astute entrepreneur direct his subordinates specifically to instruct his apprentices and make it worth their while to do so ? The answer is that he does so at his own peril, and at the cost of an immediate money loss. If he be farsighted enough, and moreover can afford the immediate expense, he may shoulder the cost for the sake of having an assured supply of skilled labor for the future. But unfortunately farsightedness is not fully developed even in entrepreneurs. Further, all entrepreneurs now recognize that they secure their labor supply from a general market, whence, if they are able to offer sufficient inducement, they may obtain journeymen trained by others; while on the other hand, if they go to the expense of training apprentices it may be merely to see them later enter the employ of other, and possibly rival firms. Here we see one of the results of competition, which, when severe, generally leads competitors, especially smaller and weaker ones, to follow their immediate advantage with little regard to the future. So it comes about that modern entrepreneurs, in the main, do not feel 12 GERMAN INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. the necessity of thoroughly training apprentices and thus lack a sense of responsibility in the matter. The result is that each employer keeps up as well as he can, very many of them on the basis of skill taught by others. Apprentices learning their trades in the country go to the great cities as journeymen. So desired are city jobs that many contractors can get all the journeymen they need, and do not have to take any apprentices at all. This country is also dependent on the continuous supply of skilled workers who come here from Europe; without these, in fact, the situation would be more pressing than it is. The dearth of apprentices is met temporarily in many of the building and other trades by the employment of "helpers," in the building trades, men who seldom rise, while in some other trades, as the machinist, they usually are younger, and in time become journey- men. The apprenticeship system has thus been declining for many years. By the sixties the old indentures had largely passed away, so much so that they were no longer the rule but the exception. 1 American industry was in a transition stage of adoption of division of labor and of machinery, and along with these changes the old system of appren- ticeship was fast passing away. However, apprenticeship is not by any means dead yet, and of late years has seen a revival in improved form, adapted to the conditions and needs of modern industry. In the recent emphasis on industrial education the vitality of the im- proved apprenticeship system has been somewhat overlooked. Of its methods I shall speak later; suffice it for the present to point out some scanty yet significant indications of its strength. The Twenty- seventh Annual Report of the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor for 1906 shows that out of 58 employers engaged in different industries 31 had a system of apprenticeship and 27 had no such sys- tem, while of 104 officers of trade unions 55 represented trades where apprenticeship was, and 44 where it was not, in force. 2 President Charles S. Howe, of the Case School of Applied Science, Cleveland, Ohio, sent a letter in 1907 to 400 manufacturers in Ohio, including nearly all the large firms. 3 He received replies from 124. Of these, 56 had an apprenticeship system, while 68 had none. Most of those training apprentices, however, gave them but the minimum training necessary that they might do their work fairly well. These figures should not be taken as indicative of the proportion of firms through- out the country which train apprentices. The average would proba- bly be considerably lower, for the firms replying average among the larger and better and are in the more fully industrialized States. Messrs. Cross and Russell, of the New York Central Railroad, have discovered that "55 railroads have 7,053 apprentices in 368 shop 'Wright, C. D. The apprenticeship system in its relation to industrial education, 1908, p. 15. ; Mass. Bureau ol Statistics of Labor, An. Rep. , 1906. Pt. I, p. 7. 'Wright, pp. 18, 19. THE APPKENTICESHIP SYSTEM. 13 plants, while 67 plants answering have no apprentices." 1 The National Machine Tool Builders' Association found that a large per- centage of the firms employing apprentices were in New England, the Middle Atlantic, and the Central Western States; and, further, that the majority of them entered into formal contracts properly to in- struct the apprentices during a stated period of indenture. 2 Accord- ing to the Vocation Bureau of Boston: From the latest statistics available 43 States have laws relating to the employment of apprentices. Thirty-eight States provide that, in addition to the trade, the apprentice shall be taught the common English branches of education in some pub- lic or other school or through such means as the employer may provide. 3 Most of these laws, however, are dead letters. As Prof. McCarthy writes: "The Wisconsin apprentice law was drafted in 1849 and is useless paper to-day." * Notwithstanding this persistence of the apprenticeship system, the industries of the country are suffering from a great dearth of skilled labor. There can be little doubt as to the widespread nature of this dearth, whatever be regarded as its cause or causes. The nature of the lack is indicated in part by the summarized results of an inquiry conducted by the New Jersey Commission on Industrial Education, to which over 2,000 manufacturing, building, and other industrial firms throughout the State, employing 250,000 workers, replied. Workers in the building trades most urgently needed indus- trial education : Comparatively few can read or understand a drawing, and as for expressing their ideas on paper by means of sketches it is generally out of the question. In the important machine industries a knowledge of workshop mathematics or applied mechanics, ability to follow working drawings, and to make a suitable sketch, as well as familiarity with the practices of the trade, are matters in which many are found wanting. 5 A further lack, caused by specialization, is discussed below. Dr. Motley, in his monograph on Apprenticeship in American Trade- Unions, shows that apprenticeship has been successively regulated in the history of industries in the United States first by statute law or indenture, later by custom, then by trade-unions, and lastly by trade agreements between employer and employee, determined by a joint board. None of these methods ever held the field to the exclusion of others, and in their evolution they overlap each other. Nevertheless, the general order of dominance of the several methods is as given. As our industries developed into the modern form the indenture fell into 'Wright, p. 43. 'Ibid., p. 18. •Bulletin No. 1. The Machinist. Vocations for Boston Boys. Issued by the Vocation Bureau ol Boston. P. 10. * Report ot the (Wisconsin) Commission upon the Plans for the Extension of Industrial and Agricultural Training. Jan. 10, 1911, p. 81. * Rep. of N. Jer. Commis. on Indus. Educ, 1909, pp. 4, 6. 14 GEKMAN INDTJSTBIAL EDUCATION. disuse, individual bargaining came into vogue, the power of the employer increased, and trade customs were openly disregarded whenever it was to his interest. Thus it was that trade-union regula- tion of apprenticeship was for some time concerned chiefly to uphold old customs of the trade. Later the unions attempted to determine the length of the term of apprenticeship. Finally, beginning in 1839, with a regulation by the Typographical Society of New Orleans, unions which had suffered a lowering of the average skill of their members by the widespread practice of runaway apprentices working as journeymen, and were thus in danger of a lowered wage, tried to limit the number of apprentices to some proportion of the number of journeymen. This proportion, though ostensibly such as would meet the needs of the industry, was generally determined by rough guesswork. The unions found themselves too weak effectively to enforce these regulations without the formation of national and international unions. Some unions have been strong enough to enforce their regulations on apprenticeship, but with very many this remains merely the ideal toward which the unionists strive. Even where national unions impose exact apprenticeship rules, locals hesi- tate to strike to enforce them, and so it comes about in general that only where there is a strong local union are such regulations enforced. Moreover, the assumption by the unions of the sole right to regulate apprenticeship matters has aroused strong opposition among em- ployers, resulting in an intense struggle from which there has now emerged the present dominant system of regulation by joint agree- ment between representatives of employers and employed, often through associations covering a whole locality or local industry. 1 According to Motley : Of the 120 national and international trade-unions, with a total of 1,676,200 members, affiliated in 1904 with the American Federation of Labor, 50 unions, with a member- ship of 766,417, do not attempt to maintain apprenticeship systems. 2 These 50 unions include 35 unions of unskilled workers who are able to pick up a knowledge of their work in a short time; 11 unions, 7 of which are in railroad work, whose trades are recruited by pro- motion from associated positions, as engineers from firemen; 7 unions in whose trades machine work and minute division of labor have made apprenticeship impossible; and 2 unions representing properly professions rather than trades. The remaining national unions, that is, about 70 of the 120 affiliated in 1904 with the American Federation of Labor, with a membership of 900,000, together with some half-dozen unaffiliated national unions, attempt more or less successfully to enforce apprenticeship regulations. "Of these 70 unions," says Motley, "only about 19 actually succeed in enforcing apprenticeship as a prerequisite to membership." 3 In i Motley. Pt. I, chs. 1-4. * Ibid., p. 53. « Ibid., pp. 58-60. THE APPRENTICESHIP SYSTEM. 15 fact, neither employer nor union is able to control the apprentice situation satisfactorily, even in those points where they are in agree- ment. . Apprentices, after obtaining a smattering of a trade or becom- ing half trained, frequently run away and take up work elsewhere as journeymen, a practice exceedingly hard to stop. Minor motives of unionists in the regulation of apprenticeship are the desire to uphold the standard of workmanship because of pride in their trade and their skill and the need of a common measure of ability (or "standardized" ability) for the purpose of collective bar- gaining. 1 Unionists fear to attempt to secure a high wage rate, for some of their number, being poorer workmen, may be unable to reach it, and may thus injure the others by their competition. An approxi- mate equality of ability, such as could best be secured by a uniform minimum of apprenticeship training, would greatly improve the con- ditions of collective bargaining as compared with the present basis of some thoroughly trained workers and some half trained. An investigation of the Minnesota Bureau of Labor into strike and other statistics indicates that — the employers of the United States practically control the regulations of the training of new workmen in the greater number of American mechanical and manufacturing industries, subject, however, to State laws regulating child labor. 2 The major responsibility for the conditions thus rests with the employers. Where employers have not attempted to regulate these matters, unions have often assumed the responsibilities and with them the powers of regulation. In conclusion^ the net result of our inquiry into the influence of trade unions on the scarcity of skilled workmen seems to be that to no great extent is that scarcity due to union action. We must look elsewhere for the chief causes of this lack. Of some of these, incident to modern industrial changes. I have already spoken. One remains, and that perhaps the most important of all. That is specialization, or the division of labor. Though affecting different industries very unequally, the aggregate effect on apprenticeship and on both the demand for and supply of skilled labor has been very great. Roughly speaking, this effect has been greatest on the metal, on some of the leather and wood industries, on textiles, and on garment making. The subdivision of processes in some of these industries has been very great; for example, the making of a modern shoe involves about a hundred processes. In the past, all craftsmen proper were compelled to be skilled; now the tendency is toward a differentiation into many industries, the result of which is a demand for a arge number of workmen of moderate skill, or in some cases unskilled, and a lesser number of highly skilled workers. The mere fact that a worker is running a machine does 1 Motley, P- 73. i Minnesota report, sec. xx, p. 378. 16 GERMAN INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. not mean that less skill is required of him than of the old craftsmen; it may be that he must be more skillful. There are machines, how- ever, run by mere machine tenders who need have little intelligence or training. Such machines, requiring little or nothing but the indefinite repetition of a few simple motions, constitute in the demands from and consequent effects on the worker one of the greatest of our present-day problems. Another type of specializa- tion does not involve mere machine tending, but rather the sub- division of what was once one trade into a number of branches, in which the tendency is for the worker to learn and practice but one. Thus the most advanced practice in carpentry involves the special- ization of one man in door-hanging, another in tacking molding, another in laying floors, and so on. The speed at which modern industries are run, in the ceaseless effort to increase output and lessen cost, militates strongly against the possibility of an apprentice learning more than a branch of a trade. The foreman or superintendent is strongly led to keep the apprentice at that work for which he shows an aptitude. To change him from machine to machine or branch to branch of the trade involves for the time a decreased output; and modern competition, as a rule, leaves litt e thought for remote results, especially when whatever benefit is obtained in the future may be reaped by another. Such is the condition when the apprentice is earnestly seeking to learn the whole trade; but many trades are unable to secure enough good apprentices because of the long years of service at low pay. The boys or their parents are unwilling to make the sacrifice and far too often accept better immediate wage in industries of lower grade, with less promise for the future, instead of learning a good trade. This attitude, with technical factors in some industries, has re- sulted in bringing about what is called the special apprenticeship system. 1 Under this system the apprentice is indentured to one de- partment only of a trade, for a period varying from one to two years, as against the average for regular apprenticeships of about four years. Such a system has been adopted by the National Association of Machine Tool Builders who declare that they are confronted by a condition and not a theory. When boys are transferred from one department to another, there is a loss of immediate efficiency, on account of which high enough wages can not be paid to attract a sufficient number of boys. The only way to obtain apprentices enough was to pay higher wages, and this required giving the boys work that paid their employers from the start. Boys were accord- ingly taken for a trial period of 240 hours and then indentured to one of the 11 departments: Turning, vertical boring mill, horizontal Wright, pp. 77-78. THE APPRENTICESHIP SYSTEM. 17 boring mill, planing, milling, drilling, grinding, erecting, turret, vise, and scraping. The narrow range of attention allowed rapid advance in proficiency and a correspondingly high wage. At the start 12 cents an hour was paid, increasing successively to 14, 16, and 18 cents, and as high as 20 cents after a year and a half. A general apprentice- ship frequently pays less near the end of a four years term than this special apprenticeship after a year's work. For comparison, the general apprenticeship under this association is three years, and the wages paid only 8, 10, and 13 cents an hour for the first, second, and third years, respectively. So strong are the tendencies toward this system, so manifest its advantages, that we are bound to see its great development. Yet its chief advantages are immediate, and it is subject to disadvantages whose force does not at once appear, but are none the less vital. From the standpoint of the industry, or of the employer, an increase in the extent of this system means a labor force less adaptable and mobile. We must recognize that there is a fundamental difference between this type of specialization and that of physicians, lawyers, and scientists. The latter specialize on the foundation of a broad general training; the specialized apprentice knows nothing but his speciality. The weaknesses of the system affect the apprentice most. An apprentice, if all goes well, may after the completion of one special apprenticeship take up another; but few are willing to do this; meaning, as the change would, a decrease in wage for the time being from 18 to 12 cents an hour. He may earn as much pay and have as regular work as if he knew the whole trade ; despite the fact that he will sooner exhaust the possibilities of interest in his work. But he has not the resource possessed by the man who is trained in the whole trade; his alternatives for employment are fewer, and a relatively slight change in industry or a dispute with his employer may leave him unable to obtain work. The displacement of workers trained in the whole trade by those acquainted with only a small part of it can scarcely fail to increase the dependence of workers on employers and so strike a blow at our democracy. Yet so great are the immediate advantages of this system to both employer and apprentice that we are likely to meet it in the future far more than we should like. Such specialization should be distinguished clearly from those forms where either the specialization is made on the basis of a previous broad training, as is usual in building carpentry; or, where the portion of a trade studied is so large and complex as to tax the abilities of the apprentice and give him considerable resource and alternative in later life, and is therefore tantamount in its extent to a whole trade of earlier years. Such subdivision of trades we must recognize as in the main necessary and desirable, in view of the great technical advances 88740°— 13 2 18 GERMAN INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION". of recent years, which add greatly to their complexity, and are probably free from the chief disadvantages urged above against narrow and exclusive specialization. Finally, extreme specialization in some industries, as in boot and shoe or watch manufacture, has made any semblance of an apprenticeship system nigh impossible. In some trades the helper system is a substitute, in part at least, for apprenticeship. 1 The helper is an adult, and neither performs the same operations as the journeyman with whom he works nor is usually given any instruction in the latter's work. He "picks up" his trade if he can by watching the journeyman, and, occasionally, performs the operations of the trade proper. Helpers are largely present in the building and other trades where a man's strength is necessary. No definite term as a helper is usually necessary before entering the trade proper. The helper system is more important than apprenticeship in trades where experience is the chief factor in proficiency, as in printing and in the work of locomotive engineers. The fireman is the engineer's helper, as the brakeman is of the con- ductor, and each of these sets of helpers recruits the higher positions after passing through examinations. Three different groups of helpers may be roughly distinguished, according to Messrs. Weyl and Sakolski: "(1) Ordinary laborers; (2) 'improvers,' 'holders on,' or 'junior workmen'; and (3) handy men." 2 The ordinary laborers, as hod carriers, seldom become journeymen. The second group, "improvers" or "junior workmen," do work similar to that of the journeymen who supervise them. Their wages are 25 to 50 per cent lower than those of journeymen; hence they tend to do the latter's work whenever possible, unless prevented. "Handy men" do not work under journeymen, but do odd jobs and less skilled operations. They also come into competi- tion and conflict with the journeymen. The helper system tends to recruit the ranks of journeymen more rapidly than does apprenticeship, and so has given rise to many struggles between journeymen and helpers or employers. i Weyl, Walter E., and Sakolski, A. M. Conditions of entrance to the Principal Trades. Bulletin of the Bureau of Labor, No. 67, Nov., 1906, pp. 768-777. a Ibid., p. 770. CHAPTER II. OPINIONS OF EMPLOYERS AND EMPLOYED. What is the attitude of the employer toward the present situation, and what that of the employees ? In particular, how do they regard trade and technical schools as a means to help solve the practical problems confronting them? These are questions whose answers are of vital importance, for the cooperation of employers and employees alike is needed in any attempts at betterment. The attitude of employers and employees toward restriction of apprenticeship is well shown in an investigation conducted by Prof. Charles R. Richards, and published as Part I of the Report of the Bureau of Labor Statistics of New York State for 1908 on Industrial Training and in Part I of the similar Massachusetts report for 1906. Returns from New York show the following: Two hundred and one firms employed the full number of apprentices allowed by union rules, while only 128 do not do so. Only 172 firms are prevented by trade-union restrictions from employing as many apprentices as they otherwise would, while 263 are not so prevented. Out of 309 firms stating that the apprenticeship system does not meet the need for skilled employees in their industry, 111 offer the trade-union restrictions as the cause of this lack, a larger number than favor any other single cause. The only firms that state both that trade-union restrictions pre- vent them from having as many apprentices as they would otherwise have, and that they are employing the maximum number of appren- tices allowed by union rules are glass blowing, book, job, and news- paper printing, bricklaying, electrical contracting, steam fitting, and tile setting. 1 Turning to the Massachusetts report we find questions and answers as follows: Is the apprenticeship system (if any) under the immediate control of the trade-unions? Twenty-one employers answer yes; 37, no; 46 union officers answer yes; 56, no. Do you consider it a good plan to restrict the number of apprentices ? The employers vote no by 41 to 5; the unionists, yes by 71 to 18. If the employer were permitted to employ as many apprentices as he wished, would he dispense with the services of the journeymen now employed; or, in other words, would he employ apprentices to the exclusion of journeymen? The employers vote 39 to 4 in the negative; the unionists declare assent by a vote of 67 to 20. 2 These figures speak J New York Bur. Labor Statistics, 26th An. Rep., 1908, Pt. I, pp. 29, 35, 36, 38-50. 'Mass. Bur. Statistics of Labor Rep., 1906, Pt. I, pp. 6-11. 19 20 GERMAN" INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION". for themselves. They show a natural disagreement of opinion between the parties concerned as to the results of trade-union restric- tion of apprentices. They also show, I think, that according to the employers' own opinion, the restrictions are less harmful than is usually thought by employees. So much for opinions on restrictions of apprentices. What attitudes do employers and employees take on the further questions of trade training ? The New York report mentioned above gives some statistics of the views of employers: Five hundred and forty-nine firms stated that they had difficulty in obtaining or in training skilled employees ; 569 firms that they had no difficulty. The number of firms reporting that all of their skilled employees were trained in their establishment was 74; that the majority were so trained, 435; that a few were there trained, 447 ; and that they had trained none of their skilled employees, 210. 1 Where difficulty in obtaining or training skilled workers was reported, the minority of such workers were usually trained in the works; the firms that reported no such difficulty had trained the majority of their skilled workers. As typical of the views of employers may be taken the report of the committee on apprenticeship of the National Association of Builders, who say that "apprentices must be taught and mechanics made in the future by entirely different methods from those in vogue" under the old apprenticeship system. 2 The method proposed is by preparatory private trade schools, affiliated with but not run by an association of builders, and involving a shortening of the ensuing apprenticeship by at least a year. James W. Van Cleave, ex-president of the National Association of Manufacturers, advocates a manual- training department in every public primary school and in free indus- trial high schools. 3 The committee on industrial education of the American Foundrymen's Association advocates industrial continua- tion schools which should become differentiated into trade schools as the pupils reach the age of 16. 3 These views of employers, favorable to trade and technical education, may be taken as representative. Carroll D. Wright declares: All employers realize the importance of this kind of education [that is, public industrial education]. Those who can afford it prefer their own system. * * * But it is very rare to find an employer opposed to some scheme of industrial education.* Wright further states : Careful investigation shows that the demand for trade schools comes from employers who have no systematic, definite method of training their apprentices. These men are of the opinion that a public trade school would furnish them with a supply of i N. Y. Rep., p. 15. 'Minn. Rep., pp. 435,436. » Rep. of special committee on indus. educ, Amer. Fed. of Labor, 1910. Wright, p. 69. OPINIONS OF EMPLOYERS AND EMPLOYED. 21 skilled mechanics. Generally they have no more realization of the probable results of a public trade school, as far as producing skilled mechanics is concerned, than they have of the possibilities of a first-class apprenticeship system in their own works. 1 These remarks, it should be noted, apply only to trade and not to the more general type ol industrial schools. Those firms which have a first-class apprenticeship system themselves generally feel that no public trade school could meet their needs, but they are not opposed to such schools in general and desire them for the industry at large. 2 The New York report mentioned above presents the results of questions asked of 1,182 employers and of the officers of 2,451 unions in the chief industries of the State, showing the attitude toward dif- ferent types of industrial and trade schools. 