Welsh Journals

Search over 450 titles and 1.2 million pages

associations are consulted, but a kind of referendum is organized among the specially interested work- shops. The board of governors of the college hold that it is the interest of the province and of the State to initiate the great mass of its future workmen into the principles of skilled labour. From the other side, they consider that everybody, who wants his children to learn a skilled trade has the right of education for them. To render this right effective the county council help the parents, who are prepared for the sacrifice, to let their sons pursue their studies for four years in the technical day school. At the registration a fee of ten francs (eight shillings) is due, but the pupils receive two overalls a year, a free luncheon at mid-day and wages-for appren- ticeship-of id., 1 d., lfd. and 2d. an hour according as they are in their first, second, third, or fourth year. (Bearing in mind that generally wages are smaller in Belgium than here, this is really a substantial help.) Thanks to this friendly disposition even the children of the poorest parents can attend the courses and it is not surprising that this section of the college alone counts more than 700 pupils. The latter pass annually a term of probation of three months duration in factories and workshops. The associations of employers, which were consulted before the introduction of the scheme, facilitate the execution of the plan and pay at trade union rates for the work done. The idea underlying the arrangement is that the work executed in the shop contributes greatly towards the technical training of the boys, gives them some insight into the com- mercial value of their ability, and keeps them in close touch with the real life of the profession. The Labour College not only aims at forming highly skilled workmen it tries also to interest in various ways employers and employed in the new principles and the scientific and technical novelties of their profession among these are a service of gratuitous technical, chemical and commercial consultations, temporary courses for employers and Mr. Rhys Phillips of the Swansea Library has carried out a happy idea in these forty odd pages (The Celtic Countries: Their Literary and Library Activities. Swansea Morgan & Higgs.) After an introduction touching lightly on the struggles for self-expression among the little nations from Finland to Bulgaria, the author reviews in greater detail workmen, competitions for both categories, exhibi- tions, etc. The consultations exercise a deep influence upon the evolution of the technical and commercial methods of the small and middle indus- tries e.g., the college examines technically and chemically, and free of charge the materials employed by painters, bakers, contractors, plasterers, etc., of which they want to know the composition as well as the technical and commercial value it gives also the solution of technical difficulties such as the cal- culation of a beam, the resistance of a stone, etc. The occasional courses for employers and skilled workmen chiefly try to popularise employing in labour circles scientific ideas, inventions, new appli- ances and methods which are likely to improve labour. Some titles of such courses, consisting generally of eight to ten lectures, may be suggestive Tariffs and transports for manufacturers, exporters, mer- chants and their staff art in the wood trades technology and hygiene for butchers; topography, land measuring and levelling for contractors, well- borers, masons (employers and employed), etc. These courses are attended to by thousands of visitors. This short description justifies, I think, the description of novel which I gave to this institution. But, perhaps, the most unusual of its features is the complete absence of formalism in its organisation, for which its founder, Dr. Omer Buyse, one of our most prominent educationists, is responsible. It is thanks to this spirit that its influence has been so great as to have caused, in a single decade, very remarkable progress in the ideas and producing power of the province of Hainault, a fact to which both owners and wage-earners testify. It has been very helpful to both classes, and enjoys their full sympathy it has successfully helped the small and middle industry as well, and it enjoys a popularity which is very promising for those technical estab- lishments which are prepared to follow on similar lines. J. Varendonck. THE CELTIC COUNTRIES the language and literary revivals in Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Cornwall, the Isle of Man, Brittany and Patagonia. There are many bits of information which will be new to most readers, and we could wish that Mr. Phillips, having piqued our curiosity, had, with the proper librarian's instinct, given us a short bibliography at the end for further reading.