For more than a decade, the often-avowed reluctance of journey men to teach apprentices has been held responsible for the trend of these affairs affecting the practice of the industry; but in the light of what has been said, it is easy to determine what it was that really intro duced the Plumbing Correspondence School and Plumbing Trade Classes. It was necessity. Trade journals have done and are still doing good work in this line; but their best efforts, added to the oppor tunities of practice, were insufficient. There was no other satisfactory solution than the Correspondence School—no other route to the acquisition of principles and acquaintanceship with the accumulated information as to the relative merit or fitness of certain materials, designs, systems, etc., and as to the conditions under which this or that would serve well, while it might act just the reverse under other circumstances.
Under the present regime, it is not only apprentices and those who intend becoming such, but journeymen as well, that need to seek aid in the schools. The citizen at large, also, serves his own interest in informing himself in a general way at the same fountain, so as to be able to discriminate for himself in matters pertaining to plumbing. Furthermore, any real plumber would prefer that his customer should be familiar with the work in hand. Fewer misunderstandings occur when such is the case, and there is a keener appreciation of good work on one hand and a corresponding effort to merit approval on the other. There is, too, in favor of the plumber, when the customer is informed, an absence of those niggardly tactics of trying to secure much for little, of sacrificing quality and future satisfaction by reducing first cost below the safe limit. The well-informed customer never
makes you feel that all plumbing is alike to him and a necessary evil to be paid for at rates far in excess of its value.
With the foregoing introduction in mind let us look further into the subject and see what "Plumbing" really is. Whether we are actual or self-nominated apprentices, journeymen, masters, or the prospective customer himself, a view of the matter will be beneficial, if only in the sense of refreshing memory.
There was a time when sanitary conveniences, crude in com parison with the present, were considered mere luxuries. Under the present views of life and the conditions of living, we may with greater propriety consider these erstwhile luxuries as actual neces sities, though they are often luxurious to a degree that dwarfs into insignificance other appointments which even then were granted to be essentials. Plumbing is, therefore, neither in fact nor in opinion, a matter of simple luxury for the rich and delicate, but is, rather, an important subject of deep salutary interest on the one hand and of business acumen on the other—a matter of essentials deeply affecting the best interests of our own health and that of our neighbors, with which mere sentiment has no ground for association. The time when it was thought sufficient to fan out the mosquitoes in summer and break the ice in winter at the family rain barrel in order to wash our faces and hands, has passed. A dwelling job may now embrace almost the entire range of plumbing fixtures. There is therefore no better example from which to build a word-picture of Plumbing.