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several instances the usual annual increase in the rate of wages of an apprentice is made partly dependent either on regularity of attendance at approved evening classes or on passing certain approved examinations. Again, the recognition of increased efficiency may be marked by preference in selection for posts carrying greater remuneration or greater chances of promotion. Thus engineering firms not infrequently offer encouragement to students who show marked excellence in their technical studies by transferring them from one section of the workshops to another or to the drawing-office, so that they may enjoy opportunities of obtaining wider trade experience. More varied in form and more subject to local and trade conditions are the concessions in the matter of working-hours which some firms find it in their power to make. This is a form of encouragement which perhaps would not at first sight have suggested itself as very probable, and a note of some of the methods of affording it' which have, in practice, been found compatible with economy of production in trade workshops is likely to be no less valuable than interesting. There are already numerous examples of students attending approved evening classes being allowed, without loss of pay, some reduction on the ordinary hours of work. Thus some firms allow employees to leave the works on two or three days in the week at an hour which enables them to attend evening classes with some degree of comfort in the way of obtaining meals and changing workingclothes. Treating of the best methods of promoting day classes, the committee, in alluding to the 11 part-time " system and the trade school, reports that in the " part-time " system the boy or girl spends a portion of the day iv the workshop, and the remainder in the day technical school. It is probable that this system admits of considerable development. Many reasons serve to justify this sanguine expectation. One of the War Office regulations for Woolwich Arsenal insists that all the "trade lads" there employed shall have leave with pay one afternoon per week during the first three years of their training, in order that they may attend the special class which is organized for them at the Woolwich Polytechnic. Failure to attend the class during the hours for which leave is given entails loss of pay. Trade lads are not required to work overtime during these three years. The London and South-western Railway Company allows all its apprentices at the Nine Elms Works to attend classes during working-hours. Students are divided into two groups, and each group attends classes at the Battersea Polytechnic on two mornings a week from 8 to 9.30. Various firms of printers have arranged for their employees to attend afternoon classes in letterpress printing. The apprenticeships for girls arranged by the Council, with the financial assistance of the Merchant Taylors' Company, which are tenable at the establishment of Messrs. Debenham and Freebody, are likewise awarded on the condition that the apprentices spend one or two afternoons a week at suitable classes.' The Council has given aid to allow of " part-time " attendance of this sort. At the instance of some of the principal employers in the silversmiths' trade the Council has for some years awarded small bursaries to a number of their apprentices who attend special classes for silver workers at the L.C.C. Central School of Arts and Crafts and the Northampton Institute on Saturday mornings from January to June. These bursaries, which are intended to cover the travelling-expenses and Joss of wages of the apprentices, consist of free tuition and a money payment of 2s. 6d. for each morning's attendance. The Advisory Committee of the L.C.C. Shoreditch Technical Institute circularised a large number of employers in the neighbourhood of the Institute in order to discover whether the employers would be willing to allow their lads to be released from work to attend classes one or two mornings or afternoons a week. "We gave the replies," says the committee, " very careful consideration, and were gratified by the manner in which the proposals were received, in many cases often amounting to enthusiasm. Many of the employers looked beyond their immediate interests, and considered the position from a broad educational and economic standpoint." The answers, of course, varied considerably, but were on the whole very satisfactory. It would appear that a majority of employers would be willing to make concessions of this character. Some of them suggested that the Council should arrange that the masters should not suffer pecuniary loss, due to the absence of the apprentices during a part of the day. The case of the silversmith apprentices would supply a precedent for action of this kind. The Advisory Committee, in summing up the report, passed the following resolution: "That it is desirable to establish day classes for apprentices, and that a trial is warranted by the nature of the replies received to the circular letter sent to employers on the subject; further, that to insure the complete success of any scheme having the above object, it is eminently desirable that a system of small bursaries should be established in order to recoup apprentices on account of deductions in wages which their employers might make for loss of time." The Committee goes on to say,— "We agree in general with the resolution of the Advisory Committee. The scheme appears a singularly hopeful one; it has, moreover, the peculiar advantage that work at the bench will go on side by side with instruction at the school, and, further, that the students will come fresh to the classes. But we are of opinion that, before offering bursaries of this kind, the inquiry among employers which we have already suggested should first be completed. Before establishing a system of this kind we ought to determine carefully what proportion of the time of the apprentice should be spent at the technical institute. This would probably vary with the different trades, and it is quite possible that in some cases —as, indeed, one employer himself suggested—a true ' half-time ' arrangement might be established. The employer would then have two sets of apprentices, one set present in the morning and the other set in the afternoon. At the school the course of instruction given to the one set in the morning could be repeated in the afternoon to the other. A plan of this kind promises obvious advantages. "We have further considered whether this ' part-time ' system might be applied not only in the case of those who are already in the trade, but also in the case of children about to leave school and looking out for some occupation. We have felt that the moment of leaving school is the