57^ 



The Review of Reviews. 



fitting or turning shops at once, and only learn to work 

 the machinery of their special branches. 



BOYS UNDISCIPLINED. 



Boys to-day suffer from the want of control 

 and discipline which the old apprenticeship sys- 

 tem gave them. Neither employer nor parents 

 can exercise effective control : — 



The result of this want of supervision is seen in in- 

 stability of character, in restlessness and irregularity at 

 work ; in fine, the boy loses those very qualities which 

 command future success and which he was acquiring at 

 school. For, whatever the shortcomings of the school, 

 the discipline in them is remarkable and the diligence 

 and regularity of the children beyond all praise. Prac- 

 tically to-day no compulsion is required, and all the 

 children who are not prevented by sickness, or some 

 other unavoidable accident, attend daily with cheerful 

 punctuality, and inside school give ready obedience and 

 attention to the teachers. To turn the boys out of school 

 at the age of fourteen, when their intelligence is just 

 beginning to quicken, and to give them over to un- 

 bounded independence when they have no capacity for 

 self-government, is as thoroughly bad from the point 

 of view of character as it is absurd on educational 

 grounds. Under present conditions three-fourths of 

 them give up all idea of further education when they 

 leave school. Even if they were willing to attend even- 

 ing schools, their hours of labour are too long to leave 

 them really fit to receive instruction. 



EXPERIENCE IN MUNICH. 



As apprenticeship lasted until twenty-one, Mr. 

 Jackson does not think that compulsory con- 

 tinuation school for half the day up to the age 

 of eighteen is too much to require. In Munich 

 general classes are held for those not engaged 

 in the crafts. In the summer seven to nine 

 hours a week are devoted to school, made up, as 

 a rule, by taking one afternoon from 2 p.m. to 

 5 p.m., another from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., and the 

 rest on Sunday. In the winter, in the building 

 trades at any rate, twelve hours a week are 

 spent in education, the hours so occupied being 

 from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. daily. 



HOW TO MEET THE COST. 



Mr. 



How would the additional cost be met? 

 Jackson answers : — 



Alone among the civilised countries of the world the 

 United Kingdom compels children to go to school at the 

 early age of five, whether their parents wish it or not. 

 In addition, children between the ages of three and five 

 are received gratuitously in schools provided out of 

 public revenue, if their parents choose to send them. 

 Education at these ages is a farce ; and the infant 

 schools, though maintained at a very great cost, are 

 really little more than creches and playgrounds. It is 

 submitted that the age of compulsion in this country 

 might reasonably be raised to seven, leaving it still 

 optional tt) parents to send their children below that age, 

 but in that event charging fees. The resulting economy 

 in public expenditure would render possible the extension 

 of the school age as advocated above, and the establish- 

 ment of an efficient system of half-time schooling for 

 boys who have already started to earn a living. 



TRADES UNION CONGRESS AND 



SEAMEN. 

 Merchant Jack, the man whose day is twenty- 

 four hours for the whole of the seven days of 

 the week — Sunday and Monday and all the rest 

 that God sends — was, judging by the special 

 report in the Nautical Magazine, well represented 

 at the Workers' Parliament. Mr. Jackson, 

 Secretary of the Seamen and Firemen's Union, 

 in moving a resolution providing for efficient 

 manning of ships and the safety of passengers 

 and crew, said 



he spoke on behalf of those whom Samuel Plimsoll had 

 described as the voteless and voiceless toilers of the 

 deep. Shore workers had no conception of the hard- 

 ships that seamen had to undergo at the present time. 

 In 1850 this country owned five million tons of ship- 

 ping, and there were 241,880 men and boys engaged in 

 the trade, but to-day, in 1912, though the tonnage of 

 shipping was 18,800,000, there were only 274,460 to do 

 the work. The tonnage had increased by 275 per cent., 

 and the men who had to do the labour and carried their 

 lives in their hands only went up r6 per cent. The 

 world had been startled of late by the increase in the 

 number of ships which had proved to have been lost 

 by insufficient and inefficient manning. In those cases 

 the vessels were being heavily insured, so that it did 

 not matter very much to their owners whether they were 

 lost or not. Seamen were not concerned with the pro- 

 perty, but they were concerned with the human life 

 which yeas thus needlessly sacrificed. A Royal Com- 

 mission which sat in r8gs, whilst bringing about the 

 concession that there should be six deck hands on all 

 ships of over 700 tons register and 120 feet in length, 

 at the same time put it into the power of the shipowning 

 fraternity, by introducing the " not proven " clause in 

 the " articles," to bring men on board the ship who 

 knew as much about sailor's work as a pig knew about 

 astronomy. . . . Let them look at the tragedy recently 

 enacted when the finest example of marine architecture 

 in the world — the Titanic — was lost with 1,674 lives, 

 and as an old seaman he asserted that the Board of 

 Trade were responsible for the loss of life in that 

 disaster. When the boats of the Titanic were put out 

 there were insufficient men to man them, and if the 

 sea had been bad there would have been more loss of 

 life. 



HAPPINESS AND SOCIALISM IN 

 NEW ZEALAND. 



In the Forum Mr. Hugh H. Lusk, a New 

 Zealander himself, describes the recent develop- 

 ments in his Dominion as illustrations of prac- 

 tical Socialism : — 



Their application to a small nation of one million 

 citizens during twenty years has enormously increased 

 the wealth, contentment and happiness of the whole 

 people, and not of a small class of that people only : its 

 application to a large nation of ninety-five millions 

 would, the writer is convinced, have a similar effect. If 

 so, it is Socialism, not theoretical but practical. It is 

 this; but it seems to him it is something more than this 

 — it is the reign of justice and fair plav to all ; of 

 brotherhood and kindness to all, especially "to those who 

 have hitherto been deprived of these things for the 

 supposed benefit of others. In a word, it is an effort, 

 and already a largely successful effort, to carry rational 

 principles to a rational conclusion. 



