360 THK TRADES SCHOOL IN THE TRANSVAAL. 



The school day is divided into two periods, namely, from 

 8.30 a.m. to I p.m., and from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. : in the forenoons, 

 on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, the first-year 

 pupils will be engaged in class-room work ; and on the afternoons 

 of the same days they will be at work in the shops. On Wednes- 

 day and Saturday forenoons they will also be at work in the 

 shops. Wednesday afternoons may be utilised for visits to 

 various local works and places of interest to tradesmen ; when 

 no visit has been arranged, the pupils continue in the workshops. 

 Saturday afternoon is a half-holiday. The ordinary school vaca- 

 tions at the end of terms are not observed. The only vacation 

 allowed is that extending from the closing of the school in 

 December to the resumption of work in the following January. 

 All public holidays are, however, observed. The school fees are 

 ii (one })ound) per term for tuition, with a small annual charge 

 to cover the cost of books and school material for the class-room 

 subjects. The arrangement of the course of instruction may be 

 compared to the " sandwich " system in vogue in many university 

 technical colleges, in which attendance at the day classes held in 

 the college is alternated half-yearly with attendance at commer- 

 cial workshops. The difference between trf^des schools and such 

 colleges being: — 



(a) That the colleges give professional training to the future captains 

 of industry, while trades schools give artisan training to the 

 rank and file, which properly followed up should lead to a satis- 

 factory career ; 



{b) In the trades school the workshop practice follows in the after- 

 noon of the school day instead of six months later as in the 

 colleges ; and 



(c) In the college system the workshops are separate institutions. 

 while in the trades school the workshops are attached to the 

 school, so that the pupil may attend both at the mininuun of 

 expense to his parent. 



Such institutions should be part of a connected system : the 

 industrial school should lead to the trades school, and the trades 

 school to the technical college : that is to say, each should be 

 accessible to the cleverer pupils in the institution next below it. 



That is the general scheme of the school. The attached 

 analysis of the time-tables, as arranged up to the present for 

 these schools, gives the number of hours devoted to each -class- 

 room subject, in workshop practice, and so on. The notes on 

 that analysis give an idea of how the various stibjects are to be 

 treated : I do not give the acttial syllabuses themselves, because 

 these are still under discussion between the principals of the 

 schools and myself ; and, also, because they involve questions of 

 detail which must be left to those responsible for the teaching 

 and its inspection. There is, however, nothing to hide; and, as 

 soon as these syllabuses have undergone, thoroughly, the test of 

 experience in this country, I intend to recommend that they be 

 published for general information. 



It will still be urged, for some time, that commercial appren- 

 ticeship is all that is necessary for the industrial equipment of 



