632 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



of American manufactures to Europe, in Dart, to the activity of 

 our consular service. "The United States," he says, "has covered 

 Europe with a network of consulates and makes its consuls at the same 

 time inspectors of our exports and vigilant sentinels, who spy out 

 every trade opening or advantage and promptly report it." Dr. Vos- 

 berg-Eekow also dwells upon the eminently practical character of Amer- 

 ican industrial and business methods. "Germany's industrial advance- 

 ment," he says, "is principally due to the thoroughness of her tech- 

 nical education. It is strengthened by the continuous substituting of 

 machinery and machine tools for hand labor. Still, in this respect, 

 the English industry in some branches is ahead of us. It is worthy 

 of note that in this evolution, too, the United States has the foremost 

 place and has made gigantic strides, not only in applying machine tools, 

 but in inventing and manufacturing them, so that to-day she supplies 

 us. This signalizes in an extraordinary degree American intelligence. 

 Thus, the Americans, though wanting our superior technical education, 

 thanks to their practical eye, improve upon our methods and apparatus. 

 Theirs is rather the activity of an experimentalist than that of a 

 trained craftsman; but a clever faiseur, if he but have assurance and 

 luck, may distance the educated master. The Americans have no 

 thorough education; nor do they possess a modern industrial system as 

 we Europeans understand the term. The American applies himself 

 to a single branch or to a specialty, with utter disregard of European 

 methods and their results; he devotes to his work an amount of energy 

 which stupefies Europeans; and, for awhile, he succeeds in driving us 

 out of the line of articles on which he has centered his energy. Against 

 such peculiar activity a general trade policy is quite ineffectual; we must 

 put ourselves in condition to counteract this artificially forced growth 

 of specialized industry." 



EDUCATION IN BUSINESS. 



Thus we find that expert opinion in Great Britain and Germany 

 coincides in the conclusion that Americans, too eager to be up and 

 doing to apply themselves to preparatory study or to what may be 

 termed a general scheme of education and culture for industry and 

 trade, have, nevertheless, worked out in practise a degree of actual 

 efficiency, not learned from books, which gives them a distinct advan- 

 tage. It is not to be denied, upon the other hand, that technical 

 schools and special courses of commercial education might greatly 

 enhance our capabilities, if care were taken to prevent them from 

 usurping too far the practical business or industrial training which 

 seems to be the secret of our success thus far. In the more and 

 more strenuous competition which is evidently waiting us, our manu- 

 facturers, exporters and trade representatives abroad will need to be 



