The Condition and Tendencies of Technical Education in Germany Part 2

Some of the above named inst.i.tutions are in certain localities styled apprentices.h.i.+p schools. These train workmen and foremen of a minor degree. Shop work is offered, and in some cases pure and applied art as well.

The evening work of the so-called Artisans' Schools of Berlin, are deserving of special mention. There are two such inst.i.tutions, called respectively school number one and school number two. The first was established in 1880; the second in 1892. The aim of these schools is to give to tradesmen and apprentices in their leisure hours such a knowledge of drawing, the arts and sciences, as will find an application in their own lines of work.

The grade of instruction varies from quite elementary work to that for advanced students, the latter being obliged to present evidence of fitness before entering.

The following courses are offered, the figures indicating the number of hours per week devoted to each.

Arithmetic 2 Algebra 2 Geometry 2 Trigonometry 2 a.n.a.lytical geometry and calculus 1 Mathematical problems involving physics and mechanics 2 Descriptive geometry 4 Bookkeeping 2 Physics 4 Mechanics 2 Electro-technics 4 Chemistry 4 Chemistry and pharmacy 4 Free-hand drawing 2-4 Aquarelle 4 Projection 4 Ornament 4 Trade drawing according to occupation 4 Modeling in wax and clay 4 Decorative painting 4

In addition to the foregoing, school number two offers:

Chasing 4 Practical wrought-iron work 4 Sketching and calculating the elements of machinery 2

The courses continue for two years.

It is interesting to note that whereas certain enactments are in force regarding the Sunday sessions of the Fortbildungsschulen, there are no such restrictions placed upon the Fachschulen, Sunday morning cla.s.ses being held at the discretion of the school authorities.

Let us refer to our table of single trade schools as given above. The statements which follow have in most cases been taken from data relating to the schools of Berlin, and may be said to fairly represent the general existing conditions throughout the Empire.

In the school for bakers, instruction is given one day weekly for two and one half hours. The theoretical work (which in common with all such work in the regular trade schools, is related directly to the particular trade under discussion) is made up of chemistry and bookkeeping.

In the barbers' and hairdressers' schools, instruction is carried on six days each week, four hours daily, the school continuing six months of the year, covering the winter period. Each cla.s.s receives fourteen hours instruction per week. While the bakers' school is supported by the guild, the barbers' school is jointly maintained by state, city and guild. The curriculum includes shaving, hair cutting, and hair dressing, wig making, and ladies' hair dressing. A tuition of three marks is charged for the term, in the case of apprentices, and six marks for journeymen; a charge five times as great is made for ladies' hair dressing, and for the surgical lectures, ten marks.

The guild, state and munic.i.p.ality maintain the school for basketmakers and wickerworkers. Apprentices receive instruction free, four marks each semester being charged the journeymen and adults. Attendance is compulsory on the part of apprentices of guild members. Four hours work per week are given, on Sat.u.r.days. The annual expenses of the school, are about five hundred and fifty dollars. Four courses are offered, as follows: first, general basket making and wicker furniture; second, making of small wicker furniture; third, large wicker furniture; fourth, fine and artistic wicker working.

In the blacksmiths' school the instruction is for two hours, one day each week. Theoretical work in horseshoeing, and drawing related to the course are taught.

The city and guild support the school for bookbinders. The students are both apprentices and journeymen. They work week day evenings and Sunday mornings. The purpose is not to produce tradesmen, but rather to make more proficient those engaged in some form of bookbinding, and to this end applicants must have had experience amounting to two years work before entering the school. All students must be grounded in the general elements underlying the trade before they are allowed to take up any phase as a specialty. No fee is charged the apprentices of guild members; others pay five marks per term; journeymen pay nine marks per term.

In the cabinetmakers' school, all lines of work pertaining to the trade are taken up, drawing and designing for trade purposes; free-hand drawing; modeling, carving; properties of woods, etc. Instruction is given week day evenings and Sunday forenoons. Four marks are charged for the first term in the drawing course and for each subsequent term, two marks. The subjects taken up are: chemistry, free-hand drawing, projection, trade drawing, perspective and shadows, drawing from cast, modeling and wood carving, joinery. The school is under public control.

In most of the remaining trade schools, instruction is pretty generally given on week day evenings and Sunday mornings, the apprentices of guild members paying no fee, a small charge being made for outsiders. The support comes from city, state and guild in most cases. In the school for masons however, there is a preparatory course and also a carpenters'

course, the whole covering a three years term. In this school the instruction is thorough, covering plans, drawings and specifications; stone, brick, and wood construction; foundations, arches, staircases, roofs, and the like. Almost without exception in all these schools the winter attendance is greater than that in the summer.

