wonderful processes which occur around him, and his mind is 

 blunted and degraded hy constant contact with operations of 

 whose principles he is ignorant. Far otherwise would it Ije if 

 he could be so far educated as to understand the nature of the 

 material with which lie deals, tlie laws which the gigantic 

 forces which he utilizes obey, and if tlie mechanical contrivances 

 among which he labors became transparent to his eyes so as to 

 reveal their underlying plan. The worker becomes truly inde- 

 pendent then, when he has intellectually mastered his work, 

 and it is one of the fairest promises of the creative method and 

 of manual training that it will build up the intelligence, give a 

 new dignity to labor by putting mind into it, and saturate the 

 daily toil of the masses of mankind with understanding." 



United States Commissioner of Labor Wright says, in one of 

 his reports: " It is no wonder that the German craftsman, with 

 so many incentives to study, with so many facilities of ac(iuir- 

 ing skill in his trade, and living in the atmosphere of industrial 

 thought, becomes the accomplished specialist that he is." 



At the present time, the boy leaves the public school with his 

 education incomplete to learn his trade in the shop. When the 

 manual and technical schools of training are as numerous as I 

 hope and believe they soon will be, he will leave one school to 

 enter a higher one, where besides becoming a skilled mechanic 

 his moral and mental education will proceed hand in hand 

 with his technical training. 



The great nations of Europe have learned a bitter lesson b}' 

 Germany's competition! Can we afford to ignore it and neglect 

 their ex})erience ? We })ay out millions upon millions for 

 goods which are not made at home, for want of technical edu- 

 cation. 



We now have a Tariff — may it remain undisturbed for many 

 years! so that Congress can busy itself with the revival of our. 

 Merchant Marine, and then may it be hoped that it will find 

 time to consider a subject which is vital not only to our trade 

 and industry, but to the wellbeing of the entire laboring class! 

 But whatever it does, we, here in California, owe to ourselves, 

 to foster technical education, and to help the Lick school, the 

 various technical branches of common school system, and the 



