EDUCATIONAL ADVANCE 553 



in savings-banks, insurance, and like modes of investing property, take 

 the place of investment in landed property or in a business managed 

 by the property owner. Management by proxy becomes the rule, not 

 the exception. The corporate form of business requires the concentra- 

 tion of large amounts of property under the control of a chosen few> 

 The savings-bank, for example, is merely a collective form of investing 

 in which the investments are made by the banker rather than by the 

 hundreds of small investors themselves. The discipline that comes 

 from the care and management of property is lost on the great multi- 

 tude of workers of to-day. 



Also, coincident with this phenomenon is the above-mentioned 

 change in the character of the multitudes of immigrants who are flock- 

 ing to our shores. In the report of the Commissioner-General of Im- 

 migration, for 1904, an official of the bureau who has been conducting 

 extensive investigations in Europe, writes from there as follows : " The 

 average immigrant of to-day is sadly lacking in that courage, intelli- 

 gence and initiative which characterized the European people who 

 settled in the western states during the eighties." The personal ini- 

 tiative, adaptability and self-reliance of the American have ever been 

 the pride of the nation; but the environment, business methods and 

 opportunities which aided in the production of these characteristics are 

 undergoing modification. Industry and commerce offer opportunity to 

 only a few, for the development of these valuable traits ; and immigra- 

 tion brings us a class of people who are also sadly deficient in these 

 qualities. 



" The machine process is a severe and insistent disciplinarian in 

 point of intelligence. It requires close and unremitting thought, but 

 it is thought which runs in standard terms of quantitative precision. 

 Broadly, other intelligence on the part of the workman is useless, or it 

 is even worse than useless." 3 Unfortunately under present conditions, 

 the above quotation states what is true in many cases of subdivided 

 labor. Extreme subdivision of labor has reduced the unskilled worker 

 to the level of an automatic piece of machinery. Brains, ideals, every- 

 thing which go to make up the real human being and to differentiate 

 him from the automatic machine, are at a discount. The man becomes 

 a " hand." The internal organization is now placed on a scientific, 

 calculated basis. Time cards and exact methods of determining the 

 cost of labor and material are now essential to every well-regulated 

 business. Every step from the first displacement of the raw material 

 until the finished product is in the hands of the consumer is carefully 

 calculated. 



The chief motive for subdivision of labor is given by the oppor- 

 tunity to hire unskilled, low-standard-of-living workers, at an extremely 



3 Veblen, " Theory of Business Enterprise," p. 308. 



