THE DANGER OF UN SKILL 185 



And it may be said, further, to be a matter of at least large proba- 

 bility that these creative minds may be brought forth in any stratum 

 of society. Whether they shall develop and give to civilization the 

 benefit of their talent, depends upon the conditions surrounding them. 

 They may grow and become mentally fruitful, or be repressed and 

 become sterile, according as social environment is favorable or the 

 contrary. It would seem that society should make every effort, in its 

 own interest, to encourage their nurture and preservation. But, as 

 Dr. Ward has so well shown, 5 education is the greatest social agency 

 for providing that the mind, strong by nature, shall develop and give 

 its ideas to the world. How great therefore is the urgency that society 

 should afford educational opportunity to all classes of its people. How 

 great a part of the possible progress of the race or nation is hindered 

 by the social waste of its creative ability which never arrives at its 

 period of fertile productiveness for lack of suitable social opportunity. 



It should, however, be clear from what has already been said that 

 the only education which can reach the masses of a nation and hold 

 them long enough to be of educational service to them, is that which 

 looks toward vocation. And it therefore follows that only by making 

 our school system, to some degree, industrial and vocational, and thereby 

 holding our children under educational influences for a longer period, 

 can the great number of productive minds, born in poverty or other 

 unfavorable conditions, be preserved and brought to that stage of devel- 

 opment in which they may advance the nation. 



Here, then, is the real danger of unskill. Modern industry calls for 

 skill. In the face of this demand, lack of skill leads to unemployment 

 and so to social weakness. Lack of skill leads, also, to poor employment ; 

 and so, likewise, carries men into shiftlessness, discontent and degenera- 

 tion. On the other hand, skill breeds hope and hence mental develop- 

 ment. It opens new avenues of activity and draws out otherwise buried 

 talent, and thus preserves the originators to the race. But our two 

 streams of labor are inadequately trained for the economic demand. 

 What we should do in regard to the stream of immigrants is a problem 

 by itself. But as for our own children, the demand for opportunity to 

 gain that skill, which will enable them to fit the economic life of to-day, 

 is a very urgent and vital one. 



5 " Applied Sociology," chapter X. 



VOL. LXXVII. — 13. 



