Welsh Journals

meet together not to discuss any advantage that might accrue to either side, but to discuss the training of future men for the trade, and the trainee is brought up in an atmosphere where employer and employee are not antagonistic, but are co-operating together in trying to produce the best possible artisan for the particular industry. One of the greatest problems of the day is that of unemployment. The causes of unem- ployment are as yet but partially understood, but it appears that unemployment is inseparable from our present industrial system. Casual and unskilled labour appear to form an integral part of the system, but there is no doubt that the large masses of both these forms of labour make for unemployment. To-day we appear to be making ample provision for future 'unemployment. Large numbers qf boys are drifting aimlessly about untrained or at best are following blind-alley occupations, callings which inevitably will lead them to swell the ranks of the unskilled and casual labourer. One method of coping with future employment would be to regulate the admission of labour into the various industries of the country. An annual survey of the requirements of each trade would be made and only the requisite number would be admitted into the industry for that particular period. The surplus labour available above that required by the main industries of the country would be diverted to new industries, or arrange- ments would be made for them to emigrate abroad to carry on the work of developing the Empire. The machinery for doing this is already in existence in connection with the Industrial Training scheme. The National Technical Advisory Committees for the various trades would decide nationally the requirements of each trade and the Local Technical Advisory Committees would decide the local requirements of each trade. If we still continue to squander our The Examination System in Wales. By Idwal Jones, B.A. ("The Central Welsh Board is a unique body. There is nothing like it in any other educational system." — Address by the Chairman of the Board to the Swansea Rotary Club.) THERE is always great zeal for knowledge of the next man's actual value in the scheme of things. We are always in- tensely curious as to the ounces avoirdupois that make up that complex entity, our neighbour, Mr. Davies, or the number of degrees required to measure the angular soul of our friend, Mrs. Jones. But our estimate is always conjectural most valuable national asset— British man power -and- fail to put it to the best advantage to develop this country and the Empire at large it will not be long before other and more virile nations have populated the vacant and virgin soils of our Empire. The chief objection to be raised to a scheme of this nature would be that it would be an ex- pensive one. In point of fact it would not be an expensive scheme because these training schools would soon become productive and might in time become almost self-supporting, if proper arrangements were made for the disposal of the products of the centres. The men who were taught the building trades under the Training scheme were actually employed in building houses for municipal authorities. Not only did the men become tradesmen themselves, but they left behind them valuable assets in the shape of houses which were badly needed by the municipal authorities. If one industrial school were in- stituted in every town a boy could be sent there at the age of 14 and remain until he was 16 years of age. During that time he would be taught the principles of citizenship, history and econ- omics, as well as the principles of the trade he hoped to make his future career. When he was 16 years of age he would be placed out for two or three years as an improver with an employer. At the end of this period he would be a fully skilled workman, independent and in a position always in future to earn his own living. Cir- cumstances might arise which would make him ultimately a casual labourer, but he would always have something in his hand to which, if the personal factor was sufficiently exerted, he could return. Perhaps the time has yet to come for this, and instead of maintaining industrial schools in a town the community prefers to spend the money on Asylums, Gaols and Workhouses, and prefers to use its resources to tolerate the present evils rather than take steps to avoid their future recurrence. and haphazard. Thus it is that any system, however crude, claiming to ticket off the next man as being of such-and-such mental capacity obtains a vogue among us. Thus it is that our own people, with a natural intuition, enabling them to sum each other up instinctively, to look a man, as it were, from head to foot, have lost faith in this natural penetration, and have seized passionately upon two systems which lay claim to be able to weigh men in the balance, and ticket off their weight of intelligence at certain periods in their lives. One system has sprung from the soil and is at least supposedly congenital. This is the method of estimate by competition, and is valued as a means of winning local fame and status rather than as a bread-winning factor. "Don't you know Mr. Jenkins? He won the bardic chair at Pont-y-Glotsen Mr. Jenkins