3 The question was asked: "Do you favor a public industrial or preparatory trade school which should endeavor to reach boys and girls between 14 and 16 who now leave the common school in very large numbers before graduation? Such a school would not teach a trade, but would give a wide acquaintance with the materials and fundamental proc- esses, together with drawing and shop mathematics, with the object of giving a better preparation for entering industries at 16 and better opportunities for subsequent advancement." To this both employers and unionists replied in the affirmative; the employers by a vote of 840 to 248, the unionists by one of 1,500 to 349. Among the manu- facturers the different industrial groups favored this type of school in the following order: "Machine and metal manufacturers, building trades, wood manufacturers, printing and paper manufacturers, glass manufacturers, textile industries, clothing trades, leather manu- facturers, confectioners." The skilled trades are thus most strongly in favor of such schools, and the only group opposed is the cigar makers. The question, put somewhat differently to the two groups, was asked whether trade schools for boys and girls were favored, which should give one or two years of practical training together with drawing and mathematics, provided (this part of the question sent to the unionists only) graduates should serve two years as appren- tices or improvers. Both groups answered affirmatively, but by a less overwhelming vote than that for the more general type of indus- trial schools; the employers voted 744 to 341, the unionists by 1,232 to 567. The order in which the different groups of employers favored these schools is as follows: "Machine and metal manufacturing, building trades, leather manufacturing (chiefly boots and shoes), wood manufacturing, printing trades, textile industries, clothing industries, manufacture of cigars." Employers were further asked whether they thought the proposed trade schools could be " advan- tageously administered by the State or community at public expense i Wright, 5. 78. 2 Ibid., p. 69. « N. Y. Kep., pp. 38-50. 22 GERMAN INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. and operated on a noncommercial product." To this they replied in the affirmative by a vote of 582 to 348. Their answer to the ques- tion: Would such schools, if conducted by industrial establishments and operating on a commercial product, be practical ? was negative by 529 to 405 votes. Thus every group of employers, with the exceptions of those manufacturing leather, cigars, and confectionery, preferred State or community to private management. Finally, to the query, would practical evening or half-time schools be of value in helping unskilled workers or those of low-grade skill to advanced posi- tions requiring high-grade skill, the employers reply affirmatively by a vote of 738 to 305. The relative faith of the employers in the various classes of schools is indicated by the following table from the New York report: 1 Industries. General industrial schools. Trade schools. Evening schools. 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 3 1 3 3 3 1 2 2 2 3 1 3 2 2 Wood 2 3 3 3 3 2 2 2 A considerable number of employers thought evening trade and tech- nical schools desirable. It was the general industrial school which won first place in the opinions of almost all; and it is noticeable that trade schools were placed last by all the industries commonly called highly skilled, except the printing trades. The net result, from both employ- ers and unionists, is that general industrial schools are overwhelmingly desired ; day trade and evening trade and technical schools are also desired, but less vigorously. The National Association of Manufacturers has, since 1904, recog- nized the importance of the question of industrial education by the appointment of a committee which has reported annually since 1905. This committee, stirred by a realization of the paucity of skilled mechanics, has persistently advocated industrial schools. Moreover, it has claimed that trade schools alone can turn out finished workmen, without the need for any apprenticeship. In 1910, the committee went into the question of the sort of schools to be desired, and reported as follows: Great progress has been made throughout the country in approaching general agreement on the following points: 1. That the interests of manufacturing industry require a new education for boys who are to work with tools and machines. IN. Y. Report, p. 49. OPINIONS OP EMPLOYERS AND EMPLOYED. 23 2. That thiB industrial education must consist of skill and schooling and that these two parts are of equal importance; that they must be organically combined and that each will coordinate and supplement the other. 3. That real skill and suitable schooling can not usually be given in the ordinary public school by the average schoolmaster. 4. That the average manufacturing shop or factory is not likely to organize private trade-school departments in their works that will give the best results in both skill and schooling. 5. That real trade schools are feasible and practicable where a higher practical, efficient shop skill can be secured than has ever been known under the ordinary ap- prenticeships, and that this is possible even when one-half of the apprentice's time is devoted to schooling adapted to the life of the pupil. 6. That such half-time trade schools can be so organized and conducted that a superior high skill and a broader shop experience can be secured than the average manufacturing shop can give in its specialized modern factory, because there the ob- ject is to make money and not to make skilled, intelligent, trained workmen. 7. That such a real trade school must have well-equipped, productive shops, where pupils are taught the best methods of rapid, high-grade production by skilled working mechanics. 8. That such trade schools need not produce anything but useful, high-grade prod- ucts, with a very small percentage of spoiled work or damage to tools and equipment — a smaller percentage of loss than occurs in the average shop. 9. That where such a trade school can be established, with modern buildings and equipment and a moderate working capital, well managed, it will not only be an effi- cient educational institution, covering the high-school period, but it will be productive and largely self-supporting. 10. That such a real trade school can be maintained with a course corresponding to the high-school course, persistently aiming to turn out working mechanics with superior mechanical skill and wide shop experience, plus good mental training. In this way a class of skilled American mechanics will be produced, meriting higher wages than the average mechanic, and the greatest good will come to wholesome organized labor and to individuals through individual merit. 1 The committee further reports in favor of evening schools (gen- eral, industrial, and trade), half-day schooling each week for appren- tices and other workers where the employer is willing to pay the regular wages while they attend school, and part-time schools. These schools are primarily to meet the needs of those now in industry. Similar schools are favored for girls and women, in which, besides industrial studies, home economics shall be given a large place. These several proposals constitute a highly important body of sug- gestions, which, if they are at all adequately backed up by the membership of the association, represent a great advance in definite- ness of attitude toward industrial education. Whether or not we can wholly accept the program presented, I shall discuss in the conclusion. In 1911 the committee on industrial education, having changed its personnel in part and studied the question further, reported again, this time very differently from their 1910 report. They no longer champion trade schools, but, as a consequence of German and other 1 Proc. loth an. conven. Nat. Assoc. Manufacturers, New York, May, 1910, pp. 259, 260. 24 GERMAN INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. European example, focus their attention and chief approval on industrial improvement schools. The National Association of Manufacturers, following their report, passed the following reso- lutions : Resolved, That this association earnestly devote itself, with reasonable outlay of funds, to the promotion of industrial education, to the end that such education may be made available, as soon as possible, to every child who needs it. Resolved, That we favor the establishment in every community of continuation schools, wherein the children of 14 to 18 years of age now in the industries shall be in- structed in the science and art of their respective industries and in citizenship. 1 Unionists have been much criticized for their opposition to trade and industrial schools. They did not for a long time understand the situation clearly, and many do not yet do so. Generally speaking, however, the attitude of union men has steadily become more and more favorable, until the approval indicated in the New York report has become a fact. The main stumbling block which prevented union approval of such schools was apparently the impression that their graduates were sometimes used as strike breakers, and that the atmosphere of the schools was often either hostile to unionism or not distinctly favorable. The charge that trade schools were used to displace skilled unionists by "half-baked" school boys, temporarily or permanently, caused unionists in many instances to regard them as "scab hatcheries." But if the graduates of trade schools are able to displace skilled laborers, does not this indicate that they are able to do the work required; and if so, do they not deserve the places? On the other hand, if they are distinctly inferior as workmen, why should the skilled workers fear them, and how can they, in fact, dis- place their superiors? I believe that no one answer to these ques- tions is sufficient. Some of the work, doubtless, now done by superior workmen, masters of their trades, can be done substantially as well and at lower cost by inferior half-trained workmen who would be unable to perform many of the more difficult operations of the same trade. The skilled workmen fear partial displacement by some such half- trained workers, the chief advantage of whom to the employer is that they are cheap. Temporarily also an employer may secure poor workmen to tide him over for a few weeks as best they may, in order to win a strike. Further, the presence on the market of a large num- ber of poorly trained or of half-trained workers, does, I think, tend, through the difficulty of dealing with individuals strictly on their several merits, toward a lowering of the standards and thus of the wages of the whole group of workers. But in the main I believe that those who possess developed skill need not greatly fear those who do not possess it, and that unionists are in no serious danger from the i Kep. of committee on indus. educ, 16th an. conven., New York, May, 1911, Nat. Assoc, of Manufacturers. OPINION'S OP EMPLOYERS AND EMPLOYED. 25 graduates of trade schools, except where they are now maintaining a monopoly of skill. But unionists may retort that trade schools have in the past flooded some trades and have supplied strike breakers to employers by virtue of the superior advantages furnished to enter those trades as compared with others. Private money-making schools are es- pecially condemned on this score, and judgment is often reserved concerning even philanthropic trade schools till these have shown themselves at least not antagonistic to trade union principles and prac- tice. Admitting the alleged facts, what is the remedy ? It is better facilities for learning all trades, as far as obtaining these is feasible. Then the number and capacity of the intrants into the several trades will tend to adjust themselves toward that condition where men of equal capacity and opportunities will be in trades of equal attractiveness. Increase of freedom in industrial and trade educa- tion will tend toward securing the best men for the trades needing them and able to pay them most, and thus to offer them most attrac- tions toward securing less able men for less important positions, and so on to the lowest rung of the ladder. If unionists are trying to maintain wages and conditions of work, by restriction of intrants into their trades beyond what is necessary to uphold the standards of skill and prevent such excessive influx as would lower the wage below what equal ability secures elsewhere, they are doing injustice to those who would otherwise enter the trades concerned. It has been noted above that unionists favor general industrial much more than trade schools. Their attitude, moreover, varies greatly with the trade concerned. They favor evening schools, for these seek principally to help those already in the trades and involve no danger of unduly increasing the supply of workers. Corre- spondence schools for like reason meet their approval. Apprentice or factory schools they generally approve, because of their practicability and because there is no undue increase in the number of workers. They are as yet opposed to cooperative schools, for reasons explained in the next chapter. 1 The unionists probably appreciate the disadvantage of a too narrow specialization more than employers do, for the resulting burden falls chiefly on them. Thus the committee on industrial education of the American Federation of Labor, in a report which gives unanimous support to industrial education, states the principle that "public industrial schools or schools for trade training should never become so narrow in their scope as to prevent an all-round shop training," 2 and they further refer to "the injustice of narrow and prescribed training in selected trades by both private and public instruction." 3 To conclude this presentation of the attitude of organized labor, I i Ch. 3, pp. 33, 34. s Amer. Fed. of Labor Rep., 1910, p. 24. » Ibid., p. 13. 26 GERMAN INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. cite the main provisions of the Page- Wilson bill, now before the Federal Congress. This bill is based on the Davis bill, 1 called in the American Federation of Labor Report: "Labor's Bill for Congressional Enactment." The bill can not, however, be said to represent exclusively any class. In the form reached July 24, 1912, it provides for annual appropriations by the National Gov- ernment to the States, of a total, when in full force, of $14,780,000. Of this sum three million dollars is to maintain instruction in agriculture, industries, and home economics in departments of sec- ondary schools. Three millions is to maintain instruction in the industries and home economics in separate secondary schools for the purpose. Three millions is to maintain instruction in agricul- ture and home economics in district agricultural high schools. Six hundred and forty thousand dollars is to maintain training for teachers of these vocational subjects in colleges, and one million dollars for similar training in normal schools. All the above grants are conditioned on the providing of a total of State and local appropriations equal to twice that of the Nation, in addition to any any costs of land or buildings. One million dollars is appropriated annually for branch agricultural experiment stations, and sums ris- ing to a maximum of $3,140,000, annually for extension departments of State universities; these grants being conditional on the spending of an equal amount in total by State and locality, for the same pur- pose, besides providing permanent plant. All these grants are con- ditional on supervision by the Federal Government, in cooperation with State boards for vocational education, and the maintenance of certain standards. With this evidence of the favorable attitude of the highest body of organized labor in this country, let us turn to another phase of the question. I have so far been concerned with the need for industrial education, which is shown in the condition of industry in the country to-day, and which is reflected in the views of those most intimately acquainted with these conditions. I shall now take up the question of how far those needs have been met in the United States. What industrial schools have we, and what are they accomplishing for industry ? » Amer. Fed. of Labor Rep., 1910, pp. 20-22. CHAPTER III. INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS IN THE UNITED STATES. In the early days of our country, school and shop and farm were widely separated in function. Trades were so well taught by appren- ticeship or by parents to their children that there was little need for the schools to dabble in industry and try to help in vocational training. These early conditions and similar ones preceding them, together with the scholastic ideals, are responsible for the rise of a tradition, especially among the schoolmen, that has been very hard to weaken- that the school should have nothing to do with industry. Its function was more general — to provide that mental equipment which is requisite in all walks of life. Thus the schools limited their efforts to the instruments of communication, and the superstructure reared on these, of history, literature, and science. As our society went through its marvelous development, and the apprenticeship system weakened, the schools maintained their traditional position, and the gap between them and industry became ever wider. Yet a variety of special types of schools arose from time to time which sought, apart from the regular public school system and its pinnacle of classical colleges, to bridge the chasm, to bring education into closer touch with life, and to minister to the needs of industry. First among these were the privately endowed evening industrial schools, such as Cooper Union and the Mechanic's Institute of New York City, Franklin Union and Spring Garden Institute of Philadel- phia, the Ohio Mechanic's Institute of Cincinnati, and the Mechanic's Institute of Richmond, Va. These schools, according to Dr. Charles R. Richards, 1 were almost all founded, or opened evening classes, dur- ing the fifties. They met with such a great demand for their services that similar public schools should have been called into the field, but the scholastic ideal was too firmly seated to make this feasible. The next development was the inauguration of institutes of technology, in the period of railroad and mining expansion following the Civil War. The Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute had, indeed, been founded in 1824, but its example was not emulated until 1865, when the Massa- chusetts Institute of Technology was established, followed within a few years by the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Lehigh University, i Richards, C. R.: Notes on Hist, of Indus. Educ. in U. S., in Nat. Educ. Assoc. Rep. of Committee on Place of Industries in Public Education, 1910, pp. 24-29. Compare also for facts below as to history of indus- trial education in the United States. 27 28 GERMAN" INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION". and Stevens Institute of Technology. These institutions were pri- vate, but were soon followed by similar ones of a public nature. The Morrill Land-Grant Act of 1 862 has by its financial support, amount- ing to over $16,000,000, aided about 60 State universities and other institutions which carry on agricultural and technological edu- cation. 1 Some of the agricultural colleges coming under this act, and situated in the South, now offer genuine trade training not leading to a degree. Another movement, which began in 1868 by the founding of Hampton Institute in Virginia, was the indus- trial education of the negro race, a movement carried on with signal success in a most difficult field. In 1870 industrial drawing was introduced into the schools of Massachusetts, from which the movement has spread, until now the subject is generally required in the cities and larger towns. Manual training had its first beginnings about 1870 under European influence, while manual training high schools began to be founded about 1880. This movement spread rapidly, entered the primary school after 1887, and is now very widely spread throughout the country. In 1872, the first school of design was founded in Lowell, Mass., as an aid to the textile industry. Stim- ulated by this example, other similar schools and several textile schools have grown. Trade schools proper are of comparatively recent origin. The first, the New York Trade School, was founded on private endowment in 1881. During the next 20 years only two important schools which trained in the mechanical trades were founded. These were the Wil- liamson Free School of Mechanical Trades, near Philadelphia, and the Baron de Hirsch Trade School in New York City. These schools, together with the Miller School, of Albemarle, Va., which adds trade to general training, and two schools in San Francisco are all privately endowed. Not till 1907 were public trade schools established, begin- ning with the taking over of the Milwaukee School of Trades by the city under State law. Since then, trade schools have been opened in a number of cities. 2 Within the last few years, also, general industrial or preparatory trade schools have been much discussed and have been established as parts of the public school system in Rochester, Albany, and New York, and in six other cities in New York State ; in Newton, New Bedford, and other Massachusetts cities, and elsewhere. Within the past few years, also, the so-called half-time system, or cooperation between school and shop, has arisen. Such, in outline, have been the successive stages of the rise of the agencies of industrial education, to the consideration of which I shall now turn. Uncoordinated one with another, they have grown i Seventeenth An. Rep. Commissioner of Labor, 1902, pp. 19-24. (A chief source, with Richards: Notes, etc.) 2Cf. p. 34. INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS IN THE UNITED STATES. 29 up spontaneously, chiefly as the result of private initiative. We have no system of industrial education in the United States. And despite the expenditure of a considerable amount of energy and money on those schools and phases of our schools which are industrial in aim, the result is, for the great mass of citizens, very small indeed. We pride ourselves on democracy in education, and yet our higher technical schools are far more fullv developed, and far more nearly meet the country's industrial needs, than our lower schools. In- deed the lower schools are all but lacking; the schools of the country are, as related to industry, top-heavy. Our institutes of technology and engineering schools and universities, which train industrial leaders and technologists, compare favorably with the best in Europe. But so meager is the provision for the masses that Mr. A. C. Hum- phreys, president of Stevens Institute, states the following results of an inquiry conducted by the international committee of the Young Men's Christian Associations : * Of 13,000,000 young men in the United States between 21 and 35, only 5 per cent have received in the schools any direct preparation for their vocations; of every 100 graduates of our elementary schools, only 8 obtain their liveli- hood by means of professional and commercial pursuits while 92 support themselves by manual labor. Of all the schools or parts of schools in the United States which have an industrial character the following will be omitted from con- sideration: Agricultural schools, schools for negroes or Indians, higher technical or engineering schools, and industrial art schools. The attempt will be made to discover what has been done to forward industrial education for the great masses in industry. First in order, let us examine the manual training classes and manual training high schools. Manual training began in the United States with schools of second- ary grade and percolated downward into the elementary schools. 2 The educators who introduced it desired, in the words of one of their leaders, Dr. H. H. Bemeld— to offer to boys what was called a more "practical" education than that offered by the ordinary high school; while avoiding a trade school, to give the boy an acquaint- ance with the forces and conditions of modern life, to give him the use of his hands* or, as Dr. Woodward phrased it, "to put the whole boy to school. " 3 Educators have quite generally regarded manual training as another mode of cultural training and as a means of formal discipline, valuable to train the observation and reasoning powers and to strengthen the will. "The manual-training high school," according to the National Education Association committee, "has never claimed to fit boys 1 Nat. Soc. for Promo, of Indus. Educ, Proc. 3d annual meeting, Bull. No. 10, p. 28. *Nat. Educ. Assoc. Rep., pp. 80-115. »Ibid., p. 86. 30 GERMAN" INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. directly for industrial pursuits." 1 A succinct definition states that a manual- training high school is "a high school with a course in manual training in lieu of Latin and Greek." 2 The records of graduates of these schools show that they do not train for the trades to an appreciable extent. Their graduates follow the most diverse lines, just as in any other high schools, as business and the professions, while a number go on to the higher technical schools and a number enter trades. According to the Massachusetts commission, out of 2,437 manual- training school students whose rec- ords were available but 52 were in mechanical trades. Further, the committee of the National Education Association declare that "with few notable exceptions, practically all of the existing industrial and technical high schools now operating in the United States as parts of the public-school system should be classed as manual- training high schools," according to the definition above, and not as technical high schools whose purpose is distinctly vocational, the training of indus- trial leaders of the lower grades. The general public expected from this movement more practical industrial results . These have not been forthcoming; but manual training has made for itself an enviable place in our system of general education, furnished its students a wider outlook from which to choose a vocation, and commended itself to large numbers of people. It is now probably best that the move- ment be continued as it is, and that the industrial function be accom- plished by other schools, independent of our existing system in whole or in part, and managed primarily by men in close touch with industry. Much more hopeful for industry is the recent inauguration of apprentice schools in shops. 3 A number of larger manufacturing and railroad companies, to increase the efficiency of their employees or to train up a generation of workers, have instituted schools in which their apprentices are taught such subjects as mechanical draw- ing, reading of drawings, shop arithmetic, strength of materials, mechanics, electricity, testing of machines, etc. The detailed ar- rangements differ from shop to shop, but in general the teaching is very practical, is intimately connected with the shop work, and is carried on by the method of concrete problems. The apprentices are usually paid for their time while in the school, just as in the shops, and are held to the same standards of attendance and discipline. Special teachers in many cases instruct the boys, generally in the school, sometimes in the shop also; the course of study- is often care- fully laid out by the consulting engineer or by some member of the firm. In some cases, as in the General Electric Co.'s plant at Lynn, Mass., a special apprentice training room is set aside for the purpose, and here the boys work at machines isolated from the rest of the *Nat. Educ. Assoc. Rep., p. 95. *Ibid., p. 87. 8 Wright, pp. 28-56; Nat. Soc. Promot. Indus. Educ, Bull. No. 11, pp. 72-81. INDUSTEIAL SCHOOLS IN THE UNITED STATES. 