GERMANY.

In Germany there have been considerable development and supervision of the apprenticeship system, but to understand this there must be some knowledge of the great efforts that have been put forth for the preservation of that system in those trades in which it has been adopted, and it must be remembered that in Germany, as in no other, country, the people have been unwilling to break with the past.

Nowhere else, with perhaps the exception of Austria, has the contest between the two systems, namely, that of handicraft, or production upon a small scale, and that of the factory, or production upon a large scale, been more bitterly fought. The attempt to preserve the handicraftsman and the small trades is one of the features of labor legislation in Germany during recent years. It has had as its result the formulation of two distinct industrial systems-the handicraft and the factory-and the enactment of labor codes for each. The legislation regarding the factory trades follows in all essential particulars that of other industrial countries. The legislation regarding the handicraft trades is utterly unlike that of England and the United States, and is closely followed only by the Austrian system, the central feature of which is the restoration to power and influence of the old guilds, and through them of the apprenticeship system, with all the features of training of boys by masters for whom they are working. The history of this legislation in relation to apprenticeship, the guilds, and the handicrafts generally may be very briefly summarized.

During the early years of the nineteenth century the main purpose of the industrial legislation of Germany was the freeing of industry from the many restrictions that had been imposed upon it in the past. In 1845 this legislation culminated in the enactment of a general labor code. In removing many restrictions, however, the effort was made to maintain the old guilds. The reason for this action was chiefly the desire to preserve the apprenticeship system. It was thought that the education of apprentices was a matter that should not be left to the hazard of purely private contract. At the same time the Government was not ready to introduce a system for the official examination and regulation of apprentices. The law therefore defined anew the duties and rights of guilds, and assigned to them the care of the interests of their trades, the regulation of apprenticeship, and the establishment and maintenance of relief funds. for their members.

Though many years of agitation accompanied the movement in Germany, the agitation was not productive of any results until 1881. While failing to establish the principle of compulsory guilds, the law of July of that year gave voluntary guilds a privileged position. It made them organizations of employers and journeymen carrying

on a trade on their own account, with an authority of their own, and power to enact certain regulations, especially as regards apprenticeship, which should have all the force of law, even in respect to journeymen not affiliated with the guilds. Finally, after a long series of laws, the efforts culminated in the very important law of July 26, 1897, in which were consolidated all the legal provisions regarding guilds, journeymen, and apprentices.

The constitutions of nearly all guilds provide that the members of the guild obligate themselves to require of their apprentices attendance upon a trade school recognized by the guild, and to encourage them to arrive promptly at the school and to apply themselves with sustained zeal. As regards the instruction given, everything is subordinated to making it as practical as possible. The courses are in no sense those of institutions preparing for secondary technical schools. Their purpose is solely that of making the students more efficient workmen in the trades in which they are at the time apprenticed. These schools are thus trade schools in the fullest sense of the word, and accordingly show the alliance between the apprenticeship system and the broader industrial education.

SWITZERLAND.

In Switzerland there is provision for the supervision of the apprenticeship system. The regulations are quite minute but very comprehensive. Their aim is to elevate apprenticeship and develop the professional value of workmen in the various arts and trades, etc. Among other things apprentices must be given instruction; the employer either himself instructs or causes the apprentice to be otherwise instructed in a gradual and complete way in the profession, art, trade, or branch of trade which is the object of the apprenticeship contract; for each apprentice must be allowed during the work period such time as is necessary for the performance of his religious duties and the scholastic instruction required by law.

The laws of the different cantons provide for the supervision of apprentices, their examination, penalties for breach of contract, duties of the master, duties of the apprentice, civil duties, etc.

FRANCE.

In France much progress has been made in the resuscitation of the apprenticeship system. Evidence of this is observable in the apprenticeship school of the Industrial Society at Nantes. Practical work in this school is all done in the shops where the apprentices are employed, while the studies are both technical and general. The subjects taught are free-hand, linear, and ornamental drawing, French. language, arithmetic, algebra, geometry, descriptive geometry, book

keeping, physics and chemistry, and mechanics. The society possesses a library of several hundred volumes relating to industrial and economic subjects, apparatus for physical and chemical demonstrations, and a collection of designs and models for the use of pupils. This school is supported by contributions from the State, from the department in which located, from the city, from the chamber of commerce, from trade unions, and from various individuals.

There is at Paris a school for cabinetmaking maintained by the Association for the Protection of Apprentices, in which the modern idea of the development of the apprenticeship system is clearly marked. The aim of the association is to give the apprentices a theoretical training which they do not obtain in the shops, to further the progress of the industry by creating through manual competitions a rivalry among apprentices and young workmen, and also to stimulate designers through competitions to the development of new ideas in decoration, etc. The courses are open for ten months each year, the programme of theoretical work comprising drawing from relief, technical drawing, elementary geometry, descriptive and applied geometry, perspective, and modeling.

HUNGARY.

