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critical period of a boy's life. The case of the London boy is a particularly difficult one. It is so fatally easy for him to drift into some employment which, while the initial wages are high, offers no prospect in tEe future, and leads him inevitably, when a man, into the ranks of the unskilled labourer, the casual worker, and the unemployed. It is so hard for him or for his parents to discover, even if such be their wish, a satisfactory way of entering a skilled trade. We have given special attention to this problem, and feel that, in some cases at any rate, a modification of the ' part-time ' system might indicate the road to the -desired goal. The boy and girl about to leave school (for there is every reason to include girls) would be informed that they might compete for industrial scholarships which would carry with them a small bursary and free tuition at approved day classes, provided that they could obtain employment in one of certain specified skilled trades. It is probable that many parents, provided that they were assured that their child were taught a trade thoroughly, would be willing to sacrifice the advantage of immediate large earnings for the sake of the better opening in life which the receipt of the smaller earnings at the outset would afford. It is no doubt true that many of the poorer parents would be unable to forego the larger earnings. In cases of this kirfd it is possible that the Council would be willing to increase the bursary in order to enable the child to take the more favourable, though, for the time being, less remunerative, situation. Such a course would not differ in kind from the procedure adopted in the award of the Junior County Council Scholarships. Here, under certain conditions, a maintenance grant is added to the free tuition, in order to induce the parent to allow the child to remain longer at school. The underlying principle is in each case the same. It is to the advantage of the community to supplement the earnings of the parent in order that in the person of the child it may obtain a more useful, because better trained and instructed, citizen. '' The ' part-time ' system, however, can never be regarded as alone sufficient to secure an open door into the skilled trades for the children as they leave school. We can never consider satisfactory a state of affairs in which for two or three years boys enter the ranks of such unpromising, though at first highly paid, occupations as that of the van-boy, the errand-boy, or the district messenger, without some adequate provision for their future. During these years the habits of study acquired in the elementary schools will too often have disappeared, and are not easily revived. Further, if a boy is to wait two or three years before he enters a trade, it is probable that in the majority of cases he will never enter it at all. He has grown accustomed to comparatively high wages, and will rarely reconcile himself to the considerable reduction which any sort of industrial training necessarily involves. The boy must be caught in the net of some skilled trade as he leaves school, or he will never be caught at all. For this and other reasons which will appear later, we think that an organized system of day trade schools should be gradually developed. ' The trade school,' as one of the pioneers of the movement has said, ' is to take the place of apprenticeship, as we understand it, and in the substitution to abolish the drudgery and waste of the latter in the earnest and economical instruction of the former.' The trade school in different countries has assumed a great variety of forms. From the provision of a two-years course to boys as they leave school up to the supply of technical instruction reaching a university standard there has been an infinity of gradations. But in general the underlying principles of the school are identical. The student devotes his whole time to the work of the institution. If he has already entered the workshop, he leaves it for a year or more in order to take up the course of instruction. ' Parttime ' pupils may be found, but the object of the school is to provide a carefully thought-out system of training for those who are able to avail themselves of its advantages untrammelled by the necessity of attendance at the factory. There are two sides to the education provided by the trade school. There is first the theoretical instruction in the scientific principles on which the particular industry is founded; with this are frequently associated classes which enable the student to continue his general education. There is, in the second place, the specialised teaching given in the workshop of the school. Here the student learns the use of the tools and the machinery required in the trade in question, and carries out the actual operations of manufacture under the guidance of skilled instructors. It will be seen that a training of this kind is particularly well adapted for those who will in the future be foremen and managers of industrial undertakings. Where the courses of instruction attain university level, the schools supply just that sort of environment calculated to develop the qualities which the ' captains of industry ' ought to possess." The report concludes as follows: "We may perhaps be allowed to essay the task of presenting in a single picture the kinds of training which will take the place of the old indentured apprenticeships — a training which the Council should endeavour, as the years go by, to call into being. Ignoring .details and passing over the transition period,; we may look forward to see realised some such system as that outlined below. The boy, as he leaves the ordinary elementary school, will have offered him, provided he possess the required ability, the choice of two distinct courses of instruction which will assure him an all-round training in a skilled trade. There will be on the one hand the ' part-time ' system, in which he will spend a portion of the week in the workshops and the remainder in the day technical school, and on the other there will be evening classes, which a better co-operation with the employers will render more effective and less interrupted by the working of long hours in the factory. In certain cases scholarships carrying free tuition and a maintenance grant will be awarded to day students to compensate for the small earnings received during the years of training. Other scholarships of less value will be allowed to some of the evening students in order to encourage regularity of attendance. But it is probable that the growing intelligence of the employer will cause him to insist that apprentices who do not attend the day classes must be present at the evening school. From this class of student will be drawn the skilled worker of the future, whose ability is not sufficient to raise him, as a rule, to any of the higher positions of the industrial world. The boy, as he leaves the higher elementary school, will be able to enter the day trade school, eitEer by paying the fees himself or by winning one of the scholarships, which will carry with it free tuition and a maintenance grant tenable for two or three years. With this stream of boys coming from the higher elementary school will mingle another stream of boys who, "having won