INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION AND RAILWAY SERVICE. 245 



the school-room to work in the shops having a commercial value, they 

 would make their instruction practical in a high degree. They are 

 also especially valuable for training the young of our industrial classes, 

 because the pupils are thereby enabled to earn a livelihood while ac- 

 quiring theoretical and practical knowledge as they go, each supple- 

 menting and assisting the other. 



Whatever the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad has achieved in the 

 way of commercial success has not resulted from superior skill or in- 

 telligence of its subordinate officers or of the rank and file in its sev- 

 eral departments, but rather in spite of their deficiencies. The com- 

 pany has been fortunate in one sense, in that the geographical isolation 

 of its main stem and branches has contributed to the gradual forma- 

 tion of a corps of operatives who, by descent, tradition, and personal 

 attachments, may be said to belong to the road. From their earliest 

 youth they have looked forward to an active participation in the opera- 

 tions of the line as a means of livelihood, and all their aspirations and 

 ambitions are associated with its service. This condition has been 

 fostered by the custom of regarding the children of meritorious opera- 

 tives as entitled to prior consideration in making appointments. While 

 this has resulted in creating and maintaining a corps of operatives of 

 exceptional devotion and loyalty, and has in many other ways been 

 advantageous to the service, it has also in some ways that were unfore- 

 seen proved prejudicial to the company's interests. Thus, the inhabit- 

 ants along the main-stem divisions are destitute of educational facili- 

 ties, and this, coupled with the sense of proprietorship in the positions 

 and the idea that education beyond the bounds of his trade is of no 

 practical use to a mechanical workman, has created indifference on the 

 subject. This was one of the considerations which prompted the 

 establishment of the school at Mount Clare. Of the first class of boys 

 examined for admission to the school, only forty were found in such a 

 condition of discipline and grounding in the common English branches 

 as to justify the hope that they could enter upon the course for grad- 

 uation as mechanics, and not one of them was capable of entering 

 upon the higher studies necessary to qualify him for an officer's posi- 

 tion in the service. It being thus manifested that there was no mate- 

 rial from which to manufacture efficient officers, nor was any likely to 

 be acquired under the then existing system, a general order was issued 

 promulgating regulations for the future admission of apprentices, and 

 prescribing the minimum qualifications of candidates, which, while 

 neither onerous nor of a high grade, provided a sufficient foundation 

 for the technical instruction necessary to make a fairly educated me- 

 chanic. In the same general order the lines upon which the education- 

 al work was to be conducted were defined in general terms. The plan 

 outlined in that order contemplated. 



1. Instruction (in the apprentice class of such boys as could pass 

 the examination therein indicated) of a character that will make them 



