386 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ingly unapt and inexpert. The more machinery and the arti- 

 ficialities of life relieve the individual from the responsibilities of 

 physical action, the more the faculties will suffer from atrophy, 

 for the reign of the machine has a dulling effect upon the general 

 acuteness of the physical faculties that must be progressively 

 felt, unless education systematically counteracts its influence ; 

 and it is the function of industrial training to do this for the 

 hand-worker." 



But the greatest injury which comes to the body politic 

 through neglect of training in the most impressionable years is 

 the failure to impart moral ideas, and to secure habitual obedience 

 to moral laws lack of character-building. The half-time schools 

 of England have been so long in operation that their statistics 

 furnish conclusions of the highest value ; and, that book-learning 

 is no guaranty of the moral worth of its possessor, look at the 

 criminal returns for London for one year. The education of some 

 was " superior " ; among the criminals there were more than a 

 thousand clerks, forty-two ' lawyers, and many more who had 

 received the usual middle-class, long-time education. The appear- 

 ance of a half-timer trained on the mixed principle of physical 

 and mental training is exceedingly rare, that of persons from 

 some of the religious denominations equally so showing the 

 thoroughness of their moral teaching ; while the governor of one 

 prison said, " The greatest rascal I have in custody can write out 

 our Lord's prayer in seven languages." The ancient Jews 

 while still living in Palestine had a maxim, " He who does not 

 teach his son a trade teaches him to be a thief." Mr. Chadwick 

 collected some facts that should bring great encouragement to 

 those who have been moved to labor for the salvation of the slum- 

 born children of the criminal classes. It was shown that in some 

 of the long-time middle-class schools twenty per cent of the pu- 

 pils were disqualified from obtaining positions by misconduct; 

 while among pupils of low parentage in good half-time schools, 

 these dismal failures averaged only two or three per cent ; and 

 that, too, where, before the establishment of such schools, the 

 average had formerly been as high as sixty ; and a manager of 

 one of the district half-time schools stated that he had had cases 

 of habitual criminality to treat that in a few months a great 

 alteration in their characters had taken place through their indus- 

 trial training. I asked if, say, a hundred such were committed to 

 your charge, how many could you undertake to send to the 

 good ? " He said, " With fair support, I would undertake to send 

 ninety per cent to the good." 



Under the restraints of separate confinement in the prison the 

 thoughts of the young criminal are not compunctious visitings 

 for wrong-doing, but of his ill luck, and the chances of escaping 



