The times., 1901-04-22
LABOR'S GROWING DANGER
The Waning of the Apprentice
System Fraught With Peril.

Supremacy of the American Me-
chanic Threatened by the Influx
of Recruits From schools of Tech
noIory-The Problem in England.
That the future supremacy of the
American mechanic is seriously endan-
gered by the present methods of recruit
ing the ranks of Skillful workmen is
belief widely held among manufacturers
and the subject is just now receiving
good deal of attention. in quiet way
from those who are looking TO the rising
generation for a new force of trained
workmen. 1t has often been said by Tor
eign observers that the great develop
ment Of industrial activities in this coun-
try has been due to the quality of the
workmen in our shops. Americans hold
to the same view, and many who have
studied the situation look with concern at
| the change which has taken place in the
| last twenty years in the training OF young
men for the mechanical trades
THE skilled American mechanic, SAID
| a local labor leader, ''fs the product OF
the apprentice system. He has grown up
| under a system which gave an adequate
wage, free education, and direct instruc-
| ton in the shops. This latter element,
our success: now that Is largely lacking,
and there is nothing at present to fill it's
| place"
| Schools of technology, it appears. do
not meet the need. Students in them get
| a good deal of valuable knowledge. and
after those students have had some years
| of practice they will become mechanics
of the very highest grade. The trouble
is however, that there is no provision for
making them skillful mechanics when the
| shop wants them.
Theory they have learned. They must
! do their work for pay, and yet they have
not the practical experience that is called
for. Where is the mechanic going to get
! his experience that ought to be united
with his instruction? That is apparently
the serious question.
| In this country the influence of the
labor unions has been largely responsible
for this unpleasant condition of affairs
| With an effort to raise wages in every
| trade there has been an idea that added
benefit was to be found in restricting the
supply of new workmen. and the appren-
| tice system has suffered in consequence
There are signs that even the labor peo-
pie are beginning to see the unwisdom OF
| this tendency
THE real fact is" said man who has
made study of the question, that We
are all concerned in the most serious way
in meeting the competition of other ma
| tions with a race of workmen Of undi-
| minished efficiency. Much attention has
been paid, in the past two years 10 the
| short time in which our manufacturers
! have filled contracts in competition with
| foreign makers. 1t has been truthfully
! said that that was due largely TO our
machinery and methods of designing. But
it has been due quite as much to our me-
chanics. That machinery, while, of course,
| 1t diSpenseS with a certain number of
workmen, requires higher skill in those
! who are retained. That Skill comes from
experience, and nothing else will give it.
England is facing the same problem,
| due TO the labor unions, and there the
| situation is even worse. the control of
the unions is more repressive and hamp-
erS the individual workman more severely
than is the case in this country. Just
how far this is responsible for the great
er time English firms require for doing
the work which has recently been given
to so many American makers, cannot be
told. But II is the firm opinion of many
who have looked into the situation there
that the difficulty in finding new skilled
worimen is quite as serious as the en-
forced curtailment of the individual man S
output.
But If the question is important in ref
! erence TO our rivalry with England and
| with Germany, II is likely to be highly
critical In that time, certainly not very
far in the future, when the Japanese and
| Chinese, with abundant labor at low
wages, adopt our machines and come into
direct competition with US. Those races
| will turn out very shiIlful mechanics. II
! we are to make progress or even hold oul
own in that time, it is declared, it must
be because we have race of workmer
in which the skill due to experience is
always on the increase, certainly never
! diminishing.
"As our machinery becomes more ex.
tensive and complicated, need in
| creasingly workmen who have grown III
in the midst of II, men who know every
in and out of the practical side. In my
opinion, a return to the apprentice sys
TEN is the remedy we should turn to
And / should say that this is not merely
my Individual opinion. but that of many
manufacturers in different lines
Probably the first steps to remedy
present deficiencies must be taken by the
manufacturers. If the apprentice system
is to be introduced again, it would hav'
Z to include instruction in such branches
. as boys usually study below the grade o
r the high school. And II would probabl.
. | pay Manufacturers look to seeing som
: | such move presently, and the labor IN
; terests may see the necessity Of it t
: their own welfare