ifteen
boys were graduated from the course this year.
The factory apprentice school of the Warner and Swasey Company and New
York Central Railroad type possesses many advantages over any kind of
continuation instruction carried on outside of the plants where the
boys are employed. A better correlation between the class and shop
work is possible together with a more personal relation between
teacher and pupils than is usually found when the pupils are drawn
from a number of different establishments. It must be admitted,
however, that this method of training apprentices is not feasible
except in very large plants, as in small classes the teaching cost
becomes prohibitive. There is little probability that it will ever be
adopted by enough employers to take care of more than an insignificant
proportion of the boys who enter the skilled trades.
The results obtained, here and in other cities, through cooeperative
schemes, such as the Y.M.C.A. continuation school, are in the main
disappointing. Their failure to reach more than a few of the boys who
need trade-extension training is due partly to the fact that they
operate under a condition that is fundamentally unjust. One employer
interviewed during the survey stated the case very clearly: "I can see
no good reason why I should make pecuniary sacrifices for the benefit
of my competitors. Very few of my apprentices remain until the end of
their term, because by the time they have completed their second year
other firms which make no effort to train their quota of skilled
workmen for the trade steal them away from me. Any plan for the
training of apprentices which does not apportion the burden among the
different establishments in direct proportion to the number of men
they have, simply penalizes those public-spirited employers who
participate in it."
CONTINUATION TRAINING FROM 15 TO 18
The years between 15 and 18 are among the most important in the life
of the young worker. If left to his own devices during this period, he
is very likely to lose much of vocational value of his earlier
education, because he does not grasp the relation which the knowledge
he acquired in school bears to his daily work. As a result the problem
of supplementary instruction at a later age, when he wakes up to his
need for it, becomes much more difficult than if trade-extension
training had been taken up at once when he entered employment.
The vocational interests of young workers and the
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