In many industries, including trades in which machinery is not as yet extensively employed, production on a large scale has increased the demand for unskilled labour, numbers of hands being required to prepare the work to be finished by a few artisans. Rapidity of execution is attained by keeping a workman at the same work, which after a time he succeeds in mechanically performing, and continues to do until some machine is invented to take his place. In most trades, as formerly practised, the master employed a few apprentices who assisted him in his work, and who learnt from him to understand the details of their craft, so that, when the term of their apprenticeship was over, they were competent to practise as journeymen. But now the master has neither time nor opportunity to instruct young lads, and the old relation of master and apprentice is changed into that of capitalist and workman. In consequence of these altered relations between employer and employed, there is an acknowledged want of properly trained workmen in a number of trades in which skilful hand work is still needed; and in these trades a demand has arisen for technical schools, or some other substitute for apprenticeship, as a means of suitably training workmen and foremen. The ever-increasing competition in production has led to the employment, in many trades, of children to do work of a mechanical kind requiring little skill; but, whilst thus employed, these young people have little opportunity of learning those parts of their trade in which skill and special knowledge are needed; and when they are grown up, and seek higher wages, they are dismissed to make room for other children. Numbers of young men are thus thrown upon the labour market, competent to do nothing more than children’s work, and to earn children’s wages, and knowing no trade to which they can apply their hands. To remedy this, by creating some substitute for the old apprenticeship, is one of the objects of a system of technical education.

A complete system of technical education should provide necessary instruction for the different classes of persons engaged in productive industry. It is usual to divide these persons into three classes :—(1) workmen or journeymen; (2) foremen or overseers; (3) managers or masters.

The industries in which they are employed may be grouped under four heads (1) those involving the use of extensive machinery, such as irou and steel manufacture, machine making, the textile industries, and some of the chemical trades; (2) those which mainly require the use of hand tools, as cabinet-making, brick-work, plumbing, and tailoring; (3) those depending on artistic skill, as wood and stone carving, metal-chasing, decorative work, and industrial designing generally; (4) agriculture in all its branches. These industries will be referred to as manufactures, handicrafts, art industries, and agriculture. The foregoing classification comprises groups which necessarily, to some extent, overlap one another. Every factory contains a carpenter’s and smith’s shop, and handicraftsmen of group (2) are required in every manufacturing concern. Whilst the industries in which hand labour is exclusively employed are becoming fewer and fewer, there are many trades which, owing to the frequent invention of labour-saving appliances, are passing gradually from the class of handicrafts to that of manufactures. In these trades, of which watch and clock making and boot and shoe making may be taken as examples, there is still a demand for goods largely if not entirely produced by hand work. In such trades, owing to the absence of facilities for instruction in the ordinary shops, there is a want of skilled hand labour which there is an increasing difficulty in satisfying, and to supply this want technical schools of different kinds have been established. Then, again, there are many branches of manufacturing industry which greatly depend for their success upon the designer’s art, and it is necessary that the industrial designer should possess a knowledge of the processes of the manufacture in which his designs will be utilized, as well as of the properties and capabilities of the material to which they will be applied. Indeed, it is the possession of this knowledge which mainly distinguishes the industrial designer from the ordinary artist. To determine the best training for such designers is one of the problems of technical education. There are many trades, too, in which the handicraftsman and the designer should be united. This is the case in such industries as wood-engraving, metal-chasing, and silversmith’s work. In these and other trades the true artisan is the artist and handicraftsman combined.

In order to reconcile some of the different views which are held as to the objects of technical education, it is necessary to keep in mind the broad distinction, above referred to, between the conditions of production on a large scale, as in, those industries in which goods are manufactured by the use of extensive labour-saving machinery, and in those trades in which hand work is chiefly employed. Much of the diversity of opinion regarding the objects of technical education is due to the difference of standpoint from which the problem is regarded. The volume of the trade and commerce of Britain depends mainly on the progress of its manufacturing industries. It is these which chiefly affect the exports and imports. The aim of manufacturers is to produce cheaper and better goods than can be produced by other manufacturers at home or abroad; and technical education is valuable to them, in so far as it enables them to do so. But the artisan engaged in hand industries looks to technical education for the means by which he may acquire a knowledge of the principles of his trade, which the absence of the system of apprenticeship prevents him from acquiring in the shop. Hence the artisan and the manufacturer approach the consideration of the question from different sides. To the spinner or weaver who almost exclusively employs women to tend his machinery, or to the manufacturing chemist whose workpeople are little more than labourers employed in carrying to and fro materials, knowing little or nothing of the scientific principles underlying the complicated processes in which they are engaged, the technical education of the workpeople may seem to be a matter of little moment. What such manufacturers require are the services of a few skilled engineers, artistic designers, or scientific chemists. From the manufacturer’s point of view, therefore, technical instruction is not so much needed for the hands he employs in his work as for the heads that direct it. But in trades in which machinery plays a subsidiary part, technical teaching supplies the place of that instruction which, in former times, the master gave to his apprentice, and the workman looks to it to supply him with the knowledge of the principles and practice of his trade, on the acquisition of which his individual success greatly depends. In the former class of industries, technical education is needed mainly for the training of managers; in the latter, for the training of workmen. Hence has arisen a double cry,—for the teaching of art and of the higher branches of science, with a view to their application to manufacturing industry, and for the teaching of trades, and of the scientific facts which help to explain the processes and methods connected with the practice of these trades. This double cry has led to the establishment of technical universities and of trade schools.

