June z-., 1908J 



JVA TURE 



173 



theoretical, but contains just the information which 

 a second-year student wants. The book is well 

 printed, and contains a great many working drawings 

 and diagrams. It is hoped that the author may find 

 lime some day to write a companion volume on alter- 

 natincf-current electrical engineering. 



L. C. 



EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT. 

 A Handbook of Employments. Specially Prepared 

 for the Use of Boys and Girls on Entering the 

 Trades, Industries, and Professions. By Mrs. 

 Ogilvie Gordon. Pp. .444. (.-Vberdeen : Rosemount 

 Press, 1908.) Price is. net. 



THE system of apprenticeship, which has been so 

 largely instrumental In producing anu maintain- 

 ing the highly skilled workmen for w-hich English 

 industry has always been famed, is slowly but surely 

 dying out. Especially in the large towns, it is more 

 and more difficult to find employers who are willing 

 to take bound apprentices ; they complain that such 

 apprentices take little interest in their work, are not 

 so willing or anxious to please as boy labourers, and 

 that the high rents they have to pay in towns make 

 their bench room so expensive that in these days of 

 keen competition they cannot afford to take appren- 

 tices. 



On the other hand, there are so many ways in 

 which boys from fourteen to eighteen can earn com- 

 paratively high wages in unskilled employments, that 

 the temptation to their parents to abandon any 

 attempt to apprentice them and to make them 

 immediate wage-earners is very strong. 



To endeavour to counteract these tendencies, several 

 local authorities have started some form of industrial 

 or trade school, and although these will never prob- 

 ablv take the place of apprenticeship, as the conditions 

 in a school can never be the same as in the shops, 

 thev will help to stimulate the interest of the boys 

 in manual pursuits, and so form a strong incentive 

 to learn some trade ; and they will also make the 

 trade easier to acquire by the training of eye and 

 hand they have received in the school, as well as by 

 the knowledge they have acquired. 



These schools may therefore be expected further to 

 increase and develop, and may become gradually a 

 necessity of our industrial system. But whereas the 

 old apprenticeship system automatically regulated the 

 supply to the demand, any artificial system of draft- 

 ing boys into given trades will need careful control. 



The introduction to Mrs. Gordon's book is most 

 interesting and suggestive; the tvi-enty pages show 

 that the writer has not only given great attention to 

 the problems of employment, but has also been in 

 close touch with them in their most important aspects. 

 Mrs. Gordon strongly urges the formation of employ- 

 ment bureaux to give information as to the local pro- 

 spects of employment, the remuneration offered and 

 prospects of advancement, the qualifications required 

 for the various occupations, and the facilities offered 

 in technical and continuation classes. It is suggested 

 that these bureaux should be managed by committees, 



NO. 2017, VOL. 78] 



on which the education committee, the town or 

 borough council, chamber of commerce, and associa- 

 tion of social workers should be represented. We 

 would suggest the addition of employers of labour. 

 A scheme for such a committee is given, from which 

 it appears that the probable cost of a bureau would 

 be between 150Z. and 250Z. per annum. For the 

 reasons given above, in addition to those Mrs. Gordon 

 puts forward, we believe that bureaux on some such 

 lines as these will gradually become a necessary part 

 of our educational system. 



The remainder and greater part of the book (some 

 400 pages) is the result of inquiries undertaken in 

 four of the large cities of Scotland as to the condi- 

 tions of employment in some seventy-six industrial 

 occupations requiring short periods of training, and 

 more than 100 industrial and professional occupations 

 requiring long periods of training. The inquiries 

 were made voluntarily in Glasgow by Mr. R. H. 

 Tawney, an assistant in the Glasgow University, in 

 Edinburgh bv Miss Chrystal Macmillan, in Dundee 

 by Mrs. Carlaw Martin, and in Aberdeen by Mrs. 

 Elliot Ogston Clark; and although, necessarily, some 

 of the results are chiefly of local interest, the 

 greater part, with slight modifications of hours and 

 wages, remain true of any district, and the whole 

 forms a most valuable handbook, giving in an easily 

 accessible form the main features of almost every 

 trade and profession. 



OUR BOOK SHELF. 



Sclj-Instruction in the Practice and Theory of Navi- 

 gation. Bv the Earl of Dunravcn, Extra Master. 

 Revised and enlarged edition in three vols. Vol. i., 

 pp. xxvii-l-272; vol. ii., pp. ix+337; vol. iii., pp. 

 ix4-34o. (London : Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1908.) 

 Vols. i. andii., lys. net; vol. iii., &s. 6d. net. 

 Eight years ago the Earl of Dunraven wrote a work 

 in two volumes on the theory and practice of navi- 

 gation. It was an extraordinary, but in some respects 

 an excellent book. It was extraordinary in the sense 

 that the author had, as he frankly admitted, no great 

 store of information beyond that necessary to satisfy 

 the nautical examiners of the Board of Trade for an 

 extra master's certificate. But if he made little at- 

 tempt to probe the theoretical principles upon which 

 the practice of navigation rests, he had mastered very 

 thoroughly that portion of the science into which an 

 examiner might inquire. It was an excellent book, 

 because the author knew how to teach ; he had the 

 art of successfully conveying to the pupil just that 

 amount of information which would carry him through 

 the ordeal of examination, and we have no doubt that 

 manv who write themselves " Extra Masters " are 

 indebted to Lord Dunraven for this qualification. 

 \\'hen the choice of a teacher lies between the man 

 of acknowledged mathematical capacity who cannot 

 teach and the indifferently equipped man who can, 

 it is, for the purposes of examination, better to fall 

 into the hands of the man of moderate acquirements. 



But there came a time when the Board of Trade 

 raised their standard. As Lord Dunraven puts it, 

 " the Board of Trade in their infinite wisdom decreed 

 that a master mariner . . . must not only be a past- 

 master in the art of navigation, but must also qualify 

 as a naval architect and shipbuilder, be an accurate 

 cartographer, and well advanced in mensuration and 



