412 THE TRAINING OF FITTER-APPRENTICES- 



the interests of their further training and partly through restlessness. 

 Many raihvaj^ companies point out that it would be better to have the 

 men they employ in their shops pre-trained in special schools — which, 

 they suggest, might possibly be established later — than to undertake the 

 training of apprentices themselves, a matter, they say, that were far 

 better left to the mechanical trade [guild] and to small factories. 



" While most railway companies declare against the acceptance of 

 a large number of apprentices for training, the Royal Railway Commis- 

 sion at Wiesbaden reports on the favourable results of the practice, and 

 states that over 25 per cent, of the men now employed in their shops 

 have been trained in those shops. The success of the practice in the 

 Bergisch-INIarkischen Railway is well known. 



"The conditions of engagement for apprentices vary; in some, no 

 articles of apprenticeship are signed ; compulsory attendance at school 

 is not insisted upon everywhere ; the period of apprenticeship is usually 

 three or four years, with a daily rate of pay of 40 to 60 and even 80 

 pfennigs^ to start, with an increase annually. Generally speaking, the 

 railway companies do not intend to carry on the training of apprentices 

 except in a few individual places where there is a dearth of skilled 

 workmen. 



" I do not approve this view. 1 regard the training of good 

 mechanics as a task which the railway companies — especially the State 

 railway companies, which employ so large an amount of skilled labour — 

 should feel it their duty to perform. The circumstance that a large 

 number of workmen is at present available cannot be taken into serious 

 account, since many complaints have been made of their inefficiency, and 

 especially with reference to locomotive work. Also, it is clearly the 

 business of the railway companies to help on the intellectual and moral 

 education of the apprentices and to bring it into harmony with their 

 practical training. 



" While I am perfectly cognisant of the great difficulties due to the 

 peculiar conditions of the railway workshops, I am nevertheless con- 

 vinced that these could be overcome b}' suitable management, especially 

 if the systematic education of mechanic apprentices were regarded as a 

 duty to be performed on general principles, and not merely as a means 

 of supplying the needs of individual shops. The money and trouble 

 spent on this work would ultimately benefit both the workshops and the 

 railway companies themselves. 



" It seems clear that even if tlie trained apprentices leave the work- 

 shops in which they have been taught, they will certainly seek employ- 

 ment later on in some other railway workshops, and that they will 

 undoubtedly form a class from which good engine-drivers and railway 

 mechanics may be taken. For these reasons I regard the general training 

 of mechanic-apprentices in the large railway workshops as a fruitful and 

 valuable work to be undertaken in the general interest. 



■' For the attainment of the uniformity necessary to the conduct of 

 this work, the attached draft' of the principles upon which the training 

 of apprentices is to be based has been drawn up. In drawing up the 

 scheme, the view of most of the railway companies has been adopted; 

 namely, that the employment of apprentices in the workshops of the big 

 industrial establishments is not desirable for or advantageous to either 

 the technical or the moral training of these young people. It has there- 

 fore been arranged that the actual mechanical instruction of the appren- 

 tices should be conducted in special training shops adjacent to the main 

 workshops. These training shops are to be installed [equipped] on 

 similar lines to the main workshops' and the apprentices are to be 

 under the constant supervision and guidance of a reliable instructor. 

 The close co-operation with the main workshops will ensure a regular 

 supply of useful work for the training shops. 



" The apprentices will not be drafted into the different shops of the 

 main workshops until they are perfectly familiar with the actual execii- 



