EDUCATION AND INDUSTRY. 433 



not an adequate one, was secured by the handing down of the traditions 

 of craft from father to son. This method was suited to the household 

 system of industry. At a later time the supply was made sure by a 

 careful supervision of apprenticeship, and this proved successful so 

 long as the shop system endured. The dominant industrial organiza- 

 tion previous to the introduction of the factory system was the guild — 

 an institution which, in addition to other duties discharged, made itself 

 responsible for the regulation of apprenticeship and for the preserva- 

 tion of standards of workmanship. These standards it was able to fix 

 since it included both masters and worlanen, and it maintained them 

 by means of the masterpiece, the trade-mark and the power of exclud- 

 ing incompetent workmen from the trade and inferior articles from the 

 market. The present industrial system has broken down all these 

 regulations. The traditions of craft do not preserve validity long 

 enough in this age of rapid mechanical evolution to be handed down 

 with profit from father to son. The freedom of choice of occupation 

 and the constant ebb and flow of population between producing regions 

 now prevent the accumulation of any great store of traditional skill 

 and knowledge among the workmen of any one locality. The factory 

 system has rendered apprenticeship impracticable, not only because there 

 is? no time for the employee to teach and the novitiate to learn, but 

 because the subdivision of labor is so great that a systematic progression 

 of tasks must needs be arranged to give the beginner even a compre- 

 hensive knowledge of a rule-of-thumb character concerning a trade; 

 and this the modern competitive institution is usually not in a position 

 to grant. Furthermore, the guild has disappeared and in its place 

 have come the trades unions, composed exclusively of employees, and 

 having as their primary object warfare through the strike to secure 

 higher wages and shorter hours of labor. The trades unions have not 

 undertaken to set standards of excellence in workmanship or material 

 as did the guild, nor can they do so, for they do not control the processes 

 of industry as did the guild. The attention paid by them to appren- 

 ticeship is not for the purpose of educating the artisan but to restrict 

 the number of persons in a trade and so affect wages. 



The old system has crumbled to pieces, and yet never was there 

 greater need of an intelligent artisan class than at present. Never 

 have the machine and the routine of production so threatened to dwarf 

 the worker ; never has there been more wealth under the control of those 

 of artistic aspirations ready to pay for the best creative work of the 

 artisan. Never has there been greater need of joy and pride in work 

 and healthful mental stimulus in it to offset the deadening effects of a 

 narrow spirit of commercialism ; never has society more needed a sound 

 middle class capable of right thinking and sufficient initiative to hold 

 together the extremes of wealth and poverty that our wonderful eco- 

 nomic system now produces. 



VOL. LXIV. — 28. 



