The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1910-12-20
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+. M. Thomas, Santa Fe Super
visor Of Apprentices, Talks.
Says the Best Mechanical School
Is Shops.
''TECHS" NOT EQUAL.
Fraternities in High Schools
Hamper Boys.
Would Rather Get Them at 16
Years of Age.

F. w. Thomas, supervisor of ap-
prentices for the Santa Fe railway. in
q paper read before the Saturday
Night club dealt exhaustively with the
work of the apprentice schools as re-
CARDS the mechanical department. The
same efficiency. he said, belongs to all
other departments.
That the company schools graduate
shopmen hold a great advantage over
the graduates of theoretical schools
was shown by the supervisor. No
such school, he declared. can turn out
a graduate who can step into the
shops and work alongside the Journey
men. That a boy who has gone to
school until he is 16 years of age, has
enough general education to begin
work in the company shops and that
in most cases he is to be preferred to
high school boy was another state
ment.
He said that the Santa Fe now has
500 apprentices in its various schools.
He said that if a boy went to school
until he was 16 years, of age he had
enough general education to begin his
work in the company shops, and as a
general rule boys who had not been
in high school were preferred.
The records shoy, according to Mr..
Thomas, that fewer boys from the
high school make good" in the rail-
road school than those taken from the
common school. He also declared that
the manual training work in the pub
lie schools was not of very great ad-
vantage because the students have to
''unlearn' a good deal.
His paper follows:
1.-The awakening of the railroad and
manufacturing companies to the i'm
portance of educating and training
young mechanics to recruit their de-
pIeting ranks to fill their expanded
shops has been until three years ago
very slow-not until the supply had
fallen far behind the demand or until
they were Sorely pressed for men.
There has never been a time when the
demand for good, all around. skilled
mechanics was greater than it is to-
day. Railroads have felt the need of
such men. Advertising in the daily
want columns and searching the en-
ployment agencies for machinists,
boilermakers, blacksmiths and car
penters has become fruitless.
Industry was formerly conferred in
the home, where they used to grow
their own food, spin and weave their
own cloth, make their own soap, dip
candles: the father, if he happened to
be a cabinetmaker or blacksmith,
shaped his wood and forged his metal
near his home, within sight of his chill
dren; each child was called upon while
still youn= to share the parents &C
into the industrial processes. but it ac-
quired habits of work and training for
its future occupation. Now. industry
has passed forever from the home into
the factory system. Science. like
physics and chemistry, have become
vital factors in the productive pro-
cesses. Skill and accurate knowledge
are needed as never before. The home
can no longer give the boy and girl
training for their life's work
1.-The present apprentice system had
its birth when the road was in crying
need of skilled mechanics. There was
work in abundance, but the laborers
were few. Good wages, comforta bic
surroundings and q most indulgent
corporation. could not attract them for
the simple reason there were none to
come. The management said: If we
can't hire them. we will make them.
Commonly speaking. there are two
divisions or branches in our apprentice
schools. the theoretical and the prac-
tical. 1 am using the word theoreti-