Boy life & labour : the manufacture of inefficiency / by Arnold Freeman.

  • Arnold Freeman
Date:
1914
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Boy life & labour : the manufacture of inefficiency / by Arnold Freeman. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    249/276 (page 229)
    industrial side, in favour of the extension of juvenile training. Every employer in Birmingham with whom I have conversed on the point has complained to me of the serious inefficiency of the lads he employs. This defect can be remedied by the training of the boy outside his working hours, and in that way alone. And the resultant gain to industry and to the employer will be considerable.1 Effects upon the Parent. We have already seen 2 how great is the economic pressure exerted by the poorer working-class home upon the adolescent. The earnings of children at school are relatively insignificant compared with the earnings of the boy in full-time employment. And the risk of intensify- ing gravely the poverty of the country is a far more serious danger than any dislocations that may be caused to industry. Mr. Bray believes that:—“ . . . from the parent’s point of view, there is nothing to hinder us in raising the school age to 15, prohibiting the em- ployment of school children, and instituting a new half- time system (to 18).” 3 This verdict seems to me to be too optimistic. Some suffering will inevitably be caused by the reduction, even by a third, of the time in which boys can earn wages. But there is no need to exaggerate this loss. We must remember that the boy will still be earning for half or two-thirds of the day ; that he will be a more efficient worker ; and that as the supply of boys will be scarcer, his value in the Labour Market will rise. Suffering will be inflicted only on the poorest homes ; but it should be remembered that such homes are every year recipient of more and more assistance at the hands of the State.4 It would be a legitimate ex- 1 Report of the Consultative Committee, Chap. VI. § e. 1 Pp. 170-173. 3 R. A. Bray, 11 Boy Labour and Apprenticeship,” p. 207. 4 E.g., Free meals, clothing and boots for the school children ; Old Age Pensions for the aged ; Free Medical Treatment, etc.