31 factory. In some cases shifts of boys are kept alternately at the machines and in the school, thus obtaining the fullest possible utilization of the machines and of the services of the teacher. Usually only a few hours a week are spent in the school, though in some cases as much as half the time is so occupied. In the shop, the apprentices are usually advanced from machine to machine or department to department as fast as they become proficient, or at stated intervals. Sometimes they are required before leaving a machine to instruct another boy concerning it. In some few cases employees other than apprentices may also enter the apprentice classes. Prizes or other recognition of good work are often granted as useful stimuli. Some companies conduct the schools largely to provide future foremen, designers, superintendents, and technical experts. In some cases examinations are held for those who desire to become apprentices, and also to determine proficiency on completion of the course; in others a common school education and physical fitness are required for entrance, while graduation or proficiency is attested by the personal knowledge of the teacher. The popularity of these apprenticeships is attested by the fact that in the better companies, at least, there are many candidates on the waiting list, and the companies can select the best fitted boys. Trial periods are the rule, as in most apprenticeships, and then the signing of a regular indenture. The school course usually lasts as long as the appren- ticeship, and a good grade of work is required for its successful completion. The boys usually appreciate the superior advantages they receive for a thorough trade training and are often enthusiastic for their company. Some of the companies which have adopted systems of this sort are (with number of hours of schooling given a week): The Fore River Shipbuilding Co. (18 hours for 7 months); the New York Central lines (4 hours); the Santa Fe Railroad (4 hours); the Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Co., East Pittsburgh, Pa. (4 hours) ; the International Harvester Co., Chicago, 111.; the Allis-Chalmers Co., of Cincinnati, Ohio; the General Electric Co., West Lynn, Mass. (7^ hours) ; the Lakeside Press, Chicago, 111. (21 hours, 2 years out of 7); and the Solvay Co., Syracuse, N. Y. (alternate weeks in school and shop). 1 These companies and others which have adopted the system in some form are in the main large companies, and so far with them the system has worked well. This suggests the query whether the system is applicable to com- panies of any size or only to large firms. The smallest number in any apprentice school conducted by a manufacturing company of which I have data is 28, the largest number 206, while the average is 69 apprentices. The railways show a much lower average, owing to the fact that at most division points there are but few apprentices; 1 These data chiefly from Wright, pp. 2S-56. 32 GEKMAN INDTJSTBIAL EDUCATION. 61 railways have 8,367 apprentices in 406 schools, or an average of not quite 21 to a school. The hiring of a special instructor for so few apprentices would be too expensive and is not strictly necessary; for these reasons the shop superintendent, chief draftsman, or other regular employee generally conducts the instruction and supervision, and in some cases the instruction covers little more than mechanical drawing. So far as the present experience with shop schools goes, it seems that instruction of comparatively few appren- tices is feasible, that in most cases a small or medium-sized shop can not afford a special instructor, and that the apprentices thus lose in thoroughness of instruction. As to the smallest shops, the plan does not seem feasible for them. Even a class of 15 or 20 apprentices is not possible except in an establishment of from about 60 to 400 workers. In some industries, as in the building trades, the system is not applicable at all. The system is new, however, and may become a good solution of a part of the general problem. Railroad men are especially inclined to hold that no trade school can meet the highly special needs of their industry. A modification of the system of apprenticeship schools in the shop * is found in an apprenticeship system where instruction is given outside of the shop but under the direction of the employers. The North End Union School of Printing, of Boston, is owned and con- ducted by an association of master printers. It offers one year of trade schooling at a cost of $100 to the boy, to take the place of the first two years of an ordinary apprenticeship, and then apprentice- ship for four years to some master printer at a guaranteed wage steadily increasing from $9 to $18 a week. Some other firms " en- courage" boys to attend night schools, but neither require such attendance nor offer adequate incentive to them to do so. Such systems are too weak to accomplish much. 2 The Baldwin Locomo- tive Works and some other firms, however, require their apprentices to attend evening school and study mechanical drawing and other courses in line with their shopwork. 2 Akin to the last-named type is the part-time system, or coopera- tion between school and shop. 3 In this type the employers and a school or schools, usually public, divide the time of the apprentices according to different proportions, the bulk of the time usually being spent in the shops. The instruction given is technical, relating to shopwork, though it may include also some of a business and of a civic nature. In Beverly, Mass., the apprentices of the United Shoe Machinery Co. alternate, in two groups of 25 each, between the Beverly (public) industrial school and the shop. The boys are paid half the regular piece price for their work, and the company assumes the cost of the shop. In Fitchburg, Mass., apprentices of mechanical trades i Wright, pp. 57-67. " Ibid., pp. 56-67. s Nat. Soc. Promot. Indus. Educ, Bull. No. 11, pp. 111-115. INDUSTKIAL SCHOOLS IN THE UNITED STATES. 33 are given one full year in the high school, followed by three years of alternate weeks in the shops of manufacturers as apprentices and in school. In Cincinnati, Ohio, apprentices are taught in an improve- ment or continuation school of the city for 4 hours a week and 48 weeks in the year. 1 "The school teaches the three R's, civics, me- chanical drawing, blueprint reading, and good citizenship. Much attention is given to shop mathematics." Beyond the scope of the present inquiry, but illustrative of the part-time system applied to engineering education, is the cooperative plan between the Univer- sity of Cincinnati and the manufacturers of that city, by which engi- neering students who are accepted by the manufacturers are enrolled also in the university, and regularly indentured for a six-year course, in which shop and school are closely coordinated. 2 During college term they spend alternate weeks in school and shop, and when col- lege is closed they work regularly in the shops. They are paid for their work in the shops at rates which total about $2,000 for the six years. Though spending only half the time at the university that is spent by those taking the regular 4-year engineering course, the ap- prentice students did three-quarters of the work done by the latter, with grades 25 per cent better. This system for training industrial leaders is, so far as it has gone, a success. To the extension of such cooperative systems between public schools and shops, trade unionism offers strenuous objection. In the report of the special committee on industrial education of the Ameri- can Federation of Labor, the following statements are found as to this system: 3 The manufacturer is not obliged to take any boy or to keep any boy. On the other hand, the high school is obliged to educate all duly qualified boys, to give them all that the city provides. * * * The people have no hand in this plan. * * * Under this plan the veto power over the boy's right to public industrial education is in the hands of the manufacturer. The committee points out that a manufacturer could refuse to take or keep a boy who should take a definite stand for trade union- ism or whose father should have done the same; that the coopera- tion would so bind the hands of the teachers that they could offer but little resistance to inculcation by the employer of antiunion principles, and that a spirit of undemocratic exclusiveness would be apt to arise among the accepted boys against their excluded fellows. To sum up, they state that: Any scheme of education which depends for its carrying out on a private group, subject to no public control, leaves unsolved the fundamental democratic problem of giving the boys of the country an equal opportunity and the citizens the power to criticize and reform their educational machinery. > Nat. Soc. Promot. Indus. Educ, Bull. No. 11, p. 115. 2 Wright, pp. S4ff. * Amer. Fed. of Labor Report, pp. 11, 12. 88740°— 13 3 34 GERMAN" INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. These objections must be borne in mind, but it seems as if no scheme for training our future workers wholly or in part in the shops could be made independent of the selection of those trained by the employer. The conclusion would seem to be that, if the cooperative system for industrial training increases in extent, other means of industrial training should be also kept open to our boys. Despite recent increases in the number of public technical and trade schools, private schools, which are first in the field, are still the more numerous and exercise the greater influence on the indus- trial situation. Of these the New York Trade School, founded in 1880, was first in offering short trade courses in the building trades, taking day students about four months for completion; while the Baron de Hirsch School, also in New York City and founded in 1891 for Hebrews, offers short day courses of five and one-half months, leading to the position of helper. In San Francisco, the Wilmerding School of Industrial Art for Boys, established in 1900, offers four- year courses in the building trades, with the practical side to the fore and occupying the entire last two years. Other schools privately endowed like the above exist in small numbers and offer courses varying in length from the short four or five months' courses to those lasting several years. The latter include generally a modicum of general academic training and a larger share of technical work. Some, as the Manhattan Trade School for Girls, are exclusively for girls. In very recent years States and cities have taken up the establish- ment of trade schools 1 and founded the following: State trade schools, at New Britain and Bridgeport, Conn.; the Worcester Trade School, Worcester, Mass.; the Wisconsin State Mining Trade School, at Platteville, Wis.; Saunders' School of Trades, Yonkers, N. Y.; the Portland School of Trades, Portland, Oreg. ; the Philadelphia Trades School; the Columbus Trades School, Columbus, Ohio; the Mil- waukee School of Trades for Boys; the Girls' Trade School, of Boston, Mass.; the New York Trade School for Girls, Syracuse, N. Y.; and the Milwaukee School of Trades for Girls. These schools do not differ materially from the privately endowed schools whose example they follow. A number of private trade schools run for profit are also in the field, offering generally very short courses of three or four months. This type of school assumes to train journeymen, and meets the most determined opposition of the trade-unions. A similar group of day technical schools, mostly private, ministers to a more general need. 2 There is much ambiguity in the use of the terms ''industrial" and "technical" as applied to schools, and they are often used interchangeably. Industrial schools are in the broadest sense any and all schools which have a function or purpose iNat. Soc. Promot. Indus. Educ, Bull. No. 11, pp. 22-51; and 25th An. Rep. Commis. of Labor, 1910, Indus. Educ, pp. 91-141. 2 Nat. Soc. Promot, Indus. Educ, Bull. No. 11, pp. 52-72. INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS IN THE UNITED STATES. 35 directly related to industry; in the narrower sense they are those schools which train in the general aspects or bases of industry, as drawing, mechanics, and applied mathematics, but do not specialize their training to the extent of teaching specific trades. Technical schools are those which instruct in the technic of industry in general or of special industries, particularly the latter. Thus a polytechnic school is one which concerns itself with the special technics of a num- ber of industries. A technical school aims to teach the science as distinguished from the art of a trade or industry. It aims primarily to show the student the meaning of the processes studied rather than to train him to dexterity in their execution. Many schools are part technical, part trade schools, but the functions are more or less dis- tinct. No school is a trade school proper which fails to teach the pupils to perform the actual processes of the trade, and merely makes clear to them the meaning of those processes. 1 Thus a trade school is primarily concerned with the art as distinguished from the science of a trade or industry. A trade school need not attempt to take the place of an apprenticeship. 2 The textile schools, established in Massachusetts under State law of 1895 and elsewhere are technical and not trade schools, and expect practical experience in their pupils, either before or accompanying their school work. Since 1906 a new type of school has arisen rapidly. This is the general industrial preparatory trade or vocational school, of which there were 12 in 1910, all public, 3 9 of them founded in 1909, and 8 in New York State. These schools aim to attract and retain in school for two or three years those pupils who would otherwise leave at the completion of the common-school grades or before, to turn their attention toward the opportunities offered in the manual trades and to furnish such basic industrial training as will provide industrial intelligence and make for rapid advancement in subsequent appren- ticeship. The work is usually about equally divided between class- room and shop and becomes more specialized toward the end of the course. It is this class of school which was strongly desired by both employers and employees, according to the New York report quoted above. Such schools would aim to instruct their pupils in the elements of both theory and practice of those processes fundamental or common to a group of trades. Such groups of trades or industries (or workers), important in the United States, are: (1) Woodworking industries; (2) iron and steel working industries; (3) bookbinding and pasting trades; (4) printers' trades; (5) leather-working industries; (6) tex- tile industries (factory type); (7) clothing trades; (8) engineers and firemen (and representing ' 'less evident possibilities of approach for 1 See preface, p. 7. 2 An opposing view is presented in 25th An. Rep. Com. Labor, p. 15. » Nat. Soc. Indus. Educ, Bull. No. 11, pp. 8-22. 36 GERMAN INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. the intermediate industrial school"); (9) stone-working industries; (10) clay and glass industries (using furnaces); (11) paint, paper, and plaster industries; (12) food manufacturing industries; (13) to- bacco industries; and (14) miners and quarrymen. 1 The existing schools of this type have naturally tended to specialize their efforts to meet the needs of industries locally important. 2 This will doubt- less continue to be done, as there will be neither need nor usually means for such a school to train in all of the groups of trades mentioned above, or similar ones. More important than any of these types of schools in their present influence on the industrial situation, whatever the future may bring, are the numerous evening schools. 3 These are of many kinds, public, privately owned, and profit seeking, and both technical and trade schools or a combination of the two. Most of the day trade and tech- nical schools, such as those above referred to, also give evening trade or technical courses or both. These courses are in part improvement courses, in that they are largely attended by those already engaged in the trades, and desiring either to supplement their practical shop experience with some scientific knowledge of the technic of their industry or to add a general shop training to the narrower training on a single machine, or in a single department, that has been theirs. Evening schools are subject to the serious limitations that the students are tired from the day's work, and that any thorough course must occupy a long period, as several years, and few persevere through a long course. 4 Prof. Sadler, who is thoroughly conversant with the numerous evening schools of England, says that about half of the students attend only about half of the time. Notwithstanding, evening schools are in great demand; and for short trade and tech- nical courses, chiefly to supplement some knowledge already obtained of a trade, they have a great and largely unoccupied field of usefulness before them. Prof. Richards, director of Cooper Union, states that "in Europe evening schools are the main instrument of industrial education." Deserving special mention among evening schools are the classes in the many branches of the Young Men's Christian Association. According to the Department of Commerce and Labor, there were i Nat. Educ. Assoc. Com. Rep., pp. 65-68. 2 Nat. Soc. Promot. Indus. Educ, Bull. No. 11, pp. 8-22. » Ibid., pp. 81-111; 25th An. Rep., pp. 211-245. * John L. Shearer, president of the Ohio Mechanics Institute at Cincinnati, voices thus strongly a general view of those who know the facts: " For moral reasons I can not sanction the establishment of departments in our public schools which make it optional for a child to attend either in the daytime or in the evening. The temptation becomes too great to utilize the child's ability for commercial purposes, and the conse- quences of this irregular training become a serious burden upon the public in later years. I have not found that evening classes for children are productive of good results, but rather leave in their train many serious evils. This brings me then to what I consider the legitimate sphere of the night school. It should be a good school for adults and not for children."— Rep. Wisconsin Commis. on Indus, and Agric. Training, 1, p. 48. INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS IN THE UNITED STATES. 37 in 1902, 6,000 men and boys enrolled in their classes; while in 1910 there were 50,000 employed men and boys receiving instruction under 2,250 paid teachers, two nights a week for half the year, in 140 different commercial and vocational subjects. 1 The students bear in membership and tuition fees, a part of the cost of instruction. The technical courses are such as mechanical, architectural, and freehand drawing, physics, chemistry, electricity, plan reading and estimating, concrete and steel engineering; while the trades taught include among others carpentry, pattern work, forging, and tool making, machine shop practice, and plumbing. Closely akin to the evening schools, and to be classed with them as performing the same function so far as the technical aspect is con- cerned, are the correspondence school courses which have attained such wide publicity in recent years. 2 One of the chief of these states that its purpose is to teach the theory of engineering and of trades to those actually at work in those activities, and the other schools perform a similar function. They are thus distinctly technical schools. They are usually private, profit- making enterprises. In two leading correspondence schools the tui- tion fees vary from $20 for the shorter to $120 for the longer courses. So great has been the demand for their services, not only in places where there were no other technical schools, but where these were available, that one of them had enrolled 300,000 students, in 1902, and had en- rolled up to 1910 a total of over 1,300,000. The method of these schools, though ridiculed at first, has proven to be quite effective. Much of its success has been due to the division of all subjects into short lessons, stated in simple, explicit language, and illustrated whenever necessary, forming each a unit by itself, and containing what is necessary to understand the next lesson, and no more. Com- petent instructors correct all written and drawn work, and give special attention to those who need it. Where the number of stu- dents permits it, traveling instructors now meet the students in a locality for an hour every week or every two weeks. To complete the longer courses usually requires five or six years, but graduation is not so urgent as in most schools, because the student is, as a rule, working at his trade while studying. The Union Pacific educational bureau for information has since 1909 supplied expert tuition without cost to its employees by mail. Trade-unions approve of this type of school, as they do of all schools designed to increase the efficiency of those already in trades, as distinguished from those which increase or which they think increase the number entering the trades. Industrial schools for girls are not numerous, and are mostly private philanthropic institutions. Their work usually includes 1 Nat. Soc. Promot. Indus. Educ, Bull. No. 11, p. 101. 2 17th An. Rep. Com. Labor, pp. 223-234; 25th An. Rep. Com. Labor, pp. 349-360. 38 GERMAN" INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION". domestic science, whose purpose is oftener to prepare for housekeeping than for wage earning. The distinctly trade courses are almost entirely limited to dressmaking and millinery 1 showing often a lack of study of vocational opportunities open to girls and women. Having now completed our brief survey of existing schools, let us glance for a moment at the tendencies of recent State legislation with regard to industrial education of various sorts. 2 Massachusetts, New York, and Connecticut have enacted laws providing State aid to free public industrial or trade schools; New Jersey has legislated for State aid for free privately established schools; and Wisconsin allows cities to establish trade and industrial schools at their own expense. These States are in the lead in respect to industrial education legislation, but a variety of other legislation in other States has been passed in very recent years. Thus, according to Bulletin No. 12 of the National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Educa- tion, the following State legislation is now in effect, covering the field of free public secondary industrial education of a practical type, as distinguished from a cultural: 3 States legislating on and giving aid to industrial education. Number States of giving States. aid. 19 6 29 16 10 1 18 9 11 11 19 13 11 8 3 2 States not legislating with respect to some type or types of practical activities States legislating with respect to practical activities States providing for technical high schools Providing for manual training Providing for training in domestic economy Providing for agricultural training Providing for industrial and trade training Providing for all the practical activities So recent is the bulk of this legislation that it can be said: "The first State subsidy for agricultural or trade training of secondary grade of any significance was not granted until after the close of the last century." * Some of this legislation is in advance of its utiliza- tion by the localities. The authors of the bulletin above referred to declare : The further development of public vocational education would seem to be depend- ent in large measure upon legislation providing for State initiative, State subsidy and a reasonable degree of State control. 5 One item of recent legislation would seem to call for note and that is the Ohio compulsory attendance law of 1910 for part-time schools. The part of the general compulsory attendance law which deals 1 25th An. Rep., p. 263. 2 Nat. Soc. Promot. Indus. Educ, Bull. No. 12, Legislation upon Indus. E due. in U.S.; texts of the recent laws are found in 25th An. Rep., pp. 499-518. » Nat. Soc. Promot. Indus. Educ, Bull. No. 12, pp. 24fl. * Ibid., p. 26. » Ibid., p. 27. INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS IN THE UNITED STATES. 39 with this feature declares that, in school districts where part-time classes are provided for the instruction of youths over 14 who are engaged in regular employment, a new obligation to attend such schools for not over eight hours a week in the daytime (between 8 a. m. and 5 p. m.) during school term is imposed on all youths under 16 who have not satisfactorily completed the eighth grade of the elementary schools, until they shall have completed the eighth grade or have reached their seventeenth birthday. 1 The success of this new experiment, and the way different classes receive it, will be watched with much interest. Superior in scope even to the Ohio law is the Wisconsin compulsory improvement school law of 1911, according to which boys and girls between 14 and 16 who are working under legal permit must attend an improvement or other school established for the purpose, wherever such school exists, for five hours a week and six months in the year. Employers must release their youthful workers so obligated for a number of hours equal to the hours of compulsory school attendance. This law, based on German experience, is of the type recommended in this study. It is but an opening wedge, for the compulsion is dependent on the action of the locality in establishing the proper school, and extends only till the child is 16 years old. Notwith- standing these limitations, inherent in any pioneer law of this scrt, the act marks Wisconsin as the State which at present leads the van in the movement for really popular industrial education. 2 iNat. Soc. Promot. Indus. Educ, Bull. No. 12, p. 35. * See Appendix B. The Wisconsin Apprentice Law of 1911. The text of the compulsory improvement school law is reproduced at the close of this appendix. The apprentice law and the school law should be studied In conjunction with each other. CHAPTER IV. RESULTS AND OMISSIONS OF OUR INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. What are the net results of our present industrial education agen- cies to date ? In number of students raised in proficiency the results are small for a country so large as ours. In quality of work some institutions have done very well. The following are concrete results in terms of positions and wages: The income received during five years by apprentices of the North End Union School of Printing, above referred to, is $2,800. Subtracting the $100 for tuition the first year, the net amount is $420 greater than that earned during the same period by a boy taking a regular shop apprenticeship with no trade schooling. 1 The graduates of the Baron de Hirsch Trade School of New York City, with short trade courses of about five and one-half months, increase their earning capacity by the course from an average of $5.39 to an average of $7.54 a week, and usually reach journeyman grade in two or three years. 2 The Manhattan Trade School for Girls, with courses of about one year, sends out girls who earn from $3 to $8 a week at once and $4 to $12 a week after two to four years in their trades, with a few operators reaching $25. 3 The graduates of the Philadelphia Trades School, with a three years' course, begin work at an average wage of $9.50 a week.* Of the Williamson Free School for Mechanical Trades, all the graduates to date, 726 in number, are in the trades which 95 per cent of the grad- uates enter at once at 60 to 100 per cent of full journeyman's pay. 6 About half of the graduates of the Wilmerding School for Industrial Arts for Boys, in San Francisco, have been accepted on the comple- tion of their four years' course as full journeymen, while others have received two to three years' credit toward the completion of an apprenticeship .• Concerning technical schools, the earnings of older graduates of the Hebrew Technical Institute of New York City are $60 a week, 7 while the graduates of the California School of Mechanical Arts are given credit for two to four years of apprenticeship and advance rapidly. 8 The Massachusetts commission's report shows that in the machine trades shop-trained boys rise from $4 to $12 a week by the time they i Wright, pp. 57-60. *Ibid. , p. 45. 2 Nat. Soe. Promot. Indus. Educ. , Bull. No. 11, p. 41. • Ibid. , p. 35. "Ibid., p. 49. TIbid. , p. 65. «Ibid., p. 29. « Ibid., p. 60. 40 OUR INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. 