Discussion on "The recruitment and training of engineering craftsmen", by A.P.M. Fleming, at the London Section of the Institution

MR. C. C. FERGUSON: Mr. Fleming certainly has given us some excellent material to think about. Personally I am particularly interested in the four groups forming his sources of supply of juvenile male labour. We were reminded of the improvement in the material available for recruitment as apprentices to-day as compared with that of twenty or thirty years ago. I submit that twenty or thirty years ago the material which you were getting from your elementary schools¿standard IV or V which were the standards referred to¿was definitely better material than you are getting to-day from elementary schools, for this reason, that boys are creamed first of all for technical schools ; they are creamed for central schools ; and they are creamed for secondary schools. What you have left are simply, for want of a better term, what are known to engineers as " duds."