The Germans have a remarkably good vocational education system, which runs parallel to universities. Starting at the age of 16, many young people start three-year training periods, either as apprentices (for professions such as electricians, bakers or carpenters) or trainees (for professions such as office managers, IT experts or hotel staff). Graduation (equivalent to high school or A-levels) takes place at the end of the three years.
There are two further stages on the way to professional success: journeyman and master. Each of these stages also lasts approximately three years. Originally, the journeyman travelled from one workshop to another across Europe to learn the skills of the trade. On graduating, the journeyman was allowed to prepare to be a master and to be taken up as a member of a guild. This required theoretical and practical knowledge of the trade. The latter was demonstrated by a masterpiece (for an electrician this came in the form of introducing a time recording system in a large factory including planning, procurement, implementation and maintenance schedules), which showed peers what the person was capable of. Exactly this meaning is first used in English in the 1500s with the translation of masterpiece from the German “Meisterstück”. Not much later masterpiece appeared in the anonymous play The Wisdom of Doctor Dodypoll to describe excellent work. The word is obviously quite common, with Shakespeare using it in Macbeth to describe the consternation after King Duncan was murdered: “Confusion now has made his masterpiece”.
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