41 are 25 years old, while boys trained in technical schools rise from $10 to $30 a week. 1 The above facts are presented here as indications, but not as proofs in any exact sense, of what these schools have accomplished. They show that such schools can accomplish and have accomplished useful results, and specifically that trade schools can considerably shorten the necessary period of apprenticeship and make for superior ability. From the other types of schools increased efficiency and promotion have come in a great number of cases. And yet the schools are so few, the need so great, that public initiative is urgently demanded. Our provision for industrial education in this country is still mainly private and may be summed up as good, though not ideal, means for training industrial leaders with almost no industrial training for the rank and file. What, in brief, can we legitimately and reasonably expect that industrial education will do for our workers, for our industries, and for the whole people ? In a few, and perhaps an increasing number of cases, we can expect higher skill and better products to result than had before existed. Such results are most likely in the broad field of art and design in industry. The main direct result of widely extended industrial education will be the wide diffusion of industrial intelligence, more or less general in its nature, and of specialized skill in a great variety of lines. That the proper types of schools can impart these qualities has been proved both in the United States and abroad. This industrial intelligence and specialized skill can hardly be expected, in the near future at least, to surpass in quality that now found in our midst; the gain will be rather in quantity. A larger number and proportion of our industrial population than at present will be skilled workers. But can places be found for this multitude of skilled workers ? Will not many of them, with the training and outlook of skilled men and women, be forced to labor at work below their abilities ? Are not the relative needs of industry for skilled and for unskilled workers, as well as for different grades of skilled workers, fixed ? And does not this limitation of the needs of industry for skilled workers doom a large portion of our population (substantially as at present) to unskilled or relatively unskilled positions throughout their lives ? In recent years especially the demands of industry seem to be for many unskilled (or but slightly or very narrowly skilled) and for a few only of thoroughly skilled workers. If this limitation were rigid, our efforts along the line of strictly industrial education should be limited to the training of only enough workers to fill the skilled posi- tions, each with a grade of skill limited to the possibilities of his posi- 1 Rep. of Mass. Com. on Indus, and Tech. Educ, Apr., 1906, pp. 67-69. 42 GERMAN INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. tion. The situation is, however, more hopeful than this. Many unskilled or slightly skilled workers are now demanded by industry- chiefly because their labor is cheap, while our manufacturers would gladly employ more skilled workers could they secure them. For the country as a whole, their numbers are at a given time fixed. Individual employers can secure more skilled workers only by paying rates of wages which often they can not afford. If, then, industrial education becomes general in the United States, the increase in the number and proportion of skilled workers available will force a read- justment of industries by the mere fact that such a readjustment will become profitable to employers. They will find it worth their while to contract the number of unskilled workers whom they employ and to increase the number of skilled workers. To the individual employer the motive for this change will be pecuniary ; he will have to pay relatively more than before for unskilled labor, less than before for skilled. Further, there are some who hold that, aside from the cost of labor, the modern industrial army of few captains and many privates will undergo a transformation and that many skilled workers of various grades — the noncommissioned officers of the army — will come to be demanded. Such an increase in skill required of many of its workers has accompanied the modern tendency toward intensive cultivation in agriculture. It may yet open broad oppor- tunities for the average man in industry. With the probability then of increased opportunity for skilled workers, what advantage will those workers derive who now have to enter unskilled work, but who, with large opportunities for indus- trial training, can become skilled workers? We may confidently expect that increased opportunities for industrial education of the right kinds will raise the real wage of vast numbers of our people and greatly increase the sum of well-being in the country. All classes will benefit, directly or indirectly, by these educational opportunities. It is a corollary of modern economics that it is well for a man or for a group to have prosperous neighbors rather than poor. Employers will benefit by a larger supply of skilled labor, thus increasing their ability to compete with foreign producers both at home and abroad, and enlarging their home market as a result of cheaper products. Chief among the defects of our present industrial schools are their defects of omission. A large and important field is all but unoccu- pied by them. In 1905 a report was made by the Commission on Industrial and Technical Education of Massachusetts which revealed a striking condition of the working children of the State, both boys and girls, which is probably largely true also of other highly indus- trialized States. 1 About five-sixths of the children, it is found, leave school during the seventh and eighth grades to take up industrial i Rep. Mass. Commiss. on Indus, and Tech. Educ, 1906, pp. 85-93. OUR INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. 43 pursuits. 1 These children, about 25,000 in number, of the ages of 14 and 15, go for the most part into industries of the lower grade, which, indeed, are almost the only ones open to them. To quote from the report, " 33 per cent of the children of this State who begin work between 14 and 16 are employed in unskilled industries, and 65 per cent in low-grade industries, thus a little less than 2 per cent are in high-grade industries." The low-grade skilled industries in which child labor is much used are less desirable also than those where it is not. The class of family seems to have little to do with the trade or industry into which the child enters, nor is the industry much affected by family connections, except in the cases of a few desirable apprenticeships. "All grades of families are represented by their children in all grades of industries." The employers in practically all real trades that offer a future do not want the boy or girl until he or she is 16 years old at least, and in many cases not until he is 18. This evidence is confirmed by the New York report above referred to, as well as by other sources. Trade unions, in most cases, do not impose a higher age limit for ap- prentices than is acceptable to employers; in fact, the union minimum is usually below what the employer will accept for those industries where a bona fide apprenticeship holds. In most of the industries into which Massachusetts children of 14 and 15 go, however, there is no apprenticeship system, but merely child labor. Not only is it very hard for a child below 16 to obtain employment in one of the better industries, but the beginning wage in these industries is so low that few children will accept it, even when they may. The low- grade industries pay more at first, but reach their maximum in three or four years as a rule, and thereafter offer no chance for advancement for any not specially trained. This maximum averages from $7 to $8 1 The high proportion of pupils leaving school for all causes is best stated by the following figures from cities throughout the country contained in U. S Bu. of Educ. Bull., 1911, No. 5: Age and Grade Census of Schools and Colleges, by George D. Strayer, from which the following figures are quoted (pp. 135-136): Median per cent of the largest age group (assumed to equal the number of pupils entering all grades each year) found in each grade (data obtained December, 1908, from 317 cities): Grades of pupils. Cities of over 25,000. Boys. Girls. Cities of less than 25,000. Boys. Seventh year Eighth year Ninth year First year high school. . . Fourth year high school. (55) 65 (42) 50 47 35 10 Studies by graduate students in Teachers College, Columbia University, as quoted in the above report, show that a fair estimate of the number of repeaters would be 10 per cent of the total number in the seventh, and 8 per cent in the eighth grade. The figures above in parentheses represent for two cases the estimated actual number of pupils entering the given grades. On the whole, these figures confirm those of the Mas- sachusetts report, though indicating that the country as a whole keeps its children longer in its schools than the Massachusetts cities studied. 44 GERMAN INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. a week, with $9 to $10 as the upper limit. The training offered the child in these low-grade industries, in which seven-eighths of the chil- dren below 16 work, is negligible, and from the standpoint of their development the years can be called, as they are called in the report, "wasted years." The net weekly contribution of the child to the family through this work, above car fare, clothes, etc., is estimated to average but little over $1.50. The boy or girl who does not start work till 16, though commencing at a lower wage, is able to reach the wage of his fellow of the same age who started at 14 in two years and has probably earned a total to equal that of him who had the start in four years. The younger children change frequently from mill to mill, and once having left the public school are not to be tempted back by any attractions now offered there, but rather drift around aimlessly. The gain thus of this early work is negligible in training and but very slight in money. Yet the families, in most cases, are not so poor that necessity drives them to set their children to work at the earliest opportunity. The experts of the commission estimate that 76 per cent of the 3,157 families investigated would be able to give their children the advantages of industrial education if persuaded of its advantage. Industry has shown that it does not greatly desire the children so young, as indicated by the meager wage and opportunities it offers. The children are not mature enough to undertake any responsible work; these are the years best suited for the training of the child, and education at this time along lines that relate closely to the child's future will richly pay for itself in the future both in money and in efficiency. The testimony of the investigation from the evidence of case after case is that, except among the poorer foreign families, the child insisted on leaving the school, the parents objected, but the child had its way. What then draws the child, with so uniform and powerful a force, from school to mill? It is his awakened activity, tired of the conventionality, the unreality of the schoolroom; eager to see more of the world, to live in the active life of the world, to stand on his own feet and earn money by his own activity; to live less in terms of words and books, and more in terms of things and men. Where does the responsibility for this condition lie and where the remedy? In the schools. The schools fail to hold the child even when his work is worth little to himself or others, because they have even less to offer that in any way attracts him. Of 35 or 40 school superintendents interviewed throughout the State, all but three thought that the fault was in the school system. Would industrial schools succeed any better? All experience so far indicates that they would, if there was enough of the practical and vocational about OUR INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. 45 them to arouse the child's interest, and a promise of a better oppor- tunity in the world of industry to stimulate his imagination and dili- gence. The results of the Massachusetts report have opened the eyes of many to the likelihood that the child is likewise limited in other States also. 1 The need for industrial schools to redeem these "wasted years" and make them fruitful is imperative. Industry is conspiring with educational forces to make the present position less and less tenable, for some of the industries now employing children — notably the woolen industry (classed as low-grade skilled) — are dis- pensing more and more with their services. The result is that young children are being forced more and more into juvenile employments and into the lower-grade industries, "blind-alley" employments which offer no future. Before 14 the child's productive capacity is negligible, and between 14 and 16 it is capable of only the simplest processes. The need indicated is for preparatory trade or vocational schools, which shall teach children between the ages of 14 and 16 the elements of practical handling of tools and industrial materials, and of the principles underlying industries, each student specializing in a certain type or group, as metal working, wood working, etc. This type of school is what is called the general industrial, preparatory, trade, or vocational, and is the type so strongly approved of by both employers and unions in New York State. Another important investigation has recently been made under the direction of the United States Commissioner of Labor, entitled "Conditions under Which Children Leave School to Go to Work." 2 A survey of the main conclusions of this report will support the data and conclusions of the Massachusetts report and show further need of industrial education, as well as for vocational guidance, for the boys and girls affected. An intensive study was made of 622 children (below 16 years old) who had left school and gone to work in seven different typical smaller cities in Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Georgia. More of the children left school at 14 years of age than at any other age (281 out of 620), the next largest number at 13 years (151), then came 15 years (81), 12 years (53), and lesser ages. 3 The following table summarizes the causes for leaving school by the children.* Generally, several causes cooperated to this result. In such case the predominant cause only was given. 1 " The report of the Wisconsin Bureau of Labor for 1910 shows that only 12 per cent of the children are in positions to leam a trade. These, our report says, are in the building trades, millinery, dressmaking, trunkmaking, and tinning." In some of these, probably, "only a slight division of a trade can be learned." — Rept. of Wisconsin Commiss. on Indus, and Agric. Training, 1911, p. 40. 2 Vol. VII, 1910 (61st Cong., 2d sess., S. Doc. No. 645), of Report on Conditions of Woman and Child Wage Earners in the United States, in 19 volumes. 3 Ibid., p. 35. 4 Ibid., p. 46. 46 GERMAN INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. Causes for children leaving school to go to ivorlc. Causes for leaving school. Number of children. Per cent. Necessity: Earnings necessary to family support Help needed at home Self-support necessary Total Child's help desired, though not necessary: In family support To huy property In home work To earn money for education of self or relative Total Child's dissatisfaction with school: Tired of school Disliked school (general manner of life there) . Disliked teacher Disliked to study Could not learn Not promoted Too big for class Total Child's preference for work: Work preferred to school Spending money wanted Association desired with friends who worked. Total Other causes: 111 health To learn a trade or business Company pressure (exerted on parents) Other (specified in detail in original table) . . . Total Grand total 169 6 11 186 140 12 14 7 30.0 27.9 165 44 620 26.6 9.8 5.7 100.0 In cases classed under necessity the existence or absence of neces- sity was decided by the investigators on the basis of statements made by the family concerned, as to their finances. Usually it was con- sidered that families having a per capita weekly income, after rent was paid and expenses for sickness and death met, of less than $1.50 a week without the earnings of children under 16, could not unassisted keep their children in school; but that families with a per capita income of $2 or more, after similar deductions, were able to do so.- Those with per capita incomes of $1.50 to $2 as above were on the doubtful line, where the degree of thrift decided whether the child's earnings were necessary or not. 1 For all the cases where necessity was the chief reason for leaving school for work, trade or other indus- trial schools requiring attendance through the day are inapplicable. For these, as for other children at work, improvement schools of the type so widely found in Germany and recently initiated in Cincinnati and Boston might be adopted. Those families desiring the help of the child, though that help was not strictly necessary, generally regarded work as a child's normal and natural occupation, and were indifferent to school attendance « Vol. VII, 1910 (61st Cong., 2d sess., S. Doc. No. 645), of Report on Conditions of Woman and Child Wage Earners in the United States in 19 volumes, pp. 29, 30. OUR INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. 47 (sometimes hostile). 1 The chief need shown here was for more popular awakening to the importance and benefits of education. Those cases classed under dissatisfaction with school and preference for work show that the schools, as they are, do not interest a large class of children as much as does industrial work. 2 Of those stated as preferring work- in most cases it was a real liking for work, rather than for its attendant circumstances, which accounted for their leaving school. For the most part these children did not dislike school; in fact many of them distinctly liked it, only they liked work better. 3 Of all the children, 51.1 per cent were satisfied with school and teacher, 48.9 per cent not so. 4 Even 39.5 per cent of the pupils clas- sified as bright by their teachers were dissatisfied. 5 That the schools do not provide opportunity to bring out by any means the full capacities of the children is shown by the higher average estimates of their general capacity by their employers than by their teachers. Thus in a classification of all as bright, average, or dull, the teachers classify but 26.1 per cent as bright, the employers 49.4 per cent; while the teachers class 26.1 per cent as dull, the employers but 7.8 per cent. 6 Would manual or preparatory industrial training in the common schools (the only ones treated in the report) tend to increase the interest of the pupils in their work and hold them longer in school ? Answers to this question had to be secured generally from parents and were thus their opinion as to their children's views. They thought in 24.5 per cent of the cases that such training would have increased the desire of their children to stay in school. Columbus, Ga., one of the seven cities investigated, has excellent manual training work and two special industrial schools. There was in Columbus less dissatis- faction by the children in the schools than elsewhere, which would seem to be due to these industrial features did not Columbia, S. C, with no manual or industrial training, have almost as good a record. 7 Most of the children studied entered unskilled industries, while but few entered trades. But little real choice was exercised by most (88.7 per cent), as follows: 8 Worked for parents or relatives or at home 29 Took first place offered 313 Went where friends or relatives worked 192 Took something near home 16 Total (88.7 per cent) 550 1 Vol. VII, 1910 (61st Cong., 2d sess., S. Doc. No. 645), of Report on Conditions of Woman and Child Wage Earners in the United States, in 19 volumes, pp. 50-52. a Ibid., pp. 52-55. » Ibid., p. 55. * Ibid., p. 110. *Ibid., p. 120. •Ibid., pp. 122, 123. 'Ibid., pp. 108, 110-112. • Ibid., p. 183. 48 GERMAN INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. For the remainder, the reasons were as follows: Wanted to learn trade or skilled occupation 27 Attracted by high wages 11 Attracted by desirable work 31 Set up in grocery business by father 1 Total (11.3 per cent) 70 "Practically 90 per cent of the boys and all of the girls entered industries whose average weekly wage for all employees is under $10. m Though most who entered trades did so by aid of friends or relatives in the trade, there are indications that such aid was chiefly of value in opening the children's eyes to the trade opportunity. Without such special information, nothing awakens the child to the desirability of an occupation promising a future; so he drifts into the first position handy. 2 This suggests a service which manual training or elementary prevocational training in common schools, as well as intermediate industrial schools, can render — the awakening of the child to an industrial intelligence which shall, among other results, aid him to select intelligently and enter a vocation which premises a futare, if that be possible with his family's means. Purposeful planning or definite ambition existed in the minds of ' ' barely half of the boys and less than half of the girls." 3 Often where such ambition existed the work being done at the time bore no manner of relation to this ambition and furthered it not one whit. 4 A much larger percentage of those who had completed half or more of the school course had definite ambitions for their work than of those who had not gone so far. Since the correlation between age and grade is low, this seems to show "that the schools have had considerable effect in giving the pupils a definite aim in life." 5 Finally, 167 boys (47.3 per cent) and 108 girls (40.2 per cent) said that if an evening trade school were opened they would wish to go. 9 Can not these cities, and others, afford to give the children the opportunity they need and wish ? i Vol. VII, 1910 (61st Cong., 2d sess., S. Doc. No. 645), of Report on Conditions of Woman and Child Wage Earners in the United States, in 19 volumes, pp. 151, 152. 2 Ibid., pp. 186, 187. s Ibid., p. 190. ♦ Ibid., p. 189. 6 Ibid., pp. 190, 19L 6 Ibid., p. 192. PART II. GERMANY. CHAPTER V. THE BACKGROUND OF THE INDUSTRIAL SCHOOIS. To understand aright the very successful experiments of Germany in the field of industrial education, some consideration of the nation's industrial background is necessary. 1 Germany has developed very slowly, both in political integration and in industrial improvement. In fact, surprising as it may seem, the greater part of Germany's industrial advances have been made since her final integration into a nation in 1871. While England was leading the world in indus- trial and commercial advances Germany was lying dormant, unfav- ored in position, with a naturally poor soil, surrounded by enemies, and with a very conservative population, chiefly agricultural. Long after England had passed through the first and most violent stages of the industrial revolution, and the other countries of western Europe were in the midst of the great changes, Germany awoke from her lethargy and slowly began, under the stern force of neces- sity, to develop her industries and to give less relative attention to agriculture and more to manufacturing, transportation, and commerce. In one respect the country's slowness of development was an advantage, for the terrible waste of human life and health which accompanied the industrial revolution in England was almost unknown in Germany. Very slowly did Germany, borrowing the tools and ideas of her rivals, or learning them by stealth, develop modern factory industries. Yet the lack of national unity was a great drawback. Not until the tariff union (Zollverein) was formed in 1835 were the first barriers broken down, while the German nation was not able to stand forth as a unity till the fateful days of 1871. Since then German industries, fostered by a strong and paternalistic Government, aided by the best that science can bring and by a fine system of industrial education, conducted by a people hardy, diligent, faithful, subservient to discipline, and inspired by public spirit, have grown in size and strength until Germany is to-day one of the leading manufacturing and export nations of the world. i See Howard: Cause and Extent of the Recent Industrial Progress in Germany; and Spec. Consular Reps., vol. 33, Indus. Educ. and Indus. Conditions in Germany, 1905. 88740°— 13 4 49 50 GERMAN INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. In giving credit to the various factors which are jointly respon- sible for Germany's industrial successes, the qualities of her eminently industrial people and the stern necessities of her situation should have first place. Germany had few of the natural advantages in which the United States is so rich; her population was among the densest in Europe, and constantly increasing, with no outlet in colonies, and whatever markets she won must be won from rivals first in the field, and, at the start, better equipped than she. It became increasingly apparent as the nineteenth century grew older that Germany's farms could not long support her population. She must import foodstuffs, and to this end must become a manufac- turing nation. The present Kaiser sounded the watchword for the country when he declared: "The future of the German nation lies on the seas." The German people realized this, and have stead- fastly kept their faces turned toward their foreign markets, and to the many factories where all manner of goods are made, to be con- sumed from Bremen to Peking. Other factors in Germany's industrial and commercial success are those which flow from the persistence and thoroughness, typical of the race. The Germans have realized that theirs was not a situa- tion to be dealt with by careless methods, and that the closest mental application was necessary to solve the hard problems before the country. Fichte was largely instrumental in starting the nation, after the defeats by France at the beginning of the nineteenth century, in the paths of careful and scientific investigation and education. The nation followed his methods and has progressed by taking thought. Joined to this general thoroughness is a degree of cooperation for the common interests, through the centralized Government and otherwise, from which much better results can be expected and have actually been obtained than is possible with less centralization. This is evident, for example, in the influence of Government and of guilds on the industrial schools. Finally, the German nation follows the lead of science in her industries and relates science to industry in a marked degree. Along with Germany's very rapid progress in the past few decades there are aspects of her development not nearly as progressive. Her agriculture, on the whole, is backward, while the whole country suffers from overpopulation and the low plane of living accompanying it. The position of the average worker is a humble one, with little opportunity to rise. The idea of " Stand," that is, business, or more broadly, social position, is a fundamental one in the German thinking. 1 A man has a place in life of which birth is the chief determinant. He is expected to, and he usually does, both conform fairly closely to the type for that Stand and fail to change to another Stand. The medi- 1 Howard, pp. 94 fl. BACKGROUND OF THE INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS. 51 eval idea of labor and enterprise not for profits but for livelihood (according to the requirements of the individual's Stand), still per- sists and conspires with the difficulty, or nigh impossibility for the great majority, of obtaining a surplus revenue over present needs, to preserve the status quo. On the other hand, the various industrial insurance funds, a better administered poor relief, industrial educa- tion, an industrial law well executed, which protects the worker in many ways, combine to make the maintenance of a worker's Stand and plane of living surer than in our country. One of the antece- dents of the German system of education, especially industrial educa- tion, which must be kept in mind, is that a man's Stand, once chosen and fairly started on, can not be as easily changed as in the United States, if at all. If one fails at his chosen business, he fails in life, as there is much less opportunity than with us to change his vocation. This idea both fosters and is fostered by the practice of educating for a special business, whether it be cobbler or diplomat, which is more universally observed than is usual in the United States. Compulsory military service is a factor in German industries of no mean importance. Requiring of all men, with but few exceptions, two years of service (three if in the cavalry) after reaching the age of 20 years, it affects practically the entire male population. 