238 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



close inspection of those industries in which the mass of a country's 

 population is engaged, and in which their knowledge is displayed by 

 the fruits of their labor, it will be found that the national system of 

 popular education in the United States fails entirely in accomplishing 

 its mission, in several important particulars. For example, in the 

 public schools our youth are, as a rule, entirely untaught in even the 

 rudiments of industrial occupations, and upon passing from the school- 

 room are generally utterly incompetent, unassisted, to earn a liveli- 

 hood in any trade or pursuit requiring manual dexterity. Even our 

 high-schools leave their graduates to drift, by accident or unintelligent 

 direction, into vocations generally foreign to their abilities, and, as a 

 rule, with few exceptions, unequipped with that character of knowl- 

 edge or expertness without which a comfortable living becomes diffi- 

 cult prominence impossible. It is commonly accepted as a fact that 

 a good elementary education, such as is afforded by our public-school 

 system, gives a child that which will carry it well along in life ; but 

 this is true only of agricultural, or at most of sparsely settled districts, 

 and is then true only within limitations. The tendency of the system 

 is by elevating pupils above their actual or probable stations in life, 

 and prompting in them desires and aspirations of which there is little 

 chance of fruition to turn out a large class of consumers, who fail 

 utterly of success in the professions and kindred occupations, under 

 conditions which, had their efforts been directed to mechanical or other 

 industrial pursuits, would have made them efficient producers. A re- 

 markably small percentage of our public-school graduates in the Mid- 

 dle and in the Southern States engage in any kind of manual labor. 



Recognition of this lack of utility in our educational system has, 

 of late years, become quite general, resulting in efforts to ingraft upon 

 our higher-grade institutions industrial and scientific instruction, and 

 the colleges and schools whose curricula embrace those subjects which 

 fit our boys and girls to participate in the practical work of life are 

 now rapidly increasing. There have long existed in the United States 

 a certain number of educational institutions wherein special attention 

 i3 given to technical and scientific training in mining, civil and me- 

 chanical engineering, applied mathematics, physics, and the natural 

 sciences, which are fully equal to the best of similar schools in Europe. 

 Among the most prominent of these are the School of Agriculture and 

 Mechanical Arts of Cornell University, the School of Mines of Colum- 

 bia College (New York), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 

 the Lawrence School of Science in connection with Harvard Univer- 

 sity, the Pardee Schools, the Stevens Institute at Hoboken, the Rens- 

 selaer Polytechnic Institute, and the Sheffield School at Yale ; but the 

 high tuition fees charged by these and similar schools make instruc- 

 tion therein available only for the wealthier classes. Elementary 

 science is also now taught in numerous colleges, academies, and high- 

 schools. But, while this instruction, in point of cost and preliminary 