Owing to the conditions under which manufacturing industry is now carried on, it is difficult to select competent foremen from the rank and file of the workmen. The ordinary hands gain a very limited and circumscribed acquaintance with the details of the manufacture in which they are engaged, and have little opportunity of acquiring that general knowledge of various departments of work, and of the structure of the machinery in use, which is essential to the foreman or overseer. It is in evening technical classes that this supplementary instruction, which it is the workman’s interest to acquire and the master’s to encourage, can be obtained. The history of invention shows how frequently important improvements in machinery are made by the workman or minder in charge of it, and adds weight to the arguments already adduced for giving technical instruction to persons of all grades employed in manufacturing industry. To these advantages of technical education, as affecting the workmen themselves as well as the progress of the industry in which they are engaged, must be added the general improvement in the character of the work produced, resulting from the superior and better-trained intelligence of those who have had the benefit of such instruction.

In order that the different classes of persons who are to be engaged in productive industry may receive a fitting preparatory training, the programme of elementary and secondary as well as of the higher education must be organized with reference to their special requirements. If the demand for technical instruction is to be fully satisfied, a great part of our existing system of education must be reconstructed, and the training provided in our several schools must be made a more fitting preparation for industrial work than it is at present.

Schools in which the course of instruction is not specialized with a view to any particular industry, but is so arranged as to form a general preparation for manufacturing or other trade pursuits, are often spoken of as professional, technical, or trade schools; but such schools must be distinguished from apprenticeship schools, the object of which is to teach trades. Of the former class of schools there are excellent examples in the different countries of Europe as well as in the United States, and some few have recently been established in the United Kingdom. Of the latter class the best examples are found in France and Austria. The study of these schools, and of the means of providing fitting education for the different classes of producers, may be simplified by a statement of the following propositions :—

1. The ordinary education of all persons who are likely to be engaged in productive industry should be determined by the general requirements of their future work. This proposition affects the curriculum of all schools in which different classes of producers are to be trained, z.e., of primary, secondary, and higher schools, and involves the consideration of the extent to which, in such schools, modern languages, science, drawing, and manual instruction should take the place of literary and classical studies.

2. Special schools or classes should be established (a) for instruction in art, and in those sciences which serve to explain the processes of productive industry, including agriculture, manufactures, and engineering; (ό) for instruc∙ tion in the application of art and science to these departments of industry; and (c) for the teaching of, and in certain cases for practice in, various handicrafts or trades.

3. The special schools should be adapted to the requirements of the different grades of workers, and to the different kinds of work in which they are or are likely to be engaged.

A survey of the technical schools in different countries shows how these different requirements are met. Owing to the complexity of the problem, a complete or an ideal system of technical education is nowhere to be found. Schools have been established to meet local and present wants, and the greatest variety exists in the attempts that have been made to establish schools in accordance with the foregoing propositions.

1. TVorkmeη.— Many attempts have been made to provide a substitute for apprenticeship, but hitherto with no great success. Two classes of workpeople have to be considered—(1) those engaged in manufacturing industries, and (2) those engaged in handicraft industries. The education of all classes of workpeople begins in the public elementary schools; and, in view of the future occupation of the children, it may be taken for granted that primary instruction should be practical, and should include drawing and elementary science, with some amount of manual training for boys, and with needlework, cookery, and domestic economy for girls. In nearly every country of Europe, and in the United States, primary instruction includes drawing, in addition to reading, writing, and reckoning. In England this is not yet the case, drawing being taught in very few schools outside of the jurisdiction of the London school board. In France, Belgium, Holland, and Sweden handicraft instruction is generally included in the curriculum of elementary schools. Rudimentary science is also taught in nearly all the primary schools of Europe. Modelling is taught both to boys and girls in many Continental schools; and in Sweden “slojd,” or elementary woodwork, in which simple and useful articles are constructed with the fewest possible tools, is taught with considerable success to children of both sexes.