1 However much of evil this service may involve, in tax burdens and in taking two of the best years of each man's life, German opinion holds strongly to the view that it benefits the country's industries. It is claimed that it strengthens the physique, accustoms to cleanliness, order, and discipline, and makes for self respect. 2 It has other results which are to the American mind not so desirable. It tends to overempha- size subordination and to subdue excessively the initiative and per- sonality of the worker. The industries 3 of the country are classified under two main heads — factories (or large industries) and handwork (or little industries). A common national industrial law 4 (Reichs Gewerbe-Ordnung, or Gewerbe-Ordnung) governs all industries, while under its terms and within the limits it sets lesser laws and regulations apply to any par- ticular industry. Much of this national industrial law applies to all industry, while the conflict of years between the two types of industry has resulted in special provisions of the law for each. This industrial law gives no definition of factory nor of handwork, and an official of the Prussian ministry for commerce and industry 5 told me that the i University students are free from the requirement; those who pass successfully six years work in Gynasium, Realschule, or equivalent school, receive the coveted certificate commuting the service to one year (as a so-called "volunteer," with special privileges); there are other lesser exceptions. 2 U. S. Spec. Consular Reps., vol. 33, Indus. Educ. and Indus. Conditions in Germany, pp. 271, 272. 8 Industries proper, not including agriculture. * Reichs Gewerbe-Ordnung (R. G. O.), as in edition edited and annotated by Dr. Hoffman, pub. by Carl Heymann's Verlag, Berlin, 1911. • Konigliche Preussischen Ministerium fur Handel und Gewerbe. 52 GERMAN INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. ministry is as yet unsuccessfully seeking to define certain industries as factory industries and certain as handwork. The difficulty arises from the fact that the two types shade into each other by insensible grada- tions ; in fact a given industry is carried on by some after the factory type and by others after the manner of handwork. The national industrial law states the following criteria according to which administrative and judicial authorities may decide whether a given business be factory or handwork: "(1) The size and extent of the space used; (2) the extent and value of the annual production;^ (3) the kind of division of labor and the more mechanical or the more craf tsmanlike cooperation of the workers ; (4) the more or less exten- sive use of machines; (5) production on the basis of special orders and retail sale, or for a stock of goods or large-scale production (or partial production) ; (6) the character of the industry as a by- industry of the machine or large industries, especially the prep- aration of specialties; (7) the personal sharing of the business head in the production of the commodity, or the limitation of his activity to the commercial superintendence; (8) the training of apprentices according to the manner of handwork, and the employ- ment of youthful workers " (who are not apprentices, which is typical of factories). 1 This division into handwork and factory industries is profoundly important in all industrial questions in Germany. The country has been and remains slow in substituting modern factory types of industry for the older and more simply organized handwork. Not that facto- ries as large as any do not exist in Germany, but the proportion of workers busied in them is probably less than in the United States; how much less is very hard to tell. Census figures for 1907 show the- following proportions of all industrial workers in establishments of different sizes : 2 Per cent. Persons working alone 10. 1 Persons in establishments employing 2 to 5 persons 19. 4 Employing 6 to 10 persons 6. 6 Employing 11 to 50 persons 18. 4 Employing 51 to 200 persons 20. 1 Employing "201 to 1,000 persons 17.3 Employing over 1,000 persons 8. 1 The lesser importance of factories in Germany has made some of the industrial problems easier to solve than they are in the United States. This is notably true of apprenticeship and industrial educa- tion, whose hardest problems on both sides of the water are con- nected with factories. i R. G. O. (imperial industrial law), p. 297. «Bucher, Karl. The " Law of Mass Production," in Zeitscnrift fur die gesammte Staatswissenschaft, 1910, 3 Heft, p. 430. BACKGROUND OF THE INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS. 53 In certain trades and among certain people in Germany handwork is sure of a permanent place. The building trades, for example, will probably always require the general type of industry and organization which now obtains in handwork. All trades, or cases of practice of trades, where individual orders are the rule or small local shops are needed or artistic design is the chief consideration, will continue to be carried on after the craftsmanlike manner of handwork. Another stronghold of handwork is the farming population in some districts, who, when farm duties do not press, supplement their scanty incomes by manufacturing a great variety of tasteful and useful articles. The German people as a whole realize the advantages of the handwork type of industry, and with traditional conservatism have opposed the rising prominence of factories and are striving to keep all industries possible in the fold of handwork. In this effort they not only show that "in Germany, as in no other country the people have been unwilling to break with their past," but they are also conserving that type of industry in which the personal and more human factors have a fair chance to control the situation to the welfare of all concerned, and limiting the application of that type in which the technical factors tend to ride rough-shod over the personal, often to the benefit only of the consumer. The laws and institutions by which the Germans have attempted to solve the hard problems of apprenticeship and industrial educa- tion center ehiefly about handwork, for the problem in the factories is to-day far from solved. In the same sphere of industry our greatest problems of industrial education he. Germany can help us by her example in our efforts to solve these problems. But her greatest triumphs have been in the sphere of handwork, and we must modify the lessons she teaches to suit the greater importance of factor\ T indus- tries with us. The degree of specialization attained in German industries is of the utmost importance in her attempted solutions of the problem of industrial education. How much specialization exists is, however, extremely difficult to discover and would require for a complete answer an extensive investigation. I can offer a limited amount of data on the subject. By specialization, for the present purposes, we may understand the practice by each worker of only a more or less narrow subdivision of a trade. This definition suggests the question, What constitutes a trade — a wide or a narrow range of operations ? No precise answer can be given, or rather, the type of answer varies from trade to trade. German trades, like those of the United States, show a gradual tend- ency to split up, while new and formerly unheard-of trades con- stantly develop. But in Germany, in some cases, the original trades 54 GERMAN INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. were (and are) more comprehensive than those in the United States, and so the splitting up of these more comprehensive groups of opera- tions results in less of specialization than in the United States. For example, the complete trade of the German Klempner (plumber) in- cludes plumbing, gas, water, and steam fitting, sheet-metal work, miscellaneous repairing, and generally also electrical fitting. Another feature of German specialization, found probably less often in the United States, is the training of workers in handwork, where they learn their whole trade, and then later specialize in factories. Thus a plumber will learn the whole of his trade in an old-style shop, or a branch of it only in newer more specialized ones. This training will generally include electro- technics. He can then enter as a jour- neyman a factory manufacturing electrical goods and learn and prac- tice a specialized branch of his trade, as armature winding. The handwork masters say that by this process the factories with- draw the best journeymen from handwork. 1 The Reichstag, in an inquiry into the conditions in handwork instituted in 1895, stated that in their opinion the number of handwork journeymen who had entered factories far exceeded the number remaining in handwork. 2 This type of specialization has a manifest advantage over that prac- ticed in many or most factories in this country, in that it is subse- quent to and rests on a general practice and acquaintance with the whole trade or a large branch of it. The extent of specialization varies greatly from locality -to locality, often even though these may be adjacent. In general, we may say that, as in the corresponding industries in the United States, speciali- zation has gone far in factories, but not nearly so far in handwork. Many handwork shops, however, carry on but a part of the whole trade. For example, some cabinetmakers practice all branches of their trade, some make only interior house "trim," some only furniture, and some only certain sorts of furniture. But businesses which make, for example, only chairs, or only chairs of a certain type, are usually among those classed as factories. Informants stated that there was little specialization in their locality in Mannheim, Coblenz, and Co- logne; that there was little specialization in handwork in Chemnitz, Elberfeld, Dortmund, Essen, and Aachen; and that there was much specialization in Berlin, Munich, Frankfort on the Main, Barmen, Duis- burg, and Dusseldorf (in most of these cities both in factories and handwork). To be cautious, a large allowance should be made in dealing with this data, for the personal outlook of the informants, probably often biased by one-sided special knowledge. Of one thing we may be sure: The problem of industrial education, as in the i Dusseldorf Handwerkskammer. 8 Stenogr. Ber. u. d. Verhdl. d. R. T. 1895-97, 8.80, quoted in Coelseh, Dr. Hans. Deutsche Lehrlings- politik im Handwerk, 1910, p. 122. BACKGROUND OF THE INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS. 55 United States, is not identical for different sections of the country. To sum up: The fact and the problem of specialization are the same in the two countries, but the United States has the problem in an acute form, both because more of our industries are of the factory form and because specialization in small and less specialized shops (corresponding to German handwork) has gone further than in the older country. The ordinary workman, specialized or not, the private in the ranks, has in all the initiative and management of the business in which he works, and often in its welfare institutions also, 1 but little say. The prevailing sentiment of the middle class seems to be that he should be kept from much or any influence or control in industrial matters. Yet the workers do not so regard the matter, and many of them are striving with great energy for more democracy in. industry. The German trades-unions are less strong and unified than those of England and the United States. 2 The right to combine is guaran- teed under the law to all employers and employees, except servants, farm workers, and sailors. Strikes and lockouts are legitimate, but the means by which they are carried on are more closely regulated than with us, and the rights of the unions in general more restricted. Politics are prominent in the German unions and divides them into three separate camps. Of these, that of the "Free," or Social Demo- cratic unions, is by far the largest, numbering about 700,000 mem- bers. It is closely associated with the Social Democratic Party, pays relatively little attention to mutual aid within the union, and much to political activity without. The "German" or Hirsch- Duncker unions number about 100,000 members and are framed on the English-niodel, with mutual aid or benefit features prominent, and a less militant political attitude. The third group, of less than 100,000 members, is that of the "Christian" unions, formed under the influ- ence of the Roman Catholic Church as a protest against the atheistic and radical social attitude of the Social Democratic unions. Distinct from the unions are the guilds, some of them descended without break from the bodies which so dominated industry during medieval and early modern days. 3 These hold such peculiar and important relations to industrial education and apprenticeship that they are worthy of fuller consideration, which I offer in the chapter following. • Note an exception, ch. 6, p. 58. « Bulletin No. 27, Bureau of Labor, pp. 314-328. * Spec. Consular Rep., vol. 33, pp. 254-263. CHAPTER VI. GUILDS AND CHAMBERS OF INDUSTRY. The industrial revolution, which came in Germany more as an evolution, broke down the power of the old-time guilds (Innungen) and left industry with few helmsmen save the heads of individual firms. The permanent interests of industry, as well as the public interest, suffered in consequence. Especially was the lack of the former guild regulation seen in the defective training given t.o apprentices, 1 and a multitude of other abuses sprang up, among which these pertaining to apprenticeship were chief. Uncontrolled competition was weighed and found wanting by the Germans. Reg- ulation there must be, and yet preferably regulation in which the undertakers of industry should have a share. To meet this need, the old-time guilds were revived, and in place of their old-time powers, new rights and powers were given to them. A few of the old-style guilds were reorganized on the new basis, but most existing guilds have arisen during the last few decades, under the new laws. These guilds are designed primarily to meet the needs of handwork, and have almost no bearing on factory industries. Very few fac- tories have any connection with guilds. 2 Guilds are either free or compulsory. Any independent trades- man may establish a free gdild 3 for a trade in a definite district. 4 The requirements for membership are: 5 (]) That the candidate carry on independently the industry for which the guild is organized, and in its district; or (2) that he be a foreman or in a similar position in a factory engaged in the same industry as that of the guild; or (3) that he shall have formerly held one of the above positions and now practices no other trade; or (4) that he be a handworker engaged in agriculture or industry for wage. The ability of the candidate to carry on the industry independently may be determined by examination. No qualified person may be denied membership, and no exceptions to these rules are allowed. The purposes or duties of the guilds are stated by law to be the development of an esprit de corps and trade honor; the promotion of friendly relations between masters and journeymen, as well as care for journeymen's homes (Herberge), and information about i Coelsch, Dr. Hans. Deutsche LeJirlingspolitik im Handwerk, p. 50. *Ibid., sec. 83, pp. 259ff. 2 An engineer of Fried. A. G. Krupp. ' » Ibid., sec. 87, pp. 266fl. •R. G. O. (imperial industrial law), sec. 81, pp. 254. 56 GUILDS AND CHAMBERS OF INDUSTRY. 57 employment; the detailed regulation of apprenticeship, and the care for the technical, industrial, and moral training of the appren- tices; and the decision of disputes between guild members and their apprentices. 1 Besides these prescribed duties, guilds have certain other permitted activities. They may establish and support schools for industrial, technical, and social education of masters, journey- men, and apprentices. 2 They may hold journeymen's and master's examinations and certify the candidates which pass them. They may establish funds to aid their members and their employees in case of sickness, death, inability to work, and other emergencies. They may establish guild courts, which shall take the place of the regular authorities as the court of the first jurisdiction, in the settle- ment of disputes between members and their employees. Finally, they may establish a common business to promote the interests of the guild members. The statutes of the guilds must regulate within the limits allowed by law, and by the regulations of the Government authorities and chambers of industry, 3 a number of matters, including the super- vision of the regulations of the activities of journeymen, apprentices, and other workers, and those for attendance on improvement or trade schools, and for the regulation of apprenticeship. 4 Deciding on the detailed statutes fcr the regulation of apprenticeship is one of the (10) most important kinds of business which can not be dele- gated to the directorate, but must be undertaken by the guild assem- bly. 5 The guilds are authorized to supervise, through agents, the execution of the legal and guild regulations in the industry for which the guild is organized. Such agents of the guild as are selected must be allowed access to the workshops and employment rooms cf guild members during working hours. 8 Thess regulations do not apply to any workrooms which are parts of agricultural or factory industries, 7 which indicate that the guilds are designed distinctly for handwork. The guilds are under the close supervision and authority of the subordinate Government administrative authorities. 8 All guild statutes, as well as any amendments to them, must be approved by the proper authorities. 8 The guild institutions, as schools, insurance funds, etc., must be administered under special regulations, to be approved by the legal authorities. 10 If a guild neglects to submit to i R. G. O., sec. 81a, pp. 254, 255. s Ibid., sec. 81b, pp. 256ff. •Ibid., sec. 81a, 3, p. 254. < Ibid., sec. 83, 10, p. 260. * Ibid., sec. 93, 5, pp. 280fl. •Exceptions: If a master fears harm from such inspection, he can provide at his own cost a substitute, who shall furnish the directorate such information as they desire. i R. G. O., sec. 94c, pp. 285fl. 8 Ibid., sec. 96, p. 289. » Ibid., sec. 84, pp. 262ff. "Ibid., sec. 85, pp. 264fl. 58 GERMAN INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION". the proper demands of the legal authorities, these may appoint a representative who adjudicates guild disputes and takes initiative if necessary. No final decision can be reached by a guild on amend- ment of its statutes or by-laws, or its own dissolution, without the presence of a representative of the authorities. 1 Of great interest as indicating a trend toward democracy in indus- try, or a revival of the voice of journeymen in the old-time guilds, is the journeymen's committee. All journeymen employed by a guild member, and in possession of citizens' rights, may vote for members of the committee of journeymen. 2 This committee takes part in the guild affairs as largely as the law and the guild statutes allow. It is concerned especially with the regulation of apprentice- ship, with the journeymen's examination and with the founding and administering of all institutions for which the journeymen con- tribute, in which they have special interest, or which are designed to aid them. The guild statutes, in their detailed regulations, must provide that (1) in the discussion and final decision of the guild directorate at least one member of the journeymen's committee shall be admitted with full voting rights; (2) in the discussion and final decisions of the guild assembly all the members of the committee shall be admitted with full voting rights; 3 and (3) in the administra- tion of institutions of which journeymen, according to the president of the guild, make use, journeymen elected from their committee are to participate in equal numbers with the guild members. 4 Guilds are allowed legal status and liability limited to their prop- erty. 5 They may collect dues from their members, fees for institu- tions established by them, and fines; and these are collectible by force of law as any other just debt. 6 The law further regulates the form of organization and mode of doing business, the organization of guild courts, and other matters, but allows, however, within the prescribed forms, considerable freedom of activity to the guilds. 7 Under these laws guilds have been established in great numbers throughout Germany. Their effect has been to bring about some degree of cooperation of competitors in industry in common regula- tion of what most concerns them. Their influence on apprenticeship is highly beneficial, tending to replace neglect by care, exploitation by education. Acting under their permitted powers, the guilds have founded numerous industrial schools. Many of these have been taken over since by cities or other public authorities; many are controlled and supported partly by the guilds which founded them and partly by Government, while some are to-day wholly guild schools. In almost all trade schools, whether founded by guilds or i R. G. O., sec. 96, pp. 289ff. * Ibid., sec. 86, p. 266. *Ibid., sec. 5a, p. 288. «Ibid., see. 88, pp. 270fl; sec. 89, pp. 271fl. » Without which any decisions are void. ' Ibid., sees. 81-99, pp. 254-296. «R. G. 0.,sec. 95,pp. 286fl. GUILDS AND CHAMBERS OF INDUSTRY 59 not, and in many other industrial schools also, the guilds of the trades concerned are represented on the boards of trustees, furnish models, require their apprentices to attend, assist in conducting examinations and otherwise aid the schools. A special type of guild may also be established under the national industrial law — the compulsory guilds (Zwangsinnungen). For the promotion of the common industrial interests of a handwork trade or of several such related trades, and on motion of the handworkers in the district, the authorities must require all those in the district engaged in the trade or trades concerned to join together to form a new compulsory guild. Several conditions, however, must first be fulfilled. The majority of those in the industry or trade and dis- trict who employ journeymen or apprentices must approve, the district must not be too large to permit the ready attendance of all members on guild gatherings, and the number of members must be enough to form an efficient guild. The initiative in the formation of a compulsory guild may come from a free guild (as all noncom- pulsory guilds may be called) of the industry concerned, or from individual handworkers. 1 An official ratifying vote of all the hand- workers in the trade or trades and district concerned must be secured by the authorities. This vote is taken by mail, and a majority of those voting decide the question. 2 On the formation of a compulsory guild, the (free) guilds which are organized for the same industry and district must dissolve. Guilds which include also other branches of industry continue in existence, but those of their members who are required to join the new compulsory guild must withdraw. 3 The property of a guild dis- solved as a result of the formation of a compulsory guild 4 may go over with its liabilities (not to exceed the property) to the compulsory guild. Sick funds are normally to be transferred to the compulsory guild, and other benefit funds may be so transferred. 5 The regulations for guilds in general apply also to compulsory guilds, with such modifications as the law specifically makes. 6 All those who carry on independently in the district the trade or industry for which the compulsory guild is established are required to join. Exception is made of those who carry on the industry accord- ing to factory methods. The approval of the authorities is requisite for the accession of certain doubtful classes, as handworkers in ao-ri- culture or industry for pay who employ journeymen or apprentices and those engaged in house industries. 7 In addition to those required to join, others are entitled to do so. Such are (1) those included in » R. G. O., sec. 100, pp. 300fl. a Ibid., sec. 100a, p. 302. • Ibid., sec. 100b, p. 303. * Ibid., sec. 100k, pp. 308-309. » Ibid., sec. lOOi, pp. 309-10. • Ibid., sec. 100c, p. 304. T Ibid., sec. 100f, pp. 305fl. 60 GERMAN INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. classes 1 to 3, inclusive (p. 56), as well as all handworkers engaged in agriculture or industry for pay and who employ neither journeymen nor apprentices; and (2) those who carry on the industry of the guild according to factory methods, if the guild assembly votes for them. 1 In cases of question concerning right or duty of membership, the legal authorities decide the matter. 2 The special care given to apprenticeship regulation is shown by the enforcing of stricter requirements for eligibility to committees responsible for the execution of the regulations on apprenticeship than for eligibility to other committees or to the guild directorate. Journeymen also who are on these apprenticeship committees must meet higher tests than for membership on other committees. 3 The detailed regulations of apprenticeship by the assembly of a com- pulsory guild requires the approval of the superior "administrative authorities, whose decision must be preceded by a hearing of the chamber of industry of the district. 4 This closer degree of supervision than is required for the regulations of free guilds is maintained because the regulations of compulsory guilds must be followed by all its members, whether required to join or not; and even handworkers who employ neither journeymen nor apprentices may, under certain conditions, be required to join. Thus all handworkers in the industry and district may be brought under the guild, and through them employees of all grades may be indirectly affected. To require all handworkers who employ neither journeymen nor apprentices to join the guild, the assembly must first vote for the proposal, a majority of those to be included must approve and the requirements as to the extent of the guild district must be met. 5 Because of their compulsory nature, these guilds are not allowed to require a member to share in any benefit fund other than the guild sick fund. No cooperative business may be established by a com- pulsory guild, such as funds for loaning, cooperative purchase or sale bureaus, etc.* Further, no compulsory guild may act in restraint of trade by limiting the prices its members may charge or the customers they accept. 7 Guild contribution from members may by permission of the central authorities of the State be collected by addition to an industry tax, if such exist. 8 A compulsory guild may be dissolved by order of the authorities, but only when three-fourths of the members vote in favor of the measure. A further check is put on dissolution by declaring the division of the guild property between the members to be illegal. Such property shall go to the guild welfare funds or to a new free » R. G. O., sec. lOOg, pp. 307ft. *Ibid., sec. lOOh, p. 308. » Ibid., sec. lOOr, p. 313. * Ibid., sec. lOOp, p. 313. * Ibid., sec. lOOu, pp. 317-318. « Ibid., sec. lOOn, pp. 311ff. » Ibid., lOOq, p. 313. » Ibid., sec. 100s, pp. 314ft. GUILDS AND CHAMBERS OF INDUSTRY. 61 guild for the same industry, or to the chamber of industry of the dis- trict, to be used for one of the objects stated just above. 