Certain individual schools throughout the Empire deserve special mention, the Royal Fachschule of Iserlohn, the first in Prussia, being a notable example. Here handwork is combined with industrial art adapted to metal work. Boys who entered the trade were, in the early days of the school, found to be in need of both theoretical and practical work, so each has a place in the curriculum. The length of the course is three years, covering the trades of designers, wood carvers, moulders, founders, turners, chasers, engravers, gilders, and etchers. Here are taught drawing in all its branches; modeling in wax and clay; history of art and metal work; elements of chemistry and physics; mathematics; German. Practical work in the department in which the student is engaged, is given, the student stating on entrance what subject he desires to take up. The time of instruction is from eight to twelve, in the winter season, and from seven to eleven in the summer. The afternoon session is from two to six. In the engineering trade school, three hours per day are devoted to ornamental drawing, German, physics and arithmetic. As the instruction is planned for working people it is largely theoretical.

The Reimscheid school is of the apprentices.h.i.+p order. Attention is given the making of edge tools and such other implements as are manufactured in the district. All students take drawing and design as applied to iron work. They are made acquainted with the different kinds of iron work that can be carried on in the home; are schooled in the use of the tools made; learn regarding the markets at which they are sold, and the various methods of their manufacture. Thus a general understanding of the principles underlying his trade is given the boy and he becomes acquainted with the commercial side of his calling while undergoing the necessary preparation in manipulation. The theoretical work is given in the morning and what shop practice is offered is in the afternoon from two to seven. The tuition is twenty dollars per year.

The Pottery Trade School at Hohr Grenzhausen, Prussia, is under State control. There are day and evening cla.s.ses, the former attended for the most part by the sons of manufacturers; the evening cla.s.ses by men and women who are employed otherwise during the day. There are Sunday cla.s.ses also. Decorated stoneware is given much attention. The day cla.s.s boys enter with a fairly good knowledge of drawing and have perhaps attended the Fortbildungsschule. Drawing, descriptive geometry, modeling in clay and wax, new forms of vessels and original ornamentation, painting, designing and decorative art, manufacture of earthenware, lectures and study of collections, make up the curriculum.

Any original model made becomes the property of the father of the boy, or of the person financially supporting such boy during his attendance at school. Two duplicates of the model must be left at the school. The courses are three years, daily sessions, Sat.u.r.days excepted. The fees are nominal, being only five dollars per year for the day cla.s.ses, thirty hours weekly, and one dollar for evening work, two hours weekly.

Pupils living outside the munic.i.p.ality pay six dollars per year for day instruction.

The Furtw.a.n.gen, or Black Forest schools are made up of several divisions, giving rather a high cla.s.s of instruction. Clock making, wood carving, and straw plaiting, are largely carried on.

This paper would not be complete without some mention of the system of apprentices.h.i.+p in vogue in Germany. The Lehrwerkstatten or apprentice shops play a considerable part in the industrial life of the Empire. In some instances they are maintained in connection with the trade schools, or again, are semi-private or separate shops. The apprentices.h.i.+p shops on the one hand, and the continuation schools upon the other, are doing much of the work formerly undertaken by the trade schools proper. While manufacturing upon a larger scale is recognized as possessing advantages over the smaller productive plants, it has seemed wise to hold to the handicrafts, in a measure at least. The apprentice system helps to preserve the traditions and sentiments of the German people, by handing down these handicrafts. The a.s.sociations, vereins, and guilds of past time, are to-day, through the aid of legislation, coming to the fore, and bringing with them many boys trained in the shops under the masters.

To show the power and scope of the guild, and in some cases it is inc.u.mbent upon a community to form a guild whether or no, let me give the following quotation:

"Persons carrying on trades on their own account can form guilds for the advancement of their common trade interests. The object of the guild shall be:

1. the cultivation of an esprit de corps and professional pride among the members of a trade;

2. the maintenance of amicable relations between employers and their employes, and the securing of work for unemployed journeymen and their shelter during the period of their nonemployment;

3. the detailed regulations of the conditions of apprentices.h.i.+p and the care for the technical and moral education of apprentices;

4. the adjustment of disputes between guild members and their apprentices, as contemplated by the law of July 20, 1890, concerning industrial arbitration."