In Germany and Switzerland there exists an excellent system of evening continuation schools, known as Fortbildungs- or Ergänzungs-Schulen, in which the instruction of the children who leave school before fourteen, and of those who leave at that age, is continued. In most of these schools drawing is taught with special reference to local industries. In England an attempt is being made to attract children to evening schools by means of recreative classes. These classes are intended to continue the child’s general education, and to supplement it by some amount of practical teaching between the time that he leaves the elementary school and is prepared to take advantage of evening technical instruction. The training of most workpeople, and of nearly all those who are engaged in manufacturing industry, consists of—(1) primary teaching in elementary schools; (2) practice in the factory or shop; (3) evening technical instruction.

In all the principal towns throughout Europe evening classes have been established for teaching drawing, painting, and designing, and the elements of science in their application to special industries. On the Continent these classes are mainly supported by the municipalities, by the chambers of commerce, by industrial or trade societies, by county boards, and in some cases by the fees of the pupils. They receive little or no support from the state. They are well attended by workpeople of all grades, who are encouraged by their employers to profit by these opportunities of instruction. In England evening technical instruction is more systematically organized than in any other country. It is under the direction of the committee of the council of education known as the Science and Art Department, and of the City and Guilds of London Institute for the advancement of technical education, an institute founded and supported by the corporation and by a large number of the livery companies of London. The department encourages instruction in pure science and in art; the institute in the application of science, and to some extent of art also, to different trades. . . . c

Both the department and the institute make grants on behalt ot properly registered teachers on the results of the examination of their pupils. The directory of the department contains a detailed syllabus of the twenty-five different subjects on the teaching of which grants are paid, and in the programme of the institute arc found syllabuses of instruction in the technology of fifty different trade subjects. In the evening classes organized by the department, as well as in those in connexion with the institute, the workman or foreman engaged in any manufacturing industry lias the opportunity, by payment of a very small fee, of studying art in all its branches, science theoretically and practically, and the technology of any particular industry. Provided his early education enables him to take advantage of this instruction, no better system has been suggested of enabling workmen, whilst earning wages at an early age, to acquire manual skill by continuous practice, and at the same time to gain a knowledge of the principles of science connected with their work and explanatory of the processes of the manufacture in which they are engaged.

For those engaged in handicraft trades this evening instruction is equally valuable, and in many parts of Europe there exist evening trade schools in which the workman is able to supplement the “sectional” practice he acquires in the shop by more general practice in other branches of his trade. In Vienna, for example, and in other parts of Austria, there are found practical evening classes for carpenters, turners, joiners, metal-workers, and others; and similar classes, some of which are subsidized by the City and Guilds Institute, have recently been established in England. Throughout Europe schools for weaving, with practical work at the loom and pattern designing, have existed for many years.

To provide a training more like the old system of apprenticeship, schools have been established in many parts of Europe which are known as professional, trade, or apprenticeship schools (écoles professionelles, écoles des apprentis, Fachschulen). The object is to train workmen; and the pupils, after completing their courso of instruction in such a school, are supposed to have learnt a trade. The school is the substitute for the shop. In such a school the pupils have the advantage of being taught their trade systematically and leisurely, and production is made subsidiary to instruction. Under such an artificial system of production, the pupil is less likely to acquire excellence of workmanship and smartness of habit than in the mercantile shop, under the strain of severe competition. Moreover, the cost of maintenance of these schools renders it impossible to look to them as a general substitute for apprenticeship. By sending into the labour market, however, a few highly-trained workmen, who are absorbed in various works and exert a beneficial influence on other workmen, these schools serve a useful purpose. Schools of this kind have been tried with more or less success in different countries. In Paris there is the well-known École Diderot for the training of mechanics, fitters, smiths, &c.; and similar schools have been established in other parts of France. A furniture-trade school of the same category has recently been opened in Paris, and for many years a society of Christian Brethren have directed a large school in which several different trades have been taught. In this establishment, situated in the Rue Vaugirard, all the secular and general instruction is given gratuitously by the brothers, and in the several shops attached to the school skilled workmen are employed, who instruct the pupil apprentices, and utilize their labour. This system combines many of the advantages of shop work and school work, but it depends financially for its success upon the religious spirit which actuates its promoters and supporters. The Artane school, near Dublin, is conducted on somewhat similar principles,...