COURSE OF STUDY AND INDUSTRIAL NEEDS. R67 
schools are indorsed by most enlightened citizens. The government being 
somewhat paternal, the industries are permanent and characteristic. Ina 
community devoted to a particular industry, everything centers and clusters 
arcund it. So long as the industry prospers, every boy and every girl 
00 1s in demand, and nearly every one takes the training, and goes to 
work, as expected, in the local establishments. 
An American is always astonished at the thoroughness with which (in 
a silk community, for instance) every detail of the processes of manu- 
facture is taught both to children and to adults, and how fully every 
scientific principle involved is set forth and illustrated. The result is sur- 
passing skill and finish in their work. The methods are often very con- 
servative, and hard labor enters more largely than would be the case 
ander American management, and it is only by such thorough instruction 
shat competition can be met. 
The traveler who visits such a community, and studies its life and 
work, finds it hard not to approve. Unless a boy is trained in the rudi- 
ments of the industry at school, he is left out in the cold, and there is no 
remunerative work for him to do, and he is starved into a most degraded 
life, or driven elsewhere. The way of the industry is the way of whatever 
comfort, culture, and success seems to be possible. There is no doubt in 
amy mind that these industrial schools have been of great benefit to the people, 
ndustrially, socially, mentally, and morally. But there is a better way. 
I said that so long as the industry prospers, the community prospers; 
out when the industry fails, either because the product is no longer in 
demand, or because in some other and differently trained community the 
mtroduction of new labor-saving machinery brings in a fatal competition, 
30 that the rewards of labor are no longer sufficient to sustain life comfort- 
ably and decently, then the community goes to pieces, and the narrowly 
rained workmen find it hard to make a living anywhere, and whatever of 
refinement they had before soon disappears. I believe the American plan 
is better, for several reasons. 
In the first place we have no state or municipal industries, and it will be 
along time before our factories get into the hands of government. Inspite 
of Bellamy’s vision, we shall draw the line at water-works, gas-works, tele- 
oraphs, and railroads—for some time, at least. 
In the second place, I believe that there is a general training for our ele- 
mentary, and I may add our secondary, schools, which is more valuable in 
the end than any special training. As I have intimated, early trade train- 
ng is necessarily conservative. The processes appear to be arbitrary, the 
ceasoning dogmatic, the range of vision narrow. Thus did the fathers ;” 
“Do as I tell you;” “Don’t ask so many questions ; you want to know 
s00 much ; ”—that is the atmosphere of a school where all are at last to be 
driven out through one door, into one occupation. 
Our American idea is to have a creat manv doors of exit from our