EVENING SCHOOLS AND SCHOLARSHIPS. 347 



As we read our local papers and note the tax rates, and comment on the increase or de- 

 crease, do we stop to think how much better prepared our boys would be to meet the problems 

 of life if our taxes were increased a few more cents so that we could pay the primary school 

 teacher a sufficient salary to attract an efficient person as teacher? 



Mr. W. M. McFarland, Honorary Vice-President: — My good friend Bailey asked me 

 to say a few words on this paper. I think he was under the impression that there would not 

 be much discussion concerning it — on the contrary, the paper has had more discussion than 

 any other paper presented, and almost every point that occurred to me has been made by 

 other speakers. 



I have read the paper several times, and I want to compliment Mr. Bailey on the care 

 with which it has been prepared. I agree heartily with practically everything he says in it. 

 I think that one point he has looked out for was not stressed in the discussion, namely, that 

 the main object of the apprenticeship course is to train skilled workmen and not designing 

 engineers. He makes the point that in the course of the training of these boys to be skilled 

 workmen, some very brilliant ones may come along, and an opportunity should . be given to 

 let these boys develop to the very best of their ability, and with that I am in hearty accord. 



I remember some years ago when Professor Goldwin Smith, the famous historian, who 

 was in Cornell in the early days, made an address before a Cornell alumni banquet in Wash- 

 ington. Mr. Cornell's idea in starting the college was to make it easy for everybody to get 

 a college education. They had a machine shop where boys were supposed to earn a living, 

 and also a farm and a printing shop. It was found, in the working out of the plan, that the 

 two things did not go together, and they had to go to straight education. I am telling you 

 this to show what Professor Smith had been through. He said he had been a believer in 

 higher education, but that he had come to the conclusion that it was a mistake to make higher 

 education too easy, or, in other words, offer a bonus to encourage large numbers of people to 

 go to college. He thought, on the contrary, it was better to make it a little difficult to get 

 the higher education, so that the ones who did get it would be persons of real stamina and 

 real value. 



In another part of the world, in an entirely different way, I had my attention called 

 to this same thing, and that was in connection with Greece. I became acquainted with a 

 Scotch engineer in Smyrna who had a works of his own, and he told me that the Greek 

 people were so impressed with the value of education that the shepherds in the farming part 

 of the country would deny themselves food in order that their boys might go to the college 

 in Athens and get a college education and become lawyers. He said : "What was the 

 result? After so many of them became lawyers there was not enough work for them, so 

 they got into politics, and the 'outs' are always trying to turn out the 'ins' so that they could 

 get in, and that is the reason why they have so much trouble there." 



Dr. Smith said : "I am afraid in making the higher education too easy we have spoiled 

 a good many good clerks and good mechanics and people of that kind to make a lot of people 

 who seek higher grades of activity with indifferent success." I think Mr. Bailey's plan is 

 well laid out with regard to this matter of training boys to be skilled mechanics, with the 

 chance that the brilliant ones, when they are discovered, will be encouraged to go on and 

 qualify themselves for the higher work. 



I am connected with a little school myself, and this is the proper place to speak of it, as 

 Mr. Webb, the founder, was a charter member of our Society and one of our early vice- 