1 Machinery by which neighboring guilds can cooperate is provided in the guild councils (Innungsausschiisse), which may be established for all or for several guilds standing under the same supervisory authority. Such councils concern themselves with the common interests of the participating guilds, which may delegate to them further rights and duties. The central government of each State may give to a guild council certain definite legal status, including limited liability (limited to its property). Guild councils are subject to the legal authorities much as are guilds. 2 Guild associations (Innungsverbande), unlike guild councils, are formed only by guilds not under the same supervisory authorities. Their purpose is to advance their industry by assisting guilds, guild councils, chambers of industry, and authorities to carry out their legal duties. They are further authorized to regulate the furnishing of information about employment, and to found and support trade schools. 3 An association may allow individual handworkers to join and represent their guild in the association. 4 The associations are under the supervision of the superior admin- istrative authorities in whose district their headquarters are. 5 The association statutes must be approved by the authorities. 8 They must furnish annually a list of the guilds which are members in the association. 7 The association directors are authorized to present a report and proposals to the proper authorities and are obliged, on demand of these authorities, to give due attention to industrial questions. 8 All assemblies of an association are to be held in its district, and may be forbidden or stopped if, by advance notice of the orders of the day or otherwise, there is evidence of purpose to exceed the legal sphere or powers of the association. 9 An associa- tion may establish benefit funds for the members of the constituent guilds and their employees. 10 The national senate (Bundesrat) may grant special legal status to any guild association, with limited liability (limited to its property). 11 Halfway between the official Government authorities and the pri- marily private guilds stand the semiofficial chambers of industry (Handwerkskammern), literally, chambers of handwork. Some of these bear the name of Gewerbekammer, but all are organized under the same law. These chambers are established by authorization of the State central authorities 12 to represent the interests of hand- i R. G. O., sec. lOOt, pp. 315ff. « Ibid., sec. 104c, pp. 340ff. s Ibid., sees. 101-102, pp. 318-320. * Ibid., sec. 104d, p. 340. « Ibid., sec. 104, pp. 336fl. i° Ibid., sec. 104i, pp. 342ff. * Ibid., sec. 104a, pp. 338ff. U Ibid., sec. 104g, pp. 341JE. * Ibid., sec. 104k, pp. 343ff. « Or of several States, if the chamber overlap * Ibid., see. 104b, pp. 3383. State boundary. » Ibid., sec. 104c, pp. 339fl. 62 GERMAN INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. work. Branch chambers may be established, or divisions for groups of industries. 1 The district for one of these chambers is much larger than that typical of guilds. In 1910 there were about 71 chambers of industry in Germany. 2 The chamber of industry is an elective body, elected (1) by the handworker guilds 3 having headquarters in the district of the cham- ber, and from among their members, and (2) by the industrial socie- ties (Gewerbevereinen) and other societies which pursue the industrial interests of handwork, of whose membership at least one-half are handworkers who belong to no guild and reside in the district of the chamber. 4 The requirements for eligibility to the chamber are rigid. Each member must be eligible to be a juror; must be 30 years old; must have carried on a handwork trade at least three years in the district of the chamber and be authorized to train apprentices. 5 By high qualifications and long term of office, efficient service is secured from the members. The term of membership in the chamber and on its committees is six years, half of the members retiring every three years. 6 The chamber may elect, according to its statutes, additional qualified members up to a fifth of its original number, and may invite qualified men with advisory power to its sessions. It may delegate regular or special duties to its committees. 7 The special concerns of the chamber of industry are: (1) The de- tailed regulation of apprenticeship; (2) the supervision of the regu- lations concerning apprenticeship; (3) the aiding of the State and local authorities in the promotion of handwork by reports on ques- tions important to handwork; (4) to debate motions and present conclusions and annual reports concerning handwork to the authori- ties; (5) to establish examining committees to manage the journey- men's examination; and (6) to form committees of appeal from the examining committees. 8 The chamber has the right to be heard in all weighty matters con- cerning the common interests of handwork or any of its branches. It is further authorized to concern itself with institutions for the pro- motion of industrial, technical, and moral advancement of masters, journeymen, and apprentices, as well as to establish and support trade schools. i R. G. O., sec. 103, pp. 321ff. * R. G. O., sees., 103a, and 118, p. 606fl. * Coelsch, pp. 42, 128. 6 Ibid., sec. 103b, pp. 323ff. • Handworker guilds are all guilds the majority 6 Ibid., 103c, p. 324. ofwhosemembersare handworkers. R.G. O.. 'Ibid., 103d, p. 324. sec. 118, pp. 606fl. • Ibid., 103c, pp. 325H. GUILDS AND CHAMBERS OF INDUSTRY. 63 The guilds and guild councils are obliged to follow the orders issued by the chambers of industry which cover their district and which are within its powers. All statutes and regulations of the guilds and guild councils which conflict with the regulations of the chamber of industry in authority are invalid. 1 The costs of the estab- lishment and activities of the chamber of industry are, in Prussia, to be paid by the handworkers of the district and collected like a tax. 2 In Prussia, also, the permanent officials of the chambers have the rights and duties of State officers and take oath as they do. 3 Factory industries are normally regulated by the semiofficial chambers of commerce, which hold for commerce, including. factory industries, a position similar to that of the chambers of industry in handwork. However, these chambers of commerce are much less interested and much less zealous in the regulation of factory industries than their fellows in handwork. They commonly neglect this regu- lation, largely or wholly. Especially is this evident relative to the highly important conditions of apprentices and youthful workers in factories and to industrial education. In consequence of this neglect, some chambers of industry have stepped into the breach and themselves regulate apprenticeship in factories. 4 iR. G. 0.,sec. 103fl. p. 327. 2 Ibid., sec. 122, pp. 609ff. s Ibid., sec. 120, p. 608. * Thus the Dusseldorf Handwerkskammer, the second largest in Germany, with several branches, regu- lates apprentices in factories. Data obtained from interviews with directors of Handwerkskammcrs in Dusseldorf and Aachen. CHAPTER VII. APPRENTICESHIP. We have seen how in the United States apprenticeship has declined, and how throughout its recent history the prevailing attitude toward it has been that of laissezfaire. The natural result of such an attitude and course of action has been inadequate preparation and over- specialization of the boy seeking to learn a trade, and his frequent exploitation as a mere youthful worker. In a strong contrast with American practice concerning apprenticeship is that of Germany. Conserving all that was possible of the virtues of the old-time appren- ticeship, she has added new virtues to the system, minimized the former evils, and with the most deliberate care sought to improve the conditions of entrance upon and preparation for the trades. Effi- ciency, as always in modern times, has been her watchword, and regulation her means. So we find a well- developed legal system of regulation, which to strongly individualistic minds involves over- regulation. Whether it be so, or whether the system of laissezfaire in vogue in our own country be better, we shall seek to determine from the data here presented. What do the Germans understand by the term Lehrling (appren- tice) ? The most exact answers are to be found in the National Industrial Law and in certain court decisions. They agree in regard- ing the apprentice as a young person who is engaged in an industry chiefly for the purpose of learning the industry or a part of it. 1 The chief criterion of the industrial law as to whether a given individual is an apprentice or not is whether he is learning the trade or not. 2 An apprentice is thus to be clearly distinguished from a youthful worker who is not an apprentice, for the latter even though working in the same shop or even side by side with the apprentice is not necessarily taught the trade and is protected by none of the regulations which safeguard the apprentice. Apprenticeship is the usual mode of entrance to a handwork trade; but factory industries are entered by boys either as apprentices or as youthful workers (called, to dis- tinguish them from apprentices, unskilled workers — ungelernte Ar- oeiter) . The purpose of apprenticeship is primarily the efficient training of the apprentice, and this is regarded as of the utmost importance to his individual well-being in his trade and out, and of the greatest civic importance, for the efficiency and general development of whole i Coelsch, pp. 30-32. 8 Bitzera, in Coelsch, p. 33. 64 APPRENTICESHIP. 65 social classes of the citizens depend largely or chiefly on the proper training of apprentices. I can not leave the matter even thus, for investigation in Germany leads me to conclude that the core of the industrial education situa- tion there is not the industrial schools, but the system of apprentice- ship. 1 For by far the larger part of the training of the great ma- jority of apprentices still takes place, not in the school, but in the workshop. The extraordinary growth of industrial schools in Ger- many during the last few decades should not blind us to this fact. Indeed the system of industrial schools, so far as that is made up by the compulsory improvement schools, is in a sense but a part of the apprenticeship system, though the compulsory attendance on these schools applies also to unskilled youthful workers as well as to appren- tices. Hour for hour, the industrial schools probably leave a deeper impress on the apprentices and other students attending them than do the shops; but we must not forget that the shops have the appren- tices an average of perhaps 56 hours a week and the schools but 4 to 8. Some of the provisions of the National Industrial Law on appren- ticeship are applicable to factories and handwork industries alike; while others apply only to handwork, which is thus more closely regu- lated. 2 The ordinary provisions concerning apprentice contract, etc., do not apply to apprentices in teaching workshops (Lehrwerkstatten) recognized by the State nor to the apprenticeship of a son to his father. 3 The first of these exceptions is probably desirable where the workshop in question is the actual substitute for that of the master, but not, as in Baden and Wurttemberg, for regular shops merely supervised by the State. 4 In case a son be apprenticed to his father the above exception applies only if the chamber of industry be informed in writing of the existence of the apprenticeship, the trade, day of its beginning, and its duration. This provision applies to all apprentices, handworkers, and others, who are under the supervision of a chamber of industry. This is for the purpose of protecting the apprentice in certain exigencies, but is not intended to replace the paternal relation by a legal one. 5 The right to have apprentices is very carefully limited. No one not a citizen is allowed the right. 6 Grave and repeated offenses against 1 Prof. Charles McCarthy did not realize the vitality of apprenticeship in Germany to-day when he made the following statement: "The Germans have studied out a plan for replacing the apprenticeship system, now worn out because of the growth of the modern factory system and the minute division of labor entailed by this system. * * * The Germans taking the remnants of the apprenticeship system, which of course still exists here and there, have added to it the continuation school." (Italics mine.) Report of Wisconsin Commission on Industrial and Agricultural Training, 1911, p. 20. 1 Statements below concerning the law of apprenticeship apply to all apprentices unless otherwise stated. 3R. G. O., sec. 126b, p. 407ff. < Coelsch, p. 69. »R. G. O., sec. 126b, pp. 407ff. and Coelsch, pp. 69, 70. 6R. G. O., sec. 126, p. 406. 88740°— 13 5 66 GERMAN INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. apprentices or unfitness (bodily or mental) to train them permit the temporary or permanent withdrawal of the right. 1 These regulations cover all industry. In handwork, in addition, all who train (i. e., supervise and instruct) apprentices must be at least 24 years old and must have passed their master's examination (and thus have the title of master) . If such a person does not have the title of master in the industry or branch in which he wishes to train apprentices, he may be permitted to do so if he has fulfilled the required time of apprentice- ship and passed the journeyman's examination in that branch of industry or if he has for five years carried on independently the hand- work concerned or been for an equal period engaged in the work as foreman or in a similar position. 2 The higher administrative authori- ties may confer the right to train apprentices on others than those who fulfill the above conditions after the chamber of industry and any guild for the industry and district have been heard. Exception is further made from the requirement of the master's title for a period not to exceed one year in the case of the death of the employer, in order that the apprentices may continue in the establishment. 3 Journeymen are permitted to instruct apprentices in single technical manipulations. Apprenticeship in a handwork trade may be carried to completion in a factory if supplementary training be secured in a teaching workshop supported or recognized by the State or by other institution for industrial education. Before recognition of other institutions for the purpose the chamber of industry of the district must be given ample opportunity to present its views. 4 One who meets the full requirements qualifying him to train appren- tices in one branch of industry may train them also in other branches of the same industry. One qualified in one industry may train apprentices also in related industries. The local chamber of industry decides as to what industries are to be considered as related. 5 The criteria on which these decisions are based are primarily either simi- larity of technique (as textile industries), or of the raw materials (as metal industries), dependence of one industry upon another for its raw materials, cooperation of several industries to produce the same product (as the building trades), or relations of the products in use (as food products). 6 The differing histories of industry in different localities have resulted in different decisions as to what are related industries. 6 Throughout Germany children must attend, the common school (Volksschule), unless permitted to attend some other school, until i R. G. O., sec. 126a, pp. 406, 407. * R. G. 0.,sec. 129,pp. 418ff. This provision has eased the transition to the present law, especially for old handworkers without the title of master. Cf. Coelsch, p. 46. s R. G. O., sec. 129, pp. 418£f. < R. G. O., sec. 129, pp. 418S. « R. G. O., sec. 129a, p. 422. « Coelsch, pp. 41, 42. APPRENTICESHIP. 67 they are 14 years old. 1 The great majority leave school then, and the boys (with whom we shall be mainly concerned) go to work under an employer. They must do this in most cases to supplement the meager family income. They may go into agriculture, commerce, or industry. Those who choose industry have before them the alterna- tives of skilled or unskilled work. Those whose families are not well enough off to forego the somewhat larger immediate wage, or who have less foresight, enter the ranks of the unskilled either as youthful workers (ungelernte arbeiter) or as errand boys and the like (Lauf- burschen). They will receive as wage, on the average, 8 to 10 marks ($1.92 to $2.40) a week the first year, rising in about four years to their maximum of 15 to 18, or even 20, marks ($3.60 to $4.32, or $4. SO). 2 The employers do not want the boys as apprentices so young as 14 years of age, and do not regard them as very useful for the first year or so. But the boys' need is pressing; they must have work, and the employers are constrained to take them. As a result, they are set at odd jobs for the first period of their apprenticeship. An apprentice will be paid 2.5 marks (60 cents) a week for the first year, on the average, 3 to 4 marks (72 to 96 cents) the second, 4 to 5 (96 cents to $1.20) the third, and 5 to 6 ($1.20 to $1.44) the fourth year, if the apprenticeship lasts so long. 2 Handwork apprentices sometimes receive board and room and a trifle of pocket money in lieu of wage. 3 Those parents who can do a little better by their boys keep them longer in school (Gymnasium or Realschule, rather than a trade school usually), if possible, until they have won the coveted one-year military service certificate, which would normally keep them in school until they are 16 years at least. 4 Such boys, not many in number, begin their apprenticeship at about 16 years, and ordinarily learn faster, probably because of greater maturity and habits of applica- tion, than most of those who entered the same industries at 14 years of age. The factories, like most in the United States, do not desire many, if any, apprentices ; though they call for many unskilled workers, both youthful and mature. Such workers, other than apprentices, need not be given any instruction in the factory. 5 Apprenticeship in fac- tories differs from that in handwork in that the legal regulations are less rigid, the supervision of these regulations (nominally by the chambers of commerce, but often actually by the chambers of indus- try 6 ) is less complete, the tendency to specialization is more marked, and in consequence the chances of the apprent'ee for a well-rounded 1 With few exceptions. 2 Herr Schulinspektor August Kasten, Hamburg. ' Dr. Rudolph Gornandt, a director of Hamburg Gewerbekammer. «Cf. ch. 5, p. 51, notel. »Herr Direktor Jung, Gewerbliche Fortbildungschule, Barmen. •Cf. ch. 6, p. 62. 68 GERMAN INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. grasp of his trade are ordinarily poorer than in handwork, and his resulting need of supplementary training in industrial school is greater. Most apprentices, however, learn a handwork trade. As the boy seeks to choose his trade, guided by the relative oppor- tunities and his own leanings, he finds the guilds, chambers of indus- try, and other industrial bodies ready to help him in the choice. The way in which the advice is given and the boy aided to secure a place varies from place to place. Special bureaus in some localities advise him, booklets about the trades furnish him data on which to decide, and employment bureaus, public and private, help him to secure a position. 1 The machinery of vocational guidance, so new in our own country, 2 has been for a long time in operation among guilds and other industrial associations of Germany. Even there, however, the ma- chinery is not fully developed, is not everywhere active, and many boys drift or fall into their occupations, instead of making a rational choice, based on knowledge of the significant facts. It has long been customary for apprenticeships to be begun by a period of probation, and the national industrial law has since 1897 required such a period. By it either party is given the right to withdraw within four weeks unless a longer period, not to exceed three months, has been agreed upon. 3 This right of withdrawal can not be waived. 4 Originally the probationary period was desired to pre- vent thoughtless entering on apprenticeships, 5 but now it is intended to show both parties whether they can probably bring the appren- ticeship to a successful conclusion, and whether the work be suited to the ability and strength of the boy. 8 The repeal of the older medieval apprentice regulations resulted in the neglect of the apprentice, morally and physically, shown by insubordination, breach of contract, and inefficiency. 7 For several decades compulsory written contracts were popularly demanded, chiefly on the grounds that such contracts would limit the utiliza- tion of minors by their parents, protect apprentices from exploitation as youthful workers, and employers from breach of contract, and generally increase the feeling of responsibility and improve the regu- lation of apprenticeship. Since 1893, such contracts have been re- quired by the National Industrial Law. 8 The apprentice contract must be executed in writing within four weeks of the beginning of the i Cf. list of booklets on vocational guidance, in References, p. 151. 2 Pioneered by the Vocational Bureau, Boston, recently founded, whose activities "are wide and expand- ing, and example illuminating, a R. G. O., sec. 127b, pp. 412, 413. « Coelsch, p. 91. * Erhebungen des Reichskanzleramts ilber die Verhaltnisse der Lehrlings usw. 1875, quoted in Coelsch, p. 89. « Coelsch, p. 88, 89. 1 1bid., p. 50. » Ibid., p. 53. APPRENTICESHIP. 69 apprenticeship and must contain certain provisions. 1 If no written contract be executed, or if the execution be delayed (classed as a "continuous offense" — Dauerdelikt), or if some of the provisions be omitted, the contract is still valid, 2 but the employer is punishable for each offense by fine of not over 20 marks ($4.80) or imprisonment of not over three days. 3 But not even in law-abiding Germany, and with such a law, do we find all apprenticeships have a written con- tract. In handwork they are nigh universal and in the larger fac- tories usual, but in the smaller factories they are generally or often absent. 3 The carelessness and ignorance of the children and their parents (chiefly the latter) in some districts are largely responsible for the lack of more contracts. Such parents wish to receive as much money as possible from their children's work, and so wish to have them free to change to whichever factory offers the largest reward for the time being. This breaks up the continuity of their instruction and is bad for them. 4 The required provisions in the apprentice contract are statements of — (1) the industry or branch; (2) the length of the apprenticeship; (3) the mutual services required; and (4) the legal and other condi- tions under which one party may withdraw from the contract. 5 Under the mutual service (3) are to be specified the money paid to the master, if any (for board and lodging, unless otherwise stated), wages, board and lodging, furnishing of tools, washing, etc. 6 The contract must be signed by the employer or his responsible represent- ative, by the apprentice, and by the latter 's legal representative. 7 Absence of one of these signatures makes any claim based on the contract invalid. 8 The legal representative of the apprentice is liable for the fulfillment of the contract only if so specified, and then only to the extent of his authority over the boy. 8 One copy of the contract is to be furnished him. The employer, to make possible public super- vision of the apprentice contracts, must turn over the contracts to the local police authorities on demand. 9 If the employer be a hand- worker and guild member, he must furnish a copy of the contract to his guild in lieu of the police, within 14 days after execution. The guild may require that the contract be executed before it. In this case the guild must furnish a copy of the contract to the master and another to the father or guardian of the apprentice. 10 With handworkers, then, the guild supervises the apprentice con- tract in place of the police. The chambers of industry, however, 1 R. G. O., sec. 126b, pp. 407ff. « Schicker, in Coelsch, pp. 62, 63. ^Schieker, Reger, Landmann-Rohmer; in »R. G. O., sec. 126b, pp. 407ff. Coelsch, p. 54. ■ Landmann-Rohmer and Nelken, in Coelsch, » R. G. O., sec. 150, p. 503ff. p. 65. * Herr Direktor Jung, Barmen. » R. G. O., sec. 126b, pp. 407ff. s R. G. O., sec. 126, pp. 407ft. '« Ibid., 129b, p. 423. 70 GERMAN INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. may * regulate the guilds in this supervision, and all of them have done so. 2 Those masters under a chamber of industry must make all their apprentice contracts according to specified normal forms and are subject further to the orders for the regulation of apprenticeship (Vorschriften zur Regelung des Lehrlingswesens) of the chamber. 3 The apprentice contracts of the Prussian chambers of industry are all of about the same form, based on the recommendation of the minister of commerce. Those of other States vary more or less from these. The Prussian contracts require compulsory sick insurance of the apprentice, provision of enough time for the apprentice to make his journeyman's piece, and specifications as to who is to furnish the materials for and who is finally to own the piece. 3 The Prussian and most other chambers of industry forbid the employers to take appren- tices whose lack of school knowledge or bodily or mental defects unfit them for the apprenticeship in question. 3 The Prussian and Baden chambers require the discharge of apprentices in case of their obstinate failure to attend the required school. 4 The apprentice may take up his residence with his employer, if they so agree, though this is not done so much as in former days. In case of. such residence, only such housework may be required of the apprentice as does not interfere with his training. If he receive neither board nor lodging from his employer, he may not be required to do any household work. 5 This provision was new in 1897 and shows a development of public opinion since the law of 1878, which approved of such work. 8 The financial relations of the employer and apprentice vary. Sometimes the apprentice pays the employer a sum (Lehrgeld), usually for board and lodging. Probably in the majority of cases the employer pays the apprentice, but only a small sum (cf. p. 67 above). Coelsch states that where the apprentice is paid a wage it is usually to stimulate his activity. 7 The tendency is for board and lodging to be furnished less often than in former days and a wage to be more often paid. On entering the apprenticeship relation, employer and apprentice thereby assume certain legal duties and liabilities. The employer is, according to the law of 1869, 8 to make it his business, by teaching and practice, to train the apprentice to become a skilled journeyman. The employer must instruct the apprentice in all the work occurring in his business (which may be wide or narrow, according to how specialized his business is) . 9 This does not require training in more than the trade or branch of industry specified in the apprentice con- tract, but it is a legal safeguard against overspecialization. Further, i According to R. G. O., sec. 103c (cf. p. 63, ch. 6). ' Coelsch, p. 77. 2 Coelsch, pp. 66, 67. ' Ibid. , p. 97. sibid., p. 83. 81869, R. G. O., sec. 118. cf. Coelsch, p. 71. ♦ Ibid., p. 84. 6 R. G. O., sec. 127, pp. 410, 411. *R. G. O., sec. 127, pp. 410ff. APPRENTICESHIP. 71 it includes practical training only, and not theoretical. 1 The employer must allow time for his apprentices under 18 to attend a school recognized by the authorities as an improvement school (see further chap. 8, p. 81 ). 2 He must train the apprentice himself or through a qualified specially appointed representative. 3 No excep- tions to this rule are allowed. It is not sufficient to assign an appren- tice to a journeyman without specific instructions to the latter to instruct him. The journeyman must also have certain qualifica- tions. 