2 9 8 JOHN FOSTER FRASER 



a man who has been in a business for thirty years is the one 

 who ought to know most about it. The American thinks that 

 a man who has been at it so long is certain to have fossilized 

 ideas, and therefore not likely to keep abreast of the needs of 

 the times. We think a youth thrown into responsibility will, 

 likely as not, make a mess of things. The American thinks 

 that responsibility brings ballast and with all the fire of his 

 young manhood a youth will strive night and day to prove 

 the confidence placed in him is well placed. And here the 

 American is right. Time and time again, as I have gone 

 through the workshops of the United States, I have almost 

 been staggered at the mere boys who are managers and heads 

 of departments; not the sons of proprietors, but young fellows 

 who have started at the bottom, proved their grit, shown their 

 energy, and been pushed on to high positions. It is not at all 

 unusual to find a man of twenty four years having the control 

 of several thousand men. And the fact that a man is young 

 and unmarried is no reason, in the employer's mind, why he 

 should receive comparatively small salary. The question of 

 how cheap you can get such men is not considered. No price 

 is too big to give a lad who has brains and adaptiveness. It is 

 recognized that by paying him well, appreciating him, you 

 fire his enthusiasm. 



The tendency within the next decade will be to pay lower 

 wages in America for mere physical labor. The trend is to pay 

 more, never mind what, for brains. Every young American 

 knows this. That is why there is a positive rage for technical 

 instruction and why the technical schools are ever crowded. 

 We have nothing like the same eagerness in Great Britain. 

 After being in America, seeing young mechanics almost starve 

 themselves to pay for a university course — filling in their vaca- 

 tions by acting as waiters in hotels, or tram conductors or 

 bath chair men — it brings a chill to the heart of a Briton to 

 come home and see hardly any such desire among the British 

 youth, and to see our excellent technical schools appreciated 

 only in a lukewarm way. 



I readily recognize there is a stress and a strain in Ameri- 

 can industrial life which suggest the inquiry, whether, after 

 all, the prize is worth the struggle? I have often shuddered 



