746 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



there is much diiTercnee of opinion as to the best way in which the 

 technical instruction, so generally desired, should be given. Two 

 courses appear to be practicable : the one is the establishment of 

 special technical schools with a systematic and lengthened course of 

 instruction demanding the employment of the whole time of the 

 pupils. The other is the setting afoot of technical classes, especially 

 evening classes, comprising a short series of lessons on some special 

 topic, which may be attended by persons already earning wages in 

 some branch of trade or commerce. 



There is no doubt that technical schools, on the plan indicated 

 under the first head, are extremely costly ; and, so far as the teaching 

 of artisans is concerned, it is very commonly objected to them that, 

 as the learners do not work under trade conditions, they are apt to 

 fall into amateurish habits, which prove of more hindrance than serv- 

 ice in the actual business of life. When such schools are attached to 

 factories under the direction of an employer who desires to train up a 

 supply of intelligent workmen, of course this objection does not apply; 

 nor can the usefulness of such schools for the training of futui-e em- 

 ployers and for the higher grade of the employed be doubtful ; but 

 they are clearly out of the reach of the gi'eat mass of the people, who 

 have to earn their bread as soon as possible. We must therefore look 

 to the classes, and especially to the evening classes, as the great in- 

 strument for the technical education of the artisan. The utility of 

 such classes has now been placed beyond all doubt ; the only question 

 which remains is to find the ways and means of extending them. 



We are here, as in all other questions of social organization, met 

 by two diametrically opposed views. On the one hand, the methods 

 pursued in foreign counti'ies are held up as our example. The state 

 is exhorted to take the matter in hand, and establish a great system 

 of technical education. On the other hand, many economists of the 

 individualist school exhaust the resources of language in condemning 

 and repudiating, not merely the interference of the general govern- 

 ment in such matters, but the application of a farthing of the funds 

 raised by local taxation to these purposes. I entertain a strong con- 

 viction that, in this country, at any rate, the state had much better 

 leave purely technical and trade instruction alone. But, although 

 my personal leanings are decidedly toward the individualists, I have 

 arrived at that conclusion on merely practical grounds. In fact, my 

 individualism is rather of a sentimental sort, and I sometimes think I 

 should be stronger in the faith if it were less vehemently advocated.* 

 I am unable to see that civil society is anything but a corporation 

 established for a moral object — namely, the good of its members — 



* In what follows I am only repeating and emphasizing opinions which I expressed, 

 seventeen years ago, in an address to the members of the Midland Institute (republished 

 in " Critiques and Addresses " in 1S73). I have scca no reason to modify them, notwith- 

 standing high authority on the other side. 



