72 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXX. No. 759 



movement of a national scope was pre- 

 sented in the Davis Bill before the house 

 committee on agriculture of the sixtieth 

 congress. This proposed, among other 

 things, to provide an appropriation for 

 agricultural and industrial instruction in 

 secondary schools. It is open to question 

 whether the general government is not al- 

 ready overburdened by its generous an- 

 nuities to the state colleges, and whether 

 the action now proposed does not more 

 properly belong to the states themselves; 

 whether it is not too much national inter- 

 ference in state education. This brief 

 survey of abundant and diverse opportu- 

 nities for various education presents an ap- 

 parently ideal situation; manual training 

 and "domestic engineering" for immedi- 

 ate industrial use, through grades of the 

 semi-professional to the highest type of 

 technology. Yet many point to the results 

 as entirely disappointing. 



Only a few days ag'o was heard a scath- 

 ing indictment of the state universities by 

 a prominent manufacturer and large em- 

 ployer of labor in our great inter-oeean 

 metropolis. He advised the states to go 

 out of the "higher education business and 

 send the boys back to their homes to help 

 support the family, instead of being a 

 heavy expense. ' ' He is reported as saying : 

 "Instead of teaching young men to seek 

 labor they cause them to despise it, and the 

 students leave the schools with the feeling 

 that they are too good to work, and smart 

 enough to make their living by their wits. ' ' 



This is an extreme view of a so-eaUed 

 "self-made" and self-educated man. Now 

 your true self-made man is not to be de- 

 scribed by the jibe of the cynic, as "one 

 who quit work when half done and then 

 began to brag of the job." Rather are 

 they men of hard sense who have achieved 

 wealth and influence in spite of depriva- 

 tions; and they compel a respectful hear- 



ing. If we ask this hostile critic for speci- 

 fications he might reply: The schools and 

 colleges do not teach good manners; they 

 do not enforce sufficient discipline; the 

 moral suasion theory is so pushed that 

 teachers are often deprived of the power 

 of discipline; the worst scholars become 

 insolent; that the school life, with its arti- 

 ficial conditions, is so far removed from 

 the matter-of-fact world that scholars are 

 not prepared to grapple with the problems 

 of self-support; that many acquire bad 

 habits and learn to be extravagant rather 

 than thrifty; and that, considering the 

 many who have gained wealth and influ- 

 ence without early advantages, the results 

 from the lavish facilities of to-day are out 

 of proportion to the cost. 



Professor Johnson, in arguing for a 

 higher and better industrial education, 

 compared the German system with the 

 great diversity of endeavor in American 

 education as follows: 



The common schools give no special preparation 

 for any kind of employment; the manual training 

 schools likewise fit for nothing in particular; our 

 engineering schools fit for very narrow lines of 

 professional employment, and commonly educate 

 men away from the industrial pursuits rather 

 than towards them; and, as for our so-called 

 commercial colleges, what do they teach beyond 

 arithmetic, book-keeping, stenography and type- 

 writing? Where then does the specific scientific 

 training for the manufacturing and commercial 

 industries come in? I submit that it does not 

 come in at all; that our factories and business 

 houses are largely managed by men of little or no 

 scientific training, who have learned their crafts 

 in the traditional way; who are, however, of an 

 inventive turn of mind and who read the trade 

 journals. They are a great credit to the system 

 that has produced them, and many of them have 

 become self-educated into an excellent state of 

 efiiciency; but as a class they are far from the 

 ideal directors of such business, and very far in- 

 deed from the standard already achieved in Ger- 

 many. Their success can in most cases be attrib- 

 uted to the extraordinary conditions offered by a 



