THE TRADES SCHOOL IN THK TRANSVAAL. 361 



the future workman. I llierefore summarise here the coneki- 

 sions of a few thinkers, to prove that such training is bad educa- 

 tionally, and insufficient industrially. To many parents the word 

 " apprentice ' still has the old meaning, the comfortable assurance 

 of an all-round trade training ; to the employer, on the other 

 hand, it generally means those younger employes whom he has 

 engaged simply because they are cheaper than manhood labour, 

 and i)ossibly with the hope that they will learn sufficient by con- 

 tact with his men to take their places as those men drop out. It 

 is no concern of his if, through the partial training thus promis- 

 cuously gathered on his special work, they find themselves un- 

 employable by other firms. It is scarcely to his economic advan- 

 tage to train the future employes of his competitors. .\nd here 

 let me remind you, as Mr. Bray, in his book, " Boy Labour and 

 Apprenticeship," has so ably pointed out, that those who talk of 

 the interests of emplo)'ers and of their boys as future workmen 

 being identical, confuse the good of the present generation with 

 the good of the generation that comes after. Competition is To- 

 day and not To-morrow, and the numerous immediate business 

 expenses, and the delayed incomings, make it impossible for the 

 employer to follow proper methods of training in the hope that 

 the new generation of workers will recoup him, by their in- 

 creased efficiency, for his expenditure. 



Some employers have definitely stated their objection to 

 taking apprentices ; thus the President of the Transvaal Carriage 

 and Waggon-makers Association, speaking, in 191 1, on the estab- 

 iishment of trades schools, remarked that it is generally impossible 

 for an employer in this country to teach. boys, or even to allow 

 them to learn. The reasons he gave were, that the high wages 

 of skilled workmen, in comparison with the rates obtaining in 

 European countries, rendered it economically impossible for him 

 to allow his men to attend to the instruction of boys; also that 

 material was expensive, and that much of it had to be imported; 

 so much so, that it was commercially out of the question for him 

 to run the risk of loss through wasted material l)y training 

 apprentices. 



Again, Mr. Cullen, the General Manager of the Modder- 

 fontein Dynamite Factory, in an address to the South African 

 Institution of Engineers, said : — 



In very few, if any, establishments in the Transvaal, ov. indeed, 

 anywhere else in South Africa can apprencices ever be satisfactorily 

 trained. Some will answer — What about the mines and their fine 

 workshops and equally fine facilities ; but, unless I am very far wrong in 

 my observation, there is not that necessary atmosphere on the mines to 

 permit a boy to have a good apprenticeship training. The foremen and 

 workmen are changed about so frequently as to give the lad little chance, 

 and many foremen and most workmen look upon apprentices as a nuisance. 

 ... I hardly blame them for this, for there is always a rush, the jobs 

 are scattered and . . . there is always a " boy '" to carry tools and to 

 do odd jobs. 



