REVERSIONS IN MODERN INDUSTRIAL LIFE. -jZ-j 



II. 



Since Boyleau impressed the corporations into the police and 

 fiscal service of a military despotism, thus converting agencies of 

 order, industry, and humanity into engines of greed and oppres- 

 sion, the conditions of society and the thoughts and feelings of 

 enlightened races have been revolutionized. A state of anarchy 

 no longer exists. War has ceased to be the chief occupation of 

 men. Their ambition is not to murder and plunder their fellows. 

 Devoted to the arts of peace, they have come more and more to 

 exhibit the manners and sentiments of civilized life. There is 

 therefore no occasion for the institutions that feudal confusion 

 and anarchy made needful. A powerful police organization re- 

 strains the robbers and murderers. An elaborate system of 

 courts investigates crimes, both great and small, settles disputes 

 between the contentious, and seeks to maintain the rights of the 

 simple and weak against the cunning and strong. Asylums, hos- 

 pitals, refuges, homes, and charitable societies without number 

 provide for the sick, the aged, the destitute. Education in all the 

 fields of human knowledge, fitting men and women for every 

 position in life, can be had in the universities, colleges, acade- 

 mies, technical schools, and public schools, both primary and sec- 

 ondary, that cover the land. Social and religious organizations 

 minister to every conceivable social and religious need. No ob- 

 loquy is attached to any honest pursuit. Character and ability 

 have come more and more to be the test of social worth. The 

 great men of the world are not the warriors ; they are the cap- 

 tains of industry, the discoverers in science, the thinkers, the 

 scholars, the artists, the philanthropists, the statesmen. 



Yet it is proposed to introduce into a society like this one 

 based not upon war, but upon peace and industry the institu- 

 tions that finished their proper work centuries ago ; * that sur- 

 vived, in consequence of their alliance with the state, their use- 

 fulness so long that they became a curse to man and an obstruction 

 to social and industrial progress. Not only is it proposed, but, as 

 already intimated, steps have actually been taken, to convert the 

 plumbers, the undertakers, the barbers, the horseshoers, the opti- 

 cians, the dentists, the druggists, the stationary engineers, and 

 other trades and professions into close organizations like those 

 that once covered Europe, f Legislation has been had in several 



* Pigeonneau, vol. i, p. 1 Y6. 



\ Since this was put in type my attention has been called to a New York State law, 

 enacted last year, for the regulation of " public accountants," who may be regarded simply 

 as glorified bookkeepers. It provides that any person " over twenty-one years of age and 

 of good moral character," who shall have passed a prescribed examination, shall " be styled 

 and known as a certified public accountant." It forbids any other person to " assume such 



