XXXIV. S. H. BARRACLOUGH. 



apprenticeship as a system of instruction is no longer 

 adequate to modern needs. "When industrial capacity 

 rested wholly upon tradition and empirical knowledge, 

 and upon manual skill, it was absolutely essential that 

 artisans should obtain all this knowledge and skill as 

 apprentices in the shops and mills as manual helpers, and 

 as unintelligent copyists. But since nearly all processes 

 of the artisan have now a scientific and rational basis, and 

 the work is done by machines which are the embodiment 

 of the highest type of human reason and understanding, 

 and since the machines require an almost equally intelligent 

 oversight and direction to produce their largest output, 

 and furthermore, since the new discoveries of science 

 require continued changes in materials and methods to keep 

 abreast of the times and to hold the market, and entirely 

 new industries are daily established, founded on some new 

 discovery or invention, and since the demand no longer 

 determines the supply, but new and improved supplies are 

 constantly creating their own demands in all lines of 

 industry, it is evident that the efficient direction of any 

 industry to-day demands a very large amount of technical 

 knowledge which cannot be learned at the bench or in the 

 shops. While self education is always possible, the 

 obstacles are commonly prohibitive, and at best the results 

 are meagre and unsatisfactory." 1 



RATIONAL versus EMPIRICAL METHODS. 



But it is necessary to substitute a rational system of 

 instruction for an empirical one. The modern position is 

 that scientific investigation is the basis of industry, and 

 that systematic training of the workers is the proper 

 method of extending and developing it. This in no way 

 denies the value of experience, but it should be pointed 

 out that experience is simply the experimental method 



1 Prof. J. JB. Johnson. 



