WITH the general introduction of labor-saving devices, and the advancement of the mechanic arts, the demand for the laborer is every day becoming less and less, and that for the skilled workman greater and greater, as the drudgery of life is lifted from man and transferred to the machine, which, in its turn, demands of him skill to build and to manage.

As a natural consequence, the supply of skilled workmen - the rank and file of our industrial army from which many of the illustrious men in our profession have sprung-is insufficient to meet the demand which our manufacturing interests, from their rapid and marvelous growth and diversified character, have created.

In this emergency the wealth and prosperity of our country is shown by the numerous schemes launched on the ocean of experiment for the education of the young to fill any position from the workman to the manager. By some it is proposed to teach specific trades in the school instead of in the workshop, not only as an offset to the dropping off of apprenticeship in some branches, but, particularly, on account of supposed superiority of the school over the workshop as a place wherein to inculcate the necessary knowledge, because the academic mind regards the intellect of the people “as lying dead for the want of knowledge."

This Address should have been delivered at the opening session of the Scranton (XVIIIth) Meeting in October, 1888, upon Mr. See's withdrawal from his office. On account of his severe illness at that time, the address was not prepared for publication in Part I, of the present volume, but has been postponed to the present time and place.

The scientist says that light is not to be found in the workshop, where darkness reigns supreme; that "in former times all industries were taught by apprenticeship, which really afforded a good technical education suited to past periods, when industries were carried on by rule of thumb, and not on scientific principles. In past periods, medical men were trained in the same way until science illumined their profession, and then technical education in it became essential for the safety of the public."

It is unfortunate for this argument that the medical education of to-day is cited as having become more scientific and less practical, for nowhere else is practice looked upon with greater reverence, and such efforts made to secure the assistance of the most eminent practitioners to impart their valuable information and display their skill for the edification of the student. For this reason the hospital, as a vast field for acquiring practical knowledge, has been brought alongside of the college for the student to note what is being done there, and to acquire skill for the work of his profession.

It is suggested that "the mechanic arts high school may be brought into our existing system of public education, and made to serve the needs of a large class of youth who have special capacities for industrial work," + because "manual training has been proved by private experiment to be an indispensable part of education to a large part of our American youth; but the perplexing question is how it can be brought into the public school so as to justify its place, and to produce results that are as satisfactory in the direction of the trades as the results of the academic and classical schools are in the preparation for professional work. The public high schools have been specialized towards the professions, but little or no attention has been paid to the specializing of instruction toward the great industries."+

This system is intended to benefit the trades and render aid to the boy whose bent is towards industrial life. Handiwork is to be recognized, and used to reclaim the missing educational link, as well as to compensate for the defects in such a life, brought about by the dropping out of apprenticeship in some branches of the trades. Beginning at the age of fourteen, the course of study is to be three or four years, two-fifths of the time daily to be given to selected or graded shop work, one-fifth to drawing, and the remaining two-fifths to appropriate book work (which Prof. Huxley calls bookish education).

It is claimed that the result is "a high degree of mechanical skill, and a well-marked development in the power of independent thinking,' also that the mechanic arts school supplies just what the student needs, "looking forward to work in science, technology, industrial art, or commercial activity." *

It is not only perplexing to conceive how a trade can be taught in the manner specified, but how a boy, staggering under his load of science, technology, industrial art, or commercial activity can be brought down to such an humble pursuit and made to work at it. The fact is that he cannot be brought there, but aspires at once to something higher. His efforts in this direction, as a rule, are unsuccessful, and cause him to drop out of mechanical pursuits.

One of the most prominent schemes, on account of the large endowment of the institution, is that of a free school of mechanical trades, to be located in an agricultural country at some distance from manufacturing establishments, where buildings must be built and equipped with the appliances necessary for teaching each particular trade.

It shows how far from natural methods the teaching of the young to become skilled workmen is drifting, and seems to add another example to the many previously existing, of kind but misdirected efforts to educate them.

It is well to know that the founder of this school amassed a fortune greater than any other in the city where he dwelt, without the assistance of a superior education, and that his competitors in the race to acquire wealth included not only many with a scanty education like his own, but also a large number with one far more complete and brilliant.

