Instruction for Apprentices and Young Workmen.

Instruction of this class required lor young men who have some practical acquaintance with their trade is given either page 15 in technical schools fully equipped with workshop apparatus, or in night schools, which supplement the knowledge gained in the shop or mill by teaching the scientific or artistic principles on which the trade is based. Technical colleges, it need hardly be said, are very expensive, and seeing that their training cannot be so practical as that of the manufactory, while the student has to be supported by others instead of earning his living, it would appear that they are only suitable for those who expect to take positions in which scientific and artistic knowledge will be of chief importance. This, however, is not the whole of the truth. There are cases in which the manufactory does not supply the requisite practical knowledge, and this is proved by the fact that many apprentices' schools have been established, not by doctrinaires dispensing other people's money, but by practical manufactures at their own expense. A good instance of this is the Royal Trade School, Iserlohn. Iserlohn, in Westphalia, is the centre of an iron and coal district. The school, which has only been established four years, was started to supply the want felt by the manufacturers of better preparatory instruction for the lads who enter their works. The pupils go through a three years' course, and are trained as designers, modellers, wood-carvers, moulders, founders, turners, and pressers, chasers, engravers, gilders, and etchers. The instruction is partly theoretical and partly practical. The theoretical teaching includes drawing of all sorts, modelling in wax and clay, the elements of chemical and physical science, mathematics, German language, history of art metal work, and technology. The practical instruction includes lessons in the different departments of work which the pupil is likely to follow, each pupil being page 16 required to state on entry what particular trade he wishes to be trained for. The school is well fitted with workshops having the necessary appliances, including a six-horse power gas engine, hydraulic press, a planing machine, a shaping machine from Chemnitz, as well as elaborate lathes for wood-tuning and metal-turning, made in Vienna, England, Scotland, and America. No particulars are given as to what the school cost, or how many students it contains, but the annual expenses are stated to be L850. A school at Remscheid, we are informed, cost L10,000, and there were eighteen students in it at the time of visitation. As, however, it had only been open ten days, we may assume that its classes were not filled up: otherwise the production of artisans in that neighborhood will prove an expensive process. The Antwerp Industrial School, which accommodates 150 pupils, costs L900 per annum, and is shortly to have new and presumably expensive premises. In fact all through the report there is a constant reappearance of expensive premises either recently erected or shortly to be erected; the costliness of bricks and moi tar being however counterbalanced by the extreme cheapness of teaching power. On the whole, the system is very costly, and since in a great many cases it only teaches what might be learnt in the course of ordinary work, while it keeps boys from, as a rule, fourteen to seventeen as a burden to their parents—some, though not all, the schools charging fees averaging L4 or L5 a-year—it seems questionable whether it is worth what is paid for it. In fact, in many cases I think English manufacturers would say it was worth nothing at all. In particular cases, it is true, there can be no doubt of the value of technical schools; but some of the most striking instances are found in industries page 17 carried on on a small scale and in backward districts. For instance, one remote district is mentioned which depended upon the lace manufacture. The fashion in lace changed, but the poor people went on making their unsaleable lace until reduced to the direst poverty. A Government school of lace-making was then established, and in a short time the industry was again in a satisfactory condition. Another curious instance of what may be effected by the judicious establishment of such technical schools may be found in the case of the olive turning industry of Arco, in the Tyrol. It was discovered by Dr Exner, the Government inspector of woodwork schools, that the uncultured inhabitants of this place were actually using valuable olive wood for fuel. At his instance a school of woodwork was established, equipped with five lathes, and provided with an instructor, by whom the children were taught drawing and modelling as well as practical work. The result of the school was that two factories were erected, all the workmen in which had been trained in the school, and the place is now the seat of a small but flourishing trade.