Tllli TRADKS SCHOOL IN THK TKANS\-.\AL. 34/ 



going to ha]JiJen as machinery becomes more and more automatic, 

 as it makes less demand upon the guichng intelligence of human 

 agency, as it becomes more perfect in executing those mechanical 

 processes in which it has hitherto been necessary to train workmen 

 as a})prentices ? Competition does not stand still, and we shall 

 of necessity have to look round for a cheaper labourer — and the 

 all-pervading Katfir is again at our elbow. Let me give an 

 instance : The T^ublic \\'orks Department of Union, employ the 

 kaffir at the automatic machines in their blue print room. I • 

 do not blame them; the work is better done l)y adult, if inferior. 

 brain ; there is not time to control the young and thoughtless : 

 and there is less change in personnel than there would be if you 

 had white apprentice draughtsmen doing the work for a month so 

 to learn the working. No, it is certainly not going to pay 

 employers to take apprentice tradesman, they have neither time 

 nor money to spend upon them ; but they need a reduced number 

 of trained intelligences who can grasp the general principles 

 underlying technical applications and it is going to pay them, 

 whether they apprentice them afterwards to a man or to a machine. 

 to have them pre-trained in a school which will provide that 

 which has been lost in evolution and which is still necessary to 

 control the results from it. 



T cannot help thinking tliat there is a tendency among em- 

 ployers to imagine that the trades school is an attempt to sub- 

 stitute theoretical teaching plus dilletaiite workshop instruction 

 for practical commercial works training; that there is an in- 

 difference to the value of practical experience. I hope to show 

 that that fear is groundless. In the first place, I have insisted on 

 the trades instructors at trades schools being men with long 

 workshop experience of recent date. It is essential that we should 

 teach ])rocesses as the boy will find them recjuired of him in the 

 commercial workshop when he comes to enter it at the end of his 

 school curriculum. We do not want technical or scientific know- 

 ledge of how a thing must l^e made, but practical teaching of how 

 to make it successfully. In teaching parlance, those processes are 

 subjects of instruction and not media. The knowledge of what to 

 teach first, and how to suit it to each boy's capabilities will come 

 with experience and so will the best way of presenting the 

 subject. 



Let me digress for a moment to state here what I look for 

 when appointing tradesmen instructors ; these are : 



r. A sound practical knowledge of the trade or industry which he has 

 to teach gained from practical experience. 



2. A liking for teaching others. 



3. A fairly good education. 



4. A knowledge of the trade literature as a means of following the 



changes in materials and ])rocesses used in his trade. 



5. Previous attendance at classes similar to those he has to teach. 



6. Some knowledge of science and of technical subjects relating to 



his trade. 



7. Ability to introduce theoretical matter into his teaching. 



8. Energy, enthusiasm and character. 



