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in every direction, and the necessity for economy holds in its relentless grasp every item of public expenditure, which it is subjecting to the most rigid scrutiny. All this is auspicious. Economy is the parent of honesty, and it is the best possible good fortune that the system of public education of this country is receiving a thorough economical purging.

It is not from any lack of education that complaints are being made, and the question therefore arises, whether the education is of the right sort, and whether the people who most need it obtain what they want. And true economy, which is always far seeing, cannot afford to be niggardly. The farmer does not regard the outlay on his seed corn as an extravagant expenditure so much as a necessary investment; for he remembers that "there is that scattereth and yet increaseth, and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, and yet it tendeth to poverty." Let us see to what extent this educational scattering is carried on and what comes of it.

In the Eastern, Middle, and Western States there was expended last year the sum of about $70,000,000 for public education. What was this vast sum expended for, what were the results aimed at, and what did the public get for its money?

These are practical, common sense questions, and their consideration is pertinent in a meeting like this. Nor can we blink the issues they involve; for, in face of such an expenditure, the people who are toiling with their heads or their hands, and who in these distressed times are straining their utmost to make both ends meet, surely have a right, in face of such heavy taxation, to ask what it is all for, and to see if they are really getting their money's worth.

Every educator should welcome these inquiries. Certainly it behooves every one who is engaged in directing the features and in administering the provisions for maintaining public education carefully to study the subject in the light of present experience. From such a study he will be able to answer these inquiries intelligently, and also be able, during this period of depression, while the economical knife is being laid so closely to public expenditure, to direct public opinion so that no harm shall come to necessary and fundamental features of public education.

I am free to state that there has been a great deal of sentimentalism about this subject. Because it is, perhaps, the most important and indefinite single subject with which a community or a state has to deal, it not unfrequently happens that it gets straddled by theoretical hobby riders, who make of conventions such as this the Epsoms or Jerome Parks wherein pet theories are made to show their paces.

Being a specialist myself, I know that I run the risk of being considered one of these self same hobby riders; but I repel the insinuation, for my interest in the whole subject of national education is infinitely greater than my anxiety for any detail in it.

It is true that I am engaged, professionally, in promoting one particular branch of education. At the same time, I wish to make the

fact clear that in urging the importance of technical education and industrial drawing I place its consideration not alone on the grounds of its special or exceptional character, but rather on the basis of its great and economical value in general education and in practical life.

As the subject of education has been so much discussed of late, and as there is such a contrariety of opinion offered concerning what its features and aims should be, it may be wise to take a few soundings, in order to see where we are.

For the purpose, then, of getting at a few points of general agreement, let me ask, What is understood by education, and particularly by public education? I think the answer that would come to such a question, especially from the States to which I have referred, which have taxed themselves $70,000,000 for its support the last year, would be, that education is the fitting of youth for the occupations of adult life and the duties of good citizenship; and it seems to me that we should have in such an answer one that practically covers the whole question; and yet, simple as this answer is, self evident, indeed, as it appears, I observe in the discussion now going forward that it is extremely difficult for educators to defend the present system of education, particularly against the charge of its want of practical character, in any way that commends itself to the common mind by its explicitness and clearness.

I am aware that very many eloquent and scholarly essays have been written in behalf of the present system; but the discussion has been beclouded by the use of many phrases not understood by the public, such as "the developing of the mental and moral faculties of youth," "the broadening of their intellectual powers," and others of that sort; while the virtues of "disciplinary studies" and "culture studies" are also enlarged upon. By such treatment, the direct and simple object of education has become enveloped in an æsthetic mist of fine phrases to such an extent that it appears to plain and honest minded folks as decidedly too much set up in character and as hardly belonging to the toiling masses. Consequently, it is being vigorously attacked for its apparent want of practicality on the one hand and its undue expensiveness on the other.

As an educator and as an advocate of the broadest possible education for all classes, I am glad to see these attacks made. Every true educator should welcome them. We cannot have too much discussion, and one of the effects of this present widespread interest, I have no doubt, will be the explosion of many educational theories which are now so boldly advanced, the abandonment of the present narrow and over literary schemes, and the establishment, on a firm basis, of a system of education which shall meet the needs of the workingman and the mechanic, the producers of industrial wealth, and which shall prepare others to appre ciate the skilled products of the country.

When the people see clearly and understand intelligently the close relationship of the practical education offered them to success in all

conditions of life, they will not suffer it to be hampered or curtailed for want of sufficient support.

It is, perhaps, the first duty of educators to make clear the practical features of the educational ideas they advance. Holding this opinion, I beg to submit to your consideration some general points in regard to the scope and character of public education which I regard as fundamental.

I assume it agreed that public education in this country must tend toward a preparation for the occupations of adult life and the performance of the duties of good citizenship. This being granted, our first step is to see what the general occupations of adult life are, for which education can be an elementary preparation, and, second, what are the duties of good citizenship which elementary education can promote.

In the first place, then, let us take a broad view of what the general occupations of adult life are:

First. We have those who are engaged in producing food and raw materials of industrial arts, animal, vegetable, and mineral. These are the producers of natural wealth.

Secondly. We have those who are engaged in using the raw materials produced by the first class, as a basis on which to expend their skill and taste in the manufacture of objects for the comfort and pleasure of mankind. These are the producers of industrial wealth.

