57<^ TRADli SCHOOLS AS AIDS TO INDUSTRY. 



in 1914 to 2.740 in 1913. Ihis may i)c' due lo the abnormal 

 times and to the abohtion of secondary departments in primary 

 school districts where secondary schools exist, but to the estab- 

 lishment of Commercial and Trades Schools, having a combined 

 enrolment of over 500 (mi the Rand, must also be attrilnited some 

 of the res])onsibilitv for this decrease. 



A hi^li educational authority estimates that the number of 

 children leaving- annually the schools of the Rand is in the 

 neighbourhood of 1,200. and the problem to be faced is what 

 to do with them. This problem is immensely complicated by 

 the discouraging facts that South Africa generally is not as yet 

 an industrial country, that facilities for learning the majority of 

 skilled trades are non-existent, that diffictilties arise from the 

 existence and position of the native, and that there is an absence 

 of opportunities of employment for unskilled boy labour. To 

 be " unskilled " in South Africa carries with it an ever-present 

 danger of developing into a " poor white," competing for em- 

 ployment with the native. The keynote of the Indigency Com- 

 mission's recommendations was " education," and the conclusions 

 of the Relief and (irants-in-Aid Commissions of 1916 point in 

 the same direction ; and there is no more profitable form of in- 

 vestment for any country than educational development. 



It was to prevent the increase of unskilled whites, following 

 what is frequently called ' 'blind-alley " occupations, and to open 

 up new avenues of employment in connection with skilled trades, 

 that attention was first drawn in this country to the question of 

 Trade Schools. I may here remark that I think that perhaps 

 too much use is made of the expression " blind-alley " in con- 

 nection with employment, or, rather, too nnich hope is built 

 on the cry to abolish such occupations. It is impossible for every 

 lad leaving school to become a skilled craftsman. Think of the 

 great armies of unskilled workers in Fairope and America. Sta- 

 tistics shew that the proportions oif unskille<l bi)\- lal)our for 

 various large towns are as follows : Munich. 10 per cent. ; Berlin. 

 40 })er cent. ; London. 68 i^er cent. : and Chicago. 80 per cent. ; 

 although naturallv a certain number arc tiradually absorbed int<» 

 skilled trades. 



Yet trade and xocaitional schools do much to divert into the 

 skilled trades man> lads who, either through waiu of op])ortunit\ 

 or inclination, would, in this country, go to swell the ranks o\ 

 the " ])oor whites " into which the unskilled tend to develop. 



After the problem had for some time exercised the minds 

 of educational authorities and engineers, vocational training was 

 first introduced in the Trade Scliool form in South Africa in 

 T909. the trial being made in T*retoria. A similar step was taken 

 in Johannesburg in 1912. by the opening of the lohannesburg 

 Trades School. 



A considerable anK)uni of contrt>versy, which I need not 

 dilate on here, has taken })lacc as to the value of trade-schcx^l 

 teaching, and the nature of the work which should be attempted 

 in such a school. .As originally establisiied at Pretoria, and later 



