It was with remarkably little organized training that the women took up their new lines of work and fitted into the men’s places. The most extensive development of special training was to be found in the munitions industry, under the auspices of the Ministry of Munitions. An official circular of the Ministry, dated November, 1915, outlined a scheme for producing semi-skilled workers by strictly practical courses of thirty to one hundred hours’ duration, intended to give the learner “machine sense” and to teach him to use some one machine tool. It was realized that this type was not in harmony with the best educational principles, but the necessities of the case demanded that nothing more should be tried than to turn out speedy and accurate workers in the shortest possible time. The comparatively small demand for women munition workers at this time was suggested by the fact that, while the classes were to be open both to men and women, it was recommended that the local authorities should be sure of employment for the latter before training them. The pupils were required to agree to work in munition factories at the end of their course.

Seventy such training centers were opened by the Ministry of Munitions in the course of the war, accommodating 6,000 to 6,500 pupils. Seven were factories utilized solely for industrial training, the smallest of which accommodated 150 and the largest from 800 to 1,000 pupils at a time. The others were smaller technical schools. The Ministry of Munitions had direct control of the training factories and appointed their staffs, but the schools were managed by the local educational authorities. According to representatives of the Ministry of Munitions, women were always trained “to order,” and not “to stock.”

Next, perhaps, to munitions work in frequency, though much less extensive, were the courses offered in agriculture. In connection with the women’s county committees it was arranged that women should be admitted to the county farm institutes, and short emergency courses, some of only one month’s duration, were started. During the season of 1916, 390 women completed such courses. In almost every county also large landowners and farmers gave free training to some women. In 1917, 247 “training centers” were reported and 140 farms had registered for the work.[96] Such centers were attended mainly by young country girls, sixteen or seventeen years old, who in peace times would have entered domestic service. Small “hostels” or boarding homes were sometimes opened in connection with the training centers. The “Land Army” made use of these various schools, centers and practice farms for its short training courses and also arranged brief apprenticeships with employers.

Vocational courses for other lines of work were much more scattering. The London County Council carried on short emergency courses along the lines advised by the “Shops” and “Clerical Employments” committees to prepare women for retail groceries and for business. It also carried on a successful course in gardening for six months, but had to drop it because housing accommodations were not available. Classes in the shoe trade were opened at Leeds, Bristol and London, and in the manufacture of leather cases and equipment at London and Walsall. The Liverpool authorities began to teach women power machine operating and toy making, the last being a trade expected to grow in England with the cessation of German imports. A course which attracted considerable attention because it provided skilled work at comparatively high pay after two or three months’ training was the class in oxy-acetylene welding managed by “Women’s Service,” a private organization of women for war work. A few enlightened manufacturers also set up training classes, such as, for instance, a three weeks’ course for women solderers in tin box making. Women were not sent out as London bus conductors until they had several weeks of careful instruction in schools conducted by the companies. One steam railroad also provided a training course for women clerks and telegraphers. An interesting development in special training which accompanied the growth of welfare work in munition and other plants was the opening of several courses for would be “welfare supervisors” in a number of the newer universities. A fairly long list of training courses was given for London alone by the National Union of Women Workers, but examination of the list shows that only a few were special war courses, and that most of them covered professional work for the minority, and not industry or trade for the many.[97]

Some employers were said to prefer entirely untrained women to those who had gone through short emergency courses, because the latter were prone to overestimate the value of their training. But on the whole the classes were believed to give a much better start to the woman who realized that they left her, after all, still a beginner. But the keen demand for workers, the high wages and high cost of living were all unfavorable to the extension of formal training schemes. Some classes were closed after the first year of war for lack of pupils. Others were discontinued when the trade schools were taken over for training in munitions work. Whatever the value of the provisions for training, it is evident that the great majority of women learned their new tasks without any such help, entirely in the workshop.