In Hungary industrial education is organized in a complete system, all the parts of which are organically connected. Its organization is uniform, though it makes allowance for local conditions and needs. It is divided into two parts-apprentice schools and technical schools proper. The former are under the control of the department of education, the latter under that of the department of commerce, this department having a special bureau for industrial education. Teachers of apprentice schools are usually teachers of common elementary and high schools, who teach in these evening and holiday schools for a small additional salary. The complete system of industrial schools consists of (1) apprentice schools; (2) journeymen's schools; (3) trade schools; (4) industrial technical schools; (5) higher industrial schools; (6) women's industrial schools; (7) industrial drawing schools, or schools of design; (8) one public lower industrial school; (9) schools of general culture, in which some industrial branches are taught; (10) industrial museums.

From this classification it is seen that the lowest step of the system is the apprentice school, under the control of the minister of education. The branches of instruction are (1) the mother tongue; (2) geography, history, and nature study; (3) penmanship; (4) arithmetic and bookkeeping; (5) drawing and sketching. Thus the Hungarian schools are in direct line with modern efforts to secure general industrial education.

In England there has been no such development of the apprenticeship system as is found in the United States and in the countries to which reference has been made. In these countries many more examples might be cited, but the above seem sufficient to indicate the course of events. It will be seen, when descriptions and types of apprenticeship systems existing in this country are given, that we are quite up in line with the foremost endeavors of educators elsewhere in the field of industrial methods.

STATUTORY REGULATIONS RELATING TO APPRENTICES.

Forty-three of the 46 States in the Union have laws relating to the employment of apprentices. The three States having no such laws are Idaho, Nebraska, and Wyoming. The District of Columbia, governed by Federal legislation, has laws relating to the subject. Nearly all these laws protect the minor apprentices, and all require that masters shall teach the apprentices the trades in which they are engaged, while 38 States provide that in addition to the trade, its art and mysteries, the apprentice must be taught the common English branches of education in some public or other school, or through such other means as the employer may provide. Thus these laws in 38 States result in an alliance between pure trade education and such schooling as every youth entering business should have.

As a rule the branches to be taught are reading, writing, and the rules of arithmetic to a certain degree. The States that have no schooling provision in their apprenticeship laws are Connecticut, Maine, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Vermont, and Washington. While the apprentice laws of the different States are somewhat voluminous and it is not worth while in this work to print them in full, a very brief digest appears in the appendix.

THE ATTITUDE OF TRADE UNIONS TO THE APPRENTICESHIP SYSTEM AND TO INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION.

As already stated, trade unionists are as a rule opposed to trade schools, and for the reasons stated. They do not oppose broad general industrial education and are very favorable to night or continuation schools, the latter furnishing opportunities for men already in trades, journeymen and others, to acquire information concerning the science and art of the trades in which they are working. The resolutions adopted at the last annual convention of the American Federation of Labor were most encouraging in this respect, and indicated clearly that there was no deep-seated prejudice on the part of the unions. Everywhere they are beginning to understand that industrial education does not injure those already engaged in industry.

The limitation of the number of apprentices in each trade is something of a bugbear. So far as the facts are concerned, it is quite true that the number of apprentices agreed to by the unions is ordinarily in excess of the number that the trade could absorb. Up to about 1840 no attempt had been made by any local union to limit the number of apprentices other than the mere requirement that applicants seeking membership must have completed their terms of service, nor is any regulation of apprenticeship found in the written constitution adopted by any of the unions prior to 1840 or thereabouts. The Typographical Society of New Orleans was the first local printers' union to place a limit upon the number of apprentices, and this practice by the New Orleans union was extended to other local unions, and finally adopted as a fixed policy by the International Typographical Union.

The president of the International Union of Bricklayers, at its second annual convention, announced its policy as follows: "The system of apprenticeship is the very cornerstone of our institution, and it received the earnest attention of the previous convention, and if the article in our constitution is carried out, it will be a monument that we will be proud of."

Following the organization of international unions the apprenticeship question was developed along distinctive lines. So in the cigar making and building trades and others rules were adopted, while in other trades, such as iron molding and glass blowing, the international union early formulated detailed apprenticeship regulations which every local union in any way connected with the international organization was bound to accept and enforce."

As a rule apprenticeship is very largely determined by trade agreements, i. e., by agreements between the employer and employees. Doctor Motley in his excellent work, Apprenticeship in American Trade Unions, just quoted, in concluding a chapter on apprenticeship determined by trade agreement, says:

The general purpose of the apprenticeship system, namely, to provide an adequate supply of competent workmen, has been practically the same from the beginning of the trades in this country to the present time, but special phases of it have been emphasized at different periods. During the early period the master was not restricted in employing apprentices, and often engaged a large number in order to receive the benefit of their low wages. The opposite tendency was emphasized by the union; for the interest of the journeymen was largely considered, and a rigid limitation made of the number received. The feature greatly emphasized at the present time, especially in those trades in which the finished product enters into keen competition, is the uniform ratio for all competing shops. In securing this object, conciliation has been the method most generally adopted.

See Apprenticeship in American Trade Unions, by James M. Motley, Ph. D. Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science, Series XXV, Nos. 11-12 (Nov.-Dec., 1907).