Smyrna times., 1882-08-09

O'Clock yesterday afternoon. Inc |
closing hours were without interest or
excitement. The House met at the |
usual hour and took recess until II |
o'clock. After reassembling Speaker
Keifer made the customary farewell |
speech and adjourned the House at |
exactly o'clock. The Senate did |
considerable business in the way of |
appointing committees, etc. Before |
going into executive session q resolu- |
tion of thanks to President Davis |
was unanimously adopted. After the |
doors were reopened that gentleman
babe the members farewell in a neat |
speech and declared the Senate adj
journed without day. The executive
session disposed of a number of nomi
nations.
SCARCITY OF GOOD NATIVE Work
MEN.-A discussion has been going on
through the columns of the New York
Herald concerning the scarcity of good
native workmen in the United States,
and as to the means whereby the defect
may be remedied. The true way, the
Herald remarks, is to train boys so
thoroughly that they shall become
efficient workmen in the particular
trade they may choose to adopt. With
out questioning the fact that this would
be the right course to pursue: employ
ers and trades unionists alike, in writ
ing to the Herald on the subject, de-
clare that the subdivision of labor
which has been brought about by the
introduction of machinery and the
tendency to do almost all kinds of
manufacturing on large scale" pre-
vent apprentices from acquiring that
knowledge of a trade that skilled work
men ought to have. One writer OBJ
jects to taking boys to learn his trade
because as soon as he has obtained
smattering of it he leaves and goes to
work for some one else. This being
his experience, he prefers to employ
workmen who have learned their trade
abroad under the system Ofapprentice-
ship which obliges boys to serve out
their term, and thus become skilled in
their handicraft. Another proposes
that all journeymen mechanics shall
join their respective unions and see
that their rules in regard to apprentices
are respected, and that they are prop
erly instructed in their trade. An
Anglo-American asserts that so long as
the boy can leave his employer at any
mOment-a liberty which makes him
master of the mamie can never attain
to any high degree of merit in mechan-
ical pursuits or in branches of science.
There is no doubt that the introduc-
tiOn of certain kinds of machinery and
the subdivision of labor have had a
deleterious effect on skilled labor in
the particular branches of industry in
to which such machinery enters largely
In such cases we must take the evil
with the good, and set the eheapening
of production against the lesser skill of
the workman. But there are quite a
number of trades in which machinery
plays minor part, or is help rather
than a hindrance. There are other
trades in which it cannot be used at all
In such trades the limitation put by
the unions ON the number of boys thai
shall be taught to become exper
handicraftsmen is quite as serious {
matter as the desertiOn, by some boys
of the employer who has taught then
the rudiments of mechanics, and wht
expects to find a compensation in thei
gradually increasing efficiency for thei
unremunerative labor during the frs
stages of their progress. Taking al
these causes together the difficulty i
obtaining fresh relays of skilled Amer
can workmen is obvious, and we get
OF the same time, the reason for tn
steadily increasing demand for foreig
Workmen who have been educated {
their trade under more favorable an
more exacting conditions.
Granting, then, that with us tn
apprenticeship system is a thing of tn
past, and that the number of boys wh
wish to learn a trade is restricted b
the trades unions, is there not SON
way whereby the number of skille
American workmen may be increased
After all that has been said of Il
cheapness of machine-made thing
handmade articles will always be
demand, and almost invariably fetch
control the market, and must continl
to do so. We are told by one of Il
writers to the Herald that "well-to-t
men will almost beg for an opportuni
to teach their boys trades in preferen
to either commercial business or t
professions. But the answer is, q
room, nothing for boys to do"
asks: How can it be remedied
The answer made is this Z" If the bo
cannot be taught the mechanical a.
in shops, they must be taught out
the shops; that there must be indI
trial schools all over the land I'll
they must bG made, if necessary.
branch ~ B. Duu4InOn-schOol educatit
even ifsome ofthe ornamental brancl
that have been introduced into /
public schools should have to be lopL
off to make way for the sort of instr
tIon that will fit boy whose incli1
tiOns point that way, and whose pare
desire it, to become a skilled mocha
or proficient in the arts of design
he continue to prosecute, after leaV
school, studies 50 well begun. This
a sweeping remedy, and it should
be forgotten that it is not the knO
edge acquired in the schools, but
use made of that knowledge out E
of the schools, that perfects yoI
man for the business of life. But if
Is to make living otherwise thar
commercial business or the professi'
the greatest good that can be bestoV
on him is to put him in the way to
it.
Whatever differences Of sentim
there may be- in the modus opera
the facts must still be looked in
face. The need Of such training
found expression in the organization
mechanics institutes, "''trade scho
and " free institutes of industrial
eiace,v such as the trade schools in
York, where courses of instruction
now given in plumbing and sani
engineering, In house, sign and dec
tive painting, and in the science
practice of brick laying To Z
practical instructions in other tr
are to be added. The free institut
Aroxeaufor Mass hos, been trail