SANITARY PLUMBING. 613 



little. I ventured to suggest to you the importance of intelligent organization, 

 and pointed out to you some of the results to your guild which might be expected 

 to follow such united and harmonious action. I am surprised at the work you have 

 accomplished. I have seen the president, recording secretary, financial secretary 

 and a majority of the executive committee of the National Association taken from 

 your ranks, and to-night you stand among your fellow craftsmen the most influential 

 body of plumbers in the United States. This statement will not be denied by 

 any one who has followed the professional literature of your guild for the past 

 iQ.\i months. I congratulate you and rejoice with you. As a preface to what I 

 have to say to you to night, I wish again to emphasize the importance to your- 

 selves of a wise, broad, intelligent, active and generous spirit of association, both 

 for personal benefit and that the influence of your organization may be as far- 

 reaching and potential as you desire." 



Here, gentlemen, I should, perhaps, stop, but I cannot refrain from making 

 some suggestions to you in regard to your avocation and its relation to your 

 pecuniary, social, intellectual and political influence. Your vocation is a pecul- 

 iar one. It is not a business which simply requires labor, even skilled labor, but 

 it is both an art and a science. The man who can wipe a joint perfectly, who 

 knows the mechanism of a flush-tank, or of a system of house drainage or of 

 steam fittings, is not, therefore, a perfect plumber. He must not stop with the 

 mechanism of the business, but he ought to know much of its theory and of the 

 chemistry and science of the materials with which he labors. The plumber ought 

 then to be more than a laborer; he should be a skilled and scientific artisan. I 

 take it for granted that the object of your association is personal improvement, 

 intellectual, social and pecuniary. What then will contribute to your success ? 

 I answer, to raise the standard of intelligence, of professional skill and social 

 worth high in your association. Make the admission into your guild as difficult 

 and not as easy as possible. Lengthen out the period of apprenticeship, I do 

 not know how long it is, but it should in my opinion be not less than five years. 

 In addition to this, you should require of your apprentices a regular course of 

 study and annual examinations, which could be made before a board of examin- 

 ers appointed from your association. To my mind, a programme of examina- 

 tions like the following might be adopted : At the end of the first year, examina- 

 tion in arithmetic and book-keeping; second year, algebra and elements of 

 drawing; third year, algebra continued and mechanical drawing; fourth year, 

 elementary chemistry and hydraulics ; fifth year, hydraulics continued and the 

 special chemistry of water and of the metals. These studies could be pursued 

 during the long winter evenings and would take the young apprentice away from 

 the evil allurements of city life and would force him to spend his otherwise leis- 

 ure hours in a school for mathematical instruction and in the laboratory of the 

 practical chemist, and would cause him to become a thoughtful, well-rounded 

 man, and an influential citizen. 



Nothing lowers and debases a business or avocation so quickly and surely 

 as easy and cheap access to it. All the evils of low wages, scamped or inferior 



