36 TWENTY-FIRST REPORT. 



"A little knowledge is a dangerous thing." They are a most fertile field for 

 revolutionary socialistic agitation, and agitators naturally do not fail to take 

 advantage of their opportunity. Out of all this we see the natural reaction, a 

 group antagonistic to all our present social ideas. Though there may be ele- 

 ments of justice in their economic views, they at least can have not the most 

 elementary conception of the means by which their ideas might be put into 

 effect. They are, therefore, simply social revolutionaries, counselled to and 

 largely bent upon destroying the existing social organization and with no plan 

 whatever for its reconstruction. They frankly avow that they have nothing 

 in common with the rest of society. 



I have endeavored in the foregoing to hold to my title and simply point 

 out some of the social and economic consequences of the introduction of the 

 automatic principle into machinery and more particularly the apparent effects 

 of its wide and extensive application under our existing social order. This is 

 not, perhaps, the proper occasion for an attempt to point out constructive 

 measures for its control. That would be a quite sufficient subject in itself, 

 and while an analyst may naturally come to some conclusions they would 

 not be comprised within the title of this address. 



Ann Arbor, Michigan. 



