March 18, 1887.1 



SCIENCE. 



279 



man is required. The people of Rome, who can 

 read and write, are far more diligent than the 

 Neapolitans, who cannot ; and the best workmen in 

 Italy are those who have passed through the army, 

 and so obtained what is practically an education. 

 There seems no a priori reason why it should 

 be otherwise. Attendance in the schools, which 

 are w^ell ventilated and warm, notoriously im- 

 proves health, and there is no evidence whatever 

 that it diminishes strength in the lower class any 

 more than in the upper, who decidedly benefit by 

 school-life. Nothing recognizable, in fact, hap- 

 pens to the child who is taught, except a break in 

 his habit of steady endurance, which is met in the 

 agricultural schools by the system of half-time, 

 and does not appear to impair industry in factories 

 or workshops. Cultivated lads — we mean lads 

 ' well educated ' in the conventional sense — work 

 in scores in the founderies, learning the engineer's 

 business through a most severe physical appren- 

 ticeship ; and lads who emigrate without capital 

 constantly w;ork at hard tasks as well and as 

 steadily as ploughmen ; often, moreover, acknowl- 

 edging a complete contentment with their toil. 

 They feel monotony when there is monotony ; but 

 they do not resent hand-work any more than 

 thousands of educated Canadian or New England 

 farmers. On the whole, and subject to the evi- 

 dence which can only be supplied by many more 

 years of observation, we should say the truth was 

 something of this kind. Education of the modern 

 kind does not diminish industry, and does not, ex- 

 cept for a very short period, break the habit of 

 assiduity at work. Nor does it diminish the readi- 

 ness to do manual labor in those who can do it, 

 though it does diminish their number, — the 

 'delicate' lads, as their mothers call them, who, 

 if left uneducated, would have gone on in the 

 groove of their forefathers, taking by a species of 

 natural selection to the lighter tasks. The re- 

 mainder work as before, though probably not in 

 the old, machine-like way. They spare themselves 

 more, are more quick to avoid unnecessary toil, 

 and no doubt, as a large proportion are and must 

 be selfish men, in numberless instances they 

 'scamp' their work in ways the unintelligent 

 never think of. That scamping, together with 

 the eagerness for more money produced by new 

 wants, and a certain indocility or independence, 

 combine to produce an unfavorable imi)ression as 

 to industry which is not justified, or rather is due 

 to other causes than aversion to work. The Eng- 

 lish must wait a little for full information, the 

 boys who have passed through school not being 

 thirty yet ; but they do not despair of seeing 

 plenty of Hugh Millers among their workmen ; 

 that is, men who are educated, yet have a definite 



love for and pride in exceedingly hard and mo- 

 notonous manual toil. Miller set up stone walls 

 for eight hours a day, — a real back-breaking oc- 

 cupation, — but he had learned more than most 

 lads. It would be well if half-time could be made 

 general, as many are nearly convinced it would 

 increase learning, by allowing school-time to last 

 longer, and would not discourage any scheme for 

 keeping up the habit of manual labor, which will 

 be the lot of the great majority while the world 

 goes round, and which is, in fact, the permanent 

 gymnasium of the human race ; but there is 

 little fear, even if the present system continues. 

 The changes which may come will not be pro- 

 duced by laziness, but by a longing for larger 

 wages, and the comfort they bring, which some 

 industries, agricultural especially, in closely popu- 

 lated countries, may find it difficult to satisfy. It 

 will be satisfied, however, in one way or another, 

 for education opens wide the grand safety-valve, 

 the power of wandering over earlh in search of 

 the opportunity of toil. For what we know, the 

 human race may be destined some day to perish 

 like mites on a cheese, through their own multi- 

 plication ; but at present there is ample space for 

 all of our race, who may for the next century, at 

 the cost only of expatriation, have their twenty 

 acres apiece to work on. Germans, Englishmen, 

 Italians, are swarming out in thousands daily ; 

 but still there is no chance that they vvill perish 

 for want of room, or be driven, like Chinamen, to 

 that ceaseless work for bare existence under 

 which other virtues than industry are apt to 

 perish. Another Europe could live and prosper 

 on the unpeopled river-basins of South America. 

 Education helps to disperse mankind ; and we cer- 

 tainly do not find that emigrants, who are rarely 

 of the know-nothing class, are at all reluctant to 

 undertake severe toil. Is there not in the whole 

 discussion a defect caused by tradition, an im- 

 pression that as brain- workers avoid hard labor, 

 knowing well that they cannot do both up to their 

 full power, those whose brains have been devel- 

 oped will never do it? Fortunately, or unfortu- 

 nately, they will specially feel the great disciplin- 

 ing force of the world, ' the strong conscription of 

 hunger,' which constrains us all. If all the world 

 were Newtons, nobody would get a mouthful of 

 bread without somebody facing all weathers to 

 plough and sow and reap. 



THE IMPERIAL UNIVERSITY OF JAPAN. 

 To those of us who are not intimately ac- 

 quainted with the intellectual progress made by 

 Japan in recent years, the calendar of the Impe- 

 rial university for 1886 will come as a revelation. 



