574 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



enter into actual practice of his craft, the more important is it that he 

 should devote the precious hours of preliminary education to things 

 of the mind, which have no direct and immediate bearing on his 

 branch of industry, though they lie at the foundation of all realities. 



Now let me apply the lessons I have learned from my handicraft 

 to yours. If any of you were obliged to take an apprentice, I sup- 

 pose you would like to get a good, healthy lad, ready and willing to 

 learn, handy, and with his fingers not all thumbs, as the saying goes. 

 You would like that he should read, write, and cipher well; and, if 

 you were an intelligent master, and your trade involved the applica- 

 tion of scientific principles, as so many trades do, you would like him 

 to know enough of the elementary principles of science to understand 

 what was going on. I suppose that in nine trades out of ten it would 

 be useful if he could draw ; and many of you must have lamented 

 your inability to fkid out for yourselves what foreigners are doing or 

 have done. So that some knowledge of French and German might, 

 in many cases, be very desirable. 



So it appears to me that what you want is pretty much what I 

 want ; and the practical question is, How you are to get what you 

 need, under the actual limitations and conditions of life of handicrafts- 

 men in this country? 



I think I shall have the assent both of the employers of labor and 

 of the employed as to one of these limitations; which is, that no 

 scheme of technical education is likely to be seriously entertained 

 which will delay the entrance of boys into working-life, or prevent 

 them from contributing toward their own support, as early as they do 

 at present. Not only do I believe that any such scheme could not be 

 carried out, but I doubt its desirableness, even if it were practicable. 



The period between childhood and manhood is full of difficulties 

 and dangers, under the most favorable circumstances ; and even 

 among the well-to-do, who can afford to surround their children with 

 the most favorable conditions, examples of a career ruined, before it 

 has well begun, are but too frequent. Moreover, those who have to 

 live by labor must be shaped to labor early. The colt that is left at 

 grass too long makes but a sorry draught-horse, though his way of 

 life does not bring him within the reach of artificial temptations. 

 Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to 

 make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, 

 whether you like it or not ; it is the first lesson that ought to be 

 learned ; and, however early a man's training begins, it is probably 

 the last lesson that he learns thoroughly. 



There is another reason to which I have already adverted, and 

 which I would reiterate, why any extension of the time devoted to 

 ordinary school-work is undesirable. In the newly-awakened zeal for 

 education, we run some risk of forgetting the truth that, while un- 



