Sacramento daily record-union., 1888-11-28
OF APPRENTICESHIP.

4
defective chiefly in its failure to provid,
for enforcing the terms of an indenture o
apprenticeship, in its failure to properly
guard the interests of both employers anC
apprentices, and in its neglect to provid,
that the master shall properly instruct tn,
apprentice in the mysteries of the trade Sc
lected. 1t is gratifying to learn that seyera
of the trade-unions favor the enactmen
Of a new apprenticeship law; thus, the Car
penters Union Nos. So and SO, Sacrament,
Typographical Union, and the San Jose Ty
pographpical Union favor the change Tn
der the system that prevails in California, ;
lad put to trade can leave when he please
and there is no obligation upon the master
to teach him the trade thoroughly. l
follows that very many boys partially learr
i trade, leave their masters and strike out
for wages as 'Journeymen." In consequence
there is thrown upon the labor market &
asst number of incompetent men in the
trades and so the numbers of native I'M
skilled workmen increase while the skilled
workers of Europe, who Eave served full
terms and know their business " flock to
America and the cry goes up, and not with
out justification, that the American boy is
crowded out" A great deal of blame is
attached for this to masters. who do not give
the apprentice the personal attention that
is his due, and do not make an effort to in
duct him into the mysteries of the craft
The boy is put, most generally, at one
thing and kept at it, while all other parts
of his trade remain as sealed books to him
A great deal OF blame attaches also tc
parents, who care more to have their boy.
earn wages than to learn trade thor.
oughly and we'll
The Bureau reports that its investiga.
tion leads it to believe that in most cases
the apprentice in this State is left to pick
up his trade as best he can, 'being used by
his employers mainly for the purpose of
profit, and kept to the purely mechan-
ical portion of the trade, instead of be-
ing taught thoroughly the various tech
nicalities connected with the business" /"
and by knowledge of which alone can the
apprentices hope to become competent
wQrkmen.
The failure to learn trade Is fruitful
source of psuperism. In Massachusetts,,
for instance, it is ascertalned that more
than one-half of the adult paupers have
not learned a trade, or how to make liy-
ing by any sort of skilled labor. The Sta
tistical Commissioner of New York reports
that while the supply of skilled workers is
daily augmented by foreign immigration,
the best workers of Europe do not come to
America; nevertheless those who do come
are superior, as a rule, to the native-born
mechanics
1t is not the intention to more than in
dlcate the lines of debate of the subject
now-it is TO come before the Legislature of
1889 with authoritative recommend stion
ard the question then and prior to that
time will be considered more deliberately
and with regard to a definite and salts
factorily constructed law. The public
judgment is that the State should take
some action TO encourage greater skill in
the mechanical callings among American
workmen, and to foster and guard system of
apprenticeship that will give the American
boy full opportunity to learn trade thor
0nghly. The chief evil of our present
system is that employers are continually
seeking for boys or young men with some
1not completely knowledge of the trade
they represent, in order that such lads
may be put into places that only really
skilled workmen should fill; that is to say,
greed, or to put it more mildly, the
push and rush for money, the competitive
struggle in business leads employers to
seek for boys with just sufficient working
experience to enable the master not to
teach them to become adopts, but to use
them as means to business ends without
the Intervention of true journeymen. This
is the reason the trade unions advance for
their limitation of the number of ap-
prentices, and that it has sufficient force
to command hearing in the debate of
the question is undeniable.
There are very few trades that are not
now so diverted by the use of machinery,
that boy may not after brief service
qualify himself to work in some particular
branch. These lads are liable to "stick"
in that groove instead Of becoming ac-
quainted with all the parts ofthe trade, by
which knowledge alone can they hope to
become educated journeymen or propri-
etors Or, if they do not Stick in the
groove, but break away and set up for
themselves, their ignorance Of all the
parts of the trade but one results in the
turning out of great deal of "botch
work, in an era where the demand is for
thoroughly good work. Such mechanics
cannot hope to maintain themselves in
competition with the foreign artisans who
have learned trades thoroughly.
There is strength IL this view of the
unions, but on the other hand. many Of
them in antagonizing TIE system 60
to the other and more dangerous
extreme, and by the vigor of their
exclusions shut out the American boy
from opportunities that ought to open for
him to become competent workman. As
a result foreign mechanics come in to sup
ply the demand. Between the injustice
to skilled workmen of SO many apprentices
as to constantly displace journeymen, and
drive them to vocations to which the
have not been trained, and the evil Of
unions excluding or limiting--largely BY
alien yotes-apprentices to an extent that
forces the American boy to "pick up" a
trade, or to abandon the hope of becoming
by instruction skilled workmen, lies the
ground that must be taken. Upon this
ground the manual training and the trade
Schools are planted, and here the friends