24 
Industrial Training . 
[January, 
practical character, giving little scope for sensational elo- 
quence, and not fitting into the programme of either of the 
great political parties. Moreover, the apprenticeship system, 
with all its failings thick upon it, plays into the hands of two 
classes, who will most strenuously oppose its reform, or 
rather its abolition. There are a certain class of employers, 
both in the productive and in the distributive groups of 
businesses, who subsist to a great extent upon apprentice- 
ship premiums. Having little real business, little expe- 
rience, and often little skill, they have not the opportunity 
to “well and truly teach the craft of” to the unfor- 
tunate youths whose parents are gulled by their advertise- 
ments. In such cases the affair is an empty form, and 
nothing more. The victim, when his term is out, or rather 
long before, makes the discovery that his time and money 
have been spent for nothing. Lawyers will of course remind 
me that there is a “ remedy” for all this, and that damages 
may be recovered from a master who has not duly instructed 
his apprentice. This is perfectly true ; but what damages 
can bring back five or seven years wasted at the most critical 
part of a young man’s life ? “ Premiums ” simply enable 
dishonourable tradesmen not merely to get their work done 
for nothing, but to be paid for letting some one do it ! 
When the indentures are expired the injured youth is quietly 
dismissed, and a fresh gudgeon is ensnared in his place. Is 
it likely that the class who profit so largely by this iniquitous 
system will be anxious for its reform ? 
Perhaps a still more obstinate resistance may be expected 
from the workmen. As a rule, where apprenticeship is most 
general, trades’-unionism and its interference between capi- 
talist and workmen are most rampant. Throw open a trade 
to the world, and it will be no longer possible to maintain 
that law which decrees that the bad workman or the idler 
shall be as highly paid as the clever and the industrious, 
and which compels the able to lower themselves to the 
standard of the most incompetent. It has even been said 
that to abolish apprenticeship would be to draw the poison- 
fangs of the unions, thus annulling their power for evil. 
It must not for a moment be supposed that I think that a 
practical training in any art or manufacture can be dispensed 
with. On the contrary, I would demand in this respeCt in- 
creased thoroughness and a final practical (not verbal) test, 
without which no person should be competent to exercise 
the calling in question. But it should be open to any 
person, no matter how and where he had acquired his know- 
ledge, to come forward and offer himself as a candidate for 
