In reality, we in America have now but little of what the name "plumbing" would lead the uninitiated to expect. Stacks of plain or galvanized wrought-iron pipe, or of plain, tarred, or galvanized cast iron pipe, of weight to suit the height of building and to serve as main soil, waste, and ventilation pipes, with sundry lead bends and ends for fixture connections—these, with galvanized wrought-iron or brass pipes for supply, constitute the "roughing-in" stage of a job of plumbing; while painted or bronzed main lines exposed to view, galvanized-iron and nickel-plated brass pipe, with fixtures, partitions, etc., make up a view of the finished work, conveying little idea of the functions and importance of the unseen portions. Finished work in an unpreten tious dwelling or storehouse, when properly charted, is fairly easy for even the house-man to understand. In large apartment and office buildings, department stores, etc., however, the plumbing, ventilating, gasfitting, heating, and automatic sprinkler pipes and electric con duits, make, in any but the finished state, a maze of pipe beyond the understanding of any except engineers well versed in those lines of work. In the completed work, the details are concealed. The toilet rooms present an orderly perspective of closets, lavatories, or other fixtures, as the case may be, with simple connections according with the customary finish, kind, or purpose of the pipe.
This apparent harmony, proportion, and simplicity in the result, coupled with a memory of sundry glimpses of a confusion of pipes in the rough state, has, it is to be regretted, propagated in many minds, a sense of false security regarding plumbing, based on the assumption of the plumber's evident ability to produce order and perfect service out of what in the "roughing-in" stage looked chaotic to a hopeless degree. The bulk of plumbing work, however, is not of the "sky scraper" class, nor is it handled by the same type of skill and superin tendence. Any feeling of confidence or sense of security on the part of the public, is treacherous if based on the assumption that only by a degree of skill in direct proportion to the size of the job can satis factory plumbing service be provided in residential and other small buildings. There is evidence of a somewhat indifferent state of the public mind regarding the plumber and his work, induced by the reasons stated and also by lack of due consideration and appreciation of conditions wrought by progress in other trades.
Plumbing, in its advancement, is merely keeping pace with the allied lines on which it is dependent. Their progress has created new conditions to be met; and as the future plumber will hail from the ranks of the populace, the light in which the public regards the plumber and the importance of his trade will have no uncertain bearing on the character and earnestness of those who take up the calling. The rank and file of apprentices have already too long been attracted merely on the score of a promising means of livelihood. There is ample reason to begin a plumbing career with all the pride felt by followers of any other vocation. It is altogether improbable that any individual will be found with so much education or such promising ability as to give rise to just grounds of fear that plumbing will not offer him sufficient scope to acquit himself with dignity.
The advent of tall buildings, the general increase in the height and other proportions of buildings in cities, and the changes in material and in design of fixtures, together with the abnormal demand resulting from the decreased cost, natural growth, and gradual awak ening through education to the value of sanitary conveniences, have brought about a condition of affairs which the old-line plumbers were incapable of coping with, and which the old apprenticeship system was inadequate to provide men capable of dealing with in a creditable manner. The plumbing of one large building involves as much work as hundreds of the average small jobs put together. The handling of such work under the conditions that have prevailed, has developed a deplorable state of so-called "specialism." Men engaged in "rough ing-in" a large job are likely to tell you with entire truthfulness that they have no idea what types of closets or other fixtures are to be used; that they know nothing of the principles or merits of plumbing fix tures, and do not need to; that they never connected a fixture in their whole career; that the finishers do' that kind of work. By further inquiry one would find the "finishers" utterly at sea in the work of "roughing-in," and accordingly ignorant of the whys and wherefores that govern the success of a job as a unit. These men, called "plumb ers," are exceedingly skilful and rapid within their limitations; but it is easy to infer the fate of a job intrusted to such hands alone, and in practice it has been proven that others of metropolitan practice, and merely lacking in variety of experience, were not capable of credit able results on general residence work of the ordinary class.
When the largest jobs were completed in a comparatively short time, and when much of the training which went to make up the plumber's accomplishments was credited to the manual practice neces sary to master the working of lead and solder, a period of service in shop and job practice, coupled with oral instructions from the journey man, served fairly well to make a plumber out of raw material within the period allotted by the American abridgment of the apprenticeship term. On the work of to-day, however, there would be great chances of an apprentice serving such a term without seeing anything of more than from two to five jobs. He would be lucky if it fell to his lot to get even a little experience in each of the natural divisions of those jobs; and again fortunate if those jobs happened not to have the same general layout or to employ identically the same make of fixtures, for there are many shops which seem to have the faculty of securing work from certain particular sources, and which are equally likely for one reason or another to be recommending and using, where possible, one particular make of goods to the exclusion of other kinds just as good or better. These and kindred features now met with on every hand in practice, are stumbling-blocks—prohibitive, in fact, of anyone learning the plumbing trade within any period of time that can sensibly be prescribed for the acquiring of a trade or profession.