Thirdly. We have those who are engaged in trade, finance, and transportation. These are the distributors of the wealth produced by the first two classes, but are not themselves the producers of wealth.

Fourthly. We have those engaged in military, naval, and political service. These are persons employed for the protection of social and political order.

Fifthly. We have those engaged in the professional occupations, such as lawyers, clergymen, physicians, and teachers. These are employed in ministering to the legal, religious, physical, and educational wants of all classes.

Sixthly. We have those engaged in personal or domestic service.

You will observe that it is the persons engaged in the first two classes of occupation that are the real producers of wealth, while the others are maintained by occupations growing out of its distribution or by professional or political occupations growing out of the necessity for protection to the whole social and political organism.

In the educational discussions of the day we do not see sufficiently realized the changes in the relative numbers of persons in these six classes that have been made in recent years; nor are educators sufficiently alive to the necessary changes in the scope of public education thereby entailed.

What, then, are these changes? If we examine this classification closely, we shall find that these changes have their origin in and are

principally based upon the transformation that has taken place, within the last few years, in the second group of occupations, those of the industrial classes. These changes have been enormous; I might say sufficiently so as to completely revolutionize the old relation of these classes to one another. A slight examination of the material and political condition of any one of the leading States to-day shows that its material and political power is centring about its industrial classes, and that, as these flourish or decline, so all the other interests of the State flourish or decline. Indeed, it is a well established economic truth that industrial wealth, in other words a healthy condition of the industrial occupations, is absolutely necessary to the success of all other occupations.

So clearly is this fact recognized by the five great European nations, England, France, Germany, Austria, and Italy, that to-day they are in earnest competition with one another to develop to the utmost the industrial productiveness of their people.

Let me for a moment digress to make a statement in regard to what industial development consists of. In a manufactured product we have two elements, the raw material and the skilled labor which has been put upon it. Take, for instance, this piece of steel. Its value is, perhaps, three cents. As yet skilled labor has hardly touched it. Fabricated into this form, we have a surgical instrument which is worth ten dollars. Now, what makes the difference in price between these two pieces of steel? The simple fact that skilled labor has been applied to this one and not to the other; and it is the skilled labor, therefore, which gives it its chief value. Take this piece of cotton cloth for another illustration. You have here eight cents' worth of raw material in cotton. This material has been fabricated by many processes, until there has been produced this piece of cloth, worth one dollar and a half.

Thus, again, we see that the principal element in the value of an article may be the skill and taste which have been expended upon an insignificant bit of raw material.

Then, it may be said that the ratio of increase in value made by skilled labor upon the raw material will be determined by the amount of skill and quality of the taste displayed.

This is precisely where a consideration of the industrial element in education becomes important. When we see what creates value in labor, and how little we have hitherto done by education to foster this element, it is time to overhaul the whole subject, using both spade and pruning hook in the operation.

To understand the full bearing and significance of this matter of technical education in art and science, we must consider its influence on human labor and industry; for be it remembered that this whole question is an economical one, not one of sentiment; it has as much to do with practical life and profitable labor as the employment of the locomotive in lieu of horses or the use of gas instead of farthing rushlights.

Let us for a moment, then, look at what constitutes the element of value in human labor.

Labor is the application of two powers: first, skill; second, force. The product is valuable in the proportion as it displays skill and without value in the ratio of its absence of skill. This is as true about the making of a watch, or a nail, or a pair of boots as about the performance of a difficult surgical operation. The skilled workman is the one who produces something of greater value out of the same material than the unskilled workman can, and with less waste of time and material. He is, therefore, a more profitable agent to employ than the unskilled, and his work being more valuable he receives a higher compensation for it, while his employer, finding a ready market, at high prices, for industrial masterpieces, makes more profit on the sale of them than on unskilled productions. The purchaser is better satisfied with the article and willing to pay a higher price for it than for one displaying no skill. So that the application of skill and taste in the production of an object gives (1) to the workman higher wages, (2) to the employer larger profits, and (3) to the purchaser more satisfaction than if the skill and taste had been absent. This is the prosaic and practical aspect of the question, its economical character.

There is another view I shall refer to, though not to enlarge upon. That may, if you please, be called the sentimental aspect, in contradistinction to the practical one. It is this: That the workman whose taste and skill are employed is a happier man than if only his muscles are used in his work. His soul and spirit are engaged; the immortal part of him is influencing his labor, breathing into the work of his hands the very breath of the life that shall never die. Such a man was Raffaelle when painting the Sistine Madonna, transferring the image of his own beautiful soul to the canvas; an act of homage and praise to his Maker for life and happiness and a gift to all posterity of a "joy forever."

To the practical people who do not believe in sentiment, I would also like to remark that the Sistine Madonna is worth a good deal of money. What is true about the productions of one workman applies to all who are engaged in the industrial arts, and it is, therefore, equally true about whole nation. The blacksmith and the maker of watch springs may work in the same material, steel; yet one may produce an object of small value out of a pound of the material, while the other produces many of great value out of a pennyweight of it. So it is with almost all the raw material of the arts, both fine and industrial. A piece of clay which is of less value than any coin in circulation becomes under the touch of Michael Angelo of greater pecuniary value than any coin that was ever circulated; a lump of common earth, that might have been made into a firebrick worth a penny, has been transformed by the great sculptor into a relic that its weight in gold could not purchase. Though the difference in relative values between skilled and unskilled

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