growing poor when they are growing rich. There is an army 

 of unemployed workers, because the workers are unskilled, and 

 consumers are ol)liged to send abroad for articles which we 

 might just as well make at home, if we had the skill. An un- 

 skilled workman is like an unarmed soldier. He is helpless, 

 and cumbers the earth. He is an incubus for want of techni- 

 cal training. 



This is especially the case in textile industry. We cannot 

 compete with European nations in textile fabrics; not from 

 want of brains, not from want of raw material, but because we 

 do not know how. In quality, a part of our technical schools 

 are fully equal to similar establishments in Europe, but there 

 are not enough of them, and the children of the poor have not 

 been educated to make use of those which exist. Look at Ger- 

 many; once, and not so very long ago, at the l)ottom of the 

 ladder, and now at the top, owing to her splendid system of 

 technical education. During our Centennial Exposition, in 

 1876, the German exhibit was the object of a report by Com- 

 missioner .Herr Reuleaux; he summed up his conclusion in the 

 drastic phrase, '^Billig und schlechty (Cheap and nasty). It 

 was indeed far behind the exhibits of England, France and the 

 United States. Germany realized the truth of the Commis- 

 sioner's verdict, and set to work with energy, foresight, intelli- 

 gence and patriotism, to rejjair her defects. The result is 

 known to all. In the windows of stores not only in England 

 and this country, but all over the world, goods are marked, 

 " Made in Germany." 



Seventeen years after the Centennial Fair, Germany's exhibit 

 at Chicago was a veritable triumph in many branches of indus- 

 try as well as in science and art. She had raised herself to the 

 first rank among producing nations by the careful education of 

 her masses. United States Consul Monaghan, of iManheim, 

 gives the results of his observations in a valuable paper, wherein 

 he says; ''The schools are here, never to go. The sooner we 

 get them in the United States — for get them we must, if we 

 will hold our home markets, to say nothing about foreign — the 

 better." United States Consul General Raine says of the Cre- 

 feld school of weaving: "Some years ago the Crefeld industry 



