i88ij 
Industrial Training . 
21 
dismissal. Such men he can rarely meet with. One of the 
first lessons which a youth learns on entering the workshop 
is that merit and demerit are paid at the same rate. He 
even finds that to excel either in the quantity or quality of 
his performances is to incur the active ill-will of many of 
his shopmates. To get through more than a certain amount 
of work in a given time is considered as a declaration of war 
against the slothful and the thoughtless. This formal organ- 
isation of inefficiency is not merely hurtful to the employer. 
It tells upon the consumer, who gets inferior articles for his 
money. It militates against our foreign trade : if purchasers 
abroad find in every article of British make the stamp of 
carelessness and inferior workmanship, can we blame them 
if they send their orders henceforth to France, Germany, 
America ? 
Not less deadly is the system to the really clever, indus- 
trious, and conscientious workman. He is, according to our 
modern practice, a mere eyesore and a nuisance to his 
worthless companions. His very existence is a silent protest 
against their omissions and commissions. 
But the heaviest, the most capital charge against appren- 
ticeship, is that it divides the working classes (in the common 
acceptation of the term) into two sections, separated by an 
almost impassable boundary, allowing to the majority no 
prospeCt of rise according to merit, and consequently de- 
priving them of all motive for exertion. 
In many establishments there exist a small body of 
skilled hands — foremen over branches, &c. — and a large 
number of mere labourers. This is decidedly the case in 
the chemical and tinctorial establishments which the writer 
has had the greatest opportunity of observing. Between 
these two classes there exists a gulf fully as wide as that 
which formerly, in the British army, separated the “ officer 
and gentleman ” from the mere private. Just as the officer 
held his superior position in virtue of purchase-money, so 
the foreman holds his rank and pay by reason of an appren- 
ticeship premium. If he is attentive, steady, skilful, he 
may rise to be a manager, or at any rate his salary is sure 
to be increased. But for the labourer — the “ slab,” or 
“mule,” as he is called — -there is, under ordinary circum- 
stances, no chance of promotion. Suppose that a labourer 
in a dye-works, by dint of care and attention, became as 
good a dyer as the foreman of his department, and could 
turn out, e.g., Turkey-reds unequalled in fire and fastness, 
would he ever be entrusted with the conduct of that depart- 
ment ? Scarcely : it would be said, as it has been said 
