Emil Lederer’s review combines recognition of Coelsch’s documentary achievement with criticism of the political assumptions shaping his account of craft apprenticeship. Its opening establishes the book’s scholarly value:
Das vorliegende Buch ist zweifelsohne die gründlichste und — auf das gesammelte und verarbeitete Material hin angesehen — vollständigste Bearbeitung der Lehrlingsfrage im Handwerk.
English translation: The present book is without doubt the most thorough and — judged by the material collected and worked up — the most complete treatment of the apprenticeship question in the crafts.
Lederer follows the book from its historical survey of German industrial legislation, including guild apprenticeship, through contemporary apprenticeship law to vocational education and youth welfare. Commissioned by the Deutscher Handwerks- und Gewerbekammertag, Coelsch examines eligibility to employ apprentices, contractual rights and duties, and measures against exploitative apprentice employment. Lederer acknowledges his effort at objectivity and preference for liberal craft policy, but finds a recurrent bias toward the interests and self-image of the craft middle class.
The decisive examples concern exploitation and the comparison between factory and master-led training. Coelsch minimizes the frequency and seriousness of apprentice exploitation; although conceding the frequent technical superiority of factory training, he defends training under a master for its supposedly greater educational value and cultivation of independent individuality. Lederer treats this claim as a subjective, practically political argument. His central distinction is between the comprehensiveness of the evidence and the partiality of its interpretation.
The review traces how that preference organizes Coelsch’s evaluation of workshops and supplementary training institutions: their worth is assessed through their contribution to strengthening master-led apprenticeship. Lederer also notes Coelsch’s support for daytime vocational continuation schooling and apprentice and journeyman examinations, before turning to exhibitions, placement services, and residential welfare. Here the political purpose becomes explicit:
Die Furcht vor der Sozialdemokratie ist hier eines der stärksten treibenden Motive, die Lehrlinge, die nicht mehr beim Meister wohnen und daher «schädlichen Einflüssen» vielfach ausgesetzt sind, für eine staatserhaltende Politik zu sichern.
English translation: Fear of Social Democracy is here one of the strongest driving motives for securing for a state-preserving policy those apprentices who no longer live with the master and are therefore in many ways exposed to "harmful influences."
Lederer closes with Coelsch’s appeal to German nationality and shared religious faith rather than universal citizenship and humanity. This ending sharpens the review’s critical trajectory: apprenticeship policy concerns not simply occupational competence, but the preservation of authority and the political allegiance of young workers. Lederer exposes that connection without withdrawing his recognition of the book’s empirical thoroughness.
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