4 The employer must watch over the conduct and morals of his apprentice, 5 both in and out of his working hours. 8 In factories and large handwork shops, supervision away from work has been found impossible. 7 Employers in such establishments have the recourse of discharge of an apprentice who commits certain offenses. 8 The employer must protect his apprentice from abuse by other workers, and must give him only tasks suited to his strength. 9 He must allow the apprentice sufficient time and opportunity to attend religious service on Sundays and holidays. 9 The employer is liable for neglect of his legal duties to his apprentice to a fine of not over 150 marks or imprisonment for not over four weeks. 10 The apprentice, for his part, is, according to the law, thrown under the fatherly authority of his employer and of those appointed to instruct him, and obliged to obedience and truth, industry, and prob- ity." This provision includes the right of bodily punishment by the employer or his responsible representative, but not by the teaching representative. 12 Irregular or improper punishment or that danger- ous to health is forbidden. 13 Those apprentices whose employers stand under chambers of industry must also follow their regulations, which include in all cases the obligation to obey all the proper orders of the employer or his legal representative and to obey all the shop regulations of the employer. 14 The apprentice may be required to do other mechanical work than that in his trade; for judicial decisions have concluded that his whole working power is at the command of his master, though the fact that the chief purpose of the apprentice- ship is training must be respected. 15 The apprentice of an employer i Coelsch, p. 73. 10 R G- secs 148 _ 9 pp 499£f '*• G - °- sec - 120 ' PP" 38 °- 384 - » R. G. O., sec. 127a, pp. 411-12. >R.G.O.,sec.l27,pp.410,411. u Coelsch, p. 85; and Nelken and Schicker, in sec 127a> pp m _ u •Urteil. R. G., in Coelsch, p. 74. ,< Coelsch; p . 86 . ' Ibid "> PP- 74_75 - 16 Reger, in Coelsch, pp. 76, 78. «R. G. O., sec. 127b, pp. 412ff. ! R. G. O., sec. 127, pp. 410-411. Other duties of the employer are to be found elsewhere in this chapter. 72 GERMAN INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION". under a chamber of industry must care for tools intrusted to him. 1 His father or guardian is liable for the obedience, diligence, and punctual school attendance of the apprentice, but this liability amounts to little unless the father or guardian obligates himself in the apprentice contract to indemnify the master for any such mistake on the part of the apprentice. 2 Certain circumstances permit the withdrawal from the appren- ticeship of one of the parties after the probation period and before the apprenticeship is completed. The employer may discharge his apprentice if (1) the latter has deceived him materially on signing the contract; (2) if he has thieved, lived dissolutely, etc.; (3) if he has left his work when unauthorized to do so or constantly refused to do his duty; (4) if despite warning he is careless about fire; (5) if he commits grave offenses against his employer or others in his business or family; (6) if he intentionally harms the goods of his employer or fellow workers ; (7) if he treats the families of his employer or fellows immorally; or (8) if he is unable to continue his work or has a loathsome disease. 3 ' 4 The apprentice may further be dis- charged if he repeatedly neglects his duties as specified by law, 5 or if he neglects the attendance on trade or improvement school. 3 The chambers of industry of Prussia and some others require those emplo}^- ers under their authority to discharge apprentices for bodily or mental defects or lack of skill or school training. 6 The apprentice may withdraw if (1) his employer becomes unable to continue his work; (2) il the employer or members of his family abuse or act immorally toward the apprentice or his family; (3) if the employer does not pay the agreed wage, or furnish sufficient work, if piece wage be paid, or makes excessive gains from the appren- tice; or (4) if the continuation of the work would be dangerous to the life or health of the apprentice, which fact was not known to him when the apprenticeship began. The apprentice may further with- draw if the master neglect in a dangerous way his duties to the apprentice relative to health, morals or training, or misuse his power of fatherly discipline, or becomes unable to carry out his contractual obligations. 7 If the master die and the business be continued, the apprentice may withdraw if he does so within four weeks. 8 Neither party to the contract may waive any of the above legal grounds for permitted withdrawal, but they may, says Coelsch, specify additional ones. 9 The apprentice must be released by his 1 Coelsch, p. 87. 2 Ibid, p. 87. s R. G. O., sec. 127b, pp. 412ff. * Ibid., sec. 123, pp. 397£f. 6 Ibid., sec. 127a, pp. 411-412. 6 Coelsch, p. 95. i R. G. O., sec. 127b, pp. 412ff. 8 Ibid., sec. 124, pp. 400ff. • Coelsch, p. 95. Coelsch's view is disputed by several authorities, quoted on the same page. APPRENTICESHIP. 73 employer within four weeks after his legal representative (or him- self, if he be of age) has given written notice to his employer of inten- tion to change his trade. The employer shall in such case note the reason for leaving in the apprentice's work book (Arbeitsbuch) ; and the apprentice shall be prevented from working at the abandoned trade under another master within nine months, except with the approval of his former employer/ or from working as a youthful worker (not apprentice) for the same period. 2 The earlier industrial law (as that of 1869) allowed rather easy change of trade, and thus withdrawal by apprentices, and many with- drew in their second or third year. The Society for Social Politics (Verein fur Sozialpolitik) declared in 1875, after investigation, that because of such breach of contract poorer preparation of apprentices resulted, for the employers must utilize their working powers early, lest they leave and the employers lose thereby. Payment of appren- tices was one cause of such breach; for this parents were at fault, considering wage more than preparation ; and employers, for seeking to secure discipline by payment of wage. 3 Apprentices were best held by payment of a wage and holding a part until the apprentice- ship was completed. 4 In 1878 the law required compulsory return of runaway apprentices. 5 The law now provides that if an appren- tice leaves his employer without legal cause, the latter may only demand his return if the contract be in writing. The police authori- ties can, at their option, require the apprentice to return to his master if the latter complain within a week, except when a judge decides otherwise. Force, fine (up to 50 marks), or imprisonment up to five days may be used by the police to enforce return. 6 A number of safeguards are tin-own around this procedure, to protect the apprentice from abuse — the prompt complaint required from the employer, the option of the police, and the possible interference by a court. In case the apprenticeship terminates prematurely, damages may be collected only if the contract be written. In certain cases, to be valid, the sort and amount of damages must be specified in the con- tract. 7 If the apprentice leave the apprenticeship illegally, the dam- ages shall, except as a lesser amount be agreed upon, amount to not over half the customary wage of journeymen in the industry of the employer for the time omitted, but not for over six months. The father of the apprentice is liable, so far as he has the care of the boy, for his breach of contract, as is also any employer who induced him to >R. G. O., sec. 127c, p. 415. 1 Landmann-Rolimer, Schicker, Rohrscheidt, and Nelken, in Coelsch, p. 102. 3 Schriften its Verein fiir Sozialpolitik, in Coelsch, p. 103. * Erhebungen, 1875, a. a. O. S., in Coelsch, p. 104. * Coelsch, p. 105. « R. G. O., sec. 127d, pp. 413ff. » Ibid., sec. 127f, pp. 415-416. 74 GERMAN INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. leave his apprenticeship or who gave him work, whether cognizant of the breach of contract or not. 1 Some chambers of industry specify damages for breach of contract in their required normal contracts, but most merely note that agreement on damages is necessary. 2 There is no limitation to the length of apprenticeship in factories. In handwork apprenticeship must last usually three and not to exceed four years. Within the limit the length may be set by the chambers of industry with the approval of the higher administrative authorities for single industries or branches, and after the guilds and industrial societies concerned have had a hearing. The chambers of industry are further authorized to release apprentices in individual cases from the restrictions of the established period. 3 They may make the period dependent on individual efficiency or on attendance at a trade or improvement school. 4 Almost all chambers of industry make regula- tions concerning the period of apprenticeship. 5 Between the different chambers the regulations differ considerably. Of 68 chambers an- swering an inquiry of Coelsch, 9 made no regulations, 37 set the mini- mum at three and the maximum at four years, while 15 required three years uniformly. 6 The regulations seem to make the period too uni- form, as between the several trades; and the chambers do not provide sufficiently for individual exceptions, the latter largely to avoid dis- putes with employers. 7 Coelsch thinks that the period averages too long, on the whole, and regards three to four years for the difficult and two to four for the easier trades as desirable. 8 Where the cham- bers of industry do not regulate the matter the guilds, free or compul- sory, may do so with certain limitations. 9 At the close of the period of apprenticeship the employer must furnish to the apprentice a certificate (Lehrzeugnis) stating the trade, length of the apprenticeship, the proficiency reached in knowledge and ability, and the conduct of the apprentice. 10 This is to be given whether the apprentice has done well or not, if he complete the apprenticeship, and whether he wishes it or not. 11 The local authori- ties are to freely certify to the certificate (merely attesting the em- ployer's signature 12 ). Where guilds or other representatives of employers exist, their apprentice letters (Lehrbriefe) take the place of the employer's certificates. 13 Toward and at the close of his apprenticeship the apprentice, if he be in handwork, must be given opportunity by his employer to take the journeyman's examination (Gesellenpriifung). 14 This includes the making of a journeyman's piece. The law requires the handwork i R. G. O., sec. 127g, pp. 416-117. * Ibid., pp. 60-62. 2 Coelsch, p. 112. » Ibid., p. 62; R. G. O., sec. 81a, 3, p. 254. s R. G. O., sec. 130a, pp. 423-424. i° R. G. O., sec. 127c, p. 413. 1 Coelsch, p. 57. » Coelsch, p. 81. * Ibid., p. 57. 12 Ibid., p. 80. e Coelsch, pp. 57, 58. «R. G. O., sec. 127c, p. 413. 1 1bid., pp. 59, 60. " R. G. O., sec. 131c, pp. 424-425. APPRENTICESHIP. 75 apprentice to take this examination and his employer and master to hold him to it. 1 The chambers of industry in some regions, notably in Prussia and Bavaria, reiterate and try to enforce this requirement. 2 To have passed the examination involves advancement to the journey- man. 3 But as a matter of fact many handwork apprentices never take the examination, and though the chambers of industry would like to force them to do so, the existing law is in this respect too weak for the purpose. Factory apprentices need not take the examination, and very few do so. The celebrated Krupp Steel Works in Essen seek to have their apprentices take the examination, which they conduct themselves, for the sake of indicating the degrees of individual progress made, but they do not require this, nor advance the journeyman any the less if he omit it. 4 The State central authorities can require the journeyman's examination to be passed by all who receive certificates from teaching workshops, institutions for industrial education, or exam- ination authorities whose certificate qualifies for Government service. 5 An examination committee is to be established for every compulsory guild, but for free guilds only when a chamber of industry empowers them to hold examinations. So far as examinations in individual industries are not provided by guilds, institutions of instruction, or examining authorities, the chamber of industry shall arrange such examinations. The examining committee consists of a chair- man, chosen by the chamber of industry, and at least two assistants, chosen as a rule for three years, and of whom one-half must be journeymen who have passed the examination. 9 The examination must show that the apprentice is able to command in his industry the necessary dexterity and ability with sufficient certainty, and also that he is informed concerning the value, preservation, and handling of the raw materials to be worked with, and the recognition of their good and bad qualities. The procedure of the examination is determined by the superior administrative authorities with the agreement of the chamber of industry. Bookkeeping may be required, in addition to the above-stated subjects. 7 For admission to the examination the apprentice must furnish his certificate of apprenticeship, and the certificate of attendance on an improvement or trade school, if such attendance was required of him. The exam- ining committee note the passing of the examination on the appren- ticeship certificate or apprenticeship letter. 8 Its chairman may appeal from the committee's decision to the chamber of industry. 9 The State central authorities may amend these regulations for the journeyman's examination, but may not lessen the requirements for passing it, as stated above. 10, 7 i R. G. O., sec. 131c, pp 427-429. l Ibid. sec. 131a, p. 426. ■ Coelsch, pp. 239-240. ■ Ibid., sec. 131b, pp. 425-427 '• Dr. Schoppacher Handwerkskammer Sekretar, Dusseldorf. fc Ibid., sec. 131c, pp. 427-129. 1 An engineer of Fried. Krupp A. G. 9 Ibid., sec.132, p. 429. 1 R. U. O., sec. 131, pp. 424-425. "Ibid., sec. 132a, p. 42J 76 GEEMAK INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. If an apprentice fail to pass the journeyman's examination, and the examining committee regard this as the fault of his employer, the apprentice may receive supplementary training from another employer, and the former employer be required to pay for Jiis pecu- niary loss. 1 By national law (not industrial law) all those who pass a specified examination in any branch of handwork may obtain the one-year volunteer military certificate. This examination is chiefly theoreti- cal and is so hard that a young man passing it at, for example, 18 years of age, must be as able as any master workman. 2 Naturally, but few take this examination. If too many apprentices are held by an employer, so that their training is endangered, the lower administrative authorities may compel the dismissal of some, and limit the taking on of more than a certain number. 3 The dismissed apprentices, if their contracts be written, may demand an apprentice certificate and damages from their employer. The national senate (Bundesrat) may further regulate the maximum number of apprentices that may be held in establishments in a certain branch of industry. If such regulations are not made by the Bundesrath, they may be made by the several State central authorities. So far as these authorities have not legis- lated on the subject, the chambers of industry and guilds may, for those only who are under their charge (i. e., only handworkers, ordinarily), regulate the number of apprentices permitted. 4 In 1904, seven years after these provisions became law, neither the Bundesrat nor any State central authorities had made use of this regulative power. 5 Most of the chambers of industry have done so, however, some regulating all industries alike, and some making special regu- lations for special trades. 8 Many of these regulations seem too general and unsuited to varying conditions in different industries and with different employers. 7 How they have worked out in practice it is yet too soon to judge. 8 Few employers' associations or trades unions have sought to regulate the maximum number of apprentices in their trades. 9 In but few individual cases and in but few trades is there any excess of apprentices beyond what is desirable. The chamber of industry reports show a lack of journeymen and apprentices in the country and smaller cities, and the employment offices show a great lack of apprentices. So the attempts of the chambers of industry at regulation of the maximum number of apprentices seem to be on the whole not greatly needed. 10 1 Handwerkskammer, Mannheim. 6 Coelsch, pp. 128-130. 'Gustav Koepper, Sekretar, Handwerkskammer, Coblenz. 7 Ibid., pp. 114, 127. SB. G. O., sec. 128, pp. 417-418. »Ibid., p. 130. «Ibid., sec. 130, p. 423. 'Ibid., pp. 124-126. 6 Erhebungen a. a. O. S., in Coelsch, p. 119. 10 Ibid., pp. 119, 121, 123. CHAPTER VIII. THE SYSTEM OF INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS. German industrial schools took their rise in the Sunday afternoon and evening schools which had existed for several centuries in some parts of the country, dating back in one Baltic district as early as 1569. 1 They were used to supplement the imperfect general educa- tion of the working boys and girls. Attendance was made compulsory up to the age of 18 or even until marriage, but this provision was not enforced. The Sunday afternoon schools were at first chiefly con- cerned with religious teaching, but later they became general continua- tion schools, 2 concerned merely to reiterate the lessons taught in the common schools, with perhaps some slight advance. Still later more and more industrial and commercial training crept in, as also into the evening schools. The schools in their early days were far from suc- cessful on account of the lack of rooms in which to meet and of equip- ment, the ill-assorted nature of the pupils, and incompetency of the teachers. The industrializing of many of these schools improved matters somewhat, but the fact that throughout almost all Germany to-day strong attempts are being made to abolish evening and Sunday instruction in favor of day instruction, even for apprentices at work, indicates that the drawbacks were serious. Many of the Sunday schools gradually differentiated themselves into drawing, trade, com- mercial, mechanical, and art schools. 3 In Prussia the medieval restrictions on trade and industry were abolished and industrial freedom (Gewerbefreiheit) attained in 1810, almost half a century previous to the change in the other German States. 4 Apprenticeship declined under industrial freedom and ex- tensive competition, and the need of supplementary means of training was felt. Industrial improvement schools 2 were established, meet- ing evenings and Sundays at first, and these struggled on until the industrial law of the North German Union in 1869 gave localities the right to require compulsory attendance of all male workmen under 18 years of age. 5 In 1874 the final factor of success was added in annual Prussian appropriations and an official statement of principles for the conduct of such schools. 1 Sadler, M. E., editor: Continuation schools in England and Elsewhere. Manchester, 1907, ch. 8, p. 520. » See preface. 3 Spec. con. reps., vol. 33, p. 13. < English Bd. of Educ. Educational Pamphlet No. 18. Compulsory Continuation Schools in Germany 1910, preface. » Eng. Bd. Educ. Educ. Pamph. 18, preface, p. 3. 77 78 GERMAN INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. The States of central and south Germany, after the establishment of the German nation, felt the need of better cultural and civic training for their masses. They accordingly established general im- provement schools, whose sessions were at first on Sunday and in the evenings. 1 Bavaria had had improvement schools with compulsory attendance for both boys and girls since 1803. The new schools did not succeed very well until the curricula were remodeled to center around the vocations of the pupils, 2 and the schools thus became primarily industrial schools. They have remained, however, more cultural and less technical than the Prussian schools. From the early general Sunday and evening schools, and the indus- trial Sunday and evening schools which became differentiated from them, or were established in the light of their example, arose during the nineteenth century a great variety of industrial schools ranging from the improvement schools for youthful workers to the highly advanced and scientific technical high schools (Technische Hoch- schulen). 3 The majority of these industrial schools were established by private individuals, guilds, trade-unions, merchants' associa- tions, and towns. 4 This fact, and the loosely united condition of the German States during most of this development, resulted in great diversity in the types of schools and much wasted effort. The nine- teenth century was preeminently the period of experimentation in industrial schools. After the German nation was founded these schools, stimulated by the remarkable industrial and commercial development, went forward with leaps and bounds. But they are still essentially local in their control and support, and there is not as yet a unified system under central control. 5 Indeed, any system of industrial schools can be spoken of, as in the title of this chapter, only in the most general way, and for lack of a better term to indicate their general features and relations. So far as unity exists, it is due chiefly to the action of the National and of the State Governments, - and to the forces of example and imitation, these latter working largely through the association of the German industrial school men (Verband deutscher Gewerbeschulmanner) . 6 All German children are required by law to attend the common school (Volkschule) , or an accepted substitute, from the age of 6 or 7 to that of 14 years. 7 This common school is much like our own, differ- ing chiefly in that religion is given a prominent place, and a slight fee is charged; it is divided into separate classes, though with equally good teachers, for pupils of different pecuniary rank (by charging different school fees); and like German schools in general, teaches fewer subjects than we do, but these with greater thoroughness. Some > Sadler, p. 518. * Ibid., pp. 12-16. 2 Eng. Bd. Educ.Educ. Pamph. 18, preface, pp. 3, 4. 'Ibid., pp. 15, 134. 3 Spec. cons, reps., vol. 33, pp. 12-16. 7 With minor exceptions. Ibid., p. 5 * Ibid., p. 18. THE SYSTEM OF INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS. 79 common schools offer prevocational work, such as elementary drawing and work in paper, basketry, wood and iron (for boys), sewing and cooking (for girls). 1 At his tenth year, the parents of a boy in the common school must decide whether he is to continue his schooling beyond the compulsory attendance in that school. If so, he will leave the common schools at once and enter one of a number of types of school which offer themselves. If he is to be classically trained (with both Greek and Latin) he will enter the Progymnasium for its six-year or the Gymnasium for its nine-year course. If his training is to be semiclassical (including Latin, but not Greek), the Realpro- gymnasium offers him a six-year, and the Realgymnasium a nine- year course. If a liberal or modern training is desired, he will enter the Realschule for a six-year or the Ober-realschule for a nine-year course. Of these, in turn, all the nine-year courses admit to the ap- propriate faculties of the universities and to the technical and com- mercial high schools. The six-year courses are largely attended and completed, for the reason that their completion (or six years in a nine- year school) and the passage of an examination are rewarded by the one-year volunteer army certificate, by which the obligation to serve two years in the army is commuted to service for one year only, as a volunteer and with the chance to become an officer. 2 These courses are also prerequisite to entrance into many of the higher schools (hohere Schulen) of various sorts, commercial, technical, and engi- neering. Of distinctly industrial schools there is a great body, with the scien- tific technical high schools at the summit. These schools are about the equivalent of our best colleges and university departments of engineering and other applied sciences. They train the technical leaders of industry. In them, probably more than in our universi- ties, scientific investigation is given a very important place. Below them stand the middle technical and trade schools, of which there are many sorts: Mining schools (Bergschulen), building schools (Bauge- werkschulen) , textile schools (Textilschulen), schools of machinery (Maschinenbauschulen), and other schools for the metal industry, industrial art schools (Kunstgewerbliche Schulen), and other lesser groups. 3 These middle schools are of two main types, the higher and the lower. The higher middle technical schools are designed to train leaders of industry, but with a less thorough preparation than that offered by the technical high schools. As a rule, they require the completion of a six-year general course, such as secures the one-year military certificate, and at least two years of practical work in the student's 1 Rep. of the N. J. Commis. on Indus. Educ, 1909, p. 172. 2 Spec. cons, reps., vol. 33, p. 8. • Cf. Gewerbliche Fachschulen in Preussen, hrsg. v. kgl. Landesgewerbeamt, 1909. 80 GERMAN INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. trade. 1 They are probably the approximate equivalent of our tech- nical schools, colleges, and universities of less exacting standards. In them about two-thirds of the engineers of Germany are trained, only about one-third coming from the technical high schools. 2 The lower middle technical schools are designed chiefly for the train- ing of practical working master tradesmen, technicians of lower grade, for supplementary training of foremen (who generally rise from the ranks), and the like. They require for entrance several years prac- tice of the trade to be studied and throughout their work emphasize the practical side. In Prussia, the technical middle schools, higher and lower, are more fully developed than in south Germany. The industrial art schools are a special type, in that they train those engaged in many different trades and industries in the application of art and of design to their several trades. Of all those engaged in industry, only a small. minority attend any of the above-mentioned schools. Nor in these schools do we find such great differences from our own technical schools of various grades. It is in the industrial schools for the masses of workers that Germany excels and with respect to these schools that we have most to learn from her. These, the lower industrial schools, are of two main sorts, day trade schools and improvement schools. The rela- tions of some of these schools to each other and to other schools are often exceedingly close. They may use the same building, have the same teachers, and the same management and support. Where there are but few workshop facilities available, or where the improve- ment schools utilize workshops also, instruction in the lower trade schools may differ but little from that of the improvement schools, except as to length. But throughout Germany the attendance at day trade schools is but a fraction of that at improvement schools. This is because few boys who go into industry as ordinary workmen can afford to study so long without earning, and because there is ordinarily no necessity for so doing by reason of the training to be received as an apprentice and in industrial improvement schools. There is also, as we shall see, serious question by many employers in industry as to the advisability of such schools for the training of the rank and file of workers. As a general rule, these lower day trade schools for workmen do not constitute substitutes for apprenticeship ; but a few such schools, according to Dr. Kerschensteiner, for wrought- iron workers, machine builders, joiners, weavers, :plumbers, etc., do take the place of apprenticeship. 