308 HOWARD J. ROGERS 



The unanimity of France is the last resort of France. We 

 prefer that variety in occupation which accompanies abun- 

 dance of wealth and opportunity. 



The truth is, the conditions which govern our growth and 

 development prevent the possibility of a perpetual or hered- 

 itary working class. Such a state can exist only in an old 

 aad stratified civilization, where all chances of sudden wealth 

 and preferment have been exhausted, and nothing remains 

 for the masses but to attain the highest possible industrial 

 skill in the arts and trades. This is the rock on which every 

 attempt to adopt foreign methods in toto in American systems 

 must go to wreck. There is no common basis for adjustment. 

 The differences are fundamental and incident to the different 

 theory which underlies the spirit of popular education in the 

 old world and the new. A freedom and elasticity is demanded 

 in the educational system of our country to correspond to the 

 possibilities existent in our material development. For this 

 reason we have felt no marked sense of inferiority for the 

 public schools of our country because they did not have this 

 French machinery, or that German method, which has upset 

 the equilibrium of many of our domestic critics. For the 

 certainty exists that the same machinery which runs so 

 smoothly and adaptably to the educational voltage of one 

 country may be completely wrecked when applied to another. 

 Minor detail, special features, and surface polish are easily 

 copied from one system to another, but the real education of a 

 country is too deeply rooted in the soil of heredity, politics, 

 and precedent to stand much transplanting. We have a 

 strong, virile system of schools, colleges, and universities, in- 

 trenched in the love of the people and built to meet their 

 necessities. Let us not jeopardize it in our eagerness to in- 

 troduce features adapted to a state of society to escape which 

 this country was founded. 



We submit, therefore, that the question under discussion 

 comes down to this crucial point: Will a nation whose thou- 

 sandfold forms of industry are maintained by labor trained on 

 broad principles and liberal lines be more efficient than one 

 whose labor is drilled in grooves — taught to do one thing well 

 without knowing the correlation of that work to the economy 