In opposition to the schemes which intend to turn the channel of education for the trades from what is natural, there has been some expression of late.

A giant in the mighty works which have marked our age, a liberal provider for the education of his neighbor's workmen as well as his own, writes, "I speak as one from the educationally dead in saying that I never had a scrap of instruction bearing on my profession, beyond what I imbibed for myself, and that I feel that it has done me incomparably more good than if it had been administered to me. I repudiate the imputation of hostility to knowledge or to giving facilities for attaining it to those who desire to acquire it and have capacity to utilize it; but I

* Seaver.

deprecate plunging into doubtful and costly schemes of instruction led by the ignis fatuus that 'knowledge is power.' Where natural capacity is wasted in attaining knowledge, it would be truer to say that knowledge is weakness.' Nevertheless I do not disparage knowledge; but, on the contrary, I respect and value as highly as anyone the vast store of human thought and experience which is embedded and sometimes entombed in print, and the useful part of which is accessible to all through cheap literature and libraries. But that store of knowledge, valuable as it is to those who seek it for an object, and desirable as it is to those who pursue it for the laudable purpose of mental improvement and intellectual occupation, has no benefit to confer on unwilling or incapable recipients, and I am afraid it must be confessed that its economic value in the ordinary vocations of life which give employment to the multitude is extremely small." *

"Sir Lyon Playfair declares himself an advocate of including within the scope of technical education the teaching of specific trades and industries. I, on the contrary, say that the workshop and factories, or other places where actual business is carried on, are the proper schools for the learning of such trades and industries." *

His definition of the object of technical education, which, he says, is "to give an intelligent knowledge of the sciences and arts which lie at the basis of all industries," is not very clear, but as he proceeds to mention with approval the attendance of bricklayers in a class of bricklaying, tailors in a class of cutting and fitting, aud watchmakers in a class of watchmaking, we are at no loss to understand the scope to be given to the education he demands.*

Mechanical science is defined "as enabling its possessor to plan a structure or machine for a given purpose without the necessity of copying some existent example; to compute the theoretical limit of the strength and stability of a structure, or the efficiency of a machine of a particular kind; and to judge how far an existing practical rule is founded on reason, how far on custom, and how far on error." +

The workers in the trades enumerated above are not usually looked upon as coming within the definition of those requiring mechanical science in order to be fully equipped for their field of usefulness. If they, however, are to be included within its meaning, it would not do to leave out the thousands of others with the same + Rankine.

* Armstrong.

pretensions existing in our large cities. To attempt a thorough education of such a throng in schools, either through private generosity or at public expense, is altogether impracticable.

To further a more practical education, one of our colleges has founded a chair of practice in mechanical engineering, the aim being to train the engineer in a manner similar to that adopted for the physician and lawyer. Heretofore "professional instructors of a high grade were attainable, but as a rule they had little or no familiarity with the needs of the practical mechanical engineer, and their knowledge of mathematics, drawing, physics, chemistry, etc., however profound, as a rule dealt with a class of problems which differed so much in detail from those encountered by the mechanical engineer, that, though the underlying principles might be all that was necessary, their mode of application to the practical problems of the machine shop was too little developed to be useful.”*

Now it is proposed to bring the student down from the highly scientific plane of the school to the matter-of-fact customs and usages of every-day practice of the workshop, so that, when he enters the latter, he will be familiar with the useful concrete methods which are necessary for his success.

In another direction, but outside of the school of mechanics, we have another move for practical education. It is a school of journalism, the class being taught by one fresh from that field, and most of the students are those engaged in some capacity on the press. The professor is quoted as saying to his students that those "who want to conduct country newspapers, and are unable to get that best of training work on a large city newspaper, where the work is directed by experts," + should take the course in journalism.

If it is important that the engineer should receive instruction from the practitioner to enable him successfully to design and execute work, is it not equally important that the machinist should acquire his skill from contact with the best mechanics, by practice in and by familiarity with the customs, usages, character, and variety of work of the workshop?

In an address delivered in Philadelphia, on the Nautical School Ship, its Objects and Workings, the speaker, after referring to the establishment of manual training-schools, and that they accomplished on land what the nautical school ship did on the water, gave as a reason why the latter should be established "that thousands of + Smith.

* Sellers.