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workman as a sort of foster father, with instructions that the young apprentice shall not be worked for profit, nor at all except in a sort of kindergarten way. The company finds that this requires a wellbalanced judgment for the proper result, but that the undertaking is not too difficult. It is trying to work out the problem of school and shopwork coordinated.

CINCINNATI

MILLING

MACHINE COMPANY, CINCINNATI, OHIO.

This company has an apprenticeship system where they take boys 16 years of age or older, employ them for a probation period of several months, and then if they are willing and have shown themselves willing, they are taken under a full apprenticeship contract.

In addition to the training in one of the three or four branches of the machinist trade, to be decided on by agreement between the employer, the apprentice, and his guardian, the boys have an opportunity of attending an apprentice school established by the company. They are formed into classes of 18 or 20 each, and meet with a special instructor one evening a week for two hours. Their schedule of work consists chiefly of shop arithmetic and the solution of those problems with which they come in contact in their shop work. There is no class work and the boys are not asked to recite, the entire object of the company being to teach the boys to use things and to think.

This school has been in operation for over a year, and the results have been highly satisfactory; the boys take an intense interest in their school, with the immediate result of a greater interest in their shopwork, and the mental development which they acquire, coincident with their shop manual training, has resulted in marked improvement in their everyday work.

DAVID LUPTON'S SONS COMPANY, PHILADELPHIA, PA.

This company is engaged in the manufacture of architectural sheet-metal work. It has an apprenticeship system established in 1900. During the first two years of its experience each apprentice was requested to register with some institution of learning where he could study the technical branches of the trade, but this effort proved to be an absolute failure. While the boys would register, they would not attend and apply themselves; but in the fall of 1907 the company made arrangements with the Philadelphia North-East Branch of the Young Men's Christian Association, under which the company pays the boys' membership fee of $5 and $1 for class fee for each apprentice, the branch employing instructors suggested by the company and furnishing a class room two nights a week for a term of twenty-six weeks. The company has in its employ two foremen, eminently fitted for the position, and they have worked as instructors.

At the close of this investigation, in May 1908, the company had just concluded the first school term under the above arrangement, and stated that it was more than pleased with the results, both as to instructors and apprentices. The instruction was confined to arithmetic, geometry, and drawing pertaining to the sheet-metal trade in all its various branches.

Of course, the curriculum is peculiar to the work done. The company insisted at the inception of the class that it was just as necessary for an apprentice to be punctual in attendance and diligent in his studies as to report every day for work, and that any violation of this requirement would be sufficient cause for dismissal. By suspending a number, with the understanding that they could not report for work until their home tasks were submitted satisfactorily, it broke up a concerted action to defeat the purpose of the school work of the company. Now the general results are not only satisfactory, but extremely gratifying. The company has succeeded in getting apprentices interested, so that they are, by the information they have acquired, enabled to get better results.

SOUTHERN BELL TELEPHONE COMPANY, ATLANTA, GA.

This company maintains at Atlanta an operators' school, completely equipped with all the apparatus necessary for giving local and long-distance service. The school is conducted by an instructor and two assistants. While in the school the students are paid 50 cents per day and are at no personal expense whatever, as the company furnishes all charts, books, apparatus, etc. It also furnishes regular work for the graduates of the school.

INTERNATIONAL HARVESTER COMPANY, CHICAGO, ILL.

This company has equipped a special machine shop as a technical school for evening classes in shop practice, and the results during the past two or three years warrant it in continuing the plan. There are carried on three or more lines of work in which lads may enter for training, the company teaching some classes in elementary mathematics, reading, and writing during the working-day period, which classes the boys are expected to attend, they being paid for the time. so employed.

THE WILLIAM TOD COMPANY, YOUNGSTOWN, OHIO.

This company, engine builders, has an apprenticeship system on a progressive basis. It starts a boy on the first of every month. For the first year he is moved from one tool to another every month, working on small tools which are regularly devoted to apprentice work. He serves here a sufficient length of time to acquire some

knowledge of the various operations, such as drilling, turning, and planing; then for eighteen months he is put on the floor as a fitter, or on such work as he can do satisfactorily and efficiently, the idea being that he will acquire a knowledge of the various operations and a general idea of the trade. The last eighteen months he is again put on machine tools, being moved every two months from one tool to another, and he is expected to acquire considerable accuracy and speed. This is rather a novel plan, but it works satisfactorily.

The company states that, by planning exactly where each apprentice is to be during his entire apprenticeship, it is able to work a large number of apprentices without requiring an extraordinary amount of attention from the foreman, as it is expected that each boy will do considerable toward breaking in the boy who follows him.

The company is also doing something in the way of school education. It is its practice to offer to pay half the expense incurred by any of the apprentices in an approved night school bearing on the apprentice's trade, provided he does satisfactory work. Under these conditions about a third of the boys are taking up various lines of educational work.

WESTERN ELECTRIC COMPANY, CHICAGO, ILL.

