242 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



their various vocations ; but it is a well-known fact that in many rail- 

 roads only one or two men in a road-gang know how to tamp a tie so 

 that it will not require resetting the same season ; and extensive lines 

 are known to the author that do not possess a foreman perhaps not 

 a supervisor who can adjust a curve with instruments. In these ex- 

 tensive enterprises the efficiency of the unit the individual workman 

 becomes an item of grave economic consideration ; for if it be true 

 that the value of the individual's work (whatever it be) is increased 

 through greater intelligence and special training, though it be only by 

 a few cents per day, the total is of no inconsiderable moment, when 

 his services continue through a series of years, and when, instead of 

 one workman, thousands are employed. If even a slight deficiency in 

 the skill and intelligence of one workman makes a few cents' or a few 

 dollars' difference in the cost of the products of each week's labor ; if 

 the incompetency of one foreman or one manager lacking scientific 

 training does usually as so positively stated by competent authorities 

 net an appreciable loss ; multiply the result to corporations like, for 

 instance, our Eastern trunk-lines (one of which employs at least fifty 

 thousand people on that part of its system east of the Ohio River, and 

 more than half as many more west of it) ; realize that in such extensive 

 organizations few if any of the practical details of the operating de- 

 partments can be accurately gauged by those whose interests are most 

 vitally concerned ; comprehend how many important matters, involv- 

 ing grave consequences in their execution, must be intrusted to super- 

 intendents, master -mechanics, and foremen ; then obtain a correct 

 measure of their education and general knowledge (to say nothing 

 of their scientific attainments), and we shall begin to appreciate the 

 importance and bearing of this question of technological education, 

 and the enormous losses the lack of it yearly entails upon investors in 

 railway securities. 



In railway service thei - e is frequent necessity for sending to a dis- 

 tance, and beyond supervision, one or more thoroughly competent 

 men, who shall not be simply mechanics, in the ordinary acceptation 

 of the term, but who shall be able to turn their attention to work 

 coming under their notice, whether they have before done that thing 

 or not. At present such men are rarely found enrolled in the rank 

 and file of railway mechanical departments ; yet it is testified by 

 many manufacturers who have afforded their operatives the advan- 

 tages of technological instruction, that they have no difficulty in fill- 

 ing such positions with boys of twenty or twenty-one years of age, 

 whom they send long distances and place in their hands work with 

 which they have had little or no previous acquaintance, and by their 

 intelligence they not only give the greatest satisfaction, but frequently 

 develop into competent teachers of others. 



The reason for the educational deficiencies of railway operatives 

 is apparent when we consider how few opportunities they have for 