3 The type of school which supplies the great bulk of the training of the mass of workers, supplementary to the training derived from their 1 Kerschensteiner, Georg. Three Lectures on Vocational Training; delivered in America under the auspices of the Nat. Soc. Promot. Indus. Educ, 1911, p. 39. 2 Spec. cons, reps., v. 33, p. 277. 3 Kerschensteiner: Three Lectures, etc., p. 33. THE SYSTEM OF INDUSTEIAL SCHOOLS. 81 work itself, is the industrial improvement school (gewerbliche Fort- bildungssclmle). In this school the majority of workers receive their first and only industrial training imparted by any school. Ger- man improvement schools are now of three forms: General, industrial, and commercial (allgemeine, gewerbliche, and kaufmannische). These schools, as we have seen above, 1 were originally all general schools and of a type which aimed merely to continue and perhaps slightly expand the common school training. Such schools are now becoming a less and less important part of all Fortbildungsschulen and are also adding new subjects to their curricula, as civics, hygiene, studies of transportation, etc. Their organization varies from place to place. In some important cities there is no such school, and such few general classes as are held are a part of the industrial improve- ment school. The recent great growth of the industrial schools is a striking fact. Those youths engaged in industry attend the industrial, and those in commerce, the commercial improvement school; whether attendance is compulsory or voluntary, youths naturally attend the schools organized for their type of occupation. The relative importance of day trade schools, of improvement schools, and of the various types of improvement schools, is indicated by the following figures. There were in Germany, in 1906, about 130,000 pupils in general improvement schools; 206,000 in industrial improvement schools (including some called trade improvement schools — fachliche Fortbildungsschulen) ; 40,000 in (day) trade schools; 53,000 in commercial schools; 67,000 in agricultural schools; 71,000 in girls' general continuation schools; and 23,000 in girls' trade schools. 2 By the National Industrial Law, established in 1891, compulsory attendance was provided for. and the improvement schools thus greatly prospered. This law provides as follows: The undertakers of industry must allow to their workers under 18 years of age who attend an institution for instruction recognized by the community authorities or by the State as an improvement school the necessary time for this purpose, as specified by the appropriate authorities. The instruction may be on Sunday only when the hours of instruction are so set that the pupils are not hindred by them from attending the chief religious service, or a service of their confession especially established for them with the consent of the religious authorities. * * * Institutions in which instruction in woman 's hand and house work is given are improvement schools in the intention of these regulations. A community or a wider union of communities (Kommunalverbandes) may, by national statutory regulations, so far as regulations are not established by the separate States, require the attendance at an improvement school of male workers under 18 years, as well as of female commercial clerks (Handlungsgehilfen) and female appren- tices under 18 years. In the same manner the necessary regulations may be made for the enforcing of this obligation. In special, regulations may be made by statutory 1 Kerschensteiner: Three Lectures, etc., pp. 1-3. 2 SadLr: Continuation Schools, ch. 18, table ii. 88740°— 13 6 82 GERMAN INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. provisions to insure a regular school attendance, as well as to regulate the duties of parents, guardians, and employers; these regulations and suitable deportment may- be enforced in the improvement school. Those individuals are freed from the statutory- obligation to attend an improvement school who attend a guild or other improvement or trade school, so far as the instruction of these schools is recognized by the higher administrative authorities as an adequate substitute for that of the general improve- ment schools. 1 The several German States have reserved to themselves the full regulation of their school affairs and so the above national law has no compulsory force and is permissive only. 2 Great results have, notwithstanding, followed it; for in those States which have no law regulating improvement schools the national law, in conjunction with local ordinances, has in many localities provided compulsory attendance. The national law, and the compulsory attendance pro- vided under it for some schools, has also served as an example to the States, and has stimulated them also to legislate for compulsory attendance. On the basis of the national law and local ordinance, where such local ordinance exists, employers must allow time for the school attendance even of those workers who attend voluntarily. 3 The national law further provides that in localities where a trade school recognized by the State or communal authorities exists the obligation of the employer to insure time to his youthful workers to attend a school recognized as an improvement school (as sec. 120 above) applies to such trade schools also. 4 The manager (Geschafts- inhaber) must hold his apprentices and journeymen under 18 years to attendance on the improvement and trade schools and must watch over their attendance. These provisions (in sees. 120 and 139c) are enforceable against employers or parents by fine of not to exceed 20 marks ($4.80), or in case of inability to pay, by imprisonment, not to exceed three days for each infringement. 5 Almost all the States have legislated on the subject of the improve- ment schools, and their main requirements in 1909 are set forth in the accompanying table. i R. G. O., sec. 120, pp. 380-384. » Baar, Ewald: Die deutsche Fortbildungsschule im Jahre 1909, p. U 3 R. G. O., sec. 120, notes, p. 382. (Hoffman edition.) * Ibid., sec. 139i, pp. 4S2-3. s Ibid., sec. 150, 4. pp. 503-4. THE SYSTEM OF INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS. 83 German State laws on compulsory attendance at improvement schools (1909). 1 States, with approxi- mate population (1905). Prussia 2 (37,000,000). Bavaria (6,500,000). Saxony (4,500,000.) Wurttemberg . (2,300,000) Baden (2,000,000) Hesse (1,200,000) Meeklenburg-Schwerin * . (625,000) Mecklenburg-Strelitz * (103,000) Saxe-Weimar. (388,000) Oldenburg 4 . (438,000) Brunswick 4 . (485,000) Saxe-Meiningen . (269,000.) Saxe-Altenburg. (206,000.) Minimum attendance Minimum attendance compulsory for boys. compulsory for girls. For 3 years, 2 or 3 hours a week, in Sunday school; or in improve- ment school, where the community so chooses. For 3 years, 2 or 3 hours a week. For 2 years, 2 hours a week, 40 weeks a year. If community be ex- cused from establish- ment of an improve- ment school, then 3 years in Sunday school. For 2 years, 2 hours a week. For 3 years, 4 hours a week, 4 or 5 months. In cities for handworker apprentices, through their apprenticeship. For 2 years, twice a week at least in winter; not over 6 hours a week. For 2 years, 4 hours a week. For 2 years; full year, 2 hours a week, or 4 or 5 months, 4 hours a week. Same as for boys. Only by community action; then not over 2 years. Same as for boys For 1 year. A community may es- tablish an improve- ment school for girls. A community may re- quire attendance for 2 years up to 6 hours a week. Same as for boys . A community may es- lish an improve- ment school for girls. Remarks. In Posen and West Prussia, the minister of commerce and in- dustry may make at- tendance compulsory. Every community with 40 boys under 18 years in commerce and in- dustry, must establish an industrial improve- ment school, and such boys must attend it for 3 years, 280 hours a year (may be 4 years for special trades). A community may re- quire compulsory at- tendance of both sexes through their 18th year at industrial or commercial school. Industrial schools to have courses for 3 years or more, 8 hours a week. Attandance th r o u g h compulsory term in which 18th birthday is reached. Compul- sion may be estab- lished by the State, for improvement schools not public in- stitutions, and single groups of industries, on motion of those concerned. •Compiled from data in Baar, pp. 3-82. 'No law, except for miners. National industrial law thus in force for miners (sees. 120, 139i, 142, 150). Section 120 permits localities to require attendance. 3 State approval necessary to establishment of local compulsion. * Law reiterates national industrial law. 'No law. National industrial law thus in force. 84 GERMAN INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. German State laws on compulsory attendance at improvement schools (1909) — Continued. States, with approxi- mate population (1905). Minimum attendance compulsory for boys. Minimum attendance compulsory for girls. Remarks. Saxe-Coburg-Gotha . (242,000.) Anhalti (328,000.) Schwartzburg - Sonders- hausen. (85,000.) Schwarzburg - R u d o stadt. J (97,000.) Coburg: For 2 years, winter months, 2 hours a week. Sach- sen - Gotha: For 3 years, 2 hours a week through the year, or 4 hours a week for 4 or 5 months. Coburg: A community may require compul- sory attendance for 2 years. Sachsen-Go- tha: A community may require compul- sory attendance. For 2 years, 4 hours a week (in special cases, 2 hours), 4 to 6 months. A community may es- tablish an improve- ment school for girls and require attend- a n c e (compulsion may be limited to those in industry). Reusz (senior line ') . (70,000.) Reusz, (junior line) . (145,000.) If superior school au- thorities so decide, for 2 years, 2 hours a week through the year, or 4 hours a week for 6 months. A community may es- tablish an improve- ment school for girls. Lippe' (145,000.) Schaumburg-Lippe s (45,000.) Waldeck.. (59,000.) Lfibeck (106,000.) Bremen (263,000. ) For 2 years, 4 hours a week. For all app rentices through their appren- ticeship; all the year 8 hours a week, or win- ter months alone 12 hours a week. For commercial appren- tices and clerks through their eight- eenth year. For 3 years (no mini- mum; 4 to 6 hours a week maximum); un- skilled workers ex- cepted. Hamburg 8 (875,000.) Alsace-Lorraine 3 . (1,810,000.) Similar to law of Prus- sia. A community may re- quire attendance for 2 or 3 years. i No law except for miners; national industrial law thus in force for miners (sees. 120, 139/, 142, 150). Section 120 permits localities to require attendance. 2 Law reiterates national industrial law. 3 No law. National industrial law thus in force. Where no law on the subject exists the provisions of the National Industrial Law, as stated above, permit compulsory attendance to be required by any community wishing it. Some States have reiterated the substance of the permission of the national law. Bavaria, Sax- ony, Wurttemberg, Baden, Hesse, Saxe-Weimar, Saxe-Meiningen, Saxe-Altenburg, Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Schwarzburg-Sondershausen, THE SYSTEM OF INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS. 85 and Waldeck require all boys in industry or commerce, and not other- wise as well educated, to attend improvement school (in some few cases Sunday schools) for two to three years after their compulsory attendance at common school has ended; Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Reuss Jungere Linie, Lubeck, and Bremen make similar but variously qualified requirements. Only a few States require girls to attend improvement (or Sunday) schools — Bavaria, Wurttemberg, Baden, and Saxe-Meiningen (Sadler says also Waldeck and parts of Prussia). 1 As a rule, the compulsion is for attendance on a general improvement school, though sometimes on an industrial or commercial school. Those are excepted from the requirement who are receiving at least an equivalent education otherwise. Attendance at a school approved as a substitute for the improvement school frees ordinarily from the obligation to attend that school. For a summarized statement of the extent of improvement schools let us take that of Dr. Kerschen- steiner: In south Germany there is no city or town, however small, without one such school at least for all boys. In north Germany the great industrial town of Essen is the only larger town in which such a school is wanting. 2 The industrial improvement schools are generally not to be called trade schools. 3 Few of them, the country through, have many work- shops, and none or practically none of them attempt to act as substi- tutes for apprenticeship. They are technical schools, seeking to impart the "why" and "how" of the trades, or part technical, part general schools. We shall see more fully in the succeeding chapters of what nature these schools are and what results they are accom- plishing. Throughout, let it not be forgotten that these schools merely supplement, and aim merely to supplement, the training received in apprenticeship, even though this service be highly important. After the industrial schools of various types had been established the State followed the example of the individuals and groups who had founded them and founded or aided in the founding of similar schools and obtained year by year more and more control over all these schools. This was largely done by means of providing subsidies for the industrial schools, to obtain which they must meet certain require- ments with regard to grade and kind of work and the like, and submit to certain supervision. Inspectors enforce the State requirements. Thus the State tends to unify and standardize these schools, as well as to add greatly to their available funds. Certain modes of support are typical, though particular arrangements vary greatly from place i Sadler, eh. 18, p. 517. ' Kerschensteiner: Three Lectures, etc., p. 9. Essen has had a voluntary industrial improvement school since 1845. In 1910, at request of the guilds, this was made a compulsory school. 3 Certainly not in the American sense of the term; see preface. 86 GERMAN" INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. to place and school to school. Distinctly local schools are usually supported chiefly by the community with aid from State subsidies (except, usually, in case of improvement schools), while guilds, asso- ciations, and unions often contribute lesser amounts (though in some cases a large share). The higher schools receive usually large State support on account of their service to a wide district. The boards of directors include in most cases representatives of the industries con- cerned, or some of them (usually guild members), city officials, and representatives of any other contributors. The State administration and supervision has been vested both under departments or ministries of education and those for commerce and industry. The result of many experiments and repeated changes is in most cases the supervision of the industrial schools by a different body from that set over the other schools and one representing the interests of industry. Only thus, it was found, could the indus- trial schools be kept from becoming academic, true to their name and purpose, and be made practical and adjusted to the changing needs of industry. Cooperation, in the form of assistance and advice, of the educational authorities was found essential, however, to efficient operation of the schools, and this is now usual. 1 Industrial schools for girls and women are still greatly lacking. Housekeeping schools and schools training for women's industries, as millinery, dressmaking, etc., and for domestic service, are found in many places. Commercial schools are one of the most numerous classes of schools for girls, while general improvement schools exist in many places. The present tendencies toward more improvement schools for girls are directed more toward the establishment of com- mercial than of industrial schools. There is probably to-day greater need in Germany for industrial schools for girls and appropriate com- pulsory attendance on them than for any other advance in industrial education. i Spec. cons, reps., vol. 33, pp. 137, 138; Rep. N. J. Commis. Indus. Educ, p. 175; Baar, pp. 3-82. CHAPTER IX. THE INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS OF HAMBURG. Hamburg, a city of some 802,000 population (1905) and one of the chief ports of the world, is situated near the mouth of the Elbe River. Originally a member of the Hanse union, the city is now one of the constitutent States of the Empire, as the proud name of freie und Hansa Stadt Hamburg gives evidence. Primarily com- mercial, and, because of its location and tariff-free portion of the harbor, a great port for transshipment; it is now beginning also to see the growth of a thriving industrial life. The chief groups of industries, with approximate numbers of workers engaged in each, are: Machine industries (22,000); foodstuffs (8,900); metal working (6,700) (machine and metal working industries include about 10,000 engaged in shipbuilding); wood working (6,600); clothing (5,800); book printing and type casting (4,400) ; leather (4,200) ; fine lingerie (2,900); cleaning industries (2,900); forest products, fats, soaps, oils, etc. (2,700); building (2,500); chemical industries (2,200); painting, lacquering, etc. (2,000).* Until recent years there were a number of guild industrial schools in Hamburg, and a few of these still survive, the guilds concerned requiring and enforcing the attendance of the apprentices under them. But for the most part, as the city has extended its activities in the field of industrial education, the guild schools have been taken over by the city and now constitute a part of the public system of industrial schools. This change has been satisfactory to the guilds as to all others concerned. 2 The chamber of industry was established in 1903 and still con- tinues theoretical master courses (Meister-kurse). 3 There were in 1910 13 such courses for different industries and groups, each includ- ing about 30 independent handworkers and journeymen (who must be 24 years old). The purpose of these courses in the improvement of handworkers in general, and especially the preparation of young handworkers for the master's examination (Meisterprufung) . The courses meet ordinarily week-day evenings from 8 to 10 o'clock, and the whole course includes at least 40 hours of class work. The teachers are taken from higher schools, and thus are above the ordinary grade. They are assigned classes in related industries so 1 Total 84,374. Yahresbericht der Hamburgischen Gewerbekammer fur 1910, pp. 76-81. Dr. Rudolf Gornandt, a director of the Hamburg Gewerbekammer. * Yahresbericht Gewerbekammer, 1910. Anhang, pp. 6-40. 87 88 GERMAN INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. far as possible, that each may adapt himself to the special needs of that group of industries. The subjects treated are industrial book- keeping, notes, bills of exchange, etc. (Wechseellehre), industrial calculation (of costs, etc.), and law (the chief provisions of the in- dustrial law, of the industrial insurance laws, of the law of associa- tions, and of other laws especially applicable to handworkers). The attendance on these courses in 1910 was 390, from 15 different industries (with only 4 per cent of absences). 1 Since 1906 the chamber of industry has established also practical master courses. 2 The purpose of these courses is not the training of journeymen to become masters, nor any elementary training at all, but rather the education and practice of masters in the latest developments in their respective industries. This includes training in the use and desirability of the most modern machines, simple investigations of materials, technical, scientific, and industrial art lectures and practice to give an up-to-date viewpoint, and the like. There were 25 courses for 14 industries in 1910. A few titles of classes are: Concrete construction (2 classes), investigation of baker's materials, large scale production of shoes, automatic welding and cutting of metals (4 classes). These classes usually meet Sunday morning from 8 to 12, or week-day evenings from 6 to 11. The total number of class hours averages about 32 for each course. The teachers are engineers, architects, chemists, painters, and other experts. The attendance in 1910 was 295, the men ranging in age from 25 to 60, and averaging perhaps 35 to 42 years. 8 The interest of the participants was very great, promising important results on industry. The city of Hamburg has what may truly be called a system of industrial schools, fairly comprehensive in its scope. It includes the following: (1) A building trades school (Baugewerkschule) with department for underground construction. (2) A technikum or technical school, including (a) a higher machine builder's school (hohere Maschinenbauschule), (b) a higher school for construction of ship machines (hohere Schule fur Schiffsmaschineri- bau), (c) a higher shipbuilder's school (hohere Schiffbau schule), (d) a higher electrical school (hohere Schule fur Elektrotechnik), and (e) a school for ship's engineers (Schiff ingenieurschule) . (3) An industrial art school (Kunstgewerbeschule) . 1 The courses cost about 4,108.77 marks ($986.34), of which about half (2,057 m.) came from fees of 5 marks per participant. Yahrebericht Gewerbekammer, 1910, Anhang, p. 39. 2 Yahresbericht Gewerbekammer, 1910, Anhang, pp. 41-74. » The total cost in 1910 was 14,248.79 marks ($3,419.67), of which 2,114 marks ($507.36) was met by fees. The balance was paid by the chamber of industry from funds furnished by the city for the promotion of industry. The average costs (in excess of fees) were: For each course, $116.49; for each participant, $9.87; for each class hour, $3.65. Yahresbericht Gewerbekammer, 1910, Anhang, p. 73, 74. THE INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS OF HAMBUBQ, 89 (4) A wagon builders' school (Wagenbauschule) . (5) A day industrial school. (6) Eleven evening and Sunday industrial schools. (7) Eight commercial improvement schools. (8) An improvement school for girl and women clerks. I visited all of the above schools except the last 2, and including 2 of the 11 evening and Sunday schools. The building trades school is a day technical school of middle grade, preparing the graduates of its two and one-half year courses for tech- nical positions, or in connection with practical training, for positions as master builders. It has no shops; drawing, mathematics, and design are prominent in its curricula. Many of its students attend only during the winter half year, working at their trade during the summer, as shown by the attendance of 146 students in summer term 1909, but 405 in the winter term of 1909-10. 1 The technikum is a type of the middle technical schools which train about two- thirds of the German engineers. 2 For entrance 3 the military volunteer certificate must be possessed, involving the com- pletion of six years' work in a secondary school, 4 and two years of practical work; or certain other equivalents. The subjects taught are similar to those in technical colleges in the United States. The courses last but two years; but since the students are allowed only the short vacations usual in industry, since they have all had prac- tical experience, and thus are given no shopwork, and since their practical training enables them to grasp the theoretical with the minimum of difficulty, this period proves sufficient to turn out well- equipped men. During the school year 1909-10 an average of 326 students attended the technikum. The cost of this school to the city, on account of the high salaries of the necessarily very well- equipped teachers, is the greatest of all the city schools. 5 The grad- uates are quite uniformly able to secure good positions. The industrial art school seeks, in its day classes, to train in draw- ing, painting, sculpturing, and the like, and in industrial design, primarily those persons engaged in industry who have completed their apprenticeship, and also apprentices. There are both day and evening classes. Some classes adapted to special trades are those in interior architecture, glass painting, etching, bookbinding, photo- graphy, embroidery, and weaving. Much of the students' work was excellent, especially the artistic hand bookbinding. That it is prac- tical is attested by their ability to secure good positions. 1 Programm der Staatlichen Baugewerkschule fur Hochbau und Tiefbau zu Hamburg; and Bericht fiber das Schulyahr 1909-10. 8 Staatliches Technikum Hamburg: Programm; and Bericht ilber das Schulyahr 1909-10. s Except for the Ship Engineer's School. BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF EDUCATION. (Continued from p. 2 of cover.) No. 5. A study of expenses of city school systems. Harlan Updegrafl. *No. 6. Agricultural education in secondary schools. 10 cts. No. 7. Educational status of nursing. M. Adelaide Nutting. *No. 8. Peace day. Fannie Fern Andrews. 5 cts. No. 9. Country schools for city boys. William Starr Myers. *No. 10. Bibliography of education in agriculture and home economics. 10 eta. No. 11. Current educational topics, No. I. No. 12. Dutch schools of New Netherland and colonial New York. W. H. Kilpatrick. *No. 13. Influences tending to improve the work of teacher of mathematics. 5 cts. No. 14. Report of the American commissioners on the teaching of mathematics. No. 15. Current educational topics, No. II. *No. 16. The reorganized school playground. Henry S. Curtis. 5 cts. *No. 17. The Montessori system of education. Anna Tolman Smith. 5 cts. *No. 18. Teaching language through agriculture, etc. M. A. Leiper. 5 cts. *No. 19. Professional distribution of college graduates. B. B. Burritt. 10 cts. *No. 20. Readjustment of a rural highschool. H.A.Brown. 10 cts. No. 21. Urban and rural common-school statistics. H. Updegrafl and W. R. Hood. No. 22. Public and private high schools. *No. 23. Special collections in libraries. W. D. Johnston and I. G. Mudge. 10 cts. No. 24. Current educational topics, No. III. No. 25. List of publications of the United States Bureau of Education, 1912. No. 26. Bibliography of child study for the years of 1910-1911. No. 27. History of public school education in Arkansas. Stephen B. Weeks. No. 28. Cultivating school grounds in Wake County, N. 0. Zebulon Judd. No. 29. Bibliography of teaching of mathematics. D. E. Smith and C. Goldziher. No. 30. L a tin -American universities and special schools. Edgar Ewing Brandon. No. 31. Educational directory, 1912. No. 32. Bibliography of exceptional children and their education. A. MacDonald. No. 33. Statistics of State universities, etc., 1912. 1913. No. 1. Monthly record of current educational publications, January, 1913. No. 2. Training courses for rural teachers. A. C. Monahan and R. H. Wright. No. 3. The teaching of modern languages in the United States. C. H. Handschin. No. 4. Present standards of higher education. George Edwin MacLean. No. 5. Monthly record of current educational publications. February, 1913. No. 6. Agricultural instruction in high schools. C. H. Robison and F. B. Jenks. No. 7. College entrance requirements. Clarence D. Kingsley. No. 8. The status of rural education. A. C. Monahan. No. 9. Consular reports on continuation schools in Prussia. No. 10. Monthly record of current educational publications, March, 1913. No. 11. Monthly record of current educational publications, April, 1913. No. 12. The promotion of peace. Fannie Fern Andrews. No. 13. Standards for measuring efficiency of schools. G. D. Strayer. No. 14. Agricultural instruction in secondary schools. No. 15. Monthly record of current educational publications, May, 1913. No. 16. Bibliography of medical inspection and health supervision. No. 17. A trade school for girls. No. 18. Congress on hygiene and demography. Fletcher B. Dresslar. No. 19. German industrial education. Holmes Beckwith. No. 20. Illiteracy in the United States. No. 21. Monthly record of current educational publications, June, 1913.