This company has an apprenticeship system combining shop and class-room work. Applicants for apprenticeship are required to pass an examination in arithmetic before their names are placed on the list of eligible candidates. Every apprentice attends two classes a week, one in mathematics and one in drawing. The class work comes the last working hour of the day, and the apprentices are paid for the hour at their regular shop rate. Apprentices are divided into two classes: First class, mathematics 1, drawing 1; second class, mathematics 2, drawing 2. Mathematics 1 consists of arithmetic problems, attention being given to their application to shop problems. Four or five problems for home work are given each week. Mathematics 2 includes algebra and plane geometry. Drawing 1 takes up geometrical problems, drawing 2 orthographic projection and the making and reading of shop drawings.

In the class of mathematics the boys are furnished small notebooks, in which they are expected to keep definitions, rules, etc. The company has decided to give two lectures a month to all indentured apprentices; these lectures are given by heads of departments, the subject-matter to be elementary in character, and as far as possible to consist of Western Electric methods of manufacture, illustrated by examples of the work and by blackboard sketches. It is proposed to have each speaker, whether he speaks on manufactur

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ing or other work, bring out clearly the relation between the department with which he is connected and the department in which the apprentice is employed. The idea is to teach the apprentice to see the relationship between the work he is engaged in and that of other departments. If he is repairing a jig or fixture he should, by virtue of his knowledge of where and how the tool is used, be able to exercise the necessary judgment in making the best possible job of repairing. He must be taught to place himself in the position of the man who is to use the tool, and look at it from the other man's view point.. In short, he must be taught the value of good judgment. It is important that he recognize the necessity for such requirements as the keeping of his time on each job, and keeping it accurately, it not being possible to determine the cost of a job without this information. By giving the apprentice thorough instruction in the trade he is learning and a general knowledge of other branches of the business, the company hopes to obtain far better workmen than has been possible heretofore.

R. K. LE BLOND MACHINE TOOL COMPANY, CINCINNATI, OHIO.

This company has an apprenticeship system which has been running under the universal contract approved by the National Metal Trades Association. It has had various kinds of apprenticeship systems in its plant, but as a rule they have not proven entirely satisfactory. The company thinks that the old method of apprenticeship has not proved to be just what is needed; that the best method, of instructing young men in the machinist trade, in which this company is engaged, is to establish a separate department for this purpose, where the young men can be taught the trade in an atmosphere that is removed from the rush and hurry of the shop, and also where they can receive instruction in mathematics, mechanical drawing, and kindred subjects. The company is of the opinion, and stated it as a fact, that if to instruct a young man be the sole object, more can be accomplished by such a system in one year than in three years by the old method of apprenticeship. The company also believes that a school department would relieve the shop foremen of the trouble, labor, and expense of instructing the apprentices, and place it in the hands of one man. This man would have to be one of the best men employed in the plant and of a high order of intelligence, and its opinion is that, after the apprentice had spent about three years in the school department, he could be taken into the shop and put at regular manufacturing operations as a journeyman. This, it believes, would be a far cheaper method, as well as more efficient and fairer to the apprentices than the old one.

GEORGE V. CRESSON COMPANY, PHILADELPHIA, PA.

This concern, which manufactures iron work, such as hoisting engines, cranes, etc., and thus has an excellent opportunity of utilizing the apprenticeship system, employs a supervisor of apprentices, who engages the boys throughout the works. The system in vogue here is in a way along the same lines as that in vogue at the General Electric Company.

In the machine shop the apprentice is placed for two years in what is called the manual training school, which forms a special department planned for this particular purpose, under the sole charge of one instructor. The boys are moved from machine to machine, but before being assigned to a new machine they are, if required, to instruct a new boy coming on. After two years the apprentice is assigned to the main shop and placed under a regular foreman. He is transferred from position to position in the shop, and if he shows a liking for any particular machine or work he is allowed to finish his term on that. The works have a school connected with the shops. In this school are taught mathematics and drawing during working hours. The boys are divided into two classes, with mathematics in the morning for one class, drawing in the afternoon for the other, alternating each day during the week. The term in this school lasts from September 1 to May 1. The company encourages outside study by giving the boys home work, which counts in their general average at the end of the term. The superintendent, in the course of this investigation, stated very frankly that he had adopted the General Electric Company's idea, with certain modifications. He is very particular in the sort of entrance examination which he gives. There is also required a physical examination. The shop instructor is a practical man who was himself an old-time apprentice; the school instructor is taken from the engineering department. In order not to break into the regular factory work the school classes are held the last hour of the morning and the first hour of the afternoon.

The company has taken great pains to study carefully the various apprenticeship systems, and believes that the one which has been adopted is the best for its business. It believes that a better public school system would result from a return to fundamentals, including the teaching of subjects in a more practical way.

YALE AND TOWNE MANUFACTURING COMPANY, STAMFORD, CONN.

For a number of years this company has educated apprentices in the trades of tool-making, metal-pattern making, and blacksmithing. In addition to this it has given a few young men an all-round mechanical business training. Up to quite recently they were educated in the shops, working along as regular journeymen and being under the

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