414 THE TRAINING OF FITTER-APPRENTICES- 



Training. — Period; branches of the mechanic's trade; prac- 

 tical training and its conduct ; theoretical instruction ; hours of 

 work ; scheme of training in the State Railway Workshops. 



Examination. — Examination on completion ; certificate of 

 training and of examination ; failure to pass and repeat examina- 

 tion ; examining board ; rewards ; further employment on com- 

 pletion ; transfer regulations ; regulations for the examination of 

 mechanics in the main and secondary workshops of the State 

 Railway Company. 



The apprentice's training, then, falls into two quite separate 

 sections, i.e., the time spent in the training workshop and the 

 time spent in the main [or commercial] workshop. The chief 

 difiference lies in the fact that the first two years° are exclusively 

 devoted to the instruction of the apprentice under special masters 

 appointed for this purpose. In the second half [of his training] 

 the apprentice takes part in whatever work^** is being done, and 

 the training is no longer given by [special] instructors, but by 

 example and occasional demonstration. It is possible to provide 

 special [training] workshops for apprentices at the larger indus- 

 trial undertakings only, as these entail a considerable amount of 

 expense and trouble for which the work achieved by the appren- 

 tice is only a small compensation.^^ On the other hand, a 

 thorough and careful education of the apprentice is possible, such 

 as is not to be obtained in the ordinary workshop; setting aside 

 the fact that they are not always so well suited to the task of 

 instruction as the specially trained teachers, none of the workers 

 — when there is pressing work to be done — can spare the time 

 necessary for instructing [the apprentices]. In allotting work 

 in these workshops, the danger arises of apprentices being given 

 work for which no other workers are available — work which 

 can easily and incidentally be performed [by apprentices] ; 

 neither is attention always paid to the fact whether the work 

 thus given is beneficial in the instruction to be gained from it. 

 Thus, the apprentice may be employed in cleaning-ofif hundreds 

 of castings [ofif one pattern] ; again, large numbers of the same 

 tools may be made in another workshop. Even if the instructor 

 has himself arranged a number of practical exercises, inspection 

 has shown that his choice is seldom an unbiassed one ; the 

 apprentices are [thereby] not only not trained to become skilled 

 in all branches of the trade, but there is no progressive instruc- 

 tion — from easy to difficult — to interest the apprentice. For 

 example, apprentices have been made to spend from one to two 

 months on filing a cube from a rough forging as a first exercise. 

 In the hands of an unskilful beginner, the object becomes smaller 

 and smaller, and often this same task has to be begun again upon 

 a fresh forging. Then indifference and aversion — the worst 

 enemies to progress — take the place of pleasure and zeal. 



The necessity for methodically worked-out [course of] 

 practical exercises for the purpose of enlarging the apprentice's 



