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SOME PRESS OPINIONS
Times.—“The problem already felt acutely in London and in large towns hasnow appeared even in the country town and village, and to those who stilldoubt its extent or seriousness we commend this most instructive work.”
Morning Post.—“An important book on an important subject.”
Daily News.—“Mr. Bray’s book is as full of counsel as of instruction, andit should be in the hands of every student of one of the most serious ofsocial problems.”
BOY LABOUR AND
APPRENTICESHIP
BY
REGINALD A. BRAY L.C.C.
AUTHOR OF “THE TOWN CHILD”
SECOND IMPRESSION
LONDON
CONSTABLE & CO. LTD.
1912
We are beginning to realize clearly that all is not well with the youth ofthis country. From all sides complaints of neglect, and the evils ofneglect, are thronging in. Boys as they leave school are casting off theshackles of parental control, and, with no intervening period of youth,are assuming the full independence of the adult. The old apprenticeshipsystem is falling into disuse, and methods of industrial training are atonce unsatisfactory and, for the majority, difficult to obtain. Boys inincreasing numbers are entering occupations where they learn nothing andforget all they have previously learned, and in which they can see noprospects of employment when manhood is reached. As a consequence, thereis a general drift into the army of unskilled labour, and later into theranks of the unemployed. All expert opinion is unanimous in voicing thesecomplaints. The Report of the Poor Law Commission, Majority and Minorityalike, with its volumes of special inquiries and evidence, is one longtestimony to the gravity of the evils which are the consequence ofneglected youth.
Further, we are coming to understand that the period of adolescence formsa critical epoch in the development[Pg vi] of the lad. “The forces of sin andthose of virtue never struggle so hotly for possession of the youthfulsoul.”[1] And the boy too often is left to fight out this struggle withoutassistance, and even without advice. The conditions of modern life areincreasingly hard on youth. “Never has youth,” says Mr. Stanley Hall, thegreatest living authority on adolescence, “been exposed to such dangers ofboth perversion and arrest as in our land and day. Increasing urban life,with its temptations, prematurities, sedentary occupations, and passivestimuli, just when an active objective life is most needed; earlyema