150
EXPOSITION AT VIENNA.
necessary to have been, first, an apprentice and then a journeyman, and it can easily be seen that such masters would rarely be large capitalists. While this state of things lasted, workmen who would, in all probability, become masters, and masters who had been workmen, w T ere actuated by similar motives, and therefore worked together harmoniously. As the masters became capitalists this community-interest died out, and from the time of Elizabeth the Guild declined; and now its modern lineal descendant, the Livery Company, has too often preserved little of the character of the parent institution but its conviviality and the distribution of some antiquated charities.”
The agitation now proceeding in connection with this revival of the question of the utility of the old Craft Guilds,- points out to the modern Unions that it would be for the interest of the Trade Societies of the United States and the United Kingdom that they should see that the required practical instruction in their respective trades is supplied to their members. It is of the greatest importance to them to keep up a high standard of workmanship, and all the more so as they aim at keeping up a fair standard of wages.
It is proposed that classes for technical instruction—as distinguished from the higher and scientific education—and for Art-workmanship in trades requiring it, should be established, supported and managed by each Trade Society in its respective locality; in fact, that they assume more of the functions of the old Craft Guilds.
In connection with this movement it is stated that the University of Cambridge wishes to help 'workingmen to obtain higher education, by sending some of its ablest men to give instruction on subjects of interest or importance to workingmen, provided that in each locality there shall be a proper organization for making the requisite arrangements, and a sufficient number of students to benefit by the proposed teaching. "As the nation cannot go to the Universities, let the Universities—through their ablest representatives—come to the nation.”
The South Kensington Institution has so far achieved one of its objects for the good of the people as "to teach them not to be satisfied with mere empiricism; to show them how