The shops offer about the same lines of work as do the private concerns, aiming however to be more systematic and to cover a wider scope. It is a.s.serted by some that the instruction gained in the shop is superficial, and not to be compared with that obtained from the traveling master-workmen. When the shop is connected with some enterprise or manufacturing interest, a master-workman has one apprentice only under his charge, for which he receives from the state some thirty-five dollars yearly, the boy being given board, lodging and proper training.

The master must have attained the age of twenty-four years, and must fulfil certain technical qualifications. The instruction is practical in the highest degree and thus follows the lead of the trade schools in letter and spirit. The fees are mainly paid in by guild members, and those not members even, provided such reside in the district and are connected with the trade for which the school stands. Local and state aid is furnished. While the period of apprentices.h.i.+p may extend over four years, three years is the usual term.

IV

ART TRADE SCHOOLS

The various types of inst.i.tutions taken up under this head are of an intermediate grade, standing half way between the trade school on the one hand and the higher technical inst.i.tutions upon the other. Indeed, they contain many elements in common with the lower group, their scope however being broader and more general or indirect, theoretical work finding a place in their curricula. Owing to a similarity in the instruction given, several cla.s.ses of schools seem to demand a hearing under this section. We shall begin with the more general trade schools omitted from our previous study.

SCHOOLS FOR THE BUILDING TRADES

(Baugewerkschulen)

The schools for the building trades, of which there are a half hundred in the Empire, are very similar in character throughout. The Munich school, established in 1823, was the first of its kind. Their aim, as indicated in the t.i.tle, is the giving of training in the trades connected with the various building operations. The majority of these schools offer a course two years in length. The age of admission is fourteen to sixteen years. It is a requisite under some boards, that applicants have had practical experience in the line to be followed, at least two half-years and in some cases two full years, before entrance to the school. They must have also a fair general knowledge of their own language, and of reading and writing as well. The candidate must be a graduate of the Volksschule or must subject himself to an examination.

The fees in these schools vary from fifty to two hundred marks per year.

These are day sessions only. The governing power is in some cases vested in the munic.i.p.ality, frequently in the State, and again in private enterprise.

While those who go out from these schools may, some of them at least, follow the trades as regular laborers, others again are qualified as master-workmen and leaders in their craft. Construction in wood, stone, iron and metals; laws of building; modes of heat, light and ventilation; plumbing; interior fittings; these and other occupations are taken up.

The sessions of most schools extend over the winter months only, the students being actively engaged in their several trades during the summer season. These schools holding continuous sessions, are spa.r.s.ely attended during the summer. When theoretical work is given, such subjects are included as bookkeeping, descriptive geometry, physics and mechanics, German, free-hand and mechanical drawing, design, principles of architecture. The practical programme comprehends a study of building materials and the procuring and working of the same; relative strengths and adaptability to purpose; models of construction; ornamentation; architecture and design; estimates; chemical properties of materials; supports, trusses, arches and the like. In the more advanced inst.i.tutions, algebra, surveying, mechanics, study of machines and chemistry may be added to the theoretical list given, while the practical studies are more intensive, and of a somewhat higher order.

Special departments for engineering, (Tiefbauabteilungen) preparing men to occupy positions as superintendents, managers of public works, construction directors, etc., are sustained in some instances.

Such schools are of an inferior engineering type, and deal with problems of advanced work as related to the construction of roads, water works and railroads; munic.i.p.al engineering; bridge construction; electro-technics. The theoretical lines are similar to those pursued in other courses.

The schools to which we have just referred ill.u.s.trate well the statement made in a previous connection, that the grade of instruction rather than the character of the subjects taught, determines the cla.s.sification of schools into groups. Three cla.s.ses of trade instruction have just been mentioned, and might well be styled lower, middle and upper schools for trade teaching. Another point of interest lies in the fact, that while we have been speaking of theoretical and practical subjects as forming the curricula of the schools for the building trades, the distinction should rather be drawn on the line of traditional book subjects and applied or laboratory practice. Practical work, per se, is not carried on in the school. Thus we have a close connection between theory and practice; more closely perhaps than is found to exist in other trades.

The following table shows the distribution of building trade schools throughout the Empire, the cities in which such schools are located being given.

Anhalt Zerbst

Baden Carlsruhe

Kaiserslautern Munich Bavaria Nuremburg Ratisbon Wurzburg

Brunswick Holzminden Hamburg Hesse Lubeck

Neustadt Mecklenburg-Schwerin Sternberg