Year: 1873

The Cd6inet Maker, n Boston journal


devoted to the furniture trade. answers
| a young correspondent who inquiries


whether there are any schools where
| they can teach n person mechanical
trade in connection with his education,
that no such schools exist within lts
knowledge.


This is an inquiry which should have
attention. A young man wishes to learn
a trade. He il poor. If he was rich he
would not want trade. III he, or his
parents, had the means to educate him
preparatory to learning a mechanical
trade" he would not have asked the
question. He is poor, ambitious, and
honest. To be apprenticed, means that
he must sacrifice education and he
bound to serve master for time salts
factory to the master That means that
he must pay back, for his support while
learning, an amount OF apprentice work
measured by the ability and aptness OF
the poorest grade of apprentices. The
apprentice system is not even regulated
by the masters acquisitions. The edu-
Gated laborers are united III trades un-
ions, and dictate to the masters III re-
gard to the apprentice system. Ihe
number of apprentices to be admitted
to every trade is carefully scanned, so
as not to interfere with prices OF labor
sought to be established by the labor
associations The interest Of the APP
prentice is not fairly considered.


If the education of the young is the
duty of the State, rs it is practically as
sumed to be, what education is more
necessary-more useful to the indivldu-
al-more beneficial to the State te-more
conductive to the morals, stability, and
happiness of society, than good trade


The restrictions put upon the appren-
tice system by the masters and the la-
Dor associations, are narrow-mlnded.
They would restrict the number of APP
prentices, and depress the ambition OF
the best young men, on an assumption
that the competition for work must be
limited. They look too narrowly on
their own particular localities. They
assume that the fresh journeyman will
remain in the city and be their competi-
tor. They do not look out upon the
broad expanse of our yet new world,
which a century of competition will not
fill up or exhaust.


There is large pliilanthropic, benev-
olent side to this apprentice question.
We have known young men TO seek III
vain for weeks and months for place
in which to learn trade. The one an
swer was, that the trade at that time
was depressed, and that there was no
room for apprentices. The young men
could not wait, and sought other uncon-
genial employment. Some became bar
tenders: and others went into adventur-
Gus expeditions. In two years the
trades which rejected them were IN
usual activity, and the laborers were
few.


We need exactly what this young
man seeks-SchOOisJ for practical educd-
tiOn. The State could not endow bet
ter institution. A place where young
man might be educated, and Mt the same
time learn trade, and when learned
have the benefit of his work while he
remained in the institution, and, If in
dustrious. graduate with money in his
pocket.


Such man would not be II cOmpeti-
tor to indiferently taught mechanics IN
old cities. He would either lead the
less educated workmen of the cities to
II higher and more independent sphere,
furnish them with labor-saving machine
". establish Oh firmer basis the digni-
ty OF labor. break down by the force OF
superior Intelligence the petty misera-
BILE lines of caste; or he would go, with
his superior knowledge, his good habits,
his well balanced mind, acquired Ill
school far superior to that of a city APP
prenticeship, as pioneer into our own
nndeve1oped territory, or as an instruc-
tor to Russia, or China, or other lands,
which are now struggling to take part
in the progressive spirit of the age.