To the Editor:

Today you call a carpenter, plumber or electrician, and they're all busy and can't get to your job for 3-4 months. Where do you find a local furniture upholsterer, lawn mower repair shop, small wooden boat woodworker, and other vocational tradesmen when needed?

On the phone you hear in the background, the tradesman, contractor, garage mechanic, machinist, or woodworker say, "If only I had a helper, but I can't afford one that just watches. If only I had an old fashioned apprentice; a kid I could teach and get him to journeyman level, then my business could handle the workload."

The "if'' is the problem. If you could find a kid just out of high school, who isn't being told that university is the key to success; or hasn't been in a trade school with all the expensive tools, and taught labor law, OSHA rules, and how to demand benefits packages, you just might have found a possible apprentice. But of course you'd have to start the inexperienced kid at $15/hr, which your business can't afford and customers won't pay for.

What happened to traditional apprenticeships, where a kid spent several years learning a trade at the feet of a master craftsman/tradesman? Instead of pay, the apprentice got room and board, a set of tools, his own workbench, work clothes and health care; as well as a solid education in the trade. All of which steered the apprentice into full employment or partnership in the masters' business. It was a "win-win" situation for both the apprentice and the tradesman. This is how the trades were carried on from one generation to the next for well over 1,000 years. Why not today?

As an older woodworker, I envy tradesmen lucky enough to have a son or daughter to carry on the trade and the family business. But what about someone like myself, who doesn't have a son or grandson? Customers tell me all the time, "you need an apprentice." And yes I do. Who will carry on my trade, the skills taught to me by older master craftsmen when I was a kid? You can't advertise for an apprentice; especially if you're going to provide room & board instead of pay, the old fashioned way. It breaks all the modern anti-discrimination laws. So just where do I find an apprentice? Where does a hard working talented kid who would like to learn woodworking find me?

I won't retire for at least another 20 years; but in the meantime I could be teaching the next generation of furniture woodworkers, so that my customers will be assured that after I hang up my shop apron and lay down the chisels, there will be a young craftsman to carry on the trade of fixing fine furniture. And he will have my tools and his own to work with; and over 200 years of woodworking knowledge.

Gerard Monnat

Stockholm