THE TRAININC OF FITTER-APPRENTICES. 42I 



in accordance with economy and the dictates of kindly feeling 

 to give such a boy preferential treatment even though there may 

 be more suitable candidates. But however much such i)ersonal 

 feeling should weigh, there is serious danger in allowing it to 

 have too much influence ; for example, the most suitable candi- 

 dates might be prevented from becoming railway apprentices 

 unless they happened to be members of large or fatherless 

 families. Apart from this injustice, the standard of apprentices 

 might very well fall below the average. 



There are several points in the Statutory Regulations for 

 Apprenticeship which might be modified to provide a better 

 choice. These do not contain any statutory instructions on pre- 

 vious school knowledge, so that private works are not restricted 

 in the qualifications of the boys they accept as apprentices. 

 From the railway point of view it is unfortunate that any appli- 

 cant who has been turned down as an apprentice on account 

 of insufificient schooling can be taken on in later years as a 

 workman, and is then in the same position as regards pay and 

 occupation [status] as the former State apprentice who has had 

 to exert himself much harder at school. Nothing is stated 

 directly, either in the Industries Act or elsewhere, about a 

 minimum age ; this is given indirectly, however, by the school- 

 leaving age, which is about 14 years: there is no upper limit to 

 the age. and instructors are free to accept older apprentices, 

 which is sometimes done ; boys below 14 years may not be em- 

 ployed for more than six hours a day. The Amalgamated Union 

 of German Metal Workers have drawn up " Notes on the 

 Indenture of Apprenticeship in the Engineering and Metal 

 Trade." two points from which might be included with advantage 

 in the State Railway indenture; these are (i) empowering the 

 employer to extend the period of training agreed upon over a 

 nmnber of days corresponding to the days lost by the apprentice 

 through illness, accident, etc. ; and (ii) power to transfer the 

 educational rights of the employer to the person actually en- 

 trusted with the training of the apprentice — this last because, 

 for example, if even slight corporal punishment of a refractory 

 boy were necessary, this can only be inflicted personally by the 

 Board [of Directors]. 



LIST OF PRACTICAL EXERCISES AT THE TRAINING WORK- 

 SHOPS FOR APPRENTICES OF THE STATE RAILWAYS 

 AT GUBEN. 



First Half-Year. 

 A. — Filhii^. 



I. Filing two rectangular pieces each 100 X 50 X 20 mm. 

 J. Filing an end of exercise i to an angle of 45°. 

 Ji. Filing a groove containing an angle of 120° in the other end of 

 exercise i, and filing V and fitting to it a V-end on another piece. 



4. Filing a rivetting hammer. 



5. Filing and fitting a pair of pincers (ordinary pattern). 



